We are currently working to integrate transcripts into the workflow and budget of our podcast. As you can see, this post contains the transcript for 501 and I am working through some of our older episodes to add transcripts and alt tags for images. The Live Episode with Generation Q was transcribed shortly thereafter. We’re starting transcribing with Season Four: the Season Four Premiere (401) transcript is now up and others are coming up. I also already did Episode 407: Lesson Number One with Lianna Carrera, a comic/writer and CODA (Child of Deaf Adult) because not having that one transcribed seemed particularly egregious, because of its focus on deaf and ASL representation.

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We are BACK with the Season Five Premiere episode of “To L and Back,” in which so many questions are asked, and several are answered. Where did Jenny sail to on her raft? Did Tina have sex with Kate Arden? What pre-school will admit Angie? Who is Helena’s new roommate in prison? Is Tasha okay? Does Phyllis wanna shack up with Joyce? What the fuck is wrong with Shane right now? We look for these answers and more in our big return to The L Word!

The usual:

• GO LISTEN 
• SUBSCRIBE
• GIVE US A NICE REVIEW!! PLEAZE!
• FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM!!
• FOLLOW US ON TWITTER!!!
• The original recap of Episode 501

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TRANSCRIPT

Riese: Hello, I’m Riese.

Carly: And I’m Carly.

Riese: And this is—

Riese and Carly: To L and Back!

Riese: And we’re back! To L and Empire Strikes Back!

Carly: And we’re back!

Riese: And we’re back In the habit.

Carly: We’re Back in the Habit, Sister Act 2.

Riese: This is a Sister Act podcast.

Carly: We changed things up for this season. Season Five of The L Word is actually, we’re just going to be talking about the Sister Act movies.

Riese: Yeah. We’re splitting both films into two parts. So it’ll be four episodes total. And if you have any special feelings about like, which Sister Act do you like better? I know what the right answer is, but you know, everyone can—.

Carly: Weigh in.

Riese: You know, have their own opinions. So yeah, we’ll be doing that. But I think for today, we’ll talk about, I guess, an episode of the program.

Carly: Of the program “The L Word,” which aired on Showtime. Um hi everyone. We’re back. We were gone for a few weeks.

Riese: We were, yeah.

Carly: I feel rejuvenated by my time away.

Riese: You do?

Carly: I feel, I mean, not — I feel rejuvenated specifically in terms of this podcast. Like I’m like excited to dig into Season Five and feel really good about it. In terms of my life in general. I do not feel at all rejuvenated in any sense of the word, but as far as this goes and The L word goes, I feel rejuvenated and ready to go.

Riese: That’s so exciting.

Carly: Yeah. It’s pretty great.

Riese: I too feel rejuvenated about this and terrible about everything else.

Carly: Exactly, exactly. Just like a general really bad feeling about most things aside from this. So this is great. Glad we’re back here.

Riese: Here we are in this little place. Speaking of things that are good or bad, we’re having a fundraiser! At autostraddle.com because we still haven’t sold a lot of ads this year and we just want to exist for the rest of the year. We’ve just got to raise this money and then we can have the podcast for all of you, cause the podcast costs money! It will continue till the end of the year if everyone is very supportive of it. And we know that we had a fundraiser earlier this year and that some of you donated and gave us your names for us to read on air. We’re going to do that today. We’re going to do it at the end so that you have to listen all the way to the end.

Carly: Yup. We’re incentivizing listening to this episode, right.

Riese: I mean, it will be good. Like you’ll want to do it cause it’s funny and we’re really funny and smart and stuff.

Carly: I’m sure we’ll have really cool things to say when it comes to that part.

Riese: Yeah. So stay tuned. So we’re having a fundraiser right now, autostraddle.biz, check it out. It would be really great if you could contribute, especially if you have not contributed before. Cause this shit ain’t free ladies and otherwise identified people. It’s not free.

Carly: I think I would say that — now more than ever, it is crucial to support an independent site that is created by and for queer people specifically queer women and non binary people. I think that Autostraddle has just done some really incredible stuff this year. And I think that supporting it is important and I’m not just saying that because I want to continue making this podcast. It’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than me. You know, it’s not about me.

Riese: First of all, thank you for all the nice things you just said about Autostraddle! Second of all, this is a podcast where we recap every episode of The L word, a television program about women who love women. And also one trans guy who they’re all really mean to.

Carly: In this episode, even! It continues.

Riese: (Said In the expression of frustration about trans representation on The L Word) Oh my Godddddddd.All right. Do you want to give us the official infos?

Carly: Yes. We are kicking off season five today, episode 501 entitled LGB Tease, which wow, what a title!

Riese: That’s also the name of my favorite lube.

Carly: It was written by none other than Ilene Chaiken and directed by our fave Angela Robinson.

Riese: Yay!

Carly: It originally aired January 6th, 2008. We have officially landed in 2008 in our exploration of queer history, which is this podcast. So congratulations to us and to the year 2008.

Riese: Just so everyone knows, we’re officially entering the period of time where Carly and I are talking about the same thing again. Cause we also did this together in 2008. I mean not a podcast, but I recapped it. We watched it together and the recap had quotes from my friends in it.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: I’m going to read my recap after and see if we make any of the same jokes we made in 2008.

Carly: Oh my God, I can’t wait to do that. I mean, probably we will make some of the same jokes and that’s exciting. I think every episode we should say all the jokes that we duplicated from the previous one.

Riese: Just so you know, on the premiere night of this episode in 2008, we were at The W Hotel at a party, a birthday party for our friend and Carly was the DJ. And we had a lot of things happening around that that were very interesting that you can read all about when my book is completed and sold and available in stores.

Carly: I can’t to read it. And relive a really wild time period. Should we get into episode 501?

Riese: Let’s do it! Well, we open in The L Word being so out of ideas that it’s just doing itself. It’s just going to do itself again.

Carly: This is one of the most self-referential things I’ve ever seen on a television program.

Riese: Mmhm. So Jenny is writing her screenplay of her book, Lez Girls. So there’s Nina, Bev and Shawn, you all know who they are.

Carly: We all know Jenny’s bad attempt at making new names for everybody.

Riese: Yeah. I did do a check to see if they are wearing the exact same outfits that they wore in the original. (They are)

Carly: Interesting. They looked familiar, but I did not take the time to go back and check. This is basically Jenny’s ridiculous version of the party scene from the pilot, which is honestly hilarious. Like, this is very funny. Her version of it is that Bev, Nina and Shawn are like oogling her. Yeah. Like a “crazy cartoon character with drool and heart eyes kind of thing.” Like it’s so over the top and wonderful.

Bev: She is… Something.
Shawn: She’s fucking hot.
Tina: Do you think she could be –?
Bev: No no no, too pretty, too feminine.
Shawn: I don’t know. I’d be happy to —.
Bev: Taste the fruit?
Shawn: Peel it, section it and squeeze the juice with her.
Tina: Get in line sister. (to Bev) Oh I’m sorry Babe –
Bev: As long as you share her with me.

Carly: My question in this scene, which will be answered soon is — I thought Jenny was fired from writing this movie, but we’ll get to that.

Riese: Right. But then like one good fruit metaphor was probably all she needed to get her foot right back into the door of this thing. There is a thing that they say about Jenny and they involve fruit in the conversation. And I couldn’t eat fruit after that.

Carly: Yeah, no, I I’m actually currently swearing off fruit purely because of this episode that I watched today.

Riese: I’m not gonna peel it, section it and squeeze the juice well with anyone at this point.

Carly: No, no, no. Did you find Jenny’s fake typing to be very slow?

Riese: Well, she was thinking.

Carly: Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

Riese: She was inventing things in her head. Cause these are just interpretations of people.

Carly: Of course, of course. So then we have our favorite theme song, and I think there’s some updated shots from season four here, but I was going to see if you did any analysis?

Riese: Um my analysis, it looks like I wrote “NO PAPI” in all caps. That’s it?

