Maxwell Jenkins: The "Lost in Space" guy all grown up, hanging with Kevin Bacon, doing acrobatics, and showing his abs

 

I was surprised to discover that Kevin Bacon's son on The Bondsman (2025) is played by Maxwell Jenkins, Will Robinson on the Lost in Space reboot, all grown up and rather buffed.

Wait -- how did that happen.  Isn't he a little kid?

Time for a profile.

Born in 2005, Max and his sister Samantha grew up performing in the Midnight Circus with their parents, Jeffrey and Julie Jenkins.  A 2017 newspaper article states that they had raised $900,000 for the Chicago Parks

Max still performs on occasion, but his first love is the theater.  He began appearing on camera in the tv series tv series Betrayal (2013-14), about a woman cheating on her husband.  Probably playing her young son.

Then came guest spots on Chicago Fire, Chicago Med, Sensate, Joe Bell, and Family Man.

And Lost in Space (2018-21), a dramatic take on the 1960s camp classic, with many colonists, not just the Robinsons, zapped onto a weird alien planet -- or two or three, as the series progressed.

I didn't actually care for it -- too much angst and agony, and not enough beefcake.

Although Toby Stephens, who played Will's dad John Robinson, has displayed his cock and butt elsewhere.

More after the break

"The Bondsman": Kevin Bacon fights demons, sings country-western music, trunks Tater. With Bacon's d*ck and Will Robinson's muscle

A bail bond service will pay your bail, so you can stay out of jail while awaiting your trial.  If you don't show up, the service loses that money, so they hire a bail bondsman to track you down.  Regulations differ from state to state, but generally bail bondsmen cannot carry guns, enter property without permission, or use force to arrest the bail jumper.

But not this Bondsman, played by Kevin Bacon in the new paranormal drama on Amazon Prime.

Left: Kevin  bulging in 1980

Scene 1: Night.  A pick-up truck drives down a desolate highway in rural Georgia and stops at the Holiday Hotel -- the kind where the rooms open right onto the parking spots, where you used to stay before the Holiday Inns took over. 

The Bondsman looks at a photo of his target, - wraps his gun belt around his waist (nice crotch shot) -- and bangs on the hotel room door.  

Left: Kevin's cock in 2005. 

The guy inside yells for him to "F*ck off," so he he puts a hornet's nest in the air conditioning duct, and when the guy rushes out, nabs him.  

But he's not the target, he's Billy Earle (Daniel Norris), who's supposed to be in prison. 

The tip was a fake, to lure him to the hotel!  Billy's brother appears out of nowhere and shoots the Bondsman across the parking lot, then slits his throat.  He dies a very bloody death.  Wait -- if it was a set up, why did Billy hide out inside the hotel room?  Shouldn't he be waiting to ambush the Bondsman the moment he gets out of his car?

Left: Kevin's buns.

Scene 2: The extremely dead Bondsman comes back to life, interred behind the dry wall in a hotel room.  He pushes through and examines the gaping hole in his neck.   Better start wearing ascots, buddy.

Tater (Mike Kaye) comes in, talking on the phone about how hardcore the Earle Brothers are, and his parents are starting to charge him rent.  He screams; the Bondsman knocks him to the ground.

He explains that the Earle Brothers hired him to burn down the hotel for the insurance money, but he didn't know there was an undead body inside.  

The Bondsman handcuffs him, shoves him in the trunk of his car, covers his neck hole with duct tape, and drives away.

Scene 3: The Bondsman driving recklessly down a two-lane highway.  I guess if you're dead, it doesn't matter.   He arrives at Halloran Bail Bonds, located in a gas station in Landry, "a fictional town brimming with cases of demonic possession"

Phone message: He' s joined the Pot o'Gold Corporate Family.  Pot o'Gold is the title of the episode, so it must be important.

Leaving the whimpering Tater in the trunk, the Bondsman goes to the bathroom and checks his neck hole -- it's healed.  

