Season Five is coming to an end and we are celebrating with not one but TWO group gatherings jam-packed with lesbian drama: Jodi’s very weird experimental art show and Lez Girls’ very weird wrap party! Will anyone have sex on the balustrade at Yamashiro? Will Molly throw a drink at Shane? Will Alice continue thinking-cheating with Clea the designer? Will Bette and Tina do a weird dance while Bette wears a terrible butterfly shirt? Join us as we wrap up the last good season of this strange show!

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Riese: Hello everyone, this is Riese!

Carly: And this is Carly.

Riese: And this is To L and Back!

Carly: To L and Back!

Riese: Yeah, a podcast about The L Word, a television program—

Carly: That aired on Showtime, and we are recording this Sunday, November 1st, so by the time you hear it, whatever we are feeling will either be magnified to an extreme, or will be hopefully lessened a bit.

Riese: I think we’ll be in limbo. That’s my prediction.

Carly: I fear we will be in limbo as well, and I don’t know if my fragile state can handle too much limbo. It’s been a rough week over at Carly HQ.

Riese: Over at Carly University?

Carly: Yeah, at Carly… It’s been really…

Riese: It’s been a rough week for more than just Bette.

Carly: It’s been tough at Carly University.

Riese: It’s been tough at Carly University. The students aren’t happy.

Carly: The dean is unhappy.

Riese: The dean is unhappy.

Carly: The chancellor is unhappy.

Riese: The chancellor is livid.

Carly: Oh, she is pissed. We’ll get to that.

Riese: We’ll get to that, yeah.

Carly: We’ll start off by just saying that this is the finale of Season Five. I want everyone to just take a moment and really congratulate yourselves, and us also, because we made it this far.

Riese: Yeah, mostly us.

Carly: Mostly us.

Riese: Season five was a great season.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And it’s a great season to have done, before the next season, which is the worst.

Carly: The worst. Speaking of Season Six, we are going to be taking the rest of November off before we really get into it. No firm plans yet for the Season Six premier date, but it is happening, despite how we don’t want to do it, we are going to do it because we must.

Riese: Yeah. And we’ll have fun because it’ll be so bad.

Carly: Yeah, exactly.

Riese: And we’ll be extra funny.

Carly: I think it’s going to be a real hoot, because I’m 75 and that’s how I talk.

Riese: And isn’t that what the world needs right now, a hoot?

Carly: Is a hoot? Yeah.

Riese: Horton Hears a Hoot.

Carly: Yes, exactly.

Riese: And who is us having a hoot on Season Six.

Carly: And we are tiny, tiny, tiny little creatures living on the planet.

Riese: Teeny, tiny creatures.

Carly: So, yeah, just letting you know now, do not expect any new episodes in November, and apologies in advance, but we need a little break.

Riese: Yeah, we just need a little break so that we can have a little break… down.

Carly: Yes. Exactly. And it’ll give us time to really get some really amazing stuff together for Season Six, which is going to be wild.

Riese: And then, after that, we’re going to do something else, but we don’t know what yet.

Carly: Yeah, TBD on something.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: Wow, okay. We have a lot to talk about but not now.

Riese: So, let’s get to the show that we are talking about today.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Carly would you like to introduce the episode?

Carly: You bet I would. Welcome to today’s episode, Season Five, Episode 12, the finale entitled “Loyal and True.”

Riese: Yes.

Carly: A lot of lying and disloyal-ness here.

Riese: Right, but also they say the loyal a lot.

Carly: Exactly. Yes, they do. So, this is a real ripped from the script title.

Riese: That’s the name of my jam band.

Carly: Ripped from the script.

Riese: Ripped, man.

Carly: Ripped From the Script.

Riese: We did our first gig at Wax. I love you, Peoria.

Carly: This was written and directed by Ilene Chaiken and originally aired March 23rd, 2008.

Riese: It did. We had a party at a hotel for this little finale.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: But, I guess we got so drunk that I forgot to take pictures of everyone and so—

Carly: I mean, I don’t remember any of this, so…

Riese: I don’t if you were there. I don’t remember if you were there or not.

Carly: Maybe I wasn’t there, and that’s why?

Riese: Anyway, so “Loyal and True,” which rhymes with boil and blue.

Carly: Oh my God, I love that. That’s such a normal thing to say.

Riese: Just look out, I’m going to have more.

Carly: You have more rhymes?

Riese: I’m going to have more… more insights of this nature TK. That means “to come.”

Carly: Which doesn’t make any sense by the way. Journalists, I know you’ve been doing this for decades, I still don’t understand it.

Riese: I know. Mm-hmm.

Carly: TK? To come? Doesn’t make sense.

Riese: Yeah, why not TC?

Carly: Why? How come?

Riese: Maybe they’re confused.

Carly: HK? How come? Time code?

Riese: They get confused with TC, which stands for The Carly University, which is different from Carly University.

Carly: Oh my God, those are two—

Riese: The Carly is the name of your apartment building that’s like, slightly off campus.

Carly: The Carly, exactly. It’s one of the on-campus housing facilities at Carly University.

Riese: Yeah, but it’s pretty much just the really rich, white kids live there.

Carly: Exactly. Because, of course, I would have my name on a building that is elitist.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: That’s true. Maybe it got bought out from under your nose.

Carly: You know what? It was, my investor sold me out and—

Riese: I hate when that happens. I mean this is relevant—

Carly: … I lost control of my university housing.

Riese: This is so relevant to today’s…

Carly: To today’s—

Riese: One of the many plots in today’s show that I don’t give two shits about.

Carly: One of the many terribly boring storylines that are in this one hour-long episode.

Riese: One hour and six minutes.

Carly: Should we get into it, so we can start talking about how annoyed we are?

Riese: Yeah, let’s get into it. Okay, we open in a production meeting. They’ve hired some men—

Carly: There’s more men.

Riese: … male actors to be in this program once again. And they’re all dressed terribly, as usual.

Carly: Per yoozh.

Riese: They look like they’re extras on Queer as Folk, at like Brian Kinney’s ad agency in the pilot episode. And they’re talking about, “Oh my God, the movie blah, blah, blah,” they’re like, “Maybe we could do a feminine hygiene tie-in,” which, what does that even mean? Like, you would get a free tampon if you go to the film?

Carly: No, it would be some sort of ad campaign that combines the tampons and the movie.

Riese: Oh, so it would be like Jessie would be…

Carly: Like, they would probably try to have the actors be in an ad for these tampons and somehow cross promote it.

Riese: Oh, so they’d be like, “Do you want to watch me take my tampon out?” Like, they’d be like that?

Carly: I mean, maybe. I don’t think this actually. It probably wouldn’t be that. But it would be something like that, because they’re already at the end of the production, so there’s really no time to put the tampon into the movie. You know? They’d have to write a scene about tampons and make sure that they talk about which brand it is. So, I think it’s more like some sort of promotional thing for the movie, that would be paid for, potentially, by the tampons.

Riese: Right. Honestly, they should have done a Diflucan tie-in, because that’s how Jim could find out that Jenny was cheating, was that she picked up a yeast infection from Karina.

Carly: That’s incredible. That’s an incredible idea.

Riese: Again, free ideas, free ideas. They are all—

Carly: We got to get you into that marketing meeting.

Riese: They’re all free and they’re all roaming around in my brain.

Carly: You’re just giving them away.

Riese: I’m just giving them away.

Carly: Giving them away.

Riese: So, someone says, “It’s not just a gay movie, it’s for everyone.”

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Fine.

Carly: Fine.

Riese: Here’s the places where they don’t think it’ll test well, Peoria… We’re always talking about Peoria on this show.

Carly: Always. Orange County.

Riese: Orange County, just thrown in there.

Carly: Just tacked on.

Riese: Yeah, so I guess Disneyland is a very straight park in Orange County that we’re all familiar with. Right? Isn’t Disneyland in Orange County? It is?

Carly: Yes, it is.

Riese: Right?

Carly: Mm-hmm.

Riese: Nebraska, Florida. What do all these states have in common? Truly, I don’t know. And they want to change the ending.

Carly: Yeah, marketing doesn’t like the ending. Marketing wants Jessie to go back to Jim, right? In the end.

Riese: Mm-hmm. Yeah, Jim, who can swim.

Carly: Swimmy Jimmy.

Riese: Or as they call him in the locker room, good old Swimmy Jimmy.

Carly: Good old Swim Jim.

Riese: Swim Jim.

Carly: Snap into a Swim Jim. We’re just going to have constant zingers today. Just my depression is kicking out zinger after zinger.

Riese: At the end Jessie’s going to be like, “Hey, I want to go snap into your Swim Jim. And Jim’s going to be like, “Okay.”

Carly: And he’s going to look right into the camera and wink.

Riese: And then it’s going to be like, “The end,” sunset.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Anyway…

Carly: So, yeah, obviously Tina and Adele and everybody seem a little taken aback by this news.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s going to change later in the episode, but for now, the people that have been actively involved in the production of this film are shocked by this request.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: They also say that they’ve just gotten a deal with a major distributor, though they never say who it is, but they use the phrase “major distributor” so many times—

Riese: Major distributor.

Carly: … in this episode, that you can make a drinking game out of it, if you were so inclined.

Riese: Right. You could even make a drinking game out of, “We just got a new major distributor,” because there’s twice in this film where they act like it just happened.

Carly: Yeah, even though it happened sometime before this meeting. But, whatever.

Riese: Whatever guys, we’re onto you.

Carly: Whatever, we’re about to get into a XL morning-

Riese: Traffic jam. XL morning time and it is a beautiful day in Los Angeles.

Carly: It’s a beautiful day for traffic.

