Well folks, not every episode of a TV series is gonna be a winner and “Looking at Your Browser History” was kind of…underwhelming if I’m being perfectly honest. Anyways lets dig in.
Augustin (Frankie J. Alvarez): Of all the stories that should have popped this week, Augustin’s firing and meeting a sex worker should have been a lot more interesting than it was. Instead I’m quickly growing tired of this character’s aimlessness. We can totally tell that he’s gonna become a sex worker and that will put strain on his relationship with his boo and they’ll prob break upzzzzzzz…I will say that I loved the subtle bickering that him and his boyfriend did during their argument. The story might be boring, but it’s deftly written.
Dom (Murray Bartlett): Dom has quickly become my favorite character and I look forward to Bartlett’s material every week. This week started off with him joining his friend in a Zumba class after he basically told his ex Ethan to go kick a damn rock. He was looking to make some new moves in his life, starting with getting his long gestating restaurant idea off the ground. Dom runs into a bit of a snag though because it costs money and his chef friends don’t want to risk their jobs to join in his venture. Dom then settles into his coping mechanism aka looks for sex at a bath house where he ends up running into an older gentleman (Scott Bakula) with whom he strikes up a pretty fun meet cute-esque conversation. I howled in laughter at Dom finding every way possibly to shade this due without even he was knowing he was doing it. Newsflash: Calling someone an institution is code for old. But now that they’ve met, they’re bound to cross paths again.
Patrick (Jonathan Groff): Am I boud to say po Patrick every week? This man just cannot have a normal conversation with anyone who might tickle his fancy. This week’s target was his new boss (Russell Tovey) whom he tried to (not so) subtly proposition and then spent the rest of the episode trying to get in the good graces of. EVERY time he tried to chat with him it felt awkward, something that’s becoming annoyingly repetitive with this character. Also, who is checking OKCupid and Manhunt on a work computer??? On what planet does someone think this is ok? I did like that for the first time Patrick really buckled down to do something positive with his life and got committed to his goal of developing a female character for his game.
Overall Thoughts: As I mentioned above, this was not the best episode of the show, despite things happening to the characters that were important to progress the plot. It just felt like one big set up episode with a splash of Russell Tovey and Scott Bakula. What strikes me about Looking is watching the show is like watching themes, look and pace of Andrew Haigh’s Weekend condensed into a half hour. While I am happy to play around in that kind of languid place with interesting things because I will always have affection for that movie, that world on the small screen is going to get stale really quick. TV isn’t a medium that lends itself well to characters just floating through life and having things happen sporadically, ESPECIALLY not comedies. They’ll have to pick up the pace or pack more in these episodes if they want the show to really take off.