Gemstones Episode 1.2, Continued: Eli catches a snake, Christian poses nude, and Kelvin sees the Devil's Testicle

Previous:  Episode 1.2: Thai ladyboys, Italian shoes, Palestinian dicks, and the devil's kiss.

Although this episode was mostly about establishing the toxic Scotty-Gideon relationship, we saw Kelvin recoiling from a butt-slap from Matthew, then touching Keefe's arm with a look of passion that's impossible to mistake.  In the last scenes, we find out more about the nature of his desire. 

Confronting the Blackmailers: The siblings go to the hotel where the blackmailers are staying.  When they pass a breastfeeding mother, Judy gazes hungrily at the baby, a maternal desire that is not referenced again.  The desk clerk tells them that the blackmailers checked out today.  Dead end. 

The desk clerk asks if "the little boy" is Jesse and Judy's son.  Kelvin counters that he's "fully grown..an adult man."  His belief that everyone treats him like a kid will be central in Season 2.

The Testicle: Jesse, in Gideon's room, fidgets with his wedding ring, suggesting that he is worried about his marital problems.  Compare Kelvin's fidgeting with his wedding ring during his breakup with Keefe in Season 3.

He begins to pray, interspliced with shots of Amber playing the piano and Keefe spotting Kelvin on the bench press.  Suddenly Keefe's testicle pops out of his gym shorts! 

Kelvin finishes a rep, his eyes closed from the exertion, then looks up and notices.  Keefe moves away.

Kelvin sits up, breathing heavily. The camera moves in for a close-up of his face. He is shocked and confused.  

This is not the expression of someone embarrassed from seeing his buddy's testicle. He is terrified.  Something is stirring that he doesn't understand, or maybe he understands but doesn't want to. He is experiencing homoerotic desire.  He got harder?  He can no longer interpret his feelings for Keefe as mere buddy-bonding.

Harder: Notice the motto on the wall: "Harder..better... faster. .stronger...saved."  This may be a reflection of the song "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," although I wonder how Kelvin is familiar with an album by the Australian electro band Daft Punk, released in 2001, when he was 11 or 12 years old.   

Other suggestions: The Olympic motto, "Faster, Higher, Stronger," and Bigger, Stronger, Faster, a 2008 documentary about steroid abuse among bodybuilders. It included interviews with practically every pro bodybuillder of the present and past, from Arnold Schwarzenegger, top photo, to Mike Bell. 

More nude bodybuilders after the break

Braxton Alexander: three heterosexual boyfriends, three serial killers, one saxophone, and five bare butts

Born in 2007, actor and model Braxton Alexander had a busy child star career. Strangely, although of course he had no control over the scripts at age eight or nine, his movies and tv shows seem overwhelmingly heteronormative, if not downright homophobic.

 

Four episodes of Mr. Mercedes (2017) as the young Brady Hartsfield, living through the horrific childhood that would turn him into a homophobic mass murderer with psychic powers.

 

(Left: Harry Treadaway, who plays the adult Brady)

The young Callahan in Tag (2018), about a group of friends who play an elaborate game of tag every year, while not making homophobic jokes and fielding gay panic.  

The young Callahan kisses a girl. So you can have boys and girls sparking at each other from the womb, but heaven forbid depicting a gay kid.

(Left: Jon Hamm, who playes the adult Callahan).

Dolly Parton's Christmas on the Square (2020) is intensely heteronormative: the meaning of life is boys and girls gazing at each other forever. Brax plays a singer.

The Black Phone (2021) is about a gay predator who kidnaps young boys (I'm not kidding).  Brax plays a bully, not one of the victims.

In I Want You Back (2022), a dumped boyfriend and girlfriend try to sabotage their exes' new relationships and get them back.  Brax plays a "middle school boyfriend."

Left: Scott Eastwood, who plays one of the targets.

The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022-4) features two brothers in love with a girl named Belly. Brax plays the young Conrad, falling for Belly at the age of 13.

(Left: Brax)

In Black Bird (2022), not to be confused with Blackbird, Jimmy Keane (Taron Egerton, left) is given the task of befriending a suspected serial killer to get a confession out of him. No gay subtext: the guys both display an incessant interest in ladies. 

