"It's Not Like That": Preacher starts dating his dead wife's best friend. No, he's not Eli Gemstone. With surprising queer codes and n*de dudes

   

Link to the n*de dudes

Amazon does not have a great track record on LGBTQ rights.  I still buy books from them, but when Amazon Prime recommended a new comedy series called It's Not Like That, I was skeptical, and did some research.  Sure enough, it was produced by the Wonder Project, a new studio that plans on delivering fundamentalist, faith-based, family-friendly,  protest Pride, take back God's rainbow content..  I'm going to have a lot of fun moving into enemy territory to look for gay subtexts produced by accident, and describing the hotness of men who would be horrified to discover that they are an object of male desire.

Premise: Pastor Malcolm (Scott Foley), dealing with grief over his wife's death (of course), starts dating her recently divorced best friend, Lori.  

Pastor Malcolm has three children, a boy (Justin) and two girls (Flora and Penelope), all traumatized by the death of their mother.  Wait...Flora?  What year is this?

Lori has an ex husband and two children, a boy (Merritt) and a girl (Casey), both traumatized by the divorce. 

I'm actually going to review/find gay subtexts in Episode 3, because it features an imam (Ahmad Ghafouri, left) and a rabbi (Rachel Leah Cohen).  Wait -- a female rabbi?  She must be Reform, which is pro gay, even permitting gay rabbis.  I doubt that the writers know this fact, or will have the backbone to mention it.

Scene 1: Pastor Malcolm, getting dressed, notices his dead wife's clothes hanging in the closet, and flashes back to when she was wearing one of the dresses in front of the church: Grace Community Church, with a sign saying "Where all are welcome."  Presumably it means all heterosexuals.  

She's planning a rummage sale, and suggests partnering with some of the other religious groups in town, like the Temple and the Islamic Center.  "We could make it an interfaith rummage sale."  These people are super liberal.  When I was a Nazarene, we weren't even allowed to hang out with Baptists.

Back in the present, Pastor Malcolm is overcome by grief, but thinks "That wasn't a bad idea."

Cut to Pastor Malcolm asking his daughters to go through Mom's stuff and find things to sell.  They resist:  "You want to pretend that she never existed!  I'll never forget her, even though you have!"

"Why don't you throw out all of our stuff, too, since our lives mean nothing to you!"

"This is so unfair!"  

Scene 2: At Lori's house, amid some disasters, Surly Son Merrit (Caleb Baumann) is on the phone: Dad David is trying to convince him that his new apartment is cool.  Nope, he's not staying there.  Lori lays down the law: Dad gets you on the weekends, so you have no choice.

Merrit and Shy Daughter Casey resist.  "You're the one who got the divorce.  Why should we suffer?"

"Why don't you just sell the house, and throw out all our memories, since our lives mean nothing to you?

"This is so unfair!"

The parallels are cleverly constructed.

Cut to Pastor Malcolm and Lori at the coffee shop, commiserating on how hard it is to be a parent after a major trauma, like death or divorce. But they stand firm: "It's the right thing to do.  It will be hard for them, but I'm ready." 

Scene 3: At school, Merritt joins Pastor Malcolm's daughter Flora for lunch. She's looking for a writing project, so he suggests one: "It's about us."  Flora is shocked.  But he actually means their parents' hookup, har har.   Queer code #1: He's not romantically interested in her.

Flora has not heard this before, and doesn't believe him.  "Dad's not ready to forget about my mom yet." You accused him of that like five minutes ago.

Meanwhile, in the restroom,  a girl asks Shy Daughter Casey, "Are you doing anything this weekend?"  Queer Code #2: Asking her for a date.  Casey is surprised because she bullied her before, but: "That's just what we do.  I really like you."  

"Ok, but this weekend, we have to go stay with my newly divorced Dad."  The Girl tells us that her dad left when she was six, so she's an expert on divorce.  She offers to teach Casey the tricks of the trade.  First lesson: how to cash in on their guilt. Hey, no fair to ask her out wihtout a follow-up.

Scene 4: Lori is at work, spying on her kids' text messages and being depressed, when her friend Gail comes in to ask about her date last night.  She had a good time, but refused to kiss him, and now he is ghosting her. At Nazarene summer camp, the preacher said that you shouldn't kiss before marriage, but it was just a recommendation, not one of the rules in the Manual.

"So scroll on to the next one."

Next up, Dad David (JR Ramirez, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) drops in to discuss their shared client.  Apparently they manage Country-Western singers.  Lori breaks the news that the kids don't want to spend the weekend at his new place.

"Tough, they gotta."

"But we want them to have autonomy."

He gets angry.  "I'm trying everything, and nothing is getting through to them!"

Lori thinks that Shy Daughter Casey's wrestling has something to do with it.  All her gear is at home, and there are matches on the weekend, so...  Queer Code #3: Wrestling is a masculine-coded activity.

They compromise.  David will stay at the house with the kids, and Lori will stay...um, somewhere else.  You going to shack up with the hunky preacher?

Cut to everyone setting up for the Interfaith Rummage Sale.  Daughter Flora confronts Pastor Malcolm: "Are you trying to erase Mom's memory because you moved on to Lori?"

