Hank

Watching Californication one couldn’t help but notice Hank Moody’s steadfast refusal to defend himself in any number of situations where others proclaimed his guilt or poor character.

This despite the fact that his life could have been much easier with the odd sharing of facts or feelings.

But it wasn’t that easy for Hank.

He was just being himself and didn’t want to get dragged into being the respondent to someone else’s Gestalt.

From Shakespeare in Polonius;

“This above all: to thine ownself be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man”

Hank was being authentic, and letting others own their version of truth and trust, and whatever else was eating their innards.

Also, once in the whirlpool, Hank knew that there was no getting out. It’s just down and down until you eventually drown, many years later.

I suspect that Hank would have been very happy to discuss just about anything, so long as it wasn’t in the context of justifying being himself.

You see, Hank was a thinker and an observer. He needed time to absorb the so-called facts so he could run a million scenarios and cross check them with his own models of everything.

The wife, Karen, she never gave him that chance. If she didn’t get immediate satisfaction then another dart was permanently fired into the narrative of the bad Hank.

She was desperately trying to kill the very thing that made Hank unique and compelling. If she got what she wanted, she wouldn’t have a Hank. 

He didn’t try to edit her, knowing that it was a hopelessly flawed idea. She couldn’t edit him and have him, but she tried anyway. 

And he knew this the whole time, and loved her despite this.

It’s what you would call tragic comedy, doomed to fail.

Shakespeare said this a tad more eloquently in As You Like It;

“For your brother and my sister no sooner met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy.”

“Lord, what fools these mortals be”