In the final moments of Season 3 of Max’s critically adored comedy “Hacks,” a new character element was introduced: Ava’s “fuck-ass bob.”
Named by the episode director and series co-creator Lucia Aniello, never has a haircut heralded a shift in power dynamics quite like Ava’s (Hannah Einbinder) new look, which debuted right before the credits rolled.
Betrayed by her boss, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), the comedy writer puts everything she’s learned from her former mentor into action, blackmailing her friend and solidifying her job as head writer on Vance’s new late-night show.
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“Ava is embodying a new version of herself,” says co-creator Jen Statsky. “It’s not a totally new version, of course, but it is the next level of taking everything Deborah has taught her and implementing it into her life and into what she wants and feels she deserves — and also, what she feels she must do to make the show work and to keep what Deborah and Ava have built alive. So, yeah, it was intentional that it felt like her hair should be a fuck ass bob, straight.”
Statsky, Aniello, co-creator Paul W. Downs and star Einbinder sat down with for PvNew’s “Making A Scene,” presented by HBO, to analyze the epic final moments from the season closer, “Bulletproof” — and what it means for Season 4.
“It felt severe,” Einbinder remembers. “Obviously, we straightened my hair, the bob going crazy. It was meant to be angular and severe and have business-time vibes. That was pretty clear in our conversations beforehand.”
However, the finale wasn’t all bitchy bobs and power suits (Einbinder’s immaculate armor for her final big boss moment). Before the audience could get to the jaw-dropping twist, Deborah and Ava would first need to absolutely explode their entire relationship in one harrowing living room showdown where Ava confronted Deborah for lying to her face about the head writer position.
“It’s probably the scene we wrote the most,” says Downs. “It’s really about fine-tuning how honest they are, how cruel they can be, because they’re both hurt … and wanting to revisit the mythology of these characters and the history they’ve had. It was very specifically scripted, and it’s a scene where there was no improvisation because we did work for a very long time on striking that balance that would both provoke Ava to do what she does in the final moments, but also feel like it was true to both characters also.”
“Bulletproof” is not nearly the first time these two women have turned on one another, and yet, this battle is somehow the most devastating to date. Perhaps that emotional fallout also inspired the 17 Emmy nominations, including a nod for best comedy series, the show received.
Both Smart and Einbinder were reluctant to rehearse the big moment on set too much, which is common for “Hacks.”
“We don’t do a ton of rehearsals in general,” says Aniello. “There is something to just letting the first crack at it from the actors be on-camera because sometimes there’s something really lovely about those raw choices.”
Plus, Einbinder was worried the weight behind the dialogue would set off an emotional reaction.
“That is a testament to how these women, both Jean and Hannah, don’t play at something,” Downs says. “They’re not stepping through as craftspeople. They’re really artists who are fully embodying those characters and I think it’s very real for them. For Hannah, she’s like, ‘I can’t say these words without getting really upset,’ because what’s happened between these two characters for three seasons is all building to this.”
In order to make every line sting, Aniello mapped out the fight’s flight plan to match the unraveling of their friendship. “The first thing I really wanted to do was have the camera be very active at the top of it to kind of match Ava’s energy,” she says. “Both the camera is pulling with her, and is pushing behind her. So, it feels like you are literally with Ava and you’re attacking Deborah. You’re very much in Ava’s POV.”
The dialogue is laced with poisonous lines. An emotional Ava pleads with Deborah to be fair, which the seasoned comic then spins around on her calling her requests naive and ordering her to “stop crying.”
“We try a lot to have our dialogue say more than it does on the page, and I think that there’s dual meaning at that moment because Deborah says, ‘stop crying,’ both because she [doesn’t] show weakness as a woman in this business, but also is self-protective,” says Downs. “She’s saying, ‘Please stop crying’ because it does affect Deborah, and Deborah does not want to feel the pain that Ava feels. She’s like, ‘Stop crying because it’s making me emotional too.’ I think there’s a little bit of that self-protection.”
Statsky agrees, noting, “She’s a narcissist, but she does feel things. She doesn’t want to feel someone’s emotions reflected back at her, and it makes her confront what she’s done to get them there. She’s really asking Ava not to go there so that she can keep up this armor that has been what she’s used for 50 years in this career.”
Ultimately, Ava asks if Deborah is ready to throw away their entire friendship over this job, to which the comic replies that yes, she’s willing to lose her friend for her dream.
“That particular scene, there was only one alt, which was when Ava says, ‘And you’re willing to lose me too,’ and Deborah says, ‘I’m willing to.’ We also had her say, ‘If I have to,’ which was a little bit softer,” Downs reveals. “But every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and so for Ava to get to the place where she says, ‘You’re going to die alone,’ we felt like it had to be a bit colder from Deborah, so we chose the take where she said, ’I’m willing to.’”
The seriousness of this exchange left little room for levity. The showrunners ultimately cut the singular joke out of the dialogue, which they said they’ll holster for future episodes, as it was too good to lose.
Thankfully, like all things “Hacks,” with the bad comes the good and the power suit/betrayal bob showdown that followed opened the new season up for all sorts of exciting new power struggles between our protagonists.
The creators are currently breaking the next batch of “Hacks” episodes and teased that Season 4 will kick off almost immediately after the “Bulletproof” closing scene.
“There will be no shortage of suits,” Statsky promises.
Downs adds, “Dress for the job you want.”