Carly: It looked like maybe there was a new shot of a couple of characters.

Riese: Oh yeah?

Carly: Yeah. It looked like maybe? Or I’m just totally not remembering where we left things in season four, which is also absolutely possible.

Riese: Then we go to — it looks as though Bette and Tina are attempting to get Angelica into an elite preschool.

Carly: An elite pre-school!

Riese: And this specific elite preschool apparently has an admissions advisor who like hates her job?

Carly: She doesn’t seem happy to be around parents or children.

Riese: Right.

Carly: I think she should find a new career.

Riese: I think she’s looking at them like she’s so miserable.

Carly: She hates them.

Riese: She’s so skeptical. And I’m like, first of all, look at these beautiful women!

Carly: They both look great.

Riese: They’re beautiful,. Their baby just made a moon puzzle.

Carly: Their beautiful baby who’s clearly a genius, right?

Riese: Yeah. She is a genius. We all saw her grow up. She’s a genius, she’s gay and a genius.

Carly: And all gays are smart except for the ones who aren’t, and also Angelica picked up sign language without having to learn it like Bette did in an hour. And so she’s a genius.

Riese: She didn’t have that time.

Carly: The movie Baby Geniuses is about Angelica.

Riese: Yeah, it is. Actually, you know, the movie Baby Driver is also about Angelica.

Carly: Is it about when she’s driving in Gen Q?

Riese: Yeah. It’s the followup to Look Who’s Talking Too, which is about Angelica, who is a baby who talks.

Carly: Yes. I remember that. I remember that. I saw it in theaters and I was like, wow, Angelica. You’re doing great.

Riese: Yeah. And now here she is — thriving! And this woman who’s like sitting there, listening to them is really annoyed. She’s like, “do you have a deaf family member?” Like as though this is an inquisition. Then they have to confess! That they have a friend. But we all know the truth. The truth is that the deaf friend is actually the deaf GIRLFRIEND.

Carly: Exactly. Because these two are not currently together, despite all of Tina’s best efforts throughout the course of this episode.

Riese: They certainly seem together.

Carly: They sure are acting together. It’s nice to see them getting along and like being able to be in the same room a lot. That was actually really nice. But yeah, this woman that’s talking to them, call her Shania because she is not impressed very much.

Riese: Then they go outside and they run into these gay dads.

Carly: Oh they hate the gay dads. And the gay Dads hate them. It’s great.

Riese: And they say that their kid’s going to get in because he’s half Jewish, a quarter Latino and a quarter Chinese and they’re Christian and Muslim, which just perpetuates the idea —It’s fine. I won’t go off, but I was annoyed by it.

Carly: Uh Tina literally says “we score diversity points for being lesbians.” Yeah. So and then basically both couples just list all of their “diversity Olympics” credentials. It’s upsetting. And these men are friends with David Geffen.

Riese: Also [the gay Dads] say that they “already spoke with Rowena,” which is a street. It’s a street name.

Carly: Yeah. (sarcastic) Good job.

Riese: Good job taking it to the streets, guys. I bet you went to Pinkberry.

Carly: I bet you guys thought you were talking to a person and you weren’t..

Riese: You weren’t. You were just at the 7-11 on Rowena.

Carly: Good job. That’s not going to help get your son into this elite school.

Riese: No, it’s not. Did he make a puzzle today?

Carly: I bet he did not.

Riese: He didn’t. Anyway. Angelica should get in. I have no memory of how this ever works out.

Carly: I truly do not remember. I just honestly remember Angelica being a teen at this point. So it’s very confusing in my head that she’s still a baby.

Riese: Then we go to a little Hollywood prison. The “backlot of the studio” prison.

Carly: Helena is in jail. Because if you recall, she stole Catherine’s money at the end of last season. She’s getting her mugshot taken. She has to turn in the approximately 372 pieces of jewelry she is currently wearing. A song by The Gossip is playing in the scene called “Listen Up.” I love the gossip, big fan. Helena gets strip-searched. It’s all like, you know, like things you think are in a prison, but are just in a film. You know, the normal tropes. And then I wrote in my notes, “Orange is the new Peabody,’ which I’m personally very proud of.

Riese: (Wincing) Yeeeaah? And then speaking of prisons that are just in a movie, Helena walks down the hallway of jail cells and they are all cat-calling her.

Carly: Oh God.

Riese: So that’s how that went for her. So Helena is in jail.

Carly: I would love to understand the layout, the map of the prison, that in order to get anywhere, you have to walk through a hall of inmates who are all attractive and are all whistling at you and cat-calling you. Cause we see it again later when her friends show up.

Riese: Anyway, Lez Planet! We haven’t been to The Planet for so long.

Carly: Oh my god, We’re back at The Planet with like a totally normal friend group, which is Shane, Alice, Max and Phyllis, which is definitely a group of people that normally hang out together and are very close.

Riese: Right. Well, Alice has a new show. It’s a podcast.

Carly: Well, It’s a video podcast.

Riese: It’s a video podcast. It’s called “Alice in Lesboland.”

Carly: Alice in Lesboland, which is a funny name and also a terrible name. Here’s what’s happening: Max, who is a computer programmer, is now shooting a video interview with a camera and with headphones. And he’s doing everything in the middle of the day at The Planet, which is a loud cafe that they have not shut down, which is for Alice’s podcast, which as we all know, is an audio medium. Yes, I know that in 2008 there was such a thing as video podcasts, but I don’t really subscribe to that way of thinking.

Riese: It’s funnier if we don’t acknowledge that.

Carly: We’re going to just, we’re going to continue talking about this.

Riese: We’re doubling down.

Carly: We’re doubling down on our own personal ignorance. We refuse to admit that you can call a bunch of videos, a “podcast,” Cause you can’t. That’s kind of the stance that this podcast here —again, an audio medium because you cannot see either of us right now — is taking.

Riese: If you could see us you’d be so excited cause we look great.

Carly: Yeah. I haven’t showered today, but somehow I do look great. Okay. So Phyllis is going to be the guest on Alice’s podcast, which is again, being filmed in a loud cafe in the middle of the day.

Riese: It’s for Our Chart.

Carly: It’s for Our Chart, it’s a biweekly podcast.

Riese: Meanwhile, Shane has to go look at apartments with Paige and everyone thinks that’s a bad idea because when Kit sees Shane with her —.

Kit: “I Don’t see Shane on fire.”

Riese: What was that? Foreshadowing?

Carly: Oh my God is it? I like to think it is. I like to think there are no coincidences.

Riese: Cause later in the episode Shane just bursts into flames. When she’s wearing a dress. She’s like the girl on fire!

Carly: When Shane is on that talk show with the man with the blue hair and she spins in a circle and then her dress catches on fire. That was an incredible scene. I can’t wait to talk about that scene when it comes out.

Riese: So that’s going to be weird. Then when we go back to jail. Helena is really on a journey,

Carly: Man. She’s on a journey down the hallway, she’s on a journey to meet her cellmate. Her cellmate is Dana’s trainer from previous seasons.

Riese: Also Ilene Chaiken’s trainer in real life, her name is Lucia Rijker.

Carly: Her arms are incredible. She is in great shape. I’m kind of disappointed that Helena didn’t immediately try to get with her.

Riese: What else are they gonna do?

Carly: She has a lot of free time.

Riese: Helena is immediately terrified of this woman who greets her by just cracking all of her knuckles. And also the decor in their cell is like — it looks like pictures you would see in a tattoo parlor, like tattoos. Did you notice?

Carly: Yes. Very interesting.

Riese: I was like, is that a scorpion?

Carly: Yeah. And it was a scorpion, and several roses, and probably a nautical star.

Riese: Maybe they’re going to do some stick and pokes.

Carly: Oh, I would love for Helena to have a cool tattoo when she leaves prison. I just think that would make her so much more interesting.

