Hello! And congratulations on making it through another week! This week, the Wicked trailer dropped and if you’re looking for some joy: Read Kayla’s recap, the jokes come in triplicate and are wickedly worth it (sorry!). Our British correspondent Sally watched the BBC’s latest reality show I Kissed a Girl, and she liked it. Christina Hendricks has finally arrived on Hacks to top Ava. In Under the Bridge, Rebecca’s been in love with Cameron her whole life.Power, Netflix’s latest documentary, is an effective introduction to the violent history of American policing. And on the topic of Netflix, the streamer just gifted a Black lesbian couple the Bridgerton Superfan Wedding of their dreams (it’s cute! You should watch it!).

It’s Cannes Film Festival season and though Drew isn’t there in person this year, she went ahead and ranked Every Lesbian Movie That Played at the Cannes for you anyway, as a special treat. If you’ve been enjoying the horniness of Challengers and Love Lives Bleeding sports movie discourse online, Drew and Kayla would like to recommend Robert Towne’s 1982 lesbian classic Personal Best. And speaking of lesbian film classics, Kayla also revisited If These Walls Could Talk 2, which really covers all stages of lesbian life when you think of it.

Notes from the TV Team: 

+ This week on Station 19, we learn a few things: First, they’ve implanted a fertilized embryo into Carina, which means we are on our way to our second Marina baby in the near future! Second, social services have found Liam’s birth father. But, as it turns out, though he wants to be a part of Liam’s life — he doesn’t want to be a full time Dad, so he’s signed away his rights and Maya and Carina are officially on the foster-to-adopt track moving forward! Great news that the Marina family might be settled, because next week start’s Station 19′s two-part series finale (sob!!) and I expect it’s going to be a hot one. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.   — Carmen

All American Episode 607: “Passin’ Me By”

Written by Natalie

The future of All American remains up in the air. While the show garnered a two episode extension this season — boosting its count from 13 to 15 — it’s not clear if the CW is truly invested in All American‘s future or if the network is simply giving the show space to wrap up its storylines, ahead of a cancellation. If we are approaching this show’s end, it’s sad for a whole host of reasons but especially because of the lackluster writing this season. These characters deserve a better ending than the one this season’s writers seem to be crafting. What happens to Patience in this episode is some proof of that but, if I’m being honest, it’s more a reflection of a show that’s never quite known what to do with the character, aside from being Coop’s girlfriend.

Last week, someone broke into Layla’s lounge and trashed the space and Patience is convinced it’s Miko. Unfortunately, though, there’s no definitive evidence to prove that — the culprit managed to hack into the security system and delete the video — but Patience is undeterred. Her theory wreaks of paranoia, honed by seeing Miko like online posts that blame Patience for her own attack. Coop urges calm, ensuring that she and Laura are working with her legal team to make sure that everything is okay.

Coop’s assurances do little to calm Patience, though. After hearing that she reached out to Preach, Coop confronts Patience about feeding into Miko’s games. Patience’s anger comes to the fore: like a scene out of season five of The Wire, Patience insists that “my name is my name” and she can’t tolerate Miko continuing to lie. Patience is ready to roll up on Miko but Coop urges calm. After all the times she’s had Coop’s back, Patience can’t believe that Coop won’t do the same for her. Coop insists that urging calm is her having Patience’s back but the songstress is unconvinced. She dismisses Coop — “it is just your way of saying you forgot where you came from” — and walks out.

Soon thereafter, Coop realizes that Patience has left the house with Layla’s gun and rushes out to stop Patience before she can do something she can’t take back. She recruits Preach in her effort and they find her sitting in wait outside Miko’s house. They climb into the car and lecture Patience about how much time she’d get if she carried out her little revenge fantasy. Preach urges Patience to trust the process and have faith in Coop and Laura to get justice. It’s enough to assuage Patience and she returns to the Baker mansion to relax with Coop.

Turns out, the person who trashed Layla’s was a business rival. With that behind them, Patience sets her sights on putting Miko away — “the right way” — and pledges to testify, if necessary.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 2008: “Blood, Sweat, and Tears”

Written by Carmen

The worst part of last night’s Grey’s Anatomy did not come from the episode itself, but rather earlier in the week — when news broke that Midori Francis’ Intern Yasuda will be leaving Grey Sloan Memorial after this season in what Deadline described as an “an amicable decision” but is largely a part of reported budget cuts tied to the show’s renewal (after six years, we will also be losing Jake Borelli’s Dr. Levi Schmitt and several series vets might be looking at episode reductions next year as well). Veteran shows like Grey’s Anatomy are costly, and on some level it shouldn’t be a surprise that much like in Seasons Eight (when we lost Mark and Lexie) and Fourteen (when we lost April and Arizona), a cast trimming would be in our future.

But it’s hard to reconcile the news of this week with the realization that after the departing of Intern Yasuda and Schmitt, for the first time since Season Four (wow) Grey’s Anatomy might very well be left without any regular characters that have ongoing queer plots. It’s a tremendous loss to a legacy. Of course, as I think we’ve all thought at least once this week — there is always Amelia, our favorite chaotic sober bisexual queen. But for me to feel comfy with Amelia stepping into those historic shoes, the show has got to pull the lever on her relationship with Dr. Beltran (Natalie Morales, an IRL bi-con in her own right). Obviously Season 20 was shortened due to the writer’s strikes, but it’s already May and up until this week’s episode their relationship had been squarely in the “Enemies/Friends” side of the “Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers” paradigm.

This week, we Dr. Beltran calls on Amelia’s neurological expertise to help Caroline, a trans teem with a tumor behind her leg. Caroline and her mom are understandably anxious about having new doctors up in their business (they both traveled to Seattle to meet Dr. Beltran from Texas, where the state government has been proposing sending in CPS on parents who support gender-affirming treatments for their kids — thankfully this measure has currently been blocked by the courts). We learn later that Caroline in particular is scared of having her naked body gawked at during surgery. Amelia looks at her square in the eye and promises, she is an amazing young girl, Amelia and Dr. Beltran will make sure that everyone in that surgery room knows that.

The surgery is a success and buoyed by that fact, Amelia decides to finally be brave and ask Dr. Beltran on a date. Beltran shoots her down, but I don’t think all hope is lost! From Amelia’s point of view, there’s actually a few positives! First of all, we have confirmation that Beltran is gay (did we know that before? Or were we all assuming because… Natalie Morales). Second, she never says that she’s not interested in Amelia! Instead she explains that she’s in the middle of a messy divorce with her ex-wife in Texas.

Grey’s Anatomy prefers a slow burn when setting up new relationships, and lately it feels especially when setting up new queer relationships (Yasuda and Helm, anyone?). So I’m really not in the mood to give out underserving flowers quite yet. But at least there was forward movement. Better than nothing, I suppose.

The Chi Episode 609-610: “The Aftermath” and “Want This Smoke”

Written by Natalie

During the first half of the season, I asked myself a question about The Chi; I wonder, is the show good this season or is it just gayer? At the time, it felt too early to make a pronouncement but now, the show’s returned for its remaining episode — after being renewed for a 7th season — so we might finally get some clarity.

Sufficed to say, things don’t start well for The Chi‘s rainbow coalition: Dre’s gone. She and Nina split after Dre admitted she still had feelings for her ex-fiancée, Monica. It’s a dramatic about-face for the couple: last we checked in with Dre, she sought to create more space between her and Monica to assuage her wife. They were happy and sending off their son to start his new life in California.

I suspect the issue, post-writers’ strike, was a scheduling conflict — Miriam Hyman also stars on Power Book IV: Force — but still… it hurts to see of the few mature black queer couples on television dissolve so abruptly.

Fatima’s relationship might be on thin ice as well. Having decided at the last minute not to follow-thru on his plan to kill Douda, Victor rolls a blunt and hopes the smoke will calm his frayed nerves. Fatima confronts him over what he planned to do but he dismisses her concerns outright… after all, he didn’t really do anything.

