Link to the n*de dudes
1. It has one of those dumb one-word titles that don't tell you anything.
2. It's about a "family man," a trope that suggests that men who have reproduced are not only a thousand times more valuable than those who haven't, they are innately virtuous. When a "family man" commits a crime, everyone is shocked.
3. The "family man" is Tom Pelphrey, who showed his "big red dog" in A Man in Full. It had to be a prosthetic, of course, but a red dog is a red dog.
4. The focus character is Mark Ruffalo. I only knew him from The Normal Heart, where he plays a gay guy, and this photo, with a swishy femme expression and a guy hugging him, made me think that he was gay in real life. Turns out that's actually a woman, his wife. Nothing wrong with liking masculine women, but why the swish, unless you're deliberately trying to make people think that you're a gay couple?
Scene 1: Juxtaposed scenes of Mark and Tom's day, not only scene by scene but shot by shot, so sometimes it's hard to tell who is doing what. Both get up in an empty bed (dead partner!), are alcoholics, and live with a teenage girl, who hates them, plus one or more toddlers.
The difference: Mark is respectably dressed, while Tom is extremely sleazy-looking.
They head to work:
Hey, Tom has a picture of a guy hanging from his rear view mirror as he listens to a podcast about "learning to love again." Dude is gay!
Mark goes to college job fairs to recruit for the FBI. Do they need to recruit? Being an FBI agent is the dream job for criminal justice majors; they must get 1,000 applications for every opening.
Tom and his Buddy work as garbage collectors, and on the side they pick up bagsful of loot from a scary-looking guy sitting on the steps at various houses. They must run a burglary operation.
Queerbaiting after the break
Scene 2: At the job fair, Agent Mark tries to convince Kyle (Robert Denzel Edwards) to join the FBI. "But I'm an accounting major."
"We want your analytic skills. I was a philosophy major."
Fun facts about Robert: He's from Syracuse, New York, he's good at foosball, he played Lysander in MIdsummer Night's Dream. and he can fold his tongue into a three-leaf clover. That might come in handy on a date.
Next Agent Mark talks to his lawyer: "he'" get 5-15 years, depending on the family impact statement.
"I'm not going to make one," Mark says.
"What about the sister?" "I'll talk to her about it." I guess we'll learn about this later.
Meanwhile, Burglar Tom and his Buddy talk to one of their assistants, Peach-Boy (Owen Teague). He is excited because "I'm spoken for. I found my soul-mate. It's like a spiritual thing." They suggest that it was inevitable, since he has a nice butt. Again, nobody uses pronouns, and discussing guys' butts? If they all turn out to be straight later, this will be a primo job of queerbaiting.
Scene 3: Burglar Tom invites Buddy home for dinner, where his nephew is waiting to frolick with him. Nephew calls him Uncle Trash, but there is no one by that name in cast list. Wikipedia says that he's Cliff Brower, played by Raúl Castillo, who has played gay characters several times but is straight in real life.
The teenage girl is upset that Burglar Tom invited his Buddy yet again; she didn't cook enough: a strange dish that looks like chocolate chips and marshmallows. That's dessert, not dinner. There are two preteen kids in the house.
Meanwhile, Agent Mark stops at Rita's Ice-Custard-Happiness, orders a blackberry icee from the teenage girl, and calls to the guy in back to see how she's doing. I think he's Pilot Bunch, who appears in four episodes.
Oh, ok, the girl is Agent Mark's teenage daughter. Ten to one she'll be held hostage at some point. He wants to know if she'll make a family impact statement for her brother's sentencing.
They're really dragging out the back story, especially since it's just to establish the cliche dead wife, not relevant to the plot, so I googled it: Agent Mark's wife was killed when their mentally ill adopted son pushed her down a flight of stairs. He was convicted of third degree murder (voluntary manslaughter).
Scene 4: Tom is telling his kid about Uncle Billy, his dead brother. So the photo of a guy hanging from the rear view mirror is actually his brother. Why did they show it during a podcast on "finding love again"?
Back story: the teenage girl is actually the dead brother's daughter. Tom and his kids are living in the brother's house, and she's not happy about it, because she hates him. Also he leaves the kids in her care night after night to go carousing with Buddy Cliff.
