Will Trent, Episode 4:10: Who is murdering naked fratboys? Detectives think it's about a girl, but...With fratboy cocks and Jeff East

 

I don't watch a lot of detective shows -- who cares about "the body in the library" when you can change the channel and see ghosts, zombies, time travel, and parallel worlds? But Episode 4.10 of Will Trent, on Hulu, pinged my gaydar: "A fraternity star and his friend are murdered."  Friend is often code for boyfriend.

Title: "You're Only as Sick as Your Secrets."

Scene 1: Girl legs walking across the campus of Georgia Atlantic University at night, discussing their boy problems.  Heterosexual identity established instantly.  They stop at a fountain to puke, and see a naked boy floating in the water, his mouth taped up and marked with the word "loyalty." 

Cut to a Pregnant Detective and her husband at a class for expectant parents, in an ongoing plotline.  They keep accidentally "killing" their baby.  I'm fast forwarding.

Scene 2: Will (Ramon Rodriguez, top photo) interviews the ridiculously-dressed Chancellor about the victim, Paxton Cole.  Shouldn't it be the Dean of Students, or the President?  "He was a campus leader, honor role, president of the Delta Chi Kappa Fraternity."  

Left: The actor playing Paxton does not appear in the cast list.

Will thinks that it was a premeditated murder, but the Chancellor scoffs: "The boy was just  mugged, or he interrupted a drug deal."  

"Then why was he stripped, and tape gagged with the word 'Loyaltyl"?

He harrumphs, then leaves to go to Boozy Booster Brunch,  the biggest fundraising activity of Homecoming Week, except for the Wine and Winners Dinner Party. Will is suspicious.  Dude should be more concerned about the murder of the college goldenboy.  Or any student, for that matter.

Scene 3: Will's team crosses the campus, complaining about the laziness of Generation Z and how college is a worthless rip-off.  As someone who has been teaching at a college for over 20 years, I am disturbed by that sentiment.  They find the frat pledges cleaning the porch with toothbrushes, a red flag about hazing abuse. They are not allowed to speak, another red flag.

Frat member Sean/Legacy  (Jacob Buster, left) invites them in. Will looks disgusted at the frat guys drinking beer. Griffin/Badger sees them and tries to run out, but they ambush him.  "It's not my fault!" he exclaims.

Scene 4: At the police station, Griffin/Badger (Tyler Patrick Smith) explains that he didn't hurt Paxton, but he was afraid that his illegal id business would be implicated.  Last night at the party, he gave Paxton/Doorbell and Greg/Sharkey fake ids so they could pick up some kegs of beer.  They never returned.

He's not implicated in the murder, but he's arrested for selling fake ids.  These people are disgustingly judgmental.  

They interrogate everybody else in the house, but no one had a beef with Paxton/Doorbell or Greg/Sharkey, and no one knows where they went to get the beer.

"Did you ever see them argue, fight over a girl?"  How do you know they were straight, heteronormative a-hole?

"No, they were best friends."  Tell me more.

Scene 5: Being dismissisve and insulting isn't getting them any intel, so the Pregnant Detective tries the sympathy approach.  Sean/Legacy opens up, complaining that his dad wants him engaged by next year and married with a kid soon after graduation.   I got that pressure all the time growing up: "What girl do you like?  What girl do you like?  What girl? What girl?"  Resistance to the heterosexist trajectoryy is a queer code.

Left: Fake ID Griffin/Badger's penis.

This strategy works: Sean/Legacy reveals that several months ago, Paxton shared a private sex video to group chat.  It got leaked, and the whole campus saw it.  Dang, it was with a girl.  Hereosexual identiy established at Minute 12..

Scene 6: Pregnant Detective visits The Girl, Sorority President Britt. She can't talk about the sex tape, because she signed an NDA and got a Porsche.  But she won't say who asked her to sign it.

Other sorority girls come forward to reveal that the fratboys are all scumbags, but they can't report on any of their misdeeds because Sean/Legacy's dad is the Chancellor.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Scene 7: Back at headquarters, after some stuff about the ongoing plotline, they find out where Paxton/Doorbell and Greg/Sharkey bought the beer: at the Beer Depot (makes sense).  They drop by, and find his pickup truck, with the beer kegs still there.  The killer must have abducted them here.

Will finds two sets of clothes in the trash -- the killer stripped them here! And no one noticed?  And in the ice machine, Greg/Sharkey's naked body, with a tape gag reading "Fortitude." 

They figure out that the words on the tape gags are the mottos of the frat: Loyalty, Fortitude, Integrity, Diligence.  Two murders left?

Scene 8: Ongoing plot stuff, then the bodies in the morgue. Paxton/Doorbell was drowned, and Greg/Sharkey died of hypothermia (so he was dumped in the ice machine while alive). They both had Goldenkranz (gold-infused liquour) in their stomachs, and high levels of Xanax (an anti-anxiety medication that causes drowsiness).  The killer spiked their drinks so they would be more compliant.  Which means that he (or she) was at the party last night.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit

Ethan Wacker: The former teen spy, Bizaardvark manager, and Vanderbilt fratboy looks good in a suit. And out of a suit.

I only knew three things about Ethan Wacker before beginning the research: 

1. At 5'7", he's a member of the Short Guy Brigade

2. He has an amazing physique.

3. He has a lot of male friends.  

A lot of male friends.

Actually, I'm getting tired of posting photos of Ethan and his male friends.  Let's check his biography.

Born in Connecticut in 2002, moved to South Korea and then to Hawaii.

His acting credits begin in 2006 (at the age of four!) with a video game called Papa Louie: When Pizza Attacks

More video games and animation followed, plus two episodes of the teencom KC Undercover (2015-18), a Disney Channel teencom about "an outspoken and confident technology whiz and skilled black belt" who becomes a spy.   Ethan played the son of the Vice President of the U.S. 

Then he appeared in Hawaii Five-0, See Plum Run, Tour of Mythicality, and 63 episodes of Bizaardvark (2016-2019).  

More after the break. Caution: Explicit.

Cullen Moss: Two drag queens, two homophobes, a security guard, a fairy, and a frontal

 

Cullen Moss is one of those actors who you've seen in a dozen tv shows and movies, but he is so completely immersed in the role that when you see him again, you don't recognize him.  

Born in Brooklyn but raised in North Carolina, he graduated from Mount Tambor High School in 1993 and moved immediately into local North Carolina theater.  A lot of iconic and gay-positive roles:

Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire

Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream

Alan Strang, the one who gets naked on stage in Equus

Clifford Bradshaw, the Christopher Isherwood character, in Cabaret

The drag queen Albin in La Cage aux Folles

The closeted, homophobic Roy Cohn in Angels in America

His tv career began with some voiceovers in the 90s, followed by a starring role in One Tree Hill, 2003-2012, as Junk Moretti, a high school student with a "girlfriend who lives in Canada" (we've all been there; mine lived in Paris). 

Later Cullen has played a detective in Your Honor, a cop in The Walking Dead, and ..his list of credits on IMDB goes on like that.

In a two-episode story arc on Eastbound & Down in 2013, Cullen played Mark, "the smarmy, slow-motion punching, donut-gifting smuck of a rental car company manager," boss of Danny McBride's washed-up baseball player.

This led to a role as Brock, head security guard of the Gemstone Compound in Righteous Gemstones Episodes 1.6 and 1.7.  Scotty, Gideon's "friend from California" and co-conspirator in the blackmail scheme, flirts with him to get easy access to compound, even asking for shirtless photos.  He is shown reading a gay magazine latr.

Brock returns in Episode 1.9, to deny BJ admission after he and Judy break up, criticize his name, and act like a macho jerk.

In Episode 2.3, he announces that Eli's friend Junior is at the front gate.  Eli says to not admit him, and they argue.

Since the Gemstones, Cullen has had starring roles in Black Bird, The Outer Banks, and Your Honor, and he has Rebel Girl coming up.

Not a lot of beefcake photos on his social media.  His instagram is devoted mostly to photos of his projects, and his wife and family.

More after the break

Pablo the Penguin's penis: Jake Goldberg from "Backyardigans" and "Grown Ups" grows up to corporate, cooking, and some cock shots

 

Remember Pablo?  He was one of the backyard buddies on Nick Junior's Backyardigans (2004-2013) a high-strung, frenetic blue penguin best-buddying with the laid-back orange moose Tyrone.  Their friends included Tasha, a yellow hippopotamus best-buddying with the tomboy Uniqua, who has no animal species; and Austin, a purple kangaroo. 

Contrary to what commentators believe, gayness doesn't suddenly appear when you see your first drag queen. You are gay as a preschooler.  You may not be interested in physical intimacy yet, but you find some people and not others attractive, and form romantic bonds, early on.  In Backyardigans, Pablo and Tyrone were queer coded, although Pablo is more often paired with Austin on Archive of Our Own. 

A decade later, Nicholas Barasch, who played Austin in 20 episodes (2009-13), showed his physique on Riverdale.

Leon Thomas III, who played Tyrone in 25 episodes (2006-09), gave us a butt shot on Insecure.

 But Jake Goldberg, a long running Pablo (60 episodes, 2006-13), has given us one better: shots of his penis. 

Born in 1996, Jake grew up in New York, except for five years spent in Israel.  As a child and teenager, he appeared in episodes of 3D Rock, Law and Order: SVU, and Bull, and he played Adam Sandler's son in Grown Ups (2010) and Grown Ups 2 (2013)

Jake is second from the left.  Notice David Henrie of Wizards of Waverly Place on the right.

.   

His character crushes on girls, but also buddy-bond (and gets naked) with Nadji Jeter as Chris Rock's son. He was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award, which may have turned him off acting as a career choice.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.