"The Lodge": British Teencom with Lots of Songs about Becoming a Star, and a Star Coming Out

 

A British teencom called The Lodge has just dropped on the Disney Channel.  I'm watching all of the Disney teencoms for gay references, characters, or subtexts, so I'll give it a try.  Except I'm not starting at the beginning: Season 2, Episode 8 says "Gil accidentally reveals some shocking news to Skye."  Maybe he outs someone.

Scene 1: A bulldozer prepares to destroy the Lodge, while the teens look on in horror. It isn't what we would call a lodge in the U.S., more like a swank resort.   A blond girl collapses into the arms of Big Teeth Sean (Thomas Doherty, below), screaming.  But at the last moment, an Environmental Officer overrides the Evil Corporate guy: the bats in the attic are protected.  Everyone hugs and cheers.

Scene 2: Evil Corporate Guy, who happens to be Big-Teeth Sean's Dad, snarling and gnashing his teeth.  He yells into the phone: "There must be something I can do to ruin those kids' lives forever!"  Sean comes in; Evil Corporate Guy gives him the job of fixing up the lodge: if he can't destroy it, he'll sell it.   That will hurt the kids, right?

Scene 3: Josh, the star of the show (played by the extremely talented actor Joshua Sinclair-Evans), is standing in the field with a blond girl (there are two on the show, so she could be from Scene 1 or not).  She can't live in the lodge anymore, so she has to live in a pink caravan (trailer), but: "It's still Gill's.  It would be too weird."  She invites Josh to move in with her, but he thinks the place is too small, so he hugs her and leaves.  

Scene 4: Kaylee (long black hair) in the woods. She sneaks in a hidden door.  Switch to Big-Teeth Sean cleaning up around the Lodge.  A blonde girl asks "You're not doing this because of me, are you?"  No, this is just Evil Corporate Dad's punishment for leaving the Dark Side.  By the way, he's going to sell it.  This horrifies the girl.  She makes a phone call: "We need to meet!  Now!"

Scene 5: Kaylee has taken the hidden door to a secret storage room with green walls, and into the lodge.  She sits down to sing an entire song about hitting the top and lighting the stars.  The janitor interrupts: "You're not supposed to be here!" "I have to practice for the concert tonight.  I'm nervous.  I thought being here would help me big this up."  The janitor helps by drawing faces on paper plates, so she can practice performing before an audience.  She's going to light up the stars, and she gets stage fright?

Meanwhile, Sean keeps cleaning up.  Hunky Ben (Luke Newton, top photo) and his femme friend Noah (Jayden Revri, left) arrive to help.  Finally, a gay couple or gay-subtext couple!  When Dad calls to see how the clean-up is going, Sean decides to rebel.  "I'm tired of Evil Corporate Guy blaming me for everything.  I never even wanted to buy this lodge. Let's frolick instead of cleaning up."

Scene 6: Three girls, blond, brunette, and redhead, talking: "The Evil Corporate Guy is selling the Lodge!  We need to find the gold, so we can buy it!"  Apparently there's a lot of gold lying around England.  They call the redhead's grandpa, who has left a voicemail with clues on how to find the gold: "Surround yourself with water and stand where the stone lies; look inside where the outside hangs; follow the line to the stars."  Ok.....

Scene 7: Sean's idea of frolicking was to walk across a taunt rope like an acrobat.  That sounds...um...fun, I guess.   But it's only a two feet off the ground; why not "big things up?"  I'd never heard that expression before, so I googled it: it's apparently unique to this series.  .  .

They put the taunt rope across a bog, while singing and dancing: "Gotta step up.  Don't even pull your punches.  Nothing's going to stand in your way."  Are all of their songs about self-actualization?   Of course, they all fall in, and hug and splash in the water.

Scene 8:  The boys go to the lodge to tell Kaylee about their slack-line adventure.  Wait -- if they can just walk in, what was the point of the secret entrance?   She's worried that Femme Noah got hurt. They cuddle  Uh-oh, he's got a girlfriend, not canonically gay.   He shows her a video of their adventure.  Next comes a video of a blond girl singing -- Kaylee's song about lighting up the stars!  A song thief!  Kaylee rushes off in a snit.  Femme Boyfriend follows.

Meanwhile, Sean and Hunky Ben see the Evil Corporate Guy (Dan Richardson) lurking around outside, and go out to confront him.  But instead of yelling, the Evil Corporate Guy apologizes: "It's not your fault.  I've done this to the family, and it's my job to fix it."

A moving fan pulls up.  "We're moving in.  We're going to run the lodge now."  This horrifies the teens. The end.

Beefcake:  None.  I thought the guys would take off some clothes at the bog, but they didn't.

Gay Characters:  Ben doesn't have a girlfriend in this episode, but he has romances with three girls during the series.  

We unfortunately didn't get a lot of scenes with the star of the show, Josh, but he is a major character in most other episodes.  He is gay, as announced in the Season 2 Episode "Help!"  on June 23, 2017.  His coming out predates Cyrus on Andie Mac, but purists don't count it because he doesn't actually use the word; he says "I don't like girls"  Wait -- didn't a blonde girl invite him to move into a tiny caravan with her?  That's a girlfriend move.  

Bursting into Song: Annoying.  Especially when every single song is "Fame!  I'm going to live forever, baby,  remember my name!"  

Plot:  I didn't really get why taking over the lodge was such a big problem, but that's what happens when you start halfway through the second season.

The Shocking Secret.  I have no idea what shocking secret Gil (Evil Corporate Guy) reveals to Skye (Blonde Girl #1).  I don't think they ever speak to each other.

My Grade: A for Josh Sinclair-Evans, C for everyone else.