Welcome to the sixteenth recap of the second season of Faking It, an online farmer’s market that connects cartoon animals with real ones, from the network that brought you House Of Food.
We open in a chic hot spot cafe where all the bohemians go to enjoy soy milk lattes and tiny vegan cupcakes on brightly-colored fiestaware and talk about their moon signs and whether or not Karma wearing a hat would help her get in touch with her true self and therefore become more or less compatible with Liam. Amy insists that the only thing Karma needs to be is “Karma,” although let’s be real — it’d be nice if she was a little bit gayer.
But then! The girls spot Molly cross-cafe with two other young Moms and a bunch of empty plates — two Moms who are just heavens-to-Betsy bowled over with JOY to finally meet Amy and Karma, “the out, proud and madly in love lesbian couple”! They do so very much hope to see these two lesbian ladies in love at their upcoming Hoe-Down/Square Dance (title TBA) fundraiser!
Cut to Karma’s home / backyard, where Karma’s pissed that Molly’s yet to tell PFLAG that Karma isn’t actually a lesbian after all!
Molly explains that she just really needs PFLAG right now — she lost her home, she lost her ahead-of-her time medicinal marijuana business, she needs to beat that bitch Jackie who’s got an actual gay son in the next round of PFLAG President Elections and she’s been working so damn hard on this fundraiser. What makes money better than fake lesbians, you know? Just ask Truck Stop! Or the porn industry!
Karma and Amy have been trying to live their truths for about two minutes and six seconds and are therefore wary of this plan, which would cause them to fall off the WAGON OF LIES. Dad implores them to go along with it, for Molly’s sake, and Amy’s won over. She explains to Karma that Molly’s always been there for her and well this is the least she could do, right? (Sidenote: Why hasn’t Amy just offered to let Karma live with her for now? This has been bugging me all season! Think of all the sleepover tension!) Karma’s worried that this isn’t good for Amy with all of her hot groin-area love-type feelings for Karma, but Amy insists that those feelings are “ancient history.” Karma, unsurprisingly, seems surprised and maybe a bit sad to hear this. Also, I mean, it’s a lie, but whatever!
Back at Liam and Shane’s Basement Lair, the two boys are eating stale pizza, yelling at video games, and wondering if Duke is wearing a shirt (okay, that’s just Shane). Liam takes a quick assessment of their lives and declares that it’s time to return to their douchebag personalities from Season One:
Liam: We used to be Liam and Shane! We were hookup hunters and the world was our prey. It’s time to pick up our spirits and get back on that horse.
Shane: I had a horse once. I loved it but it ran away.
Look out, ladies, Liam and Shane are back in the saddle! Starting tonight!
We then shimmy on over to Chez Fawcett, where Lauren is trying to eat her cereal but is having trouble not sticking her spoons through Farrah’s eyeballs. She’s tossing passive-aggressive insults at her Step Mom while her perfect Dad Bruce thinks Lauren’s still riled up over their show-down at the pageant. He says not to take her frustration with him out on Farrah.
Welp, that’s the last straw, Lauren can no longer sit here and watch her father treat Farrah like she isn’t a fuck-up — and then, of course, who should show up but Amy and Hank? Bruce is just gosh-darnit-so-thrilled to finally meet Hank the Tank, although his suggestion that Hank stay for dinner is swiftly rejected by everybody in the room and probably everybody not in the room, also.
Oh and one more thing! Amy told Hank all about her lesbianism and he’s totally cool with it. In fact, “he totally gets it. It’s so nice to have a parent who supports me for once.” Ouch.
Speaking of supportive environments for LGBTQ youth, we then box-step on over to the Big Austin PFLAG Party For Howdie Doody Gays and Their Families. It’s quite a production — go-go dancers of the male and female persuasion, large bales of hay, grown-up royalty-free stock music from the MTV catalog, and, of course, a mechanical bull. Basically, it’s Rodeo Disco, but with boys.
Molly is appalled by this sexual state of affairs, but Jackie’s having a gay ‘ol time!
Jackie: It’s called a FUNraiser for a reason!
Molly: FunDraiser. You forgot the “D.”
Jackie: That’s a first!
Molly: How is this event supposed to help anybody?
Jackie: Help them with what? We should be celebrating! We got the fun kids!
Speaking of, Jackie can’t WAIT to introduce hot lesbian couple Karma and Amy to her big gay son Shane and his friend Liam! Yup. You know how that shit go.
