Hi! Surprise, it’s me! I’m covering for Heather while she’s out!
In case you missed it, this week started with Carmen’s Vida recap, which has a delightful title. Riese made the best Killing Eve listicle ever made about how this show about an assassin and an FBI agent would be is more #relatable than we could have imagined.
Carmen sent me this link about how APPARENTLY Alison “Kinda the Worst” DiLaurentis LEAVES Emily “Pretty Much the Best” Fields in the pilot of The Perfectionists but I’m going to let Heather unpack that one when she gets back because even though I was an early Emison shipper (like I shipped their flashback selves, not their adult selves) this fills me with so much rage I can’t even form coherent thoughts. (And just to be super clear, I loved Alison as a character, I thought she was fascinating and flawed and a great villain when she was the villain, but I’m on Team Maya all the way. If you never see me here in Boob Tube Land again, it’s because Heather came back from vacation and saw what I just wrote and threw a garbage can at me.)
I’ve heard rumors that there has been some lesbian activity on Into the Badlands and that’s my beat so it’s technically my job to tell you about it HOWEVER I’m still not caught up on all of my TV post-camp and this week I was very busy writing you things like my Alex-centric Supergirl recap and a review of Natasha Negovanlis and Annie Briggs’ webseries, CLAIREvoyant, and so many more things that aren’t specifically TV related so are not currently relevant. So I’ll have a four-episode mad-cap for you in next week’s Boob Tube, I promise! I’m also behind on Westworld but I think the only queer thing that has happened there is that Evan Rachel Wood, Bisexual continues to be her badass self. I’ll report back.
Okay, that’s enough from me, let’s hear from my fellow TV Team-ers about what else went on this week.
Mi familia perfecta: Chapters 1-38
Written by Natalie
Last year, GLAAD released a report called Still Invisible that looked at programming on the three major Spanish-language broadcast networks (Univision, UniMás and Telemundo) and found a dearth of LGBT representation. Of the 698 characters on the networks’ scripted primetime series, only 19 were LGBT characters and, of those, just 6 were women. And while Spanish-language television still has a long way to go before achieving the goal of #pantallainclusiva, Telemundo has added to its ranks with Mi familia perfecta.
The show itself, which debuted back in April, is about the Guerrero family: five kids left to fend for themselves after the death of their father and the deportation of their mother. Think Party of Five but, in Spanish, with an entirely Latinx cast and with the threat of deportation always looming large. One of the Guerrero five, Marisol (Gala Montes), is a soccer savant and joins a prestigious local club team with her best friend and neighbor, Génesis (Michelle De Andrade). While a few of their new teammates are insufferable, one of the team’s captains, Megan (Estefany Oliveira), is welcoming…too welcoming for Génesis’ brother who reads Megan’s actions as flirtatious. Later, Génesis confronts Megan about her brother’s suspicions and Megan proudly acknowledges she’s gay but says Génesis shouldn’t worry…she knows Génesis isn’t gay and, even if she was, Génesis isn’t her type. Génesis seems both relieved and bothered Megan’s admission.
Some weeks later, after she intervenes to stop a fight between Megan and one of their insufferable teammates, Génesis admits that there is something between them. Megan agrees, even if its not what she intended when they started their friendship, and the two nearly kiss, but are interrupted by Génesis’ mother (Karla Monroig). The next time they’re alone together, Megan comforts Génesis over some upheaval at home and, after assuring Génesis that she can count on her for anything, Megan leans in for their first kiss. Or at least I think it was their first kiss because the show panned away before we could see their lips connect.
Listen, kudos to Telemundo for addressing a void in their storytelling. I can’t help but imagine what seeing a couple like Megan and Génesis could do for young girls, who are discovering their queer identity while watching telenovelas with their abuelas…it could be such a lifeline. That said, when Mi familia perfecta features a young lesbian couple — who are, without a doubt, the least problematic relationship on the show — but censors their moments of intimacy, they’re doing a disservice to very people who need to see that representation the most.
That said, I really do love this show and I’m hoping that we’ll see more of this adorable couple. Mi familia perfecta airs weeknights on Telemundo at 8PM and you can catch up on the entire series at telemundo.com.
