"Unspeakable Sins": Mexican sleaze telenovela with a lot of hunks, some gay (but on the downlow), some tied up.

 

Netflix knows my algorithm, and used this icon of a tied-up muscleman to draw my attention to the Mexican tv series Unspeakable Sins (Pecados Inconfesables). Being gay is usually at the top of the list of "unspeakable sins," so there are bound to be some gay characters.

The viewer reviews on IMDB are awful, but maybe that's due to homophobia.  One guy complained: "only male nudity shown...which is very disappointing for male viewers."

Apparently he is unaware that gay men exist.  So let's get to some of that male nudity.

Episode 1.1: "The Trap."

Scene 1: Helena and her young adult son try to escape from her abusive Billionaire Husband,  but he comes home unexpectedly.  He announce that she must continue to play the role of Perfect Wife, or he'll kill her.

Scenes 2-8: Cut to Helena sitting by the pool, gawking as the hustler Ivan (Andres Baida, left) slowly raises himself out of the water.  What follows is a lengthy sex scene with those esophagus-licking spectacles that pass for kissing in telenovelas.  And more and more.  And more and more.  Eventually the Hustler stops charging her; they're dating.

Scene 9: This doesn't sit well with his pimp, who complains that it's against the rules to get involved with your clients. Plus she's married to the Billionaire, who is absurdly powerful: if he finds out about the affair, he'll kill them and all of their friends and relatives.

Of course, he continues the affair.

There's so much sleazy heterosexual graping and fondling going on that I have to keep fast-forwarding.  I'll just give plot summaries while I am looking for the tied-up dude.

Episode 1.2: "The Reunion"

Helena has an idea that will get her freedom and allow her and the Hustler to date openly (or so she says).  The Billionaire often engages in "unspeakable sins" with young men on the downlow.  Maybe the Hustler could seduce him, and record their activity?   Then she could use the tape to blackmail him into letting her and her son go.

The plan works until, in the midst of their unspeakable sins, the Billionaire notices the cameras, catches on to the blackmail scheme, and beats the Hustler up.  Then he disappears.  Did the Hustler murder him?

The plot thickens as Octavio, the Billionaire's son from his first marriage,  tries to prevent the police investigation of the disappearance. Maybe Octavio murdered him?

Episode 1.3: "Desperation"

Octavio is kidnapped by the Billionaire's business partner, El Magic.  But it's not the tied-up hunk scene: Octave is fully clothed, and getting beat up, not hanging around.

Plot dump: El Magic lent a lot of money to the Billionaire.  He wants Octavio to have his father declared dead so he can take over the bank accounts and get El Magic his money.  

Episode 1.4: "Under Suspicion"

Helena's son Fer tells Octavio that he accidentally killed his mother, the Billionaire's first wife.  The plot gets more convoluted.  No one is innocent; everyone has a sleazy secret.

The Billionaire happened to record the incident, and used it to blackmail Helena into marrying him.  

Plus the Billionaire abused Fer, calling him a pansy and kicking him in the testicles.  Did Fer murder the Billionaire to get revenge for suggesting that he was gay?  Oh, and for that blackmail thing.

More after the break

Skyler's Hot/Hung Photos, Part 2: Grimacing at girls, grinning at 69, wearing two caps, showing his...

 

This is a collection of cute/cool or hot/humorous photos of  Skyler Gisondo, star of The Santa Clarita Diet and The Righteous Gemstones, and Jimmy Olson in the upcoming Superman: Legacy.  As far as I know, he's over 18 in all of them.  He has only one verifiable nude photo online (in Part 4 or 5, I don't recall which), but some of his friends have more, and there are some interesting chatroom and hookup app possibilities.

1. "No, you can't see my dick, but have I shown you my abs lately?"

2. "Sorry, I never heard the term 'skinny dipping.'  Did you notice my abs?"

 3. Skyler's reaction when a girl tried to hug him, and he smelled her perfume and felt her...yuck! 

4. "Skyler's abs are nothing -- check out mine!" 

5. Skyler shows us his favorite year in classic rock.  I swear I am unfamiliar with any other meaning of the term "69"

6. "I'm glad I signed up for this physics class.  No yucky girls...what do you mean, turn around?"

