The Gay Phone App

This behavior makes sense for a young, hungry, married closetcase. If you're restrained from getting a taste of what you like, you'll make opportunities to eye-bang everything every chance you get

When I was a preteen with desires for men, but not knowing anything about being gay or even that it was on the great menu of orientations, I would be all but foaming at the mouth at the men's underwear ads in The Plain Dealer's Sunday sales circulars. And that was only one of many sources I couldn't get enough of.

I can see that. He's trying to suppress his behavior all while being horny as a mofo. He risk of sneaking makes it all the more sexy for him. Folks act stupid when they are experiencing sexual tension.

Yes, the scene is contrived like all scenes in a TV show or film. I'm not trying to make an argument of semantics; just point out that scenes are crafted with a purpose that makes them contrived.

When constructing a scene, two of the questions to consider are "how late to come in and how early to get out?" And that's with every scene; generally the writer wants to get in as late as possible and end the scene as early as possible and what's left is the part of the puzzle that moves the plot and isolates the theme.

Taking this scene for example (that was probably no more than 30 seconds), imagine the entirety of the event (like a realistic hypothetical). At the end of an emotionally and physically exhausting day (running around to medical appointments and visiting family as well as finding out they're having twins), Kevin sits on the love seat and Charity sits next to him putting up her feet and dozing into sleep. They probably had a conversation before that, let's say. Now the day is finally over and Kevin's mind goes to an at-rest state and he starts playing with his phone.

Now, most of us might instinctively go to something like Facebook, Twitter, a sports or news app, or a dating app if you're single or even unhappy in your current relationship. It's a kind of stress reliever and a generally passive activity. Kevin, who is trapped in a situation where he feels he cannot act out on his desire opens up a gay dating app and casually scrolls through pictures. Then his wife moves and he quickly closes the app. I think this is a reasonably plausible scenario that was reduced to a scene in two beats: Kevin looks at pictures of gay men on an app and then he closes the app when his wife wakes up.

I'm not a writer on this show but as a viewer, this quick scene moves Kevin and Charity's story how ever slightly. In one scene, they're receiving "good" news as a couple. In this scene we see that Kevin is still ambivalent about how "good" his circumstances are. In and out.

Let's change that to your suggestion adding him saying to his wife "I have to go to the bathroom", leaving the couch, entering the bathroom, and then opening the app. Now we've gone from a single scene in two beats to a two-location sequence (living room and then bathroom). The same information is being conveyed, in a way, but now we've removed, as you mentioned: tension, and for only the sake of a scenario you think is more realistic. But not only did we remove the tension, we also, arguably, de-escalated the scene instead of escalating because now instead of starting with the app and then closing on the wife waking up (removing the stakes of Kevin being caught), we've started with Charity already awake and Kevin going to an isolated room ending on opening/scrolling through the app potentially with an arbitrary cut to the next scene (since Charity doesn't naturally stop Kevin ending the scene).

Moreover, if we have Kevin state that he's going to the bathroom, we've probably removed some subtext. The scene as it airs is all action. He's looking at the pictures. He's scrolling through the app. She moves out of sleep. He closes the app. He puts down the phone. If Kevin literally states, "I have to go to the bathroom [to look at pictures of guys]." One could argue, that's a little bit too "on-the-nose". Sure, in real life a person may leave to a private place to do something sneaky but in a contrived drama (which is kind of redundant), the storyteller can create subtext by leaving the stakes instead of taking them away; and they can do this visually through action.

Ultimately, it comes down to a choice. There could have been a version like the one you presented that was worked until it became this scene. There were probably questions like, how can we make this more concise or how do we add a little more tension? So the final decision was to make it a shared scene with the two characters instead of lesser-tension scene with a single character.

I do think it's awesome that this short scene stood out to you. It kind of sucks that it took you out of the story though, but at least you're still enjoying the show.

Trust me, lots of down low men are just that bold.