Grosse Pointe Gardening Society: Heterosexuals garden, have affairs, and murder someone. With a hung Hodge and Wolfe wang

 

Don't you hate it when you subscribe to a streaming service for one movie or tv show, and then find nothing else of interest?  We just finished Paramount Plus for Twin Peaks, and now we've in Peacock for Wicked, Nosferatu, and since I'm trying to watch everything from Adam Devine, the hottest guy on the planet,  Break Point.  Done. But I'm not going to spend $18 a month to watch three movies, so here's a review of Grosse Pointe Garden Society: one of the garden-society members is male, gardening is gay-coded, so surely he'll be gay.

Note: Grosse Pointe is an affluent suburb of Detroit.  It just means "big tip," as in tip of land, in French, but it sounds funny. 

Prelude: The gardeners dump a body into a hole they dug. The four stories are interspliced, but I'll separate them to make the plots easier to follow, and give them nicknames: From left to right, Entitled, Pink Hat, Male Gardener, and White Hat.

Pink Hat's Story: Six months earlier, a park area with a lot of flowers. Pink Hat puts up a "lost dog" flier on the community bulletin board and narrates: "They say people look like their dogs, but when you're in a garden club, you're more like the flowers you plant." She begins unloading geraniums, but the Snippy Leader tells her that they're not good enough to win the award this year. 

"I think I'd be a geranium," Pink Hat continues, flashing back to smooching with her underwear-clad boyfriend (they don't unclench long enough for a screen shot).  Then to her high school class, where they're discussing the Romantic Poets (that's the Romantic Era, 1790-1830, not "romance').  She hates it, although she does gaze lustfully at one of the Hunkoids (Christian Finlayson).

Cut to Hunkoid's Mom coming in to complain about her son's grade -- "D on a poem?"  He copied the lyrics to a Kenny Lamar song.  So why not an F?    Mom threatens.  

In other news, Pink Hat's application for a job at the New Yorker has been rejected. 

Later, Pink Hat and boyfriend (Alexander Hodge) have dinner with his parents, who criticize her writing ambitions and his job painting restaurant signs.  They want them to move into their rental property, four bedrooms and two baths, for when you have children.  "You know the heterosexist trajectory: job, house, wife, kids?  Have some kids, already."

Pink Hat doesn't thnk she wants kids, which horrifies them."  But...you have a uterus...

After the horrible dinner, Pink Hat meets Male Gardener outside a garage to drink.  He reveals that they found her missing dog -- she's dead.  At least it doesn't die on camera.  Someone shot her!  Pink Hat seethes for revenge.

At school, the Hunkoid who plagiarized his poem drops by to explain: "That song moved me."  White Hat isn't impressed.  So does this mean that you'll stop lusting after him?  "So why did you give me a D?  D means dick. You think I'm a dick."

He approaches threateningly, and hints that because she "got personal," he killed her dog.

Seething, Pink Hat complains to the Principal: "He's rude, disrespectful..." Arrogant?   But the Principal won't expell him, because his parents are rich: they built the lacrosse stadium, the library...well everything.  "We work for them; they can do what they want."

Left: Hung Hodge

So she accosts Hunkoid's mom at the beauty parlor and says that she's reconsidered his grade: now it's an F, "because you've failed him as a parent."  That's not a good reason.  "Your son killed my dog."  Not a good reason either. 

Cut to Pink Hat being fired for standing up to the rich people.  Hunkoid drives up in his new car to gloat. 

Potential Victim: Hunkoid or his Mom

Male Gardener's Story: He's Ben Rappaport, top photo, introduced talking to Pink Hat about cars: "Coyote-V8 with dual Blistein shocks. It's the exact '66 Bronco I restored with my Dad"  What's with the car talk at a garden club?  Are the writers trying to prove that this guy is "a real man," that is, heterosexual?

Pink Hat tells us that Male Gardener is a dandelion.  They can grow anywhere.  Cut to him bringing his two toddler kids to "see Mommy."  Heterosexual identity established at Minute 2.14, unless you count the car talk.  He bursts into the office to find Mom "pollinating with another flower," har har.   So they broke up, and now he's gazing longlingly at Pink Hat.

In the present,  Male Gardener drops off the kids at his ex-wife's elegant Tudor.  But he has them for two more minutes, so he forces them to stay in the car, while they complain and ex-wife and Current Husband (Josh Ventura) glare at him.  

Left: on his Instagram, Josh Ventura claims that he's one of these guys, the stars of the tv series Satisfaction.   His followers commiserate over having a guy lying next to him; that must have been awful! 

But he not actually in the photo. They are Family Man Matt Passmore and Blair Redford as the hustler his wife hired.  Josh appears in just one episode.

Back to Gardening Society: Male Gardener waits in the back yard, glaring, for the kids' clothes to be washed and dried (by the ex-wife, naturally). In other news, Husband is speaking at his kid's career day.  Male Gardener offers to do it, but they say "Don't be silly, you have an awful job."  But it's Ex-Wife's fault: she promised to stay home with the kids while he started his car restoration business, but then she had an affair and cancelled the deal.  

Male Gardener and Current Husband compete to see who can throw a football at the son (into sports, like all "real boys."  Annoyingly gender polarized).  

Later, Male Gardener is driving with his kids, when he callously drives by a stalled motorist, even though he's a skilled auto mechanic.  Then he thinks, this might be a way to prove that he has a bigger d*ck that Current Husband, so he turns around and helps, blabbing car trivia and grunting.   The Motorist wants to thank him somehow.  Male Gardener grins.  No, of course he doesn't have that in mind.  No gay people in this universe.