More glorious Gisondo after the break. Warning: explicit

"Surreal Estate," Episode 1.1: Realtor and his scoobies investigate haunted houses, with gay characters and a lot of n*de Matt Whites

  

Surreal Estate (2021-23), on Hulu, appeared on Reddit about shows with "normalized" LGBT characters, not struggling to come out or fighting homophobia.  None of the episode synopses suggest gay characters, and the icon shows a man and a woman, but here goes, Episode 1.1

Scene 1: Night. A man in a 1940s detective costume walks through a thunderstorm to a creepy house. The sign says "For Sale by Owner." 

Inside, it's too dark to see much, but a woman in a bathrobe seems to be reading an antique book on human anatomy.   She gets scared when the surgeon in a photograph seems to be grinning evilly at her.  Suddenly the room catches on fire (at least we can see something now).  She runs outside, but runs into the Old Fashioned Man.  

Psych!  He's not the ghost of a 1940s detective, he just dresses like one: Luke Roman (Tim Rozon of Schitt's Creek), interested in the house.  So call in advance?  

She hugs him: "The house wants to kill me!"  That's every home owner's complaint, girl.

He can help with that.  They gaze into each other's eyes.  I'll be they start dating, and she joins the paranormal real estate team.

Scene 2: At Shirley's Diner, still too dark to see much, Homeowner Megan, says that her fiancé is coming to pick her up.  Don't you hate it when they mention a boyfriend halfway through the date?

Luke shows her a video about his company, SMEP, Specialists in Metaphysically-Engaged Properties, those with a market value depreciation due a tragedy occuring there.  Sometimes they are haunted, sometimes not, but the rumor makes it lose 37% of its market value and takes 317% longer to sell. 

Megan's swishy boyfriend Brock (Matt White) flounces in with a teeth-click, a flamboyant wave of his umbrella, and a "What up, Girlfriend?"  Shouldn't be too hard to convince him to be true to himself, so you can have Megan for yourself.  

Matt White has nine acting credits on IMDB, including six shorts,and three walk-ons.  This may not be the right one, but there are lots of other Matt Whites to choose from: a baseball player, a football player, an artist,  a musician, a comedian, and a billionaire.

Left: Matt White d*ck

Scene 3: At the agency, Luke tells his scoobies, two men and a woman, about the case.  Homeowner Megan is a medical student who inherited the haunted house from her grandfather.  Swishy boyfriend lives with her (in his own room, I assume).  

On to otheir other case, a house with a poltergeist. It came out clean: no entities.  But Rita, the Evil Realtor who hired them, insists that things were flying around.  Nobody wants to confront her because she's so evil, so they get the New Girl to do it: a ringer who got $10 million in sales at her last agency.  

Introductions:

Father Phil (Adam Korson, right), a defrocked priest with nice biceps, does the background checks and due diligence.

More after the break

"Long Story Short": Dysfunctional Jewish family with some LGBTQ representation and subtexts. Bonus: nude Jewish dudes

 

My partner in West Hollywood (not shown) was Jewish, so I attended Shabbat services at the gay synagogue, celebrated most of the holidays, learned Hebrew prayers and a lot of Yiddish words, and endured the criticism of his family and friends: "why couldn't he settle down with a nice Jewish boy"?  So I am interested in Long Story Short (2025) on  Netflix, an animated sitcom about a dysfunctional Jewish family, with the gimmick that it jumps around the timeline, from the 1990s to the 2020s. It just dropped today, and I'm already five episodes in.

 Showrunner Raphael Bob-Waksberg created Bojack Horseman, which had an asexual character, so there is some gay representation.  Plus it stars Ben Feldman, whom I have a crush on (he's like Scott Baio without the homophobia).  I'll review the first episode.

Scene 1: 1996.  The family is on the way home from grandma's funeral.  The eldest son, quiet, sensitive Avi (Ben Feldman, left) notes that she's in heaven now, but Dad (Paul Reiser of Mad About You) tells him that Jews don't believe in an afterlife.  She's gone for good.  I'm betting on Avi being gay.

