"Teacup": Body-jumping aliens, two heterosexual romances, a gay subtext boyfriend betrayal, and Rob's knob

Probably-gay actor Jackson Kelley notes that he had a starring role in the paranormal horror Teacup, on Peacock. I figured he would be playing a gay character, so I checked it out.

The premise: On a farm full of good country folk, animals start behaving strangely, then people start trembling and speaking in riddles.  The power and WIFI go out. 

An invisible "teacup" trap marked by a blue line appears around the property; any person or animal that crosses it dies a horrible death.  A guy in a gas mask keeps patroling and gesturing.  Sound doesn't get through, so he uses a board to say things like: "Stay behind the line" and "Trust no one" 

The people trapped inside the "teacup" are divided into heterosexual nuclear families:

Family #1: James (Scott Speedman, left, from Animal Kingdom), his wife (a veterinarian), sick elderly mother, teenage daughter, and preteen son.

Family #2: Ruben (Chaske Spencer from Twilight), his wife, and his teeange son, trapped there when they brought their horse to see the veterinarian.   

Soap opera plotlines: The wife is secretly having an affair with James, and the son has been in love with James' daughter since he was in second grade, but is trapped in the Friend Zone (but not for long). 

Family #3: Donald Kelley (Boris McGiver. left) and his wife from the farm next door also happen to be there when the teacup is  put up.

The Newcomers: While everyone is dealing with the crisis and soap opera stuff, preteen Arlo (Caleb Dolden) tells his sister and her not-boyfriend that the Assassin is coming to kill them all.  The only way they can escape is with a multicolored liquid from a crashed meteor, so they gather a vial full.

Gas Mask Guy wants the vial, and crosses the blue line to get it, whereupon they stab him.  

Meanwhile, James finds the injured Travis (Jackson) hiding in the basement, worried that he's "one of them" and ready to shoot.  As they have a standoff, Travis tells his story:

Gas Mas Guy at a Bar: Flashback to Travis as the new guy working at the bar, mesmerized by Gas Mask Guy, McNab (Rob Morgan).  Wouldn't you be?

Left: Rob Morgan having coffee n*ude.  But he doesnt' have a lot of tattoos; maybe it's his breakfast companion?

He's telling about the aliens who set force-field "teacup" traps that incinerate any complex organism that tries to get through.  They're non-corporeal, using human bodies as hosts.  They can jump from body to body.  Often the humans aren't even aware of it, so anyone could be hosting an alien.

Bartender Big Al tells Travis to pay attention to the other customers; he'll wait on McNab himself.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

"Wayward": A troubled youth school in 2003 and 2025, with gay teases, annoying misdirections, delinquent muscle, and Patrick's penis

 

The 2025 tv series Wayward (one of those annoying Netflix one-word titles) is set at a school for troubled youth, so there's bound to be a lot of 30-year old fitness models playing juvenile delinquents, working out in the gym, lying shirtless in their bunks, and forming gay-subtext buddy-bonds.  I'm in.

Scene 1: A teenage boy (John Daniel), with a bloody shirt, breaks through a window and runs away from the Tall Pines Academy, while spotlights, dogs, and armed guards chase him, and a brainwashing chant plays "You're on your back, crying for your mother.  Your mother's face is a door..."  

Running Boy is trapped by a lake.  He tries to hide under the water, but the brainwashing chant is too much.  He sees a door and screams.

Scene 2: Toronto, 2003.  A lesbian couple, free-spirit Leila and her responsible Girlfriend, are sitting on the roof of their school, smoking and discussing their futures after they break free.  They pledge allegiance to the Beatles, escape from the roof, and are called into the headmaster's office (Patrick J. Adams, left).  He tells Leila that she is failing her classes due to her traumatic past, and dragging the Girlfriend down with her, so she is going to be sent to Tall Pines Academy in the U.S.

