Here’s
another instance where big things happened in an episode that I didn’t
review. While I could probably talk
decently well about the episode at large without getting into the specifics of
what that revelation is, it’s firmly entwined with all of Elijah’s screentime
this episode. So, I will be getting into
spoilers, just so I don’t have to talk around what his scenes are about.
Hannah is
reeling from news she received at the end of the last episode – that her dad is
gay – and is alternately freaking out about it and insisting that she’s not freaking out about it. Her own internal issues with this lead to her
crossing boundaries at work, and she takes pains to say she’s perfectly
fine/only thinking about how it effects her parents while at the same time
arguing that she has every right to be weirded out by it. In other news, Ray is preparing for a big
personal change, and Adam and Jessa get tangled up in Mimi-Rose and Ace’s
ex-lover psychodrama.
Side
plots first. Ray’s stuff is mostly nice,
and I like Shoshanna sublimating her own career frustrations into supporting
his endeavors in a very extra way. It’s
fun to see Zachary Quinto’s Ace again. I
think when you put his oddness and Mimi-Rose’s oddness in a scene together,
they balance each other out in a way that makes both characters work better;
his weird intensity vibes well with her eerie detachment. Earlier in the season, we saw Adam swept up
in Jessa’s drama, and now both of them are caught up in an even bigger tide.
Before
seeing this episode, I probably couldn’t have described what Hannah’s specific
reaction to her dad coming out would be, but after seeing it, I’d say they got
it exactly right. I understand the point
she brings up about being uncomfortable with thinking of her dad in any sort of sexual situation. Of course, this ties back to the notion that
queer people tend to be perceived primarily in terms of sex – the kind of thing
that makes a conservative viewer cringe at a gay couple on, say, House Hunters because, “I don’t want to
picture them having sex!!” when nothing about a straight couple being on the
show would make that viewer think of sex.
That said, I get she’s particularly sensitive to the idea of either of
her parents in a sexual situation, a
feeling many people share.
I mostly
believe Hannah’s insistence that she’s not homophobic, but I think it’s her
very insistence on being “totally fine” when she’s not that makes her come off
badly here. It makes her
attempted/conflicted support of her dad seem insincere, like she’s only doing
it because she’s afraid she’d be perceived as close-minded if she didn’t. It’d probably be healthier for her to pair
her genuine support and encouragement (along with her concern for her mom) with
a more honest admission of the aspects that are making her uncomfortable. As it is, she comes off as both defensive and
disingenuous – which, let’s face it, is a lot more realistic for Hannah. As such, I can’t argue with it from a
narrative standpoint, because it’s so in character for her.
Naturally,
Elijah is the person Hannah goes to for support on this, and he is helpful/not
helpful largely at his whim. Rannells is
fun in these scenes, giving her an “I told you so,” defending his gaydar (Barak
Obama, he insists, “reads as bi,”) and later seemingly-trolling her with the
exact mental images she’s trying to avoid.
He also tries to imagine what “the gays in Michigan” are like and
teaches Hannah’s dad a few of the finer points of fashion and Facebook-stalking
old crushes.
One bit I
really like is a crashcourse Elijah gives Hannah on the art of coming out in
stages. He speaks frankly about how
scary it is to come out, how a person might go from “I’ve never done anything before” to “there was this
one college roommate” and beyond. I like
that it’s at least an attempt to get Hannah to reframe her thinking away from
herself and onto what her dad might be thinking, and it draws on Elijah’s
personal experience. It’s a strong
scene, and it makes me wonder how much input Rannells gave into it.
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