Why ‘Hacks’ Wouldn’t Work Without Ava as Deborah Vance’s Prickly Foil
Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic“Hacks” is as pure a two-hander as I’ve seen on television in recent years — a comedy buoyed by the prickly, slow-to-develop relationship between two characters with utterly different approaches to comedy, but similar stumbling blocks. Both Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) are carefully-written, elegantly played characters; each one fuels the show’s action through stubborn commitment to her own perspective, along with, gradually, some growth.But while Smart has, justly, been hailed for her work on the series, Einbinder’s work, like her character, feels relatively unheralded.