She feels confused about whether her attraction to men is “real” or just a factor of the premium male attention holds in society. But Ava reflects in real time, articulating her anxieties about her bisexuality. This scene could so easily be a cheesy game of millennial versus boomer, where Ava lectures Deborah on the nuance and fluidity of sexuality (they do this bit, but briefly, when Ava asks Deborah if she “even knows where she is on the Kinsey scale”). I love this moment because it suggests that the same baggage (Deborah’s refusal to be vulnerable, honest, and open about her desires) is holding back both her life and her comedy. Deborah insists it’s just a part of her shtick but admits she’s never really considered being with a woman before and that it wouldn’t have been easy to be queer when she was growing up. The intimate, feminine ritual emboldens Ava to ask Deborah about how she writes about sex in her sets, typically in terms of unfulfilling sex with no-good men. Although Deborah lies to Ava about Jimmy’s bad news (he’s struggling to find her a reputable new residency), the pair are on better terms than they’ve been all season. Deborah paints Ava’s nails Ava coaches Deborah as she takes a FaceTime from her crush Marty (she wilts after it turns out to be a butt-dial).
They share a fun sleepover-y scene getting ready to go out.
This season, she’s single, horny, and has completely forgotten how to interact with queer women and people her own age. Ava was hung up on her ex-girlfriend Ruby in season one, but they ended the season on good terms as friends. She immediately gets complimented on her Chacos and hit on by a mulleted woman named Linda who compliments her “strawberry mane.” Ava reconsiders her sobriety out of necessity after clocking a couple Linda tells her are the “lavender travel” circuit’s “It” couple. In Vegas, Ava was the fish out of water Deborah was the queen of the desert. (At their first meeting, Deborah asked Ava if she was a lesbian because she was “dressed like Rachel Maddow’s mechanic.”) Lesbians aren’t my crowd,” she complains to Ava, who suggests it might relate to Deborah’s “hundreds of thousands of jokes made at their expense” over the years. Gay as in lesbian, Margaret Cho informs Deborah with a smirk (in a sadly brief cameo) as she disembarks after entertaining the shipful of queer women.Īfter bombing all over the Southwest, Deborah was eager to perform for a boatful of adoring gay men, as she calls them: “her people.” Deborah’s horrified. In episode four, Hacks gives Deborah a beautiful test that she fails spectacularly: a weekend aboard a lesbian cruise.ĭeborah and Ava end up here because Marcus dropped the ball (more on this later) and forgot that lesbians exist while booking Deborah on a “gay cruise” - a clever jab at lesbians’ precarious position within the cultural imagination, not to mention queer culture.