Unfamiliar: Spy vs. Spy in Berlin, with a Mongolian guy, a gay oldster, Kramer's cock, and the drag boy grown up

Unfamiliar (2026) just dropped on Netflix.  You can tell by the random one-word title that has no connection to the story: it's about spies.  It stars Aaron Altaras, who I just profiled, and Felix Kramer, who plays a gay guy in Dogs of Berlin, so I'll give it a try.

Prologue: A man (Aaron Altaras) walks through a graffiti-strewn bad neighborhood of Berlin, by the Spittelmarkt Square, digs a microchip out of his stomach, and shoots himself in the leg.

Scene 1:  In a fancy restaurant kitchen, a Chef (Felix Kramer) and his assistants are cooking.  Meanwhile, a teenager girl opens a present and her Mom smiles.  A banner says "Happy Birthday" in English.

When the meal is done, the Chief and his assistant Yul bring it in...wait, the apartment is right off the restaurant kitchen?   Chef gives a speech about how he grew up over his dad's restaurant, then became a doctor.  So are you a chef or a doctor?

Uh-oh, a phone call.  The guy from the prologue says that he's been shot and stabbed, so he need medical and transport to a safe house.  Hey, you gave those wounds to yourself!

Chef grabs Mom, and they pick up the guy in their van (which is equipped with ambulance supplies) and drive him to a nondescript building. 

Left: Yul is played by Anand Batbileg Chuluunbataar, which sounds Mongolian.  He has nine acting credits on the IMDB.

Scene 2:  In the safe house, Mom complains that she can't find the guy online. No face recognition, no nothing.  His story doesn't check out either, and he won't tell them who his handler is. 

They discuss whether to believe his story, and then whether their daughter is old enough to go out to the clubs by herself tonight (it's still the night of her birthday dinner).

 "She isn't alone -- Yul is with her."  The guy who was helping Dad cook.  Is he a servant or a boyfriend?

Scene 3:At German Foreign Intelligence Headquarters, the Boss (Laurence Rupp)  asks for intel on both key players. 

Vera Koleev is set to become the Russian ambassador to Germany, although she has no diplomatic experience.  They think she is just a cover for her husband Josef's espionage activity.  But the German higher-ups need evidence to have them deported.  

An old acquaintance is coming in to help them gather the evidence.

Cue a shoe getting out of a car.  I figured it would be the Chef, but it's Grigor Klein (Henry Hübchen), their former Department Head. He looks at surveillance footage of Josef Koleev, the suspected spy, at a Berlin bus station half an hour ago.  He was scheduled to come in legally in a few weeks anyway, so why sneak in now?  Grigor has no idea.

Left: Laurence Rupp's backside.

Scene 4: At the safe house, Mom interrogates the wounded agent.  The guy explains that he worked for a high-end security firm, and stole something.  They objected, and shot him.  Now he needs to vanish. 

Why did he call Chef?   "A lady I knew needed to vanish once, and she told me about your service."

They flirt with each other.  Or else Mom is flirting with him to gain his trust.

She feeds him.  "This food is good.  Did you or your brother make it?"

This surprises Mom, so she makes an excuse to leave the room, and calls Chef: "He thinks we're brother and sister.  The last time we played siblings was on the mission to Belarus 16 years ago!"

Meanwhile, the Agent grabs her fingerprints off her water glass. She watches the action on her spycam. 

Scene 6: The mission to Belarus, 16 years ago.  They enter a farmhouse, but Russian Spy Josef (Samuel Finzi, left) is gone, and everyone is dead except Grigor, who was shot in the stomach. They manage to save Grigor -- and the baby of a pregnant dead woman.  It's their daughter, who is going out to the clubs to celebrate her sixteenth birthday!  So this took place exactly sixteen years ago.

Back to the present: Mom tells Chef that she'll interrogate the Agent to find out who he's working for, but meanwhile their daughter is in danger.  "Go find her and bring her home."

"But she's not answering her phone, and I don't know which club she's going to"  So use your spy skills.

More after the break

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

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Ruben Reuter: the wacky drug dealer of "Pushers," "Lord of the Flies" Percy, Channel Four journalist, Short Guy with a d*ck

I was researching Ryan McParland, the Irish actor who plays the younger brother on How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, and I found a cast photo from Pushers (2025), a Channel 4 comedy. With two short guys.

Two short guys?  I'm definitely watching this show!

