‘Hacks’ Season 3 Is So Good, It’s Almost a Miracle
In bad relationships, coffee shops that turn into wine bars after a certain hour, and television productions, there is one core rule to abide by: You’ve got to know when to get out.
Too many TV shows that would be perfect as one-season wonders or two-season talents continue airing well past their primes. Business execs and producers are milking the teet of Big Streaming so dry that the nipple is about to fall off your Roku TV remote. A third season of Big Little Lies is currently in the mix, despite Season 2 being irrefutable proof that a limited series almost never needs an extension. And then there’s Nine Perfect Strangers, which was so indescribably insipid that I can’t think of another reason to bring it back for its upcoming second season besides some kind of nefarious blackmail behind the scenes. (Why Nicole Kidman always seems to be at the scene of the television obsolescence crime when she could just stay making the best movies you’ve ever seen is a mystery to me.)
We’ve been so inundated with this more-more-more phenomenon (another season of Beef will be served hot soon enough) that, when a show can buck the trend of a feeble comeback, it’s a damn-near revelation. Such is the case for Hacks Season 3, which extends Max’s brilliant comedy past its second season’s clear-cut ending for a third installment that not only proves its worth, but runs laps around the show’s last batch of episodes—which themselves were already formidable examples of modern comedy writing.