NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding: Loot: Nicholas comes out to his Hoosier parents -- as an actor. Plus Taylor Swift fans, Booster bod, and Fagbenle bottom

Jun 25, 2025

Loot: Nicholas comes out to his Hoosier parents -- as an actor. Plus Taylor Swift fans, Booster bod, and Fagbenle bottom

Link to the n*de dudes

Loot, on Apple Plus, stars Maya Rudolph as Molly Wells, the recently-divorced wife of a tech mogul with $87 billion and a lot of free time, so she decides to run the charitable organization she started. So why is it called "Loot"? They're helping people.

I started watching Season 2 because trans actress Michaela Jaé Rodriguez (left) plays Sophia, the head of the organization, a stern, no-nonsense, no-office-parties-while-people are starving in Africa type. And she starts a relationship with architect Isaac (O-T Fagbenle, center).

Fagbenle's backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

But then I read an article where Rodriguez talks about how it is a relief to play a cisgender character. So no LGBT representation there.

The only actual LGBT character is Nicholas, played by Joel Kim Booster, who is gay in real life. He's swishy and snarky, the "sassy gay assistant" stereotype that GLAAD finds all over the networks: Michael Urie in Ugly Betty and Ron Butler in True Jackson VP spring to mind. Can't have those gay people in positions of authority, can we?

I'm going to review Episode 2.3, "Vengeance Falls," because Nicholas confronts his super-conservative parents. Uh-oh, dude is going to come out.

The two plotlines are not connected at all; they might as well be from two separate series. So I'll go through them separately.

The Sophia/Howard Story

Scene 1: At the office, Sophia asks Howard (Ron Funches) for his powerpoint presentation on the Space for Everyone project, but he barely started; he didn't even finish the word "presentation." As she is criticizing him, everyone's phones ping: Taylor Swift tickets are going on pre-sale for superfans! Sophia claims that her ping is about a flood in Burma, but they don't believe her. Because it's been Myanmar for 36 years?

Scene 2: Howard tells the other workers, Arthur (Nat Faxon) and Ainsley, that Sophia must be a closet Taylor Swift fan. Why would she lie about it? What evil plan has she concocted?

Scene 3: Howard sneakily quotes Taylor Swift lyrics to see if Sofia will out herself as a fan. It doesn't work, so he just asks: "Why are you hiding your fandom?" She denies it.

Scene 4: Time for Howard's very important powerpoint presentation about the housing project. But his presentation is not about housing; it's "Proof that Sofia is a Swiftie." Turns out that Howard is Sofia's cousin, so she can't just fire him.

"Why are you doing this?" Sofia asks.

"To help you be true to yourself." Being a fan of a singer is not exactly on the same level as coming out as trans, buddy.

Sofia insista that she's not a Taylor Swift fan. She's taking a personal day on July 12th, but not to go to the concert: her great-aunt Lucia is having open-heart surgery. She storms off. He's not doing his job. Fire him, cousin or not.

Nat Faxon's backside is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Scene 5: Sofia is at home, when Howard shows up to apologize. Do it at work. I guess they wanted a new set? He was just excited that they might have something in common.

While she is in the kitchen, Howard checks out her vinyl -- Taylor Swift hidden in a Mavin Gaye album. She lives alone -- who's gonna know?

She explains that listening to Taylor Swift makes her feel guilty: there is so much misery in the world, how can she justify enjoying something? He...well, you know how this one turns out.

The Molly/Nicholas Story

Scene 1: Molly and Nicholas (Maya Rudolph, Joel Kim Booster) are rehearsing a love scene from his play, Vengeance Falls: "I ache for your manhood!" "Then lose the dress!"

I'll bet the promos were skewed to make it like they're really into each other. It happened all the time on Will and Grace ("Look, Emma! Will's been cured! Oh, darn, they're rehearsing a play").

They end the scene. Molly praises his acting ability: "I really believed you were a former gigolo who got into city planning."

Nicolas notes that he's invited everyone: "my gym friends, my yoga frenemies, my lesbian dentist, my stalkers, the people I'm stalking, my sugar daddy." "What about your family?" "No...um...they're way out in Indiana." So they're fundamentalists -- but you're playing a straight guy, so who cares?

More after the break

Scene 2: Nicholas in his dressing room, practicing his lines. Surprise: Molly invited his parents without telling him, and here they are! She offered to fly them, but they insisted on driving. And staying in a hotel instead of her mansion. The richest woman in the country invites you to stay in her mansion, and you refuse? Crazy Hoosiers!

When they leave to take their seats, Nicholas blows up at Molly: his parents are super-conservative. This play is full of sex scenes and bad language. They'll hate it! I thought you weren't out to them.

Scene 3: The play begins with a woman talking on the telephone: "What did you say to me, you limp-d*cked c*cksu*cker?" Ok, I see the problem. And it's just a small theater, not the Mark Taper Forum. Nicholas must perform in theaters this size all the time.

Embarrassed, Nicholas changes his lines: "I'm here to take you...into town to get an ice cream cone... let me see the curve of your heaving...um, smile..in the moonlight."

"Don't you f*cking fall in love with me."

"You shouldn't swear so much."

Scene 4: Post-theater dinner with real-life celebrity chef David Chang: "deconstructed tuna casserole." Molly wants Nicholas to tell his parents about the commercial he was cast in, but he refuses.

The parents blather on about Kroger's and somebody they met that was the aunt of someone he went to middle school with. These are really annoying Midwestern stereotypes. Indiana has theater, opera, ballet, and upscale restaurants like the Fountain Room in Indianapolis.

They say Nicholas can move back to the farm if he wants, which makes him angry: they have this conversation every time they talk. "I'm never coming back, ok? Ever!" He ends the evening. I'm confused. He's not mentioning any acting jobs, so maybe they thought he was giving up. They said he could come back if he wanted to, not that he should come back. You're in the wrong here, buddy.

Scene 5: The next morning. Molly at home. Nicholas brings her coffee. Do these people ever go to the office? He's still angry that she invited his parents to see an extremely s*xual play without asking. "My parents do not want me to be an actor." But they drove across the country to see you perform. Sounds supportive to me.

They argue: Molly is rich, so she never has to work for anything. She has 25 people in the house. If they left her alone, she would not be able to function.

To prove that she can be self-sufficient, she will give the entire household staff the day off. What does this have to do with the conservative parents?

Scene 6: As we switch to a new plotline, Molly assembles the staff and tells them that they have the evening off. They're confused. Cut to a montage of Molly putting clothes on a hanger, changing the toilet paper roll, vacuuming, microwaving a burrito. Just order a pizza.

Finally Molly is in bed. Whoops, the smoke detector starts chirping. Don't you hate that? Those batteries are impossible to put in. Plus it's about ten feet up on a wall. She spends 10 minutes trying to stop the chirping.

Scene 7: Nicholas rescues Molly from her inability to take care of her self (um...she was doing a good job). He assures her that her weirdness is a positive trait. She's not boring.

Scene 8: Next, Nicholas sees his parents at the Colony Inn. He wants to take them to dinner -- at a diner, not haute cuisine -- and tell them about a commercial he's been cast in. They are appreciative. The end.

My Grade: The two plotlines (actually three) should have been thematically linked, or connected in some way. The Midwestern stereotypes were awful. It was disconcerting to see Nicholas acting like a complete jerk to parents who were being perfectly supportive.

But at least it wasn't a "I'm not out to my parents, so pretend to be my girlfriend" plot. C