JUST "LOOKING"

Looking at “Looking”: Season 2, Episode 8

This week’s episode is brought to you by “jumping the gun.” For better or worse, everyone decides to rush their decisions, conclusions, and other ventures. There will surely be consequences to mop up by the season finale, but that’s a problem we can watch them deal with later, I suppose.

s2e08 01Two weeks have passed since Kevin’s post-funeral ambush. He has apparently moved into Patrick’s house, where they do cute things like cuddle and annoy Agustin and make breakfast in bed. Or, at least, they would make breakfast in bed if Patrick weren’t genetically incapable of getting things right. Though his romantic gesture scatters in shards on the floor (and those farmer’s market goji berries were probably expensive, too!), he and his boss still have each other.

That difficult wrinkle in their relationship provides this week’s first opportunity for gun-jumping (not counting, I suppose, the fact that they moved in together way too soon). Because sure, an inappropriate workplace dynamic could be handled with tact and decorum, but Patrick would rather make it weird by rushing to tell everyone. Not only that, he’d prefer to make the announcement by wearing his direct superior’s sweater while finishing his sentences adorably at an ostensibly business-focused meeting. Though he and Kevin giggle about it on the roof, Meredith’s trip to HR is no joke.

Of course, announcements aren’t the only things we can do hastily. Dom’s blind leap this week is to snag that chicken window (chicken window!) before he 100 percent has the money for it. And beyond that, he sort of assumes that Doris will just be around to help him set the place up. I mean hey, she’s paying for it, why not also expect her to throw away her social life for it? She and Malik are headed out of town and can’t immediately chip in, and she legit feels terrible about it, but give her a break! Her dad just died! Let the girl get some good dick.

s2e08 02Another thing we’re doing before we’re ready: going to GaymerX, the convention where homosexual programmers, developers, designers, and other tech professionals can show off their latest work. Pat and Kevin haven’t completed their app or sought feedback on the premise or even arrived in a timely fashion with the supplies they need to set up their table, but prudent isn’t really their style. Besides, if they hadn’t created this perfect storm of bad circumstances, then they wouldn’t have met the bitchiest queen in all of San Francisco, who has the nerve to read Patrick for perpetuating stereotypes while simultaneously advertising an app about finding the nearest glory hole.

While we’re at it, let’s rush some diagnoses, too! Crazy hot sex goes immediately flaccid when Ag gets some of Eddie’s cum in his eye. Our favorite delinquent tries to be cool about it, but of course he freaks out that he might have an HIV-positive cornea and disappears on the man he’s been trying desperately to latch onto all season. His efforts to milk a little comfort out of Dom are wasted: Captain Chickenwindow sees right through this empty panic, and besides he wants help building the restaurant, not a side job offering free therapy to unsympathetic wanderers.

s2e08 03(And real talk: why does Ag think that Dom needs “a new hag”?! First off, I’m pretty sure we’re done calling our best friends “hags,” and second, she hasn’t even been gone a whole day yet! Why is everyone so certain that Doris can only be a good friend if she appears like Beetlejuice every time you call her name?)

Back at GaymerX, things are going rather poorly. Pat thinks he’s got it rough when he has to demo a broken app to disinterested convention attendees, but the heat really gets turned up when Richie wanders by with his boyfriend. Turns out Brady is writing about the con. Irony sets in as Pat desperately claws for the slow, tactful pacing that he thought was useless only a day ago. He tries to brush over the whole relationship-with-Kevin thing because he knows Richie will think it’s gross (which it is), but Kevin is right there and isn’t going to be swept under the rug. Meredith reported you guys to HR, remember? We’re telling EVERYONE NOW. At least Brady thinks it’s adorable and wants to do a whole story about them. Like I said: telling everyone.

Eddie smokes a cigarette. Ag apologizes for bailing. Eddie doesn’t want to deal with another well-meaning homo who’s actually too scared to date him. Ag is, by all appearances, exactly that. They stay together anyway.

s2e08 04That night, there is a prom. Patrick gets intensely literal about the fact that he is still mentally a teenager by orchestrating this whole overdone suits-and-corsages high-school-do-over scenario. He and Kevin think it’s THE KYOOTEST, but the whole thing makes Richie cry into his drink. It’s really awkward to make eye contact with your teary-eyed ex while slow dancing with the man you cheated on him with. I assume.

Back home, Dom is calling Doris to leave a passive-aggressive message about how he guesses she’s not coming by the chicken window to help out. My hope is that she is too busy riding Malik’s tongue to answer the phone. I’m sure tomorrow she’ll stop by to help Dom both with some good old-fashioned elbow grease and by, oh right, giving him the money left to her by her beloved father. #TeamDoris

The night is almost over, but we still have a couple things to do too quickly. First: a double date with Brichy and Kevtrick. (These couples do not lend themselves to cute compound names. I apologize for trying, I see now that it was wrong.) It starts out filled with unspoken tension, but a highly inebriated Brady isn’t into the “un” part: he thoughtlessly reveals to Patrick exactly what they’ve been saying about him behind his back. I really wish we could get a whole episode about whatever conversation happened after that moment, because I bet it was top-shelf premium awkwardness.

A final gun-jumping before bed: after reading a terrible review of their app, Patrick tells Kevin he loves him. This is, apparently, the first time he’s ever said this to someone. (He’s 30, mind you. My Mork & Mindy theory stands.) Kevin loves him back. Hopefully their connection is powerful enough to last after their game bombs and they both get fired for workplace misconduct. Maybe Dom can hire them at the chicken window!

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