CharlieRunkle

(S03E12) "That's the thing about secrets, Hank. They have a funny way of coming out." - Mia Cross

If last night's episode was the first episode of Californication you have ever seen, it might have left you more than a little confused. Your friends who gab about it around the office water cooler have always been telling you how its the raucous and dirty sitcom of the decade, a show that takes the wit of Robert Benchley and combines it with the out-of-control plot of those Spring Break party movies that used to play late at night on the USA Network.

You're tired of feeling like you're missing out on something awesome, so you finally decide to tune in and instead what you find is a rather heavy and deep emotional look at the effects of a life spent partying, boozing and philandering.

(S03E11) "Ladies, start your egos." - Richard Bates to Hank and Stacy Koontz

Hank Moody is the very definition of a man who deserves a serious ass-kicking.

He may not mean to act like the world's biggest douchebag. In fact, out of the entire world lineup of douchebags, he's certainly towards the end of life's long line. That still doesn't mean he doesn't deserve one less than the guy at the very front of the line, whoever that poor bastard may be. My money is on the mutant offspring of Attila the Hun and Spencer the Pratt.

But why does that guy who gets to deliver said ass-kicking have to be the world's dorkiest jilted man? A man who when confronting the man who gave his way a ride down the Pleasure Expressway challenges said man to a duel with blanks? And before you even think of asking, yes, copious amounts of alcohol were involved. Just another Sunday for Californication.

(S03E10) "I think that ultimately, [women] are going to have to raise the white flag and just accept us for the emotional retards that we are." - Hank to Charlie

This was a real uplifter from last week's dull and otherwise boring episode, if not for the courageous and outrageous efforts of Charlie and his quest to score Rick Springfield a bag of the Colombian itching powder. And I mean uplifter in both the quality and emotional sense of the word ... that I just made up.

The girls in Hank's life, Karen, Becca and Charlie's ex Marcy, go for a girls' night out, and Hank gives Charlie one of his world famous benders after he gets canned for losing Springfield as a client. But it's more about seeing how much greasy California cuisine and $10 a bottle booze they can shove into their systems. Like all great drunken road trips, it's a night of story-telling, story-making and personal exploration, if the memories can make it through the vodka and wine haze that follows them wherever they go.

(S03E09) "I had a plan, I did, but it just didn't work out the way I thought it would."/"What? You thought he'd (Hank) do a good job of being in charge?" - Karen to Becca

Remember watching Friends and feeling that great sense of heavy letdown when you realized that week's diversion of reality would be a "Joey-heavy episode"?

That describes this week's Californication to a tee, except the great sense of heavy letdown doesn't quite sit on top of your soul with the girth and grim sadism of an evil sumo wrestler.

(S03E06) "L.A. is no place to raise a daughter...or a dad." - Hank to Karen

If I ever procreate and God curses me by turning said offspring into a female teenager, the last place I would raise her is Los Angeles. In fact, I would get as far away from that cesspool of pretentiousness and greed as possible; its literal polar opposite, in fact. That's right, I'd actually raise her in the Indian Ocean.

The idea had always been hidden in the back of my brain, but it was yanked into my consciousness by Becca and her snooty, drugged-up pal Chelsea. Both of them are really starting to piss me off. They are vapid, whiny and annoying. In other words, they are perfect Californians.

(S0301) - What's with all the parent plotlines on Showtime? First Dexter Morgan becomes a new father, and now Hank Moody on Californication? Granted, it's the perfect penance for a man who has flaunted the consequences of the reproductive act more than the entire British royal family, but it seems eerily similar and way overdone in the world of television.

It does, however, work as an obstacle and a vehicle for conflict for Hank, whose only daughter Becca moves into that awkward living hell on Earth known as "teenagerhood." The opening scene of Hank catching Becca and her new best friend Chelsea stoned out of their gourds pretty much set the tone for some, if not most, of Hank's problems.

How can he tell her to do as he says while still doing what and who he loves most?