Time. Does it exist? Does it slip through our fingers like sand through an hourglass? Does it heal all pain? Does it make fools of us all? Well, there are many ways to answer these questions but watching The L Word franchise is not one of those ways. Season Two of The L Word Generation Q has had its ups (the first seven episodes) and downs (the final three episodes) and it has remained consistent in one way: absolutely forgoing any traditional notions of time or what can be accomplished in a calendar day. Some of these situations are typical movie magic, like Alice re-writing her entire book in less than two weeks.
But a haywire timeline can be tough, too!! Kayla Kumari addressed this recently in her review of episode 209 on The AV Club:
The very condensed and often confusing timeline of this show doesn’t do it any favors in terms of convincing character work. We’re burning through so many of these relationships so fast to the point where it’s getting dizzying…. Sometimes Generation Q’s super-fast approach to relationship writing can be fun. Other times, it just perplexes, characters moving so fast that their interactions seem off, the stakes manipulated awkwardly instead of unfolding organically.
We rarely sense that situations have changed or conversations have been had in our absence, as if these characters cease to exist and lose cell-phone service when we’re not watching. Generation Q is also far more rooted in realism than the original series, or similarly campy shows like Glee or Pretty Little Liars that are so profoundly divorced from reality that time inconsistencies are smoother to bear.
As I’ve been tasked with analyzing the show in a lengthy recap and a podcast, my inability to understand its timeline inspired me to begin tracking it like a truly unhinged person who has plenty of unopened emails. There’s no way to build a timeline for this season that fits with everything characters say and every date we’re shown, so I had to choose my anchor, and I chose the actual calendar days we’re given throughout the season as the hard facts around which everything else conforms or doesn’t.
Whenever I refer to things happening on the same day without citing specific evidence, you can assume that evidence is: its positioning between scenes with clear timestamps, outfits worn, or references to previous or subsequent events of the day.
Let’s begin.
The Complete Timeline of The L Word Generation Q Season 2
Right out of the gate, danger and mystery lurks behind the curtain!!!!!!
Our first event of the story is Shane and Tess attending Eddie’s poker game for the first time, which takes place on, seemingly, Wednesday April 7th, because it occurs 15 hours before the rehearsal dinner evening — I’ll get to why this exact date exists in a minute.
So, April 8th is a big day for everybody, so much is accomplished:
- Nat and Alice do a drop-off, almost have sex, Gigi steals Alice’s gum
- Carrie brings Groupon Buns to Bette
- Dani finalizes the seating chart
- Micah pretends to be at the gym when he’s really banging Jose (9:46 AM)
- Alice goes to work in a new outfit
- Jordi and Angie ponder a DNA test
- Alice changes back into her outfit from earlier for lunch with Shane and Bette
- Bette interviews for a new job and takes it
- Alice calls Finley to return to L.A
Questions this raises include: Why did Alice ask for soup of the day when she already had lunch plans? Does Alice eat BREAKFAST SOUP?
We get our first timestamp when Chloe texts Shane on her way to Poker Night #2:
“Can you believe we’re getting married tomorrow?” asks Dani at the rehearsal dinner. I simply cannot!
On the night of April 8th:
- Gigi and Bette’s blind date coincides with Carrie and Tina’s established date
- Shane and Tess return to Eddie’s for Poker Night 2, get the heave-ho
- Rehearsal Dinner of Deep Breathing Experience
- Sophie and Dani go out dancing and go home for a boozy bang
Episode 201 ends with the wedding on Friday April 9th, and Episode 202 opens there: punches are thrown, Sophie returns to her Mom’s house for some tough love and leftovers.
Night falls, the sun rises, and Dani wakes up groggy in her bed to more phone calls from Sophie (who is dropping off a casserole as Dani wakes, wearing the same shirt she wears to work a few scenes later) — and somehow it is still Friday April 9th. Everybody had such a nice time on the first April 9th that they decided to do it again!
Initially I thought Episode 202 was mostly placed a few days after the wedding, ’cause weddings generally occur on weekends, but I learned quickly to abandon matching events like “work” or “weddings” or “school” to which days of the week usually host those events.