Riese: Tina and Bette are stuck in the car in some traffic and they are talking about geography in a way that I found very confusing, but I let it lie.

Carly: They talked about how Tina lives on the West Side, and Angie’s school is closer to Tina, and would Bette consider moving to the West Side. And I hate to break this to them, but most people also consider West Hollywood on the West Side.

Riese: Yeah, I was going to say, “Ladies, you’re already there.”

Carly: You’re already in the West Side. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Riese: You don’t know what you’re talking about. So, Bette is writing a speech about Jodi’s art.

Carly: Yes. She’s going to give a speech to introduce Jodi at an opening at the Hammer Museum? I think is what’s happening?

Riese: Yes. Yeah.

Carly: And she’s like—

Riese: This is going to go really well.

Carly: I think we can already tell that this is going to go perfectly, without a hitch. And she’s been rehearsing it and she reads this line that basically says that Jodi invented sculptures, and good for Jodi. And then Tina’s like, “Have you talked to her?” And she’s like, “No.”

Riese: Mm-hmm. Bette also really wants to highlight in her speech that Jodi is a woman, but I think people already know.

Carly: I think they also know. I think anyone going to an art opening at the Hammer know who the artist is that they are going to see, most likely.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So, they would know that person’s gender. But what do I know?

Riese: Nothing.

Carly: She’s only a famous artist, in this world.

Riese: Alice is on a bus, so…

Carly: Alice’s face is on the bus. It looks like she got the job at The Look.

Riese: And she looks great.

Carly: She looks great.

Riese:
On The Look. Get it?

Carly: I get it. Look at that, it’s Alice.

Riese: Look at that, it’s Alice looking great on The Look.

Carly: Look at that bus! Also, we see the bus because it is blocking an intersection, which happens frequently in Los Angeles.

Riese: True.

Carly: Angie at one point just says—

Angie: Jodi!

Carly: …. which I was like, “Good job, Angie. You did it.”

Riese: Also, Angie wants to honk the horn. Angie stole the scene, as usual.

Carly: Yeah, completely.

Riese: Then we pan up…

Carly: Oh, man, what a transition to the next scene. I mean, really thought it out.

Riese: We go up, up, up, up, up in the sky.

Carly: Into the sky.

Riese: And what’s in the sky? It’s a helicopter.

Carly: A helicopter. Down, down, down, down,

Riese: Down, down, down, down, down, down, it lands. Who’s in the helicopter?

Carly: Oh my God, it’s Peggy Fucking Peabody.

Riese: Peggy Peabody, Peggy Peabody, Peggy Peabody.

Carly: What’s wrong with Peggy Peabody? Well, we’re not going to find out yet.

Riese: She seems fine.

Carly: She seems fine.

Riese: She seems fine.

Carly: She’s screaming about wanting her lawyers and her business managers and her daughter, Helena, who materializes out of thin air, and is there.

Riese: I loved that.

Carly: That was amazing.

Riese: That’s magic. Helena’s magic of everyday life.

Carly: Yeah, poof, Helena’s right here. You just say her name, and she shows up.

Riese: And she is tan.

Carly: She is tan.

Riese: Windswept.

Carly: She is clearly enjoying some sort of island living, and good for her.

Riese: Straight out of island life.

Carly: Island life. She got on the island plane to fly in. It’s Dodo Airlines, it’s what takes you to the islands in Animal Crossing. I hate that I just said that.

Riese: I love that you just said that.

Carly: Peggy’s like…

Peggy Peabody: What on Earth are you wearing?

Carly: Which is—

Riese: Those two.

Carly: Those two, oi.

Riese: Oh, boy.

Carly: So then, we go to Shane and Molly, it’s the morning.

Riese: High Art.

Carly: And Shane is reenacting scenes from High Art.

Riese: Yeah, have you guys seen High Art? Because, yeah—

Carly: Because this is just a scene from High Art.

Riese: Shane has a new hobby, Shane is a passionate—

Carly: Photographer.

Riese: … passionate, passionate… She has a eye, and she’s using her eye to take some photographs of Molly in bed, and they’re both naked, they’re both attractive people, and they sort of toss around in the hay.

Carly: In the hay. And by hay, I mean white bedding.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: Lesbians just love taking photos with old cameras. That’s a thing that lesbians love so much.

Riese: Mm-hmm. And they’re like, “Where’d you pick that up?” And they’re like, “Oh, it was at a thrift store.”

Carly: Yeah, it’s like, “I’m really passionate about photography,” even though that’s something that we’ve never really gotten into with Shane.

Riese: But the good thing, as I’m sure we’ll discuss shortly, is that it’s a pretty easy industry to break into, so this is a great idea that Shane had.

Carly: Super simple.

Riese: They can’t make out all morning because they’ve got breakfast with mother.

Carly: Oh, I thought you were going to say because they’ve got morning breath and they should go brush their teeth. I hate any scene in a film or television show, where the people wake up first thing in the morning and are like full, open-mouth making out. It makes me want to scream every single time it happens, and it happens often.

Riese: Well, they’re about to go stuff some eggs in that mouth.

Carly: Some eggs benny, because they’re getting brunchers with Phyllis. Mother.

Riese: So, then we go to Alice’s house. Tasha has a new job. Tasha is a security officer at everybody’s favorite store.

Carly: Cal-Mart.

Riese: Cal-Mart.

Carly: Get it?

Riese: Yes, I got it. It’s like Wal-Mart.

Carly: But it’s in California.

Riese: But in California.

Carly: Even though it’s the same logo and font and color.

Riese: AKA Target.

Carly: Yeah. We have Wal-Marts in Los Angeles.

Riese: Yeah, we do somewhere.

Carly: We have a lot more Targets though.

Riese: Yeah, we do.

Carly: My God.

Riese: I love Target, too.

Carly: Target, if you want to sponsor this podcast, that would be great.

Riese: Target, if you want to sponsor any aspect of my life, including this podcast, please give us a holler.

Carly: That would be great, yeah.

Riese: Then we go to hospital.

Carly: Back to hospital. So, Peggy got bit by a jellyfish?

Riese: It happens, you know? Happens to the best of us.

Carly: Happens.

Riese: If I had a dollar for every time I got bit by a poisonous jellyfish that has no cure for it’s venom…

Carly: How many dollars would…

Riese: Zero dollars. I would have zero.

Carly: She’s still worried about Helena’s clothes.

Riese: Yeah, she is.

Carly: She’s focused on what’s important.

Riese: Which is — she seems to be concerned that she’s going to die and she wants to be sure that her money is in good hands, and Helena’s her only offspring.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: And then she describes Helena’s lifestyle with a quintessential Peggy Peabody quote that Lauren will put in.

Peggy Peabody: A drab little hut in the dregs of Tahiti with a tax evading granddaughter of a vanilla pod picker, doesn’t strike me as situated.

Carly: I think it’s an incredibly powerful decision for Peggy to be clinging to her new found classism on her deathbed speech. Good for her.

Riese: How does she know she’s the granddaughter of a vanilla pod picker?

Carly: I feel like there’s something probably racist in there.

Riese: To the streets?

Carly: To the streets of Los Angeles. 3rd Street, to be specific.

Riese: Yeah, they’ve shot a lot of this in LA.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So, Shane is wearing a shirt that I had, and—

Carly: Alice was wearing a FREE CITY shirt in the last scene too.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: A lot of FREE CITY shirts right here.

Riese: So, Shane’s going to be a photographer now, LOL.

Carly: Yeah, LOL. Big time LOL.

Riese: “What kind of photography?” “Oh, she doesn’t know, she does portraiture.”

Carly: Portraiture… I don’t know, maybe whatever, dabble in some stuff, I don’t know.

Riese: Fashion? Fashion photography?

Carly: Maybe fashion. Just tent it.

Riese: Yeah, it’s a pretty easy… I’d say, if you’re looking for a new career path, and you want to just get right in there — nursing, student teaching, or computers if you can learn how to code, or fashion photography.

Carly: Absolutely. There’s such a need for fashion photographers, and it pays so well.

Riese: Yeah, it pays incredibly well.

Carly: You might not be able to tell, but I’m being deeply sarcastic right now.

Riese: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: It pays very poorly and it’s very hard to get gigs, and there’s very few of them.

Carly: Photography has changed a lot in the last 20, 30 years, not really for the better in some ways, though it is cool to see a lot of new voices in photography, people shooting covers of fashion magazines who never would have had that opportunity before, that’s wonderful to see.

Riese: It is.

Carly: However, there are a lot of things about photography that suck, and a lot of them have to do with Instagram. Anyway, so…

Riese: Shane wants to go to school first, Molly doesn’t want her to go to school, and that was weird.

Carly: And Shane definitely read that as a weird dig at her intelligence.

Riese: Yeah, I don’t know what it was.

Carly: Me either.

Riese: I thought it was Molly just being like, “I want you to be free all the time to hang out with me.”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Or something. They approach the restaurant and they see Phyllis is sitting there with the one, the only—

Carly: The only.

Riese: Joyce Wischnia. And Molly is like, “I’m not going on a lesbian double date,” which I found very relatable.

Carly: As the child of lesbian parents?

Riese: As a child of lesbian parent experience, I found that very relatable. Because every time it happens I feel… I don’t know what I feel, but for some reason I’m always annoyed with it. So, Molly refuses to shake Joyce’s hand because Joyce tried to ruin her dad. And Shane is like, “Listen Molly, hello, that’s what divorce is. That’s how divorce cases go. You can’t just be mean to Joyce Wischnia forever, because if they are accepting me, you need to accept her.” And Molly’s like, “Okay.” What a great match.

