"Workaholics" Episode 7.3: Blake sucks a....Adam sucks....well, there's lots of gay sex jokes, and everybody loses their pants

  

Link to NSFW version

I haven't reviewed an episode of Workaholics for awhile, and Episode 7.3, "Monstalibooyah," is notable for its nonstop beefcake and huge number of queer codes.

Scene 1: The guys are spending the day at their company's time share condo, only 11 blocks from the beach!  They plan a crazy party, but Adam cautions, no naked Twister: "Sex Twister makes my dick blister."  He offers to show them, but then Ders wants to show them a scar on his dick, too.  They start working to get semis, then realize what they are doing and change their minds. Is it just me, or is it getting homoerotic in here?

Scene 2: They explore the condo. Ders: "A Fiat!" Adam: "A jacuzzi!" Blake: "Ketchup!"

They reveal their goals for the day. Adam: Get filmed doing something stupid, so he can get on the reality show Kookslams.  Ders' goal: get a hickey so everybody at work will think he got laid. Blake: smoke weed out of a "cock shell."  He means conch shell, of course.  And they all want to watch the sunset together.  Awww...

Scene 3:  They drive the Fiat to the beach, wearing only jeans, Adam's muscles pouring out, and play a homoerotic game of volleyball, paralleling the iconic scene in Top Gun that had a generation of gay kids figuring it out.  Wait -- their opponents are little girls.

Suddenly they are distracted by three bikini babes walking toward them in slow motion. Ders calls dibs on one who looks like she gives good "hick jobs."  Or you could have sex with her.

They ask the girls' plans for the evening: try to score some Molly and then hang out at the beach club. Why not come back to their place for a crazy party instead?  Just as the girls are considering it, Carson and his sidekick (Steve Talley,  Temple Baker, left) show up to warn the girls about hooking up with strangers.  They call the guys "chicken donkers," which seems to be a made-up slur.

Ders suggests a game of volleyball: the winner gets the girls.  But Carson and his sidekick are acting more like overprotective brothers than boyfriends. 

Besides, that's sexist: "They're not property!"  Carson throws the guys' volleyball into the ocean. It belongs to the condo; they'll be charged hundreds of dollars!  They rush in to retrieve it, and soon discover why you don't go swimming in jeans.  They have to ditch the jeans, or drown. 

They return to dry land naked, covering their dicks with their hands. Blake finds a "cock shell" to shove his junk into.  Passersby laugh  at their size, but they explain that small dicks are regular-sized now, shrinking due to energy drinks.  

Scene 3: They steal clothes that someone left on the beach: Ders gets a "Paddy's Irish Pub" t-shirt from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,  Blake a lady's dress, and Adam a dad outfit.  

Sunset is in two hours, and they haven't met any of their goals yet!   Maybe they can get Ders his hickey by bringing the girls some Molly.  Blake and Adam cause a distraction while Ders steals the stash of a drum circle.  

But the drum circle catches on, and chases them!  They hide with a bridal party, putting on their little femme hats as a disguise: "You guys are so pretty!" Adam exclaims. Yeah, they're hot.

Scene 4: The girls said that they were going to hang at the Beach Club, so the guys sneak in, disguise themselves as staff, and shove shrimp down their pants, presuming that in fancy clubs, "shrimpermen" distribute shrimp one at a time. They approach the girls, announce that they have scored some Molly, and invite them back to the condo to suck on Ders' neck.  But Carson and his sidekick appear and order them to leave the girls alone.  Then the Drum Circle dudes, wanting to clobber the guys for stealing their Molly!   

Steve Talley bonus after the break

Gemstones Episode 3.1, Continued: Kelvin withholds sex, Judy cheats, and Jesse fights. With some random butts

 

This is the G-rated version of the review, with no nudity or explicit discussions of sexual behavior. Link to the NSFW version.

Left: Conor MacGregor

The Book Signing: Eli is at a bookstore, signing copies of his "definitive autobiography" -- his third. Did you mention having a gay son?  Suddenly May-May, who attacked his wife Aimee-Leigh back in 2000, hands him one of his earlier books: Y2K: When the World Goes Dark. 

In 1999. many claimsmakers worried that computers were only set up for the 1900s, so on January 1, 2000, they would all reset. Bank accounts would empty; airplanes would fall from the sky; the world would descend into chaos. Some evangelists, like Eli Gemstone, made money by connecting the Y2K bug with end-time prophecies.

