The final season of “Hacks” wraps up its run on its own terms with an exceptionally funny farewell

According to the CinemaDrame news agency, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) deliver the final word and come out on top in a highly comedic fifth season whose primary priority is sharp, effective humor.

“Hacks” is, in the truest sense, a sitcom—meaning that in theory it could continue indefinitely. Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) are both deeply work-driven characters, meaning they enjoy repeating their craft over and over again, which provides a strong foundation for a situational comedy. As a comedian and a comedy writer, they are constantly writing jokes, rewriting jokes, performing jokes, rewriting those jokes again, delivering a final version to audiences, and then restarting the cycle whenever a new opportunity to make people laugh arises.

This is an ideal narrative engine for a sitcom, because the characters themselves drive the story. They continuously create new challenges for themselves—whether redefining a stand-up star’s performance style in season one, transforming that into a one-hour special in season two, or using that success to secure one of the remaining late-night opportunities in seasons three and four—all while building a close working relationship through generational, political, and personal differences. Deborah and Ava grow while their working process largely remains the same—and it remains consistently funny.

However, one of the challenges of sitcoms without a predetermined ending is finding a proper conclusion. When the season two finale of “Hacks” aired, some believed the series could not possibly deliver a better farewell—but that was never the creators’ intention, and given many unresolved threads, such an ending would not have been satisfying. (A significant portion of season two focused on Deborah balancing professional success with personal fulfillment. Pushing Ava away may have helped the young writer find her voice, but Deborah herself fell back into old patterns: isolating another loved one and using work as an excuse.)

Since then, “Hacks” has achieved major success—not only in awards. (Season three won Outstanding Comedy Series among 11 Emmys.) With strong character development, an outstanding ensemble cast, and consistently hilarious moments, the final season could easily have leaned into emotion and delivered a ten-episode farewell tour filled with both laughter and tears.

But “Hacks” is not that kind of show. In fact, creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky relieve the pressure by keeping the farewell firmly within its comedic identity. The first three episodes are among the funniest in the series, and the rest maintain the same tone even when emotional resolution might be expected. There is even a sequence featuring Kaitlin Olson so remarkable that the reviewer is tempted to break confidentiality—though they are not allowed to reveal anything about it, not the episode, not the storyline, perhaps not even its existence.

At the start of the season, Deborah returns to Las Vegas, where fans still believe she is dead. While she is mourning the end of her late-night show and performing only in the limited way her NDA allows—via a translator in a Singapore hotel casino—a false TMZ report claims she has died. The news of her being alive has not yet spread, but reading her own obituary forces her into action: she refuses to be remembered as someone who let her dream die quietly. She must do something bigger. Something greater. Something that ensures her legacy is as bold as her life.

The final season of “Hacks,” constantly trying to outdo its previous iteration while also concluding the series on its own terms, is appropriately meta. Deborah’s decision about how to secure her legacy may not convince everyone, but the spirit of the choice matters more than its specifics. Deborah chooses to keep working, to keep evolving, and “Hacks” follows her in that direction.

There are, of course, flaws. Some episodes become overly preachy about cultural erasure and especially artificial intelligence as a tool for plagiarism, and certain narrative moments feel rushed or uneven. The penultimate episode also delivers a hurried resolution, though even that appears to be a deliberate choice to emphasize what truly matters.

The fifth season of “Hacks” is extremely funny—in a joyful, exuberant way. But suggesting that the finale prioritizes comedy over deeper drama oversimplifies it, because it has already brought the writer to tears twice and remains true to the show’s identity as a comedy-first series. “Hacks” immerses us in its world in a way that makes leaving it feel impossible. That is the mark of a great sitcom, and the final season leaves no doubt that “Hacks” stands among the genre’s best.

Rating: A-

Season five of “Hacks” premieres Thursday, April 9 at 9 p.m. Eastern on HBO Max. New episodes will be released weekly, with double episodes on April 30 and May 7, continuing through the finale on May 28.