Brax plays the teenage Jimmy.

More Braxton after the break

Gemstones Episode 1.6 : Kelvin sees Keefe's cock, and gets a big head. Sounds like a fun evening.

 Just putting the reviews back into their proper sequence.

Previous: Episode 1.5: Eli and Baby Billy fight over Aimee-Leigh. Plus water sports and donkey dicks.

Episode 1.5 is a  flashback to 1989, when Aimee-Leigh is pregnant with Kelvin.  She's over 40, so she calls him her "miracle baby." Episode 1.6 shows us that "miracle baby" as a grown-up gay man interacting with his boyfriend or soon-to-be boyfriend Keefe.

Title: "Now the sons of Eli were worthless men." From 1 Samuel 2:12.  Eli was a high priest during the era of the Judges. His two sons did not perform the sacrifices properly, and had illicit sexual relations, so the Lord punished Eli by killing them. Uh-oh, Jesse and Kelvin are doomed.

Keefe's Mushroom Head:  After their Friday night encounter with the blackmailers, Jesse has their van towed to Kelvin's garage, talks to Kelvin, then fetches Judy. Jesse is wearing the same clothes, but Kelvin has changed out of his Faith Factory t-shirt. 

As they are talking, Keefe comes out of the house, wearing only a shirt and socks, eating cheese.  "What's going on?" he asks.

Jesse: "Sickening!"; Judy: "Cool mushroom tip"; Kelvin: "That shirt's not as long as you think, Bud.  Just go back inside."  We see his dick peeking out from below his shirt, and then his butt as he turns around.

Structurally, this seems to be a joke on Keefe being drug-addled, combined with a view of his cock and butt that leads us to ask "are they or aren't they." But in- universe, it becomes much more significant. 

First, notice that just a few episodes ago, Kelvin was terrified by the sight of Keefe's testicle.  Now he is embarrassed but not alarmed.  He is used to seeing Keefe naked.

Second, why is Keefe wearing only a shirt and socks?  Was he in bed?  No -- when you get dressed, you put on your pants first. Getting ready for bed?  No, when you get undressed, you take off your shirt first. 

"Go suck your Satanic boyfriend Keefe."

A likely scenario: After the Club Sinister rescue, the guys drop Dot off, then go home and change clothes.  Some time later, Keefe decides to move forward with the relationship that Kelvin has been suggesting,  Since he rejected a bj offer earlier, it makes sense that he would want to start with a bj.  He takes his pants off, and his shoes have to come off, too.  Kelvin is so overcome by passion that he doesn't have time to take his clothes off -- he just drops to his knees.  

As they are getting busy, there's a knock on the door.  Keefe waits for Kelvin to return, gets bored, goes to the kitchen, gets some cheese.  Then he hears everyone talking and, assuming that his shirt is long enough to cover his dick, investigates.

It makes structural sense: Keefe looks for love in Episode 1.4, rejects the Satanists to follow Kelvin, and ends up in Kelvin's bed.  If Kelvin's "celibacy promise" was real, tonight he broke it, thus making his later despair more realistic.  And it would lead into the isolation tank rescue.

And it gives the siblings definitive proof that their brother and Keefe are boyfriends.  Notice that the gay implications immediately cease.

Saturday or Sunday: Rev. Seasons announces that his church is closing due to losing members to the Baby Billy's Locust Grove church.  We cut to Eli, Baby Billy/Tiffany, and BJ/Judy playing golf.  Wait -- shouldn't they be in church?  Or is this Sunday afternoon?

Personal note:  When I was growing up, our Nazarene church was across the street from a golf course.  The preacher ofter called down the wrath of God on those sinners who played golf on Sunday morning instead of worshipping Him.

Baby Billy gets BJ's name wrong, and then offers Judy a job singing with him. Since he was unsuccesful in drawing Aimee-Leigh from Eli, he's going to try it with Eli's daughter?

"This isn't normal":  Meanwhile, at Jesse and Amber's house,  Gideon comes down to breakfast with a black eye.  His parents are upset, but they don't make the connection to the car chase last night.  So it's Saturday morning?  Was the Rev. Season scene a flashback?

