"Justified": Kentucky cowboy has gay-subtext romance with unhinged thug. Plus bonus n*de thugs.

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I was recommended Justified: City Primeval (2023). a "neo-Western crime drama" that shoves countrified U.S. Marshall Raylan (Timothy Olyphant) into Detroit.  But I haven't seen the original Justified (2010-2015), with Raylan as a marshall in Harlan County, Kentucky.  

I don't usually do crime dramas; I like my entertainment light, comedies or science fiction.  Besides, they hardly ever include gay characters.  But my mother was born in Magoffin County, about 100 miles north of Harlan, and I've visited several times, so maybe the original Justified will be good for nostalgia. 

Scene 1: A rooftop-pool party full of guys cruising bikini babes.  Rylan gave Thomas Buckley, who is an old friend (they ate crab cakes in Managua) until 2:15 to leave the state (Florida does have banishment as a judicial sentence, but I don't think Rylan is a judge).  Big Bad refuses to go, so Rylan shoots him. 

Scene 2: As the coroner takes away the body, Rylan's boss wonders about the legality of shooting Thomas Buckely.  "I gave him a chance to leave.  He didn't take it." Rylan has been shooting a lot of guys, but this one was rich and white, so there's going to be scrutiny.

Cut to a Department of Justice Inquest. "Is it true that you shot a rich white man?"  Rylan, who is now named Dan, shrugs. "He drew his gun on me. Self-defense.  Besides, he deserved to die.  He was evil."

Dan's punishment: Being re-assigned to the wilderness of Eastern Kentucky. "But I'm from there!  I finally escaped!  Please, anything but that!"  Dude, why the cowboy hat?  Kentucky is Appalachia,  You want Montana, 150 years ago.

Scene 3: Dan, who is now named Raylan, arrives in Lexington, a big city with glitz and culture rivaling that of...um, Dayton.  But all we see is the inside of the police station.. The Chief, who is an old friend, has Western movie posters all over his office.   He notes that the Love of Raylan's Life also works here.  So this guy is old friends with everybody?  

Raylan is assigned the case of Boyd Crowther, an old friend who has turned evil.  They're trying to get enough evidence to arrest him -- but no shooting! It's a small town.  People talk."

Scene 4: Boyd Crother (Walton Goggins) and his Boyfriend (Ryan O'Nan, left) discuss a Date Night activity. Boyfriend wants to blow a federal building under construction. Boyd dismisses it as unfeasible.  Instead he blows up a church in a black neighborhood -- without even checking to see if it is empty. Boyfriend protests.

Cut to Raylan explainng Boyd's back story to the Chief. Wait -- he's been working on the case for years. Shouldn't he know everything already?  Back when they were coal miners, Boyd was an explosives expert.  He would yell "Fire in the hole!" to warn them of an explosion coming.  Then he got involved with the white supremacy movement.  

Scene 5: Back to Date Night.  The guys are parked on a narrow country bridge (weird pkace to make out). Boyd wonders if Boyfriend chose a federal building because it would rile the feds enough to arrest him.  And why did he protest blowing up the black church. "I don't see any white supremacy tattoos. Are you even a racist?".  Boyfriend tells him to call his buds in Oklahoma to verify his racism.  His goons are calling Boyfriend's references, but Boyd is tired of waiting and shoots him.  I hate it when Date Night ends like that.

When Boyd calls headquarters (a trailer full of redneck dudes), they say that the references checked out; Boyfriend is a big racist.  "So, how was Date Night?" "Um...er...um...we broke up."   "Was it because he wasn't racist enough, or was his dick too big?"  "Um...er...a little of both."

Scene 6: Raylan wakes up (chest shot) and goes to court to gaze at the typing hands of the Love of His Life, working as a court reporter. She pauses to touch her hair.  Whoa, that's one of his fetishes!  But before he can orgasm, he's called to investigate Boyfriend's body. The police have already found a cap that goes to the rocket launcher used to blow up the black church!  

Cut to the site of the bombed church. A lady pulls her man out of the way of the police.  75% of black parents instruct their kids on how to avoid being killed by the police when they're stopped for "driving while black."  

Detective Gutterson (Jacob Pitts) has already interviewed the eyewitnesses: they said that it was two white guys.  One of them yelled "fire in the hole"  Uh-oh, it was Boyd!

More Boyd after the break

NCIS: New Orleans: The "Quantum Leap" guy and the "Wings" guy are kidnapped by the "Oz" guy. And they're all nekkid.

