Scott D. Pierce: One of TV’s best shows is finally back — and it’s still hilarious

One of the best shows on TV is back, which is a bit of a surprise.

For one thing, it’s been almost two years since we last saw an original episode of Max’s “Hacks.”

For another thing, the end of Season 2 felt very much like the end, period. Having achieved big success with her comedy special, Deborah (Jean Smart) fired the young writer, Ava (Hannah Einbinder), who made it possible. It wasn’t an act of spite — although that would’ve been very much in character for Deborah — but her attempt to let Ava go off and find her own path and her own success.

It was “the next step in their relationship,” Smart said, “where Deborah would do something that was partly altruistic, partly her being a little bit scared of the closeness that she felt for Ava, and falling back into old ways.”

(The long delay between Seasons 2 and 3 was, in part, because production had to shut down when Smart underwent a “successful heart procedure.”)

Deborah is an entitled diva. It’s hard to say that’s part of her charm, but it is hilarious. And Smart is divine in the role — there’s a reason she won Emmys for each of the first two seasons of “Hacks.” (She’s won a total of five Emmys, and been nominated for seven more.)

“Hacks” returns, starting Thursday, streaming on Max.

When the narrative picks up, a year after the end of Season 2, Ava is a writer on a prestigious comedy show. And while Deborah is on top of the comedy world, she doesn’t know what to do next.

“They’ve both reached these new incredible heights of their career,” Smart said, “and yet they realize they still need each other. Deborah needs Ava to push her. Ava needs Deborah because there is a spark that she doesn’t get from anyone else. … We wanted them to kind of go off in their separate ways to realize what they were missing in each other.”

The writers knew they wanted both women “to sort of be on top when we come back to this season, said creator/showrunner/executive producer/writer and sometimes director Paul W. Downs, who also co-stars as Deborah’s manager, Jimmy. “But they’re both underdogs.”

That’s oddly true, despite the fact that Deborah has never been more successful and Ava is “incredibly together,” said Einbinder, who more than holds her own in scenes opposite Smart. “She’s got a live-in girlfriend. She’s on her way to being really high up at this new cool show she’s writing on. But I just think there’s always that little missing piece without Deborah.”

No spoilers here, but the way the two women reunite feels entirely believable, at least to anyone who’s seen them interact over the first two seasons. They’re one of the darkly funniest and most fascinating duos on TV.

“Hacks” is the title of the series because, when it began, Deborah was a faded standup comedian who had been playing Las Vegas for years, doing the same hackneyed act, and she’s lost her headlining gig. Ava was an arrogant young writer who couldn’t find work because of an unfortunate tweet and her inability to work with others.

Their love-hate (or maybe hate-love) relationship is hilarious. And, while they’ve both mellowed a bit, they’re still sniping at each other.

There’s an exchange in Episode 4 of the third season that underscores how this improbable pair has affected each other. Deborah say, “I mean, before you, I was perfectly content being a gorgeous Vegas comic. Doing my thing, making tons of money. And then you come along, and you make me want more for myself. And it’s just [expletive] annoying.”

“OK, so you’re mad at me for pushing you to be better?” Ava asks.

Moments later, Deborah tells Ava she “didn’t have to come back.”

“Well, you didn’t have to come back,” Deborah says.

“Yes I did!” Ava replies. “Because I wanted to be here. I wanted to be here with you, because you’re in my head.”

The through-line in Season 3 finds Deborah, at the age of 70, reaching for the brass ring that eluded her decades earlier. She guest hosts a network late-night talk show, and it’s a triumph. Then she learns that the regular host is retiring, and she wants the job. Badly. It is, Downs said, her “white whale.” She’s still bitter that, despite a successful test talk show episode she taped many years earlier, she was passed over for the job.

“It’s something, obviously, that she’s thought of so much over the years and hung onto,” Smart said. “That bitterness and disappointment is something that’s sort of fed her. And I think that she’s felt that she’d made sort of peace with it … and then all of a sudden there’s this opportunity; and she almost didn’t really realize how much she still wanted it.”

Again, no spoilers, but her campaign to win the job takes unexpected twists and turns. And the final moments of the final episode — an interchange between Deborah and Ava — are not to be missed.