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“To L and Back” Generation Q Podcast Episode 202: Lean On Me

Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of our Gen Q friends’ actions! We’re back for another episode full of talking, laughing, loving, breathing, and heavy on the fighting. In fact, Riese thinks this might be the episode with the most lesbian squabbles(TM) in all of L Word history!

Join us in this week’s episode of To L And Back as everyone deals with the fall out from the wedding, Shane schemes a new way to become rich, again, and Alice finally meets her editor. Meanwhile we discuss whether the people who hurt us deserve to be happy again! And also the top shortage. We’re bringing that discussion back around. 

SHOW NOTES

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew!

Analyssa: And I’m Analyssa!

Riese: And I am Riese! And this is—

Riese, Drew, and Analyssa: To L and Back: Generation Q Edition!

Riese: Edition.

Analyssa: Edition.

Drew: I love the addition of the edition.

Analyssa: Nice.

Riese: Yeah. Thank you so much. Wow. What a day.

Drew: Here we are.

Analyssa: Riese has had a morning.

Riese: I’ve had a morning. I spilled my entire water bottle. I think I broke my closet door.

Analyssa: Did you spill puzzle pieces?

Riese: I did… Oh yeah. I did spill a puzzle everywhere. If I’m doing a puzzle, you already know I’m not doing well.

Drew: Oh, no. I do know this about you.

Analyssa: We’re persevering.

Riese: We’re persevering.

Analyssa: It’s fine.

Riese: Because I think that’s what’s important, is that you stick with it.

Analyssa: Yes. So true.

Drew: Yeah. I agree. I think it’s a lesson that all of our friends in fictional Los Angeles will also have to learn.

Riese: Totally. Yeah. This is going to be an interesting episode for the people.

Drew: This episode, 202, is called “Lean On Me.” It is directed by show creator, Marja-Lewis Ryan, and it is written by Jonell Lennon, who previously was a writer on Pretty Little Liars, a show that I have not watched, but I’m pretty sure Riese has.

Riese: Oh wow. I have. I have viewed the program, most of the program. Yes. It’s a very zany, it’s a zany little show. More pressing to me personally, is she related to John Lennon?

Drew: I didn’t do that research, but I can do that research before our next episode and return. Or if any readers want to let us know. It’s spelled J-O-N-E-L-L. It’s not J-O-H-N, so it’s not like you just had John and then added an L. It could be. This is how Hollywood works. A lot of people are — and that’s just part of it, and it is what it is. I don’t actually, I don’t want to spread lies about this writer who made a name for herself on Pretty Little Liars.

Riese: Is her last name the same as John Lennon’s or as the dictator, Lenin?

Drew: Wow. Pretty bold, too.

Riese: I actually don’t know who Lenin is, but it’s on my mind because this morning I tried Lennon as a word in the New York Times spelling bee game and it said it wasn’t a word.

Drew: It is spelled like John Lennon, not like the Russian leader.

Riese: The Russian leader?

Drew: I’m not trying to… Yeah.

Riese: So Linen’s a good guy?

Drew: Ah. I’d rather not take a strong stance on Lenin right now.

Analyssa: We put Drew on the spot.

Drew: But he’s not Stalin.

Riese: Right. Yeah. Stalin. That’s one of the bad ones, right?

Drew: Okay. I would say, let’s do some Russian history later. Actually what if we just started talking about this episode of The L Word?

Analyssa: Yeah. Let’s go into it.

Riese: Let’s do it.

Drew: Great.

Drew: Okay. Guess what we start with? Sophie and Dani are fighting.

Analyssa: They’re fighting.

Riese: This is a multi-disciplinary wedding venue. They’ve got a marital bed to fight in. It seems like things are not going well.

Analyssa: Dani is so mad.

Riese: Right. Fair.

Drew: Fair.

Analyssa: But she’s leading with mad, is the thing.

Riese: I think I would also… I would probably punch a wall. I’ve never punched a wall before, but I feel like if at my wedding—

Analyssa: I think my reaction to this would be to run. I guess that’s why it was so surprising to me. She is really, 10 toes on the ground, ready to fight with Sophie. I personally would be like, “Goodbye, forever” and I would just sprint away.

Riese: Yeah. I would start a new life.

Analyssa: I can’t actually run to be clear.

Drew: Yeah. I used to punch walls a lot when I was in high school, but I sort of grew out of that phase. My walls in my childhood bedroom, a little bit of a mess. But, I don’t think that’d be my reaction now. I think I also would probably not run away, but I definitely would be like, “I’m going to want to take a minute,” because I wouldn’t want people to see me have feelings. I would be like, “Cool, cool, cool. I don’t care about you. Go fuck yourself. I’m going to go,” and I’d grab my best friend. Then my best friend, Micah, would be like, “Yeah, I already knew this whole time.” But I would be like, “Okay, cool, so everyone is dead to me and I am going to move.”

Riese: I would run away, change my name, start a new life, get a new face. Face transplant. Just everything, redo it all. But she’s yelling. She’s asking Sophie, I think, some important questions.

Drew: Yeah. I think so. It’s just chaos everywhere. Alice tells Shane that—

Alice: Oh, she looks like a little kitten on a highway.

Riese: That was cute because it was true.

Analyssa: Alice looked really good when she stood up to rescue Finley. I was like, hello.

Riese: Alice was being very “elder dyke” in this, which I appreciated. Then fucking — was it Bette or Shane who was like, “That is the most selfish thing.”

Analyssa: It was Bette!

Bette: I think that was the most selfish thing I’ve ever seen.

Drew: Bette is on one in this episode. We’re going to get into that.

Riese: Yeah. Bette, I have some questions but—

Analyssa: Bette saying, “This is the most selfish thing I’ve ever seen in my life” is like — that you’ve ever seen Sophie do? Maybe. But that you’ve ever — you, Bette Porter, have ever seen? I don’t buy it.

Riese: Maybe, I don’t know, what about when Shane just didn’t fucking show up for her own wedding?

Analyssa: What about when Bette cheated on Tina a hundred times?

Riese: Oh. Yeah. We’ll get there. We’ll get to that.

Drew: Well, we’re going to get to that. Okay. Everything’s chaos and it’s so silly. I was obsessed with all of this. This made it all worth… The absurdity of the whole situation, last episode, that bothered me, made it all worth it for this chaos. Dani tells Sophie that she never wants to see her again, and that she’s fucking disgusting. It’s not that that’s unfair, but I do wonder if Dani would feel the same if she had seen the, “What are you doing, buddy? What are you doing?” moment. I think maybe she would have understood.

Analyssa: Yeah. She would have been like, “That was really sweet.”

Drew: Yeah. She maybe would have been like, “Okay, yeah, this was wrong but also I do get. It was really hot and sweet.” Sometimes that’s how life is. Anyways, Dani punches Finley in the fucking face.

Riese: Yeah. That was funny.

Analyssa: That was pretty funny. I do think Finley should have seen that coming.

Riese: Oh yeah. She deserved it.

Analyssa: I think, in my head, Finley saw that coming and was like, “I deserve this. I’m just going to let her do it.”

Riese: I’m just going to take it.

Analyssa: Because she could’ve ducked.

Riese: So, everyone’s basically mad at everyone, which is a great way to start this episode, which has more arguments in it than any other episode I’ve ever recapped of The L Word, or this has more fights than any of them.

Analyssa: This is a big “the girls are fighting” episode.

Riese: Yeah. It is. Everyone’s—

Drew: That’s a fun fact.

Analyssa: Yeah. The only other thing I have about this wedding chaos is that I love Tess just being like, “What the fuck?” Like, I’m her in any chaotic situation, just watching and being vaguely judgemental, but not engaging. She’s like, “This is not for me.”

Riese: Her facial expressions are golden. When she’s like, “Is she drunk?” Her eyes were… Oh, it’s so cute. Anyway, big drama, big love, big punch in the face. That’s what I always say about a wedding.

Drew: It’s everything you want. Okay. Then we move on to Sophie with her family and I think we realized that actually we could see Sophie’s grandma in the last episode, but not clearly enough that I caught it. This was my moment at least, of being like, “Oh my God, thank God. Sophie’s grandma’s okay.”

Analyssa: Me too, yeah. I was thrilled and I just love this family so much. They all really care about each other and they’re just trying their best. I love the parent/grandma thing of being like, “You didn’t do that great. But what do you need from us?” It’s all very supportive, but not indulging.

Drew: No, absolutely.

Riese: It was realistic advice. They weren’t going to sugar coat it, but they were also going to help out with whatever she needed.

Analyssa: She’s really sad.

Riese: Yeah. Also, Dani was like, “Don’t talk to me ever again.” And Sophie’s like, “She’s not answering my phone calls.” Yeah, babe. Yeah. She’s not going to be, she’s not picking up the phone. She just said, “Never speak to me again,” which obviously was dramatics in the moment.

Drew: That’s something that I don’t like about — I was going to say fictional characters, but it’s actually very realistic for fictional characters, because I don’t like it in real people either. It’s if someone says… If you have wronged someone, it is not their responsibility to comfort you or to be on their terms. You need to say, “I’m so sorry. I want to talk to you. I want to work this out. Call me when you’re ready to do so. I’m going to check back in.” Either leave it at that, would be my preference. But if you need to provide a “I’ll check back in, in a week” or whatever it is, fine. But the insistent “I need to talk to you, we need to talk about this,” when you are the one who did something wrong, it bothers me so much.

Riese: Yeah. It’s really selfish. Also, we find out that Sophie… Because her mom’s like, “Do you love Finley?” and she doesn’t answer that. She just says, “I love Dani.”

Drew: Yeah. Maribel is definitely the one who’s harshest on her. Because she’s like,

Maribel: Just like Dad.
Sophie: What?!

Drew: Depending on what your relationship is with various family members, I think that is maybe the meanest thing you can say to a sibling if that is the dynamic, is something along those lines. It’s not maybe unfair, but it is pretty harsh.

Analyssa: It was a really low blow.

Riese: But I think it’s interesting, this scenario, because we know that Sophie does have feelings for Finley. But I feel like, and I know I’m projecting because I actually had an incredibly similar experience, oddly. But it’s this panic, she, on the one hand, is this person who’s very adrift in life, unemployed, doesn’t have a place to live, doesn’t have her shit together at all and who she feels this incredible attraction to. On the other hand, is this person who she has a life with, who’s friends with her friends and they have this relationship. Even though she wasn’t happy in that relationship at all, if she doesn’t get Dani back, then she has to accept that she fucked up. Like she’s an asshole. It’s not just about making the relationship work, it’s about who is she? Who is she as a person? Is she somebody who fucked up this wonderful relationship to go to a rank little love nest with a 26-year-old who barely has her foot in the door or whatever, to quote Cherie Jaffe? Or is she a reliable… Which is a terrible classist thing. But, who is she? I think she’s fighting, not just for the relationship, but maybe even more so for her own sense of self.

Drew: Yeah. Well…

Riese: What do you think?

Drew: Yeah, that all makes total sense to me. It’s interesting, watching Sophie’s reaction to all of this and being surprised, because I really thought that she felt trapped, so she would’ve wanted to… Especially, we’ll see this throughout the episode, she’s really trying to get Dani back and I’m like, really? But I think that makes a lot of sense, that it’s not about getting Dani back. It’s about who she is. That makes sense.

Riese: Yeah. Also, if Dani leaves then she’s in this relationship with somebody who publicly humiliated her ex. It’s like this is one kind of life and this is another kind of life. That is really scary. I feel like she’s just panicking and maybe that’s because I’m a Sinley shipper. But I do feel like she’s just panicking. Also, she’s been with Dani for so long. I think there is a moment whenever you’re ending a long-term relationship with somebody, where there’s that day or that hour or that week or that month where you all of a sudden, when you actually have to think about losing them, then you immediately panic. It’s just a psychological response regardless of whether or not your relationship was even working.

Drew: Totally. Well, going to another relationship that is not working, Alice is with Nat and Alice says that she doesn’t think Finley has even seen The Graduate.

Analyssa: I loved that!

Drew: Then her and Nat are like, “Well, we haven’t either, but we get the reference.” But I don’t believe that. Why wouldn’t Nat and Alice have seen The Graduate? Who wasn’t seen… I get that Finley maybe hasn’t seen The Graduate, but who hasn’t seen The Graduate?

Riese: Finley is definitely one of those people who you mention a movie that literally everybody in the world has seen, and she’s like, “What?” But she’s seen Jurassic Park 25 times.

Drew: Yeah. I believe that. I believe that, but I don’t believe that Alice, especially just knowing everything about Alice, that Alice wouldn’t have seen The Graduate. But also, she hasn’t seen SVU, so she doesn’t know anything.

Analyssa: I was just about to say, I don’t understand what they’re doing with Alice having never watched anything. Anyway, whatever.

Drew: That’s not important.

Riese: This is a problem for Drew because people’s media speaks a lot about who they are as a person. You’re continually frustrated when you’re like, this is not actually an accurate depiction of the type of media that she would have been involved in.

Drew: Yeah. I want to know everyone’s sun sign and I want to know everyone’s favorite movie and that would really tell me a lot. Anyways, Nat brings up open relationships and Alice is not into it. It’s surprising that Nat is the exciting one, not to associate polyamory with excitement and monogamy with not excitement, but I think I just did that. I think it’s fair when we’re watching a television program, the potential for excitement is probably more if a character who’s in a relationship is also having other experiences versus just being in a relationship. If anyone who’s monogamous out there is offended by that, I’m sorry, but I think we can get on board with this.

Riese: I’m monogamous and I’m not offended.

Drew: Great. Thank you Riese, for speaking for the monogamous community.

Riese: But Alice literally says that bad people are poly.

Nat: Monogamy is not for everyone.
Alice: Well it’s for most people, except the bad ones.

Analyssa: That’s the thing that I was like, “Oh,” is Alice is vehemently like, “That is not okay.”

Riese: Yeah, like that’s bad.

Analyssa: She’s not willing to have this conversation at all, which is very stressful and leads to Nat fully crying in the bathroom. Nat is going through something.

Drew: Yeah. Do you think she’s crying about the future of her relationship, or do you think she’s crying because that trans woman was just so hot that she’s like, “What if I never get to have sex with Marissa?”

Analyssa: Probably that one.

Riese: Yeah, probably that one. But God, Alice did a lot of things this episode that I was like, oh my God. Also, I don’t buy that. She’s been alive in the Los Angeles community of queer people for at least two decades and she thinks that non-monogamy is inherently bad and only bad people do it? That doesn’t even make sense.

Drew: No.

Riese: She wrote the chart.

Drew: Right.

Riese: What?

Drew: Yeah. I don’t know what’s happening with Alice. Alice has always been a favorite of mine and wherever they’re taking her character is honestly probably healthy for me, because Alice has never been the biggest ally to my community. Maybe if they also make her boring, so I don’t like her, it would be healthier for me, personally. Maybe it’s a gift. Thanks Marja.

Analyssa: Yeah. They’re doing it for you. At, wherever Dani is held up, which we have to assume is her dad’s house, right? Sophie brought something in a dish. Are they brownies? Is it a casserole?

Riese: It’s got to be kugel. It’s got to be a kugel.

Analyssa: I don’t know what it is. But Sophie brought that over.

Riese: Maybe it’s 10 pear polenta tarts. She’s like, “Look, I just spent $50 million on you. Take me back and pay off my debt.”

Drew: It’s the traditional thing you do after you cheat.

Riese: Yeah. Spongecake.

Analyssa: And Dani is responding dramatically. She’s throwing the casserole dish in the trash. She’s flushing her ring down the toilet and sending photos of it to Sophie.

Riese: Literally, flushing money down the toilet. I was—

Analyssa: Appalled?

Riese: Pained, deeply pained.

Drew: Okay. But that’s the thing a rich person can do. That’s what you get… When you have an evil father, you get the privilege of being able to flush the wedding ring down the toilet. Fuck you. It’s a powerful thing. Engagement ring? Wedding ring?

Analyssa: We knew that Dani’s dad was rich, but I, I don’t know about you two, I didn’t know that he has a man in a suit who opens the door at his home, rich.

Riese: Right. He lives in a manor.

Analyssa: That was shocking to me.

Riese: Yeah. I also expected he would be living in a slick modernist type of LA, Hollywood Hills home. This was like a fifties movie star used to live in this ensemble.

Drew: Yeah. I don’t know anyone who is that level of rich. How rich do you have to be to be that level of rich?

Analyssa: Pretty rich.

Riese: Yeah. All we know about his business is that some of it involved opioids. It is my understanding that they made a great deal of money, that industry. So, maybe it’s the Sackler mansion that they let him live in. But also, obviously Dani… If I were Dani, I would probably be doing, I don’t know what I’d be doing. I guess being really upset. I would have blocked Sophie, that’s for sure.

Analyssa: That is the thing. I would instantly just not be getting Sophie’s calls anymore. If that’s the choice I’m making, then we have the technology for that. You don’t have to hear from her actually. But you know who Dani does have to hear from? Is Bette Porter, who is here to save the day.

Riese: With tartine.

Analyssa: Hilarious that she brought tartine. Of course, she would.

Riese: This was such a nice, generous moment from Bette. Dani was a little bit hostile, but I think Bette… That’s the same way Bette is, so she probably was like, “Okay.”

Drew: Totally. It was a really good first act of a fanfic too. It didn’t go in that direction, but I definitely was watching it like, “I know you’re sad, but sometimes a good way to deal with your sadness, let me tell you.”

Riese: Boning.

Analyssa: Yeah. Be flirtier instead of mean.

Drew: I think actually if Bette Porter came to my house right after I had found out that my fiance had cheated on me, I think the only thing I would… Because here’s the thing about it: there’s never a moment where you could make a move on Bette Porter and have lower stakes. Because if you do it and she’s like, “Whoa,” you could be like, “I just was cheated on. I’m crazy right now.” It becomes totally normal. I think it’s actually the prime time to go for your ex-boss, who is the most… I was going to say the most powerful lesbian in Los Angeles. When I say that, I don’t mean that like… I’m sure there are people who are richer, have more political influence. But I think by most powerful, just spiritually. Bette Porter.

Riese: Yeah, definitely. Her soul looms large in LA.

Analyssa: Anyway, as I was mad about last episode, Shane did fuck up Tess’s life by ruining this poker game that she was bartending. Confusing as it may be that she was bartending this poker game, it was a good paycheck, and Shane ruined it.

Drew: We were talking about this last episode of, what was the intention with Eddie and whatever, how are we supposed to feel about Eddie? The idea that Eddie would blackball Tess from every game in town… Tess didn’t do anything wrong. It just adds into the column of Eddie’s in the wrong in the situation, which I don’t think should be the takeaway. I know that Lena Waithe is a big guest star, but if you just… I don’t know. It still feels like it’s using this character that was not very well developed, who showed up to just be like, “Hey, there should be spaces in LA lesbian world that are for specifically Black lesbians.” And taking a character who says that, then being like, “And they’re wrong about everything except that.” It just creates a weird dynamic and I don’t know. Anyways.

Riese: Yeah. For a Black… They rarely have Black characters, rarely have masculine characters. To have a Black masculine-of-center character be the one who is like… Because you’re right. It doesn’t make sense. Why in the world would she blackball Tess from every game in town? That’s immature and petty. It’s just a shitty direction, I guess.

Analyssa: Well, luckily for Tess, you can hear how excited I am about this for her. Shane has a new pitch, which is their own underground lesbian poker game. Tess delivers an absolutely incredible barb, which is:

Tess: I don’t really know how to say this.
Shane: Say it.
Tess: You’re not discreet.

Analyssa: Yeah. I thought that was really funny.

Riese: She’s like, “You’re trouble. I don’t trust you.” This is illegal, right? Is it illegal? I can’t figure this out.

Drew: I don’t know.

Analyssa: I think money makes it illegal in LA. Right? The actual money gambling part of it. I actually don’t know. But that’s what I think.

Riese: I guess we would know this if it was actually accurate that lesbians all over the city were playing poker all the time.

Drew: Or, we all know and we’re all just playing it cool so our listeners and the fans don’t catch on.

Riese: Yeah. Is this illegal? I don’t know.

Analyssa: Very allegedly illegal poker games that allegedly happen in Los Angeles.

Riese: Yeah. I could definitely put down 10 bucks.

Drew: Yeah. So back to our primary drama, Finley walks in as Maribel and Micah are dealing with wedding gifts. Well, first of all, it’s nice that we’re happy about Maribel and Micah hanging out. Let’s say that. But Maribel does say that Micah is Jose’s Finley, which I think is unfair and also is fair. Well, it’s fair in the sense that Micah should also remove himself from the situation. I don’t think it’s fair in the sense that I don’t think Micah didn’t interrupt a wedding. Micah wasn’t friends with Jose’s husband. In fact, Micah didn’t even know when they first started. So there’s a lot of reasons why it’s actually not the same, but…

Riese: And also Micah found out that Jose was married while they were both looking at the mermaid painting, which I feel was … it’s sort of like having a concussion. When you are looking at something like that, you’re kind of in this weird zone.

Drew: That’s a really good point.

Riese: Yeah. Can you imagine Micah interrupting a wedding? He would never. He’s so polite.

Analyssa: Sweet boy.

Drew: Finley continues showing up in places in their lives. She’s really not laying low. So she goes into work, and so does Sophie, obviously.

Analyssa: Finley … yeah, Finley is so funny to me because she just arrives back in LA, is like, I’ve been banished to Kansas City for awhile, but you know what seems right, is just going about my day the same way.

Riese: Alice needs her coffee.

Analyssa: Alice needs her coffee. I’m sorry, I did get a really big laugh out of her being like, “What’s the soup of the day?”

Riese: Soup chef.

Analyssa: And the assistant going, the bad assistant going—

Assistant: Oh, it’s just the soup that they have for today. Sometimes it’s made over veggie or clam chowder.

Analyssa: The soup of the day is the soup they have today.

Drew: That is pretty good.

Analyssa: I just thought that was so funny.

Drew: Yeah. As someone who has been a PA many times, it’s amazing how if you are just competent, people will act like you have changed their life. Like I truly have just had people talk about … I mean, I really haven’t left like a PA or assistant job without being offered another job after. Usually they’re for like a similar level and I don’t want to do it so I usually say no, but—

Analyssa: Okay, brag.

Drew: But it’s because it’s not that hard. The industry is just filled with boys like this who do not know how to do anything. So on the one hand, I think it’s pretty silly the whole running gag about Finley’s irreplaceable as a PA. But on the other hand it actually sort of checks out that Alice would be like, “Oh, I found this hot lesbian who knows how to actually do bare minimum tasks correctly.” I actually understand why she’s like, “We need to get her back here to ruin some lives and get me my coffee.”

Analyssa: 100%.

Riese: Yeah. Well also Finley doesn’t have ambitions, like she’s not like, “I’m going to be an assistant and work my way up or like, I want to be a writer.” She’s just like, “I’m going to be a really good assistant,” because this is kind of … she doesn’t really have any ambition beyond that at this point, you know?

Drew: Right. And someone who doesn’t have ambition, again suddenly, is Sophie who, when Alice is comforting her, she’s like, “I want that producer position. I need it.” And you know what? Honestly, I don’t think she should get it because she’s sad, but she was going to get it anyways and she turned it down. And so I think she … I’m happy that Alice is being like, “Yeah, you can have it.”

Riese: And Sophie’s like, “We can totally work together. It’ll be fine. We’ll be totally profesh.”

Analyssa: I’m sure that will go super well.

Drew: To be continued.

Analyssa: I’m just amazed they’re not actively crying. If I were Sophie or Finley I would be crying because everyone … I mean, there’s three people right now are pretty much at the worst point — are at some sort of emotional rock bottom.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, I really don’t cry a lot. In fact, I have a whole eye condition that I recently discovered that prevents me from crying a lot, so it’s not just that I’m a Capricorn.

Riese: Oh my God. I’m so jealous. Is it contagious?

Drew: No. No, it’s not. It’s a thing I … yeah, anyways. But I don’t cry a lot, but when I was going through a regular breakup, I constantly had to go into the office bathroom because I was working in an office at the time, and cry. So that they’re cold in there — I mean, maybe they are crying and they’re just not saying it because how much time can we really spend watching Sophie cry in the bathroom? I would have liked to watch that.

Analyssa: A little bit of it.

Riese: I would have been like, this is so authentic. I would have raved about it.

Drew: Yeah. But so across town, Micah is deciding not to be Jose’s Finley. That really stuck. Because when the person who you’re about to be dating and have been friends with for a while, calls you out on your toxic … I’m just making this canon now, just wishful thinking canon, you decide that you are going to have some self-respect and also I guess, respect the institution of marriage. And so, yeah.

Riese: Also Jose is psycho in this scene.

Analyssa: Yeah, and then he’s like … his husband comes out and he’s like, “This is my friend Micah.” It’s like … it’s all bad.

Drew: Yeah. I will say it is one of the bolder things for Micah to do, to show up. Like as the…
Riese: The third.

Drew: What’s a male mistress called?

Riese: Mister.

Drew: Yeah, to show up — yeah, as the mister, to show up at the house and be like, “We’re going to have this fight right here,” it’s a move. I mean, I respect it. Something I didn’t like was that Micah’s mad because he says he didn’t lie about being trans so why would Jose lie about this? And it was a very, very weird false equivalency there.

Riese: I didn’t even catch that.

Drew: Yeah. He’s like, “I was honest with you about who I am. Why aren’t you honest with me about who you are?” And it’s like, I just am sort of confused by that because they were fully dating for long periods of time. And so — not that trans people throughout history haven’t kept their transness secret through long relationships, but it would have been pretty challenging to keep it a … I just am sort of like… the period of disclosure … It just showed a lack of understanding about disclosure and about … one, it’s weird because Micah … considering the sexual acts that they were doing, Micah would have had to disclose, or it would have been disclosed for him. And two, it’s not the same, being trans and being married when you are lying about being married. You actually don’t have an obligation to tell someone you’re trans. If Micah wanted to be like, I only do these sexual acts and do sexual acts that wouldn’t force him to disclose, he could have done. That’s not immoral. Trans people aren’t obligated to disclose their transness. Whereas I would say that maybe if you’re married in a monogamous relationship, before starting another relationship, you should maybe let that person in on it. I think those are just morally different. So I did not enjoy that, but I did enjoy Micah stirring shit up.

Analyssa: Drew, you’re 100% right.

Drew: So, speaking of writing that needs editing? Tom the editor arrives!

Riese: That’s good.

Drew: Thanks. Thanks. I was pretty proud of that one. It took me a second, but I’m pretty proud of it. Tom arrives. Alice is like, “Can I get you anything?” And he asks for gum, and they make it seem like the weirdest thing ever. And I don’t understand why, because if someone showed up to meet me and was like, “Do you have gum?” I’d be like, “Yes, I do have gum. And thank you for saying that because you are concerned with your dental hygiene and wanting to make the experience of us talking very close to each other pleasant. And so yes, here’s gum and I will also have gum myself.” Because sometimes when people ask for gum, I think, oh no, do I have bad breath and you’re asking for gum, cause you want me to also take a piece of gum? So if anyone ever asks me for gum, I will always also have gum even if I didn’t want gum in case I secretly have bad breath.

Riese: Oh, I always think, “Do you want a piece of gum?” means you have bad breath. And I will not be convinced otherwise.

Analyssa: Yeah. Except that this man chooses Juicy Fruit as that he’s going to use for his breath.

Analyssa: Yeah, that was a little pathological.

Drew: Yeah, no, horrifying. That’s the weird part. That’s what we should talk about.

Riese: But it’s pretty clear that, as we expected, that this is more of a … this is going to be a pretty heavy edit.

Drew: Yeah. And, and unsurprisingly, Alice is not thrilled about having her work edited. That is a very consistent … I think Alice of the entire, all the seasons of The L Word franchise, this is very consistent and makes sense that she would be like, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Professional challenges continue as Bette is meeting with an artist and it’s going well until Griffin Dunn … I need to remember — what’s Griffin Dunn’s name? What’s his character named?

Analyssa: Isaac?

Riese: Isaac, which is an insult to Isaac from the Torah.

Drew: Yeah, the original Isaac, you might say.

Riese: Yeah. OG. The first Isaac.

Drew: He really manages to screw things up, doesn’t he?

Riese: Yeah. It’s like this Black artist who wants to work with Bette and is excited that Bette … somewhat excited like Bette knows his work and really respects it. But he’s like, “I don’t know if I want to work with this guy.” He’s trying to sound smart about what he’s talking about, but he isn’t and… just don’t talk. He is not needed in this meeting. It’s not hard. Just don’t…

Analyssa: Yeah, this is the thing, he could have just swung by and been like, “Hi, it’s so nice to meet you. We’re so excited about this.” But he seems incapable of doing something like that. He can’t just be like, “Okay, great, Bette’s running things.” I’m sure this will become a problem.

Riese: Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s embarrassing for Bette. And it’s also like, then you’re like, oh, you’re one of those people, like one of those like white cis men who just cannot take yourself out of a conversation that doesn’t need to involve you.

Analyssa: Well, and Bette is clearly embarrassed, not just at how he’s acting, but also at her role in this meeting now. Like she’s kind of uncomfortable about having brought this person in to meet with her because she works for this guy. Like it just … it’s bad.

Riese: Speaking of awkward workplace politics.

Analyssa: Nice.

Riese: Nailed it.

Drew: That was great. That was great.

Riese: Finley’s eating spoiled yogurt.

Analyssa: Okay. Does that mean there were 12 full size yogurts? Like they couldn’t be individual ones because those all have tops that you rip off and you can’t put back on. She was like, “I was testing them to make sure they’re not expired.”

Riese: They were probably already … they were probably still sealed, but … it’s like, for example, I bought yogurt two months ago. I haven’t eaten it yet. Might not be good. But in the office refrigerator you open up and it’s like, Stephanie, Courtney, all over these little … sharpie all over these little yogurts that haven’t even been opened. And she’s like, “Are these old?” She’s a freegan.

Drew: Yeah. I definitely missed … I did not include any of the yogurt in my notes. That was something I missed. I did have that Sophie and Finley finally talked to each other.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: That is the more important thing that happened in this scene. Yeah, you’re right. I just got really tripped up by the yogurt logistics.

Riese: And Sophie teases Finley a little bit.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I don’t think Finley has ever done anything this emotionally complicated, and she’s actually a kitten on the highway through the whole drive, you know?

Analyssa: When Finley asks Sophie if her grandma was mad at her, that was like—

Riese: Yeah. And so then Sophie and Finley have their big first fight.

Sophie: You should ice that.
Finley: Sorry, I was going to keep it around because I got it defending your honor so…
Sophie: Don’t do that.
Finley: Do what?
Sophie: Don’t make jokes. It’s not funny.
Finley: Okay. Whoa, what do you want me to do here?
Sophie: I want you to feel bad. I want you to feel just as bad as I do right now.
Finley: Hold on. You don’t think I feel bad?
Sophie: Oh, no, I know that you do. You feel bad for yourself. You feel bad for my grandma. Fuck, I bet you feel bad for Dani.
Finley: Of course I fucking feel bad for Dani.
Sophie: And what about me?

Drew: Yeah. And Finley says that Sophie wasn’t happy and Sophie says that she was. And let me tell you, I watched season one and I don’t know if Sophie watched season one, but Sophie was not happy. There’s no world in which like… maybe Sophie was happy in her relationship with Dani at some point—

Riese: Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Drew: But not when all this happened. Absolutely not. Not even a little.

Riese: No.

Analyssa: It would be so helpful if the characters on The L Word could watch previous seasons of The L Word, just so that they could make their decisions and stuff. I think they’d learn a lot.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, I just can reread my old essays sometimes and get some perspective.

Riese: I actually have a really great example of this from The L Word, which is when Mark and Gomey hang up cameras all over Shane and Jenny’s house. Then Jenny finds out some stuff about Shane and Carmen by watching everyone’s favorite short film, “Shane Carmen Love Confession.”

Drew: Yeah. So you’re saying that really cis straight men who hang up private cameras to film lesbians are actually—

Analyssa: Performing a service.

Drew: … what we need more of in the world. I would be worried about joking about that if I thought that we had any cis straight men who listened to our podcast. That’d be wild. If you’re a straight cis man who listens to our podcast, please email us. I want to know your story. I want to tell you that you’re secretly a trans woman and help you on that journey.

Riese: I want to tell you that if you are that way and because of that, you’re making extra money, you could give it to us and thank you for your support and your service to us as a community. I would probably be nice to you in person. I would definitely be nice to you in person.

Drew: Anyways, Alice calls them out on this.

Analyssa: Because this fight gets pretty explosive.

Riese: Heated.

Drew: Oh yeah.

Analyssa: I don’t really understand … like Sophie makes a really big point of being like, Finley hurt … like you hurt me. And I …

Drew: No.

Analyssa: … think that’s not exactly what happened. And Sophie really … this is to Riese’s point earlier.

Riese: She hurt Dani.

Analyssa: Yeah. Sophie was the one who did this. And if there is something that was done wrong, Sophie hurt Dani. And that’s the wrong that has been done. But Sophie really seems to want everybody to be sad that she is adrift now, which is sort of to your thing earlier. Like she’s going through something about what it means for her and that’s not really the focus.

Riese: Right.

Drew: I think what’s happening is that the writers are like, Rosanny Zayas is incredibly attractive and incredibly talented, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to try to make Sophie unlikable and also wrong. And we’re going to see if she can pull it off that people are still going to be rooting for her. And you know what, I still am.

Riese: I’m still rooting for her.

Analyssa: I’m still rooting for her. It’s complicated, but I am.

Riese: It’s complicated, yeah.

Drew: So the test worked. But I do wonder about why… about some of these reactions. But I think she’s justifying them. I’m just like, wow, you are a mess.

Riese: Right. Again, this is completely off the charts emotional, absolute anarchy for all of these people. Like everything the ground has been pulled out from underneath them. And like all of that catering and dress … all that suit. Maybe she’ll wear that suit some other time, I guess. She looked nice in the suit.

Analyssa: She looked good in the suit.

Riese: Yeah, she did look good in the suit.

Drew: Maybe when she inevitably, or I’m hoping inevitably, gets together with Finley, they kind of do a little bit of really toxic role playing where she’s wearing her wedding suit, Finley walks into the bedroom and goes, “Hello?” And then they have sex. Just throwing that out there.

Riese: Yeah, she’s like, “I think you love me too.”

Analyssa: Sophie’s like, “Yes.”

Riese: And then Sophie just like clobbers her and they fuck in the alley and then it turns into a big orgy. And Marissa and Nat finally have their moment.

Drew: Great, yeah.

Analyssa: I loved—

Riese: Speaking of.

Analyssa: Well, I loved Alice’s little green outfit when she comes in to break up the fight.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: It’s really good.

Drew: I loved Alice saying—

Alice: I know lesbians. I know a lot of lesbians.

Drew: That was similarly to like, “for us as lesbians.” It was like one of those things where I don’t actually remember the total context of it, but I did write down that phrase because I just really like the idea of saying, “I know lesbians. I know a lot of lesbians.”

Riese: Did you see, she has a bisexual flag on her desk?

Analyssa: I didn’t.

Drew: That’s nice.

Riese: She has a little bi flag on her desk.

Analyssa: Good for her. We’ll talk about that later I’m sure.

Drew: Finley quits, because Finley is always wanting to do right by other people, even as she continuously blows up people’s lives.

Analyssa: She’s such a … yeah. She’s a real Ferdinand the Bull — I’ve actually never read that — but she’s just so big and clumsy and hurts people, but then really wants to be kind. Like she wants to be going against her nature. Anyway. It’s really sweet.

Drew: Ferdinand the Bull is a really good story. You should … if you have any younger cousins or any children in your life, Ferdinand the Bull is a really sweet kids’ book.

Riese: Yeah. Or you could have a baby. Just quit your job, get married.

Analyssa: Don’t get promoted.

Riese: Have a baby, read them Ferdinand the Bull.

Analyssa: Perfect.

Riese: That’s a life that a person could live right there. And that’s not a bad one as lives go.

Drew: It is. I do want to move on to the next scene because it’s my favorite scene that’s ever happened in the history of visual mediums.

Analyssa: Yeah, it’s important.

Drew: So Bette’s ranting to Gigi about her job. And Gigi’s like … because she’s like, “He’s using me,” and Gigi’s like, “Well, use him back.”

Riese: I thought it was really nice that we had a scene where Bette has a partner who she can talk to about racial microaggressions, because we have not seen that at all. She’s always kind of been not really with someone she can talk to about any of that.

Analyssa: That’s a really good point. And Gigi does kind of instantly get the dynamics at play.

Riese: Exactly.

Analyssa: Instead of … yeah.

Drew: This was the best sex scene ever.

Riese: Tell us more.

Drew: Okay. I can just read my notes cause I actually realized that they’re pretty … So basically I just have in all caps, “GIGI LICKING BETTE’S BOOBS.” Then, new note, all caps, “GIGI SAYING, ‘WAIT.’ New note, all caps, “TOP OFF.”

Riese: Top off!

Drew: New note, “Bette biting her tongue.” I say in all caps “OGM” but I think I meant to write “OMG.”

Riese: You were just all mixed up inside?

Analyssa: So discombobulated.

Drew: Yeah. New note, “I literally screamed in this hotel room,” which is true. I was in the hotel in Ohio and…

Riese: Nothing like that has ever happened in that hotel before.

Drew: I fully screamed. No, I’m pretty sure that there’s been some screaming in that hotel. I can actually say for certain. Anyways, so I … what are you going to do in Ohio? You’re bored. I actually think there’s probably more chaotic sex that happens in that hotel than anywhere else. Because what else are you going to do in Cincinnati?

Riese: You’re right.

Drew: Except eat chili and have chaotic sex, but probably not in that order. So anyways, then my last note was just, “Uh uh, answer me,” which was in quotes because it’s what Gigi says. And then another “OMG,” but this time I actually got the lettering correct. It was just like … I often talk about how I do feel like I’m a top, but a top how wants to be with other tops. And I’ve had people be like, “Oh, that sounds like a lot of like wrestling or it just sounds like a lot of…” And I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, absolutely.” It was … and this was exactly, when watching this, I was like, yes, this. Do you not see the appeal of this?

Analyssa: And they literally do wrestle. They kind of like grapple with…

Drew: It’s extremely hot.

Riese: It’s great. I had a great time watching. In my head, when I think of two tops having sex, I think of that scene in season five where they were running through potential hookups for Lez Girls and they had Bette and Helena just kind of wrestling each other in their big 2008 pants. And that’s, to me … but this is like, it’s actually happening. And I also really appreciated that they really took time with just some very erotic kisses, that that can be a whole genre that is actually… Usually they just rush in to the fucking.

Analyssa: Yeah. These two people are really good at kissing each other by the way.

Riese: Yeah. It’s nice.

Analyssa: Great kissing. Which I think Bette realized on their date when … because she … they do the first kiss—

Riese: Oh, yeah, that’s true.

Analyssa: And then she kind of pulls back and looks at Gigi like, “what the fuck?” And then kisses her again. So I think she also knows. They’re good at kissing.

Drew: This was good. And I am happy that it happened and it really… Any doubts that I’ve had about The L Word, about The L Word: Generation Q, I just want to say that they were … it was all made okay by this.

Riese: In this moment, everything …

Analyssa: That meme of Lindsay Lohan being like, “I never said that. Paris is my friend,” is true right now. “I never said that. Gen Q is my friend.”

Riese: Great. Well, speaking of people who’ve had sex with Gigi.

Analyssa:Great, great transition.

Drew: I really love it.

Analyssa: This one is going to be less fun though, sadly.

Drew: Yeah. This actually is … Alice gets home, Nat’s asleep, her favorite hobby, sleeping.

Riese: Sleeping with a laptop.

Analyssa: Okay, as someone who is very sleepy, I stand with Nat. People sleep! I don’t know. Whatever. My notes literally say, “Alice, people sleep.” I was so mad on Nat’s behalf. Anyway, that’s not the point. Well, actually it is.

Riese: It kind of is the point.

Analyssa: It is. It is the point.

Drew: Alice tries to open Nat’s phone with Nat’s face, which first of all, isn’t going to work because that’s not how FaceID … you need your eyes to be open. And second of all, that is, I just want to say, such a deal breaker to me.

Riese: Oh, absolutely.

Drew: Like if you try to get into someone’s… you try to get into my phone, you try to get to my computer, I mean, I have nothing to hide, but if you do that, that is… no. That’s the end of whatever relationship we had. It’s such a violation. And just such a sign that you don’t trust someone and a sign that you’re not willing to trust someone or make an effort to trust someone. It’s really… it’s no good. Not good, Alice.

Analyssa: It’s also just that Alice knows that something is going on with Nat, which great. But her reaction is to snoop instead of to just do the math in your head.

Riese: Ask her.

Analyssa: Or even just do the math in your head and realize like, hmm, my girlfriends brought up for throuples and open relationships like five times in the last two days. And then she goes and cries in the bathroom. I don’t think it’s that hard. And what does she think she’s going to find on Nat’s phone?

Riese: Yeah, that’s the other thing. Nat did attempt to open a conversation with her. Nat’s a therapist. Nat fucking loves to communicate. Alice was the one who was like, “No, there’s no need to communicate if you’re not a bad person.” Alice, I’m pretty sure if you asked Nat what was up, she would literally just tell you. What are you going to find on her fucking phone?

Drew: I mean, Alice was like, “Are you okay?” and Nat was like, “I am,” when she clearly wasn’t. But also, I do think that if Alice had taken a second to be like, “Nat, I know you’re not okay, please talk to me,” Nat would have. I think it’s very clear when someone is more concerned about the relationship, and what the status of the relationship is going to mean for that person as an individual, as opposed to being concerned about your partner, because your partner is having a hard time and you’re worried about them. I think when you don’t have the capacity to go beyond yourself and be like, “Actually this might not even be about me. My partner is going through something and I want to provide support to her,” and that’s where Alice’s mind should be. It shouldn’t be like, “What’s Nat up to, how is it going to affect me?” Sometimes your partner is just going through something and you need to talk about it, and they need to talk about it. I don’t know, it’s a big bummer.

Riese: It’s a common trope these days, but only for thrillers, and crime shows, where someone’s trying to get some intel.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, look, I think it’s realistic. I think people constantly look at their partner’s phones without permission, I think it happens all the time. I think it’s bad though. Don’t do that. Stop doing that, people out there, talk to your partners, or if you don’t trust your partner, you shouldn’t be with that person.

Riese: Yeah. Speaking of original cast members giving questionable advice—

Drew: I don’t think Alice was giving advice, but I do appreciate the effort of that transition.

Riese: Thank you so much. All right. Yeah, Alice was giving… Speaking of—

Drew: Which is what people said to me in early 2017. So yeah, so Finley is getting a pep talk from Shane and Tess.

Riese: It’s cute and makes no sense.

Analyssa: It’s cute, and absolutely chaotic, and illegible.

Drew: Which I’m into. Yeah, and Finley thinks that she and Sophie would actually work as a couple, and I really liked this moment, because I do relate to that feeling sometimes, where you’re in the middle of a bunch of chaos and you’re like, “I just see a world where if there wasn’t the chaos, this would work.” It’s such a delusional thought because, no, the chaos is so ingrained in it. But there is that feeling in your stomach where you’re like, “No, but if I had just met this person in a different world… Like we had just met each other, and we both could get over our shit, we could, it could work.” And it just ignores how important timing is to relationships. It ignores that you, actually, can’t snap your fingers and be a better adjusted version of yourself, and same with the person who you’re into. I believe that Sophie and Finley could be together in a healthy way, but you’re living in a fictional world of your relationship.

Analyssa: That’s so far from the world where you have showed up to Sophie’s wedding, in front of everyone you guys know. Anyway.

Riese: But that said, another thing about this scene though, is that Finley, she doesn’t explain. She explains a little bit of what was going through her mind when she did this, most importantly that she didn’t know the wedding… She wasn’t planning on interrupting the wedding. She’s obviously an idiot and did not… I can say that because Sophie always tells her she’s stupid, but she’s obviously not — maybe she hasn’t been to a lot of lesbian weddings. She did not know that the timing would be her walking into a wedding. She thought that she would ruin it beforehand, which honestly, is a kinder, if she’s going to, you know? That’s different. It’s still not okay, but it’s still a different… And also, Sophie should have already told Dani about this to begin with, right? So is this on Finley, but also, when Alice called and said that Sophie missed her, that Finley was like, “Oh, okay! I’ll go save her. She obviously wants me back, but can’t say anything because she’s trapped with Dani.” It makes a little bit more sense, what was going through Finley’s mind at the time. Then the joke about her hat was really cute.

Finley: I didn’t think I was walking into the actual, real wedding. In a hat. I walked in a fucking hat!
Shane: I know, we were there.

Drew: When she walked in the door, though, she could have been like, “Oh, this is happening! Oh no, I’m going to sit down.” I will say that of all the people who did wrong, definitely Finley did not handle this well, but she’s not high on my list. I even think that Micah was, I mean obviously he was less chaotic, but I do think morally Micah’s more in the wrong than Finley in this whole situation, of not telling his best friend about this, versus Finley being the one who was like, “You shouldn’t get married!” I mean, that was what I was doing while they were getting married. I was shouting at my TV, “Um, excuse me! Finley’s in love with you and I think you’re in love with her too.” So Finley was just saying what everybody should have been saying a good two months earlier? Is the timeframe, I think, I’m going to exist in? And Shane laughs and says that the whole thing is Alice’s fault, and that killed me.

Riese: Oh, and also, we find out that Finley got sober over the summer, which, I don’t know why I’m thinking she took a summer vacation. Well, because Alice’s show was on hiatus, so I assumed it was the summer.

Drew:Yeah, I think it was the summer.

Riese: And then they decide to give Finley a job, because Finley’s now unemployed.

Drew: Which is nice, I liked that development. Even though I don’t necessarily know if working at a bar and underground poker game is really the healthiest place for Finley at this point in her life?

Analyssa: I don’t know that Finley will be very good at this either, she’s kind of bumbling. It’s a lot easier, I think, to be a bumbling set PA, than it is to be a bumbling bartender. That’s just my guess having not done the bartender job. And then…

Riese: Speaking of Finley. How’s that?

Analyssa: That was great.

Drew: Yeah, she sure is in that next scene.

Analyssa: She’s in the next scene also.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: So she goes back to Dani and Sophie’s, or whoever’s house it is now.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Micah and—

Analyssa: Micah’s there.

Drew: Micah’s house.

Analyssa: And she and Micah have, I thought, a really sweet conversation. Finley, again, trying to be kind to everyone is like, “Micah, you’re not the Finley.” Then Micah is like, “Well, that was kind of fucked up also.”

Riese: Yeah. Finley’s like, “I know I fucked up. And I know everyone’s mad at me and hates me.” Then Micah’s like—

Micah: You’re really hard not to love.

Riese: And that was really cute.

Analyssa: That was really sweet.

Riese: And then.

Drew: Needle drop!

Riese: What the fuck!? What were they doing? Who let this happen? Is this legal? I don’t know if it’s legal?

Analyssa: Why was this the needle drop?

Riese: I don’t know if this is legal.

Drew: So then, “Driver’s License” plays. I will say, the thing that bothered me most about it was, that when the song starts playing, we’re with Finley to begin with. I was like, “Wait a second. Finley is not Olivia…” Olivia being Olivia Rodrigo, “Is not Olivia in this scenario. She is literally ‘that blonde girl.’” So then when we cut to Dani being a mess, I was like—

Riese: That makes sense.

Drew: This song is working for me better. It still is a move to use the most popular song of the moment in your montage. The thing is though, is that the way that I feel every time “Driver’s License” plays, where I go, “This is a really great song. I think it really deserves to be as famous as it is.” I felt that while watching it too. I don’t necessarily think that it was the best artistic choice, but I do think that it felt the way it does when it comes on shuffle for me, where I go, “This song. Pretty good song. Pretty good song.”

Analyssa: It had the effect, more to me, of seeing your teacher outside of school. Sorry, these are different universes.

Riese: Yeah, because the song became popular during quarantine, and specifically on TikTok, it was really big. So it felt like this was my private song, for me, in my bed at one in the morning watching TikTok, than it was a public song that I might hear in the middle of the fucking L Word.

Analyssa: Yeah, for The L Word: Gen Q to spring on me.

Riese: And then I obviously had to cry.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Dani doesn’t cry though, Dani pukes on her long run.

Riese: Oh man. Her run, and having all those flashbacks, I was like, “Oh God, that’s so painful. That’s just so painful.” I thought that was really well done. It really showed Dani’s character and also what she’s going through.

Drew: Yeah, I was into that. And again, it even worked with me with the song, when we were with Dani. I’m sure Dani’s listening to Sour, I mean truly, who has earned the right to listen to Sour more than Dani at this point?

Riese: I don’t know what that is.

Drew: Sour is Olivia Rodrigo’s album.

Riese: Oh.

Drew: Have you not listened to the whole album?

Riese: Yeah, of course I have. But I wasn’t looking at my Spotify, I was keeping my eyes on the road.

Drew: I famously don’t drive.

Analyssa: Famously.

Riese: Famously.

Drew: I mean, I do drive. I just don’t have a car in LA. So I listened to it a lot.

Riese: Once you get it, you’ll be able to drive by your ex’s house.

Drew: When that album came out, I was like, “Ah, I really wish that I could get into a relationship and then get my heart broken, then I could really be into this.”

Riese: Listen to it, yeah!

Analyssa: I just project myself into bad relationships that I’ve been in as a younger person.

Riese: I know, I’ve been re-mourning so many breakups through this album, while also thinking, “You just got your driver’s license and you already think that you have had the love of your life slip out of your fingers? Come on.”

Drew: That’s how it feels when you’re that age!

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: That’s how it feels! I respect it, and I support that very emotional, adolescent Pisces in all of her future endeavors.

Analyssa: She’s a Pisces? That makes so much sense.

Drew: Uh, yeah!

Analyssa: So Tess and Shane are really vibing. Tess thinks that Shane is sweet after this conversation with Finley, and she says it, like, 16 times in this conversation. Keeps saying the word sweet, which has to be, A, the first time anyone’s ever called Shane that and, B, the record for how many times anyone’s called Shane that.

Drew: I think Shane is sweet.

Analyssa: I think so too. I don’t think she’s not.

Drew: She’s a very good friend.

Analyssa: I just don’t think that’s what people are calling Shane.

Riese: I have a complaint.

Analyssa: What’s your complaint?

Drew: What?

Riese: In this scene, Tess opens up emotionally to Shane about her mother having MS. Then she says Shane needs to open up to her, and Shane uses that opportunity to share a very uninteresting fact. In fact, one that, as a co-worker, as somebody who is running this bar with her, should probably know anyway, there’s nothing emotional about it, about her needing the money, or something, from this. Number two, I actually don’t believe her. I actually don’t believe that Quiara would get half of her everything when Quiara is this very successful performer on her own. I also don’t believe that that means Shane now has no hope but an underground poker game.

Analyssa: Yeah, that was where I got stuck.

Riese: It was just stupid.

Analyssa: You think that the money-making opportunity here is to run an underground poker game?

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: Famously you can lose a lot of money in really high stakes poker games.

Drew: I think that sometimes, I’ve learned, rich people think that they’re broke when they just have slightly less money, and they like to be dramatic about it. So that didn’t actually bother me that much. Also, because Shane can be emotionally closed off, this did feel like a confession. It all checked out for me, even if it was annoying. I understand your complaint, but that’s more of a complaint I have with Shane McCutcheon, and not a complaint I have with the writing of Shane, you know what I mean?

Riese: I wanted her to be like, “I never had a hamster, but I did have a pet fish,” and then be like, “And also, I burned down Wax.”

Drew: Yeah. That’s still not canon to me. I can’t get on board with that. I think that’s just so wild. Tess says that Shane is like a sweet, feral cat.

Riese: So many cats. I’m allergic to this episode.

Drew: Finley is a kitten on the highway and Shane is a sweet, feral cat. I always thought that Shane and Finley had a little bit of, there’s some symmetry there, so that works. That works for me. Speaking of people who are sweet, Micah is telling Dani that she could forgive Sophie, that is an option. He says that she has all the power and that she can forgive if she wants to forgive. Which, I really don’t want her to because they were not working.

Analyssa: I think this is good friend advice.

Drew: No, it’s great friend advice.

Analyssa: It’s really good modeling.

Riese: She is also mean to him.

Analyssa: She is so mean to him. I think she’s just, like I said, she’s leading with anger. She is mad at everyone. I would be sad. I would be in my bed and speaking to no one. You would, effectively, not hear from me for weeks. But she’s like, “I want to yell at everyone.”

Riese: Right.

Drew: I, still, am very much mad at Micah for… Because I just think that sometimes people who are nice, are conflict averse. Then you feel like they’re not harming you, but actually, they… This is just, I don’t know. Maybe it’s bringing up specific things for me, but I do think Micah really fucked this one up.

Riese: Right.

Drew: It’s obviously not his fault the way it’s Sophie’s fault, but I get Dani having some anger. But this was really nice. This was nice advice and I’m glad that they’re reconciling. I don’t think that Dani needs to hold a grudge, but I understand her initially being angry at Micah.

Analyssa: Yeah, I don’t think it’s out of line. I would also be like… Yeah. The only other thing I want to say about Micah is that I love that everyone cares about Sophie’s family, and their dishware, so much. He’s like, “That belongs to Sophie’s grandma, don’t be mean!”

Riese: Yeah, mind the pottery.

Analyssa: Which I thought was very sweet.

Drew: Yeah, that is sweet.

Analyssa: Okay. We missed, I think there’s a scene somewhere in here, where Alice invites Sophie to this poker game that’s about to happen, and that’s fine. The point is, now we’re at the social event of the season, this underground lesbian poker game, which is just Shane’s friends, coming to hang out and play poker, but spending thousands of dollars on it.

Riese: Both of Gigi’s boobs are at the table.

Analyssa: Great point.

Riese: Great shirt.

Analyssa: Great, she, oh, I can’t. Whatever.

Drew: I’m in love with her.

Analyssa: I think I’m in love with her. It’s actually difficult for me to watch scenes that she’s in. But, Bette, Gigi, and Alice are all sitting at one table. Sophie is at the table. Finley is bartending. This is just—

Drew: Chaos.

Riese: A recipe for delight, in the worst way possible.

Drew: Gay-os.

Riese: Yeah, this is gay-os!

Analyssa: This is akin to the campfire episode that we talked about last time. It’s just everyone in one room—

Riese: In a circle.

Analyssa: All looking at each other and we all have to talk.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Okay, so Bette’s being a little bit judgy about Sophie. And I was mad, but not as mad as I will be! But first, we get Maribel and Micah being cute.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Yes, oh my God. It’s almost like they’re falling madly in love, and they’re going to bone, and they’re going to be together, and it’s going to be so cute. And I’m going to be so excited for everyone, especially me, and also them. These fictional characters who I have an investment in for some reason.

Analyssa: They have such a fun little banter, I loved it.

Riese: Yeah, because she teases, she makes him laugh. She teases him in a way that I think is really cute. And I just like her character so much.

Analyssa: Yeah. I think she’s great.

Drew: I mean, the reason why I’m invested in it is because they’re two characters that were underwritten in the first season. It would be nice if having a relationship together would mean that they could both have richer storylines that could let the actors do what they can do.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Analyssa: Yes, agreed.

Drew: It makes total sense that you’re excited about it. Even beyond your prediction being right, which is always a very satisfying thing to happen.

Riese: I love fucking being right.

Drew: Yeah. Going back to the poker game, I have to file a complaint now. And we know that I love Bette, that I’m a Bette defender.

Riese: Absolutely.

Drew: But the problem is, that Bette has done one thing in her entire life that I have never forgiven her for — which is saying something, because she’s actually done quite a few things in her life. But the one thing she’s done in her life, that I have not forgiven her for, is cheating on Jodi with Tina. I’m aware that when the original series was on, and I was three years old or however old I was.

Riese: I was 75.

Drew: Yeah. When Riese was 75 and I was three, I know that there were a lot of Bettina shippers who just did not care how many bodies were left behind as we were getting them back together, which is just a wild stance to have, but again, I’m not judging.

Riese: If you’re a Bettina shipper and you like this podcast, that’s fine. We love and respect you.

Drew: It’s a safe space, but.

Analyssa: This is a safe space, but.

Drew: I love you, I don’t necessarily respect you.

Analyssa: Drew’s on a little tear right now.

Drew: But I… No, obviously it’s fine. I’m a Bette-Alice shipper, I’m insane. But I was so mad about that happening. So, the fact that Bette is being a bitch to Sophie, and being like, “How could anyone ever do anything like this?” And then, on top of that, when Shane’s like, “Um, excuse me, you’ve done things wrong.” She’s like—

Bette: I cheated on Tina 17 years ago, and I will regret it for the rest of my life.

Drew: And I’m like, “You also cheated on Jodi!” You also fucked your TA! The amount of bad things you’ve done, Bette—

Riese: If we could itemize for a second. Number one, she cheated on Alice with Tina, who was in a relationship with a man. Two, she cheated on Tina with the carpenter. Three, she hooked up with her TA, which is incredibly inappropriate. Four, she started dating another teacher at her university, which is already a little bit ethically cloudy, and then cheated on her. And it’s not even, just, that she cheated on Jodi with Tina, but she kept Jodi around.

Drew: Oh, she had a full affair.

Riese: Yeah, as she was figuring shit out with Tina, and that is fucked up. There’s lots of hard parts about being cheated on, but in my opinion, the hardest part is, sort of, the gaslighting. This denial of the reality that you’re living in, and you start to feel crazy. You start to feel weird, like something’s off, but they keep saying nothing’s off. That is fucked up. So there’s that and then, even in this series, she was dating a colleague who she kept seeing secretly, even though it was kind of disrespectful of people in her campaign, who were working really hard for her. And I don’t relate to all of her bad decisions, but I understand that we all are people who’ve made mistakes, and I’ve made quite a few, which is why I would never sit at a table and be all holier than thou towards Sophie! Ever! Ever.

Drew: Yeah, exactly. That’s the thing is that, the only reason we need to list these things off is because she is asking for it, by being like, “I made this one mistake 17 years ago,” and it’s like, no, no.

Riese: No.

Drew: No, no. You are a serial cheater.

Riese: Are we supposed to think that Bette is only sharing that one anecdote because she’s trying to hide the other ones? Or did everyone forget that that’s what happened?

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: I couldn’t tell.

Drew: I think it’s that… A lot of other people at that table know, they could have called her out on it.

Analyssa: Yeah, but I think Bette’s narrative, in her brain, is actually… Especially with the Carrie thing happening right now. Her thought about herself, and her life story is like, “If I had never cheated on Tina that one time, actually, none of this would have happened, and we would still be together and happy.” That is genuinely, I think, what she thinks.

Riese: Oh yeah. That was the fork in the road.

Analyssa: Yeah, that’s the big, overarching thing that has happened.

Riese: Also, Tina just had a miscarriage. I forgot to add that to the—

Drew: Right. I think Bette is narrativizing her life in a way that is not healthy, but makes sense, where she’s like, “Tina was my life, and so cheating on Alice to be with Tina? That’s morally okay, because it got me with Tina. Cheating on Jodi to get back with Tina was okay, because I never really left Tina.” It’s these series of things where it’s like, “No, no, no. Those are also people. Those are also people who were hurt in your pursuit of your Ross and Rachel.” I know that some people, maybe, were on board, and were like, “Bette and Tina endgame,” whatever else happens doesn’t matter.

Riese: I was on board, if we’re being honest. I was really into it.

Drew: And that’s fine. But, it is just this thing where in the real life of the universe, those are real people who have real feelings, and you deeply hurt them. So anyways.

Riese: And Jodi was poly before she met Bette, and wanted to have an open relationship.

Drew: Yeah, she wanted to be open! The worst. Awful. Alice wins the poker game and, you know what? I don’t think Alice has ever really cheated, so good for her. I mean she got close. She got close.

Riese: Oh yeah, she almost hooked up with the girl from Heavenly Creatures. The fashion designer, when they wore matching outfits on that little scooter.

Analyssa: On the little scooter!

Drew: Yeah, but she didn’t. So…

Analyssa: The only other thing I have to say is that, sadly for me, this scene confirmed a little bit more my kinship with Alice. Because, I too used to drink like one beer, and then show everyone my cards, and be like, “This is good, right?” And they’re like, “That’s not how you play cards.” Anyway.

Riese: I thought you were being metaphorical there.

Analyssa: Nope. Sadly, no. Just absolutely, literally showing physical cards to people.

Drew: Alice may not have ever cheated, but she’s still not a perfect partner, because Nat comes out to her as polyamorous and Alice is terrible about it.

Riese: Furious.

Analyssa: Alice is really bad at this. This is no good.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. But there’s also another thing that happens, that’s also not good, in this scene. Which is that, Nat’s like—

Alice: Okay.
Nat: It’s no different than you being bi.
Alice: What?!
Nat: Yeah. I’m poly and you’re bi.
Alice: That is not the same!
Nat: It’s actually exactly the same. It’s parts of our identities that need to be explored.

Drew: Which, there’s a way that that could have been said.

Riese: Exactly.

Drew: But it was certainly not said, the way that it should have been said. I don’t know if we’re supposed to think it was said in the way it should have been said, but there’s just so many reasons why that is not a fair equivalency, because someone’s bisexuality does not actually impact their monogamous relationship, if they’re in a monogamous relationship. Whereas, if someone is polyamorous and wants to pursue that, as opposed to, “Oh yes, I’m generally poly, but I’m in a monogamous relationship because I want to make that compromise,” if someone is, “I’m poly and I want to explore that,” that actually does impact the other person in a monogamous partnership. So there’s a line of thinking of, “I have this side of myself. Why are you being judgmental? You know how people in the queer community can be judgmental to people who have experiences that are outside of the norm.” There’s that way of saying it. That’s not what she said.

Riese: Or that it’s something that is intrinsic to just her, like it’s part of who she is, and she can’t change it. She can’t talk herself out of being poly any more than Alice could talk herself out of being bi. It just is who she is, which I think is different than what they say, which is…

Drew: Right. So, not the best, especially considering the show has not the best history with talking about bisexuality. I didn’t love that this was how it was phrased. It was just, “Oh boy,” you know? But remember when Bette and Gigi had that sex scene earlier? That was really good. That was like a real good sex scene.

Analyssa: Great point.

Riese: I loved that Nat… I think it’s fun, though, that they’re making Nat the one who’s figuring out that she’s poly, because she seems sort of straight-laced compared to a lot of the other characters, you know?

Drew: Yeah. Totally. Totally.

Riese: And so I feel like that’s an interesting thing to do, but… And then Alice was like, “But I haven’t been interested in any men or looked at any men” or something. I’m like, “What are you talking about? What’s happening?” It was very confusing. But also, props to Nat, who somehow wants to have a full-time job, two kids, a relationship, and other relationships.

Analyssa: And Gigi in her life, taking on so much stuff.

Riese: Exactly. They say women can’t do it all, but Nat’s ready to do it all.

Analyssa: Nat wants to do it all. She’s gotten her hair color touched up for this season. She’s ready to take on the world.

Riese: She sure is.

Analyssa: I love that for her. I don’t think Alice and Nat belong together, but I do like when they’re happy together, because they are fun to be around. Those two actresses, I say this every episode, but Leisha Hailey and Stephanie Allynne are just so fun and quippy and on it, that it makes me sad when they’re sad together.

Drew: Also, I don’t know, I’m just so confused. I feel Alice definitely had a lot of feelings and got really attached and definitely had jealousy and et cetera, et cetera. But also she was pretty fun and sexually adventurous. I don’t really understand this either last season, her being anti-throuple, or this season being anti-poly in general. It doesn’t feel like a necessary… It’s also just this thing where I do sometimes think that fighting is just a really easy way to have conflict and that there are actually other ways to have it. If Nat and Alice were poly and both on board for that, conflicts could arise that aren’t, “We vehemently disagree with each other on the very nature of our relationship.” They could just be smaller conflicts that could be really interesting to explore and play in. I do think sometimes this show, in both iterations, has a tendency to be like, “Every conflict must be the biggest thing that it can be.” And sometimes it actually isn’t the more interesting choice. Again, I get it’s a soap opera, so it’s fine to make it big, but I think if we could get more group sex… Fighting isn’t the only way to make things big. So, I’m just saying, you can also add people to a sex scene.

Analyssa: That’s bigger. That’s big.

Drew: That could be big. Much bigger.

Riese: And it’s also, with these characters, we have this history for all of them. They have this long history and it feels like they’re really resistant to bring to bear upon anything, which is so confusing to me, because that’s such a great place to go into a show. You have all these people you’re creating from scratch and these other people who have this known history. Bette did cheat on Alice. Alice did lose Dana to Lara and then Dana died. Alice was with Tasha who then kind of fell for Jamie a little bit. Alice has this history that could explain why, even if in her mind, Alice exploring my portals season, that kind of sexually adventurous person just can’t do non-monogamy because they just have too much baggage from other relationships, I’m sure especially Dana. We didn’t see that because it was between seasons, but that would have been so, so hard, because I’m sure there was a period of time when she was like, “Okay, I’m just going to trust her to hang out with Laura and that’s totally fine.” And then was like, “I guess it’s really not,” but she doesn’t mention any of that.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Right. That’s a really good point. Yeah. I don’t know why the show is so resistant to take… I mean, I’m aware that we all know the original series more than maybe the average viewer, but you don’t need… Even if people don’t come in with that context memorized, you can still reference that context, the same way that you can write character backstories, even if you’ve never had a prequel.

Riese: I know I talk about my exes constantly, and more than the average person, for sure, but it’s egregious, especially when… last season I had the same feeling, when that throuple was happening. Like, “This would be a time to talk about what happened with Tasha and Jamie. This isn’t your first rodeo.”

Drew: Right. Well, the fights continue, as Dani goes to see Sophie. And it’s like, “Oh, is she going to take Micah’s advice and forgive?” And let me tell you, that’s not what’s happening.

Analyssa: Absolutely not.

Drew: Sophie begs her to forgive her and Dani’s like, “Nope.” And Dani’s right, because it’s not that you can’t come back from cheating or breaking of trust or anything, but the level that this got to, she can’t get back. I mean, there’s just no world where she could get back together with Sophie and it would be healthy at all. I don’t see that. The balance is so off. I don’t see how it could possibly happen.

Riese: Yeah. And also the wedding, because they’re both very wedding-, family-, marriage-focused people. I think that was one of the things they had in common, is they both have that desire for this monogamous marriage and relationship pretty early in their lives. But if they were going to get back together, would they try to get married again? Because if I were Dani, I would just have a panic attack that whole time thinking, “Oh my God, this is somebody who might have cheated on me.” Would Sophie have ever cheated on Dani again? No, but—

Analyssa: But you’re always going to be thinking like… Is this the scene where Dani is like, “It was the night that you cried in our bed?”

Riese: Oh, right. Yeah.

Analyssa: Any time Sophie comes home crying, you’re going to be like, “Okay, is this it?” Once you’ve put those pieces together and come up with the—

Riese: Full puzzle.

Analyssa: “This big thing happened on these big events of our life.” You’re right, it seems impossible to build back up to like, “Okay, we’re going to happily get married. We can never go to Hawaii again, first of all.”

Riese: Yeah, that whole state’s off the map.

Analyssa: That whole state is just ruined for Dani. There’s just so many things that just won’t… Anyway.

Drew: I mean, the harsh truth is that Dani is going to be haunted by this in all of her future relationships. It’s not even a matter of, if she got back with Sophie, would she be haunted by this? It’s like, of course she would be, because the next time she’s with anybody, those scars live on. That level of hurt, that level of betrayal, you don’t just bounce back from that. And so, you can’t dwell. So, I don’t know. I mean, I think the thing about making Sophie really in the wrong is that I was so team Sophie in the first season and now I’m warming up to Dani in a way that’s fun, because I want to like all of our friends. And Dani makes the right choice here, and then Dani makes another right choice, because she goes to Bette’s and gives her a hug. And I don’t know what happens after that. Probably nothing, but it’s still nice. It’s still a good choice.

Analyssa: But it’s not nothing.

Riese: That was so nice. I was really excited and happy that she did that.

Analyssa: And Sophie gets to cry with her family, too. I just thought there was some good… This was really shitty and sad and they both have something to lean on, which is nice.

Riese: Yeah. And also it’s nice that she got to lean on Bette. You know what I mean?

Analyssa: Yeah, especially Bette. Yeah.

Riese: Because it is kind of like a power move when you go over to the city’s top lesbian and she will embrace you.

Analyssa: Yeah, like the the city’s queen lesbian.

Riese: Yeah. And you’re probably still kind of attracted to her, and even if nothing happens, at least you’re like, “I’m in Bette Porter’s arms.” And that in and of itself is a win, regardless of context.

Analyssa: And Bette Porter’s in a robe, too.

Riese: Yeah, she’s in a robe.

Analyssa: I don’t know.

Riese: Probably a really expensive robe.

Analyssa: It probably feels really nice. You know?

Riese: Yeah. She’s probably like, “Let’s get you out of this robe and into my dreams.”

Drew: Yeah. Everything’s really shaking out the way that I personally wanted it to, because Sophie goes home and sees Finley and then she asks Finley to stay. So maybe something’s going to happen there too.

Analyssa: They’re doing this full dance around each other. I think you’re right, Riese. It’s like Sophie can’t really be like, “Okay, great. I’m just going to do the Finley thing,” because that’s insane. That is bad optics, if she’s just like—

Riese: Right. Then you’re the bad couple. You’re the ones who cheated and messed everything up, and now you’re with each other. It’s difficult. Yeah.

Analyssa: And now you’re happy? That’s no good.

Drew: Okay, here’s my crazy stance, though, that I know everyone disagrees with me on. If I’m Dani, I would want Sophie and Finley to be together.

Analyssa: Yeah, that’s true.

Drew: Because if they got together, I’d be like, “Oh, so you were actually, there was something here. It was meaningful.” If they don’t, then it’s like, “Wow, you blew up our lives for nothing. You have so little respect for me that a fuck with our friend was worth destroying me.” If it’s like, “Oh, you spent three years in a relationship with this person,” I’m like, “Okay, well I guess it was worth it to you.”

Drew: Someone in high school who really, really hurt me, the person who they started dating right after that, they’re married now. And I’m like, “Well, I was never going to marry you, so I’m glad that you made that choice, and I really do forgive you for bailing on me at prom.” Because I’m like, “You fully have a husband now with this boy we went to high school with.” So, I love that. I do understand that the side eyes would be pretty intense, but if it’s real, that means more.

Riese: Yeah, I think you’re right.

Analyssa: That’s really mature of you. If I were Dani, I’d want neither of them to be happy ever again.

Riese: I would want them to be together, because I’d be like… At least once I got better… Because Dani’s going to find someone else who’s better for her. You know what I mean? Dani’s going to find someone who’s better for her and she’ll be happy. She’s got a lot going for her. But once I got out of that fog, I would be like, “I do care about Sophie and I do want her to be happy.” You know what I mean?

Drew: Right.

Riese: But I relate to that too, when something happened, and where, when two people get together and I’m like, “Why are you doing this? Why are you fucking up all of this shit for this whatever, this stupid relationship or…” But also, I will say being on the other side of that, where you’re the one who’s in a relationship that came out of a lot of drama, it puts a lot of pressure on you to have the relationship be good, and you deserve it. You deserve to have to grapple with that pressure because you did fuck up. I’m saying “you,” and I was in a relationship like that once. It’s a lot of pressure.

Drew: Sophie’s figuring it out, but what she wants, like Drew said earlier, is for Finley to stay.

Sophie: Don’t go.
Finley: Don’t go?
Sophie: I want you to stay. Goodnight.

Riese: Which is the big ending.

Drew: And that’s the episode! I liked this episode a lot.

Analyssa: I liked this one too.

Drew: I was clear I wasn’t a big fan of the premiere, and this episode really had a lot. Did it have things that bothered me? Absolutely, but the good stuff was so good, and I just found it all to be really entertaining. And even the stuff that bothered me, I enjoyed… The bisexual line and the Micah comparing transness with being married, those two moments, I was like, “Maybe not.”

Riese: And Bette’s denial of her…

Drew: Well, even that, that bothered me, but I was screaming at the TV on Jodi’s behalf. It’s not something that I feel deeply serious about. It’s just I love Jodi, you know? So overall — and it had the best sex scene ever. Again. I think we should talk about that. So, I liked it.

Analyssa: In Kayla’s “Which L Word Character Would Destroy Your Life?” or whatever, I did get Jodi. So I’m—

Drew: I got Jodi, too!

Riese: I got Bette.

Drew: I got Jodi. Who did you get?

Riese: I got Bette.

Drew: That checks out.

Riese: But I think that actually Bette would destroy my life from the inside. I don’t think Bette would destroy me. I think I would become Bette and destroy myself. Does that make sense at all?

Analyssa: Yeah. I really liked this episode. I liked the high drama. I know it’s the most fought-in episode of all time. I kind of liked — to Drew’s point from last week, that things are building to a new place instead of… This is like the tower episode. Everything has to crumble so that they can all come back up.

Riese: Right. It’s like in season four of The L Word original series, that’s when suddenly everyone was single for a minute. I think maybe Tina was with Henry, but everyone else was single.

Analyssa: That doesn’t count.

Drew: Being with Henry is being single.

Riese: Yeah, being with Henry is being single. And that’s when a lot of fun stuff… And I think that it seems kind of where we’re heading with a lot of these people, where they’re single, but these things are sort of building. And that’s exciting, because I think that the show opening last season with Sophie and Dani were together and Alice and Nat were together, there wasn’t as much… And Shane and Quiara were still together. They were poly! They had an open relationship! How did Alice not…

Analyssa: It’s so unclear.

Riese: What?

Analyssa: I think this is a thing about Alice, though, which I remembered from our last episode where I was like, “Why would Alice be mad about this Gigi thing?” It’s just a part of her personality where she’s like, “This is fine in theory, and then as soon as it gets into my home, it’s absolutely not fine.”

Drew: Yeah, that’s fair.

Analyssa: And it’s like, okay, I guess, but apply the theory to your own home. It just is kind of frustrating.

Drew: And does she think Shane is a bad person?

Analyssa: Right. Or Quiara?

Drew: Yeah. She said, “Only bad people are non-monogamous.”

Analyssa: Alice has to be problematic every season of The L Word. She has to have some thing that she’s mad about, and you’re like, “Why are you mad about this? This is not correct.”

Riese: Right.

Drew: But overall, I was thrilled.

Riese: Me too.

Drew: This is what I want from Gen Q, pretty much, and I’m excited for this. By the time this comes out, the episode will be on Showtime, on the website. That means that whenever anyone wants to, they can just scroll to… I didn’t write down the timestamp, but whatever the timestamp. We’ll put it in the show notes. We’ll put the timestamp in the show notes for you. Yeah, pretty fun. Pretty good stuff.

Lauren: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back Generation Q! One of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @tolandback. You can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget, we also have a hotline! Yes, it still exists! Leave a message, give us a piece of your mind! You can reach us at 971-217-6130! We also have merch! Head over to store.autostraddle.com. There are “Bette Porter For President” t-shirts, there are To L and Back stickers, and lots of other simply iconic Autostraddle merchandise. Our theme song is by the talented Be Steadwell. Our brand new To L and Back Generation Q logo is by the incredible Jacqi Ko! Jacqi is so, so talented and you should definitely go check out her work, I’ve linked her website and socials in the show notes! And let us know if you want us to make stickers of the new logo, because I think those would look pretty sick! This episode was produced, edited and mixed by me, Lauren Klein, you can find me on Instagram @laurentaylorklein and on Twitter @ltklein. You can follow Drew everywhere @draw_gregory. That’s “Drew” in the present tense. You can follow Analyssa on Instragram @analocaa, with two As, and on Twitter @analoca_, with one A and an underscore. And you can follow our in-house L Word savant and living legend, Riese Bernard, everywhere @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And of course, the reason we are all here…. Autostraddle.com. Okay. So sticking with the trend of last week with our now full-of-intention L words, we are going to end this episode with an L word that describes what we thought of this episode. So Drew, Riese, Analyssa, what are your L words?

Riese: I picked for my L word “Lost” kitten on the highway, because that was Finley’s vibe in this episode, and I respect it.

Analyssa: I picked “Lounge” wear.

Riese: Are you thinking about the robe?

Analyssa: I’m thinking about the robe.

Riese: Slipping off the little robe?

Analyssa: … and Gigi and Bette, and Nat is very sleepy. There’s a lot of lounge wear, lounging stuff, which is important to me as a lazy person.

Riese: Who felt seen?

Drew: Another great L word.

Riese: That’s great.

Analyssa: Another great L word, lazy.

Drew: My L word is “Licking,” as in, licking, comma, Gigi Bette’s boobs. Yeah, that’s all I have to say about that. I think I’ve said enough.

Analyssa: All right. Well…

Drew: Here’s to many more sex scenes with the two of them or—

Riese: Other people.

Drew: Bette and Dani. We’ve really been blessed with… Here’s the thing that The L Word does well. Tops.

Riese: Hops?

Drew: Tops. Tops.

Riese: Oh, tops. Yeah. There’s no top shortage on The L Word, that’s for sure. It’s a myth. It’s a myth.

Analyssa: I feel like I stopped hearing about the top shortage.

Drew: There was no top shortage.

Analyssa: I wasn’t really present in the discourse for a while.

Riese: It was present in the discourse for a while, yeah. It was so present that I decided to do a massive survey of all of our readers to find out if there really was a top shortage.

Drew: Wait, really? Wait, I don’t remember that. What did we find?

Riese: There is.

Analyssa: There is a top shortage.

Riese: No, but the main thing that I found is that most people are switches. The vast majority of people are switches, and that more dramatically, there’s a dom shortage. The comparisons of tops to bottoms was a little bit skewed towards bottoms. But the sub to doms was incredibly skewed towards subs.

Drew: That checks out.

Analyssa: Interesting.

Riese: So, get out there and get your tops off on your yogurts.

Drew: This is the kind of science you can expect from us at To L and Back.

Riese: It sure is. We love science.

Analyssa: We love science here.

Riese: Science cast. Next week, more on Russian dictators, or Russian leaders, depending on how you feel about communism.

Analyssa: Bye.

Drew: Bye.

Riese: Drew loves communism.

Lauren: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back Generation Q! One of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @tolandback. You can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget, we also have a hotline! Yes, it still exists! Leave a message, give us a piece of your mind! You can reach us at 971-217-6130! We also have merch! Head over to store.autostraddle.com. There are “Bette Porter For President” t-shirts, To L and Back stickers, and lots of other simply iconic Autostraddle merchandise. Our theme song is by the talented Be Steadwell. Our brand new TLAB Generation Q logo is by the incredible Jacqi Ko! Jacqi is so, so talented and you should definitely go check out her work, I’ve linked her website and socials in the show notes! And let us know if you want us to make stickers of the new logo, because I think the new logo looks pretty sick! This episode was produced, edited and mixed by ME, Lauren Klein, you can find me on Instagram @laurentaylorklein and on Twitter @ltklein. You can follow Drew everywhere @draw_gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instragram @analocaa and on Twitter @analoca_. And you can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And of course, the reason we are all here…. Autostraddle.com.

Ok, so to end this episode, we are going to do something a little different. Usually we end with a random L word that has little significance to the episode we just recapped, which obviously was great, but for this season we are mixing it up! We are going to bring a little bit more intention to our L words. So Riese, why don’t you explain how this is going to work!

Riese: So at the end of the episode, instead of all saying an L word at the same time, we are just going to say a specific L word that we choose, because it is specifically related to how we feel about the episode in some manner. And today we’re going to use L words that say how we feel about the season upcoming.

“Wait, Is This a Date?” Podcast Episode 101: Believe People Are Into You

The very first episode of “Wait, Is This a Date?” is officially out wherever you listen to podcasts! Join the one and only Christina Tucker and me as we play a deeply personal game of Fuck, U-Haul, Ghost and discuss our main topic of the week: Believe People Are Into You.

We laugh! We cry! We learn about ourselves! (Okay we don’t cry because we’re both earth signs with emotional walls, but we do have feelings.)

And because we’re a new podcast if you like this episode please rate and review!

SHOW NOTES

+ Christina mentions that she slid into my DMs about this Ocean’s 11 live read.

+ But we realized she actually slid into my DMs much earlier in response to this insta story of mine:

Meme from @astrowonders. Rihanna sits in a chair labeled "earth signs in quarantine" Words around her include "just living their regular life they're already used to be inside all day and preaching to everyone how to stay healthy. Drew has edited one to say having extravagant anxiety attacks!!!Screenshot of instagram message. Christina says: Yeah this is a Taurus Olympics for me. Drew says: I have been training for this my whole life.

+ Here are some more fun screenshots from that first convo:

Screenshot of Instagram message. Christina: God help me I love a d-bag Drew: Are you that way with women too Like IRL Christina: Kind of? I have a fondness for Mean Girl energy (shocking) But I tend to actually date like Earnest theater types!?? Drew: !! To be fair those can absolutely go hand in hand Christina: Oh no doubt! But I think I have just enough self awareness to know that I don’t need to seriously date a person who is going to like…make me meaner I need a lil golden retriever energy Drew: That seems very wise haha I always say I like people who are mean but kind?? Drew: I think I just like banter Christina: YES same If we can’t banter like wtf are we doing Drew: Exactly! I don’t want someone who is… actually cruel or thoughtless or whatever Definitely had to learn that the hard way Where I was like ohhhhh it’s just that I like flirting in a certain way It’s not that I want an actually mean person who makes me feel bad and is unpleasant lol Christina: YEP What is your Venus in Drew: Sagittarius Christina: AH mine is in Gemini Drew: Cap sun, Leo rising, Taurus moon, Sag Venus and Mercury

+ And here’s when I asked for her phone number:

Screenshot of Twitter message. Drew: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! You should give me your phone number because I didn't know which platform to wish you a happy birthday Christina: OKAY so I was THINKING the other day that it was dumb we didn't have each other's numbers tbh

+We recorded this episode awhile ago and I would like to officially answer my first FUG with fuck Jinkx, U-Haul with Symone, and ghost Carmen. (Sorry, Carmen, I love you.)

+The music video for Texas’ “In Demand” with Alan Rickman that was formative for Christina.

+A fun sample of Catherine Zeta Jones’ contemporary Instagram presence. Okay here’s another.

+The quote I reference from Detransition, Baby:
“Jen was obviously a true transsexual. Amy had never met a trans girl in person, and her fascination with Jen bordered on painful. Look at her. She looks like a girl. She sounds like a girl. More than that, Amy thought, she wanted something from Jen. Something like sexual attraction, but shaded differently. Something closer to the thrill she felt when a celebrity passed by. Of a nameless wanting in the direction of that celebrity. The abstract beckoning that celebrities exude. The gravitational pull of their fame that tugged at Amy so that she felt anxious to be close, to be seen, and to be valued. To feel those celebrity eyes move without friction across the smooth surface of a clamoring fandom, then suddenly catch upon her, stop dead, and return her gaze. That moment of mutual recognition, that’s the only way to have your existence stamped valid, to transcend the anonymity of mere fan, of inconsequential gawker. Jen’s was a noncelebrity celebrity that Amy could feel. A pull that maybe only she would feel. Amy kept turning to see where in the store Jen was.”

