Gemstones Episode 4.5: The dirt on Vance, Mitch, and Lori. With Gossip GIrl's Dad's d*ck and a n*de Teenjus

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Title: "You Shall Remember," from Deuteronomy 8.18: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth,."  The Gemstones have forgotten that God made them rich so they can help people.  Tonight they'll get their comeuppance.  

The Dirt on Vance: Vance Simkins (Stephen Dorff) examines his burnt-out church and glares at the Gemstone satellite church across the street.  Cut to a Simpkins Commercial with him and his siblings, Craig and Shay, saying: "Grace.. .Praise... Rejoice..  Salvation."

Vance calls his siblings to his office, but Shay won't come ("she wants nothing to do with you") and Craig (Gogo Lomo David) is just there for his money: their parents' estate put Vance in charge, so he has to depend on hand-outs.  Vance gives him $10,000, and tells him to make it last.

Craig criticizes Vance for running the church into the ground,destroying their parents' legacy.  He keeps trying to open new churches when they're broke, just to compete with the Gemstones: "You can't admit you're beat, can you?"  

Vance protests that he's going to win the Top Christ Following Man Award. 

"You're a straight white man," Craig digs. "Your kind don't get awards anymore. Wait -- are you straight?  Never had a girlfriend, sweetie-pie."  Enraged by the implication, Vance slaps Craig and throws him onto the desk.

Uh-oh, a church deacon saw the attack.  Vance is violent, like Uncle Peter in Season 3 and Lyle Lissons in Season 2....he's the Big Bad of the season!

Vance had some queer codes back in Season 3, when he swished around with that tiny dog.  It would make sense for him to be gay and closeted.

Gogo Lomo-David is gay in real life, but there's no evidence that his character is gay.

Baby Billy and Kelvin in Decline:  Baby Billy finishes his screenplay about a teenage Jesus and his friends, changes the title from "Teen Jesus" to "Teenjus," and snorts some cocaine.  That's the Belly of the Beast in the Gemstone universe, buddy.

Cut to Kelvin and Keefe rushing through the crowd of queer well-wishers to a party to celebrate his Top Christ Following Man nomination.  Jesse, Amber, and Judy look angry; Eli, Lori, and Gideon look happy.  Abraham looks intrigued; Pontius sneers.  Abraham is the last of Jesse's kids to get a queer code.  I wrote a fan story where he comes out.

They begin partying.  Kelvin joins his siblings to gloat at the big turnout.  Judy sneers: "You're their little gay avatar."  Jesse: "You need to stop smelling your farts."  Translation: He's getting way too conceited about this award thing.

Lori drops by.  They criticize her for doing stuff with their father.  She promises to lock the door next time, and asks if they can start over and be friends again.  After all, she's known them all their lives.  Nope, "We reject this union."  

Lori: "All y'all little c*cksuckers better put on your big boy pants and get the f*uck over it."  Hey, that's homophobic, and at a LGBTQ event!  My estimation of Lori dropped 20 points. 

She continues: "I wanted to be y'all's friend, but if you want a wicked stepmother, I can do that, too."  

The siblings interpret "stepmother" to mean that Lori and Eli got married.  They are disgusted. 

Baby Billy is Doomed. Cut to Baby Billy and Tiffany cuddling in a swing, while the Nanny cleans the pool.  He describes their life as idyllic, but it's going to get better.  They'll make a fortune with his new project, Teenjus.

The Nanny notes that she likes teen dramas like Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl.  She would watch Teenjus.  Baby Billy yells at her.

Left: Matthew Settle, who played the Dad on "Gossip Girl."  His frontside and backside are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Tiffany suggests that Baby Billy retire so he will be around for their children growing up, but he refuses. He's got to seize this opportunity.  "I got to provide for you.  I don't know how much time I got."  Another precursor of doom.

BJ's Injury. BJ tries to make it from the toilet to his wheelchair, but fails and falls into the bathtub. Judy rushes in to help.  He complains that he can't even pee on his own. "I'm broken. I'm half a man."

Judy points out that the doctors say he will have a full recovery, but he won't believe it. When she tries to help him out of the bathtub, he angrily yells at her to go.  

Amber arrives to see how they are doing -- they're both miserable -- and to give Judy a service monkey named Dr. Watson.  She works with a charity that trains service monkeys for disabled veterans (first I'm hearing of it).

