Arts & Entertainment

Neil Patrick Harris is ‘Uncoupled’ in new Netflix sitcom

Show lampoons queer NYC social scene’s mores and manners

Published

4 years ago

July 27, 2022

Neil Patrick Harris stars in ‘Uncoupled.’ (Photo courtesy Netflix)

Summer of 2022 might just go down in history as “The Summer of the Queer Romcom.” With movies and shows like “Heartstopper,” “Fire Island,” and “Anything’s Possible” already gracing our screens, and upcoming projects like Billy Eichner’s much-anticipated “Bros” still on the horizon, it seems like Hollywood is trying to make up for all those years of content in which LGBTQ people were only allowed to be shown as tragic victims or comic relief – when we weren’t being erased altogether, that is – by giving us a glut of the kinds of happily-ever-after stories we never got to see about ourselves. It’s about time, and nobody is complaining.

Still, with all these feel-good romances heading our way, it was inevitable that we would eventually get something that looks at the flip side of that coin – a story about breaking up. What we might not have expected, however, is that it would be a comedy.

“Uncoupled,” the new Netflix series from Darren Star and Jeffrey Richman, is exactly that. It stars Neil Patrick Harris as Michael, who – as a successful Manhattan real estate broker with a close-knit group of friends and a 17-year loving relationship with the handsome Colin (Tuc Watkins) – seems to be living every gay man’s dream. He gets a rude awakening, however, when Colin, on the eve of his 50^th birthday, blindsides him by abruptly packing up his things and moving out of their apartment, leaving him to face two nightmares he never saw coming – the loss of a person he believed was his soulmate, and the reality of being a 40-something single gay man in New York City.

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to do it alone. His business partner and confidante Suzanne (Tisha Campbell) is at his side to walk him through the painful stages of dealing with a breakup, as are his two closest friends, TV weatherman Billy (Emerson Brooks) and high-end art dealer Stanley (Brooks Ashmanskas). While it’s true that none of them are exactly qualified when it comes to giving relationship advice, he needs all the help he can get – especially when he begins to awkwardly fumble his way back into a dating scene that looks a lot different than he remembers.

As written by Star and Richman, with director Andrew Fleming at the helm, the show’s deep dive into the funny side of breakups doesn’t have much time for tears and regret. Playing out in the upscale, glamorous world of New York’s high gay society, it keeps the tone light and lifted, moving beyond the heartbreak as quickly as possible and setting its sights on the rich comedic territory to be found in the frolics and foibles of the privileged set. It’s a milieu that should come as no surprise considering that co-creator Star is the man responsible for “Sex and the City,” not to mention “Beverly Hills 90210” and “Melrose Place,” all of which banked on similar currency. Indeed, it’s easy to see Michael and his trio of compadres as natural successors to the iconic gal pals of “Sex and the City” – more diverse and openly queer, perhaps, but recognizably kindred in spirit.

Star’s co-creator brings his own pedigree into the mix, too. As an executive producer and writer on “Modern Family” (and similar duties on shows like “Frasier” and “Wings” before that), he doubtless has much to do with the whip-smart sitcom sensibility that both undercuts the show’s “guilty pleasure” appeal and enriches it. Indeed, much of the fun of “Uncoupled” comes from its lampooning of the queer social scene’s mores and manners – the shallow obsessions with youth and hotness, money and status, and all the other interpersonal dynamics that enable us to judge each other – and letting us laugh at the attitudes and pretensions we love to hate about ourselves. It allows us to let its characters off the hook, and ourselves, too, by reminding us that we are all only human, and that humans are sometimes ridiculous.

In service of that, “Uncoupled” has a stellar cast that not only has the comedic chops to sell its farcical goings-on but the nuance to go a little deeper. At the forefront, of course, is Harris, who deploys the confidence of a seasoned sitcom star to give us a fully realized leading character, and whose eternally boyish looks and persona have aged just enough to make him an ideal centerpiece for a story that is, in many ways, about growing up. Campbell more than holds her own next to him – their BFF chemistry makes them one of the more interesting platonic pairings in recent television memory – and Brooks and Ashmanskas turn their roles into much more than mere side characters. It’s a likable cast, across the board; yet the show’s most impressive acting turns might just come from two of its recurring supporting players – Oscar-winner Marcia Gay Hardin as a high-profile (and high maintenance) real estate client, and Broadway legend André De Shields as Michael’s elderly-but-regal neighbor – who bring some much-needed weight to the proceedings and make their scenes among the most memorable of the season.