These timeline inconsistencies are annoying.  Let's just think about Keefe's cock again.  A nice view after the break. Warning: explicit.

Bondage doesn't solve everything: a Kelvin/Keefe romance

The scene was especially intense tonight.  Kelvin, Keefe's boyfriend -- and for tonight, Master -- had him chained to a St. Andrew's cross, wearing a gigantic slave collar, the biggest in his collection, making it hard to breathe.  The nastiest alligator-clamps on his nipples.  And he was using a rider's crop on him!  

"Ow!" Keefe had subbed in a lot of BDSM scenes, back in the old days when he was Baby Queef, a performance artist at the Club Sinister, but he had never been into the pain part.   How about something fun, Babe, like edging me, or forcing me to do oral?   

"Ow!"  But Kelvin was new to BDSM, and not really good at reading his signals.  He wasn't even experienced in vanilla sex.  What do you expect from someone who grew up as the youngest child of world-famous megachurch pastor and televangelist Eli Gemstone, a role model (and teen idol) for millions of Christian kids?  That's a lot of pressure!  No wonder he was too guilt-ridden or worried about his image to do much sexual experimentation.

Kelvin unhooked his slave collar and pushed him down to his knees.  Oh boy, forced oral coming up!  Keefe thought.  But instead he got his horse whip and started on Keefe's chest. 

"Ow!"   Remember, he told himself, this is Kelvin, the love of your life.  You would do anything for him.  Keefe had been in love with him since Day 1, when Kelvin dragged him off-stage during a Baby Queef performance and moved him into his house.  But the preacher's son was deeply closeted: it took him over a year to say "I love you," and another before he would allow them to become intimate.  He still refused anal, either as the top or the bottom.  But that was fine...oral was all that Keefe needed. And kissing -- a lot of kissing. Maybe getting tied up and "forced" now and then, to spice things up.  

Is that really all I need? He asked himself.  Do I really want to spend my life on my knees, looking up at Kelvin?  Do I want a Master?

"This will teach you your place, Slave," Master was saying.  "You'll think twice before disobeying my orders again."

Huh?  What orders?  This was a scene -- a game.  Outside the dungeon, they were equal partners.  Weren't they?

"Wait -- Kelvin, are you punishing me for starting a teen group without your permission?"

"You will address me as Sir."

"I will address you as Kelvin.  Answer the question: Are you punishing me for starting a teen group without your permission? "  

"Ow!"  The whip came down on his back, hard.  He roared with pain and rage.  "Get me out of here, jackass!  Now!"

"The safe word is 'green.'"

"Green, green, green!"

Kelvin put down the whip.  "Ok, ok, hang on."  He started untying the ropes.  "What's wrong, Keefe?  I thought you liked this.  You're aroused"

"Kelvin, you're standing in front of me naked.  Of course I'm aroused"  His hands free, he removed the nipple clamps and sat down on a leather bench. 

"You know that love you," he began.  He had said it a hundred times before, but here, now, it felt different.  "But it's not like any other love I've ever felt.  It's white-hot, fierce, so intense that I lose myself.  Everything I want, everything I need falls away.  All I want is to look into your eyes forever."

"That's a good thing, right?" Kelvin said.  "You're everything I need, too."

"And you want it to happen," Keefe continued.  "I don't really have a job, with duties and a salary -- I do what you tell me to do.  If I make a suggestion, you dismiss me.  If I disagree with anything, you pout." 

"You apologized for starting that teen group without my permission," Kelvin said, "And I forgave you.  Why are you still harping on it?"

"Everything I own is either a gift from you or something I bought with your money. "  

"I didn't know you felt this way," Kelvin said, sarcastic.  "I'm sorry that I buy you things."

"I'm one of your accessories, someone to parade around so everybody thinks you're cool."  Suddenly the tears started up. "I want to share my life with you; I don't want you to be my life.  I want us to walk side by side, as partners.."

"But Keefe, you are my partner," Kelvin said, paling as he realized what was happening.

"No, I'm not.  I'm your boy toy."  The tears started.  He struggled to talk.   "I have to go.  Right now."  

"No, don't...I love you..." and as Keefe headed to the door.  "You can't go out like that.  At least let me take off the slave collar."