Friday April 9th #2 is a busy day for our friends:
- Bette drops off Tartine for Dani en route to her first day of work (she was hired on Thursday)
- Micah gets a call from Jose at 9:38 AM while sorting through wedding gifts with Mari
- Finley returns to the Aloce Show with accurate coffee
- Shane proposes a poker night to Tess, who resists
- Bette attempts to woo a new artist who hates her boss
- Alice does another mid-day outfit change (perhaps one is for taping and one isn’t)
- Finley and Sophie squabble at work and Finley volunteers to quit because drama
- Alice meets Tom
On the night of Friday April 9th #2, Bette bangs Gigi, and Finley goes to Dana’s and talks to Shane and Tess about her predicament. During this conversation she says, “I knew the wedding was that day but I thought it was later, like at night,” even though the wedding was… yesterday.
Alice goes home, describes the day I just described to Nat, Finley ices her eye at home as Drivers License begins and we segue back into daylight, where Dani is running.
So now it’s, seemingly Saturday April 10: Tess says Shane did great with Finley yesterday and they make firm plans for a dry run of poker night. After a sunset montage, we return to The Aloce Show set, where she’s back in her Friday April 9 #2 Morning Outfit, but Sophie has changed clothes and they’re off to Poker Night. Working the weekend!
So the night of Saturday April 10:
- Poker in the Rear Night!
- Micah visits Dani (the casserole from Sophie is still on the counter, 36 hours later)
- Alice goes home to Nat and they fight incoherently about non-monogamy
- Sophie goes over to Dani’s to plead for forgiveness and instead they break up for real
That concludes Episode 202.
We don’t get another specific date until Episode 204, and that date is Saturday April 17th, and working backwards from that date, I’ve determined 203 opens on Thursday April 15th. It opens with Angie getting her DNA results at 7:15 AM (where is she running home from at 7:15 AM?)…
Love a DNA Result early in the morning
…and then we move into another big day. On Thursday April 15th:
- Sophie and Finley do a little housecleaner
- Alice angry washes dishes, Nat returns from her sex date with Marissa
- Sophie and Alice go to work, Alice gets a 9:31 AM text from Nat asking if she can go out with Marissa tomorrow night too
- Bette calls Gigi her “girlfriend” to Rodolfo
- Micah gets a new gig at the LGBTQIA+ Center
- Dani signs for a penthouse in the sky
- Gigi and Bette and Bette’s sleeves go to an Orgasmic Art Show
- Micah and Maribel squabble in the kitchen and Finley apologizes for being white
A B-Roll montage moves us into the next day, Friday April 16th, which we know is the next day because Gigi refers to Bette calling her her girlfriend “yesterday.”
On Friday April 16th (possibly the longest day of the season):
- Alice talks to Tom about her book, make plans for dinner that night
- Angie gets out of drama club early and fights with Mama B about her desire to meet Kayla
- Micah talks to Nat about seeing non-trans clients
- Sophie goes home and is like, “where is the table”
- Micah and Maribel do sunset pony play
- Bette + Shane + Alice accompany Angie to meet Kayla
- Dani picks up her new keys, trashes her old keys, and goes out for wine with Gigi
- Alice spies Marissa + Nat on her date while having din-din with Tom
- Sophie returns home to find Finley has done an Extreme Home Makeover in mere hours
- Alice and Nat break up
- Dani’s Dad is arrested for some reason
Episode 203 ends.
Episode 204 is when the timeline goes truly haywire.
Episode 204, like most of the episodes this season, all takes place in one day — it’s the Lake-free Lake House Day where Sophie tracks down Dani, Alice wakes up at Bette’s after breaking up with Nat, Finley prepares for her ultimately thwarted date with Sophie, Tess drives to and from Vegas, Angie goes to see Micah at the LGBT Center, Bette tracks down Pippa, and Tess and Shane kiss but then Tess says she’s seeing someone — and that day is Saturday April 17th. We learn this certainty by texts received later that day by Shane….