Carly: Yep. Doing great. Everyone’s doing great, you know?

Riese: Including us.

Carly: We’re doing amazing. So, we first go to The Planet, the SheBar bitches are here and they’ve brought in South Beach’s top interior decorator.

Riese: To throw up all over it and to replace the moon.

Carly: And then he says they say on every HGTV show, which is that it has great bones. And then Kit says…

Kit: I hope you choke on them bones.

Carly: But yeah, they took down the moon, took that moon right down. Honestly, the moon was hideous.

Riese: The moon sucked.

Carly: The moon sucked.

Riese: The moon had to go.

Carly: But it also… the moon is very queer.

Riese: That’s true, the moon is gay.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: The sun is less gay.

Carly: Right? Yeah. But we don’t know what they’re going to replace the moon with. And we’re never going to find out.

Riese: We won’t.

Carly: But anyway, this scene is now a different scene, because Helena is here and Kit’s excited to see her and they’re going to go drink some coffee or whatever, and then we go back to brunch.

Riese: They’re also going to have cookies. Helena said they’re also going to have cookies.

Carly: “Do you have cookies?” And I was like, “Wow…”

Riese: And I was like, “I want cookies now, actually.”

Carly: Yeah, same. So, we go back to brunch, which we find out is at Little Next Door, which is a restaurant that closed, but it was on West 3rd Street. And it’s a cute little spot. They’re talking about school… This is so boring.

Riese: The LSATs.

Carly: Can I just say this whole episode is one of the most boring episodes of this show I’ve ever seen?

Riese: Oh, really?

Carly: It’s an hour and six minutes, and most of it is just people talking about things. Like, what happens?

Riese: Yeah, it definitely had a low…

Carly: Low energy.

Riese: I mean, a lot of stuff happens.

Carly: Yeah, a lot happens, but—

Riese: It was very chill, like the pace was very slow for a finale.

Carly: Yep, mm-hmm.

Riese: But I sort of thought they pulled it off, even though I didn’t necessarily enjoy it.

Carly: Yeah, okay, fair. Fair. Fair, fair, fair.

Riese: So, Molly did great on the LSATs.

Carly: Wow, great for Molly! [Yawns]

Riese: Well, but she’s going to give up… She has a Supreme Court internship. She could have been the next Amy Coney Barrett, but instead she wants to go surfing with Shane on the ocean.

Carly: Oh, does Shane surf now, too? Wow, we’re learning so many new things about Shane today.

Riese: Shane has hobbies now, get with it.

Carly: Shane is a well-rounded individual with things aside from partying.

Riese: Ladies.

Carly: And ladies going on. Hey, remember when Wax burned down?

Riese: Barely.

Carly: Barely. Hardly.

Riese: I happen to agree, I do not think that Molly should give up a Supreme Court internship to go surfing with Shane.

Carly: Honestly, I agree, too. If she actually wants to go into law, then it seems quite foolish to have an opportunity like that and not do it. You’re privileged as shit, just fucking go do it.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: You know how many people want that internship?

Riese: Internship.

Carly: And you’re just like, “Hmm.” Or fuck, getting out of the way, and give it to somebody else who cares.

Riese: Yeah. Venice Beach B-roll.

Carly: Oh, yeah. We’re looking up, we’re looking up because we are Tasha, who’s lying on the ground, looking up at the trees and the sky and the birds. And Alice is also here.

Riese: And probably there’s planes, helicopters, sun.

Carly: Definitely a lot of planes, that’s near the airport.

Riese: Did you say sun already? It’s daytime, so there’s sun, but later there’ll be a moon, because at night it switches.

Carly: Exactly. Right. Sometimes I get confused about that but, right, it’s moon is night and sun is day?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Sun’s day. And there’s also chem trails in the sky. And that’s the government poisoning us.

Carly: Yeah, that checks out. Sure, I’m not going to question that at all.

Riese: Don’t. Anyway, that’s the whole scene.

Carly: Yep, that’s the whole scene. Alice is here, Tasha’s lying on the ground. Tasha is smiling. That’s all we get.

Riese: Tasha remains attractive.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: We go back to The Planet, where Helena — she’s only been home for about 30 seconds, but she is… her tune is turning. She does like Dusty quite a bit, but she kind of misses… Well, she probably misses that pear polenta tart.

Carly: Now, maybe she’ll be in a position where she can afford it soon.

Riese: And she’s like, “Who are these people, who have come here and stolen your… Marina’s club, out from underneath the feet of our community?” What would Marina’s Italian dad/husband/brother think about this? He’d probably be horrified.

Carly: She’s like, “These women are from hell by way of Miami Beach.”

Riese: Yeah, she says they’re from hell via South Beach.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And then Cindi comes over and casually is like, basically… she’s sorry, Dawn’s crazy, as we all know, she is in an emotionally abusive relationship with Dawn, who is really mean to her all the time.

Carly: Yes, all the time. And then she comes up and is mean to her some more, to further illustrate the point of how mean she is to her all the time.

Riese: Correct.

Carly: So, we go back to Venice Beach, and Tasha tells Alice that she quit her job today. And then she called Alice to come meet her and she’s about to go meet up with her friend JJ from Army, who’s now a cop. They’re sitting outside at a restaurant, and they walk up to them, and the person with them, whose name is Karen, freaks out when she sees Alice, because she’s a big fan of her from The Look, and wants an autograph. And it’s, like, kind of awkward but not that awkward, like it could have been more awkward, I don’t know. It was a little awkward.

Karen: Holy fucking shit.
Alice: What?
Karen: I know you.
Alice: You do?
Karen: “I’m Alice Pieszecki and you’re watching The Look!”
Alice: Oh.
Karen: You are so cool. Oh my God.
Alice: Oh, thank you.
Karen: I love the way you handled that ass, Mary Lamm. Is she really such a doofus? Or is that like—
Alice: No, she’s a doofus. Yeah, totally.
Karen: Alice? Can you join us for lunch?
Alice: Oh, I have somewhere to be, but thank you very much. Yeah. Okay, well, have a good time.
Karen: Yeah.
Alice: Talk to you later, bye.
Karen: Aw, man. Williams? Hey, Alice? Can I have your autograph?
Alice: You want my autograph?
Karen: Yeah. Yeah, please.
Alice: What’s your name again?
Karen: Karen.
Alice: Karen?
Karen: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, I think it was Tasha… maybe Tasha felt cool, maybe Alice felt bashful, more importantly I really like that, I think when The L Word was casting these bit parts, they found people who had gotten their hair cut a certain way to do Midwestern mom roles and then just were like, “Oh, that could be lesbian,” and they just threw them in. That’s what I was thinking about when I was looking at our dear friend Karen.

Carly: Yeah, her hair is interesting.

Riese: I have very few notes for this scene. Tasha looks hot in a white tank top?

Carly: Yep. Tasha has a perfect smile? I don’t know what else you want me to say about Tasha that we haven’t already said. She’s charming, her cheekbones are perfect… I don’t know what else.

Riese: Yeah, I’m going to set up camp on those cheekbones. I’m voting early on those cheekbones, and I’m voting yes.

Carly: Yes on cheekbones.

Riese: Yes on cheekbones. Speaking of bones, we go back to where Kit recently said she hopes someone chokes on bones, The Planet, where Jenny and Tina are having a little…

Carly: A lunch, maybe?

Riese: Like a lunch? A late lunch?

Carly: Late lunch?

Riese: Maybe a tea?

Carly: Maybe. Maybe a fruit plate in the late morning.

Riese: A cheese plate? A cheese and fruit plate?

Carly: Hard to know what time of day it is. It is maybe still morning, but maybe afternoon, it’s questionable.

Riese: Whatever time of day it is, it is dark in Jenny’s soul.

Carly: That is accurate. Tina tells Jenny that they got major studio distribution… drink. She also tells her all these secrets about Nikki, which is that Nikki comes to her crying because Jenny won’t return her calls… she says after every take, which I find that to be very hard to believe. But after every take, she goes up to Tina and is like, “Oh my God, do you think that that’s how Jenny… that’s what Jenny meant when she wrote that line? Do you think Jenny would have liked that performance?” And I’m sure, if she’s doing that in front of Adele, which it sounds like she is, that Adele is tickled.

Riese: I got it, it’s just so weird. Jenny’s agents dropped her.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: So…

Carly: So…

Riese: Obviously her agents were bad because, once more, a sex tape is not going to kill your career, honey.

Carly: We’ve only seen that time and time again, it only enhances one’s career.

Riese: Exactly. Especially such a good scene!

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Set, set, set, let’s go to set, let’s go to set of the film!

Carly: We’re on set. Nikki is shooting the breakup scene with Karina, and then the line producer has to be between Adele and Tina and she has to go up to Tina… Adele couldn’t even tell her this herself, and she goes up to Tina, “You have to leave the set at Adele’s request.” And she’s like, “What?”

Riese: “I’m the producer.”

Carly: She’s like, “She says she can’t work with you looking over her shoulder.” And she’s like, “I’m the actual producer of this film. This film wouldn’t actually be happening without me.” So, she goes up to Adele, who’s fully just smoking a cigarette on set, and—

Riese: Yeah, she looks evil as hell.

Carly: She looks as evil as shit, dude. Oh my God. She is full villain.

Riese: Menacing, yeah, full villain. Complete transformation. She took off her glasses, she got a hair cut.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: She’s wearing tiny ankle boots, and she is fierce and mean.

Carly: Mean as hell.

Riese: And ruthless.

Carly: Ruthless.

Riese: Ruthless. Heartless.

Carly: And she’s like…

Adele: Loyalty is very important to me, Tina.