But he couldn't wait.  Kelvin followed for  a few steps.  "Wait..." he called, his voice cracking.  He was starting to cry, too.  "I love..."

Keefe ran up the stairs, across the foyer, and out of the house.  Should he go back inside to change clothes and pick up some car keys? No way -- if he turned back, he would collapse into Kelvin's arms. He took one of the golf carts and drove it, tears burning in his eyes, across the estate to Judy and BJ's house.  

Judy, Kelvin's older sister, answered the door. "Keefe, darlin', you're crying.  What's wrong?  Did that jackass Kelvin do something?  Did he hit you?"

"Not like that," he managed to stammer.  "I...I....think I left him." 

She led him to the couch in the parlor, and sat with her arm around his shoulders.  Soon BJ appeared, and sat on other side.  It took a moment for him to speak. "I need somewhere else to stay tonight.  And maybe...."  He broke down again.

"Of course you can stay here until you get things sorted out,"  Judy told him.  "And even if you don't.  You're part of the family, with or without Kelvin.  You'll always have a home here.  I'm sure Daddy will be happy to give you his father's house, since Gideon doesn't want it."

"It's too early for plans like that," BJ told her sternly.  "Right now we just need to get Keefe through the night.  Could you go into the kitchen and make us some tea?"

"I don't know how to make tea!" Judy protested. "Emilia always makes it."

"Oh -- just microwave some water and put a Lipton's teabag in it."

"Water will be fine, Judy," Keefe said.

She vanished into the kitchen.  BJ kept his arm around Keefe.  "Buddy, it's hard being the partner of a celebrity.  You're in their shadow so much that it feels like you're losing yourself.  I know from experience."

Keefe stared.  That was exactly what he said, half an hour ago.

"But you don't just let it end.  You have to fight.  Find some way to be your own man.  Find a life that doesn't revolve around him.  If he loves you, he'll accept that."

"Maybe I'll fight tomorrow," Keefe told him.  "Right now I'm too tired to think,"

"Oh, of course.  Stupid of me.  We'll get that collar off and find some pajamas for you to wear.  Will you be ok by yourself in the guest suite?  I could bed down on the couch in there. "

"No, that's ok.  I just want to sleep."

In the morning,  the housekeeper Emilia made turkey sausage, 12-grain toast, and a fruit parfait just for Keefe, but he couldn't eat more than a few bites.  At least he wasn't crying anymore, but...he had been with Kelvin almost every moment for the last three years.  Even having breakfast without him seemed strange.

"Morning, Brother."  Kelvin was there, right in the doorway!  Judy stood quickly to block his entry. 

"Can't I just talk to him?"  

She looked at Keefe for validation. He shook his head.

"You heard the man.  Get out!"

"Judy, I came to pick you up for the Salvation Center.  We have a board meeting in half an hour."

"That's a lie and you know it!  We always take separate cars..."  She glanced back at Keefe again.  "Oh, sorry, I forgot that I asked you to pick me up this morning."  She returned to the table, kissed BJ on the cheek, and hugged Keefe.  "Bye, y'all.  I wish I could come along on all the fun things BJ has planned for you today!"

Then they were gone.  Keefe watched for a long time, hoping that they would return for something, and he could see Kelvin again.  "What fun things do you have planned for us today?" he asked.

"Oh, Judy was just trying to make Kelvin mad.  In a few minutes I'll pop over to your house and get some of your stuff.  Then I'm free all day , if you want to do something -- go to the beach or Splash Mountain, or to a movie. Or we can just hang out here and play video games."

Keefe frowned.  "Don't go to any trouble on my account.  If you have somewhere to be..."

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.8: Is Peter a woman? Are Kelvin and Keefe lovers? Does Jesse dye his sideburns? With a military fetish bonus

 

Previous: Episode 3.7: The handsome man, misdirection, queerbaiting,  and me yelling "What the f*k!" a lot.

Episode 3.7 was the worst in the series due to its chronological disaster, plot incongruity, annoying misdirections, and assertion that the guys were just good buddies.  Maybe that was intentional,  to disorient the viewers so they would not be expecting Episode 3.8 : It is intricately plotted, and gives us a huge number of queer codes, including one that most fans consider definitive.