Riese: Well the first thing Helena says, which is a great thing to say when you first arrive in jail as a privileged white woman, is:

Helena: “I don’t expect I’ll be here very long. We’ve been trying to get hold of my mother. You see, otherwise I wouldn’t be here at all. You know, I’m, I’m sure that soon as we get in touch with her, I’ll be like — whoo—”

Carly: Yeah, she’s essentially tells her cellmate, “we’re not cellmates so much as I’m just here for a brief visit.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Um “cause once mummy wires the funds for my bail? I’ll get to leave.” I just want to know what Dana’s trainer did. I like to think that after Dana died, her trainer was like, “Oh my God, I’m so upset. And also she was my like favorite client and I now I can’t be a trainer anymore.” I don’t know what she did, but now she’s in prison.

Riese: Just so you guys know this actress has been dubbed by the press, “the most dangerous woman in the world.”

Carly: Whoa.

Riese: She speaks four languages.

Carly: That’s what’s dangerous about her.

Riese: She’s a kickboxer and she’s like a martial arts fighter in real life.

Carly: Awesome.

Riese: Yeah. So I love this for her and for us.

Carly: Yup, yup, yup. Yup. I just like her arms and just want more scenes of her arms.

Riese: Yeah, that’d be great. (Tone change to over-the-top enthusiasm) Carly, you know what my favorite part of college was?

Carly: Tell me.

Riese: It was when I looked at my lesbian website and saw the chancellor of my university talking about what amazing sex she’s having with her girlfriend.

Carly: You could SO relate to that! Yeah. Like really down-to-earth.

Riese: I was like, thanks so much. Now I feel like we’re really on the same level. And so I was so excited to see The Planet representing this exact same scenario that happens all the time, where Phyllis is going on a television podcast video with Alice to talk about her becoming a late in life lesbian and also she’s learning all of this new lingo.

Carly: Like “U-hauling.”

Riese: She says that sex with Joyce Wishnia is a —.

Phyllis: “Post-Graduate thesis.”

Riese: And Alice is like, Whoa!

Carly: Hang on a sec there! Alice is like, no? Phyllis is like, Oh honey, you’re sweet. But you’re a little vanilla.

Riese: And then she explains vanilla to her.

Phyllis: “Vanilla sex. Conventional sex. What the culture regards as standard or regular sex—”

Riese: And Alice is like, I know what that means.

Carly: It was very funny.

Riese: This part of this whole thing is cute and funny.

Carly: I like that Phyllis is taking notes. I enjoy that. They have a cute little interview. Then we go to see the super smart decision, which is Shane and Paige looking at apartments.

Riese: But at least they’re looking at 2G cause that’s like,–.

Riese and Carly: The best unit.

Carly: I’m gonna finance the hell out of this best unit.

Riese: It’s “closest to the pool.” My friends, I believe that this is a U-Shaped apartment building. So I think that everything on the first floor is equally close to the pool!

Carly: I think this realtor is full of shit because immediately after they look at the apartment, she tells Shane that she knows like a hundred of her exes and names them all by name.

Realtor: Lisa Pantollini says hi, actually.
Shane: Really? Oh, we’ll give her my best, tell her I say hi back.
Paige: Who’s that?
Shane: She’s a girl I used to know way back when.
Realtor: I know Lacey as well.
Shane: Oh yeah, Lacey, of course.
Realtor: I also know Brandy Delaney. And Megan.
Shane: Brandy Delaney… Oh, I remember — Brandy and oh yeah, Megan too!

Riese: Including Lacey, who we all remember.

Carly: Who we all remember and we all love very much. So it gets really awkward. And I want to point out that Shane is wearing a red shirt and Paige is wearing a hot pink shirt and I feel like visually that’s what they’re going for, like this couple is a mismatch. Look how when they stand next to each other, it’s hard to look at because of the colors of their shirts.

Riese: Right. Except for that also I think that Paige’s cleavage looked great.

Carly: Agreed. Paige looked radiant and just beautiful.

Riese: As always.

Carly: As always, also, I was just staring at the pool and kind of started zoning out because all I want to do is be swimming in a pool. And so this was hard to watch for me.

Riese: If you guys thought I wanted a friend with a pool before this—

Carly: Oh boy.

Riese: HOOOO do I want a friend with a pool now.

Carly: Oh boy. Both of us do,

Riese: Oh God. Because there’s a public pool that I went to all the time last summer and now it’s closed.

Carly: So anyway, this realtor is extremely inappropriate and I think she should not have this job. I think they should fire her. And then she clearly wants Shane to fuck her and that’s, that’s weird, but is it?

Riese: Then we’re back with more transphobia!!!

Carly: Oh, awesome. Did you think we left transphobia behind in season four? You were wrong!

Riese: This time — First of all, what the fuck? Phyllis doesn’t know what the T stands for?? This is how this started. She’s writing a graduate sex thesis and she doesn’t know how to find out what the T means and she doesn’t already know what the T Means? What?

Carly: First of all, Alice is like “The CU LGBT Student Union, you should pay them a visit, Phyllis.” My initials being CU, I thought that this was the Carly Usdin LGBT student union, to which I said, “thank you so much.” I’m honored to have this named after me. Just, it was a big scene for me personally.

Riese: Yeah, for sure.

Carly: But yeah, Phyllis has not paid them a visit because she doesn’t know what the T stands for. What?

Riese: And then Alice tells her that T is for—.

Carly: The T slur!

Riese: “The T slur, like Max. ” And then we get more of this annoying propaganda about how The L Word writers feel about trans men. Phyllis asks if he’s had “the surgery,” and he says he went to San Francisco to get it, but then he decided not do it because he didn’t want to lose sensation in his nipples, which is the writers of this program telling you that they don’t think that anyone should have top surgery basically. Cause 0% of me believes that that’s the decision Max would make.

Carly: Um I am going to agree with you as a Person of Top Surgery Experience, which is a phrase I just came up with and I really enjoy. This is enraging. It’s not a thing. It is propaganda from the writer’s room. Absolutely agree with you. Then he says he felt like enough of a guy as is without the surgery, which is of course everyone’s individual right and journey. But I think that this “because of losing nipple sensation” thing is ridiculous.

Riese: Also Max didn’t — in what we’ve seen of him, I didn’t see that he was really comfortable with having his body touched in certain ways.

Carly: He seemed so, so, so uncomfortable with any upper body anything in all the scenes we’ve seen of him that this was just very hard to believe for his character.

Riese: I don’t buy it.

Carly: He also starts — when he corrects Alice’s use of the T word, the slur, he calls himself “transgendered,” past tense, which is just a linguistic pet peeve of mine. So whatever, that again comes from the writer’s room. So fuck you guys.

Riese: Phyllis asks what top surgery is and Alice should’ve been like, “that’s how you become a top, you get top surgery” and then Phyllis could’ve written that down and then used it inappropriately.

Carly: And then it would have been so funny!

Riese: Then we have — first of all, just to rewind a minute, Alice said that this show was for bisexuals, Sapphicly-inclined ladies, and their friends. That’s who she said her show is for, correct?

Carly: Yes. That is correct. She said that several minutes ago in this episode.

Riese: Several minutes ago. We’re only on scene eight here, okay? And that was in what, scene two? I don’t know, two or three.

Carly: A smaller number than eight.

Riese: Exactly. And she says that they’re getting off topic because they’re talking about trans stuff, which they’ve been doing for, I don’t know — 30, 45 seconds?

Carly: And also this happened because they ran out of room on the tape. Remember recording things on tape? And Max said that he had to change the tape. So they’re not filming and really this is just Alice being really shitty.

Riese: There’s so many things about this conversation that annoyed me and I’m sure there’s so many things that are annoying to you. I’ll just, I’ll start with one.

Carly: Oh my God, this is so fun! Okay.