Turns out that Pushers is not available to stream in the U.S., but I watched some clips on Youtube.  

It stars Rosie Jones (below center) as Emily Dawkins, a woman with cerebral palsy who loses her benefits and needs some way to make money -- and impress her crush (a lady). Enter lovable doofus Ewen (Ryan McParland), who wants to "make money fast" in the amateur drug-dealing game.  He notices that Emily is invisible; people are disturbed by her disability, and pretend not to see her.  A perfect drug runner!

Emily suggests using her charity, Wee CU (providing accessible toilets), as a cover for the drug business.  And she recruits some other disabled people for the crew:

Hope (Libby Mae) handles the money-laundering, and pushes to expand the business into spice (an artificial cannabinoid).

Sam (Jon Furlong) became aggressive during her first drug sale, so she hired him as the muscle. He's garrulous and rather a tipster.

Harry (Ruben Reuter, hugging Ryan) wanted to make a documentary about the experience, but they reject the idea.  He handles the website and  the social media.

Trevor Dwyer-Lynch of Coronation Street (right) plays Masir, who provides the minivan.

Harry is an actor, dancer, and filmmaker (his dream is to direct Hollyoakes).  

In the first clip I watched, Harry and Ewan are hiding from a real drug lord - the kind that cuts your d*ck off -- and he suggests disguising themselves with drag.  He's an expert on hairstyling and makeup.   

Ewan: "F*cking hell, I look like me nan."

Harry: "No, you're sexy."

Ewan "Are you saying me nan ain't sexy?"

In another clip, the gang interviews for their jobs. Harry says that he's working at a pub with his Dad, but he wants to make enough money to ask his boyfriend Kevin to marry him.

A gay character!  They already had a lesbian character, so there's really no reason to make Harry gay -- unless the actor is gay in real life.

Ruben Reuter was born in 2000 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire.  He has eight previous on-screen acting credits, most significantly the teen soap The Dumping Ground (2015-2024).  His character, Finn, was heterosexual, but he also may have a gay-subtext buddy-bond with Harry (Philip Graham Scott).

Left: A n*de Yorkshire guy

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Aaron Altaras: Drag boy, gay soccer player, lots of Jewish teenagers, spy. With his butt, his boyfriend's dick, and Euphoria

 

Aaron Antares drew my attention because I keep wanting to say Antares, the giant star about to go supernova, and because of this photo of a muscular swimmer.

And this photo where the boy is wearing a red bra (surprisingly, just his size).

Aaron was born in Berlin in 1995, to a show biz family.  Of Croatian Jewish ancestry, he first achieved recognition in Nicht alle waren Mörder (Not All Were Murderers, 2006), about a Jewish boy in Nazi Germany.  

The bra scene is from the short Höllenritt (Rollercoaster, 2008).  My German has gotten very rusty, but I gather that Jakob's parents are divorced, and Dad and his new girlfriend don't want anything to do with him except for pushing him into football (socccer), which he hates. So he and his friends  start the "Dad is an Arsehole" club and think of mean pranks to play.  He gets a bra somehow, sleeps with it, and in the morning tries it on.  Dad catches him and looks surprised, but then says "Ok."  

In the next scene, Jacob and dad's girlfriend are standing on a rooftop, both wearing red bras, when superman Dad swoops down, and chooses her!  He wakes up screaming.

I'm not sure if the bra is one of the pranks, which would be homophobic or transphobic, or if the boy is really exploring his gender identity,  He wears Superman underwear (censored because they're too revealing), and there are stars hanging over his bed, if that helps you figure it out.

After movies about Jewish teenagers in Nazi Germany and an Orthodox Jewish woman in contemporary Berlin, Aaron starred in Mario (2018): two football players (Aaron, Max Hubacher) fall in love, which is completely forbidden, so they have to keep it a secret.  According to OutSports, 29 male soccer players have come out, but most long after 2018. 

Sounds like that hockey player series from 2026, but not as steamy. At least we see Aaron's butt.  Or is it Max's?

Left: Max Hubacher's cock.

Since Mario, Aaron has starred in several tv series:

A juvenile delinquent sent on a team-building expedition to the Alps in Wild Republic (2021).

An intern in Legal Affairs (2021), about a lawyer who doesn't play by the rules.

The son of a Jewish family in contemporary Germany in Die Zweiflers (2024).  He falls in love with a non-Jewish woman, which causes tension, especially when she doesn't want their son circumcized.

