"The Sinner": Retired cop, sleazoid prof, and predatory chum, in Australia/New York. But at least we see Matt Bomer nude.

  

I was recommended Season 3 of The Sinner, a crime drama anthology starring Bill Pullman as a cop drawn into different adventures every season.  I'm not much into crime dramas, but there are reputedly gay subtexts, so here goes: Episode 1.

Link to NSFW version

Scene 1: Jamie (Matt Bomer) a guy in a scruffy suit, sits in a toilet stall, smoking marijuana. He walks through a ritzy private school, getting drooled over by all the coeds.  They need another chaperone for the LGBTQ  Alliance field trip.  "Sure, I'm happy to do it."  So he's bi?   

Then he teaches his class -- something about the Treaty of Versailles --in a small, crowded conference room.  Only female students?.  Is this a girls' school, or are we emphasizing that he's a hetero horndog?

After class, a girl hangs back to flirt while her friends glare jealously from the door.  Don't worry, you'll get your turn.  She's decided to apply to Brown, and she needs a letter of recommendation.  "Sure, you write it and I'll sign it."   Sleazing on co-eds, and now forgery?  This guy is a jerk.

Scene 2: The Big Boss congratulates elderly cop Harry (Bill Pullman, left) on his retirement, although his replacements, Soto (Eddie Martinez. below) and McCafferty, are awful.  They have verve and energy, but no experience. 

Scene 3: A train chugging by a river.  Inside, Jamie the Sleazoid Prof is staring angrily at the other passengers as they scroll through their cell phones.  He gets off and chases after one, a bald guy in a business suit.

Meanwhile, Harry the Retired Cop, at the same station, greets his daughter and grandson: "Welcome to the Northern Territory." So this must be Darwin, Australia.  They drive to the creepy, isolated house that he bought to retire in -- a former army barracks.  Daughter disapproves -- what if he need help? Cell phones don't even work out here.  "I can get bars in the front yard." 

She also disapproves of her son's interest in reading.  "That's all he does.  He's got no friends."  Especially that one fantasy novel -- he won't put it down. Plot dump: she's recently divorced, and ex Andy has vanished to London.

Scene 4: Jamie the Sleazoid Prof is barbecuing, while his wife Leela complains about the customers in her shop.   Wait -- what happened to the guy he was chasing?  I thought he'd end up dead.  Suddenly Jamie has the urge to stick his hand onto the barbecue grill, but Wifey interrupts him.  They smooch.  .

Doorbell rings: Amazon Delivery.  Jamie is shocked and horrified. "What are you doing here?  I told you not to come here." So he prefers brick-and-mortar bookstores?  

Nope, the Amazon stuff was a misdirection.  It's actually Nick (Chris Messina), whom Jamie knows but hates.  Maybe a downlow hookup?  They argue and sputter at each other, but when Leela shows up, Nick is all smiles, and gets a dinner invitation.

Scene 5: Jamie the Sleazoid Prof and Hookup Nick glaring at each other across the dinner table, while Leela drones on about her shop. I don't really understand what she sells, but there are candles and  "essential oils"  Nick criticizes Jamie for forcing his wife to move to Australia, when she wanted to stay in Brooklyn. He makes more ominous, threatening statements, but Leela is oblivious. Not very smart for someone named after a space pilot on "Futurama."  

Scene 6: Night.  Harry the Retired Cop is asleep on the couch.  He gets a phone call. Hey, no cell phone reception, remember?  There was an accident off Route 9, so he has to go investigate.  Hey, retired, remember?

And now he's driving on the right side of the road.  This can't be Australia!  But the only Northern Territory I'm familiar with is in Australia.  There's a Northwest Territory in Canada, but I don't think Yellowknife has that huge train station.  Maybe he was riffing on the remoteness of his community, and expected to have the sound on, so they could hear the accents. 

Accident scene: The driver crashed into a tree. "He's ok -- at St. Emilia's getting checked out."  But he got splattered all over the car.  WTF?  Lady, you just said he was ok! Are we watching events in parallel worlds simultaneously?

What was the driver doing on private road that leads to just one house, where the owner wasn't expecting him?  The cops scratch their heads, baffled by this mystery. Harry checks out the driver -- it's Hookup Nick!

Scene 7:  The other "he," the one that's ok, is Jamie the Sleazoid Prof.  He sits on an examination table, looking sinister, staring at his hands.  

Scene 8: Retired Cop Harry works while his replacement, Soto, glares at him.  He calls a lady to tell her that the cops have some of her father's stuff.  Does she want it?  "No. Ok, I'll give you my home address."  Now he says he's in Dorchester, New York 11332.  The zip code is Flushing, Queens.  I was not aware that Queens was called the Northern Territory.  So when Nick got angry because Jamie forced his wife to move to the other side of the world, he meant ten minutes by subway? 

Jamie the Sleazoid Prof comes in for the insurance interview. After dinner, they went out for a drink at Nick's hotel. On the way back, Nick was driving too fast, and crashed  No big mystery.

"But where were you going?  You were nowhere near your house or his hotel. "Um...um...we were looking for an overlook, and got lost."  An overlook in the middle of the night?

Gay subtext: "I saw Nick die.  It was like seeing him for the first time.  The way he looked at me..."  This makes Harry suspicious.  So what if Nick and Jamie were boyfriends?  How would that affect the case?

More obfuscation after the break

Scene 9:  Retired Cop Harry interviews Sonia, the owner of the property where they crashed.  She has no idea why they were on her road; she doesn't know them.  Maybe they got lost?  Harry thinks that she's lying, but when she gets all defensive, he backs off.

Scene 10: Establishing shots of the town of Dorchester.  It looks like it's on the Hudson, maybe around Poughkeepsie, so Jamie sleazes at the equivalent of Vassar. I had no idea that Poughkeepsie was in Flushing, Queens.  At the boring shop, Leela is talking to her "favorite helper" off camera (it turns out to be Jamie, har har).  Apparently both Leela and her regular assistant are pregnant, so what will happen when the babies come? They can hardly work in the shop while breastfeeding.  Jamie thinks that might draw in customers.  Har, har, hetero guys so anxious to see breasts that they stop into an "essential oil" shop. 

Uh-oh, Jamie sees Nick the Dead Guy glaring at him from across the street!  Plus he suddenly has a bandage on his hand just like Nick had, and it's starting to bleed through! 

Scene 11: Nick's autopsy.  He died of internal injuries caused by the accident.  He also had a knife wound on his hand, three days old, no stitches. 

Soto (Harry's replacement) has intel on the guy: 38 years old, single, no social media presence, a slew of LLC companies (something financial, I guess).  Wait -- where's his cell phone?

The cops go to impound to look in the car. Instead they find blood in places Nick couldn't reach -- signs of a struggle after the accident!  They need forensics at the crash site -- this is now a murder investigation!

Scene 12: Sonia, the lady who owns the land where they crashed, is watching the forensics team.  Jamie drives up, sees her, recoils in horror, and drives away.

Meanwhile, at his isolated former military barracks house, Retired Cop Harry notices that his grandson left the book he was reading. You know, the one that they kept emphasizing that he loved and would never leave behind?  He calls and offers to bring it to the City, but Daughter says just mail it. Something sinister here.  Did Daughter murder the boy? 

Scene 13: Harry visits Jamie's wife Leela to sneakily gather intel on Dead Nick, but she never heard of him before the night of the accident.  So Jamie never mentioned his old friend?  Suspicious.  Also, Nick had been staying in that hotel for several days.  Why didn't he look up his old friend earlier?

Cut to Leela remembering Nick at dinner: "Shall I tell her what we did in college?" Jaimie: "No, please don't." "How would she react?"  "Please don't."  Leela goes to the kitchen, and overhears them arguing: "Don't play this fucking game with me!"  He doesn't want his wife to know that he had a boyfriend in college?  Why would she care -- lots of people are bi. Jamie belongs to the LGBTQ Alliance -- isn't he out as bi already?

Scene 14:  Retired Cop Harry searches Nick's hotel room. In a drawer, he finds one of those folding-paper games kids use to find out who they will marry.   Cut to Jamie slicing a tomato in a sinister way. Dead Nick appears, picks up a knife, and kills Leela!  Just his imagination.  

Scene 15:  Forensics found Dead Nick's cell phone, and the ping record reveals that he was in that area an hour before the 911 call.  So Jamie waited for an hour after the accident to call!  "So what?" Big Boss asks.  "This guy is a family man.  He can't have ill intent."  In our society everyone assumes that "family men," men who have reproduced, cannot be criminal, I guess because they have succeeded at the job-house-wife-kids trajectory that we're all supposed to long for.  That makes them ideal bad guys in murder mysteries: viewers won't suspect them: "He's reproduced, so obviously not the killer."     

Harry thinks that Jamie might have some skeletons in his closet in spite of having had sex with his wife, and is determined to reveal them.

We cut to Leela interrogating Jamie about his "college friend" Nick. "Was he in love with you?" 

Jaimie: "Of course not.  Absolutely not.  I'm a guy."  But Leela pushes, and Jaimie admits that they tried sex once, but it didn't work out, because they were both guys.

We then see exactly what happened after the accident.  The end.

Beefcake: None

Gay Characters:  It looks like they're pushing Nick into a stereotypic gay predator who is obsessed with poor straight Jamie.  But if you're homophobic, why include a mention of the LGBTQ Alliance? And why take pains to establish that Jamie is a sleazy, slimy horndog? Maybe it's a misdirection, and Nick is straight.  That would mean no LGBTQ representation, which might not be better.

Obfuscation: Why was Jamie chasing the train guy?  Why did Harry say they were in Australia?  Why did the cop say that the guy in the car was both ok and dead?   Why does Harry's house have no cell phone reception, but he gets calls? Is there going to be a payoff with the kid leaving behind a book that he would absolutely never leave behind? 

My Grade: Too much obfuscation, and I'm worried about the Jamie-Nick relationship turning homophobic.  But at least there's a gay subtext now. Besides, it was fun researching Matt Bomer's butt . B if we get some non-predator gay characters, otherwise D.

Bill Pullman, Matt Bomer, and Chris Messina nude on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends