Lucky Hank (Season 1) Episode 7 Recap & Ending Explained: The sixth episode of Lucky Hank saw Hank finally meeting his father after years apart. While he wanted to confront the old man, he couldn’t do it because of Henry Sr’s memory loss. It pains him that he waited too long and now cannot get closure. He also ruins his friendship with Tony since he does not consider either of their work to be of any value. He regrets it by the end of the academic convention they visit together.
Now the seventh episode of Lucky Hank, on AMC+, shows Hank trying to make peace with Henry Sr’s stay in Railton. While Lily goes to New York to look for new apartments, Julie seeks solace in Hank’s company.
Spoilers ahead.
Lucky Hank (Season 1), Episode 7 Recap
Episode 7: The Count of Monte Cristo
Lily (Mireille Enos) listens carefully to Hank (Bob Odenkirk) about his vivid imagination regarding exchanges with his father before departing for New York to look for an apartment. She asks if he has any preferences about their New York flat. He mentions things that would never be possible to get in the Big Apple. Still, Lily gets the irony and says goodbye with a kiss. It looks like they have resolved their argument from the time of the staff dinner.
Now that Hank is alone in his Railton house, he starts living life like an unorganized bachelor. He tries to finish all they have stocked up in the refrigerator and never leaves home. Even a food order stays as it is on his doorstep. Julie (Olivia Scott Welch) finds it lying there and walks over it to enter the house. She eventually finds Hank in his bedroom, eating a piece of bread while watching some random reality tv show.
Julie, however, is there for another reason. She is worried since Russel (Daniel Doheny) hasn’t returned home in over a day. Julie asks for Hank’s help in finding Russel, at least to know if he is okay. She says that they have frequently been fighting. But Hank cares very little about it, maybe because he feels lethargic. Maybe because he wants Russel to be an adult and consider his responsibilities, anyhow, he does not show any wish to interfere in his daughter’s marriage.
While Julie is about to leave, Tony (Diedrich Bader) arrives on the doorstep with a chainsaw. He and Hank hadn’t spoken to each other since the convention. Tony asks whether Hank is depressed because he misses their friendship. Hank, as usual, is not ready for human emotions. After Hank’s embarrassing attempt at an apology, Tony brings him to his backyard to take him out of his rut.
Tony ruminates over his divorce from his ex-wife and how sharing a night table made him feel connected to her. Hank talks about how he gave Lily a cheek when she leaned in to say goodbye before going to New York. He isn’t upset that she left. But he is upset for not having an outlet anymore to take out his anger. He feels like the Count of Monte Cristo. But instead of plotting revenge for four decades, he had been plotting a pointed conversation with his father. Now he cannot confront him either, and that bothers him. Tony is determined to lift Hank out of his existential gloom.
Henry Sr. (Tom Bower), who still stays at Laurel’s (Anne Gee Byrd) place, insists she let him drive their car to the town. She refuses his request because of his health condition. As a result, he decides to walk all the way by himself. Hank drives his car and gets Lily’s call. She tries to make him recount a place where they had been together. Her house broker arrives right then and brings her attention to new apartments she might be interested in.
On the other side, Hank notices Henry Sr walking through the snow on his own. So he decides to give his dad a lift in his car. Henry Sr walks in and complains about how Laurel keeps him stuck in the house, like in a Stephen King novel. Hank says it’s better than a Jane Austen novel. These two men, trapped by their pasts and their fates, drive away in the same car.
Meanwhile, the community rep Leslie bails on supporting the English professors’ rights, which angers all of them. Hank walks inside his department office with Henry Sr, sits him in his cabin, and asks his secretary to take care of him. As usual, he needs to make sure that his father isn’t flirting with yet another young woman. Hank comes out to face the wrath of all the professors, especially Paul (Cedric Yarbrough), who accuse him of leaving them stranded without any further support for their cause. Even then, instead of at least trying to help them, Hank makes up a trivial reason to leave.
Outside, Hank gets Julie’s call, who is worried sick about how Russell hasn’t attended his pottery classes, which he never misses. Hank brings up the reasoning of Occam’s Razor. The most obvious explanation is that Russel isn’t coming home because he doesn’t want to. He makes Julie consider her suspicion about Russell having an affair to be true. It breaks her heart even more.
