On May 30 2024, television history was made, as the Hacks season 3 finale went full Succession, and stand-up legend Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and her writer Ava Daniels' (Hannah Einbinder) friendship was changed forever. The Emmy-winning Max original comedy spent its third season reuniting Deborah and Ava in pursuit of one goal: making Deborah the host of a major late-night show. They succeeded, but a pair of double crossings turned their often-contentious relationship on its head, as Ava fully embraced the ruthless lessons she has learned from the veteran comedian.
So, what's in store for the comedy duo after that frosty, jaw-dropping final scene? Read on for everything we know so far about Hacks season 4.
Has 'Hacks' been renewed for a fourth season?
Yes! Max announced the good news in late May 2024, the same day the Hacks season 3 finale dropped. The streamer also revealed in a press release that season 3's seventh and eighth episodes gave the comedy its best single-day viewership thus far.
“We congratulate Hacks' brilliant cast and crew, and our partners at Universal Television,” Sarah Aubrey, head of Max Original Programming, said in a statement. “Hacks is a masterfully crafted comedy delivering laughs and sharp insights about the vulnerability and joy of sharing a dream. The creative team behind this singular show is not only brilliant but also a joy to work with. We couldn’t be happier to give viewers another season with Deborah, Ava and the rest of the Hacks family.”
Ahead of the season 4 renewal, show creators Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky, and Paul W. Downs opened up about their plans for the series in an interview with Deadline. The trio shared that they had always planned for Hacks to be a five-season arc and are still headed down that path.
“That’s still our plan,” Aniello told the outlet. “We started pitching the show in 2019, but we’ve been thinking about it since 2015, so we’ve had a great time to plot out and talk about where we wanted the show to go.”
When will 'Hacks' season 4 come out?
Our best guess for when Hacks will return can come from looking at previous release dates: After season 1 premiered on May 13, 2021, season 2 came exactly a year later on May 12, 2022. Season 3 met several delays, including last year's Hollywood strikes and a brief pause as star Jean Smart recovered from a heart procedure. In a May 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, series co-creator Lucia Aniello explained, “To give you an idea of how long we’ve been working on this season, we started writing it in May 2022 and filming it that November. We didn’t finish shooting until January 2024.”
Now that season 4's gotten such a swift renewal, it's likely the Hacks creative team is already at work on the upcoming episodes. Fingers crossed that the series will return to our screens in May 2025.
What will 'Hacks' season 4 be about?
Season 4 will likely focus on the full-out rivalry between Deborah and Ava behind the scenes of their late-night show, which, while being heartbreaking for Deborah-Ava-bestie-shippers, will no doubt propel an excellent season of TV.
The season 3 finale set up what's to come when Ava went behind Deborah's back to snag the head writer role on her new late-night talk show. Originally, Deborah had asked her right-hand writer to come with her to the network show—which she instantly agreed to and quit her other TV writing job in the process, even after they offered her a promotion. However, after the comedy icon tells her mentee that the network bosses told her she couldn't make her mentee the head writer—which Ava finds out is a complete lie—she goes behind her back to secure the job and threatens her with blackmail if she fails to agree.
Now that Ava has leveled the power dynamics between the two, we can expect them to one-up each other next season, while trying to make their new late-night show successful. If Ava leaks to the tabloids that her boss hooked up with network executive Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn) before she landed her new job—the information she threatened to release, should she not fill the head writer position—that, of course, would make for another publicity blunder to navigate.
In an interview with Deadline, Hacks' cast and crew teased a bit of the upcoming plot, and what it'll be like to see Ava come into her full power.
"What we’re setting up is that Deborah is now on the biggest stage of her career," said Statsky. "She's got this huge gig that she now has to make work, because it's what she’s wanted more than anything. But now she’s at odds with her closest collaborator—and closest friend, to be honest—because she has betrayed her."
Smart also spoke to how she interprets her characters' reaction to Ava's decision to defy her, and what she expects the upcoming new season to look like.
"Much to Deborah’s dismay ... Ava has learned the lessons she taught her a little too well," she said.
Of the final scene, she added, "It's a mixture of rage with some admiration; almost pride. And then, at the very last moment, it’s like, 'Oh, this will be fun.'"
