Season 1 Episode 2 Summary. Of QAF. What else would it be?

[left_of_centre]

Episode one: which I already *coughcough* briefly summarised" the other day. Which I also missed mentioning a hilarious quote for.

Melanie: Looks like you and Lindsey both had an infant tonight.
Brian: Yeah, but mine only sucks on my tits when I want him to.

Episode two: Opens on a three way phone conversation between Michael, Ted and Emmett. Which gives me (finally) the opportunity to introduce the latter two. *yay!*

Meet Theodore "Ted" Schmidt.



He's QAF's stereopical loser. He's 33 years old. He's an accountant. He luuuurves opera, particularly of the Italian variety. His favourite leisure activity seems to be downloading porn off the internet and masterbating. (Yup, he's that classy). He's not bad looking, but he ain't no golden god either. He has forged a lower opinion of himself from the fact that he always goes for people way out of his league (who are usually assholes anyway), as in bodybuilders, strippers etc, and gets rejected. As Michael puts it in episode 1: "Ted's got a really big heart. Only nobody here is interested in the size of that organ." Despite all the above he can be very sweet. He's quite pessimistic and sarcastic though, understandably. One would liken him to Winnie the Pooh's Eeyore. Aww. He lives in a fairly impressively sized and budgetted apartment alone with his opera cd's and collection of 33 dildos (a joke birthday gift that I'm willing to bet he may have just used anyway. Icky). He first met Brian about 4 or 5 years ago, when Ted was working as Brian's accountant, came over to Brian's house to work on some figures for him, and found Brian in the middle of an orgy. Naturally Brian asked him to join in, and naturally Ted said yes. (So technically, yes, Ted and Brian have got it on before... but it wasn't even like a one night stand). Ted has a secret crush, *dun daaa!* Which I will go into later. He is best friends with his complete polar opposite, Emmett Honeycutt.

Meet Emmett Honeycutt!



"I'd rather let my flame burn bright than be some puny little pilot light."

One word. FABULOUS. There was virtually never a time when Emmett was in the closet. He's out and proud. Flamboyant, cheerful, and clearly a giant fashionista. This is proved by his introduction. The first thing you see him doing is leaning carelessly on a bar in a pair of neon orange leather pants and a hot pink see-through tshirt. Yum. (Although that said, for a large part of the series it was more "I know I'm Fabulous" Clubwear that he wore, and it was erm... Well, not to everyone's tastes. But he just wears the cutest little coats and hats and scarves and *eee* going off on a tanget here). I don't think we ever actually find out how old he is, but I think he's younger than Brian, Michael and Ted. Maybe about 27 or 28 years old. He grew up in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, and was abused and bashed up for being gay by a lot of the close-minded people there. He moved to the Pittsburgh at I think 19 and lived temporarily with a lovely diva of a drag queen called Godiva. He currently lives in a teeny apartment with Michael, because a prostitute burnt down his old block. Nice. Works retail at a shop which sells clubwear for men (lots of slashes, neon, spikes and leather). He likes his porn too, but more in a casual "let's watch the ridiculousness of Schindler's Fist, Shaving Ryan's Privates or The Porn Identity" way than the grottyness of Ted's addiction.
He doesn't like to think of himself as promiscuous, but he's certainly had his fair share. (In reality, the only person who's had more one night stands than Em is probably Brian =P ). On first impressions he's very nelly and camp, but it's more that he's just confidant. He luuuuuurves his best friends Ted and Michael, and he Luuuuuuurves shopping even more.

And I also luuurve him very, very much.

(The above two people are my favourite thing about Queer as Folk. Closely followed by Michael and Brian, just because. =D And Debbie, whom you'll meet later. Anyway, because season 1 was based on the whole series of Queer As Folk UK, these two are stuck in mainly comic relief roles for a large part. But they get a few good stories... they just play second fiddle to the Michael-Brian-Justin business a lot of the time. They get much more fleshed out plotlines about halfway through season 1 and then in s2 they get proper full roles. Which rocks.)

Sooooo the episode in "short". Mike, Ted and Em on phone. Michael is talking about the baby and the hospital thing last night (rooftop goes unmentioned). Emmett is dressing on of the models in the window of the store (but from my angle it looks like he's feeling up the plastic model's package. Priceless!). Ted is at his office, pretending to work while he downloads porn. Viewers who look closely can see that there's a picture of Micheal in the top drawer of Ted's desk. Suddenly Michael has to go -he's calling them from work, the naughty boy. Michael's co-workers (one of whom looks like Mimi from the Drew Carey Show) are all laughing at two (male) customers holding hands, and doing cruel campy handmovements. Michael is all like, "Er, yeah, funny." and tries to sidle away. The couple gets offended and leave the store, and Michael looks guilty. Mimi-lite tries to set Michael and Tracey up on a date. Michael is like "But, I'm gay! But wait, they don't know that!" In the end he's conned into going on a group outing with Tracey, Mimi-lite, and some random guys from work.
Later on Mike, Ted and Em end up at the gym discussing this too. They're such drama queens. Can you see how much this show is like Sex and the City? =D This is where Em does his little "flame burn bright" speech too. Eee!

