Gemstones Episode 3.8, Continued: Kelvin's tender bits, Peter's van, Chuck's butt, and coming out to the world.

Previous: Episode 3.8: Is Peter a woman?  Are Kelvin and Keefe lovers?  Does Jesse dye his sideburns?

More Militia Squabbles: Under the highway overpass, the militia men get more chicken, this time from Fancy Nancy's, but the portions are still too small.  Plus they've accomplished none of their goals due to Peter's mismanagement.  Instead of Brotherhood of Tomorrow's Fires, referring to an Apocalypse that isn't happening, they're going to call themselves the Keepers of Yesterday's Monuments, to key into their interest in (Confederate) monuments.  

They kick Uncle Peter and Chuck out of the group, taking all of their money, but letting them keep the truck full of explosives.  

Top photo: The tender bits of Steve Zahn, who plays Uncle Peter.

Left: The tender bits of Lukas Haas, who plays Chuck Montgomery. 

Hating on Eli:  In the Executive Board Room, the siblings speak to Eli only through Baby Billy, expressing anger that he refused to pay the ransom.  

Judy: "You left us to die! Uncle Peter would have killed any one of us, or all three, or he'd just mutilate us and send you our body parts."

Kelvin specifies: "Nipples, penis, butthole shavings -- all our tender bits."  Interesting --the three body parts he finds erotic. We can also divide it up by sibling: Judy's nipples, Jesse's penis, Kelvin's butthole.  We all know that Kelvin is a bottom, so he's concerned about that.

Left: The tender bits of Adam Devine

Jesse states that he's always known that Eli doesn't love him, but he figured that it was all about the church.  But he was wrong -- it's all about the money.

Eli protests: it's not about the money.  It's always been about his children.  

Hah!  They're not buying it. 

Suddenly Eli is happy because the siblings are working together, cooperating, not competing.  If it takes hating on him for them to work as a team, fine.   

Showtime:  The Sunday of the siblings' return to the church.  Crowds waiting to greet them.  A woman holds a sign: "The Gemstone 3 -- we missed you."  The ticket booth announces: "The return of the Gemstone children -- praise be!"  At the ministers' meeting earlier in the season, the siblings tried the "We Three and Thee" catchphrase, with disastrous results.  Now the congregation is embracing The Three. 

In the hallway outside their dressing rooms, the siblings say goodbye to their partners.  Jesse/Amber and BJ/Judy kiss.  Keefe moves in for a kiss, but Kelvin blocks him with a forehead press.  Keefe looks very amorous, as if still caught up in the afterglow from whatever they did last night.  Kelvin looks apologetic: "Sorry, dude, not in front of my family and the gossipy church staff."  

This scene received a lot of misdirection in the trailers.  First you didn't see who Kelvin was saying goodbye to, so you would think it might be Taryn.  Then the lighting makes a square white patch appear on Keefe's face, as if he was injured during the rescue attempt.

Jesse signals "Showtime!", and the siblings join him to walk down the hall to the stage.  Amber at the other end of the hallway, waiting for the partners to join her in the sanctuary. Keefe and BJ stand there, watching.

Suddenly Kelvin backs up, then turns around and walks quickly back to Keefe.  What's going on?  He's holding his dressing room key -- maybe he forgot something?  He wraps his arm around Kelvin's shoulders, slams him forcefully against the wall, and kisses him.  We cut to BJ grinning, and Judy grabbing at Jesse's arm in surprise. 

 In the second take, or maybe a second kiss, the dressing room key is gone, and Kelvin has moved his hand to Keefe's face. 

They break, and Kelvin walks back to the siblings, grinning, pleased with himself.  Keefe looks proud of him, too.   Jesse and Judy give him congratulatory grins.  He adjusts his glasses, as if to say "Well, that's that."  

More after the break

That kiss has been analyzed backward and forward, frame by frame, through body language, staging, costuming, theme, symbolism, its place in the episode, its place in the series. No one seems able to agree on what it meant. Has Kelvin recognized that he is gay?  Is he acknowledging that Keefe is his lover?  Have they moved from "good buddies" to lovers?  Are they coming out to the family?

The actors themselves don't agree.  Ton Cavalero seemed surprised that it was taken as a big deal: "We had sex in the previous scene, and you think a goodbye kiss is important? The other partners kissed, so why shouldn't we?"

Remember, Kelvin is on his way to perform for the first time since the kidnapping.  13,000 people in the congregation, plus several million on tv, are waiting to hear about the siblings' ordeal.  His mind is on his performance, not on confirming their relationship  initiating a romantic relationship or coming out to the family: "Heck with it.  I want to kiss him, and I'm going to kiss him." 

But this isn't a "see you later!" peck.  It is lengthy, substantial; as Kelvin breaks away, he looks like something has happened.  Something has changed.  

Maybe we should go with Adam Devine's interpretation: the guys  "fulfilled their destiny" with the kiss.  It was possibly Kelvin's first kiss with anyone.

Heterosexuals usually start with the kiss and work their way down, but gay men usually start with beneath-the-belt action work their way up.  Sometimes they don't kiss until after they have permanent partners.  Is Kelvin answering Keefe's question from the previous scene?  

Is it in his eyes?  Oh no, you'll be deceived.

Is it in his sighs?  Oh no, he'll make believe.

If you want to know if he loves you so, it's in his kiss.

The staging doesn't fit any explanation.  I'm still unsure what the kiss means in-universe.  Let's follow Adam's advice: "It's easy to overthink something like that.  Just do it."

Structurally, however, that kiss ends the "are they or aren't they?" game and establishes the guys as a canonical gay couple.  Before, the actors hinted in interviews and their social media pages, or said "I don't know what they are," but afterwards, it was "Yeah, Keefe is the love of my life. Hasn’t it been obvious?"

After the kiss, a few hold-outs on fan boards argued that they have a romantic but not a sexual relationship, or that Kelvin is transgender so the relationship is really heterosexual, or that they were just pretending to be gay.  But the overwhelming majority of fans, and media sites, agreed that the question was answered.

This was very important to LGBTQ viewers, who feared queer-baiting up until that moment.  Granted, the guys displayed over 200 queer codes, so making them straight would be bizarre, but it could happen: "Keefe, I'm so glad that we're buddies again.  Let's go out to dinner tonight, just you and me and our girlfriends." Now they can relax -- in my opinion, about two seasons too late.  The guys should have kissed during the isolation-tank scene in Season 1.

The siblings go on stage amid zapping lasers and the song "So Alive."

When there is nothing left to say /  And all the clouds have faded away
And my mind wanders out there. just to be there in the morning.
With the sun streaming through the trees / There ain't no place I'd rather be.

We see the siblings hold hands, interspliced with shots of the militia men being arrested and placed in handcuffs. I wonder if someone tipped off the Feds.  

 BJ and Keefe are sitting together, with Amber and the kids elsewhere. Keefe aggressively points to Kelvin on stage; his finger seems to have grown, in sharp contrast to his meek pointing from the Season 2 Finale. He has taken charge of the relationship, and we finally know for sure what kind of relationship it is. 

This feels a lot like a season finale, but remember, Peter is still a threat.  And what about the old Dusty Daniels plotline? And Bible Bonkers?  There's a lot more to say. 

Left: more tender bits

See: Season 3, Episode 7-9  Memes

Cory Chapman: Lots of man friends, some gay roles, a queer buddy, nude costars. So where's the beef?

Next: Episode 3.9: Baby Billy is bi, Peter plots revenge, and Kelvin and Keefe cuddle. With a Josh O'Connor bonus