Welcome to the 13th recap of the second season of Faking It, a heart-pounding docudrama about the time I called the police to walk me to school because Anna and Jessie left without me, from the same network that brought you Paris Hilton’s My New BFF.
We open in a resplendent morning at Blue Oasis in the Red Heart of Texas High, where the children are doing Tai-Chi under the advisement of their wise Vice Principal Penelope Delia Fisher.
Shane’s stressing out ’cause Duke’s signed on the Faking It edition of Grindr, “Stubble,” for the fourth time that day. Liam points out that it sure sounds like Shane wants monogamy. Shane protests, “No, ew! We’re gay, I just want him to only be gay for me.” Apparently to Shane, gay = poly. Meanwhile, Karma’s wearing tight pants and telling Liam to sneak out Friday night so she can chain him to a lamppost and let loose a pack of wild coyotes upon his body or something.
More importantly, Karma wants to know if Amy did her part to progress her stupid not-a-lesbian storyline last night but alas, she didn’t, ’cause Reagan apparently stood her up after doing some window-snooping. Amy’s gonna go over right after school and tell her everything, though, so you can all look forward to that scene.
Good news: that scene starts now.
Reagan confesses that she listened in and Amy should know this:
Reagan: After everything I’ve been through with my ex, how could you not tell me that you’re into guys?
Amy: Because I’m not sure I am. I only slept with one.
Reagan first shames Amy for having Karma’s boyfriend as her Singular Man To Sleep With and then questions how she might ever trust Amy when Amy also intentionally pretended like Karma didn’t exist for a solid portion of their initial courtship.
Reader: is Amy stupid? Is Shane stupid? Is Karma stupid? Is Liam stupid? Because they tell some epically stupid lies. What was Amy’s endgame when she downplayed Karma’s existence way back when? Did she honestly intend to never tell Reagan about Karma? She knew she’d get found out eventually, so … why? WHO ARE THESE MONSTERS? Oh but, more importantly:
Amy: Karma’s not a lesbian!
Reagan: Neither are you!
Amy: I AM.
Reagan: And you’re just realizing it now?
Amy: Part of questioning your sexuality is eventually getting an answer and survey says “lesbian”!
Reagan: Prove it.
Amy proves it by sticking her tongue down Reagan’s throat. The scene cuts before the inevitable fist-a-thon begins.
Cut to Shane’s basement bachelor pad, where he’s fooling around with his hot MMA boyfriend and then, inevitably, fighting about Stubble. Apparently Shane told Duke that “monogamy was for straight people” and so Duke’s just doing his Big Gay Duty to follow the open relationship rule Shane made, okay?
Cut to Karma and Amy, strolling along the fine path we call “life,” discussing Amy’s big conversation with Reagan.
Karma: You told her you were a lesbian?
Amy: I’m a girl in a monogamous relationship with another girl. What else would you call me?
Karma: Uh, I’m gonna go with “Amy.”
Really high up on my list of pet peeves is the statement “Why do I have to be gay or straight? Why can’t I just be Lorna / Doris / Ethel / whatevermynameis?” Welp, GENIUS, because your name is your name. Your sexual orientation is not your name. In fact, nothing is your name besides your name. You definitely don’t have to change your name to “gay” or “bisexual,” and you don’t have to pick a sexual orientation if you don’t want to, but defining your sexuality is not a process that begins and ends with you bursting out of somebody’s vagina and obtaining a legal name. Okay? Okay good.
Karma: What about the fact that you’re sometimes attracted to guys?
Amy: That hasn’t happened in ages, I think it’s all cleared up!
Karma: Amy, it’s not a rash.
WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ, AMY? Huh? What about them? WHAT ABOUT THE TIME YOU SAID YOU LIKED THAT GUY?
Well, forget about it ’cause it’s College Application season, and obviously Karma and Amy have spent their whole entire lives planning to attend the very same imaginary college that luckily has a booth right there at the Hippie High College Fair, staffed by a nice-looking woman that Amy should probably have sex with.
Ms. University says Karmy should sign up for Summer Scholars, a program that’d enable them to live in the dorms and take classes for free all summer long! Just imagine the lies they could tell to all the new people they meet! Karma and Amy have spontaneous orgasms and then are told only 30 in 3,000 applicants get in, so probs their spots would go to one of the extras at this school who actually attend class. Or, you know, to Lauren Cooper.
