I assume you have seen this episode or do not mind spoilers.

So Hank (Duchovny) is a snob. His snobbishness now extends to language or rather how internet, mainly aiming his rants at blogging, is slowly but surely destroying the English language. Funny thing is that, being a blogger himself, he is not immune to using cyberspace lingo such as “LOL,” just as long as no one does it in reality. Right, because the world online is so different from the outside world. Um, okay. I agree with him though, and am just as guilty as anyone for obliterating language and grammar by making use of numerous “LOL” and “ROTFL” references. Guilty as charged.

What started as an indie-vibed, ego-centric, Duchovny wet-dream – one in which he is able to rant and rave about what ever the hell ticks him off while still coming across as the smoothest guy on Earth, is settling down a bit, a little more focused and seems to be less about the smart one-liner and more about the bigger picture.

“LOL” opens with Hank having another one of his church dreams, with a black God {aka J-Zay} statue, Bill as a gay priest and Karen as a slutty nun. Well, the dream fast turns into a nightmare and he wakes up – yells “You’re a gay priest” and his redhead fallback girl, Meredith, jumps right into some intellectually stimulating conversation by saying “LOL.” He bitches and moans, as usual, and she offers to give him the best B.J of his life as penance, and the guy has the audacity to complain about that term too.

We finally meet Marcy, Charlie’s wife, whom we are given the impression in earlier episodes must be a sexually deactivated potter or something. I mean, why else would he need to spice things up with his frighteningly kinky assistant? Needless to say, Marcy is sexually adventurous herself, even offering to give Charlie the “pinky in the stinky.” In addition, she is gorgeous and amusing. Charlie has a few screws loose in that bald head of his, if you ask me.

Hank finally gets his own against Bill when Bill asks him a favour, or at least Hank finally becomes the valuable commodity Bill is. Plus Hank gets Bill’s jacket, all in a days work. While filling in for Bill at Mia’s high school, after strolling down the hallways like it is 1985 – he gives a student a cigarette and waltzes into Mia’s class. He talks about how much it sucks to be a writer, he says “Being a writer blows.” All the girls think he is a “fucking rock star.” He kind of is, and seems to have zero reason to complain about anything. I guess he complains more out of boredom than anything else. His character is nonetheless engaging and hilarious, and has been for the last couple of episodes, I hope Duchovny can keep up the witty wisecracks from becoming overplayed and arrogant. After all, there is only so much of his charisma and success one can handle before jealousy kicks in…

For an episode that seems to have been made to fill out a season more than to offer any real revelation, more like it was just shooting the breeze, it did offer a little more in terms of Hank and Meredith, who both seem to function on the exact same frequency. But then Hank’s scenes with Karen are always so chilled and genuinely intriguing, you just wish Bill would fall of the face of the Earth and then the once-lovers could get back together, and, I don’t know, finish what they never got around to.

I suspect a little more friction to arise between Mia and Becca. You see, Becca has a crush on her guitar-tutor Dave – but so does Mia. Is there anyone Mia does not want to bed? Anyway, so Becca tries to look extra-rock chic for Dave, she changes outfits just hoping he’ll notice, she makes him a mix-tape {in the form of a CD} and all she gets is “Sweetheart.” Of course she does! She is more like a little sister to him than anything else, and it is hard to deny Mia’s sexuality and intense concentration on getting what she wants. So when Becca sees Mia get in Dave’s car to go God knows where – you know sparks will fly sooner than later.

The writing is always so fresh and urgent that it is hard to pull yourself away, but if you miss a mere sentence, the rest of the conversation may go straight over your head. It has happened to me on more than one occasion. So do whatever you have to do, but do it in the commercial breaks.

As far as the episode goes, it was not one for the books, but as a part of the series, I would say it was a pretty good instalment, I will watch again next week – so I guess that is what counts. Californication is a near perfect, albeit arrogant and self-absorbed, anecdote of heartbreak – much like Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks.”

I leave you with a quote from the show, in which Hank is being interviewed on a public radio station, and he gets into one of his famous rants, you gotta love his honesty.

Radio Show Host: What’s your latest obsession?

Hank Moody: Just the fact that people seem to be getting dumber and dumber. You know, I mean we have all this amazing technology and yet computers have turned into basically four figure wank machines. The internet was supposed to set us free, democratize us, but all it’s really given us is Howard Dean’s aborted candidacy and 24 hour a day access to kiddie porn. People… they don’t write anymore, they blog. Instead of talking, they text, no punctuation, no grammar: LOL this and LMFAO that. You know, it just seems to me it’s just a bunch of stupid people pseudo-communicating with a bunch of other stupid people at a proto-language that resembles more what cavemen used to speak than the King’s English.

Radio Show Host: Yet you’re part of the problem, I mean you’re out there blogging with the best of them.

Hank Moody: Hence my self-loathing.

Season 1, Episode 5, “LOL.”
Written by Susan McMartin. Directed by Bart Freundlich.

Songs featured in this episode:

Originally aired in the US on the 10th of September 2007.
Aired in SA on the 13th of May 2008.