Welcome to the twelfth recap of the second season of Faking It, a 17-minute infomercial for Thighmasters from the same network that brought you Big Tips Texas.
We open in Karma’s backyard, where her mother is making artisinal soaps, probably planning a re-boot of Piper Chapman and Holly McSleepingwithLarryonpurpose’s successful Brooklyn-based artisanal soap business.
Karma thinks Mom needs to put away the tonics and potions and hot wax and focus on a “real job,” which’ll begin with crafting a “real resume,” and will ideally end with them moving back into their house where Karma will no longer be awoken by her parents having hot lean-to sex. Mrs. Karma reminds her plucky young offspring that her first job will always be “mother.”
Unfortunately, Mrs. Karma’s resume reads more like Brook Soso’s: aura cleanser, mushroom forager, unlicensed massage therapist. Karma is losing hope, but I’m just delighted every time Karma’s Mom has a scene. I love her.
Over in Amy’s impeccably clean fortress of sapphistry, Amy and Reagan are snuggling while Reagan gushes about how much she loves Amy and wishes she could carry her around in her pocket all day. Just like chapstick! That’s what “chapstick lesbian” means now, it’s official. Reagan is clingy like saran wrap, it turns out. For example, they’re down a cater-waiter tonight at her job, maybe Amy could substitute —
Hark! It’s Karma! KARMA NEEDS A JOB! REAGAN HAS A JOB! PROBLEM SOLVED.
Some time or perhaps no time at all later, Shane’s lamenting his inability to schedule quality time with Amy now that she’s Lesbian Nesting with Reagan.
Amy: Nesting? We’re not pigeons!
Shane: She’s been staying in your coop every night this week!
Amy: That’s exactly why I need to stay in tonight, I need a little “Me Time.”
Shane suggests Amy tells Reagan she feels suffocated. Amy suggests that Shane tell Duke he outed them. Shane wonders if that angry music is playing in his head. Shane and Amy determine that it’s definitely coming from Lauren’s room… or should I say Lauren’s LAIR? ‘Cause Lauren’s gone A on us, although her hoodie is a little washed out.
Later that fine evening, Reagan and Karma are in their best drag king duds preparing to cater-waiter the hell out of this event. Hey, they had to hang out alone eventually, right? This’ll be a very interesting night!
Karma’s disappointed to learn that her job will be “sweeper,” which doesn’t actually mean clearing the ball if it happens to get past the defensive lines, it means picking up the sordid remains of shrimp cocktail with her bare hands.
As you may have predicted, this event is a Squerkle event, which means there’ll be free Yogurtland, on-site hairstylists, a yoga studio and sensual massages with happy endings for everybody after the show. Liam’s lurking in the wings, lamenting his obligation to exist on a stage wearing Skkurkul cyborg glasses that make him look a lot more like Mr. Peanut and a lot less like Brutus the Buckeye.
But really, he’s mostly stressed out about seeing a shirtless male human in Karma’s room last night! Does Zita think Karma and Shirtless Guy are banging?
Intern Baked Zita: He could be a homeless guy that Karma’s helping clean up for his first job interview?
Liam: You think so?
Intern Zita: No, they’re doing it! Liam, if you want her back, just tell her.
Liam: No, she’ll just say no, she hasn’t forgiven me yet.
I’m ready for a spinoff called Lesbian Pigeon Nesters, starting Intern Zita and Lauren as power lesbians. Then Liam accidentally opens the web browser on his glasses and starts reading Autostraddle’s NSFW Sunday archives just as Karma passes by his general area, and immediately freezes —
Reagan’s barely done relishing in Karma’s awkwardness when she spots HER ex. Hey-o!
Back at Chez Fawcett, Shane and Amy are doing a little walk-through of Lauren’s devotional to Theo.
Amy: This is the work of someone seriously unhinged.
Shane: I always said she could use a good dose of electroshock… she’s standing right behind us, isn’t she?
(She is.)
Lauren suggests they see themselves out, but Shane wants to talk about how Lauren’s revenge fantasies are very impractical. Arsenic takes FOREVER to work, maybe they should try something from Breaking Bad or think about sexually suggestive installation art or dressing him in S&M gear and tying him to a chair in the garage?
Shane: If you wanna get back at Theo, why don’t you just go to his new school and out him as a narc?
Lauren: Outing people? That’s your solution to everything isn’t it? It’s too simple and totally obvious.
Amy: And let’s not forget dangerous! He might get the crap beat out of him by a mob of angry students!
Lauren: Good point, it’s perfect.
These two are experts at pulling the sociopath out of each other.
According to Lauren’s intel, Theo’s been shooting some b-ball outside the school known as Baldwin High, where he’ll certainly be making an appearance at tonight’s pep rally. Just for the record, no school would let an out-of-district non-student over the age of 19 onto their basketball team. If they win, all their games could be stricken from the record!
