Support Big Gay Fiction Podcast on PatreonJeff and Will talk to Jackie North about her six book historical series Oliver & Jack, which she has begun to re-release.

The guys continue their deep dive on Dante’s Cove as they discuss Season 2, Episode 2, “Playing With Fire.”

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Show Notes

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Transcript 

This transcript was made possible by our community on Patreon. You can get information on how to join them at patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast.


Intro

Will: Coming up on this episode, we’re taking another visit to “Dante’s Cove.” Plus, we’re going to be discussing rereleases with author Jackie North.

Jeff: Welcome to episode 373 of the Big Gay Fiction Podcast, the show for avid readers and passionate fans of gay romance fiction. I’m Jeff and with me as always is my co-host and husband Will.

Will: Hello, rainbow romance reader. We are so glad that you could join us for another episode of the show.

Jeff: As always, the podcast is brought to you in part by our remarkable community on Patreon, and we’d like to quickly thank them for their support. It’s because of our patrons that we’re able to bring you podcast episodes every single week with interviews from some of your favorite authors and reviews of some of the most amazing books our genre has to offer.

On the Big Gay Fiction Podcast Patreon page members have access to Patreon First content, stuff they get to here before anyone else. And they also have the chance to ask questions to our upcoming guests. Patrons helped fund the transcripts of the episodes, making sure that this show is accessible to all readers and listeners. If you’re in a position to help the podcast grow, and would like more information simply head on over to patreon.com/biggayfictionpodcast.

Will: Not too long ago we announced the beginning of the Rainbow Romance Reader Report, and we want to thank everyone who’s signed up and joined us so far. We’ve had a lot of fun putting those together, and we hope that you are getting some value out of the content that we send out every Friday.

But if you have signed up, and haven’t yet received an email from us, we want to ask that you please check your spam filter. Filters are getting more and more robust, which on the one hand is a good thing, but sometimes it keeps you from actually seeing the emails that you want to read. It even happens to me because when I signed up for the list so that we could send out test emails, the first one we sent ended up in the junk folder. So, I had to go in there, dig it out, and make sure it realized that this is good quality stuff.

Jeff: And that you just weren’t spamming yourself.

Will: Each of you probably knows your email program better than we would, so if you signed up and haven’t yet received an email from us, check your spam, junk folder or promotions tab, and make sure they know you want to receive emails from the Big Gay Fiction Podcast.

And for those of you who haven’t signed up yet, and are interested in receiving the Rainbow Romance Reader Report every Friday, all you have to do is go to biggayfictionpodcast.com/report.

Jackie North: Oliver and Jack

Jeff: Now, before we make that visit to “Dante’s Cove,” we want to talk about a series rerelease that began this month. Author Jackie North is rereleasing the six book “Oliver and Jack” series. This historical series is based on “Oliver Twist,” and features the love story between Oliver and Jack, the artful dodger.

Jackie originally released this series under the pen name Christina Pilz, and we talked with her about the series back in 2017. And to celebrate the rerelease, we thought it would be fun to revisit that short interview, where we learned about her, her research on those books, and her love of “Oliver Twist.”

To get us started, here’s how I introduced Jackie back then. She’s an author of historical fiction, and her love of historicals began with a classroom reading of “Little House on the Prairie” by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She loves coffee, road trips, and history. She supports the Oxford comma, and she writes every day. Passionate about what she does, her stories will transport you to England in the year 1846. And now on with the interview.

So before we actually dive into the questions that I know we wanna talk about, what’s the support about the Oxford comma about?

Jackie: The Oxford comma is what you use when you have a string of three or more nouns. So, for example, you can say, “I went to the store with Bob and Edna,” or, “I went out with the strippers Hitler and Stalin.” So if they are not strippers and you want them to be people, you have to put a comma after every single one of those nouns, and if you don’t, then the strippers are named Hitler and Stalin, and so your meaning changes based on where those commas are or are not.

Jeff: See, I’m a horrible comma user so it’s good for me to hear these things.

Jackie: And I think they legally decided that it does make a difference if you use the Oxford comma or not because it could make a difference in like an analysis of a crime or something where that comma is in the police report matters.

