Hung
Season 2: Episode 1 – Just the Tip
I love Ray like I love a helpless puppy. That the first season of Hung coincided with economic collapse was perfect. A man struggling to find his masculinity using his, um, manhood in the midst of his own crumbling life offered the perfect metaphor for the strange ways men are seeking to evolve in a changing world. Journalist Hanna Rosin recently pointed out in an extremely popular Atlantic article that men have suffered much worse from the Recession as women’s careers have actually benefited from it. A gender tip might finally be happening, reports Rosin, allowing women to occupy more places of prominence and power than their male counterparts. But if I learned anything from last night’s Hung, just a tip ain’t enough!
Which is perhaps why we see this season opening on a huddle of women’s problems. Far from the ideal feminist community, Lenore and Tanya continue their bitchy battle for control of their product, Ray. Lenore, while a little stupid – really, the clenched fist of the workers in revolt is a sign that Ray is to expand his sexual repertoire?! Sure, art is a little subjective, but not that subjective! – wields the power of her own sexual confidence and attractiveness over a sneakered, floppy-haired Tanya’s insecurity. But Tanya’s scrappy willingness to turn to a real pimp for help might just be what she needed to get Ray to want that leash…I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of that guy! And we can add Jessica to the long list of women we’ve discussed so often on this blog who, once they find the domestic security they think they want, go a little haywire. So far, as Jessica remains a likeable character, though, she offers a more interesting version of this phenomenon. Jessica knows she’s walking the wrong path. The next generation is willing to see and point it out to her. There’s a level of self-awareness that we don’t get with, say, Rita from Dexter that might just make this standard plot a little more interesting.
As I’ve been flying through the first few seasons of Friday Night Lights in my spare time recently, I had to laugh at Ray’s attempt to pep up the baseball team – he’s no Coach Eric! But with The National’s “Fake Empire” playing in the background, the scene took on a lovely poignancy, and it’s inability to fully reach the masculine drive it was seeking hit the right note. The song is about (inasmuch as one can say any song by the National is about anything) a post-Empire America, the current America – the America whose dream is broken but still clung to, whose men are failing, but still in power. It’s about the final days of an empire we’re all waking up to learn is fake. And, strangely but wonderfully, it’s the song (sans lyrics) that Obama played as he left the stage after winning the election (I’m not kidding – watch the video and listen carefully!). It’s a devastating song that nevertheless holds an element of hope because it tells the truth. And there’s something to that in Ray’s character – he’s telling the truth about who he is…he’s just a big dick. Not metaphorically of pejoratively, but literally. And contrary to popular belief – as Ray will show us week by week – while a big dick can do a lot of things, it doesn’t automatically make you a man.
The added question this season, I’m excited to observe, will also be, what makes you a woman?
Posted by Natalie
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This is Not Sexy
Does anyone else understand what the deal is with the …OR…titles? They used to feel like actual contrasts – two different ways we could encounter the episode. But now they feel like they’re just the two lines that the writers couldn’t decide between for naming. These were certainly two of the funnier lines in the episode, but aside from that I had a difficult time figuring out their relationship…any thoughts, readers? Help me out!
That being said, there were a bunch of other great lines in this one, ranging from funny to thoughtful to devastating. Jessica’s mother’s “you want a husband, open your legs; you want a divorce, open your mouth” gave us a lot of insight into just how Jessica became Jessica. The new client’s “My husband died on Christmas Eve, I don’t feel like taking it down” offered a poignant reminder that all is often not what it seems. And the anti-gym task force’s “A diet is a cure for a disease that doesn’t exist” was simply hilarious. And “it’s a movement, like for black people but for fat people” was so dumb as to score a home-goal against themselves – I’m all for de-stigmatizing a diversity of body types, but until I see some water hoses and dogs gathered around a ‘obese only’ water fountain, I’m not calling this a Civil Rights movement. This is not the eat-in’s of the ’60′s – it’s just an excuse to enjoy some cake in the fresh air.
But it was this fat-is-beautiful scene that I found to be most interesting. The tension between Dar and Jessica builds and builds and then lets a little out only to build again. So now we have an explanation for where Dar may have gotten last week’s cutting analysis of Jess’ own gender and self-identity. The relationship between these two is getting more and more complex. It remains unclear to me (in a good way) whether Dar feels genuine contempt for her mother, or whether she hates her because deep down she wants to be her…and my sense is that Dar herself isn’t supposed to have that figured out yet.