"It's not like that."  The title of the series, har har.  "All we did was kiss, but we decided that we weren't ready for a relationship, so we're staying Just Friends."

On RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: When I searched for Scott Foley n*de, I got Peter Kendall n*de in The Girls on the Bus

More after the break

Jackson Robert Scott: It prey, Locke boy, gay superhero, muscleman...and a fundamentalist hippie? With some backsides and d*cks

 

Link to the n*de dudes

Jackson Robert Scott appeared on the teen idol site with the notice that he played Georgie in It (2017), a movie based on the 1986 Stephen King novel about an transdimensional being who usually manifests as Pennywise the Clown.  I never read the novel or saw any of the movies, but I heard that one of the "losers" who combat "It" has been subjected to homophobic fanboy howls of "he can't be gay!  He's just a teenager!"  Presumably Jackson played the gay one.

Nope, that's Richie Tozer (Finn Wolfhard).  Georgie is the younger brother of focus "loser" Bill Denbrough, who gets sucked down into a storm sewer in It's first appearance. 

Left: Bill is played by Jaeden Martel as a teenager, James McAvoy as an adult (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).

Finn Wolfhard is too famous for a profile, and it looks like Jackson is working his way to becoming a bonafide muscleman, so I'll continue.

Jackson was born in 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona, and in 2014 started training at at CGTV , a young actors' "incubator" featuring acting lessons with celebrity coaches and connections to media professionals.  He started doing commercials almost immediately, and broke into on-screen acting in 2015, playing a boy kidnapped by a psycho on an episode of Criminal Minds.

2017 was Jackson's annus miribilis.  He played Georgie in It.

Bodie, the son in the family investigating paranormal gateways, in the pilot of Locke & Key.

The young Troy Otto, who will grow up to run a ranch with his brothers in the zombie Apocalypse series  Fear the Walking Dead.

The grown-up Troy (Daniel Sharman, left) is queer-coded, and has a nearly-canonical romance with the probably bi Nick (Frank Dillane, n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyyfriends) .

The short Skin (2018) won an Oscar: In a working-class town, a black man smiles at a white boy (Jackson), and his father objects to the interracial fraternization, resulting in a race war.

But The Prodigy (2019) was rated "one of the worst horror movies of the year": is the cute kid/killer (Jackson) possessed by a supernatural entity, or just bad?

After more horror in It Chapter 2 (2019), Jackson took a reprieve with Gossamer Folds (2020): In 1986, Tate (Jackson) moves to a new town and befriends Girl Next Door Gossamer (Alexandra Gray), who isblack and trans.  I don't think they fall in love: Alexandra Gray was 30 years old, not the best choice for a preteen.  In the trailer, Tate looks up the word "f*ggot" in the dictionary, so maybe he's coming out.  

Timothy Richardson played the Handsome Man (n*de on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).  Don't be shy, spoon with him.

Next Jackson returned to Bodie (actually spelled Bode) in the supernatural horror/fantasy Locke and Key (2020).  He's got a gay uncle (Aaron Ashmore), and his hetero-horny older brother is played by gay actor Connor Jessup.  

And four episodes of Wandavision (2021), as the body reference for Billy Maximoff (Julian Hilliard), son of the witch-turned-1950s housewife Wanda Maximoff.

More after the break

What has Ian Winningkoff been up to lately? Hint: you'll need several n*de dudes, one going downtown, to get through it all

  

Link to the n*de photos

In October 2023, I posted a profile of Ian Winningkoff: Young Chuck Montgomery in Righteous Gemstones Season 3, Classmate #2 in an episode of Secrets of Sulphur Springs, and Danny Zuko in a local production of Grease.  There were a lot of page views during the first week or so, and then they dwindled to near zero, the usual fate of profiles of actors who aren't particularly famous. 

 But during the last few days, the number of page views has skyrocketed, leading me to wonder if something has happened.  Did Ian get a starring role in a big production?  Did he come out?  Did he get arrested?

So let's check Ian's Instagram, his dad's Facebook page, and his high school website to see what he's been up to lately.

In the summer of 2024, Ian starred as Troy Bolton in a local production of High School Musical.

2024-25 was his senior year at Ben Franklin High in New Orleans.  We see him in January 2025, filling out a profile for the NCSA college recruiting website: "I love the game of basketball on a larger note then just playing, but my dream is to play for a college program."

And he's got a goatee that makes him look like a Disney villain.  Not just Disney:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Wes Bentley, Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, and Spock got bearded up when their character went dark.

Mardi Gras, 2025: Ian is hanging with some rather hot homies, no girls. So, into guys, buddy? 

In April 2025, Ian's dad notes that he is starring in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

A photo dump from April 2025 shows Ian hugging his buddy Xander, who will receive the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award and be named to the LHSAA All-Academic Team.  Quite an impressive boyfriend -- oh, wait, the rest of the photos show Ian hugging, kissing, and pretending to strangle a girl.

Next comes a n*de dude on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.  You'll need it to get through what comes next:

May 2025, Ian's Senior Prom photo dump: multiple scenes of hugging, kissing, pretending to strangle, dancing in his underwear with, sticking his tongue out at, and licking the corsage of a girl. Here he winks so we will congratulate him on being heterosexual. 

