Regardless of your opinions on television titan Ryan Murphy, there’s one thing that’s undeniable: The man knows how to appeal to the gays. Murphy’s latest show, Doctor Odyssey, follows that mission faithfully, succeeding as delicious gay catnip. From casting the outrageously hot Joshua Jackson in the lead role, to last week’s threesome, Doctor Odyssey’s appeal feels tailor-made for the queer community.
For the uninitiated, Doctor Odyssey is basically a polished soap opera at sea, where Dr. Max Bankman (Jackson), solves complicated and unexpected medical problems on a luxury ship (The Odyssey). The latest episode of the ABC series takes things to a rainbowlicious new level as the luxury ship is celebrating Gay Week, with events like “Daddies Only Cardio Class” and “Werk Mama.”
And there’s a special guest onboard: the Captain’s (Robert Massey) brother, played by the legendary John Stamos. That’s right—Doctor Odyssey has blessed us with the legendary heartthrob that is Stamos, and he’s gay (and named Craig). This alone feels like one of the best things to happen to gays in what’s been a very challenging year.
The episode opens with an outrageously camp roundtable discussion of queer terms, including what a wolf is (which, frankly, was news to my gay brain—it’s a more muscly “bear” fyi), as well as daddies, silver foxes, and more. To truly impress his employees, the captain has to define the word “mother.” He knocks it out of the park, elegantly answering “A queen who has style and grace and elegance, and serves the house down boots mama.” Everyone cheers. It’s absolute nonsense, yet surprisingly educational. Gay week is off to a good start on Doctor Odyssey.
And it only gets better when Stamos’ character appears. The Captain is excited to see his brother and finally meet his partner (Cheyenne Jackson). Stamos is devilishly handsome as always, and has a surprise for his brother: He doesn’t just have one boyfriend. He has two (the other played by Johnny Sibilly). The Captain turns out to be the world’s greatest ally, happily embracing the throuple and ensuring them that the cruise has plenty of PrEP and DoxyPEP.
Anyway, just imagining what these three gorgeous men get up to is enough to get anyone’s blood flowing. And while we don’t see them have sex (perhaps the show’s only unwelcome display of restraint), it’s abundantly clear that these three are very into each other.
The queerness gets cranked up to 11 with the introduction of Marsha (a fantastic Bob the Drag Queen, who should be cast in everything), who’s been hired as a surprise for Craig. Later, when Craig sees Marsha begin her performance, he squeals “Marsha! You got me Marsha?” to his brother with the excitement of every gay watching their fave queen win RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Craig runs up to Marsha as she performs none other than Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO!,” looking at her in complete amazement. A pro tip for those who love drag queens: Running up to them to interrupt a performance to tell them how much you love them is very much frowned upon. That rule is, however, thrown out the window if you are literally John Stamos.
Marsha’s also aware that she’s been hired to surprise Craig, and she plays with him, touching his cheek sweetly and handing him her sequined jacket—all while maintaining a perfect lip sync, naturally. Stamos holds that jacket like he’s been given the holy grail itself. Watching Stamos groove to a drag queen performing Chappell Roan feels like camp queer history.
The best part of Stamos’ performance is that he’s believably gay without relying on stereotypes. Frankly, on a show this outrageous, it’d be easy for Stamos to fall into a trap, but he delivers a natural, lived-in performance. His giddy excitement over Chappell Roan and his favorite drag queen—and, you know, the fact he has not one but two boyfriends—is all Stamos needs to play gay. While affectations and feminine gay men exist—and are worthy of celebration—it’d be unfortunate to see Stamos try and play up certain stereotypes to try and be convincingly queer. And thankfully, he avoids that pitfall with the grace of a pirouetting ballerina.
Doctor Odyssey takes queerness and puts it through a fun house mirror. It’s heightened, absurd, twisted, and deeply nonsensical. But it also understands that there’s so much jubilation that comes from queerness. And this episode—and a wonderful John Stamos—celebrates queerness in all its silly glory.
