“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 507: “Lesbians Gone Wild” With Robin Roemer!

GET IN THE RING IT’S TIME FOR LESBIAN OIL WRESTLING. Carly’s actual wife, legendary actress and photographer Robin Roemer joins us as we get greased up and Molly Kroll is loving it!!! This week on The L Word, Tasha walks up and down the same hallway for a week, Alice delivers a killer blind item in hopes of snagging a big TV job, Jenny and Niki are honestly just very extra, Jodi talks about sex to her ex, Molly is convinced that Shane wants to bang her and listen we’re all here for the oil wrestling right, let’s do it!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Gretchen Pickles!

Riese: The only gay cast member of Lez Girls.

Carly: And this is—

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Carly: I’m not Gretchen Pickles. I’m Carly, your usual host.

Riese: Yeah, you’re Carly. But you are gay.

Carly: I am the gay cast member of Lez Girls.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: No, I’m not.

Riese: No, I’m not in it. I’m not in the film.

Carly: I’m also not in the film. How are you today, Riese?

Riese: Um, well, I got my period today, so…

Carly: Congratulations!

Riese: Thank you, so I’m pretty excited about that…

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So I went to the store and bought some tampons, and… yeah, I’ve just been working on my book.

Carly: Yeah!

Riese: Which, oddly now I’m at a point in time that coincides with the point of time that we are in this season, which is really weird. So yeah, it’s been a really great day. I mean, I don’t know, God, what can anyone say about anything right now.

Carly: Ugh, ugh. Yeah, we can’t go outside—

Riese: Nope!

Carly: Because the air is poison, but there’s also a virus.

Riese: Uh huh, and it spreads inside.

Carly: And it spreads inside.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So, I’m just trying not to leave the house. And you know what’s really cool about that is that I’m quarantined with my wife, who happens to be our special guest today!

Riese: Oh my God!

Carly: It’s Robin Roemer!

Robin: Hey!

Carly: Hey! Wasn’t that my best segue ever?

Riese: It was, yeah! So Robin—

Robin: Yes.

Riese: How long have you been married to Carly, would you say?

Robin: Ummm… I think it’s going to be 8 years in November?

Riese: Uh huh, and how’s that gone for you?

Robin: Uhhh, it has its ups and downs, but—

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: But it’s great!

Riese: So the marriage is good?

Robin: Yeah!

Riese: Being married to Carly is good?

Robin: Oh yeah! Yeah. Being married to Carly is great.

Riese: Ok. So what else do you do? What do you do professionally?

Robin: Um, I’m a photographer and a producer, and sometimes I also do a little bit of acting.

Riese: Oh, really?

Robin: Yeah!

Riese: What’s the best — what’s your favorite role you’ve ever played?

Robin: Um, I played the role of Christina, LA Times photographer on the show called The L Word.

Riese: I mean, it was a show-stopping role, I think.

Robin: Thank you!

Riese: It really brought into focus the “there’s no small parts, only small actors.” And you’re not a small actor, you know? You had — your ponytail was small, but your presence was—

Robin: Yeah.

Riese: I think it was really defining for the episode, which was one of the best — I would say the best episode of the season.

Carly: Absolutely, absolutely.

Robin: Thank you so much, I really appreciate that.

Riese: And that was no small part to your performance.

Carly: Exactly.

Robin: Thank you.

Carly: You could tell that your character knew how to hold that camera and knew how to take a picture.

Riese: Yeah, for sure, that she had taken pictures.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Before, in LA even.

Robin: Yeah.

Carly: Exactly, because sometimes it’s different depending on location.

Robin: Yeah.

Riese: For sure, yeah, because of light.

Robin: I really went “method” with the role, you know? I spent a couple years in college, and 15 years as a professional photographer, to prepare for the role of a lifetime!

Carly: Now, did they cut all your lines of dialogue, or did you have none written?

Robin: I didn’t actually have any dialogue but I—

Riese: Uh huh.

Robin: But I gave myself some dialogue that I would perform after they would cut each scene, just to kind of stay in character.

Carly: Oh, I love that.

Robin: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, so it was really a role of a lifetime for you.

Robin: Yeah, it was great.

Riese: And it’s honestly an honor, just an honor, to have you on this podcast today, you know?

Robin: Thank you so much, I am so happy to be here.

Carly: We are so — we’re so lucky to have you here today!

Riese: We are!

Lauren: Oh hi! It’s me, Lauren, the producer and editor of this podcast, here to clarify a few things that were not technically clarified in the recording of this episode. The episode that we are referring to that Robin Roemer — the talented, illustrious, show-stopping actress, Robin Roemer — appeared on is Episode 104 titled “LA Times” in The L Word reboot, Generation Q, not the original series, for anyone who was confused and thinking that Robin was hanging at The Planet. She wasn’t, ok? She was hanging at Dana’s. So, the more you know. Back to the show.

Riese: So, what would you say is your L Word origin story?

Robin: I don’t know, I was out of college, living with my ex, and we would watch The L Word — but honestly my most memorable memories of The L Word occurred after Carly and I started dating, and we would go to your apartment, Riese! And we would watch it together —

Riese: My lustrous apartment.

Robin: Super fun.

Carly: You know, what’s funny is we were watching Season 5 — that is when we started watching them all together, and that’s what we have today.

Robin: Oh, so we probably watched this together!

Carly: We undoubtedly did.

Robin: Wow.

Riese: Yeah!

Carly: Isn’t that wild?

Robin: That’s very wild.

Riese: Robin, do you have any favorite characters of The L Word?

Robin: I mean, I always loved Alice, you know? I just think Leisha Hailey is one of the better actors on the show, and I also just like her character, it is really fun, and I like Dana.

Carly: Mmm.

Riese: She died.

Robin: Yeah, I know, it’s really sad.

Riese: Because she died, yeah.

Carly: Because of her death.

Riese: Yeah, she died.

Robin: That was a huge bummer.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: And my lover Cindi is probably one of my other favorite characters on the show.

Carly: So she’s your lover Cindi?

Robin: No, that’s just her full name.

Riese: What is your favorite part of the To L and Back podcast, would you say?

Robin: I have actually never listened to an episode of your podcast, still.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: Still, still. As was established, then, Robin has never listened to this podcast.

Riese: Correct.

Carly: And she still, continuously today, has never listened to this podcast.

Robin: No, it’s just a bit, and I just can’t—

Carly: Yeah, now it’s fun.

Robin: I just can’t listen to it, like I won’t even listen to this one, honestly. I’m just kidding, I love the sound of my own voice! Everyone does!

Carly: Today’s episode is Episode 507, entitled “Lesbians Gone Wild.”

Riese: Wooooo!

Carly: Now, there’s no exclamation point on that, which I think is a real missed opportunity.

Riese: Mmmmmm.

Carly: So you can’t read it with any excitement, it’s just “Lesbians Gone Wild.” If there was an exclamation point, I think you could say, “Lesbians Gone Wild!”

Riese: I could say that anyway.

Carly: No, I don’t think you could.

Riese: Ok.

Carly: The punctuation dictates how you would say it.

Riese: You’re right, you’re right.

Carly: This was written by Elizabeth Ziff, A.K.A EZGirl.

Riese: EZGirl.

Carly: And it was directed by Angela Robinson, our favorite!

Riese: Woo! Yay!

Robin: Yay!

Carly: It was originally aired February 17, the year was 2008, and the three of us, and several others, were undoubtedly in the same room watching this when it first aired.

Robin: That’s wild!

Carly: Isn’t that nuts?

Robin: 12 years? Wow.

Carly: I know.

Robin: Wow wow wow.

Carly: Wow wow wow.

Robin: And we were adults back then.

Carly: I mean… yes.

Robin: I mean, legally we were. We were, like, 25.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Shall we get into it?

Riese: Let’s get into it!

Carly: Alright!

Riese: We open on set—

Carly: Of our favorite film, Lez Girls. Or Lez Girls, sometimes I call it Lez Girls.

Riese: Where a woman has a microphone and a blazer, and she’s like, “I’m here on the set of Lez Girls! And I’m gonna film it for — here, let’s go to the set!” And then she goes to set and everyone’s really mad at each other.

Carly: Yeah, it’s not going well.

Riese: No.

Carly: Nikki can’t remember her lines, and Begoña is so mad at her.

Riese: Yeah. But we do get the line that was straight out of the actual thing that happened when she’s like “I’m not a—” and she’s like—

Begoña: “A big coffee drinker?”

Riese: That was in the first — that was really, that really happens, so this is like, really authentic.

Carly: Oh my god.

Riese: And also really happens all the time, it’s probably happening right now to someone in LA. But it’s like in an outdoor cafe, not an indoor cafe.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: Wow, this scene was interesting.

Carly: Tina is trying — I thought it was like a news crew, because it had that like—

Riese: Yeah, I thought it was like “duh duh duh duh.” Yeah, I thought it was Entertainment Tonight.

Carly: Yeah, totally. But then Tina’s like, “Well, it’s an EPK.” But like, EPK’s don’t have on-camera hosts.

Riese: What’s EPK again?

Carly: Electronic Press Kit.

Riese: Oh, but then she said it was going to be DVD extras.

Carly: Sure, but there’s still not a host.

Riese: Well… I don’t know. I was confused because I was like, ‘Why would they be filming this now?” Anyway, so they want the reporter to come back another time.

Carly: Yeah, Jenny kicks the whole crew out.

Riese: Yeah, so it’s going very poorly.

On set of "Lez Girls," Niki is upset about having to act while Begonia is hating her

Robin: So the reporter — all I have down in my notes is “groundbreaking!” They must have said something about Lez Girls being groundbreaking, and I thought that was very funny.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: Absolutely, it’s the first lesbian film to be directed by a complete ameuter with no formal director training.

Riese: Is it though? Is it?

Carly: Maybe. Maybe not.

Robin: It read very student film to me, especially the actors screaming at each other. I’m like, this would never actually happen on set.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: This is hilarious.

Carly: No, it’s not professional.

Riese: I thought this stuff did really happen on sets?

Carly: I mean, people get in arguments, but I feel like their acting was just not good.

Riese: Yeah, what about Russel Crowe?

Carly: Russel Crowe?

Riese: Or Val Kilmer.

Robin: Mmmm.

Riese: I’ve read articles that say that these — sometimes actors are very mean on set.

Carly: That’s true.

Riese: And very bad at their jobs, like Lindsay Lohan.

Robin: Is Nikki supposed to be a person?

Carly: She is! She’s based on Lindsay Lohan, reportedly, or allegedly.

Robin: Ugh, they did a terrible job with that.

Riese: Alleged by me.

Carly: Allegedly by Riese.

Riese: But also, I think I heard it somewhere, and I don’t think it was myself.

Robin: I didn’t see her try to kidnap a child, I do not agree with that.

Riese: I mean, this was early in the — this was like, she just started dating Samantha Ronson, I believe.

Carly: Yeah.

Robin: Oh yeah — oh, that year we were Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan for Halloween!

Carly: For Halloween, and I DJ’d the Halloween party in a fedora, until I got too warm, then I had to take it off.

Riese: I was Paris Hilton.

Carly: Yes, you were.

Riese: And I looked great.

Carly: You looked amazing. Then we go to our wonderful theme song. Do you have any thoughts on the theme song that you want to share with us, Robin?

Robin: Ugh, no.

Riese: You didn’t take any notes for it?

Robin: No, I did not.

Carly: She did not.

Riese: Ok.

Carly: So, we open back up on a flyer for SheBar’s night of lesbian Turkish oil wrestling. And the flyer is the best thing I have ever seen. It’s a naked photo of Dawn and Cindi embracing that looks like — is it one of the ones that was also inside their house framed?

Riese: Um, pretty sure, yeah.

Robin: Also, I think it just might be a promotional still from The L Word, like they took it, and then turned it sideways, and put it on the flyer.

Flyer for Lesbian Turkish Oil Wrestling at Shebar, featuring Cindi and Dawn holding each other seductively

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Yeah, and it has color — it’s like blue, yellow, pink…

Robin: Mhmm, graphic design is my passion.

Riese: It’s like all the colors.

Carly: Exactly, lot of fonts.

Riese: Does anyone want to hear the whole history of the lesbian oil wresting situation?

Carly: Yes, please.

Robin: Sure!

Riese: Ok, so first of all, Turkish oil wrestling is the most popular sport in Turkey. It’s Turkey’s national sport.

Carly: Ohh!

