What I'm Watching: Royal Pains

Royal Pains: Season 1, Episode 8 “The Honeymoon’s Over” (B+)

This episode is one where the central plotline involving Hank and his illustrator patient didn’t interest me too much, but the rest of the episode picked up the slack. I did very much enjoy Hank’s introduction to his patient, where he accidentally stole him away from Heritage Hospital and thereby from Jill. Divya and Evan, however, continue to be the show’s standout stars. I like how into being the CFO of HankMed Evan is, and I enjoyed his attempts to give a presentation to everyone and his wry humor when both Divya and Hank suggested he send them an e-mail instead of deliver his extensively-prepared PowerPoint slide deck. Divya’s child-like treatment of Evan is always entertaining, especially when she stresses that he just shouldn’t say anything at all. The newest bit, however, also played out quite well. The patient’s unimpressed nature when Divya presented herself as the physician’s assistant and as a woman was a nice new challenge for Divya to face specifically, and I think she handed it amusingly, and Hank had just the right reaction when he finally arrived and announced himself as the physician. The romantic chemistry between Divya and Evan isn’t strong at the moment, but it is between Hank and Jill, and thank goodness for that! The ending scene was a nice surprise, and it’s great to see them still so eager to get into each other’s pants even while they’re feuding professionally. I’ll choose to ignore that suggestive text message (whose phone was it?) and leave that as a problem to be sorted out next week.

Expected but nonetheless excellent news: “Royal Pains” has been renewed for a second season! It’s doing stunningly in the ratings and therefore its return next year, for sixteen episodes, is no surprise. It looks like there’s still three or four episodes left in its order for this season, and so it should continue airing throughout August, even while “Burn Notice” heads off the air after next week’s mid-season finale. I imagine that "Royal Pains" will return when "Burn Notice" does next July to start its second season.