Monsterland: More Heterosexuals Than Monsters

 

Monsterland is an anthology series based on the book North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrad.  about "ordinary people" having encounters with supernatural beings like mermaids and ghosts.  None of the episode synopses specify that any are gay, so I chose the most likely suspect.

Episode #2. Eugene, Oregon:  "A lonely teen gets an unwelcome guest."  Maybe it's an incubus.

Scene 1:  Nick (Charlie Tahan), a scraggly, crazy-eyed, 30-year old teen, gazes longingly at two guys playing with nerf swords.  While they laugh at him for being a "freak," he tries to pick up Mom's prescription, but their insurance has lapsed.  

Scene 2: He trudges home, cuts up Mom's pills and microwaves her a burger and fries.  

I figured there was a Norman Bates thing going on, but Mom turns out to be real, gazing frumpily at the tv (like people on tv do to demonstrate that they're losers).  They play cards.  Then he tucks her in bed and plays a video game in a zoom room.

Whoops, there's a tall human-shaped shadow on the wall!  Nick politely introduces himself and asks what it is, but it won't answer.  Then Mom signals -- she had a bad dream.  So she tells him how sexy he is, and he crawls in bed with her.  Another mother and son in love.  Is heterosexual romance so necessary that if there's no girlfriend, Mom will have to do?

Scene 3: Nick posts a picture of the shadow to "What Is This?", and is directed to Shadow Watch.  The watchdog group appears in his room (or maybe this is a clever way of depicting a zoom room?): leader West (Ben Rappaport, left), "let's go Guatanamo on their ass" Dagr (Jack DiFalco), and sarcastic FinalGrl.  There have been 10 Shadow sightings so far this year.  They prey on the weak and vulnerable, feeding off your loneliness until they are powerful enough to strike: "They shatter families.  They sow darkness.  They killed my parents." 

The group diagnoses Nick -- shy, lonely, in love with his mother -- as an ideal victim.    

Scene 4: Scared to sleep in the house, Nick goes out to the garage and sleeps in the car.  If he's got a car, why does he walk everywhere?

He awakens at dawn, makes Mom breakfast, and rushes to work at a fast-food joint.  The boss fires him for always being late and stealing food.  (Shirtless shot as Nick rips his uniform off.)  

He trudges to an auto garage and asks if they know how to track down Mike Smith, who used to work there.  They don't. 

Scene 5:  Back home, Nick serves gruel for dinner.  If Mom can sit at the table, why does she need bells to signal him?  He pretends that he was in school all day, then tucks Mom into bed. A shadow hand reaches out from under the nightstand.  

Scene 6: The Shadow Watch group appears in Nick's living room.  Are these people ghosts?  "From now on, whenever anything bad happens to you, assume it's a Shadow attack!" 

 "What if I just got shit luck?" 

 "There's no such thing as luck.  It's not random.  It's strategic, organized by the Shadows.  That's why we need Fletcher."

Fletcher: The presidential candidate who keeps referring to "shadows" in his speeches, signaling that he's one of us.

We already have an unresolved plot thread about Nick's search for Mike Smith -- a long-lost father, brother, or boyfriend?  Now another one about this Fletcher, who may know more than he's saying.  Is there a government conspiracy behind the Shadows?

Dagr hugs Nick and says "You're not alone anymore," but then "Somebody get this bitch a drink before he grows tits."  Was he being homoerotic or homophobic?

Scene 7:   They all go to Nick's garage to drink.  Oh, they're physically present, not on the internet.  Time for back stories:

West lost his brother to a heroin overdose caused by a Shadow.  Dagr was 12 years old, so distraught by his Shadow that he was posting suicide notes on the internet, when West found him.  FinalGrl's parents died in a murder-suicide due to the Shadow.

The boys leave, but FinalGirl girl sticks around.  Nick gazes lustfully as she changes clothes.  Darn -- I thought for sure he was gay. It took 28 minutes to heterosexualize him.

I've seen enough.  I'll just fast-forward to the end.

At least there's no fade- out kiss. 

Spoiler Alert:

The Shadow is Nick's mother.

"La Brea": As Many Plot Holes as "Lost," But Not as Much Beefcake

 

I've been dying to watch the first episode of La Brea, the new tv series on Hulu: according to the horrendous reviews,  a "cliched, amateurish, inept rip-off of Lost"  with "a cliche gay couple."  11% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Where are Joel and the Bots when you need them?

