So I just finished watching the second season of Californication, and I’m considerable less pleased than I was at the end of season 1.
First, the good:
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Evan Handler continues to be funny, and “Cokey Smurf,” both the name and the character, crack me up. (Problem: These two seem to be in a different, more wacky reality than the rest of the characters. It seems like we’re not supposed to worry much about their cocaine habits and other self-destructive problems like we are with the others.)
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The Carla Gallo story arc was amusing and even believable (unlike a lot of the other story arcs.)
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The Mia storyline is interesting but it seems to be moving at a snail’s pace.
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The Becca storyline isn’t too bad for a coming-of-age with screwed up parents story. So far, at least, she’s got brains and some sense of morality and balance.
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Angus Macfadyen’s douchebag self-help guru was pretty funny.
The bad:
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Okay, I’m sick and freaking tired of gorgeous gorgeous women throwing themselves at Hank with absolutely no provocation. Hank’s a freaking novelist and ghostwriter. He’s a bottom-feeder in Hollywood. He’s not Vincent Chase from Entourage. He’s not even freaking Johnny Chase. I can believe that Hank, as good looking as he is (as a result of being played by Duchovny) can sometimes get a gorgeous woman, but it would be the result of blood, sweat, and tears on his part. For a character like Hank to be a serial philanderer, it would have to be women like the soap opera fan that Thomas Hayden Church’s character hooked up with in Sideways, and he’d still have to put some effort into it. But, come on, Surfer Girl? Even if she was a nymphette, she has much more to choose from in L.A. than Hank. The freaking surgeon’s assistant who is ready to jump Hank’s bones after his vasectomy? Come the fuck on! Ridiculous. Madchen Amick – Hank goes to ask her about her lost love and she goes for him and so does her sexually harrassed maid? Ridiculous.
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The continuous series of improbable events that Hank is subjected to. The “accidental cunnilingus”? WTF? If weird stuff like this keeps happening then Karen should be freaking used to it. A world in which Hank accidentally performs oral sex on the wrong woman is also a world in which his girlfriend isn’t too thrown off by it.
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The conceit that for all their problems, Hank and Karen do their best to be good parents to Becca. Uh, no. They let her hang out around people like the Runkles and Lew Ashby, and not even a half-assed parent would let their minor daughter get anywhere near those people.
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To a large extent I don’t get what the show’s attitude is to the unnecessarily self-destructive behavior of people like Hank, the Runkles, and Lew Ashby. Are we supposed to be amused? Are these supposed to be just regular people who are trying to be good but just fall victim to their human weaknesses? Because if that’s the case, I’m not buying it. These people are not just displaying run-of-the-mill human weaknesses that lead to their tragic downfalls. These people are either (1) suffering from serious, untreated emotional illnesses, (2) amoral assholes, or (3) complete morons.
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Natascha McElhone still can’t act her way out of a paper bag. She’s got exactly one facial expression.
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Dani California – 100 percent cartoon character. She’s not funny or interesting. And, like McElhone, Rachel Miner has exactly one facial expression.
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Speaking of Dani, how did she get that video of Charlie beating off? Another improbable event. I would think that this kind of surveillance of a private office would pose a pretty big a legal problem to UTK, although I can’t say I’m completely up on the applicable employment and privacy law here.
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Hank keeps talking about bush, but we damn well never see any. Give it up, Showtime.