Hacks: Disgraced comedian decides to turn lesbian, gay leather dude spirals, and there are some jokes. With bonus Devon Sawa

 

I've been avoiding the recommendation of Hacks, on MAX, because the icon shows two ladies in bikinis, and who wants to watch a tv show about computer hackers in bikinis?  But yesterday I casually looked through the episode list, and saw what looked like a black guy at a gay leather bar.  

Not many black guys into leather -- in years of going to the Faultline in West Hollywood, I only met one.  So maybe this show is worth checking out after all.

Turns out that the title is a misdirection. Hacks is an obsolete term for writers who churn out incompetent but popular trash,  In this case, the hack is Deb Vance (Jean Smart), a Vegas lounge lizard trying to revise her snarky 80s-style standup for a more sensitive generation.  Her head writer and confidant, Ava, had her own standup career cancelled after an insensitive tweet.  I'm reviewing the gay leather bar episode, 2.4, "The Captain's Wife."

Scene 1: At a dusty farm, Deb is filming an infomercial, selling strange-looking socks. Her bus driver, Weed, keeps turning on the air conditioning. Her photographer, Damien, notes that she forgot the American flag print. "Stupid f*king American flag."  Lots of presumably gay characters here: Weed is played by a very butch Laurie Mecalf, and Damien by Mark Indelicato.

Head writer Ava wants to stay behind during Deb's upcoming gig on a gay cruise, because she's afraid of water, and can't swim.   "You're going. Wear a life jacket."

And forget all the sensitive nonsense: Deb's going to do her old stuff, the classics.  "The gays get me." 

Scene 2: Swishy guys in a club bathroom gossipping and snorting cocaine. Marcus  (Carl Clemons-Hopkins, below) puts on a business suit: it's 7:00 am, and he has a breakfast meeting across town.  I remember staying at a sex club all night.  They put out a breakfast buffet at 6:00 am.  They ask him to stick around for his mental health.  He refuses, but he lets them score some of his addies (Adderall, a stimulant used to treat ADHD).

Scene 3: Boarding the cruise ship, Deb wonders why there are so many ladies in line. Famous comedian Margaret Cho, the last cruise's headliner, is just leaving. She tells Deb that the audience was mediocre, but the gay sex was great.

"Wait -- I thought this was a gay cruise."

"It is.  A lesbian cruise."

Uh-oh.  Gay men love Deb, but lesbians hate her.  She doesn't understand why. Ava suggests "the hundreds of thousands of jokes at their expense that you've told over the years."

Scene 4: At the cruise ship bar, Ava is approached by a grabby, hand-kissing, way over-eager lady horndog. She's not actually freaked out.  I wonder if she is a lesbian, too? Wikipedia lists a girlfriend and a boyfriend. 

Meanwhile, Deb calls her agent, Jimmy (Paul W. Downs), to complain about booking her on a lesbian cruise.   He's busy working on a residency -- a permanent casino gig.  "How about Terrible's Casino?"  "No way -- too far from the Strip."  

There actually was a Terrible's Casino, though I can't imagine why someone would choose that name.  It closed in 2020.

Next Deb chides Ava for having fun instead of writing some lesbian jokes.  "You speak lesbian, right?  Cause you're half?"  I don't know what that means. Maybe a lesbian mother and a straight father? 

Scene 5: Back in Vegas, Marcus, the gay leather bar guy, gets home to find two middle aged ladies on his couch. One is his mother.  "What are you doing here?" he asks angrily. "I told you I needed to get work done today." They came to pet his dog and upbraid him for spending all night at the club. He yells at them for trying to control his life.  

Scene 6: Ava is trying to dump someone's ashes into the ocean, when a lady approaches to flirt and ask her to the "She-ano Bar."   Cut to Ava getting ready, telling Deb about the Olympic athlete on board. Girlfriend going to get her some lady jocks.  She invites Deb to come along as her wing-person.  Nope, but Deb is willing to fix her outfit.

As they are bonding, Ava wants to know: with all her jokes about how terrible sex with men is, has Deb ever considered being with a woman?  "Nope.  I like men.  I wish I was gay, because it would be a hell of a lot easier."  Are you crazy, lady?  Let's start with your Sunday school teacher telling you that God hates you, and work our way forward.

Ava calls her out on her straight entitlement, and Deb agrees that it might not have been easier to like girls -- back when she was a kid in the 1960s. But she got a crush on John Lennon of The Beatles and never looked back.

"But why do you like men?"  I was asked that a lot, back when coming out meant a barrage of stupid questions. You like who you like, idjit. You don't have any control over it.

Ava concedes that "your sexuality is not a choice," but Deb still should try to figure out why she is straight.  "Maybe you aren't really attracted to men, you're attracted to their power." 

