Season 5 of Californication picks up nearly three years after the end of season 4. Hank Moody is living in New York, and ruining the dreams of yet another woman, when a phone call from his agent brings him back to the "Left Coast". En route, he has a dalliance with an attractive stranger (beautiful and much younger women inexplicably throwing themselves at Hank is something of a Thing with this show), then stops in to see love-of-his-life Karen - who is now married to someone else - and daughter Becca, who has just entered her first really serious relationship. Hank immediately hates Becca's boyfriend, which is not surprising, since he's pretty much exactly like Hank, and no sane person would want someone they cared about to date Hank.
Anyhow, if you've already seen at least one season of Californication, none of what happens here will really surprise you. Hank's penis gets him into trouble. Hank's temper gets him into trouble. Hank and Karen yearn for one another. Self-absorbed and dysfunctional people make self-absorbed and dysfunctional choices that inexorably come back to bite them. A parade of minor female characters appear on screen for just long enough to take off their clothes. Pamela Adlon's foul-mouthed character Marcy steals every scene she's in.
But let's face it, after five seasons you aren't watching Californication for surprises, you're watching it for the inevitable bonfire of disaster that will engulf these people for all the short-sighted decisions they've made in the preceding episodes. And it has to be said that, with sufficient breaks between seasons to let you forget how awful they all are, watching them get their comeuppance is generally quite entertaining.
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