Nice Cock: In the locker room, Glendon offers Eli "some bonus pay on the South Side," while Junior looks on, smoking a cigarette, still either jealous or angry. As they leave, they pass a naked guy. "That's a nice cock, Ernie," Glendon says. Junior is so busy looking that he trips, and then looks back again. The boy is definitely into cocks and butts.
The Loan Enforcer: Glendon is a loan shark as well as a wrestling manager: the job involves beating up a deadbeat. Eli and Junior both go, squabbling over who's the boss.
"Kill 'em!" we hear. Psych! It's the tv. We meet a slovenly, drunken, foul-mouthed, abusive jackass of a husband. While Junor subdues his wife and baby, Eli punches him a few times and asks for the money, and when he doesn't have it, breaks his thumbs. Junior laughs "derangedly" (according to the subtitles).
Afterwards Glendon drops Eli off, hands him some money, and tells him, "Buy yourself something nice." This is a feminizing statement.
As Eli drives off on his motorcycle, we hear Buck Owens' "Tall Dark Stranger":
They say a tall dark stranger is a demon, and that a devil rides closely by his side.
So if Junior is the demon, Eli must be the devil riding beside him. How long will they ride together?
Abusive Daddies all the way down: Eli drives to the Gemstone residence (it's not a stage name, apparently), where his abusive dad chastises him for being late for dinner. So they're eating after Eli's wrestling match? Like at 11 or 12 pm? There's also a mousy, skittish mom and a little sister, May-May (important in Season 3).
Ordered to say grace, Eli jokes: "Good food, good meat, good God, let's eat," which makes May-May laugh. Dad slaps him. End of flashback.
We're fine with the faggots: In 2022, elderly Eli Gemstone is a megachurch pastor and televangelist. He and the satellite church ministers are discussing the case of Pastor Butterfield (Victor Williams), caught videotaping his wife and another woman having sex in a dance club restroom, while they were all high on Molly ("we thought they were Sweetarts"). The story made the front page of The New York Times, thanks to reporter Thaniel Block (Jason Schwartzman), who has made a career of publicizing ministerial sex scandals. Eli wants to be lenient, but the others object. (Left: random pecs)
A Spanish speaking pastor explains: "My church is ok with the maricones (roughly faggots), but we're not ready for swinging and tropus." Pastor Diane translates: "His church is really cool with the gays and the queers, but not so much about the swingers and the thruples." They fire Pastor Butterfield; he tries to commit suicide.
Why did Pastor Diane translate maricones with two words, gays and queers? Why queers, doubtless with the old pejorative meaning rather than the contemporary reclamation? I get the impression that the pastors are not really ok with maricones, so any gay ministers might want to stay in the closet, especially with the reporter snooping around. Since this is the first scene in the present day, it is doubtless setting up one of the main conflicts of the season. But who is the gay minister Eli, Junior, or someone not yet introduced?
A stalker? At least we know that he's not the closeted gay minister. He turns out to be Eli's grandson Gideon, back from a job as a stuntman to assist with the Gemstone ministry. He's going to move into the house that Eli built for his abusive dad.
In other news, Gideon's younger brother Abraham has been masturbating, and leaving "semen loads" all over the house, like in the freezer next to the Dreamsicles.
Left: Selfie. Not Gideon or Abraham
We cut to a church service with Eli Gemstone and his children, Jesse, Judy, and Kelvin, announcing the start of their streaming service, GODD. We see Jesse's wife Amber, their kids, and Judy's husband BJ in the audience. No partner for Kelvin. He must be single
F*k, yeah! More pecs and dicks after the break
Fuck, yeah: After the service, the family drives in a caravan to Jason's Steak House. They get out of their cars in slow motion and walk past the al fresco area, heterosexual couples reveling in their nuclear family conformity, the "job, house, wife, kids" litany of my youth made visible. The background song brags about their heteronormative success:
Turn your head when I walk by -- I got the world at my feet.
All I want out of every day, is to wake up every morning
Sun is shining, smiling, and we've covered every room
Wait -- where's Kelvin?
Suddenly the record scratches off. Two vans pull up with a flexing muscle Christ and the logo "Strength above All Else." Twelve muscle men emerge, wearing identical canvas gis: the God Squad! Closeups of biceps and pecs and abs,bulging, flexing, intruding on the smug primness of the nuclear families. There is no romance here. There is no heterosexual desire. It is raw homoerotic power. The song changes to:
Fuck, yeah! Fuck, yeah! Fuck, yeah!
We see their leader from the back of his tiger-splashed leather jacket. Who is this Messiah of Muscle, this Pope of the Phallus, demolishing the iron cage of heteronormativity, leading us to homoerotic Eden of masculine power?
He turns around for the big reveal.
Kelvin! The prissy little femme boy from church earlier? I thought it would be Junior.
He has changed his jacket: more shiny buttons, a gold bracelet. And his pants: a porn-star bulge and a bright gold zipper to help guide us to the Promised Land. Obviously gay, but hardly closeted. His life, career, and religion all center on masculine beauty.
A man we haven't met before stands beside him, identified as Keefe. His relationship to Kelvin is unclear. Assistant or boyfriend? Acolyte or lover?
Kelvin gives his God Squad some micromanaging instructions about "eating light," and starts to walk toward the steakhouse. Keefe stops him. "Excuse me, sir. Will you be dining with the men and I?" Sir? Assistant.
Kelvin says no, he'll be dining "above you" with the family.
Keefe: "Shall I join you?" Boyfriend.
Kelvin: No. "Upstairs church lunch is only for family...and Daddy's closest work associates."
This upsets Keefe. He looks like he's about to cry. Apparently they have enjoyed intimacy before, so he thinks he should be treated as a boyfriend. Never hook up with your boss, Dude: it only leads to trouble.
Kelvin: "Do not take this personal. No matter how many disciples we gather, you're still my Number One." So Kelvin is Jesus, and Keefe is the Beloved Disciple. Assistant
Keefe still looks upset, so Kelvin says "Let me tickle them titty meats" and reaches out to squeeze his nipple through his shirt. Hey, that's inappropriate with an employee. Boyfriend..
Then he swishes off with a jaunty over-the-shoulder smile, pushing up the gay stereotypic behavior Boyfriend.
Now we see Kelvin's central conflict: he is closeted after all. He imagines that being gay is incompatible with the cozy families sitting upstairs in Jason's Steakhouse, so if he wants a career and a family, he must deny Keefe like Peter denied Christ: "Him? Oh, he's my...um...assistant." During this season, Keefe will be pushing for a place at the table, recognition as a romantic partner. Will Kelvin find a way to admit him?
See: Shane Michael Philips, the stunt cock in Young Eli's dressing room
Kyle Hawk: Gay or gay-friendly wrestler and Gemstone alum, with a naked Native American bonus.
Tommy Nelson: Lots of gay subtext roles, some dicks and butts, but no gay porn
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