Back at Sporkle, Liam’s Dad is trying to convince everybody that he’s fine, despite the fact that he’s totally not fine. On a scale of one to ten, Liam’s Dad cannot get out of his chair.
Doya ever think about if care bears really live in the clouds and if they eat clouds and what clouds might taste like
Liam’s like hey Dad, this is super-neat super-fun time, but it’s time to cut the crap and get your shit together so we can do this big presentation.
Is that bib necessary?
“You got it! be right there,” Liam’s Dad says before collapsing like a secondary cast member of The Real L Word. And no sooner has Liam noted that the only thing he saw his Dad drink was a glass of water than he spots Karma across the room, pouring more water and mouthing “I’m sorry.” This is proof they have a special connection because how on earth does he know what she’s apologizing for?
I only date girls now, sorry!
Regardless, apparently nobody else works at Squirrel-kle besides Liam so he’s gotta give the big presentation! It’ll be okay, he’s just gotta read the teleprompter, but he can’t even do that very good so he loses his place and starts riffing! Liam admits at first he thought Spoogle Glass Cyborg Glasses were a dumb idea but who hasn’t dreamed of having a computer on his face?
So, if a tree falls on a woman and there’s nobody there to catch it…
THEN WHAT WAS A TREE DOING IN THE KITCHEN???
Karma’s feeling shitty but Reagan’s feeling shittier.
Reagan: Charlotte really played with my head, she used me as a test to prove whether or not she was actually a lesbian and guess what the results are?
Karma: Reagan, that sucks, I’m so sorry.
Reagan: It’s okay, I’ve learned from my mistakes and now I have an awesome girlfriend who’s got it all figured out!
Ah yes, if there’s anything I love more than sticking my face in a giant-sized bowl of Fruity Pebbles, it’s the trope that questioning women are deceptive and confused and that lesbians are biphobic, clingy, easily made jealous and close-minded. Plus, slipping roofies in somebody’s drink is straight-up illegal and monumentally fucked up, so this episode is really doing an all-around bang-up job with the only out lesbian character on this show (and a lesbian of color, at that.)
So, are you still up for a threesome with Amy later?
It all just feels so… contrived?
Back at Baldwin, Theo is introduced as “Jimmy,” which is like, basically the Narc-iest name of all time, and Lauren grabs the mike, as planned, to tell everybody that there’s something they don’t know about him! Yup!
You think Jimmy’s such a good basketballer, dontcha? Well, let me tell you a little something about a substance known as “flubber.”
“Lauren, please,” says Theo, I MEAN JIMMY. Lauren hesitates as her little heart swims to the surface of her skin, reminding her that her cold, mean exterior is just that — an exterior. Unfortunately, she’s already gotten her friends involved and so Amy inexplicably picks up where Lauren left off, with Shane there for support.
AND IF ANYBODY IS IN THE MARKET FOR ARTISANAL SOAPS I KNOW A WOMAN WHO CAN HOOK YOU UP
Well, there goes my job at Crabtree & Evelyn
And when it’s all said and done, nobody feels better about anything.
When you got out of bed this morning I hope you thought to yourself, “You know what this show needs? Less homosexual love scenes and more heterosexual love scenes.” GOOD NEWS YOU GOT YOUR WISH! So, it turns out that Liam didn’t tell Karma the truth about “giving up art.” ’cause he wants to “earn her forgiveness, not buy it.” But uh, he sort of earned it by buying it? Anyhow.
Why did you put that note in my locker about wanting to see me in a suit and tie if you didn’t mean it?
I didn’t put any notes in your locker.
Karma says she’s scared of being hurt again so this can only work if she’s in control. Basically she read 50 Shades of Grey and is listening really hard to her Inner Goddess and biting her lip a lot. She commands Liam to put his hands behind his back, so she can tie him up and thrust him onto the desk for some heavy petting. I always knew Karma was a top!
Okay, well, huh, I guess maybe anal is on the table?
Back at Chez Fawcett, the three Revengers are sharing ice cream, just like Amy wishes everybody was always doing all the time. Also, Amy’s moustache won’t come off, and Lauren says that outing Theo didn’t make her feel any better.
Wait, there’s poison in this ice cream? Really?
Amy says that she’s gonna tell Reagan how she really feels and if she wants a real relationship she really has to be honest about who she is.
This is how lesbians have sex
After the little chow-down, Amy heads upstairs to find Karma sitting in her room, wanting to be sure Amy knows that Reagan’s last girlfriend dumped her for a boy. I love how all Amy’s friends have Spidey-powers and can scale walls to get into her room.
Really? Dry-humping AGAIN? I thought we were gonna try something new!
I’ll take my shirt off this time!
Karma: Did you know that her last girlfriend dumped her for a boy and now she has zero tolerance for girls who are still questioning her sexuality?
Amy: Oh, that!
Karma: She thinks you have it all figured out. Amy, you have to tell her the truth.