Eli is not happy to see his May-May -- he has a restraining order against her.  But she needs his help.  Wait -- you storm in and throw his old book at him to ask for help?  

Later, Eli records the section of his autobiography about Y2K: when the world didn't end, he and Aimee-Leigh had to face anger and ridicule. 

Marital Squabbles: A commercial: after a montage of heterosexual couples arguing and then being deliriously happy, Amber introduces her System (stupid name): for $500, you get a jar and some beads.  Every time you disagree, you put a bead in the jar.  Or go to Wal-Mart and buy the set-up for $10. She is surrounded by a group of ladies in white who look rather like Mormon sister-wives.

When the filming is over, Amber and Jesse discuss the Simkins, who are milking their parents' tragic death: "I wish I had some traumatic event to make people like me."  Be careful what you wish for, Buddy. I've seen Episode 3.7.

Cut to Judy's husband BJ at the Gemstone Welcome Center, talking to a group of potential church members about how to get their tithes automatically deducted from their bank accounts. Judy, feeling guilty about withholding sex, brings him some gifts and tells him what a great husband he is, BJ thinks that things are a little off in their marriage, but Judy gaslights him: "Things are fine. Why are you being weird?"  Check out his hot-pink ruffled outfit, part of the ongoing joke that couple is gender-transgressive, with Judy as the masculine partner, and BJ the feminine.

The Dildo Barbecue: Jesse drops by as Keefe is melting down some weird phallic objects on the grill in the back yard. When he asks what they are burning, Kelvin, morosely lying on the diving board of the pool, responds "Devils' objects."

Why is he morose?  The last we saw of him was at Dusty Daniels' racetrack. But this scene is coming after two marital problem scenes, so we have to conclude that we just missed a "Things are fine.  Why are you being so weird?" conversation. 

There is a nude woman on the urn pedestal next to them.  Apparently Kelvin and Keefe are too closeted for back yard sculptures with nude men.

Keefe is wearing a BDSM fetish outfit: several chokers, a slave collar with padlock, a vinyl top with built-in pecs and abs, and vinyl pants (I think). This again suggests that something has gone wrong. He wanted "cuddling," but Kelvin refused, ordering him to burn some sex toys instead -- destroy some penises?   

Notice that while Kelvin and Jesse are discussing their anxiety over leading the church, Keefe grabs a toy to use for anal sex from the pile, tries to hide it, and brings it into the house.  

Aha!  Kelvin is specifically refusing to take the passive role in anal sex.  The butts in the illustrations demonstrate Keefe's main erotic interest.

We cut to the reason Judy has been withholding sex with BJ: she is having an affair with her guitarist, Stephen (Stephen Schneider, top photo and left).  

Trigger alert: they engage in a quasi-sexual act to disgusting to describe here.

Since the couples' stories are usually parallel, viewers may conclude that Kelvin, too, is having an affair.  Actually, he is not -- yet.  Then why is he withholding sex? 

Unless you are asexual and work something out, romantic partners must balance eros and phileo.  Eros, sexual desire, leads to that intimacy, intensity, and passion that keeps the couple focused on each other. Phileo, friendship, keeps the couple focused on the outside world, leading to discussions of art, music, or sports, placing them in a friendship group, a family, and a society.

Last season Kelvin tried to eliminating the phileo, being all about sex. Every word, every image evoked the homoerotic. His physique, butt, and bulge were constantly on display, presenting him as the Messiah of Muscle, leading his followers to a paradise of masculine beauty. Until it didn't work: you can't build a society, or a romantic relationship, on sex alone.

This season he seems to be eliminating the eros, withholding sex, or maybe permitting "fooling around" only -- no smut, no lust, no coconuts.  We see no pecs, no butt, no bulge this season -- not until Episode 3.8, when he realizes that this won't work, either.  The problem is, a romance without physical intimacy looks and feels very much like a platonic friendship, until eventually you wonder if you are really in love at all.

More butts after the break

"Fairfax": Woke Teens Strive to Become Influencers on Fairfax Avenue

 

The animated series Fairfax, on Amazon Prime, caught my attention because Fairfax Boulevard is traditionally the eastern edge of West Hollywood.  According to the trailer, it's about four 13-year olds, one of whom is so woke that she protests the milking of almonds. No doubt one of them is gay.

Scene 1: A futuristic totalitarian factory making t-shirts for the Latrine Company. The caped supervillain boss decides that the next Latrine t-shirt will feature Dr. Phil, the conservative talk show host, and suddenly everyone on Earth gets the ads on their screens.  Did I accidentally click on the wrong series?

No, we switch to Benny (Peter S. Kim), a chubby boy with traditional Korean parents, seeing the ads, getting all excited, and calling his friends to a special meeting.  

Meanwhile the woke Derica is protesting "milking almonds" at a supermarket.  She gets the word and kayaks down the Los Angeles river to the meeting.  (Ok, this is not my West Hollywood).

Teen dream Truman (Jaboukie Young-White) is photographing a middle-aged lady for her Tinder profile when he gets the word.  She flirts with him, but he reminds her that he's only 13.

Scene 2: The line outside the Latrine Store extends for blocks, all the way to the Fairfax Sign (this is not our West Hollywood).  A chubby man who got his t-shirt early taunts them.  A pigeon is congratulated by his friend for getting his t-shirt. 

Meanwhile timid Dale (Skyler Gisondo) is cowering in the back seat while his parents drive him onto Fairfax Avenue.  They've moved to West Hollywood to take over his uncle's vape store.  He worries that he won't fit in among the cool kids, but his parents point out that he is cool: he was president of the hiking club.

Scene 3:  While his parents unpack, Dale wanders past the Latrine Store, and is amazed: it has a skating ramp, multicolored shoes, and fluorescent mannikins.  The old guy from Scene 2 offers him $50 for his hat, and they go into the alley to make the deal.  Is he actually suggesting sex? 

Whew, he really just wants the hat.  The other three kids come to the rescue by pointing out that those hats go for $200.  

Scene 4: The others are shocked that Dale is not making an ironic statement: he actually is Middle American normalcore.  They take him to Schwimmer's Deli (Canter's?), where everything is second-rate and over-priced, to explain the grooviness of Latrine: the more absurdly overpriced Latrine products you display, the more "likes" you get on social media, and you're on your way to becoming an Influencer, and then all your dreams come true: 

Benny: Push Dad out of an airplane

Truman: Direct a movie starring two hot babes.

Derica: Save the ecosystem.

But how can they get one of the t-shirts?  They're sold out!  Dale comes to the rescue: he saw the manager of Latrine hiding a t-shirt in the back room.  

Scene 5: They sneak into a facility where artists are painting a man green and sculpting fish, to meet with the Plug, aka Joaquin Phoenix, but actually voiced by Jeff Bottoms (in West Hollywood you run into celebrities all the time).  He's busy lighting himself on fire, and doesn't have time to help them locate a t-shirt.

Scene 6: They kidnap the dog of Lucas, the store manager, to force him to hand over the spare t-shirt, but he recognizes them.  They try to send a drone in, but it's detected and exploded.  

Scene 7: Dale bursts into the vape shop, exuberant over his new friends: 

 Bennie: "Like the Wizard of Oz"

Derica: "I'm not sure if she identifies as a girl, but she could legit be president someday"

Truman: Has actually had sex with a girl.  

He just needs to figure out how to get the t-shirt, so they will like him.

That night, Dale has a vision of Dr. Phil, the guy on the t-shirt, who advises him to "think outside the box."

More after the break

12 hunks and hunkoids of "The Fosters," all grown up. With a few grown-up dicks.

Link to the NSFW photos

The Fosters (2013-2018) was a groundbreaking drama on ABC Family, now on Netflix, about a lesbian couple (Stef and Lena) with five children, biological, adopted, and foster (Brandon, Jesus, Jude, Callie, Mariana). The Fosters have foster children, har har 

But it wasn't all sunlight and diversity. Actually, it wasn't sunlight at all. I never watched -- I don't do tragedy -- but the episode synopses sound grim. There were drinking problems, psychological problems, incurable diseases, deaths, homophobic hate crimes, custody battles...like a live-action Howard Cruse comic.   But for many viewers, the remarkably open gay content was worth being depressed.

Besides, there are endless teenage boys with their shirts off to draw in the gay boys and straight girls. I'm checking to see if there were any adult hunks in the crowd, or if any of Fosters Fave Raves have grown up.

1. David Lambert (left):  Brandon, the oldest son in the family. an aspiring pianist whose dreams are dashed when an injury paralyzes his hand.  He also becomes the victim of statutory rape by hooking up with his father's girlfriend.

2. Danny Nucci: Mike, Brandon's biological father, a cop who has a drinking problem, shot an unarmed suspect, and has a girlfriend who hooks up with Brandon.

3. Tom Williamson: AJ, Mike's foster son.  Where does he find the time to be a foster parent?

4. Jake T. Austin (left): Jesus, the second son, who has Attention-Deficit Disorder.

5. Brandon Quinn: Gabe, Jesus' biological father, who didn't tell Jesus because he didn't want the boy to know he's a registered sex offender.

6. Hadyn Byerly: Jude, the youngest son, who becomes mute in angst over coming out as gay (with lesbian parents?), but eventually learns to accept himself and starts dating, with probably the youngest same-sex kiss on television.







More grown-up Fave Raves after the break

M. Emmet Walsh: Daddy who didn't mind showing his dick. With bonus old dude hotness

  

Link to NSFW version.

 M. Emmet Walsh enjoyed one of the longest and most acclaimed careers in Hollywood.  On screen since 1968, Walsh appeared in some of the most iconic films of the 20th century,  including Midnight Cowboy, Alice's Restaurant, and Little Big Man, as well as some of the most beloved tv programs: The Waltons, The Rockford Files, All in the Family, Bonanza.

He grew up in Swanton, Vermont, a few miles from the Canadian border and graduated from Tilton High School in 1954.  His page in the yearbook says that his nickname is "Creep," he "lives with the Gus," and he played football and basketball.  So who is this Gus, a boyfriend?

 After studying business administration at Clarkson University (where he roomed with William Devane) and some military service, he hit Hollywood.  

And stayed there for the next 50 years, playing gangsters, beset-upon bureaucrats, cranky businessmen, clueless dads, cops, inventors, workmen of various sorts, bus drivers, and on and on.  His obituary in the  Washington Post praises his work as a sports writer in Slap Shot (1977), a swim coach in Ordinary People (1980), a police chief in Blade Runner (1982), and a "boogie-woogie pianist" in Cannery Row (1982).

No gay roles that I could find by googling, but Emmet never married, so there is a lot of  speculation that he was gay in real life.  (Gay men of his generation would always stay closeted).

He regularly appeared on websites devoted to hot older guys, not only because of his attractiveness, but because he took his shirt off -- a lot. Unusual for actors of his generation, he even appeared nude, such as a rear shot with balls in Straight Time (1978) and a frontal in Fast Talking (1982)

One of Emmet's last roles was in The Righteous Gemstones, as Roy Gemstone, megachurch pastor Eli's stern Baptist-preacher Daddy.  In Episode 1.5. the flashback to 1989, he advises his son to avoid ostentatious display and stick to the message of the Gospels. 

 In Episode 2.5, the flashback to 1993, Roy is suffering from dementia.  He appears at the family Christmas in his underwear, asks "Are we going hunting?", and fires randomly into the room.  When he appears again, he accidentally saves the day.

Emmet never stopped working. In 2024 he appeared as Catfish in Outlaw Posse with Whoopie Goldberg, John Carroll Lynch, and Mario Van Peebles, and he still has Green & Gold in post-production.  He died on March 20, 2024, at the age of 88.

Bonus old dude dicks on RG Beefcake and Bonding

Gemstones Episode 3.1: Kelvin collects cocks, the Simpkins smirk, and Dusty Daniels flirts. With bonus Brazilian beefcake

 

This is the G-rated version of the review, with nude photos and explicit sexual discussions censored.  

Link to the NSFW version

The Season 2 finale of The Righteous Gemstones  aired in February 2022.  Season 3 premieres in June 2023, sixteen months later, but the timeline in the Gemstone universe doesn't fit.  Plus personalities and back stories are different.  As with Season 2, it will be more profitable -- and more fun -- to enter fresh, pretending that we have never seen or heard of these people before.

Title: "For I Know the Plans I Have for You."  Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." I hope so, because word on the street is that this season gets very dark.

Rogers County Fair, 2000:  The teenage Jesse Gemstone is announcing a demolition derby featuring his monster truck, the Redeemer, while his parents, megachurch pastor Eli Gemstone and his wife Aimee-Leigh, argue: the Redeemer is putting butts in seats, but is this really appropriate for a Christian ministry?   What are we going to do next, sell beer?  At that moment, a muscle hunk comes by selling beer!

Eli and Aimee-Leigh's three kids look very young, but according to the fan wiki, Jesse is 19, Judy is 15, and Kelvin is 9 or 10.

While Aimee-Leigh is off smoking a cigarette, May-May, a shabbily-dressed middle-aged woman, approaches, furious: "You pretend to be all sweet and caring, but I know the truth -- what you done to my family."  She attacks; Aimee-Leigh runs through the crowd, screaming for help, but May-May catches up and hits her with a wrench. As she lies bleeding on the ground, a car hits -- May-May! 

Eli Retires: Present day. Time to introduce the main conflicts of the season.  First up: the now-elderly Eli is hanging out with his Mason-like Cape and Pistol Society. They ask how he's enjoying his retirement.  Actually, he's only semi-retired: he's writing another autobiography and taking speaking engagements, but his kids are running the church. Gulp!  His friend: "You scared your kids are gonna blow it?"  

Cut to Zion's Landing, the Gemstones' Christian-themed resort. The 42-year old Jesse and his crew confront Eli's driver.  In joke: his name is Walker!  He squealed to the press about the dwindling membership and donations since the kids took over, so they beat him up and fire him. Pretending to have never seen these characters before, I am shocked.  Christian ministers are often shady and hypocritical, but violent? What if someone sees?

A Cold Fish Kiss: Eli's second child, Judy, is now a famous singer.  She has just returned from a tour, and her husband BJ wants to snuggle, but she yells at him for pressuring her, gives him a "cold fish kiss," and runs out again.  Uh-oh, marital trouble.

Smut Busters: The primary conflict, judging from the amount of air time it gets: 32 or 33 -year old Kelvin, wearing a t-shirt that says "Smut Busters" above a splat of -- jizz?  -- is showing a giant novelty dildo to someone named Keefe. He exclaims with glee, "That is gonna hurt."  So he's gay, and Keefe is his boyfriend.  Who's the bottom?

We pan out to see kids examining a pile of sex toys, mostly dildos and butt plugs of various sizes and shapes, intended for gay men.  Notice the "Size Queen" dildo.   Hey, are these guys...gulp...pedos?

Psych!  Kelvin and Keefe are actually youth ministers, running a project called the Smut Busters.  They buy out the inventory of local adult stores, to force them into bankruptcy.  Wait -- anyone know basic economics?  

The youth group kids, also in Smut Busters t-shirts, are just examining the latest haul.  Do they take the kids to the adult stores?  They wouldn't be allowed inside.  Besides,  "exposing children to sex" is a misdemeanor.  

They ask the kids and adult volunteer Taryn to join them in the Smut Buster chant: "No smut, no lust, no coconuts" (with a feminine hip wiggle). No one joins in.  

After extensive research, I conclude that "coconuts" doesn't have a symbolic meaning, except maybe to evoke testicles.  It was chosen for  its near-rhyme. The chant reflects the playground phrase "no butts, no cuts, no coconuts" (no cutting in line), and its variation, "No ifs, no buts, no coconuts" (no disagreeing).

Left: coconuts

Pretending to have never seen these characters before,  I conclude that they are a gay couple: notice how Kelvin plays with Keefe's nipple, an intimacy that platonic pals would not enjoy, how Keefe gets all bitchy around Taryn, and how most of the sex toys they buy are for gay men.  They can't conceive of something used by straight men as erotic: "There's a naked lady on the box.  Keefe, I said sexy, not disgusting!" 

So the main conflicts of the season will involve the transition of power, marital problems, and coming out. 

The Primitive Tribe: At church, the siblings are bragging about their missionary trip, where they brought Lasik Surgery to an isolated tribe in the Amazon. 

They are completely clueless; surgery to correct astigmatism must be the most trivial of the group's medical needs.  Plus the depiction of a "primitive tribe" veers uncomfortably close to racism.

Old Slow-Eyes: Then Sunday dinner at Jason's Steak House. They argue about who is responsible for the decline in church members and donations since Eli stepped down, then about church leadership: Jesse thinks that he should be the sole leader, but the others think that they should lead together. 

How closeted are Kelvin and Keefe?  They are presented as the equivalent of the other couples, Jesse/Amber and Judy/BJ;  Jesse even refers to them as a unit. Plus Kelvin displays some feminine traits that anyone would pick up on instantly.  Maybe they are out to the family, but closeted to the church.  

