randomchance

the woke left: young and fashionable. visible tattoos. often enjoys matcha, lavender flavoring, oat milk, and cold foam. pretty decent customers.

sweet old man: drinks very sweet iced lattes, pays in cash, puts all of his change in the tip jar. sometimes orders hot coffee and i get scared that his shaky old man hands will spill it and he'll get burned but that has not yet happened and god willing never shall.

evil old man: only wants drip coffee and declares it ridiculous that any other form of coffee exists. some variants only want americanos and these variants are even scarier. watch out.

sweet old woman: might need her daughter's help to order but is very bubbly and open to trying new things. compliments baristas freely and frequently.

evil old woman: does not want coffee and only wants sweet tea or soda. will not tip even if she spends three hours in the shop repeatedly asking baristas to fetch things for her.

errand husband: either stiltedly recites an order to you or shows you the order in their texts/notes app. needs to step out of line and make a phone call if you ask any follow-up questions.

grindset girlie: always wearing scrubs, an apron, and/or a name tag. orders the exact same thing every day and knows the exact change she'll need to pay for it. her regular order is both extremely caffeinated and extremely sweet.

#mamabear: is actively wrangling two to four children while ordering. order changes repeatedly because the children cannot decide if they want a muffin or a cookie or apple juice or chocolate milk etc. for some reason these women are always wearing an article of clothing or carrying some personalized item that says "mama" on it.

schoolchildren: band of two to eight adolescents hanging out after school. extremely indecisive but generally quite polite and tip well.

amnesiac in love: grown adult who needs their partner to tell them what they like. gets asked a question about their own preferences and turns to their partner to answer for them. generally acts like a shy child looking to their guardian for behavioral cues if you try to interact with them and only wants to talk to mommy i mean their wife.

So I basically feel giddy about Hacks 5x7 because of all the different stuff they fit into their approach to fake dating and the very real relationship lessons that emerge:

Kelly and Monica end the episode genuinely believing that Ava and Deborah are in a relationship—and that’s not only their truth, it’s just TRUE (I’ve seen some posts mourning the concept of Ava and Deborah’s conversation as they drive away being about making the gay fans feel silly for thinking Ava and Deborah could be in a relationship, but personally I think the episode was written to honor the lesbians’ outsider perspective even if their perceptions aren’t perfectly 100% accurate)

Ava, a character who has done her very gentle yet pointed due diligence around opening doors for Deborah to explore her bisexuality, repeatedly refers to Deborah as straight in this episode of all episodes. There are so many different reasons for why she might do this, including wanting her own emotional distance from the insanity of having performed a lesbian relationship with Deborah of all people when she’s felt so strongly about her for so long, including wanting to respect Deborah’s personal truth about her sexual orientation even if she disagrees (because what right would she have to use a word other than the one the person in question uses?), including the possibility that Ava has evolved in her own thinking about Deb to conclude that maybe Deb is right about being straight. And this is to say nothing of what might be going through Deborah’s head as she hears herself described this way. Is she comforted to be perceived as straight? Does she agree? Does she consciously or unconsciously find it easier to stick with that than to reopen earlier conversations?

It’s only after spending a weekend making up very personal lies about her sex life with Deborah that Ava confronts her tendencies to overshare in a way that could believably stick and cause her to rethink her approach to conversations where she’s out of her element.

Deborah, established in 1x1 as something of an equal opportunity offender, is insecure enough about looking dumb that she resorts to parroting clichés and somewhat nonsensical lesbian jokes, which of course makes her look actually dumb like she was afraid of. S5 has been particularly good about showing Deb’s own awareness about how afraid she is of being made a fool, and she’s had to confront a lot of rumors and perceptions while under this non-compete/restraining order that prevents her from being able to perform. She is literally and legally cut off from a substantial portion of her truth, or at least how she expresses it. Her jokes aren’t great or anything, but I think that’s the point. Deb is only convincing about the fake relationship when she’s staying in the moment and observing/enacting/improvising with Ava, and in front of an audience that’s solely comprised of her bisexual creative soulmate and two lesbians, her prepared material falls as flat as it ever does.

The deep undercurrent of intimacy between Ava and Deborah is never stronger than when they’re alone together or acting like they’re alone together. When Ava interrupts the apology meet-up with Kelly and immediately launches into the intimacy of their domestic lives together?! When they come up with the same “out of [my/your] league” joke in the car at the end, finally getting to be for real funny about why their relationship wouldn’t work in ways that reinforce why the relationship they do have works perfectly?! When it genuinely feels like Ava cheated on Deb with Monica because Deb actually would need monogamy in a sexual relationship scenario and she and Ava both know that to the point that the commitment feels real to them?! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! Ava and Deborah might not be in a committed sexual and romantic relationship with each other, but the intimacy and chemistry and deep commitment they do have is—BY FAR—the realest thing about either of their lives. (And I honestly think is a good thing.)

"And can we talk about the scene in the dance club? I love that scene so much. There’s that throwaway line where Ava says, “I get to dress you.” You don’t see that outfit in its totality, but that jersey Deborah wears is a jersey Ava wore in “Montecito,” and she’s wearing a pair of cargo pants and electric blue cowboy boots. When she’s just looking at Deborah and realizing, Deborah’s so alive and free and happy, dancing, and Ava’s like, “I might be losing her.” In the scene after, where they’re sitting in the window watching the sunrise, we see Ava in a fur coat of Deborah’s, and Deborah is wearing a leather jacket of Ava’s. They’re really connected, they love each other, they get each other. It’s so hard for Ava to let go, she doesn’t want to let her go, so she literally wraps [Deborah] around her. That was a very intentional choice on my part."

dressing deborah in ava's soccer jersey she wore to the lesbian cottage (real boyfriend moment)??? the two of them wrapping themselves in each other's coats as they quietly watch the sunrise.. because ava can't let her go she's literally wrapping deborah around herself..... but what does that say about deborah wearing ava's coat!!! God!!!