Gemstones Season 3 Finale: Kelvin and Keefe married? Pontius a Dark Lord? Peter redeemed through the Redeemer? With bonus Kelvin cock

Previous: Episode 3.9, Continued: Five plot resolutions and a funeral. With collegiate jock cocks 

On The Righteous Gemstones, season finales is not a separate episode; it is a scene set some time after the various plot resolutions, allowing vieweres to say goodbye to the characters, a sort of "and they lived happily ever after." There are few plot developments, and only vague hints about the future. 

The Season 3 Finale has more of a timeless,dreamlike quality than the previous finales.  It has a flattened structure with no dialogue and not a lot going on.  The family gathers for a private monster truck rally.  Thus, the season begins and ends with the Redeemer.

The Arrival: Setting: a field, with a wooden fence to the side and a swing set.  The Gemstone garage is visible in the background.  This is the same field where Jesse played with the Redeemer in the 2000 flashback.  

The family arrives and sets up lawn chairs in a row, in this order: May-May, Chuck, and Karl; Peter (he has a prosthetic leg, and doesn't bring his own chair, so maybe he's in prison, out on furlough for this special event); Eli and Martin.

Next, Baby Billy, Tiffany, and their two kids sit on blankets instead of chairs. In a deleted scene, Tiffany is letting her baby sit up, so it's been at least nine months, probably a year, since we last saw them. 

Next: Amber, Gideon, and Abraham.  Pontius is not present, suggesting that he is completely estranged from the family.  In the future he will be an antagonist, the Dark Lord of the family.

The Rocking Chairs: Then Judy and BJ, and finally Kelvin and Keefe.  Now they have two rocking chairs, depicting Keefe as the roots of the tree, and Kelvin as the branches. Those things must be very uncomfortable to sit in, and rather fragile.  Adam Devine notes that he broke his chair when he kicked it during the fight scene, and they had to get a replacement. 

Kelvin points the chairs out to the family, who look surprised.  Why haven't they seen the  chairs before?   Maybe  Kelvin and Keefe keep them in the bedroom, where they don't gete many visitors; or maybe Keefe has just finished his chair. In real life, the family would get up to take a closer look, but on the show that would involve a lot of staging with no payback.

 Why bring them today, instead of regular lawn chairs?  The guys' conflict this season has been whether to be open as romantic partners, and the two chairs certainly do the job.

 The Rings:  Kelvin sits in an odd position, with his fingers splayed, to draw attention to his new ring.  It is thicker and more substantial than the "wedding ring" he wore earlier in the season.  Keefe's is hard to see, but it looks thicker, and not as shiny.  Did they pick them out for each other?  Maybe we are to infer an advance in the relationship; maybe the guys are now married.

Gideon's Role: Kelvin pats Keefe's hand several times, presumably call attention to the fact that he built the chairs.  Keefe raises a thumbs up, and Eli and Gideon, the head of the family and his apprentice, return it.  Remember that the last time we saw them interacting, during the kidnapping, Gideon was explicitly rejecting Keefe as a member of the family.  This is a gesture of inclusion.

Also notice that Gideon did not drive Eli to the event, but they use the same gestures, suggesting that he has moved from driver to apprentice minister.

The Guys' Couture: Keefe is wearing an Eckhaus Latta Accordion Sweater in Kelvin's standard green color, with the midriff and back bare, giving him a feminine appearance.  

More couture 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

Kelton''s nude photos, with new cock shots, Jak, Gavin, and a bonus fratboy

 

Kelton Dumont, best known as Pontius on The Righteous Gemstones, has not been forthcoming with a lot of physique photos.  This shoulder and arm is about all you're going to see.  But nudity is another matter: he gave us a butt and partial dick shot on the show, and a search of hookup sites reveals some other possibilities.

