"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

"Cucumber": Lots of cucumbers on display as gay life in Manchester gets increasingly dark.

 

Cucumber, on Amazon Prime, is like gay Revenge, with plot twists, hidden agendas, and people who are not what they seem.  It starts out as a comedy, but turns darker and darker.  The nonsensical title, by the way, comes from a measure of erectile hardness, from tofu (semi-soft) to cucumber (rigid).  

Instead of scene-by-scene, I'm going to summarize the various cocksploits and tearjerks.

1. Middle-aged Manchester insurance salesman Henry (Vincent Franklin) gets angry when his boyfriend Lance (Cyril Nri, top photo) brings an anonymous guy, left, home for a three-way.  Maybe if you'd asked first, and waited for him instead of just going down?

Henry calls the police and has the two arrested (on what charge? consensual sexual acts are legal in Britain.), 

2. Henry moves out and seeks refuge with a twink couple from work, Dean and Freddie (Fisayo Akinade, Freddie Fox, left).  And starts flirting with Freddie!  Wait -- you get all huffy when your boyfriend wants an open relationship, but it's ok for the twinks?

Freddie the Twink says "No, thank you, we're monogamous."

3. Henry is upset because Freddie the Twink rejected him, but then goes out and hooks up with another old guy, Cliff (Con O'Neill).

4. Meanwhile Ex-Boyfriend Lance tries to hook up with Straight Guy Daniel (James Murray, left).  He refuses: "Sorry, I'm straight."

5. Henry's Sister and her hot teenage son Adam (Ceallach Spellman, right) arrive to stay forever. Henry decides to make some extra money filming his nephew having sex with other guys.

Meanwhile Ex-Boyfriend Lance empties the joint checking account. Never leave much in that joint checking account, buddy. One tiff, and it's gone.



More cucumbers after the break

"Ripley": A slow, artistic version of the gay-subtext con artist/murderer, with Tom's bum and Dickie's dick

 

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) stars Matt Damon as the charming con-artist Tom Ripley, who has a gay-subtext romance with Jude Law's Dickie before murdering him and adopting his identity.  The 2024 version is a tv series, and reputedly overtly queer, taking the gay subtext into text.  I reviewed the first episode.

Scene 1: Rome, 1961, atmospheric black and white.  Having just killed someone, a man with his face obscured puts on his shoes and hat and starts dragging the body down a palatial staircase.  

Scene 2: Six months earlier, New York. Tom (Andrew Scott) gets up in his run-down room in a residential hotel, walks the mean streets, steals someone's mail, and writes out a fake "payment overdue" notice

Then he goes to a bar and starts one of those highly-closeted 1960s hookups with a guy named Al (Bokeem Woodbine) Whoops, no, Al is a private detective, hired to find him and hook him up with the wealthy Mr. Herbert Greenleaf.  Tom refuses, then leaves to ride the subway and walk the mean streets some more.  

Back home, someone left his business card: From the IRS!  

Scene 3: Tom continues his scam: he steals payment checks, then calls or writes the sender, claims that it was lost in the mail, and has them send a new check to his own post office box. Nice establishing shots of the art deco post office and bank.  

Uh-oh, the clerk thinks something is wrong, and goes to consult the manager. Tom has to run away, and close down the whole collection agency scam!  What to do next?  Maybe Herbert Greenleaf's job won't be so bad...

Scene 4: Greenleaf Shipbuilders.  Tom is escorted past the big ships to the office, where Herbert Greenleaf tells him about the job: his son Dickie,  Tom's old acquaintance, has been living in Italy for years, pretending to be a writer or a painter, but really just goofing off.  Greenleaf wants Tom to convince Dickie to come home.

Why Tom?  They didn't know each other well.  Because none of Dickie's other friends wanted the job. Why would someone on the bottom of Dickie's friends list, who he doesn't know well and doesn't care about, be able to talk him into leaving Italy?  Tom must have a really big dick.

Scene 5: While he's considering the job, Tom has dinner with the Greenleafs. Back story dump: He went to Princeton. When he was young, his parents drowned. Uh-oh, maybe he killed them. Then they look at some photos of Dickie when he was young, in college, and now, in Atrapi, with Marge -- "girlfriend, friend, who knows?"  So Dickie is gay.

Scene 6: Tom at the tailor's, inspecting the clothes the Greenleafs bought for him. He gets his passport, signs travelers' checks, throws out his scam checks, and we're on the Orient Express!  In the Swiss alps; I guess in those days you flew in through Paris?   

He writes to his Aunt Dottie, who is getting a dental procedure -- which we see, for some reason: "You're free of me now, and I of you." I like the slow, moody structure, with the beautiful, weird shots of fire escapes, catwalks, and sculptures, but it's a little too slow.  How much time do we need to devote to Tom brooding?.

