Gemstones Episode 3.8: Is Peter a woman? Are Kelvin and Keefe lovers? Does Jesse dye his sideburns?

  

This is the censored version of the review, with no nudity or explicit sexual discussions.  

Link to the uncensored version.

Episode 3.7 was the worst in the series due to its chronological disaster, plot incongruity, annoying misdirections, and assertion that the guys were just good buddies.  Maybe that was intentional,  to disorient the viewers so they would not be expecting Episode 3.8 : It is intricately plotted, and gives us a huge number of queer codes, including one that most fans consider definitive.

Title: "I Will Take You by the Hand and Keep You."  Isaiah 42.6, ESV: "I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you."  We'll see who gets to hold hands.

Reunited with the Loved Ones: After their rescue, the siblings are taken to Rogers Regional Medical Center to be examined.  Gideon must have finally phoned the family, because the partners and kids burst in, coincidentally in the order they need to be in to reach their loved ones without bumping into each other.  

Notice the difference in response:  When they last saw each other, Jesse and Amber were having a marital spat, but they were still together, so they just hug.  

BJ was deciding whether to stay with Judy or not, so he acknowledges her with a forehead-press.  

Kelvin and Keefe had not only broken up, they had a major post-breakup fight.  When Keefe exclaims "Buddy!," indicating that he wants to stay in Kelvin's life in spite of their problems, it comes as a profound relief.  Kelvin buries his head in Keefe's bicep and sobs, mirroring the Isolation Tank Rescue in Episode 1.9.  Keefe didn't actually rescue Kelvin here, but he is bringing him back from the dead.  

We cut to the siblings being interviewed by the police.  BJ and Gideon stand in front of them.  Amber is not present. Keefe waits by the door, still not included in the family; but he does get a bit where he knocks over a trash can and yells "I hate what you had to endure."   They all hate Eli, who left them to suffer and possibly be killed. 

Next, having established that May-May wasn't in on the kidnapping plot, she and Eli bond.  

Which of you is a woman?:  With the marital problem plotlines nearly over, we have time for a deep-dive into the Militia. 

Peter and Chuck are driving a U-Haul full of explosives, followed by a ragtag caravan of militia men. Marshall and Dakota (Sturgill Simpson, Quinn Dunn-Baker) complain that they don't know where he's going.  

Does Peter know?  Two compounds have been destroyed.  The kidnapping scheme has been foiled. Everyone has forgotten the first scheme, which required the truckload of explosives.

They stop at Dodge's Fried Chicken, a real fast-food place on Savannah Highway in Charleston (next to a KFC, har har).  Marshall continues to grumble. Peter asserts that complaining is "like a woman," and Marshall retorts that he drives "like a woman."  They continue to call each other women until Chuck gets tired of it and tells them to focus on the new plan.  Whatever it is.

Peter re-asserts his authority: if they rebel against him, they are rebelling against God, because he is the Keeper of the Word. Uh-oh, another Messiah.

We see again parallels between the Militia and Kelvin's God Squad in Season 2: both societies devoted to the masculine, suspicious of women, informed by homoerotic or homosocial desire. run by a messianic figure. 

The militia is the dark side of Kelvin's God Squad  We can go even farther and juxtapose Kelvin's bodybuilder fetish with the militia's fetishization of the soldier.  

Seasons 1 and 2 featured gay-subtext friendships to counterbalance the development of the Kelvin-Keefe romance.  I was surprised to not find one in Season 3, but maybe it's here, in Peter and Marshall's bickering.

Sexy Time:  With almost no sleep, almost nothing to eat, and only a bucket to poop in for 36 hours or several days (depending on the chronology), I'd be interested in dinner and bed rather than sexy time, but after two militia scenes, we cut to the two couples having sex.

First, BJ and Judy take a bath together. BJ: "The whole time you were in captivity, I would light candles and just cry."  It sounds like they were held for longer than a day.  Also, his eye, puffed out from his fight with Stephen, is almost healed. Maybe a week? 

He continues: "The best way to reset is with a really good, deep fucking."  They play a game of helicopter-penis with an incest motif.  You can sort of see BJ's dick, actually a prosthetic, in the swirling water.

Next it's Kelvin and Keefe's turn.  Keefe has changed into a sleeveless leather top with gold studs from the Jim Morrison Mr. Mojo collection.  The Doors' song "Mr. Mojo Risin'" may be relevant here:

I see your hair is burnin' / Hills are full of fire.

If they say I never loved you/ You know they are a liar.

Kelvin has showered and restored his top wave.  After keeping his body under wraps all season, he displays his backside and butt, again becoming an object of homoerotic desire.  Keefe pretends to give him a massage, but slides right past his shoulders to concentrate on his butt. 

Like BJ and Judy's bath, this is a prelude to "a really good, deep fucking" -- notice that Keefe is thrusting during their conversation, behaving as if the anal sex has already begun.  But even a bare-butt massage is a sexual act; if it were nonconsensual, it would be a "gross misdemeanor" in my state, with a penalty of up to two years in prison.