Scene 3: He rushes over to the house across the street and tells his Mama that he needs to find the Earle Brothers right away -- "Ugh, what's he doing here?" It's Pastor Ron (Dave Macomber), who kicked Mama out of the church.  She can come back, if the Bondsman stops detaining skips during the services.  Are there a lot of bail jumpers who go to Sunday services in Landry?

Mama: The Earle Brothers got out of jail; their bail was posted by Lucky Callahan, who is dating the Bondsman's ex-wife.  Mama hates the "damn Yankee"; she won't have her grandson raised by a Boston Red Socks fan!   So Lucky posted the Earle Brothers' bail and hired them to kill the Bondsman just so he wouldn't get back together with his ex?  That's a big grudge.

Scene 4: Dang it, let Tater out of that trunk!    The Bondsman forges Lucky's name on an arrest warrant.  Another robocall from Pot o"Gold!  He unplugs his phone, but they are calling all of his cell phones, too.

Next the Bondsman puts some murder and body-disposal tools in the trunk with Tater and drives to a nightclub, The Boxcar ("Hog Roast Hoe Down Next Week!").   Lucky's car is outside: "Boston Red Sox Fans."  

The joint is huge on the inside.  Ex-Wife Maryanne (Jennifer Nettles) is singing "When Will I Be Loved," by Linda Ronstadt:

I've been cheated, been mistreated.  When will I be loved?

I've been put down, I've been pushed 'round. When will I be loved?

She sings the entire song -- the high point of the episode.

Suddenly Hub spots Red Sox Fan Lucky, and follows him through the kitchen, past the line cook (Brandon Alston, left) into the back:

More after the break

"Running Point": Travis has a stage mom, Jackie has a p*enis problem, and Drew's ex is dating a Greek god. With a p*enis

 

 

I don't like sports at all, but I'm still going to review an episode of Running Point (2025), on Netflix, about a basketball franchise (a team in a league that is guaranteed to play regardless of performance).  

Problem: "running point" is meaningless to me, so I keep forgetting the title every time I look away.  Google AI says that it is "a team's offensive style that emphasizes fast-paced, up-tempo play with a lot of transition opportunities."  So basically "play it loud"?   

The Premise: When Cam (Justin Theroux) of the Los Angeles Waves retires to go into rehab, he names his sister Isla (Kate Hudson) franchise president, to the consternation of her brothers Screw-up Ness (Scott MacArthur) and Micromanaging Sandy (Drew Carver).  Both Scott and Drew have played gay characters, and I think they're both bisexual in real life, so there's a good chance we'll see some gay representation.   

To increase the odds, I'll review Episode 1.7, "A Special Place in Hell," where "Jackie and Sandy's messy love lives catch up with them."  

Scene 1: Isla enters the franchise headquarters, narrating that since Coach Marcus (Toby Sandeman) gave Player Dyson(Uche Agade)  the confidence to shoot free-throws granny-style, the team has turned around. They've won three games in a row.  Hey, Isla's friend is Brenda Song from "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody"

In the office, she asks her assistant Jackie (Fabizio Guido) to refill her water jug, but he's not around.  Cut to him in bed with a woman: "This is the best thing that ever happened to me, including finding out that I'm in a family of billionaires."   But he's late for work, so he rushes out (underwear shot).

Back story:  Jackie, who worked concessions at the basketball arena, recently discovered that he was the illegitimate son of the sibling's father, so their half-brother.  They responded by giving him a job as Isla's assistant? 

Scene 2:  Jackie trying to work and look at bikini girls on the internet.  Isla wants to know where he was all morning.  He had to stop and...vote.  "Oh, we have to do that again?"  Probably, but there will just be one person on the ballot. 

The other brothers and the coach call her into the conference room to discuss "an existential crisis":  Important Player Travis' overbearing Mom.  She comes onto the court during games. She calls plays. They can't just send her back to Florida, because players idolize their Moms.  They sacrificed everything to push them out of the hood.  So could Isla tell her to tone it down?