More after the break

"The Residence": Murder at the White House, with a gay President, suit guy dicks, and Randall Park's butt

 

I wanted to see The Residence, a new Netflix comedy about a murder at the White House, because it has a gay character: the President. The Observer review specifies: "it's rarely discussed and simply accepted as part of the narrative landscape."  Buttigieg in 2028!  

Besides, I love a guy in a suit, and the White House will be full of them.

Episode 1 is "The Fall of the House of Usher," a reference to the Poe story.  

Scene 1: Thunder rumbles.  We pass the busts and portraits of former presidents.  An older man in a tuxedo (Giancarlo Esposito) walks down a busy hall, being greeted by passersby.  He peers down at a reception, and then a formal dinner with hundreds of people attending, including the Prime Minister of Australia.  There's a knock on the door, a woman screams, and we cut to the evening's entertainment, Kylie Minogue. The camera zooming through the hallways is making me dizzy.  Back to the screaming woman, who looks like Jane Curtin.  The older man is dead!

Left: this is supposed to be Giancarlo's penis, but all I see is a suitcase with a foot on it. 

Scene 2: The Capitol, a few months later.  A Congressional Hearing about the murder and the investigation that followed.  First to witness: Jasmine, the Chief Usher, in charge of overseeing the Executive Residence (the 3rd floor residence of the President and his family). 

Flashback to Jasmine sitting in the very authentic-looking Blue Room, drinking while she's supposed to be working. A waiter asked if she talked to him, and advises that she not do something she'll regret. Like murder?  "Too late, I already did."  

Suddenly Agent Rausch (a woman) appears, and brings her upstairs, where the President's best friend Harry Hollinger (Ken Marino, left) says that there's been an incident, and she has to keep everyone away from the second and third floors.  

Jasmine refuses to do it because she's only the assistant usher.  She thought she was going to be the chief usher, but it was made very clear that she wouldn't, so ask the actual Chief Usher, A. B. 

Ulp -- A.B. is the murder victim!

Scene 3: Jasmine takes the elevator down, and flashes back to meeting A.B. on the same elevator earlier that evening. She congratulates him on his upcoming retirement, but he announces that he's not retiring after all, so no Chief Usher job for her.  She bangs the doors and screams.  

Later Jasmine returns to a roomful of people, including the President's friend Hollinger, Secret Service Agent Trask, the FBI director, the head of the National Park Police, and Lawrence Dokes, chief of the Washington, DC metropolitan police. 

Scene 4: Testimony switches to Chief Dokes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.).  He explains that the White House is his jurisdiction.  No, it's not.    

Back at the crime scene, he brings in Cordelia Cupp, the greatest detective in the world, to help out.  She's on the South Lawn, bird watching. Best Friend Hollinger insists that it was a suicide, so they don't need an investigation.

Cordelia enters, discussing Teddy Roosevelt's list of birds (a real thing), and examines the body and the room -- it was locked from the inside -- a locked room mystery!   

Next she interviews the person who found the body: the President's mother-in-law, Jane Curtin in a bathrobe, who was watching a movie on tv.  She didn't go to the dinner because she doesn't like talking to people, especially her son's husband, the President.  First indication that the President is gay at Minute 14.  She heard a thump and a door close, and investigated to find the body in the Game Room.  

Cordelia gets a tour of the various other bedrooms, gym, music room, and solarium.  The President's brother Tripp was asleep, heard the scream, and went back to bed.  Best Friend Hollinger has a room there, too, which makes Cordelia suspicious.

Hollinger explains the severity of the situation: the last administration pissed off the Australians (and the Canadians, and the Danes, and...well, everybody), and this is a state dinner designed to smooth over relations.  They need to figure out what happened and put the least disastrous spin on it in 45 minutes.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit

"High Potential," Episode 1.13: This one has a gay character, a ridiculous plot, and a last-scene twist. Plus some cast members' members

 

I reviewed an episode of the Hulu series High Potential earlier, but it didn't get enough page views to keep on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.  The G-rated version is still up, on NySocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding.

Most likely the problem was representation: the show -- about genius cleaning lady Megan (Kaitlin Olson), a "flashy girl from Flushing" hired to help the staid, stick-in-the-mud cops solve murders -- was skittish about identifying gay characters, with only "no expressed heterosexual interest" to go on.  

So I'm trying another, Episode 1.13, "Let's Play."  It has an open, out gay character -- an interior decorator, yet -- played by Broadway actor Adam Kantor, who is queer in real life, bulged on the cover of Next, and showed us his backside, although I can't find a c ock. 

Scene 1: Obligatory "home life" scene, with Megan's ex-husband (Taran Killan) teaching her daughter to drive.  She almost runs over the whole family. Don't you take driver's ed in high school?

Cut to the police station, where Megan is asking the homicide detectives to pull over her daughter, because when she was a teenager, she got in a lot of trouble while driving, har har.

In other news, everyone is required to attend the big, important Police Gala, so the higher-ups can see that they're all team players. 

Time for the case of the week: They got an email saying "Spencer Wallace wouldn't play with me, will you?" And a photo of the scared, tied-up Spencer.  "Two hours to make your move."

They look up Spencer: 37 years old, unmarried.  Gay.  Interior designer.  Gay stereotype.

The cops insist that it's just a joke or a weirdo bondage scene that got out of hand, but Megan thinks that they should at least contact Spencer to see if he's ok. 

Scene 2:  Spencer's apartment. It's daytime.  Wouldn't he be at work? They find a black box with a jigsaw puzzle and a note: "Let's play."

Back at the station, Megan completes the puzzle in a few seconds (she's got all types of intelligence, apparently).  It's a map of Mulholland Trail, with a piece missing.  That's where they have to go for the next clue.