Patrick's d*ck after the break

Scene 3: Tall Pines, Vermont, now. A butch/femme lesbian couple, the femme extremely pregnant, head through town.  Butch Alex complains about how old-fashioned and dinky it is, and when they get to the house, complains about its retro 1950s look.  But they have no choice: Detroit turned out to be a shithole, and the Wife grew up here, so they can get a house easily.  Alex decides that she can endure it, and they start making out.

Two lesbian couples?  Nice representation, but how about some gay men?  John Daniel is quite femme in real life.  If Riley isn't dead, maybe he'll be gay.

The 2003 and 2025 timelines are interspliced, but I'm separating them to make the plot easier to understand.

Toronto, 2003:  Leila and her girlfriend are raiding the refrigerator and discussing shrooms.  Girlfriend doesn't like Kyle (Donald Maclean, Jr): he never hangs out, and he's way old, like 26.   In other news, Eli is totally horny for Girlfriend.  Wait -- these girls are straight?  But they're hanging all over each other and discussing their future together.  Sounds like queerbaiting.

Suddenly Girlfriend's Dad Brian (not listed in the IMDB) and the rest of the family appear, all irate.  After kicking Leila out, Dad complains that Girlfriend is going to fail all her classes this year to hang out with a criminal.  Back story: Everyone thinks that Leila murdered her sister.

Leila goes home to a horrible house in Toronto's ghetto, where her mom is watching a tv show about out-of-control kids that terrorize their parents.  Up to her room to get high and burn the Tall Pines Academy brochure.

The next day, the history class is watching The Thomas Crowne Affair with Pierce Brosnan?  The teacher is starting to cry; two hetero students are making out right at their desk. Girlfriend wants to know what this has to do with Canadian history -- it's not even set in Canada.  Uh-oh, Eli  (not listed in the IMDB), starts flirting and proffering pills.  He saw the exams in the staff room, so Leila and Girlfriend are going to break into the school so they can steal the answers. 

When Girlfriend gets home from school, she finds Dad entertaining Bill from Work and his wife, who criticize her outfit and interest in social justice. The parents order her to go upstairs, change clothes, and help with the entertaining, "and pretend to be our daughter."  This causes her to blow up.  Dad grounds her, but she escapes and runs away. 

Left: random guy with no connection to the show.  This review was getting a little beefcake-light.

The girls and Eli sneak into the school, take some shrooms, and frolick before stealing the test questions that will allow them to pass.  Then Leila dumps the Girlfriend to hang out with her boyfriend Kyle. At least she left Eli for you to do stuff with.

Later, Girlfriend tries to sneak back into the house, but the whole family is still up.  Her sister hugs her. Who died?

She goes to bed, but is awakened by men with flashlights, who tie her up, put a bag on her head -- with the parents' permission -- and drag her to a sinister white van. That's hardly a legitimate way to enroll a teen in a troubled youth academy.  

The sun is just coming up when they arrive, and are welcomed by headmaster Leanne.  Wait -- how did they get through American customs with a screaming, tied up girl?

2025 Vermont after the break. Caution: Explicit.

"Cavendish": Brothers, one gay, face paranormal peril in a quirky PEI town. With Sandiford bulge and Canadian cocks

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"The Curse": One of many "cursed" tv shows leads me from Bjorn Mosten to Xavier R., with a lot of dicks in between

 

Amazon Prime recommended a British tv series called The Curse (2022).  I'm interested in the paranormal, but British dramas are not great at LGBTQ representation, so rather than going through an entire episode, I conduct an internet search on The Curse (2022) and "gay characters." 

A lot of movies and tv shows with that title appeared between 2021 and 2023.  Doesn't anyone ever check to ensure that single-word titles aren't repeated?  

The Curse (2021):  When its new owners (including Laurence Rupp) move in, the curse on a haunted house resurfaces. Left: Bjorn Mosten, who appears when you search on "Laurence Rupp nude."

The Cursed (2021): In 17th century France, Seamus (Alastair Petrie) attacks a Romani camp.  They get revenge by sending a werewolf to kill people in his village. 

Left: Alastair's backside.

The Curse (2023): An American tv series about a newlywed man and woman trying to be eco-friendly in a small New Mexico town.  It stars Emma Stone and Nathan Fielder.

