Gemstones Episode 4.1: Elijah scoundrels, Winston dies, and Kelvin screams. With Bradley's bottom and Jackson's junk

Previous: Gemstones Season 3 Finale: Kelvin and Keefe married?  Pontius a dark lord?  Peter redeemed through the Redeemer?

Title: "Prelude."  This is not really an episode of The Righteous Gemstones at all.  It's a full theatrical movie starring Bradley Cooper, who you know as Ben in Wet Hot American Summer and Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy.  So I'll do a scene-by-scene.

Scene 1: A small country church in Virginia, 1862.  Pastor Adam Grieves (Josh McDermitt) preaches and takes an offering.  After the service, rogue Elijah Gemstone (Bradley Cooper) shoots him and steals the offering money and his gold-plated Bible (this will be important later).

Uh-oh, before he can escape, Confederate troops arrive at the church and, mistaking him for the pastor, announce that he's been drafted to be chaplain for their division, heading to Fredericksburg. It pays $50 per month ($2000 in today's money), plus room and board.

Overjoyed, Elijah asks for a moment to gather his things.  He changes clothes with Pastor Grieves, bashes his face in so no one will recognize him, and writes a note: "This is the body of a crook who tried to rob me.  He was handsome.  His name was Elijah Gemstone."   He was handsome?  Got yourself some same-sex desire going on, buddy?

Scene 2: A battle, with lots of Confederate soldiers being killed. Their grim faces flash by.  A boy gets his leg blown off.  600,000 soldiers died, plus about 1,000,000 civilians. 6% of the young adult men from the North, and 18% from the South

Captain Cane (Jim Cummings) approaches Elijah with the rumor that he was gambling and drinking with the guys last night, inappropriate behavior for a Man of God.  He denies it, and further threatens the Captain with hellfire for spreading rumors.Does this remind you of Jesse's sex-and-drugs party from Season 1?

Scene 3: Elijah is called to pray with the boy who got his leg blown off (Alex Saxon).  He is dying and afraid, but Elijah just pretends to pray.  

Cut to night, with Elijah is drinking and gambling with the guys.

Scene 4: Time to preach the Sunday sermon.  Elijah can't do it, so he just says "God doesn't expect us to be perfect.  We make mistakes, but we're trying to be good, and that's good enough."  In Baptist theology, you don't need to try: once you are saved, you are incapable of committing new sins. But Elijah doesn't know that.

Cut to more drinking and gambling, followed by trying to avoid praying with another dying soldier, Winston (Jackson Kelly).  This one is worried that he won't go to heaven, because he's killed people, but Elijah assures him that God has made an exception on his "Thou shalt not kill" policy for soldiers who are forced to fight. 

Scene 5: Elijah and the soldiers bathing in the river (blurry d*ck shot).  Afterwards Ned Rollins (Kimball Farley) announces that he recognizes Elijah from before the War. "It took me awhile, but I saw the way you shuffle the deck of cards, with your pinkie out like a woman."  So Elijah has some femme/gay characteristics?  Does he remind you of Kelvin?

His cover blown, Elijah attacks, but Ned just wants to partner with him: Major McFall (James Landry Hebert) is coming to camp tomorrow.  He's starting a card game, and he is loaded.  They could take him.

Cut to the card game.  They take him.  Then, worried that he will say something, Elijah kills Ned and stuffs his body in one of the coffins. And now he's Judy

More after the break

Kelton Dumont's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 3: Birthday biceps, bare bums, rugger dicks, and brothers for life

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Rainer Dawn: Was his kiss with Harlan real? Is Aidan his boyfriend? Is that really his d*ck? And three more questions

When I was researching Nickelodeon teencom star Robert Ri'chard, this photo of someone named Rainer Dawn (not Rainier) appeared.  Never heard of him, but he must have been on Nickelodeon at some point, and his Instagram features a lot of pictures with his boyfriend, Aidan, in formal wear, visiting Italy, having a romantic moment on their boat, and so on.  

An actor, gay, with abs.  That's enough for me.

Rainer and his partner have the same last name -- they must have chosen "Dawn" when they married.  Which will prove a problem for research, since most of their acting will be under their previous names.     

But I'm up to the task.

I have six questions.

Question 1: Is Rainer Dawn a Yale grad?

Here Rainer, wearing a Yale jacket and giving his husband his leg, is promoting  or about to see The Game, presented by the Yale Sigma Nu fraternity in 2023.  He must be a Yale man.

Time for a Google search. 

He is from Santa Cruz, he does runway and fashion modeling, and when he was 15, he sailed through Indonesia in his uncle's catamaran.  

So Dawn is his birth name.  The boyfriend must have adopted it when they married.

Rainer graduated from Santa Monica College in 2022 with an Associate's Degree in Economics. One doesn't usually transfer from a community college to the Ivy League.

