‘Hacks’ Is Going Nuclear on Worst Parts of the Comedy World

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. [Manage newsletters]( [View in browser]( [The logo for Daily Beast's Obsessed] Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. with Kevin Fallon Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture. with Kevin Fallon     This Week - I hope you’re [all watching Hacks](. - Who was RFK’s brain worm? What’s her story? - All the important news from the Met Gala. - The Taylor-Travis reign of terror returns. - Important Reba update!     Give Hacks Every Award There are fleeting pop culture references throughout the [new season]( of [Hacks]( that seem tailored specifically to make me scream “ahh!” in delight. They’re sprinkled across the new episodes like a comedic weather event, to the point that watching the series feels like dancing in a rain shower of jokes written just for me. Someone cue up Natasha Bedingfield’s “[Unwritten](.” Hacks is releasing two episodes each Thursday, and the first of this week’s installment opens with perhaps the greatest image I’ve ever seen pop up on my television screen: a photo of [Jean Smart]( in-character as Deborah Vance posing with late ’80s-era [Oprah Winfrey](. I’ve long struggled with the fact that I’m not a person who has “passions” or “hobbies,” per se, unless it’s acceptable to put things like “really love Jean Smart” and “always thought Oprah was neat” in that section of a dating app profile. “The Roast of Deborah Vance” and “Join the Club,” this week’s genius installments, were love-at-first-Winfrey-sight for me, but also crystallized how much of a level-up this new season has been—and why I’d make the argument that the series deserves to interrupt [The Bear](’s juggernaut awards run and win Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys this year. No other series approaches this level of emotional heft and ballsy Hollywood ridicule without sacrificing its mission to make viewers laugh. And that’s all while accomplishing any piece of pop culture’s most crucial task: catering to my sensibilities specifically. In the newest episodes, Deborah, a veteran comedian experiencing a career surge, bursts into her writer Ava’s (Hannah Einbinder) bedroom to ask for help on a punchline for a “Mario Cantone is so gay that…” joke, about the gay comedian and [Sex and the City]( supporting player. (The room Deborah bulldozes into, by the way, is her 1987-1992 guest suite, explaining the framed photo with Oprah—as well as ones with Bubbles the monkey and Saddam Hussein.) There’s a joke about a young male comedy writer exasperated that everyone assumes he’s trying to imitate 30 Rock executive producer Robert Carlock’s comedy style. There’s a running gag about [Talk Stoop](, the bizarrely mundane celebrity interview series that New Yorkers know because it used to play incessantly on the tiny TVs inside of taxis. A series of possible film productions in development are listed at one point, including a procedural based on the board game Operation, a spinoff of Beauty and the Beast centered on the love life of the “hot” animated spoon from the movie, and a bisexual update on Gumby tentatively titled Gum-bi. The fact that studio executives listen more to their kids than to anyone else for the temperature on what’s hot is revealed by industry nepo baby Kayla ([Meg Stalter](), who says that she was present at the sleepover where her friends decided that Tobey Maguire would play Spider-Man.     These are such specific, razor-sharp jokes about pop culture and the business that, after some of them, I nearly missed the next few lines of dialogue because my brain was preoccupied by marveling at a show confident enough to drop these random references. There’s no hesitation over making them, but instead a knowledge that they enhance everything about the episode for viewers, regardless of whether someone had any idea who Robert Carlock or Mario Cantone are. That’s because, as much as it humbles me to admit, Hacks’ comedy isn’t pandering to one specific demographic (such as: me). It’s a show that has not just faith, but also a certitude that its audience is its partner in comedy and laughter, but also in making broader points. These references are humorous tools employed in Hacks’ greater, more profound examination—and exploding—of the industry’s most exasperating and antiquated problems. The larger arc of this week’s episodes portrays the arguably unfair efforts Deborah and her team go through in order for her to be a contender for an open late-night hosting chair. Executives systemically dismiss the idea of a woman of Deborah’s age landing the gig, despite the fact that she is the most qualified and the most popular with the target audience, and already proved that she can brilliantly navigate the job’s challenges, following a majorly successful guest-hosting stint. There are moving, insightful conversations between Deborah and Ava about this—writing that rises far above any pat “ain’t it a shame that it’s so hard for women” dialogue that could easily populate this storyline. But Hacks isn’t just focused on that one issue. It takes a holistic approach to lambasting the industry. Its skewering of the predictability, farce, and lameness of celebrity comedy roasts is hilariously timed, following the tedious [Tom Brady roast]( that Netflix recently aired. A scene where Deborah becomes disgusted by the rhetoric of fellow veteran stand-ups she used to admire is TV’s most nuanced and least patronizing evisceration of the Old Boys’ Club argument that wokeness is ruining comedy. (Do you think [Jerry Seinfeld will watch](?) And the dick-swinging and ass-kissing that provide the pageantry of Hollywood dealmaking with its choreography is depicted in a way that blares the business’ pointless absurdity to the uninitiated, mostly without any overly cartoonish exaggeration. This is a deceptively meaty show, yet one that still basks in irreverence. I’m struck by how it’s carved a space to feel “important”—without any of the insufferable baggage that comes when that word is used to describe a comedy. The “Mario Cantone is so gay…” punchline that Deborah and Ava were brainstorming, by the way, turned out great: “Mario Cantone is so gay that, when he was born, the doctor spanked him and he said, ‘Now turn around—it’s my turn.’”     