Hey Bailey! I started watching this because either you or someone else on the MM board mentioned it.
I ended up watching all seasons, and agree 1-4 were the best. I carried on and watched them all because so many people posted about how bad the last seasons were, particularly the 7th. I wanted to see for myself.
The problem with the show in those seasons was that Hank's writing was always the backdrop and what / where he was writing just became more and more preposterous. I could find bits and pieces of those seasons to enjoy but by and large they were just bad repeats of themes and scenarios we'd already seen done. The second-to-most worst aspect of S5-7 were the increased shenanigan's of the Runkels / Stu / whatever. Like, to the degree that I would actually get nauseated by their storylines and presence on the show. I don't think anyone should have to see that much of Evan Handler's mostly naked body. Truly.
But the worst was, by far, the introduction of Levon. As a concept, I thought it was fine because it would be of zero surprise to learn that Hank had other out-of-wedlock children running around in the world. But the execution of Levon was such a tragic misfire from casting, to the character himself, to how Hank relates to him, everything....just an unbelievable mess. I never bought for one second that Hank would have anything to do with that kid, biology or not.
Anyway, I didn't particularly like the show, but was overall entertained enough to watch all the seasons. Mostly I got tired of the two main characters repeating their same dance through 7 seasons.
Yeah, it's an odd show. I can say that I genuinely liked it the first four seasons, but I never loved it thoroughly as a television favorite. Even if there were some aspects of it I did love. Rick Springfield was hilarious! I laughed out loud more times than I can count but think that is mostly down to DD's performance and command of the character. If DD weren't in it, it's unlikely that I would have watched at all since, tonally, it's not generally up my street. At some point I realized that although Hank was supposed to be a bit of an anti-hero, he really was never all that bad or morally questionable. Mostly he was a drifter that the people in his life liked to harangue as though he were just the worst of humanity. So I agree that the dance between Hank and Karen become completely overdone to the degree that I began to loathe both Karen and their whiney, depressive, moralizing daughter. I wanted to drop kick both of them.
By the end of the series, I was actively rooting for Hank to tell the rest of them to eff-off and to hook up with Trixie the prostitute.
Anyway, glad you watched and at least semi enjoyed it. :-)
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