ROYAL PAINS: Friends Are Friends Forever

It’s a good thing Royal Pains gives us a little homily at the end of each episode, because without it I wouldn’t have known what the theme of this week’s episode was. Between the boys dealing with Eddie’s upcoming parole hearing, Divya cooking really spicy Indian food, Ms. Manners falling and hurting her shoulder, the neighbor letting his dog pooh on the lawn, Paige’s mysterious medical issue, and a pair of friends trying to move from a cleaning business to a retail shop, the number of storylines to keep track of made my head spin.

Eddie R. Lawson is up for parole, something the boys discovered when several months of mail finally caught up to them. Evan insists that Eddie wants them there for the hearing, although Eddie himself says otherwise. “Listen between the lines, Hank!” I thought this would mean a road trip to Florida, where he’s incarcerated, but judging by next week’s previews, he’s coming to them.

The dust up between Mr. Manners and the neighbor with the pooping dog was amusing, but I can’t help feeling that those two characters should have been the A story instead of somewhere on down the alphabet. At least it set up Hank’s weekly “don’t use the Internet to diagnose/cure yourself” remonstration.

Shiri Appleby had a cute guest turn as Stella, one half of a cleaning team who were setting up a store to sell their all-natural cleaning line. Cute store, cute packaging, and in the Hamptons? Please, they’ll be sold out the first week. That is, as long as the cleaning supplies aren’t the cause of the flesh eating rash on Stella’s hand ZOMG!!! Don’t worry, it’s not the all-natural ingredients, it’s the antibiotics the doctors prescribed for a cut a couple of weeks ago.

Unintentional (?) hilarity: Hank standing outside, banging on the door, yelling “STELLA!”

We had a couple more references to Paige’s mysterious ailment this week, but given the flatness of her stomach, I’m reversing my “she’s pregnant!” position. So if that’s not it, what gives? Why can’t she tell Evan? Why doesn’t she want to speak of it to Hank?

Divya and Jill took backseats to all the other plots this week, although Divya did cook for the boys, sending them scrambling for water when her back was turned. Their palettes are not accustomed to spicy Indian food. Jill and Hank’s relationship was outed as the worst kept secret in the Hamptons, so we can end that farce of sneaking around.

All in all, an OK episode that would have been much better if they’d dropped one of the plots. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the theme was “friends support each other through good and bad times.” Awww.

Next week: we’ll be at Comic Con, so no recap.