Riese: Yeah! And so for years — and I know this because my ex was involved in it — they did Turkish lesbian oil wrestling nights in Brooklyn, and it was once a year, and it was a whole night thing, and it was mostly run by POC, and it was open to women and also to trans people. And one of the people who was involved in it, who was an MC, whose name was like Parisa, I think? She was also a designer, and she designed — she had this line called Rigged Outfitters that you may remember from that era?

Carly: Oh yeah, mhmm.

Riese: And so she met Ilene Chaiken somehow, and she was brought on Season 3 to work with costume design, and did some of the fashion for this show.

Carly: Like a vest to gig in.

Riese: Like vest to gig in, a vest to hang up after your gigging, pants, belts, shoes, gig shirts.

Carly: Gigs to vest in…

Riese: Uh huh, yeah, gigs to vest in. Just like, vests, hats… yeah, the whole head-to-toe, top-to-bottom outfits.

Carly: Absolutely, absolutely.

Riese: Rigged Outfitters. You know, and this was when it was really cool to put a ton of words on a shirt, and then make it look like it had been run over. But anyway, so she became part of the whole thing, and so that’s probably how Ilene Chaiken found out about lesbian Turkish oil wrestling. Now actually this woman does this — well probably not now, because no one can do anything right now, but she’s still an artist and a designer and stuff, and she lives here and does this underground dinner series and stuff.

Carly: Oh wait, I know her.

Riese: In LA. Yeah, do you? Do you know who I’m talking about?

Carly: Oh, Parisa Parnian, yeah, I know her.

Riese: Yeah! That’s her!

Carly: Oh my god, that’s so funny.

Riese: I think one of the interesting things about it is that [The L Word] took an event that was designed mostly by POC, for POC, and made it as white as they could.

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Riese: And put it on The L Word.

Carly: Yes, the end.

Robin: Wow.

Carly: Classic L Word.

Robin: They’re so good at that.

Carly: Classic white people stuff.

Riese: Uh huh. So they’re handing out flyers, and Tina’s like, “Don’t let Nikki see the flyer!”

Carly: She’s, like, slapping flyers out of people’s hands.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: The PA-er, whoever’s handing them out, is like—

PA: Hey, check it out! Are you coming to hot oil wrestling? It’s going to be such an awesome night. I hope you make it!

Carly: Yeah, she said that with so much confidence!

Robin: Was she involved in it? I don’t understand.

Carly: I don’t know.

Riese: She was the flyer girl. She probably responded to a gig on Craigslist and they were like, “You’re going to get paid like 50 cents for every flyer.”

Robin: So she was working two gigs at once?

Carly: Smart!

Robin: She was the PA and the—

Carly: Flyer girl!

Robin: Something for this event, wow.

Riese: Yeah, I hope she got a vest.

Carly: There was — I paused it, and I couldn’t tell because I had the captions on, so I couldn’t see the whole bottom of the flyer — but the beginning of the fake address of SheBar is “69369.”

Riese: Someone’s having a little fun!

Carly: So yeah, Tina’s really pissed, and so she entrusts Adele with confiscating the flyers and making sure Nikki doesn’t find out about this, because there can be no distractions!

Riese: Because Nikki is 5 or 6 years old, it seems like? In this episode?

Carly: It would appear, yes.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But she does know how to spell “cunt,” that’s a part of this scene somewhere, I wrote down.

Riese: Yeah we learn that. Jenny’s sort of trying to get Nikki to be nicer to Begoña, and Nikki doesn’t want to be. And then also to be less obvious — like Tina told them to be less obvious about their relationship on set.

Carly: Which is cool because, as they’re talking about that, they’re fully making out in front of the entire crew.

Robin: Yep.

Carly: So they’re doing great.

Riese: Yeah. So this is super problematic for power dynamics on the set! You know?

Carly: Mhmm.

Riese: It’s amazing Begoña even feels comfortable saying that she’s annoyed with Nikki, because the director is Nikki’s girlfriend.

Carly: Right.

Riese: And they bang and everyone knows that.

Robin: At lunch, everyday!

Riese: This is on The Chart.

Carly: Every day at lunch.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Oh, it’s definitely on The Chart.

Riese: This episode has so many meta things in it. It’s a lot.

Carly: Yeah, there’s, like, layers.

Robin: Mhmm.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: Generous way of saying it.

Carly: Yeah, it’s really complicated.

Riese: Pulling inspiration from so many places. And by inspiration, I mean just like lifting—

Carly: Wholesale lifting things, yeah.

Riese: Yeah, ripped from the headlines.

Robin: Um, the first time I went to Dinah Shore, I was actually in charge of creating a lube wrestling event for Logo. That was my job.

Riese: Oh, how’d that go?

Robin: Um, it wasn’t as elaborate as the event they put on at SheBar. It was actually just a large inflatable pool, and a lot of lube. But we didn’t get a tub of lube, we had, like, packets. So I was just squeezing packets, like little ketchup packets, of lube—

Carly: Little ketchup packets of lube?

Robin: Squeezing lube packets into this huge inflatable pool. And I was like, “I only have an hour left! How many packets do we have?!” Logo had hired these two girls to wrestle first and they were just like these… model-y type looking girls—

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: And they went in and wrestled, and then they’re like — we’re like, “Who else wants to wrestle?!” And everyone’s just like… kind of looking at each other for a while. It took a while to get people really into it.

Riese: That was nothing how it went here.

Robin: Exactly.

Riese: Everyone was just into it.

Robin: It was not as exciting.

Carly: Then we go back to our favorite location, the army base, which is good because — it’s good because it means we’re going to have some Tasha in this episode. But this storyline is sort of annoying. So we have a new special guest here and it’s Kelly McGillis, who you may know from Top Gun.

Riese: Mhmm.

Carly: I can’t think of any other movie she’s been in now, The Accused? Wasn’t she the lawyer in The Accused?

Riese: Yeah, in The Accused she played a lawyer who was prosecuting a rape sexual assault case.

Carly: Yes. And here she’s prosecuting a “Is Tasha Gay in the Military” case.

Riese: Yeah, she is. And she also likes scotch and golf.

Carly: Yes, she talks about—

Riese: So she’s a real man’s man.

Carly: Yes.

Robin: Not gay at all.

Carly: Yeah, no. Definitely not gay at all. Now, she came out right before this, before she was on the show, right?

Riese: Right after it.

Carly: Right aaaafter.

Riese: After it.

Carly: Couldn’t get my facts straight there.

Riese: That’s the cool thing to do.

Carly: Is be on The L Word and then come out?

Riese: Uh huh!

Carly: That is cool!

Riese: You’re on The L Word and then lesbians are like, “Oh my god, you’re on The L Word, you know? And then you’re like, “They don’t even know I’m gay,” so then you tell them.

Carly: And then that’s how they find out.

Riese: Uh huh, and then you do lube wrestling in a kiddie pool, with packets.

Robin: Yeah.

Riese: That’s the cycle of life!

Carly: It’s true, it’s the lesbian cycle.

Robin: Classic coming out story.

Riese: Yeah. She says—

Colonel Gillian Davis: I enjoy a man with confidence. It makes it all that much enjoyable when I crush them.

Robin: Oh yeah, I wrote down that line too, because I thought it was funny.

Carly: Yeah.

Robin: I thought it was funny to say, “I enjoy a man with confidence,” because I haven’t met too many without confidence, so.

Carly: It’s funny.

Robin: It’s usually false, but.

Colonel Davis on the army base says "Well, there's no need to start sweating."

Carly: Yes. So basically, she’s here as a temporary prosecuting attorney for the backlog of military cases they have to try? I mean, what a random storyline for a show about lesbians in West Hollywood, but whatever, here we are. Her character’s name is Gillian Davis, and she’s gonna be prosecuting Tasha.

Riese: So Beech thinks they’re fucked, because she’s such a good lawyer.

Carly: She’s so good. She’s the winningest prosecutor, a hard ass, she plays by the book. She even got West Point to ban hazing.

Robin: Wow.

Riese: Which was what, previously allowed?

Carly: I guess?

Robin: I wonder how much research they did for this.

Riese: I think this much.

Robin: Maybe it’s true life. It felt so weird, all these scenes felt so contrived to me—

Carly: I know.

Robin: And strange, like the way she stood in the hallways and just watched them interact with each other, like, “I’m gonna put this in my case!”

Carly: “I’m gonna take a note!”

Riese: Then we go to The Look!

Carly: It’s not The View, it’s not The Talk, it’s The Look.

Riese: It’s The Look! It’s The Look, even though in my notes I wrote “The Talk”. So, basically what happened here, as aforementioned, is that Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck got in a fight, and Rosie’s feelings were hurt, and she was also like, “Fuck all of you, I don’t want to do this anymore.” And so she left The Look, and so now they’re hiring Alice to replace her. They’re cycling through a bunch of potential hosts to replace her. Except that, because this is not real life, this is fake life, they have different names for all of these characters.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: And I forget who — what the Rosie O’Donnell name is?

Carly: I truly didn’t get any of their names, but there’s that one lady whose hair — the blonde lady has like, the most wind-swept look I’ve ever seen.

Riese: It was so weird.

Carly: It’s crazy.

Robin: Very distracting.

Carly: I truly didn’t know what was going on, I was just staring at her hair.

Riese: Yeah, so it’s Alice, and for some reason I only have two other hosts, which I don’t know if that was like, a budget issue or whatever. And one of them is blonde, and it’s sort of like she’s playing, like, a cloud in a play.

Carly: Interesting.

Riese: And they were like, “Let’s make your hair look like a cloud.”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: But then they gave up halfway, and then just let the rest of it fall down like rain, would be how I would describe it.

Carly: That’s a good description.

Riese: The topic of today’s episode is the internet.

Carly: What a great hot topic. It’s so easy to talk about the internet in the span of one episode.

Riese: Yeah, love it or hate it, true or false.

Robin: It definitely feels like a topic that would have been relevant in like, the late 90s, or even the early 90s, and not 2008.

Carly: I know, even in 2008 it was stupid, but now…

Robin: I’m surprised they didn’t call it the World Wide Web, honestly.

Riese: They did that last week.

Carly: Yeah, last week or the week before, they called the internet “the net,” if I remember it correctly.

Robin: The net?!

Riese: They referred to “the power of the web,” I believe at one point.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: But also, this was kind of a time when people were like, not all the way invested in the internet quite yet.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: They were talking about Wikipedia and how they have no fact checkers, which isn’t true. Wikipedia has more fact checkers than anyone else in the universe, because everyone is a fucking fact checker on Wikipedia. You could be a fact checker on Wikipedia.

Robin: That’s how you know you’re getting the best possible information, because anyone, anyone in the world—

Riese: Anyone!

Carly: Anyone!

Riese: Anyone in the whole world could edit their Wikipedia, their own Wikipedia page.

Robin: I don’t have a Wikipedia page, but I’m the only part of Carly’s personal section on their Wikipedia page. So if you go to their Wikipedia page, it’s like “personal life” and then it says, “Carly Usdin married producer, photographer Robin Roemer.”

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: And it’s just, it’s really exciting to—

Riese: Does it say actress, though?

Robin: It does not say actress, no.

Carly: No, they didn’t — we should suggest that.

Robin: We should. I’ll add it in.

Carly: A correction. The reason I found out I had a Wikipedia page is because one day, Robin was Googling herself and the first thing that came up on the sidebar, you know—

Robin: I get bored. When you used to Google my name, it used to just say “spouse of Carly Usdin.”

Carly: On that first sidebar.

Robin: Like, first. It would come up first. And then it was a wedding picture. I was like, wow.

Riese: So basically, we’re in this studio with Alice. They say that real reporters show their faces and say their names, which is a stupid thing to say because Alice did show her face and her name when she did her reporting.

Carly: Yes, both.

Riese: And then we do a quick little cut to Bette’s house, where Kit and Jodi and Bette are watching the show.

Carly: Mhmm.

Riese: And kit hates Mary Lamb.

Carly: I loved that. I was like, good.

Riese: Join the club.

Carly: We all do.

Robin: For this scene I literally just wrote “Bette.” And then I wrote “Molly?” because I forgot who Molly was, because I haven’t been listening to the podcast and I haven’t really been watching any of the episodes except for this one, so I forgot who Molly was.

Carly: At one point I had to pause it and explain Molly.

Robin: Yeah, so now I know who Molly is.

Carly: She knows now. I just wrote that Molly arrives dressed as a lesbian, again. Every scene she’s been in, she’s been dressed like a lesbian.

Riese: Yeah, Bette has been enlisted by Phyllis to show Molly that lesbians are respectable. And so they’re gonna go to some galleries and then to the Lez Girls set, when really they should be going to the horse races.

Carly: Well if Molly wants to be kicked out of the military, then that’s definitely the place to go.

