“Such a cute couple, you should be proud,” Jackie says to Molly as the crowd instagrams Amy and Karma’s tender moment for their fan tumblr snapchats. “Too bad they’re faking it.”

I just slipped some MDMA in your pocket. You can thank me later.

Molly hightails it over to Karma, sitting on a hay bale, telling her they’ve gotta get out of there quick ’cause Jackie knows THE TRUTH! Karma’s just bummed that her Mom tells stupid lies about her to Debby Novotny and all the other ladies at PFLAG.

Molly: “This is not about you, this is about me. I don’t know if you can understand this, but sometimes I say and do things that I think will make people like me. And I hate that about myself, that I care so much about what these people think. but I don’t think that I can stand to stay here and watch Jackie tell everyone that I lied.”
Karma: “We can go if you want, but Mom, but if these people only like you because of something that isn’t real, they don’t actually like you. And they’re not worth all of this.”
Molly: “How did my daughter get so wise?”
Karma: “By pretending to be a lesbian.”

Try actually BEING a lesbian! You basically become a genius overnight.

Little did they know, the large white horse had been listening THIS WHOLE TIME

This episode does present a pretty complicated set-up in the world it has created: a world where it’s so okay to be gay that a PFLAG Mom prioritizes sexualized mechanical animals over raising funds for necessary goods and services. This is a world where being queer becomes like anything else about a kid — a pawn in a larger, more self-centered game. Here we have Farrah and her ex, competing for who can be more accepting of their daughter — an argument that’s not really about Amy, but about the terrors of parenting post-divorce, further complicated by inexcusable infidelity. Karma wants her Mom to be proud of her for more than her (fake) sexuality — this came up last season, too — but that’s not really about Karma anymore, either, it’s about her Mom wanting some kind of pride in herself, which maybe comes from never really being able to fit in with the other Moms, which’s even harder when everybody else is rich and you live in a juice truck. Pretty much everybody in Lauren’s life except for Lauren wants her to be more invested in an intersex “identity” than she is, including her father, who’s decided based on what he’s heard out in the world that his job is to be Proud At All Costs, which is so adorable but also really tough for Lauren. She’s still an intensely private person not comfortable being fully out yet, and that hesitation comes from a lot of places but she’s gotta get through it on her own terms. Meanwhile, Shane’s Mom has placed an outsized investment in her own sexual marketability which she’s now projecting onto her son and his best friend, because sex must be the most interesting and important thing about them, too. Maybe somebody here should start a book club?

Now, I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but I was thinking that maybe this weekend me and you and your two Dads could go to Blazer Tag Adventure Center and whoever wins, I’ll be faithful to!

Farrah, for her part, apologizes to Amy for reacting so severely to Amy playing Fake Lesbians with Karma again: says she’s having a great time with Hank — she’d forgotten how funny he is! (Oh g-d) — and saying she was just looking out for Amy’s heart when she confronted her about Karma, even though I’m pretty sure this is an idea she thought of just now, not back then.

Farrah: “I know how complicated things can be with a first love. I just didn’t want you holding onto hope like I did with your father. You know, it’s years later and hes’ finally here —”
[Amy gives look of alarm]
Farrah: “— for you!”
Amy: “Mom—”
Farrah: “I’m just saying, maybe people really can change.”

Yeah, a bad guy can become a good guy, but it’s no easier to turn a gay person into a straight person than it is to turn a straight person into a gay person. Unless, of course, that straight person wasn’t that straight to begin with and is just starting to figure that out? Amy looks across the room, Karma gives her a tender wave. KIDS THESE DAYS, Amirite, Hank?

Oh hey, Karma, sweetheart is it just me or is raw sewage leaking out of the ceiling

Outside the ho-down smashburger cowboy palace, Lauren’s leaning on a wet car in a white party dress which means she’s obviously lost her mind. Liam, ever the valiant knight, arrives with a jacket to warm the cockles of her cold little bod, and she proceeds to tell him everything: how Farrah’s cheating on her Dad but she doesn’t wanna hurt him by telling him, how he thinks taking her to this thing is supportive when it’s actually really difficult and embarrassing. Sure, she doesn’t want to feel ashamed about being intersex, but that doesn’t mean she wants to talk about it publicly or for everybody to know, either. You can want to keep a thing to yourself for reasons besides a “lack of pride,” after all.

No Lauren, stop, you don’t have to smoke reefer just to be cool.

Liam says he moved out two weeks ago and his parents haven’t even called ’cause they don’t even care, or else are pissed about all the trees that were killed to make his post-it note art, and at least her Dad is trying and hasn’t written Theo any large checks lately. Although you know what, Theo could probably really go for a check twice the size of regular checks.

Meanwhile, Shane may have found a winner — he’s cute, he’s smart, his glasses probably aren’t real, his parents are therapists, and he tells Shane the best way for them to approach this night together is for Shane to take ten minutes talking about his ex, then this guy will talk about his ex for ten minutes, and then they can talk about each other or whatever it is boys do in their secret clubhouses.

Oh, this old thing? It’s just an Ultra-Range Walkie Talkie I use to keep in touch with my other spy agents.

This happened to me on a date once except we both took about 90 minutes to talk about our respective exes and never spoke again. Good luck, boys!

