TVSquad

(S02E05) Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Eighteen episodes into this spectacular series and up to this point, every single one of them has been nothing short of incredible. This episode? Not so much. I just didn't find myself all that engaged. The story was all over the place, which isn't that unusual for an installment of Huff. But this episode felt especially disjointed.

That being said, there was still plenty of good stuff going on here. You know a show is pulling it's weight when it has Sharon Stone exit from her guest-starring stint only to be followed up by Angelica Huston in the very next episode. Unfortunately though, to make room for such stellar guest stars, storylines involving the main characters (What happened to Byrd and his new hobby?) get pushed aside.

Angelica Huston made up for the lack of Byrd quite well, so I am willing to forgive. She plays Dr. Lena Markova and Huff meets her when he tries to track down Melody Coatar (Lara Flynn Boyle's character from season one). Lena ends up "treating" Huff. He's been having a hard time dealing with patients and he's tired of being kicked around. The two end up smoking a couple of joints in Lena's office. That scene was spectacular. Well acted, funny lines. At one point, Huff was trying to spell out Teddy's name with pencils and what he ended up spelling out was LTITL (pronounced Le-TIT-el). That cracked me up.

The whole relationship he's developing with Dr. Markova seems problematic though. Huff and Beth have started seeing a marriage therapist and this late night smoking weed with Lena was just another thing Huff had to lie about. He told Beth he was out looking for Teddy all night. Not true. Beth and Huff are at each other's throats as it is. Sooner or later (I'm thinking sooner) we're going to see these two really go at it.

The ironic thing is that while Huff is using Teddy's antics as a scapegoat for his own actions, Teddy actually seems to be pulling himself together. He even got a job as a night watchman at a nearby flower shop. Although, I'm not so sure it's a good idea for Teddy to be up all night depriving himself of sleep which I'm certain is crucial to a schizophrenic maintaining his sanity.

Russell's problems are colorful as usual. He's been scratching his crotch a lot ever since Dauri shaved it clean down there. In the funniest line of the episode, Russell described the problem as "a five o'clock shadow on his nutsack." Writing like that is what really saved this episode for me. It's honest. My roommate commented on how much they drop the F-word in this show even more than you hear it in The Sopranos. It's true though. Every other word is the F-word. But that's real! Everyone says it all the time in any number of situations. I say it way too much. That's what I was getting at when I said "honest." The mother of all curse words is completely integrated and assimilated itself into the English language. Might as well embrace it and Huff does just that.