I just finished watching the last disk of Season 3 (I’d have to sell a kidney to get Sho-Time on my own cable system, which is worthy of a Pit Thread) and had a few questions/comments. Please feel free to hijack for your own q&c.
Since I mentioned spoilers in the title I’m not going to use spoiler boxes.
*Emmett: George’s family sued to stop him from receiving the $10 million inheritance and he refused the $1 million out-of-court settlement, but a few questions that were never, to my knowledge, settled:
-Did he just drop the suit? There’s been no mention of it since, and $10 million is sure as hell an amount worth going to court over.
-Were his friends able to keep the expensive gifts (Michael’s store rent, Debbie’s diamond bracelet, etc.) or were they returned to the estate?
*Hunter (the hustler taken in by Michael & Ben)- has it ever been established that he is gay? Certainly not all hustlers are.
*Do you think Ethan is out of the show or will he be back?
*Now that Brian is broke, do you think that he’ll change for the better or the worse? Will he ever say “I love you” to Justin? (I thought he was going to tell him that in the season finale, but of course not.)
*What changes or plotlines would you make/add?
*Would QaF Slash be straight sex?
*I’m really glad to see Blake is back. He added a dimension to the show that was at onc… oh who am I kidding? I like seeing him nekkid.
First I’m going to apologize for killing this thread. Somehow I seem to always kill QaF threads. Since you don’t have Showtime you haven’t seen the teasers for the new season. I’ll not spill any info on that, then.
Emmett losing the inheritance always bugged me. But I think it’s consistent with his character for him to have not gone to court to fight. However, it seems out of character for Melanie to have not pushed him to fight. I just assumed that the family cut their losses with what was spent and let it go.
I think Ethan is gone for good.
I don’t know whether Hunter is actually gay or just gay for pay.
I don’t think Brian will change and certainly never tell Justin how much he loves him. However, his actions over the last season (Season 3) make me more sympathetic to him. He’s a good person under his crusty exterior. Justin will probably outgrow him this season and move on for good.
I’m afraid Ben or Vic will get sick and die this season.
I’d like to see one of the characters become politically active. Also Emmett should start doing drag. This show doesn’t have enough drag queens.
QaF slash would have Ben and Mel hooking up. :: shudder :: Thanks for putting that idea in my mind.
Since you asked, what I’ve seen in trailers so far is:
Brian starts his own agency and is trying to woo his old clients.
Justin joins a Pink Posse type group after a gay-bashing on Liberty Ave. They wander the streets protecting gays. I get the impression they’ll get over zealous and wind up with some legal trouble.
Ben and Michael try to get legal custody of Hunter.
Ted’s problems continue and Emmett is torn about whether to trust him or bolt.
Great analysis, Homebrew. And I agree that they put Ted through way too much already. I really didn’t like the pairing of Ted and Emmett anyway. Emmett is sort of the anti-Brian. And I’d like to see him and Brian in a relationship.
Although last season had some high-points, I really grew tired of the same dynamic being used over and over throughout the QaF series.
Someone has a problem.
50 minutes are spent “Whoa-is me!” over the problem and of course, Brian is the one who could solve it if “only he had a heart”.
The last 10 minutes involve Brian riding in to save the day and solving the problem. The final 5 minutes typically will provide some kind of device to ensure we know that, even though Brian helped this time, he still is a self-centered ass.
Repeat ad nauseum, episode after episode, season after season.
We cancelled our Showtime between seasons and I honestly do not think we’ll re-subscribe to watch the new season of “more of the same”.
It’s now 10 and a half hours after you opened the thread, 9 and a half after I responded first and 8 hours after the last response. I found the thread half-way down the second page. See, I told you I’d kill it. Now if Otto had posted instead of me, you’d have 30 responses and still be at the top of the first page.
As far as some of the comments: I think Emmet not getting the money was mostly to keep him poor for the good of the script/storyline. In real life, you can damned well bet there would have been a major lawsuit, and Emmet would be living in a penthouse in West Hollywood or New York by now. However, Brian always has to be the rich prick (pun intended) because anybody else with money would take away a lot of his power. Thus it is not a big reach to figure out Brian will be rolling in the dough again very soon.
One change I heard about for this season is there will be less of the Gay disco backroom fucking scenes. They promise the same amount of nudity and sex, just not the same stereotypical locations and premise.
Ted annoys me to no end. How anybody would stay friends, let alone be a lover, with that whiny loser is beyond belief…but hey, it is a soap opera with dicks, so…
And as long as I am ragging on characters, Michael’s choice of lovers is always the same tired pretty boy wimps…although I give Ben a little credit for standing up for Hunter, for the most part, his job seems to be to pout that Michael isn’t home to sit at a candle lit table and eat a nice quiche for dinner, promptly at 6:00PM.