Still, all the superficiality on display does sometimes wear thin, and some viewers might begin to wonder if Michael and his friends really are as vapid as their priorities often make them seem; and while all the characters get some hard lessons as the season progresses, it’s by no means certain they will learn from them, and these moments can feel like lip service in a show that sometimes seems to celebrate self-absorbed vanity even as it satirizes it.

Still, Star and Richman know their audience, and they’re not interested in wagging fingers at them. “Uncoupled” is not meant to be social criticism; it’s about learning how to live again when your heart gets broken. To that end, instead of turning Colin into just another stereotypical hated “ex” to be treated as an enemy and subjected to bitter scorn, or simply letting him leave and forgetting about him, they keep him in the picture. They never let us forget that their series, ultimately, is about a relationship; it may have changed, but it still exists, and there are overlapping threads between two lives that can never quite be untangled. That’s a decidedly un-shallow level of understanding, handled with a refreshing lack of maudlin sentiment or rancor, and it’s more than enough proof that the show has much more going for it than just shallow characters, sexy situations, and soapy plot twists.

More than that, it makes us interested in seeing where things might go in season two.

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FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM

Italy

44 openly LGBTQ athletes to compete in Milan Cortina Winter Olympics

Games to begin on Friday

Published

1 hour ago

February 4, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

(Public domain photo)

More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are expected to compete in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that open on Friday.

Outsports.com notes eight Americans — including speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy and figure skater Amber Glenn — are among the 44 openly LGBTQ athletes who will compete in the games. The LGBTQ sports website also reports Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, is the first openly transgender athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics.

“I’ve always been physically capable. That was never a question,” Glenn told Outsports.com. “It was always a mental and competence problem. It was internal battles for so long: when to lean into my strengths and when to work on my weaknesses, when to finally let myself portray the way I am off the ice on the ice. That really started when I came out publicly.”

McDermott-Mostowy is among the six athletes who have benefitted from the Out Athlete Fund, a group that has paid for their Olympics-related training and travel. The other beneficiaries are freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, speed skater Brittany Bowe, snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, alpine skier Breezy Johnson, and Paralympic Nordic skier Jake Adicoff.

Out Athlete Fund and Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood on Friday will host a free watch party for the opening ceremony.

“When athletes feel seen and accepted, they’re free to focus on their performance, not on hiding who they are,” Haley Caruso, vice president of the Out Athlete Fund’s board of directors, told the Los Angeles Blade.

Four Italian LGBTQ advocacy groups — Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano — have organized the games’ Pride House that will be located at the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan.

Pride House on its website notes it will “host a diverse calendar of events and activities curated by associations, activists, and cultural organizations that share the values of Pride” during the games. These include an opening ceremony party at which Checcoro, Milan’s first LGBTQ chorus, will perform.

ILGA World, which is partnering with Pride House, is the co-sponsor of a Feb. 21 event that will focus on LGBTQ-inclusion in sports. Valentina Petrillo, a trans Paralympian, is among those will participate in a discussion that Simone Alliva, a journalist who writes for the Italian newspaper Domani, will moderate.

“The event explores inclusivity in sport — including amateur levels — with a focus on transgender people, highlighting the role of civil society, lived experiences, and the voices of athletes,” says Milano Pride on its website.

The games will take place against the backdrop of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s decision to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sporting events.

President Donald Trump last February issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S. A group of Republican lawmakers in response to the directive demanded the International Olympics Committee ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.

The IOC in 2021 adopted its “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” that includes the following provisions:

• 3.1 Eligibility criteria should be established and implemented fairly and in a manner that does not systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations.

• 3.2 Provided they meet eligibility criteria that are consistent with principle 4 (“Fairness”, athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.

• 3.3 Criteria to determine disproportionate competitive advantage may, at times, require testing of an athlete’s performance and physical capacity. However, no athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.

The 2034 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City. The 2028 Summer Olympics will occur in Los Angeles.

Theater

Out dancer on Alvin Ailey’s stint at Warner Theatre

10-day production marks kickoff of national tour

Published

3 days ago

February 1, 2026

Patrick Folliard

Renaldo Maurice (Photo by Dario Calmese)

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
Through Feb. 8
Warner Theatre
513 12th St., N.W.
Tickets start at $75
ailey.org

The legendary Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is coming to Washington’s Warner Theatre, and one of its principal veterans couldn’t be more pleased. Out dancer Renaldo Maurice is eager to be a part of the company’s 10-day stint, the kickoff of a national tour that extends through early May.

