Hacks
Big, Brave Girl
TV Flash files “Big, Brave Girl” as a desk essential hour — Hacks (2021–) on Max, season 4, episode 1, aired 2025-04-10, 30 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S04E01: listed hour 28 of 47 in the Hacks guide, first listed hour of season 4. It aired 2025-04-10 (30 min). The listed hour before it is “Bulletproof” (S03E09). Next is “Cover Girls” (S04E02).
Essential hour: “Big, Brave Girl”. Big, Brave Girl as season-four dare: Deborah and Ava still using stand-up as intimacy, career-redefining comic monster not yet a wax figure.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Furious with Ava for forcing her way into the head writer position, Deborah stops at nothing to get her removed from Late Night. As Ava attempts to beat her boss at her own game, Marcus prepares for a difficult conversation with Deborah.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Big, Brave Girl sit in the Hacks guide?
S04E01 is listed hour 28 of 47 — first listed hour of season 4, season 4 episode 1.
When did Hacks S04E01 air?
Big, Brave Girl aired 2025-04-10 and is listed at 30 minutes.
Where should I start?
Season one, when Deborah hires Ava. The mentor-monster bond is the engine; later seasons deepen it through industry upheavals rather than replacing the pair.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Watch Jean Smart's career-redefining comic monster opposite Hannah Einbinder in Max's flagship showbiz satire. A legendary Vegas comic hires a canceled young writer; punchlines are the love language. Best when you want Hollywood half-hours with teeth and a writing staff that knows the mic.
Fading Vegas comedy icon Deborah Vance hires canceled young writer Ava, and suddenly the old network night has a new two-hander: punchlines as love language, knives out, mutual reinvention. Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky's Max series premiered May 13, 2021, and Jean Smart's late-career supremacy became inseparable from Deborah. Hannah Einbinder matches her. Carl Clemons-Hopkins orbits the workplace. Showbiz cruelty is the office; respect is the long game. On the palate: cigarette haze and perfect…
Filed against
- Jean Smart as Deborah Vance
Jean Smart’s Charlene Frazier gave Designing Women its sugared drawl, then Watchmen, Hacks, and Mare of Easttown proved the 1980s catalog comic had a second, third, and fourth act. TV Flash files her as the long game: Atlanta living-room…
- Hannah Einbinder as Ava Daniels
Hannah Einbinder's Ava Daniels is the canceled young writer across from Jean Smart's comic monster on Hacks — Max flagship showbiz satire, punchlines as a love language, Vegas legend hiring the intern the industry already tried to throw…
- Carl Clemons-Hopkins as Marcus
Carl Clemons-Hopkins plays Marcus on Hacks — the staff-room pulse around Jean Smart's career-redefining comic monster and Hannah Einbinder's canceled young writer. Punchlines as a love language, Vegas as a workplace, Hollywood half-hours…