Jean Smart in Final Season of HBO Max Comedy

It takes less than half an hour into the new season of Hacks for Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) to sense that something is off. “Okay, that’s it,” she says, exasperated by Ava (Hannah Einbinder) cheering on a particularly misguided idea. “What is wrong with you? You’re not challenging me in your normal Ava way.”

Ava admits to being extra supportive simply because she’s so glad to see Deborah back in action after her emotional spiral in Singapore, and after a bit of nudging, eventually offers her honest feedback. Deborah, satisfied, takes her words to heart. Balance seems to be restored between them.

As I made my way through the 10 episodes of the fifth and final season, however, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Deborah had been right to be wary. At its best, the HBO Max comedy has thrived on the challenge of her and Ava’s relationships to each other, and to the unforgiving industry they both work in. But for this last outing, it trades its acidity for sweetness, becoming nicer than ever before — and all the less interesting for it.

To be sure, it’s hard to blame a show for getting a little squishy as it prepares to go out on its own terms. If engineering a happy ending is top of mind for creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, so it is too for Deborah, who in the wake of a false-alarm TMZ obit is horrified to realize she’ll be remembered as the crazy lady who broke Late Night. Determined to write a better legacy for herself, she sets the goal of returning from her forced hiatus with a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden.

That the non-compete clause currently barring her from performing also forbids her from workshopping new material or even promoting ticket sales is all part of the fun for Hacks. It’s amusing as always to watch Deborah and her inner circle (which, in addition to Ava, includes Carl Clemons-Hopkins’ Marcus, Mark Indelicato’s Damien and Rose Abdoo’s Josefina) do what they do best and scheme their way around the rules by, say, publicizing Deborah’s romance with a hot young musician (The Summer I Turned Pretty heartthrob Christopher Briney) or dipping a toe into reality television.

In the second episode, their plotting takes them to a fan convention, where Deborah is prompted by a blue-skinned alien played by Ann Dowd to consider what it is that they get from their fans, and what they owe the fans in turn. As if guided by that same wisdom, Hacks itself goes out of its way to serve its viewers everything it imagines we might want. Callbacks and cameos to half-remembered guest stars from previous seasons? Check. Closure on Deborah’s on-off situationship with Marty (Christopher McDonald)? Check. An episode that finally dares to ask what Ava and Deborah would be like as a lesbian couple? Amazingly, check. The plot contortions required for that one may be tortured, but the payoff is funny enough to be worth any suspension of disbelief.

And for those who’ve grown tired of watching Ava and Deborah spend each season at each other’s throats, only to make up, only to find themselves at each other’s throats once more, these chapters allow them, at long last, to be in the closest thing they’ve ever had to a healthy friendship. The episodes lean hard into the electric chemistry between its leads, whether they’re scuffling over an iPhone in a nice bit of physical comedy or trading insults about each other’s fashion choices. (“That looks like something that my grandson would wear so that he can poop out the back,” Deborah scoffs of a jumpsuit Ava plans to wear on a date. She’s not wrong.)

Unusually for this show, the overarching tone between them is one of sincere affection and appreciation. For a while, it’s a refreshing change of pace. We’ve always known these two were creative soulmates, and we’ve never doubted for a second how much they care about each other deep down. How lovely that they’ve finally evolved to the point where they can admit it to themselves.

But it also feels, after a while, less than honest. Lest we forget, these are two women who’ve spent the past several years suing, blackmailing and generally sabotaging each other, whose inability to nevertheless quit one another speaks as much to codependency as to mutual care or loyalty. Sand all the edges off of what was once a thrillingly prickly dynamic, and you’re left with a love story that goes down too smoothly to leave much of a mark.

Meanwhile, Deborah’s compulsory turn away from Hollywood (and the show’s less justifiable disinterest in Ava’s career outside of Deborah) cuts the series off from the biting industry satire that was once its bread and butter. Give or take an anti-AI screed too self-consciously didactic to be clever, there’s not much Hacks has to say now that it hasn’t said already about the punishing grind of showbiz toward older women in particular. Not even a season-long subplot about Jimmy (Downs) and Kayla (Megan Stalter) struggling to keep their fledgling agency afloat is able to offer any new insight into the culture of Hollywood — though I’ll never complain about the opportunity to see more of Robby Hoffman as their hilariously over-enthusiastic assistant, Randi.

None of this is to say Hacks, in its last go-round, has completely stopped being a good time. I cackled at an installment that sends Deborah, Ava and Marty spiraling into separate romantic crises. I giggled at jokes as small but character-perfect as Marcus suggesting Chase Mobile Banking as a “cool app” that Marty might bring up to his younger, tech-savvier investors. I gasped at at least one late plot twist. And while Hacks has never been The Studio– or The Bear-level indulgent with its celebrity cameos, there are enough big names here to make the season feel like a well-earned celebration of its place in pop culture.

But ironically for a season that spends so much of its time concerned with the question of legacy, Hacks stumbles at crafting its own. In elevating its brighter, softer elements at the expense of its darker, sharper edges, it becomes a sugarcoated obituary version of itself. And while I can’t fault the show for wanting to be remembered as the most winsome version of itself (who among us, etc.), I think I’d prefer to remember it as it actually was. Mean jabs, and devastating betrayals, and piercing observations, and all.