How To Get Away With Turning Your Procedural TV Into Gay Porn.
Friday, October 17, 2014 at 4:33PM 
I was going to quit How To Get Away With Murder with this fourth episode but I may have to keep watching from the sheer ridiculousness as well as the fascinating case study of Anything Goes in contemporary television. If you replace all the female characters on this show with gay men (as you could well do with only 1% of your imagination since all the characters are so broadly drawn) this would be the gayest show that ever existed. Sorry Queer as Folk, Sex & The City and Looking.
ABC had promised jaw-dropping with their promos for last night's episode once you heard 'Viola Davis's last nine words'. Those last nine words included the word "penis". Hey, they're the ones who said "jaw-dropping" not me! Naughty naughty. (For the record my jaw did not drop but it did open wide for a long chortle. It's either really terrible writing or A+ lurid paperback but either way it amounts to the same thing) Viola's quotable send-off turned out to be so gay and so trashy that it exemplifies the young series better than I could ever hope to.
The last nine-words were...
Why is your penis on a dead girl's phone?
The most important word in that sentence is penis because How To Get Away With Murder is obsessed with them. Let's recap their communal cock collection after the jump...
HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER CHARACTERS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO DICK
A handy guide
- ANNALISE KEATING (Viola Davis) has had two of them in-show.
- MR ANNALISE (Tom Verica) & FRANK (Charlie Weber) her husband and assistant use theirs inappropriately and frequently on young students.
- PARIS GELLER (Liza Weil as Bonnie) definitely wants one of the two that Viola already has.
- GAY GUY (Jack Falahee as Connor) has had thousands of them, including the one belonging to the fiance of...
- PROM QUEEN (Aja Naomi King as Michaela) who now fears that her fiance will want more of them, too!
- DOUCHEBAG (Matt McGorry as Asher) is obsessed with them on principle as a bro and we know this because he's always talking about balls.
- SHY GIRL (Karla Souza as Laurel) is suddenly enjoying a hot Indian one (Arjun Gupta's to be precise) and fearful of what Frank's might do to her.
- The only member of the principle cast who is either not a) enjoying or attempting to enjoy cock or b) using his own is the show's lead* WAIT LIST (Alfred Enoch as Wes)! Nevertheless it is strongly implied that Annalise would like to add this theoretical and unused penis to her collection.
To further underline the phallocentricism, the episode opens with HACKER (Conrad Ricamora as Oliver) asking his new boyfriend Connor if he's a sex addict. Your Honor, objection. Rhetorical Question! They have a quickie before work, sex addiction concerns be damned.
The Case of the Week, there's always a case of the week since this is a procedural, involves the ever-watchable Elizabeth Perkins in larger than life Samantha Jones drag queen mode as a DIVA BOSS accused of Insider Trading. The proof that she has insider knowledge is in a video of another CEO inside her for a little carnal knowledge. Later she tells Viola that if she were married to Mr. Annalise, she'd never walk straight again. More dick jokes just to make sure we've noticed that everyone on this show loves cock / can't get enough.
Anyway, Diva Boss has a GAY UNDERLING (actor/model Niko Pepaj, previously of Bunheads) she adores. He is a total looker who, the show strongly implies in this particulary crude shot/reverse shot exchange below, has a ridiculously large and beautiful schlong.
The Case of the Week is cracked ("he said crack" hehheh) by Connor's penis which.... I ...
I can't... oh fine. We're quoting Gay Underling. He actually says:
And he did things to my ass that made my eyes water."
The line is repeated for emphasis a couple of times during the show as it's been surreptitously recorded.
Let us take a brief pause to let this sink in.
This show is on NETWORK TELEVISION, dear reader.
And, I repeat from last week: fully clothed gay movies without sex scenes that are safe for the whole family, like Pride and Love is Strange still get "R" ratings simply because they have homosexual tendencies. The world is topsy-turvy. People used to go to the movies to see things they couldn't show on television but now television can show way more than the movies. TV shows which do are punished with large ratings while movies are punished by not allowing teenagers to see for money what they can see for free at home. No wonder moviegoing is down!
Anyway. Blah blah blah**. Case of the Week is solved after that hyper edited fuckfest between the gays. By episode's end Gay Guy is dumped by Gay Hacker after Gay Underling commits suicide (I'm not making any of this up) and everyone lives happily ever after. Okay, I made that last part up. In the flash forward future's tremendously incoherent and desperately boring storyline all the characters seem sweatily unhappy and complicit in the murder of Viola's Spousal Dick. Speaking of that dick, his is pictured on the telephone in Viola's hand for the final scene and that "jaw-dropping" line.
