Fire Island (2023): Myles Clohessy takes off his clothes, erases the LGBT people from a movie set in a gay resort.

  

I'm doing another trailer review, not because I want to see the movie -- the reviews were deplorably bad -- but because I want to demonstrate how deviously they erased the LGBT content.

Context: A 2022 movie, Fire Island, is a romantic comedy about guys looking for love (and sex) at the world-famous gay resort.   In 2023, a horror movie with the same title appeared, for audiences  that have no idea that the 2022 movie exists, or that Fire Island is a gay resort.

The blurb: "The perfect summer vacation quickly spirals out of control for a group of friends on the infamous, picturesque party getaway of Fire Island as they find themselves caught in a web of sex, lies and cold blooded murder."  Any idea that gay people exist here?

First, let's look at the Official Trailer:

Scene 1: A man and a woman in bed together when they get a phone call.  They climb into the car with another man and woman.  Two heterosexual couples, right?  They shriek loudly with excitement.

Scene 2: Establishing shot of the Fire Island ferry, while sinister music plays.  We see an American flag and a Pride flag. What kinda flag is that, Mabel?  I never seen such a thing.  

Scene 3: They move into their house.  More sinister music.  Late at night, Man #2 says "I have to take care of myself.  This is the best way I can breathe.  This weekend is the last fucking thing I wanted to do, but..."  

Meanwhile, Woman #1 and #2 are kissing.  The wives are having a lesbian affair!

Cut to morning, with everyone dancing around the kitchen, overjoyed to be cooking breakfast.  Man #2 and Woman #2 hug and start to kiss.  Man #1 sits on the porch, talking to Woman #1.  I guess the lesbian affair is over.  They're all back to being heterosexual couples again.

Scene 4: Uh-oh, the police find a dead guy (nice bulge in his underwear). Detective (Kresh Novakovic) thinks that it has something to do with the murders "out in the Pines."  That's where the two straight couples are staying!

Scene 5: Night.  Woman #2 awakens to an empty bed and calls for Man #2 (I assume, although the name she calls, Dan, is not in the cast list). Lights flash on and off.  

Cut to daytime. Man #2  and Woman #2 go into a house, yelling "Hello?  Hi?"

Now it's night again. Man #1 looks out the window at something scary.  I'll bet he's responsible for the murders.  

Scene 6: Old guy dressed as a hunter, in the woods, saying "Look at all this fucking b.s." or "these fucking deer." (I can't tell which: the dialogue is very soft, and the sinister music very, very loud.)  

Night again.  Man #2 and Woman #2 are in town. They see a figure in a deer mask.  They run on the beach, then into a house.  The detective, who is there for some reason, pulls a gun. Then it's morning, and they're running upstairs.

Scene 7: A split-second shot of a man and a woman dancing (wait...on pause, it's a butch/femme gay couple).  Cut to the femme one in the bathroom, with his throat slashed. 

Woman #1 wakes up in bed, wondering where Man #1 is.  He's on the beach, looking sinister.  Because he just killed a femme gay guy?  She gets up in her underwear and loads a gun.  The end.

Quick, how many of these people are gay?  Man #1 (played by Conor Paolo, top photo) is married to Woman #1.  Man #2 (played by Jonathan Bennett, second photo) is gay, and overcoming a recent tragedy.  Woman #2 is a lesbian, and in a relationship with someone who isn't on the car trip, so you'd think it was two heterosexual couples driving to Fire Island.  Plus her girlfriend looks like Woman #1, so you can't tell from the trailer that she exists.  You think the wives are having a lesbian affair. 

The Official Trailer tries very hard to make you believe that this movie is about two heterosexual couples at a resort that might have one or two gay people being eviscerated.  

But the Showtime Trailer goes even farther,  It cuts the Pride flag, the "I have to take care of myself," and the dancing/eviscerated gay guys, but adds three shots of men and women kissing.  

Left: Jared P-Smith, who plays the Bartender in a scene that doesn't appear in the trailer.

There are also three shots of a drag queen (played by writer/director Myles Clohessy's father) entertaining an audience of heterosexual couples. Each cuts directly to the deer mask person, implying that the drag queen, not Man #1, is the killer.  

