Teenage Gideon at the sleepover: This is fascinating. Reminiscent of the early Faulkner, with the homoerotic subtexts that one often finds in Southern Gothic fiction.
The cute boy he's trying to impress: Dude, that's a blank scrapbook.
.
More Gideon after the break
Scene 1: Paddy (Jonathan Groff, below) is meeting a stranger in the park. The guy refuses kissing or conversation, just starting a hand job. That's it? What are you, amateurs? At least get on your knees. Suddenly Paddy's cell phone rings -- he thinks it's his mother, because who else calls these days? -- and he scrams.
Scene 2: Paddy's friends, Richie (Raul Castillo) and Dom (Murray Bartlett), who drink all the time, praise him for getting a hookup: now he can finally call himself a pervert. They discuss booze on the bus (I never once rode a bus, either. It was Muni, BART, or drive and spend an hour looking for a parking space)
The two guys (who may be Dom and Richie) seem to be giving each other hand jobs (Doesn't anyone in San Francisco do the more usual things?). But one of them realizes that he's late for an appointment; "This guy might take the room" -- Tara's friend -- so he leaves. Ok, the guy with the appointment calls his partner "My Little Cuban Sandwich," so he must be Augustin (Frankie Alvarez).
More plot: the guy with the appointment keeps asking Augustin to move in, but he usually refuses. He's agreeing today because he "can't afford the City anymore." Wait -- the establishing shot was the City. Aren't these the guys who are having sex in Paddy's apartment?
Another guy walks in -- Augustin? And Paddy was discussing Frank, so who is the guy he is talking to? The camera moves back -- he is talking to an empty chair, or I guess to Augustin when he was still in the other room. Ok, at least we know that these are the guys having sex in Scene 5, except they think it's Oakland, when it is clearly San Francisco.
Frank calls from the bathroom that he needs a towel, and Paddy mocks him for it. Yeah, wanting to dry off after a shower, what a loser! But I guess if you have to criticize everybody all the time, you start grasping at straws fast.
Scene 6: Frank finishes his shower, but he's in another apartment, talking to a woman. This is probably a Frank lookalike, shown taking a shower to confuse us. He wants to call Ethan but the woman disapproves because Ethan tried to kill him. "He did not! He just threatend to! Besides, when we were together, you tried to kill me a bunch of times." Ok, the woman is Frank Lookalike's ex girlfriend.
Next order of business: the Frank Lookalike is thinking of getting into real estate. Ex-Girlfriend laughs at him. "You -- somebody like you -- in real estate? Don't be ridiculous!" She doesn't explain why it's ridiculous, but I guess everybody just has to mock everything. "Is there any coffee?" "What an idiotic question! Jerk!"
Paddy accepts the date anyway - at the Press Club tonight -- and sends him a winking emoji. Owen criticizes both the dating venue and the emoji, of course.
Scene 8: Augustin at work, maybe doing set design. A woman introduces him to Scotty (Tanner Cohen), his assistant for the day. They have fun criticizing the design (aren't you the one who designed it, dude?)
Scene 9: Four suit-types at lunch, complaining that they can't get the wine they got last time. The waiter recommends something else, "a nice full-bodied red, spicy but easy on the pallete, with notes of fruit and coca" It's so much easier when you don't drink: "Diet Coke, please. Sure, Pepsi is fine."
Hey, the waiter is the Frank Lookalike, who wants to go into real estate! He goes to the bar to complain about the suits: "they look like a bunch of filthy dog-f*kers." Rather harsh, even for a culture where everybody ridicules everything.
Another waiter tries to console him: "Just keep on putting positive energy out into the universe." When he leaves, Frank Lookalike criticizes him, then asks the bartender for his name. Bartender: "No. Whenever you sexually harass a new guy, he quits."
Benjamin criticizes Paddy's job in video game development (of course), then asks "are you disease and drug free?" Is this a date or a physical, Doctor? But Paddy gets even, criticizing Benjamin's misquoting of Khalil Gibran (a famous poet from the hippie era). Then he discusses how desperate he is to get laid (bad move, dude). He was so desperate yesterday that he had a hookup in the park! Benjamin, looking for romance rather than anonymous encounters, is not pleased. "This isn't working. Bye!"
