People say "royal pain" as a short form of "royal pain in the ass". Not just your
plebeian pain in the ass, this one is a higher grade. But that's not why we're here.
Royal Pains was a television show on the
USA Network lasting 104 episodes over eight seasons, beginning in
2009. The in-story time was seven years, so it's sort of a real-time progression. (And one of the actresses was pregnant twice during that time.)
There were several main characters present from the first episode to the last; some who lasted quite a while; and some that popped in repeatedly. Those were semi-major characters, though I won't include them all in this
roster:
The players
This has much in common with your basic episodic show about a doctor. But while Dr. Lawson ("call me Hank") is the primary character from that viewpoint, the other stories and characters play just as significant a part. And while the producers no doubt intended to rope in an audience hooked on medical shows, what mostly kept me interested was the character of Boris and what we kept learning about him as the show unfolded.
The setup
Hank is an emergency room doctor in New York City, one of the best around. One day he's got two bad cases: a billionaire with a heart attack, and some schmo with something else.
Triage dictates that he address the heart attack first, which he does. The patient is stable, so he moves on to the other patient. While he's there, something unforeseen happens and the first guy shuffles off his mortal coil. Oh, did I mention that he's also a trustee of the hospital? The administrator, who had been trying to prevent Hank from going to the second patient, goes after Hank in a big way, and he loses his job and is made to feel unwelcome anywhere in the neighborhood.
After a month of sitting around in his
Barcalounger in his underwear watching TV, his fianceé has had enough and leaves him. His brother, Evan ("Evan R. Lawson, remember the R") won't let that continue, and drags him off to
The Hamptons, home of the rich and famous and beautiful babes bouncing in bikinis.
Somehow Evan talks their way into a party at the biggest mansion around, where the champagne is flowing and the drugs are plentiful. A
pretty young thing overdoses, and the local "concierge doctor", under retainer to the owner and of course not a tenth the doctor that Hank is, misses some clue that this isn't your everyday drug overdose and is about to do totally the wrong thing. Hank jumps in and saves the day. Detachedly watching from the
mezzanine is the host of the party and owner of the manse, Boris. After all the excitement is over and Boris talks with Hank and thanks him, Hank and Evan leave, Hank driving his old green
Saab convertible and Evan finding the kilogram gold bar in a box in the back seat.
Within a day or two, the impressed Boris has persuaded Hank to replace the concierge doctor, who is moved out of the guest house that Hank and Evan are moved into.
Shortly, Hank meets Jill, the administrator of the local Hamptons Heritage Hospital, and he is convinced to become a concierge doctor to not just Boris but the whole local populace (which, of course, he thought was beneath him and his skillz). And thus, his new practice — HankMed — is born. Hank handles the doctoring, and Evan, who has a business/finance background, is "Evan R. Lawson, CFO of HankMed". Hank's first order of business is to hire some help: enter the gorgeous Divya as his physician assistant.
The routine
I mentioned that, in one of its aspects, Royal Pains is a typical doctor show. Thus, virtually every episode has Hank coming across some situation — be it on the beach, or in downtown
Southampton, or while visiting the latest social butterfly to call for his services — and amazingly, finding that the slight pain in the neck is really some amazing disease that we've never heard of, and like as not, has the person falling unconscious. This is what I really got tired of as the seasons wore on. It would seem like people are dropping like flies all over, but really, only when Hank is there. Seems like the general health of the town would be improved if he weren't there at all! Not only that, but his battered medical bag (later replaced with a spiffy new one with the HankMed logo, designed by Evan) always had the medicine that was needed, and some impressive devices that I don't think are standard. Also tiring was how often the patient needed to be
intubated on the spot, and how often there just wasn't time to wait for the coming ambulance, requiring Hank to do an immediate
tracheotomy or whatever. In later seasons, Divya, who sometimes accompanied Hank and sometimes was out on her own, occasionally found herself in both of those situations, though to a lesser degree. (Really, she seemed to be just as
encyclopedically knowledgeable as Hank.)
The real stories
But the other characters and the side stories are what save the show. There's Boris, whose story is the most interesting. But coming into the show occasionally and mostly staying until the end — even if perhaps with significant absences — are others that flesh out the story. Some of these are family members that come in later, some are HankMed clients.
