{"id":383663,"date":"2026-04-17T04:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383663\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T04:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:42:08","slug":"season-5-episode-2-number-one-fan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/383663\/","title":{"rendered":"season 5, episode 2, “Number One Fan”"},"content":{"rendered":"

So far in season five, Hacks has moved expeditiously<\/a>, summarizing the blowback to Deborah\u2019s fiery (and final) late-night monologue, bringing back familiar faces, and breezily establishing what goal Ava will attempt to accomplish with her friend and collaborator: headlining a show at Madison Square Garden. Tonight\u2019s episode, \u201cNumber One Fan,\u201d immediately introduces another hard-as-nails industry veteran\u2014Alanna Ubach\u2019s Amanda Weinberg, the steely booker for the Garden\u2014and a new obstacle, which is also Amanda Weinberg, who doubts that Deborah has MSG-levels of appeal. Despite praising her stint on Late Night, she thinks Deborah would be better suited for Radio City Music Hall or Webster Hall. Poor Damien lugged that Jeroboam of wine around New York for nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s barely any time to register Amanda\u2019s comments that, in order to play the World\u2019s Most Famous Arena, you have to be \u201cthe center of the cultural conversation.\u201d And even though she\u2019s having another very public feud that she hopes will see her \u201c[take] down Bob Lipka, and his censorship of me, and [speak] truth to power,\u201d it can\u2019t readily be said that Deborah currently occupies that position. Leaking video from the not-so-secret comedy show in order to get around what\u2019s effectively a gag order was an ingenious move on Ava\u2019s part, but \u201cNumber One Fan\u201d gives no indication that it did spark discourse beyond the initial wave of reactions. But if we\u2019ve learned anything about Deborah (or Ava, for that matter), it\u2019s that she thrives on being underestimated. So, after making one last bribe\u2014er, bid\u2014to win Amanda over, Deborah heads back to Las Vegas to galvanize her fan base to lead a grassroots campaign on her behalf.<\/p>\n

The Little Debbies\u2019 fervor is legendary, having previously taken down snack-food retailer and mid-range designer websites, and we just got another taste of their devotion in \u201cEGOT.\u201d But when Deborah arrives at her booth at the Day Of 100 Stars Vegas convention, the air is thick with resentment. Ava gets more love in these early moments as she meets her first fan, Cindy (Leanne<\/a>\u2018s Hannah Pilkes), who follows her around the convention center, lavishing praise and making astute observations. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of crazy how you\u2019ve changed the whole trajectory of her career,\u201d Cindy notes, which, despite the reveal at the end of the episode, is a fair assessment and also precisely the reason I\u2019ve felt Ava was ready to take the lead more. Obviously, Deborah did a lot of the work herself, but she would have never reached the first-woman-late-night-host level without Ava challenging her to be more introspective and trusting. Now, it took a lot for Ava and Deborah to get here, and with the finale less than two months away, I\u2019m hardly eager to see the team break up. But I\u2019m glad to see someone point this out to Ava, even if it was all a ploy for Cindy, \u201ca third-generation Little Debbie,\u201d to get Deborah for herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deborah\u2019s homecoming (second-homecoming?) starts off tensely, with the Little Debbies, including Ezekiel (Guy Branum, who also wrote one of my favorite episodes of the series, \u201cJoin The Club\u201d), airing their grievances. What follows is a funny sequence of Deborah\u2019s fans voicing complaints to her as if she\u2019s customer service. They tell her that when she \u201cwent Hollywood,\u201d she abandoned her duties as their idol, leaving them to figure out Christmas themes, car insurance, and political affiliations for themselves. They feel so neglected that Ezekiel\u2019s even thinking of switching allegiances to Kathy Griffin! Deborah takes umbrage, of course\u2014\u201dMaybe I should start over, get all new fans. People are born every day\u201d\u2014but a heartfelt tribute from a fan (Bayne Gibby, who is great in so many things, including The Comeback seasons one and two, and here, where she holds what can only be described as an unholy piece of fan art) shames her to the point of needing to step away from the crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Deborah\u2019s interactions with her fans have often been fraught, especially when they involve poorly made jeggings. But \u201cNumber One Fan\u201d takes a closer look at their relationship, employing none other than Ann Dowd to spell out exactly what each