LOOKING- Page 41

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/11/15 at 5:23pm

The show's filmed pretty dark and on my tv I couldn't see it either. I had to go back and check the fi... err HBO broadcast on my computer to see it.

[swanjewel]

Posted: 3/11/15 at 10:12pm

"I still can't figure out they all became friends in the first place. Was that ever explained? It's just such an odd grouping."

Patrick and Dom hooked up and then became friends. Patrick and Agustin went to college (U of CA, Berkeley) together.

[missthemountains]

Posted: 3/16/15 at 12:44pm

So is this getting another Season or not? I feel like if it's getting the axe, we would've ehard by now, but we also would know if it's getting renewed. I really hope it does, despite what half of the hate-watching queens on here probably think.

[Luscious]

Posted: 3/16/15 at 2:22pm

No word on its cancellation or renewal yet. My guess is that HBO will renew it for an abbreviated third and final season.

Updated On: 3/16/15 at 02:22 PM

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 3/16/15 at 8:17pm

Is Ryan Murphy ghostwriting for this show because each week the characters act in new and surprising ways that are completely unrelated. I finally like Doris after the funeral episode and she turns into an unexplainable twat.

My hate burns deeper each week.

[Luscious]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 12:11am

Bettyboy...did you really think that Doris was acting like a twat? Because I thought that Dom was acting like one. I don't blame Doris one bit for telling him off and getting out. In fact, it seems that all of the central characters take turns being colossal a--holes. Which is one of the things I like about the show. The characters are flawed and conflicted, and their actions aren't always consistent. Kind of like real life.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 12:27am

I think this show is nothing like real life. I've never met people this erratic or sad. At least on Girls the characters feel organic and human. Looking has characters changing positions from week to week.

Yes I thought Doris was awful. Dom wasn't great either, but she won't own that she has been MIA to her best friend and even blew him off since dating that guy. She prefers to get pissed, refer to them both as damaged because they had a falling out. Doris has come across as a mess from day one and this cements the deal.

Yes he was cold about the money, but she wasn't understanding the dire straits he was in either.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 3:44am

LOVED this episode. Second favorite of the season after the funeral ep. How great was Julia Duffy as Patrick's mother? They got the casting so right with her. Asking Patrick at the perfect moment, "You want a Xanax, honey?" and feeding the zoo animals with quinoa chips from Whole Foods? And, then flipping it all around and breaking your heart a little with her misty eyed confession of finding true love in the autumn of her life? Just fabulous. And Frankie J. Alvarez is doing such smartly observed, soulful work as Augustin The Redeemed, too. Like the funeral episode, this one also felt a bit like a beautifully composed indie film somehow miraculously clocking in under 30 mins. Man, I hope we get one more season.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 6:08am

I enjoy Girls (though much of this year, for the first time, I have agreed with those who complain about it that it seems ridiculous how so many of the characters refuse to even slightly grow)--but really, Hannah deciding she's best friends with a 14year old she teaches, or Jessa masterminding Adam having an affair so she can get close to a guy is organic and realistic?

Great episode--although it did feel a bit like "this may be our second last episode EVER--let's actually move some plot!" And yes Duffy was brilliant--I liked her brief appearance as Dana last year (also in the second last episode,) but loved her here.

The Dom/Doris thing felt completely realistic to me--especially considering their relationship and their own hangups (although Doris probably could have broken the news a bit better...)

Was that Joan's mother from Mad Men selling the condo?

The Looking cast has been doing a surprising amount of promo for the finale, which seems to suggest we might get one more season... right??

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 10:52am

Yup...that was the criminally underused Christine Estabrook as the realtor.

I didn't have a problem with Doris' reaction...but I had (shockingly) a problem with Lauren Weedman's acting. That was a rehearsal take if I've ever seen one. She needed to take her foot off the pedal in that scene.

Thank the Maker for Julia Duffy for bringing complexity and compassion to a show that has so little of both.

I did enjoy the acting in the scene where Auggie and Eddie get together. The writing was a little juvenile, but the actors brought quite a bit to it. Paddy's sister was tough to take (and I enjoy that actress). And I just shrug my shoulders at the Paddy/Kevin epic love story. Eh.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 1:19pm

HIV prevention advocate Damon Jacobs praises the show for its PrEP storyline.

And Peter Staley says:

Like Damon L. Jacobs, I also love LOOKING's newest character, “big poz queer” Eddie -- the only HIV positive character on TV these days (why aren't there more?!). I'll add my two cents: just a big bravo to the writing team at LOOKING. You've handled the issue well, without ignoring how most gay guys I know are talking about it, including the controversies. Beyond the PrEP story, "Eddie" is the best anti-HIV-stigma campaign I've ever seen on TV.





OP-ED:

Updated On: 3/18/15 at 01:19 PM

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 3:22pm

RobbieJ-thank you. You helped me clarify my feelings. It was Weedmans delivery. It escalated too wildly and too quickly. It didn't feel organic

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 3:45pm

"I didn't have a problem with Doris' reaction...but I had (shockingly) a problem with Lauren Weedman's acting. That was a rehearsal take if I've ever seen one. She needed to take her foot off the pedal in that scene. "

I've seen her acting in this episode praised elsewhere, but I mostly agree with you. Lauren talked a lot on the Paley Center thing about how she has next to zero experience with playing anything but comedy--so much of this is new for her. And yet, she's nailed the more dramatic stuff (obviously especially in the funeral episode,) spectacularly. So I dunno what happened here--particularly her last scene. I mean it wasn't awful, but for once her acting felt like she was trying too hard.

