May Sweeps are upon us once again, gentle readers! If you are a queer woman of a certain age, that brings to mind one thing: straight women kissing each other as ratings stunts. If you are a queer women of a different age, you’re probably like, “WTF is a Sweeps, Hogan?” It’s an antiquated method of measuring TV ratings, small one. It’s the horse and buggy to Netflix’s spaceship. Really, it just means BIG THINGS are going to happen on broadcast network TV as the regular season winds down. Deaths, wedding, babies, fauxmosexuality. Stuff like that. Until then, there was stuff like this.
One Big Happy
Tuesdays on NBC at 9:30 p.m.
Well, at least we’ll never have to fight about the baby’s middle name being Portard.
I firmly, fully believe if NBC had ordered even just a thirteen episode first season of One Big Happy, it would have hit its stride enough to stick around. Last week’s episode had all the humor and heart you could ask for in a freshman comedy’s fifth outing; nearly all the jokes and all the emotional punches landed right on target.
When Lizzie joined Luke and Prudence in Vegas to celebrate their two month wedding anniversary, they discovered that Luke and Pru weren’t really married, which was a major problem because Prudence’s green card was set to expire in less than a week. Lizzie offered to plan them a real wedding, one in which she could be the best man, and she even flew in Pru’s dad so Luke could ask for his daughter’s hand. Buuuut actually, the man Lizzie flew to Los Angeles was Prudence’s ex-husband, who had refused to sign their divorce papers years ago.
Lizzie’s plan to get Pru’s ex drunk enough to sign the papers backfired when he got so drunk that he fell for Lizzie. She kept up the ruse long enough to get him to sign the papers and convince him he’d slept with her and gotten her pregnant (the ruse lasted about ten minutes; Pru’s ex was kind of an idiot), but by the time he made a run for it, Luke was convinced Pru had only married him to get out of a bad situation.
So, he ran out in a huff and left Prudence crying on Lizzie’s shoulder. Tomorrow night is the season finale and likely the last episode of the show. We’ll talk about what that means later this week.
The Good Wife
Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.
Fourth wall: *smash* Panjabi: *out*
Kalinda Sharma has left the building, and her exit makes me wish I hadn’t spent all of last summer getting caught up on this show. The promise was a nuanced, kickass bisexual character whose platonic relationship with the show’s main character was a prism of Bechdel glory. I don’t know what happened behind the scenes, but it has been 50 episodes since Kalinda and Alicia were in a scene together, and they didn’t even share a goodbye as Kalinda had to go on the lam last night to save herself from Bishop after being unable to deliver evidence to implicate him in a crime big enough to send him to prison.
Kalinda did try to visit Alicia to say goodbye, but Alicia wasn’t home, so she wandered around her apartment and cried and pocketed a photo and left a note we never got to see. Kalinda’s storyline has been disconnected this season after her dissonant arc last season. It has been an enormous bummer to witness.. TV Line says she’s Archie Panjabi is actually coming back for the finale in two weeks and that it’ll be so satisfying, but I don’t believe it. I believe it will be green screened probably.
Younger
Tuesdays on TVLand at 10:00 p.m.
Can I call you a part of my crew?
Not if you expect me to answer.
Y’all I am so into Younger, and last week’s episode is exactly why. You think it’s going to go all in on the Kids These Days, and yeah, there are jokes, but really it’s about women helping women, with romance things and career things and also stuck diva cups.
In “Girl Code,” Liza realized she was neglecting her relationship with lesbian/longtime BFF Maggie, so she agreed to attend opening night for a new exhibit at her gallery. But then at work, after she helped remedy a diva cup debacle, Kelsey invited Liza to drinks with her crew. Kelsey finally agreed to just attend the gallery thing with Liza and her “old lady” roommate from Craigslist, but ended up coaxing Liza out for way too much to drink in the middle of the event. When Liza returned home, fully hammered, Maggie was furious. Not only because Liza ditched her, but also because Maggie ended up offending the gallery owner and he canceled her upcoming show, “Deceptive Intentions: Reconstructing Gender Norms.” (Or “Bitches Brew.” Maggie hadn’t decided yet.)
When Maggie called Liza out on her behavior and Liza confessed to Kelsey that she really fucked up, they tag-teamed to help Maggie find a space for a pop up gallery opening for her new exhibit. And then five women of all different ages and sexul orientations (Kelsey’s best friend is “60 percent gay”) hugged and high fived because of girl power.
Also, Liza used her company’s car service to Pretty Woman Maggie, and it sure was cute.
It’s hokey, but I’m super into it.
Newlyweds: The First Year
Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.
Sam and Laura visited a sexual healer named Michael in last week’s episode of Newlyweds because when Sam gets stressed out it messes with her sex drive, like it does with nearly all humans. And since Auostraddle dot com debunked the myth of Lesbian Bed Death with our Ultimate Lesbian Sex Survey, Sam decided to see the sexual healer, which is apparently “a very L.A. thing to do.” This is him. He made them laugh (at him), which led them to having sex. So, good job, Michael!
Bold and the Beautiful
Weekdays on CBS
I cannot deal with this city much longer. Sexual healer. I am so sure.
Last week’s Bold and the Beautiful inched closer to Rick proposing to Maya and Maya coming out to him as a trans woman. Basically, it was an entire week of everyone — including Rick — talking about how Maya was honest and had integrity and Rick could live a drama-free life with her, while Maya flashed back to Nicole saying, “You’re my brother!” Will this storyline ever end? Probably, but it doesn’t matter. I can only handle one more week of this damaging bullshit before I stop watching.
