As the episode begins, Hank awakes in a hospital, he’s just had his stomach pumped. The doctor tells him to stay away from the drugs and after he has a brief conversation with Hank, Karen walks in, surprise surprise. The two chat and share a laugh before we jump to the opening credits. After the credits, Hank is back at home, in bed, and by home I mean his old home, with Karen. As Karen walks in, Hanks asks ‘are you for real or is this your Avatar?”. She asks if he’s okay and if he needs anything, he tells her it’s like he died and went to heaven after all.
They talk for a bit and Karen tells him she was scared, she thought he was going to die. She says she was so busy being mad at him, she had no idea how much pain he was in. She then gets emotional and starts crying. Hank tells her he loves her and that he’s sorry for everything. She tells him not to try and kill himself again, no matter how bad it gets. After a moment of hesitation, they share a passionate kiss.
Next scene is on Hank and Runkle. Hank tells him he didn’t try to kill himself, it just looked like that. Runkle then presses him about the screenplay for the film. Hank is still reluctant but Runkle isn’t giving up. Meanwhile, Marcy is walking outside her house when Stu (Stephen Tobolowsky) confronts her, looking for Runkle. He asks Marci to grab a drink with him and she turns him down, telling him he reminds her of Runkle, physically. He admits that while it may be true, he’s also ‘rich as fuck and hung like a moose.’
Later that day, Hank stops by the boardwalk and sees Becca playing guitar. They have a talk and Becca is hostile, as usual. Hank’s still trying to repair his relationship with her but he doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Later that evening, Runkle meets with Stu. They talk about Marci and Stu asks if Runkle would mind if he asks Marci out. Runkle isn’t completely comfortable with it though. Meanwhile, Hank and Karen are having dinner at home and over at the boardwalk, a bunch of girls steal Becca’s money which she earned from playing guitar. She chases them down and gets it back. They start talking and it turns out they’re a band and they want Becca in. Becca seems interested but when she gets back to where she was playing, she finds her guitar is gone, stolen by someone while she was gone.
Hank and Karen go out to look for Becca and while they’re strolling the boardwalk, Runkle is with a girl he met earlier during the meeting with Stu. While in bed, she suggest that he does some ‘manscaping’ followed by a request to try it from behind. At least that way she can multi-task, apparently, the emails pile up if you don’t get to them right away. She gets on her Blackberry and Runkle assumes the position. It ends only seconds later and when he asks if she wants him to finish her off, she tells him she’s got some scripts to read and with that she leaves. But not before telling him that they should do this again sometime.
Hank returns home to find Becca and they have another talk. She asks how he could give up on them so easily, she tells him only a fucking coward would check out like that. He tells her he just drank a bit too much and took a few too many pills. He says he would never give up on her like that. Then Karen walks in and Becca tells Karen that Hank didn’t actually try to kill himself, he just fucked up again. Karen gets angry and asks ‘so did you just party too hard and pass out, like any other day?’ Hank replies ‘in a word yes’ and Karen storms out of the room.
Hank goes after her and Karen asks how could he do that to her? He says she was being so nice to him that he couldn’t say anything. She kicks him out and tells him he’s toxic and she can’t be around him. He tells her he can’t keep apologizing for something he can’t change. He just wants to become someone Karen can love again. Karen tells him ‘good luck with that’ and Becca looks at him and says ‘way to go dad, now I have to listen to her cry all night.’ Hank leaves and goes for a drive. He heads to a hotel, checks in and starts to write the screenplay. And the episode ends.
Not much happened this week but I did enjoy this episode. Sure Hank is a bit of an asshole but I really do feel bad for him. I’m not saying he didn’t fuck up, he definitely did, but he’s trying his damn hardest to make it better. Then again though, you can’t really blame Karen, she’s given him so many chances and he keeps messing up. Despite it though, I think they’re good together and deep down Hank does mean well.
Sasha’s absence this week was noticeable and I definitely missed having her around but Tobolowsky’s guest appearance made up for it as he was pretty entertaining and stole all the scenes he was in. Runkle’s scene with that girl was also quite amusing and just classic Runkle. It also looks as if Hank is going to do the movie now, which could lead to some interesting material for the show. So overall solid episode, aside from one thing actually, what was with Josh Gad playing the doctor at the start? Talk about a massive miscast!
