So… what happened on your screens this week? Let’s find out! Vivek Shraya’s stellar webseries How to Fail as a Popstar makes failure look good. RuPaul made a little “climb every mountain” reference on Drag Race, so yeah that happened. Couple to Throuple continues on with its relationship musical chairs and more queer make outs. And Phaedra Parks is not here to kiss ass and get roses on The Traitors.
Valerie Anne promises that The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy is a gayer Grey’s Anatomy in space. Speaking of gay things, it’s twenty years later and The Lion King 1 ½ is still the gayest Disney movie. Carmen assembled a list of the 25 movies just perfect for crying through your divorce (or any other reason you may have to cry).
After watching Jennifer Lopez’s This Is Me…Now Kayla is no longer sure who she is anymore. In this week’s anatomy of a queer sex scene, Drew examines Desert Heart’s celebration of lesbian patience and persistence. Speaking of Drew! Drive-Away Dolls is out in theaters, and Drew promises that it’s a raunchy caper about lesbians the men who fear us.
And finally!! Did you know Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried have a full-on sex scene in Chloe (2009)??
Notes from the TV Team:
+ Food Network’s Tournament of Champions returned on Sunday and last year’s Cinderella story, Britt Rescigno, was among the first cheftestants to do battle. She faced James Beard Award winning chef and restaurateur Jonathan Sawyer in the opening round. Thankfully, the randomizer was kind to Rescigno and offered ingredients that lent well to her Italian roots. She used a panini press to turn ground beef, basil, and graham crackers into a silky dish of meatballs with a corn polenta. The chefbian edged Sawyer, 78-74, and will face Marc Murphy in the second round. — Natalie
+ Kate and Lucy had some adorable moments this week on NCIS: Hawai’i as they were paired together and tasked with tracking down an escaped convict. Lucy’s anxious to get out in the field but Kate insists on anticipating their escapee’s next move via spreadsheets (a girl after my own heart, truly). Once they capture their escapee — and put out his attempt to set fire to their car — Kate and Lucy join the rest of the team for a celebration.
Was it cute? Yes, but am I slightly worried about the lack of Kacy-centric storylines and the excess of Tennant and Sam screentime so far this season? Also, yes. Here’s hoping it doesn’t become a regular thing. — Natalie
+ The Wynonna Earp movie 90-minute scripted special has officially started filming!!! — Valerie Anne
Death and Other Details Episode 107: “Memorable”
Written by Valerie Anne
There’s something about a woman cuffing her sleeves that really does it for me.
This week’s episode of Death and Other Details reminded me why I loathe the new trend of shows only having 6-8 episodes. I still personally would prefer 12-16, but even 10 is enough for the show to take an episode to do something a little creative. Not every episode has to be crammed full of information when you have a little room to stretch. In this episode, we only learn a few things, but they’re important things, and the journey to get there was beautiful to watch.
Rufus is walking Imogene through the details of working her mother’s case, and so do that, Imogene imagines herself in Rufus’s shoes. And also his tailored suit and wide-rimmed glasses. So instead of watching Rufus go through what happened, including some scenes we’ve already seen, we see Imogene in his stead, and it’s really fun to watch. The way she walks with a different swagger and rolls up her sleeves is enough to make this gay swoon.
They go through the steps of the case, and Imogene learns that Rufus didn’t give up on her mother’s case; the Collier’s asked him to stop coming around, and also, Rufus kept working on the case in secret.
While going through this exercise, Rufus helps Imogene unlock a memory she had previously blocked out. She finds herself in the house she spent much of her childhood in, chasing her younger self from room to room like a ghost. Versions of Anna and Trip run around her, dollhouses come to life, doors lead where they shouldn’t, a trunk she crawls in serves as a portal. When Imogene finally catches up to her younger self under a table at a Chinese restaurant, her younger self says she can’t tell her what she wants to know, because she promised she wouldn’t.
Imogene remembers the rest of her memory from the car right before her mom died, when her mom made her promise never to talk about what happened in the diner ever again. So it wasn’t just that she forgot, it’s that she locked it away for safekeeping, as per her mother’s final request of her.
Imogene goes back to the diner then, and remembers her mother begging the governor (the one who just died on the ship) for help exposing the Collier family for their dangerous practices, saying she has a widow who will be a witness. The governor turns her down, and Imogene’s mother tearfully tells the widow she can’t help her. Imogene sees her now, a familiar mole on her cheek. The widow who was going to help her mother take down Collier Mills was none other than Celia Chun.
When she emerges from this memory, Imogene marches right up to the Chun family matriarch to confront her about it.