Lost Girl
Fridays on Syfy at 10:00 p.m.
A quickie in Hades is one thing I’ve never done.
Imaginary sex with Bo is a thing I do all the time, tbh.
Oh, my angels, I know you want full Lost Girl recaps. I do hear you. But even if I, um, obtain the episodes that have already aired on Showcase in Canada and watch ahead of Syfy, there’s still no time to recap it. I’m not kidding when I tell you there’s not a single extra minute in my days right now. But we’ll keep talking about it, briefly, in Boob(s On Your) Tube, and I do promise to write some standalone pieces about the show during this final season, okay? Thank you for understanding.
So, in “Hell Shoes 2: The Streets,” Bo descended into the underworld while Kenzi took her rightful place on her throne back here on earth. Bo’s dad was the Big Bad behind the whole plot, and he spent half the time trying to torture his daughter and half the time trying to find his daughter — because Bo stopped in her pursuit to get home to make a little Sapphic love with a woman who kind of sort of maybe turned out to be her stepmom. For the healing powers! And while that was going on, Lauren was having ghost sex with someone she thought was Bo, but actually was this whole other ghost who just stole some moves from Bo. It felt really iffy in the consent department, actually. The Lauren/ghost sex thing.
Luckily, Kenzi stopped Lauren in the middle of it by bursting into her room and demanding that they do some Ouija tricks to get Bo back home. With an assist from a demon-catching Tamsim, they were successful. And Bo returned to this realm to eat dinner with her friends and choose a bottle of wine with Lauren in the sexiest, most sizzling way imaginable.
That seems abrupt, but that truly is how quickly and neatly the arc was wrapped up!
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“If you shoot a sex scene on the night before your birthday, they’re like, ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ because they think your vagina is going to turn into a hermit crab.”
I heard a rumor that there might be a teensy tiny resurrection on Arrow. Oh, and Luisa is finally coming back to Jane the Virgin tomorrow night. And fingers crossed for Renee Montoya’s return on Gotham before the end of season one.
No mention of The Returned. Last week’s episode had Nikki and Julie finally reuniting and having sex while creepy kid Victor looked jealous the whole episode that his new mommy is paying attention to someone else besides him. Nikki and Julie have a very interesting backstory which led to their breakup years earlier and eventual reconciliation. I’ve become fascinated with finding out their secrets and the secret of the town.
The Returned is actually a pretty good show and the lesbians seem like the most stable relationship on the show. All of the other straight couples are category 5 red flag abusive relationships. But Michelle Forbes is in it and what’s not to love about that.
I’m sad about One Big Happy. It’s been uneven, but had some good moments. Episode 3 will always have a place in my heart.
(Also, it wasn’t queer, but I wish shows I like would stop getting cancelled. I watched Trophy Wife all last year and was so disappointed when it didn’t get renewed.)
I’m so totally bummed that Kalinda’s leaving The Good Wife. And even though I knew that the Kalicia ship wasn’t gonna sail (especially after the last couple seasons), I’m sad that we didn’t even get one last scene together. I guess there’s hope for the season finale, but I’m not holding my breath. I suppose this is why we have fanfiction.
IKR!!! I was so happy that they were going to have a goodbye scene where Kalinda was going to profess her undying love and then bam, she left. Pffff. Now I’m lying to myself that the note had Kalinda’s confession of eternal love :P
Hayley Atwell has been killing it on her twitter feed. She’s talking about how we’ll know fairly soon whether “Agent Carter” will get a second season, and teasing how Angie might be the love interest.
Agent Carter is officially engaged in Slash Baiting now, we know she inevitably married a Man to spawn the line the produces Emiyl VanCamp
Um Sharon Carter is not a linear descendant of Peggy Carter, at least not in the comics. I don’t know what they decided in the MCU, but she’s the grand-niece of Peggy. Making her the daughter of would be fuckin creepy so I think they’ll keep things that way.
Also if Peggy got into a relationship with Angie people break up, move on, die and often get into a new relationship with a new person afterwards. Pegs ends up with man, bisexuality it is a thing that exists.
But I’m not gunna wait with baited breath for Cartinelli to be cannon, it would be nice. Lotta of queer relations shit on the teebee being declared canon lately.
Not sure who else is watching but Banana- British anthology series on Logo- had really sweet episodes about queer gals this week and last.
yeah we’ve gotten press releases about it but haven’t been able to wrangle anybody into writing about it!
Ah damn it One Big Happy, I so wanted them to make it.
I’m so sad about Kalinda leaving like this. And if it’s true about the off screen hate between Archie Panjabi and Julianna Margulies, I think it’s really ridicolous. They ruined one of the best relationships that this show had in season 1.
In my dreams Alicia leaves Peter, finds Kalinda on a beach somewhere, and next season it’s just them doing shots and breaking hearts.
Please, Archie and Julianna are paid a fuckton per episode, it’s ridiculous indeed if the Kalicia relationship was destroyed because they couldn’t get along in real life.
We all have to deal with co-workers we don’t like.
It’s your job, be professional. It’s not too much to ask
I definitely cried when Kalinda left. Mostly because of how abused her character was and the official loss of hope for her redemption. Also because she’s my bb.