Faking It Episode 215 Recap: Raise Your Hand If You’ve Been Outed By Shane Harvey

Welcome to the fifteenth recap of the second season of Faking It, a gripping miniseries about canning pears in extreme conditions from the network that brought you Where My Dogs At?


This week on Faking It, we’re doing a Breakfast Club episode, which’s convenient, as it is my favorite film of all time. I hope Ally Sheedy shows up or somebody tells somebody else to eat their shorts. Anyhow, this conceit is frequently re-used in television shows as it manages to confine all major characters to a small space nobody is permitted to leave, therefore enabling all kinds of revelations and discoveries. See also: Dawson’s Creek “Detention” and all of these.

So: Lauren, Amy, Karma, Liam, Shane and Felix the Cat are in detention, which’s their first appearance in an actual classroom so far this season!

Fuck, I forgot to clip my nails and Amy is sleeping over tonight

Damn, there’s no way I can fuck Amy today with these nails

Felix gets us off to an expositiony start by digging in to what they’re in for. Shane’s there on account of that naked protest. Lauren insists her detention must be a “clerical error.” Amy, who apparently has also struggled to cope with our lack-of-knowledge regarding Poussey’s arrest record, isn’t saying:

Amy: You obviously have never watched Orange is the New Black. You don’t ask somebody why they’re doing time.

But then she does say: she cut class to catch a foreign film, which’s obviously a lie, because, well, this is Faking It. Karma allegedly fell asleep during geometry and Liam allegedly took a conference call during Philosophy. Felix offers only, “let’s just say that Turner’s got it in for me.” Regardless, this is gonna be good. We should be able to crack open 10-15 secrets by noon-ish.

Faking It-21500021

Six children. Six tables. Who will be the first to build a castle out of schoolbooks? Stay tuned to find out!

In the meantime, Shane’s emotionally eating his pain over the Duke breakup…

LOOK WHO WON HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR, BITCHES

LOOK WHO WON HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR, BITCHES

…Lauren’s wearing black gloves and a cardigan despite the building’s lack of weekend AC…

Let's just say if SOMEBODY gets murdered today, my fingerprints will NOT be entered into evidence

I’m giving myself a paraffin manicure, okay? It’s self care.

Karma and Amy are playing with Santana’s nail file…

I think they're short enough for finger-banging but if we're gonna try fisting I wanna be extra-sure there's no sharp edges

I think they’re short enough for finger-banging but if we’re gonna try fisting I wanna be EXTRA-sure there’s no sharp edges, because you can NEVER be too careful!

…Felix is working on an abstract art project…

Everybody thinks Liam Booker is SUCH A GOOD ARTIST, well I'LL SHOW THEM

Everybody thinks Liam Booker is SUCH A GOOD ARTIST, well I’LL SHOW THEM

…and Liam is like, whatever

What? Don't tell me you've never tried to bag a chick 'cause she's a lesbian before!

What? Don’t tell me you’ve never tried to bag a lesbian before!

For reasons unclear to Honest People like me and perhaps also you, Amy’s told Karma that Farrah’s been stepping out on her beau, but has failed to reveal that her secret down-low lover is Amy’s paternal figure. Amy begs Lauren to keep it a secret from Bruce, but Lauren’s not sure why — wouldn’t Amy prefer for her parents to reunite so Lauren and Bruce can get the hell out of Liberal Blue Oasis Dodge?

Amy: I don’t want them to get back together, all they do is fight. They’re like oil and vinegar.
Lauren: Oil and vinegar are delicious.
Amy: You know what I mean!

Lauren’s dead-set on telling Daddy, despite Amy’s pleas that it’ll break their family apart — but Lauren knows better. That’s not on her, she says. That’s on Farrah.

Meanwhile, Liam’s concerned about Shane’s caloric intake and Shane’s insistence that if Duke can’t see the outing as a “favor” then WHATEVER, DUKE. Before we can delve even deeper into Shane’s delusional beliefs in the power of outing, Theo shows up to “escort Lauren to the principal’s office.” Everybody calls him a narc and throws things at him.