Later, in his class, Hank spends more time dissecting the story of one of his students – Jen. Her story’s central female character reminds him of Julie and how a father figure is necessary for her story. He questions whether the character’s estrangement from the father can be considered as him abandoning her. Bartow (Jackson Kelly) shares with his enlightening intellect how every character carries three characters with them – their father, their mother, and their younger sister.
This is the first time Hank and Bartow agree about something. However, it has to do more with Hank’s own issue with distancing himself from his daughter. Guilty of not taking Julie seriously, he calls Meg (Sara Amini) to check if she has seen Russel. She responds to him with single-word answers. Then after cutting the call, she tells Russell that he can’t hide forever in her place.
Hank returns to his staffroom to find his father enchanting a room full of English professors. He hears Henry Sr roasting Dickens and so asks his secretary why she put him in this chain of thought. Hank finds it strange how his fame is making all the professors riveted, even if he is only blabbering. He talks with Billie (Nancy Robertson) and learns that Meg is mad at him because he stopped her from pursuing a career in their college.
Gracie (Suzanne Cryer) gets called by Dean Rose (Oscar Nunez) to his office. She worries that it is about her getting fired. She goes intent on defending herself since she recently got her poem published in The Atlantic. However, Jacob wanted to tell her about his divorce and hopes to get together with her.
Lily, meanwhile, looks at a flat in New York, which will be incredibly suitable for her, but she rejects it by calling it too small. Her agent asks her not to be so indecisive and share her idea of a perfect day. In that, she realizes that she wants to be away from any of her responsibilities and enjoy a leisurely time for herself.
Lily then goes to a cafe with Ashley (Jennifer Spence). They sit next to a couple, and suddenly the woman notices her husband walking in. So, the man (that she has an affair) switches his seat with the one opposite Lily’s. The waiter also sends their order to the man and Lily. Since Lily was acting as a couple with this man, she suddenly says that she wants a divorce. She says how she is trying to grow and can’t keep waiting for him to catch up. While having this stranger in front of him, it seems like she is preparing a conversation she hopes to have with Hank.
Hank goes to Meg’s house and apologizes to her for ruining her hopes of being a professor. He asks if he can come in, but she says it’s a bad time. He gets an inkling that Russell is inside and walks in to find Russell sleeping in Meg’s bed, naked. Subsequently, Hank gets Russell in his car’s backseat and stops him from having any interaction with Henry Sr. Suddenly, Henry Sr makes Hank stop his car on the side of a CarMax/car-looking place.
While the father walks inside, Hank calls Julie and says that he now has Russell in his car. Once he cuts the call, Russell opens up to him about how Julie keeps insulting his ideas and makes him not feel supported. That’s when a car salesman walks up to the car to tell Hank that his father has chosen a car to purchase. But he has a terrible credit score and several unpaid bills, plus no savings. Russell sees that as an opportunity and runs out. Meanwhile, Hank realizes that his father is broke, which is why he wants to move to Railton. He calls Laurel and learns that she already knows about it.
Lucky Hank (Season 1), Episode 7 Ending Explained
Hank considers it his duty to meet Julie and share the truth about Russell. He says that Russell ran away, and Julie considers it his usual irony-filled joke. But he busts her assumption and then shares that Russell is actually having an affair, as she suspected. He says that Russell is a small man and does not feel respected by her. Julie feels like he is taking Russel’s side. Alas, since his dad is still in the car, Hank decides to drive him back.
They go to a local store where Henry Sr defends Russell’s infidelity stating how such a choice helps him be an individual. Through that, he also tries to defend the choice he made in the past. He says that he was never going to be a father and, thus, made a choice to leave Hank and Laurel. Suddenly, he confesses being hard on Charles Dickens in his literary criticism. It pains Hank to see his father not regretting a single thing he made Hank feel during his formative years while considering being hard on a literary figure a grave mistake. He feels broken that Henry Sr still refuses to confess to being hard on him.
Later at night, Hank goes to Julie’s place. He puts a coffee pot on the stove and takes out cups for them to have together. Instead of giving any lecture, he stands by her and provides her with emotional support. Isn’t that what he also wanted from his father? His presence without a feeling of judgment or condescension? Alas, Hank decides not to let his own issues affect his relationship with his child. He corrects what his past generation could not and takes at least a step toward being a father that he never had. The episode ends with a tender note where Hank comforts his teary-eyed daughter without saying a single word, just by standing next to her.
