Series / Royal Pains

"Those observant eyes of yours? You better keep 'em wide open, 'cuz you ain't seen nothin' yet!"

Royal Pains is an American summer series on USA Network about medical genius Hank Lawson (Mark Feuerstein) who is fired for correctly prioritizing a clearly-medically-unstable "average Joe" patient over a seemingly-stable one who subsequently died... and happened to be a billionaire on the hospital's board of trustees. He is also blacklisted by both the hospital administrators and the deceased patient's family, making it impossible for him to find work or establish a medical practice. During his ensuing depression (and adding insult to injury), his fiancée leaves him and takes most of their joint possessions, leaving him with little more than mounting debts.

His brother Evan Lawson (Paulo Costanzo) takes it upon himself to cheer his brother up by organizing a trip to crash a South Hampton party which allegedly even God would be at "if He could get in." By a twist of fate, Hank is nearby when a party attendant has an attack brought on by insecticide exposure and proves himself better able to handle the emergency than the local concierge doctor, who assumes drug use rather than interrogate for the correct differential.

Hank receives an offer to replace the older concierge doctor by the enigmatic German multi-billionaire Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz (Campbell Scott), but he has some reservations about taking such a position because it caters exclusively to the wealthy (many of whom are very self-indulgent and self-absorbed). After discussing the issue with a newfound friend, the Hampton Heritage Hospital administrator Jill Casey (Jill Flint), Hank takes up the job. Evan helps manage the finances of "HankMed", and savvy, driven Divya Katdare (Reshma Shetty) becomes his Physician Assistant.

Each episode is about Hank making house calls and dealing with the eccentricities of this obscenely rich community, figuring out their problems along the way. As with other USA shows with a strong episodic premise around 2012, the show occasionally moved away from pure Patient of the Week storylines and focused on more overarching drama and long-term character development.

The show concluded in 2016, after eight seasons on the air. This also marked the end of USA Network's "Blue Sky" era of family-friendly programming and a transition to more adult-oriented fare.

---

This show provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc:
  • It's extremely clear watching the earlier seasons that they were setting up Divya and Evan to get together through the use of Belligerent Sexual Tension. However, Evan's unexpected chemistry with Paige killed that plot's line. However it's brought back up in Season 5 when Paige starts to believe there might be something going on between them, only for Divya to flat out state she never had feelings for Evan above friends.
  • People didn’t think much of the previously declared dead Boris suddenly coming back to life.
  • Evan runs for city council in Season 5, getting the seat at the end of the season. Season 6 never brings it up again.
  • It's mentioned in s6x04 "Steaks on a Plane" that Hank was (unknowingly) awarded power of attorney over Boris's affairs 3 years ago. This was well-before Boris's choice to fake his dementia, so what did the financial world think of a simple doctor having part control over the world's banks and did he keep that as well the cufflinks?
• Actor Allusion: Eddie can tell something is wrong with Paige in s8x07 “The Good News is...” giving Henry Wrinkler a chance to once again use The Fonz’s “Step into my office”
• Affably Evil: Eddie Lawson. He's a con artist who walked out on his own sons, then came back and swindled them out of their money. But, what're you gonna do? He's The Fonz.
• Ambiguously Jewish: The Lawsons, until "Keeping the Faith", when it becomes more or less explicit. They aren't the least bit observant, though. Eddie recommending Evan try a black ham and brie sandwich ^note  In Jewish cuisine, not only are meat and dairy product supposed to be completely separate, pork products themselves are prohibited shows that they don't keep kosher either.
  • Interestingly, the professions of the seen Lawsons are incredibly stereotypically Jewish: Doctor (Hank), accountant (Evan), and shyster (Eddie). All you need is a lawyer and an academic and you have the Jewish home run.
  • Lampshaded/played with in the episode where Evan and Paige get married. She reminds them that it's the first day of Hanukah... and is surprised that all three Lawsons not only didn't remember that it was, but don't even have any of the trappings with which to observe.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Evan. Strangely, most of his Unwanted Assistance seem to be motivated by genuine care for Hank's wellbeing...and his desire to get some tail.
