Derrick Burbage: Stunt driver, soldier, cop, realtor, hombre muy hombre -- or not.

When I was in college, I brought a friend home for spring break, and pointed out my father's flower garden.

Friend: Your father is not a man.

He was not defining man as someone with a d*ck.  He meant man as someone who meets the expectations of hegemonic masculinity: 

Muscular, hairy chest, beard or five o'clock shadow.

Aggressive, assertive.

A fan of sports, Tool Time, huntin', fishin', and classic cars.

Experiencing no emotion except anger.

Ok with his kid being gay. to an extent.

Fleeing from any hint of anything feminine-coded, from flowers to flowery adjectives. 

In Spanish, we say un hombre muy hombre. 

When I first noticed Derrick Burbage, he struck me as a perfect example of an Hombre Muy Hombre

He appears in Righteous Gemstones Episode 1.1 as Jesse's driver, taking him from the private airfield through our first glimpse of the Gemstone Compound, with its private police force and security guards.  How hombre muy hombre can you get?

Derrick returned several times during Seasons 1 and 2 as a stunt driver and Danny McBride's stunt double.  He was honored to crash "a classic 1970 Cadillac."

And in Season 3 as a stunt driver.

His IMDB biography talks about military convoys, Afghanistan, light and heavy weapons training, tactical combat vehicle operations, and "real-life high-speed vehicle pursuits." 

I'm getting a testosterone overdose just writing those words.

Derrick's stunting and acting work begins in 2014, when he was 38 or 39.  I pieced together his early life with LinkedIn, Facebook, his stunting resume, and speculation.

Baseball: He was born in 1974 or 1975.  No information on high school, but he's a baseball fan today, so I imagine that he was on the baseball team.  After graduation, he probably joined the army. 

Policing:  Derrick graduated from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy in 1998.  

He worked as a South Carolina State Trooper (1998-2009) and Charleson County Deputy Sheriff (2009-2010).

Back to school: Troy University, in Troy, Alabama, which is not as bad as it sounds -- they have a LGBTQ group on campus.  

He graduated in 2011 with a B.S. in Computer Science and Criminal Justice (3.95 GPA, Phi Beta Kappa).  I imagine anyone would do well after working for 13 years as a criminal justice professional.

Geek Squad:  For the next few years, Derrick worked as a regional manager at Geek Squad, plus  manager of a liquor store and a private investigator.  It's a gig economy.  Everybody has three jobs.

Realtor: He got a MBA in 2016 and became a licensed realtor in 2017.  

Acting: Derrick started acting as the cop who arrests Terry (Shawn Hatosy) on a 2014 episode of Reckless.

Next came Office Don in the short Lucky Luke (2018), about two beach pals (Michael James Daly, Rodney Smith) reminiscing.

Some guest spots on The Righteous Gemstones (2019).

Stunting:  The Righteous Gemstones was his first stunting gig.  Next came: 

Black Adam (2022), with Dwayne Johnson as the Marvel superhero.

The Walking Dead (2022, where he doubled for Season 4 antagonist Jason Butler Harner, left)

Echo (2023-24), with Alaqua Cox as the Marvel superhero.

And Suncoast (2024), about a teenage girl who befriends an activist.

 

See also: Austin Seifert: Cycle Ninja, Gisondo double, stuntman

Shane Gray: Stunt performer, pole vaulter, boy scout, man's man

Shane Michael Parker: Soldier, stuntman, wolf fan

"High Potential," Episode 1.13: This one has gay characters, a ridiculous plot, and a last-scene twist. Plus some cast members' members

  

I reviewed an episode of the Hulu series High Potential earlier, but it didn't get enough page views to keep on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.  The G-rated version is still up, on NySocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding.

Most likely the problem was representation: the show -- about genius cleaning lady Megan (Kaitlin Olson), a "flashy girl from Flushing" hired to help the staid, stick-in-the-mud cops solve murders -- was skittish about identifying gay characters, with only "no expressed heterosexual interest" to go on.  

So I'm trying another, Episode 1.13, "Let's Play."  It has an open, out gay character -- an interior decorator, yet -- played by Broadway actor Adam Kantor, who is queer in real life, bulged on the cover of Next, and showed us his backside, although I can't find a c ock. 

