Hello my dudes. We are going to take a rabbit hole deep dive into the Emmy-winning series Hacks now available on the-streaming-service-formerly-known-as-MAX. Specifically season 4 episode 8: “Witch of the Week”
Starting at timecode 15:28 we cut to the interior of Jimmy’s office of Schaefer & LuSaque and/or LuSaque & Schaefer. Jimmy (played by Paul W. Downs, who is also one of the showrunners for Hacks), is sitting in his office tending to a mysterious knee injury.
Then, Clive, one of Jimmy’s newest clients introduced in season 3 (played by Matt Bush, who has not been nominated for an Emmy), walks into Jimmy’s office.
While they exchange greetings, Jimmy blurts out…
JIMMY: “And excuse the smell. I think it’s the building or something.”
This is literally the very first time any character on the Emmy-winning series Hacks has ever made any mention about the building having any smell of any kind let alone a stench so offensive that Jimmy felt compelled to apologize for its funk upon greeting his client. Why is Jimmy bringing up this mysterious stinky building B.O. now? What is the purpose of mentioning an alleged apology worthy rotten odor? We soon find out what that purpose is.
Back to Jimmy’s office.
Jimmy apologizes for the stink and frames the building as the culprit of the rotten odor. Then Clive delivers the pre-meditated punchline…
CLIVE: “Is that what that is? I thought you were eating kimchi in here or something.”
That’s what all that razzle dazzle about the stinky building B.O. was about?! To deliver a racist punchline about kimchi, to denigrate the National Food of Korea?!
Why did the Emmy-winning cast and crew of the series Hacks deliberately concoct a mysterious smell and a convoluted injury, just to setup a racist punchline about Koreans? Or did Matt Bush improvise this racist line on his own? If so, what does it say about Matt Bush that when asked to improvise, the first thing he reflexively goes to is a racist slur against Koreans? Either way, who among the cast and crew of Hacks is ultimately guilty of making sure this anti-Korean slur made it into the final cut?
Was the-streaming-service-formerly-known-as-MAX complicit in the funding, creation and distribution of said racist culinary propaganda?
And why did the Emmy voting members give multiple nominations and awards to a show that creates gratuitous racist anti-Korean content?
Most importantly, what is the actual source of that apology worthy stench?
This is the ongoing case of how gratuitous racist anti-Korean culinary propaganda made it onto the Emmy-winning series Hacks.
Welcome to Only Hacks in the Building: A True Hate Crime Mystery.
Just a tiny little trigger warning before we begin. This episode may or may not contain triggering content involving harassment in the workplace, humans encountering animal feces, anti-Korean propaganda, and the Emmy-winning series Hacks. May not be suitable for all audiences.
Let us go back to the scene of the culinary hate-crime: Jimmy and Clive exchange greetings, and Jimmy says “Excuse the smell, I think it’s the building or something.”
The building to which Jimmy is referring, the building which serves as the home of Schaefer & LuSaque and/or LuSaque & Schaefer appears to be the iconic real-life building known as the American Cement Building.
Located on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angles California, the American Cement Building was designed by the architect firm Daniel, Mann, Johnson and Mendenhall (DMJM pronounced Dim-Jim), and completed sometime in either 1961 or 1964 depending on the sources. The American Cement Building is an iconic example of mid-century modern and Brutalist architecture, utilizing concrete to create a striking visual impact, and it has appeared in over a dozen Hollywood TV shows and movies.
The American Cement Building’s first appearance on Hacks is at the end season 3, episode 9, then makes its first appearance on season 4, episode 2, and is featured prominently in nearly a dozen episodes throughout season 4 as the office of Schaefer & LuSaque and/or LuSaque & Schaefer. And yet, even with all the beautiful footage of the American Cement Building throughout the season, and even though the building has appeared in nearly a dozen other TV shows and movies, there is nearly no publicity connecting the American Cement Building to the series Hacks. Even though there has been tons of publicity, okay, maybe like an article, surrounding the other locations that appear throughout season 4 of Hacks, from the luxurious rental home for Dance Mom (played by Emmy-winning Julianne Nicholson) to the iconic Stanley House as the home of Winnie Lindelle (played by Emmy-winning Helen Hunt) and even the mall apartment located at The Americana at Brand which becomes the latest home for Ava (played by Hannah Einbinder). Yet, there are almost no press releases of any kind from either the owners of the American Cement Building nor from the folks at Hacks about the building being featured on the series.