Jesse criticizes the Smut Buster project -- preventing truck drivers from getting "dick pills" but not doing anything to help the church.  Kelvin says that they have bought up the inventory of 16 porno shops along the I-95 corridor. Of course, they get to keep the dildos. This is a call-back to Season 2, when Jesse complained that Kelvin's God Squad, a collection of musclemen, was solely for "popping boners," his own erotic enjoyment, not to help the church.

Geography alert: The I-95 corridor  runs through South Carolina about 50 miles from the ocean. The nearest junction is an hour's drive from Charleston.  That's a long drive just to pick up some rubber dicks. 

Next on the agenda:  A wealthy donor, famous racecar driver Dusty Daniels (Shea Whigham, left) planned to bequeath his entire $200 million fortune to the church.  But now that Eli has stepped down, he will be going with the rival Simpkins family instead.  Uh-oh,  the church can't afford to lose this!

More after the break

"Huge in France": Watch It for the Beefcake

Huge in France (2019) stars Gad  (Gad Elmileh, a comedian who actually is huge in France).  He comes to America and is shocked to find that no one recognizes him.  He is constantly walking into a room, announcing "C'est Gad!", and expecting people to fawn over him.

He's come to reunite with his long-estranged son Luke  (Jordan Ver Hoeve), who wants to become a professional model, and...

um, sorry, I lost my train of thought.

Maybe just one more photo, to get me through the rest of the review.

Jordan is from San Diego (I would have guessed Amsterdam).  He's represented by Brand Model and Talent, which offers a large portfolio of his work.  His instagram offers some even more revealing shots.

Ok, this is the last one.

Luke is being managed and trained by his mom's boyfriend, failed actor Jason (Matthew Del Negro).










More after the break

"Cruising": Homophobic classic about sin, degradation, and dicks in a doomed gay world. With a nude Mr. Big

 

Link to NSFW version

During the 1970s and 1980s, gay men appeared in movies almost exclusively as limp-wristed hairdressers and drag queens with murderous split personalities.   Cruising, 1980, promised something different: gay men with apartments, jobs, and hangouts; and who were masculine, actually super-macho, with muscles, club bulges, and leather chaps.

Sounds like fun, right?  Wrong.

The tv promo said only that Al Pacino would play a cop who "disappears into the darkness," and the theatrical trail showed him putting on makeup, plus men dancing together, and brief flashes of the words "homosexual,"  "violence," "murder," "fear," and "sex").  
The movie wasn't playing in Rock Island, so one cold Saturday my boyfriend Fred and I drove an hour west to the college town of Iowa City to see our first gay movie, ever.

The plot: in sleazy, decadent gay bar, a "homosexual" played by Arnaldo Santana cruises a mysterious stranger.  After discussing what turned them gay, they go home together, where the stranger politely asks the "homosexual," to lie still while he stabs him to death.  Santana complies!

During the 1970s, criminologists often theorized about why gay men would pick up total strangers for sex.  Some said that they were unable to control their "deviant" sexual desires, and others, that they were looking for a quick, easy way to destroy society by "wasting their seed" instead of making a baby. But most said that they felt so guilty over being gay that they wanted to be murdered.

More bar pickups, more murders. There's a gay serial killer out there "targeting his own!"  Police detective Steve Burns (Al Pacino) is asked to go undercover and catch him.  

So he moves into a sleazy apartment in the bad part of town, puts on a leather vest, applies makeup, and goes cruising.

He befriends his next door neighbor (Don Scardino), but runs afoul of Ted's effeminate, histrionic dancer-boyfriend (James Remar).

Occasionally Steve sees his girlfriend, but he becomes less and less interested in her as he is infected by the "gay lifestyle."

More sin, degradation, and dicks after the break

The 9 Worst TV Series Finales in History

If you watch every episode of a 100-episode sitcom, you've spend 2300 minutes or nearly 40 hours, not including reruns.  That's the equivalent of 19 feature-length movies or 11 novels. A suzeable chunk of your life.

If it was a 60-minute dramatic series, make that 38 feature length movies and 22 novels.  

Then comes the series finale.  There will be no more episodes.

You know the characters better than many of your real-life friends.  Saying goodbye is going to be painful.

For years you've set aside a special part of your week for the program.  You rarely missed it, and when you did, you taped it to watch later.  You watched all of the summer reruns.There will be a hole in your life for quite some time.