• Arranged Marriage: Divya is drifting towards accepting her arranged marriage to a childhood friend. At the beginning, she tried to call it off, but when the engagement ceremony came around, she couldn't bring herself to do it. However, it's not like she couldn't call it off or she hates the guy (he's kind of clueless and cheerful, actually); she's simply not certain she should be married to him.
  • In the season two finale, it's officially called off.
  • Ironically, they do marry each other, it's just by their own choice.
• As You Know; Parodied in 2x13, when Jill is paired up with a famous golfer and two random people. They ask her if she knows his story. She says she does, and they're just so enthusiastic they tell her—and the audience—anyway.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Divya and Evan had a number of frustrated arguments as Evan appeared to flirt with her and misinterpret some of her aggravation as her flirting back. The bickering tapers off rapidly once Evan hooks up with Paige, but they remain Vitriolic Best Buds most of the time.
  Divya: Let's have dinner, but absolutely no conversation.
  Evan: Like we're married!
• Big Brother Instinct: Hank towards Tucker. After Tucker's dad fires him, Hank still hangs around Tucker, saying he wasn't banned from being his friend.
• Blessed with Suck: "Whole Lotto Love"'s client of the week deals with lottery winners, one of which is convinced that he was cursed. Eventually subverted: the lottery winner's streak of bad luck wasn't a curse.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: Jill thinks she heard "Es ist nicht ihr", and a translator reads it as "It is not her," but the actual German translation would be "It is not their." Could be a plot point, but even Google agrees with the correct version.
• Bollywood Nerd: Divya. She's a brilliant physician assistant, and even the cover story she tells her parents is that she is attending Wharton.
• Bully Turned Buddy: Hank has repeatedly found himself treating his childhood nemesis Ken, which has led them to almost becoming friends.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Despite the fact that he's a shallow, off-putting goofball womanizer who never seems to take the right things seriously and who shirks doing anything difficult, Evan is actually a pretty competent and effective accountant, and his efforts are one of the primary reasons why HankMed is such a successful business. He's also fluent in multiple languages (including French and Italian, but not Spanish), is a wizard at dominoes, and is a super-taster with a palate so sharp he can tell the components that went into a wine with just a single sip.
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • Boris goes to ridiculous lengths to hide and/or find a cure for his condition, often alienating Hank, the one doctor who seems to thinks he can help him.
  • Jeremiah and his feelings for Divya. He even denies it when Evan notices and says something. Had Jeremiah been more upfront with her to begin with, he could have saved himself some heartache.
• Cassandra Truth: Hank, re: Eddie R. Evan and Ms. Newberg both seem erroneously convinced that he really can't be as bad as all that.
• Catapult Nightmare: Jill is being afflicted by nightmares that jolt her awake in bed after her "accident".
• Catchphrase: Aristotle, the coolest taxicab driver in New York featured in "The Hankover", has got to make money on the deal somehow. Also, Evan will say whenever meeting someone new "Hi, I'm Evan R. Lawson, CFO of HankMed."
  • Divya's greeting is not dissimilar with patients; along the lines of, "My name's Divya Katdare, I'm a Physician's Assistant." Though that's likely for accountability issues.
  • Expect to hear the phrase "when caught early" or similar often.
• Chick Magnet: Let's just say Hank has a way with the ladies.
• Coattail-Riding Relative:
  • Both Hank's brother and father seem to depend on medically licensed Hank to get rich.
  • Reversed in Season 4, where Hank finds himself needing Evan's accounting abilities to keep his medical business afloat, while Evan can get along fine without Hank. Even Eddie R. is working on getting his book published on its own merits.
• Comically Missing the Point: In 1x03, "Strategic Planning", the Senator's wife is yelled at by her daughter for pressuring her son to play football as part of her plan to get him into the White House, unlike his father. (The son in question just wants to play football.) Then the wife, with a gleam in her eye, notes to Hank that her daughter standing up to her took almost...Presidential leadership. The looks on Hank and Divya's faces are hilarious.
