Ariel Karlin is Moving on Up

Years ago, chatting with her friend Lucia Aniello about Aniello’s idea for a series about a comedian and the young writer she hires to brush the cobwebs from her outdated stand-up routine, Ariel Karlin said their relationship sounded like a “dark mentorship.” 

Hacks executive story editor Ariel Karlin

“I thought it was just such an interesting, juicy idea,” says Karlin, who had no inkling back then that Aniello and her eventual co-showrunners, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, would use her phrase when pitching what would become their MAX series, Hacks, to the network.

Karlin also couldn’t have predicted that, by the time the writers’ room entered season 4 of the award-winning comedy, she would have spent the last three seasons working on the show, rising from season 1 writer’s assistant in 2020 to staff writer in season 2 to executive story editor now.

“When we were looking to hire a writer’s assistant for Hacks, Ariel was at the top of our list,” says Statsky, who had heard about Karlin through Aniello.

In 2008, a Barnard College English and film studies major, Karlin met Aniello at New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where Aniello directed her in a sketch comedy show. Later, Aniello hired her for a brief assistant gig on Comedy Central’s 2016 mini-series Time Traveling Bong; then in 2019, after Karlin moved to Los Angeles, she signed on as full-time writer’s assistant for The Baby-Sitter’s Club, where Aniello was executive producer.

Hannah Einbinder and Christina Hendricks in the Hacks season 3 episode "Par for the Course," written by Ariel Karlin.

“We’ve also always had a bit of a mentor-mentee aspect to our relationship, too,” Karlin says about Aniello. “She has given me a lot of advice over the years and helped me understand how to navigate this industry.” 
 
Mentoring can only take a writer so far, though, and Statsky says Karlin impressed in the writers’ room partly due to her “encyclopedic knowledge” and “high-level understanding” of television.
 
“TV is my hobby. Watching TV episodes, I think, is the one thing that I have 10,000 hours in,” says Karlin, who as a teen was a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other WB and CW series. “One way that I approach writing sometimes is to think of what I’ve observed and liked, or not liked, in TV shows that I’ve watched. It’s just a huge way of how I see the world.”

When it came time to write the crucial season 1 finale cliffhanger, in which younger writer Ava Daniels’s drunken betrayal of her employer, Deborah Vance, comes to light, Statsky didn’t hesitate to collaborate with a lower level writer.

“It just overall makes the TV business healthier when people are learning on the job and preparing to eventually take over as showrunners themselves,” she says. “I feel like Ariel is very clued in to things that Ava would know about and care about, and is really good at writing those types of jokes.” 
 
“I’m older than Ava, because I’m a millennial, but I feel very aligned to the character,” agrees Karlin, who, like Ava, identifies as queer and bisexual. Too, she has long been fascinated by the types of generational conflicts that erupt between Deborah and Ava: “It just feels so satisfying to express a point of view, or thought, or opinion, in a funny way.” 

For season 2, Karlin co-wrote “The Captain’s Wife,” its centerpiece an intimate discussion about sexuality that takes place as Deborah gives Ava a manicure.

Ariel Karlin pickets with the stars and showrunners of Hacks, Hannah Einbinder, Jen Statsky, Lucia Ainello, Paul W. Downs, and Jean Smart at Universal Studios Gate 8.

“The showrunners came in with that idea,” remembers Karlin. “Hands are a part of queer women’s sexuality, so I think that is part of the undercurrent.”

By season 3, she earned a solo credit with “Par for the Course,” about hierarchy and politics, sexual and otherwise, in which a Republican oil heiress rejects Ava, then calls her “a liberal kink-shamer” after learning that Ava isn’t the lowly golf caddy she planned to pee on. The entire staff collaborates on jokes, says Karlin.

Thrilled about her rise in the room, Karlin outlines how an assistant’s job, which entails taking detailed notes as ideas evolve, is great preparation for writing on a series: “You have to listen, do, and think all at the same time, and be very, very attentive the whole day. But nothing could be more educational about how TV writers write an episode.”

Aspiring assistants can prep, she suggests, by taking notes while listening to podcasts. And since opportunities tend to arise by word of mouth: “Remind people in your network that you're looking for an assistant job, which can feel vulnerable and scary.” 

Hacks production halted in 2023 when star Jean Smart underwent a heart procedure. The writers’ strike followed, during which Karlin picketed, brandishing a sign that read, “TROUBLE TROUBLE TROUBLE.”

“I was off work for more than a year between Hacks, seasons 3 and 4, which was, of course, very difficult. But I really believed in the strike,” she says. “Now that I'm an executive story editor, I have better pay and protections as I continue moving up. I’m very excited and thankful. Being a working TV writer on a show that I am passionate about—and care about the writing—is my dream.”