Title: "I Will Take You by the Hand and Keep You."  Isaiah 42.6, ESV: "I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you."  We'll see who gets to hold hands.

Reunited with the Loved Ones: After their rescue, the siblings are taken to Rogers Regional Medical Center to be examined.  Gideon must have finally phoned the family, because the partners and kids burst in, coincidentally in the order they need to be in to reach their loved ones without bumping into each other.  

Notice the difference in response:  When they last saw each other, Jesse and Amber were having a marital spat, but they were still together, so they just hug.  

BJ was deciding whether to stay with Judy or not, so he acknowledges her with a forehead-press.  

Kelvin and Keefe had not only broken up, they had a major post-breakup fight.  When Keefe exclaims "Buddy!," indicating that he wants to stay in Kelvin's life in spite of their problems, it comes as a profound relief.  Kelvin buries his head in Keefe's bicep and sobs, mirroring the Isolation Tank Rescue in Episode 1.9.  Keefe didn't actually rescue Kelvin here, but he is bringing him back from the dead.  

We cut to the siblings being interviewed by the police.  BJ and Gideon stand in front of them.  Amber is not present. Keefe waits by the door, still not included in the family; but he does get a bit where he knocks over a trash can and yells "I hate what you had to endure."   They all hate Eli, who left them to suffer and possibly be killed. 

Next, having established that May-May wasn't in on the kidnapping plot, she and Eli bond.  

Which of you is a woman?:  With the marital problem plotlines nearly over, we have time for a deep-dive into the Militia. 

Peter and Chuck are driving a U-Haul full of explosives, followed by a ragtag caravan of militia men. Marshall and Dakota (Sturgill Simpson, Quinn Dunn-Baker) complain that they don't know where he's going.  

Does Peter know?  Two compounds have been destroyed.  The kidnapping scheme has been foiled. Everyone has forgotten the first scheme, which required the truckload of explosives.

They stop at Dodge's Fried Chicken, a real fast-food place on Savannah Highway in Charleston (next to a KFC, har har).  Marshall continues to grumble. Peter asserts that complaining is "like a woman," and Marshall retorts that he drives "like a woman."  They continue to call each other women until Chuck gets tired of it and tells them to focus on the new plan.  Whatever it is.

Peter re-asserts his authority: if they rebel against him, they are rebelling against God, because he is the Keeper of the Word. Uh-oh, another Messiah.

We see again parallels between the Militia and Kelvin's God Squad in Season 2: both societies devoted to the masculine, suspicious of women, informed by homoerotic or homosocial desire. run by a messianic figure. 

The militia is the dark side of Kelvin's God Squad  We can go even farther and juxtapose Kelvin's bodybuilder fetish with the militia's fetishization of the soldier.  

Seasons 1 and 2 featured gay-subtext friendships to counterbalance the development of the Kelvin-Keefe romance.  I was surprised to not find one in Season 3, but maybe it's here, in Peter and Marshall's bickering.

Sexy Time:  With almost no sleep, almost nothing to eat, and only a bucket to poop in for 36 hours or several days (depending on the chronology), I'd be interested in dinner and bed rather than sexy time, but after two militia scenes, we cut to the two couples having sex.

First, BJ and Judy take a bath together. BJ: "The whole time you were in captivity, I would light candles and just cry."  It sounds like they were held for longer than a day.  Also, his eye, puffed out from his fight with Stephen, is almost healed. Maybe a week? 

He continues: "The best way to reset is with a really good, deep fucking."  They play a game of helicopter-penis, with Judy pretending to be BJ's young son.  You can sort of see BJ's dick, actually a prosthetic, in the swirling water.

Next it's Kelvin and Keefe's turn.  Keefe has changed into a sleeveless leather top with gold studs from the Jim Morrison Mr. Mojo collection.  The Doors' song "Mr. Mojo Risin'" may be relevant here:

I see your hair is burnin' / Hills are full of fire.

If they say I never loved you/ You know they are a liar.

Kelvin has showered and restored his top wave.  After keeping his body under wraps all season, he displays his backside, again becoming an object of homoerotic desire.  Keefe pretends to give him a massage, but slides right past his back to fondle on his butt. 

