By Stacey Harrison
First off, let me say how bummed I am to find out Hung is just a half-hour show. They fooled us with that magnificent hour-long pilot. Seems like the show could handle the (ahem) length, but if the quality of the show stays like this, we’ll take what we can get.
Ray’s school is laying off teachers — the entire art department, in fact. But Ray’s not worried about his job. After all, basketball is more important than art. But then he gets called into the principal’s office, but not for any termination. Just a garden-variety chewing out.
Tanya deigns to meet with Ray at a chain steakhouse to map out their business plan. She’s got a budget for wardrobe, marketing, and has even designed a “happiness consultant” logo for Ray. She also ever-so-gently tells him that he should work on his foreplay technique. Ray is indignant, but is swayed by Tanya’s goal of making $2,000 a night. Minus her 50 percent. Er, make that 40. 30. Whatever, it’s negotiable. Tanya has a lead on a source that could give them several rich, lonely clients willing to pay for Ray’s company. The source is Lenore, a lady who used to temp with Tanya and call her T-Brain. Lenore now works as a personal style consultant for said rich, older ladies. She goes shopping with them and tells them what to buy. She’s incredulous that the stickler T-Brain is now pimping men for a living. Before she makes any recommendations to her clients, however, she’s got to try the merchandise. Pay what you will. She wonders if Ray will perform a certain act and Tanya can’t quite bring herself to speak for him.
Jessica, meanwhile, is imposing herself in the twins’ lives. She’s using her pull to try to get Darby a solo at the next choir recital. Instead of being grateful, the kids are horrified, and urge Ray to get the house fixed ASAP so they can move back in. Jessica can feel their hesitance and wonders where she lost them. She starts to think maybe she’s not such a good person, that she fusses over the smallest things. She then proceeds to bitch out the maid for her method of folding towels. Ronnie tries to calm her down as he Botoxes her eyebrows.
Ray’s encounter with Lenore starts off awkwardly, with her immediately identifying his cheap suit and offering him some pot. Then she wants him to dance, which he is pretty pathetic at. Turns out she’s a pretty demanding lover. Grab this, flex that, lick right there, faster, slower, grind left, grind right, … had Ray not been a former athlete, he wouldn’t have been able to keep up. But it tires him out enough that he wakes up late for school and unable to find his wallet.
At school, he’s back in the principal’s office, getting browbeaten for his dung beetle speech in the pilot. While he’s relieved, Ray can’t get his lost wallet out of his mind. He freaks out to Tanya, who tries to soothe his nerves, assuring him that Lenore has no reason to want his wallet, steal his identity and/or post his vital info on the Internet.