Shane’s not convinced that Amy’s truly over Karma, or that dating Reagan helped Amy “get over” Karma — he’s pretty sure she just briefly eclipsed Amy’s burning love for Karma and that this little charade they’re doing tonight can’t possibly be healthy. Amy’s plan to avoid slow-dances, romantic speeches and hand-holding is definitely 100% a prediction of what’s about to go down.
Esteemed Human Liam Booker refuses to believe that Karma is doing this for her mother and then announces that “Old Liam” is back. He’s gonna go find a new high horse to ride. Bye!
Karma suggests they ignore those stupid boys and just be girlfriends, because of course! It’s just that easy. Molly wants to corral them into sharing their sweet love story with “the group,” although Jackie would rather open her legs and ride a bull (her words, not mine!) than open her heart to a “share circle.” Basically, Molly is Melissa Joan Hart in Can’t Hardly Wait, wanting everybody to sign her yearbook and but everybody just wants to get laid and lose their virginity.
Lauren’s about to make a strong showing for unhappiest camper at the hoe-down: her parents have decided to surprise her by bringing her to the PFLAG party! Bruce hopes will show Lauren he’s supportive of her intersex identity. This will definitely work because Lauren LOVES talking about being intersex.
Back at the Share Circle, Karma’s gushing about Amy, basically saying everything Amy wishes Karma would say in real life with real facial expressions and true words. But she sounds so sincere, too, when she says them.
Karma: Every day that I’m with Amy I just feel like the luckiest girl in the world. We’re not only best friends, and lovers, but, um… we’re soulmates.
Farrah’s shocked to overhear the news that the winsome twosome are back to-fake-together again, and even more shocked that Hank made it to the party, and slightly less shocked that Amy says Dad “gets it” when it comes to the Fake Lesbian Game and you don’t so BYE. Hank makes some kind of “kids these days,” offhand remark to Farrah in the way that a Dad can when he’s not actually the custodial parent who has to deal with the fallout when the fallout happens and the fallout will definitely happen.
Dad wants Lauren to get out on the dance floor and meet other members of her community!
Lauren: This is not my community! There is no “I” in PFLAG.
Bruce: Actually, they’re inclusive of everyone. I called the national office. They’re real nice.
Bruce tries to make friends by introducing Lauren to a family as “an Intersex,” causing her to immediately flee the scene.
While Liam and Shane strike out at picking up hot lays by telling stories about their heartbroken hearts and lying exes, Karma’s learning that being a lesbian isn’t the only lie Molly told her PFLAG friends — apparently Karma’s also at the top of her class and builds houses for homeless people! Unclear why Jackie’s not already busting these lies like a bucket of balloons via her son, Shane, but whatever:
Karma’s bummed that Molly isn’t proud of her for any of her actual accomplishments, which admittedly are pretty sparse these days except for one major thing — she’s financially supporting her entire family! Lies upon lies upon lies, these people. “Lying is in my DNA,” Karma sadly suggests before Amy suggests they not let Moms ruin their night. Let’s just have fun, she says, just the two of us, like two totally not-gay girls acting gay without having to try very hard! First stop: riding the mechanical pony to tuna-town!
Speaking of what’s embedded into everybody’s genetic code, Jackie’s very disappointed that Shane and Liam are being mopey about their exes instead of sleeping with strangers. “What happened to the 12-year-old who hit on my 18-year-old daughter?” Jackie wants to know. Well, I hope somebody put chewing gum in his hair, wherever he is. Jackie threatens to take away Shane’s X-Box if he doesn’t go home with this gentleman in red across the dance floor…
…and then turns her attention to Liam, who insists that after Karma, he just can’t magically become “old Liam again.” The most interesting part of that sentence, to Jackie, is “Karma.” Not because she’s shocked somebody actually named their child “Karma,” but because she really only knows Karma in a “Karmy” context so what the hell is this nonsense. Meanwhile the girls are bucked off their bull:
Karma and Amy topple off the bull into a heap, and Karma fixes Amy’s hair with her magic fingers, thus lulling Amy slowly back into Supercrush Uncontrollable Burning Love mode. Karma: look at yourself! Just take a moment, take a big step back and look at yourself in the mirror right this minute and tell me what you see! KARMA AND AMY, ALMOST K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
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Things I took away from this episode:
– Amy and Karma. BELONG. TOGETHER.
– Carter Covington brought another woman on set to obsess over Liam Booker because he’s just such a hot stud. She just happens to be Lindsey “Paige McCullers” Shaw. Just so Carter/Liam can ruin one more lesbian thing.
