Title: "The Prayer of a Righteous Man." James 5:16: "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." Whose fervent prayer is going to avail some miracles?
This ain't the 1970s: In 1993 Memphis, Junior and his dad Glendon are watching midget wrestling featuring "heel" Chris Blanton, aka "Little Fabio"
Glendon thinks that it's the wave of the future, but Junior complains that it's old-fashioned. He wants to liquidate their gambling operation to raise money for some big wrestling promotions:"This ain't the 1970s. Wrestling has changed. You need big money to go after big talent." Glendon nixes the idea.
Next complaint: Glendon was going to leave Junior the business when he retired, but he never retires: "Look at me, Daddy: I'm going gray with my dick in my hand."
Look at him, with his jaunty hand on hip, similar to after spending the night with Eli earlier this season. He's got some femme mannerisms going on I'm looking at a middle-aged gay man.Glendon wants to know how he can retire when his idiot son has terrible ideas and does everything wrong? "You hurt my feelings," Junior exclaims, starting to cry. The boy gets hurt feelings a lot, doesn't he? Glendon mocks him. But he agrees that he's been holding on too long: let's liquidate the gambling operation.
We cut to Glendon being upset while Junior loads the slot machines into a truck for Mr. Dukare (played by Dakare Chatman, who was playing a teenager in Season 1.)
Later, Junior counts the money, annoucing that they will triple it with their new wrestling promotions.
But Glendon has other ideas. Brandishing a gun, he orders: "Handcuff yourself to that inversion table and shut the fuck up." He then moons Junior and leaves: "You ain't never going to see ths old ass again."
Junior screams and cries. Glendon goes off to visit Eli and get murdered on Christmas Day, 1993.
In the present, Martin visits the captured Cycle Ninjas in jail: a group of scruffy teenagers. Sheriff Brenda tells him that they have fake ids, no fingerprints in the system, and they aren't talking. Martin tries to use psychology: "We know who sent you. Now you tell us." But it doesn't work; they just fart at him.
Cut to Baby Billy selling his health elixer in a nursing home. Afterwards the spirit of his sister Aimee-Leigh appears, and encourages him to visit his son Harmon, whom he abandoned in a shopping mall in 1993. "It's time," she tells him, and "You know I'm right." He tells her to get lost. Aimee-Leigh appears in the Seasons 1 and 3 finales, but doesn't interact with anyone. I wonder if she is a hallucination here.
Eli's physical therapy: Eli gathers the siblings, their partners, and Gideon to thank them for their role in his recovery. Keefe is not present, but Eli tells Kelvin: "You and Queef have been such a help. I keep saying 'Go back to your house,' but you wouldn't hear it. You've stayed on, helping me get on my feet with physical therapy." He gets Keefe's name wrong, but at least he acknowledges that Kelvin has a partner.
Wait -- how could Kelvin administer physical therapy with his hand injury? I'm getting an image of Keefe being run ragged from caring for two invalids. Surely there were nurses around, too.
Of course, they had an ulterior motive for not going home: the God Squad has taken over their house.
Cut to BJ and Judy putting the very pregnant Tiffany on the bus for the 15 hour trip to her mama's house in West Virginia, where she can raise her son with no money. At the last moment. Judy asks her to stay: she's family.
Cleansing the Temple: Later that day, Kelvin and Keefe spy on the God Squad as they dance, fight with sticks, run wild on a golf cart, and..um... masturbate into a watering can? "It's time to cleanse the temple!" Kelvin exclaims.
How could the God Squad control the house for several weeks with no one noticing? There's a housekeeping crew and regular security patrols. This must be another chronological mishap.The guys burst into the gym, knocking over things. "This was a house of prayer, but ye made it a den of thieves!" Kelvin exclaims. Torsten orders the men to put Keefe back in the tiger cage, but Keefe tries to fight back, Kelvin yells "No one re-cages Keefe," and they relent.
Next he reminds them of all the good he's done. Before joining the God Squad, Torsten was "a little doughboy" who still lived with his parents. "I chiseled you into the sculpture you are today."
When Cody had cramps, Kelvin "crawled into his yurt and massaged him until sunrise." A sexual reference, of course. The guys stare at Cody, who shakes his head -- that didn't happen. In a cult based on homoerotic desire, why would anyone disapprove of Cody and Kelvin getting busy? There appears to be a major misunderstanding here. Many of the God Squad musclemen are straight alphas, in it for the muscles, just tolerating the homoerotic activity of Kelvin, his boyfriend, and the guys he invites to the steam showers.
Torsten challenges "the Messiah of the Muscle Men" to another cross raising to determine leadership.
Whoa, there used to be twelve musclemen -- now there are 23. The cross used to be about ten feet high. Now it's over thirty!
As Kelvin grabs the crossbars, the casts on his hands fly off -- a miracle! Although he is much smaller than the musclemen, he is able to "get it up" -- another miracle! Keefe drops to his knees, apparently in worship. He needs to decide whether he wants a boyfriend or a Savior.
When he has achieved leadership with "a proper erection," Kelvin orders the God Squad to get out of his house, then pulls Keefe to his feet. They hug and do their weird forehead press thing, but don't kiss. I guess it's been decided for him: Kelvin is the strongest, but not the Messiah, and Keefe is an equal partner, not his disciple.
Torsten: "It's your house, Bro. You didn't need to get weird about it." But of course Kelvin had to prove that he was strong, sexually potent -- a man.
No lions, no tigers, no bears: We cut to Eli and his children rehearsing for his welcome-back service. Notice that Kelvin's shirt and jacket display no roaring animals, and his pants display no club-bulge. His obsession with demonstrating his potency is over.
Later, Eli tells Jesse that he's grown, healed his family, demonstrated his leadership ability, so he'll give him the money to invest in the Zion's Landing Resort after all.
But what about Junior -- won't he keep on trying to kill them? "I think it's time you know the truth," Eli says.
He brings his children to the amusement park, and tells them about Christmas 1993. about Glendon Marsh holding him at gunpoint and Daddy Roy coming to the rescue, or maybe just shooting. Afterwards, Eli wanted to protect his family, and worried that the scandal of having a murdering Dad would destroy his empire, so he and Martin buried the body under the roller coaster.
Eli determines that the only way to protect his family from Junior is to come clean, tell him everything. Gulp -- he's already trying to kill you because you rejected his friendship. What will happen when you tell him about his daddy being murdered?
Before we continue, a bonus for aficionados of short guys: A dwarf swimming champ from Helsinki.
More after the break
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