Scene 3:  Megan and Detective Karadec hike to the spot, and find a lot of Loco Ocho (Crazy Eights) cards hanging from a tree, with a note: "Pick a card, and then you'll go down a path and through the shade, before dear Spencer starts to fade."  The cops at the station call to reveal that Spencer is diabetic, and needs insulin by the end of the two hours, or he'll die. 

Left: Spencer's backside

Megan and Detective Karadec play the Loco Ocho game.  The last card is two, so they have to take the second path.  Wait -- wouldn't that vary, depending on the starting card?

They find a hopscotch game with numbers.  Megan plays and adds them up to -10 and 240, the coordinates they have to check with the viewers: it looks directly down onto Valley Days Storage.  Spencer is in a storage locker!  This is ridiculous.  Who would set up a series of games like this? There's one chance in a thousand that the cops will figure it out. 

Scene 4:  The cops banging on storage locker doors and yelling for Spencer.  Then they get the bright idea of asking the manager: Spencer rents Unit L-4.   Yep, he's in there.  And they brought insulin from his apartment to administer.  He'll be fine.  Wait -- we're done?  That was a short episode.

Scene 5: In the hospital, Spencer tells the cops that he doesn't know who kidnapped him. They grabbed him, took him to a dark room, and tried to get him to play board games, but he was too scared.  Then they got frustrated and started the game with the cops. Description: wearing a white anime mask, rosy cheeks, big eyes. 

Megan: "Why was your storage locker empty?"

Spencer: "I rented it with James.  He was my partner for nine years.  He died in an auto accident four years ago"  Gay identity established at Minute 8, except for the interior designer stereotype.  They were going to fill the storage locker with their stuff while they traveled to Europe, and now he can't bring himself to get rid of it.

With that revelation, Stuart leaves the show.  But we still have two victims left.

Scene 6: At the station, the cops figure that Spencer was a random victim; the Kidnapper was actually targeting them.  So who has a grudge against the LAPD? 

Megan isn't so sure.  The Kidnapper wanted to play kids' games with Spencer.  Maybe a childhood friend, or someone who wanted to be a friend and was rejected?

Cut to evening, with Megan picking up the to-go dinner orders for her family.  But a guy has already paid for them:  Domeneck Lombardozzi (left) playing the gruff, abrasive private detective who is looking for Megan's missing husband.  More of that ongoing plot arc, then some home stuff, and an invitation to the Police Gala from a cute guy. 

Scene 7:  Detective Oz (Deniz Akdeniz) comes in early to stare at the suspect board.  They have a lead at the Marina Park Hotel, coincidentally where the Police Gala will be held:  a carriage full of scary dolls, and "The fun has just begun" written in Scrabble letters. 

At the station, Detective Oz, reveals his connection to the case: He lost his Dad last year, so he's been going to a grief group.  He doesn't go all the time, so he didn't recognize Spencer at first, but he's a member, too. And he told them all the story of the empty storage locker.  Somebody in that group is the Kidnapper!

Scene 8: Detectives Oz and Daphne go to the grief group and interview the members. 

I predict that the Kidnapper will be group leader Chris, played by Maurice Hall (the one with the bulge, not the chest).

Back to the grief group: one woman says that she had a crush on Spencer, before "I realized I was not his type."  Just say gay.

In other news, Group Leader Chris is worried because member Sierra, an ASL interpreter, never misses a meeting, usually comes early, and she's not there. 

The group member suggest David as a lead.  He hasn't been there for several months, but he used to be a regular.  His family played board games all the time, until his sister died, and then they stopped.  He was more and more upset about it every week.  

Megan is skeptical: dude tries to reclaim his childhood innocence by forcing Spencer to play board games?  Doesn't make sense.

Well, just before he left the group, he invited everyone to trivia night at a bar.  No one showed up. Well, they're grief-stricken.  What did he expect?  So maybe he's hurt, and forcing them to play?  

Megan is still skeptical: why would he force the police into the games?

More after the break

"Murder Mindfully": "Family is everything," a limp-wrist villain, too much smarm, and not enough murder. In Germany. With Bjorn's backside and Hoseman's hog

I wanted to review the first episode of Murder Mindfully (Achtsam Morden, 2024) because I haven't watched a German tv series for awhile.  

Problem: the first five minutes had my blood boiling, and the rest was nauseatingly saccharine.  But the two main guys have favored us with a lot of n*de photos.

Scene 1: Narrating, Bjorn (Tom Schelling) tells us that he didn't used to be a killer.  He didn't murder anyone until he was 42. Then it was six guys all in the same week, and he did it for a good reason: to get a work-life balance.

Cut to the judge's chambers, where lawyer Bjorn is arguing that his client, accused of a jewelry store robbery, should get out on bail.  He was having a bad day, but he had a noble goal: he wanted to get an engagement ring for his girlfriend.  He may be an immigrant, but he has the same values we Germans do: "he dearly treasures marriage and family."  Heteronormative jerk! 

 Getting the ring was an important step toward "cementing the relationship with his girlfriend."  Ok, he's heterosexual, so he can't be a bad guy?  

Discovering that the defendant has slept with a woman and is therefore a good guy,  the judge quickly grants the bail.  

Except Bjorn was lying: the guy actually has no girlfriend!  He is immersed in a homosocial band of brothers.  Evil!

Bjorn notes that early in his career, he would never have petitioned to let an evil/no girlfriend guy out out on bail,  but now he works for a disembodied limp-wristed hand with an ostentatious lady's ring.  On your way to audition for RuPaul's Drag Race, girlfriend?