The question is, why?  Why make a movie where 3 out of 5 protagonists are gay, then try very hard to hide it?  

Let's check Myles Clohessy.  He has 16 writing and 20 directing credits listed on the IMDB, but most are "upcoming."  Also 41 acting credits,  but only one gay role, in The Last Ferry.  He plays an ex-Marine who murders his boyfriend during a weekend in Fire Island.

 Interestingly, an interview in The Spirit, a local NYC newspaper, asks how he, a heterosexual, played a gay character.  He explains "I approached (the role) in the same way that I would approach any other character."   Actors used to be asked that all the time, but not in 2020.

But it may explain a lot about this movie.     

Nude photos of Myles Clohessy after the break

"Workaholics" Episode 5.1: Blake becomes a porn star, Ders is into kinky stuff, and Adam is gay. With bonus penises

I'm not posting about Workaholics too much, you're posting about Workaholics too much. But Episode 5.1 is amazing.  There are no gay characters, there's a homophobic slur,  two of the three guys express heterosexual interest, there's a straight porn movie in one scene and two straight people having sex in another.  And Adam leaves his shirt on.  How could all that be gay-positive?

Scene 1: The guys are preparing to watch the "biggest night in Hollywood."  They hope it will be better than last year, when it consisted mostly of people "sucking each other off" on the red carpet.  Hey, it's not the Oscars -- it's the Adult Entertainment Awards!  Adam comes in with snacks -- breast-shaped cakes for the guys, and he gets a chocolate penis.

Scene 2: Discussing the results at work.  Adam guessed right in every category, even Best Dong-umentary (12 Inches a Slave won).  He explains that he has a "pornographic memory" -- he never forgets a dick.  What a coincidence, I like to look at dicks, too.  Do you also like s*king them?  

On to the episode's premise: Ders is being sent tothe North Rancho College Job Fair to recruit college grads (to be telemarketers?).  He can bring some assistants, but Adam and Blake are out -- they'll just bail, leaving him to do all of the work alone.  Of course, they talk him into it, and the moment they hit the campus, they bail.

Ders' Adventure: He starts attracting students by insulting the guys in the Coast Guard recruitment booth: "You're called the coast guard because you coast on the backs of the people who really guard our country."  He also makes a homophobic gesture, "accusing" the coast guard guys of sucking cock.  

Ok, one "gay sex is shameful" joke.  This is mild.  Have you seen anything with Seth Green lately?  He and his best friend reach for the popcorn at the same time, and accidentally touch hands: "I need to shower and cry for three hours!  I've never been so disgusted!   If anyone saw us, they might think that we're -- oh, I'm going to be sick!" 

Finally the coast guard guys, led by Brock (Pete Ploszek), have had enough of his jibes, pour Big Red soda into his butt hole, and have their dog mascot -- um --- you know.  But Ders likes it!

Later, Ders pretends that he wants to apologize, but he tells a dirty joke instead.  The coast guard guys chase him.  He climbs a ladder and escapes into a dorm room....

Adam's Adventure:  He suddenly realizes that this is the campus where they filmed his favorite porno, Dorm Daze.  He looks around until he finds Room 18, where they filmed the gang bang scene.  Wait -- the direction of the "semen sprays" isn't right.  He is creating a diagram, when the room's occupant, Danny (Peter Ngo), comes in with a girl and orders him out. 

When Adam sees a girl carrying a texbook on Female Sexuality, he thinks she's going to a class on porn, so he follows her into a giant lecture hall -- occupied entirely by women!  Score -- dozens of future porn actresses learning about the trade.   Maybe they'll even use him to demonstrate their techniques!

The professor calls him down.  He's thrilled!  He just wishes he wore his "big dick jeans" to show off his huge cock.   It's really a Women's Studies class about women's objectification by the patriarchy!  Run!   But he digs himself in deeper and deeper, discussing how much he likes porn: "the gentle cupping of the balls....they caress the shaft....and then gag..."  Do you like getting them or giving them, Adam?

Time for the lambasting:  the women are being exploited. Many are confused actresses lured in with the offer of a legitimate movie role, given drugs and alcohol to lower their inhibitions, then forced to perform.  Many are single mothers. What if your mother was in that situation?   