Dramatis Personae
- Hank
- Great doctor. Doesn't think too highly of his brother, which occasionally causes a big tiff between them. Probably unconsciously, he doesn't respect Evan's path in life, though to be honest, Evan doesn't have a sterling record. He repeatedly finds a lady to hang with but it always ends for one reason or another, after a shorter or longer acquaintance. He has an annoying tendency to make a big deal of not being paid for his services, even from people not on retainer. In fact, only once did he actually visibly take money, when the newly saved patient handed him a bulging envelope and said "You take cash?" He doesn't need much money, and isn't tempted by The Hamptons lifestyle. He keeps his Saab, which he likes and gets ribbed for driving such a clunker. (In fact, he meets Jill through a mixup in valet parking because they have the same car.) Though it never fails him until, in the second to last episode, it happens to conveniently conk out on the side of the road at just the right place. On an unrelated note, earlier in that same episode, he visited a doctor he knew from way back (but who was never mentioned previously), who asked him if he was still driving the Saab that he had sold to Hank, and how it was holding up.
- Evan
- Evan has a bit of a hero complex toward his older brother Hank (though he fights it) because as kids, their father abandoned them and their mother died, and Hank took on a fatherly role. His working life has been in business and finance — and speculating in the occasional get rich quick scheme, which he probably inherited from dad. Unlike Hank, he definitely likes the rich atmosphere of the Hamptons, and wants it for him / them. Since the series is set in a beach town, Hank and Evan are occasionally seen shirtless. The actors are both fit and look fine that way, but I realized with time that Evan really wears clothes well, at least in my opinion.
- Boris
- Boris is a gazillionaire with a castle in The Hamptons. He exudes class: always polite, well spoken (in several languages), with a bit of genuine noblesse oblige. While we meet him in the first episode hosting a drunken orgy, that's actually quite out of character for him and it never happens again. (Maybe there could have been a better way for the writers to have him observe Hanks character and competence.) He's often absent, globetrotting for his gazillionaire activities. He comes to include Hank in some of that, for reasons that unfold as the show proceeds. I actually felt for him the several times Hank swears his fealty with regard to the plans that Boris asks him to participate in, but sometimes finding an excuse to not follow through. Boris displays disappointment but never anger.
As I said, my favorite part of the show is watching the Boris arc progress.
- Divya
- A beautiful young Indian woman, who's as good a physician assistant as Hank is a doctor. Probably better, as she seems to be quite doctorly in her own right. Everybody loves Divya. She's in an arranged engagement, though that's not much evident in the story for the first few seasons. When we start seeing more of her and Raj, that ends up with her leaving him at the altar. Their parents are not pleased. Little did anyone know, she was carrying their baby at the time.
- Eddy
- Eddy is father to Hank and Evan. We don't meet him until a few seasons in, though there was no doubt some mention of his abandoning them. Charming and ebullient as he is, his life seems to revolve around money making schemes that probably rarely work out. Hank has no great affection for him, because of his abandoning his kids. When he reappears in their lives, Evan is always wanting to give him another chance. Finally, as even then he's still doing his schemes (and sometimes at Hank and Evan's expense without meaning to), Evan changes his mind. Yet Hank has switched roles and now wants to redeem Eddy.
- Paige
- Paige Collins enters the story early on. The daughter of General (and later, Senator) Collins, she meets Evan somehow and they become a couple. Paige is an amateur painter to begin with, and later joins up with a local dealer with a very high end auction house. The General is not impressed with Evan, even after the two get engaged. We later find out that she was adopted as a child (which she didn't know). As a married couple, Evan still hasn't won over the General, but eventually he admits that Evan is doing right by his daughter.
- Jeremiah
- Jeremiah is a later addition to the staff of HankMed, replacing a playboy doctor from Hamptons Heritage who didn't work out. Jeremiah is a gentle, stiff single man who has a difficult time dealing with people. While a good doctor, he prefers his previous life of laboratory research. Divya somewhat takes him under her wing, while unbeknownst to her, he's falling in love with her, which is his secret. As with Boris, he's high up the list of my favorite characters on the show.
As the show wore on, I got quite tired of the medical aspects and Hank's perfection, but I definitely stayed for the Boris story (there's a lot there) and the others. It was nice to see Evan "grow up".
I give it an 8 out of 10.
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