NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding: "Eric": Drunken puppeteer, missing son, gay cop, and a boyfriend with AIDS. Life as usual in 1980s New York

Nov 28, 2024

"Eric": Drunken puppeteer, missing son, gay cop, and a boyfriend with AIDS. Life as usual in 1980s New York

The Netflix series with the one-word title Eric is drawing my interest because it's set in the 1980s, so there will be some nostalgia, and because it's about a missing boy -- 99% of the time, it's a woman or a girl.

But...it stars Benedict Cumberbatch, hated for his role in the aggressively queerbaiting Sherlock and the execrably heteronormative Doctor Strange.

Oh, well, let's give it a try.

Scene 1: The ten-year old Edgar -- is that a 1980s male name? -- has been missing for two days. His Dad addresses him on tv: "I'm sorry, buddy. Prove to everyone that you're not dead. Come home" Sorry for what, dude? Did you do something?

48 hours earlier: Edgar wanders around backstage as his dad and others film Good Day Sunshine, a marionette show with full-sized human figures. The puppeters sit under them, apparently visible on screen. Their closing motto is "Be good, be kind, be brave, be different." In the Reagan-Thatcher 80s? As if!

A live orchestra-- this is a big deal.

Edgar waits while Dad Vincent -- Benedict Cumberbatch -- criticizes the producers for trying to "switch it up" with a beatbox number. The director explains, "We need to get some elementary school viewers, the cool kids."

"What's next? Slime?" That was a Nickelodeon thing. He insults his fellow cast members until they make excuses and leave.

Meanwhile, Edgar wanders around wardrobe. He cuts some aquamarine fur from a muppet "for Eric."

Scene 2: Dad Vincent grabs Edgar, snarling, and pushes him across the street, against traffic, and onto the subway. Edgar tries to discuss his idea for a new character, a monster named Eric. But Vincent isn't paying attention; he's glaring at some beatboxing teens. The kidnappers?

Nope. Next Dad makes Edgar wait outside while he buys booze in a liquor store. Customers glare at him. Uh oh, here's where he vanishes.

Nope. Next he angrily insists that Edgar race him home, through the busy streets of midtown Manhattan. Uh oh, here's where Dad zooms ahead and Edgar vanishes.

They make it home ok.

Scene 3: Edgar's Mom, who has a man's hair cut, complains that the city is going to close another homeless shelter. Where are they supposed to go? Edgar goes up to his room, decorated with art and comic books, while Dad criticizes Mom for withholding sex, and Mom criticizes Dad for being a drunk. Whoa, drama.

Upstairs, Edgar can hear them arguing and yelling "Fuck you!" at each other. He escapes into his art.

Scene 4: At dinner, Edgar tries to talk about his puppet idea again, but Dad Vincent is too aggressive: "Sell me on it! You're not being enthusiastic enough! Don't be a wimp!" Emotional abuse, Dad.

Edgar goes up to his room again and puts on headphones, but it doesn't help. He still hears the parents arguing: "You're out all night!" "Fuck you!" Is this going to be paranormal? Is he going to escape into Eric's world?

Mom comes in to hug him and check under the bed for monsters. They discuss how much they love each other. My parents never once spent five minutes whining "I love you so, so , so, so much!" when I was trying to read a comic book and fall asleep.

Scene 5: Morning. Dad makes French toast to smooth things over, but Edgar is still afraid of him. Closeup of one of those "missing kid" milk cartons.

Edgar heads out to school. Men glare at him. A guy in a van glares through his rear-view mirror. Maybe he'll be kidnapped now? I'm tired of the misdirections.

Edgar is played by Ivan Morris Howe in his first screen role, but he has done theater, including "Oliver." Looks rather femme.

Cut to the police station. Detective Ledroit comes in. A woman asks "Who's the lucky lady?" due to his after-shave. That's heterosexist! How do you know that he likes ladies? Oh, because he gazes at you with a sultry expression for five minutes.

Adequately heterosexualized, he can go on to the Missing Persons case.

Wait -- the Detective is played by McKinley Belcher III, who is gay in real life and has a husband. Why isn't his character gay?

Scene 6: Vincent at the studio. Today's filming is big deal, with network suits watching, so he promises to not have a meltdown or tell people to "fuck off." A coworker notices that he's bleeding, but he covered it with a headband. Uh-oh, Vincent killed his kid.

When the filming starts, Vicent goes off script: "Let's play a new game. It's called 'Spot the Pile of Trash.'" He stomps off, gets ten messages to call his wife, ignores them, gets some fan photos taken, snarls at the network suits. Just fire him, and get someone else to voice the puppet.

