Latest news with #Deborah
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Hacks' EP and star Paul W. Downs on Deborah's shocking choice: ‘It is the most pivotal episode of the series so far'
Hacks, "A Slippery Slope." Not to be hyperbolic, but Thursday's episode of Hacks might be its most important one yet. "It is the most pivotal episode of the series so far," co-creator, co-showrunner, director, and star Paul W. Downs says on the latest episode of Awards Magnet. More from GoldDerby 'Solo Leveling' takes top prize at 2025 Anime Awards Cannes 2025: Why Oscars could be next for Palme d'Or winner Jafar Panahi's 'It Was Just an Accident' 'Lilo & Stitch': Director Chris Sanders reveals the iconic blue alien's surprising original design (exclusive art) In "A Slippery Slope," written by Downs and fellow creators and showrunners Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky, the repercussions of network head Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn) doing Deborah (Jean Smart) a "favor" the previous episode by firing Winnie (Helen Hunt) start to build when Bob asks Deborah to have scandal-ridden movie star Ethan Sommers (Eric Balfour) on her show. After Deborah acquiesces when she's asked to cut her joke about his secret Snapchat, a peeved Ava (Hannah Einbinder) spills all to her old On the Contrary boss Lewis (Aristotle Athari), who decides to do an exposé on the coverup and refuses to kill it despite Ava's pleas. Bob tells Deborah to fire Ava because he needs give a head on a platter to the board. Just when it seems like Deborah will do just that and let Ava down again — she sends Ava on a fake assignment at the Oscars, Ava's badge is deactivated when she returns to the studio — she instead pulls a first: by putting someone else first for once. During her monologue on her post-Oscars show, Deborah announces that she won't fire her head writer and "creative partner" and "someone I love" as asked, and that this will be her final Late Night show, because she won't cave to corporate pressure. It is a slippery slope, and she says she's drawing the line — a nod to the title of the pilot, "There Is No Line." "It's really the first time Deborah chooses a relationship over her career, chooses it puts Ava first," Downs says. "And also it allowed us in this episode to really address a lot of the stuff that we meditate on in the season, around the changes in the television industry." SEE Hacks stars and EPs break down Deborah's promise: 'That's the thing that Ava is constantly dealing with' One of the themes of Season 4 has been art versus commerce. By dropping Deborah and Ava, independent creatives, into the corporate world, they not only have a boss to answer to now, but shareholders, advertisers, and disruptive tech that constantly shift the goalposts. "This is a business, and I get that," Deborah says in her monologue. "And there are good people on the business side who are trying to navigate the difficult intersection of art and commerce. But thanks to Wall Street and big tech disrupting our industry, it's gone too far. It's not enough to be No. 1 anymore or to make a profit or to even make you laugh. I might be a capitalist pig myself, but first and foremost, I'm a comedian. And I care more about making this show the right way than I do about making shareholders happy." "As she says at the end of the day, 'I'm a comedian and I'm here to make people laugh,' and that is the thing that she loves to do and wants to do," Down says. "She says the dream changed because as much as this has been the dream, to do the dream today when our industry has been so disrupted by tech and just being a part of publicly traded conglomerates that have shareholders to answer to. ... This industry has been a profitable industry for a century. This was not a broken industry because people want entertainment, they want stories. Since the dawn of language, we've wanted stories, and for it to be disrupted in the way that it's been disrupted is really a shame because it's not just enough to make a profit." And it's "impossible" to make a profit, Downs continues, "if you don't push down on all of the people, all the crews, all of the creatives, all the people that make those stories." While Hacks and Deborah's speech is about the entertainment industry, Downs believes it's a mutual feeling across any industry "where corporate greed has impacted the way in which people make things." Downs, Aniello, and Statsky spent a great deal of time on the monologue as they also wanted to explore what it means to get your dream in 70s and the glass cliff, the phenomenon whereby underrepresented groups are put in leadership positions during crises. "What it's like to finally give a woman an opportunity to do something at a time when things have really changed or it's higher risk because the the potential for