Christina: It was bantery and it’s because you and I both find banter to be, if not the hottest thing — well, no, we just find it to be the hottest thing.

Drew: Yes 100%.

Christina: I think we just find it to be the hottest thing. And I think because we got along so well, we naturally fell into a lot of banter, which for us, again, translates into hot, cool, dating, flirting vibes.

Theme song plays

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: Hi, I’m Christina.

Drew: And welcome to, Wait, Is This A Date?

Christina: An Autostraddle podcast, dedicated to the question: wait, is this date?

Drew: Is it?

Christina: Well, maybe it’s actually our job to figure that out and tell the audience?

Drew: Cool. It’s early. We’ll see how we feel at the end.

Christina: Early days, yeah.

Drew: Cool.

Christina: Do we want to tell the people who we are or do we want to just kind of leave them in the questionable mud?

Drew: I can go first.

Christina: Yeah. Tell me who you are. I’d love to know.

Drew: Yeah. My name is Drew Gregory, I’m a writer and filmmaker and gay and trans, not necessarily in that order. I’ve written for Autostraddle since fall of 2018. I write a lot about movies and TV, and also a lot about dating, specifically dating as a trans woman in lesbian community. And also most of the movies I write are about trans lesbians, so a real through line there. Oh, and if it wasn’t clear, I love dating. And more than that, I love talking about dating.

Christina: It’s one of my favorite things about you, how much you simply love to date and talk about it and do all of that. What I’m going to call nonsense, just generally.

Drew: Sure.

Christina: I’m Christina Tucker. I am also a writer at Autostraddle. I’ve been there since 2019. I am a podcaster and writer, I have appeared on various podcasts. I co-host a podcast called Unfriendly Black Hotties about intersection of race and higher ed and pop culture. I am kind of just on the internet, like a loud internet queer is how I would often describe myself. I, unlike Drew, hate dating and thus our podcast was born, I would say. Would you say Drew?

Drew: Yeah. I think that’s been a pretty steady thing throughout our friendship is that it is one of my favorite topics and one of your least favorite topics. I think there are a lot of ways we’re very similar, but that is the way we are very not similar. We also, we can give this context but, we didn’t really know each other before the pandemic. So you were hired at Autostraddle fall of 2019, as you said, and I knew of you because of that. But then like the first week of the pandemic, for some reason we started talking in the DMs. I don’t remember which of us slid into whose DMs. Do you remember?

Christina: I want to say, I slid into your DMs because you were doing that table read of Ocean’s 11. And I was like, “Is Ocean’s 11 the best movie ever made? Discuss.” And we were both like, “Yeah, it actually is.” And then kind of from there we really ran.

Drew: Yeah. And then we just were messaging a bunch. And then somehow, well, at some point I got your phone number, and then very quickly into having your phone number we started sending voice memos instead of text messages.

Drew, in voice memo: So I’m just going to tell you the feelings that I have, and then you can go from there and respond to me, not respond to me, whatever. This is me being direct and clear.

Drew: And that was sort of our friendship for the year was us just for periods of time, like all day, sending very long voice memos back and forth, which we would always joke was like a podcast. And then sometime earlier this year I was very stoned and sent you a voice memo that was like, “what if we actually had a podcast?” And the next morning, unlike, I think, any other time I sent you a high voice memo, you were like, “that’s actually a great idea.”

Christina: Yeah. Most of the time, because Drew and I live on opposite coasts, I go to sleep and I wake up to like one or two voice memos from Drew, sometimes high, sometimes not. And usually I listen to them as I’m coming out of a slumber. And I say, “That’s my friend Drew. She’s having an experience that I didn’t experience because I’m over here asleep.” And then I kind of just move on with my day, respond when I feel like it, if it’s necessary. Sometimes they’re just, “this is a thing I was thinking about.” But this one, I said, “No, that that friend of mine is onto something. She’s got a real idea happening and we should be doing this.” And now here we are. I’m really excited though. I think it’s going to be great. I think we’re really fun. I think we’re fun to talk to. And I think us talking about dating is going to be at least very interesting for people to listen to.

Drew: I would say so. I have a little bit of an ego on me. I’m a Leo rising and a Capricorn sun, so. But I do often think like, you’ll send me a voice memo and this isn’t even about me, it’s not about my ego. It’s about just thinking you’re great. And being like, “Oh my God, this is great. And I wish other people were hearing this very funny thing Christina was saying.” And now you all can!

Christina: Well, I’m also a Leo rising. So that really works out well. We know each other very well, but you, lovely listeners, do not know us. So we’re going to do a little icebreaker so you can get to know us, get to know our vibe, get to know, I guess what we’re into dating wise, so you can listen to this podcast and be informed about our taste. Is that correct?

Drew: That feels really accurate. I like the idea that a game of, “Fuck, U-Haul, Ghost” is going to be that revealing for our listeners. But you know what? I think it will. I think who you want to fuck and U-Haul and ghost with are very telling. I think.

Christina: Yeah, I think so too.

Drew: I could start.

Christina: I think you’re going to start.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: Yeah. You’re actually going to start because you dropped a little hint the other day to me that you were cackling with delight as you were putting these together. So I want to see what you’ve done, ma’am.

Drew: I just was like, wow, I really know Christina so well. Oh, the other thing people should know is we’ve never met.

Christina: Oh, right.!

Drew: In person.

Christina: Yeah, no, we live on opposite coasts and I don’t know if you know, but we’ve been living on a damn, Paul Blart mall cop, so we don’t, we haven’t met.

Drew: And yet, I know you so well. So the first one that I want to start with is like real basic. Like I’m thinking years long, Christina’s love when we met and Christina’s love now. So your three options are Allison Janney.

Allison Janney: Who’s my little man. You my little man? That’s my sixth husband right there. The best of them.

Drew: Michelle Gomez.

Michelle Gomez: I’m Missy. Welcome to heaven.

Drew: And Jennifer Aniston.

Jennifer Aniston: Hi Brad. You know how cute? I always thought you were.

Christina: This is a challenge. Actually, it’s not that hard. I’m going to have to ghost Jen. I love Jen. I think her work is incredible. We are both bottoms and there’s not much that would happen there. And I think that’s great. I think that’s beautiful, but that’s just not going to be what is going to happen. Obviously, fuck, it’s going to have to be Michelle Gomez. She’s a tiny Scottish lunatic. Her birth chart is nuts. Lot of Scorpio in there, a lot of Sag. That’s going to be a fun time. Day to day, I’m a tourist. That’s not going to work out for us. So we’re going to have one just fun night, maybe a weekend, who can say, I don’t know what the parameters of this fuck are. But it’ll be fun and then she’ll go off and do whatever she does. And baby Alice and I are going to just absolutely U-Haul, just U-Haul away. We’re going to have a great time. I do know that our birth charts are pretty compatible and I think that’s nice. So I thought that was going to be hard and it was actually very easy and maybe…

Drew: Great. I love that. The fact that you could bring in certain evidence about these people, I think is really beautiful, and I’m really happy for you and Alison, that it’s in the stars.

Christina: Thank you. Thanks so much. For you, I wanted to hit three things that I know you love. So first we’re doing a drag race edition.

Drew: Great.

Christina: We’re doing Symone.

Symone: Don’t let the smooth face fool you baby.

Christina: We’re saying Jinkx.

Jinkx: I am Seattle’s premier Jewish narcoleptic drag queen.

Christina: And we’re saying, Carmen Carrera.

Carmen: Raja’s getting naked. I’m like, this is going to be hot because Carmen is nudity and we’re going to throw down right now.

Drew: Ooh. Okay. See, I’m very bad at hypothetical games because I think through them for hours. We don’t have hours, so I’m going to try to do this really well. I think I have to ghost Carmen.

Christina: I think you do too. That was my thought. But—

Drew: I hate to do that.

Christina: You hate to see it.

Drew: I’m really torn between, I don’t know. Okay, so I do know that Symone’s also a Capricorn, Jinkx is a Virgo. I’ve actually never dated another Capricorn or a Virgo. I think, okay. It’s as if the stakes are as high as I’m actually going to U-Haul with this person.

Christina: No. It’s like, you’re going to walk out of your apartment and see these people on the street being like, “Well, we heard what you picked.” I know that’s what’s happening in your head right now.

Drew: I think that I’m going to fuck Symone and U-Haul with Jinkx. And my reasoning behind that is that I think that based on where they’re at in their lives, I think Symone is, based on this current season of drag race, is still working through some things and maybe isn’t ready for that level of a relationship, which is so mean for me to say, but I feel like Jinkx is already, I think just got engaged. So in my view, if she’s ready to get engaged, so.

Christina: I love that you’re bringing this real life energy into it as if me publicly calling Jennifer Anderson a bottom is like, science fact.

Drew: You could also flip that though and say that I should U-Haul with Symone. I actually don’t know if Symone’s single, but Jinkx isn’t available for a committed relationship. Anyways, these are my thoughts. Should we move on?

Christina: Yeah. This is actually a really good thing for the listeners to know. This is the level that Drew’s going to take everything we discuss. So just get yourself prepared for that. She’s ready. I’m ready. Here we go.

Drew: Okay. So next I wanted to do a male edition because something that is fun is that I know that despite you identifying as a lesbian, there is a certain type of man that you are drawn to.

Christina: Yeah, it’s bad.

Drew: So the three options are, Roy on Ted Lasso as played by Brett Goldstein.

Roy: Jesus, Mary, and fuck face Joseph, eyes on the man you’re marking, come on!

Drew: Corey Ellison on The Morning Show as played by Billy Crudup.

Corey: If he wants to fire me, he’ll fucking fire me. I don’t need this job. The only reason I’m doing it is because it’s fun. I’m very, very good at it. And it’s easier to get laid when you’re employed.

Drew: And Alan Rickman in the Texas music video, “In Demand,” which is a very specific thing I know about Christina, that she loves that music video and loves Alan Rickman in it.

Christina: I am… honestly, this is so much harder than the first one. I’m starting to feel like I have to do a very Drew-level, in-depth, deep dive. I got to reorganize myself. Okay. Okay. So the thing is, Alan Rickman is dead, so I do feel like I have to ghost on him, unfortunately, because he ghosted on me first — as much as that music video was formative for my sexuality, we will include a link in our show notes to that music video, it’s deeply important, everyone watch it. There’s a moment at a gas station, anyway. He is a ghost. So I will in turn ghost him. Now, Roy and Corey, this is tough. Corey does not have a lot of sexual energy to me as played by Billy on The Morning Show. He’s just kind of like a chaos demon, and that’s fun, but I don’t know, sex wise, if anything’s happening there for him. It doesn’t really seem like something that’s on his radar ever. So I might be tempted to marry Corey and have a night of passion with Roy Kent, and then move on. Leave him to Keeley as he deserves, and go on with Cory where he’s running a network of some sort. Yeah. I think that’s the answer. I think it’s ghost Alan Rickman, who, to be clear, ghosted me first. Fuck Corey Ellison. Nope. Wait, was that a Freudian slip? Tough to say. No, it wasn’t. I just forgot. Fuck Roy Kent. Marry Cory Ellison. Wow. I’m sweating. That was hard. That was really hard. Alright. For you, of course, I had to do an actor’s edition because of who you are as a person. So we’ve got Lola Rodriguez.

Lola Rodriguez: [Speaking in Spanish]

Christina: Indya Moore.

Indya Moore: It’s more tricky to exist than it is to walk in this dress.

Christina: And Jamie Clayton.

Jamie Clayton: Oh, come on. Girls must love that wall that you’ve built. But seriously, I’m stoked that you’re here. I wish the whole bar was filled with girls like us.

Drew: Wow. Okay.

Christina: Because it turns out, I know you too, friend.

Drew: I really love the commitment to trans actors, also.

Christina: Yeah, dog. Again, I say I know you.

Drew: Okay. It’s so funny when it’s queer actors, trans actors, where I’m like, “I’m going to meet you at a party someday and I’m going to regret whatever I say about you on the internet.” I am going to ghost Jamie because she’s straight.

Christina: Fair enough.

Drew: And as much as I love… I don’t fall for cis straight girls, but I do fall for trans straight girls. And I think that is my right as a gay trans girl.

Christina: Yeah. It is.

Drew: But I’m still going to ghost Jamie because I think it’s just healthier for me to not try to do that. I think I’m going to fuck Lola Rodriguez because I don’t actually know if… I don’t know how much English she speaks and I do not speak Spanish. So I think that… I mean, if we U-Hauled, I think we would learn and that could be really great.

Christina: They say immersive language learning is kind of the best way to do it.

Drew: Exactly. But I think I’m going to fuck Lola Rodriguez and I’m going to U-Haul with Indya Moore. I also feel like I know more about Indya’s personality from their social media presence. And so I just think that based on that, I’m like, “Okay, yeah.” I actually don’t really know what their sexuality is, but I feel like… We’ll see. Well, I don’t know the sexuality of most people who are into me and most of them don’t know their sexuality so that’s part of the fun.

Christina: And that is something we will explore on this here podcast.

Drew: Amazing. Okay. Last one. This is a Catherine Zeta-Jones edition.

Christina: Oh boy.

Drew: So first Catherine Zeta-Jones in Chicago.

Catherine Zeta-Jones: [Singing] Come on babe, why don’t we paint the town?

Christina: Sure.

Drew: Second, Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment.

Catherine Zeta-Jones: Hey! This is entrapment!

Man in scene: What?

Catherine Zeta-Jones: I said, this is called entrapment!

Drew: And three, Catherine Zeta-Jones’ contemporary Instagram presence.

Catherine Zeta-Jones: Well, hello everybody. This is Catherine Zeta-Jones and I am so excited to be sharing with you that I shall be launching my very own talk shop live channel.

Christina: Who boy. Who boy. This is… Whew. Okay. So this is a challenge for a couple of reasons. One, because they’re all Catherine. Two, because Catherine as Velma in Chicago was what some would call the root of my existence, though, upon looking back further, it seems like there were more that I just didn’t quite clock at the time. But that one was a big one that even I noticed something gay about my reaction to this. Part of me wants to pick the most chaotic thing and say, I’m going to marry the contemporary Instagram brand because it is so baffling and chaotic to me and I just kind of want to observe it on a closer level. I just want to see it in real life and just be like, “What is going on here as you’re doing this reel in your closet set to Madonna’s ‘Vogue?’ What’s happening?” But then also a large part of me thinks I would be exhausted by that, so, something to think about. But on the other hand, Entrapment Catherine is constantly entrapping people and I’m not strong enough to be set up into some sort of world of crime. As much as I would like to pretend I am, I’m a laptop guy. I’m trying to hack into the mainframe. That’s all I’m trying to do. I can’t be… She’s climbing stuff. That’s tiring. So I think we’re going to go for fuck Entrapment Catherine. We’re going to have to, unfortunately, ghost current Instagram presence. And U-Haul the classic Velma, even though that U-Haul really could turn out poorly for me because she is a murderer.

Drew: That’s true. I don’t think you’ll have it coming though.

Christina: I don’t think I will either, but I don’t know. I’m not her blood sister and she killed that bitch so who’s to say?

Drew: That’s true. Does she have any more sisters? As long as you don’t fuck them, you might be in the clear.

Christina: But that also could be a fun turn of events for me. All right. Your final one.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: I went Twitter edition.

Drew: Oh no.

Christina: Okay. I went with our current mutual friend, Harron Walker.

Drew: Okay.

Christina: Jennifer Espinoza and Jen Richards.

Drew: Wow. I’m turning bright red. There’s a line in Detransition, Baby, the character is sort of newly out or exploring and sees a trans woman who’s further along and is like, “Oh my God.” And Torrey describes it like seeing a celebrity. And I think that line is really accurate. And I also think that it doesn’t really go away as you continue to…

Christina: Trans out?

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: What is the phrase for that? Is there a word for that?

Drew: When you’re not transitioning anymore, you’re just trans. And you feel like you’re still transitioning because life is long and complicated. Oh my God. I can’t. I’ve also met two of these people.

Christina: I know.

Drew: And one of them I know on the internet.

Christina: You’re not going to do any of these things to these people, but I did pick them because I knew it would send you into a logical tailspin.

Drew: Okay. I’m going to go… I’m going to…

Christina: I also just want to see if my predictions are correct. I’m excited.

Drew: That’s so interesting. So part of me wants to cheat and be like, “Well, Jen Richards is married. And if I ghosted her, she wouldn’t care.” So that is maybe what I’m going to say.

Christina: Fine.

Drew: At the same time, Jen’s an Aquarius and I do have a history with Aquariuses.

Christina: You do.

Drew: Hmm. I think I’m going to fuck Jennifer Espinoza and marry Harron.

Christina: Yeah. That is basically what I thought.

Drew: Really? Okay.

Christina: I knew that you were going to ghost Jen. I knew that was going to happen.

Drew: Because I could use that she’s married as an excuse?

Christina: Yeah. I was like, yep, there’s an easy way for Drew to talk herself out of that one. That’s going to be fine. And then I was like, “I think…” Yeah. No. Great.

Drew: I love Jen so much, though.

Christina: I know you do.

Drew: I think she’s just an incredible person and…

Christina: And aren’t you glad we changed it from kill to ghost?

Drew: Yeah. I wouldn’t be able to kill any of them. That would have been… Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. It is wild though that I am saying that because Harron’s the only one of the three of them I haven’t met in person, so not to be such a lesbian and be like, “Oh, I’d U-Haul with the person who I have not met.” But we also haven’t met. And also the person who I’m sort of long distance dating right now, I haven’t met. So you know what? It’s just what we’re doing as a people.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, it is the most lesbian option for you to pick the person who’s on the opposite coast.

Drew: That is also a very good point.

Christina: Good job.

Drew: It also makes it so it’s not real and that makes it easier for me.

Christina: You know what else makes it so it’s not real? That we did it for a podcast that we just made up right now.

Drew: Wait. It’s not legally binding?

Christina: No.

Drew: I do think all three might ghost me. I could see that happening.

Christina: Well… And baby, that’s community. That’s just what community looks like, on a close-up level.

Drew: I feel like if I was trying to date all three of them, I could see worlds where they would ghost me. And I would be honored to be ghosted by any one of them.

Christina: That would be a great story you could tell at parties, when parties are a thing again.

Drew: Oh, I wouldn’t do that. I will say things on podcasts, but I would never admit to that at a party, only on a podcast for a lot of people to listen to would I ever be vulnerable.

Christina: You know what, listeners? Stay tuned for other things that Drew will say on podcasts and not in person at parties. That’s a new recurring segment we just discovered.

Drew: Oh, God. Wow. Moving on. So today’s main topic is “believe that people are into you.”

Christina: My reaction to that is to make a face and just sigh for a long time. Just a long sigh.

Drew: Yes. And we thought it would be fun for this first episode to have a topic where we can use ourselves as, I would say, slightly mortifying test subjects.

Christina: Yeah. I think test subjects is the right descriptor. And I think slightly mortifying is incredibly correct as well.

Drew: Yeah. So I think the best place to maybe start is to give a little background, which is that… So when Christina slid into my DMs and we started talking, I was like, “Oh, cool. This person slid in my DMs”. And we started… I would say flirting. Would you say flirting?

Christina: Now? Yes. I think I have to. I’ve learned some things.

Drew: No, no, no. You absolutely don’t have to. I would say that regardless of intent, when we were first talking, it was friendly, but… Here’s the thing. It’s that it wasn’t flirting in the sense of we weren’t being graphically sexual with one another, but it was…

Christina: It was bantery and it’s because both of… You and I both find banter to be, if not the hottest thing, the… Well, no. We just find it to be the hottest thing. I think we just find it to be the hottest thing. And I think because we got along so well, we naturally fell into a lot of banter, which for us again, translates into hot, cool, dating, flirting vibes.

Drew: Yeah. And it was a pandemic. So I was like, “There’s nothing here. Nothing can happen, especially this is early months of pandemic.” With each passing week, it became more and more clear that maybe we’re going to be in this for… I don’t know. Six months, a year, more than a year. Yes, that is what it ended up being as some of you may know. But I just was like, “Cool. It’s fun to flirt. It’s fun to have a new friend.” And then at a certain point, you referred to me as your friend and also talked a lot about how you exclusively are into people who are 45 and above. And I am not 45 and above. I am actually 27, which is younger than you. So I was like, “Oh, cool. We’re just friends”. And that was sort of where I was living for a while for basically summer of 2020.

Christina: Yeah. That tracks.

Drew: Because you were certainly also living there.

Christina: I was in my own world actually… Far separate. Which we’ll get to when you’re done.

Drew: So I had agreed to watch every episode of The Morning Show with you.

Christina: You did.

Drew: And we embarked on that journey together.

Christina: We did.

Drew: And I thought it was going to be like, “Oh, we’ll do that over a period of months.” And instead we just watched it in a week. And we FaceTimed every night for a week. And we also… When you FaceTime watch something with friends, you don’t usually just hit play and not talk. We literally were basically on FaceTime with each other for a week straight. And then it ended and you were like, “So, do you want to watch a movie this weekend?” And I was like, “Okay.” I was like, “We just spent a week together. Okay.” And I was like… And so then… And that whole time… I live in my friend’s backhouse and I would come into the main house and my friends would be like, “How’s your girlfriend doing?” And I was like, “No, we’re just friends.” And then by day three, I was like, “I don’t know if we’re just friends. I don’t know what’s happening here.” And also you were starting to open up to me in certain ways where I felt like some of your emotional walls were coming down and we were sort of talking about dating. And I was learning things about you. And I was like, “Huh.” And some of my previous feelings started to come back. And I was like, “I think this might be a thing.” And then you got sick so we didn’t watch a movie together that weekend. And then you started a new job. And you sort of disappeared a little bit. And I was like, “Okay.” I was like, “I think maybe Christina got freaked out or something and so maybe… I don’t know.” I was like, “She certainly doesn’t want to date me. I don’t know if she wants to be my friend.” And the person who I am was like, “Okay. I’m just not going to text Christina for a week and see if she texts me.”. And you didn’t and I was like, okay, cool. So, experiment proven. Like we don’t, we’re not … for most people, I would not think that not talking for a week would mean that we’re not friends, but it just — we went from talking every day to that.

Christina: Every day, all day. I cannot express enough.

Drew: And I don’t do … I think even a not pandemic, that never would have happened because I’m a pretty independent person. I have shit to do, I just like, yeah. But yeah. And so then I was like, okay. And then you texted me the morning after I was like, well, experiment proven. And you were like, Hey, I think your exact words were, “remember when I had a friend Drew, like what happened to her?” And I was like, “what happened, what? You didn’t reach out to me!” Like, oh, excuse me. And so then I think I was sort of like I’m, even in a pandemic, even though there was nothing that could come of it, I like to be direct. I don’t like to have, I don’t know, are we friends? Are we dating, whatever? I find myself in that situation a lot, but I really like to pull myself out of that situation because I just would prefer to know things because I don’t care. I shouldn’t say I don’t care, but I—

Christina: No, I love that energy. “I don’t care!”

Drew: No, when I have a connection with someone, I’m like, oh, if it’s romantic, great. If it’s friendship, great. If I meet someone and I want them in my life, which doesn’t happen that often, I don’t really care what the configuration of that relationship is. But I just like to know. And so we started talking about dating.

Christina, in voice memo: I never think about a romantic, I really rarely think about a romantic element, in getting to know people. Rarely does romance come to mind for me, which is interesting.

Drew, in voice memo: I don’t date people who aren’t my friends. I mean, I sometimes date people before they’re my friends.

Christina, in voice memo: What I do with friends is be emotionally vulnerable and honest with them. What I do with people who I’m dating is not that. At least not typically. Then again, it is a pandemic. So.

Drew: Yes. And I also was talking about, yeah, I don’t have great friend sex boundaries. And you had said that you were monogamous and that you never hooked up with friends.

Christina, in voice memo: For me, the difference between dating someone I am friendly with, or like acquaintances with, and dating someone who I’m like super close friends with and talk every day, that’s a different vibe. And I’ve never dated someone I was super close friends with. I’ve only ever dated people who were acquaintances or had mutual friends, but we didn’t talk every day. And like, maybe I had their phone number, maybe I didn’t. But we had a basis of knowing each other casually, I think, in a less intense friendship way. I think I get intense in friendship contexts that I don’t think about as romantic.

Drew: And so I was like, got it, message received. And I was like, I don’t need to be any more clear. Once again, I’m like, Christina does not want to date me, and that is fine. And then you sent me a voice memo after I said where I stood on those things, and you were like, well. And then you went on to describe the non-monogamous relationship you were in, that sounded like you thrived in it way more than a lot of people I know who actually identify as non-monogamous. And then you also were like, I like to have a base of friendship before all my relationships. I was like, that’s literally the opposite of what you said. So I was like, what are you … I was like, this was the most confusing voice memo from ever. I also recorded it, brought it into the house and was playing it for my roommates. And I was like, what is this? What is happening with this person? And then I was like, I was so confused. And then you just disappeared for some hours. And I was like, this person has these emotional walls, and maybe we’re going to start dating, but also we’re not because I had a whole dramatic episode of The L Word in my brain happening, and meanwhile, you had no idea.

Christina: I don’t often say — well I do often say, head empty, no thoughts, but I truly was head empty, no thoughts, just going about my day, I think I had a couple of glasses of wine, I saw that I had a voice memo from you, but my housemates and I were going to watch something. And I was like, I’ll listen to that later. We’re watching TV. We’re just finger guns, having a time doodling around. And then I listened to this voice memo from Drew that starts like,

Drew, in voice memo: You are my friend regardless of anything else, but yeah I have definitely— even if there were times where I was like Christina is not interested in me and that’s totally cool. But if you potentially are I don’t know you could share that. Or you could not share it. I have now said my piece.

Christina: About what? Like, it’s Wednesday. It was some day. I don’t know what day exactly it was. It doesn’t matter. It was just like a day. I thought we were just having a day of conversations, a very regular Drew and Christina day of conversations because Christina, this whole time was just like, I work with a cool person who lives in LA and I want to talk to her, so now we’re friends. Like that was as far as my little brain went and that’s as far as my little brain kind of ever goes, which is what we discovered as I listened to your voice memo, as I listened to your, some would call it a manifesto. I believe it is almost—

Drew: Manifesto?

Christina: It’s almost seven minutes long, Drew.

Drew: It was the length of a manifesto, but I don’t think there was anything manifesto-ish about it.

Christina: I don’t know. I think starting a seven minute long voice memo with, “I’m going to say my piece” has manifesto energy.

Christina, in voice memo: Thank you for saying your piece. Also, six minutes and 54 seconds. Honestly, rather impressive for you to get that out in that amount of time.

Drew: Okay. I will accept that. I think I just wanted to be like, I had faith that like, whatever conversation, however the conversation went, like we would still be friends, which is a really cool thing to be able to say about someone who, again, we have never met in person. But I just was tired of the uncertainty,

Drew, in voice memo: Part of me is like we clearly get along so well and if there is a mutual attraction part of me is like yeah you don’t think about dating because you have all these walls up but maybe you should put some of those walls down? Question mark? Because like what if this could be really great in that way also? I don’t know! I don’t know if this even matters because we’re not flying to each other. So I don’t know. Yeah okay I’m going to send this because I’m officially at five minutes.

Drew: I was at least under the assumption that you had, even if you had zero interest in me in that way, I assumed you knew, because I constantly talk about how I have bad friend boundaries and how I don’t … I’ve literally, the things that I’m saying right now about how if I meet someone and I like them, I don’t really care where things go with it. Like, I had said that. So the thought that you had never considered the possibility that I felt that way about you blows me away. And also I said this in one of the voice memos where I’m like, if you enjoy being horny on the internet, but you actively don’t want to be dating, and you actively don’t want that, and you’re not thinking that way, then that’s so fine. And I will drop this, but I just was like, but it confuses me if that’s not the case and if you are someone who ultimately wants to be dating, be in a relationship, that there was no part of your brain that thought that this person was into you in that way.

Christina: Yeah. And that I think was really an eye opening moment for me. And we should say, it’s been, this conversation occurred in December.

Drew: Which is also nuts though, because I feel like when I realized that was December and not August, I really thought it was August. Like I thought it was like—

Christina: I thought it was August too. I thought it was at least September, maybe September. But who knows what time. Again, time is a flat circle, it’s been a year. We don’t know. We don’t know anything. We’ve been friends for a year. We’ve never met in person. We’ve talk every day. There’s a lot of stuff happening. Yeah. That was really the moment where I had to kind of step back and think like, hmm, what is your deal, self? For you to have felt so confused, like you were — the genuine bafflement in your voice when you were like,” I don’t understand how you could hear a person say those things and think that simply none of them applied to you. Like what is going on in your brain?” I was like,” oh, oh no. What is going on in my brain?”

Christina, in voice memo: And to that I say, that’s just because no one ever thinks that about me? And not in a boohoo girl who doesn’t get to the ball way. But just my experience in my life has been that like everybody sees me as their friend and not necessarily as a romantic partner. Pretty much ever. So I think in order to keep myself from feeling let down I just assume that no one is ever interested in me in that way because for a lot of my life no one really was.

Christina: That seems like a bummer. Like, that seems like something that I should talk to someone about in some sort of professional context. Like what’s going on in there, self with regard to your insecurity and self worth? Like maybe that’s something you should check in on.

Drew: I’m just curious where that took you, because again, there are multiple paths. Because I’ve certainly gone through periods of time where I have been surprised that people are interested in me because of whatever insecurities or whatever views of myself. And I’ve had to work through that. And look, it still comes up for me sometimes. I think sometimes I’ll end up in the wrong things because I will be drawn to people who are very outwardly flirtatious. Whereas a lot of the people who are outwardly flirtatious are outward flirts, and the people who are actually interested in me in a real way, maybe aren’t being so forward. But when they’re not being so forward, I have my own doubts about them being into me. And so I would be more inclined to think someone who actually is not interested in me in a real way, but just like, that’s their energy. I’m quicker to be like, oh, this person might be interested in me. And that has led me to a lot of negative experiences. And I think like that’s something that I’m working on, being like, if I feel a way about a person, I should actually tell them if I feel any sort of energy, even if it’s not very overt, very obvious. And in a way that’s respectful and not creepy, but just being clear, and taking that risk, and, and taking that risk of rejection, and et cetera, et cetera. The question is, I guess, that I have for you is like, do you feel like in these months of reflection, do you feel like it is coming from that self-worth place of thinking, I don’t even know… like, I don’t know. Or is it that it is not a priority for you? That like, if you end up finding someone, great, you have very specific ideas of what you’re looking for. And when you find that, like it’s going to click and it’s going to work and whatever. Because those are both very valid options. And there’s a world where there’s nothing wrong with you. We just function differently and we just have different things, whatever. So like, I don’t know if you’ve come to any conclusions as far as where you’re at with those things.

Christina: I don’t think I’ve come to any conclusions for a couple of reasons. One, yeah, I think this is really fun and a fun, funny conversation for our first episode, because I don’t think either of us, neither of us are wrong. It was just very fascinating to see how two people with totally different context, bringing their experience to the same experience and like what they take away from it is very interesting to me. Unfortunately, I think some could say I did not learn my lesson because a similar situation did happen to me again with a different friend. So it seems I still have some work to do on that front. And I still don’t know what that front is, because again, it was still a friend, getting to know a friend who we had mutual friends, hanging out, having conversation. And again, when they brought up the, “Are we dating. Should we date?” I said, “What?” And was just as genuinely shocked and confused as I was when you brought it up.

Drew: But you didn’t want to date either of us, so maybe it’s fine. You know what I mean?

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: The question is like, are there people who are not actresses in their fifties, who you do want to date?

Christina: Well, and you know I had a history of dating, not a great history, but I did do it pre-pandemic. I do think a combination of pandemic time, really increasing the energy of my brand being actresses over 50, running me over online. I do think somewhere, those wires kind of got a little crossed. And now that we are approaching a summer wherein people are going to be out in the world, and more people are vaccinated, I’m like, oh no. Do I know how to date anymore? Will I be able to do that in the future? I genuinely don’t know, because it has been like a year and a half since I’ve even considered it. And I am not sure that I’ll be able to do so in the real world. And I think we’re probably going to learn, you’re going to learn along with us, listeners, as I attempt, as I see what happens to me in the world. But so far, not great. So far, CT not nailing it.

Drew: I mean, I’m really excited. I’m really hoping throughout this podcast, you start just dating like crazy, and maybe like I settle down. Who knows what could happen? I am curious, my next question: so, I was like saying how, the way that I usually am aware that people are into me is like, they’re very overt in their flirting, which can sometimes be inaccurate and an inaccurate assessment. I’m curious when you’ve dated in the past, pre-pandemic, what scenarios led you to believe that those people were into you? Were they very direct with you? Like what did that look like?

Christina: Yeah. Either it was someone I had met on some sort of app geared towards dating, very clear and direct. And in the handful of times that it wasn’t, it was like acquaintances who had always felt flirty, and then were very direct with me in person and usually ended up with some sort of making out/sex/something occurring. So, that was always pretty … Maybe I just can’t figure out how to grok it in not-person anymore. Maybe that’s what’s happening to me. But I also just think that there was a long period of my early 20s where I was like, “Oh, I’m going to date. I’m going to have a relationship,” where it just never happened, just never hit. And a lot of that was in my early 20s, I was dating a lot of cis men, which was a choice some people make. And some people like it and I didn’t at all. So that was partially confusing to my brain, to my young brain, to be doing this thing that I was like, “Oh, this is how this goes,” and not liking it and being like, “I don’t understand why this doesn’t work.” Yeah. But I don’t know. I was just never the person who got approached in that way really.

Drew: That you know of.

Christina: That I know of, I guess. And yeah, in retrospect, shit, maybe it was happening every day of my life and I didn’t notice it. Who can say.

Drew: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m just trying to think, because pretty much all of my friends who weren’t in relationships when I became friends with them, I became friends with because we started off either dating or I wanted to date them or they wanted to date me. And I’m realizing that maybe that is not good or just this idea that during a pandemic, someone DM-ing me for friendship was just … didn’t cross my mind, which is maybe fucked up in its own way, that I didn’t even consider that I was like, “Oh, I’m really getting along with this person.” It wasn’t that I thought, “Oh, we can’t be friends,” because again, I’ve met close friends on Tinder, and I haven’t met any relationships on Tinder. So I really do think that part of blurring those lines isn’t even fucking my friends who are established, though I have done that. But it’s more about, oh, I will meet someone and be like, “Oh my God, this person is so cool. I’m in love with them.” And then I will start talking to them and it will usually pivot to friendship because of circumstance, because of what I’m looking for or what they’re looking for, whatever, but that it usually does start with that. And I am like, “Hmm, why is that the only way that I can make friends?”

Christina: Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know about that. I don’t actually have the answer to that, as the person who approaches it from the exact opposite energy. I don’t know that I have the answer that you’re looking for on that one, friendo.

Drew: Yeah. Which is fine. Yeah.

Christina: We might find it. We might find it in these months, these upcoming months and weeks.

Drew: I hope so. I also think it’s, again, there’s no judgment here in any direction. I think all of these different ways of moving through the world … I do think again, I think there are these things we can work on, right? Maybe some of the past experiences I have with friendships that are negative — when I say past, I mean go into some elementary school trauma, that has made it so I’m quicker to date than to form friendships. And then, because I am a person who wants to have friends, a lot of those friendships are born from that dating, and that working on the ability to just make friends and not attach dating to it could be something that I work on. And maybe you do need to accept the fact that everyone who meets you is in love with you. And maybe that’s just a thing you need to work on a little bit. But I also think that even as we explore those things, work on those things, those baselines of how we move through the world, one’s not better than the other. One has a lot more internal drama in one’s brain, as the person with that brain. But also, most of the time that we were getting to know each other over the, whatever, six months before, or eight months, whatever it was before we had the conversation where everything came out into the open, I wasn’t thinking about you and our relationship in this strict way. I was really excited to become friends. And that was always … but also part of the fun for me was being like, “Oh, flirting. Oh, this is a thing. This could maybe be a thing. And who knows when the world opens up.” And I think part of it is that I do just find it fun. And I do, I find that I like dating. I really think that.

Christina: I think that is a large part of it. You just genuinely enjoy doing it.

Drew: I think I am a little bit of a romantic, even though anyone who identifies as a romantic is insufferable. But I’m a little insufferable. And I just, I really, I think it’s just all the … I mean, I don’t know. It’s interesting though, because I was going to say it’s all the movies and TV shows and books. But you also have that, but you don’t carry that into your day-to-day life.

Christina: No. I keep that very separate. I love to see it. I simply love to see it and I love to read it. And then in my real life, I say, “Well, that’s not for me. So I’m not doing that.”

Drew: And I’m constantly, constantly trying to recreate it. So, and along the way though, making so many friends and not having that many relationships. So I love that for me.

Christina: It is funny that we have the same outcome, despite our drastically different approaches.

Drew: And that’s beautiful. Okay. So another thing that we have in common, another two things is that I think it’s pretty clear already from all of this conversation is we both love pop culture and we also both have a lot of crushes. And so we thought it’d be fun to, at the end of every episode, share who our crushes of the week are. Christina, do you want to go first?

Christina: Yes, I do. I again have rewatched the program Ted Lasso, because I got another friend into it and then I accidentally rewatched it again this week. And I would like to say that my crush of the week is Hannah Waddingham, a giant British woman who I love very much. She’s very beautiful. Her face is very severe and she’s an excellent singer. Thank you, Hannah, for living on this planet with us.

Hannah Waddingham: Your casual misogyny for one. I know it’s a big word. Ask one of your daughters what it means. Or perhaps it’s your performance, having led this team through yet another remarkably average season. Or maybe it’s because you insist on wearing those tiny shorts that are forcing me to see one of your testicles.

Christina: Drew, do you have a crush?

Drew: Yeah, that was the least surprising crush that you could say, and I love that. My crush of the week is … Okay. So I actually, despite loving ’90s movies, I had never seen Empire Records and my roommate very much encouraged me to and we watched it together. And look, Chicago, the film, was also a very formative movie for me, but I also was very drawn to Catherine Zeta Jones. That was who was the focus of that. Also, I just want to point out that I’ve brought Catherine Zeta Jones twice. You’ve really done a number on me. Anyways, but watching Empire Records, I was like, “Oh my God, Renée Zellweger is so hot.”

Renée Zellweger: I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do. I can tell you what color and what kind.

Man in scene: All right. Alright. What am I wearing now?

Renée Zellweger: Jockeys, navy blue. Am I right?

Man in scene: I don’t know.

Renée Zellweger: Well, why don’t you check it out and you let me know.

Drew: And I was just like … she just was this person who has been in my life for so long, and I always knew it was hot. I’m not saying anything that inventive, but I was just like, “Wow.” So Renée Zellweger in Empire Records is definitely my crush of the week.

Christina: Mm. That’s chef’s kiss. I love it. I love a classic ’90s crush. We love to see that. Oh, we love to see it.

Drew: Okay, cool. And so just one last thing, the question we ask ourselves every week, Christina … Wait, was this a date?

Christina: No, Drew. It wasn’t.

Drew: Cool. No, I just wanted to check. It’s cool. So it’s fine. I just wanted to double-check, be clear.

Christina: She loves to be direct.

Drew: Yeah. And I love to move forward with that in mind. And I did have a good time though.

Christina: I had a lovely time.

Drew: So what’s it called when you have a good time, but it’s not a date?

Christina: Friendship.

Drew: Oh, cool. Cool, cool, cool. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. I’ll write that down.

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 also email us at waitIsthisadate@gmail.com.

Christina: Our theme was written by Lauren Klein. Our logo is by Maanya Dhar, and this podcast was edited, produced, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me online @c_gracet on twitter.com, the website, and you can find me on Instagram @Christina_gracet.

Drew: And you can find me on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok @draw_Gregory. And you can find Autostraddle on all social medias @autostraddle.

Christina: And go visit autostraddle.com, because it’s the reason we’re all here today.

Drew: Thank you all so much and, you know, see you next week.

Christina: Yeah. We’ll absolutely see you next week. And we can’t wait.

Drew: Yeah. And maybe next week … maybe next week will be a date.

Christina: Hey, maybe it will be. Wilder things have happened.

Drew: Except you know what? I also think it’s important to clarify to the listener that if you ask someone if something’s a date or not, we probably should take that as a moving forward that I don’t think every time you see someone you should … That’s not really direct communication as much as it is not really respecting someone’s boundaries. And we do like boundaries here at Wait, Is This a Date?

Christina: The gayest thing about this podcast is that the outro is a boundary.

Christina, in voice memo: I think my instinct is if I like a person and I want them in my life, I know the best way for me to keep them in my life is to make them a friend.

Drew, in voice memo: I’m just so glad that we’ve become such close friends. And if out of quarantine, that’s what happened, is that I made this amazing new friend who I love dearly and I’m just delighted to talk to you always, what a gift.

Christina, in voice memo: Dammit. I had a thought and it went away. It was, honestly, probably really brilliant.

Drew, in voice memo: Yeah. Okay. This is actually the end. Good morning.

“To L and Back” Generation Q Podcast Episode 201: Late to the Party

Well it sure has been a minute, hasn’t it! Many things have changed in the last year and a half but one thing remains true: The L Word and our love of gabbing about The L Word. There is at least one very fun change to the podcast this season, which is that Riese will now join Drew and me as a host for Season 2! Only time will tell if there will be more fun changes in store but we’re thrilled to be back.

After what feels like truly forever, we finally get to check back in with our Gen Q crew! On this week’s episode we get answers to burning questions like, who was Sophie running toward in the airport? Will Shane ever learn who she’s allowed to flirt with? How much do we love Carrie? And is thinking cheating? Just kidding, that last one will be discussed until the end of time, apparently!

SHOW NOTES

+ Riese’s written recap of Episode 201: Late To The Party
+ I was wrong – it’s Breakroom 86 that you enter through a vending machine!
+ The Bachelor Mansion AirBnB, which actually costs less than I originally guessed
+ Riese’s recap of the original Is Thinking Cheating conversation, The L Word 5.10 “Lifecycle”
+ Drew’s copaganda-critical essay

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew!

Analyssa: I’m Analyssa!

Riese: And I am Riese! And this is—

Riese, Drew, and Analyssa: To L and Back!

Drew: Generation Q.

Riese: Gen Q. Much like Generation Q is the spinoff of the original L Word, this podcast is a spinoff of a podcast about the original L Word, and it’s owned or supported, I don’t know what the words are, by autostraddle.com, a website.

Drew: Yeah. Well, I’m so excited to be back after all this time.

Riese: Me too.

Drew: There was a whole pandemic since we were recording Gen Q To L and Back episodes.

Riese: Right. And also you’re in Ohio, which is weird.

Drew: I am in Ohio right now working on a movie. I did not move to Ohio.

Riese: I love Ohio.

Drew: Leaving LA for a short period of time. I’ll be back.

Riese: Oh, should we explain who we are?

Drew: Oh, sure.

Riese: I’m Riese. I am the CEO and co-founder of Autostraddle and I was also the co-host of To L and Back. And I know way too much about this show.

Analyssa: I’m Analyssa. I co-hosted the first season of this with Drew and we’re thrilled to have Riese join because she knows so much about the show. And I’m gay. And I live in Los Angeles and I work in TV. I’m going to be a studio exec someday. Someday, she says. And that’s me.

Drew: I’m Drew. I’m a writer for Autostraddle and a filmmaker. I am also gay. Wow! And I’m trans. And I know a lot about movies and some about television and I love The L Word so much and I hate The L Word so much. And there’s a world where Gen Q wouldn’t continue that tradition and it’s certainly a different — the love and the hate are very different, and yet the complicated feelings continue on. I’m excited to get into this first episode and see how we’ve all grown in the year plus since we were last — it’s been a year and a half, wow! — like a year and a half since Gen Q was last on and we were discussing our lives through the lens of this beautiful, beautiful show. Should we start?

Analyssa: Okay. Let’s get mad about The L Word.

Riese: Let’s get into it.

Drew: We begin the second season of this television program with—

Riese: Not at the airport.

Drew: Nope.

Analyssa: Not at the airport where everyone wanted it to start.

Drew: Nope.

Analyssa: But in fact, at the Bachelor mansion, basically.

Riese: Right, exactly.

Analyssa: I watch a lot of The Bachelor, that’s something about me. And I was like, this is the mansion, which by the way, you can rent that mansion on Airbnb.

Drew: I didn’t know that there was only one.

Analyssa: It’s like $10,000 a night or something.

Drew: Wow!

Analyssa: A fun idea.

Drew: Fascinating.

Riese: Well, I guess Showtime sprung for that.

Analyssa: Anyway, Showtime shelled out the $10,000 a night and that’s where we are.

Drew: Yeah, and like Sophie is greeting Dani and it is their rehearsal dinner for their weddings, so they didn’t get married—

Riese: Yikes!

Drew: … but they are still together and they are getting married and Dani’s dad gives a nice little speech and I was just like, okay, I guess this is how they chose to start this season.

Riese: Yeah. I was like, there’s no way this is going to be like, they’re not… There’s no way that this is going to be like they actually get married and then lived their lives. They didn’t set up all that drama for nothing. You know?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: That was my thought, but I was also like, Dani’s dress is really nice.

Analyssa: She does look beautiful. Sophie said that and I was, okay, I agree, but why are you here? I don’t agree that you’re here but I agree that she looks beautiful. Notably, none of their friends are in the shot. We only see her dad and I was stressed.

Drew: Her dad who, last season, was pretty terrible.

Analyssa: Yes, but now he’s here and here to talk in a thick accent. He says, “Mi Yee-ha,” which I thought was insane, it’s fine. I’m going to try to let that one go because I think it’s going to come up a lot, but just know that that’s something I think about. Anyway, this is my least favorite thing in TV, actually, when something cuts to a thing and goes blank hours earlier or like blank days earlier.

Drew: Oh interesting, why?

Analyssa: That may be a personal problem, I don’t know.

Riese: I love it.

Analyssa: You’re like, unpack the drama for me. Show me.

Drew: Yeah. I also like it, so I’m curious why you don’t like that.

Analyssa: I don’t know. Instead of leading up to something dramatic and you have this sense of unease the whole time, you’re like, “Oh, something big is going to happen.” You know that something big has happened and then they drop you back.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: And so, you’re just building to the thing. Anyway.

Drew: You don’t like the dramatic irony of it?

Analyssa: No.

Riese: It is a weird thing to think about in terms of like, this also is related to if you like spoilers or if you like to read the back of the book before you read the book, like the different experiences of viewing or reading something when you already know.

Analyssa: When you know what it’s building too. It’s like, okay, well, when do we get there? When do they line up? Anyway, and this episode delivers on kind of a fun, when do they line up, which I thought was fun. Anyway.

Drew: What’s interesting about this 15 hours earlier is we don’t go back — it’s not like we go back to Sophie and Dani. It’s this 15 hours earlier and it’s Shane and Tess—

Riese: And a dog.

Drew: And a dog going to a speakeasy in a vending machine.

Riese: To see Lena Waithe.

Analyssa: They’re basically going to… Have either of you been to Davey Wayne’s? They’re basically going to Davey Wayne’s.

Riese: No.

Analyssa: You enter through a refrigerator.

Riese: Oh, I have used a vending machine before though.

Drew: Wait, Riese. You’ve used the vending machine like a normal vending machine or like a speakeasy vending machine?

Riese: Yeah. I’ve gotten snacks from a vending machine, yeah.

Analyssa: Sure.

Drew: So you have personal experience as well to contribute.

Riese: I’m a person of vending machine experience. I just want to identify myself.

Analyssa: That’s important. Representation is so important.

Riese: It’s so important.

Drew: They’re greeted by Lena Waithe who’s playing a character named Eddy, first guest star.

Analyssa: Just out of the gate.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: I want to talk about the fact that Eddy is introduced and introduces herself as saying that she’s the Black Shane, which is how Papi was introduced. It was like Papi is the Latina Shane. And I was just like, are we making zero progress? Are we just not… we’re just not going to make any progress in all of these decades. I’m just like, okay, and Tess works for both of them and they play poker and it’s like whatever.

Analyssa: Shane immediately flirts with the wrong person, which is like Shane’s whole bullshit. Well, that’s what you need to know.

Riese: It’s weird because Shane also just came back to LA.

Analyssa: Right. She’s been gone and she’s supposedly famous enough that Lena Waithe of her own volition lives in a completely different lesbian community than Shane does. At least with Papi, there was like, “Oh, the chart.”

Riese: Right.

Drew: Well, Alice found her.

Analyssa: Yeah. That’s how they figure out who she is and then she’s like, “Who the fuck are you guys? You guys aren’t in my orbit.”

Drew: Actually, we’re not just not making progress, we’re actually, it’s worse. Speaking of things that are making no progress and are also somehow worse because of that, Alice and Nat are still together and they’re dropping off kids and they’re immediately bickering and we’re just like, oh right, this couple that wasn’t fun to watch and decided to get back together are going to…

Riese: I found them fun.

Analyssa: I thought they were fun in the car. And also, they have new hairstyles or hairdos, which I think maybe makes them more spicy to me. They felt a little sassy. They felt like they had come out of the salon shiny haired and were like, “I’m going to get some quips off.” But then crucially, Gigi slides into the backseat and here’s what I have written in my notes: “Gigi, capital, I love you Gigi, I love you.” That’s all I have in mind.

Gigi: Morning.
Alice: Hey, Gigi. Hi.
Gigi: Wow. Happy to see you’re still super into public sex.
Alice: Is she kidding?

Drew: Gigi is my favorite person, not my favorite character on The L Word: Generation Q. Just like my favorite person. I love her so much.

Analyssa: Yeah, in the world perhaps. Also, Alice and Nat, just to roast them, to let Drew roast for one second, they do do this thing. So she gets in the back. She’s making jokes about their threesome, which I think is hilarious.

Nat: What do you want?
Gigi: To get back together. I’m kidding. I’m joking.

Drew: Love it.

Riese: Yes. I loved it.

Analyssa: As a person who’s been in a threesome, like the third person in a threesome, I do think that’s a funny joke to continue to make.

Drew: Oh my God! Wait! That happened since — the last time we were recording, I had never had a threesome and now I have had threesomes. Isn’t that beautiful?

Analyssa: There should be a year and a half between every season for that.

Drew: Wow.

Riese: Yes, so everyone can just talk up their sexual experiences.

Drew: Yeah, anyways. Continue.

Analyssa: Anyway, I think that’s funny to do, but more importantly, Alice and Nat kind of roast her for not having a life. Gigi, I should remind you, is the only person who remembered their kids whatever day it is. I didn’t care about the details, but like, she has a life. It’s being a responsible adult.

Riese: Well, they obviously want her to be around less, which I think, in my opinion, is because Nat does still have feelings for Gigi and Alice doesn’t want her around because of that. And so, they’re trying to find some other thing and they’re like, “Oh, Gigi’s around too much,” but she’s not. She literally delivered important information, looked hot, pulled jokes, called Nat out for still being into public sex, which was hilarious. And then she took two pieces of Alice’s gum, which is normal, and then she left. You know what I mean? There’s nothing to complain about there, but they find something to complain about because they have their own issues still.

Drew: In Nat’s defense, I would also still be in love with Gigi. Imagine being with Gigi and then no longer being with Gigi. That’d be really hard to get over.

Riese: Oh, and also we learned that Alice is writing a book.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: About herself.

Analyssa: I forgot that they were even going to have car sex. Gigi entered the room and I was like, nothing else mattered to me, which Nat and Alice could use a little more of, in my opinion. Anyway, we are now meeting Carrie.

Riese: Oh my God.

Drew: Speaking of people I love!

Riese: I love her so much.

Analyssa: The long-awaited entrance of Carrie. I’m obsessed with her.

Carrie: I nicked your mailbox on the way up the driveway.
Tina: Honey, it’s not that bad.
Carrie: Listen, if you got some paint, I could touch it up for you, no problem.
Bette: Oh no, it’s okay.
Carrie: I’m so sorry. I really am.
Tina: See, it’s fine.
Carrie: Man, that hill’s a bitch.
Bette: Yeah. It can be.

Drew: I truly just — like, I’m going to be pretty critical about this episode, but if there’s two things that I’m not going to be critical about, it’s Gigi and it is Carrie as played by Rosie O’Donnell. Literally, every word that came out of her mouth delighted me so much that she ran into Bette’s mailbox.

Riese: Go girl!

Analyssa: Knock it over, it’s fine.

Drew: Her accent. She’s a public defender. I’m obsessed. I’m so happy that we’re getting this funny, hot butch Rosie O’Donnell on The L Word. It feels so beautiful and poetic and I love it so much. It’s everything to me. I love it.

Riese: I love it.

Analyssa: I also just, I delight in the fact that she is specifically designed to infuriate Bette. Everything she says, you’re like, Bette is going to hate that. And I was like, yes, I’m here for it.

Riese: Because like Bette versus Helena, okay, sure. That’s predictable enough. Bette versus Henry, who knows what happened there, but everyone hates that guy and no one wants him around, so whatever, but Bette versus Carrie, that is like, you are talking about two completely different lives for Tina to be doing. That said, Tina has how many lines, one? I still don’t have any idea what the dynamic is with Carrie, but at the same time, I also don’t care. I believe it and I buy it fully.

Analyssa: I like that Tina’s kind of sheepish. She’s in front of Bette and she’s like, I know that Carrie is kind of embarrassing, but I do love her. So like, just kind of ignoring that Bette is going to be a nightmare. It’s like when you introduce your friends to someone who you’re like, “You guys aren’t really going to love them, but too bad. I like them and I’m the one who has to kiss them.” So it’s fine.

Riese: Deal with it.

Analyssa: Deal with it.

Riese: Carrie has a Groupon.

Analyssa: Groupon got so much play in this.

Drew: So good.

Riese: For the meat buns.

Analyssa: I loved when Angie was like, “Did she make these? They’re beautiful.”

Riese: Angie she is so diplomatic, she obviously knows that her mom hates Carrie from the jump and she’s rising above all of it like a perfect angel.

Analyssa: This kid is doing so much emotional regulation in the room. She’s masking the mood so it’s chill. Anyway, Angie wants to meet her donor.

Drew: Yeah. She wants to meet Marcus Allenwood.

Riese: Who’s my daddy?

Analyssa: And Carrie’s like…

Carrie: You know, Angie, I did one of those DNA tests where they swab your mouth and you send it away and they tell you all about your ancestry, you know?
Angie: Yes.
Carrie: Turns out I’m 100% Irish, which was not a shock, but I found a whole lot of cousins down in Florida. All of them were so kind to me and one of them owns a jet ski store.

Riese: I sent off my kit in the mail. I sent my blood to, and then I was at West Palm Beach on a jet ski.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, I also think that like if, I mean, Angie doesn’t need to use that to find out anything about her dad because Bette knows him, but I do think that—

Riese: And also, she could watch season one of The L Word.

Drew: That’s true. Great point.

Riese: If she wanted to.

Drew: I just like, yeah, she needs to have somebody to tell her though that she needs to buy the DVDs because the music is different.

Riese: That’s true. She can buy the DVDs.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: The box set is so important.

Riese: Oh. And also Carrie’s still stanning for Hillary, for Hillary Clinton. Adorable.

Analyssa: Crucial.

Drew: Yeah. So then going from Carrie who delights me so much, we go to a scene that in my notes, all I wrote for the entire scene was: “Dani and Sophie, blah, blah, boring, nothing new.”

Riese: Wow! You’re already bored? It just started.

Drew: No, it didn’t. There were eight whole episodes that I watched a year and a half ago and it’s the same dynamic.

Riese: We’re different people now.

Drew: What?

Analyssa: But this was 15 hours ago, Drew, please.

Riese: Yeah. Get in the mindset.

Analyssa: I do think Dani has gotten more beautiful between seasons. Is that just me?

Riese: I agree. She has.

Analyssa: She’s like radiant.

Drew: No, she’s gorgeous.

Analyssa: My only other note is, in all caps, “WHERE IS FINLEY?” That’s what I have.

Riese: Yeah, but Dani is trying to figure out their table arrangement two days before, but whatever it’s to be.

Analyssa: Doesn’t make sense also, Dani is trying to place for dad crucially, which is like, he’s just going—

Riese: Don’t your parents—

Analyssa: They have their own table, assuredly. Your dad doesn’t have a friend or uncle or random cousin that he invited? I felt like that was part of weddings.

Riese: Also, wasn’t he going to invite 100 of his coworkers?

Analyssa: Right, like he doesn’t… He’s like an important evil man. He doesn’t have people that have to come to the wedding as a favor or something? Whatever. Anyway.

Riese: Right. Evil people are never lonely.

Analyssa: You know who’s also not going to the wedding? Is Jose because he’s still married?

Drew: Yep. His storyline is also at the place where we left it.

Analyssa: Yeah, I was like, I guess this didn’t get wrapped up.

Drew: Nope.

Riese: Right. He’s back and Micah’s like, he’s saying like, it’s hard, we had to move back in together to end our marriage? Excuse me?

Analyssa: He had to give it a chance, but not a guy that—

Drew: I had no idea.

Analyssa: That’s big Grey’s Anatomy energy. I’m re-watching Grey’s Anatomy and the same thing happens in the first two seasons.

Riese: Oh really?

Drew: I’m just like… Look, I guess we’ll see where this goes. I’m really hoping that Micah moves on from this because it doesn’t seem…

Analyssa: Micah doesn’t seem pleased with the arrangement.

Drew: No.

Riese: No.

Analyssa: So that’s a positive sign for me. He’s like, wait, that seems wrong actually.

Drew: Yeah. I guess I think that a lot of my feelings about this first episode were just like, I feel like there were things that could have happened in this time off that I didn’t necessarily need to see. I have full faith that the rest of the season — like some of these storylines can go places that I’ll find interesting and fun or whatever. I guess I’m just confused by the… If the end goal is that Micah’s going to leave Jose, I don’t really know what we’re accomplishing by spending more time with Jose sort of treating Micah shitty.

Riese: Oh yeah, that’s true.

Drew: We already got that.

Analyssa: Right. There could have been a gap in… yeah.

Riese: That’s what the original would have done. They love to just chuck someone out.

Drew: That’s true.

Riese: Just chuck a tertiary character out into the sea and pretend like they were never there at all.

Drew: That’s true and that always bothered us.

Riese: But yeah, you’re right. This wasn’t necessary.

Analyssa: Yeah. Especially if it’s just going to blow up, which is where it feels like it’s headed.

Riese: Yeah. Also, I just felt bad because skipping the gym to have sex with somebody who is living with their husband to get a divorce, you should go to the gym.

Drew: Yeah. Well, it depends like what kind of sex you’re having because that could be—

Analyssa: I knew you were going to say that.

Drew: Sorry, it’s my primary form of exercise. So I need to defend that as a valid way of getting your heart rate up. Also, I have not had a lot of sex lately though because of the pandemic. So I’m really just not exercising at all.

Analyssa: Okay. We’re returning to my favorite set on this show, which is the set of The Alice Show.

Drew: Yay! I really like Alice and Sophie’s work dynamic.

Analyssa: I know. I think they’re so fun. I really think it’s sweet that Sophie’s getting her wedding suit from the show costume, like wardrobe, whatever. I don’t know. I just thought that was cute.

Drew: Yeah. It’s a good dynamic.

Riese: Yeah, that was cute.

Analyssa: It’s hard and kind of soul-sucking sometimes to work for rich bosses, but what’s nice is that sometimes working for a rich boss has fun kickbacks.

Drew: Correct.

Analyssa: I have a KitchenAid stand mixer that I got for free from my boss.

Riese: Wow.

Analyssa: Amazing.

Riese: Usually people have to get married if they want one of those.

Analyssa: I know. Now, I don’t have to put it on a future registry when I invite my evil corporation dad to my wedding.

Riese: Incredible.

Analyssa: Anyway, the point of this is that Alice misses Finley and so do I.

Riese: Oh, the segment. Alice has a new segment and she wants to hire a producer and this is where — I mean, you kind of saw this already, but Sophie appears to be not dead inside, but just not doing great, I think, mentally.

Drew: Absolutely.

Riese: Because last season, she wanted to be a producer, she was so gung-ho about it. And when Alice offers it to her, she’s politely excited, but she’s not half as excited as she would have been last, before all this stuff went down, so that’s kind of like that’s a little bit weird. And then, yeah, also the new guy can’t make coffee. So this is when we learn that Sophie’s solution to the Finley and Dani thing has been making Finley stay in Missouri.

Analyssa: Banished Finley to Kansas City. Like what? I needed to know, Drew, to your point of like, there’s so many things that we could have just left behind. What I actually needed was more information about what happened in the break. Did they call? I mean, I’m sure we’ll find out. Was there a phone call? How does Finley know that she’s been banished to Kansas city? She’s never allowed to come back? What are the rules?

Drew: The problem is that all the characters are at the exact same place sort of emotionally and the dynamics are at the same place.

Riese: But time has passed.

Drew: But time has passed. This was actually doubly confusing because you’re like, wait, what’s been happening these weeks, months, how long has it been and what has been happening during that period of time? There’s a few things specifically that will come up later where I really feel that where I’m like, “Wait, what?” But it’s The L Word and The L Word’s going to do what The L Word’s going to do.

Riese: Time is a flat circle in The L Word and we all know it.

Drew: It is what it is.

Riese: It is absolutely what it is.

Drew: But Alice is going to get Finley on the phone so maybe who knows? I will say that I think the lesson is if you cheat on your partner and you think you can just pretend like you didn’t, it might not work out for you if you are someone who experiences guilt.

Riese: Which Sophie clearly does.

Drew: And is also still in love with the person who you had the affair with clearly and it wasn’t just a casual thing.

Analyssa: Even without the being in love part, they worked together and were part of the friend group.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: There’s a lot of threads here.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. And Finley was living with them also.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: She was super present.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Finley was kind of like everyone’s emotional support lesbian last season. And then they were like, “I guess she’s gone. Bye.”

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Anyway.

Riese: No, that would be so weird.

Drew: Well, that’s my other big question, is she talking to Micah? Is she talking to Dani?

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Is she talking… Her and Sophie were clearly so close. Would Dani be like, “Oh, how’s Finley doing in Kansas City?” And then what would Sophie say?

Riese: And Sophie would be like, “Who?”

Drew: Right.

Riese: “Finley? Finley? I don’t know anyone by that name.”

Drew: Doesn’t seem like a good strategy.

Riese: Also, where does she run to in the airport? Cinnabon?

Drew: I think she ran to Dani. They went to Hawaii, but they didn’t get married. That was what I… That was the gap they filled in.

Riese: Oh God, I hate that.

Drew: Yeah. She ran, she smiled, she went, “It’s Dani. I don’t want to marry you right now.”

Riese: They look great together. They do. I just think that, first of all, there’s this really strong “you-were-too-young-to-be-getting-married” vibe radiating from both of them from the jump. I’m like, “Why are you? This is so…”

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: You don’t have to, you guys could just be together.

Riese: You don’t have to. Yeah, just be together and see how it works or doesn’t.

Drew: Or don’t be together.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: I always think of that line in Broad City where Ilana’s like, “What am I, Lincoln, a child bride?”

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: “I’m 27.”

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: I think that’s so funny. Okay. Well, I want to move us onto a happier couple, which is Angie and Jordie.

Riese: Oh my God, they’re so cute.

Analyssa: Angie and Jordie are walking around talking about Angie’s horrible morning.

Drew: Just the cutest.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: And Jordie feels really supportive and sweet, and I love that for them. And Angie also says that Bette needs a mood stabilizer, which is so funny, because then we cut to Bette at Dana’s—

Riese: Being insane.

Analyssa: Proving immediately that she needs a mood stabilizer.

Riese: And nothing against mood stabilizers.

Analyssa: No.

Riese: We’ve all been on them.

Analyssa: Who amongst us?

Riese: Whomst amongst us has not been on mood stabilizers?

Analyssa: You know who is keeping it chill? is Bette. She’s like, “I need a wife.”

Riese: Bette, famously undesirable, is wondering.

Analyssa: Famously undesirable Bette Porter is like, “Will I die alone?” And everyone’s like, “No.”

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: Stop cheating on people and you might not.

Drew: Yeah. Yeah.

Analyssa: I don’t know.

Riese: She says that being around Carrie and Tina is hard because they’re so together and she’s going to die alone because how is she ever going to meet someone who meets all of her standards, which are as follows. Number one is employed.

Drew: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Riese: Number two, has children.

Drew: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Riese: Number three was, what else was there?

Drew: She says that it’s not that she wants someone to be employed, she wants them to have a career that they’re as passionate about as she is, which is not true.

Riese: Which isn’t true.

Drew: Not true at all.

Analyssa: Okay, I did love that her friends were like, “No, that’s not what you want actually.”

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: You don’t.

Drew: Yeah, they immediately call her out. I really like these brunch — we have these in the first season and I like that we’re having them again, these brunch scenes with Bette and Shane and Alice. It’s really, I really like just getting to hang out with the original people and seeing their fun friendship dynamic.

Riese: Yeah. It’s also nice for me as an elder because I was in my twenties when they were in their twenties and now I’m in my late thirties and they’re in their early forties. So it’s relatable to see how your conversations — suddenly you’re sitting there talking about how to treat the other mom of the children, of the person you’re dating instead of Dana not knowing that you can squirt from having an orgasm.

Drew: Right. Gross.

Riese: Everyone’s really grown and changed.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Everyone’s grown and changed.

Riese: Yeah. And then Alice is like, “I know who to set you up with.”

Drew: Yeah. I immediately knew who it was and I was so excited.

Analyssa: Yes.

Riese: If only Bette was this excited.

Analyssa: Then Bette’s coat walks her into her next location.

Riese: Oh my God.

Analyssa: This coat.

Riese: It looks like she’s in the Oliver musical, about to steal someone’s bag.

Analyssa: There’s another Bette costume that is like, did we rip off the musical set in London in the 1800s? Why is this happening? We’ll talk about it later. But anyway, Bette’s coat.

Riese: “Lovely Ladies” is the vibe I got from that.

Analyssa: Really big vibes. But she’s the factory owner, is the thing in that.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: She’s stomping around. Anyway, so she stomp, stomp, stomps up to talk to this man about a job.

Riese: Yeah. This purple guy.

Analyssa: Yes. This purple guy. They seem to be old enemies, which I think is kind of fun. Good for them.

Riese: Wasn’t he the husband in I Love Dick?

Drew: Yes. It is Griffin Dunne, who is also the star of Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and lots and lots of other things, but The L Word listeners will probably know him from I Love Dick, the Joey Soloway show.

Riese: He’s kind of short.

Drew: Is he?

Analyssa: He is kind of short. I mean, Bette is tall.

Riese: Right, she’s also wearing her vegan boots.

Analyssa: She’s got big boots and a big coat, so she looks bigger. The big thing is, this man wants Bette to bring in BIPOC artists.

Riese: And Bette does not.

Analyssa: And Bette’s like, “No.” I actually wrote in my notes, “Bette said signing bonuses for whites too.”

Riese: Yeah, she did.

Analyssa: That’s her big stipulation, she’s like, “I will get a signing bonus for all of my signs, including the white people.” And I was like, sure, girl, go off. Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Okay.

Drew: He says that artists of color are all the rage, which I fully believe that this kind of guy would say that.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: But I felt like maybe the show agreed with it, it wasn’t a satire. Because people love to say stuff like that, right? They love to be like, “Oh, it’s trendy to do this.” And it’s like no. And the way they’re framing it is like, oh, he wants to get artists of color because they’re trendy, as opposed to like, oh, maybe your gallery has been racist all these years and people are starting to criticize you for that. It’s like this reframing of being like, “Oh, this is cool now.” And it’s like, no, that’s not what’s happening.

Riese: But also, I did feel like that was intentional, to be authentic to his character that he would say that. And he’s already made her a whole office?

Drew: Okay, but Bette takes jobs so quickly. Why does Bette always take jobs so quickly? This is always a thing where Bette—

Analyssa: Bette didn’t even look over the paperwork, nothing.

Drew: No. What?

Analyssa: There’s just, she’s like, “Sure.”

Drew: Do you remember when she was out to dinner with the person who broke her heart in college and then she was like, “Oh, you want to start a gallery together? Let’s do it.”

Analyssa: Ah, classic.

Riese: And before you know it they’re going “shake it, don’t make it” in this video filmed by Jenny Schecter on a next gen iPhone.

Drew: Yep. But she’s going to be working for him and I’m sure we’re going to get a lot of drama from that.

Riese: She’s going to make a bazillion dollars.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: Luckily we’ve got the campaign debt taken care of.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I didn’t want that to be a storyline that was going to be boring.

Analyssa: I don’t want to talk about the campaign debt anymore.

Drew: No.

Analyssa: He said it even and I was like, let’s not talk about this. Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. Well, I’m sure that their dynamic is going to lead to some drama and some other drama that Alice is going to have, which she does not know she’s going to have is that her publisher is bringing in a new editor to work with her.

Analyssa: Oh, right.

Drew: And she’s like, “Oh my God, they love my book. They’re so excited, they’re going to send me this editor.” And I was like, “Oh, I’ve watched enough television to know this editor is not…

Riese: No.

Drew: Yeah, this is not going to go well.

Riese: No. Also, did she write that entire book in the last few months?

Analyssa: Wait, how long has it been?

Riese: Because I’ve been writing the same book for three years.

Drew: Wow. That’s pretty embarrassing, Riese, because Alice wrote it so much quicker.

Analyssa: Yeah. I was going to say, Riese, the thing is, if you were a talk show host, maybe you would be a lot faster.

Riese: Have more time?

Analyssa: Yeah, exactly.

Drew: Did Alice write the book or did someone who Alice hired write the book?

Analyssa: It sounds like Alice wrote the book.

Drew: Okay.

Riese: Yeah. And now they’re like, “You could use a light ghostwrite,” probably.

Drew: Okay.

Riese: So they’re going to hire that guy from Clueless.

Analyssa: Oh right.

Drew: Oh right. Oh right, oh… Yes. Cool. Well, I’m sure we’ll get to it in the future.

Analyssa: It’s all coming together now.

Drew: But right now, Alice wants Finley to come back. Sophie starts freaking out and then Sophie tells Alice about all the drama.

Sophie: Finley and I, we…
Alice: Did it?
Sophie: Yeah.
Alice: When did you? When did you guys?
Sophie: Just when we wrapped last season?
Alice: Oh. Fuck.
Sophie: Yeah. In the green room.
Alice: Oh.

Analyssa: First of all, I would never have admitted any of this to a boss because boundaries. But if I were to have admitted some of this to the boss, I would have stopped just short of, “We boned in the green room.”

Drew: Correct.

Analyssa: We could have gone, we just said, “We boned.” We didn’t have… She does it too like, “Actually, in the green room.” It’s like, no, no, no.

Riese: Yeah. I would accidentally tell the entire story for sure. I would be like, “I’m just going to say we hooked up,” and I’d be like, “but it would also be funny if I told them where we hooked up.”

Drew: I get that. Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Riese: And I did get a laugh and it did get a facial expression.

Analyssa: And yeah, it did play very well actually for me, so.

Riese: But this is probably the first person she told, right?

Analyssa: I think so. Well, aside from her sister, right?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Oh yeah. But the first person she’s told since.

Analyssa: Yeah. Since going to Hawaii, coming back, since everything fell apart.

Drew: Since Alice wrote an entire book.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: Since Alice wrote a book.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. I wanted more from Alice here though.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah, the other thing is, Alice loves gossip. She didn’t really even ask more questions.

Riese: Right. Yeah.

Analyssa: If I, as a light Alice type myself…

Riese: Alice minor.

Analyssa: I would have been like, “Oh, okay.”

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: “More please.”

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: When did it start? How long had you guys been feeling this? What are the…

Riese: How did it end? Have you talked? All the questions we have.

Analyssa: Right. Alice was just like, “Don’t tell Dani,” basically.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: “If you’re going to get married, don’t do it.”

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Which I think is solid advice. But I would say the better advice is don’t be with Dani, don’t tell Dani and then don’t be… At this point, it’s been months. Tell Dani right after it happened if you wanted to stay with her. At this point, don’t tell Dani and don’t be with her anymore. But instead she decides to tell her at the rehearsal dinner. This whole, I was losing my mind. She decides to tell her at the rehearsal dinner and then all of a sudden, Maribel has told Micah and Micah is like—

Analyssa: They’re staring daggers at Sophie.

Drew: But I’m like, why didn’t she tell Micah earlier? Why is she telling at the rehearsal dinner?

Riese: Because it’s the rehearsal dinner. She’s like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe we’ve actually gotten this far.”

Analyssa: Yes. She’s literally procrastinating on telling her fiancé that she cheated on her. That is the whole thing is she’s like, “When is the last possible point? Oh shit, we’re at our rehearsal dinner. We’re going to get married tomorrow.” That was it to me basically.

Drew: Okay well, then she does the thing that I know bothers Riese a lot and it also bothers me where she goes, “I need to tell you something.”

Riese: Oh my God.

Drew: And then Dani goes, “What?”

Riese: “Is it the venue?”

Drew: And then she starts guessing. And then Sophie never says anything and then they just move on.

Riese: I hate it. I hate that.

Analyssa: I wrote in my notes that she distracted herself right out of finding any info.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: She just is like, “Oh, is it the venue? Is it too fancy?” Which, yes it is, if we harken back to season one, what was going on when they were looking at venues.

Riese: Yes, it’s The Bachelor mansion.

Analyssa: This is much fancier, as Riese just reminded us. This is The Bachelor mansion.

Riese: $10,000 a night on Airbnb.

Analyssa: This is the United States’ premiere location for heterosexual romance. This is way too fancy.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: Anyway.

Riese: But she doesn’t even wait, she’s like, “It’s the venue.” And then she’s like, “We should go out tonight. Let’s go out tonight.”

Analyssa: Get wasted and it’ll be fun.

Riese: This only happens in TV. The bulldozing.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: If some… I don’t think there’s ever a situation in real life where someone’s like, “I have to tell you something,” you’d be like, “It’s this. It’s this,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and… No.

Analyssa: And the other person also is not like, “No. Shh.”

Drew: I’m going to be generous. I’m going to be generous for a second, okay?

Riese: Okay.

Drew: And then we should move on before I get ungenerous real quick. I think there is a chance that Dani knows that something is wrong and does not want to know. I think that Dani, there’s… Sophie is being so weird this whole episode, I can’t believe, even though Dani and Sophie… Dani’s not maybe the most thoughtful partner, but I cannot imagine a world where Dani is not aware that there are problems.

Riese: Right.

Drew: So I can see Dani potentially being like, “I want to marry Sophie. I don’t want my dad to be proven right. I just need us to get married. Once we get married, everything will be okay. Once we get married, everything will be okay.” And just is in her own denial. I can see that being the case. And I’m going to, the way I do when I watched The L Word, take a theory that I have that is not really earned, and I will incorporate it as canon and I will move on so I can believe this show and enjoy the hot people having sex. Which I want to note, has not happened yet in this episode.

Analyssa: We all have the things that get us through the days and The L Word episodes, and this is Drew’s, and that’s beautiful.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: At the end of last season, we did a whole post about our favorite ships and also people were putting their desired ships. And my number one desired ship, which I think makes sense on several narrative levels, and works for the whole dynamic would be for Micah and Maribel to get together. And I just want to say that I was getting vibes in this episode that they are perhaps closer than they were before. And that perhaps maybe in the future, they might be having sexuals.

Drew: I would love that. I’m really hoping for that.

Analyssa: Nothing brings two people together like plotting to out your sister as a cheater and break up the wedding of your friends.

Riese: Exactly.

Analyssa: They have some stuff to bond over.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Then Angie’s going to do the 23andMe. Neither of you have done a 23andMe?

Drew: Mm-mm (negative).

Riese: I did order one and then I didn’t turn it in.

Analyssa: Anyway, she’s having some feelings about whether she should take it or not, and then Bette comes in.

Drew: Yeah. And another dynamic I love, we’ve talked about that we love, is Bette and Angie. Even though it’s not maybe the healthiest parent-child dynamic, but I love watching it. It feels really real.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: I love how the actors interact. It’s great.

Riese: I thought this was cute. She’s getting ready for a date and she’s asking Angie for advice.

Analyssa: And Bette treats her like an adult, which I like, because she is 17.

Riese: Yeah. Right.

Analyssa: So she’s like, “I’m going out. I don’t know if it’ll be fun.” Anyway.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: Oh, she also says that the reason that they can’t introduce her to the donor is because they made that agreement with him that she wouldn’t reach out until she was 18. And if that’s true, then that’s legit. And also she said no on the genetic test because of the government collecting your data, which is also true.

Drew: Look, Bette can reach out to Marcus Allenwood and be like, “Angie’s 17, she’s asking questions. Obviously, if you want to wait until 18, you can, and this can… But I just wanted to throw it out there.” She could do that.

Riese: Oh, you know what she could do? She could call Marcus Allenwood and be like, “I’m the head of Professor Plum’s Art Gallery for BIPOC artists and I would love to give you a signing bonus in my giant glass office.”

Analyssa: That already has my name on it. I didn’t write the whole quote, so I don’t know what she says after, and I’m sure it was something serious and meaningful, but I did laugh at Bette Porter saying—

Bette: Well, for us as lesbians.

Riese: Oh yeah.

Analyssa: Just so seriously, “For us as lesbians.” I was like, “Bitch, all right.” I want to say it all the time now.

Riese: “For us as lesbians.”

Analyssa: Just about me, “for us as lesbians.”

Riese: :For us as lesbians, we just went through a lot in the nineties.”

Analyssa: Telling my roommates I don’t like what we had for dinner like, “For us as lesbians, I don’t want to order from that place.”

Drew: “For us as lesbians, I’m excited that Gigi’s in the next scene.” And she’s—

Analyssa: That’s the perfect use of that phrase.

Drew: She’s immediately game when she realizes she’s on a date with Bette, and Bette looks horrified by the realization of what’s happening.

Riese: Inexcusable.

Drew: Yeah. If I was accidentally on a date with Gigi, it would be the best day of my life.

Analyssa: Poorest reaction. The other thing though, there’s one quick interstitial of Shane getting into a car.

Riese: Oh, right. With the dog? Oh yeah, she was texting. She was texting with the wife who’s like, “I can’t wait to see you tonight,” or whatever.

Analyssa: She’s texting the woman she flirted with at the poker game.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: And she just immediately, she’s like a heat-seeking missile for the wrong person to flirt with.

Drew: I do love it.

Analyssa: It’s shocking. Anyway, back to this date, which is most important. You’re so right that Bette has the wrong reaction to seeing Gigi.

Drew: Yeah, what?

Analyssa: She’s hot. Who cares? Whatever.

Riese: Drew, say the thing that you said to me about the hottest person in your friend group, remember?

Drew: Imagine if you were set up on a date with the hottest person in your friend group who you haven’t really had a chance to get to know, and then you’re just like, “Oh cool. Now this could be a thing.” That’s amazing.

Riese: That’s great.

Analyssa: I’ve been begging for my friend to set me up with the hottest person they know for years, and Bette just gets it handed to her after complaining about coffee.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Also, since when does Bette care about being entangled in The Chart? Like, “Oh, Alice was in a brief throuple with this person,” calm down Bette, what else is new?

Riese: She slept with Alice herself.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Right. Alice is one of her best friends and they used to date, so get over it.

Riese: And Bette is so rude.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: And Gigi goes—

Gigi: So, you look amazing.
Bette: Oh.
Gigi: Is this is Tom Ford?
Bette: Thank you. Yes. Yeah.
Gigi: It’s hot.

Analyssa: These freaks are rooting for each other, it’s perfect.

Drew: They’re so good together.

Riese: I feel like we get to see Gigi’s personality in a way that we haven’t before. And notably that she’s really good at handling this situation with grace. I mean, the thing is, I think she’s hot and she knows she’s hot, but if you were less attractive than Gigi or less successful than Gigi and you walked up and your date was treating you like this, I would feel terrible about myself.

Analyssa: You would crumble. And Gigi is just kind of rolling with it and sort of batting it back. Look, Gigi kind of thinks it’s funny that Bette is upset. And I was like, good for you. She has unshakeable confidence.

Drew: As she should.

Analyssa: She’s like, “Let’s have fun. Let’s just do something,” as she should. As we all should really.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: We cut in the middle of this fun date to Alice and Nat. Well, Nat is watching TV—

Riese: SVU on her laptop. I was like, “Drew’s going to hate this.”

Drew: I lost my goddamn mind at this scene. Because okay, it’s true that I hate SVU. I hate cop shows, I hate SVU specifically. But that aside, a lot of people watch SVU, a lot of people I love watch SVU. It’s complicated. We can’t, we don’t need to get into it. Look, I wrote a whole essay about cop shows if you want to find it on autostraddle.com, you can. But what bothered me most about this, is Alice talking about SVU like it’s a new show that… What?

Analyssa: That’s what I mean.

Drew: When she’s like, she wants to hear about the hype. I’ve still seen episodes.

Riese: There’s no hype anymore.

Drew: I’ve seen several, I’ve seen so many episodes of Law & Order over the years because I’m a person and I exist in a space. But that aside, she’s been in a relationship with Nat for years, and Nat’s favorite show is SVU, but Alice is coming home and being like… What? Have you not been around your partner when she was watching her favorite show?

Analyssa: It doesn’t make any sense. Nat is squirreled away in their room watching SVU episodes while Alice works? It doesn’t make sense. It’s unhinged.

Drew: It annoyed me so much.

Analyssa: The other thing that annoyed me a lot is not falling asleep during Alice—

Riese: That was so fast.

Analyssa: Kissing her or whatever.

Drew: They’re so boring.

Analyssa: First of all, never seen someone fall asleep so fast in my life. But secondly, if you were sleepy enough to fall asleep while your partner is kissing you, why wouldn’t you have fallen asleep during SVU, which you’ve seen every episode of by the year 2021? I’m sorry, an unbelievable time to take a nap.

Riese: The amount of time it took her to fall asleep, you guys, Alice kissed her on the top of her chest right here and then conked out. Done. Done.

Drew: And here’s the thing, is that besides — It’s just making me feel like they’re boring and shouldn’t be together and wanting to just free them both to have more interesting relationships on this show. It also means that we still have not had a sex scene yet, which I know we’ve watched this whole episode so we know we’re going to get one and I’m grateful for that, and I’ll be very grateful when we get to discussing that and then the listeners will know that I’m grateful. But at this current moment when I was watching, I wrote in all caps in my notes, “Why hasn’t there been a sex scene yet?” And I was very frustrated.

Riese: Homophobia at its finest.

Analyssa: Back in the bar, Carrie and Tina have arrived.

Riese: Oh, so good. Oh my God.