Riese: Okay. Okay. So first of all, when Alice says that “no, they’re getting off topic.” And then Max’s argument is like, “It’s Our Chart. Doesn’t that suggest it’s inclusive because the word is Our Chart?” And like, not really… Like a name can mean anything. What should make it inclusive is that first of all, even if it is just for lesbians and bisexual women, trans women are part of that, so talking about trans people is not getting off topic.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: And secondly, she earlier said it was for basically the whole community and that also includes trans men and non binary people. And so the fact that the argument they gave him to say was like about whether or not was OUR Chart? Like that doesn’t make sense. There’s so many other arguments to make.

Carly: Yeah. Going on the specifics of the name of the site didn’t really need to happen. There’s so many other arguments.

Riese: I think there’s nothing about this conversation that made sense. It didn’t feel like anything a trans guy would say. It doesn’t really feel like anyone — they obviously weren’t trying to sell us on the idea that Max should be part of this community, even though they’re employing him—.

Carly: Absolutely. Like, come on guys. So, Max quit his full time, terrible job. But that he was making great money at, to go work for Alice’s website, and make very little money.

Riese: Correct.

Carly: And she knows that he is a trans man, though she does seem to have a lot of issues with that. So now she’s just creating a hostile work environment for her ONE employee and someone that’s supposed to be her friend. Like she is being such a shitty person.

Riese: Yeah, you’re correct. That’s correct. And Max deserves better. However, I do think that he looked really cute in his little raglan shirt.

Carly: And then Tasha calls. She called to tell Alice that she can’t talk right now. It is a very short phone call and Alice won’t let her get off the phone until she says out loud that she loves her. And then Alice is sad.

Riese: So Alice is still respecting Tasha’s boundaries.

Carly: Yeah. Oh my God. Right? Like, Oh, I’m like um, she’s kind of on an army base in the midst of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, can you please stop this? I thought we’ve been through this already. Alice doesn’t remember a single thing that happened in Season Four.

Riese: Bad episode of “Alice in Lesboland” if you ask me.

Carly: Not a good episode.

Riese: Phyllis was talking shit about Alice’s bedroom behavior, and then transphobia. “Off-Topic” transphobia. Meanwhile, in The Planet—

Carly: Elsewhere in this massive interior.

Riese: It’s (Sings) exposition time, exposition time!

Carly: Oh my God, I LOVE exposition time. Oh my God, not only exposition time, but guess what? We’ve got a party this episode, my two favorite things. We’ve got a party where everyone will be in the same room with music and we’ve got an exposition scene right now. So Bette and Tina are now at The Planet and they sit with Kit and Kit got a postcard from Jenny. Bette and Tina did not get postcards from Jenny. Kit says that [Jenny] is in Playa Del Carmen, and Bette says —.

Bette: Playa de Carmen, that’s not nearly far enough away.

Carly: Which was wonderful.

Riese: This is never cleared up, but … Did she just take her raft?

Carly: I think the implication is that she sailed from Helena’s beachfront estate with Catherine to Mexico and to Talum, which is on the eastern side of Mexico, near Playa Del Carmen. I believe they are right next to each other. Yeah.

Riese: So she sailed her raft through the Panama Canal I guess.

Carly: Then Tina’s like, I have to leave and go to a production meeting for Lez Girls? But then, why did you come to the coffee shop? You sat down, you came inside.

Riese: She had something to tell us! She wanted to tell us that a hedge fund billionaire is financing the movies and he fired Kate. And also, Bette thanks Kit for watching Angie, which is how we find out that Kit has finally broken up with Angus. And for some reason, she’s like, “it’s my fault you don’t have a Manny.” No, it’s not. It’s his fault. And Hazel’s.

Hazel: “You’re way too hot to be a Papa.”

Carly: This is upsetting. I want Kit to go to see a therapist or something because I don’t I don’t want her to think that this is her fault. This is not, this makes me very unhappy.

Riese: Also her necklace is bananas.

Carly: Yes. I also think it’s great that a cis straight white billionaire fired the lesbian director of the lesbian movie, I just think despite all the personalities involved, I just think that thing, that situation is just wonderful.

Riese: Although he did hire another lesbian to take her spot.

Carly: Well, we’ll get to that in a minute. We also find out that Jodi’s coming back tomorrow night. So you know, just a lot of really important exposition happens here and I wouldn’t want to miss any of it. So then we go to the apartment.

Riese: Jared loves it. He’s standing in the apartment and there’s obviously a balcony outside of it, like behind the curtain. For some reason they’re standing on the other side of the curtains. Jared is like, Oh, the pool’s right out there. And it’s like, dude, walk out there. Why are you staying behind the curtains? I don’t know why this was annoying me or that there were boxes in it or that it was a bad apartment!

Carly: Well, none of that really matters. You know why? It’s because she’s like, let’s go look at your room, Jared. And we all know exactly what is about to happen here. Shane’s fucking the horrible, inappropriate realtor. Jared doesn’t see anything. Which is great because that would have been truly terrible.

Riese: Yeah. You know what I would say is that throughout this episode, Shane is not really on character in general.

Carly: Yeah. Shane is really kind of weird in this episode.

Riese: Yeah. I think it’s just this episode. I think it changes as the season goes on, but like, obviously we all know she has like a cheating problem, blah, blah, blah. But like, would she fuck a girl in the apartment? No, she wouldn’t. That’s insane.

Carly: I won’t even get to how irritating this whole storyline is until later. But this is so annoying. So this next scene is just a real gem. Tina arrives late to her meeting. And she goes in to find her boss, Aaron, who we all hate, and William, the eccentric hedge fund billionaire played by the great Wallace Shawn.

Riese: When we were watching this season the first time we started calling him “Inconceivable.” I can’t remember if it was you who did that or Haviland, but I feel like it was you.

Carly: I just refer to him as Wallace Shawn in this entire set of notes for this recap. He’s great. Wallace Shawn of Princess Bride, of Clueless, of countless other incredible films and television appearances. So, guess who else is in this meeting? It’s Jenny and um wow. Tina is quite surprised as you can imagine. And also surprised to find that her own boss doesn’t know her job title, which I found to be very disrespectful and I don’t like Aaron. So basically here’s what had happened. Jenny went to Tulum —.

Riese: On her raft.

Carly: — as William’s guest and she did an entire rewrite of a feature script on spec. And now everyone loves her and William’s going to finance their next three films. So Jenny gets to do whatever she wants, which includes directing the film.

Riese: Also Jenny and William swam with dolphins? And also Aaron loved the Manatee scene.

Carly: And he also loved the scene at the party where Nina hits on Jessie. He shouts. He’s so excited about the scene. We know that he knows that Nina is Tina, so he’s just being an extra asshole in this moment. And Aaron’s just sucking up to the both of them. And Tina is rolling her eyes, which is very funny. And she clearly wants to disappear.

Riese: Um you know who loved this episode? Tina.

Carly: Me too!

Riese: Like, I don’t know what’s going on with her, but—.

Carly: I really enjoyed Tina. She was one of the few characters I had no problems with this episode. Shocking, quite shocking. She also looked very good.

Riese: Yeah. She looked great.

Carly: Everybody looked really good in this episode, but like she specifically, I was like, good for you, Tina. I really want you to quit this job and go work at a different studio.

Riese: So Jenny’s assistant —.

Carly: She shows up with Sounder, fresh from the groomer. But the groomer didn’t have the orange bows and Jenny hates her assistant and is really mean to her. And it’s gross.

Riese: Yeah. I don’t like that.

Carly: No. And that’s only going to get worse.

Riese: Yes, it is. Speaking of the color orange, which we talked about earlier because of Orange is the New Black and prison, and then we talked about just now because of the bows for the dog — Joyce’s sheets are a little bit orange.

Carly: Wow, that was a really good segue. You really brought it back around in such an eloquent way.

Riese: Thank you. So Joyce and Phyllis are love-making and and they just had the best time and they’re really lavishing in the afterglow.

Carly: The afterglow. Yes. And I guess tomorrow is Phyllis’s coming out party! Which is not a real thing, but Joyce is throwing her a party. Okay. I mean, look, I love a party. I especially love them now when I’m not allowed to leave my own home. So I understand wanting to throw a gathering of friends. Joyce also wants them to move in together. And Phyllis impresses her with her use of the term —

Joyce: “U-Haul? Where did you pick that up?”

