USA’s ‘Royal Pains’ warm, if a little lazy

Along with the premiere of “Fairly Legal,” USA brings us a little bit of summer in our bleak midwinter with a winter season of “Royal Pains.”

The second half of the second season has wandered lackadaisically back into focus, starting with a golf tournament and a spider bite that led to a loopy confessional on the part of Jill, the hospital administrator for the Hamptons, that she still has feelings for Hank -- the Hank in HankMed, the concierge doctor service operating in the resort.

It could be I just don’t see where this is going. Hank’s physician’s assistant, Divya, is off in London pursuing her arranged marriage ... except when she’s not -- she seems to fly back and forth a lot. For instance, when a houseful of reality show knuckleheads get sick in the house next door to Jill’s, Divya’s right there.

Of course, this also meant Hank would offer Jill a place to stay while the loud reality show was going on. Cue Emily, another concierge doctor HankMed’s benefactor, the megarich recluse Boris, hired to replace Hank while Hank accompanied him on a surprise trip to Cuba earlier this season.

Emily, on her return to the Hamptons, snuck into Hank’s bedroom to surprise him and found Jill there. Hank, ever the gentleman, had given Jill the bed while he slept on the couch. The resulting outcry was ... small, tame and quite contained because they were all very grown-up about it.

“Royal Pains” in this season resume feels a little like calling a houseful of people for dinner. Characters wander into frame as they feel like it, drift off, come back, pretty much on their own schedule. Divya is horrified and shamed by her otherwise relatively innocent dalliance with a war vet and won’t commit to returning to HankMed after she marries Raj. Jill had her shot with Hank and she blew it, but is still hanging around being friendly. Hank offered Emily a full partnership in HankMed and she countered with a multi-suite concierge practice in major markets.

Conflicts

And Boris brought his physician and girlfriend, Marisa, to the Hamptons from Cuba. Marisa is pregnant with Boris’ child, but hasn’t told him yet for a variety of reasons -- not least of which because Boris has a rare, congenital disease that passes from father to son, and he wants it to end with him. This puts Hank in an uncomfortable situation of having to keep information from his benefactor, but he’s never had any trouble with confidentiality before and anyway Boris should hear it from Marisa.

Again, this is one of those poorly thought-out conflicts, like when Hank’s brother, Evan, is invited to a swanky ‘20s-themed party and because he’s Evan he invites the reality show partiers as his “plus-12,” even though his girlfriend, Paige, told him she hates people who take advantage of her family’s generosity to crash parties like that, and now he’s in trouble with her.

The story of this show seems to be all over the place. Boris will find out Marisa’s pregnant, unless she terminates the pregnancy. But if their child is a girl she wouldn’t contract the disease anyway. So she won’t know if she can tell him until it’s all but too late to do anything about it.

The cast of the reality show got sick from eating bad salsa, but it took an entire episode to figure out it was food poisoning, which seems unlikely. In other questions, is their dad going to prison? Is Divya leaving? Is Emily replacing her? Will Jill get another shot at Hank? Is Paige breaking up with Evan because a bunch of silly people crashed a swanky party in the Hamptons?

Seriously, does any of this actually matter? I mean, storywise if Divya leaves or she doesn’t she’s a grown-up and she gets to decide what she wants to do. However, it occurs to me that the one ethnic minority in the cast -- one incapable of being anyone’s love interest because she’s betrothed -- that person would be replaced by a blue-eyed blonde who is the main character’s girlfriend. Despite the fact that -- again, in the life of the show -- Divya provided everything for HankMed to get started.

This seems like a bad way to go, but in any event, it’d be a good idea for “Royal Pains” to get out of the ditch and get some rubber on the road, figure out what they want to do because the last couple entries have just been spinning their wheels.

“Royal Pains” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on USA.