Limp-Wrist, aka Dragan Sergowicz (Sascha Gersak), is the head evil/no girlfriend dude in town, running drugs, weapons, prostitution, and other disgusting things. Sex work is legal in Germany.   He keeps Bjorn busy cooking his books and bailing out his no-girlfriend goons.
 

Scene 2: Bjorn (left) gets home late, having missed...you know what's coming, right? -- the birthday of his young Daughter/Reason for Living, who is asleep on the couch clutching a stuffed animal, pushing up the cutesy junk to the max. This is the meaning of life!  Family is everything!   At this point Tonstant Reader thwowed up.  

Wife is angry with him, and suggests mindfulness so he can go back to "family is everything" again,  But you can't spend 24 hours a day gazing at your wife and Daughter/Reason for Living.  You have to eat and sleep sometime.  

But Bjorn gives it a try.  He stares at Daughter/Reason for Living for about 10 minutes, then carries her upstairs to her room and has endless tender tucking-into-bed moments that I fast-forwarded past.

Scene 3: The next day at work -- wait, why are you still working? Why aren't you home gazing at your wife and daughter? Family is everything, remember?

Bjorn is upset because there's a roomful of suits congratulating each other over some sort of work victory.  The bullying secretary taunts him: "Oh, weren't you invited?  What a pity."  You weren't invited either, lady.   

Bjorn narrating: "I was the Cinderella of the law firm."  He had to do all the dirty work -- anything unethical or illegal -- but it was all hush-hush, so no one knew that he did anything at all.

Darn, dude is a failure at "work is everything," too.   

He has to make a change.  He hates "trite, useless New Age junk" like the idiotic mindfulness his wife suggested, but "I'd have moved to Sodom, Gomorrha, or a hippie incense shop" to get back to "family is everything!" Hey, is that a homophobic dig?

Scene 4: Bjorn's appointment with the mindfulness guru, an elderly guy with a huge empty studio, who chides him for being late.  Stay in the moment, dude.

Left: Bjorn's d*ck

He spends the next 17 minutes of screen time in his mindfulness training, and the rest of the episode trying to combine "family is everything" and "work is everything" by taking Daughter/Reason for Living to work.  When is he going to start murdering people?

Scene 10: At Minute 27, Limp-Wrist seeks out Bjorn for help.  He got a tip that Igor was moving into his territory, so he beat him to death and set him on fire.  But Igor worked for rival Crime Boss Boris, and now Boris wants to kill Limp-Wrist. Neither of these guys appear in the cast list

By the way, 50 schoolkids on a field trip videotaped the murder and posted online.  Limp Wrist jumped on the bus and yelled for them to keep quiet or he would kill them all.  They recorded and posted that, too. 

You're getting in deep, Limp-Wrist buddy.  See what happens when you don't have a girlfriend?

"So, what are you going to do for me?" Limp-Wrist asks.

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

"Population 11": Ben Feldman in an outback town with aliens, meat pies, secrets, lies, and dicks, doesn't get the Girl

Population 11, on Amazon Prime, stars Ben Feldman as a guy searching for his father in a paranormal-ridden Australian outback.  He teams up with The Girl, of course -- not once in a series like this does the guy team up with a guy.  But hey, Feldman is cute, it's Australian and there's paranormal.

Prologue: An old guy walks through the dark by a gigantic baobab and into a circle of giant termite mounds.  Suddenly he is illuminated by light -- from above!  He runs, stumbles, falls, screams.  Abducted by aliens?  I'll bet it's just a tease.

Scene 1: Andy (Ben) drives through the outback on the wrong side of the road, almost hitting a cop car!  The lady cop makes it very, very clear that she wants to have sex with him.  Her innuendos are extremely vulgar: "Breathe into my mouth, hot stuff...harder...harder..."  Not The Girl: slightly overweight.

After she gives him her phone number and answers the question "Can I go now?" with that annoying "I don't know, can you?", he continues on his way through the desert to Bilgudgee, population 12.  It has a park, a Chinese restaurant, and a pub in what looks like an old garage. A community board advertises trivia night and "Outback UFO Tours," hosted by the guy who was abducted by aliens earlier: "guaranteed sightings!"  

It's Andy's dad with a new scam!

A race car zooms in, almost hitting him.  Resident #1 is the lady who runs the pub/hotel.  Not the Girl: middle-aged.

She wants to know why Jimmy (Tony Briggs), Resident #2, isn't tending the bar.  A Catholic priest, he's trying to take confession behind a curtain.  20% of Australians are Catholic, but of course on tv it's almost everybody. 

Resident #3, a German-speaking guy named Cedric, doesn't mind: he has nothing to confess.

Andy claims that he came to town for the UFO tour, run by Hugo...not mentioning that Hugo is his dad.

They haven't seen him in a few weeks, but they take Andy to his house -- horribly run-down, with a lot of alien memorabilia.  Nobody home. Why not just say you're his son?  Then you could go inside and investigate.

Scene 2: The Sundew Caravan and Campground.  A caravan is a trailer in the U.S.  Usually you bring your own to the campground, but sometimes you can rent them.  

Andy goes to the office-trailer and asks Residents #4 and #5, a lesbian couple or mother-daughter, if they've seen Hugo. No, they don't speak with him, because "Mom's a drama queen." 

Next Resident #6, a bearded guy with a neck brace (Rick Donald), wonders if he's an FBI agent.  Andy says no, but the guy doesn't believe him, thinks he's a suspect, and starts yelling "I won't go down for this!"   Um...Australia is rather out of their jurisdiction. Maybe he's with the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, ASIO.

