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To L And Back: Generation Q Podcast Bonus Episode: Goodbye, Again

By now you’ve surely heard that The L Word: Generation Q is no more, and boy are we sad about it! After months of bated breath, we received word last month that the show will not return for another season, and to top it off, is no longer available on Showtime anymore. On the…brighter? side? Maybe? We have also received word that original series showrunner, Ilene Chaiken, is already back to the grindstone: hard at work on a(nother) reboot set in New York.

Come join us to commiserate the end of our problematic fave, to talk about the state of queer television at large, and what We, the hosts of To L and Back, would have happen to all of the characters after the end of this season!

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SHOW NOTES

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And this is To L and Back.

Riese: To L and Back: Generation Q edition.

Analyssa: Generation Q edition.

Riese: Back to New York.

Drew: Back to New York?

Analyssa: Well, not yet.

Riese: Not yet. Sorry, that was a reference to season 10 of The Real World where they went back to New York and they called it The Real World: Back to New York.

Riese: Because the first episode of The Real World… The first season of The Real World was in New York.

Analyssa: What year, approximately, do you think season 10 of The Real World aired?

Riese: 2002 or 2003.

Drew: I was in elementary school.

Riese: Because I think 9/11 happened during the Chicago season. The first season-

Analyssa: Did they have to address that in the universe of The Real World? I know it’s about the real world, famously, but did they discuss 9/11? Was it happening while they were filming?

Riese: Yeah, they watched it happen.

Analyssa: What?

Drew: Wow. I don’t think I have an understanding— The Real World was never something I watched. I think by the time I came to The Real World universe, it was Real World vs. Road Rules. It was years later.

Riese: Well, it stopped being good around, I would say, the Las Vegas season. It started taking a turn where it became like a lot of reality shows are now, which is just about young hot people drinking a lot and having drama, you know?

Analyssa: Sure.

Riese: But in the beginning, it was very much a genuine social experiment of mixing people from all these different backgrounds, especially at a time when the internet wasn’t a thing, so people really didn’t know about anything besides their own little world, and putting them all in a house together and seeing what would happen. A lot of interesting things came out of that, but then the vibe shifted as MTV shifted more towards those types of party shows and The OC, or whatever that was called, Laguna Beach or something.

Analyssa: Laguna Beach.

Riese: And Super Sweet 16 and Teen Mom and all that kind of stuff. The vibe of MTV was shifting away from progressive, social, alternative, indie rock, whatever, towards more trashy reality TV, I guess, which has a place in the universe.

Analyssa: Which was my favorite era of MTV. That was the era I grew up in. Also I watched Reality Bites last year in my rom-com project, and Reality Bites is about that shift.

Riese: Great film.

Drew: I liked Jackass.

Analyssa: I forgot you were a Jackass kid.

Drew: I really was.

Analyssa: That was not my vibe.

Riese: One thing no one ever talks about is I Want a Famous Face. Does anyone remember the show?

Analyssa: I do remember that show.

Drew: Is that the show where people got plastic surgery to look like famous people? I vaguely recall that.

Riese: People didn’t talk about it enough at the time, and they’re not talking about it enough today.

Analyssa: That’s how I feel about the reality show The Swan which was fucked up.

Drew: Oh The Swan.

Riese: That was wild. Every now and then I get into another Swan rabbit hole and just get lost in what a time that was.

Drew: I’m scared, because I do think that cyclically in media — and maybe this can get us to The L Word — I do feel like we’re back in a place where queerness is going down, fatphobia is going up, where I am feeling because of my young age of 29 that I’m experiencing a backslide culturally in a way that I maybe never have. Obviously Donald Trump was elected president in my lifetime, but that galvanized people in a way where, yes, he was president, but the culture around me… my mom was all of a sudden liberal, you know?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: It felt like people were getting more liberal around me, not less.

Riese: Well, and also in art, when Donald Trump was elected, the amount of shows that had queer characters skyrocketed, the racial diversity of shows, because suddenly it was like, “We’re in this hellscape. We have to…” Suddenly people were finally on board with doing all these things that we were asking for forever, because they were no longer in this like, “Why do we need more diverse TV shows? Obama is president,” you know?

Drew: Right. Weird. I don’t know. I know that progress isn’t linear, but it’s still jarring. Certain things have been jarring in recent months. Look, not to keep dragging my family into this, but I’m aware that fatphobia was alive and well before six months ago, but I at least thought in certain circles… I don’t know. Just, it’s wild to me how, I don’t know, the way people are talking about gender and sexuality, the way people are talking about race, the way people are talking about bodies, it feels like we’re in a bad moment.

Analyssa: I feel like this has been a topic of conversation about Gen Z too, and their reaction to sex scenes and sex in culture. I don’t know, I haven’t really noticed this personally, so I can’t really say whether it’s accurate or not, but I do feel like people are talking about that a lot, that there’s a move towards more…

Drew: Puritan.

Analyssa: Puritanical, for lack of a better word, views on sex.

Riese: I think that was easy to call, the forces leading to that.

Drew: Should we share that this is a podcast where we talk about The L Word: Generation Q, a show that no longer exists?

Riese: It was, yeah. This is a podcast where we talk about The L Word: Generation Q on Showtime, a program that brought our community together.

Drew: And tore us apart.

Riese: Brought us to new heights of life, and now I guess is over. It has been canceled.

Drew: Which we knew.

Analyssa: I know.

Riese: Well, I really think I was in denial.

Drew: There’s something that’s also important to obviously talk about, which anyone listening to this podcast I’m sure knows, which is that the cancellation announcement was paired with an announcement that Ilene Chaiken is already working on The L Word: New York, which my question is—

Riese: Why?

Drew: Why would be one question. That not so much. The question I have more is, will we ever actually see The L Word: New York? Shows get announced all the time. The Farm never happened. Is it something that’s being announced in order for Showtime to not have gay people angry at them, or do we think that it’s actually a thing that’s going to someday be real? I have my doubts.

Riese: I have no fucking idea, because “in development” means nothing. It feels like the way that was released was as a rumor. The reporter who reported it was like, “I hear,” which I assume meant that she heard from Ilene Chaiken or from somebody else in that universe or whatever. It seemed a little bit odd for that to be happening after there was this big fan push towards, “Reboot the OG series again, put Ilene Chaiken in charge,” as if everyone forgot that she did so many things right, but she did so many things wrong. Suddenly everybody’s idealizing Ilene Chaiken.

Drew: As people do to the past.

Riese: As people do to the past, and wanting her to bring back the show or have a new showrunner. So, it seems interesting that they would say that. I just wonder what is going on behind the scenes, what the rumblings are, and does this mean the original cast would be a part of it? Are Bette and Tina going to be there? Or are they going to be in Toronto doing Murdoch Mysteries? Who would be in New York? Also how would that work out for us in terms of whether or not we would get invited to any parties?

Analyssa: Which is number one on the agenda.

Drew: I don’t know. It’s also a question of, do we want that?

Analyssa: To be invited to the parties?

Drew: No, obviously we want to be invited to the parties, but do we want The L Word franchise to live on, especially back in the hands of… If it was announced that it was like, I don’t know, who’s someone who’s cool that we like and is a good writer? And it was like, “This person is going to be doing a new L Word.” I’d be like, “Incredible, amazing. I love it.”

Analyssa: Riese Bernard.

Riese: Tanya Saracho.

Analyssa: Better answer, I guess. Sure.

Drew: Yeah. If that was announced, it’d be crazy. But I don’t necessarily know if I need more Ilene Chaiken L Word. I don’t really know what that’s going to offer. I don’t know. But it is also one of these things where I think a lot of the problems of Gen Q were baked into the premise in the sense of having now watched the Queer As Folk reboot, which I liked more than some, but it wasn’t perfect by any means, I think the idea of a queer ensemble show that is trying to be everything is going to fail always, both artistically and creatively. I think A League of Their Own comes closest, and it’s because it really grounds it in a certain history and is not trying to be everything per se, even though I think it does a really good job at representing a lot of different identities, but still, it at least has baseball to be based around. I don’t know.

Riese: But they also don’t have to… They have certain rules about how society was structured at that time in history that gives them a box from within to tell their story, where I think there’s less room to totally fuck up what you’re doing. You know what I mean? You can’t put Micah and Maribel’s story into A League of Their Own. It would never happen so therefore it would never be fucked up. Do you know what I mean?

Drew: Sure. But I do still think that the League of Their Own reboot spends half of its runtime on Black characters, which in rebooting the original League of Their Own, that wouldn’t be the choice that I think a lot of writers would have taken.

Riese: No.

Drew: Also so many people are gay or queer, and also they include trans characters. I do think they do a pretty impressive job, but that show is also getting canceled.

Riese: That’s the thing. Because people were like, “Why do we need this? Why can’t we just have a really well-written show about queer people?” And I’m like, “There is one. It’s called A League of Their Own. It came out last year, and it just got canceled.” We got that. That imaginary show we were all dreaming of that had an ensemble that was all the main characters were queer and it was just their stories, and it wasn’t just about white people and it wasn’t just cis… We got it.

Drew: It’s a bummer. I do think that if we were to get The L Word: New York, I would want it to be like — it’s so funny, because this show got such backlash, and I understand why — but Looking, where that show wasn’t very representative of all gay people in San Francisco. It was very white, it was very, very cis, but it’s really good, and it feels like it’s people who all are in the same world together. There are times where its somewhat sheltered characters are pulled out of their world in ways that I think are well-done. Speaking of Tanya Saracho, she was a writer on it. And Vida is another one where that’s a specific queer space.

Riese: A community.

Drew: Gen Q not having trans women characters was brutal because they tried to have it seemed like every other character… and they did a bad job with all of them that weren’t whatever. But in general, I don’t want Ilene Chaiken writing a trans woman. That’s a nightmare. I don’t want that. I want her to make—

Riese: Write the Bette and Tina show, and it’s middle-aged… or lesbians in their fifties and sixties and stuff, their lives or whatever; whatever it is that she can speak to I think, whatever that looks like. The social group represented in Gen Q was realistic except for that there were no trans women in it. There wasn’t anyone in that social group who wouldn’t be ordinarily, no one felt stuffed in, you know what I mean? But I don’t know.

Drew: Identity-wise, no, but writing-wise, yes. Writing-wise, they never really knew what to do with Micah. That’s more I guess what I’m getting at, is theoretically you can have a lot of… There are plenty of friend groups that are very diverse in the truest meaning of that word, but a lot of times writers can’t really make that work, because that’s not their experience.

Analyssa: I do think it’s worth noting — well, there’s two things I want to talk about — but the first thing is Ilene Chaiken developing this, like Riese said, “in development” doesn’t really mean anything. It means someone has some idea that they’re thinking about at home sometimes. But it also doesn’t mean she’s writing. Ilene Chaiken developed The L Word: Generation Q.

Drew: That’s true.

Analyssa: And then she brought Marja in as a showrunner, and then they assembled a writers room.

Riese: So, it could still be me?

Analyssa: It could still be Riese. All three of us could find our way into The L Word: New York.

Drew: Oh my god, my phone’s ringing right now. Ilene!

Analyssa: I was thinking about this on the drive home from work, because I actually have a lot of thoughts about the business side of this, because that’s what I do for my day job, but I think it’s probably pretty boring to people listening. But Ilene Chaiken is going to be involved as an executive producer in developing any L Word reboot for the rest of time. Anytime The L Word comes up, Ilene is going to be at least involved in the conversation, and for all the reasons that Drew said and Riese has said, good and bad, you know what I mean? It means something to people, but also it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best product, but it just comes with the property now, which is just something for people to know when we’re talking about something like this. It’s always going to be Ilene Chaiken’s L Word, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s Ilene Chaiken’s L Word, if that makes sense.

Riese: That’s true.

Analyssa: The other thing was that I feel like we all read the announcement of her developing this show differently. I was like, “I think it’s The L Word with all new characters in New York City.” Is it a period piece? I have no idea. But it’s just a group of lesbians in New York City, and I think Riese had a different take.

Riese: I thought it was going to be the original cast members, shedding Gen Q, and either they were going to go back in time to have it take place in 2010, 2011 when Bette and Tina allegedly just moved to New York. Because also at some point Shane moved to New York, because Shane had the salons. Shane moves back to LA in the beginning of Gen Q. So either it’s going to be a prequel or whatever, which would be great, because then Shane would have the eyeliner again and we’d all get to relive that, and that was a meaningful thing for me personally. It’s either that or I think it’s going to be the original cast, but I don’t know how they would all get to New York. But also it’s about LA! That’s the whole point of The L Word. I love New York. New York City is my favorite city, but I think The L Word is an LA show. It’s about lesbian life in LA.

Drew: Well, that’s why it has to say “New York” in the title. Again, that’s why it’s called The L Word: New York. My thought process, when I first heard it, I thought entirely new characters, just lesbians in New York present-day. Then I was like, “Or-”

Riese: Why?

Drew: “What if it’s a 90s…” Well, because I thought of it as a Queer As Folk-type thing.

Riese: Then why use the name?

Drew: Because it’s easier to get a show made.

Analyssa: Well, and because it means something. The Real L Word, why call it that if it’s… You know what I mean? Why? It’s not a scripted show, but it had the same idea at its center, you know?

Drew: Yeah. I think that potentially it takes place in the ’90s. New actors are cast to play our core characters.

Analyssa: Oh my God.

Drew: It is a prequel, but we get Shane; someone’s cast to play ’90s Shane.

Riese: Could Kristen Stewart play ’90s Shane?

Drew: Can you imagine?

Riese: She’s never done TV besides being on Irma Vep for one second. But if Kristen Stewart was cast as baby Shane, that would be a hit right there. That’s a hit. That’s a hit.

Drew: She’s too old, though, for ’90s Shane. They need to cast someone who’s 20.

Analyssa: But ’90s Shane had lived a lot of life by then, you know?

Drew: That’s true, that’s true.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I really did think before this show started Kristen Stewart was on the get list for The L Word. It was announced—

Riese: She’s never going to do TV.

Analyssa: No, certainly not. But it was announced in 2017, 2018 that they were developing it. It was peak Kristen Stewart coming out, talking about being queer, publicly appearing with people she was dating. And I was like, “This is going to happen.” That feels so, so long ago now.

Riese: What they really should do is they should cast Jacqueline Toboni to play ’90s Shane.

Drew: Wow. That would be a choice.

Riese: I would love that. I would have such a good time.

Analyssa: It’d be so fun if they could bring back the young members of Gen Q as prequel members of the original L Word cast, except that none of them were ethnically diverse enough. You could retcon a bunch of people.

Riese: What if it was just a shot-by-shot remake of The Carrie Diaries, but everyone’s gay?

Drew: I haven’t seen it, but I was thinking The Carrie Diaries. It was The Bette Diaries. Was Bette ever in New York?

Analyssa: Mm-hmm.

Riese: Well, she went to Yale, and that’s a train ride away.

Drew: So what happened? Do we know the history of that?

Riese: No, she was in New York. She was in New York.

Analyssa: When Alice and Bette were at the opera, isn’t that in New York?

Riese: No. I think she was in New York at some point. I’m pretty positive.

Analyssa: Maybe I just think of the opera as a New York activity, so I’m like, “They must have been on the East Coast then.”

Drew: Also when has The L Word ever cared about continuity or things being correct? They could easily be like, “It’s about Bette and Alice dating in New York.”

Riese: That would be your dream show.

Drew: It would be. Bette is played by… God, can you imagine how The L Word fandom would react if someone else played Bette or any of these characters?

Riese: But imagine a young queer actress playing Bette.

Drew: That’d be so cool.

Analyssa: Jasmin Savoy Brown.

Riese: That’s who I was about to say, Jasmin Savoy Brown.

Analyssa: Obviously top of mind because of Yellowjackets‘ premiere recently.

Riese: There you go. Cast, perfect. Jacqueline Toboni…

Analyssa: We did it.

Riese: I don’t know how I feel about the spinoff. Obviously it’s, again, hard for me to separate my own business interests from the interests of myself as a person, but I really enjoyed everything happening around The L Word: Generation Q so much, you know what I mean? I liked that I got to write recaps and people got to give me compliments about how good I am at recapping. I love doing the podcast with you guys. That crazy week in LA when it premiered in 2019 was a week to remember, and partially forget, but also remember. It was just very exciting. I guess the reboot came up during a time in my life when I was not doing very well, and it was a lot of excitement and fun and flurry and getting back into recaps, and I love that.

I think what I really wanted was for it to keep going, but with a new showrunner. That’s what I want more than an L Word: New York. I wanted this to keep going, but to be done; for them to, not get back to the drawing board, but kind of, you know what I mean? They can’t retcon anything, but try to fix a little bit and move forward. The showrunners switch out during series after a few seasons all the time, don’t they?

Drew: I guess because Marja had an overall, I was feeling less optimistic about that, which I think we maybe talked about. But it seems like Showtime wouldn’t necessarily invest… I don’t know. Whatever cost that would have entailed, I don’t think they cared enough. But I also think that, what shows are left? Yellowjackets and The Last of Us, which is another interesting… I know it’s only two shows and two shows don’t make a pattern, but it is interesting that the highest-profile queer shows that aren’t getting canceled are-

Riese: Genre shows?

Drew: Yeah, are violent and about… Yes, genre, but it’s not even genre like CW superheroes genre. Genre in the sense of really brutal, violent, scary, somewhat despairing television, which feels interesting. I think one of those shows is a lot better than the other one, but I don’t know. Obviously, Hacks is still on and I’ve since caught up on Hacks and think it’s great, but one of two protagonists…

Riese: And Sort Of.

Drew: Sort Of is so good. I guess because Sort Of is Canadian, I don’t think of it as indicative, but I guess HBO probably gives some money to it.

Riese: It feels just really scary that shows that are centered, the queer person is the star or it’s a queer ensemble, cannot seem to not get canceled. And there’s always everyone’s like, “We need to make our own stuff,” and it’s like, “No, you don’t.” I don’t want another 2,500 lesbian web series out there; that’s not what we need. Unfortunately, people who have the money do have to invest some of it if we’re going to scare ourselves on TV, you know?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: But it bums me out, even though it was bad.

Analyssa: Well, and I would love for, like you said, queer-centered shows or shows with a bunch of queer characters to have the opportunity to be a little bit bad and still get a chance to find their footing, figure out what the problems are, get more on level ground, because I think there are so many shows that have really uneven seasons or a lot of drama behind the scenes or whatever; like you said, showrunner switches, and they still get to run for a number of seasons.
I don’t understand… I do, but I wish it weren’t the case that it’s the ones who aren’t allowed to really flounder a little bit are queer shows. And that’s not me being, “This was the best show ever, and it should have run forever the way it was running before,” because we obviously had our thoughts about it. But it’s not a show that doesn’t have an audience. And A League of Their Own is the same way. It’s not like people don’t love that show.

Riese: Yeah, people love it.

Analyssa: I don’t know. There’s always a reason, and that reason never seems to apply to other shows, even if they have the same kind of problems.

Drew: I do think that, again, it’s all cyclical, and TV in general right now is at a really bad place, writers’ strike coming up. And I do think it’s not that we shouldn’t be fighting for more and better. I think I probably place a little bit more emphasis on the “better” portion of that in the sense that I will miss the camaraderie and the community built around The L Word: Generation Q, but I do think we can ask for more and ask for better. I just think it’s a matter of time in the sense of there will be queer shows, the patterns will fluctuate; one streaming site will crumble, and a new wave of shows, whether it’s we go back to an old way of television being made or we go to a new way of television being made, there’s going to be another boom and then another bust, and it’s just always what happens. That has happened since the beginning of movies being made professionally and as an industry.

So, I don’t usually feel very doomsday about media in general, about queer media specifically. It sucks to be in this point of time where we’re losing these shows, and especially when you have attachments to certain characters; it sucks. But I do think things will get better again, and maybe even better than they ever have been. I do believe that. In looking at the GLAAD numbers that come out of, “These are the number of queer characters,” I would love if in the next wave of things getting better if we focus less… I think those numbers are like the Bechdel test in the sense of it can be helpful as a tool and as a test, but that’s not—

Riese: The end-all, be-all. You need a qualitative analysis as well as a quantitative analysis, and I think some of that has to be about community. We want shows that are about queer communities. That’s what Gen Q was, that’s what A League of Their Own was, that’s what Generation was: communities of humans who are all queer, because that’s really realistic. Instead of us just being part of a straight person’s story or one queer friend in the social group, which I know is common as well, but also queer community is really common, and we don’t see shows like that.

Drew: I definitely agree with that as one of the measurements, so I definitely will be sadder about the cancellation of something that centers queer people than the cancellation of something where there’s a subplot, or not even a subplot, but even one of the main characters. I’m not going to care as much. I’ll care if the show is really good, but I’ll be forgiving towards a Gen Q or a Queer As Folk reboot. I think what’s frustrating to me is that I would rather live in a world where we don’t have to be forgiving. That’s why A League of Their Own felt so special, and I’m really sad. It’s not official yet, so hopefully it doesn’t get canceled, or at least they get more than four episodes for this second and last season, because that felt like a real mix of a populist art that a lot of people could watch and have fun with and obsess over, but that’s also really good, and to me was like, “This is what we could be asking for.” So, that’s a bummer that that also got canceled potentially.

But I don’t know. I guess I’m just looking at the landscape, and in 2012, the idea that the company that sent us DVDs in the mail would make a big queer women ensemble with a trans woman involved about women’s prisons, that would have been wild. That’s 10 years ago, so who knows what the next 10 years are going to bring? I think right now feels really bad and sucks. I literally work in the industry; if people who have been showrunners and are queer, or specifically trans, aren’t getting jobs, I’m fucked. But I think I’m able to just be like, “Well, for now, I’m fucked for a few years at least, but then media always changes,” and I weirdly feel more optimistic when things are bad because I know that they’ll get better than when things are “good,” and we’re being told that everything is great because—

Analyssa: That we don’t need diversity on screen because someone is president.

Drew: Yeah, where it’s like, “We have Gen Q, so what more could you want?” Or, “Euphoria is…” I guess Euphoria is still on, still kicking, and it’s like, “What do you mean? You have this.” That drives me crazy, whereas there being nothing, even First Kill can’t get renewed, Warrior Nun is getting canceled. It doesn’t matter what type of show it is. I think that to me, I’m able to be like, “But there will be more shows that get made, and in the meantime watch Sort Of and actually talk about it, and if you’re not as excited about Sort Of, maybe examine some of your biases,” while at the same time understanding that it is a much lower-budget show that’s made in Canada. I’m in Canada currently myself, so that’s not a knock on Canada; it’s just the industry here is different, and it’s not the same kind of show. I get that. But also enjoy, and also there’s a hundred years of media that you can potentially catch up on if you would like, and there’s a lot of good stuff out there.

And there’s a lot of good stuff that’s made every year. I know it’s not the same to have a Gen Q that we have watch parties and everyone is talking about the same characters and all that, but there will continue to be great independent queer movies made every year. Television is tough because there’s a lot of moving parts to get TV made, but there will be movies that are made that you can watch, and more now than ever, or if not… I don’t know. I guess I just wish people would focus on that sometimes.

Not that we shouldn’t be having conversations about how Hollywood is treating queer people so terribly right now and how it’s connected to the political backlash. It’s not just like, “We’re not getting Gen Q anymore,” it’s also the attitudes around queer people legislatively is also bad. So, it’s not that we shouldn’t talk about it, I just do encourage queer people, if you feel hopeless, to remember that the queer artists who have worked on these shows, and who haven’t worked on these shows but should have worked on these shows, are going to keep making stuff, because people make stuff and people are going to want to create, and they deserve bigger budgets and more opportunities and money from Showtime. But if they’re not getting it, you can still find their creations somewhere.

Riese: But I want to be able to recap a show.

Drew: No, it’s sad. I think I sometimes do what my mom does when other people are negative, she reacts in the opposite.

Riese: I do that too.

Drew: She’s a leveling system, which sometimes is really nice and sometimes is a little maddening. So, I apologize if this is maddening to any listeners who are like, “Yes, but Shane.” I get it. But did Gen Q even have Shane the character? Let’s be honest with ourselves.

Riese: No. She was inconsistent.

Drew: Does Kate Moennig even think that Gen Q had the character of Shane on it? Because I’m getting no vibes from her Instagram.

Analyssa: Demonstrably not.

Riese: There’s going to be a reckoning also, because I think that the networks that are building these libraries of content, those libraries are a lot less attractive when they’re only one season long. This cancellation spree, at some point they’re going to have to sit down and be like, “Wait a second. What are we doing here? We’re not building…” You can join Netflix and you can watch, I don’t know, 200 episodes of Orange Is New Black or something, or a hundred. But are you going to get invested in First Kill, which has eight episodes, I think, or any of a myriad… On Hulu are you going to watch The Bisexual — you should — that has four episodes, five episodes?

Drew: Six.

Riese: Six. I think that they need multiple seasons of shows to have them. Otherwise I feel like they’re throwing away what they spent on the first one.

Analyssa: Especially because so much of, especially Netflix, anecdotally people’s watching is The Office and Friends and New Girl, things that have run forever.

Riese: These shows that went on forever, because people want things… And they don’t also want shows that ended knowingly. No one wants to be left on a cliffhanger; people want a fucking finale. You want a finale. None of these shows get finales.

Drew: If you’re going to kill Tess, show me Tess’s cold, dead body.

Riese: Show us Tess hanging off a highway overpass with blood coming out of her eyeballs, or give me death. Speaking of Tess’s fate, should we discuss what we think should really happen to all of these characters in the finale?

Analyssa: What we’re living in our heads for the rest of time with?

Riese: Well, I’d love to start out on a positive note and remember that we never got to see Angie and Bella have their love confession.

Analyssa: I forgot about them.

Riese: That is I think the next scene that I would want from Angie, would be her going to Bella’s and apologizing, and Bella being like, “But,” you know?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: You know what I’m talking about, those scenes?

Drew: Yes. That would be really nice. I love that for those two.

Riese: And then Hendrix never publishes another word for the rest of his life and he has to work at Cold Stone Creamery.

Drew: I don’t think Cold Stone deserves him.

Riese: Actually, you’re probably right.

Drew: I hope Micah and Maribel patch things up. Maybe he’s sitting in the car, and then he takes a deep breath and he’s like, “This is absurd,” and then he goes back inside the house.

Riese: He’s like, “I only packed three T-shirts. And not even deodorant.”

Drew:
And he’s like, “Let’s talk this out.” He’s like, “Maybe we rushed into the whole baby thing. Maybe what we should actually do is just-”

Riese: See a therapist.

Drew: Yeah! “Let’s work it out, and if you do still want a baby, that can be something we can talk about.”

Analyssa: Maybe we see a doctor who can assuage a lot of these concerns first.

Riese: And talk to them about all of our fears and concerns and all of the complications, and decide what the best path forward is.

Drew: That sounds lovely.

Analyssa: I know we didn’t leave her on a sad note, so we don’t really need to give her a future, but I just feel like Sophie was on the brink of being like, “I’m actually ready to take a creative turn. I think I want to go do stuff that excites me.” Maybe that’s documentary making, as we’ve learned. I don’t know, Pippa…

Riese: Is she going to be broke?

Analyssa: Well, I think Pippa is a very wealthy artist.

Drew: I’m just saying that yes, all the queer shows are canceled, but you should seek out Sophie’s new queer documentary. You just have to get a subscription to Mubi and you can watch it.

Analyssa: Exactly.

Drew: It’s just $5.99 a month or something like that. You can watch Sophie Suarez’s new documentary. It’s eight hours long, and it’s fantastic.

Riese: Introductory subscription, 25% off. Anyone can watch it. I think that would be nice for Sophie. What I would actually predict for Sophie is that she enters into this thing with Pippa, but Pippa is very non-committal because she’s not going to commit to somebody who’s 20 years younger than her. And Sophie is kind of enamored, but Pippa doesn’t really give her the attention she desires. She thinks about doing the documentary, but freaks out and decides to stay on The Alice Show, which is also good, so that they’re all in the same set interacting, right?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Then of course Finley is back working at The Alice Show, and once again, Sophie finds herself back in the arms of her one true love now that they’ve both explored themselves and their experiences and Finley has dealt with whatever has happened with Tess, that then they come together in health and joy and then they have a baby.

Drew: Wow. That’s lovely.

Riese: And then they throw sperm vials at each other that cost $925.

Drew: I think that Tess wakes up from her coma, because she doesn’t die.

Riese: And it’s like, “Why am I friends with these assholes?”

Drew: I think she confronts the fact that living a stealth life has weighed on her, and made sobriety more difficult and other things more challenging. So, she decides to be more open about being a trans woman, and then she just forms this really great community of trans people and gets a trans girlfriend and just is thriving. That’s how I see her end.

Riese: I would love to see her working at a juice bar instead of an alcohol bar. Or remember those oxygen bars?

Drew: No.

Riese: No?

Drew: But I believe you.

Analyssa: You don’t remember those?

Drew: No. What’s that?

Riese: I guess you would go and get oxygen?

Analyssa: You would go and they would have little… It depends, but they would put them up your nose, like oxygen from a hospital or a little tube that you could suck in.

Drew: Was it flavored?

Analyssa: Sometimes.

Riese: Sometimes. I think so.

Analyssa: It was one of those…

Drew: Wellness?

Analyssa: Yeah. It was a booster shot like Kreation Juice. Or like how rich people get IVs brought to their homes so that they can have all their vitamins or whatever.

Drew: What if Tess realizes that what she really loves is bringing community together, so she opens up a queer, non-alcohol-centric space?

Analyssa: There are so many people online who would love that.

Drew: Like a bookstore or a coffee shop?

Riese: Yeah, a bowling alley.

Drew: Bowling alley.

Riese: Although my girlfriend doesn’t like bowling, so maybe a bookshop and coffee shop would be better for me personally. A roller rink.

Drew: Tess buys Stories in Echo Park.

Riese: Tess starts a swan boat company in Echo Park to compete with the present swan boat company, and then we get into swan boat company wars. No one has done that. That’s completely an unexplored topic on all of television.

Drew: That’s true.

Riese: No one has got into that at all.

Drew: Do we think Gigi works it out with Nat? Do we think Gigi and Nat go the distance?

Riese: Well, isn’t Nat still poly?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I think that now that they’re dating, and Nat of course is like, “Well, I’m poly. We should date other people.” And then Gigi is like, “I don’t really want to,” but then she goes on a date with Dani, and then yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, they realize, “Let’s give a throuple a try again.”

Drew: Wow, with Dani. See, I would love if The L Word: New York was Gigi and Nat moved to New York and they live their poly lives, and it’s just a really positive representation of a queer poly relationship, but it’s still in a messy way.

Analyssa: But not in a boring way.

Drew: The two of them aren’t fighting or cheating on each other, but they’re fighting and cheating on their various other romantic partners, but then they always come back to each other to process. That could be really fun.

Riese: Maybe they could live near Bette and Tina, so they see them in the grocery store, and Bette and Tina are like, “Ugh,” because those are our poly friends.

Drew: That would be a very funny cameo.

Riese: They all have children, so they’d all be in Park Slope with their little strollers. Well, I guess their children aren’t in strollers anymore, but you can put a kid in a stroller if you want to. It’s legal. I went to Disneyland recently and I saw a lot of them, so I think that sounds good for them.

Drew: I do think Gigi is too interesting to be with Nat, but sometimes I forget what The L Word always reminds me that sometimes really interesting people like to have boring partners because that’s the dynamic they like, whereas I do not understand that at all.

Riese: Well, we didn’t really get to know Nat that well.

Drew: That’s fair.

Riese: And I’m going to go on a limb here and say I don’t know how well-written any of these characters were in the end of the day.

Drew: Whoa.

Analyssa: That’s bold.

Drew: Hot take.

Analyssa: Brave. I liked Nat. I always thought she was funny.

Drew: You did like Nat.

Riese: You were a big Nat fan.

Analyssa: Well, I’m a big Stephanie Allynne fan, which is definitely inherited from an ex of mine, but I just think she’s so funny and charming.

Riese: She is really funny.

Drew: Speaking of shows that got canceled, if you haven’t watched One Mississippi, that’s still an Amazon. You can watch it.

Riese: That’s such a good show.

Drew: That’s one of the best shows to ever be made. It’s so good.

Riese: It’s brilliant. It’s so good. Two seasons. I don’t usually write entire posts about a show getting canceled, but I sure did for One Mississippi.

Drew: I remember that.

Riese: I said, “They canceled One Mississippi. I’m going to set my television on fire.” I think they canceled I Love Dick the same day or something.

Analyssa: Yeah, I think it was a big—

Riese: I was like, “Excuse me.”

Drew: Which again there’s always these moments where it feels like all hope is lost. And in fact—

Analyssa: And then sometimes you get an L Word: Generation Q.

Drew: I think what’s crazy is that right after Bette and Tina’s wedding, Tina died. That’s just so sad and brutal for that couple, that they finally get married and seem to be doing okay, and then Tina gets hit—

Riese: Maybe Tess and Denver railed into the little golf cart that Bette and Tina were driving off in.

Drew: And Tina died.

Analyssa: I can’t believe we’re just never going to know what happened to Tess. So mad.

Drew: It’s so brutal.

Riese: I know, that’s so annoying.

Analyssa: Why end it on that note when you know that you might not come back?

Drew: It is one of the most unforgivable sins.

Analyssa: When the odds are stacked against you, why would you make the cliffhanger she might die in a car accident because she’s not sober and neither is the person driving? Why couldn’t it be the cliffhanger is like, “Will Dani choose Roxy or Dre?”

Riese: You still have the trans person unhappy at the end of the episode, even in that one.

Analyssa: Sure. Will Angie go find Bella? There are so many other-

Drew: Angie could have run after Bella, and Bella’s on a date with some other, I don’t know. There are so many fun things that could have happened.

Riese: I wanted Bella to walk in.

Drew: That could have been even more fun. They kiss.

Analyssa: I really thought Bella was going to be Angie’s date to the wedding. I thought it was going to be a whole thing that was like, “I was going to bring Hendrix, but of course now we’re broken up, and also my moms hate him, so I couldn’t. Thanks for coming last minute.” And then Bella is like-

Riese: “How is my friend?”

Analyssa: Yeah, and Bella’s like, “Well, I always wanted to be your date to the wedding. Here’s why.”

Riese: I love the moment where they’re at the party and they turn around and they see that person standing there in their attire. Although I guess that exact thing happened with Dre, but it was not at the right moment.

Drew: Poor Dre.

Riese: You know what I mean?

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Poor Dre.

Analyssa: Poor Dre.

Riese: Oh my God. I reread my recap just to refresh my memory of what happened. And Dre, they looked so cute in their suit. Oh my God, it broke my heart all over again for this fictional character. But anyway, that love triangle I’m sure would be messy.

Drew: And hot.

Riese: And hot also.

Drew: Because of what happens to Micah and what happens to Tess, I was not happy with how it ended with Dre. But as far as leaving trans characters or trans actors in a bad spot, at least that is fairly low-stakes.

Analyssa: That’s gay hookup show drama; that just happens in the natural course of things. The things that felt horrible-

Riese: Cruel?

Analyssa: Yeah, were like the cruel, “Oh, cool. We’re near murder-”

Riese: With Tess and with Micah.

Analyssa: “…and we’re near breakup for no reason.” It just felt bad. Who’s left?

Riese: Alice. Alice and Tasha back together.

Analyssa: Alice and Tasha I feel like live happily ever after. I do think The Alice Show gets canceled pretty brutally coming up soon, so that’s something we have to deal with. I bet Alice doesn’t-

Riese: If The L Word: Gen Q didn’t get canceled then The Alice Show would have.

Analyssa: Exactly. I think Alice would go on a podcast revenge tour trying to be like, I don’t know, “I can be famous without them,” but she ends up just being embarrassed about stuff she says. I don’t know, she’s so goofy.

Riese: I would love her to learn something from Tasha instead of just, you know?

Drew: I was going a different route. She has a standup special called Silenced.

Analyssa: Maybe she tries to do a standup special or a podcast tour or something. She tries to go scorched earth and Tasha’s like, “What if it’s nice that you don’t host the show? It makes you kind of unfun.”

Riese: “Why don’t you just start a home decor line?”

Drew: I would watch a Hacks-esque show-

Analyssa: Ooh.

Drew: …about Alice as the Jean Smart character and a young, let’s make it someone with a lot of marginalized identities, that Alice can just be terrible about. Let’s do that show.

Riese: I would love to eventually though see Alice evolve and change and grow.

Drew: Well, that would happen throughout the course of my spinoff show about the trans woman who’s stuck taking care of Alice’s ego.

Analyssa: She’s her assistant post-Alice Show cancellation, so it’s really just Alice management. There’s not a lot else going on.

Riese: I love that idea. That’s perfect.

Drew: Let’s see.

Riese: Shane.

Drew: Oh, God. I hope Shane just figures out being non-monogamous, opens up a salon.

Analyssa: You and Kate Moennig both.

Riese: Gets back into hair, maybe Ivy comes back in town.

Analyssa: I forgot.

Drew: Wait, Ivy has a kid, right?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: So, Shane finally gets her family and is a surrogate parent to Ivy’s kid, and Shane continues to learn and grow up, but also goes off and has sexcapades and it’s sometimes with Ivy, sometimes not with Ivy. Great stuff.

Riese: They did retcon that and have Shane suddenly be totally against having kids when Quiara wanted to have kids, even though she wanted to have kids when she was younger and she lost Shay. But I think we could retcon it back.

Drew: This is our show.

Riese: This is our show, so Shane’s getting the family that she’s always dreamed of with Ivy and her tank tops. Bette and Tina. We’ve already… Bette and Tina moved to Toronto and rented a condo.

Drew: And Tina died.

Riese: Okay, in Drew’s ending Tina dies. I don’t want anyone to die.

Drew: I don’t want anyone to die either, but sometimes it happens.

Riese: I don’t want anyone to ever die.

Drew: I know, it’s brutal.

Riese: Except Donald Trump.

Drew: But it was so sudden. It was really brutal.

Analyssa: Who’s left? Carrie and Misty?

Drew: Aw.

Riese: They’re cute. They remain Finley’s parents, and eventually grandparents to Finley and Sophie’s children.

Drew: Carrie gets some queer friends who are also fat and learns that she doesn’t have to-

Analyssa: Carrie starts hanging out in different circles than the ones that she’s been forced to hang out in.

Riese: Maybe she makes more bowling friends.

Analyssa: I was just about to say, I feel like the bowling league is a great place to start for that. Now that she’s dating Misty, she hasn’t ruined the bowling league, so she can go back to the bowling league. I feel like that’s a great place to make new friends of all different ages, sizes, professions, class, all sorts of different stuff that she’s not been… at Bowl-a-rama.

Riese: Tess’ Bowl-a-Rama.

Analyssa: And Tess owns it. Exactly.

Drew: Oh, the show writes itself.

Riese: I did ask AI to tell me what would happen to Shane, and they said that she would keep working on her sobriety. And I asked what would happen to Tess, and they said that her and Gigi have a really strong connection and that they will keep building that connection. I thought, “Interesting. I wonder where you’re getting this from.” Anyway, I did provide feedback on both answers to correct their factual errors, so that-

Drew: Don’t teach the robot!

Riese: …hopefully it can become a better AI. Well, listen-

Analyssa: What did you feed into the AI?

Riese: I said, “What will happen next for Tess on The L Word: Generation Q?”

Analyssa: I see.

Riese: It gave me a lot of answers, but those were the ones that were funniest, because they were the incorrect ones. The other ones are pretty generic, you know?

Analyssa: Sure.

Riese: She could get into LGBT community and building blah, blah, blah, working on herself or pursue meditation.

Drew: Fun fact. Marja’s initial pitch was also crafted by just typing words into an AI chat generator. People don’t know that. It’s a little industry insider fun fact.

Riese:
That is very insidery.

Analyssa: Drew, when you said the show writes itself, I was like, “Well, and haven’t we heard that before?”

Riese: Anyway, is there anyone left?

Drew: Tom? What’s Tom up to?

Riese: Oh, Tom. I think he’s going to live happily ever after.

Analyssa: Tom is raising his baby with his new-

Riese: I just want everyone to be happy.

Drew: That’s nice. But Tom’s kid is queer, and because of Tom’s experience dating a bisexual woman, he’s able to be a much better father to a queer child.

Analyssa: Can you imagine Tom showing up with even a six-year-old being like, “My kid says he’s queer. Can someone help?” And Alice, Bette, Shane are like, “Yes. We have advice.”

Drew: Incredible.

Analyssa: Exactly. It’ll be beautiful.

Riese: In conclusion, I’m pretty bummed it was canceled even though I hated about half of it.

Analyssa: Even though it made me viscerally angry, I am pretty sad that it’s not coming back. And even though we kind of knew after a couple of months of it not getting announced, I think Riese is right, what you said at the beginning. There was still, “But maybe. Maybe it’ll come back.”

Riese: It’s a good, strong franchise, the social media-

Analyssa: I don’t know. It caused a lot of conversation I feel like, and maybe that’s just we were hearing all the people who were having the conversation.

Riese: In the conversation.

Analyssa: Maybe elsewhere, nobody knows that this show is happening, but I just feel like it was really fun to have something that was rally-aroundable and is eventized. A League of Their Own, I know a ton of people watched, but it wasn’t as like, “When is everyone watching?”

Drew: Because all the episodes were dropped at once, which was the worst decision ever. If A League of Their Own had been weekly, it would have been even more of a phenomenon, and it pisses me off so much that didn’t happen.

Analyssa: Because word of mouth is so important for queer shows especially. We talk to our friends who talk to their friends, and eventually a bar in LA is hosting a watch party, you know what I mean?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I think that’s such a fun part of the experience and makes you really feel like you’re watching with people. That’s the thing that I think I am sad about this show about queer community, also built queer community when it was airing. It offered an opportunity for that.

Riese: This franchise started this community.

Analyssa: And then continued in the comments. Every recap that Riese posts gets hundreds of comments, because people are just dying to talk about the show they just watched, and watch parties in real bars. That’s really fun. Or the Discord we did that we watched along with people was so fun. So, that is a bummer, and I will miss our friends.

Riese: I think as a franchise for some reason, for better or for worse, it brought us all together, and for some reason it’s like our weird, little community problem that we just have, that we keep returning to, but it for some reason brings everyone together. We all watch it. It’s a big enough cast that everyone can find somebody they’re into. I feel sad for the cast, because I think it was probably really cool to be able to work with each other, you know?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: And I think it’s sad for us, for our website traffic. Also, for all of our listeners for To L and Back who enjoyed listening to us talk about the show for better and for worse throughout our time. But maybe we’ll find something else to talk about.

Drew: Maybe we’ll see you in New York.

Riese: Or maybe we’ll see you in New York.

Analyssa: Now that I have my windpipe fixed, I’m ready to podcast about truly anything. Can talk for ages.

Riese: Yeah, we could talk about a different TV show, or we could talk about movies. Drew never talks about movies.

Analyssa: We can never get Drew to talk about movies, so that would be a really good opportunity.

Drew: Fine, fine, I’ll talk about movies. It would be fun in what I was talking about as far as there are so many queer movies that come out each year that deserve deep dives. I would… Monthly movie club, To L and Back monthly Movie Club.

Analyssa: Movie club.

Drew: I would love that.

Riese: That’d be fun.

Drew: Weekly is tough, but once a month we pick a movie that came out in the last three months that’s queer. Be super cool.

Riese: That would be fun. I always wanted to do a podcast that was a deep dive on the history and the culture around different shows that had queer characters in them at the time, and talking about what they mean today. But that’s one of those things that I think about when I think about, I don’t know, writing a TV show or building a treehouse.

Analyssa: Owning a home?

Riese: Or owning something that’s worth more than $50. So, it’s in the fantasy space at this time.

Analyssa: But it’s nice to have a dream column.

Drew: When you sell Autostraddle to Tess, who realizes that the best place to create community is online, then you can-

Riese: Then she’ll fund my dream podcast, my dreamcast.

Drew: I don’t know how Tess became a millionaire, but all of a sudden Tess became a millionaire in my fantasy.

Riese: I think the insurance settlement, because the other man died in the car crash and they thought that he was her husband, and so she got all of his money, because he was rich from modeling for Abercrombie & Fitch. That was just the vibe I got from him, even though he was a cater waiter.

Analyssa: He was just doing that for fun to try to connect with people, you know?

Riese: Yeah, and to deliver his product.

Analyssa: He was trying to make a switch into acting and dealing, so he’s like, “I’m going to connect with real people for a while to emote.”

Drew: Well, this was fun. RIP Tina Kennard.

Riese: RIP L Word: Gen Q. Thanks for all the memories and all the fun times we had.

Lauren Klein: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back: Generation Q Edition, one of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at ToLandBack, and you can also email us at ToLandBackcast@gmail.com. Our theme song is by the talented Be Steadwell, and our Gen Q logo is by JaxCo. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram at laurentaylorklein. You can follow Drew everywhere at Draw_Gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram at analocaa with two A’s, and on Twitter at analoca_ with one A and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard Everywhere at Autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle, and of course, the reason why we’re all here, Autostraddle.com.

Analyssa: This is where the song “Graduation” by Vitamin C would play.

Riese: That would be ideal if we could queue that up. Are we going to do Q words?

Drew: Oh.

Analyssa: Wow. Well, you just said “queue that up.”

Drew: You did say “queue that up,” so maybe you finally broke. The reason there’s no more Gen Q is because you finally didn’t say “quincemeat,” you said “Q.”

Riese: I was hoping to get to say “quincemeat” one more time in the podcast.

Analyssa: Let’s do Q words.

Drew: Ready?

Riese: Uh-huh.

Drew: 3, 2, 1, quincemeat.

Analyssa: Quincemeat.

Riese: Quincemeat. Everyone said “quincemeat.” You guys.

Analyssa: So true, Riese.

Riese: I love you. Wow, what a great show.

Analyssa: The final quincemeat.

Riese: Carol is so excited.

Analyssa: If you get to write the Christmas special that inevitably ends the whole Gen Q thing, do you think you’ll just title it Quincemeat?

Riese: Yes. I’ll be like, “Christmas with Quincemeat: An L-Word-”

Analyssa: Yeah, if it’s a Christmas special. If it’s a Christmas episode.

Riese: “… Back to LA.”

Analyssa: A quincemeat truffle or whatever. I don’t know, we’re already making shit up.

Riese: They’re going to have it at an Airbnb in Palm Springs maybe, or maybe Joshua Tree. It’s hard to decide. I have so many creative options available to me on this project I haven’t been commissioned to produce, but again, would love to.

To L And Back: Generation Q Podcast 310: We Just Wanted To Have Fun With Our Friends

Well, well, well! If this season was all episodes featuring a big event, this sure is a fitting finale. This week, on the final episode of the season (and potentially, sadly, the series, as we haven’t heard any renewal news yet), Bette and Tina wed, finally strolling off together, hand in hand, into the sunset and (presumably) their long-awaited happily ever after.

So much of what happens at the wedding is delightful: Bette and Tina are locked in the walk-in fridge, Alice is responsible for booze and CALLING TASHA (to save the brides of course), Sophie and Pippa share a beautiful flirtatious afternoon. G Flip and Chrishell arrive, and Roxy is back to play and Dani is on drugs! So it’s also a big bummer that Tess, Micah and Maribel specifically end the season in truly dour places, and I feel at this point in the season it’s okay for me to be honest about that in this post! From the low of a relapse storyline to the highs of every single second Tasha was onscreen, this feels a fitting (if frustrating) send-off to the season we loved to discuss so much.

Please let us know in the comments if you ALSO spotted Ilene Chaiken in the crowd at the wedding, or if you know why G Flip and Chrishell were guests. We love you, we’ll miss you, we hope you enjoyed the ride! (And if you did, please consider donating to Autostraddle!!!)

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SHOW NOTES

+ The reason Riese called Drew the poppers queen was this essay
+ We make a lot of references to this interview with Gen Q showrunner Marja-Lewis Ryan in this ep
+ Carmen on her love of Pippa Pascal, who is also discussed in this roundtable On Blackness and the L Word
+ Both Daniel Sea interviews again, for good measure
+ Sort Of and P Valley both made the TV team’s top shows of 2022
+ I can’t remember why I’m linking this but Drew and Shelli are covering Sundance!
+ The G Flip & Chrishell explainer, thank you Anya!
+ The podcast You’re Wrong About, which did a series on Princess Diana
+ Arienne Mandi’s holiday movie (also starring Melora Hardin!), Love, Classified
+ One more plug: if you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to Autostraddle!!!
+ The time we met the cast of The L Word: Gen Q, three long and wild years ago, kicking off truly one of the most messy months of all of our young lives:

https://www.instagram.com/p/B5td8XbHuNr/

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And this is…

Riese: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition

Drew: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition

Analyssa: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition. Well?

Drew: Here we are. The finale.

Riese: The finale. We’re recording so late because it took a long time to get screeners.

Analyssa: I was going to say “the long awaited finale” in more than one way.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I do think it’s worth noting this is the least amount of time between the three of us watching an episode collectively all together and then recording the podcast.

Riese: Yeah. We just watched it an hour ago.

Analyssa: I watched it just before I got in my car to come over here.

Riese: Right. I watched it just before you guys got here because we didn’t get it until-

Analyssa: And usually we have a few days before we end up being able to schedule to record the podcast so…

Riese: Yeah. Usually I like to have the recap mostly done before we record.

Drew: Yeah. I do think that maybe they kept it from us because they knew that if I couldn’t rant about it on a mic, I would explode out in the world.

Analyssa: They were trying to contain Drew.

Drew: Maybe.

Analyssa: Specifically.

Drew: Potentially.

Riese: I liked it.

Drew: Okay.

Analyssa: I fall, as always, somewhere in the middle.

Drew: There are things about it that I think are great.

Riese: I’m sure by the end of this, Drew will have convinced me to hate it.

Drew: No, I don’t want to do that. Should I just leave? Should I just let you guys… I feel like you got it. I feel like… Also, I want to say before we start that I’m going into this with the knowledge that this could be the last episode of the series, and also with the knowledge that if the showrunner of The L Word: Generation Q was familiar with how television worked, she would know that this very well could be the last episode.

And so with that in mind, I think any TV show you should think about this with a season finale, unless there’s certain shows where we know they’re not going to get canceled and they’re hits and they’re whatever. But your queer show that doesn’t do a lot of numbers that took forever to get renewed this last time, this very well could be the series finale, not just of The L Word: Generation Q, but of The L Word franchise, which means a lot to a lot of people.

And I honestly think that they did do that. I honestly think that they went into this episode making sure to give a happy sendoff to the people who they see as people. And with that, we can start.

Riese: There is, though, I think always the possibility that even if the show is canceled, that I will be hired to write an L Word Christmas special.

Drew: That’s true.

Analyssa: And we should be holding out hope for that.

Riese: And obviously, I would have you help me.

Drew: Thank you. Frankly, you could do that just like an AO3 situation.

Analyssa: The next iteration of this podcast is just us workshopping Riese’s Christmas movie.

Riese: Yes, exactly. Thank you so much. But also, the thing is this long wait between to find out renewals is new. That’s a new thing in the age of streaming. When the original series aired, you’d find out mid-season if next season. So it’s such a weird new thing that showrunners are doing where they don’t know when they finish this season, if it’s going to be the season finale. Like that, it never was like that before. So it’s very weird. It’s a weird position for everybody to be in, I guess. Especially us.

Drew: Yeah. Really. This episode is Gen Q 3.10: “Looking Ahead”. It’s directed by Leisha Hailey, and it is written by Marja as well as Scout Comm, and Courtney Edwards. Scout Comm is the script coordinator this season so I’m really glad that they got an episode credit. That’s huge. Courtney Edwards, I couldn’t find that much information about unless, I don’t know. There’s another name that’s similar and I’m trying to figure out if it’s that person or not. But either-

Riese: DM us, Courtney. There’s no-

Drew: Yeah. I would love-

Riese: What’s your story?

Drew: Yeah, who are you?

Riese: So tell us about you. What’s your favorite color? What do you do for fun?

Analyssa: It’s possible that both of them are support staff and that’s writing support staff. And that’s why there’s not a ton of stuff on the internet.

Drew: Yeah. That seems right. And so I’m really happy, regardless of anything else about this episode, getting that first credit’s huge, so very happy.

Analyssa: Especially as a finale episode, that’s a pretty big thing to put on your resume. You don’t really use resumes in the general or in a traditional sense, but to have in your pocket as something that you did is really cool.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Usually it’s just the showrunner. Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: But we have a lot to talk about. So let’s dive in. Well, we begin with Alice in wedding planner mode, and she’s in wedding planner mode because the wedding planner is-

Riese: Banging Shane. In the bathroom. She’s gay, but she was in Severance, which was one of my favorite shows of 2022, and I highly recommend it. Believe it or not, it’s actually a little bit better than The L Word. But they actually have full intercourse-

Analyssa: Full sex?

Riese: Nice. Thank you. Finally got that in.

Drew: We knew it’d be Shane to bring us back.

Analyssa: So yeah. Alice is planning the wedding because Shane is fucking the wedding planner. And then Tina and Bette are getting ready in a bridal suite.

Riese: I cannot believe they’re doing their own makeup.

Analyssa: The way that this wedding so rapidly oscillates between being explained as a very luxurious event, but then it’s also a very-

Riese: Thrown together in a week

Analyssa: …shoestring. Yeah.

Riese: But there’s like no chance on earth they’d be doing their own makeup.

Drew: No.

Riese: Like zero. I was also like, did they do their own hair? Thank God they didn’t do their own hair. But I was like, wow. Wow. Intense. I mean, it’s that hoarder. She has infinite money. She went to Toronto without a job or a passport just to sit on the sidelines of Murdoch Mysteries, and that is obviously true love, as we see. Anyway, Tina might be going through menopause, might not.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: That’s a cliffhanger right there.

Analyssa: That’s one thing that we’ll never get an answer to if this doesn’t get us next season.

Riese: Right. We’ll never know.

Drew: Alice has a fun little dress on that’s both black and white polka dot and rainbow. It’s definitely a choice.

Riese: I liked it. I thought it was cute.

Drew: Yeah. And Alice needs to get alcohol, which she has forgotten to do.

Riese: You know what I would do in this situation? Just like I’m just spitballing here. I would like, have you ever been to BevMo!?

Analyssa: Right, right, right.

Riese: Ralph’s, Costco, the corner store.

Analyssa: Costco would be great. They’d have a ton of stuff to get.

Riese: Yeah, Costco. Yeah. I think there’s a lot of options that I would go to-

Drew: Before calling-

Riese: …before calling my ex. Yeah. Although also, I don’t even, in that case, I might call Finley and stuff.

Analyssa: But I was going to say, the other thing I probably would’ve done is called the other friend who works at the same location and at least have Finley run in between the two of them.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: But Alice is immediately, you have to call Tess.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, my bigger problem is that the wedding planner says to Shane, “I’m a Capricorn moon, so I love to serve.” which that just didn’t… I mean, if someone, I’m not an expert with astrology, so if someone wants to explain why that’s the case…

Riese: Are you a Capricorn moon?

Drew: I am.

Riese: Oh, I have-

Analyssa: You’re a Capricorn moon, also?

Drew: I’m Capricorn sun. No. Oh, sorry, not moon. I’m Capricorn Mars. Did she say Mars or did she say moon?

Analyssa: No, she said moon, by the way.

Drew: Okay. Either way, does that explain… Why… It should be Mars, right? That’s sex and also…

Analyssa: Right. But she’s making a joke about work too.

Drew: Yeah, I guess okay.

Riese: Don’t look at me for astrology.

Drew: I don’t know.

Riese: I looked at you. I turned to you.

Drew: Tell us if that checks out. I guess like serve maybe has just different connotations to me. If she was like, I love to work hard, I’d be like, okay. But there was just-

Analyssa: Get the job done.

Drew: Yeah. But something about serve felt, I was like, I don’t know. It didn’t work for me astrologically, but

Riese: Well, take it up with the stars.

Drew: I’m a Taurus moon. For the record.

Riese: Take it up with the stars!

Drew: Anyways, so then we go to Tess who walks into the bar with a very obvious hangover.

Analyssa: And look, for now, what I’ll say about this storyline is I was just glad to not see that damn purple coffee mug. The fact that they did not bring this coffee mug back out was one small mercy of this storyline for me.

Drew: Yeah. Finley comes in, there’s some back and forth about Finley has a new place now and how gross it is, apparently. And she’s like, you should come see my new place. And then Tess has this moment of like, oh shit, I’m going to have to get new furniture when I get my own new place.

Riese: She’s not. Shane will leave the furniture.

Drew: And Finley’s like, “Fuck Shane, I’m on your side.”

Riese: Right. Sure. Okay.

Drew: Back to the wedding.

Riese: Roxy comes back. That’s exciting. I didn’t know that was going to happen.

Analyssa: That was fun.

Riese: And we loved her.

Analyssa: I was really excited to see her. We learned that Dani ghosted Dre after they said that they wanted to get more serious,

Riese: But also Dre left Dani and was like, I’m cutting out of this.

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: So who’s the ghost?

Analyssa: Once again?

Drew: No. We obviously have to make it not Dani’s fault. It obviously needs to be Dre’s fault. Whatever. It’s like, it’s fine. It’s so funny because I was so excited about Roxy when Roxy was introduced, and her and Dani are so fun together. And then to end the last episode with Dani and Dre, how they were also very clearly Dani had feelings for Dre. So to then be like, Dani ghosted, you’re like, what? Okay. Like what? Okay. And Sophie’s worried that Alice is mad at her.

Riese: Everyone’s outfits are great, I just want to say.

Analyssa: Yes, everyone-

Riese: Especially Dani looks spectacular.

Analyssa: Everyone looks amazing in this episode. They knocked it out of the park. Sophie’s also set a really big goal for the wedding to get laid.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: That’s a big thing that she’s talking about.

Riese: Yeah. Good for her.

Drew: Sophie, the only character in this episode that I feel really good about.

Riese: All right.

Drew: Roxy gives Dani molly and Dani’s like, “Molly doesn’t work on me.” It seems weird to me that this season has had so many repeat storylines. Like, yes-

Riese: They did molly earlier?

Drew: No, but they had, they just this season had so many different drug things. You have Micah at an event where Micah’s high, and now you have Dani high. And not that people don’t do drugs. I get it. But it is just like-

Riese: Drew. Queen poppers.

Drew: I do. I’m really the only person here who does drugs, but it’s just to make it a storyline.

Riese: I did drugs when I was your age.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: But now I’m old.

Analyssa: I also did drugs when I was your age.

Drew: We’re the same age. But yeah. And then two episodes ending with an almost death and just these things where I’m-

Analyssa: Even Dani being torn between two people at the end of this episode. I was like, wait, deja vu. It’s not the same, but her being involved in a…

Drew: Yeah. Anyways, it’s fine.

Riese: I know there’s a lot of questionable character choices in it, but I don’t know, with the exception of the Micah and Maribel stuff that I’m sure we’ll get into and the Tess stuff, it had a good energy to me. You know what I mean? It was funny. It was fast paced. It felt like the vibes were good. I just had fun watching it, and I felt emotionally invested in a lot of things. Then there were those two things that are profoundly upsetting.

Drew: But I think part of the problem for me is that there were things about this episode that I really liked and we’re going to get into them, and it felt-

Riese: Mean?

Drew: It felt mean. It felt just very apparent. And I don’t want to do a summary of the episode when we’re two scenes in, but it just feels so blatant. Even though season six ended with Max being humiliated and it was terrible, at least Jenny had been killed and everyone was going to be arrested, and it was terrible.

Riese: But that’s terrible.

Drew: No, it’s awful. Jenny’s death is one of my least favorite. I was just talking to someone about this, how much Jenny’s death is one of the worst deaths. I hate it. It bothers me more than Dana’s death. But I’m just saying that universally, it was terrible, whereas-

Analyssa: Everything was going wrong.

Drew: Whereas here, it’s literally like the trans actors, the disabled actor, and everyone else pretty much gets a really good wrapped up happy ending.

Riese: Yeah, that’s true.

Drew: And that feels brutal. Anyways, let’s carry on because there is a lot of fun stuff.

Riese: Bette and Tina, they go to the walk-in, and it’s a secret, special kind of walk-in, I guess with a weird door situation unlike a door that I’ve ever witnessed, and I’ve spent a lot of time sitting in walk-ins, because that’s what you do with the Olive Garden when you’re hot and you want to eat desserts out of the box.

Drew: We do learn that Bette and Tina were previously married at the courthouse.

Analyssa: Thank God. I was like-

Riese: The relief.

Analyssa: I watched that and I said, I’m so happy for Riese.

Riese: Thank you so much.

Analyssa: It truly is like they heard you.

Riese: It is. Yeah. I appreciated that. And it was very calming to me.

Drew: There are actually quite a few things that throughout this episode that could have been said three episodes of ago.

Riese: Yeah. There was quite a few things. Yeah. I mean, there’s one really big one, but there’s a lot. But yeah, there’s a lot of things where I was like, finally, this is being coming up. This is coming around. But I’m like, why did they wait until now? That’s kind of weird.

Analyssa: Again, once again, referencing the letterboxed review of someone I don’t know, of just needing 72 hours in edit bay. I was like, I would’ve put this scene three episodes ago. And then me, Analyssa, I never would’ve been mad about this plot line. Would’ve been so much easier.

Riese: Yeah. I just wonder what happened. The last, when they were working on a script, oh, we never really explained this. Or was it on set? Someone was like, we really should address this.

Drew: I think Scout Comm and Courtney Edwards are in that room. They’ve been sitting in that room as script coordinator saying-

Riese: And they’re like, someone mentioned they were married before.

Analyssa: A script coordinator would be like, I have my eyes on the fact that we’ve never brought up this, this, and this. Let’s get those things handled.

Riese: Oh, really?

Analyssa: Yeah. A script coordinator is very detailed. They track every change to a script. They’re continuity people. They’re in charge of that kind of thing.

Riese: Oh, wow. They probably came with some notes.

Drew: So I’m going to give credit to those first time television writers and say that, thank you for making us feel slightly less crazy.

Analyssa: There’s also some fun fan service for… It might not hit for everybody, but I did. I loved the attempt of Bette and Tina being like, I want our friends to see us get married. And what they really mean is the L Word audience.

Riese: They’ve seen us through all this.

Analyssa: They’ve seen us through all this. They want this for us. It’ll be so fun to celebrate with them. I thought that was sweet.

Drew: Yeah. I don’t know. That interview that recently came out with Marja-Lewis Ryan, we did learn about one of her strengths isn’t arcs, that she’s still learning how to get arcs down, so I do think it makes sense to be like, oh yeah, a lot of stuff was explained this episode, and if you had an understanding of arcs, maybe you would put that in throughout the season. But if that’s one of your flaws, and we all have flaws, we’re not perfect.

Riese: Like, I don’t want to be CEO of my company.

Analyssa: For one recent anecdotal example. Sure.

Riese: Yeah. I just want to write things. Maybe run a TikTok.

Drew: I think maybe Marja just wants to act again and Marja says she should go back.

Riese: Maybe we’ve all just found ourselves in positions we didn’t expect to be in.

Drew: I don’t want to be hosting an L Word podcast. I’ll tell you that.

Riese: Drew. Drew, how dare you!

Drew: We can cut that. No, we probably won’t. But no, I love it. But yes, it is very much, so much of what this episode does well is giving fans of the original series a real sort of happy ending closure; lesbians getting married for Bette and Tina and also-

Riese: Well, Tina’s bisexual.

Drew: I would like to apologize to-

Riese: The bisexual community.

Drew: …the 50 plus year old cis white-

Analyssa: Drew, look at me in my eyeballs.

Drew: …bisexual community for the offense that I’ve done. But yeah, I mean also Alice in talk, which we’ll get to, I think those two things are really the point of this episode. Yeah. It was. And I’m happy for you if that’s something you’re invested in.

Riese: The forced smile Drew just gave us. It was really incredible.

Analyssa: Anyway, they’re locked in the fridge as we know.

Drew: They’re locked in the fridge.

Analyssa: As we all knew what happened as soon as they walked into the fridge.

Riese: Usually, the handle. It’s like this big. It’s bigger. It’s like the size of a two year old, and it’s like you pull it’s, and also doesn’t, whatever. It’s fine.

Drew: It doesn’t make any sense. I actually didn’t think it was going to happen because it didn’t make sense to me, but that’s fine. Did we do a locked in a thing so far this season?

Riese: No.

Analyssa: This season? No. Okay. But there was the elevator thing. Yeah, sure. Of course. I mean, I do love when people get locked in a place.

Drew: I also love that.

Analyssa: Oh, we did Locked Out, Tess and Shane.

Drew: We did do locked out.

Riese: We locked out. Locked out. That’s an arc. I think that’s an arc is. Yeah. You go home locked out to locked in, and then you’ve written a story.

Drew: And that’s the difference between-

Riese: In 60 minutes.

Drew: Between Shane and between Bette and Tina is Bette and Tina locked in.

Analyssa: They’re locked in.

Drew: Shane, locked out.

Riese: Locked out. Locked out. Locked out on a ledge.

Analyssa: For one brief second, there’s like a throwaway line about how now there’s alcohol. Alice is talking to some person who has brought the alcohol. And for one brief moment, I was like, they’re not even going to bring Tess. That’s amazing.

Riese: Right. I thought so too.

Analyssa: That appealed so good to me.

Riese: Yeah. Why would Tess come?

Drew: I noted that-

Riese: Again, BevMo!

Analyssa: BevMo exists.

Drew: That extra or whatever the right word is for the person who’s like, didn’t say anything because obviously that person, you talk, you talk, it’s a thing.

Analyssa: He got to get paid.

Drew: And I was paid and I was like, oh, I wish that they’d given that person some lines so that they could have gotten health insurance, but that person doesn’t. So it’s kind of awkward. And then Sophie goes up to Alice and they have this nice little moment where they reconcile. And Alice is like, you did a great job. You’re getting promoted. I just want to be mad at you. And Sophie’s like, oh my God.

Analyssa: This was, I feel showed so much of what Riese was talking about. The episode does well, they’re, the two of them have a real sparkle. It was just so delightful.

Riese: Another part of the episode that was incredibly delightful is that Pippa shows up.

Drew: This is the best thing about this episode.

Riese: And I was like, holy shit. Because I was like, she’s not like, that’s it. I watched Vanessa Estelle Williams did a Insta Story or something on set, but she didn’t say what she was on the set of. And I watched it 20 times trying to figure out, do I see any people who look vaguely gay in the background? It looked like they were outside or something, and it could not have been this, honestly, but I was like, it must have been something else. And maybe it wasn’t.

Drew: Yeah. Sophie is talking to herself about wanting to get laid, and then Pippa is like, I heard you-

Riese: Looking amazing.

Drew: And they have such good chemistry. They’re both so hot.

Riese: So hot.

Drew: It’s so good. And also, I’m just like, okay, Autostraddle editor-in-chief, Carmen.

Riese: I was just about to say this!

Drew: I know. I was so happy for Carmen.

Analyssa: I was just about to say, when the Bette and Pippa relationship was happening that one of the things that a lot of people of color on the Autostraddle writing staff, but Carmen especially, was like, this is so cool to see two black women who are just in a relationship having feelings for each other. I was just so, and Sophie being one of Carmen’s favorite characters maybe ever. I was just like,

Riese: Yes. Yeah, I know.

Drew: I texted Carmen and was like,

Riese: Oh, you did? Because I almost texted her! I was gonna say like, if you could find an hour for yourself this weekend, you should watch this.

Drew: Yeah. I said, there are so many problems with the finale of the outward generation queue, but there are two things that feel specifically for you, and I just want you to promise me you’re going to turn off your critic hat and turn off your care about other people hat and really enjoy those things. Really enjoy those because it’ll bring me joy.

Riese: Yeah, I know. My absolute first thought was, I am so happy for Carmen.

Analyssa: Me too. But then unfortunately, Finley is here to interrupt what could have been smoldering sexual chemistry for a while.

Riese: A I know. And I have been the biggest Sinley shipper ever, and it would take a lot to get me to root for Sophie to be with someone else, and this episode did accomplish that for me.

Drew: Yeah, it does. Yeah. It really does.

Riese: It does. Yeah.

Analyssa: I still, in my heart of hearts was like, okay, I understand. I deeply want Sinley to be together, but what if Sophie dated Pippa just for this one day and they got to kiss a little bit? Wouldn’t that be great?

Drew: I ship them forever now. I become the-

Riese: They’re much better for each other.

Drew: The audience who’s like, I want the queers to get married. I’m like, no, I get it.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Marry them.

Riese: So yeah, Finley wants her toaster back. I think that’s the last time Sophie and Finley talked to each other.

Drew: So then we go to Micah and Maribel and one of those Amazon robots has delivered a canister of sperm. That’s how it works. You just order off the internet and it arrives at your house.

Riese: Yeah, you can. There’s a lot of paperwork, I think. I didn’t do this route because it’s not the route that you do if you have anything complicated about your pregnancy. You don’t do an at-home insemination. It’s more likely done if you’re younger, whatever. Everything. It’s not the best. I don’t think it’s the best option for them.

Analyssa: It’s more likely done if you’re a Bette and Tina in season one of the original.

Riese: Yes. They would be a great example of that. And I mean that is how it… I haven’t gotten it that way, but I think that is how it comes in what it looks like. I don’t really understand the blue thing, when you get it done in doctor’s office. I don’t think it was blue, but I don’t know. It’s kind of disassociating because it’s weird. I don’t like having a body. At first I was like $700? But if you’re doing it at home, the sperm is a little bit cheaper. But that is kind of on the cheap side.

Analyssa: The way that I felt joy when Pippa and Sophie started making eyes at each other for Carmen. I felt deep despair for my friends, Riese and Drew, for this story. As soon as this started happening, I was like, huh.

Drew: I wish I could go back in time though and tell the Drew of two hours ago that this moment of this storyline is-

Riese: Not the worst.

Drew: The best we’re going to get.

Riese: Right. I would like to say that for a show that began with Tina saying, “I’m ovulating” back in 2004, I was a little bit confused about whether or not Maribel was ovulating. It just didn’t come up. They were, I was like, why are you taking the sperm out right now? It happened to, why did it just come on the day? This is her ovulation day. Is she monitoring any of that? Did she, whatever.

Drew: Yeah. She did say the clock is ticking at one point, but

Riese: She was talking about the sperm that they had for some reason already taken out. Because at first, I was like, “Oh, the clock is ticking. You know you only have a few hours or whatever.” And then, the other thing about it that annoyed me was this will be a baby in nine months. What? No. It won’t. Only if it works!

Drew: It’s a little bit of an anti-abortion sort of fetus, not even fetus, but sperm is a person?

Riese: Yeah. Every time someone with sperm and someone who makes eggs have sex, do they say this is going to be a baby in nine months? Because that’s the same thing as what they’re doing right now.

Drew: Yeah. It’s fucking weird.

Riese: It’s really weird. It’s fine.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: It’s fine. It’s weird. It’s fine. And also it’s weird because this is the only other thing that isn’t part of the wedding. So it’s like it’s separate in so many ways. Tess is like what? She’s about to go perform at a Vegas lounge, the way that she rolls up in her glitter dress…

Analyssa: This dress…

Riese: … with her smoldering facial expressions?

Analyssa: This dress, the fact that she was at her work in athleisure, basically hungover, and then now is full face of makeup. I respect that “I’m going to see my ex” energy. I know that we don’t deal in the temporal realities in The L Word, but I was just like, this is crazy. And this was the plot line that I was then feeling despair for myself obviously. Yeah.

Riese: Shane and Tess eye each other.

Drew: Yeah. Shane and Tess are like very flirty.

Analyssa: Also, sorry, Tess is now working the event basically. They didn’t just call her and say, can we get a bunch of alcohol from Dana’s? Which first of all, if I’d just been dumped by one of the bridal party, I’d be like, “Go fuck yourself,” number one. But number two now, she’s like serving up drinks kind of. It’s bizarre.

Drew: It makes no sense. Yeah. There are other bartenders who work, we’ve seen whenever they have parties.

Riese: It’s also, but there was this weird power dynamic with Shane owns the bar and Tess works for her. But that was never really addressed. And this is the first time, and it’s like, “Well, this is kind of why that’s a little bit hard.” Yeah.

Drew: Alice was like, “It’s showtime,” which I was like, “Yes.” And when Alice and Shane leave, then Tess leaves to go to some random guy’s car to do cocaine.

Riese: I mean, that is a realistic depiction of what you do to get cocaine.

Analyssa: Literally, I was like, I mean, okay. I cannot argue with the fact that I’ve been there, so.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. For legal reasons. That’s a joke.

Riese: Yeah. Me too. Well, no, it doesn’t matter. No one cares when I did coke.

Drew: Yeah. He is like, “Have you ever done this before?” Which is a weird thing to ask someone who very aggressively is, “Do you have cocaine?”

Riese: I know.

Analyssa: Tess is giving off vibes of not only have I done this before, but since before you were alive, my man.

Drew: Today.

Riese: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Analyssa: But sure.

Riese: And this guy, it was like he, I don’t know, he was like an extra from a Diet Coke commercial or something.

Drew: Yeah. I have no idea who this man is.

Riese: I have no idea who this man is. Let’s call him Brett.

Analyssa: Okay. Sure. And later, when they are doing these big wedding guest crowd reveal, he’s the only man at the event.

Riese: Oh, really?

Analyssa: Brett is the only man in the crowd whatsoever. He was the only man on set that day, I think. I think that there’s no…

Drew: Which really goes to show what Tina and Bette’s community is. It’s just so funny. It’s just the AfterEllen editorial staff.

Riese: Oh, my God.

Analyssa: I didn’t note any other music cues this episode. But just for old times sake, Tess putting a key of cocaine up her nose and the music going, “Did you think that you’re really in control?” I mean, that’s got to be the season best I think.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Is this when we get all the flashes? No. That’s later.

Riese: She does way too much cocaine.

Analyssa: It’s so much cocaine. Whatever.

Riese: So Bette and Tina are still in the walk-in.

Analyssa: Bette makes a little cheese plate, a little charcuterie board. It was so cute.

Riese: It was adorable. Yeah. It was like, wow, she can cook, she can clean, she can get locked in the freezer.

Drew: Tina’s mad that Bette is being so calm. Which this also, in this scene, we get to it, but I liked this as a storyline. I liked the idea of actually growth isn’t never being angry. It’s just knowing when to be angry and when to direct the anger. And I do appreciate…

Analyssa: And not to lash out at the people who are trying to help you also. Also just from a comedy standpoint, this is very funny. This is a great representation of when your partner is endlessly positive, and you’re like, “Please shut the up, and just let me be mad and you be mad with me also.”

Riese: Or you’re like, “I get that you just downloaded a meditation app and your whole life has changed. But I’m still here. I didn’t have time to do the meditation app. So let’s get back on the same page.”

Drew: Tina does have a meditation app though also. We saw.

Riese: Oh, that’s true. Tina does have the meditation app.

Drew: Anyways, Shane and Alice show up and break the other handle. And then Alice is going to call the fire department. And I’m like…

Riese: Is this show sponsored by 911?

Analyssa: Truly, the number of times this has been said, they are just itching to call, any little thing.

Riese: Like… break the window?

Drew: Yeah. Truly.

Riese: With the hammer. Why were they like… Whatever.

Drew: Whatever, it’s so wild.

Analyssa: Second only to Fox’s 911 is this show mentioning 911 per episode.

Riese: Right. Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. But then Tina’s like, “I like all of you. Let all of those parts out,” and then Bette screams at Alice to call Tasha because there’s a whole thing where the fire department is delayed. There are lots of fire stations.

Riese: But also, why would they need the fire department to open a door?

Drew: Yeah. Also, they should just be like, “Call Tasha because she’s strong and hot.” I don’t know.

Riese: She’s hot. Everyone would like to see her again.

Drew: There’s no guest at this wedding who- at this gay wedding…

Riese: Gay wedding.

Drew: …that, I’m sorry, at this lesbian and bisexual joint wedding-

Riese: Get Ilene Chaikin in her wedges.

Drew: There isn’t one queer person who can roll up those sleeves and…

Analyssa: And there’s a crowbar somewhere on the guy’s property.

Drew: Come on.

Riese: I mean, honestly, Finley I’m sure would be happy to try. Finley would love to save the day. Finley didn’t really do anything in this episode!

Drew: Yeah. This was a real anti-Finley.

Riese: Yeah. They gave Finley so much in episode eight and then were like, “Bye.”

Analyssa: That’s enough.

Riese: “That’s enough from you. Thank you so much for being in the show.” And yeah, they yell at Alice to call Tasha. Thank God.

Analyssa: We were all thinking it.

Riese: Yeah. And then she said to Shane, “Maybe you should call her from your number.”

Drew: Yeah. Dani’s on Molly.

Riese: I thought it was so cute.

Drew: Smelling roses and then on the phone telling Dre that she loves them.

Analyssa: I want to say Dani on Molly acting and performance in this is so good.

Drew: Oh, yeah.

Analyssa: It’s so funny. She nails it. I was like, “Yeah. I love it.” It’s a perfect TV representation of being on a specific drug, which is so rare.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. If they had framed it where Dre had been the one to be like… I know that when Dre left, Dre was like, “I have to leave because whatever.” I get they kind of did that. But if they had made it clearer that Dre had walked away from the relationship, it all would’ve worked so much better than throughout this, I’m feeling like, no, Dani don’t kiss Roxy. Whereas if it was like you just got rejected by Dre, I’d be like, kiss Roxy. Kiss Roxy. And my entire feeling about Dani’s Molly antics, I would’ve been having such a better time.

Riese: You know why that’s true? Because that is how I read the last episode, and I was having a great time.

Drew: Yeah. I guess it just wasn’t really done well, last episode. I wasn’t sold on it. It was like, wait, what? Why would you walk away?

Riese: It didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t make sense — But I was like, I guess this is what the show has decided is that was Dre… It didn’t make sense, because it’s like why would you need some… they could certainly wait for Dani to come around. And like we talked about.

Drew: Right. And also, instead of Dani calling Dre and saying, “I love you,” Dani could have been, “I invited Dre to the wedding, but I don’t think they’re going to come.” It could have been something like that. Instead we start…

Analyssa: She’s playing too…

Drew: … Dani’s highness being like, “I love you.” And I’m like, yay. Dre’s going to show up, and they’re going to kiss, and it’s going to be fun! And it’s like, so instead, I don’t know. But Sophie brings…

Riese: The think about Molly is you can love a lot of people.

Drew: It is true. That is my favorite drug.

Riese: Yeah. The first time I did ecstasy, three different people called me to tell me they loved me.

Drew: Oh wow.

Analyssa: Whoa.

Riese: Yeah. And I was like, this is really bizarre! And not how I thought this night was going to go. But I mean obviously I was happy to reciprocate.

Drew: Did any of those get you in trouble?

Riese: No.

Drew: The were like, it was…

Riese: It was like an ex, a friend who had been helping. I’ve been taking care of him because he was sick.

Drew: It wasn’t like love confessions.

Riese: No, no, no. It wasn’t Love confessions. No.

Drew: Sophie brings them lollipops, which is so clutch, like so good of Sophie. Dani’s very high. And we see her rainbow POV, which was fun.

Riese: She was like dancing to… Yeah.

Drew: Leisha was really having fun with the drug direction in this episode.

Riese: Yes. Her dancing to the elevator music, was that here?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: That was really funny.

Analyssa: I love that this episode and last episode, Kate’s. Like you can feel their sensibilities really shining in these episodes. I thought that was so fun. I was watching this being like oh, of course Leisha Hailey directed this. This is amazing.

Riese: Of course. It was so cute.

Drew: Pippa says bye to Sophie because the wedding’s delayed. And so Pippa’s like, “I’m at my ex’s wedding. I was being nice. I’m not going to wait around while they’re stuck in a fridge.”

Analyssa: Honestly. Reasonable. Except that there’s an open bar and a lot of important people here. Schmooze, I don’t know, have fun.

Drew: And like hot people! Sophie, Dani and Roxy are like, “Are you with her?” And she’s like, “No. And should I run after her?” It’s really fun. Again, everything with Sophie and Pippa is perfection.

Riese: Yeah. And Dani’s like, “She’s this huge famous artist and she used to date Bette Porter,” and Sophie’s like, “Oh my God, she used to date Bette Porter?”

Analyssa: The quick recap from Dani while on drugs is so funny and being like, “She thinks I’m the devil, but I’m obsessed with her.” It’s perfect.

Drew: So then…

Analyssa: Yeah. And I was really thinking about the lineage of Bette Porter and Sophie and having dated Pippa, and Sophie getting a promotion, entering this rank of powerful lesbian.

Riese: Yeah. She’s dating Bette Porter’s ex.

Analyssa: Very cool.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I mean Dani already did.

Drew: So then Sophie runs after Pippa, and Dani cries. And is like, “I’m so happy that we’re friends.

Analyssa: We’re friends.

Drew: We’re really friends. So Sophie catches up with Pippa, and it’s great.

Riese: Yeah. It’s wonderful. I’m so happy for them.

Drew: Pippa makes a joke about not being mad that Tina and Bette are stuck in the fridge, which brought me so much joy. And they steal the just-married car.

Riese: Yes. Golf cart.

Analyssa: So fun.

Riese: Angie. I don’t know why we still have to keep seeing this man.

Analyssa: Why did this happen in this episode?

Riese: This was the episode for her and Bella.

Analyssa: Was he contractually obligated to seven episodes? He was in so many.

Riese: He was in so many more episodes than we needed to be.

Drew: Was he in more episodes than Micah? It was the same amount.

Analyssa: I don’t know. I’d have to look.

Riese: It might be the same amount. No. It’s less. Because he wasn’t in the first episode.

Drew: There’s no reason for him to…

Riese: And he wasn’t in the musical episode.

Drew: There is no reason for him to show…. Oh, right. Micah was in the musical episode. What a great role that was. Well why? They could have ended it the last… Why is he here just to have… It’s sort of how I felt about having Tess and Shane have that big breakup scene the way it was. Right? I just was like, wait, if you’re going to have them break up, why are you having them break up like this? Why are you giving more fuel to this? And so with this, I just was like, we need him to show up just so he can disappoint Angie again? Why couldn’t that had happened, she goes to Hendrix’s place, is like, “Let’s hook up.” And he’s like, “I’m moving to New York.” And then she runs after Bella, or Bella’s in this episode with her, something.

Riese: And also, again, as a person who used to work in the publishing industry, the idea that you would move to New York City because an editor has expressed interest in your book is absolutely batshit.

Analyssa: Deranged behavior.

Riese: Yes. Unhinged.

Analyssa: It means nothing.

Riese: I mean, the choices I could have made every time an editor was interested in my book, and as you can tell, it’s not published. So I mean, there was some comedy here, I feel like. There was some stuff with Bette and Tina and an Angie, like, “Don’t say I told you so,” or something.

Analyssa: I guess. Yeah. Angie got to…

Drew: I just felt sad about it though. It wasn’t funny to me. I guess there’s some comedy there, but I just was like, I felt for Angie and I want better for her.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. I did like that. They let her be mean to him. But again, she was already sort of doing that last episode. Why didn’t we just wrap it up there and have her bring Bella to the wedding as a consolation date and then realize that they’re in love? Fun.

Riese: We all would’ve been so entertained.

Analyssa: And that’s most important is that the three of us are as entertained as possible.

Riese: Exactly. As we made clear today to Showtime, the most important thing about their show is that we get screeners and that we get the pod-…

Analyssa: Get the podcast done.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. Also, Micah and Maribel, they have their donor. That could have been the end of their storyline. And then they could have been at the wedding. I don’t know why they’re at the wedding, but they’re at the wedding.

Analyssa: Later, we’ll talk about, there’s some people at this wedding that I have no explanation for why they’re there at all. So who cares?

Riese: I mean, I like that he was dating Maribel because that brought him closer to the rest of the group as opposed to when it was Jose. And that was a tertiary thing, which is the same thing they did with Max and Tom. And it has been more integrated. They’ve had more scenes and that’s been great. But this episode obviously was not like that.

Drew: Yeah. So unfortunately we do have to go to them. And Micah’s panicking about the insemination and decides to bring up Maribel’s disability now.

Riese: Again, also, he does begin all of this by acting like putting the sperm inside of her is going to 100% result in a baby that will be born in nine months. And I just don’t understand why they’re acting like that. But yeah, now they’re talking about it?

Drew: Our generous read to the writers of The L Word: Generation Q, the television program on Showtime was, okay, they’re going for something where they’re trying to normalize disability by not engaging with it, which we talked about why that’s wrong, why it’s better to engage with it, and why you can still make it positive, or you can still make someone three dimensional. And actually not engaging with someone’s disability. Not engaging with someone’s transness isn’t actually some gift that you’re giving. But we were like, okay, but that’s why they’re not doing it. To do it now?

Analyssa: And in this explosive weird way… There’s no…

Riese: There’s one part where Maribel starts to say, “The doctor said,” but it’s drowned out. I think that might be later in their argument. I don’t remember. But that just, why didn’t they have us there for the doc? And Micah’s saying that she might die. Does he say that here? Saying she might die. There’s all kinds of complications for someone, ways that it’s hard on your body if you have muscular dystrophy, but the chance of dying while giving birth is not necessarily the most likely result at all. It’s a very weird thing for him to say. And also honestly, is the exact opposite of what anyone should be trying to do. It’s too dramatic. There’s lots of complications and ways that it’s going to be tough on her physically. But I could be wrong. But it’s my understanding that death during delivery is not necessarily one of them.

Drew: And if it was a concern for Micah, that should have happened earlier. It’s so absurd to not have that addressed. Micah’s anxieties earlier were about being a parent. What was Micah’s question to Max? How do you know when you need to change a diaper or whatever? The idea of this coming up now is so gross. It’s just so gross. It makes me so angry, both for Micah, for Maribel, for trans people, for disabled people. To have this happen while most of the episode is concerned with this big celebratory wedding. And then the only times we go away, I mean, we’ll come back to this scene and it gets even worse. But it’s so…

Riese: It’s what they used to do with Max.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, what, are we going to, 10 years from now, have another L World?

Riese: A reckoning.

Drew: And we’ll bring Maribel back to say, “I’m sorry.” It’s wild that the one thing that I can say for a fact was done better on Gen Q when it comes to lots of different representation issues, is bringing Max back and giving him a happy ending. Very nice. But that happened in season three, and it happened because of how they were talking about their own show on the first season, and me feeling like it was wrong, and reaching out to Daniel. They didn’t reach out to Daniel. And a lot of other people were- I’m not taking credit for it. A lot of people were involved to get Daniel back on the show. Jenni Olson being a really big one, but it wasn’t from their own place of, we want to make up for this. Their way of making up for it was the existence of Micah and…

Riese: Pierce.

Drew: …Pierce.

Riese: And I think their other way was to not have Micah surrounded by transphobes.

Drew: Sure. So we don’t need to pretend the original series, especially the later seasons weren’t brutal and brutally transphobic. But this, it’s just a different kind of transphobia. And I don’t think we need to talk about better or worse because I don’t think that’s helpful. But the way that Micah was treated for three seasons, and the way that the trans characters in general were treated for three seasons, and the way that this disabled character has been treated, and especially in this final episode, that could be the final time we see this character, is appalling. It makes me so mad. And it makes me so mad in a way where I can’t even engage with it. And I mean, I feel the same way about Tess’s storyline and we’re going to get to this, it’s such a disappointment, and in a way that makes me just… I mean, it’s altered my relationship to media in a way that the original series, because it came out years before I was out, couldn’t have in the sense that I’m so grateful for the second season of Sort Of, I’m so grateful for P-Valley and that it got renewed for a third season.

These shows that aren’t maybe bringing our community together with watch parties and all of these things in the same way, but I’m just happy to watch at home, talk to with a few friends, and just be grateful that there’s actual queer artists out there making great work. And so I’m so happy that those shows exist. And it makes me just like… The desire for media that has a wider base, that has an audience that goes beyond those identities, not that Sort Of and P-Valley aren’t watched by people who aren’t trans obviously, but just the way that The L Word has cultural cachet, the way that Euphoria is tweeted about every week, I don’t care. I don’t want to be a part of it. I wish they would stop putting trans people on those shows. I truly, I wish they would stop it because they don’t know how to write the characters.

Anyways. Do we want to go to Tess doing coke?

Riese: Yes. So Tess, she’s doing coke in the car, and she’s really doing coke.

Drew: She’s really doing it.

Riese: Really doing it. Coke, Coke, Coke. Coke. Coke,

Drew: It’s a little…

Riese: Coke.

Drew: It reminded me of Alice chugging pills. Where you’re just like, two pills would still do this. Why do you need a visual of this?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Also you can’t chug antidepressants. That’s not how it works.

Analyssa: Is this the part where she’s flashing back to different…

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. That was unnecessary.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Leisha’s having more fun, happy for Leisha. Yay. We get to go to Pippa and Sophie. Thank God.

Analyssa: So yeah. Pippa and Sophie are having a conversation, they’re talking about their lives and their work. And Pippa has been offered a career retrospective by the Hammer. Congratulations.

Riese: Nice. Can’t wait to go to that.

Analyssa: And Sophie is talking about…

Riese: For a second, I was like, “I can’t wait to…” Oh.

Analyssa: I literally was like, oh my God, really? Artist of our time Pippa Pascal. And then Sophie’s talking about how she got hired on the Alice Show, which is that she did two documentaries. One went to Sundance, Alice saw it, which LOL. No. She didn’t. Not my Alice. I love her. But she’s not watching Sundance documentaries.

Drew: No. Someone on her team maybe saw it.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: For sure.

Riese: Drew, her unpaid intern saw it.

Analyssa: And then called Sophie. Sophie does a really good Alice impression, which I think is fun. And then Pippa, despite not knowing what Sophie’s first two documentaries are, fine, is like, what’s your next one?

Riese: Yeah. And I think it’s showing that maybe Sophie is better with somebody who’s also artistic and working on their own independent projects that can encourage her to do the same. Whereas Finley’s just not at that place yet and including the reason that she had this really shitty family situation. So she never really was able to figure out what her passions were. She just had to find work.

Analyssa: Yeah. They’re in a time of life that I feel like this was really accurate. Some people start to accelerate in their career, and their passions, and get the opportunities, and move ahead really quickly. And you’re with people, or friends with people, or whoever who just for any number of reasons, that doesn’t happen for, and it starts to feel like so unbalanced. This was like…

Riese: Very LA.

Analyssa: Yeah. Seeing her with Pippa, I was like, “Oh, I don’t feel like she’s too young, or too inexperienced, or too immature to be with someone like this. I really was like, “Oh.” Kind of when Dani and Gigi picked up together, you were like, “Oh. All right. This actually might make more sense.”

Drew: Yeah. And then they almost kissed.

Analyssa: Of all the ways that makeouts have been interrupted on this program this season though, was this not the best one?

Drew: It was funny. I do think after the cow mooed, I would just kiss again.

Riese: Yeah. I know. I was like, why aren’t you…

Drew: Why aren’t you kissing? What?

Riese: Yeah. Just laugh. And keep your faces a little close together and kind of turn and laugh, and then stick your tongue down her throat.

Drew: This is the best kind of kiss. It’s like the cow took the tension out and so if it’s not a great first kiss, you can blame the cow. Try again later in the night. Come on.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: But Sophie has convinced Pippa to stay for the wedding.

Drew: Yes. Which is important.

Riese: Hot.

Drew: Dani tells Roxy that she’s beautiful and Roxy’s like, “I didn’t know that you were noticing me because you’ve been talking about Dre all night.” And then they kiss.

Riese: And then…

Drew: I had to be told by Elise who these people were, but she really didn’t really tell me who they were. She told me someone was Australian and someone’s named G Flip, and that’s about what I’ve got.

Analyssa: Really?

Riese: I think this is your moment.

Analyssa: The Australian is named G Flip.

Drew: Oh, I see. Okay. So I was confused. Oh, one’s a realtor which I got from the show.

Riese: Yeah. On Selling Sunset.

Analyssa: On Selling Sunset.

Riese: I know that we had to write, or Anya wrote it, but I had to be educated on this topic because we wrote an article about it, but I do believe that…

Drew: But I’m not doing that thing that people would do in high school where they’d be like, “Who’s Miley Cyrus? I don’t know Hannah Montana.” I promise that I’m not trying to be. I’ve obviously heard these names before, but this was a moment where I didn’t recognize them. And then I was like, “Oh, I’ve heard those names. Who are these people?” I would love to know. Educate me.

Analyssa: No, no. To be clear, I also have no engagement with these people outside of the fact that they are queer and were a big deal. This is when you watch TikTok and know everything about Fletcher and “Becky’s So Hot” and Shannon Beveridge, I just-

Drew: I think I’m better at just swiping past people when they bore me.

Analyssa: I watch all of that. Okay.

Riese: I know, because I’m always like, could this be a post? Could this be a post?

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Yeah, I’m like, what’s going on?

Drew: Yeah. Okay, wait, so…

Analyssa: Okay, so…

Drew: Thank you.

Analyssa: G Flip is an Australian musician.

Drew: Okay.

Analyssa: Queer.

Drew: Got it.

Analyssa: Always had a musician vibe. Chrishell Stause?

Riese: Strause?

Analyssa: Stause? I don’t know. Was on Selling Sunset, a show I have not watched.

Drew: Okay.

Analyssa: They started posting each other, being in each other’s Instagrams… And Chrishell was married on Selling Sunset, and part of the plot line was her divorce-

Drew: I see.

Analyssa: …from a man.

Drew: I see.

Analyssa: And everyone was like, Chrishell and G Flip are hanging out. Is this-

Drew: Yeah, completely unexpected.

Analyssa: Gay hanging out? It was a really weird crossover of people being like, why are these two people in the same room?

Drew: I see.

Riese: Yeah. And I guess Selling Sunset is super, super popular, right?

Analyssa: People really love Selling Sunset. I’ve never watched it.

Riese: I don’t want to watch a show about people who can afford houses that-

Analyssa: Living in LA and watching the rich people in LA, actually is painful to me… Instead of, if I lived where I grew up, I would be like, oh my God, look at those fancy houses-

Riese: I know, because I would be like, here I could afford a house.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Right. But anyway, they started being in each other’s Instagram posts, and everyone’s like, what the fuck? And they are dating, they’ve been together… It was a huge deal because both are very famous in their niche-

Drew: Right. Very different.

Analyssa: …communities, and then crossed over.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: And then Chrishell was in G Flip’s music video, that’s like how they launched-

Riese: And she came out on a Selling Sunset reunion or something like that. Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Got it. And did we know they were going to be on the show?

Riese: Yes.

Drew: Okay.

Analyssa: I did not.

Drew: Okay. Chrishell reveals that Gigi and Nat are engaged… I don’t know if there’s anything else you want to say about this little moment?

Analyssa: I want to know why they’re at this wedding?

Drew: Oh, don’t they say-

Analyssa: They never… No.

Drew: Don’t they know Roxy?

Analyssa: Roxy is Dani’s plus one.

Drew: No, it’s Roxy’s home. It’s Roxy’s family home.

Riese: Oh, but I thought they were surprised to see Roxy.

Analyssa: Oh… Is that why this is at-

Drew: Yeah, that was-

Riese: Oh, you’re right.

Drew: They said that it was Roxy’s family estate.

Riese: Yeah, it’s Roxy’s family.

Analyssa: Oh, I missed that completely.

Drew: I want to ask a question here. How many people do you know who have a family estate?

Analyssa: Zero.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: One.

Analyssa: Well, I have a friend who has a really rich uncle who has an estate that I’ve been to.

Drew: I need to meet some more people with family estates. That’s a good 2023 goal.

Riese: Yeah. If you are listening and you have a family estate and you would like to invite us to tour the grounds, you may, at any time. We would love to.

Analyssa: We would love to. We’ll do-

Drew: We’ll party.

Riese: Pool party.

Drew: Remember, we’ve been wanting to… But no one… Come on.

Riese: Yeah. Invite us to a pool party. I’ll bring Carol, I could also not bring Carol… It’s completely optional.

Analyssa: It’s up to you.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: So yes, they bring the news that Gigi and Nat are engaged.

Riese: Which okay.

Drew: I don’t know.

Riese: So yeah, I guess Gigi… Anyway, Dani discovers she’s over it. And Roxy bought a house?

Drew: Yeah. No… Bought?

Analyssa: Yeah. Well, she doesn’t say it until… I think she says later… But she’s like, “I got a condo in Echo Park.” And I was like, of course.

Riese: Of course, you did.

Analyssa: Of course, you did. Sure.

Drew: I just feel like I know people who have money, for sure… But it’s just a different kind of money.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. You know the show, Succession?

Drew: I don’t watch it, but I do know of it, yeah.

Riese: Yeah. Well, they have an estate.

Analyssa: I actually got Succession vibes from when Tess is in the car with the bartender doing coke.

Riese: Oh yeah, that was a very Succession vibe.

Analyssa: I was like…

Riese: You know who else? Have you seen The Crown? If you’ve ever seen The Crown, they have an estate also.

Drew: I’ve actually listened to-

Riese: Or Harry and Megan?

Drew: I listened to the five-part, You’re Wrong About, about Princess Diana. That’s really all I know about the royals, is what is in those episodes.

Riese: Well, I’m sure they may have mentioned.

Drew: Yeah, I think they might have several estates.

Riese: Yeah, several estates, I believe that is the case. Dani apparently didn’t really believe that Roxy was going to come here and stay… But it seems like Roxy’s ready to do it.

Analyssa: Yeah. Roxy’s like, I’m here… And she’s here for Dani, and also to ruin Dre’s life.

Riese: Yeah. And they-

Analyssa: Which, that was the first time that I was bummed about the Dre thing. I was like, well, but that means that Dre’s going to be hurt, and I like Dre.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I also like Roxy, but why are we in this situation?

Drew: It’s so funny because there are ways to do… Honestly, the best love triangle is where I like everyone involved. There are ways to do that… Do you know what would be really fun? If Dre had been Dani’s date to the wedding and hooked up with Roxy somehow… If that had somehow happened.

Riese: Or they could have had group sex.

Drew: Group sex.

Riese: Yeah. This could have been like the Sense8 wedding.

Drew: Oh.

Analyssa: God.

Riese: Everyone could have been in a big pile naked. And that was an option that existed on the table and nobody was willing to step up to the bat and be brave and do that-

Drew: When Gen Q gets canceled and everyone says, renew Gen Q, and they just give it a movie. The movie can end…

Riese: My Christmas special…

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: We’ll end with that?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: All right.

Analyssa: Rose Rollins has returned to look really great on our TV screens.

Riese: Oh God, I love her so much.

Analyssa: I don’t think-

Riese: I also think-

Analyssa: …I think there was so much going on in the last episode when she arrived, that I don’t think we made enough commotion about how good she looks. `Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. Honestly, this is the first episode where I feel like I really got it. I think in the original show I just had too many complicated military and then police feelings, to really-

Analyssa: Because you watched it recently, right? In the last five years?

Drew: Yeah, I watched The L Word for the first time in 2017.

Analyssa: Yeah. I watched it in 2019 for the first time.

Drew: So-

Riese: Yeah, I watched it as it aired, and it seemed completely unproblematic.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Absolutely.

Drew: But this… Yeah, I got it. She’s very hot.

Analyssa: Just…

Riese: Just really…

Analyssa: …amazing work.

Riese: Yeah, looks fantastic, and then is going to leave…

Analyssa: Okay, yeah-

Riese: And I’m realizing, I wrote an outline or whatever, but I think that I’m used to having already written the recap… So I would remember what happened in each scene beyond just my notes, which are like, Tasha Rescues Bette and Tina.

Drew: Yeah. That’s also all I have for that part, also-

Riese: Oh, really?

Drew: …so, I don’t think a lot happens.

Analyssa: Yeah. She saws open the door, and Bette and Tina are both so thrilled to be released, and also thrilled to be looking upon Rose Rollins once more, that they give her these big hugs…

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Bette has bubble wrap wrapped around her shoulders, which was delightful to me.

Riese: Imagine if they all actually said hi to each other… I feel like that’s something that they haven’t done in the past… Maybe that was Leisha, realistically they would-

Analyssa: They would know each other and acknowledge this.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Right. Yeah, that happens later with Shane also, where I was like, oh, we exist in real universe… Is this our script coordinator, friends, or is this the director, Leisha Haley?

Riese: Right. Hard to say-

Drew: Whoever it is, thank you.

Riese: Whoever it is, thank you so much.

Analyssa: But Tina’s like, “You should stay, obviously…” And Tasha has a little snark at Alice about, that’s how normal people greet each other after seeing each other for a long time… Which I thought was great.

Riese: Yeah. Also, when she was like, “You should stay…” Alice was shaking her head no. And I was sitting there like, yes, you better make her stay.

Analyssa: She has to stay.

Riese: I also realized, I think the other thing about the Sophie/Finley thing is that, the amount that I desire Tasha and Alice together… And I might desire Tasha better with someone else if I’d seen her with someone else, but this is what I saw. This is all I know. This is how I grew up. This is-

Drew: This is the way that we live.

Analyssa: This is the way that we… live.

Riese: This is the way that we live… I ship them so hard that that was able to overwhelm my Sinley shipping feelings.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Mm-hmm.

Drew: So, there’s nothing really to add that I didn’t, and we all didn’t just say in the last time we were-

Riese: Well, there is to add that I cannot believe you threw and broke a vial of $700 sperm.

Drew: Yes. Yeah. And it just is this thing where it makes both characters so in the wrong, about a thing where I’d rather neither of them be in the wrong…

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: This is the thing that I feel like we’ve been criticizing all season, which is, why does this feel cruel to both of them? When, this is a conversation that is important and that they, maybe not rationally, because it’s an emotional issue, but reasonably would have discussed a long time ago before it became this knockdown, drag out, packing my bags and leaving kind of fight.

Riese: Also, why are you packing your bags?

Analyssa: This would’ve been a totally normal thing that comes up, in the way that you talk about parents, for people who are living these realities… It’s so crazy to watch them go at each other about something that you’re kind of like, yeah, this anxiety makes sense and the conversation makes sense, why did we create these characters to have this artificial conversation that is a fight and is…

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. It just feels mean, it does not feel empathetic at all.

Riese: No. There is this part in, I think near the end of season six, where Max wakes up and Tom has left him, and he’s in a white T-shirt and underwear, and the full beard that they gave him for that season or whatever… And he’s so uncomfortable and he is so unhappy, and he just walks out of the tool shed where he’s living… Jenny’s famous tool shed. And standing there just realizing that Tom left. That’s the same way that I felt about this ending scene with Mari, where she’s left alone in the house, the broken sperm is on the ground, and Micah’s walking out… It was just really brutal. And it had that same vibe.

Drew: And again, I hope we’re wrong, but this is probably going to be the last episode… So it’s probably the last time we’re going to see these two characters. And I guess it’s nice that Micah’s in the car and calls Max… So I guess, once again, the only good thing to show does with Max, but it’s so wild to leave Mari like that.

Riese: And it’s wild, also, to have… It’s so cheap when they have you call, like you can summon an old character without actually having to summon the character…

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: If you’re going to invoke Max, send Micah to his house and have Max talk to him. Although, I don’t know what they could talk about because we’re not in reality anymore… The fact that this conversation is happening in this way at this time is just simply not true.

Drew: I just wish that they hadn’t been in this episode-

Riese: Yeah, me too.

Drew: Cut these scenes.

Riese: Yeah. And with engagement in episode eight-

Drew: Yeah, Carrie and Misty aren’t in this episode, so-

Analyssa: This is worse, this feels worse-

Drew: Why are they here? What is this? What is the point of this? Don’t have them in this episode… You don’t have enough time to get into any of these things you’re bringing up, so don’t have them in this episode. We would complain about that too, we’d be like, why aren’t these characters in the episode? But it’s better than this. And then you could have had more time to do some fun stuff at the wedding.

Riese: Yeah. Honestly, they didn’t need to put Tess in this episode either.

Analyssa: Or Hendrix.

Riese: Or Hendrix, yeah. So, back at the wedding, Shane is kind of eyeing Tess, seems to notice that Tess is under the influence of perhaps some drugs or alcohol.

Drew: But then the wedding planner pulls her away, and it doesn’t really feel like Shane’s character… Because, I don’t know. I just feel like Shane is the person who has character traits, and I feel like some of those traits would-

Analyssa: That’s a hot take.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Some of those traits would include not… Even if she and Tess are in a bad space, if she thinks that Tess has relapsed, not going off with this wedding planner, who she already had sex with… She would be like, no, I need to deal with this. That felt really weird on Shane’s part too.

Riese: Yeah, when she said it, because you’re always auto-filling the rest of the scene in your head… I was like, oh, Shane’s going to be like, absolutely not. No-

Analyssa: I did too, I thought she was going to be like, yeah, wait for me, I have something that I have to take care of first-

Riese: Right, yeah.

Analyssa: …Shane has always been unfailingly loyal. That is one thing-

Riese: And concerned about everybody’s general wellbeing.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: And I just was shocked to see her be… Especially without a line that’s like, she’s going through something, but we are broken up, so I guess it’s not my place… I would’ve been like, okay, kind of. Never addressed.

Riese: They had her do that so that Tess could walk in on them. But I think that they shouldn’t have had Shane notice Tess being drunk.

Drew: No. We’ve talked about this before but, weirdly enough, Gen Q has also really failed Shane. I don’t have as much of a political issue with that, but it’s wild how, by far, of the returning characters… Tina’s had more of an arc. This is not who Shane was in the original series. Shane was an interesting person in the original series, with a lot of qualities, and it feels like Gen Q was written by people, some of whom hadn’t even seen the original series.

Riese: Right, which we now know is possible-

Analyssa: It’s really possible, I was just about say. I wish Shane had more traits to write to other than sex. I was like, have you watched the television program?

Riese: She has so many-

Analyssa: What are you talking about?

Riese: They set up a lot of really interesting stuff with Shane.

Analyssa: She was arguably, one of the most-

Riese: She has more family history than Tina.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: …complex characters in the original, she’s got so much background.

Drew: She was working as a rent boy… She has such a past.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Wild.

Analyssa: So-

Riese: Tasha and Alice?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yes. Tasha and Alice.

Riese: Tasha and Alice have a fight, which is, they start to fight about why they broke up… Tasha didn’t like Alice being famous, or didn’t want to be her plus one… But then it shifts, and it comes out… And the way that Tasha says it is a little bit weird, but whatever. That she felt like Alice was still in love with Dana and that she talked about her so much that she felt like she knew her in a way.

Analyssa: In a way.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: And Alice starts freaking out.

Riese: Twinkle twinkle… And I was like, even though the fact that there were things about the fight that I didn’t care for, I was pleased at how it was resolved.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Wait, for someone who does not have an encyclopedic knowledge of The L Word, aka me…

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: What seasons were Tasha and Alice together?

Riese: They met mid-season four, and then they were together for most of season five… They broke up for two episodes and got back together, and then they were together for season six, but got involved with this other person too, Jamie-

Analyssa: I remember…

Riese: …And it this weird love triangle thing.

Analyssa: I do remember that.

Riese: But at the end, Tasha came back to Alice.

Drew: Tasha gets introduced in my favorite episode of the show, right? Luck Be a Lady?

Riese: That’s her second episode.

Drew: Okay.

Riese: Yeah. That’s her second episode.

Analyssa: Okay. Thank you.

Riese: They meet at the bar after Jenny and Alice have the fight about Monet, and stealing people’s ideas, and Alice is wearing the hat and the vest.

Analyssa: That scene is-

Drew: What a great… I don’t want to romanticize the original series, I’m aware that there are problems, but the difference of how I feel about a show that had problems made from 2004 to 2009 is just different than how I feel about a show being made now. So, I have a lot of love for the original series, and I won’t apologize for it.

Analyssa: That scene circulates on my TikTok every once in a while, and I watch it in full every single time. The Monet argument-

Riese: Yeah, it’s good.

Analyssa: It’s so good.

Riese: It’s perfect.

Drew: Didn’t we get a moment where a wedding planner tells Shane that she’s married, but that she’s open? We also learned that she’s from Glendale, but whatever. And Shane is like, “Oh, and that works for you?”

Riese: But I feel like this was another one of those things where I was like, finally addressing this issue-

Drew: Sure-

Riese: But it felt like it was something added on in this episode to make up for the sins of many, I don’t know, seasons past.

Drew: Right. And then they start kissing again and then Tess sees. And then the wedding starts? Tina’s in a red velvet suit and Bette’s in a black suit, and then it’s interrupted because Tess is screaming at Shane in the middle of the wedding, runs into the cake, ruins the cake…

Riese: I talked to Gretchen earlier, and I was like, I didn’t want to tell her anything about the episode, but I was like, “Yeah, the Tess stuff is really bad.” And she was like, “What, does she get wasted and fall into the cake?” And I told her ahead… I was like, “I’m not going to tell you anything, I want you to watch it blind. I’m not giving you any spoils.” And I was like-

Analyssa: Well.

Riese: “She did. She did actually get drunk and fall into the cake.” So I have to-

Drew: There’s one moment that I liked, which is Pippa saying to Sophie, “This particular friend group is full of drama…” And there was one moment that bothered me even more, because after having even just a brief introduction from Elise, who Chrishell and G Flip are… When Tess yells, “Any ladies out there want to be Shane’s next conquest?” And they both raised their hands… I’m like, oh, we’re doing a fun little joke with these famous white queers… And it just was like, oh, right, you care about Fletcher, you care about Chrishell and G Flip, you don’t care about…

Analyssa: Well, I’m-

Riese: I did laugh.

Analyssa: I also did laugh at that joke, but the rest of the stuff around it, is so… Again, just cruel to Tess. The whole thing is written for comedy, the wedding planner has all these asides of like, well, that’s just perfect, that’s how my day is going… It’s all side-showy. Everyone is pointing and laughing at Tess. It’s literally-

Drew: Honestly, this is what reminded me of the Max baby shower.

Analyssa: …it’s like schoolyard bullying. I just am inviting anyone to remember that this is a television show, where people are made up. So even to say, relapses happen… Okay, fine. Relapses happen and you can really spiral, all the coke that she uses… Okay, sure. Relapses happen and you make a scene… Okay, but why do I have to watch that, and why did you have to write that? Why are you so compelled? People who are alcoholics or not alcoholics know that the possibility of relapse exists… Don’t need to show it to them. So then you’re just showing it to who? People who have not experienced it before? I guarantee you they’ve seen this on TV before.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. Especially done this poorly and cheaply.

Analyssa: There is no need… It just made me so uncomfortable. The whole thing is so uncomfortable. And the end scene of Tess leaving, which we’ll get to, I’m sure. Also, I didn’t understand what they want me to feel…

Drew: I’m going to say something that I might get in trouble for, but I’m going to even let Lauren keep it in, I think… Which is that, I think that trans actors can play cis. I think a lot of trans actors… I talked to someone who watched the entire first season of Euphoria and did not know that Hunter Schafer was trans. Which is wild, because it’s pretty explicitly stated… But did not catch that.

Riese: Yeah. It is pretty big-

Drew: Yeah. Cis people do not know, so I’m not saying this from a place of I don’t think that trans actors should get to play parts that are cis, whatever… But, as a trans audience member, Jamie Clayton is trans. Not because I know who Jamie Clayton is, and I know that she’s trans… I can tell that she’s trans. I can usually tell that people are trans. And her voice is a trans woman’s voice. It’s feminine… I don’t say that with negative connotations. It’s a more cis passing voice than mine is. I don’t think there’s value in being cis passing.

Riese: Right.

Drew: So whether or not Tess is trans, which obviously she’s not, we’ve covered this many times. I’m watching that happen to a trans person-

Riese: Also, we know because we are involved in the macro world around the show… But people, when I talk to them about the show, they’ll say Tess is a trans character. They have no idea that she’s not supposed to be. So I promise you, probably half the people watching this show do think that it’s a trans character.

Drew: Right. So, I don’t think we need to pretend, even trans women who look like Jamie Clayton, aren’t still clockable in some ways, and that it’s just so… it’s so brutal.

Analyssa: It’s just humiliation in such a needless way-

Riese: Yeah, I don’t think they needed it.

Analyssa: …It’s such a pile on. It feels unnecessary.

Riese: I don’t think we needed her in the episode at all.

Drew: No.

Riese: I don’t know, bring back Molly or something… Everyone else is coming back. Shane didn’t need that.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: So Finley hustles Tess out of the venue, finally… Shane tries and it doesn’t really work, and Finley finally gets Tess outside, and then this man who has driven off the set of Succession, pulls up, and is like, “Do you want to get in my car?”

Drew: Who is he? Who is this man?

Analyssa: No, no. And Tess says she doesn’t want to be sober, she just wants to have fun with her friends… Who are her friends? We don’t know what she’s talking about. And is like, “Finley, you have to let me go.” And I was like, what am I supposed to be believing here?-

Riese: For either of them, I don’t really know what’s going on or what the point of this is.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: So that whole plot, throw it in the garbage to me. So, Tess leaving and demolishing the cake, an infuriating choice. But then, we do get what I think is delightful. Alice, Tina, Shane, and Bette have reassembled the cake into a mound, and put the little topper on it. And this whole shot of them eyeballing the cake and moving around the cake and talking about it, I was like, amazing.

Riese: Yeah. And with all their heads tilted.

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: It reminded me of how little of that type of comedy we get to see on this show, actually.

Analyssa: Yes.

Drew: But it was one of those cases of this episode where, yeah, it’s really fun, it also makes the contrast even more clear… If Bette and Tina were yelling at Shane about being selfish, then I’d be like, okay, this show is so dramatic… Oh my God. But having this really sweet moment of comedy where we get some references to Alice dating the vampire… That was on my Gen Q wishlist before the show started, that we bring back the vampire.

Riese: Honestly, it’s slander of the vampire, because they were talking about these things as mistakes-

Drew: Yeah, the vampire was great. That was the hottest sex scene in L Word history.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. They’re like, let me list off the biggest, most worst things I’ve done to other people… And Alice’s was not, outed Daryl Brewer… As was a plot line really recently. They’re like, “You dated that vampire.”

Riese: Right. I don’t know… Dana-

Analyssa: Stalking Dana.

Drew: Stalking Dana.

Riese: Stalking Dana, and also Tina saying, “Leaving Bette for Carrie.” That’s-

Drew: That’s not bad, that was good.

Riese: Here’s what’s bad, Henry… Daddyof2

Analyssa: DaddyOf2

Drew: Daddyof2. Yeah. But Bette says, Bette slept with Candace in jail. They bring that a ton up-

Riese: Again, another hot scene.

Drew: A hot scene. But this season hates sex.

Riese: They do. Bette could have said, I slept with my intern Nadia, for example.

Drew: Yeah. And now I’m having to reflect on that because my daughter has had an affair with her professor.

Riese: Right. Yeah. Wait, what was Shane’s bad thing? Is that when they-

Analyssa: Left Carmen.

Riese: Oh yeah, that was bad.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: That one, yeah. Pretty much, I have no argument with that.

Riese: Right. Then we have the ceremony.

Analyssa: So yeah, then it’s time for the vows from Tina-

Riese: Ilene Chaiken.

Analyssa: They walk down the aisle, they do their vows, Alice has gotten ordained for it, and there are cuts to the audience, and Ilene Chaiken is there in her billowiest white top-

Riese: Just the clothes she wore to set that day, to say hi, when you know that someone was like, oh my god, Ilene be in the scene.

Analyssa: You have to come to the Tina and Bette wedding. And if we can get her on camera, we will. Yeah, absolutely.

Drew: I think that Gen Q should have gone the And Just Like That… route. And Just Like That… has-

Riese: Killed Mr. Big on a Peloton?

Drew: …has new characters, but it is very much like, “No, we’re just continuing this story.” Because ultimately, that’s what this show has done, right? I mean, even though Bette and Tina were gone most of the season, they still had a big hold on it, right? And when they were gone, it was to give Alice and Shane their moments. It’s what they do best. Sophie could have been at work for Alice. The way that the connections existed could have existed.

Riese: Yeah. Micah could have dated Alice.

Drew: Yeah, sure, whatever. They should have just done that.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Because then right after, we have the vows and it’s very sweet and we get this moment. Then Alice apologizes to Tasha and Tasha’s like, “You’ve never said sorry before,” and they make up and Alice asks Tasha to dance and it’s great. It’s so-

Riese: Yeah. I also cried. I thought what she said was really good, where she was like, “I tried to be so busy to not think about Dana.” It was like wow, really vulnerable, and then they were going to go dance and I was so excited.

Drew: So Bette and Tina are dancing, Shane and Angie chat, and then Angie’s like, “I’m going to go call Bella.”

Riese: Yeah. Also, Shane asked Angie to dance and she rejects Shane.

Drew: Yeah, that’s pretty brutal.

Riese: And Shane’s dying to dance with somebody.

Analyssa: Can someone dance with me, please? And then-

Riese: Dani can’t believe that Roxy’s staying.

Analyssa: Oh, yeah. Dani’s like, “Is it a month-to-month lease?” And that’s when Roxy’s like, “I bought it. I own it. It’s mine.” And I was like, “Right, Dani’s really wealthy so Dani’s friends are really wealthy.”

Riese: Right, yeah. Maybe Chrishel sold her that house.

Drew: Well, that probably makes sense.

Analyssa: Yeah, maybe that’s why they know each other. And then Finley comes over to Shane.

Riese: This was so weird.

Analyssa: And having seen Tess relapse, I think is the point, is like there’s-

Riese: I have no idea.

Analyssa: …more sides to this story than I thought there were. So now I’m sorry that I yelled at you.

Riese: Yeah, because this also felt like a thing where I was like, “Good, they’re acknowledging that Finley yelling at Shane was stupid.” But that has nothing to do with Tess going through a lot of stuff. It was stupid regardless.

Analyssa: To begin with.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. And then Shane asks Finley to dance.

Riese: Yeah. Shane just really wants… And Finley’s like, “Okay.” And then Shane says, “Hi, Tasha.” Thank you for replicating real world actions.

Analyssa: And shoots Alice some eyes as she says, she’s like, “Mm-hmm.”

Riese: And they’re dancing, it’s so cute.

Drew: They’re dancing. It’s very cute.

Riese: I’m so happy for them.

Drew: And then Tina asks Bette to leave to go to their room and the scooter or the golf cart doesn’t work because-

Riese: Pippa and Sophie-

Drew: …Pippa and Sophie-

Riese: …took it to the cow field.

Drew: Which is fun.

Analyssa: They’re going to walk.

Drew: But they’re going to walk.

Analyssa: As wives, they say.

Riese: Wives and wives going down a long path of love.

Drew: And so we get a little end montage with some fun things. One actual fun thing is Pippa and Sophie make out, which I love that, happy sendoff to these characters. Wonderful. And this is a good excuse to just say this, that I didn’t realize this because I talk to you two and I talk to my friends who all have good taste, but there’s so many… I ended up on Gen Q TikTok, and people hate Sophie.

Analyssa: Really?

Drew: And it just feels like racism to me.

Analyssa: Oh, that 100%.

Riese: Oh, yeah. I mean, I haven’t seen it, but I just know because someone told us about it in our comments.

Analyssa: That has… There’s no other reason.

Drew: Yeah, it’s just so overt. But I’m so happy that Sophie gets this ending with Pippa. It’s great, makes me really happy.

Analyssa: Sophie’s like, “We could get a room,” and I was like, yes, give me five more minutes and they go get a room, please.

Drew: And it’s just them fucking.

Analyssa: Just getting edged by them, but that’s fine.

Riese: Right. But I don’t know. I like Pippa kind of bossing her around.

Analyssa: Yeah, big time.

Riese: Being like that this is the pace and this is what we’re doing.

Drew: Yeah, it’s good. Then Dani and Roxy are kissing and Dre walks up, which again, it’s just like-

Riese: What?

Drew: …this obviously isn’t as bad as what happens with Micah or what happens with Tess, but it still is like, “Okay, so we have this other trans character and it’s like, we’re ending with them being rejected.” It also is the kind of ending that there’s just, there are ways to end a season where you end it. The way you leave stories open-ended doesn’t feel so cliffhangery when you might not get another season. There are shows that have done it really well where yeah, you can tell that they should have had more time and there are things that are left unresolved, but it mostly feels coherent where this is what a weird way to end with this character who we barely even know at this point. Just don’t have Dre come back. If you get another season, it can be some conflict-

Analyssa: That’s a question.

Drew: …but just don’t have Dre come back if-

Riese: I’m happy for Carmen that they got paid for another episode.

Drew: True. Yeah.

Riese: But yeah, because also the fact that Dani left that voicemail is already a cliffhanger enough. We know Dre’s going to listen to it, we don’t know how they’re going to feel about it, but there’s some implication that they expect or Dre to pursue it some way.

Drew: Or Dre calling even, it’d be like, “Oh, shit, Dre’s calling.”

Riese: Yeah, Dre’s calling. Yeah.

Drew: Fine. That’s it.

Riese: Yeah. It could’ve even shown Dre calling so that Carmen had gotten paid for the episode.

Analyssa: So that Carmen still… Yeah.

Drew: And then the last one, which is so atrocious, which is, well, not the last one, but the next thing which is Finley gets a call from the police about Tess.

Analyssa: Perfect.

Drew: Which could be anything.

Analyssa: Anything.

Drew: That could be a death, right?

Riese: It could be death, it could be DUI, it could be arrest for cocaine possession, it could be car accident, it could be kitten in a tree.

Analyssa: I’ll tell you what it’s probably not, something fun or good.

Drew: Sure. I’m just saying-

Riese: It’s not going to be death, but…

Drew: But again, this could be the last episode, so we are ending with the possibility that she died. And we finally got to talk to the cops. They’ve been wanting to do it all season.

Riese: I know. They’re like, “We’ve got one more opportunity.” Meanwhile, I was looking at the time code being like, wait, they’re not going to have Bella walk into the wedding?

Drew: No.

Analyssa: Nope.

Drew: So then we end with Bette and Tina-

Analyssa: No.

Drew: … walking off into the proverbial sunset. And again, that’s what they wanted to do and they did it right, so Gen Q, really, the main error it made up for was Ilene Chaiken’s bonkers sixth season that turned her lesbian romance into a murder show for some reason. And they didn’t really do it because I have a lot more affection for Jenny than I do for Bette and Tina as a couple.

Riese: I have so much affection for Jenny that twisted, twisted weirdo.

Analyssa: Yeah. Sick, sick freak.

Riese: That sick gorgeous woman.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: And that’s the episode and that’s the season. And that might be The L Word.

Riese: Except for the Christmas special.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Except for the Christmas special.

Riese: So I loved all of the scenes that were shot at the wedding that didn’t involve Tess. And I think I could easily come up with a few things they could have added to that package for the episode that would not have been what instead was…

Analyssa: Yeah, I was really surprised. The Tess one was the big one, of that this really did not have a vibe of potential series finale. It’s just a surprising choice, not even for The L Word: Gen Q specifically, but just in the era of most shows get three seasons if they’re lucky and that’s like it.

Drew: Totally.

Analyssa: So you would think that any show would be like, “Okay, how do we land enough planes that it feels like a total complete thing, and leave enough kind of questions that if we came back, it would be fun and interesting and there’s still stuff to explore?” And I feel like the Tess thing, was especially jarring where I was like, “That actually is a question that would need an answer.” So if this-

Riese: And also, again, her driving off that guy was already a cliffhanger. They didn’t need the whole fucking story. But if they were going to do it, that could’ve ended right there.

Drew: Also, there are ways to have cliffhanger endings that the, I know a lot of people hate the ending of The Sopranos, but that pointedly has… There are ways to have cliffhangers. I mean, I’m so happy it got a season three, but the end of season two of Sort Of, I’m not going to spoil it if you’re behind because you should really catch it up and watch the show, it’s incredible, it ends with a really huge cliffhanger. But if the show had been canceled, it would’ve been a cliffhanger in a open-ended story, that there feels like a closure of an architecture, there’s that word again. And there are ways to do that. And the open-ended things here don’t. The same way that Dre hadn’t shown up, but there had just been the specter of Dre, then you still have this feeling of, what is Dani going to choose in her life? But the way that it’s shot is end of an episode cliffhangers, not end of season even cliffhangers.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: They’re also though historically really bad at cliffhangers, not just at the execution of the cliffhanger, but then what happens next. The cliffhanger with Sophie at the airport and then bring us back to her wedding, and with not a single, no idea what happened after that. Why did you do that? And to have Carrie have a heart attack and Finley be in in the next episode open, just sitting on couch-

Analyssa: Just completely… Yeah.

Riese: …and she’s in the next one. You guys, like someone, I mean, again-

Analyssa: And then in the Gigi car crash too, same thing.

Riese: Yeah, car crash. These sort of like, they love to put someone on a cliff and then drive up to the cliff in a really nice sports car and be like, “Hey, get in, let’s go back down.” No one ever jumps.

Analyssa: Or falls.

Drew: I mean, it’s partially because Marja had no TV experience, that she does not understand how TV works. I mean, and it’s something we’ve talked about in the sense that it’s like, I mean, I certainly don’t begrudge her taking the job, anyone would take the job, but-

Riese: Right. I too have no experience but would’ve happily taken the job.

Drew: Yes. But I mean, it is just this thing where-

Riese: Although now, I actually don’t know if I would do that because after seeing this, I’m like, I don’t know.

Drew: I mean, it’s just something that’s lost with how TV is made now, and it’s a real shame to not have. Not that, I mean, there are some ways that people getting opportunities who wouldn’t otherwise get opportunities who don’t have years of working in writers’ rooms, that gives opportunities to new people. And that’s great. But there’s the flip side of it, which is when someone truly has not worked on a TV show before, there’s going to be a real steep learning curve. And it’d be hard for anybody. So it’s why I think a lot of times new showrunners have a co-showrunner. I mean, I think about someone like Rachel Bloom who was… actually, she wasn’t new to TV, she’d written on Robot Chicken, but-

Analyssa: But that type of TV especially.

Drew: Yeah. And so she was paired with Aline Brosh McKenna, or going back to Girls, like Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow and whatever, and these things that, there is value in having that sort of mentor, mentee, co-showrunnership. And even though it’s clear that Ilene Chaiken handpicked Marja-Lewis Ryan, Ilene Chaiken wasn’t running the show.

Analyssa: Right, or in the room. Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, imagine if, sure, I mean, Marja-Lewis Ryan wouldn’t have been my person who’d written one gay screenplay choice, but imagine if a younger queer person who’d written one gay screenplay was paired with Angela Robinson or someone who was just a real legend of the industry who worked on the original show, and there could have been so much… We wouldn’t have had to witness someone basically go to film school, go to the TV version of film school. And it’s so frustrating because there’s so many people who are so talented who just don’t get opportunities. So it’s a real bummer. Remember last year when I said that I wasn’t going to come back?

Riese: Yeah. I mean I guess, there’s some good things that were set up, like Tasha and Alice, Bella and Angie, but they also didn’t set up anything for Shane really.

Drew: No.

Analyssa: Finley doesn’t really have anything that she’s looking toward.

Riese: Besides maybe going to school. And honestly, she’s not living in a sublet where she has to clap to make roaches go away, I don’t think.

Analyssa: No.

Riese: Also, if you’re going to… Whatever. At least we didn’t have to go to her apartment. That was really going to be painful for me to experience.

Drew: Yeah. I know.

Analyssa: They brought in some storylines in ways that were delightful and look like they can arrow out if the show comes back, and if not, I get to live happily with the idea that Sophie and Pippa have a wonderful romance and they live together as long as they want to. But I’m just stuck on the Tess thing because it feels like they have an answer in mind of what happens. And if the show doesn’t come back, you will never know.

Riese: I don’t know if they do, because remember when season six ended and everyone was like, “Wait, so who killed Jenny?” And Ilene was like, “Oh, I don’t know, I didn’t write it. I didn’t know when I wrote…” And I’m like, even if you don’t reveal it, you have to know, as the writer.

Analyssa: You have an idea.

Riese: You have to know. You can’t write to an unknown. What? That’s like writing 101. So I don’t think they know.

Analyssa: Right. So-

Riese: Because also the way that, I don’t even get this police, why did she say it was Tess calling? Tess made Finley her emergency contact already? I don’t know.

Drew: Do police officers take a cellphone from someone and call the most recent called number? Because that does not seem like something a cop would do.

Riese: No, it doesn’t.

Drew: Unless she’s dead. Unless because-

Riese: Oh.

Drew: …if she’s in-

Analyssa: And they can’t ask her anything.

Drew: …if she’s in jail, then eventually she would get to make a call. It would be from an unknown number, it wouldn’t be from… I mean, unless they gave her cellphone back. I don’t, but…

Riese: Again-

Drew: What?

Riese: …Marja would be committing a hate crime on the community and herself if she actually killed Tess.

Analyssa: That would be wild. Although, much like the Sophie thing, there are a lot of Tess despisers out there, which also feels very nasty.

Drew: Yeah, which some of it’s transphobia and some of it’s racism for those two characters. And some of it’s how they’ve been written and how they’ve been treated and how they’re treated by Marja, who has her own biases.

Riese: Right. Well, I also think some of these characters have, like Sophie has flaws.

Drew: Sure.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: And I think that’s what weird, is people, they want to… In order to a character, you have to all their choices or behaviors. No, Jenny, for example, my all-time best friend, Jenny Schecter, she was an unhinged mess. But I love her and I connected to her in a certain way, in a good and bad.

Drew: The internet’s fave.

Analyssa: That’s how I feel about Alice personally. Alice is such a mess-

Riese: Right, Alice is my problematic fave.

Analyssa: …and yeah, so problematic and has done so much, honestly-

Riese: Harm.

Analyssa: …bad stuff in her life. And still, I watch her and I’m like, “I understand you. I care for you.”

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Because we also are all flawed.

Drew: It’s true.

Analyssa: Not me, though.

Drew: I mean, of the new people who the internet loves, Dani was a Sackler, question mark? Gigi worked in real estate. They’re not perfect.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Gigi works in real estate?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Gigi came to Alice and Nat’s home and-

Drew: Oh, yeah.

Analyssa: …hammered a nail into their front door. That is scary behavior. And still, I was like, I love her. I’d die for her.

Riese: They need her on the show. They really do.

Drew: Well, you know what I hope? I’m putting all of my energy and prayer into A League of Their Own.

Riese: A League of Their Own.

Drew: I have nothing left for season four of Gen Q, sorry to the cast and crew, some of whom I do deeply love. But…

Riese: What about the Christmas special?

Drew: I mean, if they want to do a wrap-up movie, I would love that.

Riese: Okay. Thank you.

Drew: Especially if you got to write it.

Riese: Thank you so much. I appreciate your support.

Drew: But I just want A League of Their Own to come back. Talk about a reboot that’s so good. I mean, I know it’s a different kind of reboot, but oh, what a great show A League of Their Own is.

Riese: So good. Yeah. In part made by another former L Word person, Jamie Babbit, the director.

Analyssa: Oh, fun.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I mean, this is the thing, this is what I would love to see out of The L Word: Gen Q reboot that potentially is not moving forward, is more awareness of these queer people who worked on the show to then go… I would love to see Micah and Maribel and Sophie, all those people in new things now. And I will follow most of them to whatever they do next.

Riese: Including Christmas.

Analyssa: Including obviously first the Christmas special. Yeah.

Drew: Yeah, I mean, it’ll be-

Riese: Yeah, agreed. A hard agree on that.

Analyssa: And watching, I don’t know, seeing that Leisha and Kate directed episodes, I wonder if there’s a shift for them into directing more. Or like we said when Roxy first showed up, seeing someone be in these smaller queer roles a few years before they’re going to get some-

Riese: Yeah, I think she’s going to be big. Yeah.

Analyssa: That is always a really cool feeling, and I think is one of the best things to come out of the franchise.

Drew: I just hope that the industry has spots for…

Analyssa: Definitely.

Drew: I mean, I just look at Pose and obviously, I mean, I saw Billy Porter on Broadway years ago and he’s such an incredible talent and I’m so glad that it took being in a cast filled with trans women of color for him to be the one with privilege and to be able to make a career out of a part. And not that, I mean, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez has had stuff, but he’s definitely the person who post-Pose has had a real career bump and fame bump. And I just hope that it’s not just Jacqueline Toboni, I hope. And she’s great, I really hope that she is in a bunch of stuff, but I just, I hope there are parts for Leo and parts for Jillian and parts for Daniel and so many other people in the cast who are great.

Riese: Yeah. You know Ari was in a Hallmark movie of some kind where she was a lesbian doctor.

Analyssa: I did see the commercials for that. I should watch that.

Riese: I saw a clip of that on TikTok and I thought, “What?” I want to see Rosanny on a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend reboot.

Drew: I really want to see Rosanny in something.

Riese: I want to see her singing more. I love her.

Drew: She’s definitely been one of the real joys of watching The L Word, from the beginning, from watching Gen Q, I mean.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: You guys did so well switching back to their real names. I got so… My brain had been in character mode so much that I was like, “Ah, what?”

Riese: Yeah. You remember once upon a time, we were in that theater at the LGBT Center meeting them for the first time before the To L and Back: Generation Q Edition podcast.

Analyssa: It’s so wild.

Drew: I’m going to throw something out, which is, regardless of whether Gen Q improved over its three seasons, I know that I improved and I feel like you both have improved. And I think we’ve all been on a… Since that night, I think we’ve all come so far as people-

Riese: I mean, that is true.

Drew: …as queers, as sisterhood is powerful. I really just think that we’ve really grown a lot and I’m really proud of us.

Riese: Yeah, we really have. Me too. That week was so messy.

Analyssa: That week was incredibly messy.

Riese: There were so many parties. So many parties. Every day, I was so profoundly hungover, it was like my insides are being scraped out with a spork from Kentucky Fried Chicken that had been sitting in my drawer since 1975.

Drew: That was specific. Yeah. So I’m like, hey, let’s celebrate that.

Riese: Yeah, let’s celebrate that.

Analyssa: Let’s celebrate that, for us as lesbians.

Riese: For us as lesbians, growth, and for us as lesbians, sisterhood is powerful. And I think that-

Drew: That is it.

Riese: That’s it.

Analyssa: That’s what matters.

Lauren: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L And Back: Generation Q Edition, one of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter, @tolandback, and you can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. Our theme song is by the talented, Be Steadwell, and our Gen Q logo is by Jax Co. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram, @LaurenTaylorKlein. You can follow Drew everywhere, @Draw_Gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram, @Analocaa with two As, and on Twitter, @Analoca_ with one A and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere @Autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle, and of course, the reason why we’re all here, autostraddle.com. And finally, to end this up, let’s hear some Q words from our girlies.

Drew: Three, two, one — qualifiers.

Riese: Quince meat! You can see a quincemeat twinkle in my eye.

Drew: Can I ask something that I’ve been meaning to Google?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Is quincemeat actually a thing?

Riese: No.

Analyssa: No.

Drew: Okay, I didn’t think so. I didn’t think so.

Analyssa: Riese made that up this season!

Drew: I know. Yeah, I thought it was like a mincemeat pie, and you just started saying quince meat. I guess there was one part of me that thought that for the whole time and then was like, “Wait, what if it’s actually a real thing and I have been missing it?”

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Great. Glad we’re on the same page. What did you say, Ana?

Riese: Yeah, it’s-

Analyssa: I didn’t say anything because I was laughing so hard at Riese. But my word was going to be quintuplets because it’s the longest Q word I could think of, and also, because I would love to see Rosanny Zayas play quintuplets for no reason.

Drew: Oh, fun.

Analyssa: I don’t know, like an Orphan Black kind of situation.

Drew: Like identical. Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: I think she could do it.

Analyssa: Five different roles.

Drew: I said qualifiers because when I say that I love The L Word and it holds a special place in my heart, I have to always have some qualifiers.

Riese: Oh wow, that’s good.

Analyssa: Wow.

Riese: That’s amazing. Well, thanks, you guys. Thanks so much for listening. If you love us a lot, we’ll make a link to our Autostraddle donor box and you can feel free to give us some money.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: And thanks for coming along.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I don’t know why you feel like I need to whisper now.

Drew: I feel, it’s so annoying because the show’s so annoying but now I feel emotional that it’s over.

Analyssa: As soon as it ends, I’m like, “Please, no.” I’m like in a situationship with The L Word.

Riese: Yeah, no, I mean, I want it to come back, but I do, it’s hard for me to separate that from-

Drew: No. Some of it-

Riese: …my business interests in it.

Drew: Yeah, I also, I also.

Analyssa: For sure. I mean, same. We all have a vested interest in this show existing.

Riese: Yeah. We’re part of the industry.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: You know what I mean? It’s like, The L Word is a war, we manufacture bombs.

Drew: Wow. Geez. That is an apt metaphor.

Riese: I did that one for you because I know how you love the military.

Drew: Thanks for that. And on that note.

To L And Back: Generation Q Podcast 309: When a Fire Starts to Burn

A strong breeze has blown into Los Angeles this week and with it, the return of Bette and Tina! Coincidentally, it also brought the return of our enjoyment of this television program. This episode was delightful! It’s nearly the end of the season so many chickens must come home to roost!

Angie’s moms are back to get her out of bed and performing at her creative writing class reading and discover the relationship that has her sulking unshowered in bed. Shane and Tess are fighting over the second bar, but in a new and more final way. Finley is helping Carrie recover from her (obnoxious, to us) heart attack. And of course, Alice’s movie meltdown has gotten her cancelled again, with one of our season-long prayers answered as a result!! (I never know if I’m spoiling an episode in this post, so I WON’T.)

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SHOW NOTES

+ Drew’s lesbian movie index goes up today! Check it out!
+ If you care, here’s more on James Corden beefing with the Balthazar guy
+ Riese’s recap for 309

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And this is…

Group: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition.

Drew: Wow. We did it great.

Riese: Did we?

Drew: The episode is better. We’re thriving.

Riese: I got distracted.

Analyssa: I thought it was kind of impressive that you got distracted during that.

Riese: Really? But I was still trying.

Analyssa: While you did it, I was like, “Wow, that was ballsy. I wouldn’t have done that.”

Drew: Yeah. Well, here we are with another episode of The L Word: Generation Q. It was validating to see that our opinions last week were not … We were not alone. Seems like all of you…

Riese: A lot of people really liked it.

Drew: Did they? I didn’t—

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Oh, I guess I didn’t—

Riese: On the recap, a lot of people really liked it, and I was surprised because this was when I really lost it, was last week.

Analyssa: I read some of the comments on your recaps. There’s always way too many for me to keep up with, but also on our podcast episode post all the comments were saying that we were right, so you could hang out in there sometimes. Yeah.

Drew: That’s all I pay attention to.

Analyssa: But I was surprised to see that in your recap.

Riese: Yeah. I mean, no one said I was wrong. For their personal enjoyment, they liked it, which surprised me.

Drew: Sure. And I love that.

Riese: But also I think it might just be like if you’re a big fan of Finley, obviously you’d be a big fan of that episode.

Drew: This is episode 309, Quiet Before the Storm, and it is written by Melody Derloshon, who we’ve talked about many times. And it’s directed by Kate Moennig, who I think we know.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: We know Kate.

Riese: We’ve heard of Kate. Yeah. This is her first directing job.

Analyssa: That’s fun. Cool.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I love when a cast member gets to direct an episode.

Riese: And I think Leisha Hailey is directing the finale,

Analyssa: Oh, my God. That’s so exciting.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Fun.

Analyssa: I love that.

Drew: I would love post-Gen Q if Leisha Haley directed movies. I can see her filling like a Clea DuVall kind of gap.

Analyssa: My reference point was going to be like, oh, kind of like Carrie Brownstein did music, and then now is directing. The same kind of thing with Leisha Haley.

Drew: Yeah. I was like, why do Carrie Brownstein and Leisha Haley have a connection? And I realized that it’s actually just me in my own little world because I wrote a pilot with a character based on Carrie Brownstein, and was like, “Leisha Haley would be perfect for this.”

Analyssa: That’s why they’re connected. Through your pilot.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Well, I think that Kate did a great job.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I agree.

Drew: This was a solid episode.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: This episode was a relief to me.

Drew: I think I only shouted at the TV in frustration three or four times.

Analyssa: This felt like a normal amount of being like urgh with a plotline.

Riese: Yeah. It felt like the original series where there’s stuff where I’m like ugh but in general, I’m like, this follows the rules of an episode of television.

Analyssa: Everything we’ve agreed upon entering this relationship is intact.

Riese: Yes, it is being fulfilled. Yeah.

Drew: Also, a lot of the stuff that annoyed me, not all of it, but there were certain things that annoyed me but felt true to the characters. Right? Where I was like, “This sucks.” But also, “Tina would fucking do this.”

Analyssa: Right. We’ve talked about that in some episodes, where it’s the difference between being annoyed with the script versus just being annoyed with the characters that you’re watching. It’s so much more pleasant to be annoyed with the characters that you’re watching, and not remember that there’s a script behind them.

Drew: Right.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Should we get into it?

Riese: Yeah. The beginning of the episode did in fact… Was the most upsetting part of the episode for me. I just, “What the fuck?”

Drew: Okay. One thing I want to say before we get into that is that the previously on—

Analyssa: I was going to bring this up too.

Drew: It included the part where Alice in the theater goes, “He dies at the end.” And since a reminder, they went to go see the 1960 Little Shop of Horrors I was like, anyone seeing that would know. I was like, “Are they including this because someone who uses he/him pronouns is going to die in this episode?” I was like, “Who could it be? They’re not going to kill Micah. Who could they kill? Who could they kill?” That is not why that was shown in the previously on.

Analyssa: I was just going to get mad about the previously on because it had so many scenes that I enjoyed, and then the things that were in this episode had nothing to do with the thing I enjoyed in that scene, i.e. Kehlani, Joey Lauren Adams. It’s all the setup that makes sense, but it got my little hopes up just a little bit, that some guest stars would be back, or that it would be a really Sophie centric episode, which it kind of was, but I was like, “I’ve been tricked.”

Riese: Speaking of trickery.

Drew: Yeah. The opening is very annoying. It is a serious medical drama. And then it’s like, “Oh, it’s actually Grey’s Anatomy and—”

Riese: Carrie and Misty are watching it?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: It’s not Grey’s Anatomy.

Drew: Oh. Well, yeah. But they say it is.

Riese: But they say it is.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Right. Yeah. I have to get that out because it bothered me both times it was brought up. It’s not Grey’s Anatomy.

Drew: Sure, I believe you.

Analyssa: Okay, great.

Riese: Yeah. The hallway was really empty for Grey’s Anatomy.

Analyssa: That’s not a shot from Grey’s Anatomy, number one. Number two, they’re talking… Well, it doesn’t matter. I won’t get into this, but if any other people who watched Grey’s Anatomy watch this episode and were like, “This is inconsistent. The things that they’re talking about.” Find me.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I have thoughts.

Drew: I think as someone who watched the first few seasons of Grey’s Anatomy when they aired, and then moved on with my life, I don’t have strong feelings. I was like, “Obviously they’re not going to get the rights to Grey’s Anatomy, so I understand.” but I understand why you are — as a Grey’s Anatomy fan, are like, “This is wrong.”

Riese: Yeah. I just don’t understand why they did this. Why did they end with Finley doing the chest compressions, and being in a panic? That’s supposed to arouse emotions within us that something terrible is happening. But then we saw right away, in the next dawn, that Carrie was alive, and then we opened with Carrie being more than okay.

