1. "Punching or licking. Your choice."
Am I licking, or are you?
1. "Punching or licking. Your choice."
Am I licking, or are you?
"You're not here to tell me how lucky I am, are you? Another inch, and the bullet would have hit my aorta, and I would have bled out before the paramedics arrived? God was watching over me, but not the 17 men that Cobb killed?"
"Hell, no." Stacy recognized the voice...but...the guy slid his chair over to the bed with a loud screech. His friend Pontius! Well, not really a friend -- Stacy had seen him on tv and at the Salvation Center, of course, but they didn't really meet until he started going to the skate park last month, and they had only spoken a few times. "I'm here to tell you to get well, so I can get back to watching you wipe out your ass on the tail slides."
"Har-har, big joke. Dude, you know you're a wannabe mobber. Just wait til I get back to that skatepark." He hadn't realized how much he missed skating, and jamming about skating.
Pontius grabbed Stacy's free hand and pressed it against his own. "I brought you some chocolate Turtles, 'cause you know, you're into lizards, but they accidentally got eaten in the car on the way over."
"Jackass!"
He laughed. Stacy felt surprisingly happy to see him. His brash, no-nonsense attitude was the perfect remedy to a week of "God had his hand on you!"
"It was weird. I liked working at the Gator Farm. Cobb was so nice to me, always asking about my classes and the Salvation Center, and all the time he was killing people, and he kept that guy Big Dick as a sex slave, like five feet from where I was mopping the floor."
"Yeah, dude, if you knew, you could have splattered the mother-f*cker!"
"Hey, do you think he was asking so many questions because he was keeping tabs on your Grandad?"
"Probably. Seems like every year, some guy pops up with a grudge against my Grandad, the World Famous Eli Gemstone or whatever." He reached up and squeezed Stacy's left shoulder. "Does this hurt?'
"No. I was shot in my right..."
"How about this?" He moved his hand down to Stacy's crotch and squeezed.
"Hey, knock it off!"
"Just checking to see if your junk still works. Scoot over." Pontius slid onto the bed next to him, so their thighs and legs were touching, and grabbed the tv remote. "You get any porn on this thing?"
"I don't think you're supposed to do that."
"So call a nurse and complain."
Stacy had never sat pressed against someone before, except maybe his brother when they were little. He dated a couple of girls, back before he figured out that he was gay, but they never did any hugging, just handshakes and goodnight pecks. He had been with two guys, but they were just hookups, unzip, suck, and don't say hello in the hallway the next day. Was this what having a boyfriend felt like? Were they cuddling?
Wait -- wasn't Pontius straight?
Pontius was casually clicking on the remote as if the closeness didn't bother him at all. Flustered, Stacy tried to think of something simple to talk about. "Did you know that your Grandad visits me every day? Your brother Gideon has been by, and Kelvin..."
Uh-oh, Pontius took that as an accusation. "I would have come before, but I've been busy. Gideon is starting a new Christian-themed skatepark. I'm going to be the manager." He stopped on Spongebob Squarepants, then put down the remote and took Stacy's hand. Their fingers interlocked.
They watched in silence for a few minutes.
"This is nice," Stacy said.
Pontius started to blush, a reddening in his neck and face. "Yeah, well, touching a dude is good for healing."
He had a thin, tight frame, small hard biceps, some cool tattoos, and the most beautiful hands. Why had Stacy never thought of asking him out?
Reason #2: Wasn't he straight?
"I've seen this episode," Pontius complained. Let's find some chicks, or some dicks." He clicked until he found a soap opera with a shirtless hunk sitting on a couch. "Awright! Check out those pecs! Man, I'd love to be working on those."
"I thought you were...you know...you like girls."
Pontius laughed, then lay his head on Stacy's shoulder. "Dude, you are adorable. I like pussy, but who's gonna say no to a cock? I went down on half the cadets at the Citadel, and the other half went down on me. Sometimes they wanted me to screw them while they screwed their girls, or the other way around."
Casually outing himself as bi? No long, angst-ridden conversation? Stacy was astonished, but strangely, not at ease. Reason #3: Pontius was a player. Whatever was going on here, it wasn't real.