Scene 7: Naples. Tom gets off the train, changes some travelers' checks, and asks for a bus to Atrapi.  He is pushed into a cab instead, and arrives at a darkened station in the middle of the night.  Nothing to do but wait until morning, then get on the real bus -- for a trecherous drive through the mountains!

Atrapi, finally!  He asks someone, in bad Italian, for Richard Greenleaf, and is directed up endless stairs, through arches and corridors, up more stairs. to a villa.  Where he is told that Richard is down on the beach!  Is this supposed to be a comedy?

Scene 8: Tom at a shop, trying on a very bulging swimsuit, while ladies giggle at him. He asks for something a little less revealing. 

The beach is deserted -- oh, there in the distance is Dickie, lying down, fully clothed, with Marge's head on his thigh.  Tom wakes them and introduces himself, pretending that this is a chance meeting. Dickie doesn't remember him, but invites him to go for a swim.  Uh-oh, Tom is afraid of the water, since his parents drowned.  He won't set foot into the water.

More Dickie after the break

Brad Hallowell: A decade of dicks. The rest is silence.

 As Janet Weiss said in Rocky Horror, "I don't like men with too many muscles." Greek gods are nice to look at, and fun to do stuff with, but cuddling with a marble slab afterwards?   So when I stumbled onto a nude photo of Brad Hallowell while  researching something else, I thought "Nearly a perfect body.  Why haven't I heard of this guy before?" 

Maybe because he's nearly anonymous.  No Instagram, X, Facebook, or TikTok page, an IMDB biography with just his home town and date of birth -- Waterville, Maine, February 13, 1981.  Seven movies listed on IMDB, all between 2006 and 2016.  Most directed by Todd Verow, most featuring frontal nudity.  A decade of dicks, and then silence.

Vacationland, 2006: A high school senior ditches his girlfriend for a same-sex romance. Brad is 25 years old.

Hooks to the Left, 2006. An "experimental" film, shot with a cell phone camera, about the adventures of a hustler named Nail.

Between Something and Nothing, 2008.  An art student gets a girlfriend and pursues a hustler.

The rest of the decade after the break

"Stonewall": A movie about the riots that began the Gay Rights Movement, with nice cops, a White Saviour, and some dicks.

The Stonewall Riots of June 28-30, 1969 began with patrons of the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village fighting back against police harassment.  They ended with the modern Gay Rights Movement and the "minority group" model of LGBT identities. Today there are Pride festivals and parades around June 28th of every year to celebrate that beginning., and queer history, literature, culture, and politics are definitively divided into pre-Stonewall and post-Stonewall. 

Although there have been many books and documentaries, Stonewall (2015) is the first movie intended for a mass audience.  It assumes that you are straight, with little or no knowledge of the riots, an ally but mostly unaware of the closeted, harassed, hounded life of LGBT people before Stonewall (and sometimes still today)

1. Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine), a clean-cut all-American kid from rural Indiana, gets a scholarship to Columbia, but before his parents can fill out the scholarship papers, they discover that he is gay and kick him out.  His closeted boyfriend, football star Joe(Karl Glusman), refuses to talk to him.  

Bonus Karl Glusman cock after the break

So he goes to New York anyway, where everybody -- repeat, everybody -- falls in love with him.  Well, what do you expect from the focus character?

Danny lives on the street, and works as a hustler (although the look of pure disgust he gets whenever a client tries to go down on him would probably limit his success).

He hangs out and often lives with a group of androgynous gay and transgender street kids led by Ray/Ramona (Johnny Beauchamp). 

2. They are regulars at the Stonewall Tavern, a dive-bar run by Mobster Ed Murphy (Ron Pearlman), who may have murdered Ray's boyfriend. It was illegal to serve alcohol to "a known homosexual," so all gay bars were underground, mostly run by the mob.

3. Meanwhile Danny gets involved with Trevor (Jonathan Rhys-Meyer, left), a middle-class college student,  who picks up twinks by playing Procul Harem's "Whiter Shade of Pale" on the jukebox.  I'm always moved by the line: :She said "There is no reason 
And the truth is plain to see."

Left: Jonathan Rhys Meyer butt

More after the break. Warning: explicit

"Scream Queens" Episode 2.2: Glen Powell and John Stamos compare dicks at a sinister hospital. Also, there's a serial killer. And some butts.

 I was recommended Glen Powell's shower scene in Episode 2.2 of the horror-comedy Scream Queens.  I watched ten minutes of the first episode when it premiered in 2015, and turned it off, but for a shower-scnee, why not give it another chance?

