Hello and welcome back to some more Boobs which are on your Tubes! This week, Riese and Carly podcasted that episode of The L Word where everyone took a private jet to a WNBA game. Valerie Anne wasn’t mad at Supergirl, just disappointed. However, she was absolutely not mad at Legends of Tomorrow. Carmen adored Zoe Kravitz in High Fidelity. Natalie spoke some truth alongside Good Trouble about allyship. And Heather ate up Apple TV+’s new docuseries about LGBTQ visibility on TV. Here’s a few words from the TV Team because they love you.
Notes from the TV Team:
+ I’m going to stop giving soaps credit for telling good queer stories; it just jinxes it. Soon after I praised the lesbian love story on Home and Away, it fell apart in embarrassing fashion. And then Emmerdale kidnaps Vanessa and gives her cancer in the same week?! WTF. — Natalie
+ This week on God Friended Me, Ali revealed her breast cancer diagnosis to her father. The cancer is aggressive but thanks to an early discovery, her prognosis is good. But fearing that chemo might affect her fertility, Ali decides to delay it for a month to undergo egg retrieval and freezing. — Natalie
+ Lucia came out to herself on this week’s Party of Five, a show that is so emotionally resonant and groundbreaking in its depiction of family separation that I cannot emphasize enough how much you should be watching it! On top of the fact that it is now 100% officially gay. Anyway, Natalie is working on a stand alone about this for next week, so use this weekend to binge and catch up! — Carmen
+ I feel like it’s my duty to tell you two facts. 1) Two girls, Pepper and Didi, kissed on Katy Keene. 2) I cannot, as a New Yorker, bring myself to watch that show beyond the pilot. It hurt me more than the Bold Type girls Gossip-Girl-traveling around boroughs impossibly fast. It hurt me more than the Glee kids finding a perfect loft apartment they could afford and also zipping to/from Ohio on student/artist/waiter salaries. (And my list of grievances is much longer than this but this was the kindest one I had.) So maybe someone else on our TV Team will take up the mantle, and if not, since I’m neck-deep in CW shows I’m sure if anything else happens I’ll hear about it and do my best to pass it on. — Valerie Anne
All American 213: “The Art of Peer Pressure”
Written by Natalie
Alexa, please play “Ryde or Die Chick” by the L.O.X.
Just a few weeks into their collaboration, Layla and Coop have their first track finished. Once it gets Spencer’s seal of approval, Layla announces that she wants to enter the song in a local radio contest. Before Coop can celebrate too much, Preach summons her to the LA County jail for a face-to-face meeting. When she arrives, Coop finds Preach battered and bruised. Preach warns that Tyrone’s back and he’s already targeted him and Flip and Coop is likely his next target. He advises Coop to lay low. This time, Coop actually listens, hiding out at Layla’s place, but when she crosses paths with Layla’s father, his attempt at a pep talk prompts Coop to change course.
“You know why you’re still here, Coop… your will,” J.P offers. “No matter how scary things get in your life, you never fold. If there’s one thing I learned about you, you’re not one to back down from anything or anyone, ever.”
Coop heads back to Crenshaw, stopping at Patience’s house to make sure she’s safe. Though things are still frosty between them, Coop urges Patience to pack a bag so that they can go stay with her uncle in Riverside. Patience does it without hesitation while we find out the real reason Coop’s at Patience’s house: to pick up the gun she’d stashed there. Before they can escape, Spencer shows up — having heard about Tyrone from Layla — and chastises Coop for not being more careful. She promises that she and Patience are on their way and urges him to head back to Beverly Hills. He acquiesces and seconds after he leaves, Coop pushes Patience out the door, without her.
The next day, Coop stops by Spencer’s scrimmage to watch him play from afar and gets to hear her track with Layla debut on the radio. It’s a final hoorah before she heads into battle. For his part, Tyrone’s chilling, impervious to the chaos around him. Shots ring out — though it’s not clear from where or how Tyrone wouldn’t have seen the threat coming — and, after being hit three times, Tyrone dies.
Word of Tyrone’s death filters out and Patience rushes back to Crenshaw to confront Coop. She asks her ex directly if she killed Tyrone and Coop responds with a tepid denial. Before they can engage any further, Flip interrupts: he hadn’t been attacked by Tyrone, he’d been securing his family in preparation for war. Coop spots two detectives entering the cafe and, without drawing attention to herself, pushes her bag underneath a nearby couch. The detectives invite her down to the station for questioning and she follows them out. Crenshaw’s former QB, Chris, reports the news of Coop’s “arrest” to Spencer in Beverly Hills.
