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NATE BLOOM COLUMNIST

HACKS COMES BACK, NOSH WITH A PURPOSE, GARFIELD GETS RELIGIOUS, AGAIN

The acclaimed HBO Max comedy series Hacks premieres its second, 10-episode season on May 12. Two episodes will be shown on the 12th, and two episodes will be shown each following week. Hacks is well-written, well-acted, funny and touching. Here’s a brief first season recap to encourage everyone to check it out.

Jean Smart co-stars as Deborah Vance, an aged stand-up comedy legend with a biting sense of humor. In her heyday, she frequently appeared on TV and toured the country, playing nightclubs. In more recent years, she did a nightly show at a major Las Vegas casino. Her casino show was pretty much the same night after night, year-after-year.

Vance hires Ava (Hannah Einbinder, 26), an unemployed comedy writer, to write jokes for her. Ava constantly urges Vance to update her act. This updating, Ava says, should include personal anecdotes about the difficulties that female comics dealt with when Vance was younger and often still deal with. Vance resists this advice until the casino fires her. They want someone “fresher.”

The firing prompts Vance to “let go” in her final casino appearance and use the personalized material that Ava wrote for her. A video of that set goes viral, and Vance is a hot comic once again.

As the first season concludes, Ava and Vance’s very prickly relationship has morphed into mutual respect for each other. But “out there” is an email that could destroy their relationship. I won’t spoil what it is in it for those who haven’t seen the first season yet. The email will come up (again) in the second season.

Jean Smart, as Vance, won an Emmy (lead actress, comedy) and Einbinder, the daughter of former SNL star Laraine Newman, was Emmy-nominated (supporting actress, comedy).

The second season trailer reveals this: Vance decides to do a national tour of comedy clubs and will be accompanied by Ava. But before touring, Vance insists on hiring a really good tour manager. She hires Alice, who is played by Laurie Metcalf (Roseanne, The Connors). As the trailer concludes, we hear Vance questioning whether doing a tour is the right thing.

I liked Einbinder in Hacks, and I liked her even more when I saw her on a YouTube video titled Recipe for Change: Standing Up to Antisemitism. She was one of (about) 30 Jews who gathered around dinner tables in New York and Los Angeles to eat and talk.

Dinner guests first discussed Jewish culture and identity, and then talked about antisemitism and how to deal with it. The guests included prominent actors, rabbis and chefs. The program was quite good and is certainly novel. It’s received 900K views since it was posted last month.

Here’s a list of the most famous showbiz celeb guests: Bryan Greenberg, Rachel Bloom, Idina Menzel, Josh Peck, Rachel Dratch, Michael Ian Black, Michael Zegen and Ilana Glazer.

The six-part Hulu series, Under the Banner of Heaven, began streaming on April 28 with a two-episode premiere. It’s based on a true story. In 1984, a young Mormon mother and her infant daughter, who lived near Salt Lake City, were found stabbed to death. I won’t spoil it for you — suffice it to say that the murders involved a tiny sect that had split off from the mainstream Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons).

The series, which has got good reviews, is based on a true-crime book of the same name by Jon Krakauer, 68. He’s the secular son of a Jewish father and a Unitarian mother.

Andrew Garfield, 38, co-stars as a devout Mormon police detective who co-heads the murder investigation. Wyatt Russell, 35, has a big role as Dan Rafferty, a member of the sect.

Garfield clearly likes to take film roles in which he plays very religious persons in unusual circumstances. In 2016, he starred in Hacksaw Ridge and Silence. In Hacksaw he played Desmond Doss, a (real) religious pacifist who became a U.S. army WWII medic and won the Medal of Honor. In Silence, he played a 16th century Catholic priest who was tortured by anti-missionary Japanese officials. In 2021, he played disgraced TV evangelist Jim Bakker in The Eyes of Tammy Bakker.

Garfield is certainly overdue for an “exotic” Jewish clergyperson role. I was thinking about a thriller about a Los Angeles rabbi who is also a “mohel to the stars.” While about to preside over a bris, he overhears two big Hollywood machers talking about illegal activities that might involve some of his shul’s biggest givers and most devout congregants. (I’ve have heard about L.A. rabbis/mohels who’ve been nicknamed “Mohel to the Stars”).

Hannah Einbinder Recipe for Change: Standing Up to Antisemitism

YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT

Andrew Garfield

GAGE SKIDMORE