"My Mom?"  Adam seethes.  Converted into an anti-porn advocate, he and the students rush to the dorm room used for filming pornos, and shut it down!  Except it's a  regular dorm room now, occupied by Dominic (Seth Ginsberg, top photo), having consensual sex with his girlfriend.  Wait -- Adam uses logical deducation to determine that the real porn room is....

Blake's Adventure:  He is pretending to be Australian, so when he sees a sign announcing open auditions for Hamlet, he auditions with a fight scene from Crocodile Dundee.  The director chastises him: "You're a very bad actor," but Crystal, a girl in the audience,  offers him a role in a short film.  

She leads him to a dorm room. He wants to know about the characters, the plot, and so on, but Landon, the director, gives him drugs and alcohol and tells him to whip it out. Blake catches on that it's a porno, and tries to leave, but Landon yells at him and threatens him.  "I just wanted to act," Blake whimpers. "So go in the closet and grease up your hog."    Notice the beat-by-beat reflection of what the professor told Adam.  Not understanding, he comes out with his body greased. Crying, humiliated, he can't bring himself to take out his dick.  

Tying the Plot Threads Together: Adam and the students burst in to save Blake and "this poor, innocent girl."  Crystal points out that she's a producer, she owns 40% of the company, and besides, she enjoys performing.  Whoops, there's another side to the story.  It's not all about exploitation. 

But they still need someone with a penis to do it on camera.  Not to worry -- Ders bursts in, chased by the coast guard guys, who are all interested.  We cut to them waiting in line to do a "Coast Guard Gang Bang" movie.  Wait -- twelve guys and one girl?  Some of those guys are going to be banging each other.  The end.

Beefcake: Blake and Dominic the Dorm Guy.

Gross-out humor: Ders enjoys the dog-sex thing. In the kicker, he suggests that the guys get a dog.

Heterosexism:  The coast guard guys complain that they've been chasing Ders all over campus. "We should be chasing chicks, not dudes."

The professor who describes porn as solely about women being exploited by men gets her comeuppance: sometimes male performers are being exploited, too.

Homophobia: One reference.  Interestingly, when Crystal tries to humiliate Ders into performing, she says "Don't you like sex?", not "Are you gay?"

Gay Subtext: Except for one or two lines suggesting an interest in women, Adam presents as gay.  His favorite porn scene involves guys jizzing.  When he describes what he likes about porn, it's all about giving a blow job. 

My Grade: A

I could hardly post on Adam's penis expertise without some penis pics after the break.  Caution: some arousal.

"Teenage Bounty Hunters": Two girls at a high-power Christian Academy get a side gig. With Mackenzie Astin and the guys sans pants

 

Teenage Bounty Hunters. on Netflix, gets 4.6 out of 5 stars on Rotten Tomatoes.  Sure, I could use something mindless and trashy, as long as the girls keep their clothes on.  So I'll review Episode 1.1.

Scene 1: In a parked car, a teenage girl convinces a highly religious "But it's a sin!" boy, Luke (Spencer House. left), to do it with her by quoting scripture. She quotes John 3:16 and the Shepherd Psalm while mounting him.

I should have tried that when I was a Nazarene!

In the next car over, another teenage girl finishes giving a hand job to Stoner Dude Jennings (Nicholas Cirillo), and then  interrogates him on her technique.

Scene 2: The two girls turn out to be twins, Sterling (religious) and Blair (stoner), who discuss their sexcapades on the way home.  Suddenly they hit a car.  "Jesus, Mother of God!" Religious Sterling cries. Well, she's not Catholic, so how could she know that it's "Mary, Mother of God"?

The guy they hit brandishes a gun, but they quickly subdue him.  He thinks they're bounty hunters (hired to track down people who skip bail).

The real bounty hunter shows up: Bowser (Kadeem Hardison, who you might remember from A Different World).  Dude runs, and Bowser is too fat to give chase, so the girls grab him.    Believing that they are professional bounty hunters, Bowser agrees to share the fee with them.

Scene 3: "What I did for my summer vacation" at a Christian Academy.  An entitled girl says: "I was so blessed that my Daddy let us use his helicopter to fly to his lake house for a discipleship week."  Gak!

