![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/de98baf6806b0e4e7fcd4d70d59cb751f8-hacks-ep8.rsquare.w400.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Hacks<\/a><\/p>\n The Cube<\/p>\n \n Season 5<\/p>\n Episode 8\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 3 stars<\/p>\n ***\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s starting to feel like we\u2019re killing time until Deborah can get to Madison Square Garden. In the Hacks-verse, there must be balance, so while Deborah and Ava are ascendant, Jimmy, Kayla, and Randi find themselves hitting a heartbreaking low. The result is an episode that is a little tonally zig-zaggy: half hijinks-of-the-week, half big-emotional-swing.<\/p>\n Now that she\u2019s got her outfit down<\/a>, Deborah has moved on to planning her grand entrance to MSG, which involves rising from a large sequin coffin, carried out by Knicks dancers (they MUST be short brunettes) in a custom Schiaparelli ball-gag and straitjacket. (Accidentally interesting moment to make a Schiaparelli reference!<\/a>) Amanda arrives to remind everyone that it doesn\u2019t really matter if Deborah is safe during her wild stunt \u2014 foreshadowing! \u2014 if she doesn\u2019t have an audience. Even though the Madison Square standard is a press conference, Deborah can\u2019t appear publicly. Time to find a workaround! (Loved the joke about Billy Joel promoting his show by taking his boat around Manhattan: \u201cTurns out you can get pulled over in the sea.\u201d)<\/p>\n I thought her first idea was very clever \u2014 a Deborah drag queen played by Katya Zamolodchikova \u2014 but it goes to pieces when the performer is too Method to be modern. \u201cI\u2019m nineties Deborah. I wouldn\u2019t even know how to begin to be a contemporary Deborah.\u201d I looooved when she blurted out \u201cif I\u2019m not you, then WHY am I on the Atkins diet?!\u201d Things escalate to Deborah on Deborah violence, and alas, the only recourse left is\u2026 magic :(.<\/p>\n I will confess that at first my reaction to this was okay enough with the magic, we have squeezed all the juice out of that joke<\/a>, can we please move on? But they sort of won me back when Ava\u2019s card was in the Gatorade at the end. But I am getting ahead of myself! Let\u2019s meet the Amazing Steven (kind of an underwhelming name for a magician\u2026 the Amazing Steven? No offense). He is going to pick Deborah out of the audience as a random volunteer, hoist her up 100 feet in the air in his giant glass cube, where she will remain for an hour and then disappear and then her hologram will appear at the Bellagio fountain, wearing a T-shirt with a QR code for a link that goes live at midnight, and if just reading that sentence made you think Jesus Christ that sounds a little involved, you and I are on the SAME page. How are we pulling off a Prestige without Christopher Nolan? Would you believe that it does not, in fact, work? For no sooner is Deborah, who gets claustrophobic in condos, lifted skyward by the crane holding the Cube, than the power goes out, trapping her aloft.<\/p>\n Speaking of darkness: Kayla, Jimmy, and Randi are packing up the offices they worked so hard to earn. They simply can\u2019t afford it; they don\u2019t even have Lassie\u2019s fees, because those were garnished by her victims\u2026 woof (sorry). It\u2019s time to cut frivolous expenses, including the $5,000\/month (!!!!) pickleball membership they got to get close to Winnie<\/a> (RIP<\/a>). Both Kayla and Jimmy take their Hannah Montana-style farewell looks at the office<\/a> (an homage to their Hannah Montana reference from two episodes ago??<\/a>). For some reason, Kayla is carrying a single roller skate. Jimmy then struggles mightily to cancel the pickleball account. And it is hard to cancel a gym membership, but I would love to know if any of you know about the bougie obstacle course presented here, which requires endorsements and a passport renewal, which did not make me laugh and only stressed me out! And speaking of stress: The gang has barely assembled at their new home office (Jimmy\u2019s kitchen) before bad news arrives: Kayla\u2019s dad is suing them for $30 million because of the whole Bruno Fox manslaughter situation<\/a>.