N*de photos on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

More after the break.  

"Under the Banner of Heaven": Murder and a crisis of faith in a fundamentalist Mormon family with five brothers (and five d*cks)

 Under the Banner of Heaven, a Hulu series about corruption in the LDS Church, was written and produced by Dustin Lance Black, who is gay, so there's bound to be some gay characters or subtexts.  Besides, who isn't interested in cute Mormon missionaries?  

Link to NSFW version

Scene 1: Establishing shot of Salt Lake City.  Jeb (Andrew Garfield), a super clean-cut nuclear family Dad, is listening to "Let's Hear it for the Boy."  A gay anthem!  So the protagonist is gay?   His preteen daughters, who wear long pioneer dresses, ask him to do loving-father activities, like lasso them.  Wife, who wears a modern t-shirt and cut-off jeans, calls him to the phone.  He has to go to work, so everyone has to do the evening prayers early.

We hear all the prayers: for the Mormon missionaries (how about a visual?), for Church President Kimball, for Grandpa in heaven, and for an Easy-Bake Oven.  "Let's Hear it for the Boy" came out in 1982, and Spencer Kimball died in 1985, 

Scene 2: Continuing to pray, Jeb the Cop puts the siren on his car and heads to a house surrounded by yellow tape and police cars.  Inside: the tv on, bloody footprints, scattered toys, a dead lady, and something in a basinet that makes him say "Evil."  The dead lady's murder was not evil?    He goes out to the yard and arrests the bloody young man who happens to be walking around.

Scene 3:  At the police station, Jeb the Cop and his Gentile (Non-Mormon) Partner do the good cop-bad cop routine on the blood-splattered suspect, Allen Lafferty (Billy Howle), who happens to belong to one of the most important familiies of the Church.  He claims that for the last year, "peculiar men" dressed like Mormon prophets have been stalking his family, so no doubt they did it.  They are probably after his brothers and their wives and kids, too.

Scene 4: While they book and strip Allen (nice body), Jeb watches, flashing back to someone he saw at church (was this a flash of same-sex attraction?).  They send a squad car out to check on the only brother whose address Allen knows: the others all moved to hide from the humiliation of having a brother who left the Church.

Scene 5: Jeb is too disgusted to continue the interrogation, so his Gentile Partner continues alone.  Stunt casting: he's played by Gil Birmingham, a bodybuilder who appeared in Diana Ross's music video "Muscles" in 1982.

Allen: if you want to know who did, check out the Mormon saints.  

Flashback to his future wife Brenda winning runner-up in the Miss Twin Falls, Idaho contest in 1980, then going to Brigham Young University, to stay away from the "Democrats and crazies," and studying broadcast journalism.  She meets Allen at church.  

Back at the interrogation, Allen blames the Church on his wife's death: "My only regret is that I didn't drive her out of Zion (Salt Lake City) to protect her from our people."  

Scene 6:  Jeb the Cop continues to ruminate about how evil Allen is, to do that to a baby (and an adult?).  They're still having trouble tracking down the addresses of his brothers and their wives/kids, so Jeb calls his wife -- they went to church with the Lafferty family, so maybe she has some of the brothers' addresses.  

He returns to the interrogation: Jeb: "So, you despicable monster, was there anyone besides you who hated Brenda enough to do it?"  Allen:  Everyone hated her because she was so perfect."  Yeah, I heard that a lot in high school.

Scene 7: Flashback to Allen introducing Brenda to the family at a picnic. "Just don't say much," he warns. Patriarch Ammon (Christopher Heyerdahl, left) wants to know why she abandoned Twin Falls, Idaho for the evil Big City (Provo, Utah?).  There are an endless number of boisterous brothers, Stepford wives, and staring kids to meet. 

I have beefcake and nude photos of most of the Lafferty men,  but I won't ask you to know all their names. We'll call them Oldest Brother, Second Brother, and Little Brother (although there are two more). 

Back at the interrogation, Allen tells them that Brenda was attracted to Second Brother because "everybody was attracted to Second Brother"  Even men?  His Oldest Brother was also into her, and flirted by condemning the use of coca-cola and promoting lawn-clipping juice instead.  She raises some eyebrows by having opinions (Allen: the LDS Church killed her because she wasn't subservient enoough.)

Back at the picnic, an old man appears, yelling  "They're coming for me."  Eventually we discover that the government is planning to take his land unless he clears it of rocks by Monday, so the Laffertys must help.  That's all?  I was expecting the Angel of Death. 

Scene 8:  Flashback to the Laffertys starting the rock-clearing job.  "No one is allowed to pee until we're finished!"  Just the men work, of course; the women watch, pray, and serve lemonade.  Suddenly Brenda rushes out to help.  Everyone is aghast! 

When the job is over, the old guy prays while the men pee  (no cock shots, but use your imagination).

Patriarch Ammon announces that he's been called away to the mission field, and the Holy Spirit told him to leave his Oldest Brother (Wyatt Russell) in charge of the family business, with Little Brother as his assistant. Uh-oh, Second Brother is going to be upset.  

The Patriarch also orders Allen to "get your harlot" to be properly mousy, timid, and subdservient! 