Lauren’s barely gotten through her Don’t You Want Me Baby Presentation, replete with illustrative business card…
…when she spots a more pressing issue cross-campus! This is actually a really important image progression here:
Guess who just got a new job at Hester Hayride High School? Yup, it’s Theo!
Some bro yells “FUCK YOU, NARC,” as he passes gas along the path as Theo explains to Lauren that after the big outing, he’s been relegated to working security at Hogwinds Happy High School For Hamsters. Oh and —
Theo: I want you back.
Lauren: The fact that you even think you have a chance shows that you have no clue how deeply you hurt me. Just stay the hell away!
Yeah, they’re gonna get back together.
Well, as you can see, it’s already been a big day at Hester and this day shows no signs of slowing down, because Xander is back!
Xander wants Liam to spend his summer at the Southwest Artists Colony Program, an undoubtedly inspiring experience involving yurts that’ll for sure snag Liam a spot at a Top Art School. Xander hands him a flyer and for some reason unbenkownst to those of us unfamiliar with Liam’s inner monologue, this interaction has lead Liam to believe that Xander is his father.
I hope the paper he handed Liam was a paternity test.
Back at Chez Fawcett, Karma and Amy are looking over their applications for the Summer program even though everybody knows they should really be spending the summer at the Beverly Hills Beach Club with Kelly and Donna. Karma’s concerned that her B-average and half-hearted attempt at extracurriculars won’t get her in, and just as she’s wondering aloud what she’s been doing with her life, Queen Lauren arrives with some truth serum:
Lauren: Chasing boys and the approval of others. Hate to rain on your parade.
Lauren’s got a better strategy to make up for the f-bomb she dropped on the college rep: she will display her life-long passion for baton-twirling and make a lasting impression. Colleges like passion, Lauren tells them, and you can’t just fake it. Before this turns into a roundtable about sexual experiences with batons, Karma and Amy are inspired, for some g-dforsaken reason, to fake their way into the Summer Scholars Program.
Okay, they definitley invented “being a lesbian to get popular,” but pretending to do something they don’t actually do to get into college? Honeys. That lie is older than college!
Cut to their newest scheme: pretending to be organic farmers with green thumbs who have their own juice truck! They’ve even made a video and put a lot of leafy vegetables into baskets!
They show their video to Felix and he says the whole thing is a bunch of baloney and that Amy’s acting, in particular, is lacking. Amy says she’s a great actress, like when she convinced Felix she was attracted to him.
Karma’s still trying to make Amlix happen:
Karma: Are you attracted to Felix?
Amy: Ew, no, gross. But you heard him, we’re never gonna get into Clemont with this.
What does Felix know anyway? Everybody knows he’s really A CAT.
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This is my favorite Faking It recap you’ve ever written. I kept copying and pasting my favorite lines to paste into this comment box, but ended up with like half the recap copied. (Reagan WOULD ship Emison.)
If they’re going to completely destroy Reagan’s character I’m kind of glad she’s gone. Now maybe Amy can find a girlfriend her own age, who is not a biphobic, controlling, stage 5 clinger.
Or, more likely, she’ll make out with Felix for a while (and then hopefully come to the conclusion that making out with girls is better than making out with boys). I’m actually okay with Amy taking a while to figure her shit out (as I think that’s what most of us did, especially those of us who started figuring shit out so young) as long as her ultimate answer is “lesbian”.
I think if she now started making out with felix i would feel like she is only doing it because karma was like “no- Reagan is wrong, you’re bi and you like felix.” Because now Amy’s sexuality is part of the Karma v. Reagan battle to know Amy better. Also, if this show started out with two girls “pretending” to be lesbians, one of them better be a fucking lesbian. They cannot both have boyfriends and have the writer of this show not be the worst.
Can I comment on the show if I only read the recaps? This is what I think based on an assessment of the recaps of a show I don’t watch.
“I think if she now started making out with felix i would feel like she is only doing it because karma was like “no- Reagan is wrong, you’re bi and you like felix.” Because now Amy’s sexuality is part of the Karma v. Reagan battle to know Amy better. “
yeah exactly. the more karma insists to amy that she still likes guys, the more I don’t want amy to like guys! which is saying a lot, because the degree to which i want amy to like guys is currently a solid 0%
Honestly, though, why was the implication on the episode “either you’re a lesbian or you like guys?” I’ve seen all the episodes and it’s possibly something slipped by me but has anyone even used the word “bisexual” as a possibility? Because right now they’re presenting it as lesbian-vs-sexually confused, which are not the only two options.