This group seems to give her a sense of pride and self-worth (which jerky boyfriends who picked on her weight stripped from her). But while the other girls pick on her mother openly and hostily (seriously – if you don’t want cake, you don’t want cake – let it go and enjoy the piece you’ve cut for yourself, I say!) Dar seemed not only embarrassed, but also pained for the harassment that was being cast at Jess. Embarrassed of her mother, but also embarrassed of her friends – what teenage girl doesn’t know that experience?!
In intrigued by Tanya’s Lanvin sweater – she doesn’t know what it is, but she knows she loves it, and I wonder if this is going to become sort of a theme for Tanya this season. If she can learn to claim things before she’s quite earned them, then she might just be able to take Lenore on. Usually I hate watching cat fights brew, but this one has me captivated. Even though it’s corny, I get the feeling that if these two women could just learn to work together, they’d have an amazing pimp team (there’s a sentence I can’t say I thought I’d ever write).
So, how about Ray finally embracing his male-whoreness! Whority? Um, I’m not quite sure the right word, here. When Claire started flashing that grand at him, I thought – oh poor Claire, she just doesn’t get it. But, as it turns out, it was me who didn’t get it. Not only does Ray up the price, but it seems Claire likes that. And we’re again invited to witness something a little more complex than we initially realized. I had been sucked into thinking that Claire was falling for Ray, wanting more than just a prostitute – wanting a lover, maybe even a partner. But oh how gender stereotyping my read was! Turns out Claire really wanted to own Ray for her own purposes – pure economic transaction for pure pleasure…no deep emotional tie, but actually the genuine eschewing of one.
It’s like Tanya said, when you’re lonely you don’t actually want something romantic that makes you feel more lonely – you want to be held; you want to get f*cked.
So while telling it’s story in largely gender stereotype modes, Hung manages to disrupt those narratives at the same time. Intriguing!
xoxo,
Natalie
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Episode 4
Ah, the erotics of family life. Not the least complex issue Hung could choose to tackle in an episode with a high teenager, a cranky mother-in-law and a potential love-match between two lonely, lonely souls. The line between acceptable and unacceptable when it comes to families and bodily life together is thin – but we have the sense we know when it’s been crossed. While seeing one’s mother and step-father naked might be enough to escalate a bad drug reaction – it’s certainly not worse than watching one’s father masturbate or needing to scrub one’s mother’s back in the shower at 14 years old. But, we can probably all agree, all three situations are situated along various points of the ‘not ok’ side of the scale.
But Damon’s poem about being a twin was a little more difficult to judge. Dar’s reaction wasn’t out of left field – there was something ‘freakish’ about it…even though it’s freak-factor might be hard to pin. While the bond between two twins probably goes deeper – not just emotionally, but also in a bodily way – than a non-twin could understand, how is such an experience put into words without those words butting up against the erotic. Warm, wet, love – especially spoken slowly and with a particular cadence, have the feel of erotic poetry, even as they describe the womb. And while the poem might have come off a little creepy, what that creepiness revealed was not that Damon is a freak, but rather that he recognizes in himself feelings that exist somewhere beyond his ability to express them. This is, perhaps, what is making Damon shape up as the most interesting character on the show for me. There’s a longing to him that, while beautiful, also totally loses the plot at times. As so his floundering around trying to catch whatever it is he is longing for ends up being quite lovely.
Which is perhaps something that could also be said of Mike Hunt (really? I can’t believe the audacity of actually naming a character that – hilarious!) and Francis. Here we have another fine line, upon which the show is dancing. At times it seems that Tanya’s recent read of Francis – that she just needs to get f*cked – is right. At others, it seems she really just needs a companion. And at others, it seems most clear that what she really needs is a friend…not a pimp, but a friend.
The interesting thing about Tanya is that as she gets stronger and more self-sufficient – things we want to see her get – she does also get more selfish…something we don’t want to see. Trying to send a father away from his sick son is pretty awful – not to mention trying to exploit a widow’s sadness. I’m starting to wonder if we’re going to reach a moment when Tanya realizes how far she’s strayed from her own values. We constantly watch Ray deal with that issue – but perhaps soon Tanya will have to have a careful self-examination too.
As Damon gets more interesting, and Tanya gets more complex, it’s also true that Ronnie gets more and more and more terrifying to me. His weird blurting out of childhood traumas aside – the scene where he borders on threatening Jessica while still inside her was chilling, and the only thing scarier than that was the fact that she almost just took it. Funnily enough, Jessica running down the hall in her most naked vulnerable state actually revealed her at her strongest.