“I love the respectful D.C. crowd and they love us,” says Maurice, a member of esteemed modern dance company for 15 years. The traveling tour is made of two programs and different casting with Ailey’s masterwork “Revelations” in both programs.

Recently, we caught up with Maurice via phone. He called from one of the quiet rooms in his New York City gym where he’s getting his body ready for the long Ailey tour.

Based in North Newark, N.J., where he recently bought a house, Maurice looks forward to being on the road: “I enjoy the rigorous performance schedule, classes, shows, gym, and travel. It’s all part of carving out a lane for myself and my future and what that looks like.”

Raised by a single mother of three in Gary, Ind., Maurice, 33, first saw Alvin Ailey as a young kid in the Auditorium Theatre in downtown Chicago, the same venue where he’s performed with the company as a professional dancer.

He credits his mother with his success: “She’s a real dance mom. I would not be the man or artist I am today if it weren’t for the grooming and discipline of my mom. Support and encouragement. It’s impacted my artistry and my adulthood.”

Maurice is also part of the New York Ballroom scene, an African-American and Latin underground LGBTQ+ subculture where ball attendees “walk” in a variety of categories (like “realness,” “fashion,” and “sex siren”) for big prizes. He’s known as the Legendary Overall Father of the Haus of Alpha Omega.

WASHINGTON BLADE: Like many gay men of his era, Ailey lived a largely closeted public life before his death from AIDS-related complications in 1989.

RENALDO MAURICE Not unusual for a Black gay man born during the Depression in Rogers, Texas, who’s striving to break out in the industry to be a creative. You want to be respected and heard. Black man, and Black man who dances, and you may be same-sex gender loving too. It was a lot, especially at that time.

BLADE: Ailey has been described as intellectual, humble, and graceful. He possessed strength. He knew who he was and what stories he wanted to tell.

MAURICE: Definitely, he wanted to concentrate on sharing and telling stories. What kept him going was his art. Ailey wanted dancers to live their lives and express that experience on stage. That way people in the audience could connect with them. It’s incredibly powerful that you can touch people by moving your body.

That’s partly what’s so special about “Revelations,” his longest running ballet and a fan favorite that’s part of the upcoming tour. Choreographed by Alvin Ailey in 1960, it’s a modern dance work that honors African-American cultural heritage through themes of grief, joy, and faith.

BLADE: Is “Revelation” a meaningful piece for you?

MAURICE: It’s my favorite piece. I saw it as a kid and now perform it as a professional dance artist. I’ve grown into the role since I was 20 years old.

BLADE: How can a dancer in a prestigious company also be a ballroom house father?

MAURICE: I’ve made it work. I learned how to navigate and separate. I’m a principal dancer with Ailey. And I take that seriously. But I’m also a house father and I take that seriously as well.

I’m about positivity, unity, and hard work. In ballroom you compete and if you’re not good, you can get chopped. You got to work on your craft and come back harder. It’s the same with dance.

BLADE: Any message for queer audiences?

MAURICE: I know my queer brothers and sisters love to leave with something good. If you come to any Ailey performance you’ll be touched, your spirit will be uplifted. There’s laughter, thoughtful and tender moments. And it’s all delivered by artists who are passionate about what they do.

BLADE: Alvin Ailey has been a huge part of your life. Thoughts on that?

MAURICE: I’m a believer in it takes a village. Hard work and discipline. I take it seriously and I love what I do. Ailey has provided me with a lot: world travel, a livelihood, and working with talented people here and internationally. Alvin Ailey has been a huge part of my life from boyhood to now. It’s been great.

Out & About

This queer comedy show will warm you up

Catfish Comedy to feature LGBTQ lineup

Published

3 days ago

January 31, 2026

Tinashe Chingarande

(Promotional image via Eventbrite)

Catfish Comedy will host “2026 Queer Kickoff Show” on Thursday, Feb. 5 at A League of Her Own (2319 18th Street, N.W.). This show features D.C.’s funniest LGBTQ and femme comedians. The lineup features performers who regularly take the stage at top clubs like DC Improv and Comedy Loft, with comics who tour nationally.

Tickets are $17.85 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.