The Family Responds to Keefe's Fire Dance

During Cousins' Night (Righteous Gemstones Episode 3.3.), Kelvin's boyfriend Keefe, a former Satanist, performs a highly erotic fire dance for the family.  Their reactions:

Jesse: "I am not turned on, I am not turned on, I am not..."

Chuck: "So this is what my brother does in the bedroon?"

Karl:  I wish I had a guy to do that with in the bedroom.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.3, Continued: A fire dance, a limp wrist, a phallic sword, and Balkan sex gods

Previous:  Episode 3.3: Baby Billy sings forever, Kelvin can't say the word, BJ poses nude, and I'm depressed

Cousins' Afternoon:  The Gemstone siblings and their partners sit on cabana chairs, insulting their cousins, the Montgomery boys,  while they swim in the trout pond.   Kelvin lays on the femme stereotyping, even flashing a limp wrist.  This will be important later.

Keefe, who of course looks at men's crotches a lot, points out that Cousin Karl has a lot of pubic hair.  Kelvin quips "Looks like he's got a chinchilla up there!"  It sounds like he is making a mean joke to draw attention away from his interest in what men really have up there.

The Fire Dance: For their entertainment, Keefe performs a highly erotic fire dance in the waning light, near a path lit by a thousand fires.  I am reminded of Coleridge's "Kublai Khan":

A savage place! as holy and enchanted as e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted by a man wailing for his demon lover.

Keefe here is the demon lover, pure erotic energy, offering his mouth, butt, and penis simultaneously. He is the new Messiah of Muscle, rejecting cozy, tepid phileo, friendship, for the eros, erotic desire, that promises ecstasy or damnation.

Top photo: the real Fire Dancer

Why would anyone perform a highly erotic dance for his boyfriend's family?  What does Keefe hope to accomplish?  I think he is showing the family -- and Kelvin himself -- that he is a sexual being, Kelvin's lover, not a "good buddy." 

Early in the episode, Kelvin couldn't admit that they were lovers. Now Demon Keefe shows him that they are.   He has never been sure if his desire for Keefe will lead him to heaven or hell.  Now he knows -- both. 

Background note: The dark, disturbing music playing is "Balkan Sex God" from A Serbian Film, 2010, which regularly appears on lists of "the most disturbing films of all time."  It features Srđan Todorović as a retired porn actor drawn into starring in a snuff film. 

Todorovic dick

Cousins' Evening:  A huge dining hall, with the family and cousins using just one table, Keefe and Kelvin sitting across from each other instead of side by side!  Why does the staging back off from depicting them as a couple?

Kelvin pours on the femme stereotypes thickly, limping his wrists constantly as if he's in a 1920s pansy act, and coincidentally or not puts his "wedding ring" on full display.

Uncle Baby Billy pretends he's the host of his Bible Bonkers game show, where families compete at Bible trivia. He goes around the table and asks  each of the "contestants" their name and what they do for a living.  The Montgomery boys work in landscaping.  Then it's Keefe's turn.  He is ready to speak, but Baby Billy skips him with a rude "nuh-huh," angering him.  But it's not a homophobic snub: Baby Billy skips over BJ, too: "You ain't family."  Only born Gemstones count. 

Next it's "the weirdo boy with the puffy muscles," the second and last reference to Kelvin's physique this season, and maybe a euphemism for "gay." But Kelvin refuses to participate. 

More Balkan sex gods after the break

Gemstone Season 3 Episodes 1-3 Memes: Dildos, the nice Satanist boy, Cousins' Night, and waffles after (censored)

From the first three episodes of Season 3, in no particular order.

Careful, one of your dildos escaped.

It's looming like a snake by Keefe's right side.

Need help with that toy?

Need someone to show you how to use a double-headed dildo?  Go find Kelvin and meet me in the steam showers.

"I be punching you in the uvula."

"Diss my man again, and Im'a shove my fist so far up your a* that you'll be kissing my ring from the inside."

"Your friends will think you're a Muppet"

"You'll be tastin' the h___ I gave him this morning."

"Your tonsils be chargin' me rent"

That nice Satanist boy

I actually wrote a story about Keefe's Satanist ex-boyfriend showing up to Thanksgiving dinner. 

 You spend two years trying to win the Man of Your Dreams...

All of the partners look embarrassed at this exchange.

More embarrassment after the break

Lukas Haas: from gay hustler to militia man

Lukas Haas has been a Hollywood icon for over 40 years. He starred in some of the classic films of our childhood, like Witness (1985),  Lady in White (1988), and Mars Attacks! (1995).

Although his main focus has been indie doomed-romance-with-women movies, he has played several gay characters, generally of the angst-ridden, tragic-ending sort.

In Johns (1996), he plays a hustler who falls in love with a coworker (David Arquette) who insists that he's not gay, then is murdered.

In Last Days (2005), based on the last days of singer Kurt Cobain, he has a romantic relationship with Scott Patrick Green.  The Cobain-character dies.

In Meth Head (2013), he takes crystal meth and destroys his life, in spite of his partner's attempts to save him.

In Widows (2018), he has sex with ladies, but at least you get to see his bare butt.

And you can't convince me that Chuck Montgomery in The Righteous Gemstones is straight.  

His friendship with Leonardo DiCaprio has sparked gay rumors, but Lukas has made no public pro- or anti-gay statements.

See also: Leonardo DiCaprio: Nude photos of Rimbaud, Howard Hughes, the Great Gatsby, and Elijah Wood's good buddy.

Ian Winningkoff: From "Sulphur Springs" to "Grease," with some teen idol costars and hunky Danny Zukos