Scene 10: Back to Augustin and Scotty flirting while criticizing things. Wait -- Scotty is flirting with another guy (maybe Augustin's boyfriend Frank)! They met at Darren and Anthony's Cinco de Mayo party. They start an encounter right there in the -- stage? Kissing, and it looks like Augustin is going downtown.Scene 11: A guy flirts with Paddy on the bus. Paddy still has Benjamin's card, so he pretends to be a resident in oncology. The guy introduces himself: Richie, a cosmetologist. Wait -- then who was Paddy's friend in the first two scenes?
Cut to the Frank Lookalike at work at the fancy restaurant. On his break, he's eating lamb with merguez (lamb sausage). He offers a bite to a guy off camera, so we'll be surprised by the big reveal -- surprise! It's Liam, the waiter he criticized/liked earlier. "So, want to grab a drink?" Frank Lookalike asks, "Or we could just go back to your place." Geez, forward. Have you spoken two words to this guy?
Scene 12: Paddy telling his friend Dom (from scene 1, remember?) that he gave the guy (Richie) the wrong card! "I was just so angry at that doctor." Your fault for discussing a public h**kup on a first date. "What about the bus guy?" "He came on too strong, and he's not my type." Weren't you desperate to get laid ten minutes ago?
Paddy heads to the bathroom, and is shocked to see a guy off camera, so we'll be surprised at the big reveal -- someone I don't recognize, but they both agree that it's awkward to be pissing into the same trough. This must be the very late-night bachelor party, and Paddy is the ex-boyfriend.
Hey, Frank Lookalike is Dom from Scene 1! He complains that the guy he invited home said no -- the first time that has ever happened. Not true -- the bartender said that Frank Lookalike/Dom tries to have sex with lots of the male waiters, and they always quit. Paddy complains that he has too many bad dates.Out on the street, after the bachelor party, Paddy looks depressed, and then goes to the club where Richie from the bus works. The end.
Beefcake: Some bare chests.
San Francisco: Some random street scenes.
Number of Characters: Too many to keep track of, and they look different from scene to scene. And who the heck is the non-Richie in the first scene? Or was that a time jump?
Update: It was Augustin! Their photos look alike on the IMDB, and Richie gets second billing, so I figured he must be the second friend.
Talking to Someone Off Camera: A device to be used only occasionally, when the identity of the person will be a big surprise. Used here all the time. I'm still mad about Paddy talking to an empty chair, so when Augustin comes in, you think there are three people in the room.
Trick Cuts: Instantaneous cuts between two people doing the same thing, so you think it's the same person. Fooled you, har har. It's a dirty trick, especially in the first episode where you're trying to keep track of 300 characters.
Criticizing Everything: This was actually fun. Every time I thought "Such an innocuous statement. They couldn't possibly criticize it," they did!
My Grade: Not a lot of nostalgia here, and too many tricks. B
Shhh -- I hid some nude guys after the break:
I'll let you buy me dinner: At the campground, Gideon gives Scotty the intel he learned from Martin: they receive an offering of over $1,000,000 on normal Sundays, but on big holidays, $3,000,000. It's counted and placed in the vault overnight Sunday. On Monday it's deposited into the bank. Wait -- is that all in cash? Don't people just throw a few bucks in the offering plate? If they're going to donate a lot of money, they'll write a check, or just have it deducted automatically from their bank account.
Scotty "goes dark" for a moment, brags about his own stuntwork, and criticizes Gideon's. Then he becomes downright friendly and says "I'll let you buy me dinner."
It's driving me crazy, making me wild in the summer,
Spending my time alone with you
Take a ride, baby, to the stars, in the backseat of my car
Ooh yeah, it feels so right, you belong with me tonight
Dot insists that he's harmless, and goes over to talk to him. Struggling ludicrously to adopt teen slang, Kelvin invites her to a teen group meeting that night: "If you like it, great. If you don't, you'll never see me again." Weird way to phrase it, Kelvin -- sounds like you're interested in seeing her, not getting her into the church.
Dot agrees to come, whereupon Kelvin leans over, stares into her eyes, and suggests: "No boyfriend tonight. Just you. You sparkle without him." Ulp, that sounds even more like "I am attracted to you. I want to date you." He then tries to impress her by jumping over the chain-link fence (and failing).
