"Young Rock," Episode 2.8: The Rock hits the big time, with lots of locker room beefcake and bulges

 

Young Rock is a fictional autobiographical series about the childhood of Dwayne Johnson, the Rock, bookended by his presidential bid in 2033 (the U.S. could do worse: Dwayne is a gay ally),   Miles Burris plays Hunter Hearst Hemsley, a flamboyant blond wrestler.  He is probably a parody of Gorgeous George (1915-1963), who riled up the audience by pretending to be gay.  I'll review his first appearance, in Episode 2.8. 

Scene 1: Johnson Family Ranch, 2033, three days before the election. Dwayne's bromantic partner, Randall Park, and his staff are waiting in the kitchen.  The doctor comes out of his room and says "I don't think he's going to make it...to his campaign event tonight!" (Har-har).  He's got food poisoning from bad clam chowder.  "And he's asking for his boyf...best buddy."

Scene 2: Dwayne tells his boyf...best buddy that he's going to the event anyway.  When you face a challenge, you meet it head-on, like he did in 1996 when he got a call... the WWF is taping in Corpus Christi, and they want him for a "dark match" (before the main match, to get the crowd revved up). His first professional wrestling gig!  He just needs to quit his job at the gym and borrow some wrestling gear. 

Scene 3: Dwayne (Uli Latukefu) arrives in Corpus Christi, and is picked up by his opponent, Steve Lombardi (Scott Colton), The Brooklyn Brawler, a 32-year veteran who broke his dad into wrestling years ago. So this guy is over 50 and still wrestling?  The arena is sold out -- 15,000 fans.

Scene 4: Back in 2033, bromantic partner Randall asks if Dwayne was scared.  "No -- I was where I wanted to be."  

Next Dwayne meets the man in charge of his match, ex-wrestler Michael P.S.Hayes (Brad Burroughs).  The PS stands for "Purely Sexy." His advice: "Follow the Brawler's lead, and keep it simple.  You got six minutes. "But how do you want me to go over (lose the match)?"  Hayes and Brawler both laugh: "Kid, we flew you here to win."

Dwayne is shocked. Winning is unheard-of for your first match! He wants to call his parents, but there's no time. Anyway, they're getting the scoop on a WWF chatroom on America Online (if you remember AOL, you're getting brochures from the AARP).

Scene 5: Locker room.  While dressing (or undressing), Dwayne is greeted by The Iron Sheik (Brett Azar left), a retired "heel" (bad guy) who has moved into heel management.  He promises to call Dwayne's parents. during the match to give them updates. Gee, these wrestlers are a big happy family.   

Dwayne also meets Stone Cold Steve Austin (Luke Hawx) who will one day revolutionalize wrestling, but now is stuck in a non-speaking persona; Downtown Bruno (Ryan Pinkston, below), The Undertaker, Mantaur, and Mankind (Brock Dunstan), his future tag-team partner.  Mankind thinks that winning his first match is a bad idea, since if he wins and the crowd doesn't like him, he'll be finished as a wrestler. 

More wrestlers and butts after the break

"A Man in Full" or "The Fullness of Man" or "Filling a Man." Whatever, it has a wild penis scene

 

While I am scrolling through my new photo feed, I am shocked to find two that are extremely explicit (after the break).  In the first, an older man wearing a suit catches a young man having anal sex with his boyfriend.  So Dad didn't know that he was gay?  In the second, the young man confronts the older man -- while fully aroused, and huge!

The caption says Tom Pelphrey, whom I've never heard of, in the movie A Man in Full.  It must have a gay theme -- gay men being accused of being "not really men," and all that.

Tom Pelphrey has 10,000 photos on the internet, but he usually looks much older, so this must be a movie from early in his career.  Probably European -- what American movie would show full arousal?

More research reveals that he starred in Ozark, but I can't tell which character.  An article in People says Perry Abbott, but a Reddit feed says that he was AMAZING as Ben.  The Ozark wiki mentions Ben, "a major antagonist in the third season," but not Perry Abbott, so People must be wrong.

Here's a long shot of Ben's butt.

