"Lucifer": A hetero-horny angel, a homophobic cop, and gay/bi erasure. With some bonus butts and a dick

Lucifer (2016-2021) is a drama about Satan being exiled on Earth, forced to live in Los Angeles to expiate his sins. Hey, I lived in Los Angeles for twelve years.  It wasn't heaven, but it came close.  I reviewed Episode 5.15: "Is This How It's Really Going to End?"  Uh-oh, sounds Apocalyptic.

Link to the NSFW Version

Scene 1: God is retiring, and the angels have to vote for either Lucifer (Tom Ellis, below) or the Archangel Michael (also Tom Ellis) to take His place. Luce's chances are limited by that war-in-heaven thing, but he argues that his years of penance on Earth have changed him, given him the skills necessary to be successful in the job. He needs his siblings, including Jophiel (Miles Burris, top photo), to campaign for him.  

They meet in a night club of some sort -- all we see is the bottom halves of girls' bodies.  Jophiel gazes goofily at the boobs of the invisible girl bringing them drinks.  He is wearing a suit coat with no shirt, so he can flex his pecs to impress girls.

 Lucifer claims that Michael has been doing a Wormtongue-thing on the Big Guy for milennia, making him think he's losing power in order to grab the Throne for himself.  What is this, Succession?  But Jophiel can't decide -- Luce is a lot of fun, but is he a good administrator?  "Michael's  kind of a dick, but he keeps the trains running,"  

Scene 2: Luce offers a female friend or girlfriend a job as consultant, but she doesn't want to move to heaven in the middle of a school year. "Well, hold off until I can convince my siblings to vote for me."  He calls her the future "Mrs. God," so they're romantic partners.

Scene 3: At a bloody crime scene, Dan (Kevin Alejandro, left) wants to fix up the forensic photographer (a lady) with his old cop partner Carol.  Lesbians?  No: 

"A guy with a girl's name?  I'm out!" she says in disgust.  Hey, just because he has a traditionally feminine name doesn't mean he's a fruit, you homophobe!  

"He's a guy, and a good one," Dan continues.  Do you mean "a good guy," as in "nice," or "good at being a guy," as in "not a fruit"?  

I'm a little impatient today, and we've already seen a ton of heterosexism in the first five minutes.  One more homophobic comment, and I'm out.

Why doesn't Dan want her for himself?  Maybe he's gay, and has a boyfriend waiting at ho,e.

Photographer thanks Dan for the thought, but with all the horrible tragedies she has lived through recently, she's not ready to start dating yet. This must be a regular character. 

Lucifer and Girlfriend enter, and hear about the corpse: Jonathan Donnelly, 53, a medical techician, tied up, forced to drink wine for several hours, and then shot.  His phone reveals a nasty argument with a guy named Mo.  So Lucifer's day job is police detective?  I thought he liked crime.

(Top photo: Mo Anouti, who plays an evil Arab guy.  No connection to the "Mo" sending the texts.)

Scene 4: Girlfriend addresses the cops: she's put in her two-week notice, because she's retiring.  Dan congratulates her, but wonders why she didn't tell him. "You'd be too jealous, since you're secretly in love with me."  The Photographer is irate: "I can't solve crimes without you! Is this really how it's gonna end."  Hey, that's the episode title!  

Girlfriend notes that Lucifer is retiring, too.  "We're going to move to Heaven...um.. I mean Florida...so Luce can run the univers...I mean his Dad's business."   Now Photographer starts screaming in Spanish and threatening to kill them both.  "I'll kill you if you leave me" ?  That's classic toxic relationship. Did this episode come with a trigger warning?   

On to the case: the threatening text was sent by a woman named Odetta.  Hey, she texts using a boy's name, Mo.  Shouldn't Photographer get all disgusted? No, she's still busy being obsessive and creepy.  

Scene 5:  Lucifer and Girlfriend interrogate Odetta, a psychic -- presented as a fraud, of course.  The Dead Guy was her con partner: he would steal valuables from corpses, and Odetta would advertise a psychic ability to find them -- for a substantial fee.  They were very successful, so why murder him?

So who else would want to kill him?  When the families didn't take the bait, Dead Guy fenced the items with someone named TJ.  Check him out. (Left: Shemar Moroe, who I thought was in this episode.  I can't find any photos of the real guy).

This is a police procedural.  I expected Lucifer -- the actual Devil -- to show off some powers -- at least levitate now and then.  Have an office in Hell with a fiery desk or something.  This guy might as well a regular human "black sheep" of a rich family.  

Scene 6: Dan playing cards with his preteen daughter.  Not gay.  And Jophiel does not appear again. I'm out.

Beefcake: None here.  Acording to the Lucifer Wiki, Luce takes off his shirt a lot, but not here.

Gay Characters: None here. The Photographer may come out as lesbian later.

 According to some very critical articles  in Medium and Bi.org, Luce is outed as bisexual during Season 2, when someone starts killing off a lot of women; Lucifer notices that they are all former sex partners.  When the next victim turns out to be a man, Girlfriend triumphantly exclaims that his theory is wrong.  Men don't have sex with men!  She lives in Los Angeles, but has no idea that gay or bi men exist. 

 Fortunately, when Lucifer explains it to her, she does not seem particularly disgusted; she just didn't know that such things happen. 

In the rest of the series, Lucifer is absurdly hetero-horny.  Depending on the writers' whim, he makes an occasional quip about being bisexual or asserts that he finds men's bodies repulsive. 

My Grade: With heteronormativity, homophobia, no beefcake, and no supernatural powers?  Granted, I only watched half the episode, but D-.

