Frank is a success at a gay bar, and Pete and Tiff are there as support.
Tiff: “It is so crazy to me how gay people just have bars where they go and they do whatever the fuck they want and nobody judges them.”
Pete: “Oh, it’s the most judgmental place in the world, but that’s the way we like it.”
As Mistress Mira’s class proceeds, through ball gags, corsets, strapons, floggers, and straight jackets, the rift between Tiff the teacher’s pet and Pete the class clown grows.
Mira decides Tiff/May has come far enough to handle a scene with her personal submissive, a wealthy man known as MJP who is a masochist and finsub. Tiff explains financial submission to Pete and says “we” will take it.
Most of the second episode is Tiff going back to school. She’s one of many women (of various ethnicities and body types) who are in Mistress Mira’s intensive course, though the other women give her the cold shoulder. Pete is the only man present, apparently on the grounds he is “Mistress May’s” assistant.
Mira enters and announces that she had to remove their links from the dungeon website, because of SESTA-FOSTA, much to their disappointment. (This suggests that all of these women are pro-dommes.)
Mira brings up puppy play as an example of a key concept in their work: ownership. She notices that Pete and Tiff are talking in class, and calls Tiff up to the front.
As I watch Bonding, I’m torn between my impulse to say to Tiff and Pete and Bonding in general, “That’s not the way you do this!” and my recognition that, in reality, some people play fast and loose with BDSM’s supposedly sacred principles. Especially if they’re inexperienced and/or money is involved. Likewise, pro-domme work might be a calling for some, but for others it’s a way to pay the bills. My problem isn’t that the show is unrealistic, but that it is unflattering.
In Season 2, for the first time, Bonding breaks out of the narcissism of the Pete/Tiff dyad and shows there is a kinky community and what they do in it matters.
Tiff, as Mistress May, is back in Daphne’s house. Daphne asks where “Carter” is and Tiff admits that she made a mistake with her partner.
Pete wakes up next to Josh and has a good day until he goes to the dungeon and finds that Tiff is AWOL and he has to deal with her client, a grumpy guy in a penguin costume.
Pete tries to send him away, but Penguin Guy not only refuses to leave, he intimidates Pete into putting on another penguin costume and wrestling him.
It’s date night for both Pete and Tiff. He gets dressed with the help of Tiff’s house slave, Rolph, while she checks out Doug on social media.
Pete and Tiff get into a fight, made worse because they both know each other’s vulnerable spots. Pete needles Tiff over her reluctance to start a relationship with Doug, while Tiff brings up his fear of doing stand-up comedy.
We finally follow up on Daphne, the client introduced in episode two. Tiff and Pete, in full kink gear, visit her very uptight house and meet her and her husband, Andrew.
While Tiff is upstairs tickling Andrew, Pete and Daphne awkwardly hang out at the kitchen table.
The third episode of Bonding has the least to do with BDSM so far.
Tiff and Pete struggle with their inhibitions. Tiff avoids giving a class presentation on why she wants to be a psychiatrist, while the jock-ish guy who has been flirting with her gives a heartfelt, vulnerable speech. Meanwhile, Pete still hasn’t called the guy who gave him his number.
Pete backs out of going on the stand-up stage. Tiff gets him to admit that he’s turned on by feet, and says that arousal helps people “zombie out”. She takes him back to the dungeon and gets him to do his stand-up routine in front of the staff and clients.
Tiff’s professor speaks about the emotional hazards of psychotherapy and the necessity of distance and control, while hypocritically flirting with her and another female student.