Scene 7: Back home, Vincent finally learns that his son Edgar didn't show up at school this morning. Detective Ledroit is here, wanting to talk to him. He runs in the bathroom and examines his head injury. I think it's a misdirection -- he got it from beating up his wife, not from killing his kid.

The Detective asks what Edgar was wearing and his route to school. He is suspicious of the way Mom and Dad snipe at each other.

He starts canvassing the building. First up: Mr. Lovett, an old man who was glaring at Edgar as he left this morning. Ledroit -- Lovett. Too similar! "He was a good kid." The detective is suspicious of a tricycle in his apartment and the use of the word "was."

More after the break

Scene 8: Detective Ledroit tells his team to knock on every door on Edgar's route to school, pull up anyone with priors and any pedophile. He'll handle the Lux Nightclub

Cut to evening, with the Detective at the Lux. A drag queen doorlady is turning people away for being ugly or dressed inappropriately. She says "Welcome back." This is like Studio 54.

A mixed club, gay and straight couples dancing and snorting cocaine, and mafia guys glaring in the booths. Owner Gator, Wade Allain-Marcus, offers the Detective a Sprite, but he says he's working tonight. So? A Sprite is not booze.

He goes into the bathroom, where a guy named TJ, played by gay actor Stefan Race, cruises him. Then some toughs beat up TJ so he will give them the drugs. He hands them over and runs out, and the Detective tries to arrest the toughs. Actually they're vice cops.

Back at the office, the Detective puts away the surveillance tape -- he's been recording at the Lux every night since long before Edgar went missing.

Scene 9: At home, the Detective puts his gun away. Hey, there's a photo of him with his arms around a dude. Is he gay? So what was that gazing longingly into his assistant's eyes, a misdirection? There's a significant age difference, so maybe the dude is his father.

The dude is in the bedroom, joking that he wants to be killed, but the Detective gives him a painkiller instead. This is the 80s - he must have AIDS. They hug and kiss. Nope, not his Dad, a gay couple!

Scene 10: Morning. The missing boy is all over the news, since his father is on a popular tv show and his grandfather is an uber-wealthy real estate developer who kicks homeless people out of neighborhoods to build uber-glitzy condominums.

Vincent walks Edgar's route to school, getting drunk, and getting glared at by passersby.

Meanwhile, Detective Ledroit's boss chews him out for not having any leads yet, and for trying to arrest the two vice cops, Kennedy and Noakes, at the Lux. "Your job is missing persons. Go find the queer that grabbed the kid, and stay out of vice."

"But Gator was running drugs!"

"He served his time. Leave him alone. And get a girlfriend. I'm tired of you being single." So the Detective is closeted at work -- in the 80s, who wouldn't be? He'd be kicked off the force if the boss found out.

The Detective is called away. There's a homeless guy downstairs with a paper bag containing....

Scene 11: Vincent comes home drunk. The wife grabs him and drags him to the police station. The police found....

A blood-soaked Good Day Sunshine t-shirt, like the one Edgar was wearing. Mom starts crying, but Dad scoffs: "Every kid in America has one of those t-shirts."

Down in the parking garage, Mom says that she hates Dad so much that she has go get away for awhile. Could he go back to the apartment by himself, in case the police call? She'll be staying at a friend's house.

The "friend" is Sebastian, played by Jose Pimentao, who runs a food truck. They smooch extensively. So she's having an affair!

At home, Vincent grabs the sketches that Edgar made of the monster Muppet, and uses them as design models.

Vice Cop Kennedy goes to a bar and complains that his pregnant wife keeps talking about the baby that hasn't even been born yet. He stumbles out onto the street, and gets hit by a car.

Detective Ledroit reviews his tapes of the Lux. TJ says: "I got a ten-year old bourbon out back. Just came in tonight." Also someone is asking "Hey, kid, you hungry?" in an adult-only nightclub. A kid says "Yes." Sounds like the missing Edgar, doesn't it?

The upstairs neighbor works on a crossword puzzle.

Back to Vincent, on his 15th bottle of booze that day. He passes out on Edgar's bed, and is awakened by the Monster Eric: "Get your shit together, asshole, and let's go find your kid." That was unexpected.

Beefcake: None.

Heterosexism: None. That "get a girlfriend" rhetoric is just to accentuate the Detective's closetedness.

Gay characters: The Detective, his boyfriend, and probably several of the guys at the Lux.

Will I keep watching: Sure.

Spoiler Alert: The ten-year old bourbon is actual bourbon, and the "you hungry, kid" refers to the son of one of the waitresses, who is waiting in the kitchen for his father to pick him up. Edgar has not been kidnapped. He is....