Religious Sterling is chosen to be this year's Christian Discipleship Student Fellowship Leader.  But she doesn't want to do it because she's...um...as pure as the driven slush? 

Scene 4: Outside the scary Gothic-castle school, Religious Sterling is fake-congratulated by a Mean Girl: "But I'm glad I didn't get it, because I'll be so busy this year with the Young Republicans, Latin Club, the Straight-Straight Alliance..." Har-har

Studdenly Stoner Dude bumps into Religious Sterling.  She drops her purse, and a condom falls out.  Everyone is shocked!  Sin!  Abomination!

Sceene 5: The girls go home to their mansion, where Supermodel Mom has made brownies.  Dad comes in (bisexual actor Mackenzie Astin, brother of Sean).

Left: Searching for "Mackenzie Astin" and "body" yielded this photo of Scott Bakula and someone who doesn't look like Mac Astin.

And brother Sean in Toy Soldiers.

Scene 6: I'm not sure what the point of Scene 5 was.  They call Dad "sir," but otherwise he seems perfectly nice, interested in their activities, not authoritarian or abusive.

They walk through the grounds to the garage to pick up a car, so they can meet with Bowser the Bounty Hunter to collect their $2,500 (don't they get that much allowance every week?)

Scene 7: Yogurtopia, where Bowser the Bounty Hunter has his day job.  He gives the girls their money, but it will take a lot more to fix their Dad's best huntin' truck that got wrecked in Scene 2.   So he offers them a new job: a richster named John Stevens was arrested for solicitation and assault (he beat up a hooker), and skipped bail.  Now he's hanging out in the Men's Parlour, a super-exclusive section of the super-exclusive (that is, white only) country club.  Bowser is black, so he can't get in; could the girls do it?

The girls discuss:  They know John Stevens -  he's Mean Girl's Dad!  He's made  inappropriate comments about their' bods, so he's a creep.  But why would a bajillionaire be a bail jumper?  Couldn't he just hire a famous attorney and bribe the jury to be found not guilty?

More bounty hunting after the break

The Baptist Student Union: two Baptist boys give in to temptation

 

Naperville, Illinois

When I finally managed to drop out of the Nazarene church, my parents told me, "You don't have to be a Nazarene, but you can't be a heathen!  Find another church to go to!"  

So I tried Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, and, during my senior year at Augustana College, the Baptist Student Fellowship.

My parents were not pleased.

Nazarenes thought that Baptists were the most evil of the "so-called Christians." At least the Lutherans were open about worshipping idols, and the Presbyterians about tearing apart the Bible, but the Baptists were almost identical to Nazarenes.

The only differences that I could see:

1. Baptism.  The Nazarene Manual mentioned baptism, but in all my years as a Nazarene, I had never seen it done. Baptists required it for everybody.

2.  "Once saved, always saved."  Nazarenes believed that after you got saved, you could backslide -- commit more sins -- and have to be saved all over again.  For Baptists, once was enough -- after you were saved, you would go to heaven no matter what you did.  

When I was a kid, the older boys at church whispered that due to "once saved, always saved," Baptists had no morals: hey would "put out" for anybody.  So if you wanted a "sure thing" on a date, ask a Baptist girl.

What about Baptist boys?  I joined the Baptist Student Union to see if they were also  "easy," willing to "put out" for anybody.  Willing to get a BJ from a dude.

At first glance, they seemed nearly as strict as the Nazarenes, exhorting each other to "stay pure" and "resist their urges."  Like the Nazarenes, they taught that God hated homa-sekshuls, plus premarital sex and masturbation, any sexual act that wasn't intended to make a baby.

The main project of the Baptist Student Union year was putting on a  musical about a guy who makes obnoxious come-ons to every girl in sight, until one of them invites him to church, where he gets saved and vows to "stay pure" until his wedding night.  I only remember one song:

The Devil is alive and well on the Planet Earth.
The Devil is alive and well, and he can make you feel like hell....

Feel like hell was code for Having erotic desires or giving in to them.  But church elders disapproved of the bad language, so we changed the line to "send your soul to hell."

Beginning just after Christmas, we performed for youth groups at various Baptist churches in the area.  Not only in Rock Island, but in Kewanee, Galesburg, Princeton, cities up to an hour's drive away.