Meanwhile, Patience proves she’s a real one: she collects the bag that Coop hid from the police and, under the cloak of darkness, takes the gun, wipes it down, and tosses it in the river.
All Rise 116: “My Fair Lockdown”
Written by Natalie
It’s a campaign story that’s being told plausibly…can you believe it?
Through 16 episodes of All Rise, Judge Lisa Benner has been somewhat of an enigma. Details about her have been slowly doled out, through her mentorship of newly appointed judge, Lola Carmichael, but we haven’t gotten a glimpse into what drives her…that is, until this week.
Lisa’s preparing to launch a campaign for Attorney General but before she throws her hat into the ring, she wants to be vetted by the people who know her best. She asks Lola to dig into her years in private practice and the judge’s assistant is eager to the research. Three cases catch their eye — a wrongful termination suit, a toxic tort class action and fraudulent investments — and Lola expands the investigation beyond public records. She meets up with the lead plantififf in the class action case and realizes the company, Cubrillon, shortchanged the plantifs on their settlement even though they knew the company was at fault. It’s not an illegal action but it’s unethical enough that Lola continues her investigation, this time talking to plantiff’s attorney.
This week, Lisa shows up at Lola’s office to introduce her protege to her son and narrowly avoids a run-in with the aforementioned attorney, Jean Rubenstone-Frost. She details the bullying of her clients by Cubrillon and how, six months after the settlement, internal documents leaked delaying the cover-up. Jean could never find proof that the law firm hid the documents but she remains convinced they knew and that Brenner knew. Lola questions how she can be so certain — Brenner was just a lowly associate — and Jean reveals that they seriously dated all through law school. They’d find themselves on opposite sides of the class action suit years after they’d broken up and she finally saw Lisa’s true colors.
Before she leaves the courthouse, Jean stops by Lisa’s office to give her the heads up on the investigation but thanks to an ongoing hostage situation in Lola’s courtroom, she can leave. Stuck in a room together, the exes catch up: Lisa’s widowed with a son that’s an idealistic lawyer, Jean’s divorced with two kids in college. It doesn’t take long for the lingering bitterness between them to come to the surface: first over a dog they never share, then over the Cubrillon case. Lisa admits she wanted the outcome to be discovered so, perhaps, both for political reasons ans so she could forgive herself for what happened.
Jean’s dismissive, at first, but listens as Lisa explains what really happened. Lisa admits that she leaked the documents — an admission that would ruin her career — and a shocked Jean reaches out and comforts her. Once the hostage situation is resolved, the exes part ways but not before exchanging a hug in the hallway. A surprised Lola watches their embrace and Lisa promises that they’ll revisit the issue later.
The Bold Type 405: “Tearing Down the Donut Wall”
Written by Carmen
The definitely left this episode out of The Nanny
Kat got back on Tinder at the end of the end of last week now she’s ready to take that baby for a spin. Specifically she’s looking for someone who is the exact opposite of her type, someone that she won’t build an emotional connection with. At first it looks like she’s found that person in whom our Managing Editor Rachel so perfectly described as “lesbian Fran Drescher” (keep The Nanny aesthetics, minus the voice) and unfortunately for this character, who seems like a perfectly lovely human being, that is now the only way I can refer to her.
So Kat and lesbian Fran Drescher, with her love of leopard print, gold jewelry, and a French pedicure go on a date and have some sex. Great sex even, according to Kat. And then the very next day, before she knows it, she’s going on second date with dear old Fran to an intimate game night for Fran’s friend’s birthday. Somewhere around the middle of their board game, Kat realizes she’s in too deep and bails RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DATE (poor form, Kat).
She meets up with Fran at a bar the next day to apologize, and then lesbian Fran Drescher went down in history as my favorite Kat hook up. Because when Kat tries to pull the whole “it’s not you, it’s me” routine – lesbian Fran Drescher narrows her eyes and says “I know I’m great, it’s definitely you.” Then, in the epitome of Boss Moves, she walks away.
The bartender overheard her breakup and he offers Kat a free drink to cheer her up. I’m sure we can all see where this is going, but Kat takes him home and has sex with him instead. Listen, I’m never rooting for really dope women of color to hook up with mayo bland white guys (a trend that continued last week with Hulu’s reboot of High Fidelity), but I am glad for the reminder to the audience that Kat is, in fact, bisexual. Next week, my girl is buying a strap-on!!!! An entire queer world of firsts stand before us to unfold!
