Hunter Parrish

Weeds continued bringing rich rewards for gay viewers in this week’s knock-out Season Four finale. For one thing, it took the occasion of Nancy’s eldest son Silas becoming of legal age to offer up a totally gratuitous shot of the backdoor variety, showing off Hunter “Look at Me, I’ve Been Working Out With a Personal Trainer!” Parrish in all his bare-assed, muscle-toned glory.

(BTW, Parrish just joined the cast of Broadway’s Spring Awakening and received a glowing review in the New York Times, which, if I’m reading it correctly, can be summed up: “He can’t really sing, but he sure is pretty.”)

As if that weren’t enough, the big gay pay-off of last week continued yielding gratifying storyline developments, as formerly barely-there FBI Agent Till continued to be very much there and a central part of the mounting action.

For all the details and to discuss the episode, click on through the jump...

Early in this season of Weeds, a semi-recurring character was surprisingly outed when we learned that Captain Till’s partner was actually his partner. As in, "tub of lube on the nightstand, making out to a pop song during an episode-ending montage" type of partner.

The scene ignited a debate on the site, including on Michael and Brent’s vlog, about its purpose. Was it thrown in for mere shock value? Or was there a more strategic storyline being set up? As weeks went by with these characters relegated to “barely there” status, it seemed like the former.

And then came this week’s episode, "Till We Meet Again", in which the gay set-up paid off big time, and even managed to involve the show’s other “barely there” gay character, Sanjay (Maulik Pancholy).

That sound you hear is Michael shouting, “Ha! Told ya so!”

Find out what went down — and why no one should ever underestimate the power of gaydar — after the jump.

After this week's tragic Project Runway, Brian and I had to commiserate with each other immediately afterwards. Here’s an excerpt from our IM chat we thought you’d enjoy. And please join the conversation yourself! Oh, major spoilers below if you haven’t watched yet.

Brian Juergens: Dude! How sad was that?!
Steven Frank: Dude! I'm totally guzzling vodka in sorrow. What a sad day for us gays.
BJ: I’m expecting it to start raining sequins any minute. Forreal.
SF: And the ultimate insult -- Mighty Joe Straight wins????
BJ: I know!. Tonight's episode was brought to you by the letter IRONY. All around.
SF: How terrified did he look to have to be near drag queens?
BJ: But he found his inner bitch. Although are you as scared as I am to be at his house this Halloween? It's gonna be all CATCH A PREDATOR up in there.
SF: Those poor little girls! Daddy's hiding their candy … Varla Jean so saved his ass on this challenge, IMO. How upset are you about your poor boy Keith?

Joe and Chris March

BJ: Eh, he needed it. He was getting boring. Tough love!
SF: And the dress was awfully Cruella DeVille through a paper shredder.
BJ: It was a temp in a paper shredder!
SF: Heh … I feel for my boy Daniel. It's bad enough to be picked on by straight guys. But RuPaul? What happened to the nice guidance counselor who was so good to Jan Brady?

Last night’s Ugly Betty, “A Thousand Words by Friday,” was the saddest episode yet. And I don’t mean because anything particularly sad happened. I’m singing the Betty blues because it’s looking to be the last new episode we’re going to get in a long while.

It’s particularly painful because the show’s been on a real creative high lately. This week was filled with reminders of everything that makes this such a wonderful, totally unique series, and why our TV options will feel so paltry now that it’s gone:

1) It’s still the gayest show in town. At the start of the episode, a beautiful stranger played by Gabrielle Union approaches Daniel in a bar. She asks him to dance, claiming she’s trying to make her thug of a boyfriend jealous, and then wonders why Daniel’s not at all worried about getting pummeled.

Daniel: Your boyfriend’s making out with another dude.

And just like that, the camera cuts to two tattooed bikers going at it, hot and heavy, a gay kiss in the first minutes of a “family hour” primetime show. It was a funny surprise, but also a reminder of how Betty routinely manages to feature gay and gay-friendly characters within its world.

A similar moment came when Alexis casually referenced her transgender support group to Daniel. We’ve moved past the family conflicts that Alexis’ surgery had initially ignited; it’s simply a part of who she is now, not the central drama in her life. (At the same time, mention of a support group, the first we’ve heard of it, emphasized that even for someone as seemingly self-possessed as Alexis, it’s not always a walk on the catwalk.)

But what makes this not just a show with gay characters but a gay old time is the exhilarating way every detail – the set decoration, camerawork, costumes, music, campy dialogue – brings out a gay sensibility in the show’s look and feel unlike anything else on TV right now. It’s like watching an early Almodóvar movie unfold on your TV screen week after week.

