![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0003a8b15bc91bc6d131db15d9de571975-hacks-ep2.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Hacks<\/a><\/p>\n Number One Fan<\/p>\n \n Season 5<\/p>\n Episode 2\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 5 stars<\/p>\n *****\n <\/p>\n \n Deborah realizes it\u2019s time to activate the Little Debbies, so they can start a grassroots campaign to get her Madison Square Garden. Just in case you weren\u2019t sure what the theme of the episode\/season is, the song \u201cNew York Groove\u201d is BLASTING as our crew strides through the streets of New York and even gets a good old-fashioned \u201cI\u2019m walkin\u2019 here!!!!\u201d moment with a yellow cab. NYC: the big banana!<\/p>\n They\u2019ve arrived in the office of Amanda, the Madison Square Garden booker, arms loaded with gifts \u2014 obviously not bribes!! It\u2019s actually weird that you would think that? They would never! (\u201cI have low blood sugar,\u201d Jimmy explains from behind an absolutely massive fruit basket.)<\/p>\n While we\u2019ve all heard the truism that it\u2019s better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission, Amanda does not see it that way. Amanda was a little put off by the whole \u201cDeborah announcing a show at Madison Square Garden before even checking with Madison Square Garden\u201d thing. A person might say, \u201cWow, such moxie! Such VERVE! We love to see an ambitious woman!\u201d Amanda is not that person. Amanda explains that Deborah is not \u201cright\u201d for MSG. Deborah is right for Radio City and Webster Hall. (Loved her reaction to Kayla\u2019s disgusted reaction to Webster Hall: \u201cOkay, I can tell you\u2019re a whole [long pause] deal.\u201d) Amanda says that being at MSG means being at the white-hot center of the cultural conversation. They can\u2019t let just anyone perform there, even though, yes, technically tonight\u2019s performance is by a true-crime podcast. She is unmoved by Deborah\u2019s promises of delivering a historic night of speaking truth to power, and she is also unmoved by Deborah\u2019s last-ditch attempt at a bribe.<\/p>\n The gang cannot even pretend Amanda doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s what. Deborah knows a full-grain leather in a sophisticated cut when she sees it. Ava concedes the point: \u201cFINE, she\u2019s rich, cool, and ruining our lives!!\u201d Deborah realizes this scrappy group needs reinforcements: It\u2019s time to activate the Little Debbies! She will shower her fans with in-person affection so they start a grassroots campaign to get her MSG.<\/p>\n This call, and the episode that follows, is an intriguing opportunity to meditate on the weird power dynamic between the stars and the civilians who parasocially love them. Deborah\u2019s idea that her fandom is an army she can corral at will is almost as dated as her notion that a late-night show is the peak for a comedian. Her fans \u2014 who feel abandoned by her but ultimately come around \u2014 want a level of accessibility from\/intimacy with her that is, obviously, incompatible with the level of success they believe is her due. The more famous she becomes, the more distant she will, by necessity, be from the people who made her famous in the first place. It\u2019s a tale as old as Hollywood. I\u2019m sure Randi could tell them all about it!<\/p>\n A perfect opportunity to execute Deborah\u2019s plan is coming up in three weeks at a convention in Vegas, which Deborah clocks \u2014 immediately!!! Sorry, I am a sucker because this really moved me! \u2014 as conflicting with Ava\u2019s birthday. This prompts Ava to bring up, awkwardly, that Deborah drunkenly derided Ava for having Deborah as her \u201conly friend\u201d<\/a> the last day they were in Singapore. I am glad that\u2019s coming up, because as much as I prefer to see these two united against the world, it would have been a little cheap to gloss over the tension entirely; Ava can say she doesn\u2019t care what Deborah said when she was wasted, but is that really true? And what about sober Deborah\u2019s thoughts on drunk Deborah\u2019s tirade?<\/p>\n Also: After Kayla poses with a hot dog she does not eat, Ava almost takes it out of the trash, but then she doesn\u2019t. Wow, growth!<\/p>\n Three weeks later: It\u2019s Ava\u2019s 30th birthday, and we\u2019re at a convention of niche celebrities! The best gift of all, I\u2019m pretty sure, is that Jimmy finished Ava\u2019s Mall Girl script \u2014 it\u2019s about a girl who lives at the mall, art imitating life! \u2014 and he \u201ccan\u2019t wait to send it around.\u201d I know that\u2019s just agent-speak, but I think Jimmy really means it, no? Randi, whose excellence as an assistant knows no bounds, has a custom-made coffee tray with heaters and everything. God, she\u2019s an inspiration. She will be their boss before the season is through.<\/p>\n Alas, Deborah\u2019s crass attempt to extort her fans immediately goes sideways. While she was once the kind of low-rent celeb who was active on her own message boards, she has since neglected her Little Debbies, and most of them are only here to register their complaints to her face. Even Ezekiel is back, but it\u2019s to RESIGN (!) as president of the fan club! \u201cYou haven\u2019t sent out Deborah\u2019s do\u2019s and don\u2019ts in two years,\u201d one fan cries. \u201cSometimes I don\u2019t do anything. I just sit in the dark.\u201d She never published another book of \u201cDubokus,\u201d \u201cand the regular Sodokus are just too hard!\u201d Also, there\u2019s a rumor going around that Deborah is actually a lizard?! With her intensive skin-care routine, can you believe??