Next I try to look up A Man in Full, but it's such a nonsensical title that I keep searching on A Full Man and The Fullness of Men instead.   When I finally get the title right, it's not an artsy European movie from the early 2000s, it's a tv series that dropped on Netflix in 2024!  Atlanta real estate mogul Charlie Croker, played by famous actor Jeff Daniels, goes bankrupt, and has to defend his empire. Isn't that, like, "Succession"?  

Jeff Daniels is best known for the adulation of 1990s stupidity Dumb and Dumber. Here he shows a bulge in Something Wild (1986).

Tom Pelphrey plays "Raymond Peepgrass" Ridiculous name! This guy is a voyeur of lawns?

Wikipedia doesn't say who he is, so I'm assuming from the photo, the rich guy's lawyer?  Why would he care if his lawyer is gay?

Looking for a photo of Croker and Peepgrass -- Peepgrass? --  together, I get the name of the series wrong again!

Reviews mention "a wild scene" and "a shocking scene," but fail to say what episode, so I surmise the last, "Judgment Day."  I fast forward to the very last scene of the series.

A peep at Peepgrass after the break. Warning: Explicit.

Gemstones Episode 3.9, Continued: Five plot resolutions and a funeral. With collegiate jock cocks

 

Previous: Episode 3.9: Baby Billy is bi, Peter plots revenge, and Kelvin and Keefe cuddle. With a Josh O'Connor bonus

A swarm of locusts!

Locusts are not unheard-of in South Carolina. In fact, every 13 years, a swarm of the similar cicadas emerges. Ecologists consider them beneficial, since many animals and birds eat them.  And they do not sting or bite.

But these are not ordinary locusts.  The swarm flies directly through the service entrance and into the tv studio, crashing and smashing everything.  They may not sting or bite, but having dozens of buzzing, crawling things splat into your body, hitting your hair and face, must be  disorienting and painful.  People stumble in every direction, crashing into each other. Some are hit by falling lights and sound equipment.  A round image of Baby Billy smashes someone's head.

Why locusts?  In Exodus 10, God sends a plague of locusts to convince Pharaoh to let the Jews leave Egypt.  The prophets Joel, Amos, and Nahum use them as symbols of Divine Judgement.  They appear as one of the end time tribulations in the Book of Revelation, rising from the Abyss to torment unbelievers.  None of those seem relevant here. Maybe God is trying to get everyone out of the church before it blows up?

You can tell who actually cares about their family by who runs away (the Simpkins) and who looks for them (the Gemstones). Jesse saves not only his family, but Eli and Dusty.  The Montgomerys and BJ/Judy save each other.   

The Kelvin/Keefe rescue is the most dramatic:  Looking for Kelvin backstage, Keefe is overcome by the locusts and collapses, coincidentally just behind a girl who has been killed by a falling spotlight.  When Kelvin finds him, he yells "Leave!",  as in "Save yourself!", but Kelvin spreads his heavy woolen coat over the two of them and yells "I got you!"

Intimacy alert: Keefe holds on to Kelvin's hand and thigh.

Green is Kelvin's preferred color, but the Attico with the long green fringes was chosen deliberately to look like grass.  The guys are dead and buried.  Keefe has a symbolic death and resurrection in every season, but this is the first for Kelvin.  Maybe this is his final expiation, burning away the last of his guilt and shame over being gay.

The family stumbles out onto the loading dock.  Everyone else has scattered.  

Intimacy alert: Kelvin keeps his arm on Keefe's back to guide him out of the studio.  

Femme alert: look at Keefe.  Hour glass figure, large pearl necklace. past-shoulder length hair: with a different face, you would mistake him for a lady. This is the second time that he has dressed as a minister's wife. So, Mrs. Lincoln, other than that, how did you like the show?

Resolution 1: Uncle Peter. Uh-oh, one of the locusts has crashed into Peter's fitbit trigger, destroying it, so the van will blow up in one minute.  Run away!  

Peter jumps into the van and drives it to safety. 

Everyone gasps as they see the explosion.  He has sacrificed his life to save them, thus earning his redemption.  

Intimacy alert: Keefe now has his arm around Kelvin, a parallel to BJ with his arm around Judy. 

Left: Since some of the Gemstone kids are off to college in this episode, I'm including some college jock cocks.

More plot resolutions after the break