Then one Sunday in the spring, we were booked by a church in Naperville,  about three hours away -- too far to get home after the evening youth group.  So we car-pooled on Sunday afternoon, and after our performance, church members gave us dinner and put us up for the night.

The four boys in the cast stayed with an elderly couple whose sons had grown up and moved away.

More Baptists after the break

"Unstable: Rob Lowe and son are grieving, the Pilgrim Twins have small dongs, and there's a gay sycophant

 

 I haven't watched many of Rob Lowe's recent tv shows or movies; I had the impression that he wasn't entirely gay-friendly.  But he stars with his son, John Owen Lowe (below),in the 8-episode Netflix sitcom, Unstable.  I reviewed Episode 4, "Pilgrims and Sex Parties," since sex parties are a gay community thing.  

Premise: "Unstable genius" Ellis (Rob), who owns a biotech company, spirals out of control after the death of his wife (red flag!), so he brings his son Jackson (Johnny) aboard to smooth things out.  Except Jackson is a flautist.  How would that even work?

Scene 1: The biotech company.  A lady in a business suit complains that a photo of Ellis with a hawk on his head has gone viral, creating a meme where he's called the Wizard of Odd.  Ellis doesn't care: he's busy channeling his inner child and monkeys. 

Left: Lowe butt

Meanwhile, the obsessive Smithers to Ellis' Mr. Burns, Malcolm (Aaron Branch), has a meet-cute with the new HR Guy, but is too flustered about HR regulations to flirt.  A gay character in the first scene!  I stand corrected.

Scene 2: Ana, Ellis's main ally on the board of directors, asks how he's handling the grief over his Dead Wife.  Not well , he says: after losing the most wonderful person in the world, life is meaningless. After four episodes?  Usually Dead Wives are mentioned once to establish that the guy is heterosexual, then dropped.  Is this a show about grief?  

"So," Ana says, changing the subject, "About the hawk-on-your-head story, that reporter screwed you in the ass with a King Kong dick?"   Sounds like a fun date, but I think it's just a homophobic reference to the hawk-on-the-head story.

Scene 3:  Ana the Board Member runs into Ellis's son Jackson, the flautist-biotech scientist, and asks how he's handling the grief over his Dead Mother.  Not well;, he says; the grief comes in waves.   She notes that she's still playing the harp, so why doesn't he stop by with his flute for some "pluck and toots."   That sounds dirty.

Scene 4:  In the lab, scientists Luna and Ruby are looking through microscopes, trying to shame some cells into dividing.  They discuss Luna's never-seen "loser" boyfriend Brian and Ruby's ex-boyfriend - Jackson!  A heterosexual flautist?  How odd!

Sycophant Malcolm comes in all flustered over his meet-cute, so the scientists offer to create a litmus test to determine if HR Guy is actually interested. 

Ellis enters the lab, announcing that he's ready to go back to work: "If we can get some reductive oxidant on the anode..."   Uh-oh, he peers into a microscope and starts crying.  Too soon.  Strange -- usually working helps you deal with the grief.  Maybe the Dead Wife was a scientist.  

Scene 5:  Business-Suit Lady approaches the mansion of JT and Chas (JT Parr, Tom Allen, left), who are trying to destroy Ellis.  Boyfriends? No, brothers: they mention their father.  She orders them to back off, or she will post an embarrassing video. 

 "The sex parties?  We don't care -- everybody in tech goes to sex parties."  

No, actually she has a film of the two pretending to be Pilgrims.  If it gets out, no girls will come to their sex parties, so they'll have to have sex with guys.  "Ugh!  Gross!  Ok, we'll back off."  So these are heterosexual sex parties?  I've never heard of such a thing.

More grief after the break

Rob Lowe: Nude photos of James Dumont's classmate, the Brat Pack prettyboy and bad guy with a dick.

Rob Lowe got his start as an androgynous prettyboy in Brat Pack classics like The Outsiders (1983), The Hotel New  Hampshire  (1984), and St. Elmo's Fire (1985).   

He played a teenage operator who buddy-bonds with the naive Andrew McCarthy in Class (1983).