Scene 1: Obligatory "home life" scene, with Megan's ex-husband (Taran Killan) teaching her daughter to drive.  She almost runs over the whole family. Don't you take driver's ed in high school?

Cut to the police station, where Megan is asking the homicide detectives to pull over her daughter, because when she was a teenager, she got in a lot of trouble while driving, har har.

In other news, everyone is required to attend the big, important Police Gala, so the higher-ups can see that they're all team players. 

Time for the case of the week: They got an email saying "Spencer Wallace wouldn't play with me, will you?" And a photo of the scared, tied-up Spencer.  "Two hours to make your move."

They look up Spencer: 37 years old, unmarried.  Gay.  Interior designer.  Gay stereotype.

The cops insist that it's just a joke or a weirdo bondage scene that got out of hand, but Megan thinks that they should at least contact Spencer to see if he's ok. 

Scene 2:  Spencer's apartment. It's daytime.  Wouldn't he be at work? They find a black box with a jigsaw puzzle and a note: "Let's play."

Back at the station, Megan completes the puzzle in a few seconds (she's got all types of intelligence, apparently).  It's a map of Mulholland Trail, with a piece missing.  That's where they have to go for the next clue.

Scene 3:  Megan and Detective Karadec hike to the spot, and find a lot of Loco Ocho (Crazy Eights) cards hanging from a tree, with a note: "Pick a card, and then you'll go down a path and through the shade, before dear Spencer starts to fade."  The cops at the station call to reveal that Spencer is diabetic, and needs insulin by the end of the two hours, or he'll die. 

Megan and Detective Karadec play the Loco Ocho game.  The last card is two, so they have to take the second path.  Wait -- wouldn't that vary, depending on the starting card?

They find a hopscotch game with numbers.  Megan plays and adds them up to -10 and 240, the coordinates they have to check with the viewers: it looks directly down onto Valley Days Storage.  Spencer is in a storage locker!  This is ridiculous.  Who would set up a series of games like this? There's one chance in a thousand that the cops will figure it out. 

Scene 4:  The cops banging on storage locker doors and yelling for Spencer.  Then they get the bright idea of asking the manager: Spencer rents Unit L-4.   Yep, he's in there.  And they brought insulin from his apartment to administer.  He'll be fine.  Wait -- we're done?  That was a short episode.

Scene 5: In the hospital, Spencer tells the cops that he doesn't know who kidnapped him. They grabbed him, took him to a dark room, and tried to get him to play board games, but he was too scared.  Then they got frustrated and started the game with the cops. Description: wearing a white anime mask, rosy cheeks, big eyes. 

Megan: "Why was your storage locker empty?"

Spencer: "I rented it with James.  He was my partner for nine years.  He died in an auto accident four years ago"  Gay identity established at Minute 8, except for the interior designer stereotype.  They were going to fill the storage locker with their stuff while they traveled to Europe, and now he can't bring himself to get rid of it.

With that revelation, Stuart leaves the show.  But we still have two victims left.

Scene 6: At the station, the cops figure that Spencer was a random victim; the Kidnapper was actually targeting them.  So who has a grudge against the LAPD? 

Megan isn't so sure.  The Kidnapper wanted to play kids' games with Spencer.  Maybe a childhood friend, or someone who wanted to be a friend and was rejected?

Cut to evening, with Megan picking up the to-go dinner orders for her family.  But a guy has already paid for them:  Domeneck Lombardozzi (left) playing the gruff, abrasive private detective who is looking for Megan's missing husband.  More of that ongoing plot arc, then some home stuff, and an invitation to the Police Gala from a cute guy. 

Scene 7:  Detective Oz (Deniz Akdeniz) comes in early to stare at the suspect board.  They have a lead at the Marina Park Hotel, coincidentally where the Police Gala will be held:  a carriage full of scary dolls, and "The fun has just begun" written in Scrabble letters. 

At the station, Detective Oz, reveals his connection to the case: He lost his Dad last year, so he's been going to a grief group.  He doesn't go all the time, so he didn't recognize Spencer at first, but he's a member, too. And he told them all the story of the empty storage locker.  Somebody in that group is the Kidnapper!