1. Charleston, February 2024.  I think Kelton was at Bennington College during that month.  

We know that Kelton went back to brunette, and they were filming Righteous Gemstones Season 4 in June 2024, so how does this one look:

2. Hair is too long, but same size cock as the other one.  A possibility.

On to the canonical nudity:

 

1. In Righteous Gemstones Season 3, Pontius has become a surly, profanity-spewing, tattooed thug, rejected by every college he applied to, constantly making out with his girlfriend Makayla. Jesse makes him promise to not have sex in the house.

More Kelton after the break

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 3.9, Continued: Five plot resolutions and a funeral. With collegiate jock cocks

 

Previous: Episode 3.9: Baby Billy is bi, Peter plots revenge, and Kelvin and Keefe cuddle. With a Josh O'Connor bonus

A swarm of locusts!

Locusts are not unheard-of in South Carolina. In fact, every 13 years, a swarm of the similar cicadas emerges. Ecologists consider them beneficial, since many animals and birds eat them.  And they do not sting or bite.

But these are not ordinary locusts.  The swarm flies directly through the service entrance and into the tv studio, crashing and smashing everything.  They may not sting or bite, but having dozens of buzzing, crawling things splat into your body, hitting your hair and face, must be  disorienting and painful.  People stumble in every direction, crashing into each other. Some are hit by falling lights and sound equipment.  A round image of Baby Billy smashes someone's head.

Why locusts?  In Exodus 10, God sends a plague of locusts to convince Pharaoh to let the Jews leave Egypt.  The prophets Joel, Amos, and Nahum use them as symbols of Divine Judgement.  They appear as one of the end time tribulations in the Book of Revelation, rising from the Abyss to torment unbelievers.  None of those seem relevant here. Maybe God is trying to get everyone out of the church before it blows up?

You can tell who actually cares about their family by who runs away (the Simpkins) and who looks for them (the Gemstones). Jesse saves not only his family, but Eli and Dusty.  The Montgomerys and BJ/Judy save each other.   

The Kelvin/Keefe rescue is the most dramatic:  Looking for Kelvin backstage, Keefe is overcome by the locusts and collapses, coincidentally just behind a girl who has been killed by a falling spotlight.  When Kelvin finds him, he yells "Leave!",  as in "Save yourself!", but Kelvin spreads his heavy woolen coat over the two of them and yells "I got you!"

Intimacy alert: Keefe holds on to Kelvin's hand and thigh.

Green is Kelvin's preferred color, but the Attico with the long green fringes was chosen deliberately to look like grass.  The guys are dead and buried.  Keefe has a symbolic death and resurrection in every season, but this is the first for Kelvin.  Maybe this is his final expiation, burning away the last of his guilt and shame over being gay.

The family stumbles out onto the loading dock.  Everyone else has scattered.  

Intimacy alert: Kelvin keeps his arm on Keefe's back to guide him out of the studio.  

Femme alert: look at Keefe.  Hour glass figure, large pearl necklace. past-shoulder length hair: with a different face, you would mistake him for a lady. This is the second time that he has dressed as a minister's wife. So, Mrs. Lincoln, other than that, how did you like the show?

Resolution 1: Uncle Peter. Uh-oh, one of the locusts has crashed into Peter's fitbit trigger, destroying it, so the van will blow up in one minute.  Run away!  

Peter jumps into the van and drives it to safety. 

Everyone gasps as they see the explosion.  He has sacrificed his life to save them, thus earning his redemption.  

Intimacy alert: Keefe now has his arm around Kelvin, a parallel to BJ with his arm around Judy. 

Left: Since some of the Gemstone kids are off to college in this episode, I'm including some college jock cocks.

More plot resolutions after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.8, Continued: Kelvin's tender bits, Peter's van, Chuck's butt, and coming out to the world.

Previous: Episode 3.8: Is Peter a woman?  Are Kelvin and Keefe lovers?  Does Jesse dye his sideburns?

More Militia Squabbles: Under the highway overpass, the militia men get more chicken, this time from Fancy Nancy's, but the portions are still too small.  Plus they've accomplished none of their goals due to Peter's mismanagement.  Instead of Brotherhood of Tomorrow's Fires, referring to an Apocalypse that isn't happening, they're going to call themselves the Keepers of Yesterday's Monuments, to key into their interest in (Confederate) monuments.  

