Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

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Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

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Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

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Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Reviews Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary? Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Lifestyle The New Sober Boom Getting Hooked on Quitting

Getting Hooked on Quitting

Education Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous Is College Necessary?

Liberal Arts Cuts Are Dangerous

Is College Necessary?

Finance Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Dying Parents Costing Millennials Dear

Gen Z Investing In Le Creuset

Crypto Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

Investing SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters ‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

SEC vs Celebrity Crypto Promoters

‘Dark’ Personalities Drawn to BTC

“Hacks” finale is a moving tribute to comedy’s power to keep going

In the end, Deborah Vance and Ava Daniels prove that a funnier world is worth fighting for

Published May 29, 2026 12:00PM (EDT)

The following contains spoilers for the fifth season, including the series finale, of "Hacks"

Comedy loves a good callback. The fifth and final season of “Hacks” contains some outstanding nods to triumphs that Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) savored together in the past, while also revisiting a few tribulations. But the ones in the finale top them all.

The series began with the camera following Deborah backstage as she kindly banters with the staff who make her act look easy, and ends with Ava doing her version of that stroll behind the scenes on her own sitcom pilot’s set. 

The Deborah we meet in the series premiere is an extremely wealthy comedy legend (which, in the business, can be polite code for calling somebody a has-been) who views the inexperienced, cocky Ava as an entitled nobody. The show closes with Ava and Deborah as the best of friends, enjoying croissants while waiting for a train at Paris’ Gare de Lyon. It’s a lovely scene, albeit clouded by despair.  

“Hacks” departs at a........

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