Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Looking: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Better Late Than Never

Reviewed by Michael Reuben December 23, 2016

Spoiler warning: The following review assumes familiarity with Season One of Looking. For a spoiler-free introduction to the show, see the Season One review.

HBO canceled Looking after its second season aired one year after Season One, from January 11-March 22, 2015, due to declining ratings. While the pay-TV network has been known to be stingy with Blu-ray releases of canceled series (fans of Enlightened are still waiting for its impressive second season on Blu), Looking turned out to be a special case. In response to an online petition, HBO decided to give the show's creators a chance to wrap up the series with a full-length TV movie, which aired on July 23, 2016. Both the movie and Season Two have now been issued on Blu-ray, but there's a catch: You have to re-buy Season One. The continuation and conclusion of Looking are available only as part of a Complete Series package.

The opening episode of Season Two ("Looking for the Promised Land") provides a welcome change of scenery for both the series and the three main characters, as Patrick (Jonathan Groff), Dom (Murray Bartlett) and Agustín (Frankie J. Alvarez) drive north from San Francisco to spend a weekend in the scenic woods near Russian River. Their destination is a spacious cabin owned by Lynn (Scott Bakula), with whom Dom is still involved, although the exact parameters of the relationship are an open question. The outing serves as both a series refresher and a kind of reboot, as the trio of friends catch up on each other's lives. They are soon joined by Doris (Lauren Weedman), Dom's roommate and best friend since high school, who brings her usual kick of high energy to the proceedings. When the group fans out into the surrounding woods, where an open-air party is in full swing, events are set in motion that will reverberate throughout the remaining nine episodes.

Jonathan Groff's Patrick remains the series' center, which turns out to be both a plus and a minus in Season Two. Groff is an engaging performer (he originated the role of King George III in Hamilton on Broadway), and he is able to bring off difficult scenes that would defeat a lesser actor, including a memorabe meltdown at a Halloween party in episode 6 ("Looking for Gordon Freeman"). But Groff is weighed down by an artificially prolonged romantic predicament that has Patrick in a state of near-paralysis for much of the season, as he continues his clandestine affair with boss Kevin (Russell Tovey), while secretly pining for Richie the barber (Raúl Castillo), who is the proverbial "one that got away". The writers' room contrives repeated encounters between Patrick and Richie, who is now dating a red-headed reporter named Brady (Chris Perfetti), and the estranged pair spends so much time looking longingly in each other's direction that you want to reach out and shove them together. Meanwhile, Patrick's relationship with Kevin, who still officially has a committed long-term partner, becomes ever more twisted.

The best parts of Season Two involve the series' other characters, who provide a respite from Patrick's romantic tribulations. A standout example is episode 8 ("Looking for a Plot"), when Dom accompanies Doris back to their hometown of Modesto for her father's funeral. As the two life-long friends (and former lovers) revisit old haunts, they find themselves reflecting on their present circumstances—and changes ensue. Dom finally takes the plunge to open the Portuguese-style eatery about which he's been dreaming, and Doris begins cautiously moving closer to her new love interest, Malik (Bashir Salahuddin), who works at City Hall as an assistant to the mayor.

Agustín, despite an attempted intervention by his friends during their weekend in the country, continues his downward spiral of alcohol and drugs, but he is brought up short by a new acquaintance, Eddie (Daniel Franzese), a "bear" he meets at the woodland party. Though outwardly jocular and frivolous, Eddie has hidden depths, as Agustín discovers when he visits the homeless shelter for LGBT youth where Eddie volunteers. (There are other complexities as well.) Through Eddie, Agustín begins to see himself differently and finally glimpses the possibility of moving past his failed relationships and his ill-fated career as a painter.

Looking's showrunners, Andrew Haigh and Michael Lannan, clearly anticipated a third season, because they conclude Season Two with a series of soap-opera machinations—involving Patrick, of course—that are left sufficiently unresolved to allow for several future possibilities. By that point, however, the signs of creative exhaustion were unmistakable, and HBO rightly concluded that it was time to bring these latter-day "Tales of the City" to a conclusion.

