The best thing about this week's episode of HBO's "Looking" was that it gave viewers more insight into Doris' family history and past -- and Dom's as well, by extension.
We go to their home town. We see the people who surrounded them as they grew up. And we learn about their past together -- namely that they used to be just as inseparable as they are now, but also used to make out and have sex.
I've been waiting for a Doris-centric episode. I thought it would be more happy-go-lucky, but this still worked (even if it did limit all the Patrick-wallowing I was looking forward to).
At least the episode starts off just as I imagined it would, with Patrick holding his head in his hands in shame as his friends all give him the "you were a mess last night" look that we've all seen or given around mid-morning brunch tables after big nights out.
I thought, OK, here we go. Patrick's going to spend the rest of the episode crawling around the city making awkward apologies to Richie and Kevin and perhaps their boyfriends and God-knows-who-else. He puked on Eddie? Gross.
I kind of wanted to see the groveling.
But then, just as suddenly as the scene begins, it changes course. Doris gets a text. Her father has died. The father she loved, the one she went on rides with when her mother was drunk and hostile, the one who loved Dom.
Here the episode hits its stride, showing us how real people confront death; how shock can make them seem uncaring at first; how laughter still comes, even in the saddest of times, and how that's OK.
We start with Dom and Doris headed back to Modesto for the funeral. They chat in the car, seemingly alone.
And then, of course, Patrick pipes up from the backseat. He didn't want to crawl around the city, so he literally tagged along, on a trip to a funeral, because he didn't want to clean up his mess.
The nerve, right?
But, again, we're treated to another dose of Patrick being beloved despite his faults. Doris says she's glad he's there. Later in the episode, after repeated instances of Patrick making the entire moment about him rather than his mourning friend, Doris even tells him that he is one of her favorite people in the world.
Am I the only one who doesn't get it?
Don't get me wrong, I think Jonathan Groff does a fantastic job portraying the character. And I do think Patrick is relatable, which I pointed out last week.
But bawling at the funeral of a man you'd never met to such an extent that you distract everyone who did know him from the funeral in his honor?
Patrick needs to get it together.
Then again, things seem to have a way of coming together for him.
Not to gloss over the fact that he, Doris and Dom all get in a car accident together while driving through the cemetery where Dom's father is buried screaming that Dom is gay, but...they were all OK. What came after is more interesting.
Malik, Doris' boyfriend, who wasn't invited to the funeral but picked the trio up after the crash, drops Patrick off near his house, back in San Francisco. Everyone says their goodbyes, and the car pulls away.
And there is Kevin.
He's left his boyfriend Jon, he sputters out.
He loves Patrick. (Of course he does.)
He wants to try a relationship, just the two of them.
For real?
Instead of dealing with his mess, Patrick takes off for a few days, and when he gets back he gets exactly what he wants?
At this rate, Richie will show up next episode and express his undying love for Patrick too, and the new drama will be over how Patrick will choose between Kevin and Richie.
Is the rapid pace at which this whole Kevin-Patrick thing has risen and fallen in the last few episodes the result of people saying the first season of "Looking" was too slow?
Sometimes the lows need to last a little longer to feel real.