Hacks continues to outdo itself with every passing year, and Season 4 was no exception as the HBO Max comedy delivered plenty of laughs amid the tug-of-war between Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and her head writer, Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder).
But there is one scene that has continued to pop up all over social media and is undoubtedly one of the season’s funniest, and it involves neither Smart nor Einbinder. Instead, the moment from Episode 9 puts Deborah and Ava’s managers, Jimmy (Paul W. Downs) and Kayla (Megan Stalter), front and center as they try to sober up their new client, Dance Mom (recurring guest star Julianne Nicholson).
With only minutes standing before the drunken performer’s appearance on Deborah’s late-night show, Jimmy and Kayla frantically try to solve her problem and decide that cocaine is the answer.
“Hurry, more, we don’t know her tolerance right now. C’mon, big lines, big fat lines, gator tails!” Kayla shrieks to Jimmy, measuring out what she’s intending him to lay out with her hands.
“What is a gator tail?” Jimmy asks with concern in his voice.
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“Go to one party,” his business partner exclaims.
“Yeah, that was Jen,” series co-creator and co-showrunner Lucia Aniello tells TV Insider, crediting fellow co-creator and co-showrunner Jen Statsky with the “gator tail” bit. Downs, who is also a co-creator and co-showrunner, nods silently in agreement with Aniello over Zoom.
Dance Mom, who Jimmy and Kayla believed was a suburban mom who liked to dance on TikTok, turned out to actually be a childless performer with a penchant for almost every vice. As the scene in the dressing room continues to unfold and Jimmy and Kayla are unsuccessful at getting Dance Mom to inhale the cocaine, she says, “You need to boof it to me.”
When Jimmy looks for clarification, Kayla informs him that involves administering the cocaine through Dance Mom’s butt. “I am not gonna boof it!” Jimmy says in disgust. It’s the way Dance Mom responds that has an interesting origin story.
“There’s a moment where she says, ‘No, only Jimmy,’” Aniello explains. “And that’s actually ripped from Paul and mine’s son, who always says, ‘No, only Dada.’ We wanted her to say it in a childlike way. And so we actually told her exactly how he says it, and she said it like that,” she adds of Nicholson’s performance. “So to me, that one always has some layers to it there.”
“Nobody’s boofing anybody!” Jimmy declares. And in the end, Dance Mom snorts the drug before a direct cut to her dancing on the stage. “I had a lot of fun,” Downs shares about shooting the scene. “I discovered a lot on the day.”
Meanwhile, Statsky’s favorite part of the scene was the cut from the dressing room to the stage. “The closeup on when she does the coke and then the closeup on her dancing with Ethan Somers, Requiem for a Dream style, the way that she has shot was so funny to me,” Statsky shares.
What do you think of the surprising inspiration behind Dance Mom’s line delivery and this memorable Season 4 scene? Let us know in the comments section and stay tuned for any Season 5 details as the next chapter of the Emmy-winning comedy takes shape.
Hacks, Seasons 1-4, Streaming now, HBO Max