"Exteriors": Gay psychological thriller with cheating husbands, mistaken identities, hookups, stalking, and Pano Pancakes' penis

 

A nude celebrity site led me to some j/o photos of someone named Pano Tsaklas, nicknamed Pano Pancakes in case you can't spell Tsaklas (it actually means jackal in Greek).  

Checking the IMDB to make sure he was an actor and not a singer or influencer, I found a lengthy biography: Grew up in Clark's Summit, Pennsylvania, liked skateboarding, played the viola, got a full scholarship to Temple University, where he graduated in 2017 with a major in Media Studies.

Six screen appearances listed, the most recent a movie, Exteriors (2023), a "poetic, surrealistic" psychological thriller consisting of three stories of gay men experiencing relationship problems.  But it turns out to be a sort-of sequel to Brotherly Lies (2022), so we'll start there.

When he was a teenager, Lex (Pano) shot and killed his abusive stepfather.  The resulting trial became a media circus and destroyed his life chances: he's infamous as a killer, so no one wants to date him.  After a nervous breakdown and suicide attempt, he seeks refuge at his family's vacation home in Guerneville (on the Russian River), along with his buddy Kenny (Jose Fernando  -- not the famous Spanish actor who died in 2014, the queer activist).  Kenny is fleeing from an abusive husband.

To complicate things, Lex falls in love with Shane, the strugglins screenwriter who rents the house next door (Jacob Betts -- not the "real" Jacob Betts, a singer songwriter, the queer one).  But Shane is in love with Kenny.   To complicate things, Lex's older brother is pressuring Shane into writing about the tragedy, which Lex considers a betrayal.  Things fall apart. 

Got the three main players?  Let's look at Exteriors.  

Part 1: Wyatt

 

Wyatt (Christian Gabriel, but not the prime suspect in the disappearance of an Ohio girl or the famous Romanian chess player, the queer one.  Why do these guys always have the same name as someone more famous?).  

So Wyat is in the park, getting some headshots taken by his friend Logan (Matthew Bridges, but not the world-famous plastic surgeon or the husband and father, the queer one). 

They discuss Logan's new boyfriend, a screenwriter that he met at a SAG event: much better than a hookup app, more organic.  They drove to Santa Monica, and he talked about his hopes and dreams, what he's looking for in a lover, and his last boyfriend (who cheated on him).  They haven't had sex yet -- no gay man would think of sex on the first date.  But they're definitely in love. 

The new boyfriend's name?  Shane (the struggling screenwriter that Lex fell in love with).  Wyatt is the ex-boyfriend who cheated!

Without revealing the connection, Wyatt storms into Shane's apartment and drops accusatory hints.  What's the problem?  In West Hollywood, your friends often dated your exes.  Sometimes a guy dated everyone in a friend group, one after the other.   

Things get more and more heated and angry.  Shane rushes out -- right into the arms of his boyfriend/Wyatt's friend Logan.

Wyatt and  Logan pretend not to know each other as Shane introduces them, and suggests that they all go out to lunch. 

Nope, no way. Wyatt  walks off into the darkness, buys another copy of the book he left at Shane's apartment when they broke up, sits on a park bench to read it.  The end.  That's it?  I expected blackmail or assault.  This kind of petered out into nothingness.

Part 2: Jason

Pool cleaner Jason (Julian Goza) is hired by Kenny (Lex's friend in "Brotherly Lies," the one with the abusive husband).  He recognizes Kenny from a hookup eight years ago that changed his life forever.  Kenny remembers him, too, and apologizes that he couldn't continue the relationship: he had a boyfriend, now his abusive husband.  

Jason pretends that he has car trouble so they can spend more time together; he hopes that Kenny will dump the abusive husband for him.  But it turns out that Kenny was just pretending to remember him.  None of the details he mentions match; they've never met.  Jason hooked up with someone else!

Jason: "You're cruel, misleading me like that."

Kenny: "I didn't know. I just figured it out."

 But maybe he could pretend to be the hookup, so Jason can tell him how he feels.  They continue talking, and sleep together (literally -- no shenanigans), and part as friends, just as Kenny gets a call from his old friend Lex.  He's having a crisis. That

More after the break