Big Brother, kinky Jonathan Bailey and Quiz Lady
Reality TV moment of the year just dropped
HIYA!
I listened to Baby It’s Christmas by Bananarama yesterday which means ‘TIS THE SEASON - officially! So while I stick on the year’s first play of Kelly Clarkson’s festive repertoire, let’s get into another busy week in popular culture…
A Big Brother eviction for the history books
On Friday, we got the most satisfying TV moment of the year.
Not since Hannah’s ceremonial pouch went red on The Traitors have I been so ecstatic, so joyful, so ready to run down the street naked over an outcome on reality television.
We’re now just over four weeks into the ITV2 reboot of Big Brother, with less than a fortnight to go until the finale. And for every tight friendship that’s formed and love(ish) triangle that’s blossomed, there have been an increasing number of conflicts (both overt and quietly insidious) that have kept things on a knife edge.
Last week, those conflicts were intense, and pretty much all of it was directed at 26-year-old Miss Universe alum Noky and 33-year-old mother-of-one Trish.
For context, the pair were roped into a Halloween twist in which they had to secretly select three housemates (Dylan, Kerry and Olivia) to face a flash eviction. Then, when said eviction took place (Kerry was chucked) and Big Brother told the rest of the group who was behind it, they were left to deal with the fallout - not least from a furious Dylan, coming at Trish with both barrels. Meanwhile, Noky’s relationship with bedmate Olivia and their extended group of cronies - including “lad’s lad” Paul and “genuinely have no memorable adjectives for him” Tom - found itself strained, leading to uncomfortable moments such as Paul pranking(?!?!) her by hiding in her empty bed(??!??!??!?!), and then giving her an abrasive “what are you staring at?” during a party at which he was deliberately courting attention. Noky and Trish are no pushovers: Trish in particular can absolutely hold her own in any discussion, and it was glorious watching her A) hand Dylan his arse on a plate, and B) accuse Paul of bullying behaviour whilst literally limboing. But their names were mud with many of their co-stars, with words like “fake”, “two-faced” and “confrontational” being thrown all over the place during subsequent nominations.
So when the four contenders for Friday’s double eviction were revealed to be Dylan, Noky, Paul and Trish, the stage was set for one hell of a referendum: did the viewers have Noky and Trish’s backs, or their adversaries’?
Look, you don’t need a middling white man to tell you how often Black women are paid dust by the British public, and Big Brother is no exception. While straight white men have often won just for being a bit ~cheeky and looking nice with their shirts off, Black women have rarely made it to the final and never finished higher than third in the civilian series (Makosi, Gina, Deborah); or worse, fourth (Tiffany ‘DAVID’S DEAD!’ Pollard) in the celeb series.
And sure enough, despite huge support for Trish and Noky all over Twitter/X during the voting period, Facebook groups were stuffed with of aaaaaaall the Greatest Hits from the misogynoir playbook. Between that and the fact that die-hard fans (myself included) haven’t really had their way in any of the eviction polls so far, it felt like any two of those four nominees could go - and while it did seem like Dylan was highly likely to be one of them, the Vote To Evict nature of the format (which makes the ‘main characters’ more vulnerable) put assertive Trish at considerable risk, too. She was certainly a presumed goner for some inside the House: Tom, dressed as a sheep (poetry!), said with absolute certainty that she’d be leaving.
As for Paul, despite the effect he clearly had on Noky, I wasn’t sure his toxic behaviour had been clocked by enough of the wider public - and if it was clocked, was it happening too late in the week?
I needn’t have worried. The public clocked it all right. Just look at this magnificent slice of television (watch on Insta here).
I’m a bit flip-floppy when it comes to live crowds, and whether it’s a good thing that the Housemates can hear so explicitly what they’re thinking. But sometimes, when a situation feels so heightened and so extreme, I want them all to know - without a shadow of a doubt - who we think is right and who we think is wrong (ref: those game-changing “get Roxy out!” chants during the final Celeb Big Brother on Channel 5).
And wow - the moment that hosts AJ Odudu and Will Best went live to the House wasn’t so much a chef’s kiss as a chef’s blowjob.
Everything was glorious: the extremities in the boos and cheers, the deafening chants of “GET PAUL OUT”… even the alphabetical order of the roll-call, meaning we very cleanly and precisely went from boo (Dylan) to cheer (Noky) to boo (Paul) to cheer (Trish). This made me crack up:
There was no need to worry about Paul sliding under the radar. He ended up getting more votes than anyone. He was kicked out to what was by far the most boo-heavy reception of the series so far; and moments later, Dylan followed.
But the best bit wasn’t seeing those two bombarded with hostility. It was seeing Trish and Noky receiving so much love. Noky, having been gaslit for much of the week, was visibly emotional at hearing so many cheers; and the moment Trish allowed herself this little smile was just wonderful.
(Of course, neither of them got much of a chance to celebrate, with fuckery from the others continuing almost instantly - but we’ll save that for another day.)
Now, obviously I don’t want Paul and Dylan’s lives to be ruined. Neither of them is an irredeemable super-villain, and I hope they - Paul especially (Dylan seems to be in full acknowledgement that his outburst over Halloween was wrong) - choose to look at what they’ve been called out for and learn from it, rather than double-down and cry about getting a bad edit, or being the victim of cancel culture.
But fuck me. That eviction really was wonderful.
The public don’t always get it right. They often get it monstrously wrong. But when it’s right, it’s unbeatable.
