Season 2 of “Looking” premieres tonight – I’ve seen the first two episodes and you’ll love them

It was one of those rare rainy days in LA yesterday and it happened to coincide with free HBO weekend. So what better excuse to plop down on the sofa and watch a marathon of the entire first season of Looking the day before season 2 premieres.

On Thursday, I attended a very fun party HBO and Queerty threw to celebrate the second season and they screened the first two episodes.

For all of those who complained that season one was two slow (people with the attention span of a gnat I guess), the new episodes do operate a lot faster. Part of it is we know the characters now and that’s what season one did for us, let us get to know them. There was something so lovely about watching them in a marathon because I didn’t feel any of the impatience I’ve been reading about – it was like a nice movie.

Some of the cast chatted with The Wrap recently and here’s what leading man Jonathan Groff said about the pace: “Last season, we had to spend a lot of time setting up the story and characters. This season, we sort of jumped right in and immediately got into the action of the story. Patrick starts to further push the limits of his relationship with Kevin, trying to make the affair work. He’s also starting to return to Richie. As you know, starting a friendship with an ex can be complicated. So there’s a lot more going on.”

The Patrick-Richie-Kevin love triangle continues and I’ll give you a spoiler alert: you will see Russell Tovey’s bare bum and you will be pleased.

“We’re really pleased Russell is a bigger part of this season,” says writer/director Andrew Haigh. “ We didn’t set out to have him shirtless. But, if people tune in to see him shirtless and they’re happy, hopefully they’ll stay for the rest of the story.”