The other kids are a squabbling brother and sister, Yoshi and Shira.

Scene 2: 2004.  The adult Avi, now chubby and unshaven, is flying home with his non-Jewish girlfriend, so he can introduce her to the family.  Heterosexual identity established at Minute 2.54.  That leaves Yoshi and Shira.  

Scene 3: The family meets them at the airport.  Mom begins criticizing the Girlfriend immediately, for visiting on the important weekend of Yoshi's Bar Mitzvah, for dressing improperly, and for having too much luggage.

Why is Yoshi just standing there open-mouthed?  Does he have a developmental disability?  And you have your Bar Mitzvah at age 13.  Dude looks around 30.

Left: Yoshi is voiced by Max Greenfield of The Neighborhood.

Scene 4: At home, the criticism continues.  The Girlfriend stupidly brought them an empty vase, so Mom has to waste precious time on the busiest weekend of the year looking for something to put in it (Dad agrees that an empty vase is a horrible gift).

Girlfriend tries to make amends by helping with the dishes, but she stupidly uses a meat sponge on a dairy plate, thus ruining their cherished heirloom dish set forever.

Later, in their room, Girlfriend complains that the family doesn't like her, but Boyfriend Avi assures her that they are critical because they like her.  If they didn't like her, things would get much, much worse.

In other news, Daughter Shira and her best friend Baby are having a fight: they're in the "I hate her and wish she was dead" stage.  So why is she invited to the Bar Mitzvah?  

Because Mom and Dad are friends with her parents: "You don't need to speak to her. There will be 100 people there, even the Girlfriend who didn't bother to learn anything about Judaism and will make stupid mistakes and ruin everything." She criticizes because she likes you.

Scene 5: As Mom tries to fix the worst nightmare a mother has ever faced -- place settings that will push people who hate each other together -- Boyfriend Avi tries to convince her that his girlfriend is named Jen, not Jennifer.  Mom thinks that "Jen" too hard to remember, and why would she stupidly choose a name that no one on Earth could ever get right?  "But I'll try my best to change everything about me, your mother, to please this girl that you've known for twenty seconds."

Party guests begin to arrive.  Daughter Shira complains about Great-Uncle Arnie's complaining, but Boyfriend Avie tells her, "Is not a schmuck entitled to a schmooze at his grand-nephew's simcha?"  I'll bet that isn't from the Talmud

Mom complains that her son Yoshi has grown up too fast, and tries to quote that song from Fiddler on the Roof, but can't recall the lyrics, and yells at her husband for trying to help.

Scene 6: Cut to the party after the Bar Mitzvah.  People are yelling at each other; Daughter Shira complains that the food is inedible.  Girlfriend praises Yoshi's speech: "How is a 13-year old so knowledgeable about the Holocaust?"  I guess he doesn't have a developmental disability, so what was the open-mouthed stare about? 

Uh-oh, the parents of Baby, whom Daughter Shira hates, approach to claim Baby couldn't make it because she had to study for midterms.  Shira fumes; Baby obviously skipped the Bar Mitzvah just to spite her, and after she wore special earrings as a peace offerings.

"Girl friendships can be intense," Girlfriend notes.

It's time for the candle-lighting ceremony.  Where's Yoshi?

"He wandered off with his buddy Danny," Boyfriend Avi notes.  I predict that they will find the boys kissing, thus outing Yoshi.

Scene 7: Yoshi and his Buddy (Dave Franco) are in the coat closet.  Not kissing, smoking (I can't tell if it's tobacco or marijuana).  Buddy criticizes him for still believing in God like a little kid.  But -- if there's no God, what was the point of memorizing all those prayers?  He could have been doing something useful, like practicing Dance Dance Revolution so he could impress his crush, Rachel.  Heterosexual identity established at Minute 17.  Well, he had a long run

Suddeny the closet door swings open.  Boyfriend Avi sees Yoshi sitting with his legs spread, and his Buddy lying next to him.  "Hey, it's a big day, you're having fun, I get it.  But it's time to light the candles."  He definitely concludes that they were doing sex stuff. Maybe Avi comes out later.

More gay stuff after the break.  Caution: Explicit.