What did you guys think? Are you enjoying this season as much as last season? What did you think of Damon’s poem? Are you pulling for Mike and Francis?
xoxo,
Natalie
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Beaverland
Having left the “…or…” types of titles for the episodes, this one landed us squarely in the territory of childish puns which, while it could have been stupid and annoying, kind of worked for me. I noticed on the blogs this morning a series of complaints about how obvious these puns or allegories or whatever were, but I just don’t think that’s the case. Yeah, ok – so Ray’s the masculine, trap ‘em the right way guy and Ronnie’s just a failure at all things beaver related (and like last week his pursuits get tinged by a strange, scary violence that raises my hackles), but in the end Ray too is a bit of a failure (at least with Liz – see comments after the jump). And Jess is the pathetic one left flitting between two pretty awful catches/traps (however you want to painfully extend that metaphor).
Ray’s scene with Liz was painful to watch (except for the fleeting moment of thigh movement that got us closer to a view of the magic that we’ve all been waiting for – Ray’s penis is like a carnie freak to me…I have no sexual desire to see it – it’s all about the hunt for oddity). Perhaps Liz really just doesn’t like it, but I don’t think Ray’s attempts to give her the best even came close to mediocre. Here’s a tip: a lady doesn’t want to be asked if she feels like oral, you know, because a lot of ladies seem to like that. That’s not exactly prime fantasy material. You may as well ask if she wants her tires rotated because, you know, it’s good for the car. Ray might have mad skills when it comes to doing it, but the skill he’s been failing to tap into since the beginning of the series is the ability to give the women the fantasy – I’m not saying he needs to connect to them emotionally or anything like that, just that he needs to give them a story!
This is Ray’s problem – he can’t contextualize his dick. By shoving his whole identity into that one appendage, he’s lost the plot, quite literally, and as a consequence, fails to see the connection between his body, his masculinity, his personality and some broader sexual picture. Ray needs to find his own narrative and, in that, find the freedom to perform some other narratives. In other words, when out on his ‘dates’, Ray needs to stop being Ray, stop being Richard, and start being whatever role it is the ladies want. Until that happens, he’s going to keep inadvertently sabotaging Tanya’s business model (and by extension, become more and more dependent on Lenore’s stream of crazy).
On Tanya – I cannot imagine living a life spun so far out of control. She gave her mother a pimp necklace as an ironic job promotion gift?!? Granted, her mother is an a-hole. But where did Tanya get the thought that that would be a good idea?! The impulsiveness of her character is unattractive on every level. And yet, I just can’t help but wonder if it’s going to help her out in the end.
With less than half the season to go, I’d like to see a little more of a grand narrative arc here though…besides the whole Jess and Ray really love each other but their own boundedness to their stereotypical gender roles is keeping them apart narrative arc, that is. TV shows that depend on a central couple tend to get boring quickly – here’s hoping that Hung is not headed that way.
Ok friends, let me know what you thought – what were your favourite parts? Did you think the beaver puns worked? Do you, like me, long for more of Charlie?!
oxox,
Natalie
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Just Nod and Say It’s Lyrical OR Liz, I’m On Your Side
I loved The Road – it’s probably in my top 10 best novel-reading experiences ever…so I could not wait to see what Lenore and her friends made of such a deep, powerful and painful read. Yes, it’s bleak – that’s everyone’s first descriptor of it. And sure, cannibalism is unappealing (to say the least). But these hilariously bland descriptors from such privileged, botox-ed, vapid women – the very women who symbolize everything The Road doesn’t even bother critiquing but simply ignores – paled in comparison to Lenore’s terrifying brilliance. She would sauté the father and the son (characters who anyone with a healthily developed soul loves from the depths of her soul) with kale and a nice white wine sauce?! And if that weren’t enough, she’d hollow out the son’s skull and wear it like a hat to let others know she means business – quite literally, because then she’ll make accessories out of the dad’s bones and sell them in a burned out Macy’s. In other words, in the Apocalypse Lenore will not just be fine; she’ll also single-handedly make sure consumerism survives its only possible demise. And in a strange way, she’ll still look good doing it.
Lenore and Tanya seem to each be picking up half of Charlie’s personality as they sink further and further into their pimp roles – Tanya with her gifts and Lenore with her brutality. I sure hope the implication here doesn’t end up being that it takes two women pimps to equal one male one…we have yet to see what the particular gifts a woman could bring to this skill might be, and we’re running out of chances to see them.
Perhaps the lesson is that there’s less necessary difference between the genders than we imagined, though (just as Ray also showed that to the untrained eye, there also might not be all that much difference between Arabs and Israelis!). In the end, Ray finally learns what it is a woman wants from her prostitute, and it’s not all that different than what a man wants – she wants to be made to feel powerful, sexy and smart. She wants to know that someone – even someone being paid and faking it – is on her side.
