After a whirlwind nine episodes, wraps up its tomorrow night. The fan-favorite Max show stars Jean Smart as Deborah Vance, a washed-up comedian with a middling Vegas casino residency, who gets another chance at her career thanks to Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder), a young, arrogant, and lightly canceled comedy writer. This season of the odd-couple comedy—arguably the best yet—centered on Deborah’s uphill battle to host a late night talkshow, after she lost the opportunity decades earlier.
The show has always used fashion as a tool to emphasize the comedy. Wardrobe was one of the many ways wordlessly communicates the stark contrast between Deborah (whose style codes include animal print and sparkles) and Ava (whose dream shopping spree takes place in a thrift store’s men’s department). It was also always ammunition.
“I was just wondering why you were dressed like Rachel Maddow’s mechanic,” Deborah tells Ava in the second episode of season one. This season, however, the fashion was far more inextricable from the plot. After our protagonists part ways at the end of season two, it’s a dress that helps bring them back together (and the famous Tom Cruise coconut cake, but that’s neither here nor there).
When Ava spots a yellow couture dress that Deborah is set to wear to accept an award the following night, she is the only person to tell her that it is “literally the most hideous dress I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” In turn, Deborah tells Ava that she h.