By Curt Schleier

California Son is the most interesting episode of one of the most interesting series on television, CALIFORNICATION.  Since its debut, its chief protagonist, Hank Moody (David Duchovny), has revealed numerous different slices of personality: drug addled, funny, tough guy and downright incomprehensible – among others.   But in California Son we finally get a picture of where that all originated.

Hank gets a call from a sister that their father died.  Hank hated him and said he’s not going to go home for the funeral.  Instead he goes on a rum and coke bender (and I don’t mean the soft drink) that ultimately gets him into a room with a gorgeous prostitute he doesn’t believe is a hooker.   When he finds out, he also discovers he has no cash, which gets him a beating from her pimp.  But in between we see flashbacks of Hank and dad during the latter’s last visit to L.A. and Hank and his girl friend Karen (Natascha McElhone) when they were still together that fills in a lot of blanks.

Dad was something of an a-hole, a philanderer who was never there for his kids and was critical of them when he was around.  He never had a nice word to say about anyone.  He called Hank’s bald agent Charlie (Evan Handler) “a walking penis.”  And his philosophy of life seemed to be “Life’s too short to dance with fat chicks.”  You get the sense that one of the reasons Hank doesn’t like his father is because he is a lot like him.  Looking at dad is a little like looking in a mirror and Moody doesn’t like his reflection.

But we also go back to where Hank, Karen and their child Becca (Madeleine Martin) first came to California.  You see Hank becoming disillusioned wit what the film industry was doing to his novel (and there’s a cameo by a great Tom Cruise look-alike here that’s not to be missed) and by the general lifestyle. 


He asks Karen to return to New York and she objects.  They came out here for him, she says, when she had nothing.  Now that she’s built up her architectural design business, she doesn’t want to return to the Big Apple.  In fact she’s designing reworking a house for Bill (Damian Young), who eventually becomes her fiancé.

But his father has some good points, too.  He is perceptive.  “I was here a year ago and you were happier then,” he tells Hank.  “And even happier the year before that.”

With Karen there, he finally opens a letter his dad sent him sometime earlier, in which dad tells him he’s proud of Hank, he has read Hank’s books, and he thinks his son has a wonderful family he should hold on to.


It’s an emotional moment, one in which both Hank and Karen succumb.  It’s their first love making since they split up.  The next morning she takes Han to the airport for his trip home. He believes they’re back together, but the look on Karen’s face belies that. 

CALIFORNICATION (with its companion show) WEEDS are the closest thing to must-see TV Showtime has had in a long time.  No, a really long time.