Carly: Which is maybe the funniest thing Adele has ever said.

Riese: Yeah, where was your loyalty to Jenny, who was so kind to you?

Carly: Adele, who blackmailed the production? God.

Riese: If it was my set, I would tell Tina that you can’t actually wear a dress with like four peep holes at the top that goes all the way down to your knees, and then underneath the dress, which by the way has… in addition to the peep holes at the top, which are I think are illegal.

Carly: I believe, yes.

Riese: Yeah, think it’s at least ordinance. I don’t know where they’re filming, but…

Carly: It’s definitely a $300 fine. And I think it’s actually on the ballot this year.

Riese: Right. Oh, good, gotcha.

Carly: As a city we are currently voting on whether that shirt is illegal, or the dress is illegal.

Riese: Yeah, we are voting on this. We’re not sure if it’s illegal or not. Yeah, and I honestly voted that it was.

Carly: I too voted that it was.

Riese: In addition to the peep holes at the top, we also have… it switches patterns mid-way. And all of this is its own crime. But then underneath it, she’s wearing a full pair of jeans, of blue jeans, flared blue jeans.

Carly: Man, remember the jeans-with-dresses-over-it moment, that this was firmly in the middle of? Or maybe on the tail end of, but they were just trying to make it happen still?

Riese: I think that maybe worked for maybe three weeks.

Carly: I think so, yeah. Yeah, it was rough. It was tough. That was a tough time for fashion.

Riese: But other than that outfit, Adele has no grounds for this removal. And I will be voting no on Prop Adele.

Carly: Tina’s like, “Well, I’m the producer, so you can’t kick me off.” And she’s like, “Okay, but you want this film to come in on time and under budget, right?” So, she’s threatening Tina, that she will take too long and go over budget, which is… I hate to say this, I just hate this character so much. I cannot believe any of this is working in her favor. It makes me so angry. I know it’s just drama because it’s a soap, but like… it’s just… come on.

Riese: Yeah. And so then, we go to the hospital where Helena’s talking about how Dawn deceived Kit and bought half of The Planet, and then Peggy’s like, “Why don’t you buy it back for her?”

Peggy Peabody: Every low life has a price, Helena. And most likely a peccadillo or two that can be easily discovered, if she needs a little persuading.

Riese: Which is an incriminating secret.

Carly: Right. Which I guess for Dawn is what? That she’s a shitty, abusive person to Cindi? Because I don’t think that’s a secret, but… I mean, she’s just corrupt. Everything about her is gross and corrupt.

Riese: Maybe she has an armadillo. A pet armadillo, an illegal pet armadillo.

Carly: That would actually kind of endear her to me. I would be like, “Aw, she has an armadillo.”

Riese: Yeah, at least she’s keeping an armadillo alive. What is everyone else doing?

Carly: She’s like, “This is my lover Cindi, and this is my armadillo, Dylan.” Arma-Dylan.

Riese: Arma-Dylan. Yeah, everyone wants their own little arma-Dylan. But watch out, it’ll back stab you. And Helena’s like, “I thought you didn’t want me to buy my friends?” And Peggy’s like, “As I recall, they were still your friends even when you were poor.” So, everything’s fine now. Helena seems to be easing back into a life of luxury.

Carly: Luxury.

Riese: A life of luxury. In the lap of luxury.

Carly: I like when Peggy says that, “Yeah, I cut you off, so that you wouldn’t embarrass us.” Like, embarrass the Peabody name. Which is like… oh, God, these people.

Riese: These ladies. My God, rich people huh?

Carly: Peggy now does not care what Helena does with the money.

Riese: No.

Carly: Which is convenient I guess, but whatever.

Riese: Back to the streets of the Venice Canals, where Alice is riding Clea’s little motorbike up and down the little streets of the canals, which is a very cute little area, I hear, in Los Angeles, California.

Carly: It is.

Riese: If you ever happen to visit.

Carly: It is. It is very cute, but you have to drive to Venice and then find parking before you can hang out there, and so good luck with that.

Riese: That’s true.

Carly: No, it’s super cute. Okay, so I have a question.

Riese: Uh-huh. I’m ready to answer it.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Whether or not I know the answer, I will answer it.

Carly: Okay, so Alice had plans, and the plans just happened to be in Venice, and so then, when Tasha called her from Venice, it was like, “Well, that’s convenient. It’s on the way to my date.”

Riese: Interesting.

Carly: So, she called her there and I guess she wanted Alice to have lunch with them, I’m assuming, right? But then Alice is like, “No, I have to leave,” and then just went a few blocks away to go on a date?

Riese: Friend hang.

Carly: Sure, sure, sure, sure. Anyway, I’m just… this is a little weird, but whatever.

Riese: It is, yeah. Again, we have some lesbian twinning happening here.

Carly: Yes, yeah.

Riese: But it’s kind of cute. I sort of like both their outfits for the time.

Carly: I mean, Alice’s outfit was really cute. I feel like they kind of could have done a little better with Melanie Lynskey’s outfit.

Riese: Yeah, you’re right.

Carly: I only can call her Melanie Lynskey. But she’s… I mean, we love her, just in general, but I don’t love her kind of driving a wedge between Alice and Tasha.

Riese: No.

Carly: Though, I guess, the wedge was kind of already there. I don’t know. It’s definitely more Alice’s problem than hers.

Riese: Tasha’s. Or, than Clea’s you mean?

Carly: Than Clea’s. But she does try to kiss her, after she is told that she has a girlfriend. And that, not cool.

Riese: Yeah, she goes for the make out, Alice goes for the fake out.

Carly: Wow.

Riese: Clea talks about how she previously cheated on someone I believe, and it was chaotic, and then Alice notes that what starts in chaos ends in chaos.

Carly: Certainly.

Riese: Which, in my experience, has been 100% true.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: But they both are very attracted to each other and they feel this incredible connection. And what are they going to do about this incredible connection they feel, when Alice is in a relationship? There’s also a situation here where Clea gets a ticket for riding her motorbike, or something?

Carly: Yeah, it wasn’t clear what the ticket was for. Were they speeding?

Riese: I don’t know. But obviously this is so Alice is like…

Alice: That sucks. The LAPD can be total pigs.

Riese: And Clea’s like…

Clea: I kind of hate them.

Riese: And I’m like, this is why the LAPD can be pigs? Because they gave you a motorbike driving ticket?

Carly: Yikes, yikes, yikes.

Riese: Let me tell you some stories, ladies! But I think that the point of that was just to set up Alice doesn’t like cops.

Carly: Exactly. It’s just letting us know that Alice doesn’t like cops.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: Because it’s going to become relevant very soon.

Riese: Very soon, yeah. Oh my God. Pool time!

Carly: Pool time! We’re outside at Bette’s house and she’s super impressed with how Tina is handling everything with Adele trying to kick her off set. And I think Tina is just so exhausted with everything that has happened at this point, that she is just like, “Whatever. We wrap shooting tonight at 4 AM and tomorrow night’s the wrap party and it’s like we just need to get through the next 48 hours. It’s whatever.” 24 hours… I can’t do math. So, this also sets up that Tina will not be at Jodi’s opening tonight—

Riese: Art situation.

Carly: … because she’s going to be on set. And she mentions the wrap party and then Bette is like, “Do you have to go?” Which, I get why she’s saying it, because Tina’s stressed and with Adele and everything is very chaotic, but also, she’s like, “I want to go, it’s my film.” And I’m like, “Yeah, Bette.” I get where Bette was coming from, but it kind of comes off as very rude. A little bit.

Riese: Yeah, a little bit. And then Tina says that Jenny wrote a great ending with a powerful message for young, gay women. And we also find out that Bette wants a child. And also, we experience at least half of this scene from behind… literally behind a curtain.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: I don’t know what the point of that was, besides to obscure the outfit that Tina is for some reason still wearing.

Carly: Still wearing. Yep.

Riese: So, I’d like to see the LAPD take some action on that.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Tasha.

Carly: Speaking of, we go back to Alice and Tasha at home, and Tasha looks super excited. She actually looks really happy, we get more of that beautiful smile. And she tells Alice she’s excited because she just signed up for the police academy!

Riese: Police academy!

Carly: And she’s like, “They’re super great, and they’re really pro-gay, so it’s totally cool.” And Alice is just like, blink, blink, blink, blink.

Riese: “You want to be a cop? And I…” Actually, I talked about this in a former episode, but it was cut out of the final cut, so we can talk about it again. It’s that I have had this conversation twice with a partner saying… One was a partner who said that she was going to become a cop, I don’t know what happened with that, but the other was a boyfriend who said that he had just signed up for police academy and he was very excited about it. And I was like, “Ahhhh.”

Carly: Yeah, big time. Big time “Ahhh.”

Riese: So, we broke up shortly thereafter. And that was my last boyfriend ever, and I believe he is still an officer of the law, and I wonder how that’s going for him.

Carly: I would love to see what this show has to say about Tasha being a cop currently. Like, literally today, as cops are protecting all the Trump caravans that are running people off the road. I mean, really just some truly incredible stuff happening.

Riese: It’s really deep community work. Really.

Carly: Really incredible commitment to justice and fairness and upholding the law only for white supremacists.

Riese: Yeah, I think LAPD especially is very famous for just being really great.

Carly: Being great at their jobs.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: They’re world renowned for being—

Riese: World renowned.

Carly: … super really good at their jobs.

Riese: Super awesome and really—

Carly: Never murdering anyone.

Riese: Never.

Carly: And even if they do, they’re super—

Riese: Not starting fights with protesters.

Carly: They’re always held accountable for all of their misdeeds.