• Continuity Nod: When Evan tries to drum up business in the season 2 premiere, the people he talks to on the phone are all clients from Season One.
• Cosmopolitan Council: "Manimal" has an Arab Oil Sheikh in appropriate garb and a black man, plus a Russian and the ambiguously European-American Boris. This makes sense, given that it's about oil.
• Deadpan Snarker: Starting with everyone. Boris probably does it best.
• Disappeared Dad: Eddie was this until the beginning of Season 2.
• Doom Magnet: Hank and friends can't seem to go very far without a sudden medical emergency happening near them.
• Eccentric Townsfolk: Pretty much every resident of the Hamptons except our main characters.
• Even the Girls Want Her: The reason Paige left the tour group was because she found out the director (who is a woman) only hired her to get her to sleep with her.
• Exact Words: Divya gets Evan to help her by telling him that she will tell him everything she knows about Boris. After it is all done, she tells him that Boris is a "very private person", and that is it. She told him everything she knew about Boris.
• Faking the Dead: Boris at the end of Season 4.
• Fake Crossover: Trying to ride the popularity of Burn Notice they have Michael Westen send Hank a care package in a commercial. It contains C4 ("because you never know when you'll need a stable plastic explosive").
  • Worth noting is that USA does this a lot with commercials for all of their shows. There's a crossover commercial with White Collar, too, though when the summer 2010 schedule got locked down they've been cross-promoting with Burn Notice since they both come on on the same night.
  • A new set in late 2010 started pairing Hank and Evan with Kate Reed from Fairly Legal.
  • In a 2012 crossover commercial, Neal praises Hank's set up as a consignment doctor but wonders how he can keep up being a fake doctor. Hank dully points out it's probably a talent he picked up during all those years of medical school. Neal praises his willingness to go for that long of a con.
• Fallen Princess: Divya, as of Season 3: her parents cut her off after she breaks off her engagement with Raj, even going so far as to have her car repossessed. She is reduced to crashing in Hank's guest room.
• Fanservice: Most of the women are attractive and wearing nice dresses.
• Female Gaze: In 2x03, Emily Peck Boris' new concierge doctor uses her rear-view mirror to check out Hank's ass as he jogs away.
• Flanderization: Evan turns into more of an idiotic jerk as the series goes on. This is actually a plot point, as he mentions in 1x11 that the Hamptons are "changing" him.
  • Subverted in the way Hank's plotline progresses. It seems ridiculous how an ordinary ER doctor who was fired by the hospital board for letting a billionaire trustee die can end up involved in so much political intrigue, sitting on a hospital administration, and announcing he's physician of the patient zero of a world-changing clinical trial, who is also his multi-billionaire boss. But that's more related to the reclusive Boris becoming less private about his life and affairs.
• Florence Nightingale Effect: Invoked by name by Hank after the young girl he saves during the pilot falls for him. And again when he saves the life of an attractive young woman's uncle in Cuba. She doesn't agree.
• Followthe Leader: USA put a lot of shows like this on the air in the wake of the Emmy-award-series Monk
• Foot-Dragging Divorcee: Jill's husband Charlie, who left her in favor of his job rather than work on their relationship, does this for pretty much the entire first season. Despite her wanting him to sign the papers long before he left, he keeps postponing it in an attempt to woo her. However, sometime between seasons 1 and 2, she finally gets him to sign them and he leaves.
• Friend Versus Lover: As both doctors, Hank and Marisa disagree over Boris's treatment. It's clear Boris and Marisa are still romantically attached, but Marisa seems unhappy about Boris choosing to bring his personal doctor simply to do his medical work-up in her clinical trial. When Hank walks away due to how the trial is proceeding, she's resentful over having to be Boris's doctor again ^note  It breaks the Hippocratic Oath for a doctor to be romantically involved with their patients .
  • Things are resolved and the two become friends. Marisa trusts Hank enough to disclose and treat her for the pregnancy she's been hiding from Boris and Hank comes along when she goes to reveal it. After Boris evicts Hank, Marisa refuses to move back into Shadow Pond without him there. Hank is chosen to be their son's godfather.