Riese: Then we have a really weird scene. So we’re back over at the Shenny-Bettina set. Shane is drinking beer on the porch. Bette comes home and Bette’s like, “what’s up,” and Shane is like “Paige won’t answer the door.” And it’s like… Um, right? Of course not!

Carly: And also, you already had time to tell Bette what happened?

Riese: Then she’s like, I just don’t want Shay to find out like… How?

Carly: Do you have some sort of like communication link to Shay that we don’t know about?

Riese: Like none of this makes sense. Every way that Shane acts about this relationship is so inconsistent. Every scene is wrong in a new way, and this scene is wrong in that Shane would know — I mean obviously, Shane is trying to self sabotage. If we’re going to buy that scene, we can’t buy this scene.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Cause you know what I mean? It doesn’t work.

Carly: She’s acting like she doesn’t understand why Paige won’t talk to her.

Riese: And is Paige just gonna tell Shay?

Carly: Right? Like Paige is just like emailing Shay? She has a great relationship with him. Yeah.

Riese: Just so you know, I love getting emails like that. “Just so you know, your friend cheated on me and they love blah, blah, blah.” And I’m like, Whoa.

Carly: I don’t want Shay to get that email. I don’t want him involved in that.

Riese: I don’t want anyone to ever get any emails. Unless they say “donation received from [email address.]” And then I know that we got a donation to our fundraiser, which you should donate to! Love you.

Carly: That was well done.

Riese: Then Jenny shows up and Shane says “You look like a crepe!”

Carly: She does!

Riese: And they’re so loving to each other.

Carly: And Bette tries to escape, but Shane does not let her.

Riese: Yeah, Shane wants to make them be friends.

Carly: She’s like, I want you to meet Jenny, please be friends! And Bette’s like “(snickers) we’ll see!” Which is great.

Riese: Then it’s the next morning, the lighting is beautiful. The birds are chirping. The sun is in the sky of the set and the birds are landing in the trees and the trees are growing and the world is changing. And Jenny would like Marissa to pick up her dry cleaning. It’s like this Devil Wears Prada thing that they’re doing. I think.

Carly: Yes. Jenny floated away to Mexico, wrote a screenplay, came back and is now very mean to people. Everyone! But especially to her assistant Marissa. She’s like “I never said this was a 5 days a week job” because apparently today is Saturday or tomorrow is Saturday. I lost the plot on this one. I never know what day or time it is in real life, why would, I know what time is happening on the show? Then Tina shows up and she’s got coffees and croissants. And Jenny is like aghast at the thought that Tina would make her eat a croissant. Like how dare you? And I was like, I’ll take that.

Riese: Croissants are so on brand for Jenny.

Carly: Like they could not be more on brand.

Riese: Jenny’s whole personality screams “I want a croissant!” Also, just take one and eat it. Or pretend to eat it. Chew it up and then spit it into your napkin. Be polite.

Carly: But Jenny’s whole thing here is just like being horrible and condescending to Tina. So that’s just sort of what happens. Tina is like, “I’m here, I’ve got notes on the script” and Jenny is like, “no, mornings are my time to write.” And then Jenny just kind of lays into Tina and tells her that she’s never been treated as badly as she was treated by Tina when she was fired.

Riese: When she said that I was like, that is the exact same thing that Donald Trump says all the time!

Carly: Every day.

Riese: He’s always like, “I’ve never been treated so poorly.”

Carly: Basically Jenny is doing the Donald Trump playbook in this episode, which is not something I wanted to say—.

Riese: I know, it’s so weird. I hate it.

Carly: I hate it.

Riese: I mean, I get it. It’s funny. This felt improvised, like the sticky notes thing? Cause also that didn’t really make sense. Like why are sticky notes worse than notes? But I felt like it was sort of supposed to be funny and it was kind of funny, but doesn’t really make sense.

Carly: No. And Jenny says that Tina was trying to get ahead by using “her creation.” Man, the ego on display here is truly maddening. Is this now a good time to talk about the film industry and how Jenny doesn’t understand it?

Riese: Yeah!

Carly: It is very, very, very difficult to get hired, to direct something, period. You have to do so many meetings and so many pitches and put together so many documents and lookbooks and pitch decks. And you do this all for free in the hopes that you get selected to direct the project. Hiring someone with no directing experience of any kind is basically unheard of. So the fact that she — honestly, one of the most unbelievable things about this show is that Jenny gets hired to direct her own film. That is bonkers. And now the fact that she is trying to tell Tina that she refuses to take notes from an executive because “she doesn’t understand writing or how to be creative” is ridiculous. This is the studio system.

Riese: Yeah, Tina’s just doing her job.

Carly: Tina is trying to like make nice with Jenny because she knows they have to work together and she just wants it to be a success. And I really kind of feel for Tina here. And I just want to punch Jenny in the face!

Riese: Yeah. From what we’ve seen of the screenplay so far, it’s bad, so. So I think that probably Tina had some valuable notes. Cause she has lots of experience. She made “Magical Enchanted Forest!”

Carly: She inspired Michel Gondry.

Riese: And Sofia Coppola, Sofia Coppola is her best friend. She invented Virgin Suicides.

Carly: She basically made it herself.

Riese: She did. She won like— 25 Oscars.

Carly: We all remember Sophia Copola in the magazines and in the interviews on stage — accepting awards and thanking Tina Kennard. We all remember this.

Riese: Yeah, every time. Sometimes she thanked her twice. Like, she’d forget and then she’d thank her another time at the end. Yeah. So this is a big obsession. Everybody knows this. And then here’s Jenny in her kitchen., saying it’s “her time to write?’ Yeah. Okay. Well, whatever, Jenny.

Carly: Learn to write other times of the day. Also, I can only write at night. So I understand.

Riese: Also, eat a croissant.

Carly: Speaking of eating, Helena is attempting to eat food in her cell and spits it out very dramatically.

Riese: Dusty is like, I will take it. I will eat it.

Carly: Yes. Good for Dusty.

Riese: Good for dusty. Dusty is hungry, you know? And then Helena says that she’s against killing?

Carly: Yes she does. So very strange. It’s exactly what you expect from the former rich lady, Helena Peabody, going to prison.

Riese: As you may have seen on Orange Is the New Black, in which a well-off white lady went to prison.

Carly: Exactly. So then we are back at Bette’s house. Tina is in the pool with Angie.

Riese: And I’m jealous.

Carly: There’s so many scenes of people in pools in this episode! I’m dying. It’s it’s so rude to the audience. Again specifically us.

Riese: Don’t put a pool in an episode of our program that we’re gonna talk about like 10 or 12 years later on a podcast during an international pandemic when we can’t go to the pool! And just put it in front of our faces without an invite, ILENE CHAIKEN, to YOUR private pool that I know you have because I know you’re rich. I know you have a pool and you haven’t invited me to it. And if anyone listening to this knows Ilene Chaiken, please tell her I want to come to her pool. And I deserve it.

Carly: Perfect. Bette goes to put Angie down for her nap. And Tina decides to do a little topless floaty tanning in the pool.

Riese: And they play this sort of like corny porny sexy music.

Carly: This is saxophone out of, like, Who Framed Roger rabbit. Like when Jessica Rabbit walks into the detective office, that’s literally the music that’s playing. It’s quite cartoonish.

Riese: I do feel like tonally Season Five is very consistent within itself. It’s a little bit campy or a little bit high camp, but also a little more grounded, I’d say, than a lot of Season Four’s camp was?

Carly: But it’s more fun.

Riese: It’s playful.

Carly: Look, I’m all here for the show being campier. So I’m excited for how ridiculous some of this stuff is. It kind of doesn’t really sync up with anything that’s happened outside of this season, which is fun! So Bette comes back outside. She is trying to act normal and failing.