failure is even greater?" he says. "We were able to, I think, put in Deborah's mouth a lot of the stuff that we think about in this industry, that it's not just enough sometimes to make people laugh." Jake Giles Netter/Max The episode is also a big one for Jimmy (Downs), as the pressures of his new job — starting his own company with Kayla (Megan Stalter), who's being poached by her dad — begin compounding. "We really think of Jimmy and Kayla as sort of this bizarro version of Deborah and Ava. They are their own duo, but we always try and dovetail their stories and have them reflect the larger themes that we're dealing with in the season," Downs says. "And so this season, it's one thing if you work at a management company and have deal with the culture there or deal with the downward pressure if it is again a publicly traded company, but now they're starting their own. So there's all the pressures of being a startup, being a sort of this fledgling management company, but also he's dealing with the stress of Deborah and Ava having the grist they have in the beginning of the season." Like Deborah and Ava, Jimmy and Kayla also have completely different management styles. "She goes guerrilla mode, he leads with love, but this was such a fun episode because Jimmy was on a real emotional roller coaster." Jimmy and Kayla frantically search for Dance Mom (Julianne Nicholson), whom they find passed out from a bender on the streets of Wisteria Lane. Dance Mom insists on doing cocaine to straighten out before her Late Night performance and demands that Jimmy "boof it." A hilarious tug-of-war ensues over Dance Mom's eight ball-loaded purse. "We do a lot of alts, so there's not a lot of time to sit and rehearse, but that was one scene that, because there was so much physical comedy in it, it was so choreographed between, like, running to the door, cutting the coke, getting her out of the ice bucket," Downs says. "And obviously resets are so tricky with cocaine and ice water and all that stuff that we did rehearse that scene the night before. And so there was not really a lot of room for improvisation because it was very, very choreographed. "People had to knock on the door at the right time. We had to get her into the couch at the right time. She had to knock into a cart." One thing Downs did improvise was Jimmy angrily putting the purse on his shoulder as he walked out the room. "You know, I had to take the purse and then why not wear it out?" he says. "There was a little bit of discovery on the day, and that was one of those moments." SEE 'No one ever asks me to do comedy': Julianne Nicholson explains how she became Dance Mom on Hacks After Dance Mom manages to perform, Jimmy reaches his breaking point, and just like Ava in the sixth episode, he drives off the studio lot (in a golf cart). But the nice guy that he is, he doesn't break the studio gate. After the ultimatum from Bob, Deborah goes to Jimmy's house to apologize for not showing enough appreciation for all he does, and to clue him in something. Before Deborah goes on for her monologue, she has a brief chat with Jimmy, and it's still murky what her big plan is. "It was really tricky because you don't want to tip it one way or the other. You don't wanna like overly be mustache-twirly and make it seem like she's definitely done something sinister and you don't want it to seem like, 'OK, we're about to blow up the show, we're in cahoots in some way.' So it was very, very tricky cause we didn't want to push the misdirect. We wanted to make it a little bit neutral, and so there were a bunch of different versions of it," Downs says. "We did try a bunch because I was very aware. I think the way that I played it when I was thinking about it was I was playing it as if [Ava] was fired because I, knowing the truth of the scenario and what she was about to do, it was very hard not to be like, 'Poof, OK, you're about to go on television [and quit].'" At the end of the episode, Bob tells Deborah that she can't do anything because that the network has an 18-month non-compete on her. The reveal after that doozy of an episode could've served as the season finale — and it nearly was. "It was the finale initially," Downs shares. "We considered it going out on the static [when the feed is cut] that it's like, 'Well, what happened there?' We also considered going out on, 'We own you, we have a non-compete.' ... But then we thought, why are we delaying that?" "That" being what transpires in the season finale. The Season 4 finale of Hacks premieres Thursday, May 29 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Max. Email your questions to slugfests@ Best of GoldDerby 'The Pitt' star Tracy Ifeachor thinks about Collins and Robby's backstory 'all the time': 'It just didn't work out because it's not the right time' How Eddie Redmayne crafted his 'deeply unflappable' assassin on 'The Day of the Jackal' TV composers roundtable: 'Adolescence,' 'Day of the Jackal,' 'Interview With the Vampire,' 'Your Friends and Neighbors' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Hacks' renewed for Season 5 ahead of Season 4 finale
