In
the fourth episode, “Lynch
Pin,” of The
L Word's second season, Jenny (Mia Kirshner)
and Shane (Katherine Moennig) decide to get a third roommate
to help defray the cost of rent, and quickly develop a system
of ear-pulling and nose-smooshing to clue each other in during
interviews when they think a potential roommate seems too losery.
And
boy, do losers apply in spades!
There’s
the lady anal about co-op cooking. There’s Ewan, a sweetly-mannered
gay guy with a “normal” job, who likes the funkadelic
sounds of Prince and seems promising, until he explains he’ll
be naked around the house. Then there’s the aspiring TV
starlet whose mainstay, literature-wise, is Star magazine,
and the offensive born-again Christian, who tries to hand the
girls pamphlets advertising Exodus Ministry because “Jesus
hates the sin, but loves the sinner” (she gets a personal
escort from Shane to the door).
Enter
Mark (Eric Lively), video camera on and swinging. The amateur
filmmaker’s entrance is the most obnoxious (not to mention,
presumptuous) of the batch of would-be-roommates, as he shoves
his camera into the girls’ faces and into their house
without their prior consent, zooming in and narrating that they
are “two dark-haired beauties with blue eyes.”
Jenny
and Shane, though, are desperate for rent money, and he offers
first, last, and six month’s rent in advance. Despite
Shane’s exasperation with Mark’s intrusive behavior,
Jenny warms to him somewhat. She gets his references to Grey
Gardens and buys his line that the direct-to-video films like
World’s Craziest Bachelor Parties he makes for
a living aren’t his passion; he really wants to be a “documentary”
filmmaker.
Mark—who
replaces Tim as the main straight male character with a multi-episode
arc this season—has a strange idea of what “documentary”
means. His new project, which he outlines in episode 5, “Labyrinth,”
involves “putting his finger” on how lesbians work,
particularly in the bedroom, centering on his two new roommates
and their lesbian friends, whom he pays $20 an interview to
interrogate on film about their sex lives in a cocky, salacious
manner that understandably earns him Shane’s flipped middle
finger. Mark’s slobbery sidekick Gomey (obviously named
after Gomer Pyle), a security guard who seems to have trouble
keeping his jaw closed, practically makes Mark look like a prince,
and encourages Mark to install hidden cameras in the main house
in order to further “capture” his subjects.
Through
nine “strategically and respectfully placed” cameras
(i.e. placed everywhere but the bathrooms) Mark becomes fixated
with Shane’s bedroom practices, and develops a form of
“non-penis” envy for her ability to seduce and shag
every girl in sight. In episode 6, “Lagrimas
De Oro,” Mark sinks so low as to pay a girl, Kelly,
to masquerade as a flower delivery girl and get a little more
than Shane’s signature, because “reality just needs
a little help sometimes.” So
much for a documentary.
When
Mark gives Kelly a videotape of her sex-capade, he remarks “I’m
a little jealous,” and Kelly calls him on his bizarre
obsession with Shane’s girl magnetism: “Of me? Or
of her?”