• "Friends" Rent Control: Played with. The main characters are allowed to use Boris' guesthouse (initially rent-free but later Hank insists on paying some rent) due to his gratitude towards Hank. After Boris' faked death, Dmitry allows Evan and Paige the use of the main house... for free.
• Functional Addict: After needing neurosurgery caused by the explosion resulting in Boris' faked death, Hank became addicted to pain meds. Subverted in that they discovered a valid need for them, but it still caused a loss of trust between Jeremiah and Hank due to Hank obtaining under them false pretense.
• Game of Nerds: In "Lawson Translation", we find out that Jeremiah's a huge baseball fan, owing largely to the fact his love of statistics intersected with an interest of his father's.
• Gentle Giant: Donald (played by The Big Show), who plays the apparently very popular "Garbage Collector" in the Garbage Collector series of films.
• Gilligan Cut: In the pilot, Hank insists that the partygoer who was poisoned by pesticides that he subsequently saved be taken to a hospital, and that "you can't just shoot her up and put her to bed." Smash Cut to the partygoer waking up in bed in Boris' home.
• Give Geeks a Chance: In the third-season episode "Ta Da..." we meet Magic Andy, a professional stage magician played by character actor Tony Hale (who has made a career of playing nerds and geeks like Buster Bluth in Arrested Development and Emmett Milbarge in Chuck). While Magic Andy bemoans the fact that girls aren't interested in him at all, by the end of the episode, he's started a relationship with Betty, who works as a waiter for a caterer who handles the same sort of parties Andy gets hired to perform at. She's been watching Andy's show's for a while, and thinks he's an amazing performer. And handsome. And cute.
• Good All Along: Dmitry was loyal to Boris all along, and was just pretending to have killed him to find out who was trying to assassinate Boris.
• Gushing About Guest Stars: In one of the more shameless examples of this trope, one episode features a sudden guest appearance by Khloe Kardashian, with Hank's girlfriend enthusing over her, which is especially jarring given that the series usually makes fun of reality TV stars.
• Hacker Cave: Tucker has a very nice computer setup. However, it's in an open area, on the second floor, with a very nice view, and he's not a hacker. Considering he's a smart kid who knows how to deal with finances, it's possible, even likely, that the multi-monitor setup is for financial analysis (in real life, some may reach up to 6 monitors). The side effect of being a nice set up for other things like computer games is probably a bonus.
• Heroic BSoD: Hank goes into one after being fired and finding he's been black-balled. He sits around his apartment and watches TV. His brother snaps him out of it by pointing out that he should come to the Hamptons because a) he needs cheering up, and b) he's out of booze and his Netflix account was suspended.
• Honor Before Reason: Divya feels honor-bound to go through with an Arranged Marriage. When she finally cancels the wedding she feels honor-bound to repay her ex-fiance's family the money they spent on the engagement. She works a second job to raise the money which leaves her exhausted. Her insistence to keep this secret from Hank directly leads to her screwing up and endangering the life of a patient.
• How We Got Here: "The Hankover" (wink, wink) opens with Hank, Evan, and others the aftermath of a party at Boris' house, and Divya and Jill waking up in a taxi at some beach somewhere. "24 hours ago..."
• Hypocritical Humor: When Evan finds out Divya's getting married, he starts going on about how awesome weddings are, what with getting to be with someone you love. Divya doesn't meet his eye, so he asks if it's an arranged marriage. Divya protests him applying the stereotype before admitting that yes, it's a strategic one.
• I Have No Son!: Pretty much Divya's parent's reaction to when she called off the marriage. Cutting her off from of all of her assets and throwing her on the street. Sadly this is Truth in Television, as some families treat their daughters as nothing more than objects to marry off as business deals. And if the daughter does not want to go through with it, the family will disown them.
• Informed Ability: In 3x08, we meet a female Boston Marathon champion runner who boasts of her perfect stride. However, when shown running, she clearly is at most only a recreational runner, occasionally showing form more like a T-1000 than Joan Benoit.