Hacks will be back. Max has renewed the Emmy-winning comedy for a fifth season, Gold Derby has learned. The renewal comes two days before the Season 4 finale is set to air on Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Max. More from GoldDerby Iliza Shlesinger's comedy evolution: 'You don't want to be 42 telling the same jokes you told at 22' The mystery of Pedro Pascal's Emmy category solved as HBO's 'The Last of Us' submissions are revealed 'The Last of Us' composers Gustavo Santaolalla and David Fleming on their unique collaboration Creators and showrunners Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky, who announced the news at a screening in Los Angeles Tuesday evening, have previously said they have a five-season plan for the show, but Max did not specify if Season 5 will be the final one. "Yes! More! We congratulate Hacks' singularly talented cast and crew and our great partners at Universal Television," Sarah Aubrey, head of Max Original Programming, said in a statement. SEE Hacks EP and star Paul W. Downs on Deborah's shocking choice: 'It is the most pivotal episode of the series so far' "Like Deborah Vance herself, Hacks only gets bolder, sharper, and more iconic with time," Erin Underhill, president of Universal Television, added. "We're beyond thrilled to keep the laughter rolling with Jen, Paul, Lucia, our extraordinary cast and crew, and our partners at Max." Season 4 premiered April 10, focusing on the prep and launch of Late Night with Deborah Vance in the wake of Ava (Hannah Einbinder) blackmailing Deborah (Jean Smart) in the Season 3 finale to get the head writer position. In Thursday's season finale, Deborah tries to figure out her next steps after making a surprising move in last week's episode. Season 4 has been the series' most-watch so far, with week-to-week growth every episode, according to Max. The reigning Best Comedy Series Emmy winner, Hacks pulled off one of the biggest upsets, over The Bear, in recent awards history last September. The show has won nine Emmys from 48 nominations through three seasons, including a hat trick of Best Comedy Actress statuettes for Smart. Hacks went on to dominate the winter, taking series prizes at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, Producers Guild of America Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, and Writers Guild of America Awards. Best of GoldDerby 'The Pitt' star Supriya Ganesh on Mohan 'reworking' her trauma and when she'll realize Abbot is flirting with her Dream Team: 'Étoile' creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino on the secrets of their partnership: 'You want to be jealous of something someone has done' TV sound editors roundtable: 'Adolescence' and 'Secret Level' Click here to read the full article.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Hacks' Renewed for Season 5 at Max
'Hacks' has been renewed for a fifth season at Max. The news comes just ahead of the Season 4 finale on Thursday, and was announced by creators and showrunners Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky at a screening in Los Angeles on Tuesday. According to Warner Bros. Discovery, Season 4 has been the series' most-watched so far, with each episode's viewership improving upon the last. More from Variety Warner Bros. Discovery, U-Next Strike Global Distribution Deal for Japanese Dramas (EXCLUSIVE) 'Iyanu' Renewed for Season 2 at Cartoon Network and HBO Max, Alongside Two New Feature Spin-Offs (EXCLUSIVE) John Oliver Compares HBO Max/Max Branding Fiasco to Trump's Renaming the Gulf of Mexico 'Hacks' follows the ups and downs in the relationship between Deborah Vance (Jean Smart), a legendary comedian in her 70s, and Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), an up-and-coming comedy writer who works for her. Season 4, which debuted on April 10, begins with the two at odds after Deborah becomes the host of a venerated late night talk show and Ava blackmails Deborah into giving her the head writing job she initially promised her and then took away. Along with Smart and Einbinder, the cast includes Downs, Megan Stalter, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Mark Indelicato and Rose Abdoo. Executive producers of 'Hacks' include Downs and Aniello via their Paulilu banner, Statsky via First Thought Productions, Michael Schur via Fremulon, David Miner for 3 Arts Entertainment and Morgan Sackett. Universal Television is the studio. 'Yes! More! We congratulate 'Hacks's' singularly talented cast and crew and our great partners at Universal Television,' Max's original programming head Sarah Aubrey said in a statement. 'Like Deborah Vance herself, 'Hacks' only gets bolder, sharper and more iconic with time,' said Erin Underhill, president of Universal Television. 'We're beyond thrilled to keep the laughter rolling with Jen, Paul, Lucia, our extraordinary cast and crew and our partners at Max.' Best of Variety 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Emmy Predictions: Talk/Scripted Variety Series - The Variety Categories Are Still a Mess; Netflix, Dropout, and 'Hot Ones' Stir Up Buzz
