The Top 10 Hunks of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"

All three seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are up on Netflix, giving us the complete saga of Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom), who runs into her grade-school crush Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III) one day on the street, and drops everything to move to West Covina and stalk him.

It turns out that Rebecca really is crazy; she has Borderline Personality Disorder, characterized by extreme mood swings, impulsivity, obsessions, and relationship problems.  She moves too fast and overreacts violently to rejection or just "let's slow down."  People who suffer from BPD in real life have praised the show for its realistic portrayal, finally "getting mental illness right."

In addition to Rebecca's ongoing pursuit of Josh Chan and other guys whom she believes will make her life perfect, the palette of the show expands to include subplots.  Josh and his posse don't have perfect lives, after all.  Nearly everyone is involved in a toxic parent-child relationship.

It's one of the most diverse casts I've ever seen, and one of the most beefcake-heavy.

1. Josh (above) is riddled with insecurities, indecisive, and rather dimwitted (not quite Joey Tribbiani, but close).  He still lives with his mother, in spite of her entreaties for  him to move out.

2. He works for an over-accommodating boss (Johnny Ray Meeks) and seeks advice from an over-accommodating priest (Rene Gube, left).

3.  Josh (David Hull), who is gay, has a major inferiority complex.  He can't understand why someone as great as Darryl Whitefeather (Pete Gardner) would be interested in him (um...have you looked in a mirror lately?).


By the way, Vincent Rodriguez III is gay in real life, and David Hull is straight.

3. Hector (Erick Lopez) has an unhealthy dependency on his mother.  He's dating Heather, a perpetual student, taking every class at her community college, sometimes twice, afraid to graduate and move to the next stage of her life.













4. Greg (Santino Fontana) dates Rebecca for awhile, then realizes that he's an alcoholic, and goes away to get help.

5. Nathan Plimpton (Scott Michael Foster), Rebecca's boss after Darryl sells the company, is an amoral schemer constantly trying to win his dad's love.

More after the break

Twelve Forever: The First Gay Protagonist of Any American Children's Program

In Twelve Forever, a 12-year old girl named Reggie is terrified by the prospect of growing up, so she creates a fantasy world called Endless Island, and populates it with interesting characters like Flower Woman (with flowers for eyes), Brown Roger (a small, hairy thing), and Guy Pleasant (half rock star, half dog).


For antagonists, she conjures up the Butt Witch and her henchman Big Deal, who try to force her to grow up.  She convinces two of her real-life friends, Todd and Esther, to come along.


Sounds like H.R. Pufnstuf meets Peter Pan, except those islands were real.   I'm not so sure about Endless Island. It sounds very much like a psychotic delusion.

I became interested due to an episode in which the Butt Witch tries to break up the romance between two burly wrestlers, Mack and Beefhouse.  Two burly male wrestlers!

The other characters are completely nonchalant about their gender, saying things like "I can't wait to find my soulmate," and so on.

This is definitely a gay -positive show.  Reggie herself gets a crush on a girl named Connelly.

Unfortunately, Reggie is such a self-centered jerk that she's impossible to watch.  When Connelly displays interest, she makes an excuse and runs away.  Repeatedly.

Imagine: you're 12 years old, you find a girl you like, and she makes it very clear that she wants nothing to do with you.   How's that for a crushing childhood trauma?

Later, at the school dance (4 male-female couples and Reggie), Connelly shows up, and a flustered Reggie forces her friends to leave, even though they are having fun.

Isn't it always the way: you find a gay-positive character, and they're unpleasant and possiblypsychotic?

Oh,well, who am I to nit-pick?  This is the first gay protagonist of any American children's tv program, cause for celebration.

"Undone": If I See One More Chicken-Peck Kiss....

"Stunning!"  "Entrancing" "You've never seen anything quite like this!"  "A masterpiece!"

Reviews like this usually mean "it's about heterosexual romance."

