‘Looking’: Episode 3 in-depth recap

In much the same way as last week’s Looking For Uncut wasn’t focused solely on uncut dicks, this week’s episode Looking At Your Internet History merely uses a simple idea as a springboard for more complex ones.

Beneath the slightly outdated concept of “is it OK to dick about on your computer at work?”, episode three is largely about interpersonal and inter-professional relationships.

Paddy meets his new boss in a typically klutzy way – he hits on him before realising he a) has a boyfriend and b) is going to be his new boss – but Kevin (played by our very own Russell Tovey) has been keeping an eye on what Paddy does during his office hours. Specifically, surfing sites like OKCupid and Mancunt (Kevin reads it wrong). He’s worried Paddy isn’t focused at work.

Paddy feels an affinity towards his new boss because they both work in a relatively hetero industry. Here is someone who might understand Paddy, because he works in and lives in such a similar environment. However, you need more in common with someone than your sexuality, and Paddy’s early attempts to befriend Kevin in the workplace go a bit wrong.

Anyone who has felt relatively misunderstood or misrepresented in the workplace can empathise with Paddy’s plight to befriend Kevin. Maybe it’s a comfort that someone who has worked hard in the gaming industry is so relatively held together (he does have a boyfriend, something Paddy sorely lacks) but their professional relationship comes first, and Kevin’s stern professionalism is something of a cock-block to Paddy’s eagerness.

Elsewhere, Dom’s impressive verbal beat-down of his ex last week has empowered him to focus on what he wants to do – quit waitering and open his own restaurant. He wants to do piri-piri chicken; and presumably San Francisco doesn’t have a Nandos, because everyone Dom speaks to is enamoured by the idea, even if his old colleague can’t leave her job to join Dom in his venture.

Agustín, meanwhile, is having a personal and professional crisis of his own. His boyfriend Frank is trying gently to push him towards doing more art, showcasing for a friend of his, but Agustín feels stifled by his boyfriend’s affection.

Looking‘s three leads are in pretty different parts of career satisfaction. Paddy is excellent at his job, but he isn’t interested in being defined by it. Dom is doing something he hates, but he isn’t defined by his work, either. That leaves Agustín, who is doing something he hates – and hates the fact that he hates it.

So he quits there and then, after slagging off his boss and her crappy chair sculpture. And later as he’s eating cake in a cafe, he bumps into a tall, handsome stranger.

CJ looks like a long lost Hemsworth brother, dark and broody but brimming with confidence. Agustín learns he’s a sex worker – and an expensive one at that, costing his clients $220 an hour.

Like Paddy, Agustín’s stroryline is about the clash between the interpersonal and the inter-professional. If you befriend a sex worker and he gives you his card, is it a budding friendship, or just clever networking on CJ’s part? Agustín resents his life in Oakland already, but it’s hard to tell at this point whether he’s attracted to CJ, or his line of work.

Meanwhile, Dom heads to a sauna and gets chatting to Scott, who owns a flower shop downtown. For all his hang-ups about his ex and being bogged down career-wise, Dom is the most sexually satisfied character on the show, and seeing him show the same aptitude in a sauna as he has flicking through his phone for sex is a nice, effortless nod to who and how we date.

Dom might feel old (his 40th is coming up in a few episodes time, actually) but Scott is a little older, and it’s nice for the tables to be turned a little and for Dom to stop feeling like the washed out gay guy. Forty is the new 20, probably.

Scott and Dom’s chat about how the city (and the culture within it) has changed offers perspective to people who have complained that Looking ditches many tropes of gay culture in order to appeal to a homogenised demographic. “No-one really likes to talk in these places, do they?” Scott muses. “Did they ever?” Dom asks, sounding just as ashamed by the truth.

Their conversation is cut short by a “determined” young twink eyeing up Dom, so he leaves his conversation with Scott to go and do what he came here to do. But before he leaves, he throws a lunch suggestion Scott’s way and they agree to meet up some time.

I wondered why Dom chose to go to a sauna, when last episode he was as satisfied fucking someone from his apartment building and then leaving them to clean themselves up. Perhaps he’s looking for something a bit more substantial, and not just sexually. Someone like Scott, who has embraced San Francisco as it was, as it is, and someone who isn’t afraid with what it might turn out to be. That’s harder to ascertain over the internet, something Paddy should take heed of as he scrolls through OKCupid at work.

Paddy finds out, at the episode’s end, that he’s made it onto Kevin’s team. Kevin was just pushing his buttons a little to see if he’d commit to the project. Earlier, Dom remarks that Kevin’s behaviour towards Paddy suggests he’s attracted to him. But I hope it’s not true – Looking has the opportunity be far more intelligent than that.

Thoughts on the Episode:

“You know what? I don’t know if either of us are very good at being who we think we are. Maybe we need to try a little harder,” says Paddy to Agustín. It’s as deep as Looking‘s dared to go so far – without the art, Agustín can’t really claim to be an artist. But what does this say about Paddy? He doesn’t refer to himself as a games level designer because unlike Agustín, Paddy doesn’t want to be defined by his work. So maybe he means his love life. Maybe Paddy isn’t the naive, preppy little idiot he likes to think he is.

Did you like Kevin in this episode? I didn’t think he was half as complex or as interesting as he was supposed to be. But next week it seems he opens up a little more. I hope he sticks around for a while.

“Some people are good with numbers, so they become accountants. Me, I’m no good with numbers, but I’m good at sex” – CJ has the confidence that only someone who earns $220 an hour would have. Wise up, Agustín. If being that charismatic was that easy, we’d all be doing it.

I’m also more convinced that Paddy and Dom have slept together. And that Paddy and Agustín have definitely not.

Next week:

Dom and Scott go for lunch, but the pair have different ideas as to whether it’s a personal or professional meeting. Agustín has a muse for his new art project, but he comes with a heavy hourly rate, and Paddy and Kevin learn a little more about each other. Oh there’s also a lot of leather, if that’s your thing.

> ‘Looking’: Episode 2 in-depth recap
> ‘Looking’: Episode 1 in-depth recap
> ‘Looking’ star Jonathan Groff in a leather waistcoat