Looking: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Looking got a new cinematographer for Season Two, Xavier Pérez Grobet (Focus), who has maintained consistency with Season One's desaturated visuals, but Grobet has subtly brightened the image and varied the pallette to provide relief from the unrelenting cyan grunge of the previous season. The digitally acquired image remains sharp and detailed, and HBO has spread the ten episodes over two BD-50s, allowing for a higher average bitrate than the Season One set, approximately 27 Mbps.

Looking: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack for Looking's continues the style established in Season One, supplying effective environmental ambiance that is particularly noticeable whenever the action leaves the familiar urban environs of San Francisco (e.g., in episode 1, where forest sounds form an intriguing blend with outdoor partying). Club scenes remain vibrantly loud, with deep bass extension. Dialogue is always clear, centered and correctly prioritized. The musical selections, which range from Sister Sledge to Pet Shop Boys to generic club music, remain inventive and effective. (There is no independent underscoring.)

Looking: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As with Season One, the extras consist entirely of commentaries, of which there are ten, one for each episode. Unfortunately, the creators have replicated the group format used on the previous Blu-ray set, which continues the party-like atmosphere but isn't always conducive to an informative discussion. Participants are listed below. Note that these were recorded before the episodes aired, which explains the frequent references to an anticipated third season that never came to be.

• Commentaries
• Episode 1, with Executive Producer/Writer/Director Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive Producer/Writer Michael Lannan, Jonathan Groff (Patrick), Frankie J. Alvarez (Augustín) & Murray Bartlett (Dom)


• Episode 2, with Executive Producer/Director Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive/Writer Producer Michael Lannan, Jonathan Groff (Patrick), Frankie J. Alvarez (Augustín), Murray Bartlett (Dom) & Raúl Castillo (Richie)


• Episode 3, with Executive Producer Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive Producer Michael Lannan, Co-Executive Producer/Writer John Hoffman, Jonathan Groff (Patrick) & Murray Bartlett (Dom)


• Episode 4, with Executive Producer Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive Producer Michael Lannan, Producer/Writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Jonathan Groff (Patrick), Murray Bartlett (Dom) & Russell Tovey (Kevin)


• Episode 5, with Executive Producer/Director Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive Producer Michael Lannan, Co-Producer/Writer Tanya Saracho, Jonathan Groff (Patrick), Raúl Castillo (Richie) & Daniel Franzese (Eddie)


• Episode 6, with Executive Producer Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive Producer Michael Lannan, Co-Producer/Writer JC Lee & Jonathan Groff (Patrick)


• Episode 7, with Executive Producer/Director Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive Producer Michael Lannan, Jonathan Groff (Patrick) , Murray Bartlett (Dom) & Lauren Weedman (Doris)


• Episode 8, with Executive Producer Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive Producer/Writer Michael Lannan, Jonathan Groff (Patrick) & Russell Tovey (Kevin)


• Episode 9, with Executive Producer Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive/Writer Producer Michael Lannan, Jonathan Groff (Patrick), Frankie J. Alvarez (Augustín) & Daniel Franzese (Eddie)


• Episode 10, with Executive Producer/Writer/Director Andrew Haigh, Creator/Co-Executive Producer/Writer Michael Lannan, Co-Executive Producer/Writer John Hoffman, Jonathan Groff (Patrick) & Russell Tovey (Kevin)

Looking: The Complete Second Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In reviewing Looking's inaugural season, I was struck by how effectively the show's creators expanded the universe of gay characters beyond the usual TV cliches. That project continued in Season Two, but it was undercut by the creeping incursion of a different set of stereotypes, as Groff's Patrick was reduced to a bundle of soap opera tics and conflicts. Still, there's much to admire in Looking's effort to portray gay characters as everyday people with familiar needs, conflicts and confusion in the face of life's challenges. Just when you've reached the point where you're ready to switch off completely, one of the supporting characters recaptures your interest. Recommended for fans of the show; newcomers might want to sample Season One through video-on-demand before deciding.