With its occasional glimpses of steamy telenovelas on the Suarez Family TV, Ugly Betty has never hidden its affinity for the soap operatic. They’ve done the coma and amnesia thing, and last night it was time for the obligatory trial.

While there were no “Joan Collins walks into the courtroom” shockers, it was at least mercifully short and finally put an end to the whole Fey Sommers murder plot that’s been lingering since the pilot. I’m grateful because the Meade family and their problems never hold much interest for me, although I really like Judith Light and am looking forward to seeing what she'll do next, now that she’s free of orange jumpsuits and Chained Heat innuendo.

The best thing about the trial was seeing guest stars Paul McCrane (a.k.a. E.R.’s evil Dr. Romano), and Barry Bostwick as dueling attorneys. Which meant we got to see the gay guy from Fame go head to head with bisexual Brad from Rocky Horror. If either of them had started singing (“I want to go crazy like those dogs in the yard” or “Dammit, Janet, I love you”), I think I might have become as deliriously giddy as Betty during her 48-hour bender.

Betty spent most of the episode tripped out of mind, having spritzed herself with frog venom perfume that Fey had used to try to kill off Claire. Suddenly, Betty was acting just like Lisa Simpson after she drank the acid-laced water at DuffWorld and got all “I am the lizard queen! I can see the music!”

America Ferrara did such a good job acting stoned, and the show used music, camera angles, and trippy costume designs so effectively to show her POV, that I started to feel kind of queasy myself. It was like watching a Skittles commercial drawn out for 45 groovy minutes.

In one of the best-ever lines on Ugly Betty, Hilda once referred to the Mode offices as being “like a gay version of Star Trek.” Watching last night’s new episode, I thought she might be onto something. There was something very sci-fi about the way Marc managed to appear in so many scenes, as if he’d figured out a way to teleport into other characters’ storylines.

The extra dose of Marc - plus a Justin visit to Mode (more on that later) - made this one of the strongest episodes this season, a welcome relief after the recent creative slumpette and holiday hiatus.

The episode kicked off with Marc asking Wili to “turn around and bend over.” While Marc claimed this was something he never thought he’d say to a woman, I bet he says that to all the boys. He was in the midst of giving Wili hormone injections in preparation for her plan to propagate Bradford’s demon spawn, leading the dragon lady to act uncharacteristically “hormotional.” When Wili went digging through the freezer, I assumed she was searching for the half-pint of Bradford sperm she was keeping on ice (giving new meaning to the flavor "Cookies and Cream"), but she was merely on a hormone-induced binge.

While Marc, accustomed to giving Wili injections thanks to all the botox sessions, was fine with the hormone stuff, the more graphic elements of artificial insemination had him visibly grossed out. His expressions of nausea and disgust while overhearing Wili with her doctor were priceless, especially when Wili interrupted their cell phone call to bark at her doctor, “What is the hold-up down there? Last time I was in stirrups this long, I brought home a blue ribbon from Palm Beach equestrian.”

On Survivor, the reunion specials offer the pleasure of seeing people who clearly loathe each other pretending (badly) that they don’t any more, as well as after-the-fact insights into the hugely misguided thinking behind their failed strategic decisions.

That’s something Top Chef can’t really replicate -- how interesting would it really be to hear reflections along the lines of “I guess in retrospect I really should have cooked that chicken all the way through” -- so the only real interest I had in watching the second reunion special this season was confirmation that it wasn’t just a horrible dream and Hung had in fact won. (Part of me was hoping we’d actually get a “do-over” challenge here, because it’s not like this show has proven itself above that kind of blatant disregard for established procedure.) Oh, and I also wanted to see if Dale is still cute. Happily, the answer is "Yes," but sadly, it’s also "Yes" to the Hung question as well.

The reunion kicks off with this very topic, as Bravo Andy (a.k.a. “Brandy”) asks if the right chef won. The only one to answer is tellingly the person who spent the least amount of time with him, Sandee, who says, Hung was “the one to beat,” apparently forgetting about the other 13 cheffersons she also wasn’t able to beat. Brandy pushes the point and directly asks if Hung should have won and is met with a show of hands. These are not, I suspect, hands raised in support of Hung but more likely requests for permission to leave the room and barf.

I was hoping that in an hour of television that managed to find time for such urgent topics as which person Gail would like to cater her wedding, Brandy would ask Hung if there’s a special someone in his life and of what gender, or at least clarify his “I can go both ways” comment from his audition tape. No such luck. Instead, Hung is given yet another chance to defend his strategy of being an a-hole. Hung blah blah blahs about not letting feelings get in the way of competition. And Dale, bless his bandana-ed heart, pipes in here that it’s also about the kind of chef you are and says he’s the type of chef who’s going to help out the person next to him, whether it’s in the restaurant kitchen or in a competition.