Left: Nathan's penis, or a prosthetic. 

He also shows his backside.

The Curse (2023): An American tv series about the host of a HGTV show about "passive homes," starring Emma Stone and Nathan Fieder.

Wait, this is the same show with a completely different premise.  Did they reboot halfway through?

Reverse the Curse (2023): Ted (Logan Marshall-Green) is a failed writer turned penis vendor at Yankee Stadium. He moves home to care for his dying father, and creates a winning streak for his favorite baseball team.

Sorry, I meant peanut vendor, but he shows his penis, too. 

After the first five, I give up: Apparently the British tv series The Curse (2022) exists nowhere on the internet except on Amazon Prime.  

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

"Surreal Estate," Episode 1.1: Realtor and his scoobies investigate haunted houses, with gay characters and a lot of n*de Matt Whites

  

Surreal Estate (2021-23), on Hulu, appeared on Reddit about shows with "normalized" LGBT characters, not struggling to come out or fighting homophobia.  None of the episode synopses suggest gay characters, and the icon shows a man and a woman, but here goes, Episode 1.1

Scene 1: Night. A man in a 1940s detective costume walks through a thunderstorm to a creepy house. The sign says "For Sale by Owner." 

Inside, it's too dark to see much, but a woman in a bathrobe seems to be reading an antique book on human anatomy.   She gets scared when the surgeon in a photograph seems to be grinning evilly at her.  Suddenly the room catches on fire (at least we can see something now).  She runs outside, but runs into the Old Fashioned Man.  

Psych!  He's not the ghost of a 1940s detective, he just dresses like one: Luke Roman (Tim Rozon of Schitt's Creek), interested in the house.  So call in advance?  

She hugs him: "The house wants to kill me!"  That's every home owner's complaint, girl.

He can help with that.  They gaze into each other's eyes.  I'll be they start dating, and she joins the paranormal real estate team.

Scene 2: At Shirley's Diner, still too dark to see much, Homeowner Megan, says that her fiancé is coming to pick her up.  Don't you hate it when they mention a boyfriend halfway through the date?

Luke shows her a video about his company, SMEP, Specialists in Metaphysically-Engaged Properties, those with a market value depreciation due a tragedy occuring there.  Sometimes they are haunted, sometimes not, but the rumor makes it lose 37% of its market value and takes 317% longer to sell. 

Megan's swishy boyfriend Brock (Matt White) flounces in with a teeth-click, a flamboyant wave of his umbrella, and a "What up, Girlfriend?"  Shouldn't be too hard to convince him to be true to himself, so you can have Megan for yourself.  

Matt White has nine acting credits on IMDB, including six shorts,and three walk-ons.  This may not be the right one, but there are lots of other Matt Whites to choose from: a baseball player, a football player, an artist,  a musician, a comedian, and a billionaire.

Left: Matt White d*ck

Scene 3: At the agency, Luke tells his scoobies, two men and a woman, about the case.  Homeowner Megan is a medical student who inherited the haunted house from her grandfather.  Swishy boyfriend lives with her (in his own room, I assume).  

On to otheir other case, a house with a poltergeist. It came out clean: no entities.  But Rita, the Evil Realtor who hired them, insists that things were flying around.  Nobody wants to confront her because she's so evil, so they get the New Girl to do it: a ringer who got $10 million in sales at her last agency.  

Introductions:

Father Phil (Adam Korson, right), a defrocked priest with nice biceps, does the background checks and due diligence.

More after the break

James Stockdale: Disability advocate, solicitor, Caliban, gay guy who refused to make out with Dylan Llewellyn

 

I was interested in James Stockdale, the Caliban Boy from Wednesday (as well as the n*de dude on the poster behind him: a subtle sign that his character is gay?). He has no social media presence, but we can get a bio from some articles and interviews.  

