Welcome to the fifth recap of the third season of Faking It! I am continuing to write these recaps despite lower readership because you all made me feel so hilarious and appreciated last week when I said that maybe I should stop recapping. Including Autostraddle Captions Are Funny, who I was worried no longer found my captions funny. I mean I’ve had some pretty funny captions recently! I will, however, be breezing through the Liam/Shane parts. Oh by the way, this show is about Instant Rice and the futility of life, and it’s brought to you by the same network that brought you Is She Really Going Out With Him?
We open in Amy’s boudoir, where she and Karma are lying together on the bed leafing through a trapper keeper with their upper arms touching. They’re catching up on all the things they didn’t say to each other this summer because Plot Device. Specifically: letters Karma never mailed and e-mails Amy never sent. Karma says her father’s brush with death made her realize how important it is to love your friends, especially the ones who want to have sex with you. She didn’t say that last part but it’s obvious that’s what she means.
Then Lauren busts in, sees the two girls canoodling on the bed and groans “here we go again!”  She then announces she’ll leave the TWO LOVEBIRDS ALONE before retreating to her bed where she’s video-chatting her Dad, who’s holed up in a No-Tell Motel eating lots of pizzas and Chinese food and then stacking the takeout containers on his bed and his bedside table.
Apparently, Bruce is coming to Austin this very weekend! How exciting! Amy pops in to apologize to Lauren for being too caught up in Karma lately to hang out, but before Lauren can announce loudly that she doesn’t care, Farrah pops in to borrow some pants so she can look hot in her Tinder pic, because apparently she plans on using a full-body pic on Tinder.
Lauren doesn’t care about Amy being super-busy with Karma, because Lauren’s totes brill and fine and chill and independent and stuff. She’s just frustrated that Lauren’s heading back down Karma’s rabbit hole when we all know what Amy really wants is a round-trip ticket through Karma’s vagina hole. Amy’s like, “Karma’s my BFF, but you’re my BFSister!” and Lauren’s like, “yeah kinda” and then they’re like “OH LET’S GET OUR PARENTS BACK TOGETHER.” Well it’s Lauren’s idea — getting their parents back together. But Amy kind of just floats into it and agrees to take part, as she so often does.
Liam and his Jewish supervisor are hooking up in the back room and she wants to take things to the next level (S-E-X) and I don’t care!
So Karma’s Dad is alive! Also, Karma’s Dad and Mom have a secret that’s been weighing heavily on their hearts and they need to open up their aura-hearts and soul-spaces and share what’s inside of them with their dearest daughter Karma to prevent anymore stress-related heart attacks.
What’s the big announcement? Welp: The Aschrofts are… POLY! This is totally on brand for them, as is the fact that they are currently dating a lady named Diane I love them. Karma says it’s all good, ’cause it’s totally on brand for Karma to pretend to be okay with things she’s actually not okay with at all and then to deal with her not-okayness by trying to sabotage the situation or just being generally passive-aggressive. But Karma’s so high on love and full of love right now — just chock-full of love for all the living things for as long as they all should live! — that her parents totally buy her faux-acceptance. In fact, they’d love for Karma to meet their potential girlfriend Diane this very evening!
Brew and WhoCares: Liam isn’t concerned about Karma anymore ’cause now he’s dating a nice Jewish girl named Rachel and the Rabbi wants him to come over for dinner! With Shane! Who The Rabbi obviously thinks is Liam’s boyfriend.
Chez Fawcett: Lauren and Amy are having a meeting of the Love Masterminds in which they re-explain their plan to get their parents back together to each other as a way of explaining it to the audience (That’s us! This is for us!). Here’s the plan: Farrah will be lured to a location via a fake Tinder date set up by Lauren and Amy. When she arrives, the Imaginary Tinder Date will not arrive, because he is imaginary, which will make Farrah sad.
THEN, New and Improved Stuffed Crust Bruce will swoop in and rescue Farrah from a potentially devastating evening. They’ll fall back in love and Texas two-step into the Tequila Sunrise.
