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Californication Season 5-06 ‘The Ride-Along’ Recap

As we see a man firing off round from a gun, we think we have the wrong show. But then we hear Hank Moody's unmistakable face, speaking into Samurai Apocalypse's ear. The two are at a shooting range, spending some quality time. The rapper tells Hank that his girlfriend has moved on, which is news to Hank.

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As we see a man firing off round from a gun, we think we have the wrong show. But then we hear Hank Moody’s unmistakable face, speaking into Samurai Apocalypse’s ear. The two are at a shooting range, spending some quality time. The rapper tells Hank that his girlfriend has moved on, which Hank pretends to be surprised about.

Samurai tells him that he knows someone else is ‘tapping’ his girlfriend because her ass is too fine ‘not to be tapped.’ He then states that whoever it is, is in for a world of hurt. Hank then gets invited for a ‘ride-along’ which he isn’t too happy about. After watching Samurai fire off those rounds though, he’s not about to say anything. Cut to opening credits.

Hank reveals his fears to Runkle, who somehow wiggles his way into Hank’s outing with Samurai. Later that night, the three head out for a ride with a real life cop.

Not much ensues and it’s rather boring to watch, that is until the cop randomly has a seizure. The boys take him to the hospital and then drive the cop car back, which leads to Samurai tracking down his girlfriend and Runkle  inviting a hooker for the ride.

Eventually they catch up to Samurai’s girlfriend and she’s with another man. While in the cop car, they pull the couple over. Samurai beats the guy and tries to take his girlfriend home. She refuses and Samurai gets upset but Hank convinces them to head back home.

Meanwhile, Runkle is waiting back in the cop car receiving a blowjob from the hooker they picked up. Turns out, she’s actually a man, which Runkle finds out the hard way.

On the way home, Hank gets a call from Becca. Bates is drunk (courtesy of Tyler) at a restaurant and making a fool of himself. Of course, Moody heads right on over to try and calm things down. He eventually runs off in his drunken state, leaving Hank with Karen, Becca and Tyler.

A minute later Samurai walks in and comes to talk to Moody. Tyler recognizes him as the man who beat him and an awkward situation for all ensues. Realizing what happened, Karen, Becca and Tyler storm out.

Runkle, Hank and Samurai head out and on their way home pick up Bates, who’s still drunk. It’s at this point that the four of them get pulled over by a cop, while still in the cop car they had from earlier. Cue closing credits.

Despite being an entertaining episode with a few great moments, my complaint from the past few episodes still stands, nothing really happened. There still doesn’t seem to be much of a running story arc and as it is now, these last few episodes could basically be seen as standalone episodes. They don’t really have an overall plotline running through them.

Granted, Californication has never been one for superb writing and compelling plots but still, this is the loosest storyline we’ve seen out of any season. There is honestly nothing going on, aside from random shenanigans and hi-jinxes. I suppose it’s not necessarily a bad thing if the episodes are still entertaining but still, it’d be nice to see some kind of story arc there to string us along.

What do you think?