Jeff: Oh, wow.

Jackie: That was recently decided on this summer, so it’s legally valid to use it in a certain way.

Jeff: See, I can’t be a police officer then because I misuse commas all the time. Anyway, on to what we wanna talk about.

Jackie: Okay.

Jeff: So tell us about some of these literary pilgrimages that you’ve gone on.

Jackie: Well, I love to travel. So one of the things I did a couple of years ago was go to London so that I could scope out the places that are in my stories. So one thing I did is I went to number 48 Doty Street, which is where Charles Dickens lived when he wrote “Oliver Twist” and touched the desk that he used and all this good stuff, and went up and down the stairs. There’s a character in “Fagin’s Boy” who lives in number 14 Doty Street. That’s Mrs. Acton. She’s kind of Oliver’s nemesis. So it was fun to pick out her house and know where she lived. It’s part of my research. Any historical fiction author will tell you they love to do research.

Another thing I did was in London, at the same trip, I went from where the haberdashery is located to where the Three Cripples is located. Now I based the haberdashery on a tavern called The Ship and it’s at 116 Wardour St., so it’s a real place and it’s a half an hour walk uphill to get to the Three Cripples. And that’s based on the One Tun, which is a real location that a lot of people think was the basis for the Three Cripples. So, you know, I just go. It’s like a giant rabbit hole to go anywhere, and it’s my secret pleasure. It’s just what I love to do. It’s the bonus for me for being an author. It’s my treat.

Jeff: It sounds like a really good treat too.

Jackie: Yeah. It’s a lot of fun.

Jeff: How did you decide on 1846 to be your time?

Jackie: There was a map. I was thinking I wanted a number that looked interesting and interesting font. 1844 was one year and 1846 was the other one. I don’t know why. I like even numbers. And there was a map by John Snow. It’s called the John Snow Map 1846. And I went online and there was the map of London at a specific point in time. And I said, “Okay, 1846 it is.” So it was also before a lot of things started to happen. Victoria was still a young queen. There wasn’t a train system, you know. They didn’t have telegraphs. It was before a lot of modernization started to happen to Victorian London. So early Victorian London rather than later. So kind of… I could do more with it, I think.

Jeff: And certainly, you got to, you know, use some of the Charles Dickens stuff as kind of jumping-off points too.

Jackie: Oh, yeah, absolutely, places that he’d been or places he mentions, you know. I tried to do research. What I’ll do is open Google Maps and take the little Google Man and he goes for a little walk up these streets just so I can kind of get a feel. And sometimes the old buildings are gone but there’s photographs and… Photography existed then so there is a chance that I could get a real photograph of the real building. So the research, definitely a time suck for me.

Jeff: But a fun time suck, especially if you get to go do it in person.

Jackie: Yeah. Every now and then. So the next trip may be a couple of years from now, I’m hoping.

Jeff: So writing, does it exhaust or energize you?

Jackie: Well, I think that it energizes me if I make it part of my everyday schedule. You know those people, they get up at 5:00 in the morning and they say they go for a run, and it sets them up for the entire day. That’s what writing does to me, if I do it. I’ve been kind of in a slump recently because I’m coming to the end of my “Oliver and Jack” series and I am loathe to let it go. I’ve been doing it for over three years. I’m married to these guys. We’re all married to each other.

And I’ve decided that I’m going to write some novelettes. I’ve given myself permission to write about them whenever I want to. All right. Little novelettes, put a good cover on it, you know, edit it, put it through the whole thing, and then just give those away because I just… It makes me sad. And my friend, Wendy Rapon, said, “Are you dragging your feet for a reason?” I said, “Yes. Yes, I am.” So, hopefully, after this interview, I’m going to get back in the saddle and do the whole 5:30 in the morning thing again and set myself up for the day. So, yeah, I was doing it in the wintertime so I don’t know why I can’t do it in the summertime. Maybe I feel lazy because it’s warm. I don’t know if writers…you know, temperature affects different writers differently.

Jeff: Yeah. Different environmental conditions I think, you know, can impact that, and certainly seasonal would be one of them. Is this your full-time gig or do you also balance the day job as you’re writing?

Jackie: I definitely balance the day job. I am a technical writer. I’ve been doing it for about 20 years. I have a great job, a terrific boss, but, you know, it takes away 40 hours a week so I have to really get up early and be devoted to that time, and I was…I was devoted and then I fell off the wagon.

Jeff: You’ll get back on it.

Jackie: Yeah. I think so.

Jeff: I’m confident. So what does literary success look like to you?

Jackie: Well, I was thinking about that. I think literary success means, to me, something that I think sounds really boring. And I shouldn’t ascribe that to it, but what it is is that it don’t have to go to my corporate job. I get up and I write. I have my cup of coffee. I get the chores done and have breakfast and do all that stuff. And then I go have coffee with my writer friends. And then in the meantime, I plan trips and I take them. And that’s it. I don’t want a Jaguar. I don’t want a, you know, built-in pool or anything like that or a fancy car, just time to do those things that I wanna do. And lots of trips to London, of course. That’s what it looks like. And people enjoying my books.

I’ve gotten a couple of letters recently from readers, and engaging with them in that and talking about my characters, I think that would make me supremely happy. But I did find one of these points of success. PD Singer, the woman I mentioned, belongs to a group called Out in Colorado, which is a bunch of writers in the Colorado area who write male-male romance or just fiction, you know. There’s detective stories and, you know, fireman stories, shifter, and paranormal. They have just been so welcoming and warm and kind and sharing all their information with me. So that part of, you know, my dream of being an author has really come true. I’ve been able to connect with people who do what I do.

Jeff: That’s fantastic.

Jackie: Yeah. It is fantastic. I got lucky that way.

Jeff: Now you mentioned you do a lot of research.

Jackie: Yes.

Jeff: So what nature is the research, and then how long do you spend before you actually dive in and write?

Jackie: Well, I am very self-indulgent. I will research and tell it’s time for me to stop and I have to go to bed. I love, you know, taking that little Google Man for a walk, going on the internet and looking for the right picture, pictures of characters or places they’ve been, or the bed they sleep in. You know, it’s a giant rabbit hole. And, for example, I’ve seen every version of “Oliver Twist” ever made, including the cartoon from the ’70s. So I know and I’ve read the book like backwards and forwards, the audiobook. I’ve read it like 100 times.

So when the movies come out, I know what they’ve left out and I know what they put in. Though I will tell you the first time I read “Oliver Twist” was in seventh grade and I was shocked to find out that Fagin got hung. He was hung at Newgate. And the movie that I had seen up to that point, he happily goes off with Jack Dawkins at the end of the movie dancing and singing, right? But he dies and Jack Dawkin gets deported to who knows where, but in the movie I saw, you know, they dance off and they’re gonna go start another gang and pickpockets and live happily ever after. So, you know, research reveals things to me that make it fun to write about. And I will go on and on about this because it’s what I love to do. I think any historical fiction author will tell you the same. That’s what they love about writing historical fiction is they have a great excuse to go to the library, the bookstore, on a trip to wherever. Yeah.

Jeff: Do you have a favorite movie version of “Oliver Twist?”

Jackie: Well, I saw the 1969 musical when I was seven. Of course, I fell in love with “Oliver Twist” then. I’m not a fan of Roman Polanski’s version that was in 2005 because I felt like it was somewhat static the way he told it. People in the scenes tend to just stand around instead of doing stuff, and I was like…There was a BBC version put out in 1995, I think it was, and it was just perfect because they just did interesting things with the storyline. They explained what happened to Oliver’s real father, you know, they expanded on it. So that was a good one. I think my favorite is the 1969 version, though, definitely. The singing and the dancing. Yeah.

Jeff: Okay. So in the research, do you find that you, like, plot your book and then get the research you need for it, or are you researching to make your plot? What’s kind of the chicken and the egg to that?