Drew: Yeah, I don’t love it. And I saw someone comment that Rosie O’Donnell’s talked a lot about having a heart attack, and heart health, and things like that. And it is one of those things where it’s this excuse that’s used—

Riese: Yeah. It doesn’t really make sense.

Drew: —for being like, Jamie really wanted to play a cis character where you’re like, “Okay, but one, maybe this is why there shouldn’t be only one trans actor or only one fat actor.” These things. But then also, I guarantee there are actors who have requested things for their characters, and that hasn’t been listened to.

Riese: Kate Moennig requested that she talk about Jenny, and they were like, “Nope.”

Drew: It still is a choice that’s made. And it’s not legend and carrying Gen Q Rosie O’Donnell’s responsibility — carrying wasn’t a pun, but I realize it was — responsibility to think about the nuances of queer representation, and fat representation, and these things. There’s a writer’s room for that. There are producers for that. I get it, but that’s not a good enough explanation for me.

Riese: No, I don’t think so. I mean, Rosie’s done a lot of things in her life that aren’t part of Carrie’s character. I mean, heart attacks happen on TV all the time, but I think the way it was set up— I mean, Gigi’s car crash, to a certain extent, where it’s this cliffhanger type thing where we’re supposed to feel stressed about it, but then we’re not. It’s just like, I don’t get it. It’s like an artificial—

Drew: Right. It’s both cheap narratively, and it also just really sucks. Because Rosie O’Donnell should not be the fattest actor on the show three seasons in, first of all. And then the way that the episode continues, as we’ve said, Rosie O’Donnell is always a pleasure to watch, and I love Carrie and Misty together, and Carrie and Finley’s chosen family relationship is so lovely.
But it just really fucking sucks, the way that this episode, and I guess we’ll keep coming back to this, but it’s just all about how Carrie needs to diet and exercise. The way Finley is acting is like a judge on The Biggest Loser from 2006 or whatever.

Riese: Right. But they don’t say anything about her size, or her weight. I think they felt like it was okay because of that. It’s not focused on her, which is something. At least no one was like, “You need to lose weight.” Or something. It was focused on her health or whatever. There’s that.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Which is also accurate. She doesn’t need to lose weight! I think putting that burden on our only fat character is still really irritating. People of all sizes have heart attacks.

Drew: Yeah. Far more fun is that Angie in a post breakup haze, is reading The Price of Salt, and watching Four-Faced Liar, which is—

Riese: Oh, that’s what she was watching.

Drew: Marja-Lewis Ryan’s movie that she wrote and starred in, that’s not available to stream. The day this podcast comes out, my updated lesbian movie list will be out, and it’s not available anywhere. Which I’m surprised that… I don’t know.

Analyssa: Angie did-

Drew: Angie downloaded it, torrented Four-Faced Liar, which there are far better movies that you could torrent, Angie.

Analyssa: Well, they did Marja’s play in Angie’s High School. They have a direct line coming in. They have a connection to the playwright.

Riese: Yeah. Maybe she got, maybe Marja, to send her the file.

Drew: I’m sure.

Riese: Those are the perks.

Analyssa: Marja loved the high school production. That got done so much that she-

Riese: Yeah, that she stayed in touch with Angie ever since.

Drew: That’s really beautiful.

Riese: But most importantly, she’s wearing her Sisterhood Is Powerful t-shirt.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: And if we were wondering, “When are we going to see that again?” Luckily, we’re seeing it in a moment of sadness, and depression, and despair.

Drew: Sometimes being powerful means-

Riese: Being sad?

Drew: Taking time to be sad, yeah.

Riese: Yeah, taking time for yourself. And you know what a danger is to dating your teacher? Not wanting to go to class.

Analyssa: Angie is in a post breakup slump. Her roommate is trying to rally her out of bed, and out of the room, and then a much stronger-

Riese: Surprise!

Analyssa: A much stronger force arrives.

Riese:
It’s Bette and Tina!

Drew: Yeah. And Bette immediately starts cleaning up, which is lovely and funny. And also what I would do if I was in that room. It was funny. I was very happy to see them.

Riese: Yeah. I was like, “Oh, good!”

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: I was like, “Am I betraying myself here?” But they were cute, and we haven’t really seen them get to be mothers to Angie in a way where that’s not about them. It was interesting to actually finally see them focused on her, but they also obviously are concerned about her wellbeing because she seems unwell. And she is unwell, because she had sex with a terrible person.

Drew: We’ve all been there.

Riese: Anyway, they’re going to go to her reading tonight.

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: And so am I.

Analyssa: And so are we all.

Riese: All so we all are. Yes. Everyone loves a student reading. They’re always very well attended. Big event.

Analyssa: They’re also always in these-

Riese: Always on the website.

Analyssa: Huge auditoriums.

Riese: Yeah, huge auditorium. Yeah, they were really expecting a big crowd for that.

Drew: Speaking of rough days, Shane wakes up naked, which could be good, except that Tess is already getting dressed, and getting ready to leave. It feels very much like they are hooking up and still living together. But I mean, maybe they’re not hooking up. Are they just living together?

Riese: I don’t know if they were hooking up or not. I thought maybe that was just how Shane slept.

Drew: Does Shane just sleep naked?

Analyssa: I thought they were hooking up.

Drew: I thought they were hooking up.

Riese: Oh, really?

Drew: I feel like if you’re not hooking up you’re not going to share a bed and be naked.

Analyssa: Also they have a big house.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: They could…

Riese: Could sleep somewhere else?

Analyssa: Sleep somewhere else, yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I think they’re hooking up, but clearly, there is still tension, and Shane is like, “What if we talk to someone?”

Riese: Shane suggests couples therapy.

Drew: Yeah, and Tess says no, which my big complaint about this episode with them, is it turned it into a thing where Tess becomes more at fault in the split, when that’s not really fair given … I don’t know. It just is this thing where it’s like, “Well, Tess is drinking again, and being erratic, and doing this and this.” And it’s like, “Shane needs to grow.” Shane has fucked up, and sucks, and the show doesn’t quite seem to know who it wants us to be. It doesn’t feel complicated. It just feels like now it’s really… I don’t know.

Riese: Well, I felt that it was definitely Tess’s fault.

Drew: Well, yeah. No, I know. But that’s what I’m saying is that-

Riese: If that’s what the show was feeding me, I ate that.

Drew: Right.

Riese: I ate every bite.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: And also, Tess turning down therapy, which is something that-

Drew: Yeah, makes no sense.

Riese: If Shane asked me to go to couple’s therapy, I’d be like, “We don’t even know each other, but if this is what it takes to get you into a therapist’s office, absolutely, let’s do it.”

Analyssa: But this had to follow the time honored tradition of The L Word: Gen Q‘s insistence on one character introducing an idea. Another character saying, “Okay, I’m on board for this idea.” And the first character reacting as though that’s the craziest thing anyone has ever said in their life. They love doing that. Okay.

Riese: Anyway, Tess has to go meet with the tile guy at the second bar, which I honestly hoped had just fallen into the sea. I wanted it to just go away. I didn’t want to ever hear about the second bar again.

Drew: That may happen. Meanwhile, Alice is showing Sophie pictures of her cat, Piddles Jr., PJ, which I was like, “Okay, PJ’s a very cute name.”

Analyssa: PJ’s really sweet.

Riese: Later, she calls him little PP. We can go in so many directions with this.

Drew: And they’re getting ready for the season finale of The Alice Show ending with Rachel Maddow.

Riese: I know. And for a moment, for a brief shimmering moment, I was like, “Oh, my God.”

Analyssa: I put all caps in my notes. I was so excited. And then I realized like, “Oh, okay.”

Riese: I was like, “People are going to flip out!”

Drew: Yeah. I mean, even though the video of Alice in the movie theater went viral several episodes ago, it is now going viral again in a new way, because James Cordon tweeted it.

Analyssa: They’ve brought back Alice’s random beef with James Cordon.

Riese: Right. Of all the things to remember to bring back around, it was her beef with James Cordon, who, I think probably since this episode was filmed, edited, and produced and wrapped, has had his own entitlement virality.

Analyssa: But that’s really funny, actually. They didn’t mean for this, but it layers in a thing where the idea in my head is that James Cordon tweeted this so that people will stop paying attention to the fact that he’s still beefing with the head chef at Balthazar. He was like, “Okay, I finally have an idea. Something that will get them off of me.”

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: And then it causes a whole Alice is getting canceled storyline that culminates with someone bringing up Darryl Brewer, which we all remember who Darryl Brewer is, because our lives are very tied into The L Word.

Analyssa: I simply didn’t.

Drew: Oh, you didn’t? Oh, I love that for you.

Analyssa: They said that name, and I said, “Who is that?”

Drew: I’m so happy for you.

Analyssa: And then when she started the next thing and was like, “So, there was this guy.” I was like, “Okay. It’s all coming back to me now.” But just the name? No, that did nothing for me.

Riese: But when Sophie said the name, and Alice was like… I was like…

Drew: When this first started, I went, “Oh, God. They’re doing a canceled storyline.” And I just was like, “There’s no way this is going to be done well.” Even Tàr, which I think is a very good movie in so many ways, anything to do with cancel culture just falls so flat there. And I did not trust these writers. I thought it worked.

Riese: I thought it worked, too.

Drew: I thought it was really good. We’ll get into some more details later, but I was like, “They’ve handled this well.”

Riese: And also, when I saw the episode description, it was like, “Alice has to pay for something she did in her past.” Or whatever. And I saw the preview with Sophie being like, “I don’t know how to fix this.” Gretchen was like, “What do you think it is?” And I was like, “I think it’s going to be Daryl Brewer.” Because that was such a big…

Analyssa: Your mind amazes me.

Riese: But one could argue, it could have more important things in it than this.

Drew: Then we go to the trail with Carrie and Misty and Finley.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: It was very nice out.

Analyssa: Because the whole plot is Carrie, per doctor’s orders, has to be able to walk a quarter mile on an incline. There’s a weird subplot here where Finley’s like, “And if you do it, you can bone Misty.” Which I was like, “Weird thing to say to your mom, but okay.”

Riese: And Misty’s part of that, too. Misty’s also like, “Then we can-”

Analyssa: Yeah, but Misty and Carrie get in on it, and then I feel okay about it. It’s just when Finley is like, “The two of you could fuck.”

Drew: Well, and then Carrie talks to Misty, and is like, “I-”

Riese: I’m not ready, obviously.

Drew: “I’m not ready. I want to take it slow.” And it’s very sweet. And Misty is like, “Well, I’m really good at it. Whenever you’re ready.” And that was a great response.

Analyssa: They’re fun.

Drew: I loved it. I loved it. I loved that part.

Riese: It was cute. I also just loved them being outdoors. It was very beautiful to see our great city rolling before us.

Analyssa: Which is currently under so much rain.

Riese: Yes.

Drew: Yeah. Well…

Riese: Barry is on the phone, right?

Drew: Yes.

Riese: With Alice. And they’re very upset, and they want her to apologize, and Sophie is trying so hard to manage the situation appropriately, and I think doing a really good job.

Analyssa: I really liked this for Sophie in this episode, watching her-

Riese: Just do her shit, yeah.

Analyssa: Just do good at her job.

Drew: I love … I mean, not to be a Capricorn, but it’s so nice to get stories in the workplace that aren’t people boning in the workplace. It’s possible to have storylines with these characters that isn’t someone cheating, or someone having sex they shouldn’t have. Not that those things aren’t fun, but there are other things you can do.

Riese: Right. And he wants her to apologize, and Sophie’s like, “Absolutely.” She feels remorse, she will do it. And Alice is like, “No, I don’t.”

Drew: And then we go to everybody’s new favorite couple, or at least mine, Dani and Dre. Dani’s lying in Dre’s lap while Dre writes a song, and it’s very cute. And then they start making out. And I went, “What’s going to interrupt it? What’s going to interrupt it?” And very quickly, Dre says, “I love you.” And then is like, “I mean, I love what you’re doing.” And there is a moment, and then Sophie calls, and Dani’s like, “I have to get this!” And it’s like, “Oh, thanks for saving me.”

Analyssa: Double interruption.

Drew: Yeah, double interruption.

Riese: Why won’t anyone have sex on this show?

Drew: I don’t know.

Riese: What is happening?

Analyssa: Why is this show forcing me to be a pervert, and be like, “Everybody should be having sex more”?

Riese: Yeah. What is going on?

Analyssa: It’s so weird. It’s very bizarre.

Riese: I’m just confused. And I would like to speak to the head of Paramount Networks, personally.

Drew: Yeah, I don’t know. It’s a bummer. I would be very curious to know what led to that.

Riese: Intimacy coordinators aren’t that expensive, are they?

Drew: No, I don’t think so. Can you imagine if that’s what it is? Then we go to Angie who’s talking to Bella, and nervous that her parents will find out about Hendrix. And then-

Riese: You win!

Drew: I get to win.

Analyssa: You win!

Drew: Bella tells Angie that she’s the best person she knows, and that she’s a total catch, and Bella’s face is saying that I was right, and there is something here between these two. And I don’t know when it’s going to come about, but it sure is happening.

Riese: Yeah. Bella has feelings.

Drew: Bella has big, big feelings.

Riese: And Angie is oblivious.

Drew: Oblivious.

Analyssa: No idea.

Riese: And I really thought, “Oh, good.” I thought it was going to happen this episode, and I was excited.

Drew: It really sucks where this ends, because I really thought it was going to end with getting rid of Hendrix. Hendricks is gone out of my life, but nope. They said, “Yeah, we only have one episode left. But you know what we want to do? We want to keep Hendrix around.” More on that later.

Riese: Oh, and then Bella, they call Bella to go sit with Bette and Tina.

Analyssa: Where they all proceed to talk through every single other person’s reading. No one else is getting to do their reading in peace.

Riese: No. This is before Shane comes, right?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Speaking of things that people should apologize for, I tried. Sophie brings Dani in as a fixer, and it’s like Dani’s written hundreds of public apologies, which is like, “Sure has.”

Riese: She got somebody to say the right thing about their own child dying of an opioid overdose, even though his company manufactured the opioids. Yeah. You can do that. You can apologize for outing a basketball player.

Drew: I love Dani season three, and I sometimes forget how bad things were in season one.

Riese: Well, now she’s using her powers for good.

Drew: I guess so.

Riese: If Alice would only let her use her powers for good.

Drew: I love change. But Alice, yeah, is like, “I want to double down.” Kimmel would double down. And Sophie’s like, “Kimmel’s not a queer woman.” And then Alice is like, “You don’t understand how hard things were back then, and how hard it was being gay back then.” Basically, if you didn’t watch the original series or didn’t remember it in detail, there’s a sort of recap of what happened with Darryl Brewer.

Riese: She went to this secret Hollywood party, which by the way, she signed an NDA to go into, with her girlfriend who was in the Army and under investigation, under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and saw this guy who was a famous athlete. She didn’t know anything about sports. And filmed him with her flip phone that she was supposed to surrender at the door. And then the next day, he said something homophobic about this other guy who had come out in sports, and it was honestly the most absurd. It was on our favorite news channel, Now News or whatever.

And it was an inane quote. It was something like, “I don’t want those fucking gays in my locker room. And I let that be known.” Or whatever the fuck it was that he said. And then Alice made a video where she showed the video she took, again, at a party where she signed an NDA. And also, I re-watched this piece, and there’s people in the background of the video, too. It was supposed to be a secret Hollywood … And she is there with a girl who, if her girlfriend had been in the video, would’ve been in huge trouble.

And she did this. She decided to post the video outing him because he had said something homophobic. And the thing is that, at the time, no one thought it was a good idea either. She’s talking about back then, and out of curiosity, I was like, “Let me see what I wrote about it in my recap that I wrote in 2008.” And at that time, I thought it was a terrible idea. This was not something that anyone thought was a good idea.

Drew: Totally. What I liked about it was the idea of—

Riese:
I mean, they’re doing an Ellen thing.

Drew: Sure. But I liked it also because it felt like something that Alice, given her… I mean, the one thing that I wish had happened is that they’d addressed race at all. Because obviously, one, it’s more interesting and more nuanced, and also, it is what would be on Twitter. Specifically, she didn’t just out someone, she outed a black man.

Riese: A black man? Yeah.

Drew: And I wish that that was dealt with at all.

Riese: Right. Especially as she’s this rich white woman lecturing two women of color about how they should understand her oppression in 2008.

Drew: Yeah. It just felt very true to … How old’s Alice supposed to be?

Riese: 45, or something, probably.

Drew: Yeah, a cis white 45 year old lesbian, where it’s like, yeah, things were a lot worse for her at that time. And there’s probably a level of righteousness that she feels, even if she doesn’t get it, and I did appreciate that. But I wish, one, that they’d addressed race, and two, when Alice is like, “Him saying fag on TV.” And then Dani being like, “We actually don’t say fag anymore.” Was very annoying, and felt like such … There was actually sort of a realism to this scene in a way that I found really interesting, and that felt like not even a good joke, but just something in there. And was like, “Queer people constantly say dyke and fag.” And it’s not…

Riese: Right.

Drew: It would’ve been funnier if she’d said, “Don’t say that word in your apology.” Whatever. But, but anyways…

Riese: But realistically, in this conversation, they would be talking about race.

Drew: Right.

Riese: And they would’ve been like, “Even just, this isn’t a good look for you to be doubling down on this.” And at the time she got a lot of important feedback that she disregarded, like that this man had a family. He wasn’t a politician enforcing laws. You’re not just outing this man, you’re also causing a great amount of pain to his wife and his children, and you can’t just disregard that because you’re upset that he said something homophobic.

Drew: Right.

Riese: Although, also sort of at a through-line of the original storyline is that Alice didn’t really seem to realize how famous he was.

Drew: Right.

Riese: But she gets on the news about it. Her and Tasha break up over it, but they ended up getting back together a few episodes later. Then she gets on The Talk, and she semi-outs Nikki Stevens. And this is a pattern. And then she’s barred from the set of Lez Girls. This is not the first time she’s faced consequences for this, and she still is doubling down. I just think that’s beautiful. Also, her outfit was beautiful.

Analyssa: She says to them at the end that she will apologize, which is so not what’s going to happen, but she agrees to do it.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Well, speaking of people who deserve consequences, Hendrix has started his reading, and he is talking to Angie through his other student’s readings.

Drew: Bold.

Analyssa: Just another crime on his list.

Drew: And he calls Angie immature. And it’s like, “No, she’s not immature. She is the exact mature of an 18 year old, sir.”

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Right. I was so happy they were finally showing this guy to be the creep asshole that he is. And Angie, her responses to him were incredible. Just a choice. I was like, “Finally.” Now I know, “Okay, good. The show wants us to know that this man sucks.”

Drew: Right.

Riese: And then Bella also meets Shane and is like, “Wow, you’re hot.” Which was cute.

Drew: Yeah. And also Bella is like, “I have candy in my bag.” It’s like Bette is an old lady now. How cute!”

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, also earlier when they were leaving the dorm room, Bella was like, “Wow, iconic.”

Analyssa: Yeah. Just obsessed with all the-

Riese: Right. Now she’s probably feeling even gayer than she was before, and now she really wants into the family.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: I was just about to say, the idea of being queer slash bisexual, slash a lesbian, and seeing other queer women around you who are older, and being like, “Suddenly, I’m obsessed with them.” Suddenly, I need to be around them as much as I can. Imagine if those women were Bette Porter, Tina Kenard, and Shane.

Riese: Yeah. We start to have feelings for a girl, and then those three walk into your life, and sit down next to you, and offer you candy. Wow. You’re like, “This is the life for me.”

Analyssa: I’m actually ready to marry Angie, thank you so much.

Riese: Yeah, wow.

Analyssa: I never need anyone ever again.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Bette and Shane then have a nice talk about Tess, because Bette is now very-

Riese: Enlightened.

Drew: Enlightened.

Analyssa: Evolved.

Riese: Yeah. They’ve made it to couples therapy, again.

Drew: Yes, which Shane makes a joke about, is they have good couples therapists in Toronto. And Tina says, “Yeah, universal healthcare.” I would like to say, because I have inside knowledge, that Canada’s universal healthcare does not cover eyes, teeth, or mental health.

Analyssa: Wow.

Riese: Oh, interesting.

Drew: Yeah. Canada has problems, too. That’s something that I learned this summer.

Riese: Eyes, teeth, or mental health.

Drew: I mean, I would like to say that my insurance I pay for also doesn’t cover eyes, teeth, or mental health. The US is not good, but yeah.

Riese: Oh, interesting. But also, would Bette be covered under universal healthcare, just if she’s there illegally? She doesn’t even have a passport.

Drew: No, she wouldn’t be. And Tina would be-

Analyssa: Doesn’t have a visa to work there.

Drew: And Tina would be covered by her… I mean, it was a joke. It’s fine. I’m just letting you know a little knowledge because I’m dating a Canadian.

Riese: Well, that’s important. All of our Canadian listeners will appreciate that reality check.

Drew: Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah. Tina would not have Canadian insurance. She’d have her-

Riese: Employer?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Murdoch Mysteries.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Paw Patrol.

Drew: But just little fun facts there.

Analyssa: The end of that is that Shane is kind of like, “I don’t feel like Tess and I are growing in the same direction.” Or something sort of vague, but indicating that she’s kind of over it. And then Shane sees the professor, and that becomes a thing later.

Drew: Yeah. This episode did explain why … I mean, it doesn’t explain it because it’s not … But in the sense of being like, “Why aren’t they addressing this?” They wanted to address it when Bette and Tina were around.

Riese: Right. But the way Angie said her lines should have been different I think, in the last episode. Because it would’ve been easy when Shane had asked her, “Where did you guys meet?” She’d be like, “Oh, at the gallery.” And instead of saying he wants to get back to the end of the semester, because that would be a clue, she would’ve been like, “Later, when we’re a little bit older.” Or something.

Analyssa: Or, “When we’ve been in college longer.” Or something. Yeah.

Riese: Well, yeah. Yeah. She would not mention this semester. She certainly would not bring Shane over to the car where the staff parking pass is hanging. All of those decisions.

Drew: I think they also could have had it be a thing where Bella initially had said, “That’s a little whatever.” And Angie was like, “No, I know. But it’s not like that.” It could have been more of a thread throughout this entire season where there was some acknowledgement from the show, and from the people in Angie’s life, and then Angie was making the choice. Because that’s more, I mean, I don’t know personally what it would be like to be an 18 year old girl in 2022 having sex with your male professor, but I would imagine that there would be a little bit more awareness, and a little bit more, I don’t know.

Riese: But, yeah. I think that’s perfectly fine if Angie was hiding it, but we should have seen that she was hiding it. And we didn’t see that.

Drew: Yeah. Okay. Then we go to, Dani is running her statement by Sophie, and Sophie’s like, “Yeah. Just put it more in Alice’s voice.” And Alice is oblivious, just riding around on the little bike, getting ready for the show. And then Rachel Maddow dropped out, and that Alice gets very upset, and is like, “All the queers turned on me.”

Riese: And also, Alice is in this Evel Knievel jumpsuit with… It’s one of those things where I want Alice to be better than this, because I love her. But also, this tracks with the Alice that we’ve always known, the part of her that we don’t want to see, or that I don’t want to see, because I prefer to just love her.

Analyssa: Yeah. It’s also very funny because the hashtag is like, “Alice so entitled.” And this whole little insert. I was like, if this video went viral.

Riese: Right. And then she’s like, “Cancel the show.” Which is like, “You are not the only person employed by this.” The entitlement continues.

Drew: But Sophie’s like, “I’m going to produce this show.”

Riese: Yeah! And I was like, “Yes!”

Analyssa: I’m going to produce the shit out of this show.

Riese: Yeah. I was so happy. And also, her and Dani working together is cute. We return to the reading.

Drew: Yeah, where Angie’s reading some 18 year old poetry.

Riese: Yeah. I chose to sort of-

Analyssa: I didn’t really-

Riese: I didn’t want to know.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: It’s one thing when it’s Hendrix, and he’s getting published, and is an adult person. But I’m like, “This feels about, what? College freshman poetry.” I mean, no. Because your fucking poetry you wrote in high school is good. But I hate you. That’s not normal people.

Analyssa: You know when you have a kid who’s in the dance recital, and they’re not the best dancer? And so, you kind of just sit there being like, “Yeah.” That’s sort of how I listened to Angie’s writing. I was just like, “Oh, my kid’s up there doing something.”

Riese: Yeah. Well, I thought I was better. No, I didn’t. I wasn’t listening. But then it’s this really funny moment where Shane is like, “That’s her boyfriend.” And they’re like, “No, that’s her professor.” And then they all are like, “Bella?”

Analyssa: When the three of them looked at Bella, I was like, “Oh, no. She’s seeing her world crumble before her eyes.”

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: To Bella’s credit, she doesn’t do … She just-

Riese: She just goes … They’re like, “Is that her boyfriend, her ex, or professor?”

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I didn’t say it in the last scene, but I do just want a little bit of commotion for Jennifer Beals’ big glasses.

Riese: Oh, yeah. I did love this.

Drew: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Riese: I did love those.

Analyssa: Amazing choice.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Incredible. Yeah. That’s thriving.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa:
Amazing.

Drew: And then Tina shouts at Hendrix and makes a scene, which this is one of those times where I’m like, “Sure, Tina would do this. I’m not mad at the writers.” But also, Tina? To be a little less Tina. Tina was so Tina this episode.

Analyssa: This was a big Tina episode.

Drew: This was Tina at peak Tina in so many different ways, which we’ll get to some of the later ones. But she was so Tina.

Riese: I felt like this was absurd. She would never do this, but I’ll accept it in the world of The L Word, I guess.

Drew: Yeah. I mean-

Analyssa: Right. You would never do this.

Drew: It depends how much you hate-

Analyssa: Someone would never do this.

Riese: Right. I would say those things to him, but after the show, face to face.

Drew: Yeah. Sure.

Riese: You don’t want to embarrass your daughter.

Drew: No, but Tina is Tina.

Riese: I’m glad that Tina’s back so that we can all remind ourselves how Drew feels about Tina.

Drew: It was so funny, because I used to not be as harsh on Tina as a lot of other people. I’m certainly not number one Tina hater. Other people hate Tina more than me, for sure. But this still felt Tina-y. Tina, whose favorite movie of all time is Catch 22, directed by Mike Nichols. Something I think about-

Riese: Every day?

Drew: Not every day, but definitely some days.

Riese: Yeah. Would you say at least weekly?

Drew: If I was doing banter and stuff, I’d be like, “Yeah, definitely.” But I think it’s probably monthly, which is still a lot.

Riese: That is a lot, yeah. That is a lot.

Analyssa: For a fact, that is from 2008.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Part of Sophie’s plan, Margaret Cho is hosting. She does not come back for the episode. But we-

Riese: No. Also, they allegedly are doing all of this in 45 minutes.

Drew: Which is-

Riese: And that’s fine.

Drew: Yeah. I love it. I love it. But Sophie’s like, “We have this gap in the schedule.” And Dani’s like, “Dre.”

Analyssa: “What about Dre?” Sure.

Drew: And then they’re like, “Yeah. That’s exactly what-”

Riese: Right.

Drew: Sophie’s like, “Yeah. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do, bring talent into it.” And I was like, “Yes, let’s do it!”

Riese: Yes! I felt so excited for her, because I was like, “That’s how I feel about my work.” And that’s always the dream, is that you get this big huge platform and you can bring all of your friends, who you know are really talented, but no one cares because they’re gay, onto your show.

Drew: I will say that maybe Rachel Maddow wasn’t willing to do this, but the move should have been, Rachel Maddow does a 60 minute talk with Alice, and they really get-

Riese: Yes. Yeah, Rachel Maddow interviews Alice.

Drew: Yeah. I was really hoping for that. I didn’t remember if Rachel Maddow was-

Riese: Yeah. And then Alice can’t be like, “You don’t know how it was back then.” Because Rachel would be like, “Yeah, I really do.”

Analyssa: “No, I was there.”

Riese: “I was there. While you were on talk, I was on the streets with NPR.”

Drew: We didn’t go to an annoying scene of Finley being like, “Come on, come on, come on.” And getting carried up this mountain. But I have to imagine, if you had a heart attack a week ago, going past your capacity is not a good thing to do. It’s not a healthy thing to do.

Riese: I don’t know. I’ve never known anyone who lived through a heart attack.

Analyssa: Well, great point.

Riese: I mean, I do. I’m sure I do.

Analyssa: My thing is that she only has to do a quarter of a mile, and then later they say they made her do a half a mile. It’s so rude.

Drew: It’s also just, if the whole thing is like, “It’s about health.” It’s like, “This is not healthy. This is not healthy.”

Riese: But look at the view

Analyssa: But look at the view.

Drew: The view is nice.

Analyssa: And Carrie-

Riese: Take some time to enjoy the view. That’s what-

Analyssa: Smell the roses?

Riese: Yeah. But I mean, that’s what they used to say on The View.

Drew: Also who doesn’t bring real fucking water?

Riese: Oh, yeah. Who doesn’t bring real … I like when she was like, “I like water that’s clear, like everyone else.” Finley sticking that green powder into her … That’s dirty.

Drew: That’s awful.

Riese: That’s awful. Unforgivable.

Drew: I did enjoy when Finley says to Carrie, “I love you. Not in a gay way, even though we’re both gay.” I really loved that.

Riese: Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was really funny. And she’s like, “I know what you mean.”

Analyssa: And then Misty being like, “Carrie, I’m gay for you.” That whole exchange was really funny. I would-

Riese: Do you think Kate might be a really good director?

Drew: I think. Maybe.

Analyssa: I think Kate might be a really good director. It really felt like it was, yeah, like zinging between people a lot.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Just one sidebar, I would be furious if the girl who can’t cook chicken breasts was telling me about my health and what I need eat. The audacity.

Riese: But also, I do want to say, another crime against humanity that occurred with this storyline, is that in the next dawn, they made it seem like Carrie and Finley are having a genuine fight. And they weren’t. It was resolved very quickly, as usual, because that’s their relationship, and that’s wonderful. But it seems to be resolved.

Drew: Okay. But then we have to go to Tina being Tina, and being like, “He belongs in jail!” Which another storyline would’ve loved to talk about race, but no. Tina has-

Riese: Also Tina feeling, “I’m going to get a condo right next to your dorm!” I’m like, “Oh, my God.” And Shane’s like, “Why didn’t you tell me?” And I’m like, “Yeah, Shane. Good question.” And she’s like, “You guys don’t have to know everything about me!”

Drew: Yeah. I mean, because Shane and Bette and Tina are like, “You were taken advantage of.” And Angie’s like, “No, I wasn’t.” And then calls them all hypocrites. Which points were made there.

Analyssa: So true.

Drew: But sometimes it’s a, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Situation.

Riese: Right. Or, “Learn from my mistakes.” Situation.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Which I guess required acknowledging those mistakes. Apparently no one’s ready to do.

Analyssa: But Bette’s evolved now. Maybe she is willing to do that.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, Bette’s definitely handling it the best. I mean, obviously, Tina just shouldn’t have yelled at him in front of everybody, which is obvious.

Riese: Right. That’s awful.

Drew: And it’s just set up for failure to talk to Angie about this, at this point. But then Angie runs off, and then Bella runs after her, and Angie’s like, “They totally misjudged the situation.” And Bella’s like, “No they didn’t, because he did take advantage of you. And also, I’m in love with you.” She doesn’t say that. She doesn’t say that, but that’s in her eyes. You can really feel it.

Analyssa: That is where I hope this conversation was going. I can feel that they’re building towards it, but I was like, “Let’s just skip to that part. Let’s cut to the good stuff.”

Riese: Yeah. But I appreciate it, because now we see Angie really believes that she’s the one in control here, because she made the moves. And it’s like, “No.”

Analyssa: It doesn’t really matter.

Riese: Yeah. She was like, “He has all the power.” And Angie was like, “That’s not true.” And it’s like, “Yes, it is. Look at where you were this morning. You weren’t even going to go to class. You were going to fail this-” Which, oh, by the way, you’re not going to fail this class. This man is going to give you an A if he knows what’s good for him, or he is going to leave in the three weeks before the end of the semester.

Analyssa: It was really big of Bette to never once say language to Angie, because there were a lot of F-bombs thrown around in this scene. That was a really big sign of growth.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah.

Drew: But Angie runs off.

Riese: Anyway, Angie doesn’t want to go to a nice dinner anymore.

Drew: No. She’s like, “I don’t want to seem like a kid.” When you’re 18, I do feel like one of the main things is you don’t want to be seen as a kid. So I did. I get it.

Analyssa: Yeah. And Tina and Bette’s, Tina especially, reaction are, “My kid has always been good.” Basically, and followed the rules, and this is such a wild departure from that, that I’m overreacting. That all made sense to me. And even Angie being bad at lying, I was just thinking about this. She’s never really had to lie to them a ton. I guess when she was hanging out with-

Riese: Well about smoking weed.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Her bad friend?

Analyssa: When she was hanging out with her bad friend, Jordi. But-

Drew: Who she never had sex with.

Analyssa: Right, despite being high, and also bad. Some there, a little bit, but not really. It was basically like, “Yep, I’ve been hanging out with her.” And they kind of resolved it. I feel like a lot of this is just first rebellion, which I get, as a college storyline. I just wish it didn’t involve this. What if it was some frat dude? There’s a whole bunch of other ways that her moms would be horrified by her choices while she’s growing.

Drew: They even could’ve stuck with the storyline, and not spent so much time on it. The way that some of the Bella scenes were, there could’ve been more of that, where, “This is happening.” Angie is not participating in college life as much because of this thing that’s happening. But we get to see college life. We get to see the queer people who she might be hanging out with. But-

Riese: You see her leaving the queer club early. Or we see Bella being like, “We’re having this cast party tonight. Do you want to come? You stage-handed stuff in high school.” And her being like, “Oh, I can’t.”

Drew: Bella could have revealed feelings earlier, and Angie chooses instead to go. Even if-

Analyssa: Or even said something about it being weird that she’s spending so much time with her professor, or this guy. She kind of mentions it offhandedly early, and that’s really it. And that’s before she knows that it’s Angie’s professor, right? She’s like, “I never see you, because you’re with your boy.” And that’s like, once she finds out and she clearly has an issue with it, that could have come up more.

Drew: 100%. We then go to Alice, who can’t find Piddles Jr., and at one point says, “When am I going to go back to podcasts? Because kill me.” And that did bring quite a chuckle to me.

Analyssa: Alice is unaware that podcasting is actually kind of a lucrative business these days.

Riese: Right. Not for us.

Analyssa: Not for us, specifically. But other people. Actually, a lot of talk show greats are retiring into podcasting.

Riese: Yeah. If I could just do a podcast every week, and that would be my job, wow. That would be truly living the dream. But she can’t find the cad ,and she realizes it’s because she opened the window, because the litter box smelled, because she was leaving the litter box by her bed.

Drew: Not cleaning it? And not cleaning it?

Analyssa: And not cleaning it often enough.

Riese: I mean, litter boxes always smell, in my opinion.

Analyssa: Yeah. In her bedroom is a weird place for that. She’s got a big enough house. It could be somewhere much more convenient.

Riese: Yeah. She could give the cat its own room.

Drew: Though I will say, I had this idea that if you had a cat, your house would always smell like cat, based on the people I grew up with. Since I’ve been around the gays, and met cats in queer households-

Riese: It’s not true.

Analyssa: It’s not true.

Drew: I’ve been in plenty of households where it’s just tended to, and the house does not smell bad at all.

Analyssa: Yeah, it’s possible.

Drew: It is possible. I’ve never had a cat on my own, but-

Analyssa: Also let’s just all be really serious for a second, and say that Alice has a cleaning lady.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Why? Okay.

Drew: Right.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Let’s just all be honest with ourselves.

Drew: Yeah. No, Alice has never cleaned, or hasn’t cleaned her own place in two decades. Since the original L Word.

Analyssa: Alice does not change her own duvet cover. I’ll say it right now.

Drew: No. No, she doesn’t.

Riese: No. No, she doesn’t. And then we go to bar number two where Tess is continuing to pound the vodka, vodka by vodka.

Analyssa: That damn travel mug.

Riese: Yeah, in her little travel mug. But at least this time she fucking does some breath spray before Shane walks in. At least we’re acknowledging the reality of life and science, and all of those things. But Shane’s like, “I haven’t been honest with you. I don’t want a second bar.” Yeah, we know. If Tess didn’t pick up on that, oh, my God. And then Shane shares a vision.

Drew: It’s a great idea. A great idea.

Riese: A really good idea.

Analyssa: This is a really good idea. You know what it’s a better idea than? A second bar around the corner from the bar that you already own.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: I laughed so hard at Shane taking a really deep breath, being like, “I haven’t been honest with you.” I was like, “Is she going to reveal that she cheated in another way?” And-

Riese: I know. That’s what I was ready for.

Analyssa: And we didn’t know? That would be amazing. And then she was like, “I’ve never thought we needed a second bar.” Seriously.

Riese: Right.

Drew: It’s actually the reveal that the reason she fucked Keilani was because she was a hairstylist, and she just misses hair, and she wants to open a salon.

Analyssa: A transference of desire.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I wanted to hear that she had been cheating this whole time. Because I was like, “That would be scandalous.” But then it was also really nice, because we’ve never really seen Shane assert her desires, or her dreams, or her wants, literally ever. For all of her, “I’m this independent-” Girls just kind of drag her around into their lives.

Also the whole mythos of Shane and stuff. She’s always in a relationship, and usually the other person is deciding what that’s going to look like, or what Shane’s going to do. Even her hair gigs, she kind of falls into them. Alice hooks her up with it. It was the Lez Girls set, or something. It was cool to see her be like, “This is something that I’m passionate about, that I enjoy doing.” Which I don’t even know if she’s said before, besides that she’s obviously good at it. And what a great idea to have a hair salon owned by a queer icon next to a lesbian bar.

Drew: Incredible.

Analyssa: Amazing.

Riese: Amazing. Perfect.

Drew: It’s so weird to have a scene where I loved, not half of the scene, but literally the way that Shane was written was great. The way Tess was written was baffling. But I was like, “Yes, this is such a moment of growth.” And I mean, there were things in this episode that were nuanced, and real, and interesting in a way that we really haven’t seen all season. But then Tess is like, “This is my dream! A second bar! I love bars more than anything!” And also-

Riese: How is that your dream, as a sober person, to have a second bar?

Analyssa: Love bars more than anything.

Riese: I just love bars!

Drew: And she’s like, “You’re so selfish.” And I’m like, “What?”

Riese: She’s like, “No one gets to be happy unless you’re happy.” And I’m like, “You haven’t cared about Shane’s happiness this whole season.”

Analyssa: Also we’ve just never seen that.

Riese: Yeah. That’s never really been true about Shane.

Analyssa: I understand if you’re like, “You’re very selfish. You think you can fuck anyone who you want to.” Okay. I’d be with you on that journey. You’re only-

Riese: Yeah. Or if you make reckless decisions, and don’t communicate about your emotions, and you go on these little benders like a child, that’s all true. But Shane doesn’t think anyone else deserves to be happy if Shane’s not happy? Hell no. That’s never been true.

Analyssa: I also don’t think Shane is-

Riese: Happy.

Analyssa: Happy very often.

Drew: It’s also just extending something that, I don’t know where … If they’re going towards a breakup, it just so easily could have started here in the sense of, instead of Tess reacting with anger, could have reacted with sadness, and could have revealed that she’s drinking again. Or could have just been … Some acknowledgement that this is growth for Shane.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: I’m so baffled by Tess as a character, and it feels like maybe the writers are just blaming it all on her relapse, which is boring. And, yeah. I don’t know.

Riese: But I mean, the whole thing about the second bar. She’s been selfish about it from the start, and kind of manipulative about it from the start. And that was before she relapsed, so I don’t really get … Then they gave her the relapse. They killed her mom. And I don’t really know what’s happening here. But then she throws the wine bottle at the wall, which is a choice.

Analyssa: It was a better choice than what I thought was going to happen, which was that she was going to pocket it in front of Shane, and they were going to have a whole fight about that. And I was like, “I don’t want to see that.” But just Ana speaking for Ana. Imagining being an alcoholic, something that’s really far away from me. She wasted a whole bottle of wine!

There’s so much of that thinking that you have to unlearn when you stop drinking. But I will never forget reading, in The Recovering, Leslie Jamison mentioning that she would remember when friends left beer in the bottom of their glasses. And that is still something that, if I’m with friends, and they leave a little bit of wine in there glass, I’m like, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Drink it. To see someone actively relapsing, throwing a bottle of wine, I get she’s being dramatic. But I was like, “That’s a lot of wine right there.”

Riese: Yeah. But also, what the fuck are they going to do that they own real estate together? Oh, but I also like that Shane was like, “You can run Dana’s, and I can run the salon.” Because obviously Shane doesn’t want to run a bar. And also, Shane shouldn’t be around alcohol either, that much alcohol. And also, I would love for Finley to just sweep up the hair, and maybe get into shampooing. Get out of the bar, and also get away from Tess, because obviously Finley and Tess are not working.

Drew: Let’s open up two salons. Let’s have no more bars.

Riese: No more bars.

Drew: A roller rink and a salon.

Analyssa: I’d venture a hot take and say almost zero characters on The L Word need to be around alcohol.

Riese:
Right. That’s true.

Analyssa:
It’s so close to zero.

Riese: I mean, sometimes it’s nice if Bette has a little bit too much. It’s entertaining. But-

Analyssa: I like Alice swanning around with a big glass, which she does sometimes. That’s kind of fun.

Drew: We go back to Sophie getting the whole show together.

Analyssa: She’s done so much in 45 minutes.

Drew: Yeah, it’s incredible.

Riese: I know. Amazing. Incredible.

Analyssa: Amazing stuff.

Riese: Look at her go.

Drew: And-

Riese: Who’s that girl? It’s Sophie.

Drew: Dre’s there and wants to talk to Dani about the whole I Love You incident. And Dani’s like, “I’ve got to do business at the business factory right now. We cannot address the I Love You situation.”

Riese: Right. Then we go to, what is it called? Frosties?

Analyssa: Fosters Freeze.

Riese: Fosters Freeze?

Analyssa: This is a real place, and I think that I was at Fosters Freeze on the night that it was being location scouted for The L Word: Generation Q.

Riese: Oh, interesting.

Drew: Oh, my God.

Analyssa: Because I was there a few months ago.

Riese: Yeah?

Analyssa: Picture this, I’m at Fosters Freeze with Louis and some friends. There is a person with a fancy camera, and kind of a video camera, too, walking around Fosters Freeze. It’s also night. We were like, “This is so weird. What are they doing?” We kept being like, “Maybe they’re going to take … Maybe they’re a photographer.” It’s got all that neon stuff on it, and we could not figure it out. And I kept saying, “I feel like they’re location scouting to use this for something.” They’re at Fosters Freeze in this episode of The L Word: Generation Q.

Riese: When this scene started, did you go …

Analyssa: Yes! All caps. Maybe I was at this Fosters Freeze when they were location scouting. I was shocked.

Drew: Wow.

Riese: Wow.

Analyssa: It was also a cool hip person who looked-

Drew: Gay?

Analyssa: Queer.

Riese: Oh, yeah.

Analyssa: And so then I was like, “Well, maybe.”

Riese: Yeah. It was either there scouting for this or Warrior Nun.

Drew: In this moment, Bette is being very level-headed, and Tina is like, “I want to murder him.”

Riese: Right. And Bette’s like, “We can’t kill another black man on this show. It’s just-”

Analyssa: We’ve reached-

Riese: We reached capacity.

Analyssa: We’ve done too many already, actually.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Tina’s like, “I feel like we’re losing Angie.” And Bette’s like, “We are, and that’s good.” And Bette Porter, the growth. It’s really incredible.

Riese: Yeah. I mean, I do feel like they need to have a conversation with Angie about this, that’s gentle and patient, and understanding that she’s not going to get it. And telling her that she’s too young to understand it is the worst way.

Drew: Yeah. Maybe privately, too.

Riese: Privately, yeah. A private conversation. But I like that Bette is like, “This is what happens. They grow up.”

Drew: And then they’re being all cute and ordering food while having a little bit of PDA. Okay. A potentially toxic trait of mine is, despite being a 29 year old transsexual, there is a part of me that, in this moment, was thinking about Alice saying, “Things were so different back then. You don’t understand.” Which, in that moment it’s like, “Come on, Alice.”

But then when watching Bette and Tina be all over each other as somewhat older lesbians ordering a burger, there was a moment where I was like, “They couldn’t act like this during the original series.” And there was something … My heart was a little bit warmed.

Riese: Yeah. I still had that knee jerk that I still have from being alive then, where I was like, “Oh, my God. You can’t touch each other in public.”

Analyssa: Yeah. I had the same reaction where I was like, “Oh, my God. They’re going to get yelled at or something.”

Riese: Yeah, “What are you doing?”

Analyssa: Yeah. And then I had the moment, I was like, “Oh, yeah.”

Riese: And then it was, “Oh, right. It’s fine. We’re okay now. Everything’s fine.”

Drew: Yeah. I mean, I still-

Riese: I mean, not everything’s fine. But-

Drew: I still don’t do that with my partner in front of people. Which maybe I could, I don’t know. It’s perception of safety, and actual safety. I mean, it’s so whatever. That’s a whole conversation. But-

Riese: But, yeah. That was cute.

Drew: It was just something I clocked as we go back to Alice then looking for PJ with chicken on a string, and it’s like, “I get it. It’s karma.” But karma shouldn’t hurt cats, and then meow, cats in the tree. And that-

Riese: Well, I have two things to say about this scene. The first one is that the most entitled thing Alice does this episode is stand in the middle of the street as if she’s not going to be run over.

Analyssa: Yep.

Riese: She stands in the middle of the street.

Analyssa: She climbs into someone else’s bushes.

Riese: The second thing is that as soon as I saw her kitten in a tree, I thought, “She’s going to need a firefighter to get that kitten down. And I know exactly who that firefighter is going to be.”

Analyssa: I wasn’t as fast. I wasn’t-

Riese: Really? Did you guys think that?

Drew: I watched this with Elise, and from early this episode, she was like, “Tasha’s going to come back.” And I was like, “What?” And then when the cat’s missing, she was like, “Tasha’s-” Was so on it, and I kept being like, “I really think it’s going to be Taylor. I really think that, based on the previously on, Taylor’s going to be the person who comes back at the end.”

Analyssa: I kept thinking Taylor was going to pop up, too. Why do you guys have such good spidey senses for this shit?

Drew: Well, I don’t. Elise has-

Analyssa: I do not.

Riese: I mean, because I had thought before, “How could they bring Tasha back, and have her be in a job that’s not a cop, but is still, you can believe that she got to this job in her journey of not being a cop?” And it was firefighter, and also that’s really hot to be a firefighter. That works. We love this for her. But also, they did talk about her in that last episode in a way that-

Analyssa: I knew before I saw her face, but I did not know until firefighters arrived, and I was like, “Oh!”

Riese: No. I was like, “Kitten in the tree. Here we go. Here we go! here we go!” But also, she called 911, and she’s like, “It’s an emergency. I mean, it’s actually not an emergency.” But I was like, “Good. Finally someone gets to talk to 911 operator just like everyone’s been screaming to do all season.”

Drew: Yeah, that was the most unrealistic thing. Unfortunately, the next scene is Angie going to Hendrix and he’s like-

Riese:
I thought it was, at first, because they show a box, and someone putting things in the box, I thought it was their dorm room, and Bella was moving out.

Analyssa: I did, too.

Drew: Oh.

Riese: And I was like …

Analyssa: I did not think she was going back to talk to Hendrix at all. I thought she was going home, and when she says, I think one of her first lines was like, “I’m sorry.” Or something. And I was like, “Oh, she’s saying she’s sorry to Bella for exploding at her.”

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Nope.

Drew: No, she’s-

Riese: It’s that man.

Drew: It’s that man, and he’s like, “I didn’t need to get fired. I quit because I want to work on my novel.” Or whatever.

Riese: No one wants to read your novel, and also, you have two weeks left in the semester. What are you doing? You fucking moron.

Analyssa: Also, just like, what a jerk.

Riese: Yeah, what an idiot.

Analyssa: So many people would want this job. To be like, “I quit, and I’ve been thinking this job is not even right for me anyway, because I’m going to write a book.” Okay, cool.

Riese: Yeah. Your first book did so well, whatever. You can’t drop out to work full-time on your book unless you already have a book deal.

Drew: Or come from money.

Riese: Or come from money, which I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this man. All I know is that Angie, for some reason, still wants to sleep with him, and even after their toxic conversation, she still wants to bone this man.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. Because basically he says, “I’ve resigned.” And so she’s like, “Well then, let’s get after it.”

Riese: And literally not one person cheered at home for that.

Drew: I mean, again, I do think now that the show’s acknowledged it, I mean, I would rather them do other things now because this has gone on for far too long. But I at least feel slightly better in my brain and my heart, because they’ve acknowledged that it’s wrong.

Riese: Yeah. Even Shane mentioned the guys. She was like, “How old is he? Is he like 27?” That’s when she was like, “You guys are hypocrites.” And I was like, “Fair.” But also, when I was 18, and I told my mom I was dating a 27 year old, she said, “Well, you’ve always been very mature for your age.”

Drew: But that’s the thing, is that it didn’t feel-

Riese: And I thought, “You’re right. I have been. So true.”

Drew: It didn’t feel, especially given how everything blew up, thank you, Tina. It didn’t feel unrealistic that she’d still be hung up on this guy. She also lost her virginity to him, which virginity is whatever, but it is as constructed in our society, does have a thing, is a thing.

Riese: I mean, I think she’s in a bad relationship that has weird toxic dynamics, and she doesn’t know the difference yet between being in love and being in something that makes you feel crazy because it’s crazy.

Analyssa: Despite having dated someone for two years, which is right a little bit-

Drew: Right. They’re just pretending Jordy, her cisgender girlfriend of the past, doesn’t … And we’re going to go along with them, I guess.

Analyssa: Okay. Carrie and Misty are watching more Grey’s Anatomy. I just want to say, they’ve skipped like four seasons in the interim. I don’t want to go into the specifics, but the things they were talking about in the morning, and the things they’re talking about in the evening, at least as far as I remember, having watched it twice, happened about four seasons apart.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: Two to four seasons apart.

Drew: Maybe they’re chaotic TV watchers, and they’re like, “No, no. Actually, let’s skip forward to my favorite season of the show.”

Analyssa: They’ve got the episodes on shuffle. She’s just picking up random-

Riese: Right. Or Carrie was picking up that Misty didn’t seem to it that much, and then was like, “Well, let’s go forward to this other season.” Maybe you’ll like that part better. And it’s like you care so deeply. It’s like giving birth in front of somebody, showing them a show you like. I just really appreciated this representation that I felt was really true to my life, my lesbian life. Going on a hike, watching Hulu, making out, and talking about our feelings as a typical weekend day.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Accurate.

Riese: Accurate.

Analyssa: Lovely.

Riese: A juice involved in there somewhere. I don’t know, some water.

Drew: Maybe even some clear water if you’re lucky.

Riese: Maybe even some clear water for as a treat.

Analyssa: Yeah. The magnitude of all that Carrie has been through this week has finally hit her, and she starts crying while they’re making out.

Drew: Yeah. Well, I think first, Misty’s hands starts to go down towards genitalia, and I don’t know why I said it like that. I’m just so used to being-

Riese: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Gregory.

Drew: I’m so used to talking about trans people, and not knowing what language someone likes.

Analyssa: Misty’s hand started to get sexy.

Drew: Yeah, thank you.

Riese: Heavy petting below the waist.

Drew: I don’t know if any of that’s sexier.

Riese: Groin area, crotch.

Analyssa: You don’t think below the waist is sexier than genitalia?

Drew: No, heavy petting.

Riese: Heavy petting is-

Drew: It’s still sexier than-

Analyssa: I think genitalia has to be the least sexy option.

Drew: I mean, my notes just say, “Carrie moves Misty’s hand down.”

Analyssa: Gorgeous.

Drew:
Yeah, and Misty says-

Riese: Down where?

Analyssa: Well, exactly.

Riese: Towards what?

Analyssa: Towards what, Drew?

Drew: Genitalia. Misty says, “Are you sure?”

Riese: Genitalia.

Drew: And Carrie says yes, and then starts to cry. And I also appreciated that representation of, sometimes sex is vulnerable, and opens some things up, and you’ve been needing to have a cry, and it happens when you’re feeling safe with someone and having some sex. But then, yeah, Carrie talks about it all hitting her, and then they keep making out, and they keep going.

Analyssa: And Misty says neither of them are going anywhere, which is very sweet.

Riese: Yeah. That was really nice.

Drew: I love it.

Riese: And they start hooking up, and then the camera goes away, and that’s fine. I know Rosie didn’t want to do a sex scene, and so I’ll allow it.

Drew: It’s so fine. It is, once again, why there should be more butch characters. There should be more fat characters.

Riese: Older characters.

Drew: Yeah. It’s the thing where you’re like, it’s fine that Micah and Maribel are boring, and want to go to sleep by 9:00 PM or whatever. That’s totally fine for those characters. It’s just questionable when it’s like, why is your trans character, and why is your disabled character the ones that are boring? In this case it’s fine. I mean this season, we don’t see anyone have sex, so it’s really not even that different. But it’s like we all know, we’ve said it.

Analyssa: Speaking of not going anywhere.

Riese: We go to Bette and Tina, outside of Frosty’s, and Tina’s like, “What if we just got married and had a party for our friends?” And I just want to say that they already did get married, and I don’t understand again, are we supposed to … Because if you’ve already been married, isn’t the conversation that you would start about wanting to get married, maybe acknowledge that you’re being remarried?

Drew: Will we get remarried?

Riese: Remarried, because they’ve already been divorced. I went back and I checked, and this is not something we made up in our heads. They got divorced. They were married.

Drew: Yeah. I do know people who have broken up after long periods of time, and had a life together, and referred to it as a divorce, even if it wasn’t an official divorce.

Riese: I think they were engaged at the end of season six though, weren’t they?

Drew: Yeah, that’s true. And also they’re normies.

Riese: Yeah, absolutely. And they had a kid, they would’ve gotten married. They were married.

Drew: They would’ve gotten married the moment it was legal.

Riese: Yeah. They would’ve gotten married in 2015, I guess.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Oh, Riese, remember when we were at that pride right after gay marriage got legalized in San Francisco?

Riese: Yeah. That was so sweet.

Analyssa: And everyone was so happy.

Riese: Everyone was so happy.

Analyssa: A lot of people there probably got married, really.

Riese: Yeah. I mean, I got engaged, I think if maybe a week later. And as you can see, it worked out.

Drew: Gay people shouldn’t get married?

Analyssa: This just in …

Riese: But, anyway-

Drew: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Riese: Right. Tina turns around, and Bette already has a ring. She’s like, “This is what I was going to do at dinner.” And that checks out, and that’s cute. And I may have teared up against my will.

Drew: I was happy for them. I mean, it’s so funny how Bette went from being a character who I cared so much about, to, “I don’t really care about Bette Porter anymore, but I’m happy for them.” I truly feel like they feel like relatives of mine, where I’m just like, “We are never going to see eye to eye on a lot of things, and you’re doing your own little thing off to the side, and I wish you the best.” But there’s still a love there, and Godspeed.

Analyssa: Yeah. I feel the way about them as I do about some of my high school teachers, who I was deeply obsessed with in a, can’t really explain, kind of way. And now that I’m an adult, I can explain some of it, but I’m also just happy for them. I don’t feel that intensely about them, but I did once, and so I always want them to be happy, and I beam when they beam.

Riese: I mean, I loved them in this episode, and I thought it was nice that it showed you don’t have to have a couple be breaking up to have them have conflicts. And this was pretty sweet. And then, kindly, Bette had arranged for fireworks to go off in the sky at this exact moment.

Analyssa: If they’re where I think they are, that just means the Dodgers just won a game.

Riese: Oh, interesting.

Drew: That part checked out to me. There are always just random fireworks going off in LA.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Sometimes it times out. Then we go to Dre singing, and a little montage, and you know what? Dani’s instincts off of that one karaoke performance were correct, because Dre is actually quite good.

Analyssa: Yep.

Riese: Did I feel as though Dre’s song was written by the house band?

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: Because it had the same vibes as a lot of the music that’s been in. I wonder if that was really Carmen singing.

Analyssa: They have backup singers, which is just-

Riese: Right. Yeah, they do have-

Analyssa: There’s so much that they’ve done in-

Riese: They have a drummer.

Analyssa: They’ve done so much in 45 minutes.

Riese: I know. Right. Also, I think we’re meant to believe this is the song that Dre was writing this morning, right?

Analyssa: Yes, correct.

Riese: And now they’re ready to perform in an Alice show?

Analyssa: Yes. Absolutely.

Riese: Amazing. Honestly, a prodigy, and they deserve all the fame and wealth in the world. And Sophie and Dani are so proud of themselves, and that’s cute.

Drew: And then Finley hears Misty and Carrie fucking, and starts to look for apartments, which is the right move.

Riese: No, it’s not. It’s a terrible move.

Drew: Oh, I guess it’s not a right move financially, but did-

Riese: She’s poor.

Analyssa: She owes-

Riese: She wants to go back to school.

Analyssa: She insists-

Riese: She wants to pay Alice back for rehab.

Analyssa: She insists that she owes Alice money for rehab.

Riese: You have a parental figure who’s like, “You can stay and live in my wonderful beautiful house for free, indefinitely.” If you were going back to school-

Drew: But did Carrie say that?

Riese: I mean, I think it’s implied.

Drew: Okay. I guess I was thinking more of-

Riese: That Carrie might want her own space?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, that’s fair.

Drew: That Finley’s kind of imposing. But I mean, I’ve looked at apartments. It’s not great out there, let me tell you.

Riese: Right. But I’m sure that Googling LA apartments is definitely your first step in finding one.

Drew: I think Finley needs to go on one of those Facebook groups that’s queer housing, and find a house with three roommates, and do that.

Riese: Right. Yeah. I’m just like, “You just bought a car. You have a whole room.”

Drew: Oh, yeah. That, I don’t know how to-

Riese: You know what I mean?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: But I have a feeling that they’re going to have Finley getting her own apartment next. Maybe I just want her to live with Carrie because I like their-

Drew: Well, it’s fun. Yeah, for sure.

Riese: Yeah. I love the chosen family vibes.

Analyssa: We get a classic end of an L Word episode montage for a minute, which is Angie and Hendrix have done it, great.

Riese: Oh, that was them getting redressed?

Analyssa: Yeah, I think so.

Riese: I thought she was watching him get undressed, and I was so upset.

Drew: No, I thought it was redressed.

Analyssa: No, I think it’s redressed. Tess is drinking at Dana’s and dancing dance sound by herself.

Riese: Dancing?

Drew: Looks like this.

Riese: She’s like, “I love bars.”

Drew: Yeah. Looks like the scene that makes no sense from euphoria when it was very stylized, alone in the bar, dancing.

Riese: Right. She’s done this before.

Analyssa:
Yes, this exact thing.

Drew: Oh, I don’t remember that.

Riese: I don’t know if she was alone. I think patrons were there, but it was where she was drunk and dancing, wearing-

Analyssa: And it was an overhead shot, I feel like it. It was so similar.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Were we supposed to take cinematic parallels from that? I don’t know what they were-

Riese: The parallel is that they’re doing the same bad storyline twice, I guess. Shane’s packing.

Drew: Oh, I thought Shane was smelling Tess’s clothes. Or she’s smelling her own clothes?

Riese: Or she’s packing Tess’s clothes.

Analyssa: I think she’s packing Tess’s clothes up, and smelling the dress remorsefully.

Drew: Right.

Riese: Right. Okay.

Analyssa: Sure. And then we get two more scenes, which is post show Dre is packing their stuff out of Dani’s apartment, and is like, “I have to leave, because what I said this morning is true.” And their-

Riese: I’m falling for you.

Analyssa: Their whole agreement has been that they’re going to do something casual. Dre’s basically like, “If you don’t feel the same, I got to get out of here so that I don’t get hurt.”

Drew: I do think sometimes you just got to give people time. People have walls. Clearly Dani’s fault. I get it. People are so concerned with, I don’t know. Watching it with Elise, she was like, “I was glad that you waited and let me say I love you first, or else I probably would’ve gotten freaked out.” It became a joke where I was waiting, and she knew I was waiting.

Riese: Would you be like, “I really like you so much.” Before hanging up the phone?

Drew: Yeah. It was like whatever, and then when Elise said I love you for the first time, I said, “I love you too. I win!” I shouted, “I win.” I think I said I love you too before I said I win.

Riese: Do you guys usually say it first? Or not first?

Drew: That was the first time I’d ever not said it first. Yeah. I always say it first. And this is a fun fact, a podcast exclusive. I don’t think Elise would care of me saying this. She said it to me when we were making Stir Fry, and I went, “You know, you said it to me when we were making stir fry.” And she was like, “Yeah, so?” I was like, “I don’t know, stir fry’s kind of a thing in the lesbian community because of Bette and Tina having sex with the-” And she was like, “I take it back.” No, she didn’t say that. But-

Analyssa: She’s like, “I want off. Thank you.”

Riese: She’s like, “Just kidding, actually.”

Drew: Love feeding.

Riese: Yeah. Anyway, I think Dre’s being stupid. I think that-

Drew: But I think Dani does love them, and is going to say I love you.

Riese: Yeah, I mean, also, it’s been two weeks.

Drew: Calm down. Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. Calm down. They’re the one who has a sort of girlfriend back in Ohio. You know what I mean?

Analyssa: Yeah. And also, this conversation could just be … I mean this is The L Word, and this is the kind of stuff I like being mad about.

Drew: Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

Analyssa: And this defies human behavior, but in a fun way. They could have just been like, “I said something kind of crazy. You don’t have to say that back, but I’m very in this actually. I know we said it was going to be casual. It’s not.” That’s really all the conversation needs to be. But I love the drama anyway, and yeah, Dani is falling, clearly..

Drew: Hard. Can we get a reveal?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Right. Then we go back to the mean streets of Los Angeles, and all the firefighters are there, and they got Alice, her kitten, out of a tree, and then those lights kind of come up.

Analyssa: As the lights started coming up, I said …

Riese: Yeah, and you see her hair. Because also, they had her holding the kitten with gloves on, and it was only from chest, down. And I was like, “It’s Tasha! It’s Tasha!” And then it went around, and then-

Analyssa: I watched this episode at 2:00 in the morning, and I gasped so loudly that I was worried I would wake you and Elise, or Alex. I was like, “I still don’t know how sound travels in our home after two years of living in it.” And I was like, “They heard me.” Then Tasha has returned, and they have, to me, some of the most delightful banter I’ve ever encountered.

Drew: They are immediately bickering. It’s great.

Riese: I know. Alice was like, “This is so annoying.” And this was what they were always fighting about. But I was like, this is interesting that Tasha’s back, because Tasha was the one who was there for her during the Daryl Brewer round one, and who also was like, “This was terrible. What were you thinking?”

Analyssa: Right. Was supportive, but also had a voice of reason.

Riese: Yeah. They literally broke up over it and got back together. In my imagination, when I first realized Tasha’s going to be in this episode, I wanted them to immediately go to each other, start making out, then we have a sex scene. I was ready. I was completely shocked that they were going to actually start it with them immediately fighting.

Drew: It was very funny. I really appreciated that as it’s like, “Oh, the lighting. The reveal.” And then it was like, “Oh, my God!” So funny. And then the very final moment is the extra eating the chicken. The chicken that was on the string, because she hands it to the extra.

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, “Here, it’s good.”

Drew: And I don’t remember the last thing she says to Tasha.

Riese: I do.

Analyssa: They bicker, and then Alice is like, “Fuck this, I’m leaving. I don’t need this.”

Riese: Right. After she walks them down, she thanks all of the firefighters for their service, pressing company excluded. It was so funny.

Analyssa: Yes. And then she’s like, “All right. I’m going back home.” And then Tasha’s like, “Alice, wait.” And I was like … And she goes, “There’s paperwork.”

Riese: But there’s a moment when she says Alice. She turns around, and her face is wide open and hopeful. And there’s also a part … Did I wash this four times? Yes. It turns out I’m deeply invested in Alice and Tasha in a way that I had forgotten. But there’s a part when Alice is talking to the firefighters, when Tasha’s smiling and watching, like, “Here she goes.” And not in an antagonistic way.

Drew: Yeah. But then after there’s paperwork in the background, the extra-

Analyssa: The extra is just eating the thing that-

Drew: Ate the chicken, and took one big bite, and had wide eyes watching the thing. And I was like, “Excellent work. Shout out to that extra.”

Riese: I also was like, “There’s a man filming their conversation, too.”

Drew: I was worried about that.

Riese: I was like, “Alice, what are you doing? This is not a good look either. You’re yelling at a firefighter.”

Analyssa: Well, because she’s like, “You don’t-”

Riese: You can’t yell at a firefighter.

Analyssa: Any firefighter. Even if you know them, the context won’t matter. But she was like, “Everyone knows that I’m having a bad day. Everyone in the world knows that I’m having a bad day.” And Tasha’s like, “Absolutely not. I know nothing about what you’re doing.”

Drew: It is such a good choice to have Tasha back, for many reasons. But one is because she was the one who would always call Alice out on being like, “You live in a bubble.” And so, now-

Riese: I really hope she’s in. In the episode description for the next episode, which will be out by the time we-

Drew: She has to be in the next-

Riese: It says, “Alice discovers the one is closer than she thinks.” Or something like that.

Drew: It’s got to be Tasha, right?

Riese: I mean, it’s either Tasha, or it’s Shane. Right?

Drew: That’d be wild.

Riese: I think-

Analyssa: Imagine.

Riese: I mean, what? Tess? Sophie? Closer than-

Analyssa: Right. Closer than you think is, they’re around, they’re in your orbit right now.

Riese: Right.

Drew: I mean, yeah.

Riese: If Tasha’s not in the next episode, I am going to actually physically cry.

Drew: I would be really sad. I guess Taylor’s just not a thing. I really thought that Taylor was going to be a thing.

Analyssa: Okay. You can have Bella having a crush on Angie, but you will not have-

Drew: Well, no. I was wrong. I was so wrong.

Analyssa: Taylor and Alice didn’t really break up.

Drew: I know. I know. I’m not-

Riese: But I guess that was leading to this sort of-

Drew: Right.

Riese: That she’s living in a bubble, and she’s not understanding what she’s doing.

Analyssa: So then-

Drew: And that’s the episode-

Analyssa: That was the episode.

Riese: They have so much to do next week. How?

Analyssa: There are so many balls in the air.

Riese: Bette and Tina getting married.

Drew: They’re going to get married next episode? I guess so.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: The big event.

Riese: The big event.

Drew: Do you know what would be great?

Riese: Huh?

Drew: Another time jump. It’s been a month.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: We’re past the wedding.

Riese: Tasha and Alice are wedding dates.

Drew: And Hendrix is going to be Angie’s date, drops out. Angie needs a date. Bella volunteers.

Riese: Yeah, Bella steps in. Yeah.

Drew: What other storylines?

Riese: Well, the-

Drew: Shane’s opened her salon.

Riese: The storyline is-

Analyssa: Finley and Sophie hook up at the reception.

Riese: Yes. So it’s like-

Drew: Should we do fan fiction? No more podcasts.

Riese: The description was something like, “Shane and Sophie try to break old patterns. Micah and Maribel take a first step on their road to parenthood. Finley takes a big step as an adult.” Or something. I assume that’s getting an apartment. I don’t think the descriptions say anything about Bette and Tina, but we all know that they’re going to get married, because other bloggers have talked about that. But I’m just like, “How are they going to do all of this?”

Drew: Do we know if it’s the same length as the usual episodes?

Analyssa: I was going to say, extra chunky episode.

Riese: Hopefully it’s longer.

Analyssa: Let’s go.

Riese: I’m ready for an hour 20 minute episode.

Analyssa: It’s Showtime. They can do it.

Drew: Given how long it took them to renew season three, I don’t know if the ratings have been astronomically better.

Riese: They haven’t.

Drew: But most networks have been cutting costs. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next episode of The L Word is the last episode of The L Word, until The L Word: Old Folks Home, or whatever the next generation of reboots is.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah, I know.

Drew: I think that’s a real… It’s so…

Riese: I think, logically, they should renew it, because if you’re talking about wanting to get new subscribers for a streaming network, lesbians will sign up for your network.

Drew: Yeah. If people who made decisions recognized how much money they could make off of gay people, they would make different business decisions than they do.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: It’s true.

Riese: Last season, by the time we got to episode 208, we were like, “This show is terrible, and I never want to see it again.” But they really had a big comeback this week.

Analyssa: This was a strong comeback.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: The thing I was just thinking about is, I don’t know how Showtime works, but I know in my day job that sometimes if an episode comes in short earlier in the season, you can buy time for episodes later in the season.

Riese: Oh, interesting.

Analyssa: And the musical episode was super short.

Riese: It was.

Analyssa: Relative to the rest of them. I’m thinking … I don’t know if that has anything to do with that. We’ve had that sometimes where writers and producers will want a show to be extra long, and we’re like, “Well, you have to lose it from other episodes.” Or they’ll turn in a really short episode, and be like, “This is great. Because it means we have a few more minutes for something else.”

Riese: Interesting.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know. It’s-

Riese: Are Gigi-

Analyssa: Oh, yeah. Is Gigi going to come back?

Riese: Is Gigi coming back? That’s the other thing. Now I’m like, “They don’t even have time for that.” Because next, they have to do something with Angie and Bella next time. Right? They have to something with Alice and Tessa, for me, personally.

Drew: I mean, Micah and Maribel can literally, their storyline, something happens in five seconds. I bet they get five seconds of the episode.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: I guess they don’t have to do anything with Carrie and Misty. That’s a bummer. But there’s nothing up in the air there. They have something to do with Finley. Dani and Dre have to decide what they’re doing. Sophie will obviously have a storyline. I don’t really know what the question mark is. But-

Riese: Yeah. It’s whatever it is, trying to break old patterns.

Drew: What I find frustrating is-

Riese: Air pollution?

Drew: What? I do find air pollution frustrating.

Analyssa: The cost of living in Los Angeles?

Drew: Oh, God. 100 and whatever dollars on groceries today just killed me.

Riese: Yeah, everything costs like $20 now.

Drew: I don’t know how I’m going to… Anyways, that’s not what I was talking about. What I was talking about is the fact that if I felt more assurance that, I don’t know, A League of Their Own was coming back for a second season, or some other shows that I like that have queer characters on them, and not just queer characters on them, but are queer centric. If I had more faith that they were continuing, that new ones were coming, I would say, “I think it’s maybe time.”

I think a lot of the problems that Gen Q has is a product of trying to make up for the past, move forward, encompass all these different generations, all these different identities. And if the season finale next episode is a really strong season finale with a Bette, Tina wedding, it sort of does feel like it’s important to know when to say goodbye, and that feels right.

The only problem is, as much as it drives me nuts, the media landscape has changed a lot since the original L Word. But when it comes to an ensemble show of queer characters, I mean Queer as Folk got canceled. We don’t really have it. And so, that is the only thing that’s like a real bummer.

Riese: Yeah. It’s also a bummer because Showtime is one of the only networks that realizes that advertising your lesbian show to a lesbian audience, through a lesbian website, is a really good idea. Because no one else seems to…

Analyssa: Want to be interested in that?

Riese: Including Queer as Folk.

Drew: Queer as Folk didn’t advertise at all.

Riese: I feel like they’re on bus stops.

Drew: And dropped all the episodes at once. I mean, all these fucking networks just set their shows up to fail. Imagine if A League of Their Own was released weekly, the hold it would’ve had on… I mean, we have Yellowjackets and stuff. That’s-

Riese: Yeah. But also, what are they doing now? How are all these actors and writers going to fit this into their schedule? They’ve been waiting a year, basically, to see if they’re going to be renewed. This doesn’t make sense.

Anyway, I’m excited for next week. They have a lot of work to do, and unfortunately, on my press account, episode 10 was there. And then I guess they changed their mind and took it back, and now I just think, “God, I wish I’d watched it.” But I hadn’t even watched this one yet. Now I just have to sit here not knowing, and it hurts deeply.

Lauren: Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back, Generation Q edition. One of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @tolandback. And you can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. Our theme song is by the Talented Beast Steadwell, and our Gen Q logo is by JaxCo. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram @LaurenTaylorKlein. You can follow Drew everywhere at Draw_Gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram @analocaa with two a’s and on Twitter @analoca_ with one a and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course the reason why we’re all here autostraddle.com. And finally, to end this EP, let’s hear some Q words from our girlies.

Drew: 3, 2, 1. Quirky.

Analyssa: Quibi.

Riese: Quintessential.

Drew: I said quirky. I don’t have a reason why, but if you give me a second, I’m sure I could justify it. Who was the quirkiest character this episode?

Riese: Alice.

Analyssa: It’s almost always Alice.

Drew: Alice in the little Evil Knievel… yeah.

Analyssa: I want to see her ride that little bike so bad. I said Quibi. RIP to Quibi.

Drew: Oh, wow. RIP Quibi.

Riese: Oh, Quibi. Wow, that was a lark.

Analyssa: Yeah, wasn’t it?

Riese: I said quintessential because it’s quintessential.

Drew: I could not agree more, Riese.

Analyssa: So true.

Riese: Thank you.

Drew: It’s about time someone say it.

Analyssa: That was brave of you.

Riese: I wanted to be brave today, and after Shane pitched her salon to Tess, I thought if Shane could do that, I can do anything. I can have a salon.

Analyssa: You could.

Riese: Yeah. Thank you so much for all your time. I don’t know who I’m talking to, you guys, Carol, the audience, the listeners, the fans, the lovers, the dreamers.

Analyssa: The haters.

Riese: The haters. Yeah. If you hate us, thank you.

Drew: You’re listening. And at the end of the day—

Analyssa: That’s what matters to us.

Riese: That’s what matters to us. That’s what mattered to Alice.

To L and Back: Generation Q Podcast 308: Let’s Drop a Turkey

In case you’re family drama-ed out after all of the winter holidays that just passed, The L Word is here to provide a fresh supply! And this one is a doozy. It’s Thanksgiving at Dana’s, and Finley’s mom has arrived! Sadly, she did not bring a green bean casserole, just a bad attitude.

All roads lead to Dana’s in this episode, as it becomes the go-to location for Dani and Dre, who are spending the holiday together, Carrie and Misty, who are turkey trotting, and the entire Suarez family who are still mashing potatoes upon arrival.

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SHOW NOTES

+ Honestly this episode was light on references but please read Riese’s recap of 308!

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And this is To L and Back: Generation Q Edition.

Analyssa: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition.

Riese: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition.

Drew: Wow. We all sound like we’re at a funeral.

Riese: In a way, we are.

Analyssa: But isn’t it nice that we all just nailed our intro to our show that we’ve done a hundred times and yet mess up every time?

Drew: Yes.

Riese: Yeah. Well, it’s easier now because we’re in person again.

Drew: That’s true.

Analyssa: That is true.

Drew: Yeah. I’m sorry for last week, when, I think… I want to say that something went wrong with my recorder, but I think I maybe just didn’t hit record in the beginning.

Riese: Ooh.

Drew: It was between Christmas and New Year’s. I’m very sorry.

Analyssa: Drew’s going to have to post a notes app apology.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. The holidays are done. I think that’s part of it. It’s really rainy here.

Riese: It’s raining right now.

Analyssa: The holidays are over. I had to go back to work this week. Hopefully, Lauren can edit out the rain.

Riese: I know. I was wondering.

Analyssa: Like they did for the Fletcher episode that apparently filmed in the rain.

Drew: Oh.

Riese: Did it really?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: That’s brave of them.

Analyssa: Yeah. Well, they probably had a really small budget, and they were like, “We’re filming today or else we’re never filming again.”

Drew: Yeah. We only have Fletcher for one day.

Riese: We only have Fletcher for one day so… I actually think it was two days that she worked.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: Carol, stop licking yourself. Carol…

Drew: Carol just looked up so like, “Who? Me?”

Riese: She was caught. I mean, sorry. I know that’s what dogs do. And that’s her right, as a dog.

Drew: Sure. We will not cancel you for shaming dogs for their dog-ness. Well, this is an episode of the Gen Q.

Riese: Television.

Analyssa: Of The L Word.

Drew: Yeah. It’s episode 308. It is called Quality Family Time. It’s directed by Em Weinstein who really has directed most of the season, and written by Allie Romano who has written on Gen Q since the beginning and wrote on The Upshaws. I think we can start by saying that this was none of our favorite episodes of the show.

Riese: No. Definitely not.

Analyssa: Definitely not.

Drew: But I have a theory to keep us all a little bit lighter…

Riese: Okay.

Drew: …which is that we spend a lot of time thinking about this television show, and-

Analyssa: I’ve heard this theory.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: I was like, “Where could this possibly be going?” And I remember I live with Drew.

Drew: But, okay, so this theory has extra support, which is that… So I’ve been watching The Best Man: The Final Chapters. And it, weirdly enough, is very similar to the third season of The L Word: Generation Q.

Riese: Huh.

Drew: Because the first two episodes feel like a separate mini season. There’s an ayahuasca thing.

Riese: Wow. Big year for ayahuasca.

Drew: There’s one nonbinary character.

Analyssa: Big ayahuasca is like—

Drew: Because every reboot needs a nonbinary character.

Riese: Right.

Drew: And, well, I don’t know if we can talk about the end of the episode, but, basically, the third to last episode of both the third season of Gen Q, this episode we’re about to talk about, and the third to last episode of The Best Man: The Final Chapters both end with a character having a heart attack.

Analyssa: Whoa.

Riese: Wow.

Drew: And I was like, it’s very real, but they also are both not very-

Riese: Good?

Drew: Yeah. Not very well written, not very whatever. And I’m having a great time watching that show, because I don’t have to take notes on it, don’t have to do anything for it.

Riese: Right. Yeah.

Drew: I’m on my phone. I’m doing other things. I’m getting some work done. Gen Q, I’m taking detailed notes. And it results in it being a pretty miserable experience, when an episode is like this. But, if you’re watching it with friends, chatting, on your phone, doing work, maybe you’re having a great time. And I love that for you.

Analyssa: Right. Elise was excited to catch up on The L Word: Gen Q.

Riese: Oh, really?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Wow.

Analyssa: She’s like…

Drew: Yeah. Yeah. She caught up, after watching the musical episode. And, I mean, she’s playing solitaire on her phone. It’s on in the background.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: She’s having a great time.

Riese: I mean, I think about that a lot. Because I think about watching the original series and how, when I was watching season two for the first time, I did not think one critical thought about it.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: And then, when I was re-watching it with Carly, for the podcast, I was like, “This is…” I just accepted the whole Marc and Gomey storyline with the cameras as part of the program. And I was there for whatever it had to give me. But I also think about this, from watching Elité, which I’ve brought up before, that, I’m like, “Wow. This is such a disaster.” But I don’t care.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: I think I personally spend so much time thinking about this series that I think I get really frustrated. But I really want to be funny.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: I want to be hilarious.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: You know?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: So, hopefully, I don’t know if I can not complain, but…

Drew: No. No. No.

Riese: …I can try to complain in…

Analyssa: In a fun way.

Riese: A humorous way.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Maybe.

Drew: What a fun challenge.

Riese: Oh, this might be a complain cast.

Drew: Yeah. Well, let’s get into it.

Riese: Welcome to And Another Thing.

Drew: So we start with Carrie asking Finley if she’s sexting Sophie. And Finley says…

Finley: What? No. No one says sexting.
Carrie: No one?
Finley: No!

Analyssa: I’ve never received that memo.

Riese: What do people say instead?

Drew: I don’t know.

Analyssa: Just texting? You just don’t talk about it? That can’t be right.

Riese: People don’t sext anymore, maybe.

Drew: Oh, that can’t be true.

Riese: That can’t be true either.

Drew: I think people, I mean, if you know the new word that people are saying, we want to say…

Riese: Please let us know.

Drew: We want to stay cool.

Riese: Cause we want to say it. Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: We want to say it. However, I was thrilled to discover that Finley and Sophie were indeed sexting.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Even though I know it’s unhealthy, I was like, yes.

Drew: Can I say something that reveals maybe something about me? Based on the last episode, I thought Finley was texting her mom and things were going well with her mom. And so the episode starts, Finley’s smiling and texting someone and Carrie’s like, it’s Sophie. And in my head I’m like, no, she’s getting along with her mom. That’s not where this was going. But that’s immediately what I thought.

Analyssa: Just in a big way. That’s not where this is going.

Drew: It’s truly not.

Riese: I just, I liked it because I feel like breakups are rarely as clean as they are on this show.

Drew: Fair.

Riese: Especially when you’re in the same social web. It’s not everyone… They don’t break up with Gigi and then Gigi just disappears. And we have no idea why or why she’s still listed on IMDb as being in every episode. It’s so confusing. Anyway,

Drew: And then Finley does a little teasing back about Carrie being in love with Misty. And then Carrie reveals that she and Misty have not had sex yet. And Carrie also says that she’s demisexual which does mean she loved Tina. So let’s just sit with that for a little bit.

Riese: Yeah, let’s all think about that. I will say that their relationship has lasted according to my timeline, five days. So it’s not out of the realm.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: Demisexual or not, I’m not sure.

Drew: Yeah. Absolutely.

Analyssa: I mean, Carrie and Tina were engaged to be wed. I would hope that they…

Drew: I was just making a little funny.

Analyssa: More critically to me. They’re going to do a Turkey Trot, which is just…

Riese: Gretchen does one every Thanksgiving.

Analyssa: Five days into a relationship, you would be hard pressed to catch me doing a Turkey… Any sort of…

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Physical activity? But on Thanksgiving of all…

Riese: Of all days.

Analyssa: On a holiday that I have off work? Simply no.

Drew: Yeah. We should say this is a Thanksgiving episode.

Analyssa: The holidays are over for us.

Drew: Which I was like… The L Word never had an Indigenous character, have they? If they have, remind me, but I was like, and we’re just going to… Then later in the episode, they address it with a brief land acknowledgement and go on their merry way talking about how great Thanksgiving is. But it is a Thanksgiving episode.

Riese: So Carrie and Misty go on their trot and then Finley spots Tess in the back room, which is where 75% of this episode takes place and goes back and they talk briefly about Tess’s mom, her being upset, whatever. And then Finley comes out and her mom shows up. Just like Cherie Jaffe. And just like depression just walks in the door.

Drew: Something else about that is Tess’s mom’s ashes are in that back…

Riese: In Dana’s. Or in Dana’s. Yeah. I’m going to steal them. Make us soup.

Drew: And Finley brags about not knowing anything about politics.

Analyssa: Can I just say one thing that is a complaint, but is a dumb one? I hated the shirts that Finley and Dre were wearing in this episode.

Riese: Oh, really? I liked Finley’s shirt.

Analyssa: I really… Maybe I didn’t hate it, I just was surprised that Finley would wear that.

Drew: Huh. I have to go back. I don’t remember them.

Analyssa: I don’t know. It just looked so business casual to me.

Riese: There were so many closeups of the shirt. I feel like never… Yeah.

Analyssa: I feel like the shirt was really on display.

Riese: I felt like the shirt was a character.

Drew: Season one, I was all about the high waisted pants. And since then I’ve really just not been paying as much attention to the fashion.

Analyssa: I know that this is a fancy event because Dana’s is hosting Thanksgiving dinner, so they’ve got, they have a Turkey cooking. There’s a whole…

Riese: This is abstract, this is all, sure.

Analyssa: Who knows? But they’re having a Thanksgiving dinner of some sort. So I know that it’s a dress up event, and that’s why Finley’s wearing this shirt. But I just was like, this looks like she’s working at the Alice Show as an executive. I don’t know. It just felt weird. Anyway.

Drew: We then go to the one part of the episode that had some enjoyable things, which is Dre is in bed with Dani and was talking about being excited for Thanksgiving. Dani is like, “is your ex going to be there?” But it’s said in a way that feels fairly light and a little bit…

Analyssa: Chill?

Drew: Yeah, and they’re making out, I don’t know. I like these two together. I do miss Gigi, but I might like these two more than Dani and Gigi.

Analyssa: Ooh, wow.

Drew: I miss Gigi.

Analyssa: Sure.

Drew: But I was never fully… I’ve said this, but I was very sold on those two characters and I liked watching them together, but I wasn’t like, oh my God, these are soulmates.

Riese: Oh, I loved them together. But I mean, these guys are cute together too. But then Dre’s flight was canceled, an experience which is relatable to many people. 2,300 Southwest flights were canceled. So that’s a lot of people. We can relate to this. So this is a really relatable episode, and that’s really important. There are people to have things they can connect with.

Analyssa: More critically. The email or text that Dre gets interrupts them kissing.

Drew: Yes.

Riese: Right. Yeah. No one gets to make out on this show. I think we have. It’s, this is fucking Blues Clues now.

Analyssa: As soon as their lips started touching, I was like, okay, what’s going to stop it? What is it? What’s coming?

Riese: Yeah. An anvil? No it was a phone call or a flight alert.

Drew: And then we’re with Shane and Angie who are going to be helping at a food bank. They’re on the phone with Alice, who is with her mom, which makes me go, “oh, Alice isn’t going to be in this episode.”

Analyssa: Right. So now they’re even.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: This must have been in their contracts for this season.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: Now, I’m like, this was something that they all kind of wanted or did not want but everyone had to have the same terms.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Because they’re all the same level in this cast, and they all got an episode off.

Riese: I was devastated because I think, as I said before in the pictures for 308, there were no pictures of Alice. And usually what that means is that they’re involved in a spoiler storyline. One that if there are any pictures of it, we would be…

Analyssa: Like when Dana came back.

Riese: Yeah, like when Dana came back.

Drew: You thought someone was something [inaudible 00:11:44]

Riese: So I thought Tasha was coming back and instead Alice is on the voicemail saying wherever she was, I didn’t even listen, ’cause I was annoyed. But also, I mean, I like Alice, so I wanted her to be an episode. I wanted Shane to be in the last episode, but…

Drew: I miss Gen Q Alice far more than I miss Gen Q Shane. I mean, I didn’t even notice until we were recording the podcast Shane wasn’t there, where as this, I was like, Alice is missing. Where is Alice?

Riese: And then they spot Hendrix.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Whatever the fuck, in Angie’s. But the funny part is that Angie’s like, that’s someone I used to date. And Shane’s like, which one? Because it’s like… So that was cool, I guess.

Drew: Yeah. I really did enjoy Shane Angie time together in this.

Analyssa: Yes. Yes. That’s really fun.

Drew: We go back to Dana’s. Tess is, oh god.

Analyssa: So they’re in the back room because Finley’s mom has arrived. And so Finley is kind of freaking out and Tess is like, I’ll ask her to leave.

Riese: But also…

Analyssa: I kind of think, maybe you should take this opportunity because we don’t know how much time we have with our loved ones, which…

Riese: I swear to God if no one ever says that on TV one more time. It’s such a generic… It’s such a fucking annoying platitude. Arguably. Also, we don’t know how much time we have left, so maybe you shouldn’t spend it with people who hate you..

Drew: That’s a really good point.

Analyssa: Finley says that she needs a minute and goes outside, and I thought that she was going to just bolt. I was just really ready for her to just be gone.

Riese: Steal someone’s bike again and just get on the road.

Drew: I will say that I wish we had more specifics about Finley’s mom and Finley’s family.

Analysssa: I have no more answers from when Finley’s mom arrived in the episode to the end of the episode where I’m like, oh, I understand this.

Riese: I think that there’s some things I understand a little bit more honestly, but I think the basics of what happened or basically remain that Finley was kicked out from being gay. But we also know that Finley went back for a summer that one time. So I don’t understand, how did that work out? And also Finley later says she likes her dad more their mom, so maybe they talk, I don’t know.

Drew: Also her mom says, that’s not what happened. Which maybe it is what happened, but I just…

Riese: Yeah. I thought it was what happened.

Drew: But I just mean, and things are complicated. It’s just interesting to live in that complication instead of kind of avoiding it.

Riese: Yeah. That’s a good note for the whole episode, I think.

Analyssa: Also in this back room Tess pours alcohol into a coffee mug in a subplot that I really just don’t want to talk about at all. I mean, it doesn’t really even actually become anything. It’s just running through the whole episode. Every time you see her with it in hand, you’re like, well, that’s bleak. And honestly, I think the whole episode could have happened exactly as it did without her drinking. Right. And it’s just really, again?

Riese: Again? Why? Why the relapse storyline? Also, it’s stupid. She’s walking around with that mug. She’s drinking out of it. People can smell things. Especially Finley in an unventilated back room. She wouldn’t be fooling anybody.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Yep. It sucks.

Riese: And it’s just boring and I don’t care for it.

Analyssa: Yeah. It’s not interesting storytelling on top of being just like…

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: Cruel, kind of.

Riese: Yeah. It’s cruel and what did they even do with it?

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: I mean, is that why she dropped the turkey? Is that it? Because I can drop, I dropped three entrées on one girl at the Olive Garden and I was stone cold sober.

Analyssa: Instead of bolting, Finley calls Sophie and Sophie’s with her whole family for Thanksgiving.

Drew: And does something that is absolutely bonkers, which is say basically our Thanksgiving dinner is canceled. We are all going to Dana’s spend it with Finley, and then Micah does something which is bonkers, which is pops three weed gummies in his mouth, which… But is also, how much should I take? So it’s like, are you not… it’s not that, I mean, I don’t know what the dosages of those… It’s not like three is so crazy, but if he’s having to ask and they’re probably at least five, if not 10, who does that? Who goes, how many should I take? Bump, bump?

Riese: The crazy thing is he says, how many should I take? And Sophie said, “I don’t know, start with one.” And he immediately puts three in his mouth.

Drew: Which is also not Micah’s character at all. If Finley did that, then I’d be like, sure, that’s…

Riese: Right. Even Micah saying, I need to take the edge off. I was like, who are you?

Analyssa: Where did that come from?

Riese: What is going on? To what? To go talk to Finley. Also, what’s interesting is that I feel like Sophie and Finley in this episode finally showed the connection that they have that’s been missing. Now that they’re broken up for some reason now they’re actually being written normally again? The way that they care about each other and the way that Sophie, which is funny, I mean, they broke up and now Sophie’s literally moving her entire family dinner.

Drew: This is the first time I’ve ever actually seen the thing that was addressed, the musical episode, which is that Sophie’s life gets consumed with Finley. This is the first time I’m really seeing it.

Riese: Yeah, but it’s like now that Finley’s her friend, it’s okay or whatever, to which I would argue, well, maybe it’s just that you guys can’t be just friends and you should get back together so that I have something…

Analyssa: Well, you and Finley’s mom and grandma are… And Sophie’s mom and grandma are…

Riese: They’re betting money that they’re going to get back together. And then also Maribel.

Drew: Maribel’s going to propose. Her grandma loses the ring in the mashed potatoes somehow and then Sophie’s like we need to leave. But then it’s like, why would Sophie know that Mari was going to propose at Thanksgiving?

Riese: She doesn’t.

Drew: Well, I know she doesn’t, but why would she know that? They’re like, oh, close sisters. Right? Why would she not give a heads-up? So it makes no sense. Makes no sense.

Riese: If they think that the ring is in the mashed potatoes, why bring the mashed potatoes?

Analyssa: Why wouldn’t you leave the mashed potatoes at the house?

Drew: Also that. It doesn’t make sense.

Analyssa: The craziest thing to me is that this ring disappears like slight of hand. It’s like she hands it to her grandma then she looks up at her grandma and says, where is the ring? And her grandma’s like, what are you talking about? I have no idea. Where did it go?

Riese: When the actors got this script, do you think they sat and stared at each other? And they’re like, how…

Analyssa: So what did…

Riese: How are we going to pull this off?

Drew: If this script didn’t give several actors existential crises involved in the show then I don’t know what to say.

Analyssa: And it’s so funny for it to be over these really small things, but I was just sitting there staring at my screen like the ring… They think the ring fell, but it didn’t make a noise. So then where did it… It ends up just on the table under stuff, which means that somebody put it down. You would remember that.

Drew: Yeah, it makes no…

Analyssa: And if it, yeah, it fell on the… Whatever.

Drew: We then… there’s something else in this next scene, which it’s… Dre’s on the phone with the airline and trying to figure out how to get home for the holidays. And earlier they had mentioned that their mom makes stuffing with Saltines and Dani’s like problem solved, goes in the cupboard, takes out a box of Saltines. Which I asked, yes, this, the stuffing supposed to be incredible, but is the issue for Dre really the stuffing or is it seeing their family?

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Yeah. Also, they still have to go to the store if they’re going to be making a whole Thanksgiving dinner.

Drew: I mean, they just make stuffing, but still do they have all the other things to make stuffing? I, it was, I just was like, I don’t know.

Riese: Also, Dani said she was going to do her Peloton and obviously that’s not going to fit into her schedule and that’s upsetting.

Analyssa: I don’t know. I know that travel this holiday season was a nightmare for many people. Not me though. Not to brag, but they don’t try very… It is wild that they’re like, well, there’s this flight. Oh, just kidding. It’s sold out or canceled or whatever. And then they’re like, well, guess that’s it.

Riese: I was ready for Dani to use her Delta Reserve Platinum Express card and call and get Dre on the flight.

Drew: I thought Dani was going to go home with Dre. That would’ve been fun too!

Riese: Budget. It’s not in the budget. It’s not in the budget.

Drew: At the very least, instead of it starting with Dre trying to figure out the airline stuff, it could have started with Dre hanging up the phone and going, I can’t get a flight.

Analyssa: And then I wouldn’t have all these questions.

Riese: Or my flight’s been delayed for two days, so it’s not worth it to go anymore.

Analyssa: They’re flying presumably on the holiday or the day before so it’s like…

Riese: It is the holiday.

Analyssa: So it’s like, which it’s not worth it anymore to try now that there’s just no way. So it’s an easy fix. It’s like, why am I quibbling over this?

Drew: It’s so easy. It’s just so small. There’s so much more room in the scene then for things that are actually interesting, if we don’t have the whole conversation about, “well, the eye of the storms in Chicago,” and it’s like…

Riese: The eye of the storm.

Drew: I just… It’s like it could have been so much… It just, it’s so wild how fundamental deep things are bad and then also why are you doing a relapse storyline? But we can’t really even have time to really talk about that because there’s all these small stupid things that could just so easily have been changed.

Analyssa: Because there’s a huge storm, the eye of which in Chicago.

Riese: The eye of the storm.

Drew: The next scene, all I wrote is Finley and her mom fighting. I don’t have anything else.

Riese: Finley’s mom allegedly made a reservation at Dana’s for one…

Drew: For this Thanksgiving dinner.

Analyssa:Riese: For this Thanksgiving dinner. And is generally bitching about the situation. She’s like, “there’s not a menu? I don’t get it.” And Finley’s like, “well, you should have gotten an email.” It’s very…

Riese: Yeah. And her mom was like, well, you would know I was coming if you’d answered my phone calls. Which, sure. I do feel one of the good… I do feel like we started to see the dynamic between Finley and her mom and why her mom… Her mom is a cunt as apparently she was called at somebody’s wedding. That’s true. She’s like, she’s really manipulative and mean to Finley.

Analyssa: Just so nasty.

Riese: Yeah. So it explains a lot about Finley’s personality and stuff. And I think that Jacqueline did such an amazing job this episode. This was Finley’s episode. There was so much good character work that happened, but everything else was bad.

Drew: I actually, this episode made me more than ever be like, wow, Jacqueline’s a really good actor.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Because the writing is not good and she pulled off a lot of it.

Riese: Yeah. She really did.

Analyssa: Yeah, for all of the foibles I have with the episode, none of them are about the performance or the Finley side of things really. I’m always sort of like, yeah, I’m on board.

Drew: We then go to the turkey trot and Carrie’s boss is like,

Carie’s Boss: Oh, you must be Tina!

Riese: 17 months. It has been 17 months since they broke up. 17 months.

Drew: To be fair…

Riese: A whole other Thanksgiving has already come and gone.

Drew: I do think what is slightly justified is that Carrie is very annoyed about it and is like, “Nope. Remember? She left me. It was a while.” And I do think it’s kind of making fun of this old straight man for being like, “the lesbians, it’s Carrie and Tina,” and you’re like, “no, it’s not. We’ve been broken up for over a year.” That could get that tone. Anyways, Carrie calls Misty her girlfriend, which feels very soon.

Riese & Analyssa: Five days.

Drew: Misty seems freaked out. Which, fair. And…

Riese: Starts running.

Drew: Starts running.

Riese: Back at Dana’s. The Suarezes are arriving. There is this funny point where Amari’s like, if we all came here so you can sleep with Finley, I’m going to be so pissed. Micah’s high, eating puff pastry. Why did they get Micah so high and do so little with it?

Drew: So little. All he does is eat, he doesn’t even seem high. All he does is eat a lot! It’s Thanksgiving. He can eat a lot anyways.

Riese: I mean if you watch Leo in the background, he’s doing it, he’s really trying to do it. He’s doing it. He’s doing it. But why make Micah who’s like uptight, anxious character so high?

Drew: He could’ve called Finley’s mom a cunt. He could’ve… It could’ve been like, ah, there’s so many things you could’ve done.

Riese: Why is Tess wasted and why is Micah high as a gourd? And to what end?

Drew: You know what I wish? I wish I’d taken three edibles before I watched this episode.

Riese: Nothing that happened on the show would’ve been different…

Analyssa: If they had not been.

Riese: Or even if Micah had just taken one edible and was chill.

Drew: Also, the missing ring storyline would’ve been better if she still wanted to propose and she was like, I need to find the… And they were like, bring the mashed potatoes, cause I still want to propose even though we’re going to be at Dana’s and so then it’s still looking for the ring. Instead it’s like, Micah’s high you’re not going to propose now.

Riese: That didn’t stop my parents from proposing, but they eventually got divorced. But my mom was on opium when she proposed to my father.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: Wow. That’s kind of iconic. Yeah.

Drew: Is that how a lesbian proposes to a straight man?

Riese: That is how a lesbians a straight man, yes.

Analyssa: We have Finley’s mom like saying hi to all of these people and immediately she insults Sophie. She basically is what happened to your hair. Which is just that Sophie has an undercut.

Mrs Finley: Oh no, what happened here?
Finley: Mom!
Mrs Finley: Well it’ll grow back!
Sophie: I’m sure it will.

I just want to say, I know that this woman is supposed to be from Kansas City and that’s actually a personal attack on me. I know that there isn’t a lot about, in the episode, about her being from Kansas City being the root of the cuntiness. But there are so many people with undercuts in Kansas City. It’s not a…

Drew: It’s a city. It’s in the name.

Analyssa: It’s not crazy haircut. I don’t know. I know that I’m very hashtag blessed to have a family that’s pretty progressive for having all been born very Catholic Mexicans in the middle of the country.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Love them. Shout out them. But even my grandmother would never be like, “What happened to your head?” So crazy. Okay. That’s the last time. I’ll say that. It is an affront to me.

Drew: I did write down later when she says “you’re the only one who ever left Kansas City and created your own life.”

Analyssa: I can’t even… Imagine I’m the only person that everybody I know who left for a city… That’s so crazy. I can’t even. In my family alone.

Riese: She talks about Kansas City like it is a small rural town.

Analyssa: Unbelievable.

Riese: Yeah. Speaking of things that are unbelievable, we go to the charity Thanksgiving event.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Was there something else you wanted me to mention before?

Drew: No, it’s this, I’m just confused about this…

Analyssa: No, but Micah reads the email that he has a donor. It says they have a match.

Riese: Yeah, they have a match to their preferences.

Drew: That’s how it works right?

Riese: Yeah. Well they do. They say… I guess probably you can say, these are my criteria and they’ll send you a match. But you’d probably want to check out the match, see, make sure it was a good fit for other reasons. See what…if they were, whatever. They’re… whatever. So yeah, that happens. Then we go to the Charity Thanksgiving event. And this is a really good example of why do something when you could do something more interesting?

Analyssa: Yep.

Riese: Angie says, this is a guy I used to date. He says that we could get back together at the end of the semester, which by the way is a month away. So come on. And also, at no point does she say to Shane, he was my professor.

Drew: Not once.

Riese: And there’s also no point where she start where it’s shows that she’s deliberately obscuring that fact where she starts to say it and then catches herself. Or is like, I shouldn’t… Nothing. It just isn’t mentioned. And why the fuck not? Because that would be so much more interesting and consistent with Angie’s character than her beginning to like fucking… Is this where she waxes poetic about how she wants to find love like her moms?

Drew: Yeah. Which is what? Literally, she watched her mom’s be a nightmare her whole life and literally their happy ending was driving through traffic in a chaos.

Riese: What?

Drew: It makes no sense to say, I just want to fast forward to what my moms have or to what you and Tess have. It is so…

Riese: What?

Analyssa: It’s also odd to me that Shane doesn’t clock that he’s old. To your point, Shane doesn’t clock that he looks much older than Angie at any point. Or that the woman he’s with looks much older than Angie.

Riese: Or that he’s on campus.

Drew: Which we… Unfortunately becomes relevant because he walks in, which is also just like…

Riese: Why? What is he doing there?

Drew: I don’t know.

Riese: Why is he at this charity event?

Drew: He helps…

Riese: He’s around campus because they show campus B-roll before they go to the event. So it’s somehow on campus. But like… he goes in there and they start looking at the canned goods.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: For the homeless.

Drew: I know that professor… Adjunct professors aren’t paid a lot, but I’m sure he should not be taking those, that food.

Riese: Yeah. I don’t think it’s for him in his polo. I was so excited to finally have Angie talk to someone about this who might actually talk about it in a real way. And I cannot believe that they decided to just forego that opportunity.

Drew: And then we go back to Dana’s where for some reason they’re serving the mashed potatoes, which they didn’t even finish making. They were, it was mid-making. I was like, when did the mashed potatoes get finished? And also weren’t you saving the food for the next day to have leftovers Thanksgiving? Because there’s food at, does Dana’s not have their own mashed potatoes?

Riese: Well they were. They’re bringing it because of the ring.

Drew: I know that. But why would they be serving it?

Riese: Well, aren’t they trying not to serve it? They just brought it to look through it, but they’re trying not to serve it.

Analyssa: Micah takes it.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: But that’s not your potatoes!

Analyssa: I feel like your little head is going to pop off your shoulders.

Riese: I think they should have hid the mash potatoes under the table.

Drew: Yes.

Riese: You know what I mean?

Drew: Yes!

Riese: Right. So they have this ongoing bit where Nana’s smashing the potatoes with the… To see if the rings in there and Micah’s responses to it are cute and funny. That whole joke. That’s funny. That’s cute. So then Sophie says they play this game. This game actually sounds cute. I like it.

Analyssa: It’s really sweet.

Riese: Where they write down what they’re thankful for and they put it on a bowl and then everyone reads and I guess they guess whatever.

Drew: I like it.

Riese: And then in a personal affront, to me, a person who loves the rules of games…

Analyssa: Continue.

Riese: Finley’s mom just says out loud:

Mrs. Finley: I am thankful for my daughter Sarah.

Analyssa: Literally not the rules of the game. We just told you what we’re going to do. What the activity is for you to do it right now is so rude.

Riese: It’s unhinged and Finley’s like, well I never felt that before. And then she says she’s leaving Finley’s dad. That they got married young and Finley’s like, I have no idea what you’re talking about. She’s like, this couldn’t come as a surprise. And Finley’s like, it very much is a surprise.

Analyssa: Finley is floored.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: How long has it been since Finley has lived with her parents?

Riese: I mean, it’s been two years since the summer that she spent there. Right?

Drew: That was recent. Two years is pretty recent.

Riese: Yeah. That’s recent-ish but also, I don’t know if they remember that she spent the summer there.

Drew: The writers.

Riese: Yeah. I’m not really… But that was always unclear because it was very clear to us that her parents did not want her at home and then suddenly she was there for the summer and then we went back to the way it was before, which is apparently them not wanting her at home.

Drew: Do you remember when Sophie was running to the airport? and we were all so, oh my God, this show. The chaos. How fun. There was a thruple.

Riese: Finley did say in season one that her parents slept in separate beds.

Drew: So then that seems like a sign to me.

Riese: But it was funnier that she didn’t know. I found that more entertaining as a conversation. So then her mom is like, she thought Finley would understand because, and Finley’s not saying this is bad or wrong, she’s just surprised. She thought Finley would understand because Finley’s the only person who ever left Kansas City and made a life for herself. And we’ll get to the other problems but one of the problems with this for me was that that is kind of interesting, were it feasible. That is a really interesting thought. She came here because she’s feeling like in a box in Kansas City.

Analyssa: And nobody in her community understands her.

Riese: Right. No one understands her. Finley’s gone out on her own. She came all the way here. Finley didn’t even invite her or know she’s coming. She’s still here. She’s that desperate to talk to somebody who might give her some guidance and how to start your life over again. And she actually thinks that Finley’s done a great job with her own life. And then that whole line of thought is just thrown out the window like it was literally never said. It fits with nothing that happened after and nothing that happened before.

Analyssa: Because if you’ve come here seeking that connection with your daughter, then why does any of the fight that continues to happen, why would you come in so negatively and so mean? And there’s no explanation for…

Riese: Right. Why is she here?

Analyssa: It would even be interesting if this is how my mom always is and she can’t get over herself enough to admit that she needs help.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: And look, because we… Probably, most of us have family that maybe sometimes is, I’m trying and then isn’t trying and that’s totally a real thing. But the way that it’s written does not feel like that at all. It feels completely disconnected and you’re like, why is she here? It doesn’t, doesn’t feel interesting. It doesn’t feel like, oh, she just can’t help herself, but be her normal cunty self. It’s not like that at all. It truly feels like she showed up to fight.

Analyssa: She came here to be mean. But then she said that the reason she came here, here is to look for some connection that she needs. Not even something that Finley needed.

Drew: Right.

Riese: And it’s realistic. It could be real. You just were saying with families to sometimes see that one way and someplace be another, but we only have, I don’t know, 10 minutes with this character. We don’t have time to do that. They need to pick a story.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: And stick with it. I have no idea what this woman is doing in this town at this time.

Analyssa: What does she want? What did she hope to accomplish on this day?

Drew: It’s truly the most basic storytelling. It’s just such basic, like, what is this character’s motivation?

Riese: Right. I feel like…

Drew: What is the character’s goal? Desire. What is the arc of these char… It’s all these basic things and it’s just like, it’s so wild.

Riese: I feel like she did, her presence enabled us to do a lot of character work with Finley, but her on her own still doesn’t make sense. Which happens with a lot of their one-off characters.

Analyssa: So Finley gets sort of corralled by Tess and Sophie.

Riese: Finley goes into the back room cause she’s upset. And Sophie and Tess both go back there to try to help her.

Analyssa: They’re both sort of giving her—

Riese: Similarish advice?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Until Finley’s like, I should do amends. And Sophie’s like, I don’t think this is the right time. And Tess is like you should. Which I guess I’m also confused with, are we supposed to think that because Tess relapsed, she also has forgotten how…

Riese: I mean, has she ever been good at being…

Analyssa: So yeah, they have a conversation about how Finley’s going to take control of this situation by doing her amends, which

Riese: On the clock.

Analyssa: Yeah. First of all…

Riese: During a family meal.

Analyssa: First of all, she’s working. There’s a huge event at Dana’s right now. Okay. It’s not the time. She also hasn’t written her amends to her mom yet, which…

Drew: No, no. We’re going to get a writing montage. I’m joking.

Analyssa: But she has nothing prepared at all, which everyone is different but that’s a huge jump to make. It’s like, oh, I’m going to do it right now. If you have nothing, you haven’t even written it out.

Drew: Yeah. It’s also just so wild because if the storyline in this episode for Tess wasn’t that she relapsed, Tess could’ve been on the other side of this debate and it could’ve been a sign of Sophie trying to manage Finley’s feelings and trying to help and being over-involved in helping and being like, yeah, that sounds great. You could totally make it amends with her, but whatever.

Analyssa: And Tess being the sort of older, wiser mentor figure being, actually this might not be the right time. This is, but like…

Riese: If anyone was going to be wasted this episode, I really felt like it should have been Finley’s mom. And that could have given us a lot of insight into the way that Finley was raised and the way that… What she grew up around and how we got there from here. That would make even her giving amends at least more interesting but also, I don’t understand why this show really just doesn’t want Finley to ever do amends with anybody in a way that is actually going to be good.

Analyssa: And feel cathartic for her in the way that it’s supposed to —

Riese: and to be be doing it in public at a table where other people can…

Drew: Someone must be sober in the writer’s…. Like there must be someone who has some knowledge. What’s happening?

Riese: Also, it’s not, I mean, you can Google. A lot of meetings are closed, but you can go to a meeting. Anyone of this writing staff could go to a meeting or read the book or whatever.

Drew: It’s just weird for sobriety to be such a big part of Gen Q. From the beginning being on a through line and just there’d be no… I just don’t….

Analyssa: There’s also just so many people in LA, not especially queer people, but if you are in queer community, you know people who have done AA. It’s just not hard to… So even if no one in the writer’s room has experienced that, which I would be shocked. I guarantee you of writer’s room of 10 people would have a one friend who was in it.

Riese: Or an ex or a current partner or an ex and a current partner.

Drew: Aren’t you worried that… not worried but aren’t you aware that given that you’re dealing with something that so many people have personal knowledge of that to then put it in your show, it’s going to distract them?

Analyssa: And feel intensely connected to. The process of that is something that people have so many feelings about. It’s so absurd. It’s not Finley’s mom saying Kansas City in a derogatory tone, which only hurt my feelings probably. It is something that many people will be like, wait, what the fuck?

Riese: Yeah. I mean I feel like in general shows and movies do a bad job representing AA, but I don’t see why this show couldn’t strike out and do it correctly.

Analyssa: Be brave.

Riese: Be brave. Yes, I want to see them be brave.

Drew: It is interesting. I don’t know how either of you feel about this, but when I interviewed Mae Martin about the first season of Feel Good, I had heard criticisms from people about the way that AA was shown or meetings were shown. And so I asked them about it and they were like, yeah, this isn’t meant to be a formal AA meeting and I tried to make it so it was structured different so it didn’t seem like I was referring to that and I picked this format because it is more compelling to watch on screen. So it is fake and jokey and whatever, and that is what it is. But it’s a comedy show. And it was like, okay, even if you disagree with that, there was some thought put into that. There was some thought put into that. There was some internal logic to it, whereas this feels so baffling.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah and then Tess sort of tells Sophie to mind her business during all this at the end.

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, Finley’s a big girl. I’m like, what are you talking… As she wasn’t… Because obviously she’s telling Sophie mind your business because Finley’s not her girlfriend anymore. But what does that have to do with Finley being a big or a small girl?

Analyssa: And it’s very clear from this episode, Finley actually does need the support of a lot of people, which is not a knock. It’s just what she’s in the market for right now. So it is bizarre.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: We go back to Angie and Shane and Shane is like, I’m going to help sneak you out. And Angie’s like, what about the hungry? And Shane is like, I’ll write them a check. Just like, okay.

Analyssa: I did think this was cute, them loading Angie up into the little cart and like, is this when they run into the teacher and he’s like, can I have one of these? Which again, why are you here? And Shane is like, they’re for the hungry or whatever she says, which is…

Drew: It feels very weird. I’m just like…

Riese: I did laugh. I was like, well that’s funny.

Drew: It’s not the Shane saying I’ll write them a check. That feels Shane to me. It’s more of Angie being the hungry, the people who are here to eat Thanksgiving food. Like, can we… I don’t understand.

Riese: Shortly thereafter, we find out that Shane is also hungry.

Drew: I don’t understand. I mean I, we’ve established that they don’t know how to write the Gen Z, but…

Analyssa: The Gen Z. And actually we do.

Riese: Yes. As you can see, we’re very tuned in. We have our finger on a lot of young pulses.

Drew: But I just am like, I don’t understand what they want Angie’s politics to be and what her political awareness is.

Riese: I mean, she had a $5,000 duffle bag last week, guys, so.

Drew: I guess maybe it’s true. I mean it was funny that the way she was serving the potatoes was, and I was like, well, she is the daughter of Rich lesbians, so she probably has never served mashed potatoes.

Analyssa: Fully grew up in Brentwood. I read that in your recap about her duffle bag and really lost my mind. It was very funny.

Riese: And it was weird ’cause they showed it really intensely Twice.

Analyssa: Prominently. Yeah.

Riese: Anyhow, so Angie’s out. Yay. Turkey trots.

Drew: Carrie apologizes for calling Misty her girlfriend and Misty’s like, I have to poop.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Okay.

Analyssa: Oh right, because earlier in the morning…

Riese: Just so you know, it’ll take her 45 minutes.

Analyssa: They’re at a reservoir. No, it’s going to take so long.

Drew: Why would they go to Dana’s?

Analyssa: Because that’s where everybody is this episode, Drew.

Drew: I didn’t think about that. I didn’t know that.

Riese: LA is this big.

Analyssa: Because when you have to shit urgently, you need to find the closest location that has the most of your friends in it.

Drew: Those are good points. Because that’s what everyone wants to do is shit around a bunch of people.

Riese: I’d be like everyone I’m trying to impress…

Analyssa: At a place that has one staff bathroom that is horrifying. It’s because Finley made her coffee earlier in the morning, which is actually very relatable to me. That will mess me up for a whole day.

Riese: If I were her though, I would want to find… I’d be like where… I would just disown… I would leave Carrie and just find a whole new life, a whole new family and use their bathroom and then never see them again. I’m gone. Straight to Dana’s. I thought they were walking over the porta potty, whatever.

Analyssa: I thought they were going to use a porta potty. I was like, oh, there’s, they’re outside. There has to be a little restroom. Having to do that waddle all the way back to Dana’s from the Silver Lake Reservoir is so hot.

Riese: She should’ve just gotten on side the road and just popped a squat. That’s how they did it in nature.

Analyssa: Yeah, it’s true.

Riese: Have you ever seen Planet of the Apes?

Drew: I thought you were going to say Bridesmaids.

Analyssa: Bridesmaids happen just right in the middle of the street.

Drew: Then Dani… Dre’s like, do you have a whatever,

Riese: A Bree.

Drew: A Bree.

Riese: And I would’ve been like, no, I have a Gouda.

Drew: And they’re like, is it Sophie? And Dani’s like, what? No. And it’s like, how long were Dani and Sophie together? Because I feel like the show is wanting me to think they were together for a year and then got engaged. They were together for like eight years, right?

Riese: Oh, I don’t think that long.

Drew: A long time though. Anyways.

Riese: Several years.

Drew: Anyway, Dani’s like, it’s Roxy and talks about Roxy and then…

Riese: Why did we get all this information about Roxy now? They were in daycare together. They hooked up in high school.

Drew: I want Roxy on the show.

Analyssa: They’ve known each other their whole lives.

Drew: What if… I have a theory. .

Riese: Like Roxy… if someone was coming in who I know my whole life, I wouldn’t be, the most important thing about this person is that they’re my bad friend.

Analyssa: It’s that lifelong friend who I have always had a weird thing with.

Riese: And especially, I mean, I don’t have this, but I feel like people who have someone in their life who has been their friends since they were really young and they both turned out queer, that is a weird, very special bond.

Drew: I have one of those. We don’t hook up though.

Analyssa: But it’s feel, I mean, that’s what you would lead with. You know what I mean? This is somebody who you’re very close to.

Riese: That is what you lead with when you talk about [inaudible 00:43:03].

Drew: Oh, what I was going to say is that I like Dani and Dre. I like Dani and Gigi. I like Dani and Roxy. What if everyone else goes away? We get It’s Dani spinoff.

Riese: It’s Dani.

Drew: It’s Dani.

Riese: Dani’s Home.

Drew: Dani’s Home. And it’s her various relationships and lovers.

Riese: Like Scandal except that she’s dated everybody in her firm.

Drew: Yeah. Speaking of backstory. Dani’s telling Dre is like, my mom is dead and my dad’s in prison.

Riese: Yeah. I did find this relatable in terms of someone just trying to be like, so what do your parents do when you’re like, he’s dead. And then they’re like, wow, this is really supposed to be a nice fun conversation. And now it’s a bad one. You know what I mean? Well, it’s so awkward, especially when it happens when you’re relatively young and you just have to spend the rest of your life having that awkward conversation. So I felt like that was great and authentic and good job to everybody.

Drew: Good job for that.

Riese: They were great together.

Drew: Dre is like my Thanksgivings were loud and Dani’s like, if you want loud, and I was like, wait, but what about Finley seeing Dre and all of that and…

Riese: Oh right. I forgot about that.

Drew: An adventure.

Analyssa: As soon as they walked in, I was like, wouldn’t this be really stressful for everyone involved? Sophie just drunkenly kissed Dre a week ago. Oh, isn’t this crazy?

Drew: We then get maybe the wildest scene of this episode, which is the writing montage. I’m just fascinated by the way writing is shown on screen because it’s a very uncinematic thing. And so I always find it very entertaining to watch shows and movies try to create some sort of… Which is why I’m pro circus. I love a choice. This is, instead of just having…

Riese: That opinion is a choice.

Drew: Instead of having Finley writing then crossing things out and the music is this song and…

Riese: She could’ve been envisioning herself at the circus, waking up in the dirt with the Ferris Wheel.

Drew: Well, you know what I…

Riese: Yes, exactly.

Drew: Do you know what I would’ve not minded?

Riese: What?

Drew: A montage of flashbacks. Yeah. We don’t need that. There’s better, there’s more interesting choices.

Riese: Oh my God, and who would play Little Finley? A little tomboy.

Drew: Aww. Yeah. But we don’t get that. We just get this weird writing montage and then we go to Sophie doing a land acknowledgement. And then Finley’s moms, what about the Mayflower? And then there’s some back and forth that honestly has the political sharpness of the Thanksgiving episodes of Friends. It’s like where you’re like, Thanksgiving’s bad, right? And you’re just like, cool, thanks for addressing this. Thumbs up. You’re good liberals. But it is just, I guess one more thing with Finley’s mom where, yeah…

Riese: So then Finley is like, this would be the perfect moment for me to sit down on this chair next to my dear mother and do my amends for her that I just wrote. And it begins honestly, beautifully. And it was gorgeous. The writing that montage, that process clearly worked because Finley’s very first statement is, I’m sorry for getting drunk and calling you a cunt at whoever’s wedding. Which is like, that’s just,

Analyssa: Mwah. Big chef’s kiss to that one.

Riese: No chef’s kiss for the turkey, but a big chef’s kiss for that one. And of course I think she’s raised Catholic, right? Isn’t that the history?

Analyssa: Christian of some sort, yeah.

Riese: Yeah. So her mom basically is like, we don’t have to talk about our feelings. That’s too much. There’s sort of a big explosion because Finley’s like, I just want to apologize for embarrassing you or whatever. And then Finley’s mom is basically, you embarrass me all the time. There’s just some things you don’t remember or something.

Analyssa: Yeah. So a couple things. Number one, if you have to do your amends in that little voice that you do at a party where you talk under your voice to just the person next to you? Bad. Do it somewhere where you can actually speak at your full volume. That’s just a helpful tip. And then the thing about this that maybe is nitpicking, because it’s so small, but drove me nuts. It’s like, okay, so this is a woman who’s intensely afraid of being embarrassed or hates being embarrassed. That’s something that she resents Finley for, is having embarrassed her her whole life. So she has decided to fly to Los Angeles to be in a room full of strangers to yell at her daughter in front of a room full of strangers. That seems deeply embarrassing to me and of her own making. So I was like, again, Finley, I’m begging. Please stop springing your amends on people when they say, no, I don’t really want to talk about this right now. It’s not a sign to continue to barrel through and be like, no, no, no, I just have to apologize. That’s not correct. But her mom’s reaction is insane. And I get that’s the point. I’m supposed to think that her mom is the big bad villain of her life. Fair, but there’s no subtlety, there’s no anything. It’s not even a good portrayal of a person that exists who is so worried about appearances and upkeep that she is cruel to the people she loves for embarrassing, but minor transgressions. This is so unhinged.

Riese: Right. I mean, I think this is another situation where it would make sense if she was also an alcoholic where she doesn’t realize that she’s also embarrassing herself because she’s not with it, you know what I mean?

Analyssa: I also thought for a brief second that she might be a lesbian.

Drew: Oh yeah. Right.

Riese: That was what I…

Riese: The jacket. The whole sort of Mary McCormick’s vibe has always been intensely lesbian.

Analyssa: There are just people who have a vibe that are like, yeah, she has a vibe.

Riese: That’s a queer person or a queer character.

Drew: I just think we would learn more if Finley was doing these amends in a way that was—

Analyssa: Correct?

Drew: Correct. And then her mom reacted poorly we would learn something more about her mom.

Analyssa: Or the day is going really well. And so Finley is like, okay, I’m going to actually try to make my amends. I thought that I wasn’t ready, but she’s here and we are kind of coasting through the… There’s been some bumps, but it’s okay, let me try. And then it explodes. This was just like…

Riese: Yeah. I would’ve loved even for them to try… If she wants to do it, to take her aside and have it be just the two of them and then we’d get a lot more out of it. But I guess they wanted everybody to see it or whatever. But then, that’s when Dre and Dani show up and Dre’s like, “Hmm, this is actually a pretty quiet Thanksgiving.” Because everybody is still in shock that Finley’s mom is who she is and is saying the things that she’s saying.

Drew: And then Finley leaves and Sophie runs after her. Then we go back to Angie and Shane. They see the Hendrix’s car and Angie sees the Chatbook in the back.

Riese: Brutal. To see your little handmade gift and the thrown in the back seat of someone’s car.

Drew: Truly is.

Riese: Like a Burger King wrapper.

Drew: And Shane is like, you’re better than I was at your age. I would’ve broken the window, so.

Riese: Would she? I think Shane just would walked away.

Analyssa: I feel like Shane wouldn’t have given anyone anything sentimental at this age, actually.

Drew: Shane would’ve done a bunch of drugs and had a threesome.

Riese: Or I guess fallen asleep in her truck outside of the house.

Drew: It was like other people giving Shane gifts that she was discarding actually.

Riese: Yeah. It was other people throwing rocks through Shane’s window.

Drew: But then Angie a piece of the things that are a parking spot. You know what I’m talking about and then throws it at the window, takes the chapbook, and then Hendrix shows up soon after.

Riese: And as you can hear the alarms in the background.

Drew: And then looks in the back and sees that the book’s gone and knows that it was Angie. Which it’s like, don’t fuck 18 year olds if you don’t want them to act childish.

Riese: Right. Also, Shane was like, do you want to take his parking pass? And I’m like, is that his faculty parking pass? Is there any way this could possibly still come up? Maybe?

Analyssa: They do an extended bit about calling the cops. Hendrix and the woman he’s with, which I was just like, we don’t need to get into it. We’ve already talked about this on multiple episodes, but there’s a real leaning into calling the cops this season in a way that I’m like, what are we doing? I did think that it was very funny that Shane was like Angie, no, stop, stop, stop and then was just clearing off the glass so that she was not getting cut. It’s very fun, gay aunt instead of responsible one, which I loved.

Riese: Wouldn’t it have been even more meaningful if Shane had also been mad at this man because she knew that he was her professor, right?

Drew: Yes. It would have been.

Analyssa: And she felt like it was justified because someone took advantage of an 18 year old.

Riese: Why did they set this up for so long. Oh my God.

Drew: Then we go back to Finley crying about her mom. And then…

Riese: I thought this was good though.

Analyssa: I really liked this scene.

Drew: Finley and Sophie kiss.

Analyssa: Sophie gives her a really sweet speech about how much light she brings to the world and how everybody loves her. And I really enjoyed this, especially the way that we’ve been talking about Carrie being in Finley’s life and being like, I’m not going to leave you. It’s just so important to have people who remind you that you are good. The people who get in your head are not the correct ones. We are here because you are good inherently. Because Finley’s just talking about feeling an idiot and wanting her mom to not hate her and I don’t know, I just really liked it.

Riese: Yes, I saw this really sweet moment between them and I was really glad that they kissed because I thought finally they’re getting back together.

Analyssa: And then they are busted by Misty who has to poop in this one bathroom as previously discussed. I guess they’re busted by Carrie, but Carrie is bringing Misty to the bathroom. Finley and Sophie go back out and Finley’s mom is still there, which is not what I would do if I had just caused a scene. I would’ve left.

Drew: Also, what about all of these queers who showed up to Dana’s being safe space for Thanksgiving and then it’s like, it’s just this homophobic lady screaming.

Analyssa: There’s a comment here from Sophie’s family about them getting back together because Finley and Sophie come back to the dinner table together and Finley’s mom is like, you guys dated? I didn’t even know she was gay—

Riese & Analyssa: —she’s so pretty.

Analyssa: I’m like, what is going on here?

Drew: What year is this?

Riese: Also, I would be more believable if she was like, she’s so feminine. But obviously they couldn’t have her say that because she’s not. But I’m just like, there’s nothing, what are you talking about?

Analyssa: Her daughter is gay and very pretty. It doesn’t make any sense. Again, I need desperately to know where every single writer in this writer room is from because it does have such… She’s from the Midwest, she’s not from California. That’s why she doesn’t get it. Which is like, it’s just not how it is.

Riese: Yeah. Gay people literally live everywhere.

Drew: It’s also a greatest hits of boring lines from other shows where people were homophobic. But they also contradict each other because it’s like the, I don’t know, all of it’s so confusing.

Riese: Also, she just commented on Sophie’s hair we were saying earlier. That was her first comment to her was like, what’s wrong with your hair? And now she’s saying, “oh, I thought you were too pretty to be gay.” I mean it’s a fun… There was a moment where it did feel like the whole cast is sort of coming together in a way. And it was really nice when she was like who are you and Carrie was like,

Carrie: I’m Carrie, I’m the one who’s been filling in your absence.

Riese: I was like, yeah, that’s right. Go. And I was like, this is nice and is nice for Finley. So I guess there’s that.

Analyssa: But then Finley tries to stop in. So Carrie says that. Yeah, and Finley’s mom is like, great, well, hope you’re ready to take care of all her problems.

Riese: Yeah, clean up all her messes. Hope you like cleaning up messes. I’m like, what’s wrong with you?

Analyssa: Also, she has not lived with them in years and years, so you don’t have any idea what kind of messes, again, maybe two for the summer, but whatever. And then her mom… So Finley tries to kind of quash the situation and her mom really escalates it and starts screaming. I didn’t take notes on what she says except for the line where she says, you need to be on medication. Which is like…

Riese: I was like, oh my God.

Drew: The question is, does Finley’s mom think that Finley is a disastrous fuck up or does she think that she’s the only one to ever leave Kansas City and make a life for herself? Those feel contradictory.

Riese: That contradicts this also. But I do think it’s possible to read this as her mom is intensely religious and homophobic and so just that she cannot help herself from immediately just going in the way that on television, religious, homophobic people do to gay people where no matter how much she might have decided to have some composure that she thinks that Finley is just this giant mess. But also that doesn’t fit with you’re the only one who left Kansas City. You build this beautiful life for yourself and might make more sense. I don’t know if she was resentful that Finley was sober and she wasn’t and was resentful of Finley’s success. Just something that’s happened since she arrived in that room and saw Finley that has in some way triggered her. You know what I mean?

Analyssa: It’s been like festering this whole day. She watching it and becoming seething with it. I just… You need to be on medication. I need so many… I have to ask this woman 16 questions about that specific thing said to her daughter who she hasn’t seen in years.

Riese: I assume that was about being gay.

Analyssa: Medication for what?

Riese: For being gay.

Analyssa: They make a pill for that?

Drew: She doesn’t even come across as a homophobe. I mean, I know that she is, but she doesn’t come across as that kind. She comes across as the same kind of, I don’t know… She doesn’t feel like that kind of religious zealot.

Riese: Right. Also, because she’s leaving Finley’s father.

Drew: Yeah. And she’s spending Thanksgiving in a lesbian bar.

Riese: In Heathenville.

Analyssa: She’s not looking at all the people around. Well, maybe, I guess we’ve been led to believe that she doesn’t know that all the people in here are because he think they’re just pals.

Riese: Yeah. They’re just girlfriends. Girls who are friends.

Drew: It makes no sense.

Analyssa: It doesn’t make any sense.

Drew: Makes no sense. Then my next note is Micah is still high, but not really acting high. He’s just eating a lot.

Riese: Right. Which, haha,

Analyssa: Wait, but there’s a scene here where Carrie tells…

Drew: Carrie tells Finley’s mom to leave.

Analyssa: So Carrie tells Finley’s mom to leave and then hugs Finley and calls everybody over to like…

Riese: Wait, we forgot about the turkey drop.

Analyssa: Oh, did I skip past already? Oh okay.

Riese: So Tess drops a Turkey. I have questions about this meal.

Analyssa: In Finley’s mom’s lap, which I wish had been purposeful.

Drew: Yeah, that would’ve been fun.

Analyssa: Because we get some, like you said, when the cast all kind of assembles around the table, when Finley’s mom says Sophie’s too pretty to be gay. All the cast is sort of side eyeing each other like this bitch. It would’ve been so funny.

Riese: And they all make, there’s lots of little comments around the table that were funny too.

Analyssa: It would’ve been so funny if Tess was like, whoops.

Riese: Yeah. A sober Tess had been like, whoops.

Drew: Also, this is a minor note, but a Turkey is the least funny thing to be dropped from the Thanksgiving table. It’s the end of the meal. What about a pumpkin pie? That’s gooey.

Riese: What about green bean casserole? She’s from the Midwest. Come on.

Analyssa: Cranberry sauce.

Drew: Cranberry sauce. Like a turkey? Also, why does she throw it on the floor? That’s really how I knew that Finley’s mom was ac cunt is that she just, it’s on her lap and she just flops it off. Put it on the damn table.

Riese: Put it on the table unless it burns. Unless it’s burning. Also, why is, I assume they do the turkey because it’s not as messy to do multiple takes.

Drew: I see, sure.

Riese: But also, is that really how film works? I don’t know anything.

Analyssa: A whole bowl of rolls.

Riese: I would’ve dropped a bucket of blood on her like Carrie or maybe slime. The Nickelodeon old days. And there’s a part where she said to Finley, I was hoping you’d change. And Finley was like, I have. And I was like, that’s good character development.

Analyssa: But again, I’m hoping you change does not square with you’re the only person who left Kansas City and made a life for yourself. Okay then Carrie tells Finley’s mom to leave. We’ve had enough, two hours too late I think. And then Carrie gives Finley a hug and she asks everybody to come in and give Finley a hug. And I did cry.

Riese: I just thought, I’m so happy for Finley that she has this wonderful caretaker. What a nice thing.

Drew: I thought it’s so strange for a television episode to be written where every writer in the room can only say one word and then you just go around the room like that old camp game where you had to tell a story that way. What an interesting way to write a screenplay.

Riese: So then…

Drew: Oh, then Micah’s high and eating and I guess then they never found the ring and they’re like, we never found the ring. And I was like, did he eat it?

Riese: Yeah. Then everybody’s in the bathroom. Isn’t that funny? Wouldn’t that be funny?

Drew: And then Sophie says that she still wants to be friends and Finley says that she’s still in love and so can’t be friends for some time. Which, I’m sorry.

Riese: What has been going on all this time?

Drew: Yeah, I don’t really know. And then Finley does say something about being thankful for all… Says I love all of you and says even you Dre. And I was like, oh. So we did acknowledge it. What?

Riese: Oh was she talking to Dre? I thought she was talking to Dani.

Drew: Oh, I thought she was talking to Dre.

Riese: That would’ve been really funny if she was talking to Dre. That would’ve been a bold statement.

Analyssa: No. Yeah. I think she says even you for now or today or something. And it’s about her and Dani.

Drew: Oh, I thought it was to Dre because she and Dani made up episodes ago.

Riese: Also then she’s like, well I got your pie or something. I was just like, what?

Analyssa: They’re doing…

Riese: That’s sounded weird. That’s not a really special thing to know about someone. What kind of pie they like. Couldn’t they try a little bit harder with that. Just a little harder. These are good actors. They can do a good job if you write good work.

Drew: My favorite kind of pie is whatever…

Analyssa: I was just about to say, I actually know Drew’s favorite kind of pie.

Drew: What’s my favorite pie?

Analyssa: Drew’s favorite kind of pie is whatever pie is the specialty at the place that she’s getting the pie from.

Drew: Correct. I love most flavors of pies. And when you sometimes go to a pie shop and they’re like, we are known for our cranberry dark chocolate crumble or whatever.

Riese: No ’cause I never talk to people but I can imagine.

Drew: Or it could be written somewhere. Where you’re like, oh well that’s not something that’s at every pie shop. I mean, I love a pumpkin. I love an apple. Yeah, I love… Pie’s my favorite dessert. Pie with a scoop of ice cream. Ooh. Amazing.

Riese: Were they eating sides for an hour and then they were all going to eat Turkey as a main course?

Analyssa: It’s in my notes. What did the people at Dana’s eat? What did they serve that day? I don’t know.

Riese: Because they were all eating, they were eating way before the turkey came. So those were, and then also…

Analyssa: Appetizers?

Drew: It’s actually, it’s not a turkey, it’s a cake.

Riese: Oh it’s a cake. And was that turkey for everyone who were…

Drew: They didn’t know that all these people were going to be there. It was all surprise friends because Finley’s mom.

Riese: Even though they had to make reservations.

Drew: So I don’t know how many turkeys they made. Who’s cooking?

Riese: I wish that Finley’s mom had made a… Because at first when she was sitting alone at the table for 10, I was like, she made a reservation for 10. Who else is coming? And it was like, I don’t know her only friends in LA like Rick Caruso and some girl she knew in college. Katy Perry. So who wants to be friends? So they’re like, oh, we never read the gratitude.

Analyssa: And also Carrie tells Finley she’s really proud of her and she stood her ground today and stood in her truth.

Riese: And I just love their relationship so much. And I loved how it was portrayed in this episode as well. And how Carrie stuck for her. Cause I think it’s really cool to have, if your butch lesbian Rosie O’Donnell mom is standing up to your shitty whatever.

Drew: And that’s why she has to die.

Analyssa: I was going to say, lovely intergenerational queer relationship you got there. Would be a shame if somebody did something to it.

Drew: But before that, Micah reveals about the donor… Oh, because the note says something about a donor and then Carrie’s like organ or baby, which was, that got my biggest laugh in the episode.

Riese: This was so annoying to me. Why is everyone cheering that you found a donor?

Drew: It makes no sense.

Riese: Who cares?

Analyssa: It doesn’t make sense.

Riese: Of course you found… Eventually people find donors and also they didn’t yet. They don’t know anything about this man. I mean, whatever.

Drew: It makes no sense.

Riese: The way everyone was cheering. And the moment I saw it, I thought when I re-watch this to outline the episode, cause I have to watch it once the screencap and then next I was like, I’m going to have to fast forward through the scene because it’s like rage courses through my body. They’re like, Oh my God! What? When has this ever happened? Oh my God. Just watch they’re going to go home and they’re going to be like, sorry, all the vials are sold out. And they’ll be like, oh I wish we hadn’t done that. Wish we just cheers to Finley like Carrie asked us to. Or no, Dani proposed the cheers to Finley.

Analyssa: Dani makes a toast to Finley. That’s another…

Riese: She’s like Pink. She raises her glass.

Analyssa: Step forward. They’ve really made…

Drew: I feel like we’re past… The show’s forgotten. It’s all good with this.

Riese: Oh, I thought it was funny though that their mom says the same thing every year.

Drew: Oh that was…

Analyssa: That was cute.

Riese: Yeah, it was like Sophie’s family is cute and lovely and I think was also nice to show that the family that is the most intact for all of these people is one that doesn’t, the dad left and it doesn’t matter. They’re still the coolest family and the most supportive and most loving.

Drew: And then back at Carrie’s house, oh boy, Carrie has a heart attack.

Riese: She says her arm hurts and I was like, oh no. And she fucking collapses. And I’m just like…

Analyssa: They did a truly grim thing to Rosie’s makeup.

Drew: Yeah. It looked, I was like, what’s going on? And then I found out.

Analyssa: So scary.

Riese: Also her being one of the only characters who isn’t super thin.

Drew: Yeah. It sucks.

Riese: And her being one of the only butch characters. I mean I know that it’s like Rosie also talks about how she hates exercise and stuff. But come on guys. Rosie’s so good. And she really does…

Drew: She sells everything.

Riese: Every scene she’s in. And I probably said this about people and haven’t really meant it, but I really truly mean it. Whatever lines they write for Rosie, no matter how weird, she just kills it.

Analyssa: And it’s incredibly endearing, the whole character of Carrie. But when you think about the pieces that have gone into the humor around the character of Carrie, you’re like, this is shitty, maybe.

Riese: Yeah like giving her a fucking heart attack ’cause she ran a little bit today? Come on.

Analyssa: It’s terrible.

Drew: And then Tess drinking.

Riese: Tess drinking. And then she starts reading some absolutely inane thing to her mom who none of us really know or care about. I am thankful that you taught me… I can’t remember a word of it because it was the least memorable thing anyone has ever said on any television show ever and I watched all 17,000 seasons of Glee.

Analyssa: I wrote them all down.

Riese: You did?

Analyssa: Yes because it was interesting to me, the people that they happened to coincide directly with the little montage that we are given of all of our characters.

Drew: Also wait, before Tess texts Shane and says, miss you.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: She’s thankful that her mom taught her that rules are meant to be broken. And we see a little insert of Angie and Shane with their arms around each other. Get it? Cause they broke rules today. We have the power to make the family we choose and we’re with the Suarezes—

Riese: Biological family.

Analyssa: Biological family, but ok. And Maribel is proposing to Micah and they all watch. So in that way we have chosen a family member. When something good comes into your life, you should hold onto it. And Dani and Dre kiss. And then I’m thankful you taught me every moment on this earth is a gift. And Tess scatters her mom’s ashes. And then it cuts to Finley like doing CPR on Carrie while she’s on the phone with 911.

Riese: It felt like someone had walked into my apartment and taken two rusty nails from the bottom of the good ship lollipop and stuffed them into my eyes. I assume Carrie’s going to live because it would be really fucking gutsy of them to literally kill her.

Drew: It would be… There’s no way. I mean it’s how I felt when Gigi was hit by the car.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: I was like…

Analyssa: They just can’t.

Drew: You’re not going to kill anyone.

Riese: You can’t like… You’ve already offscreen killed Kit and Jenny, which was brutal for both of them. And I mean Jenny was already dead. So I guess technically you’ve just offscreen killed Kit, but you’ve also offscreen killed Marcus Allenwood and we just don’t need it. And also this episode doesn’t need this because what if this episode’s doing really well, is building this relationship, is finally giving Finley who’s had a rough go of it, something to hold and that is actually going really fucking well. Why would you do this? And the cheapness of that ending.

Drew: It’s awful.

Riese: Same thing with Gigi getting T-boned. It’s just so fucking cheap. It’s so easy. It’s so boring. And it’s so…

Drew: It’s not a cliffhanger also because again, we have the level of there’s no way. There’s just no way. So it’s not a cliffhanger. It’s like why did you do that?

Riese: Yeah. What I’m wondering at the end of the episode, what I want to know for next week is, why the fuck did you do that? I don’t want to know… That’s what I want to know.

Drew: I don’t understand why you would be granted the privilege of making The L Word and this is what you get.

Riese: And having Rosie O’Donnell.

Analyssa: Right. Rosie O’Donnell is guest starring and

Riese: And saying she loves it! She always says nice things about being on the set and she enjoys it.

Drew: It’s just so wild that the original L Word is so much better than Gen Q when that original L Word is such a fucking mess. I mean obviously there are certain things that are better but not nearly enough. What did we learn in those years away?

Analyssa: I just feel so often the plot lines, I understand that they are not real humans who have real feelings. They are characters in a TV show. I don’t understand why the plot lines are so cruel to them. It just feels like—

Drew: It’s because they’re not… It’s lazy writing because they can’t think of… They can’t sustain any sort of conflict. Stories need conflict and they can’t sustain conflict that isn’t from “The Soap Opera Book of 12 Boring Choices.”

Riese: And also, I don’t think twice in one 10 episode season you can end on a “will they or won’t they die” cliffhanger.

Drew: Maybe if you’re doing…

Riese: They just killed Tess’ mom.

Drew: Yeah. If you’re doing an action show or your show is about soldiers in World War II?

Riese: Yeah. Or it’s like you’re doing The Walking Dead or it’s True Blood or I don’t know, Westworld.

Drew: But it’s The L Word: Generation Q. Can you please stop.

Riese: If you’re doing like Battle Royale, if you’re doing The Squid Game.

Drew: They only know how to…

Riese: This is The Squid Game. Basically.

Drew: They know how to kill, almost kill, cheating, breakup and lie.

Analyssa: I was like, oh, this is a perfect “and lie” joke.

Riese: And again, no sex scenes.

Drew: No sex scenes.

Analyssa: Nope. Just one kiss.

Riese: Just one kiss. Isn’t that a song?

Analyssa: One kiss is all it takes. I disagree.

Riese: I think we need a few more. A few more kisses.

Drew: Okay. Well, and that’s, that’s all right?

Riese: And that’s all she wrote.

Drew: The fact that I’m so happy there are only two more episodes is such a bummer. I shouldn’t be happy about that. I should be sad.

Riese: I’m sad because I’m nervous that the things that I want to happen are not going to happen in time. But it’s just so disappointing and I don’t understand, because I have tried so hard this season with the podcast and the recap to be as positive as possible and give it the benefit of the doubt beyond reason. Did I say this last season? Maybe I did because the same thing started happening this last few episodes just went…

Drew: I’m now remembering why the finale, I was like, I’m not coming back next season. And I did and now look.

Riese: They get feedback, right? So what’s going on? I mean, I guess who, it’s funny because, whatever. I mean it doesn’t ultimately matter. Nothing really matters. We’re all going to die.

Analyssa: I was going to say, what? What’s a little bumper?

Riese: What’s a little bumper? We’re all going to die someday. But I think it’s frustrating maybe because we like these people and we love this franchise and I would like it to continue.

Drew: I love the cast.

Riese: I love the cast.

Drew: I love new people who were brought on this year. I love Kehlani. I love Joey Lauren Adams. I love Dre. It just shows how famous various people are who I refer to by character names. But I like Roxy. They’ve brought on really good new characters. Carrie’s been a bigger part of it. That’s been great.

Analyssa: And I feel like we’ve been, so the show’s iteration of Bette and Tina are gone. Actually watching Alice lead episodes or watching Shane centric episodes, that’s been really fun and exciting. And just… By episode… I feel like this has happened. This happened last year and this year that it’s by episode seven or eight you’re kind of like where do we go from here? And it just gets frustrating because I want nothing more than to just be a fan.

Riese: Right? Yeah. I want to be a fan. I want to be having a really good time. I don’t want to be complaining. After watching this episode, I was like, we have to record the podcast immediately because I am just teaming at the gills with frustrations. Even though I’ve already written the recap. That’s not enough. I still have more to complain about. But I think I probably complain in general more on the podcast than in the recaps. But it just, it’s frustrating because it feels like it wouldn’t be that hard to make it better.

