#pat dubek

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The Other Two

S3: E7 |  Cary Gets His Ass Handed To Him

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Presented without comment.

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My Peak TV Journey *The Other Two*

While it was on, few shows were as deliriously funny as The Other Two. It was a slow burn of a showbiz satire mixed with family sitcom. I miss it already. But I have to acknowledge that right before the final episode The Hollywood Reporter broke a story on complaints to HR about series creators Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider. HR investigated and dismissed the claims. Most likely this just means they did not reach their extremely high standard of what would make it a hostile work environment. It doesn’t mean the events did not happen. I’ve seen some posts since then about how this is a sign that Kelly and Schneider are the real life Carey and Brooke Dubek. There is some truth to this. I don’t know how to process how it affects my feelings about the show. And the news brought out a lot of feelings. 

While watching the first two seasons, I noticed that the seasons started out more sad than funny then became zanier and funnier in a way that is really grounded in that sad base. The final season went in the opposite direction, starting in screwball, manic comedy and then slowly getting into the dark, sad base. It was pretty dark. The season showed worst of Carey and Brooke, and it was necessary. I loved it, it hurt. 

Brooke’s plot about wanting to switch careers to something that would “do good” was painfully relatable. It was particularly sharp about how people get lazy in their responsibilities when they have the assurance that the project they are working on will “do good.” Of course this was spurred on by Brooke’s combined jealousy of her fiancé, Lance and feeling unworthy of him. And while watching her do a variety of awful things to prove either that she really is good, and/or that he’s not as good as he seems, I often thought that she didn’t deserve him. I admire how much her portrayer, Heléne York, was willing to go for something that ugly. In the end, I cheered their reconciliation because I love their dynamic at their best, not that I think they’re good together. And while they were broken up she dated a couples of billionaires and it was a great encapsulation of why hating billionaires is so fun and necessary now. 

In the first two seasons Cary spent so much energy on his career and sexual frustrations, but this season proved that finally getting some success isn’t going to make him better. This was embodied by his new boyfriend Lucas Lamber Moy, an actor who was always in character and for that reason was frequently unable to have sex. Lucas’s roles in everything from a Love, Simon spin-off, to a Hallmark Christmas movie and an incomprehensible and interminable Broadway play that is apparently about AIDS. Lucas alternately frustrated and excited Carey. It leads to revelation about even professional success isn’t going fix what broke in Carey. He over invests in Lucas, a person he can’t really know, while destroying his relationship with his best friend Curtis Paltrow. (I was surprised that there was so much Curtis in this season as his actor, Brandon Scott Jones, is one of the regulars on CBS’s Ghosts. I assumed he’d be available less because of that commitment. As a side note, I did enjoy when Carey’s actor, Drew Tarver, guest stared on Ghosts as a local cult leader.) In the mean time his plot gets the best satire of the show business. His advancing career includes his voice role as Globby, the “gay icon” in a Disney franchise and his reoccurring role in a CBS procedural, Emily Overruled. The latter plot, while funny, made the later allegations against the creators unsurprising to me. It set up something of a false dichotomy, where you can either have a stable, 9-5 set, making a show now one really watched, or making something exciting, that people will really care about, but must make allowances for people behaving in more erratic fashions. Arguably, the end of Lucas’s story tempers this thesis, but not enough. It was a wild ride that at some point involved a chorus of gay men in diapers driving maniacally to get to high school reunions while singing a variation of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”. I laughed a lot. 

Brooke and Carey reaching their lows was also rough on their mother Pat, who was experiencing isolation on multiple fronts. It was poignant and often absurd. Pat’s portrayers Molly Shannon a treasure. Pat may not actually be as good a mother as she wants to be seen as. She put Chase in an exploitative situation. She’s bad with boundaries. But her surreal experience of fame, and inability to return to her previous life was a great journey. I’m kind of sad she and Streeter didn’t end up together. I find Ken Marino weirdly endearing, and they were cute together. But she did need better boundaries between her work and personal lives. 

The youngest Dubek, Chase, aka ChaseDreams played by Case Walker without any guile, was not in much of the final season. But he was always a peripheral character for a story his viral success kicked off. The first season included some great ridiculous songs and ended with the revelation that he could not really sing. Since then much of his plot has been about his management (including his sister Brooke) gets him non singing jobs while avoiding telling him why he couldn’t sing. There was some humor in this, but as a lover of comedy songs, I wish there were more ChaseDreams songs. (I’d even take more in universe songs not by ChaseDreams like the “Jesus Fucking Slays” one from season two.) Chase has generally been less of a character than a vehicle for jokes about talent management and Hollywood’s current direction. (Or really, their pre-strike direction.) Over the course of the season Chase became more aware of the reality of his situation, but he never really rebelled against it. How could he? All his possible rebellions have been pre-scripted by management.