"I'm gay...."
"Well, duh. That's obvious, Stace. Everybody knows. My grandmother knows, and she's not even alive."
"So...if you knew, and you like guys, why haven't you ever asked me out?"
More after the break. Caution: Explicit
1 Timothy 3:17, ESV: All Scripture is inspired by God, so "that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." Sounds like the Golden Bible will play a role.
Left: Pontius spends nearly the entire episode hugging Gideon. It looks like Abraham squeezed between them. I can't tell which leg belongs to who.
The Duel: The Cape and Pistol Society. Vance Simkins bursts in, drinking, and everyone laughs at him. He points out that Kelvin has defeated him, but not Jesse, and throws down the yellow handkerchief, challenging him to a duel. Vance will have Pastor Brad as his second, and Jesse will get Eli.
They immediately adjourn to the front lawn. Jesse is nervous, since he's a terrible shot. Eli suggests that he back out, but nope: "He insulted Kelvin and built mini-malls in our territory." You know, duelling and challenging someone to a duel has been illegal in South Carolina since 1880.
Vance's shot goes way over the trees. Jesse aims at him, but he runs zigzag, and then he stops and begs for his life. Now Jesse deliberately aims away from him, but accidentally hits someone else.
He tells the group: "You don't need a secret society to be an impressive man. It's what you do that makes you impressive. So I quit." Thus ends Jesse's plot arc: he's going to stop being jealous of others' success.
Keefe points out that a storm is brewing, and "the devil's piss causes you terror." Nope, not anymore. In fact, a lot of things don't scare him anymore: spiders in toilets, the old lady puppet from Mr. Rogers (well, she was scary).... and marriage.
Remember, in Episode 4.2, Keefe suggests getting married, and Kelvin completely tears down the idea. Now he proposes: "Keefe Chambers, will you marry me?", with a box with an engagement ring. They hug and kiss.
This is the end of Kelvin's plot arc: he is no longer paralyzed by fear. We still need a wedding -- hopefully.
Now that the pole has come,,off, they discuss the Monkey. BJ misses him, and wants him back.
Cut to Judy taking him to visit the Monkey. They end up reconciling. I fast forwarded past that part: boy-and-dog, or in this case boy-and-monkey stories make me uncomfortable. Presumably this is the end of Judy's plot arc, but I'm not sure what it was.Lori and Eli: Visiting Eli, Lori notes that the kids like her again, now that they aren't dating. In other news, Corey is taking the crisis "real rough." He hardly leaves the house, and his wife Jana has moved in with her sister. Well, he killed Cobb to save Eli and Baby Billy. You might expect some trauma.
Lori found some mementos that Eli might enjoy: A flier from one of her shows, a letter that Aimee-Leigh wrote her soon after the divorce. Hey, the Gold Bible isn't there. They say goodbye and hug. Doesn't she live nearby? Can't they continue to be friends?
Later, Eli retrieves the letter from the box, but can't bring himself to open it.
Hunkoids on Crosses: Baby Billy goes back to work after his ordeal at the Gator Park Massacre. Everyone applauds. He notes that he is happy to be alive, and God gave him the physical prowess of a teen boy to help vanquish Cobb.
"Ok, back to work. Work, work, work." He doesn't seem happy as they set up the crucifixion scene. He recalls his argument with Tiffany: "Is that all that matters to you?", and flashes back to spending time with his family.
When this scene appeared in the trailers, fans speculated that Eli was mourning the death of Baby Billy or Lori, or that he himself and all of the siblings were dead.
"By the way, has anyone heard from Corey?"
No, he doesn't answer their calls and texts. They decide to invite him up to the Lake House.
Pontius has his arm around Gideon -- and leaves it there -- and keeps hugging and patting his shoulder. This is a parallel to the Kelvin-Keefe displays of affection. After Season 1 dropped strong hints that Gideon was gay, he never expressed an interest in men or women after. Pontius had a girlfriend in Season 3, but this season he is shown only with men, and the t-shirt he wears has only cocks on it.
They are in a masculine embrace, only the fact that they are brothers pushing away from identifying them as gay -- and only just barely.
