"Final Destination: Blood Legacy": Death has a wacky sense of humor. With Travis Turner, the gay guy from "Chucky," and a n*de security guard

Final Destination is a movie franchise about people who escape death, so Death tracks them down and offs them in complex, gruesome ways that would make Rube Goldberg proud.  Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025), on HBO MAX, gets a score of 93% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and reviews of "a scary streaming hit with a surprising amount of heart."  I'm looking for beefcake and gay characters, of course.

Scene 1: A blindfolded girl is apparently going to her Sweet Sixteen party with her father.  She asks for a hint, but he will only say "You'll love it!"  They end up at a fancy building, the Sky Tower, with a weird fountain outside.  She is thrilled: "I didn't even know it was open yet!"

"I pulled some favors, and got us on the list for opening night."  How are people in movies always pulling in favors.  Who are they granting this big favors for?

Transistor radio playing Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" (1963).  This is the mid-1960s.

First misdirection: "Dad" is made up to look much older than "Daughter," but actually they are only eight years apart: Paul (Max Lloyd Jones, age 34) and his girlfriend Iris (Brec Bassinger, age 26) 

The Evil Penny-Dropping Kid (Noah Bromley, who deserves an Oscar for his smouldering malice) is nabbed for fishing coins out of the fountain, then pushes ahead of them to get on the elevator.  It is overcrowded, but the Elevator Operator (Travis Turner) says that there's plenty of room.   Don't believe it.  I saw that Twilight Zone episode.

Uneasy, Iris agrees to squeeze in with Paul. 

The dang floor is glass!  Penny Dropping Kid starts jumping up and down to scare her more.

And they make it to the Skyview Restaurant. Unfortunately, their reservation has been cancelled, so they sit at the bar, while we see the various set-ups for the deaths and destruction: people dancing on the glass floor, a pricked finger, a chef doing a flambé, a woman singing "I came tumbling down," and so on.  Back story: Iris is pregnant, but hasn't told her boyfriend yet.

They walk up the stairs to the observation deck, where Paul decides to pop the question.  But then the Penny-Dropping Kid drops the penny, starting a chain reaction that reveals the structural faults and will send the whole tower tumbling down.

Down on the main floor, as the singer sings "Shout!", they all jump up and down on the glass floor.  It caves in, and people fall to the ground.  Lol, the parking valets are playing "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head"!.  Then the whole place catches on fire and explodes. The Elevator Operator tries to guide everyone down the stairs, but they crumble.  He guides them onto the elevator, but it splats.  The tower topples.  Iris and a little boy are hanging on..,they fall and die!

Scene 2: Psych!  It was just a dream.  In the modern era, Stef awakes screaming during her university math lecture (in a giant lecture hall, like even the most advanced classes in movies).  The Professor yells at her.

Later, in the dorm room, Stef has the same dream, and wakes up screaming. Her roommate yells at her for having the same dream every night and waking her up. The woman in her dream is named Iris -- her grandmother's name!  She's dreaming about her grandma, who she never met.  No wonder, she died before she could give birth to Stef's mother.

Scene 3: Stef is determined to track down her Grandma Iris and find out what the dream means. Back home, she greets her dad (Tipo Lee),  who is happy to see her, and sibling Charlie, who is not.  Dead end: Dad threw out all of Grandma's stuff after Mom abandoned them. 

More after the break

Bobby Diamond: A horse's costar, a non-DIckensian Pip, Dunky Gillis, gymnast, nude flower child, and the Mighty Mightor

 

Dig this vintage commercial from the 1950s.  Bobby is trying to chop wood, but he's too weak, causing him to lose the respect of his friend, dad, and horse.  Then his other dad calls them to lunch.  They burst with excitement: they're having Borden's Cottage Cheese!!!!

The cooking-and-cleaning dad plops on "any kind of fruit."  Yuck!

The friend pours syrup on an enormous pile of the gunk.  Yuck again!

Bobby makes a cottage cheese-and-jelly sandwich.  Triple yuck!  

But shoveling the vile stuff into his face gives Bobby the energy to chop that wood and earn his gay dads' love.

And he takes his shirt off, causing conniption fits among the gay boys of the era.

During the 1950s, television characters commonly sold the product during the story ("Let's take a break for some Maxwell House Coffee -- It's so incredibly delicious!"), so this commercial was probably shown during Fury (1955-60), a modern-day Western: The orphaned Joey (Bobby Diamond) is adopted by Jim (Peter Graves), a rancher with a horse named Fury.  His friend might be Packy (Roger Mobley), and the dad who does the cooking Pete (William Fawcett).

