Review: Californication

Assume that there be spoilers for the entire first season of Californication. Yes I watched the entire season and though I watched every single episode I honestly don’t think it is worth it so please read my rant and spoil the show for yourself if you haven’t seen it. Ready? Okay.

The number one problem with Californication is that it doesn’t use the red hot chili peppers song at any point during the first season.

The number two problem? There are a lot of number two problems.

The first season follows Hank Moody, a blocked novelist living in Los Angeles. His novel God Hates us All (so he’s what? Christopher Hitchens?) has just been adapted into a shit movie called “Crazy little thing called Love.” His ex-girlfriend Karen is engaged to not him and their 13 year old daughter is, well, 13. He is completely miserable. To cope Hank sleeps with anything that moves. One night he picks up a sassy young thing in a bookstore (she’s reading his book.) They sleep together, she punches him, he never calls her back. A couple of days later he’s at Karen’s house when her fiancé’s daughter Mia comes in. It’s the same girl. She’s 16. Oooops.

The arc of the first season follows Hank trying to stop his ex’s wedding, while being manipulated by Mia who steals his new book (the book that will save him, he thinks). Meanwhile, Hank’s agent Charlie’s marriage is on the rocks. He starts messing around with his assistant. The assistant then starts sleeping with his wife Marcy while manipulating Charlie into training her into being an agent.

Did you get that? I used the word manipulate twice in one paragraph.

So why did I watch the entire first season?

Charming is not the right word to describe David Duchovny performance. He’s too pathetic to be charming. But he’s charismatic and clever and he knows how to turn a phrase. The show would be completely unbearable with out Duchovny showing the anguish that lies just below the surface. In one scene Charlie and Hank have just been caught having a threesome by Karen and Marcy. Hank hugs Charlie and says “No wives to hold us down, isn’t life grand.” Charlie agrees but the misery on both their faces speaks otherwise.

The plots are very smartly structured meaning that in the middle of every single episode I would have a moment where I went “this show is so miserable, this is the last episode” but the very last scene would always end on an unexpected turn that left me going “oh nos! how is Hank going to get out of this one?” And thanks to the miracle of ondemand I could find out immediately and repeat the vicious cycle.

But no matter how cleverly written, no matter how witty it doesn’t change the fact that all the characters are one dimensional. Hank is the tortured writer who, no matter how awful his behavior, women will flock to, an archetype that bothers me so much because I see people I know perpetrating it. (Being emotionally mature and managing to have a healthy adult relationship will not hurt your writing, guys, in fact it might even teach you how to write women, something you boys are incapable of pulling off. Oh but who needs to write women? They’re all sluts or manipulative minxes. Ooops, I forgot.) Karen is the long suffering wife archetype who thinks she wants stability but really wants the excitement of being tortured (oops, I mean adored) by an artist. Obviously Hank knows what she wants better than Karen. The assistant and Mia are both seductresses and nothing more. The only interesting woman is Charlie’s wife Marcy but aside from being a wit to rival Hank she has very little to do except sleep with the assistant and then miss her husband. I can’t remember if she has a job or a hobby. Her character arch is limited to her sex life.

I have this theory that all the people writing for Californication wish they were Hank, a man who can write a genius novel in two weeks and who people still want to work with despite his hideous behavior. They wish that their ex-wives still loved them, that their daughters adored them best, and that 16 year old sluts would throw themselves at them (there is a scene in which Hank gives a talk at Mia’s school and afterwards throngs of sweet young things wait outside the door giggling, wanting nothing more than to accost him.) And as well as the writers fantasies becoming Hank’s reality their terror becomes Hank’s terror, when Mia blackmails him, when Charlie’s assistant supplants him couching her bad behavior in the language of feminism and sleeps with his wife to boot. That’s right guys, feminism will rob you of your books and jobs and turn your wives gay to boot. To be fair, my least favorite episode, the one which has both Mia and the assistant justifying their bad behavior as feminist victories was written by a woman. But women can be just as misogynist as men. The reason why sexism still exists in that women are incredibly willing to be complicit in their own oppression. Just as Karen is complicit in her own misery.

In the last episode Karen leaves her own wedding to run off with Hank, despite the fact that we have just spent an entire season watching Hank be an asshole to her in between declaring his undying love. Lady, you are just rewarding his bad behavior and when he makes you miserable for the entire second season I know you are going to blame Hank. But you’re the one who ran out of your own wedding. Its your own fault. Live with the consequences.

I am being a little unfair. At least once an episode some character would do something that surprised me, Mia having a touching moment with Hank’s daughter for instance or the scene in which Hank opens a letter from his dead father. This is one of the reasons why I watched the whole season, there were these flashes where there were real, complete people on screen and not witty stereotypes. People with a range of emotion beyond the miserable-horny-miserable continuum. But those flashes always ended by the next scene and I was left being frustrated at having these moments of genius taken away from me.

And that’s what pissed me off most of all. The writers are so smart, the actors so skilled. LA has never looked more like a sunny den of sin. So why does the show have to retread over boring stereotypes and wallow in misery. (I’m all for wallowing in misery in a place like Deadwood.) There is a quote from a book I never read but I really like it that goes “we accept the love we think we deserve.” What it means is that when you keep sleeping with sluts who have no respect for you, there is nothing wrong with the sluts, there is something wrong with you. Hank needs to go to therapy and do some self reflection and stop being such a goddamn martyr. But Hank belongs to that school of writers who believe that therapy will kill their writing… I admit that I am part of this group but I don’t whine about how miserable I am. So shut the fuck up Hank, I don’t care about your bullshit anymore…Until the second season come out.