'Queer as Folk': A Firecracker Of a Season Finale

By Tom Shales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 9, 2001; Page C01

"Queer as Folk," Showtime's hot-potato drama series about gay friends living in Pittsburgh, ends its season in a daze of glory with three final episodes full of drama, heartbreak, sex and -- something other episodes have often lacked -- emotional power.

Preempted in May, "QAF" returns to wind up its 22-episode season tomorrow night, June 17 and June 24 at 10 each night, with the quality rising the closer one gets to the last moments.

The season finale in particular offers one stunner after another as various plotlines work themselves out. Showtime has asked that critics not reveal what happens, and there's no reason to spoil it for viewers. But it is fair to say that the episode includes a shocking example of a hate crime -- shocking but lamentably believable. Viewers will not know at the end of the episode if the victim dies or survives. They will have to wait until next season.

One problem with "QAF" is that its major characters don't seem to have developed over the weeks that the series has aired. Another is that they were insufficiently likable to begin with. As the season progressed, story beats just kept repeating themselves and the characters failed to show growth of virtually any kind. Michael (Hal Sparks) was ever the trusting, simpering little puppy-dog. Brian (Gale Harold) remained an arrogant, unfeeling sex addict who callously spurned the devotions of 18-year-old Justin (Randy Harrison), first encountered in the series premiere.

All these weeks have gone by and Brian is still trying to ignore Justin and push him away, even though the kid is devoted to him. Brian prefers having anonymous sex with a nearly infinite number of partners, thus perpetuating the stereotype that homosexuals are by nature promiscuous. In the episode airing June 17, Brian accepts an advertising award from a man in one scene and a short time later is having sex with himin a secluded part of the ballroom where the ceremony takes place.

One could say, to paraphrase Will Rogers, that he never met a man he didn't like.

One fairly recent development has proved to be among the most engaging and touching subplots. Wimpy Ted (Scott Lowell) befriended a young man named Blake (Dean Armstrong, giving the best performance in the series) who is addicted to drugs. Determined to rescue Blake, Ted takes him under his wing and becomes part father-figure to him. But try as he may right up through the season finale, Blake keeps slipping back.

Emmett (Peter Paige) had a brief flirtation with a group devoted to "reforming" gays and turning them heterosexual. It didn't work. Michael moved in with an older man, David the dull doctor (Chris Potter). Fans of the show are probably anxious to see David go away. Not until the last moments of the final episode will they know if Michael will move to Portland with Daddy Doc or stay in Pittsburgh with his real friends.

The flashiest episodes in the series have been directed by Russell Mulcahy, who made his name doing some of the earliest, and best, music videos. But the Mulcahy episodes also have often come across as heartlessly glitzy, and they have made the characters appear superficial and sex-obsessed.

In general, the more time the characters spent at the Babylon Club, their favorite disco, the less interesting an episode was dramatically -- though, no doubt to some viewers' approval, the more flesh was exposed to the camera. Tomorrow night's episode is a virtual boy parade -- a boy watcher's orgy, but a drama lover's waste of time.

But in the final episode, they barely go to Babylon at all, and the amount of emotional investment one has in the story is substantially increased. This one was directed by Alex Chapple and written by Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, the two producers who adapted the series for American TV from a British original.

The cast also includes Sharon Gless in a touching performance as Michael's big-hearted mother, and Michelle Clunie and Thea Gill as two lesbians living together and raising a baby fathered by glum, slutty Brian.

In the final chapters, Brian gets a comeuppance when a job in New York and the promise of a new life fall through. Then he turns 30, a crucial milestone for someone who worships youth and is terrified of growing old. There are signs, though, that Brian's superficial values are changing and that he may be forced to grow up.

The last episode emphasizes, sometimes in stunning ways, that "Queer as Folk" isn't just about being homosexual in America or about a certain lifestyle. It's about the need to love and be loved -- indeed, the need to be needed. About friendship and interdependence and compassion.

Whatever criticisms might be leveled at individual episodes, "QAF" clearly qualifies as among the most adventurous television events of the season, a show like none other anywhere on the dial.

Return toTBC  GLBT News
http://tampabaycoalition.homestead.com/News.html