"Love and Anarchy": A prank war at a Stockholm publishing house, with two gay teases and male nudity

 Love and Anarchy appeared on my Netflix recommendations.  I clicked to see what it was about, forgetting that on Netflix, "click" means "start."  And since I was eating a bowl of Cheerios, I let it continue.

Link to the n*de photos

Scene 1: A harried middle-aged man and woman in a fancy house coordinating their calendars and telling their preteen son "No gaming at the breakfast table."  Dad is played by Johannes Bah Kuhnke, sweating below.

The woman chugs some espresso, talking about how this is her first day on the job. Teenage daughter comes in, not wearing the coat Dad bought for her.  This causes a crisis. Nuclear family squabbles.  Yawn. 

The woman goes upstairs, locks herself in the bathroom, and masturbates to porn on her cell phone.  Are we supposed to be titilated or judgmental, or are we to assume that she's having marital problems?  Everybody masturbates, but nobody admits that they do.

Scene 2: She is walking through a square in downtown Stockholm, at dusk or pre-dawn, checking her cell phone.  An older guy welcomes her to his publishing house.   He shows her to her new office, which is a disaster-area of books and manuscripts: the former senior editor was a bit of a hoarder.  

The older guy may be Ronni, the Publishing Company CEO, played by Bjorn Kjellman. He didn't have much of a physique in the 1990s, but he was rather well hung.

Scene 3: The woman -- Sofie -- giving a speech to the staff.  She's an independent consultant who saves publishing companies from bankruptcy by pushing them into the digital age, whether they like it or not. As she is ignoring a question about layoffs, a hot young guy comes in late and accidentally spills his drink over his crotch.  While he is dabbing at his bulge with a napkin, Sofie stares, mesmerized.

Scene 4: Sofie in her office, grimacing at the clutter.  Books --- ugh -- they might as well be stone tablets! As someone with a library of about 4,000 books, I am not amused.

 She piles some armloads of the relics outside her door to be trashed, and sees the hot young guy (Bjorn Mosten, top photo, left, and below) on a ladder drilling (and drilling...and drilling).  Receptionist tells her that he's Max, the IT Guy.  

"He doesn't usually do much drilling." 

 "Well, tell him to drill quietly!"

Max scoffs.  "How am I supposed to do my job?"  Receptionist doesn't answer; she's staring at his butt.  He storms out.

Scene 5: A publication meeting.  We are introduced to the Literary Drector (elderly guy) and the PR director (young woman), plus the intern who handles the social media presence (5000 followers on Instagram!).  PR Director wants to publish a novel "full of gay sex and drugs at an ayahuasca retreat," while Literary Director wants to publish a book of poetry about fir trees.   

Sofie suggests skipping the fir tree poems and tweaking the "gay sex and drugs" novel to draw the interest of heterosexual men. Heterosexist enabler!

Scene 5:  Dinner with the family.  Sofie complaining about how old-fashioned her clients are.  They don't even have digital book contracts!   Suddenly she gets a phone call and rushes upstairs, annoying her husband: "We're eating!"

It's a subplot about her elderly father, complaining about the working class unionizing.  She tells him to stop watching the news; it's upsetting and useless.

Scene 6:  Sofie in bed, reading a book while Husband snores.  Hey, I thought she hated books!  She sneaks into the bathroom to masturbate. 

Scene 7:  At work, they are signing the contract with the woman who wrote the "gay sex and drugs" novel. they just want some final revisions.  While Literary Director is trying to figure out how to take her photo with one of those newfangled cell phones, a Famous Author walks by, and he rushes out to hun: "I didn't see you at the club!"  Is Literary Director gay? 

Nope -- it was just a gay tease. 

It appears that the Famos Author sent the Gay-Sex-and-Drugs Author a dick pic (how did they even meet?), so PR Director wants to dump him, even though he's been their biggest moneymaker for 30 years. Literary Director asks what his dick has to do with his writing talent.  All literary geniuses have scandals.

Scene 8: Sofie reading reports.  Max starts drilling again. Drilling, drilling...She rushes out in a huff and demands that he not drill during work hours.  He says "What a bitch!" and storms off.  They'll be screwing by Episode 3. 

