We’ve seen the comic travails married to the dramatic heartbreak in series past from Home Box Office Inc., (HBO) specifically on the hit shows Sex and the City (which spawned a couple of feature films as well) and Girls (featuring indie sensation Lena Dunham), but there’s something about the latest serial Looking that stands apart, setting the stage for the future of small screen storytelling. And it’s not what’s most obvious.

We’ve seen shows about friends before, caught up in the trials and tribulations of living and loving in a complex world, so the straight-laced gaming programmer Patrick (Jonathan Groff), frustrated artist Agustin (Frankie J. Alvarez), and the again Lothario Dom (Murray Bartlett) shouldn’t seem too unfamiliar. Okay, so these guys happen to be gay. Now that’s the difference, right? That’s what you might think, but you’d be wrong.

No, what Looking does that’s so revolutionary is remove the effort to be funny, to place some kind of quotation-marked context around the lives of these characters and those closest to them, or to render them as politicized props in a piece of cultural propaganda. Patrick, Agustin, and Dom aren’t quip-happy jokesters or loveable losers or crusaders. In fact, they form the foundation for a new ensemble that truly is a working collective.

It could be argued that the show revolves around Patrick, since during the first season, Patrick gets an entire episode dedicated and devoted to his narrative, his budding relationship with Richie (Raúl Castillo). But watching this episode, really looking at what was going on, I realized that Patrick’s story was the story of each of these main characters, and quite possibly, it was the story of any and every person enjoying those early moments in the chaotic process of falling in love. Patrick was Agustin and Dom, and he was us too.

Does it matter that Patrick, Agustin, and Dom are gay? To audiences uncomfortable with same-sex intimacy, yes, it probably matters and makes for squirm-inducing viewing. But I would rather have the chance to watch these characters emerge as living, breathing people full of human foibles, the kind of human desires that we don’t often get from the more traditional heterosexual storylines that dominate our screens. Patrick, Agustin, and Dom feel more real, more alive, and more necessary and it has nothing to do with their sexual orientation.

I came to realize how tired I am, as both a critic and a viewer, of the perfectly scripted punch-lines, the witty asides, and the dramatic beats that want to surprise us but that always come from the exact places we’ve been prepped to see them coming from. Can studios, writers, and directors truly believe that we need the breadcrumb trails and the neon signs and the GPS instructions to find our feelings?

Thankfully, Michael Lannan, the creator of Looking, has some faith in us, and he has assembled a team (spearheaded by Andrew Haigh who has written five episodes and directed seven) with similar sensibilities. My favorite associate in the Looking collective would have to be indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes the Stairs & Drinking Buddies), who helmed just one episode during the first season (Looking in the Mirror), but that chapter, like the entire series, achieves a degree of introspection that crosses over into a rawness, a nakedness that is unsettling and dangerously close to the horrific.

I’ve been quite hard on Lena Dunham’s Girls, complaining early on about the lack of true ensemble play. Much like Sex and the City, Girls, despite its best efforts has always revolved around Dunham’s Hannah who, like Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) is an all-time narcissist and all-around horrible friend. The critical record will show that I jumped out initially and quite vociferously in my disdain for all of the girls on Girls. I didn’t go far enough, back then. Looking back I would question whether or not any of these characters would ever become adults (women).

Fortunately I’m comfortable adjusting my opinions when given good reason. The third season of Girls has won me over big time, by addressing my main concern. There is a plan, a big picture view in place that speaks to real psychological and emotional evolution from not just Hannah and her girls, but thankfully, the supporting players. [I still have serious reservations about the show’s ability to incorporate/reflect the ethnic diversity of New York in with its cast of characters, so here’s to improvement on that front. Jessa (Jemima Kirke) initiating a barely conceived black lesbian into the sisterhood doesn’t count and as written, the interactions between these characters would struggle to pass the Bechdel test.)]

I love the nutty loyalty and raw emotional honesty of Adam (Adam Driver) and the bat-shit craziness of his sister Caroline (Gaby Hoffmann, who deserves a show of her own, if the universe is listening in on this commentary; somebody, please hop to it.) I root for Ray (Alex Karpovsky) to get his own spinoff show because we’ve never seen such a wise asshole as purely distilled as in this portrayal. He is too smart and leagues past being merely edgy – he’s in no danger, for instance, of being classified as cool or hip. Ray is a mess without much hope, but that’s exactly why he needs a life and world of his own.

I find it hilariously ironic that Dunham has breathed life into guys like Adam and Ray, because she proves that women can channel the mis-understood and misanthropic voice of men, in ways that male writers wouldn’t even begin to imagine outsider female (or ethnic) personas. More than that, by pushing Jessa and Marnie out of Hannah’s orbit, Dunham found a way to redeem this lost girl and lost girls everywhere with a wake-up call. Shows like Looking and Girls take the occasional left turn, venturing into episodes that focus, generally, on their “main” characters – granting us a random day in the life (Looking’s Patrick and Hannah, of course) – but the real departure would be to explore some of these other outstanding ensemble players, shining the spotlight on them. They wouldn’t shrink or wilt under the glare. No way. They would shine like crazy-assed diamonds.

New seasons for each show kick-off next week and this is the direction I hope each series continues to travel down, because this is where (and when and why) stories hold the mirror up to us, showing us what it means to be human. (tt stern-enzi)

 

Season 1 of Looking and Season 3 of Girls are now on DVD/Blu-Ray. The new seasons of each show begin January 11th.