Happy Yellowjackets Day once again, my friends, and happy Kayla Recap Day too! Hannah Gadsby’s got a new stand-up special out at Netflix, and Sai reviewed it for us. Anya wrote about this week’s Survivor! Kayla wrote about the queer contestants from this year’s Eurovision. Riese couldn’t help but notice that Ted Lasso dropped its sapphic storyline like a hot potato. Niko reviewed Trace Lysette’s new film, Monica. And Carmen peeped some queerness in Guardians of the Galaxy 3.

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Station 19 617: “All These Things That I’ve Done”

Written by Carmen

We’re a week away from Station 19’s Season Six finale, so it feels like a good time to bring a conclusion to Carina and Maya’s season long arc of breaking trust, healing, and learning how to trust anew. I have had criticisms of this season, there have been times — especially early on — when the writing of Maya in particular frustrated me. It was painful and visceral to watch her spiral, but now that we are approaching the other side of it and relief can be gulped down like fresh Spring air, I also think I get it. Danielle Savre has been masterful this year as she’s guided us through Maya’s journey, and if we hadn’t been forced to feel those frustrations, to walk hand-in-hand with Maya and Carina through the tears and snot and heartbreak, then we wouldn’t be be able to fully appreciate the sweetness of their growth now.

When you cut into a tree, it scrapes, but eventually, it grows around the injury. It becomes tougher. The markings become a part of its beauty.

Carina is worried that Maya isn’t actually better. It’s not that she doesn’t want to trust her wife, but she has a lot of history stemming from growing up with her father’s mental illness. She says that growing up with him felt a bit like she does right now, like waiting for a bomb to tick or a shoe to drop. She doesn’t know if Maya’s learned the tools she needs for them to be stable in the long haul. She laments to Ben, if only there was a sign. A way to know for sure.

Meanwhile, Maya had an opportunity to try out again as captain. She doesn’t take it. At the end of shift Carina finds out and she can’t believe it. She thought that there was nothing that Maya wanted more than being captain.

Turns out, there was at least one thing. If Carina was looking for her sign, there it is.

Carina waits for Maya after the showers and tells her to go put on some clothes — so that Carina can get her out of them. She’s moving back home, with her wife, for good.

*I know we do the gay parts here but of course last night’s episode goes to Barrett Doss for her work as Vic and Josh Randall’s work as Beckett. I’ve never been a fan of Beckett, but I’m glad that he is going to get the help he needs, and that Vic was able to be there when he needed someone most.

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Grey’s Anatomy 1918: “Ready to Run”

Written by Carmen

It has been a weird ass year for Grey’s Anatomy. I suppose if I had thought about it — and I mean, really thought about it, not just gawk in curiosity like watching a magician fail to pull a rabbit out of a hat — there was never going to be a smooth or easy way to navigate away from Meredith Grey.

I don’t know that any showrunner could have done it, not even the Great Shonda Rhimes herself (ok, maaaaaybe the Great Shonda Rhimes herself). Ellen Pompeo was more than just the show’s protagonist, she’s the literal namesake, and everything that has been good or awful about Grey’s for the last nearly 20 years has risen and fallen on her shoulders. She was the glue, the thread — and without her quite literally everything had to be made anew. That was always going to be awkward, it was going to take time. Hell, the fact that this grand experiment didn’t fail face first is probably a miracle by itself.

I’m feeling generous today, in case you can’t tell, and willing to overlook the annoyances that have been plaguing me, because I know when to take The Win. And last night’s night episode came with the present of at least two things on my Grey’s Gays bucket list finally getting crossed off, right before the finish line of summer break.

1. Helm (still looking sexy as hell, we haven’t talked enough about how good Jaicy Elliot has been looking in this high bun and dramatic lipstick) IS FINALLY RETURNING TO GREY SLOAN

2. HELM AND YASUDA ARE FINALLY GOING ON DATE!!!

And again I must say, finallyyyyyyy.

As a bonus to these two line items, when Helm returns to Grey Sloan Memorial it will be as co-Chief Resident ThankYouVeryMuch (she deserves!). She also negotiated Webber into an eight-week paid vacation which I am happy for her about, but poor Schmidt deserves some time off, too. Hopefully, in the wake of Helm’s return he also gets a renegotiation. But most importantly, Helm is coming back to her blue scrubs!!

