SPOILER ALERT: The Following contains spoilers for Season 5 of Hacks.
With the premiere of Hacks fifth and final season today, comes the announcement of a surprise crossover of sorts. Episode 5, “D’Amazing Race” will see Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance and Kaitlyn Olson’s character DJ compete in a fictional celebrity episode of The Amazing Race featuring the CBS reality competition show’s host Phil Keoghan, its crew and actual props.
Vegas-based comedian Deborah and her jewelry-making daughter DJ have dealt with a somewhat rocky relationship over the seasons, but by Season 5, both are working on becoming closer. So, when DJ begs Deborah to help her achieve a long-held dream of participating in The Amazing Race, Deborah acquiesces. What could go wrong?
When the idea came up, Smart told Deadline, “I was trepidatious because I was recovering from knee surgery.” But she gamely agreed, despite not being fully mobile. “I felt so bad because that was our first AD [Jeff Rosenberg] that got to direct his first episode of Hacks, so this was hugely important to him,” she said. “He was a massive Amazing Race fan. I thought, ‘I’m going to just screw up his dream, his pet project.’ I felt so bad. But I think that they were able to edit around not being able to run like a normal person. It ended up being really fun. And Kaitlin is so much fun to work with.”
Showrunners Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs enjoyed the experience so much that Aniello “wanted to make a full season” of the crossover, Downs said. “She wanted to do 10 episodes of them on The Amazing Race.”
Aniello said, “So much credit goes to Elise Doganieri, the co-creator of The Amazing Race, who not only got us through all the legal loopholes to make it happen because we had to get rights and all that, but we also got to use their crew. Their crew is the crew on the show,” Aniello said. “So, all those camera operators and the sound people, all the clues and the clue box and the little fanny packs.”
Aniello added that Doganieri and Keoghan, who also serves as a producer on The Amazing Race, were really involved. “It was so fun. They gave us notes throughout the whole process, making sure that it felt completely accurate. And it’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
For one thing, Smart enjoyed watching Olson struggle through one particular challenge: “Watching her milk a goat who was just not having it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen,” she said.
With this being the final season of Hacks, Aniello said the showrunners felt this would be “such a fun, heightened way to end the DJ/Deborah story as a vehicle to get them to a place where Deborah is able to see DJ in a new light. And give a new dimension to their relationship and see that DJ is capable for more than Deborah’s ever given her credit for. Even though she was awful at everything she did, she was so great at just picking herself up and dusting herself off and trying again. It was just a dream to make.”
Hacks Season 5 debuts Thursday, April 9 at 6 PM PT/9 PM ET on HBO Max.
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