Hung "Pilot"

I'm excited to say that Hung is another good HBO series. It was, after all, the most watched debut since John From Cincinnati. I think you can expect this one to be renewed.

Ray is a guy whose life has absolutely fallen apart. The beginning shows him coaching his basketball team who has lost every game last season. He tells them to go out there to kick some ass. As soon as they leave the locker room, he fakes a kidney stone and leaves. He changes into a suit and goes to his new job as an escort. But let's rewind a little. How did he get here?

Well, it's very simple actually. It all started out with his wife divorcing him. She yells at him through her car window as she's driving away "You used to be handsome, lovely, and well, hung." "What am I now?" he asks. She responds "Now, you're just hung!" and drives away. What an asshole. What ever possessed him to ever marry her. I guess he got custody of his children somehow and lives with them. A bunch of little things happen such as an annoying lawyer moving in next door and bringing him up on charges for a number of violations.

One night, while he is sleeping, a lightbulb somehow manages to makes the house catch on fire. I don't know how, but the important part is the house catches on fire. He and his son make it out alive. His daughter rushes home and they all have a little group hug. Since he doesn't have insurance, he can't get a hotel room for the mean time so he has to use a tent. There's only one tent which pisses his daughter so much that she calls Mom. That's how he lost his kids.

Realizing that he has no hope as a high school gym teacher, he attends a convention teaching him how to become an entrepeneur. He pays attention keenly, but a woman walking in distracts him. He recognizes her as Tanya, a poet who once gave a lecture to his gym class. Afterwards, the had 'tea' and by that I mean sex. The same thing happens afterwards the meeting as well. There's some nudity from Thomas Jane, but no frontal, ladies. They get into a fight and he leaves. Tanya attempts to insult him by saying "You're just hung!" which only gets him thinking about getting into the escort business.

While he is looking up salaries for an escort, his son walks in on him. He quickly shuts his laptop and talks to his son who asks to borrow fifty dollars. Realizing Ray has no money to spare, the son goes back to hanging out with his friends.

At the next meeting, everyone shares their winning 'tool' (haha, get it?), their idea to become a millionaire. Tanya shares her idea about putting poems in food, which gets mixed results from the crowd, but still quite an applause. After interrogating Ray for a while, the host manages to squeeze out of him that his winning tool is his big dick...but that didn't really happen. He makes up some lie and stops going to the meetings. The next day, he puts an ad in the Detroit Times as Big Donnie and goes to his ex-wife's house asking for money. He realizes she has a husband again.

He gets his first client. Ray goes to the hotel room, but the client slips a note under the door saying "I changed my mind". After getting angry at the door for a while, Ray gets fifty dollars from her, whoever she may have been. I, personally, think it was Tanya, but who knows? Ray does the right thing and gives it to his son so he can see a concert.

Tanya meets Ray in his tent. He shows her his ad and she laughs. She gives him a lyric cake and agrees to pimp him out for a portion of his earnings. Ray has become a ho.

I really think Hung is off to a great start, but I liked it better when it was called Secret Diary of a Call Guy.

"Pilot" Grade: A-