Rescue Hi-Surf: Lifeguards rescue surfers, have soap opera problems, and one of them is hung. But where are the bulges?

 

The purpose of lifeguard shows is to watch pecs, biceps, and bulges.  There may be some plotlines iinvolving the nearing-retirement guy with the dead son, the Ivy League dropout whose dad wants him to become a lawyer, and the reformed druggie trying to build a new life for himself, but they will be cliched and predictable; you watch to see guys bouncing around in Speedos. 

Sometimes the bikini babes overwhelm the screen, making the show unwatchable, but I have high hopes for Rescue Hi-Surf (2024-5), on Hulu, because showrunner Matt Kester also gave us Animal Planet, with muscular men strut about in Speedos amid fully clothed women.  

Oh, and maybe there will be some rescues, too.

Scene 1: Establishing shots of the ocean off Oahu, and a pipeline: three story waves breaking over a volcanic reef.  Hunky son, played by Kameron Dowis, is going to surf in that stuff while Mom and Dad check out of the airbnb.  

Cut to the beach, where a lot of people are watching about 20 surfers. 

Cut to lifeguard station, with three lifeguards, the woman in a bikini, the men wearing t-shirts and shorts -- no speedos, darn. 

The Ocean Safety Captain says that they've had six rescues already, and the waves are getting bigger. It's getting dangerous, like "high diving into a kiddie pool."

Uh-oh, a guy wipes out and is down.  They count...but he's up, grabbed by a safety officer on jet ski. 

The Air BNB Guy cozies up to some experienced surfers, who give him instructions, especially "Whatever you do, don't get stuck inside," with the wave above and below you. 

Uh-oh, he wipes out, and is floating unconscious.  The Female Lifeguard runs out, her boobs bouncing, her midriff on display.  She finds him, loads him on a jet ski, and they zoom back to the beach, just ahead of the pipeline wave.  The other life guards grab him, perform CPR, and then load him into the waiting ambulance.  "You got lucky -- welcome to the North Shore."

Back story; The guy's name is Reef, and he's from Florida.  So a family from Florida is vacationing in Hawaii?  Not Quebec?

Opening credits.

Scene 2: Closeup of the chest of a cute guy swimming. Uh-oh, he's sinking...and Ocean Safety Captain (Robbie Magasifa) wakes up.  He's sleeping on the couch in his plant-filled living room.  It was a nightmare about his son, who died two years ago.  I called it.

 Left: Robbie's butt.

It's time to test the lifeguard recruits.  A Bikini Babe recruit arrives late, arguing with her mother who disapproves of lifeguarding and wants her to return to her Ivy League college.  I called it.

Scene 3:  The test: run, swim, run, 100 yards each, 4000 meter swim, 400 yard paddle. Bikini Babe and Sweater Guy stand in front, but the guys in back are shirtless. Still no Speedos.

Bikini Babe finishes first, followed by Sweater Guy.  They all pass, but she's so great that she gets the plum District 7 assignment.  The disgraced guys grimace and growl. "Don't worry, we'll assign you to the kiddie pool or something."  I may be exaggerating the dialogue a bit.

Sweater Guy approaches Bikini Babe to explain that he almost beat her.  It was just dumb luck that he came in .001 seconds late. She's not having it:  "Just admit that a Bikini Babe is better than you."  I imagine that she'll find him "arrogant" as they embark on a three-season long "will they or won't they" story arc.

Scene 4: At the lifeguard station, they put a firefighers's hat on the Hung Guy's stuff.  "Ha-ha, very funny," he says.  Back story: he's retiring from life guarding to become a firefighter, but they disapprove because firefighters never do anything but pose for calendars. 

Also, he's dating the Female Lifeguard.  She concludes that he;s taking the job to get away from her.  The world doesn't revolve around you, girlfriend.

Wait -- they're not dating.  They broke up two years ago, and he's engaged to someone else.  Girlfriend is delusional.

Hung Guy is played by Adam Demos.  The reason for his nickname after the break:

"Welcome to Plathville": Beefcake and bulges of a hard-core fundamentalist family, including the Boylicious model

 

Welcome to Plathville, originally on TLC but recently streamed to Hulu, is a six-season long reality series about the Plaths: "A strikingly blonde, blue-eyed Quiverfull family with 9 children in Southeastern Georgia, who are very passionate about traditional roles, their courtship rituals, music, God, and domestic life."

