By: Kelly Kearney
While Ava concentrates on her Who’s Making Dinner reboot, Deborah pours all of herself into making the biggest show of her career run perfectly. Of course, dreams of that legendary obituary start to look a bit different when Deborah is faced with a roadblock she never saw coming. The penultimate episode of the series sets the stage for the comedy superstar’s chance to secure her legacy.
Deborah Tha God
Deborah (Jean Smart) prepares for her big night at Madison Square Garden by doing the press junket rounds, starting on the popular podcast The Breakfast Club. Her gag order expired at midnight, and she wanted to spend her first morning of freedom with DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious and Charlamagne Tha God. Not only do we learn Deb is an old friend and business partner of Charlamagne—the two co-own a racehorse named Wheat Thin—but thanks to Kiki keeping Vance up to date on what the Zoomers are listening to, she can also get down with their music. Cue, GloRilla and those boomer dance moves!
She might be having fun with her pal Charlamagne, but her buildup to the Garden is pushing her physically and mentally to the limit. She has a trainer keeping her fit, a physical therapist keeping her healthy, and a choreographer and vocal coach getting her stage ready. Deborah is training to become the legend we all know she can be, but is she really ready? Doubt is what keeps her going. She didn’t think she would sell out the Garden, but those tickets moved faster than Wheat Thin does on the racetrack. She has what it takes to be an icon; she just needs to believe in herself the way the fans and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) do.
In a training montage, we see Deborah by day, running miles on the treadmill, dunking her face in bowls of ice water, followed by facials and breathing exercises, and covering her hotel windows with Post-it notes of jokes she’s adding and jokes she’s cutting. At night, she walks the streets of the city recording jokes and editing her set on her phone. “I’m back from the dead, and just like Jesus, I love having twelve gay guys over for supper,” she’s still working on that opening resurrection joke, but Deborah is hyper-focused on making her show the best 9/11 New York has ever seen. Not only is she cementing her place as a legendary comic, but she is also giving New Yorkers a reason to laugh on their most grief-stricken holiday. She is a workhorse. Wheat Thin couldn’t catch up to her now. She’s pulling out all the stops and kicking it into overdrive to cross Madison Square Garden’s finish line dressed in beaded white chiffon.
With her days focused on the biggest show of her career, her nights feel lonely and sleepless. Now that Marty (Christopher McDonald) is free, Deborah calls him for a late-night booty call to clear her mind. While the two have decided to keep their relationship casual and mostly rooted in friendship, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do and Marty is happy to oblige.
While Deborah is fixing her sleep problem with Marty, Ava is in Los Angeles with Jimmy talking with studio execs about the Who’s Making Dinner reboot. The meeting didn’t go well as the pitch was lost on the execs. Jessica (Caitlin Reilly) already has a deal with her, but this project—which Ava describes as finding humor in the crushing weight of capitalism—isn’t speaking to her or the other studio execs. Jessica thinks anyone of her generation could write this; it doesn’t feel personal to Ava. When Ava is pushed to defend her idea, she struggles to keep her cool. No matter how she explains the angles, the team of execs doesn’t seem impressed and Jessica ends up passing on her idea for “not sparking joy.” The studio is open to anything else she’s working on. Unfortunately this was it,and now Ava is going to have to go back to the storyboard. Jimmy (Paul W. Downs),who plays middleman between Ava and Jessica, promises she is full of ideas and will be back with something else that “sparks joy.”
Ava Reboot Round Two
Back in New York, Deborah finally gets her deep sleep, and Marty wakes her up with breakfast in bed. They get interrupted by a phone call from Marty’s assistant, and the words “severance package” light a fire under him. Marty has been fired, or as he puts it, “put out to pasture by a bunch of dorky computer kids.” He rants about ageism, and Deborah fails to offer much sympathy because as a woman who Marty fired for similar age-related reasons, “Welcome to the club. You are 40 years late, but we are happy to have you.” Still, Deb feels for Marty. He helped build that hotel and casino, and now he’s unemployed.
After her meeting with the studio, Ava has lunch with her biggest critic: her mother, Nina (Jane Adams). Along with her comes her boyfriend Jack(Joe Pacheco)—the professional windsurfer. The lunch is a typical awkward affair for Ava and her mother, filled with uncomfortable moments and pitches about Matthew McConaughey starring in a windsurfing series. In today’s television landscape, Jack’s pitch would probably land before Ava’s reboot.
Back in New York, Ava sits with a nervous Deborah ironing out the final wrinkles in her set. Deborah sympathizes with Ava’s studio problems, offering condolences and calling the execs idiots, but her mind isn’t in it. She is obsessing about the show and only takes her eyes off of her cue cards long enough for a back-and-forth with Ava over minibar expenses, technology, and how to order room service from a QR code. The conversation inspires Ava–who leaves Deborah to her sleepless night of organizing jokes, to go pound out a script for a new version of Who’s Making Dinner. Instead of Gen Z roommates co-opting an apartment, Ava turns her relationship with Deborah into the reboot part two.