He was born in 2002 in Dungannon, Northern Ireland, about an hour's drive west of Belfast.  While attending the Royal Schol Dungannon, he appeared in a number of plays at the Bardic Theater:  Joseph & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Wicked, Grease, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

James made his film film debut in A Christmas Star (2016) as the best friend of a girl who thinks she can perform Christmas magic (of course, she can).  It also stars Robert James-Collier. 

Next came Delicate Things (2017), alongside famous Northern Ireland actor Ciarán McMenamin as a man with a dead wife...yawn

Zoo (2017) is not to be confused with We Bought a Zoo (2011), starring Matt Damon: during the bombing of Belfast in 1941, Tom (Art Parkinson), the Girl of His Dreams, and his "misfit friends" (including James) try to save a baby elephant at the zoo.  Stephen Hagen appears also.

Left: Stephen's d*ck.

Here's Looking at You, Kid (2018): Hubert (James) deals with tragedy by pretending to be a private detective.

James graduated from the Royal School Dungannon in 2020, and enrolled at Queens University in Belfast. He was nervous about living on his own: he has several disabilities, including dwarfism, a missing right hand, hip and foot deformities, and scoliosis, so daily living can be a challenge, but his experience at Queens was "brilliant."  They put him in the Elms Dorm for students with accessibility needs, and gave him a specially designed dorm room and bathroom, a parking pass, and a library aide. 

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

"Wednesday": The Top 13 Hunks and Hunkoids of Nevermore Academy, some gay, some with d*cks

 

The second season of Wednesday, featuring the boarding-school adventures of the Addams Family girl, has dropped on Netflix.  Again there seem to be no gay characters.  Netflix is usually good at LGBT representation; I'm guessing that it's the Charles Addams estate that wants Wednesday's world to be gay-free.  

But there are a number of gay actors, and a variety of hunks and hunkoids to add to the queer enjoyment of the series.

1. Hunter Doohan as Tyler, son of the local sheriff and secretly a hyde (werewolf).

Hunter's backside.

Hunter is gay, and married to Fielder Jewett.

2. Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley, Wednesday's younger brother, a new student at the school.  He's also a fashion model who wears multiple rings, so I assume that he's gay.

3. Georgie Farmer as Ajax Petropolus, a gorgon student at Nevermore Academy.  His social media doesn't mention a girlfriend, so....

4. Luis Guzman (right) as Wednesday's father Gomez, who gets a plotline in Season 2.  

Short and chubby, two selling points, if he's available.

5. Haley Joel Osment, the "I see dead people" kid, as a serial killer.  I've always assumed that he's gay, but Google AI says he's straight (or rather "not gay").

6. Moosa Mostafa as Eugene, Wednesday's ally, who has a crush on her roommate. 

More after the break

"Goosebumps: The Vanishing": Ross from "Friends" as a crazy botanist, some gay teens, a monster, and Sam McCarthy's....

 

Goosebumps: The Vanishing has dropped on Hulu, the second season of the Goosebumps series, based on the popular children's books.  I can't tell if it is episodic or not at this point, so I just clicked on Episode 1, which stars David Schwimmer, Ross from Friends; and teen idol Sam McCarthy.

Scene 1: Brooklyn, 1994. Bill Clinton is in the White House, I'm in West Hollywood, Mariah Carey is topping the charts, and Friends premieres on CBS: 

So no one told you life was gonna be this way

Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A

 Four teens (Sameer, Matty, and two girls) descend into eerie catacombs, until they come to the room where "they conducted medical experiments."  They're doing a "truth or dare" thing where they have to spend the night.

Sameer: "I'm not scared.  I just like to sleep naked, and it could get a little awkward."  

Uh-oh, Matty's younger brother Anthony followed them!  Mom's going to be furious.  Matty forces him to leave.

Suddenly a machine switches on, gas squirts out, and Matty's face dissolves.   A gruesome image.

Scene 2: Brooklyn, 2024.  Teen twins Devin and Cece (Sam McCarthy, Jaden Bartels) exit the subway and complain about having to leave their friends in Manhattan to live with Dad, the grown-up Anthony (a craggy, dissolute-looking David Schwimmer). He picks them up in a car.  Are you sure this is Brooklyn?