We’ve made it through Clay, Sandee, Micah, two Saras, and a bunch of other people I don’t really remember or care about. We’ve also made it through two wars, IQF, the Smurf Village, disasters on sea and air, dinner at the Elks, and dinner made from elks. And now, we’ve finally made it to Top Chef: Miami: Aspen, and it’s going to be coming to you (almost) live. I’m a liveblogging virgin, so please be kind. And if you can’t be kind, please be quiet.

For the occasion, I’ve lined up a festive meal for myself of an applecore amuse bouche, vanilla lobster tail, reinterpreted meatloaf, raw jerk chicken, broccolini, prosciutto cigars, black-and-blue elk, yogurt cheesy poofs, and of course everyone’s favorite -- salmon -- all stored in the fabulous, handy Glad family of products. (There you go, Glad people. I did it just like you asked, so you can go ahead and send me that check now.) And of course I’ve got my big bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin (ditto for you Bombay). I plan on drinking whenever Padma does, so who knows if I’ll even be able to type after the Quickfire. This should be, if not coherent, at least interesting.

Tonight all our Top Chef questions will be answered. Will Casey’s frog Grandmama have a Pan-Asian family recipe to help the perky Rachel-lookalike to victory? Will Chef Tom like the taste of Hung, if the Robochef starts, as directed, putting more of himself in every bite? Will Dale remember to count how many judges there are and make enough entrees? And most importantly, where is Ted and what have they done to him?

Across the blogosphere, Hung or Casey are the odds-on favorites, but here, we’ll only let ourselves celebrate if the self-proclaimed “Big Gay Chef” wins. He might not be crowned Top Chef, but here at AfterElton.com, Dale will always be Top.

Liveblogging starts after the jump a few minutes before 10PM EDT!

Finally we’ve made our way to Aspen, the appeal of which I have to admit is largely lost on me. I’m more on the Eva Gabor end of the Green Acres spectrum, and all the John Denver outdoorsy porn shots in the world – snowcapped mountains, gurgling rivers, and all that fresh air crap – aren’t going to change that.

Bravo kept calling this “the first part of the finale.” I kept calling it the “second to last episode,” because other than the fact it was in a different location and the four remaining cheffersons had had a relaxing month off – as signified by Dale’s reddish-to-blondish ‘hawk shift – it was pretty much more of same challenge-wise.

The Quickfire Challenge was at the “Frying Pan River,” which sounds way too cutesy to be a real place, more like a reference from a lesser-known verse of “Puff the Magic Dragon.” And when I saw the giant balloon that would take them there, I naturally assumed Howie was around, because how else do you explain all that hot air?

The challenge focused on using freshly caught trout and preparing it in just 20 minutes, and frankly, anyone who has to gut and clean a fish deserves an award of some type. On the less disgusting side, the guest judge was “badass” (Hung’s words) fish savant, Eric Ripert of the famed Le Bernadin, who, unlike the smug, insufferable Frenchman of the Daniel variety, was more the handsome, sensuous Frenchman of cologne and hair salon ads.

First off, my apologies that this Recap is a few days late and on the short side. I was off celebrating the Jewish New Year, praying my hardest that Bravo wouldn't air any more surprise "Do-Overs" or "Watch Nothing Happen" specials to prolong this already interminable season.

This episode is called "Snacks on a Plane," and while that's a cutesy enough pun, I question the wisdom of referencing a notorious example of a massively over-hyped piece of schlock entertainment that failed miserably in terms of actual execution and performance. Do you really want us to start connecting those dots, Bravo? What's it going to be next week, "Fishtar"?

Most weeks begin with a few of the cheffersons fondly recalling the most recent bootee and talking about how much they'll be missed. But now they just skip right past that part; they can do that because this week it didn't happen in the first place. Really, what could any of them have said positively about Howie, short of, "I'll really miss the guy, because he made me look so talented/sane/skinny by comparison."

But to my great surprise, by the end of this episode, I found myself missing him. A lot. As I alluded to last week, the fun of reality shows isn't so much having an underdog to root for but a bulldog like Howie to root against. While I'd be crushed if anyone but Dale ultimately wins, I don't find any of the remaining cheffersons all that hateful or, to be totally honest, all that interesting to watch.

Now I'm venting all of my indignation at the people I think most deserving of elimination — the judges. As many forums and blog posts have addressed, judging criteria on this show is spotty at best, and a complete desecration of the concept of logic at worst. But this week exhibits the judging to be not only ridiculously arbitrary but downright nasty in a way I found decidedly unappetizing. You'll see what I mean.