“Keep it up Chuckles, and I’ll be seeing you again real soon.” – Doctor to Hank
After a pretty strong start to its fourth season, this was a seriously iffy edition of Californication.
Hank (David Duchovney) wakes up in the hospital after getting his stomach pumped. He gets cute with the doctor in the recovery room, the latter of whom gets off one of the funnier lines of the episode in replying, “Keep it up Chuckles, and I’ll be seeing you again real soon.” After that, Hank’s storyline was mainly dramatic, which doesn’t necessarily play well to the show’s strengths.
We had to spend a lot of time watching Karen (Natascha McElhone) and Becca (Madeleine Martin) deal what they believe is a legitimate suicide attempt. It’s not, however: Hank simply wanted to “get a good night’s sleep,” was depressed about his estrangement from his family and the fallout from his being arrested for statutory rape (I know, I know, you’re saying that’s comic gold right there) and simply popped a bunch of pills along with his regimen of booze. An interesting and kind of weird dynamic ends up emerging, where Becca is comforted by the fact that Hank “f—ed up” and wasn’t intentionally trying to kill himself, whereas it puts the unnaturally quick reconciliation between Hank and Karen in jeopardy because she is furious about being led to believe that he was intentionally trying to off himself. Additionally, Karen’s brief period of full-on forgiveness felt a little bit forced in of itself, given how angry she has been all season to date.
Charlie (Evan Handler) picks up the comedic heavy lifting but unfortunately doesn’t have top notch material to lug around. Producer Stu Beggs (Stephen Tobolowsky) is the power player in putting together the deal to turn F—king & Punching into a movie. Stu also has the hots for soon-to-be ex-wife Marcy (Pamela Adlon), whom Stu describes as a “sexy little minx.” This set up allows Stu to present Charlie with a gift of a “DTF” staff member of his in exchange for Charlie’s acquiescence in his pursuit of Marcy. And this all culminates, so to speak, in a scene where Charlie indeed gets to enjoy relations with the woman, though she is happy to multitask on her blackberry during the act.
The best and most hopeful moment comes when we see Hank in the closing moments. He’s smoking a cigarette from a hotel balcony overlooking West Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. We’ve never seen a Hank this old or regretful to my recollection. Finally, he walks inside and starts banging away at the typewriter on the screenplay that he has been contracted to write. He writes the words FADE IN as the episode fades out.
More thoughts on the latest installment of Californication:
* ”Hey, I’m just glad you had the impulse to write something.” – Charlie
* Sometimes I find Californication’s mix of heightened language and crude vocabulary to clever and refreshing but when it falls flat it can be jarring. Example: Marcy talking about Charlie “throwing his thin bent yang at anything that bleeds.” To me that’s not clever or refreshing, just a little bit “ew.”
* Are youngsters in a band in 2011 seriously going to lead with a, “Check out our MySpace”? I asked this question during the scene in which Becca is hassled by a group of girls on the promenade, who then make a bizarro transition into Tough Young Chicks Band. The question was partially answered during the closing credits, when the audience is invited by Voiceover Guy to head to, you guess it, MySpace to check “Becca’s band.”
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.