So you sit down for the series finale, hoping for a warm, funny, memorable sendoff.  But instead, you get garbage.  Mind-destroying, depressing, confusing, WTF garbage.

May 10, 1983: Laverne and Shirley (1976-1983).  A sitcom about two bromantic "girlfriends" sharing an apartment in 1950s Milwaukee, right?  Except by 1983, there was just Laverne, it was Los Angeles, and the heart of the 1960s (Laverne's boyfriend is a Star Trek fan).  Way to destroy your premise.

But the series finale isn't even about that; it's about Laverne's singer/dancer/male prostitute friend Carmine going to New York to audition for Hair.  

We don't find out if he got the role or not. And we don't see his nude scene.

May 21, 1990: Newhart (1982-1990): For eight years, Bob Newhart played the owner of a bed and breakfast in a small New England town full of quirky residents, whom you grew fond of over the years.  Who can forget "I'm Larry, and this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl?"

But on May 21st, 1990, Bob wakes up in bed as Dr. Bob Hartley, the psychologist in his old series, and tells his old wife, Emily, "What a dream I had!"  Way to destroy beloved characters, Bob!

July 20, 1994: Dinosaurs (1991-1994).  A nuclear family spoof starring cute, cuddly dinosaurs in ABC's kid-friendly Friday night lineup.  Remember "I'm the baby, gotta love me"?

How best to end the hearwarming series:  how about with a eco-catastrophe that kills every dinosaur on the planet?  Including the entire Sinclair family?  Including the baby?

May 20, 1997: Roseanne (1988-1997).  The queen of lower-middle class urban blight and her ragtag family spent eight seasons being the anti-Cosbys, not affluent, or educated, or elegant.  It featured Johnny Galecki as a teenager with a terrible hairdo.  Then Roseanne wins the lottery, and spends the last season hob-nobbing with the rich and famous.

That's not the worst of it, though -- in the last episode, we are told that this has all been a story that Roseanne has written.  The real people are all different.  Dan is dead.  Jackie is a lesbian, so her husband and child don't exist.  But Mom isn't a lesbian.  The daughters switch husbands.  Everything we thought we knew about the show is wrong.

More terrible finales after the break

Erin go Feirc: Nine Kilkenny cocks and Dublin dicks, plus a dolmen, a castle, and the Londonderry wall

   Link to NSFW version 

I visited Ireland several years ago to research language education.  First stop: Glenstal Abbey School, near Limerick, about 2 hours southwest of Dublin.

The abbey entrance

Kilkenny fun run

Not one of the runners

Gay couple in Dublin

Northern Ireland after the break

Gemstones Season 2 Finale: The Godfather, Butch and Sundance, random nude dudes, and "My love for you will never die."

  

This is the G-rated version of the review, with no nudity or explicit sexual discussions.  

Link to the NSFW version

Previous: Episode 2.9, Continued: A perfect Christian, the Lion King, naked twinks, and lovers in old photographs

The series finales on The Righteous Gemstones are meant to tie up any remaining loose ends and say goodbye to the characters, so we should expect little or no plot development, just a lot of hugging: everyone who has had lost, frayed, or troubled relationships during the season, lovers, friends, parents and children, siblings, will be reconciled.

Hold on tight to the one you love the most:  A blackened stage. Suddenly a spotlight on Jesse.  He begins the country-western song "Some Broken Hearts Never Mend," by Don Williams.  Then Kelvin, lying on a platform, raising a finger to Heaven.  Then Judy and the choir, as she walks up stage.  Then all three siblings together. 

 Coffee black, cigarettes. Start the day like all the rest. 

First thing every moning that I do, is start missing you.

Some broken hearts never mend.  Some memories never end.  

Some tears will never dry.  My love for you will never die. 

Except this song is not about lost love, it's about mended hearts.  You're supposed to look at or point to a loved one. Kelvin starts out by pointing at audience stage left, obviously at Keefe, who points to himself and then back. My love for you will never die,

BJ waves, presumably at Judy.  Cut to Amber and the kids; then Baby Billy, Tiffany, and the baby; he looks back at Harmon, his no-longer estranged son; and finally Eli looks out at the audience. 

In the middle of love's embrace: Flashback to the Alaska Commercial Company, a grocery store chain with 33 locations in Alaska, mostly in rural areas. The Lissons, in hiding after their murders and attempts, are buying -- coffee to go?  Martin has them under surveillance.

