After last weeks explosions (the fireball by the pool during Wes’s romantic date and Andra’s head exploding upon learning that one of the remaining mates is straight, the fireworks promise to continue on tonight’s series finale. From the previews it appears that She Against Whom All TV Fag Hags Will Now Be Measured, Andra, will continue to attempt to make James and his love life All About Her, attempting to perhaps trap or goad the mates into a confession. My prediction is that should James choose a gay mate this “strategy” on Andra’s part will backfire because the gay mate will slowly and subtly cut her drama-bloated ass out of James’ life and she’ll have to find a new fag to hag for.
Assuming that brick still remains upon brick after Andra finishes raging through the place, James makes his final selection. The BravoTV viewer poll has Wes in the lead as who James will select, 57% to 40% for Franklin and 13% for Brian. No question on this week’s poll about who the viewers think is straight, but my edumacated guess from overhearing various bar conversations over the weekend that the concensus in the gay community is that Franklin is the mole. Oh wait, that’s a different show, what rodent best represents the straight guy, is weasel too obvious?
On a philosophical note, am I the only gay guy not interpreting BmB as a sign of the gay apocalypse? It seems like every commentator I read or hear in the gay press is thundering with anger at the show. It makes us “court jesters,” it’s “mean and manipulative,” it “burnishes further the bright sheen of homophobia.” I can’t be the only gay guy out there going, dudes, lighten up, it’s just a silly TV show!
I’m more disappointed now with the concept of the straight mole than I was at the beginning. It does seem like a pointless twist that is a little mean-spirited. Perhaps if James had known from the start, then it wouldn’t seem as vicious.
That said, however, I don’t see it as that bad. It’s been interesting and it seems several of the straight guys learned from their experiences. Perhaps some of the viewers did, too. I think it’s an overall fun show and hasn’t done any harm.
So the undercover straight guy is the twist of this show? What would have happened if he was eliminated early on? It seems like a lot of their marketing is riding on that angle.
We knew after last week’s episode that Franklin had to be the straight guy. How? To ensure that there was a straight guy in the finale, they had to pair up the two remaining straight guys and have James pick one of them for the final three. When it was revealed that the guy who Franklin was paired with was straight, it was obvious that Franklin was also straight.
Oh, and Headcoat, there were several straight guys. Enough so that they could ensure that there was one (and only one) left when they were down to the final three guys.
OK, I gave the show’s producers too much credit. I figured the obvious straight guy was a red herring, but no, he really was the straight guy.
And the end was just bathetic. . . James, sadly, is as vapid and empty as he is beautiful. Every word he spoke could have been extracted from a Hallmark greeting card.
It wasn’t as good as last weeks episode. What happened to that annoying british chick? She was practically AWOL for this episode.
I have to admit I was rooting for Wes. So my shipper angst is relived. Though oddly I thought Brian was the straight mate. I should of seen Franklin coming miles away, but I didn’t. Go figure.
Will the relationship survive? Who knows. Hopefully for the GLBT community it will, but it will be difficult if they are in different cities as mentioned in this episode (James in LA, Wes in San Diego).
I also liked Andra’s comment about the “broad spectrum” of gay guys there. Most of them looked like they ran away from an XY or Instinct photo shoot. The only ones who did not look like gay clones were the ones who turned out to be straight – of course, some of the straight guys (Dan, I’m looking at you) had that look going too.
Also, Andra again made everything about her with her outburst that the three of them were there because she picked them for James. Has there been a single thing on this show that hasn’t been entirely about her?
And, gobear, I’m with you. Last week, I figured Brian was the straight guy because I assumed they would never put a person who was so obvious as the actual straight guy. This episode, they had a clip of Brian in a magazine photo (think it was Instinct), so I probably woulda guessed Franklin if I’d caught that the first time 'round. Of course, I’m one to talk. No one ever guesses with me.
Dear Chèvre, I believe that our lovely Dani is Australian, not British. I am wondering what happened to her, though. Maybe they took her away so our Queen High Fag Hag wouldn’t beat her senseless in rage if James picked the straight one.
Man, am I glad that’s over. I think James sounded all greeting-cardy, gobear, because he was just going through the motions by then. He didn’t care about the game, he’d been forced to distrust all the guys and so had broken any real connections with them, and he just wanted it all to be over with.
I hope he and Wes had a nice time in New Zealand, and I hope they all go on to find love and happiness, far away from cameras and lights and petty mean-spirited producers.
