Overview of the Show
I started watching this show ages ago, quit around the end of season four, finally came back. These thoughts won't be unoriginal, but here's my two cents, just because this is a message board and chanting into the void is what we do here.
First, popular opinion is that seasons 1-4 are great, seasons 5-7 are downhill, and I 100% agree. I still enjoyed a lot of the later seasons, got a lot of laughs, had fun (Atticus Fetch? Awesome), but they are subpar. This show definitely jumped the shark.
The reason is that the Mia plotline was the main source of conflict - the big bomb that we all knew was going to go off and shatter the world of Hank and Karen. Could they repair it? That's the question. They didn't address it in season five, so it just didn't work as well.
The other big problem is, in my opinion, that Karen and Becca got more and more sidelined. Karen was a great foil to Hank. She was basically Hank (very rock 'n' roll, Bohemian, etc.) but with a little bit more "grown-up" to her where she realized that the chaos he attracts/puts out into the world isn't charming, it's a problem. She made sense as an aspiration for the dude, and it frustrated me that - as the show went on - she became less reasonable and got completely sidelined.
I really didn't like that Becca was less and less in the show, too, as Hank's greatest love might be for his daughter. The fact that she and Hank seemed to only repeat the same conversation over and over again ("I'm sorry, Becca," "For what?" - yeah, guys, write that exchange eight more times, it feels fresher every time I hear it) was really, really frustrating.
Again, the latter seasons are entertaining, but they felt like stasis. The only question left after season four is, "Will Hank and Karen get back together?" All they needed was a definitive answer, but they wanted to spin out three more seasons, so they never give it out.
Frustrating stuff.
Season seven is really weird, with Hank being a TV writer (dude's a novelist!) and Karen barely in it while the show makes room for Julia and Levon. Now, I liked Julia (although she was a crumby mom) and Levon was amusing (though annoying) but it didn't take me long to go, "Okay, but they should be a complication for Hank's relationships with Karen and Becca, and they feel like replacements." Becca wasn't even there! MADDENING!
The show's main theme seemed to be dealing with our patterns. Hank is trapped in a cycle of his own creation, and he needed to get out of it, but couldn't or wouldn't. That felt real - very relatable - since we all have patterns and cycles that we can't or won't break. Some good, some bad.
The characters - I love. It was always funny, always touching, but it took a spiral after S4.
As a bit of a romantic myself, I did want to see Hank and Karen together, I just wish they'd plugged it into season four and wrapped it up.
Best episode: The Apartment. Perfect farce, classic Californication stuff. Runkle walking out of the bedroom and grabbing that banana is such a huge laugh.