Brr.  Sounds too scary.  They must be wildly homophobic, but I imagine that they agreed to appear only if there were no "homosexuals" in the crew, so maybe they won't mention them at all.  Episodes appear to be soap-opera like, with marital problems, career troubles, treks into secular civilization, and lots of clickbait "dark secrets" and "startling revelations."

The elder Plaths belong to the No Greater Joy Ministries, an out-of-the-box fundamentalist cult that, other than hating homos, teaches that women must always be subservient to men -- working outside the home is a major sin, and will turn her into an evil lesbian.  Plus you must beat your children to ensure their subservience -- if you don't, they'll start to talk back and turn gay.

I'm definitely too squeamish to watch, but I'll check the Plaths for fundamentalist beefcake.

The parents, Barry and Kim, have broken up and gotten a divorce.  In my childhood church, that would have gotten them kicked out.

Their oldest child, Ethan,left,  married the outsider Olivia, who works as a photographer.  A woman working outside the home!  Shocking!

They got divorced, also.

Ethan and a buddy at the gym.

Daughter Hosanna refused to appear on the show.  She has left the family, moved to Ohio, and married an outsider.  Shocking revelation!

Daughter Moriah visited San Francisco and had sex with her boyfriend Max Kallschmidt. A dark secret revealed!

 The younger children are Lydia, Isaac, Amber, Cassidy, and Mercy.  

Micah works as a model, which means he has to work with gay people.  Uh-oh, he's doomed. 

Wait -- a model?  He must have some n*de photos out there somewhere.

More after the break.

"Christmas on Repeat": A "Groundhog Day" romcom with Matthew Lawrence, Peter Pan, a bodybuilder, and some BBCs

 

After successfully finding a gay romance tucked into the final scene of Falling for Christmas, I decided to check out some other recent Christmas movies to see if a gay character snuck in under the noses of the homophobes.  First up,  Christmas on Repeat, because it features one of those day-keeps-repeating plotlines, and Matthew Lawrence (sigh), one of the trio of muscle-hunk brothers who brightened the 2000s.  

Scene 1: Andrea has fallen asleep at the office again, because she's a workaholic, but not to worry, her assistant got presents for her husband and kids, and arranged for bonuses for the office staff.  On her way out, her boss, Nick (Matthew Lawrence, sigh) stops her: they have to shoot a commercial tomorrow, and the guy in charge of the account is taking Christmas off, so... No fair!  Why don't you do it?

She calls her husband, John (Gary Poux), to say she's on the way home.  He is upset, because that means she will want to cook breakfast, and she's an awful cook.  Wait, how is she going to fall in love with Nick?  Maybe she's just the conduit, and Nick will be the one who falls in love.

Also, the "not being home for Christmas" thing, which he has heard before.

Scene 2: She stops to buy some groceries -- the supermarket parking lot is empty on Christmas Eve?  And the donation-collecting Santa Claus knows her name.  Creepy.  He points out that there will be a shooting star tomorrow night with "off the charts" magic.

Scene 3: At home, she greets her teenage children. Lexi, who looks like a 30-year old supermodel, has a new dance routine -- this is depressing, as Andrea and her husband used to dance, before she got too busy. 

And Matt (JJ Whyte) decided not to stay overnight with his friend Ryder.  Tell me more about your "friend," dude.

Back story: Lexi is from Andrea's first marriage, Matt from this one.  I guess they want to explain why Lexi is so melanin-deprived.  Or they could have found a 30-year old African-American supermodel.

Scene 4: Andrea works on her laptop until late, and goes to bed after Hubbie is already asleep.  Don't worry, I won't say anything about the BBC she's missing out on.

Scene 5: Here are the things she does wrong on Christmas day:

1. She doesn't recognize her son Matt's friends

2. She is unaware that he has stopped being interested in basketball

3. She tries to make pancakes, but sets the kitchen on fire.  Not being able to cook is apparently a major sin in this world.  Maybe this movie is pushing the nuclear family myth, where Dad works and Mom stays home to cook. 

4. She doesn't stop the "Clean, Green, and Prestine" actress and director Paul (Terry Woodberry) from sniping and quitting.  