Scene 7: Convinced to try it out, Deb goes to the She-ano bar and cruises some lesbians.  The next morning, everyone at the breakfast buffet is friendly, and she has embraced lesbians as a potential audience: "They love women, and I'm a fabulous woman." 

Left: Former teen heartthrob Devon Sawa, whom Deb has sex with in another episode. 

Scene 8: Marcus at the club, dancing his butt off with his swishy friends He's dressed as a BDSM bottom, but it's not a leather bar, it's an old-style gay disco. 

He runs into Wilson -- according to wikipedia, his ex-boyfriend.  The breakup has resulted in his downward spiral.  He wanted to call and say "I love you," but he's blocked all of Wilson's social media profiles and deleted his number.  Wilson is concerned about his drug use, but doesn't want to get back together.

More Deb and a lot of Devon after the break

Adam Devine's House Party, Episode 1.1: Adam shows his tree-trunk, eats fro-yo, and flirts with Andrew Santino

In 2013-2014,  while Adam Devine was starring in Workaholics and Modern Family and guesting on  Community, Arrested Development, Sanjay and Craig, and American Dad, he somehow managed to find the time for Adam Devine's House Party.  He plays an insecure, jerky, penis-obsessed version of himself, hosting a huge party in a mansion.  Each episode has a brief plot framing the sets of three up-and-coming comedians. I'm reviewing Episode 1.1, "Ex Girlfriend."

Scene 1:  Adam checks the food, booze, and comedians.  Whoops, there's some poop on the floor.  He covers it with a dollar bill. Gross! Everything is ready!  A hundred people burst in.  

Scene 2: To demonstrate how wild he is, Adam smashes a beer bottle on his head.  Uh-oh, too far.  We cut to him with his head bandaged, blood sopping down. Can they keep filming?  Director Kyle says it's fine.

Adam introduces the concept: "Comedy Central gave me a bunch of money to throw an awesome comedy show, and I blew it all on this house party."

Nope, that doesn't work.  Let's try repeating the opening amid gyrating butts --- a boy and a girl.  The boy's is obscured by the title, but that's the one he gawks at. Adam likes boy butts, and he cannot lie.

Scene 3: Andrew Santino invited Adam's ex-girlfriend to the party!  Adam gets all jealous and threatens to not let him perform. Santino claims that he didn't know, and the girl says that they just went out on one date, so who cares?  He counters: "We should have grown old and died together, but someone thought that someone was strange."

Scene 4: The first comic "won't stab you in the back by f*king your ex girlfriend: Ahmed Bharoocha. 

"Gay marriage is still illegal.  Can we get a boo for that?  Aha!  If you booed, you're gay!"  Wait -- anyone who supports gay marriage is gay, and that's a bad thing?   

He continues that it's crazy that gay marriage is still illegal. How can they allow someone who doesn't know any gay people to "vote on their happiness."  It's like going to a restaurant and ordering cake, but the guy at the next table cancels your order: "I don't like cake, so no one gets cake."

More riffs on a teenage God having kids too early, and baby crows.

Scene 5: Montage of a guy drinking, a guy kissing a girl, and so on. Ahmed and Adam discuss his head injury and the likelihood that Santino "won't get out of here alive."  

Scene 6: Adam introduces Andrew Santino, "a shit dog of a human being, but he's super funny."  

He riffs on his father's objections to him moving to California, with all the gay slurs: "you gonna roller blade and give blow jobs for cash."  "That's ridiculous.  Not everybody in California is gay."  

Then his friend asked him to go sky-diving.  The first time, you go tandem, which means that another adult male is strapped against you, his genitals against your butt.What if the parachute fails, and they both die, and his Dad comes to identify the body: a guy's dick in his ass!  He turned gay after all!

Santino lives in West Hollywood, the "gayest place in the world."  His apartment is at the intersection of Rainbow Avenue and Butthole Road.  You know, not all gay men are into anal sex.  His neighbor is a bear, but he eats penis instead of pic-a-nick baskets.  

If Santino was gay, he'd be a power bottom.  He demonstrates how he would clench to guide the action.  That's not what a power bottom is, but I'm surprised that Santino knows about the clenching. 

Scene 7: Adam asks the ex-girlfriend why she prefers Santino.  "Is his dick bigger than mine?" She doesn't know, having never seen Adam's dick.  Don't you go to movies?  Everyone's seen it.    

"Adam, you just took me out for fro-yo, and didn't pay for it.  You don't love me...you just get obsessed, and can't think of anything else."

"I do not get obsessed...wait, fro-yo?  I forgot about that."  He calls a fro-yo - frozen yogurt -- shop and orders enough for everyone.

Scene 8:  Next comedian: Barry Rothbart (top photo.  At least, he claims that's him).  He riffs on why he's so good at sex; ordering in a restaurant using hand signals: and dolphin sex.

Penises after the break. Caution: arousal.