Now… can Trish challenge Yinrun for the win? On balance, I still think it’s unlikely - but those bookies’ odds are getting tighter and tighter…
Come for the sex scenes, stay for… the sex scenes
Let’s not kid ourselves; I didn’t take out a Paramount+ free trial to watch Fellow Travelers (American spelling) because I was intrigued by its political backdrop, or its strong critics’ reviews, or its styling of Alison Williams’ hair.
I carved time out of my week to watch it because Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey pretty graphically and pretty frequently bang in it.
Bomer plays Hawkins Fuller - not a 90s adult movie star as his name suggests, but a worker in the State Department during 1950s McCarthyism. Bailey is Tim Laughlin, an aide with whom Fuller quickly falls head-over-heels.
This is the height of the Lavender Scare, with queer people targeted left, right and centre: Hawk and Tim have to keep themselves discreet, and in the first two episodes (both out now) there are examples of LGBTQ+ characters being interrogated, eyed suspiciously, and even thrown under the bus by members of their own community.
It’s an interesting story, made even more interesting by its dual timeline: the main 1950s plot is framed by scenes in the 1980s, showing an older Hawk at home with his wife (Williams) and kids, their fun day interrupted by news that Tim is in San Francisco dying from AIDS. I’m a total sucker for a framing device, and the two timelines work well together; particularly in episode two when the men reunite after a lot of time (and, evidently, hurt) has passed.
But let’s talk about the shagging.
In the pilot alone, armpits are licked, crotches are inhaled, and Bailey puts a huge chunk of Bomer’s foot in his mouth. The sex scenes are properly sex scening - you won’t find any Hollywood-y moments here when characters fall, giggling, onto the mattress and out of shot; or times when the camera gently pans away from the action while the orchestra rises. These men are fucking. It’s dynamic, it’s realistic, and it’s just a little bit kinky.
But it’s not gratuitous. For one thing, it’s a key part of the texture of these characters’ lives that they’re able to release these primal urges with one-another, after keeping themselves strictly buttoned-up and repressed while moving around the world (even if it does feel at some points like every other character is a closet homo). The way they behave before, during and after sex is important: one of the earliest scenes shows Hawk picking up a guy in a public restroom, fucking his brains out, and turning cold as soon as he so much as asks for a lighter.
On top of that, the sex is an integral part of the power play. Bomer’s Hawk has obvious power and control over Bailey’s Tim - from the way he leads the way in the bedroom right down to the nickname (Skippy) he gives him. Tim/Skippy, in turn, is able to use that dynamic to his advantage when there’s something he wants.
Do I understand all the intricacies of the story and what exactly each of the characters does for a living? No, I do not. But the scenes between the two men are electric, and I’ll certainly remain seated to see how their polarising priorities, backgrounds and levels of status lead them towards the 1980s timeline we keep flashing forward to.
As for the sexy moments? They might be the big, attention-grabbing selling point, but they’re definitely not just there for the sake of it.
Not that I’d be complaining if they were, but you know what I mean.
(Oh, while we’re at it [!] I’d recommend this great piece by Jack King for GQ about the rise in ‘realistic’ gay boning this year; from that sequence in Passages to the lube bottle in Red White and Royal Blue.)
Quiz Lady is nonsensical fun
I watched Quiz Lady last night. It’s a new movie on Disney+ with Awkwafina and Sandra Oh as estranged sisters who team up to save their beloved dog, via participation in the TV gameshow they used to watch religiously as kids.
The story doesn’t make a great deal of sense (I couldn’t quite latch on to the logistics of their mothers’ gambling debts and the dog’s kidnap and what needs to be done when and why) but - as I’m sure you’ve already gathered from the cast and the premise - it’s a lot of fun.
I especially loved Awkwafina and Sandra Oh playing against type. The latter has proven form with dramatic material and the latter is very adept at comedy, but even so, you (or I, at least) wouldn’t guess that Awkwafina would be the archetypal “straight man” and Oh the clown in this particular double-act. But it works! And it’s such a treat.
There are loads of glorious moments, but keep an eye out especially for the very, very end. Loads of characters gets a “where are they now” screen, like the end of a biopic or a season of Real Housewives, and some of them are so dumb and so funny. Recommend!
And furthermore…
Alexandra Burke getting her moment with card-carrying stan RuPaul on last week’s Drag Race UK was just lovely. And Heartbreak On Hold as the lipsync? Went some way to making up for all the other crap lipsync choices we’ve had to sit through. 10/10.
Zara Larsson on Strictly over the weekend gave me the type of popstar-does-TV performance we just don’t often get anymore!
With the RHONY reunion now done and dusted, I’ve concluded that the reboot season (and full disclosure, I wasn’t anywhere near up-to-date with the ‘old’ seasons) was a decent start, but will need to deliver much more cohesively next year. Maybe as a result of the effort to assemble such a diverse cast, the friendships felt a little too cobbled-together and ‘early’ - I look forward to seeing how it progresses now they properly know each-other.
I DJ’d at Nadine Coyle’s Clapham Grand gig at the weekend, at which she very pointedly teased SURPRISES ARE COMING. I don’t subscribe to every rumour that does the rounds on X and the PopJustice forums, but if we are on the cusp of an Aloud reunion… I will have no choice but to simply lose my shit.
That Mean Girls reunion commercial. I have so many things to say but also, fundamentally, absolutely nothing to say.
A bop to finish…
Conan Gray is very quietly very good, isn’t he?