It's been a long few years for David Duchovny. So long, in fact, that when "Californication" returns for its fifth season (Sun., Jan. 8 at 10:35 p.m. EST on Showtime) the show will jump ahead three years. Season 4 ended with the always drunk and sometimes charming writer Hank Moody driving off into the sunset, headed back to New York after his ex-wife Karen and daughter Becca left him alone to go on tour with her band.

Duchovny served as an honorary guest-host Wednesday on "Live! With Kelly" (weekdays, syndicated on ABC) and previewed where the series will pick up this season. After spending three years on the East Coast, Hank finds himself pulled back to Los Angeles to write a movie script for a rapper named Samauri Apocalypse, who's played by RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan. Karen has re-married, and Moody quickly gets back to his old boozy, womanizing ways, only in a slightly different context. "He kind of gets involved in a whole rap-world scenario," Duchovny explained.

The segment was book-ended by some classic Duchovny and Moody banter. At the outset, Duchovny and guest Terrence Howard complimented each other on their acting chops, and Duchovny promised him a role on "Californication" before clarifying that he was actually powerless to make it happen. At the end of the segment, "Live!" played a clip from the new season in which Hank mixes it up with Karen's new husband. After getting into a fistfight, Hank tells him that, "We had to do the mandance, just once, just a taste, so we could move on with our lives and become the Cold War powers that we are today."

"Californication" may have jumped into the future, but clearly Hank Moody hasn't lost a step.