The premise: this is a genre-bending horror-comedy about a serial killer stalking co-eds, all named Chanel, with the headmistress played by Jaime Lee Curtis, the Last Girl from Halloween.  

Scene 1: In the last episode, a swamp monster played by Jeremy Batiste killed a patient at the C.U.R.E. Institute, where "the incurable are curable." Wait, I thought we were at a college. The cop is not impressed, and thinks that Outcast Chanel did it. Evil Dean Munsch, played by Jaime Lee Curtis, thinks that the cop  is an idiot.

The other two Chanels also think that Outcast Chanel did it, out of frustration because she's so ugly no one will screw her: "The closest shes gotten to sex is when a bookshelf fell on her."  Why, did it have a book about sex? I don't get the joke.   And jealous because they scored hot dates with the Sleazoid Doctors, Brock and Cascade(Taylor Lautner, John Stamos, left).

Scene 2: The Sleazoid Doctors and Chanels are interviewing Tyler, played by Colton Haynes, who is covered with large orange tumors. Actually not disgusting.  So the Chanels have graduated with nursing degrees, and all gone to work at the Institute, and the headmistress became their boss?  That's not at all unlikely.   

His  regular doctors say that it is incurable, but the Sleazoid Doctors think that they can remove the tumors with a CO2 Laser.  Except they're are too expensive; there aren't any at the center. So just transfer him to a facility that has one.

Scene 3: A non-Chanel nurse and Chamberlain, played by James Earl, wonder why, if Evil Dr. Munsch was upstairs during the murders, she didn't hear the screams and growling?  She must be in on it.

Last season, she was in charge of a college, and plotted some crazy stuff, but the Chanels foiled her plan.  Dr. Munsch must have brought them here for revenge, sending the swamp monster  to pick them off one by one. So, what are her qualifications?  All she has is the honorary Ph.D. that the University of Pittxburgh took from Bill Cosby.

Scene 4:  Sleazoid Doctor #1 on his movie date with the Head Chanel. She reveals her favorite hobby: dropping popcorn on the floor, so the fatties feel bad about themselves.  He loves the idea!  

Meanwhile, Orange Boy and Outcast Chanel bond over stories of being the outcast in their cliques. He shows her a picture from before the orange tumors: he was hot!  She vows to get him the money for the CO2 Laser. 

More screaming after the break

"Down Low": Netflix bait-and-switch movie that turns a gay hookup into something dark. With Simon Rex's dick.

 

Down Low, on Netflix (2023). "An overeager massage therapist guides a client with repression through his first queer encounter, but their hookup has a less-than-happy ending." 

A downlow guy lives as a "family man" who has achieved the entire heterosexual trajectory of house, job, wife, and kids, but has sex with men secretly.  Unless "down low" means something else here.

So the family man tells the masseuse that he likes guys, so she hooks him up, and things go south?  Sounds interesting.  But before I jump in, I always conduct some research, to avoid nasty surprises.

WTF?  This plot synopsis on wikipedia sounds like a completely different movie!  There are like a dozen nasty surprises, any one of which would have me "noping" out of there.  

Zachary Quinto stars as "family man" Gary.  I've seen Zachary Quinto in Star Trek, American Horror Story, and The Boys in the Band. Something about his smug, weasly expression grates on my nerves.  Nope #1

He's not on the downlow at all.  He is dying of a brain tumor. Nope #2: no movies about people who are dying of incurable diseases.  Why would anyone ever want to see a movie like that?  How could anyone stand to act in it?  Or write the script?

When he discovers that he is dying, Gary decides to come out, whereupon his wife dumps him.  Not a nope, but really homophobic of the lady to dump him just because he's gay.

The massage therapist is actually a hustler, Cameron (Lukas Gage).  Maybe they do massage too.  This promotional still makes him look like a trans woman, but in the synopsis, the character is always described with he/him pronouns.  Maybe it's a misdirection, so viewers will think that Gary is hooking up with a lady.    

The Hustler uses a dating app to find Gary a hookup  (Sebastian Arroyo).  Wait -- why not just have sex with him yourself?  That's what you're being paid for.

Unfortunately, the hookup does not find Gary attractive enough to screw.  Everyone argues, and he is accidentally killed Nope #3: the abrupt death of a major character. 

Gary and the Hustler hire a Necrophiliac (Simon Rex) to have sex with and then dispose of the Corpse. Nope #4: it's never really come up before, but necrophilia is a big nope.

Due to plot complications, the Necrophiliac can't do his job until the next day, so they spend the night mopping up the blood and smoking crack.  Nope #5: amoral major characters aren't a major "nope," but if I'm already annoyed from watching Zachary Quinto... 