…and by Micah.
We know that yesterday was Friday because Alice wakes up at Bette’s house after having broken up with Nat the night before, and this is the most specific mention of relative time in the episode. But it’s confusing because when Finley comes home from her new soccer gig on Saturday morning, Sophie asks Finley if it was a late night at the bar, and Finley wasn’t at the bar on Friday night, she was at home replacing furniture and being lightly held by Sophie.
The biggest problem in this episode, however, is that at the top of the episode, Sophie tells Micah — who is in a panic having not been able to get ahold of Dani — that she hasn’t talked to Dani “in weeks” but the wedding was literally 8 days ago.
Episode 205 is, once again, a one-day episode — same outfits throughout, evening plans mentioned in the morning eventually take place at the ending, etc. We learn later in the episode that the day in question is Wednesday, April 21.
At 205’s open, Sophie asks Finley if she’s alright because she hasn’t seen her “in a couple days.” This tracks. But other things don’t.
I’d read Gigi waking up to find Bette in her loft on her laptop as being the morning after their post-Pippa-dinner sex scene, which would’ve been the 18th. Bette tells Gigi that she found Pippa, information she absolutely would’ve disclosed sooner than four days later.
Fitting with the absolutely unhinged Tess/Cherie timeline we’ve addressed at length on the recap; Tess tells Shane she met Cherie “this past weekend,” so that means she met Cherie on Friday, April 16, since she went to Vegas on the 17th, so on the 17th she told Shane she was seeing someone she met the night before.
Episode 205, 6:30
Another GIANT DAY lies ahead for our friends on April 21:
- Bette wakes up at Gigi’s, Gigi says she’s seeing Dani later
- SURPRISE Cherie Jaffe shows up at Dana’s
- Alice has finished all of her book edits (IN TWELVE DAYS) and gives Tom a farewell gift
- Dani visits her Dad in the clinker
- Gigi picks up Dani for a long afternoon/evening of emotional conversations
- Bette, Carrie, Angie and Tina have disaster family therapy
- Sophie pitches her segment
- Shane and Tess enjoy awkward drinks at Dana’s with Cherie and invite her to poker night that night
- Sophie interviews her segment subjects
As we move into the post-work hours, Alice does an outfit change here that I thought could be a new day, but it isn’t because we’re still explicitly on the same day for Dani/Gigi, Jordi/Angie, Micah/Maribel and Cherie/Tess. Tom gets a text from Alice (this is how we know what day it is):
Episode 205, 42:29
Alice and Tom bring lobsters to the beach to set them free, Jordi and Angie talk about the prom queen announcement, Finley meets a new human at Dana’s and goes home to hook up, Maribel comes to Micah’s and they have sex, Cherie fucks Tess at Poker Night, Angie’s parents change her mind about Marcus, Bette texts Gigi to hang out and Gigi turns her down…
HOW MUCH LATER
We then reach 206, the best episode of the season! It’s also got the seasons’ clearest timeline, as everybody has been corralled to the same space at the same time for Karaoke night.
We open with Dani and Micah going on a run. He says he’s not spoken to Maribel in a week, and later at Dana’s, Sophie says Finley’s been ignoring her for a week.
So let’s say then that this is Wednesday, April 28th. Everything tracks with that except why Cherie would wait a week after Shane told her to back off Tess to “break up” with Tess.
207 plunges us back into a soupy time warp. We open with a Sinley sex-a-thon that implies a passage of time — YAY!!!! — before leaping into our traditional entire-episode-in-one-day narrative. How much time has passed? Well, due to a date reveal in episode 209, we can conclude that it is either May 11th or May 12th when 207 opens. I think it’s May 12th.
