DINNER PARTNERS with Christopher & Eric

Dinner Partners’ Beach House Horrors Month serves up a true crime series out of the United Kingdom about which Christopher and Eric knew absolutely nothing before they watched. They weren’t even sure where on the global map this posh vacation island actually was by the time they sat down to record this episode. (Actually, it was Eric who was confused. But he owns up to it — very big of him — once Christopher points out the sizeable geographic difference between Sicily and Scilly.) As they serve up the first two episodes of the series “The Last Party: Death on Tresco”, your hosts embark on a long, dark walk with a young gay staff member at a secluded getaway for the superrich and end up surrounded by…title cards. Lots and lots of title cards. Also, cinematography. But will this moody and scenic tribute to the Celtic Sea actually shed any light on this mysterious and tragic death?

Dinner Partners’ Beach House Horrors Month opens with an amuse bouche of breathless history, serving up the man who built San Diego. (Don’t say we didn’t warn you!) The suspicious death of Rebecca Zahau inside a historic Coronado Island mansion blasted the storied (see above warning) Spreckels family name into the news nearly a century after their great fortune dwindled. Christopher is determined to cram this episode full of everything he knows about this once vaunted family of California tycoons. Does he succeed? You’ll be the judge. (And by you, we mean Eric.) In the second part of this True Crime Special Edition, your hosts serve up the final two episodes of Oxygen TV’s “Death At The Mansion: Rebecca Zahau”, and Eric has thoughts about the special’s mix of reality show production values with the hard facts of this confounding case. What truly happened to Rebecca? Will we ever know?

Dinner Partners’ Beach House Horrors Month begins with a rousing discussion of Anne Rice’s “lost La Jolla year”. Did you know that when our premiere Party Person famously departed New Orleans in 2003 her first landing place was this tony Southern California jewel? (Spoiler alert – it wasn’t a love match!) It’s the perfect lead in for Christopher and Eric’s two part serving of the most controversial and riveting suspicious death case in recent memory, the Spreckels Mansion “murder”. Mystery surrounds the death of beautiful young Rebecca Zahau inside one of Coronado Island’s most lavish historic homes. Your hosts serve up the first two episodes of Oxygen’s “Death At The Mansion: Rebecca Zahau”, diving headlong into this shadowy case. Conspiracy theories abound and if there are answers, they’re hiding in the moneyed shadows cast by society page players in this posh enclave. Murder? Suicide? Sexual assault? All these horrifying prospects are on the table.

The final installment of Summer In The City Month sees jealousy and rivalries erupt — inside the Dinner Partners studio! Christopher accuses his best friend Eric of wanting to replace him with renowned death investigator Barbara Butcher, who has better hair (maybe), a better car (unlikely) and a better facility for navigating autopsies (definitely). How can Christopher compete? The sixth episode of the first season of the new Peacock series THE DEATH INVESTIGATOR WITH BARBARA BUTCHER entitled “She Fought Back” brings things to a head. And Eric has a long simmering theory of the case he wants to test out on his co-host — provided Christopher can stop seeing red (or is it green?) every time he brings up Barbara. (Barbara, Barbara, Barbara!)

At almost 350 episodes, Christopher and Eric often suffer from a case of “Have we done this one before?” But this serving of a haunting New York disappearance includes new details and confirms their old suspicions about this strange and disturbing case. HOMICIDE NEW YORK – not to be confused with NEW YORK HOMICIDE, authors of our previous episode — is one of the best new true crime series to come down the pike in years and their treatment of this *suggestive* story is the best coverage it’s gotten yet. What truly went down at the afterhours party that saw handsome, young Joey Coumnale vanish off the face of one of Manhattan’s toniest neighborhoods? In the second episode of their second New York focused season entitled “Party Monster”, this slick, Dick Wolf produced special allows its interview subjects to voice suspicions Christopher and Eric shouted at their television the first time they saw this story covered.

Summer In The City Month continues with this devastating, emotional and ultimately inspiring tale of an urban community rising up against the hate in its midst. If someone doesn’t make this story into a movie, Christopher and Eric just might. Jackson Heights, Queens. 1990. The AIDS epidemic is at its peak and gay men are being targeted for violent attacks throughout the country. But we’re supposed to believe out and proud Julio Rivera was savagely beaten to death with multiple blunt objects by multiple assailants as the result of a drug deal gone bad? (Gurl, please.) The tenth episode of the second season of NEW YORK HOMICIDE entitled “Shine A Light On Hate” offers an inspiring history lesson about activism, justice and community building. Sometimes there’s more than safety in numbers, there’s change.

Christopher and Eric are kicking off a month of True Crime TV Club set in Manhattan and the outer boroughs. They’re calling it Summer In The City Month because only a killer would enjoy New York in July. And it’s still Pride Season which is why they’re starting off with this tale of cold hearted predators stalking gay men in the city. In the second episode of the ninth season of venerable true crime favorite PEOPLE MAGAZINE INVESTIGATES entitled “Death In Hell’s Kitchen”, they learn how homophobic stereotyping can infect supposedly progressive police forces even in 2022. They also ask if one of these victims might still be alive today if the investigators hadn’t made bigoted assumptions early in the case. Breaking News! Have you pre-ordered the special 50th anniversary edition of INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE yet? Head to AnneRice.com and order yours today to be eligible for an exclusive pre-order bonus. It’s an absolutely gorgeous hardcover and your hosts can’t shut up about it.

Christopher and Eric wrap up their special month of Pride Pairings by serving up a boisterous biopic of the great Oscar Wilde that didn’t age quite as well as they’d hoped. In WILDE, Stephen Fry’s excellent performance as the title subject is hypnotic, and Jude Law scorches a hole in the screen as his manipulative young lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. But does this sprawling film truly capture the magnetism, wit and appetites of the iconic literary figure at its center? Or is it held back by the constraints of late 90’s cinema? And, of course, most important in a Dinner Partners Pairing, do the facts hold up?

As Christopher and Eric continue their month of special Pride Pairings, they launch their two-episode exploration of literary great Oscar Wilde with a True Crime TV Club installment they assumed would be focused on the young lover many blame for Wilde’s personal destruction or at the very least the young man’s father. Turns out this documentary assigned that role to someone entirely unexpected. Who knew? (The Irish did, apparently but they forgot. You’ll see what we mean.) In the BBC Select documentary, THE MAN WHO DESTROYED OSCAR WILDE, your hosts meet an unexpected and astonishing host and take a surprising journey into the “recently” rediscovered transcripts of a trial that brought about the ruin of one of England’s greatest authors and playwrights and one of the wittiest and most brilliant queer men to ever walk the planet. It’s a nice warm up for next week’s serving of the 1997 biopic, WILDE, starring Stephen Fry.

We have a new rule here at Dinner Partners. Every Pride celebration should involve a stunning performance by Coleman Domingo. As Christopher and Eric continue their special Pride Pairings, they explore how Netflix biopic RUSTIN compares to the facts of the iconic civil rights leader Bayard Rustin’s life as revealed in last week’s documentary. Your hosts are largely impressed by this sweeping, sumptuous and star-studded treatment of one of gay culture’s and the civil rights movement’s most overlooked figures. Also, Coleman Domingo. Always. In everything. And watch out for that sweet, sweet Netflix money!