Modern Family Episode 5.13: Jay acts girly, Mitch and Cam butt in, and Phil wants Keefe's lips on his mouth. Who doesn't?

I've been so busy checking Modern Family for homophobic subtexts with Adam Devine that I missed a gay subtext in Episode 5.13, "Three Dinners": 

Modern Family has a very large cast: closet-making tycoon Jay Pritchett; his new wife Gloria and her son;  daughter Claire and her husband and three children; and son Mitchell and his partner, eventually husband.  Episodes usually send smaller groups out on separate adventures, so I'll cover the three dinners separately.

Dinner 1: Jay and Gloria are dining with their close friends, Shorty (Chazz Palminteri, who has appeared in four previous episodes) and his wife.  They've been taking Spanish classes, because they're moving to Costa Rica!    They expect Jay and Gloria to be happy for them, but Jay immediately becomes critical: "You hate humidity! They have mosquitos the size of your fist!"

Cut to Shorty and Jay playing pool, Jay still complaining about the move: "It's a terrible idea.  You get into things without thinking, and then you need me to come and rescue you!" They argue about a lot of things from their never-mentioned-before shared history, and finally break up.

Gloria and her son Manny advise Jay that he always pushes his friends away, so when they leave him, it doesn't hurt as much. Aww, you can't open yourself up to love, unless it involves sex.

"You're the greatest generation," Manny says, "But you can't feel."

Jay lashes out with a facetious accusation that Manny and Gloria are lovers, an incest joke playing into the homophobic slur that all gay men are in love with their mothers.  He keeps playing on it until the viewers are cringing: "Why don't you two go cuddle!"

Later, we see Jake sitting in the kitchen, getting drunk and thinking about how much Shorty means to him.  Finally he decides to drive over and apologize -- dude, you're drunk -- but Shorty beats him to it.  They hug and cry.  Gloria, eavesdropping, snits: "This is a little girlier than I thought."  Wait, first you criticize him for not displaying emotion, and now you criticize him for displaying emotion.  Make up your mind, lady!

More dinners after the break

"Teacup": Body-jumping aliens, two heterosexual romances, a gay subtext boyfriend betrayal, and Rob's knob

Probably-gay actor Jackson Kelley notes that he had a starring role in the paranormal horror Teacup, on Peacock. I figured he would be playing a gay character, so I checked it out.

The premise: On a farm full of good country folk, animals start behaving strangely, then people start trembling and speaking in riddles.  The power and WIFI go out. 

An invisible "teacup" trap marked by a blue line appears around the property; any person or animal that crosses it dies a horrible death.  A guy in a gas mask keeps patroling and gesturing.  Sound doesn't get through, so he uses a board to say things like: "Stay behind the line" and "Trust no one" 

The people trapped inside the "teacup" are divided into heterosexual nuclear families:

Family #1: James (Scott Speedman, left, from Animal Kingdom), his wife (a veterinarian), sick elderly mother, teenage daughter, and preteen son.

Family #2: Ruben (Chaske Spencer from Twilight), his wife, and his teeange son, trapped there when they brought their horse to see the veterinarian.   

Soap opera plotlines: The wife is secretly having an affair with James, and the son has been in love with James' daughter since he was in second grade, but is trapped in the Friend Zone (but not for long). 

Family #3: Donald Kelley (Boris McGiver. left) and his wife from the farm next door also happen to be there when the teacup is  put up.

The Newcomers: While everyone is dealing with the crisis and soap opera stuff, preteen Arlo (Caleb Dolden) tells his sister and her not-boyfriend that the Assassin is coming to kill them all.  The only way they can escape is with a multicolored liquid from a crashed meteor, so they gather a vial full.

Gas Mask Guy wants the vial, and crosses the blue line to get it, whereupon they stab him.  

Meanwhile, James finds the injured Travis (Jackson) hiding in the basement, worried that he's "one of them" and ready to shoot.  As they have a standoff, Travis tells his story:

Gas Mas Guy at a Bar: Flashback to Travis as the new guy working at the bar, mesmerized by Gas Mask Guy, McNab (Rob Morgan).  Wouldn't you be?

Left: Rob Morgan having coffee n*ude.  But he doesnt' have a lot of tattoos; maybe it's his breakfast companion?