For a show that was supposed to feature a strong lead female character this show sure is happy to be down on its knees for the man.
No further questions.
* The biggest and most surprising disappointment of the show is that Viola Davis is not the actual lead. Viola regularly has about the same amount of screentime as Gay Guy but the storyline is essentially built around Wait List. She pops in from time to time to slam down some acting notes and then it's back to her students.
** This review may sound glib and snarky but I mean every word in earnest.
Reader Comments (40)
My favorite episode so far.
I stopped at the 2nd episode because two procedurals (The Good Wife and Gotham) are enough in my life but this one seemed great. I miss Elizabeth Perkins!
Plus, i did catch a clip of Viola taking off her makeup and wig which just screams EMMY.
"And he did things to my ass that made my eyes water." - I've said and heard worse but if i had pearls, they would have been clutched.
Derreck: His point is more that it's slightly extreme sexuality by AMC standards and VERY extreme for vanilla network. You've heard worse, but WHERE have you seen worse? HBO? Showtime? F/X? None of those are "network TV".
Volvagia: Real life?
I repeated Gay Underling's line to my cousin, who had just come in from work. His response? "What? Put a hook in it? Use a spoon?" I couldn't stop laughing, mainly because that reply could have been an actual line from the show. So many consecutive weeks of analingus, and I don't know how ABC gets away with it.
Lady V gave me Glenn Close/"Dangerous Liaisons" realness at the end of the episode, and much of the interwebs has already branded it her Emmy-winning scene. Who knows?
I knew it! These 'Murder' reviews are amazing, Nathaniel! I think this already tops you hate-watching Smash, doesn't it?
Ah, this show. The lack of self-awareness is baffling. It's a mexican soap opera filled with paper-thin characterizations, a movie star lost in a one-dimensional character and a huge smokescreen of sex, backstabbing, beautiful people arguing with each other, Viola Davis bitchfaces and MURDER MURDER MURDER MURDER every five minutes. I hate those flashbacks. It's getting to a point that it's impossible they'll deliver on that suspense promise.
It's Grey's Anatomy only a 1,000 times more unbearable already. Four episodes in. Poor Viola.
As for Viola: that last scene really was top-notch acting. Pity she doesn't get four or five scenes of that caliber to chew on every week.
I've said it once, I'll say it again: get rid of the kids ASAP. Viola is all that matters.
Let's make a petition! Viola, leave that husband and move to Chicago to butt heads with Alicia Florrick next season on The Good Wife. ;)
Made his eyes water? Am I doing something wrong?
Add to that the Eiffel Tower thing on Scandal and you have Shondaland getting away with a LOT of sex talk and action on Disney's ABC. I think Twitter blew up again last night, which is really the best thing about watching these two shows in real time. One of the funniest was film critic Wesley Morris saying "Whatever just happened on How to Get Away with Murder made my granny hang up on me."
TPKIA -- LOL!
Jay -- i didn't consider Smash hate watching. Much of me loved every second of Smash (well every non McPhee second of Smash). I was just so annoyed that it couldn't figure itself out.
EVERYONE -- have i missed writings and good essays about the collapse of network standards departments? I don't want to sound like a prude but it is literally shocking me.
1980s Thirtysomething shows two men in bed togehter, not even touching and there was a huge uproar and bannings of the show and sponsor droppage
1990. Melrose Place has one gay character, refuses to give him a sex life and when he finally gets a kiss the camera turns away demurely to a reaction shot from a straight person
2000s Wil & Grace & karen & Just Jack mince it up and have boyfriends but not really physical affection
2010s There has to be a fan petition to get so much as a tiny peck from Cam & Mitchell on Modern Family.
2014 We jump straight to rimming, blowjobs, cunninlingus (which gives you an NC-17 in movies incidentally) and drooling for big cocks, plus post coital ass talk.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
It's the power of Shonda, Nathaniel. ABC doesn't care if she keeps bringing the ratings :)
Nathaniel, it's called when one of the most powerful television producers gives the network the most buzzed-about 3-hour block of programming in ages, you let her do what the hell she wants.
Jay -- but all those shows i mentioned had huge ratings too. and were taken to task. it's just very interesting. especially since they dont allow this in movies.
Nathaniel - But she gave an interview where she said ABC gave her full creative control, as in she doesn't get notes :P
So she gets to do whatever she wants.
