"Bored to Death": Three Guys, One Bed, and a Lot of Dropped Pronouns

Bored to Death on Amazon Prime is advertises as a sitcom about three friends who start a private-detective business -- and, like everything on Amazon Prime, it's promoted as "the best tv show in history," "an incredible masterpiece."    How can so many shwos that I never heard of be the best tv show in history?

Tne Trailer:  In 43 seconds, Jason Schwartzmann (the gay best friend in the Scott Pilgrim movies) kisses girls three times  --a gigantic red flag.  But he is also interacts with two guys:
1. Ted Danson (the elderly demon on the gay-positive Good Place )
2. Zach Galifianiakis (who I mistake for Jason Mantsoukas, Janet's crazy boyfriend on The Good Place).
The three are shown in bed together (wearing pajamas, no beefcake), It's obvious that Ted and Zach play the gay couple-best buddies, giving him a place to stay after a girl kicked him out.

That's good enough for me..

So, as Kenan and Kel used to say,"Here it goes..."

Opening Credits:  Jason wanders through the pages of a mystery novel, chasing the Girl of His Dreams.  Zach appears as Superman, but gets a gut.  Ted appears as a suave,sophisicated, fey gay guy.  He tries to pick Jason up, but is unsuccessful and runs off.

Scene 1: Aspiring writer Jonathan (Jason Schwartzman) is moving out of his New York apartment.   He complains that the movers shouldn't be Jewish, because, you know, it requires muscles, and all Jews are weaklings.  Antisemitic joke?  Not a good start!

Meanwhile girlfriend (I guess) Suzanne is packing,too.   They kiss a wet, sloppy, tongue-swallowing kiss.

Gross!  Fast-forward!

I fast-forward two minutes. The wet, sloppy kiss is over.  Now they're arguing about pot. Jonathan likes it, Suzanne doesn't. Is she dumping him?  Then what's with the 2-minute long tongue-swallowing?

Scene 2: Downstairs neighbor advises Jonathan to rebound fast, but he doesn't want to. Instead, he goes back to the apartment and reads a Raymond Chandler novel.

Raymond Chandler was a hard-boiled detective writer of the 1930s and 1940s (The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye).  Horribly homophobic.  Besides, mystery fiction has evolved a great deal since the 1940s.  I can't believe that any contemporary aspiring writer would read his junk.

Next Jonathan poss an ad on craigslist offering his services as a non-licensed private detective.

Scene 3: Jonathan meets with his buddy Ray (Zach), an aspiring comic book artist.

Ray discusses the last time his heart was broken, dropping the gender of the heart-breaker.

 The best way to tell if a guy  is gay --  he drops the gender when discussing dates and romantic partners.  Gay people do it so often to avoid homophobic confrontations with bosses, next-door neighbors, and strangers on the bus, that it becomes instinctive, and they do it even when talking to friends.

Wait -- five lines later, he mentions a girlfriend, Leah. Straight!  The gender-dropping was a tease!

Then what was he doing in bed with Ted Danson in the promo.  Ted must be the gay friend that put them both up for the night during a caper.

Scene 4:  Jonathan gets a private detective job: A woman asks  him to track down her missing college-student sister, who isn't in her dorm room (so?  when I was in college, I was in my dorm room maybe 20 minutes a day).

 She suspects the boyfriend, Vincent (Richard Short, left), of foul play, because he has a tattoo, he's English, and he's way old - 30!   Jonathan, who has been hitting on her, is nonplussed by the "way old" comment, because he's 30, too.   But he promises to help out.

Scene 5: Jonathan  goes to a ritzy art gallery,where he has a job doing something unspecified.  Coworker Sandrine warns him that George is angry with him for being late.  Then they discuss breakups.  Sandrine drops her romantic partner's gender, but you can't fool me again.  I'm sure it's just a gay tease, the partner was a guy, and Sandrine will be kissing Jonathan by Episode #3.

 Scene 6:  George (Ted Danson) appears, a lavender-scented, candy-colored, limp=wristed poof of the Tennessee Williams-Cole Porter school,  Instead of being angry,he pulls Jonathan into a toilet stall in the restroom.

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

But he doesn't want a blow job-- he wants pot, which Jonathan supplies from a Viagra prescription bottle.

Why does Jonathan have Viagra?  George gave it to him,thinking that he needed help in the sexual arousal department.

Why does George care whether Jonathan gets aroused?  Nudge,, nudge, wink, wink.

George notes that he is taking Viagra because with his heart trouble, heavy drinking, and work pressure, he's having trouble performing in bed.

Anyway, George is "bored to death" with art, life, booze, and ___.  He used to stay in a relationship with a ___ for two or three years, but now it only takes about a week before he's too bored with the ___ to get aroused.

Fill in the blank:
a. Gender-dropping "Person"
b. Man
c. Woman

Answer: "person" twice, then "woman"  George finally outs himself as a  lavender-scented, candy-colored, limp-wristed heterosexual horndog!

The remaining scenes:  Sister and her boyfriend are immersed in a consensual S&M scene.  Jonathan bursts in to "rescue" her, and they have him arrested as a crazy intruder. At the police station, the cop tells him to stop pretending to be a private detective, or he'll end up in prison, and "You don't look lke you would thrive in that environment."

At least he doesn't mention droppng the soap.