Liam and Shane show up to the Rabbi’s with a party-sub-sized challah and are met with a big surprise: Rachel Supervisorstein is the Rabbi’s daughter! I guess when her Dad said Liam and Shane were coming over for dinner, she must have thought he meant that OTHER Liam and Shane. On the other hand though I don’t really care.
In Karmy’s bathroom love palace, Amy’s almost as amused about Diane as I am. “My parents are in a thruple with a woman named Diane,” laments Karma. “And yes, before you say anything I do realize the irony of this happening to a girl who has had two almost-threesomes.”  It’s always a bummer to find out your parents are more sexually adventurous than you are! Actually, no, it’s always a bummer to find out your parents do anything sexual, period. Full stop.
So, it turns out that Karma was just pretending to be cool about Diane so that her Dad wouldn’t die. Also her shirt has no shoulders, so her shoulders are probably cold. Speaking of cold shoulders, that’s what she’s given to her parents even though she didn’t ACTUALLY have plans with Amy tonight. Instead, she’s inviting herself to Amy’s Parent Trap Project. Lauren’s not excited about this development.
Karma says she can help and Lauren says all she’s gotta do is just not fuck it up by causing drama. Hey speaking of, guess who else is at Swingfest?!! It’s Molly and Lucas!
Molly and Lucas “misunderstood what kind of swing fest it was,” which, I mean, is fucking adorable. Oh and guess who else is here?!!!! IT’S DIANE!! DIANE IS SO EXCITED TO MEET KARMA AND KARMA IS NOT EXCITED TO MEET DIANE. I’m excited to meet Diane, though, so. Somebody’s gotta be excited about Diane.
Back at The Rabbi Dinner, this HILARIOUS thing is happening wherein the Rabbi wants Liam to know he’s totally cool about Liam dating Shane, but since no proper nouns are uttered, Liam and Rachel both think the Rabbi is cool about Liam and Rachel dating and don’t realize that he thinks Liam and Shane are gay for each other.
This’ll be a neat little misunderstanding they can spend the next 11 minutes sorting out for no real reason besides that the writers of this show obviously find situations like this to be very entertaining.
Swing Kids:Â Lauren’s dancing with Daddy and Farrah’s eagerly/nervously awaiting the arrival of her date. Probably Farrah should just date my Mom except she can’t because she’s not Jewish, so.
Also, Diane wants to have some special time with Karma!
Firstly, she wants Karma to know that she LOVES how evolved Karma is, and speaking of being evolved, she’s totally okay with Amy being a part of their special time because if anybody understands three-way dynamics, it’s Diane!
Diane: “Some things you should know about me: I’m a Pisces, obviously…”
I love Diane.
Rabbi Dinner: Liam thinks Rachel is levitating when she does the blessing over the bread, ’cause she’s the Rabbi’s daughter. This is exactly what she feared: that he’d begin seeing her differently when she found out he was the Rabbi’s daughter and not want to bang-bang-bang anymore. HOW WILL ANY OF US GO ON?
Also Shane’s bragging to Rachel’s sister about his cool new band ’cause he’s convinced it’d be a hit on the Bar/Bat Mitzvah circuit. He brags that he’s so cutting edge that he was the first person to come out in elementary school. Second grade! You know what I was doing in second grade? Writing a series of illustrated children books about creatures called “Simpletons” who looked like plates with arms. Anyhow, Rachel’s sister is the actual best.
Rachel’s Sister: You’re gay? Big whoop. Does it look like I need a makeover? My BFF Sammy came out as pansexual AND genderqueer in second grade.
I love this girl, she should be best friends with Lauren.
Swing Kids: Lauren won’t let another lady cut in on her Daddy-Daughter Dance Time, and Molly and Dad are SO happy that Karma is hitting it off with Diane because tonight — !!! — they’re gonna ask Diane to be their girlfriend!!!!
Before this tremendous conversation can continue, The Aschrofts are summoned to the dance floor by Pisces Diane. She does that rodeo dance move where you pretend to lasso somebody and pull them onto the floor, which oh my gosh means Karma’s parents have to sort of waddle out there like they’re trying to avoid stepping in a series of puddles and it’s SO adorable and SO embarrassing.
