The creative minds behind the Showtime series Californication have never hidden their love of metal. The show’s antihero, Hank Moody (played by David Duchovny), has written three novels that share titles with Slayer albums (South of Heaven, Seasons in the Abyss, and God Hates Us All); rockers including Zakk Wylde and Tommy Lee have appeared on the show, and Marilyn Manson is set to glower his ghastly sneer in this season; and settings for the show have included gritty Sunset Strip rock Meccas like the Rainbow and Chateau Marmont. Add to this mix, Moody’s fork-tongued turns of phrase and his general decadence—sex, drugs, and a lot more sex—and he carries himself like a rock star without the musical chops.
Last night’s season six premiere, which boasted the Metallica-referencing title “The Unforgiven,” naturally had no shortage of debauched moments. Of course, it helped that it started with at New York’s famed and now-defunct CBGB club, which the producers faithfully recreated, and the original version of a song Guns N’ Roses covered: Johnny Thunders’ 1978 bum trip “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory.” Below, we’ve collected together some of the funniest and most metal moments from “The Unforgiven,” many of which you’ll enjoy if you love spoilers.
Hank Moody’s Total Meltdown
After waking up from a drug-induced coma, after his ex-girlfriend slipped some antidepressants into Moody’s wine, he realized what a total fuckup he became and then got even more fucked up. Highlights—or in this case lowlights—included Moody going to the wrong house and accidentally climbing into a toddler’s bed, his pissing into a whiskey bottle, rather than going to one of the “three-point-five baths” in his agent/best friend Charlie Runkle’s house, and then drinking said piss-key to the stinger of “Deeeelicious.” He ruins a wedding proposal, gets called a “dick in the mud,” walks around with a bloody tissue hanging from his nose, and even sort of title-checks Slipknot when he explains the reason he dropped out of college as, “I’m a fucking disasterpiece.” And then there’s a question he asks Runkle early on, “Have you ever had a throbbing asshole, Charlie?”
The Introduction of Rock Star Atticus Fetch
“It was an honor and a privilege to hold your penis for as long as I did,” said a flight attendant/masseuse/handjob giver to this season’s rock-star foil to Moody, the guylinered and long blonde haired Atticus Fetch (Australian comedian Tim Minchin). Right from the start, the Fetch character is an over-the-top Golden God in the vein of ’80s Ozzy or Vince Neil or, in the ’70s, every Led Zeppelin member. The man has a TV broadcasting his own private satellite feed of scenes from the Sudan on his plane: “I can write a song about it.” He snorts coke off a mirror and claims Moody’s God Hates Us All “was like God came down from heaven and laid his massive, veiny ballsack on my face.” Which of course made him want to make a rock opera out of it—or rather the watered-down Hollywood version of God Hates Us All: Crazy Little Thing Called Love. But since Moody’s assessment of Fetch is, “You’re smug, you’re pompous, there’s no cock in your rock anymore,” there’s likely plenty of mayhem ahead in the season.
Charlie Runkle’s Incredible Hulk Stripper Show
Near the end of Moody’s friends ill-executed “intervention,” Runkle loses it and lets loose a scream dastardly scream. That he accompanies it by ripping off his sweater and then daintily unbuttoning his shirt (see gif) to reveal where he took a bullet for Moody in the last season made it the funniest moment of the episode. All in all, The Unforgiven was a great start, but let’s hope there’s enough Runkle rage to last the full sixth season.