Riese: Exactly, that’s where lesbians hang out, known lesbians hang out.

Carly: Known lesbians hang out in public.

Riese: Yeah, look it up.

Carly: And sometimes they put their hands on each others’ shoulders.

Riese: Mhmm, which is sex.

Carly: And that’s how you know. And that’s gay sex. Lesbian sex.

Riese: Mhm. Mhm. Sort of what you were talking about earlier with the lube and the kiddie pool, that’s another type of gay sex. And then also the hand at the horse races is another type of lesbian sex.

Carly: There’s two types, those are the two types.

Riese: Yeah, there’s two types of lesbian sex here. And then there used to be scissoring, but the jury’s out on that one.

Carly: There’s no way of knowing.

Riese: Yeah. Colonel Davis is fully prosecuting it though. And molly’s like, “I hated Kelly Corrigan, she was so obnoxious.” And that’s who is Rosie O’Donnell. And just so you know, everyone is always like, Rosie O’Donnell’s obnoxious. And she isn’t, she was correct and she’s great and I love her. And The View sucked after she left, and it still does.

The stage of "The Look" with two hosts and Alice. Asking "the internet: do we believe it?"

Carly: Rosie’s great.

Riese: Yeah, when she looks at the TV, Molly’s like—

Molly: That’s where I know her from, my mother’s degrading podcast.

Carly: And I was like, wait, Phyllis has a podcast now, too?

Riese: I was like, I understand where Molly’s coming from.

Carly: I like when Jodi’s like, “Alice is a friend of your mother.” I thought that was very funny.

Riese: Yeah, and then Bette whacked Jodi in the face to stop talking about how they knew Alice. She did!

Carly: High comedy.

Riese: But I also — like, if I was Molly… listen, I am someone with a late-in-life lesbian mom, and I don’t want to hear her talking about having graduate thesis lesbian sex on a podcast, that’s actually a video show, in a crowded cafe, either.

Carly: Yeah, fair.

Riese: I get it.

Carly: It’s fair.

Riese: Jodi’s going to have lunch with her ex.

Robin: Oh, yeah!

Carly: She’s going to have lunch with her ex, Amy, who we’ve met before.

Robin: Mhmm. That seems really boring.

Carly: That seems really boring, yeah.

Robin: I feel like they could have done so much more with it, but it was just sort of like — I think it was just to show us that Jodi’s a good person and Bette isn’t. They’re like, look at Jodi with her ex, being like chill and normal. And then Bette is being a fucking mess.

Carly: Yeah, and fully cheating on her. Ok, so we go back to the army. This episode spends as much time at the army as it does anywhere else. Half this episode is in the army, but this is the oil wrestling episode, so there you go.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: So Colonel Gillian Davis is taking some boxes into her office and she’s getting settled in. And Tasha just walks by, and just happens to be in the area, and just happens to see if she needs help. And she’s like, “Don’t help me with that box, but you can help me with this other box,” which I thought was very weird.

Riese: This is the first time of two times in this episode — is Tasha just walking up and down that hallway?

Carly: Yes.

Riese: All day?

Carly: She’s not allowed to do anything.

Robin: She actually patrols that hallway. It’s like, that’s her new job.

Carly: She has nothing else to do, she can’t do any military things, because she’s suspended or whatever the word for that is in the military, so all she can do is walk up and down one hallway.

Robin: She’s suspended for Chapter 15.

Carly: Bankruptcy.

Robin: Which I feel like is a really — that would be a really cool undercover way of telling people that your’e a lesbian. Like how it used to be “Friend of Dorothy.”

Riese: Uh huh, yeah.

Robin: We could just say, “I’m Chapter 15.”

Carly: Oh my god, that would be a cool speakeasy, called Chapter 15.

Riese: Yeah, and you can have a tattoo…

Carly: With a little 15.

Riese: Uh huh.

Robin: I like that, like a little book—

Carly: A little book and on it, 15.

Riese: So, just so you guys know, that idea belongs to us and we’re copywriting it, and if you steal it, I’m going to sue you.

Carly: We’re gonna have Colonel Gillian Davis prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.

Riese: Yeah. They have a little army banter to show us that Colonel Davis has not seen any bullets fly at her face, and that Tasha has seen bullets at her face.

Carly: Yeah, no one has died in her arms the way they have in Tasha’s.

Riese: Yeah, no one — no one — I mean, I haven’t seen Top Gun, so I don’t know what happened in Top Gun, but all we know from this specific thing is that no — it does seem as though — yeah, Davis has had it pretty easy there, while Tasha has been in the line of fire, being gay.

Carly: Yeah, mhm.

Riese: Secretly.
Carly: Secretly, yeah.

Riese: So, Colonel Davis has been secretly gay, also, but not in the line of fire.

Carly: She’s obviously gay. Like, how could that woman not be gay?

Riese: Right?! She said she wanted to crush a man, which I guess could be straight too. Straight people — I think straight women don’t like men less than gay women do.

Carly: Yeah. So they get to chatting, and then she’s like, “Oh, are you going to go back out and do more bullet and gun stuff in the world?” And she’s like, “Well, actually, my unit’s out there doing bullets and gun stuff right now, but I’m not with them, I’m here.” And she’s kind of like, “Wh- wh- wh- why?!” And then that’s when we learn about Chapter 15. And then — oh my god, she is so mad at Tasha. She’s like, “This is a breach of protocol!” And then the soundtrack is army drums.

Riese: Oh, it is?

Carly: Yeah, it’s like a drumline.

Riese: Can you imagine the rest of the week, every time Davis walks outside her office and Tasha’s, like, going back and forth, and she’s like, “Breach of protocol, Tasha!” And she’s like, “I’m sorry, I’m just walking.” And then she’s like, every time she walks out, “Why are you here again?” She could be walking a rabbit, at least, if she’s going to be walking back and forth. Whenever I see someone walking without any — without doing anything else, I’m like, you could be walking my dog right now, but you’re just walking doing nothing. You know?

Carly: It’s true. And like, maybe Davis doesn’t want to deal with it, and so she just stays in her office and never comes out. But like, she has to pee, so she has to get someone to create a diversion to get Tasha out of there, and it becomes a whole kind of slapstick, wacky mission.

Riese: Yeah, or she pees in a plant.

Carly: Oh, she definitely pees in a plant, right.

Riese: Or maybe she pees in a box, and that’s the box she didn’t want Tasha to pick up. She’s like, “That’s the box I pee in.”

Carly: That’s the pee box.

Riese: That’s the pee box.

Carly: And that’s why there’s no air holes cut in it.

Riese: Yeah, and if she ever thinks she might be pregnant, she just drops a pregnancy test into the pee box and sees what happens.

Carly: This is an especially deranged episode and I love it.

Riese: Back to The Talk/Look/View.

Carly: The Talk/Look/View.

Riese: They’re wrapping up their episode called “The Internet: Do We Believe It?” Do we believe it?

Carly: Do we believe the internet?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Like, do we believe what we read on it, or do we believe that it exists?

Riese: Uh huh… both.

Carly: Well, I think this is like a Matrix-style simulation.

Robin: Yeah, oh for sure.

Carly: Obviously.

Riese: I was thinking when she said this, “Well, just wait until 2020, you’re not going to have a choice.”

Carly: Mmm.

Robin: Mmm.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So that’s uplifting.

Carly: So Alice starts to get some notes…

Robin: Oh yeah.

Carly: And they were like—

Robin: She gets the, “don’t be an angry gay, be a fun gay!”

Carly: Be a fun gay!

Alice on the set of The Look, says "Fun Gay"

Robin: Which is what I tell myself every morning. I’m like, don’t be an angry gay, be a fun gay! You know?

Riese: Absolutely.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: They’re basically saying, “Don’t be a Rosie, be an Ellen.” Which we all know is…

Carly: Incorrect in every way. They want insider tid-bits, which means that they want her to out celebrities.

Riese: Yikes!

Carly: Not just that — they don’t just want her to out famous people, they want her to out a famous person per episode. Which, if this is a daily live show, we’re gonna run out of people to out eventually.

Riese: Would they though, at that time?

Carly: At that time, no.

Riese: They could have started with Kelly McGillis!

Carly: Ohhh! Here behind door #2, Colonel Davis, from Army!

Riese: From army!

Robin: Why wouldn’t they tell her this before she gets on the show? They’re telling her during a commercial break, like, “We want you to out people!” And she’s like, “What?”

Carly: Yeah, that would never happen.

Robin: Like, “What do you have for us?” She’s like, “Wait…”

Carly: What do you mean “what do I have?” Of course they would have prepped her ahead of being on a live program.

Riese: Mhmm. But she’s conflicted because she really wants the job, obviously.

Carly: Obviously.

Riese: But also, it’s morally wrong to out people who have not done anything damaging to the queer community.

Robin: Mhmm.

Riese: And also it’s like — I mean we’ve all known about people who are gay, that we can’t tell anyone about.

Robin: Mhmm!

Riese: Like that’s… even though we’re in the media and Robin’s a famous actress….

Carly: Yeah…

Riese: And it’s just like, that’s part of the job, that you just don’t tell anyone.

Robin: Yeah, that’s very true.

Carly: It is. So, she conflicted, and then they’re like, “Cool anyway, we’re live again.”

Riese: They call it “TheirChart.”

Carly: Yeah, and they get the pronunciation of her last name wrong, which is a bit for this whole season, which I love.

Host of The Look: Alice Pisheki!

Carly: And they call it “TheirChart,” “YourChart,” like they can’t get the site’s name right, which is so funny. And then they ask her to out someone. They’re live, and they’re like, “Come on, come on, what do you got?” But they’re live, so she has no choice.

Riese: And they go, “Dish! Dish! Dish! Dish!”

Robin: And then she does that whole riddle.

Carly: Oh my god, and then she turns into the riddler.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: She makes up a riddle that rhymes on the spot, which is really impressive.

Riese: Yeah, they should hire her just for that, and being like, “We loved what you did with the outing, but we really love what you did with rhyming.”

Carly: We love your witty word play and the way you phrased it like an old-timey blind item. Do you remember blind items?

Robin: Yes.

Riese: Mhmm.

Alice: Ok, which Hollywood little Maxim-endorsed gorgeous little starlet is a little bit closer to her role as a sapphic sister in Hollywood’s new girl-on-girl smooch fest?!”
The Look Host: Ohhh!
Alice: That’s all I’m gonna say!
The Look Host: It’s time to stop now, so maybe you’ll have to tell us next time! [Applause]

Carly: I think what she should have done is that she should have been like, “What tennis pro, super sponsored athlete, who is dead, is gay…and my ex?”

Robin: Yikes.

Carly: That could have been what she did in a pinch.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But instead—

Riese: Yeah, that’s what I would have done. And then everyone would have laughed, and afterwards been like, “It’s so weird how Riese always talks about dead people.” And I don’t know, that’s so weird, and that would have been the end of me.

Carly: But that would never happen, because no one talks about Dana on this show, because they forgot about her.

Riese: Right, totally. They had so many people they could have outed.

Carly: I know.

Riese: So yeah, that was bad.

Carly: She outs Nikki Stevens pretty obviously, but will deny it later.

Robin: I also feel like there’s this element of speculation that has existed forever in queer media, especially in lesbian media, that just is sort of always speculating, like, “Is Kelly Clarkson gay?” Like, “what do we knowww?” Like, “who do we knowww?”

Carly: Yeah, yeah.

Robin: And so it feels — it doesn’t, like — maybe Nikki is so big of an actress and there’s been rumors before… this was me trying to justify Alice in my head because I’m like, I love Alice as a person, and then she does this, and I’m like, oh, she’s a terrible person.

Carly: Yeah.

Robin: So in my head, I was going through all the scenarios that would make it ok for her to do this. There are not many, but I’m saying that maybe it’s already been rumored, I don’t know. She’s making out on set…

Riese: It probably has.

Robin: She’s making out with the director on set, that’s gotta be like—

Carly: The funny thing is that by the end of the episode, Nikki does it herself. So it’s like, it would have been ok if Alice had a time machine, and knew that it was going to happen. And she was like, “Guys, trust me, I’m not being a dick about this.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: It’s gonna happen.

Riese: But also, there’s the rule that’s like, no matter what you do, unless you literally say that you are gay, it doesn’t count. There’s people like Queen Latifah who has a girlfriend, had a wife, kisses women in public, and we’re still not allowed to say that she’s gay, because she hasn’t actually come out.

Carly: Right, we can’t be like, “queer, brilliant performer Queen Latifah,” we have to be like—

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Queen Latifah…

Riese: Queen Latifah, wink.