party gets from the other. \u201cThey support us; we show up for them\u2026. They want to feel like they\u2019re in a relationship with you,\u201d Dowd explains in character as an actor in costume as an alien. Their exchange is memorable, not least of which because it sees two acting greats share a screen, but its bluntness feels like an unintended consequence of the brisk pace that\u2019s marked these early episodes. Lucia Aniello, who directs \u201cNumber One Fan,\u201d and Ariel Karlin, the Hacks stalwart who wrote the episode, are certainly well-positioned to weigh in on the dynamic between fans\/viewers and a performer\/show. Along with the other series co-creators Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, they must have a lot to say about having expectations and having to live up to them. There just might not be enough time to express it all, at least not as slyly as in the past, when trying to establish the show\u2019s legacy at the same time that they\u2019re ending it. (I also can\u2019t shake the feeling that Tim Bagley<\/a> beat Ann Dowd to this revelation in season three\u2019s \u201cYes, And.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In the end, Deborah and Ava get their wishes. At her surprise 30th birthday party, which has all of her favorite things and most of her favorite people\u2014hi, Jane Adams!\u2014Ava is serenaded by 2000s pop star (and my sister\u2019s crush) Jesse McCartney, which is apparently something she journaled about as a tween. But it\u2019s safe to say that what Ava was actually hoping for was to finally clear the air about what happened on their last night in Singapore. Realizing that Deborah feels bad about having been so mean, Ava\u2019s tried to absolve her through jokes. (\u201cI didn\u2019t survive growing up in Massachusetts by letting a drunk person\u2019s insults affect me.\u201d) \u201cGuilt looks good on you,\u201d Ava cracks, but, for now, she\u2019s also content to admit that Deborah wasn\u2019t wrong: \u201cYou are my only friend. What hurt me was that you said it was weird, \u2019cause I don\u2019t think it is.\u201d Her honesty prompts Deborah\u2019s own admission, which is that, though she\u2019s always been popular, she\u2019s spent most of her adult life without close friends. That\u2019s not a new observation for the show; Ava\u2019s pointed out, albeit in a very different tone, that most of Deborah\u2019s relationships are transactional or business-related. But saying it out loud helps Deborah banish the guilt she\u2019s been feeling and just in time for a beleaguered Amanda Weinberg, who\u2019s drowning in sequins and other packages from the Little Debbies, to offer her a date at Madison Square Garden (9\/11, which could lead to some truly terrible marketing ideas for someone with Deborah\u2019s history).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNumber One Fan\u201d moves the story forward and allows for a trip down memory lane (for Ava, it goes as far back as an eighth-grade obsession with hermit crabs), which seems to be the M.O. of season five so far: big swings paired with callbacks. Right now, it doesn\u2019t look like moving in circles so much as taking a victory lap, which is a bit self-congratulatory but also potentially quite bold. Free of Bob Lipka and any real industry backing, Deborah and Ava are now calling the shots, and Hacks is calling its shot with its final season.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stray observations\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 Depending on what year the show\u2019s taking place, offering Amanda \u201ctwo shares of Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock<\/a>\u201d might have been tantamount to a $1.4 million bribe.
\n\u2022 Schaefer & Lusaque & Randi continue to build their fairly niche agency, signing Renee O\u2019Connor of Xena<\/a> fame just as they could use an infusion of funds. It\u2019s all very convenient, but if that bothers you, just tell yourself \u201cA wizard did it<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0
\n\u2022 \u201cI\u2019m bringing back Deborah Plus!\u201d No, we don\u2019t need more streamers!
\n\u2022 \u201cThat\u2019s all [fans] want. That and a T-shirt only some people are allowed to get.\u201d That convention held 100 stars and at least a couple of profound truths.
\n\u2022 I\u2019d like to think that, in our world as well as that of Hacks, Ann Dowd inspires the kind of devotion that would lead a fan to train their anus to hold a stamp well enough to paint a portrait of her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Danette Chavez is The A.V. Club\u2018s editor-in-chief.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So far in season five, Hacks has moved expeditiously, summarizing the blowback to Deborah\u2019s fiery (and final) late-night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":{"0":"post-383663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}