Without giving anything away, dear readers, was the last shot of Monday (Oct. 29) night's Californication finale supposed to be a happy one or vaguely ghoulish?

[Spoilers, etc...]

Californication is perhaps the most self-absorbed TV show since Seinfeld, which will be a positive for some readers and a negative for others. It's a show that's so far up its own insular rear end and so pleased with its level of auto-fellatio that I usually spend at least half of each episode rolling my eyes.

And yet there I was watching Californication every single week, usually in its premiere Monday airings. I found myself looking forward to a show that never failed to make me feel dirty and that was almost never quite as clever as it thought it was.

Monday's season finale -- the show has already been renewed for a second season, so worry not -- had a very definite sense of finality about it. Becca (Madeleine Martin) had her first period and a halting first romantic kiss. Charlie and Marcy (series MVPs Evan Handler and Pamela Adlon) were last seen having make-up sex in a stairwell. Mia (Madeline Zima) got Hank (David Duchovny) punked in the face by outing their pilot sexual encounter, but then saved him by denying it ever happened. And Hank grew up and let Karen (Natascha McElhone) get on with her life and marry Bill (Damian Young).

We knew Hank grew up because, well, he said so. Granting Becca permission to date the floppy haired member of her band, Hank patted himself on the back by saying, "Maybe it's possible, after all this time, for your old man to grow the f*** up already," to which Becca replied, "Maybe it happens anyways, whether you like it or not."

This is one of the things that has always rubbed me most wrong about Californication. Regular series scribe Tom Kapinos is incapable of letting any nuance or thematic point pass without having some character directly articulate it. This makes sense, since these people are all so self-analytic, but it's irksome anyway. I would have figured out that the finale was about Hank growing up without him telling me.

Similarly, I would have already understood the entire freakin' theme of the season even if Becca, doing a cute slow dance with her dad, hadn't felt the desire to tell him, "You're tragically flawed, Dad. But you've got a good heart."

Is there anybody out there who wouldn't have gotten the point without the explanation? I mean, we're 12 episodes into a series that every episode goes through the exact same loop: Hank behaves badly, but feels regret, then behaves badly again. And it's all because, as he told Bill tonight, "I had a shot with [Karen] once, but I blew it."

Duh.

For having this recognition, Hank ended up getting the prize. The episode closed with the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" (a call-back to the pilot) playing on the soundtrack as Karen, still dressed in her wedding dress, came running after Hank and Becca, jumped in the back of his Porsche and told him to shut up and drive. It all resolved with a freeze-frame of Hank and his women stuck in an exaggerated rictus of nuclear domestic happiness.

But guess what, sports fans, although Hank has a good heart, it's tragically flawed. We know that either because we've watched 12 episodes, or because Becca told us. The absurd joy of that final shot isn't going to last very long or else that second season won't be very good, which makes the use of the Stones track ironic, rather than painfully literal, which is for the best, otherwise the on-the-nose writers might have had it re-recorded as "You Sometimes Get What you Want, Even If It Turns Out Not To Be What You Need."

So are we happy at the end, because Hank grew up and got what he wanted? Or are we resigned to the necessary fact that he's going to screw things up in no time?

Other thoughts on the series/finale:

The season has been a great showcase for Duchovny, who makes even the most contrived situations -- like the convenience store battle over the tampons -- seem natural and excusable. Like Mary-Louise Parker on Weeds, Californication couldn't function without Duchovny. Especially in the past couple episodes, though, McElhone has been his equal (though her American accent has always been an unnecessary stumbling point).

Has anybody else been confused by the Madeline Zima nudity double standard? In the pilot, the 21-year-old actress is impressively topless, but Hank learns she's only 16. Because Hank is such a fine, upstanding guy, the idea of having sex with her (or seeing her naked again) is untenable. After all, she's a child! Despite that fact, more than half of the season's episodes have begun with "Previously on..." montages that included the topless scene from the pilot.

Speaking of nudity, one of the season's absurd pleasures has been the random and decadent parade of exposed flesh ranging from half-the-known-universe in the pilot to Paula Marshall to the frustrating absence of nudity from the former Mrs. Culkin Rachel Miner (I guess we'll always have Bully). When the scripts weren't working, Californication sometimes felt geared mostly at satisfying Mr. Skin.

Has anybody done a better job of image readjustment than Adlon? An Emmy winner for her vocal work as Bobby Hill on King of the Hill, Adlon's Marcy has been a hilarious and raunchy treat. When Zap2it puts together its annual list of underrated performers, she'll have a spot.

What'd you think of the finale? And how fast do you think Hank will mess everything up?

Comments

I thought the finale was pretty good. Right up until the last minute when the writers decided to ruin Karen's character by having her suddenly decide to run off with Hank.

She had this long talk with her friend, during which she decides that Bill is the right man for her.

Then during the wedding ceremony when Mia objected, she once again has the opportunity to change her mind, but instead she says full of conviction that she loves Bill and she wants to marry him.

So then they're married and THAT's when she decides to pick Hank after all, and they all drive away LAUGHING.

Hank laughing I get because He Got What He Wants, but Karen & Becca are supposed to at the very least care for Bill, but there they are laughing their heads off as they leave the poor guy standing there all humiliated in front of all his friends.

Yeah, this all makes perfect sense.

I know the writers did their best to put Bill down as a douchbag and Hank as the cool guy, but IMHO it's been more the other way around.

Hunter13 | Oct 30, 2007 11:53:11 AM | #

---

LOL!!! Who exactly is up his own ass and blowing his own horn, Daniel???

Your review, such as it was, was all about you and not the show.

Some may buy that you are as smart and perceptive as you think you are, but I'm doubt it. However you are vainer than you know.

Lee Barnett | Oct 30, 2007 2:14:48 PM | #

---

Well, as grating as you find it, isn't it every Californian's sworn duty to over-explain the subtleties to everyone? Even the majority that already gets it, minus all the extraeneous articulation?

(Difference between LA and NYC treatments, perhaps? Oooh.)

So. Maybe, they're doing a better, more subtly delicious, job with the scripts that you are with your critcism?

The Goober | Oct 30, 2007 8:37:11 PM | #

---

Although that was a Rolling Stones, it wasn't them doing it. You really couldn't tell?

And all the parts you called out as unnecessary were ones that I found exceptionally touching. So....

Steve Portigal | Oct 30, 2007 11:25:18 PM | #

---

I think Hank was dreaming the last scene of the finale. The episode started out with him dreaming and I think ended that way too.

Terry | Nov 1, 2007 10:46:54 AM | #

---

I'd love to believe that the last scene was a dream - it was so much plotted cheese - but unhappily, because I suspect the show's producers thought the series was going to be axed, it seems more likely that the writers were instructed to wind it up at short notice. It's a rule of thumb isn't it? A series dies the minute you resolve unresolved sexual tension. Precisely why Duchovny was Fox Mulder for as long as he was, oddly enough.
I would have preferred Karen to have driven off on her honeymoon with Bill, Becca to have gone way-y-y further and Charlie and Marcy to have been holding each other in the stairwell, not... well.. you know.

Ho hum. I can dream.

Sam | Mar 10, 2008 6:29:08 PM | #

---

Can anyone tell me what did Mia say to Hank while they're dancing? Did she tell him that he was her first? I didn't got that..

Alessia | Apr 6, 2008 8:36:29 PM | #

---

Post a comment

Name:
Email Address:	optional
URL:	optional
Comments: