Imposters: Gay Subtexts in a Long Con

The first episode of Imposters is nightmarishly heterosexist, but hang in there -- it gets better.

The awkward, shy, but somehow extremely wealthy Ezra (Rob Heaps) works for his father's shoe company, where water-cooler banter involves mostly boobs and how much you are getting. 

Somehow Ezra grew up less sexist, and married the "the woman of his dreams," the French-accented Ava (Inbar Lavi),  even though he has to negotiate his Neanderthal brother (Adam Korson) and boorish father (Mark Harelik), with their "does she like it when you have sex with her?" leering.

It's no wonder that she vanishes a month after the wedding, draining his bank account and leaving a very nice "it's not you, it's me" video.

Then Ezra meets dumb but formerly extremely wealthy jock Richard
(Parker Young, top photo), who married the same woman, only she called herself "Alice."  One month, bank account drained, vanished.

 And lesbian artist Jules (Marianne Rendon), who married Cece.  One month, bank account drained, vanished.

The trio vow to track down the elusive scammer, to get their money back, or at least say "how could you treat me like that?  I thought our love was real." (Their only cue is a story about her pet dog, which she told to each of them).  They are brok, so they indulge in some cons and identity-theft tricks to raise money, and become quite proficient at it.

Eventually they track down the scammer -- real name Maddie -- in Seattle, where she is working on her new mark, a disagreeable, violent-tempered banker (Aaron Douglas).

She has two older associates with the ridiculously 1940s names Max and Sal (Brian Benben, Katherine LaNasa), and a big boss, the ridiculously malevolent Doctor.  If ever she tries to get out of the game or shirk her duties by getting a boyfriend on the side, the Doctor will send in his cool-as-ice fixer (Uma Thurman).

 Things get complicated when Maddie falls in love for real with the extremely wealthy Patrick (Stephen Bishop).

And even more complicated when her banker mark ends up murdered.


And even more complicated when Patrick turns out to have a game-changing secret of his own.

And even more well, you get the idea... when the Bumblers (Ezra, Richard, and Jules) show up in Seattle, and agree to work with Maddie and her associates to bring the Doctor down.

Gay characters:  Jules, who starts dating Patrick's "sister" Gina, even though they're both working on cons against the other.

Maddie is bisexual, I suppose, but it's never referred to.

Gay subtext:  Richard strikes me as gay but not out (Jules even refers to this or that hot guy as his new "boyfriend" or "man-crush").  He has a gay-subtext bromance with Ezra, and then switches to Maddie's associate Max.  Side note: Silver Daddy Brian Benben was last seen as a bare-butt Dad on Dream On?

Beefcake: Occasional shirts off. The cast is surprisingly top-heavy with hot guys.  For example, Samuel Patrick Chu plays a nebbish working at the bank, not part of any scams, with only a few lines.  And here's his physique.

I've only seen one season of The Imposters.  My grade: B

There are nude photos of Mark Harelik on Tales of West Hollywood.

See also: Chris Demetral