Californication: The Second Season

When we last left transplanted New Yorker and debauched moralist Hank Moody (David Duchovny), he was reunited with his ex-girlfriend and runaway bride Karen (Natascha McElhone) and his beloved daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin). Sounds like the makings of a happy-ever-after ending, but Hank's life is no fairy tale—or is it? Although a total screw-up, the under-achieving Hank remains improbably irresistible to a bevy of women, from the nurse participating in his vasectomy to an A-list prostitute. The new Hank is determined to make grown-up decisions, but before the 12-episode 2008 second season has scarcely begun, he once again finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong woman, albeit accidentally (no wonder Karen needs time to mull over his marriage proposal). In season two, fast-laner Lew Ashby (Callum Keith Rennie), a legendary music producer, recruits Hank to be his biographer. Hank's agent Charlie Runkle (Evan Handler) is fired from his agency and takes a fledgling female porn star under his wing. Charlie's wife Marcy (Pamela Adlon) turns into a coke fiend. Seventeen-year-old Mia (Madeline Zima) becomes a critics' darling when Hank's manuscript, which she stole in season one, is published. And Sonja (Paula Marshall) the Scientologist is pregnant and Hank may be the father. Californication takes as jaundiced a view of Southern California hedonism as did the classic 1975 movie Shampoo. Played by a lesser actor, Hank would be insufferable, but Duchovny's laid-back charm imbues him with what one character calls “infuriating magic,” an apt description of the series as a whole. DVD extras include a funny featurette in which Adlon, best known as the voice of Bobby Hill on King of the Hill, visits a waxing salon (anal bleaching, anyone?), and cast interviews. Optional. (D. Liebenson)