Hung Up

I started watching Hung when it first aired back in 2009 but didn’t finish the first season.  Recently I was looking for a series to binge-watch (preferably one with short episodes) and I came across Hung.

Ray Drecker (played by Thomas Jane) is a high school teacher and coach living in Detroit.  His life is falling apart, mirroring the crumbling city in which he lives.  He is divorced (his wife having left him for a dermatologist), he had to move into his parents’ modest house, he had a kidney stone (which presented as a prostate scare) and his team is in the throes of a crushing losing streak.  Just when he thinks things can’t get worse, a fire destroys most of his house and his twins, unable to live in tents in their backyard, leave him to live with their mother.  “I used to be a big deal.  I used to be going somewhere.  Now all I ever seem to do is try not to drown” he laments.  So, he decides to use what God has blessed him with and turn to the oldest profession in history to get his life back on track.

After hitting rock bottom, Ray finds an advertisement for a seminar on how to become a multimillionaire, “Wealth Whizz”.  The seminar leader challenges the class to find “one winning tool” that will make them rich and successful.  Ray realizes that his winning tool is in fact his tool, which is substantial in length and girth.  At the seminar, he meets Tanya (Jane Adams), a poet that he once slept with, who offers to be his pimp and help him “market his dick” in exchange for a share of his earnings.  After some back and forth, they both take a tentative step into the world of male prostitution.  Tanya prefers the term “Happiness Consultant” because she believes that for women, happiness is often equated with great sex.

Their first client, a woman in a hotel room, changes her mind when Ray knocks on her door, slipping a note under the door accompanied by $50 for his trouble.  Tanya soon realizes that they need to think bigger (no pun intended) and the “lynch pin” in her plan is Lenore, a former law firm colleague who now works as a personal shopper for weather women.  However, she insists on a “free sample” first before recommending the service to her own clients and ends up taking Ray’s wallet and a pair of his underpants.  By the end of season one, she muscles her way into Ray and Tanya’s business because she believes Ray is worth more than Tanya is able to elicit from the women she is procuring for him (“Share Ray or no Ray!”). 

The show has some funny moments and loads of unconventional and spirited sex scenes (and plenty of ass shots thrown in for good measure).  It is great to watch Ray evolve from a somewhat awkward “normal” guy who does “normal things” to a confident, adventurous and more sympathetic man who is willing to explore his own boundaries while ensuring that his clients get what they need at the same time.  The plot also focuses on his growth as a father, trying to raise two awkward teenagers with their own issues, not the least of which is his son’s terrible hair.  Besides the great performance from Thomas Jane, I also enjoyed vegan (unless comfort hot dogs are called for) feminist poet, Tanya, and her “lyric bread” business concept and Anne Heche as Ray’s neurotic self-absorbed ex-wife.  Even bitchy Lenore has her moments.

 If you’re looking for a unique, slightly off-centre and heart-warming comedy that just happens to centre around a very big penis, then Hung is the perfect series for you to binge-watch.