Boob(s On Your) Tube: Betty McRae and Sara Lance Finally Make Out on “Legends of Tomorrow”
It’s been a rough week for queer TV viewers, but these three shows were a light in the darkness!
Legends of Tomorrow
Thursdays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.
Ali “Betty McRae” Liebert made her long-awaited debut on Legends of Tomorrow last night, and after the TV week it’s been, it was a balm to my scorched brain and heart. This show is not great, please don’t get me wrong. The writing is fragmented and clunky and the acting isn’t — like, it’s not Tatiana Maslany-caliber, let’s say that. But it’s a fun little diversion and the writers have been really intentional about Sara Lance’s bisexuality, which we all worried would be erased after she was resurrected in the Lazarus Pit on Arrow. In fact, it only made it stronger, leading me to the conclusion that when your life flashes before your eyes, the thing you will wish you had done more of is: make out with women. So let that be a lesson for us all.
This week the gang is headed to the ’50s on the trail of Savage. Stein thinks the ’50s are idyllic! Sara says, “Yeah, if you’re white. And a man. And straight.” She goes undercover as a nurse in a mental institution and runs almost immediately into Betty, who is getting harassed by a skeevy doctor.
Doctor: Is that your new perfume I smell? If you want to drive everyone crazy, it’s working.
Betty: I’m busy.
Doctor: You know what your problem is? You don’t know how to have a good time. What you need is a man who can show you one.
Sara opens a drawer really hard and almost knocks the skeevy doctor over, definitely causing him to spill hot coffee all over himself. He harrumphs out of the room while Sara and Betty share a flirty, knowing look. Betty explains that the doctors here are all harassers and the women just deal with it because they’re looking for husbands. Not Betty though. She doesn’t know what she wants, but a husband is definitely not the thing. Sara cocks that little eyebrow up and asks Betty to give her a tour. They land in the cafeteria and Sara wastes no time straight up asking Betty things like, “Do you have a girlfriend? Have you ever kissed a girl? Did you like it?” Betty is taken aback, but shyly says she did one time kiss a woman but she’s not convinced that makes her a —
Sara: Lesbian?
Betty’s eyes: [open as wide as the moon]
Sara: It’s not a bad word.
Betty: Around here it is.
Stein busts up their flirty coffee break and accuses Sara of seducing Betty. Sara explains she was actually liberating her (with an option to seduce her later).
Really, though, the seduction happens much faster than later. Like almost immediately. In a supply room, Betty kisses Sara and Sara kisses Betty, but then Sara breaks apart and runs out of the room. Back in the TARDIS she explains it to Stein like: When she was resurrected, she lost all her feelings, and then all of a sudden she was kissing a girl and it was like kissing a girl for the first time and it was awesome and also super terrifying.
Although not quite as terrifying as the mental institution, where Savage is turning patients into vampires. In the night, one of them escapes and one of the team gets turned and it’s all panic and mayhem and Betty almost gets eaten alive! But Sara rushes in and saves her life! And that’s when Betty finds out that Sara is actually a time-traveling superhero.
Betty: I’m not sure I’m ever going to get fully back to normal.
Sara: Good.
Betty: Thank you for rescuing me.
Sara: Well, you rescued me first, so we’re even.
Betty and Sara: [smooooooooch]
Betty: Shoulda known better than to fall for a ninja.
Sara says maybe they’ll be back this way again some time. Betty hopes so. And so do I, reader. So do I.
Fresh Off the Boat
Tuesdays on ABC at 8:00 p.m.
Written by Laura Mandanas
In “Keep ‘Em Separated,” Jessica and Honey are about to have a book club meeting when an exceptionally chatty Louis sits down and prevents the pair from discussing the extremely important issue of who they would haunt if they were ghosts. Frustrated, the women relocate to a place Louis is unlikely to follow them: The Denim Turtle, Jessica’s favorite lesbian bar. (Which she doesn’t recognize as such due to her broken gaydar. Honey’s gaydar, though, works just fine. Remember that summer she was a lesbian? Me too.)
Honey: Doesn’t it feel a little weird hiding from your husband like this?
Bartender Deb, knowingly: Here we go.
Jessica: Louis is great, but ever since he stopped staying late to close the restaurant, he’s just been around a lot more. And sometimes you just want girl time.
Bartender Deb, significantly: Mmhmm!
Unfortunately, Louis soon joins them with a bottle of “pocket wine.”
Bartender Deb: How’d you get that past our bouncer?
Louis: It wasn’t easy. She’s got a meaty frisk.
Bartender Deb, appreciatively: Yeah, that’s Barb.