At home, Dad Anthony yells at neighbor Trey, also called James Junior, for blocking his driveway. "But your mom always let me park there."

"She didn't have a car."

Inside, the living room is crowded with boxes.  Back story: Dad has moved into this house after his mother went into assisted living with dementia, and he's going through her stuff.

In other news, "I've really been looking forward to your aunt's brain surgery."  WTF?  Who looks forward to that?  He means because then they can come live with him.  

Wait -- the twins are living with their aunt, not their father?  What's wrong with him?

The micromanager passes out his extensive list of rules, but emphasizes that the main rule is: "Stay out of the basement." He gives them a tour: he's a botanist, working on a lot of plant types that will revolutionalize the botany world.  Shouldn't you be working in a lab somewhere?   But stay out!

Scene 3: Dinner at Gwendolyn's restaurant.  Gay couples at the tables behind and in front of them. Back story: Cece is starting debate camp tomorrow. She hates it, but you need "a thing" to get into college. 

Next up, Devin: He claims to be ok, given "everything that happened," but he was suspended for getting into a fight.  Nope, not gay.  

CJ drives up on his motorcycle.  Dad introduces him to the twins. Back story: he's working here, at his parents' restaurant, for the summer.  Dad suggests that maybe Devin would like to work there, too.  Playing matchmaker, buddy?  I don't have any hope that he'll be gay, but there may be a gay-subtext buddy-bond between him and Devin.

He has to make a delivery, but the guys are all meeting at the park later. "Y'all should come."  Maybe specify which park, and what time?

Scene 4:  On the way home, Dad sends the twins inside so he can chat with a crying woman in a car. She notes that the father of Trey/JJ, the neighbor who Dad argued with, stopped by the police station to file a harassment complaint. According to the Google AI, harassment consists of repeaed acts that cause the victim to "fear for their safety,"  Telling someone to not block your driveway certainly doesn't count.

The woman promised to talk to Trey/JJ's Dad, but "be careful.  He's big on conspiracy theories." 

In other news, she managed to pull some strings and retrieve his brother's things from the night he and his friends dissolved.  . Moldy clothes with dissolved Matty all over them, from 30 years ago? 

The woman has been thinking a lot about that night, but Dad doesn't want to hear it.  He cuts her off and heads inside.

Scene 5: The twins come downstairs while Dad is arguing with his ex wife on the telephone. Wait -- they were living with their aunt, but she's having brain surgery, so they moved in with Dad.  Why weren't they living with their mother?

Dad assures them that although they hate each other, they both love the twins.  He made burnt waffles, which they reject.  It's the next morning. What happened to meeting the guys in the park later?

Left: This show is a little beefcake-light, so here's a photo of Sameer, one of the melted teens (played by the 28 year old Arjun Athalye).

More Sameer after the break

North of North: Inuit lady, her gay bestie, some paranormal, some Inuk culture, and a lot of Inuk hunks. With Jay's junk and a bonus n*de dude

North of North (2025) appeared without warning on my Netflix list: a woman feels stifled in her tiny village in the Artic.  I can relate to that, so let's go.

Scene 1: While showering (only shoulders visible), a young woman  named Siaja explains that she's from as far north as you've ever been.  I think that's Calgary in the Western Hemisphere, and maybe Oslo in Europe.  Then much farther north than that: Ice Cove, Nunavut.  

A quirky Canadian small town and Inuit culture?  I'm there. 

Siaja has achieved the Canadian Dream, with a husband and child.  Only now husband Ting (Kelly William, top photo) is the Golden Boy of the town, and she's only known as his wife.

First up: he gets to drive the car to the Spring Festival, while she has to haul the supplies on a lame Ski-Doo (snowmobile).

Scene 2: She drops in at Mom's very nice house -- lots of windows -- and announces that because it's a new year, she's going to apply for a job.  Mom dispproves: you're a wife and mother.

Mom opens the store next door, which sells artisanal soap and miscellaneous stuff.  Suddenly her hookup from last night walks in, shirtless.  Siaja asks where he was in 1998 -- he could be her father!  He scrams.  