Quick Hits
Queen Sugar 301 & 302: “Unto The Song” and “Of Their Sojourn Here”
Welcome back to The Queen Sugar Fan Club! We are glad to have you. The Bordelons are back together for another summer. So far nothing gay has happened in Nova’s life, but she has Rutina Wesley’s face and arms, so hey — there’s always home on the horizon. Nova’s also at the crossroads of a major career decision, leaving her life at the newspaper for the potential of a new book deal. Queen Sugar opened the season with a plot addressing the ongoing civil rights protest of kneeling during the national anthem, which feels important and newsworthy at a time when ABC wouldn’t allow blackish to air a similarly themed episode early this year. — Carmen
Legion 209: “Chapter 17”
Aubrey Plaza, though
Shout out to ‘Straddler Kristana, who gave us a heads up earlier this week that in the newest episode of Legion, Aubrey Plaza’s Lenny had sex with a woman. Exciting business! Unfortunately, no one on our team is caught up with Legion just yet (Valerie and Riese watched season one, but haven’t seen the second season), so we don’t have a lot of details to share. But I love you all, so here’s a gif from the episode of Aubrey Plaza making out with a girl on teevee. Enjoy! — Carmen
Looks like Maddie Johnson and the Bumblers may have pulled their last con, as Bravo cancelled Imposters after the second season’s penultimate episode aired last night. The show, which has, reportedly, done better on Netflix than its done on Bravo, is being shopped around to other networks. — Natalie
I am going to set something on fire over this Perfectionists information.
My current theory is Emily has to move to run Mona’s Paris prison doll house. If they’re breaking up Emison can they at least have the decency to include the line “Mr. Fitz died.”
Are you gonna set it on fire or are you gonna set it on *Skins Fire*?
I’m surprised no one realizes that Killing Eve is the female James Bond we have been waiting for. Eve is Bond, Villanelle / Oksana is the sexy Russian spy and villainous love interest, Carolyn is M, Elena is Moneypenny and Kenny is Q.
Also on Westworld is anyone else shipping Armistice and her dopplebot, Hanaryo?
I’m living for Armistice and Hanaryo. If it isn’t Clementine and Elsie, then it better be those two.
Yes I am shipping Armistice and Hanaryo!
As soon as Armistice and Hanaryo looked at each other I shipped it.
I have a lot of feelings about this breaking Emison news!! And none of those feelings are good!
I’m hoping that Emily dumped her ass and is with Paige now.
BTW – “Heathers” was full on canceled.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/heathers-reboot-scrapped-at-paramount-network-anthology-will-be-shopped-1116439
@Kristana Thanks for the heads up.
I love Killing Eve. Eight episodes was not enough
@pecola I can’t with another telenovela. They are not good for my emotional health. Perdona Nuestros Pecados already has me throwing things at my TV.
Trust me, @iamamisfit1, I get it…thankfully, Mi familia perfecta seems much lower stakes than Perdona Nuestros Pecados, so at least thus far, it’s been nice to see Génesis realize her attraction to Megan and start to come out (which she did, tonight, to her best friend). Like I said in the recap, they are least problematic couple on the show, so hopefully no harm comes to them. Though Génesis’ brother looms as the big bad of this whole thing, I can’t imagine it ever being as emotionally wrought as PNP.
Can I tell you, though? I haven’t even watched the Barcedes scenes from this week yet. I usually am voracious about consuming them…I’ll watch the show live, then rewatch on Youtube before bed and then watch the subbed version on Twitter first thing in the morning…but I can’t watch these scenes yet. I know what happens and I just can’t bring myself to watch it — just the knowing has devastated me enough. I can’t.
Gurrrl, I am still all up in my emotions over this week’s episodes. I feel personally victimized by the PNP writers. That show has me wanting to stab fictional characters!
Maybe I will give Mi Familia Perfecta a chance after I recover from Barcedes. Between Las Estrellas and Perdona Nuestros Pecados…these telenovelas got me clutching my pearls!
“If you never see me here in Boob Tube Land again, it’s because Heather came back from vacation and saw what I just wrote and threw a garbage can at me.”…more like throw you away in a garbage can like perfectly good chinese food and then subsequently kicked said garbage can in a rage. I liked Maya okay too but she dead so Team Paige (Paily) all the way. But I wasn’t going to be watching the Perfectionists anyway because much like a Shondaland drama, Marlene can’t disappoint me and expect me to come back.