Well, I admit that I was tense and nervous through the first half of the show. I willingly gave in to the manipulation. I wanted Wes to win and was glad when he was chosen. Are Los Angeles and San Diego really that far away?
It didn’t seem like the producers were making any real effort to hide the straight guy in the finale. Maybe they realized that most of their audience twigged to the selection ceremony chicanery and had Franklin figured out.
The guy I felt most sorry for was Brian. He didn’t get picked and so he thought he’d go to Plan B, which was Dan. 0 for 2. And I agree with him that his final date didn’t have the romantic or sexual potential that Wes and Franklin’s did. I wonder how much of that was deliberate to push James toward a choice between Wes and Franklin?
Speaking of Dan, he had somewhat redeemed himself with his exit interview then last night plunged right back into the outer darkness. For all his “there’s no difference” talk he sure didn’t waste any time re-establishing his straight cred by going on about how uncomfortable it was to have Jorge’s junk up against his butt. Yeah, whatever Dan. Of course there is a rumor circulating that Dan shows up at gay bars with other of the former mates to watch the show and enjoys the attention he gets very much, then returns later on his own (and presumably enjoys the attention very much again).
Andra scared me even more than the last episode. She came off last night as having a little too much invested in her friendship with James, and he looked very uncomfortable with her behavior. He couldn’t even look at her when she was shrieking at Franklin. As much as I don’t like her, I’d be interested to see how they behave as friends IRL, when there aren’t any cameras around. I still can’t believe she’s never seen James kiss a man.
Brian took Dan’s pillow with him? That was very sad.
I’m still puzzling over James’ comment to Brian that they only way to keep from hurting him is to not choose him. He almost seemed like he was saying that with a wink and a nod. As if they have plans to hook up afterwards.
And Darren’s interview where he said he’d be seeing James in LA seemed downright creepy, stalkerish.
The two deserve each other - superficial meets flake.
The thought of sitting next to those two bubbleheads on a long flight to New Zealand is enough to make me want to move to the back of the plane and sit in coach.
I heard when they both found out they would be spending the first two days in Auckland, they were thrilled, “That’s the ghetto town right next to San Francisco - we can take a taxi to Castro Street!”
I noticed that to. I have the inkling. that Andra, married or not, wants James, gay or not. And not in the Will & Grace kind of way. God knows why she wants a gay man, but then again she wouldn’t be the first straight female to have unresolved romantic feelings for a gay man.
And above all I hope that Falcon will release the highlights from the New Zealand trip on DVD. (I’m guessing James and Wes are both versatile bottoms, but it could still be interesting, especially if they give it a LOTR NZ tie in- they can go to a gay bar in Wellington called “The Hobbit Hole” or something.)
While I agree that James is sweet and pretty but dummer than a bag of hair (and for the love of all the gods at once man are you just unable to distinguish between “Man, I want me some heaping handfulls of Dan ass!” and “Dan must be a good person because [see above]”?), I did appreciate the fact that he was very cold to Franklin rather than hypocritically “well, no hard feelings” (except during that lap dance). I was far more irritated by Franklin’s "I did this to prove a point to straight American adnoaidj foa ajd ofja f ajdo (to be read as Charlie Brown’s parents’ mumbling- I felt so guilty when I learned that Charlie’s parents were deaf mutes, incidentally, after laughing at them for all those years).
Franklin: you wanted $25,000 (a piddling amount in TV money, especially after taxes- the producers of the show wouldn’t have gotten off their pool boy for at least twice that) and you wanted it bad enough to f*ck with a guy’s life and embarass him on nationwide TV. HAVE YOU AT LAST NO DECENCY FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ANDRA!
Anyway, I don’t think Dan, Sean, Franklin, and Jim were the Four Breeders of the Apocalypse (cue techno version of O FORTUNA), I do think it was one of the sillier moments in reality show, the type we’ll one day tell our (disinterested concubines young enough to be our) grandchildren about one day. OTOH, I think that Lisa Kudrow did one of the best acting jobs ever done on TV as James’ friend Andra.
Re: Andra’s “spectrum” line, did you notice that in addition to all having ripped torsos most of the guys were significantly younger than James? There were very few 30 somethings in the pool.
Of course to me the perfect ending would have been to have not revealed who James’ picked but to focus in on James’ hotel in New Zealand, then on his bed as he basks in morning glory, finally pulling the sheet down to reveal next to him his ultimate choice, Miss Coco Peru. “Here’s… mud… in your eye, loverboy!”
Though oddly I thought Brian was the straight mate. I should of seen Franklin coming miles away, but I didn’t. Go figure.