Director Paul yells at the actress, she quits, and then he quits.  And gets heterosexualized by mentioning his wife.  Darn.  

But at least we have another BBC, after the break

Gemstones Episode 1.9: Jesse is racist, Judy is a rapist, and Kelvin is the Devil. With a Haitian dick bonus.

Previous: Episode 1.8: Kelvin's testicles, Chad's testicles, Jesse's butt, and ancient Philistine penises

Episode 1.8 ended with all of the Gemstone siblings and their partners broken up, plus Gideon cast out from the family.  It's going to take a lot of work to make things right again.  

Title: "Better is the end of the thing than the beginning." Ecclesiastes 7:9.  Not things being over: at the beginning of the task, there are many problems ahead, many ways that things could go wrong, a lot of pain and sadness.  At the end, you can relax and enjoy the results of your hard work.

Chicken bone voodoo:  After a flashback to Aimee-Leigh's death (and a bee that will re-appear later in the episode),we cut to Eli finding about about the blackmail, Jesse's assault of Rev. Seasons, and Judy's embezzlement. Kelvin stood by and let them do things that he knew were wrong, so he's just as guilty. Eli angrily fires them all. 

Later, Amber tells Jesse that if he wants to reconcile, he'll have to go to Haiti, where Gideon is doing missionary work, and bring him back. Their conversation is surprisingly racist, referencing chicken bone voodoo, AIDS, and cannibalism. (Left: Port au Prince)

Judy's frst boyfriend: Judy meets with BJ "at a neutral location," the Outback Steakhouse, to give back the stuff he left when he moved out. She admits that she hasn't really "gobbled 1,000 cocks"; it was a lie to impress him. Notice that she is taking a masculine role: usually straight men brag about how many partners they've had, while women and gay men are slut-shamed.  

Judy continues with a monologue about her only previous boyfriend, actually her economics professor in college: she misinterpreted his casual conversation,  sexually assaulted him in his office, then kidnapped his son. BJ is mostly shocked that she never had vaginal sex before, so he "took her virginity."

Judy and Kelvin's relationships run parallel.  Since Judy had no sexual experiences prior to BJ, can we conclude that Kelvin was out there "gobbling 1,000 cocks" before Keefe introduced him to the idea of a loving gay relationship?

Jesus never dated much: Sibling movie night at Kelvin's house ((notice the K and the arcade game behind their couch).  They're watching The Neverending Story., at the scene where Artax  horse/companion of the hero Atreyu, is literally consumed by his sadness, sinking to his death.  Atreyu yells: "Fight against the sadness. You have to try. You have to care. You're my friend.  I love you."  Suddenly Kelvin bursts into tears (Top photo: star Noah Hathaway, no doubt one of the teen idols of Kelvin's youth).  

In the movie, the Childlike Empress is sick, thus allowing the Darkness (hopelessmess, despair) to slowly devour the Kingdom of Fantasia.  Young hero Atreyu is looking for a cure to save Fantasia, but he is unable to save his horse/friend Artax.  Maybe Kelvin is thinking of how he couldn't save Keefe from his own Sadness:  "My emotions are all over the place. I feel like I'm coming unhinged." The siblings ignore him, so he repeats: I'm in emotional turmoil, dealing with some very painful questions about myself."  

"For real?"  Jesse immediately becomes serious.  Remember, he thinks that Kelvin is gay, but in denial.  Is he ready to come out?

Nope.  "I've always felt like, maybe, I'm Him."  He's always felt like he is Jesus? Say what?  Dude, that's full-blown psychosis.

Actually, many cult leaders claim to be Jesus.  Wikipedia lists 40 in the 20th and 21st centuries alone, including Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite, Charles Manson, Shoko Asahara, David Koresh.  It doesn't usually end well.

Kevin's reasons: we both care about people; people like us, and want to follow us. Wait -- you just have one follower, Keefe, and he's not worshipping you.  He gets on his knees for another reason entirely.  

Plus: "(Jesus) didn't date much, didn't have the urge or the need to.  That's me for days."  Fans sometimes use this line to argue that Kelvin is asexual, not experiencing desire for anyone, but in a heteronormative society, surely he means "urge or need to date women."  I'm sticking with the theory that Kelvin was out there breaking his celibacy promise, shoving his cock through the glory holes at Club Sinister every night, and feeling guilty about it the next morning.  