“I can’t be in a relationship with somebody that’s gonna turn into a killer at any given moment,” she insists, leaving me to wonder if she ever knew they used to call her boyfriend “Trig.” Once a killer, always a killer, Victor laments, and Fatima walks off, disgusted.

Meanwhile things are getting messy — perhaps dangerously so — for newcomer, Britney. Remember how she arrived in the Chi, claiming she “ran into some money?” Well, now we’re clear on where that money (including the $10k she gave to Jemma) came from: Douda. He and Zay are paying her to spy on her brother, Bakari.

Britney is not particularly interested in doing their bidding, though…and instead spends her time, energy, and their money on studio time with Jemma. After a joint session with Maisha produces a dope track, Maisha’s down to celebrate over dinner but both Britney and Jemma insist that they’re ready to call it a night. Instead, they opt to have dinner alone — and share the evidence on Insta — and get a little closer.

Later, Jemma heads home to talk to Tierra (who, you’ll recall, is now dating her father). She admits that she kissed a girl and liked it… and, as is their wont, those feelings are sparking an identity crisis. Tierra urges her to think less about a label and more about this as a period of exploration. Tierra admits she explored a lot when she was Jemma’s age which feels like a dramatic understatement given what we know of her. She encourages Jemma to use this time to find out what she likes and what she doesn’t… but that she shouldn’t do it behind her partner’s back.

Jemma resolves to tell Jake about the kiss but jealousy sparks when she sees Jake admiring photos of another girl (Papa’s ex-girlfriend, Kenya). It doesn’t help that Britney’s demeanor has changed: she’s flirting openly with other women and when Jemma critiques her music, Britney pushes back forcefully (“I’m not paying you to get on my fuckin’ nerves”). This is not going to end well.

Pretty Little Liars: Summer School Episode 203: “Chapter Thirteen: Sweet Sixteen”

Written by Valerie Anne

“A million lights are dancing and there you are, a shooting star.”

This week, our five final girls find themselves a bit doxxed. Despite having only given their new private phone numbers to one person each, their numbers are posted on Spooky Spaghetti, and they all get an anonymous call. Mouse’s anonymous call came with a video message of Bloody Rose Waters. Interestingly, when they’re all telling each other who they gave their number to, Noa tells them about Jen, but only that they work together now and knew each other from juvie…she conveniently leaves out the relationship bit. It’s possible she’s not ready to confront the fact that she still has some lingering feelings despite being seemingly happy in her current relationship.

One day at work, Noa and Jen’s boss counts the till and finds it $20 short, and comes in hot with the accusations. When she sees Jen get defensive and almost combative, Noa rushes over to the till, slips $20 in it, and pretends to recount it, saying he must have just made a mistake. Outside, Noa confronts Jen about it, saying she really needs this job and she’s the one who recommended Jen so she has to cut the shit. Noa gives her the cold shoulder for a little while, but when some asshole teens try to give bad pickup lines as a tip instead of cash, they stand up to them together and the tension lifts a bit. Noa invites Jen to the surprise party they’re throwing Mouse at the roller rink. When Jen asks if Noa’s boyfriend will be there, Noa says no because it’s “not his scene.” (Which is a red flag… if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends and all that.)

So Jen does show up, and the two of them look great together. They skate, holding hands, and her friends start to wonder how close they were in juvie. One asshole boy says “maybe they were lesbian lovers in there, I’ve heard it happens” and Noa’s friends tell him to shut up and shove off, but once he’s gone they do consider the possibility that there’s something more going on than Noa said.

When Adam shows up to take Mouse to her party, he finds out her grandmother already took her to “her surprise,” which unfortunately wasn’t the roller rink, but a decrepit Rose E. Ricotta’s (I sense Riverdale influence here), in which she’s made to play a life-or-death game of hide and seek with someone dressed as Bloody Rose Waters. The place catches on fire, making the whole thing seem like a bit of a Five Nights at Freddy’s nightmarescape, but Mouse gets out just as her friends arrive to save her.

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