Carly: A.K.A. my mom’s friend, Dana.

Robin: Oh yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: It’s true.

Riese: I think the way that it is ok for Alice is just imagining her being in this position of like, “I want this job really badly,” and feeling this immediate obligation to her audience and to the producers, and wanting them to like her.

Carly: True.

Riese: That for a moment, it’s warped and you forget that.

Carly: The context.

Riese: Yeah, you forget that the rest of the world exists because you just want to do a good job in the moment.

Carly: But the problem is that when she goes to set later — which we’ll get to — she doubles down and is kind of a jerk about it.

Robin: Yeah…

Riese: Yeah, so that’s bad.

Carly: But in this moment, you’re almost like — you’re with her a little bit, because you’re like, she’s in this horrible position that they’ve put her in.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: And it’s like, you can kind of see where she’s coming from a little bit? Because she wants the job. But then later it’s very, very, very bad.

Riese: Yeah. It is a different time than it is now, because now, we’ve all accepted that an actor can be gay, and no one cares, and it’s fine.

Carly: Right.

Riese: But then it was still this thing like, “Can a gay actress play a straight role? Probably not!”

Carly: It’s impossible.

Riese: And so everyone was in the closet, yeah.

Robin: That’s true, yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Like every cast member of this show!

Carly: So we go from this speculation on a live show called The Look about Nikki, to Nikki’s’ trailer on set, which is fully a gay dance party in the middle of the afternoon.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: And I’m like, honestly good for her. Ok, so who are all these extras, who are all these queer extras in Nikki’s trailer?

Riese: Who was like, “A trailer would be a great place to have a dance party!” A mid-day dance party with everyone’s purses on?

Carly: It’s wild.

Riese: It is. Nikki has a glitter purse.

Robin: Oh wow.

Riese: Did you notice it? She had it on the whole time.

Carly: I totally missed it.

Robin: No, I did miss that. I did notice that her trailer is enormous and has a bed in it though. So unrealistic.

Carly: Yeah, like a full bed.

Riese: Yeah. It’s basically like people who live in vans on TikTok.

Carly: Mmm, van life. Totally. So Jenny arrives and she’s like, “Get rid of everyone.” So Nikki gets rid of everybody so that they can make out.

Riese: Mhmm. They’re really into each other.

Carly: They are really into each other. And I’m like, good for them, but this is a problem.

Riese: Mhm.

Carly: But good for them! But also it’s a problem.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: And Jenny says that Tina wanted her to talk to Nikki about how they should be more subtle on set. So they take that advice right away and start to have sex.

Jenny and Niki kisisng

Riese: Meanwhile! Outside, Nikki’s managers are yelling at Tina because Nikki was just outed on The Look/View/Talk. And Tina is like, “It’s fine, we’re just going to do a press release that Gretchen Pickles is the only gay cast member,” which, duh. And also, this is obviously about — again, everything in this is ripped from the headlines, is that Jennifer Beals accidentally outed Kate Moennig in The Advocate one time, and the company line throughout the entire L Word was that Leisha Hailey was the only gay cast member.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: When, in fact, they had a shit ton of gay cast members.

Carly: They sure did, yeah.

Riese: Yeah, like four in this episode.

Carly: Yeah. I just love the name Gretchen Pickles so much.

Robin: It’s so great.

Riese: Yeah. What were those books about — oh, it’s The Rugrats, right?

Carly: Yeah, there was Tommy Pickles, that was a rugrat.

Riese: So do you think that she’s related?

Carly: Yeah!

Robin: Probably, yeah!

Carly: For sure.

Tina talking to Niki's managers

Riese: To Tommy Pickles?

Carly: Mhm, she’s one of the Pickles family. The Pickles—

Robin: The Pickles dynasty?

Carly: Yes, thank you. Tina’s like, “Don’t worry, guys. I got it under control.” Which is great, because she does not have anything under control. Then they start asking her about security, which was one of the most laugh out loud moments of the episode for me, because what we have seen so far that has happened on set — that happened even in previous episodes, and then moments later in this episode — is that there is the most nonexistent security.

Riese: Mhmm.

Carly: Like, it’s so funny. And she’s like, “We’ve ramped up our security protocol.” And I’m like, you hired one guard, because before you had no guards, because before, Dawn Denbo was showing up. There was that episode where the entire cast shows up to just hang out.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Like, no security.

Riese: Someone got flyers in there…

Carly: The flyers. Nikki can’t—

Riese: Rogue flyers.

Carly: Nikki’s not allowed to see anything! She’s not allowed to see words and pictures!

Riese: No, she has no self control!

Carly: Zero!

Riese: Anyway, then Sam, the DP, needs a techno crane with a 3-axis head.

Tina talking to the DP, Sam, who is hot

Carly: Yeah!

Robin: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, mhm. That’s a thing, that’s a request that a DP would make.

Robin: For sure.

Riese: It’s not just another type of lesbian sex?

Carly: I guess it could be a third type…

Robin: It could be.

Carly: The third type. I thought it was weird that the DP walked all the way off set to go find Tina.

Robin: Yeah, we had a whole discussion about this.

Carly: Yeah, the two of us were both like—

Robin: They would not walk off set to find a producer, they would definitely send someone.

Carly: They would definitely send a PA, or someone with a walkie. Unless it’s lunch, but then like, I thought they were working right now? It’s very confusing, but.

Riese: Well, maybe she has a little crush.

Carly: Ugh, it sure does seem that way.

Robin: It seems that way.

Riese: Seemed that way to Bette.

Carly: Oh right, because Bette’s here now with their great security.

Riese: Yeah, with the triple-down security, Bette and Molly — who nobody even knows — shows up, and Bette is looking at Sam, the DP, and talking to Tina and being like, “Oh my god.” Bette thinks everybody wants to hook up with Tina all the time.

Carly: Like, no one cares about Tina, except for Bette.

Riese: As Jenny Schecter said a couple episodes ago, no one wants to think about Tina having sex. Just kidding, Tina and Bette have had very hot sex scenes, and we like Tina this season only.

Carly: This season Tina is cool, otherwise Tina’s terrible. We forgot, Kit’s also there. So Kit takes Molly to go—

Robin: Yeah, Kit!

Carly: She also brought Kit. So, Kit and Molly go wander around. The Planet’s closed because of the rats, so Kit has nothing to do.

Kit, Molly and Bette on set

Riese: As you do.

Carly: I actually kind of love that Kit was just tagging along with Molly and Bette all day because she had nothing to do. I thought that was a nice touch.

Riese: I thought so too.

Carly: But Bette is like, “It’s really important that I go talk to Tina right now.” And so now Kit has to hang out with Molly.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But before we see what they’re about to do, we go to Jodi having coffee with her ex, Amy.

Robin: Mhmm.

Riese: There’s an extra in the back of this scene who is doing… the most.

Carly: The most?

Robin: Was it me?!

Riese: It was probably you! It was similar, it was probably inspired by your performance in The L Word: Generation Q, it inspired this guy in the back who was having lunch with like — I don’t know, it looked like a lot was happening between him and the guy he was having lunch with, like maybe a lover’s quarrel?

Carly: Oh my god.

Robin: Oh god, I love background by the way. My favorite actors are background actors.

Carly: They’re the best.

Robin: They’re so weird, I love them so much.

Jodi having lunch with her ex

Carly: They’re catching up, Amy says she’s seeing someone named Melinda, and she apologizes for the whole thing that happened when she met Bette, and how she was angry. And she actually admits that she was dating a hearing woman before she met Melinda, because that was one of her criticisms of Bette if I remember correctly, right?

Riese: Yeah. She apparently said she was selling out.

Carly: Yes, that’s right.

Riese: Now she says she’s just hurt. The weirdest part about this is that Jodi is like, “Well, the sex with Bette is great!”

Carly: All Jodi wants to talk about is sex.

Riese: I’m like, this is inappropriate.

Robin: I feel like The L Word wants so badly for us to think of Bette as this amazing lover, and I’m just not buying it. I’m really not. I mean, I know, I know the scenes… it’s very hard to see, because it’s just some silhouettes moving in the darkness.

Carly: Just a woman in a bra at all times.

Robin: I’m not buying it.

Riese: I mean, last episode we got, like, four solid minutes of Bette and Tina sex.

Carly: Yeah, dirty cheater sex.

Riese: They had two long sex scenes. Cheater sex. Bette and cheater sex. But good for Amy, because when Jodi’s like, “Tell me about sex with Melinda,” Amy’s like, “No?”

Carly: Yeah, which I would say is a normal response.

Robin: Yeah.

Riese: Uh huh, yeah.

Robin: Yeah.

Carly: But I liked seeing them hanging out. I just thought it was cool that they were moving on and could be cool and well adjusted together. And I’m like, great, I’m glad Jodi has friends outside of this group, because she needs to get away from these people as soon as possible.

Riese: Mhmm, definitely. Back on set…

Carly: Oh my god. We get to see the most hideous bedroom I have ever seen.

Robin: Oh yeah, Jenny’s design choices…

Carly: Oh my god, it did not look like a bedroom for two grown, wealthy adults.

Riese: No.

Carly: It looked like it was some sort of Rooms to Go children’s sale.

Bette and Tina in "Bev and Nina's room" on the set of Lez Girls

Riese: Yeah, it looked — it reminded me of a Gymboree, but it also reminded me of Limited Too. Do you remember Limited Too?

Carly: There was a very Limited Too vibe, yes.

Robin: Absolutely, yeah.

Riese: Yeah. Basically, Tina is showing Bette, Bev and Nina’s room. And it’s — I mean the colors are what, pink? Hot pink?

Carly: Pink, several pinks.

Riese: There’s some greens, I think?

Carly: There might have been a purple? Or an orange? Was it pink and orange?

Robin: It was sunset colors.

Riese: Yeah, that was probably inspired by the sunset.

Carly: Yeah, and then if you took a sunset and made it terrible, that would be the color palette.

Riese: Yeah, and then you sold it to Limited Too.

Carly: Exactly. So they do some cool sexy role play about whose side of the bed is which.

Robin: That’s such an ex-married people role play. “Remember when we used to unpack the groceries together?”

Carly: “Hand me a ziplock bag.”

Riese: Didn’t they have a sexual scene about unpacking groceries?

Robin: I’m sure they did.

Riese: They did! In Season 2! That’s when Tina and Bette hooked up again, remember?

Robin: Oh yeah!

Carly: Oh my god, you’re right.

Riese: They did!

Carly: Oh fuck, wow, good job.

Riese: I think they’re making jokes about it being a 70s style room decor because she’s like, “Do you have any rock candy?” And she’s like, “No, but I have some pot.” Is it true that Jenny would be designing the set?

Carly: She would approve. She would have final approval on everything, but she would not be designing the set.

Riese: Is this whole film just for her to drag Bette and Tina?

Carly: It seems that way!

Riese: No grown-up has ever had a room that looked like that.

Carly: No, zero grown-ups.

Robin: No.

Riese: Zero. Not even in the 70s.

Robin: Jenny does strike me as the type of director, though, that would be very micromanage-y and would want a hand in every decision.

Carly: But her hands are in Nikki, so how does she have time to make all these other decisions?! Heyooooo.

Robin and Riese: Ohhhhh!

Carly: Jokes! Thank you! Sorry, I’ve been watching a lot of Drag Race, so all of my jokes are sex-related now.

Riese: Well, you should have lunch with Jodi, she’d love it.

Carly: We’d get along great. I would be like, girl, Bette is fully cheating on you, I saw it on TV. And she would be like, “Who are you and what is going on? What TV?” So then, they’re about to make out, but then they’re at work. Tina’s at work, so then she has to go back to work. I was also really stressed out by people being on set that — like, I know that Tina’s one of the producers, but she should know better than to be fucking around with the set. Like, what if that was a hot set? What if they needed it—

Robin: It was a hot set…

Carly: It was a hot set… nice babe, that was awesome.

Riese: Meanwhile…

Carly: So meanwhile, Alice is trying to get on set, but there’s a security guard who won’t let her. But here’s the thing: they’re there on a sound stage, which means she had to get on to the lot, park her car, walk to that stage, and then encounter the security guard, because she is inside of a sound stage. So they literally just hired one guard to stand by that one door. They let her on the lot! You can’t get on the lot easily unless you’re allowed.

Riese: Maybe she jumped onto the lot, so she didn’t walk.

Carly: So maybe she parked nearby, and jumped?

Robin: And jumped.

Carly: And ran.

Riese: Yeah, she jumped, yeah.

Carly: I’m just saying, the security is not good on this movie set.

