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TV Thoughts

 The other day, I was in New York at the Angelika--which now has assigned seating. I wasn't late--I think I arrived thirty seconds after the start of the first preview--and yet a human refused to stand up for me. 


This was inarguably rude. The person was blocking my passage to my assigned seat--it was her task to "make way." She was not incapable of standing; I know this as a fact.

So what was going on? Was she simply lazy? Had she just lived through a bad day? Did she feel that her intransigence was a just punishment for my disruption of the first preview? Was this merely thoughtlessness? I'll never know.

It helps to watch "The Outs," which, in my favorite scene, nicely dramatizes the problem of uncertainty. Jack and Mitchell recall a particular threesome. "We invited a third to our apartment and we were--you know--doing things." "We were having gay sex--it's what we tend to do." "We were ten minutes in--and the guy stands up and says, Well. Wait a minute. No thank you. And he leaves. He leaves without his shirt."

God is in the details. The story is delightful--but it's the little ornaments that make this script so effective. Jack's coyness around the idea of gay sex makes me laugh. Then there is the conversational detour about a certain hookup website, e.g., "Manhunt." "I think that the site no longer exists!" Then there is the fallout from the story--which involves Mitchell's drunken, heterosexual boss looking philosophical and saying, "You know....*I* have a *cousin* who is gay...."

You just don't get this kind of writing on most shows. So I'm grateful.
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