Sex & Violence in Canada

Having a bad week....

Picture it...  High School party, a small Canadian town, 2017.  

Zach (Alex Purdy) and Zayne (Allister MacDonald) are about to have sex.in an upstairs bedroom.  Just as they get going, they're interrupted by a group of their friends.  When confronted about being gay, the guys make excuses about only smoking weeds.  Their group of friends don't buy it and want them to have sex with a drunk girl they've dragged in.  Zach refuses, but Zayne succumbs to the pressure.  He sexually assaults the drunk girl as the other guys look on and film with their cameras.  

Cut to school a few days later.  Zayne shows up with a gun, shoots 12 people, killing 6.  When he comes face to face with Zach, he tells him he loves him then turns the gun on himself a few feet in front of Zach.

A few days later, Zach meets a handsome stranger at a candle light vigil for the victims.  The stranger, Finn (Callum Dunphy) begins stalking the 18 year old high school student, sneaking into his home and watching him shower.  Finn begins showing up in places where he knows Zach will be and before too long, they have sex.  Zach has no idea that Finn is 'The Strangler', a serial killer who has lured many gay men into bed only to then strangle and murder them with a leather belt.

Every holiday, I try to feature an actor, production that celebrates the day.  I had a tough time finding a movie, tv show or theatre production that celebrates Canada Day, but I did think of a show that highlights Canadian talent.  Sex & Violence began as asix-part show, focused on domestic violence.  The show starred and was executive producer was the late great Olympia Dukakis.  The show became the highest rated original drama in OUTtv's history

Sex & Violence wasn't always easy to watch.  Sure there was plenty of sex, almost every  male cast member was fully nude throughout the shows run.   As the title suggests however, that sex was often mixed with violence, and it wasn't always so pretty. The show was filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, one of Canada's most scenic provinces. Although Nova Scotia is almost entirely surround by the Atlantic, the show didn't give us panoramic views of beaches, parks or mountains.  It kept it focus narrow, on the grittier places, and the locations where it's characters lived and worked.

It was in the show's third season that we were first introduced to Alex Purdy's Zach.  With everything I described above that Zach went through, you might think it spanned over 6, 12 or even 20 episodes.  No, the final episodes of the series featured Zach spanned just 3 episodes.   Because  however, Alex Purdy was so engaging, so beautiful yes, but also so talented, we were pulled into his story.  Although the plot was at times unbelievable, the writing, directing and acting had it all seem both plausible, and most of all, so horribly ordinary. 

This was Purdy's first big role and his job wasn't an easy one.  To being with, his character was fully naked in each of the three episodes he appeared in. Secondly, given he was a new character, he had to pull us in quickly, and have the audience care right away.  Purdy was easy to love right away, he's hot as hell.  His character wasn't however, so easy to like.  That rested on Purdy's skill as an actor.  It was helped by some skillful storytelling and flashbacks which had us learning his backstory with Zach in bits and pieces.   Looking forward to seeing where Purdy's career takes him in the future.