Riese: No, and they don’t want her on because she’s banned and she’s like, “How can I be banned?”

Alice: Have I told you that I’m the earth mother for the producer’s child?

Riese: And then Tina comes and she’s like, “No, for real, you’re banned because you outed Nikki on television.”

Carly: And she’ s like, “Whaaat, no, umm, whatever, I didn’t do anything.”

Riese: She’s like, “I didn’t say her name, you guys are just being dramatic,” which, ummm…

Carly: Uhhhh…

Riese: And then Tina explains a thing that was actually true at the time which is like—

Tina: This is because this is a lesbian movie.
Alice: What the fuck does that mean?
Tina: We want this movie to reach a large mainstream audience, alright? And if everyone thinks the lead of our movie is gay, then that makes it a small little niche film.
Alice: What the fuck is up with everybody these days? Am I like, some sort of idiot that I’m out? I mean, is the joke on me? Because I don’t get it.

Riese: Which unfortunately, again, was accurate.

Carly: Yes.

Alice frustrated that they're not letting her on the set of Lez Girls

Riese: And also was probably The L Word explaining why they hired all straight actors for their show, and then when Alice is like, “Am I some big idiot for being out?” That was also probably Leisha Hailey feeling like that as well.

Carly: Like actually being herself.

Riese: Yeah, actually being herself, like “Why am I the only one on this entire set who’s out? Like am I an idiot for being out?”

Carly: Mhmm, I liked that.

Riese: I liked that too.

Carly: I enjoyed that bit.

Robin: Yeah, I liked that part too.

Carly: So then Tina — Tina tells her not to blog about any of this, which I thought was great. I was like, she’s past typing, ok? She’s moved on to videos, so.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: The blog is the least of your concerns, Tina.

Riese: Yeah. Max has taken over the blog with Lorem ipsum.

Carly: Also, where’s Max?

Riese: Oh…

Carly: Not in this episode!

Riese: Is Max not in this whole episode?

Carly: He is not in this episode at all.

Riese: Ugh, a blessed break for poor Max.

Carly: Maybe… well, nobody was being transphobic for him for a whole 24 hours, so that’s…

Riese: So this is a 2 episode streak! Last episode, no one was mean to Max. This episode, no one is mean to Max. The best way to have no one be mean to Max is to not have Max in the episode at all. And that’s a 2 episode streak, which broke the entire streak of every episode that came before that, in which people were mean to Max.

Carly: Exactly.

Robin: Mhmmm.

Carly: Either just generally mean or usually transphobic.

Riese: Yeah, pointedly transphobic towards Max. So he got a little break.

Carly: Yeah, good for him.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So, Alice is pissed and she’s insulted and she’s like, “Whatever, I have to go to Long Beach to meet with a lawyer about Tasha, so like whatever.” And she leaves.

Riese: Yeah. Then we go to the hair and makeup trailer…

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Where Molly is talking to Shane, who is kind of chiding her about her mom’s party.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And like, “Oh, you looked like you were having a lot of fun there.” And this, again, reminded me of myself when my mom first came out and was acting like she was very young with all her lesbian friends and I was horrified!

Carly: Awwww.

Robin: Oh wow, yeah, that’s a lot.

Riese: I was like, stop it, you’re 40…. which is about how old I am now.

Carly: Mhmm. But when you’re younger, 40 sounds like the oldest a person could possibly be.

Robin: You’re like, stop having fun, you’re too old to have fun!

Riese: Yeah, exactly, I was like, stop it! Stop acting like you’re young people who can get drunk and have drama! They were always having lesbian drama and I was humiliated by it. But also I was humiliated by everything because I was a 14 year old.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: A depressive anxious teenager who wore really bad pants and shirts, if we’re—

Carly: being honest?

Riese: Being honest, yeah. And we are. So there’s obviously some light flirtation here, but Molly is really determined to be in a bad mood.

Carly: Yes.

Robin: Mhmm.

Carly: She’s determined to be as un-fun as possible.

Riese: Uh huh. Also, Shane is wearing a Uh Huh Her shirt!

Carly: Yeah, our favorite band.

Robin: I would call Molly an angry gay.

Riese: Oh! Wow….

Robin: I think that was what they were talking about on The Look.

Carly: They were like, “Don’t be like Molly.”

Robin: Like, “Don’t be an angry gay.”

Carly: And Alice was like, “Who?”

Riese: They were like, “The daughter of the chancellor you fucked?” And she was like, “Who?”

Carly: And she was like, “Right… oh… the one that always dresses like a lesbian, yes.”

Riese: Yeah, she should have just outed Phyllis.

Carly: I know, I honestly had the same thought. My first thought was like, she should’ve outed Dana, because she’s dead and was already out. And then my second thought was that she could have outed Phyllis.

Riese: Yeah, or Joyce Wishnia.

Carly: I was also thinking about Joyce, who is clearly out.

Riese: She could have outed Jenny, because the thing about straight people is that they don’t know that people are gay. Have you ever told a straight person that Amber Heard is gay?

Carly: Oh, yeah yeah yeah, it blows their minds.

Robin: They’re like, “NO!”

Riese: They’re like, “Nah uh, no she’s not.” I mean, she’s bisexual, but they don’t believe that.

Carly: No, no one believes that anyone is queer except for queer people.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: Yep.

Carly: So then Bette comes in and is like, “We have seats on set!” Which seems to be an important special thing. And I was like, kind of, there’s limited seating, so you should actually be very lucky, and very proud to have those seats. But anyway, so Bette and Kit and Molly leave.

Riese: Bette gives Shane the evil eye, like, “Don’t you dare,” because Bette is thinking that basically Shane is already finger fucking Molly in her mind. And Shanes like, “What? I’m just being—”

Carly: “I’m just doing hair!”

Riese: I’m just Shane-ing you around!

Carly: Just Shane-ing all up in this hair and makeup trailer.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And Begoña’s like, “You could have used a better line on Molly,” which I thought was cute.

Begonia and Shane in the hair + makeup trailer

Riese: There’s another actress who was in the closet at the time, is the actress playing Begoña.

Carly: Yes, mhmm. A.K.A. Marta 2 from Arrested Development.

Robin: That’s right, yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Because they recast the role after several episodes.

Riese: So there are four: Kate Moennig, Kelly McGillis, Elizabeth Keener, and Patricia Velasquez.

Carly: Are all queer but not yet out.

Riese: Were all not out.

Carly: Publicly.

Riese: In this episode.

Carly: It’s very meta, there’s a lot going on here.

Riese: Yeah, there’s a lot going on here.

Carly: So we go back to Nikki’s trailer where she and Jenny are in bed, and the trailer has an entire bed in it.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: Incredible.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And Nikki really wants to go out tonight, but Jenny can’t because she says that she’s old and has responsibilities.

Riese: Also, they’re fully naked and just had sex.

Carly: Yes. I’m sorry, I left that very important detail out. And then Nikki asks the next — the most obvious next question in this scenario, which is—

Nikki: Do you want any kids? Or…

Robin: Completely normal.

Riese: And Jenny’s like, “I don’t know.” And Nikki’s like, “I want to have your kids.”

Niki naked in bed with Jenny after sex

Carly: And jenny’s just like, “Uhhh what?” And then Nikki says this whole scenario where she’s like, “I want — we have a big family, and we’re going to go to Ireland.”

Riese: Yeah, and get away from all this.

Carly: “Get away from this and go to Ireland.” And Jenny’s, like, really overwhelmed, because no one’s ever asked her to go to Ireland before and have a family.

Robin: This is such a perfect — I think — young lesbian scene.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: Because when you’re young, you have lustful feelings for someone and you immediately—

Carly: Plan out your life.

Robin: You’re like, we’re going to get married, we’re perfect together, like, we’re supposed to be, we’re so connected. And you’re like, no, you just have a lot of dopamine running through your veins right now, just give it an hour, you’re gonna be fine.

Carly: Yeah, you just fucked, like, you don’t need to talk about Ireland.

Robin: You don’t need to be talking about children.

Riese: Yeah, save Ireland for date five.

Carly: Yeah, come on. Children are for date six. And then, over the walkie, they hear that Jenny’s needed on set. And I’m like, oh my god, you guys are so unprofessional.

Riese: But before that — also, Jenny is very — they are so smitten with each other, which is actually, it’s very believable. Like they genuinely seem like they have that energy, that new relationship energy of like, they really just can’t keep their hands off each other.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Which is really cute. But also Jenny’s like, “Ugh, we could get the fuck out of LA, this terrible place.” So you kind of see the real Jenny for a second, where she kind of seems to maybe recognize that she’s not really thriving here, you know? Or rather, that she’s blaming the city for her personality.

Robin: Where do you think Jenny would thrive?

Riese: I think, I mean, Ireland.

Carly: I heard Ireland is lovely this time of year, especially for queer families.

Riese: I do too.

Carly: Like large queer families.

Riese: Yeah, with — especially if Nikki has a ton of Jenny’s kids, they are in Ireland…

Carly: They could get a big cottage for all of the kids.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: That would probably solve a lot for her.

Carly: That would help Jenny a lot.

Robin: Definitely.

Riese: I think that the only place that Jenny could really — I think it’s Iowa City, which is a great town! I love Iowa City.

Carly: Ok! I’ve never been, but I hear it’s great from you.

Robin: That is just so random.

Riese: Well, that’s where she went to school.

Robin: Ohhh, ok, ok, see, I didn’t remember that.

Riese: Yeah, you might have forgotten it because—

Robin: I thought it was like, Stanford, but maybe that was where Tim was on the swim team? I can’t remember anything.

Riese: Oh no, he was on the swim team at Oberlin.

Robin: Oh wow, ok.

Carly: And Bette went to Yale.

Riese: And Bette went to Yale.

Robin: Obviously.

Carly: And no one else has a backstory.

Riese: Yeah. Tina doesn’t have parents.

Carly: Tina doesn’t have a family.

Riese: Tina was delivered by the stork. That’s why she’s so weird.

Carly: That’s why she’s so off.

Riese: Yeah, stork parents.

Carly: So they’re on set, and Nikki doesn’t care, and then Nikki tells Jenny that she loves her, and Jenny does not say it back.

Robin: Jenny’s like, “Thank you.”

Carly: She’s like, “I’m gonna give you a hickey,” which is a really weird response to someone saying “I love you” for the first time.

Riese: Yeah, when someone’s about to be on camera, also, in a film, you know, maybe don’t.

Carly: I know, I wrote down that the makeup department’s going to love that! They love covering things up on people’s skin. So then, we go to our favorite place, the army.

Robin: The army place!

Carly: And we have this cool scene that happens in two separate offices over the phone. I mean, wow. Action. Like, talk about some drama.

Riese: Yeah. Lights, camera, this scene.

Carly: Lights, camera, sit down at a desk and call someone else. So Davis calls Beech and she tells him that Tasha should settle and take an honorable discharge with full benefits. And wouldn’t you know it, Tasha is sitting in Beech’s office at this exact moment. Because again, she has nothing else to do. So she’s either at Beech’s office—

Riese: Or strolling the hallway.

Carly: Or in the hallway.

Riese: She lives in Beech’s office. She just sleeps on the ground and wakes up and gets back in the hallway.

Carly: Her motorcycle is in the hallway.

Robin: She uses her box, uses the pee box.

Carly: The pee box!

Robin: In her little corner.

Riese: Yeah, she has her own pee box.

Carly: She’s got a cot and a motorcycle, and that’s all she needs.

Riese: Uh huh.

Tasha in a meeting with Beech

Carly: So she’s like, “Yeah, tell her to fuck off.” And he’s like, “She has declined the offer.” And that’s the whole scene. Very interesting. Cool stuff.

Riese: Also, she should take the offer.

Carly: I mean, it does seem like she’s going to not win the case.

Riese: Right, because she is gay.

Carly: Because she is actually gay, and they said that even if she wasn’t, that these cases are really hard to win.

Riese: Yeah, especially against that tough Colonel Davis from Top Gun.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Tom Cruise was in that film.

Carly: Yeah, and Val Kilmer.

Robin: Talk about gay!

Riese: Yeah, talk about gay! Uh huh!

Carly: I was a big Val Kilmer fan.

Riese: It’s the second time Val Kilmer has come up in this episode.

Carly: This is the Val Kilmer episode of To L and Back.

Riese: We’re on the set of the Pluto Cafe.

Carly: So, not only did they not film on location at The Planet, they also did not film on location at SheBar. But they just built a set, which is what they should have done anyway, because I’m sure a lot of this movie is set in this location.

