Hello, Boobs Tubers! It has been quite a week of TV news; lucky for you, Natalie is a superhuman genius who was able to keep it all straight and write it all down for you (while also providing you with the full Batwoman trailer). Also this week, Riese made a list of ALL 91 actors who were on both The L Word and Battlestar Galactica. Drew reviewed Fleabag‘s brilliant second season. Kayla recapped the seriously batshit bananas Riverdale season finale. Lindsay wrote an ode to Arthur’s gay wedding. Queer Girl made you a guide for how to flirt like Gentleman Jack. Valerie Anne recapped Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow. And Riese and Kristin unleashed another episode of To L and Back!
Reminders from the TV Team:
+ We maybe already mentioned this but Harlots comes back July 10th and I’m VERY EXCITED ABOUT IT. — Valerie Anne
Here’s what else!
The Flash 522: “Legacy”
Written by Valerie Anne
I won’t lie to you, I haven’t seen the finale of The Flash, and frankly, I’m not sure I ever will. Because in this episode, Nora West-Allen, the first regular queer woman on the show, was erased from the timeline. ERASED. And in a country that is literally trying to avoid acknowledging same-sex marriages and wants to deny their children citizenship because of it, I don’t have time for shows who want the credit for a queer character without even trying to be halfway decent representation. I’m so tired. If you need me, I’ll be sticking with the female-fronted CW superhero shows from now on.
Grey’s Anatomy 1525: “Jump Into The Fog”
Written by Carmen
WELL. THEN. How does Dr. Amelia Shepherd Bisexual sound to everyone?
It happens pretty quick. While taking a laboring Teddy to the hospital in the back of a police car during an epic fog (long story), Amelia suggests that the two become friends. After all, they are about to become somewhat family to one another. Teddy only has one question: Is Amelia still in love with Owen?
And that’s pretty damn complicated, you see, because sure Amelia still has lingering feelings for Owen, but Amelia falls in and out of love like a goldfish has memories. In a split second it can be gone. In fact, when Owen and Amelia broke up the first time (at the start of Season 14), Amelia walked in on Owen having sex with Carina DeLuca – !!! – and she was jealous – !!!!! – BECAUSE SHE HAD “A ‘LIL CRUSH” ON CARINA – !!!!! – WHICH WAS THE REASON WHY SHE MASTURBATED FOR CARINA’S ORGASM STUDY !!!!!!!!!!!
Whoa, so much bisexual goodness to process! So little time! It’s so short in fact you can watch the whole scene in 30 seconds. Here’s the video:
I asked our TV Team Resident Bisexual Natalie Duggins what she thought last night, and she said she doesn’t think this officially makes Amelia bisexual. She had a brain tumor after all! And the Grey’s doesn’t make it very clear if the crush on Carina was a tumor symptom or a part of Amelia’s broader sexuality. But still, a girl can dream!
(Speaking of dreamboats, Dr. Orgasm herself makes an appearance at the end of the episode to deliver Teddy’s baby girl. Her hair was bouncy and glorious as always. This was Grey’s season finale, so I’ll see all back here on Thursdays in the fall!)
Station 19 217: “Into the Wildfire”
Written by Carmen
It’s been a long time since Bisexual Olympian Firefighter Maya Bishop has graced this column. She spent the back half of Station 19’s second season in a relationship with Jack, a fellow lieutenant in the department and also her best friend’s ex-boyfriend. Listen, it’s Shondaland, so you know shit’s going to be messy. Anyway, Jack and Maya seem pretty good for each other and have been supportive and sweet and all that jazz, but it’s always left a bad taste in my mouth that their relationship started by them sneaking around Andy’s back. Maya didn’t want to crush her besties feelings, but nothing is worse than a secret in my opinion. Whatever. They all came clean and worked it out. Happily Ever After. Right?
Not so fast. You see another firefighter in the department, Dean (who if you are anything like me, you know primarily as Hercules Mulligan from Hamilton but I digress) has been dating this new girl that he’s head over heels about. Her name is Nicole and she’s super cute. She has a perfectly trimmed natural cut, gold earrings; she’s kind, smart and everything you can hope for. In the season finale cliffhanger, Dean brings her by the department to meet the rest of his crew.
Maya reaches out for a handshake, but her face goes slack with recognition. She’s stunned speechless.
Nicole? Oh yeah, that’s her ex.
Sometimes Karma comes back to bite you hard.
Charmed 121: “Red Rain”
Written by Carmen
The Harbinger of Hell has everyone bleeding out of their eyes, nose, mouth and it’s really effing disgusting and please don’t make me describe it for you in detail, OK? The Charmed Ones got called to the hospital by Macy’s ex-boyfriend Dr. Galvin due to all the aforementioned bleeding that he’s pretty sure is demon-based (it is!). In the hospital hallway, the sisters watch in horror as Niko is wheeled by on a gurney.