As ChaseDreams main director, Shuli, played by Wanda Sykes, often did bad, but she always had a point and did it competently. She considered Chase’s music so bad that she created Q. QAnon is awful in the real world, but the idea that QAnon started to distract from a bad album is hilarious. But Shuli’s bigger impact is as Brooke’s reluctant mentor, showing her the ropes and not having time for her bull. She didn’t have much of an arc, but she was always fun to watch.

While wrapping up I just need to say that this show was beautifully shot and staged. In scenes like Carey and Lucas’s first date at an indoor pool and Chase falling in love at first sight in a way that parodied the Baz Lerhman film William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, part of me was just bowled over by how good looking it was. The series ended in a way that was appropriate for its characters, and I wouldn’t want what I heard of the behind the scenes situation to continue, but I’m going to miss it. 

[ch3rrypi3x]

the male blueprint

[mysweetoddbird]

yall are lucky i dont know how to make gifs. itd just be all gifs from the other two rn. im begging everyone ik to watch this show

[angelmotifs]

the whole house smells awful and im scared to ask why so im just sitting in the attic with no like heating source other than a single candle and it is currently 15 degrees outside and i am right by a window. in case anyone wondered what i was up to

[trendingnewsbite]

‘The Other Two’ Ending With Season 3 at Max

The Other Two is ending at Max after three seasons. The Thursday, June 29 finale will be the last episode of the series. The cult favorite show stars Drew Tarver as Cary Dubek and Heléne Yorke as Brooke Dubek, the two elder siblings of teen brother, ChaseDreams (Case Walker), who became a pop music sensation overnight. Molly Shannon plays their mother, Pat. Both struggling artists, “the other…

[suchananewsblog]

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Other Two’ Season 3 on HBO Max, Where Brooke Is Questioning Her Life Choices and Cary Is Trying To Enjoy Success

The newest season of HBO Max‘s The Other Two picks up a few years after the earlier season. The pandemic is usually over, however it’s taken a toll on Brooke, Cary, Pat, and Chase Dubek, in good and unhealthy methods. As Season 3 begins, every of the Dubek youngsters — Chase included — is struggling to determine the place they belong in showbiz, whereas mother Pat has turn out to be a wildly…

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the other two s01e10

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Molly Shannon

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pat dubek my beloved

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The show has certainly perfected it’s balance of sharp comedy (targeting pop culture) and warmer heartfelt moments. 

Part of the fun of this episode was in seeing all the changes since season one. One of them, which had me perplexed, was (wisely) rolled back at the very end. 

So much to love here. The funniest bits were probably the clips of Cary’s various TV gigs. 

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👩 THE OTHER TWO 👨 | SEASON 1  » Molly Shannon as Pat Dubek

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The Other Two Season 2 Turns In a Classic Sitcom Episode

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This article contains spoilers for the first two episodes of The Other Two season 2.

We expect a lot from our TV comedies nowadays. 

Maybe it’s because the mid-2010s saw an increasing number of talented comedians trying their hands at being auteurs. Or maybe it’s because the Emmy Awards categorized basically anything with half-hour episodes as a comedy, regardless of their Jokes Per Minute (JPM) status. But whatever the reason, many sitcoms are expected to ask us to examine the human experience while making us laugh at the same time.

Sometimes, however, you just want to laugh so hard that you’re barely able to remember you even have a corporeal form, let alone comprehend life’s many mysteries. Thank God then for shows like HBO Max’s The Other Two. The Other Two comes from former SNL writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider and stars Drew Tarver and Heléne Yorke as brother and sister Cary and Brooke Dubek, who struggle with their status as “the other two” to their younger brother Chase a.k.a. ChaseDreams (Case Walker), a burgeoning pop superstar. 

The show’s well-received first season debuted on Comedy Central all the way back in the “before times” of early 2019. After a very lengthy wait, the first two episodes of season 2 premiered Aug. 26, on HBO Max. This time around, Cary and Brooke aren’t only in the shadow of their uber famous younger brother (who has “retired” to fulfill his month-long dream of attending NYU) but also their mother, Pat Dubek (Molly Shannon) who now hosts her own wildly popular Ellen-style daytime talk show. 

“We just thought it was a nice way to one-up season one, where it’s what would happen if you’re playing second fiddle to your little brother? Now you’re playing third fiddle to your own mother. Jesus Christ,” Kelly tells Den of Geek. 