Jesse, aware of another reason for Kelvin's lack of interest in women, assures him that he's not Jesus, but "that doesn't mean you're not a decent man."  Notice that he uses the term "man," signifying that Kelvin is grown-up, an adult, regardless of his sexual identity.

But Kelvin doesn't buy it.  Another voice is telling him, "If you can't be him, maybe you can be me...Satan."  We know from the Satanic Sweep and the Club Sinister rescue that, in Kelvin's eyes, Satan is all about sex, or sex is all about Satan.  The only way he can explain his homoerotic desire, and maybe his homoerotic intimacy, is by fashioning himself "the Dark Lord of the family."  After all of this, how did fans continue to argue that Kelvin was straight?

He's very tired -- he hasn't been sleeping well lately. Because he usually shares his bed with Keefe?  And he misses Mama, who used to tell him that everything's gonna be ok.  She's gone, so Jesse and Judy step up: "Everything's gonna be ok.  You'll get it figured out."  It's not hard to figure out, Dude.  Lots of people are gay.

Haitian dick bonus after the break

Shane Harper: the "Good Luck Charlie" and "God's Not Dead" guy shows his dick surprisingly often

 I wanted to research Shane Harper, the extremely well-hung drug dealer  Junior on Hightown (2020-21).  He's distraught over his girlfriend's death, so he makes some homophobic comments to two leather daddies, hoping that they will kill him.  They just beat him up; he dies of a drug overdose later.

Shane only has six photos on his Instagram, and two on his X, including this one: he getting a spray-on tan,  with the caption: "this is probably the only nude photo I'll ever post."

Don't believe him.  He posts a lot of nude photos.

So who is this guy?

According to the IMDB, he was born in San Diego, and began dancing, singing, and acting in community productions at the age of nine.   He played dancers in Re-Animated, High School Musical 2, Dance Revolution, and Dancing on Sunset.

Then he bounced arund the Disney Channel for a few years, guest starring in Zoey 101 and  Wizards of Waverly Place, and starring in Good Luck, Charlie as Teddy's boyfriend (Teddy is a girl; so is Charlie)

He released an album in 2011,  so I check out the heterosexism: the number of songs that shout "girl! girl! girl!," thus proclaiming that every relationship is heterosexual and invalidating the desires and relationships of LGBT fans.

Not much heterosexism.   But then look what happens:

God's Not Dead, 2014, starrs right-wing nutjob Kevin Sorbo as an evil college professor who forces his students to submit signed statements affirming that "God is dead."  This is utterly ridiculous. College professors don't force students to accept any point of view. They aren't allowed to.

Besides, The Death of God  (1961) was a book complaining that modern society had lost its sense of transcendence, the magical in everyday life.  The author didn't mean that the actual Supreme Being was dead.  And it was 50 years ago.  Why are fundamentalists still upset about it?

Shane plays the student who bravely challenges the evil prof and ends up proving that God is, in fact, still alive.

He returns in God's Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness (2018), in which a Christian pastor is tormented, and his church burned down, by an army of atheists and liberals.  No philosophy professors?  

OMG, that is jaw-droppingly idiotic. 

In a 2011 interview, Shane states that he only takes "wholesome" and "uplifting" roles. For instance, he would be ok with playing a gay guy, as long as the movie establishes that being gay is wrong, and has him give up the lifestyle.  

That was over a decade ago. Let's see what Shane has been up to lately.

Besides posting nude photos, I mean.

More after the break.

Matthew G. Taylor: Chongo, Nemesis, a god's guard, a lot of fan conventions, and some dicks

 

On a 2001 episode of Queer as Folk , Emmett (Peter Paige) decides that he wants to become "ex-gay."  To dissuade him from this crazy idea, his friends arrange for him to be visited by adult video performer Zack O'Tool, played by the super-sized-in-every-way Matthew G. Taylor (left).

Although this is definitely a prosthetic.

Born in Burlington, Ontario, in 1973, Matt worked as a police officedr and martial artist before the acting bug hit.

Among his other early roles:

Legendary strongman Eugene Sandow in a 1998 biopic of Thomas Edison,

 A bushy-haired thug in Detroit Rock City (1999)

Medoc in The Skulls (2001), about an Ivy League secret society.