Like BJ and Judy's bath, this is a prelude to "a really good, deep fucking" -- notice that Keefe is thrusting during their conversation, behaving as if the anal sex has already begun.  But even fondling his butt is a sexual act; if it were nonconsensual, it would constitute a "gross misdemeanor" in my state, with a penalty of up to two years in prison.

After being invited to engage ina sexual act, most people would assume that their ex wanted to get back together, but Keefe has received so many contradictory signals in the past that he has to be very careful.  His questions are skillfully designed to push Kelvin to a decision: are they going to be post-breakup platonic pals, good buddies with benefits, or lovers?

First he eliminates the platonic pal option by asking if Kelvin is dating Taryn.  Immediately after asking, he has Kelvin spread his legs, feels up his inner thighs, and starts"taking liberties," as Adam Devine reveals.  The actor needed to be semi-aroused so his penis would look bigger for a cut scene with frontal nudity.  In-universe, Keefe is answering his own question.

Kelvin: "Nah. She ain't my type." I've heard gay men say "You're not my type" to reject a flirtatious woman without coming out, but why would Kelvin feel the need to be closeted with his ex-boyfriend?  This must be a structural ploy to avoid having him say "gay."  

He continues: "I hated all the forced claps and laughter and fun times.  I like doing claps and laughters with you."  I've analyzed this scene in detail, and I still can't think of an in-universe reason for bringing up Taryn's work performance. That wasn't the question, and besides, Kelvin is no longer the church youth minister, so he's in no position to hire Keefe back.  

But Keefe assumes that he's talking about the job, and responds in kind: "I love getting the children zazzed up and excited to learn about Jesus with you." 

Now Kelvin clarifies that he was answering the "Are you and Taryn dating" question, not "Can I have my old job back?"    "I mean, Taryn was nice and all, but she's not you." She was nice, but you can't build a romance from niceness.  You need passion. 

Keefe understands:  "She tried to replace me, but it was a failed try." They're going to be romantic partners, combining eros and phileo, trying to "build something" for the future., regardless of its impact on Kelvin's career.  Which shouldn't be a problem.  He's not working for the church anymore.  They can move to Atlanta and march in Pride Parades. 

More reconciliations after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.5: A gay boy's bare butt, castration anxiety, a pukka shell necklace, and three random cocks

Previous: Episode 3.4 Continued: Mistaking dependency for love, two breakups, Kelton's butt, and some Cantonese cocks

Episode 3.4 concludes with the family in disarray. Both BJ and Keefe have broken up with their partners in the aftermath of a betrayal, Jesse and Pontius are sparring, and the Montgomery Boys are secretly planning a violent retribution. 

Title: "Interlude III." The interludes are meant to build suspense by postponing the action for two weeks, plus give us some background on the major characters.  Interlude I centered on Jesse, and Interlude II on Kelvin, so I imagine that this time it will be Judy.

Judy's Back Story: Rogers High School, 2000.  High school-aged Judy tries to flirt with her crush, art student Trent (Braxton Alexander), by throwing her hair over his desk.  He asks her to stop several times, but she says "You know you like it, Stud," embarrassing him in front of the class.  Finally he gets even by cutting her hair. Wait -- why isn't the super-rich Judy in private school?

She doesn't notice until the girls in the restroom laugh at her.  Then she storms into band practice and smashes his saxophone, yelling "I liked you, asshole!  I loved you!"

Some fans wonder whether Trent is gay.  Of course, lots of straight guys would reject Judy's vulgar come-ons, but Trent wears a pukka shell necklace: according to my research, around 2000, that was a queer code, a way to identify other gay people while leaving the straights oblivious. Plus he's an artist and a musician.  "Artistic" and "musical" are  often code for "gay."

Y2K is Real:  Remember the Y2K panic that Eli and his wife Aimee-Leigh profited from?  A reporter from Time Magazine shows Eli the commercial, telling folks that God wanted them to buy Gemstone Brand survival buckets, first aid kits, commode liners, and so on.  "So...do you think it's ethical to scare people and then benefit from that fear-mongering?" 

"I was trying to help."

"You said that Jesus told you that Y2K was real.  Who was wrong, Jesus or you?"