He did the "Yank skewers the pretentions of stuffy Brits" thing in Oxford Blues (1984).

In Youngblood (1986), he gave us not only a butt shot, but a revealing near-frontal.  

Millions of heterosexual girls and gay boys had his posters on their bedroom walls. Corey Haim's Sam had one in The Lost Boys (1987), leading to widespread speculation that Sam was gay.

.We all figured that Rob was gay.  Why else would he infuse his movies with  so much buddy-bonding amid the 1980s homophobic slurs?  Why else would half the guys in West Hollywood, including my friend Mario, claim to have dated him?  

Why else would he show his butt so often?  

Then something happened that changed Rob Lowe's life and career forever.  During the Democratic National Convention in 1988, Rob and his friend Justin Morrow filmed themselves having sex with two women. It was blurry and grainy, but you could see Rob fully aroused.  (Photos after the break) 

The scandal marked him as  dangerous, deviant, and overtly sexual.  You knew things about him that you didn't about any other celebrity.

Hollywood insiders figured that his career was over, but Rob managed to capitalize on his new aura of danger in Bad Influence (1990),  luring a yuppie (James Spader) onto the Dark Side while showing us his butt again.  And in 

The Dark Backward (1991), a dark comedy about a pair of garbage collectors who want to become standup comics.  

He starred in a BBC adaption of Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer, about a decadent gay guy whose "perversion" leads to a gruesome and ridiculous death.

By 1994, Rob had bounced back enough to play Nick Andros, one of the "good guy" survivors of a plague that destroys the world, in an adaption of Stephen King's The Stand  (1994).  

He appeared in  comedies like Wayne's World and Austin Powers, murder mysteries (often as the murderer), and tragedies. But he kept his infamous penis under wraps, except for a nude scene in I Melt with You (2011).

Today Rob is a fixture on television, for audiences who never heard of his sex tape, or don't care.  He has starred in The Grinder, Code Black, Wild Bill, 911 Lone Star, and Unstable.  No gay characters, but we still can see an occasional butt.

Ready for the sex tape dicks?  Warning: they are explicit

James Dumont's teen idol career, with Tim Matheson, Rob Lowe, and Andrew McCarthy

If you know James Dumont as a middle aged bear, you may be surprised to find that he began his acting career in 1980, at the age of fifteen.  

He got his first headshot courtesy of his uncle that year, and used it to get an uncredited role as "Kid Dancing in the Street" in The Blues Brothers.

Here's another 1980 shot. Definite Tiger Beat fave rave vibe.  He might have been another Shaun Cassidy (top photo: Shaun for comparison).

In 1982, James got some more head and body shots for his acting/modeling career.  I'm thinking the rural craze, someone who belongs on The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie.  

Instead he got two more uncredited roles: In Listen to Your Heart (1983), a romcom starring Tim Matheson, left, and Kate Jackson.

Tim's butt after the break

"Partner Track": High-power lawyer is passed over in favor of people with penises. Yes, we see a few.

Partner Track , on Netflix, is about a high-powered Manhattan lawyer.  Are there lawyers in any other city?   But I couldn't find any gay characters or subtexts, so here goes. Maybe there will be some grey-suit hunks in steam rooms.

Scene 1: We're in NYC!  You can tell because of the shots of Central Park and the Empire State Building.  Close-up of pink high-heeled shoes, eventually are revealed to be Ingrid, a lawyer  in a pink business outfit, standing out amid the throngs of grey-suit men.  She gives some coin to a homeless guy, gets jostled by a grey-suit man, and tells us that this city is tough on a girl who wants to get ahead.

Inside the glass-and-steel building, she meets her friend, a woman in a blue business outfit.  They discuss Ingrid's obsessive drive to be made junior partner at her law firm (ok, partner track, I get it).   It's down to her, Dan , and Todd, but they have penises, so she has to do something spectacular to tip the balance, like land a major account.  

When they arrive upstairs, Dan and Todd, and a third guy, Hunter, can't wait to start their hetero-horny hostile-workplace sexism: "she's got a wide margin on the face-body quotient.  She looks like you from the back, and Dan from the front.  Ugh!"  So the epitome of ugliness is...a man.  Got it! 