Jackie: The chicken and the egg, that’s a good question. I think that I get a story idea and like in college I over prepare for the final exam on the first day, I’m already ready. And so, I will plot and then I’ll stop like for two months and just do all the research and then come back and fill in. Like, I think one example was in the Victorian era, they paint those fence posts, those iron fence posts blue or green, whereas today we paint them black. So I feel really like dah, dah, dah, dah. I know this little fact that I can draw on while I’m writing. So I think the answer to your question is I do both at the same time. I plot and I research because then I stop and then I go down that rabbit hole. So, yeah, they’re at the same time.

It’s really hard to believe it’s been nearly five years since we did that interview. Time absolutely flies sometimes. So Jackie rereleased “Fagan’s Boy,” just a couple of weeks ago. This entire six book “Oliver and Jack” series has the most beautiful covers in this re-release. And there’s going to be one book coming out each month through September.

Now, if you want to hear about what Jackie’s up to now, which is her “Farthingdale Ranch” cowboys series, make sure to check out our most recent interview with her. That was from episode 326 from last August.

Dante’s Cove: Season 2, Episode 2 – “Playing With Fire”

Will: All right. It looks like it’s time once again to revisit another classic episode of “Dante’s Cove.” Now in episode two of the second season, Toby confronted Ambrosius, and we’re finally going to see if Toby is able to escape his evil clutches. Plus, we’re going to see what a Dante’s Cove funeral looks like, experience some hot lesbian Levin, and one of our main characters experiences some workplace sexual harassment.

Jeff: Oh, my gosh. This episode. They’re all bonkers. I mean, I think we just know that, but as we settled in to watch this one, right from the get-go as we’ll certainly tell you, it’s off the chart bonkers right from the beginning.

Will: I think you’re right, but I think the rest of the episode sort of settles into a sort of like a low-level kookieness. Like, it’s shifting into another gear. I think it’s finding its rhythm. We’ll talk about all of that. Let’s just dive right in. So in the last episode, Van successfully fought off the magical advances of Grace and Toby was about to be done in by Ambrosius’s magical sparkly hands. But it’s Van who comes to Toby’s rescue. Ambrosius has knocked Cory out and he’s got his hand around Toby’s throat. And frustrated by his constant interference with him and Kevin, he’s about to use magic to do him in. And this is…

Jeff: Because knocking him on the head with a rock didn’t do it.

Will: That didn’t work. So the three of them, they’re all having this like Titanic struggle out on the balcony of Ambrosius’s beach side condo and Van comes running up the beach, and she uses her burgeoning Tresum powers to send Bro and Cory flying out to sea.

Jeff: Yeah. I mean, just, it wasn’t enough to just quell the little sparkly ball. It’s like, be gone with you and off they go into the wild blue sea. She cracks me up, but we’ll talk more about why as we get more into this episode, but yeah. And the thing that I love that they’ve settled into here in true Star Wars fashion, Ambrosius’s power shows up as red and Van’s power shows up as blue. So, you know exactly who is good versus evil just like lightsabers. It’s brilliant.

Will: Van is distraught since Cory is presumably dead and Toby is appreciative. She did save his life after all, but there’s nothing else they can do. So let’s move on. In this episode for the first time in the series, it really starts to dig into the relationship dynamics of some of the lesbian characters. Michelle is still pissed at Van for her preoccupation with Dante’s Cove and the weird voodoo magic that she keeps experimenting with. And Michelle gives her an ultimatum. She’s gonna come with her to Iowa for a family wedding or else. Understandably, Van chooses the Cove. But here’s the thing, she finds a spell in the book of treason to make Michelle forget all about their argument. Cory’s body washes ashore and at the funeral, Van realizes that her spell may have worked a little too well. Michelle doesn’t remember her at all. I don’t know if you all remember a movie called “Reality Bites.”

Jeff: Oh, very much so. I love that movie.

Will: It’s one of the few movies that really took an in-depth look at Gen X. That and the movie “Singles,” both really spoke to me in the early ’90s because I was essentially the same age and going through roughly the same things. Anyway, there’s a moment in “Reality Bites” where Janeane Garofalo’s character is talking to Winona Ryder’s character. It’s a weirdly deep conversation because Janeane is imagining her own funeral and it’s a kind of dark conversation, but Janeane delivers the joke at the end that she can imagine her funeral being just like on “Melrose Place”. Everyone’s gonna show up in chokers and halter tops which is exactly what Cory’s funeral is kind of like.