The episode begins with Alice and Bette having lunch at the same restaurant where Gigi and Nat are having lunch:
Timestamp – 3:15
This leads into Nat and Alice boning in the car, and the scene right after that one is Shane dropping Tess off at AA., at which point, Tess says this:
Timestamp: 5:26
The charity event closes the episode, so this should mean that everything going forward is on that same day, but in the very next scene, Jordi asks Angie if she’s still gonna hang out at the park “tomorrow night,” for a scene that eventually takes place the same night as the charity event:
Timestamp: 7:15
The next scene is Bette giving Pippa the CAC offer, and she’s wearing the same dress she wore to lunch, which is what places Alice/Bette Lunch Scene on the same day as the rest of the events of the episode:
Timestamp: 9:02
Carrie calls Bette (we find out later that she’s asking about attending the MS Benefit, presumably that same night), Sophie’s segment premieres, Sophie bangs Finley and Barry wants to meet Sophie but she’s banging Finley.
For once, time has passed and that passage of time makes sense, until we cut to Dani and Gigi having … Gigi’s second lunch? Gigi talks about seeing Alice banging Nat in the car like it happened that same day. But more concerning is that it has been nearly two weeks since Gigi told Dani she had feelings for her and they’re just now discussing it?!?!
Timestamp 13:20
Fixing this immense inconsistency would require the writers to place this scene at the top rather than the sex-a-thon, which is an objectively perfect open — so the only other option would be Dani and Gigi’s scenes this week reflecting that their relationship had changed, evolved and been discussed in our absence. That kind of thing rarely happened this season!
Anyhow back to this day: Angie talks to Kayla about breaking up with Jordi, Finley and Sophie go home, talk about Finley’s ambitions, bang again, and then we cut straight to the benefit.
But, at the benefit, Barry tells Sophie that he’s sorry he missed her “the other day”…
… and Nat tells Dani that she had lunch with Gigi “the other day.” Furthermore the sexual relationship between Nat and Alice — from car-bang through breakup at the benefit — is now entirely confined to the length of one day on the Tess timeline, or two days on the Jordi timeline. What a whirlwind!
Anyhow: Bette and Carrie fight, Tess and Shane take Carrie home, Dani and Gigi make out in the rain, Shane and Tess kiss, and Finley gets pulled over for a DUI. This all happens on May 12.
208 opens on the day after DUI day, and seems to remain there, as Sophie later says she felt like she had to “baby-sit Finley all day” and Finley discusses the DUI throughout like it happened last night. That said, the jail pickup is the only scene that could’ve happened on a different day than the rest of the episode, because directly afterwards, we launch into the Dani/Bette/Gigi and Claudia/Micah storylines that explicitly and clearly roll out over the course of a single day.
Due to the exact date reveal in episode 209, we know that the Book Launch Party in Episode 208 took place on Thursday May 13th.
208 closes with Bette and Pippa reconciling, Shane and Tess banging in Vegas, and Finley and Sophie fighting.
In Episode 209, Sophie meets up with Alice at her hotel after a book interview, and asks if she’s seen Finley — and Alice says she saw Finley at the book party last night.
Timestamp 7:18
Bette and Tina take Angie to the hospital to meet Marcus and are rebuffed. So this is Friday May 14th.
Then we do a time jump to the next morning, and the protest is on the front page of The Los Angeles Times for Saturday May 15. Dani picks up the paper and declares:
Me too
It’s Prom Day and Nana’s birthday day! This date is consistent with Sophie telling the cops Finley’s been gone for 36 hours later that afternoon, and with the date on her phone at Dana’s later that night:
So:
- Bette signs Pippa to the gallery and has sex with her on the 12th
- Bette uses Pippa as a bargaining tool in her in a battle with the CAC on the morning of the 13th
- Bette wins Pippa back on the evening of the 13th, at which time Pippa’s art has already been installed and removed
- They organize and hold a protest on the 14th
- CAC refuses the endowment on the 15th
- Bette tells Alice she’s ready for Pippa to meet Angie on the 15th
It’s impossible to figure out when 210 opens — Finley’s getting an intervention, but it seems like not much has transpired for any of these characters since 209, particularly for Finley and Sophie — I know this entire storyline was horrifically bungled, so the fact that no new info about Finley’s drinking exists as we enter this episode isn’t a good barometer of time passing. Nor do events like gallery openings or school correspond with the days on which those activities are traditionally practiced — but we do have Alice going away on her book tour, Marcus’s funeral and the CAC opening, so we can figure it’s been about a week?