More after the break

Jonathan Bennett: From Mean Girl to the King of Gay Christmas. Plus his d*ck, his husband, and a bonus Buddy backside

 

Link to the n*de dudes

A new d*ck pick of Jonathan Bennett popped up on one of my celebrity sites, so I checked out his Instagram to see if he was a good candidate for a profile.

Whoa, what a surprise. You can usually identify a gay actor from his social media posts (I only check Instagram and Facebook).  Straight guys begin their taglines with "married to the most incredibly gorgeous woman in the world" and post 3,000 pictures of the two holding hands, kissing, going to formal events, celebrating holidays, and discussing how much they love each other.  Gay guys keep  mum; they post a lot of photos with women, and maybe one in a hundred with their boyfriend, but they don't tell us who he is.  Even when they are out; I guess they don't want the homophobic pushback.

Take Buddy Keaton: The first 40 posts on his Instagram display no men at all, but 15 show him hugging, kissing, being licked by, and going to the beach with women.

He also invites us to gaze at his rear (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends),  but you have to really read between the lines to deduce gay identity from that. 

But Jonathan Bennett: the first 40 posts on his Instagram mention his husband 13 times and show him 10 times (including two kissing shots).

So who is this guy who is so completely out in an era where most gay guys closet their social media?

1. He's been around forever

Jonathan grew up in Rossford, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo, and got a few on-screen gigs while studying drama at Otterbein College.  Six months after graduating, he was in New York, playing bad boy JR Chandler on the soap All My Children (2001-02).

He played Aaron Samuels, football jock (of course) who is fought over by Cady and Regina in Mean Girls (2004).

The teenage Bo Duke, who joins forces with his teenage cousin Luke (Randy Wayne) to save Uncle Jesse's farm in the Dukes of Hazzard prequel, The Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning (2007).

More after the break

"Superman" (2025): You'll believe a man can queerbait

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I don't usually review movies that are playing in theaters, but we just saw Superman (2025).  I went in with an internet full of complaints about "wokeness," so I expected a lot of LGBTQ representation.  Here's what I got:

The Wokeness: There are some nonwhite people around.  Big deal.

The Plot: The tyrannical leader of Boravia (mostly Russia, a little Israel) wants to invade neighboring Jarhanpur (mostly Palestine, a little Ukraine), and promises to make Lex Luthor  (Nicholas Hoult) king of half the country if he helps.  So he sells them $80 billion in arms for cheap. 

But Lex's main goal is to discredit and hopefully kill Superman (David Corenswet), because he doesn't like aliens, because he's envious of Supe's popularity, because...well, even he isn't sure. He's a movie villain, it's his job.  

Lex has a vast number of high-tech resources to help with the discrediting/murder:

1. The Engineer, who can fill your lungs with nanobots so you suffocate.

2. A prison in an unstable pocket universe, where he keeps political prisoners and people who criticized him on social media.

3. An interdimensional rift that can take down whole cities.

4. A lot of Superman clones.

5. Super-genius employees played by Terence Rosemore and Stephen Blackehart (left)

6. A monstrous kanju that grows to Godzilla-size and breathes fire.

7. The message that Jor-El and Lara sent along from Krypton. Supe always thought that they asked him to help the people of Earth, but they actually told him to rule Earth, and massacre anyone who resisted.  This is real, not fake, and when it gets into the media, people reject poor Supe.  Why do they care about the career his parents planned for him?  My parents wanted me to work in the factory.  

Supe has a number of allies this time around:

1. Food cart guy Malik Ali (Dinesh Thyagarajan), who jumps into a crater to help the injured superhero. Lex kidnaps him.

2. Krypto the Superdog.  Lex kidnaps him, too.  Spoiler alert: The dog doesn't die.

3.-5.  The bickering Justice Gang: Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi, left), Hawk Girl, and The Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion). In some of the comics and the tv series, Green Lantern is gay, but there's no indication here.

6. The superhero Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), who can transmute into any element.  Lex imprisons him to turn into kryptonite and torture Supe.