<\/p>\n I do feel like this might have hit harder if it came earlier in the season. I found this arc to be a bit rushed, and we could\u2019ve had it as a parallel to the Bob\/Deborah situation this whole time. We already know Kayla\u2019s dad is a one-note asshole, as are all his colleagues and underlings, so it\u2019s no surprise that he would happily destroy his daughter through whatever means are most expedient, either by suing her or by undermining her hard-won independence by absorbing her agency into Latitude, allegedly for the crime of \u201cembarrassing\u201d him. Kayla is adamant that they stick it out, but Jimmy is a pragmatist: They really have no other options.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s leave behind our figuratively-trapped characters and visit the literally-trapped one: Deborah is so high that even the fire department ladder can\u2019t reach her. And even if they could, she is not injured and therefore is not a priority. Ava \u2014 who, sidebar, is finally in a really good outfit \u2014 soothes her boss via walkie-talkie (\u201cYou\u2019re looking skinny though, up there!\u201d). As people are wont to do in a crisis, Deborah starts making grand promises, such as an actual vacation after MSG; she gets desperate and pees in her shoe (I guess it\u2019s too dark for anyone to see her do that?!). Is this karma for those Baby Jessica jokes, or is this climate change? No way to ever know for sure!<\/p>\n I am sorry to say that this plotline started to drag for me. We know Deborah will not die in the Cube! The episode just treads water until she is set free, as Deborah and Ava have yet another emotionally vulnerable moment where they bond over being crazy for their work. Just feels a little like\u2026 yeah, we know! It\u2019s very final-season-filler.<\/p>\n Fortunately, things pick up with the arrival of one of my Hacks faves: Mayor Jo! Deborah realizes that she can get that sweet, sweet earned media if people think she\u2019s in danger. Thus, swarms of news cameras are summoned along with Mayor Jo, who reports to the people that if Deborah is stuck in the Cube until morning, then the sun would sizzle her alive \u2014 so Jo is prepared (here she waves her pink camo gun around) to shoot Deborah before she hits the ground. I love her!!!<\/p>\n In lipstick, Deborah frantically writes on the wall of the Cube: HELP ME [long pause] SELL TIX! Deborah does her happy dance as the media sells her show. (Mayor Jo\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m fairly certain that\u2019s a Mexican clown dance\u201d took me OUT.)<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Jimmy and Kayla are also struggling with a lack-of-power situation, both symbolically (they are helpless in the face of Kayla\u2019s dad\u2019s assault on their autonomy) and actually (Kayla forgot to charge her battery-powered car). Jimmy\u2019s sense of purpose as an agent is almost too earnest to bear, but I was moved by Kayla\u2019s explanation for why she got into the business in the first place: Just to hang out with Jimmy. Together, they agree to do what\u2019s best for their talent and let Kayla\u2019s dad win this round. By the end of the episode, Jimmy will be back in the mailroom, despite also technically still being Ava\u2019s manager.<\/p>\n They do eventually make it to the Cube; as they arrive, the power comes back on, and as the sun rises over the Sphere, Deborah, wrapped in her tinfoil blanket like a little burrito, gets a call from Amanda: She sold out Madison Square Garden in TEN MINUTES. Wait, really? That feels\u2026 improbable to me. Even in the wish-fulfillment home-stretch of the season. Will Deborah fall flat on her face in front of an audience of, like, bots? (I did a little recon and some fun facts for context: As of 2024, the fastest seller-outer of MSG to date was Justin Bieber, whose two 2012 shows sold out in thirty seconds<\/a>; according to MSG via Billboard<\/a>, only 15 comedians have ever sold out the venue.)<\/p>\n No one in the show shares my suspicions. Maybe I\u2019m cynical and paranoid! Instead, Amanda muses on this success: \u201cI guess the only thing that sells better than sex is watching a multimillionaire almost die.\u201d Deborah refuses a Gatorade despite allegedly needing electrolytes; she is off sugar, so she can be bikini-ready for the vacation she heat-of-the-moment promised Ava they would take!<\/p>\n I do like the choice of ending the episode not on that triumph but on Jimmy\u2019s defeat. Although I doubt the show will let him stay that down for too long, this close to the end, I appreciate the verisimilitude of the loss, even though Deborah was able to pull a proverbial rabbit out of a hat. Sorry, the magic is getting to me, too!<\/p>\n Sign Up for the Vulture Newsletter<\/p>\n Entertainment news, for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: HBO Max\n <\/p>\n