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Paramount / 2008 / 336 Minutes / Unrated / Street Date: August 25, 2009
Californication has a lot of sex in it. From the opening images of the show's first season featuring a praying Hank Moody (David Duchovny) in a church, getting a boner after seeing a gorgeous nun, through the rest of the show’s short first season - and now the show's second go-round - the Showtime series doesn't shy away from anything involving birds and bees.
But what continues to be so refreshing about the series – and what no doubt made Duchovny so interested in the main role – is that it really isn’t about sex. Where shows like Desperate Housewives and even The Tudors showcase their sexual overbites as often as possible, Californication intends to give its viewers something underneath the pulse and throb of its hump-sensibilities.
The show’s basic premise is simple. Hank Moody was – many, many years ago – a successful writer, but he hasn’t been able to replicate that upswing since. Call it writer’s block, call it a rising mound of complications in his personal life… but for whatever reason, Hank decides that the best way to combat this lack of creativity is to throw himself waist-deep into a land of sex, drugs, and… well, more sex. But this isn’t mere hedonism; Hank also has a sorta-kinda girlfriend (Natasha McElhone) and a 12-year-old daughter. And nothing gets in the way of a successful drugged-out orgy like a nagging pre-teen, right?
So we get to see Hank juggle the exploits he thinks are mandatory for his creative and personal well-being with his very Catholic guilt-laden sense of responsibility for the woman he loves and the child they have. Perhaps the show is aimed at Los Angelenos more than the general public. Like Entourage, there’s enough material here to grab a general viewership, but there are multiple inside jokes that will bring extra humor to anyone who’s had to deal with an agent or a struggling Hollywood actress. But what ends up being so vibrantly refreshing about Californication is that it adds up to more than the sum of its parts.
Give Duchovny a pat on the back for that. He and Gillian Anderson are the main reasons behind The X-Files’ success. Duchovny is able to bring a heavy sense of life to characters that, in other actors’ hands, would be little more than cutesy caricatures. Like Fox Mulder, Hank Moody is a flawed, struggling, passionate and risk-taking individual, and even though Fox and Hank probably wouldn’t get along if they met at a party, Duchovny’s talents as an actor in both series really click.
And what's truly worth noting is that while the show's first season fizzled a little bit toward its finale - I wouldn't hasten to call it conceptually fascinating and filmically flimsy - this second season really gets its hands dirty as far as Hank's character is concerned, and the results of this are true and involving tendrils of character development. The big development in this season is the addition of Lew Ashby (Callum Keith Rennie), a Hollywood producer Hank moves in with only to see that what Hank thought was a port-in-every-storm lifestyle was nothing compared to what Lew does every Tuesday night. So as Hank sets out to write his autobiography - another advent of this new season - he is confronted with a cascade of personal decisions: Fidelity, monogamy, moderation (in terms of women and other vices) - Hank is painted into a corner in this season where every choice he makes is wrought with perils both personal and emotional.
So without overstating the show's dramatic prowess, I'd argue that where Californication: The First Season was all wind-up and no delivery, this second go-round is the follow-through. After setting up a character and world that is, if anything, a sensual wonder to behold, Californication finally allows its protagonist a chance to really deal with the issues in his life, which - as it turns out - is the show's real meat (insert sex joke here).
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