"Medium" and "Saturday Night Live": The gay serial killer is alive and well on NBC

Hey, guys! Grab your little dog Precious, pop some popcorn, and settle in: It's creepy gay killer week on NBC!

If you tuned into Saturday Night Live this past week, you're obviously not just a serial killer, but a masochist, to boot. Nothing else explains why anyone would suffer through 90 minutes of watching Christopher Walken read cue cards to a cast that seems openly terrified of him. Yes, I do kind of love the guy, but this was painful.

Aside from the general unevenness of the episode overall, one skit in particular stood out as legitimately creepy: the office party skit. In the scene, Jason Sudeikis is leaving his job and his office throws a party for him. One co-worker, Eric (Walken), seems to be a little too fond of the departing colleague despite the fact that they've never officially met, and in the end (after giving him a mix CD and a painted portrait) goes out to choke the man to death in the parking lot ... out of "love".

Christopher Walken in a different, though equally painful, skit from SNL

Best-case reading: That creepy guy in your office is probably secretly in love with you, bro. Worst-case reading: Gay guys aren't capable of understanding love if it doesn't involve throttling a straight man to death after giving him gifts. Um, can we have Target Lady back, or something?

Maybe on its own it wasn't that bad. Uninspired? Sure. Predictable? Yeah. But come on, we're talking about SNL here, the same show that later aired the THIRD agonizing installment of "Laser Cats". It's not like we're expecting miracles.

But last night's Medium offered the second gay predator of the week for the network, this time a publisher who used one of his author's books on seducing hot young men to lure unsuspecting hunks to their increasingly violent deaths.

Never mind that the plot twist (we're supposed to think it's the author herself, guest star Rosanna Arquette) makes absolutely no sense whatseover given the setup. What, were all of these victims gay? Otherwise, how were they seduced by a man? And if they were gay, why were the cops holding a female possible perp under suspicion in the first place? But even more ridiculous is the fact that the gay character shows up literally in the last 5 minutes of the episode to hit on a straight detective, unwittingly reveal his leering, gay-flavored guilt (in the longest elevator ride in history), and be put away.

Rosanna Arquette totally didn't kill that gay guy

To their credit, there's no big deal made out of the fact that the killer is gay within the world of the show, meaning that the detective doesn't kick into gay panic mode when he gets hit on by the leering gay executive. But come on ... why did there need to be a gay twist in the first place? We learn the identity of the killer literally seconds after the detective finishes saying,  "well, all the women at the publishing company have alibis, so...", so it's not like there's any real suspense here. The fact that the killer was gay was utterly inorganic to the story and the arc of the episode, and seemed to be added for completely exploitative purposes.

You might read the above and think I'm nuts for getting upset about a skit in a show nobody watches anymore and a three-minute scene at the tail-end of a wildly ridiculous supernatural cop show. But when you compare it to the number of positive gay representations on NBC in the past week (none), these two killer queers are worth noting. If we're to believe NBC chief Ben Silverman's claims that gay visibility will be improving under his watch, we need to see some proof.

If you want to watch the Medium episode (to see the former Susan-Seeker do some pretty hot vamping, more than anything), you can check it out in its entirety here. Interestingly, the office party skit is not available on NBC's video streaming site, Hulu, although several other skits from this week's episode are. Maybe they liked it as much as we did.

(Big thanks to reader Ed for posting about the Medium ep!)