They kick Uncle Peter and Chuck out of the group, taking all of their money, but letting them keep the truck full of explosives.  

Top photo: The tender bits of Steve Zahn, who plays Uncle Peter.

Left: The tender bits of Lukas Haas, who plays Chuck Montgomery. 

Hating on Eli:  In the Executive Board Room, the siblings speak to Eli only through Baby Billy, expressing anger that he refused to pay the ransom.  

Judy: "You left us to die! Uncle Peter would have killed any one of us, or all three, or he'd just mutilate us and send you our body parts."

Kelvin specifies: "Nipples, penis, butthole shavings -- all our tender bits."  Interesting --the three body parts he finds erotic. We can also divide it up by sibling: Judy's nipples, Jesse's penis, Kelvin's butthole.  We all know that Kelvin is a bottom, so he's concerned about that.

Left: The tender bits of Adam Devine

Jesse states that he's always known that Eli doesn't love him, but he figured that it was all about the church.  But he was wrong -- it's all about the money.

Eli protests: it's not about the money.  It's always been about his children.  

Hah!  They're not buying it. 

Suddenly Eli is happy because the siblings are working together, cooperating, not competing.  If it takes hating on him for them to work as a team, fine.   

Showtime:  The Sunday of the siblings' return to the church.  Crowds waiting to greet them.  A woman holds a sign: "The Gemstone 3 -- we missed you."  The ticket booth announces: "The return of the Gemstone children -- praise be!"  At the ministers' meeting earlier in the season, the siblings tried the "We Three and Thee" catchphrase, with disastrous results.  Now the congregation is embracing The Three. 

In the hallway outside their dressing rooms, the siblings say goodbye to their partners.  Jesse/Amber and BJ/Judy kiss.  Keefe moves in for a kiss, but Kelvin blocks him with a forehead press.  Keefe looks very amorous, as if still caught up in the afterglow from whatever they did last night.  Kelvin looks apologetic: "Sorry, dude, not in front of my family and the gossipy church staff."  

This scene received a lot of misdirection in the trailers.  First you didn't see who Kelvin was saying goodbye to, so you would think it might be Taryn.  Then the lighting makes a square white patch appear on Keefe's face, as if he was injured during the rescue attempt.

Jesse signals "Showtime!", and the siblings join him to walk down the hall to the stage.  Amber at the other end of the hallway, waiting for the partners to join her in the sanctuary. Keefe and BJ stand there, watching.

Suddenly Kelvin backs up, then turns around and walks quickly back to Keefe.  What's going on?  He's holding his dressing room key -- maybe he forgot something?  He wraps his arm around Kelvin's shoulders, slams him forcefully against the wall, and kisses him.  We cut to BJ grinning, and Judy grabbing at Jesse's arm in surprise. 

 In the second take, or maybe a second kiss, the dressing room key is gone, and Kelvin has moved his hand to Keefe's face. 

They break, and Kelvin walks back to the siblings, grinning, pleased with himself.  Keefe looks proud of him, too.   Jesse and Judy give him congratulatory grins.  He adjusts his glasses, as if to say "Well, that's that."  

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.6 Continued: Kelvin and Keefe fight, BJ and Stephen fight, and nobody likes hologram Aimee-Leigh

Previous: Episode 3.6: BJ swallows a lot, Keefe learns about hard wood, and Kelvin gets a girlfriend

In the earlier scenes of this episode, Kelvin attempts a reconciliation, but when he sees that Keefe is doing fine without him, he gets all bitchy and flubs it.  Later, he "works some things out," apparently decides to pursue the heterosexual trajectory, and prepares to ask Taryn for a date. As they are putting away gym mats and flirting....

The Second Reconciliation Attempt: Keefe enters with a rocking chair carved with Kelvin's name on a tree. This is way too much for a "let's stay friends" gift: he is attempting a reconciliation. You're the one who left, dude. You could just ask to get back together.

