If the comments on last week's recap of Season 1 of Looking are any indication, what fascinates yours truly, Manuel, about the show is also the very thing that makes it so divisive. Disclaimer: what follows should in no way be taken as an apology for the show nor a glowing endorsement of it as "the best!" As I pointed out last week, there's room for improvement and Patrick & co. have great heights to scale before being able to sit alongside Don Draper, Selina Meyer, Valerie Cherish, Piper Chapman & Jane Rodriguez (my Top 5 shows for 2014).
The burden of representation. That's how I diagnosed what has fallen on Looking for the mere reason that it's one of the few shows openly about gay people men. As some of you pointed out in your comments, issues of entertainment value and overall quality depend on the fact that the show (whether intentionally or not) announces itself as a mirror. [More...]
Do I want to see a show about friends of mine?
Should I champion a show that so narrowly and ill-effectively reflects my own experience?
Can a show about gayness really be entertaining and not merely didactic?
Looking brings up these questions in ways shows that aren't about minority subjects never do (or never to the extent that they become the sole conversation around them). It's always so much easier for gay men to identify with brassy, sassy, powerful, complicated women (fun house mirrors that help us imagine ourselves anew, helping us see the distortions we enjoy and hope to emulate) than with run-of-the-mill gay characters who hit either much too close to home or necessarily exist in a world too far removed.
But I ramble. What happened last night?
Well, we caught up with what I can only assume Haigh dubbed in his script notes "A Midsummer Night's Queers." "Looking for the Promised Land" (the actual title of the episode) saw Agustin, Dom & Patrick head to Lynn's summer house for a weekend to get away from it all. As if anticipating the criticism leveled at them, the first couple of scenes of the episode attempted to flag what we discussed last week about the show's shortcomings. Thus, while Patrick wanted a quiet dry weekend of board games and hiking (making him both adorable and insufferable, highlighting Agustin's own bitchiness and Dom's seeming passivity), Doris's whirlwind arrival has the boys go, in true Shakespearean fashion into the woods, to The Promised Land an outdoors retro-rave party. Of course, instead of a Nick Bottom-turned-Ass as in Shakeapeare's play, we get a 21st century bear, and instead of Puck's "love-in-idleness" potion we have the boys indulging in Molly. Thankfully, they are surrounded by playful fairies so my comparisons are not as far fetched as they may sound.
"Look deep inside your soul and tell me what you see" says the flouncing fairy
The setup of letting all three characters run amok while on drugs in a party that's equal parts 70s (that disco ball!) and 90s (the glow stick) highlights the way Agustin, Dom and Patrick cannot help but carry with them the gay history that has led to their lives being the premise of an HBO show. And so, we get three moments that speak to these characters individually but which cannot help but echo long-standing queer story lines: Agustin skinny dipping with his new infatuation Eddie (the funny Daniel Franzese of Mean Girls fame) who has a "House In Virginia" (that's HIV, not an actual house as clueless Patrick surmises), Dom popping his open relationship with Lynn cherry, and Patrick indulging in some equal parts bashful and shameless outdoors fuck with his boss, Kevin.
What makes you think I've been good?
Once the drug-induced episode is over and the three friends share their late night exploits with one another, we can begin to glimpse where the season might be headed. Indeed, if this episode (written by Haigh & Michael Lannan and directed by the former) is any indication, we're in a more dynamic show intent on exploring the friendships between the three leads while opening up the narrow world they inhabit. It's no surprise it's Doris and Eddie who amp up the episode's energy, infusing the scenes they're in with a verve that's intentionally, I'd argue, lacking in the main trio.
That said, the episode did offer us new facets of each of the leads in three moments that were definite highlights of the episode for me:
- Patrick's confession that his own behavior shocks him. I think the episode leaned a little too heavily on Groff's puppy-dog demeanor (he kissed a tree!) but moments like these (and out in the woods) suggest they're aware his manufactured ingenuity has its days numbered.
- Agustin's bitchy mask falling at the party and admitting to Patrick he's aware he's got a great support network. Oh that Alvarez had more chances to play more than one note as he does here. I'm not saying his character needs an interfuckingvention, but it seems he's getting one anyway in the form of Eddie.
- Dom's sexy insouciance mid-blowjob after being asked whether Lynn was his father. Indeed, can we talk about Haigh's success in depicting realistically awkward if steamy sex scenes?
Much as with last year, I'm more fascinated with the concept than with the execution of this show. Is it possible to enjoy a series mostly for the conversations one can have about it? Haigh's use of drugs and alcohol here as in Weekend, for example, to manufacture and enable intimacy between his characters seems troubling but I'm eager to hear whether I'm alone in this.
What was everyone's take on the season 2 opener? Will you, as Patrick did, take the pill and follow these insecure, good looking boys into whatever promised land they've cooked up for us?
Are you amazed I made it through this entire post without discussing that "totally amazing and totally hideous" Scott Bakula portrait?