Riese: Mm-hmm. They are, yeah. If a cop kills you, that cop is going to at least maybe—

Carly: Get a talking to.

Riese: … be off duty for two or three days. And that is justice. Lady Justice said it in the constitution. Speaking of ladies, we go to SheBar. Helena shows up and she’s like, “Hello Cindi, I have a proposition for you.”

Carly: And she’s like, “Dawn’s not here right now.” And she’s like, “No, no, it’s literally a proposition for just you.”

Riese: It’s called Proposition 8, and it will be on the ballot this year.

Carly: Was that 2008?

Riese: It sure was, yeah.

Carly: Do you like art?

Carly: Do I like art?

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: I guess. I like some art.

Riese: Do you want to go to an art show?

Carly: I mean, I would love to leave my house. Oh, do you mean the art show for Jodi?

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: I would love to go to Jodi’s art show.

Riese: Well, let’s go.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Well, here we are at the art party.

Carly: Well, here we are, here we are at the art party for Jodi and, oh look, there’s Bette Porter, she appears to be talking to a curator, and I overheard her saying that she’s really impressed that Bette decided to come considering what the piece is about. That’s interesting!

Riese: Huh. Huh. I wonder what the piece is about?

Carly: I don’t know. Hey, look over there.

Riese: Is that all of the girls? Is that all of Lez Girls?

Carly: It’s the whole cast.

Riese: Oh my God. Is Jodi blowing Bette off?

Carly: Oh, she sure is. Oh my God, I wish I had popcorn to eat at this art gallery opening, it’s so dramatic. Whoa, Max is here, but he came with Tom and it seems to have zero connection to any of the other people in the group despite, I presume, still living with two of them, but whatever.

Riese: Whatever. The point of Max’s character is to get him as far away from the action as possible, to make sure that his place in the community is nowhere.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Phyllis would like to talk to Shane.

Carly: She sure would.

Riese: I hate it. I hate it. What’s going to happen here, and I mean the part I hate is actually the part where they do break up in a little bit, but this is setting it up and you already know what’s going to happen.

Carly: This is so annoying.

Riese: It’s so annoying, I fucking hate this shit. Is that Phyllis is like, “You are not good enough for my daughter. You’re going to leave her. Bette says that you would totally leave anyone you’ve ever been with.”

Carly: “Alice told me a story of leaving a girl at the altar.” So, she’s like trying to—

Riese: And she’s like, “You’ve never been with anyone and you’re never dated anyone for more than six months,” which is not true. Because Season Three picks up somewhere between three and six months after—

Carly: After two.

Riese: After Season Two. And Shane and Carmen are already together a number of months progress there.

Carly: Right. They must have been together more than six months though.

Riese: And then they go to Whistler, remember there’s that weird time jump right before they go to Whistler. Right before the finale.

Carly: That’s right. So, we don’t really know how long they actually were together before they had their fated wedding.

Riese: It was probably around a year.

Carly: I was thinking that too, when she said that.

Riese: It was definitely more than six months.

Carly: Yeah. More than six months, but less than 12.

Riese: Time is a flat circle, so… She tells Shane that she needs to spare Molly. I think the only idiotic thing about Shane is that Shane is actually absorbing this and acting on it.

Carly: And taking any of it seriously. But that is unfortunately a flaw that they have written in for Shane, is that if you tell her something, she’s going to internalize it, and then do with it what she may.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I realize we skipped a part that I thought was very funny. When the gang is in line, waiting to get in, and Jenny tells Shane that she should go to the wrap party, and Shane’s like, “But I don’t want to go to the wrap party.” And she’s like, “Yeah, but you work so hard.” And I’m like, “Um, when?”

Riese: She did all that hair. Hair doesn’t just grow on trees. It grows out of your head.

Carly: We never saw her working. She was always just hanging around.

Riese: Right, but that’s because it’s a TV show. We’re not going to see her doing all the hair.

Carly: Oh, fine. Whatever.

Riese: But we see the hair. And that’s the thing, invisible labor. You don’t even know. There’s the people with their hair done, and you’re thinking, “How is their hair done? Magic?” No, it was Shane, toiling all hours of the night. Sweating, sweat dripping off of her body.

Carly: Shane, those magic hands, right? Haven’t we heard about that before?

Riese: We sure have. Then darkness descends upon the gallery. Jodi says hello to Kit, has an awkward interaction with Bette. Jodi and Shane exchange pleasantries that are genuine.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Bette is up there, she’s really just promoting the fuck out of Jodi, her audacity.

Carly: Her audacity to be a woman who puts objects on other objects.

Riese: Yeah, she’s really doubling down on Jodi being a woman.

Carly: And a sculptor.

Riese: And a sculptor. Yeah, things extrude from her subconscious, the redemptive power of art. Okay.

Carly: Sure, whatever.

Riese: Then Jodi gets up and says, “This piece is called Core, because it’s about core values.”

Carly: And I was like—

Riese: And this is when you know… oh, boy.

Carly: First of all, Jodi is bad at naming stuff, and second of all, uh oh.

Riese: Uh oh. It’s about love, honesty, loyalty, commitment. And her art is somehow—

Carly: It’s video art!

Riese: Video art… So now, she’s like a multimedia video artist, and that’s what really sells these days, but the video art is—

Carly: This isn’t sculptressing.

Riese: It’s some videos that were somehow taken of Bette, by Jodi.

Carly: Except they’re clearly footage that is owned by Showtime, that was used in the television program The L Word. And they’re projecting it onto boxy shapes.

Riese: Yeah, they’re boxy shapes.

Carly: Maybe the boxy shapes are the sculpture?

Riese: I mean, it’s kind of confusing that she would do a piece of art that featured audio so prominently.

Audio of Jodi’s video: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. What happened? Fuck me. Fuck me. What happened? I love you. Go without me. Go without me. Go, go, go, go without me. Leave me alone. Don’t, okay? No, just don’t. Leave me alone. I love you. Go without me. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Go without me. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Fuck me. Fuck me. This is not a good time. Don’t, okay? No, just don’t. Leave me alone. Fuck me. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Don’t, okay? No, just don’t. Go without me. Stop. Fuck. Stop. Please, just stop. Fuck. Stop. Stop.

Carly: How did that not even occur to me? I was so taken aback by the fact that it wasn’t a sculpture and where did they get the footage, that the audio part didn’t even register. I was just like, “When did she shoot this? She didn’t shoot this.”

Riese: She didn’t. It is Bette saying, “I love you,” “Go without me,” “Leave me alone,” and, “Fuck me,” over and over again, sort of like a twisted doll. It’s the worst piece of art I’ve ever seen.

Carly: Truly the worst.

Riese: I think that she should have taken that Barbara Bush sculpture from the art studio, put a picture of Bette on it, and gone to the museum and been like—

Carly: The Abortion of Bette Porter.

Riese: The Abortion of Bette Porter, yeah. And inside her little thing would be a little tiny Tina. Just a little, tiny, little Tina. Tiny Tina.

Carly: I would have loved that art.

Riese: Right, I would have given that five and a half stars.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: On a one to five scale.

Carly: They’ve set Jodi up to be this incredible renowned artist in the series and like—

Riese: Her art sucks.

Carly: This is her art? This is video art, projected onto boxes. And I generally don’t really love video art, I just feel like it’s—

Riese: No one loves video art.

Carly: I don’t think it’s… I’m just not into it. But I also don’t think this is good even if you’re into video art. It’s just Bette saying some things over and over again. Which, I just don’t see how you, as an artist, think that this thing that is clearly purely just to get back at Bette, is somehow also art. Like, I think it’s just a revenge video. It’s not art. I think the artistic thing to do would have been to actually create a work of art that incorporates things in such a way that when Bette saw it, it would hurt her.

Riese: She would know, yeah.

Carly: She would know.

Riese: And she would be like—

Carly: And maybe even if other people didn’t know.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But this is literally footage of a person, who I’m assuming, did not sign a release to be in it.

Riese: Just projected on a screen. Right.

Carly: Projected onto boxes.

Riese: Uh-huh.

Carly: At The Hammer.

Riese: At The Hammer. Yeah, so it’s bad?

Carly: I think it’s bad. I’m sure people think it’s good somewhere maybe.

Riese: No one thinks it’s good.

Carly: I just think it’s bad. I think it’s very, very bad.

Riese: Carly thinks it’s bad. They explained it and it went very well. I agree with everything you said.

Carly: Thank you.

Riese: Then we go to SheBar.

Carly: Oh, shit, it’s about to get awesome.

Riese: It’s Dawn Denbo looking at Helena, and she’s like, “Who is that hottie?”

Carly: And so, she goes over to her and she’s like… her little speech that they tried to give Shane back when they first had the threesome with Shane, it’s that same energy. And then, poof, Shane’s there and she’s like, “Goddamn it. What the fuck are you doing here?”

Riese: “How did you get in?”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And now we have another improbable business transaction, but—

Carly: Yep.

Riese: I support it. I support it.

Carly: I support it because this one is the one where Dawn gets screwed. So, this one I support.

Riese: Right. Mm-hmm.

Carly: But it is still just as ridiculous as the others.

Riese: “Surprise, we own this place now.”

Carly: Yeah, they did the same thing to her, that she did to Kit using Helena’s fancy money.

Riese: Mm-hmm. And then there’s a great interaction between Dawn and Cindi that Lauren should put in.

Carly: Yeah.