Riese: She’s basically trying to find out if Tina and Kate have had sex. In what positions? At what time? How many times? How big her boobs are? Who was on top? Who did what? Did she use two fingers or her fist?

Carly: She wants to know everything.

Riese: She wants every detail.

Bette: “So, What are you doing for sex?”
Tina: “What? “

Carly: Which is the funniest question. Like the phrasing of it is ridiculous.

Riese: Tina delivers a sick burn.

Tina: “You Know, it’s not like I didn’t go for months at a time without having sex when we were together. I’ve gotta go. I have to go visit Helena.”
Bette: “OUCH.”

Carly: Such a sick burn, like rub some aloe on that sick burn.

Riese: I have an aloe plant.

Carly: Oh, that’s great. I have, I have some aloe in a little bottle that I can use if I get a burn or am itchy.

Riese: I just bought it recently for my room that I spend a lot of time in. Alone. Well, okay. Then we’re going back (sings) to prison!

Carly: We’re going back to the prison. We are once again, walking down a hallway full of other inmates to get to the room where you visit people.

Riese: This isn’t how it happens. You have to go in, and then they search you. It’s a whole thing, but there’s no universe in which visitors actually walk through the prison on their way to the visitor’s room.

Carly: No, but it gives Shane the opportunity to flirt with all the inmates in a way that we’ve never seen her flirt before. Like we’ve talked about this before. She is this aloof person who is always kind of waiting for women to come to her. And in this episode she does the complete opposite and it is yeah, very interesting. I don’t really know how I feel about it, but it was sort of funny I guess? So we’ve got Tina, Alice and Shane going to see Helena and um, Alice and Shane have two things they would like Tina to do number one, stop hanging out with Bette so much. And number two, don’t go back to dating men. Wow, great. So they go and sit with Helena. And Helena just wants to know if anyone’s gotten in touch with her mother and no, she has not returned anyone’s calls. Helena you’re on your own. Helena is very unhappy and will not tell anyone what she did with the money.

Riese: Yeah, That’s weird too. But this was a funny scene. It was a very funny like friendship scene. They’re like, you need to lay low.” “You need to let people know you’re not afraid.” “You need to get a family and get yourself a daddy.” It’s just like a fun little thing. They’re having fun in prison.

Carly: What fun!

Riese: Well, we’ll take our fun where we can find it.

Carly: Of course we have to do the classic prison scene joke about dropping the soap, which is so great. And not at all dumb or boring or a rote or offensive. So that’s great. She says that she thinks her cellmate is a psychopath is going to murder her.

Riese: Here’s what I think about her — I think all she knows so far is that her cellmate is hot.

Carly: Yeah, exactly. So get your assumptions out of here, Helena. It’s very rude.

Riese: Also you both know Dana. So that’s something you could have been talking about.

Carly: Unfortunately, no one on the show remembers that there was a person in their lives named Dana.

Carly: Then we jump to a very brief shot at The Planet, where Phyllis and Joyce are celebrating at the party. And then we go right back to Alice’s apartment where Shane is trying to get Alice to rally and go to The Planet for Phyllis’s party, but Alice is very distraught because she is watching the news about all caps WAR IN IRAQ. Breaking news. There’s a war.

Riese: It’s our favorite channel, NEWS CHANNEL. The little thing in the bottom reads “WAR IN IRAQ.”

Carly: And it is going to say the exact same thing in a scene later. That’s all it says. Breaking — not even breaking. I wish it had said BREAKING! War in Iraq! Like it had just happened.

Riese: So Alice hasn’t gotten a call. She is worried about Tasha. So Shane’s like, let’s do shots, and I’m like, yeah, that’s a good idea.

Carly: Shane, you’re a great friend.

Riese: And then they go to the Coming Out Party. So there’s two basic plots in this. One is Shane, Alice and Tina. They are trying to find Tina a girl. And then the other plot is like sort of Phyllis interacting with all of the queer women of —

Carly: The quote “lesbians of academia,” as Bette calls them.

Riese: Who all have “had their eye on her for a while” and have all gathered at this party to celebrate that Phyllis is a lesbian. This honestly reminded me of how my mom and her lesbian friends talked about stuff.

Carly: Oh my God. That’s amazing.

Riese: It really did! You know like, like, “Oh yeah, we had our eye on her.” I love you mom. Hope you’re not listening though, because that’d be weird.

Carly: Oh my God, does your mom listen to this?

Riese: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s ever listened to a podcast.

Carly: My mom semi-recently got into podcasts and I have not mentioned the existence of this podcast to her and I hope and I pray that she doesn’t find it. Although she did start an Instagram account and is following me. So it’s only a matter of time before my whole world comes crashing down.

Riese: My mom did that to me several years ago and I’ve been upset at her ever since. So basically the Tina plot is cute, I think?

Carly: Yeah. It’s like more cute friendship moments. They’re looking at all the girls, all the ladies and like, “Tina, you should go talk to her” and blah, blah, blah.

Riese: Jenny shows up. She tells her assistant to turn her office into a rainbow. It doesn’t make sense and then Shane and Jenny unite in a very touchy way because of Shenny seeds. And Shane asks Jenny to be nice to Tina and then Marissa quits cause she wants to go to church. (sings) Take her to church!

Carly: I think it’s really good that Marissa quit because this was not a healthy work environment for Marissa. Jenny then says to absolutely no one — which is actually very funny — “you have missed the opportunity of a lifetime Marissa.”

Carly: So then there is a woman that everyone’s scoping out on Tina’s behalf and Shane’s like, “I’ll handle this.” So she goes over to say hi to Joyce and Phyllis. And then they introduce her to all the academia lesbians and the woman that Tina was looking at is named Andrea and Shane uses a terrible pickup line.

Shane: “I’m sure you get this all the time. So this isn’t really original, but you really do have beautiful eyes. It’s true.”
Andrea: “Thank you.”
Shane: “You’re welcome.”

Riese: Okay. Is it, “do you have any of those sweet little figs?”

Carly: No, that would have been a good pickup line. She comments on her eyes.

Riese: Oh yeah. And also this is not the lead up to try to hook her up with your friend! Obviously it doesn’t work. Like she says that “my friend wants to talk to you” and it doesn’t work. Cause she wants to talk to Shane because everyone wants to talk to Shane, and you know who else wants to talk to Shane? Paige. She is present at the party. She shows up and is like, “Hey, I just have one question. Why did you ask us to move in with you?”

Carly: And you know what? That’s a really good question. Because if you recall, this was all Shane’s idea from last season. And if I remember our conversation about it correctly, Riese, I think we said that it seemed like Paige didn’t want to do this at all. And she just was sort of going along with it because Shane seemed very, very, very passionate about wanting them to all get a place together.

Riese: I think it’s really cool when partners really press hard for you to enter a certain living situation with them and then they decide they don’t want it anymore because — for whatever reason — and then, and then you are stuck with trying to figure out what the fuck to do with yourself now that all of this apartment nonsense or house nonsense has happened. I think that’s really great when people do that. And I’m really happy for both of them.

Carly: Shane’s real shitty in this whole situation.

Riese: She’s like, “I thought it would be good for us” and then Paige is like, “why’d you say Shay’s coming back?” And I’m like, yeah. Good question.

Carly: Again, a great question. Paige is full of good questions here.

Riese: Unanswered.

Carly: Paige is killing it in the scene.

Riese: She’s just like, “I know you have a problem.” And Shane’s like “yeah.” But she’s like “I could live with it. It’s just sex.” And then Shane is like, “no you deserve someone who loves only you and you alone.” What’s happening.

Carly: None of this makes sense? Why can no one acknowledge that being open or being poly is a thing.

Riese: Yeah, but it’s also … What is this conversation?

Carly: Shane just like led her into a situation that she wanted no part in. And is now just abandoning it in a very, very weird way.