Valerie you are the person I trust most to tell me about TV, I will welcome you back to BOYT again even if we are on opposite sides of Alison D.
Just to chime in The Good Fight was super disappointing this season. We had Maya and Amy a few times but their was a lot of tension between them. Things were looking to get back on track when Maya cheated with the Bianca 2.0 twin in a surveillance conference room like midway through the season and it never got mentioned or resolved or anything.
Trying to think if I watched anything else worth mentioning…nothing that I can think of.
@cyclone I’ve been watching for The Good Fight, waiting for something recap worthy and episode after episode, there was nothing. The gayest thing about the finale was Lucca’s reaction to realizing she was coming home to Maia
and Marissa.I told myself not to get sucked into another show from the Kings but I did — Audra McDonald is my kryptonite — and it feels like they had a story they wanted to tell with respect to Maia, that story played out and now they have absolutely no idea what to do with her (or her relationship). The same thing happened with Kalinda after that husband storyline went bust on The Good Wife.
I’m hopeful, though not optimistic, that things improve in Season 3.
The Trump centric episodes need to stop. It was funny but then it just got too much. Because they film in advance they can’t necessarily have a resolve to say the Impeachment story unless it happens in real life.
@cyclone I wouldn’t mind those episodes — since it feels true to Diane’s character and the mostly black lawyers at the firm to have a strong reaction to 45’s election/administration — if they’d been better about controlling the narrative. They played the anti-45 animus as something of a joke or as if Diane were crazy — with the sheep and the masks and all that — rather than a legitimate reaction to the scary $%*# that’s going on in the world. It was just a bizarre way to handle it.
hahaha thank you for your support, cyclone :)
@riese hey, E! cancelled The Arrangement and i’m not even angry. I finished watching the season and you know the black lesbian death was the only death during the season and her death served absolutely no purpose. I mean at least, writers say they do it for plot sake but this one had absolutely no effect on the show. Everything was still the same. Good riddance to such a way to depict lesbians on TV.
@c-p Nova is getting a new love interest this season. So I can only hope with all my heart that it’s a woman. She is moving to a new phase in her life. Let it be with a woman and not the same man problems. My expectations are high but I know i’d most likely be disappointed.
@pecola i’m sad Imposters got cancelled. i hope it gets picked up by Netflix. Though I am pissed that every single member of the team hooked up with someone this season except Jules. So of course, the lesbian was left alone while the straights had all the sex.
Yep! I’m on the beat re: Nova’s new love interest. I’m really hopeful, but definitely not holding my breath. Season 2 burned me too bad in that regard. I still love the Bordelons (and Nova)!!! And I like the idea of where they are taking her professionally. I can only hope that these new horizons also mean that she moves away from the toxic men that season 2 revolves around.
*revolved around
I agree, @taylordazzles. I wish Jules had been given the opportunity to at least hook-up with that girl she met in Mexico or, at the very least, that she’d been given more time to resolve things with Maddie. Both Richard and Ezra are still negotiating their history with Maddie while Jules seems to not be haunted by it anymore…which isn’t consistent with the Jules we’ve gotten to know.
@pecola omg, so I wasn’t the only one who hoped she’d hooked up with that Mexican girl. Thank you, i feel valid. Haha.
Also, so true. I feel like they just didn’t give Jules the same emotional connection with Maddie that they gave with the others. And from what Maddie explained to Ezra about how to con someone, she said you have to actually fall in love with the person you are trying to con. So Maddie also must have fallen for Jules for sure.
But it seems Maddie only cares about Ezra. And you are so right. How did Jules get over her so quickly? I just didn’t buy it at all. Not the Jules we know.
@taylordazzles You definitely were not alone. I’ve always liked Marianne Rendón and the “You’re looking very Shane today” styling they give her but something about her during the Mexico episodes…the swagger, the clothes, the beautiful way she spoke Spanish…it was Jules at her hottest, in my opinion.
All that hotness and they just wasted it…SIGH.
