Happy Monday, butternut squash souffles! Welcome back to your weekly round-up of queer-themed teevee. Last week, I rolled out a plan to write one thousand full recaps for you, but fell very short of my goals because I was stricken with Post-Camp Plague (including pink eye!), and also because there’s just too much queer TV to fully recap right now. It’s taking up all my hours, and I have other things I want to write for you! There are so many things to say about Miley Cyrus, for example. So many personal essays that need to be stitched together. I haven’t Photoshopped any cat posters for you in months!
So, Riese and I have talked it over and decided to move The Fosters to this column, instead of doing full recaps, so I can try to get Pretty Little Liars done the day after the episode airs, and do right by Orphan Black. And also, Riese and Gabby and I are tag-teaming hard to get your Orange Is the New Black season three recaps up in a timely manner. So, that’s the plan for now. That’s where we are.
Also, if you’re looking for the place to discuss your Orange Is the Black feelings, you’ll want our FRIDAY OPEN THREAD!
Here’s what happened on the television last week.
Sense8
Streaming on Netflix
We’ve been talking a lot about Sense8 because a lot of our writers and editors are marathoning it right now, and they have lots of different opinions and feelings, so expect a recap/review from Mey and some other folks real soon!
Younger
Tuesdays on TVLand at 10:00 p.m.
It’s never too late to switch teams, you know. Ellen is 15 years older than Portia and nobody blinks.
Hmm. Is Ellen Page single?
Younger aired its season one finale last week, and it was great! It wrapped a really excellent freshman season, in which every episode passed the Bechdel test! Ladies interacting about their careers! Ladies interacting about their families! Ladies interacting about other ladies! The show tackled sexism, ageism, the power of female friendships, and the inexplicable madness of unicycles in Brooklyn. Like I keep saying: Maggie, Liza’s lesbian BFF, didn’t have as much to do as I would have liked, but she did get a couple of short lived romantic entanglements and some great one-liners.
I think the second season is setting up for more of her, though! At the end of the finale, Liza’s daughter decided to move to Brooklyn to live with her mom and Maggie for a while. And also, Liza confessed to her boyfriend about her Big Lies, and they dealt with it and made up, so that should pave the way to more interactions with her lifelong best friend in the future. And I’m still not giving up hope for a Maggie/Lauren May/December love affair.
It wasn’t a deep, thinky first season, but it was a enjoyable one! It’s on TV Land on-demand, if you’re looking for a breezy way to spend an indoor weekend this summer.
Complications
Thursdays on USA at 9:00 p.m.
One more “XOXO” joke and I break your nose.
Jessica Szohr arrives on the series premiere of Complications this Thursday night, but you can go ahead watch the first 15 minutes of the show right now over at USA’s website page. It seems like a Batman origin story so far: Rich white guy works out the trauma of losing his family by becoming a vigilante. But Szohr’s few minutes of screentime as Gretchen Polk make me love her already. She seems like if Daria Morgendorffer were a lesbian nurse, which is basically all it takes to make me buy an engagement ring, if I’m being honest.
We’ll talk about the show more fully once the episode airs.
Hannibal
Thursdays on NBC at 10:00 p.m.
Well, Margot’s still alive, so that’s good, I guess!
Defiance
Fridays on Syfy at 8:00 p.m.
Ain’t no revenge like Indogene revenge ’cause Indogene revenge is biological warfare.
On Friday, Defiance opened its third season with a decisive, two-hour swing for the fences that left me slack-jawed and creeped out and mesmerized and even more smitten than I was last summer. This is one of my favorite science fiction shows ever, and my for sure favorite thing airing on Syfy these days (sorry, Lost Girl!), but it struggled during its first two seasons to figure out what, exactly, it wanted to be. A sci-fi western? A latter day BSG/Caprica-esque rumination on the meaning of life, with space stuff? A third-person shooter video game tie-in? Or a hardcore post-apocalyptic drama about the realities of multiple alien species living with humans on a busted earth after a world war that nearly destroyed the entire galaxy?
“The World We Seize” and “The Last Unicorns” settled firmly (and correctly) on that last thing. It added layers to every character by forcing all of them to make duplicitous and dubious choices for the greater good of their families, or the greater good of Defiance — except, ironically, lesbian Indogene doctor, Meh Yewll, who has made zillions of grey-area choices over the years and was forced to give up some of her own skin this week to heal a member of a new, hostile alien race that showed up in Defiance with the tools to mine the gulanite the town needs to supply itself with electricity. I say “ironically” because Yewll was part of a whole lot of shady doings during the war to ensure the survival of the Voltan, and even cloned Amanda’s sister and implanted a memory-fucker device in her brain to save her own life just last season, so it was very bizarre to see the tables turned and Yewll’s cool autonomy stripped away so quickly. Hopefully her ghost wife comes back to help her process her revenge.