I don't usually watch crime dramas, but "Father's Day," Episode of 2.14 of NCIS: New Orleans, stars some of my beefcake favorites: Lee Tergesen (Oz), Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap), Steve Weber (Wings), and Lucas Black (Southern Gothic).  The premise: "Pride and Mayor Douglas are abducted from their Mardi Gras events."  Is Pride named after Gay Pride?  Nope, it's the last name of Scott Bakula's character (left).   

Link to the NSFW version.

Scene 1: A big Mardi Gras party full of heterosexual couples, the men in fancy tuxedos.  Sleazoid Mayor (Steve Weber) takes the stage and says a few words while eyeing a lady in a red dress.  He congratulates his chief of staff, Tom (James Dumont), for being married to such an incredibly hot woman. Pay attention to that necklace.  It will become important later.  He then follows the Lady in Red out into the hall, quoting Oscar Wilde: "I can resist anything except temptation." His staff groans: not another one!  The hookup wants to have sex right there in the hallway.

Meanwhile, Pride (Scott Bakula) is told that he must go out back for a liquor delivery (he must own the place).  He goes, not at all suspicious, and gets tranquilizer darted. 

Scene 2: They both wake up tied to chairs while a mysterious Masked Figure peers at them. Sleazoid Mayor wonders if his hookup was an accomplice (ya think?).   But Figure ain't talking. 

Meanwhile, out on the street, everyone is waiting for Sleazoid Mayor to shake the hand of the Mardi Gras Parade King.  Where is he? Agent LaSalle (Lucas Black) points out that Mardi Gras began in Alabama, not New Orleans, and gets yelled at.  

Uh-oh, there's a drugged security guard (Chris McKenna, top photo) and a dead Marine inside the party venue (a hotel, not a bar).  The Security Guard saw the Sleazoid Mayor's Hookup running past after he was darted.  And the dead Marine was darted, too.   

(NCIS is the Naval Crime Investigation Service, so they have to have a dead sailor or marine in there somewhere.)

Eventually they figure out that the Mayor and Pride have both been darted and kidnapped.

Scene 3: The victims try to bargain with the Masked Figure. Mayor: "I got a lot of rich friends.  They can get you anything you want." Pride: "I'm a NCIS Agent!" (I thought he was a bar owner.  Side gig?).

Mysterious Figure starts recording them, and tells them that they are here "To confess." 

Scene 4:  The tech guy found no terrorist chatter or threatening messages aimed at the Mayor or Pride. He starts working on a partial license plate number provided by an eyewitness.  Meanwhile, the agents reason that it's Mardi Gras, the streets are clogged, so the kidnapper couldn't have gone far.  They must be holding the guys near the party venue..

Left: Scott Bakula in underwear

Scene 5:   Back at the party, rich white people are dancing ludicrously. The Agents grab the Mayor's Hookup (identifiable because she's the only Lady in Red).  Why didn't she scram after hoodwinking the Mayor?

Her story: a guy said he was playing a prank on the Mayor, his old fraternity brother, and paid her $500 to get him alone.  Wait -- how did she know for sure that the Mayor would choose her for his hookup?  If he latched onto someone else, the whole plan would be ruined.

More underwear after the break

"Florida Man": Edgar Ramirez solves a murder in a beefcake-free Florida. So I'm including his butt and dick for free

Florida Man: 98% match on Netflix!  That's quite impressive.  There must be a lot of hunks in Speedos, or gay guys who aren't queerbaiting, or something.  Or maybe it's just because I lived in Florida for four years, and I like men. 

Left: Random Florida hunk

Link to NSFW review

Scene 1: A Gambler's Anonymous meeting.  Mike (Edgar Ramirez) notes that his gambling lost him his wife and his job.  Heterosexual identity established, we move on.

Scene 2: Mike is working as an enforcer for a mobster, the Super Hunk Moss Yakov (Emory Cohen) He tracks down Gil (Nick Basta)  at a hardware store, criticizes his weight, and then chases him to the loading dock, whereupon Gil falls and breaks his legs.

Later, Mike meets up with his ex-wife, a standard hot-woman-with-chubby-guy arrangement. He returns the ring that he pawned, but she still won't take him back. Having just been made detective, she asks for his help getting at the gangster Moss Yankov.  He refuses.

Scene 3:  Super Hunk accosts Gil from Scene 2.  Gil offers sunken treasure instead of the money he owes, but Super Hunk says no.  

Cut to a woman with her boobs showing and the hair of a country-western singer sits at her vanity, next to a framed portrait of her boobs.  Apparently boobs are uncommon, so the camera has to give us a good look, in case we've never seen any before.  Gil is getting beat up downstairs, so this must be his house or Super-Hunk's house.