I hope that all of the character growth and confidence that they’ve built into Helm during her time working at Joe’s Bar continues with her next year once she’s back at the hospital. It would be a shame to have seen Jaicy Elliot shine this way only to push her back into the corner as Schmidt’s yes man.

A sign of good things to come on that front is that for the first time in the five years since we’ve known her, Helm has an actual love life that doesn’t involve pining after straight women over 40. That’s right — after five years of being sidelined, her sexuality played largely for jokes, finally finally everything is coming up Helm. She’s been flirting with Yasuda all year, at the bar, at the Intern House party, and for a second it was worrisome that she might have overplayed her hand by defending Yasuda to the Attendings. Yasuda in particular worried that Helm’s stunt was going to cost Yasuda her job, but instead she got a grant and some financial aid, so that worked out. Yasuda says that she wants to stay mad at Helm for a little bit longer, but their chemistry is fire, so “a little longer” only takes until the end of the episode.

You see, fellow Grey’s Next Gen resident Simone’s wedding is coming up, and Yasuda needs a date. She’s never been the one to make the first move — something about an embarrassing promposal incident in high school — but Helm has been keeping it casual for too long! It’s time to step it up. And that’s exactly what Yasuda does.

She asks Helm to be her date in what had to be the cutest, most rambly, perfect gay nerd monologue I’ve ever heard. Seriously, it was like if sweaty palms were a person!!! Of course, Helm says yes. Starting next week she’ll be Yasuda’s boss at the hospital, but right now they still have this sliver of time as equals. And she thinks they should take full advantage of it.

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All American 519: “Sabotage”

Written by Natalie

The fallout from the video of Skye’s ill-conceived kiss continues to reverberate. For the last two weeks, Coop’s been staying at home with her parents and has steadfastly refused to return any of Patience’s calls or texts. Thankfully, Patience catches her on a pit stop at the Baker house and assures her ex that she had nothing to do with the video. Patience also notes that the video had been doctored — she pulled away immediately after it happened — but that only affirms for Coop that Skye was the one to initiate the kiss. Patience points out that Skye immediately regreted the kiss but Coop dismisses that meek defense. Coop wonders if Layla knows that someone’s spying on people in her studio but Patience hasn’t told her yet, she was only concerned about Coop. But Coop doubts that: if Patience was really concerned about Coop, she would’ve told her about the kiss rather than letting her get blindsided by the video.

Things don’t get better for Patience when she tells Layla about the video either. They quickly suss out what happened and who was likely behind it. Layla is incensed that Patience kept contacting Miko after she warned her against it. Patience admits approaching Miko, grateful for her hand in making the “Fire and Ice” video a success, but insists that she was trying to set boundaries. Clearly, that didn’t work so Layla puts her foot down: from now on, she’s handling all things Miko. And boy does she handle it. She lures Miko to Slausson Cafe under the guise of a meeting with her and Patience only to show up alone an confront her about the stalking. She has Miko served with a restraining order. Miko insists that she only been looking out for her girl because she loves her. But Layla stays firm: if she comes near Patience again, she’ll be arrested.

Later, Layla apologizes to Patience for coming down so hard on her but assures her that all she wants is for Patience to be safe. Patience assumes that it’s because Layla sees parallels between her near-death experience with Carrie but Layla insists that Miko is too far gone. She urges Patience to refocus her energies on the Instagram Live she’s doing to promote her upcoming tour.

Meanwhile, Coop’s still dealing with the retaliation from her professor and it’s making her second-guess her law school ambitions. Sensing Coop’s frustration, Laura decides to sit in on her class and her presence gives Coop the confidence she needs to push back on the professor’s retaliation. But when his dismissiveness won’t relent, Laura steps in and advocates for Coop. While the professor is content to let the system operate as it always has and continues to push his students to operate within those confines, Laura insists that it’s attorneys like Coop who are going to do the hard and necessary work of disrupting the system. That day, both Coop and Laura find their place in the law school classroom.

When she gets home, Coop tunes into Patience’s live event and the songstress tries to establish some boundaries between her and her fanbase. She refuses to let another fan hurt someone she loves ever again. Miko opts to sign on, right at that moment, and takes over the comments with apologies and pleas for forgiveness. The move angers Patience and she sics her fans on Miko. Later, Coop thanks Patience for always having her back and the couple shares a hug. And the way Patience hangs on to that hug…just a little longer and a little tighter than she reasonably should? I think we’re headed for a reunion!

