Cherry Jones only said yes to Hacks after Paul W. Downs called her three times. The fifth and final season’s episode 7, titled “Montecito,” puts Jones in the middle of one of the show’s sharpest setups yet, as Deborah and Ava spend a weekend pretending to be in a relationship while visiting Kelly Kilpatrick and her wife Monica in Montecito.
Jones plays Kelly, an out lesbian and fellow comedian who despises Deborah, a role that lands at a moment when the series has little room for misfires. The actor said she kept turning Downs down until he called again weeks later, and then admitted, “Well, my God, no one’s ever wanted me that much.”
That kind of persistence helped lure a performer who said she does not do that much comedy and had hardly ever done any before. It also helped that she was watching from close range as the show’s stars, Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart, worked. Jones said, “I got paid money to go to work every day and watch Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart go to town like that,” adding, “And then I get to play wives with Leslie Bibb? They sweetened the deal even more.” Bibb plays Monica.
The timing matters because Deborah is already on the ropes. In season 5, she is dealing with the aftermath of her Late Night debacle, having lost her show after refusing to fire Ava Daniels, her assistant, writer, best friend and confidante. Her contract also keeps her offstage for a long stretch, even as she wants to fight back publicly with a comeback show at Madison Square Garden.
That plan runs straight into the calendar. The only slot available to Deborah lands on 9/11, a detail that underlines how little room she has left to stage the return she wants. The co-creators, Lucia Aniello, Jen Statsky and Downs, said while filming that they thought “Montecito” might be the funniest episode of the series. Whether it plays as a victory lap or a cruel reminder depends on how Deborah handles the chance she gets next.
