Welcome back to my weekly coverage of Hacks, in which I tend to pick one aspect of the week’s episode(s) to focus on. This week: Jimmy LuSaque Jr. Here is my ode to him. This episode was written by Genevieve Aniello and Jess Dweck and directed by Lucia Aniello.
Deborah and Ava might emerge from this week’s episode of Hacks triumphant, with Deborah selling out Madison Square Garden in ten minutes. But their down-on-his-luck manager Jimmy ends up in the mailroom of his former employer Latitude, defeated by Kayla’s big bully of a father in a genuinely heartbreaking final scene.
Like a good manager though, he doesn’t let his own losses overshadows his clients’ wins. Against all odds, Jimmy and Kayla make it to see Deborah’s big cube stunt in the streets of Las Vegas. Talent management and agenting are pretty misunderstood jobs in Hollywood, but Hacks shines a light on this part of the industry through Jimmy and Kayla, whose arc over the course of the series is almost like a funhouse mirrored version of Deborah and Ava’s arc. They’re often dysfunctional, but then when they do click, something magical happens.
I have always loved Jimmy as a character. He’s the one who brought Deborah and Ava together in the first place. He’s also the character I often relate to the most. I mean, the man stayed up all night for a Fiona Apple presale, is deeply attached to Xena: Warrior Princess, is particular about his coffee, and is always letting a mean femme boss him around. He is culturally a lesbian.
But I also relate to Jimmy’s immense dedication to his job, even when that job is not going well. It doesn’t matter that Jimmy is good at what he does; we live in a world where talent and skill are not enough to overcome systemic barriers. Latitude is bigger and more resourced than Schaefer & Lusaque ever was, and even just the threat of a lawsuit like the one Kayla’s dad hits them with is enough to take their small business out.
I tend to project all my feelings about the state of the media industry onto everything I watch and read these days, I realize, but it is indeed hard for me to not think of all the media deals that have happened in the past decade where larger companies buy out smaller publications for no good reason when watching something similar happen to Kayla, Jimmy, and the world’s greatest assistant Randi. It’s true across industries that it’s harder and harder to start a small business amid the conglomeratization of literally fucking everything. And when the smaller companies get bought up, people are either laid off or, if they’re “lucky”, often given jobs they don’t want, as we see happen to Jimmy. Any of his career successes are snatched away in an instant, all because some dude at the top wants to put him in his place.
So yes, I am moved by Jimmy’s story. It reflects a lot of the career horror stories so many of my friends have been contending with in recent years. Hacks often reveals the conflicting nature of loving the work that you do. I’ve written before about how poignantly the show explores what it means to be an artist under capitalism, but it’s also just more broadly about being any kind of person under capitalism, which makes loving work and what you do so complicated by emphasizing output, profit, and ownership over process, exploration, and creativity. Jimmy LuSaque Jr., you don’t deserve this!!! No one does!!!!!!!
I also want to sneak in an ode to the character actors of Hacks. The show wouldn’t work if it was coasting on the power of its two lead actresses alone; they need the scaffolding of scene-stealing character actors around them. The cameos in this final season have been great (Katya Zamolodchikova makes a wonderful “90s Deborah” in this episode), but I’m also consistently enamored by the depth to the show’s recurring roster. Alanna Ubach returns in this episode as the straight-talking MSG exec, and she’s always a favorite of mine wherever she shows up on television. There’s a great interview with her in The Ankler this week, in which she shares it was actually always her career goal to be this type of character actor. I love the way she puts it: “Early on in my career — and I sounded insane to most people — I said, ‘I want to be a character actor.’ I want to be the potatoes and the butter and the broccoli on the side.”
Sometimes the potatoes, butter, and broccoli on the side are my favorite parts of the meal.
And I know Mayor Jo — who also appears in this episode — might just be a goofy bit character to some, but I’m a card carrying member of the Lauren Weedman fan club. Hacks has a tendency to deploy character actors like her in the most perfect way. The late Jeff Baena was a rare director who understood the appeal of Weedman (she appears in several of his movies: Horse Girl, Spin Me Round, The Little Hours, Joshy), and like Ubach, she’s the type of character actor I’m always happy to see. Hacks casting and comedic use of these recurring characters flesh out the show’s universe and humor beyond just Deborah and Ava. Not all comedies are good at this; Hacks is great at it.
