Looking: Looking Glass

January 8, 2015 12:19 PM - Season 1, Episode 8

Frank tells Agustín what is on his mind, Patrick tries fixing what is broken in his life, while Dom's restaurant pop-up event sees Patrick and Agustín show up, as does Lynn, with a surprising guest.

SEASON ONE ROUNDUP

Brandon Nowalk at the A.V. Club:

Just because Frank, Richie, and Lynn walk away doesn’t make them absolutely morally superior to the slow learners who are nevertheless our heroes. [...]
“Looking Glass” is painting a portrait of repression, which is already in the process of killing Patrick’s great relationship. Now, repression is the least of Dom or Agustín’s problems. Dom was hung up on a traumatic experience, and Frank sizes up Agustín as a “bored rich kid.” But right now everyone’s following in Patrick’s footsteps, and as the past few episodes have uncovered, Patrick is a product of repression.

Gregory Ellwood at HitFix:

Lauren Weedman's has been "Looking's" secret weapon over the past three episodes. Her character Doris is so intertwined in the gay community she instinctually throws out snappy one liners a gay man would say, before correcting herself ("I wouldn't mind if he sat on my face. I mean, I sat on his face"). But, she helps make Doris a hero and an insanely great best friend when she stops Lynn and says, "Dom's worth it. He's just…he's worth it."

Mark Blankenship at Previously.TV:

(And don't think I didn't notice that Patrick TOTALLY bottomed for Kevin after flinching about bottoming for Richie. Not cool, bro. Richie should go after Dom instead, provided Scott Bakula can't come back next year.)

...and Matt Brennan at Thompson on Hollywood takes on the much-lobbed critique that the show is "boring":

In retrospect, I wonder if the series' critics misread the script from the start. After all, this is what Patrick's been doing, too. [...] Patrick wrongly equates a specific brand of sexual adventure with his sexual orientation, and it's his bumbling attempts to adhere to this notion that bear the series' sharpest edges. "I don't know if either of us are very good at being who we think we are," Patrick tells Agustin.

Season 2 starts on Sunday, January 11.

posted by psoas (3 comments total)

I know the episode is called "Looking Glass" but FanFare seems to elide repeated words between series and episode titles.
posted by psoas at 12:21 PM on January 8, 2015

I just watched this episode last night. Agustin is the WORST person on the planet and I'm glad he got dumped. Patrick doesn't deserve Richie yet, but maybe someday he will grow up a little.

I feel like I would wholeheartedly hate Kevin if he wasn't played by Russell Tovey.
posted by Julnyes at 9:18 AM on January 10, 2015

Two friends came over tonight and we watched all of season one together. Which was really great fun, because this show took a lot of guff last year (most of which I found rather bizarre, or at best more revelatory of the author's own issues, but that's a whole other essay), so it was nice to communally enjoy it and feel like "not the only one."

I liked even more this second time through than I did the first. Binge-watching removes that "is that all we get?" feeling that 30-minute episodes leave you with. Being able to just relax and take the whole season ride makes it feel more like a single movie - the arc of the whole thing is clearer. (There's a "Golden Girls" reference between Patrick and Augustin in the first episode - and then the season ends with another one, for example.)

Discussion of the characters' flaws always interests me. In different ways. I remember last year a few times I watched an episode and felt really identified with Patrick - like, he'd do some thing that I realized I do or had done - and then the next day I'd find all these blogs lambasting the character for it and I felt "oh shit, am I more screwed up than I think I am?" On re-watching, it was nice to note the moments where Patrick does something even dumber than I think I would ever do - (I'm thinking mainly of his bad first date with the doctor, and the first time he's really out with Ritchie and he gets totally shitfaced and hung up on whether Ritchie will turn out to be uncut or not...) No, but I totally have some of Patrick's midwestern background, just I guess without some of the wealth. And I've totally been with guys where part of me has wondered "If it came to ever introducing him to Mom, OMG how much would she just freak out??" This makes me rather interested in where they take the character, and whether I might learn anything from his choices.

People hate on Augustin, with good reason, but I like his presence in the show anyway. Not in a "love to hate" way, but in the sense that sometimes we have that good friend who's in a really rough, bad place - and it makes the show more realistic that maybe not all the characters are easily likable. And y'know, as a person with frustrated artistic aspirations, I can appreciate the dark place he's in, I'm just happy I haven't turned as self-destructive as he has.

Hell, really, I'm kind of amazed how much of myself I can point to between the three of them - Patrick, Dom, and Augustin.

The scene at the wedding with Patrick and his Mother? Where it becomes clear he's carrying baggage about here approval when she's really more accepting than he thinks? Yeah, for years Mom and I couldn't talk about my being gay, but now she's progressed to the point where she asks if I'm seeing anyone and hopes I am. And I can't tell which is worse - the previous silence on the subject, or now the pressure that if I ever find someone I'm gonna be stressed about her approval of him.

Ok, I'll shut up now.
posted by dnash at 10:39 PM on January 10, 2015 [2 favorites]