Looking, a new HBO drama that recently wrapped up its first season, is a quiet television show, one that reflects on the everyday lives of its main cast of three gay men making their way through present day San Francisco. Each is on a different path, but in the end they share their experiences with each other over glasses of wine, half-smoked joints in the backyard, and streamed episodes of Golden Girls on a MacBook computer.
The plucky and bright-eyed Patrick Murray (Jonathan Groff) is our everyman protagonist and proxy, and he’s filled with goofy apprehensions and naive ideals anyone can relate to. His two best gay buds join him, Agustin (Frankie J. Álvarez) and Dom (Murray Bartlett). There’s nothing really new here, per se: these guys work by day and loosely date, drink, hook up, cruise, and smoke weed by night.
It’s to be expected that the love lives of our main cast are the forefront of the show’s plot, and why not? Patrick (at the tender age of 29) is questing to find fresh love after his recent relationship came to a close— a commitment that lasted six months before falling apart. OKCupid is where he spends his days when not banging out code as a video game designer for the San Francisco branch of a software company.
The issue? Well, there isn’t one—at least not one of great gravity, and that’s why I enjoyed the first season of Looking so much. It’s not manic. It doesn’t stress me out with hyperbolic monologues or explosive and melodramatic twists that send its characters spinning out of control. The show unfolds like letter sent from a long lost friend—especially if that friend is someone like Mary Ann Singleton from Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City.
Alongside Patrick is his best friend and roommate Agustin, an attitude-heavy artist’s assistant and struggling artist himself, though he has one true and loyal fan in his boyfriend Frank (O.T. Fagbenle). The life of a cranky starving artist can be rough: in the first episode Frank and Agustin take the leap and move in with each other after Agustin has the financial realization that he can’t handle another rent bump in the hip San Francisco apartment he and Patrick split. The solution is shacking up with Frank across the bay in low-rent Oakland.
And this group of friends isn’t complete without the jaded, sex-addicted, and egomaniacal archetype: enter Dom, who fills the role perfectly, albeit with a sweet spark of charisma. Dom is a 39-year-old silver fox sporting a well-groomed (and rather handsome) porno mustache. He’s still soothing a wounded heart from when he shipped his now ex-boyfriend off to rehab to clean up his meth addiction. The ex, Ethan (Joseph Williamson), has since turned his life around by building a successful real estate company after getting himself sober. Dom and Ethan reunite in what’s meant to be a healing reunion of reflection… and Dom asking for the $8,000 back that Ethan’s rehab cost him. Ethan claims the money was generous gift. Dom says it was a loan that he now needs back to start his own restaurant. A clash ensues and Dom takes his aggression out in a sexual encounter with a 20-something he finds on Grindr; the young man enjoys every moment and hopes to hook up again, but Dom is left only feeling empty.
This all has the potential to fall apart before it even gains momentum, and some early reviews of Looking claim that it does. But the characters— both the writing of them and the actors portraying them— prevent that from ever happening. These guys are just so damn likable, with all of the triumphs and obstacles they experience in their day-to-day lives. Groff’s performance of Patrick is unassuming and optimistic; yes, he harbors a self-consciousness instilled in him by his WASPy mother, but his worldly friends are always there to give him the kick he needs into the big wide world.
The first season of Looking pushes each of the three main characters to question what exactly it is they want to have in their lives. After a date gone awry with an arrogant doctor, Patrick meets a flirtatious barber-by-day, bouncer-by-night named Richie (Raul Castillo). Patrick is taken with him, first as a sexual fling that doesn’t go as planned, but later on as a genuine love interest. Episode five, titled “Looking for the Future,” illustrates the feelings the two men develop for one another with beautiful subtlety. It’s in this episode that we see one of the show’s executive producers, Andrew Haigh, apply his expert influence; Haigh directed the 2011 British film Weekend, which follows the 48-hour relationship between two men. Like Weekend, episode five follows Patrick after he calls in sick and spends his day on a romantic adventure around San Francisco with Richie; each stop they make causes Patrick’s desire for Richie to grow.
But there’s a problem—actually, there’s two. Richie is Mexican and blue-collar, and Patrick lets his new man’s ethnicity and social status (or lack thereof) cloud his feelings. Is he truly falling in love with Richie, or is he having a hot fling with someone he can never bring home to his family? Because his mother’s opinion (and that of his friends to a certain extent, too) causes him to question what he really feels, and if that’s happening, how real can the whole situation be, anyway?
The other problem is Patrick’s new British boss, Kevin Matheson (Russell Tovey), a fresh and intimidating force in the protagonist’s life. There’s some friction in the beginning: we don’t clearly know how Kevin feels about Patrick, or how Patrick feels about Kevin. Kevin is introduced in episode three, and his presence lingers around Patrick throughout the rest of the season—as does Patrick’s continued struggle to figure out how he feels about Richie.
These tangled webs are woven in the lives of Agustin and Dom, too. Agustin loses his job and decides to explore the sexual side of art by hiring an escort from RentBoy.com to inspire him—a decision that complicates his relationship with Frank. Dom, meanwhile, still down eight grand, seeks out a benefactor to help fund his restaurant concept, and that search leads him to Lynn (Scott Bakula), a respected local businessman. Dom has spent so many years having random sex with guys at least ten years younger than him, that he doesn’t know how to process his relationship with Lynn: is this a business partnership, a friendship, or something more? Or, perhaps the question is more what Dom, who is 39 and dissatisfied with his life, really wants. Does he want to advance his stalled career? Or be in a mature relationship?
Friendship is the central tie that binds characters together in gay and lesbian dramas: just look at shows like Will & Grace, The L Word, and Queer as Folk. Because the gay and lesbian community is fighting for equal rights and acceptance, the trials and tribulations that are portrayed in the community’s proxy TV shows change and evolve. Gays don’t always have to be society’s chuckling jesters and eunuchs (like in Will & Grace), nor is every day a kaleidoscope of oversexed fantasy like Queer as Folk or The L Word. Each show served its purpose in the evolution of gay and lesbian drama on television, and Looking has moved into the next phase.
By the end of episode eight of Looking, I was ready to move into the second season right away (one of the dangers of binge watching). The show is contemplative and nurturing of its characters’ lives as individual people, living their lives as they do. When I watch Looking, I join Patrick, Agustin, and Dom for a half an hour, and all I want is for them be well and succeed in their lives. And a show that makes me care, in my opinion, is a show that succeeds.
This TV review was originally published by the Stake on 04 June 2014.