• Insult Backfire: In 1x11, Evan is admiring a boat, and Divya says something about him playing with something like it in the bathtub.
  Evan: Well, the scale's about right, so...
  Captain: I like this guy.
• It's Always Sunny in Miami: Semi-justified in that the show is actually shot in the Hamptons (or at least Long Island), but really? The other half is semi-justified in that anything that might ruin a shot is probably cut out since it suddenly raining during random scenes would likely ruin the mood or make it harder to film/get audio/etc.
• Jerkass: Dr. Van Dyke. A lot. He even tries to do a CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable stunt on Divya.
• Joisey: Evan and Hank are from there. It's fairly hard to tell. Likely through a combination of Reality Is Unrealistic (most accents aren't nearly as extreme as media likes to portray it) and exposure to a variety of accents, theirs has toned down to something else.
• Jewish and Nerdy: The Lawson family is Jewish, and Evan fulfills many nerdy stereotypes, acting like a kid most of the time.
• Karma Houdini: For all the crimes Eddie's committed, his total punishment amounts to six months in a white-collar prison, a few days of house arrest (which he doesn't even abide by), and the opportunity to make amends with his estranged father.
• Limited Wardrobe: Hank's staggering amount of blue shirts.
• MacGyvering: The commercials boast about this aspect of Hank. One patient's girlfriend asks him, "What are you, MacGyver?" after he saves his life with a bottle of vodka, a BIC pen, duct tape, a sharp knife, and a sandwich bag. All of this he used to save a hemophiliac who had internal bleeding from a car crash.
• Male Gaze: One shot had Evan talking to Divya, who was at the top of some stairs. The angle reverses, and Evan is sharing the frame with Divya's butt.
• Manipulative Bastard: Despite what good friends they are, Hank learns Boris very-well can be this. When he's not being indirect or dodging questions, expect even the legitimate answers or explanations Boris gives to be hiding something. Hank's speaking from experience when he says how nothing's ever as simple as it seems with Boris.
• Mistaken for Cheating: “A Bridge Not Quite Far Enough” has Hank treating a private investigator who’s been investigating her husband who is seeing another woman. It’s later revealed the woman is a car designer and he was just working on an anniversary gift.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Evan and Paige thought Paul Van Dyke was in a relationship with a fifteen year old and they broke, he clarifies the 15 year old is actually his pet rabbit that he needs to put down.
• Mistaken for Pregnant: During "In Vino Veritas", Evan sees Divya buying a pregnancy test and assumes she's having a baby. When she later clarifies it was for someone else, it just makes Evan think Jill is pregnant, to Divya's frustration (this does make her realize her patient is pregnant, though).
• Ms. Fanservice: Hot women seem to be the rule rather than the exception in this world.
• Musical Episode: The penultimate episode of the series “The Good News is...” is this. Justified as it’s from the point of view of the hallucinating patient-of-the-week.
  • As an added bonus, the full title sequence returns for this episode and now the lyrics are sung by the cast
• Music Video Syndrome: There's a lot of music from hip, fresh new bands over the scene transitions. Turned into Sorry, I Left the BGM On when Hank walks into a room with the patient while the music continues to play, loudly, and the patient has trouble hearing him. So Hank reaches out and turns off the nearby boombox. Turns out the music playing loud was actually a symptom; the patient had gone slightly deaf.
• My Fist Forgives You: The ending of 2x01 appears to set this up, but it ends up subverted in 2x02 as Hank Lawson still harbors negative feelings towards his dad.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Subverted in "Keeping the Faith." Donald instructs Evan to take his sister/manager "to a nice restaurant, a place where a gentleman would take a lady." So the little sis is not off-limits, so long as you act nice. To be fair, Donald is also over 7 feet tall and about 300 pounds of muscle so...
• Mysterious Middle Initial: Eddie and Evan have an R as their middle name with several people asking what it stands for. According to Hank it is just an R and doesn't mean anything. It is later revealed to mean Roth, Eddie's original last name.
