Skin

Now that the shock has worn out I'm very torn about whether to continue with this show.

Agreed, which is disappointing because I think this show started off pretty well, but towards the end of the season I felt it all fell apart. If I had to choose a point in which it all started to unravel, I think it was with the Sam murder. I really don't know what to say or what happened here, I want to say the shortened season threw them off, but at the same time the 15 season order was always supposed to be in place as far as I understand. The Lila murder felt like a let down and a lot of the enduring storylines just didn't come to a strong or satisfying conclusion. I don't care about Oliver's HIV status, I don't care about Rebecca, Laurel and Micheala's storylines are non-starters, the affair with Bonnie feels misplaced. There's nothing left. The only thing I can really see coming back for is conclusion to the Sam murder.

I admit I haven't see this week's yet (shameful! I know!), but Skin isn't wrong in that Andre has been, overall, ignored. He has been. Yes we have enough of an idea about his character (and it sounds like even more is coming, thankfully), but there should been no questioned he was under-developed earlier.

And while we do see his isolation, I still think they could have done a better job with him and Rhonda in the beginning, but it is what it is and I still love the show more than anything, lol

This is pretty much all I was saying with my post.

This show is interesting in that it has a central antagonist that pretty much exemplifies every deplorable thing in today's society in all communities. Luscious is a disgusting person in all facets of his life, and only seems to be able to impart ugly and disgusting philosophies to his children, that poisons them adversely through society. He harms them internally and also forces them to see the world through a fragmented and toxic lens.

Cookie for all she is worth is 10 times the parent Luscious could ever dream of being and it's not a surprise that the further the characters are from her, the less human and sympathetic they seem to become within the shows narrative. It's no surprise that the most lovable character is Jamal, who is for all intensive purposes the mother's son and the son she is most connected to.

and thats changed since the season started. We've seen and learned alot more about him since. Your statment would have been valid several weeks ago, but now? Not so much

It's changed since the last episode, but infinitesimally so. He still hasn't been fully fleshed out as a character compared to the rest of the cast. Jamal and Hakeem have both established character arcs of there own, Jamal's is about being true to himself and coming out as gay, while Hakeem's is about breaking free and becoming his own man outside of his father's shadow.

Andre's is? ... acquiring Empire? Which is pretty much the same thing he set out to do during the pilot and which he is no closer to since then? There's been no progression within his story over the course of eight episodes. I mean, it is what it is, but I would say this is an aspect that the writers and show runners dropped the ball on. They got Andre out of the way early, and developed everyone else but him during most of the season.

Do you guys think Patrick is crying at a relatives funeral in this Sundays episode or someone completely unrelated and I swear if the intent is for me to hate Patrick or not really care if he finds love then they are doing an ace job.

I think DRW50 is right...a lot of it has to do with Groff. His voice is annoying and two are we really supposed to believe its that hard for someone that good looking to find someone? Well I guess its his personality and the way it comes thru in Patrick. He just seems snarky and annoying at points.

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.

what do you mean? He's bipolar and trying to take over control of his family's company bc he is the neglected son. This past episode shed light on that with Lucious revealing that he's resented him bc he's untalented (creatively) and married a white women. He is mentally disturbed and tries to hold it together (which he has medication to help), but he struggles with that

That's an outline, not really a character arc. We got some explanation to him in this past episode, but he still spent most of his time at the beginning of the season making phone calls to pit the main two brothers against each other while he wrung his hands and smiled mischievously. That's not really much in regards to impacting story plots. Hakeem and Jamal get most of the major story components -- which makes sense, as they are avatars for Cookie and Luscious. But compared to Andre, he is often neglected and ignored for other stories, hence why I described him as the most ignored character storywise.

There have been episodes that have come and gone, where his story didn't really matter or impact anything important to the main narrative, which shouldn't be as a leading character. There are three sons, not two.