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NCIS: Hawai’i 220: “Nightwatch Two”

Written by Natalie

It’s Lucy and Kate’s anniversary. Sort of. Kind of. Not really. It’s not the anniversary of their meeting nor their first date nor their second first date nor the first time saying “I love you.” It’s not their anniversary at all. And yet, there’s this cupcake in their refrigerator wishing Kate a “happy anniversary.” Lucy insists that she’s superstitious about real dates and anniversaries so she chooses another date to celebrate. Personally this is a level of chaos that I cannot co-sign (as if the soup and kale juice weren’t enough!) but Kate’s in love, so even though Lucy has to spend their faux-anniversary on Night Watch duty, she obliges. But, as it this show’s wont, duty calls…literally, this time: a man who identifies himself Joe calls into night watch and reports that he thinks he’s killed someone.

The caller seems confused and initially leads the team to the wrong crime scene. But Lucy believes there’s truth to Joe’s story — however disjointed it is — and works to build a rapport with him. Her persistence pays off and Joe’s clues lead Kai and Jesse to a jewelry store where they find a dead body and an open safe. The case brings the rest of the team together and Ernie traces the phone call back to Joseph Pitt, a Marine corporal grappling with a traumatic brain injury. A photo of Joe and his girlfriend leads Lucy to an apartment building that’s closed for construction, where she finds Joe…who greets her with a gun.

Jane Tennant is ready to storm the building to ensure Lucy’s safety but Lucy insists that she’s okay. Lucy convinces Joe to hand her his gun and they piece together what happened to Joe. He recalls that his friend, Markus, killed the clerk in the jewelry store and that he was forced to kill his friend in self-defense. He takes Lucy to Markus’ body but grows increasingly agitated as his memories flood back. Lucy reaches out to calm him but he flails at her touch and inadvertently elbows her in the face. Back at HQ, Kate isn’t thrilled about Lucy putting herself in a dangerous situation. Lucy comes to Joe’s defense which only aggravates Kate more. Jane interjects and sends Lucy and Kate (and an ice pack) off to talk to Joe’s friend, Ethan, from his veterans’ support group.

They track Ethan to the marina and Kate leaves to find on which boat slip belongs to Ethan. But Lucy spots him on the pier and talks to him while he’s loading coolers onto his boat. He lets a detail about the robbery slip — one only the culprit could’ve known — and tries to reach for gun but Joe’s already swiped it. A fight ensues and, thankfully, Kate arrives just in time to save Lucy and Joe. But even after having vindicated Joe, Lucy still feels bad, knowing the struggles he’ll continue to face.

BUT THEN! It’s time to celebrate their anniversary and they celebrate by re-enacting their first meeting. That night in the bar where Lucy meets a DC-bound Kate Whistler and both end the night knowing that one night together isn’t nearly enough. It’s so cute and pure…and I loved it.

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Good Trouble 509: “Tell Me Sweet Little Lies”

Written by Natalie

According to Lucia’s whip count, the women’s center has secured enough support to ensure final passage by the City Council so Malika’s already looking ahead to the next steps. She’s found an old, abandoned church that would be the perfect location and pitches the idea to Lucia. By adding to an existing space, rather than starting from scratch, Malika estimates that they could cut their costs in half. Lucia loves the idea and encourages Malika to reach out to the community and get their support before the Council vote.

Malika and Tracy are able to pull together a community meeting in short order…which, as someone who’s had to do something similar, is damn near impossible to do, especially without offering food and drink. But they get a good turnout and pitch the women’s center to the attendees. She talks about her own history — about growing up with a single mother and incarcerated father — and what a difference a resource like the women’s center could’ve made. But Malika’s pitch, however affecting, is met by the community’s well-earned cynicism. One community member rejects the proposal outright, another points out that the presence of the women’s center would, inevitably, lead to more police in the neighborhood to harass the unhoused and black and brown residents. She right asserts that it could end up hurting the very communities that they’re trying to protect. Malika assures the attendees that their office is deeply committed to protecting the community but they are not persuaded and promise to be at the Council meeting later to make their voice heard.