Out on the sultry dance floor, an extra croons “Fall to Pieces” while Bruce tells Lauren that he’s sorry for thinking it was best to keep her intersex status a secret, then announces I’M PROUD OF MY INTERSEX DAUGHTER which, of course, freaks Lauren out, but oh well, at least he cares!

Yes. Perfect. You will make such a gorgeous wax figure at my new LGBTQIAA Wax Museum

Meanwhile, Karma and Amy slow-dance with an appropriate distance between them like a really chaste middle school dance. Or, I guess, a PFLAG Fundraiser.

This is pretty romantic I was thinking later maybe we could go sit on opposite ends of a teeter-totter and rock back and forth until we both female ejaculate

Karma’s having a gay old time with her lil lady, sans boy drama or girl drama. “I wish it could always be like this,” Karma says, burrowing her little heteroflexible head into Amy’s chest like a knife. “Me too,” says Amy. Yeah, Amy, we know.

Okay now I’m gonna be the little hedgehog and you’re gonna be the garden flower, k?

Alas, the slow-dance is interrupted by Molly taking the ‘mic ’cause she’s got an announcement to make. Amy and Karma, holding hands like — well, of course — LIKE GIRLFRIENDS — stop their canoodling to witness whatever fresh hell is about to go down.

Baby, don’t worry, this is her year. This is the year our daughter Jordan is gonna win the talent show for her gender noncomformist modern dance performance!

Here we go:

Molly: My daughter Karma is straight. I let you all believe that she was gay because I wanted it to be true but I have to accept the fact that my mother will never, ever be a lesbian.

Yeah, tell that to Amy. Or don’t, ’cause as Molly continues her speech espousing Karma’s many apparently enchanting personality traits and her wonderful voice, Amy slips out, but Karma doesn’t even notice. Molly says she’d rather sacrifice her post then give up her straight daughter, and everybody applauds. I think the fifth horseman of the gay apocalypse is when a PFLAG fundraiser is co-opted by somebody wanting to celebrate their straight daughter. So everybody put your flags away and go watch Stonewall, the movement is dead. “That was nice,” says Karma, turning to find an empty space where Amy used to be.

Everything probably felt so close and possible to Amy for maybe an entire hour and now that’s it, now this particular jig is up. But: if that wasn’t really “close and possible” then what the hell is, you know?

I know what you’re thinking, you’ve seen this all before. A woman gets on stage, says she’s going to pee in her pants, and then something about being in public with her clothes on just makes her bladder freeze right up. Well, that’s not what’s gonna happen here, not on my watch.

Where’s Amy? Amy’s going outside, just in time to hear her Dad tell somebody, probably that bitch Amanda, that he wants the assignment but that he just can’t go, he promised his kid he’d stick around. Amy tells Hank that she loves having him around but it’s not good for Mom. So, he can go now. His two-episode arc is over. Bye!

How about now? Do I look like a Who from Who-Ville now?

Amy explains how him being all fun and charming is just gonna give Mom false hope, and false hope’s the worst thing of all. So now the projection comes full circle — Farrah projects Hank and her onto Amy and Karma, and then Amy projects her and Karma onto Hank and Farrah. But Amy’s also right. Hank wants to be there for his daughter, but it’s time to go. So he’s gonna go.

Back inside the party, Amy’s just finished telling Farrah that Hank took the job and is shipping out when Lauren shows up to announce that the jig is up, she can’t lie anymore, it’s just not fair to her. Bruce needs to know the TRUTH and he needs to hear it from Farrah! She’s just finished her announcement when Bruce strolls up, puts his arms around his family and announces that he’s just met some very nice folks and their son is a bi-sexual. Y’all, Bruces are have solid ally intentions. They just do.

What do you mean you don’t want to be on Sister Wives with us? Everybody else in the family agreed to it.

Farrah tells Bruce she’ll drive him home, ’cause they’ve gotta talk.

Inside, Molly’s gushing to her daughter about how she joined PFLAG to help people learn and grow and look, she was able to siphon off their real emotions into a learning and growing experience for her very own self! Isn’t that wonderful?

How about now? Do I look like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas now?

Karma gets a text from Amy that she’s had to go for family dramz. Molly, on behalf of the Karmy shippers, notes that Karma seems kinda especially bummed about that — is she sure that she’s straight? Oh and guess what? Molly dated a woman in college! Her name was Stacey and she was the gentlest lover! SNOOZE.

Cut to the Shane-Liam-Jackies house, where Liam’s going to take a shower when who should appear on the other side of the door but PAIGE MCCULLERS. WHAT THE EVERYLOVING FUCK Y’ALL.

Uh, excuse me?

HOLY SHIT I’M SO SORRY I DIDN’T REALIZE I’D WANDERED ONTO THE WRONG SET

Um, yeah. There’s only one person who gets to see me naked on television, and her name is Emily. And she’s on ABC Family.

So uh, I guess that’s Shane’s older sister Sasha! She looks at Liam’s penis and says that he “sure has grown up.” What a neat way to end this episode. I’d like to quote my Executive Editor Laneia, who earlier today said, “i’m going to start eating my hair. just for fun. like a new hobby.”

Next week, Hysteria High will be requiring all its attendees to bring a date to prom, which obviously means that Amy is gonna have to go with Felix. I will be celebrating this turn in events by sacrificing a stuffed animal to the goddesses on an overpass somewhere along 11 Mile Road and eating my hair just for fun, like a new hobby.

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