Riese: Yeah, and Kit reveals that she has had to spend $8,000 on all of the shit that she had to do because of the rats that the SheBar bitches put in her cafe! And that is not fair or kind! And then they’re ready for Nikki on set, I think? Or for Jenny, who cares. Adele fake drops the loyal — “loyal,” haha — the oil wrestling lesbian flyers on the ground.

On the set of Lez Girls, Kit says she's going to get back at those She-Bitches

Carly: Adele is full-scammer this episode, like, not even hiding it anymore.

Riese: Ok, so there’s a film called All About Eve from history, from the black-and-white era.

Carly: From the cinema.

Riese: But it’s basically like, there’s this aging actress who is in a Broadway show, and then she meets — like her friends meet this fan of hers, and then they introduce her to the fan, which is exactly what happened with Adele. And the fan is so obsessed with her, and she wants the fan to return, and so she hires the fan to be her assistant. And her maid, who is basically — this is the parallel to Max — is very suspicious of her and doesn’t trust her.

Carly: Mhmm.

Riese: But she basically turns on the maid because the maid is against her assistant. And then, of course, by the end of the film, All About Eve, the assistant has replaced Eve.

Carly: Mmm, exactly.

Riese: And the actress no longer has a job, because she has been replaced by the schemer who was her assistant, who made up a fake story about growing up in Wisconsin and being poor and all of that stuff. So this is like — it’s not like, “oh this is a funny coincidence that these are very similar,” this is obviously very precisely similar.

Carly: You could call it an homage.

Riese: An homage, yeah, it’s an homage. This is an homage to All About Eve, which everyone was dying for, so.

Carly: That’s what the young lesbians of the early aughts wanted, was an All About Eve remake starring Jennifer Beals and Mia Kirshner. That’s what people wanted, you know?

Riese: Yeah, they were demanding it.

Carly: They were like — they had signs and they were protesting outside of Shaolin.

Riese: All About Eve!

Carly: But new! But gay! You know? Like they were like—

Riese: With bangs!

Carly: Yeah, All About Eve! We need bangs!

Riese: Bang bang bang, yep.

Carly: So anyway, Adele does this whole, “oh whoops, I did not drop that flyer on the floor…” And Nikki finds it, and she immediately loses her mind, and wants to go out to the oil wrestling tonight.

Riese: Tina tells Bette that Jenny and Nikki fuck every day in their trailer at lunch, so obviously that’s not a secret.

Carly: It’s not, everyone knows.

Riese: Everyone knows. And tina says that Nikki is a puppy.

Carly: Mhm. And she tells Bette that Jenny is driving her insane.

Riese: Correct.

Carly: Which should not be a surprise.

Riese: No. And then Bette is gonna leave and she’s like, “Molly, are you ok here?”

Carly: She’s like, “Oh, I’ll drop you off.” And she’s like, “No, I’m staying.” And she says it so fast.

Bette: I have to get back to the office now, so if you want to come—
Molly: I’m fine. I’m gonna hang out here.
Bette: Oh, alright. Well, I’ll get Jodi to come down to the set, and then—
Molly: I’m 24 years old, I don’t need a babysitter.
Shane: Yeah, I’ll—
Bette: You’ll what?
Shane: I’ll take her home.

Carly: “I’ll know if you do anything crazy, Shane, I live next door to you.”

Riese: Yeah. Molly says she doesn’t need a babysitter.

Carly: You know who does need a babysitter?

Riese: Babies?

Robin: Nikki!

Carly: Nikki. Also Angelica, an actual baby who’s not in this episode.

Riese: No.

Carly: So, Nikki’s sooo pissed that she can’t go to SheBar with all of her friends who are at SheBar.

Riese: She has major FOMO.

Carly: Ugh, the most FOMO. And Adele is a full scheming crazy lunatic, and it’s great. She’s like, “This must be so hard for you! Like, you can’t go out with your friends!” And I’m like, welcome to a pandemic, you lunatics. And then she just starts putting ideas in Nikki’s very impressionable mind.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: And she’s like, “Well, I mean… what if you just left for a little while?”

Robin: She’s like, “I heard they don’t need you on set for like an hour and a half.”

Carly: Yeah…

Robin: Which I’m like, that’s not a lot of time.

Riese: Yeah, and she’s like, “Most stars have a thing where they won’t work after 8 o’clock, and if anyone respects them then…”

Carly: It’s just like, “You’re not being respected here, you should be able to go to the bar.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s what happens.

Riese: Luckily SheBar is down the street?

Carly: Okay?

Robin: It’s walkable, because she walks there, right?

Riese: It’s walkable, yeah. The walk score is 100.

Robin: In the universe of The L Word, we are like — it’s like a 6-block radius.

Carly: Yeah, everything.

Robin: Basically, yeah.

Carly: Yeah, it’s all right there.

Robin: If this was reality, she would be like, “Well, I guess if I leave now, it’ll take me an hour to get there.”

Carly: Yeah.

Robin: Because it’s two miles away.

Carly: It’s evening, so…

Riese: Yeah. If something comes up on Google Maps and it’s like, “this is 5 miles away,” I’m like, “oof.”

Carly: What’s the point?

Riese: Guess I’ll get there by tomorrow?

Robin: Yep.

Riese: See you in 24.

Robin: I love traffic humor.

Carly: So Bette’s at home in bed and is saaaad. Bette is soooo sad.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And then Jodi comes in the room to see her.

Riese: Uh uh.

Carly: And Bette’s not looking at her, which is super rude, because Jodi’s deaf. And so Bette is being double rude — like a whole new type of rude in this moment.

Riese: Yeah. Maybe she was inspired because earlier in the episode Molly walked into the room that they were all in and was talking while barely moving her mouth and was facing another direction, and somehow Jodi knew what she was saying.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Which we’re pointing out because it gives unrealistic expectations to people at home about deaf people’s abilities to read lips.

Carly: Exactly. So Bette hugs Jodi’s stomach.

Riese: Yeah, she’s like, “Hey tiny pickle.”

Carly: There’s no tiny pickle anymore.

Riese: Oh, right. Oh yeah that’s funny! We used to call, in Seasons 1 and 2, the baby Baby Pickle. We called her Little Baby Pickle, remember?

Robin: Is it Gretchen Pickle?

Carly: It’s totally Gretchen Pickle.

Robin: Grown up.

Riese: And it was Gretchen Pickle — we thought it was Angelica Pickles, but turns out it’s Gretchen Pickles.

Carly: It’s Gretchen Pickles.

Riese: Who is playing Tina, who was the one who was pregnant with the little baby pickle!

Carly: Holy shit!

Robin: Full circle!

Carly: Holy shit! That’s remarkable!

Riese: Yeah, that’s at least an oval!

Carly: So then Bette, like, forcefully takes off Jodi’s pants, and then they have a top-off that Bette wins by being kind of a jerk.

Riese: She masturbates on top of her.

Robin: It’s kind of — yeah, this is a perfect Bette scene.

Carly: Very Bette.

Robin: It really is. You’re like, you’re so full of shame.

Carly: Yeah.

Robin: I just don’t know what to do with you.

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: Like, ok, is this what you need to do? Ok…

Carly: Ok… sure…

Riese: Yeah.

Robin: Ugh. Run, Jodi!

Carly: I know. Jodi, the call is coming from inside the house! Like, get out. Run far away from this woman.

Riese: Yeah, so this is the great sex that they’re having.

Carly: So great. Bette is such a great lover.

Robin: Like I said, not buying it.

Carly: So we go back to set, and Molly is really bored. And Shane offers to take her out, and Molly’s like—

Molly: So what do people do for fun in this town, besides sticking with lesbian art aficionados and pretending it’s exciting?
Shane: Well, you could stick around a little bit longer and then I could take you out.
Molly: Sure.
Shane: What?
Molly: My mother told me all about your little game. You’re like, The Fonz or something, for lesbians.
Shane: That’s bullshit, The Fonz? Shut up.
Molly: Happy Days?
Shane: I know The Fonz, I know Happy Days, but uh…. Alright, I’ll give it to you, you’re sassy, no one’s called me that before.
Molly: I’m not sassy, I’m bored. But not bored enough to sleep with you.

Molly on set, telling Shane that she knows she's like "the fonz for lesbians"

Carly: And then Tina and Jenny are looking for Nikki. So Adele is like, “I don’t know what happened, but also I’m pretty sure she’s at SheBar.” So we go to fucking SheBar and now things get—

Riese: OIL WRESTLING!!

Carly: REAL crazy! Oh wait, do I have to do my SheBar song?

Riese: Yeah, do your SheBar song.

Carly: [over techno music] SheBaaar

Robin: Is that a song?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I had a song for Wax, and now that’s the song for SheBar.

Robin: Oh, got it, got it, got it.

Carly: Yeah, you would know if you listened to the podcast.

Riese: Yeah, it’s really good. People — there’s like, 1,000 people who have listened to it and love it.

Carly: Yeah, people are like, “When are we getting the Wax thing as a ringtone?” Like, that’s the whole conversation.

Riese: Yeah, they want to buy it as a ringtone.

Carly: Yeah. So Dawn Denbo is dressed as a ringmaster. All eyes on her at the center of the ring, just like the circus, obviously.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: But it’s a wrestling ring.

Riese: She’s like, Miami Vice.

Carly: Yes, and she’s… yes. It’s a wrestling ring, and tonight her name is Miami Vice, and her lover Cindi is named “The Viper.”

Riese: Right. Also Cindi is dressed like a devil.

Carly: Mhmm.

Robin: Yeah.

Riese: And Dawn is dressed like a ringmaster. Miami Vice?

Robin: None of it makes any sense.

Carly: None of it.

Robin: I was mad about that. I was like, they could have at least themed the night, had appropriate costumes, matching costumes.

Carly: You know what I’ll say, is that The Planet always does a theme night, they do a theme. SheBar has yet to do a theme.

Riese: SheBar… but they really transformed this space.

Carly: They really did transform the space.

Riese: There’s a full ring in there.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And I felt like, wow. Because I went to the lesbian oil wrestling event in LA that Dawn Denbo hosted — but she wasn’t hosting it with Cindi, she was hosting it with that woman, Michelle Wolff, who was a lesbian actress.

Carly: Ohh, right.

Robin: Oh, right.

Riese: Remember her?

Carly: Vaguely.

Riese: And Ilene Chaiken was there.

Robin: Was she oil wrestling?

Riese: Unfortunately no, but that would have been thrilling. And Angela Robinson was there!

Robin: Mhmm.

Carly: Who we love. So, Nikki decides that she wants to wrestle Cindi.

Riese: Also, everyone is dressed psychotically, everyone in the whole room is dressed insanely.

Carly: So they definitely handed out wacky hats and large sunglasses to every extra as they filed in, because there’s people in pirate hats—

Robin: Yeah, they went crazy at Party City with that budget.

Carly: There’s no theme! There’s no set theme!

Riese: No.

Carly: It’s chaos.

Dawn Denbo hosting Lesbian Oil Wrestling

Riese: The theme is like, wear one thing, and then give yourself a different nickname for that thing that has nothing to do with it. That’s the theme.

Carly: You need a nickname, but it cannot be related to what you’re wearing.

Riese: Exactly. I mean, honestly, also this is really fun.

Carly: So Nikki gets in the ring and she’s like—

Nikki: Tonight you all can call me Jessie Jailbait! [crowd cheers]
Dawn: Oh wow, Jessie Jailbait!

Robin: Yikes.

Carly: And then she’s like—

Riese: Do you think that was a Lindsay Lohan reference? Because Lindsay Lohan went to jail?

Carly: Oh shit, I thought it was a reference to the thing that is about to happen, which is that she’s apparently underage.

Riese: Right.

Carly: But, she’s underage — like under the drinking age, but she’s over 18, but under 21, is basically what she’s saying.

Riese: Right, so she’s like 20.

Carly: Great, good for her. Remember 20?

Riese: I don’t. Nikki is daring enough to take on Cindi, and — but it’s obviously like, Dawn is like, “Holy shit, Nikki is here, I’m gonna call my friend Mickey,” which rhymes with Nikki.

Carly: Mhmm.

Robin: I like that she said—

Dawn: Do you recognize the twink?

Carly: I know!

Robin: In reference to Nikki.

Carly: I loved that!

Robin: Yeah, me too.

Carly: Because I really thought that was great, giving visibility to the word “twink” being used in lesbian spaces, because people don’t really think of it that way and I was really happy that they brought visibility to that, that particular issue.

Riese: Yeah, I thought so too, I really liked that.

Carly: When she got off the phone with Mickey, in my head immediately I thought it was Mickey who, in The Comeback, was Val Cherish’s hairstylist—

Riese: Mouse?