Mel figures out pretty quickly that Niko’s symptoms are different from the other patients. She’s not bleeding from her eyes and ears – just the nose. Still, Harry is unable to heal her. Using her empath powers, Maggie hears Niko’s memories literally flooding her brain. When Mel told Niko the truth about her memory-altering spell, something in her ex-girlfriend snapped and its manifesting itself physically in her body. Of course, Mel’s horrified! But before the sisters can think through their next steps to help, Greta shows up in the hospital room. She takes one look at Mel at her fiancée’s bedside and bans her from the room.
This is maybe an unpopular opinion, but I sort of feel for Greta? We’ve spent a lot of time this season on the love triangle between Mel, Jada, and Niko – but really, it’s Greta who is the true loser here. She’s lived out two completely different timelines, and in both of them her heart gets broken. Niko always chooses Mel instead. So it’s not hard to empathize with why Greta would take off the ring that Mel gave Niko; it’s a painful reminder that she doesn’t have her fiancée’s heart. Too bad it’s also a protection spell, and without it Niko’s in real danger.
When Mel returns to the hospital, hoping to perform a restorative spell and help fix Niko’s memories, she discovers something dreadful! Not only has the Harbinger of Hell turned into an airborne virus (imagine it like a zombie apocalypse), but without the protection of her ring Niko is no longer immune. She’s become infected, just like everyone else! When Mel walks in on her, she’s actively trying to, like, eat a nurse’s head. So… there’s that.
Meanwhile, Galvin realizes that from his study of ancient Yoruba texts, he might be able to stop the virus. He saves everyone, but it comes at the cost of his own life. So Niko is ultimately sparred, but Macy has lost her fist love. Just some more drama brewing as we head into Sunday’s season finale! See you witches then! XOXO
The Good Fight 310: “The One About the End of the World”
Written by Natalie
Mutually assured destruction. It’s a national security doctrine that says, essentially, “Whoever shoots first, dies second.” And last week, when Reddick/Boseman got Roland Blum disbarred, they shot first. This week, Blum returns, aiming his ire at the firm, hoping that they die second.
Blum recruits some of Reddick/Boseman’s most prominent clients, including victims of police brutality, to sue the firm for taking too much of their respective settlements. In each case, the firm walked away with more money that their clients did. But because he can’t argue the case himself, he allows his new partner, Maia Henson, to take the reigns. She produces a recording of their lead plaintiff, Perry Cardwell, meeting with Julius Cain where Cain urges Perry to seek out government assistance instead. This, plus the revelation that the firm pocked 60% of Cardwell’s settlement with the Chicago Police Department, is enough to earn Maia a full hearing before Judge Tootsi, another hapless Trump appointee, played hilariously by This is Us‘s Chris Sullivan.
Outside the courthouse, Diane confronts her goddaughter over her alliance with Blum. Fully embracing her heel turn, Maia is unapologetic: no one else would hire her and Blum’s giving her an opportunity to build a firm from the ground up. Though I’m not sure I believe her, Maia assures Diane that she’s only coming after Reddick/Boseman because they’ve done wrong. She wants to recoup money for the firm’s former clients, Blum is out to destroy them. Later, in a meeting with Boseman to talk about a settlement, Blum affirms his stance. There’s no amount of money that could compensate him for the anger he feels. After being stripped of his livelihood, nothing short of the firm’s complete destruction will suffice.
It doesn’t work, of course. While Maia initially uses the judge’s naiveté to her advantage, Diane turns the tables by simplifying the defense’s case. She asks one expert to dumb their explanation of contingency fees down to a storybook level (complete with illustrations!) while the other expert plays to the judge’s ASMR fixation. Blum tries to get the judge back on their side by staging a Brooks Brothers riot in the courtroom. It’s successful enough that it gets the defense worried and Diane’s sent to Maia to buy her out: she can return to Reddick/Boseman and claim a slot as an equity partner.
Even once the judge sides with Reddick/Boseman — the story of Judy Giraffe really got to him — Diane maintains that the offer for Maia is still on the table. But it’s too late, Maia can’t go home again and while Blum has been disbarred in Illinois, he can still practice in DC. She says goodbye to Diane, steps on the elevator, pops a fentanyl lollipop in her mouth and steps out into her future with Roland Blum.
Maybe, if Maia was going to go full heel it had to end this way — with her closing the door on Lucca, betraying Marissa and rejecting Diane — but I wanted more out of this finale than it gave. But The Good Fight really is the “only TV show that gets life under Trump” maybe the fact that everyone had a little less fight in them than I’d hoped is just art imitating life.