How can she concentrate on her make-up with all that screaming?  I agree; that's what enforcers are for. 

She storms downstairs, as the camera shows us the rest of her body. Ever hear of a bathrobe, lady?  "Super-Hunk, it's my birthday!  When are you going to be done with work so we can go out?"

Scene 4: Mike is now the chauffeur, driving Super-Hunk and Boob Lady to somewhere fancy in downtown Philadelphia. He checks out her butt as she walks past.  

At dinner, Super-Hunk gives Boob Lady her birthday present, a fancy necklace.  But there's a girl's hair in the clasp!  So he got it off a corpse?  Upset, she storms out. Super-Hunk tells Mike to get her home ok.

Scene 5: Mike follows Boob Lady down the street, joking that it looks like he is stalking her.  She's not up for a joke.  He offers to take her to a club instead of going straight home.

Scene 6: A fancy dance club. Boob Lady dances with her hair for about 20 minutes and makes "I want to go down on you" eyes at Mike.  He moves in for a kiss.  She protests: "I thought we said this wasn't going to happen again." Uh-oh, cheating with Super-Hunk's lady!   

Slow dancing ensues (odd, since this is a fast number).  And sex in the car.  Wait -- you prefer Mike to Super Hunk?  No accounting for tastes.

Scene 7: On the way home, Boob Lady tells Mike that Super-Hunk doesn't respect him. Mike's too busy taking side-glances at her boobs to care.  Ten minutes in, and we're not even in Florida yet, and I see no beefcake or gay anything.

She suggests that they run away to Florida together.  "No way -- I'm from Florida.  I'm not going back."  So, Georgia, then?

Scene 8:  The next morning. Mike wakes up in his weird industrial loft (no beefcake). Super-Hunk calls: "on the way home from the birthday, did Boob Lady say anything?  Like she's cheating on me with some jerk that I'm going to have you kill?"  

"No, she didn't say anything."  Just 'do me faster,' 'I love your dick,' that sort of thing."  

"Well, she ran away to Coronado Beach, Florida."  Dumb of her to give him the address, but I guess he wasn't abusive or anything, just clueless about how entitled she was.  "So go get her." 

"No way -- I'm from Florida!  I'm not going back!"  "I'll pay you $50,000."  "I'm on my way!"

Scene 9: Mike finally arrives in Florida, and steals some guns from the luggage carousel at the airport.  

One the way out,  he passes a nuclear family that gains focus: Daddy (Clark Gregg, left) telling the kids that they'll go to Disney World soon "Daddy picks up his gun."  Why do parents talk in the third person?  Don't they think their kids understand personal pronouns?

Finally, some Florida scenery -- and the opening credits!  Wait -- was this all prologue, explaining how Mike got to Florida?  I was ready to call it quits.  Now I'll have to see if any of the colorful characters he meets are gay.

Scene 10: First colorful character: Benny (Isaiah Johnson) the owner of the horrible Palms Hotel (you'd think Super-Hunk would spring for somewhere classy).  Nope -- he's heterosexualized by the little boy doing homework in the next room.

In his room, Mike opens the gun case  -- the gun is extremely ornate, with a naked lady engraved into the handle.  uh-oh, it belongs to the Scene 9 Daddy, aka Durham County Sheriff John Ketcher. 

Scene 11: Mike goes down to the beach.  Darn, every single guy is fully clothed.  Not a bare chest or a Speedo for miles around!  This scene was definitely not blocked for the gay crowd. He flashes back to a traumatic event from his childhood, but the images are too confused to understand what's happening.   

Uh-oh, a naked supermodel is in trouble, and the lifeguard is too busy demonstrating that she's heterosexual to notice.  So it's up to Mike to rip off his shirt (leaving his undershirt --  this ain't Baywatch) -- and rush into the surf.  

Whoops, the naked supermodel is not happy at being saved.  She accuses Mike of sexually assaulting her, because her bikini top is missing.  He rushes back into the ocean to fetch it for her, and a shark bites him on the cock!

Scene 12: He is awakened in the hospital by his sister, who lives in Florida.  His sexual assault-shark bite story is all over the news...and the internet.

I'll just fast forward to see if the sister is married to a woman.  Nope, she has a husband (the intensely cute Michael Esper) and a surly teenage daughter.

Beefcake: Not a pec.

Gay Characters: Not a brunch in sight.

Heterosexism: This is all heteronormative, gay-free, male gaze-infested hetero porn garbage.  I'd rather be queerbaited.