Modern Family, Episode 11.4: A pool full of muscle hunks, a future hunkoid thief, and a gay realtor. With some twinks and 7 dicks

 

We've been watching Modern Family from the beginning.  Even at an episode almost every night, sometimes two, it's taken over eight months.  Now we're in Season 11, and continuing just out a sense of duty.  The characters are getting flanderized, there are too many maudlin "misty water-colored memories" scenes, and the plotlines are reeking of desperation from the writers' room.  Haley and Dylan have twins.  Gloria becomes a realtor.  Alex moves to Antartica?  Mitchell and Cam move to Missouri?

Besides, Luke (Nolan Gould) has bulked up, but never takes his shirt off.

Episode 11.4, "The Pool Party," is silly, but offers some excellent beefcake.  In the A Plot, Gloria, wife of family patriarch Jay Pritchett,  suddenly developed an interest in becoming a realtor, so Jay's son-in-law Phil -- who owns a magic store and a parking lot, teaches realty at the community college, runs a food podcast, and still has time to work as a realtor -- has hired her as his intern.  She's pushing to be hired full-time, but Phil isn't sure.

They work on the mystery of who is stealing the "For Sale" signs from the homeowners, to keep people from buying the house (don't they usually search online instead of driving by?).  Phil interrogates his rival Gil Thorpe (Rob Riggle), but he says that he's gay now, so he doesn't have time for a petty vendetta.  

Meanwhile, Gloria attaches the tracker for her husband Jay's dog to the sign, and follows it to catch the thief: Sam, played by Hunter J. Mitchell, now 18 and rather hunky (not shown).  The owners' son, he keeps stealing the sign so he won't have to move and leave all his friends.  Gloria gives a maudlin speech about how change is hard, but it leads to new experiences and new people, and Phil is so impressed that he gives her the assistant job. 

In the B Plot, Jay is in charge of housekeeping while Gloria works late and fails to appreciate the dinner he cooked or his new jogging suit. He has become a stereotypic housewife, and feels emasculated. 

In the C Plot, Claire wants to convince her daughters Haley and Alex to go to work in the corporate world, so she claims that being a CEO is wonderfully fulfilling.  Then she has pretend that a major disaster is no problem at all.

The D Plot is the dumbest.  Gay couple Mitch and Cam are invited to a pool party by their friend Longinus (Kevin Daniels).  He says that there will be kids, so they bring their daughter Lily; but he meant "twinks."  

The pool is crowded with musclemen in their 20s and 30s.  How would you respond?  How would any gay guy respond?

Right, he would mingle and cruise, or at least enjoy this paradise of  pecs, abs, and bulges. But Cam and Mitchell are horrified. "We can't take off our shirts at this smoke show."  Huh?  Why not? 

Left: I think the guy in the pink hat is adult video star Chris Wolfe. 

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 4.8: BJ's hookups, Corey's birthday blade, and Tyler's tree trunk

 

Previous: Gemstones Episode 4.7, Continued: Teenjus meets the Devil.  So does Kelvin. With a gay Christian, Jordanian junk, and Dustin's d*ck

 Title: "On Your Belly You Shall Go." Genesis 3.14, KJV: The Serpent tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, leading to their knowledge of good and evil, so God curses it: "On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life."  I imagine that we'll just see someone getting eaten by a snake.  Or a gator.

A Homosexual in Our Midst: Fox News broadcasts "Vance Simkins Loses Control at Award Ceremony."  He yells "They let a homosexual in our midst!" and starts punching and hitting people before being dragged off stage. 

Jesse, watching on tv, tells Amber "I fucking love this."  Amber agrees: "He is a very negative man."   They argue about what role Jesse had in Kelvin's victory, but end up agreeing that he was important "behind the scenes."

BJ's Hookups:  Judy wheeling BJ and the Monkey through the park, complaining that they used to do picnics and hookups.  Now they can't do that.  So BJ and Judy used to go on Grindr and invite guys over?  Tell me more.

BJ wants to show her something: He can get out of the wheelchair and walk a few steps before falling.  Then a few more steps.  "I am healed!" he yells.  The Monkey is not happy.

Cut to Eli is sitting in the dark, looking at photos of him with Lori.  He decides to cut his hair.  Thank God -- he looked horrible with that long, stringy do.

The Monkey Smokes: Family dinner at Jason's, around a round table, with the newly cleaned-up Eli, and the Monkey bringing dinner rolls to BJ.   Everyone praises Eli for cutting his hair; Jesse quips that he looked like "one of those Shakespearean witches."  So we've moved from Hamlet to Macbeth.

They wonder why BJ hasn't returned the Monkey, since he's cured.  He wants to keep it.

Pontius and Gideon, now friends, want to see the Monkey smoke, so Baby Billy pulls out a cigarette.  Like Kelvin, Gideon has decided to be "true to himself" and not be straitjacketed by societal expectations about Christian youth.  

The Monkey smokes!  Kelvin and Keefe want to get one: it would be a great addition to Game Night.  So they have a Game Night?  Who do they invite, gay couples?

Uh-oh, the Monkey starts to masturbate.  

The Monkey Turns Murderous: Judy is taking a bath when the Monkey comes in and grabs a plugged-in hair drier.  Hey, that will electrocute her!    He comes closer and closer, while Judy pleads: "Please don't murder me."  BJ rings the bell, and he rushes out.

She goes downstairs, where BJ is reading a romance novel, Sunkissed and Sentimental (not real) , and watching Chowder (2007-2010), a cartoon about an apprentice chef in a world where everyone is named after food (Kimchi, Mung Daal, Truffles, Gazpacho).  I'm not sure about the significance.

