"The Glades": Life without Gay People is Really Boring

 

The Glades, a small-town detective investigating the murder of the week, appeared on my Amazon recommendations, so I checked to see if there were any gay characters.

A comment in an article about the show's cancellation: "The Glades will be missed by all viewers, straight and gay."

Why would gay viewers miss it?

More research: Another commentator praised the show for "Not ridiculing Christians, not having gay characters, reflecting family values."

"Family values" is code for "homophobia."

Wait -- why would gay viewers miss a homophobic show?

Truns out that the original comment was: "I have no problem with alternative lifestyles, but they make some people uncomfortable.  Not every show has to have gay characters.  Why can't you just relax and watch good, wholesome tv?"

It might be fun to go undercover, watch a show by and for heterosexuals, written and conceived with the idea that no gay people exist. Sort of like being a secret agent.

I choose an episode apparently about tearoom trade: Season 1, Episode 5: "Some incidental foot contact in a men's restroom enrages one of the men, who gives the other a piece of his mind.  But what he finds in the next stall is a man beaten to death."  

Scene 1: Scary redneck trucker rushes into a truck stop restroom and sits down to do his business. A foot suddenly slides over and touches him.  He yells "Hey!," but the foot continues to touch him.  "You finish up in there, I'm going to kick your pervert ass!"  He opens the door to find a man beaten to death.

Ok, he thinks that gay people are "perverts.'  I'm sure the writers of the show agree.  But was it a dead gay guy in the next stall?  Someone who got a little too frisky?

Scene 2: Scary redneck being interviewed by the cops. Jim (Matt Passmore, top photo) and Carlos (Carlos Gomez) discuss one's daughters' quinceanera (family man, see?).  Dead guy had a fake Florida driver's license.  He came in on a bus. Robbery wasn't the motive.

Picture #2 is of the wrong Carlos Gomez.

I find no mentions of Matt Passmore or Carlos Gomez being homophobic.

Sophie the "beautiful" forensic pathologist shows up and flirts with Carlos.  Jim is jealous.

Opening Credits: Florida beaches full of women's legs and breasts.  This is a "family friendly" show?  I guess if you're a heterosexual sleazedog.  Then an alligator, Jim flirting with a woman, Carlos dissecting a corpse, and The Glades, created by Clifton Campbell.

Scene 3: The kid Jeff (Uriah Shelton) comes home from visiting Dad.  Mom asks why he's acting so weird: "Didn't you have a good time?"  Turns out he blames Mom for not seeing Dad very often, but it's the fault of Witness Protection.

Meanwhile, Jim and Carlos track down the dead guy, whle discussing whether the "beautiful" forensic pathologist is hot: he was David Zale, a realtor who was convicted of embezzlement and got out of prison four months ago.  Daniel (Jordan Wahl) has dug up more intel: Dead guy called the same number twice every day, and he was on a bus to Maggie, North Carolina. 

Daniel does some swishy hand stuff.  I wonder if he's gay.  

Nothing specific, but I found a 2019 review of the homophobic Hialeah, starring Jordan Wall.

Scene 4: Carlos and Sophie the Forensic Pathologist flirt and dissect the corpse. Jim comes in and suggests that Carlos ask her out.  By the way, no drugs or alcohol in Zale's system, and the call was to his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. 

Scene 5: They interview the sponsor, Dr. Sloan.  He runs a high-class addiction recovery center, where Zale worked as a peer counselor.  The detectives are extremely rude, accusing Dr. Sloan of profiting from other people's misery.  

Cut to the kid Jeff playing video games.  Mom comes in, wearing a towel or an extremely inappropriate dress cut to the waist.  She wants to talk, but Jeff storms out. (I'd leave, too, if my Mom wanted to talk while wearing a vagina-showing mini-mini-mini skirt).  She follows.  The problem:  he wants to live with Dad, because Mom works two jobs and is always broke (he says as he stands in the rec room of their palatial McMansion).

Scene 6: Back to the forensics lab.  Turns out that Zale wasn't beaten to death; he was killed by a sharp object like an ice pick.  Amd Daniel has new intel: Zale had lost a class-action suit by the clients he defrauded, so why would any of them want him dead?  Then he couldn't pay.

