Hung: A Guide to Pimp-Whore Relations
A pimp walks into The Donut Hole and her gigolo later tosses his ball around. Thank you ladies and gentlemen, goodnight! Tip your waitresses, I'll be here all week.
The season premiere of Hung reintroduced a man without a plan, a pimp that can't make her whore turn tricks and a life-coach trying to to commandeer the whole ship. However, the primary focus of this episode was on the relationship between Tanya (pimp) and Ray (pimped). Tanya is quickly finding that Three-Six Mafia won an Academy award for "Hard Out Here For A Pimp" for a reason: "It's blood sweat and tears when it come down to this shit/ I'm tryin to get rich 'fore I leave up out this bitch/ I'm tryin to have thangs but it's hard fo' a pimp/ but I'm prayin and I'm hopin to God I don't slip, yeah."
She takes this lesson to her gigolo and offers some advice on some of his problems and her continued services for free. This, in turn, gives him the confidence to talk straight to the baseball team he coaches and deal with their own "pimp-type problems." It may be hard out here for them, but they're going to give it their all and play some baseball like it's supposed to be played.
Tanya's speech setting Lenore in her place, while uplifting, well-executed and heroic, is replete with a kind of hubris that seems to foreshadow a terrifying second season revolving around the impending power struggle/catfight/implosion between Lenore and Tanya. Hung should not be promising a championship baseball team, a healthy pimp-gigolo relationship based solely on trust and a gigolo finally coming to terms with his past (perhaps even fixing his raggedy house), because we know this can't happen. Surely, all these promises can't be fulfilled at once—it just doesn't seem American. Great though it would be to live a day as Ray, he surely will not get rich and leave because he has too many people relying on him for money, coaching, support or (and mostly) his package.
So stay tuned, viewers, and pray and hope to God that no one slips. Yeah.