Left: Rick Donald's backside

Residents #7 and #8, an older guy with muscles (Steve Le Marquand), and his young wife or daughter, tell him that Hugo is a pain in the arse, but that's part of his charm.

Left: Steve Le Marquand frontal

So when is Andy going to meet the Girl of His Dreams?  He hasn't even been identified as heterosexual yet; that usually happens by Minute 2. Could he be....no way. I absolutely am not going to get my hopes up.

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 2.2 Kelvin clenches, Keefe dances, and everybody flirts with Eli. With proof that everything is bigger in Texas.

Previous:  Episode 2.1, Continued: Keefe's kiss, Kelvin's boner, and a thug with broken thumbs. With Jonah Hauer-King and a proper erection bonus

In Episode 2.1, while we establish the Kelvin/Keefe, Judy/BJ, and Jesse/Amber conflicts of the season, Eli's old friend Junior stops by, and acts very much like an ex-lover.  They go out to dinner and beat up a tough.  Now we see the aftermath.

Title: "After I Leave, Savage Wolves will Come."  In Acts 20.29. Paul tells the Ephesians that after he leaves, savage wolves or false teachers will tear the flock apart. So, who is the wolf invading the Gemstones' lives?

Eli Gemstone indicted! Thaniel Block sits on the porch of his rental house in the South Carolina woods, reading some news stories from 1993: Gemstone Family Studios to close due to "a financial and rumors of  sexual scandals," with $4 million missing.  Another article: "Eli Gemstone indicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy." But Episode 2.5 takes place at Christmas 1993.  When did all this happen? Geezer Tim drops by to criticize him for living in New York and having a "nasty attitude." 

A Hot Piece of Tail: Judy and BJ visit Eli to ask him to officiate in BJ's baptism.  They find him asleep on the couch in the parlor. Junior enters and asks "Who's this hot piece of tail?"  He's actually looking at BJ, but Eli assumes that he means Judy and says that she is his daughter.  He apologizes and asks if BJ is her lesbian partner. BJ starts to answer, but Judy cuts him off: "He's big-dicking you."

There are several takeaways here.  First, Eli and Junior did not sleep together; Eli fell asleep on the couch. Weren't there any guest rooms in his mansion? 

Second, check out Junior's magenta bathrobe, jaunty hand on him, and pinky ring: he is deliberately presenting as queer.   

Third, Eli may have mentioned that one of his children is gay, and Junior forgot which.

Execretions and Hep C Loads:  After Junior heads to the kitchen to make coffee, Judy wants to know what's going on.  Eli tells her that "things got a little carried away last night," which she interprets to mean that they are having rough sex.  He grimaces in disgust, but plays along to mess with her.  

Her main criticism is that Junior is unattractive: "I always hoped that if you were gonna yank a pole, it would be someone hot."  So Judy has considered the possibility that Eli is bisexual for a long time. 

She states that the "hookup" signifies that Eli doesn't care about his family.  Remember that Jesse likewise complains that Kelvin "popping boners" with the muscle men is "selfish, not helping the family."  But it's not just gay sex; on this show, having a partner of any sort is framed as a betrayal.  The family is aghast when Judy wants to move off the Compound with BJ; Baby Billy is still hurt over his sister Aimee-Leigh "leaving him" to marry Eli.  

As they storm out, Judy cautions BJ to not touch anything, as there are probably execretions and Hep C loads everywhere.  This is a call back to Abraham leaving his semen everywhere in Jesse's house, plus an awareness that Hepatitus C can easily spread through anal sex, so it is particularly common in gay communities.

Good Sniffer Seats: After they leave, Eli joins Junior on the back patio, overlooking the reflecting pool that leads to Aimee-Leigh's shrine.  Eli invites him to church, but he worries about the cost.  Junior avers that he's been to enough strip joints to know that you have to pay for the "good sniffer seats."  I can't find the term "sniffer seat" defined anywhere, but I guess that it's a seat close enough to the stage to smell the performers.  There are male strip clubs, but he's probably referencing a lady's club, being a hetero horn dog, backing off from the implication of same-sex activity. 

But not entirely: Eli offers to reserve a good seat for him, and the guys hold hands!

On closer examination, it turns out to be a man and a woman holding hands. We have cut to a scene involving Jesse and Amber's marital advice group. But it is so abrupt that the misdirection must be intentional.  The man is even wearing a shirt the same color as Junior's robe.

After the group meeting, Matthew and Chad ask why Jesse's old crew isn't hanging out together anymore.  This is all marital stuff, heterosexual nuclear family stuff; what happened to the band of brothers, savage and free?  Gregory explains; "I love you guys, but happy wife, happy life." You must abandon same-sex loves for heterosexual destiny.

You Got a Hound Dog Here: Cut to Thaniel visiting the Salvation Center, where he admits that he has sexual-scandal dirt on Aimee-Leigh, gathered from household staff.  Well, at least Kelvin is off the hook.

The World's Most Famous Christian: Next, Jesse and Amber visit the Lissons in Texas for a party to celebrate the proposed Zion's Landing resort. Joe Jonas, the World's Most Famous Christian, leads everyone in a line dance.  He proclaims his heterosexuality, singing about the "beautiful girls" he's been with while wearing a formless leopard robe and pink bandana, the antithesis of Kelvin's tiger jacket and porn-star-bulging jeans. Desire for women un-mans a man, renderng him soft and sickly; only in the manly love of comrads can a man be strong and free.

Keefe dances: At church, they welcome those who have found God in the past month, including BJ. He has always been a non-believer before; it is unclear whether he has actually had a "born again" experience, or is just pretending to be accepted by the family.  

