Skin

This episode was heart breaking.

That makes sense because Tovey is the bigger draw compared to Raul. So he's going to be the beacon and talking point in bringing more people to Looking. He's been in more projects, is the bigger name and has a larger and more solid fan base in all the core social media channels -- the top rated episodes of Looking this season have been the Kevin-Patrick centered ones (2x03 and 2x08, they have been the only ones to pass 300k viewers in live watching, for comparison purposes the Patrick-Richie one netted a 190k, half of what the Kevrick ones seem to get). So I do think they are fairly popular. The Being Human UK was reasonably a successful crossover story, so interest there might be fueling some people's interest. That being said the writers and the cast have pretty much been saying from the beginning of their press tours that Richie and Patrick are end game and soulmates, which I think they've done a pretty bad job show casing this season. It's clear most of the emotional investing is being put in Patrick and Kevin, 7 out of the 8 episodes have really been about growing their relationship and having it transition to different levels. So those things being taken into account if Looking does get a third season (I doubt it will, I think HBO would have renewed it by now if they were interested, I think they've moved on to Togetherness). I don't think Tovey will even be apart of it -- he's been doing other projects and hasn't really done much promo for Looking at all this time around compared to Raul who is barely on the show but is treated as a main cast member and is doing everything in his power to promote the show. I think they would want a cast member who will promote the show actively, especially given how low the ratings are, and how if a season 3 occurs it will likely get even worse. Here are some ratings averages based on the seasons numbers so far. S1 - .38 S2 - .22 (-.16/-42%) If Patrick and Kevin break up there would be no reason for Kevin to be on the show anymore. Richie himself is kind of barely hanging on without Patrick to anchor his story. But I really do wonder what this show will look like, without the triangle. It's clear that's where the show is getting most of it's heat and interest from. But I agree Kevin and Patrick are all over Tumblr, and seem to have a following from what I have seen in all the main outlets like E!, Backlot, etc.

I am fine with Kevin not being Patrick's be all of everything, but they are setting up the relationship to be very important to Patrick, to the point where I don't believe it is going to be believable if during the last second, he runs into Richie's arms at the end of the season. That just doesn't make sense, and would go completely against what the writers have been building this season. They are digging the Kevin and Patrick relationship deeper and deeper, and I feel like this past episode was the nail in the coffin for a Richie-Patrick reunion this season. Patrick feels further away from Richie than ever, and I just don't see a real tether there anymore. They are barely friends, have little in common, and now Patrick has committed himself to another man. If the writers wanted to show a Richie-Patrick re-connection I think they should have gotten together in the 5th episode of this season, and have Richie and Patrick sleep together or something, because as it stands now there is nothing there between them and nothing to pull them together again. I feel the show has done a real disservice with the character of Richie, it's like he is just a lost doll waiting for Patrick to play with him again.

I thought this past weeks episode was the most fun episode of the season, right along with the Rugby episode and the season premiere. There was just so much to like about it. The bitchy wheelchair queen, the prom, the gamer exhibition, even Brady was kind of humorous, I thought the Agustin storyline was also quite cute and even a bit sweet. Dom continues to be irrelevant. After this episode I am really questioning why Richie fans want him with Patrick. It's clear as day that Patrick will never invest in him as a romantic partner, while he pretty much is riding Kevin as hard as he can into couple-dom and gay matrimony territory. Is it because Richie will then "win" in the contest that is Patrick? I understand the reasons why some may not like Kevin, but after this episode it's become painfully apparent that Kevin is what Patrick wants in his life, right down to the "I love you" which he never even entertained with Richie. Patrick has committed to Kevin in a fraction of the amount of time he was with Richie. The whole Patrick-Richie pairing, seems so odd to me because Patrick is so not into him the way Richie is into Patrick. It's almost like Patrick doesn't even matter, and people just want to be in a relationship with Richie, but I don't see what's so great about Richie to warrant this amount of special attention. Because he is Latino and gay? John was never really given a true platform to where we saw him as an actual person, so it doesn't surprise me that his influence isn't that pervasive in Patrick and Kevin's relationship now that they are no longer together. Kevin himself is just a fragment of Patrick's story, so delving deeper into Kevin isn't going to happen at the expense of Patrick's airtime. Dom himself hasn't even gotten a lot of airtime, why would John? I was actually glad to see Richie in less than hero mode here. It would do him some good to have his own interests and his own opinions that aren't complete and utter perfection and in the morally right frame of mind. This was the first hint that Richie was trying to sabotage Patrick and Kevin's relationship, which I like. Richie finally has a flaw and ulterior motive, I can work with that. I don't think this makes him a villian or a bad character, it makes him human and realistic. His self-righteous, holier than thou, judging nature was too much anyway, at least now we have something that humanizes him and makes him one of the cast. The real problem is that Richie doesn't like Patrick dating Kevin at all in any incarnation, and that's fine. But it brings up a point, Richie can't decide who Patrick can and can't date. As to Brady, I think he's actually extremely likable, despite his messiness. But it is obvious Richie is leading him on.

