“Are you going to go down swinging? … It’s the only thing a man can do.”

We get it! You’re horny! - Could have been the two sentence review of Carrasco’s “Bad Things” but allow me to digress. On the nose, we’ve got gender bending ex-detectives, we’ve got ladies of the night AND day, bisexuals running rampant, erections around every corner, punching! promotions! puh-puh-paperwork! All in all: this was a fun, if a tad overwhelming, pseudo-mystery/action/drama jaunt through the 1850’s West Coast smuggling world. Also, the narrative included a closer examination of gender binary breaking than I expected from the blurb which was a surprising touch!

There’s quite a bit of character mish-mash. When 90% of the cast are deplorable opium smugglers, it’s hard to keep track of the five MAIN names and harder even then to keep up with the back and forth plot when the twenty other tertiary characters also play relatively pertinent roles. There’s Beckett and Benson and Barker and Peterson and Pike and then there’s Fulton, whoever the hell that was, who all work for two other dudes and then a brand new guy comes in and… you catch my drift. A good story behind the noise, though.

3.5/5 Red Dead Redemption 3: Drag Kings in Seattle