Analyssa: That is actually, I think part of the reason that the podcast can tend toward not complaining but getting more critical, which is that all three of us have better ideas for how… Have very easy pitches for, oh, if it was two lines that were different, this would make sense to me. And when you’re writing your recap, I assume you’re thinking that, but there’s no bouncing ideas or validation of like, oh yeah, I also thought that. Again, it just can quickly become, and another thing when we’re on.

Drew: You might say that this is a writer’s room and why is this not happening in the writer’s room? Which is just, I think something’s happening in the infrastructure of what it takes to make television where things…

Riese: Somehow things are not working.

Drew: I don’t know. I don’t what is happening. I don’t know if they’re not getting enough time. I don’t know.

Riese: Yeah, there’s something going on because they have talented people in that room.
Yeah. I mean, yeah. I do think that probably is worth, we’re a podcast of writers. We are writers and I’d love to write for TV and we have invested interest in this medium. All of us do. It’s not that, I think in that way it might be different than a podcast by fans or by comedians or actors or something. Because we’re all writers we, it’s basically, this is a writer’s take on the show. You know what I mean? And that is going to be probably more, maybe that’s why we’re so frustrated because we just want to edit it.

Analyssa: I read a review of Babylon on Letterbox today that was just somebody I follow that was like, give me a pound of cocaine and 72 hours in the edit bay. I could fix this thing. And sometimes I don’t even need the drugs, obviously I just watch the L word. I’m just 10 more words. I think I could change it, which maybe is just my own feeling like I could do better. But also just sometimes I’m like, but logically, puzzle wise, doesn’t that make sense?

Drew: I will say from having been on sets before, that sometimes you are trying to put out certain fires and change certain things that really bother you. And everyone’s kind of trying to do that and in the end you get this, there isn’t the prep time when the person who’s leading the ship isn’t maybe given the resources or isn’t equipped to do so. All the different voices that are involved and have good ideas end up with a thing where one person’s good idea of, well maybe Finley’s mom justifies it by saying that she’s here because she’s leaving her husband and Finley left home. And so it really makes sense. And they’re like, oh, that’s a great idea. And then on then someone else is like this idea, and everyone’s trying… then someone else had an idea that was offensive to one person. So then someone’s like actually, that’s offensive. We need to change that line. And all these different things are happening and then it results in work that just feels incompetent. I do think that that happens and that probably is what’s happening. And it’s just frustrating because with the right amount of planning and with the right amount of actually listening to people the first time they say things like, you can avoid a lot of that, I think.

Riese: And it seems like they’re shooting on a tight little schedule. They had one day of rehearsing for the musical episode.

Analyssa: Whoa.

Riese: And that they shot the whole, all that Fletcher stuff they had to shoot it in the rain because they couldn’t put it off. I think it just would’ve been great if they had engaged with the reality that Gigi… Because obviously she has a different job. And I wish they just… I don’t know why they just weren’t open about that. In the past I mean, most shows usually are, they’re just like, yeah, sorry, we killed this character off. They wanted to leave the show.

Drew: Do you think they wanted to kill her with the car accident? And then were like, we can’t do that. And then wrote another episode where she…

Riese: But that’s a really distinct way of looking at it, is that this is a lot of different people having different ideas. So somebody, especially if you’re trying to involve all these young voices, but you don’t… Like it’s trying… Any type of group work, sometimes you end up putting something in cause you’re like, well I want that person to feel like their ideas are validated and valuable and I want to include that person ’cause their voice is important for this story and then you end up with sort of something that’s a jumble of a bunch of stuff and it doesn’t really hold together as a piece.

Drew: Yeah.

Lauren : Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back, Generation Q edition. One of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @tolandback. And you can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. Our theme song is by the Talented Beast Steadwell, and our Gen Q logo is by JaxCo. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram @LaurenTaylorKlein. You can follow Drew everywhere at Draw_Gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram @analocaa with two a’s and on Twitter @analoca_ with one a and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course the reason why we’re all here autostraddle.com. And finally, to end this EP, let’s hear some Q words from our girlies.

Analyssa: 3, 2, 1. Quibble.

Drew: Qualms.

Riese: Quinn.

Analyssa : What’d you say?

Riese: Well, first I was really, I was just going to say quince meat and then I looked at Anna’s face and I thought, she doesn’t deserve this. So then I said Quinn, because I was thinking she was T-boned.

Drew: I do remember that. I said qualms because I have many qualms.

Analyssa: I said quibbles.

Drew: Because you have many quibbles. That’s beautiful.

Riese: Quibbles or Qualms.

Drew: I hope you’re all doing wonderful out in the world.

Riese: We love you.

Drew: We love you and maybe…

Riese: Maybe next week will be really fun.

Drew: And also just a reminder that there’s luckily a lot more queer media out there other than The L Word: Generation Q.

Riese: Like my recaps of The L Word: Generation Q.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Number one.

Drew: I mean, it’s really nice that this show still brings us all together and it’s one of my favorite things about it. I love chatting with my pals, chatting with all of you. But just a reminder, there are several great TV shows, several great movies every year. Not as many as there should be, but there are some. Yeah.

Riese: Also, if you want a To L and Back sticker, it’s like $1 in the Autostraddle store.

Drew: That’s a great deal.

Analyssa: Wow, that’s a deal. Happy New Year.

Drew: Happy New Year! 2023.

To L and Back: Generation Q Podcast 307: Messy Breakups and Bowling the Long Game

Hello and welcome to another episode of To L And Back, where we recap everyone’s beloved lesbian soap opera, The L Word: The Generation Q. In a world where there is a major social event every single weekend, it is now time for an album release party! Fletcher’s album release party, to be exact, which Dani is throwing, Micah and Maribel are cruising (for sperm donors), and Sophie wreaks sapphic chaos upon! And if that’s not enticing enough, there’s also skinny dipping!

Elsewhere, we’re delighted by a Carrie-Finley messaround, and Alice attempts to revisit a different ex this week: Tom! Delightful side plots ensue.

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SHOW NOTES

+ Riese’s recap of Episode 307: Little Boxes
+ Shelli’s ICONIC phone contacts explainer
+ Our most recent piece about Ezra/Aria, which includes more links about this trope in television!
+ I think the reading was filmed at Skylight Books!
+ P-Valley made the TV Team’s list of best shows this year, and you can revisit the Vida love with Carmen’s review!

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And this is To L and…

Riese: To L And Back: Generation Q Edition.

Analyssa: Generation Q Edition.

Riese: Edition. I said edition twice because I got confused why Ana wasn’t participating.

Analyssa: I always forget if I’m supposed to start on the To L And Back or just the Generation Q?

Riese: No, the whole thing. The whole enchilada.

Analyssa: I realized that half a second too late.

Riese: Yeah, well.

Drew: Yeah. How were your holidays?

Analyssa: I honestly kind of forgot that a holiday happened.

Drew: Yeah, I mean we’re recording this — you know we always record a little bit in advance — the holiday just happened.

Analyssa: Wait, more importantly, Drew, how was your birthday?

Drew: Oh, my birthday was amazing. I had such a good birthday. Maybe the best birthday of my life.

Analyssa: Oh my gosh.

Riese: Wow, really?

Drew: Because I had a birthday once, my 21st birthday. I hooked up with my sister’s friend who I’d had a crush on for years. So the fact that no chaotic things happened, but I was just like with my girlfriend and with friends and watched some good movies and got high and re-watched the musical episode of The L Word. Which I will say, big group of friends, drugs, the musical episode of The L Word was better.

Riese: Yeah, you warmed up to it a little?

Drew: I mean, no, I still don’t like it as a television episode, but the state I was in was better. It was very funny because Elise was also stoned and when it ended — and we were all making fun of it or whatever — Elise with tears in her eyes was like, “I liked that a lot.” How many drugs did you do?? But maybe none. Maybe just the power of sisterhood.

Analyssa: I was going to say, I was so, so sober when I watched it and I loved it.

Riese: Yeah, same.

Analyssa: I know it’s a shock to find out I was sober when I watched an episode of The L Word, but I loved it. Isn’t it nice when you start to have birthdays where you’re like, I just felt loved and included and that made me happy and that was a great birthday.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Isn’t that such a nice feeling?

Drew: Being gay means that I actually have quite a few people who are… Not to, well obviously, family’s… Well, I don’t know. But for most of my life it was even though… Everyone I knew was busy on Christmas Eve. And now I know enough people who are Jewish, or relatively secular, or have complicated issues with their family, that I sort of have, well, a handful of friends who are still in town and that was really nice.

Analyssa: Drew is sweetly talking around the fact that I was not available for her birthday party.

Drew: No, I didn’t see either of you on my actual birthday and that is fine, but I was…

Riese: But I was at your birthday party.

Drew: You were. You were at my surprise birthday party.

Riese: Right. But it wasn’t a surprise.

Drew: Right, but I didn’t plan it.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Anyway, should we talk about The L Word?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: It is fun to think about though when there is a party, I always think, well this is the big event of the episode. It’s the surprise party episode!

And this week it’s Fletcher’s album release party. So this is episode 307: Little Boxes directed by Em Weinstein, who has directed a lot of this season. Good for them. And was written by María Renée Prudencio, who has written mostly for Mexican TV and film, and then wrote on the Paramount Plus show Coyote, and then is writing for Gen Q. Let’s get into it.

This episode does start with the devastating breakup of last week. Finley gets in her car, is having some memory thoughts about drinking and is like, I need to make different choices. Calls Tess, Tess doesn’t answer. Calls Shane.

Riese: Tess. I swear to God. Tess.

Analyssa: I do know that Tess is going through her own thing. So this one I will give her a pass on. Has Tess answered her phone one time this season? Just out of curiosity.

Riese: Also could she just answer and be like, “I can’t right now.”

Analyssa: Right. Again, this one, super specific. But there’s been many times where you could be like, “Call me back in 15 minutes, I’ll be around.”

Riese: Shane picks up and they’re in the same car.

Drew: Tells Finley that Tess’s mom died and then is like, “But what’s up?” And Finley’s like, “No, no, no.” But I felt like there was maybe one more sentence that Shane could have said to just be like, “No, we’re just driving. Talk to us, bud.” Or I don’t know, something.

Riese: Yeah. I mean everybody deals with grief differently, obviously. I think I would’ve been like, yes, please tell me about your relationship drama because I’m going to be in this car going to Vegas for six hours and I would just really love to hear about something other than my internal monologue, which is absolute devastation and despair.

Analyssa: Right, which by the way, separate from grief, is the AA whole ethos. It’s call other people to get out of your head. So like…

Riese: Oh yeah.

Analyssa: This actually, I wrote in my notes, this is how AA calls do go sometimes. You call someone being like, “I’m having this crisis.” And they’re like, “Cool. Something absolutely devastating is happening to me also.” And then you’re like, “Wait, my problem isn’t as devastating as that. Sorry.” And then you start chatting with them about their stuff and it’s like, the point is not that people can strong-arm you into not drinking. It’s like that they can get you out of your own, for lack of a better word, kind of self-absorption or self-focus for that handful of minutes just to break you out of what you’re thinking about.

Riese: And realize we’re all in pain in some way.

Analyssa: Yeah, and we’re all going through stuff all the time. And yeah, that doesn’t mean that yours doesn’t hurt, but it’s not uniquely special. Which is a really big thing that AA wants you to know, is like you, yourself, and your problems are not entirely unique that you’re the only person who’s ever felt pain.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: So anyway, I just actually think it would’ve been nice for Tess and Finley to maybe have a conversation at this juncture. But, I do understand that everyone reacts to grief differently and things are happening in Tess’s life, also.

Riese: Finley’s phone book was a little sad to me.

Analyssa: Really bleak.

Riese: I was like, wow. You have seven numbers in there.

Drew: Or it’s like…

Riese: Or they’re a minimalist.

Drew: Or like Shelli Autostraddle editor and all around cool person who… I think that she wrote an article about her contacts.

Riese: She did. Because when she explained how she does her iPhone contacts, I was like, we were just all stunned and we were like, you have to share this with the world.

Analyssa: Everyone was in awe.

Riese: But there’s a 0% chance that Finley’s brain is similar to Shelli’s brain in that way. I feel like everyone Finley’s ever known, she’s put into her little phone.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Where she ends up being, it turns out the perfect place for her to end up, for me personally, with respect to my enjoyment of this episode, which is Carrie’s. And Carrie is really nice and says they have a no shoe household.

Drew: Which I support.

Riese: Yeah, everyone take your shoes off.

Analyssa: Yeah, I always take my shoes off. It’s very rare for me, actually, to not take my shoes off in the house.

Riese: Yeah. I feel unsettled when they’re still on.

Analyssa: And then I just love… This actually is the perfect conclusion to that because Carrie is chattering enough to like… It’s totally, she wants to hear about Finley’s stuff, but also is in her own life and it was just very sweet and fun.

Drew: Yeah. Speaking of duos I enjoy, Sophie got her nipples pierced.

Sophie: I got my nipples pierced last night.
Dani: No you didn’t.
Sophie: Yes I did!
Dani: You did not get your nipples pierced!
Sophie: Yes I did!

Riese: Which is a choice that a person could make if they wanted to.

Analyssa: So true.

Riese: So that’s nice.

Drew: I really actually want to get my nipples pierced, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen at any point because I am… It took me so long to just get my cartilage ear piercing healed. And I’m like, if it took so long for that to heal, I don’t know if I’m wanting to risk the nipple piercing healing process.

Analyssa: I actually don’t think they take that long to heal. I would be speaking more certainly because I have one, but I don’t remember. It was a billion years ago. My brain is Swiss cheese at this point, so I have no real concrete evidence for that. I just don’t remember it being as difficult. My ear… I got my cartilage pierced this year, and it hurt way more for longer than I remember. But maybe it’s that thing about really intense pain, or what people say about childbirth, which is like two years after you’re kind of like, “Yeah, that wasn’t that bad.” Even though it was absolutely horrific when you were doing it.

Riese: Right. Excruciating. It’s hard to remember pain.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: The way that the bar is Tess’s child, I do think that my nipple piercings will someday be my children.

Riese: I don’t really like the word “nipples”.

Drew: What? Really?

Analyssa: Interesting.

Riese: And so if every time someone said, “Do you have any piercings?” I had to say nipples, I think I’d be upset about that. But also, I also hate the word belly and I do have to say belly button.

Analyssa: You have your belly button pierced?

Riese: I do. Yeah. And I know I’m at the age where I should take it out, but I just can’t. It’s the only thing on me that’s pierced. I got my ears pierced when I was 15 at a sketchy place that’d pierce a 15-year-old’s ears without their parents’ permission. And I kept them in for, I don’t know, three months, and then it was annoying with soccer to have to put the band-aids on or whatever. Anyway, it’s been now several decades since then, and they still haven’t closed all the way up. So let that be a warning to any 15-year-olds listening to this podcast that not only will your mom get mad at you, and not only will Miami Moon eventually go under, you will be able to get puss out of your ear for the rest of your life.

Analyssa: Nice.

Riese: And that’s another word I hate. Oh my God. I’m just ruining my own self today.

Drew: I’m so sorry. My God. So basically, Dani’s talking about the Fletcher release party. Micah wants to go because Micah really wants to meet Fletcher, which, okay. Micah?

Analyssa: What?

Drew: Anyways, Dani wants to invite Dre to Fletcher and…

Riese: Is that weird?

Drew: Yeah, we’re setting up the expedition of the episode and the future chaos. And then Dani looks at Sophie’s nipple piercings, which does feel like a next step of… I feel like seeing your ex naked is a next step of ex to friends.

Riese: Yeah, definitely.

Analyssa: I feel like this whole scene was a real graduation of ex to friends. They’re planning their nights together, they’re doing…

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: It was very deeply friends. And I had a funny moment where I remembered that Micah was also Dani’s ex. So they’re all just…

Riese: Oh yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: That’s queer community. This is the way that we live. I just made up a new melody for that. I made it into a medley.

Analyssa: Beautiful.

Drew: I loved it. Speaking of exes, Tom has arrived at the Alice show and runs into the glass door. And I really enjoyed when he said:

Tom: You might want to put a…
Alice: What? It’s a door.
Tom: Out of order sign on that side because I just looked like a bird crashing into a window.
Alice: But a lot of birds fly into a lot of windows. It’s… The stats are pretty dark. Anyway, hi!
Tom: Hi!

Drew: I enjoyed that.

Riese: Yeah. Have you ever run into a glass door?

Drew: All the time.

Analyssa: Thank you so much for asking, Riese. It’s like I set you up for this. I once gave myself a concussion doing this.

Riese: Huh?

Drew: Oh.

Riese: Fantastic.

Analyssa: I was, in fact, already previously concussed that year, and I just turned so fast and walked right into a door that I was dazed for a day. It was like, yep, sure did bruise my brain again.

Riese: Wow.

Analyssa: But I survived it, and so I laughed when Tom hit his little noggin.

Drew: Yeah, it was pretty funny.

Riese: He is such a light. He’s such a joy. You know what I mean? He’s so fun. He’s got such great energy. Yeah.

Drew: We learned that Tom proposed at the Eiffel Tower. Which, I know I was a jumbotron skeptic before, but compared to the Eiffel Tower, jumbotron is a great proposal. Like the Eiffel Tower? With Alice? You’re in France? You’re in Paris and you choose to propose at the Eiffel Tower to Alice? Like come on.

Riese: Just propose at the top of, I don’t know, the Empire State Building, the CN Tower, I don’t care. The tower in Las Vegas that has the ride on the top that my ex-boyfriend made me go on and it scarred me for life. I don’t know, just propose to her on a bridge. How many other people were proposing at the Eiffel Tower at the exact moment he was proposing to Alice?

Drew: I was thinking less of a skyscraper and more like a beautiful street in Montmartre or something. There’s so many places. Like, you know what I mean?

Riese: Yeah, or like her favorite existential author’s backyard on a literary tour, as if that’s one of Alice’s interests. But you know what I mean. The Eiffel Tower is so generic. A jumbotron at least is campy and funny.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Like that’s hilarious. Eiffel Tower, that’s not funny. That’s generic. That’s boring. He’s a literary person. He should come up with something better. I’ve never… Oh wait, actually, I have been to Paris, but I don’t remember it very well. So I’ve never been, but I have been. But I’m sure there’s better places.

Analyssa: I was in Paris literally this year and we declined to even go up the Eiffel Tower because it was like, it’s such an ordeal.

Riese: I have a picture of myself outside of it with my thumb up. But we were like, no, we’re not going up.

Analyssa: I looked up at it and I was like, big. They did that and then it was beautiful and then I moved on.

Riese: Yeah. Then my boyfriend was like, “Let’s go to McDonald’s.”

Drew: Proposal on Eiffel Tower, out. Wedding on the Eiffel Tower in Sense8, now that was a choice. That I respected. That was the next level. But anyways, Tom thinks that Alice wants to write book two and immediately starts chatting about writing a second book.

Analyssa: And because why would he think that she wants to get back together with him and she’s invited him to her office to discuss that? She set up an office meeting. What a silly way to go about that.

Riese: I hope he lives in LA. I hope he didn’t come all the way out from New York for this meeting. But I love his suggestions. I think his idea for a tongue in cheek self-help book is solid and she should pursue that line of inquiry.

Drew: I do think it sums up that Taylor was correct, that Alice is disconnected from reality. That she was like, “Well just come to the Alice show, and we’ll have a conversation about our future together as lovers.”

Riese: Yeah, I would definitely do that.

Drew: Yeah. Speaking of ill-fated couples, Angie is going to that man’s reading.

Riese: I would rather die.

Drew: And her roommate gives her a whole box of condoms.

Riese: That makes no sense to me. You need… One night? You need, I don’t know, three absolute max condoms. Yeah. She was like, “You can never be too prepared.” And I was like, actually this is too prepared.

Analyssa: Maybe a little too prepared. I also, Drew, started calling him that man in my notes this week. Just that guy, that man.

Riese: I call him this man.

Analyssa: I think later my notes changed to Mr. Old Man. He’s, to be clear, my age. But compared to Angie, I’m like, get a job, stay away from her. Anyway, my college used to give you 30 free condoms every quarter and I took a whole…

Riese: Wow.

Analyssa: Freshman year, when I went to visit my long-distance boyfriend for a weekend, I took all 30 of them and I don’t remember how many we went through. It’s not important now.

Riese: It is important.

Analyssa: But what is important is kind of is that they did have a bunch of different goofy kinds and we used a glow in the dark one that truly haunts me. It’s like the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s so unsexy.

Riese: Anyway, maybe the box was different flavors, like a variety pack.

Analyssa: I think they bought a bunch of different boxes, and you could go and pick. Which is funny to me because I feel like either I put my hand into just a mix of them and took whatever I could, or I specifically chose a glow in the dark condom for the joke of it. Which, unfortunately, shows you how invested I was in having…

Riese: Meaningful lovemaking?

Analyssa: Like romantic lovemaking at that time of my life.

Riese: You didn’t feel like making love?

Analyssa: No. Anyway, I came back from that trip with the UTI. Very exciting. Really good stuff.

Riese: She should have sent her with a box of cranberry pills.

Analyssa: Absolutely. If she’s handing out that many condoms, she should also be saying, “And make sure you pee right after. Thank you.”

Riese: Yeah. And drink some water.

Analyssa: I do want to say that Angie making this chapbook is the most lesbian gay little event…

Riese: So cute.

Analyssa: I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s so sweet.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: He does not deserve it.

Analyssa: It’s wasted.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Wasted, wasted, wasted. Speaking of things that are wasted, Finley burns lasagna at Carrie’s and has a meltdown, which was very relatable to me because anytime I mess up any cooking thing, I do break down and decide that I’m not worth being alive on this planet. And I wish Rosie O’Donnell was there to hug me.

Riese: Yeah, when she was like, “May I approach?” And then she came over and hugged Finley and it was so adorable.

Analyssa: When she says, “Just let me approach”, after Finley kind of protests, I was just so heart eyes for her.

Riese: And then there was really accurate rec league sports representation.

Analyssa: I knew that you were going to say this exact phrase. I was like, this is for Riese.

Riese: Where you need a sub. Because if you don’t have enough players, you have to forfeit. And you need a sub, and the sub’s like, “I’m really bad.” Probably you and me had this conversation. The sub’s like, “I’m really bad.” And you’re like, “Well no one can be worse than me.” And then you sub. I think we made you sub for an entire season though.

Analyssa: I think this is, yeah, almost exactly how I started playing kickball occasionally on your kickball team.

Riese: Yeah. Anyway, so I was like this is so real. And that’s all. It was so real. So real. Everyone was being real.

Analyssa: I also think it’s very real that Finley is trying to come up with ways to contact Sophie. She’s like, “Well I can go get my non flip shoes.” And Carrie is like, “Absolutely not. Eyes on me.” It’s so nice to have a friend who will kind of bully you a little bit after a breakup ’cause you do want to do sometimes those things that are bad ideas. And it’s nice to have somebody outside of you being like, “I don’t think so.”

Drew: I definitely related more to Sophie’s handling of the breakup in this episode than I did Finley’s. I’m not a “reaching out to” person. I’m definitely a “make a fool of myself with new people” person.

Riese: Absolutely. Yeah. Definitely by the end of the night, if no one says, “You shouldn’t be single anymore. This isn’t working for the rest of us,” then I didn’t break up properly. I just want to make a real hard mess of literally everything. In the past, would want to do it as drunkly as possible, for maybe even a few weeks.

Analyssa: Hilariously, I’m both. I would be a messy going out rager kind of gal, and also I’m going to send you some messy texts while I’m doing that. So you know that I’m having fun but I kind of miss you. But…

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Because I always think then they win. I have problems. Anyways.

Riese: Oh yeah, they win.

Analyssa: Oh see, in my head actually that’s me winning. That’s me asserting my dominance. I get to do what I want. Anyway, that’s a deeply sick way of viewing it also.

Drew: Wow. Well we’re all sick in our own ways. Tom is still talking about this second book possibility, and then there’s a cat meow, and it becomes this fun little thing we do in this episode where there’s a ghost cat in the wall. And Alice is like, “I said there was a ghost cat. Everyone said there wasn’t a ghost cat.” And Tom’s like, “I hear the ghost cat.” And you’re like, wow is being the one mean you both hear the same ghost cat?

Riese: Yeah. That’s cat power.

Drew: Yeah, exactly.

Analyssa: This was a moment where I was like, okay, a little bit of sparkle between the two of them. They’re so fun together, and this really showed it for the time that they were doing this that I was very delighted.

Riese: They’re also just great comedic actors, both of them.

Analyssa: Yes, exactly.

Drew: I think, okay, I’m just thinking about this now. But I think it would’ve been really fun if in the first time we’re really seeing a proper relationship with a man that Alice has, if Alice had been top-ier, it would’ve been interesting to play with that. I’m just trying to think of what could be sexy between these two people. Because the sex scenes between them never were that sexy. And I’m like, how can queer heterosexuality on this queer show in a way that would’ve felt really hot between them? I don’t know. I just feel like they do have… The show, with all genders, has a very limited idea of what could be sexy, which we’ll get to later with Carrie and I don’t know, we’ll get to it. But I am like, they have a spark. And the fact that I don’t really buy them together as being that whatever is partially because the way that Alice’s sex is shown is so different. I don’t know. I’m just like, these two people could absolutely have hot sex.

Analyssa: And hot silly sex. It doesn’t have to be so serious, either. Yeah.

Drew: Anyways, Maribel’s still looking for a donor, very exhausted by it with hot sex.

Riese: Why haven’t they signed up for a real membership with the sperm bank? Because if you haven’t signed up for a real membership, then you can’t see pictures, and they’re still seeing just ghost people. They would’ve set up for a real membership. That’s all. That’s going to be my only nitpick of this issue, this episode. Thank you.

Drew: Micah’s like, let’s go out, let’s have sloppy sex. Which I was like, yes, I’d love to see you have sloppy sex. And then Sophie comes in and is like, “I’m going to get my hair done.” ‘Cause sometimes nipple Pierce sings aren’t enough? And…

Riese: Well, you always have to get your hair cut or done or something after a breakup.

Drew: Sure. And that’s when Mari’s like, okay, we actually should go to Fletcher to look after Sophie.

Riese: Yeah. Sisterhood is powerful.

Drew: Sisterhood literally is powerful. And then, we go to Dani telling Dre that Sophie is a good contact for them? Which is such an aggressive attempt to be like, this is just professional. And also, I don’t care that you had sex with my ex-fiance. Yeah. Dre’s confused and that seems fair. But they’re flirty and it’s fun.

Riese: Yeah. It’s obvious that they have sexual tension. Dre is open to more, and is trying to figure out why Dani’s acting like she’s open to more while saying that she’s not open to more. So that’s fun.

Analyssa: Yeah. Imagine someone telling you that your relationship is strictly professional and then they do that thing that Dani did to Dre’s chin, like tipping it up. I would be like, so you want to kiss right now?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Professionally you want to kiss? That’s what I’m hearing.

Riese: A professional kiss.

Analyssa: And yeah, there’s just a lot of meaningful eye contact and Dre’s like making jokes about skinny dipping.

Riese: I love this for everyone involved. Even the extras.

Analyssa: Anyone who got to be around.

Riese: I support them.

Analyssa: Speaking of flirting, Misty is adjusting Carrie’s bowling position in a way that is very close, very sensual. Finley wants to text Sophie. Carrie says no.

Riese: That was so funny, when Finley was like, “Here.” Carrie picked up and it was like:

Carrie: “Hi, Soph. Hope you’re well.” Well no, it’s not good. I’m deleting it.

Riese: You know?

Drew: Yeah. I support Carrie in this. And then Finley’s kind of roasting Carrie for not asking Misty out. Once again, all these ee names that they…

Riese: I know.

Drew: Wild, for not asking Misty out. And the Misty bowls a strike because Misty’s a good bowler.

Riese: I really liked Carrie also being like, “This is enough for me. I don’t need to ask her out. This is fine.” Which I think is a valid way to feel.

Analyssa: Totally.

Riese: I don’t know if she likes me back, but for now, this type of relationship, this is good. I’m happy with this. It doesn’t necessarily need to be escalated.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Which Finely doesn’t buy.

Analyssa: I don’t have a fun transition for this next scene.

Drew: No.

Analyssa: Angie and that man are in the hotel room where he’s pinging around with a lot of anxious energy for his reading, and he talks about how it’s bearing his soul to a bunch of people and everybody’s going to be looking at him. Angie gives him her little book as a trade-off of like, I’ll show you this part of my soul, too. And it’s very…

Drew: First she offers to iron his shirt.

Analyssa: Oh yeah. I didn’t even take notes on that part. I was so excited.

Drew: And was calming him down. It’s so annoying. Anyways, I guess the show is… I don’t know. Anyways, they fuck. And it’s like…

Riese: Do they?

Analyssa: No they don’t.

Riese: No they don’t. At least not… In the scene, do they even kiss? Do they start, do they kiss?

Analyssa: I don’t think they do anything this episode.

Drew: What? What is my notes? Why did I misread that? I totally thought that she gave the chapbook and then… I guess I need to rewatch this. I was so…

Riese: Well, I mean later she does say that she did, but I was going to talk about the time. But I was like, is she lying? Because I didn’t know. I don’t even remember them kissing in this scene.

Analyssa: I thought that was a lie later. Whoa.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Now I really want to open the scene right now. I feel like I… Wait, can we just, hold on one second.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: This is a To L and Back Breaking News.

Riese: We have to get a replay.

Analyssa: Beep, beep, beep, beep. Alert.

Riese: Coach’s cam. Oh, I see. She leads him to the bed and he says, “Are you sure?” And she says, “I’m sure.”

Hendrix: Are you sure?
Angie: I’m sure.

Riese: Maybe I stopped. I mean, I very well could’ve just been like, I don’t want to see this anymore and stopped watching.

Analyssa: Oh, I very much just tuned out of that. I feel like I’m seeing that for the first time. Well the good news is…

Riese: Me too.

Analyssa: I was still angry about how this whole thing went, anyway, so now I’m just clearer on why I’m angry.

Drew: I’m just glad that I didn’t make that up because that would be a very disturbing thing for my brain to assume.

Riese: Well, I fully just tuned out. But here’s the other thing that I was thinking about. So against all human decency, there’s a huge cohort of fans who loved Aria and Ezra’s run in Pretty Little Liars, even though they started sleeping together when he was her teacher in high school and she was like a sophomore, a junior in high school and he was a full-grown adult. But there’s tons and tons of Aria and Ezra shippers to the point where people are excited that their end game was actually getting married and adopting a baby. And I disagree with all of those people for obvious reasons, but they exist.

This problematic concept exists and thrives because it was a show that gave that relationship enough time and enough space that people, perhaps against their best wishes, but perhaps not, somehow grew endearing. Something about that dynamic became endearing to them in a way that it was more of a complicated choice for the show to make. Or like Pacey and his teacher in Dawson’s Creek, where people saw enough of the relationship that people were like, God, I hate this, but there’s something about this, their chemistry, that’s palpable or interesting to people in a way that makes people feel conflicted and that’s complicated and that’s art or whatever. But we’re not spending enough time with Angie or with this man to feel anything about them. I promise there’s not a single solitary soul on this planet that is rooting for these two. Not one person. No one likes it.

Drew: I get that eventually, I mean we’ll get to this, but I guess it is trying to say something, but it doesn’t do a particularly good job at it or do anything new.

Riese: No.

Drew: I mean, I think about a movie like Diary of a Teenage Girl that I think does such a good job at both validating the love and lust of the young girl and also shows the toll it takes and the ways in which it’s wrong. It is possible to do that in art. This isn’t doing really anything, in my opinion.

Riese: No.

Drew: And so it just feels weird and annoying. To me, it feels like I can, in my brain, think about first weeks of a writer’s room, going around being what happened to you in college? Let’s talk about our experiences. And someone’s like, I lost my virginity to my professor. And they’re like, Ooh, cool. And then they just run with that. And be like, what was that? And get into it and whatever. But is that the most interesting thing we could do with Angie? Is that the most interesting thing we could do with an entire generation of queer people on this show? It’s really not.

And so it just feels, I don’t know. The TV teacher reference point that I have the most is the Step by Step episode, where the teacher, I don’t remember the names of the characters in that show. But there was an episode where the teacher invites this teenage boy over and then sucks on his ear, and I’d never seen that done before, and it really left a mark on me as an eight-year-old. But he says no. He’s like, “This is bad” and gets up and leaves. And it was very clear in its teachings. But yeah, I don’t know.

Riese: I mean, there’s movies with this trope that people feel close, like Loving Annabelle, that people feel feelings about. But no one feels feelings about these two.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: And maybe, I mean, honestly, maybe people would be feeling more feelings about this, too, if the teacher wasn’t a man.

Analyssa: Maybe.

Drew: Probably.

Analyssa: Well, but the thing that drives me nuts also is not just that he’s a man, but is that he is this specific type of man. Which is they get to this reading, and immediately he does not care about anything except himself. It just feels so icky to me in a way that I don’t understand why they didn’t try to make this a more compelling… I’m already going to be annoyed about it. So to your point, Riese, if it were a more compelling or interesting dynamic where you’re like, okay, I want to be opposed to this, but…

Riese: He’s treating her really well, or.

Analyssa: Something about the way these two interact is like really…

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: I do think the show is making a point by having him be this way. I do think it’s not unrealistic that this man who’s immature and is full of himself and all. It’s honestly like I’m glad that it’s not romanticized at all. But then it’s confusing what the beats of this arc have been and why Angie coming into her sexuality has been framed as positive with him.

Analyssa: Yes.

Drew: I mean, again, it can be complicated, but I don’t think it’s being done well. I get there could be a point, but I’m like, it’s just a boring choice to me.

Riese: Yeah. And also his character is not that interesting or compelling. I don’t even, and we talked before about how Jordan has chemistry with everyone, but they don’t really have chemistry, and he’s never even made a funny joke. He’s so flat. And even in this scene, I’m like, you don’t really seem like you’re into it. He doesn’t seem like he’s into her except for when he says it again, the telling and not showing kind of thing.

Drew: Yeah. Well, going from my least favorite storyline in this episode to my second least favorite storyline in this episode, Micah meets a man at the bar named Michael and they’re like, we ordered the same drink, so you must be the person who should give me sperm.

Riese: That’s what I feel about everyone I’ve ever seen order a tequila shot, which used to be my drink. But now obviously I haven’t had tequila shot in quite some time.

Drew: Because Micah’s bisexual, at first I thought it was going to be a meet cute situation and then it was like, no, no, everyone cheats on this show except not Micah. Which I’m fine with, but I’m just like, no, that’s not the storyline. We’re still sticking with the sperm storyline. So I don’t know, it’s a brief moment. Oh, ’cause now we’re at the Fletcher party, so now it’s a bunch of little scenes like we do at our parties. ‘Cause then Sophie walks in and is blonde.

Riese: She looks amazing.

Analyssa: Looks bangin’.

Riese: Incredible.

Analyssa: I do want to say, and more power to her because she’s fresh off a breakup, a little overdressed. But you know what? She looks great. So, what are you going to do.

Drew: I’m still unclear about the time that Sophie and Dre spent together because Dre is like, “You didn’t tell me that you worked at the Alice show.” And Sophie was like, “Well, we didn’t do a lot of talking.” And I’m like, you spend a weekend together? You can’t be fucking, like, what? I’m so confused.

Analyssa: And also Maribel had opinions about them… If they were just fucking and just did it for one weekend, how did Maribel know that? There’s just so… It’s so unclear.

Riese: I think it’s possible. And I don’t like this idea because I love Sophie the character and it annoys me when people don’t like her as a character. It annoys me deeply. But what if she’s kind of a liar? Because she told Dre she was a documentary filmmaker. She chose to present herself in a certain way.

Analyssa: I kind of thought that she was honestly lying to Finley when she said it was just a weekend, just the way that it was delivered. But…

Riese: Well, she didn’t even tell Finley it was a weekend. She said they had sex once and saw each other one other time. She didn’t even tell Finley they spent a whole weekend together.

Analyssa: Right. And then she told Dani that it was a weekend, right?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: So even when she said that to Finley and was like, “I don’t know,” twice, I was like, this just feels like when people kind of obscure the truth by talking around something. And then when she said a weekend to Dani, I was like, okay. I feel more bolstered in that. I will say that the documentary filmmaker thing didn’t bug me because I am also famously kind of a liar to people I hook up with. I don’t know, they don’t know me.

Sometimes I’m like, and this is not exactly a lie because I do write in fact for Autostraddle.com, but I will sometimes be like, “Oh yeah, I’m a writer.” And that’s not my full-time job that I do to make a living, which is what people ask when they’re asking “What do you do?” But sometimes it’s kind of aspirational, sometimes it’s kind of fun. So I can see a bunch of reasons that you might say that to someone who you don’t know super well, but there’s no reason given for it. If Sophie had been like, “Oh, I was living out kind of a dream” or “That’s what I want to be, but the Alice show pays the bills.”

Drew: Yeah, that actually didn’t bother me. But yeah, it is interesting. I think what’s bothering me is the way that Dre is talking to Sophie doesn’t feel like it was more than a weekend. I’m having a hard time getting a read on that. I would be like, oh, Sophie’s just lying, but Dre’s not talking to her… I don’t know, like even their exchange of being like, “Sorry, I didn’t text you back.” It makes it feel like the “you up?” text was the only text… I don’t know.

Riese: But isn’t that also a crazy thing for her to say? I’m sorry I didn’t text you back when you texted me “you up?” And I was in bed with my girlfriend who I was in a monogamous relationship with in that moment. I was like, really?

Analyssa: And said what? Yeah.

Riese: The night Finley returned from sober living. I mean, I think it was just a weekend. I think Sophie was telling the truth to Dani about that, and that’s the vibe I get from them. Or the vibe from Dre is that this was just a weekend for them, too. It wasn’t like a big deal.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest problem is that doing a year time jump and not thinking through what that means for all the characters instead of just a handful of characters is challenging. And that’s how it feels. It feels like some of the characters had a year time jump, some of the characters had a month time jump, and it’s sort of made this whole season feel a little bit muddled and confused.

Even just the sense of sometimes Dani’s going through a big breakup because her and Gigi were together for a year and a half. But then other times, it feels like there really wasn’t that much time that we missed. Like what was happening in their relationship? I guess she was going through a lot of dad’s stuff. Sorry to bring him up. It doesn’t ever really feel like… I don’t really know what happened in that year. If I was trying to write fanfic of what happened in that year, I would find it very hard to bridge these seasons.

So Micah’s telling Maribel about Michael. And again, he just met this man. I don’t understand any of this. It’s truly so weird and I don’t understand.

Analyssa: But Mari agrees to meet him. I thought the line, “It’d be kind of like we’re having a baby together” was super bizarre, by the way. They are having a baby together. I don’t know, just the wording of that is not… Who talks like that about the baby you’re going to have with a partner, no matter how it’s conceived? I don’t know. I just was like, what a weird choice.

Riese: I did like at least that Micah was like, “Oh, I don’t know for sure that he’s cis.”

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: I thought that was a good sort of note to the watcher, like you can’t be assuming these things about people from either direction or whatever.

Analyssa: I actually think that’s why the “It’d be like we’re having a baby together” line hit me so weirdly. Like those two next to each other, I was like, what are we trying to accomplish? I don’t know. It felt bizarre. But yes, I agree. I really did like that line.

Drew: Sure. We don’t know that he’s cis, we don’t know that he’s fertile, we don’t know that you would want to give his sperm to a stranger. There’s so much…

Analyssa: We don’t critically know him at all.

Riese: Yeah, and he’d have to go through a bunch of tests and stuff before.

Analyssa: I was thinking, Riese, about you talking to us about generally what that process looks like. And I was like, they have such a world ahead of them that they don’t even know about. But I do think that’s kind of sometimes how you feel about any sort of big life decision. Immediately you’re like, okay, well this is it. I figured it out. Yeah, this is what I want to do. And you start going down that path.

Riese: I definitely know people who’ve picked a known donor who reminded them of the non-caring partner or whatever. But usually it’s someone they know and not someone they just met at a bar.

Drew: And also if we were spending more time with these characters and it wasn’t so rushed, it could have been a thing where like sperm’s put on hold for a while, Micah meets a new friend. At a certain point, it becomes the storyline. It’s just so weird to rush it all into this one 10-minute interaction.

Then we go back, we go to Sophie and Dre. Dre’s talking about loving Newsies. I think because Sophie was talking about how the ayahuasca trip was musical.

Riese: I just want to say that I love Newsies, in case I was wondering. But the original film, which I saw in the 90s, I haven’t seen the musical adaptation. But I don’t need to ’cause the original film was perfect. Thank you for listening.

Drew: This is when Sophie’s like, “I should have texted you back.” And then Sophie kisses Dre. And Dre pulled away and is like, “I’m into someone else.” And Sophie leaves. And I got to say, that first rejection when you’re like… Especially when you end something because you’re coming in, you’re like, I need to be single. I need to do my thing. That first time you get rejected after that is so brutal, and I felt very sad for Sophie. And Sophie is drinking way too much. I was just like, oh God, oh God.

Riese: Okay. And then we see Sophie’s healthy and completely unlike Finley’s drinking behavior in action.

Analyssa: Totally different. I will say, to this show’s credit about drinking, one small win. I was like, if Sophie drunk texts Finley, I’m going to be furious.

Riese: I was like, I hope Sophie drunk texts Finley. I was like, text her, tell her, you want to get back together.

Analyssa: Sure, that would’ve been fine. But a sloppy drunk text from your ex when you are sober. It just would’ve felt so cruel writing wise. I would’ve been like, okay, why are we putting her through this?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: But okay, at least there’s small mercies in that.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Yeah. Speaking of Sophie, Finley is speaking of Sophie to Misty, and Misty is finally like…

Misty: I’m going to butt in right there, if you don’t mind.
Finley: Of course, I’d love that.
Misty: I actually know a lot about your entire life because Carrie talks about you all the time.

Drew: I enjoyed that.

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, this conversation’s over basically. And then Finley tries to talk to Misty about Carrie.

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: And is like, “Carrie’s into you.” And then Misty’s like, “Well, she’s not really my type.” And I’m like, what?

Drew: Yeah. I don’t understand this in the context of what eventually happens in this episode, which we can, I guess, address when it happens. But I don’t… There were so many other things that Misty could have said. Where Misty could have said nothing and just been like, “Oh, I need to go.” And then Carrie saw that and took it as a rejection. There’s so many other things, but saying.

Analyssa: Specifically, “Carrie’s not my type”, is that what you mean?

Drew: Yeah, like what?

Riese: I guess it was, I mean, my immediate assumption was like, Misty’s butch and she only wants to date femmes. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to think she means?

Analyssa: But then, I mean, we’ll talk about it when it comes back, but then later it doesn’t really get explained. I don’t know, it just, we’ll talk about it later. I just didn’t understand then. If it’s true that Misty thinks Carrie isn’t her type for whatever reason, then I don’t understand the thought change between that scene and when she comes back to Carrie’s house to bring her bowling bag.

Riese: Maybe she thinks they’re both tops.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I wonder what Tina and Carrie’s sex was like. I mean, who knows?

Riese: Yeah. There is some bottom energy from Carrie.

Analyssa: Yeah, definitely.

Drew: They find the ghost cat, Tom and Alice. But then the cat runs away. It’s a real cat, I think, not a ghost at this point. It’s feeling like it’s a real cat. And I don’t know how long the cat has been in the wall or how it got there, but I’m going with it. And then Alice asks Tom if they missed something real.

Analyssa: Simply nothing led to this conversation, but I’m happy for her.

Riese: Alice had to bring it up eventually.

Analyssa: She had to ask.

Riese: And then as soon as Alice is like, “Me and you, did we miss something real?” You see Tom and you know that man is seeing someone else.

Drew: Yep.

Riese: And indeed he is.

Analyssa: And indeed he is. And Alice says, “Is it serious?” And Tom says”

Tom: Kinda, I mean, she is pregnant.

Analyssa: I don’t know the specifics of their relationship, but a pregnancy is a little bit serious.

Riese: Yeah. Pretty serious.

Analyssa: More to me than “kinda” serious.

Riese: Well, I think he was joking, right?

Analyssa: Yeah, sure.

Riese: It was funny when he’s like, “I already got the bods, so I might as well be a dad.” He’s funny. I wish they could just be friends. He’d be great to have around.

Drew: Yeah. And oh God, okay, we go to the reading. We go to the reading where this man is reading his actual writing and…

Riese: No one wants to hear it.

Drew: It makes Jenny Schecter look like Leslie Jamison. It’s just such… It’s bad, terrible writing. I don’t enjoy it.

Analyssa: Remember how all of Jenny’s writing was actually Ilene Chaiken’s personal writing? Whose personal writing do you think this is?

Riese: I mean, Alice’s book also was kind of meddling. And I don’t get it because these are TV writers, there’s writers in the room, you know what I mean?

Analyssa: They’ve definitely written before.

Riese: But maybe they don’t want this man’s stuff to be good. Oh, I guess it has to be since there’s a literary agent at his reading.

Analyssa: Also, I think this was shot in Skylight, which is kind of fun.

Riese: I mean, I have met literary agents at readings, but they were readings with multiple authors, you know what I mean? So it’s like they might be going to see multiple authors read and see if there’s any potential clients there. Anyway.

Drew: Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah, the CAA agent’s there, then the professor man tells the agent that Angie’s the student and it’s like, oh no.

Analyssa: Well, he introduces Angie to the agent and is like, “This is my student, Angie.” Which first of all, just generally in life, I want to remind everyone that you actually never have to introduce someone with your connection to them. You can literally just go, “This is Angie” and people will be like, “So nice to meet you.” Just if you ever want to avoid that particular situation.

Riese: Or you can be like, “This is Angie, she performed at my birthday party.” Or like, “This is Angie, she is my barista.” Or like, “This is Angie, I met her on this side of the road before this.” And then everyone’s like, “Oh, what’s that about?” And then you can have a whole conversation that’s not even real.

Drew: Anyways, from one random man to another. The random man, Michael, has agreed to be Maribel and Micah’s sperm donor.

Analyssa: They’re giving huge, “my wife and I saw you from across the bar and liked your vibe” vibes.

Riese: Yeah. Why not just have him impregnate Mari directly?

Drew: I think that’s legally complicated, also.

Analyssa: I was thinking about, remember in season one of The L Word when Bette and Tina are trying to find a sperm donor? And then they try to have sex with that guy. And he’s like:

Threesome Man: Why is it whenever dykes want to have sex with a guy, it’s only because they’re trying to steal his sperm.

Analyssa: What’s that man’s life story, what’s he got going on?

Riese: Right. I did think about this, thinking about that compared to now, why this felt so weird and that didn’t feel as weird. And some of it maybe is that I didn’t know that much about life, but I also feel like it was just a more perilous moment in time for a queer couple to be trying to obtain a baby in any way. And so it was like the most unorthodox of methods was considered more viable than it is now. But maybe it would’ve seemed ridiculous to me then if I had been older.

Drew: I do think it’s unfortunately indicative of a lot of the worst impulses of contemporary media. That it’s the same storyline written worse, but with one person is trans and one person has a disability, and that’s what people who aren’t trans and don’t have disabilities deem as progress. We’ll recycle our storylines, make them not as well written even when they weren’t even probably that well written to begin with, and plop you in and call it a day.

Sophie is drunk and it’s sad and awkward and she’s talking to this random woman. And the random woman seemed way too sober to be flirting with…. I mean, not to be whatever, but it doesn’t feel like this woman is at Sophie’s level of like, oh, they’re both sloppy and making a mistake. It feels like she’s pretty with it. And Sophie is very, very visibly not in a position where she should be hooking up with anyone.

Riese: Wait, was this one Sophie also took those pictures of herself in the photo booth?

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: That was funny.

Analyssa: Yeah, she’s in the photo booth.

Riese: She was posing by herself, and then she wanted them to print really badly.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, this other girl is flirting with her. Who had complimented her dress earlier, and Sophie moves right along.

Analyssa: This is until later when it becomes not, I was like, okay, a small wind after getting batted down by Dre. Like, all right. Because yeah, Drew, like you said earlier. Post breakup, you’re like, I want to go out because I know I can be on the town. And then if no one engages, you’re just more sad.

Riese: No one cares that you’re on the town.

Analyssa: You want to be the next eligible bachelor when you break up immediately. So this was a fun… I was glad that she got at least a moment.

Drew: That one episode where Bette is suddenly single and at The Planet and is like everyone’s basically submitting their resume.

Riese: Yeah, when they meat tagged her.

Random Lesbian 1: This is so not a feminist thing to say, but there is a group of women over at the bar who have you meat tagged like nobody’s business.
Bette: I’m sorry?
Random Lesbian 2: Meat tag means that they’ve marked you as a hot item.
Random Lesbian 1: Those girls are lining up around the block to get on your dance card.
Bette: Great. My neighbors will love that.
Random Lesbian 1: FYI.

Riese: That’s what they call it. They said, “You’ve been meat tagged.” Which meant she was the next eligible bachelor. And I was like, no one has ever said that. And if they have, they should be too ashamed of themselves to put it on television.

Analyssa: That shouldn’t be like a capital M meat tagged.

Riese: Yeah, thank you.

Analyssa: So, Carrie and Finley are sort of arguing back at the bowling alley because Carrie overheard the end of Finley’s conversation and is like, “I was happy with how this was, I got to hang out with Misty sometimes and you didn’t have to try to meddle and everything. And now I can’t even be at this bowling league.”

Drew: Which I do think speaks to Carrie’s personality in a certain way where it’s like you didn’t even make a move. You could easily be like, “The kid is getting overzealous and trying to ship us. I’m just here to have fun and bowl. Don’t worry.” You could easily play it off. So I don’t know if she really needs to be like… But I think she’s just, her feelings are hurt and she’s feeling vulnerable and rejected.

Riese: And then she’s like, “Go get your shoes. We’re going to go home” or “it’s time to go home” or whatever. And Finley’s so surprised because Finley assumed that this would be it, Carrie would not want to talk to her anymore. And I thought it was really sweet because someone was showing Finley unconditional love in the way that someone would hope their parents would.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: It was probably my favorite moment of the episode, honestly, was when Finley was like, “Oh my God, I’m still invited.”

Drew: Right.

Riese: She’s not going to cut me out for this, she’s still here for me.

Analyssa: We had this fight. I did something wrong, but we are still connected. It’s not like an end to something.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Speaking of the end of something, this is the end to the old man story with Angie. I didn’t really understand this breakup. Like I’m happy they broke up, but I didn’t understand the words that were happening, so…

Drew: Yeah, I don’t get it either. I think she’s mad about him introducing her just as his student and he’s like, “But you are my student and I’ve really grappled with this. I grappled with it earlier when we were having sex, maybe.” And then he’s like, “But I am falling in love with you.” And I wasn’t clear if he was like, I want you to drop my class, or if he was being like, let’s reconnect in five years. It was very unclear what was happening. And Angie doesn’t really wait around for an explanation and just, it’s done, I guess?

Riese: I don’t understand why he didn’t mention… ‘Cause he’s saying like, you are my student, so this isn’t the best time for us. Why it didn’t come up at any point that he could say, “And also, I could lose my job and probably never be able to work anywhere again except maybe like a Catholic university.”

Analyssa: I don’t know, it just didn’t add up to anything for me. But honestly, this is the only time in L Word history that I’m like, okay, great. I don’t understand why they did this, but sure.

Riese: I was glad they broke up, but I felt like they were dancing around it and I was like, just get into it. Just talk about it. What does it really mean that she’s your student? What does it mean for you? Why is this inappropriate? Say it, say it!

Analyssa: And also, why is it coming up now?

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: There’s a bunch of things to discuss here that just didn’t get discussed and instead, it’s like these, again, just platitudes of, I don’t know. It doesn’t add up to anything, but Angie is like, I’m not going to sit around and listen to this. And she leaves.

Drew: Yeah. Then we go back to the Fletcher party. Fletcher is doing shots with Dre.

Analyssa: Not very professional. I’ll say.

Drew: No. And it’s like, “It’s so cool to be a part of the beginning of your ride” or I don’t know, it’s whatever. Dre gives Fletcher a crystal. Fletcher’s on the show, good for Fletcher, happy for you. Then Dre and Dani flirt and keep flirting. And it’s enjoyable to watch these two flirt. I’m going to say it.

Analyssa: I like flustered Dani. I when she’s a little bit frustrated with Dre. And Dre’s joking about how invested Dani is in things that are happening at the party with Dre, especially Sophie kissing Dre and being like, “Are you interested in a professional sense? What’s going on?” And it just really gets Dani out of it. It knocks her off balance in a way that I think is fun to watch.

Riese: And then Fletcher performs, right?

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. She performs “Becky’s So Hot” which is now stuck in my head.

Analyssa: This is the longest of this song I’ve heard. I was just like, when something gets too big, too fast, a personal feeling of mine is that instantly I’m like, absolutely not. I’m divesting from that, actually. So I’ve never heard that full song, and this wasn’t the full song, but it is more of it than I’ve heard previously, which was just the audio being used under other videos popping up on my For You Page, without any input from me.

Riese: I thought it was… I enjoyed the performance. Then Sophie and her new lady of the night are hooking up, and they’re like dancing. They’re dancing right by the pool, which is danger. Everybody knows that. And then it turns out that the girl that Sophie’s been hooking up with is Michael’s wife. And he comes over to yell at them, and Sophie falls in the pool, and Fletcher stops singing.

Drew: Yeah, good for Fletcher. Good for fictional Fletcher.

Riese: Other people just let people literally die at their concerts and they keep singing. But Fletcher was like, wow, someone’s in the pool. Let’s slow this down.

Analyssa: Let’s take a pause.

Riese: Let’s take a pause.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Really gutsy, I would say, of this woman to be hooking up with Sophie at a party she went to with her husband. Not just hooking up, but pursuing her at this party.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Interesting choice. Interesting marriage they must be having.

Drew: Yeah, also, I just feel like the man who is very quick to be like, yeah, this is amazing, have my sperm, would actually be like, cool, my wife’s making out with someone hot over there. It was interesting to me that the choice was made, that it was… I don’t know, I just still don’t understand. Is the man going to come back? Is he still going to be the sperm donor? Is this storyline going to continue?

Riese: Oh no.

Drew: So I don’t understand anything happening here. I don’t like it, and I wish it would end.

Riese: I thought it was fine. I had a nice time.

Drew: So stupid. Look, I’m coming off the holidays and the musical episode, so I’m maybe grumpy still. But I’m just like, okay. I did gasp. And the fact that The L Word can still surprise me with their based in reality, not based in reality, twists is something, I suppose.

We then go to Alice basically going through her dating history with Tom to be like, “Okay, so if you’re not the one, who is the one?” Tom brings up Tasha.

Riese: Finally someone brings up Tasha.

Analyssa: Finally someone says it.

Drew: And we find out that Tasha ghosted?

Riese: That doesn’t make any sense. On the show itself, they were together for at least I would say, two or three years. And Alice says they were together for a really long time. So I’m guessing we’re looking at least five years here. I’m also assuming, because this is how things left off, that they are cohabitating.

Analyssa: Living together.

Riese: You don’t just ghost your roommate. You don’t ghost someone of five years because you think they’re getting too successful off of their podcast. Maybe their visions of life didn’t jive, but like what?

Drew: Yeah, I have nothing to add. I truly was just like, are we meant to think that Alice is being dramatic? And that Tasha broke up with her, and then moved out? And then Alice was like, let’s keep talking. And then Tasha stopped responding and then it’s like…

Riese: Right, which is what Tasha would do.

Drew: Yeah, that was sort of my mental justification. I wish I didn’t have to spend so much of these episodes justifying things in my brain that could just have been clearer. But that was my justification.

Riese: Tasha’s definitely the type who would have really firm boundaries. If Alice is like, well, we can still stay friends, Tasha would be like, absolutely not. I need space to move on. That’s how she would’ve been. But I don’t know. Does it mean anything that they’re bringing up, Tasha?

Drew: I don’t know.

Analyssa: I couldn’t tell.

Riese: I couldn’t tell either. Are we supposed to figure out, is Dana saying you’ve already missed the one, I knew them in a way, is this a clue we’re supposed to be decoding? Or is it just a thing that someone said and then it’ll be plowed over?

Drew: It’s also something, Alice’s brain… I mean, no offense if you believe in an afterlife and think ayahuasca’s the window into that, but it’s a thing Alice’s brain said through Dana.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: It’s also like… Yeah, I also don’t know if eventually… I mean, my guess is that eventually Taylor’s coming back. That’s my prediction based in nothing, is that Taylor comes back and we find out Taylor was a big tennis fan or something. And so that I knew you in a way, is that casual coffee cart-owning Taylor who just wanted to take things slow and Alice was going too fast, loved tennis and loved Dana. Or Dana was the reason why she came out, or something like that. That’s my guess. That’s my prediction.

Riese: Oh wow. Or she was Dana’s barista.

Analyssa: Yeah, there’s a ton of different ways to work she knew me in a way back, or they knew me in a way back into anyone’s backstory.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: “Oh, you knew Dana? Like I x, y.” You know?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Well, I hope it’s Lara.

Drew: Or Dana’s being a little bit transphobic, and it’s actually Jen Richards coming onto the show as Lisa, and Dana’s like, “Well, she didn’t know me when she was actually out.” And that could also be the explanation. I don’t know. I don’t know if Jen Richards would want to be Lisa the lesbian man on The L Word: Generation Q. I’m just casting her. Sorry, Jen.

Analyssa: For some reason I was like, what about Melanie Lynskey?

Drew: Oh yeah.

Riese: Remember that?

Analyssa: What happened to that character. Bring her back.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Oh, I would love that.

Riese: She’s like a little costume designer.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Melanie Lynskey. God, Alice had a lot of good… Like the vampire, Melanie Lynskey.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Analyssa: Okay, so they save the cat.

Drew: Very cute cat.

Riese: Really cute.

Analyssa: And they’re talking about how to rescue it and set it up in a home. And obviously Alice is going to keep this cat.

Riese: Kitten.

Analyssa: It’s too cute to not keep this cat.

Drew: No.

Riese: Did she know that usually people don’t put cats in TV shows or movies because they’re not that easy to train. And so they mess up takes by doing different things every time.

Analyssa: By doing cat behaviors.

Riese: By acting like cats. But I noticed in this episode that every time the kitten is in the scene, she’s being held by somebody. So she doesn’t actually have to make any independent movies… An independent film. The cat is not necessarily an independent filmmaker. She does work with major studios. But she’s always being held, right. She’s always being held. She doesn’t ever move on her own volition.

Drew: I really enjoyed that. Then we go back to the Fletcher Party. Dani’s putting Sophie in an Uber and very much trusting this Uber driver to be like, make sure she gets home. Who is this man?

Analyssa: I think it’s a town car.

Drew: Oh, that makes sense.

Analyssa: I had the same thought. I was like, why would you ever tell an Uber driver she might puke in the back of your car? And then I was like, no, this is…

Riese: Yeah, don’t tell them. Just let it be a surprise.

Analyssa: Yeah. Don’t tell them because they’re going to preemptively charge you for the cleaning fee. Which, honestly, don’t ever puke in the back of someone’s car, even if they are Uber. But, I think this is a town car.

Drew: Yeah. I forgot that rich people. But I was also like, why wouldn’t Micah and Maribel leave with her? Aren’t they trying to get out there quick anyways, to avoid their Michael drama?

Riese: Well, Micah still hasn’t met Fletcher.

Analyssa: Probably, good point.

Drew: That’s a really good point.

Riese: But Sophie tells Dani that she should go get it with Dre, thank God. But also it’s cute. I like that Dani’s caring for Sophie, then they say they love each other. She pulls her away and I’m like, I like this. I love this journey for them.

Analyssa: I like this dynamic that they’ve arrived at.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I also did think for one minute that they were going to set up a “may the best gal win” kind of thing. Maybe it was just the blocking, but the way they were looking at each other, I was like, oh my God, is this going to be a contest? And then Sophie is like, “You should go after it.” And I was like, okay. Fun. Growth.

Drew: Yeah. And then Fletcher acts as a sort of, what’s the right, like a…

Riese: Sage?

Drew: Yeah. And tells Dani that “Sometimes messy is better.” Which is definitely the lesson. Everyone in The L Word needs to learn. That’s the thing missing right now is… And speaking of things that are successful, Finley makes the lasagna and it turns out well.

Riese: What does the oven is too hot mean? Doesn’t that just mean you made, did you turn the temperature on too high?

Analyssa: Yes. Definitely.

Riese: Like, the oven, it… Okay. Sorry.

Analyssa: Where does Finley live now?

Riese: With Carrie.

Analyssa: With Carrie?

Riese: Yeah, for sure. Finley has moved in, right?

Drew: I was so confused about this. I didn’t know.

Analyssa: Okay, great.

Riese: I’m pretty sure that Finley has moved in.

Analyssa: But the doorbell rings and it’s Misty.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Who is bringing Carrie’s bowling bag back and yeah, doesn’t at any point offer any explanation for the conversation she had with Finley, which just drove me a little bit nuts.

Drew: If it is a too butch’s thing, which just feels very outdated. But I guess they’re older. But, could she could be like, “I’ve really only dated femmes, but I do like you and I want to see where this goes.” There could have been something where we got, but instead it’s just like, wait, why did you say that earlier? If you are now going to…

Analyssa: Yeah, because what does she say? She says like…

Riese: She said she’s not used to being chased. Which, Carrie’s like…

Carrie: Chased is funny because I don’t run.

Riese: Which I thought, again, was maybe that whole, “I’m the butch and I pursued the femme kind of thing.” Like that was…

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: You know, come on, let’s just say how we feel everyone. It’s 2022.

Analyssa: I just wish that Misty had been like, “I realized this about you, and that’s what brought me back to your doorstep.” And instead she just says, “I’m not used to being chased. Here I am.” And I was like, okay. What’s the middle part between those two? What’s the connection between those two?

Drew: Yeah. I don’t really get it. And then speaking of things, I don’t get, Angie returns home. Very sad. Angie’s like, “We broke up” and is like, “We did have sex, but then we broke up.” And I really thought the roommate was going to be like, “Wait, you fucked, and then he broke up with you?” Address it in some way. Be like, “what an asshole” or something.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Something to point us towards the fact that the show knows what is happening and it doesn’t feel like they do.

Riese: And she cries in her roommate’s arms. And I will say this is the first one where I thought, maybe could make out later.

Analyssa: I just don’t understand why they did this.

Drew: I don’t understand any of it. Alice asks the cat if the cat is the one. I mean, that’s what Dana did say, we have cat. And now look at… So maybe Dana predicted, this is what Dana was talking about. Cat.

Riese: Yeah. And she’s going to name the cat after Mr. Piddles. So in a way, Dana did know the cat because the cat is going to have the same name as Mr. Piddles. It’ll be like Mr. Piddles 2, or whatever.

Analyssa: Do you think that the Piddles 2 reference is a Sounder 2 reference?

Riese: Right, that’s what I was going to say. Which in my mind, is absolutely a hundred percent a throwback reference to Sounder number two.

Drew: I don’t think that’s a very good name. Sorry if you named after The L Word, your cat, Mr. Piddles. But I just feel like Mr. Piddles 2 feels like a really intense name in a way that I don’t enjoy. And I think that cute cat deserves better.

Riese: I love it.

Drew: Okay.

Analyssa: I want Alice to take this cat to the vet immediately. She got it so close to her face. I’m so nervous.

Riese: Yeah. Taylor’s eyes are going to be lighting up like switchboard if she comes over.

Analyssa: Then we go back to Carrie and Misty. Finley is like, “Here’s the lasagna. It’s perfect and beautiful and I’m going to leave you guys to your date.” And then they kiss.

Drew: Yes. And then we get a little sort of montage moment. We get a brief, but cherished moment of Micah and Maribel, I guess, what their definition of sloppy fucking is. It actually is the sexiest. The previous sex scene with them was very tender, which is very nice. We love tender sex. Love it, love it, love it. But this is the first time we’ve been like, oh cool, we’re watching them fuck. But it’s brief. And then we go to Sophie. Is she filling out a grant application while blackout drunk?

Riese: I guess she’s sobered up really fast. First of all, she yells that she could hear them, which is funny. It seems like she maybe started filling this out earlier, I hope? I don’t know. But did you pause and see what her previous…

Drew: No.

Riese: Her student film was called Conviction, and it was about the criminal justice system in LA. It was focused on former Attorney General Kamala Harris.

Drew: Huh.

Analyssa: Huh.

Riese: And also she has a undergrad and a master’s degree, which I didn’t remember.

Analyssa: Wow.

Riese: She went to USC for grad school. Actually, that probably has been mentioned before and I just forgot it.

Analyssa: Yeah, maybe…

Riese: Anyway, obviously I paused over and over again on this. But her little segment, the segment about the LGBT icons or whatever that she did for the Alice show was also on that resume, there’s something else that I don’t remember off the top of my head, but it was… There’s never a better time to apply for something when you are drunk and just fell in a pool. ‘Cause that’s when you’re really feeling like an artist, I think.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese:And that’s authenticity.

Drew: Finley texts Sophie, what does this text say?

Riese: Thinking of you.

Analyssa: Thinking of you.

Drew: Thinking of you. And then Sophie hearts it?

Riese: Yeah, she does.

Drew: Which is… Just don’t respond. My God, that is so brutal. That feels way worse than…

Riese: I was so happy for Finley. That Sophie heart it. It was the perfect response that was not giving her too much hope, but also not sending her on a spiral.

Drew: Wow. People are all so different. I would so much rather someone not respond to that than giving a heart. I would…

Riese: Oh my God, I would so prefer the heart.

Drew: Anyways. Finley’s mom calls. So that’s something we’re going to deal with.

Riese: Yeah. I’m like, they can’t make someone else’s parents sick, right?

Analyssa: I was going to say. I was like, her dad is sick, right?

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: But they just did that.

Riese: Or Mom is Carrie and she’s calling from downstairs to say, “You can clear the table now.”

Drew: That’s really funny.

Analyssa: “We’re done. Please load the dishwasher. Thank you.”

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Well…

Analyssa: And then Dre is skinny dipping at the party. There is a pool, the pool that was promised, and they are swimming in it. And then Dani comes and gets in.

Drew: Gets a little naked.

Riese: It turns out that, so Dre still has something with their girlfriend from Ohio and I’m not really sure. Them and their girlfriend were together since high school, right?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: But they’re still single, or they still identify as single.

Drew: It’s always unclear to me when The L Word is introducing something for the sake of…

Riese: Filling space or…

Drew: Yeah. I’m like, is that person going to show up and be played by whatever? Or is it just they just like to say things sometimes. I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. But the exciting thing is that Dani and Dre kiss. And I like these two together. This is fun.

Riese: I do too.

Drew: It doesn’t make me feel better. Look, I could potentially these two more than Dani and Gigi, which I know is controversial to say, but I still want to know where Gigi went and why she’s not on the show anymore. I really actually do Dani and Dre a lot together. It’s a really nice dynamic in a way that… I don’t necessarily know if what Dani needed was another sort of…

Riese: Power?

Drew: Yeah, I actually think they have a fun balance in a way. I don’t know, it’s a good balance. But I do want to know where Gigi is. I mean, that’s not the point, and I should just enjoy these two hot people kissing, but like…

Riese: No really, where is Gigi? I don’t understand. Are they going to tell us at some point? We all found out that Jennifer Beals was going to be gone for a certain amount of episodes. But are we going to find out what happened with Gigi? And I guess according to angry comments on Showtime’s Instagram, Gigi is an amazing singer. So, it was…

Drew: Oh.

Analyssa: Oh.

Riese: So it was like you’re do need to do a musical episode, but not with Gigi? How dare you.

Analyssa: Interesting.

Drew: Okay, so they’re kissing. The camera up from above. Beautiful shot. And that’s the episode.

So we have three episodes left in the season.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Does feel like they’re kind of still setting a lot of stuff up, doesn’t it?

Riese: Yeah, it does. Does feel like a lot of stuff is getting set up, especially because in episode nine, Bette and Tina will be back, and I’m sure taking up a good amount of space. So what’s going to happen next week? I’m not really sure. This is the first episode of The L Word that did not include Shane.

Drew: Oh shit.

Analyssa: Oh.

Riese: Yeah. I mean, besides her voice when Finley called.

Analyssa: Wow.

Riese: So, now Alice is the only cast member who’s been in every single episode.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: Whoa.

Drew: I can’t believe I totally missed that. Wow.

Riese: Honestly, I’m not a person who cares that much about sex scenes. And sometimes I pretend like I do because it’s fun to make jokes about, even though I don’t really personally care that much. But it is interesting to me that they are not doing any.

Analyssa: Yeah, it’s very noticeable.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Because I’m kind of the same about sex scenes. They’re fun to talk about and exciting to have in a show. They’re always more drama or whatever, but I don’t really feel emotionally or personally attached to them. But it is very noticeable this season that nothing goes on too long, and they’re really rare, and they’re often like…

Drew: I’m watching Gen Q exclusively for the sex scenes, and so I’ve really noticed it. I do think that one of Gen Q‘s strengths was its sex scenes. And I do think that despite the amount of queer characters on TV, outside of Vida and P-Valley. What is it with Starz? Really crushing it. Only one show at a time, but really there aren’t that many good queer sex scenes on screen. There’s a lot of queer media that focuses on teenagers, and a lot of queer media that has a lot of kisses and still is pretty chased. And so I do think there’s a real value and a real loss to the outwards sex scenes, and then now lack of sex scenes. I do think there’s a specificity to showing queer sex and the various things that queer sex can be.

I mean, that’s something that I always loved about Vida was that, I mean, I think that’s what I was getting at with bringing up Tom and Alice sex scenes and what they could have been is like, the straight sex scenes on Vida were always doing something interesting, too. People of all sexualities have sex in all sorts of ways. And I think also, maybe this is an assumption, but I do think queer people, even if they’re dating someone who’s straight, often probably will have more interesting sex. I just think queer people in general have been forced to figure out how to have more interesting sex. And so I just think there’s any character, I don’t know Misty and Carrie kiss, but it’s like…

Riese: Well, I don’t think Rosie wants to do sex scenes.

Drew: I know that. But then why is that still our only butch character then?

Riese: Right. It’s also weird because now, what’s kind of great is that this series, Gen Q, as opposed to the original, it’s mostly queer actors. And the longest sex scene we’ve gotten this season has been the only one that was just straight actors in it, which was Jennifer Beals and Laurel Holloman. Which was great, and they do great sex scenes together. But it’s just interesting that they haven’t… And then also they’ve started them, but then cut away. I wasn’t sure. I felt like if this was season one, we would’ve seen Dani and Dre having sex and we barely did.

Analyssa: Or Micah and Mari for longer. That was the closest to an actual sex scene. But it just didn’t get to breathe in the same way that they used to. I don’t know what’s changed. It’s very interesting to…

Drew: Yeah, we also didn’t get the context of them going from our potential new sperm donor we were excited about, now is too entrenched in the drama of our chaotic people in our lives, to now we’re fucking. I would’ve loved to have something more.

Riese: I guess we had Shane and Ivy, but that also was so brief. And yeah, I do think one thing that they’ve done consistently well is have sex scenes. And so I’m like… I know this happened in The L Word in season four, I want to say, in the beginning of the season four. There were just suddenly no sex scenes, and they were cutting away. It was obviously a Showtime decree of some kind that this was too much. Because this was like 2000 and whatever, 2007. But where is this a new dawn and a new day, and we have all kinds of freedoms and one of them is the sex scenes.

Drew: Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t if I’m just feeling… I think this happened last season. It’s happening this season, where it’s like, I don’t know if this show’s getting worse or anything. I’m just… When the show is not on, I miss its specific brand of whatever. And then as the episodes keep rolling along, I’m like, we’re not doing anything with this. And I just get more and more frustrated. And it’s not that this episode was drastically lower in quality than the first few of the season. It’s more just that I’m like, right, okay. So we have a big event. There’s some sort of mishap and chaos. And I know that’s television and it’s meant to be a comfort of hitting the beats or whatever, but I’m just always, I’m not caring about the characters because of how sort of confusingly written they all are.

Riese: I mean, I still enjoyed this episode. There’s a lot I enjoyed about it, like Sophie’s chaos. And I loved the Finley and Carrie stuff so much. That was such a satisfying next step for Finley when I was really worried that the next step was going to be a fucking relapse storyline. So I really have adored that. And there’s obviously things I don’t like, like the Angie and the professor.

But in general, I enjoyed it. I love Fletcher performing on the show. I love… I’s been a while. The original series always had queer artists performing, and we haven’t had that in a while. And Alice and Tom have great banter. But I am wondering, because I feel like I start every season with, even if the first episode isn’t that good, I still have this excitement about it. And I think maybe what just happens is we start to see where things are going and we get confused and then frustrated.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: But also, I lost my favorite ship last week.

Analyssa: So you’re in mourning a little bit.

Riese: I’m still in mourning, but so is everyone. People are either mourning Bette and Tina’s disappearance, they’re morning Dani and Gigi. There’s, whatever, 17 of us mourning Sophie and Finley. But there’s just, wow.

Analyssa: I enjoyed it. I feel like, again, it always happens that I get to the end of it. I’m like, okay, fun episode. Sometimes watching The L Word feels like hanging out with your friends who are in a relationship and they fight a lot and they talk to you about it and you’re kind of like, “Maybe we shouldn’t be dating.” And then they ask you to hang out again and you’re like, “Okay, yeah, because I love my friends.” And then you do it again. You’re like, maybe I should change my relationship to these people and then they ask you to hang out again. I don’t know. I still show up every time and I just wish that my friends were making choices that made them happier. Do you know what I mean? What at the end of the day, that’s what I want. And I don’t know if in this context, in this metaphor, that’s become really muddled if my friends are The L Word characters themselves or The L Word writers, but somewhere in there I’m like, I’ll keep hanging out.

But you’re right, Riese, that the runway of excitement gets shorter and shorter every week because there’s fewer and fewer episodes to go, so you are running out of time to be like, maybe they’ll do this thing that I really was excited about. Or maybe they’ll follow this storyline that I think is really interesting. ‘Cause I feel like we’ve had fun guest stars and we’ve had fun little flashes of possibility. But you do just get midway through the season and you’re like, okay, what now?

It’s like, sometimes when I go to a movie that I don’t know anything about, and you get a while in and you’re like, okay, these are the plot lines… That these are the balls in the air that have to land before they end, like before the movie ends. And when you don’t know what those are, that’s really hard. But when you feel like they’ve all landed already, like all the guest stars I’ve been promised have showed up pretty much and all, you know what I mean?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: All that has happened. I’m like, I don’t know where we go from here.

Riese: Yeah. I’m hoping that there’ll be some end of season twists that we aren’t anticipating in the same way that the Sophie and Finley thing happened at the end of season one, where I’m like, oh, my ears perk up. Who knows what that’ll be.

Analyssa: Group wedding.

Riese: Yes. Everyone marries everyone.

Analyssa: Everyone is married off in one of those big post-gay marriage legalization, like huge.

Riese: Queen Latifah marries everybody. Like in that awards show where she.

Analyssa: Exactly.

Riese: Okay.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Lauren Klein: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back: Generation Q Edition, one of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @ToLandBack, and you can also email us at ToLAndBackCast@gmail.com. Our theme song is by the talented Bee Steadwell, and our Gen Q logo is by Jax Co. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram @LaurenTaylorKlein. You can follow Drew everywhere @Draw_Gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram @analocaa with two A’s and on Twitter @analoca_ with one a and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle, and of course the reason why we’re all here, Autostraddle.com. And finally, to end this ep, let’s hear some keywords from our girlies.

Drew: 3, 2, 1.

Riese: Quince meat.

Drew: Quizzical.

Analyssa: Queasy. I knew you were going to say Quince meat.

Riese: You can just feel it was time for another Quince meat.

Drew: What did you say, Ana?

Analyssa: You weren’t looking around frantically enough for a word. And I was like, I know it. I said queasy because I used that word in a text recently because I got kind of sick on Christmas Day. And I was like, wow, that’s a great Q-word to have locked and loaded. And it’s also how I feel about Angie spending the weekend with that professor.

Drew: Yeah, I said quizzical because that’s how certain storylines on this show make me feel.

Analyssa: That’s a good one.

Drew: Thanks.

Analyssa: Okay.

Drew: I’m going to relax because it’s between Christmas and New Year’s and I don’t have that much work to do and I’m going to enjoy that.

Analyssa: The No Man’s Land of the Year.

Drew: Fun stuff. Okay.

Analyssa: All right, bye.

Riese: Bye.

“To L And Back: Generation Q Podcast 306: The Gen Q Musicale

Hold onto your hats because we have a musical episode! Not, sadly, a musical episode of this podcast, but this week The L Word finally graced us with the beauty of Rosanny Zayas voice, with the style of a 40s musical, and with an emotional gut punch of grief mixed with nostalgia mixed with TRUE LOVE.

Before all that happens though: Alice is taking her staff (and Shane!) on a work retreat to do some ayahuasca and soul searching. Alice, Sophie and Shane experience hallucinations that drop them into three different musicals as they seek answers to their most pressing questions! Will Shane finally realize she’s non-monogamous? Will Sophie figure out her sort of vague issue with Finley? Will Alice ever fall in love?! All this and more (namely, musical numbers!) await this week.

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SHOW NOTES

+ Riese’s recap of Episode 306
+Drew and Riese’s Transparent musical finale thoughts, for proof they are in fact defenders of the musical!
+ The bisexual velvet couch joke, which has also been called the gay velvet couch
+ Becky’s So Hot explainer from Riese!
+ Drew’s iconic Glee thread
+ Drew’s piece about queer women in movie musicals
+ Drew’s essay about Transparent that Joey Soloway cited at the musical finale screening!

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: I’m Analyssa.

Riese: I’m Riese.

Drew: This is-

Analyssa: Wait, when do I-

Drew: Generation Q edition.

Riese: No, I-

Drew: Is it because you both were thinking about singing it and then you didn’t commit to singing it? That was in my head. I had that thought.

Riese: I do have Bottoms Up, Bottoms Up stuck in my head, but we can talk about that. Great, let’s-

Analyssa: I’ve been thinking about making an imperfect harmony joke. Does that count?

Riese: I didn’t think about singing it because I’m a bad singer and no one wants to hear me sing.

Analyssa: I think that I am a bad singer who does think that people want to hear me sing.

Riese: Interesting.

Drew: I feel like one of you is lying to me and is actually a good singer.

Riese: It’s not me.

Drew: That’s my theory and I think it’s Analyssa because I know you like karaoke and I don’t know. I feel like you’re someone who is just exceptionally at least competent in everything you do. If you like karaoke, I have to imagine that you have a surprisingly great voice.

Analyssa: I think I have a charmingly average voice. You know what I mean? I’m selling it.

Drew: Like most of the cast of the L Word, Generation Q.

Analyssa: I’m selling it with feeling, which is actually I think what the cast of Generation Q-

Riese: Once more with feeling?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: I thought they were good singers. I guess we’ll talk about that in a minute.

Analyssa: I am so certain that this episode will have polarized us the most of any episode we’ve done yet. I’m certain of it.

Riese: The three of us?

Analyssa: The three of us. I think this is the one we’re going to be farthest apart on.

Drew: It’s interesting because I love musicals. I was a defender — Riese and I both on Autostraddle dot com were defenders — of the Transparent musicale finale. I went into this with hope, with dreams. To quote another famous lesbian musical, “Don’t shit on my dreams. It’s just my fantasy of what will probably be, but it won’t be.”

Riese: What musical is that from?

Analyssa: What musical is that?

Drew: That would be Girltrash: All Night Long.

Riese: Wow, wow, wow.

Analyssa: Do you want to tell us about this episode, Drew?

Drew: Sure, I would love to. This is episode 306, Questions For The Universe. It is directed by Nancy Mejia who we’ve talked about last week and it’s written by Allison Wong who was a writer on the unfortunately cut short fourth season of One Day At A Time.

This is her first season writing for Gen Q and then coming up soon wrote on Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies, which I’m so excited about because I love Grease and also I love the showrunner of that, Annabel Oakes. She’s one of my favorite people in the industry. I’m very excited for Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies, another musical television program.

Analyssa: That one’s going to be a musical?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: That’s fun.

Drew: It’s Grease and grease is the-

Riese and drew: Is the word.

Ana: Nice, guys.

Drew: Should we get into the episode?

Riese: We should.

Drew: Shane is having a foursome. She doesn’t seem that into it. I’m also wondering why she didn’t just call Ivy. I’m also wondering why we couldn’t get a hot foursome before Shane realized that she’s not into it. Please, for my dying crops I just want one full complete hot sex scene this season.

Analyssa: Every sex scene this season feels so-

Riese: Almost.

Analyssa: Cut short or like no one is having fun or just not quite-

Riese: Right, this is not the first time Shane’s invited girls over to have sex while she sits in a corner brooding and drinking alcohol and looking really unhappy because of a relationship choice that she made herself.

Drew: It’s her thing.

Riese: It’s her kink really.

Analyssa: This episode opening with the song saying, [music plays] “This dyke wants to go all night,” was such, there was no dipping a toe into the music on this episode. It was just from the start we’re making choices.

Riese: I for one loved Alice’s tracksuit.

Analyssa: Yes, not you for one, that’s all of us.

Riese: Yes.

Drew: Alice is on the phone with Sophie talking about a team building retreat that they are going on soon, which is very exciting. Then, we find out that, I mean we knew Shane was having the foursome at Alice’s place, but Alice is headed home and walks in on them and says, “That’s a lot of naked people on my velvet couch.”

Riese: Bisexual velvet couch.

Analyssa: That’s in my notes too. What a classic little bisexual moment. Do you feel like, Riese, when they talk about how the green velvet couch is bisexual do you think of your blue velvet couch as being in that family or what?

Riese: I think so. I don’t know what it means that I picked a blue one instead of a green one. I don’t know if that makes me more or less bisexual than someone who picked a green one, but I guess ultimately it’s really up to Wayfair.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Who am I-

Analyssa: To argue with the Wayfair-

Riese: To argue with the ways of Wayfair, an ethical boutique furniture haven?

Analyssa: Locally sourced.

Riese: Locally sourced.

Analyssa: Artisan.

Riese: Artisan furniture store, because those are the types of furniture stores I can afford to shop at.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Sure, speaking of smart shopping, Finley is looking through CarMax because apparently Shane and Tess are paying Finley well and now she wants to get a car and I love that for her. As someone who doesn’t have a car, I would love a car.

Riese: Have you tried CarMax?

Drew: I haven’t because it’s also gas and insurance. I’m not in a place where I can get a car.

Analyssa: My take on this is CarMax is paying Finley directly for this product placement of CarMax.

Riese: She’s an influencer.

Analyssa: This is the most I’ve heard someone say, “CarMax” in years.

Riese: Right, but it’s not a great sell for CarMax because immediately it is inconvenient for her to go see the car. Honestly, the scene, she walks in and Sophie is packing and she’s like, “What are you doing?” She doesn’t seem to know Sophie is going away for the weekend. What?

Drew: Riese, wait, what you don’t understand is that they need to justify the end of this episode by creating conflict that isn’t established in previous episodes. You forgot that.

Riese: It reminded me so much of Glee where they changed the whole plot of this relationship just because they wanted to use this one popular song in this week’s episode in a way that fit in with the plot. Finley seems to have wanted Sophie to give her a ride and Sophie is like, “Well, I can’t do that.”

Then, Sophie is like, “I won’t go on the trip. I’ll just give you a ride,” which reminds me deeply of things I have said in emotionally abusive relationships, which I didn’t think Sophie was in. Offering to cancel your weekend work trip to drive your– that’s what you do if you are in a really bad relationship.

Drew: It’s one of those things where this episode makes it so if you’re like, “Ugh, I would ship Sinley,” you don’t have an argument, but it’s who they are in this episode. I mean we’ll get to this multiple times throughout this, but I was like, “What?”

Analyssa: Right, and I can’t justify shipping Sinley in this episode, but let me convince you that the old Sinley, I did have a reason. I promise.

Riese: Also, in what universe? If you’re in a relationship with someone, especially someone you’re living with, you are acutely aware of their travel plans. There’s no relationship on earth. This is a suspension of disbelief that goes beyond Finley interrupting the wedding that Finley would not be aware that Sophie was going away for the weekend. What in the fucking hell?

Drew: Why not just have it be that Finley was like, “Oh, I thought you left tonight?” Sophie could be like, “Oh, well, I have to help Alice prep,” and Finley is like, “Oh.” It’s these little things that I’m like, “What?”

Analyssa: To not know about your live-in partner’s travel plans until the morning of, even last night they didn’t say anything about it. True, you’re right. It’s so much easier to be like, “Oh, I thought you were leaving in three hours. I thought you were going to drop me off in Reseda before you left.”

Riese: They even had to put Finley in a separate room so that she would be walking into the bedroom where Sophie was packing. At any point in blocking that, did someone think, “You know what? This doesn’t really add up, does it?”

Drew: I’m going to say something really brave right now, which is that I did improv in high school.

Analyssa: Safe space, but yikes.

Drew: I wasn’t the funniest person on my team or had the best jokes, had the whatever, but my function on that improv team in high school was that everyone else would be all chaos and funny, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I would justify these six different high school comedians with different ideas of what the scene should be and justified how it could all work together. I feel like The L Word: Generation Q needs someone to play that role to be like, “Yes, oh my God, great idea, I love it. I love it, more of this energy.” What if we wrote this one line so it makes 10% more sense?

Riese: Right, easy.

Analyssa: Also, the return to the Tess and Shane pattern of someone having a phone and texting in their hand half-heartedly and being angry, it’s not actually fighting. It just was the exact same. It was copy and paste from last week. I was like, “Oh, so they’re breaking up. This is the sign.” When you start texting angrily that means that you’re breaking up with your partner of a long time, perfect.

Drew: I will tell you this. I went into this episode thinking one of three couples were breaking up and two weren’t and I left this episode completely wrong about all of that. Shane says that she’s sorry to Alice and, as Alice is cleaning up, it’s very funny and blah, blah, blah.

Riese: I loved all the Shane and Alice stuff this episode.

Analyssa: As always, I love when The L Word characters are with their friends solving each other’s problems and goofing around. For some reason, as soon as they start kissing and talking about romantic relationships, I’m like, “Uh, hmm.”

Drew: Alice invites Shane to go do ayahuasca with her at her work retreat, which we’ll get to later, but I have questions about that. Then, we get to find out a little bit of plot about that. Ivy left because she got a job in New York. She won’t be on the retreat, which that’s the sort of thing where I go, “Yes, is that overly convenient? Sure, but at least you gave me something to hold onto.”

Analyssa: At least it makes sense that Ivy is not there.

Riese: They found a perfect way to bring it up. It wasn’t clunky exposition like Shane being like, “I can’t go. I hooked up with one of your coworkers.”

Analyssa: Excellent.

Drew: I do think that maybe a little bit less convenient of exposition, explanation would’ve been if she was like, “Oh, this is just our senior staff,” or whatever, which would also explain why you’re having, anyways again we’ll get to it.

Analyssa: Why are you comfortable doing drugs with your employees?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: It’s not a chill “we are doing drugs.” It’s the plan that went out on the agenda is that we are doing ayahuasca at a work sanctioned event.

Drew: Also, I just am like what if Finley was still working in that office? There’s no one else sober who works on the Alice show. It’s just a weird- I don’t need to think about it that hard. I get it, but it’s just weird that a show that’s trying to engage with sobriety would just casually be like-

Riese: It’s not.

Drew: “Oop, we’re doing a whole thing and we’re having, we’re just doing drugs.” I would love to do ayahuasca with Alice. That sounds very fun for me personally. It’s also just like why? I guess it’s because they wanted it to be like, “Alice, you think you’re doing this work retreat, but whatever.” It could have been Alice was like, “I’m taking Sophie to do ayahuasca because she’s never done it before. You should come.” I’m just so baffled.

Analyssa: Then, who would all of the background dancers have been?

Riese: Who would the background dancers be?

Analyssa: Answer that question, Drew.

Drew: Other people, other strangers on the ayahuasca retreat, I don’t know. I’ve never gone to-

Riese: It could be on the retreat.

Drew: I don’t know. All I know is that I would never want to do drugs in this environment because the group leader’s name is Mercury and she’s just this healer white woman who’s like, “Yes.” It’s satirizing her. I was like, “I don’t think I’d feel safe doing drugs here. I don’t think this is where I’d want to be tripping.”

Riese: I love that when they were getting off the bus and getting their little juices and spritzes and stuff the way Shane was acting was completely original series Shane, her walk and even her outfit. I was just like, “I miss this.”

This low key burnout Shane just feels like such a richer character to me I guess and her putting her arm around Sophie and being like, “Do it for the drugs.” I’m just like, “Yeah, I know this person,” and all of the dialogue. I love the three of them together because they’re three such strong actors and strong characters. I don’t know. I really enjoyed all that stuff.

Drew: I do agree with that. At some point in my notes right here, I wrote, wait, Taylor is really gone. One of those lines of dialogue must have convinced me I was totally off. They all are told to write down their intentions. Alice says, “Will I ever find the one?” Shane says, “Why do I blow shit up?” Sophie says, “Is Finley right for me,” a question that she didn’t seem to be asking until this episode.

Riese: I can answer it, yes.

Analyssa: Listen to us, yes.

Riese: Listen to us.

Drew: Then, Shane says,

Shane: “Please don’t let this turn into a musical”

Drew: ...which I will be screen capping and including on the Instagram post.

Analyssa: They did that for us.

Drew: We got our first number.

Riese: Have a nice trip.

Drew: I just wrote have a nice trip in quotes.

Riese: It did have really strong Transparent musicale finale vibes, but unfortunately I loved it.

Analyssa: Me too.

Drew: Wow.

Riese: I loved it.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: Here’s one thing about me. As soon as people are singing and doing a little dancey dance on their screen, on my screen for me I’m sold.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: That’s enough for me.

Riese: Bless it.

Analyssa: I am famously a Grey’s Anatomy musical episode apologist and they don’t even dance in that. They’re just singing pop songs. I love it. I love it.

Drew: I’m just going to say I’m going to try to not be too much of a Scrooge, but I really did think that this might be my least favorite episode of The L Word: Generation Q.

(Riese and Analyssa gasp)

Riese: My God, except for the Finley, Sophie stuff, which I obviously am deeply upset about, I loved it.

Analyssa: Me too.

Drew: I’m so happy for you both and I’m happy for listeners who agree. This is the reason why I was frustrated with it primarily because I don’t need it to be great. The songs are so generic and when I think about what I would want from an L Word musical it’s to have a few fun musical theater songs that I can listen to that have to do with lesbians. I think about something like The Prom, which I was a defender of, which-

Riese: I enjoyed that.

Drew: Literally-

Riese: Again, like Ana said, singing and dancing for me on my TV, I’m in.

Analyssa: I’m in.

Drew: “Note to self, don’t be gay In Indiana,” that song is so good because you have this thing where you’re like, “Oh, right, this is a gay musical.” To have an L Word musical where the songs, literally the hooks are, “Have a nice trip,” “You’re the one,” I need to choose myself,” these platitudes, it’s the same issue I had in the last episode with the Shane, Tess fight scenes. I’m just like, “Give me something. Give me something beyond where I couldn’t take this song and put it on any other show on television.”

Riese: Bottoms Up, Bottoms Up is gay if you think about it.

Drew: I guess so. Sure, but I don’t know. I just was so underwhelmed. None of these songs I want to listen to.

Riese: Sure.

Drew: It just feels like what a missed opportunity. I just-

Riese: Sure.

Drew: And it just feels like what a missed opportunity. I just think about four seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend where-

Riese: Oh God, what a good show.

Analyssa: Yeah, I mean-

Drew: It had at least one song that I listened to for pleasure on Spotify per episode, and sometimes there’d be three songs an episode. And not everyone’s Rachel Bloom, but it just feels like if you’re going to do a musical episode, why not… I still have songs from the Transparent musicale finale stuck in my head. There is not a single song in this episode. There are some songs that are better than others and there are some scenes that in the context of watching it I was like, yeah, sure, this is totally fine or good or whatever. But I just was so baffled by the decision to write original music if it’s not going to feel original. And so then why not just give us a fucking jukebox musical with gay recent songs? Let’s have Sophie sing…

Riese: Becky’s So Hot.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Sure. Whatever. Have Fletcher songs, have Kehlani songs, have songs with people who aren’t on the show. I don’t know. So that’s my thing. We can now move forward.

Analyssa: And I want to validate that quibble and say-

Riese: Yeah, you are right.

Analyssa: You’re not wrong. And now I would like us to move forward on my feelings.

Drew: Great.

Analyssa: No, I’m just kidding. But you’re not wrong. Yeah, they’re not super original. They’re not super exciting, but I felt like even from the jump that… I wrote in my notes, Leisha Hailey especially in the other side song is so committed that I was just like, I’m in. Her facial expressions, she’s selling it so much that I was like, great. Will I remember words to these songs later? No. Will I remember Leisha getting lifted over the head of a bunch of background people spinning in a circle? I might. I do right now.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I guess I’m being very music focused and not enough dance focused and character focused.

Analyssa: Or L word focused. This is like the house music come to life, you know?

Riese: Right.

Drew: That’s true.

Analyssa: It’s the soundtrack being danced to, which… I don’t know.

Riese: But they could have danced to, I Want To Dyke All Night, I guess.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: You’re right. You’re 100% correct. But it could have been better.

Analyssa: Yes.

Drew: It doesn’t even need to be Fletcher songs. I mean, that’s not Shane’s reference points. Imagine if they were doing slightly altered parodies of Indigo Girls songs.

Riese: Oh, yeah. Well, you know who writes songs… isn’t Leisha Haley?

Drew: Okay. Well, we’re going to get to that. Well, I’ll save that for later. But let’s move forward into Shane’s little sailor ditty.

Riese: Okay.

Analyssa: So yeah, Shane is dropped sort of on the town, sailors and dames kind of, Guys and Dolls ’40s musical. And Tess is a cabaret performer at Dana’s, which looks the same outside.

Riese: There’s a lot of butch sailors.

Analyssa: Yeah, there’s a lot of butch sailors ogling Tess and Shane is trying to get to Tess is the main crux of the song. And I think in this little pop of the musical scene, they pull them apart. They’re dancing together, they’re flirting with each other. It’s kind of fun. I like the style.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I didn’t love that Tess and Finley both drink in this weird fantasy world. It reminded me of Artie dancing with his legs in Glee… You know what I mean?

Drew: Wow. Yeah. Oh boy. Yes.

Riese: I mean, just why?

Analyssa: I’ve never seen one episode of the television program Glee.

Riese: Wow. I mean, if you liked this you will love Glee.

Drew: You would love Glee. I mean, I loved Glee, so I’m not insulting you. I watched all six seasons in the pandemic because of my thread that still sometimes goes viral and I’m like, oh, okay, I didn’t know things about Lea Michele when I was… Also, it was a pandemic and I was very alone and I wasn’t having sex with anyone. I don’t love that there is a bunch of thirst tweets about Lea Michele on the internet.

Analyssa: Yeah, but if you deleted them, you’d ruin the thread.

Drew: Right, exactly. So I’m keeping it, but just know that… Check the dates. Check the dates.

Analyssa: And then we cut to… Sophie’s drug trip scene is in a black and white sitcom like I Love Lucy.

Riese: Called Finley’s Home.

Analyssa: Called Finley’s Home.

Riese: So Finley’s Home is a sitcom about Finley, the man of the house who’s wearing an oversized suit and doesn’t want Sophie to talk, literally doesn’t want Sophie to talk. Finley says her boss is coming over and she’s up for a big promotion and she would like it if Sophie did not speak for the duration of the meal because then Sophie will say something stupid I guess, and the audience loves it. They love her silencing Sophie because it’s the ’50s and that’s what you did in the ’50s. You took Valium and you silenced your wives.

Drew: I did like that Micah and Maribel are the boss and boss’s wife to get them into it because I was a little bit like, are we just not going to have these characters in? So I liked the way that they thought that through. And then we get to, honestly, my favorite part of the episode, which is Dani as an old-timey TV director. Yeah, Dani has this whole Dorothy Arzner energy and I just was like…

Analyssa: She’s in a Katharine Hepburn type of oversized boxy suit kind of look. Yeah, Drew, not to step on your toes because I think this is your specific brand of horniness, but this did do a lot for me also. I was like, yeah, this is good.

Riese: Yeah, it was incredible. And I think the idea here is that Dani, they feel like it’s a metaphor. Dani’s still sort of pulling the strings in the background of Sophie’s life in some way, or it still has an impact on it. So this Finley calls cut, like has the scene cut because she thinks Sophie’s doing a bad job? There’s a really funny aside with Micah and Maribel here.

Maribel: I had lines that were stepped on?
Micah: I need more motivation to walk through the door.

Riese: It was a cute little aside.

Drew: And then this segment ends with Finley kissing Dani, which is the only time we’re probably ever going to see that.

Analyssa: Except for on the promo posters. Don’t they kiss in that?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Oh yeah.

Riese: And Sophie is astounded by this turn of events.

Analyssa: As was I.

Riese: That Finley is sleeping with the director. Problematic, but it’s the ’50s, and this is what you did in the ’50s.

Drew: Have either of you done ayahuasca?

Analyssa: No.

Riese: No.

Drew: I haven’t either. Well, if you’ve done ayahuasca, let us know. Do you pick a genre of media and then have a fantasy in it? Just curious.

Riese: I would love it if we did.

Analyssa: I would love to be in a 2000s rom com.

Drew: Yeah, I was thinking ’90s rom com?

Analyssa: That’s just a plot of Isn’t It Romantic though, isn’t it? She bumps her head.

Drew: I guess so.

Riese: I want to be in a gritty ’90s indie about girls who are bad.

Analyssa: Oh.

Drew: You want to be in All Over Me?

Riese: That’s fine. I want to be in All Over Me, yes. Speaking of Leisha Hailey singing.

Drew: Yeah. Alice’s fantasy world is a game show called Name That Flaw, and the drag queen Eureka is the host.

Riese: This is progress, they hired a real drag queen.

Drew: Yeah, look at that.

Riese: In the original series they didn’t.

Drew: I do know this. They go through all the exes. Tom, Alice says his flaw is:

Alice: Too conventional, wanted to get married too fast.

Drew:: Taylor…

Alice: Didn’t like me enough.

Drew: Nat…

Alice: Gigi, the answer is Gigi!
Eureka: The answer is always Gigi!

Riese: What?

Drew: Which seems the opposite of a problem.

Analyssa: When they said the answer is always Gigi, I wrote in my notes, so true and I wish the show felt the same way. I think the answer to everything on this show would be Gigi.

Riese: Right. And yet, that’s also not why they broke up. But sometimes I’m like, is this just supposed to be a joke or did everyone forget?

Drew: I don’t know. Yeah, I truly don’t know. And then I don’t remember what Chris Renfro’s character’s name is.

Riese: Daddius?

Drew: No.

Riese: Teddy? Teddy.

Analyssa: Teddy.

Drew: Teddy. Yeah, Teddy, which is confirmed that their character uses they/them pronouns, which is cool. And Alice just says–

Alice: Coachella!

Drew: Which I guess is funny if you’re like-

Riese: I laughed.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: 40. Were you going to say over 40?

Drew: Yeah, I was going to say over 40.

Analyssa: That’s a grownup joke.

Riese: Yeah, I laughed. Gretchen laughed.

Drew: I love that for you both. And then it’s like, oh, it’s the last person. And I was like, oh, it’s going to be Dana. And then it wasn’t. It was Alice, but fear not because we’ll get there. And then Alice is like, oh, I have to ask the audience and someone in the audience is like, you think you’re better than everyone. And Alice is like, whoa.

Analyssa: They start yelling her flaws at her so fast. I know that she’s trapped in a dream of her brain’s own making, but I would have exited the room, like immediate. The quickness with which the first person says something, I would’ve been like, I’m out. I can’t do this.

Riese: That absolutely is what happened to me if I took this drug. I would be in a room with people shouting my flaws at me, and I’d be like, I know, I already know I have a lot of flaws.

Drew: Alice lands on you push people away and then Eureka’s like, you win. And then it’s like, you have your perfect life and you have your perfect partner and the dream partner is Dana. And it’s actually Dana.

Riese: And that’s so wonderful. Oh, she went to a bunch of bedroom sets too, which I loved the set.

Analyssa: I did really like the set. Even while they’re going through their scenes, there’s those little signs like on The Price Is Right that say vintage dresser or whatever. I loved, I thought it was so fun.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I have beef with Showtime’s website, which showed me a preview of Alice and Dana before I hit play.

Riese: Oh, the press website.

Analyssa: Yeah, the press website where you pressed play, it showed Alice and Dana, and I didn’t know that this was happening, and I was like, is that what I think it is? And then when it started, I was like, I’m going to see what I think it was.

Riese: They only released three stills from this episode on their press website, whereas normally by this time they’ve released at least 10. So I was like, Tina’s got to be in this episode.

Analyssa: Something’s afoot.

Riese: Something is off here. You know what I mean?

Analyssa: Your L Word detective skills were tingling.

Riese: Yeah, exactly.

Analyssa: That show doesn’t get anything past you Riese.

Riese: I guess. Well.

Drew: I’m sure this is where we’re going to disagree most, but I just was like, I loved this as an idea. I love Dana coming back and I thought the song was so bland and I was like, I should be crying. I should be so emotional. And instead I just was like, this is awful.

Riese: Didn’t you think it was funny when she was like, “Do we have kids?” And she was like–

Dana [singing]: “No, we have cats…sitters because we just travel the world.”

Riese: Wasn’t that funny?

Drew: I guess. I just was so..

Riese: And their dances and their outfits.

Drew: Yeah. No, sure.

Analyssa: Their little booping each other around the set.

Riese: Alice’s pants.

Drew: I just think about all of the emotion that we have attached to Dana. Think about all the emotion Alice has attached to Dana. Dana’s return in song, it could be the most powerful duet I’ve ever… I wanted something more, but they kiss and it’s nice.

Analyssa: And it’s cute. Say it, Drew. They kiss and it’s cute.

Drew: It is cute.

Analyssa: It’s cute.

Riese: The aesthetics were just so delightful.

Analyssa: Yeah. I’m not going to disagree with you, and here’s how you know. I have so few notes about what they sing to each other or what they’re doing, but I was just like, okay, I’m watching my two moms dance around.

Riese: I think it’s amazing how they have to keep figuring out ways to get Dana back into this show.

Drew: Yeah. Imagine if Ilene Chaiken just hadn’t killed her.

Riese: Right. And I wish that they would think about bringing Jenny back to the show.

Drew: I know. That was something exciting. I was like, oh, well maybe this is… I mean, they’re not going to, but I was like-

Riese: No, because they don’t even mention her.

Drew: Yeah. No.

Riese: Like she doesn’t exist.

Analyssa: Yeah. Doesn’t come up.

Drew: Except that one line in episode one.

Riese: On the Pants podcast, Kate said that she thought when her and Max reunited that they would talk about Jenny, that that was the logical conversation topic, but that she couldn’t get anyone to do that, which was fascinating to me. She couldn’t get the writers to agree to that.

Analyssa: Interesting.

Drew: That makes me sad. I love old Jenny. I miss old Jenny.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Okay. So yes, Drew, I agree. I did not get emotional in this Dana and Alice reunion. I felt like warm fuzzies, but I did get emotional later with the reunion having had happened and then there’s the scene that kind of closes it out.

Drew: Yeah. There’s two songs here that I can live with and one is that one and one is the one that’s in this next scene where we go back to Finley and Sophie World and Sophie sings a song about how finally she’s going to make things about her and not just about Finley.

Riese: There’s a rap break.

Analyssa: I have in all caps, “RAP BREAK, LET’S GO.” I think that rhyming “speak for me” and “codependency”… I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: That’s inspired on a television musical episode. That is inspired writing.

Riese: I agree.

Analyssa: Thank you, Riese.

Drew: I wrote, “This song is also not good, but the bar is so low and Rosanny Zayas can sing so I admit, I’m enjoying this.”

Riese: When she started belting, I was like, my lord.

Analyssa: That’s a Juilliard trained voice right there, baby. That’s what that’ll get you.

Drew: She could’ve been singing literally anything and I probably would’ve enjoyed it.

Riese: Right. And I do feel like that’s probably why they made it a work retreat so that they could get Rosanny in it.

Analyssa: Yeah, definitely.

Drew: That number ends with Sophie deciding that she needs independence and leaves. And when she leaves in the fantasy, I was like, is she saying that she’s going to break up with Finley or that she just needs to set better boundaries? I was unclear because them breaking up felt so out of nowhere, but we’ll get to that. So then we go first back to Tess and Shane’s world and Tess is like, there’s one of you in every port, which I thought was funny. And also, Shane has to run away from these random girls and then-

Riese: I loved their dance. They were such good dancers though.

Drew: Yeah, that was fun. And then she’s on the roof and she’s like, Tess is in the car below. It’s like a metaphor where it’s like, oh, it’s dangerous for me to jump. What if I jump?

Analyssa: It’s scary to jump. It’s easier to be taken by these girls for one night. And all the background people are like, sex is just sex. All that matters is tonight.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: It was interesting because Tess is like, “And you’ll be with me forever.” And then Shane was like, “Forever?” And I thought, oh good. Shane’s realizing that she just can’t make long-term commitments. I didn’t realize this was actually leading to her deciding that actually she can.

Analyssa: Or wants to.

Riese: Although, she used to be married. Yeah. I thought that forever moment in Shane hesitating was Shane genuinely being like, you know what? Actually, maybe this isn’t the right relationship for me to be in.

Analyssa: I had the same thought. The way that she said “forever?” was like, oh, that’s what you want from me? That’s not my thing. And yeah, you’re right. I completely… didn’t forget, but it didn’t play in when I was watching this, but she has made a forever commitment to someone before.

Riese: Yeah. So that in and of itself should not be frightening to her. But that person never wanted her to open a second bar.

Drew: That’s a really good point.

Riese: But she didn’t want to actually have a baby and they broke up, so baby bar.

Drew: For babies who are babies and babies who are bars, Shane cannot handle it.

Riese: Bar babies.

Analyssa: Tag yourself. I think I’m a baby who’s a bar. Back on Alice’s game show set, Dana and Alice are talking and Dana mentions that she likes Nat and they discover that it’s because she reminds her of Dana, which I just thought was very sweet.

Riese: Yeah. So I think I teared up at three points during this scene. I remember the exact three points, but repeatedly. But they basically addressed the idea that Alice has just been looking for Dana and everybody and that she can’t really move on, which I thought was really realistic and resonated for me and that it all always comes back to Dana and that she’s never really gotten past that, which I think is an accurate portrayal of grief.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. That aspect of the episode I really liked. And this song was like… I do think Leisha really was giving it her all in a way that… And because it’s so poignant, this number worked for me.

Drew: This number worked for me.

Analyssa: Woo-hoo.

Drew: It wasn’t like I’m never going to listen to this song. I also was just curious because of Leisha Hailey’s history, why her songs were like these and not more riot grrrly. That could’ve been fun. I don’t know.

Analyssa: Especially because they’re already period-y. They’re from a different time anyway. But yeah, I agree.

Drew: I just feel like she can sing. I’ve heard her sing. I’ve listened to her. I’ve actively chosen to listen to her, so it’s like…

Riese: Uh Huh Her is my favorite band. It is one of my favorite bands. I’m not lying.

Drew: I believe you. I like them. I’ve listened to them, and so why not give something that plays to her vocal strengths instead of… I don’t think these songs necessarily show off what she can do best musically, but whatever.

Riese: Just so you guys know, Drew looks so mad.

Drew: I just was genuinely, as a musicale finale defender, I was really looking forward to this and really looking forward to having some songs to listen.

Riese: We listened to those songs for weeks afterwards.

Drew: Yeah, a couple songs in The Prom and the whole Fun Home soundtrack. What else do we have? There aren’t that many. I wrote a piece about all the lesbian movie musicals, and there aren’t that many.

Analyssa: There’s that one song, “Old Fashioned Lesbian Love Story” from Wild Party. That one gets solo played for me. I will just put that on.

Drew: Yeah, me too. One hundred percent. Same.

Riese: So at the end, basically Alice is like, “Is this the thing? You are the one.” And at this point Gretchen was like, “Oh.” Actually, before we started watching the episode and I was like, “I think Dana’s going to be in it.” I know as soon as Alice wrote, “Who’s the one” on paper, Gretchen was like, “Dana’s going to show up and Alice is going to ask her if she’s the one, and then Dana’s going to say, ‘No, I’m not the one. It’s someone else.'” And that is in fact exactly what happens in this scene.

Drew: I do wish that Dana had said there are multiple ones. That’s not really the party line of this season of Gen Q. It’s weird to me to suggest that if someone… I mean, Alice and Dana weren’t together when Dana died, but it is weird to me to suggest that someone being dead means that they weren’t your one. It feels like…

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: I don’t know. I just felt-

Analyssa: Again, it’s a very easy line tweak to be like, there are multiple ones. There can be other one… Whatever.

Riese: Or to be like, “Yes, I was the one, but I’m dead. So you’re going to have to settle for someone else.” Because that’s what grief is like too.

Analyssa: Yeah. It’s time to find someone who makes you happy in other ways like that.

Drew: Yeah. I may have been the one, but there are other ones. What a nice line I just wrote.

Riese: Because I do think Dana was the one for Alice.

Drew: Yeah, I agree. You’re not going to convince me. I’m happy with the conclusion that she reaches with who this person is ultimately, but that person’s your one? No, I don’t buy that. But Alice asks if they know Dana, and Dana’s like, “In a way,” and then Alice wakes up.

Analyssa: Right. I did tear up during that conversation.

Riese: Yeah. I teared up hard during that conversation. And then…

Drew: Shane jumps off the roof.

Riese: Right. And I was like-

Drew: And also wakes up. And then we get our final song, which is a reprise of the trip song. And then-

Analyssa: Reprise is a word that I read before I ever heard it out loud, and I always read it as reprise.

Riese: I always thought it was reprise too.

Drew: I think it can be both, actually.

Riese: Okay. Great.

Analyssa: Wow. Yeah, the two genders.

Drew: Is that wrong? I don’t know. Reprise and reprise. This was very funny to me. Alice goes, “In a way, you know her,” and then looks at Shane and leans in to kiss her. And Shane leans back.

Riese: Shane leans in. Shane goes for it.

Drew: Shane really tries to play it off like, you were high. I’m not judging you. And I was like, judging her? You leaned in.

Riese: Yeah, she leaned in hard. I did think it was a little bit in a way, Dana didn’t know Shane in a way. Dana knew Shane.

Analyssa: Dana knew Shane.

Riese: Directly, but whatever. It was the door. I genuinely laughed even though I’d already seen that moment in the preview.

Analyssa: I knew that that was coming and I still was like, nobody on the pod, nobody listening to this is going to be able to see it. But I was like shaking my head so fast like no, no, like in a joyful, delighted way. And Louis was sitting next to me and was like, what is going on over there?

Riese: I wish they had fully kissed.

Analyssa: I wish they had fully kissed just for fun. Just touch lips.

Drew: Just a little touch.

Analyssa: Try it. Just do it. Dani and Finley kissed.

Drew: Just spit in her mouth. It’s not a big deal.

Riese: Right. Remember that opening in the season five episode of The L Word where they were doing Lez Girls and they were trying different pairings of potential? And so, we got to see Bette and Helena and all these other weird combos. We need that back.

Analyssa: Yeah. Try some stuff. Hey, we’re already in an episode of trying and seeing what sticks, so let’s…

Drew: I think Finley and Dani’s kiss in that fantasy could have been a lot longer. I’m just thinking.

Analyssa: I agree.

Riese: I know. Was last year the COVID season or was this the COVID season?

Drew: That’s a really good point.

Riese: Good question. And Sophie being like, I have to go find Finley right now. I’m like, are you taking the bus, miss?

Drew: Yeah, like you’re on a retreat. What?

Riese: What’s your plan?

Analyssa: How much time has passed? What’s going on? Okay, fine. Sure.

Riese: You’re taking the Uber?

Drew: Who are you? Bette Porter? You can’t leave the retreat early. Come on.

Riese: I know, is she going to walk to the bus stop and scream with a bunch of strangers who are in Battlestar Galactica?

Analyssa: I did think it was really funny where Shane was like, “And I have to find Tess,” and Alice was like, “I don’t know how to get out of here,” and one of them goes, “Just up.” Like, stand. That was all fun.

Riese: Alice also tells Shane, “I saw Dana and Shane’s really happy,” and I only wish that Shane could have said in return, “And I saw Jenny.”

Drew: Yeah, that would be crazy. Can you imagine if Shane’s storyline instead of it being Tess, it was Jenny?

Riese: That’d be fascinating. That would be so interesting.

Drew: Yeah, I know. Also, we could get confirmation from Jenny. She could be like…

Analyssa: Here’s what happened.

Drew: Tina killed me.

Riese: Tina killed me. You have to help me. Tina pushed me off the balcony.

Analyssa: I actually, full send on crying from Shane’s reaction of hearing about Dana. Just the way, it actually reads, to your point earlier, felt like original L Word Shane. Like oh my God, really? All that dialogue really was like, oof. And then, that carried into the next scene, which is when Alice is going through her things.

Riese: For no reason.

Analyssa: She’s doing some post soul searching cleaning, and she finds the You Are My Sunshine flower packed away in a box, and there is this emotionally manipulative cover of You Are My Sunshine coming in. And I’m sorry, I’m simple.

Riese: I cried.

Analyssa: They want to emotionally manipulate me? They got me. They did it.

Drew: I felt like this was justified. I have a box right up in the corner of my room that has, it’s basically my sentimental box. It’s all my little sentimental things. The only thing is why is her book in there? But I was like, maybe it’s the first copy that was printed.

Riese: As everyone probably knows, because they’re probably really sad about it, I haven’t written a book just by me. There hasn’t been a book written just by me, but I’ve been in a lot of books and had copies of them sent to me. I’ve been in lots of anthologies and stuff. And I swear to God, those copies show up fucking everywhere. They’re everywhere. That was the most realistic part of this story for me, that somehow she had a random copy of her book in there.

Drew: Great. I mean, it makes sense that after that she would go through her box of sentimental things.

Riese: It makes sense that we cried.

Drew: That flower. Yeah. Wow.

Analyssa: I was full crying.

Riese: I was thinking about her in the hallway clutching the flower toy, which makes me cry every time still, even though I know it’s the most and emotionally manipulative thing this TV show has ever done to me.

Drew: So brutal. Then Alice is like, the one knows you in a way because Tom helped me write this book and it’s all about you and pushed me to write about you and be vulnerable. So then, Alice texts Tom, which I like Tom a lot. Tom has great second-

Analyssa: He’s funny.

Drew: A second one energy. I think if your soulmate died tragically young, Tom’s a great partner for life.

Analyssa: But he’s not the one.

Drew: No.

Riese: He’s just the one who was available to be in the rest of the season.

Drew: I see.

Riese: And that bothered me acutely.

Drew: He could be the one, but they never really sold us on it. The amount of time that Alice and Tom spent together, most of it was all about Alice’s having to come out as bisexual again and that whole thing. We didn’t really see them have a lot of passion. Have we talked about this earlier in this season of, it didn’t really feel like Alice’s sex scenes with Tom were hot, or were that passionate, or that she liked him that much. So, it’s a weird choice, but I’m excited that Donald Faison is going to come back.

Analyssa: But again, that is another thing that would’ve been helped by just a slightly different line earlier, which is the person you spend your life with isn’t always capital TO the one. The one can look like so many different things. Someone you’re comfortable with. There’s all these different reasons for them that they could have sold me on it in one line. I’d believe that Leisha Hailey’s like, oh yeah, him. I agree.

Drew: Also, of the people who are alive in Alice’s life, Shane is the one they can kiss. They shouldn’t kiss, but the one doesn’t have to be romantic. But this show has a very regressive, outdated, very television approach to romance, which is that there’s like you’re meant to be with your ex, your soulmates. It’s like Carrie and Big. It’s just a classic. It’s Ross and Rachel. It’s these this trope that I think is quite harmful, but we love on television, and they’re playing right into it. So it’s like, okay.

Riese: I think that the one should have been Helena.

Analyssa: Remember when we were teased a Helena return to this series?

Drew: Oh yeah.

Riese: Yeah. They had it on IMDB that Rachel Shelley was going to be in an episode, and then scrubbed it.

Analyssa: I miss her.

Riese: Making me look like a fool.

Drew: Wow. One thing about Donald Faison, Autostraddle writer Christina Tucker and my co-host for Wait, Is This A Date? says that the Scrubs musical episode is the best musical episode in television history. I’d never seen it, and I haven’t seen the Buffy one, because I only have seen the first five seasons of Buffy, and I only saw the first two seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, so I haven’t seen that. I really am not well versed on musical episodes, but just passing that little piece of info along from Christina Tucker.

Analyssa: Earlier when we were talking about musical episodes, I was going to say, I think potentially you have to have one musical episode that you go up really hard for, and all the other ones are kind of like, yeah okay, those are musical episodes, and this is proving that, like Christina going that hard for the Scrubs one.

Riese: Honestly, I thought the Transparent one was pretty great.

Drew: I really like the Transparent one.

Riese: Didn’t we watch it on a screener and then we went and saw it at a live screening a week later?

Drew: Yeah. I was so high at that live screening at The Wing, and Joey Soloway was there, and this is before I’d met them and worked for them. They mentioned-

Riese: Your essay.

Drew: In the post-show Q&A, they mentioned my essay about Transparent, and I was so stoned and I just-

Riese: So was I. I think I just looked at you like, I was like, are we hallucinating?

Drew: And then I was like, “I need to get out of here. I can’t talk to them right now.” And then, I ran into them a bit later and have since fully worked for them on a show. But yeah, that was such a funny moment. But the word boundaries, I still in my head sing it, sing it like the show. Anytime people are talking about boundaries, using that as a buzzword or whatever, I always sing it, which I’m not going to sing on this podcast, but you should look up the boundary song from the Transparent finale.

Analyssa: Maybe you have the secret good voice.

Drew: I really don’t.

Riese: Every time I’m on Sepulveda Boulevard, I think about the song “Sepulveda Boulevard.”

Drew: There’s a Transparent musical. It’s coming to the stage. It’s coming to the Geffen this year. Next year.

Analyssa: It’s in this season. Yeah, this upcoming season. They keep emailing me about it.

Drew: And let me tell you, this L Word musical episode could not sustain a stage musical.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Again, it was clear they had pretty limited resources. They didn’t have that many numbers. It was only a few cast members. “Once More, With Feeling” every single character had, even when they couldn’t sing, they found a way to make it work.

Analyssa: And for all of the drug trip themed set design, there isn’t a lot of musical theater design. They’re not doing huge production numbers. There is production and the sets are different. They built stuff for this, but they’re not huge moving numbers. They’re basically on straight sets, people singing out, which is great, but is different resources than something like “Once More, With Feeling” or the Transparent one.

Riese: For sure.

Drew: Then we have, Sophie arrives back home, Finley got the car, is like, it’s good that I do things by myself. It’s good that we take space, has gone through her own journey of like, we need independence. Which is maybe the moment you would think that Sophie would be like, wow, we’ve both been on the same journey. And instead she’s like, nope. She’s like, I’m not my full self when I’m with you. Okay. And then Sophie’s just, I end it. End it, end it.

Riese: Finley is surprised. And honestly, so am I. I get that the relationship hasn’t gone that well this season, but it’s also, we’ve just only seen… The whole thing with Finley and Sophie was that Sophie was her full self with Finley in a way she couldn’t be with Dani. That was the whole deal.

Drew: Yes.

Riese: But I think that this whole fucking thing is predicated on this absurd idea that Finley was away for 15 months and they did not see each other or communicate regularly, but they were somehow still betrothed. When you’re in your twenties, that long, you’re a completely different person. The fact that they came back and it did not seem like Sophie had done literally anything. Finley’s sober now, and it seems like is trying to learn more mature ways of dealing with conflict and stuff like that, but isn’t always succeeding in that arena. But what if Finley had come back and Sophie had started dating someone else and had moved on, but Finley was back and then she had feelings for Finley and then they had to negotiate? What was she going to do? Was she going to cheat on someone else with Finley? What if anything, what if Finley… I don’t know. Because this feels like Finley’s first year of sobriety, but it isn’t.

Analyssa: Right. And also, I don’t actually feel like the thesis of Sophie’s voice has been pushed aside or Sophie’s needs have been ignored really bears out. It feels like the thing that they did when they talked about Finley needing to get sober where it was like, there is a version of this I buy. If you had had Sophie say, “Hey, when we’re at parties you seem to go a little bit harder than everybody else and I’m worried about you,” or, “You seem to rely on drinking when you’re in a bad mood.” Those sorts of things that we had seen. But instead it was like, you’re ruining your life and you’re like…

Analyssa: You’re ruining your life and you’re like being a new …

Riese: It’s almost like you got arrested for a DUI, and that’s the only indicator that a human being can have on whether or not someone is alcoholic.

Analyssa: Yeah. And you’re like peeing in someone’s hallway. It’s like this such extreme behavior that is behavior that exists, but is not what we had seen from Finley before. Sophie’s life has changed since Finley has come back and Sophie’s life has changed in this relationship, but I don’t feel like in as dramatic of a way that they’re trying to convince me it has.

Drew: It’s literally the most classic. It’s telling instead of showing. It’s basic, basic screenwriter shit, and it is baffling.

Analyssa: Because they could have done a thing that’s like it’s been really hard since you’ve gotten back, or I realize that I don’t feel like you’re ever going to trust me and maybe we should take some time apart to figure that out. Or being with Dre was really easy and I’m in the market right now for something that’s easy. This feels really hard. All of those, I would have been like, “Okay, still out of left field, but all right, this just felt like in a math test when you do all those steps, but you get the wrong answer or vice versa.” I was like, “What?”

Riese: Right. You need time apart. You just had 15 months apart.

Drew: Yeah. I don’t understand.

Riese: You didn’t figure out how to be a whole person in that time. Why else were you not visiting Finley or communicating with her regularly if not for both of you to spread your wings?

Analyssa: Figure it out on your own and then come back together. Yeah, exactly. They’ve made such a point of being like they haven’t talked in the last 15 months. They haven’t seen each other at all. So, what was Sophie doing in that time then?

Drew: Like one weekend with Dre.

Riese: Standing still with a vacuum cleaner in the living room. I feel like she was just standing there, like she was in a Miranda July short story, just waiting, like staring into the middle distance.

Analyssa: And I do want Sophie to have her full realized life. I’m not trying to be like …

Riese: She’s not flourishing in this relationship right now.

Analyssa: Yeah, exactly. But I don’t understand why from a writing perspective, she’s not flourishing in this relationship. By all accounts, this should just be like, “Wow, I spent 15 months figuring out what it’s like to be on my own. And now, that you’re back, we’re bumping up against each other a little bit. How do we figure that out? Or we know that’s not going to work now, so we have to break up.” That’s completely possible.

Drew: Yeah. The issue is not that Sophie’s life is being consumed with Finley. We’ve seen her at multiple events. We’ve seen her at work. I don’t get it.

Riese: If she feels like she has to tiptoe around Finley because she doesn’t want to upset her sobriety or something, then I guess say that maybe.

Analyssa: Right. Exactly.

Riese: Just say that.

Analyssa: I mean, again, we’re always sort of doing this where we’re like, “Okay, I’ve been given the theory and now I need to fit the facts to go back and fit the theory instead of taking all the facts and ending up at a point where it makes sense.”

Riese: Yeah. I was so glad that they didn’t break them up when the season started, because obviously, I go hard for this ship, but now I wish they had. I wish that they’d come back and Sophie would have been dating someone else, or Finley wasn’t … I don’t know, anything. Sophie back with Dani. I don’t know, something that would be disruptive.

Drew: They could have Dre in more of the season.

Riese: Right. There’s so many things that, I don’t know, she’s not even living in the same house anymore. I don’t know. There’s just other things that could have happened. And instead, this whole weird conflict about her sleeping with someone else where they were on a break. Honestly, it has not been satisfying in any way at all. It didn’t really make sense.

Analyssa: And didn’t even come up in the breakup.

Riese: Right. And Sophie is lying to Finley about that and now she’s saying … Her framing like that, I can’t believe they spent this whole season just having them fight about Dre, which who I love. Dre is hot, we love Dre, but …

Drew: Who’s going to have sex with Dre? Is it going to be Dani? Is it going to be Sophie? Dre is coming back, right? Dre is going to be around.

Riese: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Probably for two episodes like every other guests.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Throuple. Let’s do another throuple. Let’s see Dani, Sophie, Dre. Finley can leave, I guess, because they don’t want to do anything with her. Or it can be Shane. I don’t know. Tess and Shane. Let’s just pair them off into throuples, because the coupling isn’t working out for the show.

Anyway, speaking of Shane and Tess, then we go to Shane’s house. She’s looking for Tess. She’s like, “I’ve had this amazing Ayahuasca trip and I’ve learned so much.” And I’m like, “Shane, for the love of God, can you go to real therapy? Not Ayahuasca therapy. Real therapy.”

Riese: Tess walks out of that glass store in her gown with her eyes red like a war widow.

Analyssa: Look at her. Look at her face.

Riese: Did Shane walk into that door and not think, “Oh my God, your mom just died?”

Analyssa: My notes literally say, Shane goes home, and then the next one is, “Did her mom die?” Like immediately.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Shane is not really, she’s in her own world. I mean, she probably was like she’s crying because of the breakup. She’s crying because of me, because I’m the center of the universe. And then Tess is like, “My mom died.”

Analyssa: Yeah. Here’s the thing. When Finley was giving that little speech when Sophie came back, I was like, “This is the speech someone gives on TV right before they get broken up.” And then when Shane was giving this speech to Tess, this is the speech someone gives on TV right before they find out that their person is going to do something completely unrelated to the issues at hand. And I was right on both counts, because I’m a genius.

Drew: Yep. And that’s the episode.

Riese: I can’t believe that of all the couples to still be together at this point in the season, it’s Shane and Tess. I would have loved see Alice and Taylor. I would have loved to see, I don’t know, Dani and Gigi. Wild idea.

Drew: Why are they breaking up everyone?

Riese: You can’t break up Dani and Gigi, and Sophie and Finley, and send Bette and Tina to the hinterlands in the same season, in the same first six episodes. Who’s still together, Micah and Maribel?

Analyssa: And put me through an Alice like fun new relationship and then totally sink it one episode later.

Drew: They don’t know how to write conflict that isn’t about cheating and about breakups, and there’s so many other things that people do in life, and I just don’t understand why. Obviously, the original series had a lot of cheating and a lot of breakups, but there was more stuff going on.

I feel like work for all of these characters is an excuse to have big events that bring the characters together. There’s no work problem. I think about Jenny in the writing class. I get that not everyone wants circus sequences. I do, but they felt like real people. They had things going on in their lives. I just feel like there’s nothing. I’m sorry, but I do not count the poorly written pregnancy storyline as something going on in their lives. It really is just so … This episode …

Riese: I mean, I loved it except for the Sophie and Finley stuff. Now it’s her time, because she’d been … Because it’s part of the whole thing that I don’t really get.

Sophie hasn’t been shining, but talk about that. Also, just talk about that. Have characters have disagreements about stuff and talk about them. And they don’t have to be about jealousy or cheating. Gretchen and I find plenty of things to talk about, to fight about, and neither of us have cheated. There’s so many things.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: And you’re not breaking up as a result of those one-off fights.

Riese: And we’re not breaking up.

Analyssa: It feels so young adult like a fight means a breakup. A fight means incompatibility, means a breakup. I’ll drag just myself how I thought about relationships when I was like 20.

Drew: I mean it’s why I didn’t think Alice and Taylor were broken up because the thought of them being broken up because of that interaction and that miscommunication about whether they were exclusive yet and the speed at which they took the relationship.

Analyssa: That’s fixable.

Drew: Yeah. It’s so fixable. Or at least give a shot.

Analyssa: That’s worth another conversation.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Wow. We all agreed with our point so much that we just sat in silence.

Riese: I still enjoyed the episode though.

Analyssa: I was just about to say one thing though is that they were singing and they were dancing.

Lauren Klein: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L And Back: Generation Q Edition, one of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter, @tolandback, and you can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com.
Our theme song is by the talented, Be Steadwell, and our Gen Q logo is by JAXCO. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram, @LaurenTaylorKlein. You can follow Drew everywhere at @Draw_Gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram, @analocaa with two As, and on Twitter @analoca_ with one A and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And, of course, the reason why we’re all here Autostraddle.com. And finally, to end this ep, let’s hear some keywords from our girlies.

Riese: One, two, three.

Drew: Wait.

Analyssa: Wait, I haven’t thought of … I haven’t thought of a single word that starts with Q

Riese: What about Quincy Jones?

Analyssa: Oh, that’s a good one. Was that yours?

Riese: No. I’m giving you … What about quincemeat?

Analyssa: The freebee is quincemeat always.

Riese: Anyone here for quincemeat?

Analyssa: Okay, I’m ready.

Riese: Go.

Drew: Three, two, one, quarterly.

Riese: What was I going to say? Oh, quit. Because that’s what everybody does to relationships in this program.

Analyssa: Nice.

Riese: You just quit them like in Brokeback Mountain.

Drew: Well, actually, I think in Brokeback Mountain, it’s that they can’t quit each other.

Riese: Right. And I wish that they would take that Brokeback Mountain energy to this show. Sophie would be like, “I wish I could quit you, but I can’t.”

Drew: Yeah. I said quarterly, because I listened to the entire Fun Home soundtrack and cry quarterly.

Riese: Whoa. Oh, I cried for Tess’s mom. I forgot to say that, even though I don’t care.

Analyssa: Jamie Clayton was crying on screen, so it’s like …

Riese: we cried too. Yeah.

Analyssa: I said quest, which I feel like is related to the drug trip. And also, I was really thinking of other musicals like the Camelot Musical and Lady of the Lake, and Sara Ramirez.

Riese: Oh, that’s also the name of an L Word episode.

Analyssa: Really?

Riese: Yeah. Where Jodi takes Bette to the lake house and then they throw her in the water.

Drew: Okay. That is actually one of my least favorite episodes as well, because it drives me nuts that Bette ruins the best relationship in the show’s history. That’s also one of my … It is good to remember that I had plenty of complaints about the original. Oh, Jodi. Jodi, Jodi, Jodi.

Analyssa: Not a perfect show. Just a show I love to watch.

Drew: Isn’t that the truth? I don’t know if that was true this week as far as love to watch.

Riese: I did. I loved watching it.

Analyssa: I loved watching it.

Drew: I’m so happy for you both.

Riese: Drew, looks like she’s about to pass out.

Drew: I was tired today. Maybe I’m grumpy.

Riese: You do seem a little grumpy.

Analyssa: Yeah, we’re losing you.

Drew: I mean, my birthday is in a few days. But when this episode comes out, the episode about the podcast, my birthday will be gone. And right now, my birthday hasn’t happened yet, so I should be in a good mood because it’s my birthday week.

Analyssa: It’s so true.

Drew: Feel free to wish me a happy belated birthday when you listen to this podcast. Not on my social media or anything, but just in your heart. You just think like, “Wow, it’s Drew’s birthday two days ago. Happy birthday, Drew.”

Analyssa: That’s so cute.

Drew: Thanks.

Analyssa: All right. I love that for everyone in advance of them doing it.

Riese: You’ll feel it in LA.

Analyssa: I’ll feel it.

Riese: All right.

Analyssa: Okay guys.

Drew: Okay. Bye.

Riese: Peace out, LA.

To L And Back: Generation Q Podcast 305: Gay Bees and Dating Your Exes’ Exes

Well well well we are halfway through the season, and things are getting heated! Not necessarily in a sexy way, I should say, but in more of a fighting and fire alarm and first kisses kind of way. Alice and Taylor are arguing in a movie theater, Shane and Tess are arguing on a balcony, and Sophie and Finley are only not arguing because the fire department is on their way!

We’re also getting a little heated on the pod this week! Not necessarily in an angry way, but (hopefully) in more of a sharing our thoughts about writing and representation kind of way. Halfway thru the season check-in: how’s everybody feeling? Heated? Chillin’?

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ Riese’s recap of Episode 305: Locked Out
+ Drew keeps using her intro for her other podcast, Wait, Is This A Date?
+ Check out the calendar month for Carmen LoBue!
+ Alice is actually reading an old Margaret Cho book, I’m The One That I Want
+ Sa’iyda’s interview with Jacqueline Toboni!
+ Drew’s new interview with Daniel Sea!

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And welcome to … Nope, this—

Analyssa: Do you say, “Welcome to,” on Wait, Is This a Date?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Oh, do you want to just do, Wait, Is This a Date?

Drew: This feels fun. Should we keep this? And this is To L and Back Generation Q Edition.

Riese: Well, but we’re all supposed to say it.

Drew: Okay. And this is…

Riese: To L and Back.

Drew: To L and Back Generation Q Edition.

Riese: Generation Q Edition.

Analyssa: Generation Q Edition.

Drew: Wow. Excellent work. We are virtual for the first time this season because it’s holidays and so people are in various places, and yeah. Should we talk about The L Word program?

Analyssa: Yeah, let’s talk about The L Word TV show on this TV sets.

Drew: Great. This is episode 305, Locked Out. It’s directed by Nancy Mejia, who has been writing on the show from the beginning, and wrote on Vita and then directed an episode of Vida in season two. And now this is her first episode directing on Gen Q
And I just want to shout out Tanya Saracho, who’s the showrunner and creator of Vida, because Nancy Mejia was a first-time writer on Vida. So having your first-time writer in the second season, only the second season, directing an episode is a very cool thing to do.

And now that has allowed, three seasons in, for her to direct this episode and also direct an episode of The Chi. So I don’t know, that’s just a cool thing and I love Vida and I love Tanya Saracho.

And then it’s written by Melody Derloshon and Nina Kim. Melody Derloshon, been writing on the show the whole time. We’ve talked about her many times. And Nina Kim, this is her first episode of television, which we love.

Riese: Amazing.

Drew: Yeah. Personally, there are things in this episode that the show’s doing that annoy me, but
scene to scene, I thought this was such a well-written episode and such a well-directed episode. And I just was like, I don’t know. I feel like there were more jokes that made me laugh. There were more just like, I don’t know. I liked it. I liked it. Good work, everyone.

Riese: Great job, everybody.

Analyssa: And that’s the episode for this week.

Drew: Honestly, I’m saying this because I think even when shows are bad, celebrating the talent that makes them better is worth it. Especially when they are not as super experienced. So that’s actually my take. But okay, so let’s, let’s get into the episode. Go scene by scene maybe and sort of discuss it-

Riese: Reiterate it.

Drew: Yeah, as we go. It could be a fun thing to try out this week.

Riese: For me, what I like to do personally, is I like to watch the whole episode, take screen caps of every second, write a full recap of it with captions for every picture. I like to take at least three days to do this. And then once I’m done with that, I like to hop on the podcast and talk about it scene by scene with both of you. And then share that with the world and then listen to the podcast to give edits on it and then do that.

Drew: Wow. That’s a lot of work for one episode.

Riese: It is.

Drew: Do you think you do more work on each episode of The L Word than anyone who works on The L Word?

Riese: The only way I could find out for sure would be if they hired me to write for The L Word.

Drew: That’s a really great point.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Okay. So this episode begins with Alice and Shane planning on doing one of my favorite pastimes, going to a movie. And Alice asks Shane not to be late. So I bet, I think something might happen.

Riese: Someone’s going to be late. Alice’s sweater is cute.

Analyssa: Is that the big striped one?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah, that’s a good one.

Riese: I usually wear less nice clothes to the films, to the cinema though, because I don’t want to get buttered popcorn on my clothes.

Analyssa: Don’t you think that’s Alice’s least nice sweater, probably?

Riese: Probably, yeah. I mean as we’ll discuss, apparently she’s a huge star who always is impeccably everything, so, you know what I mean? And Shane is packing stuff up and you might think it’s because she’s moving out, but it’s ’cause Patty’s moving out.

Drew: Yep. And there’s a bee and Tess is freaking out about it and there’s just an incredible CGI bee. And it chases—

Riese: How do you know it wasn’t a real bee?

Drew: Do they use real bees? I would imagine not.

Riese: Well, I hope if they did, if it was a real bee that it was gay.

Drew: Yeah. It’s really important that we have gay bees.

Analyssa: They put out a casting call that was like, “Queer please.”

Riese: I hope it was a trans bee. But the character was cis, the character of the bee was cis.

Drew: I mean, that’s the next step for bee representation.

Riese: It absolutely is. Yeah. That’s forward thinking. That’s like the new queer avant garde.

Drew: I’ve been really hush about that all season, we’re circling back around on two different occasions this episode for me to free talk about this. But basically what it does is it results in Shane and Tess being locked out, the title, on the balcony. And you know what? I love this trope. Every, give me your blackouts. Give me your-

Analyssa: Stuck in an elevator.

Drew: Stuck in an elevator.

Riese: Love that. Yes.

Drew: I love it. And every time it happens in my real life, I go, “Oh, I’m in that episode of the sitcom.” And sometimes it doesn’t, nothing interesting happens, but sometimes it does. And I go, “Wow, that was a good episode of the sitcom of me.”

Riese: It happened in an episode of New Amsterdam yesterday. I watched this yesterday. They had a snowstorm, a blizzard, a blackout, and people stuck in an elevator.

Drew: Oh my God. That’s a trifecta.

Riese: Yeah. The disaster trifecta. What a treat. Yeah. So now they have to talk. ‘Cause before they weren’t talking.

Drew: Yeah. And it’s also very enjoyable to watch Shane try to get a dog to open a door. I would’ve watched an hour of Shane being like “Mac, Mac, Mac, Mac.”

Riese: I didn’t realize Patty was already gone. And it doesn’t necessarily make sense that she was, ’cause I believe we’re trying to act like this is the next day. Again, I’ll deal with the timeline at the end of the season.

Drew: Please do this on your own time, Riese.

Riese: But first, I was like, “Oh no, Patty’s stuck in there and they’re not going to be able to help her.” But then I realized that she wasn’t there.

Drew: Speaking of people who are stuck, Angie is stuck in this weird power dynamic with her professor who’s now asking her if she wants to go away with him. I do not like it.

Riese: No. I think that she should say yes and then they should go drive to a cliff and she should push him off it.

Analyssa: Oh, I don’t…

Drew: Sure. Yeah. Okay. That seems very-

Riese: Just kidding.

Drew: I’ve thought about it.

Riese: Just kidding. No, no, just kidding. I don’t think she should, I don’t think that this man should die, obviously. He’s a perfectly nice man. I just don’t think he should be dating Angie. I think he should maybe date someone in his, a different person who’s not his student.

Drew: I don’t think he should die, but I don’t think he’s necessarily a perfectly nice man. I think he thinks he’s a perfectly nice man.

Riese: Fair. Yeah, that’s true.

Drew: I think that’s a very important part of his self image.

Riese: Yeah. I feel like this is endemic of writers, male writers. They think they’re so sensitive and so in tune with the world and emotions and sadness and poetry that the rules don’t apply to them. Do you know what I mean?

Drew: Yeah. I blame decades of Woody Allen movies.

Riese: Yes, exactly. Yes. It’s the Woody Allen scenario.

Analyssa: Which is why this plotline is almost less interesting to me. It’s like this is so cliché. I’ve seen this.

Riese: Boring, yeah.

Analyssa: What’s not cliché is this storyline with the little roommate who comes in and is like, “Okay, I’ve been hooking up with this guy. Let’s not get into the details, whatever. A condom is stuck inside me.” And immediately I was like, “Angie’s going to have to get this out. There’s no other end to the story.” I also lived in a sorority house in college, whatever, we don’t need to talk about that. But there are many stories of this kind of thing where people would come home and be like, “I’ve got something going on and I need somebody else to handle it for me. I can’t see what’s happening.”

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Finley and Sophie are doing their, “Well, we want to talk about Dre, so we’re going to talk about Dre details.” Finley says that Dre’s a hot person’s name and Sophie says that they’re not hot, which is—

Riese: Which we all know is a lie.

Analyssa: I don’t believe that for a second.

Drew: Why would you say… Also, I don’t understand why Finley says that it makes, why would it make you feel better to know that you’re…

Analyssa: Oh, you have a weird thing about this though, don’t you?

Riese: Yeah, I was about to say, I have a feeling like I’m going to disagree.

Analyssa: Drew has a thing about this, I feel like. About when you want your exes to have dated only other hot people because otherwise it… Haven’t you talked about this before?

Drew: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I want to be in the group of people that you’re hooking up with and we’re all hot people. If you’re hooking up with someone ugly… What I would love in this scenario, I mean, I might just trust that Sophie loves me and it doesn’t matter and whatever. Maybe I have a different relationship to non monogamy and other things. Anyways. But if I’m trying to be in Finley’s experience, if Sophie was like, “Dre was super hot, but very boring and whatever.” I’d be like, “Cool. That checks out. You hooked up with someone who…” Anyways, what’s more suspicious to me is Sophie saying that they only slept together once. And it was like-

Riese: Right, because Mari referred to them as this person you were sleeping with.

Analyssa: Yeah. Also, just the whole having to go question by question thing. I was already just kind of on edge about, it just feels like things are getting sort of obscured for the sake of not hurting Finley’s feelings anymore.

Drew: Yeah. Just start from the beginning. Be like, we met—

Analyssa: Just tell me what happened.

Riese: Also how hard would it be for Finley to find Dre out in the world? As we learn, not that hard. But also on social? We’re already suspending our disbelief that Finley hasn’t already looked this person up on social media because social media doesn’t really exist on The L Word. But there’s no way that Sophie’s going to hide Dre from Finley indefinitely.

And also pretty much everyone is hot. So the chances that Dre is hot are pretty high just statistically speaking when you look at the world of the not cis men dating pool. Because cis men are not always hot, but most other people are.

Analyssa: Also this is sort of edging in on Drew’s point, but you wouldn’t hook up with someone who you’re like, this person is not hot to me. So what does it matter? I get that Finley is hurting, but even the question of “Were they more charming than me?” Let’s not get into that. Do you want to know the details or is it a competition?

Riese: That is what people ask though.

Analyssa: Oh, definitely.

Drew: Also I’m sorry but we meet Dre and Dre isn’t like, “Oh, Dre’s hot.” Dre’s hot. It’s not like, oh different tastes, different whatever. There are people where for sure, like if you’re a listener and you do not find Dre hot write in because I’m fascinated by you. But this whole talk doesn’t feel like it’s being done well.

Riese: Right. I’m not sure, we obviously know Sophie’s lying about Dre being hot. But are we supposed to think that Sophie’s telling the truth about their time together? Because I got the feeling that we were.

Analyssa: Yeah, I don’t know what we were supposed to think, but I didn’t feel like I was hearing the whole truth.

Riese: Right, and why? Just tell the whole truth. You were allowed, you were on a break.

Drew: You were on a break.

Riese: Tell the whole truth.

Drew: Yeah. I also am not sure. It definitely felt like, I don’t know if it said Sophie’s so used to not telling the truth that she’s having a hard time telling the truth, but that doesn’t even… I mean, I know that’s what they want me to think, but I’m not buying it.

Analyssa: Well, but Sophie says that she has kept all this from Finley anyway because Finley’s been doing so well and Sophie doesn’t want to mess that up. So I wonder if that’s part of it too.

Riese: Like protecting, not wanting to upset the delicate balance of Finley’s sobriety.

Drew: By the time Finley’s being like, “I want to hear everything,” it’s like, respect Finley enough to trust her and to know that if you’re not honest, it’s going to screw you over when Dre happens to be at Dana’s later. Just saying.

Analyssa: Just in case you happen to see… Every time I go to a queer bar, I assume I’m going to see an ex or an ex-hookup. So they should just be planning for that eventuality anyway. I don’t know.

Drew: Absolutely.

Riese: I went to Dana’s once and saw an ex, so.

Drew: Oh God. I remember that.

Analyssa: I went to Ginger’s in Brooklyn the last time I was in New York by myself for a random night and ran into, not an ex, but someone who mistook me for my ex. And I was like, “Cool.”

Drew: Wow. I love Ginger’s.

Analyssa: I know, me too. I love it there.

Speaking of revealing truths, Micah has told his mom about his relationship with Maribel. They decide that they’re going to celebrate by either, by doing one of two activities that sound both really not celebratory to me, but okay. I’m happy for them.

Riese: Oh, they sound fantastic to me.

Analyssa: Oh man.

Riese: Organizing the Tupperware drawer or picking a sperm donor. But I thought this was a really cute scene with them when they were like, “Can we be in bed by eight?” That was adorable.

Analyssa: It was really sweet.

Drew: Yeah. Boring people deserve to be on TV also, even if I don’t relate.

Riese: I really did. I love the idea of being in bed by nine, if only I didn’t have insomnia.

Drew: A couple that is not doing as well as Micah and Maribel is Tess and Shane who are now talking about it. The first thing I wrote obviously, and I’m so glad we find out the answer to this is, wait, is Alice going to be alone at the movie? Which we’ll get back to that. But Tess is like, “I knew about your reputation. Everyone in this town except Finley knows about your reputation. Why did I think you were going to be different?”

Yeah, I don’t know. It’s fine. It’s a fine scene. I don’t necessarily think that that much interest… I mean it is the first part of a longer conversation and throughout this whole thing I was just feeling like, “Oh, you know what would be so interesting is if Tess was trans and she had feelings about Shane cheating on her with a cis woman.” Like Kehlani doesn’t identify it that way. But I think Ivy’s supposed to be a cis woman and either way. So there’s a lot of feelings that could come up. What an interesting thing that could be? And as is, I’m just sort of like, “I’ve seen this before.”

Riese: It was funnier before, because Carmen had a fire extinguisher and was screaming about birds. That was far more entertaining.

Drew: Right. There are moments and we’ll keep returning to this where I’m like, “Oh, is it going to go somewhere new, somewhere interesting?” And it never really does.

Riese: It really doesn’t. Yeah, I know it’s hard to talk about because also I don’t remember specifically what they talked about in each scene. But that kind of speaks to the nature of the conversation in that we didn’t really get a lot of new information. Like you were saying that if Tess was trans, that would’ve deepened the conflict or just given them more to work with.

And I felt like there was a lot of generalities and big, broad statements. If I was editing this short story, I’d be like, “Give us a detail, give us a specific detail. Tell us exactly what you envisioned for your future together. Tell us about a time when you thought things would be different. Tell us about anything you’ve done together over the past year? Or when did you stop being happy? Tell us a story. Give us a full story.”

The original series did this too. Just skating on the surface of things instead of digging into the details of it. And I don’t know why it’s always like this, but I just wish they got a little bit more real. Thank you for listening.

Analyssa: I loved it.

Well, speaking of getting real. As suspected, we’re back at college and the roommate, what is her name? Bella?

Riese: Bella.

Analyssa: Bella, but not from Twilight. That’s what you said last week, right?

Riese: Oh wait, no, I said it was Bella. It was Bella from Twilight.

Analyssa: Oh, you said it was Bella from Twilight.

Riese: Yeah, so it is Bella Swan, but she’s different. She looks different now and she’s in
college and she’s obviously not dating the vampire because he would’ve freaked out if she’d hooked up with the baseball player.

Analyssa: Unless it’s him when they play baseball in that scene, his family.

Riese: Oh yeah, that would’ve been fun.

Drew: And vampire condoms are bigger and that’s why they get stuck.

Riese: Yes, exactly.

Analyssa: The one funny thing from this scene is her saying, “I can’t tell what’s a condom and what’s me.” What an insane series of words together. It’s just very funny. But again, these are little pops of the scene with them kind of. The whole time. They’re just trying to get this out of her.

Riese: Honestly, I was bummed because it does seem like from this that Bella is straight. If she’s queer it’s definitely not, it seems like she’s straighter, at least at this point. Don’t you think?

Drew: No.

Riese: You think Bella’s queer?

Analyssa: Like a flirty thing between the two of them, Drew?

Drew: Yeah, I… No?

Analyssa: No, I don’t think that’s going on. I know what you’re pointing out, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on.

Riese: Right, there was a moment when I thought maybe, but I thought, no. Not because it couldn’t be there because also I think that Jordan is just good at having chemistry with other actors. But because it just felt like this is not where they’re going to go with this character.

Drew: That’s what I thought initially. There’s a moment later on that we’ll get to where I was like… I mean, look, straight girls flirting with a queer girl, that’s not unheard of. So the moment later where I’m like, “That feels a little flirty.” Also, I think maybe just girls talk to each other that way. I’ve never been a straight girl.

Riese: Yeah, I think it felt to me like a straight girl and her friend in college and I just would love Angie to talk to even just one gay person in college and I was hoping it would be her roommate.

Analyssa: You can find a lot of them at college, sometimes a lot more than you were used to.

Riese: Yeah, especially at California University with their legacy of Jodi Lerner, Bette Porter, Phyllis Kroll. A long legacy of big queer minds at that institution.

Drew: Speaking of big queer minds, Dani is listening to a voicemail from Roxy about, so Roxy’s gone and then all of a sudden I immediately, I think because images were released earlier, I knew it was Dre. Dre saves Dani from a scooter. Those scooters.

Riese: Those scooters.

Drew: They can be dangerous.

Analyssa: I hate those fucking things. I hate them.

Riese: But they’re so good for transportation for people.

Analyssa: Yes, I am certain that they are useful, especially in a city like Los Angeles that does not have good public transportation. On a personal level, I hate them.

Drew: Dre says, “I feel like I should kiss you, but we’re not in a romcom.” And Dani then kisses her.

Riese: I loved that.

Drew: I loved it. I was a fan.

Riese: I was like, “Let the romcom begin.”

Analyssa: Yeah, who says we can’t be in a romcom? Also, Dani is coming off a breakup and coming off having hung out with her friend who it seems like have always had some weird sexual energy maybe and nothing happened. I don’t know. Get wild girl, go after it.

Riese: This is when I can say that the actor who is playing Dre, Autostraddle used to do a calendar every year. We would do a calendar every year and we would have a different model every month.

Analyssa: That’s how I found Autostraddle the first time.

Riese: Oh really? Through the calendar?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Oh, right. Because your friend was in the calendar.

Analyssa: I knew someone at my college who was in one of the calendars, and it was the first time I’d ever heard of Autostraddle. And then I started reading your Faking It recaps, which is how I eventually became sucked in.

Riese: Those are really good. If I could just celebrate myself for a minute.

Analyssa: I don’t miss watching the <emFaking It show, but I miss reading the Faking It recaps the day after.

Riese: Thank you so much. That means so much to me. But Carmen, this actor, was the March calendar model of our very first year. So I was like, “Oh my God, they’re all grown up.” And I was just like, “Wow.” It was just really weird to see. And because they were friends with our friend Julia, who was the February model, and Julia had been like, “Oh, I have this other friend,” and we’d gotten them in. So anyway, that was kind of exciting.

Analyssa: That is exciting.

Riese: So just so you know, if you want to be an Autostraddle calendar model in the early 2010s, you could one day end up on The L Word: Generation Q.

Drew: I mean that’s a good endorsement.

Analyssa: The chart, but for professional connections to Autostraddle.

Riese: Yeah, I mean, calendar models have gone on to do great things in their communities. They really have. So just a moment for the calendar. Okay.

Drew: I did think it was quite bold of Dre. It was quite bold.

Riese: It made me love them immediately.

Drew: Speaking of flirting, Sophie and Finley are flirting at the bar and Finley asks Sophie to go to meet me in the back. And we’re going to…

Analyssa: Again, who works at this bar? If Finley goes into the back room to have sex with Sophie, who is taking drink orders? I’ve seen none other people.

Riese: There was one, I saw another bartender this episode.

Analyssa: The good news for Finley in this situation, re: the rules is she’s the boss. She has no checks on her behavior.

Riese: But I like her outfit. She looks hot.

Drew: Everyone looks very hot this episode.

Analyssa: Oh yeah, this little white sweater.

Drew: And then Dani arrives and asks Finley for tequila on the rocks, nothing cheap. Which I loved this whole thing. Dani this episode was so fun. I loved it. Dani’s like, “I want to have a hot girl autumn.” I don’t know, the whole energy was so fun. I love that they’re all friends again.

Riese: Her energy was radiant. Is this when she tells Sophie?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Yes. And they talk about The Wedding Planner.

Analyssa: And they do a really extended Wedding Planner bit, which I personally also loved.

Riese: And she tells Sophie that she hooked up with this really hot person.

Drew: Yeah, I really enjoyed that bit. Dani has on and off been one of my favorite characters of the new show and sometimes the storylines they give her all, like the Sackler stuff, no thank you. But when they’ve moved beyond that, she’s so fun in this episode, I felt like they really let that character, I don’t know, it was really, five stars for this part of the episode.

Riese: Never mention her father again. I don’t need to know that she even has a father. Let’s just ride this out. I’m loving this.

Drew: Maribel and Micah are picking their sperm donor and Maribel says she wants a guy over six feet, which Micah will eventually be like, “This is eugenics.” And they have some funny banter. Honestly, pretty impressive to have funny banter about eugenics. But I also am like, “You can’t be partnered with a trans guy and be like, ‘I want a guy who’s over six feet.'”

I know it’s been coming from a place where she’s like, “My family’s all short,” and okay, whatever. But I didn’t love that.

Riese: I don’t understand what they’re doing here.

Drew: I mean, I was confused why they didn’t just do it the old fashioned way and find a famous artist and use that sperm.

Analyssa: Right. Right.

Riese: I guess I’m curious how they’ve decided to get pregnant to begin with. If they are going to be doing it with an at-home insemination. If they’re going to be doing it in a doctor’s office like an IUI if they want to do IVF.

Drew: I mean, I think it’s fair for us to say that it’s kind of weird to have the character who’s supporting quote, unquote “eugenics” is the disabled character. And obviously it is turned into a joke and they sort of move past it or whatever. But it is weird. I know that eventually it’s leading towards them being like, “We wish we could just combine our genetics.” And it’s like, okay, but then why are we-

Riese: I don’t understand why they don’t start there. That’s where couples start. They start with, “Well let’s find a donor who looks like you or who has some traits.” I was really confused at first. I was like, “You’re just choosing traits randomly? Why wouldn’t you want to choose traits that look like Micah? That’s what most queer couples or couples where no one’s producing sperm that can be used to get anyone pregnant do, is they pick someone who looks, somehow has something in common with or resembles the other. Also, if they want donors who are only over six feet, I don’t think she was going to find a lot of options there.

Drew: Why, because it’s mostly struggling actors?

Riese: I mean just making it 5’10” and above, you’re really decreasing your options. So I think when this story first started, I assume they weren’t talking about Mari’s disability at all in relationship to it cause it didn’t matter. Like it really didn’t have any impact on her pregnancy or conception or anything like that. And then someone had asked me about it, so I like did a little research and first of all, I’m not a doctor, but, there does seem to be like, there are certain things that you would have to consider differently when you’re thinking about your pregnancy and how it might impact your body if you do have muscular dystrophy. Like I’m over 40, right? So for me, there’s certain things I have to consider differently. So like my journey started at a doctor’s office because there is an increased risk of miscarriage. You know, there’s things I might wanna consider when deciding how I wanna conceive and what I’m looking for in a donor and all of that stuff, you know? And I think like showing the way that different bodies might be approaching this differently is like, I don’t think that that has to feel like we’re making this story just about their disability. It’s just like, this is just a part of someone’s identity, someone’s experience in the world. It makes for like richer storytelling and like more interesting character work when we address those things that are pretending like those things don’t exist. But again like, I don’t know, I feel like I don’t wanna mess up talking about it, you know what I mean?

Drew: Again, it’s just a lack of specificity. Same thing with the breakup between Shane and Tess. It’s just a lack of specificity that results in scenes that, taken at face value, it’s fine, but it is just like, “Why do you not want this show to be more interesting? And why are you picking this storyline if you’re not going to get into any of the specificities of these two individuals?”

Analyssa: I wonder if it’s a thing of what Max was saying of, “I want to show you how great it can be.” And the show is picking very interesting topics to be like, “We’re actually just going to show you how possible it is and great it is,” without getting into the specificity of stuff. And then there’s other things where I’m like, “Why are you making that so hard for the characters?”

So Tess’s mom’s storyline. I’m like, “Why is this so difficult and sucking so much of her life when there are ways to make that easier on her.” But then in this Maribel and Micah getting pregnant, which seems really complicated and really overwhelming as a process, they’re kind of like, “Yeah, isn’t it so fun?” It’s just an interesting, I don’t know they’re choosing-

Riese: Right, they’re just-

Analyssa: Weird…

Riese: Yeah, they’re just, we’re just going to look online and find… It’s not that’s not that casual. It’s not that simple. It’s not that easy. And one thing that I think is good that they’re doing is that I do think that they’re coming from a very disability positive perspective. Where I feel like other shows that address disability and pregnancy, they’re very much like, “We would never want to have a kid who has this disability.” And they’re not doing that.

If they were doing that, then they would be doing IVF and using a donor egg so that they would for sure not pass it on. And if they’re not doing that, then that’s great and that’s all the more reason why I wish they would engage with the things that are still relevant to this process for them.

Analyssa: And even that would be interesting. The two of them being like, “Whoa, this is something, we don’t really have a framework for this. This is really hard to find people who have gone through this or this is really… ” Even just lines like that. Like, “I wish that the baby could be part of both of us.” “I wish we had people like us who we could turn to.” We had that a little bit in the last episode, but it seems like it’s just tough because it seems that it’s in an attempt to be very positive about this experience or also showing people that it is possible, what that route looks like.

It seems like it’s in an attempt to do that, but it elides any interesting specificity or discussion, any deeper representation than just these two people get to click around the sperm donor website, which doesn’t really feel super realistic.

Riese: It feels very similar to how they deal with trans characters.

Analyssa: And honestly, sometimes sobriety. It’s just, not that is a identity on the same level, but just this thing where it’s like, “Yeah, Finley’s now sober. Isn’t that amazing?” And it’s like, there’s not a whole-

Riese: Do her and Sophie have to talk about how that’s going to work for them?

Analyssa: Does she have a sponsor? All these details that could really add some real heft to a story and make them more meaningful, instead of the thing we’re kind of bumping up against this episode is the broad strokes of stories.

Drew: If you don’t have the ability to really get into these things, and if you’re not interested in getting into these things, I mean, I guess this is what happens when you make your trans character and your disabled character the respectable, boring ones where you run out of storylines. And so when the goal is like, “Oh, we’re going to do something so radical by having these characters want to be asleep by 8:30,” which is great. I support anyone doing that. But when you’re making a show that is, as I referred to it last week, a gay hookup show, and then you want to have these underrepresented identities there, but not actually do much with them, you’re just running out of storylines. And so then it’s like, “Well, they’ll have a baby.” And it’s like, “Okay, but that’s also complicated for these specific individuals.” I don’t know.

I mean, look, part of the reason why I think I was able to just turn my brain off and just watch them banter and watch the actors I like do their little thing is because I’ve, seasons ago, checked out so much as far as how the show treats Micah and Maribel.

They’re not even in every episode and not in a Bette Porter choice way, but in a, “Oh, we don’t have anything to do with them this week” way. And I don’t know, just my expectation for these two characters is so low that when they just get some scenes to have fun with, I’m like, “Okay.” But it sucks because having this conversation is making me be like, “Oh, right. There’s so much that could be done and isn’t being done.”

Riese: And obviously I probably last year would’ve been like, “Okay, whatever, this is fine.” But now that I’ve been through this process of looking for donor sperm, I’m obviously… And not just that, but also looking back and being, there are all these things about how Bette and Tina did it, where I don’t feel like there’s a lot of really good representation of what it really is like and what it really costs to get pregnant as a queer person. And I wish that they would engage more fully with it.

And it feels very weird that they’re just like, “Now we’re looking for sperm donors on the internet.” That would not be their next step. Their next step would be going to the doctor and talking about the best way to proceed with this pregnancy. And that would be informative. And if Mari and Micah were fuller characters it still wouldn’t feel like that their whole story was about disability because this doctor’s appointment was about disability.

Analyssa: And even if we didn’t see that, but they said it. It’s the thing you were saying last week, Riese, you have lines that can mean something. We could be doing more with each line to say “There aren’t a lot of options because of remember the thing we talked about with the doctor, but let’s look at what we can,” or whatever. It’s possible. So it’s just kind of frustrating.

Drew: Yeah. I really take issue with this idea and I’ve talked about this in reference to Tess not being trans. I really take issue with this idea that if you have any sort of marginalized identity, that the choices have to be either never talking about it or having nothing about yourself that is connected to it. I talk about being gay all the time. I talk about being trans all the time. I’m also Drew, I have a lot of personal, specific things. And the way I talk about being gay, the way I talk about being trans, those are specific to me and those are specific to my character.

And it’s just so dehumanizing to feel like those are the options. And I experience it in general, in this industry of people wanting, basically it’s like, “Oh, is this a trans story where we’re dealing with the trauma? Or is this a trans story where transphobia doesn’t exist?”

And I’m like, “There’s such a vast world in between those two things where it doesn’t have to be crying in the mirror, mascara going down my face, and I’m not a character with any sort of qualities or I’m out in the world and everyone’s just correctly gendering me and gender is dead and tra la la, la.” There’s so much else to explore. And it just takes away from our actual experiences to act like those are the options.

Analyssa: Anyway.

Drew: Anyway, from a storyline that I don’t enjoy to a storyline that I do enjoy, Alice is at the movies alone. I have never related more to The L Word than Alice sitting there waiting for her friend. I also love that she texts and says, “Previews are starting,” to Shane when previews are not starting. Oh, we want to talk about representation. That’s representation. That is my trans experience. Also, Taylor’s there with someone, so whoops.

Riese: Yeah. Taylor’s there with someone.

Analyssa: I personally love insane Alice. This is something I love from the original run too. Anytime Alice gets unhinged. Like cardboard cutout Dana, Alice I know, is very polarizing, but Leisha Hailey does such a fun thing when she commits to these things that I just was really on board as soon as she saw that. I love when she goes just a little bit off the rails.

Drew: Very entertaining.

Analyssa: Yes, exactly. I don’t have a good transition, but back on the balcony from hell, Shane and Tess are talking more about their relationship and Tess asks if Shane is wanting to do ENM, which made me laugh, just because if you’ve been on Tinder in Los Angeles in the last, I don’t know, five, 10 years, it’s full of people with ENM in their little bios.

Riese: Shane should be like, no, I want to do unethical non monogamy.

Drew: She literally does. She’s like—

Analyssa: Shane prefers unethical non monogamy, actually.

Drew: She literally said, I mean, the way that that line is delivered made me laugh so much because Tess is like, “It’s ethical non monogamy, beautiful partners. Dating, dating other people. And Shane goes, “Oh no, no, no, no, no.” And I’m like, what do you mean? No, no, no, no, no, no. That’s your whole life. You just want,” and yeah.

The way that they brush past this so quickly was another one of my real sticking points for the episode. I just was like, we’re just going to move straight to, is Shane a sex addict? Okay, maybe. But also it’s Kehlani. I’m sorry, but that is not a good portrait of… I’m sorry if this is offensive to sex addicts, but I just feel like that’s not a good portrayal of… Kehlani cannot be Shane’s rock bottom. That is not, I just feel like that is, like, yeah, she cheated and that sucks. But she’s fighting with her. It just feels like the most basic of Shane’s cheating. She’s fighting with her partner. They’ve been together for a year and a half or whatever it is. And then she meets Kehlani. I’m sorry, do you remember when she drank her drink? Do you remember that?

Analyssa: I even put in my notes when, earlier in the scene when Tess is like, or Shane is like, “It’s just an old pattern.” I wrote down, “Weird way to say Kehlani’s really hot.”

Riese: What’s more ethical than hooking up with Kehlani? Name one thing more ethical than that.

Analyssa: It’s your moral right. If you and Kehlani want to hook up with each other that’s the right thing to do.

Riese: But then it made me realize, was she not not monogamous with Kiara? Did we make that up in our heads?

Analyssa: I really was like, why aren’t we talking about the possibility of open relationships?

Riese: Obviously that’s what Shane needs, is a poly relationship.

Analyssa: It’s also what the dialogue is. Shane is saying, sex really doesn’t mean anything to me when it’s just sex. This, as a person who is sober, Tess, being like, “Are you a sex addict?” feels so intense. Instead of just being like, it sounds like you really rely on a lot of validation outside. There’s such a vast ocean of attention makes me feel good between never hooking up with anyone and I’m a sex addict that it just really drove me nuts. And then they don’t really talk about that either. Shane’s like, “Well, maybe,” and then it moves on. So it’s like, “Why put that in there?”

Riese: I felt like it was trying to say that that was a paradigm that Tess felt like she could work with because she knew addiction and she understands addiction. And if Shane could just say, “I’m a sex addict,” she’d be like, “Okay, this is what we do next about that.”

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: But then it seemed like Shane was like, “I don’t know, maybe.” But I don’t, I mean Shane’s not a sex addict.

Drew: I don’t know enough about sex addiction to weigh in on that, but it doesn’t seem like the show thinks she is. So why put that, like why engage with that? I did enjoy that when Tess was like, “Yeah, I’ve been feeling disconnected too. And I wrote in my journal.” I did enjoy that line.

Riese: Oh yeah, that was good. That was good.

Drew: Again, it’s so interesting because there’s like, I’d say half the storylines in the episode actively make me want to slam my head in a window. But the way that they’re, all of them had a few lines and performances that I enjoyed. And so it was a very weird experience. That’s what I, but yeah.

Analyssa: I thought the line when Tess, it’s in the same thing, but when she’s like, “And I didn’t go out and fuck the first person to show me attention or something,” I was like, “Okay, yes, great line.”

Riese: Although I’m sure Kehlani was not the first person to show her attention.

Drew: No, of course not. I literally just, I know I’m making a joke out of this, but it is partially because I just don’t really feel like they’re talking about, everyone has different relationships to sex and to monogamy and I just don’t really feel like they’re talking about what their specific relationships to those things are. And it’s driving me nuts.

Analyssa: Also, Tess is talking really strongly and sort of punitively about their relationship and has not yet, which this comes up later, but even in this part of their conversation I was feeling uncomfy with, she has no idea if Shane wants to be in this relationship anymore. And she’s like, “You must change.” And I was like, whoa. I don’t know. It felt like a really intense place to be bargaining from, to me.

Riese: That felt honest to me at least.

Analyssa: I agree. It was more like me having… It’s not a script note. It’s more me having secondhand embarrassment, watching two people have a fight and being like, “If I had just been cheated on, I would not be starting from this tone.” Me personally. God bless all of the work that Tess has done on her self worth. ‘Cause I would’ve been like, “Do you still love me?

Drew: But also Shane said goodbye to Kehlani. So if she did that, if she doesn’t want to be with Tess…

Riese: Yeah. Can we get Ivy back on the show or what?

Drew: That’s what I said.

Analyssa: We might not get Ivy back on the show, but as we know Fletcher is going to guest star. And that’s in part because Dani is throwing Fletcher’s album release party, which is very funny to me.

Drew: I mean it’s the classic daughter of the Sacklers to party planner pipeline. Everyone knows about that. It’s like…

Riese: Yeah, everyone knows about that.

Drew: Then Dre gets on stage to sing because it’s karaoke. And so they have a little banter back and forth about like, that’s them. And they’re like, “Oh, that’s them.” And then they, you know. So Dani’s like, God damn it.

Riese: But she’s still enchanted. Enchanting singer on the mic. I loved watching Dani watch Dre.

Analyssa: Me too.

Riese: Me too. And then Sophie goes to, Sophie’s like “I have to go find Finley to warn her that Dre is here because we’ve just been talking about them.” And Dre is singing a song with lyrics that could be about being sad about Sophie while Sophie and Finley hook up in the back room, which I was just very stressed about.

Drew: It’s “Dancing With a Stranger” by Normani and Sam Smith. And yeah, it definitely was a moment of where I was like, “Wow, imagine fucking your girlfriend while the person who you fucked while you were on break is singing, serenading you.” I was like, this was the kind of shit though that I was like, “It’s so absurd.” But I had such a grand time with all of this. I was like, “This is what I’m here for. This is why I’m watching this show.” I was delighted. It made no sense a lot of it, but it didn’t make sense in a way that didn’t make me want to slam my head in a window, made me want to stick my head out a window cheerfully and shout, “Look at these crazy queers”

Riese: They start hooking up and we see Sophie flashing back to the sex scene with Dre in her mind, which is a lot, but I also felt like it was honest. It’s like hard. Obviously all these things are running through her mind, but it seems like it’s not working.

Analyssa: And Dre is literally singing, basically in her ear while she’s hooking up with Finley. You would be thinking about that.

Riese: And then Dani’s coming in her pants at the bar and it’s incredible. Everybody is aroused. Everyone is aroused except Sophie.

Drew: People in The L Word and in fiction in general are not good at being like, “No, we’re not going to hook up for five seconds, five minutes, whatever.” I’m going to actually say the thing I need to say. Because personally, I mean this is just me. I’m a little bit kooky. If, when Finley’s trying to hook up with me, I’d be like, “Whoa, something happened. We need to talk. We’re no longer having sex in the back room.” I would just be like, “Okay, if you insist on kissing me.” And also if I was Finley and Sophie was like, “I need to talk to you,” I would be like, “That can wait babe.” I’d be like, “Oh yeah, what’s up?” Sure.

Riese: Well I thought Finley maybe thought that was a front because they were joking because they’d already planned to meet in the back for sex. But then Sophie’s obviously, “I can’t,” and Finley’s like, “Of course, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” And then Sophie tells them that Dre’s here and then they go out.

And this honestly really hit home for me because I was dating someone once and it was not monogamous, but that was their choice and not something that I really wanted. And we went to a dance party and we were at this party and then she was actually, the other person that she was dating was the DJ, up on the DJ stage DJing. And I was like, “I can’t dance.” I mean I normally am a really bad dancer, but I can’t, there’s no part of me that can dance with you to this person DJing this party. And again, it wasn’t like it wasn’t allowed, but it was still something that I had a lot of feelings about and didn’t really enjoy the scenario.

Drew: Did your partner at the time tell you that the DJ wasn’t hot?

Riese: No, she had not. She had not. But it was the first time I had seen this person’s face so it was a lot. So I was in the moment with Finley feeling all of the blood drop out of my body, knowing this is not, I can’t be mad at her, but I’m still having a reaction to this. So as absurd as it seemed that she switched the fire drill, to me it did not feel that absurd.

Drew: I loved it. I thought it was so, it was chaos. And this was all good here.

Riese: So everyone evacuates?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: So yeah, then everyone is leaving. Well and later there’s more of a scene of them later.

Drew: We’ll get to that. Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: But first we go back to the balcony where Tess asks Shane if she’s ever been to therapy.

Analyssa: That really made me laugh.

Riese: How has she still not been to therapy? She’s like, what, 42?

Drew: And also they’ve been together for a year and a half and Tess has never asked Shane if she’s been to therapy? What kind of queers are these people? And then Tessa’s like, “We’ve all been through a lot.” And I’m like, yeah, Tess transitioned at a young age and has kept it quiet, hasn’t told a soul about it. And that’s got to be hard to live a stealth life like that.

Riese: When she said that for one moment I thought, what if? What if they’re going to do it? And then I was like, “No, they’re not going to do it.”

Drew: No. Shane’s just being a sad puppy.

Riese: And Shane’s been through a lot, but what does that have to do with this? I don’t know.

Drew: And there’s a whole conversation about responsibility. I don’t know. Again, it’s just vague. We don’t need to go over this again unless either of you have something to add. But it’s just, all feels very vague and lots of conversations about responsibility, and I’m just like, okay, I’m not learning anything about these characters.

Riese: I did think the one thing that she said where, because Shane was like, “I am taking responsibility for it.” And Tess was kind of being like, saying you’re sorry after the fact is not the same thing as taking responsibility for this behavior in your everyday life’s. Which is something that Shane could’ve learned in therapy. Which we now know, surprise to everybody, she’s never been in.

Drew: That’s crazy.

Riese: Dan Foxworthy would’ve dined out on her.

Drew: If I had Shane’s money, I would be in therapy all the time.

Riese: I’d be in massage therapy all the time.

Drew: So then we go back to the bar and yeah, Finley’s sent, is continuing to send everybody home and is just freaking out. I did write in my notes, am I better than everyone? And it let me explain that. And I just think that I have the ability, and I’m sure this is a bad thing in some ways. All of our, we all have our own struggles. But I can get through anything. I need to shut down and just not be emotional and just do my job and get through the rest of my bartending night while the hottest person ever who’s fucked my partner is singing. Great. I need to even chat with that person? Great. I could do it. I really have an ability to not make my problems anyone else’s problems. It’s not always a good thing. But I do sometimes watch television and go, “Can you just take a breath?” But, no.

Riese: Yeah, that’s what I felt watching Bros. I thought, suck it up. Stop sharing your personality with this man’s family and just play a role.

Analyssa: That one scene, I was like, “Just pretend for one day. We all have to pretend around people’s families about all kinds of stuff.” What do you mean?

Riese: Yeah, just suck it up, weirdo.

Drew: Yeah, there’s got to be an in between there. But yeah, I’m not judging Finley. I think it fits with Finley and I think is funny. And then Dre, they’re outside and Dre asks Dani to leave with them and we also learned that Dre’s actually a singer or trying to be a musician of some sort.

Riese: From Ohio.

Drew: And then Dani’s like, tells Dre that they slept with her ex and Dre’s like, “How is that possible? I’ve only been here for six months.” Enter Sophie.

Analyssa: I thought this scene was so fun. The whole Dani and Dre, Sophie entering, Sophie joking and getting into the car. Dani and Dre still joking. I liked this whole bit.

Riese: Yeah. Sapphic chaos.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Dani’s like, “Here’s my card. You’re going to need a publicist.” Which no one’s that good at karaoke. Come on. Also, she’s a publicist and then she was a party planner.

Riese: She can do it all. Women can have it all. Yeah.

Drew: I hope that Dre and Dani do have some sort of…

Riese: Yes.

Drew: We’ll get to it later when Dani’s like, “I’m just so loyal,” but I’m like, “Sophie left you at the altar. Like please fuck Dre. And then when Dani and Sophie leave and Dre’s just laughing at the circumstance, I was like, “I’m in love.” Like Dre. Yeah. I’m immediately just like I, this is, yes. I like, this character’s great. Autostraddle calendars have once again, proven to have good taste.

Riese: Excellent taste.

Drew: Then we finally check back in with Angie who has some gloves on, like latex gloves on. And her roommate’s like, “I thought you knew your way around there.” And Angie says, “Well, we did stuff but we never had sex.” Which I say, “Why couldn’t Jordi just be trans? Why couldn’t that just be the case?” And also obviously people, especially teenagers, have sex on their own. I guess I just was like, how long were Jordi and Angie together?

Riese: Two years.

Drew: And also, I’m sorry, but the way that they sold us the character of Jordi was like that she was like wild girl. They didn’t ever do anything sexual beyond making out and boob stuff.

Riese: It’s hard to talk about ’cause it’s not like I want to be, I really wish those teenagers would bone. But then it’s also at the same time, gossip girl in the OC, we’re used to seeing the sex lives of teenagers on our screens, but usually played by older actors. So it’s something that’s in the discourse. But I was like, “Really? You guys were together for two to three years?” I mean, teenagers are notoriously frisky.

Drew: I fully believe that there are plenty of teenage couples who are not having sex anywhere together and are just making out. I don’t believe that Jordi and Angie, given what about those characters? That doesn’t really line up with them. It’s also just why couldn’t Jordi be trans? What are you accomplishing? The actor, she didn’t ask to be cis. That was Jamie’s thing. What are you accomplishing by Cannon making Jordi cis here? Okay, you didn’t want to engage with it when Jordi was on the show in all these interesting ways that we’ve already covered on this podcast, but it’s literally just writing a scene different, writing one line differently here in a way that…

And I guess it’s to eventually lead to Angie being like, “I’m ready to have sex with a professor,” which I’m like, “Really, you would rather Angie’s thing be like, ‘Oh my God, I’m finally ready to have sex with this professor because I’m so in love and I’m comfortable with my body now,'” as opposed to “She fucked her trans girlfriend.” It’s that, we’re so against, I’m just…

Analyssa: But also queer Gen Z thinks about sex and virginity in such a different way than when I was in high school. At least, I’ll speak personally. So that they didn’t even really need to do all this to say that. If it really is, Angie is nervous about going away with this guy, which seems to be the thrust of this whole thing. She’s never had sex with a guy. She’s never had sex with an older person before. She’s never had sex with like…

Riese: A man.

Analyssa: Like a cis man or what? I don’t know. There’s so many other ways that, yeah, it’s not the same way you’re coming at it, Drew, but I was just like, it just felt very weirdly genitals focused in a way that I don’t think Gen Z of being around virginity as a concept anymore. They’re just like, “Yeah, we hooked up,” or “Yeah…” I don’t know. Just feels really weird.

Drew: I have no idea what 18- and 19-year-olds, 18- and 19-year-old queer people’s relationship to virginity is. But do you know who else doesn’t know? The writers of The L Word: Generation Q. It is so clear that they are just projecting whatever experiences they had as straight 18-year-olds onto… It’s like they’ve forgotten that Angie was in a queer relationship and they don’t want to engage with it. They don’t want to engage with what that was like. They just want to do this fucking storyline with the professor. I was so, this all pissed me off. I was so mad. I was just like, and not because again, not because I need teenagers to fuck. But, in fact, if they are going to, I would rather it be with each other than with full grown adults. That’s my hot take.

Analyssa: This is what I mean, is this dialogue is so contrived as to say number one, I’ve never looked at another girl’s literal vagina. And number two, I am a virgin. No penis has been inside. It’s all just so genitalia focused. Sorry to be so gross, but like…

Drew: No, yeah.

Analyssa: And to no end except to say, “I’m going to lose my virginity to my old professor.” Again, who wants that? Who asked?

Riese: And why is she ready for that now but wasn’t ready to have sex with Jordi a month ago?

Drew: Yeah. Makes no sense.

Riese: She barely knows this man. I honestly thought, I thought at this part, there was a moment when I was like, “Is she going to go inside this girl’s vagina and then start to feel like sexual feelings towards her while she’s inside?”

Analyssa: I was really nervous about that too.

Riese: That would’ve been more exciting than what did happen. It would’ve been gross and weird. And again, I don’t know how to talk about teenagers, but I was like, at least that’d be interesting.

Analyssa: Also, the first time that Jordi comes over, Angie is like, “We have the room to ourselves.” It’s like if they were just making out the whole time anyway, why do they care? You can do that when Bette and Tina are in the kitchen cooking.

Riese: I just could not believe that people are really waiting in that regard. Right.

Analyssa: Anyway, another part of this that drove me absolutely bananas is that when they are talking about sex, Bella, the roommate is like, “Only with consent. We love consent.” Yeah, we love consent. And it’s like, if two Gen Zs are talking about this, then it would also be fucking weird to them that Angie is hooking up with her professor. Sorry.

Riese: Right. And also that felt like it was just like, they just wanted to remind us that. When I think that, in fact the show already does a good job reminding us of consent with things like when Sophie was like, “I can’t do this.” And Finley instantly was like, “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Those are the subtle ways you can communicate about consent. You don’t have to have two Gen Zers looking each other in the eyes going, “We love consent,” like they’re like a cartoon that’s in a sex ed pamphlet.

Analyssa: Especially when one of them is in a consent dubious relationship that you put them in. What do you mean? Whatever. Anyway.

Drew: Just feel like Jordan Hull’s so talented.

Analyssa: Correct.

Drew: And it fucking sucks that they’ve really never known what to do with her beyond being Beth’s daughter. Which is fine. If that was the only role she played on the show, fine. And look, obviously I wish that Tess was trans, but with Jordi it’s just like, you want to do a thing where it’s only the next generation where Shane would never be with a trans woman, which isn’t true. It doesn’t align with, I mean, Shane’s character in the original series would absolutely have dated a trans woman. But even like fine, you want to keep that. You want to say that trans people were invented yesterday, okay, then make that part of the Gen Z story. Make that be the younger generation. Angie’s dating a trans girl. And to just do this basic boring stuff that you would see on this, the most boring sort of college show, whatever. It’s such a bummer.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. One thing I did like was that she did say, she was like, “And then you know, you tell him what you want.” And Angie was like, “And I’ll just know what I want?” Because I feel like that’s often part of the consent dialogue is that the person on the other end just, you assume that that person knows what they want and can communicate it immediately. And that’s not always the case. And I feel like that was a good sort of moment where it was Angie being like, “What if I don’t know what I want?”

Drew: I have one more thing to say and that is, if Angie didn’t, and Jordi just made out and Angie doesn’t masturbate and is this uncomfortable with her body and this unclear what she wants, it makes the fact that she is about to enter a sexual relationship and really already has entered a sexual relationship with this man who is like, he’s my age.

Analyssa: 28.

Riese: Right, yeah.

Drew: He’s at least, he’s got to be late twenties. And it’s just so fucked. And if the show doesn’t know that, which I really thought they did. I thought they were going somewhere, and now I’m a bit scared. If they don’t know how fucked it is, I’m going to be irate.

Riese: They have to know.

Analyssa: It has to be headed somewhere. What I would love is, I was going to say, and then Angie’s roommate is sort of like, “Let’s talk about masturbation.” That’s not what she says, but it’s clear that they’re going to talk about vibrators and stuff. I was like, “Okay, maybe we are introducing Angie to the concept of her own body and her own, what excites her. And that will lead to her being like, “Actually, I want to explore more with more people or more people my age, or I want to do something more casual. I’m already in something really serious after just having dated someone for two years.” That’s my hope for where they’re going.

Drew: And finally we get to go back to a storyline I’m interested in. Alice at the movies. She’s asking the woman behind her for advice on what, she’s like, “Does that look like they’re, does it look like they’re dating or that they’re cousins?” Then Taylor kisses the woman that she’s with, and then the just Emmy worthy delivery of this woman who goes, “Let’s hope they’re not full blood.” Oh, I don’t know who this actress is, but yeah, give her the guest actor-

Riese: Pulitzer.

Drew: Pulitzer. And then Alice does what Alice does best and causes a scene.

Analyssa: I loved it. No notes. I do think that Taylor could’ve explained this a little better. Just being like, “I thought we were not exclusive,” would’ve really solved a lot of this conversation. It goes on for a really long time, which is I imagine and see annoying to all the other movie goers.

Drew: What movie were they watching? I couldn’t tell. It was obviously an old movie.

Analyssa: Only you would be able to answer that Drew.

Riese: Yeah. There’s absolutely no way that we would be able to identify a film that you could not identify.

Analyssa: I could do one frame from 27 Dresses. I would nail it and I think Drew would not, but that’s maybe the only one.

Drew: If you listening, wherever you are, were able to tell what movie it is. Or if you worked on the show and you’re listening, hi, how you doing? Are you doing anything with this Angie storyline? Let me know what movie it is because I’m curious. But yes, Taylor could have explained it better or been like, “Let’s talk about this outside,” though for comic reasons I’m glad they didn’t. But I loved, ugh, this is what I’m constantly trying to communicate to people. Dating is dating and when you are just starting to date someone, you have no, I mean, you never have ownership over another person, but you really have no, you can’t be so invested.

This is something that I think I constantly see people not doing well, which is if you’re a few dates in, even if you’ve had three days of sex. How exciting. That’s really cool. That’s really exciting. Maybe in your eyes you’re like, “I’m falling so hard.” And to find out the person still going on other dates would be hurtful, but they didn’t do anything wrong. And it’d be good to not make assumptions about what someone who you’ve just met is thinking. And dating’s about experimentation and about meeting people and about figuring out what you want. And Taylor and Dre are the MVPs of this episode.

Riese: Except that Taylor lied about having to work.

Drew: Yeah. I think that if you’re newly dating someone, if I said to my girlfriend of a year and a half, “I’m working,” and I was actually doing something else, that’s lying. But if I’ve been dating someone for a week and they’re like, “Oh, what are you doing?” I mean, I guess it is, it’s not necessary. I would probably just be like, “I’m busy.” I wouldn’t make a lie.

Analyssa: That’s the thing that takes it to like-

Riese: I’ll just say, “I can’t.” I would just be like, “Oh, I can’t tonight.” But.

Analyssa: Yeah, that’s what makes it weirdly unkind to me is being like, “I have to work. I have something that I’m doing.” Instead of just being like, “I can’t,” or, “I’m busy,” or “I have other plans.”

Riese: Right.

Drew: Yeah, that’s true. I agree with that.

Analyssa: That’s a little tough.

Riese: That’s what I would say. ‘Cause I do feel like it is weird to say something, “Oh, I can’t, I’m going out with somebody else.” But-

Drew: Right.

Riese: Totally.

Analyssa: I feel like I would just be like, “I can’t,” and they kind of know what that means, you know?

Riese: Right.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Yeah. I very much am of the belief, if you have not had a conversation with the person you think in your head you’re exclusive with about being exclusive, then you’re probably not. And just go ahead and have that conversation if that’s what you want. But it does not feel great about Taylor’s character that she fully just told a lie. But.

Drew: Yeah. That’s true.

Riese: But do you feel like she’s breaking up with Alice here when she’s like, “You’re in this different world and I’m not in it and I want to be in my normal world?” You don’t think so?

Drew: No. She just says, “I want to go slow.”

Analyssa: Oh, I think they’re broken up.

Riese: Right? I know Gretchen didn’t think they were broken up, but I thought they were broken up and I was devastated for this couple that I’ve already deeply invested in.

Analyssa: In. Yeah, I was really sad. I was like, what the fuck?

Drew: She literally says though, “I want to go slow.”

Analyssa: No, but she was like, “I want to turn it down, and I didn’t know how to tell you.” And Alice was like, “Well, this was a really way to find out,” and then walks out. I just feel like it’s… And he is like-

Drew: I still, I’m not, I haven’t given up on them yet.

Analyssa: I love that. I hope that the show has not either.

Riese: Alice… yeah.

Drew: I do appreciate when Taylor says to Alice, like, “You haven’t been normal for so long, you can’t even see it. You can’t even realize.” Which I do think happens to rich people, famous people.

Riese: Fancy people.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: I bet it’s happened to the actors of the original series of The L Word who are back on this show. Probably there’s a little bit of meta stuff there. Then we go back to Micah and Maribel, and again, it’s the same things we were talking about before. There are some fun jokey moments like when they’re trying to list off Micah’s qualities and Micah’s like, “I’m anxious.” And she’s like, “You want our kid to be anxious?” That got a laugh out of me.

Riese: They look at the screen and one of the things that they can check off there on their thing is that, is bachelor’s degree. They click master’s degree. They want the donor to have a master’s degree. And I’m telling you, at the end, they end up getting zero results. Right? You got to get rid of that master’s degree.

Drew: Why do you need someone to have a master’s degree?

Riese: I personally wanted a donor who was really smart because I want to have a kid who’s really smart so that we can be nerds together. That’s important to me. I don’t know if, is that problematic? Whatever. That’s what I wanted.

Analyssa: I was going to say, even though, yeah, what you said over six feet, there is something darkly comedic about how changing these little characteristics will just take your options to zero. That can be in there.

Riese: I don’t know. I mean, I think most couples where they’re looking to have a donor who’s of a specific race, that ends up narrowing the field so dramatically that that’s kind of often all they can narrow it to, which is obviously incredibly frustrating, but I imagine that they would be coming up against that as well.

Analyssa: That’s kind of where I thought they would land when they were like, “Yeah, we want someone who’s kind of like both of us,” was running into, again, a more interesting problem to explore, is there aren’t that many sperm donors who are of my ethnicity or of yours. What do we do about that? How do we… ?

Riese: There are a lot, but there’s not tons.

Drew: I just feel like some of the least intelligent people I’ve met have master’s degrees. Sort of like college degrees in general. I just feel like there’s no, “Oh, you want your kid to be intelligent. Okay, well maybe read to them when they’re a baby.” I don’t know. I just am like…

Riese: They give you the donor’s GPA, their SAT scores, all that stuff.

Drew: Really?

Analyssa: Do they really?

Riese: Yeah. And then also they’ll give you an essay. There’s also an option, you can listen to the donor speaking out loud, which I didn’t want to do, ’cause I was like, “There’s no way I’m going to listen to a man talk and feel affection for him in any way. That’s just going to ruin it for me, whatever it is.” And pictures and stuff. I mean, you have to sign up for a real account. They obviously hadn’t signed up for a real account yet, which they would do if they were really looking because they’d want to see pictures.

Analyssa: In that case, I would opt to read the people who wrote essays.

Riese: Yeah. They have to answer questions.

Analyssa: That’s where I would start personally in this conundrum.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. What I find so fascinating about this is if you wanted a child, like either of my parents, let’s say my dad, because he’s the one with sperm, and you picked my dad because you wanted someone like my dad and then you got me, you’d be so bummed. How many of us are that similar to our biological fathers? I get certain things, but it does just feel, I don’t know. I think finding someone in the art world, that’s the move. I just think that that’s…

Riese: Well, that’s more expensive I guess, because all the legalities around it.

Drew: Oh, interesting.

Riese: They’ll tell you, getting a known donor is actually more expensive than getting a non known donor because all the paperwork you have to do with it apparently is really expensive. But I think, I don’t know, I feel like Bette and Tina were going for a certain vibe that was kind of, made a little, made some sense in terms of what they were looking for.

But yeah, you’re not going to find, I think it’s sort of, you feel like, as somebody who’s trying to get pregnant who’s not in a relationship with somebody who can provide the sperm that you need to get pregnant. You’re like, “Well, maybe this one silver lining is that I can pick somebody based on these qualities or something.” I don’t know. I’m not sure. Anyway, she should pick a shorty. She should pick a 5’3 dummy. Gretchen told me to pick a beautiful idiot. She was like, “Everyone loves the beautiful idiot.” Okay.

Drew: We go back to the balcony. Tess says that she let herself think long-term, and Shane says that she’s not happy.

Riese: Yeah. I wonder why.

Drew: And Angie’s roommate is ordering her vibrator, and this was the one moment where I thought, I don’t, what did, there must have been a line that made me say this. All I have in my notes is, “Wait, are they going to fuck?” I don’t, but I wish I’d written down, knowing that that was a controversial feeling, I wish I’d written down what line it was.

Analyssa: I had the same reaction at first and then it ended up being jokey about them mixing up their vibrators in a way that I was like, “That’s not what they’re doing here.” It is I think just what Riese said, which is that Jordan Hull has a lot of chemistry and is shiny around so many people that I was like, “Oh, some interest.” And then I was like, “No, way, no.”

Drew: Okay. So then after that brief moment, we go back to the balcony. Finley has arrived at Shane’s and lets them out and Shane is like, “I’ll get my stuff and the dog and leave,” and it’s like, “Just go to therapy. It’s not that hard.”

Riese: Also, it’s Shane’s apartment.

Drew: Yeah. I don’t know what’s happening there.

Riese: But Shane is always, Shane would fully be like, “I’m going to take the dog and a small duffle bag and all of my, I’m going to leave all my possessions here forever.”

Drew: Yeah, I do understand that move.

Analyssa: Yes. Well trod on this podcast is that you and me both understand that point of view and I simply do not. If it is my house and my furniture, I will be taking it. Thank you.

Drew: Okay, so then we finish the Micah and Maribel story with them not finding a donor, which we’ve already covered.

Riese: We love these actors so much as people, you know.

Drew: We know. It makes this… I mean, that is where the frustration comes from. The actors are always not, it’s not their fault to me ever.

Riese: Yeah. Leo’s so great.

Analyssa: And they do such good stuff with the stuff that they have that I get frustrated that there isn’t more interesting stuff for them to do or more. I just…

Drew: They’re so good that I fully didn’t think about all the things that I’m now angry about. I was just sort of like, “Okay, okay. I’m, brain off. Smooth, smooth, smooth.”

Analyssa: In my friend group, we call this and another thing where you go see a movie and you kind of have a fun time and afterwards you’re like, “Yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed it.” And then one person says one thing and three hours later you’re still going, “And another thing about that movie, and another thing about that movie.”

Riese: That’s this podcast. That’s this podcast.

One of us will like a scene, someone else will have a gripe. And then we’ll be like, “Actually building off of that gripe, I also hated this.”

Analyssa: One finger up, right. Now that you’ve said something,

Drew: Should we have an And Just Like That podcast called And Another Thing?

Riese: And another thing, dot, dot, dot. God, I couldn’t yell about that show forever.

Drew: I know.

Riese: Truth be told, this is not the only incoherent show on television.

Analyssa: Far from.

Drew: That’s a really great point.

Analyssa: Well, the next scene is literally, and another thing about this show for me, which is that Angie is going to go with her professor on her weekend.

Drew: And the music is like inspirational. The music is like Angie has come into her womanhood and her body and is going to go have sex with this man. What? No. Bad. No. Bad L Word.

Riese: I hope he listened to his audiobook on the drive.

Drew: Oh Lord.

Analyssa: What do the teens call it? Getting the ick. I’m like waiting for Angie to get an ick about this man. I have many of them.

Riese: I hope that Shane and Alice run into them at a truck stop and neither of them know, but judging it by their own pass if they can make an ethical judgment about the morality of this relationship. But eventually they’re like, “No, you know what? We have to say something.” And then they do a car chase all the way to Santa Barbara or wherever, and then they get out and they go to La Jolla and they’re like, “You can’t be with this man. He’s your teacher.”

Analyssa: Beautiful. Put Riese in the room. Alice is reading Margaret Cho’s book dejectedly in bed because-

Riese: Yes, I love that.

Analyssa: She’s been dumped, and I love the implication that Margaret Cho brought copies of her book to the Alice show.

Riese: Yeah. It’s like-

Analyssa: For sure.

Analyssa: Yeah. Or Alice is on the advanced reader copy list. I love it. And Alice’s phone rings and she’s like, “Where are you? Outside?” And it’s Shane.

Riese: It’s obviously Shane.

Analyssa: Obviously Shane. Then Finley and Tess are talking, and Finley is sort of trying to own up for the fire alarm fiasco. This is a very, to me, this is AA kind of attempt at representation. She’s sort of doing a mini immediate amends and she’s just saying that she will pay what the bar didn’t make and she’ll pay the fine. Tess can-

Riese: Finley’s finances just stress me out so bad. I’m like, “Do not volunteer that. You can’t afford that right now. What are you doing?”

Analyssa: Anytime Finley talks about money? I’m like, “Shh. No, no, no.”

Drew: When she’s like, “I needed to leave or else I would drink.” I was like, “Maybe you shouldn’t work at a bar.” I don’t know. Just a thought. Maybe you shouldn’t be working at a bar because it’s, you know?

Analyssa: Where alcohol is readily available anytime you have that feeling. Yeah.

Riese: I was so nervous that she was going to drink. That’s why she wanted Sophie to leave. And the fact that she didn’t drink, I was like, that gave me so many positive vibes that carried me through the rest of the episode.

Analyssa: A win’s a win, you know?

Riese: Carried me right up the vaginal canal into that condom.

Drew: And another thing, I wish that Sophie had said to Finley in that scene, “We don’t leave together, but I need to see you get in your car and leave and not be in the bar.”

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Right?

Analyssa: Yeah. Like, “I don’t want to leave you here.”

Riese: Yeah. I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to leave you in the room, the alcohol room, in a room of alcohol in the alcohol museum.

Analyssa: And Tess suggests that they go to a meeting, and I did not understand the vibe I was supposed to feel about them going to a meeting. There was weird music underneath it. But I’m happy that that’s what they’ve decided to do. Genuinely. Personally, I am.

Riese: So in the interview that we published with Jacqueline, I think two weeks ago now, she said that Tess is Finley’s sponsor.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Okay.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Just so we know. But I thought it was nice. I thought it was a nice little thing.

Analyssa: I agree. I like going to a meeting.

Drew: And then we go to Sophie’s, where Sophie gives Dani ice cream and popcorn, which is oh, two best snacks. And Sophie’s like, “That was all so gay,” and Dani’s like, “There weren’t enough of us.” This is also, I do think that when this episode ended, I just, in my brain was like, Alice causing a scene at the movie, Sophie, Dani, Dre, Dre hot. I think that was my experience with this episode. But Sophie tells Dani that she can fuck Dre, which is like Dani did not need permission, but Dani’s still like, “No, I’m loyal.” Like, what? No. Why? Why?

Riese: No. Sophie wasn’t loyal to you, but also no, Sophie has a girlfriend. Sophie hooked up with this person once. If you’re not going to date someone, I mean, remember she did the same thing with Bette, being, making sure it was okay. But if she felt comfortable dating Gigi with Bette’s okay, why would she not feel comfortable dating Dre with Sophie’s okay?

Drew: Yeah. It doesn’t make sense.

Analyssa: I mean, speaking of choosing qualifications that will narrow your approval down to zero. If you’re ruling out in Los Angeles the people who have slept with your ex one time, what are you doing? Especially when they’re all hanging out at the same bar all the time. That’s actually the thing, is if you’re making your location kind of the locus of your hangs, going to be tough.

Riese: Yeah. This is what the show is about. The show is about dating your exes, your friend’s exes, and your exes’ exes. That’s the topic of the program.

Drew: Dani needs to just pull a me and just find someone in another country. It’s the only way you’re going to find someone. I mean, I wasn’t, I don’t even care about my friends and people I dated and the intermingling and whatever. That’s not even. But I do think it’s probably the only way that you can get around that is if you’re like, “Well, I’m going to look for people on Instagram who live in other countries.” Which for the record, that wasn’t, I wasn’t actively doing that. But anyways.

Analyssa: Good that you clarified.

Drew: Thanks.

Analyssa: Sophie does say that she had the best weekend with Dre.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: Which I feel like is in a gray area between, she told Finley the truth and she did not. Just feels kind of weird.

Riese: Yeah. But it does feel like it was nice that it was one weekend. It was just a compact. That was like, okay, so that’s true. It was just one weekend. Yeah. It’s nice to have one weekend with somebody.

Drew: Oh, I love one weekend with somebody. Those are the best.

Riese: I remember being asked, how many times did you have sex with somebody who I had a weekend with? And I felt like being like, “Exactly how many times? I’m not sure. It was a weekend.”

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Yeah. I agree with that, that it feels, yeah.

Analyssa: That was sort of what I thought Sophie might say is, “I can’t tell you an exact number, but it wasn’t that many. It didn’t mean anything to me.”

Riese: Yeah. I would’ve just been like, it was a weekend, so several times within that space.

Drew: I would be like, “Well, there was when she fingered me in the shower, and then I guess we kind of took a break and then a half hour later… ”

Analyssa: That is how my brain works. So I actually would be able to account for all of them.

Drew: But Sophie does a funny Matthew McConaughey impression, so, “Oh, how much, we really,” you know.

Analyssa: Yeah. There’s a lot of Wedding Planner stuff in here, which I just love. Again, my year of romantic comedies. I had already seen the Wedding Planner, so it wasn’t on my list, but I do love that one.

Drew: Then we go to Shane is showing Alice the now viral video of Alice interrupting the movie. I think that is so funny. And Shane asks Alice if she ever feels like the not right thing of their relationships has more to do with her. And she says, “Nope.” And I thought that was quite funny.

Analyssa: I did too.

Riese: I love the confidence. Because absolutely, as someone who’s a little bit younger than Alice, I would definitely be like, yes. At this point I can blame no one but myself.

Drew: Yeah. Let’s close us out.

Analyssa: And then, because as we know, sisterhood is powerful. They have a very cute moment where Alice is like, “Do you want to be a little spoon?” And Shane says that no one’s ever asked her that before.

Riese: That felt like a big moment for Shane, realizing she just takes on the role, these roles, without ever really thinking about what she wants.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I agree. And then they’re going to spoon with this dog in between them, which not tenable, not a sustainable situation.

Drew: It is cute.

Analyssa: But it’s very sweet.

Drew: And that my friends is the episode. I don’t know, what do we think about this episode?

Analyssa: Well, I feel like we shared a lot more of our thoughts in pod than we normally…

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I will say that, again, like we said, there are individual scenes and character conversations that are really fun to me and that have life and zip and excitement to me. Then there are some underlying things that every time I think about them, I go, “And another thing,” and that is a bummer. Good for podcasting, but you know.

Drew: A lot of banter in the dialogue. And I very much enjoyed that. And I had a good time watching the episode for the most part. Yeah. Everything else has already been said. I’m excited that Dre’s going to be back and I do think Taylor’s going to be back. I don’t think that’s done.

Riese: I hope not. But I really fear it is. Because eventually Tom’s coming back.

Drew: Oh, well, what if Tom comes back next episode. We have a little moment where Alice gets to realize what she’s done, the mistakes of past relationships, and then that Tom’s like, “No, you really can not realize how you are famous.” And then she’s like, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And then she’s like to Taylor, “I talked to my ex Tom, he gave me pens, and now I realize that I’m ready to be more casual and normal with you.”

Riese: Oh yeah, that could be cute. I still want Tasha to come back.

Drew: Ugh. I don’t want to deal with that.

Riese: What if Gabby Deveaux comes back?

Drew: Well, that would be fun.

Analyssa: I love Gabby Deveaux. I really do.

Riese: Have a real full circle moment. And now look who’s on top, look who’s on bottom now.

Drew: What if Gabby Deveaux is the one?

Riese: Oh my God.

Riese: I mean, that would be a fucking twist.

Analyssa: That would follow this show’s ethos of you’ve already met the one, perhaps.

Riese: Right. I think that she thinks that maybe Tom was the one, but how about this? Gigi, Alice and Gigi. Let’s get that twosome back together—

Analyssa:: Let’s try it again.

Riese: And trust Nat. They have a shared, they are good at having sex with each other. They both wear good outfits. Let’s just get Gigi back in to Alice’s bedroom.

Drew: Yeah. Is Gigi just never going to be on the show again? All of the people on Twitter being like hashtag, Where is Bev Porter? Hashtag, Where is Gigi?

Riese: Where is Gigi? Yeah, I know. I’m still, I’m fine with the no Bette and Tina still.

Drew: Same.

Riese: I think it’s good. I like that we’ve let the other characters have more time.

Analyssa: Yeah. And I really love Riese, the point you keep making about Leisha Haley, like getting to front the series basically now, being one of the better cornerstones of episodes now is really fun.

Riese: Yeah, definitely. I agree with my own point there.

Analyssa: Genius. As you should, Queen.

Lauren: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back: Generation Q edition, one of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at To L and Back and back, and you can also email us at To L and Back Cast @gmail.com. Our theme song is by the talented Be Steadwell, and our Gen Q logo is by JAXCO. This episode was produced, edited in mix by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram at Lauren Taylor Klein. You can follow Drew everywhere at Draw underscore Gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram at Aanaloka with two A’s and on Twitter at Analoka with one a and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard, everywhere at autowin. Autostraddle is at Autostraddle. And of course the reason why we’re all here, autostraddle dot com. And finally, to end this ep, let’s hear some keyword from our girlies.

Drew: 3, 2, 1. Quart.

Analyssa: Quadrilacteral.

Drew: What’d you say?

Riese: I said Queensland. It’s in Australia.

Drew: What’d you say?

Analyssa: I think I said Quadrilacteral, and what I meant was Quadrilateral.

Drew: Do you have a reason or was it just a fun one?

Analyssa: Just thinking about all the various interconnections of weird dating.

Drew: I said quart because I was like, I would like a quart of soup right now. ‘Cause I’m very hungry and it’s a little chilly. It’s not really anything to do with the L words, but I think maybe they would like, you know what I want? I want a quart of ice cream and popcorn. Just like-

Riese: Nice.

Drew: They probably had a pint because that’s more traditional. But let’s get a quart.

Riese: Oh man. I want Gretchen to make me popcorn because hers is better than the one I make myself.

Analyssa: Oh, I want ice cream.

Drew: I think ice cream is for all weather. To loop back around to weather. Let’s bookend with weather. An exciting day at To L and Back.

Analyssa: Woohoo. You know it’s big when we’re talking weather. All right.

Riese: Okay, cats and dogs.

Analyssa: Nice.

“To L And Back: Gen Q Edition” Podcast 304: Last To Know

Spooky scary skeletons, it’s a Halloween episode! We’ve got thrills, chills, and parties galore. One of the more realistic things that’s ever happened in The L Word universe is the endless list of Halloween options for our Gen Q friends.

Alice and Taylor are getting cozy at home, in the time honored tradition of three-straight days of gay sex. Sophie, Finley and Dani hit Dana’s for a costume party, while Shane is hitting on Ivy. And in search of more parenting advice from queer elders, Micah and Maribel meet none other than very special guest and original The L Word icon, Max. Max has been off living his own happily ever after far, far away (spiritually, I mean, he’s still in LA) from all of these messy weirdos, and that is perhaps the biggest win of them all.

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ Riese’s recap for The L Word Generation Q Episode 304!
+ The band LA Exes, whose concert almost introduced me to a new Bad Friend
+ Drew’s original interview with Daniel Sea
+ Drew’s new interview with Daniel Sea about returning to The L Word Generation Q is up now!
+ We published this guide to alternative to calling the cops, or you can visit this website for community-based alternatives in your city!

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And this is…

All: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition.

Drew: The last time you heard us, I was leaving to get on a flight. And even though— It’s interesting how time works is I guess what I’m saying because I—

Analyssa: It’s been a week since they’ve heard the podcast episode, but now you’re back and you’ve gone to Toronto.

Drew: For two weeks.

Analyssa: For two weeks.

Riese: Did you see Tina?

Drew: I did, we hung out.

Analyssa: Oh, wow. Are they doing well?

Drew: Yeah, they seem to be really working on their relationship in a way that feels really healthy and really—

Analyssa: That’s good, yeah.

Drew: It’s one of those things where I’m like, “Oh, wow, I feel like my friends are growing up.” And it’s like, yeah, they’re in their 50s, but…

Analyssa: It has to happen at some point for us all.

Drew: I’m proud of them.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Did either of you see the commenter that was like, “I’ve narrowed it down and I think Tina’s working on Paw Patrol”? I thought it was so funny.

Riese: Oh my God.

Analyssa: They listed a bunch of shows that have more than nine seasons that film in Toronto and Paw Patrol was the only one that logically made sense, which really made me laugh.

Drew: That is very funny. Tina working on a show that spreads police propaganda to children, honestly checks out with her.

Analyssa: That’s literally what the commenter said. That was the nail in the coffin like, “This is the show.”

Riese: We have a lot to discuss.

Analyssa: So much to discuss.

Drew: We’re recording during the day, which is something we don’t usually do.

Analyssa: The sun is shining while we’re recording this.

Riese: The sun is brilliantly shining.

Analyssa: It’s bringing a different energy to this recording.

Riese: Yeah, I’m also recovering from the coronavirus, which I would not recommend.

Drew: You’re not a fan?

Riese: No, I didn’t like it. I think the government should try to do something about it.

Analyssa: That’s an interesting take. We should be talking about that more maybe.

Riese: Because yeah, it’s very unpleasant, and I just don’t recommend it. I can’t endorse it.

Drew: Well, then should we just jump into it?

Riese: Let’s leap into it.

Drew: Okay, well, this is episode 304 Last to Know. It’s directed by Em Weinstein, who directed the previous episode, and it is written by Nova Cypress Black, and this is their first television episode which is super exciting.

Analyssa: Cool.

Drew: That also means that this episode of The L Word is written and directed by nonbinary people.

Riese: That’s fantastic.

Drew: Yeah. It is exciting that there are trans people behind the camera. It’s also exciting that it’s spooky season.

Riese: Yeah, it’s our first-ever holiday since Angie’s half-birthday celebration.

Drew: It’s incredible.

Riese: I’m so excited to see because it’s an acknowledgment that time passes, and certain things happen during certain times of year. And that’s a big area of growth for this show, I think.

Analyssa: Yeah, putting stakes in the ground of any calendar dates at all.

Riese: Absolutely, yes. Yeah, mm-hmm.

Drew: It does scare me a little bit because now we have that as a reference point when we’re trying to logically grasp things, but that’s more your pet project than mine.

Riese: Yeah, that’s my issue. I am a little nervous that they might actually get to Christmas, and that would blow my opportunity as a writer, which is to live my dream, which is writing an L Word Christmas episode.

Drew: See, I’m more worried that all of a sudden, it’s going to be Valentine’s Day and we’re going to be like, “Wait, when did Christmas happen?”

Riese: Right, that’s true. Fair.

Drew: So, Sophie’s telling Finley that Dani’s going to be a mess and to prepare for it. But then Dani walks in perfect.

Riese: Devil may care.

Drew: Yes, over the breakup. Doesn’t care and I believe her.

Analyssa: She says I don’t care the perfect number of times to convince you that she really doesn’t care. But she does look great.

Drew: Mm-hmm, she really does.

Analyssa: And she has a fun friend named Roxy coming into town who Sophie says is her bad friend.

Riese: Yeah, Sophie says last time Roxy was in town, they ended up going to an orgy in San Luis Obispo. And I cannot think of a time when Sophie would have known Dani and Dani was single.

Analyssa: And going to that kind of party. Maybe it’s just that she knows the story.

Drew: Well, Dani says that it was actually a leather party in the Valley, so there’s also a chance that it wasn’t… Maybe she didn’t—

Analyssa: Dani wasn’t having sex at the party.

Drew: Yeah, and also, I don’t know, were they always monogamous? Who knows what their journey was as a relationship?

Analyssa: I think sometimes you do have to pick a detail to nitpick to start the podcast. It’s just like, “Ooh, we’re getting into it.”

Drew: If I were to be like, “Who’s your bad friend?” Do either of you have a go-to person.

Riese: Oh, I mean I used to.

Analyssa: Yeah, I feel like I used to. I also feel like at times I have been the bad friend.

Riese: Yeah, I also feel like I’ve been the bad friend for sure.

Analyssa: Yeah, but this is really recently, actually, this very year. I went to a concert at some bar in Silver Lake. The band L.A. Exes, have you guys heard of them? They’re very fun, they’re all queer.

Drew: Cool.

Analyssa: I met this random person on the patio who was already pretty drunk and was like, “You should come with me to this next thing. You should come with me to this next thing.” And I did not end up doing it, but then the next day she was like, “Yeah, I ended up at a nun-themed sex party.”

Drew: I do like people like that.

Analyssa: She could have been my bad friend.

Riese: Yeah, my bad friend is sober now.

Analyssa: That happens to the bad friends.

Drew: I love that for the bad friends.

Analyssa: Sometimes the bad friends say, “Actually, it’s time for a change.”

Drew: But Dani is like, “I’m going hard this Halloween.”

Riese: Which almost leads you to believe she might be planning a real costume.

Drew: You would think.

Riese: And you would be wrong.

Drew: You would be wrong, yeah. We’re going to get to that.

Riese: We’ll get to that. We’ll get to that.

Drew: We do meet Roxy, and one thing I’ll say about Roxy: hot.

Analyssa: Hot.

Riese: Hot, yeah. Also, she was the subletter in Hacks that Hannah slept with, remember?

Analyssa: Oh.

Riese: Have you seen Hacks?

Drew: I haven’t.

Riese: Oh my God.

Drew: I know. I will watch it.

Riese: You’ve seen Hacks?

Analyssa: I’ve seen this first season.

Riese: So, you just nodded in recognition even though you didn’t know what I was talking about. I appreciate that affirmation.

Analyssa: I nodded in recognition, number one, of the television show that you were referencing, and number two, that there is queer sex on that television program, which I know about.

Riese: Yes. Well, for anyone at home who watched Hacks, she was in it. She was also in Shameless.

Drew: I love when there’s just a queer person who all of a sudden starts popping up in queer shows and in a year or two will be the lead of a queer show. And you’re just like, “Oh, that’s fun.”

Riese: Yeah, yeah, like Roberta Colindrez, just like that.

Analyssa: Yes.

Drew: Speaking of queer people, Taylor is in Alice’s bed and is clearly having feelings about Alice being Alice. And when I say Alice being Alice, I mean Alice being Aloce.

Riese: Yes, exactly. Yeah, she’s intimidated by how wonderful Alice looks. While she thinks she looks like—

Taylor: Halfway to Walking Dead extra. Just missing blood here, some dirt.

Riese: I think she looks fantastic, but also, Alice’s outfit I love so much.

Analyssa: Yeah, really good outfit.

Riese: Yeah, I would be intimidated by that outfit.

Analyssa: She’s always wearing very pressed pants, which would intimidate me.

Riese: Yeah, she does look amazing.

Drew: Yeah, I think you can get pressed pants when you’re rich.

Analyssa: Yeah, and then you just have fancier hangers and fancy people to do your fancy laundry and stuff.

Drew: Exactly, exactly.

Analyssa: Anyway, they’re talking about their Halloween plans, and Alice wants to watch movies at home. She doesn’t want to go to—

Drew: Excuse me, she wants to do a scary movie marathon, which feels like a really clear specific thing and I was like yeah.

Analyssa: You would think that. That was very Drew.

Riese: And they’ve been having sex for three days, I guess.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: They haven’t left the home.

Riese: Which is fantastic.

Drew: I love that.

Analyssa: A queer ritual.

Drew: One thing I’ll say is, not to nitpick, but I wish we could have seen it. We’ll get through this, but there’s some conflict, and I was… Luckily, it gets resolved in a cute way. Sorry, spoiler alert if you haven’t watched the episode, you just like to follow the plots with our podcasting. I’d love to have just… I wanted to see the first date, the first kiss. I love that shit, but it’s fine.

Riese: I mean on the upside, it is finally… Because I feel like a big problem this show has is that it seems like the characters don’t exist when we’re not watching them.

Drew: That’s true.

Riese: So, it’s a rare example of them acknowledging that characters do exist when we’re not watching them. But I would have loved to see them wake up together and kiss. I feel like that would have been cute.

Drew: Yeah, but I like them together, I’m excited to see… Maybe when you find the one, you don’t have first kisses and first dates. You have third days. Speaking of committed relationships— I don’t think that really works.

Riese: That doesn’t really work, no.

Drew: Yeah, no.

Riese: Speaking of people.

Drew: Speaking of Halloween, Shane is dressing Tess’s mom up as Dolly Parton.

Analyssa: Very cute, and Tess is just vaguely bustling around the room, ignoring Shane, only really talking to her mom, being rude to Shane. Which is rude on its own, but also because Shane’s arms look really good this morning.

Riese: I know the muscle T.

Analyssa: I just think we could have noticed that maybe a little bit.

Riese: Right.

Drew: I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t understand who Tess is. There’s a person… Obviously, if your mom’s sick, you’re going through a lot, but the show doesn’t seem to engage with that specifically. And so, I’m just very confused how Tess went from, “I love you so much I want to open a second baby,” to, “I hate you.”

Analyssa: “I want to carry your second bar actually inside me.”

Riese: Yeah, are we supposed to think it’s just because she’s stressed out about, again, bar number two, which we all agree is ill-advised.

Drew: But she wanted it, she begged. It just feels like justifying Shane cheating with Kehlani. And it’s like, once again, you don’t have to justify that.

Analyssa: Which is annoying because Shane has already cheated with… Now it’s just this weird torpedo into any goodwill I have towards Tess. The bad thing has already been done. I don’t need more information about why Tess is being bad.

Drew: Is this a hot take? Am I about to say something true or is it just a feeling I’m having right now? The L Word past and present is bad at breaking up their couples. When they have couples break up, it’s done in a way that feels a little bit rushed and a little bit like… Yes, I get that people cheat, but this just feels like you’re creating drama.

Riese: I don’t know.

Drew: That’s feeling right to me in this moment, and if next week it’s not feeling right, I’ll make a correction.

Riese: I mean I do feel like I needed to see more of Tess. I felt like this was a good scene in terms of pushing Shane farther away from Tess. I feel like I actually needed more of it than we got, you know what I mean? To be built up a little bit because I don’t know. Because now it’s like I misremembered. I misremembered that Tess was the one who wanted to start poker.
So, for some reason, in this season, my whole concept of who this character is because everything she’s doing I’m like, “This is consistent with this person who I no longer like,” but was it always like this?

Drew: Yeah, what’s going on?

Riese: I do feel like she does make things harder than they have to be, and she does martyr herself even though no one wants her to, and that’s irritating. And we see that continuing to happen in the episode. But Shane just wants to eat an apple like Johnny Appleseed and to make dinner plans.

Analyssa: Shane is just like, “We have a reservation, are you still good for that?” The level that it turns me off is the snapping and being like, “I can’t deal with you right now.” That feels really out of nowhere, whereas I think you’re right the actions are all actually pretty consistent and would be fine. It’s how people engage with each other.

Drew: Also, because Shane just cheated, it so easily could have been done in a way where Tess is like, “Are you still good with dinner plans?” And then Shane is being like, “I don’t know, I’m brooding, I’m hot.” And then Tess could snap. And then you’d be like, “Okay, yes, is Tess a little bit on edge and whatever?” But at least you’d feel justified in a way that this just feels like-

Riese: But maybe this has been happening all along and that’s how we got here, to begin with. Maybe that’s-

Drew: Right, not in the scenes like when Alice and Taylor were having their first kiss.

Riese: Right, maybe this feeling of Tess brushing Shane off or whatever has been happening for a while, I don’t know. But isn’t Shane the one who got her mom into that costume and did all her makeup and stuff?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Isn’t she at least going to be like, “Wow, you did a really good job”?

Drew: I know, right.

Riese: I would be so impressed if my partner did that with my mom, with my sick mom. I’d be like, “Oh my God, nice.”

Analyssa: Yeah, that’s the thing is I think it’s showing Shane actually being really good and committed to Tess in their life together.

Riese: Yeah, and making her breakfast.

Analyssa: And then Shane getting shut down, which is a weird thing to wrap your head around when you know that Shane has just had sex with Kehlani, and in fact, might be on her way to do it again.

Riese: But aren’t we all?

Analyssa: I wish.

Drew: Speaking of breakfast, Maribel is dressed as an avocado. You can have avocados for breakfast.

Riese: You can, avocado toast.

Analyssa: Famously.

Drew: Yeah, it’s not something I eat for breakfast very often, but-

Analyssa: I love an avocado toast.

Drew: Me too.

Analyssa: You just can’t keep avocados in the house.

Drew: Right, this is my feeling. Okay, Micah doesn’t want to dress as the other half of the avocado because-

Riese: Devastating.

Drew: I was a little confused about this because eventually, we see this isn’t the case. Does he think that he’s going to be the only trans parent there or is the whole point of going to the thing because they’re a trans parent pair?

Riese: That’s the whole point of going.

Analyssa: The whole point of going is they’re going to meet trans parents. I thought he was like, “I don’t want to look silly in front of them.” But then they arrive at the party and every single person’s wearing a costume such that Micah actually looks silly for not wearing a costume.

Drew: It is always better to be the person who goes too much with the costume at a costume party than goes too little, in my opinion.

Analyssa: I like to do something right in the middle.

Drew: Well, sure.

Analyssa: I did a Kim Possible. If no one else was dressed up, I still look hot.

Drew: Yeah, I mean obviously right in the middle is ideal, but I’m just saying if we have to pick whatever.

Analyssa: One extreme or the other.

Riese: I think he should have dressed up as a tomato, and then together they would have been a little salad.

Drew: That’s nice.

Analyssa: Ew, he could have dressed up as a little piece of bread.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Oh, yeah.

Analyssa: Also, the avocado is really easily removable, so he could have just worn it.

Drew: Yeah, that’s true. It feels like… Anyways.

Riese: Yeah, big issue. Big issue in the episode, avocado costume.

Analyssa: Speaking of dressing up, Angie’s roommate is going to be an actor tonight in something. She’s finally gotten her first paid gig.

Drew: I know, I was like, “Ooh.” And then she’s like, “It’s for one night only.” And I was like, “You’re in a haunted house, aren’t you?”

Analyssa: I was like, “And it’s tonight, interesting.” I’m famously dumb, so I did not piece together that it was a haunted house until later, but that’s a great call. And Angie can’t do it obviously because she’s got studying to lie about, so-

Riese: Which is how we know she’s still involved with her teacher. And so, we did get a little bit more information about teacher-student relations in the university, and I think it is strictly forbidden if they’re in your class at every university. And now there’s more universities that are also forbidding it even if they’re not in your class.

Drew: Yeah, I don’t enjoy watching this, I don’t know where they’re going with it.

Analyssa: No.

Drew: Maybe they’re going somewhere interesting, but all I’m writing in my notes are, “She’s 18. Leave her alone.”

Analyssa: Yeah, it’s very weird. It’s weird that she also goes to see him at a public location. There are students running around and she’s trying to kiss him.

Drew: It’s bad.

Analyssa: It’s weird.

Drew: Also, she’s bailing on plans and always studying. She’s missing out on a college experience. This older man is taking this from her, which, look, happens plenty, but it’s sad. It makes me sad for Angie.

Riese: It’s also not connected to anything else happening in the series, and I wish they had found a way to keep her connected to someone or to something. I don’t know.

Drew: My biggest issue is I don’t need her to be… If she’s not going to be connected to the series, why is she spending time with another adult? The opportunity that we could have is, “Oh, we’re going to see Gen Z queers beyond just these two teenagers in high school. We’re going to see some teenagers and 20-somethings at college and what is the queer scene like there?” A bisexual girl hooking up with her older male professor is not a new Gen Z phenomenon. It’s truly the oldest-

Riese: They probably do it less, much less than previous generations have done it.

Drew: Yeah, it’s the oldest thing ever. And so, I’m just like-

Riese: Yeah, it’s been covered. Literature, film, television, this topic has been covered. But yeah, exactly, I hadn’t thought of it that way. But if she’s going to be involved with an adult, why?

Analyssa: If we’re going to follow her at college, why not let her be a college? And if she’s going to hook up with an adult, why are we following her at college?

Drew: Yeah, just pick an adult from the cast to be evil. Not evil, I’m being whatever, but-

Analyssa: This guy literally is Dani and Sophie and Finley’s age. It’s odd. Anyway.

Drew: Speaking of vomiting, which is what this makes me want to do, a cute little dinosaur runs up and… To clarify, a child dressed up like a dinosaur runs up to Micah and-

Riese: It wasn’t an actual dinosaur.

Drew: It wasn’t an actual dinosaur.

Riese: That would have been a really fun twist though.

Analyssa: They’re trying something really new for this Halloween episode. Oh my gosh, they did try something really new in the title card. The little O of The L Word has a little jack-o’-lantern, that was fun.

Riese: Oh, yeah. Oh, really?

Drew: That was fun, yeah.

Riese: Oh, like Google.

Analyssa: It was cute. Yeah, like Google.

Riese: Wow.

Analyssa: Yes, I was going to say speaking of child and adult relationships, a child pukes on Micah’s shoes, and then do one of you want to talk about the big reveal?

Drew: Yes. So, first, Armand Fields, who’s an actor on Work in Progress and the new Queer as Folk shows up, which I was excited about.

Riese: Their character is named Reese, but that’s also my name, so that’s going to be happening.

Drew: Yeah. So, Reese, at least this… When I got a Drew, Drew sucked. At least this character is cool. This character is probably only going to be in one episode and is cool, so-

Riese: That’s true, I did get a good one. I got a good Reese.

Analyssa: I have never heard a character with my name on television.

Drew: Wow, that’s-

Analyssa: Keep your ears peeled.

Riese: I haven’t either until right now.

Drew: Would you want me to name a character Analyssa or would you feel weird [inaudible 00:17:55]?

Analyssa: Yeah, that’d be fun.

Drew: Okay.

Analyssa: Yes, I’d like that, Drew.

Drew: I’ll make them good.

Riese: My Scattergories app doesn’t even recognize that your name is real.

Drew: Wow, that sucks.

Riese: It says it’s not a name.

Drew: Brutal. But the big reveal is that Reese’s partner is Max. If you don’t know Max, Max was on the original show played by Daniel Sea. And the way that Max was treated in the later seasons of the original show was-

Riese: Abysmal.

Drew: Let’s say not ideal.

Analyssa: You mean horrible?

Riese: Horrible.

Drew: And the way that Daniel was treated on set was, I’m going to say not great. And so, this is really special. I mean the music gets all twinkly when Micah doesn’t know who this person is, and I think the justification is it’s just exciting to see another trans father and that’s beautiful. But I was like, Micah’s like, “Oh my God, it’s Max from the original L Word.”

Riese: Right, yeah, and it’s so nice because everyone needs to read Drew’s interview with Daniel that we have on our website. It’s one of the best things we ever published.

Analyssa: It’s so good.

Riese: I read it again yesterday just to prepare. I also when I was showing this episode to Gretchen, as soon as Max walked out, I just paused it and was like, “Okay, so this is all the background you need to know about this person.” But yeah, the way their storyline ended was so awful.

They were pregnant, they were alone, they had just been left by their psychopath boyfriend who changed his number so that Max could not… Even though, whatever, legally I think he would have some responsibility for this child, whatever the fuck. And now, finally, unlike all the other characters from the old show that have been referenced in the new one, Max is getting a happy ending.

Drew: Yeah, it’s really nice.

Riese: No one deserves it more.

Drew: It made me… I knew that this was coming, but it made me emotional.

Riese: Yeah, I teared up.

Drew: It’s one of those things where it’s like it’s not everything, but it is something and you realize how meaningful that little something actually can be. Speaking of transitioning, I don’t have a good one for getting us back to the professor and Angie.

Analyssa: They’re out on the town, they’re wearing masks. Angie-

Riese: Well, Angie’s not.

Analyssa: Oh, yeah, Angie’s not. He’s wearing a mask.

Riese: What’s his costume?

Drew: I don’t know.

Analyssa: I don’t know.

Riese: Well, it’s bad. He should be-

Drew: It’s not even a good mask. It doesn’t cover his face enough. If the whole thing is like, “Oh, it’s Halloween, we can go out just the two of us,” then-

Analyssa: Wear a full mask.

Drew: Be fucking Jason or one of the other creepy killers.

Analyssa: Yeah, be Ghostface, obviously, yeah. And so, he is both a) nervous that people will recognize them. He flinches when Angie takes his hand, and then he’s also nervous to go into the haunted house, which to me, why bring this man?

Riese: Yeah, why bring this man?

Analyssa: Among other sins, why bring this man?

Drew: Yeah, it’s just… I mean it also doesn’t make me feel good about… Obviously, the relationship is not good because of the power dynamic and age gap and et cetera, but the fact that she doesn’t even want to go to one thing without him is also a very huge red flag to me even if he was not her professor. I don’t know, it’s a thing on top of a thing that makes me feel-

Analyssa: The hat on a hat-

Drew: Also, she’s listening to his audiobook and that cannot be a good book.

Riese: No.

Drew: That book cannot be good.

Riese: No, mm-mm.

Drew: What vibe do we think that audiobook has?

Riese: He did it himself, I think. Yeah, he recorded his own audiobook.

Analyssa: Back at the bar, Roxy makes a joke about wanting to hook up with Shane. And Finley’s like Shane is basically married, and Sophie’s like, “Well…” And Finley pushes back pretty hard.

Riese: Like there’s no possible way that that could ever be true, which this whole thing just annoyed the living daylights out of me.

Analyssa: The fight later I was like-

Riese: The fight later was-

Analyssa: “What are we talking about?”

Riese: Well, we’ll get there, we’ll get there, but it was the first time this season where I was like, “I hate this.”

Drew: I think Sophie has the best costume of anyone at the party.

Riese: Yes, thank you. Her costume rules.

Analyssa: Sorry-

Riese: What is Roxy’s costume?

Analyssa: What is Roxy’s costume? That’s my number one question.

Drew: Like a-

Riese: A vampire?

Drew: A dead zombie.

Analyssa: Zombie?

Riese: I noticed in a still from the episode that she has little fangs though, so I guess she’s a vampire, but that’s not evident in the show.

Drew: No.

Analyssa: That’s not a costume, sorry.

Riese: No, you just put white powder on your face and you’re wearing a white T-shirt, and you have the nerve to tell Sophie who hand-sewed her own raincoat with dogs, come on. Also, Sophie looks adorable.

Analyssa: Sophie’s so cute.

Drew: Yes, and the idea of, one, it happens because Sophie’s wanting to get… It’s like, “Oh, why wasn’t I hit on? Even though I’m in a committed relationship, I still want to feel whatever.” If you’re in a monogamous… Yeah, your ego whatever, but it doesn’t need to be like-

Riese: Yeah, it’s not an emergency.

Drew: It’s not an emergency, and two, they could figure out a way to keep the conceit and still slut it up a bit. I’m a firm believer that you can both be slutty and be high-concept.

Riese: Absolutely. That’s an important thing to know for life.

Drew: Yeah, I did laugh at-

Sophie: I made this.
Dani: Yeah, I can tell.
Sophie: Oh, fuck.

Drew: I do really like the Dani, Sophie friendship now where you feel the history, you feel that they know each other, you feel like there’s still a little bit of bad blood, but in a fun way where there’s a little bit of teasing, but they-

Analyssa: We’re going to rib, but yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, I also think Finley’s dressed as James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause. Is that what-

Drew: Wow, I didn’t even-

Analyssa: I knew it was a reference to something.

Drew: Was she wearing a red jacket?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Oh, I didn’t even-

Analyssa: Did Finley have a little stubble?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I thought that was very interesting just because I heard that comment two episodes ago when she said she’s on her gender training.

Drew: Something fun about James Dean is that if you’re right before… If Finley’s on a gender journey, James Dean can appeal to both sides of the… Because the first reason I shaved my beard six months before I came out was to dress up as James Dean for a dead celebrities party.

Riese: Oh, wow.

Analyssa: Fascinating.

Drew: So, it’s interesting how you can either add a beard or shave your beard depending on-

Analyssa: A little gateway to wherever you want your destination to be.

Riese: Interesting.

Analyssa: So, back at the parents’ party, Max and Reese and Micah and Maribel are talking about how Reese and Max’s family came to be. They have kids from former marriages, their-

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: There’s a foster kid that they adopted and they’re talking about things you need to handle within yourself before you can become a parent. So, they ask-

Drew: One thing that I like is that Max says that-

Max: I was dating this gay cis guy and he turned out to be the worst.

Drew: And then Micah’s like-

Micah: Yeah. No, I dated one of those too.

Drew: I really enjoyed that moment.

Analyssa: That was fun.

Drew: Also, an acknowledgement of how awful… What’s his name in the original show?

Riese: Tom.

Drew: Tom. Fuck Tom.

Riese: I mean they named them Tom, Joe, Tim. That was it.

Drew: Then yes, then they’re talking about basically, it’s just that Maribel go to therapy.

Riese: Yeah, which I think is a really valid suggestion, and she gets so offended.

Drew: So offended.

Riese: Because they’re talking about how they use the nicknames that they use for themselves and they’re like because basically… I mean dad is just a sound or whatever. And then Maribel’s like, “Oh, that’s funny. We thought that dad was also just a made-up word. Something my mom made up,” which was funny. But then when Reese is like, “Oh, you need to work that out,” Maribel totally bristles that they said that.

Analyssa: And shuts down. You can see her be like—

Riese: Yeah, and is acting like it was a ridiculous thing for them to say and it really wasn’t.

Drew: It wasn’t. I mean, look, I get if you’re just meeting people to suggest… But they are asking for parenting advice.

Analyssa: This is my thing, later-

Drew: So, it’s like-

Riese: That’s intimate information.

Analyssa: We can, I guess, talk about it later, but again, it’s in all these mini-scenes. But later she’s like, “They were being so nosy.” And I was like, you guys came to their house to ask them questions about their lives as parents. This is what the conversation is going to be at some point.

Riese: Yeah, and if you want them to give you information, you have to be open to the advice they’re going to give, and also, to giving something of yourself as well. It’s not a one-way street.

Drew: Yeah, also this is a T4T couple who has four kids from different… What are you expecting to get here as far as vibes and energies? A suggestion that you go to therapy, you don’t think that’s-

Riese: Of course.

Drew: The only reason you wouldn’t get that is if they were explaining to you that therapy is actually problematic because not everyone can afford it, et cetera, et cetera. You’re getting some brand of that probably if you’re going to this parenting party. Come on now.

Analyssa: Back at the haunted house, I’m not wasting my transitions on these little, tiny things, but the professor has taken his mask off. As soon as that happened, I was like, “Oh no, they’re going to get seen.” They kiss, Angie’s roommate emerges from the haunted house, which was her paid acting gig because Drew’s a genius and is like, “Who is that?” And Angie is lying.

And then he’s like, “Ha-ha, is it weird that I’m your professor?” Which I was like, “Haven’t you guys been dating for a minute? This is the first time this has come up? That’s so bizarre.”

Riese: Yeah, of course, it’s weird.

Analyssa: Of course, it’s weird and why are you asking now weeks… it’s the end of October.

Riese: I mean last episode was September 22nd.

Analyssa: How do you know that?

Riese: Ivy texted Shane on September 22nd…

Drew: I love you.

Riese: … which would have been in the second episode.

Analyssa: This has been going on a month-ish, and it seems like they’re spending a-

Riese: Right, if school starts the beginning of September, she’s been in this class for a minute.

Analyssa: And it seems like they’ve been seeing each other. What a weird question to just be asking. Okay.

Drew: I’m glad you took all those notes because I just wrote, “Stay away from her.”

Analyssa: So, we’re back at the bar. There is a League of Their Own costume, which is very realistic. I was at a Halloween party where I saw League of Their Own costumes with my own eyes.

Drew: So many, so many.

Riese: So many.

Drew: The costume of the year.

Riese: Absolutely.

Analyssa: I liked that. That felt very like-

Riese: Yeah, yeah.

Analyssa: A queer show for queer people.

Riese: Right, would have been even better if maybe, I don’t know, Dani had been dressed as Greta.

Analyssa: Sure.

Riese: Just an idea.

Drew: I think that’s too basic for Dani, no offense. If you’ve dressed as A League of Their Own I’m not calling you basic, I’m just… It was the common costume this year, and I just think that-

Riese: Right.

Drew: But she should have had-

Riese: Yeah, it should have been a more unique route with being a sexy cat.

Analyssa: Dani dressed as a cat.

Drew: No, it’s worse. No, no, no, I’m just saying that if we’re making notes here, I want Dani to be dressed as something very specific.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Also, if we wanted Roxy to be dressed in that sort of aesthetic, why not just be like Angelina Jolie from Foxfire?

Analyssa: Or they reference Bound. Why not be like-

Drew: Right, right.

Analyssa: Whatever, okay.

Drew: Also, how fun would it have been if they had gone as a friendship couple’s costume? A friendship couples costume as Bound–

Analyssa: And everyone was like-

Drew: And it was like, “What are you doing?” And like, “We’re old friends.” And then we’re making out as Bound. Oh, that would have been so fun, like oh.

Analyssa: And they do have a real… They have the vibe… Well, anyway.

Drew: Yeah, it would have been really fun.

Analyssa: So, yeah, Tess has called Shane or Shane has called Tess, doesn’t really matter. The point of the conversation is for them to fight, but Tess’s mom has a new nurse, which Tess is like, “I can’t just leave her here with this new nurse. It’s a stranger.”

Riese: Why not?

Drew: Also, if Tess’s mom was already living with them and sick, why would you get… If you don’t have time to take care of a second bar, let alone your first bar, why’d you want a second bar? I just don’t understand the second bar thing. Is it just to get the plumber in because the first bar could have had a toilet clog or something? The second bar makes no sense to me because it just causes-

Riese: I mean I accepted it might in the future lead to something, but if you are the kind of person who literally has to cancel your dinner date that night with your partner who you’re obviously feeling some disconnection with because the agency that you trust who has sent a nurse sends a substitution nurse. Which sometimes I assume they do because your nurse isn’t available every single fucking day.

If you’re the kind of person who can’t deal with that who then feels like she has to be there with her mom because there’s a new nurse, you are not the kind of person who should be buying a second bar. Because you obviously, for some reason, need to be involved in things that you don’t need to really be involved in.

Drew: Obviously, not to be this person, but it is proof that if your game plan to have a better-written character is tell the showrunner to make you cis, it still might not work out. I say that with love, but in the end, how much someone sees your humanity might not change just because of the character’s backstory.

Analyssa: Speaking of being seen, Sophie’s friends, Dani and Roxy, drag Sophie to the backroom to fix her costume.

Riese: And they destroy it.

Analyssa: And they destroy it. It’s no longer a costume. What is she dressed as now?

Riese: A girl with a sleeveless raincoat?

Analyssa: The thing is they could have just-

Drew: Kept the animals.

Analyssa: … ripped off the sleeves, unzipped it, and belted it in the middle with the little dogs and cats on it-

Riese: This is a crime.

Analyssa: And she would have been slutty raining cats and dogs. Perfect.

Drew: Yeah, I also was mad that we didn’t get a wide shot, where I was like… And I think it’s probably because I don’t know, so I’m making assumptions, but I’m assuming that it was like this plot point won’t work because it’s not that much sluttier. Because I am like, “Wait, the whole point was to slut her up,” and I’m getting a hot… I want to see.

Analyssa: Yeah, I wanted her to do a little twirl or a pose. Yeah, I agree.

Drew: Let’s see some titties.

Riese: I wanted to tear Roxy’s costume off and be like, this is not even a real costume, so why are you judging? Don’t. Glass houses throw stones.

Analyssa: Nailed that.

Riese: Thank you so much.

Drew: What is fun is that Sophie makes a comment about how Roxy’s into her. And then Dani, love this, this is what should be modeled for the community is just like-

Dani: Do you want to come home with me?

Drew: And then Roxy is like-

Roxy: To watch reruns of One Tree Hill or–

Drew: Which forces Dani to explicitly be like, “No.”

Riese: To bang.

Analyssa: To hook up.

Drew: And Roxy’s like, “I have one foot out the door.”

Riese: Yeah, thrilled. I’m so happy for them.

Drew: Speaking of people who are going to bang, Shane gets a text from Ivy and then Finley walks in on Shane taking a shot because Shane seems to have the weight of the world on her well-sculpted shoulders.

Riese: She sure does. I wonder who will relieve her of all of this stress.

Analyssa: It’s so hard having to have sex with Kehlani in the back alley, no.

Riese: No.

Analyssa: So, then later Mari wants to leave the parent-kid Halloween party because she is feeling interrogated and being nosy. And again, this is the Tess and Shane bar thing from a couple of episodes ago.

Riese: This is her idea.

Analyssa: Maribel wants Micah to want to have a kid, and now Micah is excited about this, and Mari’s like, “I want to leave.”

Riese: Yeah, bad dynamic.

Analyssa: But then she does watch Micah with a cute little dalmatian kid getting a cupcake.

Riese: In a way, I thought that was her thinking that’s what parenthood is. Little kids getting cupcakes and not stuff like making sure that she’s in a good place to do it. But Micah wants to stay, and I was proud of him for being like, “I’m staying, I have more questions to ask.”

Analyssa: Yeah, I have more questions to ask, which I think one of you may be able to answer. What movie are Alice-

Drew: Night of the Living Dead.

Analyssa: Thank you.

Riese: No idea.

Analyssa: I said, “This is for Drew and not for me.”

Drew: And probably the reason they chose it is because I’m pretty sure that it’s been in the public domain for a while, so it’s a-

Riese: Yeah, they’re always watching black-and-white movies.

Drew: It’s a recognizable movie, it’s a classic, and it also didn’t cost them anything, so we love that. But the criterion collection did recently restore it, so because it was in the public domain, it was available in all these shitty bootleg versions. And now, the version that you can find in probably streaming is actually good, so that’s nice.

Analyssa: Cool. Well, glad for them and the quality of their watch party.

Riese: Unfortunately, Taylor has lost her eyeballs and I do not… I’m sorry, but Alice also wears glasses, so she also has contacts, so why hasn’t Taylor asked for contact solution?

Drew: Why didn’t you bring your glasses? If you’re like-

Analyssa: You can just Postmates contact solution. It’s a very easy-

Riese: Or just look in Alice’s cabinet for contact solution if for some reason you don’t want to ask, it’s there.

Analyssa: I would immediately be rifling through Alice’s bathroom cabinets even if I weren’t looking for contact solution.

Riese: Exactly, I’d be like, “I wonder if she has any Xanax.” Just kidding.

Analyssa: I’m in the fanciest… Presumably. The way that they show Taylor engaging with Alice’s space is like this is the fanciest home she’s been in. Start opening those drawers, baby. See what’s in there. See what’s going on.

Riese: Right. Also, the contacts glasses thing comes… I don’t wear glasses, but it comes up immediately with everyone I have ever dated who has contact glasses like, “Can you sleep over?” “Oh, I can’t because my contacts.” “Okay.” I used to have contact solution at home because people would always need it to sleep over.

Analyssa: Okay, another brag.

Drew: You’re like, “I hook up with a lot of people, and also, they’re smart, they wear glasses.”

Analyssa: “And also, I have perfect eyesight.”

Riese: Yes, I have perfect eyesight, so I don’t need it, but I like to help out my less fortunate friends.

Drew: That’s how I carry a tampon in my purse the whole time-

Riese: Right, exactly. You have to-

Drew: Someone might need one.

Riese: Yeah, you have to be prepared for these things. So, there’s no universe in which this wouldn’t have already come up.

Analyssa: Three days is so long. My eyes hurt-

Riese: Are your eyes bloodshot to death?

Analyssa: … after 12 hours, just a regular long day.

Drew: I’ve been dealing with eye problems for a couple of years now. The amount of eye doctor… I know the people who work at my eye doctor’s office better than I know some of my friends and I hate it. And I’m like, “Taylor’s going to get styes. It’s bad for you, you can’t. What is she doing?” Anyways.

Analyssa: Okay, so anyway, Taylor is clearly having a hard time with how perfect Alice’s life seems. It’s the same thing as when they met, and Taylor didn’t believe that Alice would actually want to go on a date with her. That’s where we’re at. And then there are noises outside, spooky.

Riese: And they’re scared. This whole thing was very fun I thought.

Drew: This was fun.

Analyssa: This was fun and silly.

Drew: I do think nothing’s scarier than deep insecurity or dating someone with deep insecurity, but the noises are a more fun type of scary.

Analyssa: This is also just how I feel every time I’m home alone. I hear anything and I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s over. It’s over.”

Drew: What I would say is that if someone’s living in your home or if someone is stealing your things, it’s probably not really at risk to you. You’re probably fine. Ivy shows up and she and Shane making out.

Riese: It’s hot.

Analyssa: She’s sitting in a very cool car in a very hot costume. She’s basically a Batman villain, and she also has brought Shane scissors, she bought her a gift, which okay.

Drew: It’s one of those things where it’s like, okay, so Shane gave you all these hair products, so that makes sense. But also, if I hooked up with someone and then they immediately got me a gift, I would have… That’s at least a yellow flag.

Riese: Maybe she was just trying to tell Shane she wanted to scissor.

Drew: Hmm, that’s a really good point.

Analyssa: I just wouldn’t go to the trouble of getting the scissors engraved with Shane’s initials.

Drew: That’s the part of it.

Analyssa: That’s the actual spooky part.

Riese: I get… all my scissors are engraved with Shane’s initials.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Sure, sure, sure.

Analyssa: They actually just make them like that.

Riese: They make them like that.

Analyssa: It’s so ironic that they make them like that.

Riese: Yeah, I mean it is her own line of clippers.

Drew: I mean it is SM. It is SM, so that’s a fun little-

Riese: Yeah, it is. See, exactly. Everyone’s having a great time. Is this when they start boning?

Analyssa: Yeah, they’re making out and they’re hooking up.

Riese: And when she’s looking at her ass? Beautiful.

Analyssa: And then Ivy has to go move her car seat. So, then Shane just is looking at her butt, which is pretty fun.

Riese: Yeah, it’s hot.

Drew: Oh, God. I just… she’s so hot.

Riese: Sorry, Tess, but it’s hot.

Analyssa: Yeah, she’s just so hot.

Drew: Speaking of people needing to grow and change, Alice calls 911. And just a reminder, you should never call 911. There is always an alternative thing to do. We don’t really have time to get into that, but we’ll put in the show notes some guides to that. Taylor, choosing one of those alternative things, goes outside to see what’s going on because it’s probably fine.

Riese: And it is.

Drew: And it is.

Riese: It’s just a spooky decoration. That’s what happens in spooky season.

Analyssa: That is what happens.

Riese: Your decorations can spook you, and Alice is like, “You’re my hero.” And it’s cute.

Drew: Yes, and then they decide to be serious enough to, I don’t know, I guess not leave your contacts in for three days.

Analyssa: I would never ever let someone else take my contact out of my eye.

Drew: No, that’s-

Analyssa: That’s the spookiest part of this whole little plot is that Alice goes, “Are you ready to let me take that contact out of your eye?” No. No.

Riese: But she says it’s in her brain, so probably Alice had to drill into the brain, and you can’t drill into your own brain. You have to do.

Analyssa: Yeah, if she had to enter from a space that’s not the eyeball, okay, maybe I would let someone else do that.

Riese: Yeah, with a scalpel and a knife, and some scissors with Shane’s name engraved in them.

Drew: Just from a hygiene standpoint, Taylor’s not good with eye hygiene. Optical hygiene.

Analyssa: Yeah, obviously, someone else’s fingers in your eye-

Riese: Taylor needs a new eye doctor to just, a come-to-Jesus moment with her eye doctor. I’m worried.

Analyssa: Oh, speaking of caring for others, Tess is with her mom and is trying to get her mom to go to the bathroom. Tess’s mom is really fighting her and basically ends up saying at one point, “I don’t want to be your patient anymore.” She’s asking for the new nurse, even though Tess is like, “I can do it.”

Riese: Which she obviously can’t.

Analyssa: Which she can’t really, and Tess’s mom is like, “I want to be in a home. I don’t want to be taken care of here anymore.” All this is very sad and made me more annoyed that Tess was mean for no reason earlier in the episode because I just wanted to be sad that she’s having a sad time with her mom and be understanding of, “Oh yeah, this has taken up a lot of your life. This is a huge drain on your situation.” But because she was just snappy earlier, I’m like, “Well…” I don’t know, it’s just more conflicting information.

Riese: I think she’s allowed to be frustrated, and obviously, this is a devastating experience for her to be having, and I want to acknowledge that. But at the same time, I think here I’m just like, “This isn’t even what your man wants, so what are you doing? This man is here, she doesn’t want you. Why are you doing…” It feels like at this point it’s more about something within Tess than it is about figuring out what her mom actually needs and wants.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: What is all this for?

Drew: Which if explored is interesting, just not on my gay hookup show. It just is this thing where it’s like the first season Tess was relapsing. This season she’s dealing with her sick mom in this very heavy, complicated way and being cheated on, which she was cheated on in the first season too. So, second season we had some fun poker stuff I think, but-

Riese: And she dated Cherie Jaffe for 24 hours and-

Analyssa: Oh, yeah.

Drew: Oh, yeah. Oh, God. I just… Tess deserves better, and by that, I mean Jamie.

Analyssa: So, the next thing that happens is at the bar, Sophie sneaks up on Finley, and then-

Riese: It’s cute at first.

Analyssa: It is sweet at first. Finley says, “By the way, totally talked to Shane, she says everything is totally fine,” which absolutely didn’t happen.

Riese: No.

Analyssa: She mentioned Shane’s shot, and Shane was like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Drew: Also, is Finley just running this bar by herself now?

Analyssa: Basically.

Riese: Yeah, I have no… The bar is chaos. They need one of those little delivery robots in the bar. They’re probably being run by delivery robots.

Drew: But then Finley tells Sophie that she has a pattern of cheating, which we get more context that Sophie… And maybe we already knew this, that Sophie cheated before Dani.

Riese: Yeah, we knew that.

Drew: Okay, but it still is like-

Riese: They were on a break.

Drew: They were on a break. Finley was the cheated… So, it’d be one thing if Finley was like, “That’s how our relationship started.” Instead of being like, “And then when I was gone for a year, you hooked up with someone else.”

Riese: “After I explicitly told you it was fine to do it.” They were on a break. I don’t know, I feel like they’re trying to do something here where they’re trying to parallel Shane’s situation to Sophie’s, but it’s not working because it doesn’t make sense. And also, Finley doesn’t seem to know anything about Shane suddenly, so I have no idea what they’re doing here, and I don’t care for it. But I do feel like it is showing at least that Finley’s trying to work through her feelings instead of just numbing them.

Drew: That’s true.

Riese: We are seeing two adults try to talk through issues, and that is nice, I guess.

Drew: Yeah, and then someone hits on Sophie, and Sophie says, “No.”

Riese: “I have a girlfriend.”

Analyssa: Girlfriend.

Riese: So, now we know Sophie’s a changed woman, and she’s not going to cheat.

Drew: Wow, incredible.

Riese: But of course, she’s not going to cheat openly. Anyway, but they were cute for one second before they started fighting and I really enjoyed that because I love them still so much.

Analyssa: Me too. Yeah, I’m hopeful that like you just said, that the fights of this season are leading towards them just showing out and being cute together and having a good time.

Drew: We then go to people making different decisions, which is Shane and Ivy fucking to a fun cover of “Psychokiller” by the Talking Heads.

Riese: The music was so intense.

Drew: So, it was a real intense choice, but into it. It’s hot, I’m going to say it.

Analyssa: So hot.

Drew: I’m going to be brave and say it’s hot. They’re making out, Shane puts her fingers in-

Analyssa: Fingers in the mouth while kissing.

Drew: It’s always going to get me. And then Kehlani does a little Titanic, which means putting her hand on this fogged-up glass-

Riese: It means causing a ship to hit an iceberg and then sink.

Drew: Which metaphorically you could argue.

Analyssa: And then Finley taking out the trash sees that this is Shane and Ivy, dun dun dun.

Drew: Which once again, why is Finley on her high horse?

Riese: But also, it’s Finley in costume. It just makes it seem more dramatic because it’s like she’s in this brooding little costume like-

Analyssa: Yeah, and the car is really far away. It’s very noiry, it’s like clouds are outside because they’re not. It’s pretty funny. And then back at the little party, Micah and Max have a conversation. Micah’s just like, “It’s so cool.” I mean some of the stuff that you said earlier but saying it’s so cool to talk to someone who is trans about parenting and to see this life that you guys have built.

There’s just a real… I don’t know, it was very sweet, and they decide to go get drinks to talk about it more because Micah has a bunch more questions. And then Micah starts to help clean up when Max leaves the kitchen. I thought it was so sweet.

Drew: That’s a really nice… I mean I also really liked the moment when Max is like, “It’s special because I get to be the one to tell you how great it’s going to be.” And to just think about how alone and scared Max was when pregnant and how it seemed doomed. And to now be like Max has four kids and also gets to pass along to this new generation of being like, “This is going to be great.”

Analyssa: Queer parenting is possible and you’re going to really love it if that’s what you want.

Drew: It’s really meaningful. It’s really nice.

Analyssa: Well, and from that tender moment, we cut back to Finley and Shane having a conversation.

Riese: I hated this scene.

Drew: It’s so bad, I don’t know.

Riese: Shane did not cheat on Finley.

Drew: It’s wild.

Analyssa: It’s bizarre.

Riese: It is so wild. I feel like they’re trying to push along Shane feeling guilty, but they’re also doing it at the expense of Finley has been in AA for a year now, and it feels like one of the things that is a big part of that is realizing that all people are flawed, that you should not be judging others, you should be focusing on yourself.

And it seems like if Finley really… This could be an opportunity for Finley to live those values and be like, “Yes, this person is also damaged, and this person is also fucking up because we all do. No one is perfect.” Don’t idealize people. I feel like it just doesn’t track.

Drew: Yeah, something that would be interesting to me is, okay, so let’s say Finley has Shane on this pedestal. She realizes, okay, Shane’s human and has… Maybe comforts Shane or becomes the mentor. Was the mentee, becomes more the mentor, and then that leads her to feeling more empathy for Sophie to be like, “We’re all people, we’re all-”

Riese: Right, exactly.

Drew: There’s a way to do it where you’re tweaking slightly things and it’s so much better and it takes so little tweaking.

Analyssa: Right, because clearly, this isn’t really about Shane at all.

Drew: No.

Analyssa: It’s a thing about Sophie and Finley’s relationship and what it means that Finley believes in Shane who’s going to cheat. And if she chooses to believe in Sophie, does that mean something? And it’s like, yes, part of AA is realizing all people are flawed, but also, part of AA is realizing all people are very different. Every situation is very different, and Shane isn’t Sophie, Sophie isn’t Shane. They’re different people. And Finley doesn’t have a relationship with Shane. Finley’s not dating Shane, so reacting in that way, I just-

Drew: We probably all have had friends who have been cheating on someone and have talked to us about it, and it is an uncomfortable position to be in. Depending on the situation, you might have various feelings about it, but usually, I don’t know, it’s just so weird to take it so personally.

Riese: Yeah, you shouldn’t be idolizing… Shane would be the first person to be like, “Don’t idolize me. Don’t idolize my relationship. Never.” And the other thing about it is that there’s nothing for Shane to do in this scene. Shane doesn’t even say anything.

Drew: No, she’s just like, “Well-”

Riese: She’s there trying to react, but it’s like I don’t think this scene was necessary. I think if they wanted to move Shane forward, they could have just with what happens with Max later. And I don’t really see how this at all parallels to Sophie. I feel like if they weren’t going to make this an opportunity to have Finley show that she’s grown and be like, “Hey, man, what’s going on? How are you?” Flipping that script, then why even have this at all? It just seems so… I can’t imagine any universe in which someone would react like this.

Drew: No. Going from a scene I hated to a scene I loved, Dani and Roxy are making out, it’s very hot, and then Roxy sits on Gigi’s earring and-

Riese: Remember when she lost the earring before and I was like, “Don’t forget that, guys.”

Drew: Now, that’s some good writing. And then Dani starts to cry and then Roxy hugs her and it just feels very much like, “This is queer friendship.” I just really liked this scene.

Riese: Yeah, I loved it. I loved it.

Analyssa: I did too. I really like them together. It was really fun.

Drew: Yeah, me too.

Riese: Yeah, it was a fun dynamic.

Drew: Alice puts her mouthguard on.

Analyssa: Oh yeah, this is a big step in a relationship. I can remember basically every time a partner of mine has been like, “Okay, tonight’s the night that I have to wear my mouthguard. We’ve gone long enough that I can’t no longer wear my mouthguard.”

Drew: It is the thing of it’s whatever your things are that are-

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, I wish the other thing she said had been some more-

Analyssa: I agree.

Riese: I’m like you wear earplugs because your neighbor is loud. What does that have to do with you?

Analyssa: Earplugs for sleep is not a flaw.

Riese: No, uh-uh. And then Taylor offhandedly is like, “I don’t have a driver’s license.” “Okay.”

Drew: Yeah, those aren’t the same types of things. It’s like the ways in which you’re gross and you’re whatever, that’s-

Riese: Right. I wanted her to be like, “I get really gassy after I have dairy,” or something.

Analyssa: Right, the Mean Girls thing where she’s like, “I have really bad breath in the morning.” That kind of thing.

Riese: Yeah, or like, “I have psoriasis, and my scalp flakes off in my sleep.” I don’t know, man, something. Queer people all have things.

Drew: Bodies are gross.

Riese: Bodies are disgusting.

Analyssa: Yeah, bodies are so nasty.

Riese: They are constantly malfunctioning. But anyway, I still love these two and I’m shipping it.

Drew: Yeah, me too.

Riese: And they’re really cute together. Also, they’re both really good actors, and so, the scene sings.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: Yeah, they’re really charming. It’s very sparkly when they’re going.

Drew: Ivy texts Shane that she’s out front, but then the place that Max and Mike have gone to for drinks is Dana’s, and so, there’s a little interaction between Max and Shane. They’re trying to find a way to both have it move Shane’s storyline forward as far as Max being like, “Oh, he’s settled down and he’s still being Shane,” and these sorts of things.

But there’s also a moment where Shane apologizes to Max for the way that they all treated Max back in the day, and it obviously feels like an apology to, yes, the character of Max, but also to Daniel, and also to trans people in general maybe. To me, the bigger apology is the moment earlier when Max says to Micah, “I’m so excited to get to tell you how special this is going to be,” or whatever that line was. That to me is the apology.

This is like, okay, it is what it is, but is also there is a difference between a nonbinary writer and a nonbinary director putting this line in this fictional character’s mouth versus an actual atonement from people involved in the original series who maybe were not supportive or who created that storyline.

And it’s tricky because of the way that the internet works, queer community works. It is easier to not own up to things. We don’t know who on that set was most at fault for some of these things, and by we, I mean the general public. I know. But it’s one of those things where if an actor, a writer, a director, show creator named Ilene Chaiken, or whatever were to actually reckon with that original storyline in a more public way, I think that would be more meaningful than a fictional character once again being written by a nonbinary person, but it’s still nice. It’s not nothing.

Riese: Yeah, it’s nice that… I liked that Max was able to be… Because on the one hand, I was like, “You’re forgiving them very quickly.” But it also wasn’t really forgiveness so much as it was, “You know what? Well, I’m thriving, I have so much joy in my life and all of your bullshit…” And it’s interesting because Shane was actually the only one of anyone who was actually nice to Max and didn’t misgender him and all of these things. So, I guess, of course, it’s Shane who’s apologizing on everybody’s behalf.

Drew: Well, right, that’s what-

Riese: I mean Bette owes them a pretty significant apology.

Drew: I mean it would have been more interesting to me if Shane had apologized and Max had been like, “You’re the only one who looked out for me.” And then if Shane was like, “Me not being awful is not the same as me looking out for you.”

Riese: Right, because also I should have stood up for you more with my friends and made them-

Analyssa: There was more that I could have done if you… Even you saying that I was on your side, I really wasn’t as much as I could have been, and I want to apologize for that even.

Riese: Right, yeah.

Drew: A little bit more specificity, but it is what it is, and it is just this meta moment that’s meant to be whatever.

Riese: Yeah, and I’m really glad that they did this. I felt like probably because of what’s happened, Daniel probably had some input on what happened.

Drew: I have an interview that maybe is coming out the day this podcast comes out. A follow-up interview with Daniel where we talk about the episode.

Analyssa: Oh, wow.

Drew: So, check that out.

Analyssa: Okay, a little plot-

Riese: I’m really excited for that.

Analyssa: But I really did like the thing you just pointed out, which is like Max being like, “This is not my life anymore. I really don’t care.” It’s not the tone that it’s set in, but it’s like, “I found a whole other world and life.” I don’t know, I think that just feels really nice that there is so much joy.

Honestly, maybe this sounds shitty, but that juxtaposed with the fact that Shane is still making the same mistakes and has the same haircut. But just that this character, you know what I mean? There’s an interesting character… You always think, “I wish I could tell my worst friends how good I’m doing and see that they’re doing bad.” That’s not Max’s tone either, but it was a cool thing to see.

Riese: Yeah, because he did have certain values that he was living by that have led him to having a life that is maybe not as economically bountiful as these people but is filled with love and joy and happiness, and that is really sweet. And then we transition into a piece that I found absolutely maddening.

Drew: Wait.

Analyssa: Which was?

Riese: So, Micah comes back and is like, “Oh, you know Shane,” right?

Drew: Yeah. Yeah, but first, I want to say that Shane does say that Max can drink for free at the bar, which I think all trans people should get to drink for free at lesbian bars. That feels like a real-

Riese: Yeah, I think you’re right.

Drew: I don’t know. I mean not that lesbian bars are thriving financially. They honestly need our dollars.

Riese: Then Micah comes and he’s like, “Oh my God, you know Shane.” And it’s like, “Yeah, small world.” And then Micah’s like, “I still have some questions.” And then the question that he asks-

Micah: So, with the diapers, how do you know when to change them? Just when they smell or-

Riese: It’s just like when you’re going to have someone say something in a show, why not have them say something meaningful or important?

Analyssa: Interesting.

Riese: Interesting. How do you know when to change a dirty diaper? When it’s dirty! That is easy to Google. I want to know the specific questions you have about being a trans parent because your whole storyline has to be about being trans, but isn’t that what this conversation is?

Drew: Yes, yes.

Analyssa: Or even just about parenting generally like how does it feel to-

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: I don’t know, how do you deal with being responsible for so many people or how do you whatever? Do you get to go out anymore? What’s that look like?

Riese: Yeah, is it normal that Reese would be cool with you just going out on a whim? Anything, anything. Why write a line that means nothing that is a complete throwaway that’s useless? That doesn’t even make sense because earlier Micah was like, “I can’t google these questions.” That’s a question you can google, it’s also common sense.

Analyssa: Or ask literally anyone.

Riese: Ask anyone.

Analyssa: It’s not that Micah doesn’t know any parents.

Riese: Ask Shane, ask Finley.

Analyssa: It’s just that Micah doesn’t know trans or queer parents.

Riese: I’m sure he’s babysat. We’ve all babysat, everyone babysits.

Drew: Yeah, it did make me laugh that the next question was what if the kid is weird?

Analyssa: That’s actually a better question.

Riese: Yeah, and it reveals something about Micah’s personality then.

Analyssa: And what he’s worried about, you know what I mean? That’s actually interesting.

Drew: Okay, so then Maribel gets home and there’s a really nice sister moment between Sophie and Mari where they talk about their dad. And it’s a good moment.

Analyssa: Yeah, it’s cute. I do want to pick a fight about the offhand comment about sweet tarts because that’s candy, that’s my favorite candy.

Drew: I do know that about you.

Riese: I love sweet tarts.

Analyssa: I often have just a box of sweet tarts in my passenger seat. There’s always candy.

Drew: You like the big ones, right?

Analyssa: Yeah, I do.

Riese: Oh, interesting.

Analyssa: Anyway.

Drew: Then Angie confesses to her roommate that she’s hooking up with her professor, which it did feel realistic to me that her roommate is like, “Ooh,” and not like, “Um.”

Analyssa: Yeah, totally.

Drew: My question is that, I guess… Again, one of the things I really wanted was them to explore what’s different with Gen Z. So, it would be interesting if the roommate had been like, “That’s not good.”

Riese: “That’s fucked up,” right.

Drew: I do think that there are plenty of 18-year-old college freshmen who have been aware of the world enough the past nine years that they’re like, “Oh, actually, power dynamics. Actually, I read an infograph on…” or, “I saw a TikTok about…” Whatever. I sound very old right now, but-

Riese: No, but they know this stuff. Gen Z knows this stuff.

Drew: Yeah, I did like that there was an Olivia Rodrigo poster on the wall [inaudible 00:57:34]. I did enjoy that. And then we go back to Dani and Roxy, and Dani’s like, “Why won’t you stay in LA?” And Roxy’s like-

Roxy: Because you’re not ready to be my wife yet.
Dani: Okay, really though.
Roxy: No, I’m being real. Call me when that heart heals, I’ll come running.

Analyssa: I would fold immediately. I’d be like, “Oh, you want to do this? Great. Who is my ex-girlfriend.” Even though my ex-girlfriend is Gigi, I’m like, “Okay, let’s explore this right now.”

Drew: It was really… I don’t know. I hope Roxy comes back.

Riese: Yeah, I do think that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, even though I do think Dani was going to be the top in this situation. I think Roxy’s power bottom.

Analyssa: And then they put on a song that they both know and have a little dance to and it’s very cute.

Drew: Yeah, that’s great.

Riese: I love it when young people dance in large, oversized cardigans. I’m being serious.

Drew: So, then Finley gets home and tells Sophie that she was right, and Finley basically is like, “I want to trust you, but I’m struggling.”

Riese: Yeah, and says she can’t stop thinking about it and maybe she just needs to find out what happened. And even though that’s not something I personally can relate to, I do feel like it’s a common experience where people are just like they tell these stories in their head, and maybe knowing the truth would help. So, that seems promising for them, and eventually, they’ll have a nice time, and we could see my favorite ship sail the seven seas like a cruise where no one gets sick but has a lot of food and enjoys themselves in the pool.

Drew: That’s nice. We learn why Micah didn’t want to wear the avocado costume because he had the pit which gave him a pregnant belly. Why wouldn’t Maribel be wearing the-

Riese: The pit, yeah.

Drew: I think I understand why this… Obviously, every trans person’s different, but based on what we know about Micah, I understand why he wouldn’t want to go to this parenting thing with a belly. I was so confused by that. Anyways, Maribel apologizes for being difficult-

Riese: Again.

Drew: … and Micah’s like, “It should be fun,” which is a nice lesson to take from Max. Especially because Micah’s such an anxious Andy over here. It’s nice to have-

Riese: Those anxious Andys.

Drew: And so, have him be the one to be like, “This should be fun.”

Riese: Yeah, yeah, because that’s what Max told him.

Drew: Oh, boy. Kehlani looks so hot.

Riese: Devastatingly hot.

Drew: And Shane’s like, “We have to end this.” And Kehlani also, which this is so hot, is so not other people of Shane’s past who have been needy and like, “No, don’t break up with me. I’m going to burn your place down,” whatever.

Analyssa: She’s just like, “All right.”

Drew: It’s like, “Let’s call this an awakening for both of us.” And I’m like, “Now, I want you even more.”

Riese: Right. I also like that Shane’s actually speaking to her about this and not just blowing her off or whatever. I know that we’re seeing Shane do the same things over and over again, but there are these tiny little things that are being done differently that I think show some growth or whatever. Did you guys, when I was watching it and I was like, “Oh my God, is that Tess in the background?” Were we supposed to notice that?

Analyssa: I think so. It’s pretty… She has a distinct face, I know what she looks like, you know what I mean?

Drew: Yeah. Well, so Tess is behind her, says-

Tess: Fuck you, Shane.

Drew: Go to credits.

Analyssa: Boom.

Riese: Tess’s boobs looked great though.

Drew: So, who’s winning really?

Riese: It’s also like there’s this much water in the glass. I’m glad that at least Tess found out immediately. I was like you don’t want to drag out an extended whatever.

Drew: I do think that if I saw… I’m just different, it’s fine. People are allowed to have their relationships, the monogamy that they have. I’m just like if I saw my partner talking to Kehlani, I just would be like, “Hey, who’s that?”

Analyssa: What’s going on there?

Drew: And if Shane was like, “Nobody,” I’d be like, “It doesn’t have to be nobody.”

Riese: Yeah, I would be like, “Why didn’t you ask them for a threesome?” I would be really hurt for that reason.

Analyssa: The first thing you do is call me.

Riese: Yeah, yeah, bring me in on this deal, you know what I mean? Cc me.

Analyssa: Yeah, the rudest part-

Drew: This threesome can be our third baby.

Riese: Yeah, or bcc me, I don’t care.

Analyssa: A really big rude part about this is you save Kehlani only for yourself?

Riese: Right, yeah, exactly. It’s fucked up. Anyway, I hope Victor’s doing a good job, and that’s the episode.

Drew: Did we like this episode?

Riese: I loved so much of it, and I also hated so much of it. Yeah.

Drew: Mm-hmm. Yep, mm-hmm. That is also how I feel. I do think that I’m so glad that Daniel was brought back.

Riese: Absolutely.

Drew: It’s really lovely. I’m also glad that they brought Daniel back on their own terms, which you’ll read about in this interview, but just that it was a collaboration and that feels very special. And that there was a nonbinary director and nonbinary writer is really cool.

Yeah, I mean I think my feelings about Gen Q and my feelings about the original series are often aligned, which is like there is so much talent in these rooms and so much care in some ways. And so, then it’s very frustrating when it feels like the overall machine is just faulty. And that is frustrating. It’s also part of most television. I think it’s really hard to make television. But yeah, I don’t know. It was definitely a best of times worst of times situation for me of episodes.

Riese: Yeah, I agree. This was the first episode where there was something that annoyed me to the point of distraction where I just felt… Because I’ve been trying really to take the characters, the stories on their own terms, and try to figure out how to make them work. But for some reason, that scene with Finley getting mad at Shane just pushed me over the edge.

Drew: It’s just it also could have been like, “I thought you’d changed.” There’s just slight things that even if you want to do this thing of just things that acknowledge somewhat the universe, somewhat… I think it’s just frustrating because, I don’t know, it makes me feel like Showtime’s not giving them enough money to have enough time in the writer’s room. It’s like these little things where it’s like all the moving pieces.

Riese: Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about that because I’ve been thinking, the work we publish every day isn’t perfect. There are points, I imagine, where they’re like, “We’re out of time to write this episode, so we’re just going to have to let this shitty scene be shitty.” It’s just for some reason because it’s filmed and involves so many people getting it to the final product, you’re just like, “How? How?”

Drew: I mean and that also sometimes is how is that, okay, so you write a scene, it’s good. Then it goes through the showrunner pass, and the execs, all these things. You know about this. Not that you would ever be an exec who would make something worse, but sometimes it happens.

Analyssa: Yeah, or you film it and the one line that would have scaffolded the whole thing gets dropped or you don’t have good coverage on that-

Drew: Totally.

Analyssa: There are so many points in the process where it can break down that it’s hard to say why some of these things don’t feel internally consistent, but it is really frustrating to be like the fun stuff all really hit for me.

Riese: Yeah, absolutely.

Analyssa: Anytime it got into the fighting or the more drama stuff, I was like, “I just am not quite there.” So, I don’t know, I thought this was really fun. I loved the Halloween of it all.

Riese: Yep, I loved Alice and Taylor’s little spooky scary moments.

Drew: And I hope we see Roxy again.

Riese: I hope so too.

Analyssa: I do too.

Lauren Klein: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back: Generation Q Edition, one of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @tolandback, and you can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com.
Our theme song is by the talented Be Steadwell, and our Gen Q logo is by Jax Ko. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram @laurentaylorklein.
You can follow Drew everywhere @draw_gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram @analocaa with two As and on Twitter @analoca_ with one A and underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle, and of course, the reason why we’re all here, autostraddle.com. And finally, to end this ep, let’s hear some Q words from our girlies.

Riese: One, two, three.

Drew: Quip.

Analyssa: Quippy.

Riese: Quarry.

Analyssa: What’d you say?

Riese: Quarry.

Analyssa: Oh.

Riese: What’s that you may ask?

Drew: A query?

Analyssa: No, like a rock quarry.

Riese: Like the rock quarry, yeah, because that’s where I wanted to jump into when Angie was hooking up with her teacher.

Drew: I see. We both said quippy or quip. Wow.

Analyssa: Yeah, I said quippy, and Drew said quip.

Drew: How fun.

Riese: Like the toothbrush?

Drew: I don’t know about this toothbrush.

Riese: Well, I do because for some reason they won’t stop texting me. I’ve never owned a Quip, or maybe it’s called something else.

Analyssa: No, I think they’re called Quips. Quippy, Quip-

Riese: Yeah, every time I’m like block this caller, black this caller. I’m like, “How did you get my number? I don’t know, I’ve never used your toothbrush. Leave me alone. Leave me alone, I have four toothbrushes.”

Analyssa: Are those the wooden toothbrushes?

Riese: I don’t know what they are, but they need to leave me the fuck alone.

Drew: Anyways, I thought that there were some good quips this episode.

Analyssa: Yeah, I was going to say. I love the show when it’s quippy and bouncy.

Drew: Wow. Well, we did it.

Riese: We did it.

Drew: And we’re only 15 minutes late.

Analyssa: Gorgeous.

Drew: See you next time.

Riese: See you next time.

Analyssa: Bye.

Riese: Stay sweet. See you in December.

Drew: Happy Halloween

Riese: Happy Halloween.

Analyssa: Happy Halloween in December.

“To L And Back: Generation Q Edition” Podcast Episode 303: Quiz Show

Winter has arrived in Los Angeles this week, bringing a chill in the air, some light rain, and something totally new: a Bette-Porter-free episode of The L Word! That’s right, this week, Bette and Tina are presumably off in Toronto frolicking and kissing and looking at art. We wouldn’t know, we don’t see them once!

But luckily, we have enough to keep up with on this episode. It’s The Aloce Show’s 100th episode, so of course Alice is doing a dating game to find her The One (Hundredth). All sorts of shenanigans take place on the set of the Aloce Show this week, from breakups to hook-ups and make-ups and makeovers! Also, that boy Angie kissed last week? Actually a grown man, and also her teacher. Yikes! Let’s get to it, shall we?

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SHOW NOTES

+ Riese’s recap for Episode 303 “Quiz Show”
+ In French Michelle is a Man’s Name, the short film by this episode’s director, Em Weinstein
+ Unfortunately, there was only one queer season of Are You the One, but you can relive the madness with us
+ The Chasing Amy piece we published from Shana, and the Buzzfeed Chasing Amy anniversary piece
+ When Riese mentioned United States of Tara, I wondered if Joey Lauren Adams had made the “straight actresses who’ve played queer”
list and she has!
+ Where would Finley fit into this White Lotus scenario Drew wrote about?
+ It doesn’t appear we’ve put together a list of best karaoke songs for queer gals: what is yours? In the meantime, here’s what The L Word cast would sing, thank you Kayla!
+ Stephanie Allyne took a break from hilarious lesbian chaos over on Reboot to appear in this episode!
+ Heather wrote more insightfully about Ellen’s on-set unkindness and friendship with George Bush than my silly joke!
+ Bette has an affair with a student in season four of the original run, starting in episode 402. The student is none other than Arizona Robbins, Jessica Capshaw (okay fine, NADIA)
+ According to a not-super-legit website I found, I was wrong and there’s only 5 cities named Normal in the United States, and only 6 in the world! We regret the error.
+ For the record, this is how I feel about driving friends to the airport:

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Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And this is-

Everyone: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition.

Analyssa: Nice.

Drew: That went great.

Analyssa: Yeah. Congrats to us. Honestly, we’re coming in with such a frazzled energy. I didn’t have high hopes for that.

Drew: A real intense energy for honestly a pretty chaotic episode. So not the worst pairing. How are you both doing?

Riese: It’s been a long day.

Analyssa: Yeah, A long day for everyone. Right?

Drew: It really has been.

Riese: We’re recording this early because Drew has to catch a red eye, but the first episode of the podcast came out today.

Analyssa: Oh yeah.

Drew: Oh yeah. That’s true.

Riese: You posted about it!

Drew: I know I did. But that feels like yesterday…

Riese: It’s just been a long day.

Analyssa: That was exciting though.

Riese: Have they ever had an episode called Long Day?

Drew: No. They should.

Riese: They had Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Analyssa: I was going to say, didn’t they do Long Day’s Journey into Night?

Riese: They should do Long Johns and it should be one where everyone wears like little, you know what I mean? Everyone in a Henley. Do you know how cute that would be?

Analyssa: I like that when you suggest an episode title, you’re like, it’s directly going to affect the plot. When you suggested Quarterback, it’s like, they will be playing football.

Riese: Yeah. I’m literal.

Drew: And that’s rarely how The L Word actually works. So this episode is called Quiz Show, and it is written by Melody Derloshon, who’s been writing on Gen Q since the beginning. And it’s directed by Em Weinstein, who actually wrote on A League of Their Own and also directed this short film that I highly recommend called In France Michelle is a Man’s Name. I think this is maybe their first episodic credit. Let me confirm that. Yeah, I think so.

Analyssa: That’s cool.

Drew: That’s super great. I love that.

Riese: Yeah. Well, they did a great job.

Analyssa: I love when there’s a first time director on something or writer.

Drew: Yeah. And trans!

Riese: That’s really cool. What’s interesting about this episode is that Quiz Show is also the name of a film.

Drew: Yes, it is.

Riese: And I love that film. And this was not that film, this was a TV show about lesbians and bisexuals and otherwise identified people.

Analyssa: I’ve never seen that movie or heard of it.

Drew: I have heard of it, but I haven’t seen it.

Riese: Well, I love it. I saw in the theaters when you guys were probably sitting in your sandbox building castles. I was at the movies, I was at the cinema.

Drew: I love that.

Riese: Watching Quiz Show and thinking, “Wow,” because I love a movie based on a true story.

Drew: I do know this. Well, there’s a lot to get into with this episode. So should we start?

Analyssa: Yeah, let’s do it.

Drew: When the episode started, I went, “Oh my God, I forgot about the accident.”

Analyssa: The crash also looked so much longer in the saga sell than it did when I watched the episode. I was like, “Oh my gosh, that was brutal.” Luckily though, Gigi has survived.

Drew: Yes. We learned that right away.

Analyssa: And is pretty banged up. But we come in, it’s hazy, she’s opening her eyes and the EMT is like, “You’re pretty banged up, but you’re probably fine.” And Nat is in the ambulance.

Drew: Then we learn she’s fine physically maybe, but not emotionally. Because real quick, a slight nudge from the paramedic leads to a little post-trauma kissing, which is Nat kisses Gigi. Which feels like, I mean…

Riese: It’s like they press lips.

Drew: It’s not like a make out.

Analyssa: They sort of just touch lips.

Riese: And then they touch lips more.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: This is what I think. I think that if you have just experienced something traumatic, then if you want to kiss your ex-wife, I guess I get it, you, whatever. But it’s strange to me to be the one who’s arriving on the scene and your ex-wife’s bloody head and fully in a relationship that supposedly is serious, because they were together for a while, before we dropped in here a year later. To kiss her feels not great.

Riese: You know, I was thinking of the song “Defying Gravity.”

Drew: Of course.

Riese: And how you can do that? That’s what she should have done, because she instead let gravity take her forward into Gigi’s mouth. And she could’ve defied it.

Analyssa: She could’ve chosen to defy gravity.

Riese: Wanting to feel unlimited.

Drew: I also think that you are choosing to turn a slight push into a, I’m falling on top and kissing.

Analyssa: Well, because it’s not a very clumsy fall. She’s not bobbling. She’s like, “My lips are going to go right into yours.” I do think this is the mother of her children, someone who she spent a long time with, and something traumatic has happened to her. You might be overwhelmed by that.

Drew: Yeah, I guess.

Analyssa: Trauma.

Drew: For sure.

Riese: Or overwhelmed by the potential… drama.

Analyssa: Nice.

Riese: Speaking of, who should arrive? But luckily, thank God, because my least favorite thing that ever happens in movies and TV shows is when somebody sees someone kiss someone else and then makes a decision based on that and does not tell them. Dani is too wrapped up in whatever to even notice what just happened. And she’s like, “Oh, I’m here now. Nat can go.”

Analyssa: And there’s actually a couple of close calls of that in this episode. I was like, “Ugh.” And then it never happened. But I was going to say, speaking of overwhelmed, I was by Dani’s arms in this scene. They look amazing.

Riese: Wow.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: It’s a big ep for good arms.

Analyssa: Big ep for good arms. Yes.

Drew: A big arms episode.

Riese: Yeah. They should have called it “Quarms.”

Analyssa: And then of course Dani and Nat have to have a conversation about Nat saying, “I’m Gigi’s emergency contact.” It was played as a big reveal to Dani, but Nat is the one who called.

Riese: I don’t think it was.

Drew: I do think that, again, it makes sense to me that the mother of… My frustration throughout this whole episode that we will get to is just that there was a little bit of rationality last episode when Bette was like, “Dani, you’re overreacting.” And then this whole episode was like, “She wasn’t.” Actually, the fact that she’s not the emergency contact, in my head, I go, “That makes sense. The mother of your children is your emergency contact. You’ve known her for years and you have a good friendship, great. But the person who you’ve been dating for a year and a half? I get not switching it over yet.”

Analyssa: Yeah. Louis is not my emergency contact and he’s mad at me about it every day. Not in a serious way.

Riese: No, I had my ex-fiance, two years after we broke up, text me and be like, “Hey, I got a really alarming phone call from your dentist.” And I was like, “Wow.”

Analyssa: Oops.

Riese: Oops.

Drew: Yeah, one of my two best friends is my emergency contact. I mean for my flight tonight that’s going to Toronto where my girlfriend lives, I did put her down.

Analyssa: Yeah. Amy’s my emergency contact, but that’s because she has her phone on her usually.

Riese: I put Gretchen as my emergency contact. I was like, obviously my ex can no longer be my emergency contact. So I started putting Gretchen in as my emergency contact two years before we started dating.

Drew: Aw that’s nice.

Analyssa: Anyway, Dani’s not Gigi’s emergency contact, but she does get to ride in the ambulance. The ambulance is not headed to one place, I’ll tell you, which is the Paramount lot, which is where The Aloce Show films.

Drew: It’s where they have their hundredth episode.

Analyssa: And they’re doing their hundredth episode.

Riese: It’s exciting. I love the colors and the costumes and everything. I just love the images of the episode.

Drew: Yeah, it is fun.

Analyssa: It is very fun.

Drew: They’re doing a little dating game for Alice, because she’s looking for the one and as she jokes, where else to do that than on national television?

Analyssa: Great point.

Riese: Yeah. Love is Blind.

Analyssa: I’ve done it on Twitter.

Drew: Sure.

Analyssa: I’ve done it on dating apps.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: You should do it on TV.

Analyssa: I should do it on TV.

Drew: I will say that I am sad that in 2019 there weren’t enough reality shows for me to go on a reality dating show. I do think that I would be great on a reality dating show, and I’m sad that that’s just not where the reality dating world is except for the one season of Are You the One? But even that, they wouldn’t have put me on that.

Riese: I would rather marry a baked potato than go on a reality dating show.

Analyssa: A baked potato specifically.

Drew: Well, Alice’s three things that she doesn’t want is not a baked potato.

Sophie: No cults, no mixed martial arts, and no improvisers of any kind.
Alice: Yeah. That last one’s very important.

Riese: So LA.

Drew: Extremely LA and it makes sense.

Riese: I’m sure she said some bad run-ins. But it’s also funny because Kate Moenning does MMA and Stephanie Allynne does improv. It’s all these.

Drew: It’s a loving little dig.

Analyssa: Luckily, I don’t think that she’s going to have to settle for those because before she gets there, she has to meet Joey Lauren Adams, right? Is that her name?

Riese: Correct. Yeah. Her name is Joey Lauren Adams.

Drew: Her name is Taylor.

Analyssa: Her real name.

Riese: Her character’s name is Taylor. But Joey Lauren Adams was a huge, huge deal in the nineties. Most memorably to everybody here, she was in the highly controversial film, Chasing Amy.

Drew: Has Chasing Amy had— do people like it now? I’m trying to think like I don’t know, Kissing Jessica Stein, The Kids are All Right, they’ve had a bit of a…

Analyssa: I think there was an in defense of Chasing Amy piece somewhere in the last couple of years. But I wouldn’t be able to say more than that.

Riese: We had one where someone talked about how it pissed them off when they first saw it in the nineties and then they revisited it.

Analyssa: Maybe that’s the one I’m remembering.

Riese: And then there was also a Buzzfeed piece where they talked to Kevin Smith. They also talked to Guinevere Turner because part of the inspiration for Chasing Amy was his friend and co-producer’s crush on Guinevere Turner, who’s a lesbian who played Gabby Deveaux and also wrote for the original series. And Kevin Smith dated Joey Lauren Adams while they were doing this film. And in the interview with Buzzfeed, he says something like, “No, I don’t think this was an important film for the lesbian community. I think it was an important film for just me personally.”

Analyssa: I wish that more filmmakers would just be honest about that and be like, “Actually I just made a film.”

Riese: He was 27.

Analyssa: “I made a film about what I wanted to see in the world and I did it for me. And sometimes people respond to that and sometimes people do not.”

Riese: But if you haven’t seen it, the basic conceit of it is a man falls in love with a lesbian and she decides to give men a try. And the film does not use the word bisexual at any point. And it undermines a lot of stuff. But it’s one of those things that could happen now. I mean similarly to how I think the way people feel about Alice dating men now is different than we felt during the original series. You know what I mean? Times have changed and there’s so much media out there.

Analyssa: I mean I think that’s the reaction to Kissing Jessica Stein too, right? It’s like, “Oh, well if you take this character as bisexual, then it makes sense and it’s okay.” And we’re just talking about those nuances a little more now.

Drew: Totally.

Riese: And we have so many more actual stories about relationships between women or other types of queer people. So that’s it. If the only stories we’re getting are women who aren’t really into women or women who are, whatever. Everyone knows this already. But anyway, in the nineties, she was a huge deal. She was in a bunch of the Kevin Smith movies. She was in Mallrats. She was also in Dazed and Confused. Also famously looked a lot like Renee Zellweger and they were often compared. So anyway, that’s her significance to the community. Oh, I think she also played a queer character in United States of Tara, maybe.

Drew: I love that show.

Riese: Anyway.

Drew: Is she queer?

Riese: No.

Drew: Oh, okay.

Riese: But she’s cute.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: She is really cute. And Alice thinks so too pretty early on. They’re flirting.

Riese: Vibing. Yeah.

Analyssa: They’re vibing. Alice asks her if she’s going to stay and watch the show, and she’s like, “No, I’m busy running this coffee cart.”

Drew: Yeah. Okay. So I just want to clarify. She runs a coffee cart that’s been invited by Party Planner Dani? She’s been brought in for the post hundredth episode party? Got it.

Riese: It’s Liberated Coffee, it said.

Analyssa: Liberated Coffee. They’ve got a bisexual flag on the cart.

Riese: Wow. Liberated.

Drew: What happens next is that Finley is applying for school/has filled out everything but is unsure if she wants to just press the button. Which is interesting to me as a pretty type A Capricorn personality where I’m like, “Just do it. And then you can decide later. You can waffle about your decision right after you find out if you get in or not.” But I also understand that people have different brains.

Analyssa: As an impulsive person, I’m like, if I’ve decided to fill out the application, I’m going to go ahead and submit it. It would be the decision to apply that’s like, “Oh well what’s it going to do to my life?”

Riese: It’s hospitality school.

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: What do we think Finley is doing? Please tell me she doesn’t want to manage bars.

Analyssa: It must be managing bars and restaurants.

Riese: Maybe she wants to be a bellhop. Well, think about how cute she’d be in a bellhop outfit.

Drew: Crossover, White Lotus. Finley is at the next White Lotus.

Analyssa: Beautiful.

Riese: She would get fired pretty quickly somehow. But I think it would be cute.

Drew: It does seem like the staff at all the White Lotuses like to have sex with each other. So I do think that Finley could get into that mess.

Riese: I would love for her to work in a place that doesn’t serve alcohol though. A library, a coffee shop.

Analyssa: Coaching soccer. Wasn’t that fun for her?

Riese: Oh, yeah. That was so cute when she was coaching soccer.

Drew: Shane comes in all muscley and is like, “Let’s break shit.” And then we have a little Magic Mike XXL moment where it’s like they’re dancing to “Pony” by Ginuwine and also breaking shit.

Riese: Yeah, it’s fantastic.

Analyssa: I have long thought that “Pony” is a great karaoke song for a queer woman to do at karaoke night.

Riese: It is a very popular cover.

Analyssa: That one is just a fun one. I also think Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus is on that list, in case anyone was wondering. You don’t change the pronouns, you just sing it like it was written and it’s got a queer girl swagger.

Riese: Yeah. And girls love horses.

Analyssa: So true.

Drew: I love Magic Mike XXL, so I just want to put that out there.

Riese: And also this is a great moment for us to see that Kate Moenning has been working out.

Drew: I love that for her.

Riese: She has very strong arms. And anyway, this was super cute. I enjoyed every second of it and it wasn’t very many seconds, but I did enjoy all the minimum amount of seconds that we received.

Drew: And then Tess comes bursting in, giving the writers an excuse to have Shane cheat, by being slightly mean for no reason. And then Finley hits a pipe and Tess has a reason to be mean. I don’t understand why Tess is stressed since she wanted the bar so badly, but I’m going with it.

Analyssa: My note was she’s mad that they’re moving too fast, but she called an inspector before they even had agreed to buy the bar. And now they’re already doing demolition. So the whole thing is moving too fast. But okay.

Riese: I mean, I would get annoyed if it was my project, but also I would feel like after having definitely manipulated Shane into buying the bar, I didn’t have much ground to stand on. So that would probably stop me from being upset that they had started before I was ready.

Analyssa: Also she was the one who wanted to convince Shane to buy the bar. So now that Shane is a little bit bought into the project—

Riese: Yeah. Just let Shane do what she wants to do.

Analyssa: Yeah. I would be like, “Oh, this is kind of fun.” She does look incredibly beautiful while being mean, I want to say. They did something to her eyebrows here that really did it for me.

Riese: And now Shane’s soaking wet.

Analyssa: Yes. And chastised by Tess.

Drew: Yes. Speaking of people who you think are beautiful we go back to Dani doing all the little planning for Alice’s hundredth episode party.

Analyssa: And she’s on the phone with Sophie, which I already clocked as like “Oh, interesting.” And that comes back later. And speaking of coming back later, Nat comes back.

Drew: Oh wait. She’s talking about planning it at Gigi’s apartment.

Analyssa: She’s at Gigi’s. They’re getting ready for the big event. She’s on the phone with Sophie talking over final logistics. Nat returns to Gigi’s, which I guess is Dani’s, because later they’re talking about where Gigi lives.

Riese: I have no idea. I thought it was Dani’s.

Analyssa: I think it’s Dani’s high rise. There’s big windows which I think is Dani’s.

Riese: Gigi’s had that exposed brick, remember? I remember when Bette was in it and I was like, “Wow.” This feels more like Dani’s little…

Drew: I see. So Gigi’s staying there because she’s hurt, and then she, without telling Dani, invited Nat over because all of a sudden Gigi’s giving the writers an excuse to have that end.

Analyssa: Yes.

Drew: Cool.

Analyssa: Nat has taken a tour through Tess’s crazy stripe closet and has a shirt on that has stripes in so many different directions. Also, Nat, Stephanie Allynne, love to see on both Reboot and the show.

Drew: I enjoyed when she said that Margaret Cho was on her bucket list. Not to fuck her, just to see her or meet her. That was funny.

Analyssa: That was funny.

Riese: Yeah. So Nat is going to help Gigi get ready.

Drew: And then Gigi asks Nat if they should talk about what happened. Because I love when Gigi’s being all communicative, and Nat is like, “No, I don’t want to talk about it.” And is like, “There’s nothing going on.” And Gigi’s looking at her with eyes that are like, “I want something to go on. I want to upset half of the Gen Q fan base.”

Riese: She’s like, “I have a commitment to this Apple TV program, Blackbird, and I need to get there by next Tuesday. So let’s get this show on the road.”

Analyssa: Let’s get this rolling.

Riese: Is this when they talk about it?

Analyssa: Not yet. What happens next is that Angie, speaking of exes is talking to her moms on the phone about Jordi and saying she has bad boundaries, but Angie’s at school, she’s busy, she’s got to go.

Drew: I got to say, if you do the breaking up, you do not get to be the one who’s like, “I still want to be friends. I still want to text all the time.” No. You shouldn’t either way if someone doesn’t want to, an ex doesn’t want to talk to you, you shouldn’t talk to them. But if you broke up with someone and then you’re going to text them a bunch? No.

Analyssa: As Angie was on the phone, I typed into my notes app, “Angie definitely kissed her TA, right?” It was just leading into a big reveal. And actually the reveal was even bigger than I could have anticipated, because it’s her professor.

Drew: Yeah. I screamed. I don’t know if you heard me. We live in the same house. I screamed.

Riese: It’s weird because at first I was like, “Oh God. It’s like I’m having…” Did you guys watch Pretty Little Liars?

Drew: No.

Analyssa: I read the books, actually.

Drew: Oh, look at you.

Riese: Well you’re very smart.

Analyssa: Thank you.

Riese: And I’m very proud of you.

Analyssa: But I never really watched the series.

Riese: I was like, “Oh no, this is an Aria and Ezra Fitz.” But then I remembered that Aria was 15 years old and Ezra, her teacher in high school, was significantly older. And Angie is legally an adult. And this man, do we think, I mean, if she’s a freshman, he’s probably like a TA, right? He’s not a full, he doesn’t have a PhD.

Drew: No. He might be an adjunct professor. So he’s probably, though, at least in his late twenties.

Analyssa: He says that he’s written a novel before and done some other things, which I think would qualify you to teach.

Riese: Anyone who’s written a novel before at my age, I think, “Wow.”

Analyssa: I would put him at 27 or 28. It’s not ideal.

Riese: I dated a 27 year old when I was 18.

Drew: Once again, how’d that go?

Riese: Well, we did stay friends after we broke up.

Drew: That’s nice.

Analyssa: My thing is actually not about the age gap necessarily. It’s about the fact that she’s still in his class. But we can talk about that later

Drew: We’ll get to this later. Cause right now it was just exciting scandal. And speaking of interconnectivity, Shane has gifted Alice a framed version of the Chart. And Tom has gifted Alice a basket of pens and we learn that Alice turned down his proposal, which does make me think, yes, we have more bisexual content then when Chasing Amy came out. But I don’t know, I just feel like maybe Tom deserved a little bit more than a quick mention.

Riese: But they do that with everyone. They do it with women too.

Drew: Sure. Honestly, the fact that they are breaking up Gigi and Dani does make me think that, “Okay, I guess you’re just doing your own thing.” At first I was like, “You’re just giving into all the fans and what the fans want, including biphobic fans.” But nope.

Riese: No, I mean, they t-boned Gigi with a truck.

Analyssa: Nothing is sacred.

Riese: No fan was like, “Please plow a truck into Gigi.”

Drew: I miss Tom. I like Donald Faison.

Analyssa: I thought the little bit about Shane pointing out somebody on the Chart and Alice being like, “No, I don’t talk to her anymore” was very funny.

Riese: I did pause on the chart and I was like, “What version of the Chart is this?” Because none of the people Shane dated that we know of are on the Chart. There’s no Carmen, no Paige, no Molly.

Drew: Well, cause it’s the first version, right? So what season was that, when did she first draw?

Riese: Oh, season one.

Drew: So maybe, I think it’s probably a season one Chart.

Riese: Well, I’ll give it a closer look.

Drew: Okay.

Riese: She erased it, remember, when the Army came over.

Drew: Right. So it has to be based on photos in the back of some old picture or something.

Analyssa: Speaking of Shane being a hub on the Chart, she has brought hair product to give to Ivy. So she’s just going to go find Ivy and actually just have a quick conversation about that.

Drew: The way Alice is talking about this is being like, oh you guys hit it off. I was like, “You know your friend Shane, and you know what Ivy looks like. Come on. Really?” Let’s grill her here.

Analyssa: She’s got bigger things to worry about. It’s her hundredth episode.

Drew: That’s true.

Riese: Yeah. Do you think Ellen was worried about her friend?

Analyssa: George W. Bush?

Drew: (laughs)

Riese: Do you think Ellen was worried about George W. Bush hooking up with some makeup artist?

Analyssa: Wow. What an image.

Riese: She was worried about-

Analyssa: People looking at her in the eyes.

Riese: Or special guest John McCain.

Analyssa: Speaking of having too many things to do, Dani is talking about all the event stuff with Sophie.

Drew: They’re making a friendship work.

Analyssa: They’re starting to get along and then Sophie’s like, you and Gigi should come over for dinner with me and Finley, and I just feel like Finley and Sophie—

Riese: Please do.

Analyssa: Finley and Sophie should just both cool it on this a little bit. They’re just pressing for this to happen.

Riese: I want it to happen.

Drew: Once again, they’re the reason why the relationship ended. So they cannot be the ones to instigate friendship with Dani. This is just a very firm belief of mine that you have… Everyone’s so obsessed with being friends with their exes in our community, and I love that for them. But I also just think that you can’t force it.

Riese: No, you can’t force it.

Drew: It has to happen at its own time.

Riese: That’s true. But I mean, I also tried to force someone to be my friend who had broken up with me, and that didn’t work.

Drew: No, of course. And that’s also fine. But you’re at least, in your right, I think, to try that.

Riese: Yeah. I mean, you obviously like this person.

Drew: Sure, no, makes sense.

Riese: That’s why you dated them. And just because it’s not working romantically, I don’t know. It always makes me sad.

Drew: No, I agree with that. It’s more that I just think that if you interrupt someone’s wedding, then maybe it’s up to them to decide, which we’ll get to. But yeah, it was a choice.

Riese: I wanted it to happen for chaos. But also I feel like wouldn’t Gigi be like, “What am I doing with all of these children?”

Drew: Yes. Speaking of things that are broken, the pipe is still broken over at the second bar and Tess has a butch plumber who comes over who isn’t the butt of a joke.

Analyssa: Nope.

Drew: So exciting. Progress, progress, progress. We love to see it. This is a reference, if you didn’t watch the original show, to the original show.

Riese: But also remember how in Jenny Schecter’s adaptation, in Jenny Schecter’s version of Lez Girls that she turned the carpenter that Bette dated into a plumber?

Drew: Oh, that’s also interesting. I was just thinking of, oh wow, we have a butch love interest that is allowed to be just hot and cool and funny and not, I don’t know.

Riese: And Finley’s like, “This is my fault. I broke the pipe. Because who puts a water pipe in the middle of a freestanding wall that separates two areas of a building? So I’ll stay here, you should go.” But Tess is like, “I can’t go.” And on this note, I would like to say, what is going on?

Analyssa: I’m confused. Riese is making significant eye contact with me because Tess says, “I have my sponsee coming.” So presumably, they’re doing step work, which is a thing in AA, they’re working on the 12 steps, because Finley says, “I have the book, I have the highlighters, I can do it.”

Riese: And I’m like, how?

Analyssa: That’s not how being a sponsor works, number one. And also two, is Finley able to sponsor people? That doesn’t make any sense. So this is just confusing all the way around.

Drew: Okay. I’m glad you clarified that, because I had so many questions once we get to that interaction. I was like, “Wait, why is she here? What’s happening?

Analyssa: What’s really bothersome to me as a studio exec in my daytime life is that this is a really easy fix. This is not a note I would ever give because you never give line notes to a script. But it’s very easy to have Tess be like, “Shit, I was supposed to meet with my sponsee. Let me text her and see if maybe you guys should meet and hang out and chat as sober people.” but what ends up happening is Tess is like, “Oh you can just be a sponsor for a day.” Which is not how this would go, especially because Carrie and Finley know each other from their real lives, which is a little complicated.

Riese: Which it seems like neither of them remember.

Analyssa: So I don’t know. It’s very confusing.

Riese: I was also like, this is another part where I was like, is Tess also Finley’s sponsor?

Drew: Very confusing.

Analyssa: I don’t know.

Drew: I don’t know. Either way Tess is not a very good sponsor, nor maybe a good girlfriend. I don’t know. She does say that she was harsh, which, sure, and it happens to people. It is a trope that I don’t love, second to someone walking in on someone or whatever, is when someone is uncharacteristically mean in their relationship. They get into a fight and then the person cheats. And then right after they’re like I’m sorry I was shitty this morning. I just do think that if your partner’s ever mean to you one time, don’t go off and cheat that night. That’s a good…

Riese: Probably in general, you just shouldn’t cheat.

Drew: Oh, I agree with that. But I just really, I think especially if… Maybe if your partner’s mean to you all the time, end the relationship.

Analyssa: But if they’re mean the one time… So back at California University, Angie’s professor stops her after class. And Angie…

Riese: This is how so much porn starts.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: Immediate vibes. And Angie is very flustered and she’s like, “I didn’t mean to kiss you. There was a lot going on. I don’t have to be in your class.” And here’s where I think as an adult, being given a paycheck by the university that Angie attends as a student, his responsibility was to say, “I think that you should drop my class.”

Riese: I don’t get it. Is that allowed?

Drew: What?

Riese: Are professors allowed to date students in college?

Drew: No.

Analyssa: I don’t think so. No.

Drew: I mean, I don’t think so. Maybe some colleges, but I don’t think so.

Analyssa: I think no matter how young you are, if you’re teaching the class, you’re not supposed to get involved with someone. And even the fact that they already kissed, if he was like, “Look, we’re going to pretend it never happened. I’m going to be totally professional, let’s just keep a student…” But there’s like—

Drew: He’s flirting.

Analyssa: “No, I want you to be in the class.” And they giggle.

Drew: Bad, bad, bad. No good.

Riese: Maybe it’s the cycle because Bette hooked up with her—

Drew: I didn’t think about that.

Riese: And now it’s coming back around, and one day Angie will be going into the office and they’ll be like, “Wow, we had your mother in this same seat not so long ago, young lady.”

Analyssa: Or maybe it comes up and Bette is like, “How could this possibly happen?” And then has to reckon with what she did, because she’s on this journey of growth around Tina, maybe.

Drew: I don’t know. I mean, while it is a cliche, I do think it’s something that happens a lot. So if they do it well, I’m not against it. If it’s one of those things where in the original, we didn’t really, we were from the Bette perspective. And so now we’re going to tell this story from the student’s perspective. Something interesting there.

Analyssa: Sure.

Drew: I don’t know if I need it. I would rather just Angie have a fun ho phase instead of a questioning the nature of power dynamics and abuse ho phase. But oftentimes those things happen at the same time for us. And that’s just how it is.

Riese: Yeah. She’s going to write some great short stories. I’m sure.

Analyssa: About her creative writing professor, which is just… Elsewhere in inappropriate flirting, Ivy is really stoked about the hair product that Shane has brought and they’re flirting.

Drew: They’re flirting. And Ivy’s like, “Do you want to stay backstage and hang out where the party’s at?”

Riese: Yeah. Shane puts up one half a second of a fight.

Drew: So, there’s no-

Analyssa: I couldn’t possibly. Oh, okay. Nevermind.

Riese: If you insist.

Drew: Bernie Sanders meme: I’m once again asking Shane to talk to her partner about what she needs from a polyamorous relationship.

Riese: But then would we have a show?

Analyssa: And what would this show be without couples who aren’t speaking to each other? Speaking of which, Gigi has arrived at this event, which I think maybe I would not go to if I had just been in a car accident.

Riese: No.

Drew: You’re going, you’re, wait, you’re going with your ex-wife to see your former throuple. People. This is what I’m talking about. I really support being friends with your exes. But this is just too far.

Riese: This is beautiful. This is community. This is love. This is the way that we live. This is gorgeous. I love this for everybody.

Analyssa: Sisterhood.

Riese: Sisterhood is powerful. Gorgeous, gorgeous girls go with their ex-wife to see their former throuple partner shortly after being T-boned while texting their current girlfriend who is running the show and is in a bad mood for the entire episode.

Drew: And the producer of your former throuple partner that is your current girlfriend’s ex-fiance who was interrupted at the wedding.

Analyssa: And then there’s Finley who used to be a PA on the Alice show.

Drew: Also true.

Riese: Yeah. Why doesn’t Finley come back and work on the Alice show?

Drew: That’d be a great job for her.

Riese: But then she’d be with Sophie all the time.

Drew: That’s true. That’s too much.

Analyssa: But there is a way that Finley could be on the Alice show and be in a totally different department than Sophie and actually never interact with her, I think.

Riese: Or it could be like Jim and Pam. No one here wants to talk about The Office.

Analyssa: We both kind of nodded.

Drew: Yeah, we gave you a nod.

Analyssa: You just can’t see it on the pod.

Riese: I love The Office.

Drew: That’s okay.

Analyssa: Drew just saying, “That’s okay” very softly. Like you need to be consoled about enjoying The Office.

Riese: I don’t feel bad about it.

Analyssa: And that’s okay. So Dani comes over to see Gigi and make sure that she’s okay and Nat immediately asks for champagne and asks Dani to give her gift to Alice that she brought.

Riese: Yeah. Which is a bag of oranges, and Dani is so humorless.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Also Dani’s at work. I don’t know, whatever.

Riese: I think she’s just feeling overwhelming insecurity about the relationship, and so she’s unable to communicate like a normal person.

Analyssa: I also think, though, that Nat could be chiller.

Drew: Yeah. I think Nat’s feeling like a way about, “Oh I think I’m in love with Gigi again. We kissed, whatever.”

Riese: But everyone, we’re in love with Gigi.

Drew: Sure. No, I get it.

Riese: And you are all in relationships.

Drew: Sure. But you know what I would do instead of just hooking up with her? I think my girlfriend would probably also be in love with Gigi and that’s the way to do it.

Riese: Then you’d have a throuple

Drew: When these two had a throuple, I’m just saying that throuples could solve it. As someone who’s never actually been in a throuple, I do think that throuples could solve most problems on television.

Analyssa: On television, definitely. In real life, I’m not sure. Gigi in this conversation, they’re joking about their kids. They’re also flirting. It’s a big, big win for flirting this episode. Gigi does a big reveal that when she got hit, she saw her life flash before her eyes and she-

Riese: Did not see any of us.

Analyssa: She saw none of the hosts to To L and Back, which is frankly rude. She did not see Dani also. And she did see Nat and the kids.

Riese: Do you think they were floating on a cloud? I think it was the kids throwing jelly at each other and Nat was sitting out a mermaid in a shell.

Analyssa: Aren’t the kids too old to throw jelly?

Riese: Anyone could throw jelly at any age. You never know what’s going to happen.

Analyssa: That’s a good point.

Riese: You know what I mean?

Analyssa: That’s a good point.

Riese: We’re all going to die.

Drew: I just think that if I saw the mother of my children and my children when I was in a car accident, I would go, “That makes sense. I’m going to continue my good relationship with my hot girlfriend of a year and a half, Dani.” I just don’t think I would spiral.

Analyssa: What if your ex-wife was Stephanie Allynne and her hair looks really shiny today?

Drew: Her hair did look really good and Gigi has a hair thing. And I do think it bodes well for me if I was ever in the fictional L Word universe.

Riese: Well, I think that she, I don’t know why she’s spiraling. I don’t think that it could be that alone, because literally everyone I’ve ever dated at least comes through my mind at one point in any given day. I’m sure my life flashed before my eyes, who knows what I would see?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Besides my new wife: baked potato.

Drew: Anyways, Dani gives Nat champagne but with no glasses. Which is Dani.

Riese: A microaggression.

Drew: Very Dani. I do love it. She can be such a bitch.

Analyssa: Here, bitch. Take it.

Riese: Yeah. Luckily she has a reusable straw.

Analyssa: I just want to say, how long is the reusable straw that Nat is packing to get to the bottom of that bottle? I was impressed.

Riese: I would just drink it out of the bottle.

Analyssa: Me too.

Drew: That’s tough with champagne, though, because of the bubbles.

Riese: You can drink anything out of the bottle if you really want it.

Drew: That’s true.

Analyssa: And she did, because it’s what she asked Dani for first.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Carrie is back.

Riese: It’s so cute.

Drew: And tells Finley that Tess described Finley as…

Carrie: Leonard DiCaprio from Romeo and Juliet, and the hair and everything. I totally see it.
Finley: Wow. That is weirdly the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.

Drew: That is an incredible compliment.

Riese: It is really, because God, he looked incredible in that film.

Analyssa: And Finley makes kind of an offhanded joke about being on a gender journey, which I’m just, my ears said…

Drew: Yeah, I did catch that.

Analyssa: interesting. And basically Carrie is here to talk to Tess about the things that are going on in her life. So she’s just going to talk to Finley about it. I’m accepting this as whatever. Okay, cool.

Riese: But we hear that I guess Carrie’s spiraled after…

Analyssa: Finding out that Tina and Bette are back together.

Riese: And hit rock bottom, as one does or whatever. And then now…

Drew: I think now Carrie doesn’t like wet bread and isn’t around anyone who is going to make her eat wet bread.

Riese: Exactly. She’s not going to eat wet bread and that is movie magic.

Analyssa: So true.

Drew: True. I will say that I don’t want a dry sandwich, but I don’t want a saucy sandwich either. I really like a very middle. And it depends on the sauce, because sometimes even light sauce.

Riese: I want a hard bread.

Analyssa: I want a bread that’s crusty enough that it doesn’t really matter. Because I do like a saucy sandwich. I’ll say it.

Drew: I like putting olive oil.

Riese: I think her problem is she went to Subway and their bread is made out of—

Analyssa: It’s basically paper.

Riese: The sheets they give you for free in college for your extra long bed. That’s Subway bread.

Analyssa: I do love that she’s still a deals queen. She’s like, “My punch card gave me an extra sandwich. Finley, you can have it.”

Riese: Her and Finley are a good fit as people.

Analyssa: Yes. They’re fun. And they should have been friends long ago, I think.

Riese: I want Carrie to adopt Finley. Maybe that’s because I know Rosie O’Donnell has adopted a lot of children, so I just feel like Carrie could adopt Finley.

Drew: Sure.

Analyssa: Yeah. And so it’s odd that the setup is that Finley is sort of adopting Carrie. Eventually they do a team up, I think. But Carrie has to pee so she’s going over to Dana’s.

Drew: Which again, we’re also noting that this meetup’s happening at a bar. So even if Tess is the queen of being able to be at a bar even though she’s an alcoholic, why are you inviting Carrie to a bar? Anyways, that’s what I thought was going to happen is Carrie was going to walk in, see all the alcohol bottles and I was like, “No, no, no, no, no.” But instead we get a meet cute.

Analyssa: Yeah. It’s fun to be an outward viewer and just every time something starts to happen, tense up and think the worst thing is going to happen. And then when it doesn’t, you’re delighted like I was by this scene of the meeting.

Riese: Her nose busted.

Drew: Misty’s in the bathroom, Carrie goes in the door and…

Analyssa: It hits Carrie in the face is what Drew is motioning with her arm.

Drew: Sorry. This is a podcast.

Riese: I got really stressed out though because Carrie had to pee so bad that she was giving herself a little thing about Kegels and holding in the pee. And I was like, “Is she going to pee in her pants?”

Drew: I know. I was also really stressed about that. When did she pee? Did she pee?

Riese: Did she ever pee?

Analyssa: She’s still holding it to this day, rumors have it.

Riese: Maybe she peed a little.

Analyssa: Maybe she peed a little.

Drew: I know she had to have.

Riese: But then Missy puts tampons in her nose, which in my opinion was a throwback to when Miranda put tampons in Steve’s nose in Sex and the City.

Analyssa: Cute.

Drew: Wait, is it Missy or Misty?

Riese: I’m going to say it’s Misty.

Drew: I thought it was Misty, but I could be wrong.

Riese: Did I say Missy?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Oh well. I misspoke.

Analyssa: You. Mist-spoke. Nice.

Drew: I guess speaking of alcohol, one of the—

Analyssa: I was just about to say, unfortunately, speaking of sobriety.

Drew: Yeah. One of the Match Game contestants is too drunk. And so now Sophie needs to find a replacement last minute. Who could it be?

Analyssa: Who could it be?

Drew: Nat is also drunk.

Analyssa: It seems like she’s tipsy in the audience. They’re loosening up. You’d be a terrible criminal to me is a dead giveaway flirt. They’re flirting is what they’re doing.

Riese: Is this where they say they met when they were…

Drew: 18 and 19? I think so.

Riese: They met when they were 18 and 19. So did they date and then get married and then had kids, starting from when they’re 18 and 19?

Analyssa: That’s what I’m being led to believe.

Riese: That’s a really long time.

Analyssa: It’s a really long time.

Drew: Maybe in this episode, they met when they were 18 and 19 and in other episodes, who knows?

Riese: But okay, they’re in their late thirties, maybe early. The actors at least are, I think in their early to mid-forties. So does that mean they were married for 20 years?

Analyssa: Yeah. That is crazy because the series events of Gen Q have spanned three years, maybe.

Riese: Somewhere between three and 30 years.

Analyssa: And Gigi had been divorced-

Riese: And all of time is how many years? 10,000.

Analyssa: Yes, exactly.

Drew: So what were they doing when Jenny and Tim moved next door to Bette and Tina? Where were Nat and Gigi?

Riese: Married. Pregnant, probably.

Analyssa: Married and planning for a baby. Much like Bette and Tina were trying to.

Riese: They could have been friends.

Drew: Oh.

Analyssa: The note that I took is The L Word: Gen Q‘s official position is, the ex you love most is your one true love.

Drew: Yeah. That really is their position.

Analyssa: That’s where they’re coming from.

Riese: Yeah. This season’s all about finding the one, except you already found the one and it’s your ex.

Analyssa: They’re already in your pool. You’ve actually already dated them. Try again.

Drew: I think the reason why I’m a little sensitive to it is because I’ve watched the way that my sister has emulated Sex and the City and given exes who are terrible and very much Mr. Bigs so many chances because of that messaging. And I’m like, “Well here we are doing the gay version.”

Riese: That’s what I did too with men. But the thing is, you can’t do it with women, because they start being in another relationship right away. So you can’t ever get back with your ex, because usually your ex gets married to the next person that they’re with.

Drew: But you have to also want to cheat as much as the L Word characters.

Riese: That’s true. Yeah. Yeah.

Analyssa: Hilariously this then cuts to Dani and Sophie interacting, and I was like, “If that’s what’s happening right now, I know I’ll lose my mind.” It’s not. Sophie asked Dani to be a fill in for the dating game and Dani’s too busy. And then we cut to Shane and Ivy also having a conversation. This is one of those where it’s like they’re just moving through the event every 35 seconds of how Ivy says she’s having a hard time on dating apps. Which, if that’s the case, we’re all…

Riese: The dating apps should just be abolished.

Drew: Well she doesn’t say I’m having a hard time getting matches. She could be having a hard time sustaining conversations with boring people who just say, “Hey. Stop, you’re so pretty. Heart eyes.” That feels totally realistic. Especially imagine you matched with Ivy, how intimidated you’d be.

Riese: I would be so excited.

Drew: I would be too, and I would obviously come up with something clever and worthwhile to send her, but a lot of people in our community would just be like, “I can’t message first. She’s so much prettier than me.”

Riese: Yeah. But it’s funny because Shane’s like, “Yeah, the dating apps.” Shane a hundred percent has never and will never be on a dating app.

Analyssa: Never in her life.

Riese: Shane is the dating app,

Analyssa: But they’re trying to find common flirt ground.

Riese: But then they get a group project.

Drew: Yes they do. Sophie brings Taylor over.

Riese: Taylor.

Drew: Brings Taylor over.

Riese: Makeover time.

Analyssa: They have six minutes and neither of them are moving with any urgency.

Riese: Absolutely not. No. They know that they’re in a TV show and that they have a lot more time than that.

Drew: I would like to say that in my notes, I wrote Ivy and Shane double team her, which is very interesting writing.

Riese: It was cute. I know Shane is dating Tess, but I’m upset about the second bar.

Drew: It’s a bummer, because if we wanted to do the storyline, this would’ve been a really fun storyline. I don’t know. I just think there could have been something more interesting instead of Shane doing a Shane again. But sometimes people don’t change. And speaking of people who don’t change, Alice is wearing another great suit. It’s a yellow suit and I love it. Beautiful. And Margaret Cho’s on the TV show to give little banter and jokes during the match game. And we learned that the first contestant is a man from rural Montana.

Analyssa: I want to know what the selection process was.

Riese: I am also a man from rural Montana, so I related to that a lot. Yeah. Is that the guy when they ask why do you want to be with Alice? And he’s like, “She’s the whole package.”

Drew: The second person says the whole package.

Riese: What did he say? Oh, what’s not to love? I would have shot him on sight.

Drew: And then Gigi is, we’re still, again, everything’s happening at the same time. Gigi’s leaving and Nat is taking her, but Nat has been drinking.

Riese: But also, before this, Dani peaked through the curtain and saw Gigi and Nat holding hands.

Analyssa: They’re touching hands.

Riese: Which is a really weird thing to do when you’re in a live studio audience or you could be filmed at any moment.

Drew: Dani, to her credit, confronts Gigi and it’s like, “What’s going on. Something’s clearly wrong.”

Analyssa: This does seem like a weird time to do that, though.

Riese: Dani wants to do it now.

Analyssa: Great.

Drew: No, it is a bad time.

Analyssa: Gigi also forced the conversation with Nat. We all want to confront our emotions currently.

Drew: Why is Gigi there in the first place?

Riese: Television.

Analyssa: For drama.

Drew: I know. Anyways, Montana Man is a veterinarian and then the second contestant runs a startup for NFTs.

Riese: Cold storage.

Drew: What?

Analyssa: Cold storage for NFTs.

Drew: Oh. I don’t know what that is.

Riese: At first I thought she was going to do cold storage for meats and cheeses. And I was like, “That’s hot.” But then she was like, “For NFTs,” and I was like…

Drew: Are TV shows being paid to shill for NFTs? Because Queen Sugar has had a whole NFT thing this season that feels the way product placement feels, where it’s awkward. And you’re like, “Why are they talking so much about NFTs?” And it made me think maybe TV shows are… Or it’s just a topical reference people can throw in.

Riese: Well I refuse to find out what NFTs are.

Analyssa: Me too.

Riese: No one can make me. Or why they need to use cold storage. I need to be in cold storage.

Drew: But Margaret Cho’s making jokes. It’s still fun.

Analyssa: And then they’re pushing Taylor out onto the stage to answer her first question. She doesn’t know what the question is. She’s very flustered. She even says:

Taylor: I don’t know why I have to be on TV right now.

Analyssa: But we are off to the races anyway.

Riese: Yeah. And she said she’s from Normal, Illinois. That’s a real place.

Analyssa: There are a lot of places named Normal in the world

Riese: There’s one in Oregon, right?

Analyssa: Back at the bar next door to Dana’s…

Riese: The Jenny Schecter Memorial Tavern.

Analyssa: Right. Finley and Carrie are trading drunk stories. Finley’s talking fondly about her time being drunk. Although I forgot that Finley grew up in Kansas City. So when she was like, “I took a bus from Kansas City to LA,” I was like, “What?” I had such a jump scare.

Riese: That’s actually, I mean that’s one way to get through a bus ride.

Drew: Goldschlager.

Analyssa: Bad.

Drew: What is that?

Riese: Goldschlager? That’s the first alcohol I ever tasted in my whole life on this planet.

Analyssa: Really?

Riese: Because I had seen Beverly Hills 90210, where people drink it. I did not know, because I was 13 or something. It wasn’t like we got drunk. It was like, “Let’s taste alcohol.” And it was at my fancy friend’s house. Of course they had fucking Goldschlager. I didn’t know that alcohol tasted bad. I had no idea. Cause on TV they’re just doing shots like it’s nothing. Luke Perry was always just like… So I was like, “Oh my God.” I was just shocked.

Drew: Wait, what kind of alcohol is, what is that though?

Riese: A Goldschlager?

Drew: I’ll Google it later.

Riese: Google it now.

Drew: No no.

Riese: But it has gold flakes in it.

Drew: Oh, it’s the Superbad drink!

Analyssa: I think it’s vodka.

Riese: Goldschlager is a Swiss cinnamon schnapps.

Analyssa: Schnapps.

Drew: Anyways, Finley is talking about how it’s harder to take risks and do stuff when sober.

Riese: Like press the button on her hospitality application so that she can become a manager of Subway.

Drew: They start joking about or talking about Misty coming by, and Finley’s like, “You’re into her.” And so then Finley’s like, “I’ll send in my college app if you go ask Misty out.” And Carrie’s like, “Sure thing.”

Analyssa: Carrie says, “I’ll do it.”

Riese: And then she is like, “I did it” and Finley sends off her college application. And then Carrie says:

Carrie: Well, no, it’s not actually a date.
Finley: What is it?
Carrie: I sort of joined her bowling league. I’m the newest member of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Gutter.
Finley: You know what? Playing the long game, I’ll take it.

Riese: And I thought it was a really good representation of how adult sports leagues make weird punny names. Although I was surprised that they didn’t somehow incorporate something lesbian adjacent into the name. But congrats to everybody.

Drew: Do we think that she asked, how do we think it went from asking out to bowling league?

Analyssa: I feel like she was like, “What are you doing some night?” And the plumber was like…

Riese: Bowling.

Analyssa: Bowling. Suddenly I’ve forgotten how to put words into sentences.

Riese: So did the writers.

Drew: It’s been a long day.

Riese: Just kidding. They didn’t. I love this episode.

Drew: And then we go to a cute little scene of Tess’s mom reminiscing and then there’s a Carly Simon song and they have a little dance moment. And it’s cute. If I felt more invested in Tess as a human being and well written character, I think I would probably be a little bit more into the moment.

Riese: Great robe.

Drew: Yeah. It’s a sweet little, little moment.

Riese: Her mom has great robes.

Drew: And it’s a reminder of Tess right before we watch Ivy walk up to Shane and drink her drink.

Analyssa: Top tier flirt.

Drew: Which is— Have you seen that in the world?

Analyssa: I’ve done that in the world.

Riese: Oh my god, I’ve done that so many times.

Drew: What!

Analyssa: Top tier flirt.

Drew: I’ve never seen that.

Analyssa: That’s a huge flirting move.

Riese: I’ve done it probably a hundred times.

Analyssa: I’ve done it so many times in my life.

Riese: Just take it right out of their hand and put it in my mouth. Yes.

Analyssa: Sometimes, what are you drinking? Grab it and drink.

Drew: Okay sure. But just walking across and taking it? And especially because it’s not like a straw. A straw I’ve seen.

Analyssa: But they’ve been flirting.

Drew: Oh no, I’m not criticizing. I’m just in awe of it. It would just work on me so well and it’s never been done on me.

Analyssa: I think that there’s a specific energy though, to the…

Riese: There is. There’s something, it’s like an intimacy, cause you’re like, “I’m not afraid of your germs.”

Drew: You’re putting your mouth where their mouth is.

Analyssa: Exactly.

Riese: And so then maybe you could put your mouth on each other’s mouths.

Analyssa: Right. Which is what happens later.

Drew: Why does everyone fuck at The Alice Show?

Analyssa: The set of The Alice Show should be memorialized.

Riese: It’s erotically charged.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Shane does not seem even a little bit concerned about the fact that she’s in a committed relationship. I feel like in the original, when she would do this, there would be a lot more tortured whatever. She’s like, “I know who I am and who I am is bending Ivy over and fingering her from behind.”

Riese: And God bless it. Bless them.

Analyssa: Bless them.

Riese: I thought this was a fantastic sex scene.

Drew: I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it.

Riese: Two thumbs up to everyone involved. Congrats to everyone. Sorry, Tess.

Analyssa: Sorry to Tess.

Riese: But also, again, as you said last time, I do think that she should get a freebie on this.

Drew: Yeah. Speaking of, I don’t want to say cheating because Gigi and Nat didn’t, it wasn’t a cheat. Gigi confesses the slight kiss. And Dani’s like, “Why are you trying to hurt me?” And Gigi’s like, “I need just some time.” And Dani’s like, “No, you don’t get time. We’re done. Go fuck yourself.” I know she doesn’t say go fuck yourself, but that’s the energy.

Analyssa: That’s the tone. Bold. Not what I would’ve done.

Riese: No. I would’ve wanted to spend at least three weeks talking about it.

Analyssa: Definitely feeling very tortured about it.

Riese: Yeah. I would’ve been in Slack the next day like, I’m having some personal problems, but I swear I’ll get my work done.

Drew: I get it, I get it. I don’t think that’s the move that I would’ve done, but I do understand the feeling of, you don’t seem interested in me anymore. It just happened a little too quick. But I do think she’s pulling away. She’s being distant. It feels weird. I get being like, “No, I don’t want that, if you have to think about whether you like me or not, then you don’t. And then we’re done.”

Analyssa: But I don’t really feel like that’s what she’s thinking about. My thing is just that she did just get hit by a car.

Drew: That is a very good point.

Riese: Yeah. Maybe she has a concussion.

Drew: That’s a really good point. Do concussions make you have developed feelings for your ex-wife? Is that common?

Riese: Every time I’ve had a concussion, I’ve immediately thought about Nat and my children. And the grape jelly.

Analyssa: She’s just reeling from a major event and they’ve been together for a year and a half.

Drew: That’s fair. That’s a good point.

Riese: But it’s a long time to just end it backstage at the Alice show. But I mean, Dani is very wham, bam, no thank you, ma’am.

Analyssa: Dani’s very reactive. Also, in fairness, which she brings up later, Dani has had this sort of thing happen to her already, so I can see that she’s primed to be like, “Fuck this, I’m out. I don’t need to wait around for it to get really bad.”

Drew: Yeah, that makes sense.

Analyssa: We cut back to the dating game and the contestants are giving such horrible answers to Why do you want to date Alice?

Drew: Awful.

Analyssa: Someone saying:

Contestant 2: Smart, sexy, and beautiful. The full package.

Riese: No.

Drew: What are you, like a middle school boy describing why you have a crush on someone and you don’t actually know anything about them? Very strange.

Riese: Saying what’s not to love. Honestly, a trap door should have opened up beneath his chair and he should have been shot to Middle Earth.

Drew: I would, again, I’d like to know where they found these people.

Analyssa: So Taylor says:

Taylor: Well, they promised me a coffee mug if I did the show. So, the free mug.

Riese: Yeah. That was cute.

Analyssa: It was very funny. And Alice likes it, and so Alice chooses Taylor. Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Riese: Yeah. I mean also Joey Lauren Adams has a famous voice.

Analyssa: Yes.

Drew: Yes.

Riese: She has a very distinct voice and it’s very sexy. What’s not to love?

Analyssa: I think that I had a crush on her when she was in Big Daddy. That’s why I asked.

Riese: In Dazed and Confused, loved her. Also, when I thought it was her in Empire Records before I realized it was Renee Zellweger, I loved that too.

Drew: Oh, Renee Zellweger in Empire Records is so hot. I do love how these two are totally twinning. When you see them standing next to each other on stage like that, you’re like, “This is exactly who Alice would date. Real live talk show Alice would absolutely date someone who’s less successful but looks very similar to her.”

Analyssa: They made Margaret Cho say, “Love is love is love” on stage. Which did…

Riese: Wasn’t she making fun of love is love?

Drew: They also made her say, “Unlike women’s reproductive rights in America, this choice is yours.” And I’m like, “That’s the best you can give Margaret Cho?” Let her write her own dialogue and pay her for it.

Riese: Yeah. I liked everything Margaret Cho said until the reproductive rights. And especially because then it flashed the audience.

Drew: The extras were extra-ing.

Riese: The extras were so extra. And I was like, “Okay.” They were like, “Good point about Roe v. Wade.”

Analyssa: Big nods from the crowd.

Riese: Okay.

Drew: Speaking of just throwing things and hoping it works, Dani is just throwing those oranges at Nat’s car. It was very funny.

Analyssa: I loved it. And I also love that it’s a bit of a throwback to when Gigi is banging on the door of Nat’s home.

Riese: I didn’t love that, once again, we have mixed signals about alcohol in this program, Because she’s like, “I should drive,” whatever. Which, first of all, should you? Aren’t you on pain meds?

Drew: No. Neither of them should drive.

Riese: I only had a few sips. I’m like, “You’ve pulled out a full straw to drink an entire bottle of champagne. You had more than a few sips.” And then, but then she just like, “No, just cause you’re a really bad driver,” which was funny.

Drew: That was funny. But I also was like… Also is it that Sepideh Moafi had another show to be on? What is going on? They’re just broken up now?

Riese: I don’t know. I will die if she doesn’t come back.

Analyssa: I’ll be devastated.

Riese: Yeah. I lay down my life for her.

Analyssa: I know that I’m in the minority, but I would also lay down my life for Nat and Stephanie Allynne. I want to see more of them. I just don’t understand why.

Drew: I love this for you.

Analyssa: Whatever, I love—

Riese: I know. I love it for you.

Analyssa: Thank you.

Riese: Every time that Nat comes back, I’m like, “Oh, this would be great for you.”

Analyssa: Thank you for your support. You know what that is? Sisterhood. You know that is? Powerful.

Riese: And I think that, I really hope that this isn’t the end of Gigi for the season. I thought she was a regular, isn’t she in the promo photos?

Analyssa: I think so.

Drew: I just am so surprised by the breaking up of Gigi and Dani so quickly. It’s not that I thought they were so good together, but people loved them together. And I’m surprised we didn’t get to see it really.

Riese: Well, maybe what’s going to happen is they’ll get back together.

Drew: That’s true. That’s happened on The L Word before.

Analyssa: Famously.

Drew: So now Dani is sad and tells Sophie, this is the second time the person she wanted to marry ran off with someone else.

Riese: Also Dani’s eating 17 oranges. So that’s really great. Her skin is going to be glowing. Vitamin C.

Analyssa: So many oranges.

Riese: Radiant. She won’t need to take a multivitamin.

Drew: But they have some nice friendship moment. Dani says that Sophie’s killing it at work.

Riese: I thought that was a really good moment of how you always think someone else’s life is going better than yours. Where she’s always on both sides.

Analyssa: They’re both like, “You’re so together. You are killing it.” And both of them are looking at the other person.

Drew: Especially to your example who you haven’t totally patched things up with yet, you’re pretending to be doing better.

Riese: Also, you always look at your ex and think, “Oh my God, my ex is thriving without me.” You never see that. You never consider that anything could possibly be bad until your friends are like, “No, that she’s treating her just like she treated you.” And you’re like, “No, she’s not.”

Analyssa: They’re happy.

Riese: They’re happy. We never, in a way that we couldn’t be.

Analyssa: Why wouldn’t she feel that way about me? Yeah. Big stuff. Honestly, Sophie is a bigger person than me, because if Dani had made that little crack about two people who she wanted to marry leaving her, I would’ve just gracefully said, “Well, this seems like you’re having a bad time. I’m going to go.”

Riese: I would’ve felt so guilty,

Drew: I would’ve just stayed there and taken all the emotion. Give it to me.

Riese: I would’ve been like, “Unload it onto me entirely. I’m terrible.”

Drew: Let me help you and make you feel better.

Riese: Whatever you need. Do you want me to eat an orange?

Drew: So she then invites Dani over. I might have checked in with Finley, but that’s fine.

Analyssa: Will that come back to bite us? Don’t know. And Dani is a little bit confused by this as, honestly, am I. And Dani’s like, “Are you trying to get back together with me right now?” Sophie says not a fucking chance. Which now if I’m Dani, I say gracefully, “Go fuck yourself.”

Drew: I would also be like, “You don’t have to be that…”

Riese: I just love how direct Dani is, though. Whatever’s on her mind, she just fucking asks it.

Drew: Yeah. I really enjoy that. She doesn’t have to stay for the party. She just had to stay for the episode, which is interesting. But we’re going with it. And then Taylor tells Alice, “I’m from Normal. You’re from Alice. You don’t actually like this. No.” And Alice keeps being like, “No, you’re not. You’re not regular. If you are, so am I. And I once dated a famous person when I wasn’t famous. I get it.”

Riese: Do you think she’s talking about Dana?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Alice saying, “I’m just like you. I was once regular,” basically, really got me.

Riese: I thought it was so cute and authentic how she basically was like, “It’s okay.” It doesn’t even occur to her that Alice might actually want to go on the date. She’s like, “It’s fine. You don’t have to do this.” There’s no part of her that thinks she’s even rejecting Alice at all. It doesn’t even cross her mind.

Analyssa: She just runs a humble, liberated coffee stand.

Riese: Yeah. But surely someone in her life has been like, “You know you’re unusually hot. You should do voiceover.”

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I really loved that she’s giving Alice a big chef’s kiss to the episode. And I was like, “But what about a real kiss?” I thought they would make that joke.

Drew: I did too.

Riese: Yeah. But she is, she’s going to do it, right? She said she’d give Alice a little.

Drew: Yeah, I think this might be a love interest.

Analyssa: Potential candidate for the one.

Drew: Wow.

Riese: Oh yeah. This is probably the one. Although if we’re doing this, then maybe Tasha, if everyone’s getting back with their exes, maybe Lisa’s the one.

Drew: Wow. That would be what I want to see. Trans woman Lisa returns. It’s what the people want. And by the people, I mean me, and my friends because my friends love me.

Riese: If Bette’s mom came back to life, couldn’t Dana come back to life?

Drew: That’s something

Analyssa: Now we’re cooking. Tess has arrived to just miss all of the episode, basically.

Riese: At any point in LA, if the episode has already started and you’re still at home, you’re not going to make it.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yes. If you are leaving at the time that you need to be somewhere, wrong. You’re not going to get there in time.

Riese: Yeah. Stay at home and watch a show.

Drew: Shane is like, “I want to leave for no particular reason. Let’s get out of here real quick, real quick, real quick.” And they do. And oh, in the meantime, Tess also apologizes because we need that moment of Tess being like, “Actually, I’m sorry.”

Riese: I’m sorry I was a little harsh.

Analyssa: I take it back.

Riese: You can hit me with an ax.

Analyssa: But Shane can’t take back what she did in that blue light room.

Drew: I thought Ivy was going to come out right then. But instead Ivy waits until Sophie’s there. And I want to say that I really respect this, because I do think that if I felt like I was being kept a secret, I would be like, “I’m not going to be so chaotic that I ruined this person’s relationship. But I do want one person to know that Shane and I fucked. I want one person to know.”

Riese: Does she know that Shane has a girlfriend?

Analyssa: I don’t think Ivy does. Or would.

Drew: Oh, that’s a good point.

Analyssa: I don’t see why.

Drew: Oh, that feels…

Analyssa: So, I think she’s just bragging that she boned at work.

Drew: So maybe she didn’t even hear voices outside though. It wasn’t calculated. Unless Shane was like, “Stay in here.” I don’t know.

Riese: But she maybe knew because she found out Shane owned the bar and Shane owns the bar with Tess.

Analyssa: Oh yeah. Maybe. I think also a quick Instagram lurk would’ve revealed this information.

Drew: I think she probably has an idea. But I guess if I was flirting with a hot person and I was like, “I think this person has a partner” and they didn’t bring up their partner and continue to flirt with me, I would go, either this person is one of the many couples who are non-monogamous in some way, in a healthy way that is totally fine and not really represented on TV, or it’s not a happy relationship, in which case, no offense, but that’s not really my problem.

Riese: Wow. Ripe for invasion.

Drew: Well, we get our only appearance of Micah in the episode to be like, “I’m going to go away because Finley’s doing a special dinner for Sophie. Excuse me, the characters who matter are doing something. So I’m going to go to my room, goodbye.”

Analyssa: I’ll be the Harry Potter line that’s like, “I’ll be in my room making no noise and pretending I do not exist.”

Riese: And he’s also like, “That steak looks really good,” and Finley’s like:

Finley: It’s chicken.

Drew: That was funny. I did enjoy that.

Riese: But then Sophie shows up and first Finley’s like, “I made you this dinner.” It’s so cute. Whatever. Because I applied to college and your 100th episode. And then Dani comes in right behind and:

Dani: Figured I’d come piss in your hallway for a change.

Drew: So good. I loved it.

Riese: Perfect.

Analyssa: No notes.

Drew: Especially followed by truce. That is so, that’s power and I love it. And then Micah’s like, “I hear Dani, so I’m allowed to be in the episode for another beat.”

Riese: And they’re reunited.

Drew: They get to be friends again. And I did like that.

Riese: The original foursome who lived in that house together, they’re all around the table and they’re all going to be best friends forever.

Analyssa: I’m happy for them and I’m excited to see them all around the table.

Riese: Me too.

Drew: And that’s the episode.

Riese: Okay. So one thing about this episode that I think is important is that this is the first episode of any season of The L Word that has not included Bette Porter.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Wow.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Because she’s in Toronto. And wait, am I not going to be in the next episode of our lives, cause I’m going to Toronto tonight? Do I just get removed? Depends whose story it is, I guess.

Riese: Well, you could call Angie if you wanted to.

Drew: That’s true. So we get a little bit of a reference. Cool. Though in the original show, when Bette would go to New York or whatever, we’d go with her. It just depends on who’s, you know, who’s the focus. But yeah, Bette is not in this episode.

Riese: I don’t know. I really expected we were going to see them in Toronto.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: I’m fine with it because I do think that ultimately they want them to be endgame. And so if they want them to be endgame, what are we going to do with them for the whole season? Even if, I don’t know, I don’t need any more back and forth between are Bette and Tina going to get back together if the ultimate conclusion is yes. So just keep them together. Keep them in Toronto. They make appearances here and there. I’m fine with that. Watching people, I mean, there’s a reason why there’s so much cheating and chaos on The L Word. You need conflict.

Riese: In every show.

Drew: More creative ways to do conflict, but…

Riese: Grey’s Anatomy.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Murdoch Mysteries.

Drew: Unless one of them’s going to die, which I don’t think people would want. Can you imagine? Yeah. I don’t know. So we either need to really get into Tina’s work and really get into the intricacies of Murdoch Mysteries and what it takes to create that show, or what other categories in life. Family, I Bette’s reconciled with her mom and all the rest of her family’s dead. Tina, I don’t know.

Riese: She could run a marathon.

Drew: That’s nice.

Analyssa: They could start a business together.

Riese: They could start a little crafts business making bracelets.

Drew: But that wouldn’t really be respecting Tina’s work.

Riese: They could start a business making matching hoodies for dogs and humans.

Drew:Wow. That is cute.

Riese: That already exists.

Drew: Did we like this episode?

Riese: I did.

Analyssa: I did.

Riese: I liked it a lot. I thought it was really fun. I liked having a break from Bette and Tina. I liked that we were able to focus on the other characters, and also it meant that there was always a actor on screen at any given moment, which was fun.

Drew: There was a lot of fun stuff in this episode. There was also a lot of stuff that felt maddening and confusing, but it was eased by the fact that there were good guest stars. Rosie’s back. There was that meet cute. That was really fun.

Riese: No, I was entertained and enjoying myself for the whole time. There wasn’t any part where I was like…

Analyssa: Yeah, me either. And the interesting thing is that the first two episodes of the season feel like they functioned as a mini movie. And now this almost has season premiere vibes where there’s a lot of seeds planted for different stuff.

Drew: That’s a really good point.

Analyssa: Which is interesting, because we were just saying how last episode was season finale vibes. It feels like those two episodes were sort of their own piece.

Riese: Yeah, like Battlestar Galactica when they have the little… No.

Analyssa: Nothing for me.

Drew: I mean, lots of shows do in between seasons, like a little movie. Very British.

Analyssa: Very British.

Riese: So I had a great time. I liked the episode. Everyone did a wonderful job. And I liked Margaret Cho. I liked Joey Lauren Adams and I liked Khelani.

Analyssa: We’re being blessed by iconic guest stars this year.

Riese: Oh, and Rosie. I hope we get more Rosie.

Drew: Me too.

Analyssa: I do too.

Riese: She was filming a few times, so hopefully, I feel like she was back and forth.

Analyssa: Yeah. I feel like she posted last episode or something, which means more than one.

Drew: Yeah. I hope we get to see this whole romance. Are we not going to? That would be such a bummer.

Analyssa: Drew, how would we know that?

Drew: I know, I know. I just don’t want them to desexualize her. I want to get, I don’t know. Anyways, we’ll see. And you’ll see.

Lauren Klein: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back: Generation Q Edition, one of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle dot com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at To L and Back, and you can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. Our theme song is by the talented B Stedwell, and our Gen Q logo is by Jax Co. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram at Lauren Taylor Klein. You can follow Drew everywhere at Draw_Gregory. You can follow on Analyssa on Instagram at analoka with two As, and on Twitter at analoka with one a and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere at Ottawin. Autostraddle is at Autostraddle. And of course the reason why we’re all here, autostraddle.com. And finally, to end this ep, let’s hear some keyword words from our girlies.

Drew: 3, 2, 1…

Riese: Quiz Show.

Drew: Once again, Riese, you’ve crushed it.

Riese: Yeah, thank you. It’s quiz show because this episode was called Quiz Show.

Analyssa: Nice. Nailed it.

Riese: Thank you.

Analyssa: I said quagmire.

Drew: Ooh.

Analyssa: First Q word that popped in my head, honestly. Actually, the first thing that popped into my head was chaos spelled with a Q.

Riese: The first thing that popped into my head was Quincy.

Drew: Qualitative, because that’s the only way that you can judge. I mean, that’s how I judge the TV show. Not quantitatively, because it’s not really numbers involved unless I was doing it by how many hookups or if you do your fight count.

Analyssa: I was going to say, that’s a Riese recap style.

Drew: But you don’t judge the episodes off of being good or bad based on how many things there are. But yeah, so that’s the key word I thought of. Well, I got a flight to catch.

Riese: Oh yeah. To Toronto to see Tina.

Drew: To Toronto to see Tina.

Analyssa: How very The L Word: Gen Q of you to have to run out to get to the airport.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: You need an 18 year old driving you madly. But instead it’s just me.

Drew: That’s so nice. Such a nice friend. Ana’s driven me to the airport and picked me up multiple times in the last month.

Riese: Wow. You’re a hero.

Analyssa: I actually love driving people to and from the airport. This is something to know about me if we are friends.

Riese: Can you pick up my mom on December 9th?

Analyssa: I don’t know your mom, but I would.

Riese: Okay.

Analyssa: I do. I just like it. I think first of all, there is some karmic points.

Riese: Someday, someone will give you a ride to the airport.

Analyssa: I have been driven to the airport by Drew and also my other roommate and also many other friends who have been like, “Oh yeah, you did that for me.” But I don’t really do it for that. I do it for 40 minutes of being in the car, hanging with my friend.

Drew: That’s so nice.

Riese: That’s so sweet.

Analyssa: And then you get to drive back and you get to play music or just be, I like being in the car. I’m from the Midwest. We drive a lot.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Well.

Analyssa: Okay. That’s it.

Drew: See you next week.

Riese: See you next week!

“To L And Back: Generation Q Edition” Podcast Episode 302: Los Angeles Traffic

Look, sometimes you have to get back together with your ex! Not always, granted, and probably not every ex, but sometimes…it must be done. I know a lot of other things happened in this episode, but doesn’t the much-awaited Bette and Tina story feel like why we’re all here this week?

While Bette and Tina are having their own season finale, we’re also talking this week about Micah and Mari’s potential baby, Shane and Tess’s metaphorical baby (the bar), and whether we generally feel insecure in our own romantic relationships (not all of us!).

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ Riese’s 301 recap (and her 302 recap for that matter!) went up at the perfect times, thank you very much!
+ Our prediction about Twitter hasn’t yet come true, but you can read a thoughtful essay from Niko about Twitter even still!
+ You can follow Autostraddle on tumblr.com, the social media that may outlive us all
+ Alice should send her pals Riese’s Jojo Siwa explainer
+ Alice’s date is part of the NXIVM cult, if you missed the references
+ Imagine Me & You is on the top 200 queer movies list, and I still haven’t seen it, cancel me!
+ I’ve never watched one episode of Glee, but here’s Riese’s recap of the Quinn car crash

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I am Riese.

Drew: And this is To L And Back: Generation Q Edition.

Riese: To L And Back: Generation Q Edition.

Analyssa: Oh, that was beautiful.

Drew: That was incredible.

Riese: That was gorgeous.

Analyssa: You’d never know we didn’t know how to do that two seconds ago.

Drew: No.

Riese: Yeah. That was our fourth take.

Drew: Editing is amazing. Shout-out Lauren.

Riese: Well, guys.

Drew: We’re here.

Riese: We’re here and we’re recording ahead of time, very far ahead of time. And today is Thursday, November 17th, and The L Word dropped their first episode today, a day early, and I am in a full panic because my recap is not ready.

Drew: I’m very sorry about that.

Riese: So that’s just where I am.

Analyssa: When people in the Autostraddle Slack started talking about the episode today, I was like, “But we haven’t even gotten the first cut of the podcast yet.”

Riese: Everything’s moving too fast!

Analyssa: I suddenly became that blonde lady with the math over her face. Like, “Wait, what do I have to do between now and whenever everybody sees it?” Anyway.

Drew: I have enjoyed following people’s tweets already. I feel like there’s really two-

Riese: I haven’t gone on Twitter yet.

Drew: Oh, that’s brave. I think there are two camps of… There’s obviously so many camps of L Word fans, but right now it feels like there are two really strong ones. They’re the Bette-Tina people and they’re the Dani-Gigi people, and I think they are going to go to war.

Analyssa: Wow. I think this episode put me firmly in both camps. Is that weird?

Drew: Wait, supporting both of them?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Oh, cool, cool, cool.

Riese: I already supported both of them.

Analyssa: Well, we’ll talk about my opinion on that later. My Twitter has been overrun just by all the Taylor Swift discourse.

Riese: Oh yes. Yeah.

Analyssa: I haven’t even seen L Word tweets. I’m only seeing people planning an overthrow-

Riese: That’s my whole TikTok. Yeah.

Drew: By the time the second episode of Gen Q Season 3 comes out and this episode of the podcast comes out and you are listening to this, Ticketmaster will be destroyed by Swifties, Twitter will be destroyed by Elon Musk, and-

Riese: Everyone should follow autostraddle.tumblr.com. I’ll tell you what, I’ve gotten back into Tumblr.

Drew: I love Tumblr.

Riese: And, man, I fucking love Tumblr.

Drew: Do you know that the way I got my first piece at Autostraddle is I would just write stuff on Tumblr for 10 people.

Riese: Oh really?

Drew: And then, Heather Hogan tweeted out, “I’m looking for a trans person who has a take on Supergirl.” And I had just written like the essays that I write. Long form personal essay, criticism, 3000 words, and I just sent Heather a link my Tumblr and was like, “This isn’t professional but I’m not a professional, maybe I could be.” And Heather was like-

Riese: Oh, we hired people from Tumblrs all the time.

Drew: Yeah. It was great.

Riese: But obviously, our best achievement was that we took afterellen.tumblr.com and filled it up with pictures of shirtless men. And then, we got a letter eventually.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: But it was no longer ours and our URL had been changed to afterellenfans.tumblr.com so that AfterEllen could have their own Tumblr. But for two years they did not claim it. We should’ve have taken thenewyorker.tumblr.com.

Drew: Oh yeah.

Riese: Anyway, so.

Drew: On that note, we want to get into the episode?

Riese: I’d love to get into the episode.

Drew: Great.

Riese: As much as I love Tumblr, I would love to get into this episode.

Drew: This is episode 302. It is directed by Katrelle N. Kindred, who directed last week’s episode, and it’s written by Julia Hannafin, who started as a writers assistant on Season 1, wrote on last season, was one of the writers on Love Shack, which as we said last season, one of the best episodes of the show, and now, here she is.

Analyssa: We love a career progression in writing.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I’m so happy for her.

Drew: Well, we start where we stopped last episode with Angie walking in on her moms doing a little kissing.

Analyssa: A lot of kissing, I feel like.

Drew: A lot of kissing.

Analyssa: I don’t know. I love that they’re like, “Should we do something about… Actually, no. Let’s just kiss.”

Drew: Oh yeah. It’s wild… First of all-

Analyssa: They’re like, “Our daughter has seen us kissing for the first time in her lifetime basically.” And then left crying. Also, maybe she seemed upset coming-

Riese: No, she’s at college now. She’s no longer their responsibility. They should bone. Bone now.

Analyssa: They’re like, “Actually, we have bigger things to worry about.”

Drew: It was so funny watching them try to recover. And then when she left, Tina saying she’s seen worse, killed me. I was dying. And then, yeah, there was fully a sex scene. We get a little sex scene.

Riese: Yeah, and I think it was great for everybody. I really wish that they would take their bras off but it’s fine.

Analyssa: I was like, “The bras stay on during sex.” I was really noting them.

Drew: I do think that there should be a way to cut around… I get not wanting nudity but I feel like let’s just-

Riese: Let’s cut around.

Drew: Yeah, let’s just do a lot of feet stuff. I don’t know.

Riese: Yeah. Lots of times, they’ll do it where they smash themselves together so much, the nipples get obscured by the other person’s boobs. You know what I mean?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: I also-

Riese: I’m demonstrating this now with my hands. It doesn’t take much to smash my boobs.

Analyssa: It’s a good demonstration though.

Riese: Thank you. Yeah.

Analyssa: For me, it wouldn’t be an issue.

Drew: I think that maybe they’re just really into bras.

Riese: Bra play?

Drew: Maybe that’s a thing. Sometimes people are like, “No, keep it on. This is hotter to me when you have a little bit of a tease.”

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: I do want to say about the scene that Laurel Holloman’s face really does light up when she looks at Bette. Do you know what I mean?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Every time I see her look in the direction of Bette, I’m like, “Okay, I’m onboard.” She glows.

Drew: This is this about this whole episode but I felt like I was watching my moms kiss. I was happy for them but… And it’s not really an age thing because I’ve watched Bette have sex scenes over the past two years and it didn’t feel this way, there is something about their dynamic that does feel a little bit like, “This is sweet.” I’m happy for anyone who’s getting turned on and it could just be that I am significantly younger. Maybe I’m getting over some of my things and I’m getting to a healthier… whatever. But I just was watching this and being like, “I’m happy for those two. Good for them.”

Riese: Yeah. It’s wild to think though, if you really put yourself to the mindset of the story, that they’ve been having sex for how many years now? They met in ’96.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: Wow.

Drew: Lesbian sex was totally different in ’96.

Riese: Right. Yeah. It was.

Analyssa: It had only barely been invented.

Riese: Yeah. People were still just trying to scissor and not knowing what it meant. Just kidding. We know people were already boning full horse riding.

Drew: Yes. That was a joke. Just to clarify that. I’m aware that lesbian sex of all types has been happening for a long time.

Riese: I wasn’t having sex in 1996 because I had head gear.

Drew: I wasn’t having sex in 1996 because I was… How old was I?

Analyssa: Redacted.

Drew: Three? Four?

Analyssa: I was a toddler.

Riese: Oh, well, that’s cute for you guys. So, anyway, but also they’ve gotten back together so many times that I’m sure that they really probably love this. They must love the moment when you get back together with someone that you’ve had sex with more than anyone else in your life and you’re like, “Here we are again.”

Drew: You have experience… I’m sorry. I keep really calling you out on your life but I just don’t have this experience of ever hooking up with someone who I used to hook up with more than just break up sex. I’ve done that but I haven’t ever gotten back after more than a month or two.

Analyssa: I’m a humongous ex returner. I’ve returned to nearly every ex, and often with a pretty decent gap. And as Drew is referencing, the man that I’m dating currently, I dated last in college, which was five years ago.

Riese: Tom.

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: He’s an editor and a book publisher.

Analyssa: And he also looks a lot like Donald Faison.

Riese: And yeah, he looks… He’s Donald… Yeah.

Analyssa: And he worked with The Aloce Show. Speaking from personal experience, I really actually like the moment of Bette being like, “It’s been a long time. I look different.” Because even I had that with Lewis and it’s only been five years since we last hooked up, or four, something like that and I was like, “Ah, this doesn’t all look the same as in college.” And so, they’ve had a much bigger gap. I don’t know. I thought it was very sweet.

Riese: I’m always like, “I’ve learned so many new things since we last met.”

Drew: I would love to have sex with someone who I had sex with before transitioning but there just weren’t that many of them because I really had two long relationships and two others, and I don’t think any of those four people… I don’t think it’s happening so-

Analyssa: Not worth it probably. Okay. Well, speaking of people who are extremely beautiful, Dani and Gigi are debriefing the Nat conversation. Basically, it sounds like Nat was like, “I want to spend more time with Dani before I put my opinion in.” And Dani is not taking this very well.

Riese: Yeah. I think she is just assuming it has something to do with, or feeling insecure about her relationship or that Gigi is still into Nat or something, when really, it’s completely reasonable.

Drew: It’s so reasonable. Gigi is so correct in this fight.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Although, I do think she could also take her tone down a little bit.

Drew: Oh yeah.

Analyssa: Both of them, I was like, “Okay, you guys are actually both right so if you could just relax a little bit.” But-

Riese: Also, Gigi had her shirt partially unbuttoned.

Analyssa: Which would’ve softened me up in any argument. I was like-

Riese: Yeah. I would’ve been like, “Yeah, I’ll have sex with Nat.”

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Anything you need. Nat needs me to bring her takeout for a week? Sure. I’ll do it.

Riese: Yeah. Does she need me to wax her eyebrows? I don’t know how but I’ll do it. I can barely pluck my own.

Drew: Gigi could’ve… We didn’t get to see the immediate response, but she could’ve been like, “Nat just wants to get to know you.” But could’ve framed it as a positive of like, “Nat is really excited for us and just wants to get to know you better first because it is our kids living with you too and that is a big…” I don’t know if that’s… Gigi is not always the best at doing things, but the way that she said Daniela was-

Riese: Arousing. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew: Oh baby.

Analyssa: Although the me in me, if I were in that fight, I would be fuming. My temper would have skyrocketed. And then, I think like so many things in The L Word actually come down to people being like, “I want to be the number one slot in your life.”

Riese: Is it about finding the one or about being number one?

Analyssa: So true, Riese. Really good tie in.

Riese: Thank you.

Analyssa: And I just think that’s really not realistic in life.

Drew: No.

Riese: No.

Analyssa: And obviously, they’re not real live people but I’m-

Riese: Yes, they are.

Analyssa: Right. But I’m like, “Dani, babe, it’s okay.”

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Nat is going to rank sometimes higher because she’s the co-parent.

Drew: Yeah. I’m happy… It’s really satisfying when… This happened a couple times this episode where I was like, “But but but but…”

Riese: And then later-

Drew: And another character was like, “But.” And I was like, “Yes. Thank you.”

Riese: Right.

Drew: Whew. It’s like I’m talking through the TV. How incredible.

Analyssa: Speaking of kids, Tess has this idea that the bar is going to be-

Drew: Right, right, right. And so, Tess is kissing all over Shane and being like, “Can I convince you to get the second bar?”

Riese: I was so annoyed.

Drew: So intense about it.

Analyssa: I was so annoyed.

Riese: Irritated.

Drew: Also Tess got a call about… From a realtor? I was like, “Why are you moving forward already?”

Riese: Already doing an inspection?

Analyssa: An inspector is coming. That’s so serious.

Riese: That’s so far into the process of-

Drew: I don’t know enough about real estate.

Riese: When you’re ready to make an offer, you get an inspector to come to make sure that everything is cool. Or in my case, they come and they say everything’s cool but because it’s winter and the ground is frozen over, they don’t go under the house, then you find out a year later that you bought a house on a sinkhole. But in general, I think this inspector, at this time in LA, which is temperate year round, would be able to go in and say, “This is not on a sinkhole.” Or, “This isn’t a sinkhole.”

Analyssa: I think that’s actually inspector number one kind of-

Riese: Exactly. Inspector Gadget.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Speaking of homes not built on good foundation-

Riese: Nice.

Drew: Thank you. We go to Sophie, Finley, Micah where Finley is setting up Pictionary and Sophie tells Finley that Maribel hates her.

Analyssa: Which is a really strong start to this conversation-

Riese: I would like to say the game night, the sober person wanting to have a game night representation, I felt was really, really resonant for me. When I dated my first sober person, the best part was game nights.

Drew: I love game nights.

Riese: So many game nights.

Analyssa: Let’s do a structured activity where none of us actually have to get boozy actually. That would be great. I really love the enthusiasm too of being like, “I built this easel.”

Riese: Yeah. I think that’s so cute.

Analyssa: It’s for Pictionary.

Riese: Yeah. Finley is basically like, “If she talks to me and gets to know me, she’ll like me.” Which I don’t think is true.

Drew: I don’t think it’s true but that is correct. It is correct that the only way to move forward is to try to spend some time together, reach a certain… I do agree with that.

Riese:Yeah.

Analyssa: Finley coming back home and also coming back so strong with her little Finley-ism. She says show show and easel-her-in, in the span of 35 seconds, and I was like, “Okay. She’s back. She’s here.”

Riese: Anyway, surprise. She heard the whole thing.

Analyssa: Oh yeah.

Drew: Yeah. Doesn’t want to do it.

Analyssa: Mari lives here which I found out in this episode but peaks out from behind the curtain and is like, “Heard all that. Don’t want to hang.” She also says that Finley just gives her a headache, which I thought was really funny. There’s a couple different issues. She finds her annoying, she finds her toxic, she doesn’t like her. They’re all in the stew.

Riese: She ruined the wedding.

Analyssa: She ruined the wedding.

Riese: Which is a lie. She peed in the hallway.

Drew: Not a lie.

Riese: Not a lie.

Analyssa: That actually did happen.

Riese: But it wasn’t her hallway.

Drew: That’s true.

Riese: That’s Dani’s cross to bear.

Drew: That’s true. Speaking of couples that are getting back together, Alice and Shane are talking about the drama of Bette and Tina, and then Bette and Tina walk in holding hands.

Analyssa: I loved Alice talking about the group text dynamics that are at play. She’s… Literally, every episode convinces me a little bit more that I’m very like Alice.

Drew: Uh huh.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I wrote, “She’s so me.”

Riese: Yeah. This was cute.

Analyssa: This was cute and Shane also reveals that she knows about Jordi. There’s just a lot of, “This is a very close knit family.”

Riese: The Planet vibes.

Analyssa: Big The Planet vibes.

Riese: It did make me think they really should have Finley working daytime at Dana’s instead of at nighttime. You know what I mean? Why don’t they have her working days?

Drew: Yeah. It’s more of a coffee house vibe. At least that’s how it is at Semi-Tropic.

Riese: Yeah, because they serve food during the day.

Drew: That’s what it is.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. They’ll give you hummus.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: And Semi-Tropic is the LA bar that is Dana’s set if anybody…

Drew: Yeah. When I lived in Echo Park, I would sometimes go there to hang out in the day.

Analyssa: Really?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: That’s fun.

Drew: Yeah, it was fun.

Analyssa: Oh my God, look at you, doing fun stuff during the day. Also, Leisha Hailey looks really hot this season.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. She really does.

Analyssa: I didn’t shout out her boobs in the last season because I felt a little lecherous but good job to her.

Riese: Yeah. I think she’s still doing a great job. Her hair looks fantastic.

Analyssa: And they continue to style her, I think, really well even when it’s a silly outfit. I’m like, “Yeah. Go off.”

Riese: Yeah. I like that they’ve leaned more into “menswear” for her. I think that’s been really fun. But anyway, so then they sit down with Bette and Tina to have a meal or to just talk.

Drew: They’re just talking.

Analyssa: They’re hanging at The Planet.

Drew: The one important thing is that Ivy texts Shane.

Riese: Oh right.

Analyssa: Oh and Alice is taking a date to the Marcus Allenwood gallery opening.

Drew: An age appropriate actress, which he’s very proud of, and then Shane is like, “Be careful of actresses.” Which I take offense to as someone who pretty much exclusively has dated actresses.

Analyssa: I actually stand by Shane as someone who has also pretty much exclusively dated actresses and actors. I really loved Alice saying this call might be JoJo Siwa’s people. And Shane and Bette and Tina could learn about who JoJo Siwa is if they read autostraddle.com and Riese’s intrepid reporting.

Riese: Yeah. Exactly. I, too, did not know who this person was. And then she came out and then I had to find out. And now I know so much about her but I also feel like… Why did Angie have to learn about JoJo Siwa?

Drew: Yeah. It definitely… But also how engaged is Angie…

Riese: Because I feel like the people who know who JoJo Siwa is are children and parents.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: But do you think Angie would’ve been wearing the JoJo Siwa bow?

Drew: No, she’s a little too cool.

Riese: No, I don’t think Angie would’ve been into JoJo Siwa also but I just feel like she might’ve existed in the-

Drew: Sure.

Riese: But I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent to a child who’s now 18.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Who would Angie’s… Who do we think her pop star favorite would be?

Riese: Janelle Monáe.

Analyssa: Oh, that’s a good call. Instant pull.

Drew: Finley being Finley, not off to a great start.

Riese: Congrats on what?

Analyssa: She jumps in so fast.

Riese: Even if Micah had already said, “Let’s do it.” Still, congrats on what?

Analyssa: Yeah. The decision? It’s not-

Drew: No.

Analyssa: It’s very odd.

Riese: No baby has been made yet.

Analyssa: And then pushes on the biology stuff which simply-

Riese: Yeah. “Oh, you’re both so cute. Who will it be? Oh God.” It’s a classic Finley fumble but it’s also such a bad fumble.

Drew: Yeah. It’s real bad.

Riese: It starts out bad and then it just continues to get worse.

Drew: Also, Sophie should have… If she told Finley, “Don’t talk about this.” And also Maribel should have been like, “Don’t tell anyone…” There’s so many levels here. This shouldn’t have gotten to… Finley can’t be trusted with… If you’re going to date Finley, if you’re going to be around Finley, you have to have a certain level of knowledge.

Riese: Yeah. Right.

Analyssa: Also I do feel like when you are the secret keeper for someone, you get one additional person to tell.

Drew: 100%.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: But, like you’re saying, Drew, there is protocol. You say, “I’m not telling anybody else this, and actually, Mari would kill me if she knew I told you so stop here.”

Riese: Yeah. That’s what I have to do with Gretchen because she loves to say the thing that will be most exciting for everyone to hear. So, I have to be like, “You can’t say this.”

Analyssa: This is actually just for us.

Riese: Yeah. This is just for us. But she would not say this because I don’t-

Analyssa: This is-

Riese: This is insane.

Analyssa: This is a wild thing to even start with. I can’t decide. I go back and forth on whether I like Finley’s little asides that are like, “I’ll just go fuck myself, I guess.” Or like in the first moment she was coming in she was like, “Wow, what a warm welcome.” When nobody said hello to her really quickly. And I sometimes get a chuckle out of them and sometimes I roll my eyes.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Did you have something about her communication?

Drew: I don’t know. The next scene is when Bette says to Dani, “You’re wrong and you need to… Gigi prioritizing her children is prioritizing her children, not prioritizing Nat, and you’re going to be a parent if you want to live with her. So, is that something you want?” It was just very new Bette, mature, thoughtful, good advice, adult, and I did like the return of the Bette-Dani mentor-mentee dynamic. This was very fun.

Analyssa: Oh yeah. Remember when we thought they might kiss?

Drew: We sure did think that.

Riese: Oh god, I wish they had kissed before all of this happened. Do you know what I mean? Because now, I feel like Bette and Tina, that’s set. Do you know what I mean?

Analyssa: And Dani and Gigi, I’m like, “It would be so wild for…” Because even when Dani asks Bette about this or brings it up, she’s like, “Can I talk to you about Gigi? Isn’t this tricky?”

Drew: I forgot they were together.

Riese: And I love this representation of when you ask someone for help and they give it to you and then you completely change immediately. I do that all the time.

Drew: Yeah. Same.

Riese: I’m like, “Well, I was going to do this but then someone who knows slightly more about this topic than I do told me I was wrong and now I’ve decided to change my entire attitude about it.”

Drew: I love that. It’s also why I do think, in a relationship, sometimes it helps to not act on your emotions immediately, because sometimes you talk to your buds and you’re like, “I’m having this feeling.” And your buds can go, “You’re wrong.” And then you go, “Hmm. Okay.” And then you process the feeling and then you can return to the conversation in a better way. And I think people really struggle with that.

Analyssa: Yeah. Not me. I’m always right but-

Riese: That’s so nice.

Analyssa: Yeah. It’s really actually really fun. The other thing, just because it comes back later, is that Dani’s doing a really good job at work but wants Bette to do this Vogue interview about the gallery.

Riese: Which she should, right?

Analyssa: She should.

Riese: Who doesn’t want to be in Vogue?

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: I was interviewed for an article about Shane that was in Vogue.

Analyssa: That’s fun.

Drew: I was on-

Analyssa: Drew was-

Drew: Yeah. Christina and I, for Wait, Is This a Date? were on the website for Vogue.

Analyssa: Wow. I have never been on Vogue.

Riese: Oh yeah. I think Shane was on their website doing all of them.

Drew: Shout-out Emma Specter who was-

Riese: Yeah. It’s the same writer who gets all of us in Vogue.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Okay. Well, I’m available to be in Vogue. One time I was in The Kansas City Star which was my hometown newspaper, that’s cool.

Riese: That’s similar. That’s similar to Vogue. They have a similar presence at Fashion Week.

Drew: Speaking of pictures, let’s go to Pictionary.

Analyssa: Oh that was really good. Mine was inappropriate conversations at inappropriate times because Dani is asking Bette about this at work.

Drew: There always has to be an event and there always has to be inappropriate conversations at the event. That’s the Gen Q way.

Riese: Yeah. Well, when else do you see your friends?

Analyssa: So true.

Riese: Well, I guess-

Drew: Recording a podcast.

Riese: Recording a podcast. The point is that Sophie and Finley are doing great.

Analyssa: They’re crushing.

Riese: At Pictionary. And Micah and Maribel are in a fight.

Drew: My favorite part of this fight, which just felt… No offense to the show but there aren’t a ton of times where I go, “This feels very recognizably trans to me.” But the back and forth of-

Riese: When Micah is like, “Why didn’t you ask me?”

Drew: Yeah. “Do you ever think that I might want to carry? Do you?” No.” I feel like I’ve watched friends have that exact exchange and it’s just so funny where it’s, “Don’t make assumptions about my relationship to my body and my gender.” and it’s like, “Well…” And they’re like, “Your assumption was correct but still, don’t make it.”

Analyssa: But don’t. Yeah. Exactly. It was so funny. Does Micah have any siblings?

Riese: Oh, I don’t know.

Drew: I know Micah has a mom that he doesn’t really get along with, and I know that Micah is trans and I know that he is-

Analyssa: The proud owner of that mermaid painting.

Drew: Uh huh.

Riese: Oh my god. The mermaid painting.

Analyssa: Probably. Oh, I also liked when he was like, “Have I mentioned that I’m 28?” Or something, and she’s like, “Yeah. You’ve said that a few times.”

Drew: How old is she?

Analyssa: I think she’s a few years older than them, right?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: And I honestly think-

Riese: In the early 30s.

Analyssa: I honestly think Micah is a couple years younger than Sophie and Dani. Not by much but just a little bit.

Drew: 28 is my age. I’m almost 29.

Analyssa: I had the thought of that scene from Broad City where Ilana is-

Riese: Child bride.

Riese: Yeah. What am I? A child bride?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I think that two years ago I would’ve been like, “Wow, this is really early.” But now that I’ve entered this experience myself of attempting to get pregnant as a person over 40, I think everyone, if you’re 28 and you’re ready to start a family, just do it. Do it.

Analyssa: Wow.

Riese: Yeah. If you’re 25, do it. Just do it. Because the older you get it is going to get more impossible and so, so expensive, and you cannot afford it. Just do it. Do it now. That’s my advice.

Drew: You’re going to create some lives here on To L And Back. Someone is driving listening to this and is just-

Riese: Make your relationship move a lot faster.

Analyssa: Yeah. There are calls going out all across this great nation.

Riese: Yeah, sorry, in advance, I want to apologize if this advice ruins anybody’s life.

Analyssa: Speaking of the fertility process…

Drew: Speaking of the fertility process, there’s a-

Analyssa: The circle of life.

Drew: There’s a Marcus Allenwood retrospective. This is only episode two, so I remain hopeful, but I really hope that all of Angie’s scenes aren’t in adult world. I really want her to be at college. I really want to take time-

Riese: She is. She will be.

Drew: Cool. I love having you here. I thought she was killing it in the suit.

Riese: Yeah, she looks great.

Analyssa: And I love seeing her with her sister again. They’re fun, again, sort of what you’re saying, it’s fun to see her with kids her age and being a teen.

Drew: And she says that she’s could be in her hoe phase. It was the cutest… I just was like, “Aw, sure. Yeah.”

Riese: Yeah. It’s cute that she bounced back so fast. Which I think is really a thing that speaks to the fact that she’s young.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: So true.

Riese: And she’s like, “Wow, I have a lot of time.”

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: And is like, “It was my first day of college. It’s time to be out in the world.”

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. Is this when we meet Alice’s date?

Analyssa: Yeah. So then Alice’s date also arrives. We’re in event time.

Riese: Yeah. Right.

Analyssa: Alice’s date shows up. She says that one of her hobbies is playing volleyball in a super exclusive league, which already had really bad vibes to me.

Riese: Which if, have you guys seen the NXVIM documentary…

Drew: I have not.

Analyssa: I have not.

Riese: Okay. So, that’s part of the cult. They play… Which at first you think, especially if you’re not watching the TV or just listening to it while doing other things around the house, you think that it’s a metaphor or something. But no, they literally have volleyball games all the time.

Analyssa: I thought that this actress character in the show was saying, “I play exclusive volleyball games.” Meaning, “We do weird sex stuff.” That’s really what I thought.

Riese: Right. No, it’s volleyball.

Analyssa: Alright.

Riese: Yeah. As part of NXVIM… Because I didn’t think they were literally going to be doing NXIVM, but they… Yeah. And she’s like, “My mentor is in jail.” When Keith Raniere is in jail.

Drew: Right. My question is, is it a thing with that cult to put a lot of ice in your wine? Look, I get that people put ice in their wine. I get this whole thing. But she was like, “I’m going to go get more ice for my wine.” Which theoretically, there was ice in her wine, it melted and now she wants more. That was… I wrote, “Red flag. Bad vibes.” And then right afterwards, Shane goes, “Several red flags.” And I was like, “Yes. I love this episode.”

Analyssa: Shane is also feeling, as Alice calls it, itchy.

Drew: Yes.

Riese: Yeah. She makes eyes with the cocktail waitress. I guess she’s feeling itchy probably because her girlfriend has just had the worst idea ever, which is to buy a bowling alley next to The Semi-Tropic to have lesbian bar number two.

Drew: Yeah. What does it say about me that I think I’m attracted to Shane for the first time? Shane on this season, I’m really feeling something there that I’ve never felt towards Shane.

Analyssa: Wow. We’d have to really get to the root of why you think that is before we could tell you what that means about you…

Drew: I wonder if it’s maybe that I’m dating someone who’s more masculine, in a Shane way, not in a… But I do wonder if that’s-

Analyssa: Interesting. Okay. You’re reversing into.

Drew: Yeah. Instead of doing the thing where you fall for the Shane… Not that Elise is at all like Shane in personality and energy, but just the gender presentation. And then instead I started more femme and have gone.
Analyssa: Yeah. I don’t know.

Drew: I’ve always liked tomboys though. I don’t know. But Shane, there’s… I don’t know. Shane is really doing it for me right now.

Analyssa: That’s fun.

Drew: Yeah. I hope she makes good choices or has sex with Kehlani if that’s considered a bad choice.

Analyssa: Either way.

Drew: But we go back to Pictionary, and Micah is very bad at it. And then we get into this argument about there’s a difference between talking to your sister versus talking to your friend. Which I would say that, as you were saying, you get one person, maybe two people who get to be your people. You have to always clarify, “This is the thing that I’m telling you, but you can’t tell anyone else.” And so yeah. Okay. But then Micah hasn’t told his mom, which would be fine theoretically, if he wasn’t going to propose the last episode. I was like, “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry.” He was going to propose. So, I was like, “Why did they have him going…”

It would’ve been interesting to me if last episode Micah was like, “I think Maribel is going to propose and I’m not ready. And I’m worried about that.” And then Micah being like, “I’m just not sure I want to get married yet.” Maribel was like, “I never want to get married. I want to have a kid.” And then that would’ve been, oh, so we’re setting up the foundation of Micah is 28, he feels young, whatever. But he was going to propose. He was going to propose before his mom knew that he was in the relationship and that didn’t bother him. But having a kid… That’s where I’m like…

Riese: I don’t think he is.

Drew: Oh, so the mom part doesn’t matter?

Riese: I think he’s just throwing things out there.

Drew: Right. Okay. That makes sense.

Riese: Just saying whatever because he’s freak panicking and he’s like, “Well, I haven’t even told my mom yet.” Which probably he already knew was a problem with the proposal.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: He also has to throw out all this stuff because they’re losing at Pictionary so bad.

Riese: Right. So bad. And Sophie and Finley are bonding. They’ve never been more in love. They’re being really cute. They’re having a nice sober evening together and they’re just losing.

Analyssa: And yeah, the reason that Micah and Mari are losing is because the communication is bad already. You know what I mean?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: It’s a metaphor.

Drew: Yeah. It is a metaphor. Speaking of games, Bette and Tina do a little role play of their first meeting and it’s…

Analyssa: Did The L Word historians know from the first line that that’s what they were doing?

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: That’s what I figured.

Riese: I didn’t until a couple in, I was like, “Oh.” I wrote, “Oh, they’re doing a weird role play.” And then they started doing the earring thing and I was like, “Oh right. It’s that.”

Drew: Yeah. Do we have anything to say about this?

Riese: That was cute for them.

Analyssa: Yeah. And there’s just nothing these two love more than looking at each other and looking at a piece of art. You know what I mean?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: They just like to look up. I wish the listeners could see my face, ’cause I think I’m doing a really good-

Drew: Yeah, I think you are. Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. You looked like you were looking at God.

Analyssa: Dani gazes upon Bette and Tina looking in love and she remembers that she’s in love with Gigi.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: That’s the power of-

Riese: And I remember that I am in love with Gigi also.

Analyssa: That’s the power of Bette and Tina’s love. It can remind other people that they too are in love.

Riese: Yeah. And also Bette has great hair. Gigi has great hair. So if you’re looking at Bette thinking about hair, then you’re going to think, I want Gigi’s hair on my body and they’re going to call her.

Analyssa: And then you’re going to apologize for how things have been going and ask her-

Riese: So that you will have relations with Nat.

Analyssa: If that’s what she wants.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: And then you ask Gigi to come to the opening. The hair on these two people. Dani’s hair. She looks gorgeous at this event, by the way. We didn’t say that. But the little sweetheart neckline dress is very good. And her hair is really good.

Riese: Yeah. Everyone is looking great this evening, I think. I don’t think I had any complaints.

Drew: Tina and Bette are talking to Angie and being like, “This is real. We are going to…” Whatever. And Angie is like, “I’m an adult. It’s cool.”

Analyssa: I like that at first, Angie is a surly teen about it. She’s like, “Whatever. I know. It’s fine.” And then by the end, she’s like, “Actually, I’m very adult and mature.” I liked that.

Drew: And then some guy chats her up.

Analyssa: Oh yeah. And makes a joke about Bette, which is very funny to me.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: It’s just the one thing you can step in at this event.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: You could’ve talked about anything else.

Riese: Yeah. Also, I’m confused about his entire deal and his friends’ entire deal. Is he an art thief?

Analyssa: Do they go to all the gallery openings? I hope so.

Drew: I think that… This is my theory. I think that they-

Riese: They’re sneaker heads.

Drew: What? No.

Riese: No. Okay.

Drew: That his friend is into art and so goes to these things and is trying to get his art shown, and so he needs to talk to gallery owners. Meanwhile, he goes with him because they are also hooking up, but they have an open situation.

Riese: Wow. Interesting.

Drew: And so, he’s off looking for other people. His friend and lover also only needs art. Only needs him and art.

Analyssa: If there’s one thing we can do, it’s assign a really good backstory to a one day guest player on The L Word.

Riese: Yeah. Oh this man will be back.

Drew: Oh.

Analyssa: Fun. Back at the other gathering of friends elsewhere.

Drew: Finley, Finley, Finley.

Analyssa: Micah and Sophie clear out in a way that simply I would not if I were at this event. If I were Sophie, I’d be like, “I think I’m just going to sit in this room the whole night. Thanks.”

Riese: Yeah. I would sit there and just… I would be like in Veep the way that Gary just stands behind and is just whispering. And that’s what I would be doing all night to Finley.

Analyssa: Finley tries to mediate the fight between Micah and Maribel. But honestly, just from a… Not a script writing dialogue level, but from Finley trying to talk to another person, I was like, “What is she trying to say even?”

Riese: She was trying to say, “I’m not close to my mom. So, I might not tell my mom things that maybe Micah doesn’t tell his mom things.” But also I don’t think him not telling his mom is really the issue here.

Drew: Mind your business.

Analyssa: Yeah. Right. Yeah. She’s jumped so many levels into the fight instead of just being like, “Hey, whoa.” Me, personally, I would’ve been like, “Weird night. Are you…” Whatever.

Riese: Yeah. How are you feeling? Whatever. You’re right. I think what people like Finley, it’s incredible to have that type of social confidence that whatever the situation, you’re going to charm them.

Analyssa: Totally.

Riese: But she’s not correct about that. She’s not always going to charm.

Drew: No. She should have taken this moment alone with Maribel to be like, “I get why you don’t like me. And I’m not going to argue with that. I just hope that the more time we spend together that…”

Riese: I can prove myself.

Analyssa: And this night seems really intense for you separately. Are you good? Do you want… Whatever you need, I can be out of your way, et cetera, et cetera, instead they go into a really weird-

Drew: Terrible. Which then leads to Maribel saying, in front of everyone, that she liked rainbow texter.

Analyssa: Yep. Yeah. She liked who Sophie was hooking up with while Finley was in rehab.

Drew: And then we cue some on the nose lyrics.

Analyssa: We didn’t talk about it because we can’t talk about every single time it happens, but when Tina and Bette kissed and the lyrics were like, “I feel the attraction.” I was like, “Yeah baby.” Boy, do they ever.

Drew: And then Sophie refers to them being the person that she hooked up with. And Finley says there were multiple and Sophie says no, the singular, which I have two things to say about this. One, this is the second time that there’s been a character who uses they/them pronouns who is off… Was just referenced but isn’t a character. And the second thing is, wouldn’t it be better if it was multiple people instead of one? In my opinion, if I’m taking a break with someone and I want to get back and it’s, oh they were hooking up with a bunch of other people, okay, that’s fine. If they were hooking up with one person consistently that whole time, I would be a little bit more… Okay. I hope… Whatever. So, that’s also interesting. Those are my two thoughts.

Riese: What I wanted them to do, what they didn’t do in this conversation was reference the Friends thing. That we are on a break. The Ross and Rachel thing. I was like, “That just feels like…” I don’t think anyone even in real life could talk about being on a break without bringing that up, do you know what I mean?

Drew: Where do you stand on that?

Riese: I think it was okay because they were on a break.

Drew: I think it was okay too.

Analyssa: I also think it was okay.

Drew: Which I hate to agree with Ross over Rachel but…

Analyssa: Yeah, far be it from me to say Ross was right ever.

Drew: But in that situation, he was right.

Analyssa: But he was right. But I do think-

Drew: Shoutout copy girl.. Oh, I hate how much I know that fucking show.

Analyssa: I do think that what this conversation does really well is at least note that even if it’s technically right and allowed, it can still hurt and there’s still stuff to talk about. And neither of them handle it well in the immediate aftermath because why would you? But I was like, “Oh, this is actually a pretty honest conversation to be like, “I know that you didn’t do anything wrong, but it still fucking hurt my feelings.”” And also, they didn’t even really talk about this, but finding out from your sister in front of our friends, I’m embarrassed. I’m like tender. I just…

Riese: Mari does like this person better.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: And knows them.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. That is the thing, is they were around. It’s not like Sophie was just going off and hooking it… It doesn’t seem like just, “U up?” Texts. You know what I mean? It’s-

Drew: It’s a, “U up rainbow.” Text.

Analyssa: The rainbow is actually indicative of them being just a little more serious than a, “U up?” Text.

Drew: I do think that the only thing that Finley did wrong here is be like, “And you need to apologize for this.” I agree, being like, “You didn’t do anything wrong, but I am having feelings about this and I need a second.” Totally fair. Totally fair. It’s maybe the best that Finley has ever communicated about anything ever, and then just went a step too far.

Riese: Well, ’cause also she knows she can’t just go to the other room and drink.

Drew: So she calls Tess.

Riese: And Tess blows her off.

Analyssa: Is Tess Finley’s sponsor? Does Finley have a sponsor?

Riese: I’m very confused.

Analyssa: I’m so concerned for her.

Drew: I don’t know.

Riese: I think she needs a sponsor.

Drew: If Tess was her sponsor and Tess was going to an event and so couldn’t drop everything, what would a sponsor do in that situation? A good one?

Analyssa: It depends on the sponsor, but I do think they would say, “Try calling someone else.” And they also might say, “Text me your feelings.” Or, “Go…” They would offer a couple more, I think, tangible things, which either means there just wasn’t time for something like that, it’s a small detail, or Tess isn’t Finley’s sponsor, but Finley is using her as a defacto sponsor, which happens a lot when you get sober. You’re like, “Oh, that’s another sober person. I’m going to text or call them because they’re easy.” I’ve done that to people. I’ve had friends do that to me. And it’s great. But it’s not… If Finley is going the sponsor route, which not everyone does, and that’s also a viable option, then she needs a firm, a solid presence who would be like, “I’m stepping into this event. Let me call you back in 15 minutes once I’m there, have said hi and can step out for a second.” Or, “Do XYZ steps.”

Drew: Right.

Riese: Right. Yeah. I felt like Tess just… I don’t know. Even just as a friend, I felt like she blew her off a little in a way that was weird.

Drew: Yeah. But Tess isn’t getting blown off, because Shane says, “Let’s do it. Let’s open that second bar.” Which clearly is just in response to Alice being like, “You’re getting itchy.” Which is the terrible time to agree to… That’s not-

Riese: That’s what Shane always does.

Drew: Shane always does that.

Analyssa: Yeah. Shane is like, “Oh you think that I’m bad at committing? Let me double down and then-”

Riese: Yeah, let’s get an apartment.

Drew: And let’s get married.

Riese: Let’s get married.

Analyssa: Let’s get an apartment that I can bone someone else in.

Riese: I know. It’s only, we’re just five steps away from her fucking the realtor on the carpet.

Analyssa: Yep.

Riese: Watch out. I hope the inspector isn’t hot Because…

Drew: Which of Shane’s exes do you wish had worked out?

Analyssa: I really was a Molly girl.

Drew: I was going to say Molly!

Analyssa: I was a Molly girl.

Drew: I really liked Molly.

Analyssa: Yeah. And I liked them together.

Drew: I really like their dynamic.

Riese: Well, you know who I’m going to say.

Drew: Jenny.

Riese: And I can say with confidence that almost every single person listening to this podcast will disagree with me.

Drew: That’s beautiful.

Riese: And yet I’m willing to stand up, stand alone, be brave, and be not the way that it played out in the show because they totally retconned Jenny that season. But the way that it played out in my head, which is important.

Analyssa: That is important.

Riese: Perhaps the most important, I’d liked her and Jenny to have made it work. I love Carmen, but I don’t know if Carmen and Shane were perfect together.

Drew: Right. That’s what I was feeling. I still would love to edit together a two hour movie version of season six and I think I could make it good.

Riese:Oh yeah?

Drew: I really think so.

Riese: Wow. God, that’s the kind of project I could really get lost in.

Drew: I wouldn’t do it because it would take me so much time, and I hardly have time for the things I need to do. But it would end with the scene where Shane and Jenny are kissing and at The Planet, and everyone is laughing at them. And that would be the end. And you’d have to do some things so you still get the dance. You can make it… I have an idea, but I’m not going to ever do this. So, you can just have to imagine it yourself.

Riese: Okay. I have. And I loved it.

Drew: Thank you.

Analyssa: It was amazing.

Drew: Thanks.

Analyssa: Rated it on Letterboxd.

Riese: I give it a Rotten Tomatoes…

Analyssa: Certified fresh.

Riese: Certified fresh. Yeah.

Drew: Speaking of original cast members, Bette is giving a little speech and it is nice, but it also-

Riese: I zoned out, I think.

Drew: It also is about… It’s a speech about Marcus Allenwood, and his wife and daughter and also Angie is there. There are people with deep connections to him, he’s recently died. He’s this great artist. It does become very much about Tina, but you know what? Bette is going to Bette.

Riese: And she talks about how his work was marginalized and wasn’t shown in this capacity before. It’s really sad.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. It’s a moving speech that then turns very personal to Bette actually instead of to Marcus. But it does hit for everybody listening, it seems like, they get a lot of reaction coverage and everyone seems to be affected by it.

Drew: And during it, Dani texts Gigi again, and I was like, “Babe, you need to…” Oh God, it’s very stressful. I don’t like when people…

Riese: But why hasn’t Gigi responded?

Drew: I don’t know. But maybe she’s driving in a car and you shouldn’t be distracting her. Maybe I can tell the future. But also, I just think that if you haven’t heard back, then it’s, okay then she hasn’t gotten into your voicemail. People who don’t… I don’t know.

Analyssa: We’ve struck a nerve with Drew.

Drew: Right. I just feel like it’s different when- Dani was wrong. Dani has owned up to the fact that they got into a fight this morning and she was wrong about it. So, if you call and leave a voicemail already, pretty intense and-

Riese: Yeah. No one leaves a voicemail.

Drew: No, send a voice memo. And…

Riese: Yeah. Send a telegram.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Send a singing bird.

Drew: Sure. I don’t know.

Riese: An owl.

Drew: It’s fine. I was just having a bad feeling, anyways.

Riese: I was like, “Why hasn’t Gigi responded?”

Drew: Okay. Well-

Analyssa: I didn’t clock any of this incredible. I was just like, “Okay, she’s trying to get in touch.”

Drew: Those are the three experiences. The actress, we learn that she is in fact…

Riese: Yeah, she tries to get Alice to sign up for one of their executive success seminars, which is again in NXVIM…

Drew: Do they exist still?

Riese: They still exist, but he’s in prison. So, that puts a stamp on things. But he still has some followers who are still into it. The worst character in all of Battlestar Galactica, Cally. Did you guys watch Battlestar?

Analyssa: No.

Riese: Oh God, the agony of being the only one in the room who watched Battlestar. Anyway, that bitch is still into it.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: There were a lot of apologies this episode.

Drew: Yeah, there were. Which I’m proud of our friends starting to apologize a little bit more.

Analyssa: I felt like this was a very grown up acting episode.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I enjoyed it.

Riese: Yeah. Angie is growing up. Everyone is growing up. It’s like a garden.

Analyssa: Yeah. Once the youngest person starts growing up, you’re like, “Oh, I guess maybe it’s time to get my life together.”

Riese: Yeah. But actually, I do think that this show is doing something interesting with figuring out that once you’re older, you could still suck and have room to improve.

Analyssa: So true.

Drew: So, Maribel is the one who’s apologizing and she’s like, “I don’t want to be pushy.” She does continue to be pushy. Micah is like, “I want to have a baby with you.” Which again, I don’t know, but…

Riese: I’m happy for them.

Drew: Me too.

Analyssa: Do it now. Let’s see where these crazy kids end up.

Drew: And then Sophie and Finley makeup as well. She leaves a little cute looking-

Riese: Oh yeah, that was cute.

Drew: …Note. And then…

Analyssa: I am very happy for them. It was very cute. However, Sophie gets into bed and wakes Finley up from sleep to have a reconciliation conversation. And the way that, that to me is grounds for immediate divorce. We’re not even married. Get out of my house.

Drew: No. Let’s get married so we can get divorced.

Analyssa: I’m sleeping. Let’s talk in the morning. Let’s have a cute little sleepy like, “Babe, that note was so cute. I love you. Let’s kiss.”

Drew: Yeah. What you do is you cuddle up and so then if they sort of wake up-

Riese: They are still awake a little bit.

Drew: And they’ll feel it and be like…

Analyssa: Sophie basically is like, “Hey, hey.” No. But they have a very sweet thing about how… I got a little emotional. Finley says, “Sometimes I don’t know what you see in me.” And I don’t know, that really got me. First of all, that spoke to a very special place in my deranged psyche. But also, Sophie is just really sweet about it. She’s like, “You’re my guy. That’s it. You make my heart beat fast.” And they just have a very cute-

Drew: It is cute.

Analyssa: I don’t know why it hit so hard for me, but it really did.

Riese: I think all of us feel that way sometimes, right? No?

Drew: No.

Riese: About I don’t know what you see in me?

Drew: I never feel that.

Riese: Really?

Drew: It’s not that I think I’m so great. I just feel like if my partner has chosen to be with me, then… People who are all types of people will have people who fall in love with them. So, it’s not that I’m so great so that’s why my partner loves me. But I am just like, “If we’re going to be together, I have to trust that you love me.”

Analyssa: Okay. Riese and I are going to have a separate conversation.

Riese: I have just been burned so hard that I, at this point in my life, need a lot of reassurance.

Drew: I need that early. I have no faith that people… When I’m first dating someone or when I’m first have feelings for someone. When Elise and I were flirting for a year on the internet, I didn’t think that we were actually flirting. I was like, “I think she just wants to be friends.” I feel very insecure as far as whether someone actually is interested in me in a sexual relationship sort of way. Once I’m in a… Maybe we could say that Finley and Sophie aren’t really stable right now, but when I’m in a steady relationship, that’s when I feel most secure with the person.

Analyssa: Interesting. I think I’m completely the opposite.

Riese: Yeah. Same.

Analyssa: If I think even we are a little bit flirting, I’m like, “They’re fucking obsessed with me. I’m the absolute coolest person this person has ever met and they love me.” And then once we’re… This is actually something I’m talking to my therapist about, just so you guys know, but once we’re-

Riese: Good to know. I had therapy today, in case anyone is wondering.

Analyssa: Mine is on Mondays.

Drew: I can’t afford one anymore.

Analyssa: Once we’re in a relationship and you start seeing the real person, then I’m like, “Ooh, hope you still feel that way.” That’s how it feels to me. And I think that the Finley line for me hit especially hard because it’s post getting sober. And I didn’t have a partner when I got sober. I started dating Louis in February, which I’d been sober for a little over a year, which was critical to me. But I remember that even with my friends and talking about getting sober and just being a different… Feeling differently about myself and being like, “Ooh, I hope they still like this version.”

Riese: Want to hang.

Analyssa: Yeah. I think that is… I know why that line hit from me really hard.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Anyway, I love them. I hope they work out.

Riese: Yeah, me too. But I worry that they won’t because this is The L Word.

Analyssa: Because this is The L Word.

Drew: From reconciliation to drama. The new happiness of Bette and Tina is-

Riese: Immediately dashed.

Drew: Is immediately dashed because Bette is like, “Don’t leave.” And Tina is like, “Once again, you don’t support me having a career.” Which is both fair and also, okay but also this person who you’ve just had sex with for the first time in a decade is just being like, “I want you to stay.”

Analyssa: Right. They’ve been kissing for three days again, I can-

Riese: But I think it’s the years and years and years and years that some it’s triggering and immediately Tina is like, “Here we go again. You want me to stay.” ‘Cause also she can’t stay. Murdoch Mysteries waits for no man.

Analyssa: She has a hit Canadian television show to get back to. And the other thing that we see soon is, and from the first episode we even know, is she’s clearly gone through so much therapy and so much guided meditation kind of stuff. And she’s like, “I’m firm in my power and I’m actually going to call out bullshit when I feel it.” You know what I mean? And I think that’s-

Drew: No, I appreciate it. I did write down, “Jesus, how are we still doing?” Which is probably how Tina felt. And then Bette’s… Everyone. So, who is it? It’s Shane, Alice and Tess encourage Bette to chase after Tina, which let’s do it. We do it. It had such season finale energy, and it was episode two, and I was like, “Every episode’s a season finale. Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

Riese: Yeah. Well, I loved that she asked that… She was like, “Oh God, I did it.” She realized what she did right away and then she was like, “Oh my God, I have to be the one to go. I have to go to Canada.” Which Canada is wonderful. Drew goes there all the time.

Drew: I do.

Riese: It’s beautiful. Wow, I bet every part of Canada.

Drew: Because I have been… I’ve spent so much time in Toronto now, when Tina says to her Uber driver, “Take me to terminal one.” I was like, “You are not flying Southwest. Air Canada is terminal six. You are not flying.” The only possible airline that she could be taking, I think, from terminal one LAX to Toronto is Southwest. I’m sure this is thrilling for anyone who doesn’t live in LA. And I was like, “It’s terminal six.”

Riese: No, when she said terminal one, I was like, “No one goes there.”

Analyssa: Terminal one is just absolutely not correct. I fly Southwest back to Kansas City a lot. So, I know Terminal one.

Riese: The point is that Bette realizes that she should go. She needs to be the one to go with Tina. This is bad news for Vogue.

Drew: This is bad news for Vogue. It’s bad news for the dude who’s chatting up Angie because he’s once again chatting up Angie, and then Bette bursts out in chaos and is like, “I need my daughter to drive me recklessly through the city.” And then Angie kisses our nice man. A fun little thing. Love it.

Riese: Yeah. She’s impulsive.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: We’re all making decisions.

Riese: Yeah, we’re all making choices. We’re all thriving. We’re all buying a second bar.

Drew: Driving, driving, driving. And I just was like, “Let this girl go back to college. You’re going to get into an accident.”

Riese: But this is so thrilling. This is like Imagine Me & You.

Drew: I know. It is very Imagine Me & You.

Analyssa: I haven’t seen that. It’s on my romcom project, everyone.

Drew: Okay. Okay.

Analyssa: Calm down.

Riese: I just got goosebumps for some reason, which I don’t think is the right reaction to something horrifying, but it happened.

Analyssa: My thing is, in what universe would you put an 18 year old behind the wheel of the car in a serious run? We’re going somewhere.

Drew: I would trust Shane.

Analyssa: Yes, Drew, maybe Shane, but also then I was like, “Oh, well maybe they were drinking and were doing something responsible.”

Riese: Wouldn’t that be wild?

Analyssa: And were doing something responsible. Tess is sober. Tess could drive.

Drew: Right. Tess could drive.

Riese: Oh yeah, Tess could drive. Right, but she’s high on life because she’s thinking about that second bar.

Drew: That’s a good point. That’s a really good point.

Riese: She’s thinking about Jenny’s.

Analyssa: But whatever, we’re having a teenager drive.

Drew: We’re doing a thing. So Tina is listening to a meditation app. That’s having Angie speed. Meanwhile, Gigi is texting Dani.

Riese: The minute they went to Gigi in her car, I was like, “That bitch is getting T-boned.”

Analyssa: Gigi singing in the car… This happened in season one when Dani and Sophie were driving to go look at wedding locations. I think I said on the pod, anytime a character is behind the wheel and they’re having a fun chat in the car and I can see through the windows that the camera is outside… No.

Drew: I’ve seen Glee.

Riese: Oh, yeah. Exactly. I was like, “We’ve all been here before. You’re going to Finn and Rachel’s wedding, you’re going to get T-boned.”

Analyssa: There’s a hundred Grey’s Anatomy episodes like this.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: Every time.

Riese: There was something about the angle or it’s about… Is it about that she’s texting? But as soon as they got… Well, first of all, that is unnecessary. There’s no reason we need to see Gigi driving to the event and texting, right?

Analyssa: Because nothing is happening.

Riese: Nothing is happening.

Drew: So, we know that… Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I don’t know what it is, but there is something about… I think to me, it’s the singing, her being in the car and kind of vibing to the music. I was like, “Something bad is going to happen.”

Riese: Six Feet Under also, that’s a really good example of when you see the person in the car having good time and then they get T-boned.

Drew: Yes. I can’t think of a better metaphor for The L Word: Generation Q than Bette and Tina having a grand romantic gesture as new character, new beloved fan favorite character, Gigi, is murdered.

Riese: Murdered by a truck.

Analyssa: Driving to her doom.

Drew: I would like to clarify, I don’t think she’s actually dead because they wouldn’t do that because people would-

Analyssa: That would be crazy.

Drew: It would be an act of self-harm by Marja-Lewis Ryan. It would be truly the wildest thing ever. So, I don’t think that she’s dead. But it still felt very apt to me in the sense that I was… We all would love to watch Gigi and Dani have a fun little romantic moment, but they’re like, “No, Bette and Tina get the grand romantic moment.” And it’s like, “Okay.”

Riese: And Gigi gets a car in the head.

Analyssa: Yeah. Trade offer.

Riese: And of course they drive by the accident and they’re like, “Oh, I hope nobody is hurt.” Which, come on guys, couldn’t somebody in the car be like, “Wait, you just said I hope nobody is hurt. That means somebody is hurt and we know them.”

Analyssa: Yep.

Drew: Yep.

Riese: I hate it when they do that in TV shows. It’s effective but it makes me feel emotions I don’t want to feel when they’ll drive past the accident and they know the person in the accident. I feel upset.

Analyssa: Well and because later they’re going to find out that Gigi was in an accident at that intersection and they’re going to be like, “Oh my God. We were in the car chanting at Bette to go get Tina. This is…”

Drew: The episode is called LA…

Riese: Los Angeles Traffic.

Drew: Los Angeles Traffic. I will say, this is pretty dark, but something that helps me in living in Los Angeles and dealing with traffic is that oftentimes there is traffic because of an accident. And I am just like, “Look, it sucks that I’m here. It sucks that this city is poorly run, poorly built, that we don’t have more public transit, all these things. Absolutely. But in this exact moment, there is someone who’s probably hurt or at the very least having a day and that person isn’t me. And hopefully it’s not someone who I know, and also I feel bad for this stranger and so take a deep breath.” That helps me.

Analyssa: That’s interesting.

Drew: Sometimes.

Analyssa: That’s on par with Bette’s, “We’re all going to die. What’s a bumper.” In that it’s pretty well adjusted but also there’s something a little bit sick about it.

Drew: Absolutely.

Analyssa: Gorgeous. I got the vibe of a season finale when they’re all in the back seat or all in the car and they decide to… They convince Bette to run and she’s like, “Time to give a speech to my best friends.”

Drew: Yeah. What was that about?

Riese: Oh yeah. And she’s talking about she loves them like she’s never going to see them, and I did have to spend my… Okay. I have a recurring nightmare about once a week that I’m about to go on a trip and I do not have anything but the clothes on my back, and I don’t have my suitcase, I didn’t pack and I’m not allowed to pack. I’m not allowed to bring anything. It happens all the time. And I was like, “Bette is running head first into my nightmare. She get aboard a…” And I know that this was one of those things, it’s TV. It’s sort of like Finley interrupting the wedding. We just have to completely suspend our disbelief because there’s no way that Bette Porter is going to fucking get on a plane in her evening gown with a purse.

Drew: Does she have a passport?

Riese: Right? Oh yeah, exactly. But that’s fine.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: This suspension of disbelief. But it did bring up a lot for me personally. I was very stressed out about Bette not having her vitamins.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Or hair mask that I know she uses.

Drew: If you could only bring three things with you on an international flight, what would the three things that you would bring?

Riese: Is my phone one of those things?

Drew: You already have the stuff you’d have day to day walking around.

Riese: Oh. So, I have my phone and my wallet and a little vial of medications?

Drew: You carry that with you all the time? Because that would absolutely… I’ve thought about this sometimes where I’m like, “I would need to get my meds.” I would need to have either… Either I need to be wearing my glasses or I need to have a contact case plus my glasses. And then third thing, I think those are the two things I really need. Otherwise, I’d probably be okay.

Riese: So probably a sweatshirt and a tank top so that I never have to be an uncomfortable temperature.

Analyssa: My thing is that I simply could not fly in the outfit that Bette is.

Riese: Absolutely not.

Analyssa: I am so weird about the things that I wear on a plane. I have to have full… This is actually just revealing a lot about minor issues, but I have to have full sleeves and pants. I don’t like my skin being exposed to the air of an airplane. It really makes me itch. So, I would really be screwed. Bette is wearing a thing that reveals her shoulder. Horrible.

Riese: Even dress shoes.

Analyssa: Yeah, it’s not going to be comfortable, but-

Drew: I like the spontaneity of it. There is something that’s fun to me about the idea of…

Riese: Yeah. She’s also so rich, she could just buy new clothes.

Drew: Well, that’s-

Analyssa: Yeah. And she’s going to get to the airport and just purchase a flight-

Riese: Yeah. And then when she goes to Canada, she can take Tylenol with codeine if she wants to right over the counter. So, she runs.

Drew: Yeah. So, she does that. And then the episode ends.

Riese: The music plays.

Analyssa: Okay. This cover of Suddenly I See did have me… I was grinning. I’m grinning now. I was so amped. I just love-

Riese: I love the random times they choose to use real music.

Analyssa: I love a silly, grand gesture. I don’t know, man. I’ve watched 45 weeks of rom-coms. I’m primed for this. I wrote, “This made me a Bettina shipper. Bye.”

Drew: I think I just am so disengaged from… I don’t feel any sort of negative feelings about it, but I just don’t really care that much.

Riese: Oh. I feel like my moms are getting back together and I’m so happy for them.

Analyssa: And I’m just so simple that a person running to a loved one, running to someone they say they love and they just “figured out that they love” and a song is swelling, I’m near tears.

Drew: It’s a classic.

Riese: Oh, I also appreciated that when Bette was like, “I love you so much.” And Tina is like, “Yeah, I know. That’s not the problem.” I was like, “That’s good. We are all changing. We’re growing here. We’re all changing and growing.”

Analyssa: And there is a big admission from Bette of, “I would give everything up.” I realize this is a grand gesture. She’s saying a lot of stuff, but-

Riese: She’s going to work remotely. We all know that.

Analyssa: She’s still going to do work.

Drew: They have art in Toronto.

Riese: Right. Yeah. Franklin will be shipping her laptop overnight.

Analyssa: But it does feel like a big life realization of, “Oh, the thing that matters to me most right now is this.” It’s wild that that’s happening when Angie is 18, but…

Riese: That’s good timing though. They’ve got Angie into college just in time.

Drew: I think it’s great for Angie if her moms could both be in Toronto. I don’t know what the season is going to do. I don’t know if actually Bette is going to be living in Toronto. Excited to find out.

Riese: If I was going to Toronto to be with my beloved Tina. I would rather be the Tina in this situation. I’d rather be Tina being with Bette, I don’t want to be Bette being with Tina, even though I feel like I am Bette as a person in terms of emotionally stunted but powerful in my career.

Drew: I’m trying to figure out if I should live in LA or in Toronto. Luckily, either way I don’t have to be with Tina, but yeah, I don’t know. Does Bette know that you can’t spend more than six months there if you don’t have a visa?

Riese: But that’s not important right now.

Analyssa: It waits for no man.

Riese: Yeah. Also, I hope they go to Tim Hortons because there generally is no Tim Hortons in LA.

Drew: Yeah, obviously there’s not. It’s a very Canadian thing.

Riese: They’re all over the Midwest.

Drew: Oh really?

Analyssa: Really?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Oh.

Riese: They’re all over Michigan at least.

Analyssa: Oh, I’ve never seen them.
Drew:
I know that there’s some in New York.

Riese: Michigan is kind of like Canada.

Drew: It is truly anything within a few miles of the border.

Analyssa: Yeah. Maybe it’s like how In-N-Out expands to Nevada and surrounding areas. It’s only so far from the border.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I didn’t know. I thought they’re all over Michigan and I think there are some in New York. So, I just thought…. I was looking and I was like, “I could really go for some Timbits right now.” Well, fat chance the only way I’m going to get a Tim Bit is to marry Tina.

Drew: There are donut holes from other places. Tim Hortons isn’t very good. Sorry to…

Analyssa: Whoa.

Riese: Yeah, it’s not good, but it’s cheap and I enjoy it. It’s my special treat to get myself some Timbits and some iced coffee and to just eat them at my desk like a queen.

Analyssa: There is one tiny button on this episode, which is that Dani is trying to reschedule the Vogue interview that Bette has blown off. And then of course Dani’s phone rings. Nat is Gigi’s emergency contact, has been informed that Gigi has been in an accident

Drew: And has died.

Riese: And then I teared up against by will.

Analyssa: Yeah, I was like… And then that’s the episode.

Riese: That’s the episode.

Drew: There was a moment where I was worried she was dead and then I was like, “No, that would be the wildest choice ever.”

Riese: No way.

Drew: But I was scared.

Riese: Well, Carol, what did you think of the episode? Carol, you shed all… I just cleaned the couch and you shed all over it. So, obviously she had a lot of feelings about the episode, but mostly she had a lot of feelings about Drew.

Analyssa: Guys, I liked this episode. I had fun.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: No one tell anyone, and everybody listening, you get one more person to tell this to, but I watched it at my day job. Got paid my salary to watch this episode. And honestly, I was thrilled. I was so excited. I was nervous that somebody who I worked with was going to look over my shoulder while passing by and be like, “What the fuck are you watching?”

Riese: You’d be like, “Pictionary.”

Analyssa: Yeah. But that was really honestly the only thing that was not overall enjoyable about this episode to me.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. The only thing that wasn’t enjoyable for me is Tess convincing Shane to buy the bar in a way that I was like, “This is not okay.”

Analyssa: But it’s nice to just have an annoying character instead of be irritated at a storyline. Do you know what I mean?

Drew: I would say that my favorite parts of this episode were the more low key moments. Some of the just friends hanging out, banter, love, Alice dating a wacky person. I don’t know if I’d call someone in a real life cult that did a lot of harm wacky, but that’s a very Alice thing. There was a lot of really fun stuff. The more serious things, like some of the fights, some of the running to the airport, I’m sorry, didn’t work as well for me, but not in any grand way. Just in the sense that I was kind of like, “Okay.” But overall, solid episode, thumb up.

Analyssa: I’m thumbs up. Both.

Riese: Thumbs up, thumbs up for me.

Drew: That’s five total thumbs. That’s a five out of six thumbs.

Riese: Five out of six thumbs.

Drew: That’s pretty good for an episode.

Riese: Yeah. So, you can put that thumb in your butt and smoke it. That’s what I always say, right? That’s what they say in Canada.

Analyssa: Tim Hortons.

Riese: Tim Hortons. Get your Timbits while you can, ladies.

Drew: They have Timbiebs now, which is a Justin Bieber themed donut hole. I don’t really know what that means.

Riese: Does it look like Justin Bieber?

Analyssa: That was recently?

Drew: When I was there.

Analyssa: Does Justin Bieber have…

Riese: Can you go there and mail me one?

Drew: I don’t know if it would be good.

Riese: Just one? Can you have Elise mail me a Justin Bieber donut hole?

Drew: I will see what’s possible… You can order food from Russ & Daughters in New York to California if you have a ton of money and are Jewish. I don’t think you have to be Jewish, but-

Analyssa: Barney’s Greengrass does it too.

Riese: Yeah, I think you have to be Jewish.

Drew: But yeah. So, I’ll look into if I can send you Timbiebs or you can just come visit.

Analyssa: Does Justin Bieber have current cultural cache, aside from having just married Hailey Bieber four years ago?

Drew: I think in Canada. No offense, Canada, I love you. You’re basically my home now.

Riese: Oh, my God, someone in Pasadena has a business called Tim Hortons Gate Repair. How dare they?

Analyssa: Wow.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: What a mislead.

Riese: Wow.

Lauren: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L And Back: Generation Q Edition. One of two podcasts brought to you by autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at To L And Back, and you can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. Our theme song is by The Talented B Sidwell, and our Gen Q logo is by JAXKO. This episode was produced, edited, and mixed by me, Lauren Klein. You can find me on Instagram at @laurentaylorklein. You can follow Drew everywhere at @draw_gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instagram at @analocaa with two As, and on Twitter at @analoca_ with one A and an underscore. You can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere at @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And of course, the reason why we’re all here, autostraddle.com. And finally, to end this ep, let’s hear some keywords from our girlies.

Drew: 3, 2, 1, queen-

Riese: Queen of England.

Drew: Oh!

Riese: Did you also say queen?

Drew: I said queen.

Analyssa: The only word I could come up with was queen, but I don’t have a reason for it.

Riese: Oh, my reason is that I was watching The Crown.

Drew: Oh, my reason is because running after your ex-wife’s Uber on the way to the airport is “A Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

Analyssa: Nice. Wow. Okay. I don’t have a reason.

Drew: We’ve never done that. We’re really vibing.

Riese: Wow. The vibe is good. The energy is so good.

Analyssa: Yeah, the energy is great.

Riese: Sparkling.

Analyssa: Sparkling. Yeah. It’s like a rainbow emoji on the end of a “U up?” text.

Drew: It really is that.

Riese: Or ice in your Chardonnay.

Analyssa: Nice.

Riese: Yep. Volleyball.

Analyssa: Volleyball.

Drew: Well, I think that’s it, but what a delight. I’m going to go run after my ex-wife.

Riese: Me too.

“To L And Back: Generation Q Edition” Podcast Episode 301: Last Year

Hello again! Did you miss us? Did you, like us, fret that this beloved television program would not return? Most importantly, did you miss The L Word: Generation Q? Then boy do we have a treat for you! After a quick one year time jump, the gang is back, and they’re looking to find The One this season, among other pressing concerns like raising enough money for the MS Society. That’s right, it’s the season premiere and we’ve got a big event: a fundraiser at Dana’s.

In other big events of the episode: Finley returns from rehab and sober living, Micah wants to marry Mari, and yes okay of COURSE we have the long awaited conclusion to Tina showing up at Bette’s doorstep. Will these two crazy kids finally make it work?

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ Riese’s recap for Episode 301: Last Year
+ The Instagram post that clued “Q titles” for this season
+ If you needed a refresher about the original basketball episode
+ Riese’s review of Queer as Folk, from whence we recognize Chris Renfro
+ More information about Venus signs
+ If Shane had cut Kehla Ivy’s hair, they could have made this iconic list of homoerotic haircuts
+ This is the (joke!) tweet that Drew sent me
+ Once again a plug to follow me on Letterboxd where I’m doing a rom com viewing project this year
+ Go re-read the Dating Downloads, since there aren’t any more dating apps to review

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa.

Riese: And I’m Riese.

Drew: And this is…

All: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition.

Drew: That was pretty good. It’s been a long time.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I sounded like I was reciting it, because I was.

Riese: Yeah, we’re back, bitches. So excited.

Drew: How have you both been? It’s been…

Analyssa: Wait, okay. Can someone tell me actually, when was the last time we recorded this podcast? I was thinking about it and I can’t remember. It’s just that so much has happened, which, you know?

Riese: That’s what happens. Time passes and things happen and…

Analyssa: And so much happens and so much change happens. And aren’t we just going to talk about that later? But more importantly…

Riese: Well also there was this whole period of time after, how long did it take for them to renew the show? Like six months?

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: That was very stressful for me.

Drew: Yeah. We thought it was going to get canceled. So the show, the premiere of season two was August 6th, 2021 and the finale was October 11th, 2021.

Riese: So it’s been a long time. During part of that time we had to really grapple with the possibility that the show would not return, which definitely made me love the show more because I realized just exactly how devastated I would be were it not to return.

Drew: I did famously say last season, at the end, that I wasn’t going to be watching Season 3 or coming back to the podcast.

Riese: Yeah, I didn’t believe you.

Drew: I think I thought I was going to be more successful in the year that passed. But I’ve really just taken a few little steps. It hasn’t really been… and I still like hanging with my pals.

Riese: Yeah!

Drew: And you know what, I’m happy to be here.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Well, should we talk a little bit about this episode?

Riese: Yeah. Tell us about the episode.

Drew: It’s called Last Year and it was written by Marja-Lewis Ryan, who you may know, showrunner of The L Word: Generation Q. And it’s directed by Katrelle N. Kindred, who directed last season’s Love Shack, which is the karaoke episode.

Riese: Oh, my fave!

Drew: Which is, in my opinion, the best episode of Gen Q.

Analyssa: That was a fun one.

Drew: And also directed an episode of A League of Their Own.

Riese: Oh wow.

Drew: Which is a great show.

Riese: A wonderful show. Yeah. That would be fun to do a podcast on.

Analyssa: A queer podcast-worthy show that has come out since the last time we were recording this podcast, of another queer podcast-worthy show.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I mean I was just looking forward to that show and now I’ve enjoyed that show, and now I’m wondering if that show’s going to get renewed.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Ah, to be gay and watch television.

Riese: Yeah, I know. We just get a little bit of shows. Because I think it’s like, we were like don’t kill our characters. And they were like, well if we can’t kill them then we’re just going to cancel it.

Analyssa: Trade offer. Instead of killing an individual queer character, what if we just…

Riese: Killed the series.

Analyssa: Wasn’t there a note on the scripts for this episode that they might do Q titles?

Riese: Yeah, they are doing Q titles.

Analyssa: But then today’s is Last Year, which is an L title.

Riese: Episode three is called Quiz Show.

Analyssa: Whoa. Oh, they’re mixing it up mid-season.

Riese: Yeah. There are several Q titles coming up, yeah.

Analyssa: This is like how in my fantasy football team, this is actually not at all like that, but I had to pick up a new quarterback and I named my team after the original quarterback and I’ve been thinking about changing my team name mid-season.

Drew: Wow.

Riese: They should actually have an episode called “Quarterback” and it could be a football episode.

Drew: Ooh, fun.

Analyssa: Oh, fun.

Riese: And they could all play football.

Analyssa: Like the basketball one.

Riese: Yes, exactly.

Analyssa: Iconic.

Riese: Iconic. Yeah. I’m full of great ideas, again. Most shocking perhaps about this season is that once again, I did not write it in any capacity.

Analyssa: Despite having so many ideas.

Riese: I was not hired at all, and I don’t know why. But alas, alas.

Drew: I just want to say that the previously on for this episode was…

Riese: A journey.

Analyssa: Wild.

Drew: I didn’t remember a lot of those things.

Riese: I remembered every minute of it because I had to watch every episode 17 times. I know it better than my own life.

Drew: Wow. Should we get into it?

Riese: Let’s get into it!

Drew: Well, one thing about the last season is that it ended with a knock on the door and we pick right back up.

Riese: Tiny Tina.

Analyssa: Tina on the other side of the door. Here’s the thing, right? The more that things change…

Riese: The more they stay the same.

Analyssa: Truly. So yeah, Bette and Tina have to have a convo because Tina’s like,

Tina: Are you in love with me?

Analyssa: And Bette is like,

Bette: Yeah.

Analyssa: Duh. That’s why I’ve been sabotaging everything that’s been going on since you’ve re-arrived at my home. One thing I do just want to call out is that I loved that Bette was in an all white outfit and Tina was in an all black outfit.

Riese: Oh she was? I didn’t notice that. Wow.

Analyssa: Very yin and yang inspired.

Riese: Yeah. Just like the black and white ball, but in their, do you say foyer or foy-eh?

Analyssa: I say foyer cause I don’t think I can pull off foy-eh.

Drew: I say foy-eh. Is that wrong?

Riese: No, you can pull it off.

Analyssa: It’s just that you’re fancy.

Riese: I’m like, Drew probably heard that in a French film.

Analyssa: And I feel like I’m from the Midwest and I just don’t present as…

Drew: Right, like I can’t pull off y’all.

Riese: Yeah, from Michigan.

Drew: I’m from Southern California. I can’t pull off a y’all.

Analyssa: And see. I say y’all all the time.

Riese: Yeah, me too.

Drew: Wow. It’s so special how different we are. And my reference point for black and white would be a black and white cookie, because I’m also Jewish.

Riese: Oh yeah.

Analyssa: Wow.

Riese: Okay. So basically, believe it or not, Bette and Tina still have feelings for each other.

Drew: They have feelings for each other. But Tina very much is being all boundaried and is like, this isn’t how you love someone. You’ve never treated me well. You’ve never known how to love me, blah blah, blah blah, blah. I can’t marry Carrie, but I also can’t be with you. I’m leaving. And then Bette shouts.

Bette: Fuckkkkkkkkkk!!!!

Drew: And then we see one year later and I shouted because I was so caught off guard. I love a time jump. One of my favorite things when TV shows do it because it just feels so chaotic. You just didn’t want to deal with any of those storylines. Let’s go.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: How’d you leave the conversation? What happened? It is one year later and Alice is hooking up with someone. Right? Is that the next thing?

Riese: Yeah. I believe this is what I would call a crossover episode.

Drew: Right. It’s Chris Renfro from Queer as Folk.

Riese: Yes. They played Daddius in Queer as Folk and they died.

Drew: Yes, they did. They’re alive here though.

Riese: In the very first episode.

Drew: They’re alive here.

Riese: They died right away, so it’s a spoiler, but it’s not really.

Analyssa: Look, my thing about Alice being bisexual, I love it. I wish that she also loved it. How come every time Alice is hooking up with someone who’s not Nat and Gigi, she seems to be having just the world’s worst time?

Drew: Right, yes. It’s unfortunate.

Riese: I thought she was having a good time.

Analyssa: Did you?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Huh.

Riese: I feel like she’s having as good of a time as she’s had. I mean she always is a little, her sex scenes are always a little silly.

Drew: Yeah, that’s fair.

Riese: Like with Phyllis, and I don’t know. Except for when it’s someone she’s in love with, her sex scenes are always pretty silly.

Drew: Was her sex scene with Tom ever like hot?

Riese: It was brief.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. Okay. Maybe I’m just projecting.

Drew: And, in the last year…

Analyssa: Well this is, maybe I just want to segue into the thing about me, which is that in the last year I have also re-come out as bisexual. Which Alice had to do last season, remember? She was like everyone… Although I was, the call was coming from inside house, I was branding myself as a lesbian. I thought I was. Anyway, the point is…

Riese: That you have a boyfriend.

Analyssa: The point is that I have a boyfriend. That’s also…

Riese: And his name is Tom.

Analyssa: Not the point I was going to make…

Riese: And he’s a writer.

Analyssa: I just felt like Alice is always hooking up with these people who she kind of doesn’t like that much. And actually for me, a key tenet of bisexuality is if I didn’t like this one boy so much, I would still just date women probably.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, so basically this person has blue hair and is Gen Z and a semi-influencer. The actor is probably not Gen Z. Like Gen Z is young…

Analyssa: I feel like they’re…

Riese: No. I thought they were older.

Drew: I don’t think people understand generations. They’re always calling people Millennials and Gen Z when they’re not. But whatever. Alice is with someone who’s much younger and we sort of get into a little bit of a, let’s check in on all the characters in a sexual way. Many of them.

Riese: Yeah, and that’s my favorite way to check in with characters.

Drew: Well, actually the next check in, they’re not having… Well they eventually have sex, but it’s Shane and Tess and with Tess’s mom and also Cool Hand Luke poster on the wall. Just wanted to clock that. Exciting stuff.

Riese: Margaret Chenowith.

Drew: They’re still together.

Riese: Oh yeah. Tess and Shane are still together. Tess’s shirt is so many different stripes. And that shows the diversity of life and that we’re all growing and changing. And Shane is… Shane slips very easily, always into this nice little domestic role, but it’s not really what, you know?

Drew: But now that it’s…

Analyssa: Shane doesn’t love it.

Riese: Tess is horny.

Analyssa: But she’s good at it.

Drew: It’s been a year gap though, so she’s been doing it for a while. What’s the longest relationship Shane’s had? Is it this?

Riese: No.

Drew: Oh, was she with Carmen for more than a year?

Riese: She was with Carmen for a little over a year. I actually started mapping this out the other day and then I thought, Marie — that’s my full name — get your shit together, you know? But I did figure out that with Carmen it was, because there was this, especially if you count the whole time that Shane and Carmen were dating, it was actually pretty long. Because there was a six month time jump between season two and season three of the original series.

Drew: Right, we love time jumps.

Riese: We love time jumps, yeah.

Drew: So then also Dani and Gigi are still together. Everyone’s still together. Dani’s like, we should move in together and Gigi’s like, I need to talk to Nat about that. Which makes total sense to me, but Dani’s very upset by this.

Analyssa: Yeah. I was like, don’t they have to do this a lot? They have children, this has to come up a lot. One thing I do want to say about this is that Gigi says Beverly is down to one lane. And I was like, finally someone in this television show drives in Los Angeles. Because they’re always kind of like, yeah, I’ll just pop over. And this was true traffic representation.

Riese: I was like, oh my God, if Beverly’s down to one lane, we’re all screwed. It’s fine, it’s on the way to the mall. But the point of this is that, well not everyone’s together because Alice and Tom aren’t together.

Drew: That’s true. But we don’t get to s-

Analyssa: We didn’t, yeah, see any of that end.

Drew: Will we? I don’t know, not in this episode. Angie is moving into college. We get a fun little remark of Alice talking about Gen Z and being like, I’m hot and bisexual, I’m ahead of my time. I’m just like Gen Z. Angie is wearing a “Sisterhood is Powerful” shirt, which feels way more Gen X than Gen Z. And I don’t understand why they have her in that.

Riese: Because sisterhood is powerful.

Analyssa: True.

Drew: Well, I guess that is hard to argue with.

Riese: Yeah, exactly.

Analyssa: Yeah. What do you have to say now?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: So, it’s clear Tina and Bette haven’t seen each other in a year. And they’re like, but Bette’s been doing all kinds of personal work and then she pulls up and she looks really serene. She’s in a Tesla, which is sinister.

Analyssa: But she looks serene behind the wheel. And then when she gets rear-ended, critically she does not yell. Doesn’t even raise her temper. She’s just chill. And she even gives the girl a hug and says,

Bette: The only thing you have to do is hold compassion for yourself and enjoy move-in day.

Riese: Yeah, she doesn’t go, what makes you think I’m not already?

Drew: Growth.

Riese: And Tina’s impressed.

Analyssa: This tiny glimpse of growth is enough to sort of change Tina’s heart and mind a bit.

Drew: Tina is horny for Bette finally being an adult.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I do love, we’re all going to die, so what’s a little bumper?

Riese: Oh my god, I loved that. Because that’s how I feel about literally everything.

Analyssa: That’s perfect.

Riese: We’re all going to die. Let’s do this podcast. We’re all going to die. Sisterhood is powerful. You know?

Analyssa: We’re all going to die.

Riese: Wear it. We’re all going to die.

Drew: Next character check in, Sophie and Micah. You know, Micah’s being that good trans friend to Sophie as they’re talking about Finley coming back. We do get a little bit of a taste of what’s going on in Micah’s life, which is that he’s proposing to Maribel.

Analyssa: They’ve been together a year.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: It’s something you can do with a character. And then Finley shows up.

Analyssa: And Finley’s been in sober living since whenever she left rehab. Don’t know the amounts of time there, but that’s where she has been. And she’s returning.

Riese: I guess a year. Okay, well so I did the timeline last year, right? So last year ended on May 22nd I want to say. And now based on a date that we get in the next episode, now we’re in September.

Analyssa: Got it.

Riese: So somehow Finley’s been in rehab and sober living for over a year and they haven’t seen each other.

Analyssa: Here’s one thing I want to say about Finley’s sobriety storyline just upfront, I’m just going to say, I’ve decided to just go on this journey with them. I know too much actually about what it’s like to get sober, how people act in these situations. I’m saying that’s what they want me to believe she did? Gorgeous.

Riese: Yeah, wonderful.

Analyssa: So, I’m here to provide that for you guys.

Riese: And I think that also it’s just really nice that they could afford to do that. That would be nice. I would love to spend a year in sober living.

Analyssa: Totally.

Drew: Yeah. I think also, what is a year? A year for one person can be a year for another. Yeah. So who knows how long the year time jump was, we don’t need to worry about it. Finley and Sophie go on a little picnic and Finley says that 28 Days with Sandra Bullock is a documentary.

Analyssa: Honestly, before I got sober, I did watch that movie on a plane and it did make me cry the entire time. It’s like 97 minutes I bet, and I probably cried for 94 of them. So honestly, she was not wrong about this. Actually this is one part of her sobriety storyline that I will go on and say that’s a banger. That’s what I’ll say.

Riese: But she seemed to have had a cute time. Oh, also her hair is dark now.

Drew: Yes oh, very important.

Analyssa: Oh yeah!

Riese: Which is crucial. And then she decides that she is going to, I guess we’re supposed to think these are her amends? Which she is not doing correctly.

Analyssa: Really not. But in this world, that’s what amends look like, so we’re going to go with it.

Drew: I think I actually would be interested, I think this is maybe a time, like nitpicking timeline I don’t think we need to do, but I would be interested in knowing what the show is maybe cutting corners on, or misrepresenting as far as making amends goes.

Analyssa: Well, I do feel probably every specific sponsor tells their sponsee to do amends slightly differently. But I feel like there’s a lot of format to a lot of AA steps actually. You do all this work before you even get to amends that are about what your character… They call them defects in the program, which is kind of tough and people use different language, but which of those contributed to the specific issues.

And the thing that bumped me here a little bit was she’s sort of just being like, yeah, I didn’t love you in the way that you were supposed to be loved. Which is actually, you’re supposed to really drill into like the time I didn’t show up for you at this, and the time we got pulled over for this, and how those all contributed to you feeling like this. And she kind of lets, in a couple of these, lets the person who she’s talking to kind of brush her off and be like, it doesn’t matter, it’s fine. And the real big thing is you’re supposed to finish. You go in, even if you haven’t written it out, my sponsor made me write them out. But you say all the things you’re supposed to say and then you say, do you have anything you want to say to me about this? And that got cut. So there’s just like…

Drew: Sure.

Riese: Well I think, and another main thing which comes up more later is that you have to ask somebody. You can’t just launch into it. You have to set a time to do it. And if they don’t want to do it, then you don’t do it. You don’t push it on anybody who’s not ready or at a time when they’re not ready for it.

Drew: Maybe when they’re at work organizing some sort of fundraiser, maybe, theoretically.

Analyssa: Oh yeah. I forgot that that was a note that I had later in the pod. And you just don’t go like, Hey, can we chat? It’s very… I had to craft a text, show it to my sponsor and be like, can I send this to my ex from college? Can I send this to… you have a very, Hey, here’s what I’m about to do. Are we good to set a time for that? But I did love that they’re still being very silly together at the end of this.

Riese: Yeah, it was cute.

Analyssa: They are making their little poop and fart jokes and they’re like jumping on each other. It’s just very sweet. It’s what we like about them. They’re very fun and silly together. And I think that comes back later too.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Still Team Sinley. We get a brief little, some brief moments of Angie’s college goodbyes.

Riese: That was really cute, I thought.

Analyssa: It was really sweet. I love how many grownups she has, you know? Also, speaking of hair changes to signify growth, Bette’s little shag, hip, wolf cut thing she’s got going on. Loved it.

Riese: Yeah. It’s cute, because they’re really pushy and they want to over-mother her and then she’s… Pushes them off. But then once they leave then she wants to hug. And I was like, that’s so fucking cute. Oh, but also we did not discuss the fact that she’s attending California University.

Drew: Oh, yeah.

Riese: Famously, I mean in addition to being the university attended by the characters of every show ever, including Saved by the Bell, Beverly Hills 90210, it’s also the university where Bette Porter had a infamous tenure.

Drew: Wow, that’s true.

Riese: Yeah. So…

Drew: I didn’t piece that together.

Riese: Everyone should just simmer on that and think about what it would be like for Angie.

Drew: Well, I do think it probably helped her get in. Not that, I mean, Angie’s great. I’m sure Angie could get in on her own merit.

Analyssa: College is really hard to get into these days, I hear though.

Riese: Yeah, well, but California University, again famously does seem to let in entire groups of friends. So they might not be that selective.

Drew: She didn’t even need the nepotism.

Riese: No.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: I will say, I put in my notes when they left and Angie hadn’t hugged them. I was like, oh my God. And then I wrote, oh no phew, okay. So then after Angie runs out to give them both a hug, then Bette and Tina leave, walk out together. And Tina asked Bette if she’s going to the fundraiser, which is this episode’s big event to get everybody in the same room. And Tina had earlier told Shane that she was not going. And now she tells Bette she is going and it’s because she saw Bette get into that car accident.

Riese: Yeah, she saw we’re all going to die soon Bette, and was like, all right I’m in. But first she gets a call from Pippa.

Analyssa: Oh, right!

Riese: So they’re in touch.

Analyssa: They speak still.

Riese: They speak. Yeah.

Analyssa: But Pippa’s in South Africa.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Yeah, and we learn later that Bette apologized to Pippa and was really open and communicative. Which…

Analyssa: All part of her work on herself.

Drew: Cool. Yeah, it’s a fundraiser for the MS Society at Dana’s, where else. And Alice is in a white suit. Those my first two notes.

Analyssa: Alice loves this little dumb and dumber suit palette and I love that for her.

Riese: Yeah, the big suits, oversized, the big accessories.

Analyssa: Yes and blue, she really likes that blue shade.

Riese: Yes she does. And I love it for her.

Analyssa: And I love it for her. She looks so fun.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Okay. So they’re trying to raise, Dani is here helping produce the event, I think?

Riese: Yeah. I think she’s an event planner now.

Analyssa: Yeah. Later she mentions other jobs that she’s doing. So I feel like it’s producer, event coordination stuff.

Riese: Yeah, she should work for us.

Analyssa: And they’re trying to raise $5,000 and they’re doing a little auction.

Drew: They said that the cost of the event was $5,000. So they need to do that to make the money back. And then everything else is being donated. So yeah, I think that makes sense to me.

Analyssa: I do just think Tess, and I understand not wanting to ask your friends for money, but also I don’t, because I think sometimes your friends have money to give. Wow, this would be a great plug for an Autostraddle fundraiser if we were still running it now. But Tess knows wealthy people.

Riese: I mean she kind of does get them to…

Drew: That’s the reason why you’d have a party like this. Because I think rich people love to get to show, they’re in the room and they get to go, oh, $10,000. And then that feels better than just quiet, like they want to show off.

Analyssa: Sure, okay.

Riese: Yeah, and then they get a deer.

Analyssa: And I love Shane and Alice doing this groundwork still. They’re still like, hey Tina, Bette’s better now. Don’t even worry. Bette’s better now. Which is kind of fun.

Riese: Yeah, I know. It’s like, this is sort of this idea that it’s like Angie’s parents are getting back together, but it kind of also feels like it’s Shane and Alice’s parents getting back together.

Drew: Totally.

Analyssa: Because this event does not have enough things going on, Micah has also decided that he would like to propose tonight.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Like what?

Analyssa: Everyone knows, I actually, I stand by him on this one reason, which is, he says now everybody knows so she’s going to find out if I don’t do it. Which…

Riese: Right.

Drew: That is fair.

Analyssa: That is how queer circles work.

Drew: I would argue and this is just my own personal opinion. I’m unmarried. I don’t believe in surprise proposals. I think you should have talked about wanting to get married. You don’t have to know when. It can still be a thing where you’ve talked about how someday soon you want to get married. But I think you should have had a conversation with your partner about, do they want to get married? Do they like marriage? That’s just a personal thing. It’s not a critique of the show. Plenty of people do surprise proposals. That’s just my personal preference.

Riese: I think you should never talk about it. And then you should go to a sports game and then on the jumbotron you should be like, will you be my wife?

Analyssa: My dream actually is to be proposed to via jumbotron. I’m a sports girlie at heart.

Drew: Yeah, I could see that for you.

Riese: Yeah, or someone comes down, you’re at a hockey game and then it’s a bunch of figure skaters come on. And they dance and they form a heart. And then it’s like, will you marry me? That’s what I think. That’s what I think Micah should have been doing tonight but instead he’s going to, what? Auction off this wedding ring?

Analyssa: He’s going to stand up there and bid. Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: In other Maribel news, she doesn’t want Sophie and Finley to be together.

Riese: Yeah, she hates Finley.

Drew: I would say, fair as a protective sibling.

Riese: Although, when she’s like, she ruined your wedding, I’m like, no she didn’t. The wedding was already ruined.

Analyssa: And yeah, again, I’m on this journey with them. I’ve just decided to commit to the vision of what Finley’s drunkenness and therefore sobriety mean. But much like the amends that Finley gave to Sophie, in this, I’m like, I guess I believe you that that’s your experience, but I didn’t see all that. And I wish that either I had or we weren’t talking about that particular thing, but to Drew’s point, protective sibling stuff. Fair.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: But Sophie’s like Finley’s completely better now. Which I think is sort of a fantasy that she has, that all of Finley’s problems were caused by alcohol and all of them will be fixed by her not drinking alcohol. And that’s obviously not going to be the case.

Analyssa: Finley has gone to talk to Tess and Shane and also do some surprise amends, which also get cut really short. And they’re like, it’s totally fine. And they offer…

Riese: Also don’t, why are you trying to have serious conversations with people while they’re at work? I don’t know. It’s fine.

Analyssa: This event, not the time or place for any of this. They offer her her job back. And I’ll just say, Ana speaking for Ana, I might not even have gone to this event fresh off any of my sobriety stuff. It seems like a lot.

Riese: I don’t know if I’ve been to a bar in over a year.

Analyssa: It’s hard. I’ve gone to bars, but I’m like, I don’t love it the way that I used to and it comes with a lot of stuff. And maybe for someone who’s fresh back into their life…

Riese: Working at a bar is the worst idea in the whole world. I don’t know how Tess does it. I don’t know how Tess is so fucking passionate as we’ll see. Very passionate about owning bars. But I was like, this is the worst idea ever. But I hope, I guess what I hope is that it doesn’t become a thing. If they’re going to have her work at the bar, just don’t even address it.

Analyssa: Or they’re like, her and Tess are hanging and they’re like, oh, this can be fine.

Riese: Yeah, it’s fine.

Analyssa: We’re fine. But I don’t…

Riese: Yeah, I don’t want to… she’s tempted to drink because it’s just right in front of her thing. That’s boring.

Drew: Absolutely.

Analyssa: And we already saw that kind of with Tess in the first season, whatever. Yeah, so…

Drew: Not boring though is next up we have an appearance from Kehlani. And I was so excited.

Riese: Yes. She looks amazing.

Analyssa: So good, so attractive.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. She really shines. She’s such an actress and I give her an Emmy and a Pulitzer.

Analyssa: Immediate Emmy.

Riese: Immediate Emmy!

Analyssa: For saying “Shut the door. You can’t come in here.”

Drew: Emmy.

Analyssa: I don’t even know what’s going on in that room. Honestly, but-

Drew: No, I don’t either.

Riese: Chaos. Also, what’s that room? I don’t know.

Drew: No idea. I don’t care.

Riese: It’s like a secret passageway to a secret potential magical world.

Analyssa: Yeah, I thought Shane was going to discover a secret underground gambling ring again.

Riese: Yeah, and that’s what this show needs.

Drew: I would follow Kehlani to Narnia, to a gambling ring. Really to anywhere.

Riese: It would’ve been cool if this was a portal to another dimension. Do you know what I mean?

Analyssa: Maybe it did and that’s where Kehlani has come from, to come grace this cast.

Riese: Oh my god, that’s so cute.

Drew: A different world, like The Faraway Tree.

Analyssa: So they have a moment where it’s like, Shane can’t go into this room, Shane goes back to the bar.

Riese: Yes. We do know what Kehlani’s there for. Which is that she’s the makeup artist, because they had a makeup artist cancel earlier that day and she’s the makeup artist from the glam team. Alice’s glam team, who Alice said they’ll fill in, they’ll do the makeover, which I hope someone buys for me.

Drew: Is the makeover happening the night of the thing? I was confused.

Riese: It’s probably like a make your own makeover.

Drew: Night of the party.

Riese: Yeah, you could be like, I want my makeover before the Gentleman Jack event.

Drew: Oh but, okay. Okay.

Riese: Or you could be like, I want my makeover before this wedding that I’m going to, or I want my makeover before I…

Drew: Right, but why is she there? Just to be like, and she’ll be hot, so you really want…

Riese: That is a good question, Drew. Yeah.

Drew: I think that would sell me. I mean, I…

Riese: That would sell me too, yeah.

Drew: I would be like, I don’t need a makeover, really. And then I’d see Kehlani and I’d be like…

Riese: I would be like, so she’s going to touch my hair?

Drew: $10,000!

Analyssa: That’s my thing is I would actually be like, let’s have Kehlani stand on stage when people bid so they know they get to hang out with a very hot person. How’s that work? Okay. So then back at the big ex reunion that will be talked about for ages.

Riese: I don’t have notes so I…

Analyssa: Right. I was like, you looked like you were thinking.

Riese: Oh I am always thinking. Yeah, it’s just non-stop.

Drew: Yeah, she asked what season.

Analyssa: I get a good laugh out of any time there’s TV stuff in this specific TV show. It just really gets a chuckle out of me every time.

Drew: And Tina is flying to Toronto tomorrow.

Analyssa: And that’s relatable to you.

Drew: It is relatable to me.

Analyssa: Whatever show Tina’s on is in season nine, which honestly mazel to her, that’s a big get in this era.

Riese: Yeah, that’s a really long show. It must be a show about a man with a gun.

Analyssa: Or it’s like a reality show, but it’s not because she’s talking about scripts and stuff.

Riese: Yeah and she’s in Toronto.

Drew: I can make actual Canadian references now, but I wish, what is that show that’s been on for forever?

Riese: Dr. Who.

Drew: No, no, no.

Riese: Coronation Street.

Drew: It’s a Canadian show. It’s like an old-timey murder mystery show and it’s been on for 18 years.

Riese: Murdoch Mysteries.

Drew: Murdoch Mysteries! Yes. Murdoch Mysteries.

Analyssa: Tina’s producing Murdoch Mysteries.

Riese: Oh my God, I love that for her.

Analyssa: Also a thing that got a chuckle out of me is Alice being taught TikTok, her date teaching her about TikTok and then Shane comes over and forces her to pay attention to Bette and Tina. There’s just a funny art imitating life kind of situation going on.

Drew: Okay, I have an astrology problem.

Riese: I know I was about to say, when you lifted your hand I was like, you’re about to talk about astrology.

Drew: Okay, because this person who Alice is hooking up with where I don’t know what their gender is.

Analyssa: What’s their name?

Riese: Daddius?

Analyssa: No.

Drew: No it’s not.

Riese: That’s their name on Queer as Folk. Teddy.

Analyssa: Teddy.

Drew: Okay. I don’t know Teddy’s gender, but they’re like, asked Shane what her Venus is because they say that she has an intensity to her. But Venus is like how you are with love and relationships, so what does that have to do with her intensity to some stranger she just met, they should have asked Shane for her sun or her moon.

Riese: Or her…

Drew: Rising.

Riese: Mercury. Or her sandstone.

Drew: I was like this is not, that’s not the placement to ask about. We do learn that Alice is a Taurus Venus.

Teddy: But not in a derogatory way.

Drew: That part of the astrology checked out for me.

Analyssa: I also got a giggle out of Finley coming over and talking about Venmo-ing weird amounts to Alice. The idea of Finley. I really was endeared by this, the idea of Finley being like, I’m going to Venmo her anytime I have…

Riese: A little extra money.

Analyssa: One to seven dollars in my bank account that I don’t need. And just chipping away at something.

Drew: This is a message to everyone. Free yourself from the capitalist message that you can never take money from people or that you need to pay back or whatever. Obviously if you take a loan out and you want to pay your friend back because you agreed to that, whatever. But Ellen DeGeneres of The L Word universe? Do not pay Alice Pieszecki money back.

Riese: Yeah, don’t pay Alice back, you can keep your money! Also, if…

Drew: It’s not that I don’t believe Finley would do that. I also found it very funny and very Finley, but please keep your money if you are a broke queer person…

Riese: Who’s about to work at a bar, even though you’re newly sober, just keep your money. But if I had that much money, I would love to be able to give it to Finley for rehab and not be paid back. That’s why you have that much money, so that you can help people who don’t have it.

Drew: Alice could send it back though. And apparently she’s not doing that so.

Analyssa: Well, she doesn’t really know how to use any social media is what I’ve learned.

Riese: And also, what is she going to do? It’s probably $1.50 and she’s like, am I going to really send back $1.50, you know?

Analyssa: What she could do is save it all and then cash it out and then pay it back to Finley later, if she really was like…

Riese: Yeah, with the rocket pop emoji.

Analyssa: Basically the next big set-piece is Finley tries to talk to Dani.

Riese: Which is so… I decided I was just going to nitpick one thing in this whole episode. Just pick one and it’s this.

Drew: Wow, mm-hmm. That’s fair.

Analyssa: I think that’s right.

Drew: This is also my…

Riese: Because, first of all, so you’re not supposed to do amends with someone if you think it’ll hurt them more than it will benefit either of you, right? Or more than it will benefit them. But you’re really not supposed to do it to somebody who says no.

Analyssa: Right. I actually really appreciate Dani. I know it’s messy, but I was really kind of there for her being like, I don’t find you charming. You think everyone finds you charming and I do not. Stop it.

Riese: Riese might still find you charming but nobody else does.

Analyssa: I know. And I was like, I kind of find you charming, okay. A little bit. But I think Finley is trying to be like, but I’m not that person anymore, which I totally understand. But these two characters are never going to be able to have that kind of normal deep conversation because of everything that has happened.

Drew: You can’t Graduate someone and then be like, let’s be buds.

Analyssa: Let’s be pals. And yeah, the biggest thing is, so inappropriate to go up to somebody and be like, hey, can we talk right now? And then try to do amends and then be told no, and be like, but- but- but- but-

Riese: Right, no.

Analyssa: Every single part of that is actually actively against what you’re supposed to be doing. The step is make amends to others unless to do so would hurt them or another person. So it’s like, if you’re implicating someone else, even that they don’t even know, the biggest example people use is cheating. Doing an amends, if you’re Finley and this whole thing hadn’t happened, but she had an amends to make to Dani because she had slept with Sophie behind Dani’s back and Dani didn’t know. You don’t do that. You figure out ways to, in your life be a better person to Dani and to Sophie and to people in relationships. Anyway, obviously that’s like a scenario far from this one. But the moral is the same, which is it’s actively going to upset Dani to have this conversation and not in a, this is a hard convo…

Riese: And this is the worst time and the worst place.

Drew: Yeah. There is something so powerful about not finding someone charming when they seem to have a grip on your friend group, that’s happened to me before where I’m just like, wow. Whatever it is about that person does not work on me and I am a god.

Analyssa: I do feel that every time they are thrown together and Dani gets to be kind of bitchy, it’s really fun dialogue. I love her being just, no, stop. That’s always very fun.

Riese: Sorry, Drew, what were you going to say?

Drew: Oh, I was just going to move to Kehlani. Because that’s the next…

Analyssa: Well the next thing though is that then…

Riese: Tess interrupts.

Analyssa: Tess intervenes.

Drew: Right. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Analyssa: And, basically Finley storms out, Sophie follows her, Tess asks Dani if she’s okay, Dani’s like, I’m fine, whatever. And then Sophie and Finley go outside. And they sort of, again, have a little bit of silliness and Sophie really wanted tonight to be fun and perfect and Finley’s big night back. Again, I don’t know that this event is the correct tone for that. I would’ve maybe been like, let’s order in and just hang. But I get it. And they sort of shit on Dani. I don’t know, there’s an interesting, it’s sweet that Sophie is like, I’m here for you, Dani sucks. And I don’t love hearing Dani sucks from Sophie, but I do like her saying, whatever, those people don’t matter. It’s about what we are doing, you know? I thought that was lovely.

Riese: I worry though that she’s losing herself a little bit. Because she’s like, it’s not okay for Dani to be a dick to you, but also it kind of is.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. And also I was like, is that exactly what happened if you played the tapes back? I don’t know. So yeah, I’m a little bit on the… Every Sophie scene in this episode made my heart twinge just a little bit for her and for Finley because I’m very anxious for both of them and I just want them both to be happy. And I fear Sophie is, like you said, has this starry-eyed, Finley’s not drinking and everything’s going to be easy and amazing now. And I have bad news, which is that that’s not really how it goes. First of all, in any relationship. But secondly, with a newly sober person and getting used to the changes that that brings in somebody’s life. So I just want to hold both their faces in my hands a little bit.

Riese: Yeah, definitely. But they decide to bust this pop stand and go do something else.

Analyssa: Something naughty.

Riese: Which is nice. But it’s also in the same time setting up Sophie, like them having to be separate from everyone else.

Drew: Right. Very good point.

Analyssa: Okay, now you can move us on to Kehlani again.

Drew: Yes, because she apologizes to Shane being like, I didn’t know you own this bar. Also, clearly knows who Shane is because they go back into the back room and she has a…

Riese: Shane for Wax.

Drew: Shane for Wax hair product.

Analyssa: Iconic. I love the idea of spending way too much money on eBay for this product that you’re like, this actually changes my life. I need it.

Drew: I know that we’re setting up this thing of Shane’s… Kehlani is the big boss of Shane growing up and not cheating. I think it’s not cheating if it’s Kehlani. I know that they’re not Kehlani in this universe, but still. I don’t know the rules of all relationships, but I think that that’s one of them.

Riese: I do, I agree with you, yeah.

Drew: People can correct me if I’m wrong, but I do think that it’s not cheating. I think Tess would be like…

Analyssa: Look. Look at them.

Drew: Yeah. Right? I don’t know.

Riese: I don’t know.

Drew: That’s a principle of my morals.

Analyssa: I’m obsessed with this near inclusion in the sexy lesbian haircuts list. Ooh, we got so close. There’s a lot of hair touching and neck… Basically, Kehlani is like. Shane since you’re back here, maybe you could style me and Shane’s like, I haven’t cut hair in 35 years. I don’t know. And Kehlani is like, but you’re so…

Drew: But you’re a genius.

Riese: Yeah, you’re an artist with the clippers.

Drew: What is Kehlani’s character’s name?

Analyssa: I’m not sure.

Riese: Ivy.

Drew: Ivy?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Ivy.

Riese: Ivy.

Drew: Ivy. Okay.

Riese: And Ivy is a single mother.

Drew: I’ll respect them as a thespian and call them Ivy.

Riese: Yeah, I’ll try. I think the character is she/her though.

Drew: God forbid.

Analyssa: We wouldn’t have time to get into that.

Riese: I like that they’ve still managed to make sure that no one has to know how to do hair to do these scenes. You know what I mean? All Shane does is touches her hair and looks in her eyes and just pulls out her hair. And then eventually is like, I guess she gets too turned on by this whole thing and it’s just overwhelming for her. It’s overwhelming for all of us. And she’s like, nevermind, you look great as you are. Get me out of here!

Drew: I really would love…

Riese: Carol’s alarmed, so is Shane.

Drew: If, for once, and maybe this will happen. Because I’ve only watched this first episode, that the Shane’s in a committed relationship very in love, but Shane’s Shane. If it could, I know we’ve done the whole throuple thing on Gen Q and it didn’t work out, I don’t know why.

Analyssa: R.I.P.

Riese: In my opinion, it worked out.

Drew: Yeah, of course.

Analyssa: I miss them.

Drew: I do think that having a thing of being, there are so many different ways that relationships can look and being, what if Shane found a relationship that suited who she is? And then she could have this little fling with Ivy and Tess could have another fling with someone else and that would be so nice. But I feel like it’s just going to be conflict. And…

Riese: Well, Shane and Quiara were in an open relationship, so I’m like, how did this happen again? I guess because that’s what Shane does. She’s just always like, yeah, sure, monogamy.

Analyssa: Shane wants to be that tweet that you sent me earlier that’s like, we’re madly in love, but we both publicly have hoes and also no one calls us polyamorous, but, kind of.

Drew: Yeah, but part of that is you talk to your partner about it. You’re like, we don’t need to identify as anything, but we know it’s okay that sometimes we meet Kehlani.

Analyssa: Sometimes you meet Kehlani and you must do something about that, other than touch Kehlani’s hair. I really got a laugh out of Shane being like,

Shane: I don’t really have to do anything.

Analyssa: Ivy has talked about how Shane has such a talent with hair and has a gift that must be shared with the world. And basically all Shane does is rearrange her part for a while and then go, no, I think it’s good.

Riese: Yeah. Shane’s big move in season one was giving somebody bangs and layers and highlights. Like a modified Rachel. And honestly they did a great job of it.

Analyssa: There was also a moment where Tess said she was going to take Bette back and I thought there was going to be a walk-in moment.

Drew: I also thought that. Then we go to the auction. We get our first Bettina grand gesture. I’m not saying Tibette. LA is plastered with ads that say Tibette is endgame. I’m like, people who don’t watch The L Word are like, did something happen with China and Tibet?

Riese: And why are they spelling it wrong?

Drew: Yeah, I’m like, why? I’m just going to say Bettina and I’m sorry.

Analyssa: Where are the Tibette is endgame ads?

Drew: You haven’t seen them?

Analyssa: No.

Drew: Oh.

Riese: They’re just following Drew around like a little phantom menace.

Drew: I feel like they’re all around…

Riese: I haven’t seen them.

Drew: What?

Riese: I’ve seen L Word billboards though with the photobooth.

Drew: I have a picture, I’m not crazy.

Riese: Look, Carol’s looking out the window now. She wants to see it.

Drew: I’m not crazy. I have a picture.

Riese: When I was first recapping The L Word when I was a small child, new to this world, radiant skin.

Analyssa: Sweet summer child.

Riese: Sweet summer child who had not, well I was already pretty weird. But anyway, the point is that I would talk about Tibette and my girlfriend who was actively involved in activism around Tibet, the country, was like, what are you talking about? And so I explained and she was like, that’s wrong. You shouldn’t call it that. And so I was like, okay, I’ll call it Bettina, I guess? And I was like, eventually, if I keep calling it Bettina, since people read my recaps, it will eventually catch on. But by that point, Tibette forever was already… There’s already all these websites, and all of these communities around it. So it was just like…

Analyssa: You were just one rock in a stream.

Riese: I’m just one rock in the rocky stream of the Rocky Mountains on a hill mountain, falling into the sea, and we’re all falling into the sea.

Analyssa: We’re all dying.

Riese: And we’re all going to die.

Analyssa: What’s a bumper?

Riese: Exactly. Life’s a bumper, move on.

Drew: I will accept that Bette and Tina are endgame, a thing that I don’t personally want, but I will not ever say Tibette. I mean, I’m saying it again and again, but you know what I mean.

Analyssa: That’s not your ship name.

Drew: Yes. Bette has put a certain work of art up for auction.

Riese: Her Kiki Smith, which in season three, when Bette was unemployed and Tina… The beginning, it was right before Tina started having cyber sex with DaddyofTwo.

Drew: Ah, the memories.

Analyssa: Man, I forgot about DaddyofTwo.

Riese: Bette lost funding from her NEA, whatever. And Tina was complaining about money, so she’s like, fine, I’ll sell my art, I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I just cannot. Can you imagine just having things hanging out on your wall that you could sell if you got poor? The things hanging on my wall, I printed that out on my printer, and that frame was in the Ikea as is section. So she calls and talks about, wants to sell a Mapplethorpe, even though we never saw her have a Mapplethorpe. But she mentions the Kiki Smith and she’s like, no, I could never part with the Kiki Smith. And then she’s like, how much? She finds out it’s a bunch of money, but I guess she ended up not selling it. Instead, Tina had to take the job with at Shaolin with Helena, and now here we are. And now Bette, because now she’s shed all of her things is ready to part with her dear possession. Or is she?

Drew: This to me feels like when someone’s like, I’m moving on. I don’t need anything my ex gave me. I’m going to burn all these. And you’re like, wait, wait. Stop, stop, stop. That’s like your entire wardrobe. You were talking very peacefully, but this doesn’t feel peaceful. This goes very chaotic. And also starting the bidding of $500, how much would this go for? I was like, what? At least if you’re going to sell it for a good cause, get the money that it’s worth.

Riese: Yeah. Go sell it for a good… and then give the money… what?

Analyssa: She’s so serene and centered now that she doesn’t even blink.

Riese: It doesn’t matter. She’s just like, I’m going to let some poor lesbian living in Silver Lake buy this painting.

Analyssa: And have something of…

Riese: Or this drawing of Linnea’s tattoo of a deer.

Drew: Well, Tina saves the day because Tina says $10,000.

Riese: Tina is rich now too.

Drew: Yes. Famously, her show has been on for nine seasons. And yes, they shoot in Toronto so it’s probably not the biggest show in the world. But it’s…

Riese: But I mean it is Murdoch Mysteries. And if you don’t know, that’s a pretty big hit.

Drew: I think they’re on season 20-something of that.

Analyssa: I was going to say, it’s a nine season show. She’s kind of making money.

Drew: She’s rolling in it, yeah.

Riese: Yeah, it’s definitely probably like Criminal Minds.

Analyssa: Also, the stuff that she’s talking about, she’s an EP on that show. She’s getting an EP fee for every episode. She’s like…

Riese: Yeah she can buy 10,000 deers.

Drew: Yeah, you’re an executive now. Wow, bisexual, executive. Ana’s really had a whole year.

Analyssa: So many things have changed. Also, I do love all the things you said about Tina and knowing about this art piece and whatever. And being, throughout the years, Tina has been annoyed that she knows that Bette’s life is the life that they live. She knows so much about Bette’s work and she knows so much about… But then as soon as this piece was up for auction, Tina being like, it’s worth way more than that. I was like, that’s actually really accurate. That is how you feel about some of your ex’s passions where you’re like, okay but actually…

Riese: Yeah, mm-hmm.

Analyssa: I know too much about that now.

Riese: Yes. Yeah.

Analyssa: Anyway, so Tina buys it. Tina’s like $10,000, and the auctioneer is like, let’s just not ask anybody else for anything. We’re done.

Riese: So Helena’s stuck there.

Analyssa: And Tina comes back to the table and Shane and Alice sliding out of the booth with little faces on really made me laugh.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: And Bette and Tina have a emotionally charged, very lesbian conversation about this piece of art and how meaningful it is.

Riese: Deer.

Analyssa: And Tina’s like, I didn’t want someone else to own a piece of us. I think about you when I think about this piece.

Riese: I think about Bambi. Yeah, I think of that.

Analyssa: I think it’s a nice drawing.

Riese: I think…

Drew: I will say that this episode convinced me that Bette and Tina should be together. And that the Bette that I wanted to be with Jodi, to be with Pippa, isn’t who Bette is. And that the same way that I would tell a friend who’s in a relationship where they’re dating someone’s potential and not who they really are, that they shouldn’t be in that relationship. I need to give up my dreams for this fictional character and all the people that she could date and realize that, actually her and Tina makes sense.

Analyssa: She loves Tina and Tina loves her.

Drew: And good for them.

Analyssa: Aren’t we all kind of going on that? By which I mean me and you, with this show right now. This episode, we’re both kind of like, yeah. You know what I’m going to accept.

Riese: I mean, at the very least, let’s not have any more Carries left stranded on the side of the road in tears.

Drew: Yeah, you’re right.

Analyssa: So true.

Drew: Right, if they’re going to be together, be together.

Riese: Just be together.

Drew: Stop hurting people.

Riese: Bette just needs to fix herself, I guess. I mean, in my opinion, Tina’s personality is still halfway missing, but I think that they…

Drew: Yeah, absolutely. I think that works for Bette.

Riese: I think Bette likes that because Bette has 1.5 personalities and Tina has 0.5. And so together, that’s a whole personality.

Analyssa: Which they actually kind of say at the bar, they’re having this conversation and Tina’s talking about work and is like, I manage a lot of big personalities. Wink, wink, wink. And so, you know.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Okay. Kehlani slash Ivy is leaving and says a very…

Riese: Sexy goodbye.

Analyssa: Charged eyeball goodbye to Shane. And that’s how you know something’s going to happen there.

Riese: That’s how you know something is going to happen. Yeah, she’s going to look at her hair and be like, you know what? Actually I think we should do a bob.

Analyssa: I think we got to chop it off.

Riese: Yeah. Got to chop it off.

Analyssa: Bangs maybe.

Riese: Undercut.

Analyssa: Yeah. Undercut would be good.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Is this when Tess finds out how much money they’ve made and she’s excited?

Drew: Maybe.

Analyssa: Or is that later?

Riese: It was earlier that she and Dani were like $7,000 that I was like…

Drew: I think they were excited because it was so early in the night.

Analyssa: Right. I mean, now they’ve made $10,000 off Tina alone wanting to get Bette back, so.

Drew: That’s really powerful. Really, that’s the ti-

Riese: She probably left the painting behind.

Drew: Yeah. If you want to get money, you need to invite a bunch of rich lesbians who are ready to make grand gestures, show off to their new crushes. Speaking of breakups.

Analyssa: Oh, right.

Riese: Oh, yeah their casual, little thing. It’s O-V-E-R. Halfway through I panicked I would not be able to spell that entire word.

Analyssa: I honestly thought that was impressive.

Riese: Yeah? Thank you.

Drew: And so, you know…

Riese: It’s over.

Drew: It’s over and Alice is wanting to find something real. And I love that for Alice. What a journey and the first step of that journey, that will be a few scenes from now, is a choice. But then, next Tess wants to buy another bar. Is that?

Analyssa: Yes, yeah.

Riese: This is, okay, I have this thing which is I don’t really like Tess.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Okay. I think that she stresses me out.

Riese: This is a stupid idea.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: Bad idea.

Riese: Also, there’s a White Castle right there. So, what? You’re just going to have two bars, two lesbian bars.

Analyssa: Next to a White Castle?

Riese: Next to a White Castle.

Analyssa: That’s not profitable.

Drew: I just, there’s no lesbian bars in LA and the idea of having a second one owned by the same person. I mean, it’d be one thing if it was like, look, LA is a very big city, so you have one on the east side, you have one in Santa Monica, that’s smart. But this one’s right next to it.

Analyssa: Like The Friend and The Little Friend.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: And also, again, I love this for her, but it still seems like such a weird choice for someone in recovery to want to open multiple bars. But I mean, that’s fine. I guess that’s her thing or whatever.

Analyssa: But her thing really that she’s says to Shane is like, I know we’re not going to do marriage and babies. This is another baby. Let’s have another baby.

Drew: I think they just need something that Shane can feel like, I’m being trapped. I think it’s really just like a plot point, which is why I didn’t think too hard about it. But yeah, Tess, for how charming Jamie Clayton is and how talented Jamie Clayton is. I find her Hellraiser more charming than… Tess is not my favorite character. Which, a character played by Jamie Clayton really could have been. Whether that person was cis or trans, separate from that issue, I don’t know. They don’t do that much with her.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: I just feel like she always has these ideas that I don’t like. And now she wants to buy a second lesbian bar next to the first lesbian bar. And I get it. We were all at Semi-Tropic on that night, the last party before the pandemic.

Drew: It was very crowded.

Riese: And it was packed.

Analyssa: Packed. There could have been overflow into the second bar.

Riese: If there’d been a second bar there…

Drew: That was one night though.

Riese: But that was one night. And it’s just like, what? They’re already really blowing everything out of the water making this one thing operate. You know what I mean? But it just logically doesn’t make sense to buy something that’s right next to it. Maybe that could be it’s, I don’t know if it’s going to be like, this is Peach Pit and this is the Peach Pit After Dark, which is a Beverly Hills 90210 reference that everybody over the age of 35 might get.

Analyssa: I vaguely got that.

Riese: Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. I think if they turn it into an ice skating rink, an arcade.

Drew: Ooh.

Riese: Yeah, exactly. Or…

Analyssa: A bowling alley.

Riese: A bowling alley. A bowling alley. Or I think maybe a dance space for performance art, for lesbian performance art.

Drew: Or it could be more of a club.

Riese: Or, yeah more of a club.

Drew: So maybe it will be, but yeah, they definitely need to do something a little bit different with it.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Right. Or they could blow it up.

Analyssa: Perfect.

Riese: That’s what Shane did to her last business.

Drew: That’s a really good point.

Analyssa: Okay. Finley and Sophie have run off to go have fun and they’re playing strip basketball because there’s nothing this show loves more than a Love & Basketball reference, I feel. And I’ve seen… That’s another big thing that’s happened in the year since we recorded this, is now I’ve seen Love & Basketball.

Riese: And so have I!

Drew: Oh my God!

Analyssa: Oh my god! Okay that actually is huge.

Riese: Yeah, I watched it a month ago.

Drew: Wow, it’s just one of the best movies to ever be a movie.

Analyssa: I watched it a month ago too. Because last year I was doing my director project, but this year I’m doing rom-coms. Love & Basketball was on my list.

Riese: Oh, this year Gretchen was like, you really need to have seen Love & Basketball. And I was like, you’re right.

Analyssa: And she was right.

Drew: It’s incredible.

Riese: Yeah, she was right. It was amazing.

Analyssa: It’s so good.

Riese: Another thing that’s changed over this year is that Finley is wearing a different style of underwear than they previously wore.

Analyssa: That’s true. I did notice that.

Riese: Yeah. Anyway, she’s losing.

Analyssa: She’s losing. So she has no bra on, just underwear on. And they’re in public, which did make me nervous. But I’m happy for them that they’re having fun.

Riese: But they start hooking up. And everyone’s like, yes!

Analyssa: They’re running around having fun. And I do want to say, Sophie says, you’re still fun. And I know that it was meant to be sweet, but as a person who stopped drinking and was really anxious that everyone was secretly thinking, Ana’s not going to be fun anymore. I just twinge just a little bit I said, Ooh, ow, that hurt. But maybe Finley was like, amazing! Thank you for the reassurance. Because some people have more normal brains than I do. And then they start hooking up and Sophie’s like, I just want to go home and get in bed with you. And Finley’s like, I think I should catch a meeting. And this is another thing that I don’t really want to see the most, meetings as a source of conflict.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Meetings are exactly one hour long. It’s like Catholic mass. There is a start, there is a process, there is an end. You get out, so really…

Riese: Also she could go to a later meeting. It felt like to me like that wasn’t really what was happening.

Drew: No, it felt like an excuse.

Analyssa: Well, and it is later, you find out. But if this becomes a little thing.

Drew: Right.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Jordi is visiting Angie.

Riese: And I don’t like her anymore either.

Drew: Wow.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: I am on Jordi’s side with this one. No one should stay together from high school…

Analyssa: Fair enough. But…

Drew: I don’t think she handled it well. I don’t know why we’ve had this year long gap, what’s been happening in there, whatever, whatever. But…

Riese: And also, if this is their first night alone, they should have at least had sex first.

Analyssa: They should’ve hooked up. But also,

Drew: No, she just shouldn’t have come over. This shouldn’t have happened her first night of college. Like that part of it’s, no.

Analyssa: I mean, what Angie said is true. Why didn’t we talk about this yesterday? Why didn’t we talk about this over the summer? Why are we… Also, is Jordi at California University? Is that the implication? Because then it’s like, are we going to see each other?

Drew: No, I don’t think so.

Analyssa: She just came to visit.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Is she, I don’t know why I thought she was a grade below.

Analyssa: Oh, I have no idea.

Riese: I just decided she was a grade below.

Analyssa: I do relate to, I’ve decided we have to break up so I’m emotionally shut down and just sort of saying words. That is relatable to me.

Drew: Yeah, that’s how I am. Yeah.

Analyssa: So… They have a really weird breakup fight because Jordi is doing the full shutdown and Angie’s going a little bit that angry kind of direction, which is just an odd conversational style to watch two people have. But they break up.

Drew: I’m excited. I’m excited to see Angie take on the college queer life.

Analyssa: She’s cool. She’s queer. She’s at college.

Riese: Sisterhood is powerful.

Analyssa: Sisterhood is powerful…

Drew: Sisterhood is so powerful.

Analyssa: …for us as lesbians.

Riese: For us as lesbians, I love this for her as a bisexual or queer, or whatever she is.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: We love it.

Drew: And one very sad rejection to one less sad rejection. Micah proposes and Maribel’s like, I don’t want to get married, but I do want a baby. Which again, this is why you should talk to your partners about life plans, about marriage, about kids, about all these things.

Riese: But imagine if this had happened on a jumbotron.

Drew: Wow. That would be quite the twist. I don’t think… No offense to sports fans in general, but I don’t think the average fan at a sporting event would understand the nuances of, I don’t really believe in marriage as a practice, but I love you and I want to be with you.

Analyssa: Let’s have a baby to bind ourselves together forever, but not actually be married and sign the paperwork. Totally. Totally.

Riese: Yeah. Although if they are going to have baby together, they should get married and sign the paperwork.

Drew: It would be a lot easier.

Analyssa: It’s actually just easier if you have a child…

Riese: Yeah. That’s eventually what they’re going to have to do anyway, so, but that’s fine.

Analyssa: Like, schools and stuff.

Riese: Who cares? It’s TV. It’s television. It’s just a TV show.

Analyssa: And then we get kind of the classic end montage, check-in with everybody. So Finley’s at a meeting and doing her share.

Riese: Finley’s doing her share.

Analyssa: Finley’s doing her share. And that kind of under-weaves, that’s not a word. I just made it up.

Drew: That made sense to me.

Analyssa: Kind of weaves through all the other characters’ check-ins.

Drew: Yeah, and Alice is on Taimi. A little product placement for the LGBTQ dating app, Taimi. This podcast is not brought to you by Taimi. So I can say that it’s not very good. We did a review of it on Autostraddle and it wasn’t one of the better ones.

Riese: Oh, so it’s been around for that long?

Analyssa: Was that one of the…

Drew: It’s been around.

Riese: Because I feel that was like for the dating down… What was that called?

Drew: Yeah, Dating Download? It’s been around for a couple years.

Riese: I really loved those.

Drew: Yeah. We just ran out of dating apps.

Analyssa: I did too. I thought they were fun.

Drew: And two of us got into relationships.

Analyssa: Okay. Brag.

Drew: You are also in a relationship.

Riese: We’re all in relationships.

Analyssa: Wow.

Riese: Except Carol.

Drew: Oh, sorry Carol.

Riese: But Carol’s really independent.

Analyssa: I feel like Carol loves being single. Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. If someone was like, Carol, do you want to get married? She’d be like, no, I want to have a baby. You know what I mean?

Analyssa: So Alice is on the dating app and changes her age preferences to…

Riese: She changes it from 25 to 41. Which is how old I am.

Analyssa: And I just want to say, when I was on dating apps, even I did not go down to 25. That’s just simply not for me. So I support her move.

Drew: Depends on how old I was, but I generally was a year or two younger than me.

Analyssa: I never went more than a year younger than me ever. I don’t have time for that, unfortunately.

Riese: I projected my own experience onto Alice’s and recalled that there was a time when I did have it set younger, even though I was older. And it was because this was right before all of our friends got divorced at the same time. But I was like, everyone my own age is taken. And I was like, so I don’t know what else to do.

Analyssa: Well…

Riese: Because when I put it into my age range. There’s no one here.

Analyssa: I was going to say, there’s actually nothing more disheartening than opening a dating app and it saying we’ve run out of people in your area that meet your requirements.

Riese: Yeah, and I’m like, I’m in LA.

Analyssa: What do you mean? Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, really? No one?

Analyssa: I’ve moved a city that I’m supposed to… What? It’s horribly demoralizing. So I actually do understand that impulse. But dating a 25 year old even sends a little shiver down my own spine. And I, maybe that’s just me being a jerk.

Riese: Unless you’re just looking to bone.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah, that’s fine.

Riese: Although, I mean, I can’t imagine. I mean, how old is Alice supposed to be? Like 50?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: That’s a choice.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: That’s just a big gap.

Drew: That’s a real gap.

Riese: That’s a big gap.

Analyssa: So Alice is being honest about her age preferences. Also, the little song underneath says something about we’re afraid of aging or something, which really made me laugh.

Riese: Oh really? Oh yeah, we have the on the nose songs again this time. It’s like (singing) Finley’s at a meeting. Sophie’s going to bed.

Drew: (singing) Fucking fucking fucking.

Riese: (singing) Shane Shane Shane Shane.

Analyssa: (Singing) Carmen Carmen Carmen. I mean, what would we be without the needle drops? You know?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Shane is back at home looking at her old hair products and she’s…

Riese: Giving them a sniff.

Analyssa: Not wearing a bra. So really we’re back.

Drew: She was feeling very Shane today.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: Very Shane today.

Riese: Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. And then Tess sidles up and she doesn’t say, what are those?

Analyssa: Nope.

Riese: She just goes in for the makeout.

Drew: Mm-hmm

Analyssa: Tess really wants to kiss this episode.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, Tess really wants to kiss.

Drew: I love that.

Riese: Yeah. I think that’s great.

Analyssa: Sometimes you want to kiss.

Riese: Yeah, it’s great. It’s showing, even after being together for a year and living with your mom, you can still want to hook up.

Drew: I think that’s beautiful.

Riese: That is beautiful. I love love.

Drew: Sophie gets a text from someone named Dre that says, “u up rainbow.”

Analyssa: The rainbow emoji.

Riese: The rainbow.

Analyssa: So you know that it’s queer sex that we’re looking for.

Riese: I just, first of all, I love that she’s getting a u up text. But secondly, what is that? Does she know…

Analyssa: That’s what I mean is what is the rainbow?

Drew: No, I think the rainbow means like, you up? You want to go find a pot of gold?

Riese: Oh yeah. Yeah, or it’s raining. Maybe there’ll be a rainbow afterwards.

Analyssa: You up? I have some lucky charms at home.

Drew: Ooh, that would be a great u up text.

Riese: You up? I have a Lisa Frank binder or I got a Hello Kitty watch or something like that.

Analyssa: Gorgeous.

Riese: You know what I mean?

Analyssa: We did miss that Dani goes home to Gigi.

Drew: Oh yes.

Analyssa: And there’s like a cliffhanger of if Nat has said yes or no.

Riese: Yeah, but it’s one of those weird cliff hangers where you can see the actor knows there’s no more lines for them in the scene and they just have to sort of sit there.

Analyssa: That’s like when you go to a play and you know that the dialogue has been written overlapping, but they’re just like, stopping at that middle…

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Whatever. But yeah, and Dani says also that the event was a success and Bette has offered her a gallery job and Alice has offered her 100th episode. So she must be doing some event type coordinating.

Riese: Yeah. And I’ve offered her starting a camp for queer adults.

Analyssa: Gorgeous.

Drew: Ooh, I love that.

Analyssa: Yeah. If she’s good at event planning…

Riese: So we’re nailing down the contract now.

Drew: I love that she’s moved on from maybe being a Sackler to being the party planner of queer Los Angeles.

Riese: Yeah, I love that, first of all, I hope we never ever have to talk about any of that stuff ever again.

Analyssa: I agree.

Riese: My favorite thing about The L Word is when they just drop a plot or a character like a hot potato or like an incarcerated potato.

Drew: I do recommend the documentary, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed about Nan Goldin and her fight against the Sacklers. That is my recommendation. Famous queer photographer, Nan Goldin, activist, incredible person, really made it so the Sacklers cannot have a name in the art world. Highly recommend the documentary and that hopefully is the last time that there’s any reason to talk about the Sacklers on this podcast.

Riese: Okay, because she did say earlier in the episode, she was like, it’s been the hardest year of my life. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t care.

Analyssa: Right. Again, I’m just going to accept that as truth. I actually don’t.

Drew: I fully believe it.

Analyssa: Great.

Riese: Yeah. I mean Gigi’s hair is different now. Did you notice that?

Analyssa: They both look so beautiful.

Drew: Yeah. Was there anything else in that montage?

Analyssa: I think that’s it. And then the big thing that everyone has been waiting and praying and hoping and sitting and wishing for…

Riese: Wishing and hoping and, you know the song.

Analyssa: That one.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: So Tina and Bette left the function earlier, which we did forget to say. Because Tina’s like, do you want to…

Riese: They took that deer and ran.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Yeah. One of them is like, do you want to get out of here? And the other one wants to say yes so fast that we didn’t even finish the sentence. So now they’re back at Bette’s home and they’re just talking about the things that have happened in the last year. Bette has reconnected with her mom.

Riese: Right, who we all thought was dead. So that’s big news for us.

Analyssa: Right, she just left.

Riese: It’s zombie news. Yeah.

Analyssa: It turns out.

Riese: She just left. Yeah. That was redone and that’s neat.

Analyssa: And then, that she went to the silent retreat that she failed before.

Drew: This made me laugh. What a silly choice for Bette the character, for The L Word writers. What a silly, silly choice.

Riese: Also, because the last time she was at the silent retreat, Tim- Tina was at home. Tim. Wow, Freudian slip. Tina was at home banging Henry.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Right, yup.

Riese: And Dana was dying.

Drew: Wow.

Riese: What a sad time for all of us. And Carmen and Shane were unhappy with each other and not having a nice time.

Drew: Fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting, fighting.

Riese: Fighting, fighting, fighting. Yeah. Yeah. Breaking up, breaking up, getting married, getting married.

Analyssa: So Bette committed to the silent retreat and this time found that it worked its magic.

Riese: Yeah. She was silent.

Analyssa: She did it.

Drew: They say that this was one of the best days of their life.

Analyssa: I also was like, how can that be true? How can that be true?

Riese: Right? They once go on a trip and get food poisoning.

Analyssa: It was just a regular day.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: I guess, if this is the start of their rekindled romance and they’re together for decades, then I could see them looking back and being like, that was one of the best days of my…

Analyssa: You’re doing a great old woman voice.

Drew: Thank you so much. I don’t know why they’re becoming on Downton Abbey, but that… I’ve never watched Downton Abbey, so if that was wrong, I’m sorry.

Analyssa: Okay, appropriation.

Drew: But yeah, it was very baffling to me.

Analyssa: I agree. I had the same thought where I was like…

Drew: But, lesbians are so dramatic.

Analyssa: I think that they’re just, we did talk about this really recently actually. But I do think that they’re just being really gay for each other and being like, this is going to be one of the most important days of my life because we’ve rekindled whatever it is here. So this is the best day of my life. It brought me you, you know?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: But this is the fourth time they’ve rekindled. What about the first time, they had stir fry and then they had sex. There was another time Tina was pregnant, they banged her in the kitchen.

Drew: Also, stir fry is delicious.

Riese: Stir fry is delicious. What are they eating here? Literally nothing, no one’s eaten anything this entire fucking episode.

Analyssa: That’s true.

Riese: Everyone’s starving. Everyone’s hungry.

Analyssa: That’s true.

Drew: I’m hungry too. I just smelled pizza outside.

Riese: I’m also, yeah, we’re all hungry. I feel like we’ve seen Bette and Tina have some pretty nice times, haven’t we?

Drew: Yeah, if you were Bette or Tina, what would you think would be the best day of your life?

Analyssa: I don’t have a memory for The L Word the way that you two do, but there has to be something like a gallery opening or I don’t know, Tina’s show is in its ninth season. There’s not any job stuff for…

Drew: I was going to say they have a child.

Riese: Their wedding? They got married at some point.

Analyssa: The day that Angie was born?

Riese: Oh yeah, that was nice. That was a nice day. Except that Jenny had a hard time that day.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: And so that was hard for me, personally.

Analyssa: Seeing Angie go off to college. I guess, ostensibly that was today.

Drew: That’s this day, so that makes sense.

Riese: That was today. But what about their wedding day?

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: I mean, they say one of. So maybe also, what did I say? I said something was one of the best movies of all time. And my friend was like, you always say that. And I was like, yeah, it’s in my top 600. I have a list on Letterboxd that’s like 650 movies and one of them is…

Riese: Muppets Take Manhattan.

Drew: No, there’s no Muppets movies on there. I’m sorry.

Analyssa: Oh well that seems like a miss.

Drew: Yeah, well, I’m not perfect.

Analyssa: If it’s 650 movies long.

Drew: There’s a lot of movies in the world. That’s everything I’ve given four and a half or five stars to on Letterboxd.

Analyssa: I guess so. Okay, so…

Drew: They kiss.

Analyssa: They kiss. Well first, I do want to say, they touch fingers.

Drew: Yes, of course.

Riese: Yeah, there’s a little fingering.

Analyssa: There’s a real hands walking over to the couch. And as someone who in the last year has reconciled with an ex, I do want to say, I do think that’s actually a critical part of the process.

Drew: The fingers touching?

Riese: The fingers?

Analyssa: The hands next to each other and you kind of ease them closer. That’s a big part of it.

Drew: Yeah. I love that.

Analyssa: Just for me personally, I felt represented by that.

Riese: Yeah. I felt like, wow, they must really be like, this feels familiar. And that’s probably really nice.

Analyssa: Yeah. So they kiss, they start kissing. Tina’s like, I must leave the finger touching becomes too much. She says she has to leave and then instead they kiss. And then…

Riese: With tongue, I think.

Analyssa: I think with tongue, yeah.

Drew: I think there was definitely a French kiss.

Analyssa: A hint of a tongue.

Riese: Yes, it was definitely from Paris.

Drew: From the region of…

Riese: From the land of the foyer.

Analyssa: I knew we were going to try to make an it’s only champagne if it’s from Champagne. And then Angie comes in.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Analyssa: Clearly looking for…

Riese: Jordi help.

Analyssa: Yeah, help on her relationship status. And instead sees her two moms kissing.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: I don’t think there’s anything that could be more damaging to getting over your first queer heartbreak than being like, oh, queer people get back together after long periods of time? Separate from the shock of seeing your mothers making out. That part of it would be so in my head I’d be like, well my parents got back together so Jordi and I are going to be endgame.

Analyssa: We could do it. There will someday be signs in Los Angeles.

Drew: Jorngie?

Riese: Jorgelina. Jorgelica.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Don’t you think it’s just Angi, with just an I?

Drew: Oh, probably. That’s confusing.

Analyssa: Maybe it’s Andi.

Drew: Andi. Andi’s obviously the best thing. Thank you for that.

Riese: Yeah. What were we talking about?

Drew: I think we’re done and that’s it. She says what the fuck.

Analyssa: Angie comes in and says what the fuck.

Riese: She says, you got to be fucking kidding.

Analyssa: Oh, that’s right.

Drew: Oh, thank you. Sorry. Wow.

Analyssa: Geez. Amateur hour.

Riese: Please guys, wow.

Analyssa: It’s amateur hour here.

Riese: It’s like you haven’t already seen it three times.

Analyssa: I’ve seen it once.

Drew: I’ve seen it once too.

Riese: I’ve seen it three times.

Drew: I believe that.

Riese: Thank you. Believe women.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Or whatever I am.

Drew: Support… Wait, what did her shirt say?

Riese: Sisterhood is powerful.

Analyssa: Sisterhood is powerful.

Drew: Sisterhood is powerful, yes, it’s clear it is.

Riese: And if we could leave you with any message today, it’s sisterhood is powerful. But also that’s the episode.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Analyssa: That’s it. Do you think sisterhood is powerful is this season’s for us as lesbians?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: It might be.

Riese: It might be. But we should keep for us as lesbians too.

Analyssa: I do love that one. That’s so good.

Drew: Well, what did we think of this episode?

Analyssa: I had fun.

Drew: I had fun too.

Analyssa: I enjoyed it. I know that we nitpick, but the point is to talk about the show. I had a great time, actually.

Riese: The point of the podcast is to talk about the show.

Analyssa: I don’t know if you guys know.

Riese: I don’t know if you know.

Drew: Yeah, I think sometimes people get upset and it’s like, well, right. If you want us to just give plot points, you could watch the show. It’s on Showtime. But, we’re going to give a little analysis.

Analyssa: Our ads say it’s on Showtime, the show.

Drew: It’s on Showtime.

Riese: But I also do think that part of really digging into a TV show, whether you’re doing a podcast or recap, you have to come up with things to say. You know what I mean? So, you really end up, I watched all of L Word season one, season two. Loved every minute of it, even the bad parts. Thought it was great. And then because I didn’t start recapping until season three. And then once I started doing the podcast and we were doing season one, season two, suddenly I had all these critiques. Because I wasn’t just sitting there watching it, I was trying to fill up an hour of podcast.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: I think maybe gay soap operas aren’t meant to be deeply analyzed and watched a million times. But, people enjoy listening to that. So what I’m saying is that we’re kind of heroes?

Analyssa: Yeah. Actually…

Drew: We’re sacrificing our own enjoyment…

Analyssa: We’re geniuses.

Drew: In order to give you more enjoyment. And I just want you to pause right now on your commute or wherever you’re listening to this and just think about how special we are.

Riese: And how funny I am. Me.

Drew: Yes, specifically.

Analyssa: Yeah. More than anything else.

Riese: Yeah, well, but how funny all of us are. I think that’s important.

Drew: That was big of you.

Riese: So you just think about that.

Drew:Yeah. There’s things that I’m like, a lot of my old frustrations are still there, but I had a whole period of time where I thought the show was canceled. I got to really sort of reflect and think.

Analyssa: Wow, you had a Bette Porter year.

Drew: I really had a Bette Porter year.

Analyssa: It sounds like you’ve done some personal growth.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I’m Bette getting rearended by The L Word: Generation Q and going, nah, fuck it. The world’s ending, we’re all going to die.

Analyssa: We’re all dying. What’s a bumper? That’s how I feel.

Riese: Exactly.

Analyssa: I’m excited…

Riese: That’s what I wish the guy who I had run into his bumper had said to me instead of ruining my life.

Analyssa: Sure, yeah that probably would have been good.

Riese: Because, honestly, there was barely even a dent. You know what I mean?

Analyssa: Yeah. That probably would have been good for you. I’m excited. I’m excited to see, I know that I will be annoyed every week, but I am actually excited to see a recovery storyline. I think they’re really going to have Finley go to meetings and do the things and maybe they won’t and that will also probably be fine. But I don’t know, that could be fun. Not fun but meaningful.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Riese: I just hope she doesn’t relapse because I think, I don’t even know if I hated relapse storylines until you talked about it on one of our podcast episodes. Whatever it was you said, you convinced me and now I don’t want to see them anymore.

Analyssa: Yeah. I don’t love them, but I am excited. I don’t know, I would love to see Alice have fun.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I love Alice.

Drew: I’m excited for Alice’s looking for the one. I’m also excited for Angie at college, especially in breakup mode. Oh, what a great time to be chaotic in breakup mode.

Analyssa: Honestly, she seems sad, but she doesn’t know that the first few months of college, there’re so many things to do. If that’s what you want to be doing, great. Go off.

Riese: I was mostly crying.

Analyssa: I was mostly watching, I watched nine seasons of Grey’s Anatomy my freshman fall, so I wasn’t doing that.

Drew: I went to nightclubs that cost $20. It’s the only time, I mean I was going to school in New York, so I was trying to be that person for a brief period of time.

Analyssa: That’s bananas.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: I’m wondering if, is it going to be like Bette and Tina are now together and the finale of this season, is them getting married? Or is it going to be…

Riese: Remarried.

Drew: Yes. Or is it going to be like a slow burn? There’s some reason why they can’t, are we going to go back and forth? I’m interested to see about what that approach is. And then, I’m very excited that Kehlani’s there. I hope it’s more interesting though than just a Shane cheats or resists cheating storyline. But honestly, if Kehlani’s there, I’m watching, I’m happy, I’m into it.

Riese: I’m excited for Joey Lauren Adams.

Analyssa: I was going to say we have some exciting guest stars too.

Drew: Oh, also, when is Rosie coming back?

Analyssa: And what’s Fletcher going to do?

Riese: I think it’s episode three that Rosie comes back.

Drew: I mean she’s busy like running her speakeasy lesbian bar in the forties.

Riese: In A League of Their Own. Yeah, maybe they should have, have the second bar be forties themed.

Drew: Ooh.

Riese: My dream for the season is that they never open the second bar and that whole storyline just dies.

Analyssa: What if it’s that Tess does buy the second bar, then Tess and Shane break up. And then we have, what was the rivalry in the original?

Drew: Ooh!

Riese: Oh, SheBar?

Analyssa: Yeah, SheBar and the… Weren’t there…

Riese: SheBar and The Planet.

Analyssa: Feuding bars and they’re right next door to each other.

Riese: So they should call it Jenny’s.

Analyssa: That could be kind of fun.

Drew: Oh, that would be fun. I’d be into that.

Riese: Yeah. They should call it Jenny’s and put a pool in it.

Drew: Ooh, that’s…

Riese: You know that bar in New Orleans where they have a pool.

Analyssa: No.

Riese: Well…

Drew: Did someone die in the pool? Because…

Riese: No, but now in my mind I’m thinking about American Horror Story.

Drew: Sure.

Riese: In the bathhouse as people murder, spoiler alert.

Analyssa: Spoilers for American Horror Story.

Riese: Yeah, no, I’m pretty stoked for this season. I will acknowledge that I have seen some future episodes and that episodes three and four are really fun.

Drew: Cool.

Analyssa: Fun.

Drew: I love that.

Riese: Yeah. Especially episode four.

Analyssa: We’ll look forward to that.

Riese: And there are some fun people coming back.

Drew: Nice. I love that. How exciting. And more than anything, I’m just happy to be back here with both of you.

Riese: Yeah, absolutely.

Analyssa: The real L Word was the friends we made along the way.

Riese: It was.

Analyssa: 3, 2, 1, quivering.

Drew: Quite.

Riese: Quince meat.

Drew: What’d you say?

Riese: I said quince meat, which is the favorite sandwich of students at California University.

Drew: Wow.

Analyssa: Right. Obviously.

Riese: Yeah, you’re welcome.

Analyssa: I said quivering, like with anticipation.

Drew: I said quite because I’m quite happy to be here talking about this show.

Riese: Wow.

Analyssa: Gorgeous.

Riese: Oh my god, wow.

Analyssa: Look at what we did.

Riese: Wow. We’re so full of optimism.

Analyssa: It happens every year.

Riese: It does.

Analyssa: So excited.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah, me too. It does feel like they’re putting a lot into it this year though. More so than in previous years. Like with guest stars and advertising and all that stuff.

Drew: Yeah. They’re trying.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: But most of all, I’d like to thank our sponsor Showtime. Yeah, you guys should…

Analyssa: Watch The L Word.

Riese: Take care of yourselves and we’ll be back with you next week to discuss the next episode of this program.

Analyssa: You have a good ASMR podcast voice.

Riese: I do?

Analyssa: I think so.

Riese: I sound like a Jew with a cold. And we’re out.

Drew: And we’re out.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Season Two FINALE: Long Distance Crushes with Elise Bauman

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called… a season finale! Yes, it’s true, today’s episode marks the end of the absolute blockbuster that was S2 of Wait, Is This A Date? 

And to celebrate that ending, who better to come on and discuss the joys and successes of a long distance crush, than actor and queer person Elise Bauman? You might recognize Elise from Lifetime’s delightful queer Christmas rom-com that come out last year, Under The Christmas Tree, but around these parts, she has another title that is nearly as vaunted: Drew’s girlfriend! Yes, that’s right, this sparkling twosome was birthed from the great queer tradition: the long distance crush.

But what is it about the long distance crush that is so appealing to queers around the world? Is it the relative scarcity of like minded queers around you? Perhaps the ability to flirt long distance takes some of the pressure off? The three of us get into all of it, AND Drew and Elise share some possibly TOO cute details about their relationship!

And of course there is a game! This week, I make Drew play the game that simply took over Twitter and Tiktok for a few fleeting weeks: “They’re a 10 but…” It’s a good time, all around!

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ Follow Elise on Twitter and IG!

+ Read Drew’s interview with Jinx Monsoon!

+ Watch Bend it Like Beckham, it still rocks!

+ Johnny Sibilly’s thighs are… indeed quite compelling!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfCuUHrPrwV/?hl=en

+ Will Shortz is in fact the name of the NYT Crossword Editor! *the more you know*

EPISODE

Elise: And then we got off the phone, and then we both hopped on the phone two seconds later we’re like, “So the border is closed, we are legally not allowed to actually go across the border.”

Christina: I mean, top among one of my favorite voice memos and or texts I got from Drew, I can’t remember which form it came in, it was like, “I made this plan and now the borders are closed.” Yeah.

Elise: Yeah, it was a real moment.

[theme song plays]

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: And I’m Christina.

Drew: And welcome to Wait, Is This A Date?

Christina: Wait, Is This A Date? is an Autostraddle podcast brought to you by me having the giggles, and the question that is on everybody’s lips, wait, was this a date?

Drew: We’re at the end of our second season, and I think we solved it, I think.

Christina: Yeah, I think I’m just bringing big finale energy, like when comedies used to be in front of a studio audience, and everybody would walk in and there was an hour of applause because it was like, it’s the last, that’s how I’m feeling. Though to be clear, no one has applauded me yet, hateful. Thank you, thank you. Now I feel loved and held. Drew, who are you?

Drew: Oh wow, forgot about that part.

Christina: Yeah, right?

Drew: Maybe season three I’ll get the intros. My name is Drew Gregory, I am a writer for Autostraddle, a filmmaker, a queer trans woman. You know what, I think if we do another season I want to have a fun one I throw in at the end.

Christina: Ooh, something spicy, you want to jazz it up?

Drew: Yeah, I don’t have anything today though.

Christina: Okay, leave them wanting more, I think that’s great.

Drew: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christina: I am Christina Tucker, I am also a writer at Autostraddle, and the internet at large. A podcaster, a gay Black woman, and someone who’s feeling pretty jazzy right here on this afternoon.

Drew: Great, I’m really glad that you’re jazzy and I’m spicy, or at least I’m planning for the possibility that someday I’ll be spicy.

Christina: Yes you’re like, I don’t know, the first half of the movie Dune, the spice will come. Cool reference, ladies, she’s single. Anyway, I do have a game for us to play on this hollowed day of our finale.

Drew: Incredible.

Christina: This is the classic, and by classic I mean a game that took over the internet and TikTok for a couple weeks, “They’re a 10, but…”

Drew: Ah, great.

Christina: Now Drew, I’m going to set out some ground rules for you, because I know you love a follow up question.

Drew: Great.

Christina: When I say they’re a 10, they’re a 10 to you in any way that matters to you, that could be physically, that could be emotionally, this is just a person you feel is a 10, okay?

Drew: Okay, okay, thank you.

Christina: I do not have any scenarios for what else you in this person have been doing in your dating life, you’re just going to have to go with your gut and decide.

Drew: Cool.

Christina: All right?

Drew: Yes.

Christina: We’re going to put where make that clear, here we go. They’re a 10, but they clap when the plane lands.

Drew: I always felt like people were too dramatic with this, where it’s like they’re a 10 and that thing makes them go to a two, come on.

Christina: Yes.

Drew: So I’m going to still give a pretty generous eight.

Christina: Yeah, I think that’s fair. I think eight is the correct amount of cringe removal for that little action. All right, this is a great start. Okay, they’re a nine but they never text you first.

Drew: And I can’t ask follow up questions?

Christina: No, no, no.

Drew: So I can’t ask, well do they text me back when I text? I would say a five.

Christina: Yeah, not texting first ever, that’s rough.

Drew: Ever is weird.

Christina: That’s rough stuff. All right, they are a five but they drive you to every errand that you’ve ever had to run.

Drew: That’s really nice, but I could always… If there were five, I’ll give him a six.

Christina: Sure, sure. But I know you love a solo jaunt anyway, you love an errand run.

Drew:I mean today my girlfriend Elise did drive me to an errand, and I was very grateful, but if that was the only thing she did we wouldn’t be in a relationship, that was just an added little nice bonus.

Christina: I think that’s fair.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: All right, they are a seven but they only pretend to read your work.

Drew: See the aspect of that that bothers me is the pretend.

Christina: Pretending, I knew it would be.

Drew: It’s not the not reading it. If they didn’t read my work it’s like, I’m not that, I’d be a little, it’s like never? But it’s fine, I could get over it. But they lie to me about that is what’s weird to me, so that’s going to go down to a three.

Christina: Yeah, correct, correct. They are a three but they have access to the criterion closet.

Drew: And do I get you to go?

Christina: And you get access, you benefit from that access, yes.

Drew: I could have a solid fling with that six.

Christina: I think you could. It was a three, but yeah, you’re knocking it up to a six.

Drew: No, no, no, that’s what I’m saying, I’m knocking it up to a six.

Christina: Gotcha, gotcha. I love that. They’re an eight but all of their friends are straight.

Drew: Okay, there was some discourse about this, because I think there was a you need help. I think I maybe was on the opposite side of most of the Autostraddle team who said that it is fine to only have straight friends. I would like to say that it is fine, it’s just not the life I lead. All straight friends, that’s going to go to a two.

Christina: Yeah, I’m going to have to agree with you on that one, I would just find it a little troubling, confusing.

Drew: All straight friends?

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: If they’re new to queerness and are wanting to meet more queer people, that’s different than if they’re an established season queer who’s like, you know what? I like being the one lesbian in my friend group of straight people.

Christina: Yeah, I would feel the same way if it was a Black person who was like, “I don’t have any Black friends,” I would be like, “What’s going on there?” Internally.

Drew: We’re not in a network sitcom, we can’t have a token person.

Christina: You don’t need to be the token, you don’t need to do that to yourself. All right, we have three more. They are a seven but they spend all their free time in the gym, constantly lifting weights up and down. I don’t know what people do in the gym.

Drew: All of their free time. I guess it depends on what counts as free time. I’ll say a five.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: I’ll bump them down two.

Christina: Bump them down.

Drew: But that’s fine. I guess it depends largely for me, which I’m not asking a follow question, I’m sticking with five, but it depends to me what counts as free time.

Christina: Sure.

Drew: Can we watch movies together, or go out to eat, is that free time? Is not work time free time, or is it just like when we don’t have other activities?

Christina: I hear you, I hear you.

Drew: But I’ll stick with five.

Christina: All right. They’re six, but their mom is hotter than they are.

Drew: Oh, I don’t know to go up or down.

Christina: I know, right?

Drew: I don’t think I could ever date someone for their… It’s like if I’m not attracted to someone in the first place, I’m probably not going to be dating them.

Christina: Right.

Drew: I’m not going to be like, well, they could turn into their hot mom. I think I’d say that they’re still a six, I’m just going to not call them and I’m going to call their mom.

Christina: Yeah, I feel like it’s like you stay the same, but maybe I hang out with you a little longer than I would in order-

Drew: That’s a good point.

Christina: To get some mom time. I don’t think you change.

Drew: I did something really bad that I still feel badly about, which is that someone asked me out, and this was when I was in college, and I was not interested, and so I was clear about that, I was clear I wasn’t interested. But then she wanted to be friends, and I could tell that she said she wanted to be friends but it was coming from place-

Christina: She was hoping.

Drew: Yeah. But the thing is that all of her friends were really hot and cool, and so I did continued to be her friend in order to hang out with her friends. I didn’t lie about my intentions generally, but it still wasn’t the nicest thing I did as a 20 year old.

Christina: I mean unfortunately it just reminds me of that episode of Sex and the City where Carrie’s dating, I believe it’s Justin Theroux, and he sucks, but his family rocks, and she’s like, I can do this for a bit. I’m like, yeah, absolutely, who couldn’t.

Drew: Carrie wasn’t trying to hook up with his family, which is the difference, but you know what? It’s fine, we’re all good.

Christina: A hookup can look like anything, I’m always saying that.

Drew: That’s a really great point.

Christina: Your final one, is a three but has a beach house.

Drew: I’m about to say an annoying sentence, but I went to NYU.

Christina: Horrible to say.

Drew: Something that sucks about me, which this is going to sound like a humble brag, because it’s actually probably a good character trait, but it sucks as a person going through the world. I went to a school that’s filled with rich people who have all sorts of awesome beach houses, and all these other things, and I only became friends with people who were there on scholarships. Not only, but primarily, I definitely, I didn’t make friends with people who had beach houses.

Christina: You didn’t utilize.

Drew: Yeah, and so I think if they’re a three but they have a beach house, they’re probably a two. The fact… I don’t know.

Christina: Yeah, you just can’t make that leap to utilize the sick beach house moment.

Drew: No, it sucks. But what I’m really hoping is that my friends who are fairly down to earth, good people, more and more of them are just going to continue to get that new money and then get beach houses, and then I’ll be able to hang out with my great friends and be at a beach house. That’s the dream where I could get the beach house.

Christina: That’s the dream at the end of the day, it’s new money and a beach house, that’s all we’re looking for. You heard it here first folks.

Drew: I love new money.

Christina: Love new money.

Drew: Love new money. Yeah, that was a delight. I’d actually, I’d really been wanting to play that game since it was a thing on TikTok, so thank you for making my dreams come true.

Christina: I thought it would be a fun one to do, and it was very fun to come up with them.

Drew: Well, should we move on to our main segment of the week, which is falling for people who live in other cities. Which is different than long distance relationships, because long distance relationships can start well into a relationship, they can continue on into a relationship, this is the desire that queer people have to look at their place that they live and go, no, I’m not going to flirt with these people, I’m going to go on instagram.com and find someone who lives very far away. And we have a, I know we always say a very special guest, but for me this is a very special guest. Do you want to introduce yourself?

Elise: I would love to introduce myself. Am I the special guest?

Drew: You are, yes.

Christina: Baby, of course.

Elise: Great, wow, amazing. My name is Elise Bauman, I’m an actor, I’m a queer person, and I’m here today because I’m sleeping with one of the hosts.

Christina: Guess which one?

Elise: Yeah, the rest of the podcast is just the audience trying decipher which host I’m sleeping with. I like that, it’s like a murder mystery but-

Christina: There’s no way to know.

Elise: There’s no way to know. Yeah, does this make me a nepotism baby? Is that how the industry works.

Christina: Yes, that’s how the industry works, babe.

Elise: Nice, nice.

Christina: This is it.

Elise: Wow, maybe I could get a career out of this.

Christina: Fingers crossed for you.

Elise: Nepo baby to career, wow, fantastic. I’ve always wanted to be a nepo baby.

Christina: I’m so glad.

Drew: Yeah, I was just going to say that for people who don’t know, well now I’m ruining the murder mystery of it all, but Elise and I are in a relationship, and did start dating during the pandemic, and Elise lives in Toronto, and I live in Los Angeles, which are in fact different cities, and are in fact in different countries.

Elise: They are indeed, they are indeed.

Christina: And Drew, not to say that you went against your own gut, but I do feel as though you are usually a person who says, why bother with a long distance moment? There are people right here I can date, why do this to yourself? You know it’s going to be hard, you know it’s going to be a challenge, why do this? And yet here you are.

Drew: See, that’s interesting, because I feel like I always liked to have a little of both, I just think I didn’t take the long distance ones maybe as seriously.

Christina: Maybe that’s it, yeah.

Drew: But I always enjoyed a long distance flirt.

Christina: True.

Drew: And so I think this just kept going. When we started-

Elise: So the answer, Drew, wasn’t that I was just irresistible and it was personal to me, and that it was very specific to me that I was just amazingly irresistible so you just broke all your rules and you said, “I have to have that one.”

Drew: I mean it is sort of the answer in a longer sense. In the sense that it just kept happening. And then our good friends of the pod, Mal Blum and Gab Dunn, who I used to live with, as some of you may know, I would always be like, I’d be trying to date people during the pandemic in Los Angeles and the surrounding areas of Los Angeles. And then they’d make fun of me because I would sometimes just be like, “I mean, I could just try to date Elise Bauman.” I was always, “I mean, this person lives in Toronto, so no we’re just going to continue flirting.” But then at a certain point I’d made a lot of mistakes. Some of which have been documented on this here podcast during the pandemic and my dating. And then I was like, “Well, I keep being drawn to this person. And yes, the distance is tricky, but maybe we should do a little FaceTime.”

Elise: Which was a year into us flirting via the internet.

Christina: I am very aware of the Drew side of this burgeoning relationship. But Elise, I’d love to get your takes. Are you a long distance dater? Are you one of the queers that is constantly, “If I was in Ireland, me and this person would be together.” Because was this a new experience for you?

Elise: No, I mean, truthfully, I hadn’t really been in many long term relationships.

Christina: Brag.

Elise: Until recently. No, it was. I think the reason for me that it all worked out so well is that I had so many walls up. And so, being able to take it slow with zero pressure. We met over this Zoom live read at the beginning of the pandemic and added each other on Twitter, started liking each other’s tweets. Then I think it went into a Twitter DM, very romantic. And then we just started talking and then we just talked on the internet for a really long time. And it was like, this really slow, organic, nice way of doing things. Because I think because you lived in a different country, it meant that the pressure was none. I was like, “Wow, if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. I’ve never even seen her face to face still. What’s the worst that could happen?” Because of that, I don’t know, it just, it gave it a nice rumination period. I like to say that if my last relationship was 30 seconds in the microwave, this was a slow braised lamb stew. Or something.

Christina: Okay. It’s giving barefoot Contessa.

Elise: You know what I mean?

Christina: We’re going direct from the Hamptons. We love that. We love that. I mean, I do think that part, I have never done an actual relationship, surprising no one, via a long distance. But the long distance flirt that is very fun to me. But it’s always, as it always is, making it something more than just a long distance flirt or spicy replies to Instagram stories. I’m always like, “Ooh. And that’s where I get lost.” Or I forget, or don’t have the attention span. I wonder if that’s part of the problem for me. It’s tough to say.

Elise: It was funny because when Drew eventually, a year into us every couple weeks having long flirts on Instagram, was like, “Would you like to FaceTime sometime?” And my first reaction was like, “No, you’ve ruined it. You’ve taken…” I was like, “No, we got to either be in a relationship or the flirtation ends. There’s stakes. Now, it actually goes somewhere now.”  And I was like, some of the walls started coming back up. And then we FaceTimed. And our first FaceTime, true to queer history, was about seven hours long. And then we just kept on FaceTiming for… Well, it was originally not going to be as long, but then we had this big, long talk one time. We were like, okay, we talked about everything. We talked about how we like to share space about what it would be like to meet for the first time we literally talked about everything. And we got off the phone and we were like, “Okay, we’re feeling good about this. We’re going to do it. We’re going to, Drew’s going to come here or I’m going to go there. It’s going to be great.” And then we…

Drew: No, we picked a date. I was going to book a flight.

Elise: Oh, we picked it. Right, right, right. And then we got off the phone and then we both hopped on the phone two seconds later. We’re like, “The border is closed. We are legally not allowed to actually go across the border because of that.”

Christina: I mean, top among my favorite voice memos and/or texts I got from Drew, I can’t remember which form it came in. It was like, “I made this plan and now the borders are closed.”

Elise: Yeah. It was a real moment.

Drew: And initially we were FaceTiming once a week. We kept that as a boundary of sorts, where we… It was really just once a week. They were six or seven hours long, but it was once a week. And then, once we reached that point where we were going to meet and then the existence of borders got in the way, then it became a lot more like we were just in a relationship. Where we didn’t talk about it that way, but where we just would FaceTime each other randomly when we were going about our days or whatever.

Elise: It was less of a once a week date night thing.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: It was like, we’re going to meet in person at some time. Let’s remove some of these boundaries around our communication style.

Drew: I mean when I asked you to FaceTime, I genuinely didn’t know if we’d been flirting. Is this a date?

Elise: That’s so funny.

Drew: But stretched out over a year where… And it’s because people all have different flirting styles and we weren’t like-

Elise: You literally sent me poems that you wrote in Paris when you were a teenager.

Drew: Right. See to me that’s flirting. But to a lot of people that is the sort of friendship. Not…

Christina: Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Drew: We weren’t doing anything sexual. It wasn’t like so-

Christina: Could have been the start of a podcast. Did you think about it?

Drew: Exactly. I also had multiple experiences over the years where I had been like, “Oh, this is flirting.” And sometimes, we responded to each other’s stories with… I think once I responded to a thirst trap you posted with swoon and things like that. There was definitely some acknowledgement of attraction. But also again, people who are becoming friends sometimes are also like, “Oh my God, hottie.” It’s confusing. And then, I said, “Would you like to FaceTime sometime?” And you said, “I usually wait until I’m at a year into an Instagram flirtation before I do a FaceTimes, but I could break the rules by a couple weeks,” is exactly what you said. Then I was, I remember…

Elise: Wow, that was good.

Drew: Yeah.

Elise: I’m like, “Yeah, cool. Great.”

Drew: I was in the main house with my friends and was like, “Yes.” I was like, “Yes, this is flirting. It was flirting. We were flirting.” And they were making fun of me because I had been so, “I shouldn’t have sent that. I shouldn’t have sent that. I shouldn’t have sent that. I’m going to ruin.”

Christina: You got the touchdown, babe.

Drew: Now, when LA people break my heart, I’m not even going to be able to have this hot Canadian to think about. Oh God, what did I do? What did I do? And then you said that. And I was like, “Yes. Yes.”

Elise: Oh. And the rest is history.

Christina: And the rest is a gorgeous history. And then, Drew got to not only meet me in person for the first time, but then drive right on up to Toronto to see you.

Drew: I know.

Elise: No, that’s true. Yeah.

Christina: I do feel like I’m hugely a part of your story, to be clear.

Elise: Massively a part of it. Huge, huge, huge.

Christina: In many ways, it’s like who is in a relationship here? It’s who know? It’s like, it’s all married together.

Drew: I mean season one, we would always ask our guests if this was a date. This is a little bit of a thruple date I think.

Christina: This is absolutely.

Drew: Right now. Yeah.

Christina: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Elise: Because you couldn’t fly for some reason. And so, you drove to Christina’s and then drove across the border.

Drew: Because I was in Cincinnati with doing that job. I flew to New York. Was in New York for a bit, took the train to see Christina. Then went from there back to New York. And then I drove because I didn’t have a passport because of a combination of pandemic and Trump and trans.

Christina: The big three.

Drew: Yeah, but I had a New York state driver’s license that was an enhanced ID. I couldn’t fly to Canada, but I could drive across the border. I drove nine hours to meet you for the first time.

Elise: Wow.

Drew: And when I got to your place, you were working, you were on set. And so, I…

Elise: Right, right. You were in my bedroom before. Oh right. Yeah, I did this cute thing. Tell them the cute thing that I did.

Drew: You left me a bunch of little notes on the stairs leading up to your room. And then there was a little note on the bed and it was really, really cute.

Christina: That is so cute, I want to throw up a little bit, man. I feel a little queasy actually thinking about how cute that is.

Drew: It was really, it was real good.

Elise: Yeah. You sent me a video from my bedroom being, “Just waiting here to meet you in person.” Wild. What a time.

Drew: Were you nervous?

Elise: Was I nervous? Yeah. But I think that we had… This is also the thing about long distance or falling for people in other cities, as this podcast title is called, is that, I mean, not that you couldn’t do this in person, but you just get to communicate about everything before it happens. And so, we talked about our nerves. We talked about, we were both, “What if we don’t the way that we smell?” Weird things like that, just all of your weird neurosis or all of your weird insecurities, we just talked through every possible thing. And then it worked out pretty well I’d say.

Drew: I mean, I feel like it was drastically different than a scenario where let’s say we were flirting for a bit, a shorter period of time. Either we never FaceTimed or maybe we just FaceTimed a couple times. Because of the border being closed, by the time we met, I guess I had been more nervous about not being able to cross the border. I was so nervous the night before I drove. And that I’d get to the border and they’d be like, “Yes, Americans are allowed in now, but not the trans ones,” or just something.  Or I had just done the paperwork wrong or just some border patrol person having an issue with me. And so, that’s what I was nervous about. But once I made it in, I was so relieved. Or getting COVID right beforehand. There was all, that was where so many of the nerves were. Once I was in your room. Also, you had just done this very cute thing that reminded me why I had driven nine hours and why I was excited to meet you. I wasn’t, I think…

Elise: All it takes is a couple Post-it notes, ladies.

Drew: I guess I just didn’t think the nerves that might exist otherwise if our first kiss wasn’t great. If the first time we had sex wasn’t great.

Elise: Sure.

Drew: If it was awkward for the first couple days, I wasn’t worried that any…

Elise: But it was awkward.

Drew: It was. Whoa.

Elise: For the first maybe two hours.

Drew: Sure.

Elise: And then we both acknowledged that the next day. Or we even acknowledged it in the moment. We were like, “This is weird.”

Drew: I think we acknowledged it in the moment.

Elise: We were like, “This is weird. You’re a person in front of me. You’ve lived in my phone for the last five months.”

Drew: But I had a lot of confidence that if any of those things, that it wouldn’t be a deal breaker. If the whole 10 days I was there had passed and we weren’t connecting, then it would be like, “Hmm, should we try that again? What was happening there?” But I don’t know. And that also, I think took away some of the nerves and allowed the weirdness to only last a couple hours instead. By the next day, we were so… I don’t know. It really felt kind of magical.

Elise: It was, yeah. We literally went away for the weekend, the following morning while…

Drew: Yeah.

Elise: Yeah. It’s funny. Because I’ve been on a lot of first dates, but not a lot of second dates. And I think there is something of, I don’t know, I always could find a reason to not see someone again, just based out of fear or whatever. Probably a lot of it was just like, I think you can tell, for me personally, within the first 20 minutes of meeting someone, if that person is going to be someone that you get along with or not. But there is something about, I don’t know, just more slowly getting to know someone that just shuts down that fear mechanism a little bit. For me, for me.

Christina: Yeah. I think that totally makes sense.

Elise: I mean speaking more broadly because we’re not the first queer women to do this.

Christina: No.

Elise: It is a stereotype.

Drew: As much as I love just talking about us, speaking more broadly, is it as simple as queer people historically have been in places or even Queer people, historically, have been in places, or even still—Generally, there will be more straight people in your city than queer people. So there are less options. Is that where it’s coming from, or is there something else going on that is causing this to be a stereotype?

Christina: I don’t know. I mean I do think of it as scarcity seems dramatic. But I do think it does come from partly because of that. If you are in a community that you don’t know a ton of queer people or you’re just like, “I feel a little bit unmoored here. I’m just going to reach out to queer people writ large. Who cares where they are?” I do think that’s part of it. I don’t know. I feel like straight people are just like, oh, how did we decide to get married? He was right there, and that’s it.

Drew: That’s true.

Christina: It is so much for me a thing of like, oh, maybe we are just a little bit more interested in taking that time and taking that long, slow build and knowing that, no, this isn’t impossible even if we’re X miles apart. We can still make this happen. I don’t know. Maybe straight people are just allergic to working hard for their relationship sometimes.

Elise: But I also think that more straight people started doing the long distance or the meeting people in other cities during the pandemic. I have maybe a couple straight friends, my token straight friends, and-

Drew: Brave.

Christina: Brave.

Elise: … one of them was basically doing the exact same thing. I was like it is interesting that during the pandemic, I don’t know, I was like, wow, what a beautiful way to be an ally to the queer community, is you guys are doing long distance now, too. But I don’t know if there’s a correlation there somehow, but I do think it’s interesting that more straight people did turn to broadening their dating geography over the pandemic.

Drew: Good for them.

Elise: Good for them. Do you think there’s something to that, though? Do you think that that’s … Or maybe I just know one straight person who did this?

Drew: No, no, no, no, no. No, I think that’s completely accurate. I’m just thinking about it.

Christina: No, I absolutely agree. I think there was like, certainly in the beginning of 2021, absolutely a genre of TikTok that was going to meet X person for the first time and it was always stitched with lesbians who are like, “Baby welcome to the community. This is what we do. This is how we ball.”

Elise: Maybe people just aren’t as attached to remaining in the same city anymore, like rules just went out the wayside and they’re like, “Okay, I don’t need to find someone who … ” I don’t know.

Drew: I mean I definitely, even more than before, was flirt, it didn’t make a difference. If I wasn’t going to meet anyone in person, like at least-

Christina: If I’m not leaving my house

Drew:.. especially in the early, early months, it truly doesn’t matter. It is interesting because I do think for the two of us, it was … Like there are queer people in LA and people in Toronto, and we could have pandemic dated them. I do think for the two of us, it was more about our emotional walls that we had up. I often joked before … I don’t know, before the pandemic, that a lot of the dating … Or even during the pandemic, a lot of the dating I was doing, I was pursuing people who were unavailable. That was a way of having walls up, of being like, okay, this person is probably not someone who will date me. It maybe was a distance, but it was something else. I don’t know. Maybe their entire personality and brand is that they don’t date. So to then be like, oh, that’s who I’m going to try to date is that’s not a great move. I do feel like the distance allowed, in our relationship … Like that was the thing, and that’s something that can be overcome by travel. I mean especially in 2019, some of the people I was trying to date, it just was so messy and it was because the people who were messy and the people who weren’t kind and weren’t giving me much, there was no stakes the same way that maybe during the pandemic initially flirting with someone in Toronto felt like there were no stakes. Then we were gradually able to work towards a place where there actually were stakes. I could get over some of my commitment issues that were spurred on from my previous relationships. So I do think that it makes sense that scarcity is a factor for queer people. I also think that, yeah, sure, it can be that it’s a nice way to ease in. Look, a lot of people, though, especially … I mean we talk about this all the time, especially on the lesbian side of things, people can be really timid and really scared to make moves and whatever. I think probably the lowering of the stakes of someone being far away does help with that stuff, too. So I think that also is maybe a factor for a lot of people.

Christina: That was my gut reaction too, is that if you feel like those stakes are not as high, then it necessarily makes you feel like, oh, then my walls don’t have to be as high in correlation to that because what am I really risking here, having a light flirtation every couple of weeks or every couple of days, until you suddenly realize, wow, we’ve been doing this for a year. Maybe we should hop on a quick call.

Elise: Wow. Have you ever fallen for someone in a different city, Christina?

Christina: No. I’ve entertained crushes in different cities, but I’ve done a proper falling for. I …

Elise: I …

Christina: … couldn’t say.

Elise: Couldn’t be me.

Drew: I do feel like the times where you’ve been like, “I have a crush on someone,” they’ve usually been in another city.

Christina: Yeah, that is usually …

Elise: Interesting.

Christina: Again, it is those similar walls and it is similarly, well, at the end of the day, I’ll be over here and they’ll be somewhere else. That makes me feel a little less stressed. But, yeah, could I successfully move that to the gorgeous, beautiful thing that you two have built together?

Elise: God …

Drew: I think it could.

Christina: Maybe. Maybe.

Drew: The other thing is that sometimes the connection, there are similar situations not virtually. I know that when I travel … Like my best one night stands have been when I was traveling. It was because it truly was I felt a similar sort of the stakes are low. It doesn’t go well, I’m like, “Well, I’ve got to get back to LA,” or wherever I was living. There is something about even that where you don’t have-

Elise: You’re never going to run into this person at a Walgreen’s.

Drew: Yeah, you don’t have the build-up time that we’re talking about when you fall for someone in another city virtually, but you do have a similar lowering of the stakes where it’s like this isn’t real, I’m on vacation, or even if you’re on a work trip, like I’m just in another place and it feels … When I think of the nightstands I had in the same city as me, it’s not so much. But when I think about the one nightstands I had while traveling, those are such good memories and I’m just like, “What great people. Am I going to see them again? Probably not. Do I want to?”

Elise: What great people.

Christina: What great people.

Drew: I really have very fond feelings about a handful of people who I had that experience with.

Christina: I mean I think part of that is just being … When you’re on vacation brain, you’re just like, “Who am I?” I can be a different person because I’m on vacation or I’m not where I actually live. What are the repercussions to my actions?” and just vibe.

Elise:  Do you think too that there’s something about dating within your own city, you feel as though you’re attached to older versions of yourself in that city, too? If you’re looking outside of your current geographical location, there’s something a little more freeing about, I don’t know, not being attached to the past or not being attached to past versions of yourself.

Christina: I definitely think that would be part of it. I’ve never really thought about it in that way, though. That is interesting. But it makes a gut emotional sense, like I left her behind, old Christina. I don’t know her anymore.

Elise: Old Christina.

Christina: Who is she?

Drew: I also … In talking about this and thinking about our relationship, distance …

Elise: Makes the heart grow fonder. Is that where you’re going to say?

Drew: Well, no, there are opportunities for romance that … I mean, look, we’re raised on romantic movies, romantic books, whatever, that need conflict. So part of romance as a genre, generally, is conflict. And so, the conflict can be, “Oh, this person’s married. Oh, this person is a nightmare to me,” and those aren’t necessarily as fun as … I mean they can be fun in their own ways, but they’re not as capital R romantic as, oh, this person lives far away.

Elise: Justin Trudeau closed the border.

Christina: It’s the longing.

Drew: Yeah, or it’s the, oh, we only have one night before I have to get back on the plane. Those are both such great experiences of romance. If we had been dating early months, yeah, I could have gotten you a surprise gift or something, but that wouldn’t be as fun as sending you a book that I really loved with a little note in it.

Elise: That is true.

Drew: When you sent me … Elise makes these incredible collage cards. When you sent me the first one that you sent me, it was like … I feel like that … Recently we had some friends ask, “When did you know that you were in love?” and I didn’t really have a good answer. Now that I think about it, yes, we had to meet first before … Love is so many different things, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Elise: Sure, sure, sure.

Drew: But, yeah, I do think that when that happened, I had always been such romantic and I’d always been a romantic towards the people I was with. I was always doing gestures and I always got so much joy from that. But I don’t think I ever really was with someone else who was romantic in that way. There are lots of ways to be romantic, and it’s fine, whatever, but I was like, oh, it feels really good to have this returned. It feels really good to get a surprise card that’s beautiful and personal and …

Elise: It’s like a little snail mail.

Drew: Yeah. It’s like that shit is … I don’t know, I’m not proud of it, but sometimes you just want to be in a story that theoretically would end with one of us dying from tuberculosis. Those aren’t healthy tendencies necessarily, but a little bit just … I feel like mail is a great, safe, non-death-related thing that I could take from that genre.

Christina: If you can’t have consumption, you can have snail mail.

Drew: Exactly, exactly.

Christina: That’s a gorgeous way of thinking about it, I think, absolutely.

Elise: Oh, man. That first one that I sent you two, I think I had to resend it because the original, we thought, got lost, because it had been a month or two, because this was during the time when everything was slow down-

Christina: Post was slow.

Elise: Yeah, post was slow. But that was what it was like back in the old days, waiting for a letter. I don’t know. There’s something interesting, though, about the transition then between that and real life.

Drew: For sure.

Elise: Not to say that the other thing is not real life, but it reminds me of … I had this friend back in the day who was a singer on cruise ships, and she met her boyfriend there. They had this cruise ship relationship where they were both working. They both had all of their meals supplied for them. They both were traveling the world and off sailing the seas together and never really in one place for too long. They would always be in the honeymoon phase on the ship.Then as soon as they would dock and go back to their apartments, the relationship would always fall apart. They did this multiple times. I think there is something to be said of needing to also ground the long-distance posts or cross-country flirtation in a bit of reality too, so that it can grow into something and shift and change and evolve.

Drew: I think it really helped that our first in-person meeting, you were working a lot of that week. So I think we did go away and we did have a couple nights that were honestly pretty magical in nature and beautiful and just, “This is really good.” But then most of the rest of that trip, you were busy and there was a little bit of real life thrown in. I don’t think that was a bad thing. I think that was good for us after this long drawn out.

Christina: Well, I also think, as you guys mentioned before, talking about how are we going to share space together, doing logistics conversations like that before actually meeting in person was probably super helpful, because I think it is well, and good, and lovely, and romantic to just trust that our connection will get us through this. But if you are a person who does not want to be spoken to in the morning, you got to kind of holler at someone, and be like, just to be clear, I don’t want you to have to feel that you are driving me insane by doing this thing that I hate.

Elise: Especially when you have as many neuroses as me.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, I just love two logic brain girlies getting together and saying like, well, let’s sit down and talk through these logistics. Let’s be serious here.

Elise: When do you eat breakfast in the morning?

Drew: Oh, Elise has a Virgo rising.

Christina: Oh, yeah. That’s good stuff.

Elise: She’s a real present Virgo. Let’s just say that.

Christina: It’s a present sign. If it’s in there, it really pulls its weight I said. Do we have any other thoughts on long distance relationships, or not even relationships, the beginning falling for someone?

Elise: Falling for people in different cities.

Christina: Yes.

Drew: So catchy. I don’t know. I mean, I definitely recommend it.

Christina: Yeah. This is a very pro visiting episode for our listeners, I would say.

Elise: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christina: Hey, could be you. You guys could be a nepotism baby on another podcast somehow.

Elise: Wow. Fantastic.

Christina: That’s the dream.

Elise: I love being a nepotism baby.

Drew: I will say that something I’m also grateful for is, I don’t know if you know this, but at some point Elise and I are going to be very rich and famous both of us.

Christina: I’m counting on you guys for a beach house. Let’s be clear.

Drew: There you go. I do think that long distance in general, but long distance in the beginning also is very much determined by money because of being able to travel to each other and sending gifts and things like that. I do think that I’m glad we were at where we were at, where neither of us were so broke that we could never see each other. Going back to the reality thing, Elise has a roommate, who is honestly just the loveliest person and she’s great. There would be a different conversation if, oh, instead of going away to nature for two days at a small little cabin on whatever on the lake. Instead, it was like, oh, we’re going to go on this trip together and it’s going to be this thing. There could be a sort of unreality that I think would be harder to get over. Whereas there are more logistics when you have financial boundaries. And so I do think that I’m grateful for that and I do think it can be hard, and it was something I thought about. There definitely were times where I was flirting with people in the past before the pandemic where they lived far away.I mean, it’s one thing to rent a car and drive nine hours and take on that expense. You can’t rent a car in New York and then drop it off in Toronto. So I had to rent a car for a week. It was a financial investment.

Christina: It was.

Drew: I only was able to do that because we had been flirting on Instagram and Twitter for a year and then FaceTiming for an additional nine months or something, six months, nine months.

Elise: Five, five.

Drew: Five months? Okay, whatever.

Elise: Even five months seems wild.

Drew: Five months was so long. It felt like six years. So I was confident enough, whereas there had been people who I had had little flirtations with in the past where if I was rich, I would’ve taken a trip based on only the potential for vibes or whatever.

Christina: Potential for good vibes.

Drew: So that is something to say. Some people have less money than me and some people have more money than me, and that probably does impact how feasible some of this is.

Christina: Absolutely.

Drew: But if it takes you two years, you know can save some money to rent that car.

Christina: There you go. You got keep it. Got to keep it that whole time. Yeah. I think that’s a good final note to always consider, the Benjamins baby. Speaking of Benjamins, does anybody have a crush? What?

Drew: First I was just going to say, but now that we’re in a real relationship, now we can get rid, if the world wants to make us rich and famous.

Elise: Yeah, that would be great. That would be great. It would be great. If anyone else would like to make us nepotism babies.

Christina: I’m banking on YouTube, for real.

Elise: You’re invited to the beach house anytime, Christina.

Christina: Thank you.

Drew: We can do crushes. We could talk about some crushes.

Christina: Let’s talk about our little crushes. Drew, who’s your crush of the week?

Drew: My crush of the week is Jinkx Monsoon.

Christina: Smart.

Drew: I was lucky enough to interview Jinkx. That interview came out two days ago and it was one of those kind of dream interviews. It was really lovely. Jinkx is an incredible drag queen as she was just named Queen of All Queens by RuPaul’s Drag Race Allstars All Winners, but she also was the first drag performer I ever really saw. I definitely took some time in the piece to gush about Jinkx as a talented drag queen.

Drew: I didn’t do a lot of thirsting, one might say, because I try to be, what I’m looking for, professional when I’m in an interview.

Christina: Oh, heard of it.

Drew: But now I’ll also throw that in where I’m also have a huge crush on her and it was lovely to chat with her. Yeah. She’s just one of those queer figures in my life that’s just special, and I’m glad that I got to meet her over Zoom and I think we’re best friends now. I think that’s how an interview works.

Christina: Absolutely.

Drew: I think next time I’m in Portland or whatever, we’ll just hang out.

Christina: Give her a ring-a-ling.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Elise, go.

Elise: Me. Okay.

Christina: Yeah. Tell us your crush.

Elise: Well, we’ve been watching Queer As Folk, the reboot recently and I must say Johnny Sibilly. I think most of my crushes for most of my life have less been like this person has a crush and more like, I would like to be this person.

Drew: Gay classic.

Elise: Vintage, a gay classic.

Christina: Vintage.

Elise: Specifically his thighs. Am I allowed to say that?

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Thighs are great.

Elise: So that’s where I’m at and thank you for letting me share.

Drew: You want his thighs is what you’re saying.

Elise: Yes, yes. On me, but as me. As me, not on top. As my body, but as him.

Christina: Right. Scaled appropriately.

Elise: Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. That would be great. Yeah. Yeah. His style, all the earrings, everything just impeccable. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Christina: Yeah. My crush of the week, I had the thrill, the pleasure of introducing my dear roommate and friend Chrissy to the film Bend It Like Beckham for the first time. She’d never bent.

Elise: Wow.

Christina: Like Beckham or anyone really.

Elise: Wow.

Christina: I mean, obviously a classic, a movie I love. I hadn’t seen it in a while and I forgot just how delightful it was. Not only for the obvious gay energy, betwixt Parminder and Keira Knightley, but the family stuff is so beautifully realized and it is just a delightful time to watch a bunch of hotties play soccer and love their family and try to have it all.  Honestly, the early aughts filming of it all, there is a CGI Photoshop experience in the beginning that looks so bad. It’s one of my favorite thing that’s ever been committed to film, and it’s just a delightful, charming film and I was really glad to revisit it and really glad to watch someone just cry anew over the love of family and friendship.

Elise: Beautiful.

Drew: When you said this, I didn’t know that your crush was going to be the movie as a whole.

Christina: The movie as a whole.

Drew: I was trying to remember what mom is in that you would be crush. It’s definitely not either of the two girls.

Christina: Parminder, I have had a love for. I mean, she was also on ER, long standing love of my life. The television show ER, I do think she’s very beautiful and her hair looks incredible, but yeah, just like the film writ large is a banger, and if you can introduce it to somebody who’s never seen it, do so. It’s a damn delight.

Elise: I saw the musical Bend It Like Beckham once upon a time.

Christina: Wow.

Drew: There was a musical?

Elise: There sure was. Yeah.

Drew: Wow.

Elise: Was it good? Not particularly, but it’s definitely something to experience full body.

Christina: I bet. I bet.

Drew: Wow. Well Elise, thank you for being here with us.

Elise: Thank you for letting me sleep my way to the top. This has been an honor and a privilege.

Drew: Do you want to tell people where they can find you?

Elise: They can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Bauman, Elise. B-A-U-M-A-N, E-L-I-S-E. That was my last name immediately followed by my first name.

Christina: Keeping them on their toes.

Drew: Your first name was in the New York Times crossword today, which I now do every day because it’s the thing that started happening. And I was like, oh my God, it’s my girlfriend.

Elise: Hey.

Christina: Wow.

Elise: Love to be a clue. Not me specifically.

Drew: It was the name Elise.

Elise: We haven’t made it there yet. I’m not a nepotism baby to that level yet.

Christina: In my mind, it was about you.

Elise: Thank you.

Christina: Can’t tell that for me.

Drew: You should sleep with the guy who edits the crosswords.

Elise: That’s really how you make it.

Drew: Yeah.

Elise: Great.

Drew: Short. Something like that?

Christina: Will something with an S that is Short or Shorts.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Cool knowledge we have here.

Drew: I’m really ending the season with a bang.

Christina: Crosswords out.

Drew: This is the end of the season, but we will still be doing some fun mailbag episodes. So send in your questions if you’re an A plus member and we will release those randomly because it’s fun to do.

Christina: It’s fun to keep you on your toes. Don’t forget about us.

Drew: And you can also comment and tell us what guests you might want to see in future seasons because that could be a fun thing.

Christina: Who do you want to hear from and about what?

Drew: We’d love to hear from you. Yeah. Yeah. Great, solid, end of season. Very confident end of a season.

Christina: Drop the mic.

Drew: Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This A Date? You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Wait Is This A Date, and you can email us at WaitIsThisADate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein. Our logo is by Manya Dar and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok at Draw_Gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter at C_GraceT and on Instagram at Christina_GraceT, and you can find Autostraddle of course at Autostraddle.

Drew: And you can find Autostraddle at autostraddle.com. The reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Oh, actually, that’s really interesting that you asked that because scientists are at this very moment hurriedly trying to figure this out. We have some of our best scholars on the case here. We don’t have an answer, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew:I wish them and us the greatest luck.

Drew (Voice Memo): Being in love is so embarrassing. There’s like no way to talk about it, that isn’t like… [sighs] I guess there are worse things to be than embarrassing.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Episode 209: Bottoming with Chingy

Let’s make some noise for the bottoms in the house! (It’s me, the bottom in the house.) Bottom Culture has become quite a Thing™ Online as of late! But what does it really mean to be a bottom? Why has the culture decided bottoming is synonymous with being afraid to ask for what you want? And how does one go about deciding if they like bottoming?!

With all these questions rattling around our minds, demanding answers, Drew and I knew there was only one person we could go to for a rounded, passionate conversation about bottoming: The Gay Chingy AKA Chingy Nea, AKA The Bottom Supreme. Chingy is one of the best people I know writing and tweeting today, and as a bottom myself, I am honored to call her my leader. Chingy helps us tease out what it means to be a bottom, why she hates “smol bean” bottom culture, your body as hole, and your body as whole. It is a really beautiful conversation, if I do say so myself! Please know that I am aware that I say “gorgeous” approximately three thousand times this episode, and I am seeking help for my condition. (The condition is speaking like 57 year old white gay man.)

And! This week’s game involves me guessing if the complicated plots Drew describes belong to a movie or a dream she had circa 2006. It is hard!

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ Read Chingy’s Bottom Manifesto, follow her on Twitter and IG!

+Here is a list of all the films that Drew used in her game:

  • The Seventh Seal (1937)
  • Bringing Up Baby (1938)
  • Pierrot le Fou (1965)
  • Black Swan (2010)

+Watch Anna Faris do the best work of her career in Smiley Face!

+Let Shohreh Aghdashloo talk you to sleep while dressed as Chrisjen Avasarala from The Expanse because you deserve that.

+Cindy Wilson of The B52s is quite hot and frankly? “Love Shack” still whips!

+Robert Mitchum, stone cold fox.

EPISODE

Chingy: I’ve just been bottoming since I was, I don’t know, as far back as I can remember.

Drew: Cue Rags to Riches from Goodfellas.

Chingy: As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a bottom, no, but kind of

[intro plays]

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: I’m Christina.

Drew: Welcome to Wait, Is This a Date?

Christina: Wait, Is This a Date? is an Autostraddle podcast dedicated to the one, the only the biggest question of our times: Wait, Is This a Date?

Drew: And, wow, I really just froze up there.

Christina: I was like, oh shit, I was supposed to say something! [laughs]

Drew: I’m really quick to the banter, my brain just… The truth is that I was reading over my game notes, which we’re not at yet because we still have to introduce ourselves. So, I’m going to try to stay focused on one task at a time.

Christina: Focus up!

Drew: My name is Drew Gregory, I am a writer for Autostraddle, and a filmmaker, and a trans woman.

Christina: Hi, my name is Christina Tucker, forgot my last name for a hot minute, no big deal. I am also a writer at Autostraddle and other places on the internet, a podcaster, a gay black woman. That’s kind of it, dog, that’s me.

Drew: I love it. Okay, now we-

Christina: Now the game.

Drew: Can we play the game?

Christina: Can we get to the game? I can tell you’re excited, I can tell you’re just vibrating.

Drew: So, I’ve been keeping a dream journal since 2007, and the premise of this game is-

Christina: I did not know this about you!

Drew: Yes, it’s not as up to date now, I used to write down all my dreams and now it’s only when something really sticks. But, the premise of this game is, am I describing the plot of a dream I had when I was an adolescent, or am I describing the plot of a movie that I loved when I was an adolescent?

Christina: Oh boy, okay.

Drew: So, the way it will go is I’ll always describe it as a dream and in the first person. So, if it was Star Wars, I’d be like, I’m in space and I’m fighting as part of a rebellion, and there’s an evil  guy who’s wearing a black robot suit and it turns out he’s my father. That’s how I’ll describe it, the way we describe dreams, but sometimes it will be a dream, sometimes it’ll be from a movie. Ready?

Christina: I’m something, I don’t know that I’m ready, but let’s rock. Let’s see what I can do here.

Drew: Okay, I’m on a beach and I see this weird man dressed in black. He tells me that he’s Death and we can play a game to decide if I live or if he takes me. I manage to escape, but everywhere I go, people are sick and I feel like Death is still following me.The only happy part is when I meet a theater troupe and they’re a lot of fun.

Christina: This,I think, is a dream.

Drew: This would be Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal from 1957.

Christina: This is going to be a real gotcha on CT’s classic movie knowledge, because what I know that Drew, in your adolescence, was not doing was watching movies that I’m going to recognize. At this point, I’m kind of hoping that I’ve seen none of them. I think that’ll be more fun for me.

Drew: The second one, I’m meeting with my family and some Italian American gangsters. One of the gangsters demands that I give over some money, but my family and I managed to escape. We run away through all this snowy terrain, on the road I meet an actress and connect with her. We end up in a suburb. I think we’re going to start a new life together until she takes me to a big mansion, and I realize it belongs to the gangster. It was all a trap, the gangster arrives and there’s a confrontation. I kill him, the dream ends with the actress performing a musical number.

Christina: Is this a film?

Drew: This would be a dream I had in 2008.

Christina: Okay, wow. Boy, yeah, I guess I have to remember that it’s 2000, it’s old school Drew brain. That’s what I have to remember.

Drew: Also like, what movies was I watching at the time and how much did that impact my dreams?

Christina: Well, yeah, clearly quite a lot!

Drew: A fun fact is that I was actually, I didn’t include this because I thought this would give it away, but the gangster was Tony Soprano because I was watching The Sopranos in 2008. So, that’s a fun little fact. Okay, next one, I have an important assignment, but this hot girl shows up and starts distracting me. I want to be with her, but I also really need to get my work done, so I tell her to leave. She keeps following me. All of a sudden, a leopard appears in my room and I have to spend the rest of the dream trying to catch the leopard. I’m still really anxious, I never finish my work, but at least the girl is hot.

Christina: This has to be a dream of yours, this has to be a Drew dream.

Drew: This is Howard Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby from 1938.

Christina: No, but that’s a dream of yours, that is the most Drew dream I’ve ever heard. Now at this point, I’m just going to be rewriting movie history, to suit my whims.

Drew: Great, I love that. Okay, I’m at a party and I don’t really like anyone there. Finally, I see this girl, I used to have a crush on and we decide to leave together. We go to her house, but are chased off by this group of men who are trying to kill the girl. We end up on a beach and it seems like we’re going to be okay until the men find us. She ends up being into this other guy, so I take cartoonish dynamite and decide to blow myself up

Christina: Movie.

Drew: This is! This is Jean Luc Goddard’s Pierrot le Fou, from 1965.

Christina: Have not seen, but that sounds like a ding dang movie to me.

Drew: Great, I love it. There’s a narration describing an odd boat like structure that’s impossible to destroy. I’m going on a retreat near the structure, the retreat is sort of theater related, sort of religious. I have a crush on this girl at the retreat, but she has a boyfriend. Amid the performances and rituals, there’s a lot of drama between me and this girl and her boyfriend, it ends with me alone. There has been a sequence revealing that the boat structure is impossible to destroy because a mechanical arm fixes it in the night.

Christina: That could be anything in so many ways, I’m going to say movie again, why not?

Drew: It is a dream from 2011, that did have narration from someone else, you know, it happens!

Christina: This is really good promo to have a dream journal, because I feel like it would be fun if I could remember my dreams in this manner.

Drew: Nobody really likes when you describe your dreams to them. I do though, and I’m your friend, so if you want to write down your dreams and tell me, I would love to hear about them.

Christina: Okay, that’s really nice to hear.

Drew: I have two more.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: I’m in a beautiful garden with a group of friends, we all seem to be waking up from being drugged. We’re forced to shower in an acid that drains pigment and we end up being blonde and blue-eyed. The people in charge start training us to kill, it turns out this place is being run by a crazy dictator, I resist getting totally brainwashed. There’s this girl there I have a crush on and I convince her to escape with me, while escaping I get shot and killed, but the girl gets away. When she leaves the prison, she realizes we’re in the middle of a forest so there’s nowhere to go.

Christina: Movie.

Drew: That would be the first dream in my dream journal from, I said, “2007.” It’s actually 2006.

Christina: Wow.

Drew: I always thought it was interesting that I die in the dream, but the other person continues on. But now, there’s some weird gender stuff going on there, and I’m going to have to think about that one for a while.

Christina: Definitely do that.

Drew: Okay, I have one more.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: I’ve been given the chance to be a ballerina, my mom insists I won’t be able to do it. There’s this other girl in the show who I think is hot, but I’m worried she’s going to replace me. I’m struggling in rehearsal, but end up leaving with the girl, we hook up. It’s really hot, but I feel myself losing control, we go back to the dance show. My body seems to be morphing into something else, I’m worried that I’m going to mess up.

Christina: This is a movie.

Drew: So, Black Swan.

Christina: Yes, that is Black Swan, certainly.

Drew: Have you seen Black Swan? That was one I thought you’ve seen.

Christina: I have seen Black Swan, I… Fun fact, I went on a date with a man to see Black Swan.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: Just straight things I did.

Drew: What was that like?

Christina: Weird, it was weird.

Drew: Did you like the movie? Did he like the movie?

Christina: I think, I had already seen it, I think I was like, “Let’s go see it again.” I think, I was very pro Black Swan, and for straight heterosexual reasons, certainly.

Drew: Sure, okay.

Christina: And, he was like, “That was weird.” And I was like, “Oh well, we’re not going to continue to date.”

Drew: Wow, well I wish him the best, I hope he’s somewhere doing well. Thank you for playing this game with me.

Christina: Wow, I’m so glad I went two for however many we did on that.

Drew: Not terrible.

Christina: Not terrible.

Drew: You did better than Elise did when I wanted to see if this was a functional game that could work, and she was my guinea pig. So, she only got one right.

Christina: Fair enough.

Drew: Should we move on to our main topic of the week?

Christina: Let’s get into it, let’s get this special guest in.

Drew: Well, I want to first say that our main topic of the week is bottoming, so we could only have one very special guest.

Christina: It’s only one person.

Drew: Can you please introduce yourself?

Chingy: Hi, I’m Chingy Nea, otherwise known as The Gay Chingy. I am a Writer, Filmmaker, and gasian leather dyke muppet. I am also America’s number one bottom.

Christina: Yes, I think when we were discussing topics and we’re like, “We could talk about bottoming and there’s literally only one person we could have on the pod to do so, there’s only one person who is quite literally the Supreme.”

Chingy: Thank you for recognizing, it feels good to have your greatness recognized, thank you

Christina: Yes, and you’ve done great work, and here we are recognizing it.

Drew: I want to know when you feel like you became America’s greatest bottom. When was that a word and a label and an identity that you really held onto?

Chingy: Well, so I usually just say, “I’m The Bottom Supreme.” Because, who cares about America?

Drew: Sure.

Christina: Fair enough.

Chingy: Yeah, I think that I always was really good at bottoming, but then in 2017 or something, I went to a play party that was just for fem top sadists beating me up for six to seven hours straight, and it was only me, and I was like, “Oh, I’m the best that’s ever been.” And then, I think from there, I just kept escalating and being, wow, I’m so fun to watch. Wow, I’m so entertaining as a bottom, this is wow, everybody who gets to top me is so lucky. And, it just went from there, I think, and then I wrote an article called I’m A Much Better Bottom Than You. Here’s Why. It was kind of a manifesto, it was a bottom manifesto.

Christina: Yes, can confirm.

Chingy: And, many people have told me, “It’s changed how they look at sex.” And, I like that a lot. It’s the one article on my website that I’ve written there. I’ve written at Vice, Teen Vogue, Vulture— Autostraddle was the first place I wrote, actually. But yeah, that is the one blog on my website, if you want to check it out.

Christina: I love a strong brand, I love knowing a brand, and I think that’s really gorgeous, just, brand management of your own bottomy yourself. I think, that’s really beautiful to see.

Chingy: Thank you, I got my first writing opportunity at Autostraddle because I was writing about being a bottom, and being poly, and being really deep into being a leather dyke. And since then, I’ve started to write about a bunch of other things, but being bottom supreme just kind of is the one through line of it all.

Christina: Yes.

Drew: I also feel like you’re a very active bottom and also in the way that you write about, and talk about, and I presume experience bottoming that you’re very active. Whereas, I think there’s a lot of the queer community, maybe, especially the lesbian community, that maybe thinks of bottoming as… I don’t know-

Chingy: Passivity.

Christina: Mm-hmm (Affirmative).

Drew: Yeah.

Chingy: Yeah, I often say that there’s a lot less bottoms than people think are bottoms. I think there’s a difference between being a bottom and just not knowing or asking for what you want. I think those are two entirely different things that people conflate.

Christina: I would have to agree, I also think the way that you talk about bottoming is, I mean, let’s just say it, so much less annoying than the way so many people talk about being a bottom or identify with bottom culture. Because, I do feel that what a lot of people are saying explicitly or non explicitly is just, I am lazy and do not care to do any sort of action, activity, et-cetera, I would like things done to me. And, if I have to seek that out in any way, that hurts my feelings. And, you are so good and so powerful at being, these are the things that I want, bring them to me and I will rock your world. That is gorgeous to me.

Chingy: Thank you, I mean, that’s what you have to do to be good at just something, you have to put yourself out there and try and make mistakes and get hurt a little bit, and, I don’t know, learn from it.

Christina: I think that’s a good message, frankly.

Chingy: I’ve just been bottoming since I was, I don’t know, as far back as I can remember. [laughs]

Drew: Cue “Rags to Riches” from Goodfellas.

Chingy: Yeah, as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a bottom. No, but kind of, when I was 13 or 14, I was already looking at BDSM websites and lesbian BDSM websites. So, I wasn’t under any delusions about what I was about, I was having girls I dated in high school choke me out, I knew what I wanted. And so, that level of awareness has just given me a long time to know what I want and figure out how to get it.

Christina: Gorgeous, Drew, give me your feelings on bottoming.

Drew: Well, I’m actually really excited to talk about this because I feel like in 2019 when I was on my, I’m single and queer for the first time, I need to figure out who I am and what I want. I wrote an essay for Autostraddle about trying to figure out if I was a bottom and just really wanting to be told what to do, and not knowing what I wanted. That actually includes an anecdote that I’m still not embarrassed by the inclusion of it in the piece, but I’m still not… I don’t know, basically Chingy set me up on a date, and I think it’s the one interaction that I can think of in my dating history where I just feel like I was exhausting because I was so unsure of what I wanted, and who I was. And, the person was so generous and so kind, and I just didn’t know what to do.

And then, I was embarrassed and so just never really talked to them again. I’m usually on the other side of that, because for a long time I was topping and I did have a lot of interactions with people who didn’t really know what they wanted, and I provided a lot of emotional space to help them discover their queerness, and their relationship to their bodies, and that’s fine. And, some of those experiences were better than others, but I do notice how kind of… I don’t know, it’s not necessarily what you want when you’re trying to fuck. So, I feel a little bit away about it, but I think I had to learn that it wasn’t about someone else telling me what I wanted and that I had to really take the time and have the experiences to discover what it was I wanted for myself.

And, I don’t know what I identify as top, bottom, switch wise, but I do know that I am now bottoming in ways that I never did and never really thought I would, or at least never thought I would until I had bottom surgery. And then I was like, oh, and then I think I’ll feel better about it and that did not need to happen. And, I have learned to appreciate the things that my current body can do. And, I don’t know, it’s really exciting to have sex now where I am seeking my own pleasure. And then as a result, I think, being better at giving pleasure, because I’m more in touch with myself.

Christina: Yeah, I feel like I remember when we started becoming friends and I was like, “Oh, I’m a bottom.” And you were like, “Oh well, here’s my feelings about bottoming, here are my feelings about being a top, here are my feelings about being a switch.” And I was like, “Wow, that is so many feelings to have about any topic.” Of course, as we grew in our friendship, I said, “Well, baby, that’s just Drew, Drew just got feelings and ways to think about them.” And, that’s gorgeous.

Drew: But, it’s something you have to learn from doing, from fucking. You can’t study your way to figuring out… I mean, not that it can’t be an important part of the process to think, and to learn, and to do solo research, and I certainly was sticking things up my ass by myself during that year, but there is just something to be said about having more sex.

Christina: Wow, you said it first.

Chingy: Drew, I’m slightly remembering this was… Was it one of my exes?

Drew: It was, yeah.

Chingy: That’s what I thought, okay, I know who it is, all right.

Christina: Wow, and the brand keeps on branding, this is beautiful,

Chingy: But yeah, I think a lot of people do think it is someone telling you what you want and that’s not how it works. Even in power play and BDSM bottoming, you have to have your own framework of knowledge of what it is you need and want, otherwise it’s not going to be a healthy dynamic or relationship, or it’s not going to be beneficial for anyone. No, one’s going to get what they want if one person doesn’t know what they want, and the way to learn that is to fuck around a lot.

Drew: What about you Christina, what’s your relationship to being a bottom?

Christina: You know that I just am one, it was one of all the things that I was very stressed out about around coming out and coming to terms of the fact that, baby, you’re just a dyke, it’s not that deep. You don’t have to be this stressed out, you are just gay. The one thing that I was like, oh, naturally I am a bottom. That was always just very much a part of it, I did not feel any way about identifying that way or feeling stressed out about it. I was just like, yeah, no, I am a person who is constantly very rigid and has a lot of things that I would like to be done in the exact way that I would like them to be done. And in this space, it is very relaxing for me to not have to worry about that at all, because I just need a break sometimes! Truly a girl just needs to let go every once in a while. And, the best way that I have found for me to do that is for someone to be like, bitch, let go.

Chingy: Yeah, exactly, I personally can be kind of a control freak sometimes in my life, and I’m like, oh, I need everything to be this exact way. But then, when I’m submitting or bottoming, I can just be, okay, I don’t really have any control over this situation because I’ve chosen to give that over and I’m just going to do what I’m told and have what’s done to me, done to me. And, if I need it to stop, it can stop, but I’m not going to stop it.

Christina: It’s nice, I don’t have to have a thought in my head at this moment.

Chingy: Exactly.

Christina: I don’t have to think about what’s coming next for one time in my life, because I truly wake up every day and I’m like, all right, what are the things you’re thinking about today? What are the things that need to be done? It’s very exhausting to be in my own brain, and it’s a nice way for me to take a break from my own brain.

Chingy: And, I think that’s really a gift that tops give, and I feel like not enough people appreciate that. Some people just think of tops as experienced machines and just someone who will give you this exciting, kinky, or sexual experience you want. But also, they require aftercare or appreciation for what they’re doing. It’s a lot to run something, which is why we don’t want to do it when we’re in the-

Christina: That’s why we want a goddamn break.

Chingy: Exactly, people talk a lot about a top shortage, and I don’t think there is one. I think, because people think there’s a shortage of tops, they see tops when they can find them as a means to an end and don’t appreciate them as full people. I don’t know, I have a whole thing about how bottoms objectify tops in a way that isn’t sexy.

Christina: I love this, the personhood of tops, we need to be respecting it, we need to be seeing it, we need to raise it to the heavens and say, thank you, thank you for this experience.

Chingy: Yeah, tops rule, I love tops. I couldn’t be a bottom without my tops, my tops couldn’t be bottoms without me, or whatever the other way. You know what I mean?

Christina: I do know what you mean, but I do love that your bottom supremacy just said everyone is bottoms, it’s all I can say.

Chingy: Yeah, I’m an alpha bottom, it’s interesting because as I am getting older, I’m finding myself able to submit for less and less people, but bottoming I can always do. And, also one time, the other day, someone called me a switch and anytime someone calls me a switch, it pisses me off. It makes me so angry, there is one solid part of who I am and it is that I am a bottom. And they’re like, “But, you fist people.” And I’m like, “So what?” You can bottom from fisting people, my hand is literally being devoured, I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know.

Christina: I do love the idea of being, how dare you call me that slur?

Chingy: That slur, yeah.

Christina: A switch? How could you? [laughs]

Drew: I do think it’s interesting to sort of separate these identities in ways of fucking from specific sexual acts. And, I think that’s something that maybe is more acceptable in lesbian spaces than in gay male spaces.

Chingy: I think, totally.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: It can mean very different things, I think that was also something that I was struggling with when I was first trying to figure this out was, well, if I’m getting fucked, then I know what that would be. But if I’m not, then what does that mean? That means that I’m topping? I’m also not fucking anyone with my dick, so I don’t know, I think I was really trying to figure that out. And, as I’ve just had more sex and had a wider variety of experiences, I do feel like, oh, it’s been more energetic. I mean, not to say that I also haven’t started getting fucked, and started fucking, because I got a strap on and was like, even though I have a dick, I can get a dick that I actually enjoy using.

So, I think it’s interesting to think about the fact that I was able to start bottoming fully once I actually started topping, as opposed to… I feel like my sex life in 2019 was very, the chaos of it, the drama of it, and the experience of just bodies was what sex was, as opposed to really about pleasure, or about acts, or about orgasm. And, not that that’s not okay, and queer sex can be so many different things. But, I do think that some of me being, queer sex can be so many different things, was in part because I wasn’t really having the full amounts of the kind of sex that I wanted to be having, or wanted to be having and didn’t even realize I wanted to be having.

Christina: I think, experience is at the end of the day, the one thing that is always going to help you figure out how you fit in or how you identify without having those kinds of experiences and putting yourself in new and fun situations. It’s kind of, this is all going to be very theoretical until the thing happens, my guy, sometimes you just got to go for it.

Chingy: Yeah, I mean, for me, my genitals are cool, holes are cool, orgasms are cool, but for me coming from a background where I was always engaged in SM, and DS, and all that, bottoming just naturally. I think, this is true for also leather men, I think it’s just true for leather people, in generally, is that when you are doing BDSM or engaging in fetish, there’s just this decentralization of genitals as part of the sexual experience. And, it’s just about ideas, feelings, and concepts, and your body as a whole, which is your body as a hole and your body as a whole.

Christina: Ayooo!

Chingy: So, when I describe myself as a whole, I am energetically a hole, I am a black hole, I’m the black hole from High Life. Just pulling in all this horny energy, and there’s cum in High Life, but there’s also other things in High Life.

Drew: Right.

Christina: I think, something that’s so beautiful about queer sex is, it is sex and that is cool, but it’s also a theoretical framework and everybody should really get into that. I think, a little bit of thinking never goes wrong.

Chingy: Thinking in the right place can be real sexy.

Christina: Yeah, thinking in the wrong place, like, online? Online is a bad place to think, don’t think online, don’t do that.

Chingy: [laughs]

Drew: Thinking with another person. I mean, it’s interesting to think back to the experience I was talking about earlier. I do think that it circles back to two things we were talking about, one in which I was being, “This person’s a top, they’re going to take care of it, and I don’t have to bring anything to the table here, and that was one thing.” And, the other was that I jumped into it too quickly, I wasn’t at a place where I think if I had gotten to know the person better, maybe it would’ve worked better, and I wanted to be sluttier and more just, oh, I don’t care if I know someone and I can just do whatever.

But, I also think there’s a difference between having casual sex and doing things that are totally new to you. And, maybe this is starting to shift, but I still think that in casual sex I’ll be more of a top still.  And, in my relationship and in sex with people where I have a connection to them. And, it’s really just a trust, and that could happen with someone quicker, it doesn’t have to be, oh, we’re in a relationship. But, just having that trust and building that trust before trying new things or doing things that feel vulnerable. It now makes so much sense and seems so obvious, but at the time I was, why isn’t my desire to learn how to bottom working as I am trying it out with people who I don’t actually know as people.

Chingy: I mean, bottoming is just, I don’t want to say inherently, but it’s a lot more vulnerable than topping is a lot of the time, or just not even just topping, but just fucking someone else. It’s easy to just get someone else off when you don’t have to worry about where your mind is or where you can just do the motion. And theoretically, you can do that with bottoming too, but if you are trying to be really slutty and energetically open, that takes trust. And, if you’re willing to give that trust to someone new, it can be complicated. I mean, whenever I’m having sex with someone for the first time, I usually can’t cum if I’m bottoming for them, it just takes forever because I’m just, I don’t know you that well, and I’m not super comfortable, but I’m having fun and I don’t really care about cumming. It doesn’t matter, it’s not about the destination, it is very much about just the entire experience, I think.

Christina: I wonder about how much of actual bottoming and actual sex that we are having, or not to brag, that would be me. But, this also this cultural space we’re in where everybody’s culturally identifying as a bottom, which I get and understand and love. But sometimes I’m like, but what do you mean? You’re making a meme, so what do you mean in this context about using the term bottom here? What is this doing for anybody?

Chingy: I really hate the way people talk about being a bottom as being, oh, I’m shy and timid and all this. And, for such a long time, and often, sometimes still people would mistake me for a top or want me to top them because I’m very confident and loud. And, I have a certain type of bombastic charisma to me that I can recognize. And, I get that makes people be, oh, she’s in control of the situation, she’s powerful. And, I’m, yeah, but I also, I’m powerful in the fact that I want to be a hole and am a whole, and I’m going to do that. I’m not going to top you for free, no.

Christina: Absolutely not.

Chingy: And, I just hate this conflation of bottoming with timidity and being a small Bean, I hate it.

Christina: I was going to say, we are really edging closer to tender queer, small Bean territory here. I think that is the thing that I’m reacting against, right? It is that kind of small, white, queer energy that I’m, oh, I’m good, I’m all set on that one. I don’t need that energy in my life, but I am a bottom, I just don’t need that energy. Maybe that’s just it.

Chingy: Yeah, I don’t go for that energy, I’m just… I don’t know, anytime someone conflates bottoming with weakness, or timidity, or uncertainty, I’m just red flag. No, absolutely not.

Christina: I want to know if you, for our listeners, what are your three rules of bottoming that you swear by? What are some ways we can make our listeners better at bottoming and less small Bean energy? How can we help the people?

Chingy: So, I would say if there are three it’s awareness, communication, appreciation. So, be aware of what you need, be aware of what you can do, be aware of what you can’t do. Be able to know your limits and know what you want, and that involves exploration. Even if you don’t know entirely what you want, as long as you communicate where you are with it. I feel like people get scared to communicate because communicating is vulnerable in certain situations. You’re just being like: here’s what’s going on with me, and it’s, well, you shouldn’t be having intimate relations with other people if you aren’t willing to communicate where you’re at. So, I think that communication and letting someone know what you want and what you need is really important.

I don’t know, people think tops are mind readers, bottoms think tops are mind readers and they’re not. Then, like I was saying before, “Appreciation.” Recognize the person you are bottoming for is not just a fucking machine, unless you’re bottoming for a fucking machine. But, a person with needs, and insecurities, and feelings, and just know why you want to be doing this with them. And, it doesn’t have to be a super cerebral experience, but just be aware. I don’t know, I feel like those checklists that certain kinky people have are a good starting point for a lot of people. Yes, no, maybe, what are you into? Communication is hard at first, but just learn how to speak to what you want and go for it.

Christina: That’s gorgeous.

Chingy: Ask for what you want, because no one’s going to give it to you if you don’t ask for what you want. What I say is: closed holes don’t get filled.

Christina: Wow, put that on a fucking billboard somewhere because it deserves to be seen by many, many, and all.

Drew: I would follow that up by asking… And, maybe because both of you had such a clear sense of self from early on, maybe you don’t have advice for this. But, for people listening to that and are like, but I don’t know what I want. Do either of you have thoughts on what exploration can look like in a way that’s respectful and clear, but-

Chingy: Yeah, telling the other person that you don’t know entirely what you want, that’s the thing, even if you aren’t totally aware of what you want, you can be aware of how aware you are. And, tell the person, this is where I am, I’m not really sure if I’m into this, but I’m willing to try it, that’s maybe. I don’t know, you can just feel it out and if it doesn’t feel good, be, I actually don’t want to do that, can we do something else?

Christina: Yeah, I mean, as ever the way the Wait, is This A Date motto is, you got to say what you want, you got to say it out loud with your mouth hole.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: That’s the moment.

Drew: And, I do think that, just thinking of my own experiences, it is really hard to ask for something and then retract it. And that, I think is also so important though, is knowing that’s an option and that you can try things. And, I think there’s also this pressure that sex always has to be great, you want to be great at sex, and you want the other person to have a good experience and to feel like you had a good experience. And, while that makes sense and while yeah, sure that’s the ideal, it also makes sense that if you’re still exploring things, maybe every time you fuck it’s not going to be incredible for you and maybe, especially, not incredible for the other person. And especially, if it’s someone who you want to go on to continue fucking. Being able to be this isn’t working for me or that didn’t work for me, and talking about it. And, if you don’t know what you want, then it honestly shouldn’t bruise the other person’s ego because you didn’t communicate what you wanted, or you did and it turned out to not be the thing you wanted. And, how were they supposed to know that? And, you are exploring and it’s part of it, and maybe that instance of fucking wasn’t the best, but you know what? You can then do it again, sometimes right away.

Chingy: It’s not always going to be tens across the board, sometimes it’s just exploration, you just need to feel things out. And, it’s not always going to be perfect, you’re right, but try and have an open, communicative experience even if it’s not perfectly blissful and orgasmic.

Christina: Wow, that’s gorgeous, I feel like that really puts a nice little button on this combo. My friends, my gorgeous, smart friends.

Drew: Should we do crush corner?

Christina: We should do crush corner, who can say why I sing things when I sing them.

Drew: Do you want to start us off, Christina?

Christina: Yeah, I can start us off. I have been bravely consuming almost no media in this time. Not really sure what’s going on with me, I haven’t been watching stuff, who am I? I’m just kind of vibing out here in the world. So, I think for today, my crush is just going to be a long standing crush of mine and it’s going to be Shohreh Aghdashloo. She’s currently the lock screen on my phone, she’s got a voice that sounds like gravel poured over honey, I think it’s incredible. And, I just hope she’s having a nice time, I don’t know what she’s up to right now. She’s probably going to be in some other Sci-Fi series, that seems to be her thing right now. I say, go off girl, and she’s a Taurus, so same, same girl! Game recognized game over here. But, that’s going on with me. What’s going on with you, Drew?

Drew: I finally watched Smiley Face, and so my-

Chingy: Yes!

Drew: I know, I was waiting for that reaction.

Chingy: Gregg Araki is my favorite filmmaker, and I think it’s an underrated hit of his.

Christina: Fist pumping.

Drew: I don’t know why it took me so long, but I also hadn’t seen Mysterious Skin until this year. That one, I knew why it was taking me a long time to watch, but-

Chingy: Yeah, that one’s harder to watch than a stoner comedy with Anna Ferris.

Drew: But, they are two of my favorite movies I’ve seen all year, I love both of them so much. And, Anna Ferris is so… She’s my crush of the week because she’s incredible, it’s an incredible performance. I mean, I was obviously super high while watching it and it was one of the most delightful experiences I’ve had watching anything in a long while. And, a reminder, I’ve watched like 20 Paul Newman movies multiple weeks, so I’ve had a lot of great viewing experiences. But, it was so great, and she’s so great. And, I’ve always thought she was great, I was obsessed with the Scary Movie movies back in the day.

Chingy:I think it’s her peak.

Drew: Most of the time I watch her stuff and I go, oh, I wish this was a better movie for her, this was a movie worthy of her. And, this is the first time… I think it’s the first time that I’ve watched something where I’ve been, this is worthy of her and she’s doing her best work. So, Anna Ferris is my crush of the week, and Smiley Face is a recommendation.

Christina: Gorgeous.

Chingy: Yeah, it’s a stoner comedy, but it feels more like a shrooms comedy because you just eat so many edibles. And, I watched it on shrooms in Palm Spring with a bunch of fems once and it was beautiful.

Drew: That’s beautiful.

Christina: Yeah, that’s a gorgeous little picture you just painted with your words there.

Chingy: We were by a pool, it was an outdoor TV, it was really lovely.

Christina: It got better.

Chingy: Yeah, my crush of the week. I mean, I have so many crushes in real life. Can I have two?

Drew: Absolutely.

Christina: Yeah, no rules.

Chingy: Okay, so aside from my partners and my booze and all that, crushes are Cindy Wilson from the B-52’s. She’s the one who’s not the redhead, I don’t know, I just love her beehives and her fashion. And, it sucks that she’s the only one in the band who’s not gay and I’m just like, damn. Even Kate Pearson is, I think she’s dating a Butch. And then, it’s weird for me to pick a dude as one of my crushes, but Robert Mitchum for sure. Star of… I’m only thinking of movies where he plays a piece of shit, let me think of… He’s the star of Holiday Affair, Out of the Past, he was such a great noir actor. And, he’s just got a great voice and very strong character to his face that some people are like, “He looks like a toad.” And I’m like, “No, he doesn’t.” I don’t know, his face does look a little smashed, but it’s classic handsome.

Christina: Character face.

Chingy: Yeah, he’s got a lot of character, and I’ve just been watching a lot of Robert Mitchum movies. I think most recently I watched Holiday Affair, which stars him and Janet Leigh. Is it Janet Leigh or Janet Leigh?

Drew: Leigh.

Chingy: I think the one from Psycho. Okay, yeah.

Christina: I think it’s Leigh.

Chingy: Yeah, it’s her and him, and she’s a war widow, and has this boyfriend, and then he just shows up and is… It’s like straight Carol, except I think I like it more than Carol. Because he works at a toy store, they meet at a toy store.

Christina: Well, and there it is.

Chingy: And then, she has this guy who wants to marry her, it’s the detective from Rear Window. He shows up and is just way more charming, and he is just like, I think you should marry me, actually, and points were made, she should marry him.

Drew: Wow, I love it. I really-

Christina: I love game.

Drew: I love following you on Letterboxd, because I feel like you, one, I like your taste and what you have to say about movies, but also I feel like you do what I do, which is get very obsessive about one actor or one filmmaker, and are just watching a bunch of stuff. And, that’s very much me.

Christina: The two of you are very fun to follow because I’m like, oh what are Drew and Chingy into right now? And, it’s just this gorgeous list of things. I’m like, oh I know where they are.

Drew: Wow, well thank you so much for being here, and do you want to tell people where they can find you and your work and your manifesto?

Chingy: Yeah, so my manifesto is at chingynea.com, but yeah, I’m on Twitter, and Instagram, and all that as The Gay Chingy, like the rapper, but gay]

Christina: Gay.

Chingy: I just sold my first feature, which I’m also going to direct, but that’s not for a couple years. So, more updates on that will be from my Twitter and other things. And, I write for a bunch of publications, no specific that I call a home right now, just freelancing. But yeah, follow me on Twitter for updates about it.

Drew: Amazing, thanks.

Christina: Just follow Chingy on Twitter for fun, also just for a damn good time.

Chingy: I shit post a lot, I’m just goofing most of the time. I know I should be more professional on there, but I’m just goofing and flirting with sluts there.

Christina: I think the time for a professional Twitter has passed, I think we’re all past it emotionally.

Drew: I have a funny anecdote to end this and also to encourage people to always listen past the outro, whatever, is that when we met, I didn’t follow you on social media and I just knew you from around LA, queer spaces. And then, at Acamp, I hit on you and was like, “Do you want to hook up?” And, you were like, “I think, I want to be friends.” And then, after a camp I followed you on Twitter, and I was like, I would not have been able to do anything for you sexually. I was like, oh, okay, well now-

Chingy: Yeah, I kind of only date dominatrices, it’s a thing. Yeah, totally.

Drew: I love that for you.

Christina: Wow, I love that for both of you, frankly.

Chingy: I feel like my Twitter is a good way to get to know my taste, and I call Twitter my dating app, that’s the main thing I use to find dates. And, it’s because I’m just very clear about what I’m about on there.

Drew: That’s perfect.

Christina: Clarity and communication, always.

Drew: And, I do think that an important part of this podcast is that the majority of our guests are people who have either rejected me, or who I’ve rejected, mostly have rejected me. And then, we’re all still friends and that’s to encourage all of the little timid queers to be more forward, and that’s our message. It’s the queer way. Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This A Date? You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at WaitIsThisADate. And you can email us at waitesthisadate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein, our logo is by Manya Dar, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at Draw_Gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter at C_ GraceT, and on Instagram at Christina_ GraceT. And, you can find Autostraddle of course at Autostraddle.

Drew: And, you can find autostraddle @autostraddle.com, the reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Oh, actually, that’s really interesting that you asked that because scientists are at this very moment, hurriedly trying to figure this out. We have some of our best scholars on the case here. We don’t have an answer, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew: I wish them and us the greatest luck.

Drew (voice memo): I just thinking, and it’s really funny that I thought a whole history of the world of people with prostates talking about how good it felt to get fucked, and I was like “Yeah, I think I’m the one person who’s just not going to work for.” Like, I really thought that was the issue instead of, I don’t know, hadn’t just figured it out yet. Life, what a journey.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Episode 208: When Your Friends Don’t Like Your Partner

Bringing someone home to meet your parents is such a trope it’s become an entire genre of movie. But for many queer people there are two families to introduce to a partner: given and chosen. And sometimes the chosen family is scarier.

That’s why this week on the podcast we have Autostraddle’s own Yashwina Canter to talk about what happens when your friends don’t like your partner or your partner doesn’t like your friends. We get into Yash’s own dating history and how she’s navigated being on every side of this equation. And we talk about how all of us have navigated the challenge of our friends dating people. We even venture into some biphobia discourse and I try to stir up some drama by asking if anyone has ever liked a friend’s partner too much. I love some chaos!

We also begin with a truly inspired game of Hayley Kiyoko lyric or Rupi Kaur poem and end with three especially good crushes. To quote Tessa Thompson, Yash is single and ready to pringle so shoot your shot queers — just be prepared to pass the friend vibe test!

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SHOW NOTES

+ Once again, congratulations to Hayley Kiyoko.

+ My Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward obsession has finally come to a close and here is how I’d rank their work (of what I’ve seen). Also can officially say that The Last Movie Stars is great and you should watch it.

+ Endemic does not mean “end of pandemic.” Whoever told me that was either lying or joking and I think probably the latter! I am very gullible!

+ Read Autostraddle’s comprehensive coverage of A League of Their Own.

+ The famous picture of Myrna Loy and Amelia Earhart:

Amelia Earhart and Myrna Loy stand next to each other in front of a plane. They both have their arms crossed and are both chuckling.

Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

+ Check out some of Myrna Loy’s films on The Criterion Channel.

+ Beyoncé is our crush every week. Read this great piece by Amari about Renaissance.

EPISODE

Christina: Guess what? Annoying is the big equalizer of the world. Everybody can be annoying. Except for me. I’m perfect.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: I’ve never been annoying. Not once. Not ever.

[theme song plays]

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: And I’m Christina.

Drew: And welcome to Wait, Is This A Date?

Christina: Wait, Is This A Date is an Autostraddle podcast dedicated to the one, the only question that we ever want to talk about. I don’t know where I’m going with this. It’s about dating and it’s about knowing whether things are dates or not, et cetera.

Drew: A friend of mine asked me— literally I got a text yesterday that was like, “I don’t know if this thing I’m on is a date or not.” And I was like, “I have a podcast all about that.” And he was like, “Yeah, I know. I know.” And I was like, “You could ask.” And he was like, “And risk rejection? Never.” And I went, “Well, you should listen to the podcast more because we do cover this very thing.”

Christina: And that’s really what we’re trying to get to at the end of the ding dang day.

Drew: Yeah. My name is Drew Gregory. I’m a writer for Autostraddle and a filmmaker and a queer trans woman and honestly carrying over from last week, just number one Paul Newman enthusiast of the moment that is— You know, I love to switch the thing I’m just absolutely fixating on and that is the thing that I— Now we’re on week two.

Christina: I love that. I’m Christina Tucker. I’m also a writer at Autostraddle and a podcaster around the damn town. Town in this way is the internet. I’m also pretty gay and I love to support your hyper fixations on things.

Drew: Thank you.

Christina: I think it’s incredible. I think it’s really beautiful and I’m really glad you’re still on this journey with our guy, Paul. I think that’s beautiful.

Drew: Thanks so much.

You have a game for me?

Christina: I do have a game for you. I have a game for you that I think is actually going to be quite challenging, but it will be fun.

Drew: Great. Great, great, great. I love that. I love it, I love it.

Christina: Today’s game is: Is this a Hayley Kiyoko lyric or is it a line from Rupi Kaur’s poetry?

Drew: Wow. Okay.

Christina: And it is going to be challenging, but we’re going to have a good time. We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time. That’s the motto.

Drew: Wow. You’re really wading into two discourses. I mean, there’s not really a lot of Hayley Kiyoko discourse, really.

Christina: Yeah. And I thought I’d go back in time to, I don’t know, 2014 when we were having Rupi Kaur discourse. I don’t know that we are anymore, but—

Drew: No, that’s a really good point. Yeah.

Christina: Why not make a joke when you can make a joke?

Drew: Sure. Yeah, let’s do it.

Christina: Are you ready?

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: “The truth is you make my tongue so weak it forgets what language to speak in.” Or, “hear your voice. Are you there? Through the trees, fill the air.”

Drew: I think the first one is Rupi Kaur and the second one is Hayley Kiyoko

Christina: And you are correct. Gorgeous work.

Drew: Great. Okay. This might end up being embarrassing because I’m not going to say I was a huge Hayley Kiyoko fan in 2018, but I did see her in concert and listen to her a lot so I guess you could say I was at least a fan.

Christina: I am similarly a fan. And I do respect that. Though I did, I think, mostly choose from the latest album. So if you’re super familiar with that album already—

Drew: I’m not. I’m not.

Christina: Right. Because we’ve been in a Paul Newman place. We haven’t been in a listening to Hayley place.

Drew: No. I mean—

Christina: No, I hear you. I hear you. All right, number two. “Shadows climb up the stairs,” your first line. And you’re second line, “Like the rainbow after the rain.”

Drew: Oh, that’s so hard. You would think rainbow might be Hayley because of the basic queer. I’m going to go with that.

Christina: You would be incorrect. “The rainbow after the rain” is Rupi.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: Yes. Yes, indeed. But yeah, I thought that might throw you for one.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: We have five of these. So I’m not going to make you do a ton of these because this is challenging. Number five.

Drew: No, no, no. I’m having a great time.

Christina: Not number five. Number three. I don’t know how to count. I’m gay. “It’s caught inside of my mind, what we could have been.” Number two. “We tend to our wounds with grace.”

Drew: Oh see, this feels too easy. I feel like I’m getting tricked. It feels like the first one is obviously Hayley and the second one is Rupi, but now I’m like, am I getting tricked? I’m going to reverse my instinct. The second one is—

Christina: You’re going to say the second one is Hayley?

Drew: The second one is Hayley. Yeah.

Christina: Okay. You should trust your instincts, which is a lesson for both guessing what are lyrics versus poetry and dating also. That’s a lesson to the listeners also.

Drew: Wow. Okay.

Christina: All right. Number four. “And so we become eternal,” or “coals like the ocean breeze healed all of your broken pieces.”

Drew: Oh God. Those both really could be either, which I know is the point of the game, but it’s still—

Christina: It’s great when you validate that I did a good job in putting this deranged game together.

Drew: I think the first one is Hayley and the second one is Rupi.

Christina: You unfortunately would be incorrect. “And so we become eternal” is Rupi and “cold like the ocean breeze healed all your broken pieces” is in fact the number one legend, Hayley Kiyoko.

Drew: Wow. Okay.

Christina: All right. Our final one. Are you mentally ready?

Drew: I think so.

Christina: Okay. “I’d burn you and you still couldn’t take your eyes off me,” or “I’m done with fires just to prove that I’ve been cursed.”

Drew: Wow. Okay. I think the first one is Hayley because that feels like her gay bravado.

Christina: You are incorrect. That one is Rupi Kaur.

Drew: What?

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Wow. I really felt good about that one.

Christina: No, that one was actually surprising and I was really thrilled to just be like, oh, there’s two fire ones that I can put together, but I knew that was the hardest one so I did save it for last.

Drew: What is Rupi Kaur up to? Is she just writing poetry?

Christina: I think she’s still writing books. I think what the lesson of this game is, anything can be a lyric and anything could be a Rupi Kaur poem.

Drew: You could argue that lyrics are poetry.

Christina: Wow. That’s actually huge to think about.

Drew: One thing I will say about Hayley Kiyoko is I’m so proud of her that she didn’t give up dating “straight girls” and found someone who she’s now in a full on relationship with who like— of all the, you’re interested in straight girls, what happens from that, she finally pulled the Tig Notaro, Stephanie Allynne. She finally did the one where the person wasn’t straight. They were in it for the long haul or at least for a decent amount of time. And I’m just so happy for her. It’s not something I recommend to people who aren’t pop stars.

Christina: Yeah. I would not date ex Bachelor contestants either. Seems hard. Seems like a hard road.

Drew: Yeah. There’s always one or two who get off early. I mean I’ve only watched two seasons, but I always felt like there were two contestants where you’re like this person’s too cool for this or is just a different kind of hot. Is a gay hot versus a Bachelor hot. And they always got off the first episode or the second episode and probably that’s the reason, but I would date one of them.

Christina: Yeah. I would date for sure. For sure. Mostly, honestly, just to be like, yeah, that’s a thing I did. How fun is that to say aloud?

Drew: It’s a really good point.

Well, that was a blast.

Christina: I’m so happy. I think this next guest and subject is going to be a blast also.

Drew: I think so too. Should our very special guest introduce herself?

Yashwina: Hi, I’m Yashwina. Known to those who love me or hate me as Yash.

Christina: I love the confidence of love me or hate me.

Yashwina: I like to give people options. I’m also a writer and nuisance at Autostraddle.

Christina: Yes. We love a nuisance every which where we go. We support nuisancetry.

Yashwina: I just think that we have to support gay wrongs as well as gay rights.

Drew: And you’ve really joined me in bringing some classic movie energy and fandom to Autostraddle. And it’s really powerful to not be alone.

Yashwina: I love this for us.

Christina: It’s really beautiful to see you guys have such a grand time in your classic movie energy.

Drew: Honestly, I think we could do it more. I think we could bring it … I don’t know. I was watching all these Paul Newman movies and I was like, can I get an article out of this? And I was like, I don’t know if I could. It might be a stretch. But then I was like, well…

Christina: That is your favorite kind of stretch though. Definitionally, your favorite kind of stretch is how can I make this work?

Drew: Absolutely. So we’ll see.

Yashwina: The character is literally named Butch Cassidy.

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: Well. And say that.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: Say that.

Yashwina: I just think lesbians should dress like Paul Newman characters. Plenty already do.

Drew: I do agree.

Christina: Yeah. I have to agree with that one.

Drew: We are not unfortunately— Well, not unfortunately. We’re here to discuss something that’s relevant to the dating podcast, et cetera, et cetera. So it’s not unfortunate, but we are here to talk about the topic of introducing partners to friends. What happens when our friends don’t like our partners or even not partners, but someone we’re going on a couple dates with, someone we’re hooking up with, someone who we’re bringing into their lives against their will, and what do they have to say about that.

Christina: I love that you made that sound like a hostage scenario.

Drew: Sometimes it feels like it.

Christina: Bringing this person into your life against your will and you will deal.

Drew: I guess the first question that I have for all of us is in that dynamic, are you usually the one bringing the person against your friends’ will or the person whose will is… This is getting confusing. Do you tend to date people who your friends don’t like? Do your friends tend to date people who you don’t like?

Christina: As a famous hater, I will say it is often that my friends date people that I don’t like. One of my biggest fears in life is that I would date someone that my friends didn’t like. Almost nothing would stress me out more than that. Being like, “I don’t know what I’m… What are we doing here? How is this going to work?” That would really send me for a spiral. So I tend to just hide in my corner and be like, “Hmm. This is the person you’re bringing. Interesting.”

Drew: I tend to think based on knowing you that that fear is certainly not the only reason why you’re not a major dater, but it is a part of the fears.

Christina: Oh, certainly part of it. Certainly a part of it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. What about you two?

Yashwina: I’ve been on every side of the equation, but I will say that historically my friends have commented that my taste is very hit or miss. More miss.

Christina: Interesting. Interesting.

Yashwina: Yeah. I’ve been in situations where my friends didn’t like the person I was dating, where the person I was dating didn’t like my friends, and then where I have not liked the people that my friends were dating either. So I have seen every configuration.

Drew: How do you feel about it? Is it relationships or is it people you’re casually seeing usually?

Yashwina: It’s definitely been both, but it is interesting in situations where I feel so much of it is about a hierarchy of allegiance or trust or loyalty where it’s like, if I trust one person to pull me aside and be like, “Hey, this other person in your life isn’t treating you the way we want to see you be treated,” then there is kind of a pecking order where it’s like, okay, this person is the one whose interpretation of events I have to listen to the most and maybe others get taken with more grains of salt. But if, in such and such configuration, this person is telling me because they care about me and they want good things for me, that something isn’t right, then you have to listen to it.

Drew: Yeah. It’s interesting because with not my current relationship, but my most serious relationship before that, when we started dating, it was largely my partner telling me that my friends kind of sucked. And in some ways you would think that would be like, ah, that’s not a good sign if your partner’s trying to turn you against your friends. But it was done in a way that was really caring and my best best friend — like it wasn’t all of them — so I think that also helped. And I was still a college student and was closeted so my friends were either straight or also closeted. And a lot of my friends did suck and didn’t… And not even sucked. Because what does that mean? But just didn’t treat me very well. And so she was right to make those comments. But now, because I feel a lot more stable in my friendships, if anyone I was dating were to say, “Your friends suck,” I would be like, ah, this is not a good sign. This is a red flag. Which luckily, I’ve never been in a relationship where my friends and my partner get along more than currently and that I get along with my partner’s friends more and it is better. It’s so much nicer.

Christina: Go on. Really.

Drew: And the first two serious relationships I had, it wasn’t that my friends didn’t like those people. They liked them a lot. It’s just I didn’t even realize at the time, because I didn’t have anything to compare it to. Now I’m like, oh, the people in my life are excited to see… It’s different. It just feels different and it’s nice. And that’s a really nice thing.

Christina: Yeah. It is really cool.

Drew: But also, I don’t know. I mean, I do think people need to make mistakes. Not even mistakes. Have to date the people who they’re dating at that time. And it’s one thing when things cross a certain line into being really bad. But if my friends are dating someone who’s not my favorite person, usually I am like, most relationships end. I’m going to be there for them. And just try to get along with my friend’s partner because they’re my friend’s partner.

Christina: Yeah. I think even when I’ve had friends that I haven’t liked their partners, it has usually not been like a, “Oh, I think this person’s really terrible to you.” Of course there have been exceptions where I was like, “Okay, that’s actually troubling.” Perhaps there is a conversation that needs to be had. But for the most part I’m just like, this person is not a person that I would choose to spend time with for whatever variety of reasons. That does not necessarily rise to the level of me having to share that with a friend and be like, by the way, I think your partner is boring. That doesn’t really do anything for anybody in many scenarios. So I can usually just be a hater quietly. And at the end of the day, it’s a relationship that I’m not in. So it’s like, how much can I really be expected to be listened to in these scenarios where I’m like, “I don’t know. Aren’t they just kind of annoying? Aren’t you kind of annoyed? No. Okay. Go off.”

Yashwina: That’s such an interesting thing too, though, where it’s being curious about what someone is getting out of dating that person. I feel like when I’ve been the one dating someone that annoyed my friends, at first, obviously when someone comes to me and is like, “Hey, I’m not wild about your person,” it’s not like I’m not listening. It’s just that maybe I don’t immediately dump them.

It’s like, okay, I’m taking that information under advisement and I might act on it later, but right now it doesn’t rise to that level. But I also do end up having these conversations with my friends where they’re genuinely curious. They’re like, “I find such and such behavior really grating,” or, “I thought the way that they approached this conversation was very off-putting.” And then that’s where as the person dating them, you’re the intermediary of, “They were really nervous about meeting you. They were really anxious or apprehensive.” Or, “This topic sets them off and we don’t know why.” Or, “They have such and such feelings about it.” And so there’s that kind of explanation and then there’s also the added layer of, “But when it’s just the two of us, we have different kinds of conversations.” Or, “They are more willing to listen or they’re more comfortable in one on one or they don’t get combative,” things like that. And so there is this exchange of how they were with you socially as the partner of a friend is different than the inside of our relationship is and sometimes you have to show your friend what the inside of the relationship is like and other times you have to feed back into the relationship, the information that your friends outside are telling you matters.

Christina: When you have dated people that your friends have found annoying, have you… Perhaps it’s because I know my friends so well, but if I’m out with somebody who I can tell would be annoying to my friends, I’m like, “Oh God, this person and Shoshana, they can never have a fucking conversation. This is going to go horribly. This is not going to work out.” I can usually tell pretty quickly. Is that something that either of you, if you have dated people that are annoying to your friends, notice? Or is it something that when you put them in the same room, you’re like, “Oh, I see the problem now.”?

Yashwina: I think I can usually anticipate it. And that is why I’m often very, very slow to introduce people to my friends, to the point where it is a little bit laughable. Meeting my friends, I think is at this point like meeting my parents. And so we have to be in it for several many months before I’m finally like, I’m going to introduce my friends to this person.

Drew: Yeah. I feel the same. The idea of being like, “Oh, for our second date, do you want to come to this thing where all my friends are?” is so wild to me.

Christina: No. Absolutely not.

Drew: It’s so wild to me. I love that for other people, but I don’t know. It’s wild.

Yashwina: That happened to me and it was terrifying. Someone I dated, it was, I think maybe our third date. I hadn’t been seeing them a couple of weeks and ended up at their house, watching The L Word with them and their best friends. There was a screaming match and I was just sitting there like, “Oh, The L Word is a contact sport?”

Drew: Yeah. That’s a really intense—

Christina: Yeah. That’s a really high level of difficulty, I feel.

Drew: Okay. I’m going to out myself as a little bit of a monster, but it also makes me think of the reverse of liking someone too much. And I think if I was on date two with someone and they were like, “Want to meet my friends?” What if I got there and there were other people I wanted to talk to more? Two dates in, I don’t know how I feel about someone probably. So I also think about, have either of you ever been in a situation where your friends introduced you to their new person and you were like, “Oh God, this person’s incredible. I wish I was dating them.”?

Christina: I don’t believe that has ever happened to me. No. I think my friends and I all have our very specific types and vibes we look for in a partner and they are very rarely on the same wavelength.

Yashwina: I mean, if my partner introduced me to their friends, I have never had the situation arise where I’m like, “Oh no, I have a spontaneous crush on one of the person I’m dating’s friends.” That’s never happened to me but mostly just because in that situation, I feel like I’m mostly just trying to be like… You are trying to be pleasant and nice because you’re like, I am also… Dating is all just a strange audition and you’re just auditioning to keep dating this person and be like, oh, do I pass the friend vibe check? Do the friends pass my vibe check?

Drew: What about your friends dating someone who you liked a lot?

Yashwina: I think I’m with Christina. My friends and I, we all have quite different types.

Drew: I like that I’m pushing you both on this when I can’t think of an example where this has happened to me.

Christina: I was going to say Drew, drop your “Monster” track. Go off.

Drew: Wanting to sew some chaos. But I’m trying to think if… I would say I had some friend crushes that I maybe sometimes was anxious that they were crush crushes on my second serious relationship’s friends. And those people I’m just still friends with friends with.

Christina: Friends with. Yeah.

Drew: And I’m not friends with my ex so it is just like, well that worked out. But it’s interesting also because some of my close friends are… I haven’t really had the experience that many times of my current group of close friends, bringing someone new in. Because a lot of my friends either were in serious relationships when I became friends with them or they don’t really date.

Christina: Yeah. I think that’s also… It just hasn’t happened in a while. If you can believe it, I’m kind of the last man standing. So I think I’m going through my friend group and I’m like, oh yeah, no, everybody pretty much is partnered at this time. So there’s not a ton of opportunity.

Drew: I also don’t think… I don’t know. It’s such a trope in media, but I’m like, Yash, you’re right. When you’re meeting people’s friends, you’re in such a certain head space. When you’re meeting your friend’s new person you’re in such a head space. I also am so excited for my friends whenever they’re dating someone new. I get so gossipy and whatever about it. So I would just be so excited to… I’m just saying, Christina, if you ever started dating someone, you don’t have to be worried that I’m going to develop a crush on them.

Christina: I am not worried about that.

Drew: Thank you.

Christina: But no, I’m very aware of whoever gets to be next in the Christina dating Rolodex is really going to have a lot of hyper excited friends of mine to deal with. So God bless.

Drew: The times that I’ve had the most like my friends dating people who I’ve disliked was before I came out and I had so many straight women friends who were dating straight men. And obviously a lot of those guys, not the best.

Christina: No.

Drew: Look, there are nightmare lesbians. There are nightmare every gender and every sexual orientation. But it’s also an age thing. I was in my early 20s. Teens, early 20s, cis straight men. That’s not a good dating pool. So that was often the biggest challenge. Not to wade into biphobia discourse, but it is something that I think is interesting, the idea of… I’m choosing my words very carefully here.

Christina: I’m pounding the table I’m so excited. I’m like discourse it up.

Drew: No, but just like the idea of it’s really important to parse out the things that are true, which is there are absolutely swaths of the lesbian community that are really biphobic. Oftentimes those are the same groups that are transphobic. And so I don’t interact with them that much. So I’ve had to, from talking to friends who are cis bisexuals or who have had experience identifying as cis bisexuals, to be like, oh, there are a lot of lesbians who suck. And I just— it’s not the people who would ever talk to a trans person usually so it’s not a problem for me. I’m sure there’s some whatever, but there’s a lot of cross over there. But then I also think there’s sometimes accusations of biphobia when actually people just don’t like a specific straight man and they’re like, “I don’t want this person’s boyfriend around.” And it’s maybe because he sucks and the same way that there are certain lesbian partners who I also wouldn’t want to be around and if I had an acquaintance or a friend who wasn’t in my inner inner circle, that I might be less likely to want to hang out with that person if they always brought their partner of any gender that I didn’t like. Because I don’t know. The friends of mine who are queer and dating cis straight men, they’re dating… I mean, not good ones. There’s no good and bad. It isn’t a binary.

Christina: Yeah. But they’re dating nice dudes that you like.

Drew: But dating people who I’m happy to be around so it’s never even crossed my mind. But then if there are people who are bringing someone around who makes me feel like, I don’t know, not great, whether it’s not even unsafe, but just like that guy’s annoying.

Christina: Yeah. It’s usually just like that guy’s annoying is usually how I feel.

Yashwina: And I don’t think it’s a phobia or an ism to find one specific guy really annoying.

Christina: No. Yeah. I will bravely go on the record and say I don’t believe it is. And it’s like, if your boyfriend is a bummer, then I don’t want him around. And if you’re dating someone who is a woman or of any other gender and they’re annoying, I might also not want them around. Guess what? Annoying is the big equalizer of the world. Everybody can be annoying. Except for me. I’m perfect.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: I’ve never been annoying. Not once. Not ever.

Yashwina: I mean, I was just thinking too about how there’s so many different things about annoying, especially when you’re their friend and you’re watching because sometimes it’s annoying just as in interacting with this person gets on my nerves or is grating. But other times annoyance is kind of the precursor to a red flag where if this behavior accumulates… Like if they say something annoying one time, it’s just annoying. But the third time that they get on the same nerve, it starts to be like, ooh.

Drew: Yeah. Also I love annoying people. That’s some of my favorite people.

Christina: Actually one of Drew’s ways of life.

Drew: I want to be actually more specific and I think the only real reason why I’ve ever not wanted to be around a friend’s partner is because they treat my friend poorly and I don’t know how to be around it and it’s challenging to watch. That’s really the only thing that I find I really struggle with. I don’t like watching couples who are fighting all the time or even worse where the person who I’m not friends with is being cruel to my friend. Especially if I’m not good enough friends with the person to really step in and be like, “Hey, we should talk about this,” or whatever. It’s like, I can’t be around this acquaintance who I really like if their partner is always undermining them or always correcting them or just being a jerk. That’s the thing that’s mainly going to make my skin crawl and me be like, I don’t know how much this person can be in my life still. Which is sad.

Christina: Yeah.

Yashwina: That’s what my friends say to me sometimes. When I’ve dated people who my friends have been hesitant about. Sometimes it takes me a while to finally hold a parachute and break up with someone. And as soon as I do, everyone’s like, “Oh, thank God.” And I’m like, “What do you mean? You hated them this whole time?”

Christina: The whole time.

Yashwina: And they’re like, “Yeah. They were obnoxious to you. Or they were always trying to make you feel small or they always dominated conversations or they were dismissive of your interests and it was really uncomfortable to be around.” My friends are very protective people and very much will throw down. The last time that I had someone who my friends really did not like, friends on the other side of the country are taking their hoops out. And so it’s one of those ones where it’s like, but in person, you can’t just be like, “I’m going to put a tire iron through their windshield.” It’s like, I have to watch this person interact with someone I care about. And my friends are really protected and they’re like, “Mm, no.”

Drew: I mean, my go to… I’m going to regret saying this because I’m just giving away my secrets, but—

Christina: That’s a podcast baby.

Drew: What I’ve learned… Because anytime that I would try to tell my friends, and again, my teenage girl friends dating teenage boys tried to be like, “Hey, this person doesn’t treat you very well.” They would get defensive, obviously, because that’s what we all do and especially if we’re getting validation from someone or we have feelings for someone and we want to stay with them even if they don’t treat us well. And especially, especially if there’s a part of us that knows that what our friend is saying is true. Defensiveness is a reasonable reaction. I learned that it was so much better. It’s not really a tactic as much as just, I think it’s a better approach that I would focus more on the way that my friend felt.

So instead of being like, I don’t like this person, I would be like, “Hey, it seems like you’re upset when she talks to you like this. Do you want to talk about that?” Whatever. Just validating. And a lot of times it is the case where I would like the person as a person. I would find them funny or smart or interesting or whatever. And I would be like, “Look, I like this person. I like you two together. You just don’t seem happy because of X, Y, and Z.” And I’ve found that to be a far more effective way of dealing with… I mean, it’s what I would want to hear. It’s not that I don’t care if my friends like my partner, but Christina, as you said, they’re not in that relationship.

Christina: Exactly.

Drew: So as long as it seems like I’m happy in the relationship, then it shouldn’t matter to them. And so it would only be if my partner was acting in a way that seemed like it was making me unhappy that I would want my friends to step in. And so it makes sense to focus on that aspect of it rather than this isn’t who I would date. And it’s like, great.

Christina: Right. You’re not dating them.

Drew: You’re not going to have an answer when Drew tries to sew chaos on the podcast. You’re not going to try to date my current partner. Sounds good to me.

Christina: Yeah. I don’t know. For me, I feel very similarly. It’s much easier to do a, you don’t seem happy when X, Y, Z thing is happening or this seems to make you upset. Is this something that happens a lot? How do you feel about that? I do think if there is consistent, constant patterns of bad behavior from a friend’s partner, there will be one or two times where I’m like, “Okay, look, I’m going to say this once. And I’m going to say this thing. We don’t have to talk about it again, but I do want to just put it on the record that I don’t like X, Y, Z thing about this person. I don’t like how that seems to make you feel. If you feel like I’m coming out of left field, feel free to ignore. I just want to get it on the record and we never have to talk about it again if you don’t want to, but I just want to voice it at least one time.”

But that is usually only in, I don’t know, really bad scenarios. And a lot of times when my friends were dating people that I didn’t like, and when it was in our 20s and we were dating horrible cis men, I was like, “I know you don’t like this person either. You don’t seem to be having a great time. So what’s the point of me being like, yeah, he sucks. You know that. I know that. What is there to say really?”

Drew: Yeah.

Yashwina: I mean, I think there’s also a really interesting point where you see the pattern and you want to acknowledge the pattern that you see. I’ve been on the receiving end of this. An example was I was dating someone who I always went to their place and they never came to mine. We were dating almost a year and I think they came over maybe once every other month. And my friends were like, “It’s really weird that you are always going to them all the time.” And to me at first it was just like, yeah, that is annoying. And we can acknowledge that it’s not great. I’m not saying that this is a thing that I’m actively stoked about. But there’s also room in there to say this doesn’t rise to the level of a deal breaker for me yet. And maybe for one of my friends that would’ve been a deal breaker way sooner, but it wasn’t a deal breaker for me. I mean, it’s not until it is.

Christina: Exactly. Yeah. But I also think knowing your friends and knowing, yeah, that would annoy me, but I can see how for this person that is not a problem for them or that is not something that they take as seriously or care about as much as I do so fine. We’ll let that one go.

Yashwina: Being able to see the difference and being like, yes, it is annoying, but I’m not going to dump them over it. And being able to meet someone in the middle and commiserate about, “Oh, I’m on my way to so-and-so’s place. The traffic is terrible.” That kind of commiseration just in letting it be annoying without necessarily having to escalate it to the deep meaningful friend check in right away, that’s also something too. It’s a way that I think my friends monitor things that they have qualms about without necessarily pulling the fire alarm every time.

Drew: I mean also every relationship, even the best ones, compromises are made.

Christina: There’s always something.

Drew: And different people make different compromises and it’s why we’re not all dating the same person.

Yashwina: The one thing standing between us and universal polyamory.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: So it makes sense that we all have things that for some people are like, “Oh, I could never date someone who acted that way or who was that way.” And other people are like, “Yeah, I don’t care. I can deal with that.” I don’t know. And I do think that it’s important as a friend to be able to field complaints from your friends about their relationships or partners without internalizing them and then taking that to their partners. Not obviously telling the partners, but what I mean is not holding onto that to be like, “Oh, my friend is unhappy. This relationship is bad. This person is bad.” But just that every relationship has challenges and it’s really nice to have friends where you can talk those things out because sometimes you’re talking about it and you realize you’re in the wrong and not every conversation has to happen exclusively within the relationship.

Sometimes I find it to be useful to be able to talk something out with a friend and then return to my partner and be like… I mean, literally last night I— I’m not going to get into all the details because remember, boundaries. I’m trying to have them on the podcast.

Christina: Brave.

Drew: I literally called my best friend to talk about… It’s not even a fight, but just a little disagreement that I had with my partner. And then my friend was like, “You’re wrong.” And I was like, “Yeah, I was worried about that.” And then she came back and I was like, “Well, I just got off the phone with Tirosh and we both agreed that I was wrong so I’m sorry.”

Christina: Yep. I talked to the council and it turns out the council has voted nay on me.

Drew: And there might be a time where my friend would be like, “No, you’re in the right. I get why you feel that way.” And whatever. And it’s good to be able to talk to your friends about shit. I don’t think it’s healthy when everything that’s happening in a relationship is just happening within a bubble of the relationship. But that’s what my friends are there for in some way. I mean, not in the straight girl way where you just spend all day complaining about your partner to your friends. I’ve never understood that. But if it’s just occasionally needing to figure out if a compromise is something you want to make or not.

Yashwina: The gut check and outside perspective is really important and I think is a valuable part about introducing your partners to your friends and your friends to your partners. Because something that I have definitely experienced is you leave it too late and then you are the only two in this closed off terrarium of a social dynamic. And then you take your weird terrarium and then you finally show it to your friends and they’re like, “That is overgrown and nasty. You got to clean that out.”

Christina: There’s mold in that terrarium and it looks awful. You have to not do that.

Yashwina: Yeah. And so that’s something I’m trying to be better about because when you date enough people in a row that your friends are like… Then I just have ended up being quite wary of introducing my friends to people. And that is obviously counterproductive because then by the time that I’m finally like shit, you should know that I live in a society and I leave it too late and then they’re like, “Oh my God. What? This has been going on for months? Oh my … Oh.”

Drew: I mean, that was such an interesting aspect of pandemic dating because we were all more separated. There really were just all these little bubbles. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the person who I pandemic dated, who I ended up real dating was the person who already knew one of my friends. Some of the other people I was trying to pandemic date, God love them, but I do think that if we were in a more real world scenario and we were in each other’s worlds that there maybe would’ve been a quicker level of I don’t know if this is going to work

Christina: Yeah. The pandemic bubble of like, oh yeah, anything is possible here in this space that is no space and anything can happen and nothing really feels like it’s reality. And then it’s like, oh reality though. She’s back.

Yashwina: I mean, that’s where I’m at now though. Because when you say, oh, the person who ended up rising to the top was the one who I already had friends in common with and stuff, that definitely resonates because having someone… I joke very self deprecatingly, but it’s one of those jokes with a grain of truth of I’m making my friends match make me because I clearly can’t be trusted to pick out my own people. I need someone who can be vouched for by someone who I trust because when I am picking it out without any kind of support or input from other people, maybe my decisions aren’t the best healthiest decisions I could make. And so I joke about it, but I’m also not kidding.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, it’s funny though because the friend who introduced Elise and I spent so long— we haven’t been friends for that long, but spent a lot of our friendship trying to set me up with various people and very dramatically failing. I mean not dramatically failing. Just in the sense that I would meet people and I’d be, “Really? That’s who you think… Interesting.”

Christina: That’s always such a weird feeling. You’re like, oh.

Drew: And then was not trying to set Elise an I up and then we were in the same space together because of this person. And then I think even when I told them that we were starting to chat on Instagram, there was a, “Oh, really? Oh, okay.” There was a little moment. So it is also funny to think the way that our friends have ideas about who we should be dating and sometimes even the partners of ours who they’ll end up really loving, it’s not who they would’ve guessed.

Christina: Yeah. They might not have immediately guessed that person for you.

Yashwina: I mean, friends are just the in person Tinder algorithm though. They’ll show you a bunch of people and maybe they’re not all right. The in person friends algorithm is real.

Drew: It’s why I love a house party. I love the idea of just being like, let’s bring a bunch of people together who I like, and then they can all meet each other or I can meet a bunch of people who my friends know and you can float around the party and talk to whoever you’re drawn to and there’s no like, oh I have this idea about these two people. It’s more just like, there’s a built in way of meeting all these people and also there’s someone at the party I can ask to be like, “Is that person single? Oh, okay. They’re not? Are they open? What’s the deal? How available is that person?” And that’s why I’m here to say that house parties should happen more.

Christina: Wow. Drew’s bravely coming out as pro house party. Wowsers.

Drew: I thought there would be an era of end of pandemic, which I found out is what endemic— Okay. Did someone lie to me and I’m now saying it on the mic? Is endemic really just the end tail of a pandemic and that’s why it’s called when something is endemic?

Christina: My gut immediately says no. Nothing to back that up though. Absolutely nothing.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: Stay tuned.

Drew: I may keep this in and include it in the show notes just because I’m willing to be vulnerable. But I really thought there would be this end of pandemic era where people weren’t going to nightclubs, but there were just these incredible house parties and we never got it because people just started going to nightclubs again and I don’t blame them. Before variants really became a thing last summer, I went to some clubs, had a grand old time. I’m not judging anyone, but I really am sad that there wasn’t an era of 20 to 40 people house parties that were just nights to remember.

Yashwina: I think you’re right. I think we did have a missed opportunity for a real house party renaissance.

Christina: I don’t know what y’all are talking about because welcome to my house. My house is a house party. Let me tell you something.

Drew: That’s true.

Christina: We are a house of partying and it is challenging for me, but good for me also.

Drew: Yeah. Maybe I need to get my roommates… Maybe I need to be the roommate who makes my house into the house party house.

Christina: Yeah. There just has to be one person who’s always like, “I invited some people over.” That’s always what happens.

Drew: I don’t like that part of it though. I want to go to other people’s house parties, which is how a lot of people feel, I guess. But I already know these people and then I feel the stress of inviting people and not inviting people. Anyways, this is getting a little off topic, but—

Christina: No, I think it’s totally fair. I think it’s fair.

Drew: If anyone wants to invite me to a house party.

Christina: Bring back to the house party. That’s the message. That’s the message, right? Maybe date people that you like and maybe listen to your friends if it feels important, but maybe also don’t. I feel like we haven’t really nailed exactly what the truth is here, but I think that’s also part of it, right? There’s not an easy answer.

Drew: I also think big difference between someone who’s going to be your partner and someone who you’re going to have casual sex with. That is also something to keep in mind. And I think a good message. I think always is to know that for yourself and if you can’t know it for yourself, maybe phone a friend.

Christina: Phone a friend.

Drew: Phone a friend.

Christina: Yeah. I love a phone a friend.

Drew: Because sometimes someone is fun to hang out with and sex is good and they’re not who we should build a life with.

Christina: Wow. What a message to wrap that up on. I think that’s really beautiful.

Do you want to talk about some crushes? Some crushes of the week?

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Drew, you got so excited. Are you going to say Paul Newman again?

Drew: I’m not going to say Paul Newman again. Yeah. Last week it was Paul Newman and Joann Woodward. This week it’s just Paul Newman. Next week it will be just Joann Woodward. No. This week my crush is Roberta Colindrez. I just watched… Which this is going to come out after it’s been out for everyone so I can say this. But I just finished the A League of Their Own TV show and it’s—

Christina: Oh, fun. It’s good?

Drew: It’s everything I wanted. Literally it’s everything I wanted from Gen Q and I’m so happy. And it’s the first reboot thing that doesn’t feel promising, but complicated and compromised, but it just feels like this is everything that I wish the original was.

Christina: I am so shocked.

Drew: It’s everything that I want. It’s so good.

Yashwina: I’m so happy. I have pinned a lot of hopes to that show. A League of Their Own was… I mean, I think we all know if you have encountered me on the internet how I feel about historical thirsting and so A League of Their Own was a profound experience for me.

Christina: Yeah. I just haven’t been letting myself think about it because I was like, there’s no way it’s going to be good. Don’t think about it. Don’t get excited.

Drew: Look, it’s a show that is operating on a certain tone and it’s not… It’s a very fun show. It is dealing with some serious things, but it has the tone of what I think A League of Their Own should have. I’m not saying it’s the greatest show ever, but it is just so much fun and so smart and it’s so good. It’s so, so good. And Roberta’s so good. Roberta. I don’t know her. I shouldn’t say that. I should have more respect for—

Christina: I love that.

Drew: Roberta Colindrez is so good in it and it just got me reflecting on the fact that first time I saw her was in Fun Home and then I Love Dick and then Vida and then this, and it’s just such a… I just feel like, I think a lot about how to build a career in this terrible industry as a queer person and how possible it is to do it on your own terms. And I know that she has other credits other than these things that I’m pulling out, but I really just feel like she’s managed to work on projects that are really queer and are really good. And she’s been hot along the way, which is also a really important thing I think.

Christina: Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous.

Drew: She’s my crush of the week.

Christina: Hot. Yash, who do you have for us?

Yashwina: I have twofer because Amelia Earhart’s birthday was a couple weeks ago and Drew very kindly let me know that Myrna Loy is going to be part of the next Criterion collection feature, like the big drop. And so Myrna Loy, movie star from the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, that’s kind of her career. She was a profound gay crush for me as a kid. And obviously Amelia Earhart was also a profound gay crush for me as a kid. I had her picture in my locker. It was in the fifth grade because—

Christina: Just heterosexual things happening left and right.

Yashwina: Noted heterosexual Yashwina Canter. But in talking to Drew about my favorite Myrna Loy movies coming to the Criterion channel, I also got to go back and revisit some photos that Myrna Loy took when she was promoting a movie she was in with Cary Grant, another noted heterosexual. But for these promotional photos, her character was a stunt pilot and she and Cary Grant both did promotional photos with Amelia Earhart and got to hang out with Amelia Earhart. And there are just some candids of them talking where I’m like, that’s flirtation. I’ve seen that before. And so they are both my crushes and I have proof that they met and in my heart, I’m just like, do we think that they—

Christina: Something a little fruity happened perhaps?

Yashwina: I’m just saying—

Christina: I love it.

Yashwina: —that I have theories.

Drew: I support these theories.

Christina: Absolutely.

Yashwina: Thank you.

Drew: I think we should talk less about what happened to Amelia Earhart and more about what happened to Amelia Earhart when she met Myrna Loy. That’s the real mystery surrounding Amelia Earhart.

Christina: That’s the real mystery we have to get to the bottom of. Absolutely.

Yashwina: I’m just saying, anyone who tries to convince me that Amelia Earhart was straight, I have follow up questions. I saw those photos. I know what flirtation looks like and I shan’t be bamboozled.

Christina: Yeah. I won’t stand for it. I won’t stand for anymore bamboozling. Simply no.

Drew: What about you, Christina?

Christina: Guys, I have a real hot take. My crush this week is Beyonce. It’s Beyonce.

Drew: Wow.

Yashwina: No one’s ever felt that before, Christina.

Christina: I’ve never felt that way about Beyonce before. Yeah. This album is so good.

Drew: It’s so good.

Christina: It’s unfairly good. It’s unfairly good to drop this in Leo season, first of all. It’s unfair to just drop an album of straight bangers in Leo season to make me an earth sign think, “Do I have to get up? Do I have to do something? Must I go out? Do I have to move my body in a way because Beyonce said shut up, go outside and have a good time?” Because that is cruel, but she’s right and I do. And every second of it is bangers. It is absolutely for homosexuals. The last minute of “Heated” is one of the gayest things I’ve just ever heard in my life. I think she’s a perfect person and I am both thrilled and furious with her for her dropping this hot fire album right into the middle of my summer.

Drew: I don’t know what to do about the fact that there’s still a pandemic. There’s monkeypox. All I want to do is go out and dance to this album and I need to find some outdoor dance spaces.

Christina: Yeah. That’s what she’s asking for I think. There needs to be a random summer rainstorm in the middle of this dance party, this outdoor dance party. It just needs to hit all the things. It’s just so good. She just really did it. And I don’t know what the other two were going to be. There’s going to be two more. It’s part one. I don’t know what this means.

Drew: I know.

Christina: She stresses me out, but she’s quite literally very good at what she does and for that, she gets to be my crush of the week, which is I’m sure the highest accolade she has ever received.

Drew: Well, this is my question for you. Because until this week I would’ve laughed anyone away, but some people have been so adamant about it that I just… I don’t know. I mean, X-Files. “I want to believe.” Where are you on bi Beyonce theory?

Christina: I would find it believable. I would find it believable. Is it going to make or break my life? Not really. Because again, I don’t know that lady. She lives in a very different world than I do. She doesn’t really make my day to day life.

Yashwina: I think if someone came out with news and it was confirmed, I would say more excitement than surprise. I’d be like, whoa. But in my heart it would be fake surprise. I would not be surprised with this in the slightest.

Drew: I just never let myself hope for it. And it’s because she just loves Jay-Z so much. But maybe she is that bisexual girl with the boyfriend who we all don’t really like and she’s like, “This is biphobic. I can’t come out because this is biphobia.” And we’re like, “No, no, no. If you were dating a different guy, maybe we’d embrace him more.”

Christina: We’d probably be fine. But then again, she did write the lyric, “It must be the cash because it ain’t your face.”

Drew: She sure did.

Christina: And for that, she is also America’s greatest standup comic so go off, queen.

Drew: Incredible. Yash, do you want to tell people where they can find you and your work?

Yashwina: You can find me on a little website called autostraddle.com or anywhere on the internet at Yashwina Canter. Y-A-S-H-W-I-N-A C-A-N-T-E-R. Mostly on Twitter but I’m trying to be fun on Instagram too.

Drew: It is the best dating app.

Christina: It’s hard to be fun on Instagram.

Yashwina: I love a challenge. If we’ve learned anything about my dating history today it’s that I love a challenge.

Drew: Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This A Date. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram, @WaitIsThisADate and you can email us waitisthisadate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein. Our logo is by Maanya Dhar. And this podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, @draw_gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter, @c_gracet and on Instagram, @Christina_graceT. And you can find Autostraddle of course @Autostraddle.

Drew: And you can find Autostraddle at autostraddle.com. The reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Oh, actually that’s really interesting that you asked that because scientists are at this very moment hurriedly trying to figure this out. We have some of our best scholars on the case here. We don’t have an answer, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew: I wish them and us the greatest luck.

Drew (voice memo): I feel like many times in my life I’ve been in what I would call a Jules and Jim. You could also call it just sort of a French new wave throuple, which is not a throuple in the actual sense of we’re all fucking each other. Or at least not regularly. But just like three people, two of them are dating, and there’s just a weird throuple codependence. I guess it also could be called the Alice, Tasha… Ooh, what’s the last person’s name? Honestly, I think it’s probably a good sign that I’m starting to forget some things about the original L Word.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Special Episode: Mailbag Minisode #1

Without our A+ members, there would be no Autostraddle. And without Autostraddle, there would be no Wait, Is This a Date? So this week on the podcast, we’re answering questions sent in by the A+ members who allow us to do what we do!

Questions range from how to have a first lesbian experience to how to be horny and demisexual. We give our best advice and if you’re thinking hmm these queers seem to know what they’re talking about then go ahead and send in your own question! We’ll be doing more mailbag minisodes and if you’re an A+ member, you can submit right here.

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ Join A+!! What are you waiting for!!

+ The TIFF Bell Lightbox has been my second home in Toronto. Currently they’re doing a series on Satyajit Ray and another of contemporary Korean cinema.

+ I don’t know why Christina referenced this song but alas she did.

+ To illustrate how subtle my flirting was with my now girlfriend, for the first year that we followed each other on Instagram, this is as spicy as it got.

Screenshot from Instagram DM. March 8, 2021. You replied to their story: Wow swoon, response: Groucho Marx emoji

+ Join A+!!!

EPISODE

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: I’m Christina.

[special mailbag theme song plays]

Drew: And welcome to, Wait, Is This a Date? A Special Mailbag Minisode! Well, I feel like if you’re listening to this, you probably know what Wait, Is This a Date? is, and you know who we are, but real quick: Wait, Is This a Date?, Autostraddle podcast, we talk about sex and dating in queer spaces. My name is Drew Gregory, I’m a queer trans woman and a writer for Autostraddle and a filmmaker.

Christina: Gorgeous, gorgeous. I’m Christina Tucker, I’m also a writer for Autostraddle and podcaster all over the internet places. I am a gay Black woman. We have joined together in this union to bring you answers to questions that you have sent us, which is gorgeous. And I think we’re really excited because, I don’t know, I love an advice moment.

Drew: Me too. Sometimes I feel like I’m more qualified to receive advice than to give it and sometimes I feel really ready and geared up to give advice. And right now I’m feeling ready to give advice. What’s fun about this Mailbag episode is that all the people who sent in questions are A+ members. If you don’t know what that means, A+ is Autostraddle’s membership program because so much of what we do is free, but we’re an independent queer media publication, which there aren’t many of left and we heavily rely on our A+ members. We’re so grateful to them.

Christina: Yeah, here’s the thing team. We don’t have a lot of indie queer media, as Drew said. In being an A+ member, you get to support indie queer media and you also get the added benefit of being able to ask us questions and we will answer them live on the air for you. So I’m just looking at the strategy here and I’m thinking like, there’s no lose, it’s a win-win across the board.

Drew: It’s as cheap as $4 a month so that’s like—

Christina: It’s 400 pennies, that’s nothing.

Drew: Wow. I mean, that makes it sound like a lot more than it is. I want to just say that 400 pennies is not—

Christina: But what is a penny?

Drew: Sure. It’s just not the best way I think to describe $4 as far as trying to like pitch it as not that much, because I’m just picturing a lot of pennies right now.

Christina: Okay. I didn’t know that you loved pennies so much, but now I know that about you and that’s really helpful.

Drew: Should we answer some of these questions?

Christina: Yeah, let’s answer some questions.

Drew: Okay. We have two that were written out and one that’s a voice memo. So let’s start with one of the written out ones, do a little voice memo sandwich. Yeah, it would be because the bread is the reading.

Christina: Yeah, the bread is us reading.

Drew: Cool. And this is from Kat, who is an A+ member. “I burned out and basically had a mental breakdown in 2020. #relatable I quit my job in a big city and moved halfway across the country to move back in with my parents. I haven’t really seen or talked to many people in my hometown since my high school days and I kind of burnt some friend bridges when I left my previous city. Also, I intentionally didn’t date anyone for a few years pre-pandemic. I was working on my ‘mental health,'” that’s in quotes so I don’t know how that changes it. “I was working on my ‘mental health,’ although obviously that didn’t work out,” upside down face. “So now I don’t really have any local friends and have been single for several years and I don’t even know how to start changing this. I would love to make some pals and maybe put my mouth on another person’s mouth or put my butt on another person’s butt!!! Or even just get out of my parents’ house sometimes, honestly, but also COVID is unfortunately still a thing and I’m socially anxious at the best of times. So what do I do? How do I do it? Thank you!!!” many exclamation points.

Christina: This is hard. Making friends as an adult is hard, making friends in the hometown in which you grew up as an adult, I can imagine, is an extra level of difficulty on top of that. I’m trying to think about what I would do if I moved back to my parents’ house and how I would find people and friends. And I honestly feel like I would just be very vocal on the internet about like where I was located, contacting people who I knew lived around there or even had friends that lived around there. I would be really reaching out in my communities to be like… We’re a small community, right? The gays, we know people everywhere. So who knows people? Where are they located? Can I find people in my space? Because that’s really what it’s all about. It’s just like, you got to ask for it because sometimes it’s not going to come to you.

Drew: Yeah, that’s really good advice because I can think of dating apps obviously being a great place to both meet people to have sex with and also friends —that’s mostly what I’ve gotten out of dating apps is new friendships. I can also think of suggesting finding activities to do, which I get it’s tricky in the pandemic, but there are maybe some things you could feel comfortable with depending on your boundaries with that. But I think, Christina, that’s a really good point that so often the way we make connections is by seeking them out and being like… When you went to high school, was there someone who was cool and is still around in your hometown that you never really got to know, but you just vaguely know? That could be someone you reach out to.

I don’t know how queer your hometown is, I don’t know enough about what your hometown looks like to know how likely it is that there’s random queer people who you vaguely know, but they’re there. So even if the person you reach out to is straight, maybe they know someone and it’s just about being like, who do you want to see? I’m in Toronto for the summer and very much was thinking about like, who do I know who lives here? Who’s just social media friends, who’s whatever who can I like meet up with? Which is sometimes a vulnerable thing to reach out and it sometimes can be even harder than with dating, but what’s the worst that can happen? Someone says no or someone says, “Yeah, sure. But I’m really busy, maybe soon,” and then ghosts you. These things aren’t fun but I do think ultimately the more of a social life you can have in general, the more likely it will lead to the dating aspect of that because you just meet people through people.

Christina: Yeah. And I think, especially thinking about trying to find friends and find people who are interested in the stuff you’re interested in, what are you interested in? What are your interests? What of your hobbies are happening in your hometown? Is there a hiking group? I don’t know. I’m just literally thinking about my hometown, there would be some sort of queer women hiking group that I would not go on, but one could. Is there something like that you can get involved in and meet people out in the world and out in space and who you already know share a hobby of yours? That’s a fun way to meet people.

Drew: I would also add to extend a certain amount of kindness towards yourself as you do these things, because it’s hard in general, but I do think the pandemic makes it even harder. I’ve spent so many hours since getting to Toronto at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, which is a cool theater here. And I was just thinking about how if it wasn’t a pandemic, I absolutely would’ve chatted with people sitting next to me, maybe met people there. We’re seeing the same thing, that’s an activity or an interest that I have. But because we have masks on and interacting with strangers is still a bit fraught, I haven’t really talked to anyone there. And so it is harder now, that’s absolutely real.

And so if you go to something or try to meet up with someone and you’re trying to make these things happen for yourself, I think a really great way to not lose hope and to not feel bad is to understand that it will take time. And that’s not to make it be intimidating or to feel daunting, but it’s okay that—

Christina: It’s hard.

Drew: It might take some time, but it is very possible and will happen for you.

Christina: Yeah, and it’s not a reflection on who you are as a person. It is just a reality of the life that we’re living. And that is hard and you are allowed to sit with that feeling and be like, “This kind of sucks,” because like, yeah, it’s going to suck sometimes. And that is hard, but doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person or that you’re destined to be friendless and destined to not put your butt on another person’s butt for the rest of your life.

Drew: Ready to move on?

Christina: Crushed it. Perfect advice givers. No notes, 10/10.

Drew: This is a voice memo from anonymous.

Anonymous: Hey, Drew and Christina. So I need your help because I am a pandemic lesbian and very much like a pandemic dog that you adopt, I missed some really key socialization during my formative years and I’m trying really hard to make up for it now. However, between COVID variants and chronic pain, I have not really gotten out with friends or on dates nearly as much as I’d like to, but now I have some treatment options for my pain so I am looking forward to kicking off my slutty gay puberty. But I also want to shit bricks, honestly, when I think about it because I’ve been celibate for the past three years now. And prior to that, I was only with cis men, which means I’ve never had a sexual experience that I wanted to have. And that’s its own little lowercase trauma for me to discuss with my therapist, but I’ve gotten comfortable with desire by myself, but I always talk myself out of it when it’s time to engage with that side of myself in the wild.

So I was wondering if you have any advice for a lesbian Daphne Bridgerton who’s trying to get to the wildest dreams instrumental sex scene, but make it gay part. Thank you.

Christina: Wow, that’s really gorgeous. That is beautiful.

Drew: First of all, congrats. As overwhelmed as you may feel and as anxious as you may feel, congrats, because you have so much excitement and pleasure in your future. That alone should help ease some of the anxieties that you obviously have because we’ve all had them at different parts— Or maybe not all of us, but at least I can speak for myself. Yeah, it’s stressful to be out for the first time, out and dating for the first time. And it’s also exciting and I think that’s my first piece of advice is if you can hold onto the excitement more, I think it will both motivate you to take the risks you need to take and also I think will make it all a bit more fun. And that’s really important because I think dating should be fun, especially this kind of dating, especially this kind of exploring. It’s the best.

Christina: Yeah. And I know it might feel like, I don’t know, uncool or nerdy or something to be very clear about this being your kind of queer puberty, but you’re certainly not alone in this, right? I think we’ve seen in all of our social medias, all of the people who have taken this time to explore sexuality and gender during the pandemic and you getting to have this moment of being like, “I got to discover some really cool shit about myself and now I want to share that with other people,” I do not think that will be rejected by the community as a whole. I think you’ll be welcomed with open arms, very Creed with arms wide open energy, except not religious because that’s awful. And I think if you just on your dating profiles or when you’re talking to people, just say like, “Yeah, this is a new experience for me, one I’m really excited about.” Again, it’s all just about communicating your desires and expectations for other people so they understand how to approach you in a space.

Drew: Yeah. I don’t know about you Christina, but I’ve definitely had sex with people who either had no experiences with people who weren’t cis men or had very few. And I do think the biggest difference between the positive experiences and the less positive experiences were the people who were very ready and very sure of themselves which it sounds like she seems very sure of her identity as a lesbian and that to me, there would be no question about having an experience with that person. I wouldn’t care. It’s like, oh, that person is here and ready to do this thing. And the only times I think that people get frustrated or there’s a bad reputation for people who are exploring or whatever, I think that’s so much more connected to people who want things to stay secret and aren’t quite ready. And even that I have compassion towards, but this doesn’t feel like that at all.

And so it’s just exciting. I don’t think the vast majority of people would have any issue with it and would just sort of like meet you where you’re at. And there could be something fun about it too. I don’t know. I definitely enjoyed some of my experiences that were like that a lot, just from the place of it’s a real trust that someone’s giving you to get to be there with them as they sort of explore these things and experience these things for the first time. It’s just like, it’s just really fun.

And as far as making it happen in tangible ways, I do think a lot of it is just to push past the anxiety that you’re feeling and do the things that we’re going to say. Like, yeah, get on a dating app if you want to get on a dating app, go to queer nights, events, yeah, it’s a pandemic still so that is challenging but there’s lots of different scales of those things. There’s things that are outside, find a place that you feel comfortable with. And if you don’t then yeah, maybe it is going on solo dates with people that you meet on dating apps or people who you meet on like Instagram, Twitter, take those thirst traps, TikTok. The internet is one big dating app.

Christina: Gorgeous.

Drew: And just be thirsty.

Christina: First of all, gorgeous advice. Just Be Thirsty. Drew Gregory 2022. And also if you are not a person who is particularly on social media or invested social media in the way that Drew and I’s deeply online brains are, if you have friends who are queer and you’re like, “Do you guys have anybody to set me up with?” This is the resource that I think we should be tapping into. If you’re a person who’s like, “I don’t want to do dating apps,” I get it, I hear you. But just ask your friends, like, “Who can I go out with?” I guarantee you, your friends have at least one or two people that they’re like, “Actually now that you mention it,” because that’s how friends’ brains work. And that’s what friendship is really, entrusting your desires with a pal to be like, “Yeah, I can find somebody who you’re going to at least have a good time with.”

Drew: And like I was saying in the previous question, if the first date you go on doesn’t go well, if the first sexual experience you have doesn’t go well, just don’t let that stop you from continuing to throw yourself into this wonderful world. Not everything’s going to be perfect. There might be some growing pains, but the more that you can just sort of take it all as part of the experience and enjoy it, I think the better. Honestly knowing our community, I don’t know you at all and I’m like a year from now, you’re going to be in a relationship.

Christina: Absolutely, a year is so generous. I was like, “Baby, in six months, you’re going to be in a relationship,” it’s cool. And if you are anything like me, when I came out and started dating, I think the thing for me that was the most shocking was I was like, “Oh, this is fun,” because I’m doing the dating that I want to be doing and not feeling awful or annoyed by it. I was just like, “Oh, this is so much easier. This is where I should have been from jump.” So now you get to experience that. And I think you’re just going to have a good time and I’m really looking forward to it. Please update us in six months, I want to know who’s your girlfriend and when are you guys moving in?

Alright, this is from anonymous. So anonymous A+ member, God bless you. “Historically, I have found the people I date in person where we slow burn for a while before anything started. This hasn’t been working right now and I’m trying dating apps, but I’m demisexual and it’s a disaster. I have said I’m demisexual in said apps, but still anytime people flirt with me over text, my knee jerk reaction is, ‘Ew, you don’t know me,’ and I end up ghosting. Should I just give up on dating apps? Do I try to meet in person ASAP and tell the people I’m looking for the slow burn dynamic of a romantic drama that takes three seasons for them to kiss? What did I do in a past life to make me so horny but so, so demisexual?”

This is my favorite. I love this. Just asking, “What did I do in a past life?” Is really beautiful. I think it is important to note nor Drew or I are demisexual, though Drew, I feel like you have some demisexual energies happening.

Drew: Yeah, that’s fair. I do think that I can have casual sex, but I definitely enjoy it more when it’s in the context of like a different kind of… it’s not the three season romantic drama, but it’s the one night magic romantic drama, which I guess that’s its own version of that. And yeah, I mean, I also have never really had much luck with dating apps maybe for similar reasons. And I don’t think you need to give up on dating apps, right? I think it’s a good thing to recognize that it’s maybe not the space that works best for you. It’s tricky because you said that you’re communicating, but maybe people who you communicate to that you’re demisexual don’t fully know what that means. So maybe it would be more effective to both say you’re demisexual and in your bio say the funny, charming thing you said to us, that you’re looking for someone to have a three season slow burn romance with. That communicates so much.

And as someone who, even if I might be slower to hook up, I might still like flirting with strangers. If I saw that on an app and what I was looking for was to flirt with someone that night or to meet up with them and hook up soon or whatever, I would be like, “Oh, this person isn’t for me.” And if I was looking for something more serious, I’d be like, “Oh cool. This is what I’m looking for.” I think that would maybe communicate more to me than demisexual because that can mean slightly different things to different people. So I think really being clear about what it is that you are looking for.

Christina: Yeah. I was going to say quite literally the same thing, because I think that little anecdote you included is so charming and says so much about your familiarity with pop culture and the way that TV shows and books and the trope of slow burn generally, that says so much to me about who you are as a person that I feel like it is a perfect dating app little anecdote to slide in there.

And I think also just reminding yourself that, yes, if a stranger texts me, I might knee jerk be like, “Nope, I don’t want to speak to you,” knowing that about yourself is super helpful and reminding yourself that this is just a knee jerk reaction, it does not mean yay or nay on this person immediately. You can sit with that tension and work through it by yourself. But I think also you’re very right in maybe moving to in person conversation before way too long of the texting and the messaging, that might be the better choice for you. I think it’s the better choice for everybody, frankly. I think just as quick as you can move to an in person interaction is for the better, but you know that, so do what you can with that information.

Drew: You also can communicate… I mean, I don’t know what you mean by flirting, but if I want to date someone more seriously, I don’t really like to sext before we meet. And I know a lot of people, we’ve talked about this in our sexting episode, that some people are very different than that, but I’ve definitely cut off flirting and managed to do it in ways that didn’t offend the other person, didn’t break the energy or the banter that we were building up and just was sort of like, “Oh, we’ve reached my boundary, maybe later.” I think there’s just ways to do it where you make sure the person doesn’t feel like they did something wrong but you’re just being very clear and communicating that a boundary of yours has been reached. And if you don’t want to be that direct, I also think that you can theoretically reroute the conversation and the tone.

And I also think that something to know is that the kind of slow burn you’re describing often isn’t quite conducive to dating apps and where it is super conducive to is my good friend Instagram. And Instagram is the best place to… That’s my current relationship is just a year of we follow each other and we occasionally respond to each other’s stories and we were flirting, but not in a sexual way really. It was real, pretty mild in the beginning there. More like responding to things and chatting and getting to know each other and occasionally maybe responding to a thirst trap or whatever, but not that often. So Instagram is great and that’s why I do love it because it does allow me to have my little slow burns. Most of the time, my suggestion is like, “Look for hot people on Instagram.”

Christina: I do love that about you, that you’re just a steady and faithful servant of the Instagram flirting and bonding. And if you know that you find the people that you date in person, tap into those in person networks, who do you know that’s like mutual friends and their mutual friends? Look around your networks to find who you can find because you already know what works for you so tap into those resources.

Drew: I would also say a big piece of advice that I believe in is, and I’ve maybe even said this on the podcast before, but when you are swiping on dating apps, swiping right does not mean, “I am horny and someday I would like to have sex with this person.” Swiping right means if this person messages me tomorrow, I won’t groan. And I think that’s such a good thing to remember because as someone who’s also in the horny community, I think I can sometimes be swiping and be like, “Yeah, I mean, I would have sex with this person. I would have sex with this person maybe if we really hit it off.” And it’s like, okay, but maybe in that moment late at night, the next day when that person sends you like a, “Hey,” how are you going to feel? How are you going to feel?

And I do think that’s something that can help. I mean, you don’t get the same validation and that can be hard. And maybe you want to meet people romantically in person, but you just want to use dating apps for validation and for passing the time. And that’s also fine. So if you want to have that match and be like, “Oh, this person matched with me and oh, they’re flirting, I don’t want to talk to them,” and ghost, you can do that, that’s fine. But just then be aware of what you’re using it for and don’t feel upset if they’re not your perfect match.

Christina: Yeah. I think that’s a really good way to think about dating apps.

Drew: Well, we did it.

Christina: We crushed it as ever.

Drew: If you have a question, we’re going to be doing more of these and so either if you are an A+ member, we love you, send us your questions. If you’re not an A+ member, become an A+ member and send us questions.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Episode 207: Hygiene

Ah, bodies. These sacks of meat, bones and skin that we must drag our consciousness around in until we come up with a better way to get through this thing called life. And if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, we have to bring them with us on dates and hook ups! How do we deal with the reality of our human bodies while dating? Does anyone notice the tiny little things we stress out about as much as we do? What does the way we present our bodies to others say about our gender, our sexuality?

We knew we needed to dig into this and who better to do it with than the one and only Samantha Irby? If you have not read Sam’s work — fix that ASAP — you should know there are very few people who write about mortifying body related issues as well or as funnily as Sam. We get into what we are preoccupied about with regards to our own bodies, the likelihood that no one cares as much as we do and our personal shower routines. Warning: if you have any of us over, prepare to be out of hot water!

And for ONCE Drew brings a game that is not dragging me and my dating issues! What a treat!

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SHOW NOTES:

+ Buy all of Sam’s books right now, you will laugh and laugh and you will never regret it, not for a moment. Also subscribe to her hilarious newsletter!

+ Hannah Enbinder did look incredible on Drag Race but this woman is simply a bottom or a bottom leaning switch.

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+ The Last Movie Stars is currently streaming on HBO Max, but mostly Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were an EXTREMELY hot couple.

+ If you are gay or transgender, Charles Barkley loves you!

+ *extremely Fleabag voice* Her arms…

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+ I am probably not going to re-watch Madam Secretary but I do feel everyone should see Bebe Neuwirth, Patina Miller and Erich Bergen signing a version of “For The Longest Time” wherein they change the lyrics to reflect… the world economy? (???) Truly, it’s worth it simply to hear Patina sing “Sixty percent of global GDP” and “Oh what Trans-Pacific partners we will be” from Bebe.

EPISODE:

Sam: If you’re into it, then good for us both. And if you’re not, I get it. It’s cool. Don’t ever talk to me again, but like-

Christina: Sure.

Sam: I get it.

Christina: Please forget that I exist and let’s never speak of this again.

[theme song plays]

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: And I’m Christina.

Drew: And welcome to, Wait, Is This a Date?

Christina: Wait, Is This a Date? Is an Autostraddle podcast dedicated to the one, some might say the only question, wait, is this a date?

Drew: The most important question.

Christina: Yeah, I was trying to think of other important questions and I can’t think of a single damn one.

Drew: Not today. My name is Drew Gregory. I’m a writer for Autostraddle and a filmmaker and a queer trans woman.

Christina: Oh, that was gorgeous. That was easy breezy-

Drew: Concise-

Christina: … beautiful-

Drew: Tight.

Christina: … concise. Let’s see if I can match you. My name’s Christina Tucker. I’m also a writer for Autostraddle, amongst other places, podcaster and I am a black gay woman. Brag. Go off me. Okay. She’s on fire.

Drew: Yeah. I really love that by episode six, seven of the season, seven. We’re like we know who we are. We’re saying it quickly.

Christina: Also by episode seven of our second season, like, what were we doing all of first season? We have no idea, who were we?

Drew: Exploring our identities.

Christina: Ugh, my least favorite thing to do. Self reflection?. I’m all set. Speaking of self reflection. I feel like you have a game for me and if we’re going by your past games, they tend to drag me a little bit. So-

Drew: Yes.

Christina: How? How today?

Drew: So I decided that I’ve been pretty tough on you in our past game.

Christina: Thank you.

Drew: So I was going to take a break from roasting you and just like have a fun one.

Christina: Okay. I’m excited!

Drew: So we’re going to play a classic with a twist. It is, would you rather, but specifically with queer celebrities and specifically with queer experiences.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: It’s going to make sense. It’s not complicated.

Christina: I love your conceptual brain. Let’s go.

Drew: Okay. Would you rather have a 48 hour first date with Gillian Anderson or Cynthia Nixon?

Christina: Ooh, that is tough. Those are two kinds of kooky white women, which are, not to brag, something I’m pretty good at dealing with. Now, something in my gut is saying Cynthia, but I don’t know why.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: I think it’s just a gut feeling. Yeah. I don’t know. I’m just, I’m going with my gut and I don’t know that I can explain it.

Drew: I thought you might say that. And my theory for that is that a 48 hour date with Cynthia Nixon seems a lot more mellow than a 48 hour date with Gillian Anderson.

Christina: Maybe that’s it-

Drew: It feels more your speed.

Christina: I do feel like Gillian would be like, let’s go outside and I’d be like, well, let’s talk about that.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Why?

Drew: Okay. Next, moving on, moving on, moving on. So would you rather Sara Ramirez or Kate Moennig build you a bookshelf while you flirted and brought them refreshments?

Christina: I’m going to have to say Sara, but only if I could also request that they like maybe sing lightly for me. Lightly.

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: Not a lot, not a ton, but like come on The Voice, The Voice alone.

Drew: You know, I think they might do that for you.

Christina: Fingers crossed.

Drew: Next one, causing a little bit of drama here. Would you rather go on a romantic date to a Broadway show with Cherry Jones or Holland Taylor?

Christina: Wow. Of Sarah Paulson’s ex and current girlfriend. That is hard. I kind of feel like Holland, I think Holland.

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: But then on the other hand, consider Cherry Jones. That is a challenge. Damn, Sarah Paulson’s a lucky gal.

Drew: I’ll let her know you said that.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. When you text her next, let her know. I think it’s going to be Holland. I don’t know.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: I just feel like I want to hang out with that energy.

Drew: Okay. Would you rather be the plus one at the Oscars for Jodie Foster or Kristen Stewart?

Christina: Jodie because I feel like Kristen’s going to make me do stuff after, and I know Jodie will also just wants to go home and lie down and Kristen’s like, let’s hit a party. Let’s get I’m like, no, let’s not. We already did one very big event today, babe. Let’s take a nap.

Drew: Fair enough. Would you rather have a romantic meal cooked for you by Melissa King or get styled by Stacy London in a sexual way?

Christina: So this is an attack on me and my person and everything that I’ve ever stood for. The 14 year old and me, I’m going to have to give it to my girl, Stacy, because she has, that-

Drew: Wow.

Christina: She and that gray streak have been with me from 2004 on and that’s beautiful.

Drew: That’s a long term relationship.

Christina: It is.

Drew: Okay. A few more. Would you rather be a unicorn for Niecy Nash and Jessica Betts or Queen Latifah and Eboni Nichols?

Christina: Got to be Queen Latifah, got to be. It’s the queen, like what am I. It’s Dana Owens, AKA Queen Latifah like I have to for science, for the community I feel like I have to do this.

Drew: Sure, sure. Yeah.

Christina: That’s so hard. I’m maybe thinking about that until I die, actually.

Drew: I was pretty proud of that one. Okay. You’re a famous bottom. Would you rather try topping with Tommy Dorfman or Hannah Einbinder?

Christina: Tommy. I feel like I could top Tommy. I do not feel like I could top Hannah.

Drew: Great. That was inspired by when Hannah an Einbinder was, I don’t watch Hacks. Maybe this is why, but when she was the Drag Race guest, I saw a tweet that was like, oh my God, her strap is so big. And I was like, that girl was giggling all through that episode around those queens. Where are you reading top energy?

Christina: Yeah, no. Game recognized game. And I can confidently say that girl is a bottom, at least a switch.

Drew: Sure. Okay. Last one. Would you rather have an affair with Lena Waithe or Cynthia Erivo?

Christina: For you to bring this up to me at this time in my life, where I stand at such a precipice between the two of them. God, who is going to annoy me least. That’s really hard to say, they’re both so annoying in such different ways. My gut is saying Cynthia, but maybe so I could be like, what is your plan for the Wicked movie? What is-

Drew: Wow.

Christina: What’s your, I want to get in on the ground floor with some details of that. So maybe that’s the way I can do it.

Drew: Wow. I love, I love that as a reason. A very you reason.

Christina: I don’t feel proud of that answer, but it’s what I have.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: It’s who I am.

Drew: Sure. Well, thanks so much for playing with me.

Christina: Well, thanks so much for giving me the opportunity to play with you. My dear friend.

Drew: Yeah, no problem.

Christina:D o you think it’s time that we get into the meat of our conversation?

Drew: I think it might be.

Christina: I didn’t like saying meat there. I really regretted it kind of the instant it flew out of my mouth, but you know, I think fun. I feel like our guest probably understands the feeling of saying something and regretting it, the instant it flies out of their mouth. So I would love if our guests would introduce themselves to the world, to us, to everyone.

Sam: Hi, my name is Samantha Irby and I am a noted bisexual.

Christina: Wow. Thank you for bringing that into the space.

Drew: I love it.

Christina: Noted bisexual.

Sam: Just trying to ruin it right out of the gate. Just trying to make you hate me from the moment you hear my voice.

Christina: You know, we have been just dancing on the line of people hating us. So…

Sam: I’m here to push it all the way over.

Christina: All the way over. And our topic today, as I described it to Sam, when we were texting about this was, bodies are disgusting. They are something that everybody has and we have to deal with them in dating. And then I checked our Google doc and then I was like, oh, I guess like hygiene was like the nice clean way to put that. But I said, nah, for Sam, I’m just saying bodies are disgusting.

Sam: Yes. If you said hygiene to me, I immediately would be like, oh no, did Christina smell me at some point? Is that what we’re talking about?

Drew:This is an intervention.

Christina: Yeah. Sam, we brought you here today…

Sam: Drew’s like, I don’t really know you, but I’d like to talk.

Christina: Have something to say. Yeah, bodies are awful. And they are, as I was thinking about this topic, I was kind of like, that is something that does preoccupy a lot of my mental space and energy is like, what is my body doing? How can I buff it and shine it to its best at all times? And I do think it is something that preoccupies me a lot in, especially in a dating space when I am bravely dating, which I am, as we know, not doing at the moment. Yeah. They’re gross. I don’t know. Drew, what do you, how do you feel about bodies?

Drew: Is it a smell thing for you? Is that what you’re preoccupied with?

Christina: Okay. So currently let’s just really dive in. So currently it is a smell thing for me because I got COVID famously in December, lost my smell and taste. Took a long time for it to come back and now I can smell myself and I’m convinced I smell all the time. No one can else can smell it. Very strange place to be in. I’m always like, I smell like rotting garbage and everyone’s like, can’t smell that at all. That’s just you. Very strange. Now I’m constantly just like I smell, I smell. I know it. Everybody’s thinking it. And everyone’s like, no, one’s thinking it. Stop asking us. Be normal for one fucking second. And I’m like, I can’t. Nope. I smell bad.

Sam: You probably smell just fine.

Christina: Probably. But there’s no way to know. I think I smell bad.

Sam: That’s hard.

Christina: That’s hard. I would rather just not be able to smell.

Sam: It’s hard when like the inside of your nose is conspiring against you.

Christina:Y es. It feels like my body is-

Sam: But there’s something you can do about that except like ride it out. And that’s terrible. Like I imagine you could go to like an ENT and be like, Hey doctor, the inside of my nose is wrong, but what are they going to do?

Christina: Yeah. There’s not a ton. I’ve obviously been reading a lot about the science of smell. And they’re all just kind of like, yeah, noses do be weird. Tough to say. Anyway. Not helpful.

Sam: You know, like in Silence of the Lambs, when Jodie Foster like puts that stuff on her nose, so she doesn’t smell.

Drew: Yeah.

Sam: You could walk around with that on your face-

Christina: I could-

Sam: … all day.

Christina: … but then I would have something weird on my face all day.

Sam:You would look like you had a snotty nose and that would-

Christina: Exactly.

Sam: That’d be a different kind of disgusting.

Drew: Your anxiety is that someone else is smelling. Like you don’t care that you smell, you care more that other people-

Christina: No, it drives me nuts that I smell.

Drew: Oh, okay.

Christina: I don’t want to smell it either. But it’s also annoying that like, I guess, if I’m the only one who can smell it, I guess that’s fine. I guess. But I would prefer to never think about that. I would prefer to smell like a field of flowers or whatever all the time.

Drew: Sure. Sure.

Sam: Which is what you smelled like before COVID?

Christina: I think, I thought, what do I know now? Nothing is true. Everything is false. Scales are falling for my eyes.

Drew: Samantha, when you’re dating, is that something that you’re anxious about, like body smells?

Sam: Not the smell. So I always feel like I have an unwieldy body. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing with it. Like I’m not a smooth person, both literally and figuratively, but I never feel like I’m in complete control of all of my limbs. And when dating, I’m just like, I don’t like the, you know moving around a new person and them like watching how you walk or how you grab a glass or how you do, that is the body stuff that vexes me at first. And then when we move into the seeing and touching body phase, then it’s just a full on, everything about my body is wrong. What about this weird patch? What?

Okay. So my main problem is that I do not have, and this is clinical depression talking, but I do not have the capacity to do all of the things that you are like supposed to do for your body. I’m like, I can… Like, it’s why I shave my hair off because I’m like, oh, I can’t be like styling hair every day. Right. And then it’s like, well I also can’t shave. And like I can exfoliate, but not as often as you should probably exfoliate. So it’s all that stuff. It’s like, this person is going to have to view the partial decay underneath my clothes. And that’s the stressful stuff to me. Like I don’t pumice my heels enough, and someone is going to have to see that. So I can’t even get to the smells because I’m too busy being like, you know what stalactites are hanging off the parts of my body I don’t look at.

Christina: Not a stalactite. Not that.

Sam: Like, what are the, where are the crusty patches that I can’t see? And like I have, there’s one in the middle of my back and it’s like, anytime I have to introduce that to someone I’m like it’s eczema, but I don’t have a limb that reaches back there to deal with it. So just don’t look. Sex with the lights off, with the sun blocked out.

Christina: How cave like, can we make it in here?

Sam: Yes. Truly. We need blackout curtains. We need to be under a black blanket. Just don’t look at any of it.

Christina: Drew, can you, are you normal? What’s going on with your brain?

Drew: Well, no. I mean, I have a lot of anxiety and OCD and all sorts of things. But I would say, it’s interesting because right now my partner has the most sensitive nose of anyone I’ve ever met ever. And we started dating during the pandemic. And so it was over FaceTime and we didn’t meet for way longer into whatever relationship we were starting to form, than I usually would. And that was like a big anxiety of like, I knew that about her because we had talked a lot and I was like, what if she just hates the way I smell? And luckily that didn’t happen. But like I did switch deodorant to a natural deodorant. And that’s the thing, what’s interesting is that she like likes body smells.

Christina: Oh, it’s the fake smells.

Drew: It’s the fake smells that really bother her. So it’s actually completely changed my relationship to my like body odor and my anxiety around my body odor, because my partner who’s like the main person I’m trying to impress, like is happier days that I don’t wear deodorant. And I’ve switched to natural deodorant, which I never would’ve done. I would’ve felt so anxious about smelling and like other people in the world haven’t seemed to have an issue with it. I maybe, I don’t know you were, you saw me recently or not recently, but when we were in New York, if I smelled, please tell me and then, it sucks for my girlfriend. But I’ll just-

Christina: Yes. I definitely wouldn’t have told you in person when we were hanging out, but I would’ve waited a couple of months to do so via our podcast to be like, Drew-

Drew: Well, you got to have content, you know?

Christina: You want to talk about April and the way you smelled?

Drew: But, yeah, so like, I don’t know, I feel less anxious about it, but also like still breath, like she can smell. I don’t know. I am sometimes a little lazy when it comes to brushing my teeth in the morning. Like sometimes it, if I don’t have any plans, I might wait till after lunch instead of after breakfast. And like, I need to get better about that because like I can tell. But I don’t know. Also, I think I used to be so much more anxious about body smells and body weirdness before I started having more casual sex. And I think I just sort of got, I just was like, we’re all so weird.

And like bodies are all so weird and like the things that gross me out about my body, like even if it’s like a one night stand, like even if it’s not someone who loves me, it’s just someone who wants to have sex with me. Like I don’t know, like for the most part, sex is gross and we’re just like, we’ve chosen to be there with each other and if we’re horny enough, like we’re there and we’re in it and things that would be so gross in a non horny environment are like hot to me right now.

So I guess I’m just going to have to like turn that same sort of gross acceptance towards myself. It’s a journey. But I do think that I’m so much less anxious about hygiene and random, weird body stuff than I used to be. Yeah, body hair is still the thing though. That’s I’m, if I’m thinking about it, that’s the one that I still get pretty like, what I’m sure is like connected to trans stuff and like dysphoria stuff. And like, I just, if I could have any magical power, this is very selfish of me because I don’t think I could like save the world with it, but I would love to have the ability to grow and reduce hair all over, at will.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: That would be such a great skill to have.

Christina: That would be nice. I mean I did recently say that I would like my body to be as smooth as my brain is. So that’s like where I’m headed. Like I would just like to just be like a slippery little dolphin in the brain and also skin wise. But I do often try to remember that like all of the things that I am always wrapped up about my own body, my own weirdness, whatever, at no point have I ever been in the process of having sex with someone and they have said, pause ma’am-

Sam: Right.

Christina: This is horrible to look at. And I’d like it to go away. Like that has never happened to me.

Drew: No.

Christina: And I know that logically, but yet, but yet and still, and still.

Sam: I mean, that’s the thing. If you could pop your brain out of your head for a minute, like it would be so much better because that’s where all the anxiety comes from. I have zero lived experience to point to like someone saying something to me, it’s all me, it’s all in my head. So I have been married for like six years, I have a wife and-

Christina: Brag.

Sam: Well, I mean… Sorry.

Christina: Bring the wife to the pod. Wow. Wow. Wow. Fair enough.

Sam: I mean, here’s the thing. I have to bring her up in case she listens and then it’s like, you went on a podcast and talked about what it’s like to date when you’ve had wife for six years. But I also bring her up to say that even when you’ve been with someone for a long time, and I know that she knows like what all my parts look like, it still doesn’t free me of some of the body stuff. Right. I’m like, am I put together enough for her? Is my skin still soft? Have I stopped doing things because I’m like, what’s she going to do about it? And the answer to that is, yes, but so far she has been polite or caring, we’ll decide which later, but she has been like polite enough to not be like, oh you really, you’re really relaxed in this marriage. Good for you.

Christina: You ever thought about paying a bit more attention in this here marriage? No.

Sam: If she said that, I’d be like, you know what? You are correct. I have not had a pedicure in three years. Let me, I’ll go. Yes. I’ll-

Christina: You know what, let me get myself there.

Sam: Thank you for pointing that out to me. I’ll go.

Drew: I mean, I know where those voices come from, for me. And like it’s society, sure. But like it’s my mom and my sister. Like when I say I don’t have evidence of people, it’s like, yeah, I don’t have any evidence in my dating life of people being like, you’re disgusting. Why do you have a body? Why are you human being? But I sure have evidence from like my childhood and like my sister put more pressure on herself than on the people around, like than on me and my mom put more pressure on herself than on me and my sister. So it’s like coming down from society to them, to me. But those are the voices in my head. It’s like imagining, just like my judgemental sister, like saying that I smell and just like the horror that I feel about that.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, yeah, definitely. I do think there is, there are moments where I’m like, oh that’s not your actual voice. No, that’s your mother’s voice. How helpful is that in this scenario? Realistically? Probably not very helpful. But also I think because it is like such a weird like anxiety response. I never really think about other people’s bodies nearly as much as I think about my own.

Sam: Ever.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: I couldn’t give, go off. Do whatever your body do. That is not, that’s simply not my business. Even if we are in some sort of sexual experience. Wow. I sound like an absolute virgin. Like that simply — I’m still not preoccupied with it. I’m probably going to be thrilled that it’s on the table. But my own body. That’s the thing.

Sam: That’s the one that keeps you up at night, really.

Christina: It’s bad.

Sam: I have this like game that, it’s not a game, but this like thing I have to say to myself all the time that I don’t know, maybe it will be helpful or you will think like I really have a problem. But I remind myself constantly like that I’m the guest at the wedding, not the a bride. Right. Nobody’s looking at me, nobody’s thinking about me. Nobody’s worrying about what I’m doing as much as I’m worried about what I’m doing. And that is sort of how, that is my coping mechanism for like kind of getting out of my head a little bit about like, what do I look like? What am I dressed like? Do I have the right thing on? I’m just like, you’re a guest, you’re off to the side. No one cares. Do your little thing in the corner and no one’s going to notice you. And that has been helpful to me. Although it never like fully shuts the-

Christina: Shuts the demons up.

Sam: Like, the “you stink and look weird” voice all the way down. It turns the volume down, but it doesn’t turn it off.

Christina: Yeah. I can’t tell if that would be helpful or if I would also simultaneously be like, so you’re telling me I’m not the center of attention. Interesting. I have a couple of notes there.

Sam: I’m not the star of this movie, please. I’m the star.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, I also think that we don’t have to pretend as if there aren’t things about, the same way that there are physical appearance things that attract some people and repel other people. Some of us might have smells that we’re trying to not think about because we want to have better self-esteem, but does someone out there really would gross them out or really repel them or whatever. And you know what it’s like, okay then that’s not who you date.

Sam: Yeah. Yeah.

Drew: Which isn’t to say that look like, if you want to get a new deodorant or you want to like work on whatever it is about yourself that you feel weird about, or someone commented on like, sure you can. But I guarantee that even if you don’t, someone out there, you click with and they like the way you smell-

Sam: Yes.

Drew: And they like the way you move and they like the way you carry yourself and they like all of the scabs on your back. Like, they’re just like, that I think is also part of it is being like that’s part of dating.

Sam: Yeah.

Drew: And we hate this idea that we could have sex with someone and then they could like be grossed out by us. Like that’s such a mortifying, like I’m just thinking about, it’s like such a, but it’s like, I’m sure it’s happened.

Sam: Yeah.

Drew: And I’m sure. And because I know it’s happened to me. And I’d say the deeper thing is like, I’m not judging those people. Most of those people, I just was like usually an emotional thing. Like usually it was like maybe if I was really in love with that person or really, really into that person, I would’ve been more into their weird body stuff and they’re fluids and all their things. But like it’s just case by case like most things in dating.

Christina: I do love the idea of being like, Ooh baby, I’m into your fluids. Ooh. Yeah.

Drew: Well, you know.

Christina: Fluided up.

Sam: That’s the thing though. If you really like someone like on every other level, it’s like, well I’ll put up with that gross thing.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. Or actively let, I mean like we can get like, I don’t know. I mean, there’s definitely like thing-

Sam: I love that gross thing. Okay. I’ll change it.

Sam: I’m obsessed with that gross thing.

Christina: That gross thing is consuming my brain. It’s all I think about, is grossness. Various grossness is. Yeah, I mean that is absolutely the other side of it is like, there are just a ton of people in the world and like your weird thing is gross to some people and it’s not gross to everybody. Like you’re not going to be everything for everybody. Something that I tell myself a lot, which is hard to do. But-

Christina: It is a fact, I suppose, sometimes.

Sam: A thing that I have to work on in therapy a lot, not to bring up therapy, but-

Christina: It’s a gay podcast. You have to.

Sam: Okay guys, this is a safe space is like this idea that you can’t control someone’s perception of you. And in my specific case, it’s like, I want to know that everyone thinks I’m nice. I want to know that people like me, but like I can’t control. I can’t control that. I just have to let go of the idea and let people experience me and have their takeaway be whatever it is and not like invest in what that takeaway is. And I guess it’s the same thing with bodies. It’s like, if you’re into it then good for us both. And if you’re not, I get it. It’s cool. Don’t ever talk to me again, but like.

Christina: Sure.

Sam: I get it.

Christina: Please forget that I exist-

Sam: Yes.

Christina: And let’s never speak of this again.

Sam: Yeah. Let’s pretend we’ve never met. Thank you.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I’m interested in talking about, I know that like I’ve dated a wide variety of gender presentations and I sometimes think about like how much I care about some of these like hygiene presentation type body things, depending on, I don’t know, we have this like cultural idea, right. That like masculinity can equal more of these like gross things or not even gross, but even just like body hair and whatever. And like, and then femininity is like the opposite. And for both of you, like does who you’re around, especially in a romantic context, like, does that impact like how anxious you are about these various things?

Christina: Not often. I do think one of my superpowers is being incredibly concerned with my own self. And as a result of that, I’m very rarely concerned with what other people like, what like other presentations and how that might affect me. I’m like that’s fine. But that’s just like, not for me. And especially in like spaces where I am, like one of the only femmes or like one of the only black women, I’m like, whatever you weird white people with your mullets are doing is not my problem. Like I’m going to put a full face of makeup on and go to the gay party kind of no matter what. So I think in that way, I don’t really care about what other people’s perceptions of me are, which is good, which is a good-

Drew: Yeah. Let’s celebrate that.

Christina: Let’s celebrate that. Look who doesn’t need a therapist. She just has a podcast. She’s killing it.

Sam: I think I found that like with, especially when I was younger, the men that I dated when I was younger were much more of like appraising than women ever have been. Like, I don’t think I’ve ever been with a woman who was like, stand back and let me get a good look. You know, like they’re inspecting meat at the grocery store. And that is incredibly stressful. It feels like a test you have to pass, which is wild because like a lot of those guys would’ve fucked a pillowcase full of peanut butter. Right? Like-

Christina: Happily. I bet.

Sam: So feeling like I had to be something for them in hindsight is like, oh, I should have told them to fuck off into the sea, but I’ve never dated a woman who made me feel like, if after this inspection I don’t check off all the marks you’re out of here. And it’s probably why I ended up married to a woman just because that has been, the experience is, for me as someone who doesn’t pass a lot of those tests has been a much more like, it’s a much more relaxed way to be intimate with someone when it doesn’t feel like they’re cataloging all of your parts.

Christina: Oof. Yeah.

Drew: It’s interesting thinking about it, because I do think that like most of the more masculine people I’ve been with have been like somewhere on the like transmasc spectrum or queer in some way. And I’m realizing that actually it’s not masculinity and femininity of the person I’m with, but actually like their familiarity with transness. And that like, I think when I’ve had experiences with cis women who I can tell are very, like, I don’t know, new to community or at least like new to trans people. That’s when I feel like I need to be more on top of like performing these things we associate with femininity. So it is like my own pull towards femininity as opposed to like what the other person’s presentation is.

Christina: But it’s also like performing that because like in the face of whatever perceived femininity, that like whatever cis woman would have, it’s like, oh, I’ve got to-

Drew: I mean, if I was hooking up with a transmasc person, like I could have not even shaved my face that day and I would still, they would probably still, they’d have an investment in making, like, I don’t know, like whatever the dynamic was like they would understand and make me feel more in touch with my gender, I think. But then some of it is personal because like some of it is like when we hook up with people, I don’t know for me, like I want to feel sexy. So even though like I know like in my current relationship, she would be fine with me, like never wearing makeup or never like shaving my legs or whatever. And like it’s more that I feel better going into a sexual scenario, even with someone I’m super comfortable with, if I can, like, I don’t know, be like, do some of these things that make me feel, I’m like doing a little shoulders-

Christina: I see your little wiggle.

Drew: But like… And I even find that there have been times where I’ve been like, oh, we’ve been having a lot of like morning sex, afternoon sex, like still in pajama sex. And like that’s fun. And we are still in a pandemic, but like I think I want to like get dressed up and, not even dressed up like a gown or anything, but just like, feel like I’ve done the things that I do that make me feel like I’m taking care of myself in ways that are just like good for me. Yeah. And then even approaching sex with my partner than feels like more exciting or like feels better for me.

Christina: Yeah.

Sam: I love that. I got to say I never have that desire. I’m always like-

Drew: And I love that.

Sam: Oh, right, right. Rolling right out of bed and okay, great. Yeah. I don’t have zhuzh anything up. Perfect.

Christina: I will say as a person who is obsessed with putting on a full face of makeup every day of my life, often in sexual scenarios, I’m like, well, RIP to those sheets and that pillowcase, because boy, is it going to be a different color when I’m all set with a. Me entering a bedroom with someone who has a white sheet, I’m like, well, here we go. Whole face of foundation about to be places it should not be. That’s, I guess part of the journey.

Sam: You got to leave like some Tide pods on the bedside table when you leave.

Christina: I should have just like a go bag of, here are your hostess gifts. Thank you so much.

Drew: I just imagine you like breaking someone’s heart and they’re crying over you looking at like an imprint of your face on their sheets. This is where she was.

Christina: Look at it. Look at the mascara trailed about. Well, I mean, I am that I am, unfortunately, but we know that I’m bravely still not dating. So who can say when that will happen. When it does, when it does. Are you like a night shower? Drew, this is kind of random, but I just want to know, are you a night or are you a morning shower? I love to know this.

Drew: I have to morning shower.

Christina: Okay, same.

Christina: That is great.

Sam: Me too.

Christina: Ah, like-minded people.

Sam: Yeah.

Drew: I will say that I will do a night shower if I’ve done like a physical activity.

Sam: Sure.

Drew: Which for a long time, wasn’t a problem, because I wasn’t doing really physical activities and like-

Christina: Say that.

Drew: But now that it’s like summer and also that I’ve been like, so there’s like summer activities sometimes like going to the beach, whatever. And then also like, since I’ve started doing ballet, like I’m sweaty afterwards and I feel like I need to shower and it is easier to take off my makeup by just like getting in the shower. So there’s also like a laziness where if I like have the excuse of taking a second shower, I would say that my flaw as a roommate and maybe like a citizen of the world is that I take long showers, and now I take sometimes two showers a day.

Christina: I mean, same and same. I love a long shower. I really find it comforting, really find like I find myself there. I also, let’s be honest. I got a lot to do Drew. You also, we’ve got a lot of hair.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Honestly, 98% of the reason I can’t take a night shower is like what? I’m going to bed with wet hair. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my whole life. What’s happening to my curl pattern in that scenario. Nothing good. I have to comb this out. I have to put my goo’s in it. I have to let it dry. I have to air dry it and then fluff it or whatever. Can’t be doing that at night.

Drew: Yeah. Wait, what are our shower Routines? What’s, give me an average day.

Christina: Do you have 45 minutes? An average shower for CT. She turns upon the shower. She puts on a podcast or music. She’s having a shower.

Drew: We’re doing beat by beat.

Christina: Yeah. Depending on if I’m washing my hair that day, tough to say, if I am washing my hair, then like God help whoever needs water in this house. Because now we have to do a whole process where I have to like start with the conditioner, comb it out, leave it in there while I do all of the washing, not to brag, I am not white. So I do wash my legs, TBT to that whole conversation. Shaving all of the shaving. Just again, trying to be as smooth as I possibly can. Then the conditioner gets rinsed out and then more products are applied in the shower to control the hairs. And then I do some sort of like long lotioning routine afterwards, which my roommates now refer to as lotion drying time. And they know that I simply won’t be doing anything, but sitting on my bed and waiting for all my lotions to dry. It’s a long time in there. Sam, what do you up to in there?

Sam: So this is so funny, that you mentioned you put on a podcast because I do too. And my very thoughtful spouse just got me a shower speaker.

Christina: We need one. We need one.

Sam: I’ll send you one.

Christina: Thank you.

Sam: It’s the most amazing adventure. I mean, maybe she got sick of me, like turning my phone all the way up and like destroying the whole house trying to listen to a podcast while in my 20 minute shower. So I’ll turn on the speaker, put on a podcast, get in. We just moved and we have a house with like, our shower now is just like a single stall, but it’s gotten like a really good shower head. So I don’t love the single stall. I’d prefer a tub.

Christina: Single stall is tough.

Sam: Prefer the tub with the nubbly stuff at the bottom.

Christina: Yeah.

Sam: So you feel like you’re not going to slip and fall, but-

Christina: All that conditioner my hair I’m going down.

Sam: Yes. No, that is real. So since I shave my head, I don’t have to condition, but I do have like scalp issues. So I’ll put a layer of, I’ll wet my head, put a layer of dandruff shampoo and let that sit.

Christina: Got to let it sit.

Sam: I don’t know if that works more, but I had old parents. So I noticed now that in my adult life, I just, everything I do feels like an old wives tale. You know, where it’s just like, the bottle doesn’t say I need to leave it on for 10 minutes. But I do because I feel like my mom told me I should do that. So I leave my dandruff shampoo on, do a wash. I have a gorgeous peri-menopausal beard that I wake up with every morning. Just a little patch under the chin that has to get shaved off. I mean, she’s very beautiful, but she also is gray and it’s too much. So that gets shaved off. Then I rinse my hair and I do like, I mean, I like to vary because I can’t have too much fun with like my body products because I have skin issues. But my face, I love to have like seven different face soap options in the shower. So I’ll pick one of those. Do that, get out. And then Palmer’s Cocoa Butter oil.

Christina: Classic.

Sam: I got a lube up with that. I too have to then sit on the side of the bed, staring into space. And you can tell when I’ve taken a shower, because there’s a little like greasy butt ring on the side of the bed from where I’ve sat, staring into space.

Christina: I’ve got you.

Sam: And then I get dressed and go on about my day.

Christina: God.

Sam: I cannot, even if I take a shower at night, I have to do a little something in the morning. I cannot-

Christina: Yeah.

Sam: … start the day without being like free-

Christina: My brain doesn’t turn on unless it’s-

Sam:Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Absolutely. And I will say I also have scalp issues and I did go to dermatologist and she did say that you’re supposed to let it sit for 10 minutes. So-

Sam: Oh my God. I feel-

Christina: … boom.

Sam: … like an absolute genius.

Christina: You are. Drew, talk to us about a shower.

Sam: Yes.

Drew: Okay. So I will usually put on music, not a podcast because I put it on like lower because I like have roommates and I don’t want to fill up the whole house. I should get a shower speaker, but so it’ll usually be music that I like am very familiar with. Like often Rihanna, like something that I’ve been, I’ve listened to the songs a million times. Because if I don’t know the music, then it like distracts from my thoughts being able to wander. On the most basic day, I will shave my face and then put on my face cleanser and then like soap on like a washcloth or like what are the, I don’t know what they’re called. Like the-

Christina: Loofah guy?

Drew: Yes. Yeah. And that’s like the most basic day, but I’ve started spreading my like body shaving out over like several days because when I was doing it all at once, I just would be in there for so long.

Sam: And you’d be a little prune when you got out.

Drew: So, yeah. So like I also, okay, so on a wash day, I’ll put the shampoo in my hair, leave it in while I shave and do my face cleanser, then take the shampoo out, then put the conditioner in and then let that sit while I shave a part of my body. It’s too long. That all takes so long if I do it also, I would say lately I’ve been doing like maybe like arms on that day or like stomach and chest on that day. And then like legs will be its own separate day.

Christina: That’s what they mean when they say leg day, I think. They’re talking about one day you’re shaving your legs. Yeah, for sure.

Drew: It’s also, it’s so funny thinking about like other people not noticing and me noticing like if I haven’t shaved my legs or my like, especially my like chest and stomach and arms in a week, like people probably wouldn’t notice, but I notice it so much. And so like if I could do it every day I would. And I would, I need to, I’m like thinking about getting laser when I have like the money for that. Just like to get it a little thinner.

Christina: Just so it’s gone.

Drew: But no one’s noticing that, like that’s a me thing where I’m like, well I can’t wear shorts or a skirt that day. If it’s like, it’s been whatever amount of days since I like shaved my legs and it’s like, I really, really could. And people wouldn’t notice, but yeah. Oh, and then after of course, after I get out of the shower, finish my skin care routine, then body lotion and also have a similar sitting. I usually sit on the towel, which I realize then is putting like a little bit of lotion on the towel itself, which I guess maybe that’s fine. Maybe that’s not fine.

Christina: I do the same thing.

Drew: I don’t want to get it on the bed. So I’m like, so I’ll just sort of be on the towel or have the towel down and just yeah, scroll through my phone. Yeah.

Christina: Scroll through my phone.

Sam: Yeah.

Christina: Play a phone game while vaping. You know, the usual hot girl shit that I’m up to.

Drew: Sometimes I’ll write in the shower. Like I get a lot of ideas there. So like sometimes like I’ll have my phone it’s playing the music like right on the ledge. So I’ll have to like pop out of the shower. And like with my wet fingers, like type a little bit, the thought that I had or a line-

Christina: Wow.

Sam: That’s amazing.

Drew: … that I had. And then I go back in the shower.

Christina: I’m trying to be no thoughts, head empty. I’m trying to have no thoughts of my own in the shower. I’m just listening to my podcast or if I’m listening to music, I’m singing along. No thoughts. I don’t want to think. Never, too close to meditating in that space.

Sam: I am impressed. Drew. That’s incredible.

Christina: Yeah. That’s really impressive stuff.

Drew: It’s how I break my writer’s block. Like if I have a writer’s block, usually like a shower will help me. I think it’s because they don’t have thoughts. Like I think it’s because I have tasks to do. There’s the sound of the water, sound of music, whatever. And like I’m not trying. So then I can, sometimes my mind will wander to places that I need it to wander.

Christina: Yeah. I hear that. I will say though, we are all morning showers. The best shower is the shower after a day at the beach, there’s almost nothing like it. To be so covered in sand and salted water and then be so free of all of those feelings. Ugh. Chef’s guest, best shower. Top among showers. Also the post travel shower, just like I’m home.

Sam: Oh the post travel shower.

Christina: Need to get this train station, bus, airport. I need to get it off of me, off of me.

Sam: Yeah.

Christina: I can’t speak to my bed until I’m clean.

Sam: Yeah.

Christina: Really good stuff. Really good stuff. I love taking showers. Honestly. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I’m excited for tomorrow morning, all over again.

Sam: It’s so funny that we all talked about like being stinky, yet we-

Christina: Compulsive showering every morning.

Sam: … are showering all the time.

Christina: Yeah. I guess science would maybe say that we’re probably not that smelly.

Christina: And yeah, not to brag. I’m not working up a sweat in my day to day life. Let me tell you what.

Sam: Same.

Christina: I am simply sitting down and that is it, in various places in my home.

Sam: Yes.

Christina: So, well I think we’ve nailed hygiene.

Drew: Yeah, this was great.

Christina: I think we crushed it.

Sam: I feel really good about myself.

Christina: Yay!

Drew: Good. That’s the goal.

Christina: We all should, everyone should feel good about themselves.

Sam: Yeah.

Christina: And you know, if you haven’t taken a shower in a while, try one out. They whip. Get in there. It’s crush corner time. So Drew, who are you crushing on? I’ll think of one soon, I bet.

Drew: Okay. So I actually haven’t I tweeted about this, but I haven’t started watching it, but Ethan Hawke made a documentary series about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. And I want to watch it, but I also was like, oh wow. I haven’t seen a lot of the movies they did together. If I watch this documentary about them, I’m going to spend the whole time being like, oh, I got to watch that. Which is a fun way to watch a documentary sometimes about movies. But I was like, what if I got a jumpstart on it? Also, I want to watch it with Elise, even though I’m trying to think. Maybe like a documentary about old movies might like get some enthusiasm for old movies. Maybe not, probably not. We’ll probably get through one episode together and I’ll watch the rest myself. Anyways, my crushes of the week are Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. I just watched Long Hot Summer, which is maybe not like a great movie, but they’re great in it. And they’re very hot together. And Paul Newman is just, I mean-

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Like.

Sam: [laughs]

Christina: Yeah. Yeah. God was really in her bag on that day. Let me tell you what. She put her pussy into that man.

Drew: Truly. And I just, I’m like, I don’t know, like I know that the Ethan Hawk documentaries is called The Last Movie Stars, and I’m like, he might be like, he’s the, like when I think of like a movie star, like Paul Newman, Paul Newman. Anyways.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: They’re my crushes of the week.

Christina: Also good recommendation to watch that, I have not done so yet.

Drew: I mean, I haven’t watched it either. So I’m recommending a documentary series for the experience of catching up on these two actors work. And maybe this, I hear this series is really good also though. So.

Christina: I mean, you wouldn’t be you if you wasn’t like “It’s this thing — and also it’s a lot of backlog watching.”

Drew: Yeah, for sure.

Christina: Sam, do you have a crush of the week? What are you consuming?

Sam: Well, I am consuming a lot of garbage, but most recently I’ve been watching a lot of clips from inside the NBA. It’s, basketball season is over, but I miss basketball season. And my current crush is Charles Barkley who is truly like one of the funniest people in America. And there’s this video that has been going around recently of him drunk in a nightclub and he gets on the mic and he says something, I’m going to botch the quote. But the gist of it is he’s like, if you are gay or transgender, I love you. And if anybody has a problem with it, you tell them that Charles Barkley says, fuck you. And the crowd goes nuts.

Charles Barkley (recorded audio): I want to say this. If you’re gay and transgender, I love you. Hey, and if anybody give you shit. You tell them Charles said, “Fuck you.”

Sam: He’s so honest. He’s so effortlessly funny. He is like the perfect post basketball star, post basketball career basketball star. I love him so much. I mean, I already did before that video, but then I was like, it’s like if your dad makes you proud, you’re like, oh dad, you’re the best. I had that feeling. But also like kind of sexually too. I don’t really want to fuck my dad though. But I had that kind of feeling about Charles Barkley. I just love him. He’s the best.

Christina: I just love you for picking a basketball player that I was like, I know that one.

Sam: I know you would.

Christina: Been there.

Sam: There was some obscure ones. And I was like, she, no, she is not going to-

Christina: I would’ve supported you no matter what you said, but I would’ve nodded like a dumb bitch who really didn’t know what you’re talking about. I would’ve said, yeah. Thrilling.

Sam: Oh, him. Great.

Christina: Especially if they’re not basketball players from like the like late eighties, early nineties, when I was like, just listening to my dad, watch a lot of basketball then like I kinda got nothing, like I don’t know, what’s Patrick Ewing up to, I don’t know, but he’s a basketball player.

Sam: He’s coaching now.

Christina: That makes sense.

Sam: Why do I know that?

Christina: See, that makes sense. I have remembered to my crushes because I knew I did have one and I did this past weekend go to see Into the Woods parentheses, again. Patina Miller, girl. Could you choke me to death at any point in this like life? That would be great. You are hot and incredible and a gorgeous witch. I don’t know why I’m talking directly to her as if she listens to this podcast.

Drew: No, good. Yes. Yes.

Christina: She does not.

Sam: Of course she does. We’re manifesting it.

Christina: We’re manifesting. Yeah. She was an incredible witch and I of course, because of who I am as a person, I was like, dude, does this mean I have to watch Madam Secretary again? Maybe it does. Maybe I do need more Patina Miller in my daily life, but I just was really thrilled to see her on stage and again, arms. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Whoa. Wow. What an actress. What a show. What a time.

Drew: What arms.

Christina: What arms. What arms. Yeah. And that’s going to be the end of me. So-

Drew: Well, Samantha, do you want to tell people where they can find you in your work?

Sam: Yeah. I’m like, I have to think of it. I have books that you can buy wherever you like to buy books. And I have a newsletter where I recap the show Judge Mathis, and you can find it at bitchesgottaeat@substack.com. It’s a lot of fun. Even if you have never seen even a minute of daytime court TV, I try to make it fun.

Christina: It’s very fun. And even though I have seen quite a lot of daytime court TV, because that was the best part about being homesick from school, when I was like in middle school. Yes I can confidently say if you haven’t even seen one, you’re going to have a great time. And yeah, buy all Sam’s books, they’re hilarious and they make me cry laugh. And my housemates say, what’s wrong with you? And I say, I’m laughing from joy and my friend being funny. Shut up.

Sam: That’s the highest praise I’ve ever received.

Christina: Wow. People should be nicer to you. You should have better praise! Come on now!

Drew: Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This a Date, you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Wait, Is This a Date? And you can email us at waitisthisadate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein. Our logo is by Maanya Dhar and this podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok @draw_gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter @C_ GraceT, and on Instagram at Christina_GraceT. And you can find Autostraddle of course at Autostraddle.

Drew: And you can find Autostraddle at autostraddle.com. The reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Oh, actually, that’s really interesting that you asked that because scientists are at this very moment, horridly trying to figure this out. We have some of our best scholars on this, on the case here. We don’t have an answer, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew: I wish them and us, the greatest luck.

Drew (voice memo): I’ve been accused of flirting by like talking about all the things that I do in the shower, I guess, because saying that I write in the shower makes people think of like me being naked. It’s really just that I get a lot of ideas in the shower. I’m not trying to flirt, not usually.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Episode 206: Celebrity Crushes

It was my sister’s turn to pick the movie at Blockbuster and she’d chosen A Walk to Remember. “Sorry. This is a girl movie,” my mom warned. When we got home and watched it as a family, I didn’t show my tears. Or my desire. I didn’t admit that I loved the movie and, more importantly, loved the lead. The year was 2002 and between Mandy Moore in this movie and Avril Lavigne releasing her debut album, I’d discovered the two types of celebrity crushes that would haunt the rest of my childhood.

Celebrity crushes mean more to queer people than they do to straight people. They can be our first expressions of queer desire or our first expressions of gender envy. They can be a safe place to try out urges that aren’t ready for the real world.

That’s why this week we’re talking with writer and podcaster Jordan Crucchiola all about celebrity crushes. We talk about how celebrity thirsting feels inclusive to Jordan as a panromantic gray asexual person. We talk about how I think most of my celebrity crushes are kind of attainable. And, of course, we talk about the famous older women on Christina’s water bottle.

But first! Christina quizzes me on a topic I know little about — lesbian romance novels

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ The real romance novels referenced in our game were: The X Ingredient, Breaking Character, Hotel Queens, Payback’s a Witch, and The Brutal Truth.

+ My reference for two lovers sharing a wall:

+ Christina’s reference for two lovers sharing a wall:

+ Here are all of Jordan Crucchiola’s podcasts:

A Simple Podcast
The Whole Movie Podcast
Aughtsterion
Disaster Girls
Feeling Seen

+ My famous Euphoria recaps.

+ If like me, you have no idea who Lindsay Shookus is, here’s a timeline of her relationship with Mr. Jennifer Lopez.

+ This is very brave of me, because I don’t remember everything I wrote on my Tumblr, but here’s a link to my Nicole Kidman project.

+ The Angelina Jolie Rolling Stone cover.

+ A reminder to watch P-Valley and to read Natalie’s coverage.

EPISODE

Jordan: Literally every time Jennifer Connelly’s face popped up on screen, every single time I just went, “Oh, God.”

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Like, audibly. I, like, gasped and “Oh, God,” like every fucking time.

[theme song plays]

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: And I’m Christina.

Drew: And welcome to Wait, Is This A Date?.

Christina: You know, Wait, Is This A Date? is an Autostraddle podcast wherein I constantly forget who says what, no matter how long we’ve recorded. Uh, I think that’s actually really beautiful. And my headphones just fell right off my head. So.

Drew: So a strong s—, strong start.

Christina: A strong start. But mostly, it’s a podcast about dating and, like, figuring out what dating is and if we know how to do it, much like I figure out if I know how to keep my own headphones on my damn head.

Drew: That’s great. Um, my name is Drew Gregory. I’m (laughs) I’m, uh… Or do you… But did you want me to dwell on that longer? I’m getting looks.

Christina: No, I’m just dwelling…

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: …on myself.

Drew: Great.

Christina: It’s best if you talk, I think. (laughs)

Drew: Right. Um, uh, my name is Drew Gregory. I am a filmmaker and a writer for Autostraddle. I’m a queer trans woman as well. Those are identity labels that I have. Christina?

Christina: Yes, absolutely. I’m Christina Tucker. I am also a writer at Autostraddle and a podcaster. And honestly, this month I’ve really just been like a girl about town. I’ve really just been like—

Drew: Mm.

Christina: —woman at large, mostly in various—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —beaches, uh, in the Jersey Shore.

Drew: You really have.

Christina: But still feeling very at large and whimsical in a way that now I obviously feel exhausted by.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: I’m Black and gay, and that rocks for me.

Drew: I love that. (laughs)

Christina: Cool. I don’t know why I’m so weird today. I, like, don’t know who I am. What’s going on?

Drew: It’s okay. We’re gonna keep goin’.

Christina: What I do have, though, Drew, is a game.

Drew: Mm-hmm. Thank God.

Christina: And this game I am testing your knowledge of something I know that you don’t have a lot of knowledge about, which is—

Drew: Oh God.

Christina: –fun. Um, it’s a… it’s called… I don’t actually have a name for it. I maybe should’ve thought of a name. But basically, I’m going to give you three lesbian romance titles, and you are going—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —to have to tell me what are the real ones of the three.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: Two I have created, one is real. And you’re gonna have to pick the real one and tell me what you think it’s about.

Drew: Great. Okay.

Christina: Are you ready?

Drew: I am. What a great game.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: Here we go. The first three. The X Ingredient, The It Factor, and The Truth of Us.

Drew: Huh. It’s funny, ’cause you would think that The X Ingredient would actually be The X Factor along with The It Factor, but—

Christina: Sure.

Drew: I wanna say… I just… Oh, I hope I’m not accidentally insulting you, but I feel like The X Ingredient is the clunkiest, and so you wouldn’t have come up with that. It must be real.

Christina: You are correct. (laughs)

Drew: Yes.

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: Wow, I’m so glad.

Christina: What do you think The X Ingredient is about?

Drew: Um, I think it is about two lesbians who are exes and end up on the same reality cooking show that’s sort of like Chopped, but, like, somewhere between Chopped and Great British Baking Show. Like, it goes on for a while but it has sort of the elements of Chopped. Um, and they’re exes and it… It’s sort of like a… I don’t know if it would count as an enemies to lovers because they were lovers at one point, but it’s like an exes to back together.

Christina: I love that. I also love that by asking you to tell me what you think these books are about, I’ve just made you create romance plots.

Drew: I love it.

Christina: That’s really fun. Uh, unfortunately The X Ingredient is actually, uh, about an assistant who sleeps with her boss. And when I started reading it last week on the beach, I said, “This is absolutely a Devil Wears Prada fanfic that has turned into a real book.” And when I tell you I read the Devil Wears Prada fanfic, I sure have. So that’s a journey.

Drew: Wait, but why is it called The X Ingredient?

Christina: Well, in the original fanfic, the X ingredient was… There was some sort of reason that Miranda had all of her assistants, uh, eat her out to orgasm. Um.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: Can’t really remember what the, the story, the backstory ,was on that, um, but in the new one, in this actual published version I should say, uh, the X ingredient I guess is, I don’t know, just, like, that her assistant’s hot and she’s like, “Oh, I am gay now and I wanna have sex with her.” Like, I don’t know. The X ingredient is being hot.

Drew: Good enough for me. Okay.

Christina: There you go.

Drew: Round two.

Christina: Round two. Broken Hearts Club…

Drew: Uh-huh.

Christina: …Breaking Character, Going for Broke.

Drew: Ooh, all those sound like they could be real. I really want it to be Breaking Character, but I think Broken Hearts Club is real.

Christina: Unfortunately, Broken Hearts Club is not real. And lucky for you, Breaking Character is real.

Drew: Oh my God, I should’ve just gone with my instinct.

Christina: Go with your gut, babe.

Drew: Breaking Character. Okay, it is about a sort of like the female Daniel Day-Lewis, like a female actor who takes her method acting very seriously, and she develops a relationship with her co-star. But her co-star, it’s unclear for both her co-star and for the actor if the co-star is in love with her or in love with her character. And hijinks ensue.

Christina: Honestly, that is not far off from the actual plot of Breaking Character, which is in fact about two actresses, one who is, uh, been called a bitch but is not really, but is just being, uh, badmouthed by her showrunner because she’s on like a Grey’s Anatomy type medical show—

Drew: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Christina: —that has really gone off the rails. Her character’s the bitch.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Christina: And, uh, her new co-star Summer — that’s right, her name is Summer — is very charming and delightful. And due to very bonkers plot reasons, they have to have a fake relationship. But they’re both gay so…

Drew: So nothing happens. They don’t develop any feelings.

Christina: Yeah, so they don’t… Yeah, nothing.

Drew: They never hook up. No.

Christina: Nothing happens. They never talk about it and they never have sex.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Yep, that’s exactly what happens.

Drew: Sometimes that’s how it goes.

Christina: All right, your next three. Hotel Queens, Media Moguls, or Restaurant Monarchs.

Drew: Okay, I’m gonna follow my instinct and go with the one that I want to be real—

Christina: Okay.

Drew: —and hope that that’s real. Hotel Queens.

Christina: Hotel Queens is real.

Drew: Wow, I’m killing it. (laughs)

Christina: You’re killing this. For a person who does not read a ton of lesbian romance, uh, it’s in your blood, babe.

Drew: Okay, I’m going to now say the plot that I hope it is, though I’m pretty sure based on my understanding of publishing industry this isn’t the case. But I want it to be about two contestants on a show similar to, like, Drag Race ’cause you’re not really supposed to, like, be in each other’s rooms but, you know, they stay in a hotel throughout the entire filming of the show. So they develop, like, a sort of dramatic affair that for a long time can’t be consummated, but their rooms are next to each other so they, like, knock on the wall in between them and then when they are filming, there’s just like all the tension and it’s… And yeah, that’s, that’s what I want Hotel Queens to be about.

Christina: That sounds quite hot. Um, that is not what Hotel Queens is about. It’s just about a woman who runs hotels and, uh, another woman who runs a competing hotel.

Drew: Sure, sure.

Christina: Who works for a competing hotel chain and they, uh—

Drew: Sure, sure, sure.

Christina: —quite literally are hotel queens.

Drew: Sure, sure.

Christina: But I love that energy. I love the knocking on the… Very, uh, knock three times on the ceiling if you want me energy, which I like.

Drew: I was referencing Bright Star, and I love our, I love our different cultural points, you know.

Christina: I love our brains.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: I think brains are so beautiful.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: All right, Paid in Paradise.

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: The Repayment Plan.

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: Payback’s a Witch.

Drew: Oh, Payback’s a Witch sounds fun. I’m going with Payback’s a Witch.

Christina: Payback’s a Witch. And it is fun ’cause it is a real book.

Drew: Cool.

Christina: Tell me what you think Payback’s a Witch is about.

Drew: Okay, I got it.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: So a young gay witch is struggling to make rent in the early months of the pandemic.

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: And the landlord is like, “No, you have to still give money.” And she’s like, “But look, like, all these… You know, like, you can’t evict me,” and all these different things and like, “You should give me a break,” and “It’s a pandemic.” And the landlord’s like, “No, I’m a landlord. I hate you.”

And so then she’s like… She goes, “No, I’m a witch,” and so then she starts tormenting the landlord. Love story is not with the landlord, not an enemies-to-lovers situation because—

Christina: ‘Cause landlords are bad. Sure. (laughs)

Drew: But actually she finds out that her neighbor is also a witch and also a lesbian, so they torment the landlord together and fall in love along the way. It sort of has like a Roald Dahl energy, like The Twits. Or Fantastic Mr. Fox. Like, there’s not really, like… There’s not a lot of conflict once the initial conflict happens. Like, the two of them just are like, “We’re both witches. We’re gonna torment this person who deserves to be tormented.” And then they have sex.

Christina: That’s actually really gorgeous. Uh, Payback’s a Witch is about, instead, a woman who is, you guessed it, a witch who returns to her hometown where it’s the only place that she can do magic—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —because there’s like a magic lake. She has been without powers.

Drew: Fun. Ooh.

Christina: Um, and she meets a, a girl she had a crush on in high school. Uh, there’s like a whole very long, like, mystery world-building thing with the town and the families that run the town. They get together. It’s very sweet. Fun book, Payback’s a Witch.

Drew: Honestly, of the ones so far, that’s the one I would most wanna read.

Christina: Payback’s a Witch is very fun. Uh, there is a sequel to that book, but it is unfortunately about straight people. So.

Drew: Weird.

Christina: You win some, you lose some. All right, here’s our final one. Honesty and Second Chances, When Truth Meets Fiction—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —or The Brutal Truth.

Drew: Ooh. I’m gonna go with When Truth Meets Fiction.

Christina: Mm, that is unfortunately from my brain alone. Uh, The Brutal Truth, however…

Drew: The good news is that The Brutal Truth and When Truth Meets Fiction, I think they are both about the same thing and that is—

Christina: Yeah, they would be.

Drew: —novel-length fanfiction of The Morning Show and of Bradley Jackson and her truth telling. But I imagine when it was published, for copyright reasons they did have to change some specifics. So her name is not Bradley Jackson anymore, but it is similarly plotted.

Christina: Which is a shame because Bradley Jackson is top among the greatest character names ever put to paper, um, despite how—

Drew: Absolutely.

Christina: —ridiculous everything about it is. But congratulations on that Emmy nom, Reese.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: (laughs) The Brutal Truth is about a media mogul who takes over a struggling paper and falls in love with the crime writer, who writes—

Drew: Ooh.

Christina: —at the nighttime. Uh, they have a very sweet coming together. The media mogul is obviously very mean and like 20 years older than she is. It’s really incredible stuff.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: And I will, because I care so much for our listeners, obviously include links to all of these actual books in the show notes.

Drew: Incredible.

Christina: And the rest of them, they will go back into my brain where they belong. Also, coming up with titles of books… Like I can come up with plots for a romance novels all day long. Titles is, like, actually shockingly challenging.

Drew: Yeah, you did really good.

Christina: Thank you. I just needed that compliment.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: Our very special guest is one of my favorite people to thirst about celebrities with. So special guest, why don’t you introduce yourself so we can get into celebrity crush talk?

Jordan: Uh, hello. Hi, Christina. It is a— And Drew. Hello. I, I am Jordan Crucchiola. And if you listen to any of my podcasts, you may have started with the Simple Podcast which I did with Christina. And as I said when I logged on to this chat, the last time we were on a pod together was when we were interviewing Blake Lively.

Christina: And, as I recall, texting feverishly, uh, off-mic—

Jordan: Yeah.

Christina: —about wow, Blake Lively’s just in a little Zoom corner.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: There she is. She’s got so much hair. What’s happening? She’s talkin’ to us for so long.

Jordan: Go with God, Blake. Thank you.

Christina: It was wild times. Wild times.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: Do you want to say a little bit more about who you are?

Jordan: Sure, sure. Um, I, I would like to say that I am a person who loves Drew Gregory’s what I consider to be definitive Euphoria recaps.

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: Wow. Thank you.

Jordan: There was particular one where, um… Because the show makes me so extremely… Hunter Schafer is, uh, an angel from God.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: And the show makes me extremely uncomfortable in how the single brain trust creator, executor, producer, director, writer, gazes upon Hunter.

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: And I found that your assessments of… your putting words to what that show does… I was like, “Thank fucking God someone has sized this up so accurately, because I’m just sitting here angry (laughs) and not able to enumerate all the ways in which I am.” But you did that.

Drew: Thank you so much.

Jordan: And I really appreciate that.

Drew: That is how I started. I started off just angry and then ultimately I’m like, “Well, I have to turn something in, so I better get some thoughts collected.”

Jordan: (laughs) Very much appreciate, your additions to the fraught discourse around Euphoria.

Drew: Thank you.

Jordan: But yeah, I’m a writer. I’m a producer, I make a lot of podcasts.

Christina: You do.

Jordan: Most of them independently just for fun. Uh, started with the Simple Favor podcast, which became kinda The Whole Movie Podcast to anthologize each season. We’ve covered The Neon Demon. The most recent one is all about robot cinema and how oftentimes gay that is.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: With my wonderful co-host, Margot Carlson. There’s always the Aughtsterion, which is a podcast about the intersection of politics and pop culture and horror cinema around the millennium era, and then there’s the Disaster Girls podcast, where I talk about disaster movies, and that one comes out every week. And then there is Feeling Seen, which is on an actual network, Maximum Fun. So I am doing a lot of talking.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: That’s so many podcasts, Jordan.

Jordan: Yeah, yeah. It’s a lot of fun. There are some, some weeks where it happens to be that everything is coming out all at once. It’s like wow. Hey, everybody. This week, you could have six hours of me talking.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: Honestly.

Jordan: And this is just one week.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, I get it. I have to say I get it. Like, I understand the urge to be like, “Yeah, I can hop on a mic and talk again. Why the hell not? What else am I up to?”

Jordan: I mean, the best thing that I did in lockdowns was the Simple Favor podcast.

Christina: Mm. We had such a good time.

Jordan: That was the best thing.

Christina: And let’s be honest. We brought back A Simple Favor. We’re getting a sequel now.

Jordan: I will say on this podcast we literally did.

Christina: Yeah. It was pretty cool of us.

Jordan: Because it has been enumerated by both Paul Feig and screenwriter Jessica Sharzer that because of the podcast, they got back to work and started writing A Simple Favor 2 which they then started pitching, which was then bought. So we literally did make a green light for Simple Favor 2 possible.

Drew: That’s powerful.

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Christina: We have power. There’s power in podcasting, and I’m always saying that.

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Drew: So, Jordan, are you someone who, uh, has a lot of celebrity crushes? Enjoys the celebrity crush?

Jordan: I do. I, uh, love having obsessions and infatuations.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: It’s a key tenet of my personality. I was just actually having this conversation this morning with— I was relaying to a friend the good news of, like, I had heard a story about her where somebody had bestowed a compliment. They were like, “Oh, yeah. My friend met this person.” And they were like, “Your friend is so hot that I felt too nervous to talk to them.” So I was like, “Oh, I of course have to tell hot friend about this development.”

Drew: Sure.

Jordan: It’s very exciting. And so we have this fun back and forth and I was like, “Having really great friends who happen to be hot is like having the best dinner ever. You loved it. It was a perfect evening. No notes. You are happy as can be. And then somebody comes out at the end and tells you it’s fucking free.” And you’re like, “I, I didn’t come here for this. I didn’t expect it. This isn’t necessary. I thought it’s already as good as it gets. And now you’re telling me it’s free? Oh, I accept.” Like, it’s like oh, there’s already a cherry on your sundae? Put a second cherry on that sundae. Like, it’s just nice.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: So I feel like the celebrity crush, the celebrity object of thirst, it’s like I love your work. I like the things you do. You provide that joy into my life. And you’re so hot? (laughs) Amazing. What an additional… What a bonus you’ve given me. And I will say, too, as a panromantic gray asexual person, I find that there is something especially joyful about the nature of, like, online celebrity thirsting.

Christina: Hmm.

Jordan: Like as The Cut said, catastrophic levels of thirst.

Christina: Right.

Drew: Uh-huh.

Christina: Your run me over with a trucks.

Jordan: Yes.

Christina: Or hit me with a lawn mower in the face, et cetera.

Jordan: Exactly.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: That like brand of very internet, desperate, overwhelming sort of expression of attraction is something that I really feel, uh, seen by because sexual attraction for me is an abstract concept. Like, it’s not a thing I’m acting upon. It’s not a thing I particularly have any interest in and never really had. Thirsting in abstract for, like, a person who I will never realize a sexual encounter with, it is like no, this is a level of the sex conversation that I actually feel like I can be a full participant in, in a way that people, you know, sharing stories about actual individuals they’ve had sex with or want to that they could is like, “Oh, I simply have nothing to offer.”

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: Mm.

Jordan: But joining the internet in being like, “Drive me into debt, Rachel Weisz,” like that’s something I can say that is as real to me as it is the people in my mentions.

Drew: Totally.

Jordan: So I find it to be very inclusive.

Christina: I love that.

Jordan: I find the act of celebration in celebrity thirsting to be like a very inclusive space for a panromantic gray asexual person like myself.

Christina: Drew, I want you to talk about celebrity crushes because I think the internet, anyone who follows me on it, uh, pretty aware that I’m quite fluent, and I will happily talk about it later. But I do wanna get Drew’s take on a celebrity crush.

Drew: Mm.

Christina: Because I do feel you go what I call Drew level on a celebrity crush. There’s like another… I feel like there’s another extra, like, brain take that you get to in your little mind, and I want you to talk about it.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: Drew starts ascending. Drew starts going cosmic with it.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Well, I feel like I’m different from both of you in the sense that to me, celebrity crushes… I don’t wanna say feel tangible because that’s thinking a little bit too highly of myself. I mean, look—

Jordan: You’re like, “I honestly feel like anybody I thirst after is accessible.”

Drew: I think by the nature of being someone who’s gender non-conforming in these ways that some people find so alluring and some people could not look at me twice.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: Like, I sort of am like, “I don’t know what people are into.” And I also want… I mean, I work in this industry. I want to be more established in this industry. And when you’re famous, then you can just date other famous people. I mean, when you’re not famous, you can date other… you can date people who are famous… I mean, you can, you know. There’s no rule but, like, generally speaking—

Jordan: You can Lindsay Shookus your way into a Ben Affleck situation.

Drew: Who is that?

Christina: Wow. Yeah.

Drew: Wait, who’s Lindsay Shookus?

Christina: She was Ben Affleck’s nanny?

Jordan: Something… Or she was… Or I think she was like a comedian or like a comedy writer or something.

Drew:Uh-huh. sure

Jordan:And ended up… It was like a… Was that a pre-lockdown situation?

Christina:Oh, yeah. That was like—

Jordan: ‘Cause lockdown was Ana de Armas.

Christina: Yeah, that was like 2018.

Drew: Right.

Christina: ’17. Like, that was that was many Ben Afflecks ago.

Drew: Wow.

Jordan: Yeah. That was, that might’ve been the first, like, “Is Ben Affleck with somebody?” when the Jennifer Garner split became official.

Drew: Right.

Christina: Yeah. She was a normal.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, it’s funny ’cause I really enjoy celebrity gossip and I don’t, like, insert myself into it. It’s just there’s, there’s a little part of my brain that’s like, “I don’t know what Angelina Jolie’s into.” Like—

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Right.

Drew: I don’t know what my future holds. I don’t know what her future holds. Like… And I say her because she feels so unattainable… Like, she’s in that tier—

Jordan: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: —where I’m like, “I’m not running into Angelina Jolie.” Like yes, she’s bisexual, but I’m not running into her at, like, queer Hollywood parties.

Jordan: Right.

Drew: It’s different.

Jordan: Yeah, like are famous people even running into Angelina Jolie?

Drew: No, no. Exactly, exactly.

Jordan: Like, kind of seems no.

Drew: Right. But even that level, I’m like, “Look, I don’t know.” Like, I think I’m always… It’s funny ’cause I both am like, “Yeah, maybe Angelina Jolie will someday wanna have sex with me,” and I’m also like, “I don’t believe that anyone is into me until proven otherwise.”

Jordan: Okay.

Drew: In the sense that it’s sorta to me just as likely that, like, some gay famous, or even maybe a step above, person would be into me as it is that some random person who, you know, who I meet at a party or whatever. You know what I mean? And so I think because of that, I’m like… I’m always a little bit thinking about it in a daydreamy sort of way and in a way that is like a little bit tangible?

Jordan: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Drew: Like a little bit like, “Hmm,” especially when you go, like, tiers that are… And because of that, I think I thirst less online… Like, I used to thirst a lot more.

Jordan: Mm.

Drew: And now, I do sorta reserve it for—

Christina: You’ve silenced yourself?

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: I reserve it for… I mean, I feel like the last time I really thirsted over someone who wasn’t, like, super, super famous was the star of Veneno, and that’s because, like, we don’t speak the same language so I was like, “We’re not—”

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: “—probably gonna meet. Like, like, we’re not… I think it’s probably safe that I’m not gonna meet that person att a party.” But if I’m publicly thirsting about someone who I might run into, I’m doing it with intention. Like, I’m doing it with a little bit of like, “Maybe I’ll… Like, I’m fine with them seeing this.”

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Christina: You’re doing, you’re doing The Secret. You’re doing like a little bit of the secret.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Just like a little bit. Interesting. I do… I mean, I do know that about you, that you’re always like, “But let’s never say never about anything.”

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Uh, especially when it comes to, like, “Maybe I will run into a famo and we will fall in love.” Um, and I do… I love that energy for you. I think it’s very—

Drew: Thank you.

Christina: —fun and bonkers to me because I think part of the fun for me is I’m just like, “Well, I don’t know, that’s, like, not an actual person to me.”

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Like—

Drew: Right.

Christina: That is certainly a person in the world whose, yes as Jordan said, whose work I can absolutely admire and respect, but I’m like, “As for their day-to-day life, oh that simply doesn’t concern me.” Like, that’s not the point.

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Whatever.

Jordan: That is why I like the, the sort of internet hyperbole—

Christina: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: —form of, like, crushing and thirsting because it creates such a distance between the tangible expression of, like, what you would do to someone or what you want to be done to you.

Drew: Uh-huh.

Jordan: That it, to me, creates a sort of safety mechanism in there where, like, if somebody… If I was talking about how somebody is completely overwhelming me and I feel like I’m just gonna, like, run into traffic or something on that order and they responded, they were like, “Yeah, and she has hot boobs,” I’d be like, “Blocked.”

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: “Get the fuck out of here, you pervert.”

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Like, we’re being respectfully out of our minds here. Don’t give me specifics of things that could actually happen. Like, you’re gross. Like, you need to think about this person’s feeling and treat them with respect. So there is… The outsized nature that it can take on is, to me, what allows for it to be a fun thing that we participate in.

I loved this example recently of watching, um, Twitter thirst take hold. ‘Cause I follow a lot of dudes in the action cinema zone.

Christina: Brave.

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Many nice guys, like lovely people. We talk about, you know, fight movies that we love all the time. And I was noticing when the show Reacher came out, the, the Amazon show Reacher with big, huge Alan Ritchson who is a extremely hot, large, chiseled, like, very Midwest American dreamboat.

Christina: Sure.

Jordan: And as the show was coming out week to week, watching these ostensibly heterosexual men just sort of, like, lose the ability to veil their lust for him was an incredible experience. Just like oh my God, all of you are, are so taken by this man who is just A) So beautiful but, like, he’s very masculine, and this show is very masculine. But he’s also a sensitive figure and there’s vulnerability there, but it’s masked.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: And I remember posting something about, like, you know, “I’m so proud of every man on here who is just so obsessed with Alan Ritchson in Reacher that they cannot help but just thirst after him with this homoerotically-charged praise of the work that he’s doing in a show.” And a friend responded to me, this guy who’s a director, and he was like, “No, no, no. Jordan, like, it’s not that we wanna have sex with him. We want to be him to have sex with other women.” It’s like so you’re fantasizing about being inside another man’s body and watching yourself carry out sex acts.

Christina: Still sounds pretty gay. (laughs)

Jordan: Yes, that sounds extremely heterosexual. You’re right.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: Nevermind.

Christina: Yeah, I take it back.

Jordan: And to watch in the safety of this Twitter bubble these dudes all on the same page as each other, this, like, manifesting its way out, it was very, like, “This is beautiful.”

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: This is what art lets us do.

Drew: I mean, Christina, I feel like you talk about that sometimes, like when I’ll, you know, ask you about your celebrity crushes where you’re like, “I do think it’s more that I wanna be them,” like these sort of, like ice queen, domineering women, that it’s more I wanna be or relate to, even.

Christina: Yeah, I think it is a lot more… I think I have at least the inner knowledge, or maybe a little bit of the self-awareness, like being that person is probably not gonna be super fun.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: But I also have the self-awareness to be like, “But I do see a bit of myself in, I don’t know, the ex-mean character doing some… you know, refusing to be emotionally vulnerable for X, Y, Z reasons.” I’m like, “Yeah, that, that does seem like a real CT moment.”

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Drew: Beyond, like, the building of your brand do you lust after famous people who are more in line with the people who you have, like, romantic and sexual feelings for? And also for Jordan, like, for romantic feelings, is there crossover between the people in real life who you’re drawn to and the celebrities? Or is it like… Are they totally different types of people?

Christina: Mm, mm. Hmm. I think for me, they are pretty different, and I think that’s also just because I, unlike Drew, do not believe that there is even a corner of a world wherein I will run into any of… Say any of the women on my water bottle, I do not think will ever be in my, in my space in real life. So I’m just like, “I do not want to meet my heroes.”

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: I do not think that’s a good thing to do. There’s only so many famous white women that I wanna meet, and they’re not, uh… They’re a tough brand generally. Um, yeah, I think it is… For me, it is very separate.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Like it’s not to say that I am not attracted or more attracted. It just… it does tend to separate pretty evenly out.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: And I think for me, it’s, it’s all quite equal opportunity. I think they might as well be concentric circles. It’s just, it’s coming with sort of the territory. Famous people tend to be… There’s like an average attractiveness that’s, like, just much higher by virtue of the vicious rules of participating in the machine.

Drew: Sure.

Jordan: So it’s like wow, all of you. But, like, in life? Could be anybody.

But I did fasten on to what you were saying about, like… when you were like, “There is a quadrant of people out there who are either inherently interested in, in me,” you as, as Drew, “because like I am a category that they are enamored of or conversely, a separate category who, like, wants nothing to do with me on principle.”

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: And mentioning Hunter Schafer, like I find myself, like… If an object of thirst is somebody who is demographically different from myself, if it’s a Black woman, if it’s a trans woman… It’s usually women. Sometimes it’s men. It’s usually women. But, like, I feel self-conscious about that kind of public thirsting because I am extremely hesitant to come off as fetishizing somebody.

Christina: Hmm.

Drew: Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jordan: Or like, “What, are you just, like, performing this thing because like, ‘Yeah, all inclusive. Come one, come all,’ or like, ‘Okay, we get it. You think they’re pretty’?”

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: And so that is, as far as like a self-consciousness goes in like the tangibleness of it, it starts to feel very tangible to me in a sort of like boundaries up kinda way when I feel like I might be coming off as turning somebody into… like, exoticizing them because they fall outside of my accessible range while at the same time being like, “Am I just gonna be posting about fucking Elizabeth Debicki and white women all the time? Because that’s also weird.”

Christina: Well first of all, let’s not step on my brand. Like, come on.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs) I mean, that also, though… It brings up something interesting because there’s the idea of people who have… like, famous people who have, like, different identities than us, but also there’s this something related to that in the way that queer people online will thirst very openly over straight people.

Jordan: Yeah, that’s a great point.

Drew: And will feel this sort of extreme freedom to speak about, you know, the sort of bicurious-seeming, straight-identified famous actors more so than actually queer actors.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: I mean, I think some of that goes back to, like, the lack of… Yeah, like, tangibility or being—

Jordan: Yeah. I feel like the sort of proximity between you and that person.

Drew: It’s a fantasy.

Christina: Right.

Jordan: It gets bigger or it shrinks depending on that.

Drew: Right.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: Well, I think, I think obviously her public image is something… It’s kinda odd to track, um, but I think Brie Larson is a fascinating sort of example of how, like, this fixing on to from, like, queer women onto her and imbuing her with sort of like this implicit queerness that almost becomes a presumed queerness.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Mm.

Jordan: Where it’s like you’re fucking hiding something from us.

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: Yeah, it’s weird.

Jordan: Yeah. There is like… there is a sort of resentment around what she isn’t that only exists because so much headcanoning has been done about what a lot of people wish she was.

Drew: Right.

Jordan: And again, she’s into the metaverse and, like, she’s… I mean, she’s an interesting public figure to track via social media, but I have no comment on that. An a recent Gawker piece that was about her was absolutely fuckin’ horrible and gross and an example of the bad old days of Gawker and aughts-era blog celebrity journalism that need not ever return again.

Drew: Oh, no.

Jordan: But, like, I feel like she’s a good example of that kind of arc that can happen where it all starts as fun and games and then you keep saying it so many times that it starts to become its own form of reality. And then suddenly, a person or persona is accountable to a fanfictionalized reality that’s like whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. They really have never even… They’ve never participated in this.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: Like, you know, I’m a Kaylor truther ’cause that’s fun, but like, Taylor… And Taylor has her, you know. There’s, I think a worthwhile conversation to be had around, like, Taylor and some queerbaiting. But where does the queerbaiting stop and the presumption of queerness become so fucking intense that queerbaiting appears to be happening at this egregious scale where you’re like, “But guys, she just never said she was bi.”

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: And the only visible, actual, tangible evidence we have of this person outside the Zapruder film of her and Karlie Kloss in that club, like beyond that, uh… All evidence in front of us is like, “This is a heterosexual woman.”

Drew: Also, I’m sorry but, like, have you met… Like, straight girls can, like, get drunk and make out with each other.

Jordan: Yeah.

Drew: Like, I mean… Obviously, what is straight? What is queer?

Jordan: Barsexual is real.

Drew: And it’s this thing where you don’t want to just, like, assume people are straight based on… Like, that feels heteronormative.

Jordan: (laughs) I never wanna assume people I think highly of are straight, okay?

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: That’s true. That’s true.

Drew: But there is, there is this thing where it’s like… I don’t know. I think I started making a concerted effort to be thirstier towards queer celebrities over straight celebrities because I was sensing that the safety of them being straight was causing me to lift up—

Christina: Mm.

Drew: Because as we’ve talked about, you’re not just thirsting… It’s not… You’re thirsting over their careers, their art, and their personas as well.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: And so it was like oh, we’re not supporting our own queer people or, like—

Jordan: Yeah.

Drew: And look, there’s room for all of it and I’ll certainly participate in all of it, but I was like oh. And also, a lot the queer celebrities actually have aesthetics that I respond to more both from a wanna be them and a wanna be with them.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: And so, like, why am I obsessing over the one time this straight person put on a suit?

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: Instead be like, “What about all these queer people who are doing, like… who are always wearing suits or doing more interesting things with fashion in general or are just like, hot,” you know?

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Wow. Somewhere Cate Blanchett just sat up and was like, “I feel like I’m being talked about.”

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: I have been really anti-Cate Blanchett in the last few episodes of this podcast and I don’t mean to be. I really… I do love Cate Blanchett.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: I will say that the way that I express the sort of fantasy celebrity crushes that we’re talking about is in older actors, as in like in Katharine Hepburn.

Christina: Sure.

Drew: Or like I just watched Queen Christina with Greta Garbo and, like there might be a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny percent chance that someday I will meet Angelina Jolie and fall in love.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: But there is no chance in hell that I will ever meet Greta Garbo and fall in love.

Jordan: Yeah. (laughs)

Drew: Unless time travel gets invented. So I think that’s sort of the space where I do most of my sort of exploratory identity crushes in that sort of way, like with people who… Or even people who are still alive but, you know. Like, I mean, it’s not that I wouldn’t still hook up with Jane Fonda, but it’s more of a like, “You’re an icon from another era.”

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: We’re not in the same age bracket. I don’t think it’s likely for us.

Christina: Oh, you and Jane Fonda aren’t in the same age bracket?

Drew: I—

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: I learn so much every day.

Drew: Yeah, we really aren’t. And it’s like we’re close, but… Uh, you know. I have a limit.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: But yeah.

Christina: I do think part of it for me is also just, like, my general fascination with celebrity, like, machinations.

Jordan: Mm.

Christina: And, like, the press machine and the way that celebrities present themselves. I have always found fascinating. And especially as they have become, I personally think for worse, more accessible to us watching how they decide to do that and in what ways they decide to do that, and frankly, like, a lot of the times it’s me just being like, “Well, why are we doing that in this way?”

Jordan: Yeah.

Christina: I find that very fascinating to watch, like the behind the scenes machinations of whatever their little brains are doing when they say like, “It’s time to be on Instagram Live today.” I’m like—

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Ooh, boy. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe we should take celebrities off of Instagram Live forever.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Perhaps that’s the solution here.

Jordan: Unless it’s Jojo and she’s singing.

Christina: I mean, but then again, like… How many times over the pandemic does Sarah Paulson get lightly toasted and hop on Instagram Live and, like, steal Holland Taylor’s glasses and just, like, talk about how she didn’t have any eyebrows ’cause she was being Linda Tripp? Sometimes it’s really delightful. And, like, I’m so sorry to Sarah’s PR people because I’m sure they were exhausted those couple of months.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: But I just find the presentation of famous person who is trying to be famous person, but knowable to regular people very fun to dissect and think about just from a PR standpoint because my straight persona comes out and I think about, you know, my career in PR.

Jordan: (laughs) And it’s interesting looking at how the youth handle this.

Christina: Mm.

Jordan: And actors who I really enjoy. Ella Hunt, who was, Sue on Dickinson and who maybe you found in Anna and the Apocalypse before that and thoroughly enjoyed her.

Drew: That movie’s good.

Jordan: That movie is fantastic.

Drew: I love that movie.

Jordan: And Ella Hunt is a firecracker of a person. And over the course of making Dickinson, it became clear that, like, she realized that she was queer. Like as the show was like, “Oh, I think your kind of, like, dabbling in this,” until finally in the last season I remember she was asked about her own possible queerness. And she was like, “I think I am, but, like, I think it’s more of a mentality thing.” She did this thing that kind of separated being sexually queer from being, like, abstractly, intellectually queer.

And a fan responded to her on Twitter and was like, “I love you. You’re amazing. I love the show. But it really, actually hurt me when you said that, like queer is a mindset, ’cause, like, a lot of of us are queer in, like, a full-body, total way, and it’s not easy for us out here and it’s not just a thought process we can dip in and out of sometimes. And so, like, I just… Like, I love you. I think you’re the best. But I just wanted to express to you why that made me uncomfortable.”

And she responded back to that fan and was like, “You know, you’re right. Like, I can say that and there is so little consequence of me being able to just, like, say like, ‘I’m queer in spirit. When the reality is I’m getting used to talking about this and I don’t know how yet and I am queer. I do experience a range of sexual attraction to men and women,” and she clarified it. And I was like… That level of accountability. It like… And it made… Because she posts for the gays.

Christina: She really do.

Jordan: She loves to post for the lesbians. And to state it explicitly like, “This is for the lesbians.” And I think the delineation between doing that, like thirst posting for the gays and saying, “This is for the gays,” when you have said, “I am queer. I am among you. I am one of you,” that suddenly feels like a joyful thing to see and witness and participate in whereas before, it’s like it’s a cute thing you do, but also, like, at the end of the day, this is drag for you.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Jordan: So is that okay that you’re doing that?

Christina: Mm.

Jordan: Like you’re not queer. But then when she’s like, “Actually, I’m learning how to talk about it…” Now I think it’s just the cutest thing and I’m like, “Look at this early twentysomething coming out of basically her college age years and being like, “This one’s for the sapphics out there,” and she’s, like, posting pictures of herself in Miu Miu designer lingerie. It’s like okay, great. Yeah, because you’re part of the gang.

Christina: Now you’re part of the club.

Jordan: So it’s something that you are sharing in with people and you could be thirst scrolling on your own time looking at whoever, men, women, all inclusive. But, like, you’re not just dipping in, throwing out a treat for the queers then being like, “Then I’m gonna retreat to my beautiful cishet, normative, wealthy life, and, like, you guys can deal with the consequences of how your feelings are trapping you in perhaps a place you don’t wanna be.”

Christina: It’s like Pride Month for celebrities.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: I think that’s why when there are celebrities where I’m like, “I think that person’s queer,” and I will get a little obsessed with them, I just get… It’s not on principle like, “I no longer am obsessed with you because you’re still either straight or closeted.” I just find I get tired of it. Like, they just don’t stay in the rotation of longterm crushes.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: But I don’t know. It’s interesting ’cause when I was younger, my version of run me over with a truck was, “I want to marry that person.” It was very much like, “Oh, I wanna be them.” I look back on who those people were and they were just all these people who I was associating with a certain type of femininity that I wanted to be. And it’s interesting to track that to me being like, “Someday, I could be with Angelina Jolie,” because—

Jordan: As somebody whose first love was Angelina Jolie, I’m loving her as the static example.

Christina: Yeah, I love that she’s like the one.

Jordan: Yeah. She’s the one.

Drew: It makes me think that as I have, you know, come into my queerness and my transness and feel very sort of settled into my identity as anyone can be settled, whatever, but those things are becoming more the same. Not like who I wanna be with and who I wanna be, but the life that feels tangible and the life that feels fantasy for me in the sense where I’m like… When I say that, what I’m saying is I wanna be successful enough in my career that I could be in the same circle as Angelina Jolie.

Christina: Sure.

Jordan: Yeah.

Drew: It’s also a declaration of fantasies that go beyond sort of the vagueness that I couldn’t name back in, you know, my high school years.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: I was gonna ask if, if you found that… Like, if as you realized yourself fully into something not, like, necessarily like, “I am Angelina Jolie.”

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: But, like, into—

Christina: Drew’s final form. (laughs)

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Yeah. Like maybe. Like, as you realize yourself fully or are realized fully, do you find that the objects of your desire have evolved away from what they used to be because these were people that were, um, they were previously perhaps figures that you were modeling yourself on and towards?

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: And now that you have modeled that and you are that, is the objects of desire, then, are they something different than what they formally would’ve been? Because it’s like oh no, these were people I was, like, aspiring towards. And now that I am that, a form of that, I now desire something that is quite different, or is it pretty consistent?

Drew: Um, I think it’s definitely changed, but it’s interesting ’cause it’s not that I actually attained what I was desiring.

Jordan: Jolie’s Jolieness.

Christina: (laughs)

Drew: But see, like, Angelina Jolie wouldn’t have been on my list as a teenager. Like who I would’ve thought of as a teenager was like Natalie Portman, Carey Mulligan—

Jordan: Classics.

Drew: —Michelle Williams, the actor. Like it was people—

Christina: Please, use her proper name: White Michelle Williams.

Drew: (laughs) Yes.

Jordan: (laughs) White Michelle Williams.

Drew: It was a sorta pixie cut, teeny-tiny, petite femininity. Like, this sort of idea that I had, this very narrow, societally-created idea of, you know, what womanhood I could aspire to.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: I didn’t realize it was happening, but, um… And I didn’t become that. At a certain point, I didn’t have interest in becoming that.

Jordan: Right.

Drew: I mean, I still think, you know, they’re good actors. Especially Michelle Williams. She is still among my favorite contemporary actors, but they don’t consume my thoughts the same way.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Drew: But I do think a lot of the people now who I have crushes on— Which I actually really wanna do for all of us. I know we have our final segment, which will be crush specific, but I wanna get into who are the people who have lasted over time. For me, a lot of the people who have lasted over time are the ones who maybe are more in the fantasy space of old Hollywood.

Jordan: Mm.

Christina: Interesting.

Drew: And I think in the present day, it really fluctuates. I don’t have celebrity crushes the same way I used to. I think now, beyond the old Hollywood people, I mostly will, like… I’ll watch an indie queer movie that will star an actress who is in my age range, has been in like a handful of projects, and— This is not me confessing that my current relationship is because I had— I had not seen any of Elise’s work before. (laughs)

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: Um, I just wanna clarify that.

Christina: I was just, I was just gonna sit here silently and be like…

Drew: But I do think that now, being really like, “Oh wow, that person’s really compelling. I wanna, like… I wanna be their friend, even.” Like, I just… I get drawn towards people who are more like at my level or like a step or two above. I respond to the, like, icons like Angelina Jolie in a very different way where I’m just like, “I really like your work.” I’ll get, like, sort of obsessed with their movies. And I don’t necessarily call it a crush, but I guess it is a crush. Like, I watched every — not every but most — Kirsten Dunst movies earlier this year in the span of like a month. And that was something like a crush.

Jordan: That’s a robust filmography, so yes.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: You also had your Nicole Kidman phase to.

Drew: I did have my Nicole Kidman phase where I did watch every one that was available, and she works a lot. I watched… I think the project ended up being a 56-film project. I was going through depression. This was 2018.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: It was a long time ago. But I guess those would be crushes. I guess what I’m realizing is that as the years go on, what I would’ve maybe before just been like, “I have such a crush on this person.” It now becomes more stratified into all these different ways of expression. And I guess they do count as crushes.

Christina: Wow. We really learned something about you.

Drew: Yeah. What about the two of you? Who are people who have really stuck with you over the years, or who you’re sort of circling around now?

Christina: Well, I mean, Catherine Zeta-Jones has been kind of— I mean, that was, uh, many would say, my gateway drug into being a lesbian. Which is actually interesting ’cause now when I think back on it, I famously, or not that famously, depending on, uh, how often you listen to me talk on podcasts, had a very large wall of exclusively Catherine Zeta-Jones’ photos in my bedroom as a child. And I would be furious when my parents suggested that perhaps I was some kind of gay.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: I was like, “I don’t know why you would say that,” and then I’d, like, turn back to the printer and, like, waste 18,000 more dollars of printer ink printing out stills from Chicago.

Jordan: Looking over your shoulder as you’re tacking another photo up on the wall.

Christina: On the wall opposite, I had, like, a very halfhearted just like… There was like three… It was like, uh, Viggo Mortensen from Lord of the Rings.

Drew: Not a lesbian at all. No.

Christina: .Just like three men kind of stabbed at random into the wall. And I was like, “Yeah, and also these guys.” Like, okay. Didn’t try very hard at that. But I definitely, as I was going through my early adulthood and was like, “Yep, I guess I’m just straight but a great ally,” I did a lot less of my, like, what my brand is now, my public thirsting, and I don’t really think it was until I came out and was like, oh, now this is fun again to just be publicly like, “That lady’s hot as hell.” Like, that’s really fun now in a way that I just felt kinda locked off from when I was pretending to be a straight person.

But yeah, Catherine has been… God bless her. She is… Talk about a lunatic Instagram presence. My lord. She’s really been up there for many years for me. But I really do like… it kind of just rotates. It’s like what am I watching at the moment? My lock screen will be dependent on whatever television show I just binged. And that actress will probably stay that lock screen for a period of time, and then I will watch something else and that will be my new hyperfixation for a couple of months and then will just… It’s like this unending circle for me.

What about you, Jordan?

Jordan: Um, it really happens to be… Like, the impetus is Angelina Jolie.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: That really…

Christina: A classic. A classic of the genre.

Drew: Love it. My future wife.

Jordan: Yeah. Your future wife, friend, collaborator.

Drew: Yeah.

Jordan: All of the above. I was doing a Q&A for, um, a horror movie, The Lodge. And it had Lia McHugh? That little girl who was also in The Eternals. And this happened really shortly before lockdown, and she was just coming home from being off of six months of filming The Eternals. And I’m standing there talking to her mom, a lovely woman. And her mom was talking about how just, like, Angie—

Drew: Sure.

Christina: For those in the know.

Jordan: They were just set moms together. And just telling me the most ordinary, adorable, dorky stories about knowing this person and, like, coming to know her and their kids hanging out and they all love horror movies. They watched horror movies together and how on Halloween, Lia and her mom were in their little apartment they were staying in and all the little Jolie-Pitt children come, like, running up and scare them in the sliding glass window wearing spooky masks. And then Angelina Jolie walks up in a spooky mask and scares them too. And I was like, “It is still my dream that Angelina Jolie would come scare me in a spooky mask at a fuckin’ sliding glass door.” Like, I was listening so intently while trying to come off as just, like, unmoved and being like, “No, I wanna hear every fucking-thing you can tell me about this person.”

Christina: I need every detail here.

Jordan: I need every normal detail you can share ’cause, like, I remember when I was, uh, 15, it was like on my 15th birthday, I went to see Lara Croft: Tomb Raider with my best friend at the time, Christine.

Christina: Talk about a gateway drug.

Jordan: Talk about a gateway drug.

Christina: Hoo.

Jordan: My life had already been positively fucking shattered by Gia.

Drew: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: A movie and… Elizabeth Mitchell.

Christina: Elizabeth Mitchell.

Jordan: Fucking formative. Elizabeth Mitchell and Angelina Jolie both. Probably started with Gia. Unyielding still.

I watched Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Get back. We walk to my grandpa’s house afterwards. We were gonna go swimming in the pool. He was not a subscriber to Rolling Stone magazine, but a Rolling Stone magazine was sitting on his table, and it was the cover of her photographed by David LaChapelle wearing, like, the white linen and the cover line says, “Blood Sugar Sex Magic.” And she’s laying there, like finger pulling down the lip, like exposed, like, hip bones tattoo. And I picked it up and I was like, “Grandpa, can this be my birthday present?”

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: And he was like, “Yeah, it’s here on accident. You can take it with you.” And it was, like, reading that profile, I decided to become a journalist because I needed to put myself in a position where I could be writing a profile about Angelina Jolie.

Drew: Wow.

Jordan: Where I could be in proximity of this person. It was just like that… through that figure, through the figure of her, I learned what obsession was. I learned what obsession was.

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: Probably the youngest, most fixated-upon, uh, figures for me were Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Connelly. Opportunity Knocks, both that and Labyrinth, of course, made big impressions. And that was when… And, even, like, watching Maverick recently, literally every time Jennifer Connelly’s face popped up on screen, every single time I just went, “Oh, God.”

Drew: (laughs)

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: Like, audibly. I, like, gasped and “Oh, God,” like every fucking time. And it’s just like wow. You just get more resplendent as the years go on. So I wanna say those are two that have always been very, very enduring for me.

Christina: I will say I worked at a farm stand when I was in high school in Upstate New York, and Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany entered the farm stand I worked in. I looked at Jennifer Connelly and said, “That woman looks like a shorter Demi Moore.” And then I said, “Well, that’s because it’s Jennifer
Connelly.” And they were… She and Paul and their two or three children — cannot remember how many they have — all dressed in white.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: They purchased some baked goods and I believe some pumpkins and then they simply floated away. And I was like, “Okay.”

Jordan: (laughs) There they are.

Christina: Famous people. There they go.

Jordan: Wow.

Christina: There they go being famous.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: It’s happening. Okay, they’re real.

Jordan: (laughs) They’re real.

Drew: The last thing I wanna touch on is I know for me, I really like talking about celebrity crushes with people who I’m dating, with partners, with people who I’m flirting with. It feels like the sort of fantasy space that we’re talking about. It feels like a really sort of low stakes way of flirting, of talking about attraction. Of talking about what we’re into. Like, how does that manifest for both of you?

Christina: I will say it has manifested in a lot of friendships for me because I do absolutely find and make a lot of friends on Twitter via the thirst.

Jordan: I think that’s how the Simple Favor podcast happened.

Christina: I quite literally do.

Jordan: It was a thread about Blake Lively in suit GIFs.

Christina: Yeah. And, um, I do meet a lot of people in that space, though I tend to meet a lot of, like, bottoms, just like a lot of fellow bottoms who’ve all come together in my DMs in a way that I think is beautiful, but in a way that we’re all like, “Hmm, probably nothing’s gonna happen betwixt us. But like, God bless. Go off and, you know, get stomped on by somebody that’s probably not gonna be either of us.”

Jordan: We’re not gonna make that move.

Christina: Just to be as CT as possible, you know?

Jordan: (laughs) Yeah. For me, I think that is… Despite the fact that I’m not having sex with anybody nor have I, to me that is… it’s one of my favorite conversations to have. Like, what Christina, what you were saying, being so interested in the machinations of celebrity and the performance of persona and as I get older, the performance… the awareness of, like, the performance of gender. Like, if I meet people who will get maybe not as, ’cause I’m a very animated individual, but will get, like, as close to animated as I do about these kinds of conversations and I realize that we are both compelled by, like, the sociology of celebrity and aesthetics, then I’m like, “Oh, we’ve got something here.”

Christina: Yeah.

Jordan: We are bonding on a specific level where like we could take this conversation one table down and they’d be like, “This means literally nothing.”

Christina: (laughs)

Jordan: “And is the most superficial, insubstantial thing you can be saying.”

Christina: This is gobbledygook to me.

Jordan: And I’m like, “But the thing is, it’s what’s makes the world go round.”

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: That overriding sensorial power of a beautiful person in front of you is such an incredible fucking magic trick that, like not many people have and when they have it, it’s not because they asked for it or they practiced it, it’s just because it’s there? Remarkable. And I wanna be around that and I wanna talk about that, and so if somebody can get on this conversation path with me about this thing, I’m like, “Oh yeah, we have the sustainable, good foundation for a friendship here. Yes.”

Christina: It’s true. As a person who is friends with Jordan, now every time I watch something that I know— Like when I started watching The Expanse, I was like, “The fact that I know I can text Jordan about this, this is gonna be so fun.”

Jordan: Yes. (laughs)

Christina: This is gonna be so fun and so unhinged, and we… the two of us—

Jordan: So unhinged.

Christina: —are about to lose our minds in the text.

Jordan: Yeah, we’ll just text back and forth, like, Elizabeth Mitchell stills to each other, and it’ll be a meaningful conversation.

Christina: Yeah. Meaning, meaning.

Drew: Okay, this feels extremely redundant, but should we move to crush corner?

Christina: I know. Now I’m like, “Whomst among?”

Drew: Start us off.

Christina: Yeah, start us off.

Jordan: It’s, uh, Kelly Reilly, star of Yellowstone.

Christina: Wow. Okay. Bringing Yellowstone into the pod.

Jordan: Star of Yellowstone. The first time I experienced Yellowstone, it was when I was home for Christmas. And my sister and her husband, they watch it, love it. My mom, it’s become her whole personality.

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: Like, it is. But, like, I remember when I got there and, like, Yellowstone was on ’cause it’s always playing on Paramount Network ’cause they’re like, “This is the thing we have,” and that—

Christina: True.

Jordan: Like, it was on. And mom was like… And Spencer was like, my brother-in-law, he’s like, “We have to turn this off. And don’t bring up Yellowstone around your mom. She will not stop talking about it.” And she won’t. And if you don’t like a character she likes, she will defend them like they are her family and you are not. So, like, I watch enough of it to see Beth Dutton be a catastrophe.

Christina: Good.

Jordan: And I was like… My mom and Riley and Spencer were there. I was like, “Who is that character?” And they’re like, “Oh, that’s Beth. She’s Kevin Costner’s daughter in the show. She’s a nightmare.”

Christina: I forgot Kevin Costner… Wow, what a show.

Jordan: And I was… They talk about, like, just what a horrible bitch she was. And I was like, “Okay, she’s my favorite character and she’s why I’m gonna watch Yellowstone.” And my mom was like, “Oh, no. She’s awful.”

Drew: (laughs)

Jordan: I was like, “Which is why she’s my favorite character and why I’m gonna watch Yellowstone.”

Christina: Like, what’s not clicking?

Jordan: I was like, “Mom, you don’t understand how Twitter watches television.”

Christina: Yeah, no.

Jordan: She’s gold.

Christina: You have to find the villain. You have to find the villain.

Jordan: The villain. And like the first time I ever saw her in anything was the absolutely godawful season two of True Detective where she was wasted and inexplicable and, like, what is any of this? So to see her getting to just slur her way through lines and ruin people’s lives being gorgeous, I’m just like, “Oh, this is… You are a zenith.”

Christina: Oof. Good one. Drew, who do you have this week?

Drew: I’m doing the entire cast of P-Valley.

Jordan: Oh, yes.

Christina: Gorgeous.

Jordan: Great choice.

Drew: It is such an incredible show. I’m just— every, every week watching an episode and I’m just like, “It’s just better and better.” It’s so good. The first season was incredible. The second season? Somehow better. And the cast is so attractive. Especially gonna shout out Brandee Evans as Mercedes. Best character. Great show.

Christina: Hmm.

Drew: But even the, like, straight people who I don’t like… The characters are servicing the show so it’s fine, but, like, I don’t like them. They’re not the storyline I care that much about. Whatever. When they have sex, it is so hot. And I am so invested in it. And, and I’m like, “I don’t really care about, like, your inner dealings and workings and you’re running for mayor and all the stuff. I don’t care. But you are so hot when you’re having sex.” And this is straight people. And so when the queer people are hooking up, it’s… I… I love… Oh, it’s so good.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: What a great show. What a great show. Katori Hall, incredible playwright and incredible TV writer.

Christina: I love it.

Jordan: Outstanding.

Christina: Uh, my crush this week, the one, the only Sheryl Lee Ralph.

Drew: Yes.

Jordan: Outstanding.

Christina: You know…

Jordan: Emmy nominee?

Christina: Emmy nominee.

Jordan: Emmy nominee.

Christina: And I would like to say I’m thrilled that she is nominated for Abbott Elementary. I am just appalled that this is her first Emmy nomination.

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Christina: Her first Emmy nomination.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Just to repeat that. This is the Sheryl Lee Ralph, a woman who was so powerful in Sister Act 2 that I thought singing in a choir in your Catholic school was adjacent to doing drugs.

Drew: (laughs)
Christina: Because that was the energy that she brought to that performance. And I love everything that she does. I feel comforted when I see her face. She has a very chaotic Instagram Reel, TikTok presence, which is very often just her walking around in her pool. I think it’s great. I want nothing but the best for her, and I think she’s the perfect woman.

Drew: Incredible.

Christina: And that’s the story of her. (laughs)

Jordan: Amazing.

Drew: Incredible. Jordan, tell people where they can find you and all of your podcasts.

Christina: And all 18,000 of your podcasts.

Jordan: (laughs)

Christina: Which we will valiantly link to.

Jordan: Thank you.

Christina: We will find every single one of them.

Jordan: You can find me on Twitter, @JorCru, J-O-R-C-R-U, and then, uh, yeah, Disaster Girls, we’ve been on a bit of a summer break lately but otherwise, like, there are more than a hundred episodes of that. There’s a big back catalog and it’s a weekly pod. Aughtsterion will be coming back very soon, and we have a very special guest for episode number one that I am very excited to debut.

The Botcast just wrapped up, so you can listen to that eight-episode series that we just did. And then there’s the Maximum Fun podcast which comes out every week. And we’ve had awesome people on like Chris Landon talking about seeing himself in Mommie Dearest. And Bridget Everett was on talking about seeing herself in the movie Rudy. We’re having very nice talks with people, and so I would like for you to come and listen to us and check us out.

Christina: Bridget Everett, who was robbed of an Emmy nomination I would say.

Jordan: Absolutely. Absolutely agree.

Christina: Wow. Thank you so much for joining us and talking about being run over and doing all of the things that we love to do here on this pod and on the internet.

Jordan: Thank you so much for having me. I very much appreciate being asked, and I’m so happy to have been podcasting with you once again.

Christina: Yay.

Jordan: And to meet the Drew Gregory. Wha-what… I mean, what honors abound?

Christina: Yes. She’s famous. She’s a star.

Drew: Thanks.

Jordan: (laughs)

Drew: Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This A Date?. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at @WaitIsThisADate, and you can email us at waitisthisadate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein, our logo is by Maanya Dhar and this podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok at @draw_gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter at @C_GraceT and on Instagram at christina_gracet. And you can find Autostraddle, of course, at @autostraddle.

Drew: And you can find Autostraddle at autostraddle.com, the reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Uh, Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Oh, actually that’s really interesting that you ask that, because scientists are, at this very moment, hurriedly trying to figure this out. And we have some of our best scholars on this, um, on the case here. We don’t have an answer, uh, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew: I wish them and us the greatest luck.

Drew (voice memo): Does a celebrity crush stop being a celebrity crush once you get to know someone? And two, does interviewing someone from professional context count as getting to know them? This is total hypothetical.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Episode 205: Public Relationships

As someone who has always been ambitious, it seems inevitable I’d end up in a power couple. Sure, you can be the kind of ambitious person who wants a partner who tends to your needs while you pursue whatever it is you’re pursuing. But that has never been hot to me. Dating someone with equal ambitions is hot to me.

But being in a public relationship isn’t just the joys of ambitious4ambitious. There’s also the matter of boundaries and privacy. My girlfriend and I have only a small amount of fame (I’d argue a small amount of gay fame even) so this week we’ve brought on someone in an even more gaymous power couple: Grace Lavery. You may know Grace from her memoir Please Miss, from her various writings on the internet, or, if you’re really niche, as your former professor at Berkeley. And you may know Grace’s husband Danny Lavery from his books such as Something That May Shock and Discredit You and co-founding a little website called The Toast.

We talked to Grace about her relationship with Danny, how they navigate public opinion, and being young trans elders. And first! We play a game I like to call “Second Moves” where Christina has to respond to theoretical opening lines on Raya — yeah, that’s right, we’re on Raya.

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ The Jessie Ware album Christina was referencing is What’s Your Pleasure?

+ The sexiest book Christina has read recently is Breaking Character.

+ Christina’s article about Grace and Danny’s wedding.

+ Danny’s work referenced by Grace: Texts from Jane Eyre and Something That May Shock and Discredit You.

+ Delighted to learn that Grace walked down the aisle to Marina’s “Primadonna.”

+ Pretty sure when Grace said I had transfeminine Chatterton energy that was a reference to poet Thomas Chatterton who I have learned killed himself at 17??

+ Speaking of English poets, Grace referenced writing an essay about Matthew Arnold and this might be that essay.

+ It’s worth watching The Red Shoes in slightly higher quality on The Criterion Channel —  but I’m noting that the entire movie is on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1ga6wgQjNU&ab_channel=TheWanderer

+ Grace’s crush this week was, um, Stannary Law: A History of the Mining Law of Cornwall and Devon by Robert R. Pennington.

+ You should read the interview I did with Grace about her memoir.

+ And you should read Please Miss: A Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Penis.

EPISODE

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: I’m Christina.

Drew: Welcome to Wait, Is This A Date?

[theme song plays]

Christina: Wait, Is This A Date? is an Autostraddle podcast all about, wait, is this a date? That’s what it’s about.

Drew: You have a really chaotic energy— I was going to say this morning, but it’s 3:00 PM. The illusion of the podcast. It’s whatever time you’re listening to this. But you have a really great energy that I think is rubbing off on me as I keep talking.

Christina: Ooh, good. I think it’s fun to bring a little chaos. I was worried that I was going to be too low energy so I said, “Just pep yourself the hell up, just go for it,” and as ever, I might immediately regret that, but for now, that’s where we’re living.

Drew: By Crush Corner, you’re going to be crashing.

Christina: Yes, I do think that’s very true.

Drew: Great. I can’t wait. I’m Drew Gregory. I’m a writer for Autostraddle and a filmmaker and a queer person and a trans woman.

Christina: First of all, I think it’s huge to note that Drew did not even have a pause in between any of those identities that was… Drew said, “I came to play. I know who I am today.” I think that’s really gorgeous and beautiful.

Drew: Thank you.

Christina: I’m Christina Tucker. I am also a writer at Autostraddle and a podcaster around the damn globe, but mostly in the United States, mostly in the Northeast as that’s where I’m located. Crushing it also. Am I? Yeah, I am a black lesbian who has been on the beach for so long that my brain’s kind of just a sand mush so we’re really going to live out loud this here episode.

Drew: Great. I also want to say up top, I think this is already in our A plus ad that we already had and that you hopefully listened to, but for those of you who skip through ads — which our ads are very funny, you shouldn’t skip through them, — but if you want to be in our mailbag episode, you should be an A plus member and then submit a question. It can be anonymous. It can be in voice memo form. It can be an email form. Send us your questions.

Christina: We’re going to answer them. We’re going to have minisodes. That’s just a fun word to say, so let’s go.

Drew: I do have a game for you.

Christina: As ever, I’m panicking lightly but…

Drew: Initially, my idea was to just be like, “Christina, pull up your dating apps. I want you to read to me the most recent messages you received,” since I assumed you would never send the first message. And I wanted to just be like, “We’re going to craft some responses.” I told that to my girlfriend and she told me that’s not a game, that’s just bullying, and so I was like, “Fine. Okay.”

Christina: Elise is an ally. Thank you.

Drew: Yeah, and so I came up with a game that’s more hypothetical, but I think still counts as bullying. I call this game Second Moves. And I have come up with based on your Raya profile that I have access to because we matched on Raya, not in a romantic capacity, but more of a like, “Hey, it’s a friend on Raya,” banter banter banter, et cetera. Anyways…

Christina: Incredible humble brag that we’re both on Raya just for the record.

Drew: Look, I’m… Okay, so basically how it works is I’m going to say possible first moves that people might say to you based on your Raya profile. I’m going to say these opening lines and you have to say a response. You have to say a response. You can’t ignore.

Christina: I have to respond. I can’t—

Drew: You have to respond. Theoretically, you want to respond—

Christina: Okay.

Drew: You like this person’s vibe. You think they’re hot. You’re tired of your friends making fun of you for not dating. You’re getting back out there. Okay?

Christina: Fair enough.

Drew: First one, “Hey.”

Christina: This is so hard because I simply wouldn’t respond to a “hey,” and this is a great note for people who are out there on dating apps. A “hey” gives you nothing to build off of.

Drew: That’s true.

Christina: If I was feeling spicy and I did like this person, though in fairness to me, liking this person would go down quite a bit if I received a “hey,” I would either just write an ellipsis with a question mark if I was feeling really rude, or I would say, “Hey, what?”, if I was in a good mood, but it’s more likely than not that I would just do an ellipsis with a question mark, or as we assume, not respond, but that’s not an option so I’m responding.

Drew: I love that. Thanks for playing the game. Okay. Next step.

Christina: Hard.

Drew: These are purposefully… I want the people at home to know these are common responses. I would never message someone, “Hey.” I want that on the record. The next one is also something I would never say, but I have received my version of this which is, “How’s Philly today?”

Christina: Yeah. That would involve me having to know what was happening in the greater city of Philadelphia or even in my neighborhood. It would involve me maybe going outside, but given that it’s July, I think a pretty safe response would be like, “IDK, hot,” because it’s, I don’t know, 85 degrees and humid today.

Drew: That’s also good because it leaves room open for some flirting because hot has multiple meanings.

Christina: Right, and this is, again, this is me being very welcoming in a way that’s brave.

Drew: Yes. The next one is inspired by your Raya song. For people who aren’t on Raya, basically the way it works is you have a song that plays with your profile. Anyways, so it is, “OMG. I love Jessie Ware.”

Christina: Oh, I was like, “I don’t even remember what my Raya song profile is. I forgot that there was one.” I would say, “Obviously, me too,” but I’m not saying that. That’s lame. I would say, “What album? I love Spotlight. I love Pleasure Principle.” Pleasure Principle is a Janet Jackson album. I would say whatever that other one is. I would try to pull something out of these people.

Drew: Cool. I love it.

Christina: It’s like pulling teeth over here. This is not making me excited to date, Drew.

Drew: I know, but I’m trying to, because I think what happens a lot of times is people are just like, “I don’t know what to say,” so I’m just trying to… We’re working up stuff, okay.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: This is another tricky one that I feel like is pretty common in lesbian dating spaces.

Christina: Sure.

Drew: “You’re so pretty,” heart eyes emoji.

Christina: I do really hate that one. That one is really rough.

Drew: Yeah. It’s not great.

Christina: Typically, if it’s a person I’m interested in, I would probably just have to respond in kind, like a, “Thank you. You look great in this photo.” Maybe if I was feeling crazy, I would be like, “What are you doing in that photo?”, or like, “Where were you? When was that?”, try to get a little something out of… something a little more where we could build off something, but yeah, “You’re so pretty,” is really hard to respond to because it’s like… I mean, my gut reaction is always like, “Yeah, I know. I picked the photo. I look good in it.”

Drew: See, I think that’s a better response than, “You too.” I never give compliments because someone gives me a compliment even if I do think that person’s pretty. I’ll be like… You can’t… I don’t know. It feels forced. I like, “I know,” that if I said to someone, which I never would, “You’re so pretty,” on a dating app and they said, “I know,” I would be a little bit obsessed with that. Okay, this is also specific to your dating profile. “That third picture! Do you ride a motorcycle?”

Christina: Again.

Drew: A picture of you wearing those fun—

Christina: Oh, the moto— Yeah. No, I don’t ride a motorcycle and I would probably say I’ll never ride a motorcycle. They’re so loud. Why are they so loud? They don’t have to be that loud.

Drew: It gives a good introduction to who you are. Okay.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: “Wait, this is wild. My grandparents live in New Paltz.”

Christina: Oh, boy. Yeah, a town of old people and college students. I don’t know. If their grandparents live in New Paltz though, I probably know them, which is funny to think about. It’s like, “Oh, who are they? Does my mom know your mom?”

Drew: I love that. “What’s the sexiest book you’ve read lately?”

Christina: The sexiest book I’ve read lately? Well, luckily, I’m just coming off of a hot week of beach vacations where I only read lesbian romances. I did read one called Breaking Character about an older actress in her 40s who falls in love with her co-star.

Drew: Nice. How old is the co-star?

Christina: 28.

Drew: Yeah, sure.

Christina: Yeah. Come on. Hello.

Drew: I have two more for you.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: Okay. “I stalked your Instagram and saw you host a dating podcast, so you must be really good at this, huh?”

Christina: I would say, “No. The joke of the dating podcast is that I don’t do it.”

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Convince me otherwise. Change my mind.

Drew: Ooh, okay. I like it.

Christina: That could be fun.

Drew: The last one is, “Our only mutual is Drew Gregory, but I think that’s a good sign. She’s amazing.”

Christina: I would have to say, “Drew, delete your dummy account and stop messaging me on this, on this dating app.”

Drew: That is fair. I think we learned something today, which is that you can always think of something to message someone on a dating app, and even if what someone messages you is not good, you can always think of a response. I think that’s an important lesson.

Christina: No, I think it’s good for our listeners to know that you can make anything work, but also maybe put a little more effort in than just a simple, “Hey.”

Drew: I like specific. I like when you look at a profile and go off of very specific things. If the Instagram is linked, go on the Instagram, find a specific thing, get conversations going, find things that can maybe lead to some flirting. “You’re so pretty,” is less likely to lead to flirting even though you’re giving a compliment than, “What’s the sexiest book you’ve read lately?” because you’re going to be talking about sex.

Christina: You are.

Drew: And actresses in their 40s having affairs with their co-stars in their 20s.

Christina: Great book. Let me tell you what.

Drew: Should we get into our main topic this week?

Christina: I think we should. I think we should get our guest on because she’s been just vamping in this corner just given us looks and vibes, and I’m real excited to hear her dang voice. Guest, would you like to be unsilenced and introduce yourself?

Grace: Hey, I’m Grace Lavery. I’m a writer, an academic, and I live in Brooklyn.

Christina: We love it.

Drew: We love that. We wanted to have you on for this episode because we wanted to have you on in general for a lot of reasons, but we wanted to have you on for this episode because you are in a public relationship especially in queer spaces. I feel like a lot of queer people—

Grace: We’re gaymous. Yeah.

Drew: Yes. Gaymous.

Christina: Absolutely.

Drew: Exactly, and you also write about your relationship.

Grace: Yeah. I have done that. I have done that somewhat to my husband’s embarrassment since he is, habitually, I think, a far more private person than I am. But also the thing is that usually I just think about it as I’m married to a minor celebrity so it’s kind of flattering to hear that I have a stake in that in my own person.

Christina: Yeah, no. It’s like attracts like on this relationship. I mean, as the person who wrote about your wedding for autostraddle.com, the website…

Grace: Oh, God, you did. Yeah.

Christina: I sure did. I simply will have to say that I think you guys… Different corners of gaymous, of gaymo fame-o, maybe internet presence, but I think both are really bringing something to the table here.

Grace: I think that’s right. I don’t feel like I’m just fully wifed and fully placed in the kind of her indoors capacity. However, sometimes we get recognized together in public when we’re on the subway, and sometimes Danny just gets recognized on his own when we’re on the subway and I just sit there and nod. I think one time, I got recognized and he didn’t, but I’m not really sure and it might just be a wishful thinking, to be honest.

Christina: No, I’m sure it was you.

Grace: Oh, gosh. Well.

Christina: Drew, you also kind of have a public fame-o relationship going on.

Drew: I do, and similarly, she is much more private than I am. That is something that we navigate because I think I was really, I think, hesitant to announce that we were dating. I’m really slow to do that, but then once I was confident enough in the relationship that I was like… Do you see how slow I’m talking as I’m choosing my words very carefully to say everything correctly? Once it was public that we were together, I was much more like, no, I don’t care. Yeah, well, I don’t know. I feel confident enough in this that I don’t mind sharing it.

Grace: Well, just for the record, Drew, you’re very cute together.

Drew: Thank you.

Christina: It’s true.

Grace: You’re extremely cute together.

Drew: Something that I do like about her is that I don’t think she necessarily wants me to write about our relationship, but if we take a hot picture together, she’s like, “Post it.” I’m like, “Great.” I do really admire the idea of being “I’m private unless I can be hot on the internet,” and I really respect that.

Christina: That’s honestly a motto that I would like to carry going forward through my life. I’m private, but if I look good, maybe all bets are off on that because I think that’s a very important way to be in our Instagram focused world. Drew, you did an incredible soft launch of Elise.

Drew: Thank you.

Christina: It was really thoughtful and timed out, and I was like, “Oh, I’m seeing some just slow Instagram stories happening.” It’s all very subtle.

Drew: Getting some hands. It might be like, “Oh, these people are becoming good friends.” Yeah, I had one friend of mine was like, “This other friend of mine asked me if you two were together,” and I was like, “That’s exactly what I want. I want people gossiping about me.” See, but that’s part of the problem is I think part of the reason why I don’t… I like the idea of people gossiping about me.

Christina: Ah, yes. Well…

Grace: Yeah. See, that’s not something that Danny and I quite handled because we’d been sort of BFFs for about two and a half years before we started dating, and in fact, we had made plans to go into couples counseling before we started dating each other.

Christina: That is the gayest thing I have ever heard.

Grace: Yeah. We’d already had conversations about how to move our relationship forward before we were even dating. Then we started dating, and suddenly, we were just constantly posting about it and it was… I remember this one Instagram picture in particular of me wearing this magenta Sophie Dore wrap dress and Danny holding a baby and just looking really cool at the baby, and we were in a hotel room in San Francisco, and I was just thinking like, “This is my life now.” I’m wearing these fashionable dresses and looking glamorous with this incredibly handsome man who is now my boyfriend rather than just my sort of celebrity best friend.

Christina: That’s really beautiful.

Drew: Okay, but you said that Danny’s more private than you. In what ways does that manifest and how do you deal with that?

Christina: Gorgeous.

Grace: Yeah. Danny does not generally write about his own sex life. Before we got… He has his own history with sex, which is very different to my history with sex, and the way in which he experiences sex before and after transition has been, again, kind of different to me. I don’t want to speak too much about his experiences because he has written about them occasionally and everyone should buy his book and read his book, Something That May Shock and Discredit You, because I think it’s amazing. And he does talk about embodiment and intimacy in really tender and subtle ways, but there’s nothing tender or subtle about the way that I write about embodiment. I tend to be very just kind of full page, close-up kind of imagery, and I’m really interested in creating extremely vivid experiences of embodiment in writing. That’s just always been the way that I’ve written.

It’s been interesting how Danny and I have, I think, learned a little bit more how to write like each other over the last few years. He’s written a little bit more about sex and embodiment, and I’ve written a little bit more about not exactly religion but questions relating to spirituality. Danny and I, neither of us are religious, but we both have these weird spiritual attachments that become part of our lives in different moments and something we’ve both written about. I think he’s also— one of the things that’s always attracted me to Danny, is I just love the way he writes about literature. I think he’s an incredible writer about literature. That’s what I do for a living. My day job is I teach 19th Century British Literature.

Before I met Danny, I had this experience where a bunch of the grad students I was working with would say that they thought that The Toast, which was Danny’s website, just said everything that they wanted to say. I was like, “Why the fuck are we doing the rest of this stuff? Why are we doing all this rigorous academic training if what you really care about is Texts from Jane Eyre. That’s always been part of the complexity of our relationship too, but the fact is I just admire the ways in which Danny makes writing make sense. That’s been part of the way that I’ve learned from him as well. You asked me how he’s private and I guess I’m just sort of trying to dodge the question because the basic rule is in my book, I talk quite explicitly about a bunch of times that we’ve had sex, and I don’t think Danny has ever written a sex scene in his life.

Christina: That tracks.

Drew: So, it’s sort of like Danny won’t necessarily engage in that way, but you have free rein to engage with it however you want to?

Grace: Yeah. I don’t think it would occur to Danny to ask me not to say things or to write particular things out. I think we’re both fairly committed to each other’s capacity to write however we want to write. I think we both like each other’s writing enough that we’re not super worried about it, but there have definitely been moments, especially with the memoir where I was a little concerned that he might feel kind of embarrassed by certain aspects of that, and it didn’t really occur to me that would be the case until after it was already in press. I was like, “How do you feel about all of this?”, and he was like, “Oh, no, I feel great about it. I think it’s great,” but it’s something that I had questions about for a little while.

Christina: I do think that makes sense. In having the great privilege and honor of knowing both of you, I do think of Danny as a person who’s like, “Oh, I’ll talk about that when I’m ready to talk about that,” and for you, a lot of your processing is, “I’m going to process this out loud with people and I would ideally like it to be as visceral and gut punching as it can be so I can get to how I feel about it at the end,” which is a fascinating process and one that is terrifying to me to think about, but I love reading you do it because it does feel very freeing in a way.

Grace: I’m so relieved to hear that, but yeah, no, I guess I’m just not very good at reserve. I guess it’s partly a rebellion against certain aspects of my upbringing, but I do try to punch hard first and develop more subtle relationships after.

Christina: Yeah. I think, as a guest of your wedding, a woman who walked on the aisle to “Primadonna Girl” might not be the best at reserve.

Grace: Yeah. That’s true.

Christina: Not a shocking excitement. I don’t think.

Grace: Yeah.

Christina: I don’t really think about the idea that people would be that interested in me dating people, but now that we have this podcast where I have proudly and loudly been like, “I don’t date, I do not do that,” I do think if I ever do get in a relationship again, it will actually have to be a conversation of like… People might be a little more interested in this than I am, or maybe even whoever I’m dating is, and it might have to be something we discuss in a way that is like, “Ooh.” Also, you hate to overexpect how much people care about you online. That’s a dark… How famous are you?

Drew: I think you’re underestimating the reach of Autostraddle.

Christina: That’s true.

Drew: I don’t have 10,000 followers on Twitter or Instagram, and I still, especially in Toronto for some reason, I’m just recognized a pretty good amount. I think Autostraddle has a really tight knit community and I think that’s really special. I think just by nature of writing for Autostraddle, people would be invested in who you’re dating. Also, you’re probably going to date someone who’s older and successful because you’re attracted to that, so unless they work in finance or something, which is boring, they’re probably going to have fame of their own.

Christina: That’s true.

Drew: I see this in your future of you having some sort of dual public relationship.

Christina: Well, I guess I should just start drafting the press release.

Grace: You’re a power lesbian in training.

Christina: Yeah, I guess. Yeah.

Drew: I am always having to navigate this thing where gaymous is not famous and so people have asked to take pictures with Elise and I at the same time and as a couple, and then like, “I love both of your work,” and also the subtext of that is also sometimes like, “I love your relationship,” which is a weird amount of pressure. I think I definitely understand like— I think I’m, separate from her, getting more boundaries in certain ways. I think with my work, I think I still feel more of a freedom, but even that, it would have to be very pointed. I think there are things that I would write in a book that I wouldn’t write in an essay, and there are things that I would write in an essay that I wouldn’t say on a podcast, and there are things that I would say on a podcast that I wouldn’t post on Instagram. I think there’s this sort of balance between art, which is in some ways, the thing that I prioritize above all else. I mean, not above all else, that’s not true, but it’s up there. It’s up there.

Christina: It’s a tie up there, I’d say.

Drew: It’s not above like—

Grace: Transfeminine Chatterton energy here.

Drew: It’s not above my deep political values and core beliefs, and there are people including my partner who I care about to an extent that… I wouldn’t say that I care about any individuals in my life more than the concept of art, but definitely like no one essay or one something… Well, that’s maybe not… No one’s asking me to pick, but I just am saying that I, of course, care more about my partner than any one essay that I could write.

Christina: Sure.

Drew: It’s not really that challenging as far as being like, “Oh, I think I want to keep this private or she wants to keep it private.” I don’t know. I haven’t found it to be actually that challenging even if I’m talking slower on this episode than before. I think being forced to learn to be more thoughtful about what I put out into the world has been positive for me in general. I think I’m still learning that lesson. I think I’ve had some essays recently that after they’ve gone out, I’ve been a little bit like, “I don’t know if I should have done that.”

Grace: I love those essays. I think I know which ones you’re talking about. I think they’re beautiful. I love the way you write about sex.

Drew: Thank you. I don’t have an issue with writing graphically about sex and about my sex life. It’s more when I’m walking that line of telling other people’s stories, that’s what I feel. If I could write graphic essays about masturbation, I would do it any day. That’s not something that feels… It’s not that it doesn’t feel personal to me, but it just doesn’t feel…

Grace: You might as well just masturbate.

Drew: That’s true. That’s a really good point.

Christina: Well, that’s a huge point.

Drew: Then there are more essays and then it’s a real cycle there.

Christina: Yeah. I was actually thinking about that. The difference in writing an essay that is super personal versus Grace’s experience of writing a memoir. By definition, a memoir is really personal, and I imagine there are things that you put in that memoir that you would like if someone asks you to write for an outlet, you would be like, “No, that would be a waste of this space and I don’t really need to say this thing in this space,” but having what I can only imagine feels like the freedom to have a full memoir to say whatever you want and contextualize it very specifically to your life probably makes that a little easier.

Grace: I think that’s true. Yeah. I hadn’t quite thought of it in these terms, but I think it is true that if someone’s made the investment to hold a whole book in their hands that is a story of me and things about my life and thoughts, I think they’re entitled to descriptions of my genitals if they want them. Whereas, I’m not necessarily going to include that in a random essay about Matthew Arnold or whatever, although, you know.

Drew: Who knows?

Grace: Why not, I suppose.

Christina: Never say never, Grace. Never say never.

Grace: Never say never.

Christina: Certainly not with you.

Grace: Yeah, no, I think that’s true.

Drew: Yeah. If any book publishers are listeners of our podcast and want graphic details about my sex life with my partner, if you get me to write a book, I think she’d be okay with it. That’s real motivation. Though… because even making that joke scares me because there are people who are just so fucking weird about gaymous people, and I think it’s because we’re not famous so we feel more attainable and there’s just this weird… Look, I’m not encouraging all of you to stop listening to this podcast and stop liking our stuff and stop complimenting us and et cetera, et cetera. I mean, that’s the thing, right?

We want it, we’re here, we’re doing it, we clearly want some of it, and what that line is it’s a little like dating. I want people to flirt with me and then, oh, the wrong person flirted with me or, oh, they flirted and they misread the situation and did in a way that I felt was weird, and it’s fine as long as you don’t get stalkery about it. It’s fine. There are worse things than being a little bit weird on the internet, but it is that thing where I want the attention and I also don’t want the attention, and I want it in certain ways, and only I know in the moment what kind of ways.

Christina: Right. Exactly. There are those days where you get extremely randos in your DMs or mentions who are just speaking to you in an incredibly familiar tone, and you’re like… Some days, I’m like, “Whatever,” and some days I’m like, “Who the hell are you to think that you can speak to me in this manner?” and there really is no rhyme or reason to it. It is just how do I feel that day when I woke up and when a stranger decided to speak to me crazy? Who can say?

Grace: This is another thing about the whole gaymous thing, which I think is kind of weird in the way it specifically hits trans women, and maybe it’s specific to trans women of my age and older, but it’s a way in which I feel old when I’m recognized. It’s like people will talk to me in a sort of veneration. They’ll talk to me as though I was at Stonewall, and that I threw the first brick and I was hanging out with Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera myself. And they’ll just say, “It’s so good to have you here. Thank you so much.” Danny and I walked into a fucking bookstore in Provincetown last year, and before anything else happened, the woman behind the desk looked at me and said, “You are welcome.” I was like, “Oh my God.”

Christina: Oh my God.

Drew: Okay. I don’t want you to think that I’m now calling you old, but I want to say that I’m 28 and I get that.

Grace: Oh my God. Yeah.

Drew: I mean, there’s something sort of endearing about it in the sense that I remember when I was first coming out, if someone had been… I mean, I’ve been out for a little over five years and that’s a good chunk of time when you’re first coming out. It feels so impossible to ever make it to that point, and so if you see someone who’s been out for over five years and is like writing openly about their experiences, and is in a relationship, and seems confident and happy and whatever, and all the things that I am and also am not because Instagram and the internet has its limits, but I think there is something that feels really inspiring about that. I, in some ways, welcome it, but it does make me laugh. It does make me feel sometimes like, “Am I an elder? When did I go from being like…”

I really feel like I went from being someone who all of my experiences were guided by being a baby trans to being an elder. There wasn’t an in between. All of a sudden. I did some emotional learning, I made some mistakes, was out for a little bit longer, and all of a sudden, snap, it happened. But I also do feel even so, I think, about people who have been out for 10 years or for 20 years and that there are so many different layers to that.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: How long have you been out for?

Grace: Not even five years, I think. In terms of out online, probably just four and a half, we’ll say. In terms of in my more kind of offline life, a little bit longer than that, but even that was complicated because even before, I had a sort of public online life, I had a public work life because I was already a professor and so then there were all kinds of questions about like, “Why is Professor Lavery showing up wearing nail polish? Is that a thing?” and this kind of thing, but then when I did come out at work, the very next week was the graduate student recruitment week, and I had this one student come to my office and just asked me what it was like being trans in the Berkeley English Department when I’d literally been trans in the Berkeley English Department for five days, and I was just like, “I have no idea.”

Christina: It’s been quite a week.

Grace: Yeah. I feel vaguely insane, but I don’t think that’s…

Christina: I mean, first of all, I’m honored to be on a podcast with two trans elders. I think this is really a gorgeous experience. I do not take this kind of gift for granted so thank you both of you, but I do think for Drew and I, a lot of our work is online, our work is being public, but I do think there is probably for a lot of our listeners having that experience of being perhaps not a professor at Berkeley, but having a work life that is totally separate from whatever online public personas we may or may not have. I imagine that is also complicated to have a relationship be it public or even if it’s just something that’s a little harder to navigate in a corporate space or a… I don’t know. Higher ed was kind of, for me at least as a staff member of higher ed, was just like, “What are we doing here? The gay grad students are going to find me,” and they always did, but I wonder if for you, Grace, that also is part of dealing with your public relationship and managing that.

Grace: I think it is. I think the question of how to be a professor in a way that is meaningful, how to be an academic in a way that is meaningful without disappearing, you think, which is so… I mean, the question of visibility is a really complicated one and there’s a lot of critiques of visibility politics within trans community especially within academic trans community, and I really get that, and at the same time, I know that the systems, that govern higher education, are not really set up to make transition possible, and so if you wish to contest that visibility is a necessary dimension. For example, when I did come out at work in 2018, I remember I think maybe the following day, I ended up being sent by my department manager, who was wonderful and was always wonderful, to meet with a guy named Billy Curtis, who’s at the time, the director of gender equity. I just was a month or two on hormones in a wig looking terrified and I was just like, “Hi, I’m transitioning. This is a very odd moment for me. I thought I should just come and say hi.”

Billy then just looked at me and went, “Oh, we’ve been waiting for you,” and he’s just this extraordinary and wonderful person. He is someone who’s been at Berkeley since the ’80s and has been involved in gay liberation, queer liberation politics since then, has been grand marshal of San Francisco Pride, he’s Barbadian immigrant, and he’s been in California for ages. He’s incredible. He is someone that I really, really admire. It was just this sense that like, “Oh, wait, he’s been waiting for a trans woman tenure track scholar to get some of this stuff done that he needs to get done,” because he’s been finding that such a person could be helpful to him so then I was like, “Oh, okay, well then, let’s get some stuff done,” so then we did.

Then I wrote a bunch of letters saying, “We need to change these online infrastructure systems or we need to change this policy,” and whatever. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I mostly was taking direction from people who’d been part of these struggles for a lot longer and I was really grateful to them, but yeah, that sense that my visibility actually made a difference to the kinds of reforms and political changes that I was most interested in advancing. There’s this other trans woman academic at Berkeley whose name I can never fucking remember who I met one time who has nothing in common with me. She’s just a professor who has a life of a professor and isn’t online, isn’t married to the greatest writer of her generation or whatever. I always feel like this is so odd. We sometimes find ourselves in the same room and we just have nothing to talk about at all. I have no idea what her life is like.

Christina: That is so fascinating.

Grace: Yeah. The difference is partly this whole other thing, which is this public world that I’m half part of and have conflicted feelings about, but at the same time, it seems like it could be useful politically, and also, I sometimes realize like, “Oh, shit. My students have read descriptions of me having sex. That’s really weird,” and I feel really weird about that, but at the same time, the alternative is not to write about sex and it seems to me that’s worse, so yeah.

Drew: Do you feel an added pressure because of narratives around trans desirability and trans loneliness that because you’re in a public relationship and that you’re in a T4T relationship, that people sort of, I don’t know, want perfection?Or really look to you as inspiring in some ways that you have this public love and how you then portray your relationship? Is there an added pressure because of that?

Grace: I wonder. This is the dark side of that. This is where I’m immediately drawn by that. I’m also, in addition to being whatever kind of gaymous I am, I’m also a particular target for a bunch of really hateful people who just can’t stand trans people at all, can’t stand queer people at all. These people have a very highly developed theory about my relationship with Danny, which is that I have abducted him and cut off ties between him and his family and other people that care about him, and he is in this sort of brow-beaten, minoritized, and bullied position. That’s… When I feel pressure, I just feel really frustrated about that and I never know what to do with it because the obvious answer would be like, “Listen, my husband is more famous than me. My husband makes more money than me. He actually has more friends than I do, and whatever jealousies I feel around that, we can talk about them and it’s fine,” but it’s also, I do feel this kind of pressure to fight that in some way.

Danny and I have had complicated conversations about this because I’d be like, “Danny, why don’t you just tell people that this isn’t true?”, and he’s like, “If I say that, it will sound like you’ve told me to say that.” I’m like, “Yeah, I know. I know that’s true and I don’t know what to do with it.” I think we’ve both found a degree of frustration about that, and the answer is eventually being I’ve just really blocked off a lot of possible ways to get to me that I would see things.

It’s so odd to me that people would frame questions of transition around loneliness and that kind of undesirability because, for me at least, the trans people I know are all incredibly hot and incredibly desirable. It seems bizarre to me that anyone would think trans people have difficulty dating. Come to Brooklyn and we can go to a few bars.

At the same time, I know this is something that does really circulate because before I started to transition, I was so scared of transition, and one of the reasons why was because I was enjoying dating a lot of people, and I thought if I transition, I’m just not going to be able to do that and no one’s going to want to date me again. Eventually, I decided I was going to transition anyway even though I would therefore become unfuckable and no one would ever want to spend time with me. Then that turned out very quickly not to be true, so it was genuinely surprising to me.

The question is like, “Why or how has this image come up?” I guess if my relationship with Danny had some role in capacity to repudiate that notion of trans unfuckableness, I would be delighted because it’s really just straight up not true. It’s like one of those things where people are like, “If trans lesbians are lesbians, why don’t they date each other?” Literally every trans woman I know is either been dating another trans woman for a time or wants to date a trans woman or something like that.

Christina: Yeah. That is fascinating though to have that kind of immediate switch between like, “I do not think I will be desired,” to “Now, I am seen as predator.”

Grace: Yeah.

Christina: That’s a lot to have to balance in one gorgeous little brain that you’ve got going over there.

Grace: It just never occurred to me that would be part of the way that anyone would see this especially since, and this is another thing that is just a big part of our relationship, I admired his choices so fucking much. I think that there is often in a relationship, and I’ve had this in past relationships too, a question of fundamentally, do we share ethical commitments? Would we act the same way when the chips are down? When someone… People sometimes ask me like, “What’s your favorite thing about Danny?”, and sorry, I’m just like sucking my husband’s dick on podcast, and that’s just how it is.

Christina: Just slobbing on the knob right here on air.

Grace: Yeah. One of my favorite stories about Danny was his parents used to take him and his two siblings on little trips to the pier in the Bay Area and in Los Angeles, and when Danny was three or four, I think on the Santa Monica Pier, they’re walking around and each of the kids was given 10 bucks and they say, “You can go and do whatever you want with this, and just come back and tell us what it was.” The other kids go off and do something, but Danny’s move is he’d go and get the $10 note broken down into 10 one dollar notes, and go and give them to 10 different people that he’s seen that were just walking around, like homeless people.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: That tracks so well with Danny’s incredibly huge heart. Yeah, that is a person who really, when the shit hits the fan, their politics go with it. Yeah, that’s a person who lives what they say and what they mean.

Grace: Yeah. There’s a kind of real instinctive commitment to something like communism there that is not acquired, that is actually really part of the way that Danny thinks about value and the way in which he thinks about resources that he can share with other people, and I learned so much from it. I think I’m instinctively a much more selfish person than Danny, and I probably have rolled that tenner into a little bundle and found some cocaine, but no, I continue to learn so much from that.

Christina: Well, maybe that’s the lesson. Maybe we should all just be dating Danny and learning how to be selfless and good people.

Grace: We haven’t really talked about the whole poly thing, but if you want to date Danny, I recommend it. We have a lot of fun.

Christina: Do we have any other thoughts before we hit Crush Corner? Are we feeling like we know what a public relationship is? Do we know how to navigate them? Do we do our best and say, “Well, that’s what all I can do”?

Drew: The only thing I would add is I think a lot of the things we’ve been talking about we’ve been talking about them in the context of being gaymous, and Christina, you brought this up as far as being a professor, but I do think that all of these things come up for everyone when it comes to dealing with social media. Even if you’re not going to have people who you don’t personally know responding to how you post and what you do, you’re going to have maybe family or friends or someone you went to high school with, or all these other things. I do think with the way that the internet functions now, most people are some sort of famous in the sense that even if you’re just famous with your high school graduating class and it is a weird dynamic, and I think we’re all figuring that out for ourselves. I think it just depends on the individual relationship and individual people and comfort levels, and yeah.

Christina: Cool. Yeah. I feel good. I feel like we crushed it as ever.

Drew: Great.

Christina: Speaking of crushes, gorgeous segues. She’s a professional. Let’s hit Crush Corner.

Drew: Amazing.

Christina: I will go first. My crush is not a person, not even pop culture. My crush is a concept. By a concept, I do mean a physical thing that you can see. It’s the ocean. My crush is the ocean. I really love her. I spent a long time in her in the last two weeks. Some of those days were very cold. Some of those days, she was not particularly welcoming, and I said, “Baby, I understand that. Me too. I also am sometimes cold and not particularly welcoming to people,” and I just felt really held and seen, and I love to be salty and damp in the ocean.

Drew: Wow. All your life you’ve been looking for an older woman and it was the ocean all along.

Christina: She was the only one big enough for me. Drew, who is your crush?

Drew: Okay. There’s a little story attached to this crush.

Christina: What? No way.

Drew: Yeah. My crush this week is ‎Moira Shearer, who is a ballet dancer who’s the lead of the movie, The Red Shoes. She’s also in The Tales of Hoffman and was a great ballerina. She’s my crush this week because last night, I took my first ballet class. I’ve wanted to since I was like before I can… When I was three, I would like to watch my sister’s ballet classes. I was fascinated, but that wasn’t something that was available to me and I’ve always wanted to, and nothing to me felt more mortifying than being the sad trans woman who couldn’t learn ballet, who went to a beginner ballet class, and sucked. Because I’m not flexible. None of the skills that you need to have to be a ballerina, I have. I have none of them, but I went last night and it was so much fun. It was mortifying for sure and humbling in a lot of ways, but I had such a great time and I’m going to go back. It’s weekly so I’m going to go back next week and make it a practice.

A lot of it is I loved watching my sister’s ballet classes, but when I saw The Red Shoes, when I was, I don’t know how old I was, somewhere in the 12, 13-ish range, that movie changed my life. There was something about the way that it expressed passion and art making and commitment, and also how that intersects with still being someone who feels very deeply towards romantic partners and love. She’s incredible in it. She’s an incredible dancer and the way that her body moves is incredible. I was thinking about her and that movie all night.

Christina: Drew, I have to ask this before we ask Grace who her crush is. Your ballet teacher, was she hot or? What was going on there?

Drew: Less hot and more like Miss Frizzle energy because she teaches the beginner… There’s beginner and there’s beginner plus. Sorry, I’m not saying Miss Frizzle isn’t hot. You can be kooky and hot, obviously. That’s one of the best types of hot, but she was more like… Towards the end of the class, she made a joke about being old and then was like, “I’m almost 40,” and in my head, I was like, “This person’s under 40??” and not because of an appearance thing, but just because she talked to us the way she probably talks to her five-year-old students and so I had this mental image of her being so much older than me, and then I was like, “Oh, you’re younger than a lot of my friends.”

It wasn’t really a sexual thing, but I do know that the beginner plus teacher is hot because when I was looking at classes… You need at least a year of experience to go to beginner plus, so if I were to do weekly ballet in Toronto for the rest of the summer, go back to LA, continue that practice, maybe make it twice a week, and then if I came back to Toronto next year, I can maybe take the beginner plus class with the hot teacher. If all of that happens, I will let you know.

Christina: Well, listeners, hang on for season three of Wait, Is This A Date? featuring the beginner plus hot ballet teacher. Grace, whomst is your crush of the week?

Grace: Well, Christina, I just got to give a big shout out to this book, Stannary Law: A History of the Mining Law of Cornwall and Devon by Robert R. Pennington, who’s a legal historian. His book was published in 1974, and it’s a really great comprehensive history of the specifics of the laws governing the Cornish and Devon shore tin mining industries that had their own legal system quite apart from the rest of the country. I am currently writing a novel about the history of tin mining in the Southwest of England and its relation to independence movements. Robert R. Pennington, again, is my guy and I heartily recommend this for anyone who’s just looking for a light read about the history of Cornish tin mining.

Drew: Wow. Grace, can I just say that I adore you?

Christina: I am just blown away by just the concept of bringing your full self to this space and saying, “Yes, we are going Cornish tin mining.” Your mind, Grace. Thank you so much for joining us.

Grace: Thank you.

Christina: Please tell our listeners where they can find you if you would like them to do so. If you don’t want them to, say boo.

Grace: No, find me. Well, online, you can find me on Instagram @grace.lavery.pangolin. I also have my memoir, Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis, which is out now with Seal in the US and Daunt in the UK.

Drew: You should get it.

Christina: Everybody get the book. It’s great.

Grace: Thank you.

Christina: I think we did it.

Grace: Yes.

Drew: Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This A Date. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram @waitisthisadate and you can email us at waitisthisadate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein, our logo is by Mania Dar, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok @draw_gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter @c_gracet and on Instagram @christina_gracet, and you can find Autostraddle, of course, @autostraddle.

Drew: You can find Autostraddle at autostraddle.com. The reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Oh, actually, that’s really interesting that you asked that because scientists are, at this very moment, horridly trying to figure this out. We have some of our best scholars on this. On the case here, we don’t have an answer, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew: I wish them and us the greatest luck.

Drew (voice memo): Elise and I are gay famous, not famous famous is we don’t have a couple name. We don’t even have a couple name that could work. I think the best bet you have is combining our last names like Grauman. That’s not a good couple name. Though it would be spelled like the theater in Los Angeles and you know how I love movies.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Episode 204: Partner’s Pets

Whether you’re a dog gay, a cat gay, a snake gay, a ferret gay, or a will I ever find a lesbian who doesn’t have a pet gay, animals likely play a role in your dating life. Personally, there’s no better question someone can ask me before a first date than: Can I bring my dog?

But we know everyone doesn’t share this desire and so we had actor, writer, friend of mine, and friend of Autostraddle’s Brittani Nichols on to talk about her girlfriend’s dog and her girlfriend’s snake. We get into our histories with pets, our boundaries with partner’s pets, and B’s assertion that animals, like people, have their own personalities and should be taken on a case-by-case basis. Christina also bravely says that people should not kill their pets and I bravely say that snakes are maybe a bit sexy thanks to a certain pop star.

And before that we play another game connected to my Letterboxd! Christina challenges me to “Fix That Movie” — pronounced Fix! That! Movie! — where I have to explain how I’d fix movies I gave two or two and a half star ratings on Letterboxd. Do you like pets? Do you like movies? Well, what are you waiting for! Give us a listen!

A black button that says listen on Apple Podcasts in purple and white lettering

A black button says Listen on Spotify in white and green text

SHOW NOTES

+ Once again, here is my Letterboxd.

+ The movies I “fixed” were Nine (2009), Catwoman (2004), The Lake House (2006), Being the Ricardos (2021), The Last Five Years (2014), The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)

+ B’s dog — excuse me — B’s girlfriend’s dog Shiloh:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CYLUY4kLTvq/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

+ The Kate Hudson movie I keep referencing is Raising Helen (2004).

+ A moment.

+ B’s crush of the week was the show Resident Alien.

+ Speaking of Cluny Brown, if I ever got two dogs at once I’d name them Cluny Brown and Miss Betty Cream but if I get one I’m sticking with Princess Cyd. Imagine a pit bull mix named Princess Cyd!

+ Florence Welch’s new album:

+ Watch Suicide Kale (2016) written and starring B and directed by Carly Usdin.

+ If you want more B, read this interview she did with Shelli about Abbott Elementary.

EPISODE

Brittani: And then now my current girlfriend has a dog and a snake.

Drew: Yes.

Brittani: Yeah. A snake.

Christina: Got to hear more about this. Got to talk about the snake.

[theme song plays]

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: I’m Christina.

Drew: And welcome to Wait, Is This a Date?

Christina: Wait, Is This a Date? is an Autostraddle podcast dedicated to the most important question of our times: Wait, is this a date?

Drew: It’s a question people are asking, I hear.

Christina: Yeah. The people are simply clamoring for an answer and we try to get closer and closer to having an answer every time we podcast together, I think.

Drew: I think so too.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: I’m Drew Gregory. I’m a filmmaker and a writer for Autostraddle. I’m a queer woman, I’m a trans woman, and I’m excited to be here today.

Christina: That’s so thrilling. I’m Christina Tucker. I am also a writer at Autostraddle. I’m a podcaster, a writer of things other places. And I am also a queer woman. I’m black. I have new braids and I’m really loving, throwing them around a very dramatic woman that’s what I’m doing now. I’m identifying as a dramatic woman these days.

Drew: I think you should.

Christina: Which is really working for me.

Drew: Yes.

Christina: As usual, we have a little game to play.

Drew: I’m so excited.

Christina: This game that I have made for Drew is called Fix That Movie. These are movies that Drew has rated two to two and a half stars on Letterboxd. I am going to give Drew 30 seconds because Drew—

Drew: Oh God.

Christina: —as we know and love her, tends to get a little long-winded. So Drew’s going to have 30 seconds to pitch a fix for these films that she has rated exactly two and a half to two stars.

Drew: Great.

Christina: So that’s the game. I’m going to start a timer. And then I’m going to give you your first movie. Are you ready to play Fix That Movie?

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: And I have to say it like that every time.

Drew: Of course.

Christina: Okay. Your first film is the film, Nine. Start.

Drew: All the elements are there. So it’s actually, this is a tricky one, because it just should be better. I think maybe the musical Nine isn’t very good. So maybe write new songs?

Christina: Okay.

Drew: And cast a few people who are Broadway performers, not just movie stars, as much as I love all the movie stars in that cast.

Christina: And with 10 seconds to spare, you have fixed the movie Nine. Gorgeous.

Drew: Amazing.

Christina: Our next film, Catwoman from 2004. Go.

Drew: I mean, a new script? But also I obviously love Halle Berry as Catwoman. I think that’s a two and a half star on Letterboxd. I did think about making it higher. I enjoyed myself. I actually rewatched it recently, like five years ago. But yeah, anyways I would say probably a page one rewrite.

Christina: A page one rewrite. Gorgeous. Four seconds to spare. All right. Your next film is, The Lake House.

Drew: Oh, did I give it two and a half stars? That’s pretty brutal.

Christina: You gave it two and a half stars.

Drew: I don’t know. I mean, that feels like a movie where you want it to be two and a half stars. If you went to go see The Lake House with the premise that it has with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. You know what? This is going to be a— recast Sandra Bullock.

Christina: Oh, hot takes. I love it.

Drew: I don’t know who, because she does have good chemistry with Keanu, but I think there’s someone better for that part.

Christina: A recast. All right. All right. That’s brave and gorgeous. Okay. We’re going to get into some fun ones now. These are some newer films that I think provide a bit more of a challenge.

Drew: Great.

Christina: Your next film, Being the Ricardos.

Drew: Oh, God. I don’t know. Aaron Sorkin wrote it and directed it. This is tricky. Because I would say, you know what, I’m actually not going to say a new screenwriter because I think Aaron Sorkin is a fine screenwriter when he has a director who will bully him. That’s why The Social Network works. So unfortunately a male director who Aaron Sorkin would listen to and be bullied by. And I’m sorry, but no, Nicole Kidman love of my life. You cannot, that’s not your role. And Javier Bardem, not love of my life. Also not your role. So recast the two leads. Supporting cast is excellent. And get a new director.

Christina: And you only went six seconds over on that. And I think that’s gorgeous.

Drew: I know I can live with that.

Christina: I also think, just as a rule, someone to bully Aaron Sorkin is a great idea. Just for anything that he’s ever involved in. Beautiful. We have two more. Your next one, the film, The Last Five Years.

Drew: Oh God.

Christina: Fix! That! Movie!

Drew: Okay. You have to have a book, you have to write a book for it. It doesn’t work as a musical without a script. And then also Anna Kendrick does not work in that role because Cathy needs to have less onscreen power than the other guy, fucking Jamie. And so having a celebrity be Cathy and a not as famous person be Jamie does not work. But mainly it needs a book.

Christina: It needs a book. I think you’re right. And I think that is going to be brilliant. Your last film, this was a really chaos choice for me, but, The Eyes of Tammy Faye.

Drew: Okay. I mean, first of all, no fat suit. That’s a very easy way to make me bump it up a half star and be a little bit more generous towards it. I don’t know if I want to fix that movie like it’s just— honestly if you take out the fat suit, it can still be that cast. Jessica Chastain could still do that part looking like Jessica Chastain. And then I give it a three. I give it three stars. I don’t think that movie needs to be anything more. But I would say if you want to make a Tammy Faye movie that would be better than that, you would have to focus like most biopic type things on a very specific time in life. And that, I think, always makes for a better biopic.

Christina: I think that’s beautiful. And I think Drew, today you have fixed six movies.

Drew: That’s really beautiful.

Christina: Of a real wide breadth and depth of films and genres. And I think that’s really thrilling.

Drew: Yeah. There’s also such a big difference— Rating movies out of five stars, it’s tricky. And again, The Lake House being a… I think I was high for it. I had a great time watching The Lake House high.

Christina: Well, that was the other thing is I had to, as I was going through them, I was like okay, which ones do I know that Drew watched high? And like so I can’t pick Serenity.

Drew: Oh, Serenity is so bad. Being the Ricardos was such a much less pleasant experience than The Lake House. So don’t watch Being the Ricardos. Maybe watch The Lake House if you have enough drugs. That’s my final words.

Christina: And this is Drew’s reviews movie corner now.

Drew: Our main topic today is Partners’ Pets. And we have a very special guest. Very special guest, do you want to introduce yourself?

Brittani: Yes. Hello. My name is Brittani Nichols.

Christina: Hey.

Brittani: Do I say what I am?

Christina: You can say whatever you want.

Drew: Whatever that means to you.

Brittani: I am a television writer and actor. And Gemini.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Great.

Christina: Good to get the sign in. I do think we should request our guests to tell us their sign. I think that is something we should do.

Drew: They should. And as we record this, Gemini season has just ended and…

Christina: Just wrapped up.

Drew: It’s a bummer.

Christina: Unfortunately.

Drew: Yeah.

Brittani: Bummer, unfortunately. Yeah.

Christina: Yep. Here we are in Cancer season. Yay.

Drew: Brittani, first of all, I want to ask, what is your relationship to animals and to pets? Growing up as a kid, did you have pets? Do you like animals?

Brittani: As a child, did we have pets? We had fish for a period, but my little brothers would — one little brother Donnie — would put video tapes into the fish tank, which would kill the fish.

Christina: Now I have a couple of questions. Was this so they could watch the video? Was this so they could interact with the tape? Are we talking a full VHS? Because that’s big.

Brittani: Oh, yeah. It was a pretty— It wasn’t a super large tank. I would say it was three goldfish tanks, I would say of the stereotypical cartoon sized goldfish tank. No idea. I mean he was three.

Christina: Sure. So maybe he wasn’t also thinking super logically.

Brittani: Whenever he was not in eyesight, that tape was going in that tank.

Drew: I mean, it makes a good splash, I would imagine. So I get it.

Christina: See, I was imagining him lowering it down very dramatically and then creeping away.

Brittani: Yeah. It’s one of those images that is definitely burned into my memory from when I was a kid. We never had a dog. At times my mother would be dating someone who had a dog and that was fun. One of them I believe was eaten by a coyote we believe, because there was wilderness behind where we were staying.

Christina: Yeah. The wilderness will get you.

Brittani: Yeah, he would just let the dog go hang out. And then one day it just didn’t come back.

Christina: Yikes.

Drew: A bummer. Was it a small dog?

Brittani: Yeah. It wasn’t tiny. It was, I would say, a small, mid-sized dog named Timberland. Very cute.

Christina: That’s a great dog name. Wow.

Brittani: I think that’s about it.

Drew: What about you Christina?

Christina: There were animals around a lot. We had a dog when I was growing up that my father named Chakotay because he is a big Star Trek head.

Drew: I think there’s a word for Star Trek head.

Christina: Yeah. It’s Star Trek head, I said it. Like hello. He was not well-trained and he was pretty aggressive. So he was a bummer of a dog. And then we later had a dog named Maggie who was a very sweet German Shorthaired Pointer who was very dumb, and fell off our deck a lot, just accidentally. And I was like, babe, you got to work it out. But we were lackadaisical dog owners. They always showed up or someone needed a dog. And my mother couldn’t say no to re-homing said dog, but we were not passionate dog owners, I would not say. And my mother is addicted to finding outdoor cats who she feeds and then is surprised that they come back. Yeah. And they currently have two weird cats that my mother also could not say no to, because they were the last of the litter and their names are Shadowfax and Yoshi. And they’re very weird and scared of people.

Drew: That’s nice.

Christina: Just chill. Just chilling around the house. Not really passionate about our pets I’d say, at the Tucker household. What about you? I know your parents have dogs, Drew.

Drew: Yeah. Opposite. Very passionate about the dogs. I was always supposed to refer to our dogs as my siblings.

Christina: Okay.

Brittani: Oh, no.

Drew: Yeah. My mom is that kind of person. But I grew up loving dogs and we always had two. One would die — they were always a little off an age — one would die. We’d get a new one and then it would sort of… Like that. Yeah. Well we had to give away one of our dogs because she was biting people, but she loved me. So it was very hard because I was a kid and it was hard to… I remember a vet saying well, do you want your dog to bite one of your friends? It was pretty harsh. Because I think I was nine, but then we got—

Christina: Damn.

Drew: We got another dog and that dog was my love. And then my parents got two dogs that I don’t know as well, but my parents still are like, your brother. And I’m like, I don’t know about that. Maybe half brother or something at least, but—

Christina: My cousin really.

Drew: Yeah. Yeah.

Christina: Interesting.

Drew: But yeah, I love dogs and I’ve never had one of my own because they’re expensive and I move around a lot and I live in cities. But then Brittani, I feel like I know vaguely your history with dating people who have dogs and other animals, but I’ll let you tell that for yourself.

Brittani:
Well, I evaluate dogs and pretty much all animals on a case by case basis. So when people are like, are you a dog person or a cat person? I’m like, they have personalities. I got to see if we get along.

Christina: We got to do a vibe check.

Brittani: Exactly. So yeah. So I dated someone for a couple of years who did not have a dog while we were dating, but got a dog soon after. No, maybe a year after we dated or so. And I became very close to that dog. He’s named Bandit. Very cute. A real just anxious dog, but super chill. Then I dated someone who had two cats that I was deathly allergic to. I almost developed asthma. There’s an allergy induced asthma you can develop.

Christina: Yeah, you can. You can do that.

Brittani: And I was wheezing. I would wake up and I would be wheezing because it was so bad. And so that was one of a many tensions for the relationship was you need to vacuum your apartment so I don’t die.

Drew: Yeah.

Brittani: And then now, my current girlfriend has a dog and a snake.

Drew: Yes.

Christina: Yeah. A snake. Got to hear more about this. Got to talk about the snake. What’s its vibe? What’s its name? Does it pass the vibe check?

Brittani: Yes.

Christina: Awesome.

Brittani: So I think most people have not interacted with snakes much. When I was in sixth grade, I went to a camp where one of the big events was that they would put a snake around your neck and you would get to take a picture. So it was not my first encounter with a snake. His name is Yari, he was a rescue. He got washed away during some hurricane in Florida. And he was mailed to her as a baby.

Christina: Oh.

Drew: Sure.

Brittani: And he eats live rats. So seeing that for the first time, I have to say — well, not rats, let’s say mice, they’re small — was a lot. It was a lot to watch. I do not enjoy it. I understand the circle of life. However, I would rather not witness that particular aspect of it. And he’s pretty chill. He’s never nipped or anything at me. He will slide into my shirt and just hang out where it’s warm and dark. I would like him to be out I think more than her. I’ll pressure her like he’s been in his tank for too long like give him a night on the town.

Christina: You got to see the sights.

Brittani: He has gotten lost in our previous apartment a few times because she would not keep an eye on him and he would just slither to a little place. And then she would proceed to freak out. And I would say he’s in the apartment. There’s nothing to freak out about. We will find him eventually. And then I would always eventually find him in one or two days.

Drew: When you first started dating Cerise, at what point did you find out that she had a snake?

Brittani: Very soon into it.

Drew: Like the first date?

Brittani: When did I find out? Before we were official, for sure. Because she brought him to Dyke Day.

Christina: Fascinating.

Brittani: And that was one of the first times I think we saw each other in person. It wasn’t a date. We were just like, oh we’re both at Dyke Day. And she had the snake around her neck.

Christina: Here you are with a snake. Yeah.

Brittani: Yeah. And it was doing very well with the ladies, I will say.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Was it like, she’s a 10, but she has a snake? Or was it like, she’s a 10 and she has a snake, so she’s a 12? Was it a positive? Was it a green flag or red flag or a yellow flag?

Brittani: It was a neutral. Yeah. I really didn’t feel anything about it because I just didn’t know enough about snakes to have any sort of feelings about it. And honestly, it’s more positive than a dog because you really don’t have to do much.

Drew: That’s true.

Christina: I think that’s true. I also do think that’s interesting, because I feel people do have very strong opinions about snakes. I feel many people are hard pass on a snake. I find them to be very charming and cute. I don’t love the idea of one just freeform vibing for one or two days in my home while I don’t know where it is. That would cause me a bit of stress, I think personally. But if I know where you’re located, if I can go look at you, you can hang out my arm. You can snake around, but I just need you to stay where you be living. I don’t need you to be just hanging out unpredictably. That scares me a little bit.

Drew: As someone who has helped take care of this specific snake when you were out of town, I think the only challenge was the feeding. That was the only thing that like— I think I’m one of those terrible omnivores who doesn’t want to see the animal before it’s killed and eaten. But I do eat meat and I know it’s not an admirable quality, but it is a quality that I possess. And just, it was the ride home from the pet store. Once it’s in the tank with the snake, then it becomes a thing where I’m like, oh, I’m witnessing the circle of life. Now there’s another animal that I can personify and be like, oh, well you’re just eating your meal and how fascinating. But when we were just in the car and it was in the little box from PetSmart, that was definitely the biggest challenge. But I definitely am on snake is a positive. And also I’m sure you were relieved that Cerise isn’t a cat person.

Christina: Well, yeah.

Brittani: Oh, yes. Yeah. I don’t foresee myself dating someone with a cat ever again, should this not work out.

Drew: How long ago was it that you dated the person with the cat?

Brittani: Four years, five years? Something like that.

Christina: I mean, I do think we have to discuss queers and pets generally, because I do think there is a certain type of queer person that has an energy about pets writ large that I find what’s the word, exhausting. And God bless. I’m not a monster. I’m not going to be out here saying kill your animals. I think that’s insane. But there is a person who I’m like, do you perhaps care more about this animal than hmm I’d say, any marginalized person? Because that is a little stressful to me. And I think it’s fair to say that a lot of these queers tend to be white. And I just, I have a little bit, there’s always a little bit of hesitation. It’s not necessarily a red flag, but it would be a, okay, what’s going on with you and this animal? What’s happening here? What’s this investment emotionally? Talk to me about it. That’s my piece. I’ve said it.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Backing away.

Drew: That’s fair. I associate that also with a kiss on the mouth, tongue kiss, animal person. And that’s also, I would count that as a red flag. I don’t mind if someone really loves their pet.

Christina: Yeah. I think it’s probably better to really love your pets than be like, eh, whatever.

Drew: I do identify as, I guess, a dog person and a cat person. I really like animals, even though I eat them, not dogs and cats generally, but I really do love animals and I’ve never dated anyone who has one. And that’s a bummer. Yeah. I mean, famously, famously in the life of me, not to anyone else, after Gaby Dunn and I went on our first date, one of the things that made them be a little bit like, I don’t know, was that I didn’t react strong enough to Beans. And they’ve told me that. Afterwards, Mal was like, how was the date? And they were like, it was good. She didn’t seem that enthusiastic about Beans. Which is wild because I was so… I remember being totally, but it was a first date. I wasn’t going to spend more time talking to Beans than Gaby, but I should have, I guess. And I don’t know. I do love an animal, but it does go people, animals to me.

Brittani: Sure.

Christina: Yes.

Brittani: I also, I don’t get that, because I feel if I’m coming into an animal’s space, I want to be respectful. I’m a guest in your home. I’m going to wait for you to come up to me.

Christina: Exactly.

Drew: Yes.

Brittani: I don’t want to seem thirsty.

Drew: Right, exactly. Yes. I’ve also found that animals tend to like you more when you give them a little space and create sort of a calm environment. And then if they want to be all over you, then they can. But yeah. I remember Gaby told me that during the pandemic, when I was living with them and Mal and I was extremely single at the time and was having like… So I very much was I’m sleeping in the shed. The couple who I live with is in the main house. And I was like is my entire life been shaped by not being enthusiastic enough about people I’ve dated’s pets? Is that why I’m single? But no, I stand by my muted, yet enthused reaction to people’s pets.

Christina: I just love the idea of you being like, if I had loved that dog more, would I perhaps be allowed into the main home? Would I not live in a shed?

Drew: They were both joking about that. And I was like, I don’t this joke. I like a world where the two of you are just in a relationship and I’m your friend. I don’t like this world where destiny could have gone in a different direction if I was just a little bit more cheerful. But also Bean sleeps in their bed. And I don’t know, does Shiloh sleep in bed with you guys?

Brittani: Oh, she sure does.

Drew: Do you like that? Does it bother you?

Christina: See, I am pretty negative on animals in the bed with me. I don’t care for that.

Brittani: I don’t really. It’s not worth it to me.

Christina: I think dogs are a little easier to handle sleeping with than cats. We have two cats. They are not allowed in the bedrooms at night. And I have left my bedroom door cracked. And one of them will find their way into my bed at night. And what happens is that I wake up terrified because I think that I am being attacked by some sort of possum or something. I don’t immediately think, oh, there’s a cat in my room. I think some animal, wild animal has gotten in here to kill me. That’s where I immediately go upon waking. So I just think close that door, close that door. Also, you think you would get more of the bed than me? I’m a person, come on. You’re an animal. Get away from me. Shoo. Shoo.

Drew: Growing up, I always did have my dog sleep in bed with me. So I’m not against it on principle. I think I would prefer if the dog would sleep at the end of the bed rather than between me and my partner.

Christina: Sure.

Drew: But I don’t know. I’m also as a pet parent — and also if I was ever a parent, parent — I am a little bit of yeah, I don’t know, I’m a little bit of a pushover maybe. I’m just like what am I going to do? You have so much love and you want to just be here with me. What am I going to do? Not take that? That’s seems so harsh.

Christina: Unfortunately I would simply say, you need me too much. That’s horrible. We can’t have that.

Drew: Yeah. That just checks out for us.

Christina: Yeah. It really does.

Brittani: Well, I know I would be the one that would have to train it out of Shiloh and I just have no interest in taking that on. And she likes to sleep in between my legs or right behind my knees, which is also just your mom is right there. Why must you sleep on my person?

Drew: At what point in your relationship did Shiloh start doing that? That’s a really sweet, embracing of you as second parent.

Brittani: Yeah. I mean, I think she just sees me as the alpha of the home.

Drew: I see.

Brittani: And is being subservient.

Drew: I see.

Christina: Hey, they’re a pack creature. They know which side their bread’s buttered on.

Brittani: I’m trying to work on her confidence so she could be a bit more stable and just trusting of the relationship.

Drew: For sure.

Christina: I will say of all of my friends who have adopted dogs, found dogs, I’m always like, how do you guys find the most neurotic, anxious—? Perhaps it is a game recognize game situation. And everyone is just meeting a dog on their level. And I think that’s really gorgeous, but I’m just like, what if one person I knew had a dog who was just chill? Here to hang, here to vibe, but no, everybody is like, she’s a little anxious. She needs this, this, this. What is this? What are we doing to dogs? Why are they so stressed out? You’re a dog.

Brittani: Shiloh does not come across as anxious. Shiloh comes across as very friendly and wants to be around everyone. But she does still have those sort of anxious tendencies of if you’re gone for too long or you come back, and she gets too excited, but she’s also like, you’re the boss, then she will pee a little bit. She does that sort of stuff.

Christina: Sure.

Drew: I was going to say that I can relate, but then you said the pee a little bit and that part I’m going to have to stop at. But I’m a Leo rising, Taurus moon, Capricorn sun, earth sign at my core, anxiety disorder at my core. But I like to give an extrovert—

Christina: Performance?

Drew: Aura out in the world. Yeah. It’s a performance. I appreciate that about Shiloh. I do love Shiloh. I was like, oh, if was around Shiloh, I’d let Shiloh sleep in bed. What are you going to do? Say no to Shiloh? Shiloh’s so cute.

Brittani: She also got Shiloh by accident.

Drew: Oh, how so?

Brittani: She went with a friend to a shelter because the friend was thinking about getting a cat. And she was like, I don’t like cats, I’m going to go hang out with the dogs. Shiloh had a cherry eye which required surgery. And it was 50 bucks or something, not that much, but no one was adopting her because they would see her and be like, oh, what the fuck is happening over there? And so my girlfriend was like oh, I’ll just pay for the surgery so that this dog can get adopted. And so she paid for the surgery and then a few days later they called her like, your dog’s ready. And she was like, I’m sorry, what are you talking about?

Christina: That was a charitable donation.

Brittani: And they were like, the dog whose surgery you paid for. And she was like, oh, okay. And she had just had a breakup I’m pretty sure. I think she had like… Something was happening where she was like, I’m going to just embrace this gift from above.

Christina: Something I have learned is, it’s never a good idea to go to a shelter because you will end up with an animal almost.

Drew: Or a great idea.

Christina: Sure. I mean, for me, the way my life is set up, I simply cannot—

Drew: Yeah. I know.

Christina: —fathom having to also be responsible. I’m responsible for me and my two adult children. I cannot be responsible for an animal at this time in my life, certainly not a dog. The cats are fine.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, sort of the way that I would love to have human children, what’s that Kate Hudson movie? I would love to just have them dropped on me like, oh, I have to do this responsibility. I can’t logically get a dog right now. It doesn’t make financial sense. It doesn’t make life sense, but I want one so bad. And the other day, Elise and I were at lunch and there was this pitbull mix tied up outside the restaurant and was whining like a human. It was so eerie and weird. And I was like if by the time we finish lunch, no one has come back for this dog, this is my dog. This weird dog that yells like a person is going to be my dog and I’m going to love them dearly. Three minutes later, their owner came out with takeout. So that dog is not my dog, but I would love to have responsibility dropped in my lap.

Christina: Yeah. And there is our difference. I would see that dog at a restaurant, I’d say, I hope your day gets better dog. And then I would simply move on with my day, and hope that it did the same. And be glad that its owner returned.

Drew: Christina, have you dated anyone who has a pet?

Christina: My gut is like, no, but I feel like that’s wrong, but no, I think it is true. I don’t think I have dated someone who has a pet.

Drew: Yeah. I don’t think I have either which is…

Christina: How is that possible?

Drew: Again, I’ve gone on dates with people who have their pets with them even, and I’ve not reacted properly, but I’ve never been in a long term relationship with someone who has a pet and that’s the real—

Brittani: Wow.

Drew: That’s a bummer.

Christina: B’s like, how have you done that?

Brittani: That’s the way to go.

Drew: I think I have the energy of someone who would be the one to bring the pet into the relationship.

Brittani: Right.

Drew: That’s how I’ll know I’ve made it. My girlfriend’s like, when I can buy a house, and I’m like, when I can buy a dog. And obviously it’s nicer to have a backyard for your dog. And if you have a house, maybe you have a backyard and those different things go great together. Basically I’m saying is I’d love to have a lot more money. But I want a dog so badly.

Christina: Well, that was going to be my other question was in your future relationship, does an animal figure in at some point?

Drew: Oh, yeah.

Christina: Because I feel like I can go either way. Like, sure, but not necessary.

Drew: No. That’s a real life landmark that I’m very committed to hitting. The problem is that I tend to like bigger dogs.

Christina: I love big dogs.

Drew: And that’s harder for life. And especially, I don’t know where I’m working ever. I don’t know where I’m living ever. It’s one thing to bring a Chihuahua with you to different cities or to set. It’s a different thing to bring, I love a pitbull mix. But not even mixed like a corgi, so they look like a little mini pitbull. I like a pitbull mixed with an Australian shepherd or something. I just love a weird little mutt dog that just is out there living life. Sometimes it’s a personality thing. Some smaller dogs have, like I feel this way about Shiloh. Shiloh has a personality. But I think sometimes smaller dogs feel more when you get a hamster. And a bigger dog often feels more like, oh, this is my pal. And I want a pal.

Christina: I like that you’re just looking for your YA fantasy, moment. You just want to be the hot girl who has her dog and they’re pals and they’re running around.

Drew: I also grew up with bigger dogs. So I always grew up with some sort of very suburban, a lab or a spaniel so. And spaniels are medium-sized. But yeah.

Christina: I like giant dogs because I like that they have the same energy as I do, which is, they simply would like to be lying down at all times and are like, eh, I don’t really need to go outside because that is also how I feel.

Drew: I think of bigger dogs as they need to run all the time. That’s also a reason why it would be harder to have a big dog. I mean, I guess it depends on the dog, but I I used to run half marathons with my spaniel.

Brittani: Oh, wow.

Christina: Yeah. Well those little medium dogs definitely need to take a run, but you get a Bernice, they’re trying to lie down. That dog is trying to lie the hell down.

Drew: Yeah. That’s fair. Brittani, when you’ve been in relationships with people who have dogs, how soon does the responsibility of taking care of the dog fall on you? Or do you embrace that responsibility?

Christina: As the pack leader, do you embrace that responsibility?

Brittani: Oh, I am still very clear about my boundaries as far as it comes to taking care of the dog. I am like, this is not my dog. This is your dog. You walk this dog, you feed this dog. When I do those things, I am being kind. And it is a favor.

Drew: Even with Shiloh still??

Brittani: Yeah.

Christina: Iconic.

Drew: Wow. I love it.

Brittani: When Cerise is gone, obviously I very much am very bothered if I ever think Shiloh is in any distress, so I wouldn’t be like, oh, she’s not going to be home until 9:00. I’m just going to let you wait until 9:00 to have your walk and your food. I will do it, but I am like, when you get home, please say, thank you because this is not how I want to live my life. And also, I paid for Shiloh to have a professional trainer because it truly was impacting the relationship. And I was losing my mind whenever she would… I mean, she just was annoying as hell. Shiloh used to be so fucking annoying. After our first day when we went home together — because that’s how I get down — Shiloh was jumping up and down behind this gate that went into the bedroom for two hours, just nonstop. This jumping, jumping, jumping, jumping. So whenever I would look over, I just see this fucking dog, like a little pogo stick.

Christina: I would find that quite distracting.

Brittani: And I honestly was like, I don’t know if I want to go on another date because if this is this dog’s energy, I simply cannot deal with it in my life. And so yeah. Getting Shiloh to behave better has been a real boon to how we get along.

Christina: Yeah. I would imagine.

Drew: That is a thing that I’ve… Thinking about dating experiences, not in serious relationships, but just like out in the big wide world of dating, there are dogs that are major cock blocks where you’re like, get out of this bed. I do feel like there is a dog that did maybe prevent a threesome of mine. In retrospect, it was the right… The dog was doing the right thing. But in the moment I was like, why, get out of here. Why are you here? You’re killing the vibe. And I do feel like there’s been other times where I’ve been like, is this dog going to be… Part of the boundaries of, I don’t know, dogs are dirty. I love dogs so much, but I don’t want someone petting a dog and then putting that finger inside me. I don’t want that. So I do need a dog to, even if the dog’s sleeping in bed, they have to understand that there are times where their owners are in bed and it’s not for sleeping, and they need to be away.

Christina: Yeah. I think drawing a line at the dog being in bed while we’re having sex is a very fair line to draw. I feel as though you felt uncertain that you could say that, but I think say it loud and proud, Drew.

Drew: Thank you.

Christina: No dog in bed during sex. Honestly, no cat either. No animal. No snakes.

Drew: No pets in general.

Christina: I don’t want the snake showing up. I’m telling you that. I’m telling you that right now.

Drew: I do think because of Britney Spears, there is a part of me that thinks snakes are sexier than dogs, but I still don’t… I do agree with you. No snake involved, but there is something about a snake. The snake feels less, they also don’t have fur. So I don’t know why that feels cleaner. Maybe as someone who lives with a snake, you would know that snakes aren’t cleaner. But for some reason, I have this cultural association of snakes being sleek and sexy. I still don’t want them involved.

Christina: I was going to say, Drew, you are walking the line.

Brittani: And a snake does not want to be involved.

Drew: Look, it’s not my fault. It’s Britney Spears’ fault.

Christina: Well, and that’s that, I guess. It’s a wrap on that.

Drew: Let’s move to our final segment, which is Crush Corner. Christina, do you want to start us off this week?

Christina: I need a second to decide. So what if you started us off this week.

Drew: I’m going to let our guest start off this week.

Christina: Oh, fun. Switching it up.

Brittani: All right. Well, my crush is this show called Resident Alien, which I just found out about last week, and I’m watching it with my girlfriend and I’m just having a real blast.

Drew: Where can one watch this show?

Brittani: We’ve been watching it on Peacock. But I think it comes on Syfy? That’s a channel, right?

Christina: I think it’s Syfy, yeah.

Drew: Yeah. Tell me more about this show.

Brittani: It’s just a show about an alien that crash lands in Patience, Colorado, I believe, with the mission to kill all humans. And he ends up taking over this doctor’s body and someone in town dies and then he’s helping solve the mystery of who killed this doctor. And it’s Alan Tudyk, I think is his name, notably the pirate from Dodgeball. I think it’s his claim to fame and it’s just delightful. It’s just a fun little show. Funny, cute. I like it.

Drew: Cool. Great. My crush this week is Jennifer Jones, the actress from the forties. Specifically in Cluny Brown, which is one of my favorite screwball comedies. I just rewatched it with my girlfriend, because she hadn’t seen it before. She has not seen a lot of old movies, which is a lot of fun, because I get to show all my favorites. And Cluny Brown is just an incredible movie and I highly recommend it. And Jennifer Jones is just so beautiful and charming in it.

Christina: I love that my crush this week, I’m going to go classic. I’m going to bring it to my girl who’s held me down through many years. My good queen, Florence Welch. I have been banging that album, having feelings like I am in 2010 all over again. I love her spooky witch ways. And I think she’s a real talent and a real treat. And I’m glad that she’s sober and seems to be really working that out. And this new album is emotional in that way, but also just gorgeous. And she’s just happy to holler on a track with her little spooky witch voice. And I think it’s lovely and I love her. I love that. Yeah.

Drew: Great. Well, Brittani, do you want to tell people where they can find you and your work?

Brittani: Yeah. I am at @bishilarious on Twitter and Instagram. If you’ve never seen the film, Suicide Kale, I’d encourage you to check that out. And I’m currently running for Abbott Elementary and we will be premiering on September 21st, the second season. And the first season’s on Hulu.

https://twitter.com/BisHilarious/status/1486456339949752322

Christina: Yeah. Abbott Elementary. Heard of it people? Get involved.

Drew: Thanks, Brittani.

Brittani: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Drew: Yeah, of course.

Christina: Thanks so much for chatting with us about animals. I’ve learned so much about snakes.

Drew: Yeah.

Brittani: You should get one.

Christina: There was a period in my most obnoxious “I’m not like other girls” phase where I was like I’m going to get a snake. And then I was like, grow up. Just stop acting like that. Come on. Nobody likes that energy on you.

Drew: You know what, and clearly that’s not necessarily true. So you could get a snake. I mean, I don’t think you should get a snake because of that energy, but I do think you could embrace a different sort of snake energy and it’d be a good one.

Christina: Yes. I think having a snake now that I am the proper lesbian that I clearly was always meant to be, as opposed to pretending to be straight and being like, I’m going to have a snake that would have be awful, but this is fine. I think now it would be much better.

Brittani: Yeah. You should make snake lesbian a thing. That could become its own personality type.

Drew: Thank you so much for listening to, Wait, Is This A Date. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at waitisthisadate. And you can email us at waitisthisadate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein. Our logo is by Manya Dahr, and this podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at draw_gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter at c_gracet and on Instagram at christina_gracet. And you can find Autostraddle of course, at Autostraddle.

Drew: And you can find Autostraddle at autostraddle.com. The reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Oh, actually, that’s really interesting that you asked that because scientists are at this very moment hurriedly trying to figure this out. We have some of our best scholars on this. On the case here, we don’t have an answer, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew: I wish them, and us, the greatest luck.

Drew (voice memo): Trumpet the bloodhound just won the dog show. And can you imagine dating someone who not only had a dog and loved their dog, but had a dog that won the dog show? That’d probably be a nightmare. But there’d be some prestige.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Episode 203: Dating Men

A fun fact about the queer community is most people have experience dating men. No, I’m not just talking about the cis gay boys — I’m talking about most of our listeners! (Though I do hope we have a large contingency of cis gay male listeners tbh.) Whether you’re a lesbian who dated men as a teen or a queer person who dates lots of genders, our community is far too mixed and gender is far too complicated to leave men — cis and trans — out of our discussions.

That’s why this week our topic is dating men and our very special guest is writer, director, podcaster, icon, and my best friend, Gabe Dunn! For those who don’t know them, Gabe has been dating men throughout their entire identity journey. They talk to us about dating men when they thought they were a cis woman and dating men now that they’re out as transmasculine. We also get into the awful cis men from Boston that Christina dated before coming out and wonder why I have a desire to fuck Jon Hamm.

But first! We play a game I call “Netflix & Shill” that asks such questions as: How gay is the Olsen Twin vehicle New York Minute?

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SHOW NOTES

+ If you want more of Gabe check out the episode of Bad with Money that Christina and I were on last year.

+ Since recording, Gabe got their two new Swayze tattoos!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfelxPKp6lS/

+ And just a reminder: You should watch Road House.

+ Important footage of Jenifer Lewis at the 2019 GLAAD Awards:

+ Jaida Essence Hall. The hottest pig in town.

+ Watch Gabe’s short film, Grindr Baby.

EPISODE

Gaby: I think if I get top surgery, it’s going to change immensely. That’s my fear is that once I get top surgery, these guys are going to be like, “Wait a minute.”

Christina: “Hold on. You took the titties away.”

Gaby: Right. That’s what I think.

Christina: “What’s going on?”

Gaby: “Wait a minute. You have full facial hair and shh, but these titties are giving me an out” and then when I don’t have them, I’m curious what they’re going to think.

[theme song plays]

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: I’m Christina.

Drew: Welcome to, Wait, Is This a Date?

Christina: Wait, Is This a Date? is an Autostraddle podcast all about dating and figuring out if things are dates and other topics, as we decide, those topics will be, as we record more episodes of this podcast called, Wait, Is This a Date? That took a turn. Got to say, didn’t expect a single word to come out of my mouth in that order, but wow, here we are.

Drew: I realized that in our intro, I have given you the responsibility of saying something new every time. I say, “Welcome to Wait, Is This a Date?” Then I go, “Christina,” and you get to just ad lib and it’s always entertaining.

Christina: It’s always something. As they say, heavy is the head that wears the crown and my crown is, occasionally, these headphones and this podcast.

Drew: Incredible. My name is Drew Gregory. I am a writer for Autostraddle, a filmmaker. You said last time that I always paused before I say my identities. Once again, I’m a queer trans woman and general gay person.

Christina: That’s gorgeous. I’m Christina Tucker. I’m also a writer at Autostraddle and the internet abound, I am a gay cis woman. In that way, I think we’re a really beautiful team.

Drew: When I think of Christina, I think cis woman.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: I don’t think big faggot.

Christina: Yeah. No. Thank you. That is, actually, also a large part of my identity is being a gigantic faggot.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: I’ve heard a rumor that you have a game for me.

Drew: I sure do.

Christina: By I’ve heard a rumor, I mean, you texted me directly.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: In many ways, what is a rumor? Who can say? It can be whatever you want it to be for the sake of a podcast.

Drew: I hope this is okay.

Christina: Oh boy.

Drew: I’m just going to talk for a little while and you don’t have to say anything because I don’t want you to incriminate yourself.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: You used to work for an account called, Most. It wasn’t owned by Netflix. I don’t really understand the inner workings, but basically, it was in charge of sharing the queer content on Netflix each month. Now, before Netflix decided to fire a bunch of their queer employees right before Pride, but before that, you were part of the team that was in charge of pitching what I would say is Netflix’s lackluster queer content. Every month, the Most account was tasked with releasing the queer content for the month. A lot of times, there wasn’t enough queer content or the queer content that was there, Netflix, for some reason, didn’t want to promote because it was maybe too edgy or was foreign or whatever.

A lot of the stuff that’s on these lists is to call it queer is generous, but because you no longer have that job, I thought you could do one last hurrah, a two weeks notice if you will that was not granted by this corporation. I have a game called, “Netflix and Shill” where I’m going to name titles that were on the monthly “this is what’s queer and coming to Netflix.” I haven’t seen all of them, but I do think that most of them are not… at least the queerness is subtle or minor or supporting character. What I’m going to need from you is for you to explain to me why this work of media is so deeply important to queer history and the queer community.

Christina: Okay. I think I can do this and not get sued.

Drew: Great.

Christina: I think that’s thrilling.

Drew: Great. Well, okay. Our first title is, a Netflix flagship series. We’re going to go with Bridgerton.

Christina: Bridgerton. Bridgerton is deeply important to the queer community due to two actors, the leads of, I guess, this last season are both queer. We celebrate queer actors even if they are both playing straight in that way.

Drew: That’s really beautiful.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Queer actors can play straight roles.

Christina: Yes, they can. Honestly, Jonathan Bailey did a pretty impressive job of being a straight man. Good for him.

Drew: I do love that. Okay. Next up, Is it Cake?

Christina: Is it Cake? Honestly, of Netflix reality shows that I watched during my tenure there, I had a ball watching Is it Cake? which is either a comment on how many terrible reality shows there are or how broken my brain was by this job. It’s tough to say. Is it Cake? had a bevy of queer contestants and also, many gay judges including Rebecca Black, which was very fun and thrilling.

Drew: Right. That’s nice.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Okay. The ’90s film, You’ve Got Mail.

Christina: Quick cameo from Sara Ramirez and Nora Ephron really knows how to write and gays like writing. I don’t know.

Drew: I think we do like writing. I can attest to that.

Christina: It is not my favorite of the Ephrons, but it’s there. It’s in the canon.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: But I do think it was that 10-second Sara Ramirez moment.

Drew: Okay. Wow. I was going to say I should rewatch it because I don’t remember them being in it, but maybe I shouldn’t rewatch it. Who’s to say. Next up is, I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Christina: I’m going to draw a big old blank on this one. Gays do love horror in a way that I don’t because I am not that kind of gay. Screaming is camp. I don’t know. Who can say?

Drew: You heard it here, folks, screaming is camp.

Christina: Who can say? I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen that movie, to be honest. I must have as like a child. I must have looked at it and then decided, no, horror is simply not for me.

Drew: Next up is one that you probably have seen. New York Minute.

Christina: That’s the Lindsay Lohan film, I believe.

Drew: I think it’s Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.

Christina: There’s a Lindsay one that’s also about New York, but that has something to do with luck or something. Again, Mary-Kate and Ashley are iconic and that they are swamp witches now and refuse to do anything normal except for like, make large beige clothing for The Row, which is somehow pretty gay of them, but actually, I don’t think I have seen that film.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: I do support the Olsens in their work.

Drew: I love that.

Christina: And/or their lack of work recently. I think that’s actually equally inspirational. They really put in their time as children.

Drew: The next one I have not seen and you probably have not seen it. I tried to Google how gay it was and I don’t think it’s gay. Maybe it is gay and I just… The Lincoln Lawyer. Is The Lincoln Lawyer gay?

Christina: What?

Drew: With Matthew McConaughey?

Christina: If it is, I am shocked to hear it. I’m trying to… No, I’ve never seen it. I know a little bit about Lincoln. He was tall.

Drew: He was also rumored to be like a little gay, which is why I’m like, “Was The Lincoln Lawyer about… was Matthew McConaughey playing a gay lawyer?” I don’t think so based on my quick Google, but listener, if you’ve seen The Lincoln Lawyer, please send us an email. How gay is it?

Christina: Yeah. My guess would say that there’s some lightly gay subplot or there’s a gay actor in it.

Drew: Great.

Christina: That would be the two reasons it could make the list.

Drew: Okay. My Best Friend’s Wedding.

Christina: The most iconic gay friend, I think, of all time in Rupert Everett. Honestly, the only rom-com that has an ending that I’ve ever really identified with because girl, you will end up alone but you will have your best gay friend there at the wedding for you. That is gay culture.

Drew: That was an easy one, but it felt worth mentioning. This, also, might be an easy one for you specifically, the 1982, Annie.

Christina: Though I am a musical faggot, boy, do I hate Annie? Because boy, do I hate children singing more than almost anything in the world. I find them all incredibly annoying. I think, “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” is one of the worst songs in musical theater history.

Drew: Bernadette Peters is in this one, right?

Christina: Bernadette is in that one. That is the one with Bernadette, which feels like enough would be enough for me. She’s famously a sticker on my water bottle, but I got nothing.

Drew: That’s not an expression. I want to clarify.

Christina: No.

Drew: That is literally… There’s a Bernadette Peters sticker on Christina’s water bottle. Yeah, staring at it right now. There you go.

Christina: She’s above Viola Davis.

Drew: That’s beautiful.

Christina: I love history. Herstory, I’m sorry.

Drew: I have three more. Oscar nominated film, Don’t Look Up.

Christina: Cate Blanchett gets to say whatever she wants because of Carol, I think. I think that’s it.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: Gay men love Ariana Grande.

Drew: Yeah. I definitely saw that movie though I like to pretend in my brain that I didn’t because it was so bad, but I didn’t remember there being any gay characters. Was Jennifer Lawrence bisexual in it?

Christina: She had a bisexual haircut in it.

Drew: Okay. That’s enough. Okay. Two more. My Little Pony: A New Generation.

Christina: I don’t know what happens with those ponies.

Drew: Are they gay?

Christina: They’re ponies. My gut says yes. There’s something gay about saying the phrase, “My little pony,” but what occurs on that program, that’s not my business.

Drew: Great. Well then, we have one more, which I don’t know if you had to see this one for work, but I’ve heard things. Diana: The Musical.

Christina: Oh boy did I watch Diana: The Musical. That was really hard to watch. I know there is a contingent of theater gays who are like, “No. Actually, we’re bravely coming out to say that Diana: The Musical is brilliant.” I would like to have a very long talk with those gays because I am perplexed by that. Well, it’s musical, so kind of just like, gays love a musical, but also, I think her valet or something is gay but not specifically gay, but has a big gay man dressing a pretty woman energy. Boy, that musical was awful.

Drew: Is there mention of AIDS in the musical?

Christina: Oh yeah, there is a whole, in fact, scene that I actually blocked due to trauma because it is a musical number about having HIV and AIDS and it’s bad, bad, bad lyrics.

Drew: Wow.

Christina: Lyrically a flop.

Drew: Wow. Well, this was a really beautiful time.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Thank you for playing this dangerous game with me. I’d just like to say that while I don’t support large corporations or comedians who are transphobic, I do love the show, Sex Education and I would take Netflix money to make my own show whenever they would like. Just putting that on the record.

Christina: I think that’s a great thing to be on the record.

Drew: Maybe after this I’ll pop some popcorn and watch The Lincoln Lawyer.

Christina: I love that. Of all the movies on the list, that’s the one where you’re like, “I’ve got some questions we got to untangle there.”

Drew: Well, let’s move on to our topic of the week, which is dating men. I often say, we have a very special guest because we don’t really do like not special guests because what’s the point of having a podcast for that.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: But this person is my best friend. I will let them introduce themselves.

Gaby: Oh my God. Hi. I’m Gaby Dunn. I’m Drew’s best friend. I’m also a writer and a noted internet bisexual gay person. Yeah. I work in TV and film. Sometimes books, sometimes podcasts. I’m sure you’ll do the thing at the end, which is like, “promote whatever you want to promote or whatever.” I won’t bore you up top, but…

Christina: Please don’t.

Gaby: Yeah. Mostly, I am your friend. Hi.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. That’s the best part, I think.

Drew: Have you ever dated a man?

Gaby: Oh my God. Oh boy. Okay. Here’s my journey.

Drew: Yeah.

Gaby: I was like the bisexual cis woman of the internet for a while. I, yeah, dated a lot of men. Now, I’m like a nonbinary transmasculine person. I’m still dating men, but it’s different. My partner is a transmasculine person. They’re on testosterone, then other people I’m seeing are a lot of trans men. There’s one cis man, but he is dead to me right now and then other people that… It’s gotten to be more of a T4T situation up in here, but yeah, I used to date a lot of… We’re roasting cis men. Is that what we’re doing?

Drew: No. No, I would never. No. I think what I’m interested in is, when we were first discussing the season and possible topics and guests, this was back in January, I was like, “Oh, well, by the time, we would have Gaby, I think they’ll be a man.” That’s also an interesting dynamic. I don’t know about that, but it definitely hasn’t not come true in certain ways. I’m interested in just mapping the trajectory of all the different ways. Obviously, gender is complicated. Every individual relationship is its own relationship, but I know Christina has experience dating cis men as a cis woman. You have experienced dating cis men as a “cis woman.”

Christina: Sure.

Drew: You have experience dating trans men as a “cis woman.”

Gaby: Yeah, air quotes. Air quotes around all of that.

Drew: Yeah. You can’t see the air quotes because—

Christina: Oh they could hear them. They were very audible to the audience.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Now, you’re a transmasculine person still dating men, both cis and trans. I don’t know. I’m just interested in getting into the differences and certain patterns.

Gaby: Sure.

Drew: And what your relationship was to men as… Really, there’s a huge difference between being a closeted transmasculine person and a cis woman.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: You both offer those perspectives and wow.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: How exciting for me.

Gaby: Okay. Here’s the thing. I’m two months on T, right now, as we speak. That is a very different journey. I came out as nonbinary a year ago, almost a year ago. I was still super femme at the time although, what does that mean? I had long hair, but I now have cut my hair. I’m on T. The T is starting to show. I have a little mustache. I still have boobs. I just don’t ever acknowledge them. Now, it’s a little interesting with the cis straight men that I see because I’m like, “Do I have to care about what you identify as? Does that matter to me? What are you? What are you seeing me as? What is this?”

One of them I was hooking up with before. No, two. Well, here’s the journey. I was hooking up with them before I went on T and cut my hair, right? They’re still around. One of them… Okay. I was a woman. I went out with this person. They were sort of, on their Hinge bio they were like a guy, but there was something about them that was very effeminate. I was like, “This is interesting.” Then we went out. It was like, “Why did you swipe on me?” I was like, “You have a really feminine energy.” I was like, let’s see what this person says. They were like, “Oh, I love that. Thank you.” We hooked up regular, like straight people or whatever and then—

Christina: Hooked up regular is my new favorite phrase.

Gaby: Yeah. I don’t know. Boring. Later, I saw this person again. We started to hook up and then they just broke down. This was, now, I look this way. So the last time they saw me, I was a lady. Now, I look this way. They came to see me again. They hit me up. Just FYI, they were like, “I can’t get enough.”

Drew: Returning customers.

Gaby: Always. They just broke down and were like, “I don’t know. I think I’m a woman. I don’t know.” I was like, “Yeah, babe.” They were saying all this stuff where they were like, “Maybe I’m not queer. I’m just jealous of all queer people. What if people think I’m faking being a trans woman? I’m not a trans woman, but I just wish I could be as confident as a trans woman.” All this stuff that was like, “Babe, you could just be a trans woman.” Then they were like, “I don’t know. Maybe I’m like not actually queer and I’m just pretending.” I started laughing. I was like, “I don’t mean to laugh at you, but this is gay.”

Christina: Whatever experience you’re having here, something’s gay about it, my friend.

Gaby: Yeah. They’re like, “I don’t know. Maybe I’m not queer.” I’m just sitting there, literally, a transmasculine person with this AMAB person being like, “Really, I don’t want to tell you what’s happening to you right now, but we are in a bed kissing and cuddling. I got to let you know that you are having gay sex actively right now.”

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: This is gay right now.

Christina: Nothing straight is happening here in this conversation has ever happened betwixt us.

Gaby: They were like, “Oh,” and then, really, it just became like me sending them memes to try to get them to understand and then them being like, “Yeah, I’m probably trans feminine.” That was one of the last, “cis men” that had showed up in my life.

Drew: Right.

Gaby: I think even when I was very feminine, I had a lot of cis straight men that I dated who were unnerved. They liked me and they were into me, but there was some hump that they couldn’t get over there. There was some… And I didn’t know what they were reading on me at the time, but there was always this thing where they just couldn’t get a grasp on what I was and they were reading something that they liked a little bit because they got a proximity to queerness that they thought was interesting, but then it would start to get very queer and they were not into it. One partner that I had that was a long term boyfriend, just this is 2016 where I really thought I was a cis woman, I cut all my hair off and I started referring to myself as “ya boy.” I wore only men’s underwear. I wore men’s bathing suits.

At the time, this guy, this guy is the most cis straight, although now I suspect maybe something’s up with him, but anyway. When he was breaking up with me, he was like, “I feel like I’m not allowing you to be your true self.” I was like, “What an idiot.” I was like, “Why would he think that. That’s so fucking stupid. What a dumbass.” I actively had a coffee table book in my car that said genderqueer that was pictures of genderqueer people that I was going to put in my apartment as this was happening.

Christina: You were like, “Anyway, what a dummy. Ya boy out.”

Gaby: “What a fucking moron. Ya boy out.” Then I started dating a bi cis guy and that was very freeing. Now, in retrospect, I think being with him, let me feel like a gay guy. Because I had short hair, he was bi, everything we did was very faggoty. The last time I ran into him was at an Ariana Grande concert. I was like, “Oh, this person is my gender.” I don’t know. A lot of the men that I had dated in the past are now trans women.

Drew: I do know this about you.

Christina: That’s quite a pipeline. That’s—

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: I do love that anybody who is like… There’s this group of cis dudes on apps who are like, “I’m working through something. I’m going to swipe on this and see what happens.”

Gaby: Well, yeah. Also, it’s different people. Once I change my pronouns to they/them it’s a totally different crowd.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: I always thought, even when I looked like a woman, right? My partner, Mal and I were in South Carolina and there was a group of frat guys in a car outside of a restaurant. We’re walking around the restaurant. I look like a woman, so they stop to check if I’m hot or whatever. I would say, out of the five of them, four of them are like, “That’s a weirdo.” One of the five does a second look. That’s happened my whole life. If I can get that fifth one, that’s the one I want and not anymore, but back when I was a woman. Because I’m like, “What’s up with you? You’re fucking weird.”

Christina: Yeah, something’s happening.

Gaby: You’re like bi or gay or you’re trans or something, because you took a second look at me and all your little frat bros didn’t. What’s your fucking deal?

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah, that’s going to be a sight that’s going to fester for that fifth one. That’s going to just be a recurring theme that they’re just going to keep running back to and being like, “What was that?”

Gaby: You’re different than your friends.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. One out of five dentists is super fucking gay.

Gaby: You’re going to try to get me to peg you or something and not tell your friends. I know. I can see you.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Listen, when you know, you know.

Drew: Well, now though, maybe this is a question for you in a year, but are you interacting with cis gay men now, in a new way? Do you feel like that world is starting to open up to you? Or is there just too much transphobia in the cis gay male world to quite get there yet?

Gaby: It depends. The big problem is, I still have boobs…

Drew: Right.

Gaby: …which I think gives the cis straight men that I date a little bit of an out, where they’re like, “Yeah, this is a person with facial hair and actively a man or a trans but titties are there, so plausible deniability.”

Drew: Right.

Gaby: Okay. Here’s what’s happening as I post more masculine thirst traps. The straight girls coming out of the woodwork.

Drew: Yeah.

Gaby: These are people that aren’t going to follow through, right? It’s the straight girls who are like, “Damn, thirst trapping.” And whatever. Those people are not going to follow through. The cis gay men who comment are also probably not going to follow through at this point.

Drew: Right.

Gaby: It is nice because they’ll write like, “Daddy” or whatever. I’m, literally, one of five tops in West Hollywood. Come on.

Christina: Well, well.

Gaby: There’s bottoms galore, but you need me. I don’t think they really have follow through. I don’t think they’re really going to try to ask me out or fuck me right now. You know what I mean? They’re like—

Drew: Right.

Christina: Yeah. They’re going to throw little heart eyes comment.

Gaby: Just to keep me on the line.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Right.

Gaby: Keep me spicy until I pass.

Christina: Just keeping an eye.

Gaby: Yeah, which is a strange thing to keep me on the line until I pass just to see.

Drew: I’m also interested in this idea of like, “Oh, if this person hooks up with me, then they’re gay.” Because I also think that there’s a level of, I don’t know, how is someone seeing you, right?

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: I know in my experience, when I first moved to LA and my hair was luscious, but not quite so long, I was hit on a lot by cis gay men who were reading me as a little twink. The more… My boobs grew a little bit more and my hair got a little longer and then they disappeared.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Which—

Christina: Fade into the tall grass.

Drew: Yeah. They’re not really there anymore. It’s like, do we read those cis gay men as more bisexual than they let themselves on?

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Or are they just transphobicly or ignorantly reading us differently. I think about that when it comes to the cis men, especially. I think with trans people and closeted trans people, we’re all on our own journeys. So it’s like what are you going to do?

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: But with the cis men, I’m always interested in this idea of what can we, as a culture, be like everyone’s a lot gayer and transer then they are willing to admit.

Gaby: Right.

Drew: They need to deal with that. Versus being like they’re not respecting us and they’re seeing us wrong and how much do we want to put up with that and that sort of thing.

Gaby: I don’t know because I’m also like, as I’m hooking up with more other transmasculine people, which has been a delight, I am realizing that a lot of them have an opposite experience to me where they were seen as lesbians or butch lesbians, have almost no experience with men, and then have become more “passing” trans-masculine people, and then all of a sudden are hooking up with men. But I’m the opposite. I was a hot girl. I had no problem being a hot girl. I didn’t feel awkward about it. I was doing the utmost level of drag. I’m not joking, a hot girl, nightclub hot girl. I have a lot of experience with men. They’re largely boring. I have a lot of confidence. Even when I would date men, I would fuck around. I would touch the small of their back to lead them places. I would do things to try to make them feel the girl. I was like—

Christina: No reason anyway.

Gaby: I know because I was like, “It’s a bit.” I just was always so confident. With men, right now, I have no problem. Even looking like this, I’m like, “I could probably still get you.” Men are like a paint by numbers. They’re so easy to me, but then the opposite thing with me was women, which is a thing with bisexuals where it’s like, “Women are more difficult.” Now then once women started to become easier to me, I was like great and I was hooking up with more women. I had a long term partner. I was like, “We are girlfriends.” That person is a trans-masculine person also. I think I have a different experience where a lot of the trans men that I’m friends with are like, “Oh my God, boys. What do I do? Boys.” I’m like, “Who needs it? It’s boring shit.”

Drew: It’s inspiring.

Gaby: Yeah. I just never had that experience. When my partner and I first started dating and I was very feminine and they’re a transmasculine person, we would go to a coffee shop and the barista would be like, “What are you going to get?” Leave a smiley face on Mal’s receipt. For me, I’d be like, “They forgot my drink, fully.” You know what I mean?

Drew: Now you walk back into the coffee shop like the scene from Pretty Woman and are like—

Gaby: Big mistake!

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: Huge!

Christina: Huge.

Drew: Christina, when you were in your straight era, what kind of men were drawn to you and what kind of men were you drawn to?

Christina: The worst kind. A lot of that, I will blame on living in Boston, Massachusetts.

Gaby: Hell yeah.

Christina: A thing that my friends love to joke about is like, “Well, thank God you’re a dyke now, because the men that you were dating were just the worst.” There is a straight version of me somewhere. She works in PR. Her boyfriend is some horrible capitalist, venture capitalist bro. Just like the doucheist finance lawyery types. Just like the…

Gaby: Oh my God.

Christina: …worst. I hated them because I was gay, but also, it was so easy to date them because I hated them. They were so into how uninterested I was in them that it made it very simple to just keep them around and then be like, “No, I’m done with this. I don’t like you. I don’t like being here.” Then three months later, I’d be like, “Let’s pick up another guy named John at a bar. Whatever.” It was just me negging men I could not stand due to being a dyke and then being like, “Yeah, I’m done. Done with this now.” It was a dark period.

Gaby: That is dark. I think I would pick not like that. I think I would pick effeminate guys and then I would be like, “We’re just both gay guys.” They would be like, “That’s not what’s happening.”

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: We’ve talked about this, but if we had met five years earlier, you would have ruined my life. I would’ve been obsessed with you.

Gaby: I would have been in love with you.

Drew: Yeah, but you also would’ve ruined my life.

Gaby: Absolutely. I’m a monster, but you—

Christina: Gorgeous transparency work right here. This is beautiful stuff. This is how communities stay together. This is nice.

Gaby: Drew as a boy was exactly who I would’ve gone after. Exactly. Which is like, then. she is a trans woman.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. The pattern continues.

Gaby: Yeah. I would’ve been like, “The little one who fucks.” That’s where I would’ve been like, “Hey.”

Christina: Hey.

Drew: I think I would’ve learned about bottoming a lot sooner.

Gaby: I was always trying to get those straight boys to let me at their butt holes. Sometimes they would do it and sometimes they would be like, “Why are you obsessed with this?”

Drew: I’ll tell you what, during that era, all I wanted was to not use my dick and to do exactly what my partner wanted—

Christina: Well…

Drew: Unfortunately, those things were in—

Christina: Constant conflict?

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: It is interesting to me because I don’t have a lot of experience dating men. And by not a lot, I mean, basically zero. But I do have experienced dating people who, at the time, I thought were women or were nonbinary fems and have since transitioned or have since become more masculine. It’s definitely changed my relationship to my identity. As you will note, when I pause in the beginning of the intros, last year would end with me saying, lesbian. Look, I think the term lesbian, historically, encompasses a lot of genders and a lot of sexualities. I think I still could identify as a lesbian if anyone who I was dating wasn’t bothered by it, but I have just been like, “I don’t know.”

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: I’m very open. I would love to have an experience… Love is maybe a strong word, but I do feel like, if, in my entire life, I never have sex with a cis man, that would be such a bummer. Just from a FOMO…

Christina: Wow.

Drew: …life experience sort of way.

Christina: Interesting.

Gaby: There’s some that you think are hot. You’ve said some are hot.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Usually, bisexual ones. Usually, queer. I love an effeminate queer man.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: I don’t feel any attachment to genders of people that I date.

Gaby: No. It seems weird to.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Also, a lot of the “women.” I don’t have to quote unquote, but women that I date. I don’t know. I will think of them more as, if we’re thinking of things in a binary way… Like I don’t generally date high femmes.

Christina: Right.

Drew: I generally date people who are tomboys. I’ve hooked up with a wide variety and have casually dated a wide variety, but most of the people I’ve had long term relationships with have a masculinity to them. Then it’s like, I don’t know. It just makes me feel like men be it like a binary trans guy or cis men are on the horizon at some point in my life. Why would you want to…? I just feel like… I don’t know. It also feels like I missed out on this really quintessential lesbian experience that Christina is describing where you date awful men for many years before you figure yourself out. I didn’t have that.

Christina:Yeah. You, too, could be miserable going on dates with men and slamming nips in the alleys before going to a date being like, “This is normal. This is what people who love dating men do. Just be like lightly blackout drunk when you arrive. It’s fine.”

Drew: To be fair. It does sound similar to what it was like dating straight girls, which I guess is another type of lesbian experience.

Christina: Well, sure. That is. That’s not one I’ve had, so in that way.

Drew: Oh.

Gaby: Christina, what’s your type?

Christina: See, and this is the other funny thing. Thinking about when we think about the genders that we are attracted to. When I was dating men, I was dating like, “That is a man. That is just like… That is a cis dude. That dude is big and like a giant. He had a big dumb head, just like a big idiot.” Every time I’m attracted to a woman, I’m like, “That is the most femme woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” I am extremely femme for femme even though my femme vibes have shifted to be more faggy. Truly, just Robin Williams in Birdcage femme.

Gaby: Yes.

Christina: I am always just like, it is very interesting that I went from extreme gender of man, extreme gender of woman, nothing in between. Like what is that about? What’s going on up here?

Drew: It’s interesting because so many people in the queer community are the opposite.

Christina: Yes.

Drew: Where they’re like, “I’m just attracted to androgyny.” Which I say in like a sarcastic voice, but I don’t mean it to be. If that’s what you’re into, that’s fine as long as you’re not being fetishy and weird. But it’s interesting that you’re the opposite.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: I don’t know a lot of people that are the opposite who are like, “Be binary.”

Christina: I don’t either.

Gaby: Christina, I think, probably when you are closeted and you’re trying to find a man, you don’t have your own radar.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: You’re just like, “What has society told me? What have movies told me is a man.” I remember in middle school, I would just sit in the cafeteria and be like, “I got to choose a boy to have a crush on. Okay, who does everyone else like? Okay.”

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: “I can’t do that. It’s too obvious. I’ll do his friend.”

Christina: Yeah, with a slightly different version of that. Yeah.

Gaby: Yeah. You’re picking from what other people are saying is hot.

Christina: Yeah. Except that I’ve always had those friends who are like you two. Like, “I love this tiny little sensitive emotion.” I’m like get that shit away from me. I don’t want to hear a man talk about a feeling. Not one time. Stop that. Never again. No man with a guitar. No man writing poetry. I don’t want to look at it. I don’t want to hear it. I’m not interested in that energy. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just like, “Feelings boys, away. Away from me.”

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Well, when you think of binary women who are very femme women, are they allowed to be super emotional?

Christina: Yeah. Women can do whatever they want.

Drew: Yeah, but like—

Christina: That’s science.

Drew: When I think of your crushes though, they are like ice queen mommi. Maybe that’s not in your actual dating life, it isn’t quite that, but in your crushes, that is what manifests and they are also not super emotional. There’s a masculinity… There is actually…

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: You can be so femme that you somehow gain a masculinity.

Gaby: Absolutely.

Christina: Right. That ice queen like emotionalist thing, I’m always like, “Is that a crush moment or is that a me feeling seen moment?” That’s always tough to say. Because like, “Is that just me? Am I just doing that?” That’s just what I do in the lack of feelings and vulnerability space that I’m constantly vibing in. Yeah. The women that I have tended to date, I’m always like, “Why am I dating another golden? Why is this golden retriever energy here? What is this peppy theater kid do-something-fun? What is this? Why am I here again?”

Gaby: Opposites attract.

Christina: Yes. A large part of it is that I am aware of who I am as a person and that I can be a stubborn and not fun. I do need someone to be like, “Shut the fuck up. We’re going outside today.”

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Which is, yeah. I think that’s life sometimes, but yeah.

Gaby: Here’s another thing. Here’s a problem that I have had. Now, I’m unpacking it the opposite way. I had a thing where I was like oh, you don’t actually want to date these guys. You want to be them or you think that they are cool. Versus like… So I would be like oh, I want to be this person or I want to be like this person, so I’m going to get proximity to them. Or I see myself in them or I see something that I want to be or I want to take away in them, mostly from men. There’s two things, two lyrics that I like. There’s a Neko Case lyric where she is like, “I fucked every man that I wanted to be.” Then there’s a Lil Nas X lyric where he says, “I only fuck the ones I envy.”

Christina: Wow. The two genders, really, right?

Gaby: I know.

Christina: That’s where it is.

Gaby: The two genders. I was like, “Wow,” but then I thought that was bad. I was like, “Okay, you can’t do that anymore. That’s bad. You have to parse out. That’s not attraction. That’s not whatever.” Now, I’m back and I’m like, “Who cares? Why is that bad? People fuck for all kinds of reasons.”

Drew: Yeah.

Gaby: If I envy someone and I want to fuck them because I envy them, why am I pathologizing myself?

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. I think, at some point, I do think it is good to be aware of the things that shape your desires and wants and et cetera, but I do think, at some point, pathologizing all of your interests, be it sexual, be it like… you’re going to run into trouble. It’s not going to be successful after a while.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: You’re just going to end up tangled into a moral quandary where you’re like, “Can I do anything ever? Have I ever made a choice?” That doesn’t seem like a fun way to live.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I think it’s definitely good to… I agree with that. Be aware, but then also, at the end of the day…

Christina: You gotta get out of your head sometimes.

Drew: I do wonder what the experience would be like for me to like fuck Jon Hamm. One of those guys—

Gaby: Like a GUY.

Drew: A guy who… Like I wonder—

Gaby: Would you bottom for them?

Drew: Well, yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: That would be fun.

Christina: That does sound fun.

Drew: It’s also funny because I think of my five-foot-four cis woman girlfriend that way.

Gaby: Yeah. Well, she is.

Christina: Yeah. Well, she is.

Drew: You know what I mean?

Christina: Exactly.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: So then it’s like, what is—

Christina: You could pop her right in Top Gun: Maverick and she’d be fine.

Drew: Wow. She’ll love to hear that.

Gaby: She’s so funny towards you where she’s just like a high school jock grabbing at your tits and you’re like, “Ahh,” but you like it.

Christina: Yeah, exactly that energy, in fact.

Drew: Yeah. It’s like why fuck Jon Hamm? What’s the need to do that? I don’t think Jon Hamm would be as good at sex.

Gaby: Right.

Drew: There is still a part of my brain that wants the bad experience or wants to try it out.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: I do think, ultimately, if I were to have sex with a cis man, it would be a little twink. It probably would be a case where I was topping them, but I could do all of it.

Christina: I love the idea of being like this cis man, a little twink.

Gaby: Also like, what? The two of you would just, what, blow away in the wind? You need like a…

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Just something to weigh you down.

Gaby: Yeah. I think you need a bigger guy.

Drew: It’d be interesting. What I’m saying… It’s funny though because I say this and then the majority of the people who hit on me and look, fellas, don’t stop. I love the praise. I love the validation, but it’s largely transmasculine people or queer cis men. That’s my demo. Those people are the most attracted to me of anyone. When I was single and actively dating a lot, I wasn’t usually into those individuals. So then it makes me go like, “Well, how much of it is just theoretical?”

Gaby: What if it was a cis straight guy was like, came to you and was like, into you?

Drew: Well, that’s what’s interesting, right? Is that like… I just think I maybe passed the place of finding validation in that.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Maybe I’m not as evolved as I think and maybe there would be something validating about it, but then at the end of the day, when you… I think it depends on how that experience went.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: I don’t know. I guess, you and Mal are the only… You were figuring… Were you out as… No, you were starting to talk about it, but you weren’t fully—

Gaby: No, I wasn’t out.

Drew: You weren’t out.

Gaby: No, I wasn’t out.

Drew: You were starting to like… We were having gender conversations.

Gaby: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Drew: Mal was obviously out. I feel like the two of you are probably the most… Well, I can think of a couple other people, but those weren’t really good experiences.

Gaby: Right.

Drew: Of experiences that were generally positive, and it did feel different for sure.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: It’s interesting, actually, what it allowed me was to be toppier.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Not with you because no one can top Gaby Dunn.

Gaby: No one can top me, obviously, but—

Drew: With Mal, it was interesting to be like, “Oh, because this person is a boy…” I’m being binary, but yeah.

Gaby: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Drew: I feel less. I think my relationship to being a top with partners who wanted that and were cis women, I was really following their lead. I wasn’t really owning it.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: I was a little bit timid, which is not what you want from a top, but I could get into… I could do it. I could be like oh, they want me to do this thing, so I’ll do it and I’ll do it well. I can get into it and whatever. But I felt something very different when with someone who was masculine and able to be, I don’t know. I’m being very binary and very stereotypical.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Being like oh, masculinity isn’t as fragile and I don’t owe this person as much.

Gaby: Exactly.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Or I’m not worried about being creepy to this person or I don’t even know. I can just let myself loose. There was something fun about that.

Christina: Well, yeah.

Drew: Maybe I’ll, maybe I’ll top Jon Hamm. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.

Gaby: Thank you.

Christina: Well, that would be hot.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: That would rock. That’s what we’re all trying to see in this one nation.

Drew: Yeah. Yeah.

Gaby: Christina, who was your last straw? Like you dated a guy and you were like I’m done.

Christina: Oh God. That’s really taking me back. I’m trying to remember. I guarantee you, he had the name like Chris or something. I do think there was one hookup that I had met in a bar and I was like I am done. I just have such a feeling of waking up the next morning being like okay. No, thank you.

Gaby: Why?

Christina: I don’t remember. I was quite drunk. He definitely left in the middle of the night because he was like, “I’m really allergic to cats.” I was like, “Okay, whatever.” Then he came over and he was like, “No, but I’m really allergic to cats.” I was like, “I’m so uninterested in this narrative.” Like, “Are we having sex or not?” We did and then he did leave because he was sneezing quite a bit. Hope he’s well.

Drew: He died.

Christina: Then he died. His name was Matt, I think. I just remember being like okay. I think no more of that. I think I am making myself miserable in a way that I could probably not do and maybe I could have some more fun in this scenario.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Be less cranky and upset all the time because I’m just forcing myself to go on these horrible dates with men that I hate. It seems that I don’t have to do that.

Gaby: Why was it horrible? What were they doing? What were they doing?

Christina: Nothing. They were just being men talking to me and I was like, “I hate this. I hate everything about this.” Sure. They were all douchey in the way of, they were all, mostly, white guys from Boston.

Gaby: God. I’ve dated a lot of white guys from Boston too.

Christina: Can’t recommend it, but they weren’t horrible to me. I just hated the experience of speaking to them.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: I was like, “Perhaps not everybody feels this way when they speak to men. Maybe I don’t have to feel like this.” My friends were like, “Fuckin, finally. Jesus Christ.” Yeah. I was doing my really iconic. “Oh, I’m just an ally for so long.” All of my friends were like, “Sure, sure. Okay. All right.”

Gaby: I guess what I’m getting at is, what is different? Because I’m imagining, literally, a split screen where a guy is like, “Yeah and then I got into venture capital” or whatever and then it’s like a high femme woman who’s like, “And then I got into venture capital,” and you’re like, “That is fascinating.”

Christina: Quite literally, that could be true. I don’t think I’ve dated any venture capitalist women, but I do think that, yeah, that would be, if my life were a sitcom, that would be the little split screen right there. If I had some HBO max series dedicated to my life, that would be the split screen.

Drew: Not to have a Bad with Money detour, but what’s a venture capitalist?

Gaby: It’s just like someone who invests money. It’s stupid.

Christina: They just have money to give other people money and there’s cocaine involved. I don’t know.

Gaby: Yeah. If you have a business, you go to them and you’re like, “Here’s a presentation. Do you want to invest in my business?” And they’re like, “Okay,” but that’s their whole thing.

Christina: Then they ruin it and then they shut it down three weeks later.

Gaby: Then they go, “Yeah, I have a bunch of ideas,” and you go, “I wish I was not involved with you,” and then—

Drew: Like Shark Tank?

Gaby: Yeah, like Shark Tank.

Christina: It’s Shark Tank. Yeah, it’s like Shark Tank.

Gaby: Yeah. Yeah, like Shark Tank.

Christina: Yeah. It’s like Shark Tank and then they say, “Should we pivot to video,” and then they shut it down.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: I see.

Gaby: A real Succession.

Christina: Basically what happens. It’s what’s happened to media, basically.

Drew: Right. Cool. Cool.

Christina: It’s cool. It’s a cool thing to do. Yeah. I genuinely just… I was just like, “I don’t enjoy the experience of speaking to, specifically in that scenario, cis men.” I was like, “This is not fun for me.”

Gaby: I was going to say, were most of them white?

Christina: Majority. Actually, I do think the last guy I dated was Black and I was like, “This could work,” And then I was like, “No.”

Gaby: That’s why I’m wondering.

Christina: “No, this is not going to work either. I’m sorry.”

Gaby: Yeah. Yeah.

Drew: Now that you’re in a very gender diverse queer community, and I would imagine most of the men who you interact with are queer, are trans. Is it connected to being more attracted to more binary genders that’s preventing you? For Christina, like—

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: For dating men, dating nonbinary folks.

Drew: Yeah.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. Is it something that you’re open to?

Christina: It’s definitely something I’m open to. I am… Living in my femme for femme life is always a struggle because it is a hard thing to do because a lot of the other femmes I know are interested in dating—

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Either masc of center, masc folks, which I get and respect, but it has not happened to me. I have not had the great moment of some masc of center romance moment. Most of my friends who are some nonbinary, but even more like femme presenting, I’m always like, “Well, that is where my attraction would lie.”

Gaby: Right.

Christina: Yeah, it’s always just like that. I don’t know. I like a tiny little woman who’s going to yell at me. That’s really all I want. Just like a woman who is five-three to be mad at me.

Drew: Wow.

Gaby: Wow.

Drew: We should be able to find you that. I just can’t imagine that we couldn’t. You would have to date and that is something you’re reluctant to do, but—

Christina: Then it always comes back to that, doesn’t it?

Drew: They’re out there.

Gaby: Do you not want to date as much because you care more now?

Christina: Interesting. My gut says no, but maybe.

Gaby: Welcome to therapy, bitch.

Christina: Every time we hop on one of these goddamn podcast recording sessions, it’s a ding dang therapy session every single time. No, I think my lack of interest in dating is definitely tied to my lack of ability to be vulnerable, is definitely my fear of getting intimate with people that are not— in a romantic specific sense. I’m very good at being intimate with my friends. I do just find it more panic inducing for some reason in a romantic context. And it is a reason some have said that I should go to therapy, but–

Gaby: Well, okay, because I’m saying with men, you’re like, “I can have all these boyfriends. I don’t care. I don’t have to be vulnerable with them, whatever.” Whereas, once you start dating someone where you’re like, “Ah, fuck.”

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: “I actually want to be vulnerable with this person and there’s actual stakes here.” You’re like, “Well, fuck me.”

Christina: Yeah. Quite literally, yes.

Gaby: I didn’t even care. I cared about men, but I think I… Okay, so here we go. When I was a cis woman, which is what I’m calling my memoir.

Christina: Gorgeous.

Drew: That’ll sell quick, let me tell you.

Gaby: I know.

Christina: It really will.

Drew: That’s what they want from you.

Gaby: I know. When I was a cis woman, I was like, “Pfft.” I was one of those 2014 feminists who was like, “Men don’t have feelings. Kill all men.” I literally, had—

Christina: Get a bed frame.

Gaby: Girl, I had a male tears mug. When I started dating Mal, I would make them pose with it for pictures. They were like, “This is upsetting to me.” I’d be like, “No, it’s ironic now, you see.”

Christina: It’s feminism now.

Gaby: No, but they were like, “You used to be one of those.” I was like, “Absolutely.” Which, now, I have so much of a more expansive idea of what male is that I’m like, “That’s so dismissive and shitty and not great and not feminism and not funny.” Mal was like, when I showed them that mug, they thought I was like for real and they were like, “Oh my God, another femme who’s going to be mean to me just for being masc,” but then I was like, “No, no, it’s a bit you see.” Cut to three years later, I’m a man. Now, being on testosterone and stuff, I have this weird, now, like I’m getting more empathy for men, where something in my brain is being like, “This might be a little bit how they think.” I always thought that way, but I just was like, “It’s acceptable because I’m a woman, you see?”

It’s interesting. It’s going to be interesting for me to navigate being so confident and so forward. A friend of ours who won’t care, but a friend of ours posted a picture of her ass on close friends. I just immediately was like, “What that ass do,” right?

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: This is my friend, so it’s fine, but that’s going to be a little bit different in the world when I look different, I think.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: Now, I’m like, “Oh, I see. Men have those thoughts, but they can’t say them,” but I—

Drew: When will men finally get to talk?

Christina: When will they get to say that a woman’s ass looks good? God.

Gaby: You know what I mean? It’s different. Now, I’m second guessing it or I’m like, “Well,” but I’m still at the place where it is flattering to some people or definitely to cis gay men, I’ll be like thirsty towards them and they’ll be like, “Mm-hmm.” They like it now, but I don’t know.

Drew: Yeah.

Gaby: It’s interesting.

Drew: No, it’s real. That’s definitely played a big part… I think I still have leftover stuff from like… and it all intersects with trans feelings and shame around all that.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: When I was like… I thought it was a guy, I was so timid because I didn’t want to be a creepy guy.

Gaby: Right.

Drew: I didn’t want to be like that kind of guy. Something we talk about on this podcast so much is encouraging people to be forward and to talk. Literally, the title of the podcast. That’s something that we’re doing because it’s something that I still struggle with.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: It’s not because like oh, I’m an expert. And we’ve talked about this before, but I had to make the decision of like, “Oh, I’m never going to date anyone. I’m never going to have anything I want. I’m never going to be with anyone I want if I don’t get over myself and take some risks and get less rejection sensitive and get less…” It wasn’t even about the rejection itself, but about the idea of being a creepy trans woman.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Or previously, a creepy man, but it is so interesting. I get why it’s gendered in the sense that cis men cause a lot of the harm…

Gaby: Right.

Drew: …and sexual violence and et cetera, et cetera, but it also is this thing where like I don’t think the solution is for a level of shame. It’s more about like consent.

Gaby: No.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Being like, “Okay, how well do I know this person I’m talking to?” It’s all just judgment calls and it’s all just people having to like, I don’t know, use some critical thinking and actually go case by case and try to be like, “Okay, would this person I know be okay with me being a little bit lewd? Yes or no or I don’t know.” If I don’t know, maybe it’s… Tone it down a little.

Gaby: No. Here’s the thing is that I’m infantilized right now. I’m two months on T. This is what I’m saying, is I’m two months on T, so I can be so forward to a cis gay guy and they’re like, “Oh, cutie.”

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: Or the queer women in my life are like, “Ahahah.” Or even the straight women. The straight women are like “Ahahah,” but it’s like, they think of me as like, I’m like a little brother.

Drew: Right.

Gaby: I’m like Roger from Tia and Tamera. They’re like, “Aw,” but also like, “Go home.”

Christina: “Isn’t it past your bad time now?”

Gaby: “Yeah, go home, Roger!” That’s my energy right now. I don’t know. When you’re talking about rejection sensitivity, I also throw things at the wall. I also maybe have no concept of looking transmasculine now. I, still, if I meet a cis guy or I have like a cis guy I used to hook up with, I’ll be like, “Hey, is that still on the table?” I’m very much like, “Is this a date?”

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: I’m thinking now about how I wasn’t like, “Hey, are you queer now with these guys?” I’m just like, “Do you want to still fuck?”

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah.

Gaby: I don’t ask like, “What’s your identity? Do you have any problems here?”

Drew: Yeah.

Gaby: Nothing like that.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. Sometimes that’s the question you want to ask. It’s not like, “Let’s talk about your identity.” It’s like, “Do you still want to smash?”

Gaby: Yeah. I don’t have time. It’s not occurring to me to be like, “What’s your”… The cis guy, that is dead to me now, is…

Christina: May he rest.

Gaby: Yeah, may he rest. It was not anything to do with… He was like, “I’m attracted to you regardless of gender. I don’t know what I am. I don’t care.” I think that’s true, but the reason that… I thought this is going to end because I’m on T, but what happened is, he had a polyamory freak out. I was like, “Oh, this isn’t even about…” The reason this ends isn’t because I went on testosterone and now I look like a guy. The reason this is ending is because you, all of a sudden, have decided polyamory is immoral. Fascinating.

Drew: Well, as a gender nonconforming trans person, I also know that sort of how someone identifies, you feel it more than you can hear it, right? I’ve had sex with people who don’t really know how they identify and maybe, don’t even know what gender they’re reading upon me, but just in our sexual interactions, I feel very affirmed and I feel very good with them.

Gaby: Yeah. Yeah.

Drew: It feels like they’re seeing me and seeing me as a person and seeing me as my gender. I’ve had sex with people who are proudly bisexual in the queer community.

Gaby: Right.

Drew: Love all genders and are very open about that and then treat me like a guy and it feels awful.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: It doesn’t matter, necessarily…

Christina: Matter.

Drew: …how. It’s like what someone… Not that it doesn’t matter what someone is saying, but I think you feel it and that’s more important.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: I think it would bother me if someone was like, “I would never be with a woman” and then is hooking up with me. That would feel weird.

Christina: Right.

Drew: But if someone is just like, “I don’t know,” then I’m like, “Okay, well, I know how it feels.”

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: Or it’s not my business. If you are still interested in fucking me, I’m not going to sit there and do a checklist and be like, “Are you queer?”

Drew: Right.

Gaby: Whatever.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: You are in my mind, but sure. Live your life.

Christina: Yeah. I’m perceiving you in a way that works for me. You’re perceiving whatever you’re doing in your way. That, sometimes, is enough.

Gaby: I think if I get top surgery, it’s going to change immensely. That’s my fear. Is that once I get top surgery, these guys are going to be like, “Wait a minute.”

Christina: “Hold on. You took the titties away.”

Gaby: Right. That’s what I think.

Christina: “What’s going on?”

Gaby: “Wait a minute, you have full facial hair and shh, but these are giving me an out.” When I don’t have them, I’m curious what they’re going to think.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: Doesn’t matter. I’ll probably still just be doing T4T anyway.

Drew: Well, we are going to have to have you back.

Christina: We’ll just have continual check-ins.

Gaby: Wait, Is This a Date: “Post-Titties.”

Christina: Yeah. Post-Titties edition.

Drew: Okay. Let’s move to our last segment, which I realized I didn’t prepare you for, but I think you should be able to. We always have a crush corner…

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: … which is like a person in pop culture that we’re crushing on and that is an excuse to talk about something or you can just to talk about a person. It can also be an actual person we know, but if you can think of someone while we say our crushes, then we’ll double back to you.

Gaby: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Drew: Okay. Because this is our dating men episode and because Gaby is here, I have two male crushes because I just saw Road House for the first time and my crushes are Patrick Swayze and Jane Campion hater himself, Sam Elliot.

Christina: Sam Elliot.

Drew: Who was so hot back in the day. I had no idea. That movie is incredible. It’s like—

Gaby: I have a Road House tattoo. I have a Road—

Drew: Yeah.

Gaby: Where is it? I have a Road House tattoo.

Drew: It’s on there. Yeah. What kind of fucking friend am I that I didn’t see that. I was just like, “Yeah, I’ll see it.” I just was dismissive of it and then it’s an incredible movie. I won’t do my—

Gaby: I was trying to tell you.

Drew: I won’t give my whole essay about why it’s really a great movie.

Gaby: It’s about class. It’s about masculinity.

Drew: It’s about how violence is… Physical violence is okay when faced with social violence.

Gaby: Yes.

Drew: Which so few movies, especially big budget movies are about that.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: It’s brilliant. It’s bonkers and a really good time. Patrick Swayze does rip a throat out, but it’s great. I’m big fan. Patrick Swayze…

Gaby: Swayze.

Drew: …Sam Elliott, hot, hot, hot. Love both of them. Yeah.

Christina: Iconic.

Gaby: Swayze is my boy. I have a Swayze sleeve that I’m working on.

Christina: Swayze.

Drew: What would be your third one, if you got to—

Gaby: Okay. I’m thinking of watermelon for Dirty Dancing because, “I carry the watermelon.”

Christina: Gorgeous.

Gaby: Then I’m thinking, okay, then like a surfboard for Point Break.

Christina: Sure.

Gaby: I’m thinking maybe a strawberry for To Wong Foo because it’s a strawberry festival, but I don’t know. I’m still up in the air about the To Wong Foo one if anyone’s interested. Maybe a hat, because it’s to say something hat day. I’m not sure, but right now, I just have “pain don’t hurt” and a ghost. I got to get the rest.

Christina: Got to get the rest. That’s a gorgeous sleeve.

Gaby: Thank you. Then I’m going to try to do the other side, Kurt Russell. I’m a cis woman.

Christina: Yeah. Okay. Just going to—

Gaby: My two boys.

Christina: No comment on that one. Much like Drew, I was thinking that I should, in honor of the episode, have a dating men appropriate crush, but then I was like the other week said your crush was Jerry Orbach on a totally unrelated episode.

Drew: That’s true.

Christina: On this episode, I would like to say that my crush this week is Jenifer Lewis. We have been watching I Love That for You, which is a show that is pretty good. I feel like it’s 6% away from being truly great. I don’t really know what’s missing, but there is something missing. Boy, what it’s not missing is Jenifer Lewis being literally the most perfect woman on earth to be alive. She is so mean. She drinks so many martinis. She has so much sex with men at just like a drop of a hat and then has her butler give them a goodbye gift bag. I think it’s gorgeous. She sang “Feeling Good” in the last episode. I was like, “Yeah, of course. Why not sing “Feeling Good” if you’re Jenifer Lewis and you’re on a television show. You should go to a piano bar exclusively to do that.” I accept this as a plot. Thank you so much. She truly is the mother of Black Hollywood and I have never loved a woman more.

Gaby: I love her.

Christina: Jenifer Lewis.

Gaby: I love her.

Christina: She’s a perfect person.

Gaby: I love her.

Christina: Simply perfect. Yeah.

Gaby: Saw her at the GLAAD awards once. I think she touched my hand. I don’t know. I blacked out.

Christina: Yeah. I would die.

Gaby: Yeah, it was crazy. She was acting like she ran that place. I was like, “You do.”

Christina: You do. If she could run at any place and I’d be like, “Absolutely. She’s Jennifer Lewis.”

Gaby: She walked in and was like, “This is the Jenifer Lewis awards.”

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: I was like, “I believe you.”

Christina: True. That’s gay culture.

Gaby: Yeah. I was like, “Gay what? Who cares? Give her all the awards.”

Christina: Who cares. Give it to her.

Gaby: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. I’ll give you two.

Christina: Great. Gorgeous.

Gaby: Right now, I’m watching All Stars 7 Drag Race. Jaida Essence Hall, so fucking gorgeous.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: There was a challenge where she is dressed as a pig, a literal pig.

Drew: Oh my God.

Christina: Oh my God.

Drew: The hottest pig.

Gaby: She looks stunning. I would—

Christina: Truly like, “Do I have a pig fetish?”

Gaby: I would fuck that pig.

Christina: Like, “What’s happening?”

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: She’s so—

Drew: Her and Jinkx—

Gaby: Beautiful.

Drew: And Monet. Hottest pigs.

Gaby: Well, Jinkx is also very hot to me, but she is just stunning.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: I would love to look at her. I would love to fuck her as a pig. I could not believe and just her face… That’s her face? That’s her face.

Drew: Yeah, yeah. That’s her face.

Gaby: Good fucking Lord. She got the short end of the stick in terms of winning during the pandemic. Honestly, I don’t want her to win All Stars 7, because that’ll be Jinkx’s game, but I do. Wow. She’s really beautiful.

Drew: Yeah. Top four for sure.

Christina: Yeah.

Gaby: Top four.

Christina: Yeah, no doubt.

Gaby: I love Raja too. I’m very sexually attracted to Raja, but…

Drew: All of them.

Gaby: …extremely. I don’t care. Lip sync, standing still. I don’t give a fuck, but yeah, I would say my crush is Jaida as a pig.

Christina: Okay.

Drew: Great.

Christina: I think that’s gorgeous.

Gaby: Yeah.

Drew: Thank you so much.

Gaby: You’re welcome.

Drew: Well, now is the time.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Do you want to tell the people where they can find you and your work and what you’re working on and the million things you’re working on?

Gaby: Oh Lord.

Christina: Promote yourself.

Gaby: I’m @gabyroad on Instagram. I have a podcast called, Just Between Us. I have a podcast called, Bad With Money. Just Between Us is, we just had Monet X Change on, speaking of, and she and I fell in love, no big deal. Then I have a million. I have a Bad With Money book. I have a graphic novel called, Bury the Lede. I have a million things going on. I have eBook out called, Stimulus Wrecks. I do a show on AMP at 8:00 AM on Wednesday mornings called, This Week in Gay, where I talk about gay stuff and spin gay tunes. I don’t know. I feel like I don’t do anything, but here we are.

Drew: That’s absurd that you feel that way because it also like—

Christina: I was literally just going to say, I forgot how truly booked and busy your ass is.

Gaby: Yeah.

Christina: My good Lord.

Drew: There’s also 14 different things that you’re not allowed to talk about because they’re in development.

Gaby: Yeah, and then some development stuff that’s very nice. A lot of it is gay. Well, I would say, it’s all gay.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: It’s all gay.

Gaby: I don’t know when this comes out, but if you want to see my short Grindr Baby, it’ll be on YouTube, but it’s also at Frameline festival and you can watch it on-

Drew: I think Frameline will have already.

Gaby: Okay.

Drew: Right. Right.

Gaby: Frameline passed, but you can see it on YouTube. It’s called, Grindr Baby.

Drew: Right. Thank you so much for listening to Wait, Is This a Date? You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Wait Is This a Date? You can email us at waitisthisadate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein. Our logo is by Manya Dahr. This podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein.

Drew: You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, at draw_gregory.

Christina: You can find me on Twitter at C_GraceT and on Instagram at christina_gracet. You can find Autostraddle, of course, at Autostraddle.

Drew: You can find Autostraddle at autostraddle.com, the reason we’re all here today. Thank you so much and see you next week. Christina, what is the difference between a date and a podcast?

Christina: Actually, that’s really interesting that you asked that because scientists are, at this very moment, hurriedly trying to figure this out. We have some of our best scholars on this. On the case here, we don’t have an answer, but I think every day we journey closer to understanding.

Drew: I wish them and us the greatest luck.

Drew (voice memo): There have definitely been points in my life where if a reasonably attractive straight couple pulled like, “We saw you from across the bar and we really liked your vibe,” I would’ve done it just for the validation and experience. I don’t think I’m there anymore. They’d have to be actually attractive now. I think that’s growth.

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