By Hope Sloop
Published April 8, 2026, 6:00 p.m. ET
If you’re a fan of The Summer I Turned Pretty who is only tuning into Hacks Season 5 for Chris Briney, you better go back and watch from the beginning, he says.
Months after Briney — who rose to fame playing Conrad Fisher in Prime Video‘s adaptation of Jenny Han’s bestselling book series — was confirmed to be joining the cast for the fifth and final season of HBO Max‘s Emmy-winning comedy, he is letting his fans know that they have an obligation to give the series a chance, not just jump in
“Sart Season 1, Episode 1, it’s one of the most important shows out there and one of the funniest shows of all time,” Briney told DECIDER in an interview attached to his guest-starring role. “If there’s a list of comedy TV shows, you could argue it’s probably f**king top five.”
Since debuting on HBO Max in May 2021, the series has amassed more than 60 Emmy nominations and a dozen wins — including Outstanding Comedy Series in 2024 — as well as a prestigious Peabody Award for entertainment in 2022. In 2025, both Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder who play the show’s two leads also won Emmy Awards alongside each other, a first for Einbinder and a fourth for Smart while playing Deborah Vance.
According to Briney, the stellar performances are just one of the millions of reasons to give the show a watch from the start, as ther is no funnier or smarter show on television these days than the one that follows an unlikely comedy pair.
“It’s so good and the the performances speak for themselves,” the 28-year-old actor said. “It’s just so fresh and it’s so funny and there’s nothing better. So do not just tune into one episode, that’s ridiculous. That’s ridiculous, you’ll miss out on five seasons of laughs.”
In Season 5, Brines swings by the set to play Nico Hayes, a pop star who becomes romantically linked to Deborah despite their major age gap. In real life, there is an odd 46 years between Smart and Briney, which has caused some fans of the show to scratch their head and question what Deborah is up to.
For the show’s creators, Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniello, and Paul W. Downs — who spoke with Deadline alongside the cast to dissect the final season — it was also about exploring another side of Deborah that they haven’t seen nearly enough of over the course of the five-season show.
“We always want to portray Deborah as the full, dimensional character that she is and show that women don’t stop having sex and being sexy at any age,” Statsky said. “We also always thought it’d be funny and interesting that she would date this international rockstar that maybe wasn’t exactly her type and dressed a little bit more like her than other people she dated. And so that was just always a storyline that excited us.”
To that, Smart added that she was more worried about Briney than Deborah, “I did think, ‘Oh God, I hope he isn’t just cringing.’ He’s thinking, ‘Oh, I’d really like to be on that show, but oh damn, really?'” Smart told the outlet, adding that all her worries dissolved when she actually got to work with the 2024 Mean Girls star. “He made me feel very comfortable […] And we had fun.”
Briney had similar comments to share about the Designing Women star, saying he was stoked at the opportunity to work with and study a true titan of the industry.
“She’s a f**king legend, dude. She’s so sweet and she took so much time to just chat and be a warm person,” he shared with DECIDER. “She’s one for the history books.”
The first four seasons of Hacks are streaming on HBO Max. Season 5 premieres on Thursday, April 9, at 9 p.m. ET.
If you’re new to HBO Max, you can sign up for as low as $10.99/month with ads, but an ad-free subscription will cost $18.49/month.
If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the discounted Disney+ Bundles with Hulu and HBO Max. With ads, the bundle costs $19.99/month and without ads, $32.99/month.