Dawn: What the fuck did you do?
Cindi: Me?
Dawn: Yeah.
Cindi: How can I do anything, when I don’t have a thought in my head? That’s what you tell people right? That she doesn’t have a thought in her head?
Dawn: Yeah, this is the thought in your head? This is what—
Helena: Get your dirty little hands off her, Denbow.
Dawn: Why should I?
Helena: Because she’s with me.
Cindi: By the way, the name’s Tucker. It’s not “her lover, Cindi,” it’s Cindi Annabelle Tucker. Would you like to go dance in your new club?
Helena: Yes, I’d love to.

Carly: Good for them. Good for Helena, just swooping in with her money. She’s totally changed now. Great job, Peggy, you’ve changed her.

Riese: Yeah. She swooped in with her money, she took the club, and then she stole Dawn Denbow’s girl. And that is a trifecta of achievement. Lesbian powers have been unlocked. Helena Peabody wins the season.

Carly: Ultimate winner of Season Five—

Riese: Helena.

Carly: … is the person who was in it the least, Helena Peabody.

Riese: Yeah, she emerges triumphant from all of this. And I look forward to her and Cindi’s surely brief, but flourishing, courtship.

Carly: Flourishing love. Dawn keeps calling them skanks, which is just a funny word. I feel like no one says “skank” anymore. And I feel like that was a very 2008 insult and it’s just kind of like a little time capsule every time she says it. I appreciate how she clings to that one word so dearly.

Riese: She does. Also, Dawn loves wearing a gauzy shirt over a tank top.

Carly: Over a black bra.

Riese: Yeah. Maybe — does she just have one costume?

Carly: Maybe. I mean, they did introduce a lot of characters. So, maybe one of them had to have the worst costume wardrobe. Costume wardrobe? Wardrobe budget, whatever. I don’t know.

Riese: Wardrobe costumes.

Carly: Wardrobe costumes.

Riese: She’s like, “What is this, Skanks-R-Us?” So, everyone is dancing, except Shane and Molly are slow dancing, like someone just died, even though someone died in Season Three, not just now.

Carly: Robin and I used to get to excited whenever we’d be out at a lesbian thing and there would be like… there’s always those lesbian couples that are intensely slow dancing to upbeat music and we used to think it was the funniest thing in the world. I say “used to” because we can’t go anywhere. Though I will say that watching the rest of this episode, where it’s just large group scenes at parties, made me feel absolutely insane today.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But anyway, that’s not the point. I also want to point out that Roxy Music is the band playing in the scene, which I thought was a very interesting choice for what a DJ at SheBar would be playing, but it’s good, so I was, like, into it, but it definitely felt off for this venue. But anyway, Shane goes—

Riese: Shane may be dancing slowly but she’s pretty quick on her feet with this little ingenious plan she’s established to push Molly away.

Carly: Shane’s really a criminal mastermind here. Real genius. Watch out, Lex Luthor.

Riese: Shane’s in town.

Carly: Here’s Shane.

Riese: Using ye olde “Get me a drink” fake out, where she gets a drink, looks around, sees a lady that she recognizes from a former—

Carly: Life?

Riese: … bedroom experience.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And is like, “Oh…” And then Molly was like… and then Shane’s like… And then Molly’s like, “I’m not going to throw a drink at you. You need to save yourself.”

Carly: I was kind of bummed. I wanted to see a drink thrown, at least one more time this season.

Riese: I know, I love it.

Carly: One more time this season. And if it’s going to get thrown, it’s going to be at SheBar. Let’s be real.

Riese: So, yeah, I think actually I liked… I think Molly handled this with dignity.

Carly: I think so, too. Yeah, Shane’s acting ridiculously immature and she handles it as well as I think anybody could.

Riese: Yeah, for it being, again… I hate this trope so much.

Carly: Yes, so much.

Riese: When someone breaks up with someone for reasons that have nothing to do with the relationship and the other person doesn’t know what those reasons are.

Carly: Hate it.

Riese: And guess where this shows up the most? In shows about my other hated trope, blackmail. Always.

Carly: Blackmail, which never works.

Riese: Which never works. So, as you heard last week, I hate blackmail as a plot device, so does Carly, and although there is no blackmail here, this is a similar sub-trope of that trope, where someone’s broken up with.

Carly: Exactly, they’re connected.

Riese: And they don’t know why. And I hate that for them.

Carly: I hate it too.

Riese: For the show, for me, for Carol, for all of us. For Los Angeles.

Carly: For the community.

Riese: For my future, which is undetermined.

Carly: TBD.

Riese: And then we go back to Bette’s house and she is lying in Tina’s arms and she says that she was humiliated. And Tina’s like, “Yeah, that’s why she did it.” And that’s true, she did. She felt humiliated and now she wants Bette to feel humiliated and she succeeded.

Carly: Yep. Case closed. Pretty simple one, honestly. Not the most complicated thing we’ve had to deal with here. Yeah.

Riese: That’s the power of art.

Carly: Exactly. I think that if this had been in the era of social media, then Jodi could have just posted a dumb video online, and not had to have had an entire expensive gallery opening at the fucking Hammer. And maybe she could have saved that for an actual piece of art instead of… Honestly, this should have ruined her career as an artist. But whatever. I guess, it was really worth it to get one in at old Porter. Dean Porter.

Riese: Oh, man. Then we get a lot of Los Angeles B-roll.

Carly: We sure do. And we are now going to the wrap party for Lez Girls, and it’s being held at Yamashiro.

Riese: It sure is. So, another story about me, which I guess this is all full of, is that, I had a girlfriend once and she was in law school—

Carly: First of all, congrats.

Riese: Thank you so much. She was in law school and so they had a law school prom, and when she told me… I don’t know if she told me where it was, or I don’t remember, whatever. When we pulled up to it, I was like, “Oh my God, oh my God.” And we walked in and I was like, “Oh my God.” I was like, “This is where they held—”

Carly: The wrap party!

Riese: “… the Lez Girls wrap party in Season Five of The L Word.” Because even when we were pulling in, I was like, “This is familiar to me.” And even on the outside it was like, “Okay, this is definitely… I know that this is from that scene.” And then when I walked in… But I was like, “Maybe inside it’s not…” Maybe they filmed on a set or whatever.

Carly: No, they totally filmed it there.

Riese: No, they filmed in there.

Carly: And that’s what it looks like.

Riese: And of course, my girlfriend had one friend who was also a crazy L Word person, so I was like running around the whole restaurant trying to find her—

Carly: Trying to find her, yeah.

Riese: And I was like, “Oh my God, dude, know where we are?” And I was like, “This is Yamashiro!” She was like, “Oh my God, it is.” And I was stoked, I was so excited. I was thrilled. What a great night, it was an unforgettable evening. So anyway, I’ve been here.

Carly: I’ve also been here, but not at the same event that you were at.

Riese: Was it for an event?

Carly: Weirdly it was. It was for this weird networking event for film and television people.

Riese: Anyway, it was a thrill to be there. Also, probably you shouldn’t go there because it’s really expensive and it is owned by white people.

Carly: So, we’re at the wrap party, at Yamashiro.

Riese: We’re at the wrap party, at Yamashiro, and everyone is pulling up in their outfits that I know by heart because, I don’t care, Season Six sucks so I can say whatever I want about it, that 6.01 picks up exactly where 5.12 ends. It picks up that exact moment, so these outfits we are going to spend a whole bunch more time with in the beginning of Season Six.

Carly: Which is a real shame, because Bette’s dress—

Riese: Bette’s… Yes.

Carly: … is disgusting.

Riese: Bette is wearing… Wow.

Carly: What a misfire for Bette. She normally is very well put together, but this—

Riese: Absolutely.

Carly: … silver sequined butterfly chest piece on a dress? Absolutely not. No. I hate it. I hate it so much.

Riese: I hate it, and we are going to see a lot of it. We’re going to see a lot of that fucking butterfly.

Carly: Oh, God, yeah.

Riese: So, everyone here is in their 6.01 outfits. William gets out of his car, and he ignores Tina.

Carly: He’s with Adele and Begoña in his car, like he gets out and he has one on each arm, which is… all right. The whole gang is here, including Cindi, who’s now with Helena, which I think is hilarious.

Riese: Which I love.

Carly: She just is here, nobody questions it.

Riese: And Shane’s in a weird mood. She dodges questions about Molly and they all—

Carly: She’s just so immature and bratty. She’s like, “She’s at school, I don’t know.”

Riese: Yeah, it’s like, I’m already having to put up with this trope, man, don’t make it worse—

Carly: Yeah, then they made it worse.

Riese: … for me personally. Everyone needs to think about me more.

Carly: Yeah, exactly. I’m in the same boat with you.

Riese: So, they do a toast to Jenny, which… bizarre, suddenly everyone likes Jenny.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Which, actually, as soon as something terrible happens to somebody—

Carly: We love them again.

Riese: … everyone is like, “Well, we love them. We’re so sorry.”

Carly: Once a new character’s introduced that we hate more, and then the person we hate more does something shitty to the person we hated previously, we now are all on the side of the person we hated previously, to help take down the person we hate more.

Riese: Which is Adele.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: So, Adele is dancing now, with Begoña, who is… played Karina in the film.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Played by actress Patricia Velásquez.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: They are terrible dancers.

Carly: Horrible dancers, I would say. And they are making out in a—

Riese: Full mouth.

Carly: … very over the top, showy, ridiculous way.

Riese: Full tonsil hockey.

Carly: And she keeps making eye contact with the gang across the way, and it is deeply disturbing.

Riese: It is fully upsetting. Everyone hates it and everyone is upset.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And then, we go to a side room, where Alice and Shane are watching Tasha talking to Cammie, but I don’t know if they really thought that out.

Carly: It was just really fucking random.

Riese: Yeah, Shane’s like, “So, what’s going on with you, dude?” And we hear that Alice is having doubts about her relationship with Tasha, but also seems to want to stay in it because she feels bad about the whole… about Army.