He's telling about the aliens who set force-field "teacup" traps that incinerate any complex organism that tries to get through.  They're non-corporeal, using human bodies as hosts.  They can jump from body to body.  Often the humans aren't even aware of it, so anyone could be hosting an alien.

Bartender Big Al tells Travis to pay attention to the other customers; he'll wait on McNab himself.

More after the break.  Caution: Explicit.

Jake Thomas: Lizzie McGuire's bratty brother plays Harry Potter, competes with Cory, kisses Finn.. With Jake's junk and Cory's cock.

Another day, another former teencom star all grown up. Today we're profiling Jake Thomas, who played Matt McGuire, the scamming, pranking little brother of the titular character on the Disney teencom  Lizzie McGuire (2001-2004, plus a 2003 movie).  

Matt is shown here with his best friend Lanny (Christian Copelin, who has retired from acting and now works as a realtor).  

I never actually watched, but the episode guide has him buddy-bonding with several other guys, including Oscar (Sebastian Jude) and Ethan (Clayton Trey Schneider), plus a "girly" interest in cheerleading that causes his father concern.  He could be queer coded. 

Afterwards  Lizzy, Jake moved into drama with a painful episode of Without a Trace (2004): High schooler Eric Miller (Jake) vanishes during a bathroom break.  The agents first assume that it's a kidnapping, but soon discover that he was lured into a humiliation trap.  He's heterosexual, but queer viewers who were bullied in high school still found it a powerfully moving experience.

Then Jake returned to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee to finish high school.   But he still had time for acting projects, like the movie Monster Night (2006), where he fights monsters and gets a girlfriend on Halloween; and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy (2003-07), where he plays the Harry Potter parody Nigel Planter.

Gay representation: Dean Toadblatt, headmaster of Toadblatt's School of Sorcery, marries his boyfriend in a 2007 episode.  Main characters Nergal and Irwin start dating in the series finale.  No parent complained.

After graeduating from Farragut High School in 2007, Jake returned to Los Angeles to play the snobbish Stickler in Cory in the House (2007-2008). He and Cory (Kyle Massey), son of the White House chef, compete over It-Girl Meena, daughter of the Bahavian Ambassador.  Stickler's dad is the head of the CIA, so he has access to a lot of super-spy equipment to make his wooing easier; but Meena still prefers Corey. 

Although Stickler only appears in 11 of 33 episodes, he was a fan favorite. On April 1,  2022, Jake announced a Cory spin-off, Stickler and Newt in the House, pairing Stickler with newly-elected President Newt (Jason Dolley, left).  It was an April Fool's Day prank, but many fans got excited, thinking that it was real.

Since it's imaginary, we can also imagine that Stickler and Newt are boyfriends.  Maybe the grown-up Cory drops by to spend the night in the Lincoln Bedroom.

More Jake after the break

Zev Andros: Tony's gym boyfriend, Phuket diver, ball player, grandson of a Hollywood legend. With Phuket penises

 

Tony announces that he has recruited a new God Squad member.  He probably means a gym buddy, or gym boyfriend, or gym  buddy who he treats as a boyfriend

I can't give the last name of a non-actor, so I'll call him Zev Andros: an  EMT, divemaster with the American Divers of Phuket, baseball player, and bodybuilder. I wonder if he can attest to the veracity of that "Cowboys Do It Better" cap.

Zev's grandfather was Charles Aidikoff (1915-2016). who ran a famous screening room on Rodeo Drive  in Beverly Hills.  Movie stars, producers, and critics came to the 57-seat auditorium to see early versions and works in progress. eat the candy that he provided -- Mars Bars and Red Vines -- and exchange Hollywood gossip.

 

Charlie screened over 50,000 films between 1966 amd 2011, when his grandson Josh took over the screening room. It closed with his death in 2016.

His Facebook memorial page contains photos of him with Betty White, Raquel Welch, Peter Fonda, Danny DeVito, Mel Brooks, Ryan Gosling, Wes Bentley, Ice Cube, King Charles...well, everybody.

But let's get back to Bodybuilder Zev, who grew up in Phuket, the gay capital of Thailand, and now lives in Los Angeles.  Some highlights of his social media pages:

Zev: "The posing room goes hard."  I can see why, buddy.

 "Fitness motivation."  Yours, or ours?

More Zev after the break