The television series AP Bio was broadcast on NBC in 2018-19, and then on Peacock in 2020-22, and is now streaming on Netflix. It stars Glen Howerton, who plays the amoral sociopath Dennis Reyolds on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so I imagine his AP Biology teacher will be similar. It may be a nice break from looking for gay characters in endless Christmas romcoms.
Scene 1: Whitlock High School, home of the Rams. The stereotyped students sit in the classroom, waiting. Crash! Jack, played by Glen, has just hit a bicyclist and crashed into the school sign. The biker wants to argue, but Jack scares him away with a crowbar.
In class, he explains that he's an "award winning philosophy scholar" with a free year, so he took a job teaching Advanced Placement Biology. Ok, that's impossible. College professors can't teach high school; you need a degree in education, plus student teaching experience. And philosophers can't teach biology; you would need a degree in biology. How do these tv shows get off, thinking that anybody can be hired as a teacher?
But he won't be teaching biology. He also won't be doing any sharing and caring. He's going to be spending the year trying to steal the job of his nemesis as head of Stanford Philosophy, so he can sleep with every woman in California. I already hate this douchebag.
Scene 2: The students have some questions. He promises to give them all As if they keep quiet about not learning biology. Upon discovering that a student is named Sarika Sarkar, he starts lecturing on philosopher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, but stops when they pull out their notebooks to take notes. He won't be teaching them philosophy, either.
Uh-oh, the Principal, Patton Oswalt, would "like a word." At 5' 3", he's a member of the Short Guy Prigade
The Principal is angry about the accident that wrecked the school sign, but Jack fast-talks him into apologizing and promising to be more laid-back. They hug. He asks Jack out for a beer tonight, but Jack will be busy trying to bang his ex.
Scene 3: At home at his "dead mother's house," amid pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and himself as a geeky teen, Jack is getting drunk-er. He calls his friend Miles in California while giving 0 stars to his bestselling book of "philosophical rubbish."
Miles: "It's a shame you were kicked out of Harvard, but stop by anytime you're on the West Coast." Aha, the nemesis!
Next Jack showers. Beefcake, no nudity.
Scene 4: The next day, the School Bully, Spence Moore II, knocks down the Troubled Loner Devin, Jacob McCarthy, and throws his backpack into the river.
Cut to three lady teachers having lunch and discussing their sex lives: "So my date comes to my house in a sopping wet t-shirt, talking he had just got out of the bath. What kind of baby-man takes baths? Let's hear more about that wet t-shirt.
Jack introduces himself, and is asked if he has any interesting dating stories. "No, but tonight I'm going to bang my high school ex as hard as I can." They are delighted.
Turns out they're all jerks. "I make the students take a photo of me and show it to their dads." "I make them clean my car to learn about recycling." Jack is delighted to discover that as a teacher, he make his students do whatever he wants and call it "education."
Scene 5: In class, the students have prepared a rap number about how much they like biology, but Jack cuts them off. He has a new project: they're going to work together to destroy Miles. "It's basic utilitarianism. Jeremy Bentham..." They open their notebooks. "No, don't write that down. I'm not teaching you!"
The project: catfishing. Make up fake profiles with pictures of beautiful women, and send him flirty messages. How will that destroy him?
Scene 6: The students find a video online explaining why Jack was kicked out of Harvard: at his tenure hearing, he attacked an elderly professor, who defended himself and put him in a headlock. Embarrassing tenure fail.
Jack enters and wants to hear their catfish messages. First up: Troubled Loner Devin: "Dear Miles, you don't know me, but you will. We will marry under the black sun of Satan's breath. I'll be the final face you see as I wrap my hands around your neck and suck your soul into my mouth." I've had blow jobs like that.
Jack likes it, only "make it a bit more feminine." Sounds like Devin is gay.
More after the break
Next: Shy Boy, played by Jacob Houston: "Dear Miles, I want you to be safe. I want to lie next to you and laugh until we cry. I want us to grow old together, and when we're old, say 'I don't mind because I'm with you.'"
Jack loves it.
Scene 7: Jack having dinner with his high school ex. She wants to know why he didn't get tenure at Harvard, and now he can't find a job at any university. He distracts her with a request for sex. "Sorry, my boyfriend is getting off his rounds at the hospital in an hour. No time."
Cut to Jack driving home, yelling "Damn!" His phone chimes with an alert: Nemesis Miles won a Genius Grant!
Scene 8: The Principal tells the class that Jack won't be in today, because he's been put in prison, "but not for life." They have a sub, Coach Hanson, whose military-style discipline and by-the-books approach annoys everyone. He gives the Troubled Loner Devin detention for having a sopping-wet book after the Bully threw it into the river yet again.
Fortunately, Jack made bail, and comes in to finish teaching the class. He explains that last night he got very angry, and drunk, and urinated in the hospital where his ex and her boyfriend work. When a police officer ordered him to stop, "I suggested that he pleasure me sexually," which caused him to attack. Homophobic police brutality.
Scene 8: The Principal and the Troubled Loner Devin knock on Jack's door. It seems that Devin was inspired by Jack's story, and urinated on the Bully's house. Darn, I thought that Jack would help him take care of the Bully.
Scene 9: Devin explains that the Bully has been throwing his backpack into the river every day for about a year, and the Principal has done nothing. Uh-oh, the Principal is in trouble.
Left: Bully bulge.
Jack suggests that, before imitating his behavior, Devin should ask for his advice. It might not be a good idea.
Scene 10: Jack asks the three sex-gossiping teachers for advice on how to handle the bullying problem. "Keep the two together at all times. That's how we all became friends: we're bullies and victims."
Cut to Jack forcing the Bully to take his AP Bio, and sit next to the Troubled Loner Devin. The students take other classes, you know.
That night, Miles starts getting the catfish messages. He clicks on one. The end.
Beefcake: Jack in the shower.
Gay Characters: Devin's catfish essay seems rather homoerotic, and in the other episode I watched, he and the Bully hug and say that they love each other, but I think they're just being dudebros.
The Shy Boy gets a girlfriend played by Tess Aubert, who identifies as queer.
Anthony, played by Eddie Leavy, is a swishy queen, but I don't think he ever expresses any same-sex desire.
Gay Actors: Jacob McCarthy, who plays Devin, also starred in The Drummer and the Keeper, about an "unlikely friendship" between two teenage boys; The Male Gaze: First Kiss, about two male couples having their...um...first kiss; and in Mary & George, where he makes out with several guys, including King James. Plus he shows his butt in SAS: Rogue Heroes, along with about 30 other guys.
My Grade: Reasonably funny. Jack is less of a jerk than he pretends: he is constantly encouraging the students, and he steps right in to solve the bullying problem. But there is a dearth of gay representation and beefcake potential. B.
Bonus: I was running low on beefcake, so here's the back-penis prosthetic of Jacob's Rogue Heroes costar, Connor Swindells.
See also: It's Always Sunny, Episode 7.10: Mac gets fat, Charlie refuses sex, and Michael O'Hearn Flexes.
No comments:
Post a Comment