Analyssa: Or the restaurant, wherever Gigi and Bette are having their dinner?

Riese: And so they come over to say hi to Gigi and Bette and it’s … Carrie is so perfect and cute.

Gigi: And you must be Carrie.
Carrie: Yes.
Gigi: I’ve heard so much about you.
Carrie: Oh, really? Anything Bette told you about me is subject to cross-examination. I’m kidding. I know we’re all part of the same team.
Gigi: What team is that?
Carrie: Yankees, all the way. 

Analyssa: This is a TV trope I do love, which is really hushed quickly, “My ex is coming over here. I need you to pretend that we’re having a good time.” Whatever it is, I’m in for that. And Gigi performs incredibly. She’s in fact even mean to Carrie, which is so fun to watch.

Gigi: Get the scallops, they are perfectly seared.
Carrie: Ooh, no. I got a texture thing with scallops, honey. No can do. I can’t…
Gigi: Well, save them for the grownups, right?

Analyssa: Bette is like letting them kind of make her feel shaken up. And Gigi’s like, “I don’t care about these people, I’ll roast them. Watch me.”

Drew: Just incredible. Incredible, incredible.

Riese: Almost like the perfect person.

Drew: Well, and I love both of these couples, I love them both together. We sort of go back and forth between seeing the two of them, the two different conversations once they’re at their separate areas or whatever. And it makes so much — Tina and Bette never really made sense to me, except that I was like, “Bette wants someone who’s a little bit boring because she wants to control the room.” But that never felt like growth for Bette. That’s why I love Bette and Jodi. I mean, I don’t love the way Bette treated Jodi, but in a world where Bette actually grew, Bette and Jodi would be my favorite couple on The L Word and maybe my favorite couple in TV history. I really loved Bette and Jodi theoretically, and the thing about Bette and Tina was it just always was like, Bette’s not pushing herself to grow at all. And with Tina, it was like, you’re just letting this person steamroll your life and you’re not really having it. So to watch the two of them, Bette and Gigi aren’t “together” together yet, but Tina and Carrie make so much sense and it’s so sweet and I really love them together. Then Bette and Gigi, I’m like, “Yes, this is who you should be with, Bette. You actually should want someone who has their own life and career and personality and can match you.”

Riese: And knows Tom Ford.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: And also, she relates.

Analyssa: And roasts people for not liking scallops.

Riese: Yeah, also scallops. The texture of scallops is one of the best parts of scallops. Scallops are so good.

Drew: I love scallops.

Analyssa: Yeah, scallops are amazing. I do agree with her just demolishing Carrie about that. It’s fine, whatever.

Drew: For us, as lesbians, we love scallops.

Analyssa: For us, as lesbians, we love scallops.

Riese: Then she kisses Bette, right? She’s like, “Are we going to do this? We’re going to do this to make them jealous.” And that is hot because it keeps going. But also, when Tina and Carrie, when it goes back to them, Carrie’s like, “It’s okay, I’ll try the scallops. I know I’m just being close-minded. Let’s do it. Let’s have an adventure with the scallops.” And then Tina says that she thinks she’s beautiful and then, Carrie tears up. I also teared up.

Analyssa: It was so good.

Tina: I think you’re beautiful.
Carrie: Yeah?
Tina: Yeah.
Carrie: That’s a nice thing to say. I love you.
Tina: I love you, too.

Analyssa: It was really sweet.

Riese: It was so sweet.

Analyssa: The whole thing was just …  I wrote, “oh no, I love them.” I also love Carrie being like, “Tina, you are the most beautiful person here.” And Tina’s like, “Okay, but Gigi is very beautiful.” And Carrie’s like—

Carrie: Objectively, in like a common kind of way, I guess. I guess I could say so. But honey, she’s no you. Trust me on that one.

Analyssa: I thought all that was sweet. Also, Bette says to Gigi something like, “I would say that I love you.”

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, “I would say I love you, but I don’t know you well enough.”

Drew: Yeah. After the kiss, she says—

Bette: You’re very naughty.

Drew: I was dying. It was so good. I loved this the whole, yeah. Ooh. Everything that happened in there is everything that I love about The L Word and why I’m so happy that it’s back and we’re here talking about it.

And then the next scene, we get into some of the things that I don’t like as much. So they’re back seeing Eddy and Shane opens the door and says, “Ladies first,” letting Tess go. It has taken this deep into this first podcast episode for me to bring this up, but I would just like to remind everyone at home, that Tess is not canonically trans. Neither is Jordie, I guess, because Marja keeps insisting that and actually, I think was asked after my essay came out about it, and Marja was like, “We’re sticking to that and we’ll introduce more trans characters instead of making these two major trans actresses who are on the show as major characters trans.” Anyways, the reason I bring this up right now is because it felt like such a moment to me of a cis, slightly masc-of-center if we’re calling Shane that, lesbian would open the door for a femme trans woman and be like, “Ladies first.” It felt to me, so much of the way that they write Tess, I just am always like, “This little thing makes me think this is how a cis person would interact with a trans person who, they’re in this space.” So I just was like, do the writers, because they know Jamie’s trans even though they’re supposed to be writing her a cis, sometimes put things in? Like when Jamie is like, “Girls like us,” in the first season, these things where I’m just like, it doesn’t need to mean she’s trans, but I’m just a little bit like, this would make more sense. Anyways.

Riese: I thought that same thing when she said that, when she did the, “ladies first,” thing.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, there’s still no reason why she can’t be trans. She’s still trans canonically in my head. So is Jordie. Until she’s complaining about her period cramps, she’s still trans because again, just because the character isn’t like, “Taking my estrogen this morning,” doesn’t mean that they’re not trans. So all of the experiences that Tess has told me that she could be trans. You could be a trans person experiencing all these things. In fact, again, there are so many little things where I’m like, “This makes more sense if she’s trans.” So anyways, she’s still trans in my head. When a major trans lesbian is introduced on this show, I will go back and be like, “Fine. Tess isn’t trans.” But until then … anyways, moving on in this scene. So Shane tried to fuck Eddy’s wife.

Eddy: Shane, do you know why I started this poker game?
Shane: No.
Eddy: Because I wanted a place for Black lesbians to be able to come, kick it, and just vibe. Mainly because y’all take up a lot of space on WeHo. That Dina Shore shit is not for us and I don’t fuck with your music, it’s wack. What I wanted to do is sort of bring our worlds together, so by allowing you to come into our space, I assumed you’d be respectful of my house.
Shane: Ah, okay. I am. I think you lost me.
Eddy: You tried to fuck my wife.

Riese: Which I thought was actually, that was nice. It was nice to hear a Black masculine person be like, “Your scene and your whole deal is very white and I don’t feel comfortable there, so I created this whole place.” But yeah, I was thinking, because I don’t get it. Are we supposed to think that Eddy’s being unfair? Because she says that they are in an open relationship and also, the girl hit on Shane first.

Analyssa: And Shane says, “I didn’t know this was your wife.” Okay, fine. I don’t know. It just seemed… I agree that some of the white lesbian spaces, the music is wack. I feel it. Also though, yeah, it is just really confusing that she can fuck whoever she wants, but you come into this space being Shane, and that’s — what I’ve seen does not really say that that is what happens. So yeah, am I supposed to be on Eddy’s side or I’m supposed to be on Shane’s?

Drew: Right.

Riese: Or is this all just part two of the Dawn Denbo, Lover Cindy, Shane?

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: For me, as lesbians, I’ve never played at an underground poker game, and The L Word is telling me that it’s something that happens frequently.

Drew: Should we start this?

Analyssa: Do either of you have experience?

Riese: I’ve never played an above ground poker game.

Drew: I’ve played an above ground poker game, but never with a group of lesbians or lesbian-adjacent people. But sure, that would be fun.

Riese: For us, as lesbians — yeah, it’s illegal, though. So we would never do anything illegal.

Drew: Oh, I wasn’t even thinking of it like as it is on The L Word where it’s like, cool, and there’s a lot of money involved. I was just thinking we’d get together as friends and eat snacks.

Analyssa: Well, yeah, I sure don’t have the $10,000 it takes to buy into Eddy’s game. That’s just me speaking for me, not even as lesbians.

Riese: It’s always good to specify. Are you talking about us as lesbians or is it me for me?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: The one thing I did like was when Shane was like, “Well, I would like my 10K back,” and she was like, “No, it’s reparations.” And Shane had to be like, “Okay.”

Analyssa: Shane’s like, “That’s fair. Sure.”

Riese: Yeah, Shane has the 10K. I saw this woman get off a private jet.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: But also, if she has it to potentially lose in a poker game, then she obviously has it. But also, it’s just very confusing what we’re supposed to think. Maybe it is just like, “Yeah, she’s allowed to fuck who she wants, but did you really, you know?”

Analyssa: Yeah. I think there is a read of it where it’s like, “Shane, you don’t just get to swagger in and piss wherever you want, and the person that she chose just happens to be my wife, regardless of whether we’re in an open relationship. You can’t just walk in here and act like this is a new playground for you.” Which I think is maybe what the point was. “I invited you in as a guest and here you are.”

Drew: “You come to me this day of my lesbian poker game and—”

Analyssa: “You try to sleep with my wife?” Anyway. Also though, then Tess and Shane run out with “Don’t You Forget About Me,” basically, playing in the background, and I was like, “Did Tess just lose a job, though? What’s going on?”

Drew: Yeah. I don’t know. I like their dynamic, though.

Analyssa: I do, too.

Drew: It feels like Shane and Tess are going to be paired together even more this season and I love that. I love their dynamic. I think Kate and Jamie are really fun together and I really liked that.

Riese: I think they are together for the rest of the season because Kate did an interview, said that now her and Jamie are super close because they did almost all their scenes together. So I wonder where that might go.

Analyssa: That’s fun.

Drew: Sophie and Dani are at a club. They went out, based on how they had their conversation, but they’re out. Sophie tells Dani about the promotion, but then they’re talking about kids, and Sophie was going to get pregnant, and they’re having some drunken, “We’re at a nightclub after our rehearsal dinner, serious talks” as people do, traditionally.

Riese: That talk, though, was bananas.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: How old are they? 25, 26? Even if they’re 30, here’s the thing: it doesn’t fucking make sense.

Drew: No, no.

Riese: If Sophie does want to get pregnant and have children and start a family, first of all, you have to take a million tests, you have to figure out what kind of donor you want, you have to do so many things after the wedding, so she probably wouldn’t be able to even start that process for a few months. When she starts the process, it could take her a really long time to even get pregnant. And I know that Tina devoted herself to it, so maybe that’s what we’re supposed to be thinking of. But also, I think Tina was supposed to be in her early thirties or something like that. Also, her and Beth already had established everything else in their lives and Bette was making a ton of money. But if she was offered a higher position, she should take that position, work it, and then take maternity leave and get a bigger paycheck for maternity leave. Not even taking the job because you are thinking about starting a family soon? That is literally just completely insane.

Drew: Yeah. Yeah.

Analyssa: Negotiate better benefits in your new job offer and figure out parental leave and … I’m nowhere near children, but they cost a lot of money. Why would you be like, “No, I’m just going to not take the higher paying job offer so that I can plan to have kids who will take up more money?”

Riese: On my insurance, my insurance covers $2,000 of fertility services. That’s it.

Drew: Wow.

Riese: And I have really good insurance. That’s the other thing. Is she going to quit her health insurance? She’s going to quit her health insurance?

Drew: Yeah. Even if Dani is the trans woman character, she’d still have to go out for estrogen for months and months and months. And it doesn’t even work very often, even when you go off your estrogen for months and months. So there’s really no way that the two of them together can get pregnant quickly. It’s just not in the cards. Though I would love that twist.

Riese: I was just like, “This is so stupid and contrived.” The point of it was Sophie saying she basically wants to be a stay at home mom, which means she could still work for the first few months of her pregnancy.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: So stupid. Anyway, that annoyed me so much.

Analyssa: Right.

Drew: Then Dani makes the confession, which is that she had a sex dream about Bette and that she had a crush on Bette when she worked for her.

Riese: Yes, everyone did.

Drew: And she wants Sophie to know that before they get married. It’s a crush!

Riese: Who cares?

Drew: If my fiance was working for Bette Porter and did not have a crush on her, I would be concerned. I would be like, “I don’t know who you are. I can’t marry you.”

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: I feel like that’s day one conversation. Dani comes home from work and is like, “My boss is so hot,” and Sophie’s like, “Amazing. Are you in love with her?” And that’s where we go from there.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: And then, over the course of working on Bette’s failed mayoral campaign, you’d be like, “Today, we flirted.”

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: Unless you think it’s going to go somewhere, in which case, sure. But the way that they set it up, it was never going to go anywhere, but Dani has this very innocent and pure, “cheating is a deal breaker,” basis. Cheating can be a deal breaker and you can not be innocent, that’s not really what I mean. But she’s just got this doe-eyed like, “Is crushes cheating, maybe?”

Drew: Come on!

Riese: Everyone knows that Tasha thinks that thinking is cheating.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah. Is thinking cheating? Dani’s here to take up that mantle.

Riese: They should be doing this around a campfire.

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: So then of course, Sophie does not, once again.

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: Well, okay. In Sophie’s defense here, your girlfriend being like, “I have something huge to tell you.” You’re like, “Okay, great. I also have something huge to tell you. It’s that I cheated on you.” Dani’s like, “I had a crush on my boss.”

Riese: And specifically, Bette Porter.

Analyssa: Right. “It never went anywhere.” Now what am I supposed to say?

Riese: I fucked Finley in the green room?

Analyssa: “Oh sick. I fucked Finley in the green room in my office. We’re even.”

Riese: Exactly, that’s so weird. “Similarly, to me, I actually had a crush on Finley. We had sex, but it was not a big deal. So like, let’s get married. I’m going to quit my job. So glad we had this talk.”

Drew: When your fiance says to you, right before you get married, “Cheating is a deal breaker,” and you cheated, no, you don’t tell her. What you do is you break off the wedding and you don’t marry this person who has different values than you. You broke the deal, so either you’re going to lie to this person and your entire marriage is going to be built on this lie, and it’s going to be found out because you had sex with someone who was in your social circle. Come on! At your place of work. You’ve told multiple people. Come on!

Analyssa: You’ve told Alice Pieszecki. I’m sorry, this is doomed.

Riese: It’s going to be on the chart. Yeah.

Drew: Okay, but here’s the thing. Here’s the thing that Sophie and Dani do well.

Riese: Have sex.

Drew: Have sex. And they do. And I want to reiterate from the first season that the intimacy coordinator of this show is the MVP. The sex scenes on the show, the only time I’ve ever seen sex scenes that are better than the Gen Q sex scenes is Vida. That is the only show I’ve ever seen, or even movie, the sex scenes on Gen Q are so well choreographed, so well done, so specific. I love them. Even when there are characters who I think should break up and not have sex or they can keep having sex after they break up. A classic.

Riese: Yeah, for sure. Oh my God, I wonder if that will happen.

Drew: I’m sure.

Analyssa: A time-honored tradition.

Drew: But no matter how I feel about the sex that’s happening, I always enjoy watching it.

Riese: Yeah. I thought that they did a great job at sexuals and I was like, “Good job. You’re still sexy. You still have that one thing in common. It’s the only thing you guys have in common so far that we’ve seen, which is that you like having sex with each other.” But I don’t know. You know what else, though? Just a side note. I’m glad they didn’t get into this because I hated it. But remember when Bette pushed that guy or whatever? What happened with that?

Drew: Yeah. I guess he didn’t press charges. Were there any charges to be pressed? I don’t know. I never really followed that storyline.

Riese: I know. I mean, the paps were all over it.

Drew: Yeah. Anyways, so we go to the wedding, where the wedding is happening. Sophie does not say, “We shouldn’t get married,” so there’s going to be a wedding and Tess is bartending because apparently, she’s the only bartender in LA, like Carmen was the only DJ. I’m like, “She’s your friend now. Why is she bartending?” Anyway, she’s bartending. And yeah.

Riese: And she says she lost her job.

Analyssa: Yes.

Drew: Right, right.

Riese: I felt like Bette’s outfit was designed for one purpose only, and it was so that, in the scene where she tells Alice and Nat that she kissed Gigi and they both go, “Gasp.” That scene was in the trailer, but you could only see Bette from behind. And because her dress involves fabrics from all ends of the earth, all assembled in some sort of patchwork designed for her body, she has a white thread, like a white ribbon that’s tied in the back of her dress. So in that clip in the trailer, it looks like they’re talking to a waitress or a server because it looks like she has an apron.

Analyssa: Oh, right.

Riese: But I forgot that also sometimes people wear different occupations as fashion.

Analyssa: See, that’s interesting that from the back, she looks like a waitress, because the front was very much giving, “Pirate overboard, shark bite at the bottom,” kind of situation.

Riese: Yeah. Talk like a pirate day, going to Long John Silvers.

Analyssa: And the top, the necktie situation.

Riese: Confusing.

Analyssa: I just don’t know what was going on there. Also, are you allowed to wear dark colors to weddings? I thought black was a no.

Riese: Really? I definitely wear black to weddings.

Drew: I haven’t been to enough weddings.

Analyssa: Are there rules on that? You can’t wear white.

Riese: I can’t wear white anywhere, it’s brutal. And also, I’m constantly thinking I’m about to get my period.

Drew: Well …

Riese: Yeah. So now, they find out that Bette and Gigi kissed.

Analyssa: Okay.

Drew: Yes.

Riese: Then this interesting thing—

Analyssa: Nat and Alice are way too invested in what Gigi is doing for people who were like, “Gigi doesn’t have a life, whatever.”

Drew: I was actually very surprised and I think, as it develops, we’re seeing hints of this. The whole Bette and Gigi being together, I don’t think Alice or Nat are actually going to be as comfortable with it as they think.

Riese: Right.

Drew: Nat and Alice are not characters on this show who are super fluid with all of that. They’re very jealous. So I think there’s going to be some drama. Yeah, absolutely. Of course, I want drama.

Riese: It was weird when Alice was like, “Well, I don’t know. It’s weird now. We’re all too connected.” And I’m like, “You actually were finger-fucked at the opera by Bette.”

Drew: I know.

Riese: You’re already connected.

Drew: It’s one of my favorite scenes.

Riese: Yes. Drew’s favorite sex scene.

Drew: I ship Alice and Bette.

Analyssa: You’re already fluid bonded.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: Yeah. She set them up. “What do you mean that this is weird now that we’re more connected? You told me to go on a date!”

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: You think I’m not going to kiss?

Drew: I can see that, though. I can see Alice being like, “Oh my god this is perfect.” And then being like — that like totally checks out for me, that Alice would be like, “Actually, this is not what I wanted.” And then Nat is talking to a beautiful trans woman named Marissa. Well, at least the actress is trans…knowing Marja, maybe the character is cis. But, and then like, and she has a husband and a girlfriend and Alice is getting jealous. And I just wish that I just want, I don’t want jealousy. I just want people to be hot and have sex with lots of hot people.

Riese: I think that because when she went over and they were talking about, she was talking about the throuple or whatever, which is a weird, like opening conversation to have with somebody. And Alice was like, “It didn’t — you know, it ended poorly.” And Nat was like, “Well, no.” Like now she’s kind of defending the throuple as a concept, thank God. Because I think we all know it was a perfect concept and we loved it.

Drew: It was the best.

Riese: I got the feeling that Nat maybe liked that and is interested in opening up their relationship. And that’s why she was talking to that woman about it and was interested in it. And Alice is not picking up any of those vibes.

Drew: Yeah. I hope that’s where they go. And I hope Alice gets on board.

Analyssa: I do want to just consider the woman’s reality, which is that you meet a random person, Nat, at a wedding. How long does it take to get into like, “I’m here with my girlfriend and my boyfriend.” Probably not that long. Okay. Fine. And immediately Nat is like, still weird though. Like I’ve never introduced myself to a person and been like, “Who are you here with, as your dates?” Odd, but fine. And Nat goes, “Oh, that’s just like me, actually, let me tell you my thing,” and then Alice comes over and is like, “Our thing was bad.” It’s like, I’m just here to watch people get married. Actually I’m living my happy throuple, goodbye. It’s so crazy.

Drew: I assumed that Marissa was hitting on Nat and that’s how it got brought up. Like, I assumed that she actively was like, was like, “oh,” you know? And she was like, “yeah,” are you like, “are you here with anyone?” And she was like, “oh, like my girlfriend,” and she was like, “oh, I have a girlfriend too… and a husband, we are poly.” You know what I mean? Like that’s what I created a whole narrative for this trans woman in my mind. I’m like, that is, that is what I was expecting. And I was like, and so now she’s like introducing Nat to a world where they could all have sex and we could watch.

Analyssa: I know, I just wished that Marissa didn’t have to introduce Nat to a world — you know, sometimes it’s exhausting to introduce a Nat to a world.

Riese: But somewhere in here, Sophie texts Alice and asks her to come talk to her. And this again was another situation in which I wanted more classic Alice, you know…but she basically…

Analyssa: Maybe she’s grown and changed…

Riese: I don’t care for that.

Analyssa: My voice just cracked so deeply…

Riese: But she tells her, she didn’t tell her.

Drew: Yeah, I know.

Analyssa: Also like, Sophie needs a friend. Where is Sophie’s sister, where’s like…

Drew: Yeah. That’s part of it. That’s part of what happens when you fuck… You have to fuck your friends carefully. I really am a big fan of fucking your friends, but you have to do it carefully because you don’t want to end up in a situation where you don’t — I mean, that is one of the challenges though, right? Like if you’re having drama with fucking a friend and the brand is who you usually talk to about your drama, it does complicate things. It just does.

Analyssa: And the things that might complicate are your wedding.

Drew: Yeah, sure. Never happened to me personally. But in this case, it’s very much — and Micah, Micah and Maribel have just dropped it. Like what, why wouldn’t he tell his best friend Dani, about like, I just, that was so confusing to me. I was like…

Riese: Well, they were, because it’s not his place. It’s not his place to tell her. Sophie has to tell her…

Analyssa: But it was his place to make a scene at the rehearsal dinner?

Drew: If I know that my best friend, I’m also friends with my best friend’s long-time partner, and I love her, but I know that for my best friend that cheating is a deal breaker, and I find out, I would say to Sophie, “Hey, I know this about Dani, and it should come from you. It will devastate her if it comes from anyone but you. Or you need to end this and then no one has to find out. But if you plan on marrying this person, you need to tell her, or I will.” That’s what I would say…so.

Riese: I would just, as a person who is not into conflict would just let it be.

Drew: So when your best friend finds out that you knew — cause your best friend’s going to find out. And then they’re going to say to you. They’re going to be like, “Can you believe this?” I’m just not a good enough liar, maybe.

Riese: You’re right. No, that’s true. Yeah. I guess, I mean, they’re best friends? Yeah. If it was my best friend. Yeah. Because my loyalty would be to my best friend. The way they keep saying that for Dani, cheating is the deal breaker. If you’re calling it cheating already, then it probably is a deal breaker. Right? Like, isn’t cheating usually a deal breaker?

Drew: No, when I’ve been in monogamous relationships, cheating wasn’t a deal breaker for me. But maybe that’s why I no longer want to be in monogamous relationships because that’s not my relationship to monogamy, but I don’t know.

Riese: Right. I mean, I’ve forgiven people for cheating.

Analyssa: I think it’s more that like she is on record hard power pose stance of like, “if someone cheats on me, it’s over,” versus people who like what you’re saying, like in theory, most people would probably be like, “oh, that’s not good,” and maybe end it or maybe not. But they would like to have some, you know, reaction. She’s like, my reaction is always, end.

Riese: And, and also how could you even enjoy your wedding? Like if you know…

Drew: No, she’s not enjoying it, she looks miserable.

Riese: She looks miserable. She looks stressed out and miserable. She’s clearly bowled over by how hot Dani is on multiple occasions. She is stunned by how beautiful she is. But you don’t really see anything of her being head over heels for Dani’s personality. But you also see that in terms of her whole emotional reality is like, just like a tightly wound coil that — you can’t live your life like that. You’re going to quit your job to start going to get your fucking follicle count and then get tested? Whatever.

Analyssa: We didn’t talk about the really intense camera work at the rehearsal dinner when she realizes that Maribel and Micah have been discussing — it’s like, all over. She’s like, panicked.

Drew: So the thing that I knew would happen the whole time and I was waiting to happen, it does in fact happen.

Analyssa: Oh really?

Drew: Oh yeah. I mean, I’m happy it happened…

Riese: I was surprised.

Drew: It’s like, we’re leading up to a wedding. There’s a character who’s the point of all of the drama and isn’t in the episode yet.

Riese: And we know is in the season.

Drew: Yeah. We like, Finley wasn’t going to not be in the first episode. So I was waiting for it to happen. And then it did happen and it makes no sense. It’s so ridiculous.

Minister: When I look around, love…
Finley: Hello?…Oh, shit.

Drew: But, I’m happy it happened because now Finley’s there. The drama gets to all happen. And now we can move on to what the second season of the show will be, which who knows what it will be, because now all of these relationships have been exploded and we get to actually like move on and actually like…

Analyssa: This is like the…

Riese: It was so weird, though…

Analyssa: This was just a pre-episode for the rest of the season. It’s so bizarre that Finley shows up and goes “Hello?” into the wedding venue. And then she comes in and she’s like, “Oh, oh my God.” It’s like, where did she think she was going to go through the door to? She thought she was like walking into this big space. And she was going to open the door. Like Sophie was just sitting in a chair, waiting for her? It was so strange. Didn’t Alice say like the wedding, like whatever.

Riese: She’s in her plane clothes, you know, just like straight off, straight out of LAX, just right onto the runway of the wedding.

Drew: I’m hoping that Micah texted her and organized this whole thing because, one, that would answer the question of why Micah isn’t telling Dani and two, cause that would make Micah like a little bit of a sociopath. And that’d be interesting. I’d love that. But I mean, what an interesting direction for that character that we haven’t spent enough time with, you know? What a twist.

Riese: But we do know that Alice called…

Drew: Yeah, it was probably Alice…

Riese: Alice called and was like, “We miss you,” you know?

Drew: Yeah. And to be like, “Aren’t you going to be at Sophie’s wedding?” Like that’s on [blabbering] at this time and this place. And then Alice got the time wrong by an hour.

Riese: It was so silly.

Analyssa: Yeah, Finley thinks she’s busting in to catch Sophie getting her make-up done.

Riese: Yeah, and she was like, “oh shit.”

Analyssa: It’s like, nope. They’re just…

Riese: “Hi!”

Analyssa: It’s really happening. She’s in the aisle.

Finley: Oh boy. I, I love you. I think I’ve always loved you. And I just don’t want you to get married without all that information. And if you don’t feel the same way, I’ll leave right now. And you know, this would be a great story to tell or something but… I do love you, Soph. I’m pretty sure you love me too.”

Riese: And then we cut. Dude. Like you are burning a lot of bridges out at the same time, right now.

Analyssa: This is a big move.

Drew: Yeah. I mean all of Dani’s dad’s people, they run LA. I mean, what are you… You’re going to be canceled in this town.

Analyssa: All of the corporations Finley will never work in this town again. Yeah. It’s wild. I also wonder like, I’ve been to three weddings in my lifetime now. Not a lot of drama. They mostly go how they’re supposed to…

Riese: Oh yeah, this never happens in real life.

Analyssa: Sure. Bette and Alice and Shane have been to… well, Shane was the reason that the wedding didn’t happen. But, Bette and Alice have been to multiple weddings that are just disasters. You have to wonder if it’s their impact. They’re like planets that have bad gravitational pull towards weddings, bad stuff happens.

Riese: And everyone’s jaw drops. And Alice was like, “I think I know what this is about.” Also, did you see Tess gives Finley the look of death when she walks by, Tess was like…

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: So much money down the drain for the evil empire, you know?

Analyssa: Yeah. I haven’t seen the full wedding venue, but I assume that it’s just as extravagant as The Bachelor mansion, so it’s got to be expensive.

Riese: I did appreciate one thing. We all know that that kind of thing never happens at weddings. But another thing that has never happened at any wedding I’ve ever witnessed or heard about is someone asking the whole audience, like, “If you have any opposition to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace.” That doesn’t happen in real life. But it always happens in movies and TV shows, because that’s an excuse for the person who’s going to say, “Actually, I’m in love with you,” or whatever the fuck. So I was glad they didn’t do that. I was glad they didn’t do that.

Analyssa: I agree.

Drew: My favorite instance of this sort of wedding on TV is the first episode of the second season of Transparent because she goes through with the wedding, the wedding happens, no one interrupts it. She’s freaking out at the party, like, “I made a mistake,” and then she goes to the bathroom and has a quiet freakout where she’s like, “Can we not send him the document?” That to me is — that’s the version of this that felt really realistic to me. And also, it still felt really traumatic and still got across the same thing. I get that The L Word is more of a soap opera than — honestly, stuff like this doesn’t actually bother me this much. Like, the lead-up to justifying Dani and Sophie getting married still after everything we’ve seen; that bothered me. Sophie. I mean, Finley interrupting the wedding in this way. Like, yeah, it’s ridiculous. But like, that I can buy.

Riese: I will allow it, I will absolutely allow it. It was kind of fun.

Drew: I think it’s just the justification to get there. I get that you want these soapy things, but like don’t sacrifice who these characters are in order to get there because there are other ways to get there. And there could be a world where like, Finley was back in LA this whole time and they’d gotten to sort of like a good place where Sophie wasn’t freaking out all the time. It was just a thing they didn’t talk about. And Finley… You know what I mean? Like there’s so many different scenarios where like, it just made a little bit more sense. Micah doesn’t know, like Micah didn’t have to know… that thing thrown in there just made… just like over complicated it. And I just, it’s just these things where I’m like, I get that you want drama and soapy drama and that’s fun. I love it. That’s why I’m watching The L Word. I’m not expecting like, you know, whatever, but I just don’t understand when a character is sacrificed in order to get there.

Riese: Well, I enjoyed it.

Drew: I enjoyed it. I mean, I enjoyed it. It’s not about enjoyment. It’s just, yeah. It’s just like, I get frustrated. Here’s the thing. Okay. So I generally watch porn that has plot and sometimes I’ll be watching it and I’ll be like, “I wish I could just make a few script notes, like a few tweaks.” But like, I get that it’s porn, the point is not that it has like, a perfect script, but sometimes I am like, if you just, you just threw this line, just justified it this way. This would work better for me. So that’s how I feel about The L Word. Like I know the, there are points, but not that the point is just sex and hotness on The L Word. There are other, there’s the fashion, there’s lots of other… There’s like the fun soapy drama. But I do still feel this thing where I’m like, “there’s just like a few tweaks I want to make” and it drives me nuts that I’m just like — it’s just, all the stuff that’s so good and so fun, and there is so much being introduced. I’m really excited for the rest of the season. And like, I mean, even if it was just the scenes with Rosie O’Donnell, I would be thrilled. There’s so much that I really like. And it’s these little things that I’m like, these little things, both politically and narratively, that just drive me nuts. But it’s okay. I’m happy to be here with you both.

Analyssa: I take my brain right out my head. I say, these people are hot, and they’re making mistakes, and I love it.

Riese: That’s the tagline: “these people are hot and they’re making mistakes”. But yeah, I’m excited for the season. I’m curious about Bette and Gigi. Dani is obviously going to spiral, this is not going to be, I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but it’s going to be messy. I’m not super interested in what’s happening with Shane right now. I don’t, I still feel the dog is an unnecessary plot device. And I hope that they give it up, even though I love dogs. I have really good feelings about Micah possibly hooking up with Maribel. I said that the whitest way possible. So in case anyone is curious about what race I am, now you know. I’m excited about that. And I’m excited about Rosie O’Donnell. Yeah.

Analyssa: I think that they got some really fun dialogue off in this episode. And that is what I was thrilled about. There’s just a lot of people being snappy, people were on their game, which I always like.

Drew: Here’s the thing, is that I think when it was announced that there was going to be a spinoff of The L Word, I was like, “oh, a show about all the things we love about The L Word, a show about lesbians and lesbian community… but the things that drove us nuts about The L Word are going to go away.” And I think what I just need to accept is that actually, this is what The L Word is, if it didn’t have these other things, then it wouldn’t be The L Word. And then what would be the fun in that?

Analyssa: I feel similarly. And I’ll encourage you to be excited about this. For me, as a lesbian… watching — I didn’t watch The L Word live, or anytime near it, it was way later. And so now I feel connected to a community, a specific one for sure, but like a niche one, for sure, but a specific-for-us-as-lesbians community of people who were getting, who loved The L Word, but were still getting mad about The L Word, so I’m doing it also. So, that is kind of fun.

Drew: For us as lesbians, it’s nice to have one show that we all watch and we all yell at and that’s really nice.

Analyssa: And we get mad about, it’s fine.

Drew: Yeah. I mean, for the listener at home, we’re recording this a little bit in advance and we have screeners for more episodes and we didn’t watch them because we want to be able to speculate properly. So when we get off of this podcast recording, I’m going to watch the next episode. Don’t get me wrong. I am obsessed with this show. I believe in the complexity of art and that you can criticize something and also love it dearly. That is like my religion, so I’m very excited to keep watching and to keep watching with both of you and to keep discussing.

Analyssa: I’m so happy to be back. It’s been so long. What was that…wasn’t that the tagline for Gen Q?

Drew: Yeah.

Analyssa: “Hello again?”

Riese: Yeah. “Hello again.”

Analyssa: Oh, well, we got there eventually.

Riese: That should be the name of our podcast. “Hello, again.”

Drew: I’m really hoping that Alice gets wild because that’s Alice at her best and she doesn’t always do that, so I’m really hoping that some polyamory happens for them. And I hope every season they get in — if Nat and Alice are going to be together for the rest of Gen Q’s eight season run, I hope that every season Nat and Alice are still together, but they explore polyamory in a new way. And then at the end of the season, they’re like, “That didn’t work for us! We’re boring,” but we get to watch it happen. That’s my dream. And we can all have dreams, right?

Riese: We can all have dreams, you know…

Drew: We as lesbians can all have dreams.

Riese: Like, you know, Dani had a dream about Bette Porter.

Drew: And I’m thinking about it right now.

Riese: All right. I guess that’s a wrap.

Lauren: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of To L and Back Generation Q! One of two podcasts brought to you by Autostraddle.com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @tolandback. You can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget, we also have a hotline! Yes, it still exists! Leave a message, give us a piece of your mind! You can reach us at 971-217-6130! We also have merch! Head over to store.autostraddle.com. There are “Bette Porter For President” t-shirts,  To L and Back stickers, and lots of other simply iconic Autostraddle merchandise. Our theme song is by the talented Be Steadwell. Our brand new TLAB Generation Q logo is by the incredible Jacqi Ko! Jacqi is so, so talented and you should definitely go check out her work, I’ve linked her website and socials in the show notes! And let us know if you want us to make stickers of the new logo, because I think the new logo looks pretty sick! This episode was produced, edited and mixed by ME, Lauren Klein, you can find me on Instagram @laurentaylorklein and on Twitter @ltklein. You can follow Drew everywhere @draw_gregory. You can follow Analyssa on Instragram @analocaa and on Twitter @analoca_. And you can follow the legendary Riese Bernard everywhere @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And of course, the reason we are all here…. Autostraddle.com. Ok, so to end this episode, we are going to do something a little different. Usually we end with a random L word that has little significance to the episode we just recapped, which obviously was great, but for this season we are mixing it up! We are going to bring a little bit more intention to our L words. So Riese, why don’t you explain how this is going to work!

Riese: So at the end of the episode, instead of all saying an L word at the same time, we are just going to say a specific L word that we choose, because it is specifically related to how we feel about the episode in some manner. And today we’re going to use L words that say how we feel about the season upcoming.

Analyssa: An L word that is my hope for this season, and mine is “lunacy.”

Drew: My L word for how I’m feeling about this episode and feeling about this season is “lustful,” because I’ve been inside for a long time… and, not that I was not horny and didn’t want to watch people have sex on TV before the pandemic, but you know, still want to see it. And you know what? I think I will. And that’s what I love about The L Word.

Riese: Mine is lactose intolerant, for obvious reasons.

Drew: Yeah, of course.

Riese: Okay. Love you guys, bye!

Analyssa: Going to go hang out with my friends. Goodbye!

Drew: Bye!

Welcome to “Wait, Is This a Date?” a New Autostraddle Podcast about Queer Dating You Never Knew You Always Needed

Welcome to “Wait, Is This A Date” the podcast about queer dating you never knew you always needed, hosted by me, Christina, and Drew Gregory!

This podcast was born out of Drew and I’s mutual love of voice memos and deep discussions about dating. We’ve been sending each other voice memos for just over a year now, going deep on the things Drew loves about dating (people! fun! flirting!) and the things I hate about dating (People! Fun! Flirting!). We were having a lot of fun, thoughtful, and insightful conversations and frankly, it seemed rude to deprive the greater public of them!

Think of us as your friendly neighborhood co-hosts, guiding you through super specific queer dating conundrums because honestly, straight dating podcasts could never. Conundrums like: How do you flirt via IG stories? How do you take long, drawn out flirting to the next level? What does it mean to believe people are into you? We’ll chat with some of Autostraddle’s finest writers, play some super specific games, report on our pop culture crushes of the moment and of course, try to answer the eternal question of our times: Wait…is this a date???

Listen to the teaser below and whet your appetite, and then smash that “subscribe” button wherever fine podcasts are distributed, thus guaranteeing you a delightful August 11th, when the first official episode drops!

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @waitisthisadate so you never miss an episode (or a pithy bon mot)!

The Links:

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew.

Christina: And I’m Christina. And this is Wait, Is This a Date? An Autostraddle podcast that is dedicated to the question, “Wait, is this a date?”

Drew: I’m so excited to find out.

Theme song plays

Christina: Yeah. I think we’ve been on a journey to find out what are dates and what are not dates, as friends, and also as a people, I think.

Drew: Yeah. As a people. Meaning, the queers, the lesbians.

Christina: Should we tell those queers and lesbians what our whole indealment is, like what we’re up to in this moment?

Drew: Like who we are?

Christina: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah. I can go first. My name is Drew Gregory. I’m a filmmaker and a writer for autostraddle.com, the website. I do a lot of film and TV criticism, and sex and dating writing, and personal essays, and things that combine all of those things. I’m trans and I am a lesbian, and I feel like I should add a third thing because things are in threes. What else? What else?

Christina: Things do go on threes. You have great hair.

Drew: Oh, thank you.

Christina: You have incredible hair, I think that’s really important.

Drew: Those are my identities. Trans. Lesbian. Great hair.

Christina: Those are your identities.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: I’ve always said that you are a woman of hair experience. I’ve always said that about you.

Drew: Yeah. It’s really important.

Christina: Yeah. I am Christina Tucker. I am also a writer at Autostraddle, if you can believe it, who writes about… oh, let’s just say whatever comes to mind. That’s really the vibe. Also a lesbian. I’m Black. I don’t know who else I am.

Drew: You also have great hair.

Christina: Oh yeah, no, I mean, I think this is maybe a podcast of hair experience. Maybe that should be our tagline, “a podcast of hair experience.” I guess the people are probably wondering how we got to this podcast specifically.

Drew: Yes. And like every great thing in life — and by that I mean, very, very few — it started as a highdea, as a thing that I sent you in a voice memo, high. And going back further than that, we started sending voice memos to each other at the start of the pandemic.

Drew, in a voice memo: Okay. I’m just going to tell you like the feelings that I have, and then you can go from there and respond to me, not respond to me, whatever. I’m just like, this is me being direct and clear. Okay. I am someone who… I love talking about dating. It’s one of my main topics of conversation. I have now said my piece.

Christina, in a voice memo: Thank you for saying your piece. Also, six minutes and 54 seconds. Honestly, rather impressive for you to get that out in that amount of time. I never really think about dating. I think, perhaps, an opposite sense of you and your love to think about dating and talk about dating and, like, be dating. I think those are my thoughts. Well, I’m sending a Drew-level voice memo, a Drew-length voice memo now. I’m going to send this.

Drew, in a voice memo: Yeah. I know that you do not think about dating, certainly not as much as me, maybe less than anyone else I know?

Christina, in a voice memo: I think about dating less than almost anybody I also know. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know if I’ve met anybody who doesn’t think about dating as much as I do or as much as I don’t, I guess.

Drew: We didn’t really know each other. We were colleagues at Autostraddle, but for those of you who don’t know, Autostraddle is a virtual office space. It’s more of a Slack situation than a, we all show up to like lesbian headquarters together with briefcases. That’s not really the vibe. We didn’t really know each other. And then, the start of pandemic, there was some DM sliding and some friendship building and some voice memoing. And we would always joke that it was like we had a podcast because we would send these long voice memos. And then when I was stoned, I was like, “We actually should.” And here we are.

Christina: Yeah. I understand what you mean by high ideas not always being the best ideas, but I do have a very clear recollection of hearing you say that and being like, “Yeah, of course we should have a podcast. We are performing for each other. Why not invite other people into it?”

Drew: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Usually my high ideas are things like, “Oh my God, there should be a TV show called Find Your Star Twin, where you take a celebrity and then they meet someone who — like a random person who has their exact same birth chart. That also, is one of my high ideas that I think would be great. It’s like…

Christina: Yeah, first of all, TM, Drew Gregory, copyright.

Drew: That’s a free one. I don’t care.

Christina: No, it’s not. Drew, I’m getting you money, I am going to be your money manager for that. Absolutely not.

Drew: I just want to see this stuff in the world. Basically, this is a dating podcast, a queer dating podcast. And one of the reasons why it is that topic, as opposed to any number of other things Christina and I talk about, is because I love dating and Christina does not love dating and that is a fun little.

Christina: Less of a fan.

Drew: And conflict is really… That’s where drama happens. I think Socrates said that.

Christina: Absolutely.

Drew: And that’s why that’s our topic. We’re going to cover all sorts of things.

Christina: Yeah. We’re going to talk about all of the best queer dating conundrums, dating via Instagram.

Drew, in audio clip from future episode: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Instagram is the best queer dating app.

Shelli, in audio clip from future episode: A thousand percent. It is the best.

Christina, in audio clip from future episode: I’ve heard this from other queers.

Shelli, in audio clip from future episode: Absolutely. It gives you literally everything you need, except if someone’s private. But even if you’re private, baby, I’ll find out all about you, some kind of way.

Drew, in audio clip from future episode: We’re going to talk about the best sex we’ve ever had.

Dani, in audio clip from future episode: And then I finally asked like, “No, did you run over here to have sex? Are we going to have sex?” And they were like, “Yeah, that’s what I wanted.” And it was like, the cat and the dog were in the room and there was cat and dog hair everywhere. And I was like, definitely having an allergic reaction while we were having sex. The orgasm was, like, chef’s kiss. It was the perfect experience.

Drew, in audio clip from future episode: Wow.

Christina, in audio clip from future episode: I wonder if it’s something about the hives that really added. Like a little ‘jenesequa’ to that orgasm experience. It was like, “Ooh, I’m a little itchy also.” I wonder how much that factors. We’re talking about how to break up with people.

Ro, in audio clip from future episode: It feels like a very straight culture thing, too.

Christina, in audio clip from future episode: Yeah.

Ro, in audio clip from future episode: At least in my experience, I feel like… My straight friends are the ones who are more likely to say, “Well, fuck that person. That person sucks,” if I end a relationship with someone. Whereas, queer people in my life are the ones who are more likely to maintain friendships with exes or at least see our exes in a holistic way.

Christina, in audio clip from future episode: Everything you could think of in a dating podcast, and I’m not going to lie to you folks, also more. More than you could ever think of.

Drew, in audio clip from future episode: When you’re sexting via text, is it like what you want them… Are you doing role-plays of a scenario, like “you’re touching me right now” or “I wish you were touching,” what tense are we in?

Kayla, in audio clip from future episode: Yeah, I was going to ask the same question, actually, because that’s something that’s always interesting to me, especially just because we are all writers, also.

Christina, in audio clip from future episode: I was going to say, a group of writers like, “What tense are we working?”

Kayla, in audio clip from future episode: Point of view.

Christina, in audio clip from future episode: It’s a close third, what’s happening here?

Kayla, in audio clip from future episode: Like, strictly second?

Drew: Here’s the thing about queer people. Let me tell you.

Christina: Okay. Pull up a chair. Welcome to your TED Talk. Let’s go off.

Drew: We have so many experiences and are so much more interesting. Just when I think about the way that straight people talk about dating, it’s so boring. And I think so often, queer dating conversations are extensions of the mainstream dating discourse, but adding things like “coming out” and “first time you’re with a blah, blah, blah.” It’s like — there’s so much more nuance in so many more… It’s so exciting. What a world that it is, queer sex and queer dating.

Christina: We’ve taken like the very classic kind of boring structure of heterosexual dating and really brought it into a new world, filled with long conversations and processing our feelings. It’s incredible work.

Drew: Yeah. I’m really excited and I hope you all are excited, because our first episode comes out a week from today and then, there’ll be new episodes every Wednesday.

Christina: It’s been one week until you’ll hear our podcast. Nailed it. Crushed it. Yeah. Every Wednesday, you’ll not only get To L and Back on Mondays, you’ll get Wait, Is This A Date? on Wednesdays.

Drew: And I co-host both, so if you don’t like me, I guess you’re not listening to Autostraddle podcasts. And if you do like me, you’re welcome.

Christina: Also, if you don’t like Drew, grow up, is what I have to say.

Drew: I’m not for everybody, I’m okay with that. I think it’s probably good to not be for everybody.

Christina: Sure. I think that’s totally fair. And maybe a topic we could discuss on one of our future episodes. What happens when you’re not for everybody? I loved that I went like, “Ooh, let’s make this all inclusive.” What happens when you, we, as people. You said, let’s do a whole episode about, “What if I’m not for everybody?”

Drew: Well, it’s Leo season and I’m a Leo rising and I felt like making it about myself. 00:09:54].

Christina: As am I. Thank you very much.

Drew: We are dual Leo risings on this podcast, and that’s part of why it’s going to be so good. You can listen to us wherever you listen to your podcast. It’s going to be a pretty standard podcast situation. Nothing fancy, no riddles needed to be solved to find the episode, it’s going to be right there for you.

Christina: Simply not the boss of you. There’s lots of options, do what you will.

Drew: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Okay. Well, you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at @waitisthisadate. And you can email us at waitisthisadate@gmail.com. And you can find me on Twitter and Instagram and TikTok at @draw_gregory, my name in the present tense.

Christina: I have looked at your social media accounts many times and I have never, until this moment, realized that it is “draw.” Wow.

Drew: Yeah. Well that’s the thing, Drew was taken and I don’t know how… Oh, I was dating someone that actually… Actually this person who I dated, I didn’t get a lot out of that relationship, except I said this idea and she thought it was so funny, like too funny, honestly, like part of the problem, I think maybe. And I was encouraged to do it, and then it’s just stuck.

Christina: Wow.

Drew: But yeah. Sometimes people think I’m a visual artist and you know what, I love to be thought of that way, but I can’t, I don’t really have drawing skills.

Christina: I will say there’s nothing more on brand for Drew than being like, “Oh, that’s your Twitter handle.” And you being like, “Actually, it’s a funny story about dating.”

Drew: Yes, exactly.

Christina: Perfect.

Drew: What are your personal handles, and are they connected to your romantic life?

Christina: Simply, no. You can find me at @c_gracet on twitter.com, the website. And if you want to find me on Instagram, you can do so, at @christina_gracet. And it’s really brave of me to know my own Instagram handle.

Drew: Incredible work.

Christina: Thanks so much.

Drew: It’s always a joy to talk to you and I’m so excited to dive into all of these exciting topics. And for our listeners to get to know us a little bit better and get to… I think we can all, I think we’re all going to learn on this journey.

Christina: I hope so. I signed up for learning.

Drew: Yeah.

Christina: Like a college course of podcasts. That made it sound like an absolute bummer. So sorry.

Drew: I don’t know. I had some really great college classes.

Christina: Obviously, I did too, but I don’t want to make anybody—

Drew: Can you imagine how amazing it would be if you showed up to your college class and either of us was your professor, or we taught a class together, that’d be the hottest thing ever. People would be like…

Christina: Hottest ticket in town. Enrollment is off the chart.

Drew: Oh, we should have an episode that’s dedicated to hot professors. That’s not relevant.

Christina: That’s not not relevant. I’ll say that.

Drew: Sure, sure. I feel like there may be — you have to make it a little broader, but who knows? Who knows what will be in the future, and that’s really exciting. And you know who will know? You, listener, when you tune in every Wednesday.

Christina: You tune in and you crucially hit that old subscribe button and you can hang out with us every Wednesday and ask yourself, “What is a date?”

Drew: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. That brings me to… I don’t know. I was just wondering… was this a date?

Christina: Drew, no. This is a podcast trailer.

Drew: Oh, cool. Okay. Great. Okay. I think I’m getting the hang of it and you know what’s great, is that because I asked, now I know, and now in direct communication is really what it’s all about.

Christina: Asked and answered. The CT motto.

Drew: And something that a lot of people in our community could learn. And we’re going to, hopefully, this is really a service. This is less of a podcast and more of a political act.

Christina: Wow. I wasn’t aware of that, but I’m thrilled to know that we’re having both a podcast and a political act. Two of my favorite things. Two of my favorite things to start with P, podcasts and political acts.

Theme song plays.

Christina, in a voice memo: I think my instinct is if I like a person and I want them in my life, I know the best way for me to keep them in my life is to make them a friend.

Drew, in a voice memo: I’m just so glad that we’ve become such close friends. And if out of quarantine, that’s what happened, I made this amazing new friend, who I love dearly and I’m just delighted to talk to you always, like what a gift.

Christina, in a voice memo: Dammit. I had a thought and it went away. It was honestly probably really brilliant.

To L and Back: Generation Q Special Pre-Season 2 Podcast Episode Is Here

The premiere of The L Word Generation Q’s Season 2 is just five days away so join Drew, Analyssa and Riese as we do a very quick recap of last season and dig into the most thrilling parts of the Season 2 Trailers. LIKE BETTE AND GIGI!

The usual:

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew!

Analyssa: I’m Analyssa!

Riese: And I’m Riese!

Drew, Riese, and Analyssa: And this is To L and Back Generation Q!

Drew: Wow, we’re out of practice! It’s been a long long time since we were last here, for purposes of The L Word.

Riese: It has been!

Drew: There was a whole pandemic. It’s still happening, apparently.

Analyssa: Well and “here” is only metaphorical, because we’re not actually all together.

Drew: No, I’m in Ohio.

Riese: I love Ohio.

Drew: I didn’t move to Ohio, don’t worry. I will be back in LA soon enough to have more lesbian chaos in Los Angeles.

Riese: You know what’s weird is that they’ve never mentioned Michigan in The L Word, like they have gone to — they’ve had Missouri, Illinois…

Analyssa: Really important Missouri representation.

Riese: Well, Drew wasn’t in The L Word, but you are in Ohio, so I’m just gonna count that.

Analyssa: That counts.

Drew: My life is basically The L Word, but there are trans women in it and they’re not playing cis, so…

Riese: Hey we might have—

Drew: Fingers crossed! So, for those of you who don’t know, To L and Back is an L Word recap podcast through Autostraddle.com that was hosted by Riese, who is here with us, and Carly Usdin, who is not here with us — but hi, Carly — that recapped the original L Word, and then last year when The L Word miraculously came back after — how many years was it, Riese?

Riese: Ten thousand.

Drew: Ten thousand years from 2009 to 2019.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Oh I did that math, 10 years. So, after 10 years it came back and we did some recap episodes of Gen Q, and now Gen Q is back!

Riese: Finally!

Drew: And we’re gonna keep going, but now Riese, because she’s no longer employed by the original episodes because they did finish, is joining us full time and we’re so excited about that.

Analyssa: Riese was cursed by some lesbian god that as long as there’s something airing on The L Word, she has to talk about it.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Some L Word anything is on, and Riese must be attached to a mic.

Riese: Yes, that is true.

Analyssa: Or a blog.

Riese: This is my curse. I really thought the curse had ended, you know? It is my burden and my responsibility. So that’s what we’re doing. So today in anticipation of this monumental event which is The L Word: Generation Q finally coming back, even though we’re all totally different people and a lot less psychologically stable, which at least for me is pretty sad.

Drew: Can you tell?

Riese: Can you tell we’re all doing great?

Analyssa: Ok, remind me what happened in Season 1. I’m famously horrible at this.

Riese: Do you really not remember?

Analyssa: Well, ok, here’s what I remember: running through the airport.

Riese: Ok.

Analyssa: That’s huge.

Riese: We’ve all been there.

Analyssa: We’ve all been there.

Riese: We’ve all run in an airport.

Drew: I was trying to catch a flight, not decide which of the people I was in love with.

Analyssa: Yeah, I was gonna say I feel like I’ve been running to catch a plane, but whatever. Ok. So Sophie’s running through the airport, that’s what I remember. I remember Sophie’s grandma was really sick and I was nervous about that. And Bette lost her run for mayor.

Drew: Yes.

Analyssa: And that’s probably all.

Riese: Ok, what was Alice’s storyline in Season 1?

Analyssa: Ok Alice, they brought on that writer dude.

Riese: Drew.

Analyssa: Oh, yeah.

Riese: Oh, but you guys gave him a different name.

Analyssa: What’s his name?

Drew: Yeah, what did we start calling him?

Analyssa: Owen.

Riese: Owen.

Analyssa: Right?

Riese: Yeah, he does have a strong Owen vibe.

Drew: Yeah, but I don’t think he’s coming back, so I don’t think we have to deal with that.

Analyssa: And she and Nat — oh my god, it’s all coming back to me now.

Drew: I was like, did you think of Owen before you thought about Gigi?! Because um… Analyssa.

Analyssa: You’re so right. Honestly in my head those two storylines lived so separately, and Gigi was just for me.

Drew: I see, yeah.

Riese: A gift to us all.

Analyssa: So Alice, Nat, and Gigi briefly try a throuple — well, a threesome that turns into a throuple.

Riese: Yeah. A childcare arrangement. you know?

Analyssa: It’s so hard to find good childcare in Los Angeles.

Riese: It is so hard to find good childcare in Los Angeles!

Analyssa: And that doesn’t really work out.

Riese: In their opinion.

Analyssa: Yeah, in their opinion it doesn’t work very well, and so then—

Riese: In our opinion, it was highly successful.

Analyssa: Nat makes a really big play in front of Roxane Gay, right?

Riese: Yeah, she steals the mic from Roxane Gay.

Analyssa: I thought you were gonna say she steals the Declaration of Independence.

Riese: Can you imagine if Roxane Gay owned the Declaration of Independence? There was this whole weird subplot with the Bill of Rights?

Analyssa: There’s a whole National Treasure kind of thing going on.

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Analyssa, no, that’s National Treasure, that’s not The L Word: Generation Q. I know they’re very similar.

Analyssa: Yeah, you can see why I got confused. She steals the mic from Roxane Gay, and she’s like, “I love you and I only want to be with you.”

Riese: Yeah, we were like [scoffs]

Analyssa: And we were like, ok, sure.

Drew: Everyone everywhere was like, “Why?”

Riese: Why?

Analyssa: Ok, somebody else go.

Drew: I was going to jump the gun, because I’m excited about — based on the trailer, so this isn’t a spoiler — because Gigi might be going out, now that she’s been kicked out of throuple land.

Analyssa: Oh, right!

Drew: Finley stole a bike at the beginning of the season and returned it at the end of the season.

Riese: Yeah, and she dated a priest.

Drew: Yes. She did, and Finley has a lot of religious trauma.

Riese: She dated the priest and then they broke up.

Drew: Is Olivia Thirlby not coming back this season? Do we know that?

Riese: No, she’s not coming back.

Drew: Ok.

Analyssa: I liked her.

Drew: Well, that’s probably what’s right for the story, but not what’s right for my crush.

Riese: I didn’t like them as a couple because, as you know, the only couple I care about is Sophie and Finley.

Drew: Big Sinley shipper, I think we’re all — Analyssa, are you a Sinley shipper?

Analyssa: Yeah! I think it’s what’s right.

Drew: Yeah, great. This podcast is a Sinley shipping podcast.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: I mean, to be clear, Dani has her appeal.

Riese: Right. Powerful.

Analyssa: If I’m Sophie, I’m torn, but I’m not Sophie so I’m watching them and I say Finley, obviously.

Riese: Correct.

Drew: Yeah. I think we’ll see what happens this season, but I think there’s a world when Dani is not in the storyline of Season 1, I think I’m going to like her more. I think so much of Dani was in her relationship with Sophie, and I don’t really like them together. The only option for this show to continue is either they break up or they stay together and work things out in a way that is functional — or not functional, but L Word functional.

Riese: Which is fighting everyday.

Drew: Either of those changes I think I’ll like Dani more in that dynamic than I did in the first season, because I was just waiting for them to break up and was so happy when Sophie was cheating, which I don’t want to cheat. Something I still haven’t done since last season is that I still have not cheated on anyone.

Riese: That’s so good!

Analyssa: Yeah, that’s important.

Drew: Thank you. Thank you.

Riese: So Dani’s storyline was that she started out, she was working for her father, who is responsible for the opioid crisis, and then she met Bette Porter and she was like, “Oh my god, Bette Porter, I want to work for you. You’re so hot and you have a cause.” And then she started to work for Bette Porter. She’s like, “Where’s my office?” They’re like, “Just grab a desk with your cardboard box.” And so she had to do that and then she helped Bette Porter run for mayor.

Dani saying to Bette "Ever since I met you, I can feel things."

Riese: Then meanwhile she’s trying to plan a wedding with Sophie, because she just proposed to her. And then, as everyone knows, as soon as you propose you gotta plan the wedding the next day. You gotta immediately, you gotta get out there.

Drew: Traditionally.

Riese: Traditionally, as it is in the culture of lesbians, honestly of America, of people of humanity, we must immediately secure a venue. So they started to plan and her and Sophie, they had great sexuals. And a lot of fights because Sophie likes to talk about her feelings and Dani doesn’t. And Sophie likes emotional support and Dani doesn’t like to give it. And Sophie is herself and then Dani kind of wants Sophie to meet her where she’s at rather than the other way around. And they made Sophie’s family feel weird and so it was like a lot of tension around the wedding. And then Bette Porter lost the election.

Analyssa: Right.

Riese: And so then Dani was like, “Let’s get married and move to Hawaii” — or sorry, “Let’s visit Hawaii and get married.” They’re not going to move to Hawaii.

Drew: Yeah. And while Bette was running for mayor, Bette was also having sex with a woman who was married.

Analyssa: Oh my gosh, Felicity, I forgot her.

Drew: Felicity. Was she Bette’s former co-worker? Former employee?

Riese: Former colleague, yeah. Classic Bette.

Bette in bed with Felicity

Drew: Classic Bette. I remember someone got pushed down the stairs.

Riese: Oh yeah, Felicity’s husband.

Drew: Yeah, the husband got pushed down the stairs.

Riese: He was a bit of a mess, that guy.

Analyssa: Yeah, he kept showing up to places.

Riese: Yeah, showing up uninvited. And you know what’s going to happen if you show up uninvited to Jordi’s play?

Analyssa: You might get pushed down the stairs a little bit.

Riese: Yeah, you’re gonna get pushed down the stairs, and deal with it, you know what I mean?

Analyssa: Jordi!

Riese: Yeah, Jordi! Angie, should we talk about Angie’s storyline?

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: Yeah, Angie and Jordi, I love Angie and Jordi so much.

Riese: Angie’s cute.

Analyssa: And Jordi’s cute, and they’re cute together, and they like each other. And that’s basically — what, Drew?

Drew: That’s basically it, I’m just having feelings. I’m allowed to have feelings about the teenaged lesbians, one of whom is played by a trans actress but cis.

Analyssa: All of Angie’s lesbian aunts go to this play, even though she’s just doing stage crew, but it’s nice because Jordi doesn’t have any family going, and so Angie is like, “You guys can all come be embarrassing lesbians at my play if you’re really nice to Jordi.”

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Which is very sweet of her. And they are!

Riese: They are!

Analyssa: They’re all very nice to Jordi.

Riese: And it’s so sweet, and Jordi loves them.

Angie and Shane

Drew: Ok, I just unlocked a new fantasy of mine, and it’s a bunch of embarrassing lesbians in their forties showing up to my high school play.

Riese: Well, you know, my mom could arrange that for you, you know? Sometimes I would go to the movies and her and her friends would also be there.

Drew: I’m not really doing high school theater anymore, though, so I don’t really know if it could be arranged.

Analyssa: We could stage a small high school — you could pretend.

Drew: Could we do Our Town?

Riese: I love Our Town! If I can be the Stage Manager.

Drew: That sounds great.

Riese: I fucking love the Our Town. “The” Our Town? Just Our Town. I love Our Town. Our Town’s my favorite play.

Drew: This is an Our Town podcast.

Riese: Oh my god, let’s just become an Our Town podcast. I bet there’s at least 35 Our Town fans out there who’d want to really get into Thornton Wilder.

Drew: Yeah let’s get into George and Emily’s relationship.

Riese: Yeah, let’s talk about Mrs. Soame’s reaction to the wedding.

Analyssa: Ok, I actually did unlock an L Word memory just now.

Riese: Was it about Angie?

Analyssa: It’s about Angie’s play, which is that — doesn’t Shane bring her ex-wife to Angie’s play?

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: Aren’t they kind of making eyeballs at each other?

Riese: She brings — so Shane’s storyline. Shane shows up in Los Angeles on a private jet. She fucks a girl on her kitchen counter in a new apartment that Alice got her, but she doesn’t have any furniture. And then she fills it with furniture.

Analyssa: She’s super rich.

Riese: Shane is like, “I’m going to buy this bar that’s going out of business.” It used to be lesbian now it’s straight. She meets Tess and Lena, they’re girlfriends, they work at the bar. Tess is played by Jamie Clayton, Lena’s played by Mercedes Mason. Then she decides to buy the bar, she turns it into Dana’s, it becomes a lesbian bar. Then she fucks Lena, so Lena and Tess break up, Lena skips town, and then it’s Tess and Shane running the bar together. Meanwhile, it turns out Shane’s getting divorced from her ex-wife Quiara, because her ex-wife Quiara wants to have a kid and Shane doesn’t want to have kids, despite Shane wanting to have kids in the original series, but that doesn’t matter, right? Time is a flat circle.

Shane saying "I got divorced on my birthday!"

Drew: Yeah. Jenny Schecter is still alive.

Riese: And Shane’s an entrepreneur.

Analyssa: Shane’s an entrepreneur, and then she finds a dog at the end.

Riese: Yeah, so then at the end she finds a dog and adopts it, and that’s love. That’s how you find it and that’s how you have it.

Drew: Tina!

Analyssa: Tina.

Drew: Tina comes back towards the end, she shows up. So then Tina’s around and it’s like, oh, are Bette and Tina gonna — all the Betina shippers who seem to exist for some reason, even though I don’t — look, I approve of everyone, I accept all people—

Riese: Do you?

Drew: So I’m not judging. No, not at all. But I’m not judging specifically if you ship a television couple that I don’t ship, that’s a level of, that’s fine, I don’t care about that, as long as there’s no other — you understand, I could add some caveats, but you know what I’m saying. But I will say, not from a place of judgment but from a place of wonder, I don’t understand the Betina shippers, and unfortunately for Betina shippers, Tina’s getting married to someone named Carrie, who we do not meet in the first season, but we sure will meet in the second season!

Riese: Yeah, and she’s gonna be played by the legendary Rosie O’Donnell, and I’m really fucking excited about that.

Drew: And it means that we also are going to have a butch character on the show because Rosie — I don’t know if you’ve seen in the trailer, but—

Riese: Oh my god! Short hair, silver fox.

Analyssa: Wears a lot of button ups.

Riese: Little glasses.

Analyssa: I love her.

Riese: A little awkward.

Rosie O'Donnell

Rosie O’Donnell as Carrie in THE L WORD: GENERATION Q “Late to the Party”. Photo Credit: Liz Morris/SHOWTIME.

Analyssa: What else is in the trailer? I watched it like 3 times but I just remember it being a lot of really quick cuts of hands.

Riese: That was the first trailer, then we got another trailer.

Drew: We see that Bette and Gigi hook up!

Riese: Yeah!

Drew: Which is thrilling for everybody.

Riese: Are there any other Season 1 storylines that we didn’t go through?

Analyssa: Micah!

Riese: Oh, Micah! Micah’s storyline is that he meets this guy, José, who lives next door. They start dating, but José’s a little mysterious and sometimes he says they’re gonna hang out, and then he says they can’t hang out, and then Micah’s mom comes to visit and everyone cries. And then Jose has an art show and Micah goes to it and this guy’s like, “Hey, look at how much he’s developed as an artist,” and he drew this very strange picture of Micah.

Drew: Oh my god, I forgot about that! Oh my god, I blocked that out! Oh god, I’m not going to sleep tonight. I forgot about that.

Analyssa: The mermaid painting!

Riese: The mermaid picture!

Drew: Oh, wow.

Riese: But the biggest shock is that the guy at the show is José’s husband.

Analyssa: José’s married.

Drew: That is the more important plot aspect of this situation.

Micah talking to Jose saying 'Well I used to be a lesbian before, so..."

Riese: And we all know that Micah deserves better, because so far he has no flaws.

Analyssa: Yeah, he seems to be just a sweet loving friend.

Riese: Yes.

Analyssa: That’s all. He’s not trying to hurt anyone.

Riese: No, he’s not, he’s just being there, and he’s being supportive, and he’s allegedly a professor.

Drew: Give Micah flaws! Have Micah cheat on someone! No, not everybody cheats. But Micah can have flaws that aren’t cheating, maybe Micah’s flaws are staying with someone that doesn’t treat him very well.

Riese: I mean, they definitely are.

Drew: Sometimes your flaw isn’t that you treat other people poorly, but that you treat yourself poorly.

Riese: Oh my god, that’s so true.

Analyssa: That is deep.

Riese: And that’s so relatable, you know? I think that’s all the storylines. The things that we’re excited about from the trailer: first of all, obviously, the pairing of Bette and Gigi.

Analyssa: Have we mentioned it at all yet?

Riese: Have we mentioned it?

Analyssa: A couple times? No?

Riese: A couple times.

Drew: That’s exciting — wait, can I just break down for a second why it’s exciting.

(L-R): Sepideh Moafi as Gigi and Jennifer Beals as Bette in THE L WORD: GENERATION Q “Late to the Party”. Photo Credit: Liz Morris/SHOWTIME.

Riese: Yes.

Drew: Because I just feel like there’s a lot of nuance.

Analyssa: Hair. There’s a lot of hair.

Riese: Beautiful hair.

Drew: So, yeah.

Analyssa: What if this podcast was just us heckling Drew for real opinions?

Drew: You really undercut my joke because there was no nuance, I was just gonna say they’re both really really hot, but because you guys went that route now I can’t — now my joke won’t land, so, yes, their hair and really all of them. And also that they’re both very top-y. That’s exciting for me personally. I love a top for top.

Riese: Top off!

Drew: That’s why Bette and Jodi, I love it. I mean I don’t love what happened in the original — like Bette and Jodi would be my one true pair if Bette had actually grown, but she didn’t, so I don’t actually like that for Jodi, but a lot of years have passed, so maybe Bette can handle a top for top situation now.

Riese: I think we’re gonna have some top offs.

Analyssa: I think we might have some top offs.

Riese: I think we’re gonna have some top offs.

Analyssa: I want to see Nat and Alice — ok, I know that this is controversial, I don’t think their relationship is working, but I like both of those actresses and I like them, I think they are funny in the scenes together.

Riese: Yeah, they are.

Analyssa: I don’t think their relationship is good as people.

Riese: Right.

Analyssa: But I do understand — do you know what I mean?

Riese: Yeah.

Drew: Right.

Analyssa: So, I’m excited to see more of them and see if they figure something out, or maybe just make a bunch of quips at each other, because I like that.

Riese: Yeah, I like that.

Drew: I mean, they’d be great exes.

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah.

Drew: But only if they have a reason to keep seeing each other, so they’d have to really stay in the friend group together.

Nat in the backseat of a car

Analyssa: Let’s give Nat a job on The Aloce Show.

Riese: On The Aloce Show.

Analyssa: On The Aloce Show. I always forget.

Riese: She’s a therapist, so she could be like on Unreal, how they had that therapist, you know? In the back who talked to people? You know what I’m talking about? She could do some emotional labor.

Analyssa: She could have a monthly segment where Alice has her talk to a celesbian or something. That would be fun.

Riese: Yeah, that would be fun. Therapy. Yeah.

Analyssa: Ok, more things to break down from the trailer, or things we’re excited about?

Riese: Yeah, I’m excited to see what happens with Sophie and Finley. Did I mention that?

Drew: Yeah.

Riese: I am excited to see what happens with Micah and Maribel.

Analyssa: Oh, right! Your number one ship.

Riese: My number one ship, because in the trailers, and in some stills that we’ve already seen, they are spending time together.

(L-R): Leo Sheng as Micah Lee and Jillian Mercado as Maribel in THE L WORD: GENERATION Q ÒLean On MeÓ. Photo Credit: Liz Morris/SHOWTIME.

Analyssa: They’re pictured in the same frame.

Drew: I would be so excited about that.

Analyssa: That would really be a huge shot-from-half-court situation.

Riese: Right, exactly.

Analyssa: That would be really impressive for you.

Riese: Thank you, thank you. I did say in a post that I made a really strong case for why they should be together and the chances are strong that somebody who already thought of that is in the writers room, was reading that and was like, “Ugh, now everyone’s gonna think that we got the idea from this bitch,” you know? But in an alternate world, I guess no one reads anything I ever wrote, and they thought of it anyways because it’s just a great idea.

Analyssa: Yeah. You just tapped into a great idea.

Riese: Or they’re just friends. Pff.

Drew: No, no, I was going to say or they did read the post, and then you gave them the idea, and they’re gonna call you and they’re gonna go, “Riese, we need to give you co-writer credit on this script.” And that’s how television is made.

Analyssa: And that’s how it works.

Riese: I did unfortunately say in the post, I did explicitly say, “this is a free idea.”

Analyssa: Oh no! You can’t say that!

Riese: I did, I said, “this is a free idea,” and so now I’m giving it away for free.

Analyssa: You have to retroactively edit and say, “this is an idea that you could pay me for if you call me, this is the number, thank you.”

Riese: Yeah, because the thing is that in one of the trailers, Micah says, “I slept with a girl.” He says it to Dani, and he says it’s a girl, and I’m just saying, who’s the girl? I don’t know, maybe.

Analyssa: Bisexuality returns to The L Word.

Riese: Because her character was upped.

Analyssa: Oh, to regular?

Riese: Mhmm affirmative

Analyssa: Good for her!

Drew: I love this. I’m fully on board. I was always on board, but I’m on board with your guess that it’s actually happening, I think that it makes a lot of sense.

Analyssa: Wait, is the second teaser the one where Finley has a black eye?

Riese: Oh yeah, oh yeah that’s true. We have seen Finley with a black eye, and I’m gonna go out on a limb here, that it’s from Dani.

Analyssa: Interesting.

Riese: Yeah. Also, Alice is writing a book.

Drew: Alice is writing a book, and I, for one, can’t wait to read it.

Riese: I hope — do you think it’s gonna be like another Lez Girls, in so far that it was written in 35 days and then already has a publisher and is ready to hit the presses?

Analyssa: Almost assuredly.

Drew: Probably. I wonder if the book will have a bunch of personal details about her friends and then the ghost of Jenny schecter will show up and be like, “Hey, I have Monet actually here, because we’re both in the afterlife together, and let me tell you, Monet’s on my side, so go fuck yourself.”

Riese: Yes.

Drew: “Monet thinks you’re a big hypocrite.”

Riese: I’m hoping that Alice’s book will be providing an opportunity for additional backstory on what happened in those ten thousand years between the original series and Generation Q.

Drew: Oh, see, I hope the book gives more backstory of what happened before the original L Word started and Bette and Alice were dating, because that’s also one of my — that’s my weird ship, is that I like would love Bette and Alice to be together.

Riese: I don’t think anyone’s spoken about Bette and Alice more than you. I would say that if you added up all the times in the world people have talked about Bette and Alice, all of them, and then compared them to the amount of times that you personally have talked about Bette and Alice, it would be the same amount of times.

Drew: Yeah, and I love that for me.

Riese: Balice.

Drew: Here’s the thing. I mean I’ve already justified — last season I talked about why I think they should be together, so I don’t need to get into it again, but I will say, who doesn’t like getting fingered at the opera? You know? And that’s not the main reason that they’re compatible, but—

Analyssa: But it was the first one to come up.

Drew: I’ve never been fingered at the opera.

Riese: I’ve never been fingered at the opera. I think… mmmm…

Drew: I haven’t been to that many operas, though.

Analyssa: Like, at a movie theater, but I was in high school, that doesn’t count.

Riese: Fingered in a movie theater?

Drew: Were you seeing the movie adaptation of Phantom of the Opera?

Analyssa: I wish! I love that movie.

Riese: Carol’s a little bit nervous about the new season because she knows that there will be a dog in it, and she would just like to make sure that everybody knows that she’s still the top dog.

Analyssa: She’s the number one dog.

Drew: Well, do you think that she’s worried that maybe they’re gonna have to cast a bunch of dogs but they’re gonna be like, “No no no, they’re playing cats, trust us, they’re playing cats, they’re not actually dogs. trust us.”

Riese: We have discussed that Carol might be a cat.

Drew: Oh, so there you go, so maybe Carol will feel really represented.

Riese: Yeah, she will.

Drew: And you know what, I love that for Carol, because really what I want is for Carol to feel represented in the lesbian community.

Riese: Well, I hope she does because did you see that meme on Netflix @most?

Analyssa: That the dog is named Carol?

Riese: Yeah.

Analyssa: Yeah, I did see that. I thought of you.

Riese: I thought if this isn’t about my dog personally then I’m moving back to Ohio, where I’ve never lived, but could.

Analyssa: Well, so Riese is joining us for the rest of the season! Other changes that we have are that we have a new logo.

Riese: We’re gonna have a new logo for these episodes!

Analyssa: So don’t get confused when you see a pretty new picture! It’s still the three of us being annoying.

Riese: Yeah, but if you do find us annoying, I would suggest just keeping it to yourself, and not necessarily posting a bad review. Or you could just email us and let us know, because the thing is you don’t want to erase us from Apple — erasure, you don’t want to do erasure.

Analyssa: You don’t want to do erasure.

Drew: Lesbian erasure is a big problem in the community.

Riese: It is.

Analyssa: That’s a great point.

Drew: And lesbian erasure is when you don’t like our podcast.

Riese: Yeah, lesbian erasure is leaving a bad review.

Analyssa: It’s when you think we’re annoying.

Riese: I only leave reviews to say positive things or to be like — I left a review recently that was like, “Can you please make it so that the descriptions of the episodes are there instead of the sponsor messages, because I don’t know what any of these episodes are for this podcast.” You know? It was a technical request.

Analyssa: That’s helpful!

Riese: But I gave it 5 stars.

Drew: That’s how I feel about Uber drivers. I’ll be like, “Hey, maybe don’t say these things about trans people,” but I’m still going to give you 5 stars and tip 30% because I’m not a monster.

Riese: Right, yeah, one time I ordered something on Postmates and got something totally different, 3 hours later. And I still tipped 20%, right? And Gretchen was like, “I honestly think if a Postmates driver came to my house, opened the door, and ate the entire meal that I ordered in front of me, I would probably still tip 20%.”

Analyssa: They’re not paid enough.

Riese: It’s on us.

Drew: Hey, so can you tell that there was a pandemic and that we haven’t seen a lot of each other and miss each other? But we’re gonna say goodbye for now, and wrap it up, and talk to each other off mic about our Postmates orders, but we’ll be back next week with a recap of the first episode of The L Word: Generation Q,” and then back the week after that with the second episode, and sort of that schedule moving forward. And we’re so excited to be back!

Riese: We’ll also be recapping it on Autostraddle.com. Recapping it will take me a really long time, and so I appreciate your support, your commentary, your page views, and also any positive reinforcement that you give me, because I’m actually really insecure.

Analyssa: Riese loves validation.

Riese: I really need a lot of validation. Well, guys, thanks for listening and we’ll see you next week for a recap of the first episode! Right?

Analyssa: Yeah!

Riese: And we can’t wait. We’re so excited. Drew’s excited too but she accidentally stopped recording.

Analyssa: So now she can’t be on it.

Riese: But she’s excited, like so excited. Ok, bye!

To L and Back Podcast Interrogation Tapes Episode and Guess What We’re Going Live Tomorrow

Hello friends! Today we bring you a very special BONUS EPISODE of everyone’s favorite L Word podcast To L and Back in which we recap the interrogation tapes (you can watch them yourself on YouTube) but also we bring important news that tomorrow evening (or morning or afternoon depending on your time zone) we are going LIVE and you should really truly come so we can all have fun and I will feel successful as a person. The event will be full of your favorite friends of the pod! El Sanchez, Drew Gregory, Brittani Nichols, Laura Zak, Cerise Castle, Brittany Ashley, John Bellamy, Kelley Quinn, Fawzia Mirza, Erin Sullivan and Analyssa Lopez!

Okay so we’ll see you there right? Now for our special ep!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, everyone! Guess what? Tomorrow, June 1st, at 6pm PST, 9pm EST, we are doing a very special live episode of To L and Back on the internet, starring so many of your favorite friends from the pod. You can read all about it on our Instagram, and you can also see more about it in the Autostraddle post that will go up with this podcast. It’s going to be so much fun. It’s going to be a surprise what exactly we’re doing, but as you can see we have a very large cast, and you will not want to miss it. So you can RSVP at the link in our Instagram bio or on Autostraddle, and it is free with a suggested donation, if you do want to donate, to the National Bail Out. And we hope to see you all there because it’s going to be really awesome.

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Riese: The interrogation tapes.

Carly: We are back, doing more of this. And it’s time to get weird. These are so weird.

Riese: Because they sure did.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: These are so weird, and I would also say — surprise! — bad.

Carly: Yep, shocker. What do we know about these interrogation tapes? These were released right along with the finale of the series, am I right?

Riese: Yeah, I think it was after the finale. If I recall correctly, they were releasing them one by one over a certain period of time. Because I remember those were some of the earliest things we had written about on Autostraddle. It was in the early days of the Daily Fix, when we had our daily link roundup, whenever there was an interrogation tape, we’d be like, “Shane’s interrogation tape.”

Carly: A new one dropped.

Riese: Yeah, it was a good headliner.

Carly: Yeah! These were on Showtime’s website and they don’t exist there anymore, but some amazing fans have uploaded them to YouTube which is how we watched them.

Riese: There’s no shortage.

Carly: They’re all on YouTube, just search for “L Word interrogation tapes,” you can watch them, too. If you need to pause this and go watch them before you come back, that’s fine, we’ll be here. But we do have a lot to cover today. We have a lot of information.

Riese: I would argue maybe some information that we could’ve received earlier.

Carly: You mean in the show itself?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: You mean maybe they spent an entire season on this completely weird concocted murder story line, when in fact they could have been spending any of that time on any of the things these people mentioned in these interrogation tapes?

Riese: Oh yeah. Once again, I have some notes for the team.

Carly: Oh yes! We’ve got notes.

Riese: Once again I have some notes for the team. These were supposed to build up, I guess, to The Farm, which is the thwarted L Word spinoff set in prison. Although, I don’t think they do a very good job of that either, if I’m being honest.

Carly: No, I would argue that these don’t really do much of anything.

Riese: No, they don’t.

Carly: Other than confuse people.

Riese: But you know what? Everyone was lit.

Carly: They were.

Riese: Everyone, their lighting, there were big lights.

Carly: Was this where all the lighting budget for the whole season went, to the ancillary content?

Riese: Yes. And if you zoom out, there’s just a bunch of little desk lamps clipped all over, like a breadboard, thing, you know what I mean? It’s like, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” And they’re like, “Xena, you’re in the light!” [crosstalk 00:03:07], but every clip on desk lamp. And then clip them all above this…

Carly: They went to Target and bought every clip-on desk lamp, and then clipped them all about the set.

Riese: Yeah, they went to the kid’s section and got a unicorn lamp, a seahorse lamp, and they were like, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, now we can see you.” Because that’s what they’re revealing at the end of the season, is what do these people’s faces look like? We didn’t know.

Carly: Right, because you forgot. We haven’t seen them since season five.

Riese: No we haven’t. So this is sort of like, “Oh wow, Tina looks great.” Hate to say it, but it’s true.

Carly: Sometimes we will be honest about Tina.

Riese: All right. We don’t know who wrote these, and honestly, we don’t care. So—

Carly: My—

Riese: Suspicion?

Carly: My suspicion is that Ilene wrote and directed these, they were just additional pieces of interrogation that weren’t used in the episode or something? Because pieces of these are in the episode. Stuff that Alice is saying is exactly the same footage that’s in the finale. So I feel like maybe it was just either cut from the episodes, maybe her… Maybe Ilene’s plan was to have longer interrogations in them, or was just like, “Let me just shoot longer versions, and then we can use them online.” I don’t know.

Carly: But since they’re pretty much identical to what’s in the show, look-wise, and some of the actual dialogue is the same, I’m guessing it was probably also written and directed by Ilene.

Riese: Yeah, that’s true. I was imagining if it was an intern project. Like they had some —

Carly: It feels like an intern project.

Riese: They had some Showtime intern who didn’t… Who was like, “I didn’t really get to do anything this season.” And they’re like, “Ah, you want to make a…” Because in 2009, being like, “You want to make a spinoff series for the web,” was the ultimate insult, but it was also something that one must accept. They were always doing that shit.

Carly: Yeah. They were like, “Of course I will, but I don’t want to, but I will.” It’s the same as it is now. I’m kidding, I’m kidding.

Riese: So should we get into it?

Carly: Yeah, let’s get into it.

Riese: So the first thing I’d like to note is that there is a date.

Carly: There sure is a date. I wrote this date down because I wanted to talk to you about how this date fits into your exhaustive timeline investigation that we went over in the finale episode.

Riese: Right. So it is January 18th, 2009. There’s a few things about this. It does, in a way, fit into the timeline where maybe an election happened. Maybe. Because I mean that would have been in November. However, it’s still a stretch because as we covered this, we’re looking at one to two months, so if this was two months, then maybe… It’s still tough. It still doesn’t fit. But aside from that, more monumentally and more egregious to me is the fact that if this is taking place on January 18th, 2009, that means that the holiday known as Christmas did occur during season six.

Carly: And we didn’t get a special holiday episode!

Riese: And we didn’t get a fucking Christmas episode, which is, again, all I ever wanted from this goddamn show, besides to work for it. Which I am definitely putting in a strong bid for that, because of all the nice things they say about it.

Carly: We just want it to do better, but it’s in the past.

Riese: Yeah, it’s loving criticism. So yeah, we could have had some people running through the snow on a sleigh, or —

Carly: Decorating a tree. Lighting a menorah, I don’t know.