More after the break

"Chantal": The assault of the Mayor's "friend" in Wild West Flanders. Plus boxer brothers and Colossus

I'm getting tired of big-city detectives moving to quaint small towns to solve murders -- I don't even like murder mysteries -- but who could resist Chantal (2022-25) on Amazon Prime:  a tv series set in "the far west of Flanders," the region of Belgium where they speak Flemish (actually a dialect of Dutch, separated for political reasons).

The Quad Cities, where I grew up, had a large Flemish community --  you could even take courses in the language at the community college.  The Belgian Inn, a few blocks from our house, served a famous Vandereuben: ham, corned beef, sauerkraut, and French dressing on slabs of rye toast the size of a dinner plate. 

 There is also a Belgian-American museum, a Belgian bookstore, and an annual Belgian bookstore, but I'm sure you'd rather see the Vande  reuben.  

I'll review Episode 4, because "the mayor's friend is assaulted."  Maybe it will be a boyfriend.

Scene 1: Night. a man loads a gun and some stuff into his car, when two guys approach and ask if he's Etienne (Bernard Pieters).  Before they can answer, they kick and punch him many times.  One complains that he hurt his foot on Etienne's head.  They have a message for him, but he's unconscious, so they run to their car and drive away.  A blonde woman and a bald man watch.

Scene 2: In a field, the guys complain: "Colossus just told us to scare Etienne, not kill him!"  And even if he's not dead, he won't know why they beat him up: they didn't get to deliver the message.  "Just tell Colossus 'mission accomplished.'"  They drive away.

The guys are Rinus (Kenneth De Scheemaecker) and Quinten (Bjarne Devolder, who is gay in real life).  Maybe the character is gay, too.

Title: Establishing shot of the picturesque village, shots of the cast, and "Who the F*ck is Colossus?"

 Scene 3: A middle aged guy (Mathias Sercu) knocks on Chantal's door -- her boyfriend from 25 years ago!  So this is one of those series where the big-city detective goes back to her small hometown to solve murders.

She isn' t happy to see him, but at least he brought breakfast.  They discuss how he's getting tired of his wife, even though she's attractive, smart, and makes a lot of money as a model.  Hint-hint.

Chantal doesn't take the bait.  She tells her lovers that they can bring toiletries,but leave the suitcase at home.   Her hookup from last night appears, har har, and asks if he can leave some toiletries.

A cop who dresses as a cowboy (Dries Heynemann) comes rushing up: she's needed now!  "But it's my day off!" "Tough -- mayor's orders!"

Cowboy wants to know what Ex-Boyfriend is doing there.  "What do you think I'm doing here, on a Sunday morning?"  As the Hookup passes on the way out, Cowboy stares at him suspiciously, no doubt thinking that they had a three-way.

Scene 4:  On the way to the mayor, Cowboy gazes at Chantal's lady parts -- wait, he's into her, too?  --  and they discuss his attraction to Sylvia -- the Ex-Boyfriend's wife?  

The Case: Etienne, city councilman, head of the hunting club, and the mayor's friend (hopefully boyfriend) , was beat up in his driveway, and is now in a coma.

They interview the Mayor (Yves Degryse): "Etienne was supposed to pick me up at 5:30 for hunting, but he never came or called, so I went over, and found him in the drive way." 

He looks like he's about to cry.  "Are you ok?" Chantal asks.

"No, my friend was beat up."  Chantal is still suspicious.  Maybe she thinks they are boyfriends.

Scene 5: More about Etienne: Good guy, captain of the football (soccer) team, day job in real estate, partnered with the Mayor.  Chantal finds this suspicious.

At the station, Chantal wonders why Etienne was carrying a gun when he was attacked. Did he startle a burglar? Because he was going hunting?  Neighbors didn't hear anything.  No surveillance cameras.  "So we know nothing."

"Just like we know nothing about why your Ex-Boyfriend was at your house," Cowboy chimes in.  Why does he care?  Is this one of those series where every man gazes at the focus character like she's a pork chop?

As she is brainstorming, and the other cops are making fun of each of her ideas, the Mayor calls her and Cowboy into his office. He just got a threatening call from Schiettekatte (everyone knows who these people are except Chantal, who is new in town, so they have to explain it to her). 

Schiettekatte is a Very Important Man who put in an application to tear down a shrine to Tipsy Mia's dead son so he could build something.  They rejected him.  He just called and told the Mayor to reconsider his application "if you don't want to end up like Etienne."  Red herring.

More after the break