More after the break

Mr. Bigstuff: Short guy with big stuff isn't into ladies, has a gay boss and a psycho brother. With six big reveals and a lot of butts

 

I don't have a lot of  luck with Britcoms.  The references have me scurrying to the internet, the jokes a little too droll, and I can never tell if the actions are meant to be sitcom exaggerations or over-the-top bizarre.  But I'm checking out Mr. Bigstuff, which just dropped on Hulu, because it stars Ryan Sampson, gay in real life and 5'4". 

"Bigstuff" is one of those culturally specific references.  There's no definition online. Does it mean that the guy is important, a "big shot," or that he's a "big dog," gifted beneath the belt?

Episode 1, Scene 1: Glen (Ryan Sampson) and his girlfriend parking in the car outside a horribly decrepit office building.  She consoles him for being unable to perform.  It's been a long time.  Maybe he's not into you, lady.  Or not into ladies at all.  But they're still getting married in 100 days.  

Scene 2:  Glen at his horrible, soul-destroying job as a carpet salesman.  He's pointing out some boring heterosexual stuff to a boy-girl couple, when the Manager comes by.  He asks for a promotion.  In response, the Manager pretends to shoot him.  He falls to the ground, "dead."  I guess that's a no?  

Left: The Manager is played by Adrian Scarborough, who I thought was in The Thursday Murder Club.  He's not, and I deleted my review due to low pageviews.

Meanwhile, a hand smokes cigarettes and drinks beer.  Eventually it turns into a burly bloke, who bursts into the carpet store and asks the receptionist if she's seen "this geezer," displaying a photo of a schoolboy. In the U.S. a "geezer" is old. She calls the Manager.  The situation escalates to Burly Guy choking him and demanding to know where the "geezer" is.

Glen hides behind some display cases, then runs out and drives home.  

Left: Burly Guy is played by Danny Dyer, who is straight but played a gay character in Borstal Boy (2000) and the father of a gay teen on East Enders.

Scene 3: At home, the Girlfriend from Scene 1 is lying in bed.  She explains that there was a gas leak at work, so everyone had to leave, and he explains that he just popped in to get his sandwiches.  I expect that there's a man hiding in the closet. Nope: "Get in here, you c*nt."  In the U.S., that term is extremely offensive, and it refers only to ladies, but I think here it's just a mild expletive, like "dope." 

Left: Glenn's butt, from Plebes.

They discuss boring heterosexual stuff as Glen undresses (no beefcake).  She tries to get him to do sexy stuff, but he refuses.  You're in bed with your lady at 10:00 on a workday.  Why would you not, unless you're not into ladies?

Next Glen drinks something from a water glass by the bedside, then starts to gag.  Girlfriend apologizes -- she didn't expect him to drink it (then why was it on his side of the bed?).  They're both very upset.  

We never learn what it was. Maybe Metamucil, or a lady supplement?

She rushes downstairs to fetch him some tea -- and finds the Burly Guy sitting on the couch!

Scene 4:  Glen throws the disgusting liquid at him, and Girlfriend runs for the pepper spray.  "You can't be here!  Get out of my house!"

"I just want to talk, Glen!" he exclaims.  

Girlfriend; "You know each other?"  Big Reveal #1

"No.  Not really...I mean, I used to."  This upsets Burly Guy, and he leaves.

Left: Burly Guy's butt, from Plebes.

Scene 5: Back at work, everyone is gossiping about what happened earlier "with that geezer and the Manager."  Is that a common phrase in Britain for someone under age 80?   A woman is upset that she wasn't around to see him "get shanked."  In the U.S., "shanked" means being stabbed.  

The Manager calls Glen, crying: "You need to get here immediately! I'm sorry -- I didn't know!  I can't do this!"  Burly Guy comes onto the phone and tells him: "Dagenham, by the water, where he died.  You know the spot."  Darn, I thought they were old boyfriends.

More after the break

Cyrus and TJ: Are the "Andi Mack" boyfriends gay in real life? What about Jonah? Or Bowie? With some bulges and d*cks

 

Andi Mack (2017-19) was the first Disney teencom with an identified gay character: Cyrus (Joshua Rush), originally dating Iris, comes out in Episode 3.11 (2019).  He befriends TJ Kippen (Luke Mullen), a sarcastic, mean-spirited basketball star, teaches him to be nicer, and admits him to the friend group.  Everyone assumes that TJ is straight, so they are just good buddies.