Riese: Right. And also like it’s not for Shane to decide what kind of relationship Paige wants to be in. Anyway, none of this makes sense. The whole conversation doesn’t make sense. And then Paige just walks right out of the show.

Carly: Yep. Bye Paige! It was, it was nice to have you around. I’m sorry that Shane was shitty to you.

Riese: Well, that’s that. Sorry, Jared. Jared is similar to me and Carly at this time because I don’t think Jared has a pool and neither do we.

Carly: God, I totally feel for Jared in the scene with his lack of a pool now.

Riese: So Bette is like sitting with Tina. Very close to Tina.

Carly: I would describe it as “canoodling.”

Riese: I wrote down “canoodling.”

Carly: Of course you did.

Riese: I wrote “Bette is canoodling with Tina.”

Carly: Absolutely. So guess who’s here? It’s Jodi! Hi Jodi!

Riese: (Singing) She’s in town, she’s around, it’s Jodi!

Carly: I’m pleased to announce that in the wide shot where we see Jodi enter the planet, we can see that their menus do use the Papyrus font anymore. And I would just like to congratulate The Planet on getting new menus that don’t use the papyrus font.

Riese: (Claps) Good job. Everybody,

Carly: I’m really excited about the new menus! I hope Angus wasn’t the one that installed those. So then Jenny goes and sits with Tina and Alice. And Tina watches Bette and Jodi and Tina gets sad. And then suddenly everyone is all together. Bette and Jodi walk over. Shane is now here. Phyllis is thrilled to see Jodi because she needs some advice! She does not want to settle down with Joyce because it’s just like what she did with Leonard 20 some odd years ago. And I’m really impressed with Phyllis’s emotional maturity and her like wherewithal to be very, like — I feel like people could easily get swept up in that. And I’m really proud of her for not doing that.

Riese: I think the other thing is that Phyllis wants to bone all of the other lesbians of academia.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: And so she’s like surrounded by all of these like Nobel prize winners. And she’s like, “yeah, I could hit that, but I can’t if I move in with Joyce!” And Now she doesn’t know what to do. Did you know that on our podcast page, where it lists like all of our hosts, like it says like our names on iTunes or whatever? Like it has like our names, like Riese Bernard, Carly Usdin. And then it has like some people like El Sanchez? It also has Joyce Wishnia as one of the names of someone who’s been on our podcast. And I’m like, she’s not real?

Carly: We have to interview Joyce Wishnia for this podcast.

Riese: Oh my God, we should.

Carly: I need specifically the character of Joyce Wishnia to be interviewed. So the Joyce comes over and they’re going to toast Phyllis. And Alice calls Joyce “sloppy seconds.”

Riese: Yeah. That was gross.

Carly: That was unnecessary.

Riese: And little does she know that um, Phyllis wants… Uh… taffy… Thirds? With someone else?

Carly: What?!

Riese: I’m getting (weird voice) BACK IN THE HABIT ok? I’m getting Back in the Habit. Is there a thirds? There’s no thirds, is there?

Carly: No.

Riese: Okay. Thripple thirds? Throuple thirds!

Carly: Thirsty thirds!

Riese: It’s the year of the throuple, everybody!

Carly: Well tell that to this show.

Riese: They don’t know. They don’t know.

Carly: So, Bette and Jodi arrive at Jodi’s loft… Question mark?

Riese: Huh. Yeah.

Carly: What? Where, what, okay.

Riese: She should have gotten someone to sublet that shit while she was out of town, I hope.

Carly: Well, is it the same space she was staying in before? Or is it new? Because Bette set it up for her. I thought it was like, she got a new place and Bette set it up or something. I don’t know.

Riese: Bette was trying to set up for Jodi. Cause she said earlier that she wanted to like, get ready, like set something up for Jodi. So I think she wanted to sort set up like a nice little dinner with like — she has cheese and a fruit out. And I assume there’s wine and she wanted to do a nice little like, “Hey, you’re back. Let’s have this little one on one intimate time together.” Um and Jodi is mad about it?

Carly: Well, no, Jodi’s like, I wanted to set it up, this is my space. I wanted to set it up how I wanted to set it up. So I think that Bette decorated the space. That was my read on this. That when Jodi left, she didn’t like still have a place in LA maybe. And so she had to get one and then maybe Bette helped her. And then also decorated the entire thing. That’s how I read it.

Riese: Oh, I thought — cause earlier in episode she said she went to set up a thing for Jodi. So I thought that she meant like she was just going there to set up like her little like wine and cheese thing for Jodi.

Carly: Basically we don’t know what’s happening here.

Riese: Then there’s this moment where Bette’s like, “I don’t know what to do, “you know? And I felt that, like that feeling of when you are with someone and you have a thing you’re doing that you’re really excited about like, “we’re going to have a great Valentine’s Day!” “We’re going to have a great trip!” And then the moment when you realize it’s not working? And you’re like, “Oh fuck, like this thing I’ve been looking forward to for so long….”

Carly: “I don’t have a backup plan!”

Riese: “This thing we put all this positive energy towards is immediately falling apart. Like now what the fuck do we do?”

Carly: Well you know what the fuck we’re gonna do here is that they’re gonna…. DO IT. Jodi says “I’m going to take control of you.” And then she blindfolds Bette. And that is now unwittingly in a top off.

Riese: Yeah. And she’s losing,

Carly: Oh, she loses bad. I don’t need to do the whole top-off intro for this. I don’t think it really merits it, but this is a great scene.

Riese It is a great scene. Bette’s boobs look great, I wrote that down. And also we reenacted this scene for a video.

Carly: Oh wow. I didn’t not remember that.

Riese: I blindfolded Havilland. And then I handcuffed her.

Carly: I don’t remember that at all. Oh my God. That’s so funny.

Riese: And I said, now you can not be with Tina anymore. Cause I was Jodi.

Carly: “I Bind you Nancy!”

Riese: Exactly! “I Bind you against doing harm to others and to yourself!”

Carly: “I bind you against trying to get back together with Tina!”

Riese: So anyway, things are working out great for Bette and Jodi already.

Carly: Yup. And things are working out great for us because that’s a great scene. And also we have a top off in the first episode of season five, which is just great.

Riese: It’s a very hot, sexy scene.

Carly: Very good. And then we go, then we go to — honestly, this is so funny, Shane and her little Jeep come like screeching into a parking lot and the camera turns and we see that Wax is completely engulfed in flames. So let’s for one last time in tribute to Wax — (Carly does the trademark Wax guitar riff, makes explosion sound) That’s the sound of the explosion when it caught on fire.

Riese: Oops!

Carly: Also the music in the background of this is absolutely the same guitar riff that I’ve been doing. I just knew.

Riese: Oh really?

Carly: No, of course not. It’s just, it’s very much that type of music. The show knows that Wax has a song and that’s the song for Wax. So there’s an investigator and he’s like, “probably this was arson. Can you think of anyone, maybe a disgruntled employee or an enemy or someone you’ve pissed off lately?” Or something like that. And Shane lies and says she has no idea who could have done this. I’m really happy that she did not turn Paige in. Yeah. I just love more arson on the show. Arson, arson.

Riese: I love arson arson. And I think that this is, again, another, another look at like, a healthy, relaxed, lesbian breakup. You screw the realtor in the apartment that you’re showing to your girlfriend and her son. And then your girlfriend lights your place of work on fire.

Carly: Not just the girlfriend and the son, but IN the room that the son’s going to live in. That’s just really just fucking, yeah.

Riese: You’re fucking an extra on the floor of the son’s room — 2G, best apartment in the unit. And then she burns down your business of Wax and that’s all, that’s all.

Carly: This is the Wax outro. (Does Sad guitar riff).

Riese: Where will everybody find vests to gig in?

Carly: God? They’re not gonna be able to find guests — guests! Vests! — wow. Just fucking put me out of my misery.

Riese: Where are all the children gonna skate?

Carly: Where are they going to get haircuts?

Riese: Where is — Shay — where’s — how — MILKSHAKES?

