Writer: Susan McMartin
Director: Brad Freundlich
Cast: David Duchovny (Hank Moody), Natascha McElhone (Karen Van Der Beek), Madeleine Martin (Rebecca), Madeline Zima (Mia), Evan Handler (Charlie), Damian Young (William "Bill" Cross), Pamela Adlon (Marcy), Lance Barber (Mia's Teacher), Henry Rollins (Himself), Camille Langfield (Sandy Carr), Amy Price-Francis (Meredith), Jaoquin Pastor (Dave) & Amy Okuda (Mia's Classmate)
Director: Brad Freundlich
Cast: David Duchovny (Hank Moody), Natascha McElhone (Karen Van Der Beek), Madeleine Martin (Rebecca), Madeline Zima (Mia), Evan Handler (Charlie), Damian Young (William "Bill" Cross), Pamela Adlon (Marcy), Lance Barber (Mia's Teacher), Henry Rollins (Himself), Camille Langfield (Sandy Carr), Amy Price-Francis (Meredith), Jaoquin Pastor (Dave) & Amy Okuda (Mia's Classmate)
Bill asks Hank to be a guest speaker at Mia's creative writing class, while Becca develops a crush on her guitar teacher Dave..."Hey. You know, it's not fair to say BRB and then never actually BRB."
-- Hank Moody (David Duchovny)
Californication has a pleasant indie spirit; with its Red Hot Chilli Peppers-inspired title, refusal to be a standard hour-long drama, vague 60s vibe with its opening 16mm titles and flashy shots of the Golden State throughout. It's hip, trim, naughty, and comfortable in its own skin -- much like its protagonist Hank Moody (David Duchovny).
That said, episode 5 is a noticeable lull that mainly just stirs new ingredients into the mix. There's better focus on Charlie's wife Marcy (Pamela Adlon), who isn’t the expected cold fish whose made her husband engage in saucy overtime with his secretary. No, instead she's sexually experimental and offers anal sex within seconds of her appearance – but perhaps her dominance is what's crushing Charlie's manhood?
Like every episode thus far, LOL is content to breeze through some amusing scenarios, in-between cheeky/witty banter with its characters. The main amusement this week comes from Bill (Damian Young) asking Hank to replace him as speaker at Mia's creative writing class. Hank agrees, in exchange for Bill's snazzy new coat, and proceeds to wow the giggling classroom of girls with his "rock star" good-looks and chilled-out attitude.
It's a testament to the show that someone as fortunate and lucky as Hank can still be quite engaging to watch. While Americans value and revere success, us Brits are more pessimistic and cynical. I fully expected to hate someone like Hank – with his successful career, big house, beautiful ex-wife, cute daughter and frequent sexual partners... but it hasn't quite worked out that way.
I still don't particularly feel Hank's got anything to moan about in the grand scheme of things – but his charisma and comical sexploits gloss over any jealousy. His character's success is a simple case of "men want to be him, women want to bed him."
Becca (Madeleine Martin) gets a small subplot, of sorts, as she has a crush on her guitar teacher Dave (Jaoquin Pastor), who also charms her mother (Natascha McElhone) -- confirming she's a former rock-chick -- and is later seen taking Mia (Madeline Zima) for a spin in his car. I'm not sure where this storyline will go, but it's another complexity to play with, so we'll see.
With a few new characters introduced and subplots started, one comes to a close as Hank breaks up with Meredith (Amy Price-Francis) – well, she breaks up with him – because her married former lover has finally left his wife. Hank's okay with being used like this, as it's nothing he doesn't do himself most weeks!
There's the usual zinging dialogue to savour – particularly regarding internet slang (hence the title), and Hank's views on how the web's essentially a bad influence on people, particularly for the English language. As he notes himself, he's part of his perceived problem, as his Hell-A blog is mentioned as being very popular.
Overall, LOL wasn't the most interesting episode, as the creative writing scenes didn’t lead anywhere and the guitar tutor subplot was quite short. Other than that, the only important development was between Hank/Meredith in the dying moments, but this was still a witty and humorous diversion -- even though it was just coasting along.
8 November 2007
Five, 10.10 pm