Malika’s understandably frustrated by the resistance but her Coterie fam pushes her to find a way to address the residents’ concerns. She reaches out to all the council members who have voiced support for the women’s center to add an additional provision to prohibit increased police patrols. Her last approach is to Councilman Hauss — the earlier holdout who Malika and Angelica persuaded — and he agrees to the proposal a little too easily…and that’s when I know that this vote is about to go sideways. And poor Malika doesn’t even see it coming.

With her Coterie fam there to support her, Malika offers her revised proposal to the council for their consideration and, though it ultimately garners the support of the community, Hauss votes against it in the end. The women’s center proposal fails by one vote. Later Lucia and her Chief of Staff admit that Hauss has his eyes set on being Council president and doesn’t want to draw the ire of the police union so, of course, he voted against the proposal. Now, personally, that feels like outcome that a more experienced political hand should’ve seen coming — and warned Malika about — but Malika just takes the news in, stunned silent.

“Welcome to politics,” Tracy adds.

With tears threating to spill out, Malika answers, “Well, if this is politics, then maybe politics aren’t for me.”

She walks out, heartbroken, and I’m not sure if she’ll ever walk back into Lucia’s office again.

Some other random Good Trouble thoughts:

+ I appreciate the way the Coterie fam showed up for Malika but it also begs the question: why aren’t they showing up for Mariana in the same way? The girl walked into the kitchen, caked in her ex-boyfriend’s blood, and no one aside from Joaquin (ugh) has checked in to make sure she’s okay.

+ I thought my love for Luca truly knew no bounds but him flirting with two girls at the same time definitely had me looking at him sideways. I’m 100% #TeamMabel.

+ Will this cult story ever die? I cannot with this.

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Fantasy Island 213: “MJ Akuda & the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Wives”

Written by Valerie Anne

In what is unfortunately the series finale of Fantasy Island, it’s a battle of wills to see if Ruby will give herself to the sea or not.

The guests this week are the three wives of Mr. Beck, two former and one current, who join forces to give him hell and teach him a lesson, while also learning a lesson of their own in the process. Huzzah.

But on to the juicy stuff. Elena is afraid she is running out of time to save Ruby, so she calls in the big guns aka invites Ruby’s daughter MJ to the island, under the ruse of mourning her late mother. But when she gets there, Elena, Javier and Segundo sit her down and explain that actually her mother didn’t die, she just turned 25 and fell in love with a woman who is a mermaid and is erasing her memories in order to tempt her into the ocean. MJ understandably doesn’t believe them, that is until she runs into Ruby and recognizes her mother immediately. Ruby doesn’t recognize her though, so she treats her with the same polite warmth she does any guest.

MJ walks the beach with Ruby, asking her questions about her life she can’t answer. While she’s trying to deflect, Isla runs up, with a hint of panic behind her eyes. She kisses Ruby and asks to talk alone, asking her again to come with her, begging her to say yes right now. Ruby says she’ll come…but after MJ’s fantasy is complete. Isla tries to change her mind, but Ruby is insistent. So Isla finds Elena and accuses her of playing dirty, but Elena assures her she’s not playing at all.

In a beautiful scene by the water, MJ talks to her mom without Ruby knowing it’s about her, but Ruby still doesn’t remember. MJ thinks she wasn’t the right kid for the job, but the next day when Isla gets impatient and tries to drag Ruby into the ocean, begging her to say she’s ready like Ursula urging Ariel to sing. MJ screams for her mother and Ruby finally hears her, finally remembers. MJ is sad she can’t be with her mom anymore but she’s so happy she gets to live her life again as exactly who she is.

Later that night, Ruby goes to the beach to say goodbye to Isla, saying she can’t be truly herself with Isla if it means losing her memories, because those are part of who she is. She can’t change herself entirely for Isla, because that’s not what love is.

The next day Ruby celebrates the return of her memories with the people who taught her that lesson, the people who love her exactly as she is. Including Helene, who loves her as she is so much she calls her “lesbian granny friend.” Ruby toasts to her family, blood and found, who didn’t just save her, they gave her the tools to save herself. So while Ruby didn’t get to swim off into the sunset with her lady love, her queerness was still central to the narrative all season, and she still got a happy ending, surrounded by people who love her, all of her, just the way she is.

