In an episode of Looking where everyone was awful (first place: Patrick, honorable mention: Agustin), only one thing stood out like a shiny beacon of light in a dusty sex dungeon: The return of Richie. Unfortunately, his presence was short-lived and suddenly we were plunged back into the darkness of the mess that is Patrick's life. Let's explore everything everyone fucked up this week, shall we?
Continuing to have sex with your boss and acting like you're in a relationship.
Patrick and Kevin are still doing it (now in a bed! Now in the middle of the day! Now at motels famous for bedbugs!) but Patrick's head over heels and acting like an actual sick puppy who wants everything that Kevin has to offer, which really isn't a lot. Patrick spends what feels like at least an eternity talking about his childhood crushes and the look on Kevin's face isn't "I am also into you so I am very interested," it's "I want to continue fucking you in the butt so I will listen to whatever you say, fuck you in the butt and then ignore you at work until I can fuck you in the butt again before going home to my actual hot boyfriend whom I also fuck in the butt." Patrick is the side chick and he's trying so hard not to be.
Here's a newsflash for all my brothers and sisters who think their side chick status will ever turn into main chick status: A) It won't. B) Even if it does, you're always going to be paranoid that your man has another dude on the side because why wouldn't he? You think if Kevin so easily cheats on his boyfriend who looks like a young Tate Donovan with less gums he's not going to cheat on a paranoid software developer who he's actually the boss of? How did Patrick get to be the moral compass of this show when he is the equivalent of a fourth-grader with a crush.
Kevin showing off his butt.
It's not a good butt.
Telling your friends about your secret relationship.
First, that's a burden they don't need. Second, regardless of how close they are to you, they're going to tell others. Patrick told Dom and Agustin (ugh) about his "it's not an affair" affair with Kevin, but he didn't tell Doris who someone else told. And if Doris knows, then there are lesbians on jetskis somewhere who know. And by next week, the entire city will know. People who don't even know you will look at you knowingly on the bus and you'll know they know. And even if they don't, it will feel like they do. But they probably do.
Also: Kevin thinks that now that Patrick's friends know he's having an affair with a dude who's fucking a younger Tate Donovan with less gums, that they blame him for everything and hate him and he's right. Your friends will always support you (even when they shouldn't) so any blame that Patrick deserves, like skipping work to fuck in a dirty motel room, is going to be laid squarely at Kevin's feet—who should be working and then going home and having sex with his hot boyfriend who looks like a young Tate Donovan with less gums.
Not having a good story about why you disappeared during the workday and then returning to work with sex hair.
You should always have a good story for why you smell like condoms and look like you've just been fucked in the butt. You know exactly what I mean about that condom smell. It stays on your hands for days.
Good stories for why you disappeared during the day:
Your mom had an emergency. Your dad had an emergency. You had to go home to poop. You forgot to feed your pet. You had an allergic reaction to something with gluten in it. Your cell phone died and no one had a charger so you had to go out and buy one. There was a 50% off coupon at Michael's and you were going to literally die if you didn't get that fucking Isaac Mizrahi craftyarn on sale.
Bad story for why you disappeared during the day:
You went to a seedy bedbug hotel to watch Showgirls reenacted by drag queens. During lunch on a weekday? Come on!
Patrick thinking his secret boyfriend who is also his boss will leave his boyfriend who looks like a young Tate Donovan with less gums because they are having "vague problems."
No. Also, I hope Tate Donovan has a Google alert for himself and this is making his fucking day. I'm going to choose to focus on that rather than this misguided belief that Patrick seems to have that Kevin is somehow just waiting for the right time to break up with his boyfriend who, if I haven't told you yet, looks like a young Tate Donovan with less gums.
Thinking secrets are sexy.
Not when you're fucking your boss. That's not a sexy secret, that's an HR violation.
Agustin passing out in front of the pupusa cart when he is drunk and high.
Almost the worst decision anyone made this week. Worse than fucking your boss, worse than sneaking off in the middle of the day to have sex in bedbug paradise, almost worse than not getting checked when you think you have HIV. Pupusas in San Francisco are cheap, plentiful and delicious. And only an asshole like Agustin would let his drug addiction get in the way of flour and cheese.
Also, everyone else is kind of an asshole for not being a little more stern about Agustin's clear problems. No one ever talks to him about the fact that he's awful to everyone but expects everyone to be nice to him or that he has no boundaries or that at the age of thirty he can't even get himself home on his own. When will Agustin get his comeuppance? I've been waiting for one and one quarter seasons now.
Patrick refusing to get tested even though he knows he should.
After falling asleep at the pupusa cart, this was easily the worst decision anyone on the show has made so far and certainly the worst Patrick has. He refuses to get tested, lies about having unprotected sex, doesn't ask Kevin his status and then then spends hours googling STD images on the internet before actually going in and being all "I did not have safe sex and want to handle this like an adult for once and not like everything else I handle on this show."
Also: When he does get the test, the guy giving it to him is Justin Lucas, a local Bay Area comedian, and I guess he's the only one who did anything right this episode because I screamed "I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!" when he came onscreen.
But also there was one more thing that was right:
Richie.
Always Richie. There when you need him, heart as big as two oceans, cuter than any man you've ever met and still obviously not over Patrick (god knows why) because not only did he drag Agustin home but he even stayed to have tea with the (possible) Typhoid Mary while he was checking out his sores on the internet. Never change, Richie, you're the only good thing this show has going for it.
Image via HBO