I kind of like how Hung works, because the show could easily work as a client of the week, but they don’t seem to be making it an every episode thing. This episode focused on Gemma, a lonely woman who wants to enact a damsel in distress fantasy. This role was played brilliantly by an almost unrecognizable Natalie Zea, who I’m so used to as Karen Darling and it was really a nice change to see her play a character who was a bit less over the top, but still kind of crazy. This episode really shows how troublesome things can get in Ray’s line of work as we watch him redo the whole damsel in distress fantasy a couple of times. After a while. it became less about the money and more about Ray trying to get the job done… well it was still about the money a little.

Thomas Jane, Natalie Zea

It was funny when it looked like Ray had finally gotten it right, only for him to choke when she talked about how she loved him. You really can’t blame Ray for that though. At one point it was hard to tell whether Ray was even pretending anymore because it started becoming more fluid for him. I would have preferred to get to Gemma a little more though, because we could kind of empathize with her with the fact that she’s lonely and just wants a companion; and really just wants that fairy tale scene that every girl wants. If we would have gotten just a little more background on her though, she really could have been someone to really like, but then again this is just a client and it’s probably not a good idea to get attached to a character that is made to be temporary.

On the side, we had Jessica finding out that Ron is now broke because of money he lost in the stock market. I still haven’t found a reason to love or hate Jessica yet because I don’t think we know her that well; she seems like a good person, but she comes off as kind of neurotic sometimes. I do like the way that Ray’s luck seems to be going up as Jessica’s is going down and it was nice to see Ray be able to give his kids steaks and possibly buy them a car.

All of this culminated with a bit of a cliffhanger where Ray asked Gemma for another chance, but we get no answer (even though the preview kind of ruins it). There’s also a small thing that keeps happening in these episodes where we get a scene of the neighbors wife looking at him. Ray seems surprised that she’s looking at him and either didn’t write the note to her or didn’t think the note would be such a big deal. Hopefully we’ll see something come of that as well.

I thought this was a good episode and Hung is really starting to catapult itself up there for me. There’s still fixes to be made, most importantly with character development, but it’s coming into it on and this episode was a funny and overall good episode to watch.

Rating: 8.3

The episode starts us off with the kids at Ray’s school making him the recipient of their fundraiser. It was all kind of funny because the speech that a student gave really made Ray out to be someone who never moves ahead in life. He at least got money to buy himself a beam for his house, but we do end up finding out that there’s not even enough money in the jar.

Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker

Meanwhile, Tanya has lined up two jobs for Ray, even before Ray had agreed to get back into the business, but with funds so low, he kind of had no choice. Even now that the business is finally starting to pick up Ray runs into his first problem when his client ends up being a lonely old lady named Molly. Ray apparently thought all his clients would be young women, so he ends up faking sick with Molly. When he visits again though Ray is a lot more charming and seemed to sympathize with her.

I think if the writers focus on the clients changing Ray that this show works a lot better. Essentially by the end of this show’s run, we should see a changed Ray, not fully changed, but maybe more of a people person.

The kids were also given a nice role here with Dharby breaking up with her boyfriend. We got glimpses of Ronnie acting like a tough guy, but it might have had something to do with his mom’s gay comment. I don’t necessarily get Ronnie yet, but maybe that’s what’s intriguing about him. I’m starting to like the actors who play them, but hopefully we’ll see a bit more of them.

We also got a nice scene which may or may not amount to anything with Lenore meeting Jessica. We’re not sure if this will be something common place on Hung where characters will run into Ray’s family ever so often or if this will actually play itself out later on this season.

I thought this was a good episode and I’m very interested to see who the next client is and where the story is going to go from here on out. I see Hung is improving and let’s hope that it continues.

Rating: 8.0

So it turns out that Lenore took Ray’s wallet and we quickly find out that she also maxed out his credit cards. It was kind of sad to see Ray get cheated out of money, but there was a cool moment when Tanya tried to cover and give Ray the 300 dollars.

Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker

See, this episode did a great job of having us feel out some of the characters. I think Tanya benefited the most from this episode because we really got to see that her weakness is that she cares too much if people like her. She actually came off quite endearing in this episode because she’s a person who has been berated all her life and still tries. It now makes sense to her why she wants this thing with Ray to work so much.

At least Lenore ended up coming through in the end and it looks like business is going to start picking up. For the first time I actually started caring about some of the characters on the show. Jessica and the kids still don’t appeal to me much and the one scene with the dog was kind of disturbing actually.

I also liked how Ray dealt with his next door neighbor. With this episode, I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season comes off. There’s a lot of potential for this series. I just hope the writers tap into it.