Carter Covington is so obviously in love with Gregg Sulkin, the same way Ryan Murphy is with Darren Kriss/Nick Jonas. And they have the power to subject the rest of us to it.
That is his purpose in life/TV.
So Sydney Driscoll and Paige McCullers are totally gonna mud-wrestle-fight over Liam, only to end up falling in lust with each other instead, right? Kinda like they did for Emily Fields?
I would pay good money to see that.
I would pay ALL my money to see that.
Wait so you’re telling me lesbian sex just looks like sex?!?
KARMY. KARMY.
Dammit. Karmy.
Btw, this bugged me a little: “She’s still an intensely private person not comfortable being fully out yet, and that hesitation comes from a lot of places but she’s gotta get through it on her own terms.”
Do we know Lauren will be (wants to be) fully ‘out’ in the future? Does she have to be?
I don’t think she has to be, no, that’s kinda what I was saying. The problem is that she already IS out, because she was outed against her will. So that’s what she has to work through on her own terms — how to live with this despite the fact that she didn’t want to be out in the first place, which is a really awful thing to have to deal with. How does she deal with everybody who now thinks it is fair game? I was horrified on her behalf for most of the episode! I’m not really sure how you read that paragraph and determined it somehow meant that I thought Lauren “needed” to be out? I mean I try to write in a way that prevents misinterpretation but that’s really a leap! I guess it wasn’t super clear but “her own terms” = “her own terms.” Not mine or anybody else’s. Her own terms is how out she wants to be or how anything she wants to be. She should do what she wants.
OHMYGOD FAKING IT HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME WHAT THE HELL
Paige McCullers and Lauren should fly off on a pegasus away from this but alas, it is not to be. I CANNOT BELIEVE they would bring on Paige McCullers to be a lust object for Liam.
I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THIS GRAVE INJUSTICE I WILL NOT
They brought in Lindsey Shaw, not Paige McCullers. She has mostly played straight characters in her career and will continue to do so.
No, Carter Covington brought in Paige McCullers. That’s why about five seconds before she shows up to talk to Liam, Shane calls Liam a “Pretty Little Liar”. Covington is just throwing it in our faces.
I love you. I love this recap and I love you!
The only good thing to come from this episode is the fact that Cooper the raccoon is doing crossover recaps now.
Also I think Carter Covington and Ryan Murphy are in a Lesbian Fight Club where they’re like “let’s fight the lesbians. But we won’t literally punch them in the face. We’ll give them a taste of the things they hold so dear AND THEN TAKE THEM AWAY FOREVER.”
It’s actually the fight club Ilene Chaiken founded in like 2005.
I wish there was more oil though, I like a nice oil wrestle
OH MY GOD I USED THE WRONG THERE-THEY’RE-THEIR AND THERE’S NO DELETE OR CORRECT FOR COMMENTS
I am illiterate and shamed.
i fixed it for you!
<3 <3 <3
Thank you for this. I read p1 on my way to a job I thought I wouldn’t have to do again and p2 on the way home after and having so many laughs squeezed around that hour of disappointment really saved the day.
“I think the fifth horseman of the gay apocalypse is when a PFLAG fundraiser is co-opted by somebody wanting to celebrate their straight daughter. So everybody put your flags away and go watch Stonewall, the movement is dead.”
Utter, utter brilliance.
My takeaway from this episode alone was pretty much that Karma is doing the least convincing job of being a heterosexual person. And that the guy Shane chatted up was really adorable and in touch with his feelings like every lesbian’s dream.
Urg, I really needed this today : “Sure, she doesn’t want to feel ashamed about being intersex, but that doesn’t mean she wants to talk about it publicly or for everybody to know, either. You can want to keep a thing to yourself for reasons besides a “lack of pride,” after all.”
I’m not out everywhere for many reasons, but I know that I could be. I also feel less and less confortable being out where I am, because this year, I’m becoming more and more private. In fact, my favorite place to be right now are all these place where I’m not out and where in general nobody know anything about my life. Privacy is cool, I like it. But in a part of my brain, there’s someone telling me “Are you ashamed ? Is this internalized homophobia ? Aren’t you a traitor to the cause ?”. I know it’s stupid, but my brain won’t stop talking.
Anyway, I can’t wait for the next episode and this f*cking kiss in the pool. urg.
I simply adore these recaps – especially the captions! I swear, this right here is more than half the reason why still watch this show. The rest is pure awful spectacle, schadenfreude, and a sprinkling of hope for Karmy. ;)
As someone who interned for PFLAG’s national office last semester, I can confirm that they are indeed inclusive of everyone and real nice.