He is not wearing a sexy outfit; actually he is sweaty and rather disheveled, as if he rushed over the moment he finished the chair.  

Why a rocking chair for an athletic 34-year old?  "This is true love: we'll be together forever."  I am reminded of Robert Browning's famous lines from "Rabbi ben Ezra": "Grow old with me -- the best is yet to be."  But viewers may be more familiar with John Lennon's version:

Grow old along with me. Two branches of one tree.

Face the setting sun when the day is done

Or Tom Odell's:

Grow old with me. Let us share what we see, and the best it could be

You'll be the one who makes me hurt, makes me come

Makes me feel like I'm real

Keefe expected Kelvin to be alone to accept his gesture.  Nope, Taryn is there.  He knows that the youth group has just ended out, and that Taryn is the new assistant youth minister; why wouldn't she be there?

Kelvin looks nervous and decidedly guilty, as if he has been caught cheating; he pulls Keefe into a bro-hug, asks inane questions ("Is that chair made of wood?"), and stammers "We were just...um...we..." until Taryn takes over and explains that they are just working together.  

Platonic pal advocates, pay attention:  Taryn wouldn't think it necessary to inform Kelvin's buddy that he has nothing to worry about, they are not having an affair.  Either she has inferred that they are lovers, or one of the guys told her.   

Keefe turns on the jealousy, and asks if Taryn has replaced him. As assistant youth minister, of course. But he means as a romantic partner.

Angry at the implication, maybe feeling guilty because he was planning to start a relationship, Kelvin plays along: he asks Taryn to give them a moment alone, touching her affectionately on the back to usher her out, exactly as you would ask your girlfriend to give you a moment to talk to your ex.  

Keefe continues to lash out, demanding to know if Kelvin and Taryn have had a "physical connection."   Romantic but not sexual partner advocates, pay attention: Kelvin and Keefe must have had a sexual relationship, or Keefe wouldn't think to ask about sex with his "replicant."  

More fighting after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.4: Wieners, betrayals, a burning a-hole, and Kelvin at his jerkiest. With nude Steve Zahn bonus.

 

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

Episode 3.3 ended on a positive note, with Kelvin/Keefe, and BJ/Judy reconciled and Jesse/Amber admitting the Montgomery Boys to the family.  In Episode 3.4, the midpoint of the season,  things fall apart, with betrayal after betrayal and two destroyed relationships.

Title: "I Am Come Not to Bring Peace But a Sword." A famous quote from Jesus in Matthew 10:34.  Things are going to get dark. 

Some premium fuck dolls:  Keefe and Taryn are leading a Teen and Parents Together "ice cream and wieners" party.  Keefe has apparently never done any ministry without Kelvin, so he is very nervous.  He is not wearing his "wedding ring," maybe worried that it would out him.

The background song is about your lover finding someone new, but:

I say it's misinterpretation, a case of your infatuation

I know it's me who's on your mind,  I know you're only killing time

You'll be back eventually, you'll be back permanently.  You're still in love with me.

Wait -- has Keefe broken up with Kelvin to date Taryn?  Or is this a precursor of another break-up, coming later?

The parents point out that they know very little about Keefe, even though he is a youth minister, in charge of nurturing their children.   Before Keefe has a chance to answer any questions, Biker Clarence, the owner of the store that he bought out, drops by to praise him for buying "every last butt buzzer I had in stock!"   He invites Keefe to check out the new merchandise coming in: "We got some premium fuck dolls!"  Inappropriate, dude! You're in an ice cream shop. Don't you notice the kids around? 

Top photo: Biker Clarence is played by George Paez, who doesn't have any nude photos online, so I substituted Steve Zahn in Saving Silverman

Taryn and Keefe assure the parents that "it's not what you think."  That is, Keefe isn't actually gay, he bought the toys for a project "we did with your kids."  Even worse!  But didn't the parents know about Smut Busters?  You have to get permission slips every time you take the kids off church property.