Jeff: Well, you know, it’s beach funeral, so…Or at least a beach community funeral. They’re actually not of the little strip of beach they’ve got where they put all the tombstones.

Will: Anyway, everyone at the funeral is gorgeous and hot, and wearing skin-tight black which is appropriate clothing.

Jeff: With a copious amount of skin showing as well. So yeah, when Van was doing the incantation, like, you were just a little bit too broad there in what the forgetfulness should be and that proved itself to be true. It also looks like Cory might actually be dead this time. I think he’s died two or three times to this point. I think he’s really done for this time.

Will: Also Ambrosius pops out from behind a gravestone and he dramatically glowers because he is pissed.

Jeff: He is not a happy camper. At least he came back from his ocean voyage in a much better state than Cory did.

Will: So, after spotting Ambrosius at the funeral, Toby warns Kevin to stay away from Bro. He is bad news. Kevin doesn’t really understand his concern. He isn’t into the whole jealousy thing, so he takes his sassy little tool belt and goes off on his first day of work.

Jeff: And it’s interesting here because Van did something similar to Kevin when Kevin was in the hospital back in Season 1 about forget these things, forget these things happened, everything’s fine. Worked a little better for him, but now he also doesn’t know why Bro is a threat in the first place. He just sees the guy with the fancy car and the nice clothes, and whatnot.

Will: Van goes to the local…Van goes, that’s funny. Van goes to the local service shop and we get our first scene featuring Diana Childs, played by Thea Gill, who most of us remember from her days on “Queer as Folk.” And we mentioned she briefly appeared in the last episode. But it’s here that we finally get a bit of a clue about who Diana is and what she’s all about. Diana has apparently blown into town, she runs the surf shop, and apparently has also bought the historical society. Van is trying to figure out where she went wrong with her spell and wants to do some research. But Diana says, “Nope, sorry.”

Jeff: Closed for renovations. Just come back in two months.

Will: And outside the surf shop, Van reintroduces herself to Michelle, but her aggressive insistence that they know each other pushes her into the arms of Brit, the sexy lesbian scuba instructor, part-time bartender, and as we’ll later find out, marine biologist. Brit does it all. So, Van is really bummed that she screwed this up so royally and she goes to see Grace. Despite the confrontation that they had in the last episode, Van realizes that Grace might be the only person who can teach her magic and help her fix the mistakes that she’s made. Van offers the painting as a peace offering, the painting that we talked about in the last episode, and Grace explains that Tresum magic is all-consuming. If she’s not willing to go all in, then don’t even bother.

Jeff: It hasn’t seemed that way so far because I mean, Van’s got a Tresum for dummy sitting right there in her room and it seems to do pretty okay.

Will: She’s faking it until she makes it. It’s all good.

Jeff: And it’s interesting to me, this is one of the quirky things in this episode. Sometimes she needs that book, she needs the book open in her hands and like, do stuff with it. But then on the beach, she can just throw two people into the ocean without so much of a thought. Did she read up before she left or did she just wing it while she was there? When do you need the book? When do you not need the book? I’m sure there’s a chapter on that in that book somewhere.

Will: Sexy time alert. Brit and Michelle are really getting to know one another. This incidently is the only love scene in this particular episode.

Jeff: Well, full blown love scene. There’s some other attempts at sexy times that go with various directions of wrong.

Will: Bro tries to put the moves on Kevin while Kevin is working on renovations at H2Eau, but Van walks up and once again saves Kevin from falling under his spell. And Van is all like, “I’ve got my eyes on you, Bro.” She’s, “I know what is up.”

Jeff: At least he didn’t have a magic sword out right there in the parking lot.

Will: Grace and Bro then trade bitchy insults in the front seat of his Jaguar and it’s here in this scene that Grace helpfully explains the concept of the solstice festival which is going to be a big plot point for this particular season to do whatever there is they’re going to do during the solstice. They’re going to each need an aspirin. Grace is feeling a little bit cocky because she’s essentially found herself Van and Van seems to be going along with the whole thing. But Bro still has his sights on Kevin and that is going really badly.

