Review: Royal Pains Returns With "A Farewell To Barnes"

**** ROYAL PAINS  airs on the USA Network which is on Channel 5 on Columbus Insight Communications and Channel 29 for Columbus Time Warner Customers ****

The quirky USA Network’s Royal Pains, the dramatic comedy series that follows Hank Lawson (Mark Feuerstein), a young emergency room doctor who, after being wrongly blamed for an important patient's death, thanks to his brother (Paulo Costanzo) Evan’s behest, moves to the Hamptons and becomes a reluctant "doctor for hire" to the rich and famous, returned to the airwaves Wednesday evening with the episode ‘A Farewell to Barnes’, which is when the HankMed team attends a divorce party to treat the party planner, and on top of that, Hank blames Dr. Paul Van Dyke (Kyle Howard) for a prescription error that may cost Eric Kassabian his life, while meanwhile Evan tries to win over Paige’s father ‘The General’ (Bob Gunton), and Paige ends up making Evan an offer he can't refuse.

Overall, it was a nice return to form, and by return to form I mean, that it’s just nice to have the show return, period.  While Royal Pains seemed to falter a bit in the beginning of Season 3, it soon recovered it’s footing and has been on a steady ground since.  The big thing that I absolutely love and adore, and being she’s more a guest star and not a cast member is the (questionable) tv relationship between Paige (Brooke D'Orsay) and Evan.  Despite Evan being a bit goofy, people forget, including Hank, as evident during one of the arcs of the first half of Season 3, was that it was Evan who pushed Hank to go to the Hamptons, to get away from his situation and help push his decision to stay in the Hamptons.  And Evan to me, is to me, the secret heart of the show.  It’s also a tight-rope for actor Paulo Costanzo, who has to walk a fine line of being annoying or goofy, but having a sincerity to his character.  (Personally, I don’t find Evan annoying.) Between the brothers, despite how kind and polite Hank is, Evan might appear to be the brains, but under pressure, he thinks more with his heart than he does with his head, while Hank is the opposite. It’s a real beauty to watch scenes between the two actors, but it’s even moreso a joy to see scenes between Costanzo and D’Orsay, who really have fantastic chemistry, and Evan gets a chance to show his heart a bit more on his sleeve. And as a fan of that, it concerns me.

What I mean is, as a reviewer it’s easy to also see how television works, the tropes of it all.  A very common trope or thing in television is the reoccurring guest star.  Some guest stars are just that, they might be reoccurring but they are only on for a limited time, and very rarely does a relationship proceed like Evan and Paige’s have done, or if they do, Paige will leave the show due to some snafu and break Evan’s heart or vice versa.  So I sincerely hope that Royal Pains keeps D’Orsay around as a cast member.  I really enjoy the relationship playing out between the characters, and the actors are fun together.

Also nice, is to see Reshma Shetty‘s Divya Katdare get some real drama to play with.  Divya and Hank have always been a force to be reckoned with, when it comes to almost anything, but now there is a dividing point between what Divya has done, and what Hank thinks of Divya.  For someone ‘born’ with a silver spoon in her mouth, to see her be in a real world situation, when Divya posted her resignation, it felt like I was watching a small child, meaning, someone who never had to deal with this kind of situation after being 'protected' by money. It was a wonderful performance from Miss Shetty.

I know I feel like I can’t wax on about Royal Pains enough, but it truly is one of my favorite 'procedural' shows on cable television and hardly lets me down, despite on the surface being a ‘case of the week USA procedural’.  The case of the week itself felt more weak in some cases this week, but again, the focus for me isn’t the case of the week stuff, not always, it’s the relationships and storylines between the people of/in/around HankMed.  And Royal Pains never fails to deliver.

But what do YOU think, examiners?

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