Matt's most famous role is probably Nemesis, a "huge, overpowering monster" in Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004).  His instagram is full of selfies that fans wanted to take with him at horror conventions. 

He went on to play more man-mountain characters:

Boxer Primo Carnera in Cinderella Man (2005).

A Giant in Boondock Saints II (2009)

Shackles, an "uncontrollable monster with freakish strength" on the teen adventure series Aaron Stone (2010).

A character called "Man Mountain Guard" on Lost Girl (2011).

More man mountains after the break

"Christmas at the Golden Dragon: Eight straight people find love, , a tiny gay subtext, and Markian's dick

Christmas at the Golden Dragon, on Hulu, drew my attention because we always used to get Chinese food on Christmas Eve.  Also the poster shows the focus character deciding between two suitors. One is Osric Chau, who is gay in real life.  Plus Jason Fernandes, left, isn't gazing at a woman, so he might be gay.   Let's give it a try.

Holy cow, a dozen named characters and their long, boring backstories occupy the first ten minutes! 

Focus charcter Romy: Montage of parents and kids decorating trees, opening presents, and hugging.  Lots and lots of hugging.  It's focus character Romy, at her High Power Job selling Harlow Furnishings: "We spend so much time running around buying things that we forget that Christmas is about hugging."  So you criticize buying things in a pitch for buying things, and there are no furnishings in the video?  Way to illustrate cognitive dissonance, girlfriend!

On their way out of the meeting, Romy and her assistant discuss how wonderful New York is at Christmas time. Her family back in Wichita owned a Chinese restaurant that was open on Christmas, so they didn't have time to celebrate. That's a switch; usually you abandon the big, heartless city for small-town hugging. 

Cut to the restaurant in small-town Wichita, population 396,000, where Romy's Dad is teaching Delivery Boy Miguel how to make a potsticker with peanut butter and shrimp -- their speciality.

Her Love Interest, Blake  (Markian Tarasiuk): Hey, Romy is already dating someone in the Big City, but he's actually from small-town Vermont, so he counts as an appropriate small-town Love Interest.  

Miguel, the unattached guy (Jason Fernandes):  He's getting ready to make some deliveries.  Romy's Mom notices that he got into  Princeton and three other "amazing colleges," and he's interviewing for the scholarship that Jane got him.  

But Miguel notes that he can't go to college, because his dad is absolutely against it; he had to apply secretly so Dad wouldn't "freak."  Why would Dad  object to a full scholarship to Princeton? My parents didn't want me to go to college, either, until I showed them my full scholarship.

Jane the Widow: Meanwhile, Romy's Mom chats with regular customer Jane: a retired architect still mourning her late husband, a Wichita State University basketball coach.  Why include this irrelevant detail, unless it will be important later?  

She also has a daughter who didn't mourn adequately, and spends all of her time at work, at a "fancy CFO job." Will this be important later?

Her Love Interest, Mr. Barber (Bobby Stewart): Miguel delivers pork fried rice to him, even though he had a stroke and can't have fried food.  Also he's not supposed to leave the house, but he told his therapist he was going to the bathroom, and sneaked out.  Must be a physical therapist; psychiatrists don't make house calls.  But later Mr. Barber comes and goes whenever he wants.

More Love Interests after the break. Warning: Explicit.

Gavin's Cute/Cool Photos, Part 4: A boy and his bully, a boy and his stuntman, Kelton Dumont, Santa Claus, and some n*de dudes

 

This is a collection of cute/cool photos of Gavin Munn, who plays Jonathan on Raising Dion and Abraham on The Righteous Gemstones.  He's under 18, so no n*de photos, but I included some of his costars and friends.

1. Such as Jesse La Flair, parkour athlete, who will be the stunt double of Kimball Farley in Righteous Gemstones Season 4.

2. In Dear Santa (2024), a dyslexic boy writes a letter to Santa Claus, but it accidentally goes to Satan (Jack Black), who appears to help him gain self-confidence, best a bully, and win the Girl.  Gavin plays the bully.  

I don't know why he needs a mannequin.  Does Satan, like, shoot him out of a cannon?