Karma, appalled by this display, announces that they must do all they can to force this thruple to break up. But they’re so happy!
Back at Rabbi Dinner, Rachel’s upset that Liam is having second thoughts about defiling the Rabbi’s daughter. But the Rabbi says it’s okay, Jews aren’t uptight about sex! We don’t even believe in hell! He totally approves of Liam’s situation! So Liam and Rachel take this to mean that it’s totally okay for them to bang bang bang.
Meanwhile in IAlmostCaresville, Shane’s having a crisis as Rachel’s sister typity-types away on her cell-phone and he realizes nobody cares about white cis gay men anymore.
Shane: You’re right. I’m not special. I used to be! But now it’s intersex people, trans folks, pansexual genderqueers! Who am I?
Rachel’s sister: You’re nobody. So now that we’re agreed, I can represent you. I saw you play at the Brew and Jew. You’re decent. But once you play at my Bat Mitzvah, all of my friends will demand you too. Of course I’ll be taking a 40% cut, have setlist approval, and let’s be real, I WILL take that makeover.
LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT.
SwingFest Not That Kind Of Swingfest: Â Lauren’s exhausted from dancing with her Dad all night so that he’ll be looking real cool when Farrah swings in AND won’t be dancing with this 19-year-old extra who’s got her eye on him.
Although Amy promised Lauren that they’d be full Parent Trap tonight, she’s been sucked into the Karma Trap instead. It’s like a Venus Fly Trap, except instead of a plant eating a bug, it’s Karma trying to find a way to make her parents unhappy by rooting through Diane’s car for evidence that she is secretly a terrible person. Maybe she’s not even a Pisces. Then, Amy’s hand gets caught on the stick shift and they end up hurling backwards into the back of the van in a situation that would be perfect for sexual tension. Amy tells Karma to just tell her parents how she really feels, which, apparently, is: I feel weird about Diane and therefore you should break up with her. On the one hand, this is ridiculously selfish, but on the other hand, Karma’s a teenager, and teenagers tend to have strong feelings about who their parents date.
Meanwhile, Lauren’s gotta set up this Parent Trap all by her damn self, apparently. She locates a downtrodden Farrah sitting outside lamenting the fact that The Most Interesting Man In the World never showed up, and maybe she never should’ve left Lauren’s father after all! This is perfect news, so Lauren rushes Farrah back into the building only to discover….
Womp Womp.
Amy shows up just in time to be way too late.
Shabbat With Rabbi Cool Dad: Liam and Rachel are hooking up while downstairs, the Rabbi is being quickly convinced to hire Shane’s hot new band for his special daughter’s Big Bat Mitzvah. I mean, after all, Shane is his favorite Bar Mitzvah student’s boyfriend!
Shane: What? Liam!!? We’re not boyfriends, Liam’s as hetero as they come!
Cut to the upstairs lounge, where The Rabbi, Shane and the Sister barge in on what they thought was a condoned sexual experience.
The Rabbi tells Liam he needs to join a new temple.
Well, the dancing part of the evening is over and here we are at the Ashcrofts, where Karma’s gonna tell her parents the truth about how she feels about Diane, and she does. They thank her for her honesty and she’s like “oh good, so you’ll stop seeing her?” and I mean, OF COURSE NOT, IT’S DIANE! BUT they will hold back on asking her to move in and they’ll only have sleepovers at her place. This sounds like a pretty sweet deal ’cause “sleepovers” mean Karma could have the whole place to herself and potentially host a party for all the lesbian and bisexual women in Austin to come over and kiss Amy on the mouth, but Karma’s not into it. Because she is bananas.
Back at Amy’s Sad Shack, Lauren is officially Over It. She got ditched for Karma and their Parent Trap plan failed as spectacularly as Lindsay Lohan’s career several years following The Parent Trap. Lauren won’t admit that she feels personally rejected, of course — that Amy means something to her, and that she wants to mean something to Amy in return — but still, Amy wants to make it clear that she’s always ditching things for Karma b/c Karma’s her best friend and that’s what best friends do. Meanwhile, Lauren is her sister, which is also meaningful, but in a different way! Lauren doesn’t wanna hear it, though: they’re not sisters anymore, anyhow, are they? Now that their parents aren’t together?