Riese: Yeah. They could have lit a menorah, they could have built a menorah out of FIMO.

Carly: They could have.

Riese: … and then baked it in the oven, and then they could have been like, “Oh, it’s the Maccabees eight nights,” or whatever.

Carly: Totally.

Riese: And everyone could have had potatoes, which everyone loves, potatoes. Especially Tasha and Jamie.

Carly: As we know, famously.

Riese: As we know, famously.

Carly: They love potatoes.

Riese: Especially Tasha and Jamie, big potato fans!

Carly: Especially the potato offerings at The Planet in West Hollywood.

Riese: Yes, they loved those wedge fries, or whatever.

Carly: The other thing I noticed on the little title cards that preceded each of these, is that these interviews were conducted by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, not the Los Angeles Police Department, except Bette’s said LAPD and the rest say LASD.

Riese: Really?

Carly: And I’m guessing that was just an oversight, I don’t think there’s anything to read into there. But whatever intern made those cards, they really threw me for a loop.

Riese: We salute you. The other thing I noticed about the cards was that each person was introduced as a suspect. So, suspect number blah, blah, blah. And that’s not even how it works.

Carly: These are barely persons of interest. And again, I’m basing this purely on my knowledge of true crime documentaries and Law and Order.

Riese: Yeah, same, which is — yeah, right.

Carly: Which is to say that I am basically an expert, but none of these people are actually suspects.

Riese: Mm-mm (negative).

Carly: And I know we talked about this in the finale and we are going to spend a lot of time on it today, but most of these questions are not questions that would be asked in an investigation about the death of one Jennifer Schecter.

Riese: None of them are!

Carly: None of them are, in fact, are.

Riese: None of them. There was not a single relevant question.

Carly: None.

Riese: Also, who’s that dude? Okay, well, let’s get started.

Carly: Let’s get into it.

Riese: The first one I watched was Tina.

Carly: Me too.

Riese: Maybe we watched the same playlist. So I have Tina, Shane—

Carly: Helena, Niki, Max, Alice twice, and Bette.

Riese: Yes, exactly the same playlist. Perfect. So we are going to begin with the Tina tape.

Carly: Tina tape.

Riese: And I’m glad we’re starting here, because this is the one for which I have the most notes.

Carly: Perfect, it’s a great place to start.

Riese: Tina, up until this point, has had how much backstory?

Carly: I would say virtually none.

Riese: Zero. We have been tracking Tina’s backstory, like the little intelligent hawks that we are. I don’t want to say hawks, that’s kind of like war. Intelligent doves that we are—

Carly: Thank you, peaceful.

Riese: … the little tiny Sherlocks with our little tiny glasses—

Carly: Our magnifying glasses—

Riese: … we have been noting—

Carly: I’m wearing the fake mustache in this version of things, I’m an inspector.

Riese: Yeah, you have Max’s mustache, it’s been given to you, as a gift.

Carly: Thank you, thank you.

Riese: From the set. Yeah, try to sell it on eBay. I’ll buy it.

Carly: No, I’m going to keep it for myself.

Riese: And we have been noting every time, and what we have noted is that, I think, Tina said she grew up in the suburbs.

Carly: I think that’s all we got out of Tina ever.

Riese: I feel that there was one other tidbit, but I cannot recall what it is.

Carly: Well, it probably wasn’t very significant.

Riese: I think maybe she said her parents were divorced? Anyway, the tape begins with Xena asking Tina — Xena, Tina!

Carly: Xena, Tina.

Lucy Lawless: And why is Kelly not a threat?

Carly: I just wrote, “LOL, what?”

Riese: Which is not… Who cares? What does this have to do—

Carly: Is Kelly a suspect? What the fuck?

Riese: I mean, please. Arrest her. She sucked, I hated her character, I hated her storyline. Maybe it was Woozy. Maybe Woozy came in, “I’m going to fix the railings, blah, blah, blah.” And then was like, “Get out of my way!” And pushed Jenny into the pool.

Carly: I think that Woozy is the prime suspect.

Riese: “I hate women!” Right, where is she? Where is she? Is she finger blasting five men in the butt all at once? What is she doing? Get her in here.

Carly: She’s at the Abbey in the men’s room.

Riese: She’s in the Abbey trolling for a hookup, just waiting.

Carly: So Tina, okay. Tina tells us that her mother once told her, this mother we’ve heard of before:

Tina: The only true intimacy between two people is when you read poetry. And so the only true act of betrayal is when you share poetry with someone other than your beloved.

Riese: What!

Carly: What the actual fuck is this?

Riese: What!

Carly: Also I would like to draw your attention, Tina, to season one. Bette was not sharing poetry with Candace.

Riese: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So why was that such a big deal, why’d you flip the fucking table?

Carly: Tina really flipped the fuck out over that affair, rightfully so, but that was, according to this conversation, does not fall into the criteria of betrayal, according to Tina and her mother.

Riese: And I’ll tell you what though, for sure Henry and Tina did not read any poetry, so maybe she’s just trying to save her own ass here.

Carly: I think so, yeah. This is, yeah.

Riese: Henry would have been like, “Hop on pop.”

Carly: “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam I am.” And Tina strokes his face and then he clips his fingernails and she kisses him.

Riese: Do you think—

Carly: Oh, I just died. A little bit.

Riese: Do you think every night in bed Tina’s like, “So do you want to read some limericks?” And then Bette pulls out her little book of limericks, and they’re like, “There once was a man from Nantucket.”

Carly: For some weird reason, what just popped into my head is that storyline in that first Sex and the City movie, which is 17 hours long, about how Mr. Big keeps sending her poetry from that book—

Riese: Oh yeah.

Carly: … and it goes to her secret locked folder of her inbox that she has to get the password to, which she can’t get the password to it, because Jennifer Hudson’s back in St. Louis, and so she guesses that the password is “love” and it is.

Riese: Oh my God! Oh my God!

Carly: Also sorry, spoiler alert for such an incredible film.

Riese: Oh my God. Maybe they were doing haikus.

Carly: Oh, that’s fun. Haikus are fun.

Riese: Maybe they’re doing — you know the Jabberwocky poem?

Carly: Oh yeah.

Riese: Maybe they’re doing the poem “Cats,” which was based on the musical Cats. That TS Eliot poem.

Carly: That actually would be great. Finding a way to tie this to the Cats film of late 2019 would be ideal. I think that would be really cool.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: If anybody wants to do edits and some sort of mash-up, please send it to us.

Riese: Yeah, please send it to us.

Carly: So her father had an affair with a, quote, “pretty, young law student.” And her mom didn’t mind. Because they weren’t sharing poetry.

Riese: Her mom, who by the way, is dead. We have talked, not we, because we didn’t write this, let’s make that clear. The show has talked a lot about Bette’s mom being dead. It has been a consistent topic and point of interest for Bette and her backstory, and never once in the entire series, did Tina participate in those conversations like somebody whose mom was also dead. And somebody whose dad also cheated on her mom. These are two things.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And also as somebody who lost their father when I was a teenager, if I was dating someone who had a similar experience— That would be huge, it would be such a… It would be, honestly, like a core element of our bond to each other.

Carly: Yeah, absolutely.

Riese: This would also explain so much about what draws them together, and what draws them together as how they want to start a family and be parents.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: There’s no way that they decided any of this until they were at this tape, is what I’m saying.

Carly: But instead, we get an info dump about everything about Tina’s family in this three minute video.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And so her dad was a right-wing politician. This just gets more and more bananas.

Carly: He was a three-term mayor of a town in Arizona, his campaign manager was not attractive.

Tina: Dottie Arbuckle. Not a pretty woman, let me tell you.

Carly: But they talked about poetry late at night, and that made her mom really upset. But not the affair with the pretty, young law student. Wow.

Riese: Right. Dottie would send him home with a poem, and I mean, I’ve dated men, you don’t send men home with poems.

Carly: Oh God, he’s going to lose it in his pocket, his pocket… It’s going to go in the wash, it’s going to get…

Riese: Yeah. It’s going to get all messed up and they’re going to be like, “Well, there goes your Yeats for the day.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Maybe it was Sylvia Plath? Maybe what Dottie was trying to say was, “You’re making me depressed.”

Carly: I mean, yes. That would be more appropriate. And then her mother was like, “Please stop with the poetry readings,” and he would not. He would not. He was like, “No, Shel Silverstein and I need to keep doing this.”

Riese: Yeah, yeah. We’re going to find out where the fucking side walk ends if it’s the death of me, all right?

Carly: Oh, we are, oh man.

Riese: We are. So it turns out that Tina has two siblings?

Carly: Aha. Her mom took the kids, “all three of us,” and they moved to Atlanta.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: But wait, there’s more. There’s a lot more. But before we get there, we have to talk about Jenny, because remember, Jenny is the one who died. Oh right, let’s talk about Jenny.

Riese: Tina and Jenny got very close during filming.

Carly: Yes, they did. Did they share poetry?

Riese: Maybe, maybe. Maybe they were reading Allen Ginsberg.

Carly: Maybe.

Riese: Maybe Johnny was sending Tina home—

Carly: With Allen Ginsberg tucked into her pocket.

Riese: Yeah, with a little Mary Oliver.

Carly: Here, have a little Mary Oliver for your drive home.

Riese: Slip in a little Mary Oliver into her back pocket. Maybe some Maya Angelou. You never know.

Carly: You never know with Tina. Or Jenny, really, either of them.

Riese: Or Jenny.

Carly: So Jenny would ask Tina to come to her trailer after they would wrap shooting, and they’d share a bottle of wine and talk about… Jenny would pry into Tina’s personal life and Tina felt, not manipulated by her, but just that she was somebody that she would want to share things with. And she thought that Jenny was just trying to get a study of lesbian relationships so she could make a better movie.

Riese: But the movie was already written.

Carly: The movie was already written, they were in the middle of production. And also, honestly I think what Tina’s describing is friendship?

Riese: I think so, too, yeah.

Carly: When you hang out and drink a bottle of wine and talk about yourself?

Riese: When you drink a bottle of wine and talk about your life, yeah. I think that’s friendship. Although apparently Tina has not talked about herself to anyone. Ever.

Carly: Not even to Bette.

Riese: Not even to Bette. So then they ask, “Was Bette your first?” And she says, no. Bette wasn’t her first but that’s what she told everyone.

Carly: And Bette.

Riese: Her first was her older sister. They would do role play. Tina would be the boy. This started when Tina was 12, I think she said?

Carly: And it went on for three years and she thought it was just what kids do.

Riese: Again, I don’t think they made this choice until they wrote this video. Again, I don’t know if that would have been something her and Jenny maybe would have talked about, as they developed their friendship. I don’t know why this was something that she didn’t tell Bette for the now 10 years or something they’ve been together, but she’s telling Xena the Warrior Princess and this random dude, right now, in an interrogation on a totally unrelated subject. And also it’s just a very weird choice for the writers to make, I think especially looking at the legacy of how this show has dealt with sexual abuse, how at first with Jenny, I think they were doing something really interesting and authentic, and then to have it spin out and, at this point having her be a psychopath who her friends wanted to murder, is pretty irresponsible and obviously everybody is entitled to frame and to deal with and to cope with their sexual abuse in a way that makes sense to them and contextualize it in a way that makes sense to them, but I think this is presented — I felt like, in my experience, this was presented in a way that deserved a lot more context, and also framing it as this was her lying to Bette about what her real first time was, because of — you know, again, everybody can contextualize their own experiences the way they want to, but I think as a choice for writers to make of what they’re presenting to the world, having her contextualize rape as her first time, and as something she should have told Bette but never told Bette, for that reason is just really fucked up, and I just really wish that if this is what they had in mind for her, that it would have been talked about earlier, and I think they could have done interesting things with it that would have really resonated with people, and so this was a really disappointing, I think, way to present that information. You know what I mean?

Carly: No, this was so—

Riese: Fucked up?

Carly: … fucking weird and, yes, fucked up. And then Tina says, “It’s funny, because I don’t even speak to her anymore. She lives in Texas, she’s born again, she thinks I’m going straight to hell.”

Riese: I mean, that fucks you up. That fucks you up. So there were these endless depths to Tina that we never heard anything about. Never heard about her parents as she was discussing parenthood. Never heard about her abuse as her friend was dealing with her childhood abuse. Never said anything to Bette. Her and Bette’s relationship sucks, Bette doesn’t know anything. And also, her first time was with Bette.

Carly: Yeah. Oh my God.

Riese: So that is about as deep as this all gets, huh?

Carly: Guess so.

Riese: So how would you rate this particular tape on a scale of one to ten?

Carly: Ten being the best?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: Two.

Riese: Yeah, I think I give it a hard two.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And a soft one.

Carly: I would say a nine, in terms of information.

Riese: Yeah, this is a lot of information.

Carly: But a two in terms of content. If that makes sense?

Riese: Yeah. I do think that “the only true intimacy between two people is when you read poetry together, and betrayal is when you read poetry with someone besides your beloved” is one of the stupidest things that this show has ever said, and that is saying a lot.

Carly: Especially for how much time the show spent on Tina being angry at Bette for cheating on her in season one. That had ripple effects that lasted six seasons.

Riese: Why didn’t this come up at the campfire, on the Pink Ride, when everybody was like, “What do you think is cheating?” And Tasha was like, “Thinking is cheating.” Shane was like, “Sex is cheating.” Why wasn’t Tina like, “Oh, everyone — Tina thinks it’s reading poetry with someone other than your beloved.” And then everybody would have been like—

Carly: What?

Riese: What? And then Jodi would have ran off just out of disgust that she was even friends with any of these people, and never would have found out. Now we move on to Shane.

Carly: Shane. So it starts with Xena asking her who she is closest to and she says Alice because she’s known her the longest. And how they met is that Shane was working at a hair salon and she washed Alice’s hair.

Riese: John James?

Carly: John James.

Riese: John James Salon, so a lot of thought went into that.

Carly: Yeah, definitely. That’s how they met, because she was the person that washed her hair. And Alice asked her out for coffee afterwards, and Shane was like, “She’s just trying to pump me for information.” I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, but I guess the whole vibe here is that Alice was a serious gossip from day one. That wacky Alice.

Riese: Wild Alice. Anyway, the thing is that Shane’s meant to be alone?

Carly: Yeah. She makes a good friend, but not a good girlfriend.

Riese: Yeah, we know that.

Carly: We really know that already.

Riese: Yeah. She and Jenny had a special connection, they understood each other.

Carly: Mm-hmm (affirmative). She hasn’t had a connection like that with anybody else.

Riese: Mm-mm (negative), she hasn’t. “Did you love her?” she asks. And she says, “I did love her.”

Carly: She asks if she trusted her.

Riese: No. Not at the end, she didn’t trust her anymore.

Carly: No, she wanted to trust her.

Riese: She wanted to trust her but she couldn’t because the writer’s didn’t want that for them.

Carly: No, no. And then she says that they knew everything about each other. But then it’s implied that Jenny did not know everything about Shane.

Riese: Mm-mm (negative).

Carly: Interesting.

Shane: Just curious, what is your statute of limitation on arson?

Riese: What’s your statute of limitation on arson?

Carly: The guy’s like, “One year,” and she says:

Shane: That’s not much.

Riese: Oh, alright, I guess I could have told you this four months ago. She says it was 18 months ago that she set her place of work, Wax… on fire! So this, again, this means that season four ended 18 months ago. So the past 18 months contained all of season five?

Carly: Yeah. I feel like I’m going to… Next time I go to hang out with you, you’re going to have one of those investigational walls with the red string where you’re trying to plot out the timeline of the show, because we’ve gotten a little bit more information here.

Riese: We have.

Carly: And I don’t want you to go down that path.

Riese: I might.

Carly: I don’t want that for you.

Riese: I might.

Carly: I know you might.

Riese: I might want to.

Carly: So anyway, that’s a big info dump. Shane burned down Wax.

Riese: Yeah. And what this shows, I think, is that if Shane burned down Wax, then Shane easily could have done whatever to Jenny who, however she died, in the pool.

Carly: Because as we know, no cause of death was ever determined for this character.

Riese: Why are they even asking all her friends, who were in other locations during the murder, questions, when they could have just gone and seen if the tape on the railing was broken? And how it broke. They could have brought in a railing tape expert.

Carly: Which would obviously be Weezie, Weezie the railing tape expert.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: “Yeah, I buy all kinds of tape.”

Riese: “Sorry, I was giving oral to a man in the bathroom on a train.” You know what I mean?

Carly: Anyway, that’s Shane’s whole thing.

Riese: Scale of one to ten, Shane, I give it a two.

Carly: Yeah, also a two.

Riese: Another two.

Carly: I feel like the thing I’ve learned from all my years watching investigatory television, is that the most likely suspect, the person they go after first, as the suspect when someone dies or goes missing, is the spouse, or the partner. And Shane was the most recent partner. In fact, Jenny didn’t know that they weren’t together, only Shane knew that she had, in her mind, broken up with her moments before she was found dead.

Riese: Right.

Carly: So why were they not talking about anything that would be about Shane’s state of mind about Jenny and… They don’t really get… Anyway, whatever. I don’t know why I’m trying to make this make sense.

Riese: Yeah. I mean also, again, as we’ve covered extensively, and I think repeated several times in the last episode, the only logical explanation for what happened is that she fell on accident or that she—

Carly: Committed suicide.

Riese: Killed herself. And even then, we’re not exactly sure how she pulled it off.

Carly: No, because it doesn’t really make sense, and also we still don’t know what the actual cause of death was, because they didn’t write one into the script.

Riese: Right. There was a part in a podcast episode where you’re like, “She could’ve just stood up and walked out of the pool.” I was like, “Oh, God! Argh!”

Carly: But right, it’s probably a pretty shallow pool.

Riese: I hadn’t even thought of that, but she could’ve fucking… Yeah, she could have just stood up and walked out of the goddamn pool, if she fell in the pool. It wasn’t that long of a drop!

Carly: No, it wasn’t that long of a drop and even if it was the shallow end that she fell into and she fell in head first, then there would be blood or something more traumatic at the scene — I cannot believe we are still talking about this, but I also can.

Riese: Just so you guys know, the statute of limitation for arson in California is actually three years, six years, or no time limit.

Carly: So Shane just confessed to a crime of her own volition.

Riese: Maybe Shane should be going to the farm. Maybe the spinoff should be about Shane going to the farm for arson.

Carly: Known arsonist.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Famous arsonist. You’ve seen her around town, you’ve seen the flyers, you’ve seen the banner, you’ve seen the auctioning off of Niki to Shane in a public forum.

Carly: Publicly.

Riese: But now you see her for who she truly is.

Carly: An arsonist. You thought Bette Porter was the arsonist—

Riese: Fire starter.

Carly: Arson, arson, but that’s not the case.

Riese: Right, that was a red herring. Arson, arson was a red herring.

Carly: Arson, arson was a red herring!

Riese: What will she burn down next?

Carly: This police station?

Riese: Maybe.

Carly: Bette’s house? Who knows. Jenny’s shed? Maybe.

Riese: Yeah, Jenny’s shed in flammable as hell, that thing would just… Go up in flames, yeah.

Riese: Now we go to Helena.

Carly: Helena Peabody. It starts with her saying—

Riese: They didn’t even mention Jenny, right? Jenny doesn’t come up.

Carly: Jenny does not come up once in this conversation. And all that’s happening is that Helena and Lucy Lawless are clearly about to have sex with each other.

Riese: Yeah, they’re just flirting. Honestly, okay, she says… Like we saw in the finale, she never knew how to be with people, she’d buy and sell people, but she said Alice was the first real friend she ever had to care for without wanting things in return. Which, that’s sweet. That’s interesting to hear.

Carly: That is interesting to hear.

Riese: That is information, that again, we would have enjoyed earlier.

Carly: Yes. You know what else is really interesting?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative)?

Carly: You remember Catherine?

Riese: You remember Catherine you guys?

Carly: You remember Catherine?

Riese: Skinny little Catherine?

Carly: Crazy little Catherine?

Riese: Slender, slender gambler, poker star Catherine?

Carly: As a surprise to everyone, and no one.

Helena: Catherine was this big George Bush Republican, she was a free market capitalist. She was a social conservative.

Carly: Of course she is. So to really stick it to her, Helena did not hide the money. She hated Catherine, and therefore donated all that money to progressive causes.

Riese: Right. And then she just sort of reads off all of…

Carly: A list of places.

Riese: And she’s probably still exhausted by reading off all the characters that were ever in The L Word.

Carly: Yeah, exactly.

Riese: Planned Parenthood, V Day, Equality Now, National Center for Lesbian Rights, you know?

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So that is great, but also she couldn’t… You can’t donate stolen money to a nonprofit because you’re putting them at risk of having the funding taken back if it’s found out that it was stolen money, so.

Carly: Right. And she just confessed to it, to officers of the law or whatever the fuck. So yeah. Now everyone’s in trouble.

Riese: Officers of the law, you know what I mean when I say officers of the law. I mean warrior princesses, I mean that random dumb dude, who’s still sitting in there like a moron.

Carly: And that’s the only people I’m referring to.

Riese: This was the only part of any of these tapes that was even somewhat deep, is that Xena’s like, “Why do you think these people are drawn to you?” or whatever. And Xena seems to be flirting as an interrogation technique, right?

Carly: Yes.

Riese: But Helena doesn’t see that, she just reads it as—

Carly: Helena is just horny.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Helena reads it as genuine flirting, because she’s like, “It could be that you’re just breathtaking.” And Helena, hook, line and sinker immediately is like, “Yeah, we’re doing this.”

Carly: Helena’s like, “We’re going to fuck.”

Riese: And it’s kind of sad because it’s like yeah, she still doesn’t really know how to read people.

Carly: No, she hasn’t learned anything, which is really sad.

Riese: Yeah, it is. Also I think maybe because she’s rich and things have always worked out for her, she doesn’t really very much consider the worst case scenario ever, she kind of assumes most people are good, most people are helpful. Although, by the end of season five she was not like that. Even in the first few episodes of season six she kind of seemed to have her head on her shoulders. But now she’s in this post-Dylan alcoholism or whatever.

Carly: Whatever. They didn’t really give us enough information about that, either.

Riese: Yeah, bring in Dylan.

Carly: I mean, really.

Riese: Bring in Dylan. Bring in Dylan, bring in Kelly, and most of all, bring in Mark and Gomey, who I think could be viable for this, because who blew up their spot? Jenny.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Just going to leave that there for whoever wants to investigate it.

Carly: Anyone had motive, it was Mark and Gomey.

Riese: It was. Mark lost all of his film contract with the Girls Gone Wild or whatever. Lesbians Gone Wild Incorporated, which is also the name of my company.

Riese: Okay, Helena I would give a five, actually, because I do feel like it was loyal to her character and that there was a moment of interesting emotional war play that felt relevant to anything. So I give it a five.

Carly: Okay. I can get onboard with that. I feel like it’s a four. I’m not feeling very generous today.

Riese: That’s fair.

Carly: Now we go in the Inspector Schecter series to Niki. I just love saying Inspector Schecter.

Riese: Schecter Seven.

Carly: I’m going to keep saying it. The Schecter Seven. Also this is not the Schecter Seven, as it was announced.

Riese: No. Also, where was Tasha’s interview? Because Tasha had some clips in the finale, but there was no Tasha interrogation tapes.

Carly: Yeah. Didn’t Kit have a clip in the finale?

Riese: Yeah, what happened to fucking Kit?

Carly: Also Kit was actually present for all of this. Niki just showed up in the bushes afterwards.

Riese: Right. They were probably just like, “Ooh, we’ve got a movie star here, let’s get her in.”

Carly: Yeah, of course.

Riese: She was the guest star of the Law and Order episode. She was like the Richard Dreyfus of this episode.

Carly: Yes, Niki is the Richard Dreyfus of this episode for sure.

Riese: Niki is the Cynthia Nixon of this episode.

Carly: Oh my God. So it starts with Niki asking:

Niki: Don’t I get to have a lawyer here?

Carly: She is the only person in any of these videos to do so. There was kind of like a thread of this in the finale, too, which is that they didn’t ask for a lawyer, they didn’t need a lawyer because they’re a close, tight-knit group that really looks out for each other.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: Is that code for something? Why does everyone keep saying this? I don’t understand.

Riese: They’re going to cover for each other even though the thing is no one really has to cover for anyone.

Carly: Because no one did anything.

Riese: The only person who was actually alone for any period of time was Shane. Everyone else was always with someone else.

Carly: That’s true. Shane was back at her house alone for periods of time.

Riese: And Shane would never kill anyone. Also, Jenny is definitely stronger than Shane.

Carly: Yes, like 1000%

Riese: Shane would have been like “uh.” And then Jenny would have been like “pow.”

Carly: And then Shane would have shattered into 1000 pieces on the deck.

Riese: Yeah, or would have been melting like the Wicked Witch.

Carly: Shane would have been like, “My bones!” And then she wouldn’t have any bones.

Riese: “My bones, my little lithe bones!”

Carly: Hollow bones.

Riese: “My hollow bones.”

Carly: Yeah. Lucy Lawless kind of implies to Niki, as an interrogation tactic—

Riese: Her only interrogation tactic.

Carly: Her only one, is flirtatiously suggesting that somebody might incriminate the person she’s talking to.

Riese: Right. So then we find out that Nikki is the one who stole the negatives. And then she put it in Jenny’s attic. Because if they found it, then they would blame Jenny and everyone would be mad at Jenny and she’d get back at Jenny for how Jenny treated her like she was just another showmance idiot.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Even though she was actively pursuing Shane the whole time. But what this made me think of, this very brief little tape, was that the actual story of Lez Girls coming out, premiering and having the new ending and how that shook out for everybody involved in it would have been a really interesting season six.

Carly: Yeah. It really would have. If this really focused on what this film did to the group of friends, and did to everyone’s lives and the fact that the ending was changed. And even the stolen negatives is really stupid because the movie’s going to come out regardless. Because Niki doesn’t understand how editing works. But I also love that Niki was like:

Niki: I didn’t want anyone to see that movie because it was an embarrassment. And it was a terrible film.

Riese: Yeah, I did like that.

Carly: Honestly I get that, because it would be a terrible film.

Riese: I feel you. Right, and how would all of them deal with that? And again, it speaks to how much this season was short changed because they literally took one of their biggest stories and just buried it. It was in the attic instead of the basement, but I wish they’d done the basement, because that would have been more symbolically appropriate. But they just were like, “Oh, we don’t want to deal with this huge story, we’re just going to throw it in the attic.

Carly: Them even bringing up the stolen negatives in the previous season was so weird. Because why would they make such… Why would they have spent so much time on the stolen negative storyline if it was going to amount to literally nothing?

Riese: Because what it needed to amount to was Tina saying she was going to kill Jenny. That was the whole point of it.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Centering all of your plot around reasons why somebody might use the commonly used term of like, “I’m going to kill them,” that’s not a good idea.

Carly: No, I don’t recommend that. If there’s any aspiring or current television writers, or any writers, storytellers that might be listening to this, I would say don’t do that.

Riese: Honestly no matter what your job is.

Carly: Yeah. Also, why does Niki’s tape just abruptly end?

Riese: I guess she died.

Carly: Niki gets a 10.

Riese: Yeah, 10 out of 10 for Niki. She’s a great actress, that’s why they picked her to be in the film.

Carly: I gave her a 10 because she asked for a lawyer.

Riese: Yeah, and also because she acknowledged that the movie was bad.

Carly: Yes. Yes.

Riese: And how cute of her to steal the negatives as if that would make the movie stop in any other universe beside this one.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Good job hiding those, Niki.

Carly: Yeah, good job putting them right by the attic stairs, attic ladder. Under one sheet.

Riese: Also when?

Carly: Yeah, when was she in the house by herself carrying around these heavy-ass… How did she get… How did she carry those heavy-ass reels up the attic stairs? She is tiny.

Riese: Maybe she had one of friends do it. She’s like, “Come here.” One of her party friends.

Carly: Because she did say she could get her friends to do anything for her.

Riese: Anything for her. Anything.

Carly: Including carrying negatives up a ladder.

Riese: Yeah. That’s when you know you have a real friend, because they carry something heavy for you into the attic.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: But then her friend was like, “Yeah, I hid them really good.”

Carly: And she was like, “Yeah, okay, I’ll take your word for it.” She should not have.

Riese: Poor Niki.

Carly: We move on to Max, which starts off with the discussion of our favorite, favorite episode, the lobster dinner.

Riese: Lobsters! Lobster dinner time, red lobster.

Carly: Oh my God. All right, I don’t know what that has to do with anything involving this crime.

Riese: They asked him what he ordered.

Max: Just some french fries and salad.

Carly: First of all, french fries and a salad is an excellent meal.

Riese: Yeah, that’s a dream meal.

Carly: Yeah. I mean, just french fries is actually my dream meal, but you know?

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Good to get your greens in though.

Carly: Yeah, I guess I could eat a vegetable. I mean, technically a french fry is a potato, which is a vegetable. I think we’ve covered enough about potatoes.

Riese: I mean, I do think that potatoes, at this point, are we still counting it as a vegetable or is it just a starch?

Carly: In my heart it’s going to be a vegetable, because I need to—

Riese: Yeah. Otherwise you don’t eat any vegetables.

Carly: Yes. That’s correct.

Riese: They’re talking about making corn not a vegetable anymore and I’m like, “What am I supposed to do here?”

Carly: How is popcorn not going to be my vegetable quota of the week?

Carly: So then Lucy Lawless says a thing that I was not thrilled with.

Riese: I didn’t care for it either. I know exactly what you’re going to say, and I also hated it.

Carly: Yeah, she says, “So you didn’t know when you started dating her,” her being Jenny, “that you wanted to change your identity.” Ooh, don’t love that phrasing.

Riese: Mm-mm (negative), I don’t love that at all. And I also don’t love that once again Max doesn’t correct because he’s gotten so used to being treated this way.

Carly: Exactly. This really felt like tapping into that idea that has been in film and television for so long, which is that trans people are deceptive. And that, I hate that. And again, I think I would like to plug the documentary Disclosure on Netflix if you want to understand a little bit more about why that trope is incredibly harmful, and yeah. When she said that to him, I was just like, “Ugh.”

Riese: Yeah. And also that being trans is an identity rather than…

Carly: Just who you are. And that she says that he wanted to change his identity. Everything about this is bad, I didn’t like this. And then he says that Jenny saw him for who he is, and helped him come to terms with it. Which… Did she?

Riese: I think she did. I think she did in the beginning. But then…

Carly: There were moments where she was very…

Riese: Supportive. But it wasn’t always clear if it was is she supportive or is she excited by this sort of—

Carly: Right. It’s like a fetishization.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. But ostensibly she was supportive. Then he says that Tom hated Jenny. And that Max doesn’t know if Tom would have left if not for Jenny. What?

Carly: Yeah, I’m like, wait. What?

Riese: The problem’s Max and Tom, I mean, yeah, Jenny was mean to Max. The problems that Tom and Max were having, which were pretty shallow — not shallow surface-level, but shallow in terms of it wasn’t written out — had nothing to do with Jenny.

Carly: Mm-mm (negative).

Riese: I don’t even remember Tom mentioning Jenny.

Carly: I don’t think Tom ever acknowledged Jenny.

Riese: Right. If my boyfriend, who was pregnant, was being mistreated by his friend and ex-girlfriend, my first thought would not be, “I think I’m going to leave him.”

Carly: “I’m going to change all of my phone numbers and get the fuck out of here.”

Riese: Yeah. “I don’t think I want to be around somebody who has such a mean friend. I’m out.”

Carly: “I’m going to just abandon him in the time when he really should not be abandoned.” I mean, you should never abandon anybody, but especially… This is not a good time for Max’s mental health.

Riese: Oh my God.

Carly: He at one point says:

Max: I don’t know anyone who could read anyone’s inner thoughts, desires, quite like Jenny.

Carly: And then the fucking dude cop is like, “So you were scared of her, why were you scared of her?” And he’s like, “I didn’t say that.” And I’m like, “Yeah, he didn’t say that.” That’s a figure of speech that people — oh my God. He talks about Jenny’s beautiful eyes, and that she had a power over him.

Riese: Right. And then there’s this weird thing where he… Because he’s like, “She’d look at you with those big blue eyes,” and then Xena’s like, “Oh, those pretty eyes.” And I’m like, “What’s happening?”

Carly: What do you know? She was dead when you met her, actually.

Riese: Yeah, she was dead. Her eyes were closed. Also, she had blue eyes? I don’t remember that.

Carly: I didn’t either.

Riese: Does she? I’m Googling it.

Carly: Okay, you Google it. In the meantime, I’m going to talk about where this goes next.

Riese: Brown.

Carly: They were brown. I thought they were.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Okay, well.

Riese: Although in pictures they do look blue. They do look blue, actually, even though the internet said brown. Yeah, they look blue.

Carly: Man, this is quite a conundrum.

Riese: They look gray, kind of.

Carly: Shark eyes.

Riese: Well, I guess we’ll never know. I think they’re blue actually.

Carly: Well, she’s dead so there’s no way of knowing.

Riese: Yeah. I think they’re blue. Gray, gray, gray.

Carly: Going with gray? Okay. So Max says:

Max: I don’t know if I should be telling you all of this stuff.

Carly: At which point I’m like, “What the fuck is he talking about?”

Riese: Yeah. Come on, spit it out.

Carly: Spit it out. And then he goes:

Max: Sorry for what I did.

Carly: And then if you, like me, are watching this, you’re probably wondering to yourself, what the fuck is he talking about? And then he says that he took Jenny’s toothbrush, scrubbed the bathroom floor with it, and presumably then gave it back to her to continue using to brush her teeth, because otherwise that’s not anything.

Riese: Because he was upset about Claude, cheated on him with that French girl. I mean, honestly I believe… Carmen would have been thrilled, because she was always like, “Max never cleans.” So that would have been good for that.

Carly: Oh my god, I know.

Riese: But also, is this supposed to be funny? Because it just made me feel like they think Max is 11.

Carly: Yeah, this just made me sad. I was just like, “I hate this.”

Riese: Yeah, that was my feeling, I was like, “Oh, I hate it.”

Carly: I also loved that they built it up, like everybody else is… Helena’s confessing to disbursement of stolen money, Shane’s admitting to arson. And Tina’s talking about really fucked up sexual assault, and then Max is like, “I scrubbed a bathroom floor with Jenny’s toothbrush.”

Riese: God. And obviously Jenny was fine, she didn’t get gingivitis or anything, that we’re aware of. Her teeth still looked great.

Carly: No, she lived through that, only to die in a pool

Riese: She lived through that. Exactly. That’s how it happens, you live through a major tragedy and then you accidentally maybe drown in a four-foot pool, in a kiddie pool.

Carly: I feel like the way they were like, “Come on, spit it out,” they were trying to say that if… “You had unfinished business, she didn’t die from the floor toothbrush, so that must be why you killed her.” Even though that makes zero sense.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Surprisingly that makes zero sense because everything else makes so much sense. Also, wasn’t Jenny licking crème fraiche off the floor already? In that episode with Claude? I mean weren’t they? Come on.

Carly: There was a lot of questionable floor food hygiene going on in that moment. Yeah. This was very strange.

Riese: Yeah. What would you give that? I’d give it a zero. I’m just giving any Max writing a zero.

Carly: Max writing always gets a zero. They just really phoned it in, once again, for Max. Just — I’m embarrassed for anybody involved.

Carly: So Alice’s interview starts with the question, “When did you meet Miss Porter?” And this was the moment that I was like, “Is Bette under suspicion? Or was Bette murdered?” We’re totally talking a lot about Bette in all of these tapes.

Riese: Yeah, we are. Maybe they’re just like, “Well, since you’re here, let’s get the hot gos.”

Carly: Yeah, right?

Riese: And then Alice tells a story that doesn’t actually fit with what is established as canon for these characters.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Alice says that she, Bette, called her and wanted her to help her with her list for the gallery opening, because Alice knew everybody who was working at LA Magazine. And so Alice helped her with this list.

Carly: She invited musicians, fashion people, movers, shakers, people with money. You know, all the groups.

Riese: Yeah. And also everyone’s favorite group:

Alice: This lawyer that I had interviewed, who was involved in one of the Harry Potter lawsuits.

Carly: I was like, “Did I miss some sort of a moment in culture? There was some sort of Harry Potter lawsuit? What is this?”

Riese: Was it the Ministry of Magic versus Tina’s boyfriend?

Carly: You use your defense of the dark arts outside of the statute of limitations.

Riese: So the lawyer came and he brought Tina his… His girlfriend Tina. The thing is that this is how Tina and Bette met. They met at this gallery opening that Tina was at with her boyfriend.

Carly: Right.

Riese: At that point, Alice and Bette either were… I think they were dating, or they—

Carly: I think they were—

Riese: Or they had already dated… They were dating at that time.

Carly: Yeah, I think so. Because I think she broke up with Alice to date Tina, I believe.

Riese: Right. So this was definitely a relationship that lasted longer than her calling to get invites to the gallery opening, and then the gallery opening happening, because I think they were together for a few months at least. They went to the opera.

Carly: “How did you meet Miss Porter?” The answer is not, “She cold-called me to make a list of names.” What?

Riese: Right. And then, “The next time we saw each other was at the gallery opening,” where she met Tina.

Carly: Where she met the new love of her life. Where’s the part where she finger-banged Alice at the opera?

Riese: Yeah, where’s finger-banging at the opera? Come on, guys!

Carly: One of the greatest things that the show ever gave us.

Riese: And also, it would be bananas, especially for Alice, who loves to talk about her past relationships, and also she’s in an interrogation room, to not mention, “And then we dated.”

Carly: No, she left that part out.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Convenient, isn’t it? Then Lucy Lawless interrogates her about being the only bisexual in the group. She asks:

Lucy Lawless: Does that create problems for you?

Carly: Ugh. I don’t have time to deal with this.

Riese: Oh, she also says Tina says you’re the only bisexual. But isn’t Tina bisexual? Also, you know who else I think is bisexual is Max.

Carly: Max.

Riese: I think Max is bisexual. And honestly, you know who else is bisexual, I swear to God, it’s Kit Porter.

Carly: Kit Porter who was mysteriously absent from this series of interrogation tapes.

Riese: Interesting.

Carly: Interesting.

Riese: So anyway, Alice is already lying, either she’s lying or the writers decided to rewrite. And then we get the thing that was in the—

Carly: In the episode, the finale, about, “I’m more attracted to women, I fall in love with men, blah, blah, blah. Women are trouble, blah, blah, blah.” She does this whole bit about how she’s into hairless muscly men, and then the guy that’s the other cop or whatever, who’s kind of not that, gives her a dirty look. And she mentions it several times. I thought that was very odd and unnecessary.

Riese: Yeah, she was like, “I could have a fling with a non-sweaty man if I want to… Have a fling with a non-smelly man, a non-smelly man, I could.” So then she asks:

Alice: What does any of this have to do with who killed Jenny?

Riese: So you think someone killed Jenny? My God. My God.

Carly: And that was also in the episode, but that’s where Alice’s tape ends.

Riese: Also, why did they end it there? I also want to know the answer to that question. What does any of this have to do with who killed Jenny?

Carly: I also want to know who Alice thinks killed Jenny. I would love to hear who everyone… Okay, they’ve really missed an opportunity here, which is, I think I would like to call the RuPaul question. RuPaul, once the seasons of Drag Race get down to only a handful of the girls left, RuPaul always asks them, “Who do you think should go home?” Which forces them to turn on each other, and it’s really good TV. And I really think Lucy Lawless could have used the RuPaul interrogation tactic here, and asked all of them who they think did it. Because I would love to know what they are all thinking about that.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Do any of them think that she killed herself?

Riese: I have a guess, they all think that she killed herself.

Carly: Probably.

Riese: This is someone, who in fact, has tried to kill herself before.

Carly: Yes. It would make a lot of sense based on the character and what we know. But instead, we have this.

Carly: So we go to Bette’s tape, and it starts with Lucy Lawless asking Bette Porter, “Do you think you’re arrogant?” And Bette’s response is:

Bette: I think I’m lucky to be with someone who can tolerate a lot more than my mother did. Do you think I’m arrogant?

Carly: What?

Riese: What? What is what?

Carly: What is this?

Riese: What the arrogance?

Carly: Also, Bette is wearing a blazer and then suddenly not wearing the blazer anymore.

Riese: Good eye, Carly, I did not even notice that.

Carly: Thank you.

Riese: Oh, man, I just alarmed Carol.

Carly: Oh, Carol’s alarmed.

Carly: Anyway, where’s her blazer? I would like to launch a second investigation into where her blazer went.

Riese: Yeah, maybe it’s at the scene of the crime. Maybe Jenny used the blazer to hang herself in a true effort of lesbianism.

Carly: Yeah, yeah. If you’re going to kill yourself with an article of clothing, oh my God. Carol wants out. Carol’s like, “I cannot listen to another second of you talking about these people.”

Riese: Are you going under the couch or going under the table?

Carly: Is she going?

Riese: Where do you want to be, my little scaredy cat? She wants to be with me.

Carly: Does she want to sit on your lap? Oh! Hi Carol. Carol, we’re almost done, I promise you, you won’t have to hear about them anymore, except you will. But not right now. Hi Carol, Carol’s joining us.

Riese: Hi Carol.

Carly: To talk about Bette.

Riese: Who do you think killed Jenny? “I think it was a suicide.”

Carly: Wow, Carol, you’re so smart for a dog.

Riese: I think no one killed Jenny.

Carly: I think Jenny is at large some place with Helena’s money that she thought she donated, but didn’t.

Riese: I would have watched that film. Jenny At Large.

Carly: Jenny At Large. Oh my God. Bette says some more things about their relationship being imperfect.

Riese: I kind of liked what she said about relationships, like no relationship is perfect, you just find somebody who can tolerate you the most, and sees you more truly than anyone else. Which is supposed to be a lead-in to this ludicrous next—

Carly: Oh my God, oh my God.

Riese: … emotional what? What?!

Carly: What the actual fuck? Lucy Lawless is like, “How did she fail you, Bette?” And then Bette starts crying, and going into this monologue:

Bette: How could you not even ask me? How did it not even ever occur to you? To ask me if I might want to conceive and give birth to our second child? How could you have not asked me? She didn’t ask me.

Carly: What?

Riese: Why didn’t you tell her? You literally say what you want all the time.

Carly: Yeah, it’s never been hard for you to tell people how you’re feeling about something. You really don’t keep that shit to yourself, Bette.

Riese: That Bette has been sitting here this whole time harboring her resentment that Tina never asked her if she wanted to be pregnant with their second child?

Carly: There was zero evidence of Bette being resentful to Tina in the entirety of season six.

Riese: Right.

Carly: In fact, she was very happy with their relationship the whole season.

Riese: And was really happy about adopting.

Carly: Yeah. This made me feel so crazy. And then Lucy Lawless just gets up and leaves. Which was the correct response. She’s like, “We’re done here.” She doesn’t say that, but she implied it with her body language. “We are done here, Bette, this is bananas and we’re done.”

Riese: Yeah. Because really, they talked about, “Oh, we want to have a second child.” And then Tina was like, “Well, that means we’re adopting,” and Bette was like, “Oh, okay.” That’s what happened? That’s what happened?

Carly: Really? Really, Bette?

Riese: Really? I don’t buy it for one second. You were willing to put up Marci in your house. You wanted to adopt a baby.

Carly: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Riese: And also, why was she not the pregnant one in the beginning? I don’t remember, I guess…

Carly: I don’t know. They never showed us any discussion with those two characters about motherhood, about carrying a child, about what was important to either of them ever. Even though so much of the show revolved around getting pregnant, Angelica.

Riese: And even though Tina had this traumatic childhood, intensely traumatic childhood, nonstop badness involving Dottie sending her fucking dad home with poems from her beloveds.

Carly: “How could you not even ask me? If I wanted to read poems with you?

Riese: “How could you not ask me?” Tell her!

Carly: Oh my God, she can’t read your mind, Bette. Anyway.

Riese: When they talk about having a second child, anyone, anyone having a conversation about having a second child, a lesbian couple, would say, “Okay, these are our options, Tina gets pregnant, Bette gets pregnant, we get a surrogate, we adopt a baby, we adopt a foster child.” There would have been… Certainly Tina obviously said she didn’t want to be pregnant again, right? Because that would have been the first thing they talked about.

Carly: Of course.

Riese: And then they would have talked… Well, does Bette want to be pregnant?

Carly: That would have been the obvious next part of that conversation.

Riese: So this was fucking stupid.

Carly: This was so stupid.

Riese: Do they want us to think that Bette and Tina don’t know each other? Because that’s kind of what I walk away with.

Carly: That’s what they’ve basically put forward in these tapes, yeah. All I got out of this is Bette and Tina don’t know each other at all.

Riese: Right. And we never knew Tina.

Carly: And Max is still suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Riese: Yeah, poor Max, my God.

Carly: Oh God, poor Max. Oh wait, rating, we have to rate Bette’s tape.

Riese: Zero.

Carly: Zero.

Riese: I was offended.

Carly: I was just shocked. I also got up and left at the end of it. Much like Duffy.

Riese: Duffy, the warrior princess.

Carly: Duffy, Xena. Duffy the warrior… Inspector Schecter and the Warrior Princess. New spinoff coming to you soon.

Riese: My first question would have been, “Why did you blow dry your hair?” They had wet hair before, and then they all changed and they came into the office with great hair. Mysterious, right?

Carly: Because it was the finale and they had to walk in slow-motion in the parking lot.

Riese: Oh yeah, I loved that part.

Carly: With the wind machine, the Beyonce tour wind machine.

Riese: singing L Word theme melody

Carly: Oh, it’s your favorite song.

Riese: Well, on a scale of one to an episode of Law and Order: SVU from 1997, I give this a—

Carly: A two.

Riese: A Law and Order: Trial By Jury.

Carly: Ooh. Yikes. Not a good mark. Not good marks at all. This was terrible. But we had to do it, we had to complete the full everything. We had to do it.

Riese: They had to go down to the station and we had to go down to the station with them.

Carly: We all had to go down to the station. Everyone had to go to the station. It seemed like Bette was maybe at a different station because her tape was for the LAPD and everyone else was with the Sheriff’s Department. But whatever. I guess there was a typo in the edit.

Riese: Yeah. Well…

Carly: Well that was fun.

Riese: I give it a zero.

Carly: I give it a zero.

Riese: I hated the interrogation tapes, and I think that everybody could have done a better job. And I think that it just adds to the pile of trash that is season six. But as usual, the worse something is, the funnier it is to discuss.

Carly: And this was a funny thing to watch and discuss.

Riese: Yeah. So the end of the interrogation tapes.

Carly: The end. And of the series.

Riese: And of the series. And we will expect your attendance tomorrow evening at our very special live episode surprise. A star-studded event. June first.

Carly: Star-studded. Spared no expense on this one.

Riese: Yeah. All-out glamor, glitz, vaccinated people, outfits.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Identities. Beloved poetries. All of it. It’s all coming to you from us.

Carly: It’s all going to be there. Live. And then it also will be an episode of this podcast.

Riese: Yeah, it will be.

Carly: So if you miss it live, it will be in this feed. It’s coming to you if it’s not already there.

Riese: Correct. So yeah, we’ll see you then.

Carly: Yeah, I would say also, never unsubscribe to this podcast.

Riese: Never unsubscribe.

Carly: You never know what we are going to be doing.

Riese: You never know. Yeah. You have no idea.

Carly: You can never unsubscribe to this because we could—

Riese: Never unsubscribe.

Carly: You have no idea what we’re doing. We have no idea what we’re doing.

Riese: We have no idea what we’re doing. There’s a possibility that there might be more. We don’t know yet.

Carly: We don’t know. But we don’t know that there won’t be more. But we don’t know that there will be. It’s the uncertainty that makes you stay subscribed.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Exactly. It’s that uncertainty that makes you stay subscribed and that’s all that we have to say about that.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter, we are @tolandback. You can also email us to tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message, it’s (971) 217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle.com.

Carly: Alright. And finally, it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually, these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three.

Carly: Lucy Lawless

Riese: Beloved with a silent B and E. I should have said limericks!

Carly: We’re not changing it. Everything that just happened is perfect.

Riese: Okay guys, bye!

Carly: Bye!

Riese: We love you!

Carly: Love you!

“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 608: Last Word

Friends, we have come to the end. Episode 608. The “Last Word.” This episode has everything: Molly with an alternative lifestyle haircut, a three-hour goodbye video, a trip to the attic, Alice eating Red Vines, Bette comparing Max to a used car, the ugliest house re-model ever, Dylena knife-play and Jenny taking a fateful dip in the pool.

Also DON’T WORRY we will also be doing an episode about the Interrogation Tapes and there will be a special live episode coming up, details TBD!!!!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Riese: Oh my God.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: I’m so excited.

Carly: I’m so happy. I’m so happy.

Riese: To talk about this terrible episode. I have so many things to say.

Carly: Oh my God. We have so much to talk about. Today it’s just the two of us, there is no special guest, because we have so much we have to talk about.

Riese: It’s going to be a long episode.

Carly: Oh my God. Riese, hi, how are you?

Riese: Hi. I’m just—

Carly: Are you overwhelmed?

Riese: Overwhelmed. Yeah. I’m overwhelmed by the amount of information that we are going to be communicating today to our listeners who deserve it.

Carly: Absolutely. Just so everyone is prepared, we have multiple investigations to discuss today, both canon and otherwise. We have all kinds of scientific things to talk about, a lot of very confusing character situations, and a time vortex that is impossible to comprehend.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So I hope everyone’s ready, it’s going to be exciting. But first, we have a very special announcement.

Riese: Which is?

Carly: On May 31, you thought this was the last episode, but it’s not. We have a special bonus episode where we will be dissecting The L Word finale interrogation tapes.

Riese: AKA therapy with The L Word.

Carly: Exactly, because somehow the show is confused between what would happen in an investigation for a crime, versus what would happen in a therapist’s office. We’ll get to that later. So May 31st, bonus episode. Yeah, there’s a lot going on, on May 31st. I think just take the whole day.

Riese: Yeah. Take the whole day off.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Bette sure would.

Carly: Oh my God. Bette would take a week off leading up to it, just to prepare.

Riese: Yeah, Bette’s going to take the rest of her life off.

Carly: She sure is. Well, until 15 years later, when she gets a new show.

Riese: 10 years later when none of this has ever really actually happened.

Carly: Oh, well, Riese, it’s time.

Riese: Yep. It’s time. Let me guess, you give the information at the start of who directed and wrote the episode, right?

Carly: Do you want to guess?

Riese: I’m going to guess.

Carly: Guess, please guess.

Riese: I’m going to take a guess.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Was it Ilene Chaiken for both?

Carly: Ding, ding, ding. You are correct.

Riese: Yeah!

Carly: Ilene Chaiken both wrote and directed the series finale of The L Word, episode 608, entitled “Last Word.” Now, last week’s episode, if you recall, was entitled “Last Couple Standing,” so they’re kind of reusing the word “last” here in the title, but I guess we’ll let it slide because it is the last episode. I think they should have called it “Last Episode.” That would have been really funny.

Riese: Yeah, I do too.

Carly: That would have been really, really funny.

Riese: But then it wasn’t.

Carly: That’s true. This originally aired March 8th, 2009.

Riese: Which was also the day that Autostraddle launched.

Carly: Autostraddle’s birthday!

Riese: Jenny died. Autostraddle emerged from the swamp.

Carly: Like a Phoenix rising—

Riese: Like a Phoenix out of the swimming pool.

Carly: Rising from the pool.

Riese: Yeah, and was like, hey guys, we have four posts on our website, come read it.

Carly: Come read all four of them. Read them again.

Riese: Yeah. Well, I mean, technically I had my L Word recap blog was also called Autostraddle. Well, it’s called The Road Best Straddled. But it was just my little thing and then it became a big thing.

Carly: It’s a huge thing now.

Riese: I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Yeah. Now it’s a very huge thing. I can’t get out of it.

Carly: Nope. You’re stuck with it forever.

Riese: Okay. Let’s begin.

Carly: Let’s begin. I just want to point out that the previous-lies they used for this are very ridiculous.

Riese: Bananas.

Carly: Completely bananas.

Riese: They’re all over the place.

Carly: They tell us the entire history of Alice, Tasha, Jamie; then Dylan, Helena; then Jenny, the film negative; Molly, Jenny, Shane’s jacket; then Max, Tom and the baby; then Kelly, then Bette, then nonsense, then Marcy and New York City. It’s all here. This episode has everything, this is — New York’s hottest club is the Last Word episode 608. It’s got everything, it’s got Lucy Lawless, it’s got murder, it’s got a baby, it’s got a drag queen.

Riese: It’s got a lonely dog.

Carly: A lovely dog. Glad to see the dog back.

Riese: It’s got a movie star hiding in the bushes.

Carly: Which is always where movie stars are hiding, everyone knows.

Riese: It’s got a pregnant man grilling burgers in his backyard.

Carly: Yes, yes it does.

Riese: The thing about this episode is it actually had very little.

Carly: Oh yeah, no, it had very, very little. It had to tie up a lot of loose ends and tied them up poorly. Many of them weren’t tied up at all. Actually, I would argue none of the loose ends of the series were tied up.

Riese: None of them. In fact, this episode is nonstop loose ends. We’ve already talked about how this is the worst episode ever on television, but we are thrilled to be discussing it today because obviously we have a lot of feedback.

Carly: We have some notes.

Riese: We have some notes. I have many notes.

Carly: Also this episode is extra long. So we have even more notes than we would normally have.

Riese: And quite unnecessarily so. And it’s not just that this is bad, it’s that literally nothing, and we’re always like, “That doesn’t make sense. That doesn’t make sense.” This does not make sense.

Carly: At all.

Riese: Nothing. Not one minute of this checks out in the world of the show, in the world of time, in the world of the world. There’s nothing about this that makes sense, and it’s also clear throughout that as we know the writer of the episode did not know who killed Jenny and did not decide that when they wrote the story. And that’s actually, you can’t do that—

Carly: No.

Riese: When you’re writing a mystery story.

Carly: You cannot.

Riese: Even if you don’t reveal the winner, or, the winner—

Carly: The winner is the one who killed Jenny.

Riese: Even if you don’t reveal the killer, you as the writer, do you have to know who the killer is.

Carly: You have to be writing towards something. You have to be writing with a story in mind. You can’t just write with nothing. It doesn’t work. And I think that this is a prime example of how that doesn’t work.

Riese: Work. Right. Because in a story where someone has killed someone, I mean, we’ll get into this, but I don’t think this episode makes the argument that anyone was killed. But there is one person or several people who did it, which means there should be clues and circumstances that point us in the direction of that person. You can’t just be like, well, it could be this person or it could be this person. No, it could only be the person who did it.

Carly: Right. Because you have to know who did it, so that you can have like the red herrings. Like, oh, I’m going to make it seem like this person did it, but they didn’t because this person actually did it. But you can’t do that.

Riese: Because there’s no such thing as an open-ended story. That’s not real, you can’t do that.

Carly: That’s not how television works. I mean, that might be how life works, I feel like in life, there are open-ended stories, although eventually things end—

Riese: Of course.

Carly: In some way, shape or form, but in television and film where you are writing scripts, there is an end to a story. A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Riese: In life too. In life. Someone did do it. In life, someone did it. So even if we don’t, if we never figure out who did, it’s still, the fact remains that someone did.

Carly: Or no one did.

Riese: Or no one did, perhaps.

Carly: Because I mean, we’ll get to this later, but, what did she even die from?

Riese: Oh my God.

Carly: Whatever. I think honestly, with all of these questions swirling in the air around us, that I feel like this has just become like a Twilight Zone recap show.

Riese: It has become a Twilight Zone.

Carly: I feel like we are now entering…

Riese: Butterfly territory.

Carly: Yeah. You know what? This is the butterfly’s world and we’re just visiting it.

Riese: Remember in New York in the museum, when they had the butterfly room, when you go in and all the butterflies would fly and land on you. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Carly: Shit, do you know what? I do. But I never went, do you think that’s why this is happening to me right now?

Riese: Probably.

Carly: I did once go to a place called butterfly world in South Florida.

Riese: Oh, nice.

Carly: And I feel like that should have garnered some amount of goodwill, unless, I mean, I was a child. So maybe I was an asshole to the butterflies, I guess that’s possible. Although that doesn’t really seem like something I would do, but.

Riese: No, when I think of you, I think kind to animals.

Carly: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Riese: You’re welcome.

Carly: So you’re now entering a dimension of nonsense and lesbians.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Let’s do it.

Riese: Okay. So we open in an interrogation room.

Carly: Uh-huh.

Riese: This is a room where if you want to see someone’s face really close up, you absolutely can.

Carly: You can do that to your heart’s content.

Riese: And we opened with Shane saying—

Shane: Listen, I can’t tell you, I didn’t think about it. I was kidding. It’s not like I would ever do something like that.

Riese: Which I think she means, I thought about—

Carly: Killing Jenny.

Riese: Right. Which is obviously that’s the vibe if I was being interrogated for someone’s murder, that is a hundred percent the vibe I would be going for when I walked in. I’d be like, just so you know, I have thought about it, but I didn’t do it.

Carly: And I think that I should be rewarded in some way for having those thoughts, but not acting on them.

Riese: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We’ve been through this before.

Carly: I guess she could have been saying, I thought about breaking up with her, but then right before her death, we see that Shane didn’t consider them a couple any longer, so.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Because of the repeated betrayals.

Riese: Yeah. And then also the other thing, and this is an underlying issue with the whole episode, Shane would never kill anybody. That’s — these are characters, you’ve established them over six seasons. Shane would kill Jenny? Never!

Carly: Also, I truly believe that out of the whole cast, the only person that I truly think is capable of murder, is Bette. And I think that she makes a really good case for herself being capable of murder in the scene late in the episode where she confronts Jenny. Because I think that she has something in her that kind of combined with her self destructiveness would lead her to do very upsetting things, if it meant keeping her family together, whatever. But I also think like we said in a previous episode, she’d just hire somebody.

Riese: But even that is a stretch.

Carly: Yeah. She wouldn’t like—

Riese: Even that is a stretch because she wouldn’t want to mess up her own, she’s also pragmatic enough, she wouldn’t want to mess up her own life or her child’s life by putting herself at risk of going to jail.

Carly: Exactly. She’d only somehow be involved in someone’s murder if she knew that there was no way it could be traced back to her and then she would just live with it until she confessed to Tina and Kit and Alice and Shane and God knows who else.

Riese: And also we know two things. One is that they had already planned a spinoff of the show called The Farm, which was about prison. And in that they have Alice going to prison for Jenny’s murder.

Carly: They shot the pilot for that before this episode came out. The script for that, the plan for that was in place, I think when season six was being written at some point, that became a thing because I believe they shot the pilot in December of 2008 and this aired in March of 2009. So — and they had announced it, they announced that there was a spinoff that was in development about a women’s prison, starring Alice, that Alice would be the only character continuing on. So by virtue of that amount of press and marketing and whatever, we already knew essentially how the season would end kind of like that.

Riese: Right, that it would be Alice, or it would seem, it would either be—

Carly: It would seem like Alice.

Riese: Yeah. Right. Which also again, doesn’t really track.

Carly: No.

Riese: Alice is not a fucking murderer. There are so many ways — the things that Jenny has done wrong in this situation that they’re trying to build up for people, you know how this could be resolved? Obviously Jenny is, I mean, if we want to stick to any type of reality, Jenny needs help of some kind, she’s obviously psychologically not doing well because she’s acting like a psychopath and that’s not who she is, I don’t think.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And then there’s also the possibility of them just not being her friend anymore.

Carly: Yeah. Sometimes you can just not be friends with people anymore and not murder them and I think that that’s a much more chill way to go through life is, I wouldn’t even murder your enemies.

Riese: No.

Carly: I don’t think you should do that. And maybe that’s a hot take, but I just don’t think it’s necessary. Also I would argue that everyone on this show needs extensive therapy. All of these characters need to be in therapy. And as far as we know, they’re not kind of in therapy at all. And I think that them using these police interrogations as a way to get free therapy from Lucy Lawless is really weird.

Riese: It is really weird. Yeah.

Carly: It doesn’t track.

Riese: She’s a warrior princess, okay, she’s not a social worker.

Carly: Not a therapist. Yeah.

Riese: So then Shane starts talking about how she likes her freedom and she hates the term “we.” Again, this is, I don’t see how any of this is relevant to the investigation.

Carly: It is not.

Riese: And then we do a flashback to Jenny. So Jenny is making a tribute video for Bette and Tina leaving.

Carly: Yeah. So all of a sudden Bette and Tina have a for sale sign in front of their brand new, newly renovated, I guess it’s finished, home. I guess they gave up on that baby thing pretty fast after Marcy didn’t show up. They’re like, I guess we’re good.

Riese: Oh, well.

Carly: Oh boy.

Riese: So it’s basically Jenny is being a tribute video. She’s like, we, we, we, we, we, about her and Shane, and she says that her and Shane will take Bette and Tina’s place. No problem.

Jenny: You guys were this supreme wonderful beatific couple, and now we’re going to take your place because we’re the only ones left. So this is really, really exciting. So I give you my word that we’re going to make it.

Riese: Which, what?

Carly: Yeah, their place as the strong couple that the group looks up to or whatever, like hashtag couples goals, I guess because that was not a thing in 2009, but if it were, I think Jenny would have said that.

Riese: Mm-hmm, neither was iPhone videos, so.

Shane and Jenny sitting on the porch filming the video, Jenny saying "we're going to take your place"

Carly: Yeah, well. So no theme song, just a title card.

Riese: They need to pack it a little bit more. I know they had this really somber music, that you would have sort of, if you’re making something good. You know?

Carly: The score is like, [singing] intense drama music…

Riese: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then it’s like, okay, here we are at guess where?

Carly: Oh, good. We’re back at The Planet for the world’s most awkward brunch. I really want to know why they could not have had this fight at home.

Riese: Anywhere else! No one is at risk of violence, so there’s no need to do it in a public place.

Carly: Right.

Riese: They’re just ordering. I mean, at first they were just getting lemon waters and I was like, come on, you guys, get out of the restaurant.

Carly: Then they got—

Riese: But then eventually some food was—

Carly: Potatoes.

Riese: Potatoes, yeah, that was also weird.

Carly: And then like smoothies.

Riese: I thought they were maybe Thai iced teas.

Carly: They looked like smoothies. Maybe they were Thai iced teas.

Riese: I don’t know but have this at home. Other people could hear you.

Carly: They got loud. Alice got loud.

Riese:Yeah

Carly: And how did Kit or Helena not throw them out?

Riese: The Planet?

Carly: You’re creating a huge scene at brunch. Brunch is the busiest time of day.

Riese: Why are you doing this at The Planet?

Carly: This made me so uncomfortable. The second problem is that—

Riese: Tasha’s collar was weird. Oh, sorry. You had a different problem.

Carly: Yes, but the big problem here is of course the theme of this season, the lighting. So somehow they have positioned Alice and Jamie at the seats of the table that get what we would believe is the natural light coming in from the outside. And somehow Tasha is sitting in darkness. And as a person who has made things with cameras, moving images with cameras, one of the things that you always do aside from lighting the people on camera correctly so you can see their Goddamn faces, is that if you are in a situation where there are multiple seats and some are just not getting enough natural light, you don’t put the person with the darkest skin in that seat because you won’t be able to fucking see them. So everything about this is wrong.

Riese: Ilene doesn’t see color.

Carly: You’re right. She doesn’t. And therefore we can’t see Tasha’s expressions in this scene at all.

Riese: No, nor could I figure out, is one of her collar, one side of her collar was popped, but then the other side was down.

Carly: I couldn’t tell if it was a flannel shirt or if it was a jacket, it was really hard—

Riese: It was very confusing.

Carly: We never saw the whole garment. I would love to see the garment. I love a garment.

Riese: Yeah. Also this is, again, the writing has gotten so lazy. I don’t even think that they noticed this when they were writing this, but what were they talking about before the camera arrived? Because they start the conversation at that moment. Did they drive there in silence? Walk in in silence?

Carly: They got the menus, read the menus, ordered the food, complete silence.

Riese: And then was like, what’s happening?

Carly: And then they were like, action, and Alice was like, I’ve called you both here today to discuss something very important to me but what happened maybe several months ago? Riese, do you want to talk about an investigation you’ve been working on?

Riese: Okay. Let’s talk about time. Let’s talk about time.

Carly: Riese has been conducting a season six time investigation and she is ready to present her findings to the audience.

Riese: 601. We know where 601 begins, that begins at the end of episode 512 the day after the party where Shane fucked Nikki on the balustrade at Yamashiro.

Carly: We all remember.

Riese: Which, by the way, was recently fined for COVID violations.

Carly: Well…

Riese: Watch out.

Carly: There we go.

Riese: So that all takes place in one day then there’s the next day, Jenny wakes up with Nikki, everyone’s at The Planet the next day, Jenny and Shane stare at each other. So two days of 601.

Carly: Two days.

Riese: When we open 602, the opening is Nikki getting really pissed about what Jenny’s told her. So that is either the same day as the last episode ended or the next day, it’s at least within two or three days of where we left off at the end of 601. 602 is actually kind of confusing. At most it could have been, again, a two-to-three day episode, because we are bouncing back and forth between Alice and they’re at The Planet and then they go to therapy with Dan Foxworthy, and Bette has her art meeting. The thing that’s confusing about this is that somehow Max goes to the doctor for the top surgery consult, and finds out that he’s pregnant. And then if we’re assuming that everybody exists in the same time existence, right?

Carly: Which we’re not sure that they do.

Riese: And he’s wearing the same shirt. Which we’re not sure they do. And then he goes to that other doctor to get an abortion. He’s in the same shirt he was wearing earlier. We’re still going back and forth with scenes that are all happening in the same day. So he’s somehow—

Carly: In theory, this is all the same day. Yes.

Riese: He’s somehow had his top surgery consult, find out he was pregnant, got an appointment for an abortion or a checkup or something at Planned Parenthood or wherever they went.

Carly: Do you just do a walk in at Planned Parenthood or do you have to make an appointment?

Riese: No, if you make an appointment, you’re going to be sitting there all day. So walking in, I don’t think is, I guess that could be same day if he was not, but he had an appointment. He said he had an appointment.

Carly: So somehow he got a same day appointment.

Riese: Somehow he got a same day appointment. Yeah.

Carly: All right. Let’s just assume that that’s possible. Sure.

Riese: Yeah. Bette has her art meeting, Joyce and Phyllis. So this is all, takes place, based on the outfits and the events of the thing. This all takes place within two or three days. So now we have, the series so far has taken somewhere between three and six days have passed.

Carly: Cool.

Riese: So far. 603, again, is either a one or two day episode.

Carly: Do they ever say how far along exactly Max is or just that he’s in his second trimester.

Riese: Just that he’s in his second trimester.

Carly: Okay. So he has at most six months until the birth, but potentially less because it would be what, three days into the first trimester, the second trimester? They’re like, you missed it by three days, sorry.

Riese: Because 603 opens the day after 602, because it opens with Shane and Jenny in bed, which had started the night before. And that whole story takes place over the course of one day. It is possible that there is a break mid-episode of a day between those events and the day that Alice is on The Look and reads the letter — or after she’s on The Look and reads the letter. But then the way everything happens from there, again, 6-03 is at most two days, two or three days.

Carly: So we are barely scratching a week.

Riese: Yeah. Now there could be a time jump between 603 and 604, possibly.

Carly: Right, because in 604, we know that she doesn’t have a job. Alice doesn’t have a job anymore, but we don’t know how quickly she was fired and how long it’s been since she was fired.

Riese: Right. I mean the end of 603 is when she goes to the LA LGBT center. And then they go to the club and everybody is laughing about Shane and Jenny which again is more evidence that that’s the same day or the next day. But then in 604, we have the thing where they’re at The Planet and everyone’s misgendering Max and all that stuff. But it’s also like, and then Dylan sets up a meeting with Tina. Again, you don’t really get the sense here that it’s been more than a few days since the last thing. But I would say if we’re being really generous, it’s been a week.

Carly: Let’s, for argument’s sake, give them a week.

Riese: And 604, again, takes place in three days. And then we have, then they really fucked up here, because at the end of the 604, Helena invites Dylan to dinner on Saturday night.

Carly: Dylan to dinner.

Riese: So 605, we open, she says that she’s going to dinner with Dylan on Saturday night, we find out through the scheming with Dylan and her confirming her plans with Helena, that that whole, the Hit Club shenanigans, happened on Friday. So actually all of 605 happens on one day, which is a Friday. And it, again, we’re at most, a few days after the events before.

Carly: Okay. So at the most, at this point, we are only two weeks removed from the Lez Girls party.

Riese: Uh-huh.

Carly: Great.

Riese: Then 606, we open at the baby shower. At the baby shower it appears to be, this is the first time that Jenny has seen Dylan since the Hit Club scheme.

Carly: Fiasco.

Riese: Based on, she’s like, “Oh, you did such a good job.” So this is the first time that they’ve all been together as a group since then. So again, a week max.

Carly: Yeah. I feel like it couldn’t have been that, much longer than that. Why would Jenny make such a big deal about, I mean, they made her character completely unreliable. So I guess it could have been a month and we wouldn’t know, but I feel like it wasn’t. That seems a bit much.

Riese: Yeah, it seems a little weird. That’s the end of 606, 607, it all takes place in the same day. That’s “The Last Couple Standing.” And again, 607, beginning of it, Jenny asks Bette about the Kelly situation, as if it just happened and Tina tells Bette that she got a job offer in New York, which means she got — must’ve gotten home that day or the day before.

Carly: How did she not tell her life partner about this via phone text or instant message.

Riese: Really good question.

Carly: You know Bette loves instant messages.

Riese: So, in conclusion, the entirety of season six, which involves all kinds of things like a full pregnancy, like an adoption thing that goes wrong, like a screenplay that was written overnight.

Carly: Overnight, sold, we already did the math for that and it totally checked out, where she developed, wrote, sold the screenplay, got new agents and everything in a couple of days.

Riese: So this is a month.

Carly: Which is totally normal, very Hollywood. Now, is it possible that there was a large time jump before 608? And the question is what takes us to this scene really, which is that Alice, Tasha, and Jamie are discussing the events of the morning after the dance marathon as if they just happened a day or so ago at most. So Bette and Tina’s addition, complete home remodel is suddenly finished. Max, who went off testosterone because of the pregnancy and is still pregnant, hasn’t had the baby yet now has a full Doc Holliday mustache.

Riese: Yeah. It’s like the guy in the QAnon documentary who had the — you know who I’m talking about?

Carly: Yes.

Riese: It’s so bad.

Carly: So either Bette and Tina’s reality of time is different than everyone else’s, Alice’s is different than everyone else. I don’t, also Jenny’s talking about this video and all these people sending in these tapes.

Riese: Which again, why would someone who lives in France want to—

Carly: Care that you’re moving to New York?

Riese: Do a video for you for you moving, you already don’t, you’ve already gone away. The going away has happened.

Carly: Riese. I think what we need to acknowledge here is that Bette and Tina moving to New York City is a metaphor for this show ending. Because the videos were like, you guys changed my life. It was so great to meet you. So great.

Riese: Just have it be—

Carly: Okay, look, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Riese: Okay, sorry.

Alice saying "when we have sex, I don't close my eyes"

Carly: But basically, the scene at The Planet, which should only have happened at home and not at The Planet, this is so inappropriate, is completely incongruous with the timeline of everything else that’s going on.

Riese: And I was like, have you fallen in love with Tasha? And Jamie’s like—

Jamie: Yeah, I think I have fallen in love with Tasha.

Riese: Which really? But also—

Carly: I was like, for real? That fast? Maybe you just have, you could just say you have a crush. Maybe you have a crush, maybe you just have a crush. Why don’t you just say you have a crush and that you guys want to kiss and that’s cute. Also, Alice is being an asshole.

Riese: Yeah, because also, she asked them this question and then she yells at them — and yes, obviously this situation sucks. And of course she’s mad, but it’s just, everything just feels, this situation is the worst. It’s the worst.

Carly: It’s the worst.

Riese: It’s the worst possible thing that could happen to your relationship. It’s terrifying. It’s terrible. It’s hurtful. But the way that she reacts to these confessions that she gets is weird.

Alice: And fuck you.
Jamie: God. I am so sorry, Alice.
Alice: Fuck you.
Jamie: You got to believe me. This is the last thing I ever wanted to happen.
Alice: Go, you’re free.
Jamie: No, no, no. God, please do not break up because of me.
Tasha: We’re not. Don’t do this.
Alice: When we have sex, I don’t close my eyes and imagine someone else naked in the shower.
Tasha: Fuck you.
Jamie: You guys, please don’t. You love each other, just get me out of the equation and everything will go back to the way it was.
Alice: Will you shut the fuck up please? Just shut the fuck up!
Tasha: Alice—
Alice: Save it, shut up.

Carly: It’s like, Alice, you asked us out to brunch to yell at us?

Riese: And also the ordering of the potatoes.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Oh God, you both got the same drink and you got the same potatoes so obviously you’re soulmates! Everyone likes potatoes.

Carly: Alice’s whole thing about how they’re the same is so weird because I think it’s really just she’s projecting that she and Tasha are so different that she forgot that sometimes people can have things in common or like similar things. Doesn’t she like similar things to her friends? Hasn’t she ever experienced having things in common before?

Riese: Salads.

Carly: Also, as you said, everyone likes potatoes. That is a fact. And then at the end of the dance marathon, Alice seemed to be really coming from a good place. Wanting the best for Tasha, wanting her to be happy when she asked her what was going on, and so now to have flipped and she is publicly shaming them — in the middle of brunch — is kind of a lot.

Riese: Yeah. I understand her reaction because how can you control your emotions under something like that.

Carly: Of course.

Riese: But it just felt — the velocity of all of it, it just felt a little off.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Because also they haven’t done anything is the other thing. They haven’t, she hasn’t cheated. They haven’t talked about their feelings with each other, nothing has happened and you can’t control your feelings for someone else. You know what I mean? You can’t get mad at Jamie for having feelings for Tasha. You can get mad at Jamie for acting on them, which she hasn’t done.

Carly: Right, and Alice keeps talking on Tasha’s behalf, which is so annoying and rude, and she makes all these assumptions and is just behaving very poorly. And again, they are in public. I can’t believe Kit or Helena didn’t come over to be like, can y’all leave? You’re going to need to leave. We’re going to get these potatoes to go.

Riese: Yeah. Someone just comes over to the table and dumps their potatoes into to-go containers, and they’re just like, “thank you so much for coming.” Pours the drinks into a little go cup.

Carly: They get the giant hooks that pull muppets off stage.

Riese: “Thanks, ladies! Have a great afternoon!”

Carly: “Bye!”

Riese: Bye. So really, Alice says they’re free, she wants them to see how they feel about each other and then Tasha can let her know. I’m glad she did this because it really drives home the fact that this entire episode takes place over the course of two days at most. Right?

Carly: Yeah. She also says, if you don’t call me at the same time tomorrow, then I’ll know that you made up your mind about what you want. Is she like—

Riese: I don’t know.

Carly: Does she think she’s in a romantic comedy?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: You have to agree that there’s going to be a thing that you do at a certain time on a certain day to prove if you love each other or not. You can’t just shout that at someone, what if Tasha has plans at the same time tomorrow?

Riese: Yeah, hello? Police Academy.

Carly: Yeah. She probably has work, she is police.

Riese: She has to iron her sweaters. Then we go to Alice’s interrogation where, for some Goddamn reason that escapes me, she’s talking about how she — the only person she loved as much as Tasha is Dana Fairbanks. Okay. Who killed Jenny? I don’t know.

Carly: I wish Lucy Lawless was like, I wish Lucy was like, “The tennis player?! The famous tennis player?”

Riese: “Oh the famous — she was gay? I didn’t know!”

Carly: “I was such a fan of hers. I thought she might be gay because of that Subaru ad. I thought that tagline was kind of queer.”

Riese: That was, that was a little bit gay.

Carly: “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to assume.”

Riese: “Yeah, I didn’t want to make assumptions, but that’s interesting. It’s interesting. Her and Billy Jean. Huh?”

Carly: Huh? Wow. Sorry. You were saying?

Riese: So I made a L Word parody of the Succession credits, like, two years ago, and I used a lot of footage from the Helena and Dylan situation in it. Have you seen Succession?

Carly: Yes. I love Succession.

Riese: Okay. I’ll send you… I don’t know if you saw the video I made, but it’s pretty good.

Carly: I’m sure I did, but I need to see it again in the new context of having just re-watched this series.

Riese: Right, because also I tried to match as close as I could, one for one, the clips in Succession with similar clips in The L Word, and a lot of them came from this, because it’s a huge house, a lot of staring at nothing, it’s very cold, you know what I mean?

Carly: Mhmm.

Riese: Also, honestly I didn’t like anyone’s interior design in this episode, I’m just going to say that.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Dylan is wearing a sweater that’s arms and a cropped back, but then a full beginning, and it’s just like Talbot’s got eaten by a lion.

Carly: She’s also wearing flip flops with baggy jeans and it’s making me upset. The proportions are wrong. It’s weird, it’s too weird.

Riese: So Dylan got booted from her sublet and Dylan and Helena are fighting because Helena didn’t offer Dylan to stay at her house.

Carly: But Helena thinks that Dylan assumed that she would move in, but Dylan didn’t think that. But anyway, Jenny’s here with her camera.

Riese: Because she’s shooting a tribute video for Bette and Tina, and she’s like, “Dylan, you should be in it.” But why would Dylan be in a… what?

Carly: There’s so many people in this video where I’m like, “Why are you in this video?”

Riese: Dylan barely knows Bette and Tina, besides that she lawsuited Helena when she was working with Tina.

Carly: Law suited?

Riese: What? Had Bette and Dylan ever had a conversation?

Carly: Dylan involved Tina in a lawsuit. Why would she want to see her face in the… okay. Jenny is like—

Riese: They’re drinking.

Carly: They’re drinking. Jenny’s like, “tons of people have sent me tapes.”

Helena saying "it's never too early for a drink" with Dylan lurking in the background

Riese: Again at most — and this is assuming Bette… if Jamie, Tasha and Alice have not spoken of the situation at all, this could be at most a week, and that would be insane.

Carly: Right. Also, that means that the house was finished being constructed, and they put the house on the market. And I would like to think that they didn’t list their house on the market before they found a place to live in New York, which means all of that happened in a week. Also, I’m just going to say this, that most film studios have offices in both New York and Los Angeles. I know that Focus Features has an office in Los Angeles. I cannot imagine a situation in which a film studio would require you to work out of New York City. I could see you having to travel frequently, but there is absolutely no reason Tina would have to relocate for that job. Sorry.

Riese: Yeah. Unless her short got into the Tribeca Film Festival, then she might want to move.

Carly: And then of course she would relocate to New York for the short, obviously. Also, can you imagine Jenny getting in touch with people like Marina and Tim, asking them to send videos because Bette and Tina are moving to New York? Why did any of them even take her phone call or text? How did that happen?

Riese: How does she even know how to get a hold of Marina?

Carly: Yeah. How did she know how to get a hold of her? How does she find Carmen?

Riese: Also, I feel like Tim — I mean Tim sucks, but wouldn’t he have written back, “No heart emoji” to her request for a video?

Carly: That’s what he should have written. That’s what they all should have written. Also Bette and Tina don’t like Jenny, why is Jenny doing this? I mean we know why she’s doing this, because she has to insert herself in everything.

Riese: And she wants to endear herself to everybody.

Carly: Also, Jenny tells them to stand in front of the window so that you can see the pool. Have you ever shot something into a window before? Do you know what happens? You can’t see the people’s faces because the window is blown out. You don’t shoot into a source of light, you shoot so that that source of light is behind the camera or to the side of it so that it can illuminate the faces of the people you are filming.

Riese: Why would you want to see the pool?

Carly: Yeah. She’s like, “So we can see the pool.” Why, do Bette and Tina love that pool? Have they ever been here? Where are we?

Riese: I thought we were in Malibu, although that gets a little bit confusing later.

Carly: Also, didn’t she have to get rid of the beach house after the whole thing, and look, I don’t—

Riese: I hope everyone who’s thinking, “God, how long is this episode going to be at this point?” knows that we have at least another two hours of material to cover. So buckle in this is an all day podcast listen, okay?

Carly: Just start driving around, or maybe take a walk, like a long walk.

Riese: Got to go visit your family? Finally got vaccinated? You’re driving back to Indiana? Turn this on, we’re here all night.

Carly: This would be a great thing to listen to, it’ll take up most of the trip.

Riese: Max is in the interrogation room.

Carly: He seriously looks like Doc Holiday or Wyatt Earp or one of those old timey guys. He says—

Max: After a while I realize that it’s not that they were total snobs, it’s just that they’re insular, tight, kind of, you know? And as we’ve gotten to know each other, I realized they’re pretty amazing people, really special. I call them framily.

Carly: This is what I would call Stockholm Syndrome.

Riese: I was like, “You poor thing!” What?

Max is saying "I call them 'framily'" in the interrogation room with his moustache

Carly: He has been abused so badly by this group of people.

Riese: This is your “framily”?

Carly: “Framily,” which is a very upsetting word that upset me.

Riese: So yeah, these are his friends who he loves and who have been terrible to him his entire life.

Carly: This is so upsetting. So… we go back to Bette and Tina’s.

Riese: The railing is not secured!

Carly: Oh my God, did you hear that Weezie the contractor didn’t finish the railing?

Riese: The railing? The upstairs? Where’s the railing?

Carly: So they were renovating the home and adding a second floor.

Riese: Renovating the home, okay.

Carly: And when they made the second floor, they didn’t finish the railing for the little balcony that’s off of their new master bedroom. And that balcony leads to stairs that lead to the backyard. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s no railing.

Riese: So what you’re saying is, it’s dangerous to be up there.

Carly: I would say that, yes, it does present an element of danger. That for a group of adults, shouldn’t be a huge issue, but just something to be aware of. But this is our first mention of it. And we are threatened immediately with Weezie coming back, potentially.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I was immediately horrified that I might have to see that character again.

Riese: That character again and that joke. First of all, the whole situation has never looked more like a set than it does on this day. It is like this is the set!

Carly: It is, this is a set. Hello, welcome to our back lot, it is a stage.

Riese: Maybe you should have kept it one floor, because as soon as you got the sky involved, we were out of our — Kit is like “Why don’t you just adopt Max this baby?”

Carly: And then we cut to a shot of Max through bushes. This show does not waste a single opportunity to make fun of Max. They have him with his mustache, his pregnant belly sticking out, his pants are ill-fitting.

Riese: His t-shirt’s too short. It’s the same way that they make poor people who are pregnant look in movies that hate poor people. It’s this idea that you’re just bodies hanging out of your clothing, you’re just grilling or whatever the fuck.