Brian at work. He's an advertising dude. He uses sex appeal and nails the account. Literally, as in the guy he's trying to sell it it? Yeeah, after the interview he and Brian get it on in the toilets. Nice.

Justin's at school. He discusses his first time with Daphne. He's annoying and gross and I don't like him at all, but I love Daphne cos she's kickass. Like, this is the first time he's even telling her that he's gay and she's just like "MmHmm, what else is new?"


The Wonderful Ms Daphne.

Anyway Justin is gross a lot more, discusses his own asshole, etc, ew, and tells her he's in love with Brian. Apparently last night when they were doing it, Brian yelled "I love you" to Justin. But as Brian was a)on ecstacy and b)about to come, the actual meaning of this was probably, "I'm really quite enjoying getting off!". Justin continues to be annoying. After school sport he perves on all the nekkid jocks in the boys locker room. At home his mother nags him to clean his room (he's in the middle of sketching naked boys -cuz he is an artist-, but she doesn't notice) and he's a little bitch to her. Then he gets pissed off and walks out of the house, pissing off to Liberty Avenue (gay central, mantioned previously) again. His mom cleans his room for him and *dun dun dun* she find's Brians stolen jockstrap. Gasp! Is my son gay? She wonders.

Brian drives Michael to his "date". They make jokes about Butt-plugs. It's sweet. At the date (in some tacky little diner where they watch a football game) Michael does a crappy job of hiding how gay he is (he talks about Cher and the aforementioned Butt-plug instead of say, football and home improvement), but the others are idiots and don't suspect a thing. Eventually Brian comes back and rescues Mikey from the "date". Brian acts like Mikey's his boyfriend and the idiots still don't suspect a thing.

There's a random scene somewhere with the lesbians too. They're a happy family, blah blah, but Mel hates Brian. Linz is peacemaker. They try to have a sex scene, but then they remember that the prime target audience for this show is gay men and straight women (who would be grossed out by lesbian sex), so they make some excuse about it being too soon after the birth of the baby, and go to sleep. Poor Mel and Linz usually have plots that are polar opposties to the rest of the goings on, so usually all their stories seem kinda blah. It doesn't help that they only get like, 1 scene per episode anyway.

Stuff happens, I forget. Brian, Michael, Em and Ted all end up in the Liberty Diner, (Queer As Folk's answer to the coffee shop where the girls discuss their exploits on Sex and the City), on Liberty Avenue. Brian says there's no queer in liberty avenue he hasn't had (I'm pretty sure Emmett is discluded from this allegation). Mikey's like, "you've never had me." but Brian's like, "I've half had you." The reason Mike's been in love with Brian all these years is that when they were about 14, they both had an experimental little handjob thing together in Mikey's room because they both though Patrick Swayze was hot, etc etc horny teenage boy stuff. But halfway through Mikey's mum walked in. Yikes. Sooooo Michael kinda always wanted that session finished. etc etc unrequieted love, badabing badaboom.

Justin is there suddenly. Brian says to him, "Hey Dawson! How are thing's down at the Creek?" I die and resolve to call Justin "Dawson" from now on. It's funny cuz Justin whines a lot and has floppy hair! Brian doesn't wanna do Justin again, so Brian nicks off (He hugs Michael adorably before he goes). Ted and Em nick off sometime too. I forget. I usually fastforward through this bit. Michael gets snitty (*COUGH JEALOUS COUGH*) and tells Justin to fuck off. He is just a baby after all. But then they sit down and have something to eat together anyway. The waitress is a big bouncy cheerful woman with a rainbow Pride themed vest and crazy curly red hair. She takes the boys orders and says approx 37 double entendres in 20 seconds. Justin is all like, "what a freak". Asshole. Then she comes back with their food and Michael kisses her on the cheek and says "Thanks Mom!" Heh. Thus the introduction of Debbie.



Debbie rocks. She's about... hmmm *calculates* 47 years old. Raised Michael alone because... well, I'll explain later. Basicly, he has no daddy. She's Italien, so her answer to everything in life is Homebaked Food and lots of it. Her lemon-bars are a speciality. She owns the diner in Liberty Ave and is like a surrogate mother for all the gayboys there, who're estranged from their real familys because they're sinners or whatever. A highlight of the show is Debbie's t-shirts. They always have a dirty pun or something similer written on them -this featured one says "Got Lube?" She works damn hard for the money, and was always accepting that Michael was gay... she figured it out before he did. =D She even taught him how to put condoms onto cucumbers. Awww. She's a battler and she's always cheery. She's... ah, I just can't explain to you how wonderful she is. I wish she was my mother.