But if he was broke, how did Zale afford the high-end rehab center?

Back to the rehab center.  Dr. Sloan says that Zale lived at the center.  They check his room; it's been cleared out, and there's blood on the curtains.

Suddenly a guy comes in, thinks that Matt is Zale, and attacks, yelling "You're dead, Zale!" 

Commercial break: a phone charger, IMDB TV, a sentient cookie about to be eaten by his human "friends."

Scene 7: The attacker is Connor Burrows (Sam Ball), millionaire tennis coach (just go with it).  Jim, who knows more about drugs than the professionals, tells Dr. Sloan that he is still using.  Zale was probably the supplier.  Then he cut Burrows off, they had an argument, and Burrows killed him. (Then why did Burrows think that Zale was still alive the next day?)

But he takes a blood sample from an argumentative Dr. Sloan, too.  

Matt and Carlos discuss how hot Sophie the Forensic Pathologist is.

Scene 8: Interview with Connor. Jim confronts him with his past: pushing his 12-year old player too hard, so she collapsed and died; 3 months later he attempted suicide.  Three DUIs, but no criminal convictions because he hired a crooked attorney, Andrew Waller. How is being a judgmental jerk going to help your case?

Connor doesn't explain his beef with Zale, but he does reveal that Zale was never an addict.  He was just pretending so he could work there.  

They research the Crooked Attorney, who got lots of people the rehab clinic instead of prison.

Meanwhile Carlos is measured for a suit for the quinceañera (writing it without the tilde was driving me crazy).  

Wait -- a middle aged woman is helping him, and then they kiss.  A wife! Why is he considerig a date with the Forensic Pathologist?

Daniel goes through Zale's luggage.  In a secret compartment, Crooked Attorney's business card, with a meeting written down! (Gee, most people keep those things on their phones).

Scene 9:  They check: Crooked Attorney represented Zale in an extortion case. They had a meeting scheduled the very night Zale was murdered!  And Crooked Attorney is missing!

The Kid is having pizza with Jim, but Jim is not his dad.  Then what is their connection?  I'm confused.

Scene 10: Jim meets with the Kid's Mom, still in her insanely inappropriate outfit.  They discuss the upcoming divorce, while Jim digs up the body of the Crooked Attorney.  How did he know where it was?

Jim pries the Forensic Pathologist away from Carlos and asks if she is taking anyone to the...um...party (finding the tilde is too hard).  But the scene changes before he can ask her out.

Scene 11: They found a hair follicle on the body, and they want to see if Dr. Sloan is a DNA match, but he refuses to give them a sample. (You already have his blood.  Do you know what DNA is?)

Back at the lab, after they gaze at the Forensic Pathologist's butt as she walks away, Daniel tells Jim that he found a cigar wrapper in Zale's room.  A cigar sold only in two stores in Miami.  He called the stores: Zale bought three per week, at $750 each.  Where did he get the money?

Scene 12: Night. Carlos is in bed with his wife, who is wearing a normal outfit, for a change.  He goes downstairs and looks at a picture of his three girls and smiles.  I don't understand the purpose of this scene. To prove that Carlos is heterosexual?

Scene 13: Crooked Attorney had a puncture wound just like Zale had, and there's a follicle of the killer's hair inside!  How did Forensic Pathologist miss it during the autopsy?  She explains that she's doing sloppy work because she doesn't have a boyfriend.  WTF?  Single people can't do competent work?

Uh-oh, the boyfriend she wanted was Carlos!  They were having an extramarital affair!  Adultery -- so much for family values.

I'm getting bored.  There's an excruciatingly detailed plot summary on the fan wiki.

Spoiler alert:

The Forensic Pathologist did it.  She was helping the Crooked Lawyer falsify medical records because she was in love with him.

None of these people were the least bit interesting, especially the judgmental asshole Jim.  The sexism was overwhelming.  The plot was all about money laundering, yawn.  And there were no gay people (the redneck trucker in Scene 1 knew that "perverts" exist).

My verdict: TV shows without gay people are really boring.