
Trapped in the Closet
Trapped in the Closet on the Independent Film Channel (IFC), starring Grammy-winner R. Kelly as Sylvester, is one of the most unusual creative endeavors in recent history. Originally aired in 2005 and 2007 as a series of 22 short videos, Trapped in the Closet is now available in its entirety. Perhaps the first R&B operetta artist ever, R. Kelly takes us through a musical soap opera of the lives of Sylvester, his wife Gwendolyn (Cat Wilson), and an ever-increasing circle of community members connected in some way to the couple. Sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, there are surprises at every turn. While maintaining a single melody and rhyme scheme throughout, R. Kelly masterfully weaves a tale of love and deceit, complete with cut scenes, dream sequences, and flashbacks. To add to the fun, Kelly plays several roles himself, including a narrator in an angelic white suit, a holy roller preacher, and an unrepentant pimp.
Seasons

1. Chapter 1
Air Date: 2005-11-01
Sylvester wakes up in the bed of a woman who is not his wife, unable to remember how he got there. When he tries to leave, his mystery mistress stops him at the door saying her husband is coming up the stairs about to catch them both. Unfortunately, the pair is stuck in a fifth floor apartment so Sylvester has to hide in the closet to avoid the confrontation.

2. Chapter 2
Air Date: 2005-11-08
Sylvester emerges from the closet with his gun raised to defend himself as Rufus loses his temper. As it turns out, he’s actually a pastor and has a secret to reveal. He makes a phone call that make both Sylvester and the pastor’s wife very nervous, inviting someone he calls “baby” to come upstairs. Sylvester continues to wave his gun around as he gets more anxious, but there’s a knock on the door and both he and the wife are shocked to find out who his lover is.

3. Chapter 3
Air Date: 2005-11-15
Pastor Rufus explains that he has been sneaking around with Chuck, the mystery man from the phone call. He tells his wife Cathy that she has no right to judge him since she’s been shacking up with guys at the club. Chuck interrupts to say that he and Rufus are in love. Rufus adds that they plan to get married. Meanwhile, Sylvester is getting so frustrated having to listen to this story that he shoots a bullet into the air to get them all to stop yelling and calls his house to say he’s coming home – but a man answers the phone.

4. Chapter 4
Air Date: 2005-11-22
Sylvester starts speeding home to catch his Gwendolyn in the act, but gets delayed by a police officer busting him for doing 60 in a 40 mph. After taking his ticket, he continues home and rushes upstairs to find his wife in the shower. He wastes no time in confronting her about the man on the phone and she reminds him that her brother Twan came home that day. Sylvester makes it up to her with crazy sex, but stops when he discovers an open condom under the covers.

5. Chapter 5
Air Date: 2005-11-29
Sylvester and his wife Gwendolyn get into a full-blown argument. He starts waving his gun around again as she tells him she was at the club last night as well and saw him go home with Cathy. He threatens her again until she tells him the name of the guy she slept with. Turns out her girl Roxanne knows Chuck and Rufus, and it’s Rufus’s wife Cathy that introduced Gwen to the police officer that stopped him on the way home.

6. Chapter 6
Air Date: 2005-12-06
Sylvester and his wife, Gwendolyn, end up laughing at the irony of the situation on their bedroom floor. Meanwhile, James, the police officer who stopped Sly and slept with Gwen, comes back to the house out of concern. When he finds the back door broken in and mistakes the sound of their laughter for crying, James pulls a gun on Sylvester. Another argument breaks out and Sylvester ends up accidentally shooting Gwen’s brother Twan – who just returned home from prison.

7. Chapter 7
Air Date: 2005-12-13
Gwen, Sylvester and James begin to freak out and place blame over who shot Twan, but luckily it was only a flesh wound and Twan is able to patch himself up quickly in the bathroom. There’s a knock at the door that puts everyone on edge since they are expecting more ridiculous drama, but it’s only Rosie the nosy neighbor who came to see what was going on when she heard gunshots.

8. Chapter 8
Air Date: 2005-12-20
Officer James heads home to his country bumpkin wife Bridget, relieved for the drama to be over. When he arrives at the house he finds that she’s acting really strange and confronts her. Bridget tries to change the subject to ease his fears but little does James know that she has a lover of her own hiding somewhere in the house.

9. Chapter 9
Air Date: 2005-12-27
James continues his interrogation of Bridget who can’t get him off the trail. He not only finds another man hiding in his kitchen cabinet, but that the man is a little person.

10. Chapter 10
Air Date: 2006-01-03
James promptly attacks the little person – named Big Man – for sleeping with his wife. Bridget runs upstairs and calls a number she gets from her purse – which turns out to be Gwen. Bridget lies and says she found the number in her husband’s pocket and needs Gwen to come over quickly to calm him down. Meanwhile the Big Man is trying to explain to James that he was paid to sleep with his wife by a mystery man that would kill him for telling. Bridget returns downstairs with a shotgun to try and save Big Man, only to be interrupted by Sylvester and Twan breaking in to try and calm the situation down.

11. Chapter 11
Air Date: 2006-01-10
The guns are out again and everyone is threatening to shoot each other. James mistakenly refers to Sylvester and Twan as Chuck and Rufus, which starts Sylvester on an interrogation of his own over how the police officer knows the two gay lovers. In the excitement, Bridget starts to get sick and we learn that she’s three months pregnant – with Big Man’s baby.

12. Chapter 12
Air Date: 2006-01-17
The saga heads back to Cathy and Rufus’s apartment to show what’s been happening since Sylvester ran out to check on Gwen. The triangle continues to argue until the phone rings and Cathy answers. It’s Gwen, explaining the story of everything that had happened since the night before, including catching Sylvester leaving the club with “some crusty wig-wearing ho,” who Cathy reluctantly reveals was her.