I know a lot of viewers think that Kevin lied and didn't break-up with John, but I feel like they are jaded sour grape Richie fans, mostly. I don't think the show will do something that tawdry, and go that route. It would be pretty atypical of them, especially with Kevin and Patrick taking themselves public at the App convention. I heavily doubt the story will take that route, but who knows maybe the writers have a real hard on for Richie and will make Kevin a complete douche. However this was in the making for awhile now, they planted seeds about Kevin telling John quite a few episodes ago -- I actually thought Kevin was going to tell John back in the episode where Richie and Patrick went to see his cousin. All the signs were there, but it looks like they saved it for later. Maybe John comes back for an episode and lays into Patrick about stealing his boyfriend or something, that could be a dramatic moment, if they really needed one, but I think it's more likely that If Kevin and Patrick do break up, I think it will be because Patrick wants Richie. Which would make me gag personally.

I've always said Looking has never been that kind of show. It's not going to go for the drama just for the sake of drama. It's more low-key than that. Most of the confrontations, Richie and Augstin, Richie and Patrick, Dom and Lynn, Patrick and Kevin, have never been big drama filled moments. I feel like this is the end for Patrick and Kevin though, sadly enough. Now that they are together and there are only three episodes left, they are pretty much over. That being said the last scene was very sweet. Patrick looks so happy, he got everything he wanted.

So this episode was designed to give Lauren Weedman an emmy bait tape?

I think the show was fine until around season 3, and they could have even stretched it out to season 4 and kept it interesting as long as David had stayed dead.

I think it's clear from the promo that the group goes to Doris' father's funeral, and that's where Patrick loses it. Then Doris's mother tells him that she doesn't know why he was crying so hard because he didn't know Doris family well at all. Groff's performance has never really been an issue for me, I think the writing kind of paints Patrick as being a bit over obsessive, awkward and annoying at times. He's a neurotic character who feels his life either isn't stable or isn't where he believes it should be. Maybe it's the Girls treatment but I get the feeling that he is being portrayed exactly as he is supposed to. I think the question comes down to, if you believe Patrick is supposed to be likable, and I think the answer is: sometimes, but not necessarily always. If the writers wanted Patrick to be perfect I think they would do that, but they are getting something story-wise from the way he is currently characterized, so they are going to keep him this way. If you want to see the way a perfectly, "likable" character is being portrayed on this show by comparison, look no further than Richie, whose characterization for all intensive purposes is whiter than white, with not a single issue to be found within him. Most of Richie's flaws or issues are more or less just inverted good character virtues like "has too much self respect" or "refuses to be emotionally abused", where every other character is more culpable or in the wrong than he is. Those aren't flaws, they are Mary Sue characterizations used to endow a character the writers believe is too good, perfect or special to actually humanize. This is why I feel the writers are doing a disservice to the character and ship because Richie doesn't even feel like a real person in the universe they are creating. He's the perfect and endless giving tree in his relationship to Patrick, who knows right and wrong. The white washing of Agustine is getting to this point a bit too, he's suddenly becoming the most perfect person in the cast after his self-destructive behavior last season. So that being said I think Patrick is supposed to be infuriating, at some level and I think he is supposed to be unlikable and fallible at times. That feels like purposeful intent.