Jane the Virgin 508: “Chapter Eighty-Nine”
Written by Heather
The thing that freaked me out about Petra and JR getting back together so early this season was that there’s still so much time to breakup. And this week, it felt like it was going to be that week. Petra’s twins, it turns out, aren’t immune to all the evil machinations and shenanigans they’ve been exposed to in their young lives. For starters, they’ve learned some of Petra’s tricks, which they use to send emails to Miloš and also to point a laser pointer at JR’s head so she and Petra will think she’s about to be sniped. Why? Because they saw JR shoot Miloš and in addition to that trauma, they’re going through active shooter drills at school all the time. Petra decides she needs to let JR go, for the good of her girls — but JR won’t let Petra go. She says there’s space for all their fears and feelings and trauma and she wants to work to get to know the twins better, to try. It’s so sweet and so mature and just another nice surprise in a series of seemingly endless nice surprises about their relationship.
Gentleman Jack 104: “Most Women Are Dull and Stupid”
Written by Heather
Anne is on tenterhooks this week as Miss Walker reveals that she cannot accept Anne’s proposal when the newly widowed clergyman who was married to one of her best friends also expects her to marry him. Well, Anne will not entertain such a non-answer! Not about this! Not about anything! But especially not about this, on account of her life has been an endless series of women pledging themselves to her and then leaving her for a men of more considerable means. She gives Miss Walker the weekend to decide, and goes about her business — smashing rocks in the field alongside her workers, day-drinking with them, taking a ride through her mines and continuing to run negotiating circles around the Rawson brothers, needling her sister, swaggering around town at such a pace, solving multiple mysteries — and only works herself up into a heartbroken stupor while journaling one single time.
A basket of fruit arrives on the designated day of lesbian proposal acceptance or denial, but inside is just a slip of paper that says yes and one that says no and Anne should just take whichever answer she pulls out first. This wishy-washiness sends her over the edge. She marches up to Miss Walker’s estate, all, “Are you serious with this childish—” but Miss Walker cuts her off and explains the situation. This widower, this clergyman, he seduced Ann over the course of her visits to see her best friend. He just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and finally Ann had sex with him and now she’s worried that means she’s actually engaged to him, or what it might mean to her reputation if anyone else finds out. The letter this motherfucker wrote to her, he’s already acting like he owns her. Ann sobs and sobs and Anne holds her and cups her head in her hands and brushes the tears from her cheeks. She says she would have always helped Ann out of this scrape, even if her answer had been no. She says she’ll take care of this guy.
“What are you going to do to him?” Miss Walker asks.
Anne cradles her head, looks over it, directly into the camera, sneers, “I haven’t decided yet.”
The Bold Type 305 – 306: “Technical Difficulties” and “TBT”
Written by Carmen
Maybe you’ve already heard the hot gossip, but Kat Edison is running for NYC Council! We could pretend to care about the serious reasons why (the incumbent from Kat’s district shut down the last lesbian bar in Greenwich Village, believes gentrification is a good thing, and is a general asshole person) – but it’s The Bold Type so the reasons essentially boil down to: Girl Power! Feminism! Sparkles!
Kat’s campaign manager is Tia and they’re a bit of a “dynamic duo” on the trail, always connected together via their phones. And their smiles. And their a little too long glances. Ahem. Tia looks at Kat like she’s the sun and moon and poops out Skittles. She’s really vibing her, is what I’m saying. Except when Kat decides to pick up on their mutual connection and invites Tia on a date, she clams up! She tells Kat that she’s straight and this was all a terrible misunderstanding. And then she quits the campaign!
The next night Kat goes back to visit. They sit together on the stoop outside and Tia tells her the truth. The first time she kissed a girl, she was 17. It was exciting, but it was also terrifying, so she didn’t do it again until she was a senior in college. By then it was even more scary, because she knew, it was all she ever wanted. Queerness isn’t the same for everybody. For Kat, she was able to feel comfortable in her skin almost right away. For Tia, queerness has been isolating, a battle. Kat never wants her to feel that loneliness again.
The R&B music kicks up a notch, Tia looks at Kat full of hope and apprehension, and I couldn’t help but squeal at my TV! Kiss her! You know you want to kiss her. It will be ok. Just Kiss Her.
Then Tia goes for it. Sweet and perfect. Just the two of them on the steps, covered in the blanket of New York City at night. Kat Edison has had two major romantic arcs over the course of The Bold Type and both have been women of color. I miss Adena terribly, but I already love Tia and her cute ear piercings and her nerdy enthusiasm for politics and the way she smiles at Kat like she’s her whole world. I know I’m an easy mark for two black girls in love, but wow I can’t wait to see where this goes.