The three grey suits don't have any distinguishing characteristics: they are all fratboy-style hunks, they mention sports every 10 seconds, and they think of women as sex toys..  But in case you are interested, they are played by Zane Philips (top photo), Nolan Gerald Funk (left), who often plays gay roles, and Will Stout ("actor, West Virginian, Dad", but no beefcake).

The butts of the guys follow:

Everyone drools over Ultra-Richster, who will decide on the next junior partner.  They have to really butter him up!  

Ingrid rushes to her office, ignores a phone call from her mother, and tells her assistant to gather all the intel needed to wow Ultra-Richster.  

She also meets her new paralegal Justin (Roby Attal), a white dudebro who has his feet on his desk and is busily texting and ignoring his duties.

Left: Nolan's butt. He's having sex with a lady.

Ingrid's friend asks why she was assigned such a terrible paralegal. The answer: since Ingrid is Korean-American, HR thought that assigning her only paralegals of color might be construed as racist, so they got her a white one. Problem: they couldn't find any competent white paralegals.

Friend shoves his feet off the desk and yells: "Ingrid graduated #2 in her class at Harvard Law.  You will show her some respect!"  Oh, please, every lawyer on tv graduated at the top of their class at Harvard Law.

Scene 2:  Out of nowhere, Friend asks "What happened to the Brit you hooked up with long time ago?  You said he was like Bogart from Casablanca?"  Ingrid shrugs.  "It was just a hookup."  "Well, he was just hired by this firm.  A chance for you to get laid, and take your mind off your obsession with becoming partner!"  Why do you care so much?  Are you a standard romcom friend who exists only to goad the big city girl into accepting the small-town hunk? Or, in this case, hunky Brit?

Scene 3:  Ingrid runs into Tyler (Bradley Gibson).  He is wearing a blue suit, so he's a nice guy.  This series is as color-coordinated as an old Western.  He is bragging to someone on his cellphone that he has landed a bunch of accounts, plus he started reading Vogue, Teen Vogue, and Women's Wear Daily when he was 11.  The guy on the phone is impressed, and gives him the account. 

Left: Zane's butt.  He's having sex with a guy.

I thought Tyler would be a standard romcom gay bff,  but he asks Ingrid to "come say hi to the kids at the reception tonight."   Was that thrown in to identify him as heterosexual?  About 20% of gay men have kids, you know.  There are several ways to get the job done that dont require sex with a lady.

Scene 4:  Not looking where she is going, Ingrid has a splat! meet-cute encounter with...you guessed it, the Brit, she used to date, Jeff Murphy (Dominic Sherwood).  He stares in cliched teencom Girl-of-my-dreams lust, but unfortunately he doesn't remember Ingrid from their long-ago hookup.  He was way drunk that night.  Ingrid is way pissed.

Whoops, Brit Jeff was hired at level five, whatever that means, so he's in the running for junior partner, too.  Romance between competitors, a cliched...um, I mean classic romcom trope.

Scene 5: All of the contenders -- Dan, Todd, Brit Jeff, and Ingrid -- watch in amusement as the Richster demolishes fawning acolyte Sanders: "Don't ask if you can ask a fucking question, just ask the fucking question! And don't laugh.  Laughter is a coward's expression of fear."  

They bet on which cliched business phrase Richster will use first.

Scene 6: A meeting.  Who wants to work on getting a corporate merger contract worth $2.9 billion? Wait -- is that the law firm's fee?   Ingrid brags about her qualifications, repeatedly, and is ignored.  He assigns Grey Suit Dan instead.  "And this deal is confidential.  Any leak, and I will fucking tear up your fucking license my fucking self."  

Out in the hallway, Grey Suits Dan assigns Ingrid some grunt work.  She fumes.  Is she going to start murdering these grey suits?

Scene 7: Another meeting. The big boss walks right by Ingrid to shake hands with Dudebro Paralegal Justin, because he has a penis.  Maybe he wants to see it?  Then he orders Ingrid to bring them some wine. She relegates the task to Justin. "Oh...you're the associate?  Sorry...you look so...young."  He means "lacking a penis."  Everybody else arrives, and Ingrid is ignored again as they delve into sports and car metaphors.

Guys demonstrate that they have penises after the break