Scene 8: Detectives Oz and Daphne go to the grief group and interview the members. 

I predict that the Kidnapper will be group leader Chris, played by Maurice Hall (the one with the bulge, not the chest).

Back to the grief group: one woman says that she had a crush on Spencer, before "I realized I was not his type."  Just say gay.

In other news, Group Leader Chris is worried because member Sierra, an ASL interpreter, never misses a meeting, usually comes early, and she's not there. 

The group member suggest David as a lead.  He hasn't been there for several months, but he used to be a regular.  His family played board games all the time, until his sister died, and then they stopped.  He was more and more upset about it every week.  

Megan is skeptical: dude tries to reclaim his childhood innocence by forcing Spencer to play board games?  Doesn't make sense.

Well, just before he left the group, he invited everyone to trivia night at a bar.  No one showed up. Well, they're grief-stricken.  What did he expect?  So maybe he's hurt, and forcing them to play?  

Megan is still skeptical: why would he force the police into the games?

More after the break

"Bodies": Time travel, a gay couple, social commentary, and a naked guy. What more do you want?

 

Bodies, a tv series on Netflix, has an intriguing premise: the same naked dead guy appears in four time periods, to be investigated by four different cops. I reviewed Episode 1.

London, 2023:  Shahara,  young South Asian woman, goes on a 10k run through town, then does some squishy "she's got a family!" stuff and goes to work -- she's a cop, trying to contain the crowds that are protesting a white supremacist parade.  

She  sees a teenage boy, Syed (Chaneil Kular), lurking with a gun -- and chases him across rooftops into Longharvest Lane -- where there's a naked corpse!  It has mysterious symbol on its wrist, and its eye is gouged out. She calls for backup.

London, 1942.  World War II, with the constant threat of air raids. A debonair detective named Charlie (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, below) double-takes at some ladies to show viewers that he's heterosexual, then goes to work in one of those open-plan, bevel-windowed offfices. We see some ladies oozing over him, then down to business: The Inspector thinks that he's accepting bribes. How else could he afford to "throw cash at every piece of skirt going into this building"?  Aw, I thought he seduced them with his debonair smile and huge penis.  Also he's under suspicion because he's Jewish.Hey, the lady from 2023 was Muslim.  It must be marginalized groups all the way down.  

Charlie twists the interrogation to cast suspicion on the Inspector, then flirt with some more ladies and get instructions from his super-secret spy commander: drive to Longharvest Lane to pick up a body.  He arrives at night, in the rain, and sees the same body that appeared in 2023!

London, 1890: The Gilded Age, but this is in the down-and-out Whitechapel neighborhood (the same place where Jack the Ripper prowled about).  The red-haired Inspector Hillinghead (Kyle Soler, top photo) has to arrest a young boy caught stealing a loaf of bread because he and his mum were starving to death, but after all, the law is the law.  Then all the street lights explode!   He and his assistant continue, look askance at some drag queen prostitutes, and find -- you guessed it -- the same body on Longharvest Lane. 

But this time there's a witness -- a photojournalist named Henry Ashe (George Parker) took some photos.  The Inspector wants them as soon as they've developed.  As he walks away, the Inspector stares, no doubt wondering what he was doing near the Rookery, an infamous gay brothel.

London, 2023: Other cops arrive at the crime scene near the white supremacy parade, and interrogate Shahara about the boy she was chasing -- no doubt he's the killer, right?  Shahara disagrees. Back at the station, they identify him as Syed Tahir, only minor crimes, no hint of radicalization.  His sister wants to know why that makes him a suspect: a) Islamophobia or b.) racism.  

Simultaneously, in 2023 and 1890, the cops watch the autopsy. (Body played by Tom Mothersdale.)  There was no blood at the crime scene, so he was killed elsewhere and brought to Longharvest Lane.  He was shot in the eye, but there's no bullet in his brain. . No DNA, fingerprints, or dental records on file (in 2023). . 

London, 1941:  Charlie finds the body, as he was ordered.  Just then an air raid siren goes off, so he shoves it into his car and drives away toward a shelter. Uh-oh, he's being followed. It's the Inspector who thought he was a spy, demanding a cut of the booty in the boot.  But before Charlie can shoot him, he is disintegrated by a bomb.  And people are milling around, so Charlie can't retrieve the body from the boot.