Fan boards lit up with this exchange: "Hallelujah, my boy is straight!"; "I knew he had it in him!"; "Got the hots for the lady!" The age of consent in South Carolina is 16, so sex with Dot would not be a crime. But the power differential would make it wildly inappropriate, so a Kelvin-Dot romance is out of the question. Still, the inference is there. Why?
Since Kelvin is invitng Dot to a teen group, this can't be a holdover from an earlier draft where she was older. Maybe it tells us that Kelvin can't even conceive of flirting with a girl, so he has no idea what his actions look like.
Dot at the Youth Group: We cut to the youth group meeting at the Sky Zone, an indoor trampoline park on Wando Park Boulevard in Mt. Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston with many Gemstone sites. Lots of kids somersaulting on bouncy-walls, and Keefe stretching Kelvin from behind as he groans "Harder. Harder. Yeah, oh, that's good." Acting like they're having anal sex, har har.Notice that they're both wearing "Faith Factory" T-shirts, but none of the kids are. Keefe is now Kelvin's assistant youth minister.
Dot appears. Kelvin is "super-pumped that you didn't bring your idiot boyfriend." Do you still think he's straight, after the sex joke?
He clears a space. Keefe says: "These feats of physical strength are amazing." Yeah, Kelvin is hot. He performs some professional-looking acrobatic stunts.
Gideon explains how he came to make the video: things were tense between him and Jesse, so his mom made him go to a prayer convention. Jesse had his friends in his hotel room, and didn't want Gideon around. "Dude wanted to fuck," Scotty says. So Gideon left, but on his way out, he hid hid his phone with the video on, in case anything interesting happened. He ended up taping Jesse's sex-and-drugs party, and decided to blackmail Jesse to "get even."
Scotty envisions their new life in Thailand, after stealing the money from the vault. He mentioned the ladyboys earlier, but it's worth repeating that Thailand is a well-known destination for gay tourism. He also wants to repair the hard drive containing the sex-and-drugs party video, so "we fuck your Daddy in the butt again." Very graphic way of putting it, with an incest-subtext.
Left: Gideon's butt. Not Skyler Gisondo's
He continues: "But you weren't. You were a friend." Gideon didn't mind being grabbed; apparently he liked it, since he accepted being drawn into a relationship.
"And I get you. I know you way better than your family does." He sounds like an abusive boyfriend: "No one understand you but me."
We cut to another scene on this busy Friday night: Jesse and Amber counseling Chad and his wife Mandy about the aberrant emails ("we were just fooling around"). Of course they mention cum again ("Water squirt emoji does not mean 'cum' -- it means ejaculation"), And we're off to Club Sinister.
Satanist cock after the break
They chatted about ordinary things, rated a few bulges, and then Kelvin got down to business. "Percy, I had an ulterior motive in inviting you to lunch today. Remember my Cousin Karl? You met him at the wedding reception."
"Big guy, black beard, baby face, smile that lights up the whole state? Sure, he's hard to miss."
"He came out to Keefe and I last night."
"Wait -- out as gay? Isn't he over 30?"
"He's got a lot of catching up to do."
"Karl wants a boyfriend, but he's so soft and sweet, a little kid, really, that we don't trust him on Grindr, or Gay Christian Mingle . And you're like the gay expert of South Carolina. You belong to every club, you know everybody, and so..."
"So you want me to play matchmaker? Sure, glad to do it. Off the top of my head, I can think of four or five candidates. Let's start with Brett. He goes to my gym -- built like a bodybuilder, chest for days! He'll be able to appreciate Karl's muscles."
Keefe and Kelvin were sitting on the couch in the parlor, kissing, when Percy and Karl’s date knocked on the door. The Bodybuilder shook their hands (Kelvin forgot his name almost immediately), and Percy tried to hug them both while balancing a large white box. "I brought tiramisu for dessert. I hope it fits with the menu. What are we having?"
"We don't know. Cousin Karl is cooking, and he won't let anyone in the kitchen."
"Tiramisu fits with anything, though," Keefe said. "I'll bring it in to him." He took the box from Percy's hands and headed back into the house.
More after the break
The Satanists: Keefe is walking through downtown Charleston, eating an ice cream cone -- a childlike activity, maybe signifying that he has been "born again," started life anew. He had to give up his old Satanist friends and lovers to follow Christ, and now he's looking for new friends -- and a boyfriend (he does not yet think of Kelvin as a potential partner).