Scene 5: Tom gets his gun, picks up Buddy Cliff and the Peaches Guy and they drive off to a burglary job. Tom asks Peaches to have a fantasy about being on a beach "and there are women. Beautiful women. Everyone's happy to be on that beach."
I'm not happy about being on that beach. Tom and Peaches' heterosexual identities established at Minute 20, after the most extensive queerbaiting I've ever seen. Why drop every single pronoun, discuss a guy's backside, and show a guy during a podcast on finding love? It's obviously deliberate, trying to draw in gay viewers, then saying "Fooled you! You don't exist!"
Buddy Cliff is still gay-coded, but doubtless he's queerbaiting, too.
Darn, the fantasy continues: "One of those beautiful women comes walking up to you, and she says,..." I'm fast forwarding past what she says.
They put on masks -- ghost, vampire, werewolf -- incapacitate the guy sleeping on the couch, and awaken the guy in the bedroom. Apparently he's a drug dealer, and they want the money he's acquired selling "on the street." He directs them to the toilet; they find it and leave.
Scene 6: Agent Mark awakens to a bird feeder, having gotten drunk last night. Thee FBI director texts him to "Get in here now!"
In her office, she's yelling profanities about gay bedroom activity. They discuss her back story, for no apparent reason. Then on to business: Agent Mark is going to lead a task force to find a team of burglars who target drug houses. Most of them belong to the Dark Hearts Motorcycle Gang, which is blaming a rival gang and about to start a war.
"But I'm on light duty because of my son murdering my wife."
"Sorry, the person I originally assigned is on bed rest, so you have to do it." Here's your team: two ladies and Anthony Grasso (Fabian Frankel, left)
"But all of them are unqualified."
"Sorry, it's the Task. You take what you can get." Ergo the title.
Scene 7: As Agent Mark fixes up the horribly run-down house that the Task will use as headquarters, three shirtless men run through the woods. Psych! They're not being chased: it's Burglar Tom and his buds jumping into a reservoir, with or without pants.
As they lounge around afterward, Burglar Tom gets a text about a new house for them to home-invade. They jump in their garbage truck and check it out. Uh-oh, the guy on the porch looks at Buddy funny. Maybe he knows that this isn't trash collection day.
Cut to Agent Mark, dropping off a suit for his son's sentencing hearing. But he refuses to stick around for visitation.
Scene 7: Burglar Tom is playing with his kid, while the teenage girl gets ready for a date. She says she doesn't really like the guy, but she needs to get out of the house.
Later, Tom sits up in bed, looking at the photos on his dating app. At least we see that they're ladies; the queerbaiting is over. He clicks on Clara, and starts off "It's my firm belief that people come into our lives for a reason." Too hot, guy! You'll scare her off!
Next, he goes to the teenage girl's room to steal some marijuana. Uh-oh, she brought her date home! He quickly hides in the closet, but he still can see them smooching and taking their clothes off. He bursts out of the closet and tries to explain that he was just stealing, not peeping, but the guy starts a fight, and Tom kicks him out of the house.
Google AI says that the date is Tripp (Keen Ruffalo), but AZ Men says that it's the Peaches guy.
I'm out of space. The rest of the episode: Burglar Tom and his buds try to burglarize the "house of their dreams." There's a shootout, and Peaches and three bikers, including Derek, are killed. When Derek's young son appears, Burglar Tom grabs him to keep him from seeing his dead parents, and takes him home.
Beefcake: Some shirtless shots, the guys' backsides as they jump into the reservoir.
Left: Colin Bates, who plays a member of the Dark Hearts (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).
Heterosexism: The Dead Wife cliche, the "beautiful women at the beach" story, and the teenage girl smooching with her boyfriend.
Gay Characters: Probably not.
My Grade: I expected to hate-watch for intense, unyielding "family man" heteronormativity, but it turns out to be aggressive queerbaiting instead.
See also: "Superman" (2025): You'll believe a man can queerbait
"A Man in Full" or "The Fullness of Man" or "Filling a Man." Whatever, it has a wild p*nis scene
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