The welcome is framed as a heterosexual union, with Judy hugging BJ and Kelvin grudgingly hugging a female convert. He's disgusted by touching "females," even as part of his job.  Meanwhile, on a balcony far removed from the stage, Keefe leads the God Squad in a dance, invisible, ignored, forever cut off from heterosexual practice, forever cut off from the family.  

Nude Texas dudes after the break

"The Third Day": Jude Law in "The Wicker Man," with scissor goblins, a dead son, Will Rogers, and Dagliesh dick

 

The Third Day, on Netflix, had an interesting premise: an island where "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."  The "third day" is when Jesus rose from the dead, so there may be some people coming back to life.  Plus it stars Jude Law, who played gay characters in Wilde (1996) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), so I'm in.

Update:  It's hard to find.  It keeps changing streaming services, from Netflix to Hulu to MAX, as if the universe doesn't want me to see it.  

Scene 1: Sam (Jude Law) stops his car on a deserted road to call a woman: the money is in the office, 40,000 pounds cash.  Don't call the police; don't let Amboy in the house.  He stares into space for a long time, then walks into the woods.  Everything goes blurry.  Is he entering an alternate universe?

He stops at a brook, and lets a small striped shirt float away.  Mourning a dead son.

Scene 2: Suddenly Sam hears a girl yelling at her friend to let go of the rope.  He rushes over just in time for a friend let go and run away.  She is hanging herself!  He cuts her down and asks if she wants to go to the hospital, but she just wants to go home.  

On the way, he gives his back story: he used to work with troubled youth in social services, but now he runs a garden center in London; he's married with two daughters.  Heterosexual identity established, he asks if someone is hurting or scaring her at home, but she won't say.

Weird detail: she asks for water, and then puts salt in it.  Who drinks salt water?  Are her people aliens out of the Cthulhu Mythos?

Home is Osea Island, across a narrow, winding causeway that's only open at low tide.  Very stressful to get across.

Back story: Osea is a real island in Essex, accessible by a causeway at low tide twice a day.  Over the years it has been home to a naval base and a rehab clinic, but now it's privately owned.

They pass a amphitheater, a lot of porta-potties, weird giant figures, and brown-robed goblins attacking townsfolk with scissors.  The Girl says that there are only 93 people living on the island, but this year they are opening their pagan cult festival to outsiders, hoping to turn it in to a music festival and raise some money.  

Hundreds of people driving on that narrow causeway?  They'll be driving right into the ocean.

Scene 3:  The Girl doesn't want to go home to her dad (uh-oh), she wants to go to the pub, where the Martins take her into the kitchen, whisper anxiously, and occasionally peer out at Sam.  He checks for cell phone reception -- none -- and looks at the pictures on the wall.  Why are there three pictures of corpses?

Mr. Martin (Paddy Considine) returns and dumps a hasty explanation: "She wasn't trying to hang herself, it was just fooling around like kids do; she's not afraid of her father or anybody on the island; everything is fine.  Thanks for bringing her home, but you should leave -- NOW!"

But Sam has to get in touch with Aday from Scene 1 right away: he's a planning official who will be deciding on whether they can go forward with their plans to build a new center -- this afternoon!

Mr. Martin doesn't like that name -- "African, innit? Lots of African immigrants on the mainland.  Everyone thinks that they cause trouble, but some are ok."  Dude is racist.

After a long, inappropriate story about how he and his wife always wanted kids, but seven pregnancies didn't come to term, Mr. Martin offers to escort Sam to his car so he can LEAVE, NOW!   

Scene 4:  On the way, Mr. Martin reveals that the music festival will coincide with their "Esus and the Sea" ceremony,. Esus was a Celtic war god, but because of the similarity in the names, everyone thinks that the ceremony is about Jesus.

Left: Jude's butt

Mr. Martin begins to interrogate Sam: why were you so far from home, on such an important day?   Also, Mrs. Martin recognized you, so you're not here by accident, are you?

Uh-oh, his car is blocked in, they can't find the driver, and the causeway will be closing in about 15 minutes.  Don't they have ferries?

Mr. Martin changes the urgency of his advice to get out. "You'll have to spend the night.  I'll put you in a room at the pub."

"No, I need to get off this island now!"  Sam reveals that the burglars took 40,000 pounds in cash, that they were going to use to bribe Aday! That's sleazy, but not as sleazy as I ithought.  Maybe he's lying.

Martin reaches the obvious conclusion: Aday stole your money.  But why would he steal the money, when they were going to give it to him anyway?

More after the break

"No Good Deed": Four lesbians, a gay realtor, a gay son, Oedipus, some murderers, and Phoebe from "Friends"

Braxton Alexander recommended No Good Deed, a tv series on Netflix, so presumably he's in it. The trailer shows Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Lisa Kudrow (Friends) spying on the couples interested in buying their house, no doubt planning something nefarious.  Plus I thought I saw a lesbian couple, so here goes:

Scene 1: Establishing shots of Los Feliz, the gentrified L.A. neighborhood. near Dodger Stadium. A Spanish Colonial house for sale.  The swishy real estate agent (Matt Rogers)  tells various couples that the homeowner is very invested in selling, while Ray Romano and Lisa Kudrow watch on their cell phone.  Uh-oh, they're up to no good.  Are they trying to find the perfect buyer to kill?

There are four stories, not interconnected, so I'll go through each separately:

The Soap Star:A scary unshaven guy with dark glasses signs his name in the register as John Smithe, but he's not a villain, he just plays one on the soap opera Rising Tides.  A shady handyman who cheated on his stepdaughter and was killed off. The first incest reference.  There will be more.

