I just wrote down a few thoughts.

Episode 9 of season 5 of Hacks is the perfect season finale.

I wonder what we can expect in the actual finale. Watching it this morning, I wondered if another episode even made sense, after all: Ava got her pilot, Deborah did her show, Marty got his Deb back, Kayla, Jimmy, Randi, and Damien have pretty much found their place, and in the episode that aired last week, well, I'd say there's nothing left to say. Even the unresolved issue with Bob Lipka has been wrapped up. In a lateral sense, I mean. Bob was pretty direct in threatening Deb, telling her either you do as I say, or if you do as you say, I'll try to stop you. Poor Bob Lipka, thinking he can keep a diva like Deborah Vance in check.

We have closed every loop, yet we didn't notice that something is still missing—something that is there and not there, which is especially noticeable this season; there is always something unsaid in the air. Or at least, that's what I perceived.

The narrative of Hacks, mostly comedic, easily distracts, I get that, but let's think about Ava in the first season and Deb in the first season as well—how they've changed. They were two completely different, reluctant women who grew morally together. The marriage of show business united them in their careers, followed by a very justified divorce in the fourth season that lasts, but then, in the end, you know how it goes... every couple in love always finds a way to find each other again.

And this last episode, in my opinion, is the celebration of this realization: having someone who has always believed in you, like Ava for Deb and Deb for Ava, having friendships, having integrity, leads you to be a better person. What should we expect in 5x10? Surely a closure, an exit from the stage. Probably Deborah along with Marty and Marcus in their new casino, while Ava, having now said goodbye to her Deb, will have to learn to be on her own again—this time with more awareness on her shoulders, and with more experience. A La La Land sort of thing.

Today officially marked the end of the third season of the TV series The Comeback. For those who started with season 3, well, they don't know what it means to have lived through a 10-year hiatus, and perhaps they’ve missed the entire meaning of a "comeback." However, I understand it’s not easy to watch a first season filmed in 2005 and a second season filmed in 2014. The world has changed—it has changed a lot—but what can we say? We can say that, based on how this third season was written, we objectively have all the information needed to talk about it; there’s no need to know what happens in episode 1x07 or 2x03. You can start from the third season and immediately understand who Valerie Cherish is. Honestly, I consider that a strength.

For those approaching the series for the first time and reading this post, Valerie Cherish is played by Lisa Kudrow—it’s impossible that you don’t know her. I refuse to believe you are googling who she is. Lisa Kudrow shaped this character; she made it her own in every possible way. In hindsight, no other actress could have been Valerie. She isn’t airheaded, she isn’t disconnected; she is real, she is funny, she is awkward, she is human. And it is this humanity that makes her great, that makes her unforgettable.

The third season of The Comeback focuses on the pressing use of AI in multimedia products, a reality that is now very close even to Italy, the place where I was born. Everyone uses AI now: the Chinese restaurant around the corner, the pizzeria, the bar where you get your coffee. To promote themselves, they no longer pay your cousin’s acquaintance who is a graphic designer to make a flyer; there’s the new Nano Banana version of Gemini that does it for them, as many times as they want, however they want, and plus "they don't have to pay for it" (shh, they still pay for it, in other ways, but they pay).

It is precisely this convenience that scares everyone, because who are we without our own ways of thinking, if even to write a late-night thought on our phone we need to ask ChatGPT to "rework this for me"? From the beginning of this season, Valerie Cherish isn't having it; she doesn't want to be part of it, even if she has to—by contract. But morally, she faces this journey with her cast and, even though she already knows it, she understands even more that being human, making mistakes, and living is what brings everyone together.

How can an LLM make jokes about a situation it has never lived? Logically thinking, it can’t, yet it’s happening—it’s already happening. There are AI agents that write and rewrite until, out of desperation, you like one of those 450 jokes and choose it. But this is where Valerie comes in: Valerie tells you, alright, it’s also a useful tool, but what will become of us actors when the joke isn't funny and our AI assistant isn't working? We must remain human; we must continue to write and talk about what makes us laugh and feel good, because these are the things we all have in common.

Finally, to close the discussion—and perhaps some of you will want to share your opinions—I believe this third season is the most political, but it’s right that it should be so.

The Comeback is available to stream on Max.