He looks longingly at a hot guy through the window of a sports bar (it's Kyle Walsh, who has been Adam Devine's assistant in 10 of his movies and tv shows). Then the hot guy turns around, stares at Keefe, and licks through a v-symbol: a vulgar offer of oral sex, usually aimed at a woman, but apparently aimed at Keefe). Offenderd, Keefe moves on.
As Keefe leaves, the Satanists demonstrate their new dance number. They look like they are having fun; he is tempted to join them.
Money is on my mind: While Quincy Jones' "Money Is" plays in the background, Martin and Judy (his secretary in this season) are showing Gideon how they separate the donations from the prayer requests (these are handled by paid prayer teams. Imagine being a professional prayer). The requests are then shredded, for liability reasons. Anything important, or a donation over $10,000, goes straight to Eli. The cash is then sorted and placed in the vault. Gideon's eyes light up as he gets an idea.
The Nancys' problem: their teenage daughter Dot is on the wrong path, hanging out with an older, decadent boyfriend -- so they won't let her use the family helicopter anymore. Everybody volunteers to intervene, but Eli notes that Kelvin is the Youth Minister, so he should do it. He is thrilled: a way to earn his Daddy's respect!
Script problem: Shouldn't it be Kelvin's job by default? Why is there even a question? This seems to be a holdover from an earlier draft, when Dot was older.
Gay slur: Angry at being passed over for the job, Jesse criticizes Kelvin's glasses: "You look like Jeffrey Dahmer." The gay serial killer. Kelvin takes the glasses off.
What happened in Atlanta: We cut to Chad's wife Mandy telling the ladies that she broke into his email and found a message he received from Jesse last March: "Atlanta was dirty, dirty, for sure-y!" Other emails describe "titties," suggest getting tested, and ask how much he owes for the prostitutes.
Amber insists that it's none of their business. There are any number of innocent explanations. Later, she confronts Jesse, who gets mad at Mandy "for lying."
Timeline note: This episode takes place shortly before Easter 2022, which fell on April 17th. Mandy probably means March 2021, or she would have said "last month." So about a year has passed since Jesse's sex-and-drugs party.
In Dot's room, they destroy: posters of the dark metal groups Bauhaus and Ministry; an ashtray; a "fidget spinner" (toy) that almost hypnotizes Keefe; two Ken dolls (used for gay play?); and a used condom. They bring everything out to their SCU (Spiritual Collections Unit) trailer. Lots of questions here: did they get a whole Satanic Sweep system started in just the few weeks since Keefe was saved (converted)? Wouldn't a real Satanist know that those so-called Satanic influences are bogus? And why are the Satanic Sweeps never mentioned again?
Keefe apologizes for displaying the used condom; Kelvin advises him that if it contains a semen-load, "don't even touch it." This queasiness about touching semen appears again in Season 2 with Judy and Jesse. Here Kelvin seems to be trying to steer Keefe away from his gay "lifestyle," which involved touching a lot of semen-loads. To emphasize his heterosexual manliness, he tries to draw Keefe into a play-fight.
Suddenly Dot's boyfriend Austin (Blair Jackson) appears. "I bet you money that was his semen-load," Keefe says. As they are drawn instinctively to thoughts of his penis, Kelvin decides to "Snip him right out of this situation." Castration joke, har har.
Blair bod after the break
Heteronormativity is a trope asserting that heterosexual desire, behavior, and identity are universal human experience. If you are asked, you will say "Of course LGBTQ people exist," but in everyday interactions, they slip out of conscious thought.
You ask a new female acquaintance if she has a boyfriend, forgetting that she could be a lesbian.
The teacher tells the class, "If you boys got your minds off girls, you'd get better grades," forgetting that some of them could be gay.
TV viewers insist that a same-sex pair cannot be gay unless they actually say so on screen. Otherwise everything they say and do is what heterosexuals say and do. "So they hold hands. Can't a straight guy hold his buddy's hand?"
On to the show.