Over the course of the rest of the episode, we watch Jessica struggle with the idea that her husband can have platonic friendships with person of a different gender. In the end, she agrees that he can play pool with a woman as his partner on one condition: Bartender Deb and two friends (one of whom I believe was a bar patron in “Blind Spot,” where we were also introduced to Deb and her partner Bev; I love the continuity in this tiny lesbian world they’re building!) tag along to supervise. The episode ends with the trio chastising Louis when his pool partner pats his arm. Louis apologizes for breaking Jessica’s rules and the lesbians nod in approval.
How to Get Away With Murder
Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.
Written by Sadie
And now for the penultimate episode. It starts off exactly where last week’s episode ended: Anneliese on the phone with Eve when Philip attacks her from underneath the bed. She gets away and manages to run out of the apartment, having Eve meet her at the police station.
Flashback. Ten years ago Annalise has just left the scene of the suicide and is presumably at the same police station where Wes is being interrogated. We see that scene with Annalise and Eve behind the glass that we’ve seen like four hundred times. Anneliese then tries to convince the FBI to drop the homicide investigation, since you know, she knows it wasn’t homicide per se. The FBI lady says she has no intention of pursuing Wes but says the the old white dude should probably watch out.
Back in the present. Annalise and Eve arrive at the house. The whole team is excited to see her safe, but Eve quickly pushes Annalise up to her bedroom. Upstairs Annalee starts to ask Eve about her dating life while she patches her up. Eve says that Annalise should just be honest with Wes, and then she should drive up to New York and live with Eve. I totally agree with all of that; this show needs more Eve. Annalise says that Nate will make sure that she’s okay and then — surprise surprise! — Nate shows up. Eve is rightfully annoyed by this, as am I.
Nate has come to the house to inform the team that Caleb has gone missing. This obviously upsets Michaela.
Flashback. Annalise and Frank are talking about where to go next with the case when old white dude shows up and Annalise kicks Frank out. He’s afraid now that there is no hope of winning the case for his son. Now that their only “alibi” is dead. Annalise is convinced that there’s something else going on here and confronts the old white dude about it. Asking him why she was so afraid, why she would commit suicide because of him. Then the old white dude does the one thing he’s good at: thinly veiled threats.
In the present the District Attorney has called the team in for questioning in regards to the video sent by Philip. I don’t really understand why this is going on because I’m pretty sure they have immunity but I guess he’s trying to catch them on something they might not have immunity for. Bonnie acts as legal representation for them but it’s not like they really need it. Each team member knows exactly what they need to say to the DA and it seems to work at stalling him, at least for the meantime.
Back at the house Asher calls Bonnie “Bon Bon” and then Bonnie calls Frank out for killing Lila and it totally goes over Asher’s head. Bonnie and Frank then decide to hash things out in, you guessed it, the basement. Frank’s safe space apparently.
From this point and for the remainder of the episode Annalise decides it’s time to get very drunk, possibly to work up the nerve to finally tell Wes what’s going on. In the other room Asher is trying to apologize for getting everybody into this mess but in reality he’s only a small part of said mess and like Bonnie said: “Stop apologizing, we are all bad people. That’s the only thing we have in common.”
Next we have a series of impossible to describe flashbacks within flashbacks culminating in Annalise asking Eve to tell the police that Rose said she was threatened by the Mahoney family and that’s why she killed herself. Eve wants nothing to do with that mess and tells Annalise that she should be cautious herself if she’s going to move forward. Annalise then storms out to come forward about it herself. On the way, her car gets jackknifed and she ends up in the hospital having an emergency C-section for her baby.
Back in the present Asher is now being called to the DA’s office. This time he wants to talk about why Asher was at the courthouse that night. (He totally wasn’t murdering someone in the parking garage). Once everyone gets back to the house, Bonnie confronts Annalise and tells her that she needs to go ahead and tell Wes everything. That the guilt about this is killing her and it needs to end. Annalise, not liking being told what to do but accepting it, yet again kicks everyone out of the house telling them to go out and get drunk. And they do. She tells Wes to stay behind and begins telling him everything. Telling him about her obsession with the case, how it cost Wes his mother, and how it cost her the life of her baby. She says that it’s her fault his mother died. And then comes the ultimate shocker, except for those of the commentariat who guessed it last week: Old white dude is Wes’s father. (Or you know his bio dad or whatever.)
Later on that night, Laurel shows up wasted to Annalise’s door. At the same time Bonnie is at Frank’s confronting him about Lila’s murder. As it turns out, Annalise knew nothing of Frank’s involvement. Laurel spills the beans to Annalise setting up the conflict for next week.
So what’s next? Eve is clearly still in love with Annalise, fingers crossed Annalise takes her up on that New York offer. Wes is probably going to seek out old white dude in New York, so maybe a change of scenery for next week’s season finale.
The 100
Thursdays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.
Written by Karly
Not this week, kittens. Maybe next week. We’ll see.