Scene 9:  Night.  Sofie still in the office, working.  Husband Johan is filming, so she calls the sitter to say that she'll be late, and please put the kids to bed.

Everyone's gone, so why not masturbate?   In an office with the blinds open, so anyone who comes into the main suite can see her?  At least close the blinds!

At that moment Max comes in -- she said don't drill during working hours -- and sees her.  He snaps a photo and leaves.

More Max after the break

Midnight Gospel: A gay teenager in the afterlife

Pendleton Ward's Midnight Gospel, on Netflix, is advertised as an adult Adventure Time.  There are certainly similarities in animation style and tone, but Clancy is no Finn.  Or Jake.

An amiable young man with pink skin and anime-eyes, shirtless, usually wearing a purple wizard's hat, Clancy (Duncan Trussell) lives in self-imposed exile in a virtual world called the Ribbon. We don't learn why, although there are a few hints:

His friends and older brother call to say how much they miss him. 

He encounters abusive fathers everywhere.

One friend ominously warns Clancy that someone is coming to kill him. .

His sister calls and begs him to come home, and he angrily hangs up.

He orders a pie online, but when it arrives, it is horribly decayed.

His mother visits, and we learn that she is dying of cancer.  She takes him through his whole life, from birth to death, and then he gives birth to her and goes through her life, from birth to death again.

I'm guessing that Clancy is dead, or else is so traumatized by abuse and his mom's imminent death that he has retreated into an inner world.  Clancy himself doesn't seem to know which it is.  

He passes the time by visiting various virtual worlds and interviewing the inhabitants for his "spacecast" (like a podcast, but beamed into space).  The dialogue consists primarily of the interviews, laconic late-night-talk-show discussions of conspiracy theories and wacko holistic healing techniques.  Meanwhile, on screen, Clancy and his friends are having bizarre, trippy adventures. 

For instance, he visits a world overrun by zombies, and must help the President of the U.S. escape from a besieged White House.  Meanwhile they discuss the merits of medicinal marijuana (for cancer patients, Clancy?). 

In a Medieval world, he helps a warrior re-animate her murdered boyfriend, and learns about forgiveness.  

In another episode, Clancy interviews Death  (he's not a ghost: his avatar is made of cream).  She talks about how the funeral industry makes us spend thousands of dollars to embalm our dead loved ones and make them look nice, when it is absolutely unnecessary: corpses are usually safe, and if you have the funeral within a few days, they won't decay enough to notice.  Death advocates washing and dressing your dead loved one at home, as a way of saying goodbye. 

Meanwhile, they travel across a weird Bosch-inspired landscape, fighting various monsters, including ghouls who jump out of mirrors. Death tells him that they are Regrets, and he can vanquish them by forgiving himself.  The Archangel Michael and a chubby demon join the team.

Watch with the sound turned off, and again with dialogue only, and you get two completely different shows.

I've never made it through an entire episode without fast-forwarding.  The interviews are bizarre, and we never get a sense that Clancy needs to hear them in order to move on.   We really don't learn much about what he wants or needs.

But we do learn something very important. Clancy experiences sexual desire -- he tries to visit a planet of orgies (and water slides) -- but he is not interested in women.  He never gets a girlfriend, or expresses an interest in getting one.  However, he does buddy bond with several of the male being he interviews, and all of the friends who call him are male.  

My verdict:  Clancy is gay.

See also: Adventure Time

The Blink-and-you-miss-them Non-Speaking Gay Couple of "Dawn of the Croods"

 

The Croods (2013) is an animated comedy about a family of crude, not-quite-evolved homo sapiens who experience a generation gap caused by teenage daughter Eep's boyfriend, a more-evolved teen idol-type named Guy (voiced by Ryan Reynolds).

I didn't watch the movie, worrying that it would show a ridiculous ignorance of prehistory, like humans co-existing with dinosaurs (over 50% of the U.S. population believes that they did).  But apparently there are no gay subtexts.

A prequel tv series, Dawn of the Croods, streamed on Netflix from 2017 to 2020, with younger, cuter Croods immersed in an entire community: rich, poor, intelligent, stupid, bureaucrats, workers, sentient animals.  Yes, there are dinosaurs.  Guy isn't around, but not to worry, there's a Guy-like "dreamy boy" whom Eep gets a crush on (they don't date).  