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Saint X 105: “Colonial Interference”

Written by Valerie Anne

This week’s episode takes place on Emily’s birthday. A fact that everyone seems focused on, except Emily, who has been neck-deep in research and stalking Gogo that she lost track of time altogether. Her gay best friend Sunita is worried about her, and tries to get her back on track by giving her tough love, saying she has to finish her edit of her docuseries finale instead of losing herschel to her obsession.

Emily tries to explain to Sunita why she’s not ready to let this go, and in one of the cringiest moments of the season to date (and there have been plenty), they have Sunita, who is a woman of color herself, say that Emily just needs to accept the fact that Gogo and his friend murdered her sister…even though the optics are bad? She literally says it’s “uncomfortable” to acknowledge that two Black men killed a white woman. Even though that’s not what Emily was talking about at all? She just said she could tell Gogo was in real pain. Anyway, Sunita tells Emily she has to finish the edit by EOD because Sunita vouched for her so it’s not just Emily that will suffer if she drops the ball.

And in fact, later, after Emily stalks Gogo to an art gallery, eve drops on his conversation with an old friend, and watches him read a letter that made him emotional, she tries to tell Sunita about it, but Sunita cuts her off, pissed. Emily didn’t finish the work she promised to finish, and she got both her and Sunita fired.

I’m officially filing this show next to Frontier in the file marked “things I’ve suffered for actresses I love” but I have to see this through to the end to find out if Allison was murdered by the pedophilic cheater, the icel snob, the girl trying to single white female her, or a secret fourth option.

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The Power 109: “The Shape of Power”

Written by Valerie Anne

In the season (and hopefully series?) finale of The Power, my biggest fears are confirmed. But I’ll get to that in a minute. First let’s do a quick rundown of where ladies ended up.

In Margot and Jos’s world, things are getting tense. Margot’s husband is already moving on to other women after deciding he is divorcing her after the campaign is over, Jos and her boyfriend are bullied by other girls with skeins even though the war is hard enough without infighting, Jos’s brother is even deeper in the UrbanDox cult, Jos’s boyfriend gets sent away to what we later learn is essentially conversion camp by Margot’s campaign manager, and Margot ends up accidentally zapping her opponent during a debate when it gets heated. My favorite part of this family’s arc this episode was when Jos was standing up to her former friend, now-bully, and she said, “Evolve, bitch.” Stealing that one.

In Moldova, in the wake of her husband’s death, Tatiana is acting president. She releases Tunde with a message for her sister, but then also sends soldiers to attack the rebels, telling her army she’s sacrificing her sister for the country’s loyalty. But she gets to have her cake and eat it too, because while she does seem to be standing against the rebels, she also gave them a heads up, so by the time Tunde gets to the rebel camp, all the soldiers are dead. Tunde seems deeply upset by this in a way I think the writers want us to feel? But I was on team rebel, and support their right to take down any men who threatened them. Tatiana is too, telling Zoia that they’re going to make the world her daughter grows up in different than it was for them.

In England, Roxy finds out her mother’s boyfriend was police, which is why her father had her killed. But instead of killing her father, she does him one better, activating her stepmother’s skein before fucking off to Eve’s cult.

Eve, by the way, is done being afraid of killing more people and instead is doubling down, activating the nuns’ skeins and waiting for the soldier her god promised would come. (By the way, twice in this episode it was implied, though not shown, that trans women have skeins, which was a huge relief to me.)

When Roxy and Eve finally meet, Eve realizes she’s finally met someone as powerful as her. So she welcomes her to the family with open arms, turning to her followers, which for some reason lost a lesbian somewhere around episode 4.

Anyway, that’s the end of the season. I really thought I was going to enjoy this show, I even remained hopeful even after people in the comments warned me the book was a bit yikes. Surely a 2023 adaptation would improve upon a 2016 book. Surely it would show how much better the world could be if the playing field was more even. And it almost did; Margot touched on some things, about domestic violence being down and the murders of trans women of color being almost entirely eradicated. But then they have Margot accidentally zap her opponent when she gets “hysterical” during a debate. They show women relish in murder and forming cults. Unfortunately the message doesn’t seem to be “see how much better it would be without white cis-het patriarchal oppression” and instead “absolute power corrupts absolutely” and I just don’t think that’s the kind of story we need in the world right now.

Hopefully that’s the last we’ll see of this series, because if this show gets renewed when A League of Their Own didn’t, I’m going to absolutely riot.