When The Other Two season 2 picks up, Cary and Brooke are both indeed occupying third fiddle status in the Dubek family but that doesn’t mean they aren’t on their grind. Cary, a longtime struggling actor, has picked up some new jobs. Unfortunately the vast majority of them are hosting gigs. In episode one alone, Cary hosts an online series called “Gay News”, which appears to be wall-to-wall Laura Dern coverage and works a red carpet for “Age, Net Worth, Feet” – the one site bold enough to ask the only three questions anyone cares about. Brook, meanwhile, is trying to find the next big young music star. This quest leads her to reach the literal end of Tik Tok and also to type “young boy hot find now” into a Google search bar. 

While season 2’s first episode is an excellent reintroduction to The Other Two’s comedic sensibilities, its second, “Pat Connects with Her Fans”, is something approaching a modern sitcom masterpiece. This installment picks up with Pat Dubek running a distinctly daytime TV gambit in which she invites closeted young gay men to publicly come out to their traditionally masculine fathers, get their begruding acceptance, and then receive a $25,000 check from the studio for their troubles. Naturally this recurring segment quickly becomes an exploitable money-making opportunity for a gay couple with a big disparity in age.

“I remember it as something maybe Ellen did a few times on her show where a sweet, young gay boy would come out to his dad and then his dad wasn’t that homophobic. And so they fly into New York and are given $10,000,” Kelly says. “We liked the idea of every gay man in town would be like ‘I want $10,000. So I’m going to pretend my husband is my dad and we’re going to go to New York and get $10,000.”

When Cary and his milquetoast new boyfriend Jess (Gideon Glick) encounter the “father and son” duo at lunch, they offer to take them around the big city (including neighborhood “secrets” like The Highline and Big Gay Ice Cream Shop) to show them that being gay isn’t so scary. All the while, the fully sexually liberated couple must continue the ruse of being a gay son and a disapproving father, lest the son of the talk show host they just defrauded realize the truth.

“I just love how clueless (Cary) is and how earnestly he tries to comfort this younger gay that he thinks needs his guidance. And that younger gay has been married for six years,” Schneider says.

“It just struck us as the perfect sitcom balance, even if there’s some deeper shit going on there,” Kelly adds. 

The “deeper shit” that Kelly refers to is what perfectly complements the sitcom-y premise and makes the episode shine. Cary Dubek is a peculiar creature. While openly gay (thanks to his brother releasing a chart-topping hit called “My Brother’s Gay and That’s Okay!”), Cary still isn’t completely comfortable in his own sexual skin. He was able to come out to his father, but his father never fully accepted him before his death. In season 1 of the show, Cary developed a crush on his straight roommate as pining after someone who is unavailable was far more preferable than taking a real risk. 

Now Cary has taken another step forward in dating a gay man but that gay man is just…fine. He’s fine. Cary has forced himself into something safe rather than really exploring his sexuality once again. 

“He is deciding he’s marrying this man, basically,” Kelly says. “You know what I mean? He’s kind of in a very safe relationship. And you can tell that he’s maybe not a hundred percent for me for this guy. I think he likes that this is a safe little picture, perfect relationship he can present to mommy and daddy. If daddy was alive, he could tell daddy, ‘Yeah, I’m gay. But, look, this is kind of… it’s harmless.’”

“Let’s organize this. It’s basically a straight relationship, but it’s gay,” Schneider adds. “All those kinds of gross things you do to try to make your mom and dad approve. (Cary) is trying to do a G-rated version. He’s not really following his instincts. He’s not really following where sexuality would truly take him.”

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Ah, so on second thought The Other Two is just like those conscientious other comedies we expect so much from after all. Come for the “Age, Net Worth, and Feet” jokes and stay for the touching exploration of one young man’s sexual journey. 

The Other Two season 2 will premiere two new episodes every Thursday on HBO Max.

The post The Other Two Season 2 Turns In a Classic Sitcom Episode appeared first on Den of Geek.

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the other two s02e08

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The Other Two's Molly Shannon and Heléne York Tease What to Expect of Season 2

The Other Two’s Molly Shannon and Heléne York Tease What to Expect of Season 2

The world needs more Pat Dubek during times like these. So, it’s pretty great that in season two of The Other Two, Chase Dreams (Case Walker) is taking a backseat to mom Pat, who is played by the wonderful Molly Shannon, as she kicks off her career as the host of her very own talk show.  This is all part of Pat’s “year of yes,” and as Molly told E! News in an exclusive interview, “She’s really…