Everybody’s double-crossing everybody, and everybody is going to pay!
Also, it’s worth mentioning that Jaime Murray’s Stahma Tarr is one of the best sci-fi characters of our time. She is a badass Slytherin feminist whose story arc during the first two seasons was so satisfying, and so surprisingly queer that it felt like breathing clean air for the very first time. Her feminist awakening happened in the bed of Mia Kirsher, y’all. It was outrageous and fantastic and I just want more, more, more.
Team TV coverage you may have missed
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IT’S HERE. WE’RE ALL HERE TOGETHER AND IT’S HERE.
+ The Fosters Episode 301 Recap: Lesbian Request Denied
Lena makes the very bad decision not to tell Stef that she kissed Monty.
+ FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: Your “Orange Is the New Black” Season 3 Feelings Go Here!
It’s live! Tell us all your feelings, and we will tell you ours!
+ Fan Fiction Friday: Get Your Six-Legged Monkey Crawl On With These 8 “Defiance” Fics
“Stahma Tarr has undergone one of the most remarkable patriarchy-smashing story arcs I’ve ever seen, just a straight up Squib-to-Slytherin transformation that actually all started when she fell in love with another woman.”
+ Pretty Little Liars Episode 601 Recap: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Alas, the Liars escape from the dollhouse without having a lesbian orgy.
+ 26 Excerpts From Scathing Amazon and Netflix Reviews Of “Orange Is The New Black”
“Two sets of breasts in the first 50 seconds told me not to bother.”
I have been hearing about Complications for a minute but it seems like one of those shows that only gets one season. That, and I get the feeling that the leads are eventually going to hook up and I really don’t care about yet another possible male/female pairing on tv.
So you guys ARE going to catch up on the Orphan Black recaps. I thought they might be gone for good.
Yeah, for sure on Orphan Black. I’m sorry I fell behind. Camp plus this mega cold really threw a wrench in my productivity!
Defiance is just the best show ever. From production to real plots and different kinds relationships and complicated power dynamics. It’s the shit.
Yeah, it really is. I wish Kenya would come back for real, though. That’d do a real number on Stahma (and Datak!).
When Datak dug up Kenya’s skull, and Stahma was holding it, he knew she loved Kenya more than him.
I’m caught up on OITNB and obviously Orphan Black and I watched 6 episodes of Sense8 today. I’m an exciting person. Defiance, get ready.
This weekend I binge watched seasons 2 and 3 of Orphan Black cuz somehow I had gotten that far behind, and omg, SO GOOD!!! Helena is maybe my new favorite clone, so cute and crazy!
I love Defiance and the season premiere was fantastic–but I’d watch even if it was terrible cuz I adore Jaime Murray just that much. It’s just a bonus for me that this show is also amazing! :)
They canceled “The Returned”, so no more Nikki & Julie or Myka Bering.
Really? I didn’t know that, what a bummer! I was enjoying that show :/ At least I hope they continue with the original French version.
I have seen promo art for the second season. I wonder what Camille looks like now.
That blue lizard skin textured person is scaring the shit out of me every time I open autostraddle.
I’m really sad to see The Fosters recaps go. I honestly would look forward to them all week, and they were definitely one of my favorite things. But I totally understand that there’s too much stuff going on, and I’m glad that The Fosters will at least be featured here.
Ditto. I’ve put off actually watching the show because Vicki and Heather have done such good jobs recapping it, so I guess this is the final push for me to watch it.
Such a shame. It’s one of the few shows that feature adult lesbians doing adult stuff… I’ll miss those recaps
Anybody watching season 3 of Wentworth and feeling like it’s redeemed itself after the disappointment of season 2?
Also really excited for Defiance, like I’m actually looking forward to getting a tooth yanked out later this week because then I’ll get to have the afternoon off so I’ll have time to watch it. From what previews I’ve read, I feel that having a bloodied mouth will be complementary to the viewing experience.
Noooooo! Not your Fosters recaps!
All right I know you have to sleep sometime but I’m going to miss those, dude.
Right? It’s a tragedy
The season premiere of Defiance was straight up brutal. Was I the only one who was completely terrorized — not by the purple people (eaters) — but by the other storyline, the one with Alac and Kirsty and Stahma?!? And then the violation of Doc Yewl, I know she’s got a really questionable past, but Madame Mayor and Irisa’s dad (wow I can’t remember names) were really super duper fine with cutting her up…