It would also be nice to see a few men with facial hair, attitude and tatoos…every character on that show is so squeaky clean they could be a dancer in the next Britney Spears video.
Despite that rant, I still like the show a lot…and Debbie is great! I hope they keep pushing the political angles, and continue to have some threads like the killer cop throughout the series.
As you see, Homebrew, you are not the only thread killer on the board.
However, I have noticed threads on QAF usually don’t have a long shelf life here.
At any rate - one of us should start a thread at the beginning minute of the first episode on April 18th and see which drops faster - the thread or Brian’s pants.
I dunno. . . I suppose I’ll tune in because it’s the Must See show of gaydom, but the nudity is just about the only reason to watch becayse it really is a poorly written show. They start stories that end abruptly with no resolution, they introduce characters who come and go (in every sense) in just a couple of episodes. And the writers seem to think that breaking character arcs equates to showing depth.
To paraphrase an old Dennis Miller comment (from back when he was funny) about Harvey Keitel’s penis, “I’ve seen more of Brian, Emmet, and especially Justin’s asses in the past two years than I have my own.” (though I’m not complaining; I just wished they’d have shown Ethan and Blake nekkid more often).
I was surprised that the show’s core audience has increasingly become straight females with gays coming in at a distant second. Many straight women have QaF parties for each episode and LOVE the characters (and the chance to see male nudity dominate the screen for a change). I knew of course that lesbian love scenes have turned on straight men since time began, but didn’t know that hot guys kissing did it for the distaff.
I’ve read a few gay columns slamming the show for perpetuating stereotypes of drug use and promiscuity, pariticularly with Brian, but there’s a lot I actually like about their gutsiness with Brian’s character. After decades of gays being portrayed as silly little whiners or, worse, asexual fashion accessories (have the words top or bottom or lube or even back-room ever even been used on Will & Grace, a show about attractive gay men in the nation’s second biggest gay mecca?) it’s actually (to me) refreshing to see a gay man who not only- gasp- has sex with other men but has a major “Fuck you!” attitude to convention and pigeonholing. You go boy!
I called it! Damn that was good episode, although the ending really was a downer. I, like Vic, think I even saw a tear. It was so good to see Brian softening up a little.
Ted continues to be an ass. I was stunned by Emmett’s challenge to Ted to “do it” and turning on the opera for him.
I’m hopeful that the Ben, Michael and Hunter storyline has potential.
Overall, I was very pleased with the season opener.
Well, I have to retract my earlier post because that was an excellent episode. I particularly enjoyed the slick way Hunter got his evil mother to reveal her true nature in front of the judge.
Okay, I don’t have Showtime and it’ll be many many months before the DVD comes out, so please please please please spoil the season opener for me. Nothing is too trivial and no spoiler-boxes needed. I’m most interested in Hunter & penniless Brian, but would love any info.
I like the show but don’t watch it on a regular basis. I have enjoyed Brian becoming a human being but then you always saw sparks of that.
I don’t know about the rest of the straight women who watch the show but Brian/Gale Hurd is incredibly sexy. Half of the six main guys are straight, Gale is one of them. And he plays his character so beautifully and believably. The character of Brian is the same straight or gay, that everyone falls for, even when they know he’ll only break their heart. We all want to be they one to change him, we know we’re the one who can do it.
As for watching men having sex, works for me anyway.
I was… disappointed. I don’t like what’s happening to Ted. This is inexplicable. Last season, it seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere, and now it’s going too far. Ted can only die. Any other resolution will be cheap, and a worse non sequitur than when it all began. Most disturbing of all, though, is the destruction of Brian’s mystique. Brian does what he does because his heart is good. There was no need to show us that. Those who understand being good just for the sake of goodness already understand why Brian is the way he is, and those who don’t still won’t. And that ending? What. The. Hell. They gut Brian like a 20 pound bass to show us what they think we might be missing. And then they turn gay bashing into something mysterious and morally vague. I mean, hell’s bells. Leave Brian mysterious, and show gay bashing for what it is.
Wait. How was the bashing at the end morally vague? From previews, it appears that the incident is going to be used to get Justin more involved politically and on community outreach/education/support.
I didn’t get to see the previews. I watched it On Demand. But still, Justin already has plently of motivation to get more involved. He himself was bashed, and he went through the thing where they found the guy in the dumpster. It seems rather random that he would suddenly go, “Gee. Okay, this one is different.” I thought the scene was morally ambiguous for two reasons: (1) there was no retribution for the act, and (2) the others were oblivious even though they were merely across the street. I understand that both of those can be rationalized, but we shouldn’t have to be trying to figure it out here. Could they not hear? Could they not see? Did they see and hear and ignore it? It looked like Hunter saw it to me. And then do nothing? Maybe previews revealed more, but as I say, from what I saw, it looked like Brian was being ruined as a character, and the bashing didn’t work as an ending.