Any thoughts on Jess’ rash? Her panic makes it seem to me that it’s something she tends to get when she’s pregnant – something her mother would recognize. But they wouldn’t give us much on that this week. And what will happen with Tanya and Charlie – I can’t tell if this is sweet, or spinning out of control!
Let me know what you think, Moth Chase friends!
xoxo,
Natalie
ps: I’m trying not to get pissed each week as we see more and more naked women and very little of our naked man…I think it’s good that we don’t see Ray’s magic – that would be awkward and too campy. But I hate this double standard! It’s bad enough that un-named actress after un-named actress has to bear her boobs for any shot at an entry level role nowadays, but that Lenore has to do this too…it’s maddening! Am I the only one who thinks so?
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I know Tanya is supposed to be ridiculous; that we’re supposed to think she’s pathetic and that’s why we root for her. But I think last night’s version of her walking into a situation she didn’t like and running away idiotically was one too many for me to have any sense of taking her seriously in even the slightest way anymore. Any kind of grown woman I could even begin to imagine doing that is not someone I’d want to spend more than 30 seconds in the same room with. And it leaves me wondering what exactly it is they are going to do with her? Is Ray the only character grasping toward some sort of redemption here? Is everyone else doomed to become more and more wretched? I had expected some sort of success gene to kick in on Tanya by now, but it just doesn’t seem like that is going to happen. Her world really is closing in on her – perhaps she’ll get backed into the corner that lets her come out swinging, but I’m sure she’ll just whine and get those giant panicked eyes once she gets there.
I’m just glad to see Mike and Francis get a chance for happiness now that they’ve discovered what’s going on. I mean, it must make for some awkward moments in a relationship if one half of the couple thinks its renting the time of the other half.
With the mystery of Jess’ rash solved, and the closing shot of her going into a cheer, I’m ready for next week’s episode to move its focus to her. As Ray and Ron fight over which one of them it is who makes Jess sad, I’m left hoping she’ll figure out her unhappiness is more of her own making than the men’s. She leads a fairly shallow existence, meaning brought to it primarily through purchases rather than healthy relationships, a sense of vocation or any significant altruistic behavior. It’s too easy to pin it on the guys just because it’s them she tends to situate as temporary solutions to her problems. Jess needs a little life architectural restructuring all the way down to the foundations of who she is – and doing so could make for an interesting storyline…Jess finding herself without a man! Not sure the show would even know how to do that, but it might be fun to try.
Even in his redemption moment, poor Ray has to know that it’s not really his, though. Sure he gets to be the hero for a few minutes, renew his old glory and play for a minute with the old family. But it came at the expense of the kid giving him the hit. But then again, perhaps that’s the most poignant message of the show – those redemptive moments in life always come as gift. We never really earn them for ourselves. And they aren’t tainted because they’re not solo; rather, they are even lovelier because they form a community we didn’t know was there. If there’s a place where Hung shines, it’s in its unexpected community – the relationships and friendships we didn’t know were going to flower, and we didn’t expect to flower in the ways that they did (Ray really was pretty sweet with Claire, even if it’s a jarring scene to see a pregnant woman get manually stimulated so athletically in the tub!).
Well, on that note, I’ll leave it there – we’re still needing the story to break a bit here. Something needs to open up. These episodes feel like they’re spinning their wheels till some cliffhanger in the final one. But at least they’re spinning their wheels in an entertaining way. And maybe that’s Hung’s other lesson about life!
xoxo,
Natalie
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We’re not good people. We’re criminals.
After a season that’s felt like it’s creeping along with little focus, everything sort of came together last night. For the most part, this worked – if only because we could sigh some relief that finally Tanya gets caught, finally Ray figures out the Mike-Francis situation, finally Jess connects with her daughter, finally Ron freaks out and finally Ray and Jess come back together. But even as we could enjoy the pace of something finally giving, I wondered why we had to cram every climax into the penultimate episode. It’s an annoying form of narrative that leads to uneven storytelling. Nevertheless, it was fun to see some shifts.Most significant of course is the movement on the Ray-Jess storyline. Ronnie’s collapse at the dermo-ball actually seemed appropriate seeing as he’s been a man on the edge all season long. I thought the cliched crazed speech actually worked in this context! Especially as a counter-point to Jess’ equally crazy exclamations about not knowing what happiness is and her sense that she would die with Ronnie. Ronnie?! Really? The woman is desperate!
