Grading the Beefcake of "American Horror Stories"

 American Horror Stories is a horror-story anthology produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, whose American Horror Story series often has significant gay representation.  Here, after the first story, LGBT characters are mostly erased, so instead I'm going to evaluate the beefcake, on a scale of 1 (all girls) to 10 (sausage fest).

Episodes 1-2, "Rubber Woman":  Scarlett, a 16-year old girl, becomes involved with BDSM, which on tv always means that you like to kill people.  So she and her ghost-girlfriend start killing.  

Beefcake: Matt Bomer and Gavin Creel play the parents.  Bomer is ok, but Creel has ridiculous long shaggy hair.  We see them shirtless briefly.  Otherwise it's all girls. Grade: 2

Episode 3, "Drive In": High schooler Chad (Rhenzy Feliz) takes his girlfriend to a drive-in showing of a movie rumored to be cursed: anyone who sees it turns into a vicious zombie-monster.  Since this is American Horror Stories, the curse is real.  

A transwoman has a significant role as the girlfriend's best friend, who is dating one of the high school hunks.  She is the last identifiable LGBTQ character in the series.

Beefcake: Rhenzy displays a little of his chest while having sex.  His best friend (Leonardo Cecchi) doesn't have any shirtless scenes.  Grade: 3

Episode 4, "The Naughty List"  Four social media influencers try to get more subscribers by filming someone committing suicide.  When that backfires, they try pretending to be attracted to each other while saying "No homo" (they're jerks, so the homophobia is expected).  That backfires, so they go to the mall at Christmastime and make fun of Santa Claus and his elves.  He puts them on the "naughty list."

Beefcake:  Nonstop!  Three of the influencers (Charles Melton, Nico Greetham, above, and Dyllon Burnside, left) are half-naked all the time, and the fourth (Kevin McHale) is shown briefly in the hot tub.  Plus there are some hunks at the boys' Christmas party.  Grade: 10.

Episode 5, "Ba'al":  A rich lady trying to get pregnant puts an ancient Babylonian fertility fetish under her bed (isn't Ba'al Canaanite? ).  She has a baby, but things go horribly wrong.  Meanwhile her husband (Ronen Rubenstein) has an agenda of his own.

Beefcake:  Rubenstein never unbuttons a button, not even during sex.  He has some cute male friends, but they are likewise beefcake deficient. Grade: 2.

Episode 6, "Feral":  While seeking their long-lost son, a heterosexual couple run afoul of feral humanoid creatures.  One of which turns out to be....

Beefcake: Dad (Aaron Tveit, left) is cute, but always fully clothed, even during sex.  The other male actors are not particularly swoonworthy.  Grade: 2.

Episode 7, "Game Over."  A woman creates a video game based on the Murder House from Season 1 of American Horror Story and Episodes 1-2 of this series.  She and her son go to the real Murder House, and get involved in the tying up of loose ends.

Beefcake: Adam Hagenbuch, one of the characters in the video game, displays his physique. Dylan McDermott from Season 1 appears briefly.  Grade: 5.

Strange that the worst episode of the series, "The Naughty List," has the most beefcake, and the best of the series, "Ba'al," has the least.