Jeff: Cocky Grace is a thing to behold. I mean, we’ve already talked about how good Tracy Scoggins and William Gregory Lee are in the scenes that they share together and they’re just chewing up the scenery left and right. And this is exactly that. But more so for Grace in this moment because she does hold all the cards because she’s got kind of Van going along with her in this moment. It’s a really nice scene though. Also nice how she could just pop it out wherever she pleases, at least in this episode.

Will: Ambrosius spends a lot of this episode being really grumpy and making his sort of serious grumpy face.

Jeff: Well, nothing is going well for him at this point.

Will: No. Things are going bad and I think he’s starting to realize that he’s being outmatched by several different people, and he needs to up his game. So, he’s sitting in his condo with his Book of Tresum with a sexy little grumpy face and it’s in flashback that we finally learn the answers to some big questions that we’ve had. Diana was the one who taught Bro Tresum while he was chained up in the basement of the Hotel Dante. It was something that was sort of hinted at earlier, but now we know who did what and when. We also learned why there are two different books. The book that Van found in the historical society belong to Grace. That particular book focuses on the female energy of Tresum, while the second book that Bro has belong to Diana’s father and focuses more on that male energy of Tresum magic. And that’s the book that he now has in his possession.

Jeff: I remember great portions of the “Dante’s Cove” story. I’d totally forgotten about this. Last night I was like, “Oh, well, that’s interesting, isn’t it?” There’s a boy book and a girl book, and that explained how Bro got his power because he studied because the book was down there with him and Diana was kinda helping him out.

Will: Van has found a spell that will protect Kevin and prevent Ambrosius from using any kind of love magic to lure him away from Toby. So she goes back to Grace because the spell needs two people for it to work. Grace agree since they’re both going to be getting something out of it.

Jeff: It’s all about Grace needs something to do anything. She ain’t giving nothing away for free.

Will: Nope. No, she is not. She is smart. She knows what’s up. Kevin and Toby momentarily repair the rift between them and are making out in the kitchen of the Hotel Dante, while Van and Grace are casting this spell which means there’s more wind and indoor lightning, and some very modest digital effects.

Jeff: Worst digital effect in the entire show right there, at least to date.

Will: Oh, come on. We’ve got several more episodes in this season.

Jeff: Well, like I said, at least to date as the shield falls over Kevin. It’s like, really, did you need to do that? I don’t know and of course, Bro is riving around on his bed as all this goes down because the magic is tweaking with him a little bit too. No bad special effects on him. He just has to rive.

Will: So the next morning, Bro tries to put the magical moves on Kevin once again, but Kevin is like, “Meh.” And when Bro realizes what’s happened, he tries to kill Grace with a magical knife.

Jeff: What was he thinking was gonna come from that? I mean, seriously.

Will: So, Grace is just sort of hanging outside the surf shop. She’s watching the surfer wax his board and she’s really into. And Bro come stomping up and he’s got his grumpy pouty face on. And there’s a knife for some reason sitting next to the surfboard. So he uses his magic to try to kill her with it and she’s like, “Nope.”

Jeff: Not in front of the tourists.

Will: Denied.

Jeff: At least the surfer was like, “I don’t know what’s happening. I’m gonna go.”

Will: It’s really funny. So, Kevin is busy at work and at this point it really just looks like he does odd jobs around the Cove. Right now he and his co-worker, Brad, are clearing out a spare storage room at the Hotel Dante. Brad is played by Adrian Quinonez, who we briefly saw in episode 1 of the season. We actually saw a whole lot of him. In the commentary for the first episode, the director, Sam Irvin explained that it’s sometimes difficult finding actors who are willing to do the nudity that’s required on a show like “Dante’s Cove.” And when they were in Hawaii they came across Adrian and he was really nice and willing to do what the role needed, and got briefly nude in the first episode. And since he was apparently so chill and easy to work with, they expanded his part. So now his character has a name, Brad, and he’s going to put the moves on Kevin, some very aggressive move. So as Brad strips down and gets down on his knees in front of Kevin which unfortunately is the exact moment that Toby decides to walk up. He’s brought Brad and Kevin some snacks.

