Gemstones Episode 4.3, Continued: Vance is homophobic, Jesse is sad, and Kelvin is doomed. With stuntman and Shakespeare dicks

 

Previous: Gemstones Episode 4.3: Keefe has sex with the Devil.  So does Eli.  With a pole dancer's dick and the Groundskeeper's butt

In the first part of Episode 4.3, Kelvin has night terrors and a feeling of impending doom as his last safe place is destroyed, the siblings worry that Eli is schtupping Aimee-Leigh's best friend, and BJ (Tim Baltz) falls on his head during a pole dancing contest

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Tim with stunt double Ryan Moody

BJ is....: The family gathers at the hospital.  Everyone wonders why Eli and Lori arrived at the same time, suspecting that the two are having s*x.  Maybe focus on the crisis?

A doctor appears and tells Judy "I'm very sorry."  Ulp.

No, BJ isn't dead, but he's paralyzed, and will have to use a wheelchair.  Judy cries.  "What are we going to do?"

Left: Maybe Ryan's little friend will cheer you up.

The Quail Hunt: Eli, Jesse, and some members of the Cape and Pistol Society in ridiculous floppy-hat uniforms shooting quail, I think.  I don't see the significance of this scene, except to contrast with the Civil War scenes in the trailer.  

How Many Gay Gemstones? Cut to the Cape and Pistol headquarters, where a minister congratulates Jesse on his brother being nominated for Top Christ Following Man of the Year.   Rival megachurch pastor Vance Simkins (Stephen Dorff), one of the Season 3 antagonists, has also been nominated, and complains: "I guess your homosexual brother is the one with the juice nowadays." 

This doesn't upset Jesse, so Vance tries again.  "I heard your brother-in-law fell out of the sky...Word on the street is that he was stripping..how many homosexuals does that make in your family now?"

"Two," Jesse answers.  "The same number of dead parents in your family."

Wait -- he can't be agreeing that BJ is gay, so who is the second "homosexual"?  Keefe?  But he and Kelvin aren't married.  

Gideon?  Remember, Aimee-Leigh admitted Scotty to the family after his death, and Gideon hasn't expressed any interest in anyone since.  Maybe he's still in mourning.

Vance tries again: "You're losing in our rivalry due to your poor character."  You're not exactly a saint yourself, Vance Baby.   His churches have turned into bathrooms, "with that filth your brother's been preaching. It's what your church is becoming known for.  Does that bother you?"

Of course Kelvin's success bothers Jesse, but not for that reason, so he counters that he is succesful too.  And the ministers start to circle.

More after the break

Matthew Jeffers: Elizabethan earl, comedic foil, gay dwarf who fights aliens. With bonus short guys.

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Cullen Moss: Two drag queens, two homophobes, a security guard, a fairy, and a frontal

 

Cullen Moss is one of those actors who you've seen in a dozen tv shows and movies, but he is so completely immersed in the role that when you see him again, you don't recognize him.  

Born in Brooklyn but raised in North Carolina, he graduated from Mount Tambor High School in 1993 and moved immediately into local North Carolina theater.  A lot of iconic and gay-positive roles:

Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire

Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Alan Strang, the one who gets naked on stage in Equus

Clifford Bradshaw, the Christopher Isherwood character, in Cabaret

The drag queen Albin in La Cage aux Folles

The closeted, homophobic Roy Cohn in Angels in America

His tv career began with some voiceovers in the 90s, followed by a starring role in One Tree Hill, 2003-2012, as Junk Moretti, a high school student with a "girlfriend who lives in Canada" (we've all been there; mine lived in Paris). 

Later Cullen has played a detective in Your Honor, a cop in The Walking Dead, and ..his list of credits on IMDB goes on like that.

In a two-episode story arc on Eastbound & Down in 2013, Cullen played Mark, "the smarmy, slow-motion punching, donut-gifting smuck of a rental car company manager," boss of Danny McBride's washed-up baseball player.

This led to a role as Brock, head security guard of the Gemstone Compound in Righteous Gemstones Episodes 1.6 and 1.7.  Scotty, Gideon's "friend from California" and co-conspirator in the blackmail scheme, flirts with him to get easy access to compound, even asking for shirtless photos.

Brock returns in Episode 1.9, to deny BJ admission after he and Judy break up, criticize his name, and act like a macho jerk.

He returns in Episode 2.3, to announce that Eli's friend Junior is at the front gate.  Eli says to not admit him, and they argue.

More Cullen after the break

Lucien Laviscourt: Shirtless in soaps, romcoms, Shakespeare, Archie comics. With a j/o video

 

In 2020, during the COVID lockdown, everybody watched the Netflix series Emily in Paris, because they couldn't get to the real Paris. Surprise -- it's still streaming, with Season 4 coming up. The hapless social media content creator and her friends are still falling in love at the drop of a script, with Lucas Bravo, Charles Martins, Kevin Diaz, Paul Forman, and most recently Lucien Laviscount.

The British actor -- I know, I thought he was French, too -- has 43 credits listed on the IMDB, beginning with Clocking Off, 2002.

The interconnected lives of Manchester mill workers.  I wonder if they do a Full Monty.

Soap stud roles followed: 13 episodes of Grange Hill, 34 episodes of  Coronation Street, 18 episodes of Waterloo Road.  Plus guest spots on Life Bites, Father & Son, New Tricks, Shameless, Mount Pleasant...well, the list goes on and on.

I might want to see Still Star-Crossed, set in Verona shortly after the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, with new Montague-Capulet lovers investigating political machinations. Lucien plays Romeo in a flashback.

Plus a lot of modeling, here for Tommy Hilfinger.  I guess they're supposed to be very close teammates, not boyfriends.  But you never know.

The Bye-Bye Man, 2017, is Lucien's first starring role: "three friends stumble upon the horrific origins of a mysterious figure they discover is the root cause of the evil behind unspeakable acts."  

 Got all that? A bit overblown, with way too many adjectives, but I gather that we're working down from unspeakable acts caused by an evil caused by a mysterious figure who has horrific origins. 

Ulp. All you really need to know is it's all straight people, and Lucien shows his butt.

Another starring role in Snatch, 2017-2018, about...well, the IMDB description is suffering from adjective overload, but it's about con artists who get in over their heads.  The guys, Lucien and Rupert Grint, have a gay-subtext buddy-bond that gets ruined when they both fall in love with The Girl.

Katy Keene, 2020-21, was an ill-fated attempt to hit Riverdale gold by shoving minor Archie Comics characters like Alexander Cabot III into modern-day New York.   

More Lucien after the break