Poor Treatment Gives Me The Ick

& it should do the same for you. thoughts on Hacks and knowing your worth.

One of the best shows on TV right now is the (HBO) Max dramedy Hacks, which centers on the relationship between Deborah Vance, a fictional legendary stand-up, and Ava Daniels, a twenty-something comedy writer brought on to Deborah’s team to update her material – and revive Ava’s own floundering career. It’s hilarious, timely, and feels genuinely fresh – increasingly a rarity in today’s reboot and spinoff-heavy media landscape. Jean Smart plays the fabulously acerbic Deborah to such perfection that one almost forgets the character is, in many ways, truly heinous and would be a genuine nightmare to work for. She’s serially offensive in the “grew up in a different time” manner of many Boomers; remains a neglectful and hypercritical mother to her recovering addict daughter; and requires her staffers to wear her perfume so as not to be exposed to unauthorized scents.

When Ava’s encouragement and writing help her reach a different stratosphere of success with a new comedy special, Deborah fires Ava unceremoniously. It’s to free her to pursue other projects, sure – but it’s also because she’s afraid of the intimacy that’s developed between them while working together so closely. This is evident in the way she completely cuts Ava out of her life, ignoring her calls and messages – a shift so sudden and stark that Ava had to deal with the sudden feeling of abandonment with therapy.  (Can you say codependent…😬). Deborah’s backstory explains some of why she acts the way she does – coming up in the boys’ club of comedy in the ‘70s; being cheated on by her ex-husband with her younger sister at what should’ve been a career high – but the show is careful not to excuse her bad behavior, regularly using characters outside of the Deborah-verse and thus not under her spell to call things out as they really are.

Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder as Deborah and Ava, respectively. Source: Max.

But because we spend so much time seeing Deborah from Ava’s perspective, our sense of the character can easily become warped – we focus on the sharp, smart comic that pushes Ava to do her best work, not the line-crossing boss that regularly mocks her appearance and sexuality, and belittles her worldview. Like Ava, we focus on the bright spots of Deborah’s attention and approval, allowing them to drown out the constant barrage of disrespect. In fact, their rarity makes them addictive – Ava is willing to do more and more in pursuit of these fleeting moments of positivity, recreating a pattern that is common in relationships where one party is consistently undermined and undervalued. In the recently wrapped third season, Hacks is in top form – and Ava is more unhealthily yoked to Deborah than ever before, neglecting her already-rocky relationship with her actor girlfriend, Ruby (they’ve already broken up, been in couples’ therapy, and reconciled once over the course of the previous two seasons.)

When Ava chooses to help Deborah reach a lifelong dream of hosting a late night show instead of being with Ruby as she shoots a potentially career-changing project, it blows up the relationship yet again and sends Ava into an emotional spiral. Deborah doesn’t particularly give a fuck, of course — until it threatens Ava’s productivity — but she does attempt, in her way, to offer some support. The dynamic between the two women is complex, unique, and thoroughly entertaining — but it’s also a reminder not to waste your time trying to prove your worth to someone who is committed to never seeing it (or, perhaps, is too self-absorbed to notice your value to begin with.) I’ve written on this before, when I first started trying to murder my ego, but what’s true now is what was true then: “doing more of what someone already doesn’t value or appreciate will not encourage them to suddenly give a shit. Ouch, right? But essential to grasp so you can finally move the fuck on.”