Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (May 2, 2008)

NOW THAT WHOLE VAMPIRES ARE HOMOEROTIC THING IS STARTING TO MAKE SENSE
I've never been terribly fond of vampire stories — all that blood makes me want to put my head between my knees — so I never really got into the whole biting-each-other-as-a-metaphor-for-sex thing as was supposedly the case with Interview with the Vampire and whatnot. But AfterElton.com reader Avalon tipped me off to check out "Fated to Pretend", last week's episode of the CBS vampire drama Moonlight.

To nutshell the episode for you, Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin) was a vampire who recently found a cure, but now to save some babe he digs (I think), he's got to get hisself turned back into a Spike-wannabe. Naturally, he turns to his good friend and fellow vamp Josef Konstantin (Jason Dohring of Veronica Mars) to do the deed with him. And by that, I mean bite him and then feed Mick some of Josef's blood. How hot is that? Actually, as you'll see from the screencaps below, pretty darn hot.

Alex O'Loughlin

Yeah, I kind of get that look when my neck is getting nuzzled.

Jason Dohring

Kudos to the show for not shying away from the eroticism between our two blood-suckers. You can watch the whole episode here.

COLD CASE'S "FOREVER BLUE", IT WASN'T
This week CBS aired "In Heat", the Criminal Minds episode about a gay serial killer I mentioned several weeks ago. So how was it? A pretty mixed bag, frankly. Had this aired in 1998, instead of 2008, it would have been pretty remarkable. And had it aired before Cold Case's wonderful "Forever Blue" episode in 2006, it would have been an okay episode. And if the show had an actual gay character among it's seven or so regular characters (pictured below) or, heck, if CBS had even one regular gay character as part of their entire line-up, I'd be inclined to praise the episode's virtues rather than criticize its flaws. But none of those things are true, so I'm inclined to be somewhat annoyed.

To nutshell (today's word of the day, boys and girls) the episode for you, someone is murdering men traveling by themselves in Miami. The killer turns out to be a young man whose father is so homophobic that the poor fellow developed a variation of a split personality disorder where, since he hates himself so much for being gay, he takes on the personalities of men he kills in order to feel better about himself. (There are all sorts of plot holes here that I won't bother to mention.)

Yes, the show has several of the main character's offer up nice statements that being gay isn't something to be ashamed of (much less reason to become a serial killer), the father is played as a raging, villainous homophobe, and the friend of one of the closeted dead gay men opines about how he wished his friend had told him he was gay because there was nothing he could've cared less about. How very Public Service Announcement of them.

But the show also resorted to some pretty cheesy cliches such as when they did "flashbacks" to the victims before they got picked up and killed. Whenever this happened, the show went into slow motion with everything suddenly tinted a seedy red as shirtless guys eyed hungrily each other while others twirled their shirts over their heads. You know, just a typical gay night out.

When one of the victims is picked up by the killer in real-time (not a flashback) at a pool party, he first offers up all sorts of sexual double-entendres before he so willingly runs off to have sex with some stranger he doesn't know and who is giving off seriously weird vibes. You know how us gay guys will do anything to get laid. This is after getting high, of course, because it's just not gay sex without drugs. And when he tries to unzip the killer's pants for a little action, he gets punched in the face before getting strangled.

So on one hand, we've got characters saying being gay is good! Being homophobic is bad! Meanwhile, we've got closeted gay men cheating on their fiances while out of town (I forgot to mention that part), got promiscuous gay men having sex at the drop of a hat, gay men doing drugs, and gay men getting beaten up and murdered. Hmm, why don't I feel more grateful for Criminal Minds pro-gay message? Just a crank, I guess.

Oh, and for the record, the show also portrayed three different romantic heterosexual relationships including Shemar Moore scoring with a hot chick as the gay guy is hauled off to jail. Gosh, I just don't know where the average American gets their distorted view of gay folks from.