Born in 1943, Bobby was discovered by a talent scout and put to work in 1952, with uncredited roles in The Silver Whip, The Lady Wants Mink, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Half a Hero, and many other movies,, plus one tv show, Father Knows Best. 

In 1955, he was cast as the lead in Fury, and achieved the greatest stardom of his career. 

Though Bobby was an adolescent during the course of the series, he was generally excused from expressing heterosexual interest (he gets a crush on a girl in one episode).  The producers did give him a series of best friends to get into scrapes with: after Packy, Pee Wee (Jimmy Baird), and then Buzz (Stuffy Singer), but they didn't express any heterosexual interest, either.  The episode "Pee Wee Grows Up" would today mean getting a girlfriend, but in 1956 it meant signing up for a bodybuilding course.

After Fury, Bobby was offered My Three Sons, which became a mega-hit, but instead he decided to play to his strengths, and become the adopted son of newlywed Nannette Fabray on Westinghouse Playhouse.  It lasted for only 25 episodes. (He did score three My Three Sons guest spots)

During the Swinging Sixties, the Westerns of yesteryear seemed old-fashioned and obsolete, and the former cowboy star had trouble finding roles, in spite of his willingness to take off his shirt.

And, reputedly, his pants, as this art photo from around 1965 suggests.  Notice the penis in the mirror, very rare in the 1960s.

Searching for Zach Garcia through tearjerkers, cowboys, podcasts, j/o, Alistair Patton, Tab Hunter, and a lot of dicks

 

I'm tired of finding photos of some guy I never heard of on one of the nude-celebrity websites, where one expects to find celebrities, and after two hours of research he turns out to be a musician who appeared "as himself" on one episode of a reality show, or a random hunk with a youtube channel.  Random hunks are off-topic.  I only  profile men who have performed in movies and tv shows. 

So when I found a j/o video of Zach Garcia, it wasn't enough to vaguely remember him from one of those high school soap operas like Riverdale.  I checked the IMDB for acting credits.  He has 11, so let's move forward.

In an interview in Voyager. Zach notes that he began modeling at age 12, but specified that he wouldn't model in his underwear.  No problem: soon he was appearing on billboards and in magazines.  Then his agent said that he should start acting, so he auditioned.  A lot of auditions, but only a few roles.

A 2015 episode of Grandfathered: "confirmed bachelor" John Stamos discovers that he has a son, Josh Peck, and Josh has a son, making him a grandfather.  Zach doesn't play the grandson.

"No One Knows I'm Gone," a 2015 short.  A bullied 12-year old runs away from home.  He doesn't play the bullied 12-year old.

On the day of Zach's auditon for Chicago PD, his aunt had just died of breast cancer, so he didn't want to go, but his mom talked him into it.  Guess what -- it's a tearjerker.  His character is supposed to be sad all the time.  He got the part.

Also, the spirit of his aunt was in the room, helping him out.

He stuck around for 7 episodes as the kidnapped and otherwise sad son of cop John Seda.  He returned for an episode of the spin-off Chicago Fire.

Typecast as an eternally sad figure, Zach found the roles easier to come by:

Poor Guy, 2016: Two misfit brothers and The Girl dream of California. Zach didn't play one of the brothers.

Chasing the Blues, 2017. Two rivals and the Girl try to acquire a famous jazz record. Zach didn't play one of the rivals.

Four episodes of Major Crimes, 2017, as Miguel Diaz, a undocumented juvenile accused of killing his father.

One episode of The Rookie, 2020, as Hector Duran, who went to juvie for theft and drug posession, and now is enrolled in a Scared Straight program along with his brother, Christian Ochoa.

One episode of Generation, 2022, about "high school students exploring modern sexuality."  It had some gay, bi, and trans characters, and some dicks floating around, but I don't know who Zach's character was, as it is currently unavailable for streaming.

Bloom, 2022, not to be confused with other 2022 Bloom, about girls in a flower shop falling in love.  This one, which is unavailable anywhere, tells us that: "After going his whole life drowning in many dark thoughts, a 20 year old young male, finally breaks through with the courage of his sexuality."  Ok, F for grammatical errors, the awkward "old young," and the nonsense "break through with the courage"  Zach doesn't play the 20 year old young male.

Since 2022, Zach has been working as gaffer and grip on projects such as Desire Within, Emory Woods, and When a Flame Dies Out, so that must be his new career.  

Zach's Instagram has a few provocative pictures, like this one of a boyfriend reaching into his pants.

And lounging naked.  I can't figure out where the boyfriend's body is.

On to the j/o 

Wait -- I didn't notice before, but the j.o. guy doesn't look like Zach at all!  

So who the heck does this dick belong to?

More after the break. Caution: Explicit