Taking into consideration the building’s rich history, all the TV shows and movies filmed there, how much publicity went into the other locations featured this season, one would think there would be more mentions of the American Cement Building being connected to an Emmy-winning series like Hacks. Why are there no mentions? Is it perhaps because Jimmy threw shade at the American Cement Building and implied the building has a mysterious odor so offensive that it requires an apology? Is that the reason for the media silence? Or is it Hollywood business as usual to throw shade at the owner of building you are renting as a set for production?
The completely random line about the stinky building B.O. literally came out of nowhere. There isn’t a single episode in which any character makes any mention of the building having any stinky odor. Well, except for maybe one episode, which also happens to be the same episode in which the American Cement Building first appears on season 4 of Hacks, episode number two, “Cover Girls” also known as “The Number Two” Episode.”
The newly minted office of Schaefer & LuSaque and/or LuSaque & Schaefer now located inside the American Cement Building appears three times in episode number two. When it first appears, the office is literally littered with dogs and toddlers because Kayla (played by Megan Stalter, who has not been nominated for an Emmy) decided to represent animals and children, and brand herself as the Queen of Petite. When the American Cement Building makes its second appearance, Jimmy meets Randi (played by Emmy-nominated Robby Hoffman) for the first time, Kayla’s new assistant. Per textbook comedic rule of three, the third appearance of the office of Schaefer & LuSaque and/or LuSaque & Schaefer is used as a cartoonish punchline for the setup from the office’s first appearance in the same episode.
In this third act, Jimmy walks into the office of Schaefer & LuSaque and/or LuSaque & Schaefer with a stack of what appears to be hundreds of pages of printed résumés. Jimmy looks back and to the left towards Randi who is answering the phone. This scene hurt my brain. It’s 2025. Who prints out hundreds of pages of résumés anymore? Who goes to a printshop to print out hundreds of pages of résumés anymore? Why not just read them on an iPad like a normo!
Back to the opening. Jimmy walks into the office with a ridiculous stack of résumés, Jimmy looks back and to the left towards Randi who is answering the phone, and then Jimmy steps into what appears to be a pile of animal feces on the floor that he somehow magically did not see.
This makes no sense. How in the world did Jimmy not see the trail of poop in his own office when he walked through the entrance, which is made of glass, clear glass?! That is just a little too much disbelief to suspend for my liking.
Nevertheless, we open with Jimmy walking in, Jimmy looks back and to the left towards Randi, and then Jimmy steps right into number two. Jimmy then screams for Kayla as if she were a little girl that just let her puppy doo-doo in daddy’s office.
When you watch Paul W. Downs in this scene, and his alleged reaction to stepping into the poop, you kind of see why he might not have been nominated for an Emmy in the acting category this season.
There is an old saying in Hollywood. Okay maybe it’s not really an old saying and not necessarily in Hollywood, but some people say that there are three kinds of amateur comedy: sex jokes, dad jokes, and poop jokes. With that said, there are, however, enlightened ones among us that have figured out how to transcend the humble poop gag into a cinematic dissertation about the human condition itself.
For your consideration, here are my top three nominees for best performance in reacting to touching feces.
Our first nominee is Primetime Emmy-winning Maura Tierney as Caroline in the cult classic “Baby Mama”
The scene when Caroline sees that her son has dirty hands, and Caroline asks her son, “Is this chocolate, or is this poop? Is this chocolate, or is this poop?”
LIQUID COMEDY GOLD! That scene is so believable I thought that was Maura Tierney’s actual son and that happened spontaneously on set while cameras were left rolling, and they just decided to keep the scene in. Maura Tierney perfectly captured motherhood, amazing performance.