Legacies 213: “You Can’t Save Them All”
Written by Valerie Anne
Legacies wasn’t on this week but I just caught up and witches we have a new queer in town! Vampire Jade was a student when the twins were little but Alaric Saltzman, who has apparently been an even bigger menace to supernatural teenage society for longer than I realized, send her to a prison world with two of her friends when they were caught having done a massacre. While technically they did do the murders, if Alaric had taken ten minute to talk to them and hear what actually happened, he would have realized that the truth of it was they were being bullied and were ill-equipped to handle their supernatural powers under stress.
If he had just LISTENED he would have realized that he didn’t have uncontrollable monsters on his hands, just scared teenagers who just needed more guidance. But instead he panicked because he’s a human species-ist and always has thought the worst of supernatural creatures, despite supposedly loving his family. Anyway, one of the people in charge of this bullying session was a girl Jade thought might be into her, and though she was sleeping with Kai in the prison world, she does admit to be on the preferring girls end of the bisexual spectrum. When they get back to Mystic Falls, Jade had her humanity switch flipped back on and she smiled with kind eyes on Josie, who got a little flustered as she smiled back. Which is relatable.
A Ripper and a Gemini? Don’t mind if I do.
So if Hope is going to insist on choosing the flaming marshmallow over Josie (though she did choose to save Josie over him, she still went back to him romantically in the end), especially now that we know they have something in common, with Josie having Dark Josie hiding just under the surface, and Jade being a Ripper, I can pivot to shipping Josie and Jade.
Just as an FYI, in the lead up to the 100th episode, Melissa Benoist posted a “Supergirl” music video like the cast of “Legends of Tomorrow” used to do.
https://www.instagram.com/tv/B81leZbnjXi/?igshid=1vvwqselbjabw
Amazing. Truly the best use of a smoke machine I’ve seen in years (not to mention the cape work!)
THANK YOU!!!
-Great to hear we are getting a standalone on Lucia’s coming out to herself.
The only thing I have to add here is that for some strange reason the whole dynamic of the storyline reminded me about Laura’s storyline in “Casual” Season 3 even though that storyline was also so different.
-Is “God Friended Me” worth a watch for the Queer content if you weren’t taken with the first 4-5 episodes of Season 1?
-I am dreading giving Katy Keene a go since I finally allowed my self to stop torturing myself by watching Riverdale, so I am asking myself if it’s really worth it for a few snippets of Queer Content? The answer: I guess 3 episodes to find out aint that bad in the scheme of things, by which I mean the hours upon hours of shows I endured to get to Sweet Lady Kisses!
-You mirrored my thoughts exatly when it came to this episode of The Bold Type, Carmen, thank you. Nay to queer women sleeping with dues, but hell yay to bisexual representation on our tubes!
-I want to believe in Jadie(/Jode), but you can never put too much trust in Julie Plec: for every step forward (Originals final season) there is one and a half step back (Legacies Season 1 and 2 so far).
-Law&Order:SVU continues sidestepping tackling LGBTQ+ issues
-I was wondering if we are getting coverage of Amazon series “Hunters” and its queer character?
Katy Keene is not worth watching for the tiny snippet of queer content they have had in 3 episodes which was forgotten by the next episode.
@avasommer With respect to God Friended Me, I’d say no. If you don’t like overall tenor of the show, there’s not enough queer content to compensate.
I seconded this no and I actually like the show. It has almost 0 queer content.
Since we don’t always hear about Canadian shows for a while: there’s new Canadian show called Nurses that has a lesbian nurse as one of the main ensemble characters. The show itself is fairly standard medical show stuff, just from the perspective of the nurses, not the doctors. I’m enjoying it well enough.
The best detail on this last episode of The Bold Type is Lesbian Fran Drescher’s manicure with two short nails. Great job to whoever in their makeup department made that call.
The Bold Type has been my guilty pleasure show, but I’m ready to shelve it after the past two weeks. I was disappointed when last week’s episode invoked “lesbian bed death” (“and you’re not even lesbians!”) to shame Jane for her lack of sexual intimacy with her boyfriend, and this week’s use of the u-hauling stereotype. It felt even more tired that Kat ends up sleeping with the male bartender, because it feels like they’re just reinforcing the “women are more complicated/men are just easier” trope around relationships with women vs. men.
The show felt like it had a better sense of understanding of queerness with Kat’s plotlines with Adena and Tia. I’d be fine with them unpacking the harmful stereotype of lesbian bed death or jokes about u-hauling if Kat was making them with other queer people (seriously why doesn’t Kat have any queer friends?) but for them to air out those stereotypes unchallenged doesn’t feel like good representation.