From “Designing Women” and “Frasier” to ‘Hacks,” which begins Season 3 on Thursday, Jean Smart has excelled at being funny and sharp.
“Hacks,” which premiered in May 2021, rates as a particularly personal triumph for the Smart, 72. Her Deborah Vance is a legendary Las Vegas standup comedian and impossible diva with more than a passing kinship with Joan Rivers.
To maintain her Vegas hotel residency, Deborah needs to reinvent herself for a younger audience. That means hiring embattled comedy writer Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder). As expected, from an awkward start in S1 the duo learn much from each other.
The HBO series, which has won Smart an Emmy and Golden Globe, began production under COVID restrictions in 2021, shortly after the death of Smart’s husband, her “Designing Women” and “24” costar Richard Gilliland.
Filming on Season 3, which was halted midway for what’s been described as Smart’s “successful heart procedure,” begins with the two women reuniting after their S2 separation.
“You see in the premiere episode they’re both doing better than ever,” noted Jen Statsky, one of the creators and showrunners, in a virtual press conference from LA. “Both reached new heights in their careers, yet they realize they still need each other. Deborah needs Ava to push her.”
This season sees Deborah taking a stand about woke culture.
“I don’t find it difficult to apologize when I know I’m in the wrong,” Smart said.
“Obviously Deborah doesn’t apologize easily at all. But as a comedian, a lot of comedians feel that way. It’s that ‘I’m just doing my job. It’s just a joke.’ ‘I’m just doing my job,’” she added, “is also an infamous Nazi phrase.
“People are starting to say, ‘I have to be so careful of every single thing I say or do — and when are we going to go back?’”
Despite evidence to the contrary – Lucille Ball, Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett – there are those who believe women can’t be funny.
“People have never said that to our faces,” Statsky said, which is why, she continued, “It’s in the DNA of the show. As women in comedy we made the show about that. It’s both a love letter to those women – thank you for being in the trenches and working to fight maybe even harder than we had to – and also proof in the pudding these women are incredibly funny. So shut up.”
“The bottom line is – and it goes back to the woke conversation we were having,” Smart said, “is that until we accept the fact that we all have differences and not try to pretend that we don’t, we’re never going to get anywhere.”
“Hacks” Season 3 streams on HBO MAX May 2.