Hello everyone, Manuel here to recap Looking's newest episodes. We took a little break last weekend since it was the Holy Night of Awards (may this be your daily reminder that Julianne Moore has an Oscar!) and so we’re back this week with two brand new episodes. And boy were they good! I’m actually happy I can talk about these two episodes in tandem. One a comedic showcase the other a dramatic detour, one a sprawling ensemble set-piece, the other an almost bottle-episode character-driven piece, they exemplify the strong work Haigh & co. have been doing this season. More...
I’m actually happy I can talk about these two episodes in tandem. One a comedic showcase the other a dramatic detour, one a sprawling ensemble set-piece, the other an almost bottle-episode character-driven piece, they exemplify the strong work Haigh & co. have been doing this season.
Looking for Gordon Freeman
Where did we last leave off? Oh yes, me neglecting our last episode to rant against another attack on the show on its representational merits. So, let’s avoid that and focus on this “messpisode” (I saw it referred to as this somewhere and now I can’t help but think it’s the perfect way to describe what we just witnessed). It was funny. It was cringe-inducing. It advanced various plot strands. It referenced Mrs Dalloway!! And it brought us Dom-as-He-Man and so this is, for my money, Looking’s best episode to date. At least I thought that until I saw “Looking for a Plot” but they function on such different levels that choosing between them is nigh-impossible. This series just keeps getting better and better.
I loved that the entire episode was motivated by Patrick’s desire to be the “fun gay” a label that he hilariously explains by saying he wants to be a hashtag #instagay. Already he understands it as a social media performance rather than an embodied experience. But don’t mind me, I’m a bit obsessed with Instagram and its potential as a queer public sphere. Appropriately, HBO’s marketing team uploaded some amazing #instagay pics to their own Instagram account, including this one of Dapper Master of MY Universe, Dom:
“The article is called, ‘Why I take PrEP”
In the long list of put-downs our Patrick has been subject to, this has to be the best if only for its factual simplicity. Yes, Pato, you do need to read the entire article to get the gist of it (and don’t let clickbait sites convince you otherwise!). If you needed another reason to believe that Looking is well aware of Patrick’s shortcomings as the voice of the gay generation (or a gay generation, to borrow its fellow Sunday HBO comedy’s moot tagline), these two episodes were it, precisely because he’s both clueless and entitled. Seeing his every self-deprecating yet self-emboldening line create ripples of eye-rolls within the show’s ensemble has been a delight and this fascinating conversation about promiscuity, safe sex and HIV was a welcome set-piece that feels both palpably contemporary yet all too dated and familiar (it’s basically the show’s Normal Heart moment).
But let’s be honest, this episode was all about that scene. Patrick, drunk after sharing shots with his ex (and his adorably sex-positive ginger boyfriend) -- don’t we love that they went as Max & his “wild thing”? -- and having had to endure coming face to face with a drunk John who’s eager to be friskily playful with Kevin, took the mic and proceeded to give everyone second-hand embarrassment. Look, Patrick's a mess but what worked so well about his drunken tirade was the way it spoke to the various plot and character developments we've seen this season (his affection for Richie, his pride in Agustin, Dom's window chicken, and of course, his vexed relationshiop with Kevin who continues to pine away even when holding onto his muscly boyfriend).
Best line of the episode I wish I could off-handedly use:
Tie: “Hey, come help grandpa with the clicker”
& "Hey what do you think about dom’sjuicychicken.tumblr.com?” (Yes, the link is live, people!)
Best Doris moment: Her bemused look when she shows up at the party dressed up as Sonny (to her “not-boyfriend”’s Cher!)
Best gif-worthy moment: Again, this episode wasn’t just the most quotable but it had so many gif-able moments (plus, it had a Tumblr shoutout so they clearly know their audience). I’m gonna go with this one, though John playing with Kevin’s balls was a close second.
And how does one follow that?
Looking for a Plot
Every week I’ve highlighted “Best Doris Moment” so I was delighted to see that we’d be spending an entire episode around her. I’ve noted before that Dom & Doris are the real-life, West Coast version of Will & Grace and “Looking for a Plot” gave us every reason to double down on that thesis. The moment in the pool where we learn Dom thought they used to have great sex (“No it was FUCKING NOT!”) tells us everything about how this is no multi-camera sitcom. Just like we might wish to categorize all the boys Looking offers us according to Patrick’s own card game categories, Doris as “the fag hag” works on screen because she inhabits and exceeds the stereotype. She may be “Dom’s Grace” but within every punchline that lands is the awareness that theirs is a messy history.
We begin with the aftermath (read: hangover) of the party where, while Patrick commiserates and apologizes, Doris gets a text from her aunt telling her her dad has passed away. Much like the overall structure of the episode itself, it makes you comfortable in the mundane trappings of a diner breakfast only to hit you in the gut before you know what happened. And so, with Patrick in tow (for he is nothing if not preternaturally self-obsessed, seeing a funeral as a chance to get away from his own embarrassment), we go to Modesto, the place Dom and “Big D” have since escaped. (Am I the only one waiting for the inevitable if narrow-minded thinkpiece about Looking’s bias against non-urban gay centers as viable living environments for young upwardly mobile gay men?)
It was a brutal episode mostly because it focused, just as the series has done constantly, on the small moments (a backrub, a casual coming out at a funeral, a chicken bucket at a pool). Outside of the Patrick storyline, there were no hysterical wails nor life-changing epiphanies. Dealing with grief is getting through the meet and greet with the family, appropriately text back your perfect boyfriend (“Thinking of you,” he writes) and trying to not get whiplash from seeing where you were and where are now. It’s also what made the collision at the end of the episode all the more surprising (I may have jumped out of my seat). I wish I could say the same about the Kevin/Patrick rom-com reunion moment for it felt both touching yet facile. I still think John was never enough of a presence to make us feel Kevin’s decision to be all that dramatic (the “Beer” tee and the dunce hat he wore to the Halloween party didn’t do him any favors, either). Am I the only one not as invested as I feel the show wants me to be about their pairing?
But really, the episode was an amazing showcase for Lauren Weedman. Props to her for a fantastic episode; more so than that Oscar speech, her stoicism when receiving the text and later during the funeral (so much sadness wrapped up in those lip quivers and witty quips) made me want to call my mom.
Best line of the episode I wish I could off-handedly use:
"Oh god, would you please take these away from me after I have one more, and then when the nausea passes give them back to me?”
Best Doris moment: How to choose just one? Here goes, though: Doris offering her father’s inheritance to Dom (“There's no one I'd rather invest in more than you. Because you're my family.")
Best gif-worthy moment: The boys and Doris dancing.
Previously: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5
What was your favorite Halloween costume at Patrick’s #fungay party?
Did you also begin sobbing uncontrollably like Patrick during that funeral scene?
Was it in part because Mary Kay Place is so gosh darn talented and underused?