The boys at the Citadel: Next, Jesse and Amber complain to their teenage son Pontius that he has too many tattoos,  he shouldn't be having sex with his girlfriend, and he's been rejected by every college he applied to.Come on, he's a world-famous Gemstone.  Christian colleges will fight to get him in.  

Jesse wants to send him to the Citadel, the South Carolina military college: the boys there "would split your ass like a pair of damn Chinese chopsticks." He means that the boys would harass Pontius, but the threat of anal sex hangs in the air.

Sunday morning: after  "getting ready for church" scenes, the Gemstones and Montgomerys walk down a hallway the Salvation Center. The shots in the trailer caused considerable fan speculation: why do Kelvin and Keefe look so angry?  I still don't know.

Loud and Proud:  We see the beginning of the service, a Christian rock number, with May-May disapproving and Cousin Karl loving it.  Then it's time for the family dinner at Jason's Steakhouse, and a practically endless series of queer codes.  Interesting that the guys start being obviously a couple immediately after the Cousin's Night romantic interlude.

May-May disapproves of her sons' silk suits: too shiny, "like a lady's neglige.  A little loud and proud for me."  In other words, they make the boys look gay.  Jesse yells at her for "talking trash." Implying that someone is gay constitutes "talking trash"? That's homophobic, dude.

Judy defends the boys from the "accusation," saying that they are attractive to women. So you turn gay because you can't find a woman?  Laying on the homophobia, aren't we?

As he listens to his family's homophobic banter, Kelvin looks like he's about to cry.   And Keefe -- that's the look your boyfriend gets at Thanksgiving Dinner, when your parents told you to not "cause a scene" by coming out, and then Uncle Bob starts complaining about "fags taking over." Cavalero got it exactly right.

.

Holding Hands under the Table:  Peter Montgomery -- Steve Zahn -- enters, announces that he has a new militia compound "on a farm," and invites his sons to join him.  They refuse, so he circles the table, threatening that retribution is coming.  

As he circles, Keefe moves his right hand under the table.  Then Kelvin moves his left hand under the table. These are not random acts:  Boyfriends who are scared (and closeted) would look for reassurance by holding hands.

Their hands stay under the table until Peter threatens Judy, and Eli steps in, telling him to leave or he'll be shot.  Everyone in the family except Gideon, Kelvin, and Keefe pulls out a gun.  A gun expert on the fan board pointed out that only Amber and BJ are holding them properly.  

Then Kelvin,  frightened (of his family's guns?), says something indecipherable to Keefe, who moves his hand back to the table top and makes a finger-gun.  Kelvin looks around for a weapon, and brandishes a fork.  His left hand is still under the table, and stays there, holding Keefe, until Peter circles the table again.  

Now the "wedding rings" are fully visible, matching men's silver wedding bands with black diamond inlay (the real thing sells for over $4000),  on the ring finger of Kelvin's left and Keefe's right hand.  

They will be emphasized several times during the season, especially when Kelvin is thinking about or talking about Keefe.  They are symbols of the relationship, which means that the guys exchanged them deliberately.  They have a permanent commitment.  Kelvin can't say that they are lovers, but he can show it.

For a little while, anyway.

Things get worse after the break.

Stephen Schneider: Heterosexual love interest, heterosexual bottom, hung sleazoid, diversity dad

 Stephen Schneider's profile on the IMDB tells us only that he was born in Sharon, Massachusetts and he's married with children.  Wikipedia adds that he's Jewish.

 

Here he and his Dad study for his Bar Mitzvah.

He graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, started a sketch comedy website, and wrote, produced, and starred in some short films, including "Not Gay," 2006.

Soon Stephen found his niche in comedy, playing quirky boyfriends.

Ray Stark, the Love Interest of one of the Best Friends Forever, 2012.

Ben in the relationship comedy, Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight, 2014.

You're the Worst, 2014-17, follows the romance of two horrible people, Jimmy and Gretchen.  Stephen plays Gretchen's ex, who is still in love with her.  They eventually hookup, of course.

