"Dante's Cove equals one part Buffy, one part soap opera... and about five parts soft-core gay porn."
— Rantasmo
Dante's Cove is an American LGBT-oriented horror/supernatural show, which originally aired on 'here!', a premium gay-oriented network. Primarily a soap opera meets horror setup, the show follows young gay men Kevin and Toby, who are trying to continue a relationship while a combination of dark, supernatural forces and the mundane realities of relationships seek to break them up.
While Season 1 takes itself far too seriously, the show seemed to have a makeover for Season 2, which has a lot more fun with the stories and characters (a possible promotion from "low camp" to "high camp").
Most famous for possibly defining the trope Everybody Has Lots of Sex. The first ten minutes of the first episode is nothing but a montage of gay sex.
The show debuted in 2005, and Season 4 began production in 2009.
Nothing at all to do with The Divine Comedy, Dante's Inferno, or Word of Dante.
This show provides examples of:
- All Gays are Promiscuous
- And Starring: As of Season 3, three actors get this treatment: while most are still just listed by name, the last three are "and Jensen Atwood", "Gregory Michael as Kevin" and "Special guest star Thea Gill as Diana Childs".
- Anyone Can Die: And most of them do. Cory, Michelle (twice), Van, Marco, most of the islands population, Diana, technically Adam and Toby. By the end of the third season, only three of the main cast members are still technically alive; Ambrosius, Grace, and Kevin. Well, technically, Adam and Toby are trapped in an alternate dimension.
- Anti-Villain: Griffin. He's just doing his job, as the population has gone rogue.
- Big Bad: Ambrosius, Diana in Season 2 and, eventually, Season 3.
- Bury Your Gays: It's a horror series, so characters ARE going to die, and it's difficult to name any of them who are 100% straight.
- Cast Full of Gay: The entire population of the titular Dante's Cove seems to be homosexual, except for Grace and Griff.
- Comforting the Widow: Ambrosius does this to Kevin after Toby has been sucked into an alternate dimension.
- Creepy Monotone: Ambrosius.
- Deadpan Snarker: Grace.
- Depraved Homosexual: Ambrosius.
- Deus Sex Machina: The avatar/aspirant relationships. Also, Griffin teaches Ambrosius how to charge up his magic from having sex with young men and stealing their sexual energy.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: The first ten minutes of the first episode is nothing but this trope.
- Fanservice: And how!
- Fantastic Drug: "Saint". When used by a witch, can open your mind further to magic. When used by a Muggle, it has hallucinogenic properties and appears to relax the user, lower their inhibitions, and increase their libido.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: Brit knows magic works and has seen the effects firsthand, but insists she is a "scientist" and won't have anything to do with it. This later turns out to be a crucial plot point in the final episode, after the whole 'virgin' incident doesn't work out: it turns out the virginity doesn't refer to sex, but magic.
- Gayborhood: The titular Dante's Cove.
- Gym Bunny: Most of the gay men on the show, but particularly Kevin and, later, Griffin.
- Hot Witch: Diana, Van, arguably Grace.
- Lampshade Hanging:Ambrosius: Where are we going to find another virgin?! This is Dante's Cove, for Christ's sake!
- Large Ham: Not one actor/actress on the show can act except for the actress portraying Grace, who seems to be having a lot of fun with the role.
- Thea Gill as Diana is a possible exception; she's a generally capable actress who hams it up spectacularly for the Season 3 finale.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Kevin's idea of tactics during the final battle against Diana.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Several, but particularly Michelle.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Ambrosius, whose love for and desire to control Kevin provides most of the conflict. Later, Kevin for Toby, after Ambrosius makes Kevin his love slave and Toby moves on to the previously Unlucky Childhood Friend Adam.
- Love Triangle: Ambrosius is in love with Kevin and wants to make him his sex slave. Kevin is seeing Toby, who is torn between Kevin and childhod friend Adam, who has been secretly pining after him, and who first discovered his sexual orientation recently when he slept with (who else?) Ambrosius. Furthermore, Grace has been in love with Ambrosius ever since they were intended to be married two centuries ago, but eventually falls for Griff, who had slept with Ambrosius in the past. Adam also has a brief fling with Trevor in an attempt to get over Toby.
- Also, Michelle was seeing Van, but magic made her lose her memory and Van refused to have anything more to do with her. In the aftermath, she sleeps with Brit, who begins seeing Elena.
- Male Frontal Nudity: At least Once an Episode.
- Manipulative Bastard: Ambrosius.
- Manipulative Bitch: Diana.
- Nice Guy: Trevor.
- Previously on…
- Really 700 Years Old: Ambrosius, Diana and Grace.
- Romantic False Lead: Ambrosius for Kevin and Toby. As of Season 3, Kevin becomes this for Toby and Adam, too.
- Sex Montage: A couple of times, most famously in the very first episode.
- Sex Slave: Essentially the whole avatar/aspirant dynamic involves the aspirant becoming this for the avatar.
- Shower of Love: Kevin and Toby, and then later, Kevin and Ambrosius. The latter scene was used in the Season 3 opening credits.
- The Un-Favourite: Diana to Grace.
- The Unfettered: Diana.
- Took a Level in Badass: Kevin after training with Ambrosius and Diana after becoming the shadow avatar.
- Unlucky Childhood Friend: Adam, for Toby. Later becomes the Victorious Childhood Friend.
- Virgin Power: Grace has been saving herself for this purpose for 200 years. When she finally succumbs to sex with Griffin, she finds out only days later that a virgin is needed to defeat the Shadows.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Most of the male cast, but especially Adam. Even Lampshaded by Grace once.Grace: Aren't you with that other one now? The one that says "dude" and appears not to own a shirt?
- Wham Episode: The Third Season finale is a Wham-and-a-half. Michelle sacrifices herself to destroy the shadows, which in the process destroy Diana; most of, if not all, the island's inhabitants are dead; Adam and Toby are stolen to another dimension; Grace is revealed to have become pregnant from Griff and Kevin finally goes back to Ambrosius. Weren't expecting that from Dante's Cove, were you now?
- Where Everybody Knows Your Flame: Ambrosius's bar, H 2 Eau. Also, 'The Lair', which is little more than a club of naked, greasy men having sex with each other.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Diana, once she becomes the shadow avatar.
