Cal and Thom are back. Almost together. At the end of the first season of Eastsiders, the steamy black comic web series, Cal had moved out of the Silverlake condo he shared with Thom his boyfriend of four years after he discovered he had been unfaithful to him. Although they are still living in separate apartments they have begun dating each other again. And other handsome men. All at the same time.Evidently it’s just an experiment to open up their relationship to determine exactly what sort of couple they should be, and also to try and resolve some of the trust issues which just will not go away. Whether this is a good idea that will work has yet to be established, however the string of men that join them in bed as their third wheel may range from sweet to seriously deranged, but they are all as hot as hell with their clothes on or off. It is California after all.
Others around the couple are also rather frenetically trying to get their own acts together. Ian has broken up with Kathy and so he replaces her in his bed with (another pretty Asian) Vera who has her wife of her own, who just happens to be Jeremy’s sister. For those of you who missed Season 1, you should know that Jeremy was the ‘other man’ who came between Cal & Thom …… and it is easy to see why. He’s now fallen on hard times and has moved in with his sister and bringing his never ending stash of marijuana with him. And talking of sisters, Cal’s own manic one has turned up on his doorstep after being dumped by her boyfriend, who she immediate replaces with Ian …. but without the sex. Then there is an aspiring drag queen (played by drag queen Willam Belli) who has his own thing going with the eccentric owner of the gay bar that they all hang out at.
Confused? No need to be. Although our favorite gay web series packs in a lot of plot it has the advantage of being both extremely well written, and also performed by an extremely talented cast. ‘Eastsiders’ is the brainchild of actor/writer/director Kit Williamson, better known for playing Ed on TV’s Mad Men, and who takes the role of Cal. Williamson’s incisive take on the complexities of contemporary gay relationships makes for compelling viewing as he also imbues his scripts with just the right balance of humor and wit. He gets brownie points too for the fact that he not only avoids gratuitous nudity, which seems to be almost de rigour these days in LGBT movies, but he establishes that the many bedroom scenes are extremely intimate and sensual. Willamson is a great story teller and not only ensures that there is a natural fluidity between all the episodes but leaves us dangling at the end of each one to be sure we will come back to find what happens next. More importantly with this second series he has raised the ante even further in terms of sheer professionalism and has continued to set the pace to prove that a low budget does not mean that what ends up on our screens is anything less than first rate.
Credit to the great cast that he has assembled that includes Van Hansis (‘One Life to Live’) playing Thom, Constance Wu (‘Stephanie Daley’) as Kathy, John Halbach (‘Wallflower’ TV Series) as Ian, Matthew McKelligon (‘Interior Leather Bar’) as Jeremy, Brianna Brown (‘Devious Maids’) as Hillary.
Eastsiders Series 1 turned out to be one of the most successful gay web series ever, and there is every possibility that Series 2 might even just top this.