So I resist Amazon Prime's animated series Undone,even though the premise sounds interesting: After an accident, a young woman gets the ability to change reality.

But I get the spiel every single time I go on the Amazon website, "Watch this!  It's the most compelling television ever!  It's the greatst work of art of all time!  Shakespeare pales in comparison!  On your deathbed, you will recall this tv series as the most wonderful experience of your life!"

The curiosity gets the better of me.  I cautiously tune in.

Scene 1: Alma (Rosa Salazar) is driving through a big city, crying, her eye shadow running.  The animation is so realistic that we could easily be looking at real people; why even bother to animate it?

Suddenly she sees the world dissolving into blackness.  Then she's hit by a truck, spins out, and crashes into a telephone pole.

Scene 2:  Doing her daily routine, Alma narrates that she's "bored with living."  Every day she wakss up next to the same person, eats the same breakfast, works at the same job, and then compares two cans of beans at the supermarket.

If you don't like your boyfriend, your cereal, or your job, just get new ones and stop whining.

Scene 3: Alma is complaining to her sister about how "everything is pointless."  Sis just got engaged to Reed Hollingsworth (stupid made-up rich person's name!).  Alma doesn't like him because his parents are rude and racist (big deal -- so are mine).  She also disapproves of Sis getting married while their Dad is dead. So...never?

Scene 4: Alma goes home to her hot boyfriend (Siddharth Dhanajay, top photo) and kisses him like a chicken. Peck, peck, peck, peck, peck!  Nauseating!  Then they swallow each other's faces.  She discusses how she doesn't want to get married or settle down.  Then they peck, peck, peck some more. Disgusting!  Fast forward...

Scene 5: Morning routine, then off to her job at the daycare center for meaningless interactions with the kids and Hot Coworker (Daveed Diggs, left).  I have to admit, this is boring, Could Hot Coworker at least take his shirt off?.

Scene 6: Morning routine, then to Mom's house to prepare for Sister's engagement dinner.  Tbey discuss Dad's death, 20 years ago, and how Alma never knew that he smoked!.

It's been 20 years, and Alma still disapproves of her sister getting married? Get on with your life, already!

Scene 7: Fancy restaurant where Boyfriend works as a waiter who gets paged.  Alma is upset that Mom is hiding horrible secrets, like Dad smoking, so Boyfriend tells about his mother's abusive first husband.  In other words, "Stop whining!"

They discuss their relationship, then chicken-peck-kiss.  I swear, one more chicken peck and I am turning this off, blog post or not.

Scene 8:  The engagement dinner.  Mom criticizes Alma and kisses Boyfriend (finally, a name!  Sam!).  Reed (Kevin Bigley, left) discusses how much he loves Sister (another name!  Becca!).  Alma sneers.

When are we going to get to the changing reality? You know, the interesting stuff?

Scene 9: Morning routine.  Alma asks "Do you ever feel like you're in a play, and everyone is just playing a role?"

Yep, that's classic solipsism.  Everybody gets it when they're around 16. You're 28 -- get over it.

Scene 10:  At an empty dive bar, Alma tells Becca that she broke up with Sam because she's afraid that she's going to become schizophrenic. Becca thinks she realized that Sam wasn't good enough for her.  The hot bartender flirtts with them.

Scene 11: At Alma's house.  Apparently they have invited Hot Bartender home for a three-way.  While he and Becca kiss,Alma throws up in the bathroom.

I don't get it, but at least Hot Bartender shows us his chest.

Scene 12:  Church.  Hot Priest (Tyler Posey) is talking about something boring.

Becca blames Alma for the hookup last night: "You wanted to destroy something because it wasn't yours! You're broken!!  You don't even know all the things that are wrong with you!"

Um...just tell your finacee=.  Maybe he'd like a three way with the Hot Bartender, too.  Heterosexuals make things so complicated!.

Scene 13: The accident from Scene 1, only this time Alma sees her dead father congealing out of the ooze,

Beefcake:  two guys with their shirts off.