Wait -- most evangelicals are pre-Dispensationalists, believing that all of the Christians will be caught up to heaven in the Rapture prior to the various seals, trumpets, and bowls of the Tribulation.  Why would they need survival supplies?

Kelvin's Little Tiny Doll Pecker: College-age Jesse brings his girlfriend Amber home to meet the family. Is she pregnant?  Gideon is going to be born in a year or less.

At dinner, Judy criticizes her for coming from a poor family.   Jesse says "Suck my dick!", and she responds "I want a meal, not a snack."  

Left: not a tiny little doll pecker.

Kelvin laughs: "That was good.  She means you have a tiny little titi" (pronouncced tih-tee).  Jesse then criticizes Kelvin's "tiny little doll pecker."  It is probably perfectly normal for a prepubescent boy, but Kelvin doesn't know that.

Presumably the adult Kelvin is the same size as the well-hung Adam Devine, yet the siblings continue to disparage his penis into adulthood. How, exactly, do they see it?  My sister has never seen mine.  The result is a paralyzing fear of sexual intimacy that jeopardized every potential romantic connection before Keefe.  And only Keefe's superhuman devotion kept him by Kelvin's side as he vacillated between withholding sex and demanding it constantly.

Background Note: "Titi" is a type of shrub, a type of monkey,  your aunt, and an unattractive drag queen. Apparently the writers invented the "penis" meaning to bring to mind the adult Kelvin's obsession with "titty meat."

The Snake Handler. After a scene where Judy bullies Amber and steals her ring, setting up their squabbles in the present, we cut to a service at Peter Montgomery's Pentecostal-like snake-handling church.  Actually, he's the only one playing with a snake, while his sons play the guitar and violin, and his wife May-May goes into a filled-with-the-Spirit ecstasy. 

Background note: Snake-handling, based upon the injunction to "take up serpents" in Mark 16:17, was introduced by the Church of God with Signs Following during the Great Depression, and spread throughout Appalachia.  Today the practice is illegal in most Southern states, including South Carolina, and there are no more than 100 snake-handling churches left.  

In Them That Follow (2019), Walton Goggins (Baby Billy) plays the pastor of a snake-handling church.

Gemstone-Montgomery Tensions: At the Gemstone Compound,  May-May complains about having to identify herself at the security station, just to put flowers on her father's grave. "You can visit the grave whenever you want," Aimee-Leigh assures her. "We'll have security flag you right on through." But she's not satisfied. Geez, he's been dead since 1995. Haven't you figured out the visitation schedule by now?

Later she bosses Peter around and rejects every effort of Aimee-Leigh to be friendly, suggesting a long-standing feud.  We can see parallels in Amber and Judy in the present.

Gay boys and bare butts after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.2 Kelvin clenches, Keefe dances, and everybody flirts with Eli. With proof that everything is bigger in Texas.

Previous:  Episode 2.1, Continued: Keefe's kiss, Kelvin's boner, and a thug with broken thumbs. With Jonah Hauer-King and a proper erection bonus

In Episode 2.1, while we establish the Kelvin/Keefe, Judy/BJ, and Jesse/Amber conflicts of the season, Eli's old friend Junior stops by, and acts very much like an ex-lover.  They go out to dinner and beat up a tough.  Now we see the aftermath.

Title: "After I Leave, Savage Wolves will Come."  In Acts 20.29. Paul tells the Ephesians that after he leaves, savage wolves or false teachers will tear the flock apart. So, who is the wolf invading the Gemstones' lives?

Eli Gemstone indicted! Thaniel Block sits on the porch of his rental house in the South Carolina woods, reading some news stories from 1993: Gemstone Family Studios to close due to "a financial and rumors of  sexual scandals," with $4 million missing.  Another article: "Eli Gemstone indicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy." But Episode 2.5 takes place at Christmas 1993.  When did all this happen? Geezer Tim drops by to criticize him for living in New York and having a "nasty attitude." 