Answer: Probably not

Question 2: Did Rainer star in a teencom on Nickelodeon?

No Nickelodeon.  Only two acting credits are listed on the IMDB: 

Noah in The Wrong Blind Date (2022), one of those "The Wrong ___"  damsel in distress movies directed by David DeCoteau.  Noah dated focus character Laura in high school, and now gets targeted by the "blind date" trying to kill off the competition.

Cody in five episodes of Wolf Pack (2023), a one-season teenage werewolf series on Paramount Plus starring Rodrigo Santino (left).  According to the blurb: "A teenage boy and girl get their lives changed forever when a California wildfire awakens a terrifying supernatural creature."

Answer: No.

Question 3: Was his kiss with Harlan real?

The fan wiki entry for Cody has him seeing main character Harlan (Tyler Lawrence Gray) at the gym, selling him drugs later, and then flirting with him at a party, causing another guy to get jealous and ask if he likes boys or girls.  Cody replies that he "doesn't like labels," which means that he's gay but doesn't want to come out.

But fans describe them starting a relationship, and the kiss as "perfect."  

Answer: Real

 

Question 4: Is Aidan his boyfriend?

Here's where it gets tricky.  There are so many photos of Rainer and Aidan acting like romantic partners, and they have the same last name.  Surely they're married.

But a post on X reveals a rumor that Rainer is dating Olivia Rodrigo, the singer/songwriter who got her start on Disney Channel teencoms, Bizaardvark and High School Musical: the Musical: The Series.  She has released 8 multi-platinum songs.  I never heard of her, but then, I don't follow popular music.

Left: Ethan Wacker, Olivia's costar in Bizaardvark

More after the break

"Deli Boys": Pakistani-American brothers learn a secret about their Dad. With a lot of gay characters and some bonus Pakistani d*cks

 

This is just to get your attention.

Deli Boys (2025), a new comedy on Hulu, features two Pakistani-American brothers, studious, hardworking Mir (Asif Ali, left) and irresponsible cokehead Raj (Saagar Shaikh), who find out a secret about their father's business activities after his death.  

I doubt that a tv series written by and starring Pakistani-American guys will have any gay characters, but there's bound to be some beefcake.

Scene 1: I was right.  The brothers chase a guy in his underwear, with a bag over his head, and a bulge in his shorts, out of the deli.

Three days earlier: Baba Dar records a commercial for his investors.  He came to American in 1979 with three dollars in his pocket; he worked at a deli, and lived above the store with nine other guys, with six shirts between us  (we see a photo; four of the guys are indeed shirtless).  Today DarCo owns 40 delis around the Philadelphia area, plus Caca brand Achar (a Pakistani relish).  Next he wants to buy some golf courses.

Scene 2: Cokehead Raj in bed with the Shaman Prairie (yes, that's her name) and a clump of around ten people, mostly women but two other guys.   I'm going to guess that he is straight but curved around the edges. 

 They get up and smoke hashish, and then she applies leaches to his back, a sort of New Age thing.

Meanwhile, Drexel Grad Mir tells his father that he learned a lot about business from him, even more than at Drexel University (which he is very proud of), so he's ready for the top spot in the organization. The Girlfriend comes in and tells him that he's ready to give the speech to his father.  

Next he works out, straining with a triceps pushdown.  

Trainer: "I haven't even put the pin in yet."  Dude is weak, har har. 

The Trainer is played by Calvin Thomas (not the queer theorist, the model).

Scene 3: The guys head to the golf course.  They are arguing over who deserves to become president of DarCo when Dad Baba retires.  He shows up to play golf. 

He is upbraiding them for being immature when a golf ball hits him in the head!  He drops dead.  His Caddy, Matthew, screams

Scene 4: As the brothers put a sheet over their dead Dad, Lucky Auntie bursts in.  She was Dad's business partner for thirty years. 

They ask, "Are you going to take care of us now?"  An odd question for grown men in their 30s, but she agrees.

On to the funeral.  The brothers can't do the Muslim prayers right, embarrassing everyone.  

The Caddy ends with "Amen!", har har, and bursts into tears.  Was he, like, Dad's boyfriend?

At the reception afterwards, Ahmad Uncle (Brian George) and Lucky Auntie spar with each other.  Each thinks that the other is out to undermine them and seize control of the company.

I recall Brian George as Babu on Seinfeld, the one with the gigantic waggling finger, but he has 325 acting credits listed on the IMDB. 

Scene 5: While each brother is petitioning to the DarCo board about why each should be named CEO, the feds raid and start making arrests.  They were investigating Dad for fraud, inside trading, tax evasion, and so on, but he had powerful friends.  Now that he is dead, they are able to act.  Lucky Auntie is led off in handcuffs.

More after the break