Californication Season 4 Episode 8

For me, this season started off with some promise and has slowly descended into this cycle of "Hank sleeping with whatever woman comes his way." What's up with that? I understand the show has always had sexual undertones that sort of swamp everything else in the show, but it's starting to get ridiculous. How can Hank be a redeemable guy if he doesn't even seem like a good father or a good person? I'm all for anti-heros and people who are bad people but fun to watch, but this season began with Hank being this man trying to fix his family situation and has quickly turned into one of those "Hank can't help himself and is screwing up his life" situations.





Let me just say that the plot between Marcy and Stu is just becoming more and more ridiuclous. I never was a fan of their hook-up in the first place, and it's getting even more complicated with Stu learning Marcy's pregnant but not telling him that it's Charlie. Seriously, all it takes is a few words to explain it, but they'll likely drag it out for awhile. And I think Charlie's plot of trying to reach triple digits in women he's slept with is pretty funny, and despite the random moments like tonight, where he sleeps with the realtor, it still provides some genuine laughs.





Meanwhile, the stuff going on with Hank is just so confusing. One second, I like what Tom Kapinos is doing with the show focusing on Hank trying to make his life better and bet back into the good graces of his family and the next second, he has Hank sleep with multiple women, some of whom I enjoy (Carla Cugino) and some of which are painfully annoying (Sasha Bingham is just painfully annoying). This episode had Hank adding yet another woman to the list: Sasha's mom. I thought her mother fell somewhere in between, mostly because, in Hank's words, it found him being with someone more in his age group and showed he might be growing up. But for every step that Hank takes forward, he takes at least three back.





I'm not sure I like this season nearly as much as I liked the other seasons now that we're more than halfway through. It doesn't feel as if anything has happened, and whereas last year had great episodes like "The Apartment" and "Mia Culpa," this season is lacking those big stand out episodes.

Hank gets hired to rewrite touch up work on dialogue for Sacha's newest movie, a zombie flick sequel, and merely uses him as a sex toy. Hank then meets a woman in a bar who he sleeps with but it turns out to be Sacha's mother (which was way too obvious writers btw). Marcy goes to an abortion clinic but can't go through with the procedure and tries to tell Stu about it but he takes it the wrong way. Charlie, after being caught in the act of self service takes up number 22 on his list of 100 by having sex with the real estate agent who's selling his house and she is pretty dang weird in a bad way. Decent episode Californication, but a little too much woe is me Hank stuff this week I'd like to see him make an effort to change some of the things wrong in his life rather than just inactively sitting around pining for his former life.