Hello it is Friday and that means it is only two days until Sunday and that is Vida day! Here’s the brand new promo for this week’s episode!
And if you’re wondering how to watch Starz, Carmen has a primer on that in last week’s Boobs Tube! You can also read Carmen’s recap of the first episode right here on this very website page.
This week, Cheryl Blossom somehow managed to get even more amazing on Riverdale. Riese made you a gay Law & Order quiz. And Valerie Anne recapped a legit really, really good episode of Supergirl.
Here’s what else!
Imposters 206: “That’s Enough. Off You Go.”
Written by Natalie
Part of the cons of Imposters‘ first season was leaving every victim with a blackmail envelope — evidence of something the victim or someone close to them had done that, if revealed, would have reverberations far stronger than whatever Maddie and her con artist sidekicks had stolen — that kept the victim from going to the police. From the beginning, we’ve known that Ezra’s envelope contained proof that his father had been carrying on a 20-year affair and that he’d stolen the patents that were the basis for the family business. We’ve known that Richard threw a football game to pay for his mother’s medical treatments…a worthy cause, yes, but public knowledge of his transgression would’ve killed his career aspirations. And while there have been hints about what’s inside Jules Langmore’s blackmail envelope, we never really knew for sure, until this week: Jules plagiarized her senior thesis for art school.
While a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, Jules had a roommate. She was a genius, her work always so surprising, her talent so enviable, but she suffered from bipolar disorder. The story is cloaked in euphemisms that suggest the roommate and Jules might have been something more, but the show, much to my frustration, doesn’t explore the connection; instead, only describing their relationship as intense. Sadly, the roommate committed suicide during their senior year which left Jules despondent and behind on her schoolwork.
With deadlines looming, Jules swiped her dead roommate’s project and presented it as her own, but she got caught…and just as Jules is preparing to accept whatever punishment RISD hands out, including the destruction of her art career, her family swoops in to save her. In the years since, Jules has carried the guilt of having her career built on this lie and resentment towards her family for saving her and towards herself for letting them.
But, ultimately, the thing that’s most interesting about the story that Jules tells isn’t the story itself, it’s to whom she unwittingly confesses: Lenny Cohen. Lenny Cohen, the fixer for the boss that’s been behind the con all along. Lenny Cohen, the fixer that’s been sent to track down Jules and the other imposters, and “recruit” them into con game (or, presumably, to punish them if they don’t acquiesce). Oh, and did I mention that Lenny Cohen is played by Uma Thurman?
Now personally, if the last girl I met at a bar had conned me, stolen all my money and propelled me into a situation where I’m running from the FBI, I might be a little more discerning about the women I meet in bars, but not Jules…she’s almost eager to unburden herself when she meets this stranger in a bar. For her part, Lenny’s remarkably honest with Jules — sure, she leaves out all the “I’ve been sent here to maybe kill you” stuff, but she’s candid about who she is — “I correct people who are in breach of contract” — and what she’s here to do. Jules is clearly charmed by Lenny’s gruffness, in much the same way she was charmed by CeCe’s when they first met, and accepts when Lenny invites herself over for dinner to meet Jules’ friends.
Jules, you in danger, girl.
Into the Badlands 303: “Leopard Snares Rabbit”
Written by Valerie Anne
This week’s episode starts with the Widow’s Butterflies showing up to the Iron Rabbit’s burrow, where Tilda and Odessa had been planning together like good little anarchy girlfriends. They were warned barely in time, and it’s really just enough to avoid a full ambush.
The fight is brutal—Tilda is forced to kill a girl she used to fight alongside, and Odessa steps in to save Tilda from the Regent, resulting is kidnapped and taken back to the Widow.
The Widow has Odessa in the cage and tries to get information from her. She wants to know who warned the bunnies in the burrow, but Odessa doesn’t budge, not even when the Widow throws in some low (metaphorical) blows, calling her “an inconsequential fling” and saying Tilda will choose her mother over Odessa someday. When she leaves her men to continue trying to extract information from her, she tells them to keep her pretty…she DOES want Tilda to forgive her eventually after all.
Tilda comes flying into Lydia’s window to seek vengeance for her girlfriend, when she’s informed that Odessa isn’t dead, just kidnapped. So Tilda marches right through the front door of the Widow’s mansion and demands an audience. Just like that.