So let’s say we’re at May 22nd.
After the intervention scene, our next scene finds Bette and Pippa in bed, talking about Alice’s Goodbye Party happening “tomorrow night.” In a subsequent scene, Alice refers to the intervention as a little situation they had “this week,” but in a scene shortly thereafter, Finley refers to the intervention as happening “last night”!
Anyhow, there should be a day change between Finley saying the intervention happened last night and when Alice’s party takes place, but I’m not sure where that is.
But somehow we must get there: the goodbye party is May 23nd.
We transition from the Goodbye Party to Finley at some sort of rave that same night, which she emerges from in daylight to almost get hit by a car — May 24th. On the 24th:
- Dani meets Gigi’s family
- Bette shows Angie the painting from Marcus
- Alice boards a plane with Tom
- Sophie drops off Finley at rehab
- Dani is arrested
- Pippa goes to the opening without Bette
- Tina comes to Bette’s door
So in conclusion, the entire season transpires over the course of seven weeks. This tracks pretty neatly with the stories told within it, with a few exceptions: Tess and Shane’s 12 day relationship, Pippa and Bette’s 11 day relationship, Nat and Alice’s whirlwind reunion, the speed with which the Angie and Marcus storyline begins and the glacial pace at which it ends. And as someone currently writing a novel with a lot of characters, I know keeping everybody on the same timeline is actually a lot harder than it looks!
But Tess is a great example of why a fuzzy timeline can do character development a disservice: either the timing of her stories is unintentional and we’re not supposed to apply them to our understanding of her character, or she is a bit bananas about relationships: refusing Shane’s kiss ’cause she’s “seeing someone” she met the night before? Saying Cherie broke up with her when they’d been dating for a week? Asking Shane to move to Vegas with her after a ten day relationship? Like, that behavior is an entire personality, but I’m not certain if we’re supposed to consider it hers.
In conclusion Part #2, if this post, which I believe is relatively unhinged and likely would not be published on any other website in the universe besides this one, has radically changed the quality of your life — and I’m pretty sure it has — please contribute to our fundraiser!
This is some excellent reporting, thank you!
Every one has the right to live the way they like and with who ever .
And on whatever nonsensical ass timeline.
Riese, you are doing the lord’s work.
This is truly unhinged and also perfect in every way. I frankly cannot imagine that a group of friends encountered so many poker games in that time frame, but I’m not an LA lesbian who lives and dies by poker, as of course all LA lesbians do. Undisputed fact.
Also this timeline suggests that over the course of seven weeks, Finley has gone from sober most of the time to problematic drunk who requires intervention. Which is bafflingly expedited character development. Confused further by the fact that Finley’s character has turned to alcohol in times of stress or sadness, so it tracks that she’s drinking prior to Sophie committing to her, but why would she continue to drink while with Sophie?! She got what she wanted! She should be happy employed Finley who drinks sometimes to let loose. “Not being Dani” doesn’t seem like reason enough for Finley to spiral this hard. Not to say that someone can’t spiral in 7 weeks time, but there’s no motivation strong enough here for this particular progression to have occurred. Which to your point and the point made by AV Club, makes it nearly impossible to be emotionally bought in to these stories.
Also to believe that any trial occurs seven weeks after the arrest is INSANE. It would be months if not years later.
Finley’s problematic relationship to alcohol runs a lot deeper than “she’s happy now so she’ll stop drinking”. It’s a habit as much as a crutch. She drinks with Sophie because they’ve always been party bros. Lots about Finley’s storyline was poorly handled this season was poorly handled, but the binge drinking on nights out I can buy – they both drink to excess when they go out together and Sophie only took note of this when the DUI happened (though sadly did not take note of her own drinking or contributions to that situation).