Sceene 9:  Back at the interrogation, Allen says that after they were married, he cut off his family and left the Church, but he still misses some things about it, like the belief that "God is love."  Really?  So far the Church sounds terrible oppressive.

Flashback to Joseph Smith, the founder of the church, digging up the golden plates that he would translate into the Book of Mormon.  But here the revelation becomes heterosexual: God chose him as Prophet because he loved his girlfriend Emma so much.  I know the Mormons are all about being heterosexual, but that interpretation still seems way over-the-top heterosexist.

Meanwhile, the police get the address of Little Brother and break into his apartment: some burning books and papers, a gun chest emptied out.  "This is bigger than just a domestic."  Maybe he and his family were killed?  They put out an APB.

Scene 10:  Jeb's Gentile Partner decided to notify Brenda's parents of her death, angering Jeb, who wanted to do it.  They argue about who has the biggest cock.  Turns out to be Gentile Partner,  who has new intel: Brenda's father said that Allen was abusive.  Now who's the prime suspect?    Allen still denies everything: "My father-in-law hated me, just like Emma's father hated Joseph Smith.  It was the peculiar bearded men, I tell you!"

Later Jeb the Cop speculates that Allen may have killed his family in a Satanic ritual.  After all, he left the Church, and Gentiles are capable of anything.  This is in the mids of the Satanic panic, where they thought that thousands of kids were being abducted every week to be sacrificed or used in sex rituals.  Actually, less than a hundred kids are kidnapped by strangers every year, most for black market adoption.  

Scene 11:  Little Brother wasn't murdered: he's hiding at a cheap motel.  He runs away, and prays that God would smite his enemies, but they're not smitten, and he's arrested for the murder of his brother's family.

Scene 12: Gentile Partner suggests that, since Jeb went to church with these people, his wife and daughters may be at risk -- go home and check on them. Har-har, you really just think he's too close to the case to be objective. But he goes, and talks to his mother, who has dementia in a subplot. The end.

Beefcake:  Allen takes off his clothes twice.

Heterosexism:  Constant, of course.  What did you expect in a tv series about Mormons?

Gay Characters:  There are some flashes where it looks like Jeb is dancing with a guy and hugging a guy, but they come and go so fast that it's impossible to tell what's actually going on.  

Update: They're just a gay tease.  The only same-sex desire or practice in Utah appears in Episode 5, one of the brothers investigates a Mormon-like cult where they drink wine and practice plural marriage.  They try to get him involved in a bisexual orgy in the hot tube.  But after kissing the guy in charge, he decides that he's not into it and leaves.

My Grade:  Jeb is an extremely unpleasant character, rigid, imperious, demanding, and intolerant.  He's less worried about the murders than about the horror of Allen leaving the Church.  C.

See also: Billy Howle: A serious actor, crazy cute, with frequent n*de scenes. Do you need anything else? With bonus Tommy Knight d*ck

The Testament of Ann Lee: The origin of the Shakers, with a female Christ, energetic dancing, gay guys, and a lot of male n*dity

"After the Hunt": Pretentious philosophy professors have problems, with some p*nises and Will Price. With Andrew Garfield.

Jack Barlow: "Real Housewives" teen, Mormon missionary, hair-care guru, gay tease

Unchosen: A mysterious stranger gets with a gay fundamentalist and his wife. Plus murder, Nazarene triggers, and Asa Butterfield

I grew up in the Nazarene Church, a sect so strict that when I describe it, people think it's a cult.  So The Unchosen on Netflix, about a woman who escapes from a cult, caught my eye.  Then I found two articles gushing over the star, Fra Fe, an out-and-proud gay man who is thrilled to be playing an out-and-proud gay man on a Netflix tv series. Doesn't "fra" mean Frater, as in Brother?  Is the guy a gay monk turned actor?

Scene 1: A church service, with people feeding each other communion bread, followed by a picnic.  The Preacher  tells them that they are blessed to live in this holy community, where men provide and women nurture.  Uh-oh, gender polarization.  A cute guy gazes at his girlfriend at another picnic table (no fraternization, see?).  

As she fetches more hot dogs, the boyfriend, Adam (Asa Butterfield, above and n*de photos on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) -- actually her husband -- criticizes her for being too busy.   Their child drops by, then goes to play with her cousins, while the hot Uncle Isaac asks about her hearing aid.  They allow outside medicine?

Next a lady catches their daughter reading Beano comics under the table: "You wicked girl!  You're going to hell!" We couldn't read comic books, either.  I did it anyway.

Now a thunderstorm is coming.  Everyone scurries to pack up, but the girl stands still, not sure if it is God coming to punish her, or the End of Days for everyone.

Scene 2: They rush all the stuff back to their church, the Fellowship of the Divine.  Wait, where's our daughter?  

She's not in the church or the attached school, so the men form search parties and go out into the woods. Finally they use the Wife's name -- Grace.  She can't go, but she sneaks out anyway.  She finds her daughter drowning in a pond, being rescued by a Mysterious Man.  He pulls her to safety and runs away. 

Adam and Uncle Isaac arrive.  She still needs a hospital, so Uncle Isaac pulls out a cell phone and calls 111.  

