Californication – Hiya Cappie!

There was lots of big news on last night’s season five premiere of Californication. First of all the mere fact that the show is back is newsworthy … it’s easily one of the best series on television, with one of the best leading men (David Duchovny is phenomenal as Hank Moody) around. It’s criminal how underrated and overlooked both Duchovny and the show are.

But that’s old news. What’s new? Let’s see … Karen is married (to someone other than Ben or Hank?), Marcy’s a mother, Charlie’s slept with one hundred women … and Scott Michael Foster, AKA Greek’s Cappie, is back on TV as Becca’s boyfriend, Tyler. I’m wildly anti-Becca, but if seeing more of her means seeing more of Foster, I’ll gladly embrace her. You know how usually you miss a show more than any specific character from it? With Greek I feel the total opposite, and not with anymore more than with Foster’s Cappie. Cappie was the best, and Foster made him so. So glad to have you back on my television set!

And let’s go back for a minute to the whole “Karen is married” thing. So, last we knew she’d gone on a road trip with Ben and Becca. Now, three years later, she’s married to Richard Bates (Jason Beghe), the recovering alcoholic novelist Hank encouraged to drink at a party two seasons ago, leading Bates to jump out of a window naked and Hank to take over teaching his writing class? That Richard Bates, who Karen met once toward the end of season three at a ridiculously hilarious garden party? Huh? What happened to Ben? Contract problems with Michael Ealy? But Bates is a hilarious character, and I much prefer Hank’s relationship with him to his past relationships with Ben or even Bill. Still, talk about random.

Meanwhile, Charlie and Marcy are parents? Insane! I had a hard time deciphering just how dysfunctional the situation might be. Are Marcy, Charlie, and Stu Baggs (Stephen Tobolowsky) all living together with Little Runks (Stuart)? Does Stuart regularly get that much exposure to Stu buck naked? And are kids really safe being around Hank?

Where he should be is with Kali (Meagan Good). Their scenes together on the plane were great (and I was not disappointed with the David Anthony Higgins sighting); I love watching Hank pick up someone new. No offense to him, but if I were Kali I’d take Hank over Samurai Apocalypse (RZA) any day of the week, and not just because his name is Samurai Apocalypse, or because I could barely understand a word that he said. Rather, she seemed to enjoy herself more with Hank. Just an observation.

What was up with that whole three year jump? I guess I understand that it enabled the story to move past the Runkles dealing with an infant, and got Karen married, but what had Hank been doing all that time? He’d been with Carrie (Natalie Zea) for a year — was it just me, or did she look remarkably like the actress who played Karen in last season’s movie plot? — and I guess he’d written a book (about???), but I feel a little cheated not having been able to experience three years of Hank Moody’s life!

I guess we’ll just have to appreciate what we do get. And boy do I ever. Can’t wait for next week!

Clacked by Aryeh S.
on Jan 09, 2012 @ 14:00 EST5EDT