Stockholm Syndrome (S01E01)

Numbed after his girlfriend moves out because of his repeated failure to stop drinking and smoking pot, between-books novelist Jonathan Ames (Jason Schwartzman) peruses his favorite Raymond Chandler novel, Farewell. My Lovely, and is inspired to place an ad on Craigslist offering his (unlicensed) services as a private investigator. Within hours he gets his first case, involving a 19-year-old girl's desperate search for her missing sister. Despite the fact that he should be working on his second novel, and despite the fact that he is on deadline for a piece he's writing for the magazine he works for, Jonathan heads out into the urban night to track down the girl, embracing his newfound noir detective status. At the end of a (very long) day, Jonathan earns his fee ... and finds he's got another case, coming up on next week's episode. (Home Box Office)