With respect to Maddie: when we first met Jules, she was still in therapy, still broken over what happened with Cece, despite the fact that she’d had more time to recover from the break-up (since her marriage came before Richard and Ezra’s)…and now she’s just cool?! Richard and Ezra both slept with doppelgangers of Maddie basically–Richard with OG Alice and Ezra with Sofia–so they’re clearly not over it. Meanwhile Jules is just fine? It doesn’t make sense.
And you make a great point about what Maddie said to Ezra about how to con someone, but how can Jules not want to know all that? How can she not want to know if Maddie’s actually bisexual or if the attraction to her was part of the con?
In its season finale Empire killed Tori (Rumer Willis) and Tiana was one of the three people a white supremacist shot at in the cliffhanger.
Westworld – Nothing explicitly gay has happened yet in respect to Dolores but I kind of got the vibe that two different versions of Armistace might be headed towards something. They were very taken with each other’s existance a few episodes back and now Armistace 2.0 has joined Armistance 1.0 on Maeve’s quest to find her daughter.
The Expanse – The show got uncancelled this week when Amazon bought it from Syfy so we will get more seasons of my favorite show right now. They introduced a lesbian character this season played by Elizabeth Mitchell. And I’ve always had the feeling that Drummer is into Naomi. All of the female characters on that show are absolutely fantastic though regardless of sexual orientation. It’s also one of the most racially diverse shows on tv not made by Shonda Rhimes.
The show itself has been compared to BSG and Game of Thrones due to all the political intrigue but I think it’s better than both of those shows combined and this is coming from a big BSG fan. Everybody should watch The Expanse.
YES! Another season of Queen Sugar is on tap and I’m so excited to have another opportunity to discuss it with you, @C-P, @arvan12 and any other QSFC members. So a few thoughts on the first two episodes of this season…
Watching Blue act out like that — though completely understandable for a kid that’s had so much upheaval in his life — was tough. Harder even than watching our beloved Judicorn sink into teenage depravity on The Fosters. I’m glad that he seemed to rediscover himself at the end of the second hour.
Oh, Ralph Angel…Kofi Siriboe nearly broke me as he got the paternity test results and just sat there, trying not to cry, repeating, “it don’t change nothing” over and over again. But, as with past seasons, I’ll be genuinely sympathetic to RA and what he’s going through…and his toxic masculinity will rear it’s head and it just knocks me right out of the scene.
I mentioned to Carmen that Charley’s battle with the Landry family feels, in a lot of ways, similar to Darla’s grasp on sobriety did last season: very tenuous. I want so desperately for her plan to come to fruition, especially given how disrespectful whatshisname was when she signed the contracts, but I worry that she’s taken on too much too soon and that her alliance with Boudreaux is as flimsy as his come-ons. Plus, I worry that even if she’s successful, how much of the community’s support she will have lost because she’s basically going to be lying to them until she can take down the Landrys. Her conversation with Prosper Denton — where she explicitly acknowledges him as almost having a part of her father there — seemed ominous…like when it all comes out, she will have betrayed him and her father too.
I’m excited to see where this book publishing offer takes Nova, though, I remain unconvinced that securing ownership to her columns wouldn’t have been one of the considerations she made before leaving. And while I love seeing her in her activist side, I hope we get more of her interrogating all facets of her identity.
I’m not sure what to make of the Hollywood and Vi stuff…it seemed…haphazard or disconnected. On the one hand, you’ve got the settlement burning a hole in Hollywood’s pocket, but on the other, Vi’s struggling to make pies in her oven (which breaks as she works) and is forced to hand some of her future profits to the judgy church ladies. Why wouldn’t Hollywood just buy her a new oven or pay for her to rent commercial kitchen space? Either way, I’m worried about their future…and what Hollywood’s dismissal of Charley’s investing help might mean for the future.
With regard to Micah, I was so anxious that he’d run into that cop during the basketball game and I was relieved that he didn’t. I hated that entire scene at the basketball game, though…the unfurling of the Confederate flag just felt gratuitous in a way that you don’t expect this show ever be.
@pecola I haven’t seen the episodes yet so I didn’t read most of your comment but YESSSSSSSSS I’m so glad this show is back and that the QSFC is back and that you’re back and that Carmen’s recaps are back!!!
I don’t know WHY but I swear I read “Karla Monroig” as “Kate Moennig” LOL
<3