Fans of “Tyler Perry’s Beauty in Black” may tune in to the Netflix drama for its outrageous plot twists, diabolical one-liners, and wild performances, but they’re also getting something else in Season 3 — a nuanced story about generational sexuality.
Horace Bellarie, patriarch of the dysfunctional Bellarie family, has always been the show’s biggest question mark. As actor Rico Ross explains to TVLine, Horace is a “very complex man, and like all leading men, they have their own faults. That’s what makes him three-dimensional. He’s not perfect.”
Despite marrying and fathering at least one son with Olivia, he also exhibited an infatuation with male stripper Angel when we first met him in Season 1. Aside from a few fleeting comments, Horace’s sexuality has gone largely unexplored, but everything changed in Season 3 when Horace discovered his son Charles’ ongoing affair with Varney, the Bellarie family’s trusted lawyer.
Horace reacted with homophobic fury, condemning them both for their behavior, but Kimmie was quick to clock what was really going on. She could tell that Horace was frustrated, perhaps even jealous, that he wasn’t able to explore his own sexuality as openly as today’s younger generation. During one particularly memorable car ride, Kimmie asked Horace point-blank if he’s bisexual, to which Horace responded by giving her the ride of her life. To quote the woman herself, “You f**ked me in the truck like I never been f**ked before.” (OK, Horace!)
While Kimmie remained more confused than ever, Charles was filled with rage; following Horace’s callous response to Charles’ attempt on his own life, the youngest Bellarie imagined killing Horace in cold blood. Tensions escalated even further when Charles walked in on a half-naked Angel attempting to seduce Horace in his bedroom, revealing the extent of his father’s hypocrisy. It’s a deliciously complex storyline, one Ross is proud to be telling.
“This man has been so driven with business and life that he hasn’t really focused on himself,” Ross says. “He’s of a generation where people didn’t go to therapy as much. If you had a problem, you’d walk it off, and you didn’t talk to other people about it. He’s been ignoring it, and this new person in his life is from a different generation where people do talk about these things, and where certain things are acceptable that weren’t acceptable when he was the age of his son. There is a lot of backstory, not just for Horace about his sexuality, but Horace’s history overall. That’s part of the trauma and the tension.”