One of HBO Max’s best shows is back and better than ever. The highly anticipated fifth and final season of Hacks debuted this week to rave reviews and a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. Following the Season 4 finale, Jean Smart’s Deborah Vance is back at rock bottom, declared dead by the tabloids and her reputation trashed, facing claims that she “killed late night TV.” The Season 5 trailer shows Deborah reassembling her team, including Hannah Einbinder’s Ava Daniels, to claw her way back to the top. I didn’t anticipate an Amazing Race crossover to be part of that comeback, but apparently the writers had it planned all along.
The Emmy-winning HBO comedy will release new episodes Thursday nights in the 2026 TV schedule, and Hacks creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky revealed to Variety that Episode 5, titled “D’Amazing Race,” will feature a crossover with the popular CBS reality show. While this may seem like a random plotline, it’s a dream come true for Amazing Race super-fan Aniello, who says this idea was years in the making:
I’ve been wanting Deborah to go on ‘Amazing Race,’ and it was always an idea to have Deborah and Ava go. It’s something we mentioned in Season 2 when they’re watching ‘Amazing Race,’ they like talk about how they would be a good team. And we actually wrote an early draft of this where it was Deborah and Ava. But as the season went on and we were formulating things, we were looking for a really rich Deborah/ DJ story.
Downs and Aniello, the married comedy-writing couple behind Broad City, said they binged all seasons of Amazing Race during the pandemic lockdown, at the same time they were writing Hacks. The idea of comedy duo Ava and Deborah on Amazing Race, as offhandedly mentioned earlier in the show, was a little inside joke for the creators. However, Aniello desperately wanted it to be a reality, even pitching an entire Hacks/Amazing Race spinoff season, so Season 5 was their last chance.
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After a tense and emotional season of Ava and Deborah being at odds and backstabbing each other right and left, I would love to see them find their flow again on the Amazing Race. They truly are a good team, but I think I like it even better that it’s the mother/daughter duo.
First of all, DJ (Kaitlin Olson) is definitely one to sign up for a side quest like Amazing Race, always looking to make a name for herself separate from her mom’s legacy. While there’s no doubt hilarity will ensue with this dysfunctional family pairing, Aniello told Deadline this storyline also serves as a turning point for their relationship in this final chapter, with Deborah seeing “that DJ is capable for more than Deborah’s ever given her credit for.”
That’s not to say they won’t argue. It would be out of character for Vance to not snap at DJ during a stressful competition such as the Amazing Race. Aniello said they had written into the script a moment where Deborah yells at DJ, which is not allowed on the real show. To make it as realistic as possible, the writers included an Amazing Race producer character in the scene, but Statsky said they weren’t gonna cut any corners with this special episode:
We knew if we were really going to do this, it had to be ambitious. Use their people, use their clue boxes. For every episode, you prep like crazy, but this one took so much planning. We didn’t want it to look slapped together.
This isn’t just a crossover; it’s a true tribute to the Hacks creators’ favorite reality show. It meant directly collaborating and consulting with the producers of Amazing Race, host Phil Keoghan, and creator Elise Doganieri. Not only did Doganieri and Keoghan make sure the script was completely accurate to something you would see on their CBS show, but they also played themselves on camera in the Hacks episode. Hacks even flew in the Amazing Race camera crew to keep everything as authentic as possible. Imagine a normal day of doing your job and getting an acting credit for it!
Any dual Hacks and Amazing Race fans are sure to be obsessed with what has the potential to be one of the best, yet unexpected, TV crossovers ever. I can’t wait to tune in to this passion project of an episode when it’s available to stream with an HBO Max subscription on May 7.
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