Although my wife and I are happily married and have been for more than a decade now, after watching this evening's finale to the third season of Hung, I suddenly found myself trying to think of a scenario in which my life might’ve reached a point where I’d want to hire a prostitute to propose to me in front of a restaurant full of strangers, as some poor woman paid Ray to do tonight. I came up short. I feel like this is a good thing. For Ray, though, it was just another day at the office… or, at least, it was until he actually arrived at the office.
We knew it was coming, but as a result of the $40,000 bail bond Tanya defaulted upon when Charlie skipped town with his wife and kids, the bail bondsmen have finally arrived and are, to put it succinctly, "taking her shit." Tanya, meanwhile, is taking it about as well as she takes all bad news, which is to say not very well at all. Indeed, when Ray arrives to demand answers, she refuses to even answer the door, so busy is she drowning her sorrows in a little bit of Frampton Comes Alive and a whole lot of denial. After pounding on the door for all he’s worth and getting no response greater than “go away, Ray,” he turns to screaming at the top of his lungs ‘til she finally emerges onto the balcony, at which point he berates her for having “bet the wellness center on a friggin' pimp.” Although she purports to be raising the money by selling her record collection on eBay, claiming, "My Dark Side of the Moon has started a bidding war!”
(Based on my research, unless her copy of the Pink Floyd classic is an original pressing which features solid blue Triangle LP picture labels, she's going to be seriously disappointed with the final bid.)
After scaling the balcony and enduring Tanya dropping a potted plant on his noggin, Ray lets loose on Tanya, but he does so in a way she wasn’t expecting: by telling her that, despite his original claims that the wellness center was just a bunch of hooey, she was right all along. “Some of those women were happy,” he admits. “Happier than when they showed up, anyway.” Although Ray never actually admits that he was happy, too (even though he clearly has been at various points during this season, particularly during his encounters with Logan), he’s forced to concede – albeit with a sigh – that the career he’s forged with her is basically the only career he’s got left at this point.
In other words, it’s time to find Charlie and get their money back.
They’re not the only ones looking to get their lives in order. Jessica finds herself up the creek without a paddle when Dr. Matt finally decides to give in to his shrew of a wife and trump up an excuse to fire her. Although she accepts the situation at first, her attempts to simply shuffle home and start working on her resume are stymied by an inability to concentrate. Deciding to channel her inner Lenore, however, she picks up a fireplace poker and… well, basically, you’d think it was Mjölnir, given the transformation that occurs. Her spirit rejuvenated, she runs back to Dr. Matt’s office and gives him some serious what-for. You know, I’m really looking forward to seeing what Jessica 2.0 manages to accomplish in season four.
When season four rolls around, however, will Lenore be there? Well, if she isn’t, it’ll be the single dumbest move in the history of Hung, but I guess we’re supposed to at least pretend that the wound she incurred from Sandee was terminal… if, that is, Sandee even managed to hit her. But I’m jumping ahead without discussing the bit where Lenore passed on Jason’s apologies but accepted a back seat adventure with the young man. Rebecca Creskoff may play one of the biggest bitches on TV, but, damn, the lady knows how to work a sex scene. In the end, it proves typically easy to convince Jason that what he really needs to do is kick Sandee to the curb. The timing couldn’t be worse –her grandmother’s just died – but damned if he didn’t do it anyway. And that brings us back to where we were at the beginning of the paragraph, with Sandee delivering a cake to Lenore’s place, along with a gun and a bullet with her name written all over it. Or not. We’ll find out for sure next season, I reckon.
Okay, back to Ray and Tanya to start closing things out. As I figured last week, Tanya’s memorization of Charlie’s license plate came back into play, but I hadn’t foreseen that she’d go through Lydia to get the information. I don’t know that the scene was really necessary, though. It was certainly uncomfortable, but thanks to Lydia’s “I’m in charge here, bitch” attitude, it was uncomfortable to the point that it wasn’t terribly funny. Still, it got them down to Charlie’s farm, so there’s that, at least.
Turns out Charlie and Missy have got themselves a farm, and they’re raising beefalo. Can’t say as I saw that turn of events coming, either. The whole idea of Ray renting a truck and trying to steal 10 or 12 beefalo under cover of darkness with Tanya as his accomplice was so ludicrous that I could only sit back and watch the shenanigans unfold. Sure, I knew the plan was destined to dissolve into a miserable failure. Tanya trying to wrangle cattle? Yeah, right. But I didn’t care. If there’s a Lucy and Ricky of HBO sitcoms, it’s got to be Thomas Jane and Jane Adams. I love to see them doing slapstick stuff like this.
So things wrapped up with one last great appearance from Lennie James as Charlie (two words: “bottomless ho”). Tanya finds the strength to stand up to him, and she and Ray drive away with 10 beefalo, which they will presumably sell and reopen the wellness center. Or else Tanya will convince Ray that it’d break her heart if they sold them to a butcher, in which case God only knows what season four is going to be about.
I'm not saying season three was the best Hung's had to offer, but I was left a damned sight more optimistic about the future at the end of this year than I was at the end of last year, so I’ll definitely be back. Here’s hoping you will be, too.
Stray observations:
- "You don't get to fix the problem by yourself, little lady!"
- "Stop with the Rapunzel crap!"
- I don’t know when Ray decided that he was going to start referring to Tanya simply by her last name, but I laughed every time he called her “Skagle.”
- "I told you if you would just get waxed you wouldn't even have razors in the house!"
- The bit about how bad Tanya’s car smelled was funny stuff. That woman is a mess in more ways than one.
- "I'm a man, Tanya. I know all kinds of shit."
- "Go back to your exam, but remember: You sexually harrassed me, and then you fired me. I want a severance package. And a bonus. Have a good fucking day."
- "Come on, you big bovine!"
- "Look, these are my motherfucking cows. Now, I need you to put 'em back in the motherfucking stable so they can eat some motherfucking grass, and then I want you to get the fuck out of here." Damn, I love Lennie James.