In the last episode of the series, "This is an End," a meteor is headed toward the valley so everyone will die unless they come up with a plan.  We see flashbacks, strategic sessions, psychedelic drugs, a pteradactyl-powered space ship. Finally they accept their fate:  "Death is a part of life.  But it doesn't matter.  What matters is spending your life with family."

Then they get the idea of rolling a boulder into the volcano and shooting it at the meteor.  It works!  

Everyone celebrates by kissing and hugging.  Mostly boy-girl, but also two girls (hugging only), two men, a man kissing a pile of meat, a boy kissing his own image, and a man trying to kiss a dog monster, which eats him.

Wait -- two men?

Fans go wild.  A gay couple!  Gay representation on The Croods!

The producers confirm that they are indeed a gay couple, not one of the ridiculous kissing objects.

So who are these guys? Did they pop up out of nowhere, just to add gay representation at the last minute?

They are definitely not regular characters.  They appear in three episodes, and get only one line between them.

In "Voice Fail," Wal, the bald guy, appears alone in a crowd scene.    Later he is paired with fellow muscleman Mow for a hunt.

Wal and Loo appear together in "Weighting is the Hardest Part," but only Loo, the little guy, speaks.  He wants to know if he has made the hunting team, and gets marked down as "predator chow."  

In "Flowers for Munk," two guys are slacking off, and the boss, Amber, tells them to get back to work.  "No make Amber separate you two, like Wal and Loo."  (She's the only cave person who talks that way)

The two are standing on opposite sides of a line drawn in the dirt.  Loo "texts" an unhappy emoji on a slate, which Amber threatens to share with the whole hunting party.  

So there's was blink-and-you-miss-them non-speaking gay couple on Dawn of the Croods.  Is that enough representation for an entire tv series?

Kid Cosmic: Why is "Fry and Hamburg are gay!" big news? So are Craig and Eric, Nergal and Irwin, George and the Secret Keeper....

Kid Cosmic, on Nickelodeon, stars Jack Fisher (left) as "Kid," a comic book-obsessed orphan boy  living in a desolate world consisting of his trailer, his Grandpa's junkyard, a retro 1950s diner, and an endless desert.  

Suddenly, for reasons, everyone who happens to be in the diner develops superpowers, and is tasked with finding the Rings of Power.  Stuck Chuck, a gay-stereotype alien baddie, eventually joins the team.

Just before Season 3 dropped, on February 2nd, 2022, showrunner Craig McCracken announced in a Twitter post that Fry and Hamburg are a romantic couple.

Who?

 

They're the diner cooks, visible on the right of this character photo.

 Fry (voiced by Eric Bauza, below) is a skinny, tattooed Italian guy  with super-stretching ability, and Hamburg (voiced by Fred Tatsciore) is a blond German hunk with the ability to exude multiple arm

On February 5th, McCracken further specified on his Instagram "how they met and fell in love": Hamburg graduated from a top culinary school in Europe, but wanted to cook "real food," so he got a job at the dingy diner in the endless desert, and fell in love with his coworker, Fry. 

They are very minor characters.  They didn't even get superpowers until Season 2, and even then, they were #10 and #11 in the superhero list, with no lines in most episodes.  I saw no gay hints about them in Seasons 1 and 2, but then, I wasn't looking closely: they were mostly background.  

So, on to Season 3.  I'll check every appearance of Fry and Hamburg, looking for holding hands, hugging, dancing together, a shared apartment, any hint, however minuscule, that they are being presented as a canonical romantic couple.

Back Story: In Season 2, the Galactic Heroes worked at an interplanetary diner as a cover while they tried to track down the missing Rings of Power.   When the Rings were all accounted for, they used them to defeat the Planet Destroyer, a planet-sized Big Bad.  In the fracas, the Rings were scattered all over Earth.

More after the break

"Samuel": French middle school boys are all in love with the same girl. With queerbaiting, drag, Freudian dreams, and some n*de twinks

 

Link to the n*de photos

When I was growing up in Rock Island, there were no gay characters in children's media -- and they were vanishingly rare in adult media.  In grade school my friend Bill and I vowed to be "best men" forever, and in junior high I swooned over Dan, who had blond hair and warm hands, but parents, teachers, and peers insisted that we were tepid, inconsequential "buddies."  Soon, very soon, I would "discover" girls, and drop my boy friends, instantly and without hesitation, to devote my life to what really mattered, finding and winning The Girl.