Advertisement     Possible RFK Brain Worms, Ranked I, like most of America, have not stopped thinking about the story that doctors [found a dead worm]( in [Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.](’s brain. It’s a “well, that certainly explains things” anecdote in an era of entirely inexplicable nonsense. This bozo literally had “brain worms,” the catch-all phrase we use for someone whose asinine ideas suggest they are absolutely losing their mind. Given my obsession with this, when I saw this tweet, I laughed for about two minutes, sent it to each of my four-to-five friends, laughed again each time I pressed “send,” and now am writing about it. The tweet also made me think, who was that worm chomping on RFK’s brain? What’s her story? It’s my worms-for-brain idea of the week: Here is a ranking of the worms who are most likely to have been in RFK’s brain. The sandworms from Dune They’re too hip right now. RFK wishes. Grey Worm from Game of Thrones Noble. Very hot. A eunuch. None of those characteristics apply to what I think of RFK. The space slugs from Star Wars Tried to kill Han Solo. Seems like something dastardly that RFK would do. The sandworms from Beetlejuice They’re a little goofy, yet will give you a jumpscare when they show up. That tracks with my experience whenever I read a new RFK story. Earthworm from James and the Giant Peach Blind to the world and a bit of a doomsdayer. Also tracks. The Very Hungry Caterpillar Caterpillars are technically not worms, though, according to a two-second Google search, they are “cold-blooded like worms.” That fits the bill for something that would eat bits of a Kennedy’s brain and then just die in there. As this person posted on X, it would make for an apt addition to the classic children’s book:     The Most Important Met Gala Thoughts Listen: People who have more expertise in the world of fashion than me—as in, literally know anything about it—have already weighed on [the looks celebrities wore]( to the [Met Gala](. I can’t give any worthwhile commentary on that. What I can do, however, is point you toward the random moments that happened at the event that made me squeal with glee. Donatella Versace arrived escorted by Andrew Scott and Jude Law, two hotties who have starred in adaptations of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and lived out a very specific sex dream I had last week. Kylie Minogue danced to her own song at a Met Gala after party, and was grinded on by both Andrew Scott and Jonathan Bailey—weirdly also a very specific sex dream I had last week. While Shakira was posing and being fawned over by photographers and press, Michael Shannon walked in front of the frame carrying a bag of potato chips, marching begrudgingly up the stairs into the gala. A very specific se…I’m just kidding. Finally, Ariana Grande brought her Wicked co-star Cynthia Erivo on stage to duet to Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston’s “When You Believe.” No jokes. Just chills.     Not This Casting… Just when I was finally feeling at peace with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce as a celebrity couple—there were no longer news stories written about them every six hours, and we’d been spared the weekly camera on Swift’s face as she watched her boyfriend’s football game—this week ruined everything. [Swift’s Eras tour resumed]( after a hiatus in Paris, her first performance since the release of The Tortured Poets Department. You can only imagine how not-chill Swifties were about documenting every song on the set list, costume change, breath Taylor took, what her blood pressure was at any given moment… Then there was also the news that Kelce was [cast in a new Ryan Murphy series]( titled Grotesquerie. Stunt casting is fun…to a point. I hate this. But I did laugh at this post:     A Reason to Live Wee-oo, wee-oo! (If your brain isn’t as broken as mine, that’s an alarm sounding, written out as text.) Important [Reba McEntire news]( just dropped!     More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed A very important take: Chris Pine’s horrendous fashion lately is only making him hotter. [Read more](. Everyone is thirsting over John F. Kennedy’s grandson. Here’s why. [Read more](. Talking to the newest cast members of The Real Housewives of New Jersey gave me faith that this will be a great season. [Read more](.   [See This]   - Doctor Who: [Catching up on this]( so that I have something to talk about with all my British crushes. (Now on Disney+) - The Last Stop in Yuma County: A [crime noir so good](, I will certainly never travel to Yuma County. (Now in theaters and on VOD) - Mother of the Bride: I will never not endorse [a new rom-com]( that stars Brooke Shields. (Now on Netflix) [Skip This]   - Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: I wish they’d stop monkeying around [with this franchise](. Hey-o! (Now in theaters)   Like our take on what to watch? Check out our See Skip newsletter! 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