Episode Report Card Camper: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Brian, Brian, Brian, Oy, Oy, Oy
By Camper | Season 1 | Episode 7 | Aired on 01.27.2001
The locker room at Justin's school. Chris Hobbes, he of the semi-conscious hand job a couple of eps back, walks in with a bunch of friends. They call each other "faggot" as a reminder not to like them. Justin's sitting on a bench, getting dressed. Chris asks him why he's not going to take a shower: "Don't you want to look at all the guy's dicks?" Justin ignores him. Chris points at Justin's nipple ring and asks him where he got it. When Justin tells him he got it on Liberty Avenue, Chris sneers, "You really are a queer." Justin mumbles that he's not. Chris won't leave him alone: "[Did you get that] so all your fudge-packing friends can pull on it while they're butt-fucking you?" Justin snaps, "How come you know so much about what faggots do unless you are one?" Is what I'm saying! Chris shoves him against the locker, and Justin punches him in the face. Yay, Justin! I cheered, 'cause that kid's got some serious steel ones. Chris punches him back, knocking him against the lockers, and some other boy has to hold Justin back from kicking Chris's closeted ass. Can't stop Justin from spitting a mouthful of blood all over him, though.
The cabin. Dr. Dave's Jag pulls up in front. As he gets out of the car, we can see a horse in a paddock behind him. The "cabin" is like, a block long and two stories tall. Mike wows, "You built this place yourself?" Doc Dave confirms that he built "most of it. I'm good with my hands." Mike snarks that he's noticed. Then wows some more, "Look how good clean air smells." Dave asks him how long it's been since he was in the country, and Mike replies, "I don't know. We went to a dairy farm once in the third grade." Dave gives him the Indulgent Papa Smile. I really don't like that smile. It's creepy and patronizing and reminds me of the look I get from republicans in bars when the topic turns to politics. But you know what the best way is to get rid of that smile? Call George W. "Governor Bush." It's not easy being a smart liberal babe in DC, folks. Light a candle for me.
So, Dave and Mike walk in, and Mike's still looking around in awe and wonder. Not only is the place huge, but it's all wood and stone and mortar and well-appointed and I keep expecting a concierge to appear at any moment. Mike, seeing a stuffed marlin on the wall: "So, did you catch that fish, or challenge it to a duel?" Hal Sparks is so much funnier when he comes up with his own dialogue, and maybe they should let him do that sometime. Dave tells him that he caught it with some friends in the Keys. My friends Chris and Mary B. are getting married in the Keys this year, but thank god neither of them fish, because that marlin's about twice MB's size, and I really don't think -- uh, sorry; tangent. Where were we? Dave's rich, Dave's traveled, Dave is a kick-ass fisherman. Right. Mike picks up a framed picture of a woman and baby on the really large, wood, manly-man mantle. Mike asks, "Who's that? Ex-scuba diving instructor, ex-ice skating partner?" I assume he's talking about the woman. David tells him that that's his ex-wife. Mike didn't know that he'd been married, and mumbles, "She's pretty." Yeah, and Dave's gay, so don't get all choked up. Or at least he's supposed to be gay. (GOD, he is SONOTGAY! I'm more of a gay man than Chris Potter is!) David explains that the baby is his son Hank, who's twelve now and lives with his mother in Oregon. And then Mike, Exposition Slave -- which is really the only excuse for this ignorance -- asks, "So, you weren't always gay?" David answers, amazingly unbacked by violins, "No, I was always gay [I can't take it!]. I just didn't want to admit it. And being the overachiever that I am, I figured I could be anything I wanted to be, including straight. So, I married Laurie, and for a long time we were happy. Built this place together. But eventually it became harder to deny who I really was. Who I am. So I told her. It was really the best thing to do, for both of us." Mike says that she must have been really upset. I'm sure no more than any other woman who finds out her entire life is based on a cowardly lie. David continues, "When we split up, I promised myself that I would always be honest with myself, and I would always be honest with whomever I loved." And then the clincher: "Which is why, I guess, I'm telling you." Aww, how sweet. And after only two dates, too. RUN. Mike's all teary-eyed, as David kisses him. And then he does that thing that someone on the boards noticed, which is grasp the side of Mike's face, EMPHASIZING how much he wants Mike, which I know he doesn't because he's not gay. And who the hell kisses for ten seconds without opening their mouths once? Two Straight Men Kissing in a Country Cabin, that's who. Jaysus. Mike's, like, crying or something. Hal Sparks trying to hold back tears looks like Hal Sparks trying to pass a kidney stone. Not pretty, and not believable. Mike blames the tears on the fresh air. I blame it on bad acting.
Babylon! IT'S STUDS AND SUDS! YAY! Just like Emmett promised, a big vat pours soapy bubbles on the dance floor, as mostly naked HDGBs manage to keep the beat while sloshing around. Brian and Ted are on the sidelines, watching. Have you ever noticed that whenever they're in the club, they're usually the most dressed people in there? What, they don't think we'll be able to pick them out unless they have their shirts on? Well, Emmett took his off, at least -- but we already know Peter Paige is gay. Unlike Chris Potter. I know, I know, I'm obsessing. GOD, he is SO. NOT. GAYYYYYYY! As if they can hear me, Brian asks Ted why he's not going in. Ted asks Brian why he's not going in. Brian snorts, "I already took a bath today, but if you want to jump in, I promise I won't look." Ha! Ted sighs, "You and everybody else." Poor Eeyore. Emmett's having a blast, dancing cheek to cheek -- and cheek to cheek -- with a HDGB in a yellow wetsuit. "Look what I found!" he calls to Brian and Ted. "My rubber ducky!" Love him. Brian laughs at Emmett, and then calls the whole thing pathetic. Ted's surprised, he thought Studs and Suds was Brian's most favorite thing. Outside of himself, of course. Brian retorts, "What, a bunch of fags sliding around in their shorts?" Ted replies that it must not be as much fun without Michael, Brian's "little audience of one. But as the French philosopher Roquefort, or was it Camembert said: It is not enough to trick. Your best friend must also go home alone." Ted's got your number, Brian. Phone's ringing. Pick it up. Brian tells Ted to fuck off: "I haven't thought about Michael once," he snarls, stalking out. "Well, what do you know," Ted calls after him, "Just like when he's here!" Word. Oh, and FYI: Roquefort and Camembert are really two types of cheese, so Brian actually does have a lot in common with them.