"Clone High, Season 2": Twenty Years after Season 1, the Cloned Historical Figures are Back. But Are They Less Homophobic?

 

Clone High, on HBO Max, features the clones of various historical figures in a modern high school.  Apparently they were cloned earlier, in a 2000's series, then frozen and revived in 2023.  Only two episodes have dropped so far. The blurb for Episode 2, "Sleepover," features what looks like a homophobic gay panic joke, as a shirtless atraight guy is horrified by a predatory gay guy getting too close for comfort, so let's check it out. 

Scene 1: Teenage Joan of Arc at the beach with shirtless hunk John Kennedy, aka JFK (Christopher Miller).  As they smoosh their tongues together, he turns into Abe Lincoln (Will Forte, left).  And we see that it is actually a classroom daydream.  Ulp, she's datingJFK (who has an enormous bulge), but in love with Abe.

Scene 2: As the other kids rib Joan of Arc for having a sex dream in class, she stumbles upon Frida Kahlo and Harriet Tubman celebrating the anniversary of the event that brought them together (lesbian couple?).  Joan of Arc complains that she doesn't have any close female friends, so they invite her to a sleepover.  But they have a nefarious goal: to get her to reveal her secret (a crush on Abe Lincoln).

Boyfriend JFK (did I mention the bulge?) wants to have sex with her tonight, but she's going to the sleepover, so she suggests that he hang out with guys instead. "Yeah, I love guys," he says doubtfully. Uh-oh, he doesn't have any guy friends!  What a disaster!

Meanwhile, an unidentified crazy guy invites Abe Lincoln to hang out tonight.  He agrees.

Scene 3: Confucius (Kevin Yu) is taking selfies in the bathroom, when he hears JFK sobbing in a stall.  He explains that he has no guy friends, because he's too busy having sex with girls. Confucius is sympathetic: he has no guy friends either, because he's too busy on the internet.  They decide to have a "bro night," and hug.  Confucius is the one that causes JFK to recoil in horror later.

Scene 4: Joan of Arc at home. Her foster mother, who has a nefarious goal, says ok to the sleepover, because she'll be sharing her deepest secret with the other girls. Foster Mom rushes to tell Fearless Leader, who advises her to get the secrets, so they can use them to blackmail the clones. In order to conduct the surveillance, one of the nefarious types has to cancel his trip with the robot Mr.B, who is furious (a gay human-robot couple?).

Scene 5:  The girls' sleepover: just Harriet Tubman, Frida Kahlo, and Joan of Arc.  A bonding montage, with costumes, cucumber slices, pizza, a pillow fight. Bloody Mary, the mirror ghost, joins them. 

Meanwhile, JFK and Confucius are sitting on opposite sides of a couch, eating pizza for their "bro night." Next, JFK wants to play sports and slap asses, but Confucius wants to watch funny videos on the internet and post comments.

Meanwhile, Abe Lincoln arrives for his play date with the crazy guy. His perky 1950s Mom offers them juice boxes or "hollandaise," but Crazy Guy bats her off and leads Abe to his room to watch videos.

Scene 6: The girls play "Never Have I Ever," while the nefarious types spy.  They can't remember which of the drinks contains the truth serum to give to the girls, so they have to try them out. 

JFK and Confucius are still having fun with the videos.  JFK is a natural at making snarky comments.

The crazy guy now has a name: Topher Bull (Neil Casey).  Nothing on Google, so apparently he's a non-clone character.    He's trolling people on the internet while Abe gasps in awe: "Wow, you're a really good person."  Whoops, he trools JFK and Confucius (using the screen name Top Her 69.  So I guess he's straight.  

Meanwhile, the nefariouses have taken the truth serum.  The guy who was planning on a trip with the robot Mr.B tells a woman that he's only attracted to her because she reminds him of his mother. Mr. B had sex with the coffee maker.

Scene 7:  The "Never Have I Ever" game revealed that Harriet Tubman and Frida Kahlo murdered someone!  They explain: in 2014, they enrolled in a tandem bike competition. While practicing, they hit a pedestrian and killed him, and buried the body.

So, what about Joan's secret?  She won't reveal it until she's sure they're not inventing the murder.  They offer to take her to the burial site.

Scene 8: JFK is shirtless, sweating, trolling like crazy, while Confucius acts like his trainer, massaging him and giving him water.  That's the gay panic scene, I think.  Back at Topher's house, Abe tries to distract him with another activity, but he's obsessed with trolling JFK back.

Topher: You suck.

JFK: Wrong.  You must be thinking of your mother.

Topher: Wrong.  My mom is terrible at blow jobs.

JFK: You have a very inadequate wiener.

Topher: Your a loser with zero friends.

This crushes JFK; he collapses and sobs -- "I am a loser with zero friends!", while Confucius tries to comfort him.  It also causes Abe Lincoln to realize that Topher is actually not a nice person, and leave.  He's got a Pride flag on his wall, with the caption "welcome here."  So a not nice gay ally? 

Suddenly Confucius realizes that Topher made a grammatical error, "your" instead of "you're." .  He points it out, crushing Topher.  This makes JFK realize that they are friends.  They cry and slap each other instead of hugging.  Close enough.

Scene 9: The guy the girls killed, Frederico, shows up.  He explains that he didn't have any friends because he was unwilling to divulge any of his secrets.  But after the girls buried him alive, he decided to start divulging secrets, so now he has lots of friends -- they saved him.  (But he falls into the open grave and dies again.)

This encourages Joan of Arc to tell her secret: that she has a crush on Abe Lincoln.  "This is the biggest secret that I've ever been part of!" Harriet Tubman exclaims.  But they decide to keep the secret, so boyfriend JFK will never know,

Scene 10: The nefarious crew report back to Fearless Leader that they now know all of the clones' secretes. (They're lying, of course). 

Beefcake: Lots of JFK biceps and bulge, in the stick-figure style of Total Drama Island.  

Gay Characters:  Confucius doesn't seem to like girls, or maybe he's just a nerd who has trouble meeting them.

Topher Bus, by the way, is Christopher Columbus. has a Pride flag on his wall, but he doesn't strike me as gay, with the screen name Top Her 69.  According to one review, he is trying to make up for his genetic twin's racism by being super woke, so the flag just means he is an ally.

Abe and JFK get shipped a lot, apparently.

In the 2000s series, Rock Hudson is dating Marie Curie, but dumps her for Oscar Wilde.  Harvey Milk shows up in the background.  JFK has fruity stereotype gay dads.  But maybe the 2023 series is a big more woke. 

Update: Nope, not woke at all.  In Episode 1, Abe Lincoln says that something is "gay."  Everyone is shocked, so he explains: "I just meant 'gay' as in the most horrible, awful, disgusting thing imaginable."  He gets ostracized.  We're supposed to feel sorry for him: Isn't it ridiculous to be upset over saying that gay people are disgusting?  

My grade: F-