My issue with Paddy's sister stuff was maybe more the fault that this show--with the way it's paced and the very little amount of time it has to tell its stories anyway--made her come off as such a bitch. And yet some of what she said seems to come from somewhere--it was already clear that her parents have put a lot of pressure on her to get married (and, I guess, to raise a family,) and I get the feeling that Patrick has always been able to get away with more, from his mom anyway. Yet, because, of the timing, the take away for most audiences seems to be that she's a terrible, homophobic bitch.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 4:01pm

^ And I REALLY like Kelli Garner. I watched too many episodes of Pan Am because I found her utterly charming and smart and delightful. If anyone can create an interesting, complicated sibling/foil for Paddy, it would be her. But the writing and, as you point out, the very nature of the show never gave her the chance.

Lauren Weedman clearly needs a strong director to help her shape the dramatic scenes...and there is nothing wrong with that. Oh GOD, it's what we pray for. It was actually painful for me to watch those scenes, cause I just did a project where I had very little direction and so I put the pedal to the medal and waaaaaay over-delivered. I actually felt embarrassed. So, I don't 'blame' her as much as I 'know' what that is. Know what I'm saying?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 4:27pm

Those are good points. In the Paley Center interview they commented on how, while very little is improvised (especially in dramatic moments,) both because of the budget of the show how quickly it's shot, and because of Haigh's style for the show in general, next to zero rehearsal is done. That could be a factor too... (The Funeral episode was also directed by Haigh--who of course Weedman has worked with before and who knows the show well. This episode was the first episode directed by Craig Johnson who is best known for The Skeleton Twins--if that factored into it, as well.)

Ack! Pan Am! That's what I recognized Garner from.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 4:43pm

The director is important in this case, as you can see where a TV pro (Duffy) is so effortless and natural and really came off the best in the episode-probably due to her career experience. Weedman was almost acting for stage and needing some dialing down.

Weedman was pitch perfect in the funeral episode-she perfectly captured how people vacillate between humor and grief.

I'll admit to hate watching at this point. I just don't understand the storytelling and the arc. Dom is pretty much non-existent and the gay bear is now a featured player. You need a better writer to balance characters and arcs with some overlap.

For instance on Girls, I understand the characters, I feel the girls have history and I believe all their bull****. They fight like real friends-petty, but real. They also come together as real friends. Jessa has been on the periphery for a while and tends toward being personality disordered, so her actions towards Adam make sense.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 4:51pm

I can't say that I hate watch because there's enough on the show to give me a little bit of hope that I'll see a bit of acting or storytelling that I find engaging. See: Duffy, Julia; Dad, Dead.

But I don't hold out hope that this show is going to be what I want it to be.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 5:03pm

This prob should go in the Girls thread--but have the main characters acted like friends this year? There has been even less scenes with them interacting all year than Looking has with its leads. Girls for me has a habit of having episodes with amazing character changes and revelations (the smack down in that Beach House episode from, I think, last year,) and then the next episode it's like it never happened.

Well, I certainly don't hate-watch Looking, but I do understand where these recent criticisms are coming from. (And I feel like I'm already cringing for the scene in the preview for the finale with Kevin and Patrick drunk surrounded by the other hot/gay/fairly wealthy gay guys at their condo Xmas party or whatever it is.)

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 5:05pm

Which is CLEARLY going to turn into the key party scene for THE ICE STORM which is CLEARLY not an actual problem but somehow, it will be and maybe they'll all die in a building fire.

OK...maybe I hate watch a little.

[Tag]

Posted: 3/17/15 at 10:41pm

Who wrote this week's episode? The dialogue was VERY 'movie-of-the-week'. Especially that Augustine/Eddie boyfriend scene.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/18/15 at 12:49am

I did like that Augustin finally felt confident enough to point out that Eddie had been sending mixed signals, but I agree this episode had some dialogue that was too on the nose in general. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Tanya Saracho did the script. Roberto wrote episode four this season (which had Dom's hot tub threesome--that's all I can remember specifically from it :P,) and Tanya wrote the ice cream truck episode as well as played Richie's cousin Ceci. She also co-wrote two episodes last year.

I don't know Tanya's writing otherwise at all, though Ibelieve she's done some latina lesbian plays. Roberto's been around--plays, etc (he did the script for Duncan Sheik's American Psycho,) though is prob most famous for comics. The only one I've read is the Archie horror comic, Afterlife with Archie which... I kinda love. Oh and he did a particularly awful gay bullying Glee episode I think. So, while not knowing his plays, and only some of his work--some of which I love--he does seem like an odd choice for the kinda dialogue Looking tries for. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Aguirre-Sacasa)

Updated On: 3/18/15 at 12:49 AM

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 3/18/15 at 2:04pm

This last episode was excruciating. The writing and acting in the Patrick's family scenes were truly laughable. Total camp and not even the fun kind.

[Tag]

Posted: 3/18/15 at 2:15pm

I was cringing at the 'save the mural' storyline!

[TotallyEffed]

Posted: 3/18/15 at 2:19pm

I was cringing at Kevin forcing really uncomfortable sex jokes on unsuspecting salespeople.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/18/15 at 3:13pm

Ah I thought the writing for Dana Banana was one of he highlights!