I scoured through tv shows, comic books, and the books in the Denkmann School library, searching for evidence that same-sex loves could endure for a lifetime: Will and Jack fighting aliens together in The White Mountains, Tony and Doug declaring that "I won't leave without you!" on Time Tunnel, even Rich and Sean smiling at each other in The Secret of Boyne Castle.  

A show about a boy who actually experiences a real, undeniable same-sex romance would have been a godsend.  

The animated Samuel (2026), by French cartoonist Émilie Tronche, just dropped on Netflix.  It features  a ten-year old boy whose diary entries are depicted in line drawings on a minimal canvas, similar to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  The blurb tells us that he's going to face "first loves, complicated friendships, and the start of middle school," with an illustration that undeniably shows him kissing a boy.  Dude is going to come out!

I can't wait to review Samuel.

Episode 1, Scene 1: Samuel writes in his diary that he's in love with a girl.

Say what?  I'm confused.

The boy he is kissing is shown on the blurb for Episode 5, so I'll review that one instead. 

Episode 5: At choir practice, a rumor goes around that Dmitri asked Julie to go out with him.  Everyone laughs and makes fun of the two.  Dmitri is the boy he is shown kissing.

The teacher comes in and asks if everyone has learned the solo part.  Dmitri claims that he has.

The full choir:

Why do people in love always seem to be the same?
They carry, as they walk by, the same look in their eye
One single flame -- they are the happy ones

Dmitri's solo.  Is he going to sing to Samuel?

I barely know you, but to drift away with you, like they do
We could make enough room, you and me
For both of us, with no fuss

You have to let me know it won't be in vain

Whatever the stakes, I want to be a happy man

Suddenly Samuel finds himself in church, about to be married to a boy?  No, to Julie,  but Dmitri rushes in at the last minute, a la The Graduate, and takes her away.  

Later, Samuel sees Julie and Dmitri in the schoolyard, and they confirm that they are in love.  This depresses Samuel, as he is in love with Julie, too.  Say what? When are he and Dmitri going to kiss?

Ok, episodes are only 3-4 minutes long. I'm going through all of them on fast forward, looking for the development of the Samuel-Dmitri romance.

Episode 6: Dmitri does not appear.  Samuel has a best friend, Benjamin.

Episode 7:  On the field trip to the museum, Dmitri and Julie sit together, upsetting Samuel. 

Episode 8: Samuel's friend Benjamin returns from his grandmother's funeral. They discuss his grief, but when he starts crying, Samuel is too macho to hug him.  Instead, he says "Your hair is really greasy."  Jerk!

Episode 9:  Dmitri tells Samuel, "You look pretty," but they're rehearsing a play, and Dmitri is a fox planning to eat crow Samuel, so it might not be his real-life sentiments.

Episode 10: Samuel tells his diary, "Last night something happened.  I don't know how to describe it." Finally, the kiss!   On the way home after the play, they stop at a stop light, and Samuel sees a girl, maybe Julie, in the next car.  She waves at him.  "That's what happened."  A wave?  

Episode 11: During summer vacation, Samuel runs into his enemy Dmitri crying on the sidewalk.  He explains that he is sad because school is over, and he's lonely. Julie must have dumped him.  He asks to hang out with Samuel's friend group next fall, when they're in middle school.  So are they going to fall in love over the summer?

Episode 12: Samuel's babysitters, Bryan and Jonah, invite him to a party with adults.  They usually go to clubs; maybe they're a gay couple?  Nope: when the dancing starts, they're mesmerized by two girls who give them "come hither" finger gestures, and ditch Samuel.  Ugh!  "You will abandon your same-sex loves, instantly and without hesitation, to devote your life to the only thing that matters, finding and winning The Girl."

More after the break

Chicago Party Aunt, Episode 1.5: Free-spirit Diane tries to help her gay nephew get his first kiss. Will it be with his dentist?