Cut to the waiting room at the hospital.  The Woman is disgusted by a man and a woman kissing, and another using bad words.  Daughter is fine, ready to go home.  She explains that she ran away because she was worried that it was the Rapture.  I was afraid of that constantly.  Anytime someone left the room unexpectedly, or if I came home at the usual time, and Mom wasn't there.

"You don't need to worry about that.  We're the Chosen Ones.  We go to heaven."  But one little sin, even something as inconsequential as reading a comic book, and you're Left Behind.

Scene 3: Back at the church, the women are cooking lamb stew, and the men are praying, thanking God for letting Adam and Isaac find the girl.  Mom knows that a mysterious man did it. 

That night in their room, Husband Adam prays that God would make their love clean and pure, and then starts doing something with his Wife's behind.  I can't tell what, but she's not happy with it.

Scene 4: Early in the morning, Grace goes out into the woods and leaves her necklace for the Mysterious Man to find.  Hey, the cross on that necklace has an image on it.  Nazarenes would be shrieking in horror. Blasphemy!  Catholic idolatry!

While Grace is making breakfast, Husband Adam confronts Uncle Isaac (Aston McAuley, left and below).  Rosie, whoever that is, saw who he was texting; but it could have been anyone.  Uncle Isaac: "It's over."  Husband Adam: "I don't want to lose you."  He smashes the cell phone.

Wait -- is Uncle Isaac having an affair with his brothe-in-law Adam, or with an outside person?  

Cut to church.  After they praise God for the return of the daughter, Adam stands up and tells them that Isaac is a sinner.  He holds up the contraband cell phone.  Hey, you promised to not say anything!

Left: The IMDB says that this is Aston McAuley, but it doesn't look anything like him.

The Preacher (former Doctor Who Christopher Eccleston) yells "An instrument of the devil!  A pipeline to filth!  You have endangered the whole community!"  They all turn their backs, and two men drag him out.  Can't he just repent?  We lost our salvation a dozen times a week, and repented to get it back.

Grace is angry with her husband for turning Isaac in.  His pregnant wife and kids are still in the community.  What will happen to them?  But he just says "Submit to your husband, as to the Lord."

More after the break

Gemstones Episode 4.5: The dirt on Vance, Mitch, and Lori. With Gossip GIrl's Dad' and a n*de Teenjus

  

Link to the n*de dudes

Title: "You Shall Remember," from Deuteronomy 8.18: "You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth,."  The Gemstones have forgotten that God made them rich so they can help people.  Tonight they'll get their comeuppance.  

The Dirt on Vance: Vance Simkins (Stephen Dorff) examines his burnt-out church and glares at the Gemstone satellite church across the street.  Cut to a Simpkins Commercial with him and his siblings, Craig and Shay, saying: "Grace.. .Praise... Rejoice..  Salvation."

Vance calls his siblings to his office, but Shay won't come ("she wants nothing to do with you") and Craig (Gogo Lomo David) is just there for his money: their parents' estate put Vance in charge, so he has to depend on hand-outs.  Vance gives him $10,000, and tells him to make it last.

Craig criticizes Vance for running the church into the ground,destroying their parents' legacy.  He keeps trying to open new churches when they're broke, just to compete with the Gemstones: "You can't admit you're beat, can you?"  

Vance protests that he's going to win the Top Christ Following Man Award. 

"You're a straight white man," Craig digs. "Your kind don't get awards anymore. Wait -- are you straight?  Never had a girlfriend, sweetie-pie."  Enraged by the implication, Vance slaps Craig and throws him onto the desk.

Uh-oh, a church deacon saw the attack.  Vance is violent, like Uncle Peter in Season 3 and Lyle Lissons in Season 2....he's the Big Bad of the season!

Vance had some queer codes back in Season 3, when he swished around with that tiny dog.  It would make sense for him to be gay and closeted.

Gogo Lomo-David is gay in real life, but there's no evidence that his character is gay.

Baby Billy and Kelvin in Decline:  Baby Billy finishes his screenplay about a teenage Jesus and his friends, changes the title from "Teen Jesus" to "Teenjus," and snorts some cocaine.  That's the Belly of the Beast in the Gemstone universe, buddy.

Cut to Kelvin and Keefe rushing through the crowd of queer well-wishers to a party to celebrate his Top Christ Following Man nomination.  Jesse, Amber, and Judy look angry; Eli, Lori, and Gideon look happy.  Abraham looks intrigued; Pontius sneers.  Abraham is the last of Jesse's kids to get a queer code.  I wrote a fan story where he comes out.

They begin partying.  Kelvin joins his siblings to gloat at the big turnout.  Judy sneers: "You're their little gay avatar."  Jesse: "You need to stop smelling your farts."  Translation: He's getting way too conceited about this award thing.

Lori drops by.  They criticize her for doing stuff with their father.  She promises to lock the door next time, and asks if they can start over and be friends again.  After all, she's known them all their lives.  Nope, "We reject this union."  

Lori: "All y'all little c*cksuckers better put on your big boy pants and get the f*uck over it."  Hey, that's homophobic, and at a LGBTQ event!  My estimation of Lori dropped 20 points. 

She continues: "I wanted to be y'all's friend, but if you want a wicked stepmother, I can do that, too."  

