Californication's Hank Moody (David Duchovny) is a writer, not an actor but his plight of late very much resembles that of Entourage’s Vincent Chase’s nonetheless. After all, he is just another creative talent out in Hollywood who everyone around him makes excuses for while he f*cks up time and again. The show focuses on his journey but he never really goes anywhere. Case in point? When we last left him, he was being hauled away in handcuffs in front of his daughter, arrested on assault charges stemming from a continuous downward spiral for the Hollywood writer.
Well, they say you have to hit rock bottom before you can attempt to suck the poison out of your life…but what happens when that poison is just you?
When we next see Hank again in season four’s premiere, “Exile on Main Street”, he is being released after a seventy-two hour hold (a time that is quite the motif this season!). His life in shambles, he can’t go home again, so he bunks with Charlie (Evan Handler), his somewhat crass but always lovable agent. Things aren’t exactly looking up for him personally, but in this town, that shouldn’t hold him down!
Hollywood proves it is more insane than in sync by not only wanting to turn the tale of Hank’s affair with a sixteen year-old into a movie but also actually vetting him for the screenwriter title. As if that wasn’t sick and twisted enough, the young starlet up for the lead role in the film, Sasha Bingham (Addison Timlin), is more interested in making life imitate the art that imitated the life than furthering her career.
If Hollywood attempts to freeze-frame moments in life through its movies and television shows, Californication seems to be stuck at one time, one arc, even four years in. Hank Moody has not grown; he has not learned; he has not evolved, even though his secret has gotten out. He is still the most flawed person on the television landscape today. And yet we celebrate him because his flaws are what make him so fascinating and so real and so utterly human. And Hollywood-- at least the Hollywood within his own world-- celebrates him, too, the way our own Hollywood has celebrated Roman Polanski. As men they may need severe help, but as talents, they may just be geniuses.
Showrunner Tom Kapinos has publicly expressed his belief that people do not change; therefore we should not really expect Hank to. In saying that, then, we feel it is important to point out that where Californication as a show does change is in the reactions of those around Hank. Whether or not any of them will actually inspire him to attempt to make strides though still remains to be seen.
With a new representative (played by Carla Gugino) and new business associates (Stephen Tobolowsky and Rob Lowe, to name a few), we are introduced to fresh points of view. However, the way in which his own family (Natascha McElhone and Madeline Martin) looks at him differently is what should truly inform not just how screwed up he is, but how screwed up he has made everyone around him.
The thing is, Hank is not your typical “bad boy with a heart of gold” character. So many around him just heap opulence at him, while a few others actually want to fix him. The problem is that Hank wants neither: he seems determined to sabotage any last little bit of health or happily ever after that he may still be entitled. In that way, he is a broken man, a man beaten down by his situation, and instead of trying to climb up out of the hole, he’d prefer burrow down deeper in it and allow it to cave in around him. At least then he’d be securely in one place.
Four seasons in, you can no longer make the argument that Hank is an underdog, so it’s extremely hard to like a character who, after all of this time, still can’t find a way to like himself.
“Exile on Main Street” ends with a poignant, if not at all shocking moment for Hank, back at the courthouse, and back in cuffs. It teases the idea that he may-- FINALLY-- have to answer for his impetuous and overall childish behavior once and for all. It should be more than enough to snap him out of his selfish funk, but since he is at the center of the show, and the hero in his own way, though, there will be much more gratuity before he must answer to his sins.
Season four of Californication appears to be much more about how Hank may not be able to keep himself from making the same mistakes over and over again and now he may not be able to keep his daughter from following in his reckless, self-sabotaging footsteps. Call it typical teenage rebellion; call it succumbing to a less-than-stellar genetic make-up; call it acting out against the allegations on her father, but Becca is in for a wild and detrimental ride. The question is whether or not Hank can at least get his sh*t together enough to give her a good, solid example of how to own up to one’s shortcomings instead of dooming one’s self with them.
Californication airs every Sunday at 9pm on Showtime, beginning next week. If you have Time Warner Cable in the Los Angeles area, you can also watch the east coast feed at 6pm. And remember, next weekend Showtime is offering a FREE preview for any and all cable subscribers. Tune in for the premiere of Californication and you will want to order the channel for the rest of the season.
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