BJ refuses to believe that the Monkey is murderous, so she spins it, saying that they should give him to someone who needs his help.

Losing a Pet: Happy Helping Hands arrives, with Amber and Brody, to take the Monkey away. Crying, BJ notes that the Monkey has attachment issues ever since he lost his mother at a young age.   "He was beautiful, and he believed in me."  I fast forwarded through the scene. F*k the Sadness.

Left: Brody is played by Chris Rubiez. a "dad/husband" from Roanoke, Virginia, "half Lebanese and half country boy." No beefcake photos online, so I'll f*k the Sadness with a bear with a similar face and physique.

Ok, we've had the Sad Scene.  Now let's try for some Comedy.

Turn My Water into Wine: The Nanny grills a giant sausage at the beach while Tiffany and her kids sit at a picnic table. Baby Billy was supposed to be here an hour ago!  

Cut to Baby Billy snorting cocaine, and then playing Teenjus, who has just turned water into wine.  Johnny B (Pilot Bunch) proclaims that this will make him the hit of the village party, and he won't be bullied for having a virgin mother. 

Cut!  No Virgin Mom in the script!  No ad-libbing.  "Say exactly what I f*king wrote!"  I wouldn't be surprised if Johnny B walks.

Baby Billy stomps back to the Director's Tent to snort some more cocaine.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Workaholics Episode 4.13: "Do you think the guys having sex upstairs might be gay?" With bonus bear cocks

Workaholics Episode 4.13, "Friendship Anniversary," is an excellent illustration of heteronormativity, the assertion that heterosexual desire, behavior, and identity are universal human experience, and LGBT people do not exist, or at least there are none here.   

You ask a new male acquaintance if he has a girlfriend, forgetting that he could be gay or bi.

The teacher tells the class, "If you boys got your minds off girls, you'd get better grades," forgetting that some of them might have their mind on boys.

TV viewers insist that a same-sex pair cannot be gay unless they actually say so on screen.  Otherwise everything they say and do is what heterosexuals say and do. "So they hold hands. Can't a straight guy hold his buddy's hand?"

On to the show. 

The Dude Husbands: After a scene where the guys, Anders, Blake, and Adam, play American Gladiator,  they discover that they have been living together for seven years, so they are "common law husbands."  To celebrate their anniversary, Blake gives them homemade gifts: seashells on Ders' headphones and macaroni on Adam's weight belt, ruining them!  Ders serves horrible Norwegian food hidden in a bait-and-switch KFC box.  They argue, have a food fight, destroy each other's stuff, and criticize Adam's weight: "You're a chubby bitch, as fat as John Candy and not half as cool."  Finally they break up. Everyone leaves the house.

Blake's Night:  Crashing with his work friend, Jillian, Blake has a fun evening planned: beer, listening to the Yin Yang Twins (a rap duo), and "artsin' and craftin'"  But she's engrossed in a dog show on tv (that she is betting a lot of money on).  He makes her a "thanks for letting me stay here" gift, arts-and-crafting her favorite dress, ruining it. Plus he makes fajitas with sour cream, enraging her (that's a little harsh, girl). 

Jillian puts him to bed in the bathtub, and when he casually mentions that she is acting crazy, goes ballistic: "We leave the shower on and the lights off."  

Ders' Night: Apparently he has no credit cards to get a hotel room, and no friends, so Ders tries to sleep in the back seat of his car.  He hears some teens drinking beer at the play station in the park -- after hours!  He tells them to scram, but they just make fun of him, so he gives them an ultimatum: they have to be gone by the time he finishes taking a dump, or he's calling the cops. 

Once he gets into the porta-a-potty, the teenagers knock it over, dousing him with a flood of blue toilet water

Adam's Night: He goes to a bar to drink and look for friends who won't reject him for being overweight.  It turns out to be a gay bear bar (no one says so, but watch your heteronormativity; how do you know it's not?). He comes on too loud and too strong for the first guys he approaches: "50 beers for my new friends, who I love now!"  When Trevor (Stephen Kramer Glickman) calls him a "rowdy little bear cub," he insists on a full-body bear hug, and accepts an invitation home. Heteronormativity: Adam has no idea that these guys are gay, or that he has agreed to a hook-up.

At home, they go right to bed.  When Trevor presses his hard cock against him, Adam thinks that it's just morning wood, and congratulates the guy for being so virile.  Trevor is about to go downtown, when Adam reveals that he just broke up with a partner of seven years, like a few hours ago.  A rebound hookup would be a bad idea; Trevor announces that he's going to masturbate in the bathroom instead. Heteronormativity again: a guy climbs in bed with you naked and presses his hard cock against you, but same-sex desire does not exist, so you must find a heterosexual explanation.

The guys start texting but change their minds, look for texts from their partners, and are miserable. 

The Rat Catchers: The next day, they have cordoned off their cubicle, and aren't speaking to each other, except to brag about how great their nights alone were and criticize their performance as husbands.  They decide to go back to the house, split up the security deposit, and part forever.

Except the house is overrrun with rats.  They have to get rid of them, or they won't get the security deposit back.  They try various gross and unhygeniec strategies which allow each to use his skills: Anders' organizational ability, Blake's arts-and-crafting, and Adam's muscles.  Afterwards, although they are splattered with rat blood and will probably die of rabies, they realize that they enjoyed the adventure, and decide to stay dude husbands. 

More after the break