Hacks hits the road in a pitch-perfect second season

It’s hard to top the first season of Hacks, HBO Max’s acerbically funny series about two women (one Gen-Z, one boomer) navigating the male-dominated world of standup comedy. With a singular blend of caustic humor, incisive social commentary, and heartbreaking pathos—not to mention a lead, Jean Smart, in the role of her career—it rightfully nabbed three Emmys last year.

But much like Smart’s Deborah Vance, Hacks is upping its game with its second go-round, in which creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky take their show on the road as Deborah and her beleaguered joke writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) embark on a cross-country trip for Deborah to workshop her new act. In episode one, “There Will Be Blood,” the series picks up right where we left off: After Deborah slapped Ava across the face, the latter got smashed and sent an email revealing all of her mentor’s dark secrets to a pair of writers working on a TV series about a nightmarish female boss. The two may have reconciled after the death of Ava’s father, but that damning email is still somewhere in the ether, hanging over their relationship like an axe.

Meanwhile, some wonderful side characters embark on their own journeys: Deborah’s assistant, Marcus (Carl Clemons-Hopkins), is spiraling after a breakup; the weird relationship between Deborah and Ava’s manager, Jimmy (Downs), and his assistant, Kayla (the chaotically funny Megan Stalter), hits new lows; Deborah’s daughter, DJ (Kaitlin Olson), continues her quest for her mother’s approval; and Jane Adams crashes as Ava’s mother, Nina. (Also: Let’s give a shoutout to Poppy Liu, who lights up the room as Kiki, Deborah’s blackjack dealer.)

Perhaps the most refreshing thing about Hacks is that it turns the spotlight on one of scripted television’s most slighted demographics: older women. Of course, there’s Deborah herself, who (like her real-life inspiration, Joan Rivers) refuses to bow out in a culture that prefers to render any woman over the age of 50 all but invisible. She’s played brilliantly by Smart, who conveys just how Deborah’s brazen-bully outer shell can crack, revealing the sadness and insecurity beneath it. (In an industry that’s cruel to women of any age, let alone septuagenarians, she’s hanging on by the skin of her razor-sharp teeth and doing her damnedest not to let it show.) But season two also brings in top-shelf character actors who we’re always glad to see: Laurie Metcalf, who plays Alice, a.k.a. “Weed,” the gang’s no-nonsense tour manager, and Harriet Harris, who portrays Susan, a former standup whose career Deborah fears she ruined.