One last thing, though? Lauren’s sick of this shit, in general. She’s moving out.
Comments
I screamed when I saw Diane. THAT’S MARY CHERRY!!!!
Also, Lauren is the best and Amy needs to treat her right and I need to not be so attracted by Karma and also Rabbi’s little kid rocks and so do your captions.
ok somebody has to tell me who mary cherry is
Seriously? Even though Glee had a lot of flaws, we know Mary Cherry from a Ryan-show.
Some of us stopped watching Glee and we don’t know who Mary Cherry is
Seriously :-D
Mary Cherry was an iconic character on a Ryan-show long before Glee began :D
what show?
“Popular” from 1999.
Is there a reason you kind of avoided the show’s name, T?
Was Popular so terrible it must not be named?
Mary Cherry is a character from Ryan Murphy’s first ever show, Popular, which combines everything stupid you’ve ever seen Ryan do on his shows but like, this is the 90’s so it’s even worse. I loved this show as a kid because it was just ridiculous and it made me laugh, Glee is an improved version of this show but with music. And everybody is obsessed with Gwyneth Paltrow.
An example of it is this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuUoNwWwmd4
OHMIGOD I just watched that video. Hilarious!
Dude.
Mary Cherry is literally the greatest character to ever exist.
YES I thought that was her!
Ugh, Lauren please don’t leave the Fawcett household! Although I’m kinda strongly suspecting (or probably simply hoping) that Lauren has more than just “sisterly” feelings for Amy. Especially since she seems really jealous of Karma hanging out with Amy.
But anyway, thanks Riese for continuing recapping the show!
ALSO I LOVE KARMA’S PARENTS AND DIANE. YES TO EVERYTHING!
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant recap!
Please continue to just barely cover anything involving Liam (or leave him out altogether, he’s honestly the most unnecessary character ever to exist).
Diane is Mary Cherry*!!!
*incidentally, until like last week this is who I thought Heather was referring to in her tweets about the Great British Bakeoff. It…makes more sense that it’s actually a British lady who is not a fictional character from the 90s.
Ugh, i look forward to this every week so i can read about lauren. thank you.
LAUREN THOUGHTS/FEELINGS (I have many):
IMO Lauren is (and probably always has been) starved for real, close friendships. She’s spent her whole life holding her cards close to her chest and not letting people all the way in (and understandably so). She formed a special bond with Amy, and now that’s threatened by the reappearance of Karma in Amy’s life.
Friendships in high school are already so intense, but when you throw in the fact that Lauren’s an only child* who suddenly gained a sister only to lose her? I’d be feeling the exact same way tbh. I HAVE felt that way, being an only child who has lost multiple step-siblings after my divorced parents ended their respective relationships and found new partners.
*Amy is also an only child but Karma has been a substitute sister since childhood, whereas Lauren hasn’t had anyone like that in her life (that we know of, and going by the evidence).
With the show having EVERY woman sleeping with Liam, what I really want is for him to try with Lauren, and for her to nut kick his fragile (and it is fragile) male ego.
Oh Riese, thank you for this. Feel free to cut down on the Liam parts as much as you want – hell, cut ’em out entirely if you feel like it! Though I gotta say, Shane and that Bat Mitzvah girl were hilarious this week. I’m really hoping they team up more in the future.
Also, I really, really appreciate having a Jewish recapper recapping Jewish-y things. It’s making this “Liam discovers Judaism” plot marginally more bearable.
Oh god Lauren stay on the show, you make recaps so much better! Well, her AND Sparia fanfic jokes.
Someone needs to write more Sparia fanfic.
A1 captions
These recaps are definitely a highlight, often better than the actual show (especially when they gloss over the whole boring Liam/Shane nonsense)
Also, why is Karma always the worst? Give Mary Cherry a chance! Lauren > Karma in life and recap-life.
If Lauren is gone for more than one episode, I just don’t know what I’ll do.
Everything is better with less Liam, for sure.
My favorite text exchange I had while watching this week’s episode:
Me: Why is Shane wearing a plastic bag?