By that time, the Corpse has come back to life and is trying to get away.  The necrophiliac kills him again, and then Gary and the Hustler kill the Necrophiliac.  Nopes #6-7: too many people killing each other too eagerly.  This is definitely not a comedy.

Then they have sex with each other.  You could have just done that at the start, and avoided the multiple murders.  

Later, after Gary dies, the Hustler shows up at his funeral, yells at the ex-wife and the church that abandoned him when he came out, and steals the body.  He dumps it in the lake, which he thinks is a better memorial. Nope #8: portraying gay people as perpetual outsiders, rejected by church and family.  Not really a nope, but way homophobic.

Moral: Always read more than one plot synopsis or watch more than one trailer.  They often make completely contradictory claims.  Remember when Road to Terabinthia was advertised as a fantasy like Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia?  It's about a girl who is dying.

Down Low is not about a guy in the downlow.  It's about a guy who is dying. 

Bonus bulge and dick pics after the break.  Warning: explicit.

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

Under the Banner of Heaven: Murder and crisis of faith in a fundamentalist Mormon familiy with five brothers (and five dicks)

 Under the Banner of Heaven, a Hulu series about corruption in the LDS Church, was written and produced by Dustin Lance Black, who is gay, so there's bound to be some gay characters or subtexts.  Besides, who isn't interested in cute Mormon missionaries?  

Scene 1: Establishing shot of Salt Lake City.  Jeb (Andrew Garfield), a super clean-cut nuclear family Dad, is listening to "Let's Hear it for the Boy."  A gay anthem!  So the protagonist is gay?   His preteen daughters, who wear long pioneer dresses, ask him to do loving-father activities, like lasso them.  Wife, who wears a modern t-shirt and cut-off jeans, calls him to the phone.  He has to go to work, so everyone has to do the evening prayers early.

We hear all the prayers: for the Mormon missionaries (how about a visual?), for Church President Kimball, for Grandpa in heaven, and for an Easy-Bake Oven.  "Let's Hear it for the Boy" came out in 1982, and Spencer Kimball died in 1985, 

Scene 2: Continuing to pray, Jeb the Cop puts the siren on his car and heads to a house surrounded by yellow tape and police cars.  Inside: the tv on, bloody footprints, scattered toys, a dead lady, and something in a basinet that makes him say "Evil."  The dead lady's murder was not evil?    He goes out to the yard and arrests the bloody young man who happens to be walking around.

Scene 3:  At the police station, Jeb the Cop and his Gentile (Non-Mormon) Partner do the good cop-bad cop routine on the blood-splattered suspect, Allen Lafferty (Billy Howle), who happens to belong to one of the most important familiies of the Church.  He claims that for the last year, "peculiar men" dressed like Mormon prophets have been stalking his family, so no doubt they did it.  They are probably after his brothers and their wives and kids, too.

Left: Billie Howle, Dick #1

Scene 4: While they book and strip Allen, Jeb watches, flashing back to someone he saw at church (was this a flash of same-sex attraction?).  They send a squad car out to check on the only brother whose address Allen knows: the others all moved to hide from the humiliation of having a brother who left the Church.

Scene 5: Jeb is too disgusted to continue the interrogation, so his Gentile Partner continues alone.  Stunt casting: he's played by Gil Birmingham, a bodybuilder who appeared in Diana Ross's music video "Muscles" in 1982.

Allen: if you want to know who did, check out the Mormon saints.  

Flashback to his future wife Brenda winning runner-up in the Miss Twin Falls, Idaho contest in 1980, then going to Brigham Young University, to stay away from the "Democrats and crazies," and studying broadcast journalism.  She meets Allen at church.  

Back at the interrogation, Allen blames the Church on his wife's death: "My only regret is that I didn't drive her out of Zion (Salt Lake City) to protect her from our people."  

Scene 6:  Jeb the Cop continues to ruminate about how evil Allen is, to do that to a baby (and an adult?).  They're still having trouble tracking down the addresses of his brothers and their wives/kids, so Jeb calls his wife -- they went to church with the Lafferty family, so maybe she has some of the brothers' addresses.  

He returns to the interrogation: Jeb: "So, you despicable monster, was there anyone besides you who hated Brenda enough to do it?"  Allen:  Everyone hated her because she was so perfect."  Yeah, I heard that a lot in high school.

Scene 7: Flashback to Allen introducing Brenda to the family at a picnic. "Just don't say much," he warns. Patriarch Ammon (Christopher Heyerdahl, Dick #2) wants to know why she abandoned Twin Falls, Idaho for the evil Big City (Provo, Utah?).  There are an endless number of boisterous brothers, Stepford wives, and staring kids to meet. 

More Lafferty boys after the break