‘Looking’ creator says Season 3 would’ve had more daddies, throuples & a shocking hookup for two of its leads

If the end of HBO’s gay dramedy Looking left you… well… looking for more closure, then maybe you’d like to take a look at an alternate universe where we got the season three we so desperately wanted?

Back in 2014—nearly a decade ago, if you can believe it—HBO premiered its first-ever series centered on gay men. A queer take on the Sex And The City formula (and its contemporary, Girls), Looking followed the intersecting lives of loves of a group of friends in San Francisco.

There was queer Cuban-American artist Augustín (Frankie J. Alvarez), burgeoning daddy restaurateur Dom (Murray Bartlett), and of course, Patrick (Jonathon Groff), trying to shed his conservative, suburban upbringing and, over the course of the series, contending with a love triangle between two eligible bachelors, Richie (Raúl Castillo) and Kevin (Russell Tovey).

While critically acclaimed, it proved divisive among queer audiences at the time, and the series never quite generated the viewership it needed to be deemed a success, with HBO cancelling it after two seasons.

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Thankfully, the network allowed show creator Michael Lannan and company to wrap things up on their own terms, saying goodbye with Looking: The Movie in 2016, in which—*spoilers!*—Agustín got married to his partner Eddie (Daniel Franzese), Dom began a hot new fling, and Patrick realized maybe Richie was what he’s been looking for all along.

But, before the movie and before the unexpected cancellation, plans were already underway for season three. In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lannan reveals what could have been had Looking received another 10 episodes instead.

Let’s break it all down, character by character:

Patrick

One of the complaints frequently lobbed against Looking was that its lead, Patrick, was just too basic and unexciting. While that may be unfair, it is funny that large part of his arc in the series was pretty “basic,” standard TV fodder: The love triangle.

Lannan tells EW the plan was to shake things up in season three (“It felt like it was time to shatter that trope”), either pairing Patrick up with a new interest who was sexually fluid and would bring him out of his shell, or have him get involved with a throuple, giving him a new perspective on the idea of romantic relationships.

Agustín

Agustín met Eddie in season two, and they were still feeling out the terms of their relationship then, so the jump to their wedding in Looking: The Movie was a bit of a surprise, albeit one that gave the series an excuse to bring all of its characters together.

Instead, the hypothetical season three would’ve allowed the pair to grow more as individuals and together, with Agustín exploring gender identity. “He was one of those characters who found compassion for other people in season two, and one of his superpowers was keeping his mind open,” Lannan tells EW.

Dom

Dom’s intersecting personal and professional lives came to a head when he finally broke things off with the older Lynn (Scott Bakula) in season two.

Season three would’ve allowed Dom to be the daddy he was always destined to be, getting involved with a man who recently came out of the closet, after already having a wife and child: “It would have been fun to flip that to see what it would be like to literally become a daddy and have to be responsible for a kid,” Lannan says.

Things would be complicated further by the fact that this new love interest would be a local activist who is anti-Big Tech—an issue for Dom considering most of his restaurant customers were Google employees.

Apparently, Dom would’ve even considered opening a new restaurant in Mexico City, relocating and finding a chosen family of his own. “That’s our spin-off,” Lannan shares. Um, we would like to see it? Give Bartlett a call!

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Elsewhere In The World Of Looking…

• We would’ve seen more of Richie‘s personal life, including his difficult relationship with his father and the ways Patrick would’ve interacted with a family much different from his.
• In The Movie, Dom’s bestie Doris (Lauren Weedman) decides to become a mother, and season three would’ve delved deeper into her “old mom” identity, especially as she’s surrounded by younger, single, carefree gay men.
• After his breakup with Patrick, Kevin would’ve turned to drugs which would allowed him to feel like “the hottest, best, most fun and wild version of himself—until he wasn’t.”
• Lannan says the show also received all the necessary clearances so that they could film an episode at Burning Man, which would’ve made Looking one of the first series to ever actually film at the popular desert arts festival.
• Other episodes were planned to center on the AIDS/LifeCycle fundraiser and an earthquake.
• And certain viewers may be delighted to hear that Looking was eager to follow-up on the frequently referenced “almost hookup” between Patrick and Dom: “”We had an idea that Dom and Patrick were going to go out one night looking for hookups and then they go home with another couple that wants to have a foursome. They end up doing it, which is fun, hot, surprising, and weird for them,” Lannan shares.

Ah, what could have been!

Excitingly, the interview ends with Lannan explaining that he’s always thinking on ways to get the gang back together, should the right story idea come along. With the recent renewed interest in the series online, it sure seems like the show’s fandom has only grown since its initial run, and Lannan seems confident everyone would be game to participate.

The current big idea? A special holiday episode. You know what? We’ll put that on our Christmas wish lists!

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We want more, dammit!