I know that Whitney has gotten a lot of really harsh reviews from critics and negative comments online from viewers, and I’ll admit that I wasn’t even planning to watch the show before it premiered since it was getting so many negative reviews online. However, one of my aunts came to town to visit my mom and I and she told me how much she and my uncle enjoy watching it, so we watched the first two episodes of Whitney on Hulu together, and I found myself really liking it so we watched the third episode together (Silent Treatment) when it aired on TV for the first time. Personally, I didn’t think the show was nearly as bad as the TV critics were making Whitney out to be. The show has definitely improved quite a bit since it first premiered in my opinion. It’s not perfect, but Whitney is still a really fun show to watch at the end of a long day. I’ll probably suffer quite a backlash from some people for saying what I’m about to say, but for the past few episodes I’ve found myself enjoying Whitney just a little bit more than Modern Family. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been enjoying Modern Family lately, just not as much as I usually do. Whitney, on the other hand is on quite a roll lately in my opinion. This episode is definitely my new all-time favorite episode of Whitney now, and my previous favorite episode would definitely be episode 1x06 “Two Broke-Up Guys”. I looked online to see who wrote those episodes, and it turns out that Mathew Harawitz wrote them both, so I guess I’m just huge fan of his writing for Whitney.
This episode delivered quite the reveal when Alex and Whitney went to Neal’s apartment to pay him a visit since he had been avoiding everyone for a while and they wanted to see what was going on with him, more specifically they wanted to find out if he was dating anyone since a bartender had given Lily his phone number. It turns out that he was on a date when they got there, only it turns out that he was on a date with a guy named Steven. However, Whitney was the only one who figured out that Neal was a on a date when they got there. Alex, on the other hand thought that Steven was just a friend of Neal’s from work and was oblivious to the fact that the two of them were on a date at Neal’s place as Whitney awkwardly tried to get Alex to leave with her so that Neal and Steven could be alone together.
One of the reasons why I liked this episode so much is that I feel like it really showed a different side of Whitney that the viewers don’t get to see very often, which is portraying her as someone who’s capable of being there for somebody who is going through a difficult time like Neal was going through in this episode given the fact that she’s “emotionally stunted” as Whitney put it. Roxanne mentioned that when her mother had broken her leg Whitney had apparently told her that she should “put her down”. I thought that was both a terrible, yet hilarious thing for Whitney to say, at least she apparently apologized to Whitney when she said that. The scene where Neal comes to talk to Whitney about the fact that he’s dating a guy was hilariously awkward in my opinion, especially since she initially kept trying to convince Neal to talk to Alex about everything that was going on with him. I loved it when Whitney was hugging Neal, and he was telling her that her skin was very cold. The hug between Whitney was very sweet, awkward and funny all at the same time.
It was really fun for me to see Whitney trying to help Neal with essentially coming out to Alex, Roxanne, Mark and Lily and telling everyone that he was dating a guy. I thought that the writers did a great job of writing Whitney’s reaction to the whole situation in a way where you could really see that she was trying to handle the situation in a very mature manner (for her anyway) without making Whitney seem like she was a completely different person. I thought it was hilarious when Whitney said that the whole situation with Neal was being very stressful for her. That was very typical of Whitney for saying that it was a very stressful situation when there’s no doubt that the whole situation would definitely be a lot more stressful for Neal than it was for her, and that’s what made that line so funny to me.
I feel like the writers did a great job of handling the whole storyline with Neal being attracted to a guy (Steven) and not knowing what it means in terms of his sexual orientation in a way that was hilarious, yet respectful, but not to the point where it could be considered overly politically correct. This episode had a lot of slice of life humor to it that I think anyone who’s gay or bisexual can relate to; at least that’s the case with me. I was really able to relate to this episode in a lot of ways, and that’s one of the many reasons why I liked it so much. It took me a really long time to come to terms with the fact that I’m bisexual. It wasn’t until about two and a half years ago that I finally came to terms with the fact that I’m more bisexual than I am exclusively attracted to men. Like Neal, I used to think that I had to be either gay or straight. I didn’t think that there could be any shades of gray to a person’s sexuality, and I honestly used to feel a certain level of animosity towards people who identify as being bisexual.
One of the best things about this episode for me was definitely Whitney, Alex, Roxanne, Mark and Lily’s reactions to Neal telling them that he was dating a guy. I found Mark’s reaction to the whole thing especially funny, because it was very true to his character to misread a social situation and think that it’s okay for him to make a joke about Neal coming out of closet and then realize that making a joke like that isn’t funny if the person is coming out of the closet or is still in the closet. I speak from personal experience when I say that it can be really awkward when people make jokes like that and they don’t know that the person that they are talking to is gay or bisexual.