London, 2023: Shahara rushes to a restaurant just in time for her Dad's birthday dinner. The boss calls to tell her to get back on the case: they need someone to interrogate the suspect's sister, and another Muslim woman has a better chance of gaining rapport.  Besides, if they don't find Syed soon, jittery cops will be shooting every Muslim kid they see. 

The interview: Earlier today Syed called, freaked out, saying that people would think he killed someone, but he didn't.

More time slips after the break

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

 

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. 

Link to NSFW version

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

"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.

SWAT: The Son of the Incredible Hulk as a Meh Cop

I never watch cop shows.  After working at the L.A. Police Academy and as a juvenile probation officer, I know that they get procedures all wrong. Plus they exacerbate the belief that the crime rate is very high in the U.S. (when it's at the lowest level in over 20 years), leading to all sorts of expensive, unnecessary policies. like arresting kids for bringing toy soldiers to school and sentencing someone to 20 years in prison for having a marijuana joint in their car.

But when I discovered that Lou Ferrigno Jr., the son of 1970s Incredible Hulk superstar Lou Ferrigno and my "son" Infinite Chazz's hookup, was starring in SWAT (2017-), I watched an episode.

SWAT stands for Special Units and Tactics, the police using military-style weapons and techniques to make arrests.  They became popular during the Tough on Crime Movmenet of the 1980s, when the federal government offered grants for precincts that made a lot of drug busts, so tanks would roll into (black) neighborhoods and officers would swarm into random houses in search of marijuana.

This SWAT team, based in L.A. and led by by-the-books former marine Hondo Harrison (Shemar Moore, top photo) and lone-wolf-plays-by-his-own-rules Street (Alex Russell, left) , has slightly more dangerous foes:

1. Inmates who escaped from a transport, including "psychopath" El Cuchillo (they get psychopaths wrong, too.  Most psychopaths are not violent).

2. An auto-theft ring led by a paranoid psychopath (again?).

3. A hostage situation at a maximum-security prison.

4. A  human trafficking ring.

5. Diamond robbers who are connected to the Israeli mafia.

There are also personal entanglements: dating, romance, affairs, betrayals, and so on.

Lou appears in about half of the episodes as Donovan Rocker, a training instructor.  In Season 2, Mumford (Peter Onorati) retires, and Rocker takes over the team.

I watched the only episode where he's actually listed in the plot synopsis, "Ghosts" (this show loves one-word titles.  Attention span of the intended audience?).  There are three plotlines:

Main Plot: Luca (Kenny Johnson) and his boyfriend Street (above) are at a street festival (a gay pride festival?)  when he sees the Vanity Killer, a "psycho" who played Saw-type games with "pretty people," then was exploded to death two years ago.  The boss insists that he is  just seeing "ghosts," so he investigates himself.

Yawn.  They get serial killers wrong, too, acting like they are the most common type of criminal, responsible for 90% of all murders.  Actually, thrill-type serial killers are very rare, responsible for only about 1% of murders.

I guess Luca and Street are not a gay couple after all.  Luca has kind of a thing going on with Keri, a previous victim who he rescued (on this show, it's always last names for men, first names for women and prettyboys.  That's not sexist at all, right?).

Turns out that the "sicko" faked his own death so he could continue his games.  He has grabbed two new victims, including prettyboy Lance (Paul Black, left).  SWAT storms the house.

Well, that is what you're watching a show called SWAT for, right?

Secondary Plot: Spivey (Louis Fereira), who was fired in the first episode after he shot an unarmed black teenager, is depressed, "bowling alone in Long Beach."  So we should feel sorry for him?  So team captain Hondo, (see above), who has apparently been mentoring the boy, arranges a meeting.  Restorative justice in action!

Third Plot: Jessica (Stephanie Stigman) tries to find out who put the threatening letter in her desk and vandalized her car.  Turn's out it was Rocker's wife, Val.  He was complaining about Cortez's proposal (I don't know why), and she decided to get revenge.

He apologizes, she gets the charges reduced to harassment, the end.

Whoa, he's married to a psycho, and it's resolved in 30 seconds?  Bummer.

