Nearly 13 million people tuned in for the “How I Met Your Mother” finale on March 31. Many were disappointed that after investing nine seasons of their lives, protagonist Ted Mosby ended up with Robin Scherbatsky after the mother died from an illness. While I sympathize with the fans, I cannot empathize because there’s another on-screen couple I’ve given my heart away to eons ago.

They’re a grittier couple than the ones they show on CBS. They’ve met their fair share of obstacles in the road, bumps of cocaine (and other drugs) and dangerous curves of superfluous women. I’m taking about “Californication’s” Hank Moody and Karen Van Der Beek.

Compared to Ted Mosby (and a lot of other men), Hank Moody is deplorable. He (accidentally) slept with an underage woman who happened to be the daughter of Karen’s fiancé, and if you screen “Californication” on mute, it looks like star-studded soft-core porn. if you scratch below the surface though, you’ll find a love story.

The show is much deeper than an impulsive man rotting away in Los Angeles with sex and drugs.

In a behind the scenes look with Showtime, creator Tom Kapinos said despite its name, the series was never about sex and he doesn’t see Hank as a womanizer, but a romantic.

“I think for a guy like Hank, satisfaction is sort of the death of desire. Hoping is better than having,” Kapinos said.

“He’s kind of like this modern day Gatsby who’s sort of wandering through nighttime L.A. and trying to f*ck his way back to his own Daisy Buchanan,” Kapinos said in the interview.

In a preview for the series’ seventh and final season premiering on Sunday, even the show’s star David Duchovny hesitated when deciding whether he could commit to a character like Hank.

“When I was considering doing the pilot, I said, ‘I think the pilot’s really funny and it’s the kind of humor that I’d like to try, but what’s the show? You know you’re calling it ‘Californication,’ if it’s just tits and ass, I’m not interested in that,’” Duchovny said.

He continued, “(They said), ‘It’s about true love and what if you get it right the first time.’ I said, ‘Oh, well I can do that show.’”

The season seven preview hints that professed New Yorkers Hank and Karen might finally get their Hollywood ending. The snippet opens with Duchovny narrating. “The season begins with Hank going back for Karen.”

And that’s why I tune in to “Californication.” It’s not for the Rob Lowe or Rick Springfield cameos, but for the writers’ ability to convey the juxtaposition of love, its simplicity and complexity just as they did in Hank’s first letter to Karen.

The letter reads: “It’s a big bad world full of twist and turns, people have a way of blinking and missing the moment. The moment that could have changed everything … I don’t know what’s going on with us and I can’t tell why you should waste a leap of faith on the likes of me. But damn, you smell good like home and you make excellent coffee — that has to count for something, right?”

Erin Jensen is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism. Her column appears weekly. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @erinrjensen

Published on April 10, 2014 at 1:24 am