Californication, Season Three
Started: 12/30/09 | Finished: 12/31/09
Well that was a whirlwind of a marathon. Thank goodness the episodes are fast and easily digestible. But if you sit around and think about it too much, you might start to realize what a disturbing portrait of a family this show really is.
Though she wasn’t featured as prominently this season, it was all about Becca for me— while she’s always essentially had to parent herself, she’s managed to have at least one parental figure around as a role model. Unfortunately, for some reason, this season Hank and Karen don’t seem to care a bit about what their daughter hears or is exposed to regarding her father’s promiscuous behavior. As a result, the two characters who I once had high hopes for as a couple show themselves to be less than competent as a unit. And we don’t get to see much of how Becca is affected until the very end.
Anyway, this is probably reading way too much into the show— for what it’s worth, the biting comedy is still there, and the acting is always excellent. And I’m obligated to mention Kathleen Turner’s foul mouth and Rick Springfield’s extended guest role as some of the funniest moments this season. Though it felt a bit caricatured, I’m impressed that this series has lasted this long. I wasn’t certain how anything could continue after the first season, but they succeeded where many other shows have failed in creating an extended story.
Ultimately, there seemed to be a lot of unfinished ideas surrounding the season that I would like to have seen pushed further. Instead, they were glossed over, and the writers took the easy road out by putting Hank in fairly predictable situations that felt a bit too broad and situation-comedy for my tastes. The show still gave me at least one laugh-out-loud moment each episode though— it’s really the dramatic elements that need a once-over.
Hopefully Season Four will see a return to the lovable jerk that Hank Moody used to be, and maybe a bit more discretion regarding his conquests. Scores of sex-positive young females in Hank’s bed were easier to swallow than this season’s featured women, whose problems can only be absolved by the magical touch of one man. They really could have done better.