Good Trouble 518: “All These Engagements”
Written by Natalie
With just a few episodes left until we bid a final farewell to the Fosters-verse, it was nice to bring the Adams Fosters together for one last hurrah. The stories were built around Callie and Mariana, of course — this is their spin-off after all — but it was nice to see Stef, Lena, Brandon, Jude, and even Callie’s half-sister, Sophia (sort of), at the engagement party. Callie’s speech felt like vintage Fosters, in all the best ways, and it left me a little verklempt. Also, I love how Good Trouble gives Teri Polo and Sherri Saum room to flex their comedic muscles, rather than just being doting mothers. I wasn’t even annoyed by Brandon too much this episode: he and Jude confronting Joaquin was hilarious… I only wished Jesus would’ve been there.
Everyone from the Coterie shows up at the party, dressed to the nines. The entire event is dripping in “classic romance” vibes and Alice worries that it’ll spurn Sumi to start having wedding fever. But when Alice laments about the costs of the party, Sumi admits that, after her experience with Meera, she never wants to do any of this again. That admission stokes Alice’s worries even more, she’d always assumed that they’d get married eventually.
Of course, Alice’s worries are all for naught: Sumi admits that she doesn’t want all the hoopla but she still, very much, wants to get married. For a moment, Sumi takes Alice’s concern as a proposal and squeals as she wonders if they’re engaged now. Alice calms her down and insists that she wasn’t proposing but promises that she will, someday.
Meanwhile, Malika invites her brother, Dom, to serve as her plus-one for the party. I try not to be annoyed that she didn’t invite Angelica to finally give us a resolution on their storyline. Dom spots Isaac across the room and inquires about his odd behavior at Douro. Grateful for the opportunity to unburden herself, Malika shares the news of Isaac’s addiction and her suspicion that he stole Xanax from Mariana. Dom pushes his sister to confront Isaac about the stolen pills but Malika’s reluctant because of how reporting her mother damaged their relationship. I love this call-back to Good Trouble‘s earliest episodes; it felt like a full circle moment for the character.
Dom assures Malika that she did the right thing back then. Losing Isaac’s friendship isn’t the worst thing that could happen if his addiction continues to go unchecked, Dom reminds her. When she spots Isaac intoxicated later, Malika realizes her brother’s right. She takes Isaac back to the Coterie and confronts him about his lies. Cornered, Isaac lashes out but Malika maintains her resolve: she won’t enable him any further. She insists that if he leaves the Coterie, he can’t come back and Isaac spits that he never asked to be there anyway and walks out.
Hightown 305: “29 Days Later”
Written by Natalie
When we reconnect with Jackie this week, she’s 29 days sober and just finishing up her stint in rehab. She’s been working her steps though she hits a roadblock with making a moral inventory of herself. She can’t reconcile her savior complex, which far too often has led to her bad choices, with her responsibilities as a cop. I wonder why the counselor doesn’t suggest Jackie finding a new job but I suppose that’s a conclusion Jackie has to come to on her own.
I’m not expecting that realization to come anytime soon because, when tasked with inviting someone to Family & Friends Visitation Day, Jackie invites Ray. As is he wont, Ray’s uninterested in playing by the rules but Jackie insists: he has to share how her drinking affected him. He acquiesces, recalling some instances where her drinking made him look bad, but mostly, he admits, her drinking just makes him worry. She apologizes and promises to do whatever she can to make it up to him. He encourages her to not get drunk again and she assures him that’s her plan.
Their conversation pivots back to work: Ray questions Jackie about what she found in Fall Brook. She insists that there’s something awry there but she’s letting go of the “rogue captain save-a-hoe bullshit” and just focusing on doing her work, the right way. She pledges to show up to work, as soon as she’s released, to start proving herself.
The next morning, Ed picks Jackie up from rehab and brings her back to a sparkling clean apartment. She urges him to not enable her but Ed reminds Jackie that if he didn’t, she probably wouldn’t be alive. She offers him an apology that isn’t nearly as meaningful as he deserves. She’s determined to go to work and promises that she’ll go to a meeting afterwards.
Jackie arrives at work and Ray immediately recruits her to be part of his undercover detail at a bar she used to frequent. Thankfully, Jackie avoids drinking and, afterwards, she heads back to Fall Brook. She pays Baby for her time and offers an apology for only being concerned about a missing white girl before. Jackie asks for more information about Maxine McClean. She promises Baby that she’ll investigate seriously but not tonight…tonight, she has to go to a meeting.
(It is astounding to me that, at no point during this hour, does anyone — not Ray, not Alan — tell Jackie that Frankie Cuevas, the man she helped put behind bars — her white whale — is free. It feels like a tremendous oversight by the writing team.)
And while it’s not gay (necessarily), I’ll note that Charmaine Grasa (played by Imani Lewis of First Kill fame) returned this week. Apparently, she’s been laying low in Tampa. I can’t wait to see the havoc she and Osito wreak in Hightown‘s remaining episodes.