I know there has been some issues with some viewers thinking that the trio aren't good friends, but I always felt they had easier chemistry with one another to at least feign a strong friendship. I feel they are good friends in the same way most sitcom characters are friends, and I more or less believe that they have each others back. As to Patrick and the references to Queer As Folk, I don't think anything on Looking remotely resembles Queer As Folk. The characters are completely different and completely at cross purposes of what the two shows were. I think they are only being linked because they are the most prominent shows revolving around gay male characters. Interestingly, who would you want in the role of Patrick -- I don't necessarily see him as being miscasted, I think he is more or less supposed to be like this. I don't agree with making him the centerpiece or heart of the show, but I think Patrick is supposed to be looked like this -- in the same way those characters on Girls are. Agustin is growing on me, but I can still take or leave him. I'd be interested to see your take on Kevin and Patrick when you get later into the series. As it stands, I think they are probably the best fit compared to anyone else Patrick has ever dated.

I'm going to need to see more from her than a medley tribute to prove that she is "back".

I don't think it's as simple as the haters were shut up now. It was never that simple in the first place. Gaga has gone threw a huge downward trend in popularity, and that hasn't really changed in the three or four days since the Oscars. She gave a performance that was well received by the public, but that is but a scrimmage in the larger war of her career. I think it's clear that she was chasing after success but clearly lost, so that paints quite a different picture than the one you are trying to spin. It would be one thing if Gaga suddenly announced after the Fame and Born This Way that she was denouncing pop music to follow her dreams to become a jazz artist, but that clearly isn't what happened. She fell on her face in 2013, and now she is trying to find other options to continue her career, not unlike that of Cyndi Lauper. You are right, she doesn't have to have a career in pop music to continue to find artistic prominence, but pop radio and the pop culture audiences basically threw her out the door, she wasn't given much choice in seeking other options.

I have a squick about watching people humiliate themselves. I can't watch it. I get second hand embarrassment for them and end up closing my eyes and waiting for it to be over. I had a major fear of embarrassment as a child, until I learned to laugh at myself, but still it's hard to watch other people humiliate themselves as it takes me back to one of my most crippling fears in childhood. As a result I ended up completely fast-forwarding threw Patrick's meltdown. I understand the reasons and why it happened. We can tell Patrick is courting disaster from the very first scene. Patrick is unhappy with his life and he is going to make everyone else miserable as a result. Seeing other people happy only magnifies the fact that he isn't. This is one of the reasons why I just don't think Richie and Patrick work. Patrick clearly wasn't happy with Richie before, but now that Patrick isn't with Kevin he is trying to latch on to anything to give him that illusion of being in a successful relationship, even though Patrick realized early on that he was not invested in Richie enough to really move forward with their relationship. Upon looking at the episode further we see the cause for Patrick's epic meltdown is that he is terrified, angry, hurt, sad, etc. that Kevin might be leaving him behind, and that he will never see him again. All the carefully crafted facade of him not caring falls away right there, when Patrick is at his most vulnerable on the steps. It's interesting because up until this point it's been Kevin who can barely muscle through tears at seeing Patrick and not being with him. But we see here how angry Patrick is with Kevin for throwing his relationship with John in his face, in his own house. For what it's worth I think John does know or at least has an inkling about Kevin-Patrick. But it's clear as day that John isn't going to let him go. Kevin is going to have to be the one to end that relationship. Remember John wants to marry Kevin, from what we know about their relationship in 1x07. Clearly John is the aggressor here, and him pawing Kevin right in front of Patrick was done in my opinion to serve a message. He might as well have run around him in circles and urinated on him. From the spoilers over the next episode, Patrick will be influx from 2.05-2.07. I think it's obvious that Patrick wants Kevin. We see that in his meltdown. Kevin leaving him, throws his entire world apart -- and Kevin showing up at the party with John further aggravates his downward spiral. I think Patrick was hoping to strong hold Kevin into submission by freezing him out indefinitely, until Kevin succumbed to his feelings. The karaoke machine was an excuse. Patrick is freaking out because nothing is going the way he wants it to. We could tell from the very beginning that Patrick wasn't happy and wasn't having fun. Agustin even says it "everyone is having a great time, you're not having fun." He is the obvious inversion to Patrick. Brady tackles social issues and cares about provoking a dialogue about health issues. That being said I don't believe he fits well with what we have seen of Richie, but that is because we only see Richie threw Patrick's point o view. Who knows who Richie is outside of Patrick? He doesn't seem like Richie's type, but from what we got from last episode all we know is that Richie likes white men. Other fun highlights: It was fun to see Patrick get pawned so many times during the episode, first from Richie, then from the random black woman I had to laugh when she told Patrick "I love your megaman costume", and then again from James. It was just fun, I think we are supposed to hate Patrick a little sometimes.