Mom criticizes her for scaring all of her hookups away.  How many hookups could she get in a town of about 2,000 with no tourist trade and the nearest neighbor 300 miles away?

Left: I think the Handsome Man is played by Jeff Roup. who shows his d*ck or a prosthetic here. 

Scene 3: Siaja leaves her child for Mom to babysit and heads for the town headquarters, which has a restaurant, some offices, and the radio station: DJ announces the seal hunt this afternoon and the naming of the festival king and queen this evening.

A blond woman named Helen, apparently the town mayor, comes in complaining about the 14-hour days that supervising the festival takes, while other town business just sits there.  Siaja butters her up with coffee and suggests other cultural activities spread through the year.  Didn't you just hear her?  And she wants to be hired as a full-time cultural manager. 

"Nope.  You have zero work experience and no leadership skills."

"But I see life and beauty in everything!"  At that moment, a guy walks in, wanting to know where to put the fish heads.

Scene 4: While Radio Announcer Colin (Bailey Poching) and a purple-haired woman are discussing how much partying to do tonight, Siaja comes into their office and screams.  Helen didn't even look at her job proposal.

Left: Bailey Poching is gay in real life.

"Why do you want a job anyway?"

"To make our community a better place...ok, I want something of my own."  

"But Inuit culture is all about community.  Your own needs are irrelevant."

When Helen comes in to order the others to get back to work, Siaja asks for a chance.  Couldn't you get a job, like, somewhere else?   Ok, a petition to prove that the town wants a cultural director.  500 signatures -- but that's a quarter of the town! -- by tonight!

More after the break

Jackson Kelly: A killer doll, a killer pumpkin, a paranormal trap, nude Hicks, and a year of dicks

I was interested in profiling Jackson Kelly, who played one of the dying Civil War soldiers in Righteous Gemstones Season 4.  He was somewhat difficult to research, since there are a lot of Jackson Kellys out there, including a female adult video actor, but I finally I found some newspaper articles and podcasts from our Jackson's home town. 

Jackson grew up in Waco, Texas, the heart of the homophobic Bible Belt, and had trouble pursuing his dream: the nearest acting class was two hours away, and for auditions, his parents had to drive him six hours to Austin.  There are three theaters in Waco.

In April 2020, COVID hit, and the Vanguard College Preparatory School went online. They have a Latin Club, but no GSA, and no mention of LGBT non-discrimination.    So he packed his stuff and moved to L.A., with the full support of his parents.  If I liked to wear evening gowns, I'd be getting the heck out of Waco regardless. 

Jackson's first industry job was a production assistant for a company making commercials -- a lot of manual labor, moving stuff from here to there.  Then he began appearing in commercials and "zero-budget" independent films:

My Year of Dicks, 2022: he has one of the dicks that the girl tries to get.

Splinters, 2022: after the death of his father....f*k the Sadness

Witch Mountain, 2022: Two teens, male and female, develop psychic powers.  You see where this is heading.

Portrait of a Young Man, 2022: Jackson, the Young Man, is struggling with "his identity."  Sounds like a coming out story, but in the trailer he kisses a girl.

Hard Miles, 2023: Matthew Modine plays a social worker who organizes a 1,000 mile bicycle trip to the Grand Canyon for a group of teen convicts, including Smink, played by Jackson.

Left: Matthew Modine's butt.

The Western The Warrant: Breaker's Law, 2023, with Dermot Mulroney as the villain. Jackson plays someone named Brig Farkus.  At least he has some interesting character names.

Five episodes of Lucky Hank, 2023, a quickly-cancelled series about college English/creative writing professor Bob Odenkirk having a midlife crisis/meltdown. 

Jackson plays an aspiring novelist named Barstow Williams-Stevens. In the trailer, he throws shade at the prof during class: "You haven't said anything for an hour and a half. Would you please say something?  Your only novel isn't even available in your own campus bookstore."  The prof responds in kind, and gets in big trouble.

More after the break