So I watched all 8 episodes, and it's enjoyable. But it's reaching its limits within the past two episodes. The last two episodes were less enjoyable than the earlier ones.

Jamal is the most likable one by far in my opinion. While Andre seems to be the one who it makes the most sense to leave the "Empire" to. Hakeem is the weakest link storywise and in terms of likability, but Andre has the worst storyline and is the most neglected character, episodes have come and gone and we have no idea what is happening with him.

I don't understand some of the ignorance, regarding Luscious other than just plain racism or homophobia. His anger and hatred toward Jamal and Andre is incredibly stifling and profoundly illogical. Hating Andre who has always held his back no matter what, just because he wanted to be an educated man and not act like an imbecile like Hakeem, is just revolting to watch, while he seems to endlessly reward Hakeem for behaving like an uneducated hoodrat. Hating Andre because he married a white woman is just confounding. Same with Jamal, who is clearly the most talented musician in the family and can make musical gold with absolutely nothing to his name. All in all Luscious is just a disgusting father to both Jamal and Andre. I don't care at all if he is suffering from ASL, he deserves all the pain that he will ever receive. He's morally repugnant.

I guess we're supposed to feel sorry for him in struggling to accept himself and see him as endearingly awkward, but to me he comes across as exceedingly self-absorbed, bitchy, and whiny. His bad date episodes were excruciating and instead of pitying him I just cheered the doctor and Richie for pushing him away. I don't think Jonathan Groff was the right choice for this role. The character feels like something shat out of QAF, but with a different actor, ideally with a less annoying voice, I would care more.

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 don't think her fans are wrong to call this a comeback, because it is a huge comeback. Not in terms of sales, but in terms of media narrative.

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

Notice how the haters are dead silent now?

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.

The thing is, I'm not sure if she wants or cares about being the biggest pop star in the world anymore. She had it, she's done it, and now she focusing on doing music that shows off her voice more than the pop stuff,

and that it appears to have given her a second wind of publicity when her career wasn't at a place that it was five years ago, but at the end of the day, does it need to be? And if it is, does it need to be in pop music? Clearly, the answer is no.

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.

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.

Thank you everyone for giving me some thoughts to go threw and not going for the jugular immediately. I am hypersensitive to how media portrays different racial and ethnic groups so when this show came up and became a run away hit, I was immediately very worried about how these characters would be portrayed to audiences. I personally feel there is an aspect of exploitation in various mediums which causes me to have viewing problems with entertainment shows.

It's really up to you Skin. Watch or don't watch.

If you feel strongly, it's not my job or anyone else's to convince you otherwise. I would say, for myself, I always like to watch one or two episodes before making a judgement. I watched the first two episodes of Scandal and knew it was not for me but I know others enjoy it and I don't judge anyone for it because everyone's preferences or P.O.V. will not be the same.

I mostly wanted to gauge everyone's reactions to see if any red flags showed up for any other viewers who have watched the show. It seems that my fears were unfounded and I will be able to watch the show in piece more or less, without any radically offensive portrayals of African American and Black people in a hit television series.

Completely off base. Nobody on the show is "ghetto" or exhibits "ghetto behavior." Some of the characters come from unfortunate backgrounds, but they've risen above that. The central family is filthy rich and the money was legitimately earned through a legitimate industry that relies on artistry and business acumen. Nothing "ghetto" about that.

Don't you watch Shameless? A show centered on a self-proclaimed "ghetto girl" who prides herself in the fact.

I was mostly afraid of the characters exhibiting stereotypical behavior and those characters appearing as negative caricatures and images within the black community. As to the comparison of Shameless, sadly even though Shameless deals with socio-economic issues, those problems that come up in the narrative don't carry many racial components within them as the cast is mostly white. It's not going to have the same gravitas as a series that surrounds an all Black/African- American cast. I understand that it's wrong to put this on Empire's shoulders but given it's representation there will be a finer focus on Empire for how is represents those same demographics.

