Office birthday parties are interminably dull, so read whatever you want into the fact that Looking Episode 3 opens with one. A colleague who Kevin thinks is a lesbian because she packs a chain wallet beams with glee because she got a Carvel Fudgie the Whale “shipped from Long Island.” As a native Long Islander, I can vouch for her gratitude. Getting a Fudgie is like your boyfriend BARTing to Daly City to pick you up a Double-Double.
The chocolate-y cetacean sensation, and the Boston terrier sweater that Kevin wears while eating a piece of it, are the cutest things about this episode, although there are some sexy bits to come.
Agustín walks into Richie’s barber shop with lunch from Roosevelt Tamale Parlor, apologizing for the spectacle outside the pupusería and for being a dick while Richie was dating Patrick. By way of forgiveness, Richie gives him a shave. It’s off-screen, sadly, but don’t you wish all sublimated erotic conflicts got resolved with razors lovingly applied to the throat?
Patrick gets neurotic about cleanliness of the house because Kevin is staying the night, but his real anxiety is his bum: “Straight people never have to think about shooting water up their ass before sex.” If you think he couldn’t be any wronger, just wait.
He tells the drugstore cashier he’s not having a colonoscopy, and her response could not be more delightfully jaded. Someone needs to make a spin-off about the accumulated wisdom of Castro Walgreen’s employees. They see all and they know all.
Roommates Dom and Doris both host overnight guests, Lynn (who’s grossed out by Dom’s collegiate living arrangement) and Malik (the bearish black man the gang met at La Rondalla, who is straight and apparently works for Ed Lee). Like a willful puppy, Doris worms her way into Dom’s bed to unload about getting rimmed.
Over brunch, Dom mentions he got an offer to manage a restaurant, which Lynn sees as a way-station on the path to eventual restaurant ownership, although Dom vehemently disagrees. They’re at St. Francis with Doris and Malik, so maybe he’s pairing a Nebulous Potato Thing with his nebulous career trajectory.
Patrick attempts to douche with his ass in the air, as if presenting it for inspection. A failure to grasp the mechanics of a Fleet’s enema bulb intuitively is one thing, but Gurl, you are working against gravity there and you’re going to get a slurry all up in that! He and Patrick have agonizingly awkward chitchat over a pint, but then it’s the good part: Dom’s gay rugby team, the San Francisco Fog, AKA a masturbatory fantasy in real time.
Eddie, the party bear Agustín met in Guerneville, sits on the bleachers blabbing about not knowing the rules and working on a juice box. Nothing punctuates bitchy commentary like a nonchalant sip from a bendy straw. (And in case you weren’t aware, he’s played by Daniel Franzese, who was “too gay to function” in Mean Girls.) Resident Brit, Kevin explains rugby, while to Patrick’s horror, Eddie cuts through the BS to probe about Kevin’s BF’s whereabouts. Perhaps predictably, Dom gets pummeled. Agustín fails to glimpse Eddie’s dick at the urinal but, having sexiled himself for Patrick’s benefit, wheedles a place to stay. Kevin and Patrick make out under the bleachers, in true late-onset adolescence style.
An interlude of buns and double-entendres in the showers follows, but tragically, Dom finds out that Lynn was behind that management position offer, and storms off. (But not before the hottest member of the Fog soaps up them pectorals.)
Kevin and Patrick spoon on the couch and, although he’s ostensibly prepped, it’s now Patrick’s turn to top. Mr. Butch Bottom takes it good but breaks Patrick’s heart a little by calling his actual boyfriend right after. An already complicated affair has gotten more so.
This episode consists chiefly of connective tissue, with too few zingers from Doris, but every major character’s relationship moves forward. It’s becoming increasingly implausible that someone as babe-alicious and self-assured as Kevin would fancy Patrick, though. While it’s not quite the level of those sitcoms where some middle-aged schlub has a beautiful wife, the tension is building.
Photo courtesy of HBO