Tilda is willing to give up her whole Iron Rabbit deal to save Odessa. And the Widow brings Odessa out, but before she’ll hand her over, she wants more than a promise that her convoys will be protected. She wants Tilda back fighting by her side. So Tilda ups the ante too: free MK.
As if on cue, MK flies in all rage and violence and Tilda talks him down in the way only Tilda can and she exchanges a knowing nod with the Widow before letting Odessa lead her out. While I’m glad they both got out of that situation relatively unscathed, and I’m glad Tilda and the Widow might work together again soon, I do fear it will be at the expense of the Tildessa relationship. Only time will tell!
Timeless 208: “The Day Reagan was Shot”
Written by Valerie Anne
Here’s the thing: If you’re not watching Timeless, you should be. I think we’ve written about it here before, so I won’t give you a full synopsis, but it’s smart and it’s fun and it’s feminist af. They don’t sugar-coat the past the way some time travel shows do, often highlighting how Lucy, a woman, and Rufus, a black man, might not have the easiest time in one decade or another. I’ve learned more about real history than anything my white/straight/male-washed history books every taught me.
And what’s more, one of the regular characters is Agent Denise Christopher, a queer woman of color. Granted, her wife (also a qwoc) isn’t mentioned much, but they made a point to let us know that Agent Christopher had a wife and kids, and even have Lucy meet them once, and making sure their timeline isn’t interrupted is always important to Denise.
This week’s episode, though, was a Big Gay Episode, and the entire plot revolved around Denise, her wife, and her gayness. Lucy and their programmer, Jiya, go back to the 80s, thinking they had to save President Reagan, but quickly realizing they actually were meant to save a young Agent Christopher. A brush with death that didn’t happen in the original timeline pushes Denise into agreeing to go through with an arranged marriage to a man, so Lucy and Jiya pretend to be a lesbian couple (appropriately named Cagney and Lacey) to try to get her to admit that being married to a man, arranged or not, wouldn’t make her happy.
Especially since that marriage would result in her quitting the police force, which would mean she never got recruited by the FBI, which means the time travel program they all use to save the world on the regular would probably never exist. Plus also she’d be fucking miserable.
At first, Denise is hesitant; her Indian family is very traditional. She watched her cousin get disowned for marrying a white guy, being a lesbian in 1981 wasn’t exactly going to be smooth sailing. Desperate, both to save the timeline but also to save her coworker and friend a life of misery she knows is avoidable, Lucy breaks all the rules of time travel and whips out a laptop and a flash drive and shows Denise a slideshow of her family in the future. Her wife, her two kids, their collective happiness. Denise’s eyes fill up with wonder and she asks, “Two women can get married?” Hearing that, seeing those pictures, it gave her hope. That moment, in a nutshell, is why representation is important. Sometimes all it takes to ease an anxiety is a promise that something is possible. Just knowing something has been done, or could be done, is sometimes enough to make it less scary. It can, in short, give you hope.
Anyway, whatever Lucy and Jiya do, it ends up being even better than the first time around, because not only did they get Denise to call off the arranged marriage, but somehow they got the timeline to change so that instead of being totally estranged, Denise’s mother is now a bigger part of her life. And of course, her wife and kids are still happy and healthy and having pizza night just as they planned.
It was a really nice change of pace to have an entire episode revolve around ensuring the lesbian character DIDN’T get shot. And Agent Christopher has worried from the start that her wife and kids might just poof from existence, so therefore that has been a worry of mine all along as well. But instead the emotional crux of this very emotional episode was giving a young police officer hope that she could be a badass FBI agent with a wife and kids someday, and helping her follow through on that plan.
Once Upon a Time 720: “Is This Henry Mills?”
Written by Carmen
Tilly’s been coerced to join Mother Gothel’s secret witch coven in order to save her father and her girlfriend, because she’s The Guardian and can hold all the dark magic in the realm without succumbing to it, which is apparently some powerful stuff (oh, man! This show! Amirite?). She’s hypnotized along with the rest of the coven; they just repeat the same spell over and over again, bringing all the world’s dark magic back to Seattle. When each member of the coven completes their job, they get turned into a tree seedlings, which means that Tilly is going to die.
Her dad, the New Captain Hook (they call him “Nook”, get it?), doesn’t quite get what’s going on because he’s still cursed and thinks he’s a Seattle Police Detective. But, he knows that something isn’t right here. He gets reinforcements, first from Detective Weaver (Rumplestiltskin, who’s already awake from the curse and VERY AWARE of what is going on here), and then from Tilly’s girlfriend Margot (Robin Hood!!! Here to save the day!!!).
