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Stop! That! Train!

By Golu
Coming out of the same studio that gave us RuPaul's Drag Race, and stacked with a whole crew of former contestants, Stop! That! Train! plays like RuPaul basically taking a bow for the entire franchise she's built. It's not really a gay film in the traditional sense, but with so many drag stars from Ru's shows popping up alongside a few cameos from well known out gay actors, I figured it earns a spot on this blog anyway. The whole thing is completely over the top, packed with GenZ slang, loud flashy visuals, and humor that's constantly winking at you knowing how ridiculous it is. Going in you'd assume it's meant to be a laugh riot, and a lot of critics online seem to be eating it up, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I've never really been someone who vibes with campy silly stuff like this, so honestly my reaction doesn't surprise me one bit. The setup follows Tess and DeeDee, two low level stewardesses who sneak onto the fancy Glamazonian E...
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TBH (Czech Web Series)

By Golu
TBH, To Be Honest, is NOT a gay web series. This has a very strong gay sub-plot but the show is mostly about teenage sin a high school and what happens in the aftermath of a shooting in one of the high schools in Brno, where the rules bordering on bullying are set by members of a floor hockey team and their groupies, a girl gang called Bitchez. In ten episodes, Czech Television’ s first original streaming series tells the story of searching for boundaries in the painful world of being a teenager, during a time of manipulative social media. The series has 10 episodes which run from 11 to 15 and a half minutes each

In a high school, one day a stranger arrives shooting at students. Maja is an activist who live-streamed her fight for survival and now must deal with the resulting sudden internet fame. Unfortunately, she also streamed the awkward moments between the popular Nessa and her boyfriend, floorballist Luky. Because of the attack, floral captain jumps out of the window. It turns out that the attacker is Tonda, Nessa's brother who has been bullied and the gun was a fake gun. In next ten episodes we are told through some flashbacks individual stories of these people and how the fateful day came to be and the aftermaths that followed. Tonda was buried by his floor ball team members who haven regret. Sadly his own sister doesn't see his view point Its only when Maja, the seemingly perfect girl, befriends Ness, she starts to see more viewpoints rather than just being a high school mean girl. The gay sub lot of around Luky. Luky's best friend is Pavel, who are more like fab but Luky is not sure about his sexuality. When Pavel publicly announces he is gay, his teammates have nothing to say but Kuly feels he is bi and this doesn't go well with Pavel, but thanks to push from his friends he will not let go off his love so easy. 

I absolutely loved this show. The web-series tells the story of trying to find solid ground beneath one’s feet, not only after the traumatic event, but also in the turbulent teenage years under the omnipresent eye of social media. TBH explores the themes of bullying, relationships, friendships, love, identity, and mental health at the age of vulnerability and exploration of one’s authentic self.  Why was Tonda (who was played by an extremely good looking actor) bullied in name of fun? What impact did that have on him? And the end where he admits that he would have gone through with it if he had a real gun send chills. The show reminded me a lot of one of my fav shows Skam in some ways. Being teenager is not easy. You are discovering yourself , learning things about yourself and then there are societal expectations. You dont know right from wrong, and this show portrays this brilliantly. Nothing is black or white. Things are more often than not grey and thats what we all need to learn. As expected, I was mostly excited about Paul and Luky's love story that beautifully grows from sex to friends to love to acceptance over a period of time and gave me some very warm cozy feelings. The fact that the couple looks gorgeous is amazing and the way they stand up for each other was also quite good. Irrespective of the gay sub-plot, I would highly recommend watching this show. We will all learn something from it. (7.5/10)
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