While Looking only lasted two seasons (and a movie), the series about a group of gay men living and loving (ooh those sex scenes!) in San Francisco will always have a place in our hearts. Still, we can’t help but wonder what might have been should the powers that be at HBO have kept it going a bit longer.
Now we know.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Looking creator Michael Lannan opened up about what was going to be next for Patrick (Jonathan Groff), Agustín (Frankie J. Alvarez), Dom (Murray Bartlett), Doris (Lauren Weedman), Kevin (Russell Tovey), and Richie (Raúl Castillo).
Courtesy of HBO
According to Lannan, Patrick’s complicated love life would continue to be complicated. “Patrick has this standard love triangle, and it felt like it was time to shatter that trope,” Lannan told Entertainment Weekly. There were two options they had in mind: one was that he would find a sexually fluid partner who would test the rigid Patrick’s sexuality. “In the best-case scenario, I think Patrick was going to learn to take himself a little less seriously through this relationship, while also feeling more confident in his own identity,” said Lannan. The other option was that Patrick would throuple up.
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Influenced by Eddie and his work at a youth center, Agustín was set to go on a journey to explore his gender identity in the third season. “He was one of those characters who found compassion for other people in season two, and one of his superpowers was keeping his mind open,” shared Lannan.
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In season three, Dom was set to enter his daddy era. “After his relationship with Lynn, when he was the younger guy, it would have been fun to flip that to see what it would be like to literally become a daddy and have to be responsible for a kid,” shared Lannan. The new man in his life would have only recently come out and previously had a wife with whom he shared a child. “Maybe Dom was going to become a stepdad to this teenager, which would be funny and interesting to watch,” Lannan explained.
The story was going to explore more than just Dom’s love life but also where his professional life would take him. “Dom, in some ways, is quite a self-actualized person, and I like the idea that he goes into the world and maybe he opens up a restaurant in Mexico City after he’s done with San Francisco, and creates a chosen family of his own. That’s our spin-off,” teased Lannan.
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Doris would continue on her motherhood journey in season three. “We thought it would be fun to explore how all of her gay friends reacted and got involved in that kind of issue. We wanted to see someone funny and thoughtful and queer-adjacent try to figure out what motherhood even means at that point in time and in that world,” shared Lannan.
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Had the series continued. Lannan said that audiences would have seen more about Richie’s family life. In the film, the character revealed his challenging relationship with his father to Patrick, but the show would have delved deeper. “We did spin up quite a number of ideas about how Patrick would interact with Richie’s family,” says Lannan. “Patrick would have to figure out how he was going to engage with this family that was so different from his, and how it affected their relationship.”
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Lannan revealed that they considered having Kevin develop a drug addiction after splitting with Patrick but decided that was a bad story. Instead, “it would be more like the story of a guy deeply entrenched in the very competitive tech and queer cultures who found some tools that helped him be the hottest, best, most fun, and wild version of himself — until he wasn’t,” explained Lannan
While sadly this version of season three was not to be, Lannan did offer some hope for the future. As he told EW, he would love to bring the gang back together, it’s just a matter of finding the right story. “A Christmas special is one idea that has been thrown around, so put that on your wishlist,” he teased.