Amy: I know but how do I even begin? Oh, by the way I’m sometimes attracted to guys and oh by the way I once slept with Liam.
Obviously Reagan is lurking outside Amy’s room listening to the conversation, because tropes.
Okay, sure, yes, I don’t watch the show, I only read the recaps. But Reagan would be so hurt if she knew!
This explains so much
Okay look this annoys me on a very basic elemental level of how logic and arguments and ideas work. This is apples and oranges. Charlotte didn’t know if she liked girls or not, but she had a girlfriend anyway, and then left Reagan for a boy. Amy is sure that she likes girls, and therefore has a girlfriend. She might still be attracted to guys, but if she were to leave Reagan for a guy, it wouldn’t be ’cause it turns out she never liked girls at all! It’d be because she doesn’t want me to recap this show anymore. JUST KIDDING BUT REALLY. Also, this is the blue liberal heart in the deep gut of red Texas, right? So it’s not like a small town in the Bible Belt where Amy would have to give up her job and friends and family and church to be with Reagan and might do her best to turn off those feelings and re-direct them towards a man if there was any possible way to do so. It feels like everybody except Amy wants this to be a much bigger deal than it is. Plus, like I’ve said a million times — having drunken heartbreak sex with a person of a certain gender doesn’t have to mean anything about your attraction to people of that gender. Karma has shown more attraction to Amy than Amy ever has to any guy, and nobody’s pressuring her to re-assess her label! None of this adds up.
Honestly I’m struggling to say something coherent about this or make any kind of real declaration. I mean, right off the bat, I think y’all know that I personally really want Amy to remain a lesbian character and I feel like the “questioning” storyline has been done to death and it’s not as “edgy” as the producers seem to think it is. But that’s just my personal opinion. (I also have a bone to pick from a media representation angle, though, which you can read about here.)
On the story level, it’s just that this element of Amy’s character hasn’t been sold to us hard enough for me to really assess its importance. We keep hearing over and over what a huge deception this is and how Amy is “into guys” … but we’re being told, not shown. It feels like everybody this season needed a lie and so this became Amy’s. Karma’s lie is also pretty stupid. So was Liam’s. Shane’s really the only one with a legitimate secret this season.
So I don’t know how I feel. But I’m pretty sure you’re gonna tell me how you feel!
Next week on “Faking It”:
https://youtu.be/VZU9CZS4zGU
Pages: 1 2See entire article on one page
It seems to me that in the land of Faking it, bisexuality doesn’t exist. All this “oh you like guys too, you must not be gay, you must be straight” comes off a little bifobic. As if being attracted to both, while being in a relationship with the other is deceitful. Nice job Faking it.
Those last two commentary paragraphs made it all worth it.
thank you <3
This episode was so aggravating on many different levels. I’m over all these tropes tbh. The questioning lesbian who can’t make up her mind and refers to her female exes as “friends”. The biphobic lesbian who is absolutely terrified of getting her heartbroken by a bi chick. And the bi chick who is every stereotype in the book who eventually does break her lesbian girlfriend’s heart for a boy. This episode(and that sneak peak) is really not subtle in how they are beating us over the head with the foreshadowing in how this is all going to play out. It’s going to be the most ridiculously cliched bullshit ever.
If I weren’t super invested in everything Lauren I would have turned this shit off a long time ago.
I really think that part of the problem with this show is that there aren’t any queer women involved in any part of the writing process, at least as far as I know. Whenever that’s the case, it seems like the gay guy gets some new/interesting stories (although Shane/Duke is very reminiscent of a similar Queer as Folk storyline) and the queer girls get whatever is most relate-able to everybody involved? I think this show is definitely doing a few things right that a lot of other shows have done wrong, though.
I too wanted Amy to be a lesbian – and I’m saying this as a bisexual girl who always wants more bisexual representation – because it would have been something quite “new”? And then we already saw her being confused, coming out, etc. in the first season. As you said the fact that she slept with Liam while she was drunk doesn’t have to mean anything. If they really wanted to do a questioning storyline why not doing one with Karma? (Looking at the previews maybe they will, but I’m not so sure).
And if they wanted to create drama between Amy and Reagan they could have had done so without any biphobic bullshit.
If they had to grossly violate somebody’s person for my amusement, couldn’t they have crazy glued that mustache on, I would watch Amy date boys if that thing never came off.
Honestly, Reagan was like a breath of fresh air last season and now they’re totally destroying her character and I’m very upset. Also, it’s season 2B and I still can’t stand Liam. Not even a little bit. Lauren on the other hand, is probably the only reason I’ll keep watching this show when Reagan and Amy break up.
– “Is that angry music playing in my head?” I laughed.
– Shane is such a Slytherin.
– Karma, she’s not queer. Giving her something non-vegan doesn’t matter.
– Is Karma wearing a thumb ring? How is she not queer?
– Shane and Lauren doing that cheer reminds me of Karma and Oliver dancing for the drama club tryouts.
