Warning: This article contains spoilers for Hacks season 3, episodes 5 and 6.
From Deborah and Ava’s ill-fated hike in the woods to a heated golf tournament with network affiliate owners, episodes 5 and 6 of Hacks season 3 are full of great gags and memorable moments. Episode 5, “One Day,” sees Deborah and Ava attempting to overcome writer’s block by going for a walk in the wilderness (and promptly getting stranded with no way of contacting the outside world). Episode 6, “Power Play,” sees Deborah taking to the golf course to try to schmooze the affiliate owners who will determine whether or not she gets to host the Late Show.
This was an interesting double bill of episodes to pair together, because they’re very different. “One Day” is an intimate, character-driven installment that puts the focus squarely on Deborah and Ava’s relationship as they get stranded in the middle of nowhere together. “Power Play” is a much larger-scale episode with a huge ensemble of wealthy golfers for Deborah to charm. These two episodes contain some huge reveals about the story and the characters, from Deborah confiding her feelings of loneliness to the revelation of a piece of bad news on the late-night hosting front.
Hacks season 3, episode 5, “One Day,” opens with Deborah attending a standard medical checkup at a doctor’s office. The network behind the late-night show she wants to host has sent her to get the checkup for insurance purposes. If she’s going to sit in the host’s chair, they need to know that she’s in good shape. This opening slyly confirms that, following Winnie Landell’s promising call at the end of episode 4, Deborah is officially being considered for the Late Show hosting job.
Deborah is such a great character that she can spin something as mundane as a medical checkup into comedy gold. Before she gets weighed, Deborah takes off several pounds’ worth of jewelry and her wig to lighten the load. After they take a blood sample, she laments the fact that they didn’t take the blood out before they weighed her.
In Hacks season 3, episode 4, Ava stumbled into a conversation with Ruby following a mishap with a Ring doorbell notification and, much to her dismay, Ruby took the opportunity to break up with her. At the beginning of episode 5, Ava is still processing the breakup. She didn’t realize their relationship was on such shaky ground; she thought they were just taking a break and they’d be back together in no time.
As Ava tries to write jokes for Deborah to tell when she hosts a charity auction, she finds that her depression over the breakup is hindering her ability to be funny. She can’t focus on her work, because her mind is still busy lamenting the loss of her first real, committed relationship. She’s more present in the breakup than she ever was in the relationship.
In an attempt to combat writer’s block, Deborah and Ava drive out into the woods for a walk on a nature trail. Deborah is insecure about her age and mortality after the doctor’s checkup, so she marches into a ravine to prove that she hasn’t lost her youth. She ends up falling and injuring her ankle, and when Ava is trying to call for help, Deborah accidentally knocks her phone into a stream (and didn’t bring her own phone).
So, Deborah and Ava are stranded in the woods with no way of contacting anyone – and they didn’t tell anyone where they were going. They try to press on with the nature trail, assuming it goes in a circle. But they find that they’re just walking deeper into the woods, and they’re even further from salvation than they thought.
As the sun starts to go down, Ava determines that they’ll have to set up camp and spend the night in the woods. While they sit around a bundle of sticks and try (and fail) to start a fire, Deborah opens up to Ava. She tells Ava that she’s always thought that “one day…” she would get around to doing all the things she wanted to do with her life. But as she’s getting older, she fears that she’s running out of days to achieve these dreams.
Deborah’s season 3 arc revolves around her better-late-than-never bid to finally fulfill her lifelong ambition to host a late-night show. This rare moment of vulnerability hammers home why it’s so important for her. She’s wanted to host a late-night show since she was a kid, but she also fears she’s running out of opportunities to achieve her goals.
While Deborah and Ava are settling down for an uncomfortable night of sleep in the woods, a group of kids on dirt bikes show up to save them. As they’re driven out of the woods on the backs of the kids’ dirt bikes, America’s “Lonely People” kicks in on the Hacks season 3 soundtrack. This song was the perfect note to end on, because it ties in beautifully with the poignant themes explored in the episode.
The lyrics are all about the universal feeling of loneliness as the singer worries that life has passed them by. The episode touched on both of these emotions as Deborah confided to Ava that she’s been grappling with them. But as they’re saved from a night in the woods by hitching a ride on dirt bikes, the scene proves that it’s never too late to live life to the fullest.
In Hacks season 3, episode 3, D.J. told Deborah that she’s pregnant. At the beginning of episode 6, Deborah attends D.J.’s gender reveal party. D.J. dresses up as a boxer and her M.M.A. fighter husband Aidan introduces her like a ring announcer. D.J. comes out and starts sparring with a dummy. She punches the dummy in the face and knocks its head off, releasing a big plume of blue smoke, confirming that the baby is a boy.
D.J. immediately starts worrying that her son might be messed up by the fact that all his friends will think his mom is hot. D.J. often criticizes Deborah for her narcissism, but this scene hilariously points out that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. D.J. is capable of being just as delusional and self-centered as her mother.
The A-plot of Hacks season 3, episode 6 sees Deborah playing in a golf tournament with the network affiliate owners. She’s only obligated to host a charity auction that they’re all attending, but she wants to go above and beyond to get in their good books. Since the network is at the mercy of the affiliate owners, they will essentially get to decide whether or not Deborah gets the Late Show hosting job that she wants.
Since she’ll need jokes to charm the affiliate owners with, Deborah recruits Ava to be her caddy. The show wrings a lot of laughs out of Ava’s cluelessness performing a task as simple as carrying a bag of golf clubs. This golfing montage also gets some meta laughs out of putting Christopher McDonald, the villain from Happy Gilmore, back on the golf course.
While she’s hosting the charity auction, Deborah is worried when she spots Bob Lipka – the affiliate owner with the most pull – standing up and leaving the room. She follows after him and tries to figure out why he left and where he went. And then she sees him having dinner with Jack Danby, a younger male comedian who she’d heard was the frontrunner for the job, and she realizes it’s over.
Jack joins Deborah at the bar to deliver the bad news that they’ve decided to give him the Late Show hosting job, but she tells him she already figured it out. This is a very early and abrupt ending to Deborah’s late-night hosting storyline, so hopefully it’s not over yet. She might still be able to secure the job if Jack has to pull out or one of his old tweets resurfaces.
Both Deborah and Ava meet new romantic interests in “Power Play.” After losing the late-night job to Jack, Deborah stops playing nice and starts playing ruthlessly against Bob, which piques his interest. They get to flirting and end up sleeping together. But Deborah feels terrible about it, because Bob is a married man, and after her own husband cheated on her, Deborah vowed to never be “the other woman.”