The Dude Husbands: After a scene where the guys, Anders, Blake, and Adam, play American Gladiator, they discover that they have been living together for seven years, so they are "common law husbands." To celebrate their anniversary, Blake gives them homemade gifts: seashells on Ders' headphones and macaroni on Adam's weight belt, ruining them! Ders serves horrible Norwegian food hidden in a bait-and-switch KFC box. They argue, have a food fight, destroy each other's stuff, and criticize Adam's weight: "You're a chubby bitch, as fat as John Candy and not half as cool." Finally they break up. Everyone leaves the house.
Blake's Night: Crashing with his work friend, Jillian, Blake has a fun evening planned: beer, listening to the Yin Yang Twins (a rap duo), and "artsin' and craftin'" But she's engrossed in a dog show on tv (that she is betting a lot of money on). He makes her a "thanks for letting me stay here" gift, arts-and-crafting her favorite dress, ruining it. Plus he makes fajitas with sour cream, enraging her (that's a little harsh, girl).
Jillian puts him to bed in the bathtub, and when he casually mentions that she is acting crazy, goes ballistic: "We leave the shower on and the lights off."
Once he gets into the porta-a-potty, the teenagers knock it over, dousing him with a flood of blue toilet water
Adam's Night: He goes to a bar to drink and look for friends who won't reject him for being overweight. It turns out to be a gay bear bar (no one says so, but watch your heteronormativity; how do you know it's not?). He comes on too loud and too strong for the first guys he approaches: "50 beers for my new friends, who I love now!" When Trevor (Stephen Kramer Glickman) calls him a "rowdy little bear cub," he insists on a full-body bear hug, and accepts an invitation home. Heteronormativity: Adam has no idea that these guys are gay, or that he has agreed to a hook-up.
The guys start texting but change their minds, look for texts from their partners, and are miserable.
Except the house is overrrun with rats. They have to get rid of them, or they won't get the security deposit back. They try various gross and unhygeniec strategies which allow each to use his skills: Anders' organizational ability, Blake's arts-and-crafting, and Adam's muscles. Afterwards, although they are splattered with rat blood and will probably die of rabies, they realize that they enjoyed the adventure, and decide to stay dude husbands.
More after the break
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Gideon is discussing his stunt work: because of his slim frame, he stunt-doubles for women a lot: it's called "wigging." Jesse disapproves of him "pretending to be a woman." Amber defends him: it's just for the stunt, because "he's very manly," not feminine, not gay. Notice Kelvin's reaction: he does not like this conversation at all. He keeps his head down, worried that someone will apply it to him.
BJ thinks that "representation of marginalized peoples is a big deal," so if a script calls for a woman to fall off a building, a woman should do the stunting. Amber disagrees, promoting stereotypic gender polarization: "only men should jump off buildings."
Finally Kelvin has had enough, and changes the subject: "Wasn't Baby Billy supposed to be here tonight?"
The party devolves into a fight between Jesse and his son Pontius. He blames Pontius's bad behavior on Gideon leaving: "Actions have consequences."
Notice that Kelvin is carrying a basketball. Where did he get it? Did he bring it with him, as a "welcome home" gift for his adult nephew? Did he pick it up from an off-camera basketball court?
This is the only time in the series that Kelvin exhibits an interest in any team sport, or any athletic activity other than acrobatics and bodybuilding. I wonder if he is trying to project a stereotypic masculine image in response to the talk about "acting like a woman."
Dicks after the break
The Satellite Church: Judy, BJ, and Kelvin are scoping out the dying shopping mall where they opened the satellite church: "All around America, capitalism is dying," Kelvin points out. "That's when we step in." He will never display this insightful knowledge of economics, or anything other than muscles, again.
Queer code: First Kelvin does a little femme flutter and hand-on-waist. Then a hot girl walks past: an opportunity for him to demonstrate that he is heterosexual with a double-take? No,he looks the other way.
Baby Billy is greeting the congregants in front of gigantic photos of himself and Kelvin. Why Kelvin, in particular? Maybe to indicate that they're both outsiders, struggling to be taken seriously by the family. Or because they both have huge cocks.
As Baby Billy begins the service, the siblings watch from offstage. Gideon tunes up his guitar. Judy comments that he's "looking tasty. Staying in shape." Kelvin agrees; "He is. That's showbiz, right? You to to keep a tight physique." You just outed yourself to your sister, Kelv Baby.
