Episode Commentary: “A Dick and a Dream or Fight the Honey”
A steamy summer of “Hung” came to an end last night with an episode that cleared up a few lose ends but left a handful of unanswered questions for the forthcoming season.
Great news, especially after HBO has decided to renew it for a second year.
Here we see Ray Drecker is still the subject of a war between two madams (Tanya and Lenore), forcing him to choose between money and loyalty. That question is made even harder by the news that he may be getting laid off from his teaching job and forced into the gigolo business full-time.
The john has more than just those issues to face, however, as he tries patiently to come to terms with the fact his son may be gay and even his son doesn’t have answer for that. He brings his kids with their dates to a monster film and we slowly watch the turmoil unfold in their personal lives.
Meanwhile, Lenore is searching high and low for wealthy clients for her business endeavor and convinces Jessica (Drecker’s ex-wife) that she may need the services of a professional to get in touch with her womanhood.
What is great is that Thomas Jane flexes more dramatic acting abilities as he tries to face each issue head on and exposes us to the most human element of his character. Comedy is great, but when a character is given a human side, it reaches the audience a little more because empathy is created. That’s exactly what we see here as the humor is on the back burner as his personal life heats up.
At this point, it does seem like he can’t take any more stress.
But there is much more stress for him in this episode, as re-modeling his house becomes harder due to the fact that honeybees have made his interior walls a nesting ground and his current madam Tanya is having a meltdown. In season two, we may see a nastier side to Tanya, which can make for intriguing television.
Of course, it just wouldn’t be “Hung” unless there was a steamy season-ender of a sex scene that teaches one some incredibly creative ways to use honey.
The main question is: where will season two take us with the foundation that season one has built? This show started without a semi-audible bang, but slowly and steadily proved itself in a season filled with bad reality shows. You may have to wait one whole year before finding out the answers to so many questions, but at least the show left you wanting more from America’s favorite male gigolo.
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