Last season left off with Hank knocking on that old familiar red door, with his heart at his feet, ready to declare his love for Karen once and for all. He had just left the rock n’ roll circus, and the beautiful groupie, Faith, to go and “reclaim the best parts of himself” as he later states in Season 7.
In the first episode of Season 7, we join Hank back at the same place we left him last season. Of course the way you play it out in your head is often different than what ends up happening in reality, as it doesn’t go as planned for Hank. Not only is Karen not home when he comes back for her, but he ends up interrupting her date with some guy from her Yoga class, where he does his usual thing and incessantly insults the man standing in his way.
Season 7 catches up with the Runkles having just returned from their honeymoon. But when Hank asks Charlie about the trip, he adamantly avoids the subject, which leads us to believe things did not go well. It turns out our old boy Charlie is having some dysfunctional man problems in the bedroom, which resulted in a very awkward and unsatisfying honeymoon for the re-connected lovers.
On top of Hank’s timing woes with Karen, his career is in a complete downward spiral as he has literally sh*t on everybody and anybody who’s ever offered him a writing job in Hollywood. Even Atticus Fetch fired him from his Broadway playwriting job, as well as firing Runkle from his duties as manager. This results in Runkle trying to tackle television to get Hank a writing job, so he can prove to Karen that he’s finally grown out of his child-like past of self-destruction. This lands Hank in a meeting with Santa Monica Cop showrunner, Rick Rath, who insists that he has no intentions of hiring Hank. Then with a very candid and honest speech about his “trying to get right with himself”, as well as a timely canning of another writer, Hank gets hired on to write for the show.
The episode then gets interesting when college-aged, Levon, who wants to interview Hank for his college newspaper, reveals that he’s Hank’s estranged son. It turns out Levon’s off-topic and character-probing questions, leading to Hank to say, “What did I do to you? Did I f*ck your girlfriend? Did I f*ck your mom, kid?” resulted in a little more truth than Hank was looking for.
The episode concludes as Hank has a stare down with Levon, with a dazed and confused look on his face, as he lights a cigarette, probably taking an uncomfortable walk down memory lane as he pieces together how this is at all possible.
Will Levon’s appearance be the thing that pulls Hank and Karen apart for good? Will Hank be able to keep his pompous remarks to a minimum and play nice with the other writers on Santa Monica Cop? Will Runkle ever be able to get it up? These are all things that we will have to tune in next week at 9:30PM EST. on Showtime to find out.
Until then, Hank.
