Watching Showtime

Another week, another Hank disaster in the making, this time in the form of a benefit Meredith wants Hank to attend with her. She wants, after all, to be more than just bed-buddies, and to move their budding relationship out into the public sphere. Despite his protesting, you know Hank’s going to go, especially when he shows up at Karen’s house to surprise Becca with a cell phone and discovers Karen and Bill are attending the fundraiser as well. I don’t know which I love more, Becca’s excitement at getting a cell phone or Karen’s face when she discovers she and Hank are going to be stuck at the same party all evening!Once they’re at the fundraiser, Meredith runs off to talk to some of her friends, leaving Hank and Charlie to discuss the relationship. When Charlie’s assistant walks up (how I wish I could remember her name!), and lets him know she’s still there working, conversation quickly turns to the obvious sexual tension between the two, but Charile denies anything is amiss.

It would appear that this fundraiser is Hank’s worst nightmare. Not only are his ex and her new fiancé in attendance, but the screenwriter who “butchered his novel�? and his wife (the one Hank fucked all over their house) are also in attendance. And Screenwriter Man is going to tell his wife he wants a divorce. At the party! Classy, and I’m sure it’ll cause problems for Hank as the party moves forward. To make it all the more complicated, Karen all but begs Hank to be on his best behavior no matter what, meaning he can’t react the way you can TELL he wants to all night.

Charlie heads off to his office to talk to his wife on the phone, and while he’s doing so his assistant starts getting all dirty and crawling around in her underwear. Because she clearly is a dirty bitch. I shouldn’t call her that, she’s just expressing herself sexually. All over a married man.

Out at the party, Hank is meeting one of Meredith’s colleagues and his wife. Meredith and the dude head off to get a drink, and while they’re gone Hank finds out (from the guy’s wife no less) that he’s the married guy she’s been seeing for five years. And the wife knows, and while she might care, she really just wants to schtup Hank. Revenge lay?! At least when Hank confronts Meredith she’s honest with him, says she knew he’d be there and wanted to stir up the pot, which Hank helps her do by kissing her passionately (and a little ackwardly?), in the middle of the dance floor.

Back at the homestead, Mia and Becca are hanging out, and Becca says she wants to be a 40 year old virgin because once you have sex your life turns to shit. They have this creepy sister heart to heart about their parents, and how Hank and Karen are better than Mia’s parents. I just wonder if Mia really thinks this, or if she’s trying to make up for the fact that she slept with her soon-to-be step-sister’s dad?

Back at the party some guy spills a drink on Karen, and then calls her a cunt and gets all lippy when she reacts with surprise and just a hint of anger. As she deserved to. Bill gets in the middle and tries to protect Karen, but he ends up being a big loser about it, all but taking the guy’s side in the whole matter. Dude needs to learn to always defend his woman.

Charlie and the assistant are taking new Suicide Girl photos when Hank walks in on them. While she doesn’t seem to mind so much, Charlie is so freaked he’s having an asthma attack. After he calms down and the assistant leaves, Hank and Charlie have a mini- heart to heart, with Hank acting as the voice of reason, which is super strange. It would appear Charlie and his wife are having problems, and not just in the bedroom. Hank tells him to suck it up and talk to his wife about it all, because in the end you don’t want to end up like Hank and Karen.

Another dramatic situation avoided by Hank, he heads out to the party to find Meredith, who has been cut off by the bartender. Someone’s a little upset that the married guy brought his wife instead of her to the party, it would seem. Hank, in all his new-found chivalry and good-doing, heads off to defend her to the married guy, who lets Hank in on a little secret: Meredith is still sleeping with him, too, and she talks some mad shit about Hank when she’s with him! Apparently Hank is just someone to “pass the time with�? while she waits for married guy to leave his wife. Nice. At just that moment his blast from the screenwriting past shows up to throw a drink on him (apparently her husband has just told her he wants a divorce), but Hank avoids drama once again by ducking and letting the drink end up all over Married Guy.

Heading out to his car with drunk-ass Meredith, Hank and Karen have this super sweet moment by his car when the lippy dude walks by. When Karen explains the situation to Hank, he lets go of his no-drama policy and punches the guy in the face. Which is what Bill should have done in the first place.

Once back at his house, Hank has to put drunk Meredith to bed after she pukes in Hank’s bathroom. Not tired, he hears his cell ringing, and it’s his Becca, calling because she had a feeling he couldn’t sleep. She tells him to look at the ocean and count the mermaids, something he did for her when she was little. Becca falls asleep, and then so does Hank in this beautiful father/daughter moment. Guess we’ll have to wait until next week to see how he handles the Meredith issue.