Uh-oh, Corey has a problem: the bank is going to foreclose on the Gator Farm, and he needs $7 million to buy it back. They're all shocked -- you don't just ask for money, you approach with a business plan and a powerpoint presentation -- but Corey says "I killed my Daddy to save Dr. Gemstone. He has millions of dollars, but he can't help me?"
Jana tries to spin it as a loan, not a handout. Corey tells her to shut up, and she finally grows a pair: "I'm tired of you talking to me like that!"
"Then get the fuck out!" Corey yells.
Jana wants a divorce. "This is over!"
The siblings push Corey into playing cornhole to calm him down. Eli pushes everyone else onto the boat.Kelvin: "You scared the bullcrud out of me!"
He continues to criticize Jesse for not "letting me be me."
Is this a reference to Kelvin being gay? Will he come out during this season, or is he already out?
After a bro fist-bump, Kelvin asks (his friend has not yet been named, but we'll call him Keefe) how the housesitting went.
It went fine. Keefe slept in Kelvin's room one night, "But it felt odd, so I slept the rest of the time here on the couch." The huge house must have a dozen guest rooms. Why the couch?
Kelvin: "Hey, man, you do not need to feel odd sleeping in my bed. I told you you could." Is he easing Keefe into the idea of sleeping with him, so sex can happen by "accident"?
Keefe didn't like being in Kelvin's room: "The energy in there is just unsettling. It's lonely" Very insightful. He can sense Kelvin's loneliness. There's no one in his life, no friends, no romantic partner. He doesn't realize it yet, but he is, in the words of Dag Hammarskjold, "screaming for love." .
Kelvin thanks him for looking after the place: "Home-run friendship." Keefe is appreciative: "I know not everybody wanted me here." House-sitting? Why would the family care?
Timeline problem: Keefe was a Satanist before he and Kelvin met. Maybe Kelvin even brought him to Christ. How long have they known each other? In a future episode, Keefe's Satanist friends wonder why he hasn't been around lately, so just a few weeks. But there's a faded 666 tattoo on Keefe's chest. Laser tattoo removal takes 6-10 sessions, scheduled 6-8 weeks apart. Did Keefe start the removal long before he met Kelvin, or did the writers goof? .
Keefe decides to return to his apartment: "I'm pretty bushed. Gonna go soak in a tub. " It's the middle of the day! You haven't seen your friend in a week or so. Why don't you want to stick around? Are you worried about things heading in a direction you're not ready for?
"No, man!" Kelvin pleads. "Let's stay up late, play some video games, smash some Pixie Sticks." Staying up past your bedtime? Eating sugar? Are you planning a sexual encounter or a junior high sleepover?
Keefe refuses politely. "That sounds good, but I really need a soak...I like to turn it up real hot." A sexual double-entendre. Keefe is overtly excluding Kelvin from his erotic life, saying "I'm going to have sex, but you're not invited."
Kelvin asks for a hug. Keefe reluctantly approaches. "So happy you're home," he whispers.
Kelvin seems to be pushing for a sexual relationship, but Keefe isn't sure. He's been saved (converted) for only a few weeks. He might find Kelvin attractive, but the power differential is enormous, and maybe he's been abused by clergy before. It's best to reject overtures that sound too sexual, play it cool, and see what happens.
This has been a lot to digest. Who would expect a show from Danny McBride, producer of Vice Principals and Eastbound & Down, would have a major gay character? And played by Adam Devine, who played a hetero-horny dudebro on Workaholics and fell in love with a girl in Modern Family?
But wait a minute: if you want Kelvin to be gay, why not say so? Say the word "gay," or have the guys kiss. Other tv shows with gay characters do the word or the kiss in the first scene. If you don't, the "they can't be gay!" camp is going to argue and argue to the bitter end.
Plus, in an interview during Season 2, Adam envisions that in ten years, Kelvin will be married to a woman. In another interview, he says that he wants to play a gay guy who doesn't go through a long, painful coming-out process, but has regular adventures with his boyfriend. It sounds very much like he perceives his character as straight. Or is he dissimulating to keep viewers guessing?
Things are going to get even crazier after the break
The library and student union don't look much different from those of other colleges, except for the uniforms