 

Free spirit paired with stick-in-the mud, "life is a banquet" paired with "that's not a good idea", "it's only 2:00 am" paired with "I have a big test tomorrow," has been traditional comedy since the days of Laverne and Shirley and The Odd Couple, In this case, it's Chicago Party Aunt on Netflix, pairing the free-spirit middle-aged Diane with her stick-in-the-mud 18-year old nephew, Daniel (Rory O'Malley, left). 

 I watched Episode 1.5, "Halloween Circle": Daniel tries to get his first kiss at a Halloween party.   No hope that either of the two regulars will be gay, but there might be some gay friends at the party.

Scene 1: Diane takes Daniel to get his first fake id: you have to order "two Chicago hot dogs" at a restaurant, then go through a secret door through the kitchen, a meat locker, another secret door, and into the basement, where a gangster-type offers the id for "his usual fee": a kidney.  Just kidding: $200.

Scene 2: Breakfast in their apartment. Oatmeal for Daniel,  Kahlua for Diane.  They discuss the upcoming Halloween party at Roscoe's, the best gay bar in Chicago.  Daniel is excited about his "first queer Halloween."  Daniel is gay!  I'm speechless!

Turns out that Rory O'Malley  is gay in real life.  I could have gotten that from the IMDB, which notes that he married Gerold Schroeder in 2014.

Daniel wants to get his first kiss from a random hot guy at the party: "I'll go up to him and say 'Would you like to kiss?."  That won't work, dude.  

Diane gives him some cruising tips: open with a joke, then a compliment, then a smouldering look, then the kiss. 

"I can't stay out late because I have a dentist appointment tomorrow.  Ugh!  I hate it when Dr. Gluck make jokes with his hand in my mouth."

"Cancel it!  Tonight you're going to get more than a hand in your mouth!"   

Scene 3: The hair salon where Diane works. Everyone wearing Halloween costumes. Diane bursts in and asks if they are going to the party tonight.  No, they have other plans.  

So who will Diane party with while Daniel is cruising hot guys?  "Why not ask Gideon?"

"Gideon??? That boring wet blanket?  No way!"  

Gideon, the salon manager (RuPaul), happens to be standing behind her, and criticizes her for her substance abuse and reckless behavior.  Hey, he sounds like Daniel's type.  Hint, hint.

Scene 4:  Daniel working at a coffee shop that sells beet juice and green algae.  I thought he was a teenager?  He tries cruising a hot guy, and fails miserably.   

Meanwhile, Salon Manager Gideon is on a lunch date with a guy he met on a dating app, who is discussing his bizarre diet, then: "So, any fun plans for Halloween?"  

"Face Time with my Mom back in Georgia," Gideon says.  His date is not impressed.

Back at the coffee shop, the manager asks about Daniel's lame cruising attempts.  He says that he's hoping to kiss someone tonight.  Manager advises against taking cruising advice from raunchy Aunt Diane: "She calls me Vanilla Lice, and I'm pretty sure she crop dusted the nut cheese aisle."  I don't know what that is.

More after the break

"Troy: Fall of a City": Soap opera version of Homer's "Iliad," with the gay characters turned bi

I went into the Netflix tv series Troy: Fall of a City expecting a vast canvass, a lot of spectacular special effects, and nonstop beefcake.  After all, a new take on one of the most familiar stories in the world has to have something to justify the retelling.

The first episode was promising: Paris Prince of Troy  (Louis Hunter, left) meets a mysterious group of beings who might be gods.  Zeus (Hakeem Kae-Kazim) asks him to choose who is superior: Hera (power), Athena (wisdom), or Aphrodite (beauty).  When he chooses beauty, the others in a rage vow to shatter his world. 

Very interesting, very evocative.  It goes downhill from there.

Troy is the story of a battle between the gods, with humans their unwilling pawns.  Paris (remember him?) kidnaps Helen, Princess of Sparta, to the consternation of her husband Menelaus (Jonas Armstrong, top photo).  The Spartans and their allies lay siege to Troy, a siege that lasts for ten long, gruelling years.  

In the Iliad, Homer covers only a few weeks in the story; his Odyssey focuses on the minor character Odysseus (Joseph Mawle, left) trying to get home.  

Other ancient authors have filled in the rest, explored interesting byways and asides, speculated about the lives of the characters before and after the War, given other minor characterstheir own epics.  You couldn't cover all of it in a hundred tv series.