Scene 1:  Stuck in traffic outside the La Brea Tar Pits in L.A., Mom intermittently honks her horn, complains about her job,  and displays her wedding-ring necklace (so she and Dad are divorced so they can get back together again). Teenage daughter Izzy has a prosthetic leg.  Teenage son Josh (Jack Martin, left) demonstrates that he is heterosexual by cruising a girl in the next car (aren't you glad we got that out of the way?). 

Suddenly the pavement cracks, and cars and buildings fall into a gigantic, rapidly-expanding sinkhole.  Mom reverses the car and drives down the sidewalk until she crashes. Hundreds of people run past stopped cars (but no one actually gets out of the cars?).   Josh falls in.  Mom falls in, but Izzy grabs her arm.  Instead of "Pull me up!", Mom orders her to "Let go!"  Huh?   The sinkhole obligingly waits for her to think it over, drop Mom, and run away in slow motion.

Scene 2:  U.S. Air Force Base, El Segundo, California.  Disgraced ex-pilot Gavin (Eoin Macken) in a car, intermittently drinking, getting a vision of a giant condor, and gazing at a photo of his estranged family.  He goes in to apply for a job.  The interviewer doesn't want a pilot who has crazy hallucinations (and drinks...and discusses his marital problems in detail), but she promises to find him something else to do.

On the way out, he sees a news story about the sinkhole on tv (helpfully set up in the lobby), and Izzy calls.  Before she has a chance to say anything, he yells "Stay there.  I'm on my way."  How do you know she was in the disaster?  How do you know where she is?  

Scene 3: The disaster site.  Izzy in an ambulance, being examined.  Why is she the only one?  Wouldn't there be hundreds of evacuees?  Dad arrives.  Wait -- it's 24 miles from El Segundo to L.A., How did he get there so fast?   They hug.  Suddenly giant condors, just like the ones in Dad's hallucinations, fly from the sinkhole.  One stops and caws ominously: "Nice seeing you again, Gavin."

Scene 4:  Mom fell through a glowing rift into a new world, barren except for a single "Wilshire Boulevard" sign and a weird pictograph on a rock.  And her wedding-ring necklace, on the ground nearby.   Why isn't she pulverized by the fall?  And where are the other people and objects that fell with her?    She starts running at random, yelling "Josh!"

Eventually she runs into a black guy with a gun (whoa, racism!), traumatized by the fall.  They both run toward some smoke -- oh, here's where everything else landed, in a convenient clearing!  Why are the cars and buildings all mangled, but the people are fine?

Scene 5: Josh has apparently been there much longer than Mom. He's already got a sidekick -- Riley, the girl he cruised earlier!  They also meet a gung-ho woman and a giggling stoned dude (Scott), who thinks they're in an episode of Lost.  A convenient Doctor (Jon Seda) takes charge, and sends them all out looking for supplies.  

There's also a gay couple, half of which is played by Pacharo Mzembe.  The other half has lost his glasses, and is literally blind without them.  They're on the scene for about 10 seconds. 

Riley and Scott find a cache of heroin in one of the cars.  Ulp!  There's a drug dealer among them!

Uh-oh, giant CGI wolves attack!  Riley's dad is killed and eaten.  Jack is bitten.   The others take refuge in cars until Black Guy with Gun shoots the wolves.  

Scene 6:  At the sinkhole, Homeland Security lady holds a press conference.  It was...um...er...a natural disaster.  There are no plans to search for survivors: "no one could have survived that fall."  But Gavin gets a vision of Mom in the prehistoric world: "This sounds crazy, but Mom and Josh are still alive.  And what about the condors?"

Meanwhile, Homeland Security Lady talks to Adam (Toby Truslove, left), a senior official who worked on a similar incident in the Mojave Desert: "Yep, I told them what they wanted to hear.  No way they can know the truth!"  They go into a command center tent and look at drone images of the glowing rift.  Suddenly the images vanish.

Scene 7: At the prehistoric world, Doctor treats Josh's wound -- he needs antibiotics, or he will die in like a few minutes (that's not how infections work).  The Black Guy with a Gun, traumatized by using his gun, runs into the woods.  Mom and Doctor drop their search for antibiotics to follow.  Just let him go?  Keeping Josh alive is more important than telling a stranger "Everything is going to be ok?"

Coincidentally, Black Guy with Gun knows where an ambulance is -- inconveniently distant from the rest of the debris. 