Carly: Yeah, you’re gross or something. And he’s grilling or he’s cleaning the grill, I don’t even know what he’s doing with the grill. But the point is that the show hates him, there is such hate in this shot.

Riese: And you know who else hates him apparently? Bette.

Carly: Bette? So Kit’s like, “Hey, there’s a baby next door that you could adopt.”

Riese: And Bette of course, as we were all thinking says

Bette: We’re not talking about fucking used cars, Kit.

Carly: I really wish that her argument was instead, the argument that we made, which is that — or that John made in 606, which is that we know from Season 1 that Bette and Tina wanted a baby that would reflect both of their backgrounds. And so that’s why they wanted to have a biracial baby. And so if she had just said that, instead of being a complete fucking asshole, that would have been pretty cool. But no, instead she refers to Max and his baby as a used car.

Riese: I think what she’s trying to say is that she wouldn’t take Max’s baby, but if he was a used car salesman, she’d probably buy a used car from him.

Carly: Okay. She also assumes now that Max is ready to be a father, she’s just putting that on him. Have you spoken with him?

Riese: Obviously not, no. It’s just so…ugh.

Carly: Don’t you think it could have been cool if the show had spent time with Max and this experience that he’s going through, which is such a unique experience, one that we had never seen on scripted television before, and something that we see later at the party, that there is some acceptance or something in him. He’s come to terms with some stuff, but we don’t get—

Bette outside with Kit saying she wants Jenny Schecter to mind her fucking business

Riese: Changed his number like a total psychopath.

Carly: Changed his landline. How come Tom wasn’t in the video? Jodi’s in the video, fucking Jodi’s in the video and not Tom.

Riese: Jodi’s in the video and not Tom.

Carly: I can’t believe Jodi agreed to be in this video also, but whatever, we’ll get to that.

Riese: I love that, that was a power move.

Carly: Yeah, totally was.

Riese: So apparently, this Kelly thing is still unresolved, and Bette apparently still hasn’t talked to Kelly about it. Jenny’s still telling people about it. And now we find out the reason that Bette hasn’t told Tina about this is because she didn’t tell Tina that Kelly came over that night, but why wouldn’t she tell her that Kelly came over that night?

Carly: Why would you not tell her that? You’re not interested in Kelly?

Riese: No one’s interested in Kelly.

Carly: No, and Tina already knows how Kelly is, and is aware of Kelly’s ridiculous over the top flirtation with Bette. So if you’re like, “Oh my God, Kelly came over and totally hit on me and then broke one of our glasses.” I guess they haven’t had champagne since… they didn’t have a toast for Tina’s new job and realize that a champagne flute was missing because it broke?

Riese: Well, maybe they had several.

Carly: Sure. Also why at no point in this episode does Bette mention that she was cleaning up a broken glass on the floor. Why does she not explain the physical… the reason the video is suspect is that she is bending over and her face has vanished behind Kelly and it’s obviously over the top in every possible way. But the reason she is bending over or kneeling on the floor is because Kelly broke a glass and she is cleaning up the broken glass. So why does she not just say—

Riese: [Singing] Feels just like I’m walking on broken glass.

Carly: [Singing]Walking on, walking on broken glass.

Riese: [Singing]Broken glass. What if Tina got glass in her foot? And Bette was like, “I don’t know how that happened.”

Carly: What if Angelica was crawling around—

Riese: Stepped on glass!

Carly: That is so fucked up, you’re endangering your child, I hope you vacuumed, Bette, and didn’t just pick up the big pieces.

Riese: Then Bette says, she’s excited to get out of LA.

Bette: However, I am happy to be getting out of this little incestuous hotbed of lesbian, inter-fucking-connectedness.

Riese: Which, I understand that emotion, but also I still have a pending court case against Bette regarding the used cars comment. So I can’t really speak anymore on this at this time.

Carly: Under the advice of your counsel.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. It’s going to be a probably drawn out lawsuit, but hopefully we’ll get a win for our client, Max, and everyone can buy themselves a new car.

Carly: I think that if anybody can help Max here in this situation, it’s you.

Riese: Thank you so much. Maybe Joyce, but—

Carly: Well, we’ll see what Joyce is up to in a minute, and by a minute I mean three hours. So, also, I just want to say that I think everyone is really giving Jenny too much power in all of these conversations that everyone is having about her that don’t involve her. Everyone is really… They have built her and her persona and what she’s able or capable of doing up to such a degree that she sounds like an Avengers villain. “We have to leave Los Angeles because of Jenny, because if she snaps her fingers, 50% of us will vanish.”

Riese: Exactly, exactly!

Carly: That’s how they’re treating her and it’s like, what if, here’s an idea, what if you just stop giving her all the power? And fucking own your shit, communicate better with each other.

Riese: Deal with your own lives, move her out of it, you don’t have to be friends with her.

Carly: So now Kit’s being interrogated, and all she’s talking about is how they all love each other so much. What is this?

Riese: They love each other more than 1, any other army, 2, an assembly of God. That’s love.

Carly: That’s big love, that’s really intense love. That’s big love. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the course of these six seasons, it’s how much these people love each other.

Riese: Especially this episode.

Carly: Despite all evidence to the contrary.

Riese: They are tight.

Carly: Tight knit group.

Riese: They’re not that tight, because if they were tight, they would be like most queer social groups are, and all decide to shun Jenny and not listen to her and just kick her out and make her feel terrible, which is kind of what they already did and this has been spiraling all along.

Carly: I feel like my brain’s melting.

Riese: Alice’s bed.

Carly: Alice’s bed.

Riese: Shane and Alice are talking and Shane says she’s afraid to dump Jenny because she’d die if Shane dumped her.

Carly: Yes. She feels a sense of honor or duty, and Alice is like, where did this come from?

Riese: She’s like, ‘“When did you become so honor-bound?” She’s not, she fucked Niki last week.

Alice lying in bed saying "I just don't understand when you became so honor-bond"

Carly: Yeah. She’s been fucking Niki this whole time. She threw up in the studio because of how much she was fucking Niki.

Riese: Right. And Alice is like, “she’s not even a good person.”

Carly: Shane refers to Jenny, her girlfriend, as a lost child. That’s healthy.

Riese: It’s going really well.

Carly: And that Shane looks at their relationship as:

Shane: I was given this opportunity to be responsible for somebody else’s feelings.

Carly: I have a lot of questions. Number one, that’s upsetting. Number two, any relationship with anyone is an opportunity to have some — responsibility is not the right word, everybody is responsible for their own feelings and their own actions, you cannot control other people. But like any relationship, friend, lover, whatever, if you care about that person enough to be their friend or date them or whatever, then you should care about their feelings to some extent, you don’t want to hurt them I would imagine, what is she talking about? The first time in her life she’s ever cared about anyone’s feelings. Alice is like, “I thought I’ve been your best friend for a million years, but okay.”

Riese: Yeah. It’s bananas and then Alice is like, “she’s not even a good person. She stole my thing.” And then she tries to show Shane her treatment, which we know is handwritten.

Carly: But she grabs her laptop.

Riese: She grabs her laptop. If it existed on her laptop with the time stamp or whatever she says all this time. Why hasn’t she brought this out sooner? And also why did she deliver a handwritten one to Jenny?

Carly: Great questions. All great questions. It smash cuts to Alice being interrogated saying:

Alice: Women drive me crazy.

Riese: Why?!

Carly: Remember when Alice was bisexual? She doesn’t.

Riese: And that seemed she was going to talk about here.

Carly: I thought she was too, I totally did. I thought she was going to be like, “Women driving me crazy, I fall really hard for women, and I’m bisexual and I have very different relationships with men,” and that was not it at all.

Riese: As you do in a police interrogation for your friend’s hypothetical murder. That’s what I do every time I’m interrogated. I’m like, “well it’s complicated.”

Carly: Sexuality is really complicated and attractions really, it’s complicated I guess.

Riese: Yeah. Back to the bed.

Carly: Back to bed.

Riese: Shane says she won’t dump Jenny because she doesn’t want her going off the deep end. Ha ha ha.

Carly: And she says that by doing so, she is making the choice between her happiness and Jenny’s. This martyr thing is very — not a good look for Shane.

Riese: None of this makes sense. I mean it’s really weird. We go back to Helena’s. Dylan is on the phone and Helena is like, “Who are you talking to?” And Dylan’s like, “Nobody.”

Dylan: Just a friend.

Riese: Dylan.

Carly: Dylan, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. Just say your mom, everyone knows just say your mom.

Riese: Say something, you can’t build trust. No one has ever said nobody.

Carly: We saw you on the phone. You were talking to somebody. So either you’re talking to yourself and doing the whole bit where you were pretending to be on the phone, which why?

Riese: And that’s crazy. We’d have to talk about that.

Carly: Yeah. Or you were talking to somebody and somebody is not nobody because they are a person you were talking to. And we will find out later that that person, I guess, was Jenny?

Riese: God, kill me.

Carly: Maybe?

Riese: I want to die by the end of this, I want one of them to kill me and go to the interrogation room to talk about themselves.

Carly: This is just the worst. So Dylan is like, “Am I going to be under suspicion forever?”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I wish he could have said something really cool after that. Like, “Am I going to be under suspicion forever? I did pass that test at Hit Club.”

Riese: Hello, haven’t we been through this?

Carly: I thought we did this bit already. We’re doing the same plot again.

Riese: Surprise.

Carly: So then we go to Helena’s interrogation, where she says, “Being rich is a curse, you don’t know what it’s like.” All right, whatever.

Riese: Okay. Sure. Relevance, your honor.

Carly: I wish I had rich people problems instead of regular people problems. They sound much more chill.

Riese: You never know if someone really cares about you or just wants your money. I would be fine with either one, just as long as they’re not mean to me.

Carly: Because I would still be rich.

Riese: I just want people to like me, even if they’re pretending, I’d rather have someone pretend to like me than openly dislike me.

Carly: No, I just don’t care about any of the people part, I just would be like, well I’m rich and so I don’t have to be concerned about money. So I don’t have the same problems I used to have… I don’t know, this is silly. This is very stupid, we have no sympathy for you, Helena, sorry. Anyway, back to the house, Dylan gets her keys and storms out and Helena chases her and suddenly is like, “whoops, sorry, I’m going to try to stop making you pay for this all the time. But I would like to point out that you did sue me for sexual harassment and super ruined my life for a period of time. So it’s going to be a little hard, also I have trust issues.”

Riese: Yeah. I mean I do feel like they could work through it because—

Carly: I would advise them to do that with a therapist, but that’s just me.

Riese: Yeah, they should. Because also, I mean as much as I hate Dylan and have really harped on this, that she was in this relationship with this guy and who knows what his role was at any of this, but they don’t give us that. That would have been a lot more interesting, if Dylan had been like, “yes, I know that I fucked you over. I was in this terrible, abusive relationship with this guy.” Like, get into that.

Carly: Right. It seems like that guy was really coercive and manipulative and really abusive to her. And why are we not talking about that part of it? They’ve both been hurt, like Dylan hurt Helena, but Dylan was being hurt by Danny — was that his name?

Riese: Yeah, I guess, and she even ripped up the check anyway. I think that whoever wrote this Helena stuff, thought they were being really deep because it’s a lot of long silences and angles.

Carly: A lot of looking at each other and staring out the window. So we go back to Helena interrogation moment and she says that she never knew how to be with people before, she just bought and sold people. And that’s upsetting, I don’t think you should be buying and selling people. That doesn’t sound good, I don’t like that, that sounds very bad. So we go back to the house, they’re now kissing on the stairs and wouldn’t you know it, things escalate very quickly.

Riese: They sure do.

Carly: Where the fuck did this come from?

Riese: First of all — so first, Dylan lifts her, but doesn’t lift her in a normal way, lifts her sort of — so Helena is still standing up, you know what I mean? It looks like Helena tried to run up and they were going to do the Dirty Dancing thing, but then Helena—

Carly: Yes, that’s totally what it looks like.

Riese: Helena freaked out the last minute and so Dylan’s just holding her straight up?

Carly: Remember when people are doing that plank challenge, where you had to leave your body perfectly flat and then lay face down on random objects? It’s like she’s doing that, but vertically.

Riese: Absolutely.

Carly: And Dylan’s holding her around her knees or her thighs.

Riese: Yeah, this is dangerous.

Carly: So, so weird. Well, it’s about to get a whole lot more dangerous, Riese.

Riese: Do you trust me? Okay. Well maybe? I don’t know.

Carly: I don’t know, I really feel like the conversation we were just having a minute ago was about how Helena doesn’t trust you.

Riese: Yeah. Get a knife though. Put her on the counter, get out a knife. That’s how you find out if someone really trusts you, a knife.

Carly: I think that jumping from an argument to knife play is a great idea and that having zero discussions about that before entering into that situation, I think that’s totally fine and there’s nothing wrong with any of this.

Riese: No, just lay her down on the kitchen counter, hold a knife to her throat. And also, you can trust someone not to kill you with a knife, but still not trust them with your feelings.

Dylan mounting Helena on the kitchen counter, holding a knife

Carly: That’s a really good point, it’s a different type of trust.

Riese: That said, it is hard to find — at least for me personally, and I know that I’m not the same size as Helena — but it’s hard to find a bra that fits really well. It’s not like you can just do it really easily. And if someone came over to my house and knifed my bra off my body, I’d be like, are you going to fucking replace that?

Carly: Do you know how much bras cost? I forgot because I don’t need them anymore.

Riese: You don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Carly: I immediately forgot about bras, once I didn’t have breasts anymore. No, that was probably a very expensive bra.

Riese: I guess Helena has a lot of money, so it’s fine.

Carly: We cut from this to Jenny editing the video, we are watching Helena footage and Helena has a lollipop.

Riese: It must be a weed lollipop. Right?

Carly: I know, right? And then say something about how she didn’t like Bette because of how much her mother admired her. And I’m like, wow, Bette’s going to love this. Why don’t you talk all about fucking Tina too while we’re at it. Then she’s editing, and it cuts to Phyllis and Joyce who were — so Helena’s in her kitchen, Phyllis and Joyce are also in their kitchen. Okay. And Phyllis is like, “Bette, you were so hot in your power suit,” and Joyce is like, “now that you’re moving, my business is going to take a hit.” Oh, you can’t represent them from afar… Okay.

Riese: I’m going to miss double billing you ladies, honestly this little clip is maybe the highlight of the episode.

Joyce: Oh Bette I miss you so much, I’ll never forget the first time I saw you at CU, it was a lecture and you were one of the panelists. You looked so hot in your power suit.
Phyllis: And I’m going to miss double billing you ladies, my business is really going to take a hit.
Joyce: Oh, we miss you.

Carly: Yeah. I don’t know why everyone’s filming in their kitchens, but sure.

Riese: You know what it looks like, also though, that what I thought was weird, Carly?

Carly: Tell me.

Riese: It kind of looked like Jenny had purchased a lot of video editing equipment.

Carly: You know what’s so funny is that it did look like that. It looked like she had a full computer, probably a desktop computer with multiple monitors. And what very clearly was an early version, earlier-from-now version of Final Cut editing software.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: Just put a pin in that real quick.

Riese: Put a pin in that maddeningly distracting situation.

Jenny in the editing bay, Phyllis is on a monitor saying "you looked so hot in your power suit"

Carly: Yeah. We cut from this to somebody, I can’t tell who because the lighting is so nonexistent, having a very intense orgasm. As it turns out, it’s Tina.

Riese: Tina, that’s Tina.

Carly: It takes a minute or two of that scene to really actually realize who was in the scene because of the lighting. Tina’s so worried about the railing, Riese did you hear about the railing?

Riese: Is it on their house?

Carly: Yeah, something about that railing, it didn’t get finished, or—

Tina hanging off the edge of her bed after having an orgasm, pondering that the railing needs to be fixed

Riese: You know what I always say is like, get a railing, don’t get a railing either way you have stairs. Anyway, this is our, this is little bit is sort of our goodbye to Bette and Tina, where they have hot sex, they light a bunch of lesbian candles, they kiss.

Carly: They roll around.

Riese: They roll around, they fall asleep looking at each other, they fall asleep on top of each other and—

Carly: Sade is playing.

Riese: That was a nice touch.

Carly: That was a nice touch. I do like that song quite a bit.

Riese: Bette says she wants to marry her when they get to New York, which is great because it’s not legal, you can’t marry anyone in New York at that time.

Carly: Yeah. Did you get a sense that as Bette was — right after Tina came and they were, they started to kiss and then Bette kind of looked like she was thinking about something, I totally thought in that exact moment she was going to be like, “I have to tell you something happened with Kelly the other night.” And I was about to be like, Bette, this is like neither the time or place.

Riese: Not the time.

Carly: But instead we get this beautiful fan service, fan YouTube video of them.

Riese: And that’s nice.

Carly: The candles and good for them.

Riese: I thought it was a sweet little nice thing that was given to some of the show’s most loyal fans, which are the Bette and Tina fans. So, brava. Then we go to Bette being interrogated. What about Tina? Why would anyone ask Bette what about Tina in an interrogation?

Carly: After Jenny has just found — turned up dead in Bette’s pool? I don’t know. I’m not a police officer, Riese, so I don’t really know how these things normally go, but I am a person who has seen a lot of true crime documentaries and I can tell you that they have never talked about Tina in any of them.

Riese: Yeah, you’re right.

Carly: It was at this moment in my notes that I realized that the episode was not even halfway over yet and I began to panic.

Riese: I know. It took me like a whole day to watch this episode. Then we have another cute little situation, which, it’s sort of like a throwback to the pilot episode where Shane is like running her hands through the foliage. She’s wearing a normal outfit and stuff, the weird leather shirt, she comes around and she sees Bette and Tina glowing on the porch. She knows they had sex the night before, they’d give each other knowing looks and it’s very cute and then they sort of talk about Jenny and — is it Bette who says, “I think her heart is in the right place but I think she just misplaced her meds”?

Carly: Yes.

Riese: And Shane’s like, “maybe.” And I’m like, did she?

Carly: Were there meds to have misplaced?

Riese: Yeah. Are there? I get that this is a joke, but is it?

Carly: Is it a joke?

Riese: It’s not funny.

Carly: They also mention, again, that Weezie is coming to fix the railing before the party. That’s something I think that’s really important to note.

Riese: Terror building up inside you.

Carly: This is the third mention of there’s no railing and Weezie’s coming to fix the railing. Also Shane said that she spent the night with Alice because she was upset about the whole thing with Tasha and that girl Jamie, they all know who… you don’t need to say that girl Jamie anymore, you guys went to a dance competition with her. You’ve spent time with her. She was at the baby shower. I think you could just say Jamie, I think we all know who you’re talking about.

Riese: Yeah. We all know.

Bette and Tina on the porch, Bette saying "I think she's just misplaced her meds"

Carly: And then Bette has some real theories about why did Jenny even give Shane the studio? If Jenny is now using the studio to edit the video, then who’s studio is it? And that’s a great question because Jenny’s name is undoubtedly on the lease. So really it’s hers, and maybe Shane has some photographing to do, but I doubt it.

Riese: Yeah. Shane, as we all know, Shane has taken one photo. She already developed it, and scene.

Carly: Exactly. We go back to an interrogation. This time, it’s Tina Kennard, and for the first time in this episode, we actually see Lucy Lawless’s face.

Riese: Tina is talking about Kelly, which is again, very relevant to the case.

Carly: So relevant. Kelly’s not even in this episode.

Riese: She calls Kelly a bombshell. A bombshell predator type.

Carly: False.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: Helena watches Dylan through the window of the house. She’s on the phone. She gets off the phone. She gets in the car. She leaves.

Riese: Unbearable Betty music is playing.

Carly: Yeah. It’s some of the worst. We go back to Alice who is at home eating Red Vines, which is the most relatable thing that happens in this whole episode.

Riese: Yeah. Although she does look at it and says, “140 calories? That’s crazy.”

Carly: We are a Red Vines household, as opposed to a Twizzlers household, and I feel like that is a really divisive topic amongst people in the community, in the candy community and I just wanted to state that I live in a Red Vines household.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: And whenever Robin is stressed out, I usually buy her Red Vines.

Riese: I don’t really eat a lot of licorice.

Carly: No. And I don’t really either, but Alice is stress-eating the Red Vines, and that’s so relatable to my life too. Shane’s eating a bowl of cereal and then I wanted a bowl of cereal, but I don’t have any cereal in the house right now so I had to just kind of sit with those feelings. And then Alice does this weird impression of Tasha and Jamie, she does the voice… I was like—

Riese: She’s like—

Alice: You like when I touch you like that? Because I like it when you touch me like that. I know, I was just saying. Oh my god. I can’t believe your nipples got hard when I licked them, because mine got hard when you licked mine.

Carly: I really think Alice doesn’t know that people can have things in common.

Riese: Then Jenny comes home and she’s so stressed out.

Carly: And Sounder! Sounder’s here.

Riese: Oh thank god. A little dog. She’s so stressed out about all the things she has to do. And all the things that you decided to do for literally no reason, but okay.

Carly: None of these are things you have to do, because one of them is getting your lunch.

Riese: Yeah. Just skip lunch, eat a Red Vine.

Carly: You could just eat something in the house, get lunch anywhere, there’s at least cereal in the house, we know there’s cereal. So Jenny is spiraling and she’s like, “Three more people have FedEx’d their tribute videos and I have to go pick them up and I have to go to the Grove to buy editing software.” And hang on a second, what were you using to edit in the last scene?

Riese: Final Cut, you bitch! It was there. We saw it!

Carly: We saw it. It was Final Cut.

Jenny looking exhausted while pondering that she has to go to The Grove

Riese: Also, why didn’t we get a scene at The Grove?

Carly: I know. I want to go to The Grove right now. The thing I miss maybe the most in this over a year now of not going places, is malls. I miss malls so much. And I know that The Grove is an outdoor mall, but I still don’t trust all of the citizens of Los Angeles to behave, because The Grove has been quite crowded all throughout this whole situation, which is very upsetting.

Riese: It has been, yeah. Mm-hmm. It has been.

Carly: So yeah, she’s spiraling and Shane’s like, “Hey, why don’t I just do the shopping part and you go do the editing part? Even though I’m going to go buy the editing software, maybe I’ll buy a time machine and I’ll just meet you at the studio.”

Riese: Yeah. I’ll see you in—

Carly: And Jenny’s like, “Oh, my God, what a relief.”

Riese: So, now we go to Bette and Tina’s renovated kitchen, and Kit and Sonny come home with Angie. They took Angie to the zoo. So, they’re in a full relationship at this point.

Carly: Apparently. Even though the last time we saw them, Kit was yelling at him for being a liar.

Riese: Right. And then Bette is upset that he is going to use their new bathroom because he’s a man? What?

Carly: This is so weird. He’s like, “I have to change to go to work.” So then, he needs to put on his drag. Also, he was not gone nearly long enough to have done the transformation that he did. Not even close.

Riese: I mean, he’s a bad drag queen, but.

Carly: Sure. But you need a little bit of time to put on a face of makeup. So, Bette’s like, “You can use the powder room, because you’re a man,” and Tina’s like, “That’s not a lot of room. And what if he wants to practice his routines and his choreo? Why don’t you use our brand new, newly built master bathroom upstairs?” And Bette? Whew. Not happy about that.

Riese: How much longer is she going to even be living in this house?

Carly: She says she hates men, and then says that she’s not a man-hater in the same scene. Her words, not mine.

Riese: And then, James comes in.

Kit: How do you put up with her? Tell me, somebody?
Bette: He never pees in my bathroom.
James: No, never.
Bette: Right? Ever.
Kit: Well, where do you pee?
Bette: Powder room. Right?

Riese: He knows his place.

Carly: I hate “powder room.” Just call it a half bath. Come on.

Kit, Sonny and Bette in Bette and Tina's kitchen. Sonny holding Angelica. Talking about seeing baby lions and rhinocceroses.

Riese: Yeah, call it a half bath. Say, “Go to my half bath.” But also, I don’t know. Are they maybe happy for Kit that she’s in this relationship with somebody who seems like a nice guy? Or is it no, it’s just, just get him out of the bathroom?

Carly: No. Bette’s really concerned about the bathroom that’s in the house that she just put up for sale. So we fast forward to Shane has already run all the errands, and she’s arriving at the studio, and she’s like, “I’ve got your food and I’ve got your Final Cut,” even though we see on the monitor in the same moment that she’s saying the words, “I brought you Final Cut,” that Final Cut is open and functioning on the screen in front of Jenny.

Riese: She’s like, “What would I do without you?” Also, Shane’s like—

Shane: They didn’t have pesto, so I got you fried chicken.

Riese: Okay. And somehow Jenny’s like, “I’m going to kill myself, but I’ll leave everything to you. And then she’s like, “Do you want to see this video from Carmen of Carmen dancing?”

Carly: And then, Shane just leaves.

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, “No, I don’t want to see it.” And that’s great because apparently we didn’t get to see it either, because later we do see the video of Carmen, and there’s no dancing.

Carly: She’s not dancing. And that’s rude to the audience.

Riese: It sure is.

Carly: We’ve seen her dance before, and to tease us with that is quite rude.

Riese: It is. And then, Dylan shows up. Cool.

Carly: I’m sure this is going to be a normal thing that will happen, normally.

Riese: Yeah. That’s going to make sense. Then we go to Bettina’s. They are like, “James, have you ever thought about moving?” And he’s like, “Oh, I haven’t been offered a job.” Because now Bette doesn’t have a job. We have no idea. As of last week, she was going to work long distance or whatever for the gallery. That’s what she talked to Kelly about, so somehow that has changed.

Carly: She hired James to work with her at the gallery. But you know what? Bette’s going to flip the script. She just doesn’t even want a job anymore. She actually just wants to stay home and take care of the kids, and Tina can support her. And there’s a beat, and then everyone in the scene laughs hysterically. And this was one of the only palatable moments of this episode, because of course, Bette is completely unable to not be working, and then acts like she doesn’t get it. “Whoa, why are we laughing?” Sunset Boulevard appears from the stairs of the new bedroom and bathroom area. And once again, his makeup is very bad.

Riese: Horrible!

Carly: So, I guess maybe it is realistic that he did it in 10 minutes, but whatever. He kisses Angie goodbye and she says, “Bye, daddy.”

Riese: They just met.

Carly: And they all just stare at each other for an hour and a half.

Riese: And that’s the episode.

Carly: And that’s the episode. Could you imagine if that was the season finale?

Riese: They just met. How long has Angie known this man for? A few days?

Carly: How much time has passed? Why can no one tell us anything about the time? What is going on?

Riese: Alice is on the phone with Helena. She tells Helena that Dylan is at Jenny’s studio.

Carly: And that like, “Oh, she must be helping the edit.”

Riese: Okay.

Carly: No.

Riese: Of course not.

Carly: So, Helena gets off the phone with Alice. We go back to the studio where Dylan is pleading with Jenny to not tell Helena something. What is the thing? We eventually learn the thing.

Riese: Straight up exposition.

Carly: The most exposition is that she recognized Jenny’s voice when she called to pretend to be Niki’s manager, right? That’s who she was impersonating?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: When she set up the meeting. And so, Dylan knew all along that it was a setup and she totally went through with all of it, gave an incredible performance as a person who thought this was a job interview, and then a second riveting performance as a person who storms out of a baby shower.

Riese: The second riveting performance is the one that I actually find deeply disturbing. However, that is not the issue that if it’s eventually sort of honed in on here, because then Helena shows up. It has been at most 10 minutes.

Carly: Dramatically. She just appears and says something, and they’re like, “How long have you been standing there?” It’s very dramatic.

Riese: Yeah. And so, she got there from Malibu. Malibu to West Hollywood in 10 minutes.

Carly: Sure.

Riese: They just want Helena to be really mad at Jenny.

Carly: It’s physically impossible. Yeah. They just need to set up more people that want Jenny dead.

Riese: Yeah. And she’s like, “Fuck you, Schecter.”

Carly: Except the show is confusing being mad at someone with wanting them to be dead. Those are two extremely different things. I get mad at people all the time. I’ve never wanted to murder anybody.

Riese: Right. And this is not that kind of show.

Carly: They’re just very different things. No, it’s really not.

Riese: I know that this is obviously supposed to be like who killed JR or whatever, but that was a completely different type of show. A completely different kind of show.

Carly: Completely different type of show. This is not a universe in which crazy shit like this happens. This is a pretty grounded show. And for this to be the way they want it to go out and to change the entire tone of the show and the format of the show in the final season is very confusing and potentially misguided. Anyway, Fuck you, Schecter.

Riese: Yeah. This is so dumb. So, they go outside. Helena and Dylan and go outside and they’re yelling at each other, and Helena’s like, “I’ll never know for sure that you would have rejected Niki.” What? That’s not the issue.

Carly: This isn’t the issue. None of this is real. This is so pointless.

Riese: Was she worried about Dylan hooking up with someone else for an opportunity? Like, that was what she needed to know? Helena didn’t even want to do that whole thing.

Carly: Yeah. I think if anything, you should test out, if Dylan will sue you or not. If Dylan will entrapped you and sue you.

Riese: Yeah. Do something suable, and then see if she litigates. What Dylan, I think, in my opinion, did wrong here is Dylan storming out of the baby shower in outrage over something that she actually already knew about. That is weird and crazy, because that shows that she’s fine with causing Helena emotional distress. She got mad at Helena. She yelled at her at the baby shower, like, “How could you do that?” even though she already knew about it. And then, she ran off. That is bananas. That’s mean.

Carly: That is so intentionally mean. Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. Whether or not Helena knows if she took up with Niki, who gives a fuck?

Carly: Dylan knows Helena has trust issues, which are mostly caused by Dylan herself, and that she claims to be completely in love with Helena, and yet made her feel like shit and stormed out of the baby shower.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I get it. None of us wanted to be at that baby shower. But you were already committed to it.

Riese: You could have just said, “I need a minute.”

Carly: Or you could have been like, “Actually, you know what, guys? I wasn’t going to say anything, but I totally knew this was the setup because you’re all really bad at this. And so, I’m flattered that you put that much effort into my whole thing, but Helena, I love you.” Anyway, this is a nightmare. I hate this. Also, you can totally see the traffic lights in the reflection behind them and they are painted yellow, and there are no yellow traffic lights in Los Angeles. So, it’s a very deeply Vancouver moment.

Riese: Good eye!

Carly: Thank you. It actually took me out of the scene, although I feel like I was looking for a way to get out of the scene because I was like, “This is so nonsensical and I hate it.” And then I was like, “Yellow traffic lights? What is this, New York City?” And then I was like, “No, they’re not filming in New York City.” I’m like, “Oh, I guess Vancouver has …” Anyway.

Riese: Then we go to the MoMA store or whatever, where—

Carly: Where Shane has decided—

Riese: To give her friends who are moving across the country, a large—

Carly: A gigantic, breakable item.

Riese: A glass bowl.

Carly: I cannot think of a more inconsiderate gift in this situation.

Riese: And also for someone who has very specific taste about art.

Carly: Oh, my God. I know. Come on.

Riese: You know what I mean?

Carly: You know that Bette would take one look at that and find something wrong with it.

Riese: You know that people, they have their specific taste of what they like about things. You know what I mean? I would not take that kind of risk.

Carly: Maybe buy them a champagne flute that matches the one that broke. At least it’s a small breakable item.

Riese: That’s what Kelly should have done. She could have put a champagne flute, wrapped it up, and sent it in and been like —

Carly: Oh, my God. Why didn’t Jenny get Kelly to be in the video?

Riese: Right. I know. She could have been sitting there and been—

Carly: It seems like something she would have done.

Riese: She could have limped in because she has a shard of glass in her foot, and been like, “Hey, I’m going to follow you to New York and seduce you.’

Carly: “We didn’t hook up at all. Instead, I got glass in my foot. I can’t get it out. It’s been like this for days or weeks or months, I’m not sure.” So anyway, we’re at the MoMA Store or whatever, and guess who’s here? It’s Molly.

Riese: She got a haircut. She’s gay now.

Carly: She’s got a girlfriend.

Riese: Mm-hmm, got a gay girlfriend and a gay haircut.

Carly: And she’s like, “Hey, I heard about you and Jenny, and I was actually pretty surprised, given the whole thing with the jacket. When I brought your jacket, and how that letter was in it, and obviously she gave that to you and you read it. And then, you didn’t say anything about it. And I just thought that was really interesting. Anyway, I fell for you, I survived, and I wish you guys the best.”

Riese: And Shane stands there, obviously shocked out of her mind, truly. And Molly does not take note of this reaction. Shane does not expand upon it.

Carly: No.

Riese: This happens a lot in this show.

In the art museum store, Molly gesturing towards Shane saying "that's a big bowl" Molly wearing a green t-shirt, Shane in the shadows

Carly: Yes. And that’s not how normal human interaction works. If you talk to someone and they look really confused, you would say something. You’d be like, “Wait. Did she not give you the jacket? Oh, she gave you the jacket. There’s a letter in the pocket. Did you not look for the letter? Oh, she didn’t give you the jacket. Oh, you don’t know where the jacket is? It’s so weird that you’ve been missing a jacket for so long, considering you own four pieces of clothing? But wouldn’t you have noticed that that had gone missing?”

Riese: See, you just wrote the whole scene for them.

Carly: God, I’m so good at this. Anyway, Shane is clutching this bowl to her body that is bigger than her.

Riese: Yeah. She’s going to put herself in that bowl and put herself in the Nile River and just go out.

Carly: Just sail away.

Riese: Sail away. Sail away, sail away.

Carly: She leaves, doesn’t buy the bowl. I think not buying the bowl is the right move.

Riese: Yeah. Shouldn’t buy the bowl.

Carly: Yeah. I think Bette would have been like, “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?”

Riese: Break it, clean it up. Clean it up between Kelly’s legs, step on it. Champagne bowl.

Carly: Yeah. Maybe I can drop this in front of Tina’s crotch this time.

Riese: Yeah. Or you could put a baby in it. Max could have the baby in that bowl.

Carly: At least one baby. If not, two. It’s a large bowl.

Riese: It’s a very large bowl.

Carly: Guess what? It’s time for the big party.

Riese: From here on out, we can’t see a Goddamn thing.

Carly: It is so dark. And guess what? It’s dimly lit. Alice arrives, I think.

Riese: Alice has been drinking since 11:00 AM. That’s funny.

Carly: Bless her heart. Bette calls Dylan Maleficent. And Helena calls Jenny Kali, the goddess of destruction. And I just really want to commend the writers on what’s happening in this scene.

Riese: They thought, “Maybe no one will know we know things when they read this. So, let’s add something that showed that we’ve read a book.”

Carly: Look at us referencing things. And then, Max says the greatest thing Max has ever said:

Max: Maybe Shane threw a bucket of water on her and she melted.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And Alice is like, “Oh, my God. That’s the meanest thing you’ve ever said. I love it.”

Riese: “I love when people are mean.”

In the backyard everyone having drinks and Max saying "maybe shane threw a bucket of water on her" regarding Jenny

Carly: Is this the scene where Tina mentions that Wheezy blew them off and it did not show up to fix the railing?

Riese: If it was, I did not take note of it.

Carly: I also didn’t write it down. It’s either this scene or one of the next several scenes where Tina lets us know that Wheezy bailed on them. Maybe she had to go meet some more hot men at an art gallery opening in West Hollywood. And you know what? They just put up some brightly colored tape where the railing would be.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Don’t worry. We will get mention of the dangerous nature of this 18 more times before the episode ends.

Riese: Thank God. Then we go to where Max and Tara bang, where Max says that Jenny saw him. Max says that Jenny saw him for who he is. And that, my friends, is not true. She did at first, but then she really didn’t.

Carly: She really, really didn’t. She was horrible to Max. She was absolutely horrible to him.

Riese: Yeah. This season.

Carly: My heart breaks for Max in a very intense way. It just doesn’t end. Seeing him interrogated in this episode and talking about the other characters with such reverence, and fondness, and love is so heartbreaking.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s the real story of the finale.

Riese: And also, that mustache does not stand up to a closeup. No one put that on with ideas of an interrogation closeup.

Carly: No. That mustache is running out to the wild west in a Gold Rush situation.

Riese: Yeah. We’re doing a wide. We’re doing a pan out. We’re doing a full sunset. Yeah, we’re doing a desert landscape.

Carly: We’re doing a desert.

Riese: Yeah. We’re not doing a closeup.

Carly: Back to the party. Alice decides that she’s going to make up with Jenny tonight for Shane’s sake, and Bette’s like, “Let’s all give it a try.” And they toast. And somebody, I think it’s Alice or Bette is like, “Yeah, like a mass try.”

Bette: Let’s all give it a try. Why not?
Tina: Yeah, come on. We can do it.
Alice: Like a mass try.
Bette: She can’t help herself.
Alice: Okay. Oh. There you go.

Riese: That was kind of cute.

Carly: And that was so random and ad-libbed, and I enjoyed that.

Riese: Yeah. And this is my favorite of all the interrogation clips, actually.

Carly: This is also mine. This one is somehow — Okay, go ahead.

Riese: We go, and Helena just names — she goes, “Tina, Bette, Kit, Max, Alice, Jen—” No, no, she doesn’t say Jenny. “Shane.”

Carly: Doesn’t say Jenny.

Riese: She just reads—

Carly: Max, Tasha. Paige, Carmen, Papi.

Riese: James.

Carly: Peggy. My mother, Peggy.

Riese: Dan Foxworthy. The guy, Dax, from the car repair shop. Marina.

Carly: Who’s the guy that owned WAX with Shane?

Riese: Cherie Jaffe.

Carly: Cherie Jaffe.

Riese: Cherie Jaffe. Billie Blaikie.

Carly: Billie Blaikie. We were talking about that.

Riese: Angus. Mangus, the nanny. Hazel, the other nanny. Marcus Allenwood.

Carly: Tim.

Riese: Tim. Tim. Good old Tim. Trish on Tim’s swim team. The best swimmer on the swim team. Annette, Jenny’s college roommate.

Carly: Marina, a person who ruined Jenny’s life, and Jenny has never recovered from, clearly.

Riese: Adele. Stacy Merkin. Lindsey, the veterinarian.

Carly: William, Tina’s former boss.

Riese: Shay. Shay. Shane’s little brother, Shay.

Carly: Kelly, the woman that Bette did not sleep with.

Riese: Shane’s parents. Carmen’s parents.

Carly: Dana Fairbanks.

Riese: Dana Fairbanks. Dana’s parents. Dana’s brother. Dana’s gay brother, Howie.

Carly: Dana’s parents. Gay Howie.

Riese: The girl with the clipboard. The nun. The nun who ran away with Peggy Peabody. The sous-chef.

Carly: The girl with the clipboard. The girl with the clipboard’s my favorite. Girl with the clipboard at Pride.

Riese: Yeah. Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah.

Carly: The person with the whip at the Stations of the Cross.

Riese: Absolutely, yeah. The naked woman who was in the picture that was in the art museum. The girl who was getting fucked by Jesus in the art museum exhibit. Oh, my God, Yolanda who they met at the parenting group. The guy they met at the parenting group who led the parenting group, who then was later cast in The Farm. Is that everybody?

Carly: Famke Janssen, who was also cast in The Farm. Melissa Leo who was on both shows.

Riese: Melissa Leo who played Winnie.

Carly: Francesca.

Riese: Francesca.

Carly: Oh, no. Winnie. Who was Francesca? Oh, what’s her face?

Riese: Marina’s ex, Francesca. Or Marina’s—

Carly: No, but who played her? It doesn’t matter.

Riese: Oh. A cylon, right?

Carly: I don’t remember.

Riese: They look similar to me.

Carly: Anyway, the point is she names everyone under the sun except Jenny. And then the detectives are like—

Detective: What about Jenny?

Carly: And Helena makes the most insane face. She looks shocked, insulted, hurt, angry. And she could either burst into tears or run through the wall Kool-Aid Man style at any moment. She looks like the name Jenny is shocking to her, despite her being interrogated because Jenny just died.

Riese: Did they just ask, “What about Jenny?” Were they talking about other stuff, and then they were like, “What about Jenny?” And she was like, “Ooh, another vampire. The girl who went on two dates with Max.” The guy who told Max he was neither fish nor fowl.

Carly: The red headed guy, yeah. Who is Shay’s friend that was Paige’s kid?

Riese: Oh, yeah. Jared.

Carly: Jared.

Riese: Jared. Don’t forget Jared. Oh, Gabby Deveaux.

Carly: Gabby Deveaux. How could we forget Gabby Deveaux?

Riese: Tonya.

Carly: Oh, Ton-Ton.

Riese: Ton-Ton’s parents. Bette’s dead dad.

Carly: Annie Sprinkle from the cruise.

Riese: Annie Sprinkle from the cruise. Betty, the band. Elizabeth Ziff. Everyone who meat tagged Bette.

Carly: The staff of the Planet.

Riese: The blonde woman that Papi fucked at the poker place. The girl who made that weird face when Jenny was ordering a latte in season five.

Carly: The French girl that Jenny fucked on the ski trip.

Riese: Yes. Claude. Claude. The entire cast of Lez Girls.

Carly: Shane’s terrible dad.

Riese: Oh, boy.

Carly: But the name Jenny is so offensive to her and shocking to her.

Riese: “What about Jenny?” “Oh, yeah, Jenny. I already forgot about her.”

Carly: “Haven’t heard that name in years.” She died an hour ago.

Riese: Back to the party.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Who should arrive, but Jenny? And she arrived. She’s like, “Oh, it’s so beautiful and fancy.” I can’t believe they remade this entire set just for the last episode, after literally $5 on everything else for the entire goddamn season.

Carly: I can’t breathe. It’s so funny.

Riese: And Kit’s like, “Stop it with this Kelly thing. Stop trying to hurt Bette and Tina.” And Jenny’s like, “I can’t. I don’t want to be involved with this.” And she’s like, “Do you have proof?” Who would ever ask that? Do you have proof? What is she talking about?

Carly: Maybe if Jenny is a person that you spend a lot of time with, you would ask, “Do you have proof?”

Riese: And then, she wires her iPhone video to the TV so she can watch. So now, it’s a blown up picture. And Kit looks at this picture of two people, women with their clothes on, one of them cleaning up glass on the ground in front of the other one, and it’s like, “Oh my God, Bette is giving her oral.”

Carly: Kit is shocked. She is truly shocked. She is distraught. Her mind is blown. Somehow blowing this first generation iPhone video, which shouldn’t have existed, has still kept the quality perfect.

Riese: Yeah. And I think what’s good about that is it doesn’t show anything.

Carly: It doesn’t. Also, in the scene, Jenny says that she sees that she’s making everyone uncomfortable and that her friends don’t want to be around her anymore, and she insists that she’s not a liar. So, why did the show feel the need to have her? She seems to be displaying a complete lack of self awareness throughout this whole season, so for her to say that is very confusing.

Riese: They suddenly are like, “Let’s try to make her sympathetic.”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: You know what they are doing really well, actually, is building up to someone who’s about to kill themselves.

Carly: Big time. Yeah. “Oh, my friends hate me.”

Riese: “No one wants me around.”

Carly: “I’m causing all these problems, even though I’m not trying to.”

Riese: Even though you have been trying to. This whole season, you’ve been trying to.

Carly: You’ve been talking about this Kelly thing to anyone who will listen.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Michelangelo, the guy that built the house in the woods.

Riese: Yes! Oh, Jodi’s ex, Amy.

Carly: Jodi’s stupid friends.

Riese: Yeah. Tom! We forgot about Tom! Tom. What? That girl who dated Max — Grace! Grace with the profile on MySpace.

Carly: With the profile of the jumping.

Riese: The woman with the hair from The Look.

Carly: The OurChart.

Riese: Melanie Lynskey in her little school girl outfit.

Carly: Melanie Lynskey’s character.

Riese: Yeah. Okay. So, we go to—

Carly: And Sunset Boulevard!

Riese: Sunset Boulevard. We go to Bette’s interrogation tape. And they say, “Jenny Schecter.” Is that not already the topic of the conversation?

Carly: So, what Bette’s about to say, you’re going to hear this again in a few minutes.

Riese: Yeah. Don’t worry.

Carly: Yeah, don’t worry if you didn’t get all these descriptors. “Jenny is complex. Jenny is talented.” That’s incorrect. She is self-destructive. Sometimes very generous, but complicated. We go back to see Shane frantically rummaging through her house, trying to find this jacket.

Riese: They have a lot of hat boxes in this house.

Carly: Who owns this many hat boxes? I don’t know.

Riese: Jenny has worn some controversial hats.

Carly: That’s fair.

Riese: Maybe it’s for Shane’s fedoras.

Carly: Oh, my God. So she looks up, sees the attic. And this was a real Arrested Development moment for me, where she was like, “Perhaps an attic I shall seek.” I don’t know. I think she figured this out a little too quickly, but sure. She opens the attic. She climbs up stairs. Now, if you recall, Jenny took the jacket, climbed the stairs, placed the jacket directly at the opening of the attic.

Carly: She placed it right next to the attic, and then immediately shut it and walked away. So what this scene tells us is that at some point, Jenny went back into the attic and moved the jacket into a box. She did nothing else to hide the jacket, but she did take a moment to go back up there and put it in a box.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: So anyway, Shane finds it immediately.

Riese: And reads the letter and is like, “Oh, my God.”

Carly: It’s lengthy. It’s multiple pages.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. We already heard it, I think in the first episode, but that feels like a lifetime ago, even though, as aforementioned, it’s three weeks ago in the lifetime of the show.

Carly: And the lighting is really bad, so I think Shane’s upset or shocked or something, but it’s hard to tell because you can’t really make out her facial expressions. And then, Shane and her 14 necklaces turn around and find the Lez Girls negatives.

Riese: The Lez Girls negatives. I’m going to say it right now because Jenny did not steal those negatives. We’re going to find this out later, but she didn’t do it. She was framed. She was framed.

Carly: No, she did not. She was framed. Somebody actually thought about this, that means. If you want to frame someone for something that means you’ve put thought into it. So, someone put thought into stealing the negatives and putting them in Jenny’s attic. But we’ll get to that when we do the interrogation tapes, won’t we?

a stack of the "Lez Girls" negatives in the attic covered by a sheet

Riese: We sure will. So obviously, Shane is now really upset. I would wonder, if I was Shane, “Is Jenny okay? What’s going on?” Because this is profoundly deranged behavior.

Carly: This is a lot of lying, purposefully lying, hiding things. Yeah. We see Tina in an interrogation and all she talks about is that everyone pronounced the name of the film differently.

Tina: It workshop called Lay Girls, or Lez Girls. Everybody pronounced it differently.

Riese: I loved this.

Carly: That’s the whole scene.

Riese: Some say Lay Girls, others say Lez Girls. Okay.

Carly: Great.

Riese: Cool.

Carly: Okay. Back to the party.

Riese: Be careful about the railing!

Carly: The railing isn’t there, you guys. We never got that railing, but there is brightly colored tape where the railing should be. And also, you’re adults with some semblance of spatial relations to understand where you should stand and where you could fall. Just a thought.

Riese: Yeah. What about that babysitter? The babysitter that Bette tried to underpay in that one episode? Remember her? What about the mean nurse at the hospital?

Carly: What about the social worker in the wheelchair who was really mean?

Riese: Yes, the social worker who was really mean? Yeah. What about Kate Clinton as a therapist with the clown nose. All these people should’ve come up.

Carly: Greatest hits. Also, the thing I noticed is that their house is remarkably uncluttered for a house where a toddler lives.

Riese: And where people are packing to move.

Carly: To move. Have you ever been to someone’s house when they have a small child? There’s shit everywhere.

Riese: Yeah, there is.

Carly: Kitchen. Even if you are a neurotic person like me and you’re like, “I’m going to make sure I put all this stuff away,” there is still evidence that a child lives there. I know that Bette has a very particular way she likes to move through the world. I respect that as a Taurus. I do. But there is not a single brightly colored child’s toy or puzzle anywhere. It’s shocking. And then, the boxes. Why had they not started packing, if they’re selling the house??

Riese: Yeah. Also, why did you renovate your house to make it look worse?

Carly: Truly.

Riese: Whatever they did, it’s more minimalist, I guess. But it’s not. It’s aggressively stylized minimalism.

Carly: Because before it was a craftsman, so it had some charm to it.

Riese: Yeah, exactly.

Carly: And it wasn’t completely sterile, but a glass staircase railing is something that would not be in a house like this. It’s very confusing. It would be in Helena’s beach house, not a craftsman that has probably been there for 50, 60, 70 years or something.

Riese: Yeah. I’m assuming they are not changing the outside. No one’s going to walk into that house thinking, “This is what it’s going to look like.” And the people who would want a craftsman are not going to want a house that’s been, in my opinion, ruined. And also, if you’re going to have a child in your home, you don’t want to have a railing like that, because they didn’t know they were moving when they got this. She’s going to have to learn how to walk upstairs. She’s going to one day be four, and that’s going to be her height, and she’s going to be walking up the stairs, and she’s, “What?” That’s bananas.

Carly: No, Nope, no, no.

Riese: I do like their bathtub though. Their new bathtub.

Carly: Bathtub was cool. Tasha’s now being interrogated, and says that Alice has a big heart and takes risks.

Riese: And is a great person. Okay.

Carly: Okay. Back on the bedroom slash bathroom tour. I think it’s someone, I think it might’ve been Max, is like, “I can’t believe you guys aren’t going to get to enjoy this place.” And Bette’s like, “Oh, we already have.” Very Samantha Jones of her. “Honey, we’ve been enjoying for three days.” What did you say?

Riese: I said I liked Alice. Alice was just making random commentary here and there that I enjoyed. She’s just sort of drunk and seemed a little bit ad-libbed.

Alice in the shower saying "I would spend my life in here"

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And then, Kit.

Carly: Kit has been hiding on the balcony, which again is a very dangerous place to be hiding.

Riese: Yeah. I don’t think the railing’s finished.

Carly: I just don’t really trust any balconies, but this one in particular is covered in masking tape and has no lighting on it, because Kit walks in from it and is completely unrecognizable.

Riese: Which is too bad because also she looked incredible this whole episode, and it was too bad that it was in the dark.

Carly: So, she went to have a little chat with her sister. And so, Bette sends everyone downstairs. And this is the moment where I was like, “Where’s Jenny? Where is Jenny?”

Riese: Right. So, Bette and Kit are screaming at each other and Kit’s like, “Jenny has a video of you and Kelly.” Bette’s like, “I don’t know what you thought you saw.” But also wouldn’t Bette be like, “What’s on the video? What is the video? Can you explain it to me? Because I didn’t have sex with Kelly. So whatever the video is, tell me about it.”

Carly: Is it CGI? Is it bad computer generated Bette and Kelly fucking?

Riese: Is it a Final Cut trick?

Carly: This is another great moment to mention, that a glass broke and she had to pick up the … What is wrong with everybody? And Kit has no trust in Bette at all, which I guess is warranted on some level, but come on. This is ridiculous.

Riese: Yeah. Everything is just so empty. It just feels like everything that they decided to put into this season to build up to this death that they did not even give us the payoff of, of telling us how it happened because they didn’t even fucking know how it happened, which is not how you write a goddamn story, that every thing they put together to build up to this is so weak.

Riese: The Dylan and Helena thing is weak. The Shane and Jenny thing is really bad, but it’s also confusing because this is a complete retcon of how their relationship was or how it would be. I’m not saying it would be great, but it wouldn’t be like it is. And that stolen negative thing is completely bananas and has been from the beginning. They could have done a little bit better, I guess. Maybe. But actually, they couldn’t have because there’s no way to make these characters into potential murderers. There just isn’t.

Carly: No, there’s not. No. And instead of spending eight episodes on a murder storyline, which is what everything else was contrived to get us to, they could have spent eight episodes actually tying up the storylines of the past five seasons. What an interesting choice.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: It was a choice.

Riese: It was a choice.

Carly: They made a choice. It was a choice

Riese: Shane finds Tina and takes her away, so we know where that’s going. Then we go to Nikki in the interrogation room asking for a lawyer.

Carly: And you might be asking yourself, “What’s Nikki doing here?” Don’t worry. We’ll get to that later. And Lucy Lawless tries to scare Nikki into thinking that they’re all going to pin this on her, because they all look out for one another, and they’re tight knit, and they trust each other. And none of them requested a lawyer. Jenny runs downstairs to tell everyone to it’s time to go adjourn to the media room to watch her three-hour—

Riese: Hour video.

Carly: … Bette and Tina tribute video.

Riese: However.

Carly: Three hours.

Riese: Three hours. First of all, why does it have to show, right? It’s just going to start airing?

Carly: It airs at 9:00 PM on PBS and they have to turn the TV on at 9:00 PM. They don’t have a DVR.

Riese: The whole conceit of the video thing felt like video art in an art museum where people just are able to wander in and out of the screening room.

Carly: Right. Because at one point it’s playing in an empty room later.

Riese: Right.

Carly: I think she already hit play when she comes in to tell them. I think she’s like, “It’s already playing. So you should maybe watch it.” What?

Riese: And later we’ll see some clips from the video. All of which are what, a minute each? Maybe a minute.

Carly: Oh God, which makes me wonder how is it three hours?

Riese: Right?

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: We see the beginning and end of several clips. Why did she get Final Cut or try to edit everything? Obviously — to make it three hours? You get editing equipment to make it last three minutes, babe.

Carly: That’s what editing is. It’s taking three hours of raw footage and turning it into a three-minute send off video. Also, we saw the goodbyes for most of the cast. So what was the other two hours and 49 minutes?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: What was it? Do you think it was Jenny just reading her new screenplay? That’s all I can think of.

Riese: It was Helena listing all of the characters that’s ever been on The L Word.

Carly: That took hours.

Riese: It was just me sitting in a chair, staring at the screen with an unhappy facial expression.

Carly: Poorly lit, so we wouldn’t know.

Riese: Yeah. So Jenny’s like, “Where’s Shane? Where’s Bette and Tina? I don’t know.” We go to the attic. Tina looks at the negatives. She’s mad. I would think that she would call Aaron or something, but okay. Whatever.

Carly: She can’t believe her eyes. And I think that if this were lit better, she might’ve had an easier time with that.

Riese: Yeah. I know. She’s like, “Is that pizza boxes or is that a weight?”

Carly: “They’re round. Is that a hat box?”

Riese: “Are those weights? Is that a hat box? We do have a lot of hat boxes.”

Carly: We have a lot of hat boxes. Or weights for the barbell.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Okay, Shane, that’s good for you, but I don’t know—

Riese: Yeah, what’s all this about?

Carly: First of all, why are keeping weights in the attic? And second of all, why do you have to tell me now?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Then, so Jenny goes to the new upstairs master bed and bath at Bette and Tina’s house to look for Bette. And the shots are framed in such a way that we spend a lot of time looking at the tape where the railing should be. She walks outside, she comes back, Bette finds her, Bette tells Jenny that her family means everything to her and there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to protect them.

Riese: This is so contrived.

Carly: Jenny doesn’t want to hurt Bette and Tina. She loves Bette and Tina, and Bette says she will not abide anyone who threatens her family. Why?

Riese: What?

Carly: Again, she does not mention the broken glass. I just… I don’t know.

Riese: She didn’t do it. She didn’t hook up with Kelly.

Carly: Right.

Riese: You know what, honestly, this storyline would’ve made a lot fucking more sense if she actually did it, because there’s an option here.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Because obviously what they’re trying to do here, because they already decided that Alice is the one who’s going to be arrested for it. So even though they said that this episode wasn’t going to reveal who killed Jenny, but The Farm was going to reveal it, and that was going to be Alice. But, so this is just supposed to be a red herring, I guess, because we see Bette threatening Jenny and she says those things, but also another route for Bette here would be to say, “Can I see the video?”

Carly: That would be so simple. And then she could see it and say, “First of all, there’s nothing in this that…” Broken glass. Ugh. Also, I want to say what a bold decision to create a spin-off to your hit show and tell everyone the premise of the new show, the spin-off, which then spoils the ending of a season that hasn’t even finished airing yet. And then on top of that, you tell people that the central question of the final season of your show, your hit show, will be answered in a spin-off when it hasn’t actually been picked up to series yet. And in fact, it’s so bad that it doesn’t get picked up to series. Wow. What a lesson learned.

Riese: Yeah. Indeed. What a lesson learned. And then what happens? You give your show to someone else and they’re like, “Oh, she killed herself.” I think that this is the last time we see Jenny?

Carly: No, not yet.

Riese: No?

Carly: Oh, we see her on the video, sorry. This is the last time we see her at the party. Yeah. Yeah. We go back to the Bette interrogation, and again, says the exact same line from the other scene, except there’s one slight difference.

Riese: We see her roll up her sleeves in the beginning or something.

Carly: Yeah. They really, really, really want us to think that Bette did it.

Riese: Yeah. By having her say that Jenny is complex.

Carly: But she said it two or three times. And that’s how you know she did it.

Riese: Come on.

Carly: We cut to the media room.

Riese: Yeah. Cut to the screening room.

Carly: Where the film is just playing.

Riese: To an empty room. Did Jenny not even edit out Tim kind of like taking a dig at Jenny?

Tim: I want to take this opportunity to thank you. If it hadn’t been for you I might’ve ended up with that nutcase, Jenny. Ha, ha. Just kidding, Jenny. Come on. You know I love you.

Carly: She didn’t edit out anything. She could have just done this in iMovie, just to stitch these all together. What did she need two different copies of Final Cut for?

Riese: And why is Tim saying goodbye to Bette and Tina when he said goodbye to them three, four seasons ago?

Carly: He doesn’t live in LA.

Tim on the tribute video saying "it's so exciting you guys are going to New York"

Riese: He lives in Ohio. By the way, oh, we never mentioned this before, but Kenyon has a really great swim team and we were wrong about that.

Carly: Correction corner.

Riese: However, we’re still out on whether or not Oberlin does.

Carly: There you go.

Riese: Sorry about that guys.

Carly: Tina pops into the room to look for everybody and sees Tim wishing them all the best from the Ugly Betty set, and she’s so mad, and she says that she wants to put Jenny out of her misery.

Riese: Oh my God. Is Tina—

Carly: Whoa.

Riese: Tina has no conviction. She would never kill anybody.

Carly: No, she could barely make reservations for dinner. Come on.

Riese: Right? We go to the porch.

Carly: Alice and Shane are on the porch. They both look miserable. Alice tells Shane she’s decided to forgive Jenny and make peace with her. Why, you ask? “Well, I’m alone now and I need friends.” And Shane’s like, “That’s so funny because we are no longer together,” and does not tell her best friend any other information, she just says, “That was then.” Very mysterious.

Riese: So as we all know, the last time we saw Jenny was just now, right? Was recently?

Carly: Yes.

Riese: So I think we’re supposed to think she has died at this point.

Carly: Yes. Even though they are sitting on the porch that overlooks the pool.

Riese: Great.

Carly: 100%.

Riese: I remember at the time I looked at everyone’s movements throughout it, and there’s no opportunity.

Carly: There’s no opportunity for anyone to actually have killed anyone.

Riese: No. Unless Bette killed her then. But that’s also impossible because people were walking back and forth.

Carly: They all would’ve seen her plummeting—

Riese: They may have heard it.

Carly: From the second story.

Riese: They may have heard a sound, a splash.

Carly: Maybe a giant splash of a human falling from a second story into a pool.

Riese: Maybe.

Carly: Maybe. I don’t know.

Riese: Alice does interrogation. She says—

Alice: What does this have to do with who killed Jenny? I don’t understand, at all, these questions.

Riese: Good fucking question.

Carly: And then Lucy Lawless is like-

Lucy Lawless: So you think someone killed Jenny?

Carly: And that right there, that’s your turn right into the spin off.

Riese: Bette’s upstairs. Tina wants to talk. Says they’ll talk soon. They take a lot of time to talk about sweaters.

Carly: They’re both upset, but for completely different reasons. Everyone keeps asking where Jenny is. Yeah. Everyone’s cold. Max comes inside. He’s also cold.

Riese: Riveting stuff here. Max also is there for a sweater.

Carly: Really great we’re spending time on this. Yeah.

Riese: Max felt a kick so everyone knows that he’s now accepted his pregnancy.

Max in Bette and Tina's bedroom telling them he felt a kick

Carly: Yeah. We see Sounder wandering around the pool whining.

Riese: Right.

Carly: I don’t know if that’s supposed to imply that Jenny’s floating in the pool right now? That was a little weird because also Max just walked in from outside where it’s cold.

Riese: Yeah, and everyone has been walking around everywhere this whole time.

Carly: Yeah, this whole time.

Riese: In the video art room, Angus… What the fuck? Go fall down a well. Who would put Angus in this video? No one gives a shit about that douche bag.

Carly: Jenny. Guess who lives in New York? Angus. Of course he fucking lives in New York.

Riese: Ivan!

Carly: Then we see Ivan in front of a “Vote No On Prop 8″ sign.

Ivan in front of his mirror that has a "Vote No on Prop 8" poster on it, in the Bette + Tina tribute video

Riese: And I have some words about this is that, earlier in the season we had Phyllis and Joyce acknowledge that it was legal to get married in California at that time. Then when they’re visiting Marcy in Nevada, Bette mentions the ballot measure and she says when the ballot measure is overturned, then we will get married. So at that point, Prop 8 has already passed. So their election was in the middle of all of this too.

Carly: In the middle of the three-week time span.

Riese: Yeah. And now we go to Ivan who, for some reason, still has a No On 8 poster on his mirror, even though it’s been, at least 24 hours since the election. And also he’s talking about his relationships or something? His rings?

Carly: I don’t know. Yeah. Kit says that he looks handsome, but did not say anything about Angus. And I think that that is good.

Riese: Yeah, because, what is this just my exes? And it’s like, “Sorry. Yeah.” But also, Ivan’s really just talking about how he met some girl or something. I’m like, “What is this? No one knows how to shoot a video. No one who did this knows how to shoot any kind of video.”

Carly: Everyone’s making this all about themselves.

Riese: We get Peggy. Love to see her.

Carly: Thank God. She says she’s going to throw them a huge party in New York because her place has five floors and they can fill those five floors with all of their exes. Best moment of the whole episode.

Riese: I would love to see that spin-off.

Carly: Yeah. Why isn’t that Bettina’s House of Horrors? Come on.

Riese: Then we have Jodi.

Carly: She thanks them for letting her be a part of their life.

Riese: Yeah. But does she?

Carly: Marina, also filming in front of a pool.

Riese: Yeah. Marina, I have a few questions. How, why, what, where? South of France? She’s FedExed a video from the South of France to say goodbye to people who she said goodbye to—

Carly: Years ago.

Riese: Six years ago before driving off a cliff or whatever the fuck.

Carly: This is just Bette and Tina moving to New York is a metaphor for the ending of the show. And so it’s all the past characters saying goodbye to the show and thanking the show. It’s weird. Then, anyway, it’s Carmen. Carmen always looks good.

Riese: Yeah. Carmen looks great. There’s no dance. And there is definitely no indication that she does, that any dancing is to come.

Carly: No. She’s sitting in a chair.

Riese: Still, how is this going to be three hours long? No idea. Then Alice comes in and she’s like, “You guys, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny.” And then the sirens. And who’s here?

Carly: As Jenny is saying goodbye in the video, the sirens are… I mean, it’s very pointed. Lucy Lawless is here. There are seven ladies inside and a little girl who was asleep. Once again it’s the Schecter Seven. Just want to point out again that the seven women, now that we’ve seen the whole season, are Bette, Tina, Alice, Kit, Shane, Helena and Max?

Riese: Wait, what about Niki?

Carly: Niki they don’t count because he says Schecter Seven, which is the thing I just invented in the pilot — or the first episode. And then Niki is pulled out of the bushes.

Riese: Right.

Carly: They already counted people before we see Niki get pulled out of the bushes.

Riese: So they’re counting Max with the mustache as lady.

Carly: Because otherwise they would’ve said seven women and a man.

Riese: They want to get one last misgendering in.

Carly: One last little dig.

Riese: Just right under the wire there.

Carly: Oh, yeah, also Niki was skulking around in the bushes, like you do.

Riese: Right. Which is, you know, she’s a movie star and I’m sure that no one noticed that. So Tasha shows up, right? But there’s a lot happening here and I have a few questions. First of all, nobody looks like they could have just killed somebody. No one. No one there has any murdery energy. Murdering someone is a pretty unusual decision to make. It’s not something that you just chill afterwards. They all know about the railing. Why would anyone assume it wasn’t suicide or an accident?

Carly: Was the brightly colored tape in any way disturbed?

Riese: Oh, my God.

Carly: Was it moved, was it pushed, was it torn? Why are we not talking about these obvious questions?

Riese: There’s no blood in the pool.

Carly: They don’t say her cause of death either. Did she hit her head when she fell? Okay. First of all, jumping off of a second story balcony into a pool is not really a way to kill you. Wouldn’t you just be jumping in a pool?

Riese: It’s called diving.

Carly: I guess it’s a possibility.

Riese: But she would’ve had to hit her head.

Carly: She would have had to hit her head and have a spinal situation.

Riese: Then there would be blood and there’s nothing wrong, we’ve seen her head already, remember, in the first episode, even though in this scene they don’t have the rolling the body through.

Carly: There’s no blood.

Riese: There’s no blood in the pool.

Carly: But also, if she dove in headfirst from upstairs and did hurt her neck or spine, she probably would have survived.

Riese: Survived. Yeah.

Carly: And just had a paralysis, a spinal injury, something. What actually caused her death?

Riese: If she fell in, then she could have swam out.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Unless, again, she hit herself somewhere. But if she had there would be blood.

Carly: Right. It would be a much more traumatic scene if there was Jenny’s blood everywhere. And we see the body wheeled out. There’s no blood.

Riese: They also — someone would have heard it.

Carly: Yeah. It would have been a loud, horrible noise if she hit her head or something coming down. Nothing about this makes sense. This whole season is based on something that makes no sense.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Not only do they not figure out who killed Jenny or if she killed herself, but they didn’t even actually figure out what killed her. And that is so weak.

Riese: Did she drown? Also her face looks completely normal when she was… Not, I mean, again, they completely pretend like that… In this episode, there’s no wheeling of the body through, is there? That was just in the pilot? Or in the first episode?

Carly: It is. But it’s shadowy. We see her outside being wheeled, but we don’t see inside. And also if they knew that she was dead because we saw a coroner’s car outside, why would she not be covered in a sheet immediately?

Riese: Right. Right.

Carly: And if they thought she wasn’t dead, then they should be doing CPR. Anyway.

Riese: Right. Bette and Tina aren’t crying, which is also weird.

Carly: No one’s crying.

Riese: Why are Shane and Bette wet? Did they—

Carly: I guess what happened is that Shane and Bette jumped into the pool to try to rescue her. Is that what we’re to believe?

Riese: I think so.

Carly: Or was Bette just trying to do an at-home spa situation?

Riese: Also the officer says there was just a few glasses of wine at the party, and there was an entire minibar outside. Alice was wildly drunk, glasses everywhere. And so Niki comes out of the bushes, she comes into the room where they’re all sitting and they’re shaken or whatever. And Niki says, “Oh, I came to talk to Jenny and to tell her that she’s keeping you here.” And Shane yells at Niki, “Shut up, shut up,” because the detectives are standing there like, “What’s happening?” You know? But also everyone’s just acting like someone is going to be incriminated for something that they all know could not have possibly have happened. Shane yelling at Niki not to incriminate herself in front of detectives? What?

Carly: What?

Riese: That looks suspicious. And this situation in and of itself, again, no blood in the pool, Jenny looks fine on the… There’s nothing about this… And there’s a broken railing. Maybe.

Carly: Maybe a broken masking tape piece.

Riese: There’s nothing about this that says murder.

Carly: No.

Riese: Especially because everyone was walking around with each other, no one was really ever, Bette was the only one alone with Jenny. And we saw that scene end I think.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Because we saw that shortly thereafter with Tina and upstairs when Max came upstairs and Bette, again, didn’t seem shaken.

Carly: So clearly what happened at the end of that scene, she confronted Jenny and then walked into the hallway, and Jenny just stayed in that room or on the balcony. And then no one heard from her again. But everyone was outside for a while before they went inside to watch the film, which would be the point at which Jenny wound up in the pool. Also, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be like, the pool is shallow enough that if she dove she’d hurt her head, because also then it’s shallow enough that if there’s no blood, then if she got in the pool, then it’s also shallow enough to just stand up and walk out of.

Carly: Yeah, people don’t usually have pools in their backyard that are so deep.

Riese: Right.

Carly: I feel like usually those pools go to a six foot deep end, sometimes a little more. There was no diving board. So we know that it’s not super deep that she could have drowned in the pool.

Riese: She weighs 90 pounds at most so it’d be really hard for her to drown herself. When I went scuba diving they had to wrap me in weights so that I could just fall under water, you know?

Carly: Oh, God, that’s incredible. The only thing I can think of is that she was in some way rendered unconscious and then fell in the pool. In which case she would have drowned. But how does an adult woman drown in a backyard pool?

Riese: I guess Bette could have strangled her and then—

Carly: Strangled her and thrown her over.

Riese: But Bette wouldn’t do that with people walking all over her house.

Carly: But Bette wouldn’t do it.

Riese: That would be—

Carly: Right, right.

Riese: And Jenny would have screamed.

Carly: Yeah. Killing someone via strangulation is like… I’ve watched enough true crime documentaries to know that the profile of a person who kills someone via strangulation is, yes, it’s a very personal, intimate thing, so that tracks, but you are also, that’s so fucked.

Riese: You’re watching someone die in your arms.

Carly: Physically pulling the life out of… Bette wouldn’t, Bette couldn’t do that. We know that she couldn’t do that. And also there would have been a scream. There would have been noise. They would have been on the balcony where the windows are open and everyone was outside. Nothing about this makes sense.

Riese: No. And then one nice thing happens, is that Tasha shows up and Alice is so happy to see her, and Tasha’s like, “I’m not going to leave you,” or whatever and they hug and that’s really sweet. And then someone says to the detectives, “We’re a very tight knit group and we look out for each other.” Why are you saying that?

Carly: That’s not suspicious at all.

Riese: That sounds bananas. And then someone says, “You probably want us to come down to the station.” What? What are you guys talking about?

Carly: Lucy Lawless is truly like, “This is a frenzy. Wow. This is the easiest case I’ve ever worked. They’re just going to show up.” And that’s exactly what they do. Everyone gets in their individual vehicles and drives to police.

Riese: Right. Why would anyone think this was anything but an accident or a suicide? No one is even crying! Max isn’t crying. Alice and Helena aren’t crying. Niki’s not crying.

Carly: Shane’s not crying.

Riese: You say, “We’re all a very tight knit group and we all look out for each other.” Your friend just died.

Carly: Bette looks like she came from a spa.

Riese: Yeah. And then they all dress like movie stars, get into their seven different cars.

Carly: Oh my God. And then they all walk individually in slow motion towards the police station with a huge Beyoncé style fan blowing their hair back. It’s such an incredible—

Riese: Choice.

Carly: An over the top way to end this series. But again, one that makes absolutely no sense.

Riese: Right? It’s this glamorous ending. So they look insane walking up to — and also they all change. They all look wonderful for the interrogation that they volunteered for. And also, we have two business owners, we have a high profile gallery owner, we have a movie executive, we have a future cop, we have Helena. No one wants a lawyer.

Carly: No one has mentioned it. No one has even mentioned wanting a lawyer.

Riese: Besides Niki.

Carly: What if Joyce had shown up to be everyone’s lawyer? That would have been a great ending.

Riese: I know. She’d be like, “Hey ladies, I’m here. Put me on retainer.”

Carly: Like, “Joyce, you do criminal cases?” She’s like, “I do all cases. I’m the only lawyer in West Hollywood.”

Riese: And then we see Jenny’s final video goodbye, which makes it look like what? A suicide.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: She says, “You guys changed my life.” And that, like, could be a sweet moment because you are thinking she came in in the beginning, she came out of the plane from Iowa and was thrust into this world, and that’s sort of like a full-circle thing, but it’s not because it’s ever so distracted by how stupid everything else is.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: And then they have the nerve to put on the screen, “Thank you for six great seasons.”

Carly: The gall.

Riese: It was five great seasons. Well, four, because I didn’t like Season Three either.

Carly: Season Three was a dark spot for many of us. This will be the final time I say this: And that’s the episode.

Riese: Well, did you like the episode Carly?

Carly: No. No, Riese, I did not. Did you like the episode?

Riese: I didn’t. I didn’t really like the episode.

Carly: What was there to like?

Riese: As far as, you know, when you’re wrapping up a series of beloved characters. Also, it was a very quiet finale. It was very bland.

Carly: It really was.

Riese: There was a lot of silence. They showed literally the same clip twice of Bette in the interrogation room, which is completely nonsensical.

Carly: They didn’t actually end any storyline. They actually created more questions than coming up with answers, which is like, ugh. And I also feel like maybe we should also mention that in Generation Q, for those who haven’t seen it, they say that a woman drowned in Bette’s pool and that she killed herself.

Riese: Right.

Carly: That is made canon in the reboot. So truly, what was the point of Season Six? I would venture to say nothing.

Riese: There was nothing.

Carly: And that they spent their whole budget on Bette and Tina’s expanded set.

Riese: Addition.

Carly: Yeah. They spent it all on the addition to the house and the cop cars and all the crane shots. And instead of putting it towards lighting for the season. That’s my guess.

Riese: And it was a terrible way to end these people and their lives and their loves. And it was just a big all-around nonsensical shit show.

Carly: Just madness.

Riese: What would have been good is if Woozy had shown — Weezy or whatever, had shown up, “Hey, guys, still need me to fix that railing?”

Carly: She shows up after the cops were there. She shows up at the very end before they go to the interrogations. She just rolls through right after Nikki does.

Riese: Right.

Carly: And she was like, “Hey, sorry. I was just fucking about 12 men. I came here to fix the railing. Oy oy oy.”

Riese: Maybe they’re saying that someone could have killed Jenny and then just tossed her into the pool. There was no time for any of this to happen. There was no time, no one had motive or opportunity.

Carly: And they were all at the same location. They’re all at the same location where the indoor and outdoor spaces were blended by fully open doors and windows, and enough people around that they all would have heard or seen something regardless of what happened.

Riese: Yeah. And it’s also just so idiotic that they didn’t even… I know you can’t determine a cause of death at the scene, but like they didn’t even bother to get to the very obvious detail of, as you just mentioned the, tape on the railing.

Carly: Is that fully intact? Because there was a whole lot of tape up there.

Riese: Yeah. And since Sounder is sniffing around earlier, that’s when we’re supposed to think Jenny’s already in there. It doesn’t make sense.

Carly: But she’s obviously not. Yeah.

Riese: And it doesn’t make sense because the writers didn’t write it with a specific murderer in mind.

Carly: They didn’t write to anything.

Riese: Right.

Carly: They wanted to leave it open-ended, which you can’t do.

Carly: Television writing 101. Even if the audience doesn’t know, the people responsible for the content have to know what’s going on inside the mind of their characters, and they never figured it out.

Riese: Yeah. And they had no idea. I was trying to think that Helena Peabody is going to go murder Jenny because she told Dylan about Niki’s set up. No one even likes Dylan. By the way, this is the last acting job that Alexandra Hedison ever did. And I don’t blame her. I would be like, “I don’t think I’m made for this, because this is bananas.”

Carly: “I’m never doing this.”

Riese: Yeah. “I’m never doing anything of this nature ever again.” Well, and that’s the end of the worst episode of television that we’ve ever seen in our lives.

Carly: In the worst season of television. It’s over. We did it.

Riese: We did it. I still had fun talking about this season, even though we didn’t care for it.

Carly: Me too.

Riese: In fact, the worse something is the funnier sometimes it is I think.

Carly: Yeah. So we did it. We got through the entirety of The L Word, and you all listening in your respective homes or wherever you are, you got through it with us as well. And I think we should all be commended for that. Yeah. Go easy on yourselves today. You deserve it.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter, we are @tolandback. You can also email us to tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message, it’s (971) 217- 6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle.com.

Carly: Alright. And finally, it’s time for our L Words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually, these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three. Lucy Lawless.

Carly: Leave me be. Riese, you said Lucy Lawless?

Riese: I did, yeah.

Carly: That’s beautiful. I said, “Leave me be,” which is a comment to the show to leave me alone because we are done with it.

Riese: Also Lucy Lawless’s forehead did a great job, and her eyes, in this scene. I really appreciated getting to see close-ups of all of her faces.

Carly: There were some nice shots of the back of her head and her shoulders, and shots where other people were in them talking about the crime they did not commit. That was really fun.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So we’re not saying goodbye because this isn’t goodbye, but you’ll probably want to take a long nap after this episode.

Carly: Yeah. You’re going to want to lie down. This was a very long episode, and thank you for sitting through it. Thank you for listening and liking our show.

Riese: Yeah. It makes me really happy.

Carly: It’s still pretty overwhelming to me that… Yeah, me too. I can’t believe that… I forget that anyone listens to this.

Riese: Lots of people do.

Carly: It’s just me and Riese talking shit occasionally. But thank you all for being on this entire journey with us. This has been quite an experience.

Riese: It has been wonderful. And we’ll see you soon.

Carly: And we’ll be back in two weeks, so don’t worry about it.

Riese: Yeah. It’s not over. Unlike Jenny’s life. And now we’re going to go launch Autostraddle!

Carly: Bye.

Riese: Bye.

“To L and Back” Episode 607: Last Couple Standing with Willam Belli!

Actor, recording artist and drag queen Willam Belli joins us for Episode 607, “Last Couple Standing,” in which everybody dances and dances and dances for charity!!!! Join us as Tasha, Jamie and Alice do a fun dance and Bette and Tina do a sexy dance and then it’s time to give away money on the microphone on the stage! Also Jenny made an iPhone short and she wants to talk about it.

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Carly: A podcast about The L Word, that we are still making to this day. I feel like we’ve been doing this forever.

Riese: That’s accurate. Yeah, we have. We’ve sort of been doing it since 2008, in a way. But now we’re at the penultimate episode of The L Word—

Carly: Oh my God, we did it.

Riese: … not counting the interrogation tapes.

Carly: No, those don’t count. But we will be dealing with those later. Don’t worry, listeners. Today, we have a very, very special guest with us.

Riese: Very special guest with us!

Willam: Hey, it’s me. I’m here, bitches, and my headphones are all in the right holes. Carly knows I’m very low tech. We’ve worked together a lot, and I’m happy to be here to talk about The L Word. And hi, Riese!

Riese: Hi!

Carly: Hi, Willam!

Willam: Hi, girl, hi!

Carly: Oh my goodness.

Willam: Or hey, they, he. Hey, they, hey.

Carly: Hey, they, they. Hey, they.

Willam: Yeah, all of them.

Carly: All of the pronouns.

Riese: Tell us about yourself and your career.

Willam: Career is a strong word for what I do, but—

Riese: I mean, you’re on an L Word podcast.

Willam: Yeah, I do a little bit of this. A little bit of that.

Riese: No judging.

Willam: I do a lot of YouTube stuff. I was in <em I lost a couple of Emmys this year. I’m an actor, I guess, a little bit. But I’m also, like, other things.

Carly: You wear a lot of hats.

Willam: I own a studio in Hollywood that rents stuff to people when drag queens need lights or stands. Also, oh, I’m a podcaster. I’m a friend of the pod.

Carly: Friend of the pod.

Willam: Yeah, I have some podcasts that I produce. That’s what I would write on my passport application.

Carly: We like to ask all of our guests, what is your L Word origin story? What is your earliest memory of the show, or when you watched it previously?

Willam: Okay, I remember watching multiple seasons, because I had Showtime, because I needed to watch Queer as Folk, because even when that show got outlandish and off the rails, it was still the only gay option on TV. I remember when I was 17, I hooked up with this guy every Sunday, just so I could use his SHOWTIME and watch Queer as Folk, and it was a standing date. But you hoe when you want to go see the show.

Riese: That’s what they say.

Willam: So I watched L Word a little bit, a couple seasons on and off. But this episode was just special, because it was all kinds of bad, the way they sloppily slapdash wrapped up storylines. We’ll get into it. I mean, I definitely watched Showtime a lot. I loved The L Word.

Riese: Do you remember watching Season 6?

Willam: I think this is the one that Jenny dies, and then they play it back in reverse, right?

Carly: Yeah.

Willam: Yeah. I remember seeing that part, and never getting to the end and figuring out how she died, because I was like, “This is too much.”

Riese: They don’t tell us.

Willam: And then that drag queen?! Ooh, who put his eyebrows there?

Carly: Oh, boy. We have a lot to talk about.

Willam: Girl. They.

Carly: What’s great is that the show does not actually wrap up the Jenny death storyline in any satisfying way. They don’t actually tell us what happened at all. Stunts.

Riese: Because they don’t know what happened.

Carly: It’s stunts.

Riese: They don’t know.

Carly: They don’t know.

Willam: Stunts.

Riese: That was the surprise.

Carly: Did you have any favorite characters on the show?

Willam: Yeah, I liked Mia Kirshner’s husband, because he showed wang in a couple things. I think he might have had it out in this show. I forget, but I liked him.

Riese: Believe it or not, you’re our first person to name Tim as a favorite character.

Willam: Oh, yeah. He’s great. I liked him on Ugly Betty too.

Carly: I know. I loved him on Ugly Betty.

Willam: Yeah, I liked the guys on The L Word. How chauvinistic of me. Sorry.

Carly: Oh my goodness.

Willam: Who’s your favorite character?

Carly: Who is my favorite character? I don’t know anymore.

Riese: Yeah, I feel like I’ve lost track of that myself.

Carly: I don’t actually know anymore.

Riese: Me neither.

Carly: I feel like when we started this project, I was like, “I like Alice and I like Bette.” And now, I’m like, “They’re both—”

Riese: Yeah, I probably would’ve said Bette.

Carly: Now, everyone is so annoying, I don’t even have a favorite.

Willam: Alice very much gives me Mark in Rent, just everything. Exposition, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You could tell she was in the writers’ room, too, hardcore.

Carly: Yeah, she was always like, “And then tonight, what are we doing tonight?” And it’s like, “Oh, we have to go to an event.”

Willam: Honey, she gave log lines as intros. “More safety pins.”

Carly: Believe that character.

Riese: She’s also on a bike in the opening sequence, much like Mark in the beginning of Rent.

Willam: Girl, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? This episode was just taxing, and it was about a taxing dance competition, so that’s pretty appropriate, I guess.

Carly: I guess so. I guess they nailed that theme.

Riese: Yeah, they really got the feeling of a dance-a-thon, which is, “I’m tired.”

Carly: Riese, your favorite character is Jenny, is that correct? Would that be correct to say?

Riese: Oh, no, I wouldn’t say she’s my favorite character. I mean, it depends on the season. Again, now that we’ve reanalyzed every episode down to the second, everyone I thought I liked, I don’t know if I still like.

Willam: Who was the one that died? The golfer. Everybody liked her.

Carly: Oh, Dana.

Riese: Dana.

Willam: Yeah, nobody disliked Dana.

Carly: No, everyone liked Dana. Dana was fun.