Other interesting sights: No.

Gay characters: No.

Chicken-Peck Kisses: 15.

Whining:  Incessant.

Heterosexism:  Oh Lord, take me now!

"Mortel": Gay-Tease Teenagers Fight Voodoo Gods in Paris

When I searched online for Nemo Schiffman, this photo came up, with the byline "Melanie Thierry et Raphael, fin de partie."

I don't know who those people are, but obviously neither one is Nemo Schiffman, the 19 year old singer/actor who is starring in Mortel (Deadly), a French drama about two teenage boys fighting supernatural evil.

Here's a guy who goes to Gay Pride Parades, records songs without "girl! girl! girl!" lyrics, and is the bff of queer singer Bilal Hassani, "an icon to queer youth."  There must be a gay subtext!  Or maybe even a canonical gay couple!

It's worth a shot.

Episode 1:

Sofiane (Carl Malapa), a student at a run-down high school in a working-class arondissement of Paris, has been a wreck since his older brother Reba (Sami Outalbali) disappeared four months ago.  He even tries to commit suicide.  He starts getting visions of a supernatural being with dreadlocks and fiery glasses (Corentin Fila), who explains that he is Obé, the Voodoo god in charge of transporting murdered souls to the other world.  Reba is trapped in limbo, but Sofiane can release him by murdering someone else.

Release him to the other world, or bring him back to life?  And why is he trapped?  Can't Obé just transport him over?

Sofiane chooses Victor (Nemo Schiffman), the outcast weird kid who's been in and out of mental hospitals.  He lures him onto a roof, and, with Obé egging him on, tries to strangle him.  But Sofiane can't do it.  Maybe Obé would accept his brother's murderer instead?

The god agrees.

Episode 2:

Sofiane receives the power of physically moving people (handy for getting bad guys to punch themselves), and Victor receives the power of reading minds, and they get to sleuthing.  They seek out the help of classmate Luisa (Manon Bresch), whose grandmother is a Voodoo priestess (I didn't know there was a large Afro-Caribbean community in France).  She suggests that it might not be a good idea to trust a being who claims to be a Voodoo god.

Uh-oh.  The Girl.  Will one of the two boys demolish the gay subtext by falling in love?

Victor invites Sofiane home for dinner: middle-class household, conniving little sister, stepfather who makes Pad Thai.

"When we met, it was friendship at first sight," Sofiane explains.

The family is delighted, and implicitly assumes that they are a gay couple.

But I'm concerned about The Girl, so before I commit to watching the whole series, I'd better skip to the last episode to see if the two walk off into the sunset together.


Episode 6:

Bad things went down last night, and Victor is incoherent, drawing monsters in his underwear and screaming at his family.  Sofiane sends them all away and grabs and hugs Victor as he cries.

So far so gay.

They decide to storm the building where Luisa is interviewing the Bad Guy.  Sofiane has to use his powers to fight off several armed guards.  It's difficult and very painful.  Victor hugs him.

Great, but what about the very last scene:

Victor and Sofiane sitting on a bench.  It's all over, so now they can get on with their lives, walking side by side into the future, right?  Victor says that he still has issues to work on, so he's going back to the mental hospital.  Sofiane starts to cry.

Wait -- they're breaking up?  But it's not permanent -- he'll be out in a few months.  And besides, mental hospitals allow visitors. Why....

And now Victor has to say goodbye to Luisa.

Uh-oh, they're hugging.  Luisa tells him how much she cares for him.

In a Platonic, brotherly way, right? 

Right?

Wrong.  Their foreheads press together.  Victor says "I want to show you the life we can have together."

Boo!

That's two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

I should stick to tv series where the description specifically states "This character is gay. He likes men.  He doesn't fall in love with a woman."

Like Being 17, starring Corentin Fila (Obe) as a teenager who is gay and falls in love with his mother's houseguest, who is also gay.