• New Media Are Evil: Invoked by an expectant mother who wanted her nieces and nephews to give up all their electronic devices while on the family's private island. She believes it makes it harder to connect with people.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: A parody of Vince Offer (the Sham Wow Guy), "Spencer the Spaz", is the subject of the second season premiere.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Dr. Emily Peck claimed this to Divya, but a small-scale emergency subverted this: a boy was choking and Divya helped him, while Peck did nothing.
• Not What It Looks Like: In the season one finale, Jill goes looking for Hank to tell him something important. She finds him getting a palm reading, and from a distance it looks like they're doing something intimate. She's actually flirting with him after he just told her he's not interested in a relationship. Jill walks away without either of the two lovebirds "noticing".

  A staggering amount of drama in Divya's life is this, on both sides:

  • After having a fight with her father due to him trying to completely wipe out all traces of his wife's existence from his life and refusing to talk to her even though she was willing to reconcile, Divya came back to find her father face down in the pool. He fell in from the 2nd floor balcony trying to spray a bees nest and lost his balance swatting away the bees due to his allergies.
  • When Divya leaves Sashi alone in the car to quickly help a person in need, the police assume she left her there to go shopping when they see the bags. Without the person there to vouch for her, Divya's arrested when she resists them taking Sashi and the story's spread on the Internet out of context.
• Oblivious Adoption: Paige had no clue she was adopted until her father had to clarify to the press he wasn't having an affair and that his secretary was arranging her adoption.
• Once per Episode:
  • Hank often has a habit of asking patients how bad their pain is in a scale of 1 to 10, which the patients telling them how his grading system is grossly inadequate.
  • Inverted in "Hank and the Deep Blue Sea" when Jack asks Hank how bad his screw up is on a scale of 1 to 2.
• Overly Long Name: Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz. His son adds Marisa's surname to it, so it's "Carlos Casseras Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz". Evan charmingly says that it sounds like a game of drunken Scrabble.
• Painting the Medium: One episode involved a woman who only spoke Italian, with her words subtitled. She didn't understand when Divya asked her to roll up her left sleeve. Evan tries to explain, and his poor Italian is accurately conveyed by his subtitles' bad grammar and whimsical font. When the woman he's talking to starts babbling, the subtitles eventually give up and go "Etc... Etc... Etc..."
• Parent with New Paramour: Eddie Lawson and "New Parts" Newburg. Hank is not pleased.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Evan, whose B story antics get painfully humiliating.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: In-Universe, Evan calls Jill and Hank "Jank".
• Post-Coital Collapse: In "Something Fishy This Way Comes", when we cut to Hank and Harper as they finish having sex, we see them collapse in bed side-by-side simultaneously while breathing heavily and laughing.
• Product Placement:
  • Everyone seems to use Apple computers.
  • Blatant in the episode "It's Like Jamais Vu All Over Again" with Jill's new car.
  • In 2x14, "Pit Stop", Evan hands Hank a prominently placed box of Wheaties™ ("Breakfast of champions!") while he dines on Fruity Pops.
  • Emma's constant mention of Auto Trader is painfully obvious. Made worse when Evan and Paige give a stilted reaction to her bringing it up while confessing that she lied to them...again.
• Promotion to Opening Titles: As of the fourth episode of season four, both Brooke D'Orsay (Paige) and Campbell Scott (Boris) have been upgraded to the opening credits, replacing Jill Flint (Jill Casey).
• Properly Paranoid: Boris' measures to protect his privacy seem ridiculous, until the third season where it's revealed that members of his massive ancient noble family have been feuding with each other for centuries, and Boris is now a prime target since he's just had a son who can inherit his fortune and title. Oh, and the mysterious "illness" that's been killing off the men in his family for generations? May not have been an illness at all. Someone's been poisoning them.
  • Boris openly embraces the theory, but has to abandon it upon seeing his mentally ill cousin, Milos.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Charlie, who was supposed to fill the third part of an awkward Love Triangle between Hank and Jill, is noticeably absent from the second season premiere. Jill remarks that she finalized their divorce and nothing of him is mentioned ever again, especially since she keeps his surname.