Willam: Why did they kill her?

Carly: Breast cancer for no reason.

Riese: For breast cancer awareness. I don’t know if you were aware of it, but now, everyone is.

Carly: Breast cancer, it’s a thing that happens. All right, should we do this episode?

Riese: Yeah, introduce it.

Carly: Today, we will be discussing Episode 607, entitled “Last Couple Standing,” which is actually the title that makes sense, given the episode. So congratulations to everyone involved. It was written by Ilene Chaiken and directed by Rose Troche, and originally aired on March 1st, 2009. Remember 2009? I don’t.

Willam: Oh my God.

Riese: I do.

Carly: I guess we were watching this. I guess I can remember that.

Riese: Yeah, we were like a week away from launching Autostraddle!

Carly: Oh my God, that’s right. Jesus. Wow, what a special episode.

Riese: I just remember at the time being like, “Oh, this was an okay episode,” because it was so much better than the other episodes of Season 6. But upon a rewatch, I changed my mind. It’s also terrible. It just has one fun dance sequence, but the rest of it is as bad as the rest of this season.

Carly: It’s really bad, but at least visually, it’s different than everything else. There’s a lot of costumes and wigs, which is always fun.

Riese: But they did maintain the darkness.

Carly: Yeah.

Willam: Can we mention that the music, whatever they could scrape together budget-wise, to afford the rights to those horrible unrecognizable tunes that they were bopping to. The music was especially terrible for a dance competition.

Riese: A dance-a-thon!

Willam: Whoever did the budget for this spent too much on the wigs, and not enough on the licensing for songs, honey, because they should’ve at least splurged for one that was recognizable and fun for Sunset Boulevard to do or something, because that was weak sauce. Sunset’s whole storyline. All the gowns were terrible. The hair was terrible.

Carly: It’s bad.

Riese: Yep, it’s really bad.

Carly: All right, let’s get into it.

Riese: Should we start?

Carly: Yes, let’s do it.

Riese: Okay, so we open at the Los Angeles LGBT Center Benefit, taking place at Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace for good causes. And everyone is going to dance through the decades. Right now, Alice is very ’70s.

Carly: Yes. There are OurChart.com signs everywhere. It’s like—

Riese: And it had definitely already shut down by then.

Carly: If Alice’s job is now throwing this event for the LGBT Center, then who is running OurChart.com?

Riese: Good question.

Carly: We haven’t seen Alice doing any of that for her own website though.

Riese: We haven’t.

Carly: We open on some really exciting dance-themed trash talking between Alice and Bette.

Alice: Listen, I hope you brought your dancing blownics, because Tasha, Jamie, and I are going to wipe the floor with you. Our routine kills — kills! Do you want to know what it is?
Bette: Not really.
Alice: Oh, I see. You’re trying to psyche me out. Acting like you don’t care. I know you care. Listen, you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.
Bette: No.
Alice: These your outfits?
Bette: Don’t touch that. What? Is that? Is that all you’ve got?
Alice: Oh, yeah. Oh, first of many. So many more to come.
Bette: Oh, good, because I was worried.
Alice: What do they look like?
Bette: Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?
Alice: Why are you so competitive?
Bette: Me? What about you?

Carly: Just, all I could see was OurChart.com logos.

Riese: And then Jenny creeps up and is like, “Bette, I need to talk to you.” She just becomes so weird. This whole thing is so dumb. She’s like, “Did you tell Tina about what happened with Kelly?” And Bette’s like, “What happened with Kelly?” And Jenny’s like, “I saw you having sex with Kelly.”

Riese: And Bette’s like, “I don’t know what you think you saw, but we did not bone,” basically. So that’s stupid, and I hate it.

Carly: What a completely ludicrous storyline.

Willam: Honestly.

Riese: Not only did she not have sex with Kelly or hook up with her in any way, but it’s not like Kelly is this irresistible siren, that you could believe that Bette just couldn’t help herself. Kelly’s so annoying and awful. Anyway. I wish I had better jokes, but I just think it’s bad. Jenny’s bangs are very thick. She can hide a lot of stress.

Willam: Honey, Penny Dreadful with a baby bang.

Riese: Yes, like what?

Carly: What did we call her the other episode? Emily the Strange?

Riese: Emily the Strange. She’s giving heavy Emily the Strange vibes.

Carly: Penny Dreadful is so accurate.

Riese: She needs a little tiny vinyl purse to carry around and keep her cat in it.

Willam: A little Olivia Lux bag.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Totally tiny.

Riese: A little accessory. Finish the outfit.

Carly: Oh my God. And then Jenny’s like, “Bette, Tina’s my friend,” which is hilarious, because they hate each other.

Riese: But Tina’s the only person in the series who doesn’t hate Jenny right now.

Carly: Yeah, that’s true. Everyone else is sort of threatening to kill her.

Willam: Why do they let her into their parties and stuff? I don’t get that. Nobody likes her there.

Carly: I don’t know.

Willam: And Shane’s dating Jenny by the end?

Carly: Jenny’s dating Shane.

Riese: Yeah, this has gone off the rails.

Willam: Oh, that’s got to be unhealthy.

Carly: No, it’s very bad.

Riese: I waited my whole life for this relationship to happen, and then they decided to make it really terrible.

Carly: Yeah, Riese really, just throughout the whole series, just wanted Jenny and Shane to date, or get together in some way. And then they did, and it’s so toxic and terrible.

Willam: Oh, God, yeah. Joy suck.

Carly: It’s bad. It’s really bad. Yeah, I don’t know why they let her into the event. They could easily just not … It’s a building. You could just not let her into the building.

Willam: Who’s working at the door?

Carly: Probably someone…

Willam: Wasn’t Sunset Boulevard.

Carly: I can’t wait to discuss—

Riese: Probably a Canadian extra.

Carly: Yeah, Sunset Boulevard.

Riese: Dressing room?

Carly: Dressing room. We’re backstage, and Tina was offered a job in New York City!

Riese: At Focus Features!

Carly: Head of production. Wow, great.

Riese: Wow.

Carly: I feel like I was ready for Bette to be like, “What do you mean? We can’t move to New York. Our lives are here. My life is here.” But instead, Bette totally throws us off guard by being like, “Oh my God, congrats. You’re such a fucking rock star.” And she’s talking about how they’re going to move to New York.

Riese: Yeah, but Alice disapproves, obviously.

Carly: Well, Alice has a lot of opinions.

Riese: If one of my friends wanted to move to New York, I would disapprove too, unless I didn’t like them. It seems like Bette wants to leave specifically to get away from Jenny and her bangs. You know what? That’s fine. That’s as good as a reason as anything to move.

Carly: I think so.

Riese: And then, Alice … They talk about how they’re going to have Marcy move in with them. Yet another ridiculous stupid that’s happening this season.

Willam: She’s a surrogate?

Carly: Yep.

Riese: From Nevada, because there’s no babies in California, apparently.

Carly: Yeah, they’re lawyer friend told them that, if the baby is—

Willam: Get them to move in.

Carly: … born in Nevada, they can’t adopt her, because it’s illegal there. So she has to give birth in Los Angeles.

Willam: That’s a thing. I had to deal with that when I was going through the surrogacy thing in — I think, 2007 or ’08. You really have to pick where your birth mother lives if you were gay back then. I don’t know if it’s still that way. That might be discrimination now.

Carly: I don’t think it’s still that way, right?

Riese: I don’t think it is.

Carly: Because when we talked to John, he was saying that his students were literally born in the year 2000 were like, “What do you mean you couldn’t always just adopt any baby?” They were like, “Whoa, they’re babies.”

Riese: But Alice thinks that she’s going to hook up with Marcy if she moves in, and is like, “Haven’t you seen Baby Mama?” And you know what? I haven’t.

Willam: It’s so good. It’s Tina Fey—

Carly: It’s the 2008 Tina Fey and Amy Poehler comedy.

Willam: From Philly. They filmed at Rittenhouse Square, which — I used to work in a bath house there. I knew everywhere they shot, and I was so happy.

Carly: Oh, that’s so fun.

Willam: That was such a good movie. Better than this episode.

Carly: Much better. Yeah, I think if we had just watched that instead of watching this episode, I think it would’ve been a better use of our time.

Willam: Honestly, not mad.

Carly: Bette is like …

Bette: Okay, I am not some fucking loose cannon that just fucks everything that walks, okay? I can be trusted.

Bette looking in the mirror in the dressing room saying that she is not some fucking loose canon

Carly: I was like, “Wow, Bette,” because that is kind of what you’ve been doing in the past.

Riese: Yeah, I think she’s selective. I think she’s as tightly … I think she’s like a canon, but not a loose canon. It’s not like she just walks around fucking everyone. She’s like, “I’m going to fuck that person,” and then she goes over to their house to make stir fry. Yeah. She’s more like a bow and arrow, but there’s just one arrow—

Carly: Got it.

Riese: And so she … You know what I mean?

Carly: It’s very specific.

Riese: In terms of weapons of war, that’s how I think about it. My war weapon.

Carly: In terms of The Hunger Games, she would be the bow and arrow.

Riese: Exactly, she’d be the bow and arrow.

Carly: Got it. That makes sense.

Riese: And I would be a dead squirrel that someone is eating.

Carly: I would be the first to die in The Hunger Games, for sure.

Riese: A squirrel died on my street, and it laid there for three days.

Willam: And then, stew.

Riese: And on the third day, someone was eating squirrel.

Willam: Share squirrel stew with everyone.

Carly: Okay, it’s time to talk about Sunset Boulevard.

Riese: Sunset Boulevard.

Willam: Lot to unpack.

Carly: Okay, the first thing we need to know is that the man playing Sunset Boulevard is just an actor who is not a professional drag queen, or a nonprofessional drag queen. Just not a drag queen in real life when they cast him.

Riese: Just an actor.

Carly: So in the year 2009, I guess there were no drag queens in California to hire to play this role.

Riese: Not one.

Willam: Nope. Don’t know any.

Carly: No, none. Drag queens didn’t exist in the year 2009.

Willam: No, I think RuPaul invented them in 2010.

Carly: Yeah, exactly, and so—

Riese: Yeah, so almost close enough.

Carly: And the show was already off the air by then.

Willam: Under the gun. It’s not this actor’s fault.

Carly: It’s not.

Willam: It’s the makeup and the hair department, for just getting everything wrong, from the scale of the hair being way too small for him. Needing a base tease at least, not this fresh-out-of-the-bag bullshit, to the eyebrows being in the wrong spot for his face, to—

Carly: The eyebrows are outrageous.

Willam: Yeah, and to the highlight being placed where it was with all that white under the brow, and then the shape of them. Also, I felt like they used shiny shadows on a glued-down brow, and that never works. The lashes were in the wrong spot. He wasn’t painted right. He didn’t emanate any light from within. Nothing brightened him. And it was a farce.

Carly: It was.

Willam: The gowns too, not fitted, loose. A drag queen of that stature, I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t.

Sunset Boulevard and Kit Porter on stage at the dance marathon

Carly: No. The other thing about the light, is that there was also no light radiating from without, because the lighting is so terrible in the nightclub scenes. All across the board, the lighting is terrible, and has been all season. But for someone with dark skin, you cannot light them in the dark. That’s not how lighting works. So you can’t fucking see him!

Willam: Yep.

Riese: No.

Willam: You need to be able to see the white of your eyes if you want to connect with, I think, an actor or camera. And if you can’t see that, because they’re not lit right, the scene has no purpose. You’re just like sock puppets. No eyes. People can’t connect.

Carly: I also feel like in every episode, I feel like they just do a garage door, just a baby blue eyeshadow on him every episode. What are they doing?

Willam: Ding, ding, ding for garage door use though.

Carly: Thank you so much.

Willam: RuPaul will be sending a check.

Riese: You know what’s weird, is when I turned to the left and looked out my window just now, the first thing I saw was the street sign that says Sunset Boulevard right there.

Carly: Oh my God. It’s an omen.

Riese: And that sign is better lit than the scene.

Carly: That’s for sure.

Willam: I have a Sunset Boulevard street sign in my house too, because it felt down at a corner near my house. I’m like, “I’m getting that.”

Carly: You took it.

Willam: Yeah, of course, I did.

Carly: Obviously.

Willam: I’m a drag queen. We take stuff. It’s what we do.

Carly: It’s what we do.

Willam: “Whose drink is that?”

Carly: “Yours now.”

Willam: I don’t even drink, and I take drinks.

Carly: You can redistribute them.

Willam: Yeah, throw them in people’s faces like Kit to Sunset Boulevard in the episode previously on The L Word.

Riese: Oh yeah. I’m glad we got that.

Willam: And she didn’t recognize him with a little bit of baby blue eyeshadow and a Sharpie brow. She didn’t know that was that same guy that she hated enough to throw a drink on? Honey. This writing is thinner than one ply.

Carly: So Tina is apologizing to Helena for the Dylan situation. I think that’s what’s happening. Again, the lighting is so bad, I have no idea what’s going on.

Riese: But who cares?

Carly: Sunset brings—

Willam: You’re really invested in this one more episode of a podcast, huh? “Who cares…”

Carly: Yeah, we were joking the last one we recorded, I think everyone making the show clearly has senioritis.

Willam: Over it. It’s clear.

Carly: They’re one foot out the door. And that’s now bled into us.

Willam: That’s going to be me on Race Chaser on the last after episode after RuPaul shuts up shop. I’ll be like …

Carly: That will never happen.

Willam: I hope not.

Carly: There will never be no seasons of that show.

Willam: I mean, I’m hoping they make her cyborg, where they can keep at least her head going and put the rest on metal, so I can have a podcast the rest of my life.

Carly: I mean, I feel like, if anything, they’d just digitize Ru’s essence, and do a Max Headroom thing, or a Black Mirror episode.

Riese: Oh, God, that guy.

Willam: Todrick can play her.

Carly: Okay, so.

Riese: Jamie.

Carly: Jamie. What is Jamie wearing? Is this—

Riese: A little head … Little braids, a little headdress.

Carly: Is this a Native—

Riese: I think I wore this for Halloween when I was a young person. I would say, maybe six.

Carly: I remember being in preschool, and they having us all dress up as Native Americans, which was incredibly offensive, but no one thought about that at the time.

Riese: Jamie saved her outfit, and she’s wearing it tonight. But the thing is, she’s also wearing a full purple turtleneck. There’s a lot of things with this outfit that have issues. But what she wants to know — wants everyone to know, is that, “LGBT youth, they’re not alone.” For example, Alice comes on stage, and then she brings up Marie, which is my name, but it’s not me. It’s—

Carly: It’s not you.

Alice on stage at the benefit with Marie saying Marie taught her something very important

Riese: It’s this girl, this poor girl, who was going to fucking jump off a building until Alice said three words to her, and blah, blah, blah. And Alice—

Carly: And now, she’s here at this event.

Riese: Alice turned her life around, which is true, because otherwise, she’d be dead as a doornail. Jenny looks insane. She’s wearing this weird beret, like she’s fucking in a war movie from the ’50s or ’60s. And then, they say that if you want to give money to this silly … to this benefit, which is good, not charity, you have to go up on stage on the microphone, and announce how much money you’re giving. I just want to say this does not sound efficient. You send the little people around the room and they get the things that you put on the screen. This is going to take forever!

Carly: This is not efficient.

Riese: And no one is going to want to get up for five bucks, but those little things add up. Anyway, I just don’t think this is being run very well. And Alice, I think, is trying her best, but I just don’t know.

Carly: Well, she has no experience doing anything like this, so maybe that’s why.

Riese: That’s true.

Willam: She’s also competing in it.

Carly: Yeah, her attention is all over the place.

Willam: Girl, that’s when I go to a gig, and I see the promoters in drag. And I was like, “Oh, so this night is about you, because no one else would let you do drag somewhere else. So now, you do drag at your parties. Got it.”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Another I’m part of this scene is Kit’s piano velour…

Willam: Jumpsuits?

Riese: … one … Yes.

Carly: Yeah.

Willam: It’s not fit right.

Riese: Yeah, it’s not. I had this for a while, because SHOWTIME gave me a box of costumes.

Willam: Wait, what?

Riese: Remember this?

Carly: I forgot. I didn’t know that you had this. I just knew that you had the weird Jenny lingerie.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I was hoping that her in a red jumpsuit was some kind of Foxy Brown nod, because she has a red jumpsuit in Foxy Brown, though it does not have a piano appliqué on it. But that’s what I was thinking about.

Riese: The legs are too short.

Willam: Wait, how did y’all get costumes?

Carly: Yeah, how did that happen?

Riese: I don’t know. They liked me. They were nice to me, so they gave …

Willam: Did you work on the show?

Riese: No, I was doing a YouTube series for SHOWTIME that was related to the show. I did these little recap videos or whatever, and then they would put them on the SHOWTIME YouTube page, and they would make the screen grab a sex scene from The L Word. But it would actually be me in my room, talking about that episode. So obviously, the YouTube commenters were—

Carly: Mad.

Riese: … not super happy about it. This was sort of early YouTube, so this was literally some of the most popular videos on the entire platform because of these—

Willam: Lesbian sex tapes.

Riese: Right, right. So it would be millions of people yelling at me, the most terrible things.

Willam: That’s why you don’t go in the comments.

Riese: Right, right. But I was like, “Oh my God,” because I don’t spend a lot of time in spaces where straight people exist. And it was just very loud.

Willam: Yeah, there’s usually bad lighting. Why would anyone go there?

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Yeah, exactly. It was terrible.

Carly: Terrible lighting.

Riese: But we were about to launch Autostraddle, so they gave me a bunch of stuff to sell. I sold them on eBay.

Willam: Done that too.

Carly: Been there.

Riese: Anyway. SHOWTIME was just super great and really supportive of Autostraddle, and it was really cool. This will come up again, don’t worry. Anyway, the piano outfit was very soft.

Carly: Good. I thought Kit looked amazing, and she demonstrates some dancing with Sunset, different dances.

Riese: Oh yeah, that was weird. I had to look away.

Carly: I didn’t really understand the point of that. And they explained the rules, and then it begins. It’s very confusing, because part if it is, everyone has to dance for the whole time, or you’re out. But then also, they give you breaks.

Willam: “This is our first 15-minute break. Half an unlicensed song in… ” It’s like, “What?” “And now, we’re going to do solo performances?” What is this? Who arranged this?

Carly: Is this a pageant?

Willam: I can’t. Too much.

Carly: The format of the event made zero sense.

Willam: Saved by the Bell: The New Class made more sense.

Carly: Yeah, and that is historically a show that makes very little sense.

Riese: Yeah. Remember … Nothing.

Carly: What? What were you going to say?

Willam: She was going to go down Saved by the Bell—

Riese: Saved by the Bell: The New Class, their dorm rooms were connected by this massive common space, but it was just for their room. God, it just gave me a false idea about college.

Carly: Well, the dorm rooms on Buffy were like the size of my living room.

Willam: I’m so glad I didn’t go to college.

Carly: It truly was a honestly—

Riese: Yeah, the rooms were much smaller. The rooms were much smaller.

Carly: It’s a waste … I really don’t know that I got very much out of it, and I’m still paying it off, so I really don’t recommend it, truly. They’re dancing. Everyone is dancing. Bette is spying on Jodi, who’s here. And Tina is like, “Whatever.” And then suddenly, Jenny’s dancing with Jodi. And Bette is super paranoid, and she’s like, “I need to tell you this thing, because Jenny’s crazy.” But then Alice interrupts to ask if Jamie is being weird.

Riese: Because Jamie and Tasha are kind of flirty, and they’re laughing together. But what this brings us to is a device that I dislike. I know that, Carly, you dislike it also, which is that, after the interruption, Tina’s like, “What were you saying?” And Bette is like, “Nevermind. It’s nothing. I’ll tell you later.”

Carly: That’s not how people are in real life.

Riese: I would not be able to proceed with my life until she told me what she was about to say. I wouldn’t be like, “Okay. Yeah, let’s just talk about it later.” I’d be like, “What is it? Tell me now.”

Willam: Tell me.

Carly: You brought it up!!!!

Riese: Tell me!

Carly: It was important a minute ago. So that’s ridiculous. Oh, it’s already time for our first 15-minute break.

Riese: Also, in addition to the music being terrible, this garage band terrible music, it has nothing to do with the decade that they’re supposed to be dancing, blah, blah, blah. The dancing itself doesn’t go with the music, either. So the dancing is painful. They’re sort of just going like this.

Willam: Those poor extras were dancing in a silent room. You please don’t assail them. I used to do that. They’d play three second of Q-Tip Vivrant Thing on my first job when I was 17 for MTV. Then they’d shut if off, and they’d be like, “Keep going.”

And it was a crane shot, and a girl had to get out of a car with a cast on her leg. And they shot it like 18 times. It was raining. It was January. And baby, that’s how I got my SAG card. Night shoot.

Carly: You earned that SAG card there.

Willam: Honey, I earned it. Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, everyone is just dancing in silence. That’s how these things are filmed. The whole episode is in this location, so this was just days and days of filming with having to dance in silence. I cannot imagine how awful that was.

Riese: Those poor souls. Poor, poor innocent souls. Bathroom!

Carly: So it’s 15-minute-break time, so everyone goes to the bathroom, and Bette finds Jodi. But again, it’s so dark, I think it’s Jodi. And then—

Riese: They’re at the sinks.

Carly: Yeah, they’re at the sinks, and Jodi’s ignoring her, which I thought was great.

Bette talking to Jodi in the bathroom saying "Did she say that we slept together? No"

Riese: Jodi says that Jenny told her about her and Kelly, and Bette’s like, “But nothing happened.” And Jodi is like, “That’s not what Kelly told me.” And poor Bette, she’s just scrambling with this one.

Willam: Girl, they’re giving it to her.

Carly: I love that Jodi just showed up to … is just creating drama, and then she’s like, “See you on the dance floor.”

Riese: Yeah, “Bye.” “I feel sorry for Tina.” Yikes, okay.

Carly: “I dodged a bullet. Okay, see ya.”

Riese: Also, call Kelly. Get your phone out. Call Kelly. Straighten this shit out. That’s what I would do.

Carly: I would be like, “I’m on a 15-minute break. I have time to call her and yell at her.”

Riese: Yeah.

Willam: No, Bette would rather kill Jenny.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Literally. Literally that. I would be like, “What the fuck did you tell Jodi? I would be texting up a Goddamn storm. I would be in full blood-boil rage mode.

Carly: They say it’s time to do line dancing, but then we see these dancers on stage, who are super committed to what’s happening. They are going full-out choreo, but it does not look like a line dance, but okay.

Riese: No, but they have different color shirts on.

Carly: Yeah, everyone has different shirts of different colors, and made think of a Captain Planet vibe. I was like, “Good for them, saving the planet.”

Riese: Yeah, they all, “Power, earth, air, water, lighting.”

Carly: I sort of found it humorous how all of our cast is line dancing, but also talking about their personal drama with each other. That was sort of funny.

Willam: Yeah, super convenient. What a great way to tie up multiple storylines at once, without even having to cut.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: There’s no better way to tie up a storyline than putting people in lines.

Carly: Also, it should’ve been way too loud to have any of those conversations. But that’s just, whatever.

Riese: Not at our over-30 club.

Carly: At our over-30 club, the music will be a reasonable volume, and there will be plenty of seating.

Willam: That place sounds disgusting. Don’t ever trick me into going there, Carly.

Carly: All right, fine, I won’t. I promise.

Willam: Just going to be you and Oscar in corner.

Riese: It’s going to be lit.

Carly: It’s going to be the saddest place, but I’ll be there.

Willam: I’ll text.

Carly: Yeah. Yeah, there’s more exposition about—

Riese: Jenny really wants Bette to tell her.

Jenny: Did you tell her?
Announcer: Number 32. You’re out.
Bette: Your fucking girlfriend.
Shane: Please, please. I know. You can’t leave me here.

Carly: Yeah, Bette and Tina are moving to New York.

Shane: Can’t believe you guys are moving to New York.
Bette: Who said we’re moving to New York?
Alice: What?

Carly: Jenny’s making crazy eyes at everybody. Alice is stressed out about Tasha and Jamie.

Alice: Do you think there’s something going on between Tasha and Jamie?
Helena: I don’t know.

Carly: Whatever.

Riese: And she’s like, “Should I be stressed out about Tasha and Jamie?” And everyone is finally like, “Yeah, maybe.”

Carly: “Maybe.” Think about it.

Riese: Because yeah, maybe. My note says, “Why is there no good music here?”

Carly: A really good question.

Willam: None.

Carly: Because they spent all the money—

Riese: I think they used their whole budget for [singing] Back to life, back to reality, and then nothing was left.

Carly: I think the whole music budget went to that.

Willam: Yeah.

Carly: That’s what happened.

Riese: How hard is it to just buy a song?

Willam: They did have “Push It.” They said that—

Riese: Oh, “Push It.” Yeah, that’s true.

Willam: They said that that little 10 seconds of Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” was like $100,000 in Bring It On. 10 seconds, so it was $10,000 a second. But that song was the only song for that part of the movie.

Riese: They could’ve gotten some queer artist.

Willam: Very true.

Carly: I thought you meant for Bring It On. And I was like, “Not…”

Willam: There’s a fag in that for sure.

Carly: That’s true. There is.

Willam: In the stage musical, there’s a drag queen character named La Cienega, because they made me audition for it, and I was like, “I am not going to get a character named La Cienega ever.” This was when it was workshopping, and I was like, “I am not reading for this, and I also can’t dance. I’m very Caucasian. A severe case.”

Carly: You’re like, “No, thank you. It’s a pass.”

Riese: “Severe.”

Willam: I was like, “Thank you so much, but no.”

Carly: “But no.” So now, we’re in full costume change. I appreciate how many times everyone is changing their costumes.

Willam: But no one came in with a garment bag!

Carly: Thank you!

Willam: And where did all these rolling racks come from?

Carly: Where is this from?

Riese: The back. The dressing room. The hidden dressing room at Hit Club, because most—

Carly: Yeah, how this nightclub has a full dressing room, but we’ve never seen any sort of production here.

Riese: Yeah, they also built a stage. Niki Stevens shows up. Basically, if you took the ruffle off of … What’s the thing that goes around your bed?

Willam: Bed skirt.

Riese: A bed skirt. Yeah, you take 10 bed skirts, wrap them around, and then you take a Macaroni Grill apron, and you tie it around. And then you have a dress, and Niki Stevens is wearing it tonight to this event.

Carly: Incredible.

Willam: Yeah, why?

Riese: And then she just bee-lines right for Shane.

Willam: Why did she have that little black piece of fabric on there? I didn’t get it.

Riese: It looked like an apron!

Carly: Yeah, it was weird.

Willam: There was some over styling.

Carly: Yeah, it was too much. Shane and Niki are flirting heavily, and then it’s time for another competition round. I really don’t understand the format of this event. Now, couples are coming out to do dances, and everyone is changing their outfits.

Willam: Again.

Carly: All I wrote is, “Alice is embarrassing and Shane complains.” I don’t actually know what happens here. That’s all I wrote.

Riese: Alice is dressed up in her costume. She says she’s going to kick Bette and Tina’s ass. Shane is not excited to dance. Shane is passive-aggressive about her relationship with Jenny, that she doesn’t like. There’s some white Canadian straight extras out here doing some ballroom dancing. Then, Shane and Jenny do their dance, I have questions about Jenny’s hair.

Willam: After she cut it, they just kept putting weave in it.

Carly: Yeah.

Willam: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. Shane looks petulant the whole time.

Carly: Yeah, Shane just wants to die a little bit, it seems.

Riese: Yeah, it ends with Shane just topping Jenny. That was the only good part. Mixed results from the judges over there.

Shane on top of Jenny onstage after completing their dance

Carly: I think I took a screen of one of these, where two of the judges had really high marks, and then one judge had a 2.5. And I was like, “Did they all watch different performances? That is not even close to what the other two did.” I think she just has it out for Jenny or Shane, is what it is.

Riese: It’s 10, 7.5, and 2.5.

Carly: Yeah. What? That’s ridiculous. How did that even happen? Their whole routine is a lot of sexy spinning and kissing, and that’s the whole thing.

Riese: It’s like that.

Carly: Yeah, and then we’ve got an Alice and Bette showdown backstage, because they’re very competitive.

Alice: What are you looking at?
Announcer in the background: Get up, get down with this next group, ladies and gentlemen. Jump around.
Alice: I didn’t know Dance Fever was back on the air.
Bette: Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Kris Kross was looking for a new member. Hey, Al?
Alice: Huh?
Bette: Nice camel toe.
Alice: Fuck.

Riese: Yeah, when she’s like, “I didn’t realize Kris Kross was looking for a new member,” which doesn’t make sense, because if she was Kris Kross, her pants would be backwards.

Carly: Her pants would be on backwards.

Riese: Everyone knows that.

Carly: It’s a true fact about Kris Kross.

Riese: It’s a true fact about Kris Kross. They missed the bus and their pants are on backwards.

Bette tells Alice "nice camel toe" as Alice is walking away from her

Willam: They’ll make you jump.

Carly: Yep, exactly.

Riese: Yep, exactly. That’s fact number three. Bette is being overly competitive. And then Alice is like, “I can’t do it. I don’t have rhythm,” and Tasha and Jamie are like, “We have to do it.” Tasha’s like, “You were the lead in West Side Story.” Oh, God.

Carly: I have a lot of questions about that.

Willam: Was that the same one Lea Michele was going to be the lead in?

Riese: Maybe.

Carly: Maybe. What if Alice—

Willam: Was Alice going to be Tony? Alice would never be a Maria.

Carly: Never in a million years.

Willam: Alice would be Officer Krupke.

Riese: Wait, but who’s the girl who followed them all around?

Willam: Nobodies, or Anybodys, or something. Something body.

Riese: Yes, nobodies. Anybodys.

Carly: That would be Alice.

Riese: Yeah, that would be Alice.

Willam: Yeah, definitely. Maria.

Carly: Maybe an understudy for that.

Willam: A third understudy for Maria.

Riese: Maybe she could be a swing.

Carly: Yeah, she’s a swing at best.

Willam: Yeah.

Carly: And then, Tasha says that she put on a turquoise onesie for her, and she needs to fucking get her head in the game, and I thought that was funny.

Willam: Tasha’s fine.

Carly: She is so gorgeous.

Willam: Honey, when she yells at Alice too, I was like, “Good. Shut the fuck up.”

Carly: Their dance routine to “Push It” was very entertaining, and Tasha came alive in this moment. She is always a very laid-back person on the show. And her performance here, I was like, “Oh my God.” I was very into it. They did great.

Riese: 10, 5.5, 9.5.

Carly: Yeah, every time, there’s one judge, and it’s a different judge every time they cut to the judges, that is giving a wildly different score than everyone else. And I’m like, “Okay, somebody is … Everyone has a lot of issues with—”

Willam: Somebody’s mad.

Carly: Yeah, a different judge is mad at a character every time, I think. And we don’t get any of that backstory, which I think is a real lost opportunity.

Riese: I think that this dance routine is maybe one of the last good moments of this entire series.

Carly: Yeah.

Willam: Yeah.

Jamie, Alice and Tasha humping the stage for "Push It"

Carly: So then Shane and Niki are hooking up in a bathroom stall, which — whomst among us hasn’t done that?

Riese: Who cares?

Carly: Then, we get one of the most ridiculous moments in the history of The L Word.

Announcer: We only get five minutes to pee.

Willam: They only gave us five minutes to pee. It’s like, “We already established that breaks were 15-minute incremental instances.

Carly: Exactly, and I would say, it’s your own fault for wasting the first 10 minutes if that’s what happened. You could’ve been in the bathroom line sooner.

Riese: Yeah, get over there. But also, Bette and Tina … Obviously, this moment, the hot moms doing their dance, was just a delight for all the Bette and Tina fans out there, which was probably half of the viewers. And then, this show dared to intercut this sexy moms dance with Shane and Niki having sex in the bathroom. Bold.

Carly: And then plots, like Dylan showing up and talking to Helena. Who gives a shit?

Riese: Come on, just let everyone have their hot moms dance!!! They’ve sat through this entire season. Give it to them!!!

Tina dancing to "Back 2 Life / Back 2 Reality" looking very hot and sexy

Willam: And they didn’t do one Flashdance reference. How?

Carly: Yeah, come on.

Willam: Come on. Not even a drop of water?

Riese: Do a homage.

Carly: No chair. There was not a chair to be found.

Riese: I sold the dress that Tina is wearing in this scene for $800.

Willam: Word.

Carly: Wow. All right.

Willam: That gray gunmetal one?

Riese: It was a dark purple. I feel like there were different colored straps on the back maybe. It came down mid-shin. Anyway, that funded Autostraddle for probably three months, because that’s how we were then.

Carly: I will say that “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)” by Soul II Soul is actually one of my all-time favorite songs. It is on a playlist on my Spotify, entitled Best Songs. There was a period of time where it was the only song on that playlist, and then I was like, “Oh, I should add other songs.” That’s just a little insight into me.

Willam: Remixes of it.

Carly: It’s just remixes and covers.

Riese: 10, 9, 8.5

Carly: Bette and Tina being so serious about this dance is so … I remember the first time this aired, watching this, and just being completely beside myself, like, “What am I watching?”

Willam: It’s like a chimp got a Choose Your Own Adventure book with a bunch of lesbians, because none of the plots are working right now.

Carly: I will say that Jennifer Beals’ arms and shoulder area is still very hot.

Riese: Yeah, she looks great.

Carly: She looks great. She always looks great, because she’s Jennifer Beals. And then the final contestants, because of the storyline, is of course Jodi and the person she’s dating. I thought they did fine, but everyone’s going on and on about how great they are, and they get a perfect score, and they win.

Riese: Marlee Matlin had been on Dancing with the Stars the year before this.

Carly: Oh, that makes sense. She’s great. We’re big Jodi fans. Big Marlee Matlin fans, here on To L and Back.

Willam: I love her.

Riese: I mean, she looks great, as usual.

Carly: Yeah. So then, suddenly we’re at a buffet. Seriously, what is going on?

Riese: Buffet time!

Carly: The dressing room is now a buffet? Sure.

Riese: It reminded me of the documentaries about sex clubs from the ’70s, where it would be like, “Yeah, this is the room where everyone had sex on giant mats, and then this is the room where we had a buffet.”

Carly: You gotta keep your energy up. You need protein. Important.

Riese: I wonder what they had in there. Potatoes.

Carly: It was hard to tell because of the lighting. There’s a mention — I don’t remember who said it, but someone said that they had been practicing for this for months, but they only—

Riese: The gallery opening was last week.

Carly: Right, this event was put together in like three days. No one was practicing for months, but sure. Alice is really sad because Jamie and Tasha are laughing. I don’t know. Everything is stupid.

Riese: Did you notice that everyone was dead?

Carly: What?

Riese: On the dance floor. They went back out. They had a wider shot of everyone on their break, and it looked like everyone had died. Everyone was lying down in weird … right?

Carly: Yeah, most were laying down.

Willam: Oh, yeah. It was the end of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? 100%. Honey, what have you done?

Carly: You’ve been dancing with plenty of breaks for food and water.

Willam: Plenty.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah, you just had a buffet.

Carly: What are you exhausted from?

Willam: Why?

Carly: Yeah.

Willam: But why would you sleep on the floor of an LA club? Ugh. Get hell up. There’s way better ways to get hepatitis.

Carly: Yeah, no, it’s so gross.

Riese: The floors are probably so sticky.

Carly: There was that funny bit where Niki’s friend is like …

Friend: Niki, 12:00. No, the other 12:00. Behind you.
Jenny: Hi.

Carly: And I was like, “Oh, it’s funny because she’s stupid.” Okay, so Jenny’s whole conversation with Niki is so unhinged.

Willam: And then she tells her friend, “Move.” That was my favorite part, because I’ve fully done that. I’m like, “Move, move, move. They’re going to sit there.”

Riese: Move out of here.

Willam: Yeah.

Carly: Jenny’s idea is that Niki should auction off a date with herself to heal her public image and raise money for a good cause.

Willam: I thought this was a great idea, but I was, “It’s fucking crazy girl Jenny. This has got to have some strings to it.” And when it did, I was very satisfied with that payoff. That was nice. But I’m like, “Where does Jenny get this coin?” Was it because she worked on that movie, or wrote a book, or something a couple seasons ago?

Riese: Oh, she wrote a screenplay in two days and sold it to a studio—

Carly: For $500,000.

Riese: For $500,000 retail.

Willam: Oh, she’s Joe Eszterhaus, okay. Oh, she’s just got writer bank. Got it.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Everyone knows writers are rich.

Willam: Rich. So rich.

Riese: My favorite part of this scene was also when Jenny’s like …

Jenny: You have a reputation for being shallow and vain.

Riese: Niki’s like …

Niki: No, I don’t.

Riese: Then, she’s like, “Yes, you do.”

Jenny: Yes, you do.

Riese: And just kept going. And she’s like, “Doing this is so much better than just donating.” You know what? I disagree. Just donate.

Carly: Just donate your stupid money. Who cares?

Riese: You were in some action film three seasons ago.

Carly: Right, whenever the fuck that was.

Riese: Just donate. Be the Gigi Gorgeous of this event, and just donate $25,000 on your own.

Willam: I love it when any Getty puts their hand up, because I’m like, “Word.”

Carly: Yeah. You’re like, “Oh, I can’t wait to see how many zeros there are in this.”

Willam: This auction is hot now.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Willam: Yeah.

Carly: It’s getting interesting. Then, we have this scene with Helena and Dylan. They’re outside, Helena tells the story about boarding school where she snuck off to kiss a girl named Bridget Christenson, which is a real boarding school girl name.

Riese: Yeah, this is, mhmm.

Carly: Big time. That is a girl that went to a boarding school. Yeah. Maybe there was a bird, and she fell off a roof. And then, Dylan says that Helena’s gambling with her heart. And I was like, “Oh, that’s so cool, because Helena used to have that gambling problem.” But they do not address that.

Dylan and Helena are outside and Helena says she is still "gambling with her heart"

Riese: Oh, yeah. No, they don’t.

Carly: No.

Riese: Someone should’ve been like, “It’s better than when you were gambling with money.”

Carly: Yeah, that would’ve been cool. And then when you went to jail, remember all those cool things that happened that we don’t talk about on the show? So it’s great. People are still dancing, but it’s sad, it’s getting sad. And Niki drunkenly runs on stage to announce that she’s going to auction off a date with herself.

Riese: And she makes really good pancakes, which I don’t believe for one second.

Carly: I don’t believe that at all. That could not be true. And then Jenny Schecter shouts, “$25,000,” and runs up on stage. And there’s a great ADR moment, where you hear Alice go…

Alice: Mother fucker.

Carly: Which I thought was really funny. And then, Jenny—

Riese: What a move.

Announcer: Let’s give it up ladies and gentlemen.
Jenny: Can I just say something? Shane, you don’t have to fuck her in a bathroom anymore. You don’t have to sneak around. I don’t want you to do that, so I bought her for you. So you can have her whenever you want. Thank you.
Announcer: Well…
Alice: Holy shit.
Announcer: DJ, turn up that music, please. Everybody dance.

Carly: Oh, wow. This is…

Willam: Uncomfortable.

Carly: Oh, very.

Riese: Wouldn’t you be thrilled though?

Carly: If I had been there, I would’ve been so excited.

Riese: Me too.

Shane looking confused in the crowd with her arms crossed as Jenny, offsrcreen, says "you don't have to sneak around anymore"

Carly: Because watching other people’s drama play out publicly, I mean, what’s better than that? Especially if they’re lesbians. Oh my God, but wow.

Riese: “I bought her for you.” Oh my God.

Willam: “You can fuck her.”

Carly: “You bought a person?”

Willam: Yeah, I love this scene. This was great.

Carly: This was very entertaining.

Riese: It was so unhinged.

Carly: And like you said, a really nice payoff from the earlier scene.

Willam: They said, “Mia, go get a piece of the stage, and just really gnaw at it. No, chew harder, honey. You can chew harder. No, this is the last season. We don’t even need these sets anymore. Chew it up, baby. Chew it.”

Carly: Yeah, who cares? “Chew it up. Spit it out.”

Willam: And Mia chewed the fuck out of it.

Carly: Emmy for Mia.

Willam: Did she get one?

Riese: Emmy for Mia. No.

Carly: No, she was never nominated, but we’re on a campaign to get her—

Riese: No, we’re hoping that maybe eventually—

Willam: Retroactive.

Carly: Retroactive, I mean.

Riese: Yeah, retroactive Emmy or a Lifetime Achievement Award, but mostly clips from this.

Willam: I tried with Matthew. Didn’t work.

Riese: For the lesbians of West Hollywood, this series began with Melissa Etheridge’s wife making a big banner that told everyone to beware of Shane McCutcheon all over the major party spots. And now, they’re like, “Now this girl is buying a movie star for Shane.” And Shane never says anything, you know what I mean? So she’s got to be quite a little legend.

Carly: Shane is just making this what-the-fuck face, which is the only appropriate response.

Riese: Right, because I would be like, “Save that $25,000 for us. We could get a chemical peel and three days at The Parker in Palm Springs.”

Carly: Yeah, there you go. That sounds way better than whatever Niki’s going to do.

Riese: Right, some cocaine. I mean, they’re young. I’m old. I wouldn’t want cocaine, but they might.

Carly: At the time, I would’ve wanted cocaine.

Riese: Yeah, at this time in 2009. Jenny’s like …

Jenny: Listen, I don’t care. You can fuck whoever you want whenever you want. Fuck Niki. Fuck whoever. I know that you need it. It doesn’t scare me, because I know you, okay?

Riese: Which is a little bit twisty, but okay.

Carly: Yeah, you could tell Shane’s like, “Wait what?”

Riese: “Are we poly?”

Carly: But I feel like she’s considering it slightly, but is like, “This feels like a trap, but it’s—”

Riese: Yeah. “So you’re totally okay with it, but you just—”

Carly: “But you’re doing this publicly on a microphone, and you spent $25,000 after you bought me a photography studio.” Did anyone catch the music? The song playing — I had to look up the song, because the lyrics, it sounds like they were just saying “chunky love” over and over again? And I was like, “What is this song?” But it’s “junky love.” I thought it was “chunky love,” because that’s very much what it sounded like. But it’s by the electronic band named Client, which I do remember being a fan of in my Club Kid cocaine era, so that makes sense. It’s interconnectivity.

Willam: 2020 was crazy.

Riese: I know. It was wild. Yeah, it was wild. Everyone was really on a bender.

Carly: So next morning, dance marathon is still going on. It’s just the most sad, depressing place at that point.

Riese: Who pledged them? Each other?

Carly: Yeah, but it’s still really dark in there, despite that it’s the morning. So whatever. Another awkward Bette and Jodi moment backstage. Bette congratulates her on her win, and just word vomits. She just won’t shut up. She’s like, “I just don’t know why I care.”

Riese: I would a hundred percent do this if I was her. A hundred percent. I could feel it. I could feel it. Since that first conversation with Jodi, she’s been like, “I really don’t want Jodi to think I cheated on Tina. This is really bothering me that Jodi thinks I … ” It’s just constantly running. Constantly running. “You know what I’m going to … I’m just going to talk to her. Just get it off my mind. Just get it off my mind.”

Carly: Yeah, this is Bette.

Riese: And then I would, and she would look at me like, “You’re insane.” And I’d be like, “I know, but I just want you to know that I might be insane, but also, I didn’t cheat on Tina.” I would do this, hands down. Or I’d be composing a little text message waiting.

Willam: In Notes.

Riese: In Notes.

Carly: A Notes app apology.

Riese: Yeah, I would be in Notes like, “Sorry if this sounds a little unhinged, but—”

Carly: And then just proceed to write a really unhinged thing.

Riese: Yeah, and then send them a big text wall, and they’d be like … No response. And I’d be like, “I deserve it.”

Carly: They’d just leave you on read, and then you would just sort of go crazy.

Riese: Yeah, I’d continue to … Then I’d start writing notes.

Carly: You’d send more things, is what you would do, right?

Riese: No, then I’d start writing more things, but just for myself.

Willam: You send them the .gif of Jon Snow looking up at the wall for the first time whenever you get a text like that.

Carly: You’re like, “Read this, or don’t.” This awkward conversation is just awkward, and Jodi’s like, “I don’t care. I don’t care about any of this. Good luck. Bye.”

Riese: But she kind of does.

Carly: No, she totally does, because she wants to stir up some shit, which is great.

Riese: Vindicated. Yeah, which again, I would feel. If I were Jodi, I would want to believe this was true too, because you’d want to be like, “Ah-ha, they didn’t change. They hurt the next person too.”

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Maybe I do sound unhinged. Jodi says, “We start every day trying to be better, and the problem is in the execution,” which is like, “Okay, Yoda. Sure.” And then Alice … Has someone ever woken you up from a nap to ask you if you have a crush on their girlfriend?

Willam: That. I was like, “This would not be the time for that conversation,” because even if you wanted to, you knew you wouldn’t get to sleep again. So you’d value your one last night of restful sleep before your world turns fucking upside down. That is not when you answer it. No.

Riese: No.

Carly: No. Bad timing.

Riese: No.

Carly: This was terrible.

Riese: Plus, I’m honest when I first wake up, and I’m mean.

Carly: I’m just not really with it. It takes me a while to really—

Riese: I’m just like, I was finally able to—”

Carly: … be able to talk?

Riese: … reprise from this crazy world. Anyway, Jamie basically is like, “Yeah, but I wouldn’t act on it.”

Carly: And then, in a very jarring moment, we cut to a bus depot.

Riese: For Pacific Coachways, everyone’s favorite bus to Nevada.

Carly: Bette and Tina are here to pick up Marcy. They talk about the New York City thing again. “Oh my God, we have to apply for schools. Whatever, we’ll come back to this in a second.”

Bette and Tina in the front seat of their car talking about moving, Bette says "i love our friends"

Willam: Got Trader Joe’s flowers.

Carly: Yeah, very, very much Trader Joe’s flowers.

Willam: A bouquet for each. She was going to have bags. What was going to carry them with?

Carly: How is she going to carry that?

Willam: “Here, we got you these flowers. No, you hold them.”

Carly: “What am I supposed to do with these flowers?” So we go back to the dance marathon, and here it is, the big reveal. Sunset Boulevard is Sunny Benson, the man from the gallery.

Kit: You just can’t come up on the stage. You were at my sister’s gallery.
Sunset Boulevard: I was. Most of you know me as Sunset Boulevard, but my real name is Sunny Benson. And I’m a straight man, who loves his gay and lesbian family. And I hope they can still accept me.
Kit: You lied to me.
Sunset Boulevard: But I tried to tell you.
Kit: You lied to me.
Sunset Boulevard: I never lied to you.
Kit: You are a con man.
Sunset Boulevard: I never lied to you, girlfriend. You assumed—
Kit: You are a con man. I trusted you. I told you things that I would never tell a man.
Sunset Boulevard: What did you think I was? The dress didn’t change the fact that I was a man. You trusted me because you felt I could be trusted. Give me a chance. I know I have you at a disadvantage. And I know, I know more of your stories than you know mine, but I’d love a chance to fix that.
Kit: I—
Sunset Boulevard: Kit Porter, you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, and I’d love nothing better than to take you to dinner, and get to know you better.
Kit: Okay. I don’t know.

Willam: In the library with the candelabra.

Riese: And the eyeshadow, it is.

Carly: Everyone on the show just wants to get on stage, grab a microphone, and publicly make declarations that are much more suited for a private conversation, but this is a good show.

Kit in a Cleopatra get-up in the audience as "crowd gasps in shock"

Willam: This straight man loves his gay and LGBTQIA family ally. And he would love to take you to dinner.

Riese: I laughed out actually. I was like, “Ha!”

Willam: This was a farce. And like a man could look like that after getting out of drag that quickly. We look like hamburger after we get out of drag, honey. We have to scrub glue off of our face and our eyebrows. We don’t look like him. He looks nice.

Carly: He looks moisturized and he was beautiful

Riese: Radiant.

Willam: Tall drink of water.

Carly: Oh my God. Yeah, he is straight man who loves his queer family. It’s a whole thing.

Riese: Loves his gay and lesbian family. This was the biggest laugh for me of the episode, because also, you expect straight people to write lines like that, but come on.

Willam: “I’m a straight man … ” What the fuck?

Carly: You know the writers too were trying to be subversive again, and they were like, “What if the drag queen is straight?”

Willam: “Is straight.” Raises for everyone.

Carly: Oh my God, we might get a seventh season off of this.

Willam: Honestly though, the Boulet Brothers had a straight drag queen, I think, and that was interesting. Disasterina, I’m pretty sure he’s straight and he does drag as performance art. I think he has a girlfriend. One of the other ones has a girlfriend too. I think Gothy Kendoll, maybe. One of the UK ones.

Carly: Yeah, wasn’t-

Willam: Or Baby Rabbit or something. Freckles. She’s got some baby persona.

Carly: A baby persona.

Willam: Or a little girl.

Riese: Maybe they should’ve had one of those people play this role.

Willam: Honey, they weren’t born yet.

Carly: Well, this is 2009.

Willam: These new kids are young.

Riese: Also, Kit consistently … If they’re in the writers’ room, then it’s like, “Let’s give Kit a boyfriend, but let’s try to think about a way to make it a little bit different.”

Carly: Different.

Riese: First, it’s Ivan, who, we don’t really know Ivan’s gender.

Carly: He performed as a drag king, but—

Riese: Oh yeah. She’s going from drag king to drag queen. Look at that. That’s an arc. That’s a character arc.

Carly: Look, we’re pushing the envelope here The L Word.

Riese: Your standard evolution.

Carly: Yep. So she tells him that he’s a liar and a con man, and in return, he asks her out on a date, which is a great way to start a relationship.

Riese: I would be mad too, because this whole charade has gone on for too long. Not, she should’ve known it, but this has been dragged out by the show for far too long. It should’ve been a two-episode thing. One episode where she doesn’t know, one episode where she knows. This has been going on this whole time, and that’s too much.

Willam: Farce.

Carly: There’s no way she would not have known, yeah. So we go back to the bus depot, and I’m just like—

Riese: Obviously, she’s not on the bus.

Carly: Obviously, she was never getting on that bus, but don’t you think Bette, knowing who Bette is as a person, is so mad that she’s at a bus depot?

Willam: Would’ve texted.

Carly: Yeah, no, no texts. No email. No phone call. Nothing. No, no Marcy. Marcy’s not coming to California.

Riese: On the bus, at least.

Carly: But guess what? The dance marathon is still going on. We’re back for our final scene of the episode. Tasha and Alice are slow dancing. They have this emotional moment. Alice loves her. She wants her to be happy. Does she want to be with Jamie? Tasha’s not ready to let Alice go. And then, obviously, the logical thing here is a throuple. I don’t know why they’re not just facing this head on. That would make so much more sense.

Riese: Yeah, no one ever wants to give me what I want in a TV show, which is always, every time, a throuple.

Willam: Write your own. I’ll be on it.

Riese: Perfect. Perfect.

Willam: Done.

Carly: Done.

Riese: I think it’s—

Carly: Hired. Green lit.

Willam: What time is my call? Monday, right?

Carly: 7:00 AM.

Riese: 7:00 AM. Well, you know what? I’m a different kind of director, writer. So I’m going to say 9:00 AM.

Carly: Look at you.

Willam: I’m a drag queen.

Carly: Willam will be there at 10:15. The episode ends with Alice and Tasha being crowned the last couple standing, which is the title of the episode, and just wow. Way to really wrap it up.

Willam: Poetry.

Carly: Wrapping it up, and that’s the episode. What did we think of this episode?

Riese: Do you think that Jenny and Shane got… because now Jenny gets to have one date with Niki, right? That’s what she auctioned off.

Carly: Yeah, how did they—

Willam: Yeah, and—

Carly: I would love to see how they left this building.

Willam: Did they have a credit card machine to run the card from the donations? They didn’t have Venmo back then. Who was handling the financials?

Carly: I bet Jenny wrote a check.

Willam: Girl.

Riese: They next morning, they were like, “Oh, wait. Did we do the financials somehow?” Then they’re like—

Carly: They were probably like, “Well, Alice was in charge of the event, and we figured she was handling the financials.”

Willam: She was busy changing her wigs.

Carly: Then they realized she did not collect any of the money, and they made no money. That’s what happened.

Willam: Alice had this great Entrance fall on, and then took that off to put on this flat little — I was like, “No.”

Riese: Yeah, her hair looked great in the very beginning, and then it was just this cycle of bad.

Willam: Bad.

Carly: Or bad and then worse wigs. Overall, how do we feel about this episode? It’s absurd and very bad.

Willam: Yeah, 5 out of 10.

Carly: That’s generous. I feel like that’s generous.

Riese: Yeah, that’s generous.

Willam: Well, a lot of effort went into it, at least.

Carly: That’s true. The wardrobe department had a lot to do this week, and good for them.

Riese: And they did it poorly.

Carly: It was their time to shine. They did not.

Riese: But the piano thing. I loved the piano jumpsuit. I loved Tina’s dress, because I made $800 off of it.

Carly: That’s great.

Riese: Thank you, SHOWTIME, for all of your support of me and my work!! I just really remember thinking, “Oh, wow. This was a good episode,” in the abyss of Season 6. But upon rewatching it, I was just like, “Actually, no. This is another bad episode.” It’s just that there’s dancing music, so basically like Glee, where it was like every episode was bad, I like singing and dancing. Right, I could just imagine this as a scene … a string of music video covers, connected by plot or whatever. Yeah, it was unfortunate for all of us.

Carly: No, it’s very bad. Terrible.

Riese: Someone should’ve thrown a drink.

Carly: There could’ve been a drink-throwing moment in this episode. That would’ve helped it. That would’ve been great. But it’s bad. It was very bad. Willam, any final thoughts on this episode?

Willam: The only way out is up, I feel like. So I feel like next week will be better. It’s going to be graduation for you ladies.

Carly: Yeah, we will be done. We will be done.

Willam: So you’re going to be set free. Set me free. Break these chains. All that.

Riese: They’re going to imprisonment, potentially. We will be freed.

Carly: Freed, like birds.

Willam: Definitely.

Riese: And so will Jenny.

Willam: Well, if you have any free time, you can go listen to my podcast, Race Chaser.

Carly: Willam, tell us more.

Willam: Yeah, and then there’s one called Hot Goss. You can listen to that one. Then, there’s Very That, with Delta and Raja, and then Sloppy Seconds with Meatball and Big Dipper, and Wanna Be On Top?

Carly: Wanna Be On Top? with Shea Couleé.

Willam: Wanna Be On Top? with Shea Couleé. We got a couple more that I don’t think we announced yet, but I know I’m missing one. Oh, The Chop with Latrice and Manila. And if you’re in London and you’re listening to this, I’m doing a show over there for three months, Death Drop with Latrice. So go get tickets.

Carly: Oh my God, going to be so good. I am very sad that I won’t be London, because it sounds fucking awesome.

Willam: Yeah, I think it’s going to be sickening.

Carly: And you’ll be back on a real stage.

Riese: In front of human beings.

Carly: With an audience and everything.

Willam: They don’t tip though, because it’s a theatre.

Carly: Yeah, that’s at a theatre.

Willam: But it’ll be fine. I’ll put my Venmo on the bottom of my shoe or something, and display it to the audience. “Tip me!” Disgusting. I have to go put on makeup though to go to another job, though, but thank you for having me on your podcast, Carly and Riese.

Riese: Thank you so much.

Carly: Thank you for being here.

Riese: Do you want to tell us real quick where people can find you on the internet, socially?

Willam: Just look at the bottom of the can. Pour out the water, and then I’m the dregs. I’m right there on YouTube. Just look up Willam. I’m on Instagram and Twitter as Willam too. I’ll see you there maybe.

Riese: Thank you so much for being on our podcast. We really appreciate it.

Carly: Yes, thank you for joining us. You’re the best.

Willam: Of course, thanks for L Wording!

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter, we are @tolandback. You can also email us to tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message, it’s (971) 217- 6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle.com.

Carly: Alright. And finally, it’s time for our L Words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually, these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three. Loose leaf.

Carly: LaLa Ri.

Willam: Lollobrigida.

Carly: Riese, what did you say?

Riese: Loose leaf.

Carly: Like the paper?

Riese: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Willam: Oh, that’s a double contraction. That’s good.

Riese: Thank you. Double points on Scattergories, yeah.

Carly: Willam, what did you say?

Willam: Well, bitch, I got Lollobrigida.

Carly: I said LaLa Ri because I really liked her music video on last night’s reunion.

Willam: She’s great. Her wig was full lace. She had baby hairs in the back.

Carly: She looked amazing.

Willam: Sickening.

Carly: And that music video was really… That song was legit.

Willam: Yeah, it was really good.

Carly: Yeah. Anyway, thank you all for listening!

Riese: Thank you so much!

Carly: We will be back in two weeks with the series finale of The L Word, if you can believe it. It’s happening. Cool, thanks, bye!

Riese: Bye!

“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 606: Lactose Intolerant with John Bellamy!

Well folks, we’re finally here: episode 606, Lactose Intolerant. Educator, artist, writer and self-described “Professional Black Transgender Person” John Bellamy (who taught an entire class about The L Word and I got to be a guest speaker!) joins us for this wild ride of an episode which includes a Willy Wonka themed baby shower for a very unhappy Max, Kelly and Bette shaking it but not baking it, Tina using a phone in New York, Tasha and Alice boning while Jamie’s in the shower and Jenny getting Shane a photo studio to develop the one photograph she has taken in her life!! It’s really bad you guys, oompa loompa loompa-dee-do.

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Riese: A podcast.

Carly: That you’re listening to right now.

Riese: Yeah, and we’re recording it right now, so I’m going to listen to it later.

Carly: But these are actually two different completely different times. When you think about it, what is time? It’s like time doesn’t exist and I think that that’s something really important—

Riese: Yeah, it’s a flat circle.

Carly: … to our lives currently and also to this show that was made many years ago.

Riese: Yeah, this is a show about time.

Carly: This is a show that has decided to air this episode in the past and now we have to talk about it. We had to watch it, and now we have to talk about it. This … Oh my God.

Riese: Yeah, so everyone give us a big round of applause.

Carly: Yeah, first of all, we’re all really brave.

Riese: I’m patting myself on the back.

Carly: I’m not but, because there’s some self loathing mixed into that. But we’re really brave to have made it this far and then had to sit through this episode. Wow, what an hour of television.

Riese: What an hour.

Carly: What an hour.

Riese: Carly, we are not alone.

Carly: We are not alone. Emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and also physically because we have a very special guest today.

Riese: We sure do. Would you like to introduce yourself, very special guest?

John: Hi, I’m John. Sometimes folks call me Donnie. It just depends on when you met me in time, speaking of time.

Carly: Oh, a theme.

Riese: Right, yeah.

John: I always know when someone met me in life, depends on which name they use. So I’m like, you knew me in undergrad. Got it. But I’m John, I am a professional Black transgender person. I just renewed my papers the other day. They sent them out at the end of Black History Month for everyone.

Riese: Oh wow, that’s so cute!

John: I don’t know if they do that in the Jewish community, but that’s what they do for Black folks.

Riese: No, I haven’t been certified.

John: Right.

Riese: I have my Bat Mitzvah certificate.

Carly: But I didn’t even have a bat mitzvah, so I’m really … I’m just—

Riese: Right.

John: You’re just like a Nomad out here, basically.

Carly: Yeah, I’m really, just gone rogue.

John: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, tell us about you!

John: I usually spend my time selling my labor as an assistant professor of gender studies. That’s what I do to pay bills, but I think of myself as an artist and a writer. So I’m trying to get back to that. But I teach gender studies, I teach stuff on trans issues, feminist praxis, and I taught an entire class on The L Word that Riese came and talked to last semester. So that was kind of fun.

Riese: Yeah, I did. It was really fun.

John: I am that professor who made up a class about The L Word, because—

Carly: That’s amazing.

John: It was an entire semester of trying to explain to them that gay marriage hasn’t always been around, because they were literally born in 2001.

Riese: Wow.

Carly: Wow.

Riese: Oh my God.

John: Yeah. So yeah, that’s me and I just write a lot and I’m trying to quietly leave my job so I can go do something else.

Riese: So you don’t want to keep teaching L Word class?

John: If I have to teach, that’s the good thing to teach, I’m sure. If you have to be at a small liberal arts college in upstate New York, you might as well teach about The L Word and get paid for it.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

John: But that’s me, I just teach and write and try to figure out … I’m in my Saturn returns, so I’m trying to figure out my life and where it is.

Riese: Oh yeah, of course. Totally. That — speaking of time.

John: Your late twenties are hard, so.

Carly: Definitely.

Riese: So what is your L Word origin story?

John: I’m going to age myself in a different way. But I remember sneaking to Hollywood Video when I was 11 and my mom wasn’t paying attention so that I could rent The L Word on the low. And I went up to the checkout counter and the dude was like, “I heard this is just like Sex and the City. You’re going to love this.” I don’t think he’s ever watched The L Word. I was like, you love it, and he’s telling me this. So I was like okay dude, just fucking hurry up. So I remember sneaking and watching the first season and then I found out about thelwordonline.com and I would go and see the recaps at the public library because we were super poor and I didn’t have internet at home. And then when the second season came out that’s what I would do, my one hour a day that I got at the public library I would go and read the recaps and try to put the screenshots together with the words.

Carly: Oh my god.

John: And then later as I got older, I think in high school we got cable and it came with six months of free Showtime. So I got to watch season three and I saw Dana die. And I was 14 and Dana died and I was so crestfallen. So I was super young. I’m one of those weird people — it changed my life. I’m still teaching classes about it. So it’s one of those.

Riese: Yeah.

John: But yeah, I was a kid and I was just obsessed with it and the playing a podcast and the forum. They’ve got all this stuff online. Now as an adult I’m just like, that probably was weird to have me lurking around as a teenager. But I’m from Southern Illinois and I didn’t know any queer people there. So it was a life changer.

Riese: Right.

John: It’s super problematic now, but I have this weird affinity for it that I can’t get over. Which I think is most people’s relationship to the show.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, that’s definitely ours.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Obviously as here we still are, in addition to writing recaps for The L Word online, I just seem to not be able to get enough speaking about this show. But I thought I knew it by heart from all the recapping. I didn’t. Now I know it by heart.

Carly: Oh yeah.

John: Yeah, that’s my L Word story. Obsessed but kind of hate it.

Carly: That tracks.

Riese: Who’s your favorite character?

John: Jenny, I’m 1000% Jenny apologist.

Riese: Yes!

Carly: Oh God. Oh no, I got to leave.

John: I was just thinking last night that I don’t know if—

Riese: Although that is bad now. Look at season six, it goes out the window. She’s just bad.

John: I don’t know if I love Jenny or if I just have a lot of respect for Mia Kirshner. The lines are really — it gets really blurry for me.

Riese: Emmy for Mia.

Carly: Emmy for Mia.

John: Yeah, so I was just like, wow she is just leaning into this. I feel like, in a different time, people will respect Mia Kirshner the way that they do Jodie Comer for playing Villanelle. You have to just lean into that nonsense in a way. I don’t know if we respected Mia Kirshner enough.

Carly: We definitely didn’t, when this aired.

Riese: We definitely didn’t because she never got an Emmy, and every year there’s another award ceremony for the Emmy’s and every year they don’t give her an Emmy for The L Word.

John: I think maybe the SAG union might do something for her.

Carly: Yeah, they need to do a special… yeah.

John: Anyway, I love Jenny. I’m a Jenny apologist.

Carly: She definitely took material that was ridiculous and found a way to elevate it, despite everything.

John: Could you imagine being on set and getting those scripts and they’re like, and now you spit your gum out. Yeah, so I don’t know if I just love Mia Kirshner or if I love Jenny. But, I stand for her.

Riese: Fair.

John: I got a lot of weird vibes with students about Jenny because they all hated her.

Riese: Right. I remember that from your class.

John: And they’re making valid points, I can’t actually mark them down but my defensiveness is coming into it.

Carly: Like, “Actually, if you think about it this way.”

John: No seriously, and just like really if you think about heteronormativity and how Tim treated her.

Riese: I respect this point, but I also don’t.

John: Yeah.

Riese: Should we introduce the ep?

Carly: Okay, here we go. This is Episode 6.06.

Riese: The moment we’ve all been waiting for.

Carly: The moment we’ve all been waiting for. The title we’ve been waiting for for years. This whole podcast has been leading up to this title, Episode 6.06, Lactose Intolerant.

Riese: Lactose Intolerant.

John: Which is just racist. Most of the country and the world is lactose intolerant. Yeah, I was just like, I feel already the violence based on this.

Carly: This is just … Oh God, it’s only downhill from here. This was written by Elizabeth Ziff, AKA EZGirl.

Riese: Oh God.

Carly: And directed by John Stockwell who has directed some episodes in the past. As far as we know he is a straight cis white man.

Riese: Great.

Carly: This originally aired February 22, 2009. So, are we ready to go on this journey together, friends?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, we’re ready.

Carly: All right. Listeners at home, here we go.

Riese: Imagine you’re a person, you’re a normal person, you’re sitting at home, you turn on the TV, you’re watching a TV show about lesbians and you hear, “Oompa loompa—”

John: “Doompety doo.”

Riese: … “doompety doo”.

Carly: You might be asking yourself, did I accidentally change the channel? Did I sit on the remote?

Riese: I hope so.

Carly: I hope so too. No, you didn’t.

Carly: They paid whatever they had to pay to get this song for this episode.

John: Elizabeth Ziff fought for this. You know she fought for this.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, Elizabeth Ziff fought for this.

Carly: Her and Betty were in there and they’re like, “If we have to do a cover of Oompa Loompa, we will.”

Riese: And they were like, “Okay no, we won’t do that”.

John: They’re like, “Mia take over. Lead the chorus on this.”

Carly: Oh my God. Also the whole time I was like, none of them can sing? It just felt so—

John: All these lyrics, also.

Carly: Also that!

John: Were the lyrics written into the script? Or does it just say, “Sing Oompa Loompa song”?

Carly: My guess is that the lyrics were in the script because no one knows all the lyrics to the song. And this goes on for a while. They do a full verse, a full chorus. This goes on for minutes.

Riese: So the idea is that Jenny’s throwing Max a baby shower.

Carly: Right.

Riese: And apparently Max is a big fan of Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and therefore, that’s the theme that Jenny has chosen for this event. And her whole house has been decorated.

Carly: It looks like Jojo Siwa’s bedroom.

John: Do they even like Max enough to throw him a party?

Riese: I think we’re going to get to that aren’t we?

Jenny and Max at the Willy Wonka themed baby shower

Carly: That’s, honestly the most ridiculous thing that I heard was that they actually cared enough to throw him a horrible party, even though it was again, a horrible, horrible party.

John: They don’t know this human well enough to be a part of this very private, vulnerable moment of a life coming into the world.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: This week’s, “I want to kill Jenny!” situation is that Dylan and Helena show up, they’re all giddy, they’ve been making sweet love in the silence for days, presumably. And they come in and Jenny’s like, “Oh my God”.

Jenny: You passed the test with flying colors. I’m so happy for you!

Riese: And just keeps telling about this stupid test thing that they did in the plot to watch her, and of course Dylan is horrified by this — however, just as a side note, it would be completely legitimate for them to want to test Dylan. She literally ruined … The test was stupid and it was all very silly, and I understand her being whatever about it. But also if you sue someone for sexual harassment that you got on video as entrapment, and then you want to get back into their lives, I think your friends are allowed to have—

Carly: Some misgivings or some apprehension there, maybe. Like a little.

John: Could you imagine you and Dylan just got done cunnaling-ing together, you’re in bed, the California sun is basking on you. And then you turn to Dylan and you’re like, “We have to get up so we can go to Max’s Willy Wonka baby shower.” That’s the thing you interrupt with.

Carly: You’re like, “actually I heard it’s Wonka themed. Wow, so a bunch of adults are holding an event for an adult that’s Wonka themed? Yes.

John: And how did she explain this to her lover that she just got back with… this is what we must spend our day doing?

Carly: I think Dylan is so desperate to stay in Helena’s good graces that she was like, “I will literally do whatever. I won’t ask any questions.” Because I think if she had asked one question this may be the one.

John: This literally was the party of “bring everyone who doesn’t belong.” Because they bring Jamie and Tasha’s like, “Max won’t care.” And I’m like, Tasha doesn’t know Max well enough to know what he would care about.

Carly: Yeah!

Riese: Yeah, no one knows. No one knows.

John: She literally gives a stank face.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: So Helena says …

Helena: I’m going to fucking kill you girlfriend!

Riese: Then we have the theme song. We get back in, Jenny is putting Max on a throne that she has built for him and offering him milk and cookies.

Carly: He’s dressed in the finest Wonka drag we could find. It’s just—

John: That paisley shirt.

Carly: … incredible.

Riese: I know, the paisley shirt with that blazer. I’m like, come on you guys! Let this man wear one cute outfit. One!

John: No, that would be kind. You’re asking too much, Riese.

Carly: Yeah exactly.

Riese: Apparently they picked out their own clothes for the first season they were in, in season three. But then after that they didn’t, which you might notice there’s a distinct shift after that first season where they’re no longer—

John: That explains a lot.

Carly: Yeah that does.

Riese: Yeah. And Helena’s freaking out and Kit’s like, “You know what you should do? You should call her.”

Carly: As if she hadn’t thought of that.

Riese: And Helena’s like, “Great idea!”

Carly: Yeah, I thought that was really funny.

John: It’s ingenious and I won’t stand for this Kit slander.

Carly: Kit is a genius. Kit is a genius. We know this.

Riese: What was she working on prior to the idea of the call?

John: She was running down the street.

Riese: Oh running down the street.

John: Lighting off smoke signals.

Riese: Yeah, screaming.

Carly: Screaming, “Dylan!”

John: Right.

Riese: And just, once again, Bette Porter, her sleeves — is there any mercy? Can the woman wear normal sleeves at all in this season of television? It’s like a shirt and then it’s like a mini garbage bag that starts right below … Did you catch this outfit? The shirt?

Carly: I was so preoccupied with how no one was talking to or about Max that I couldn’t even notice what Bette was wearing, actually.

John: No, I’m sorry, Carly. At one point they were just in a circle on the other side. The couch was a divider, they couldn’t go near Max or they would catch the pregnant or something.

Carly: Yeah, it’s like Max got the throne and the weird outfit and they were like, “Great. You sit over there, we’re going to go back to talking about all of our interpersonal drama because we’re a group of friends and you’re not part of it.” It was so weird. And then suddenly they’re like, “Oh right, Max is here.”

John: Riese, you know what? Bette went to make those sleeves after Max got there. That’s what it was.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Oh yeah.

Carly: Oh my God, you’re right.

Riese: She was inspired.

Carly: Oh my God, you’re so right. She was like, “I’m so inspired.”

John: Or the butterfly came and did it. One of the two.

Riese: Yeah, it was probably the butterfly effect.

Carly: I think we should really consider, once again that perhaps this shirt had regular sleeves, and once again, the proximity—

Riese: It was altered by the butterfly.

Carly: …to the butterfly shirt.

Riese: Exactly.

Carly: Exactly. It just flapped it’s little terrible wings, and then suddenly Bette put the shirt on and was like, “These sleeves are different.” But she couldn’t be bothered because she was just so distracted by the contractor, that we’re going to get into, who is not a real person.

Riese: Yeah, can’t wait for that.

John: My 7th grade Earth Sciences teacher.

Carly: Definitely a gym teacher I had in middle school.

Riese: So they’re playing this game, they play this game with the measuring tape where they’re measuring the belly or whatever and guessing. And the cute thing about this is that Shane goes up to Max holding the measuring tape and Shane’s like—

Shane: I’m sorry Max.

Riese: … and then does it half heartedly. Shane’s just like, ‘I’m really sorry that this is happening to you. I’m sorry that this event is what it is. I’m sorry that I have to do this right now to please my girlfriend. I’m just sorry.” And then Shane won.

Carly: I’ve always had this problem with baby showers, in that I don’t understand them. I understand wanting to celebrate that someone’s pregnant and showering them with gifts that they will need for their baby. I do not understand the actual event because there’s games, and none of the games make sense. Most of them are weird and gross in some regard. Like, the chocolate thing I think is vile.

Riese: Yeah, that was disgusting and I don’t want to talk about it.

Carly: I don’t either. That’s all I will say on the subject. But, I’ve never understood baby showers already. So coming into this, I was like, what planet is this taking place on?

John: Not this one.

Carly: No, definitely not.

John: My favorite part is that everyone plays as an individual and Bette and Tina play as one.

Riese: Yeah they do, they’re merged.

Carly: They’re trying to really drive home that they are a couple for real now.

John: They’re a “we” the entire time. No other couple does this.

Riese: Yes!

Carly: Nope.

Riese: This was fan service

John: But Bette and Tina become one item. That’s the only thing I notice about the baby shower.

Carly: That’s fair, and also all the other couples are in a weird place. Tasha and Alice can’t admit how they feel about Jamie, Shane doesn’t know what to do with Jenny, and Dylan just left. Are there any other couples? That’s it.

John: Yeah, Kit’s there chilling.

Carly: Yeah, Kit’s just there.

Riese: And Kit’s there. And so we get some exposition about Tom, because they’re like, “Max, Tom’s such an asshole. How dare he do this?” And Max says that Tom changed his phone number.

Carly: Both.

Riese: I have two comments.

Carly: Two. Two phone numbers.

Riese: First of all … What? We have been given nothing. This is not just like, “Oh you broke up.” This is hardcore terrible, terrible sociopathic behavior and they’re acting like he’s just a bad boyfriend. Two, he legally is going to be in this baby’s life. He can’t just walk away from it and change his number. He is going to owe this baby money.

John: Like Joe Biden owes us money.

Carly: Exactly. That baby’s going to be like, “Pay up. $1,400 please.”

John: Could you imagine changing both of your phone numbers?

Carly: I’m like, are we talking about a landline? Are we talking about a cell phone and a landline?

John: I’ve had the same number since 5th grade. Who puts in that much labor to change their fucking phone number?

Carly: Did he move also? Is he still in LA? Is he hanging out with Jodi? Where’s Jodi?

Riese: I’m like, right, you both live in West Hollywood, you work for Jodi, you’re never going to see Max again?

John: Well Carly University is shut down right now, so we can’t go there.

Carly: Carly University is shut down because Bette doesn’t work there anymore and where is Phyllis?

Riese: Bette left and the school evaporated into the air.

Carly: Which is a real shame because it is named after me.

Riese: So Shane and Jamie are smoking weed in the kitchen and Jamie’s talking about how Alice really loves Shane, and she’s just upset about the Jenny stuff. And then Jenny comes in like a narc, she makes them stop smoking weed, she’s like, “Max is upset about it” blah, blah, blah, blah. And again, I hate this direction for Jenny and she comes up and sits, she sits next to Shane and says, “Oh I got you a present,” blah, blah, blah, blah blah.

Carly: She looks like she’s about to cry, but is smiling and just making a lot of eye contact. Everything about this is very upsetting to me.

Riese: Yeah.

John: I wrote down “Jenny has anxious attachment style.”

Riese: Yes.

Carly: 1000%.

John: She’s just like, “I just love you.” And she’s just freaking out because Jamie embarrassed her.

Riese: Yeah.

John: And I just felt so bad, I wanted her to get some therapy.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: The existence of Jamie has turned everyone’s brains inside out. No one knows how to function around Jamie.

John: We’ve never had an Asian on the show.

Carly: Yeah, they’re like, “Whoa, what is this?”

Riese: Right, this is the first queer Asian person any of them have ever met, which is a big deal.

Carly: The way the show writes Jamie’s character in these episodes is like she has this magical insight into everything that no one else seems to be able to notice. And on the one hand, it’s like yeah, sometimes when a new person enters a group they bring a different perspective and they can see things that everyone else was too entrenched to see. On the other hand I’m like, is she a magical creature?

Riese: Yeah, like that trope.

John: She’s Yoda 2.0 from Westworld.

Carly: Oh my God.

John: They took Shane from season two, put her in Jamie, shipped her to the lot, now we’re at the baby shower.

Carly: Holy shit.

John: Yeah, you’re welcome. This is insider knowledge that I’ve never told anybody else.

Riese: Wow, wow.

Carly: My brain just—

Riese: Exclusive.

Carly: … blew up. That was—

John: That’s what it is. I literally was like, she’s the smart one now.

Carly: She’s a Westworld. It makes so much sense. I knew that Westworld and The L Word were in the same cinematic universe. I’ve known this.

John: Well because they had to test the robots first. So they just put them in all these other shows when the shows started getting bad.

Carly: Oh my God, and that explains why Jenny’s personality is constantly shifting because they’re just rewriting her programing, aren’t they?

Riese: Yeah, they are.

John: Her and Helena.

Riese: Yeah, and also she has trauma and no one cares, which is also like Westworld.

Carly: Very much. Very much.

Riese: Then they’re opening up presents, and there’s a little part where they hold up a onesie that has a devil picture on it and Alice goes, “Oh, it looks like Jenny.”

Carly: That was the only part of this episode where I was happy for a fraction of a second.

Riese: And then Bette and Tina obviously bought Max an $800 stroller, probably.

Carly: The transformers of strollers that turns into a bunch of other things.

Riese: Yeah, I thought it was funny. I thought it was cute when they were presenting the stroller and being like, “And here’s an informational DVD.”

Carly: Bette read the whole manual and I was like yes, because she is a Taurus because I also read the manual.

John: She literally, Tina goes, “It’s light.” That was my favorite part.

Riese: That was such a good—

John: I was hoping that Laurel Holloman improvised that line. For whatever reason, she was just like, “It’s light.” And I was like, that matters because—

Carly: Let’s say she did. I think she did.

Riese: Yeah.

John: I want to give Laurel Holloman credit.

Riese: Yeah, and I also feel like Max has clearly done no research on anything related to babies, because if someone gave me that stroller at my baby shower, I would be like, holy shit. I have the world’s fanciest stroller. You just saved me the $200 I would have spent on a much worse stroller. Now I have a better stroller.

Bette and Tina presenting the stroller

Carly: The vibe is that like Max is very unprepared because he is very overwhelmed because he doesn’t want any of this to happen and it’s all happening very quickly, and his boyfriend just left and changed both of his phone numbers and he’s being misgendered left and right at this fucking baby shower.

Riese: Right, suddenly no one knows his gender anymore? Like everyone suddenly … Even Kit says “she” at one point, and Kit is his buddy.

Carly: Yeah.

John: Didn’t him and Tom go to classes, though, together?

Riese: Yeah.

John: I just remembered that as you were talking.

Carly: 100%.

John: I was like no, he’s been prepping for this in some capacity.

Riese: The feeling I got was that once Tom left, it broke him and he stopped doing—

John: He didn’t have a cis man in his life so his brain didn’t work anymore.

Carly: That’s what it is.

John: Got you.

Riese: What is going well for Max right now? Literally nothing. And then so everyone’s talking about birth and how he’s going to have his birth or whatever. The funny part about this is, if you just pay attention to Mia Kirshner through the whole scene, she wants Max to open up the present that she got him so badly. She’s like, “Can you open the present? Can you open the present?” Everyone’s talking, she’s like, “Open it. Open it.”

Carly: She’s putting it in front of his face like, “Look at the present!”

John: Actually though, if I was experiencing transphobia and someone offered me the opportunity to open a present instead, I’d open the present.

Riese: Yeah, but then the trick would be the present was just a vehicle for additional transphobia.

John: Oh yeah right, I forgot it was a fucking breast pump!

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Then everyone’s like, “Well actually Max, you’re being really selfish for the baby if you don’t breastfeed.” And then he looks like he’s going to have a panic attack, and then he does.

John: They literally say, “No, trans person, listen to me. I know better than you.”

Riese: You know what’s interesting, though? So we had Thomas Beatie on our show — I guess it would be two episodes at this point, two episodes ago — and so I was reading about him and his pregnancies and stuff, and his wife breastfed the baby that he gave birth to. Somehow you can get the hormones from being around a newborn and you can be able to breastfeed.

John: Also, not to go into the kink world of kink worlds, but we know people that can induce lactation all the time and they’re not pregnant. There are ways to breastfeed a baby that doesn’t involve Max’s chest.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, there’s ways to do it. Anyway, then Alice gives a speech, this is also funny. The thing is, the essential element of this baby shower is so problematic and so upsetting, the way Max is being treated is so problematic. But at the same time, this is a comedy forum for some of these actresses in a very weird way, because Alice gives this whole speech that delves into basically her talking about herself.

Carly: And then it turns anti-Jenny, also.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Basically like, “I can’t wait to see your baby turn out to be not Jenny,” is basically the basis of her speech.

Alice giving a baby shower toast that ends with "that this child will not grow up to be a thief"

Riese: Yeah, paying no attention to the fact that Max is dying inside.

Carly: Max is starting to sweat, he looks pale, he is looking for an exit, he’s starting to take off his jacket. He’s like, “Get me the fuck out of here.”

John: And Alice is just going on about whether or not you should circumcise your baby.

Riese: Yeah right, she’s like, “You have to make these questions.” And then he starts to basically have a panic attack and he collapses on the floor and then begs Bette and Tina to take his baby.

Carly: And then everyone shouts various pills.

John: Lexapro is not fast acting!

Carly: No, Lexapro is a daily thing you take and it builds up in your system.

John: All of us are like, “That one’s not going to do anything.”

Carly: That’s incorrect. You’re going to want a Xanax or an Ativan.

John: Like give him some Klonopin or something.

Riese: Klonopin.

John: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah exactly. Yeah, you can’t just give someone a Lexapro.

Carly: That’s nothing, that’s like giving them a piece of candy. What’s that going to do?

Riese: Yeah. Give him a Lexapro, maybe he’ll feel better in three months.

John: Also I felt so bad for Max because it’s just like, you must be so desperate to think Bette and Tina of their relationship that you want to give your newborn over to.

Riese: But also why won’t they take it? If Max doesn’t want it, I think they should take it because first of all Daniela Sea is hot, Tom is also hot. It’s going to be—

Carly: Like a hot baby.

Riese: It’s going to be a hot baby.

John: I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they wanted a biracial child that reflects their family and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m going to try to be generous and not say it’s—

Riese: That’s true, you’re right.

John: Right.

Riese: You’re right.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Yeah, that makes sense.

John: I’m going to try.

Riese: But also, does he know that other people could adopt his baby?

John: No.

Carly: No he doesn’t.

John: This is why he only has them as friends, he doesn’t actually know other people exist.

Carly: I think they’ve been holding him hostage in the garage, in the shed and he doesn’t know that there’s a world outside.

Riese: Yeah, he still lives in a tool shed with no bathroom. So morning sickness, peeing all the time, all of that just has to take place in the backyard.

John: Season six is a documentary about Stockholm Syndrome.

Carly: 1000%.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And then we see … I couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but then we see Max in the bathroom and he’s fully topless. The show is just so—

Riese: Obsessed!

