HBO's newest show, Looking, has not exactly been welcomed with open arms, and that response needs to be addressed. Centering around three friends, Patrick, Dom and Agustín, who live in San Francisco, the show follows their lives and relationships: Patrick, a video game designer, will do anything to have a boyfriend; Dom, a wine waiter, finds himself merely drifting through life; and Agustín, an artist's assistant, is in a relationship he's not sure is going in the right direction. Reviewers have called the show 'boring' which begs the question whether said reviewers are missing the point, because the key to the show is that it depicts ordinary life, and we're meeting ordinary people with mundane lives. The first two episodes, introduce us to this idea, and it is no accident that it hasn't begun with bangs or revelations. The show has also been questioned about whether it portrays what being gay in 2014 actually means, but again those complaints miss the point entirely. A lot of gay storylines in TV are about people finding out they're gay and coming to terms with it, including Grey's Anatomy, which has one of the most hailed on-screen gay couples, Arizona and Callie, started off with a "am I gay?" story, but Looking introduces us to men that are happy being gay and live their lives as is. The shows characters aren't all smiling and bubbly: they're real people. In doing this, Looking completely nails five definitive things that make the show what it is.
Thomas Stewart is a graduate from the University of Glamorgan and currently a student on the MA in Writing course at the University of Warwick. He is a Freelance Writer for Mens Fashion Magazine, Make and Believe, Smashpipe and more. As well as writing, he loves horror films, folk music, Raymond Carver, patterned jumpers, Richard Yates, curry, Scarlett Thomas, editing, chick-flicks, watches and biscuits.