On the upside. it was nice to learn some major art dude was not ACTUALLY enchanted by Liam’s genius, but just his connections.
Oh agreed. If Amy does go out with Felix (as I think the previews and trailers have implied will eventually happen) I think it WILL be because Karma pushed it so hard. BUUUT my hope is then that Amy will realize she’s only with Felix because Karma wanted it, not because SHE wanted it. One can hope, right? As I said, I really don’t mind if Amy does get with Felix at some point, as long as her ultimate decisions is “Nope. 100% homo.”
Well, I know the answer what’s Amy’s sexual orientation. How, I explain below (don’t read if you don’t want to get spoiled).
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The whole season accidentally leaked online. You probably noticed how on Tumblr there were lots of pics from scenes that weren’t in aired episodes. I personally didn’t watch the leaked episodes, but have read the synopsis. Amy is confirmed to be bisexual since later she is genuinely into Felix (Carter Covington said before we’re going to find out this season if she’s 2,5 or 5 on Kinsey Scale, so apparently it’s supposed to be 2.5), but from what I get the great guy suggests she should sort out her stuff with Karma, since she starts obsessing over her again, so for this moment it didn’t really go anywhere, but TBH, it looks to me like they’re probably going to re-use him in the next season.
Ugh. Thanks for letting us know.
I actually watched the episodes, and I didn’t hate it? I mean, taking time to reflect, it definitely seems that Karma was forcing Amy to consider being attracted to guys way more than Amy wanted to entertain, but with the way things ended for the finale, I’m really really thinking that Karma is harping on Amy’s potential bisexuality because she’s projecting her own confused feelings for Amy.
It was also nice to see bisexuality be a HEAVILY emphasized theme for the rest of the episodes, and all the biphobia was challenged (by Karma, no less, which just amps up my speculation for her) so even though I really didn’t want Amy to be not-lesbian, I didn’t hate how the story turned. Probably had to do with my finding Felix amusing. I don’t know, I’m sure I’ll eventually settle on a better reflection of the episode but let’s just say that despite everything feeling forced and contrived, I didn’t hate Amy and Felix as much as Amy sleeping with Liam.
I disagree that Felix will be back next season. The last episode made it pretty clear that his story-arch had finished, and Amy’s reaction was pretty much “Oh. Okay. Well. Bye?”
1. Lauren continues to be the light of my light.
2. The Amy storyline gives me too much anxiety to sit through live so I usually just steamroll over it and just read about it here. They sure ran Reagan’s character into the ground didn’t they?
3. “Reagan just wants Amy all to herself, all the time, at any cost, even if the cost is Amy’s future” — Hmm, I feel this way about Karma a lot of the time as well.
4. Speaking of Karma, like Riese the more she insists on trying to force boys down Amy’s throat the more I don’t want it to happen.
5. This show isn’t subtle at all so it’s definitely going to happen so I’m exercising my fast-forward finger to get ready.
6. I agree with Abby that given this show’s premise that both of these main characters cannot have boyfriends and the writer not be the worst.
7. And now here is my weekly dose of …. But Carter Covington IS the absolute fucking worst! I can’t with him. He hasn’t reached Ryan Murphy levels of THE WORST yet but he is definitely reading from that playbook and taking thorough notes.
I actually think he’s worse than RM. For all the shit he’s pulled, he committed to Santana being a lesbian and Brittany being bi. I would be ok with bi Amy if a) they didn’t already tell us she was going to be a lesbian and b) it didn’t seem like they were doing this for straight girl viewers, which is so patronizing.
Good points, Marie.
There seems to be a good portion of the straight viewers who ship Amy with Liam so that may be who Carter is trying is to please by making Amy bi. He never should have had her sleep with Liam in the first place. I’m still not over that bullshit.
OH MY G-D ARE YOU SERIOUS I HATE EVERYTHING
I didn’t know that straight shipping of queer characters was a thing, but I’m very much against that as a motivation for anything.
And yeah, Amy should not have had sex with Liam.
It seems like he has an incredibly low opinion of straight girls, if that’s the case. Straight girls can be invested in femmeslash pairings. Some of the most passionate femmeslashers I’ve encountered are straight!