She writes a pitch about two people who are wildly different, who through working and living together, eventually become partners, and best friends. They don’t agree on much besides the fact that they don’t want to be around anyone else, and that is about as personal for Ava as she can write.
Good Morning New York City
It’s the morning of the show, and Deborah is ready to take on New York. While she gets ready for press appearances before the performance, Ava pitches her new idea to Jessica. As cringy as the woman’s responses were, she was right. Ava doesn’t know what it’s like being a young person sharing space with friends her own age, since she has one friend, and she’s seventy years old. The comedy writes itself! She’s been living with Deborah the past few years, and the show would be based on that: two women from two different generations growing into friends, partners, and roommates. Ava is full of episodic ideas, as her everyday life with Deborah is basically a sitcom. The two might see the world differently, but together they learn, grow, and evolve through their friendship. The pitch is perfect and Jessica feels the joy sparking all over the place. She is interested in a one pager–lining out the story, and lucky for her, Ava already emailed it over.
Outside the Garden, Deborah runs into some of her Little Debbies complaining they couldn’t find tickets—even the scalpers are sold out. She might be livestreaming the show, but her most devoted fans deserve to share in her glory. After all, they helped her secure the date at the Garden when Amanda passed on Deborah strong-arming her way into their event calendar. As a reminder that her fans mean everything to her, Deborah orders Damien (Mark Indelicato) to find them seats. No lifelong Vance fan is missing out on this amazing night.
As the sun sets on the city, Madison Square Garden is lit up for the big night. Dressed in that beaded Carol Burnett’s jumpsuit, Deb looks every bit the legend but her nerves are keeping her on edge. She just needs to land every joke on stage and leave the fans cheering for more.Speaking of, where are those crowds of fans? Shouldn’t they be lining up outside the doors? As she goes over last-minute jokes with Ava, she gets news that the streets outside are empty unlike what the ticket sales suggested. Panic starts to set in. Did her nemesis Joy Behar somehow get the final laugh and sabotage Deborah’s big night?
As Deborah walks the empty halls of the Garden, Ava finds her and asks her to follow her. Everything feels like a dream—a nightmare, actually, but the audience isn’t full of laughing Kathys. When Deborah reaches the stage, she looks out to an audience of one. In a heartbreaking reminder that men are always trying to rip success out of her hands, Bob Lipka (Tony Goldwyn) sits there clapping and smirking. He bought every ticket in the Garden to keep Deborah muzzled. All her antics and public pressure pushed him into a corner, and like a venomous viper, he struck back.
Deborah is stunned. She keeps her emotions in check when she asks him why, and his response hits her like the Garden itself collapsed all around her. Bob wants her to disappear. Even gagged, any mention of her or Late Night nearly cost the CEO the board’s trust. Now that the gag border is lifted, he isn’t ready for round two od Deboprah’s attacks unmuzzled. He wants her to disappear completely. Silenced forever. He presents her with a new NDA, and if she agrees never to speak publicly about late night or him again, he’ll give her a massive payout. If she refuses, he promises to make a career out of destroying every opportunity she gets. The Garden is only the beginning.
Deborah pauses, unsure which direction to turn. Then she pushes forward, telling Bob exactly where he can shove that NDA and his threats. Backstage, her team loses it. Kayla (Megan Stalter) is ready to go full “Luigi Mangione” on Bob, and Ava starts screaming into her speakerphone for Siri to explain how to sink a superyacht—without the help of AI. Everyone is furious, but Deborah keeps her cool. She has an idea forming, and she won’t let anyone get in her way. She’s going to do a free show in Central Park so Bob can’t mess with ticket sales.
Jimmy panics because pulling together an outdoor stage event in Central Park practically overnight is a logistical nightmare. The pyrotechnics and sound setup alone could take weeks. He advises Deborah to reschedule in the spring, but she is not waiting. She worked too hard, the material is fresh in her mind, and the people deserve their happy 9/11-ish reboot. All she needs is a crowd, fans, and a microphone.
Weedman and the Xenites Unite
A concert played the park the night before, so Ava and Deborah head uptown to convince the road crew to let them use the stage. The comic will pay whatever they want, but the crew can’t make those decisions, it’s above their pay grade. Deborah needs to talk to the boss—who happens to be a familiar face that might not be thrilled to see the comedian and her partner again.
Welcome back, Weed (Laurie Metcalf): roadie to the stars and former, possibly disgruntled, employee of Deborah’s. We finally find out what the ultimate road warrior has been up to since she went a few rounds with Deborah in season 3 when, for the first time in her career, she got fired. Subsequently, she fell off the wagon and woke up horizontal in a bed—not a chair, her usual setup—in Mexico sporting cornrows and missing eyebrows. She blacked out three months of memory until Pete Wentz called her back to the road. After fourteen days on tour, Weed found her mojo again, and she wouldn’t have if Deborah hadn’t fired her. “You gotta crash and burn before you can rise again,” she tells a cringing Ava and Deborah.
As a thank-you for setting her back on the path to this current 56-date Fall Out Boy tour, Weed agrees to keep the stage up for Deborah’s impromptu show. Now they have the stage; they just need a permit to perform. Weed refuses to anger the powers that be in New York, so Jimmy, Kayla, and Randi race to Parks to secure the final piece needed to create Deborah Vance’s iconic comedy moment.