The siblings interpret "stepmother" to mean that Lori and Eli got married.  They are disgusted. 

Baby Billy is Doomed. Cut to Baby Billy and Tiffany cuddling in a swing, while the Nanny cleans the pool.  He describes their life as idyllic, but it's going to get better.  They'll make a fortune with his new project, Teenjus.

The Nanny notes that she likes teen dramas like Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl.  She would watch Teenjus.  Baby Billy yells at her.

Left: Matthew Settle, who played the Dad on "Gossip Girl."  His frontside and backside are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

Tiffany suggests that Baby Billy retire so he will be around for their children growing up, but he refuses. He's got to seize this opportunity.  "I got to provide for you.  I don't know how much time I got."  Another precursor of doom.

BJ's Injury. BJ tries to make it from the toilet to his wheelchair, but fails and falls into the bathtub. Judy rushes in to help.  He complains that he can't even pee on his own. "I'm broken. I'm half a man."

Judy points out that the doctors say he will have a full recovery, but he won't believe it. When she tries to help him out of the bathtub, he angrily yells at her to go.  

Amber arrives to see how they are doing -- they're both miserable -- and to give Judy a service monkey named Dr. Watson.  She works with a charity that trains service monkeys for disabled veterans (first I'm hearing of it).

Rebuilding the Tree House: Cut to Keefe using his carpentry skill to rebuild the tree house that got destroyed in the storm (he actually has a crew, visible in the background).  He swings like Tarzan from one building to another.  Easter Egg: The blueprints are dated 4/24/24. 

Kelvin exclaims that "it's all coming together.  A project like this tree house is exactly what I needed."

Next up in the Top Christ Following Man of the Year contest is a tv roundtable discussion: "A great chance to drop some dank soundbits and establish myself as a clear fave."

The Yellow Kerchief: Jesse at the Cape & Pistol headquarters, drinking and glaring at Eli as he talks to his friends. Vance stops by to heckle him for Eli dating Lori, and to blame him for bombing the Simkins church.  He threatens to "drop a yellow kerchief," challenging Jesse to a duel.  Jesse smirks and pretends not to know who Vance is, angering him even more. 

BJ and Watson:  Judy introduces BJ to his new service monkey.  She demonstrates, asking him to bring a Black Cherry White Claw (a hard seltzer beverage) -- and he does!  Actually, it's Citrus Yuzu Smash, another flavor of White Claw.  Close enough.  Capuchin monkeys can learn up to 200 words and understand complex sentences. 

The Dirt on Big D*ck: The Gemstone Leadership Team, aka Jesse's Goon Squad, has been researching Miss Lori's socials, and found lots of photos of her with different men, especially Big D*ck Mick, her ex boyfriend (although Matthew doesn't think it's very big -- you can't see the outline through his pants.  This will become important later).  

A newspaper article reveals that Big Dick Mick went missing on May 11, 2024.  Plus several of Lori's other boyfriends have gone missing, and some are just dead: drowning, car accident, suicide.  Uh-oh, she's a "Black Widow."  

Wait -- Lori started dating Eli last September, during the Aimee-Leight telethon.  These guys are dying eight months or more after she ended the relationship.  Why would she kill them?  Corey must be the culprit.

The siblings need more information.  Time to ask someone who knows Miss Lori well.

Teenjus Again: Baby Billy pitches his television show, Teenjus, to the siblings.  They don't like the name.  He promises to give them some dirt on Miss Lori, if they greenlight the project.  SO they agree.

The dirt: Miss Lori begged him to let her sing at the telethon, saying that she was broke and needed the gig.  Don't performers volunteer their time at those things?  And she immediately starts dating Eli.  Suspicious?  That's it?  I expected something juicier.

The Dirt on Miss Lori:  The siblings wait for Eli, discussing who gets to "crush him" first with their revelation. 

When he arrives -- wearing a ridiculous outfit -- they reveal that many of Lori's ex-boyfriends have ended up missing or dead.  Also "she's in debt up to her eyeballs."  Eli thinks they're just making stuff up, and yells at them that "Mama ain't coming back!"

"Us or her?" the siblings demand.  "Pick a side."

He picks the one that lets him have s*x, of course.  

Later, as they fume, Kelvin struts his stuff, bragging about his achievements.  Jesse thinks that his nomination for Top Christ Following Man is a sham, just tokenism.  Got to nominate the gay guy to prove that we're into diversity, but no way will he win. I remember when I was applying for jobs, I would always get interviews as a diversity token.

Kelvin counters that Jesse is a loser.  Even his kids don't respect him.  And Judy, married to "a pole-dancing cripple."  Dang, Kelvin, you're a super jerk today.   They both get hurt feelings from these savage jabs.  "I hope you feel good about yourself," Jesse says. 

Kelvin turns his back -- no, he doesn't feel good about himself at all.  

Filming Teenjus: Jesus (Matthew Garbacz) complains to his sidekick Johnny B, aka John the Baptist (Pilot Bunch) that the kids in the village will never give him a shot.  Maybe if he wins the big dance contest, they'll believe that he's the Chosen One.  A centurion (Dan Auerbach of the band Black Keys) criticizes him for being a trouble-maker: "You're late to class."