  • Jill, as of the fourth season and The Bus Came Back for the final season.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni:
  • Evan is the Red Oni to Hank's Blue. There are several times where they're respectivly wearing a red shirt and blue shirt.
  • The members of HankMed go out of their way to those in need alongside catering to the rich. Dr. Emily Peck has shown herself to be more concerned with "Hollywood style" medicine while avoiding situations that could get her sued, even refusing to help a child choking.
• Rescue Romance: Deconstructed in the pilot. Hank saved the life of a girl and she fell in love with him. He recognized that this was simply a Nightingale effect and told her to wait a few weeks and the feeling would disappear, which she refused to believe. But sure enough, she never showed up again.
• The Rival: Dr. Emily Peck, Hank's "temporary replacement", is now made into this.
• Romantic False Lead: Jill's ex-husband. In a nice variation, he's a pretty nice guy, not all that different from Hank himself. He does have one glaring flaw; his near-delusional refusal to accept Jill's leaving him could be seen as stalkerish.
• Serious Business:
  • Evan can get over a kidnapping attempt but how DARE you try to sell him counterfeit Cohibas.
  • In "The Hankover";
  Evan: "The stripper stole my van, and I think I killed Raj."
  Hank: "And you led with the van?"
• Sexy Surfacing Shot: In "The Honeymoon's Over", the Patient of the Week is in a Ugly Guy, Hot Wife marriage, which is demonstrated by the wife being introduced while climbing out of the swimming pool in a tiny bikini.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Evan, starting sometime 'round Season 3/4. Includes a Waistcoat of Style.
  • Boris is normally dressed in a suit, with an interesting choice in his dress shirt and/or tie. The amount of times he hasn't been could probably be counted on one hand.
• Shout-Out:
  Evan: Hankpops, y'know...for kids."
  • To this very Wiki
  Eddie: Remember that Halloween, we all dressed as our favorite monsters?
  Hank: Yeah, you were Frankenstein, Mom was his bride, I was the wolfman, and Evan was a Ninja Zombie Pirate Robot.
• Spell My Name With An S: The subtitles can't seem to agree whether it's "Marisa" or "Marissa". The times her name is shown, it's spelled with a single 's'.
• Status Quo Is God:
  • Subverted with Jill doing charity work overseas. The writers kept coming up with ways to keep Jill in the Hamptons, up to and including her telling Hank that she lost the overseas job to someone else. Then, when it looks like she might join HankMed, she gets offered a similar job with better benefits in the following episode, and does depart for Africa.
  • Played straight with Evan and Hank parting ways and running separate businesses in the fourth season: as of the fourth episode, they've made amends and Hank is back with HankMed.
• Take That!: In the pilot when the on-call doctor tries to treat a girl at the party and automatically assumes it's drugs. Hank points out some important symptoms that he missed because of his assumption. A cynical doctor who assumes the worst in everyone? Hmmm....
• Televisually Transmitted Disease: Generally averted, most of the patients of the week have something odd (like Lyme Disease or scurvy), but nothing one-in-a-billion obscure. Hank spends most of his time dealing with cuts and burns, broken bones, and hypertension.
• A Threesome Is Hot: Evan's reaction to seeing Jill and Emily in Hank's bed in "Pit Stop".
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Hank to Eddie on how he walked out on his wife just as she began getting sick.
  • This gets flipped on Hank by both Evan and Eddie that while what he did was messed up, it was 20 years ago and he came back into their lives sorry and wanting to make amends. It's fine if Hank wants to hold onto that grudge, but he can't interfere with what Evan wants.
  • The Lawson trio collectively told off Eddie's sponsor and father Ted Roth after threatening to not show at his parole hearing if he went to help a friend he'd made in prison and accused Eddie of marrying a Gold Digger.
• Title In: The show made use of Fringe-style 3D titles in "The Hankover".
• Trans Tribulations: In "The Prince of Nucleotides", it's mentioned transgender teenager Anna had depression and self-harmed in the past due to gender dysphoria before she transitioned. She also has struggles with her parents, who are mostly accepting but want her to hold off on medically transitioning. Then, after coming out to her roommate, she tells kids and Anna's beaten up.