Look I hate to spring this on y'all but my handcuffs have gone missing and I don't know where else to look

Look I know one of you has my handcuffs, just pass ’em over and nobody will get in any more trouble

Welp, there goes tonight's Orange is the New Black roleplay

Welp, there goes tonight’s Orange is the New Black roleplay

Karma’s DYING to know why Felix is in detention but all Felix will reveal is that his Dad doesn’t “trust him to be alone.” I’m assuming his Dad is worried, as am I, that Felix will screw up our lesbian storyline, but Dad obviously didn’t think this particular Saturday through very well.

Shane won’t share any of his candy so Amy digs through Karma’s bizarre bag in search of mints, but instead she gets a whole new kind of flavor explosion: a $250,000 check from Sporkle McBooker.

Guess who found the back-up pair of fuzzy handcuffs?

Guess who found the back-up pair of fuzzy handcuffs?

Amy yanks Karma into the hallway for a bathroom break — an obvious cover for Amy to ask Karma about the check — but before they can get down to business, they run smack-dab into Theo and Lauren getting down to some very gentle petting business.

faking it karma amy

HOLY SHIT LAUREN JUST GREW TWO FEET IN FIVE MINUTES

Faking It

I’m slouching.

Just then, Principal Turner pops up and Theo covers by saying the children were escaping and he was merely rounding them up and returning them to their Detention Room, where all will be revealed.


So, the revelations continue: like now Amy wants to know how Lauren could return to Theo after all those lies, because the rule of Liars is that “lying isn’t okay for anybody besides me,” and “me” is whoever is talking at the time. Got it? Good. Shane’s pissed too, which means he’s apparently stolen somebody else’s leg to stand on:

Shane: After Amy and I helped you out him???!
Liam: You outed Theo, too? Why am I not surprised!
Karma: Lauren, he arrested my parents! And me and Amy!
Lauren: Because he was protecting our secret!
Shane: Oh Lauren, when are you gonna learn. Secrets always come out.
Lauren: Yeah, because YOU OUT THEM.

You PROMISED me that we'd go see Freeheld TOGETHER!

You PROMISED me that we’d go see Freeheld TOGETHER!

Yeah, until I decided my lesbian crush on Ellen Page wasn't healthy

Yeah, until I decided my lesbian crush on Ellen Page wasn’t healthy

Uh, actually, Amy promised she'd take me because of MY unhealthy crush on Ellen Page.

Then Amy can take me because I ALSO have an unhealthy lesbian crush on Ellen Page.

UGH seriously, who else in this room has a lesbian crush on Ellen Page

UGH okay, who else in this room has an unhealthy lesbian crush on Ellen Page?

Faking It-21500122

I just wanted one thing to myself. One thing.

I just wanted one thing to myself. One thing.

Lauren asks everybody to raise their hand if they’ve been outed by Shane or victimized by Regina George, and the majority of humans in this room admit to sharing this experience. Liam wants Shane to admit that he has an outing problem! Shane wants Liam to admit that he’s a corporate sellout! Amy wants Lauren to admit that Theo’s just gonna hurt her again! Lauren doesn’t want anybody to tell on Theo ’cause then he’d lose his job! Amy won’t tell on Theo if Lauren doesn’t tell on Farrah! So then Lauren tells everybody that Farrah’s hooking up with Amy’s Dad! So now Karma knows that Amy was lying to her!

And me, right? You still have a crush on me?

What’s next, you’re gonna tell me that Annie’s Homegrown Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks have zero nutritional value?

Amy didn’t tell Karma ’cause she didn’t want Karma to be all weird and judgy about Amy’s Dad! This seems to be a fundamental dysfunction amongst Amy and Karma — the idea that uncomfortable or ugly or unpleasant information is only as uncomfortable as it is known. As if life isn’t life but just the stories we tell about it. In David Carr’s memoir The Night of the Gun, he provides his own personal sobriety checklist, and although we’re not dealing with anything so deep here in this show, this show often reminds me of this one item on the list: The problem with your life is behavior, not disclosure. If you want to live a life you can be honest about, live one that is worthy. The answer to life is learning to live. If you’ve ever cheated on somebody, you’ve thought something like “well, it’s only bad if they find out.” But there’s a better option there, hiding behind your lie: don’t do anything you’d have to lie about in the first place. Simple.

