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[This story contains spoilers form season five, episode three of Hacks.]

By the time Hacks’ final season reaches its third episode, the endgame is coming into focus.

Jean Smart‘s Deborah Vance, sidelined by a contractual non-compete after ditching her late-night show, is left recalibrating alongside frenemy-turned-bestie Ava (Hannah Einbinder). With little else on her plate, Ava now faces a make-or-break moment: Selling out her 9/11 Madison Square Garden show to cement her legacy as a comedy icon. It’s efficient table-setting that not only position the stakes but also redefine the central relationship, shifting Deborah and Ava from adversaries to genuine allies.

With that chummy dynamic established, the latest episode makes room for romance — or at least the illusion of it. In a set up that borders on classic sitcom territory, both women meet-cute with younger men at a Palmetto Group event celebrating yet another corporate takeover of Las Vegas. Marty is there too, with his age-appropriate, latest bride-to-be, Victoria; their impending wedding neatly tees up the episode’s final act.

Spoiler: this is Hacks, so none of these romantic prospects are built to last.

Each woman enters the fray on her own terms — Deborah cynically, Ava, performatively woke. Deborah leverages Nico, an “international rock star” in town for a residency, angling for free PR when she learns he’s interested in her. Ava, meanwhile, literally reaches for the same hamburger as a hot young guy, only to discover mid-bite that he’s a sex worker. Sensing an opportunity for progressive cred, she swaps numbers and gets excited about dating a man — for a change (“Maybe I’ll get murdered!”). That enthusiasm curdles quickly when she learns he’s also an aspiring (and very bad) magician. (Are we watching Hacks or Seinfeld?)

The episode starts to mirror that classic sitcom’s multi-threaded structure as Marcus’ final-season arc gains traction. The Palmetto Group plans to tear down the Paradiso, the downtown hotel where his mother once worked. Marcus considers reviving it in the mold of the Ace Hotel — turning nostalgia into a boutique cash cow — but Deborah deems the idea too risky to back.

Back on the boy-toy front, Deborah’s PR stunt backfires both personally and professionally. Nico turns out to be genuinely interested in her, and she finds herself unexpectedly smitten. He’s charming, sharp (when invited to Marty’s wedding, he asks if he’s allowed to wear white), and famous enough to clock Deborah’s manipulation instantly. When he realizes she tipped off paparazzi about their date, he confronts her and kicks her out of his limo in front of the press. It’s a brutal reversal: Deborah, who has long weaponized her own fanbase, now finds herself on the receiving end as Nico’s followers turn on her.

In that sense, Hacks stays locked into its broader themes about celebrity and modern fandom. Deborah has played this game before, but now she’s the target. When Nico escalates things with a Taylor Swift–style diss track titled “Funny Girl” (“It’s funny how you lie”), Ava offers a pragmatic reminder: in today’s attention economy, relevance matters more than righteousness. Just don’t fall out of the conversation.

Marty’s lavish wedding — staged in what appears to be the Bellagio courtyard — then implodes when FBI agents storm in and arrest his bride for international fraud. It’s a broad, silly gag, but it leads to a surprisingly tender moment: Marty asks Deborah to marry him instead.

It’s never going to happen, but this softer, final-season Deborah responds with genuine kindness toward a longtime friend in crisis.

That evolution echoes what co-creator and showrunner Paul Downs recently told The Hollywood Reporter about the season’s emotional throughline: these characters have changed each other. “To be loved is to be changed,” he noted, and the series increasingly leans into that idea.

Back in the courtyard, Ava wraps up her own romantic misadventure. With help from Las Vegas Mayor Jo — whose past sex scandal remains a gift that keeps on giving — she extricates herself from the would-be magician, who turns out to be Jo’s “Sunday boy.” Jo proposes a threesome (“Peppermint Patty can watch”), but Ava quickly declines; instead, she encourages him to pursue what he’s actually good at.

But that’s not what he wants to hear. In a strange win-lose turn, he dumps Ava, quits sex work and decides to pursue magic full-time.

Tragic. But then again, Hacks has always been a show about following your dreams — no matter how misguided.