My Partner: I think it’s a “gay” thing. Or Liam’s latest art project?
based on interviews with the cast, Lauren’s going to be living in her own apartment but still very much a part of the show!
The Olive Garden caption picture series was too much. I love these recaps far more than I love this show, although it matters supremely to me that Amy ends up happy.
Also, does ANYONE give a shit about Liam? Because I don’t.
So happy to see you are still recapping. I think there will come a point where more people read these recaps than actually watch the show. And then they will ask you to just write the show and we finally get a girlfriend for Amy.
These recaps are very important to me. Amy needs to learn how to make space for multiple people in her life, instead of ditching Lauren whenever Karma calls. Maybe she could take lessons from Karma’s parents?
I really love that Karma’s parents are poly. Until now, the show has mostly played them as buffoons, but I decided to ignore that, and I’m hoping this plot will play out in a good way.
If we have to devote time to boy stories, seeing Shane taken down by a tween was gratifying.
I was really annoyed by Amy ditching Lauren. But worse was that she didn’t seem to really get why it was painful for Lauren. I find Karma insufferable, but Amy is becoming insufferable when Karma is around (which actually was kind of true since the first episode, when she went along with the fake lesbian gambit).
I realize teenagers are often insufferable. I never said it wasn’t realistic.
The recaps make continuing to watch the show worthwhile. The network should pay Riese and AS a sizeable chunk of money to keep doing it, since without the these recaps to keep us interested, the show’s ratings would probably drop substantially. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
Do sub-sized challah exist outside TV? I used to bake my own, but they were always normal loaf sized. I did like the “Jews don’t have sex shame” comment. I remember the command to please your wife on the Sabbath. We could use a little advertising of that nature, to counteract some of the less savory misconceptions that get floated.
I really like the observation about Amy changing around Karma. Karma’s whole brand is changing herself in order to please others, but they do a nice job of showing how hard it is for Amy to be authentic when she feels the pull of Amy.
Actually I really liked the “Jews don’t have sex shame” comment too – until the show completely and utterly backtracked on that by having the Rabbi become so furious over the idea of someone defiling his precious little flower. There were other ways they could have played the awkwardness of being caught in the act by your father/your rabbi then reverting to the usual “father with a shotgun” trope. UGH.
“You’re gay? Big whoop. Does it look like I need a makeover? My BFF Sammy came out as pansexual AND genderqueer in second grade.”
But like if we could actually have a genderqueer pansexual person ON THIS SHOW THO
Also small edit: Diane is Denise here early on
Riese, thank you for continuing to do these recaps! I know the comments last week got a little fraught in places but that makes me appreciate this even more. Thank you also for being accessible and open to reader requests (and criticism).
I’m really happy you’re still doing these recaps! Also I would pay good money to have an episode centred around Karma’s parents and Diane just being awesome/embarrassing.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing, Riese! Love the Shane/Liam (though mostly Liam) lite format!
“Karma’s mom, you get a girlfriend! Karma’s dad, you get a girlfriend! Liam, look under your seat… that’s right, YOU get a girlfriend! YOU get a girlfriend, YOU get a girlfriend! EVERYONE GETS GIRLFRIENDS!!!!!… Oh. Sorry, Amy. We ran out. Maybe next time?” The only explanation for this show is that Oprah must be the show runner.
That being said, I ship DianexEveryone until the end of time. If you need me, I’ll be writing a fan fiction Lauren grows up to be a power lesbo, marries Diane, runs her own talent agency where Rachel’s sister is her assistant, and singlehandedly bring the shoulder pad back into style.
I was with you til you got to the shoulder pads….
You say that now… but then just take a moment and *imagine* Lauren power lesboing it up in shoulder pads.
She’d look *perfect*.
Let’s compromise and give her epaulets.
Omg DEAL.
I enabled data roaming to read this and it did not disappoint.
Lololol I hate this show but can’t stop watching and these recaps are saving my soul
I’m a little late to this week — but I WAS EXCITED ABOUT DIANE!!
But then, I am excited about all Leslie Grossman appearances everywhere! She has a compelling and off-centre kind of presence, and always brings such verve to her roles.