Troy: Fall of a City tries to.

The result is a jumble of people, name upon name splattering across the stag. Some I recognized from literature or mythology: Ajax, Hector, Priam, Hecuba, Cassandra,Troilus, Odysseus, Aeneas.

Some not: Xanthus (David Avery), Diomedes, Thersites, Harmon, Dolan, Iola.

The main stories are minimized or ignored.  The famous are shuffled off to the side.  

Hesion (who?)  gets as much air time as Hector (Tom Weston-Jones).  

More after the break

Finn Carr: The "Alexa & Katie" kid grows up, swims, flexes, does drag, and plays a gay-subtext soap opera teen.

Link to the n*de dudes

Alexa & Katie (2018-20) was a Netflix sitcom (actually a drama with jokes) about two high school buddies: Alexa, who tries to hide having cancer so no one will treat her differently, and Katie, who is wearing a wig in solidarity.  Plots involve joining the basketball team, studying for math tests, befriending other kids with cancer, and so on.  

Jack Griffo (left) played math whiz Dylan Greene, who dated Alexa for awhile, but broke up with her because he was tired of competing with Katie for her attention.    

This is a profile of the kid, Finn Carr.

A random nude dude to tide you over on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Finn started his career in modeling -- you can see him here in an "Own the School Year Like a Hero" campaign for Wal-Mart. There's also a giant banner over his head.

He  played Wilbur, son of single dad Owen (Michael McMillan) and grandson of single mom Joy (Jane Leeves of Frasier) on Hot in Cleveland (2014)

The young version of special agent and genius Spencer Reid (Matthew Gray Gubler) on Criminal Minds (2016).

Lewis Gladstone, son of Joey Gladstone (David Coulier) and member of a sibling singing group called Gladstone Four on Fuller House (2016-17).

Katie's little brother on Alexa & Katie: a video game addict, aware of Alexa's secret and fine with kids who have cancer.  

After Alexa, he played Derek Fox-Lubiner, two episode boyfriend of Millicent, dealing with the disapproval of her stepfather Freddie (Nathan Kress)  on ICarly (2022).

Brian,, the debate team opponent, crush, and boyfriend of demonic guardian Scary (a girl) on Pretty Freekin Scary (2023).  

And then he suddenly grew up.

Well, almost.  As of this writing, Finn is a week from his 17th birthday.  

And rather built as you can see from the interplay of muscles in this rock-climbing photo.

More after the break

Gavin Lewis: Is the Prince of Peoria packing, or are his abs enough? With Gavin, Jordan, and Tim's junk

 

 Link to the n*de dudes

The Prince of Peoria (2018-19) was an tttempt by Netflix to break into the teencom market with a Hannah Montana-type premise: Emil (Gavin Lewis), the young prince of a ridiculously over-the-top country, goes undercover as an ordinary exchange student in Peoria, Illinois.

I grew up near Peoria, so I was hoping for shots of local landmarks.  But, except for the opening montage, you might as well be in Albuquerque.  No Peoria landmarks are mentioned in the two episodes I reviewed.

An unbridled id, Emil forms an "unlikely" buddy bond with overachieving superego Teddy (Theodore Barnes, the one who doesn't have his shirt off).  Emil teaches Teddy not to be so uptight, and Teddy teaches Emil to be more responsible.

The gay subtext is played with, as in "The Bro-Posal," when Emil proposes (asks Teddy to make their relationship official), and is rejected.

And in "Robot Wars," advertised as "Emil develops an instant crush on Ryan, Teddy's long-time rival." Turns out that Ryan is a girl with a boy's name!  Fooled you!

You probably didn't watch, but you'll certainly be interested in Gavin Lewis now, at age 21.

Researching topics other than Gavin's abs is rough.  Only one instagram post, no Facebook account, no X, a very common name.  According to Wikipedia, he was born in Salt Lake City, so we can guess that he's Mormon.  

At age nine Gavin was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.  Nick Jonas came to visit him, resulting in his interest in a stage career (his parents being theater professionals helped, too).  He booked his first movie role at the age of nine, and soon moved to Los Angeles to start auditioning.