Then, in the last scene of the series finale, Episode 3.20 (2019),  they hold hands.  In close up, partially obscured by the slats of a bench. Can you even tell what they're doing?  It seems rather tepid, but caused widespread celebration in LGBTQ communities as a milestone, the first canonical gay couple in a Disney tv series.

Wait -- Kelvin and Keefe held hands in Righteous Gemstones Episode 2.7, and fans were saying "So what?  Straight guys can hold hands.  It doesn't mean that they're gay."

And if that's all it takes, Craig and Eric of Drake and Josh held hands in 2008.  

But we'll go with "the first," and conduct some research to see if either Cyrus or TJ is gay in real life.  (And look for other gay characters and nude photos, of course).

Joshua Rush (Cyrus) went on to voice the titular character in Where's Waldo (2019-21), based on the book series where you have to find the red-striped guy in a crowd, then got his degree from Penn State and moved into politics.  As of this writing, he is the Communications Director of the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee. In my day you would never dream of limping your wrist like that.

He announced that he was bisexual on social media a few weeks after the hand-holding episode aired.

I found a potential bulge pic.  Notice that the watch tracks.

Luke Mullen: After Andi Mack, Luke played a straight guy in four episodes of the teencom Side Hustle, a fratboy playing volleyball on the beach in the Barbie movie, and other straight or not-identified characters.

Here he prepares to be splattered in an episode of the anthology series American Horror Stories.

More after the break

Joe Davidson: The gladiator, surfer, soap stud, and gator poacher doesn't mind if you check out his d*ck. With bonus Thomas Jane and Takaya butt

In Spartacus: House of Ashur Episode 1.1, Gladiator Logus (Joe Davidson) insults the dwarf trio Brothers Ferox: "My cock stands larger threats!" They promptly eviscerate him.

During the filming, Joe hooked up with (or buddied up with) the probably gay Mikey Thompson (Musicus).  Plus a brief internet search revealed this photo from the soap Neighbours: Joe's character apparently has a boyfriend.

Plus there are no girls and a lot of guys on his social media posts.  That's enough for more extensive research to determine if Joe is gay in real life, has played gay characters, or both.  Hopefully both.  

Born around 1992 or 1993, Joe grew up on Australia's ritzy Gold Coast, around Brisbane, and began on-screen acting in some teen series:

A diver in an episode of H2O: Just Add Water (2010), about three teenager girls who turn into mermaids (with Luke Mitchell as their human ally).

A swimmer in SLIDE (2011): A Melbourne girl moves to Brisbane and finds the requisite allies, crushes, and enemies, including a gay-ish boyfriend.

A surfer boy in Mako Mermaids (2013), with those three teenage mermaids up to new antics.  A merman (Chai Hanson) is added to the cast.

Joe also meets a mermaid while grieving over his dead father in Glass Tunnel (2013).  

Plus he worked at Warner Brothers Movie World, a theme park in Queensland, playing characters like Edward Scissorhands and Fred from Scooby Doo.

After graduating from the "prestigious three-year program" at Actors Central Australia in Sydney, Joe was cast in his first major role, playing Cassius Grady in the soap opera Neighbours (2017-2018).   He appears as a muscular mystery man at a Guy Fawkes Day party on the same night that the evil Hamish Roche is murdered.  Hamish's son Tyler is the chief suspect.

Left: the OMG Blog thinks that this is a photo of Cassius, but Neighbours never had frontal nudity.

Cassius goes on to save Tyler's girlfriend from a capsized boat, start dating her, rescue a kidnapped baby, get a job as a gardener, and finally admit that he was the one who murdered Hamish (gasp) because he is the evil guy's long-estranged son (double gasp). 

Um...Cassius was straight, buddy. 

Maybe there are some gay roles in his later work?

Stranded (2018): A British soldier is stranded with a lady.  They smooch in the water. 

Abandoned (2018).  What do you think?

Sons of Summer (2023):  A surfer brings his buds on a trip to the Gold Coast town where his dad was murdered, and runs afoul of murderous drug dealers.  He's got a girlfriend.

Anyone But You (2023); Ben (Glen Powell) and Bea don't like each other, but Bea's sister is marrying Ben's friend Pete's sister, and for some reason they have to pretend to be a couple at the wedding.  Joe plays the current boyfriend of Ben's ex girlfriend, who dumps him for Bea's ex-boyfriend. It's based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, so you've got to expect some partner switching. 