3. Bullies wear colorful outfits

4. In case you want to see Satan and Santa Claus riffing.  That's actually Kyle Gass, who plays a science teacher.

5. A boy and his fish.

6. A boy and his boat

More Gavin and buds after the break

"Black Doves": A very important seedy-looking guy, a deep cover spy, Santa Claus, and a gay hitman. With six bonus butts

 

Netflix thinks that I'm going to "love!" the spy series Black Doves, and I'm too occupied with breakfast to scroll down, so let's have a look.  It will be a reprieve from endless Christmas romcoms, anyhow.

Scene 1: No such luck.  Santa Claus stumbles through a bar, singing "The guys of the NYPD Choir were singing 'Galway Bay'".  Huh?  Heavily intoxicated, he stumbles out into the street, and...um...out of the show. 

A seedy looking guy (Andrew Koji) scopes out the bar -- The Coal House, a famous pub on the Strand in London -- and tries  to call Maggie.  She's out, so he calls a black-haired woman to complain that he's in trouble.  

Left: Andrew Koji's butt

The black haried woman patches him through to Philip. (Thomas Coombes). 

Seedy Looking Guy asks: "Did you talk to anyone?"  Philip says no; then he's strangled to death.  The black-haired woman is stabbed.  

Seedy Looking Guy calls someone else and starts to tell them "I..." -- probably "love you," before he is shot.  Way to kill off all of the introduced characters!  Now who's the focus, Santa Claus?

Scene 2: Rome.  A new seedy-looking guy sits at a bar, smoking. Mrs. Reed calls.  He ignores her, but she keeps calling until he answers. He says "Ok, I understand."  I don't.

Scene 3: Maybe London.  An old lady with a dog...wait, not a focus character. A nuclear family Mom gets her sons and daughter ready for the Christmas pageant. There's a son and a daughter running up the stairs while squealing in delight and another son in the back yard, but when they appear again, there's only two.  Big continuity error, guys, but they turn out to be just props to demonstrate her nuclear family-ness.  

Then she goes into the study, where her husband (Andrew Buchan),the Minister of Defense, is negotiating with the Saudis and worried about the death of the Chinese ambassador.  The coroner says it was a drug overdose, but you never know. I'm not sure what the Saudis have to do with it.

Scene 4: A swanky party.  Mom greets some people, announces that this party is her light when things seem dark outside.  Then an Elderly Woman pulls her aside and announces that Jason Davies, a Justice Department official whom she was having an affair with, was murdered. 

She flashes back to kissing Jason and playing with his lips -- it's the Seedy Looking Guy from the first scene -- then assures the elderly woman that she wasn't working an angle. It was a real romance.  

"Maggie Jones, who worked in a shop,  and tabloid reporter Phillip Bray were also murdered."  What about the black haired woman?  She can't be Maggie, since Seedy Looking Guy told her "I can't reach Maggie."  

Elderly Woman wants to know if he said anything during their last meeting that might have gotten him murdered, or if he was trying to find out Mom's true identity as a Black Dove.  

Back story: Mom -- finally named Helen -- has been doing deep cover for ten years, courting and marrying the Minister of Defense and feeding them government secrets.  She's in too deep to back out now, and besides, the Minister is on the road to Downing Street! 

Elderly Woman tells her to keep quiet, don't call attention to herself, and especially don't investigate your boyfriend's murder.

Scene 5: The Elderly Woman approaches the Second Seedy-Looking Guy, now named Sam (Ben Whishaw)

He's retired; he hasn't had a hitman assignment for seven years; but the Elderly Woman insists: find out if someone is planning to murder Helen due to her association with Seedy-Looking Guy, and if so, kill them.  

Later, Sam is drinking in a bar when a guy approaches him.  They chat, and Sam invites him up to his hotel room.  Say what?  

Cut to Helen disobeying orders and going to the Seedy-Looking Guy's apartment.  She snoops around, cuddles with his coat, destroys a bug, tries to open a secret panel....

Wait -- what about the guy Sam invited to his room?

Screwing after the break

Gemstones Episode 1.8: Kelvin's testicles, Jesse's butt, and ancient Philistine penises. WIth testicular bonus

Previous: Episode 1.7, continued: Bisexual fish, Thai brothers, and Scotty with a broken heart.

In the last episode, Scotty kidnapped Gideon and Jesse, forced them to open the church vault, and stole the Easter offering money, incidentally confessing that he had been in love with Gideon.  Judy and BJ had a breakup scene, but Kelvin and Keefe barely appeared.  In Episode 1.8,, their romance is centric. 

