Side note: castmate Chase Hutchinson joined the panel for a recent installment of Logo’s hit Canadian chat show 1 Girl, 5 Gays. The full episode should be viewable on their website shortly, if it isn’t already.
Although Ashley’s behavior can be infuriating, particularly as she tends to view gay men as flouncing fashion accessories, she once again spends most of her screen time calling her friends out for their bad behavior and encouraging them to treat each other with more respect. Give the girl some credit; even Mike Ruiz on The A-List: New York, by far the most grounded and relatively sane member of that motley crew, elects to stay out of their internecine warfare and doesn’t try to mend fences.
ALD was filmed over the summer when Texas was suffering from massive wildfires. Ashley reveals she will be traveling to San Antonio for a few days to volunteer her time with Brighter Days, an animal-rescue nonprofit that needed help managing horses injured or displaced by the conflagration. For assistance, she ropes Levi, who readily agrees, as well as Phillip, Taylor and James. The latter complains in a confessional interview that Ashley considers him a “project” rather than a friend because she keeps trying to expose him to sunlight, fresh air and at least three consecutive hours of sobriety. As usual, he’s unappreciative and scornful of her efforts.
Nobody is particularly thrilled by the idea of that particular mix of personalities in close proximity shoveling horse patties. But Ashley remains chipper. Taylor the Terrible is unhappy with having to watch Chase get drunk on Levi’s intoxicating cowboy pheromones—that is, until he learns that Chase will be out of town attending a wedding. How convenient! I still believe that if ALD returns for a second season Taylor deserves his own melodramatic telenovela flourish on the soundtrack for moments just like this one. You can see the wheels turning towards deviousness in his brain. Praise Jeebus!
Before his sets off on his latest path of destruction, there is a short scene between Taylor and Ashley when they engage in Bible study on a park bench and she flatly calls him out for plotting revenge. Taylor tells her whatever she wants to hear, which is to implore Jeebus for salvation. In fact, Ashley prays for Taylor’s heart to receive a facial and for her own to be given a pedicure of love and freshness. I’m not kidding; even Taylor can barely keep his eyes from rolling out of his head and bible-thumping is part of his shtick.
Throughout this episode, poor Chase continues to allow his feelings for Levi to deepen despite blatantly obvious and repeated demonstrations of the cowboy’s utter lack of interest in a romantic partnership or even exclusive dating. A steady stream of warnings from his friends has no effect. Chase even becomes tearful during a conversation with Ashley as he expresses his envy for the kind of relationship she has with her husband.
Oh, Chase. This will not go well for you. Ashley knows it; Phillip knows it. Even oblivious James can see you are destined for heartbreak and he can’t usually see past the end of his own nose. Levi gives no indication whatsoever that he feels inclined towards monogamy and commitment, even when Chase offers to invest in his Inchwear line of bathing suits and scanties. And yet still Chase hopes for the impossible. Those cowboy pheromones are more puzzlingly addictive than anyone realizes.
Taylor is obviously in the throes of his own addiction to Levi as demonstrated by his ongoing plans for revenge against Chase. He can’t get over that the pair fooled around behind his back when he and Levi were supposed to be “monogamously dating.” As the episode opens, he is on a date and flirting with Chase’s best friend Mohammed. Everyone can see right through Taylor’s rather weak plan to wound Chase by using and abusing his pal and they’re kind of weirded out by it; even the hunky Mohammed knows he is being manipulated and appears to gamely go along. This subplot is quickly dropped; it’s possible it was filmed earlier in the season and jammed into this episode, but who can tell?
Another of this season’s subplots has detailed the half-hearted attempts by insecure partyboy James to find something to occupy his time as he wrestles with his rich-kid ennui over a sheltered life of no pressure or responsibility. He gamely took a stab at nightclub promotion for a couple of episodes. Now he’s decided to become an actor. His first audition is for an indie comedy called “Chubby Chasers” where he vies for the role of a twink who is sexually obsessed with men with extra poundage. Naturally, he has a flask on hand for liquid courage. It appears to go well for him. But does anyone believe James has the mental fortitude for an actor’s steady diet of rejection and judgment? Ashley, to her credit, doesn’t express this sentiment. She offers to hook him up with an acting coach and gives him support and praise for trying to do something constructive with his time.
At the horse rescue, Ashley and Levi dive into their duties with vigor. The straight-talkin’ women who run Brighter Days call out Levi immediately for wearing a cowboy hat, which he laughs off with good humor. They mistakenly assume he is a poser in cowboy drag but it’s James, Phillip and Taylor who whine and complain about the sun, the dirt and everything else. They also stop frequently to text.
Afterwards, they head out for dinner and drinks—Ashley in all seriousness asks Jeebus to bless their margaritas—where Taylor and Levi reflexively fall back into trading insults. “It’s like they’re fucking each other with words,” James observes. Taylor the Terrible’s casual racism also resurfaces when he jokes that he doesn’t “speak Mexican” after Ashley thanks their server in Spanish. The others are aghast. “No evening is complete without Taylor making some dumbass comment,” notes James in a confessional interview.
After dinner, Levi and James take a stroll along the river and bicker. Taylor is right to be pissed that Levi cheated on him. But Levi has good reason to be annoyed when Taylor, after a vigorous campaign of cruel put-downs, snide insults and vengeful tactics, tries to take the high road. Levi is also genuinely puzzled when Taylor expresses disappointment that Levi had failed to change his horndogging ways.
This is the same question one could pose to the besotted, bent-for-heartbreak Chase. Levi, although conflict-avoidant to a fault, has never done anything to indicate he wants commitment or monogamy with anyone. Yes, he should be more straightforward and honest. But it’s not exactly his fault if his groupies, delirious with cowboy lust, assume otherwise.
Anyway, their bickering turns to flirting and then a makeout session and a fade-to-black as they head back to Levi’s hotel room. Several nights later, back in Dallas, Levi is evasive with Chase about spending the night with Taylor despite his current lover’s obvious misgivings. “Tell me you and your two exes didn’t have a threesome,” Chase jokes. No, there were no threesomes that night… And the roundelay continues.
Next week: It’s the season finale of The A-List: Dallas! Taylor and Chase and Levi have their epic final confrontation! Taylor’s friends are pissed when he breaks bread with Ann Coulter (she remarks that gays ought to be pro-life because “liberal yuppies” will abort babies as soon as the “gay gene” is identified.) Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.
JC Adams is a Los Angeles-based writer, filmmaker and blogger of moderate renown. His first book, Gay Porn Heroes (Bruno Gmunder), was published in September. Find him on Twitter @GPTimes.
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Juan
Wow, what a ride! I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me. I’m talking about your fab recap, not the show. Hilarious, yet touching – pure gold.
Yeah – well, I’ve really enjoyed this show, I hope they renew it. Damn, I’ve felt sorry for Taylor for awhile now and now those feelings are growing for Chase. I mean, HOW many times has Levi told him that he doesn’t see him as a boyfriend, 4? Maybe 20? He even told him that he wasn’t his type – twice. Levi likes twinks (Taylor) or muscled strippers – and hairless. Guess Chase didn’t get any of those memos.
I’m making “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker” my cell phone greeting. Poetry, baby!
Bigg
That show was offensive. MTV has really screwed their credit with our community in the eyes of a great many gay people with this trash.
timncguy
you can tell how unpopular this show is by how few comments the recaps generate each week.
bagooka
I guess this is pretty typical for A-List Dallas.
lewie
who even watches this show???? yuk
dave
EWWWWWWWWWWW
what was with that nasty fat harry guy!!!!
slanty
@lewie: Dallasites and other hicks.
RAZ
So…Being a nobody makes you an A-Lister? Geez, I should have signed up too them.
I live in the Dallas area and never heard of any of them.
RAZ
*(Oops typo) I should have signed up too then.