Our next nominee is the multi-award-winning Mila Kunis as Lori in the buddy biopic “Ted”
When Lori comes home and finds feces on the floor, the reaction from Mila Kunis is so gut wrenching real you almost think that scene was filmed in her actual home, and Primetime Emmy-winning Seth MacFarlane literally left actual feces on the floor to get a real reaction out of her. Mila Kunis is genius in this scene.
Our final, and, in our opinion, the most deserving nominee in the category of best performance in reacting to touching feces is the multi-award-winning EGOT legend Steve Martin as Navin in the comedy masterpiece “The Jerk”
The scene where Navin’s father (played by the late Richard Ward) is trying to teach Navin the valuable life lesson of knowing the difference between shoe polish from manure is Shakespearian. Let’s just say that compared to the way Paul W. Downs reacts to stepping into animal feces just does not seem believable compared to the multi-award-winning and legendary performance of Steve Martin.
With that said, going back to the scene where Jimmy steps into animal poop, what’s particularly perplexing is that while Jimmy is standing in animal poop Randi decides it’s the perfect opportunity to pull out an iPad to show-and-tell the new company website Randi built in 15 minutes and pitches the idea of hiring Randi to be both Kayla’s and Jimmy’s assistant.
And my whole question the whole time is you had the time and the proactiveness to build a whole website in 15 minutes but you did not have time to pick up the trail of poop in front of your desk?! What part of that makes Randi a good hire? How is it possible that Randi and Kayla did not see the literal trail of poop at the entrance that is definitely within line of sight from both of their desks?!
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not sure the American Cement Building appreciates being branded as a facility that is littered with and stinks of animal feces. Again, could this be yet another reason why there are no press releases connecting the American Cement Building to Hacks? Why all the mystery?
And why this generic term animal feces? It’s obviously not horse manure. And I think we can all agree that a cat did not leave it there. Think we can all agree it’s not cat turd. It is obviously dog poop. Why can’t they just say it was dog poop when it’s obviously dog poop? There were literally like five dogs in the office at the beginning of this episode, and Kayla is literally bragging about signing a client for a Lassie reboot pilot. Why won’t they say it’s dog poop. Could they possibly be afraid to offend Emmy voting members that are also dog owners or something? Could that be it?
It’s Lassie’s poop. There, I said it. It had to be said. I have no proof, but it had to be said. Lassie is the culprit. Jimmy stepped in Lassie’s poop that both Randi and Kayla magically did not see.
One other thing that confounds me is at the end of this scene where we see Randi scraping off Lassie’s poop from Jimmy’s shoe into what appears to be an unlined $500 mid-century Scandinavian wooden trashcan. Again, how is Randi a good hire? There is no way the stench of dog poop is ever coming out of that.
As side note, even though both Kayla and Jimmy have their own offices, the walls of the offices do not go up all the way to the ceiling; there’s a gap. We know this because in one of the episodes we see Kayla sending a paper airplane over the wall dividing her room, I mean her office, from Jimmy’s office. Which means the stench of Lassie’s poop would permeate throughout the entire office, including Jimmy’s office.
And when we see Randi scraping off Lassie’s doo-doo from Jimmy’s shoe, THAT is when we see Randi reacting to the stench of fresh canine poo. And THAT is the first and only time there is any kind of onscreen hint of an apology worthy odor coming from the building. That is until episode 8.
So back to episode 8, when Jimmy says to Clive “Excuse the smell. I think it’s the building, or something,” it seemed like Jimmy might be referencing the dog poop scene in episode 2. To which Clive could have organically said, “Is that what that is? I thought maybe someone’s dog took a dump in here or something.”
But, alas, this is not the route the cast and crew of Hacks chose. Instead, they took the punchline into a racist anti-Korean direction and decided to equate the National food of Korea with dog poop.
Having followed Hacks all these seasons, it was quite unexpected for such a gratuitous racist slur to make it into this scene.
Given that Jimmy often, and continues to, chastise and neg Kayla for her multiple offensive acts on multiple episodes over multiple seasons, why is it that when his client makes a racist remark that Jimmy stays silent? Is it because Clive is a dude, like a bros-before-woke kind of thing? Or is Jimmy silent because Clive is his client? Does this mean Jimmy likes working with racist clients? Does that mean Jimmy is a racist as well? That does not seem congruent with Jimmy’s character.