Title: "But the righteous will see their fall." Proverbs 26:19: "When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increases; But the righteous will see their fall"

An Old Man's Dick:  It's still Easter evening.  After dropping off Judy at her house, Baby Billy asks Tiffany "Who wants to suck an old man's dick?" She goes down on him while they are driving down dark country roads near the estate.  Suddenly Scotty, driving away with the money he stole, runs a stop sign and crashes into their car!   They are unharmed, but Scotty is near death (Tiffany finishes the job by accidentally shooting him).  Then they steal the money.  An interesting call-back here: earlier Scotty implies that he forced Gideon into oral sex, and he dies while interrupting consensual oral sex, an ironic punishment of the sort you would see in 1950s horror comics. 

Top five young ministers:  Gideon admits to being Scotty's partner in the offering-theft plan, and is rejected by Eli and Amber.  But he doesn't mention his part in the blackmail plan!  We cut to Jesse telling his siblings that they are in the clear. But how do they know he won't tell later, and implicate them in the assault?   Worried that he'll be arrested, Kelvin is having anxiety attacks and "sharp shit pains in my stomach" (hemorrhoids?).   Even if he wasn't convicted, the scandal would destroy his career.   "I was in the Top Five Young Ministers to watch last year -- I got a reputation -- a following."  Wait -- if he's so famous, why is his whole plot arc about proving his worth?

Denim brings lunch:  We cut to scenes where Baby Billy and Tiffany leave town with the offering money, Eli worries that the whole enterprise is corrupt, and Jesse apologizes to Gideon for pushing him away and starting the whole mess. Eli admits, for the only time in the series, that the church's finances are not entirely above-board.

 Next, Judy tries to mend her relationship with BJ by bringing him lunch at the optometrist office.  Whoops, his coworker Denim already picked up lunch.  "So you're having sex with BJ?"  No, she's a lesbian -- she has a wife.  This does not convince Judy, who calls her: "One of those benevolent lesbians, out to meet a hot guy, make friends with him, so you can sample-suck some clean dick."  BJ's nonchalance about LGBT people, plus Judy's sort-of nonchalance, will become important later.

He refuses to take Judy back, so she storms into the parking lot and starts destroying cars, finally getting arrested.

Hemorrhoids and Testicular Tumors: Keefe is swimming while Kelvin tries not to look at the body that is giving him so many unwelcome desires.   He wants to know how he can rid the world of darkness, when he's surrounded by it: his mother died, Eli was assaulted, the church was robbed. Not to mention Jesse committing assault and probably vehicular homicide.  He concludes that God is punishing the family for "not being who we say we are."  

Left: Kelvin's testicles. 

But Kelvin had nothing to do with those things. He was in the car with his siblings when they ran over the blackmailers, but he didn't assault anyone.  At most he failed to tell anyone.  How does "not being who we say we are" apply to him?  Unless he is talking about being gay.

"Don't you think God is being a little harsh?" Keefe asks.  We all wear masks; we hide things even from ourselves.  

Kelvin laugh/cries and says "I think we're getting off easy...when the Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant, God punished them with hemorhhoids and testicle tumors."  

He's referring to an obscure story in 1 Samuel 4-5, where the Philistine thieves were punished with opalim. The King James Bible translates the Hebrew word as "emeroids" (now "hemorrhoids") and the NIV as "tumors."  An article in Biblical Archaeology Review points out the importance of penises in Philistine art, and suggests "flaccid penises."   No one mentions testicles; apparently Kelvin invented it, to correspond to the glimpse of Keefe's testicle that began his recognition of his homoerotic desire.

Next: "You should go, Keefe."  Keefe doesn't understand: "You want me to make a store run?"  Kelvin becomes angrier and angrier: "Go.  Leave.  Get out. I am no longer fit to lead you!" 

Kelvin scratches his butt as he says this.  Apparently he has hemorrhoids, and thinks that God is punishing him -- an ironic punishment for having anal sex? Will testicular tumors come next? 

Keefe disagrees: "There's no one more worthy than you."

 "Get the fuck out of here! Now! Do I need to call security, motherfucker?"  This is shockingly aggressive. Besides, if Keefe has been living there for several months, you have to give him 30 days notice.