From what I remember of time on the original L Word, the only episode they actually had a consistent timeline was the 24 hour countdown to Dana’s death. Maybe if time exists on the L Word another character will have to die? Thanks for your service Riese, I hope you can rest now.
oh actually that was one of the most egregious time fails ever — when carly and i recapped it for TLAB, i followed those timestamps through and it’s actually COMPLETELY BANANAS!!!
as i wrote this comment i was suddenly like … why do i do this so much lol, i think i just like puzzles maybe??
Do you think that perhaps the L Word exists in a universe that operates with a sort of inverted Queer Time* where character development happens at the speed of light? So fast our slow little human brains can’t comprehend it? Is it really a sci-fi show? 👀
*Queer Time being defined in another article on this website by the brilliant Heather Hogan.
omg thank you for this! I was (am???) so confused about Finley’s very quick descent into alcoholism, Tess wanting to uhaul absurdly fast, even for a lesbian, plus the pace at which book publishing and legal proceedings apparently occur. Glad I’m not the only one!
Petition for the endless parade of crime procedurals currently on TV to be replaced with a new show in which Riese Bernard tracks inconsistencies in our favourite queer media.
I would sign this
In the UK we have this thing where anyone can submit a petition to parliament and if it gets over 100,000 signatures the government legally has to debate the issue and publish the minutes. Just saying, if a similar mechanism exists stateside, I think we could mobilise…
Thank you so much spending this time and trying to put this season into a sort of coherent timeline. This sounds like both a fun and draining to do. Reading through this and putting things into context made this season even more ridiculously and hilariously bad than it already was for me unfortunately, which I did not think was possible.
Is the practice of filming scenes out of order a normal thing for shows or is this something that was done due to COVID?
Even if they were filmed out of order, I always thought there was some sort of continuity person on films and TV shows to avoid blatant errors? (Or maybe I just always wanted to BE the continuity person after spending so much of my life yelling at the TV, “but they just said xyz two scenes ago, saying abc here doesn’t add up!!”)
For real though if such a job exists where does one apply? I mean obviously Riese should get dibs but if she doesn’t want it…
Generally, scenes are filmed out of order, but within the same episode or block. A block is when the same director works on multiple episodes in a row. So if you look at the credits of this season Marja directed episodes 1,2, and 3 (block 1) and then the next director did 4&5 (block 2) etc. Anything within those blocks would be filmed in shooting order, which is generally based on location, cast availability, and time of day for all scenes within that block.
Thank you for the clarification! Looking at who the directors were this season actually helps explain my feelings for certain episodes a little bit haha
For my own sanity I have to believe we are at least four to six months out from the failed wedding by 210. But Riese My God! May I never run into you at an L Word trivia night! 😂😂😂
😎😎😎
Yes, scenes are typically filmed out of order, and occasionally two episodes will have scenes shot on an overlapping schedule. The continuity people should make sure things like outfits, hair and food/bev is consistent from shot to shot. But the showrunner, episode writer and editors should make sure things like time and space make sense. So….there are multiple people allowing this insanity!
Thanks for this! Just further proves how badly conceived this season was! Insane timeline for all these events. I hope you’re hired to fix this show.
How do we get Showtime to hire you, RIESE?!
AND
Pay you say, at leat one million dollars as cogency and story arc expert.
Campaign online / social media to make this happen?
This is some excellent reporting, thank you. I wanted to write a little comment to support you.
This is first-rate dramaturgy! Thank you, Riese!!
I’ve only read the recounting through 203 so far, but had to comment: 204 is when it totally goes haywire!? I was literally thinking as I read that sentence “wow this is even more bananas than I remembered…”
Don’t they have continuity people on set/supervising the script/in the writers room? Riese, is this your writing same for that job? Because you should have it. And write some episode while you’re there too please!
Buckling myself in for the freefall of 204-210.
*writing sample
Thank you for doing this! Do you have any idea or theories as to how much time supposedly has passed between seasons? Between Sophie’s choice cliffhanger at the airport and Sophie and Dani’s wedding?
Somehow less than a month. In an interview with AS last year, Marja said the election happened on March 15. I guess when your family has enough money, you can plan a huge wedding in 3 weeks!
