American Gigolo
East of Eden Season 1 Episode 8 Editor’s Rating «Previous Next « Previous Episode Next Episode
American Gigolo
East of Eden Season 1 Episode 8 Editor’s Rating «Previous Next « Previous Episode Next EpisodeWell, why do people have sex? In our final episode of American Gigolo, we get closer to an answer that remains just out of touch. We have sex for passion, nostalgia, pleasure, aggression, and distraction. We have sex for money. We have sex to feel something different than whatever we’re feeling now. And that, of course, can get us into a lot of trouble. Sometimes the trouble is even why we do it, too. But for Julian, that trouble always seems to be a bit more than what other people might experience — going away for 15 years for murder, getting accused of murder again, and discovering you have a son who has been kidnapped just after he had an affair with his now also-murdered teacher. It’s not the sex that got him here, though. That’s really just a symptom of a problem that, like our original question, still feels distant.
The finale addresses many of the major dramas of the season. Colin comes home, having been “rescued” by Isabelle and retrieved from her by Julian. Michelle’s husband’s lawyer gets arrested for murder, and they find that the guy who kidnapped Colin is likely the one who murdered the queen and was probably involved in the Janet Holmes case that Julian was imprisoned for. We don’t exactly know if that specific man is alive, or why exactly he was connected to all of this. It barely seems to matter. The driving plot of the season, why the original murder was tied to Julian, crumbles into something we’re not even supposed to care about.
With all that out of the way, more resolution is found elsewhere. Michelle and Julian finally reconsummate their love once Colin is back safe at home, but it feels altogether unsatisfying. Nowhere in the show were we rooting for the two to get back together, or feeling as though this was necessary to their healing. Instead, all we’ve seen is how deeply entitled the two are as a couple. Constantly, they see their relationship as something that makes them superior — even, at times, to each other. They lie, they sneak, they abandon their responsibilities to pursue what is ultimately a complete fantasy of each other. Witnessing them have sex in the final episode was frustrating above all else, even considering the painful lack of sex in the show writ large. However, their reasoning for having sex is largely to get it out of their systems, apparently. Michelle will never leave the lifestyle her husband provides, and she’s been given a new chance at living honestly and prioritizing her son’s happiness. Julian, meanwhile, has some realization that for all the talk he’s been giving about moving on in his life, it’s Michelle he most needs to move on from. Good riddance.
Sunday experiences some progress and change as the episode closes, telling Julian that part of why she’s never been able to maintain a relationship is because they’ve never brought her satisfaction in the way closing a case has. The case involving Julian, the teacher, and the queen is now the rare exception that has allowed her to understand this sacrifice better. But rather than call up the hottie receptionist from her gym, she calls her old flame whom we’ve seen in flashbacks and phone calls. Considering this ex once told Sunday she had to choose between her brother or her, it doesn’t exactly seem like the right move. Nevertheless, we all just want Sunday to be happy and maybe stop being a cop.
The messiest and most intriguing bits remain in the hands of Lorenzo and Isabelle. In the final few minutes of the show, it’s confirmed that Lorenzo truly didn’t have any involvement in setting up Julian, at all. Though Isabelle says she didn’t do anything but love Julian, a flashback shows her drugging Julian prior to him going to the Janet Holmes gig the night of the murder. This is still confusing, though — what drug takes that long to kick in, and then kicks in so dramatically? It seems unlikely he’d manage to safely operate a vehicle, then suddenly become unconscious. Moreover, was Isabelle purely trying to sabotage Julian’s departure from the industry, or was she truly trying to set him up for murder in a sort of “if I can’t have him, no one can” deal? The latter seems more likely, but the tone is still slightly sympathetic toward Isabelle. Despite our introduction to her highlighting what a truly horrendous woman she is, we end up looking upon her with some fondness and understanding in the end, even despite this revelation.
Julian, however, knows none of this. Instead, he spends the last bits of the season ruminating, watching Michelle, her husband, and Colin act as a happy family. Dwelling upon this and his current state as a dishwasher in a restaurant, he makes a switch: back to the glitz and sexiness of the gigolo business that made him. It’s disappointing, really, that we saw so little of this throughout the show. The moments where Julian did what he did best as a sex worker were among the brighter points of American Gigolo, and yet we only had the slightest taste. The show had so much potential to lean into this eroticism, even only superficially. Instead, it circled around a manufactured nostalgia that, if I had to guess, isn’t exactly what viewers were looking for when they began watching the show. What’s worse is that the trade wasn’t worth it — in the end, we still have little understanding of who Julian is, what motivates him and the people around him. Why do people have sex? Why do people hire gigolos? What does sex mean to a gigolo? The show ends as though Julian could have picked any illicit profession. Sex almost had nothing to do with it. But perhaps the reality is just that: For the American gigolo, sex almost has nothing to do with it.
Hustlin’
• A second season strikes me as unlikely, but there is plenty of room for it. In fact, they’ve set it up to seem that a second season could be far more satisfying than the first.
• I really feel like there should have been more mention of the fact that the teacher was a pedophile and Colin was being abused. They made it seem more like a romance than a predatory relationship. Sure, they don’t need to tie it up in a bow in the end and show him getting therapy, but for the love of God, get that kid some therapy.
• We could have done with a lot more Blondie. And a lot more nudity.
• I spent a lot of my first recap thinking about how the show differed from the original Paul Schrader film. By the second episode, however, it became apparent that comparing the two would be fruitless. They are entirely different things, despite sharing a name and some similar characters. It remained best to approach them as separate.
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