Good Trouble popped up on my recommendations from Hulu under the Pride Collection. The icon shows two girls, so they must be a lesbian couple. Maybe there are gay characters, too.
Scene 1: Two girls, who name themselves Mariana and Callie, squeal as they drive a U-Haul on an empty highway to L.A. I can't tell who has which name, so I'll call them Long Hair and Short Hair. One has just graduated from law school and found a job as a clerk for a federal judge, and the other, just graduated from college, has found a job as a software engineer.
Scene 2: With those salaries, they could rent a condo in West Hollywood, but instead they're moving into a hippie commune at the Palace Theater downtown. The manager gives them a tour:
Communal bathroom, with a naked lady and a guy who doesn't wash his hands after using the urinal. Manager complains that everyone over-wipes.
Kitchen, where a lady complains that everyone steals her stuff from the refrigerator.
Lounge, where someone named Dennis is rehearsing a play about stealing books.
Dennis is played by Josh Pence, left, and below.
Their horrible bedroom, with sagging plaster, unfinished walls, and opaque windows. They can use the communal bathroom, or they can buy a chamber pot, but don't poop in it, because the rats will eat it. I'm never going to get that image out of my head. Girls, just rent a decent apartment.
Scene 3: The girls complain, but they have no choice: they can only afford $1600 per month.
Ok, that might be a problem. My old apartment in West Hollywood is now running at $3000.Scene 4: Uh-oh, their U-Haul has been broken into, and everything was stolen! How long were you looking at the horrible commune before coming down to unload?
They go to a bar to drink tequila. Short Hair notes that the male bartender is hot. "Really?" Long Hair asks, annoyed. "When was the last time you got laid?" Wait -- I thought they were a lesbian couple. Why is this included in the Pride Collection? Is there a gay minor character?
Scene 5: They have no clothes for work tomorrow, so they head to an all-night discount store for a montage of trying on clothes, playing with dolls, squealing, and hugging. Then sleeping on separate mattresses, waking up late the next morning, and rushing out. Hang on -- you planned to move into your new place the day before your first day at work? What if you were delayed on the road?
On the way out, Short Hair gets a cliched jaw-dropping love-at-first-sight moment as the Boy of Her Dreams walks toward her in slow motion. I don't see the attraction -- he's disheveled, shabbily dressed, hair askew, looking like how Hollywood portrays meth heads. Long Hair knows him already, from when he interviewed at the software company. Wait -- she hasn't gone to work yet, she doesn't work in human resources, and, and....what the heck is going on? Anyhow, the takeaway of the scene is that they're sisters, both into the hunky Meth Head, and likely to sabogate each other's attempts to snare him. .
Or not. I can't find him in the cast list.
Googling Callie and Medina, I discovered that they are from The Fosters, a soap opera about a lesbian couple raising a lot of foster and adopted kids. So that's the gay connection?
The Fosters was a soap opera, so Good Trouble will probably have a lot of tragedy and angst.
Scene 6: That night, while mooning over Meth Head, Short Hair walks up to the balcony swimming pool ...in a seedy, decrepit falling-apart movie theater where they can't even afford to plaster the walls?
None of this makes any sense. Just go with it.
A hunk takes off his shirt and dives in.
Beefcake alert: we see him underwater, swimming laps. He notices Short Hair and introduces himself as Gael, played by Tommy Martinez, top photo and left.
Whoa, a sudden shot of Short Hair as a victim of a violent sexual assault. Or maybe extremely energetic consensual sex -- on tv with no context they look identical. According to the fan wiki, when Callie was living in the foster home before the Fosters, she reported that a guy named Liam raped her, but her previous set of foster parents didn't believe her and kicked her out of the house. She must be getting a post-traumatic flashback.
They discuss their dreams and goals, smoke pot, and examine Gael's art. He does terrible sculpting in clay -- and invites her to caress the very phallic end of his piece called "Stasis." Short Hair notes that she wanted to study art, but couldn't hack it and tried law as a back-up.
They feel more art, and the camera repeatedly zooms in on Short Hair's bare shoulder -- I wonder if she suffered an injury there during her rape on The Fosters. Then they kiss.
More Foster girls after the break. And a few guys.