No way. That is insane!
it’s weird cuz season one was set in March 2019 or 2020 probs? and this was set in April 2021, but I guess years don’t really matter on TV shows. I think we are supposed to think it’s been a few months; time for Finley to be gone for a while and for Alice to have a seasonal break?
I was wondering how long Tom and Alice had been dating if he wants to propose… a month. And Shane and Tess 10 days. Wow, they move fast on this show.
Riese you deserve an award and also a nap
So just to clarify, this means that on April 8th Micah’s still boning José, he goes horse-riding romantically with Maribel on April 16th and then is weird about answering her messages on the 17th, April 21st they hook up, April 28th everyone sings and we find out they haven’t spoken since and Maribel is weird and brushes him off, May 13th micah has a date with claudia and realises he loves Maribel and tells her that she loves him too, then May 15th it’s Nana’s birthday party where Maribel announces her great love for Micah to her family.
So that’s five? days of maybe having a crush between April 16th and 21st, then a little over three weeks of no contact, then two days of I LOVE YOU terminating with a “Maybe one day I could be your esposo”.
Alrighty then.
Hahahahahahhahahhahahaha
This is HILARIOUS. Thank you for your painstaking devotion to the cause.
Riese this is incredible work! Thank you for this service.
Also I want to say that soup for breakfast is delicious! Thank you Alice for the breakfast soup representation.
Time is a weird breakfast soup (nobody will get this but I had to say it anyway)
I get the reference and I’m thrilled by how appropriate it is to this situation. omg.
#pulitzerforriese
Absolutely !
YES!
This is deeply important work, which has highlighted another important issue.
I am perturbed by the phone backgrounds of the various characters. Wouldn’t Shane have her doggo (whatever happened to doggo?), or Bette a fierce piece of art?
Riese, please please do a piece on what their phone backgrounds would really be. Right this wrong.
I was talking to a friend about the ways that time seems to fold in on itself in the L word. This season I was fully expecting to time travel back to 2009 to kill Jenny again.
Thank you Riese!! At the end-ish of 210, Finley’s bruise from being decked by Dani has healed up mostly but still there enough to notice. I was trying to gauge how much time passed during the season based on that. Because leaving it up to the make-up artist is as logical as anything else on this show!
Re Tess: Shane says in 210 that their relationship may be over before it starts. If she can say that, I think it means Tess DOES move at breakneck speed in relationships. The writers just didn’t really give us time to see this problem organically, because the timeline is nuts and like anything else, there wasn’t real development.
All that said, I’m still hoping for a third season. They should hire you and turn the ship around!
this entire thing is bonkers, but i don’t think enough attention has been paid to “sunset pony play.”
I’ve been a soap opera fan practically my whole life and I have to say: even on its most bonkers days – and there were MANY – the timeline on “Passions” (1999-2008) made more sense than Season 2 of Gen Q.
Tess’s bizarre reaction/timing in relationships kinda actually makes sense with the consistently terrible advice she gives. remarkably horrible judgment all around?
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This was crazy, but thanks for writing it.
I know a lot of work went into this, but the theory is truly implausible and it’s so frustrating because it foments this ridiculous argument about why Bette should invest in an 11 day relationship vs. the 2o year one with Tina. It seems that the dates actually reflect 1) the days of filming and not the days in which the plot unfolds, and 2) the thoughtlessness of the writers and/or editors. Are we really to believe that after Bette and Pippa sleep together on the night of 13th (after clearing out the installation that by your logic, had to have been initially installed in the wee hours of the morning) that they organize a protest that’s meaningful enough to featured in the Times for the morning of the 14th? Similarly, the CAC event does not happen the day after the going away party but appears to be some time away – Pippa asks Bette if she’s not going to see her until the gala…Why would self-assured Pippa be concerned that she’s not going to see Bette until the day after tomorrow?
I think the L Word may have had a breakthrough since season 2 that makes me really want a third season (time is a flat circle and all).