Rating: 7.5

You know I don’t think this episode tells us how much time has passed since the first episode, but apparently it was enough time for Ray to get a hickey on his neck. It raises the question of how many times has he seen a client since the first episode and if he’s already done it why was he so nervous in this episode. Anyway, Tanya finds Ray a client in one of her former co-workers who doesn’t seem very nice to begin with, but could potentially be an in for some luxury clients.

Anne Heche

Ray isn’t the most compassionate person, which makes me wonder how any of his relationships even worked for the little time that it did, so Tanya schools him on how to treat a woman. She teaches him how to give comments and all that other good stuff. When Ray gets there, all of those rules go out the window because Lenore ends up being kind of like a guy just wanting to get to the sex part.

So far Tanya isn’t being a very good pimp. She’s far too meek and weak of a character to be one. Ray is in debt a lot and for him to make enough money to get himself out of the hole he’s in, he’s going to have a lot of sex, so much in fact that it might be unbelievable to us.

The main problem with this show is that it hasn’t done enough to tell us who these characters are and what we do know about them isn’t much. Anne Heche has a bigger role this episode, but comes off as an overbearing mom trying too hard. There still isn’t much of a connection to be made with Tanya either who comes off as mild and meek and she also comes off as trying to hard when it comes to Ray. Ray might be the only character that we do care about, but it would be nice to see why his relationships with the people on the show are that way.

I feel like there’s one too many shows out there where someone has to do something illegal to get buy and the others are simply better. After Ray gets the money, what reason is there to continue other than for Greed.

I’m still interested to see where things go, because the acting isn’t too bad and I think Thomas Jane does a good job and it’s especially funny to see him kind of dance and pretend to be some kind of suave guy when he’s apparently not. Jessica is simply too one dimensional to care about and the kids could use some more time, because there’s nothing interesting about them like Nancy’s boys.

I’d like to see more done with this show, something that makes me care about the characters, because this episode was simply average and when this is just the second episode, that’s not good. We’ll have to see next week to see if we’re given something better.

Rating: 6.3

Ray Drecker is a divorced basketball coach with two kids, whose life takes a turn when his house burns down. While any reasonable person would have insured there house, Ray doesn’t and soon finds himself unable to keep up with the property taxes he has to pay and take care of himself and the kids. As a last resort, Ray uses the only tool that he has, which ends up being his penis.

Thomas Jane as Ray Drecker, Jane Adams as Tanya Skagle

Thomas Jane certainly works as the character Ray, who could come off as an unlikable character, but doesn’t. He could come off as mean, but most of it is just him being honest and for some reason it all comes together to make him a likeable guy. I’m not sure if this show wants us to feel sorry for him or just go along for the ride though, because to be honest, I don’t feel too sorry for him. I think it’s due mostly on the part of the writers. We’re told that Ray is in a bind, but not enough is shown to show that Ray is that down in the dumps. Yes, we know that he couldn’t give his son fifty dollars, but don’t most modern families have the same problem and you don’t see them turning to male prostitution.

I find that this show can be compared to the show Weeds with our two main characters both having to turn to something illegal (not sure if it’s illegal in the state that Ray is in). With Weeds though, we’re given a sense that for the most part this is the best way for Nancy to get ahead. In Hung, I simply don’t feel as strongly that this is Ray’s last resort.

There are characters introduced in this episode, but none of them really have any depth. Ray’s son, Damon seems nice and the writers let us know that he’s into Goth, but there doesn’t seem to be much else to him, the daughter isn’t seen much at all in this episode other then when she’s getting out of her “friend’s” car.

Then we have Ray’s ex-wife Jessica who comes off as quite the bitch. It’s a bit weird that she comes off as the most unlikable character in this episode, maybe it’s because the writer’s give us a flashback of how crazy she was and the way she leaves Ray, just makes her look even worse. We’re not really given much about how Jessica and Ray’s relationship has been since the divorce, but apparently it’s non-existent.

The character we’re supposed to like second most is Tanya who sleeps with Ray and then kicks him out for Ray telling her the truth, basically. We know Tanya is a poet and seems like a nice person, but her morals and personality aren’t set in stone here. One moment she seems somewhat holier than thou and then the next she wants to become Ray’s pimp.

I definitely seem some promise with this first episode, but I’m interested to see if the writers are going to give some depth to not only the story, but the characters as well, because there’s really no character at all that I connect with. I think with time this show will grow on us and it wasn’t a horrible episode, but did seem very short with its 48 minute time frame. I think this was a decent episode to start with, but I look forward to seeing what’s done with the show in the upcoming episodes.

Rating: 7.0