Back in church, Eli looks at the band as the siblings sing the second verse together.  Then Jesse and Kelvin, looking up to heaven.

 Rendezvous in the night.

In the middle of love's embrace, I see your face

Wait -- they see God while their partners Amber and Keefe are going downtown?  Makes sense.

Cut to the Lissons in their cabin, watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where the gay-subtext bank robbers, played by Robert Redford, top photo, and Paul Newman, left, are trapped, with no escape, so they go out shooting. 

 Some broken hearts never mend.   Some memories never end.

Some tears will never dry.  My love for you will never die.

The Cycle Ninjas:  Cycle Ninjas on glittering metallic snowmobiles zoom through the woods.  

Lyle looks out the window and yells "Get the guns!"

Back at the church, the siblings point at each other. Eli smiles. 

The First Chorus: The congregation rises to sing the chorus.

We see Chad and his wife, who have been having marital problems since Season 1; Martin and his often seen, never-named wife; Judy and BJ;  Junior and Tan Man, Baby Billy and Tiffany, Amber and the kids.  Then the siblings again.  Wait, I thought the Tan Man was just Junior's assistant.  Is there a gay relationship going on back in Memphis? 

In the flashback, the Lissons get out their guns and tell each other that God believes in them: "God will see us through, for we are the Chosen."  Where on Earth did Lyle get that idea?  

More broken hearts after the break

Two questions about Paul Mescal: Does he appear in anything good? And is it ok to post dick pics?

  

Link to NSFW version

Paul Mescal was born in Maynooth, Ireland, about 30 minutes west of Dublin.  He graduated from Trinity College in 2017, and went to work in the theater, getting roles in The Great Gatsby, The Plough and the Stars, A Midsummer Night's Dream, A Streetcar Named Desire and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 

 In 2020 he broke into television with a starring role in Normal People, about two Trinity College undergrads in love.

Wait -- why are they "normal people"?  Do they have some marginalized trait, like being autistic? Reading the description, it doesn't sound like it. Marianne is rich and outspoken, Paul an A-list athlete. Sounds like "Love Story." The only conflict I can see is that they both have friends who would oppose the match, so they have to keep it a secret.  I guess "normal" just means being heterosexual, as opposed to gay.

Apparently the two have a lot of sex, with long scenes of them being languid in each other's arms afterwards, so if you can find some way to crop the girl out, you can get a lot of dick pics. 

But wait -- Buzzfeed News tells us that "Paul Mescal just called out a woman who made him "really angry" by telling him she'd seen him naked and saved a nude screenshot." 

The woman approached him in a bar and said: "I didn’t think the show was any good, but I saw your willy and I have a photo!”

His response: “Truly gross. What is a person supposed to reply to something like that?  That's fucking rude!"

I can understand his reaction: you haven't seen the actor naked, you've seen the character he is portraying.  Besides, even if you did see someone's dick without an invitation, like in the urinals or the locker room, why would you brag to them about it?  It would be like saying "I'm stalking you."

But he brings up a question: is seeing an actor's penis on screen substantially different from seeing his face, or his bare chest?  The aesthetic appeal of the actor's face and physique adds to our enjoyment of the movie, in some cases quite a lot.  But does the penis move the scene away from the aesthetic into the erotic?  And is that inappropriate?

I don't think so.  An actor's work can be enjoyed on many levels.  Faces and physiques can be quite erotic, and a penis has aesthetic appeal.  Viewers can enjoy an image in many ways, for what it reveals about the character, for its placement in the narrative, for its symbolic value, because it is beautiful, or because it is hot. Especially with the girl cropped out.

Next question: Does Paul star in anything good? That is, with gay characters, gay subtexts, or an intriguing premise, and minimal red flags like terminal illness.

Normal People is out.  I'm turned off by the implication that being heterosexual is "normal," so being gay is "abnormal."  Besides, it's just a collegiate romance.  We've seen hundreds of them.  

According to the IMDB, Paul next appeared in four episodes of The Deceived, 2020: A university student falls in love with her prof, who may have killed his wife.  Paul's character is in love with her. Looking for gay content, I found a reference to a subplot on a discussion board, but nothing about it appears in reviews. Nope.

The Lost Daughter, 2021: A university professor on holiday in Greece remembers being a "selfish and unnatural" mother who had an affair and abandoned her family.  Yuck.

More after the break