Fresh Off the Boat Episode 3.2: Musclemen flex, Walter is homophobic, Evan finds a new boyfriend, and Eddie is traumatized by cocks.

Since identifying Hudson Yang as "probably gay," I've been going through his tv series, Fresh Off the Boat, about a "fresh off the boat" Taiwanese-American family in the 1990s.  There are a number of recurring gay characters, but I'm looking for gay texts and subtexts among the sons, Eddie, Emery, and Evan.  Episode 3.2, "Breaking Chains" (2016) has some, plus beefcake and homophobia.

I'm skipping the A Plot, where Dad Louis (Randall Park) hires a housekeeper, thus insulting his wife Jessica, who thinks that he thinks she is a failure as a woman (because her gender identity is based on her ability to clean up?) 

In the B Plot, Eddie (Hudson Yang) and his friends are about to enter eighth grade, so they'll need either great gear or great stories.

Trent (Trevor Larcom) has great gear: he went to a theme park and got a scrunchie depicting the mascot.

Walter (Prophet Bolden) tells him that it "looks like a gay raindrop." 

 Homophobic comment, buddy.

Brian (Dash Williams) has a great story: he had mono, so he stayed inside watching Cinemax.  Now he knows a lot about boobs, and wants to become a pizza delivery boy.  Ugh, heteronormative girl-craziness.

Dave (Evan Hanneman) argues they don't need gear or stories, because they'll be eighth graders, practically upperclassmen.  Eddie (Hudson Yang) agrees: "We'll be men among boys!"  Sounds like their middle school covers grades 7-9, and high school grades 10-12.

Cut to a fantasy of the guys as grown-up musclemen flexing and grinning. I count six girls and one boy swooning over them -- but the one boy acknowledges the existence of LGBT people. 

Eddie's brother Emery is also impressed.  He gasps, "Who are those MEN?"

"Nah, son," Adult Eddie answers.  "We're eighth graders."

Ok, two boys are swooning over the musclemen.

In case you were wondering, Trent becomes Chris Kimball (below); Walter, Cleveland Berto, Dave, Colin Owens; and Eddie, Chen Tang (left)

Some dicks after the break

Zak Ford Williams: Better Bridgerton Batteries and the British Stonewall: all gay roles all the time. With a lot of cocks.

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Sawyer Nicholson: A dimly lit chest shot leads to Kit Connor, Colby College, a croc monster, Wally's cock, and two nude Sawyers

In Batwoman Episode 3.1, two college students sneak into an indoor swimming pool at night. Derek takes off his shirt and pants and tries to kiss the girl, but she playfully tosses him into the water.  He's under there for a long time.  Suddenly he emerges, being tossed around by an unknown force.  The pool fills with blood.   Turns out that he has been eaten by a newly-created crocodile monster.  

The monster takes the girl back to its lair to eat later, giving her a huge amount of screen time and a Batwoman rescue, while Derek is on-screen for like ten seconds and never interacts with the main cast.   Apparently tv writers can't imagine that a man would ever need rescuing.  They must be strong, powerful, in control; only women get to be damsels in distress.  Even in a show that has to date featured two kickass lesbian superheroes.   

We don't even get a clear picture of Derek during his ten seconds.  This photo is as clear as I could get,  and still half in shadow, there's a brief face shot -- which makes him look like Kit Connor of Heartstopper -- and the tossing-about is too fast for a good look.  

It's like the director has to film a pool scene, so the croc monster can get them, but wants to obscure Derek's body as much as possible.  The Girl is sequestered in a brightly-lit sewer, with everything clearly on display.

Dang it!  To assuage my disappointment over the Derek erasure, I'm going to research the actor, Sawyer Nicholson.  

He has four acting credits listed on the IMDB:

"Child in Meadow" in The Last Mimzy (2007)

Derek in Batwoman (2021).

Huge Football Player in How to Win a Popularity Contest (2026): Elle and her archnemesis Nate team up to win back their exes, and end up in love with each other.

And Walters in two episodes of Off Campus (2026), with Hannah using a jock (Belmont Cameli, left) to make her crush jealous.  I couldn't find him in the two episodes, and he's not mentioned in any synopsis.

