An amazingly open but undeveloped gay subtext in "Below": From attempted murder to romance in three hours. Plus some n*de Somali dudes

 (I decided to revise this review to concentrate on the gay subtext rather than a scene-by-scene.)

 Link to the n*de dudes

I went into the Netflix series Below (2026), about a sea monster plaguing a small fishing village, expecting no more than the Newfoundland accent and maybe some shirtless fishermen.  But before I knew it, there was a major gay subtext, a crazy, undeveloped, yet touching "enemies to lovers" story!

Below is set in the Newfoundland village of Snooks Arms, where ice fisherman Calvin (Azriel Dalman as a boy, former teen idol Josh Hartnett as an adult) has several problems:

First, a prehistoric sea monster that hunts random villager, starts a plague, and has a weird cult with psychic powers.

Josh Hartnett's backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Second, the province wants everyone to relocate.  If 90% of the villagers agree to the move, they'll get a stipend of $140,000 for a family, or $60,000 for single people.  He and his lesbian sister don't want to move.

Calvin has an on-off girlfriend and three kids.  They all have plotlines of their own, plus love interests.

Wade (Charlie Heaton, Jonathan Byers on Stranger Things, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), handles the cooking and cleaning for the family's bed-and-breakfast.  He keeps wanting to help on the ice fishing boat, but Dad refuses because he has ADHD, is taking psylociben for depression, and is a screw-up.

Love interest: He falls in love with a girl who happens to belong to the paranormal monster-worshipping cult, and wants to sacrifice him.

 Mary is visiting from Toronto with her musician boyfriend Noah (Caleb Horn).  Their plotline involves a stolen engagement ring.

Jay (Rohan Campbell) has been "working on an oil rig," he claims and hanging out with the b'yes.  Tell me more.

His plotline:

Episode 1: While out ice fishing with his Dad, he gets a text: "You're a dead man!" .

Episode 2: It turns out that he owes $80,000 to a loan shark out west.  Two enforcers, the loose cannon Connor (Josh Cruddas, right) and the hesitant Mo (Matthew Worku, center), arrive for the payment.  Jay says that he needs another 24 hours. 

Episode 3:   In 24 hours, Jay delivers proof of residence in the town: when they relocate, he'll get a payout of $60,000. That's not good enough, so they start beating him up.  Dad Calvin intervenes.

Jay asks if they have a place to stay, and suggests a b&b (not the one his brother runs).  You're being awfully nice to the guys who were just hitting and kicking you.

More after the break.

Dang!: Dysfunctional Asian-American family, with Andrew Law as a gay brother. Gen Z humor, gross-out jokes, cute gay guys, and Brian Jordan Alvarez..

 

Link to the not-fully-clothed dudes

I've been looking forward to the animated Dang!, about dysfunctional Asian-American siblings, wiith some trepidation.  In one of the scenes in the trailer, Andrew Dang struggles to say something to a burly Hispanic dude in a bodega, knocks over a display, says "I love you!" and leaves in embarrassment.  Sounds like he's gay, but in another scene, he's knocking over furniture in enthusiastic kissing and hugging with a woman, so I'm not sure.  I've been fooled by queerbaiting trailers before.

But it stars Andrew Law, the showrunner of The Family Law, about a Chinese-Australian boy coming out, so we'll give it a try.

Scene 1: Boardroom at the XY Deadstock Company.  Andrew calls a meeting with his disengaged, phone-scrolling "grindset alpha" employees.  His co-owner fires him because "every day you spend hours in the bathroom, eavesdropping on your own employees and tweeting their conversations."

"Can't fire me if you can't catch me!" He runs away in a panic, chased by security guards in a parody of those zany movie chases. One expects to hear "Yackety Sax" in the background.  He runs into Lucille,  Head of HR, who hands him the termination papers.

Scene 2: A purple-haired woman is livestreaming her bread podcast, accumulating coins. If she gets enough, she promises marble rye next. Andrew comes and gets yelled at for interrupting. She notes that she's only doing this until she lands the job at Klerp, Kate Hudson's lip gloss newsletter. 

Andrew being fired will be a major inconvenience for Sister, since he pays for all her stuff. "Go back and fight for your job."

Scene 3: Andrew begs the Co-Owner to give him his job back.  "We're a world-changing company!" "We let teens resell their fanny packs for $6,000.  And you don't do anything."  Who would spend that much on a used fanny pack?  

"My lawyer and I will see you in court!"

"Isn't that just a guy you date?"  

"We only dated once."

Gay identity established at Minute 5.00, but what about the enthusiastic girl-kissing?  Maybe it's bi identity.

Scene 4: Lawyer tells Andrew that they have two options: Prove that the Bathroom Twitter account wasn't his.   "Nope, it was mine."  Ok, prove that he was wrongfully terminated.   His older sister Ruthie texts, so he runs away.

Left: The IMDB and the closing credits don't reveal which actor plays which character, so all I know is that Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jared Goldstein (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) are in the cast.

Cut to Klerp, where Purple-Haired Sister is waiting for her internship interview.  The receptionist offers several wacky perks, like a cranial massage, bone marrow broth, and a bossy therapist: "A gay guy who agrees with everything you say, but goes too far."

She's interviewed by a young teen girl who puts rose quartz in her coffee.  They're ready to hire her, when Andrew appears, gesturing wildly.   "Our Sister Ruthie is in town, and she wants to...ugh...grab dinner!" 

"Don't panic.  We can avoid her until she leaves."

