Another day, another dick pic on TV. If you loved Succession‘s painfully awkward dick pic drama, you’ll definitely want to check out Episode 3 of Netflix‘s new comedy, Uncoupled, which features Neil Patrick Harris’ character Michael accidentally swiping past his dick pic at work. Mortifying.
Uncoupled comes from the rom-com mind of Darren Star (Sex and the City, Younger, Emily in Paris) and tells the story of Michael, a New York real estate broker whose boyfriend of 17 years, Colin (Tuc Watkins), decides to move out and dump him with no warning. Needless to say, Michael is distraught — mostly because he loved Colin, but also because he has to get back on the dating scene in his forties. Ugh.
Have no fear, though! Michael isn’t navigating the terrible world of modern dating alone. He has his friends to guide him, make him sign up for Grindr, and teach him the importance of having a good dick pic on hand. In Episode 3, after Michael’s first Grindr match blocks him for not sending a dick pic in a timely fashion, his pal Stanley (Brooks Ashmanskas) explains, “You need a dick pic. You won’t get anywhere on this without one. It’s like your Grindr passport photo.”
After Stanley shows Michael his dick pic (or rather, an illustrated take on his dick that one the artists he represent mocked up) Michael heads into his gym’s locker room, drops his towel, and carries out his very own dick pic photo shoot. After posing, and snapping, and readjusting himself and his phone and his — you know — a man walks in on Michael, prompting him to quickly cover up and conclude his Grindr shoot.
He got what he needed, but the next day as he’s showing his colleague and an important new client photos of apartments on his phone, he accidentally swipes past his winning dick pic. AHHHH!!!! The mishap luckily winds up working in Michael’s favor, but it was still a horrifying moment for him and another bold moment for Netflix, a platform that has made headlines for full frontal nudity in recent years.
While the Uncoupled dick pic obviously isn’t Harris’, the actor told Them that he was in charge of selecting the photo.
“I had to find a dick pic that wasn’t my actual dick to make it look like it was my dick, which is its own comedic endeavor because I’m scrolling through pictures of phalluses and I’m trying to determine, like, how large my own on-camera dong should be. Should it be really big or should it be just average and at what angle?” he said. “That was fun, sending the producers pictures back and forth like, ‘What do you think of this dick?’”
At the show’s premiere, Harris expanded on his dick pic search, telling Page Six, “So we started looking through photos of people who have taken pics of their dongs in locker rooms… And you had to find the right angle and girth and manscapery. And I think we found the right mix. I’m proud of what I’m packing downstairs.”
He also shared that he was asked to approve “a flaccid latex phallus that was left in my dressing room.” But that didn’t go over well. “It was not OK because I’m more proud of Michael’s member than something that is mass-produced, that you can purchase online,” he explained.
So there you have it, folks. A lot of careful consideration and research goes into selecting the perfect on-screen dick pic.