Amy thinks this is a bad idea but Shane thinks it sounds super-fun! This is very next-level for Amy, who probably was anticipating a long night of making friendship bracelets and eating Pop Rocks while marathoning old episodes of Hannah Montana.
Back at the OurChart launch party, Reagan’s chatting up her ex with some bitter herbs when her new boyfriend shows up and Charlotte introduces Reagan as “an old friend.” Oh girl. Do not introduce your lesbian ex to your new boyfriend as an old friend, you wicked, wicked lady. You are basically begging for her to blow her nose into your martini glass!
Meanwhile, Karma and Liam finally run right into each other’s clean & clear faces and quickly lie to each other about why Karma’s cater-waitering (“I love it! A new party every night!”) and why Liam’s at a Storkle event to begin with! (“It’s a very long and very boring story.”) You know I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that “being more comfortable lying to your partner than telling them the truth” is a pretty good sign that you shouldn’t be together. BUT WHATEVER.
Liam says he met Karma’s “new friend” last night in her room, but Karma’s like, oh he’s just a friend. JUST LIKE THE SONG. Meanwhile, Liam is also her friend who she occasionally has sex with.
Liam: “I get it. I just didn’t realize that you had other friends?”
Karma: “I do, and you should too.”
Liam: “I should?”
Karma: “Yeah, ’cause you’re just a friendly guy.”
He introduces Zita to Karma as a “new friend” and then announces they’ll be visiting the restroom together, which’s quite a blow to dear Karma. Just then, Reagan shows up, livid after her interaction with Charlotte.
Reagan: “We dated for two years and she’s gonna introduce me as her FRIEND?”
Karma: “Well, Liam just went with his new FRIEND to the bathroom to have sex.”
Reagan: “We can’t let them treat us like this! We have to make them pay.”
Karma doesn’t want blood on her hands, which’s why she never has period sex with Amy and also why Reagan and Karma conclude the best course of action would be to get revenge on each other’s exes! At last they’ve found common ground: theatrics.
Cut to Karma encouraging Charlotte to enjoy an allegedly vegan item with a toothpick in it.
But before this interaction can turn into a conversation about bullshit shredded beet burgers, Zita rolls up with some real talk:
Zita: Karma, I’m not sleeping with Liam.
Karma: I could care less. [beat] You’re not?
Zita: Not even a little bit. He only has eyes for you. he’s too noble to tell you this, but I’m not. The guy gave up art to get you and your family out of jail. That’s the deal he made with his Dad.
Meanwhile, Shane and Lauren are having a hard time trying to break into Baldwin and Amy’s having a hard time convincing them to go home for some McFlurries.
Shane’s shocked to hear that Amy enabled Karma and Reagan spending the evening together, and presses Amy for why she can’t tell Reagan that she needs space. To be fair, Reagan has a way of steamrolling a conversation, but Amy has a way of doing whatever she can to avoid conflict — it’s not a great match, really, but it’s what Amy’s used to, because Karma does the same thing.
Shane: So if you can’t ask for space I’m guessing you didn’t tell her you’re sometimes attracted to guys? If you wanna have a real relationship with Reagan you can’t keep things from her because you’re scared she won’t wanna hear them.
However, before this delightful conversation can proceed for any additional moments of our lives, Lauren busts outside from inside, which she has handily busted into.
So, Reagan got a roofie from creepy Steve and dissolved it in Liam’s water, which definitely one-ups Karma giving Charlotte a non-vegan egg roll and is AWFUL. Unfortunately, or fortunately, maybe, Liam’s dad rolls up and downs the water before Liam’s lips touch the sweet soft glass. He’s just super nervous about the biggest product launch in company history!
Lauren and Shane are undercover as cheerleaders and Amy is dressed like a drag king pirate.
They’re gonna sneak in and join the cheer squad in order to take over the microphone and tell everybody that Theo is a narc. Also it looks like they’re working on a really small set.
Amy: Why do I have to be the mascot?
Lauren: Because you have the coordination of a baby goat.
Shane: [to Amy] Is it weird that i’m slightly attracted to you right now?
Lauren is so prepared to out-bitch the head bitch in charge of the cheerleaders, informing her that they’ve been bumped up from JV and fucking DEAL WITH IT! Amy says revenge won’t make Lauren feel better. Lauren says it can’t possibly make her feel worse. I beg to differ.
Lauren and Shane, as anybody could easily predict, completely throw off the routine ’cause they don’t know it.
Now it’s time for the basketball team to make their grand entrance, and Lauren is licking her chops, prepared to make a huge stupid mistake.
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.
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.
“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?
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?
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.)
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!
“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 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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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
Comments
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.