This is the end, beautiful friend, the end.

Ending a successful TV show hardly ever happens, and when it does, it seems weird.

It seems a lot more the norm for the show to die out, usually after unsuccessfully attempting to fill the main character’s departure to pursue a disappointing movie career. I remember seeing the final episode of MASH with excitement – it was a great show, but had, despite still having great ratings, grown old and tired after so many years. The last episode of Star Trek, I remember, was fantastic – the return of Q and the wonderful quote about progression not being about mapping the stars and galaxies, but about mapping the possibilities of the human mind. One Tree Hill seemed to be a good show until the end of season two, which really seemed as if everything was being tied up and ended, then it kept going for another ...how long? Seinfeld was probably the pick of them that I can think of, obscure and funny, but not a complete ending, not like the Young Ones...  Northern Exposure I think did half a season too many, but I never warmed to the new doctor, which is probably why I say that. Once Joel left, it seemed final; however the final show was brilliant – everyone had, as Jung said they would, turned into their opposites. 

Californication is also a good case in point. I recently(re)watched it, a show that I caught some of the episodes when it first came on TV. Enough of them to keep up with the plot anyway. I thought it was a good show: not overly in depth, but a fun story and some deeper issues brought up once in a while or more. But the thing is – I really adored the ending – the last show in season four. 

[partial kind of spoiler alert here]

The way I saw it, that was the absolute genius of the show – it ended with the Stones blaring the wonderful ‘if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need’ right as Hank was moving on to a different part of his life and the two female characters, ex-partner and daughter were gutted to find Hank not chasing after them as they went about their way. What had started to shit me more than a little bit was their inability to cope with not being the centre of attention while seemingly never standing by their kin, whether that be Hank, Bill, Charlie or whoever.

Maybe there is a gender empathy here, but another thing that  annoyed me about the show was the constant ability of Karen and others to throw all blame on Hank when, while Hank was up to no good most of the time, it was Karen that initially cheated on him. Perhaps it was to do with this idea that she thought Hank was cheating on her, but nonetheless, this wasn’t the case, even if it were, she didn’t have proof of anything. She was also very much the Mary of the relationship. So the problem then becomes – does this represent reality? If it does, our views on a lot of things from monogamy to Darwinism and maybe back via some bizarre social graces may well be a little off centre.

There is this huge body of thought, especially in blogs and sinchillectualism that goes along the lines that people weren’t supposed to be moral in an old-world way, especially when it comes to things like monogamy. This line of thought seems hell bent on doing the opposite of anything that resembles old-world values merely and seemingly only for the reason that these issues resemble old world values. There is usually a sprinkling of quazi-science thrown in there, but the reality I find to be specifically opposed to this on a number of fronts. I know I have blogged about other fronts on this line before http://t.co/aGodlOTo but my understanding of the structure of deceit in Californication matches my understanding of reality – people don’t cheat on a partner because they are on the prowl, destined to be free or open minded. People cheat on their partners because they are riddled with inferiority issues and things like separation anxiety and blatant stupidity and that they are being badly done by. This is not a position of strength or freedom; this is a position of weakness and cowardice. Sure, I bet there are people out there that don’t fit this mould, but they may be easily classified as ‘jerks’ which in turn may just be a highly successful repression of these fears and issues.

I have known so many couples where one party has cheated on the other and it seems to me that in all these cases, it was the weaker member of that couple that did the cheating. It was the Mary that did it. It was out of guilt, shame, inferiority and weakness that this happened and was designed to champion a self-righteous claim of individuality over reason that was the motivating factor. It never had anything to do with love, lust or fertility.

Karen is presented as this type of character in both ways. She is with Bill, she was ‘talking’ with him and doesn’t ever draw a distinction between that and love/sex. She, Bill and Becca all have this understanding that there is nothing overly wrong with that and to oppose it seems immature or childish in some way, perhaps naive. But she is also presented as this total ditz that isn’t anywhere near good enough to be around the likes of Hank and is destroying his life by not owning her actions by declaring one way or the other which way she wants it all to be.

Just before the wonderful ending, we get to see the actress playing Karen in the new movie ask Hank what it was about Karen that kept him around, cause she couldn’t understand it. Hank really beautifully admits to not having a clue why and walks off into a semi-montaged sunset ending. 

I hear you yelling out "Mikey, Mikey, that wasn't the end." I know, they then made a season five and apparently are now making a season six with completely undoes all this stuff I was talking about. In season five, Hank is back to sacrificing everything and more just to stay around Karen, who is now married to her first love. A marriage which ends on the notion that it is smothering both of them. Blah...there goes the whole point I guess, but I like to hope that is just about the show wanting to make more money and more stories rather than end itself, which would be a tough thing to do. 

This post’s groovy identity-fulfilling quote:  

“It’s not the thing you fling, it’s the fling itself.”

This post’s lame joke: 

I was told that a dwarf apparently had his pocket picked at my train station this morning. I couldn't believe it...how could someone stoop so low ?

This post’s inappropriate over-share:

I have this really weird fear of using an unflushed toilet. Like there is something about sharing a space between flushes with another person and this will in some way connect me to someone that I don’t know and probably won’t want to be connected with. At the same time, I do consider myself to be environmentally and economically aware, so the sheer waste of water that flushing the loo to deal with my own weird conceptions of the world seems plain stupid.