Anyway, those girls knew going into it what the show was about. And there’s plenty of straight pairings for them to enjoy on Faking It, and every other television show in history, except maybe the L Word or QAF. There’s a reason queer girls pretty much all watch the same shows, even if they’re stupid. For the girl-on-girl relationships. If they do it well, we’ll be loyal, but for some reason so many shows mess it up, because I guess it doesn’t seem like a good market. Well, if they value the straight girls viewership more, they should’ve marketed the show differently, and not gotten my hopes up. I’m glad I’ve chosen just to read the recaps, but even the descriptions of what is happening is infuriating.
WHO ARE THESE STRAIGHT VIEWERS AND WHY DO THEY HAVE SUCH INCORRECT IDEAS ABOUT THINGS
I have no idea but I can tell you that I’ve got younger siblings and young nieces who read teen magazines and the way this show is marketed in those mags you would think Amy/Liam/Karma was a legitimate triangle.
Yeah, unfortunately @turkish is right. “Faking it” is, despite its gaf premise, kinda marketed as a legitimate love-triangle between Amy/Liam/Karma :/
There is a small group that claim they have chemistry but saying a good portion is overreacting no one is catering to Liam and Amy shippers they are hardly a blimp on the radar
And honestly I don’t know what can be said or not and if its too spoilers just delete the comment, season 2B as a whole is fantastic it starts getting way better people should really give it a chance
If you know what I know in terms of spoilers, I have no idea how can you think 2B is fantastic.
No, Ryoko, I totally agree.
I know some are not big fans of them here but that last scene with karma and Amy sounded more like forshowding for them than for Reagan and Amy.
Not too sad about Reagan, she clingy and tries to get Amy from her life long education plan hopefully get next love ontrest will be more on her level and a better actor no offense. Also not at all worried about Felix
I do think Karma was talking to Amy about Reagan and Amy, but the comment was also meant to us, the audience, about Karmy. That one day, Karma will be ready, we just have to wait it out.
I still firmly stand in the camp that believes Karma has feelings for Amy; she just hasn’t realized it or has and is severely pushing them down.
She’s clingy because Carter made that only lesbian character this show ever had a negative stereotype of a lesbian – clingy, possessive and biphobic. He deliberately commited character assassination. Don’t expect any lesbian characters anymore.
“Prove it!”
Ouch. That happened a lot to me in my first year of being out. Usually not in so many words, but nonetheless. It eats at your soul.
I’m starting to think that maybe these characters on an MTV teen drama are not very good people.
The only thing I have to say about the “amy is maybe a lesbian maybe not (but we’ll never say the word bisexual cause the universe might explode)” storyline is
Thank God for Lauren and these recaps (and the captions! Gold.).
Noooooo I was trying to post an image but I failed.
If I can’t do it on the second try, I’m quitting the internet.
Here it is:
Bye.
Just post the link.
alice i salute your valiant effort
I can’t even begin to express how uncomfortable this episode made me. Yikes. Why does a 15/16 year old have to be involved with an adult cop? Why does the one reoccurring black character have to be an adult dating a young teenager? Why do so many of the main characters have to be 15/16 and sexually involved with adults?
They all deserve better.
I wish they would tell us how old the characters are. I think that Liam and Shane are seniors, while Amy, Karma, and Lauren are sophomores. So for Shane it’s not that big of a deal. He’s either 17 or 18, dating someone around 20.
Yep, just looked at Lauren’s business card, and it states that she’s sophomore class president.
Oh wow I thought they were all seniors! But also it feels like their school situation is not really real to begin with, in the same way that like, Pretty Little Liars has spent six television seasons and zero weather-based seasons on the same year of high school. Like they never seem to actually go to class, for example.
Except for when Fitz had to teach them about To Kill a Mockingbird for what seemed like an eternity.
At least this show is in Texas, which is a better explanation for why it’s always warm. PLL is in Pennsylvania! Never more than a cute, light jacket.
I feel like I’m being bait-and-switched with this show. We were led to believe that one of the girls would be a lesbian, something that seems more and more remote as the show goes on. It was originally about Amy and Karma, but Liam seems to be shoehorning more and more into the show. Also it seems like with everything he does his character touches, not matter how f***ked up, just turns to gold. He’s slept with both Amy and Karma, Karma is forgiving him for cheating, the people at Skwerkle are worshiping him, the girl at Skwerkle is falling for him, and the art community is beating at his door. Honestly, Lauren is the only thing that I think this TV show is doing right. Her struggle has felt honest the whole way through.
mmm mmm parts of this hit me in all the feels.
in general i am inclined to question the way reagan’s character has been written this season and much of the shit she was pulling was level 5 clingy.
i also appreciate the way you drew out the confusion of trying to figure out what the fuck is going in your relationship when the other person in it is a) constantly lying intentionally or unintentionally b) has no fucking idea of what they actually want and c) regularly communicates totally contradictory statements re: what they want and need depending on who they are proximate to at the time. i just dealt with the end of a (non romantic/sexual) relationship with such a person, and it was constant whiplash.
the way you drew that out gives me lots of feelings.