Heterosexism:  Not a lot.  Some guys have wives and girlfriends, but no kissing and no sex.

Beefcake:  None.  Hondo is shirtless in the opening credits.  What's the point of all these hunks if they're not going to be stripping down?

Other Scenery:  The street fair, for about 20 seconds.

Gay Characters:  Nothing specified. Lance might be gay.  A lot of buddy-bonding.

My grade: Meh.

See also: The Sons of the Incredible Hulk

"The Red Line": Gay, Black, Muslim, Asian, Non-Binary, Boring

During a hard night of saving lives in the ER, young, attractive doctor Harrison Brennan (Corey Reynolds) chats with his husband and daughter back home.  Later he stops into a convenience store for a gallon of milk.  A robber bursts in, assaults the clerk, takes money, and leaves.  Harrison rushes to perform first aid.  Then Officer Paul Evans (Noel Fischer) bursts in and shoots him in the back.

Did I forget to mention that Harrison is a young black man wearing a hoodie?

The police are 30 times more likely to kill an unarmed black man than an unarmed white man.  Stereotypes associating "black" with "danger" and "threat" make them likely to shoot in situations that would seem perfectly innocent if the person was white.

The Red Line (2019), on CBS and Vudu, explores the impact of the shooting on "three families".  Actually four interconnected groups.

Harrison's family and friends:
1. Husband Daniel (Noah Wyle, left), a high school history teacher, who is still hearing "How are you holding up?" six months later.  When Paul is exonerated for the shooting, he files a civil suit.

2. Jira (Aliyah Royale), their daughter, who has to hear "I understand what you're going through" from well-meaning white people.   Suddenly saddled with just one father, and a white guy at that, she starts searching for her birth mother.















3. Liam (Vinny Chhibber), their friend and Jira's teacher.  Who, by the way, is the first South Asian, Muslim, gay character on network tv.  .












Jira has two friends of her own:

1.Riley, who is non-binary (played by non-binary trans-masculine actor JJ Hawkins, left).  There are so few non-binary characters on tv that you'd think they would get some showcasing, but they don't do much besides say "I'm here for you."

2. Matthew (Rammel Chan), who doesn't do much.  But the actor is very interesting, a science fiction writer and improv artist.  I'm following him on twitter.

Jira's birth mother:
1. Tia, who s running for alderman (city council) on a "stop shooting black people" platform.  Her campaign gets complicated once word gets out that her biological daughter is associated with the "shooting while giving first aid" case.
2. husband Ethan (Howard Charles).

Remember Officer Paul?
He's affected by the shooting, too.  He has to wear a disguise due to protests, and he had to move, but he's exonerated by his superiors, and his coworkers praise him: "You did your duty!"  He is never actually shown feeling guilty over the shooting, or even regretting it; he believes that he acted appropriately under the circumstances.  His unconscious racism is never addressed, at least in the two episodes I watched.

His famly and friends include:
1. Work partner Vic (Elizabeth Laidlaw).

2. New partner Diego (Sebastian Sozzi, left), who tries to tone down his "all black people are violent" hand-on-gun-during-traffic-stops aggressiveness.

3. Brother Jim (Michael Patrick Thornton), a former cop who is in a wheelchair, and has "got your back."  The actor is paralyzed, but uses a walker.

Other than the aggressive diversity of the cast, there's not much to see here. People making pronouncements and feeling things, talking points writ large.

Manking the victim a saint was stacking the deck a bit.  All black lives matter, not just the ones made palatable to white folk.

Men in Handcuffs

If you're interested in BDSM, sooner or later you will run across someone's stash of photographs of attractive men who have been arrested, and are being led off (or dragged off) in handcuffs.  Shirtless, or sometimes even naked.

The problem is, you don't know who these men are, or what crimes they are being charged with.  They could be murderers or rapists.  They could be charged with possession of marijuana or disturbing the peace.

You have to distance yourself from their alleged criminality, and concentrate on the erotic potential.

1.Insouciant nudity.

2. Why are the cops so interested in his butt?

3.  The School to Prison Pipeline means that teenagers are now being arrested and charged with crimes for things that used to get you detention.

4. The guy is losing his pants.

5.  Don't they usually let you get dressed when you are arrested?

More after the break.