| Current mood: |  depressed |
| Current music: | Coast To Coast AM---Friday October 30, 2009 |
You Two Are Great Together. Good Luck With That
I hope the writers of Californication...usually Tom Kapinos and Gina Fattore according to the web site...were paying attention to this week's episode, Slow Happy Boys, which was written by Tom (I still say the writing on this show is always a group effort because it seems so disjointed much of the time but since the official word on the street is that Tom wrote this one, I'll go along with it) and you'd think they would since it's their job to write the show.
Before I go on, let me say that even though the writing is disjointed a lot of the time...and downright amateurish in places...that is no reason to not watch the show because they get almost everything else right almost all the time and it is the best show on TV. And when the writing is on, it comes close to perfection.
Such as they did this week with Sue Collini who is played by Kathleen Turner. For weeks, they have been turning her into a cartoon character à la Charlie and Marcy and I was coming to the conclusion that she was just a waste of A List talent but then they (Mostly Kathleen but the writer(s) get(s) a little credit for this, too) reversed my opinion in one scene.
They gave her a situation---preventing a fight between Hank, Zlos and a transvestite---along with a couple of great lines and Kathleen took those raw materials and in a few seconds transformed a dullish one dimensional character who was getting very boring very fast into one that's now fully fleshed out and interesting.
I wish they would do that with Charlie and Marcy. Not that they haven't tried, numerous times, but they have always failed. Not always miserably, because a few times they have come close but usually they try to do it with a pathetically forced situation---Believe it or not, the fight that was about to erupt between Hank, Zios and the transvestite came off as natural and believable as a discussion about politics, only lots more interesting---and a lot of really lame lines. So that's why I hope all the writers pay really close attention to this episode.
Before I go any further, I need to remind my critics that the rule prohibiting writers from using inane, forced, awkward situations and really lame dialogue is another one of those rules that doesn't apply to me. Have we got that straight, now? Good. Now we can talk about Karen.
According to my top secret super deep undercover intelligence network, she is back in LA to convince Hank to move back to New York and since that is as hard as convincing Dean Martin to have a drink, the dramatic conflict comes in the form of Becca, who (Still, because that was the plan when Karen went to New York in the first place) doesn't want to move.
This is the sort of thing that redeems the writer(s) and makes you forgive him/her or them for all the sins they commit. It would be nice if they were like me and never did any sinning at all but you can't have everything. Speaking of everything, why don't we just wrap this one up with a question, "Can we please have Stephen Root back for another episode or two?"
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