Happiest Gay Couple, Episode II: Attack of the Alpha Moms

Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World, is shaping up to be the most parenting-centric LGBT show on television, documentaries aside. I had some qualms about the first episode, and its use of the tired “wacky lesbian antics in search of sperm” motif, but creator Q. Allan Brocka left a comment on my post to remind me that the series is based on an older script. If the search for sperm seems a tired topic now, that’s a sign of progress. He also assures us that parenting will remain a central theme:

Back in 1999 when I first wrote the script, it wasn’t quite a cliché yet. Honestly, I’m so happy we’ve come so far that now lesbians having a child on TV is considered a “cliché,” when back then it was “inappropriate.” Even so, I decided to keep with the same storyline for the first episode because I still wanted set up the family that will be the center of the show for (hopefully) seasons to come. We plan to have many, many adventures in intricacies of parenting. . . .

PS lesbian irreverence is coming, direct order from my sister. I just didn’t want to have BOTH couples falling apart in the first episode and still trying to have a baby.

(Spoilers to follow.)

Episode II starts to take us down that path as we meet Ebony and Ivory, best friends of Dana and Kirsten, the two main lesbian characters. They already have a baby, and ask Dana and Kirsten to watch their young ‘un while they go to a lesbian retreat. Dana and Kirsten agree, thinking it will be a good way to give parenting a trial run. Only then do they discovered that Ebony and Ivory, radical dykes that they are, have refused to discover the gender of Baby Echinacea. They don’t want to unwittingly impose any gender stereotypes on their child. Ebony and Ivory’s rigid set of rules about how to treat their child also indicate a certain type of alpha parent (LGBT or not) whom many of us would recognize. They’re marching into parenthood with a righteous sense of what to do and how to do it. We laugh at them (though not to their faces) in real life, too. Children have a way of messing up the best laid plans. Not that I’m dismissing having some rules and standards, but flexibility is key.

Happiest Gay Couple missed the boat, however, as it began to show cracks in this wall. When Rick watches the news with Baby Echinacea, Echinacea learns a first word, “Bush.” Dana and Kirsten are horrified, knowing what their friends’ reaction will be when they learn their child is saying our president’s name. Come on, though—Ebony and Ivory have just been at a radical lesbian feminist retreat learning to celebrate their vaginas. Wouldn’t Dana and Kirsten have been excited to tell their friends Echinacea’s first word was “bush”? When Echinacea blurts it out to her moms, however, Ebony falls right into the delusion that her child is trying to say her name. (Yeah, we’ve all been there. All of our children are geniuses.) The overlooked “bush” parallel stands out, though, in a show that otherwise makes every attempt to discuss private body parts and functions. It’s possible the writers thought the parental delusion angle was funnier, because it was non-obvious, but that seems a little too subtle.

I suppose “Cheney” would have been unbelievable as a child’s first word, though, and the one thing we want from our animated plastic-people gay comedy is realism, so perhaps I quibble. Next week, we find out the results of Dana and Kirsten’s next pregnancy attempt, which promises yet more parenting funnies. Stay tuned.