Californication – Punch beats stun gun?

I am, and always have been, a huge fan of Californication. It’s rare that I find myself not enjoying an episode of the show, so I was really disappointed heading into the halfway mark of last night’s episode, because I was resigning myself to writing off “Monkey Business” as a rare bad one.

Becca, in her predictable stupidity, called the girls — led by Pearl (Zoe Kravitz) — who robbed her last week, and she seems to have been accepted into their band. I know it isn’t fair to judge them simply because their choice of music isn’t my cup of tea … but still. Either way, Becca’s is not a tale I’m interested in.

Then there was Marcy, pregnant with who knows whose baby. I did enjoy her recounting her various recent sexual partners and the reasons why they couldn’t be the father — I’m betting it’s Charlie and praying it’s not Hank — but I’m not a fan of hers, so focusing on Marcy is a fast way to lose me.

I wasn’t even so into Hank this week, but that’s more because I couldn’t stand the sound of Ziggy’s (Fisher Stevens) voice. Not the actor, but everything the character had to say. He seemed more like he belonged on Entourage, where characters like that have a shade of the comical, instead of the dark like on Californication.

But then Ziggy went upstairs, and everything changed. As silly as it was, I found Charlie’s fight with the monkey — from the simian stealing his beer to Charlie killing the little guy — to be hilarious. I just wasn’t getting an over-the-top vibe from the plot; it fit too well here. In fact, I’m surprised we haven’t met anyone with a pet monkey on this show yet. And Hank and Stu (Stephen Tobolowsky) were good for some laughs as well.

Then Karen went down to Marcy’s living room … I love Michael Ealy, here as Ben, Pearl’s father. If I have to take more of the band in order to get more Ealy, I’m fine with that. Is that why his character’s been missing so much on The Good Wife this season?

Anyway, if there’s an actor trolling guest spots today that deserves a star platform it’s Michael Ealy. I’ve seen the Barbershop movies, but the first time I really got to know him was Sleeper Cell, where he was unbelievable as undercover agent Darwyn Al-Sayeed. I even continued to watch Hawthorne for a few weeks after he popped up there, and his addition to the cast of The Good Wife was a little treat that I totally didn’t need to keep on watching such a great show. And now to have him pop up here for what has to be a multiple-episode arc? That’s awesome!

I think the addition of a serious love interest for Karen could add a missing dynamic to Californication. Hank’s moping around at the beginning of the episode felt like it was missing a foundation — despite the fact that we know he has reason to mope — but if he was forced to confront the reality of Karen moving on … could Californication get any better than it already is?

I think we’re about to find out.

“On the bright side it makes the whole monkey thing a bit less of a snafu, doesn’t it?” – Hank, upon finding Ziggy dead

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jan 31, 2011 @ 15:30 EST5EDT