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The Nauseating 'The Bastard Executioner' Scene That Finally Broke Me

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 9, 2015 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | October 9, 2015 |


I have a lot of problems with Kurt Sutter’s latest FX series, The Bastard Executioner, but it was an unexpected scene — I think — that finally broke me.

Is it that the show is often boring that drove me away? No, although it is that.

Is it the terrible, spotty accents? No, not that, either.

The terrible, heavy-handed dialogue? That badly written storylines? The incoherent subplot concerning Katey Sagal’s character? No, although that’s been difficult to wade through, as well, especially because Sutter’s episodes tend to run long (often in the hour-and-a-half range) and by midnight, I’ve completely lost patience with the series.

Is it the gratuitous violence? Not really. I don’t really mind violence. In fact, I’m often keen on it. I watched all seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy, after all, so the swords through the back of the heads and through the throat; the scene in which a man’s eyeball was dug out with a knife (at the behest of a character played by Ed Sheeran, no less); watching the same man have his arms chopped off; seeing a pregnant woman’s innards pulled out of her and put on display on top of a mound of corpses; the dismembered bodies; and even the woman who was burned alive didn’t completely put me off of the series, although maybe they should have.

Is it the twins? It’s the twins, isn’t it?

No, it isn’t the twins, either, although the fact that real-life twins are having threesomes on the series and making out with each other is icky.

Their names are Sophie and Eloise Lovell. They’re real-life twins. They hail from Britain.

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That’s your twin sister! What are you doing? I mean, I get that they are playing characters, but they are also twin sisters! And they’re sharing a sex scene and kissing passionately. There’s acting, and then there’s tonguing your sister!

That’s really not OK. Kurt Sutter is a depraved fuck.

But we knew that.

Still, I soldiered on (even as Cindy quit after last week’e episode, and Seth threatened to quit, as well). It was a scene three-quarters through last night’s episode that finally proved to be too much for me. I can’t place my finger on exactly why, but it crossed a psychological barrier for me.

The scene in question involves Stephen Moyer’s character. He plays Milus Corbett, the conniving right-hand man of the Baroness who is attempting to make a play for more power. He’s one of the two people who had a threesome with the twins. The other guy who had a threesome with the twins is a guy named Piers, who plays the right hand man to King Edward II. It was revealed during last night’s episode that he is also the half brother of the twins with whom he had the threesome (though, thankfully, there is no blood relation in real life, unlike the twin sisters who made out)).

Milus was trying to get in Piers’ good graces (for the purposes of this piece, it doesn’t matter why). Piers, in order to humiliate Milus, asked him to get on his knees and blow him. Milus agreed. Piers pulled down his pants, and Corbett got on his knees.

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A demeaned Milus began moving toward Piers’ cock when Piers shoved him off.

“You honestly think I would let dirt-poor lips touch the rod that only knows beautiful things?” Piers said.

Milus, humiliated, walked into the next room, found his servant — who is often his frequent and arguably unwilling fuck partner — and beat the shit out of him.

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He delivers blows to his stomach, throws him on the floor, kicks him repeatedly in the rib cage, kicks him in the face, and then stomps on him. Twice. If the character survived the beating, I’d be surprised.

And for what? For existing, of course. To exert power over an inferior. I get — within the story — why a character might beat the servant half to death in order to re-establish his dominance, but it broke something within me.

That was it. I turned it off, disgusted.

I am done with The Bastard Executioner. I feel like I have failed Kurt Sutter’s manhood test, but I’ll have to live with myself anyway.