After being invited to fondle an ex-boyfriend's bare butt, most people would assume that he wanted to get back together, but Keefe has received so many mixed signals in the past that he has to be very careful.  His questions are skillfully designed to push Kelvin to a decision: are they going to be post-breakup pals, good buddies with benefits, or lovers?

First he eliminates the post-breakup pal option by asking if Kelvin and Taryn are dating.  Immediately after asking, he has Kelvin spread his legs, feels up his inner thighs, and starts"taking liberties," as Adam Devine reveals.  The actor needed to be semi-aroused so his penis would look bigger for a cut scene with frontal nudity.  In-universe, Keefe is answering his own question.

Kelvin: "Nah. She ain't my type." I've heard gay men say "You're not my type" to reject a flirtatious woman without coming out, but why would Kelvin feel the need to be closeted with his ex-boyfriend?  This must be a structural ploy to avoid having him say "gay."  

He continues: "I hated all the forced claps and laughter and fun times.  I like doing claps and laughters with you."  I've analyzed this scene in detail, and I still can't think of an in-universe reason for bringing up Taryn's work performance. That wasn't the question, and besides, Kelvin quit his youth minister job, so he's in no position to hire Keefe back.  

But Keefe assumes that he's talking about the assistant youth pastor job, and responds in kind: "I love getting the children zazzed up and excited to learn about Jesus with you." 

Now Kelvin clarifies that he was answering the "Are you and Taryn dating" question, not "Can I have my old job back?"    "I mean, Taryn was nice and all, but she's not you." She was nice, but you can't build a romance from niceness.  You need passion. 

Keefe understands:  "She tried to replace me, but it was a failed try." They're going to be romantic partners, combining eros and phileo, trying to "build something" for the future., reguardless of its impact on Kelvin's career.  Which shouldn't be a problem.  He's not working for the church anymore.  They can move to Atlanta and march in Pride Parades. 

More reconciliations after the break

Matthew William Bishop: leatherman, muscleman, actor, LGBTQ advocate. With bodybulder bonus

  

If you saw this guy standing outside a brownstone in New York, would you a) Run away screaming; b) ask for his phone number.

Link to NSFW version

How about now?

He's Matthew William Bishop, who gave up a career in corporate public relations in 2021, when the acting job bit.  His Some Kind of Wonderful, about four gay guy looking for love in Palm Springs, won four awards for Best LGBTQ Film. 

Then he hit the big time playing the silent supernatural Big Daddy, a symbol of AIDs in American Horror Story, NYC:  (Set during the first years of the AIDS epidemic.)

Matthew is also a bodybuilder, obviously. He took first place at the 2023 Miami Muscle Beach Contest in the NPC Open Super Heavyweight Category.

And a philanthropist, devoted to recovery, AIDS awareness, and LGBTQ advocacy.  10% of the sales of this "Make the Deposits" shirt go to the New York LGBTQ Community Center, so it's probably not dirty.

This isn't supposed to be dirty, either, although a lot of the comments on his Instagram page were from people willing to "choke on it."

More Matt, plus a nude bodybuilder bonus, on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

See also: Jake Kelley: Modeling, arm wrestling, and nekkid cowboys

Junior Durkin and Henry Willson: Hollywood's First Gay Romance

When 15-year old New York boy Trent Durkin was contracted by Paramount Pictures, his name was changed to "Junior" to make him seem more wholesome and All-American. 

The ploy worked: Tom Sawyer (1930) was the #1 box office hit of 1930, in part because of the palpable buddy-bond between Tom (16-year old Jackie Coogan) and rascallion Huck Finn (15-year old Junior Durkin).  

Huckleberry Finn followed (1931).

Then Hell's House (1932),  in which a boy (Junior) is framed for bootlegging and sent to juvenile hall, where he falls in love with the younger Shorty (Junior Coughlan).  

And Man Hunt (1933), in which a junior detective (Junior) and his boyfriend (Arthur Vinton) solve a murder.

Before World War II, boys were expected to become interested in girls at the end of adolescence, not at the beginning, leaving adolescent actors free to star in amazingly overt "two boys in love" or "boy in love with older man" movies.

But Junior wasn't just acting.  In 1933, the 18-year old met 22-year old Henry Willson at a gay bar on Sunset Strip.  Willson had just arrived from Pennsylvania, and was writing for movie magazines.  The two became lovers, and when Willson became a talent agent for the Joyce and Pollimer Agency, he hired Junior.

Or maybe he hired Junior before they became lovers.  Accounts vary.

Willson got Junior to leave Paramount for some meatier roles, such as Ready for Love (1934) and Little Men (1934), and suggested that he go back to Trent: a tough, masculine, single-syllable name.  He appeared in Chasing Yesterday (1935) as Trent.

On May 4, 1935, Junior was killed in an automobile accident near a ranch owned by his friend Jackie Coogan's family in San Diego.  He was 19 years old.  Jackie's father and three other people died in the accident as well.  Jackie survived to become a major box office draw, and near the end of his career, Uncle Fester on The Addams Family.

Henry Willson went on to become an important talent agent, creating the beefcake fad of the 1950s by signing on innumerable hunks and changing their names to something tough, masculine, and single-syllable: Rock, Doug, Chad, Nick, Van.  Most were gay or gay-friendly, and many knew their way around a casting couch.