Did the "Solar Opposites Valentine's Day Special" really change everything?

  

Discussing the Solar Opposites Valentine's Day Special, showrunner Josh Bycel noted that holiday specials are usually stand-alone episodes, with no plot or character development: "So we love the idea of [this one] tricking people into realizing like, ‘Oh my God, the end of the episode is actually the biggest thing that’s ever happened to these characters short of landing on Earth!"

Link to NSFW version

Co-creator Mike McMahon adds: "it really changes the dynamic of the characters."

Left: Mike McMahon.

Spoiler alert: Korvo and Terry, have sex.

Solar Opposites is an animated comedy about a group of aliens who flee from the doomed planet Schlorp and crash-land on Earth: team leader Korvo, the "let's do this by the books" micro-manager; the effervescent goofball Terry; their teenage replicants Yumyulack and Jesse, and the Pupa.  Korvo and Terry find each other's habits annoying, and often argue about how assimilated they should become.

In the special, the group tries to order cold, wet tuna in a restaurant, only to discover that it's Valentine's Day, so only romantic dinners are available.  Should they come back tomorrow, or use their alien science to eliminate romantic love from the world?

They decide to eliminate romantic love.  But that turns everyone into Jimmy Buffet fans: they walk around in Hawaiian shirts, with parrots, drinking piña coladas.  Then the parrots become sentient and go to war with the humans.

To fix the mess, the aliens have to find a couple who still experience romantic love, and use them to beam love down to the planet.  There are no humans in love left, but what about penguins?  Nope, they are pro-parrot, and refuse to help. 

Terry asks: "Couldn't we love each other?"

No, all Schlorpians have is teammate affinity.  But maybe that will be enough.  They have to try.

Terry hates teammate affinity: "It's so annoying that I miss you uncontrollably when you leave the room."

Korvo agrees.  He hates "the way it makes the prickly bumps on my arms stand up when you bend over to pick something up from the floor."

Um..guys, that's erotic and romantic desire.....

They get it on.

I know it's just cartoon alien sex, but to be on the safe side, I'm moving the pictures to the NSFW site.  

It works!  Lesbian and heterosexual couples start making out, and the world is saved.

The voice over tells us that "Korvo and Terry sucked and fucked their way to restoring humanity through the power of love."

Cut to the two getting married  by AISHA, their AI device: the Roman Catholic Church has given her permission to conduct a same-sex marriage by "today only."  It always bugs me that no tv, only Catholic churches exist.  Also that all churches are homophobic. 

So how did this "change everything"?  We use queer codes, actions or statements in the tv texts, to indicate that two guys are a romantic couple.  All of them have some degree of deniability -- you could argue that "straight buddies do that."  But the most undeniable codes are identifying statements such as "we are boyfriends" and acts of physical affection.  

Korvo and Terry may have started out as teammates, but by the second season, they are calling each other "husbands,"  They get jealous when someone else intrudes into the relationship. Terry is devastated when Korvo has  sex with another male being.  They kiss.  They discuss "giving Korvo a blow job," "putting things into Terry's butt," and rimming.  Terry is turned on by Korvo with a British accent and wearing a v-neck t-shirt.  He states  that he is in love with Korvo. How does having sex changes the dynamic? 

McMahan claims that previously they were "just teammates," with little "are they or aren't they" hints.

He thought getting a blow job was a hint?  

Alien sex and Mike McMahon's butt on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends