Boobs(s On Your) Tube: Caitlyn Jenner Attends Pride, Canada Adds Another Queer Character and More

It’s the slowest time of the TV year, that weird lull between summer television and fall television, when everything is winding down and everything else is gearing up. Before fall TV kicks off in earnest, Autostraddle CEO/Editor-in-Chief, Riese, is going to do her annual Queer Lady Teevee Viewing Guide. Until then, here’s what happened on what’s left on the summertime boob(s) tube.

Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

I was wrong last week when I told you Chasing Life had aired its midseason finale; there are still six more episodes left! However, we already talked about what happened last Monday night, so we won’t be able to discuss tonight’s episode until the next Boob(s On Your) Tube column.

Clipped

Tuesdays on TBS at 10:00 p.m.

Wellll, Clipped‘s first season has now come and gone and Charmaine didn’t reveal her queerness, after all. Such a shame.

Scream

Tuesdays on MTV at 10:00 p.m.

I really pushed my luck watching Scream as long as I did. As I mentioned last week, Will go sawed right the fuck in half and it made me feel sick for two days. This week opened with a flashback of that thing and so now I can never watch it again. I can, however, tell you that Audrey survived the penultimate episode of season one! Next week, we’ll find out whether or not she’s immortal and/or the serial killer who has offed half the students in her school. Maybe also she’ll kiss Emma? I’m pushing my luck even wishing for that.

Rookie Blue

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

One thing I promised myself this year is that I would watch Rookie Blue with the American audience and not, um, obtain episodes as they aired in real-time in Canada. It hasn’t been a problem — until this week! Because holy bananas, y’all, there’s a new detective in town, a Homicide one, named Detective Anderson, and she kind of hates Gail but also she is gay! She just comes right out and says it when she’s accosting Gail about her brother, Steve, getting tossed into the slammer jammer for being a bad cop. Like, “Oh, he wanted to hook us up one time, but I’m glad that didn’t pan out since your family’s legacy is dirty cops.”

That’s the only thing that happens this week. Gail’s face is like EXCUSE ME. And my face also is like EXCUSE ME.

It turns into a thing, though, in the coming weeks. It’s like watching Pride and Prejudice only it’s Canadian cops and they’re both Mr. Darcy.

Defiance

Fridays on Syfy at 8:00 p.m.

Yewll! Yewll! Yewll! Yewll! With one episode to go in Defiance‘s third (and probably final) season left, Doc Yewll gets her bad self un-brainwashed, breaks out of Omec jail with Datak Tarr, chews bubblegum, gets a gun, and says the words: “Looks like mama got her groove back.”

Stahma also got her groove back, a little bit. She did some manipulating, some conniving. She’s still not her old self, not close, and probably we will never witness that old self again, but it’s good to see Jaime Murray getting to do something before the series end.

Next week is the finale. The Big Omec Showdown.

Oh, also Nolan and Amanda finally Zzzzzzz.

Whoops, sorry, dozed off.

Nolan and Amanda finally Zzzzzzz.

Dang, come on. Kissed. Nolan and Amanda finally kissed.

(ZZZZzzzzzzz.)

Hannibal

Saturdays on NBC at 10:00 p.m.

Next week is the series finale of Hannibal, a thing Margot will be returning for, which means probably her or Alana or both of them are going to get serial killed. This week Hannibal ate a pair of lips in front of Alana to prepare her for the doom. The Red Dragon mailed them in an envelope and I guess “loose human lips” are not a thing that show up on the X-Ray machine because the couriers at the asylum just gave the package to Hannibal and there were lips inside and he chomped right down on them in Alana’s face.

Thank God I have a girlfriend who watches this show and explains it to me. I would be vomiting for days.

I Am Cait

Sundays on E! at 8:00 p.m.

The biggest surprise of the summer is how many real, earnest, truly moved tears I have cried over I Am Cait, which, despite its detour into Karsashianville last week, has actually served as a sort of mini-documentary to educate the world about trans people as Caitlyn Jenner learns so much about the trans community herself. This week, Candis Cayne challenged Caitlyn to start using the word “we” instead of “them” when referring to the LGBT community, and also to get more involved. Caitlyn was worried that her appearance at events like Trans Pride Los Angeles or Gay Pride NYC was going to cause a media circus, and also she was afraid that the queer community, at large, was going to have a hard time accepting her being there.

Before she headed out to NYC, she met up with two of her dude buddies who hadn’t seen her since she began her transition, and they were both a little uneducated about trans issues but also so warm and welcoming to her. One of the most moving moments was when her friend Sergio told her he’d already changed her name in his phone, before she even called to hang out with him.

Caitlyn also met with GLAAD to discuss her fears, and they told her to use the media circus she was afraid of to spotlight all the hardships facing trans women in America today, and of course, that’s exactly what she’s using this show to do.

At Candis’ performance at NY Pride, Caitlyn was so nervous to go out and meet the crowd, but as soon as they saw her, they started chanting her name and cheering and waving, and she was just so overwhelmed. Candis introduced her, and the crowd began cheering and filming her with their phones as she stood up, and filmed them right back.

The episode closed with Caitlyn meeting some Broadway starts, doing a Rockettes dance with them, and voicing over how the response to her coming out as trans has been bigger than even her huge Olympic fame, while walking outside to a jam-packed Times Square and driving away with her trans friends as people line the sidewalk and called her name.

Carmilla

Because there are so many TV shows with queer women in them these days, it’s almost impossible to also keep up with any web series, unless the web series you’re talking about is Carmilla. For those of you not in the know, Carmilla is very loosely based on the Sheridan Le Fanu novel and is probably the queerest web series in the history of the internet, and one of the more diverse ones. The main protagonist, Laura Hollis, is a student at Silas University, a place with more Magical Beasts than Hogwarts, and her roommate is Carmilla Karnstein, a — spoiler alert! — full-on vampire.

Season one revolves around Laura and her friends’ quest to find out why girls keep disappearing from Silas. (The reason girls keep disappearing from Silas is Carmilla kidnaps virgins for her mom, who, it turns out, is the Dean of the university.) Also, season one revolves around Laura and Carmilla finally realizing they’re in big gay love with each other.

Season two follows the story of Laura and Carmilla moving into her mom’s old Victorian mansion with their friends and the rest of the student body dealing with the fact that the school is super duper supernatural. Carmilla’s sister, Mattie, shows up and is AWWWEEESOME in every Slytherin way. She’s on the Silas Board of Trustees. We’re 24 episodes into the 36-episode season and so far Carmilla and Laura have broken up, despite still being in big gay love with each other; a group of students has formed a basically fascist vigilante enforcer group to eradicate all non-humans from the campus; Carmilla and Mattie have waged open warfare on the human population; and Carmilla and Laura have stared longingly at each other and cried and talked about how they’re sacred to each other and miss each other like holes ripped inside their bodies. It’s so campy. It hurts SO GOOD.

Get caught up and we’ll get into the nitty gritty next week!

Team TV coverage you may have missed

Have Mercy: Stef And Gabby Liveblog The Full House Lifetime Movie
The plot of this film seems to be the struggle of three white male actors who feel like the world owes them a big break. We’d rather watch Jodie Sweetin learn to add and subtract.

Kristen Kish and Her Perfect Hair Jet-Set Around the World in “36 Hours”
The best part of the show is watching Kristen gush over food. Seriously, I will tune in just to hear her talk about food. Also, to gaze upon her hair.

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1718 articles for us.

24 Comments

  1. As hard as it is for you Americans to not cheat and watch Rookie Blue when it airs in Canada and wait to watch it when in airs in the US instead, that is how hard it is for us Canadians to not spoil what happens and wait for the show to air in the US so we can talk about it!

    I shipped Gail/Holly SO HARD, but I understand the reality of booking TV guest stars, so I’ve given up the dream of Holly ever coming back to RB. (Following Aliyah O’Brien on her European vacation via Instagram almost makes that worth it.) So since I’ve accepted that Holly is never coming back, I am SO ON BOARD with Team Frankie. Because really, I’m just all about Team Gail’s Happiness. And also because Frankie is hot, and snarky, and understands the demands of Gail’s job, and won’t be intimidated by her fucked up family.

    Trying very hard not to spoil things, but let me just say – we see more of Frankie, but it is DEFINITELY NOT ENOUGH.

  2. My thoughts on “Carmilla”:
    – So much Hollence, and I love it.
    – I normally hate it when producers tell us one thing and then do another, but I wouldn’t mind if they went back on the “No return to the love triangle” thing.
    – I smell apples. Tart green apples given to Laura by a sweet red apple.
    – When the Hollence started rearing it’s head again, things got really bad in the Youtube comments and on Tumblr. People went from decrying the Hollence moments, to attacking Danny the character, to attacking Sharon Belle. I’m given to understand that there were some rather nasty comments about Sharon Belle’s appearance. That is totally uncalled for.

  3. “It turns into a thing, though, in the coming weeks. It’s like watching Pride and Prejudice only it’s Canadian cops and they’re both Mr. Darcy”

    This makes me want to watch Rookie Blue. Oh Canadian TV, always delivering the goods.

    Also, yay Carmilla mention! Love, love, love that web series!!

  4. Someone needs to do a weekly recap of Carmilla, because, really, how much more queer can a webseries get? Can someone make this happen?

  6. I look forward to this Darcy on Darcy romance being filled with tension and brooding stares. Gives me something to finally go back to watching rookie blue for. But I think we’re further behind here anyway.

    • Just caught up on the most recent ep aired in the UK… We are waaaaaaay behind. Shaw just went to play in Izzy’s band this week after rescuing a kid from a wardrobe and I knew the story because of this column…but sort of forgot and for a while I thought I was psychic…then I remembered.

  7. Re: Clipped. Technically, Charmaine did mention that she’s bi a couple weeks ago, but it was a throwaway line/joke and as you said, it hasn’t come up again since. If you sneezed at the wrong time you could easily miss it.

    The show itself is decent, but not without its issues (I think I recall one transphobic joke, and I really could’ve done without the episode about the butch-looking mom who was the target of lesbian jokes because apparently her being straight makes it okay). I don’t know if it’ll stay around for much longer though, nothing about it really stands out.

    I’m still glad I watched it on AS’s recommendation! There are worse ways to kill time.

  8. I love Rookie Blue and Gail, but I just rewatched the pilot and there’s a pretty gross transphobic/transmisogynistic scene involving Gail and Dov. It was six years ago and times have changed, but still.

    • Ughhhh yeah I had that exact same reaction. Had I started with the pilot, I might have just stopped right there, but since I actually started the show at the beginning of season 4, I can tell you there is another trans character in an episode early in season 4, and they treat the character WONDERFULLY. Like, the exact opposite of how it goes in the pilot. So it seems like the writers learned a few things.

      • I watched them all from the beginning when I found out Gail was going to come out, but I’d forgotten about that scenes I’m glad they did better after that. I wish I’d remembered all of this.

  9. I just have to say, getting Lost Girl via out-of-context social media reactions and gifsets is superior to watching the show itself. As far as I can tell from aforementioned out-of-context reactions, Doccubus started strong, (and Lauren didn’t leverage her amazing SCIENCE powers and instead resorted to shady deal-making!? Come on, Lauren, it’s CANON that you could have surgically given yourself fae powers with SCIENCE. Disappoint.) which is worrying because that means the pendulum will swing back at once point. But I’m pulling for poly endgame anyways, so as long as Lauren doesn’t get completely sidelined for the resolution, I’m good.

    (Watch them pull something really really ridiculous for the end to sidestep any endgame, like Bo ascending into being the new Greek Goddess of Sex to watch over all of her peeps. Dyson and Lauren LesbrOTP ride off into the sunset to be best lesbro partners forever. Tamsin and Kenzi form the new Investigations From a Crackshack thing. Their first case involves an amnesiac Aife having become a cop and encountered clones.)

  11. Am I the only person who really doesn’t like frankie on Rookie Blue. Where Gail’s attitude is cute hers is just arrogant and obnoxious – so disappointed :(

  12. How you can watch I am Cait is beyond me. That show is incredibly vapid…and not the amusingly funny fluffly kind.

    • It has the same vibe/feel of every E! reality show. It’s hard to watch more than 10 minutes without getting bored. They have 15 minutes of good content that they stretch into a 60 minute program. And all the kardashians and Cait are terrible actors when it comes to fake staged conversations. Somehow my mom has watched all of them riveted. She watches it live too. So I guess it’s effective.

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