I'd love to see a plethora of stories about Black families on network TV but that's an issue to take up with the networks, not the Empire series itself. Empire is a very specific story about a very specific family and their milieu, the same way Dallas was a very specific story about a very specific family and their milieu. I don't remember White families from the South being too worried that people would think they all behaved like the Ewings.

I agree with you, but unfortunately we are not there yet and Empire will have a strong view in shaping audiences view points on people they don't know well or have never met before. Media representation is important.

At some point black people are going to have to heal and elevate beyond the thinking that we will ever achieve some overall wholesome social nirvana where negative misconceptions will be eradicated within the entertainment format. If the Cosby Show didn't do it, then nothing will.

Important point to be made. But at the same time I know people who have never met a black person before in their life, and the first time they will ever see one will be when they turn on their television or go to the movies. Is it right that this is their first exposure to other ethnicity and races? Of course not but it still carries significant power. If there were other avenues or ways to access stories about other cultures this wouldn't be an issue, but since there aren't many opportunities that makes these pioneering shows all the more important to the audiences that they reach. Positive portrayals in the media is important. All we see shouldn't be Denzel in Training Day.

I want to watch this, but the shows premise, central idea and tone scares me. I am allergic to shows that glamorize, ghetto and hood rat like behavior in urban characters and settings. I think things like that just promote further ignorance and produce bad stereotypes that are harmful to our culture. It bothers me and I have no time for it. But, I have a feeling with names like Cookie, Rashad and Raheem they will be playing up to these stereotypes for the most penultimate amount of filth available to the viewing audience and to appeal to the lowest common denominator for the largest amount of mess possible (similar to those messy Love & Hip Hop shows that swallowed VH1). All of this is something of which, I just can't deal with.

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.

What is with these clients constantly lying to their lawyers and then expecting help to get them out of a mess they created?

I find Richie refreshingly human.

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.

Well, season 1 was slow as well...until the back set of episodes.

And guess where we are at right now?

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.

None of that is true though. He's just a narcissist through and through.

I don't even hate him anymore honestly. I don't even really care. He is disgusting as a person. I feel like Frank is such a dead end person at this point. He takes up screen time that could be valuable for other characters.

I don't even care if she is doing this to get back at Frank, the ends justify the means at this point, and she is finally being of some use for the first time since she came on the show. There is a power vacuum that needs to be filled, and I am fine with Sammi filling it at this point. If she hurts Frank the better.

And poor Kevin. Interesting that he forbid Jon from coming by the workplace for the last three months. Why? Because Jon wanted to come. Reveals a lot about Jon and why it might not be hard for Kevin to let go. So where is the disconnect between him...

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.

WTF does Sammi think she is? Bitch, be gone! No one likes her;

Im confused but how far is Lip's school? For some reason I thought it was like an hour

Frank calling Liam a "cocoa inbreed"...you racist muthaf--ka! Just another reason to hate him

This is actually the first episode that I've liked Sammi in, she seems to be the only one who is willing to be a parent to Carl and Debbie. These kids should have a curfew, it's nice that she supports them by making them breakfast, shows interest in their daily lives and is giving them some kind of order. These kids have been doing whatever they want for far too long and it shows poorly. If Sammi can be the parent that is sorely needed in this house I will start to like her. It's clear as day that Fiona can't do it, her life is a mess.

Not sure if we were ever given a location for Lips' school but it's filmed at UIC, which is in the Chicago area near the west side, and within walking distance from the L.

What you have to understand with Frank is that he feels he fulfilled his job just by orgasming inside their mother. I'll never forget the scene where Carl is upset with Frank for not being around, and Frank basically tells him to be grateful he came inside Monica so Carl could exist. Just deplorable.

The two week break might do them some good. I feel like dropping this, so a break to rebuild some anticipation will work wonders for this.

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

Fiona is an epic fail and continues to suck at all levels.