So, back to the action: Karma says Amy’s Dad is a shitbag! Amy says her Dad is a war journalist so it’s not up to him when he has to go journalize a war!

Amy: BUSTED! I’m guilty of spending time with my father!
Karma: No, you’re guilty of telling yet another lie!

Could I interest anybody in a game of Parcheesi?

Could I interest anybody in a game of Parcheesi?

Shane argues for everybody being their true authentic selves, but everybody calls bullshit, especially Liam, who notes that it’s not possible for Shane to “do the wrong things and then pretend it’s for the right reason.”  Amy’s trying to convince Lauren that Farrah says her fling with Hank was meaningless and CAN’T THEY JUST MOVE ON!? Karma, unable to miss an opportunity to remind all of us that Amy slept with Liam, jumps in with how familiar that all sounds — meaningless fling, “can’t we just move on,” et al. And then Amy, for some batshit reason, decides to tell the room about Karma’s $250k check from Sparkle McBrooker. At last: silence. Well, except Felix:

Felix: That’s quite a big check. Seriously, that’s like, twice the standard size.

Karma admits that Liam’s Dad offered her that check to stay away but she hadn’t cashed it yet. Liam flies off the handle, explaining what a valiant effort he made by allegedly eventually removing his tongue from Zita’s mouth. Amy stands up for Karma at least thinking about taking the payoff, and Karma weakly explains, fully crying now, how the check could get her parents’ house back. Liam can hate his parents and their company and want to give it all up for Art all he wants, but he’ll never ever understand what it’s like to be Karma. He’s not shocked that his Dad wrote the check — he’s shocked that Karma took it but has not cashed it, is merely considering it — shocked that she might prioritize her family’s health and happiness over a ‘relationship’ that wasn’t working anyhow to take money from a corporate cornhole who’s got plenty to go around.

Karma: I’m not rich, Liam. I didn’t fall asleep in class because I’ve been studying. I’ve been working every catering gig I could get and I live in a freaking JUICE TRUCK.

If women really can't tolerate the same levels of criticism as men, then it is unfair to men to force us to negotiate women's emotional minefields while we are trying to interact with other men in professional, educational, or social settings!

If women really can’t tolerate the same levels of criticism as men, then it is unfair to men to force us to negotiate women’s emotional minefields while we are trying to interact with other men in professional, educational, or social settings!

Faking It-21500162

I thought they blocked Reddit at Skorkle

So, Liam’s just learned that his not-girlfriend’s been sleeping in a juice truck and working all night and instead of summoning empathy, he declares it “so besides the point” and shouts that if she’d been offered that much to stay away from Amy, she wouldn’t have “considered it for one second.” But Amy’s Karma’s life-long best friend, not an ex-boyfriend who spells words with staple guns, shines a reading lamp on it and calls it “art.”

Nobody points this out, of course, because now Shane is crying. Wailing, actually, into his pit of miniature candy bars and despair:

Shane: You’re right, I am a terrible person. I outed you two as lesbians because I didn’t want Lauren to win homecoming queen, and I outed your pills because I wanted to take you down. And I outed Duke because I wanted to ruin his life, instead he told me he loved me. And now he hates me. And he should. I hate me.

Everybody goes soft on Shane — just ’cause you did a bad thing, it doesn’t make you a bad person — and within a matter of minutes, the entire group has decided to leave their worries and conflicts behind them in pursuit of a singular goal: getting Shane to Duke’s gym before Duke walks off this soundstage forever, forcing Shane to shack up with somebody in his own age bracket.

caption

How can any of us live in a world where Jamal is the villain? How?


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Riese

Riese is the 41-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3251 articles for us.

32 Comments

  1. Yesss! I knew there was a really solid reason I was wasting time on the Internet. I love these recaps.

    One question: “Amy’s trying to convince Lauren that Farrah says her affair with Bruce was meaningless”–should that be Hank, not Bruce? Don’t actually watch the show, so don’t know.