Sawyer seems to be pursuing a career as a stunt performer.  He has 14 stunt credits, mostly from 2025 and 2026, including Tron: Ares and Playdate (which has gay subtexts), and episodes of Black Mirror, Upload, The Last of Us, and Every Year After.

He stunt doubled for Luke (Lachlan Quarmby), an "arrogant" rookie constable, in the Canadian police procedural Allegiance (2024-26).

And Wally (Milo Manheim), the ghost of a 1980s jock, on School Spirits.  So we can assume that this is Sawyer's butt.

But it's the real Milo's j/o video.

Next I'll check Sawyer's social media.

Problem: There's a female Sawyer Nicholson, a very famous runner who gets 99% of the google results, even when my search string ends with -female -girl -lady absolutely -ladies, men  only.  Piecing between them for Sawyer Nicholson male actor men only,  I found no online resumes, no newspaper or magazine articles, and only three social media sites:

A Sawyer Nicholson Male Actor Men Only  on Facebook is from Brunswick, Maine, and graduated from Colby College in 2021.  The Batwoman episode was filmed in 2021 in Vancouver, quite a distance.  Besides, this Sawyer is currently  Operations Director for U.S. senator Angus King (Independent).  I doubt that he is doing much acting or stuntwork on the side.

More after the break

Leonard Bernstein, Aaron the Rabbi's Son, and a poem about masks on the verge of coming out

Sorry for two autobiographical stories in a row, but I'm trying to build up my Fiction/Travel Index

When I was a kid, my church had no problem with classical music, but my parents hated "that longhair stuff," so there was none in the house.  My first exposure to Bach, Berlioz, Beethoven, and Mozart came through a series of Young People's Concerts  which appeared occasionally on Sunday afternoons, hosted by famous composer Leonard Bernstein.

Later, when I joined the school orchestra, I learned more about Leonard Bernstein.

I saw his gay symbolism-heavy musicals, On the Town (1949), starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, and West Side Story (1961), starring gay actor George Chakiris and assorted high-stepping hunks.

And his Symphony #3, Kaddish, named after the Jewish prayer for the dead.

He appeared on tv, conducting Gershwin, Mahler, and Beethoven.

No one ever mentioned that he was gay, off course, and his works revealed nothing, except maybe the Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp, and Percussion, after Plato's Symposium (1954).  The Symposium contains Plato's famous defense of same-sex love.

In the spring of my senior year, Aaron, the rabbi's son who was gay (but didn't know it yet), invited me to a performance of Bernstein's Mass, a musical theater piece based on the Latin Mass.  

"Wait -- isn't Bernstein Jewish?"

He nodded.  "That's what makes it interesting."

Nazarenes weren't supposed to associate with Catholics, or have anything to do with Catholic music, so of course I wanted to go.

 There are three acts.

Act 1: Devotion and Celebration.  The celebrant invites the congregants to worship.  They begin authentically, but then doubt creeps in.  Nazarenes were told that it was a sin to doubt the existence of God, the inerrancy of the Bible, or the fundamental beliefs like the Virgin Birth: the Devil's primary temptation was not to do bad things, but to doubt. But here it is celebrated as part of the worship experience.  How can God be with us when there is so much suffering in the world?

Originally the congregants mentioned war, but in more recent versions, they mention racism and homophobia.

Act 2:  Crisis and Collapse: The anxieties and doubts of the congregants take their toll on the celebrant, who has a spiritual collapse, breaks the sacred objects, and screams in rage against God.

What  I say -- I don't feel.
What I feel -- I can't show.
What I show -- isn't real.
What is real?  Oh Lord, I don't know.

Suddenly I realized that he was mirroring the interrogation that I received constantly from parents, friends, teachers, my brother, the preacher at church,  "What girl do you like?  What girl?  What girl?  What girl?" 

Every boy has discovered girls at your age.  Every boy has experienced True Love, that fills "the hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame."  If you haven't, you must pretend.  Smile, grin, flirt, talk about how much you long for feminine smiles, every day, every hour, for the rest of your life.

In the third act, Resolution, a boy emerges from the congregation and sings "I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help," offering hope in the midst of despair.  The celebrant is restored, and the Mass continues.

But I wasn't paying attention.

More after the break