That being said, I love how Mark quickly went from apologizing to Neal for all the times that he used the word “gay” to describe things that he thinks are lame to being upset about the fact that Neal told him that he wasn’t attracted to him. It was classic Mark for him to be upset about that and for him to go through the trouble of doing his hair, ironing his shirt, and putting on aftershave all in an attempt to get Neal to be attracted to him even though he himself isn’t even gay. The fact that Mark can be very narcissistic at times is one of the things that I love the most about him as a character. The look that Dan O’Brien had on his face when Neal is getting ready to tell everyone about his relationship with Steven and Mark starts to realize what’s going on after he jokingly asks if he’s coming out of the closet as well as pretty much everything that Mark said in this episode all made me laugh hysterically.
I really liked how Alex didn’t make a big deal about the fact that Neal was dating a guy when Neal told him. He basically just said, “That’s cool.” and moved on from the subject. That really shows what a true friend Alex is, if you ask me. I also found Roxanne’s reaction to Neal’s news funny, and yet I also found it very realistic at the same time. You could tell that she was trying her best to find the right thing to say while she also felt awkward about the whole situation and was willing to admit that she didn’t know quite what to say to Neal.
After my classmates found out that I’m attracted to men when I was in the ninth grade, I got a whole hodgepodge of reactions from my classmates, a lot of them were similar to Alex, Roxanne and Mark’s reactions, but they were especially similar to Alex and Roxanne’s reactions. When I was in high school, there was a teacher who was considered “the hot teacher” of my high school, basically all the guys who I went to school with thought that she was hot, and on two separate occasions girls I went to school with told me that they thought that she was hot, which in their minds was the same thing as what I had to deal with as I was coming to terms with my sexuality. To me, a one-off same sex crush is definitely not the same thing as being gay or bisexual, but I understood that they were just trying to be supportive of me in their own weird way, but I digress.
I only have one minor complaint about this episode, and that would be the fact that they didn’t even mention the words bisexual or bisexuality in this episode. For most of the episode I felt like they were acting like Neal had to be either gay or straight, he couldn’t fall somewhere in the middle of spectrum of the human sexuality. Although, I suppose the writers didn’t explicitly mention bisexuality because they felt like it might diminish the meaning behind what Lily told Neal about how he shouldn’t focus so much on deciding on whether he’s gay or straight, all he should think about is how sometimes people fall in love with the person, and not their gender. I have to say that it was a really nice to see Lily be so supportive of Neal pursuing a relationship with Steven. Although, I wouldn’t blame Lily if she felt at least a little uncomfortable about the fact that Neal was attracted to a guy since it wasn’t all that long ago that they were engaged and were going to get married. I suppose it’s not too out of character for Lily to be so supportive to Neal since the writers had already established that Lily had a very liberal upbringing. I thought it was funny when Lily told Neal that if she ever meets Steven she would cut “her”. I don’t get why Lily suddenly talked about Steven as if he’s a woman, but I thought that was funny. I also enjoyed the final joke of the episode where Lily tells Neal about the bartender who gave her his number only to have Neal tell her that the bartender is “so gay”, which Lily responded to by saying that she guesses that she has a type (gay men). I thought that was funny and that it was a nice, playful jab at Neal.
One final note that I would like to make about this episode is that I love the way that the writers tied the whole thing with Whitney being upset with Alex, because she thought he never notices anything with Whitney’s storyline with helping Neal tell everyone that he was dating a guy. In the end, Alex admitted that he might not always notice things like what’s she’s wearing, but he noticed that she was helping Neal through a difficult time and that she had been a really good friend to him. I thought that was a really sweet moment between Whitney and Alex.
All things considered, this really is my new favorite episode of Whitney. I thought it really showed what a close-knit group of friends Whitney, Alex, Mark, Roxanne, Lily and Neal really are, and I think that it really showcased what good chemistry that the cast has with each other and how much their chemistry has grown and evolved since the show started. Like I said, I really do think that the writers did a great job of addressing the subject of sexual identity in a way that was very funny, yet respectful at the same time. I’m also really glad that the show chose to do this storyline with Neal instead of doing it with Roxanne or Lily. I found it very refreshing to see a TV show tackle the issue of bisexuality through a male character instead of a female character. That’s something you don’t really see very often on TV, and I really appreciate the writers for how they handled the subject the way that they did.
That being said, I give this episode a rating of an A-.