So Debbie teases Michael, asking if Justin's his new boyfriend. She calls Justin Sunshine. Unfortunately for me, it's a perfect nickname, it suits him, it sticks, and the Justin fandom adopts it forever. I am grumpy about this, but at the same time, when Justin smiles... *melts* therefore Sunshine, not Dawson. =( . Justin avers that he has nowhere to go, or soemthing, I forget... but eventually he leaves. Mike and Deb walk (to Debbie's) home together. Debbie tells Michael that Justin was a little to young for him anyway. Hee. Debbie and Michael agree that this is Brian's fault and he's very annoying, but the distinct difference is that Michael is whiny and Debbie is just cool. They get to Debbie's, a modest home with 2 stories. They go in and we meet...

Vic Grassi


That's Debbie to the left and Vic to the right. Ignore the guy in the middle: He's not going to be important for another 3 seasons at least.

Vic is Debbie's brother and therefore Michael's uncle. He's... I dunno, around the same age as Debbie, but he looks a lot older. He's HIV positive and he has AIDS. A couple of years ago he had a serious health complication and ended up in a coma in hospital, with an almost guarentee that he was going to die. But he pulled through and ever since, Debbie has had to take care of him. He used to be a chef but now he can't work. Debbie cooks for him, cleans for him, (even wipes his ass for him), and they're the closest a brother and sister could be. He's got that sweet older man thing about him, he's wise and often makes dirty comments, but they always seem playful from him, as opposed to sleazy. Yes he's gay too. He was the first person Michael told he was gay. =) I luv Vic.

Debbie opens the mail and finds more medical bills (for Vic). "How am I gonna pay for this?" She asks. "Hustle!" Is Vic's reply. "Hustle" becomes a Debbie-Vic in-joke from this point onwards, and there's a cute moment in about episode 13 where the two do the hustle in the kitchen with tea-towell props. =D .

Michael goes upstairs to his old bedroom from when he lived there as a kid. He looks at a photo of him and Brian when they were teenagers (aww) and then, Uh Oh, look what Michael's found. It's his old magazine with Patrick Swayze on the front cover. Mike has this cool little fantasy/flashback thing about Brian/Patrick Swayze and starts masturbating. Debbie walks in right at the crucial moment though. "Mom!! Get Out!!" *covers crotch with magazine*. Debbie's all like, "You don't still have a crush on him, do you?", and there's so a double meaning in there like whoa.

Hmm. I got confused about this one. I actually though Justin came home with them. I succinctly remember Michael having to drive Justin home, and Vic saying he wasn't going to do it because it'd be a bit too "Fagin and Oliver Twist." And I died laughing again cos Vic just rocks that much. But whatever. Justin goes (alone) to Brian's house in the middle of the night to annoy him. Brian says fuck off. Brian is too busy looking at how hot he is in the mirror and just parading around his own apartment thinking about how hot the hotness of himself is. But Justin Loves Brian! Brian tells Justin he believes in Fucking, not Love. He's had Justin, he don't want him again. Then he says: "You can't have me. I'm too ol... You're too young for me." Cos, it's kinda true. I mean, dude, 12 years. It's a big gap. Anyway. Notice the "Brian's scared or growing old" thing coming back? Yep. Mondo- James Dean vibe coming from this guy. There's actually another guy in Brian's apartment, whom Brian dubs "Mr. Goodfuck". Justin's all, who's he? I thought what we had was special! You betrayed me! wE r MeAnT 2 B!!! Yaaaaablah blah. Brian takes Justin to the side and is all. "I'm sorry I took your virginity. Mainly sorry because now you've become my stalker. But please get over it and fuck off and go home." Justin is heartbroken and leaves. Brian looks guilty, but then he remembers Mr George Goodfuck and his problems are gone. Ze end.

Next time on QAF: Justin still loves Brian. Michael's still in the closet. Ted get's himself a toy boy, with DRAMATIC CONSEQUENCES. Emmett makes jokes, and waits for his turn to get a plotline. Mel hates Brian. Daphne's hopefully there somewhere too, cos she's cool.

So that was the second episode, or Pilot part 2. NOW I'm just going ot be doing basic season summaries for the rest, me reckons.

But seriously people, if you want to reallyenjoy the show, you have to watch the older episodes. Season 1 was easily the best, in regards to acting, writing, plot, everything. The rest is good, but it just don't have the same zing.

15.18 - 20.29