In the last episode, Scotty kidnapped Gideon and Jesse, forced them to open the church vault, and stole the Easter offering money, incidentally confessing that he had been in love with Gideon. Judy and BJ had a breakup scene, but Kelvin and Keefe barely appeared. In Episode 1.8,, their romance is centric.
An Old Man's Dick: It's still Easter evening. After dropping off Judy at her house, Baby Billy asks Tiffany "Who wants to suck an old man's dick?" She goes down on him while they are driving down dark country roads near the estate. Suddenly Scotty, driving away with the money he stole, runs a stop sign and crashes into their car! They are unharmed, but Scotty is near death (Tiffany finishes the job by accidentally shooting him). Then they steal the money. An interesting call-back here: earlier Scotty implies that he forced Gideon into oral sex, and he dies while interrupting consensual oral sex, an ironic punishment of the sort you would see in 1950s horror comics.
Top five young ministers: Gideon admits to being Scotty's partner in the offering-theft plan, and is rejected by Eli and Amber. But he doesn't mention his part in the blackmail plan! We cut to Jesse telling his siblings that they are in the clear. But how do they know he won't tell later, and implicate them in the assault? Worried that he'll be arrested, Kelvin is having anxiety attacks and "sharp shit pains in my stomach" (hemorrhoids?). Even if he wasn't convicted, the scandal would destroy his career. "I was in the Top Five Young Ministers to watch last year -- I got a reputation -- a following." Wait -- if he's so famous, why is his whole plot arc about proving his worth?
Denim brings lunch: We cut to scenes where Baby Billy and Tiffany leave town with the offering money, Eli worries that the whole enterprise is corrupt, and Jesse apologizes to Gideon for pushing him away and starting the whole mess.
Eli admits, for the only time in the series, that the church's finances are not entirely above-board.
Next, Judy tries to mend her relationship with BJ by bringing him lunch at the optometrist office. Whoops, his coworker Denim already picked up lunch. "So you're having sex with BJ?" No, she's a lesbian -- she has a wife. This does not convince Judy, who calls her: "One of those benevolent lesbians, out to meet a hot guy, make friends with him, so you can sample-suck some clean dick." BJ's nonchalance about LGBT people, plus Judy's sort-of nonchalance, will become important later.
He refuses to take Judy back, so she storms into the parking lot and starts destroying cars, finally getting arrested.
Testicular tumors after the break
Hemorrhoids and Testicular Tumors: Keefe is swimming while Kelvin tries not to look at the body that is giving him so many unwelcome desires. He wants to know how he can rid the world of darkness, when he's surrounded by it: his mother died, Eli was assaulted, the church was robbed. He concludes that God is punishing the family for "not being who we say we are." But Kelvin had nothing to do with those things. How does "not being who we say we are" apply to him?
"Don't you think God is being a little harsh?" Keefe asks. We all wear masks; we hide things even from ourselves.
Kelvin laugh/cries and says "I think we're getting off easy...when the Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant, God punished them with hemorhhoids and testicle tumors."
He's referring to an obscure story in 1 Samuel 4-5, where the Philistine thieves were punished with
opalim. The King James Bible translates the Hebrew word as "emeroids" (now "hemorrhoids") and the NIV as "tumors." An article in
Biblical Archaeology Review points out the importance of penises in Philistine art, and suggests
"flaccid penises." No one mentions testicles; apparently Kelvin invented it, to correspond to the glimpse of Keefe's testicle that began his recognition of his homoerotic desire.
Next: "You should go, Keefe." Keefe doesn't understand: "You want me to make a store run?" Kelvin becomes angrier and angrier: "Go. Leave. Get out. I am no longer fit to lead you!"
Kelvin scratches his butt as he says this. Apparently he has hemorrhoids, and thinks that God is punishing him -- an ironic punishment for having anal sex? Will testicular tumors come next?
Keefe disagrees: "There's no one more worthy than you."
"Get the fuck out of here! Now! Do I need to call security, motherfucker?" This is shockingly aggressive.
Keefe wades away, holding his swimsuit like he held his shirt during the mushroom head scene. The intimacy he enjoyed that night has been revoked. Kelvin falls into the pool and screams and cries.
Why does Kelvin send Keefe away? If he's no longer qualified to be a spiritual leader due to the assault of the blackmailers, they could certainly continue to live together. It must have something to do with the "hemorrhoids and testicular tumors," the intimacy they shared, or even homoerotic desire itself. Kelvin believes that it is evil, demonic, that Keefe is a serpent who tempted him. I don't care much for this association between LGBT identities and sin, but the show has been careful to establish that it's in Kelvin's head, not a general theme, structurally or in-universe.
Why would Kelvin be homophobic, when his older brother is not? I don't think anyone on the show worked this out, but it might have to do with the era when they were growing up: Jesse during the relatively gay-positive 1990s, and Kelvin during the more homophobic 2000s. If this season takes place near Easter 2019, same-sex marriage was legalized in South Carolina five years ago (2014), and nationwide in the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges just four years ago (2015),so Kelvin would have a fresh memory of the intense homophobic backlash. Eli may even have participated.
Jesse's Butt: Jesse invites his crew and their wives to "movie night," but the movie is actually the video of their sex-and-drugs party. He has decided to come clean: "These flawed men and myself have participated in some illicit, sinful activities." Is this a callback to Kelvin's belief that he has participated in "illicit, sinful activities" with Keefe?
No one wants to see the video except Mandy, Chad's wife. Jesse advises that she might not want to because it features "Chad's gray testicle." Another testicle reference? Is seeing that, like, the belly of the beast? But they all go to the screening room, even Chad's underage kids (um...that's illegal).
As they watch, the wives storm out in anger and disgust. Amber starts throwing things at Jesse, yelling that he drove Gideon away and destroyed the family. Then she grabs an assault rifle and shoots him (with buckshot) in the butt, a symbolic anal rape.
We cut to shots of Baby Billy and Tiffany rolling around in their loot, Eli using his influence to get Judy out of jail, Keefe driving away crying, Scotty's van being dredged up, and Jesse yelling "She got me in my meat! She broke my butthole!" The background song is "Oh, Lord," by Geordi:
Oh Lord, what's wrong with me. I can't seem to be what I wanna be
And it's not for the sake of tryin'
I tried so hard, God know, and felt like dyin'
And if you've been watchin', you woulda seen me cryin'
So, O Lord, won't you give me your hand?
The siblings and their partners have broken up. Gideon is gone. This is the low point of their lives, and there's just one episode left for things to get better.
Bonus testicles on Righteous Gemstones Beefcake and Boyfriends
Next: Episode 1.9 Review: Jesse is racist, Judy is a rapist, and Kelvin is the devil
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I decided that I should probably post G-rated episode reviews here, in case someone wants my insightful analysis without seeing a lot of dicks.
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