I happened upon that one hot scene during my baseball watching. It was fun but I still think the show is bad.
a) You can get away with more at 10:00 (I know you don't like gore, but there's a scene in Hannibal's second season that nearly made me faint and vomit at the same time, it as so disturbing).
b) There is no MPAA for television.
c) The cable networks pushed sex and violence further out, so the main networks felt more comfortable with it. They had to, because people were watching and talking about those watercooler shows in ways they weren't about their own product.
d) The main networks are the ones producing this type of show, so they are a little less conservative. In terms of movies, you'll notice that in your example, neither film was produced by/for a major studio
I wish the flash forwards to the husband's murder had been left to the end of the season so it could go out in flames rather than the simmer that appears to be its future.
It's such a ridiculous show. The penis line was a non-event (I laughed out loud) because they had hyped the hell out of it and no way could any line live up to that expectation.
It was nice to see E Perkins again. I love watching her chew the wood.
But unless they keep bringing in guest stars like her, I"m not sure how much longer I can sit through this. I really hate the prom queen and head for the fridge anytime VD or Connor aren't on screen and they seem to be giving VD less and less to do.
"Derreck: His point is more that it's slightly extreme sexuality by AMC standards and VERY extreme for vanilla network. You've heard worse, but WHERE have you seen worse? HBO? Showtime? F/X? None of those are "network TV" - Volvagia
Yeah, that was kind of what I was getting at. I would have been *shocked* if I watched the episode and heard something like that. It's just so unexpected for network TV Like Nat, i'm not a prude any any means but it's jarring to say the least.
Where I have i seen worse? Well i'm too much of a gentleman to go into detail. ;) But on the other hand, The Good Wife has been pushing the envelope with sex for a while now but nothing near that explicit. CBS is also a whole different ballgame when it comes to their audience.
Yeah, Good Wife is pushing the sex card, but there is a difference. Good Wife is a $2000 an hour hooker, Murder is a $25 blow job in the alley.
Slow clap, Henry. That made me fall off my couch laughing.
But Murder is not a 25$ blowjob, she does it for free. It's how eager it is to please ;)
So with The Good Wife, you're guaranteed a good time for your investment while Murder just plain sucks?
I'm on board with this comparison. Lmao.
Are even straight people usually allowed to open their mouths like that, or just with Shonda?
That ass quote definitely made me rewind to make sure I heard it correctly.
You can get away with more for a 10 pm show... nevertheless, this show is definitely breaking new ground for showing a gay character who is pretty real for someone living in a major city.
BTW, nice Gilmore Girls reference. Glad you're catching up with the series.
So the way you have wrote this makes you sound like you dont like gay guys. His name is connor, oliver and pax.
wendy - i'm gay. i'm just pointing out how crazy gay the show is and how much it's getting away with.
I could watch an hour of Viola taking off her makeup. Damn, that was some "ugly acting."
A few notes:
1) The gay double-standard is strong with this one. This show did exactly NOTHING that soaps, Desperate Housewives, 90210, and Gossip Girl haven't already done with heterosexuality years/decades ago. Gay people exist and have sex sometimes, too. Same goes for ugly people (Cyrus on Scandal), overweight people (Homeland S4 E2-3), and people of color (Shonda Rimes only).
2) As a gay man, I cannot think of any enjoyable assplay that involves watering eyes. Shonda needs a gay consultant or some quality time with good gay porn.
3) As a paralegal married to an attorney, I can say that my husband and I enjoy the massive belly-laughs we get from the horrible procedural accuracy of this show. It's worse than Bad Judge. Especially episode 3 where Viola hollers "MOTION TO STRIIIIIIKE!!" in court. We rewound the Hulu to watch that moment 4 or 5 times because we couldn't stop laughing.
4) It's soooooo bad it's good. This is the American telenovella.
JDH - i get that complaint of double standards and have often felt them. But i personally don't remember any straight sex scenes on television that had such obvious references and visuals of very specific sex acts, like watching someone come up from out of frame licking someone else's abdomen or flipping someone over to tongue down their back toward their ass.
maybe it's the way this is written but i'm not complaining about the content so much as surprised its own television. In real life i love gay sex. lol.
It's interesting that i'm so much more shocked by this show than readers are so i guess i've just watched the wrong network shows (either that or younger readers dont ever think about which type of television they're watching having grown up with all forms ...and there's definitely more explicit things on premium channels) but i personally haven't seen anything this explicit on ABC, CBS, or NBC ever ... though i do remember the uproar about 20 years when network television showed a bare ass and people freaked out (NYPD Blue) Once & Again did the same thing only 10 years ago with significantly less freak out but it's strange that Shonda Rhimes shows don't do that since they'll apparently do anything else ;)
From what I've read, HTGAWM is actually executive producer Peter Nowalk's baby, who is gay. But Rimes name is the reason people are paying attention...