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Hacks Renewed for Season 5 at Max
Deborah Vance is about to rewrite her legacy: Max has renewed Hacks for Season 5, TVLine has learned. 'Like Deborah Vance herself, Hacks only gets bolder, sharper and more iconic with time,' president of Universal Television Erin Underhill said in a statement. 'We're beyond thrilled to keep the laughter rolling with Jen [Statsky], Paul [W. Downs], Lucia [Aniello], our extraordinary cast and crew, and our partners at Max.' More from TVLine Yellowjackets Renewed for Season 4 Sesame Street Avoids Cancellation, Finds New Home on Netflix John Oliver Urges ABC to Keep Doctor Odyssey, Mocks 'Premise-Defying' Season 8 Renewal for The Rookie Added Head of Max Original Programming Sarah Aubrey: 'We congratulate Hacks' singularly talented cast and crew and our great partners at Universal Television.' An A-to-Z List of 300+ Scripted Series View List In Season 4, tensions rose as Deborah and Ava endeavored to get their late-night show off the ground and make history while doing it. But in the season's penultimate episode, Deborah quit her hosting gig at Late Night With Deborah Vance after network head Bob Lipka demanded she fire head writer Ava for leaking confidential corporate information. (The Season 4 finale streams on Max starting Thursday at 9/8c.) Aside from its two leads Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, Hacks also stars Paul W. Downs, Megan Stalter, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Kaitlin Olson, Helen Hunt, Mark Indelicato and Rose Abdoo. Season 4 guest stars include Dan Bucatinsky, Tony Goldwyn, Jimmy Kimmel, Jane Adams, Julianne Nicholson, Christopher McDonald and Carol Burnett. Are you looking forward to more ? Sound off in the comments! Best of TVLine Yellowjackets Mysteries: An Up-to-Date List of the Series' Biggest Questions (and Answers?) The Emmys' Most Memorable Moments: Laughter, Tears, Historical Wins, 'The Big One' and More 'Missing' Shows, Found! The Latest on Severance, Holey Moley, Poker Face, YOU, Primo, Transplant and 25+ Others
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Police searching for suspect after Oklahoma City weekend homicide
Oklahoma authorities are searching for a suspect in a murder who they believe was last seen trying to flee the state. At 4:40 p.m. on Friday, May 23, the Oklahoma City Police Department responded to a reported stabbing near 1700 S Robinson Ave. There, officers found Richard Curnett, 56, stabbed to death, according to police reports. After conducting investigations, the OKCPD identified River Curnett, 26, as a suspect. Police interviewed his mother, Deborah Curnett, who said Richard Curnett was her first cousin, and the two "stayed together for about 16 years," according to an affidavit. The three of them lived in several tents at the same homeless encampment, court documents say. According to an affidavit, Deborah informed officers that River suffers from "severe mental health problems like multiple personalities and is a violent person." She also said that River believed Deborah and Richard "were in a romantic relationship, and River did not like that." Deborah told police River had prior violent incidents with family members, "never liked" Richard, and had stabbed him in the neck in the past, according to the affidavit. When the incident occurred, Deborah told police that she screamed and attempted to stop River, which resulted in a laceration to her hand, court documents state. Documents state that Deborah and another witness claim River "had been planning to do this." Police say River Curnett fled the scene on foot and was last seen near Will Rogers Airport attempting to leave the state. He has yet to be charged. According to court documents, River Curnett has been accused of the following: Murder, 1st Degree Domestic Assault and Battery with a Dangerous Weapon Police ask the public to call 911 if they see River Curnett, and do not approach him as he may or may not be armed. The public may also submit tips to local authorities online or by calling (405) 235-7300 or the Homicide Tip Line at (405) 297-1200. This story was updated to add new information. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC police searching for suspect after alleged homicide over weekend
