Alex: That’s a question I had, too. But there was a lot of stuff that happened— a handjob in the park, a gay bachelor party, a threesome, the decision to move in with one's boyfriend in Oakland, a terrible date, and possibly a new romance all in one episode. There was a ton of stuff that happened, even though it didn’t feel like it.
I do think that the show, like you said, is very low-key in the sense that its humor and plot—at least for the first couple of episodes—is more of the awkward and cringe-inducing variety than it is of the laugh-track or scenery-eating variety. And I have RuPaul’s Drag Race (or this season of American Horror Story) for the latter.
(That said, I wasn’t really hooked until halfway through episode three.)
Joe: Actually, I take some of what I said back. I was interested to see if Patrick was going to get any farther with Richie right off the bat. It's SO unfair that I run into mentally deranged preachers on the subway and Patrick gets this incredibly cute hairdresser/bouncer.
So. We have Patrick, the video-game designer, OkCupid-surfer, thinks-of-his-mom-during-anonymous-handjobs main character played by twink all-star Jonathan Groff. Agustin the disaffected artist who moves in with his boyfriend half-thoughtfully and half because he can save some money by cohabitating in Oakland. And Dom, older and mustachioed and really good at flirting with young co-workers even if he doesn’t end up taking them home. Not to turn this into a competition right off the bat, but how do they rank after one episode?
Alex: Oh, Joe. Are we really going to say who’s on top and who’s on bottom?
Joe: Alex.
Alex: First off, Patrick is a twunk. A twink that’s transitioned into a hunk. If Richard Lawson were here, he’d probably make a joke about Groff being “swole”, but that Lawson is out and about hanging with Jennifer Lawrence and giggling about Bradley Cooper’s flatulence or something.
Back to Patty, he’s kind of like Rachel Leigh Cook in She’s All That — an impossible standard of nerd beauty created by the media and television. He’s going on dates with doctors, finding handies in the park, and getting picked up by good-looking guys on public transportation? Patty is doing fine for himself and at the top of this totem pole.
Agustin— we don’t really know yet. We don’t know how his relationship works yet, or if he’ll ultimately be happy in Oakland.
And Dom. Oh Dom. Dom is not in a good place. Dom was in a much better when he was Oliver Spencer in Sex and the City. But that’s neither here nor there. I think Dom is on the bottom of this odd totem pole — he’s not getting sex, he’s getting old, and he’s having a career crisis. He also has friends who allow him to leave the house in a shearling jacket and a moustache.
Joe: Wait, I thought all you flagrant homosexuals (I use an editorial distancing tactic here to emphasize how very un-typical I am) love mustaches? That weird retro idea of ‘70s masculinity?