Carly: … determined and yes, obsessed with his body, determined to make him uncomfortable in his body at all times.

John: Can I talk about this for a second?

Carly: Please.

Riese: Yeah.

John: Okay. Next month I’ll have been on T for literally a decade. Literally a fucking decade. I have never seen any trans person that was trans masculine that had an entire beard, but the rest of their body was a slick as a fucking seal. He’s as smooth as his unborn child. He didn’t have any hair on his knuckles. There’s no hair anywhere else on his body.

Carly: It’s just that beard.

John: I was like, how? Does Max go get waxed from the neck down and then that hair gets put on his face? That’s how he has such a thick beard?

Carly: Yeah.

John: I’m sorry, I’ve never seen any human that was on T that didn’t have some kind of body hair, even if it was super fine.

Carly: Yeah.

John: I was mesmerized.

Carly: The beard is the most mesmerizing thing. That fucking beard.

John: That’s my expert opinion as someone who studies testosterone. I’ve just never seen that. I’ve never seen that before.

Carly: Right, because this is a work of science fiction.

Riese: It is.

John: It’s Westworld again. That’s what I’m saying, I can’t believe … I was, how does he have that much facial hair and not a lick of body hair?

Carly: If the show really wanted to be cute about this, next episode the beard should be fully back in. He shaved it, it completely grew back in right away.

Riese: Right, even though he’s not on testosterone anymore because he had to go off it to not hurt the baby or whatever.

John: Well I was going to say, that’s the thing, if you get to a certain point depending on your genetic makeup, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you can stop T and you can continue to grow facial hair. It doesn’t get as thick for sure, but it’ll start coming back and whatnot. You’ll have a nice little five o’clock shadow. But they just didn’t take any time to do basic Googling and it just … Now as an adult I can’t believe that I thought Max was the trans dude to look up at.

Riese: Oh my God.

John: I’m embarrassed for my younger self.

Riese: He was the trans dude, period. He was it, the one.

John: So thank you all for letting me go on that rant about his body hair, because it bothered me.

Carly: No, we need to talk about this body hair.

Riese: This is important. This is the insight that we require. But good news for everybody, especially the makeup department, because this is going to save them at least 45 seconds a day that they stopped putting that beard on poorly, is that he is now shaving off the beard, which I did feel like was the show being like, well now he’s accepting this femininity and getting rid of his facial hair to embrace it. I felt like that was their angle there because that’s their obsession.

Carly: Yeah, I feel like this was the show’s, like—

John: “You too can de-transition if you try hard enough.”

Carly: Yeah absolutely, that’s what it felt like. They were like, “Ha ha, we won.”

Riese: “We made him back into a woman.”

Carly: Yeah, that’s what it felt like. It was very …

John: You all don’t know your ovaries make your gender?

Riese: I wasn’t aware of that but I am aware of it now and I feel really empowered.

Carly: Well I’m confused because I believe I do have ovaries, but I have a complete lack of gender.

Riese: That’s really weird.

Carly: So what am I doing?

Riese: I don’t know, ask Jenny maybe.

Carly: I’ll ask Jenny.

Riese: Then we go to—

Carly: Our favorite person, it’s Joyce! She’s back.

Riese: Joyce fucking Wischnia.

John: On a Blackberry.

Carly: On a Blackberry, she’s meeting with Bette and Tina about the adoption and she is texting Phyllis how bored she is on her Blackberry.

Riese: That was funny.

Carly: That was funny. And Joyce is barely listening and just wants to talk about how she’s engaged to Phyllis and that Gavin Newsom is going to officiate.

Joyce's phone, texting Phyllis that she's bored to death

Riese: And then she’s like, “The adoption should be fine.” And then they mention Nevada and she’s like oh, and she pulls out her Nevada pamphlet that was sitting on her desk and is like—

Carly: She pulls out her lawyer cheat sheet book.

Riese: Oh, gay people can’t adopt a baby in Nevada. So you’re going to have to get her to LA to give birth here in LA.

John: Because there’s no pregnant people in California that—

Carly: Zero, there are zero. They don’t exist.

John: They weren’t just at a baby shower where someone offered to give them a child in the state of California.

Carly: They literally have a child offered to them in a few months that is here and they could adopt, and everyone would be happy. And instead they’re like, “Maybe we have to fly this girl, or have to drive out from Nevada. I think that’s what we have to do.”

Riese: Why are they going to Nevada in the first place? Max aside, there’s plenty of people who are pregnant who don’t want … Adoption, foster care, there’s plenty of people who are having babies they don’t want to raise.

John: I think you’re being pretty rational about this.

Riese: But it seems like the whole Nevada device exists to get Marci to LA for some reason, but since I only watched this season once in order to recap it and never rewatched it because it’s such a shit show and not until today I don’t remember what happens with that but—

Carly: I also don’t.

John: I don’t want to spoil you but I will say this: I feel like it’s just there to be preachy. So I taught this class on The L Word, and again, these students could not fathom that even, however long ago, in 2009 or whatever, you couldn’t just adopt wherever you wanted. It just felt so heavy handed to me that they just wanted to, “We know Barack Obama’s been elected, but just a reminder things are still shitty.” And I’m just like, it’s two episodes left. Where are going with this?

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, you’re right. Because also it’s the same, when they went to Nevada—

Carly: They’re like, “Nevada’s bad.”

Riese: Yeah. And when they went there it was her parents were homophobic, so it was this whole, “it’s still terrible out there and we’re still fighting for our rights” or whatever.

John: Also they’re racist which is why she’s giving up the baby, because it’s half Black and she doesn’t want her parents to know.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, they’re like, luckily here in LA we’re all very tolerant. For example, meet our first queer Asian friend, her name is Jamie. She’s magical.

John: We got rid of Cathy so we could bring in Jamie.

Carly: Riese, that was such a good segue, once again.

Riese: So, the throuple. Speaking of Jamie, the throuple is returning from their workout. They’re sweaty, they’re pumped. Tasha, again, happier than she’s ever been in the whole series. Jamie’s going to go home and shower. “Don’t go home and shower!

Carly: “That’s going to take forever!”

Riese: “You should just shower here!” And so she changes in the bathroom and Tasha sees her taking her clothes off. Oh my God, are we going to watch Jamie take a shower? We are. And then Tasha gets on top of Alice and they start fucking. And I loved it! This is the one part of this episode that I was like, this is hot. I was into it.

John: Okay, I have another question because I just have so many questions this entire episode.

Carly: For sure.

John: What about her panties? Did Jamie just go commando after the shower? I don’t think she put on her post workout underwear again, right?

Riese: Maybe she did.

John: I had so many questions about what clothes did Tasha give her.

Riese: A FREE CITY t-shirt.

John: Yeah, okay we know that, $300 t-shirt.

Carly: I assume Alice’s closet is only FREE CITY t-shirts.

John: Maybe she has new underwear with tags on them that she has for when guests need to shower?

Carly: “We love having our friends shower here. We just keep a whole cabinet full of brand new underwear for you.”

John: Like toothbrushes under the sink.

Carly: Toothbrushes and underwear, yeah.

John: I just wondered. I was like, Jamie needs fresh bloomers. I am concerned about here nether region and what she was going to do when she left. That’s all I kept thinking about.

Carly: I’m an obnoxiously particular person about this kind of stuff. This bothered me so much that they were like, “Just shower here,” because if that was my friends, I’d be like, “I’m leaving. I’ll see you later.”

John: Peer pressure — “You will bathe, and you will do it here.”

Carly: I was like, don’t bully me. Don’t bully me into showering at your home. I don’t want to shower at your home. I have my products at home, I have to shower at home.

John: And my other question, what are the acoustics of this apartment?

Carly: That’s a great question.

Riese: Okay, that was a little bit … She’s in the shower and she can hear them having sex.

Carly: No.

Riese: The bathroom is here and then the kitchen is between the bathroom and the living room, and then we have the whole entrance of the living room and then we have the couch. There’s no universe in which she’s hearing them have sex.

John: Jenny didn’t hear Alice and Shane blowing on balloons and her telling her to break up with her in the same living room, but Jamie heard them softly moaning via her shower. I just want to know who’s in the sound department at The L Word, I’m just wondering.

Riese: No one.

Carly: It just seems a little unrealistic.

John: Yeah, my disbelief has to be suspended.

Jamie just got out of the shower and is listening to "muffled moans from the other room"

Riese: My complaint was that — so Jamie gets out of the shower and she can still hear them having sex and she just waits in the hallway while compulsively pulling her hair back into a ponytail and then letting it go and pulling it back and putting it in and letting it go, which kind of reminded me of me because I’m always fiddling with my hair. But I thought that Jamie — because again I forgot this episode — I thought Jamie was going to start masturbating in the hallway and I was really excited about it, but she didn’t.

Carly: Then I thought she was going to masturbate when she sat on the couch when they went into the shower together, then she didn’t and I was like, this show is really disappointing.

Riese: Yeah, where’s the shower/masturbating representation in this show? It’s not there.

John: Jamie totally masturbated though when they went in the shower together. If you go back and look at her face when she sits down on the couch—

Riese: Oh yeah, you’re right.

John: … when they just got done fucking, she is so sedated and happy. She throws her arm up and she’s just basking in their post sex vibe. She did—

Riese: Yeah, you’re right.

John: It’s in there, Riese.

Riese: Yeah.

John: They just didn’t put it on film.

Carly: I hope so, because that’s—

Riese: And why not?!

Carly: Yeah, why not?

Riese: Okay, then we go back to Bettina’s.

Carly: Oh God. So here we have a new character.

Riese: I want to die. I quit. I quit the podcast.

Carly: You know how we’re always talking about how there’s no butch representation on this show?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: There still isn’t, because this is not a real person. This is the contractor, her name is Weezie and she is the butchest looking person that’s ever stepped foot on the show.

Riese: Straight out of my mom’s potlucks.

Bette & Tina's butch construction worker is doing something with a chainsaw and talking about "massaging the boys"

Carly: Oh my God, I love that. And she is aggressively heterosexual. So much so that she sexually harasses the guy on her crew that’s standing right next to her.

Weezie: Actually we’re ahead of the game ladies. I guess my guys do more than just look good.
Bette: Actually I just wanted to give you the heads up that we’re expecting a house guest for about a month or so. So it is critical.
Weezie: Oh, so I might have to do some massaging of the boys. That’ll get them to pull in some extra hours. Just one of the perks of the job I guess.
Bette: Can I — Weezie, actually I wanted to talk to you about the master bath. There was supposed to be a wraparound deck.
Weezie: Oh yeah, I changed that. It’s not going to happen. But don’t worry, I talked to the architect. He’s a handsome fellow. I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for leaving crumbs.

Carly: What the fuck?

Riese: She is so thirsty, she talks about liking men. Heterosexuals are pretty into themselves, but she talks about liking men—

Carly: Oh man. This was just … I don’t even have words. I guess they thought this was funny.

Riese: What’s the point of this?

Carly: Yeah, what is the point of this? Also, Weezie is only credited for this episode so we don’t even get her in future episodes. Truly what is the point of this?

John: She literally looks like my 7th grade earth sciences teacher though. That’s the thing though, if this show was set in the Midwest, I would have believed that Weezie could have been straight. I know a lot of women that look like that and they have three children and they help their husband on the farm.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: She definitely had the energy of my middle school gym teacher who was of course a lesbian.

John: So they were being subversive Carly.

Carly: The show is so subversive.

Riese: I know they really were. This was such a subversive episode. They were really just like lampshading everything. And there’s also exposition here about Marci coming to stay, and there’s also … I felt like it was Tina and Bette are joking about Weezie, Woozie bat or whatever her name is together.

Bette: Okay, I am so confused. Are you confused?
Tina: Oh, I’m very confused.
Bette: She’s a dyke right?
Tina: I don’t know.
Bette: She doesn’t know she’s a dyke.
Tina: That’s because she’s a yikes.
Bette: Yikes. He’s a handsome fellow.
Tina: Oh shit. That’s mean. That’s mean.
Bette: That’s crazy.
Tina: She’s doing a good job.
Bette: She’s awesome.

Riese: And that was supposed to be cute because of this Bette and Tina love each other fan service they were getting this season.

Carly: Yep.

Bette and Tina talking about their construction worker saying "she doesn't know she's a dyke"

Riese: Which is great for people that are really into that, which is most people. So I’m going to pretend like I am too. It was good. It’s sweet to see a couple that actually is functioning.

John: To be mean to other people. A couple that teases together stays together.

Carly: Right, that’s a big rule.

Riese: That’s something to bond over, is hating the same people.

John: She said that in the elevator.

Riese: Right, she did. She said, “We hate the same people.” They just want to talk shit about Jenny together and make fun of this Woozie bat.

Carly: Woozie bat.

Riese: Speaking of unexpected things, it’s a surprise for Shenny.

Carly: Why are women on this show always surprising Shane with stores? Cherie Jaffe got her a salon. These are expensive things, you have to enter in a lease for at least 12 months.

John: It’s LA. I don’t live there but I heard y’all’s real estate is ridiculous.

Carly: It is!

Riese: It’s pretty expensive. It’s pretty expensive.

John: Even in 2009.

Carly: A West Hollywood store front on a busy street, are you crazy?

John: Just to make art? She’s not even doing anything in there, I don’t feel like.

Carly: She’s never taken a photo. She said she was into photography, she took a photo.

Riese: Robin had to share her studio with three other people.

Carly: Yeah, she did. And she had been a photographer for over a decade.

Riese: Like a professional photographer.

Carly: A professional photographer.

John: How much money did Jenny get for this book and this movie?

Carly: Oh the movie she got half a million dollars, for the new movie, the movie that she just sold. But they wouldn’t have paid that entirely out to her yet.

Riese: No, that would be … Yeah. Shane’s like, “I haven’t even been taking that many pictures, Jen”, and I’m like yeah, exactly. Also at the end of the day, she’s an — ”amateur photographer” is generous. She’s a professional hair stylist, though. So if you were going to buy her a storefront, I know it would be repetitive because Cheri Jaffe did the same thing, but if I was to buy her a storefront, I would probably err on the side of hair salon.

Carly: I would not purchase real estate for anyone. That’s just me.

John: Well you all are not interested … Carly you need to learn to—

Riese: We don’t know what love is.

John: Right, you need to love bomb like Scientology teaches us, and buy people storefronts so they know you care.

Riese: Buy Robin a store.

Carly: Nope, that is not my love language.

Riese: Buy her a Subway. Buy her a Subway sandwich. Get into it.

Carly: Buy her a Subway franchise.

Riese: Yeah, buy her a Subway franchise. That is love. Then we go to Bettina’s where, exposition, Tina is going to New York for some meetings relating to this movie that she wants to get off the ground. For some reason Woozie bat is still here at night, it’s nighttime.

John: Everyone’s just creeping in this episode. Like Jamie’s creeping—

Riese: Right, everyone’s creeping.

John: Jenny’s creeping, Weezie’s creeping. I was like, there’s so much creeping happening right now.

Carly: But Bette doesn’t know she’s still there. Bette’s like, “Why are you here? Go home.”

Riese: That’s her house.

Carly: You should know at all times the number of people in your home.

John: Well Bette was busy checking her IM messages earlier, so she didn’t know that Weezie was still there.

Bette: IM me okay? Don’t forget.

Carly: That killed me. “IM me, don’t forget.” Isn’t IM’s what got you guys in trouble last time?

John: Yeah, seriously.

Carly: Yes.

John: Did anyone notice Weezie’s rat tail moving?

Carly: Oh I did.

John: Like ever other second in this scene.

Carly: That rat tail was at least a foot long. It was glorious.

John: One moment it’s on the shoulder, one moment it’s up high. I was like who edited this? The continuity is horrible.

Carly: So Weezie thinks that Tina and Bette are sisters, and is incredibly nosy and incorrect.

Riese: And she doesn’t seem to even know what lesbians are, and this is someone who undoubtedly has been read as a lesbian prior to this moment.

Carly: At least once before.

Riese: One would think. She is going to go to the art opening because she hears it’s …

Weezie: A great place to meet the fellows, and I am looking. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Bette: See you tomorrow.

Riese: Nails on a chalkboard.

John: What heterosexual told her, “I know where to meet other heterosexuals”?

Carly: Yeah, it’s an art gallery in West Hollywood.

Riese: Yeah, owned by a famous lesbian.

Carly: In West Hollywood, California. Perfect.

Riese: Yeah, star of the Jodi Lerner art piece, “I Love You,” or whatever the fuck that—

Carly: Unwitting star who did not—

Riese: Unwitting, yeah.

John: Oh God.

Carly: God. We go to our favorite night club, Hit Club.

Riese: Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace.

Carly: Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace. Helena is drinking heavily. Kit tries to get her to stop and go home and Helena yells at her and it’s a whole thing and Sunset Boulevard is DJ’ing because he’s the only DJ that ever can work at this club and is watching this happen.

Riese: Yeah, his outfit is great though. He’s doing like a Madonna—

Carly: Like a Madonna.

Riese: … Desperately Seeking Susan.

Carly: Exactly.

John: His outfit’s amazing, but his makeup is anti-Blackness.

Carly: Makeup is very bad.

Riese: Tell us more.

John: I felt my ancestors be offended for everyone who’s ever lived because of what they did to his face.

Riese: This is the same makeup they always have him in every time.

Carly: It’s bad.

John: It’s so bad that I’m like, literally, this is violent. This is a form of anti-Blackness.

Riese: Yes.

John: I’m claiming that right now.

Riese: It’s always blue eye shadow right? It’s like straight up blue eye shadow every time, which is like—

John: That and purple lipstick. Like, stop it.

Riese: No, that’s horrible.

Carly: This is what happens when you don’t just hire an actual drag queen to play a drag queen because then the drag queen would do her own makeup and she’d look amazing, because that’s what she does.

Riese: Yep.

John: This is also what happens when you don’t have people on set who know how to handle Black skin that’s darker than Jennifer Beals.

Carly: Right. We see it in the makeup, we see it in the lighting.

Riese: The lighting! Oh God the lighting.

John: Between Kit and Tasha, it’s just like, come on now.

Carly: It’s a mess. It’s an absolute mess.

John: Sunset’s makeup, I felt so bad for her.

Carly: Yeah, so Sunset Boulevard thinks that Helena and Kit are in love and should be together, and Kit is like, “No”, and as she’s talking about how she is straight she’s feeling up his biceps and getting really into it, and I thought that was… okay. Sure.

John: The sexual harassment on this show knows no bounds.

Riese: I know.

Carly: It’s just never ending.

Riese: And it’s going to get so much worse in this very episode.

Carly: And then Helena gets in a fight with some lesbians.

Riese: Also this word play of him thinking Kit and Helena are together thing, this has been going on since episode two and it’s over. It’s not funny anymore, it’s also not possible at this point that these linguistic misinterpretations would still be happening to the point where he still thinks they’re together. This is stupid. It’s not funny. Can we find a new joke?

Carly: It’s like, we’ve done this eight times now.

Riese: Speaking of new jokes, now we go to the art gallery. I don’t like Kelly.

John: Left.

Carly: No.

John: That’s all I remember from this scene.

Carly: Kelly is awful.

John: She gives such good lighting direction though. Left.

Carly: Left.

Riese: Left.

John: That’s all she said. Left.

Kelly: Left.

Riese: To the left.

Carly: She checks out Bette while she’s up on the ladder.

Riese: Left. There were two things about this that were realistic. One, that they ask if any celebs are coming and they’re like, “Did you call Niki Stevens?” Because that’s such an LA thing where you have connections to maybe two legitimately famous people, and you’re always trying to make them come to your event. And it’s always the same people over and over, and Niki is the most famous person they know, most mainstream famous person they know. So they’re like, let’s get Niki Stevens in here. And then the other thing is that on the phone Tina’s like, “No one in New York seems to care about the mystery of the Lez Girls negative.” And it’s like yeah, neither do we.

Carly: No one in LA cares either.

Riese: Right. It was like, oh, that annoying plot line. There’s so many other annoying plot lines, it’s hard to keep track of all of them.

Carly: It briefly became like a New York tourism moment. They were like, “We love New York.” I’m starting to see what you saw in this place. Also, Tina’s been to New York before. What the fuck is this?

Riese: Come on.

Carly: She’s acting like she’s never been there. What? Okay, whatever. Then Kelly is super rude to Bette talking about oysters and is trying to drive a wedge.

Carly: Yeah, she makes her get off the phone.

Riese: Because of the oysters.

Bette: So what’s the crisis?
Kelly: Okay, we’re getting all these last minute RSVPs, and I’m just concerned because I don’t think we’re going to have enough oysters.
Bette: Are you kidding me?
Kelly: No, we’re expecting 200—
Bette: No, no, no, I mean you got me off the phone with Tina to talk to me about oysters?

John: It’s a legit thing. I’ve had students email me saying they can’t come to class because they didn’t have enough oysters for the day, so I get it.

Carly: Okay, okay fine. Maybe it is realistic.

John: There’s precedent.

Riese: It isn’t a real issue, then. I did appreciate that Bette did not let her get away with it. She was like, “Really? You got me off the phone with Tina to ask me about oysters? Really?” And she’s like, “I don’t think Tina’s being very supportive.” And Bette’s like, “Yes she is.” Go fall down a flight of stairs and die because I hate your character.

Riese: Yeah, someone kill Kelly, or Woozie. There are so many other people I want to see murdered. Or Tom, apparently, since he changed … Who does that?

John: In 2009, I know it was years ago but nobody was changing their number like that, even back then.

Riese: No. Two numbers?!

Carly: Not a landline, I’ll tell ya.

John: We moved houses so many times and kept the same number my entire childhood.

Roese: Yeah, I’ve had the same number since 2004? Since 2004.

John: That’s what I’m saying like who … Anyway, I’m not over that part yet.

Riese: Because I’m never letting go of my 917. I consider it to be a valuable artifact.

Carly: Same, I treasure my 917 number.

Riese: Yeah. Anyway, I don’t know if you know this, but Jamie’s really cool.

Carly: Jamie is so cool and she has a dog, and I think that the fact that there are … We talk about this, there’s no dogs.

Riese: Our first dog.

Carly: No dogs on this show. The only time we see dogs is when they’re Jenny’s dogs and I’m just worried about them. So this was really nice to see a dog whose name is Bubba and he’s a bulldog and he’s Jamie’s dog, and I was just really happy to see a dog that was not in danger of being murdered by Jenny. I was like, then we should just follow the dog and see what the dog does the next scene.

John: Spin off.

Riese: Yeah, and it’ll be like Lassie except then also there will be a death at the end. So Jamie’s apartment is super hip and super cool, and we love it.

Carly: Just like Jamie.

Riese: And then there’s a picture of Jamie’s dad and brothers in cop uniforms and Tasha’s like, “This is your family?” Blah, blah.

Carly: I didn’t even take any notes on any of that so I don’t even know what was happening.

John: I just put, “Tasha’s so moral LOL. She keeps looking away.”

Riese: That’s what she does. She does, she’s always like—

John: I was like, what are you doing? You’re so scared—

Carly: So modest.

Riese: I know.

John: The only thing about that scene is she’s just like, “I can’t believe it. I’m such a good person.”

Carly: Look away, look away.

John: Yeah.

Riese: Tasha’s been to a locker room with Kelly McGillis. She’s seen naked people before.

John: Well that was different, it was for the military.

Riese: Oh right.

Carly: That was at Army and this is with Alice is here. This is police. This is police and also we’re off the clock, and Alice is here.

Riese: That’s true.

John: You can objectify on the government’s dime, not on your own.

Riese: Exactly.

John: That’s actually how feminism works.

Riese: That’s true. You’re right, you’re right.

John: Yeah.

Carly: That is true.

Riese: Feminism 101.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Feminism 101.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: We all know it. We all love it.

Carly: We all know it.

Riese: Speaking of things we don’t know and don’t love, we are going to go back to the Porter … Where’s Kelly! Kelly is completely out of her goddamn gourde. Some dude’s talking about art, no one gives a shit, Helena wants to get a bunch of drinks, Sunset’s in there in his street clothes just looking like a normal person. He’s not in drag, he’s just dressed in his normal clothes. And Kit calls him a sleaze ball.

Carly: Okay, so this is confusing on multiple levels. They do spend a lot of time together, and it’s well lit in here because it’s daytime so maybe that’s making it so that she doesn’t know who he is. But also at the same time, he’s acting as if she should know who he is, and like sometimes out of drag, you don’t know. The lighting’s different, he’s not in drag. I don’t know. Why would he not just say, “It’s me.”

John: That would require good writing.

Sunset tells Kit "wow those are two lovely art dealers" at the art gallery

Carly: Oh, you’re right. You know what? You’re right. Did you guys think that that photographer had never taken a photograph before?

John: I literally wrote, “Why are we watching them take pictures?”

Carly: That photographer was like … in a way that I was like, I don’t think that’s how this works.

John: I feel like that’s why Kelly was like, “Back up, boo.”

Carly: Yeah.

John: Keep your robe closed, you’re not doing this right. They hadn’t hired Robin yet.

Riese: Yeah, they should have hired Robin like they did for Gen Q.

Carly: Maybe that was why they … Because when they asked Robin to be on it they were like, “We really need somebody that knows how to operate a camera so that it doesn’t look ridiculous.” And I wonder if that was in direct response to this scene. I think yes.

Riese: I think so, yes.

John: Drama works like that. It’ll come back up later.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Everything comes back around. So Shane and Jenny are being … They have a moment that’s cute. Maybe this is even their last cute moment, I don’t even know. But they’re being jokey and cute about oysters.

Jenny: I don’t know how you can eat those things?
Shane: You don’t like them?
Jenny: I don’t like them because it reminds me of a guy coming in your mouth. I’m just saying.

Riese: But Shane eats them anyway and Jenny says that they make — Kelly and Bette make a beautiful couple. Everybody is like incorrect about this.

Carly: Yeah, this is so weird.

John: They’re both tall.

Riese: And then Niki Stevens, Niki Stevens shows up in—

Carly: She just said they’re both tall.

Riese: Yeah, they’re both tall, right? And Niki Stevens shows up in this fancy car or whatever, and she gets out. All the paparazzi is there and also there are a bunch of people with Niki Stevens headshots for her to sign.

Carly: Everyone got the media alert that Niki Stevens was coming to the opening of this incredible gay gallery, and they all gathered outside with their glossy headshots waiting for her to autograph them.

John: You can actually just do that anywhere you go. Every time I enter campus I actually demand that there’s a group of students waiting with my headshot.

Riese: Right.

John: It’s just a thing.

Carly: Yeah, it’s just nice.

Riese: It’s responsible, also, just carry some headshots around with you. You never know what celebrity is going to walk out of a car outside of an art gallery.

Carly: Just keep a bunch in your pocket, in your car.

John: I always have a shot of Dolly Parton on me at all times.

Carly: Because you never know.

John: It’s Dolly.

Riese: You never know.

John: Yeah, did anyone else think that the painting that Jenny and Shane were looking at looked like Paris Hilton and her friend?

Jenny and Shane in front of a painting of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton

Carly: 1000%.

Riese: It was Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, and I didn’t know who the other person was. But right? It was.

John: Yeah, I was just like, is that Nicole, her younger sister?

Riese: Oh.

John: What’s Paris Hilton’s little sister’s name? Nicky?

Carly: Nicky.

John: Oh yeah, yeah so it is Nicole, but Nicky whatever. But yeah, I was like, “That’s Paris, Nicky, and someone else.” Like Paris and friend.

Carly: Yeah, so also I just want to say that I love that, kind of what you were saying before, but I love that everyone on this show just uses Niki now. They’re like, we need a famous person. We need attention. We need someone to do something ridiculous, call Niki.

Riese: Yeah, and she does that. But she does it because she wants to fuck Shane. That’s why she does it. She wants to be near Shane. And also I did think it was funny — that picture was funny because Niki is based on Lindsay Lohan, kind of. So I was like, that’s an interesting circle thing. So Niki comes up and is like—

Niki: What up, sexy Shane?

shot of Shane as Nikki says "what up, sexy Shane?"

Riese: And in that moment I never wanted to have sex ever again.

Carly: I left my body briefly.

John: Did you become celibate?

Riese: Yeah, I did. My soul left my body and it’s just over there sitting in a vacuum. And then Niki’s like, “Let’s get out of here.” And then—

Carly: Shane’s like, “Cool, do you have a car? Let’s go.”

Riese: What?

Carly: What the fuck is happening?

Riese: Jenny’s still there.

Carly: How big is this gallery that you can sneak off?

John: That’s what I was going to say. She looked around, like, for Jenny and in that moment I knew Shane actually wasn’t a Taurus.

Carly: Oh no, Shane is absolutely not a Taurus.

John: And she’s just like, “Okay I don’t see Jenny, let’s get the fuck out of here.” And I was like, what is going on? Again, the acoustics, now Jenny can hear, magically.

Riese: Right. And also it’s rude to leave the show and you just arrived, but also does Shane really think, “Oh, I’m going to get away with leaving Jenny Schecter”? Not even normal Jenny, but this season six insane Jenny?

Carly: Inspector Schecter.

Riese: At a gallery. There’s only … That was good. There’s only one thing that can come out of this, which is Jenny aggressively trying to find her. There’s no other outcome.

Carly: Of course. No one else in the group likes her right now, so it’s not like anyone’s going to entertain her.

John: Also, not that we fully care about Bette’s feelings, but she’s kind of being a bad friend to Bette as well.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yes she is. She is.

John: You’re here for a gallery opening that she worked hard on and you just deuced out so you could have sex with Niki. Again, she’s definitely not a Taurus.

Carly: No she is not. A lot of questionable things are happening right here.

Riese: If I was Shane, which I’m not, I would be like no, you should stay because it makes Bette look bad to have the celebrity, because everyone will know that Niki left, and it just looks bad that the celebrity came and then immediately left. I would be like, no we need to stay like another 15 minutes or so, so that Bette gets her PR push for this and then we can go do this thing that doesn’t make any sense.

Carly: Right.

Riese: So then Sunset, who does yet — he doesn’t have a non-drag name yet I guess, again he goes to Kit and he’s says to her the exact same thing that a few episodes ago Kit said—

Kit: Shopping at Gelson’s for groceries when this straight up brother comes up to me. No bling, no attitude, and he says to me, you are one beautiful woman and I would just love to wake up with your arms and legs wrapped around me.

Riese: So he delivers the exact speech that she said; however, they are at an art gallery. They are not—

Carly: They’re not at a Gelson’s.

Riese: And so she throws a glass of wine on him. Or I guess it wasn’t wine, water.

John: Did y’all notice that woman in the background? Like that extra—

Riese: No.

Carly: No.

John: She got paid a — whatever, a couple hundred for that because the look of just utter shock when Kit — literally, Carly, kind of your face. That lady was — have y’all seen the reaction gifs of Oprah finding out that royal family’s racist?

Riese: Yes.

John: That lady was like, I’m going to inspire Oprah 10 years earlier right now and she just gave the best … I couldn’t take the scene seriously because of the lady in the background so obsessed. Go look at that lady’s face because she was just—

Riese: I absolutely will.

Carly: Oh my God.

John: She’s never seen Black people act like that in public, and she just—

Riese: She’s like, “Not here in front of the art.”

John: It was like, not in front of “Paris and Friends,” oil on canvas in 2009.

Carly: 2009.

John: It was the best part of … That’s when I felt joy. That’s when actually … I was like, that lady’s acting. She’s getting her fucking sidecar Goddamn it.

Carly: Good for her. Oh my God. I have to go back and look.

Riese: Me too.

Carly: So then we have another moment where somebody’s saying that Bette and Kelly are a couple, and it’s Alice and Tasha and Jamie are watching them and Jamie is going on about how they’re acting like a couple and …

Riese: “They’re such a power couple.”

Carly: And Jenny interrupts and she’s like, “Where’s Shane?” And they’re like, “We don’t know where Shane is. We’re kind of dealing with our own weird vibe right now.” And then she walks away and Jamie, who is again some sort of genius observant person—

John: She’s a counselor. That’s what counselors do, Carly.

Riese: That’s true, she’s a counselor. They counsel.

John: Like Dr. Phil.

Carly: She’s counseling.

Riese: Yeah exactly, Dr. Phil can’t help it, neither can Jamie.

Carly: Okay, that’s fair. And she says that Jenny is very damaged and that that’s what scares her about having kids. And I was like, yes Jenny scares me about the idea of having kids too. This fictional character.

John: Could you imagine seeing Jenny, and then being like, I was going to do this thing with my uterus, but now, not sure.

Carly: Then I saw this girl walking around being crazy and I decided maybe I shouldn’t.

Riese: That’s probably why Max doesn’t want his baby because he lived with Jenny and everyday he’s like, do I really want a child who’s going to grow into this? Or alternately I could have a Shane.

John: Both are examples of the importance of parenting in your formal years.

Carly: And both are examples of why therapy is great.

John: Literally.

Riese: Speaking of parenting, we’ve been waiting for now a few seasons, for Tasha to reveal any information about her life. And now we’re going to get it because Jamie and Tasha are bonding about their families. And they have a lot in common, they share some experiences, Alice looks vaguely annoyed but also intrigued, and we get a lot of exposition, this is episode 6.06. So we have two more episodes left in this program, and this is the beginning.

Carly: This is like an info dump about Tasha’s life.

John: Yeah, that’s what Black people deserve on screen.

Riese: Yeah, they should just be one thing. You’re Army and then you’re police.

John: Because if Black bodies aren’t being used for the nations say, what good do we have with them?

Riese: That’s a really good point.

Carly: That’s all they could come up with. That was all they could come up with. Alice is … I really thought that Alice is like, “This is all new information to me,” was ridiculous. And I wonder, has Alice never asked Tasha about any of this? Because that feels believable.

John: She’s so self-centered and they’re so good at sexing with each other that I can have the formula of all of that together, you would never care that she was from Virginia or whatever Tasha’s backstory is.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And Tasha’s kind of like a person who is not gregarious and doesn’t love to share and is kind of closed off. And so it’s not like she’s ever going to bring any of this up on her own, but like Jamie is able to bring this out in her because they share these experiences and also because Jamie gives a shit. Alice has never tried to engage Tasha in any kind of meaningful conversation that wasn’t about her.

John: Or the military.

Riese: Or the military, yeah.

Carly: Or Army.

Riese: Yeah, or Army, or now the police.

Carly: Army or police.

John: I want her to show up on season two of Gen Q.

Carly: I know.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: That is a character I want to come back more than probably anybody else.

Riese: And I would love for her not to be a cop.

John: Oh my God, how great would that be, she’s actually like a community organizer.

Riese: Yes.

John: She comes on Alice’s show to talk about the moment, my ex is here. I’m just saying, give Rose Rollins some work, it’s again, what we deserve, dammit.

Riese: Yeah, it sure is. It’s also weird because when Alice says, “Why didn’t you tell me any of that ever?” And Tasha’s like, “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Like, yes it does? Your entire family backstory — that’s such a weird — again, there’s this emptiness that they have when they approach this character. That’s such a weird thing to say. It doesn’t matter? My entire family and upbringing — I never mentioned it to you because it doesn’t matter? No, the proper response is some explanation, or it’s, “you never asked.” But it doesn’t matter? Your past and your family always matter.

John: I didn’t think Alice would bring it up in front of Jamie right then and there either.

Riese: Right.

Carly: I know.

John: It’s like a private conversation that you should have as a couple.

Carly: But then again none of these characters have good boundaries.

John: Touché.

Carly: Generally it’s just Jenny and Alice that have horrible boundaries.

John: Well, they already went to the counselor dude, right? What is his name?

Riese: Dan Foxworthy, the only therapist in LA.

Carly: He is terrible at his job.

Riese: Now they have a new counselor, it’s Jamie.

John: Yeah, Jamie is going to be a couple’s counselor.

Riese: Yeah, she’s like a sex surrogate.

John: Hashtag it’s time to puke on Molly again.

Carly: Oh my God. This is … I just did not remember any of what is about to happen. First of all, this scene, I know it’s a darkroom, but it’s so fucking dark.

Riese: It’s so fucking dark.

Carly: You can’t see anything that’s fucking happening.

John: Did you see when they randomly lit just Shane’s eyes and she was like—

Carly: Yes!

John: … this weird color on her face from nowhere.

Carly: Oh my God.

John: It was the oddest scene I’ve ever seen on this show.

Carly: It also made me think of high art.

John: All of … high art, 2.0, and I don’t see them enough to be gesturing in kindness. It just feels very like—

Riese: Right, her first, I would say, and only scene she’s had so far of her being a photographer was directly modeled off high art when she took these pictures of Molly. And so first of all, Shane’s taking Niki to the photography studio that Jenny bought her, which is just like when Scott was writing love notes to his other girlfriend on the laptop that I got him in 2003. Anyway—

Carly: Anyway, we’re back to our favorite trope, lesbians developing photos together.

Riese: That’s what’s funny is we know that Shane took one photo. We saw her take it, we saw her take that one photo of Molly.

Carly: The one.

Riese: Unless they try to prove to us that Shane has taken any other photos since that day, they don’t. They’re just like yep, here’s the one picture.

Carly: The one.

Riese: The one picture that you took and now you’re developing it.

Carly: Oh God, all I wrote is, “This is dumb.”

Riese: Is she going to have a gallery show and it’s just going to be called “Molly in Bed That One Time”?

John: It’s going to be called “Letter to a Lover.”

Riese: Oh, yeah, that’s a good one, yeah.

Carly: That’s a really good title.

John: And like early Maroon 5 is going to play in the background, and “She Will Be Loved” will just play on a loop.

Riese: Oh my God, no, no, no, no, no don’t summon it. Don’t summon it.

John: Riese, I see you looking off in the distance.

Riese: Don’t summon it. Don’t summon it. I hate it.

John: And that’s what it’s going to be. That’s literally it, it’s just going to be all of her photos of Molly.

Carly: This whole scene I was just like, but they had digital cameras in 2009.

John: They had iPhones back then.

Riese: Yeah. There’s something so old school, as Niki might say.

Carly: Oh God, it’s just that trope of lesbians developing film together in a darkroom. It’s just all the time. I think that’s what people think lesbians are always doing.

John: Who said, who got together and was like, that’s the thing that lesbians do?

Carly: You know what’s hot always? Women developing photographs in a—

John: I thought you were going to dark rooms because of the ventilation.

Carly: There’s chemicals, bad ventilation, poor lighting. It’s sexy.

Riese: Yeah exactly. A darkroom is kind of sexy though.

John: Yeah, no, seriously. Everything about this episode triggered me in a weird way because they’re in there and Molly — not Molly, what’s her name? Niki’s like, “You’ll have to shoot me sometime.” And I was like no, you shouldn’t say that anymore. We shouldn’t talk about shooting people, like seeing her in the café with all those people. I was like, why are they so close to her? I didn’t realize how much just watching this made me viscerally aware that we’re not in that time period anymore.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah. You could photograph her sometime.

John: Something, something. But even just the verbiage just sounds like, that’s weird.

Riese: I think that would be good because no one’s ever photographed Niki probably.

Carly: She’s never been photographed before.

Riese: Yeah, and also Jenny would love that.

Carly: And she just wants to know what that would be like.

Riese: I just can’t, and I know I obviously have baggage, but I just really can’t believe that she is taking … You can’t cheat on someone in a piece of property that was purchased for you by that person.

Carly: The same day that they gave the piece of property to you.

Riese: Right.

Carly: She gave it to her that morning I think. It’s brand new.

Riese: And the thing is, it’s fine for Shane to be unhappy, but you have to break up.

John: Well that’s the thing, I feel like Shane doesn’t, she doesn’t have any emotional maturity to handle this situation.

Carly: Right. Also the writing is so over the top with Jenny’s character right now that it seems … and I feel like they want her to feel trapped, but it’s so cartoonish.

Riese: Right.

John: Yeah, it’s almost like Jenny’s love bombing her and then Shane feels like she can’t get out of it in some weird way.

Carly: Like she’s stuck in it, yeah. And now she’s given her this extravagant gift so now she feels even more stuck in it. When she gives her the studio she’s like, “I don’t deserve this,” is what she says. And she hasn’t even made out with Niki yet at that point.

Riese: Yeah, but she’s correct.

Carly: But she already knows she’s about to.

Riese: Right, she does because as soon as Niki came in she kept looking at her. Obviously she’s objectively hot, but she’s just sort of boring hot to me. So the idea that Shane would be so taken with Niki that she can’t help herself. But whatever, it’s a television show.

John: And Jenny has anxious attachments though, then Shane has anxious avoidant.

Riese: She does.

John: When she gets in, then she doesn’t want it anymore, and so I was just like, that has to be what’s going on is she has this attention, someone who kind of loved her even if it’s in a weird, wonky way and Shane’s like #nothankyou.

Carly: She #nothankyou so much that she #pukes.

Riese: Yeah, then she barfs. As aforementioned, barfs on Molly again.

John: Yeah, literally.

Carly: Can’t stop puking.

John: That’s also how I respond when anyone vomits. I’m just like, here’s a napkin and I’m—

Carly: I would have just left the room. I would have been like, nope.

Riese: So they can’t keep making out because she’s barfing. We go to Bettina’s, there’s some sort of uncomfortable transaction with the babysitter where Bette tries to underpay the babysitter or something.

John: The anti-Blackness. Give this Black woman what she fucking earned.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: Oh my God.

John: I was like, what are you doing Bette? Give her her money! What’s wrong with you?

Carly: Also, what was the point of writing that scene. Why is this here?

Riese: Exactly. What was the point?

Carly: What’s the point of this?

Riese: What was the point?

John: To show that Bette is cheap? I don’t know.

Carly: It doesn’t make any sense!

John: Y’all can’t see it, but all of our hands are in the air cartoonishly like we’re emojis.

Carly: Yeah, we’re all doing fully cartoony question mark faces.

John: I don’t know, I just was happy that Black woman got her money. I was just thinking for her I hope she also got a tip.

Riese: Yeah, and also it’s very rare that The L Word actually plays a Black actress to do anything. They did that, they did that. And that’s great.

Carly: They did that.

Riese: They did that. They did that. Hopefully she was paid her full amount as well as Bette paying her her full amount. Then, Kelly shows up like a complete psychopath who’s—

Carly: Invites herself in.

John: No boundaries.

Riese: How can Bette even stand to spend time with this person? She’s insufferable.

John: I asked that question. Who is this Bette that shows up when Kelly’s around?

Carly: It’s college Bette, it’s the college Bette that was into her I guess.

Riese: Is college Bette an idiot?

Carly: Maybe. We were all idiots in college weren’t we? I don’t want to speak for everybody. I was an idiot in college.

John: This person has an MFA from Yale. They’ve had this storied career, but Kelly Wentworth is the kryptonite?

Carly: Like what? Her? It’s very her?

Riese: Yes, her?

John: #no.

Riese: Okay. And Elizabeth Berkley is such a throwback, I guess? But I don’t really understand what the … I understand you want Lucy Lawless in it, that’s a throwback that makes sense. But what is the point of Elizabeth? Showgirls, I guess?

John: Aren’t her and Jennifer Beals really good friends in real life?

Carly: Yeah, they’re really good friends.

Riese: Are they?

John: And that’s why she was on the show.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Elizabeth Berkley and Jennifer Beals are friends?

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Oh wow. Marlee Matlin is also good friends with Jennifer Beals. So she just gets … yeah.

Carly: So Kelly and her lack of boundaries are here. She wants to continue celebrating, and then this is intercut with Jenny and Shane stuff. So first Jenny’s trying to call Shane and goes to voicemail, but then Shane beeps in and Jenny goes to see Shane at the photo studio and Shane is, like, dying.

Riese: I feel like everything in this whole later half of the episode was just to remind me of terrible relationships I’ve been in.

Carly: Wait, same.

Riese: Really?

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: My notes here is, “it’s so dark?”

Carly: Yeah, super dark. We can’t see shit. The gist is Shane is sick and keeps puking and Jenny’s petting her hair and taking care of her and Shane feels very, very bad. And then we cut across the way to Bette and Kelly are drunk, and Kelly is desperate to get Bette to kiss her and Bette’s like, “No.” And she’s like, “I’m cashing in on a little rain check.” And Bette’s like, “No, I really love Tina. Please stop doing this. Why are you doing this?” And so she goes in for the kiss and Bette has to push her away, and then she spills a champagne glass on the floor, it shatters, which leads to the only thing I actually remembered from this episode, which is at the very end which is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.

Riese: I remember watching this with you distinctly because you were like, iPhones don’t shoot video. Because at that time there was—

Carly: Because they didn’t at that time.

Riese: They didn’t at that time, but you were one of the only people I knew who had an iPhone and you were like, “That’s not accurate.”

Carly: I’m an early adaptor, what can I say.

Riese: Yeah. But also just to remind you slightly, there was a “shake it don’t bake it” incident where the two women were saying the words “shake it don’t bake it,” and dancing.

Bette and Kelly: Shake it, don’t bake, shake it, don’t bake it.

Riese: And this was some college throwback and I felt—

Carly: I blocked that all out.

Riese: My soul left my body during that part. That was awful. And then we get to this part, which is absurd, which is that Jenny really thinks that Bette cleaning something up on the floor looks like her going down on Kelly in full clothes.

John: Like, what in theory, again all this creeping in this episode, Jenny’s doing more creeping.

Carly: So much creeping.

John: But hypothetically if I was watching this, I’ll just throw myself out there. If I was being this fucking nosy, I’d stay to the end. I feel like Jenny would have seen her stand up with shards of glass in her hair.

Carly: With shards of glass, probably bleeding.

John: You just got a little, 15 seconds, all right I’m out.

Carly: You’re like, I’m out.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I got all the evidence I need.

Riese: Yeah, cut.

John: I want to take your thumbnail, that’s it and I’m out of here. I didn’t get that, that we were supposed to believe that she did all of this creeping. Somehow the first generation iPhone, that doesn’t record video — but even if it did, it’s not like those lenses were good enough to zoom across four layers of window?!

Riese: And no one would trust an image taken from that far away by this first gen iPhone.

John: Well Kit doesn’t know how to send text messages.

Riese: That’s true.

Carly: That is true. And then Jenny takes the video and she goes-

Jenny: Oh, Bette.

Carly: What?

Riese: But yet there’s no oh Shane, and Shane’s in there. Thank you for taking care of me. Okay. So yeah, my conclusion, I think this is probably one of my least favorite situations of their series is this hootenanny with Jenny capturing Bette cheating through this … It’s so stupid, and I don’t even know how they came up with this. They were like, how do we make it seem … Oh I know, she’s cleaning up a glass on the floor and Jenny sees this all through—

Carly: This is all such a reach.

John: So convoluted, yeah.

Riese: Right, and then they’re like, what if phones shot video? They had the idea.

Carly: You know what? The L Word pushed technology forward. This episode made Apple and other phone manufacturers say, “What if they shot video?

John: Steve Jobs was still around right?

Riese: Yeah, he was still alive. They shot this in 2008.

John: Yeah, so he was sitting in Cali, watching The L Word like those Californians would do at the time and he was like on his tech guy and he was like, we have to innovate. Jenny Schecter’s ahead of us. Let’s do it.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Inspector Schecter.

Riese: Oh boy.

Carly: I’m really proud of that.

John: No, you should be.

Riese: I know, that was good. That was good. That was really good.

John: That’s the only way that it works is … I don’t know anything else to say about it. It’s just so terrible.

Carly: Is this the worst episode of this show?

John: It’s tied with 6.08.

Riese: Yeah, I would say that.

Carly: Ooh yes, that’s fair.

John: It’s tied with—

Riese: 6.08 is the worst episode, full stop of any show that’s ever been shot in the history of television, but this one, I did like the Alice and Tasha, Jamie sexuals.

John: The woman in the background when Sunny got the drink thrown in his face made it okay.

Riese: Yeah, I have to go back and see that then maybe I’ll change my mind.

John: She acted her ass off, dammit. I want to know her name.

Carly: Good for her.

John: Did we see The Planet at all in this episode, or are we just always a Hit club now?

Carly: I don’t think we were at the Planet at all.

Riese: Yeah, last episode was entirely in The Planet. From pretty much start to finish.

Carly: This one was at the house, at Bette and Tina’s, and at Shenny’s, and at Hit Club and the gallery.

Riese: The gallery.

John: I felt like there was not a lot of episodes where we don’t have The Planet.

Carly: Yeah, that is weird.

Riese: Yeah, that is weird.

Riese: They also had Tina in fake New York. That was cute.

John: She held that phone really awkwardly too.

Riese: I know, she did.

Carly: She’s never used a phone before.

Riese: No.

Carly: She’s like, “This is how they use phones in New York!”

John: It’s like, “I press down here, I put it down and I don’t touch it.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Hello, New York?

John: I’m like, you guys are so awkward!

Carly: Hello?

John: Exactly. She’s a new Westworld robot who hasn’t figured out her phalanges yet.

Riese: Oh my God.

John: It was horrible minus the random things that people unintentionally did to make it livable.

Riese: Right. Also by the way, I think of this as like a big Max episode because the baby shower was just such a horrifying moment in human history. But that’s it.

John: He never shows back up again. He has that and then he makes the rest of his body silky clean by getting rid of his beard, and that’s it.

Riese: Yeah, that’s it.

Carly: That was so weird that the show was so Max-heavy up top, and then forgot he existed immediately after the baby shower. That was so weird. Also not, because it’s the show. It’s exactly what the show does, but it was also very weird.

Riese: Well guys, I think, so—

Carly: We did it!

Riese: … the census is that we hated the episode.

John: Yeah.

Carly: Yep. It seemed like everyone involved in this episode hated this episode, for sure.

Riese: Yeah, everyone was upset, we were upset, they were upset. Shane had an upset stomach.

Carly: Nice, very nice.

Riese: Tried to undercut the babysitter, shake it don’t bake it. The end.

Carly: Very bad. Not good. Not good at all. And nobody in New York cares about the negatives for the film.

Riese: Just like me. Well, what a sad time for television. I guess the next episode’s going to be good and then the next episode’s going to be bad.

John: This was so much fun. I really appreciate y’all.

Carly: Thank you so much for being here. This was so much fun.

John: Also yeah, I just think y’all are the bees knees, so yeah, I just wanted to tell you.

Carly: You are wonderful. This was so fun. This was like, you made this episode tolerable, and not just tolerable but this was fun and I’ve been dreading this for years. I have to tell you.

Riese: Yeah, honestly you killed it.

John: Oh my God. No, I appreciate that.

Riese: We did fine.

Carly: This was so wonderful. Do you want to plug anything? Social media, anything like that?

John: So I am a part of an artist collective that a lot of things got started during the pandemic and we’re trying to get off the ground this summer hopefully. But you can go to The Pink Eye Institute, just like the disease of your eye, thepinkeyeinstitute.com.

Riese: Great disease.

John: The landing page. But it has all of our social media and stuff. We don’t have any posts, but it’s my goal to see how many followers I can get with no content. That’s like my personal mission right now. So yeah, folks that thought I was even a bit funny—

Carly: I love that.

John: Go out, go follow the pages, it’s The Pink Eye Institute and you can find me on Instagram @drjohnboochie, just like coochie with a B, because I’m a trans guy. I have a boochie. I feel like gay guys took that, and I feel like trans guys—

Riese: They did take that, didn’t they?

John: … actually have the boy coochie. You can find me @drjohnboochie. J-O-H-N and then boochie. But yeah, we’re hoping to get some stuff off the ground. We’re working on a podcast called Gender Studies 101 and it’s where a bunch of me and professors get together and we basically give you a gender studies 101 class, but in a podcast form because higher ed is expensive and it’s violent and folks need to know intersectionality without going to college. So, working on that, and that’ll be out this summer.

Carly: Nice, sounds really interesting.

Riese: That’s awesome.

John: And then I have a satirical web series called Lars’ Lessons where he teaches you how to be a real man. But anyway, those are coming this summer. So, I’m really excited.

Carly: Yay. That’s exciting.

John: That’s what I do. I’m just chilling.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter, we are @tolandback. You can also email us to tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message, it’s (971) 217- 6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Audostraddle.com.

Carly: All right. And finally, it’s time for our L Words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually, these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three.

John: Loathing.

Riese: Liberal arts.

Carly: Liz Cambage. Okay wait, Riese what’d you say?

Riese: I said “liberal arts” because I was thinking about academia.

Carly: Okay, I love that. John, you said—

John: I said “loathing” because it’s how I feel about this episode.

Carly: Brilliant. I said Liz Cambage, who’s a WNBA player for the Las Vegas Aces, and just yesterday or today she officially re-signed her deal. And so she is officially back in Vegas playing on this team that is going to dominate this season and I can’t wait to watch. Thank you all for listening!

Riese: Thanks guys!

Carly: We’ll be back in two weeks!

Riese: Did you like the voice I did?

Carly: That was unbelievable.

Riese: That was me on helium.

Carly: Um, okay bye!

Riese: Bye!

“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 605: Litmus Test with Shannon de Zeeuw

Producer Shannon de Zeeuw joins us for 605, Litmus Test, in which the girls gather at the wired-for-sound Hit Club to determine if Dylan is a good person or a dirty schemer through Niki Stevens entrapment, Jenny hits the jackpot by stealing Alice’s screenplay idea, Alice and Jamie have a third wheel crush, Dylan and Helena have sex with NO MUSIC, Niki Stevens dances alone in slow-motion and so much less!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Carly: A podcast—

Riese: About The L Word.

Carly: …About The L Word, where we recap every episode of The L Word.

Riese: That’s it. That’s what it is. That’s still what it is. That’s what we’re still doing.

Carly: We’re still doing it. We’ve been doing this for years.

Riese: Recapping The L Word. Yes. Yeah. That’s my number one life’s passion. Besides reading novels and eating snack food is recapping The L Word.

Carly: I want to announce that I have read one full novel in the year 2021. And that it’s already one more than I read in the year 2020. No, that’s not… I read one book in February of 2020.

Riese: Oh, okay.

Carly: So pre-pandemic I read a book and then once the pandemic happened, I guess I forgot how to read books. I just couldn’t do it anymore, but I read a book recently and I’m like, “I read now.” So.

Riese: I’m so proud of you.

Carly: Yeah. It’s pretty exciting. You’ve read like 50 books, but I’ve read one.

Riese: I’ve read 13 books so far in 2021.

Carly: It’s crazy. I’m really impressed.

Riese: So if anybody wants to follow me on Goodreads, I am always looking for new friends on Goodreads.

Carly: Oh, fun.

Riese: Roxane Gay reads so many books.

Carly: Wow.

Riese: Because I follow her on Goodreads, she reads so many books. I’m like, “How do you do so many things?”

Carly: That’s wild.

Riese: She does so many things.

Carly: It’s tough because I enjoy reading books, but a lot of the time I fall asleep. Just the act of reading for a while puts me to sleep.

Riese: Interesting.

Carly: I don’t know if this is a unique thing to me or other people.

Riese: Literally nothing puts me to sleep.

Carly: Well, yeah.

Riese: Besides heavy narcotics.

Carly: Yes. That too. It’s like reading and drugs are the only things that get me to sleep. So it makes it hard to be a reader, but now I’ve read one book. So I’m back in the game.

Riese: I listen to them too. I do audio books.

Carly: See, I need to do audio. I think that would help because I enjoy listening to things quite a bit.

Riese: Right. And I have this thing so it syncs up with the book.

Carly: Oh, it syncs?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I can go back and forth from the Kindle to the — it’s called Whispersync, it’s incredible.

Carly: Oh my God. I have to see if my Kindle has this feature. I have a very old Kindle. Okay, cool. Well, now that we did an ad campaign for Amazon.

Riese: Amazon, an ethical company where everything—

Carly: An ethical company that makes cool things. Okay.

Riese: It’s really enhancing our quality of life.

Carly: Oh my God. All right. So we’re here to recap an episode of The L Word.

Riese: And also, there’s someone else.

Carly: Oh my God! Everyone, we have a very special guest today.

Riese: Would you like to introduce yourself?

Shannon: I’m Shannon. I’m a producer, a lesbian, a New Yorker, a consumer of lesbian content and a former L word GQ crew member.

Carly: Ooh, we have so many questions.

Riese: So how was that?

Carly: That’s the first question.

Shannon: It was a lot. Like most things L Word, as you know, it was like a love-hate thing. It was — parts of it were really amazing and great, and parts of it made me feel like death.

Riese: That’s Hollywood.

Shannon: That’s Hollywood, baby!

Riese: I was going to say that’s showbiz.

Carly: That’s showbiz, baby. And that is so apt for this episode too. There’s a lot of showbiz stuff happening in this episode.

Shannon: A lot of showbiz.

Riese: There’s so much showbiz.

Carly: A lot of inside baseball Hollywood.

Riese: There sure is, yeah. What were the good parts?

Shannon: I mean—

Riese: The parts that won’t stop Showtime from wanting to sponsor our podcast.

Shannon: No, it was great. I mean, working as a fan of the show growing up and as someone who it did impact growing up, it was one of those, “Oh, this is happening” moments. But then, I mean, I am someone who has had all these dream jobs come to them somehow. I was Angelina Jolie’s assistant as a child in my early 20s. I wasn’t a child, I wasn’t a child.

Carly: Sometimes celebrities want to have under-age assistants so that they cannot go anywhere they need them to go.

Riese: Little known fact, Angelina Jolie only hires people under the age of 13 to work for her. She loves children.

Carly: She does love children.

Shannon: No. I was in my early 20s, guys. She does. So I feel like with those kinds of jobs, it’s really exciting to get. And then once I have them, it’s like, “Oh, this isn’t just a job.”

Carly: People always think that, “Oh, you must have this glamorous life and these glamorous jobs.” And I’m like, “It’s still work, it’s still a job.” There’s definitely moments that are incredibly surreal, but it’s still a job.

Shannon: For sure.

Riese: Yeah, for sure.

Carly: Wow, I just want to talk about Angelina Jolie. Let me focus. What is your L Word origin story?

Shannon: Oh, boy.

Carly: What was going on in your life when you first watched this show?

Shannon: Without getting into the gory details of discovering my sexuality… but when I was 16, in my high school, we had to do these internships. And I had an internship at a theater company, which I will not name on air. And there was a lesbian that worked there, who I became very close to and had this five-year back and forth dramatic relationship with. But she was seven years older than me—

Riese: As you do.

Shannon: …and I was 16. But she — in-between our five-year relationship — is that what I’m going to call it? Sure. She dated Kate Moenning and—

Riese: Interesting.

Shannon: …I heard about this pilot Earthlings, heard a lot about it.

Carly: Oh, wow. Earthlings.

Shannon: I didn’t have showtime. And then in college, my freshman year I bought the box set and made all my super straight New England friends pile into bed one New Hampshire day and just devoured it.

Riese: Yes, perfect.

Shannon: And they loved it. They fucking loved it. I think then we got the second season. It was all like DVDs though because that’s—

Riese: So what year was it when you started watching the box sets?

Shannon: Probably 2005.

Riese: Okay. So you were watching it at the same time that the world was watching it?

Shannon: Yeah.

Carly: But a little delayed, like you would wait for the DVDs?

Shannon: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Shannon: And then eventually I just had to stop watching it. I never watched season six until I think… I mean, I read everything about it and knew about it and probably watched like an episode or two, but I was just like, “I can’t do this.” But then when I got a job on Gen Q, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do it.” Because I just watched them all before that.

Riese: Right. All over again.

Shannon: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Shannon: And I was hit with all that trauma again. So… No, I love The L Word, you guys.

Carly: We do too. This is a labor of love.

Shannon: I actually used to watch your guys’s… vlogs? I guess?

Carly: Oh my God. Are you serious?

Shannon: Yeah!

Carly: Internet relics.

Shannon: I mean, this is a real full circle moment.

Riese: They were really good vlogs, I thought. Some of them are still up and, I think, very funny.

Carly: I have not watched them since we made them.

Shannon: Ooh!

Riese: Oh really? I have. I did a little re-watch and some of it’s very funny.

Carly: I’m going to make you send me some links later, Riese. I think I need to re-watch this and see.

Riese: Okay. All right. When you watched those videos, were you, like, “These people are really cool and funny.” Or were you like, “I don’t know if I want to be gay after all.”

Shannon: I totally was — because you guys are slightly older than me, but we would have been in the same high school together. And I didn’t really have lesbian community when I was in New York. I always had lesbian friends who were ex’s friends or like that. And so it was nice, “Oh, these are people I could hang out with.”

Riese: And now you are!

Shannon: And now here we are.

Carly: Virtually, because of a pandemic.

Riese: When you walked onto the set of Generation Q, were you like, “Hey Kate Moennig, we have an ex in common.”

Shannon: Never mentioned it, not once.

Riese: Good.

Shannon: Marja knows all about it.

Riese: Did you tell everyone else?

Shannon: Yes.

Carly: So everyone but Kate?

Riese: Wow. Interconnectivity.

Shannon: It was just like a lot of the chart happening and whatnot.

Carly: This is the chart.

Riese: This is the chart. Everything we’ve mentioned so far is connected to everything else we’ve ever mentioned in our lives.

Carly: The theme of this podcast is interconnectivity.

Riese: OurChart.com.

Carly: And science.

Shannon: Isn’t that what the theme of lesbianism is?

Carly: Correct.

Riese: Interconnectivity.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: That’s what scissoring is. It’s just connecting. Who was your favorite character?

Shannon: Well, famously it’s Dana. And when I say famously, I just mean when I was working on Gen Q, photos of this picture I had of Dana in my office that had a little plaque that said — is that what it says? “In memory of Dana Fairbanks.”

Riese: Dear listeners, we should screenshot it.

Carly: Yeah, we should. Okay. Are you ready? I’m going to take a screenshot.

Shannon: Wait.

Riese: I’m ready. Let me look really cute.

Carly: We did it.

Riese: So right now you’re sitting in front of a Dana Fairbanks memorial plaque.

Shannon: True fact, which I don’t have this on display in my home.

Carly: All you need is a hammer and a nail.

Riese: As the Indigo Girls famously said.

Shannon: In an office, I could do it. I don’t think I could justify it in my home.

Carly: I get that.

Shannon: Maybe in the bathroom. Is that weird?

Carly: Oh, that’s a lovely place for an in memoriam character plaque is in the bathroom.

Riese: Yeah, it is.

Shannon: But I have this on display for Carly and Riese’s viewing.

Carly: This is beautiful. We have a screenshot. We’ll post it on the Instagram. It’s a beautiful work of art.

Shannon: Well, this was hanging in my office, which was right next to Marja’s office. So casts would come and have meetings.

Carly: Oh my God.

Shannon: So Leisha and Kate got wind of this and Leisha sent a photo of it to Erin Daniels, which was just a dream.

Riese: Thrilling.

Shannon: Thrilling. Just knowing that she knows that I am crazy enough to have this in my office, but also we need to remember Dana.

Carly: It’s important. It’s part of our culture. Should we get into the episode?

Riese: Yeah, let’s get into the episode. Let’s get into it.

Carly: And just stop delaying the inevitable? Today’s episode: 6.05 Litmus Test. This one actually makes sense as a title. Mostly. Kind of. It was written and directed by Angela Robinson who, as always, we will say that we love because we do.

Riese: Yes. And I also would like to say just, I’m sorry to her just in general that you had to do this episode and be involved with it. And you really tried.

Carly: I think she did the best she could have.

Shannon: She did the best she could with what she was doing.

Carly: Yeah. This originally aired February 15th, 2009. Shall we get into it?

Riese: Yes.

Shannon: Let’s go.

Carly: Let’s go.

Riese: We open at The Planet. I know that we’ve just started. I don’t want to start with a tangent, but once again, I got the feeling from this episode that their budget for season six was maybe $75.

Shannon: I feel like they shot so much of this season just on the stage.

Riese: Yeah, exactly.

Carly: They were just at The Planet and at Hit Club in every scene.

Shannon: Yeah.

Riese: They spend more time in The Planet in season six than they have, I want to say, since season one.

Shannon: I don’t know any working people who have that much time before work to just—

Riese: No. Well, speaking of—

Shannon: I mean, I guess Alice is a writer but, whatever.

Riese: So everyone’s at The Planet and we learn that Jenny’s screenplay sold for half a million dollars. And it’s an action comedy about a talk show host and a cop.

Carly: Interesting.

Shannon: Sounds vaguely familiar.

Carly: Kind of familiar like a treatment I heard about once.

Shannon: A treatment?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: A treatment.

Riese: Yeah. Alice’s handwritten treatment, which we recently had the pleasure of viewing in the kitchen of Jennifer Schechter. And of course, Alice hears this and is like, “Excuse me, that’s my idea.”

Carly: Yeah. “She stole my idea.” Also, real quick, I know that we can’t try to figure out what time is on the show, but how has Jenny already finished and sold the script? Like, last episode she was writing it.

Shannon: Also, they said there was a bidding war.

Carly: That takes time. It takes time for these things to happen.

Shannon: Which — Jennifer Schecter, a new lesbian writer whose film has never seen the light of day—

Carly: Would never happen.

Shannon: Would never happen.

Carly: 1000%, would not happen.

Shannon: No.

Riese: The thing is that, in our last episode, Helena went to Dylan’s house and said, “Have dinner with me this weekend.” Or something along those lines, right?

Carly: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Riese: And in this episode we see it’s like Thursday or Friday and they’re having dinner on Saturday. Again, time is—

Carly: It stands to reason that Jenny wrote—

Riese: It stands to reason that Jenny wrote this in a day?

Carly: Here’s what’s up. She wrote the treatment in one day. She wrote the first draft the next day. She did full notes, rewrites, et cetera, over the next six hours. Found new agents or a new manager because they fired her.

Riese: Oh, right. Yeah.

Carly: So she had to locate them. That took 20 minutes. They were probably just hanging out at The Planet. That’s just where everybody is.

Riese: Yeah, like everyone.

Carly: She found them there. A bidding war happened, escalated and was resolved. I don’t know what, in a matter of hours? And so that’s really how this happened. And I think that that’s fine.

Riese: Science.

Carly: That’s realistic and has nothing to do with any sort of inter-dimensional disruption in electrical or magnetic fields, or any dresses that maybe are tainting everything around them.

Riese: No. Yeah, definitely not.

Carly: Nothing about that.

Riese: I think it’s just a normal thing where everyone’s own timeline is their own timeline. And, yes, they’re all at the same table at The Planet, but that doesn’t mean they’re all in the same dimension.

Carly: That’s a great point because everyone experiences time differently, as we know.

Riese: Right.

Shannon: Well, season six of the L word is Sci-Fi, right?

Carly: Exactly. Yes.

Riese: It is.

Carly: Everything about this season is science fiction.

Riese: You can catch it on the Syfy channel. That’s S-Y-F-Y, Syfy.

Carly: It is L Word reruns on, again, S-Y-F-Y.

Shannon: I will say in Gen Q, one of the writers, Allie Romano. She really kept track of timing and stuff.

Riese: Oh, really?

Shannon: Yeah.

Carly: I love that. Thank God.

Shannon: So I don’t know that Ilene Chaiken had that. I guess, she doesn’t.

Carly: Every writer’s room needs the person that tracks time and that person wasn’t there for the OG, seriously.

Shannon: I mean, I don’t know if this is annoying. I’m going to keep interjecting with Gen Q tidbits.

Riese: No, it’s not annoying.

Carly: Yes. Please do. We are living for this.

Shannon: Those scenes of The Planet and stuff when all the OG — or I guess, in Gen Q, in the writer’s room, we’d call them “Gals Gabs” when the OGs are sitting around at a bar or a coffee shop or wherever they may be.

Carly: Oh my God. I love that.

Riese: Gals Gabs?!

Shannon: Gals Gabs.

Riese: Man, I wish we had known that earlier in this podcast.

Carly: We would have started using that too.

Riese: We would have started using that and us too.

Shannon: Well, you can use it towards the finale.

Carly: For our remaining handful of episodes.

Riese: For the last three.

Carly: So we’re at a Girls Gab at The Planet because Bette and Tina now work at The Planet and it’s very annoying. They’re on dueling phone calls, making a whole scene, but whatever. The point is, Alice is real pissed at Jenny and she screams, “Schechter is so fucking dead!” And then storms out of there.

Shannon: Are they planting some seeds there for the spin-off that never was?

Riese: I think it’s probably just a figure of speech.

Carly: It seems subtle, whatever it is.

Riese: Whatever it is, yeah. It’s as subtle as a hit on the head with a hammer and a nail.

Shannon: A great Indigo Girls song, by the way.

Riese: Yes, thank you. This is the time you’ve referenced it so far in this episode and I’ll continue to do so.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Then we go to Shenny’s house where Alice has come over to yell at Jenny about stealing her idea.

Alice: You sold your screenplay for half a million dollars? Jenny, you stole my idea!

Riese: And Jenny’s like, “Yeah, Shane is going to take me to dinner to congratulate me.” Even though Jenny is the one who just made half a million dollars. But, anyway. She says, it’s just a coincidence that it bears resemblance to ideas that Alice jotted down.

Carly: She did jot them down.

Shannon: From the idea well.

Carly: Yes.

Alice looking shocked and upset

Riese: Exactly. Has anyone ever really talked about the idea well?

Shannon: I mean, Riese, you’re a writer. I’ve worked with a lot of writers. I’ve not heard the term idea well really, but…

Riese: I’ve not heard this phrase. Yeah.

Shannon: Jenny Schecter knows, so…

Carly: If anyone would know, it’s Jenny.

Riese: You know when the olden days when they’d be like, “What happened to the children? Did they fall down the well?” That’s my idea well.

Carly: That’s the idea well.

Riese: It’s like the well that people are inspecting to see if children fell down into it. And that’s really all it’s doing. It’s roped off.

Carly: Oh, because it’s like an active crime scene investigation.

Riese: My idea well is an active crime scene.

Carly: Sure, that tracks.

Riese: After we get done with it, then we’ll go back and we’ll put water back in. We’ll see how it goes for everybody.

Carly: You’re going to need a lot of water.

Shannon: A lot.

Riese: The thing about this conflict is that it’s a cop and a talk show host, come on.

Carly: Well, as we know, Jenny is not really good at taking real things and fictionalizing them as we saw with—

Shannon: I don’t know what you mean.

Carly: You know what? Let’s brainstorm a little. What could these two characters’ professions have been that would have prevented Alice from yelling at Jenny? Instead of a cop and a talk show host.

Riese: A cop and a…

Carly: What about a podcaster and an army sergeant?

Shannon: Oh, yeah.

Riese: Yeah, exactly. It could have been a KCRW radio host and an unemployed person.

Carly: Yes.

Shannon: It could have been a talk show host, and… what do you think Tasha is doing now?

Riese: A mall security guard.

Carly: Well, Rose Rollins is about to be on a new show where she plays a women’s college basketball coach. So maybe it’s a—

Shannon: Ooh!

Riese: That’s true.

Carly: Maybe it’s a talk show host and a basketball coach, and that would have been very ahead of its time.

Shannon: I would have watched that.

Carly: Also, I would absolutely watch that.

Riese: You know what didn’t occur to me also until just this minute, is that this is a lesbian film. There was a bidding war in 2009 for a lesbian film?

Shannon: Oh, God.

Carly: Is there even a bidding war now for a lesbian film?

Shannon: And it’s not a period piece.

Riese: Yeah. It takes place in the present day. There’s electricity, there’s a small set of civil rights.

Carly: So they’re not wearing 18 layers of dresses and corsets, you’re telling me?

Riese: No.

Shannon: The only lesbian films we had were like Wolfe video films, right?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Right. I know. Wolfe video fell out of the bidding war really early.

Carly: Wolfe video just made sure there weren’t bidding wars because they got in there early and they got those scripts. They got those films, they got those rights.

Riese: Yeah. They got them.

Carly: They got them, gobbled them up.

Riese: Gobbled them right up. Right. So then Shane comes down and Alice is like, “If you don’t take my side in this,” basically — well, she doesn’t talk about sides yet—

Carly: No, but she will.

Riese: But she’s like, “Jenny is a snake. And if you continue to shack up with her, then we’re not friends.”

Carly: And Shane’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s going on?”

Shannon: She was like, “You guys.”

Carly: The theme of this episode is that Shane is exhausted.

Riese: Yeah.

Shannon: I mean, look who she is dating. I don’t want to talk about it, Riese, because I know you’re a huge supporter of Shenny.

Carly: Big fan.

Riese: Well, I will say last episode when they started doing the clutter cleaning and the redoing of the rooms — which has already been reversed somehow, but we’ll get to that later — is that now there’s this new Jenny. I know there’s other seasons where she’s been a conniving, manipulative person, but last season, that’s where it started flipping over. And now she’s just gone off the rails.

Shannon: Oh, yeah.

Riese: Because they’re trying to justify literally murdering her.

Shannon: Right.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: And so they have to find a way to make her murderable to sell this story. But you can’t just retcon your characters to sell a story.

Shannon: No.

Carly: Why not?

Shannon: I mean, honestly, I do really enjoy the Jenny-Alice bickering stuff.

Carly: Yeah. I really do enjoy their scenes together. Although I found it was getting a bit much this episode, but generally…

Shannon: But this is really them just planting the seed that Alice killed Jenny.

Carly: Over her screenplay ideas.

Shannon: Over her screenplay.

Riese: Over her screenplay treatment.

Carly: To quote Alice, “The treatment I gave you about the screenplay I was going to write.” Direct quote from Alice.

Shannon: Here’s another tidbit — think in our first week of shooting, Jennifer Beals, at the end of a take, they’d bring up her friend Jenny died because they have to now fill in everyone.

Carly: Oh, the woman that died on her property?

Riese: Yeah, that was perfect.

Shannon: I think Jennifer Beals was like, “And I killed her.” Jennifer Beals was really convinced, I think, that Bette killed Jenny.

Riese: Wow!

Carly: Wait, okay. I love everything about that. And I think if any character on the show would have killed Jenny, I do think it is Bette.

Shannon: I think she would have hired someone to kill her.

Carly: 100%. She’s the only one that would have actually done it, but she would have hired someone.

Riese: There’s this quote in The Big Chill where he says he thinks rationalizations are great. The rationalization is better than sex, it’s the best thing that exists or whatever. And I feel like that’s how Bette operates. She can rationalize almost every bad decision she ever makes. She would murder Jenny completely like it was fine. “It had to be done, and I did it.” No qualms around it. You know what I mean?

Shannon: That’s the spinoff Ilene Chaiken should have tried to pitch.

Riese: Instead of The Farm.

Carly: Absolutely.

Shannon: Oh God, that was the title.

Carly: It sure was.

Shannon: Ooh, I had forgotten about that.

Riese: I think about it every day.

Shannon: I’m so sorry.

Riese: Well, where do we go next everybody?

Carly: Back to The Planet.

Riese: Seriously? Did they have no budget?

Carly: It’s just a continuation of what we were just doing. The best is that the first scene Alice is there and she leaves at the end of the scene. Then we go to Shenny’s, where she arrives and then leaves. And then we cut back to The Planet, where she arrives.

Shannon: And Bette and Tina haven’t budged. Still there.

Carly: They haven’t moved. They still have moved into The Planet and have set up doing offices.

Shannon: I only buy it since Kit owns The Planet, right? If it wasn’t a family member, I’d be like, “These bitches need to leave.”

Carly: You need to leave. Are you buying coffee?

Riese: Yeah. You have to continue to buy the coffee.

Carly: So that you get the WiFi password.

Riese: So Alice is on the phone with Tina and then she walks into The Planet and they’re on the phone with each other and that’s so cute. And she explains the situation and someone’s like, “Can you sue her?” I think Bette’s like, “Can you sue her?” And someone’s like, “It doesn’t work like that.” But I think she could sue her.

Carly: She hasn’t registered it with the WGA or anything. She hasn’t copywritten the idea. I don’t know if it would end well, but she could try. I also liked that Bette says.

Bette: I mean, does Joyce do copyright infringement?

Carly: Because the characters on the show—

Shannon: That’s the only lawyer they know.

Carly: They know one lawyer, they know one therapist, that’s it.

Riese: So, yeah. I don’t know. Maybe she couldn’t. And then Alice is raving about Jamie and how much she loves Jamie, and Bette’s like, “You have a third wheel crush.”

Shannon: Which I totally had forgotten about.

Riese: About the Jamie thing?

Shannon: Kind of. Again, this season is one that I really didn’t pay attention to for my own mental health. Because in Gen Q, the throuple I’m like, “Oh, Alice, this is her style.”

Carly: This is, like, your thing, Alice. I would like Alice to really lean into this.

Riese: Because maybe you are more of a throuple.

Shannon: And then she always chooses the wrong people. But, I mean.

Riese: Bette and Tina describe this whole third wheel crush process.

Bette: You’re having a third wheel crush.
Tina: You so are.
Bette: You have all the telltale signs. It starts when you’ve been dating your partner for quite a while and you’re starting to grow bored with one another and then you start fighting all the time.
Tina: And then you meet a new person and you start hanging out all the time. The three of you doing everything together and you know what? It’s just great. And this new person starts to revitalize the relationship, pouring all this energy and excitement into it. And the syndrome, it can last weeks, months, or even… Oh, you remember Sally?
Bette: Coco Lisa.
Tina: That one lasted a year.
Bette: I know.
Tina: Yeah. Just as long as it doesn’t…
Bette and Tina: Tip.

Riese: This is a real true thing in my experience.

Carly: This is totally a real thing. I feel like I’ve never heard the term “third wheel crush” used before. So they definitely invented a term.

Riese: Yeah. I’ve heard it about as often as I’ve heard “nipple confidence,” but…

Carly: Yeah. I just can’t believe that no one at this table suggested that they just have a threesome and get it over with. What the hell kind of friends are these?

Shannon: Yeah. Just fuck her already.

Carly: Seriously. You all want to, just do it.

Riese: Yeah. Because it’s true that now Alice and Tasha’s relationship has been re-invigorated by their excitement over Jamie, which happened to me and someone I used to date. But when we joked about it we said that she was our erotic third. That was the joke.

Carly: That’s the correct joke.

Shannon: Yeah.

Riese: Bette unfortunately says…

Bette: So you just check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Shannon: Oh, no.

Carly: That was unfortunate.

Shannon: A lot of great soundbites in this.

Carly: Actually, there was a lot of really cute stuff in this scene, and then there was that line, but there was so much of the scene that was just banter and, you know, that’s our favorite shit on the show anyway.

Shannon: Yeah. Totally.

Carly: So it’s like, this is just fun. But there was definitely a lot of stuff said where you were like, “Wait, what?”

Shannon: Well, there’s just a lot of lines where it’s just like, who wrote that? That’s not how people speak. Come on.

Carly: Exactly. And then Kit does a restyle segue, like a really… Lauren please put in the segue.

Kit: Ooh, girl, honey! That’s dangerous business. And speaking of dangerous business…
Helena: Ugh! I could do without the segue, Kit.
Alice: What? What?
Helena: I’m having dinner with Dylan on Saturday night.
Alice: Are you on crack?
Kit: Let me tell you.
Tina: Are you a masochist?
Kit: Lost her mind totally.
Alice: Why?

Riese: Thrilled.

Carly: That was for you.

Riese: I know it was for me. It was great. I almost filmed it and sent it immediately to you and Lauren just in recognition of them preemptively doing this for me.

Carly: I have all caps notes about this.

Riese: But I thought, no, I want Carly to experience it fresh, without knowing it’s coming.

Carly: I did and I was like, “Did Riese write this? Oh my God.”

Riese: So Helena was having dinner with Dylan on Saturday night because Dylan has…

Helena: Colonized my thoughts.
Alice: Wow, that’s deep.
Bette: Really? Colonized.

Shannon: Now, that sounds like—

Carly: Colonized her thoughts.

Shannon: Oh my goodness.

Carly: Alice proposes a test — a litmus test, if you will. This is just great. This is complete nonsense.

Shannon: But I also do think L Word at its best is when they’re doing these silly—

Carly: When they’re doing schemes.

Shannon: …scheming, like Laura, that famous—.

Carly: Exactly. I loved this. And so everyone’s throwing out ideas and honestly, this is the screenplay. What is the talk show host and the — this is the screen play. Oceans 7 because there are seven of them involved. And it’s obviously a prequel to Ocean’s 8 somehow.

Shannon: Ocean’s 8.

Riese: Yeah. Well the eighth is Angelica, but she’s asleep.

Carly: She’s always asleep because she’s a child.

Shannon: She’s a baby.

Riese: Yeah. They’re trying to determine if Dylan is either a sleazy gold digger or just a good person.

Carly: It’s only one of those two things.

Shannon: I mean, that’s the only way to judge people.

Carly: Exactly.

Shannon: There’s only two kinds of people.

Riese: In this world.

Carly: That’s Hollywood, baby.

Shannon: Yeah. Showbiz, baby.

Riese: Showbiz. I did feel a slight vibe of a lot of the actors doing the least, but they committed just enough. And this was very Angela Robinson. She’s very good at this type of schemey things.

Carly: Scheme, scheme, scheme, scheme, scheme.

Shannon: I mean, D.E.B.S. I don’t know if that’s a movie people talk about enough.

Riese: D.E.B.S. Hello. D.E.B.S. Yeah.

Carly: It’s not a movie that anyone’s talking about enough.

Riese: Carly loves it.

Carly: I love the movie D.E.B.S.

Riese: Anyhoo. So yeah, they plan this thing, Shane goes and gets Niki involved in it, Jenny pretends to be Niki’s manager, which is funny.

Shannon: I love how, in that scene, they just named the only directors they know.

Carly: Yes.

Shannon: Scorsese.

Riese: Scorsese.

Shannon: Spielberg.

Carly: Soderbergh.

Riese: Soderbergh, yeah.

Carly: Older white men whose last name start with S.

Shannon: Exactly.

Riese: Yes, exactly.

Shannon: I was just like, “Okay.”

Riese: That was the field. And Dylan’s like, “That’s weird that Niki would want me to direct her film. I’ve only done obscure documentaries.”

Carly: And she’s like, “She loves your documentaries!” The stuff with Jenny was so funny. She’s like, “She likes to party, she’s a whippersnapper. Meet her at the club.”

Riese: Hot, hot, hot.

Carly: Oh, that was fun. I enjoyed the whole montage. That was great.

Shannon: But also, I don’t think a general would happen at the club ever.

Carly: It fully would not. No general has ever happened at the club.

Shannon: No.

Carly: Because famously clubs are very loud.

Shannon: Well, I have a lot of notes too.

Carly: But not Hit Club!

Shannon: I have a lot of notes about that for when we get…

Carly: We’ll get there.

Riese: This is another episode that took place, I think from here on on out, in pitch darkness. I couldn’t see a single person after pretty much this scene.

Shannon: But it was also very quiet.

Carly: It was so quiet!

Riese: Yeah. We’ll get to that.

Carly: They’re at a restaurant and a nightclub for the most of the rest of the episode and it is very quiet.

Riese: In our next scene, we go to the second floor of a home where Jenny and Shane live, or maybe it’s the first floor. I don’t know where it is. But again, it’s very low lights here.

Shannon: One of the three sets.

