Last night’s biggest shock came when this HBO show about a veteran stand-up comedian starring Jean Smart won Best Comedy over The Bear. Was it a win for genuinely funny comedy?

During the last Emmy ceremony in January, which was postponed from 2023, the show The Bear starring Jeremy Allen White was presented. won six awards in the comedy category; a result that was very controversial by TV viewers who argued that a scary show about trauma in a restaurant kitchen was more of a drama than a comedy.

Back to last night’s official broadcast Emmys Ceremony 2024and father and son hosts Eugene and Dan Levy couldn’t resist taking a dig at the issue, which remains controversial eight months later, in their opening monologue: “I know some of you may be expecting us to make a joke about whether The Bear is really a comedy… but in the true spirit of The Bear, we will not be making jokes.”

While The Bear again did very well in the comedy categories, win four prizes (Outstanding Lead Actor, Outstanding Supporting Actor, Outstanding Supporting Actress, and Outstanding Directing), it lost the big prize – Best Comedy – in what was the biggest surprise of the night. Instead, HBO’s Hacks unexpectedly won the coveted Outstanding Comedy Series, with no hint of chefs’ whites in sight.

On X, some users were happy, in part because of who it beat out. Hacks is a genuinely funny comedy that undoubtedly deserves an Emmy nomination, and leaves some viewers feeling like everything has been righted in the TV world. “I believe three hours of collective live-tweeting that The Bear is not a comedy metaphysically changed the name in the Outstanding Comedy envelope to Hacks,” one person responded on X, while another simply added: “The Emmys said The Bear is not a comedy.”

Bear controversy aside, there was a lot of goodwill going into Hacks’ win. “Hacks was next-level brilliant (and genuinely hilarious) this season. I’m glad it won tonight,” another Emmy viewerr wrote on X. “Hacks wins, there is a right for comedy after all,” another commented.

That the underdog emerged victorious – and triumphed over other beloved comedies like Curb Your Enthusiasm, Abbot Elementary and Only Murders In The Building – was fitting for the show’s premise. Created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W Downs and Jen Statsky, the series centers on the bringing together of an oddball couple, a struggling duo who bridge – or struggle to bridge – the generation gap in Hollywood.

Jean Smart plays Deborah Vance, an aging stand-up comedian (with a heavily perfumed Joan Rivers look) who finds herself in the backwoods of her career due to the ageism industry. Her agent sets her up with Ava Daniels, played by Hannah Einbinder, a young, aspiring writer who gets fired from her steady TV job for tweeting something obscene, and who’s sent to Las Vegas to help Deborah revive her career and make her relevant to a modern audience again.

These are two women who have been cast aside by their industry and they’re angry about it – that’s what makes this such a great comedy. Neither of them are likable. Deborah is unquestionably an abusive boss, both verbally and physically, throwing giant crystals at Ava’s head in just one of her violent confrontations. Meanwhile, Ava is grossly arrogant, whining about how hard her life is while simultaneously treating everyone around her terribly, trampling on anyone she thinks will help her get ahead.

That these characters initially seem awful but are at heart multifaceted people, navigating, however wrongly, the curveballs life throws at them, is another key factor in Hacks’ success. Over the course of the three series, we see the two women develop a twisted, codependent relationship with each other, akin to a mother-daughter relationship, sometimes maternal and nurturing, and sometimes—mostly—bitchy and sniping. The season three finale, without giving too much away, sees an abused Ava finally snap and twist the knife into Deborah; she’s learned from the best.

Putting the show’s Hollywood setting aside for a moment, the other thing the show does so well is explore the generation gap in a way that will ring true for anyone who fits into the character’s demographic. Deborah, the Boomer, is a foul-mouthed bully who can’t understand why the kids are so offended by her old comedy routines. In season three, she’s called out for this when a video of her making racist and ableist jokes goes viral, and she’s “cancelled” by students at Berkeley University to receive an honorary doctorate.

Jean Smart is a tour de force in this role, with the kind of super-savvy comedy timing that makes her such a diva status icon, even off-screen. Hilariously, in her acceptance speech last night for Best Actress in a Comedy Lead – the third time she’s won – she mocked HBO and the platform’s name changes, saying: “…everyone at HBO. At…Max – sorry. Just what we needed, another network.” And it’s vanishingly rare to see such a prestigious show led by a woman in her 70s. “About 20% of our population is over 60,” Hacks co-creator Paul W Downs pointedly said said in his Emmy speech“and there are only three percent of those characters on television.”

Next to her, Einbinder’s Ava, who generationally straddles the millennial-Gen Z divide, is equally fired up about tutoring Deborah in modern etiquette and frustrated that she doesn’t fit in with the younger Gen-Z crowd—or even others her own age, like Meg Stalter’s dimwitted fake babysitter, Kayla. While there are laughable lines throughout the series, it’s Kayla who gets many of the real zingers, particularly when working with co-creator Paul W Downs, who also plays beleaguered cop Jimmy.

The humor is irreverent, subversive and self-deprecating, and approaches the “culture wars” debate intelligently. “We really think that (comedy) can bridge gaps, when you’re laughing at someone, when you have something in common with them,” another co-creator, Lucia Aniello, said in the Emmy speechBut while it is sophisticated in its themes and sharply characterized, it also often reduces viewers—myself included—to undignified snorts and cackles; and that, for many, is what makes its victory so welcome.