You could tell that Gaga was in for a massive decline once the Born This Way era started. She had too much hype underneath her and it's clear that hubris was going to be the end of her. It is funny how she kind of destroyed her career in such a brief span of time. She was on top of the world in 2010 and at the end of 2013 no one even cared who she was.

Madonna's last solo radio hit was Die Another Day which was back in 2002. I don't think American Life was the nail in the coffin, she could have rebounded from that fairly quickly, but she never properly found momentum with her music and she just ended up collaborating with younger artist in a bid for Top 40 attention. Madonna became too far removed from the demographic that moves the music charts and she never injected herself (back) into the conversation. Confessions On A Dancefloor could have been a bigger album, but it came at the wrong time. Hard Candy and MDNA were garbage releases that cheapen her discography and were never going to be successful no matter what kind of promotional campaign she underwent with them. Even if Rebel Heart is a work of art and one of her best discs ever, it is going to be hard to reignite interest in an artist who has faded from the public's memory and hasn't had a solid and lasting hit on the airwaves in over a decade.

Yes but that can only go so far in drama. Take Agustin, I am actually liking him a lot more this season, but that is mostly because he was such a hot mess last season that the change, growth and stretch of him as a character is compelling to watch. Add in Eddie and you pretty much have a revitalized character who is surprisingly more interesting because of the changes he has gone threw. I'm not saying that you have to go full on Girls unlikability, but they really are doing Ritchie no favors by making him perfect, and him being a Jimminey Cricket teacher upon Patrick's shoulder guiding him threw life doesn't do much for their relationship either, in my opinion. It's almost infantilizing.

I think I've finally understood why I don't like Richie. The way they write him is whiter than white. He has no flaws or inner conflict, and he is just this shiny ethnic magical latino that seems to instantly solve all of Patrick's problems, which makes him stick out like a sore thumb in the pantheon of characters that are changing, stumbling and making mistakes. He's for all intensive purposes "perfect" but that just further makes him bland.

Yeah but the episode order was smaller last year. This year they extended it. I think they will play through things more this season. If HBO is going to renew this I think they will do it by next week or the week after.

We just don't know a lot about the John/Kevin relationship, so we will never know what is going on. I don't think that's the case. That's far too dramatic for a show as slow moving as Looking. I think Kevin is going to go back to Seattle because it is too painful for him to be around Patrick. We saw in the past episode that his video game launched (to rave success), he could have fulfilled his contract with his job. The gaming industry is pretty sporadic like that. Patrick is supposed to have a breakdown next episode. So I think the drama with Kevin will be a factor.

I thought for a quick moment that Kevin was going to tell John, but then no dice. I agree that John is the one who seems to really want to keep their relationship going, he wants Kevin to marry him as we have seen in 1.07, and we have seen that Kevin doesn't want that because he feels they are incompatible (1.03, 1.07, 2.04). It's an interesting quandary, on why Kevin is still with him. I am thinking that Kevin was thinking about breaking it off with John before John moved to San Francisco, but once he moved for him, he felt obligated to stay in the relationship. I think it says volumes that Kevin didn't want John to be at his place of work though, we saw from 1.03 that Kevin/Patrick pretty much established a "don't bring him here" kind of rule in their relationship, which is something Kevin seems to have been mindful of, in their time together. He seems to not want John there, perhaps because John doesn't understand it -- and doesn't value it like Patrick does. Maybe John thinks that video gaming is beneath him or something.

