The agony when Elizabeth starts being honest with Betty and you instantly know what's coming… Those were great scenes. Elizabeth seemed just as affected by the accusation of evil-doing as she was by the shared memories of a difficult marriage.

Oh, I'm not disputing how relevant or relatable this show is for others.

Please see everything Witty_User_Name has said above about all of the characters' endeavors being incidental to their romantic relationships. "Looking for a Plot" was my favorite episode this season specifically because it was about its own thing, but it was short-lived.

I never talked about "excising" relationship stories from Mad Men or Looking or any other show. I was talking about plot - I would've found Looking more interesting if the main story thread hadn't just been about Patrick falling in love, and if sources of dramatic conflict hadn't nearly constantly been purposefully…

I guess aimlessness isn't enough to sustain ten hours of TV for me, then.

Wait, seriously? To use examples I just brought up above — is the plot of Mad Men about struggling with falling in love and out of love and who to be with? What about The Americans? And Enlightened? No! Relationships are often at the core of those stories but the *plot* is rarely specifically about that. Those shows…

Mad Men, The Americans, Enlightened - I absolutely love these slow-burning, introspective, existential shows. But those also all have characters with a lot of agency and intent, which I think Patrick and co are very much lacking.

When I read "major network" I think of "network television" (vs. "cable television"), so in my book this very much isn't that… but semantics.

But see - I love subtle and symbolic filmmaking, and yet here I wasn't compelled enough by the content to even want to pay attention to all those details. It's all fine and dandy to work on every minute detail of your blocking and composition and line delivery, but if you can't back it up with an interesting plot and…

Thank you! I remember hearing that Looking would be about three friends "who just happen to be gay", but then most of the storylines were actually about them struggling directly with aspects of gay life and gay sexuality. The most interesting stories - about friendship, work, ambition, grief - were constantly…

Hey man, maybe you should blame the creators' incredibly low-stakes writing and general public disinterest instead.

It's not just one guy. They have investors, a parent company, a paying cable audience who all have something to say about it. At some point they probably start losing money for every episode of the show that they produce if not enough people are watching.

I disagree! I went back and rewatched the whole scene, and Patrick makes the argument specifically about wanting to be exclusive or not, about the difference between someone who chooses to be monogamous and someone who's dissatisfied with exclusivity - and he sees that as the ultimate incompatibility. Never does he…

Yep. And I haven't found Kevin or Patrick's surface-level infatuation with him interesting at all, so that "journey" counts as a poor narrative choice in my book.

I thought this season was more boring than the first one, maybe because after 10+ episodes I find I need the friendship between the three leads to be more believable than it is.

Ugh, we did not need a whole season of a detour into Baby Kevin's arms just for Patrick to figure out that he had to go back to Richie, which we all knew would end up happening anyway.

Worked out of Montreal and Toronto here. Guess I got good deals! I knew people.

I've worked as a freelance translator for 25 cents a word. 12 cents seems really low!

Bob Durst = Gollum?

I saw Cinderella last night (I wanted to see It Follows but the Canadian release has been pushed to the end of the month) and My Best Friend's Wedding was on TV this morning, and I couldn't help but comparing the two.