He's played by Luke Wilson, top photo and left.

Later, high-heel shoes enter the house.  I hate that cinematographic cliche.  Then a woman's back, like it will be a big shock when we finally see her face.   Gasp!  It's someone I never saw before!  What a shock!

Swishy Real Estate Agent Greg criticizes her for being a Lookie Louise, looking at houses but never buying one, but her real name is Margo.  

Ray and Lisa, watching from their secret lair, criticize her purse: "She looks like an AI-generated bitch."  Then they discuss the hardness of her nipples.  They definitely don't want to sell to her, unless she pays cash: "Then I will bend over and take the cash up my *ss," Ray says.  Anal sex joke.  There will be others.

Cut to the Soap Star talking to his manager on the phone. Back story: he's so deeply in love with his wife that he bought her an expensive house, some cars, and a boat, and now he's going bankrupt. But he can't help it: she wanted them, so what else can he do?  "Maybe buy a house you can afford?"  So that's why he was looking at the Spanish Colonial.

In bed, John's overbearing, painfully elitist, super-snob wife turns out to be high-heel Margo!  They discuss why Ray and Lisa are selling their house. 

Oedipus: A m-f couple, the man O.T. Fagbenle, the woman an architect and highly pregnant, tour the kitchen.  They discuss how much they love each other and smooch a few dozen times until Mom tells them to knock it off.  Way to go, Mom!  

She also complains that they didn't have a wedding, when her son has been dreaming of it since he was young.  Really?  I thought just girls planned their weddings.  When I was young, I was imagining my future career as an astronaut or Indiana Jones-style archaeologist.

Cut to Oedipus and Mom staking out the house.  Mom complains that they used to spend every moment of the day together, but now she sees him barely twice a year.  He explains: she used to be his whole world, his reason for living, but then he fell in love with someone else.  Be thankful for twice a year, Mom.  Some guys don't want to see their ex-lovers at all.

What's going to happen when the baby comes, and they both need to work?  They'll need someone to stay home with the baby, hint hint.  Dude, don't hire your mother/ex lover as your nanny!  She'll try to murder your wife to get you back.

In their next scene, Oedipus tells his wife that they can't afford the house on his novel royalties and her architecture, so why not have Mom chip in?  She is loaded.  Of course, she'll want to live with them.   Wife hates the idea.  Her husband's ex-lover, right there in the house with them? 

The First Lesbian Couple: Leslie, forceful and practical, and Sarah, quiet and mystical, examine the upstairs.  Sarah thinks it's "more of a family house," and it has a "dark vibe." 

They find a locked door.  It leads to the room where Ray and Lisa are hiding out and spying on everyone.  So, they're going to murder whoever buys the house?

On the way out, Practical Leslie is ready to make an offer, but Mystical Sarah doesn't want to spend all their money.  Besides, the neighborhood has a dark vibe.

Back story: They've been trying to get pregnant with IVF, but it doesn't work.  

That night, Practical Leslie drives through the neighborhood to prove that it is safe.  She sneaks into the garden of the house, planning to climb to the secret room's window and look inside, but instead she sets off the security alarm and the sprinklers.  Hiding in the bushes, she sees Homeowner Ray hide a gun in the piano. 

Meanwhile, at home, Mystical Sarah injects herself with something in secret.  She's either dying or a drug addict.

 The Second Lesbian Couple:  In bed, they discuss the house:  They could fix it up, put in a pool, and make a fortune off it.  They hatch an evil scheme to get it for under market value, and smoochify. 

Ray and Lisa:   While spying on the prospective buyers, they discuss how sad they are to be selling the house where Lisa grew up.  Wait -- I thought they were going to do something sinister to the buyer.  They just want a buyer who will "love the house as much as we do"?  How is that the premise for a tv series?  Somebody better get stabbed to death.

More back story: they're struggling financially; they took out a second mortgage, and now they're in arrears.  Lisa can't work, because she's a concert pianist with some sort of disease that makes her hands tremble.  

Lisa decides to go down and meet some of the prospective buyers, but Ray zooms in on an Old Guy, is horrified, and tells her "Don't go out there!"  Why, is Ted Bundy downstairs?

Later, the open house over, Lisa returns some photos to the mantle, showing her and Ray getting married and having a son and a daughter.  She sees them running through the house, playing "tag."  This memory makes her cry.  I'll bet the son and daughter died.

More secrets after the break

"School Spirits": Ghost girl, her gay bff, and their buds solve the mystery. With bonus pics of el novio desnudo

  

I'm a sucker for teenage ghost stories, as long as they are comedies, so I reviewed the first episode of School Spirits on Netflix:

Maddie (Peyton List) wakes up in the boiler room of her high school.  Her blood is splattered around.  But that's not the worst part: she's dead!  She can't touch or move anything.  She can see and hear the living but they can't see or hear her.  And she can't leave the campus!  

Her self-appointed guide is Charlie (Nick Pugliese, center), a gay kid who died in the school during the 1990s (peanut allergy, not hate crime).  He advises her to not try to remember how she died, since she can't change anything: no communication with the living is possible. But don't ghosts communicate with people all the time?  Maybe in the next episode.  And becoming fixated on the past is dangerous: some band members who died in a bus crash many years ago are obsessively performing the school fight song, over and over.

Charlie introduces Maddie to some other ghosts from various decades, notably Wally (Milo Mannheim, top photo and right), who died on the football field, and wishes that he had managed to shower first;  and the Goth Kirsten, who was murdered by her guidance counselor.  