Pre-Peoria work includes Just Jacques, Ominous, Real Boy, NCIS, Hey Arnold, The Bugaloos, and No Good Nick.

After Peoria, Gavin got a starring role in  Little Fires Everywhere (2020), a Hulu drama about: "the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood – and the danger in believing that following the rules can avert disaster."  Geeze, just tell us what it's about. Does anyone start a fire?

Gavin plays Moody, the youngest son of the "picture-perfect Richardson family."  In Episode 2, he "grows frustrated as Trip tells him Pearl friend-zoned him and is hanging out with Lexie."  I don't know what that means. 

The other guys in the photo are Moody's brother Trip (Jordan Elsass) and his friend Brian (Stevonte Hart).  Sorry, they're all heterosexual, but there's a gay character: Moody's older sister, "the black sheep of the family," naturally.

And Jordan Elsass reputedly has an adult video somewhere online.

More after the break

Champions: Gay kid with two dads played by Andy Favreau and Anders Holm

TV series that failed after only 10 episodes used to fade into oblivion.  Now they are picked up by streaming services, Amazon Prime, Vudu, and Netflix.  But streaming services also have self-contained 10-episode series, designed to tell a story and end.  Which is Champions?

Episode 1: We open in a run-down Brooklyn gym, where two guys, a hunk and a dork, are arguing over whether to get a dog.  A gay couple?  Nope, just heterosexual life partners -- gym owner Vince (Anders Holm, below) and his layabout brother Matthew (Andy Favreau, left). Think Alan and Charlie of Two and a Half Men.

  Suddenly a gunman bursts in, threatening to kill Vince for sleeping with his wife. Matthew convinces him that Vince has such a horible life that death would be a blessing.  This is the stuff of comedy?

Is it just me, or are the pair named wrong?  The hunk should be named Vince, and the dork Matthew. And shouldn't the one with the muscular physique be the gym owner?  Did the actors get their casting calls switched?

Also, why is it the dork who has sex with a hundred women per day, beginning in high school, where he got his girlfriend Priya (Mindy Kaling) pregnant?

Speak of the devil.  Cut to the ritzy Manhattan Academy of the Performing Arts, where 15-year old Michael (transgender actress Josie Totah, before she transitioned) is being told that there's a problem with his application (whose bright idea was it to name the two stars Michael and Matthew?).  The Dean of Admissions, who admitted him and offered to let him stay in his house, has been arrested in a "Jared from Subway type sting," so Michael (the kid) has nowhere to live.

Wait -- Michael (the kid) was being groomed by a pedophile?  This is the stuff of comedy?

The solution is clear: Michael (the kid) can live with Dad Vince (the dork) and Uncle Matthew (the hunk), who didn't know that he existed before today.

The rest of the series: Michael is the only kind of gay kid one ever sees on tv, an uber-swishy, facial product-wearing, show tune-obsessed swish.  He reminds me of Justin from Ugly Betty, except that Justin took five years to come out, and Michael's gayness is a done deal, not ever questioned.  In this world, homophobia does not exist.

But racism does: Vince has a type, preferring to date Indian women, although he's eclectic in his choice of bedroom partners. Anti-Indian and other racial prejudice is frequently evoked.

Michael proceeds to rehabilitate his two Dads. He encourages Vince to cut back on his womanizing, Matthew to study for his GED, and the duo to reconcile with their estranged mother.  He helps out at the gym, too, revising its web page and giving gym bookkeeper Dana (Ginger Gonzaga) advice on her love life. 

Not that Michael (the kid) lacks problems:  he's painfully naive about everything but musical theater, he struggles to embrace his Indian heritage and to accept the fact that he's no longer the most talented performer in his school.

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"The Upshaws": Has Bernard Turned Straight? Netflix Hopes You Think So.

The Upshaws, on Netflix, features an African-American blended family: Bernard (Mike Epps), his wife Regina (Kim Fields), and their three kids, plus Kelvin, Bennie's kid from another mother, the baby mama (sometimes), and the sharp-tongued Auntie Lucretia (Wanda Sykes).  During the first season, adult son Bernard Jr. (Jermelle Simon) comes out, first to Kelvin (by accident), then to his mother, and finally to his dad (during a father-son boxing match).  So far so good.