Not only does Jimmy’s silence seem incongruent for his characters, all of season 4 of Hacks feels off, poorly executed, filled with continuity and congruency issues.
Take for example how the scene in Jimmy’s office ends when Clive leaves. Jimmy’s doctor walks in, and Randi makes a remark that Jimmy has rabies, and Jimmy tells the doctor that his infected knee is starting to smell. WAIT?! WHAT?! Randi stated in this very same episode that she does not joke about puncture wounds. Does that mean Jimmy does have rabies, or does not have rabies?! If so, why would Jimmy be in the office meeting clients when he has something as contagious as rabies?! If not, would that contradict the line about Randi not joking about puncture wounds?! Which is it?
To add to the incongruencies, in episode one of this season, Jimmy reveals that he contracted ringworm, and says he’s treating it with anti-biotics. Here’s the thing, anti-biotics is not used to treat ringworm; the treatment for ringworm is a topical cream… and it’s odorless, as in, no smell.
So is it ringworm, or is it rabies? Is it ringworm, or is it rabies?
All that razzle dazzle and all those incongruent red herrings for what?! To clumsily eke out a racist punchline about Korean food?
Many cast and crew members of Hacks were complicit in creating this racist culinary propaganda against Korean food.
There are literally an infinite number of better punchlines than the kimchi line, okay, maybe not literally an infinite, but definitely a limitless number of lines that would have landed much better with way better payoff than the convoluted racist punchline they came up with. If you cannot come up with a better punchline about an offensive odor without denigrating Koreans then you do not deserve to call yourself a writer?
This is not about freedom of speech, or about personal comedic taste. You have the freedom of speech and you told a bad racist joke. Both are true at the same time. Either you told a bad joke or you didn’t. Either your joke is racist or it is not. You know how you can tell the difference between a bad joke and a racist joke?… Me neither.
Whether the anti-Korean slur was written or improvised, regardless of who wrote the racist punchline or delivered the racist punchline, are the showrunners for Hacks ultimately have the final say on the final draft, final take and final cut?
DISCLAIMER: The following quote have been shortened for time.
As Paul W. Downs confessed on IndieWire.com’s Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast, “We really want the performance to be just right, especially when it comes to comedic moments. If there’s five takes, we’ll watch all five takes in the sequence of the other actors to see what alchemy is correct.”
In that same interview, fellow Hacks showrunner Lucia Aniello admitted, “We do like to watch pretty much every take of everything. That is always going to be the thing we like to do. We really know what we want. For us, it’s really just about, ‘Is that the best performance? Is that the best take?’”
So are they confessing that they knew they wanted in that scene, and that the kind of alchemy they wanted in that scene was a racist anti-Korean slur about kimchi?!
Full disclosure, it may or may not be important to disclose that Lucia Aniello and Paul W. Downs disclosed they are also married… to each other. I’m not saying they are a racist couple that hates Koreans, at the same time, I have no proof they’re a racist couple that like Koreans either.
At the end of the day, regardless of whether its building B.O. or Lassie’s poop or infected human flesh, equating any apology worthy stench with kimchi is racist.
Ironically, the episode in which the culinary hate-crime happens is about bias and media representation. So let’s talk about representation in Hollywood.
The word kimchi rarely appears in scripted Hollywood TV shows or Hollywood movies, and those specific Hollywood teleplays and screenplays are rarely written by Koreans. Whenever the word kimchi is spoken it is almost always spoken by a non-Korean actors and kimchi is always framed as being too spicy for consumption, accused of causing indigestion or IBS, or they will say that kimchi smells rotten, as in not suitable for consumption. To say one does not like the pungent smell of kimchi is a matter of personal preference. To say kimchi stinks is racist propaganda to present Korean food as inedible.