The show is entertaining fluff, but it would blow away if it weren't for Viola Davis' grounding performance...
Nathaniel,
Meredith Grey and McDreamy f#cked on an operation table for what felt like an hour in season 2 and she lost her panties. This in 2006.
Kerry Washington was fingered by Scott Foley in the first minute of this season of Scandal.
So the gay sex is not my primary concern with Shonda anymore. The woman lives for this.
She puts the Fifty Shades of Grey author to shame on that regard.
Jay thanks for the info. I have LONG avoided Grey's Anatomy (one of my least favorite things on television ever) but do catch Scandal on occasion. Guess i missed that one. So is it only Shonda getting away with this NSFW stuff on TV or are other network series getting R and NC-17 rated these days?
I want to stick with this for Viola but I forgot to watch when it was actually on this week and didn't get around to watching it on demand until today and I was completely fine with waiting. Not a good sign.
Elizabeth Perkins made her story line fun and Viola as always was super but she's starting to feel like a star supporting player in her own show.
Either make those little jackasses who are her minions interesting or get rid of them! I can't even begin to describe how much I hate those meaningless and utterly stupid flash forwards. Tom Verica's dead, someone did it and the pimples are covering it up. We get it! Please, please stop taking up time each week with that crap.
The crass shock value is getting the show ink but it's a hollow shell. Viola deserves better and could certainly punch something of quality across without the salaciousness.
On network TV, I'd say just Shonda. But then again I don't watch a lot of network shows. I heard last year that Kat Dennings has a lot of explicit tits/sex/dick jokes on her show. And Mom has several innuendos on that regard, too. Allison Janney's character has a very filthy mouth for a grandmother of two with one being a toddler.
I quit Grey's after the whole "Izzie cut the LVAD" situation (come to think of it, it was in the same episode lol).
I don't watch Scandal anymore but I read something this week about Shonda pushing the boundaries of sex and I thought "well people are obviously complaining about the gay sex" but NO, people were crazy about Kerry getting fingered and Viola getting cunnilingus.
Oy.
I'm really not a prude, but gratuitous sex is annoying if there's not a worthwhile show built around it. It's kinda insulting that producers think if they throw in a few racy clips that viewers are dumb enough to put up with crappy writing. And I don't care if it's trash, but there's good trash and then there's just trash.
NATHANIEL R:
Really, this is nothing new. Gossip Girl had a pretty explicit 3-way in 2008 along with lots of other graphic and underage sex, including all kinds of rape - violent, date rape, inebriated non-consent, and statutory. Without a Trace aired an underage orgy that ended with FCC fines totaling $3.6 million. Ally McBeal had graphic sex scenes, talk, and innuendo almost 20 years ago.
Desperate Housewives caused TONS of pearl-clutching over its nudity, sex, adultery, etc. Heck, even The Good Wife has had some pretty steamy scenes between Kalinda and Cary, Kalinda and random hot women, and Kalinda and her husband's fingers (in public, also pretty rapey). Alicia got some pretty good head from her husband in the bathroom in one episode, too.
All that to say that yes, the "shock" is a double-standard. From homophobes it's an obvious double standard. For dudes like us, I can only assume it feels shocking because we're not used to seeing sex scenes on tv that are actually arousing or relevant. We never see gay male sexuality on network tv, so it feels strange and - yes - a little shocking.
Even still, this scene was graphic in the details but overall nowhere near as graphic as many straight sex scenes when you account for how frequently straight couples are shown in partially-clothed sex positions or chest-up thrusting. Just google "Gossip GIrl Serena sex scenes" and tell me if you've ever seen ANYTHING like that on network tv that includes two men.
JDH. Well I watched Ally McBeal and Desperate Housewives and they never had anything like this show sexually.
But... I have never watched Gossip Girl or Without a Trace or The Good Wife so its possible i just didn't notice this wave of sex coming over network tv. On cable it's not shocking at all of course.
JDH
And in The Good Wife the sex scenes are sensual, not gratuitious, they're very classy.
I don't know. After watching How to Get Away with Murder, I saw the latest episode of The Good Wife in which Kalinda and her FBI-agent, would-be girlfriend kissed the daintiest kisses after showing them banging up against a wall and reaching up each other's skirts, and all I could think was, WIMPS. One of the reasons The Good Wife has failed the Kalinda character is that there was never follow through with all the women who fell at her feet. I don't know that it's homophobia per se, but the writers are definitely wary of network and audience feedback. I wish the sex on HtGAwM weren't such an obvious effort to be provocative, but at least I buy that the characters are hot for each other.