In this scene, Joe shows his butt to demonstrate that he's much hotter than Ben.

He shows his dick, too (after the break).

"Samuel": French middle school boys are all in love with the same girl. With queerbaiting, drag, Freudian dreams, and some n*de twinks

 

When I was growing up in Rock Island, there were no gay characters in children's media -- and they were vanishingly rare in adult media.  In grade school my friend Bill and I vowed to be "best men" forever, and in junior high I swooned over Dan, who had blond hair and warm hands, but parents, teachers, and peers insisted that we were tepid, inconsequential "buddies."  Soon, very soon, I would "discover" girls, and drop my boy friends, instantly and without hesitation, to devote my life to what really mattered, finding and winning The Girl.

Left: all models are over 18

I scoured through tv shows, comic books, and the books in the Denkmann School library, searching for evidence that same-sex loves could endure for a lifetime: Will and Jack fighting aliens together in The White Mountains, Tony and Doug declaring that "I won't leave without you!" on Time Tunnel, even Rich and Sean smiling at each other in The Secret of Boyne Castle.  

A show about a boy who actually experiences a real, undeniable same-sex romance would have been a godsend.  

The animated Samuel (2026), by French cartoonist Émilie Tronche, just dropped on Netflix.  It features  a ten-year old boy whose diary entries are depicted in line drawings on a minimal canvas, similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  The blurb tells us that he's going to face "first loves, complicated friendships, and the start of middle school," with an illustration that undeniably shows him kissing a boy.  Dude is going to come out!

I can't wait to review Samuel.

Episode 1, Scene 1: Samuel writes in his diary that he's in love with a girl.

Say what?  I'm confused.

The boy he is kissing is shown on the blurb for Episode 5, so I'll review that one instead. 

Episode 5: At choir practice, a rumor goes around that Dmitri asked Julie to go out with him.  Everyone laughs and makes fun of the two.  Dmitri is the boy he is shown kissing.

The teacher comes in and asks if everyone has learned the solo part.  Dmitri claims that he has.

The full choir:

Why do people in love always seem to be the same?
They carry, as they walk by, the same look in their eye
One single flame -- they are the happy ones

Dmitri's solo.  Is he going to sing to Samuel?

I barely know you, but to drift away with you, like they do
We could make enough room, you and me
For both of us, with no fuss

You have to let me know it won't be in vain

Whatever the stakes, I want to be a happy man

Suddenly Samuel finds himself in church, about to be married to a boy?  No, to Julie,  but Dmitri rushes in at the last minute, a la The Graduate, and takes her away.  

Later, Samuel sees Julie and Dmitri in the schoolyard, and they confirm that they are in love.  This depresses Samuel, as he is in love with Julie, too.  Say what? When are he and Dmitri going to kiss?

Ok, episodes are only 3-4 minutes long. I'm going through all of them on fast forward, looking for the development of the Samuel-Dmitri romance.

Episode 6: Dmitri does not appear.  Samuel has a best friend, Benjamin.

Episode 7:  On the field trip to the museum, Dmitri and Julie sit together, upsetting Samuel. 

Episode 8: Samuel's friend Benjamin returns from his grandmother's funeral. They discuss his grief, but when he starts crying, Samuel is too macho to hug him.  Instead, he says "Your hair is really greasy."  Jerk!

Episode 9:  Dmitri tells Samuel, "You look pretty," but they're rehearsing a play, and Dmitri is a fox planning to eat crow Samuel, so it might not be his real-life sentiments.

Episode 10: Samuel tells his diary, "Last night something happened.  I don't know how to describe it." Finally, the kiss!   On the way home after the play, they stop at a stop light, and Samuel sees a girl, maybe Julie, in the next car.  She waves at him.  "That's what happened."  A wave?  

Episode 11: During summer vacation, Samuel runs into his enemy Dmitri crying on the sidewalk. He explains that he is sad because school is over, and he's lonely.  Julie must have dumped him. He asks to hang out with Samuel's friend group next fall, when they're in middle school.  So are they going to fall in love over the summer?

Episode 12: Samuel's babysitters, Bryan and Jonah, invite him to a party with adults.  They usually go to clubs; maybe they're a gay couple?  Nope: when the dancing starts, they're mesmerized by two girls who give them "come hither" finger gestures, and ditch Samuel.  Ugh!  "You will abandon your same-sex loves, instantly and without hesitation, to devote your life to the only thing that matters, finding and winning The Girl."