I had never listened to the Pants podcast before, but I did just listen to the episode released this week, in which Kate and Leisha host Marja Lewis-Ryan to answer questions from listeners. Something she said really struck me as getting at the overarching crux of so many of the issues with this season:
Marja noted that she hopes they get a third season because she feels like the show isn’t as great yet as she wants it to be, through the process of making season 2 she came to an important realization (that she would want to internalize moving forward) that she (and the writers room) were operating on two levels: trying to create “story” and also at the level of “character.” But she realized that for the L Word, they don’t have to be in the service of story – which in the past, she noted, decisions at the “character” level were often shaped by the needs of “story.”
Moving forward, she suggested, she wants to primarily let the writing come at the level of the characters, and the relationships among them, and have “story” play out that way, at a more intimate and relational scale.
She gave as an example the dreaded CAC plot-line, and how those same themes could play out instead just at the level of Bette and Pippa’s relationship evolving.
I’m not sure why it took two seasons of being a showrunner to come to this realization, which seems pretty intuitive to Riece, Analyssa, Drew, and so many of us on AS – since I feel like this is the heart of so much of the criti
– critique and frustration with the latter half of season 2 in particular – that it felt like the characters and their relationships didn’t 1. act like themselves (or even like actual human people), 2. have room or time to breathe and evolve, 3. honor the stakes, motivations, histories the show had already set up over the preceding episodes, or 4. make sense…. The botched handling of Angie’s donor storyline, Finley and the S2 addiction storylines in general (eg. the confused nature of how alcohol use was presented, eg. with Carrie, but not actually mined, but rather deployed as an overarching “issue”), the opioid/Nunez plot, etc.
IT WAS ALL IN SERVICE TO SOME IDEA OF “STORY.”
I’m really glad you brought this up because I just listened to MLR’s episode of Pants yesterday and was struck by that comment too. Just wanted to chime in on that question you posed of how could it take a showrunner two seasons to realize that the work-related arcs weren’t as compelling as a the relationship-based arcs, because I’m inclined to give MLR the benefit of the doubt somewhat.
It was always going to be hard for the reboot to bridge the gap between new cast and young cast so naturally someone came up with the idea of them all intersecting at work (ex. Dani/Bette, Shane/Finley, Alice/Sophie). It gave each new character theoretically something to do so we could better learn about them.
So then I think, season-long work arcs became the way the writers room envisioned how to use external story arcs to show internal character growth, which is essential what TV boils down to. It makes logical sense. In some ways, work arcs are way more tangible than relationships because you can ground them in visible goals (ex. $$$, a book, a bar), where as relationships can get murky with internal goals that can translate less clearly onscreen (see the entire back-end of the Micah/Maribel arc). I’m sure some executive was also probably 100% on board with this, if not a huge cheerleader of the idea.
Where I think you very rightly point out this went sideways, is that no one fucking cared about the work arcs because none of them felt very grounded in character. There was no tie of the external work/story arc to some sort of internal character drive.
Instead of Dani having to go fight Bette because she had to maintain the Nunez name because it represented some way she had to heal her own internal wound caused by the death of her mother, it was just something Dani did. Ditto this for the Finley alcoholism arc (which I realize is a personal arc but hell they practically made being a sloppy drunk Finley’s job for season 2 so why not count it as one). And then it just got even more compounded by the sheer mind-boggling poor execution of plot that happened. Certain shows can get away with being very plotty if they are seamless (ex. crime procedural), but this 100% was not.
What I think MLR realized was that the relationship status arc for each character IS the external arc we follow in the L word as viewers that will give us a sense of internal character growth. So the work arc is not needed and just an unnecessary distraction. We don’t care if Dani gets her father off the hook (at least I don’t). We care if Dani figures out her emotional shit well enough to hypercommunicate with Gigi in a way that ensures for them to be able to be in a working relationship. And I am very excited about her coming to this breakthrough as well, because since her background is in theater, this should 100% be in her wheelhouse. Two people talking! And learning! From one another!! That’s a play if I’ve ever heard one.
So fingers crossed for a Season 3! I think the creative team is moving in the right direction.