Gay TV Recap: The Superheroes get a look at Parthenon's booty

On last night's Who Wants to Be a Superhero, gay hero Parthenon yet again managed to avoid the bottom three (which he has yet to find himself in, if I'm not mistaken) but did get a slap on the wrists for ... well, for screaming like a girl during the challenge. Considering how gay last week's episode was, it was a bit disappointing to see Stan Lee come down on Parthenon for his mid-challenge shriek, as it seemed like they were saying that he needed to butch up or ship out. But at this point it's so obvious that the gay hero's Dudley Do-Right image is a tough nut for the competition to crack, and that the show is having a hard time finding anything about him to criticize.

Case in point: the "secrets from the heroes' past" segment, in which Doctor Black Party unearthed embarrassing information about the heroes to one another and to Stan Lee.

First up is Whip Snap, who apparently "borrowed" a friend's car (Stan says she stole it) and slept on the roof of a girl that she had a crush on. Okay, that's kind of embarrassing, yes. And a bit stalkery. But as much as we love Whip Snap for her tenacity, it's not like emotional stability has ever been her strong suit in this competition.

Hygena, meanwhile, harbors the secret wish to take burlesque dancing classes. Considering they teach pole dancing at my local gym and it's flocked to by all sorts of women, I don't see this as being any kind of terrible secret. Although I do love when Doctor Black Party holds up a feather boa as a clue to her secret and Hygena looks at it quizzically for a moment before guessing "...College?"

Hyper-Strike, meanwhile, got fired from a circus because he couldn't do a hands-free kip off of a gym floor during a performance. The best part about this is that it's communicated via a video of his circus pals pantomiming the event, which serves as a good reminder that, unlike the other heroes, Hyper's home life is actually less normal than running around in tights in a loft with a bunch of glitter-covered strangers.

We come to Parthenon and I actually get a little worried. First off, Doctor Black Party calls him "Fancy Pants," which is a bit odd considering all the men are wearing Spandex leggings. We see a video of Parthenon's partner at the gates of his house, and he notes that every room in the house has its own theme. Oh dear ... are we going to see Parthenon's dungeon? Or his Precious Moments room? This could get ugly.

Parthenon seems amused by all this, and Black Party's clue of a pirate ship doesn't seem to bother him, either. Finally, we see that the Room of Shame is a pirate-themed room ... meaning it has a trunk on the floor. That's about it. We're not talking planks and poop decks and parrots or anything ... just a Pier 1 Imports coffee table trunk at the foot of the guest bed. THE HORROR!

But then he goes to open the trunk, and I get nervous again. Oh no. What if Parthenon's a collector of vintage porn? Or human skulls? Or Pyrex? This could be dangerous. He notes that this is where Parthenon "keeps his booty" and I get even more nervous. It's 20 years of Tiger Beat magazine! It's a life-sized paper mache Joseph Gordon-Levitt! It's ...

Actually, what is that? An afghan? A Space Bag with his winter sweaters? Whatever it is, it's not interesting, and it's not booty. So Parthenon's big secret is that he's a gay man who has strange decorating tastes? They are really reaching here. Black Party notes that Parthenon's fascination with piracy indicates a dark streak, and even Stan isn't buying that one. You can tell that he thinks it's more likely that Parthenon has an unhealthy obsession with Crabtree & Evelyn potpourri than with pillaging and plunder.

The Defuser, on the other hand, apparently got nasty-drunk once in police training and accidentally destroyed an entire bathroom. Now that's funny. Actually, since we're on the topics of Defuser and Parthenon's booty, did anyone notice that they showed the clip of Defuser brushing dirt off Parth's heinie after the tunnel challenge like five times? These editors have it so easy.

When they get to elimination, Stan gets on Parthenon's case for his "shriek" during the shimmy-through-a-tube-with-snakes-and-CGI-spiders challenge and notes that they haven't seen enough leadership. Fair enough, although I think Parthenon had shown more leadership than most and he has won half of the challenges.

In the end it's Whip Snap that goes home, which is a shame because she really did seem to be coming into her own, as her interactions with the kids at the restaurant showed earlier in the episode. The heroes give her a warm sendoff, most telling her that they love her, and she transforms back to her civvies, where she looks really cute. But in the preview for Feedback's post-show, it looks like Snap is on a bit of a tear, going off on how she was cheated and such. Er. Maybe they should check to be sure she's not setting up camp on the roof of The Lair. Old habits die hard, you know.

In the preview for next week's episode, we get a glimpse of Parthenon doing what appears to be an old-timey soft-shoe routine with a cane in a public square. God I love this show.