Speaking of icons, Deborah proves she is one when she lets the past stay in the past when she offers her ex a deal he can’t refuse. Forgetting Marty fired her from her residency in season one, she finishes off the series by offering him a job at The Diva. Marty can barely hold back tears as her generosity means everything to him—as he sits there unshaven, eating a weed lollipop in yesterday’s pajamas. Without that job, who knows where Marty would end up? Probably wandering the Strip slapping tourists on the backside while rambling about the good old casino days before computers created dorky, job-stealing managers.
As a thank-you, Marty offers to make a few calls to his pals in Atlantic City to bus tourists in for Deb’s show. She needs to get the word out that the performance has moved from the Garden to the park—for free. It looks like Deborah is finally wrapping up her past and moving forward in a positive way for everyone.
Next, we catch up with Jimmy and the crew at the Parks Department, where they are immediately met with a no from Anastasia (Yamaneika Sanders) behind the desk. It takes 30 days to process a permit in NYC, and she is not about to push one through and make life harder for her boss/girlfriend. Once again, Hacks blurs the lines between lesbian co-workers and romance.The woman very-not-so-straightly refuses to help them before informing the group they are interrupting her Xena podcast listening break. Cue Jimmy, who is not only Renée O’Connor’s manager but also the man behind the podcast that united the Xenite fans in 2026. If there’s one thing this show understands about LGBTQ fandoms, it’s that they are dedicated for life and will always show up for you.
The Parks employee immediately puts down her headphones and is suddenly ready to help. If Jimmy can get Gabrielle herself—the traveling bard and Xena’s soulmate—on the phone, then Anastasia will push her girlfriend to approve the permit. Xenites stick together, and even if Jimmy has been demoted to the mailroom, he is still putting his clients and Gen-X lesbians at the top of his list.
With the permit secured, Deborah has a date with comedy in the park. Now she just needs to let the fans know about the new location. She dives headfirst into typical Vance antics and joins the crowd outside Good Morning America to get herself on TV. Deborah barges onto the morning show set with Savannah Guthrie and Al Roker to hype up the free performance. She tells Al that what 50 Cent did to Ja Rule is basically what Bob Lipka did to her. Shoutout to Kiki for keeping Deborah stocked with pop culture references. This woman is reclaiming her time, and she hopes the word spreads across America so everyone joins her—online and in person—to make history in Central Park.
Everyone gets to work getting the word out. Kayla and Jimmy hand out flyers in Times Square to tourists. Deborah appears on Trisha Paytas’ show eating crabs. Ava’s mom passes out flyers while aggressively ordering strangers to attend her daughter’s best friend’s show. Nico (Christopher Briney) chimes in after finally cooling off from their relationship fallout to support women, free speech, and Deborah herself, and even Randi (Robby Hoffman) dials in on her Yiddish to hype up rabbis and Orthodox Jewish New Yorkers for the event. Deborah even lands a segment sitting beside her enemy Joy Behar on The View. Whoopi announces Deborah is officially off the show’s blacklist now that she’s willing to apologize for insulting Joy. Their feud is finally settled, and Deborah even laughs when she learns Joy was the one who put her on the terrorist watch list. Feuds aside, when men try to silence women, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
A Star is Born
A few hours before the show, Ava gets the news that not only is the studio moving forward with her new Vance/Daniels-inspired reboot for Who’s Making Dinner, they are officially committing to shooting a pilot. When Deborah overhears the good news she screams in excitement, and it echoes through the mic and across the park—the park that is quickly filling with people excited for her show. The Great Lawn is packed with over 30,000 fans waiting for her to hit the stage. They came to make her dream come true, and for a stand-up comic playing Central Park, Deborah just broke the attendance record. A teary-eyed Ava looks at Deb and says, “Now that’s a pretty good lead to an obituary.”
Deborah can’t control the fond look she gives Ava for always having her back and practically willing Deborah into this moment. She tries—and fails—to hold back tears. Everything she worked for led to this: every fight and make-up with Ava, every lawsuit, sleepless night, NDA, and glass box fiasco has led to this stage in the Park. Our girl has arrived.
She gathers everyone together for one final pep talk and tells them she couldn’t have done this without them. Looking directly at Ava, Deborah tells the group she loves them all,and Marty tells her he loves her, all before getting ready to step onto the stage and wow the crowd.
She takes a moment to absorb the view: a sea of people stretched as far as the eye can see, all cheering for her—her jokes, her voice, her freedom. Deborah steps out into the lights and opens the show by making Ava squeal when she announces to the screaming crowd that they are standing on stolen land. Ava melts because she didn’t even tell Deborah to say that. Her influence has officially rubbed off on the legend. She follows that up by making her gay fans happy, telling the audience that if they came to the park to see her, they’re in the right place—and if they came for anonymous gay sex, they are also in the right place.
With a smile so bright it makes the top of the Chrysler Building look dull, Deborah knows her crowd and exactly how to make them laugh. And they do. They absolutely do.