<\/p>\n Deborah is bereft. Maybe she should start all over and get new fans? Babies are born every second! Finally, a fan shows up to be completely and beautifully earnest, but in so doing \u2014 showing Deborah a haunted-looking dried-bean portrait she made with her mom, who died before she could meet Deborah but would be so happy to know the dried-bean art made its way to her heroine \u2014 completely unravels Deborah, who slips out for some air and gets a pep talk from a wise blue alien. (It took me a minute, but this cerulean space mensch is ANN DOWD. I love that she is the only person\/creature who can get through to Deborah!)<\/p>\n Deborah confesses to the blue alien that she has forsaken her fandom, and their anger is righteous. But the blue alien tells Deborah she will be forgiven, even though she does not believe she deserves it. \u201cTell them what you need,\u201d the blue alien advises. They want to feel needed! That\u2019s actually all they want! Well, \u201cthat, and a T-shirt that only some people are allowed to get.\u201d I loved this joke, but I do think we are eliding the darker side of modern fandoms, which is that a lot of them want to, like, completely own and control a stranger who is also their imaginary lover and\/or best friend forever and ever.<\/p>\n Elsewhere at the convention, Jimmy chats up Billy Baldwin \u2014 who is so grateful to be invited to Deborah\u2019s Fourth of July party every year, even though he never attends \u2014 and meets his childhood fave: Renee O\u2019Connor, a.k.a. Gabrielle from Xena: Warrior Princess. (Randi doesn\u2019t know who she is: She hasn\u2019t gotten to TV yet! She\u2019s still working her way through all the movies.) Even without a beta blocker, Jimmy bravely approaches. I feel like he does really well for someone so starstruck! He encourages her to do a rewatch podcast, and by the end of the episode, not only has she agreed, but: She\u2019s texted Lucy Lawless, who is down to join; she\u2019s asked Jimmy to represent her; and she\u2019s handed Jimmy and Kayla 10 percent of what she made today in giant wads of cash. That\u2019s not bad for a day\u2019s work, baby!<\/p>\n Inspired by the blue alien, Deborah returns to her Little Debbies to tell them the truth: MSG says she\u2019s not big enough to get her date. They are indignant on her behalf. \u201cSo the Knicks can play Madison Square Garden but not you? Misogynistic bullshit!\u201d In a little side plot, a woman appears to be here for Ava \u2014 which, sorry, but in what world: Ava is not even niche-famous!!! \u2014 and Ava enjoys an afternoon of understanding why parasocial relationships are replacing real ones, only to have the floor kicked out from under her when the fan outs herself as a die-hard Little Debbie who was only sucking up to Ava to learn everything she could to replace her. Ahh, well. I still feel like the day was mostly a success.<\/p>\n Damien tells the crowd how they can reach Amanda at MSG. Deborah promises tickets will be $20 so everyone can afford to go, and she\u2019s bringing back Deborah Plus, and \u201cthis year\u2019s Christmas theme is fuchsia and cherry, the 1997 redux!!!\u201d I love when they really lean into Deborah\u2019s tacky roots. All praise to the blue alien for showing her the light!<\/p>\n The gang returns to Deborah\u2019s, where \u2014 surprise! \u2014 it\u2019s Ava\u2019s 30th-birthday party! (Great moment where Ava is genuinely so frightened. She pulls it together pretty quickly, though!) Kiki is here, as is Ava\u2019s mom and eighth-grade friend Jenny Reagan (Alyssa Limperis, a Vulture comedian to know<\/a>!). I\u2019m from New Jersey, so what do I know, but her accent sounds perfect to me. She married Greg Holland. \u201cRemembah him? His cousin drowned in the quarry! Anyway, we have four kids undah 6.\u201d<\/p>\n Deborah has pulled out all the stops, ordering Ava\u2019s favorite foods (cupcakes from a queer bakery, Bertucci\u2019s rolls) and summoning Jesse McCartney to perform \u201cBeautiful Soul\u201d for \u201cthe most special girl in the world,\u201d which is exactly how Ava wrote about it in her middle-school journal. Thank God\/the blue alien her mom read her journal, so her dreams could come true! So funny to me that everyone knows the lyrics to this song. It is not lost on me that basically everyone in this room is Deborah\u2019s employee, except for Ava\u2019s mom and middle-school friend Jenny, who, as Ava reports, \u201cstopped being my friend when she got her period before me.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, there are worse things to do with your guilt over saying something cruel in a drunken rant than throwing a very thoughtful 30th-birthday party, no? Or am I getting soft in this farewell season? Ava tells Deborah she isn\u2019t mad. \u201cYou are my only friend. What hurt me is that you said it was weird because I don\u2019t think it is.\u201d Deborah very sweetly tells Ava that Ava is the reason she\u2019s forgotten her fans; she needs them less now that she has her. Deborah was also profoundly lonely, despite being technically popular; she had no best friend, and we all know what happened with her sister<\/a>.<\/p>\n I am so sorry to undermine what I was literally just saying about the party being nice, but it IS weird and I DO think Ava should have other friends who aren\u2019t her boss! Deborah should have friends who aren\u2019t her employees! Work is not a family! But I doubt that is going to be the message in this final season.<\/p>\n They celebrate this moment of vulnerability by smoking a joint together. Jenny also celebrates, in her way, by fucking Jesse McCartney. But it\u2019s really Amanda\u2019s life that is forever changed. By the morning, the \u201cDeb 4 MSG\u201d campaign is everywhere: her desk at work, her mailbox at home, the toilet-paper roll in the MSG bathroom. Fan armies are so powerful and it\u2019s honestly quite unsettling to observe, but at least they are using their powers for good, and ultimately they do triumph over corporate indifference: Deborah \u2014 who is NOT a lizard \u2014 has a date! It\u2019s September 11! Whatever, that\u2019s the only one they had! #NeverForgettheLittleDebbies!<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter<\/p>\n Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: HBO Max\n <\/p>\n