Carly: Smoothies!?

Riese: Remember that assistant who didn’t want to do anything?

Carly: Oh yeah. It was definitely her.

Riese: What was her name? I feel like it was Marissa.

Carly: I feel like it was Carla and I don’t think either of those are correct. I know it’s not Marissa because Marissa is Jenny’s assistant.

Riese: You all know who we’re talking about. Who owned it? Chaz, or something?

Carly: Yes. Chaz.

Riese: Well, hope they have insurance, man. Actually, I hope they never address it until some post-show videos two years later.

Carly: That sounds so realistic. All right. So we go to our last scene of the episode. Alice is still watching the news about War in Iraq.

Riese: Which, by the way, bad show!

Carly: She’s just stressed out.

Riese: I just want to say that if I was dating someone who was in the military, which already is like…. I would have to very actively in order to not like, feel insane —.

Carly: Avoid the news?

Riese: Like if I was watching the news? Because the more I watched it, the more I’d be like, WHY ARE YOU A PART OF THIS???

Carly: But Alice is taking a different approach.

Riese: Yeah she’s uh, going whole hog.

Carly: Then there’s a knock at the door and Alice hilariously does this fake deep voice and is like_.

Alice: “Who Is it?”

Carly: Which I thought was very funny and Oh my God you guys it’s Tasha!!! She’s back!

Riese: And then they start making out and this is a hot, it’s a hot scene. Yeah. These are two attractive women and they’re having a nice time on the floor.

Carly: I literally wrote “good for them.”

Riese: I wrote “the war is on in the background, question mark?” The TV is still on.

Carly: If there’s one thing I love to have playing in the background when I’m having sex. It’s the news.

Riese: Yeah. The news.

Carly: The news channel. Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, News one. That’s where I get all my news.

Carly: Awww, New York One, we miss you.

Riese: Awwww, New York, there’s a place we can’t go.

Carly: There’s a place we’ll never go again because we can’t get on airplanes!

Riese: (A Series of sounds expressing sadness and frustration, in a very unhinged way).

Carly: We’re doing great. And that’s the episode.

Riese: That’s the episode!

(Musical Transition)

Carly: We did it. Look at us. We’re back in the habit.

Riese: Back in the habit again. We didn’t have a guest this time.

Carly: No, but we have all sorts of exciting guests coming up this season that you’re going to love.

Riese: Carly.

Carly: Riese.

Riese: Did you enjoy the episode?

Carly: It was fine. I didn’t hate it. Yeah. It was fine. There were some cute moments. I know it’s not my favorite of Season Five. It’s probably one of the weakest episodes of season five. So the only way from here is up, which is great. What about you?

Riese: Yeah. I enjoyed it most of the time. I think Shane’s character made no sense to me. The Jenny stuff is annoying, but understand where it’s going.

Carly: Oh there was the rampant transphobia.

Riese: The usual.

Carly: At least they kept it to one scene this time instead of multiple scenes. And Max was allowed to interact with other people actually on the show.

Riese: That was neat for him.

Carly: A real improvement for Max.

Riese: What happened to Grace? We’ll never know, but I hope she still has her website page.

Carly: I hope she’s still kicking.

Riese: I hope she’s still exactly literally kicking and being photographed, doing the kicks. The other thing I liked is that they didn’t introduce any new characters. Like we’re sticking with our core group, you know?

Carly: For now. And that’s good.

Riese: That’s good. We love it. So yeah, I would say on a scale of one to 10, it was fine.

Carly: On a scale of one to 10, it was okay.

Riese: I look forward to future episodes of the program.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: Here’s a reminder. I know it’s annoying, but every year we’re going to have to have two fundraisers or one fundraiser — it depends on how much ad revenue we make. In order to stay afloat and have our nice budget where people get paid a normal amount of money. And so we’re having our second fundraiser and we would love love if you could just toss a little bit of money in there to help us out because each of these episodes costs $500 to make. And we also are going to start transcribing all of them for you and that’s going to be more money. And so we really could use the support, if you like the podcast! It would be great. And I would like to tell you about some people who donated to our last fundraiser.

Carly: Oh, heck yeah.

Riese: Who we really love! Who left us really cute messages.

Carly: These are so cute. This like brightened my day. You guys are so funny.

Riese: I know, isn’t this so lovely?

Carly: All right. We’re going to name some people who we didn’t thank the last time. We’re going to thank them one by one. Could one of these people be you? Maybe.

TRANSCRIPTION NOTE: BECAUSE THESE NAMES WERE SUBMITTED WITH THE EXPECTATION THEY WOULD BE READ OUT LOUD BUT NOT PRINTED IN A SEARCHABLE TRANSCRIPT, I AM GOING TO CHANGE THE FULL NAMES WE SAID OUT LOUD INTO FIRST NAMES.

Riese: Number one, I would like to thank Caitlin.

Script Note:(Golden Girls theme song ‘Thank You For Being a Friend” starts playing)

Carly: We would like to thank Samantha!

Riese: Thank you. Anastasia!

Carly: Thank you, Brianne!

Riese: Thank you, Laura!

Carly: Thank you, Sophie!

Riese: Thank you, Clara!

Carly: And you know who else? Thank you, Leah!

Riese: Thank you, Rochelle!

Carly: Thank you Gabriella.

Riese: Thank you, Liz.

Carly: Thank you, Cathy.

Riese: Thank you Em!

Carly: And a big thanks to Indre.

Riese: And a big thanks to you, Mary.

Carly: Hey, Kelby? Thank you.

Riese: Milo —thank you.

Carly: Eleanor. Huge thanks to you.

Riese: Finn, thank you.

Carly: Katherine —thank you so much.

Riese: Hannah, thank you so much.

Carly: Thank you, Matilda.

Riese: And thank you, Emily.

Carly: And also while we’re talking about thanks, thank you to Courtney.

Riese: And also I want to just mention really fast, like thank you to Nicola?

Carly: Brilliant. Thank you all so much. And if you are able to please donate to the new Autostraddle fundraiser that is going on right now. Yes, you can follow this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tolandback. You can also email us, [email protected]. We’ve also got a hotline (971) 217-6130. You can call us, leave a message. You could also buy some merch, go to store.autostraddle.com. Get some merch. We’ve got stickers, we’ve got shirts. We’ve got all the other wonderful things on the autostraddle store that are not specific to this podcast. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Cara Sykes, and this podcast is produced and edited by Lauren Klein. You can find me at @carlytron. You can find Riese at @autowin.. You can find autostraddle @autostraddle.

Riese: Autostraddle dot com?

Carly: Autostraddle dot com.

Riese: Carol Straddle?

Carly: That’s a website. Carol straddle.

Riese: Also thank you to everyone who leaves us nice reviews. It really makes me happy. Okay. Are you ready? I am ready. Okay. One, two, three.

Riese and Carly: [INCOMPREHENDABLE].

Riese: What’d you say?

Carly: I said Letty, which is the character that Michelle Rodriguez plays in the fast and furious movies.

Riese: I said, Lewis, that’s my brother’s name. He recently had a human baby.

Carly: Oh my God. A human baby? Congratulations.

Riese: A full human! But she’s very small.

Carly: Well, that’s the thing with human babies. When the humans are created, they’re smaller and then they get bigger. I read that somewhere.

Riese: I would love to meet her, but I’m terrified of airplanes because I feel like they’re a disease chamber. So I don’t know how that’s gonna work out.

Carly: That sucks.

Riese: I would like to see her. Just thinking about that a little bit. Yeah.

Carly: Someday.

Riese: But it’s fine. I like seeing the same people over and over again.

Carly: I like never leaving my house. It’s great for my brain.

Riese: Yeah, we’re doing great.

Carly: We’re clearly in a really good shape.

Riese: (Groaning Noises, terrified inhales, bungled screaming).

Carly: Thank you all for listening. We are back to our usual weekly schedule, so we will see you back here next week. Yeah. BYEEEEE!!!!