Carly: And I was like, oh, is he a paparazzo?

Robin: Paparazzo?

Carly: Paparazzo, singular. So they wrestle in oil.

Riese: And there’s all this music, and it’s really funny and fun and weird. And then the paps are outside, and Tina’s really unhappy, and she says she’s totally fucked. And then Kit — once Tina says that Nikki is underage — Kit gets on her fucking phone. I love this, I love this for Kit.

Nikki having fun lesbian oil wrestling

Carly: So funny.

Riese: She calls the cops! Kit calls the cops. It reminded me of all the kids on TikTok who are like, “All cops are bad, but if you have a party on my campus, and our classes get cancelled, I am fucking calling the cops on you, I am going to snitch on you, this is the one exception.” This is Kit being like, “You motherfucker, I’m calling the cops this time.” Because they put rats in her thing!

Carly: Yeah, she’s out for revenge.

Riese: Yeah, and I love this for her.

Carly: And she calls the cops because they’re serving alcohol to a minor.

Riese: To one specific minor.

Carly: To one specific famous minor who is 20.

Riese: Yeah, who may have been mentioned earlier today on The Talk/Look/View Who might be gay? Who knows.

Carly: Who’s to say?

Robin: Which is actually hilarious, because in — I feel like in LA if you’re a celebrity, it’s not like — what celebrity under 21 is not drinking in LA and allowed to go to any club that they want at any time?

Carly: And it’s been like that for the longest time.

Robin: Yeah, oh yeah.

Riese: Yeah, like definitely since the 20s.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: The roaring 20s.

Carly: The roaring 20s. Prohibition. It’s like, it started after prohibition, which was just, kids can drink if they’re famous in Hollywood.

Riese: In our favorite speakeasy, Chapter 15!

Carly: Chapter 15! So then there’s a slow motion moment where Nikki wins the wrestling.

Riese: Yeah, Nikki’s having a great time.

Carly: Against Cindi, A.K.A. “The Viper.”

Robin: I have to say, this does look very fun — a lot more fun than the one that we did.

Carly: The lube wrestling?

Robin: Yeah! I was getting a lot of ideas, I was like, oh this is great, like instead of packets, you get more—

Carly: A ton of oil!

Robin: Like oil instead of lube, probably.

Carly: I mean, your skin is like, really moisturized.

Robin: And then it’s just on your skin for the next week.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, good luck getting that off. But it’s going to slowly seep into your skin, and your skin is going to look radiant.

Robin: It’s going to look great.

Carly: For a while, which is good!

Robin: It looked really fun!

Riese: And like, in actual Turkish oil wrestling, they are wrestling in olive oil.

Carly: Incredible!

Riese: Which is expensive, but…

Robin: It sounds great for your skin, wow! I would love to do that. I would love to wrestle in olive oil. Especially if it’s really nice olive oil, I love the smell of olive oil.

Carly: I know, it smells great.

Robin: Great for your hair.

Carly: Yeah. There’s so many health benefits to what they’re doing.

Riese: Shane, for some reason, is taking the angle of—

Shane: That is fucked up! [crowd cheers]

Riese: It does not make sense on any level!

Carly: Does not track.

Riese: Like, are women in bikinis degrading? What about this is degrading?

Carly: The oil!

Riese: This is strength! This is strength, they’re exhibiting strength!

Molly and Shane watching Lesbian Oil Wrestling, Molly thinks it's awesome

Robin: It’s a sport! You said it was the number 1 sport in Turkey, is that actually true?

Riese: It is!

Robin: Because then, yeah.

Carly: So Shane is anti-sports, which is fucked up.

Riese: Shane is anti-Turkey and anti-sports.

Robin: Well, fuck Shane.

Carly: Fuck you, Shane.

Riese: Molly and Jenny are like, “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” Molly is happy for the first time in the entire series.

Carly: In her life.

Molly: That’s not fucked up, that’s amazing!

Riese: She loves it!

Carly: And then Tina screams, “Do you know how much money you’re costing me?!” Which was a very “producer” thing to say.

Tina upset about Lesbian Oil Wrestling

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I just love that they all left set to come here and try to fix this. And so Jenny’s like, “Hey Nikki, you should come back to set.” And Nikki’s like, “You have to get in the ring!” And so Tina’s like—

Riese: Yeah, “You gotta come in here and fight me,” which was in the preview.

Carly: “You gotta get me out of the ring, you gotta just beat me,” and then Tina’s like, “Go get her!” And so Dawn, of course, encourages this. And then Jenny’s like, “Sorry, Tina, you asked for it.” And so she jumps in the ring with Nikki and then, “Smack My Bitch Up” by The Prodigy starts to play.

Robin: That was so good!

Carly: Which is honestly the perfect song for this. I’m sure that there’s people who have opinions about this song, but I love it.

Riese: Jenny’s wearing five shirts.

Robin: I was just gonna say: she takes off a white tank top to reveal another tank top underneath, which is such a drag queen move, honestly.

Carly: Don’t take off your wig unless you have another wig on under.

Robin: It’s perfect.

Niki at lesbian oil wrestling

Riese: And everyone cheers for the tank. They’re like, “She’s down to one tank top! Woo!”

Carly: “She had two and now just one!”

Riese: And Dawn and Cindi notice that Shane and Molly seem to maybe be there together, so they’re scheming in their head.

Carly: They’re the most observant people on this show, by far.

Riese: Yeah. What about Adele, though?

Carly: Adele is observant, Max is observant, Dawn and Cindi are observant. Everyone else is an idiot.

Riese: Correct.

Carly: So then from the middle of this fun gay chaos, we hard cut, very jarring, to the army.

Riese: Army.

Carly: And I wrote, “Alice is there to see Colonel lady and she’s super mean to Alice.” That’s my note for this scene!

Riese: That’s your note? What’s your note, Robin?

Robin: My note is: “So what is this military case with Alice?” I think I was high when I wrote this. I think I was trying — what I was trying to say is, why is Alice talking to the Colonel? Why would she be called in? I don’t know how law works.

Riese: Because she’s the evidence.

Robin: Oh, ok.

Carly: She is the evidence, and then the colonel lady tells Alice that Alice is the reason that Tasha is in this situation, which I just want to go on record, once again, as saying, I agree.

Riese: Yeah. I was like, this is a big moment for Carly, because Carly has been saying this every episode since the charges were filed.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: That this is 100% Alice’s fault. She’s like, “Seems to me like Tasha didn’t have any problems…”

Carly: “Until you…”

Riese: “Until you strolled into her life…”

Carly: Rolled into town in a Mini Cooper.

Riese: Exactly, yeah. And then rode around on her motorcycle, and then rode her.

Carly: Presumably.

Riese: Presumably, at the horse races, which also involved riding.

Carly: So… yes, of course, Tasha is actually gay. But Alice, I’ve said this every episode, is essentially the reason that Tasha is now currently in the situation she is in, because of her lack of respect for Tasha’s boundaries and the realities of Tasha’s life. But I don’t have the energy to go into that again because we’ve already done it. So what I’m going to say is that she leaves, and then bumps into Tasha in the hallway, because again, Tasha is patrolling the hallway.

Riese: “Oh, fancy seeing you here!” Davis is probably like, “Ugh, there she is again.” Also they say that Alice is being called to testify.

Carly: Right.

Robin: Ok.

Carly: So Alice leaves the office and sees Tasha in the hallway, because she lives in the hallway and only patrols that hallway. She has a cot in the hallway and a pee box in the hallway. And she sees her and she’s like — it’s so awkward — and she’s like, “I’m sorry, they called me in, and I didn’t know what to do.” At least she didn’t invite the military into her home again.

Riese: Exactly, yeah, she didn’t break the Third Amendment. But Davis sees their interaction, and I was like, that’s a point for them, because you can clearly see they’re not dating.

Carly: Mhmm, exactly.

Riese: You can tell that.

Carly: You can tell, because she doesn’t put her arm on her shoulder.

Riese: She doesn’t put her arm on her shoulder, or lube wrestle her, or anything.

Carly: Exactly.

Robin: There’s nary a horse in sight, so.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So we go back to SheBar, and now we are fully in slow motion footage of Jenny and Nikki oil wrestling.

Riese: Making out.

Carly: Making out.

Riese: Like, they’re wrestling, but mostly they’re just making out.

Robin: I like this scene.

Carly: This is great!

Riese: Yeah!

Robin: I enjoyed this scene.

Carly: This was a real scene that was on television.

Robin: I had a moment where I was watching this again, and I remembered watching this scene 12 years ago, and I was like, wow, I’m gay. You know?

Niki and Jenny lesbian oil wrestling

Carly: They must have had a very long day on set of people having to be in oil and rolling around in oil. And I was like, that sounds like it would be really annoying. And then Robin was like, not if you’re gay.

Robin: Oh I would love — are you kidding me?

Carly: And I was like, that’s a good point.

Robin: Role of a lifetime!

Riese: Roll…

Robin: I just said that I would love to roll around in olive oil, I literally just said that.

Carly: Yeah!

Robin: If anybody has a movie and they’re looking for a very bad actress to roll around in olive oil… I know I’m going to get a lot of calls for porns, but…

Carly: Porns? For porns?

Riese: For the porns?

Robin: But if it’s like, if you’re shooting a queer indie, and you need someone to roll around in olive oil — like a 40 year old woman, just give me a call.

Carly: She has a lot of free time. We all do.

Robin: Yeah, I have so much free time.

Riese: But if you want to see her reel, just watch the episode of The L Word called “LA Times.”Iit’s Robin’s reel.

Robin: Mhmm.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Well also the other thing that could be on your reel is when you played Raquel in our Real L Word parody video. You were very good at that!

Robin: Oh yeah! I also played myself on The Real L Word! I played a photographer shooting a calendar for a website called Autostraddle dot com!

Riese: That’s true! But you wouldn’t know that from looking at it, because Ilene Chaiken personally hates me and cut Robin’s name and the name of our website out of the episode.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: You might think I’m making that up, but it’s true.

Carly: Yep, that’s true, that’s all true, 100% true.

Robin: No, they did. Because they said they wanted to come to set and I said, “You don’t have to give us anything to come to set, you just need to give us a lower third so that we can address my name and Autostraddle,” and they took out my lower third.

Riese: Yep, and they took out Autostraddle.

Robin: So if I ever see Ilene Chaiken at an oil wrestling match, she’s going down first.

Riese: Or at a pool party.

Carly: You’ll be like, “I have a bone to pick with you, Chaiken.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Ok, so…

Riese: My first note here is “back to smash my bitch up.”

Carly: Yes, the song is in this episode for, like, the entirety of the song. It is a several minute needle drop, it’s pretty wild.

Riese: I wrote “smash my bitch up,” though.

Carly: Oh no, that’s incorrect.

Riese: Incorrect.

Carly: It’s smack, Riese.

Riese: Yeah, I know, ugh.

Carly: Anyway, so finally Jenny and Nikki leave, and then Dawn sees Molly, and she’s like, “Do you want to wrestle?” And Molly is like, “Of course I do, but again, I am very straight, but I do want to wrestle in oil.”

Riese: Uh huh. She’s similar to Robin in that way.

Carly: Yes, except—

Robin: Very straight?

Carly: Just wanting to wrestle in oil.

Riese: Oh, yeah.

Carly: And so, Dawn does this whole thing with Shane, which is like, “Hey, Shane!” And then, like, shoves Molly face first into the oil and jumps on her, so then Shane has to come rescue Molly. And then also Cindi is wrestling. So now all four of them are rolling around. And then at one point, I think Shane rips out some of Dawn’s hair?

Niki and Jenny lesbian oil wrestling

Riese: Yeah!

Carly: Which is unbelievable!

Riese: It’s like, Shane is wrestling Dawn, and then Molly is wrestling Cindi, but then it’s like, they’re switching, it’s sort of like they’re swingers.

Carly: Yeah, Wife Swap.

Riese: Yeah, It’s Wife Swap. It is an episode of Wife Swap, but oily and brief.

Carly: An oily episode of Wife Swap.

Riese: And to the sound of “Smack My Bitch Up.”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And it’s a true delight.

Carly: It’s pretty great.

Robin: It’s a great scene!

Carly: I was truly shocked, rewatching it, when she ripped out a clump of her hair. Like, I was absolutely shocked.

Robin: And they’re laughing, like “hahahaha.”

Carly: Like, that’s a lot of hair!

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s awful, that’s — I mean, I don’t like Dawn, but that would be painful for her.

Riese: Yeah, it would be.