• Trivial Tragedy: In one episode, Russell mourns over an antique rug that's been badly damaged by its Nouveau Riche owners.
• Tsundere: Divya, but especially concerning Evan, whom she can't seem to stand, and yet....
• Twofer Token Minority: The four leads are the white Hank, Hank's brother Evan, Jill and Divya, an attractive Indian Englishwoman. Both Hank and Evan are Jewish, so the "token minority" in this case may well be Jill, actually.
• Unwanted Assistance: Evan seems hellbent on getting HankMed more customers, over the insistence of Hank himself. When he buckles down to it, he is a good CFO.
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Usually over the phone, and usually Hank, but used literally in the late first-season episode where Evan, Divya, and the patient are stuck on a boat.
• The Von Trope Family: Boris Kuester von Jurgens-Ratenicz.
• Wealthy Philanthropist: The premiere has the subverted version of a rich family that donates to charity, but in fact uses their money to pull the strings. Hank prioritizes a dying young kid over a wealthy man who was in stable condition. The rich man has unforeseen complications and dies. The dead man's family turn out to be the hospital's biggest donors and they use this to force the hospital to fire Hank, even though medically, he did nothing wrong. Since they also donate money to all the major hospitals in New York, they get Hank blacklisted from working as a doctor in those hospitals too. They also try to have his medical license revoked if he doesn't take full responsibility for the wealthy man's death. In the latter's episode, Divya and Evan, guided by Hank online while at the Gardners' hearing, help the captain of an anonymous millionaire fugitive's Yacht after a sail boom falls on captain, causing a flail chest and paradoxical breathing. Thanks to Hank's skills and Boris' lawyers, they fail.
• We Help the Helpless: In addition to making house calls for the wealthy, Hank regularly treats the town's lower class residents at no cost. This is often because these people can't afford a private doctor under regular circumstances, and because they must dig through a mile of red tape to get treatment at the local hospital.
  • For bonus points, a smaller-scale version of this resulted in his blacklisting. The kid was in critical condition, while the wealthy man was apparently stable. Until he died, Hank had no reason to suspect there'd be complications.
  • And as of "Mano a Mano", Hank's hospitality extends to people who could be considered enemies of the state in Cuba.
  • Due to the wealth (or lack there of) of some of Hank's clients, he occasionally gets paid in other ways. For instance, a fisherman pays Hank in fish. Evan, to his credit, has no problems with that and in 3x15 upon noticing a number of fresh fish in the refrigerator, asks if said fisherman is okay.
• Wedding Episode:
  • "Fight or Flight" deals with Divya and Raj's (first) wedding ceremony.
  • The two-part "Off Seasons Greetings" sees Evan and Paige trying to hold their wedding ceremony during a blizzard.
  • "The Good News Is..." is a Musical Episode built around Eddie's wedding to Ms. Newberg.
• What the Hell, Hero?: After being disowned by her parents, Divya starts working at the hospital without Hank's knowledge for extra cash. However, handling two jobs at once proves to be too much for her and she makes a serious medical mistake on one of Hank's patients due to fatigue. Needless to say, Hank is not happy once he learns the truth.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: When the producers brought in a linguistics expert to place Campbell Scott's accent, he said it sounded more like an amalgamation of eight different ones. They liked how unspecific it was due to Boris's involvement with so many different cultures.
• Worst Aid: The pilot episode in which Hank saves someone is rather...impractical.
  • However, the series often subverts this as several episodes have Hank chastising someone for a method that he knows will just cause more damage.
• You Keep Using That Word: In the second season two episode, Evan keeps using "subliminal" and Hank tells him he should look it up.
• Yo-Yo Plot Point: Hank and Jill's relationship has nearly reached this point, until it was resolved in the Season 1 finale. They broke up, and have since shown interest in other people.
  • In effect again as of episode 16 of season 2.
  • Off again as of the mid-season 3 premiere.
  • The issue finally is settled in the series finale as they are engaged. Then again, so was Hank in the beginning of the series...

---