Riese: Last episode, Jenny transformed Shane’s room into her office. That has been wiped from this slate.

Carly: Not a thing anymore.

Riese: That’s not a thing anymore. They both have bedrooms. Shane comes home, she lies on top of Jenny. It’s like they’re kind of sexy and they’re going to maybe hook up. But then when Shane mentions that she saw Niki today to recruit her for this event, Jenny is like, “You can’t do that.”

Shannon: Jenny goes into full blown, jealous—

Riese: Psycho.

Shannon: Psycho mode.

Riese: She’s like, “I forbid it because she betrayed us.”

Carly: And Shane’s like, “You can’t forbid me from talking to people and seeing people. You can’t do that.”

Riese: Yeah. And Shane does all of this with a toothbrush in her mouth. Cheers to that. You know what I mean? And she’s like, “You can’t forbid me to see anybody.” And Jenny’s like, “She betrayed us. I hate her. And you should hate her too out of loyalty to me.” And Shane wisely says, “That was me. Blame me, not Niki.” And that’s such a real thing, you know what I mean?

Carly: Yeah.

Shannon: Yeah.

Riese: So Jenny’s in like redrum mode sort of. And then Shane’s like, “I have no feelings.” And then they have this cute little thing where they make up. And Jenny apologizes. Shane goes downstairs and Jenny is like, “Okay, I’m wrong, I’m sorry. I have to trust you.”

Shannon: What did you say?

Riese: “I’m wrong.”

Carly: This was cute. But also, the whole time I was like, “Jenny is just being so manipulative.” Like, none of this is real. Or maybe she thinks it’s real in the moment, but it’s going to snap back when she is in the club.

Riese: Right. Because later on, everything goes back to normal.

Carly: So we go to The Olive Garden. The only fancy restaurant in Los Angeles. I wish this was at The Olive Garden.

Riese: I know.

Carly: Every time they’re at a restaurant, I just wish it was The Olive Garden.

Riese: Every time they go to a restaurant, we’re like, “Is this The Olive Garden? No? Oh.”

Carly: I think we just really badly missed The Olive Garden, is what’s happening.

Riese: Yeah. We both really want to go to The Olive Garden.

Shannon: Where in LA is there—

Carly: Burbank.

Shannon: Okay.

Riese: Burbank.

Carly: I’m like, Burbank. Do you want the address?

Riese: Anyway, so they’re at The Olive Garden and I hate this entire thing.

Carly: I hate everything that happens so much.

Riese: When it opens, they’re all laughing like something amazingly funny just happened. And then they said, “Felipe, you have to loosen up. I mean, life is too short for boring men.” And everyone’s like ha-ha.

Carly: This is the most obnoxious dinner. We’re just dropped into the most obnoxious dinner. It’s Bette and Tina, Kelly and a man who we later learned is Caleb, who’s an artist.

Riese: I swear they’ve used the name Caleb before. I swear they’ve used this actor before.

Carly: He looked like Henry, Tina’s ex, to me.

Riese: Kelly is very aggressively hitting on Bette during this scene.

Shannon: Oh, yeah. It was so uncomfortable.

Carly: Wild, yeah.

Shannon: For a work meal?

Carly: This is so inappropriate.

Shannon: Even if it’s someone you’ve dated, which, as a lesbian—

Riese: Is everyone.

Shannon: …in the entertainment industry…

Carly: I mean…

Shannon: You have these encounters, but you wouldn’t ever act that way at a professional dinner, I don’t think.

Riese: No.

Carly: Bette’s like, “Oh yeah, we met in college.” And then she’s like, “Oh, that’s the boring version of it. She was in love with me.” And I was like, “What the fuck?”

Riese: What are you doing?

Carly: And Tina is there the whole time just having to deal with this.

Shannon: Oh, yeah.

Carly: It’s so fucked.

Shannon: Tina’s just chewing through it.

Carly: She’s just chewing the whole scene.

Riese: Chewing on through it. Blue Is the Warmest Color-ing it. And the dude is like, “Well, now she’s taken.” And Kelly’s like, “You never know.” What?

Carly: This is like serial killer behavior.

Riese: Girl, she can hear you.

Shannon: It’s insane.

Carly: Maybe Kelly killed Jenny because she is clearly a sociopath.

Shannon: I mean, great.

Carly: Exactly. So Bette gets up to take a call. And Kelly is in front of Tina like, “I really feel like Bette is the one that got away for me.” And I was like, “Ah!” And then she’s like, “Oh right, Tina you’re here.”

Kelly: Does it bother you that I flirt shamelessly with your girlfriend?

Carly: Tina’s like, “Oh, no, of course not. But I did tell her that if she cheats on me again—”

Shannon: Again.

Carly: “That we are so through. So have fun being a little tease or whatever the hell this is that you’re doing.” And Kelly’s like…

Kelly: Thanks. I will.

Carly: And I was like, “This is horrifying.”

Riese: It’s also a weird thing because I think everyone knows they’re in a monogamous relationship. So the idea of Tina being like, “No, I told her if she cheats on me and we break up.” That’s a foregone conclusion at this point. There was such a weird response to this whole thing.

Carly: Yeah. So weird.

Riese: Anyway, this was psychotic.

Carly: And then things get worse, somehow.

Shannon: Then it gets wildly more inappropriate.

Carly: Truly. So, Aaron and William walk in with these two screenwriters that Tina has been putting a project together with for three years. And Bette’s like, “Why is that a bad thing?” And Tina’s like, “Because in this business not being invited to the meeting, means that you’re fired.” And I was like, “Whoa!”

Shannon: Showbiz, baby!

Carly: That’s Hollywood!

Riese: Showbiz. That’s showbiz. But before this situation can escalate to where it’s clearly headed, we have to go to Hit Club, the hottest club in West Hollywood that is also the quietest.

Riese: Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace.

Shannon: It’s also the biggest lesbian club I’ve ever seen in my life.

Riese: Yeah, it’s the biggest.

Shannon: Is every lesbian from LA and the outlying LA there?

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Yeah, it’s enormous.

Shannon: Now we have lesbian parties, we don’t even have bars or clubs.

Carly: We don’t even have buildings.

Shannon: But it’s crammed into a… Well, Riese, you were at the opening night of Dana’s?

Riese: Yeah. I was, it was packed. Packed. You could not move. So Dawn Denbow’s security system—

Shannon: Oh my God.

Riese: … at SheBar is for sure illegal, right? You can’t just mic up your whole club?

Shannon: No.

Carly: That is something that only would happen in a movie, like a mob movie.

Shannon: Yeah.

Riese: There are so many TVs.

Shannon: So many TVs.

Riese: She has this whole control room.

Shannon: Watching the videos, you can very clearly hear every conversation.

Riese: Somehow.

Shannon: But no background noise at this huge warehouse party sized club.

Riese: Where music is, in theory, playing.

Shannon: Yes.

Carly: And yet somehow they’re getting clear audio of this conversation. It was incredible.

Riese: Wild.

Carly: I love also that their whole scheme rests upon this happening at Hit Club because of the security system.

Shannon: I know.

Carly: That is so funny. They’re like, “And then we have to get her to have the meeting at Hit Club because it’s wired for sound.” What?

Riese: It’s like no one has ever heard of just putting your phone in a purse with a camera and then aiming the purse camera at your mark.

Shannon: Yeah. I mean, this was a different era, so…

Riese: That’s true.

Shannon: I mean, when they were scheming in the beginning, they were using landlines, I will say.

Riese: That’s true. God, I miss landlines.

Carly: That’s a good point.

Riese: But before they can get into the scheme, Jenny shows up with Shane and Alice is mad at Jenny and yells at her again. And Jenny — again, this felt very improvised — Jenny’s like, “Was Beverly Hills Cop your idea too?” She’s just acting like Alice’s idea was so generic. And she can’t lay claim to it. But also, again, obviously not. And she’s like, “Maybe Shane is buying it, but I’m not.” So, whatever.

Shannon: But also I feel like the friends should have been more supportive of Alice because it’s literally her and Tasha.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Why has no one actually said that? It’s not even like the idea was generic or whatever. It’s like, it’s clearly about a talk show host and a cop.

Riese: A talk show host and a cop.

Carly: Why is no one talking about this? That’s the issue.

Shannon: Especially after the whole Lez Girls drama.

Carly: Right. No one’s drawing the connections between Shaun and Shane and Lez Girls and this.

Shannon: Yeah. That made me mad. They weren’t being good friends to Alice.

Carly: No.

Riese: No.

Carly: They’ve kind of abandoned her in this.

Shannon: Yes.

Carly: Jenny tells Alice that she’s being a child too, which I thought was right, because… Sure.

Riese: Also, Jenny’s hair at this point, they have these very severe, full forehead bangs that come down. So she looks like Emily the Strange.

Shannon: She does.

Carly: Incredible reference.

Shannon: Yeah, she does.

Carly: Jenny is out here with her Hot Topic bangs. Then Alice threatens her to her face in a room full of witnesses, by the way. You get that in this scene. Straight up. She’s like, “I’m going to murder you. They will find your body in a pool.”

Shannon: There was no subtlety in this episode about that. It’s shocking.

Carly: None. And then they’re able to see on this very crystal clear security system that Niki has arrived.

Riese: I, however, can’t see it because this scene, again—

Shannon: It’s so dark.

Riese: Did they have a budget for one desk lamp or something?

Carly: One light. One small light.

Riese: I could not see anything that was happening. You have to watch this in a pitch dark room—

Shannon: Oh, I know.

Riese: …with a big screen to see a Goddamn thing that’s happening.

Shannon: But they can spot all their friends walking in one by one.

Carly: Easily.

Riese: I can’t, but they sure can.

Carly: Well, Riese, you weren’t there, okay?

Shannon: That’s true.

Riese: That’s true. You’re right. Jenny is super weird about Shane talking to Niki and is upset about it. And as Niki walks in, everyone’s like, “Oh my God, it’s Niki Stevens.”

Carly: “I love Niki Stevens!” It’s like ASMR.

Riese: I love Niki Stevens. Niki Stevens, Niki Stevens.

Carly: The way they recorded those voices or ADR’d them and then boosted the volume was so like, “Oh my God, it’s Niki Stevens.”

Riese: Niki Stevens. Niki Stevens. It’s great.

Shannon: But then later on, there’s a shot of Niki just dancing alone at this club—

Carly: Alone!

Shannon: …and I’m like—

Riese: Right. Yeah, I’m like, as if.

Carly: No.

Shannon: She wouldn’t have been left alone like that, please.

Riese: No.

Carly: So Niki walks to the club and all of her adoring fans, and then she finds Dylan sitting in a booth with a full office set up, and we cut back to the whole gang has bowls of popcorn, which I actually really appreciated that.

Shannon: Oh my God. I know.

Carly: That was a really nice touch.

Riese: That was cute.

Carly: That was cute.

Riese: Then we go back to the restaurant where—

Carly: Oh God.

Riese: …Bette, for some reason takes it upon herself — as if this dinner isn’t appropriate enough already — to walk over to the other table at The Olive Garden where William and whatever, Aaron, are sitting with the mysterious filmmakers and starts yelling at them about how disrespectful and awful they are being to Tina.

Aaron: Bette, it’s Bette, right?
Bette: It’s Aaron, right?
Aaron: Yeah.
Bette: The bald impotent worm that we’ve all been talking about.
Aaron: Excuse me?
Bette: It is fucking stupefying to me how you can sit here with Martine, Susan, right? Tina’s writers and get to—
Tina: Bette.
Bette: What?

Riese: And then Tina sees that and pulls Bette aside and is like, “Yo, no.” And then, in blatant violation of Title IX, Aaron says out loud twice—

Carly: Two times.

Aaron: That’s why I am so happy to be done with dykes.

Tina: What did you say?

Aaron: I said, I am so happy to be done with dykes.

Riese: Again, you can’t actually say this. This counts as discrimination. You can’t say this.

Shannon: I don’t think though… I mean, anyone would say this openly even if you are not a fan of lesbians.

Carly: Right, no one who wants to continue to have a career.

Shannon: And I mean, I guess back then… I wasn’t in the biz back then, yet. I don’t even know what year this was.

Carly: I was not yet in the biz.

Riese: 2009.

Carly: Was I? No, I was not.

Riese: Well, we had our own film production company, me and Carly, where we made videos—

Shannon: What was it called?

Riese: …of ourselves acting like we were in The L Word, describing the industry on YouTube.

Shannon: Yeah. And that’s how I found you and became huge fans.

Riese: Right. It all comes around.

Carly: Oh, God.

Riese: Carly dies inside every time really.

Carly: Every time. Anyway, Aaron’s like, “I’m so happy to be done with dykes!” in the middle of The Olive Garden. And they’re like, “Sir, no more free breadsticks for you.”

Riese: Yeah. “Sir, this is an Olive Garden.”

Carly: Yes. This is the definition of, “Sir, this is an Olive Garden” right here. He’s at The Olive Garden at Burbank.

Riese: You can’t just say you’re happy to be done with dykes in the middle of The Olive Garden. What?

Shannon: Very loudly. But none of the extras turned around. And I’m just like…

Carly: No one even notices. None. Zero.

Riese: No one. I mean, multiple witnesses hear and he’s sitting with two people who are not necessarily loyal to him yet. This is just so dumb.

Carly: And you could see one of the screenwriter ladies, and she was not reacting to anything—

Riese: She could be gay.

Carly: …that was happening when Tina was screaming at him.

Riese: No.

Carly: Tina publicly accuses William of stealing the negative. All this stuff is happening and those two screenwriters are just chilling. And I was like, run. Just run. It doesn’t matter who you believe, just run.

Shannon: I know. It doesn’t matter how much money.

Carly: Don’t get involved with any of these people. There’s other producers out there, just leave.

Shannon: Shaolin Studios is not where you have to have your project.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: They had a huge sexual harassment case like a year ago. It’s not a good place to work at all.

Riese: And they’re about to have another.

Tina: You stupid fucking cock sucker. How dare you sit there with that smug little smile on your face and wine and dine my writers on a project that took me three years to put together as if you had anything, anything, to do with it. He said you were talentless hacks. Yeah. And I begged him to hire you. I have put everything into this job, I have poured my heart and my soul and my talent into making you both look good time and time and again. And how do you repay me? By stealing my contacts and icing me.
Aaron: Tina keep your voice—
Tina: Shut your pie hole, Aaron. I have never in all of my life, worked for such an idiotic, mindless, juvenile, cruel, pathetic loser of a human being such as you. You are soulless and you’re everything about this fucking Hollywood that I hate.
William: Now, this is really uncalled for. I mean—
Tina: Uncalled for? You know what’s uncalled for? A billionaire stealing the negative of his own movie just so he can put in a claim for insurance money.
William: What are you talking about?
Tina: And then to drag my name through the mud to forge my signature on a letter, accusing me of theft and fraud. It’s just downright criminal, William. And don’t think for a second that you are going to fucking get away with it because I know, I know. Enjoy your dinner.

Carly: This is so ridiculous.

Riese: Shut your pie hole!

Carly: I mean, we do get a shot—

Riese: Ma’am, this is an Olive Garden!

Carly: We do get a shot of him eating at one point, though, and it is gross.

Riese: Of course, it is.

Carly: But this is like, okay. Just everything you’re like, “All right. Sure.”

Shannon: What’s happening? And just the fact that seasoned TV people in this business who are lesbians wrote this. What?

Carly: Is this some kind of wish fulfillment? Like these are the things they always wanted to say to some straight cis white male producers, but never could? Maybe that’s what this is?

Riese: And they was like, “Finally, shut your pie hole.”

Carly: You’re a loser.

Riese: Back to Hit Club where Niki claims to have loved the film Atonement, which I don’t think is true. And then she says, “If you want to win an Oscar, you’ve got to play ugly, the R word or a lesbian.”

Carly: And then proceeds to—

Shannon: To list every problematic role.

Carly: Every — oh my God.

Riese: So she lists all these people that have won Oscars for playing those things. This is in the discourse already, people know this, that often if you are playing one of these things, people often nominate you for Oscars, you know what I mean?

Carly: I mean, the fact that she has so much evidence to support her claim. If you’re straight and you play gay and it’s dramatic, you will get nominated.

Riese: Oscar.

Carly: Yeah. And if you are an attractive person and you make yourself less attractive for a role, there’s a good shot people are going to at least pay attention.

Riese: Good chance.

Shannon: Oh, yeah.

Riese: Yeah. Because that’s when they know you’re really acting.

Carly: You’re like, whoa, acting.

Riese: Right. Obviously the worst part of this whole speech of nonsense is her final declaration is Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry. Total lesbian.

Carly: Oh my God. Yeah. This was-

Shannon: I know.

Riese: Did you see the film?

Carly: No. Niki Stevens didn’t see the film.

Shannon: No, she didn’t.

Carly: Also, do not get me started on em>Boys Don’t Cry. I will go off for an hour.

Riese: I don’t feel like there’s any room to watch that film. What? The point of the film is that her character is a guy. That’s the point of the movie.

Carly: Everything she says is wrong.

Shannon: Especially now.

Carly: Oh my God.

Shannon: Yeah. Anyways.

Carly: I watched the scene through my hands. I was just like, “Oh my God. She said the R word 14 times.”

Riese: It’s kind of a throwaway line. But this is a character on The L Word, which is being watched by millions of lesbians all over the world who are already getting this really, really weird idea of — who are already getting all those transphobic shit through Max — to have somebody say, unchallenged, to basically deny that Brandon Teena was a guy. And that just be part of the dialogue, that’s really fucked up.

Shannon: I know.

Riese: Anyway.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Dylan is like, “I don’t think you have to be ugly. I think you just have to be real.” Because Dylan’s a real director.

Carly: Wow, Dylan. That’s great. It’s really great that you let Niki say all that stuff and didn’t oppose her in any way. Real moral character.

Riese: Back in the control room—

Shannon: Oh God.

Riese: Shane says something about rope-a-dope.

Carly: Yeah. I don’t know what is.

Riese: No follow up on that.

Carly: No, none.

Shannon: I didn’t catch that.

Carly: Shane was like, “Niki’s going to make her move in three, two, one.” And then she did. And then for some reason this made Jenny crazy.

Riese: Yeah. She went insane. Dylan tells Niki that she fucked up with Helena, and Niki is like, “Yeah, I fuck up too. But you know it feels so good in the moment.” And then Alice drops her popcorn. Everything’s off for a second.

Shannon: Everything shuts off.

Carly: I love that placing a popcorn bowl on a keyboard caused the whole thing to shut down.

Shannon: The whole system to shut down. And then, they easily turn it back on. Alice turns it back on as if she knows how to.

Carly: It’s back.

Shannon: In reality, all that equipment, it would be like, “What? Which? What?”

Carly: No. He would be the only person that could get them back online.

Shannon: Yeah.

Riese: Okay. So Dylan rejects Niki’s advances saying, for one, it’s unethical for a director to sleep with the star of the movie. And then back in the control room, Alice says to Jenny, “Guess you didn’t get that memo.” And Jenny’s like…

Jenny: Fuck off.

Riese: And I loved that.

Carly: I love that as well.

Shannon: That was cute. That was funny.

Riese: And then Niki blatantly says, “If you want to direct this film, you have to come home with me tonight.” And she says, “I guess I’m not directing this film.” And then everyone cheers.

Carly: They’re like, “She did it. We tried to entrap her.”

Shannon: Like, “We won.”

Carly: Are you proud of yourselves?

Riese: What? Also, in 2020, you know that Dylan would have done a thing on a Notes app and tweeted that, back in 2009, Niki Stevens tried to coerce her into sex saying that she would not let her direct the film unless they slept together. And Niki would get canceled.

Carly: Wait.

Riese: Niki Stevens is over party.

Carly: I really hope season two of Gen Q brings back Niki Stevens.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: And then Dylan’s character comes back purely as a Notes app apology — or a Notes app announcement. Yes.

Shannon: Just a screen grab on her social media.

Carly: Alice could be like, “You guys, did you see what Dylan posted?” “Dylan?” “Yeah. Remember Dylan?”

Riese: Yeah. And everyone would be like, “Oh, shit.” And they’ll be like, “Should we explain what happened?” And they’ll be like, “Eh.”

Carly: Oh my God. So then, Helena looks completely shell shocked by the whole experience. And everyone is like, “All right, let’s go get a drink.” Blah, blah, blah. And Alice is like, “Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

Shannon: Helena is the one with morals now.

Carly: Right. Exactly. And Alice is like, “Oh, I’ll be right there.” Because she’s going to spy on Tasha and Jamie for one or two seconds. That was it.

Riese: Yeah. She zooms right in.

Carly: It was so easy to find them and zoom in.

Shannon: But it has this little smart, quick, “tee-hee-hee.” Like, “There are my girls!”

Carly: Yes. I’m like, “Go make out with both of them. Why are we not doing this?”

Riese: Threesome, threesome, threesome.

Shannon: Too bad.

Riese: One thing that did drive me bananas in Gen Q that through all of the conversations they had about the throuple that not one of them involved Alice bringing this up!

Shannon: I mean, to be fair, I didn’t even remember this until… And I did re-watch this season—

Riese: Oh, really?

Shannon: …before I started working on Gen Q.

Riese: I remembered it.

Carly: Justice for Jamie, I guess would be the hashtag that was created right now.

Riese: Yeah. Justice for Jamie. Jamie should have come in earlier also. No, I remember Jenny because she’s the first — or Jamie. Jamie, because she’s the first queer Asian character that happens in the entire series.

Shannon: Yeah.

Carly: Midway through season six.

Riese: And we get her joining midway through season six in this show that’s set in Los Angeles, California, which I just find…

Shannon: Asians in LA? No.

Carly: That’s weird.

Riese: None.

Shannon: None.

Riese: No.

Carly: We don’t have Asian people here. Oh, wait.

Shannon: My goodness.

Carly: This fucking show.

Shannon: But I mean, I have nothing to do with Gen Q this upcoming season, but if there is not a freaking butch lesbian…

Riese: Oh my God.

Shannon: I will lose my shit. Because I mean—

Carly: Like, what is happening, guys?

Shannon: …even our crew had some of like — like, you’re friends with Moira.

Carly: Oh my God. Yeah.

Shannon: The DP.

Carly: The whole camera teams.

Shannon: The whole camera team had all these super, great, awesome butch lesbians, which you could’ve created a character based off of them.

Carly: We have those in LA. We have butch lesbians in LA.

Riese: Yeah, they’re all over the place.

Carly: We’re just crawling with them.

Riese: Non-binary people, also all over, all over LA.

Carly: All over the place. So many of us.

Riese: All over spaces that are also occupied by lesbians. They’re everywhere. It’s wild.

Carly: We’re coexisting, we’re here, and it’s in LA.

Riese: Yeah, exactly.

Shannon: Anyways.

Riese: Anyways.

Carly: So Helena goes to see Dylan, who’s still in the booth with her office supplies. And they have a very intimate conversation, because again, this is the quietest nightclub of all time.

Riese: Right. I mean, if there was a club where you could hear people speak that clearly—

Carly: I would go to it all the time.

Shannon: I’d be into it.

Riese: Because that’s what I don’t like about clubs, is the yelling in the ears.

Shannon: Yeah, I hate that.

Carly: Do you think we could start an over 30 queer night?

Shannon: Oh my God.

Carly: Once life is normal again?

Riese: Where the music has to be like—

Carly: The music is a little lower and no one under 30 is allowed in unless a handful of people who are over 30 vouch for them that they’re chill.

Shannon: I would love that.

Riese: Yeah, exactly. Chill

Carly: We just get to listen to music and hang out. I don’t know. That just sounds nice.

Riese: Yeah.

Shannon: That sounds fun.

Riese: Dylan says she came back to LA because she couldn’t stop thinking about Helena, which is very presumptuous.

Carly: It really is.

Shannon: I mean, I will go to defend Dylan. This is her first lesbian, we’re meant to believe—

Riese: Love?

Shannon: …love, right? And experience.

Carly: So then her behavior does make sense.

Shannon: I mean…

Carly: Historically.

Shannon: Historically.

Riese: That’s true. Yeah. Again, Blue Is the Warmest Color.

Shannon: But also we’re meant to believe that Dylan, Alexandra, has since been straight.

Riese: Yes.

Shannon: Until she met Helena.

Carly: She’s truly the queerest looking character on the show—

Shannon: I know!

Carly: …is the least queer? Okay. Sure.

Riese: Elsewhere in the club: Niki is dancing, really feeling herself. Again, alone.

Shannon: She’s alone and under a spotlight.

Riese: Tasha, Alice and Jamie are going watermelon, watermelon, watermelon, and then laughing.

Carly: That’s some inside Hollywood biz talk.

Shannon: Showbiz, baby. Oh God, I’m saying this too much. I’m going to regret this when I hear this later.

Carly: I’m just going to start saying it all the time, is what’s going to happen. And then I’m in trouble.

Riese: That’s showbiz. My favorite part of the relationship is they couldn’t figure out what they were talking about, so they just laugh. All they’re doing is they’re just laughing at each other. So we get the vibe that—

Carly: They’re having fun together? Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. They could have a better time if they had sex.

Shannon: Had sex, yeah. I agree.

Carly: Yes. And then Jenny’s just reading Shane’s text messages.

Riese: Right, like what? Jenny!

Carly: And then Shane goes, “What are you doing?” And Jenny goes…

Jenny: I was reading your text messages.

Shane: Yeah. No shit. You were seeing if Niki texted me.

Jenny: I was seeing because she has your phone number and I wanted—

Shane: She’s not texting me, Jenny.

Shannon: To be fair, that is in character for Jenny, right?

Carly: That is very, yes.

Shannon: That is something that I would totally buy. But also, did cell phones not have locks then? I guess, is that flip phone days?

Riese: Shane would never have locked her phone.

Shannon: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah. Then Alice, Tasha and Jamie come and sit down with Jenny and Shane and Shane is like, “Alice, keep Jenny occupied. She’s driving me crazy. I need to go outside for five minutes.” And comes up with this great story about how someone just told her that she left her headlights on. What? I thought this club had valet. So this really wouldn’t be her issue.

Riese: Yeah. Jenny reads Shane’s texts, Jenny remodels her room, Jenny makes sure to throw out her t-shirts but she accepts the lights on.

Carly: Yeah. Shane’s like, “I’ll be right back. I’m just going outside for five minutes.” And Jenny doesn’t follow… I really was shocked that Jenny didn’t follow her outside.

Shannon: I know.

Riese: I know.

Carly: I was truly shocked.

Riese: Yeah. Also, just say you’re going to go out… Oh, I guess if she had said she was going to go have a cigarette, then Jenny would have wanted to come with her.

Carly: We quit smoking.

Shannon: Yeah. We quit smoking, when she comes back.

Riese: Oh, right. I forgot about this. Oh, yeah. You’re right.

Carly: We remodeled the bedroom. We quit smoking. We don’t talk to Niki. That’s what’s happening.

Riese: So then we cut to Dylan’s condo or wherever.

Carly: Wherever Dylan lives.

Shannon: Her corporate housing.

Riese: Yeah, her corporate — Dylan has her tea because she’s like, “I’m entertaining a British woman at 11:00 p.m.”

Carly: So I must make tea.

Shannon: Crumpets and tea.

Riese: Yeah. So it’s a little tea break. She has some scones and some tea and she started to have these little biscuits. They’re from Manchester.

Shannon: Something I did not find believable about this episode is not a single one of them was drinking ever, while they’re at the club, scheming.

Carly: They kept talking about drinks like, “Oh, let’s go get a drink.” But no one was drinking it.

Riese: Right. No one was. Has anyone ever gone from the club to someone’s house with someone they have sexual tension with and instead of immediately having a drink, had hot tea?

Carly: This one time here in this episode is the only time it’s ever happened. And Helena is like, “I don’t know what I’m doing here.” And Dylan’s like, “Well, we can just talk.” And then they stare at each other for five minutes. Uninterrupted, no music, nothing.

Shannon: Oh, yeah.

Carly: Just staring at each other.

Riese: Dylan is talking about rubber trees.

Carly: Oh my God. Yeah. I completely wasn’t listening.

Shannon: This whole episode is just too quiet. The sex they have is the quietest sex I’ve ever…

Riese: Yeah. No music. They start making out, zero music. Some of it is shot from behind a shelf, maybe? Things I did during this sex scene: I watched TikTok, I painted my nails, I ordered some paper towels, I sent a text message to Lauren and Carly about something. I have never been so—

Shannon: Bored.

Riese: …profoundly bored during a sex scene.

Carly: Same.

Riese: As I was.

Carly: I wrote in my notes, “I barely paid attention to this sex scene.” And I’m trying to think of what I was… I was sitting here, I was watching it. I think I was just on my phone? I think I was playing a game on my phone. Checking Instagram. I was like, “This is going on forever.”

Riese: My notes are, “I’m bored low-key. Helena has got full garters and thigh highs? Blah, blah, blah, where’s the music?”

Carly: I think part of the reason that a sex scene is good is that you have to be invested in the characters or the sex scene has to just be hot.

Shannon: Be hot. Yeah.

Carly: And this was neither. We love Helena, but who gives a shit about what Dylan’s doing?

Shannon: Yeah. Totally.

Carly: No one cares about Dylan. No offense to the Dylan stans out, all one of you maybe.

Shannon: I’ve never encountered a Dylan stan. I don’t think so.

Carly: I don’t believe they exist.

Shannon: Why does it have to be so long then if it’s going to be so quiet?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Nothing happened either. It’s not that they were just going at it for hours. Everything was taking a really long time.

Shannon: It truly felt like — when you’re shooting sex scenes, it is the longest days and the longest things to shoot and super hard. But this felt like you were a crew member on set just watching this scene. It was like there was no—

Riese: Uncut.

Shannon: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, there were very few edits. It was very long. It was just the raw footage, I think.

Riese: I mean, Helena stuck her hand down Dylan’s pants at the coffee-tea station in the condo when Dana was dying. They had wild animal sex on a bed in front of a sunset of the whole majestry of the Southern California.

Carly: On the beach!

Riese: In all of the pastels, they had sexual harassment lawsuit sex in the editing bay of their film.

Carly: They did.

Riese: And this is what Dylan moved to LA for, is this?!

Carly: Yeah, this is the big reunion. This is what we go out on?

Shannon: The big like, “Wow, they should be together. They belong together.”

Carly: It’s just like, what is happening?

Riese: I was so bored.

Carly: It was so boring. Maybe these characters need the element of danger in order for it to be interesting, and this felt safer? I don’t know. I don’t want to try to read into it—

Shannon: I don’t know.

Carly: …because I think they could have cut these scenes down.

Shannon: Could they not cut it because they just shot it in one take?

Carly: Right? It just looks like that. You could cut it down. You could totally cut it down. It’d be fine.

Shannon: Add some sex noises or something.

Carly: Music, something?

Riese: Add a song. Put on some Usher.

Shannon: The budget was so low they couldn’t get any songs.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Yeah. Mathew Star was like, “Sorry, you cannot not afford us.”

Carly: Portishead was like, “Please leave me alone. Stop calling.”

Riese: Portishead is like, “For the last time, no.” Oh, man.

Carly: We have fun.

Shannon: Oh, man.

Riese: The Indigo Girls, they should have done this. They could have done a nice Indigo Girls sex scene. What if they did “Hammer and a Nail,” to this sex scene? If they were — “get out of bed, get a hammer and a nail.” That’s good for this because they’re in bed and they’re nailing.

Carly: I’m happy to report that I only know one Indigo Girls song.

Riese: I know all of them.

Carly: I know you do.

Riese: I’d like to nominate—

Shannon: I know the classics.

Riese: …”Get Out the Map” for this sex scene. I think that would have been a nice little genre fun that we’d be having. Speaking of fun we’re not having. We go outside.

Carly: Whoa! Yeah, yeah. Riese, Riese, Riese, Riese.

Riese: We’re outside Hit Club, Shane is smoking. Guess who shows up? It’s Niki. Niki asks for a cigarette.

Carly: I’m shocked.

Riese: They smoke. Niki flirts, Shane hits on Niki. Shane’s like, “I’m with Jenny.” Niki’s like, “Oh, I misinterpreted your personality.” And then Shane says, “If Jenny wasn’t in the picture, maybe things would be different.”

Shannon: Right?

Riese: This relationship is going really well.

Carly: Yikes! This is great. Their relationship’s off to a great start. How long have they been dating? Three days? This is going really well. She’s already made her throw out all her clothes.

Riese: Yeah. And also Jenny has been busy. She had to write a whole screenplay, bidding war.

Carly: And then get agents and sell it.

Riese: That was really time consuming.

Carly: How did she find time to turn Shane’s bedroom into an office when she was writing and selling a script?

Riese: And back.

Shannon: And back.

Carly: And turn it back.

Shannon: I feel like now I need to go back and watch this because continuity shit pisses me off.

Carly: Don’t. It’ll drive you crazy. We’re living proof of why you shouldn’t do that because we’ve both lost our minds.

Shannon: I’m not going to do it.

Carly: Don’t do it.

Shannon: You’re right.

Riese: Back inside Hit Club, Jamie and Tasha are yelling at Jenny about Alice’s screenplay, which I love. So kind of her girlfriends to defend her.

Carly: Jenny looks at Jamie and goes…

Jenny: I don’t even know who you are.

Carly: That was so funny.

Riese: Then, Jenny wants Shane to pick a side. Shane is just like, bug-eyed Shane. They get back out to the dance floor and now Jenny is being completely bananas. And Shane is trying to manage it, knowing what she knows about Jenny as a person from their friendship, is like, “You can’t control everything. You have to stop putting me in a box.” And she’s like, “I’m not putting you in a box.” She’s like, “Look at me, I’m in a box.” And it’s like, well…

Carly: And she does mime bit.

Riese: Then she’s like—

Carly: “This is me in a box.” And Jenny’s like, “Well, that’s not in a box because if you were in a box, you’d be a mime and then you wouldn’t be talking to me. And also it’s crazy that I can hear you on the dance floor.” It’s so quiet.

Riese: And it’s also crazy I could even see you because it’s so dark in here.

Carly: So dark in here.

Shannon: Oh, yeah. For our lesbian party, it should be mood lighting, but not pitch-black for the over 30 club.

Riese: Exactly.

Carly: We all want to look good and you need good lighting.

Riese: It has soft lighting so you can’t tell that our faces are falling off of our faces, but.

Carly: Look, this is an over 30 club. So we have to have kind lighting.

Shannon: Yeah. For sure.

Carly: But I think that there’s a way to do it that’s going to be really, really wonderful. I know enough people that work in lighting that I think we can pull it off.

Shannon: Yeah. For sure.

Carly: Get all those bushes from the camera department, group and lighting.

Riese: Shane’s like, “Listen, if I had to choose between our romantic relationship and our friendship, I would pick our friendship. And I don’t want to fuck that up, or for anything to get in the way of that.” And then Jenny — fully deranged, wildly, baddy, bananas, Emily the Strange, red room Jenny — is like, “The only thing that would get in the way of our friendship is if our romantic relationship doesn’t work?”

Shannon: Which is just, like, red flags, everywhere.

Carly: Just flag on the play, flag on the play, flag on the play. They’re all red.

Riese: Right. Flag, flag, flag.

Carly: Oh my God.

Shannon: No.

Carly: And then Jenny’s like, “I love you.” And it’s just like this is… Oh my God, this is so manipulative and weird.

Shannon: As somebody who has dated a lot of people who they were friends with first, this is just not something that… No.

Carly: No, this is very bad.

Riese: No.

Carly: This is very toxic. And I’m very concerned for Shane. Jenny is like, “I love you.” And Shane does that thing that people only say on movies.

Shannon:
Me too! Hashtag me too.

Carly: When she says, “Me too.”

Shannon: Oh, I know.

Carly: That’s like not really saying it back.

Shannon: No.

Carly: That’s the thing you say when you are—

Shannon: When you don’t mean it. When you don’t love them.

Carly: But I also know that we’re going to get in a fight. I’m trying to end a fight here. So, me too.

Shannon: Same.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Right back at you, babe.

Riese: Ditto.

Carly: Ditto.

Shannon: Oh God.

Riese: Even from Jenny’s point of view, I mean, I guess people are like this out in the world all the time. We all know that, we’ve all known them.

Shannon: But Riese, also, you’re a supporter of this relationship.

Carly: Yes, you are.

Riese: I’m a supporter of the relationship between Shane and Jenny based on who their characters were in season five. But the way that this plays out is… No, I’m not supportive of it. I’m mad at it. I’m mad that they were so focused on making Jenny murderable that they made this how it was. And even, Jenny has done fucked up things in relationships before, but not like this.

Shannon: For sure.

Riese: You know? And she’s been with people who she really loved and she’s done low-key crazy things, but this is high-key. And also, you don’t want to be with someone who’s only with you out of fear. I had so much anxiety already that if I’m with someone that they secretly don’t like me or don’t want to be with me, but the idea that they’re only there because I’ve threatened them, that our friendship will mess up otherwise, that’s not good on either end.

Carly: I don’t recommend that.

Riese: What?

Carly: Not good.

Shannon: Where’s Dan Foxworthy when you really need him?

Carly: Oh my God. The only therapist in LA.

Riese: Speaking of relationships that probably won’t work out, we go to Dylan’s, where finally someone has turned on some goddamn music. Finally.

Shannon: But how? When?

Riese: The Indigo Girls called and were like, “We got a 911.” Anyway, it doesn’t matter. But the point is that Helena is weeping.

Shannon: Oh God.

Carly: Yes, she’s sobbing.

Shannon: Sobbing.

Riese: Her whole M.O. this season has just been a scared facial expression. She’s had two lines.

Shannon: And this is post her being in jail, right? Or prison.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: That was hot.

Shannon: I feel like she would have toughened up a little bit.

Carly: Yeah. Her character’s been through life stuff now, which before she was just like a sheltered rich girl who didn’t have to worry about anything. And now her character should have evolved to having been through so many different things.

Shannon: I guess that’s what sex — when it’s true love, you cry, I guess.

Riese: Yeah. I think that every time that Helena looks at Dylan, she just feels so completely dismantled.

Carly: Good one.

Riese: So anyway, their sex scene ends. I don’t even remember — I know we ranked every sex scene, so we must have ranked this one. But for some reason I feel like I have no memory of it existing.

Carly: It’s very forgettable. It ends with her crying and the both of them saying they’re scared. I mean, it’s… meh.

Riese: Yeah.

Shannon: I feel like this episode had a lot of rewrites happen.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. And a lot of it felt improvised as well.

Carly: I’ll say that the hijinks and the comedy are great because it’s Angela Robinson, and then, everything else just felt thrown in real quick and not… Ooh, it just didn’t feel fully baked. I don’t know.

Shannon: No.

Riese: Right.

Shannon: I mean, this whole season…

Carly: Well, it could be related to real life things like writing or budget, but it could be more along the lines of some sort of scientific disturbance.

Riese: Scientific disruption. Yeah.

Carly: Is it possible that given the proximity of Bette’s home to Hit Club and The Planet — all these places are in the same… They’re all in West Hollywood, they’re all nearby. All right. What I think happened.

Riese: Okay. Science.

Carly: Once again, science took over. The butterfly effect, created an alternate reality version of Hit Club, that’s very quiet, and that allows for things like this to happen. And by Helena being in Hit Club all the time, it rubbed off on her. So when she went to Dylan’s place of residence, it affected her as well.

Riese: Dylan’s corporate housing.

Carly: I just really think that the dress — the butterfly — is responsible for what’s going on with Jenny, with Helena, with Tina and Bette.

Riese: Alice, Bette and Tina.

Carly: I think you can trace it back to everybody.

Shannon: I think that tracks.

Carly: I think so.

Riese: I think that tracks.

Carly: I think that we should really spend some time studying this in a scientific way.

Riese: It’s also — it’s like magical realism in a way. You know what I mean?

Carly: And as Shannon mentioned earlier, this is purely a work of science fiction this season, which is correct.

Riese: Syfy.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: S-Y-F-Y.

Carly: S-Y-F-Y.

Riese: Syfy. It’s the one after Wynonna Earp.

Carly: That would be a really good programming lineup for Syfy.

Riese: Season six of The L Word, Wynonna Earp.

Carly: Right after Wynonna Earp, new episodes.

Riese: Maybe a little — like Killjoys or something in there.

Carly: Yeah. That would be great actually. Syfy, you should call us. We have some ideas.

Shannon: Oh my God.

Riese: Yeah. My number one idea is, could you play Quantum Leap more often? Then we go back to Hit Club?

Carly: We have a slow-mo montage at the club to end the episode.

Shannon: I mean, everything is just very boring in this last — I was just like, “This is how they’re going to end?”

Carly: Did the episode end yet?

Shannon: Why would anyone want to watch the next one after this?

Carly: I know.

Riese: Were they trying to just get, when you add 100 more words to your paper by, just…

Shannon: Yeah.

Riese: It was slow motion for no reason. I felt like, are you trying to make this episode last, the amount of time it needs to last for everyone to get the paycheck that they were promised for participating in this episode? Because why is this in slow motion? Alice, Jamie and Tasha again, ha-ha-ha-ha, watermelon, watermelon. Jenny and Shane, slow-mo looking at each other. What?

Shannon: I mean, I feel like usually when you’re shooting episodes and stuff, you go over in time and have to cut them down a lot.

Carly: Here, that was not the case.

Shannon: But here they’re like, “I just got to stretch…”

Riese: Yeah, stretch.

Carly: Don’t make any edits to that sex scene. And add in more slow motion walking and looking.

Shannon: It just really feels like it’s hitting that last season of a show and you’re going into it and you’ve just given up.

Carly: It’s kind of like senioritis when you’re in school.

Shannon: Right.

Riese: And it’s also like every day is senior skip day.

Shannon: Truly.

Riese: Everyone here was hard hit with senioritis on this show. It was contaminating everything. And I do think that what they could have done is it could have been like the Go Magazine Nightlife Awards for Hit, but it was done remotely. And so Helena and Dylan would be sitting in Helena’s bed, wearing matching pajamas with a large white dog, and then Helena would win Nightclub of the Year for Hit Club. And then her and Dylan would kiss for 10 seconds and it would be way hotter than the sex scene. True or false?

Shannon: True.

Carly: That’s brilliant.

Shannon: I don’t know what you’re referencing.

Riese: Thank you.

Carly: I can’t imagine what you’re talking about. I love the Zoom Nightlife Awards.

Shannon: The nights.

Riese: You remember the Go Nightlife Awards?

Carly: I do. I like the idea of giving out Nightlife Awards when no one’s at the club for a year.

Shannon: Going back to our, once we’re back in the world, over 30 party, I think our goal should just be to win a lesbian nightlife award. I think that might be my new goal in life.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Right. Yeah, fuck the Pulitzer.

Carly: But I’m also dead serious about starting a queer nightclub for older people.

Shannon: I mean, let’s talk about this.

Carly: I’m really down to talk. I’m going to set up a Zoom meeting about this.

Shannon: Great.

Riese: Well, I think that’s the episode!

Carly: That’s the episode.

Shannon: Wow!

Carly: We did it.

Shannon: It was a slow-mo job to the finish of that episode.

Carly: That episode could have been 10 minutes shorter and would have been a much stronger episode.

Riese: I agree.

Carly: There still would have been parts that we were horrified by, like Jenny’s stuff and the terrible Olive Garden scene.

Riese: God, I almost forgot about the Olive Garden scene.

Carly: But there was fun friend campiness going on that it could have been a better episode if they could have trimmed it quite a bit.

Shannon: Yeah. For sure. I mean, the most offensive things about this episode were just the references in queer media.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. I mean, every episode something is offensive. This episode was only offensive for a short period of time.

Carly: Right. This episode had way less transphobia than the rest of the season.

Shannon: Because the trans character was not in it, though.

Riese: Exactly.

Carly: But there was the Boys Don’t Cry line, which was of course, deeply transphobic.

Riese: Yeah. They still found a way.

Carly: They found a way.

Riese: And that is honestly something me and Carly, I think we’ve talked about that we’ve noticed throughout the seasons, is that the times when The L Word is least transphobic are the episodes that Max isn’t in.

Carly: Yup. Because they just can’t help themselves when he’s around. They can’t help but be terrible to him. It’s kind of incredible.

Riese: It is.

Carly: I feel like at the end of an episode where we’re like, “This one wasn’t that transphobic.” We’re like, “Oh, Max was only in one scene. That’s why.” Or he just wasn’t there at all.

Shannon: In this one, he wasn’t in it at all and they still managed to be a little transphobic, and not even reference Max once. Not even mention Max once. I mean, they could have slipped in a Max reference with the whole tech video camera, securities camera stuff.

Carly: Yeah, easily.

Riese: Easily.

Carly: Somebody could have said when Alice turned everything off with her popcorn they could have been like, “Oh, we need—”

Shannon: Where is Max when you need him?

Carly: Yeah, exactly.

Riese: Exactly. Yeah. Shannon, do you have anything about yourself that you would like to plug?

Shannon: I mean, you know, it’s been a slow year. I don’t know if you guys know this, but it’s been a slow year.

Carly: It sure has.

Shannon: I mean, right now, the only project I have going on is I’m producing the adaptation of a book called Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden.

Riese: That’s such a good book. I loved it.

Carly: It’s going to be awesome.

Shannon: Which is actually a book that I found via Autostraddle. I mean, maybe do I owe my whole career to you guys?

Riese: Yeah.

Shannon: Maybe.

Carly: I will take credit for that. Sure.

Riese: I’ll take it. Yeah.

Carly:
I’m not in the habit of taking credit for things I had nothing to do with, but I think that change is starting today.

Shannon: But the movie is being written and in development right now, which is a nice slow process.

Carly: That’s awesome.

Shannon: But if you haven’t read the book, Long Live the Tribe of the Fatherless Girls, I recommend it.

Riese: Yeah. I loved it.

Carly: I famously haven’t read a book in a year until yesterday. But I will be reading it. It was on the list of books I wanted to read once I read again. And maybe I’m on that journey now. I might not be, but we’ll see.

Riese: I famously am a fatherless girl and, as such, really enjoyed it. I mean, I had a father, but he died. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that yet on this podcast.

Shannon: Kira had a father too and he died as well. Spoiler alert.

Riese: Exactly. We have that in common. Spoiler alert.

Carly: Oh my God.

Shannon: Yeah. Pick up that book. It’s a great book. And eventually you’ll be able to watch a movie adaptation of it.

Riese: It’s the sequel to The Wolf of Wall Street.

Shannon: Exactly.

Carly: Shannon, where can people find you on social media?

Shannon: My social handle on Instagram and Twitter is @Shandzee. S-H-A-N-D-Z-E-E. And right now Instagram — I just post a lot of shit about my dog, let’s be honest.

Carly: I know, but—

Riese: Everyone here loves dogs.

Carly: I enjoy the dog content. Shannon, thank you so much for joining us today.

Shannon: Thanks.

Carly: This was so excellent having you here.

Shannon: Thanks for having me. And now that it’s over, I’ll tell you that you popped my podcast cherry today.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Wow!

Carly: Wow!

Riese: What an honor.

Carly: This is great. Thank you all at home for listening. As always, we will be back in two weeks with our next episode.

Riese: “Lactose Intolerant.”

Carly: Oh my God. That’s right. It’s finally time for our favorite episode title. Next episode: “Lactose Intolerant.” Get ready. It’s going to be really painful.

Riese: Get your milk ready.

Carly: Get your dairy-free milk ready, it’s going to be bad.

Shannon: Get your oat milk ready.

Carly: Get your Oatly, we’re going in.

Riese: Fire up the oat milk. Get your Oatly, we’re going in. That’s what I always say.

Carly: That’s what I always say. Get your Oatly, we’re going in.

Riese: Going in.

Carly: Oh my God.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter, we are @tolandback. You can also email us to tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message, it’s (971) 217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on socials, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Audostraddle.com.

Carly: All right. And finally, it’s time for our L Words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually, these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three. Loosestrife.

Shannon: Lipsync.

Carly: Lactose intolerant.

Riese: What did you say?

Shannon: Lipsync.

Carly: Cute.

Riese: That’s nice.

Carly: Riese, what’d you say?

Riese: I said Loosestrife, which is the name of a Stephen Dunn poetry book that’s right there.

Shannon: It’s right next to you.

Carly: I said lactose intolerant because I’m still really excited about the next episode. I have zero creativity.

Riese: Well…

Shannon: I mean, I’ve had zero creativity this year.

Carly: Also, that.

Shannon: My King Lear did not happen this year.

Riese: And on that note, get your Oatly. The end.

Carly: We’ll see you in two weeks with your Oatly, your almond milk, your soy milk.

Shannon: Oatly, you should sponsor this podcast.

Carly: Rice milk.

Riese: Rice milk.

Carly: Actually, Oatly, definitely hit us up.

Shannon: All right.

Riese: Also, Carly needs a new mattress. If you want to give them a new mattress, also hit us up please. Well, bye.

Carly: Bye.

Shannon: Can you guys hear my dog in the background? Bye.

“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 604: Leaving Los Angeles With Thomas Beatie!

It’s time for episode 604, Leaving Los Angeles, seemingly produced on a $35 budget. We’re joined this week by author/activist Thomas Beatie, who has the unique perspective of being the subject of the “pregnant man” story ripped from the headlines and stuffed into Max’s body under very different circumstances for Season Six! Join us as we reflect on Dylan being meh, Bette being hot, Jenny descending into bananas girlfriend behavior, time being a flat circle and Max having a not-so-great time with all of this!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Carly: A podcast that you’re listening to.

Riese: About The L Word. Yeah, we’re talking on it. You’re listening to it.

Carly: This is the agreement we’ve all made with ourselves coming into this — years ago now — we’ve really all been through a lot together and we’re about to all go through so much more as we plow through season six. Once again, to remind you, the worst season of television ever made.

Riese: Ever produced.

Carly: Ever produced.

Riese: We have a very, very, very special guest today that we’re super excited about.

Carly: We are so excited.

Riese: Would you like to introduce yourself and tell everyone about yourself?

Thomas: Yes. Hi, I’m the guest. I’m Thomas Beatie. I am known, I guess in the media, as the guy that gave birth a few times. Gosh, that was back in 2008, so I’ve since had four children. I have four kids right now. I gave birth to the first three and then my wife, my new wife, my second wife, gave birth to our last and he’s now two years old. So, that’s me. I’m living in Phoenix, Arizona and so honored to be a part of your podcast today.

Riese: We are so honored to have you on our podcast today!

Carly: Yes, we are!

Thomas: Thank you.

Riese: What is your… Do you have a history with The L Word?

Thomas: Yeah, I mean, I definitely love The L Word? When did it first start, what year was that?

Riese: 2004.

Thomas: 2004, okay. I technically wasn’t a lesbian at the time when I started watching, but I was really into it. I watched, I think, just about every season and then obviously I had to catch up for today’s discussion, but it’s been a while, but I did like the show. I like it.

Riese: Who are your favorite characters?

Thomas: I think I like Bette. I like Alice too. I think I have a new respect for Alice.

Riese: I feel like that’s consensus generally. I think most of our guests on the show have liked Bette and Alice.

Thomas: Really?

Carly: Yeah. I feel if we go back and actually run some numbers on every guest, I think that they would probably be in the lead.

Riese: Yeah, I agree. I think Bette’s probably the number one response that we get.

Thomas: I think so.

Carly: Because you don’t bet against Jennifer Beals.

Thomas: Yeah. She’s very attractive, she’s smart, she’s relatable. That’s important.

Riese: Yeah. And she’s a boss.

Carly: Yeah. Even when she’s behaving really terribly, we just still love her.

Thomas: Exactly. We forgive her.

Carly: Do you remember watching this season of The L Word when it came out?

Thomas: I do. I feel like it’s been a really long time. Ironically, I was in the midst of giving birth and having the baby when these episodes came out and I was like… I wanted to watch it, but I never got around to it. But I remember hearing that there was a trans character named Max, and that he gave birth and that possibly he was inspired by my actions.

Riese: A hundred percent, he was inspired by you.

Carly: A thousand percent.

Riese: A thousand percent, yeah. Was that weird to hear that there was a storyline on The L Word inspired by you?

Thomas: You know, it is a trip, because I watched the show — and this happened to another one of the shows I like to watch, Supernatural, they mentioned me. Actually I think it was Smallville.

Riese: Oh, really?

Thomas: Yeah. They talked about me. They didn’t say me by name, but I knew that they were referencing me and it’s a trip to be watching one of your favorite shows and then you get tied into the plot. But I knew it was inevitable. I mean, it was such a sensational story at the time. Obviously, TV had to include it in some way, shape, or form and they still are to this day.

Riese: Did you expect to become a national news — International news story, when you first wrote about your pregnancy?

Thomas: Oh, hell no! I was very tunnel vision. All I wanted to do is have a kid, that’s it. I had no idea that it would just spur all kinds of conversations. Even to this day, it’s quite a trip. But I’m glad. I’m glad I did, because it really opened up conversation for a lot of other guys like me.

Carly: That’s awesome.

Riese: Should we get into the episode?

Carly: Yeah, I think we should. Let’s do this. All right. Today’s episode is season six, episode four, entitled “Leaving Los Angeles,” which is sort of a weird title because only one storyline even exits Los Angeles and they’re coming back. So I don’t… This is an interesting title. It was written by Ilene Chaiken and directed by Rose Troche, and originally aired February 8th, 2009. A lifetime ago.

Riese: Yeah, so long ago. As a pre-episode note, I just like to say that I hated every minute of this episode. Every minute of it, I hated. I was like, “This is it. This is where season six really starts—”

Carly: This is where it turned.

Riese: Falling off the building and splattering all over.

Carly: Like Looney Tunes-ing off a cliff, yeah.

Thomas: Yeah, so, tell us about your feelings. Cause I’m feeling a lot of animosity and darkness. Why do you hate it so much?

Riese: I feel like this episode was… I feel like they had a budget of like $35. Because almost all of it, they’re just sitting in The Planet.

Carly: And in the dark.

Riese: In the dark. I guess I dislike everyone’s storyline. Did you like the episode?

Thomas: I was a little nervous to watch it, actually.

Riese: Right, I can imagine.

Carly: For sure.

Thomas: How much disservice are they going to do to this topic? But I have to agree. I felt like there was a lot of darkness, like the lighting. You’re right, because even to the point of Max’s character, he was always in the dark and he always had circles under his eyes, so I was wondering, “What’s going on?”

Carly: What is going on?

Riese: They are terrible to his character, all the time, in any way they can be.

Carly: All right, let’s dive in.

Riese: We open in The Planet, where Alice and Tasha are eating food with Max and Tom, and everyone has grossed out about Shane and Jenny. Except me.

Carly: Except you, because you are the number one Shenny stan. Thomas, how do you feel about the Jenny and Shane pairing? Do you have any thoughts about that?

Thomas: I think in some way it’s cute, I guess. I see the animal magnetism of Shane. I get it. I’ve grown to dislike Jenny. Her character right now is pretty despicable, in my opinion.

Riese: Really bad.

Carly: In fact, in this scene, she starts off just terribly.

Riese: Right out of the gate. Right. This is part of what I hate about it because suddenly… In this scene, basically, Jenny… even though… I think by the end of last season, everyone was using correct pronouns with Max and everything, and now all of a sudden Jenny’s, like —

Carly: Like, viciously mis-gendering him and then acting like “What? What are you guys talking about?” When everyone’s like, “What the fuck?” It felt like such a weird character thing. You’ve mentioned this before Riese, but in this season they really try to change her even more and twist her even more to make her so unlikable to, I guess, somehow justify the death. But this is weird. It just felt really out of character for where she’s come to at this point in the story.

Riese: Yeah, so Jenny calls Max a mother and uses she pronouns, and says that Max looks so womanly, and Shane is like, “Please stop,” and then of course Max is upset and leaves.

Carly: Which leads to Max saying,

Max: I hate her. I hate these fucking hormones, I hate these hormones. I hate these tits and I hate these fucking hips, and I hate Jenny Schecter.

Carly: Which as we’ve mentioned, every cold open in season six is somebody vowing to kill Jenny or saying they hate Jenny. I like when he goes in the bathroom and Tom walks in and he goes, “Are you crying?” And he’s clearly sobbing. I was like, “Tom, yes, he’s crying. I don’t think you need to ask.”

Riese: Tom seemed upset, like mad that he was crying though, which is also weird.

Carly: I liked when Tom was standing up for him at the table with the group, because Max is always left on his own in these group scenes, and it always is terrible.

Thomas: I think there was a foreshadowing there with Tom in the bathroom, because what I noticed was — Max’s in the dark again, and Tom comes up, and I guess he’s trying to console Max, but if you notice the end scene when they reflect into the mirror, he’s gone and Max is standing there alone, and I felt like that was a foreshadowing for the rest of the episode.

Carly: Absolutely. They’re breaking apart in some way. There’s a distance.

Thomas: Yeah. But the whole Jenny thing, I mean, I actually get it. It’s weird. She’s saying that Max is beautiful and, “Look at your breasts and your hips.” I actually don’t think that she was trying to be mean or manipulative. I think that it’s just what people do. I mean, I’m living through experience. Even people that I knew really well, my friends, neighbors, my own family, they did the same exact thing to me. I mean, it had been over 10 years that I’ve been living my life as a male and then suddenly I’m female. My own father did that to me when I broke the news to him that I was pregnant. He’s like, “Oh, mommy!” I’m like, “I’m not mommy.” And so then, he’s just uncomfortably silent or he changes the topic or he makes a grunt or something like that. It’s part of the experience where it overrides everything that you know about the person. You’re totally just going off of visual cues and the fact that someone’s pregnant, that is, quote unquote, “the ultimate” in being female.

Riese: A woman, right.

Thomas: I mean, even Jenny… Even though she’s misgendering Max, I actually think that’s a really…

Riese: Realistic?

Thomas: A realistic view from the writers, because they really hit on the head on that part as far as I’m concerned.

Carly: That’s the way that we view pregnancy as a society. Culturally, there’s this… You know, like the way people behave around pregnant women in public is… People just feel so entitled to their bodies. They want to just touch a belly or ask all these really probing questions. It’s a complete stranger. And there’s something… I feel this is symptomatic of that, I think, in a lot of ways.

Thomas: But it’s ironic too, that it’s coming from Jenny. Even Alice says “she” at the table. It’s coming from a lesbian community and that’s exactly what it was in real life for me too. You’d think that a community like this is no stranger to discrimination and judgment. I mean, it’s so powerful. It was a powerful statement, I think.

Riese: What they did with Max that’s interesting was that, he got pregnant — He didn’t go off testosterone or anything. He didn’t get pregnant on purpose. It happened on it… Somehow just happened anyway, and so it’s this unwilling pregnancy, so that they have this dynamic where he’s really upset about it also, which in my understanding is not really possible. Is it?

Thomas: How long was he on testosterone, does the show even say?

Riese: It was two or three years?

Thomas: Three years?!

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: Yeah… I think that’s a little unrealistic, because I’ve heard of a lot of trans guys getting pregnant, but it’s usually in the beginning part when… Maybe it’s the first few months, they just started testosterone therapy, so it’s possible. But I think three years is really stretching it.

Carly: It seems more like he would have had to deliberately go off of testosterone for a while for that to happen.

Thomas: Exactly, and you don’t get a beard like that if you’re not on it for a really long period of time… Because I didn’t even have a beard like that, and by the way, that looked like a Halloween costume, I’m sorry. Max needs to be a little bit more believable.

Riese: It did, it’s terrible!

Carly: That beard looks really bad. It’s not a believable beard.

Thomas: No, it’s not and that was part of the struggle for me. It’s like, “Come on now.”

Carly: The beard’s very over the top.

Riese: Right, I mean, I think it’s part of what this show… Because the writers obviously were very transphobic towards Max. They created him and then just threw all this shit at him for so long that they… I think they wanted that visual of the idea of him having a full beard and being pregnant. They just wanted him to be as uncomfortable as possible, it seemed to me.

Thomas: You think the writers are transphobic?

Riese: Yes.

Thomas: Yeah? Ok, I don’t know enough about them, but I saw a lot of — I don’t know, they really wanted to focus in on his body dysmorphia, and the showing of his chest is… I guess he’s pre-surgery on the top and then making sure that we see his body as curvy and cellulite and all this stuff, and his really high voice. I felt like it… I can see where it might be coming from a transphobic writing point.

Carly: I will say, I think that the writers didn’t make an effort to not be transphobic. I feel like… Because I think if you were to talk to the writers of that writer’s room now, they maybe would not be necessarily transphobic people and they maybe would have a lot of regrets about how Max’s character and storyline were handled, but at the time, they seemed to make no effort. It just felt like the show was from this very cis lesbian gaze that was othering to Max, and they were kind of unrelenting in that.

Thomas: For sure. I don’t think that Max’s character is developed at all.

Carly: No, not at all.

Thomas: It’s really hard to identify in, and invest in, and get to know and root for Max. If they’d taken Shane’s character, for example, and had Shane transition, got Shane pregnant, everybody would be open-minded. They want to see Shane succeed, and it could have been way more compelling. But the way they presented Max, you wanted to hate Max. None of this happened out of love, it was an accident. And Max didn’t want to go through with the pregnancy. For me, that’s not relatable. I mean, even though he may have been inspired by my story, I can’t relate at all, because I wanted to get pregnant.

Riese: Because it wasn’t your story, yeah.

Thomas: I was fine with my body. I knew that my body had to do what it needed to do to be a father. Max hated his body, and there was no real love story.

Riese: That’s true.

Thomas: It’s just… I felt icky, I felt icky watching it.

Riese: They had it… He had gone in for his final consult for his top surgery, and that’s when they told him, “Oh, you can’t have it because you’re pregnant.”

Carly: Yeah, so he was so close to getting that, taking that step and then they pulled it away from him and gave him this instead. Like story-wise, that’s just brutal. All right, so opening credits, opening credits, love that theme song.

Riese: Do you have any feelings about the theme song?

Thomas: Isn’t there… There’s a word in it that I was… Sing it to me.

Riese: Singing Girls in tight dresses, who drag with mustaches, chicks driving fast, ingenues with long lashes. How do I know this?

Carly: We all do.

Riese: Women who long, lust, love, women who give, this is the way, it’s the way that we live. Then it’s all the verbs loving… Fucking, fucking—

Thomas: Fucking. That’s great.

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: I was trying to do my research for this show and watching it and I have kids coming and going and when they said the F word I was like, “God, I need to watch this in private. I guess it’s a little in your face. I’m not a fan. Yeah.

Carly: It’s entirely.

Riese: I hate it.

Carly: Ok, so we go back to The Planet.

Riese: Again, $35 for this episode.

Carly: I swear this is lit like they’re at brunch. But then—

Riese: Then suddenly it’s night.

Carly: It’s nighttime. This is absolutely a morning scene and then from here they’re like, “We’re here for dinner,” and then it gets darker and darker immediately. I guess this is supposed to be late afternoon right now. That’s very confusing, that’s not the lighting.

Thomas: I thought it was breakfast.

Riese: Yeah, I thought so too.

Carly: It totally looks like breakfast.

Riese: But then two scenes later, they’re still there and it’s dinner. It was very confusing to me. I feel like this isn’t the only episode of the season where they spend almost the entire time at The Planet.

Carly: When Kit comes to the table later in the scene, she’s like, “What is going on in here tonight?”

Riese: In this scene?

Carly: In this scene that is lit like morning. Yes, she says it.

Thomas: She did.

Carly: When she said that I was like… Because I had written, “everyone’s at brunch” in my notes and then I was like, wait a minute, this isn’t night.

Riese: I wrote that too. I was like, “everyone’s at brunch.”

Thomas: Maybe it was time lapse. Maybe it was just so boring that they were really bored there the entire day.

Carly: They were there all day. They ordered three meals. They had breakfast, lunch and dinner at The Planet today. Maybe that’s what it is. Bette and Tina are now sitting at the table in Max and Tom’s seats, which was… They don’t explain what’s going on. They’re both meeting people there, they’re just early, so they’re hanging out with the group. But it was really funny as if they just got replaced.

Riese: Bette and Tina are planning to go to Nevada to meet the birth mother of the child they want to adopt. Tina is dressed like she’s going to a late night cocktail hour and Bette is wearing… There’s wildlife on her shirt. There’s like a whole… A lot is happening on her shirt and Bette’s there to meet up with Kelly, who we met last episode, played by Jessie Spano. And also Alice is being really condescending towards Tasha. Tasha is trying to participate in the conversation. “Alice, you’re doing so good. Good job.”

Carly: She’s like, “She’s gossiping and participating with the group!” I was like, “Shut up Alice. That’s not a good way to…” If somebody is insecure about something or has a certain way they approach things especially in a group setting, calling it out in front of the group is only going to make them want to do it less. Great job, Alice. Glad to see their couples’ therapy is going really well. Jenny has an epiphany that William stole the negative to the film, because she overheard him once talking about how he wanted to burn down one of his buildings for the insurance money. Ok.

Riese: Oh, and Dylan. So, Dylan made a meeting with Tina.

Carly: A secret meeting. Her agent made a meeting—

Riese: A secret meeting with Tina.

Carly: I cannot believe Tina or Tina’s office agreed to a meeting with a filmmaker, and the agent just said, “A filmmaker.” She didn’t know who it was. This would never happen. This would absolutely never happen. Especially an in-person, in a cafe, meeting. That’s so silly.

Riese: Also, Kit tells Tina that Bette almost killed herself because of Kelly, and Tina didn’t know that. So now, everyone’s on high alert that Bette could possibly be heading on a train towards—

Carly: Cheatsville?

Riese: Cheatsville, USA as they call it. Where all the women go to cheat.

Thomas: Did you all see Alice looking at Kelly? Was that an insinuation that she thought she was hot?

Carly: I think so.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Alice had a lot of really good facial expressions in this big group scene, like the one before and this one. She just had a lot of good eye-rolls and glances and I appreciated Leisha Hailey’s face acting in the scene. I thought it was very good.

Riese: Great face.

Carly: Great face.

Riese: Then we go back in time to, I guess, mid-afternoon, right?

Carly: Time does not exist.

Riese: We’re going to have to let go of time, probably.

Carly: We’re going to have to let it go. We can’t try to track what time it is and what’s going on. We have to let our hang ups with logical linear time go, because there isn’t any.

Riese: Right. There’s no time. We’re going to the Sherman Oaks Inn, which is the normal location for a prenatal class, the conference room of a hotel in Sherman Oaks. And I don’t know what this is, actually. They’re lying down and practicing giving birth. Lamaze class. Is that a normal?

Carly: I’ve seen them on TV shows and movies. That’s all I know about Lamaze class.

Thomas: It’s totally a Lamaze class.

Carly: And the instructor… To her credit, the instructor seems less confused. I thought they were going to make some huge thing out of this scene where the instructor, or the people in the class, were going to all be like, “What’s your deal?!” I really thought this was going to be a ridiculous scene, but it was pretty low key considering what the show’s capable of. The instructor does misgender Max initially, but then corrects herself. Kind of, kind of. There’s this weird moment in the lobby where Tom yells at Max. Max takes his binder off in the middle of the lobby.

Riese: Oh right, because he’s hot.

Carly: And then Tom is like, “What are you doing?!”

Thomas: Yes. I thought that was odd too. It wasn’t a lot of support from Tom. So Tom is also starting to see Max as more female because, why would you do that? You should be doing that in the bathroom, taking your binder off.

Riese: And also this is the most we see of their relationship. Already, in this episode, we’ve seen more of their relationship than we have in—

Carly: Any other episode.

Riese: Any other episode.

Thomas: Well, I think that once again, the writers weren’t being realistic because everyone in that room would have been giving dirty looks or doing something, because they made it way too normal.

Carly: Yeah, I was really surprised they didn’t make this scene into some big thing. Some huge, awful thing. Especially with the doctor’s office scene from — was that last episode, Riese? Or the episode before?

Riese: Three episodes ago, yeah.

Carly: I can’t keep track. But when he freaks out and screams at everyone in the doctor’s office waiting room, I thought this scene was going to be more like that. I was watching it a little like this, because I was like, “Oh God, like something horrible is about to happen.”

Thomas: And then there was that mini reference to me, saying…

Max: Yeah, that’s right. Take a good look. I’m a man and I’m pregnant. It happens. Don’t you read the fucking tabloids?

Riese: Don’t you read the tabloids? Because that’s where they got the story from, guys, come on.

Thomas: It’s ironic because the instructor of the Lamaze, she did misgender Max and then she said…

Lamaze teacher: Spread her legs apart. Sorry. Spread the legs wide, but wider.

Thomas: She couldn’t say “his legs.” And ironically that’s what my first wife used to do to me. Because I was with her during my transition and she would refer to my body parts as “the.” I thought that was really weird, but it was like her way of going through the transition with me. She couldn’t say “his”, she said “the,” and that only lasted for a little bit of time, but yeah, people do, do that.

Carly: Interesting.

Riese: That’s interesting. I also appreciated that they had, like, a fake vagina thing. The little — which I’ve only ever seen before in the context of, like, as a sex toy, that they sell those. There’ll be like, this is like a porn star’s vagina. And then people buy them and like… But I didn’t know, but this is another way to use it. This is probably what it’s supposed to be for.

Thomas: My wife was like is that for real? What are they doing? Did you see though that Tom was getting uncomfortable with that?

Carly: Yeah. He definitely was.

Thomas: I think he was starting to get second thoughts there.

Tom and Max at lamaze class

Carly: For sure.

Riese: He seemed somewhat supportive in the very first scene and it’s just plummeting from there.

Thomas: Do you think his discomfort has to do with not wanting to raise a child or you think it kind of had more to do with his identity? Like, Max, you know, we’re looking at vaginas and everything. Do you think he was second guessing himself? If everyone around Max is calling him “she,” that maybe he’s with a woman and he had to hightail it out of there?

Carly: I think… my gut tells me it’s both, because they went from just being boyfriends to suddenly having a baby in a few months, like overnight. Because it was this big surprise. Oh, you’re already in your second trimester. And I’m sure that’s what Max is going through too, except we don’t get to see that. We only really see it, like, what Tom’s experiencing, we see it less for Max, of the internal struggle of like — are we ready to have a kid? This is all happening really fast. I feel that’s part of it. But then I think you’re absolutely right that the feminization of Max in this moment, and then as this evolution with the storyline, I think it’s definitely getting to Tom on some level.

Thomas: And then Tom goes to a bar and is hitting on a dude. I feel like he’s needing more dudeness.

Carly: Yeah. He seems to be on the hunt for dudeness.

Riese: And, like, dude culture. We get back to The Planet. Surprise.

Carly: Surprise, surprise. Back at The Planet. Bette and Kelly are eating dinner, because now it does look like evening time.

Riese: We’re letting go of time.

Carly: Sorry. I’m so sorry. Do you know what it is Riese?

Riese: What? It’s the butterfly effect?

Carly: It’s the butterfly effect. So, we talked last time about how the lighting in this season has been horrible. All these night time scenes and you cannot see anything that is happening and this is where it starts in this episode. It’s really dark. We’re kind of cutting back and forth from the Bette and Kelly meal to Tina talking to Dylan. Dylan’s agent secretly set up this meeting with a filmmaker, which again would never happen and Dylan just wants to apologize to Tina and tell her that—

Dylan: Helena is the love of my life and I would give anything for another chance to be with her.

Riese: And Tina is just chugging water out of a martini glass, and is very lukewarm on this. And then at the other end, Kelly is talking to Bette about art, but she’s mostly just flirting with Bette about art.

Carly: And then Bette’s flirting right back?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Bette’s flirting back, but I think she can’t help it. And Bette basically pitches a job for herself to Kelly. I actually loved this moment when she asked like, “Oh, are you ready to be working for me?” And she’s like, “No…”

Carly: Absolutely not.

Riese: I will not be working for you.

Carly: I like how Kelly took… Wanted to take her to dinner to… Like that thing where you’re like, “Oh, I want to pick your brain about this new art thing that I’m super into. But just… Because I am…” She’s dabbling in this new thing and she wants to pick Bette’s brain and Bette has been cultivating her particular sense of what is art and what looks good to her plus working in the field as an expert for 20 some odd years. So this is like in a way deeply insulting to be like, “Just tell me what kind of art to buy.” And so, I love that Bette called her out on that and was like, “Oh, just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you can have a gallery, but if you’re serious, I’ll be your partner.” And I enjoyed that. I thought that was a great way to handle it. Because I feel like these things do happen a lot in the world.

Thomas: Well, later on in the episode, Bette said that she didn’t know that she was going to say that when she was talking to Tina, but the way it came out, it couldn’t have been spontaneous because it would appear that she would think deeply about this. So, is she thinking about Kelly?

Carly: For sure.

Thomas: Trying to find ways to be with her.

Carly: She’s been thinking Kelly a lot, I think.

Riese: But we have been given zero reasons for why anyone would like Kelly.

Carly: I mean, Nomi Malone.

Riese: Jessie Spano.

Carly: Jesse Spanno. Butterfly effect? I don’t know. I’m grasping at straws here. I feel like what the show could have done was given us an incredible Yale flashback episode or flashback series of scenes. And we could really understand why Bette was so obsessed with this girl, because she clearly was. Whomst among us has not gone after a straight girl with all of our power in the past, maybe made some very stupid decisions. But the fact that Kit is talking about it, like it’s still a thing that is happening, which I think is interesting. We’re not seeing a lot of this, other than them just like gazing at each other over food in a dimly lit scene.

Riese: Here’s one thing that Jennifer Beals and Elizabeth Berkley have in common. They both appeared on the screen of a show — a film in Jennifer Beals’ case — wearing the off-shoulder sweatshirt. That was like a pretty popular style at Bayside High too, so I’m still thinking about what the Yale flashback could have been for us. It could have just been a lot, like so much shoulder.

Carly: It would have been, like, so many exposed shoulders.

Riese: So everyone’s very concerned about Dylan returning to everybody’s life and Helena was like, “It’s fine. I can take care of myself. Don’t worry about it.”

Carly: Jenny says, “What can we offer you in the waiting protection?” Like she’s in the mob. That was hilarious.

Riese: And we find out that Dylan got a short into Outfest.

Carly: Lauren needs to put this line in because the line is:

Tina: She’s been living in San Francisco. She moved back to LA because her dramatic short got accepted into Outfest.

Carly: Now, I love Outfest.

Riese: Didn’t your short get accepted into Outfest?

Carly: It did. My feature and my short were really championed by Outfest. Them getting behind Suicide Kale really opened up a lot of doors for us. I love Outfest. However, no one relocates because a film, especially a short film, gets accepted into a festival. That is so silly.

Riese: The short film market is booming.

Carly: Just say that she moved back here because she’s still obsessed with you. Come on. That’s… This is so goofy.

Riese: Speaking of people who are obsessed with other people, Tasha and Alice are suggesting that they could set Helena up with Jamie who they obviously are both wild about and so excited.

Carly: They are both in love with Jamie.

Thomas: It’s not just me? Alice is under her too?

Carly: No. Tasha and Alice are both obsessed with Jamie.

Thomas: Every scene, I’m thinking, “When’s the threesome?” Does that come up, right?

Riese: Yes.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: I mean, that’s what we were all waiting for. I think. It doesn’t happen. But you know what we do get?

Carly: We get Dylan’s business card. I really feel like we need to talk about this.

Thomas: So what are your thoughts on Dylan? Do you guys… Are you pro Dylan?

Riese: I’m anti-Dylan.

Thomas: I’m anti-Dylan, too. I don’t think I like Dylan.

Carly: I also am anti-Dylan.

Riese: How do you get past entrapment into sexual harassment then that turned into a lawsuit that made Helena’s entire life fall apart? I feel like I would just always hold that grudge.

Thomas: Yeah. That’s really… You can’t get over that.

Carly: No, how do you… You can’t just be like, but I love her… Come on, stop it. Also she fucked with Tina and Tina is just like, “What are you doing?” She did way too many unforgivable things to just be kind of waltzing back in here. But I do need to talk about her gay filmmaker business card. They don’t give us a closeup of it, though it definitely has some purple-y pink vibes. Very L Word colors. Yeah. But apparently her production company is called—

Tasha: Do Ask, Do Tell Productions? Oh, please.

Carly: Tasha rips the business card up, which is exactly what you should do with a business card that says, Do Ask, Do tell Productions. That is so funny.

Helena and Tasha at dinner at The Planet

Riese: This is a real pivot for Dylan.

Thomas: Well she’s out and proud now!

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: She is asking and telling everything. She’s asking and telling that she is still love with Helena, that she moved back to LA for her short, that she is going to wear those really gauzy long sweaters for this episode and for the remainder of the season. She is who she is. She hasn’t yet married Jodi Foster, but she’s out, she’s in LA.

Carly: And she’s asking and she’s telling.

Riese: She’s asking and she’s telling.

Carly: That’s what she’s doing. When they’re talking about setting up Helena with Jamie, Tasha and Alice are talking about how they’ve gone bowling with her. I love that they have this whole friendship off camera. It’s just so funny. It’s just so funny the things they choose to show us and the things they choose to not show us. It’s usually not letting us see anything that looks fun.

Riese: They couldn’t afford the bowling alley.

Carly: Yeah, truly. That was an extra location with a lot of extras.

Riese: So then we get a big b-roll sunrise, just in case anyone forgot what the sun looks like when it rises, that’s what it looks like. And then we go to Shenny’s, where Jenny wants to do this cool thing that she read about called clutter cleaning, otherwise known as just… That’s cleaning, I think.

Carly: Cleaning, throwing out old clothes.

Riese: Donating stuff.

Carly: Donating clothes I think. It seems like stuff that doesn’t… It doesn’t really need a title. It seems like a normal thing people do occasionally.

Thomas: Maybe even in the spring.

Riese: Exactly. A nice spring cleaning, a nice spring cleaning.

Carly: Interesting. But this is different. This is a thing Jenny invented. It’s called clutter cleaning. This is Jenny’s thing. Don’t. This is nothing that you’ve heard of. It’s totally different and it involves being very controlling over the roommate that you recently started dating. This is stressful.

Riese: Honestly though, even though Jenny has become a living nightmare, I related a little bit to Jenny in this scene from the experience of someone being like, “You need to get rid of your art supplies,” and me being like, “Well, one day. These little things are going to be valuable one day.” I have so many things that people are like, “Get rid of it.” And I’m like, “The Lesbian Herstory archives are going to want these one day, and I can’t just throw them away.”

Carly: Oh no, that was my favorite part of the scene. Someday a foundation will want these bits and pieces of my art supplies and art. That was so good. The rest of it was very stressful.

Riese: So then we go to Be-Tina’s, where Tina initially doesn’t approve of Bette working with Kelly, but then changes her mind because they need employments.

Carly: She’s really stressed about the addition they’re adding to the house and how they’re going to have a new baby and she’s worried about her own job stability given the just never-ending series of bad decisions made by her film studio. Truly.

Riese: Yep.

Thomas: I sensed the hesitation though, toward the end. I feel like she’s thinking she might be getting herself into something. She’s more quiet at the end. Just more thoughtful.

Carly: And Bette’s still pretty dismissive of Tina. They’re both trying to grow and be better at being together this time. But Bette is still a little steamroller-y with her. Like, “everything’s fine…” like… “What are you talking about? No. No, I’m not in love with her. No, it’s a job.” And then, Tina’s like, “Were you going to talk to me about this?” Which mirrors what happens with Jenny and Shane later in the episode, which I think is interesting. This new couple and then this long-term couple, both in the similar, weird situation of this control.

Riese: Like we should discuss changes before we make them or whatever.

Carly: So we’re now in Shane’s bedroom, Jenny’s going to clean out Shane’s closet. Shane has four shirts. Jenny has a closet full of designer clothes. I don’t think either of them should get rid of anything if they don’t want to.

Riese: First of all, she wants to get rid of a t-shirt from Wax, which the legendary skate park milkshake bar, hair salon, Wax, which we all miss so dearly.

Carly: Tattoo parlor.

Riese: Talk about something that — exactly — that an archive is going to want one day. She wants to get rid of the blue shirt that Shane wore in the season one press photos.

Carly: I wrote that down too! Because each of these outfits or shirts are tied to a different ex. And Jenny’s referring to them as “eras” of Shane, which is funny, because she might as well just say, “This was really your season one vibe. And this was kind of your season two vibe. Wax was like a season two, three thing.” Cherie Jaffe is kind of never gone. Shane doesn’t want to throw out the Carmen shirts.

Riese: That red shirt is so cute though.

Carly: It’s so cute!

Riese: I remember she wore that on the cruise.

Carly: Yeah, I loved that shirt.

Riese: And I also appreciated that Shane refused to get rid of it.

Shane leaning on the closet door while Jenny tells her to make choices

Carly: Yes, I was really happy that she stood her ground there. I also was kind of confused because she was definitely talking about Carmen as if she had died.

Thomas: That’s what I thought!

Carly: She was like, “I need to keep these shirts in remembrance of her.”

Thomas: My wife was like, “Did Carmen die? Oh my god.”

Carly: And we are like, if she did, they didn’t tell us. You know who did die? Dana.

Riese: Dana.

Carly: Do you know who we never talk about? Dana. This show.

Riese: Right. Then we go to the airport and they’re continuing the conversation they were having earlier where Bette is saying that Kelly is a god sent. And then Tina asks Bette, like, Kit says you want to kill yourself. And she’s like, wasn’t there someone you want to kill yourself over within the past 15 years? And my first thought was, yeah, you.

Carly: That was my first thought as well.

Thomas: So she’s admitting though that she’s quote unquote getting into bed with her former partner, like in a business deal. So, I don’t know. I wouldn’t have answered it that way if I were Bette. Because I… It alludes that something else could happen. She’s admitting—

Carly: It sure does.

Thomas: Tina didn’t know. Now she’s admitting, yeah I did want to kill myself over her, but let’s get into business with her.

Riese: Don’t we all?

Thomas: That was kind of weird.

Carly: Yeah, and then they’re kissing and everything’s fine. I was like, oh no, you two are such a mess all the time. So Shane is having lunch with Alice and Alice will not shut up and stop talking about Jamie. And she says it’s because it’s like a new friend and we’ve all had a new friend that you get excited about, but this is definitely not that. This is clearly a crush.

Riese: And she says that Jamie is the most honest self-sacrificing person ever. And also says…

Alice: Isn’t that weird though that we’re both vegetarian?
Shane: You are not vegetarian.
Alice: I have been eating so many vegetables lately, like extra—
Shane: Cute.
Alice: Vegetables.

Riese: So I thought it was very funny.

Carly: That’s not what a vegetarian is. Everybody can eat vegetables, Alice. Also, I would say that that descriptor of how she described Jamie could apply to Tasha, her girlfriend, and she keeps forgetting she exists.

Riese: But you know who we can’t forget about is Jenny. Because she shows up unexpected which is—

Carly: She just invited herself.

Riese: Red alert. Like what? Yikes.

Carly: And chastises Shane for smelling like smoke. She was like, “Oh, have you been smoking?” It’s a lot of control happening here that — I don’t like it. I don’t think Shane likes it either. