Previous: Episode 2.3, Continued: The darkness of roller coasters, club bulges, hookups, and apples
Remember the Lissons?: We cut to Jesse and Amber hanging out with the Lissons -- the megachurch pastors planning a Christian resort -- and discussing how close their friendship has become. Jesse breaks the news that they can't get their Daddy to fork over the money to invest. He's asked multiple times, but Eli refuses to budge.
Lyle is aghast. The Gemstones are worth over $600 million; surely Jesse can afford $10 million on his own? Nope, it's all Daddy's money. Jesse will control it someday, of course, but not until Eli dies.
The Lissons are irate, lambast Jesse and Amber for being poor, and break off the friendship. I think they just liked you for your money, guys.
The Ace of Spades: Kelvin and Keefe figure that they can restore the confidence of the God Squad with a 40-day field trip in the Judean desert. They walk across the Gemstone airfield, Kelvin in a military coat with a leopard-spotted beret, and Keefe in an oddly feminine black robe, with his backpack in front.
Uh-oh, Martin, Eli's chief accountant and right-hand man, intercepts them. Eli has refused to pay for the trip. Do you see a parallel between Kelvin/Keefe and Jesse/Amber's problems?
Kelvin bats his eyes, touches Martin's chest, and begs: "You got here too late. We already took off. Please?" Wait -- are you flirting with Martin? Homoerotic hotness doesn't work on everyone, dude.
And it doesn't work: Martin lays down the law Kelvin is forced to break the news that his father said no, thus losing even more of his authority with the God Squad musclemen.
I Know What a Tomater Is: In the Gemstone Parking Garage, Eli finds a tomato smooshed on his windshield. The Tan Man (James Preston Rogers) appears and says, threateningly, "Get the message?"
Eli pretends that he isn't sure -- maybe something to do with a broken heart? The Tan Man growls, howls, flexes and clarifies: "you hurt my boss's feelings real bad, and he's not the kind of guy who likes to have hurt feelings." So, what kind of guy senjoy having hurt feelings? "He wants an apology."
Having confronted far more formidable foes, Eli is not impressed by the Tan Man's theatrics. He sends a message for Junior:"tell him to go fuck hisself."
BJ's Baptism: As people file into the Baptismal Chapel, Baby Billy from the 1993 flashback, now with white hair and a whiter grin, performs "There is a fountain filled with blood" while his new wife, the young, very pregnant Tiffany, looks on.
Outside, Kelvin argues that he cleared the whole God Squad to attend the baptism! Nope, only he and a "plus one" are on the guest list. The God Squad guys start murmuring again. Another blow to his authority!
Kelvin promises to feed them all -- he asks his date, Keefe, to steal some food, resulting in humorous but ridiculous bits. Do you really want to eat a shrimp that's been transported from the hors d'oeuvres table in Keefe's mouth? Why not just go out for hamburgers?
Baby Billy begins the service, bragging that he's on the Christian Pop Charts now, and misnaming BJ as TJ. He must not be very close to the Gemstone family, either. Hey, the seat next to Kelvin is empty. Why isn't he sitting with his date? Is Keefe already raiding the caterers for the after-party?
Next Judy sings: "When a man outgrows the family of his origin, and they've no place in his life./ Cause he's different now -- he's got to show them how."
She was originally going to sing "Rock my Boy's Body," emphasizing the erotic nature of her relationship with BJ (it was moved to the episode finale).
Take it from the black sheep baby, every way I can
Sometimes it's with fire, and sometimes with ice
Just don't get it twisted, this body's gonna pay the price
Eli takes over and completes the baptism. Judy introduces him as "BJ Christian Barnes."
I was disappointed that they didn't actually make it to Israel. It would have been interesting to see Kelvin with Jerusalem Syndrome, where tourists surrounded by so many Biblical images come to believe that they are Jesus or the Jewish Messiah (but I guess he is already the Messiah of his muscle cult). Plus Tel Aviv has the biggest and most open gay community of any city in the Middle East.
Left: a Haifa cop.
Eilat.
A life-sized BJ cake, so you have to cut slices out of his head.
The outraged Kelvin chooses two cupcakes, carefully removes the pins, places a napkin on top of them, and splat!
Jesse and Amber seethe with rage as Eli dances with a lady.
Eli tries to be friendly to BJ's family, but Judy interrupts him: "They're from Asheville. They hate God." "Yes, but God loves them."
When BJ enters in his shiny pink "romper with a cummerbund," his family criticizes him for being feminine, but he counters that men can wear one-pieces. Then they complain that he is a child, a little baby, not a man at all. (Notice the parallel with Kelvin constantly trying to prove that he is a "fully-grown adult man."). He's ridiculous, the Gemstones are ridiculous, he's ruining his life. BJ rushes back to his dressing room and tears off the outfit (some momentary beefcake).
Since when does Eli Gemstone like ladies?;. As the party is winding down, Kelvin and Jesse meet at the baptistry and discuss how Eli always ruins their plans, "I wish I could fight that man!" Kelvin exclaims. "I'd destroy him...make him look like a fool." Eavesdropping, Baby Billy notes that he's wanted to fight Eli many times over the years.
Kelvin tells him that Eli has been having sexual encounters with "multiple somebodies" Jesse continues: "Dude fancies himself a damn cocksmith...trying to make himself into a big character for the ladies." Interesting that Jesse specifies women, but Kelvin does not. Women just don't pop into his head when he thinks of sex.
Baby Billy finds this hard to believe. "Eli Gemstone...with the ladies?" Why, when you were young, was he just into guys?
The Fist Fight: As Keefe passes out the food he stole, Kelvin seethes and bursts balloons, and KJ complains that the Gemstones are a "train wreck" of a family, BJ throws a piece of cake at her -- which hits Eli just as he is schmoozing with a senator! "You kids are an embarrassment!" he exclaims.
"I'm not spending one cent so you and your muscle boys can frolick in the desert!' Frolick is feminine: Eli believes that Kelvin is planning an homoerotic orgy in the desert. Referring to them as muscle boys, not men, enrages Kelvin, and he attacks.
The two have a fist fight in the foyer of the church, with everyone watching, Keefe and the musclemen doing a chest-pound display of loyalty. Kelvin throws one of BJ's gifts at Eli: he ducks, and it smashes a picture of Aimee-Leigh.
"You could have killed me!"
"I wish I had!" Kelvin cries. Wait -- killing your father, hooking up with your siblings. This episode is overloaded with Freudian symbolism.
Eli pins him in the thumb-breaking position and demands an apology. Kelvin refuses, and taunts that he doesn't have "the balls" to actually follow through. A call back to Eli's testicle injury in Episode 2.3, a symbolic castration that has rendered him impotent.
But Eli does it! I suppose I don't need to point out that in Freudian theory, the thumb is a stand-in for the penis, so Kelvin's broken thumbs represent yet another symbolic castration. But this time it is the father who performs the castration, rendering his own son impotent.
The Wedding Rings: We cut to Keefe helping the EMTs rush Kelvin to the ambulance.
There are those rings again , on their wedding ring fingers, Keefe's a thick silver band, Kelvin's more delicate, with a diamond filigree. Fan boards went wild with speculation. We know that they're not God Squad rings, since they are not identical. Or purity rings, since those are for teenagers, not men in their thirties. Commitment rings? Wedding rings? But Kelvin is opposed to romantic love. Since they are not emphasized or commented on in any way, they are probably just a fashion choice, signifying that Kelvin and Keefe are fancy boys.
As the ambulance drives off, Keefe runs behind it for a few steps, then tries to get the God Squad to make their chest-thump gesture. They refuse: the Messiah of Muscle has fallen. His homoerotic energy has faded away.
What a Shit Show: In the aftermath of the baptism debacle, Tiffany notes that she sent Baby Billy out for Funyons hours ago, and he hasn't returned. Judy and BJ invite her to wait at their house. Uh-oh, we see Baby Billy on the freeway, turning off to the Charlotte, North Carolina exit (a three and a half hour drive from Charleston. How long did that party last?) He has abandoned another family!
Meanwhile, Jesse and Amber take a van meant for Eli. They drive until late at night (wait -- weren't they going home? That's only a short distance from the Salvation Center). Eventually they reach a gas station in Lebanon, South Carolina, 40 miles from Charleston. The driver vanishes, and four motorcyclists appear, wearing red-and-black helmets that obscure their facees. They open fire. Jesse and Amber barely survive.
Uh-oh, Junior hired the motorcycle guys to kill Eli! The end.
This review seemed a little skimpy, so I threw in some pictures of n*de wrestlers after the break. Junior is a wrestling promoter, after all.
Weigh-in
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In the showers.
See: Peter Kaasa, the hottest man in professional wrestling
Next: Episode 2.5: Yep, Kelvin is gay. But there's embezzlement and murder, too
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