    Also, will now be trying the LGBT History quiz :-D

  2. – I’m glad that you called out that point where Liam is equating his 2-3 month relationship with Karma to Amy’s lifelong BFF status with Karma. That pissed me off so much when I saw that.
    – I’m also glad that Karma calls out Liam’s, “Oh, I’m a suffering artist, and I hate the gads of money that my family showers me with. It’s so terrible.”

  3. I know this is the Faking It recap, and not the Empire recap, but THIIIIIIIIS:

    “How can any of us live in a world where Jamal is the villain? How?”

    Anyway, about the actual show we’re discussing here – That all seemed really easy. What is going to happen now that no one has any more secrets? Oh that’s right, they’ll start reusing secrets from all the way back in the pilot. Maybe Karma will actually become a lesbian this time!?

  4. I haven’t finished reading the recap, but I needed to tell you (Riese) the set up to the Reddit caption was so on point and laugh or cry funny I head my head on the table.
    It’s almost a direct quote of the sort of shit my man siblings say.

  5. I was heretofore mildly tolerant of Liam, but using the check that could have made the girl he is hypothetically in Love with life’s so much easier to send a F U note to his father: Just no.
    Yes, if Karma would have gotten the check to never see Amy again, she wouldn’t have taken it.
    But Amy would have told her to…and probably come up with some BS plan so Karma would end her friendship with her and take the check.
    That said, who else danced the snoopy dance when Liam and Karma broke up?

    • I know, I also had been softening SLIGHTLY towards Liam throughout the season, but this episode any chances of me ever liking him totally evaporated. “That’s completely besides the point”??? No bro, that is EXACTLY THE POINT.

  6. oh god, amy is probably pregnant. there’s no other reason the storyline would have her randomly throw up. NOOOOOOOOOO.

  7. I’m really grateful for these recaps bc they’re hilarious (the screen caps, oh my!), but mostly because I don’t have time for faking it right now, and these recaps are keeping me update to date on the action. Thanks Riese!

  8. Victorious did a Breakfast Club episode once and honestly I liked that better.

    Here’s an idea. Why doesn’t this show just put Karma and Felix together. They have had more interaction and their is a bit of chemistry there. And yet, I have a feeling Carter Covington is going to shit in my cereal anyway.

    On a positive note, Lauren is still the light of my life. And Amy’s Dad is cute. I know I have seen him somewhere before. I think he might have been on True Blood in one of the earlier seasons.

    • Yeah, three episodes of True Blood, apparently. Though I remember him more from Eureka, as Nathan Stark. ^^

    • oh interesting, i thought that maybe i just recognized him ’cause he looked a little bit like bradley cooper.

  9. Thanks for keeping up the recaps! I can’t bring myself to watch another episode just yet, but I enjoy these a lot.

    Glad the Duke/Shane ship has sunk. Hopefully with Shane’s change of mindset he can find a boyfriend within high school and actually give them some respect as a person. He still needs to grow a bit more, but he’s making progress.

  10. I so very much want to read this but either this ep. didn’t air in Canada last night or my TV didn’t record it :(

    Rises, I’m sure your recap is amazing as always!

  11. Felix: Is oral sex really sex?

    Principal Turner: Well son, I think it’s time I’ve showed you Autostraddle’s Is It Sex chart…

  12. “as if breaking up with Liam compared to losing a parent on any planet in any solar system anywhere.” SERIOUSLY, as soon as they said that line I was like OMG what is wrong with you Karma. Granted she’s in high school, and high schoolers are pretty stupid and self absorbed so maybe it’s kinda accurate.

    Also I would have totally taken that check because wtf would the Dad do if she continued to hang out with Liam? Unless she signed some contract, which I don’t think would have been enforceable anyway, the check is a gift. I mean, I also would have been fine not hanging out with an ex for that amount of money anyway.

  13. Aw, I miss Oliver.

    My favorite Breakfast Club episode of anything is the film Detention, and now I unfairly compare everything to it.

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