Gaycation is a mix of a travel show and a deep-dive documentary that feels incredibly personal. It follows Elliot Page and best friend Ian Daniel as they head out to explore what life is actually like for LGBTQ+ people in different corners of the globe. Instead of just hitting the tourist spots, they really get into the nitty-gritty of the local cultures in Japan, Brazil, and Jamaica. The first season is made up of four main episodes, each about 45 minutes long, and it wraps up with a heavy special episode about the tragic Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. In Japan, the pair hangs out in Tokyo , looking at the weird mix of high-tech living and old-school traditions. They check out a place where you can actually rent a friend, party in the tiny bars of Ni-chōme, and even see a "friendship marriage" at a temple. The most intense part is when a young guy uses their cameras to finally tell his mom he's gay, which shows how much pressure there is to just "fit in"...
The whole thing focuses on Jeffrey Mundt and Joey Banis and a famous murder on 4th Street. Back in 2009, Jamie Carroll was killed in a way that sounds like something out of a movie. In a neighborhood called Old Louisville, the couple invited Carroll over for a night of drugs and a threesome, but it ended up being fatal for Carroll. To make things even crazier, the couple buried his body right in their own basement. The big question is: who actually did it? The documentary looks at how either man could have been the killer. Part one gives us the background. Mundt had moved from Chicago and bought an old house to fix up. Banis, his boyfriend, struggled with drugs and had scary mood swings; he was quiet normally, but meth made him aggressive and loud. The two of them were obsessed with recording videos and audio of themselves while they were high. The victim, Carroll, was also into drugs and BDSM. Part two covers the big trials from 2013 and shows some recordings that haven't been heard before. In the end, Banis was found guilty of murder and got life in prison. Mundt was found not guilty of the murder itself, but he did get in trouble for hiding evidence and theft. He got eight years, served four, and hasn't been seen in public since.
The people making this had a great story to work with, but they seemed too focused on showing off "quirky" people from the neighborhood. They spent so much time on interviews with random people that had nothing to do with the crime, which made the documentary feel way too long. I honestly didn't understand why these interviews were included at all. We had to listen to local people describe the city’s real estate history and even talk about seeing ghosts, which added nothing to the actual murder case. It’s okay to have a little bit of local flavor, but this went way overboard. The way the facts are presented is very roundabout. The reason they even got caught is bizarre and is a big reason why this case became so famous. They both blamed each other for the killing, but both admitted to helping hide the body because they claimed the "real murderer" threatened to kill them. When they went to court, they testified against each other. The show uses split screens to show how their stories were almost exactly the same, just with the names swapped.
One big thing missing is that nobody from the families of the victim or the couple was interviewed. Instead, we just get some friends and old coworkers. In my opinion, the constant talking from random neighbors really ruins the flow and made me lose interest. The documentary doesn't really give us any real answers. We still don't know exactly why it happened. Was it jealousy, a sex game gone wrong, or something to do with the house being "haunted"? I’m still waiting for someone to turn this into a proper scripted series. (5.5/10)
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