On a side note, it is series like Hacks that makes me less sympathetic to the Writers Guild strikes and the Actors Guild strikes. When Asian actors were being pushed out of their contracts or having their shows cancelled for complaining about unfair wages, where was the Actors Guild to represent the rights of those Asian actors? Why would I support organizations that appears to require actors and writers to make racist slurs against Koreans as part of their hazing ritual?
Why the Emmy-winning cast and crew of Hacks chose to create such racist anti-Korean culinary propaganda is a mystery. Had the cast and crew of Hacks done a little research they would know that millions of people eat kimchi every day globally. Kimchi is a rich source of natural probiotics with a multitude of nutritional and health benefits. How do you expect non-Koreans to try Korean food when you perpetually present kimchi as having a stench so offensive that one must apologize for eating it at school, or at the office, or in public?
The smell of kimchi is nothing to apologize for, and nothing to be ashamed of. For Koreans, kimchi smells like home. Kimchi reminds Koreans of family, sharing, and togetherness. Are you saying every Korean home smells like feces? Where does all that fit into your so-called thesis about bias and media representation?
On a sad but not sad note. I was a yuge fan of Hacks. Until I was not. I literally went into a dissociative shock when I read those racist anti-Korean lines in the subtitles while watching that episode. On the outside, I was calm and stoic, but on the inside, I was full gorilla mode. I didn’t hear a single word in that episode after that offensive kimchi punchline. I couldn’t watch the remaining episodes of Hacks for quite some time. And when I finally did calm myself enough to rewatch that episode and finish the rest of season 4, I couldn’t laugh at a single alleged joke. Every sequence just seemed like a familiar cookie cutter trope copied from other series. For me, season 4 of Hacks is just more White Body Supremacy as usual where all the cast members of color are subservient or silent.
Perhaps the cast and crew of the Emmy-winning series Hacks thought they could get away with this racist anti-Korean slur because they assumed no Koreans watched the show. They were obviously wrong. Just because you do not hear any Koreans complaining does not mean Koreans are not complaining. How can you expect any Korean cast and crew members of Hacks to feel safe enough to complain about racist punchlines considering Hollywood’s habit of firing Asians whenever they complain? Ever consider that your Korean co-workers might be afraid you’ll get them deported by ICE just for bringing kimchi to work for lunch? Just saying.
I have no proof that the cast and crew of Hacks hate Korean food. But I do know they present Kosher as clean, branzino as luxurious, lobster rolls as a treat, yet present kimchi as being equivalent to dog poop.
I do not know for sure whether the streaming-service-formerly-known-as-MAX prefers anti-Korean content, but I do know there is almost no K-drama content on the streaming-service-formerly-known-as-MAX
I cannot say for certain whether the non-Korean chefs on Food Network respect Korean food, but I do know and can say that almost every non-Korean chef on the Food Network constantly mispronounces Korean ingredients.
To the persons of interest among the cast and crew of Hacks that were complicit in this anti-Korean culinary hate-crime disguised as comedy, it is not kimchi that stinks, it is your attitude towards Koreans that stinks, and you owe every halmoni an apology for equating the national food of Korea with rotten flesh, dog poop, and building B.O.
By keeping the racist kimchi slur in the final cut, Hacks made the decision to cancel my subscription to the streaming-service-formerly-known-as-MAX very easy peas’y for me. That’s right my dudes, season 4 will be my final season of watching Hacks as I will be cancelling my subscription to the streaming-service-formerly-known-as-MAX.
As for the case of how racist anti-Korean culinary propaganda made the final draft, the final take, and the final cut of episode 8 on season 4 of the Emmy-winning series Hacks remains open, unsolved and ongoing.
What do you think my dudes? Who do you think is guilty of this gratuitous racist anti-Korean culinary hate-crime? Is it okay to make fun of the building you are renting as a set for production?
And, which do you think is more obscene: printing out hundreds of pages of résumés at a printshop, or dumping Lassie’s poop into a $500 Scandinavian wooden trashcan?
Please share your comments.
Thank you for going down this rabbit hole with us.
Until next time, stay safe, eat more kimchi, and get out of the building my dudes.
This episode of Only Hacks in the Building was sponsored by whatiskimchi.com