Scene 3: Heading to the restroom, Jackie texts his girl an invitation to the Shake Shack. Inside, he literally bumps into the Very Important Mr. Ramirez (Roberto Sanchez), and praises him for all he has done for the Hispanic community.  Mr. Ramireze then praises Jackie's father: "I never approved of his lifestyle, but seeing you makes me think that some good came from his proclivities."

 It sounds like he's being homophobic, but he means that Jackie's Dad, the deceased franchise president, had lots of heterosexual marital affairs.

When Ramirez leaves, Jackie unzips at the urinal --- and screams!  Well, it's your own fault for not wrapping it.

Scene 4: The team practicing.  Travis' Mom drops by to water him, smooch him all over, and discuss how much she loves him.  Ugh, a smothering mom.   

After he leaves, Isla drops in to try to get Mom to lay off a little.  She's one of those big, flashy, crass women you see on reality tv, maybe a parody of a Kardashian or something. I'll fast-forward over that section.

Scene 5: Finally, we get to Sandy (Drew Tarver, right).  He leaves a voice mail for Charlie, with whom he has had a falling-out. "I know we're not technically speaking, but I found the air pod you were looking for.  I could drop it off anytime.  Love you."  After hanging up, he screams "F*ck!" in horror at how lame he sounded.

 I'd identify him as gay, but I've been fooled before by women with men's names, so let's just wait. 

Meanwhile, Jackie goes to his half-brother Ness's office: "When I pee, it feels like fire coming out."  See a doctor.   "You've got chlyamidia, dog." A common STD that spreads through unprotected oral, anal, or vaginal sex, although with gay men, it appears most often in the rectum. 

Having sex increases a straight man's prestige, since presumably women have to be wooed and won, so.  Ness congratulates and hugs him.  "You'll be fine.  Just go see the team doctor.  STDS are like 80% of what they deal with."

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit

Moises Arias: Rico on "Hannah Montana," grows up to play gay characters and show his bum, but is he actually gay? With a hung O'Hearn

 

In 2006, the Disney channel premiered Hannah Montana, about a teenage girl who is secretly a pop star (just go with it).  Hannah was surrounded by a coterie of hunks and hunkoids, including her father Robby (Billy Ray Cyrus), her brother Jackson (Jason Earle), her buddy Oliver (Mitchell Musso), her crush Jake (Cody Linley) -- and Rico Suave (Moises Arias), the billionaire's son, schemer, and prankster who ran Rico's Surf Shop and various other business enterprises.  

Rico's love/hate relationship with Jackson, his employee and classmate, eventually turned to love: they became best friends.  Maybe they were dating in real life, too.  Or maybe Moises was dating Ryan Ochoa, or Jaiden Smith, Will Smith's nonbinary and probably pansexual child.

By the time the series ended in 2011, Moises had become the best and brightest of the Short Guy Brigade: 5'1", muscular, cute, and "obviously" gay.

After Hannah, Moises concentrated on movies and tv shows with gay subtext buddy-bonds or even LGBTQ characters:

In The Kings of Summer (2013), two teenage boys, including Gabriel Basso (left), and their nonbinary, agendered friend Biaggio (Moises) decide to spend the summer together in the wilderness. 

I didn't see Ender's Game (2013), since it was based on a book by homophobic Orson Scott Card, but the plot synopsis suggests a love-hate relationship between far-future space captain Bonzo Madrid (Moises) and Ender (Asa Butterfield).

The Land (2016) features four teenage boys who want to be skateboard champs.

In Ben-Hur (2016), Moises plays Dismas, a Jewish zealot who tries to kill Pontius Pilate from Ben-Hur's balcony.  The guards arrest Ben-Hur, of course, but he loves Dismas too much to betray him.

In Five Feet Apart (2019), he plays a gay disabled guy who lives in a cystic fibrosis ward and facilitates his buddy's heterosexual romance.

He lives in a post-Apocalyptic vault-community and buddy-bonds with a boy in Fallout (2024).

More Moises after the break