Baby Billy cuts the action and asks Jesus for more "smolder."  

Left: 22-year old Matthew Garbacz began his career at age eight.  At age 16 he began touring as John Deacon in a Kings of Queen tribute band.  has performed in Oliver!, Gypsy, Billy Elliot, and Les Miserables.

I assume that he is gay because appeared in Trust in Love (2024), about a record producer who comes out to his wife and son

And because of the way he celebrates Valentine's Day: "Tag the one you love."

And because he played a Queen.  Not the gay one, but still....

And because he shows us his....

More after the break

Tom Berklund: Bodybuilder and "Modern Family" cop stars in gay tragedies and poses n*de, but what's with all the lady friends?

 

Link to the n*de photos

We've finished Modern Family, but I forgot to research a bodybuilder who appeared in Episode 10.5, "Good Grief" (2018): as the family gathers for Halloween, Jay gets the word that his ex-wife DeeDee (Shelly Long) has died.  Dressed in wacky costumes, the children and grandchildren try to process their grief in different ways. Phil and Cam drive into West Hollywood for a convoluted reason, and get stuck in the Halloween parade.  As they are honking, a cop tells them to give the horn a rest.  The parade will be over soon.  Then he swishes off in his very tight chaps.

Phil: "I don't get to this part of town often.  That's not a real cop, right?"

I was annoyed that Phil says "this part of town": West Hollywood is a separate city.  But I wanted to see more of the hot cop, Tom Berklund, and his tight chaps.

I checked his Instagram first: "Real estate developer, bodybuilder, spiritual growth."  That's not an occupation, buddy.

 Some nice muscle shots, but the mixed signals made it impossible to determine if he is gay or not.

"Had a great time with Sarah and Teddy," a lady and a dog.  You're dating a lady, got it.

"Dinner and theater night out with my famous friend" Ryan Hadad, a queer disabled playwright.  Is it a date or a friend hang?

"Ali, Joey, and me."  Ali and Joey are a woman and a baby.  So is this your wife and son?  

"Post dinner sunset stroll with the one and only Tucker Breder," an actor whose Instagram is private, but he poses with a woman on Soundcloud.  Now you're dating a straight guy?

"Charlie got the lead in Once Upon a High School."  Posing with a woman and teenage boy.  But if this is your wife and son, who's Ali and the baby?   

Heck with it.  Let's look at his biceps and body parts, and see if he's been in any gay-themed movies.

Tom was born in Middleton, Wisconsin, 15 minutes from Madison, and got his BFA from the University of Michigan.  He then moved to New York, where he won the part of Gregory Gardner in the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.  

In his monologue, Gregory talks about getting a (censored) in class, and realizing that he was gay.  Not a bad start.

Tom has 25 acting credits, but mostly parts like Dancer, Gym Attendant, Spin Instructor, and S*xy Santa (left, on Ray Donovan).  I found a few gay roles:

More after the break

Nathan Kress, Freddie from "ICarly," grown up. Is he still homophobic? Is he still shy about showing his dick?

 

Link to the nude photos

Many Nickelodeon shows of the 2000s had strong homophobic subtexts, and  ICarly (2007-2012) was one of the worst.  Miranda Cosgrove starred as Carly, who hosts an internet comedy show with her butch-but-straight buddy Sam (a girl) and nerd-next-door-with-a- stereotyped crush on her, Freddie (Nathan Kress).  

They are supervised by her wacky bi-subtext older brother, Spencer. 

 On the way, the contempt for gay men, or as Sam alls them, prancies, oozes out in joke after joke.  The most egregious is Spencer being chased down and arrested for appearing in public in a dress; cross-dressing has not been a crime in any American city since the 1970s.

I especially disliked Nathan Kress, amd not only for the horribly cliched "unrequited crush" plotlines.  As he bulked up, he steadfastly refused to permit beefcake photos.  To an extent, that's his choice: his body, his rules.  But when you choose a career that depends on displaying that body, and further set yourself up as a teen idol, you have a sort of obligation to your fans.

More annoying was his reason for failing to post beefcake: he was a way, way conservative fundamentalist of the "hating ten gays before breakfast" variety, and he didn't want girls and prancies getting ideas.

Today Nathan's instagram is full of wife-and-children pictures. 

Still hardly any beefcake, unless incorporated into the wife-and-kid pictures.

And he's still ultra-fundamentalist.

More Nathan after the break

Taylor Gregory: The fierce, fabulous Barbie kid grows up to ballet, bodybuilding, and kissing boys. With bonus Czerwonko going downtown

  

Link to the n*de dudes

When I was doing a profile of Iain Armitage, who played Young Sheldon, the preteen and teenage version of the Big Bang Theory's neurotic physicist , I thought Wyatt McClure should come next.  He played next door neighbor Billy, who started with a gay-subtext interest in Iain before the writers decided to give him a crush on his sister Missy instead.

Wyatt McClure turned out to be unsuitable; no beefcake, and straight.  But he did draw my attention to his best friend, Taylor Gregory: 17 years old as of this writing, and extremely muscular.

Taylor has done some acting, but he is primarily a dancer, interested in a career in ballet. Here he plays the Prince in Nutcracker at Christmastime 2023.  