Carly: Right. And then Shane is like reassuring her that like, “You did everything you could.” I don’t know, it just feels very like — look, if you’re not—

Riese: Yeah, Shane’s on a tear. Don’t get advice from Shane today.

Carly: Yeah, do not get advice from Shane today.

Riese: Shane’s not Yoda today.

Carly: No, she is not in the right place to be giving advice. It’s all very, very toxic advice.

Riese: So, Alice is like, “I feel like all of us, as soon as one thing happens, we just leave our relationships and we should really instead be working on them. And Tasha and I should work on them and not go for this instant gratification.” And Shane says, “Yes, you’re right, that’s true. But also, it’s okay for you to want something different.” And then, Shane says, “It’s your human right to be happy,” and, unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s not.

Carly: No, it’s not. That is false.

Riese: None of us have a right to be happy.

Carly: I wish it were true.

Riese: It’s not true.

Carly: It’s not true. Now, okay, did they show us Tasha doing shots with Cammie to plant some sort of like, “Well, it’s okay if Alice leaves her because she’s talking to someone,” which feels weird, or…

Riese: I don’t know what they did. Because I feel like—

Carly: It felt poorly thought out.

Riese: I feel like we would never think that Tasha… I feel like Tasha is loyal as hell.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: She is monogamous… every bone in her body is just soaked in monogamy. She is not going to stray. She just has a very intoxicating laugh, so maybe Cammie’s kind of charmed.

Carly: Yeah, that could be true.

Riese: Maybe Alice doesn’t want to talk to her about police academy. I can relate to that.

Carly: I don’t blame her.

Riese: I had a lot less interest in speaking to my boyfriend as soon as all of the conversations became about how to identify random people’s faces.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: But then we get a little bit of fan service for the Bettina lovers at home. Which is a long slow dance scene between our one and only, our OTP, our fave ladies in love, it is Tina Kennard and Bette Porter.

Carly: One of whom is wearing an inappropriate dress, because it is ugly.

Riese: One of whom is wearing a gigantic butterfly, an endangered species, and she is flaunting it.

Carly: Those sequined butterfly appliques should be allowed to live in the wild.

Riese: Where they belong.

Carly: They shouldn’t be ironed onto dresses.

Riese: Let it go.

Carly: Let it go, that’s what that song is about.

Riese: Absolutely. So, Tina and Bette, they all look at them, and they’re like, “They belong together.” Okay.

Carly: Sure.

Riese: And Bev and Nina especially are very pleased to see this romance reblossoming.

Carly: This is such a weird moment. This is truly weird.

Riese: Mm-hmm. It is. We go to the side room, where Nikki is avoiding the party because people look at her like she’s going to perform like a trained monkey.

Carly: All right.

Riese: Her profession is performer, but okay.

Carly: Literally.

Riese: Everyone wants her to be what they want her to be, and I think of course it’s super valid that she’s really trapped in this… in the closet basically, by her team and that’s a bummer. And she lost Jenny, which she’s obviously very sad about, and Shane is like, “Well, I fucked up with Molly.” And then Nikki says something dumb, I didn’t write it down, I guess because I decided it was too dumb to write down.

Carly: I didn’t either.

Riese: It was like some really, really poor life… something that was supposed to sound deep, it was hardcore stupid.

Carly: It’s really stupid.

Riese: Yeah. But Shane is like, “Yes, mm-hmm, sure.”

Carly: These are people who should be giving advice right now.

Riese: Yeah, this is a hot mess meeting another hot mess and they’re about to explode into lava.

Carly: Real brain trust.

Riese: Yeah, the real brain of a mess here.

Carly: Throw them in the volcano, it’s fine.

Riese: Yeah. Then William will welcome us all to this wonderful wrap party. They would like to introduce Adele Channing to the stage.

Carly: He calls her a rising star in the industry and says that she just today signed a three picture deal.

Riese: What?

Carly: I want to set my hair on fire immediately.

Riese: Also, her first film is going to star her one and only, lover of the stars, Begoña Garcia. Which, I think means her first film is Liz in September, which was really bad.

Carly: Well, not surprised.

Riese: And then she says, “If I didn’t thank Jennifer Schecter for giving me…” because then Jenny interrupts her and is like, “I didn’t give you anything.”

Adele: And of course, I know that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Jennifer Schecter, who gave me the opportunity to—
Jenny: I didn’t give you anything. You stole it.
William: Should I call security?
Adele: No. It’s fine.
Woman in the crowd: Go Jenny.
Adele: All right.
Woman in the crowd: Yay, Jenny.
Adele: Jennifer Schecter.
Woman in the crowd: We love you Jenny!
Woman in the crowd: We love you too, Jenny!
Jenny: Thank you. All of you. Thank you very much. I realize that the movie is out of my hands now. And I hope that those people entrusted with this responsibility will honor it. I want to thank this amazing, amazing crew, who have helped me see through my vision. I want to thank my incredible friends, who I… I really love you guys. You guys have shown me loyalty and so much compassion and friendship, and I think that’s what Lez Girls is all about. It means the world to me, more than any other movie or lover—

Riese: Dun, dun, dun. You stole it.

Carly: Bitch.

Riese: So, then we go back and forth between Jenny… Jenny taking over the speech, which I appreciate and salute.

Carly: Mm-hmm.

Riese: And outside, where Shane and Nikki are engaging in sexuals.

Carly: They’re doing sex. They’re doing all sorts of sex.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: Out in the open.

Riese: Yep.

Carly: It’s a mess.

Riese: Sexual.

Carly: Nikki’s missing a shoe, she’s got one boob out, it’s just—

Riese: One boob out. I love the one boob out.

Carly: One boob out is incredible.

Riese: Shane is going down on her on a balustrade outside of Yamashiro with the whole city behind her, and that is romance right there, you know?

Carly: I was just worried that Nikki was going to fall over the edge.

Riese: Yeah, little tumble down. A little tumble down over there.

Carly: Tumble down the hills.

Riese: Yeah, she’s not a trained monkey anymore, everybody. She’s thinking for herself.

Carly: At that point, you’re going to end up on the roof of the Magic Castle, okay? It’s not going to go well.

Riese: And Jenny’s on the mic, and she’s like, “Where’s Nikki? Where’s Nikki?” And then fucking Cammie was like, “I saw her outside by the little pagoda.”

Carly: Ugh.

Riese: Jenny says she realizes that she’s madly in love with somebody and then we cut back to Shane and Nikki fucking outside, and then we see Jenny running outside and sees Shane with Nikki, and she’s like, “What are you doing?” And they’re like, “Oh, God.”

Carly: That’s a great question. What are you doing, you two?

Riese: What are you doing? This is very unsafe.

Carly: So, first we were intercutting Jenny’s speech with them hooking up, and now we’re intercutting their confrontation with another confrontation, which is happening right out front by where they arrived and dropped off their cars, which is that Tina has just found out that Aaron and Adele and William have decided to give in to the marketing guys and change the ending. And Tina is very, very angry. And Adele fully co-signed it and was like… now she believes this bullshit, too. She’s gross. So, we’re going back and forth between these two moments, and then the friends all join and then Tina’s like, “They’re changing the ending.” And then all the friends are like, “That’s terrible.”

Riese: Yeah, like, “You can’t do that.” And Adele says, “If the movie’s too gay, it’s going to alienate audiences.”

Tina: This is bullshit. We worked really hard on the movie that we believed in. And the marketing people just come along and change the whole ending? The guy gets the girl, the end. This is the movie that was supposed to change all that.
Adele: Look, Tina, if the movie’s too gay, it’s going to alienate audiences.
Tina: Too gay? It’s a movie about lesbians.
William: And the movie is full of lesbians. It’s chock full of them.
Aaron: Bev is a lesbian, Nina’s a lesbian, Shaun, Donna, what’s her face, the bisexual?
Adele: Alyse.
William: Alyse, she’s not interested in men. We’re talking about one character here, it’s not that big a deal.
Tina: I just want to know one thing, how do you do it? How do you live with yourself?
Bette: What the hell is going on?
Tina: The studio wants to change the ending of the movie. They want Jessie to go back to Jim.
Bette: What?
Alice: What?
Tina: They think it’s too gay.
Bette: Too gay?
Alice: Well, you’re not going to let them get away with that are you?
Kit: I’m telling you, it’s the man that does this crazy shit.

Riese: One of them is like, “She didn’t ever really seem gay to me either,” and I’m like, “Yeah, because you’re a straight white guy and you never think anyone is gay.”

Carly: You don’t understand anything. Yeah.

Riese: Because she was femme.

Carly: You’re one of those people who’s like, “Evan Rachel Wood? She’s not queer.” It’s like, she actually is.

Riese: Yeah, you’re one of the Amber Heard deniers.

Carly: Ugh.

Riese: Amber Heard truthers.

Carly: Amber Heard truthers.

Riese: Then Shane, Jenny, Nikki, are all emerging from the sex highway.

Carly: All these things are all intersecting all at the same time.

Riese: Everyone is meeting up on the grassy knolls for truth telling time for the loyals and the disloyals, and Jenny is like…

Jenny: It’s the ultimate betrayal. You’ve broken my heart.

Riese: I knew in that moment that she was saying it to Shane. And I believe I argued with people about it on a message board for an entire year probably.

Carly: I was paying attention because I knew this moment was coming, but the way this scene was shot and edited, I think also tells us that she was talking to Shane.

Riese: Right. Yeah.

Carly: Because when she says it, the reaction shot we get is Shane. Not Nikki.

Riese: Shane.

Carly: And I think the visual language there would tell us that that is absolutely who she is talking to. And I think that makes sense narratively, too. All things Shenny aside, this is supposed to be her best friend, and someone that has always been loyal and been by her side. When Jenny was at her lowest lows, Shane was the only person that gave a shit about her, and she hasn’t spoken to Nikki in a few weeks or days or whatever time is anymore. And so, I think it’s pretty clear that… Nikki fucked someone else before, and they got through that. This is the fact that Shane did that to her, that is the betrayal. The real betrayal.

Riese: And I think, because that is 100% true, and then also, earlier in her speech, she said she realized she’s in love with somebody and obviously the way that had that, where she says, “I realized I’m in love with somebody. Is Nikki here?” So, that kind of led everyone to think that it was Nikki that she was going to say that she was in love with. But then, it felt, by her reaction to Shane and Nikki, that it wasn’t Nikki. Because I think in addition to Shane’s betrayal, I think… I really very much read it as also, she realized that she was in love with Shane.

Carly: Interesting.

Riese: Because how could you be in love with Nikki?

Carly: She thought she already was in love with Nikki. She already told her she was in love with her.

Riese: Right, that’s the thing, she was in love with her already, so…

Carly: Okay, but if she’s talking about Shane in that moment during her speech, then why is she saying, “Is Nikki here? Nikki? Nikki?”

Riese: Because she was going… because she’s mad at Nikki.

Carly: Because when she went to go find her, she was acting all cheerful. She was like, “Nikki? Nikki? Where are you?” As if she had something exciting to tell her. Not like, “I’m in love with Shane.” So, that felt a little weird, but…

Riese: Yeah, I think what she wanted to do was… So, the way Jenny plays in this episode is very humble, humbled and sad and… whereas Jenny of a few episodes ago, would she get on the mic and say, “I’m in love with someone. Where’s Nikki? Nikki, I wanted you to know, it’s not you, I’m not in love with you.”

Carly: Yes. Yes. A few episodes ago, yes.

Riese: Yeah. But in this episode it feels a little bit weird that that would be her angle.

Carly: Yeah, there’s a more calm version of Jenny, that feels like she’s accepted everything that has happened and maybe she’s learned something from it. We don’t know, but maybe?

Riese: Perhaps.

Carly: Perhaps.

Riese:
Or maybe they’ll give her a whole new character in Season Six and then kill her. I don’t know, that could happen. You never know. You do know. We know already, we do know what’s going to happen. It’s bad.

Carly: You do really get the sense that they ended this with having zero plan for Season Six. You can tell… I don’t know, there’s something about this ending. They did not set up anything for next season.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: Aside from what? Helena owns The Planet? That’s not interesting. That’s not a storyline.

Riese: Well, the movie having a bad ending. I think that the only thing they’re really setting up is like—

Carly: Bette and Tina might get pregnant, they set that up a little.

Riese: … what does… oh, yeah, they did. She said, “Do you want another kid?” Or whatever.

Carly: And Tina was like, “What?”

Riese: Yeah. I think the thing, the only cliffhanger, which is perhaps only a cliffhanger to people who are constantly analyzing The L Word for clues that Shenny is OTP—

Carly: So you.

Riese: Me. Is the cliffhanger of, does Jenny mean, one, “Shane, you’ve broken my heart by hooking up with my ex,” which is a really shitty thing to do. Two, “Shane, you’ve broken my heart because I’m in love with you.” Or, “Nikki, you’ve broken my heart because I’m in love with you. And Shane, I’m also mad at you for being involved.” Those are the three options. That’s the cliffhanger that we are all waiting for. And by “we” I mean me and the members of the Jenny, Shenny fan board. So, I think that was maybe 14 or 15 people.

Carly: There are dozens of us.

Riese: Who all have eventually hated me anyway, because I also was open about Jenny’s flaws.

Carly: Look, sometimes people aren’t ready to hear the truth about Jenny Schecter.

Riese: Right. So, yeah, there’s nothing all set up. Like, Bette and Tina are fine. Jodi’s obviously out. Alice… well, Alice and Tasha are at odds, but I don’t think they set that up very well.

Carly: No, they didn’t. It feels like they were surprised that this was the finale. Like they were like, “Oh, shit, wait we don’t have room to put up the other stuff? Oh, crap. We forgot to set anything up for next season.” And then, they made one of the worst seasons of television I’ve ever seen.

Riese: Yeah, the worst of any show I ever liked and then didn’t like.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: I would actually say Season Six is worse than any season of Glee. Because at least in Glee they had some good covers.

Carly: There was still the music.

Riese: And I love a cover.

Carly: That is the episode, that is the season.

Riese: It’s a wrap!

Carly: We did it! We did it!

Riese: It’s a wrap on Season Five!

Carly: Wrap party at Yamashiro’s.

Riese: Let’s have a wrap party, just kidding. Oh my God.

Carly: Yamashiro to-go.

Riese: Yeah, you want to get a $45 appetizer to-go from Yamashiro? Oh, boy. Well, Carly, what did you think of this episode?

Carly: I thought it was way too long. I was pretty bored throughout it. I think it was a crappy ending to a season that, overall, was pretty fun.

Riese: Mm-hmm. I agree.

Carly: That’s a bummer.

Riese: Yeah, they really brought it down.

Carly: Yeah, it sucks. I was glad Helena came back.

Riese: Yeah, me too.

Carly: I was really happy to see Helena, because I definitely—

Riese: I love Peggy, of course.

Carly: Love Peggy, even though late stage Peggy has been a little difficult to deal with.

Riese: Yeah, but she’s still… She’s got those zingers.

Carly: Yeah. She’s really entertaining.

Riese: She really is good at confusing detail.

Carly: Joyce is entertaining, nice to see them pop up and just have little moments of being entertaining. Because those were some of the more lively moments of the episode.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But…

Riese: Everyone has remained attractive, I thought. Physically attractive.

Carly: Yeah, great job everyone, making your faces still be nice to look at.

Riese: Mm-hmm. Tina committed a few crimes.

Carly: Oh, yeah.

Riese: Clea committed a crime as well, which was biking with someone else’s girlfriend in—

Carly: That’s why she got a citation.

Riese: Yeah, that LAPD.

Carly: Man, she had a real run in with the LAPD.

Riese: Probably traumatized from that conversation. Yeah, and I hope that we were funny, even though we’re both in a bad mood.

Carly: Yeah, we tried to get through it. Again, we were recording this on Sunday, November 1st and the election is on Tuesday, and I’ve been in quite a state the past week, week and a half. I’m just…

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: My anxiety has met my depression and they’re like the Jane Lynch GIF, like, “We’re going to create an environment that is so toxic.” That’s basically what’s happening.

Riese: Yeah, sort of like you’re the combination of Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, but it’s the combination of depression and anxiety.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I literally had a thought about that.

Riese: Oh, really?

Carly: I came up with a joke that I was going to tweet and then didn’t, because I was too depressed to even tweet anything. But I was like, “My anxiety and depression working together has basically turned my head into a combination Taco Bell/Pizza Hut.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: We’re on the same page.

Riese: Thanks everyone for being here with us, and joining us on this wonderful journey called life.

Carly: Thank you for listening to this episode and to this whole season, that’s pretty remarkable. The other day, when we posted the new episode, I was like… I went and read all the Instagram comments and they were all really cute, and it reminded me that there’s people that actually listen to this podcast.

Riese: Right.

Carly: I really sometimes have a hard time grasping that anyone actually hears this.

Riese: Thousands.

Carly: Even though we spend time on it.

Riese: Yeah, thousands of people listen to this. Like 8,000 people listen to this podcast, regularly.

Carly: That’s really cool.

Riese: That’s a lot of people. Thank you all.

Carly: And our wonderful, beautiful listeners for being on this weird journey with us.

Riese: Yeah, we love it when you comment on Instagram because it makes us feel successful.

Carly: Yeah, honestly, if you comment anywhere, we’ll find it.

Riese: Yeah, or on the Autostraddle post-

Carly: Yeah, Twitter or whatever.

Riese: … which has a full transcript and screenshots by the way, so you should really look at it.

Carly: Really funny screenshots. And a beautiful transcript.

Riese: A beautiful transcript.

Carly: Yeah, as we said at the top of the show, we are taking the rest of November off. Season Six will be coming soon, TBD.

Riese: TBD.

Carly: We’re doing it.

Riese: We’ll update you on our Instagram.

Carly: Yes, there will be updates on social and that’s how you’ll know what is happening.

Riese: It is.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media, over on Instagram and Twitter we are @tolandback. You can also email us [email protected]. And don’t forget we have a hotline, you can give us a call, leave a message, it’s 971-217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell, our logo is by Carra Sykes and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin, Autostraddle is @autostraddle, and of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: [Singing] Autostraddle dot com!

Carly: All right, and finally, it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay, Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three. Law school.

Carly: Lethargy. What’d you say?

Riese: I said law school, because Molly… law school, and also me remembering when I went to law school prom with my then girlfriend.

Carly: Of course. I said lethargy, which is just one of the many things I am currently feeling.

Riese: Excellent. Well, I guess, I’m going to feed and walk my dog now.

Carly: Yeah. That’s great. I’m excited for you and Carol.

Riese: And then sort of panic lightly.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: For up to two months. Okay.

Carly: Thank you all for listening!

Riese: Thank you all so much!

Carly: We’ll be back soonish.

Riese: Yeah, we’ll see you so soon. We’ll see you extra soon.

Carly: Extra soon.

Riese: Extra soon.

Carly: Not that soon, but soon.

Riese: But not that soon, yeah. But soon.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: Byeee.

Riese: Love you, byeee.