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“That's the thing about secrets, Hank, they have a funny way of coming out.“
The finale to the third season of Californication earns a spot as one of the most defining episodes since the beginning of the series. The repercussions of what happens in this half-hour of television indicate the direction of the show’s future and echo the events of its first season’s premiere. Here, we finally see the moment where two key truths are made all too clear for Hank Moody (David Duchovny) - firstly, that every action has a consequence and more importantly, that every covered up secret eventually reveals itself.
Back in the very first episode of Californication, Hank slept with Mia Cross (Madeline Zima) without realising that she was both the daughter of Karen’s (Hank’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child, played by Natasha McElhone) fiance and that, more importantly, (being 16 at the time) she was underage. Since then, Hank has had some trouble but has been just about able to keep this secret under wraps (Mia even stole a book that he had written on the incident). It all seemed over when at the close of the first season she convinced Hank (under threat of revealing their one-night stand) to allow her to keep the struggling writers’ work, and leave his life. She entitled it “F**king and Punching” and went on to publish it under her name. Unsurprisingly, from ‘The Last Waltz’ onwards, Mia’s appearances have been brief and I’d almost forgotten the important part she plays in the tragedy that is Hank Moody’s life.
However, Mia Cross isn’t one to be forgotten. She suddenly reappears in the twelfth and final episode of Californication’s third season (‘Mia Culpa’) and with her she brings the painfully foreseeable consequences that come with Hank’s mistake two years ago. This time though, it’s not Mia threatening Hank with revealing the truth - it’s her new boyfriend and publishing agent, Paul (played by James Frain). Paul is actually even more devious and malicious than Mia ever was - simply because he doesn’t care in the slightest for Hank or for his family. He just knows that Mia can’t write a second book, and he’s looking for an easy way to make some gain out of the scandal.
The finale is punctuated by the most surreal of Californication’s dream sequences yet. In these dreams, Hank sits atop of a floating chair in a swimming pool filled with many women (all of whom he has slept with) in the most realistic visualisation possible of Hank’s earlier sentiment (in the the third episode of the first season, 'The Whore of Babylon') that he is “drowning in a sea of pointless pussy.” These scenes are made all the more engaging by the fact that Becca (his daughter, played by Madeleine Martin) and Karen gaze on from the poolside, unable to help Hank from his own self-destructive ways as he drunkenly slips from his chair into the pool, the final shot focusing in on the bottle of wine rising to the surface.
To watch, this is an undeniably painful episode. That's because it begins with everything looking so perfect for Hank, but the inevitability of disaster becomes all too palpable. Yes, he was about to move to New York and start a new life with Karen and Becca and it seemed like things were finally going to work out for the best, but of course they weren’t... From the moment Mia appears onscreen (a bad omen in itself), the whole finale gains tension, a sense of foreboding - as the episode progresses, the consequences steadily unravel. Paul insults Hank’s ability to be a capable father and the two fight it out, with the punch-up only ending when Paul declares that he'll call the cops. Hank swiftly returns home to finally admit the truth to Karen and it all concludes with him torn from his family and driven away by the police to the sound of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man.’ It’s about as tragic an ending as is conceivably possible, marking the new low point for the ever laid-back protagonist. It’s hard to say where Californication will go from here, but there’s no way things are getting better any time soon. With that said though, I'm definitely looking forward to whatever's next.
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