![]() ![]() (For no reason at all, Eddie terrorizes Hank's friend and manager, Evan Handler's Charlie Runkle, by squeezing his nuts while taunting him - and Hank doesn't intervene, but just looks on in mild amusement, because hey, he's The Man, and Nero is also The Man, and Runkle is just a pasty little geek.)īut then, as always, "Californication" shifts into its secondary mode, pickled regret, and shows Hank desperately trying to salvage what's left of his relationship with his ex-wife Karen (Natasha McElhone) and teenage daughter, Becca (Madeline Martin - a superb guitarist whose skill is showcased in scenes where she plays for pocket money on the Venice Beach boardwalk). "Excuse me," he tells Hank, ducking out of an initial meeting at a hip lounge, "I see a girl that I defecated on in Palm Springs.") The episode's default mode is heavy on jerk-ish banter, TV-MA screwing, and frat-house style, stick-it-to-the-nerds hazing. (And Nero's "wild" dialogue is just dumb and revolting. He might be hilarious if he were played by a charming actor who didn't exude insecurity, defensiveness and hostility at every moment. Lowe is costumed like Brad Pitt in his Caucasian rasta-man phase, and carries himself like Tyler Durden in "Fight Club" he's a caricature of the swaggering pig-prince. Next week Rob Lowe - no stranger to bedroom misadventure - shows up playing Eddie Nero, an Oscar-winning (and hypermasculine) movie star angling to play Hank in the movie. The, um, climax of Sunday's episode found Sasha doing background research by mounting Hank, showing off her downy rump and oft-marveled-over great tits - her description, quite accurate - and then slugging him in the face repeatedly. ![]() This season's main plot builds on a relationship established in Season 1: Hank's affair with 16-year-old hottie Mia Lewis (Madeline Zima), who enjoys punching men in the face during sex, and who subsequently stole Hank's novel about their affair and published it under her own name as a memoir titled "Fucking and Punching." New characters include Hank's cutely named attorney Abby Rhoads (Carla Gugino), who's fated to end up in bed with him because, dude, she's hot, and Hank always bags the hot ones a producer (Stephen Tobolowsky) who wants to turn Mia's book into a film and have Hank write the script and luscious, busty starlet Sasha Bingham (Addison Timlin), who will play Mia. The season's opening moments found Hank - still an alcoholic/druggie/womanizing/lying sleazebag - being released from jail after assaulting a filmmaker. I can't face it - and not just because Sunday's kickoff, which built on the relationship established in the series pilot, convinced me that I didn't miss much while I was away. (Duchovny's carnal misadventures were rudely funny, and he got his ass kicked quite a bit, which always put a smile on my face, but let's face it: Brian Benben is the Buster Keaton of screwing, and even at his wildest, Duchovny can't measure up.) I didn't watch the second or third seasons when I sat down to watch the first few episodes of Season 4 last week, the completist in me wondered if I should catch up on the rest. Within a few episodes it became painfully clear that "Californication" was a maudlin, self-important update of HBO's "Dream On," only with faux-cinematic music video interludes, and minus the frenzied slapstick. Duchovny, an original and occasionally brilliant comic actor, had been mostly AWOL from TV following the cancellation of "The X-Files." Between his innate likability, his fondness for grubby '70s films, and persistent off-screen rumors that he was real-life sex addict ( he denied it to Playgirl in 1997, but checked into rehab in 2008) I thought there was at least a chance that he and series creator Tom Kapinos would produce a comedy worth watching - maybe one worth thinking about. When I wrote about this show's premiere back in 2007, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. ![]() I'll dispense with "Californication" quickly because writing about it at length would make me sick. ![]()
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