Bonus butts and a dick in the NSFW version.

"This is the End": Celebrities are Left Behind, face demons, cannibals, Satan, and gay sex

 

I saw This is the End (2014) when it first appeared, and didn't really like it because (spoiler alert) it's about the Rapture.  When I was a kid, I was terrified of the Evangelical end-of-the-world event (not actually mentioned in the Bible) when everyone who is saved gets zapped up to heaven, and the unsaved are stuck on Earth. The preacher told horrifying stories of unsaved men waking up in the middle of the night to find their family gone, and gradually realizing that they are lost -- their sins can no longer be forgiven, so no matter how much they beg and cry, it's the Lake of Fire for all eternity.

But it stars some of favorite actors, including Jay Baruchel (whom I have a crush on) and Seth Rogan (but not Zac Efron, sorry).  So I'll give it another shot.

Link to NSFW version

Scene 1: LAX.  Seth Rogan picks up his buddy Jay Baruchel ((bare butt, left), for the "best weekend ever" at his place, with his favorite things Starburst, marijuana, and airheads. "I know you don't like LA, so I thought I'd lube it up a bit to ease the transition." "Much needed foreplay."  Discussing non-sexual things in sexual terms, har har.  Then: "I'm a well-known homosexual advocate."  I don't know what he means.  

Seth wants to go to James Franco's housewarming party, but Jay wants it to be just the two of them all weekend.  Awww... But they go.

Scene 2: At the house, Seth points out that Channing Tatum  lives nearby: "This is the sexiest street in America."  Jay chastises him for talking about Channing Tatum too much: "I think he's attractive."  Ok, these guys are pretend-gay.

Franco: "This house is like a piece of me. You two stepped inside me." Seth: "You let us come inside you."  I'd better stop writing down all the gay-sex jokes, or I'll run out of space by Scene 3.

We meet various celebrities from the same general crew, having boring conversations. Jonah Hill appears to have an unrequited crush on Jay. Michael Cera (left) tries to kiss a guy. Later, Jay stumbles on him in the bathroom, getting blown and rimmed at the same time (by ladies). Craig sings to "all the ladies" to "take your panties off." 

Scene 3: Jay and Seth head to a convenience store for cigarettes.  Seth: "Is Michael Cera's butthole as cute as I pictured it?"  He's into guys' butts, har har.  Suddenly there's an explosion, and some of the customers rise through the ceiling in shafts of blue light!  

Outside, people are rising in shafts of blue light everywhere, driver-less cars are crashing, power lines are down...and back at Franco's house, everything is normal (only the good people went to heaven, so no celebrities, of course).  At the house, no one believes them.

Jonah says that Jay is "a sweetheart," implying that he's attracted to him, and everyone looks at him in disgust.  Wait -- you were all expressing homoerotic interest just a few seconds ago.

Scene 4: There's an earthquake, so everyone rushes outside -- and the whole city is in flames!   Then a giant sinkhole open, and almost everyone falls in.  No one except Jay and Craig try to save anyone.  They survive, along with Franco, Jonah, and Seth. Before the tv dies, they get a few news reports -- martial law declared, Air Force One is down (The preacher told us that there had to be an unsaved pilot on every flight, in case of Rapture).

They start boarding up the house, inventorying supplies, and ineptly repairing the damage. Gay joke: Craig tries to move a giant ceramic dick: "That dick's coming now.  I got that big dick."

Scene 5: Bedtime.  Seth is scared, so he sleeps with Jay.  He suggests that this apocalyptic nightmare, with millions of people dead and the city destroyed, happened for a reason, to bring them closer together.  Whoa, that's entitled!

Jonah and Craig want to sleep with them, too.  At least there is no gay panic: they actually feel safer spooning.  They just can't decide on dick-to-dick or dick-to-butt.

Scene 6: Morning.  Danny McBride awakens in the bath tub.  He slept through the night and has no idea what happened, so he eats all of their food and uses their water to wash his feet. 

The guys burst in and tell him about the apocalypse, but he thinks they just dropped acid. Franco probably sucked cock, with Jonah watching and beating off.  These are supposed to be disgusting acts.  Cuddling is ok, but sucking cock, no.

I'm out of space, so a brief synopsis of the rest of the movie:  Everyone goes full post-apocalypse.  There are demons wandering around, killing people. Jonah Hill is possessed.  

Danny McBride starts a cannabal society, with Channing Tatum as his sex slave, and eats some of them.  You can still get zapped up to heaven if you perform a selfless act; Craig goes up, but Franco gets rejected.

Satan appears, a giant monster with a dangling penis. Realizing that they are going to die, Jay and Seth confess their love and hug. They perform selfless acts to save each other (while "I Will Always Love You" plays), so they both get zapped up to heaven.  It's a giant street party, the Backstreet Boys performing (I always thought it would be a vast library, with people discussing metaphysics). The end.

Beefcake: Some random chests and bulges.  

Heterosexism: Heterosexual desire is expressed only in the pre-Apocalypse party.  Afterwards this is a movie about dudes.

Gay Characters: No idea.  Everyone expresses same-sex desire and criticizes each other for engaging in same-sex acts. So being attracted to men is fine, but having sex with men is disgusting?

Gay Subtext: Jay and Seth are bromantic partners, but I didn't see any physical or romantic interest, so they don't really have a gay subtext.

My Grade: You would expect a movie with demons, cannibals, and a giant Satan to be exciting, but after you get over the triggering from the religious abuse of your childhood, it's actually a bit dull.  I did like Danny McBride and his sex slave.  C+

There are a lot of butts and bulges, plus Satan's penis, on the NSFW version of this review.