Hacks Season 4 Episode 3 recap: Did Deborah learn to appreciate her team of writers?

Hacks Season 4 Episode 3 recap (Image Via HBO)
The comedy drama series, 'Hacks' (Image via YouTube/Max)

Season 4 Episode 3 of Hacks continues to delve deeper into the dynamics of Ava and Deborah, who have been teamed together by the latter's agent in a bid to lift their declining careers. Deborah is an old-school standup comic, while Ava is a young writer who has battled with controversies in the past.

Ava is determined to work the right way, but she faces challenges from Deborah, who is upset with her in the ongoing Season 4. This is because Ava had compelled Deborah to give up her position as head writer.

Episode 3 of Season 4, titled What Happens In Vegas, introduces some major twists where the two have a heated exchange about the way a team should be led. They share contrasting views, with Deborah understanding how Ava's "vibes" would not matter if the ratings went down, and that at times it was important to keep churning out content even when the writers were burned out. Read on for the full recap of Episode 3, Season 4, of the show Hacks.


Episode 3 of Season 4 highlights how different Deborah and Ava are in Hacks

Hacks Season 4 Episode 3 (Image via YouTube/Max)
Hacks Season 4 Episode 3 (Image via YouTube/Max)

Ava believes that the team needs to feel safe and connected before they can be creative. Deborah pushes back because they’ve got a show to launch but nothing solid yet. No one is shown to be completely wrong in Hacks, but the generational gap and distinct working strategies cause the problems between them.

Deborah turns a casual team-building race into a competition, offering $1,000 to whoever wins. She pooled money from all the writers, only to end up the winner. By this, she asserts that she is still ahead of the young minds. For Ava on the other hand, getting the writers to pool the money is a petty idea.

Deborah organises a writers' retreat, and one of the funniest moments of the episode was when she ended up as a DJ in a club. The crowd actually loves it, and this brings out how Deborah has the talent to entertain. Suddenly, however, life gets bumpy when she takes her colleagues to a strip club for fun, and a lap dancer questions her. She asks what she was doing there if her show was premiering in 4 weeks, which hits Deborah hard.


How did the latest episode of Hacks end?

Hacks Season 4 Episode 3 recap (Image via YouTube/Max)
Hacks Season 4 Episode 3 recap (Image via YouTube/Max)

Ava is portrayed as someone who sees the value in building a safe, warm environment. But Deborah knows the industry won’t care about “team vibes” when the ratings come in.

After all the panic, backlashes and internal conflict leading to nothing, a point comes when things started to take shape. During the retreat and amidst all the DJing and partying, Ava and Deborah are detained for a brief time. When they explain this to the team of writers, one of them makes a joke:

“What if the opening of the show is Deborah getting out of Late Night jail?”

For the first time, Deborah realises the worth of her team and that the writers are not liabilities but valuable contributors. However, the ending is not a happy one for them. The episode of Hacks ends with a cliffhanger when the network calls them out for partying and dr*gs.

Edited by Vinayak Chakravorty