1. Chapter 13
Air Date: 2007-08-21
Sylvester and Twan head out together to handle some business with a mystery woman that owes Sly some money. On the way to the meeting, Twan reveals that Gwen’s friends Roxanne and Tina were responsible for him getting locked up – but we’re not sure how yet. Twan watches the car as Sylvester goes to his meeting, thinking that everything should go smoothly. Meanwhile Rosie the nosey neighbor gets into a fight with her husband Randolph because she won’t stop spying on the people next door

2. Chapter 14
Air Date: 2007-08-28
Sylvester is meeting with Cathy at a diner, where we learn had she paid Sylvester to come home with her the previous night to purposefully get caught by her husband Rufus. Twan gets a phone call outside the diner from one of his friends who gives him the address for where Tina works so that he can confront her and Roxanne for putting him in jail ,and it is conveniently the diner he’s parked outside of waiting for Sylvester. After getting the story from Cathy of why she has decided to stay with Rufus, Sylvester finally notices that Tina is their waitress and tries to talk to her. Tina is automatically defensive and calls for Roxanne, who emerges from the kitchen with a skillet, prepared to fight Sylvester as Twan walks in threatening to kill both the girls.

3. Chapter 15
Air Date: 2007-09-04
Tina and Roxanne finally explain the story of how Twan went to prison. Roxanne sold him out when all three of them were arrested for driving recklessly in a car with narcotics. The story twists once again when Tina says she protected Twan when the cops interrogated her because at the time she was pregnant with his baby.

4. Chapter 16
Air Date: 2007-09-11
Twan immediately starts denying that the kid could ever be his, causing Tina’s nervous eye condition to kick in. Sylvester is able to explain to Twan that a kid and family may be just the thing he needs to start a normal life now that he’s out of jail. Twan agrees but as he turns to tell Tina he wants to work things out, Roxanne tongue kisses her and tells Sly and Twan that she’s sleeping with Tina now.

5. Chapter 17
Air Date: 2007-09-18
Twan does not take the news well that Tina is hooking up with Roxanne, even though Sylvester tells him they should just go. Twan reluctantly follows but after he threatens to buy a gun and exact revenge on the girls.

6. Chapter 18
Air Date: 2007-09-25
Sylvester and Twan start driving home when Gwen calls to check up and tell Sylvester that his mom and dad got into another fight and he mom put his dad in jail again. We return to Rufus who is helming a service at his church with the Reverend Mosley James Evans. Rufus escapes to his office for a minute to answer a phone call from a distraught Chuck who doesn’t understand why Rufus hasn’t called. Rufus tries to calmly explain that he can’t leave his wife for Chuck, which only makes Chuck more upset. Rufus begs to come see him to calm him down but Chuck won’t let him because it turns out he’s in the hospital.

7. Chapter 19
Air Date: 2007-10-02
Reverend Mosely James Evans tries to work his spiritual magic to convince Pimp Lucius to give up the racket and give his life to God. Lucius is too stuck in his ways though and leaves the church with his pimp partner Bishop Craig and his hos to go make some more money.

8. Chapter 20
Air Date: 2007-10-09
Randolph comes home to his wife Rosie, the nosey neighbor to tell her that he was at the church cleaning Rufus’s office when he heard Rufus coming in to take a phone call. Not knowing what else to do, Randolph hid in the closet and overheard Rufus’s entire exchange with Chuck from chapter 18, including that Chuck was in the hospital. This convinces Randolph and Rosie that Chuck must have “the package.”

9. Chapter 21
Air Date: 2007-10-16
Sylvester and Twan head off to another business meeting where it’s very important that Twan not lose his temper because they are dealing with serious criminals. Twan loses his temper as soon as they get there anyway and Sylvester takes the meeting with Joey, the mob boss, by himself. Together they hatch a plan to rob a training coming in on Thursday night at midnight from Indiana. Meanwhile, outside the meeting Twan has a nightmare that all of Joey’s guards gang up to shoot him and Sylvester. When he wakes up Sylvester is ready to go and all of the guards are laughing at Twan for getting so upset about a dream.

10. Chapter 22
Air Date: 2007-10-23
Word is getting out that Chuck has “the package.” Now everyone is calling each other, telling them about “the package”, trying to figure what it is, and who has it.

1. Chapter 23
Air Date: 2012-11-23
Get caught up on the many twists and turns from the first 22 chapters of “Trapped in the Closet.”

2. Chapter 24
Air Date:

3. Chapter 25
Air Date: 2012-12-07
When Pimp Lucius asks Sylvester to borrow some money, Sylvester gives him another idea.

4. Chapter 26
Air Date: 2012-12-14
Rufus and Cathy visit a therapist to address their relationship issues.

5. Chapter 27
Air Date: 2012-12-21
Rufus and Cathy make progress in their couples therapy.

6. Chapter 28
Air Date: 2012-12-28
Randolph is out to prove to Rosie that his libido is as strong as ever.

7. Chapter 29
Air Date: 2013-01-04
An infomercial from Reverend Mosely ignites a spat between Tina and Roxanne.

8. Chapter 30
Air Date: 2013-01-11
Twan shows off his new gun as he and Sylvester prep for an important meeting.

9. Chapter 31
Air Date: 2013-01-18
Rosie and Randolph get an unexpected visitor in the middle of the night.

10. Chapter 32
Air Date: 2013-01-25
Pimp Lucius steps outside his parents house to deal with his hoes.

11. Chapter 33
Air Date: 2013-01-25
Slyvester and Twan find themselves in over their head as they sit down for a meeting with a notorious gangster.
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Rating
0.0/10
Release Date
2005-11-01
Episodes
33 (3 seasons)
Status
Ended
Cast
Production Companies
Jive Records

IFC FIlms