Auditioning for the Houston Ballet Academy's intensive summer session in 2025.  Did they require you to dance shirtless on your audition video, or did you think your physique would give you an edge?

Gay in real life:

Taylor: "We weren't celebrating Valentine's Day, but we were."  His date, a guy named Carson, is getting friendly under the table. We don't see Wyatt's date; maybe they're taking the photo.

Taylor tries to kiss Wyatt, who isn't into it.  

Any questions?

Any gay roles:

In 2015, when he was six years old, Biloxi, Mississippi native starred in a commercial for Mochino's high-end Barbie doll collection.  He was  the first boy ever to be shown playing with Barbies on tv.  With his femme hair and his "fierce and fabulous" snap, he became a media sensation and "a voice of the LGBTQ community."  

In one of the news stories I watched, Taylor's Mom seemed uncomfortable with the idea of her son being a gay icon.  It was just an acting role; in real life, he plays with Matchbook cars (translation: "My son is straight")

Gay boys are allowed to play with cars, Mom, just as straight boys are allowed to play with dolls. You can't tell by the toys they like.

But she did allow him to perform at the  Gulf Coast Equality Fest, an annual LGBTQ+ event "aimed at inspiring, educating, honoring, and celebrating our community and our allies."  

More after the break

Wake Up Dead Man: Daniel Craig's gay detective solves a locked-room murder, with a hot priest, some MAGA suspects, and a lot of Catholic c*cks

  

Link to the n*de photos

For movie night this week, we saw Wake Up Dead Man (2025), the third of the Knives Out mysteries starring Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, left), a posh Southern-accented detective who draws inspiration from classic murder writers like Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh.  

This one involves Father Jed (Josh O'Connor), a boxer who accidentally killed his opponent in the ring, and became a priest to expiate his guilt.  When he loses control and punches an a*hole deacon, he is assigned to a struggling parish in upstate New York. 

Left: Exteriors were filmed at the Anglican Church of the Holy Innocents, in Epping Forest, near London, built in 1873, praised as a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture.

It is struggling because of Monseigneur Wicks (Josh Brolin).  Monseigneur is an honorary title bestowed by the Pope, but this Monseigneur has bestowed it upon himself.  He has turned the congregation into an evangelical cult, preaching about the End Times and the War against Christianity, promising eternal damnation to anyone who challenges his authority, and screaming at visitors who he thinks are disobeying God's law: first a single mother, and then a gay couple.

The gay couple is played by HIV activist Hugh Wyld and Matthew Jacobs-Morgan, who runs Coven, a queer bar and art venue in Hackney.  

Father Jed thinks that the Church should be about love and forgiveness, a place where "everyone is welcome," but the Monseigneur sneers that he is ridiculously naive: why would you open the Church to the enemies of God? This is War!

In fact, the Monseigneur has only seven True Believers left.

More after the break:

Madden Zook: 5 soul-winning movies and 3,000 girl-hugging photos prove that he's straight, right? Plus some n*de ballet dudes

 

Link to the n*de photos

Madden Zook, who just appeared as the #50 most popular on the Teen Idol website, looks like a model -- a little skinny, but with one of those "ratboy" faces that are all the rage. 

No question that he's straight in real life. 90% of his photos show him hugging, kissing, smooching, and licking girls.  Oh, here's one where she is just sniffing his bicep.

The girl-hugging would usually disqualify a guy from further research, but I was fascinated: the heterosexism was so very, very over the top, absurdly excessive.   Lots of straight guys devote most of their social media to hugging and kissing The Girl of Their Dreams, but every single photo on his Instagram and Facebook?  Dozens of them? What are you trying to prove, buddy? 

Wait --  I thought this was another girl-hugging photo, but upon closer examination, it's a dude hugging him.  

So, how did Zook become a teen idol? Hugging and kissing girls won't make you famous. He must have done some acting or singing at some point.    

He has five acting credits on the IMDB:

Laps (2018): Swimmer Mitchell (Brayden Benson, center) is being bullied, so he tells the swim coach (Ian Lang).  That's progressive.  When I was a kid, the teachers said "You have to settle your own disputes," and my Dad enrolled me in judo lessons.  Didn't help.

Zook (left) and Cameron Judd (right) play the bullies. 

It was written and directed by Ian Lang, whose Internet biography reads: "And we know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purpose" -Romans 8:28. 

Maybe Zook is fundamentalist, and hugs and kisses a lot of girls to prove that he's not "that way" in spite of his swishiness? 

Ian also wrote, produced, and stars in Red Hood: The Fan Series (2019), Christian-based sequel to Red Hood: The Series (2016),: Jason Todd,  the Second Robin in the Batman mythos, returns to Gotham City as the vigiante Red Hood.  He is subdued by a cadre of born-again Robins led by Bruce Wayne's son Damien (Cameron Judd again).  

I watched one of Zook's episodes: he plays a patient in a sinister hospital rescued by Damien.  I didn't stick around to see if they do any buddy-bonding; gay kids might like the lingering close-ups of 12-year old boys in muscle shirts, or sleeping in their altogether, but they made me uncomfortable.

More after the break.