This episode felt like filler to me. Where was Dom?

It's sad to see what Real World has come to they used to be a very inspirational show that taught people and introduced the audience to real social issues. Now it's mostly just used as a branding machine to launch more reality television trash, with no talent. I used to love Real World back when they had a message and something to say, but I would say since Vegas and San Diego they've had little to say to their audiences. This is one of the reasons I can't stand reality television, it's taking over and provides pretty much no value.

The Kevin/Patrick/Richie triangle feels obvious to me in that we know what is going to happen. Patrick is going to end up (re)starting things up with Richie for a couple of episodes, only for Kevin to last minute break things off with John for Patrick and come running to him. This will lead into another season (potentially series) finale where he is stuck between these same two guys again. It's as clear as day to me, all the indicators are there with Kevin, but the writers need time to mobilize the other half of this story, so they use this as a stop gap to (re)build Richie/Patrick back up for the other half of this triangle to play out along with a few one-off episodes to round out the season. I'm kind of wondering if Looking is doing a disservice by having Patrick act as the center/lead of the show. He's not a bad lead necessarily, but the strong leaning focus on him kind of makes the other two leads feel like extras at times and the viewing audience can't actively invest more in the show for it. I honestly can't be bothered with Augustine even if he has more or less equaled out in terms of characterization, and Dom's storylines feel increasingly more empty -- the Peri Peri window thing has pretty much lost its steam because of the Kevin/Patrick focus which if I am being honest is a lot more interesting anyway. The way Russel Tovey plays Kevin is so interesting, it's like he needs Patrick all the time. To see him, to kiss him, to be with him, but at the same time we only get these little pocket views and glimpses of him wih Patrick there, but still in a way it's very flattering of him that every time he sees Patrick he wants him. It's also kind of interesting to note one of the reasons Patrick ends things with Richie is because he doesn't foresee a future with him (he can't say he loves Richie), while one of the reasons he ends things with Kevin is because all he can see is a future with Kevin and he can no longer accept less than all of him. Richie kind of hints at this during their talk.

I think it would have been better if Lynn just told Dom that he wasn't ready for a real relationship that's what it comes down to. I think it's clear that Patrick wants to be the center of attention, and this kind of shows the crux of the problem with Kevin. Kevin can't give Patrick that focus, so Richie is that band aid. Someone who will focus only on him, exclusively when he isn't in a Kevin time share. Kevin is afraid of being alone more or less. Augustine has the weakest storyline this season, but this is more or less because he is the least defined character of the trio. On an unrelated note HBO has renewed Girls and Together but haven't renewed this.

I could partly see this, as the writers were kind of driving home that Agustine was a rich, over privileged white boy, with no talent who was conveniently of latin descent at the end of the first season, at least according to Frank. But again this seems a bit esoteric and ill formed just as Richie's understanding of hispanic/latino pride was in the finale. I know they aren't meaning to do this, but it feels a bit like insert your stereotype and culture beliefs here for some characters and not accurately portraying them in the full text of the show. It feels like the audience is being told to fill in the blanks in some spaces where some further characterization or understanding could go a long way in figuring out what is happening with these characters. Is Richie feeling disrespected because Patrick was freaking out over having Richie meet his parents in person? Or is he more upset that he thinks Patrick is ashamed of him? It's not clear and the Richie character feels undefined even now in the second season, because he is still dealing with issues that came up in the first season. Overall the Augustine/Richie relationship feels awkward. They had one interaction together and that was the end of it. It feels contrived to have them be "friends" now. I get that Richie is the good guy who is still a little hung up on Patrick, but the forced connection and friendship with Augustine feels very contrived and is basically bad plot driven writing.