'Hacks' season finale on HBO Max is an ode to power couples

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Older women are hot. Power is hot. And “Hacks,” the acclaimed Max series that airs its season three finale Thursday, is extraordinary because it mines these lesbian truisms in a nuanced portrayal of intergenerational relationships. Often overlooked in popular culture, intergenerational relationships between women are not necessarily sexual but, as we see with the show’s main characters Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), they can be profoundly life-changing. Mirror scenes, reversals and recursive language are the clearest representations of how the show’s central relationship grows and deepens. “Hacks,” which tells the story of the unlikely partnership between a standup comedy legend and an aspiring comedy writer both in need of a career refresh, refrains from peddling the trite feminist fallacy of seeking to neutralize or shun power differences to establish an equal relationship. Rather, in Deborah and Ava’s relationship, power is a generative force, not only in transforming their respective careers, but also each other as people. It is also, as countless shippers of “Avorah” know, erotic. By Audre Lorde’s definition, “creative energy empowered” and “our most profoundly creative source.” From season one to season three, mirror scenes, reversals and recursive language are the clearest representations of how the show’s central relationship grows and deepens from a cold and even antagonistic employer-employee connection into a kind of intimate mutual mentorship. The pilot episode has Ava — desperate for a job after being “canceled” for an offensive tweet about a senator’s closeted son — going to Las Vegas to interview with Deborah, whose casino act is stagnating. Neither woman initially sees the value in working together and the two, so defensive against the possibility of a connection, quickly begin hurling insults at each other. “The last thing on Earth I want to do is move to the desert to write lame jokes for an old hack!” Ava shouts before heading out the door. But Deborah, so stimulated by the fiery exchange, chases Ava in her car — literally, to the end of the driveway. After batting different versions of the aforementioned failed joke back and forth, they land at a good punchline (“He’s been in the closet so long, he s---- mothballs.”) And a partnership is forged. This “creative energy empowered,” to return to Lorde, is precisely the generative, erotic power that bridges Deborah’s and Ava’s differences and disagreements and that helps each of them expand their power and creativity beyond their individual capacity alone. Ava often describes this metaphorically as climbing a mountain and not resting on the crest of a hill — she knows Deborah loves the climb. In the fifth episode of season two, Deborah, exhausted from a what feels like a futile road tour, wonders if she should just retire while she’s “on top.” Ava tenderly says, “Back in Vegas, you were on top, but I think that was just a hill. Now you’re climbing a mountain.” Deborah is grateful for this reframing. They are simply better together. It would be naïve, however, to construe their relationship — or any meaningful relationship, for that matter — as free from conflict. Part of their productivity, and their growth, comes from the tension, the fights and the seemingly insurmountable differences between them. Ava yearns for a closeness, a familiarity, that is foreign and even uncouth to Deborah, who is of a different generation in which vulnerability is a professional liability, especially for women and especially for women in comedy. At the same time, Ava, greener than Deborah in life and profession, is living with a different, more protracted, understanding of time. “You know, your whole life, you say, ‘One day,’” Deborah tells Ava during a memorable episode in season three. "‘One day, I’ll do this. One day, I’ll accomplish that.’ And the magic of ‘one day’ is that it’s all ahead of you. But for me, ‘one day’ is now. Anything I want to do, I have to do now, or else I’ll never do it.” In perhaps a nod to the commonality and celebrity of intergenerational lesbian relationships, Ava is more than a little bit in love with Deborah. Yet, in perhaps a nod to the commonality and celebrity of intergenerational lesbian relationships, Ava is more than a little bit in love with Deborah. Her infatuation plays out variously in scenes that, even without lesbian spectacles, are extremely gay — from fantasizing about Deborah while in bed with another person to countless scenes of them texting each other furiously, often in bed (albeit in different beds). Ava even asks, via text, the sine qua non lesbian dating question: “What time were you born? I wanna look at your birth chart to see what houses your planets are in.” This trope, with romantic interests physically separated but connected by phone, is typical of rom-coms like “When Harry Met Sally,” Megan Garber reminds us. To be in love in the 21st century, as evinced by “Avorah,” means you can never put your phone down. Ava is so heartbroken after Deborah fires her at the end of season two that she needs to go into months of therapy — therapy with her girlfriend, Ruby, who is frustrated by what is to her a “toxic” relationship. (“She slapped you. She sued you!” Ruby shouts. Ava whimpers, “I said that stuff when I was mad at her! I’m so sorry, you just don’t get it.”) But Deborah doesn’t fire Ava because of failure, she fires Ava because she knows their attachment will hold Ava back. “I told you, you’re just like me,” Deborah notes, brushing Ava’s hair behind her ear. “Get your own mountain to climb.” In season three, however, we finally see that the attachment is more than one-sided. Deborah has crested on another hill of success after the release of her DVD special. But it’s not just that she needs Ava to climb her professional mountain. “You got in my head!” she yells at Ava, after leaving an exclusive party of her legendary peers. “They said some crap about bisexuals, and I couldn’t let it go.” There is a complexity to Deborah’s emotions in this scene. She’s a little angry, a little frustrated but also a little appreciative. She continues, “Before you, I was perfectly content being a gorgeous Vegas comic, doing my thing, making tons of money. And then you come along, and you make me want more for myself. And it’s just f-------- annoying!” The “more” here, juxtaposed to the line about “making tons of money,” is not about financial aspirations. It’s about Deborah’s personhood, her dignity and her determination to realize her dreams. Her growth is even noticeable to Marty, the CEO of the Palmetto Casino where Deborah used to perform (as well as her former lover). “Over these past couple of years,” he says to Ava, “she’s really changed. And I’m pretty sure that’s right about the time you showed up, kid.” Relationships don’t have to last forever to have a lasting impact. In fact, they can’t last forever, by virtue of our mortality — which is increasingly on Deborah’s mind. We certainly don’t know what the future of “Avorah” will be — so far, the series has not been renewed for a fourth season. But this modern odd couple has already illustrated a powerful truth: The promise of any relationship is this expansion, of expanding our capacity to imagine and then to become the people of our dreams. “A hack is someone who does the same thing over and over,” Ava is quoted in a New Yorker profile on Deborah, in the penultimate episode of season three. “Deborah is the opposite. She keeps evolving and getting better.”