This is Deborah Vance’s world, and we’re just living in it. “ Hacks ” showrunners Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky have spent the last few seasons establishing the visual aesthetic of Deborah (Jean Smart) — it’s big, bold and splashy; production designer Rob Tokarz, who landed an Emmy nomination for his work on the Max comedy, sought out ways to expand on that vision whenever the opportunity arose, especially when it came to new spaces.
In episode 8, Tokarz’s Emmy-nommed “Yes, And,” Deborah finds herself double-booked. She’s scheduled to appear at a Palm Springs Pride event, and she’s being given an honorary degree at UC Berkeley. She’s faced with a tough choice, but she needs to get some buzz going, and the university is the place to do it.
It’s the final push for her to get a hosting gig on a late night show, and a lot is riding on it. Several scenes take place at a fraternity party, a new space for Tokarz, but he was able to draw from personal experience, going back to his days in grad school. “I was going to paint the room that I was living in.
I was so bold about this choice, and it did not work at all,” he admits. “I saw that color choice for this room and thought it would make things look above and beyond.” He wanted the room to feel “visually sticky and messy,” he adds.
He put in an amalgamation of dressing such as a lizard tank, a weight bench, bongs and posters, with the idea being for the room to look like a mishmas.