Jeff: As one does when people are doing odd jobs, but Kevin has had moments where he has pushed Toby away so aggressively and he lets this happen. I didn’t really understand why Kevin wasn’t more forceful about, “Get the hell off me, dude. I’ve got a boyfriend.” Also interesting is that it’s really only made clear through music cues that Brad has actually been whammied by Ambrosius to make this happen in the first place.

Will: Oh, really? You thought so?

Jeff: Oh, I did think so. Yeah.

Will: Oh, I didn’t think that at all.

Jeff: Oh, interesting. So we both read that differently. They were foreboding Ambrosius’s music cues happening during this. So I think Ambrosius’s plan is if he can’t whammy Kevin, he’s going to whammy other people to force the jealousy so that Kevin will run into his arms.

Will: Well, that is…

Jeff: Maybe I’m overthinking for what the show tries to do because even after it’s done there’s that moment of Brad looking like, “I don’t understand what just happened here.”

Will: Well, I think that is a legitimate way to look at it. I also think Brad could have just been horny for some twink action at that particular moment.

Jeff: Sure, also valid. Let’s call up Sam Irvin and ask, “What actually did you mean here?”

Will: So, obviously, Toby is now passed a cabin. He is also pissed off at Van. He knows the Van was considering casting another spell and she owns up to doing exactly that. And he’s really pissed because she just can’t seem to leave well enough alone. Kevin is understandably sad and pouty, and he’s walking along the beach when he realizes that he wants to fight for the man he loves.

Jeff: Why did he need to walk on the beach to do that? I never understood really why he didn’t run immediately after Toby to go, “Oh, my God. I don’t know what he was doing. This is just wrong.”

Will: Well, okay, from a production standpoint, we needed a story for Toby to be pissed at Van. So after Kevin is done with his pouty walk on the beach, he goes to see Toby, who is busy packing up Kevin’s things. He’s moving out and moving on.

Jeff: Or at least down the hall.

Will: Exactly. He’s forcing Kevin into a room down the hall at the Hotel Dante. If he needs time to discover himself or try new things, that’s fine, but you’re not gonna do it with me. So, that’s where we end this episode.

Jeff: I have to say the very end kind of struck me as a little bit funny. It’s only because it reminded me of like, a farce where everybody’s like slamming their door at the end. Everybody is pissed and everybody is in their own little room. And we look down this hall, every just closes their doors and we’re done.

Will: Yeah. It looks like the Three Musketeers are no more.

Jeff: I’m sure we’ll fix that in the next episode.

Will: We’ll learn how Van and Toby, and Kevin mend those broken fences when we talk about episode 3. That’s coming next month.

Jeff: Now, if you’d like to check out “Dante’s Cove for the first time, or maybe revisit it, the episodes can be found streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Will: This episode’s transcript has been brought to you by our community on Patreon. If you’d like to read the conversation for yourself, simply head on over to the show notes page for this episode at biggayfictionpodcast.com.

Jeff: And if you’ve watched “Dante’s Cove” in the past, or are maybe checking it out because we’re talking about it, we’d love to know what you think of it. Let us know by leaving a comment on that very same show notes page.

Wrap-Up

Will: All right, I think that’ll do it for now. Coming up on Thursday in episode 370, tt’s time for our spring, Big Gay Fiction Book Club selection.

Jeff: You won’t want to miss our deep dive discussion on Kosoko Jackson’s “I’m So (Not) Over You.” It’s a wonderful romcom that features a couple of our favorite tropes, second chances and fake dating.

Will: On behalf of Jeff and myself, we want to thank you so much for listening, and hope that you’ll join us again soon for more discussions about the kind of stories that we all love, the big gay fiction kind. Until then keep turning those pages and keep reading.

Big Gay Fiction Podcast is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more shows you’ll love at frolic.media/podcasts. Production assistance by Tyson Greenan. Original theme music by Daryl Banner.