– “I don’t like you changing who you are to make someone like you.” This is such a good opportunity to throw Karma’s relationship with Liam in her face.
– Think about how the various people’s situations ended up this episode. Lauren ended up unhappy. Reagan ended up unhappy. Amy has set herself up. Shane is neutral. Karma improved somewhat. Liam got Karma back, had Zita warm up to him, and killed it in a major presentation for a multimillion dollar company. Tell me again who’s the main character of this show?
“Think about how the various people’s situations ended up this episode. Lauren ended up unhappy. Reagan ended up unhappy. Amy has set herself up. Shane is neutral. Karma improved somewhat. Liam got Karma back, had Zita warm up to him, and killed it in a major presentation for a multimillion dollar company. Tell me again who’s the main character of this show?”
This is a very good point. Also it’s weird that he keeps getting “redeemed” throughout the story, and becomes more and more allegedly likeable… while everybody else gets less likeable?
Riese you’ve been spelling the name wrong all day. It’s G-O-O-G-L-E
DAMMIT
I’m not sure I even buy that Charlotte “wasn’t sure if she liked girls”. The way they’re presenting Reagan’s character now, it seems like that would be the narrative she would put on it no matter what happened. The writers are doing such a disservice to both characters.
UGH THIS EPISODE. Stop trying to make bi girls vs. lesbians a thing, stop it stop it stop it. And the roofies! Oh my god the roofies.
As a person who, until recently, lived in Austin, I just want to say that I read coop as in cooperative and was confused as to what pigeons had to do with it.
Brutus the Buckeye! Midwesterner shoutout! <3
I would love Amy to be either bi or a lesbian, but they keep messing around with her identity for the sake of drama and fulfilling stereotypes. In the first season, it was convenient to make her a lesbian. Now, it’s better to have her bisexual.
They’re reducing her to her sexuality and then not even staying consistent with that. (And, I’m all for more honest representation of struggling to define yourself, but only written by actual LGBT people.)
Especially with Reagan’s ex “leaving her for a man” and evoking all the stereotypes, this episode doesn’t do a lot remind viewers that sexuality isn’t always so murky and that you can’t “turn a girl straight”. (Which seems to be a theme. Karma might be into Amy? Nope, in love with Liam. Amy might be gay? JK- she’s bi and it’s a BIG deal that we clarify that she’s also into guys. Reagan’s ex? Oh, she’s with a man and hiding that shameful time in her life by referring to her as “a friend”.)
This show doesn’t do a good job of depicting women, bi or lesbian. Somehow LIAM, the straight white guy, seems to get the best plot-line of redemption and heroism while the women, and more interesting characters in my opinion, get reduced to their sexuality and shown in a negative light.
Rita Volk in interview for AE confessed that they lied about Amy being lesbian in those 3 interviews after Season 1, officially to give lesbian fans something to relate to, though it’s pretty obvious she was just covering Carter’s back since that explanation was just ridiculous:
“When I said that the first time, my intention behind it was it seemed like so many girls watching the show wanted to have a lesbian character that they could look up to, because that’s how they identified. And there aren’t a lot of lesbian characters on TV in that high school range. I mean, it’s becoming more prevalent, which is great, but it’s happened pretty fast in the past couple of years.
So, when I said that, it was trying to make them feel like they had someone they could relate to, because there is that side of her—she’s attracted to girls.”
(dunno what are the rules about linking to other queer female focused sites here, so I just give the name of the interview: Rita Volk on Karmy, Reamy and Season 2B of “Faking It”)
For reminder, that’s one of those inteviews:
“I don’t know about Karma’s path, but for Amy, she is a lesbian, and Carter and I talked about that. We don’t want it to be a tease, we don’t want people to feel like they can relate to this vulnerable process that she’s going through, and they can relate to this girl because she’s a lesbian and then have that taken away, like, “Oh, never mind, you know, I’m into guys now.”
http://community.ew.com/2014/06/09/faking-it-stars-talk-real-life-faking-it/
And Carter himself in recent podcast on AE, besides focusing on Amy being Sexual Hulk for men and stressing out how her body responds to guys against her brain (yeah, he really loves to bring that up), said that she is somewhere from 3 to 6 on a scale from 1 to 7, so transfering it to more traditional Kinsey Scale, she’s somewhere from 2 (bisexual with preference for men) to 5 (bisexual with strong preference for women), and her journey is about figuring it out.
Since she will be with Felix later this season I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the former.
I can’t stand Carter Covington. I really can’t. Every time he opens his mouth I want to delete this show from my DVR and erase it from my memory. The only redeeming quality I see in it right now is Lauren and who knows how much longer that will last. I have already given up on them portraying queer women with any sort of consistency or dignity. And I’m really disappointed in Rita Volk as well.
Ok I don’t know if this is old news and you guys already know this but I just started watching and have to report: Theo is on Fear the Walking Dead with Lexa from The 100!!!! Also some kid who played young Voldemort in Half-Blood Prince.