Stephen is on the IMBD list of Hung Actors, along with Derek Yates,John Cena, and Ben Affleck -- #32, but I don't think it's organized by size.  He gets naked here, but no frontal.

Broad City, 2014-2017, follows two female best friends looking for love and sex in contemporary New York. Stephen plays Abbi's hunky next door neighbor, whom she is crushing on.  When they finally hook up, she discovers that he's a heterosexual anal bottom.  Not a problem, but then she tries to wash his favorite dildo in the dishwasher, ruining it, ending the relationship.

For someone who gets placed on the Hung List, Stephen is rather stingy about showing his dick.  In Broad City, all we get are underwear shots.

More Stephen after the break. Caution: arousal.

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

Gemstones Episode 3.2: Kelvin's butt buddies, gay Percy, two toxic families, and some military dicks

Previous: Episode 3.1, Continued: Kelvin withholds sex, Judy cheats and Jesse fights, with some random butts

Episode 3.2 introduces Eli's estranged brother-in-law Peter Montgomery, his sons, and a disturbing super-macho mirror of Kelvin's God Squad.

Title: "But Esau Ran to Meet Him," from Genesis 33.4.  Jacob has tricked his father Isaac into giving him the inheritance.  Esau is furious and vows to kill him, so he flees.  When he returns after 20 years, Esau behaves as if he is happy to see him, but....

Stephen's abusive wife:  Stephen, who was fired as Judy's guitarist after her brothers discovered their affair, is trying to tell his wife Kristy that he was "laid off," not fired.  She doesn't buy it.  It's a highly abusive relationship: she calls him "an unemployed, cokehead piece of shit who sulks all day."  He screams "Fuck you!", and she hits him with a glass blender.  Shattered glass all over his face and head, in front of the kids!  Whoa, scary.  The Gemstones and their partners argue, but they never use abusive language or physical violence.  Except for the time that Amber shot Jesse in the butt. 

Later, Judy meets Stephen at Spanky's Cafe, a real restaurant in North Charleston, and offers him $10,000 to leave her alone: "I don't want to see you no' mo'."  But he still wants her.  Judy points out that he's married, but it doesn't matter: "I'd leave my family in a second if I could have you.  I'd murder them." Say what?  This guy is a psycho. Of course, he should leave his abusive wife, but murder her...and the kids?

Kelvin's Butt Buddies:  Jesse and Amber's adult son Gideon, who moved to California to become a stuntman, is back, lying on the veranda in a bathrobe, smoking a cigarette, holding a box of Lucky Charms cereal, and sulking.  The background song by Buddy Knox tells us: "I think I'm going to kill myself."  He injured his neck, and may never do stunt work, tumbling, or martial arts again.  At least he's displaying a nice chest.

Background alert: Skyler Gisondo injured his neck in real life in 2022, when his hair stylist gave him a "little neck massage."  They wrote his injury into the script.

In a much, much nicer parallel to the Stephen-Kristy confrontation, Gideon's parents order him to stop feeling sorry for himself, get off his butt, and go to work for the church.  But he doesn't want to preach.  Ok, so he can become Eli's driver. Remember that the long-term driver, Walker, was fired.

We cut to Gideon on his first assignment, driving Eli and the siblings to see if May-May's kids are ok.  They are living with her estranged husband, Peter Montgomery, and his militia, the Brotherhood of Tomorrow's Fires: they expect end of civilization, like Eli's Y2K scare back in 1999.   Eli calles them preppers: "They want to make sure they don't run out of toilet paper."

Usually Evangelicals believe in the Rapture, when Jesus zaps everyone who is saved to Heaven, leaving the unsaved to suffer through seven years of the dystopian Tribulation before being sent to hell.  To this day, I will not let anyone stamp my hand for re-entry into an event, because  the Mark of the Beast was drummed into my head.  But Eli and Peter apparently have a different belief system.