The trio returns to the coven in a futile attempt to either wake Tilly or break Gothel’s magical hold on her. Margot’s so nervous, her hands are shaking! Luckily, she’s a queer girl in 2018; she’s not freaked out by a little witchy activity. She slices through the coven like it’s nothing and walks right up to Tilly.
She places a gentle hand on her shoulders and looks her in the eyes. Her voice is gentle and patient, like she’s talking to small, shaking, scared cat.
“Hey there — There are a lot of people who are really worried about you, but I know that you’re just having one of your bad days. But if you come with me, maybe we can turn it into a good one. What do you say?”
From beneath her trance, Tilly cries at the sound of Margot’s voice. A single tear breaks through, rolling down her cheek. Before the power of Margot’s love can take root, the dark magic bites back. In a bright flash, Tilly turns Margot, along with the rest of the rescue party, into a scene from Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.
The season long curse breaks when, in the main plot of the episode, Henry and Regina Mills save the day. Back at the coven, everyone’s returned to normal size. Remembering who they are for the first time all year, Robin Hood takes off Margot’s glasses and runs into Alice’s arms.
They hold each other so tight, Alice’s hands turn red from her grasp. They whisper memories of love and and sweetness, their breath mingling in the cold air. Alice is overcome; she had promised Robin, no matter what, they would always remember each other. And she was right! The hero music swells and Robin kisses the love of her life like she never wants to stop kissing her, ever again.
Gothel makes one last attempt to turn Alice to the dark side, promising that they can be a family. With her father on one side of her, and Robin on the other, clasping her hand tight, Alice faces down her wretched mother once and for all. She’s not alone anymore. She’s not an orphan, she’s no longer “a crazy girl who’s lost her way”. She never will be again. With that, she uses all her magic and the love that surrounds her and turns Gothel into a freaking tree!!!!
Side Note: This is not gay, but if you’re a fan of Regina Mills and her relationship with her son, Henry — this is the episode for you! It’s a beautiful love letter to the mother/son relationship that’s been at the heart of the show throughout the last seven seasons.
Quick Hits
Westworld 203: “Virtù e Fortuna”
Westworld still isn’t any queerer than having Evan Rachel Wood Bisexual leading the charge, but it’s still pretty fun so far, and there are a lot of women in charge of things. Dolores is going by Wyatt now and causing a ruckus as usual, Tessa Thompson took command of some soldiers, Maeve is a woman on a mission, and our girl Armistice made a surprise re-appearance. Plus we met a woman who washed up on the shores of Westworld from a safari land, and I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of her, either. — Valerie Anne
Things on the cobbles have been kind of a mess lately, but this week the writers showed that their still capable of impactful storyline as news of Aidan Connor’s suicide spread across Weatherfield (Gail’s speech was a highlight for me). Grief manifests differently for everyone and for Kate, it’s mostly anger. She’s livid at her brother, chastising him for his selfishness and promising to never forgive this transgression. Rana shows up on Friday’s episodes to comfort her girlfriend, just as Kate’s anger starts to give way to grief. — Natalie
Grey’s Anatomy 1423: “Cold As Ice”
I’m happy to report that April Kepner did not die! She did get very, very cold and almost drown. It was a sort of throwback to episode 3.17 “Some Kind of Miracle”, where Meredith almost drowns, but the hospital staff brings her back to life. Anyway, April is safe and happily back in love with Matthew — the Christian EMT that she left at the altar for Jackson all those years ago. No word yet on how she’s officially leaving the show, but I’m glad that she’s getting a (off camera) happy ending!
Ok, the gay stuff! Geena Davis came back as Dr. Herman (AKA Dr. Dottie Hinson #ALeageOfTheirOwn #NeverForget). She’s even funnier than I remember and Geena Davis is obviously always a megawatt talent. I was impressed with her acting choices and how she approached Dr. Herman’s blindness. Arizona was going to leave her neonatal surgery practice behind and go back into peds surgery as part of her big move to New York, but instead Dr. Dottie Hinson offers to open up a new maternal care research clinic in NYC with Arizona at the head! It’s going to be called the “Robbins-Herman Center for Women’s Health””. No word yet on Callie, but Arizona did mention her (using her full name Calliope! heart eyes) before getting cut off mid sentence. It sounds like Callie is excited for the move and being very supportive! AWWW, YOU GUYS!!! — Carmen