Carly: But it’s fine because nothing matters, because the LAPD is here to break up the event.

Riese: Yeah, they don’t even need to see an underage person drinking. Which, by the way, we haven’t seen anyone really going… oh wait, Shane went to the bar and got tequila shots.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: But they don’t have to see anything, they just walk in and say, “Everyone out of the club!”

Carly: I like how they sent one man. I thought the portrayal of the LAPD in this episode was very kind to the LAPD.

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Carly: They were not really — they were like, “Hey, break up the party, I guess, please.”

Riese: Yeah, with one guy.

Carly: I was like, that’s not how it would have happened at all.

Riese: No, if someone stubs their toe, they send 10,000 police officers and they fill up the entire street. And I walk home and I’m like, what’s happening, and they’re like, someone tripped and fell.

Carly: Ugh.

Riese: And the entire West Hollywood Police Department is there.

Shane, Molly, Cindi and Dawn doing lesbian oil wrestling

Carly: Tina’s trying to find Nikki, but she can’t find her, and then we find out that nikki is not being arrested.

Riese: Because they negotiated.

Carly: Negosh… a little negosh happened.

Riese: A little negosh — don’t arrest our favorite superstar over this!

Carly: But also, I like that — I guess in this version of things, Nikki has not looked on the internet or communicated with anyone who has at all that day?

Riese: I have a feeling she doesn’t.

Robin: Yeah, all my notes are like, “why hasn’t Nikki looked at her phone?” Like, why hasn’t anyone talked to Nikki? Like does Nikki not have—

Carly: She went out to see her friends at SheBar.

Robin: Does she not have agents who would call her and be like, “This just happened.” Or a manager, or anyone?

Carly: But they all know about it, but they’re not talking to her about it, and now she’s left the set and is in a public place being real gay.

Robin: Someone would have told her by now!

Carly: It’s wild, the events of this episode, and how she is just like—

Riese: I don’t think she cares?

Carly: Sure.

Riese: I get the feeling that she doesn’t care and her managers are the only ones keeping her from totally throwing her entire career away and everything she’s worked for and all of her Top Gun movies.

Robin: Honestly, in her mind, she’s just barefoot and pregnant in Ireland. She doesn’t even care anymore. She’s just like, “I’m over this career.”

Riese: She is, yeah. She is having little Jenny Schecters all over the Irish hills.

Carly: God, what a bunch of insufferable babies.

Riese: Lucky charms!

Carly: So we see Shane, and she’s like, “Hey Molly, I’m gonna go home and get cleaned up, do you want to come? And she’s like—

Molly: I’m totally straight, but you can keep dreaming.

Carly: Yeah, and Shane’s like, “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Riese: Which was long overdue, because the entire time Molly was convinced that Shane was trying seduce her, and Shane was just like, “Stop.”

Carly: This feels like a very like—

Riese: Straight girl thing?

Carly: A very specific 2008 straight girl thing.

Robin: Oh my god, yes.

Carly: Like, very specific.

Riese: We talked about this earlier, that straight girls automatically assume that, if you’re a lesbian, you want to bang them and that the greatest gift that they could give you would be—

Carly: Allowing you to bang them.

Riese: Allowing you to bang them, and you’re like, “Why would I want to bang you, and not someone who isn’t straight?”

Carly: Yeah. So then, we see Cindi and Dawn getting arrested, which is — I think we need to defund the police and abolish prison, however, it was really wonderful watching Dawn and Cindi get arrested.

Riese: Yeah, well Kit was yelling at them.

Carly: Yes, while Kit was yelling at them. That was really very special.

Riese: She’s like, “You rat fuckers! Go to jail with your rat friends! And she was like, “Yes yes yes!”

Kit outside SheBar chiding Dawn and Cindi

Carly: Cindi tries to bribe a cop, which I thought was really funny. And then Jenny and Nikki finally find each other, and Nikki thanks her for taking her out, and they kiss, and Jenny tells her she loves her. And I wrote in all caps, “WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?”

Riese: Back to set!

Carly: Back to set, because everyone has left. Not just the producer, and the star, and the director, but also everyone else, I guess.

Riese: And the hair stylist.

Carly: And the hair stylist. We find Adele sitting in Jenny’s chair on set and she quietly, to herself, says, “Cut… print.” And she seems very satisfied.

Robin: I love that part. She has this, like, look in her eye.

Carly: Oh yeah, that was a great ending moment.

Robin: Mhmm.

Carly: Just truly deranged and I loved it.

Riese: Yep.

Carly: And that’s the episode!

Riese: That’s the episode!

Carly: We did it! We talked about this episode!

Riese: We did it!

Carly: So, what did we think? Did we like this episode?

Robin: Yeah!

Carly: Yeah, I liked this episode.

Riese: I liked it, yeah.

Carly: It’s real chaotic.

Robin: It’s so chaotic. I love the oil wrestling, the slow motion oil wrestling, and I love being in army. I love seeing army. Feels very realistic. It gives us a little look into what—

Carly: What army is like?

Robin: What army is like. And the hardships of having to pee in a box and patrol a hallway every single day.

Carly: Patrolling the hallway is tough because it’s boring.

Riese: Yeah, yeah.

Robin: Yeah, this was good.

Carly: I like that they just keep adding cast members. That’s really fun, I feel like we can keep them all. This is a good amount of people. They all have a purpose.

Robin: I like how Jenny is somehow a famous director for no reason.

Carly: That’s the most unbelievable part of this show, which I have said many times in this podcast, is that Jenny got to direct this movie and at no point was fired from directing this movie yet. She wrote a bad script!

Riese: Uh huh!

Carly: She doesn’t know what she’s doing, has zero directing experience of any kind—

Robin: Like, even if her, even if her script got sold, she would not be hired as the director of this movie. There’s no way.

Riese: True.

Carly: Even if her script got sold and she had some directing experience and interest in directing, she probably still wouldn’t get to direct this movie.

Riese: It’s like if Ann Martin got to direct The Babysitter’s Club.

Carly: No, she didn’t. I wonder what she’s doing right now.

Riese: Being gay.

Carly: Yeah, this was a fun episode. You know, Season 5 is wacky. Wacky and fun. There was no transphobia in this episode, that was a nice breather, two weeks in a row.

Riese: Yeah, two weeks in a row.

Carly: Two episodes in a row, no transphobia, it was really nice.

Riese: Yeah, I think we saw a lot of life.

Carly: Robin, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be a part of this episode with me, your wife, who you live with!

Robin: You’re so welcome! I’ve been really busy lately, doing things like sitting on the couch, and also sitting on the couch, and sitting on the other end of the couch.

Carly: Don’t forget you’re playing a lot of Animal Crossing!

Robin: I’m still playing Animal Crossing, and hanging in there.

Riese: Wow.

Robin: I have literally nothing to do, so, you’re so welcome.

Carly: There’s just one person on her island that she really wants to ask to move out, so she has to keep playing until they ask to move out, because all of her other cute island animal friends are really great, but there’s one bad apple in the bunch.

Robin: But seriously, thank you for having me on this podcast, and I promise to listen to this episode.

Carly: She’s not going to listen to this.

Robin: If not to just be embarrassed of my low energy.

Riese: I mean, if you don’t have anything going on, you could listen — like in theory you could listen to the whole…

Robin: I could!

Riese: All of the episodes.

Robin: D do hear what Carly is saying, so i just kind of fill in the blanks of maybe what you’re saying. I imagine what you would say.

Carly: Whatever Riese is saying is definitely funnier than what I am saying.

Robin: I’m sure.

Riese: That’s not true.

Robin: I didn’t mean to say that, but I mean, you’re both very funny!

Carly: No, I mean, Riese is funnier.

Riese: That’s not true, we’re a team!

Carly: We’re a team, we’re both equally funny.

Robin: You’re a great team.

Riese: We’re both equally funny.

Carly: We’re a great funny team.

Robin: I agree.

Carly: Of equality.

Riese: Yeah, Equal, it’s a new show on HBO MAX this October.

Carly: Robin.

Robin: Mhm?

Carly: Where can people find you online?

Robin: On the Net?

Carly: On the World Wide Web.

Robin: On the World Wide Web?

Riese: Where can we find you on The Web?

Robin: Um… robinroemer.com, I guess?

Carly: What about—

Riese: Do you have any social media?

Carly: Any social media, yes.

Robin: Yeah I have an Instagram and Twitter…

Carly: Wow, tell us more!

Robin: And my handle is @robinshoots … or as Carly likes to say, “at robin toots.”

Carly: I’m awesome. Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter. We are @tolandback. You can also email us at: [email protected]. And don’t forget, we have a hotline! You can give us a call and leave a message, it’s 971-217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell, our logo is by Carra Sykes. And this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron. Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And of course, Autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle dot com!

Carly: Alright, and finally it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually these have little-to-no relevance to anything we recapped. Ok, Riese, are you ready?

Riese: Ok. One two three… lawyer.

Carly: Las Vegas Aces.

Robin: Lover Cindi.

Carly: Robin, what did you say>

Robin: Lover Cindi.

Carly: Wonderful. Riese, what did you say?

Riese: Lawyer, because I need one.

Carly: Alright, any lawyers out there? Riese is looking.

Riese: Any lawyers out there in the California area, just hit me up.

Carly: I think you should hire Joyce Wishnia, but that’s just one person’s opinion.

Riese: Oh yeah, that’s a good idea, I should.

Carly: My L word was Las Vegas Aces. Because i’ve been doing only WNBA-themed L words for Season 5.

Riese: Yeah!

Carly: And they are the second best team in the league. They are my second favorite team, after the LA Sparks, and today they beat the LA Sparks, which made me very sad, but also happy. Like, good for them, but you know, also bad for the Sparks. Anyway, the WNBA playoffs are beginning very soon, and they’re not long enough. There, I said it.

Riese: Wow.

Carly: Yeah. Bold statement here.

Robin: Controversial.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Wow.

Carly: Yeah, big controversy.

Dogs barking in the background.

Riese: Carol!

Robin: I don’t think I’m going to make it to 2021…

Carly: No.

Riese: Well, on that note, the dogs are barking and the puppies are scheming and the world is burning.

Robin: Hey!

Riese: And next week we’ll talk to you again!

Carly: Thank you all for listening! We will see you next time, byeeee!

Riese: Byeeee!

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Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3279 articles for us.

7 Comments

  1. Not here for the Lindsay Lohan shade. That girl has had such a difficult life and no one to help her or guide her but herself and people still have the nerve to criticize her when no one protected her from a very young age and only exploited her for sh*ts and giggles. At least she didn’t turn out to be a homophobic racist like Paris Hilton and became famous due to her talent, not her last name, a s*x tape and unflattering tabloid appearances.

  3. Over the past few episodes, the meta-ness of the show has really come into focus. Of course any viewer would notice the show (or movie) within a show, with the former’s plot based directly on the latter’s, but I love how Riese and Carly have really spelled out how “inspired by real life events” different details and plot lines and characters are, it’s so interesting and fun to hear about. Riese has previously referred to how Ilene Chaiken based the concept of this show on the queer women’s community that Chaiken was a part of, centered on Spaulding Square. What really blew my mind though was hearing an interview with Chaiken where she stated that the idea for the show was based on an article she wrote for “Los Angeles Magazine” back in 2000 (or 2001) about that same community. Chaiken said in the interview that she wanted to write about this growing and changing community of queer women who were all connected and living in proximity and starting families. So this is a direct parallel of Jenny having a serialised novella published in “The New Yorker” which then gets turned into a movie. Just another level of show within a show, art imitating life (instead of the other way around), meta-ness that I thought I’d mention.

    P.S. I’ve tried looking for the article that Chaiken wrote. I’ve tried searching for it, or at least a mention of what exact month/year the article was released. Luckily “Los Angeles Magazine” actually has a lot of full back issues of the publication available for free on Google Books but I’ve tried looking through some of the issues from 2000 and 2001 and couldn’t find it. Does anyone know what issue it was, or is there a copy of it somewhere online?

  4. I have zero time! The deadline in mandated “Conversion Therapy” case with threat of criminal arrest by Church Elders at 1st Baptist/Crossroads Church in Aspen,Co. is due at the Supreme Court Friday, Sept. 25, 2020. I will use the feature in the exhibits section. How can I send you the Writ of Certiorari….or you could direct other lesbians to read in at the website for the Federal Courts case 19-5153, Hamilton v Stevens/Cole/Brice at the United States Circuit Court for the DC Circuit! I need Amicus support from other lesbians to strengthen the likelihood of the case being chosen for oral argument. I need strong lesbian lawyers on my team…..OK?

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