The Royal Pains redemption (this time, with sharks)

by Julia Hass

divya I’ve got to say something for Royal Pains – they sure know how to take a note.

After my complaining last week (to which most of your replies were “so stop watching the show“), I was very nervous about this week’s episode, wondering who I could rope into reviewing this for me, et cetera, et cetera. Thanks for making me worry for nothing, you guys, because this week … was awesome. And that, my friends, is why I keep watching shows, even when sometimes, I don’t like an episode. (That’s right! I’m allowed to not like an episode. It’s shocking, I know, that occasionally that happens.)

Despite totally stealing an episode title from House, (hello, the TB or not TB joke? It’s been made), this week was both delightful and original, sending the series in exactly the direction I’d been hoping it would go. I guess what bothered me was the whole rich v. poor thing. It’s been done. I get it, rich people can be totally obnoxious (and how) and poor people need and are more deserving of the money. It’s all very Charles Dickens. But it is boring and one-dimension and … really? That’s the best a team of writers can come up with? Medical Robin Hood, the world’s lamest Maid Marian, and a bunch of Merry Men that are both way more interesting and tragically underused? No, thank you.

And then this week. Oh, this week! There were no rich people, but I could have even taken a rich patient or two. What I cared about more was how much better the characters were handled. Divya got to strike out on her own (with some rather bumbling help from Evan), Evan got a non-ridiculous side plot, Boris came into play (I knew he was up to something!), and I didn’t spend the entire time wanting to vomit when Hank and Jill were making googly eyes at each other. In fact, Hank’s starting to become so boring I’m wondering if maybe the totally contrived, all-too-television-perfect romance isn’t, well, livable, even if it is probably the lamest USA has done since their attempts at Shawn and Juliet in Psych, and potentially even lamer. And believe you me, it takes a lot for me to call something lamer than Shawn and Juliet in Psych. Like, a whole hell of a lot.

But maybe … maybe Hank’s really bad fake tan and strangely dehydrated-pink lips should be smooching Jill’s forgetably pretty ones. Maybe they should run off into the blah sunset and have yawnable children while more acoustic, irrelevant music plays, because I honestly wouldn’t want to waste a good character on either of them at this point. Also, even though I hate them together, I’d like them to have someone better choose their emotional moment music. Here is a hint, television: because Royal Pains is not the only offender in this department — if you are going to have something happen and you want music to underscore it so you make it loud enough to hear the lyrics — please make sure the lyrics make the barest modicum of sense. Like, just as a favor to humanity.

Speaking of House, the Patient of the Week did seem rather derivative, but so long as the patient is around delicious food? I find myself not caring. Honestly, I’m pretty fixated on Boris. It’d been my guess from the get-go that he was involved in something sinister (because, hello, sketchy people named Boris always are), and I am having an excellent time with myself trying to figure out what the shark has to do with anything. Is he running an illegal exotic animal import ring? Does he feed his enemies to the shark? Or maybe he’s Dr. Evil and he is having it outfitted with a laser beam, and then will release them into the Atlantic and have them take over the Hamptons. In fact, I vote we start a petition: one million strong for sharks with laser beams! Who’s with me?