On the way to the compound, at the defunct Boy Scout Camp Wooden Feather, the siblings discuss their cousins, Karl and Chuck.  Kelvin says that he always found them "kind of dumb and strange."  But you haven't seen them since 2000, when you were ten or eleven.  How much do you remember?

Judy: "That's why I'm surprised you weren't butt buddies with them."  

He gets annoyed, not because she alludes to him being gay but because she implied that he's also "dumb and strange," and therefore perfect for the Montgomerys.

Not the God Squad:  Bizarre signs like "Now we will see" greet the family, along with multiple armed guards.  They pass Jacob (Stephen Louis Grush) cutting up a deer.  Kelvin smiles at him -- think he's hot, buddy?.  Then a military-style obstacle course;  guys practicing martial arts; a guy taking a shower outdoors (no beefcake); and finally the mess hall, where about thirty militia men are having lunch.

Wait -- no women and children?  The actual far-right militia movement has many female participants, but this is a male-only space, like Kelvin's God Squad in Season 2, but with scruffy guys in military fatigues instead of flexing musclemen.  It is dedicated to phileo instead of eros, buddy-bonding instead of homoerotic desire. An article on Doomsday Preppers notes that these male-only groups "cultivate a dangerous vision of apocalyptic manhood that consummates a fantasy of national virility in the demise of feminine society."  Women are weak and fragile, their civilization doomed. Only the "manly love of comrades" can survive the Apocalypse. 

May-May's son Chuck ushers Eli and the siblings in. They are greeted by Cousin Karl (Robert Oberst), who is delighted to see them; and Uncle Peter (Steve Zahn, below), who is not.  It's time for church, so get out!  No, the siblings offer to help lead the service: Jesse will preach, Judy will sing, and Kelvin will  perform some "feats of strength" for the kids -- the only time he references his muscles during the season.  No kids around, but maybe the militia guys would like to see some masculine beauty.   

Uncle Peter rejects the siblings' offer.  They are "phony fakers," entertainers, interested in making money rather than saving souls. 

More military guys after the break

Robert Oberst and the World's Strongest Men. Yes, some of them are naked

Robert Oberst, whose motto is "Strong and Pretty," grew up in Aptos, California, graduated from Western Oregon University in 2008 with a degree in history.  He moved to San Francisco, and like most history majors, found work as a bouncer in gay bars.  

But soon he discovered that being huge was good for more than attracting guys: he began competing on the strongman circuit, and racking up awards:

First place, San Francisco Fit Exp, 2012.

Third place, America's Strongest Man, 2012. Second place, 2013 and 2014

Third place, All-Amerca Strong Man Challenge, 2013.

And it goes on like that.  Meanwhile, he sold "Strong and Pretty" products and appeared as himself in two tv series dedicated to the strongest men in the world.

In 2022, after placing in nearly 20 competitions, Robert retired from strength competitions, just in time to break into an acting career.  He stars in Season 3 of The Righteous Gemstones as Chuck Montgomery, one of the backwoods cousins of the mega-rich Judy, Jesse, and Kelvin Gemstone.  

Strongman contests differ from bodybuilding in their emphasis on strength rather than definition, so bulk is fine.  Many strongmen find that a belly is an asset, as we see with Tom Stoltzman, World's Strongest Man in 2021 and 2022.

Bodybuilders are drawn from the elite class, who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on protein supplements and fancy gym equipment.  Strongmen are drawn from the working class, so their feats of strength often involve everyday objects: lifting boulders, logs, and tires; pulling or flipping over cars; tossing beer kegs.  Here Oleg Novikov, the World's Strongest Man in 2020, lifts a barbell made of tires.

Robert Oberst specialized in the log lift: in 2015 he broke the American log lift record of 211 kg -- 465 pounds.

Strength competitions are super-macho, drawing a lot of heterosexual alpha males.  Although Robert likes to hint that he is gay, he has never made a public statement. Besides, I think he might have a wife.

In fact only one professional strongman is out as gay: Rob Kearney, who coincidentally broke Robert Oberst's log-lift record in 2020.

Nude strongman bonus after the break