Scene 5: They run back to their apartment to grab some essentials and hide, but she's in the house!  She explains that she's moving to town for her very important, very successful job, so she'll be able to evaluate their tech business and muffin shop. 

Dang, the siblings don't have either of those careers!  "When Little Miss Perfect finds out, she'll be sooo annoying!"

Purple-Haired Sister has another interview at Klerp, so Andrew is in charge of entertaining their sister for the day. She interviews with Kate, who is trying "interminable fasting" and doesn't know what "Cornell" means.

More after the break

Daniel Doheny: Alex Strange Gay, a guy chasing a d*ck, a n*de breeder. With some karaoke and an Irish Short Guy

 

Link to the n*de dudes

When not-fully-clothed photos of Daniel Doheny in Breeders appeared online, I figured that he was starring in the tv series about parents who hate their kids.  No, that series aired from 2020 to 2023, and this Breeders is from 2026.  

Since breeder is gay slang for hetero, could it be a series about a gay guy trapped in the straight world?

No, it's a horror thriller about a straight guy who is kidnapped due to his superior genetic material and told to have babies with a lot of women. He refuses to do the act because of his girlfriend back home, so they force him to submit samples instead.

A big-beneath-the-belt muscleman.  I could see how...

Wait -- this is Daniel Doheny.   Cute, but he hasn't been to the gym lately, and his dangling bits are rather on the small side.  I guess that's the point: he's an unlikely candidate.  Maybe they grabbed the wrong guy?

Further research reveals that Daniel is best known for Alex Strangelove (2018): he plays a high schooler who doesn't realize that he's gay until his girlfriend figures it out and finds him a boyfriend. 

I stayed far away from that movie, offended by the low-scale homophobia of the title.  Not as bad as "an abomination," but I still don' t like gay stuff being slurred as "strange." Why didn't they just come out and title it Alex Gay People Are Deviant? 

So Danny Boy is going into this profile with two strikes against him, to use a hetero metaphor.

Question #1: Any other strange guy roles?

Daniel Doheny (the Anglicized form of the Irish Ó Dubhchonna) was born in Vancouver in 1997, and attended Langara College, class of 2012.  His  on-screen acting career begins in 2012, with some shorts, a guest spot on Supernatural, and Adventures in Public School (2017).  He plays Liam Heap (really?), a homeschooled boy who braves a public high school and meets The Girl of His Dreams.

Looks like we get a shirtless shot of Andrew Herr, who would go on to play a "he might be strange" straight dude on Letterkenny.

Next came Alex Gay Stuff is Weird (2018) and The Package (2018): Five friends (Danny, Luke Spencer Roberts, Eduardo Franco, and two girls) go on a camping trip, when Eduardo's character accidentally gets his manitou cut off.    It gets a lot of damage in the "race against time" to the hospital, including a scene where one of the guys has to s*ck snake venom out of it. Like gay bedroom stuff, Can you believe that strange guys do that, har har?

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: The impressive beneath-the-belt gifts of Alexander Calvert, who played Chad. 

More after the break

Alexander Polinsky: Adam on "Charles in Charge" grows up, models props, goes Furthur. With Andrew Keegan, Julian Sands, and some d*cks

 

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I get a lot of page views with profiles of former child stars and teen idols who have gone on to a hunk adulthood, so naturally I was drawn to Charles in Charge (1984-1990), with Scott Baio as a college student working as a live-in nanny in...um...a household full of teenage girls far too old for a nanny.

There were boys around, too, but Jonathan Ward and Michael Pearlman from the 1984-85 version can't be found.  That leaves Alexander Polinsky, who appeared as Adam Powell in 104 episodes in the second version (1986-90).  

The show was focused on Charles, his buddy Buddy (Willie Aames), and the two teenage girls, so Adam didn't get a lot of centrics: he is harassed by a bully, gets a crush on a girl, takes a babysitting job.  I recall one episode where Adam has to explain that he doesn't like playing football.  He starts off with a list of the sports he does like, lest Charles get the idea that he is a sissy/ gay..  

Left: Alex with fellow 1990s teen stars Stephen Dorff and Brian Austin Green

After Charles, the 14-year old had guest spots on Billy (about a Scottish comedian), The New Lassie (about a dog), and Joe's Life (about a stay-at home Dad), and starred in Pumpkin II: Blood Wings (1994): teenagers accidentally unleash an ancient demon, who kills them all except the Final Girl.

In Perfect Fit (2000), Dick (Alex) "turns to murder" to satisfy his girlfriend, a blue jeans devotee. 

Former Colt model and soap opera actor Nick Benedict appears as Thomas, one of the jeans donors (n*de photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Since the 2000s, Alex has been involved mostly in his prop modeling and voiceover animation: 

Control Freak in Teen Titans

Garrett in Alpha Teens on Machines

Chameleon Boy in Legion of Superheroes.

Jimmy Olsen in Batman: The Brave and the Bold

Unicorns 1 and 2 in Breadwinners

Several characters in Monster High: the Series

He returned to live action for the the anthology movie Locker 13 (2014).  In Segment 3, Alex plays a mental patient considers jumping off a building, until the fast-talking Jason Marsden tells him about a club where members bet on when and how people will off themselves.

Ricky Schroder appeared in another segment as a down-and-out boxer who finds sinister gloves that let him win every match -- for a price.

Roger Ebert.com tells us: "Rarely do I find a movie that is so appalling if not outright insulting to all of humanity (and particularly, in this case, womankind) that it gives me a stomach ache, but Locker 13 really put me off my Cobb Salad."

Still, Alex highlights his segment in his acting demo reel.

More after the break