A Hot Piece of Tail: Judy and BJ visit Eli to ask him to officiate in BJ's baptism.  They find him asleep on the couch in the parlor. Junior enters and asks "Who's this hot piece of tail?"  He's actually looking at BJ, but Eli assumes that he means Judy and says that she is his daughter.  He apologizes and asks if BJ is her lesbian partner. BJ starts to answer, but Judy cuts him off: "He's big-dicking you."

There are several takeaways here.  First, Eli and Junior did not sleep together; Eli fell asleep on the couch. Weren't there any guest rooms in his mansion? 

Second, check out Junior's magenta bathrobe, jaunty hand on him, and pinky ring: he is deliberately presenting as queer.   

Third, Eli may have mentioned that one of his children is gay, and Junior forgot which.

Execretions and Hep C Loads:  After Junior heads to the kitchen to make coffee, Judy wants to know what's going on.  Eli tells her that "things got a little carried away last night," which she interprets to mean that they are having rough sex.  He grimaces in disgust, but plays along to mess with her.  

Her main criticism is that Junior is unattractive: "I always hoped that if you were gonna yank a pole, it would be someone hot."  So Judy has considered the possibility that Eli is bisexual for a long time. 

She states that the "hookup" signifies that Eli doesn't care about his family.  Remember that Jesse likewise complains that Kelvin "popping boners" with the muscle men is "selfish, not helping the family."  But it's not just gay sex; on this show, having a partner of any sort is framed as a betrayal.  The family is aghast when Judy wants to move off the Compound with BJ; Baby Billy is still hurt over his sister Aimee-Leigh "leaving him" to marry Eli.  

As they storm out, Judy cautions BJ to not touch anything, as there are probably execretions and Hep C loads everywhere.  This is a call back to Abraham leaving his semen everywhere in Jesse's house, plus an awareness that Hepatitus C can easily spread through anal sex, so it is particularly common in gay communities.

Good Sniffer Seats: After they leave, Eli joins Junior on the back patio, overlooking the reflecting pool that leads to Aimee-Leigh's shrine.  Eli invites him to church, but he worries about the cost.  Junior avers that he's been to enough strip joints to know that you have to pay for the "good sniffer seats."  I can't find the term "sniffer seat" defined anywhere, but I guess that it's a seat close enough to the stage to smell the performers.  There are male strip clubs, but he's probably referencing a lady's club, being a hetero horn dog, backing off from the implication of same-sex activity. 

But not entirely: Eli offers to reserve a good seat for him, and the guys hold hands!

On closer examination, it turns out to be a man and a woman holding hands. We have cut to a scene involving Jesse and Amber's marital advice group. But it is so abrupt that the misdirection must be intentional.  The man is even wearing a shirt the same color as Junior's robe.

After the group meeting, Matthew and Chad ask why Jesse's old crew isn't hanging out together anymore.  This is all marital stuff, heterosexual nuclear family stuff; what happened to the band of brothers, savage and free?  Gregory explains; "I love you guys, but happy wife, happy life." You must abandon same-sex loves for heterosexual destiny.

You Got a Hound Dog Here: Cut to Thaniel visiting the Salvation Center, where he admits that he has sexual-scandal dirt on Aimee-Leigh, gathered from household staff.  Well, at least Kelvin is off the hook.

The World's Most Famous Christian: Next, Jesse and Amber visit the Lissons in Texas for a party to celebrate the proposed Zion's Landing resort. Joe Jonas, the World's Most Famous Christian, leads everyone in a line dance.  He proclaims his heterosexuality, singing about the "beautiful girls" he's been with while wearing a formless leopard robe and pink bandana, the antithesis of Kelvin's tiger jacket and porn-star-bulging jeans. Desire for women un-mans a man, renderng him soft and sickly; only in the manly love of comrads can a man be strong and free.

Keefe dances: At church, they welcome those who have found God in the past month, including BJ. He has always been a non-believer before; it is unclear whether he has actually had a "born again" experience, or is just pretending to be accepted by the family.  

The welcome is framed as a heterosexual union, with Judy hugging BJ and Kelvin grudgingly hugging a female convert. He's disgusted by touching "females," even as part of his job.  Meanwhile, on a balcony far removed from the stage, Keefe leads the God Squad in a dance, invisible, ignored, forever cut off from heterosexual practice, forever cut off from the family.  

Nude Texas dudes after the break