queer_scribbling | Midnight Texas (TV)

Follow up to remembering Midnight Texas. These are long enough that I didn't want to try to copy them over as comments.

I got the details a bit off. Chuy lived with his husband, Joe, for centuries (maybe 1,000 years tops). Joe's Angel Superior had always told Joe that demons were better of killed, Chuy demonstrated he was "good" despite being half-demon, and their forbidden love was so strong that it helped Chuy keep centered on his human side. (There wasn't a ton of backstory for them considering how long they've been alive.)

When he was highly emotionally charged while someone was attacking Joe in s1, Chuy transformed as his demon side took over; some people probably weren't enthusiastic that the transformation mostly involved "ugly" deformations, but for others, it was the lack of control or the base, operating on 'animal' instinct state that demons were associated with. (It's implied that Chuy's demon father forced himself on his human mother sometime in the 9th or 10th century.) Chuy mostly deals with anger and lashing out, even at friends, in his demon state, but Joe was there and their connection helped Chuy to transform back into his human state.

I can almost understand how excited Bernardo Saracino was to play Chuy [in the context of breaking certain casting stereotypes], but I don't think anyone saw season 2 coming. Well. Ignore everything about how strong their connection was, basically. Chuy's wiki page:

After finding out that Joe had an affair with Walker Chisum, he [Chuy] lost control of his demonic side and Joe was forced to kill him.

Walker was a human demon hunter that Joe had started taking back up demon hunting with. There was this whole thing with trying to hide that he was with a half-demon and keeping Walker from running into Chuy or trying to kill him. But Walker ~understood~ him in a way that Chuy could never. (Or something along those lines.) It's been awhile, so I might not be remembering that correctly.

I can't imagine why the wiki isn't filled in for season 2 </sarcasm>, so I found someone's review:

Later, when Joe stops Walker from going after Chuy, Walker learns that Chuy is Joe’s husband, and Chuy uses his context clues to figure out that Joe and Walker have been doing more than hunting. He can’t contain his demon side, and he nearly kills Walker (and half the town) before running off into the night. - s2e6.

Although, I am living for this s2e7 recap:

As the episode begins, Joe is still out looking for Chuy, who is out of control and in his demon form. [...] Joe tracks Chuy to a gas station, where people are dead and even torn limb from limb. An old man lies on the ground, dying. He’s unable to speak, so Joe uses his angel light to find out what happened. The vision shows Chuy attacking. Joe stays with the man while he dies.

Joe tracks Chuy through the desert, into the night. Walker follows, in the loudest, most obvious way possible, while still thinking he’s being stealth. Joe gets tired of it and grabs him, telling him to get lost. Walker insists that he’s part of this hunt. Joe replies that this is between him and his husband. “The man I love. Not some big game trophy to put on your wall.”

[...] Poor Chuy. Joe threw him away for this sick f–k, who sees killing as a game.

This conversation is had with them standing still and right in each others’ faces, only a few inches apart, as if they’re about to kiss. The camera is as close in on their faces as it can get. Are we supposed to be feeling sexual tension here???

[Humorous but skippable observation about Joe not using his angel skills or stashing Walker away where he can't follow. He using Walker's demon compass to track Chuy "faster" that apparently involves bringing the human along.]

[...] Joe finds Chuy, who’s still in full on angry demon mode. He might have had some luck with talking Chuy down, if he hadn’t brought Walker with him. Instead, when Chuy sees that Joe is still with Walker, he understandably tries to kill Walker. Walker goes to kill Chuy with his glove, but stops at the last second. He says he can’t kill the man Joe loves, because he loves Joe.

That is the most bulls–t, lame, soap opera thing anyone has ever said on this show. I’ll bet he practiced it in the mirror for hours.

Hearing that Joe didn’t just sleep with Walker, he’s involved in an ongoing love affair, Chuy goes insane and tries to kill Walker for real. Seeing Chuy, a demon, about to kill Walker, a human, Joe jumps between them out of instinct and stabs Chuy in the heart. He holds Chuy while he dies.

Walker stands and watches.

This whole story has been so contrived that Chuy’s death feels hollow. There were so many ways Joe could have gotten rid of Walker, starting with Lem and a room with a good lock, and ending with fighting Walker instead of Chuy. Walker’s death in that situation wouldn’t be a crime against God or man. He’s going to die young from his own recklessness anyway. And it’s justifiable homicide to kill someone if you’re protecting someone else, such as your husband.

I don’t know how to reconcile the murders Chuy commited. That’s not who Chuy was. The writers used those murders as character assassination to justify killing him and writing him out. [...] Joe has said that at least once in the past it took a few years to bring Chuy back from a demon flare up. If Walker hadn’t kept making things worse, this could have been a brief separation, then Joe could have tried again once Chuy had time to calm down a little.

[...] Joe buries Chuy in an unmarked grave, under some rocks in the woods. Walker is still watching. When Joe is done, Walker tries to hug him, or something. Joe tells him not to touch him and that Walker as just as responsible for Chuy’s death as Joe is. Joe never wants to see Walker again. He forces Walker to leave. Joe lets his wings out, then cuts them off.

He couldn’t fly Chuy’s body back home and give him a proper burial and funeral, then cut off his wings? The best he could do for his husband was an unmarked grave? As a demon, Chuy couldn’t be buried in the churchyard, but Joe could have found a nice spot in town that Chuy’s friends could visit.

A contextual note about Chuy's death as it stands in relation to a season 2 trend that killed off characters of color introduced in season 1/the books [quoting the same recap above]:

If Walker not only lives, but sticks around town, I might be done with this show. If he continues to be Joe’s love interest, I definitely am. It’s not okay to write out the character played by an actor of color, who’s the same age as Joe, in order to bring in a white actor who must be 20 years younger. Especially after they killed Creek, played by a mixed race actress, and brought in a white actress as Manfred’s new love interest, and wrote out the Rev, the only other character played by a Hispanic actor. Midnight has been getting younger and whiter all season longer.