Jesse disagrees: lots of people who work behind the scenes are "fat as fuck,." But, Kelvin insists, if you want to be a star, you have to be a "specimen...a straight unit." According to the Urban Dictionary, a "straight unit" is a guy who is tall, strong, muscular, and well-hung. How much farther out can Kelvin get?
Afterwards the siblings meet Tiffany. They disapprove of her countrified lack of refinement, her teeth, and her insistance that they call her Aunt Tiffany, even though she is younger than
More wieners after the break
As in all Modern Family Episodes, we have three plots, usually involving a random assortment of family members, interspliced. I separated them out.
"I know a place," he tells Phil. "Tonight you, me, and Frank are going out on the town."
"Fun! A three-way!" Phil exclaims: a running gag has him saying innocent things that sound sexual, usually homoerotic.
Cut to the bar. The men approach two women and say hello. "Not interested!" one exclaims. The other flirts with Frank, so his wingmen scram.
In the morning, Frank tells Phil that he hooked up: "She's downstairs right now.' Except she turned out to be a sex worker, and he owes her $500. Ok, first of all, you have to make the contract clear, and second, sex workers don't spend the night. They get the job done and go home.
While they're scrounging to find $500 in cash, Claire returns from yoga class, and wants to know who the woman in the kitchen is. "The therapist we hired!" Let the misunderstandings begin: "I have always wanted to do what you do. I'd be good at it. It's basically what I do for the whole neighborhood anyway."
The sex worker (Peri Gilpin, best known for Frasier) assures Frank that his performance was superlative. She has a lot of elderly clients who can't even get...um there are kids present...but "any woman would be lucky to have you." This gives him the confidence to start dating again -- and move out, which is what Phil and Claire wanted all along.
Pepper is burnt out from planning 50 gay weddings since they became legal in California, so Ronaldo offers to take over? Uh-oh, the assistant stealing the job from his boss -- drama. Of course, they all act like they are cheating on a romantic partner: "I couldn't stop thinking about you. What happened here yesterday was real!" Pepper-Ronaldo end up breaking up and reconciling.
At the park, Gloria meets Andy, the manny of her frenemey Joan. Andy reveals that she is unfriendly because she's worried that Gloria might steal her husband.
Gloria is irate: Frenemy's husband is too fat to be attractive. Not anymore: Andy helped him lose 30 pounds! He also can cook. Enough bragging, dude. It sounds like you're hitting on Gloria. But it works -- Gloria decides to steal Andy, but not in a sexual way (well, not overtly sexual; she does get quite chummy as she leads him off)
When Jay and Manny get home, Andy introduces himself as the new manny. Manny: "Am I being replaced?" No, he's the baby's new nanny, but "My mission is to make all of your lives happier and healthier." So, are you a nanny or a life coach/personal trainer/dietitian?
No way! Jay yells. "He's a man! It's weird!" The aging Baby Boomer Jay thinks that only women are qualified to do childcare, but Gloria has a big crush on him: "He's perfect," she sighs. Manny disapproves, too: how can he sexually harass a guy? They argue; Gloria storms out of the room. That's the end of it, right?
The next day, Jay is in the shower. He forgot to get a towel (isn't there always one hanging in the towel rack?), so he yells for Gloria. But Andy brings it for him, and does the gay discreet-glance-at-his-bulge thing (but in this case, he sees Jay's dick instead of his bulge). I'm confused: is Adam playing Andy as gay, or do straight guys like looking at dicks, too?
Andy made a heart-healthy breakfast for Jay and Manny, and afterwards, he suggests jogging. How about taking care of the baby?
"Nope," Jay tells him. "My wife overstepped her bounds by hiring you. You're fired."
"I came on too strong, didn't I? My dad warned me about that when I turned 14." He goes into a story of his dad dying, so he had to be "the man" of the family, and take care of the kids. But that doesn't dissuade Jay and Manny: they want him out.
Gloria returns and starts yelling. They yell back. Andy begins a group therapy session that ends with everyone apologizing and promising to do better at communicating their feelings. Cut to the whole family jogging...er, walking fast.
Ok, I get it. All three of the groups hired "help" in scenarios that looked sexual (or, in Frank's case, were sexual), and turned out to be more "help" than anyone anticipated.
Bonus butt after the break
More Cena after the break