Mr. Martin (Josh Zuckerman), a teacher who died in the school, offers regular group therapy, with regular homework ("write your obituary").  This doesn't get boring after 20 years because ghosts don't experience time in the same way that the living do.  He also advises Maddie to resist checking up on her living friends, as they will gradually forget her and move on.

Of course, Maddie doesn't listen.  She tries to recall events leading up to her death: she made plans to with her BFFs, Simon (Kristian Ventura) and Nicole, to see Carrie that night.  

Her boyfriend Xavier (Spencer MacPherson) was skipping class, and texted her to join him for a smooch session in his car.  She talked him into going to the movie.  They met the others after class with the tickets.  And that's it.

Out in the living world, Maddie's body has not been found, so she gets "missing person" posters and "thoughts and prayers" in class.  The BFFs think that this is ridiculous: they should be out looking for her.  Suddenly Xavier's bag flies open: he has Maddie's cell phone!  Why didn't he tell anyone for the last three days?  This makes him the prime suspect in her murder. The sheriff (Ian Tracey, left), who also happens to be his Dad, arrests him.

Beefcake: Charlie's "office" is the shower room in the boy's gym, where he can watch an endless parade of butts and cocks (just butts are shown).  Otherwise none.

Gay Characters: Charlie, and maybe Maddie's living bff, Simon. A future episode shows us Charlie’s  high school boyfriend, Emilio, who is now all grown up, married to another guy, and teaching at the school (played as an adult by Andres Soto).  Yes, that's his dick, not completely covered by the Scream emoji

Heterosexism: Maddie and her boyfriend kiss about 1,000 times. Of course, they won't be able to in future episodes, but Xavier has been seeing another girl on the side, so doubtless Maddie will be seeing some smooching.

The Mystery:  "Who killed Maddie, and why?"  It's obviously not Xavier or one of her bffs, and those are the major living characters introduced to date.  I also hope that we have some subplots involving the other ghosts.

Gemstone Connection: Both Milo Mannheim and Tony Cavalero appeared on The Conners.

My Grade: A-

More Andres after the break.Caution: explicit.

"Love Lies Bleeding": Lesbian neo-noir in the New Mexico desert, with some musclemen and bonus dicks

 

Friday's Movie Night movie was Love Lies Bleeding (2024), about a lesbian couple involved with bodybuilding, gun-running, and murder. I was not happy with the choice, thinking that it would be constant breasts and other body parts, but the sex scenes are actually quite subdued: a flash of breast in the first, fully clothed in the second.  And there are two scenes with beefcake.

The story: In a New Mexico desert community that seems to be all desert, no community, Lou runs a run-down gym, then goes home to her horrible apartment to feed her cat and be depressed.

Meanwhile, homeless bodybuilder Jackie -- wait, how can you work out six hours a day and eat 5,000 calories while homeless?  -- has sex with JJ (Dave Franco) to score a job as a waitress at main local business, a shooting range which is also a front for a drug-and-gun smuggling operation.

Left: Dave Franco's butt

Depressed Lou visits her relatives so she can be a tad less depressed.  Surprise: JJ is her brother!  He was cheating on his wife earlier!  Casting stupidity: Lou and JJ look exactly alike, but he is actually her brother in law, and the woman playing her sister looks absolutely nothing like her.

Next, Bodybuilder Jackie wanders into Depressed Lou's gym.  They bond over clobbering some sexist jerks played by Keith Jardin, left, and Jerry G. Angelo, below.  Lou has a side gig selling illegal steroids to gym members; she gives Jackie some for free because, you know, she's cute.  Soon they're kissing, then sexing, and then Lou invites this random hookup to move in.  Not smart, girlfriend.

Although this is small-town New Mexico in 1989, the lesbian couple is accepted with utter nonchalance.  I imagine if it was two guys, the townsfolk would horrified.

The only problem: Depressed Lou's employee, the ditzy comic-relief Daisy, has a crush on her, and is jealous of this new person in her life.  This will become important later.

Oh, wait, I forgot the other problem: when Depressed Lou brings Bodybuilder Jackie to meet the family, and it comes out that Jackie had sex with her brother-in-law JJ, she recoils in disgust.  First, she doesn't believe that "bisexual" is a thing; either you like girls, or you like boys.  Second, why JJ?  He's an abusive jerk.  Lou often wants to kill him.  Uh-oh, don't tell your bodybuilder-girlfriend with a sketchy past that you want to kill someone.

More after the break

"Bullet Train": Eleven assassins, Brad Pitt, and queerbaiting on the train from Tokyo to Kyoto. With some nude dudes

 

Friday's Movie Night movie was Bullet Train (2022), starring Brad Pitt as a professional assassin assigned to do an "easy" job, grab a briefcase full of money, on the bullet train that travels the 440 km (220 miles) from Tokyo to Kyoto in two hours. He doesn't realize that the train is crowded with other assassins, professional and amateur.

1. The Father, Andrew Koiji, wants revenge on The Prince, a gang lord who had his son thrown off a building.  

2. The Prince is also on the train, but he doesn't recognize her. She forces him to retrieve the money and load it with explosives, to assassinate her estranged father, #6, below.

3.-4. Tangerine and Lemon, Andrew Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry, a queerbait couple.  After nearly two hours of the two bickering, being affectionate, and discussing their life together, director David Leitch loses his nerve and makes them brothers.

They have rescued...

5. The Son, Logan Lerman, from kidnappers, and also retrieved the ransom money that Brad Pitt is supposed to steal.    But the Son is killed, I forget by whom, so....

6. The Son's father, Russian crime lord The White Death, Michael Shannon, shows up to kill Tangerine and Lemon and whoever else he thinks flubbed the job. 

Left: Michael Shannon's butt, for a change of pace

More assassins after the break