Scene 8: Dad  Gavin tries to talk to Adam and Homeland Security Lady: "I know something.  I've been having hallucinations, see, but I'm not crazy.  And not very drunk yet.."  They dismiss him.  "I saw the serial number of your drone."  They pretend not to care, but secretly investigate him.

Dad Gavin, Izzy, and Aunt Jessica go home -- extremely ornate rich-person house.  Dad sorts through a shoebox of old photos to find a picture of the boulder with the pictograph, which would prove that there are sinkhole survivors, I guess.

Scene 9:  On the way to the ambulance, Doctor conveniently walks ahead, so Black Guy with Gun (Ty) reveals that he has an ex-wife (of course), and he's a psychologist (who carries a gun with him at all times?). He immediately stops being traumatized and asks if Mom wants to start an imprompto therapy session.  

Ok!  About a year ago, she was running late, so she asked a neighbor to pick up Izzy from school, and there was an accident, and Izzy lost her leg.  

"You can't blame yourself," Ty responds. Gee, I could have said that without a Ph.D. in psychology!

Scene 10:  Dad Gavin sneaks out in the middle of the night to find the boulder with the pictograph.  And he digs around, and finds the wedding ring necklace!  Are they going with the survivors in the prehistoric past, before the first humans came to North America (over 23,000 years ago)?  No way that ring would be so close to the surface.

Meanwhile, at the survivor camp, Scott and Riley try to keep Josh awake so he won't die (that's head injuries, not infected wounds).  Gung-ho lady fires a flare.  Someone notices -- a prehistoric person with the pictograph on his cloak!

Meanwhile, at the command center, they discover that the condors belong to a prehistoric species.

Scene 11: Mom, Doctor, and Ty finally reach the ambulance.  Suddenly Mom notices that they're still in the L.A. basin.  Ulp, a saber-tooth tiger attacks!   Saber-tooth tigers became extinct about 10,000 years ago, so they're definitely in the past. The end.

Beefcake: None.

Gay characters: One couple, for ten seconds.

Heterosexism:  Nearly all interactions, even professional and familial interactions, are between men and women.  I can't recall a single line of dialogue spoken between men (except the gay guy says "It will be ok, Sweetheart" to his partner).

Plot Inanities: Lots.

Will I Keep Watching:  What for?  Everybody is divided into boy-girl dyads, and no one took off his clothes, and the mystery has already been solved: they're in the prehistoric past.

"Blood and Water": Two Guys Kissing in Cape Town

 

The teaser for Season 2 of Blood and Water, a Netflix series about an elite private school in Cape Town, South Africa, depicts two cute shirtless guys awkwardly talking to Mom and Dad.  

Could they be a gay couple?  

Well, this is Netflix, and South Africa recognized same-sex marriage in 2005, so maybe....

I fast-forwarded through the series to find out.

The scene occurs in Season 2, Episode 1: the two teenagers, Chris and Mark, stumble through a mansion, kissing and undressing each other.  They reach the pool.  Uh-oh, Mom and Dad are there!  

"Um...er...I thought you were out of town.  Um...er...this is Michael, my boyfriend."  

Mom and Dad are completely nonchalant.  "Chrissy, dear,when did you get a boyfriend?  You must tell us all about him!"

The series centers on a girl named Puleng, whose sister Phume was kidnapped shortly after her birth.  She somehow gets the idea that Filke, star swimmer at Parkhurst Academy, is her long-lost sister, so she transfers to Parkhurst and joins the swim team to do some stalking.  This results in a series of uncovered lies, secrets, and scandals.  And romance, of course, notably with mega-hunk Thabang Molaba.

Chris (Arno Greef), Filke's bff, is a bit of a scoundrel.  He publishes some accusations about Puleng's father's involvement in the kidnapping, but makes sure that her ally Wendy gets the credit, just to stir things up a bit. 

He is actually pansexual: In Season 1, he dates both Mark (Duane Williams) and a girl named Zama, without informing either.  Zama finds out when she catches him getting a blow job from Mark, and doesn't react well (because of the "cheating," not because of the gay stuff).  In Season 2,  he is just with Mark (as far as I can tell from fast-forwarding), but the relationship never takes center stage after that scene.

Actor Arno Greef, whose first language is Afrikaans, states that when he was cast, he didn't know what "pansexual" meant, so he did some research: it's "an important community that needs representation as well in the media."  The fan feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.