Then the second season dropped.  And the icon seems to show Bernard kissing a girl!  And there are episodes entitled: "Maybe Baby" and "Bennie's Woman."  I can't remember which of the Bernards was called "Bennie," but it sounds very much like Bernard Jr. turns straight, or bi with a girlfriend, which is thematically the same thing.

I watched the first episode, "Maybe Baby," with fear and anxiety.  Bernard Jr.'s high school girlfriend Monique (Sharifa Oliver) shows up with his ten-year old daughter!  Apparently they had sex on the night of the prom, because Bernard had to be sure that he was really gay.  That's nonsense; how will having sex with a woman tell you if you are attracted to men?  You could be bi.  And if you're gay -- attracted only to men -- you can just look at a woman to tell that you're not interested.

She got pregnant, but didn't tell him for some reason that doesn't make sense.  Then, ten years later, the daughter found out, and decided that she wanted a dad in her life.

So, does Bernard decide that he's actually bi, and return to the ex?

I fast-forwarded through the rest of the episodes with fear and anxiety.

Episode 2:  Auntie Lucretia insists that they do a paternity test to make sure Bernard is really the father.

Episode 3: Dad-daughter bonding night. "We could watch Frozen." "What are you, like a thousand?"  Girl, it's from 8 years ago.  "Well, we could just talk."  "Ok.  If you knew you were gay on prom night, why did you..."  

Episode 4: Bernard complains to Mom and Auntie that he can't find "someone," because the minute they discover that he has a kid, they ghost him. Usually dropping pronouns means that you're interested in someone of the same-sex -- gay people do it so often to avoid harassment that it becomes instinctive -- but in this case I'm not so sure.  Maybe Bernard has come out to himself as bi, and is looking for men and women, and he'll end up with a woman by the end of the series.  Gulp.

Episode 5: On his job at a UPS-like shipping service, Bernard is assigned to work with his ex, Hector (Dewayne Perkins). It's not what it looks like -- Dewayne is gay in real life.

They broke up after Bernard refused to come out as his boyfriend in front of Hector's parents. "But I'm out to everybody now, so let's try again."    Bernard neglects to mention the daughter; when Hector finds out, will he ghost him?  The date does not appear on screen.

Episodes 6-7: Bernard doesn't appear, or is just in the background

Episode 8: Apparently the date went well.  Bernard and Hector are cuddling on the couch.  Suddenly Bernard's daughter arrives for their bonding time, a few hours early because Mom was busy.  At first Bernard tries to cover, but then he comes out with "This is my daughter."  We are not told how Hector reacts.  The end.  Rather a cliffhanger.  I guess they're pushing for a Season 3.

Take another look at the icon.  Feminine hairstyle, pajama bottoms that look like a dress, an arm across Hector's chest that makes it look like cleavage.  Even close up, and knowing the scene, you'd swear that Bernard is kissing a girl.  And Netflix decided to use this image to sell the show.  Why?

Remember Will and Grace, the 2000s sitcom about a gay man and his platonic (sort of) life partner?   Nearly every promo showed Will or his friend Jack kissing a girl, so audiences would think "He's cured! He's not gay anymore!"  It always turned out that they were rehearsing a play, or they were dreaming, or they had to pretend to be a couple for some zany scheme.  20 years later, Netflix is doing the same thing, trying to draw viewers to The Upshaws by making them think that Bernard has turned straight.

See also: The Upshaws

The Hollow: Adam and Kai Hugging

Three teenagers awaken in a locked room with no windows or doors.  They don't remember who they are, but slips of paper in their pockets give them names.  As they try to escape, distinct personalities emerge:














Adam (voiced by Adrian Petriw, left) is the strong (as in super-strong), logical, level-headed leader.

Kai (Connor Parnall) is the skittish, easily frightened goofball, but a mechanics whiz (he can rewire a spaceship).

Mira (Ashleigh Ball) has mystical powers, like being able to talk to animals.

They escape, only to find themselves in a secret scientific facility, chased by devil-dogs.

Then in a world occupied by minotaurs from Greek mythology, who intend to eat them.

They escape into a lair of witches who want to inhale their souls, meet the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, rewire a spaceship, crash it into the ocean, meet the Cyclops of Greek mythology, and...

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