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

"Solar Opposites": Do Korvo and Terry act like a married couple? Do they call each other 'husbands?' Do they have sex?

Solar Opposites (2020-) is a Hulu animated series about two aliens, their replicants, and their pupa,  who flee from their doomed planet and crash-land on Earth.  During Season 1, showrunner Justin Roiland addressed the question of whether male adults Korvo (Justin Roiland, Dan Stevens) and Terry (Thomas Middleditch, left) were a gay couple.  He said that since their species practices asexual reproduction, they don't have sex, and therefore they can't be gay.  Jerk, thinking that being gay is purely about sex.  What about romantic partnerships? 

Apparently he changed his mind.  The fan wiki states that Korvo and Terry became a romantic couple between Seasons 1 and 2.  But how romantic are they?  Do they say anything?  Do anything?  Or do you have to just infer from gay subtexts? To check, I reviewed some episodes, either because the premise sounded interesting or because there was a hot guest star.

Episode 2.1: The Solar Opposites discover another refugee group from their home planet, living in London!  But it turns out that they have a disturbing hidden agenda.  No indication that Korvo and Terry are romantic partners.  With the voice of Thomas Lennon, the grotesque gay-stereotype cop in Reno 911 (left: his butt)

Episode 2.2: Korvo hates dinner parties, so he declares them illegal and starts a police force to seek out forbidden dinner party paraphernalia.  Things turn deadly: people are turned into wine.  During the denouement, Korvo and Terry kiss.

Episode 2,3: Yumyulack, the "teenage boy" replicant, invents a ray that gives him a huge penis -- not for sex, for the power that goes with it.  He makes it bigger and bigger, until it threatens to destroy the world.  No indication that Korvo and Terry are a romantic couple.

Episode 3.2  Korvo wants to take up a hobby, but everything he tries, Terry is already doing, and doing better.  In frustration, he goes into a toy train shop.  The manager thinks that he's just pretending to be interested in trains to beat his "alien husband."

Episode 3.3 Terry shows Korvo the joy of standing in line, and introduces him to his "line husband," Linus (Adam Pally).  Line husband and regular husband jealously snipe at each other, until Korvo finally wins Terry's heart. (Left: Dan Stevens' butt)

Alien bulge and dick after the break

Gideon moves out of the friend zone: A Gideon x Keefe romance

I revised the sex scene to make it parallel Kelvin's date with Percy.

"This is it," Gideon Gemstone told himself as he stood at the entrance of Woodpecker's Carpentry, watching the workers inside, and trying not to be noticed.  "Enough stalling.  You make your move now, or forget about it."

Suddenly a burly middle-aged man in a blue worker's suit appeared. "Hello.  I'm Bishop, the owner.  Can I help you with something?"

"I was just admiring the wood carvings.  I like that Grinch in a Santa Claus suit, and the bobble-head Trump...."  Thinking fast, he added. "But I was really looking for a birthday present for my Granddad.  Eli Gemstone -- you probably heard of him."

"The pastor at the Salvation Center? Sure, half my crew goes there, or watches the Praise Be to He hour on Sunday mornings. He's retired, isn't he? Who's the preacher now?"

"Jesse Gemstone.  I'm his son, Gideon."

He chuckled.  "How about that!   We're having a run on Gemstones today.  Your Uncle Kelvin was in earlier, probably shopping for the same thing.  He was talkin' up a storm with our new guy, Keefe."

Uncle Kelvin!  Gulp -- maybe it was too late.

For two years, Uncle Kelvin had been bringing Keefe to family dinners, barbecues, Christmas parties, everything: the hottest guy Gideon had ever seen. with shoulder-length blond hair, a short beard, an incredibly muscular chest inscribed faintly with a 666.  That remnant of his former Satanism made him even hotter.  

Were Kelvin and Keefe boyfriends?  The evangelical "don't ask, don't tell" policy meant that they would pretend to be just good buddies, regardless.  Even their social media pages were ambiguous.  But what if they were?  Being screwed by a guy who had screwed his uncle!  Forbidden romance, with a hint of incest -- could he get much hotter?  Gideon began fantasizing about Keefe -- a lot.

Then Keefe announced on his Instagram that he was moving out of the Gemstone compound. Two days later, that he was no longer working as assistant youth pastor: he had returned to his old job as a carpenter.  Obviously they had broken up -- if they were ever boyfriends in the first place. A perfect time for Gideon to move in!

Suddenly Gideon realized that Bishop was staring at him, expecting him to say something.  "Sure, I know Keefe.  He used to be the assistant youth pastor at the Salvation Center.  I'll bet Uncle Kelvin wanted to commission a gift for Granddad.  Hey, maybe we could go in on a gift together.  Could I talk to him?"

"I'll go get him." Burly retreated to the work floor.  A moment later, Keefe appeared -- incredibly hot in a work shirt that left his arms and shoulders bare.  He smiled...a good sign, right?  "Hi, Gideon.  How's the family doing?"

No, don't bring up the family! Especially don't bring up Kelvin!  You want to get him alone.  "Fine, I think.  I haven't talked to anyone but my Mom and Dad for awhile."  

They stared at each other.  Was Keefe attracted to him?  Gideon couldn't tell.  "So...the boss says you want a commission?"

"Maybe.  I was thinking of something for...no...I mean, I'd like you to do a commission, sure, but I really came here to ask..."

"Ask what?"  

Why was this so hard?  He had asked guys for dates before.  And girls.  "Um...water-skiing....have you ever been?"

"No.  Kelvin wasn't really into the beach much."

Wasn't? So they were boyfriends?   "Well, I am.  Would you like to give it a try?  On Saturday."

"We always held Gemstone Teen Time on Saturday afternoon," Keefe said with a frown.

Ulp.  "Isn't it great that you're free now, and have time to have fun on the weekends?"

He thought for a moment.  "Sure, I guess.  I mean, why not?  Let me give you my new number."

More after the break