That being said, her desire for nostalgia seemed spot on and made me wonder if she was trying to reach back to who she once was not to catch that self, but rather to choose a different path in a time when she had a choice. If that’s the case, running back to Ray might be an even bigger mistake than staying with Ronnie and, in fact, a little time alone might be the best course of all.
And my hunch is that’s where we’re going – the reunion felt like it will be short lived once Lenore springs out from her corner. And it felt like we were shoving that reunion into the end of this episode quickly so that we could enjoy its catastrophic destruction in the next. I’m ok with this trope – so long as they take it somewhere interesting for Jess’ character. I’d like to see who she can become given a third season of self-analysis and alone time.
What intrigued me, though, was how the danger of this lurking Lenore makes us worry about Ray and Jess – not about, as Tanya put it, the fact that they are all criminals. After letting out her deepest inner pimp self by beating horny Patty with a belt, Tanya is surrounded by witnesses who are likely to be too afraid to do anything against her…but the fact remains, any DA would be able to mount a quick case against our threesome with all the threads they’ve left dangling.
Tanya gives us an interesting view of what a pimp could be – we have the stereotypical television view of the guy with the hat who beats on his clients and employees…but Tanya shows us the ramp up to that character – all the moments he lived through to find his ruthless self. As we’ve watched Tanya slip into a more and more wretched self – further and further into the dehumanizing capacities of pimp-dom – I’ve realized how the pimp role is even more gendered than the prostitute one. We don’t expect to see women who are crazy, violent and authoritative. As the series has progressed, TJ’s male hooker role has become infinitely less complex and interesting than the ladies in all their pimp-osity.
But how will it all end? Thoughts, Moth Chase friends? How do you like the pacing? Where do you hope we end up?
xoxo,
Natalie
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To be honest, that didn’t even feel like a season finale to me. It felt like what should have been a decent, mid-season episode, with character development, plot movement and an indication that we might get the same next time. Hung has been so frantic this season – dashing from plot to plot but not doing much with each. And in a way, I’ve wondered if that’s purposeful – a comment on everyone’s attitude post economic-collapse. Everyone scrambles to maintain, maintain – even if that keeps us in some sort of crazed holding pattern devoid of meaning. And I almost wished the finale had kept that up – at least that way it would have felt intentional. Moving to traditional storytelling as it did, it just felt like the rest had been paced to try to figure out whether we’d get a season 3 (we are, but I’m not sure I want it). But let’s get to what actually happened.
That being said, Anne Heche has kept my interest all season long. And thank God she found her way on her own – the scene with her leaving the lake simply stating, “that was really great” rather than, “what does this all mean?” really worked. And the fact that her move makes the kids even more miserable (even though it’s what they’ve been asking for) was great! Jess’ triumphant expression as she moves into a room of her own was perfect – and pretty much guaranteed that, against my better judgment, I’ll probably tune in for season 3.
And thank goodness Mike and Francis pulled it back together – of all the people who got screwed over this season, their situation was the most upsetting. And not because they marked the devolution of Tanya’s character into something more sinister, but rather simply in themselves. Francis is perhaps the only genuinely self-reflective person on the show (and perhaps she’s the only one who has time to be on account of her large wealth) – again, I’m left curious for season 3, wondering how much she is right. When will Mike begin to wonder what kind of a woman pays for it? And how will that affect their love?
Pretty much everything about Tanya felt rushed and weird – like afterthoughts tossed in without much plot build up to them. Damon’s mentor request, paired with a hand on knee (was that supposed to be erotic? why was he in a tux?) came out of left field. We had another weird interaction with her mother – with no explanation of why she’d give T all that money back (HBO and Showtime seem to think professors make a mint – they don’t!). And then all of a sudden she’s happily reconciling with Ray and requesting BBQ bringing out the big line of the episode about happiness consultants forgetting about people’s happiness – not that deep, in my view. But uttered with the sense that it was supposed to be. It was odd.
Even so, Ray’s conclusion – will he stay in the Happiness Consulting biz, or is he out for good, and what would either look like? – leaves me wanting to know a little more too, and will have me tuning back in.
So I guess in the end, this season of Hung reminded me a lot of the last season of Californication – it floundered so much, never quite found its stride and failed at creative storytelling, and then it sort of came back together in the final episode to remind me why I liked it in the first place. What I’m left wondering is whether or not I’m willing to invest in a whole season of something when it only seems to be the finale I really enjoy. There’s so much great tv out there – maybe this one needs to go!
What did you think, Moth Chase friends? Will you come back for season 3? Were you disappointed with season 2? What did you think of the finale?
xoxo,
Natalie