Keefe wades away, holding his swimsuit like he held his shirt during the mushroom head scene.  The intimacy he enjoyed that night has been revoked.  Kelvin falls into the pool and screams and cries.

Why does Kelvin send Keefe away?  If he's no longer qualified to be a spiritual leader due to the assault of the blackmailers, they could certainly continue to live together.  It must have something to do with the "hemorrhoids and testicular tumors," the intimacy they shared, or even homoerotic desire itself.  Kelvin believes that it is evil, demonic, that Keefe is a serpent who tempted him.  I don't care much for this association between LGBT identities and sin, but the show has been careful to establish that it's in Kelvin's head, not a general theme, structurally or in-universe.  

Testicular bonus after the break. Caution: explicit.

Daryl Sabara: Juni grows up, fights cannibals, bikers, and Satanists, and shows his dick, but I'm still depressed

Spy K*ds (2001) stars gay actor Antonio Banderas (left) and Carla Gugino as a husband and wife spy team.  Well, actually, their son and daughter, Juni and Carmen (Daryl Sabara, Alexa Vega), who get swept up in an age-appropriate diabolical plot involving tv host Fegan Floop (Alan Cummings, who is bisexual in real life).   

Although everyone is ostensibly heterosexual, some reviews call the film a queer classic due to the extremely hot Dad -- and Mom, apparently, which led to the "queer awakening" of an entire generation of lesbians; the shy, bullied, gay-coded Juni; the kick-ass Carmen; and the gay-coded villain who turns out to be not all that villainous.

The Banderas dick is just to draw your attention.  This profile features the shy, bullied, gay-coded Daryl Sabara.

There were 3 sequels:

The Island of Lost Dreams (2002) strands Juni and Carmen on a Jules Verne/Dr. Moreau "mysterious island," where they run afoul of a mad scientist creating animal hybrids.  Carmen gets a boyfriend, but Juni remains gay-coded.

I didn't see Game Over (2003) where Juni must venture into a video game to save his sister, but the queer coding ends with him meeting The Girl.  He also meets two guys, video game teammates Ryan Pinkston and Bobby Edner.

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

The 2011 All the Time in the World minimized Juni and Carmen in favor of a new sibling team.  The brother is played by Mason Cook, who would go on to Speechless.

During the Spy franchise, Daryl Sabara appeared in the usual one-shot tv spots: Will and Grace, Fatherhood, House, American Dragon: Jake Long, and so on.

He has a starring role in the animated lion-drama Father of the Pride (2004-05) as Hunter, a shy, anxiety-ridden Lord of the Rings nerd. That is, basically Juni as a lion.  In one episode, his grandfather Sarmoti thinks that he is gay, or as the fan wiki says, "homosexual; but this is absolutely not true."  Rather homophobic, aren't you, fan wiki?

Then things start to go downhill.  In a 2006 episode of Criminal Minds,  Daryl plays a teenager who charges men to watch him do bondage videos.  So he has an OnlyFans site?  The agents convince him that what he is doing constitutes prostitution, and will put him in danger from internet predators.  It is all presented as extremely sleazy, and one can't help but conclude that being gay is always seedy and sordid.  

Normal Adolescent Behavior (2007) is an anti-hookup cautionary tale,with no gay content: three girls and three guys in a friendship group pair off randomly.  Daryl appears as Nathan, who crushes on the mother of one of the girls. Ugh.

Raviv Ullman, formerly Phil of the Future, plays one of the guys in the friendship group.

Next Daryl played Tim Scottson in 7 episodes of Weeds (2005-12), about suburban marijuana growers. He shot his stepmother Nancy Botwin because he assumed that she was responsible for his father's death, but she recovered and hired him as her assistant.

Worst. Prom. Ever. (2011) has Daryl planning the perfect prom for his girlfriend, but when her two friends tag along, things go crazy, with a car crash, armed thugs, Satanists, and an amorous lady biker.

In The Green Inferno (2013), some student activists go to the Peruvian jungle for ecological stuff, and are captured by a cannibal tribe.  

A cannibal tribe?  I thought the "spear-throwing savages" trope went out with Johnny Quest. But at least the guy dragging Daryl toward the cooking pot has nice abs and a basket.

Daryl gets a girlfriend and displays his dick before being eaten.

More Daryl dick after the break