More after the break

Marcel Ruiz: "One Day at a Time" boy grows up, plays gay guys, wears dresses, kisses girls. You figure him out. With Lucas butt and Jackson junk

When I was in high school, Tuesday night meant Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and One Day at a Time (1975-84).   a "hip sitcom" with divorced mom Anne Romano (Bonnie Franklin) moving from small-town Logansport to Indianapolis to raise her kids: rebellious Julie, popular Barbara, and eventually the exceptionally femme Alex (Glenn Scarpelli).  Building handyman Schneider popped in all the time.

The theme song brings me back to those nights, sitting in the living room with my parents and brother and sister, doing my homework on a clipboard. No matter what problems I was facing outside, with screaming preachers and sadistic teachers and the constant refrain of "what girl do you like?", I was safe here.

This is it (this is it); this is life, the one you get, so go and have a ball.
This is it (this is it): straight ahead, and rest assured, you can't be sure at all.
So while you're here, enjoy the view, keep on doin' what you do.
Hang on tight, we'll muddle through -- one day at a time.

In 2017, a re-imagining appeared on Netflix, only to be cancelled, moved to Pop and TVLand, and cancelled again in 2020.  It was a re-imagining because it had nothing to do with the original series except for the title, the theme song, and characters named Alex and Schneider.  Here they are a Hispanic family living in Echo Park, Los Angeles: army nurse Lupe; social activist Elena; and popular Alex (Marcel Ruiz).  Grandma Rita Moreno pops in frequently.

I watched an episode out of curiosity, but didn't like it.  Mostly ladies; no cute guys (Todd Grinnell as Schneider was not my type). And why did they keep the name Alex but remove his gay coding?  

Besides, watching on my laptop in my home office in 2017 was just not the same as watching in the living room surrounded by my family in 1977.

Then I saw Isabella Gomez and Marcel Ruiz (who played Elena and Alex) in a video for the It Gets Better project.  Isabella talks about how Elena struggles with coming out as a queer Latinx woman, and starts dating the nonbinary Syd.  "Normalizing lesbian and nonbinary identities on tv plays an important role in creating acceptance in real life."  Marcel adds that if your family doesn't accept you, there are others who do. You can find a chosen family.  "It gets better. Just keep going through life everyday."  Not "one day at a time"?

Isabella plays a queer character, but why is Marcel there?  Alex is straight.  You're looking quite femme in that outfit, buddy. Are you gay in real life, like the original? 

Time for a profile.

Marcel was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2003.  His mother, Mariem Pérez Riera, is an Emmy-winning director known for her biography of Rita Morena (not coincidentally, grandma on One Day at a Time). His father, Carlitos Ruíz Ruíz, is a "photographer, storyteller, and filmmaker" known for Maldeamores (2007), about a love triangle.

For someone born into a family of film makers, Marcel doesn't have a lot of acting gigs listed on the IMDB.  His career starts with an episode of Snowfall (2017), a tv series about the cocaine panic in Los Angeles in the early 1980.  Damson Idris (left) stars as a drug dealer.  Marcel plays a young Sandanista operative spying on the CIA in Nicaragua. He gets killed.  

His first starring role was in Breakthrough (2019): When a boy with the crazily Anglo name John Smith (Marcel) drowns in a lake, his Mom prays that he will be brought back "from the brink of death."  Did he die or almost die?  

Josh Lucas (left) plays the boy's Dad, and Topher Grace of That 70s Show plays the megachurch pastor.  

Marcel apparently belongs to a megachurch in real life, too.

Sounds Christian, which means homophobic, but Topher Grace went on to star in Home Economics (2021-23), and Marcel, to One Day at a Time (2017-20).  Both of their characters have gay sisters.  Go figure.

 Marcel has only two post-Days roles:

A Bad Bunny music video, Baile inolvidable (Unforgettable dance, 2025).  A lot of male-female couples dance while their friends cheer them on.  

And the short Telaraña (2025) : The teenage Naomi faces the "disturbing truth" about her family, involving a giant spider (araña).  Marcel plays her brother Lolo.

Plus two upcoming projects.

Summer of Three (filming completed in 2026): After his father's death, Javi (Marcel) returns to Puerto Rico, where he becomes involved in a love triangle with Luife (Paolo Schone) and his girlfriend Kiki.  I can't tell from the plot description and photos if the two men are competing for the lady, or if it's a three-way romance. 

More after the break