Boy Meets Boy, Episode 5: The Possibly Straight Cat’s out of the Bag

First of all, I’d like to thank Sting7 for filling in for me last week and everyone who wrote to me asking me if things were OK. Basically, what happened is that I live in the East Village in Manhattan, which was not only the last neighborhood to have power restored after THE BLACKOUT, but then my particular block didn’t have cable restored until late last Wednesday, which meant that I was without cable for six days and couldn’t see last week’s episode until Friday. Much like Chrissie Hynde in 1980, I felt special. So special. Also, I want to thank everyone who took the time to write up and share your analyses of the eliminations based on who was gay and who was straight - but since I got about twelve emails saying the exact same thing, I think we can safely consider that subject mined.

I’m going to ignore Dani’s prattling on the subject to give you the real previouslies. Franklin acted like he’d listened to “Lay All Your Love On Me” by ABBA one too many times, while his morning hair took up more square acreage than Liechtenstein and declared independence from his scalp in a military coup. The mates were paired up in groups of two for elimination and the producers proved they were evil by pairing Robb and Wes, my two favorites, together, forcing Robb to go bye-bye. The producers also proved they were clueless when Sean, who I thought had to be gay because everyone and their third cousin twice removed had called him as straight from the time the pre-show pictures were released and it would have been way too obvious, was revealed in fact to be straight post-elimination, reinforcing stereotypes, making me once again look like an idiot, and confirming my suspicions that I could have cast this show better in just one night here in the East Village and Williamsburg - or hell, even in one night at Berlin back in Chicago. But Sean didn’t leave before spewing out some claptrap about this show being part of the “gay revolution” that had me rolling my eyeballs into the back of my head and shouting, “Oh, WHATEVER, Che Guevara!” Please - this show is about as much a part of the “gay revolution,” whatever the hell that is, as The Ladies Home Journal Art of Homemaking was of the feminist movement.

I’m going to warn you in advance that this episode has more padding than… oh, I know there’s a joke involving a teenage girl’s camisole in here somewhere, but see? This episode’s numbed my brain. So if I seem to gloss over things or summarize more than usual? Just trust me that you’re not missing anything. And a cocktail might help. I’ve had a couple just trying to recap this, so you’d be in good company. In any case, once more into the abyss!

We begin exactly where we left off last week, with Dani making Bette Davis roll over in her grave by telling James to fasten his seatbelts - it’s going to be the bumpiest ride of all! Then she says the line you KNOW she’s been dying to tell him since production began - “ONE of the mates is STRAIGHT!” “Wow!” replies James through clenched teeth - “Wow!” meaning, “I’m going to rip every strand of your bleached blonde hair out of your overbearing skull,” that is. I figure that this episode should be over in about ten minutes without Dani’s constant interruptions to remind us that James and Andra DON’T KNOW that ONE of the mates is STRAIGHT! No such luck. But, Dani quickly adds, she CAN assure him that the other two are gay! 100%! (The hell?!? Like we come with little USDA percentage labels now? Well, come to think of it, this one little minimart near one of my old apartments in Chicago perennially had a sign in the window hawking “2% HOMO MILK.”) And they know nothing about this twist! They’re in it for love, not money! They’re at the chateau for the right reasons! They’d eat nothing but PB&J for a week just to be with him! They’d trudge through the frozen tundra of Alaska in a bridal gown - eh, you get the idea. James laughs silently yet hysterically and does internal focusing exercises to prevent himself from strangling Dani on national television. IF, she tells him, he chooses one of the gay mates as his final selection, he gets the romantic connection he’s been looking for, the trip for two to New Zealand, AND $25,000! “If your gaydar is a bit rusty,” she continues, and to his credit James does not pick up one of the sofa cushions and start beating her over the head with it at that comment, the straight mate gets the $25,000 and James gets a year’s supply of Rice-A-Roni and the opportunity to look like a clueless patsy on national television! She doesn’t throw in that last part but I’m happy to. She further tells him that the straight mate has no idea that he knows the twist. Now that James knows the twist, she tells him he can scream at her if he wants, and he inexplicably declines to take her up on her offer.

She outlines the rest of his time for him: two days and three final one-on-one dates. Who he takes on which date is up to him, but there are two rules - he can’t ask the mates directly about their sexual orientation and he can’t reveal to them that he knows about the twist. “Understood? Understood?” she pushes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s understood, ma. She wants to know if he “accepts the challenge.” “So how did I happen to pick a straight guy?” James asks, which in the grand scheme of things is probably a polite way of saying, “Lady, do I have a choice?” There’s no sidetracking Dani, though - nosiree possibly straight Bob! “Do you accept this challenge?!?” she nags. “Yes!” he finally laughs. He tells us that at that moment he was extremely angry and felt betrayed because he’d completely invested himself in this entire process, which is completely understandable.