YES well put I think it’s definitely a combo of the two
The video essay scene was really funny.
Lauren is the best.
I am so sad/disappointed with what the show has done with
its only lesbian character on the show. They made Reagan into a clingy, manipulative,
possessive, angry person. Like I am still disturbed about last week when she
roofied Liam’s water. That was extremely weird and creepy. Also I don’t understand
why they made her so biphobic or at least I don’t understand why they didn’t
eventually have her mature and realize she was being biphobic. But to be fair I’ve
seen a couple of shows where the lesbian character is biphoic, so there must be
some truth to it- which makes me sad. lastly, it would be nice to see a lesbian character who isn’t biphoic.
I think it would be cool if karma is bi and Amy is a lesbian.
I must say though I would be fine with Amy being bi if the show was honest about it from the beginning. I just think the way the show portrayed Amy in the first season was defiantly in a way of her eventually coming out as a lesbian and somewhere along the way they changed their minds which is messed up. Like I still think in the end Amy will be gay but for story telling purposes they are going to make her date guys which is annoying.
*I’m posting this again because it was posted weird the first time.
The video essay scene was really funny.
Lauren is the best.
I am so sad/disappointed with what the show has done with
its only lesbian character on the show. They made Reagan into a clingy, manipulative, possessive, angry person. Like I am still disturbed about last week when she roofied Liam’s water. That was extremely weird and creepy. Also I don’t understand why they made her so biphobic or at least I don’t understand why they didn’t eventually have her mature and realize she was being biphobic. But to be fair I’ve seen a couple of shows where the lesbian character is biphoic, so there must be some truth to it- which makes me sad. lastly, it would be nice to see a lesbian character who isn’t biphoic.
I think it would be cool if karma is bi and Amy is a lesbian.
I must say though I would be okay with Amy is bi if the show was honest about it from the beginning. I just think the way the show portrayed Amy in the first season was defiantly in a way of her eventually coming out as a lesbian and somewhere along the way they changed their minds which is messed up. Like I still think in the end Amy will be gay but for story telling purposes they are going to make her date guys which is annoying.
“But to be fair I’ve seen a couple of shows where the lesbian character is biphoic, so there must be some truth to it”
I’ve seen a couple of shows where lesbian character had sex with a man and loved it – 7 just last year. Most be some truth to it?
While there is biphobia in lesbian community, I think lesbians are just easy and acceptable targets for television, and a gay man running a show that did nothing but exploiting lesbianism and even straight up lying and leading fans on with promises of delivering lesbian lead (yup, they lied that Amy is a lesbian and that they wouldn’t give us such representation only to take it away, but they did as Rita Volk admitted that they lied), is really not in a position allowing him to criticize the lesbian community.
Preach, Amelia
I would really really like it if Amy took a leaf out of Lauren’s book and stood up for HERSELF for once. Also I almost feel sorry for Shane finally realising that outing people can actually have consequences but I don’t think he really properly regrets it yet.
Lauren is still my favourite and awesome and I love her so much. I’m so disappointed they destroyed Reagan’s character, though.
Just binged the rest of the season and I liked the episodes a lot, though I think it helps binge-watching them. Too bad it’s a couple of months until your recaps hit the web, I am so curious on your take on things. Been hours since I watched the finale and I can’t stop thinking about show.
You and me both. I think the last episode really opens the door for Karmy and for Amy to be predominantly dating women, so I think the show did a pretty decent job of recovering from the storyline’s incredibly questionable direction.
How old is Theo? Is it legal for him to be dating Lauren? (You’re 15/16 when you’re a sophomore, right? What’s the age of consent in Texas?)
Things that are okay:
–Amy being confused about what label feels right to her
–Amy eventually identifying as bi, pan, lesbian, queer, fluid, saying that she doesn’t need a label, or something else
Things that are not okay:
–The show not calling out Reagan’s biphobia
–No one saying “bisexual”
–Not speaking to the fact that she could still claim lesbian as a label even while having some undefined attraction to guys