So it’s time to (yet again) indulge my morbid obsession with Studio 60: yeah it’s smug and oversimplifies complex issues, but I just can’t look away! The snappy patter! The way they walk and talk at the same time! The…Nate Corddry.

This week started off great. When Matt was arguing endlessly about gay rights with Harriet, he says “That just makes me want to hit you with Liberace.” Which made me laugh. So hard.

It’s going great, Jon Goodman the judge — who made a huge point last week about how he’s totally smart and not racist even though he’s a small-town, back-country judge — is then totally racist to Simon, negating any points the show gets for the little mea culpa scene from last week when Jon Goodman explains that he does own a television and knows how to operate it and is aware what a network is. But then when he finds out Tom was speeding because he wanted to see his brother, who builds things (in THE MIDDLE OF AFGHANISTAN), which Tom hadn’t wanted to tell him because he didn’t want to use his brother’s brave noble action for his own selfish means, Jon Goodman lets everyone merrily off the hook and everybody gets to go back to California so they can make their smug TV show. (Speaking of their TV show, has anyone else been watching SNL lately? It’s been good. The Alec Baldwin and the Hugh Laurie episodes have both made me laugh heartily several times, and have had musical guests that don’t suck.)

But then, the cute British woman (who’s only had a handful of lines in previous episodes) on the writing staff goes to pitch a sketch to Matt, and it’s this cheesy bitter woman thing and Matt’s all: “Did you recently have a bad break up?” And she starts totally sobbing, because you know how those hysterical wimmens get. And I’m just thinking “This is as bad as Why the world doesn’t need Superman.” Actually, I’m yelling it. At Alex. Who’s making his “The hell?” face. You can’t spend all episode being so fucking politically correct about homophobia* and then throw in this kind of bullshit. It would be fine if Rachel did it on Friends, because a) it would be in character and b) Friends never positioned itself as the intellectual liberal saviour of television.

And yet. I can’t look away.

*Speaking of which, I call bullshit on Harriet’s “Black people have been living openly for 400 years, gay people have only been living openly for 30 years” argument. 1) Black people have been living “openly” as black people for as long as there have been people. I guess she meant in North America/Western Europe? But still, for most of those 400 years, they weren’t really “living openly.” Unless by “living openly” she means “being owned by people.” But whatever. It’s also not like the entire world didn’t know there was homosexuality before the 70s. Toronto’s had a gay village for like, ever (of course it was underground until the 70s, but it was associated with a gay sex scandal in the early 19th century). Homosexuality was around; it just wasn’t talked about because of peoples’ prejudices and deep psychological fears. It’s not totally untrue; they didn’t live openly, because of prejudice maybe, but more because there were laws against sodomy, and they didn’t want to go to jail. I don’t think that’s really an excuse for continued oppression.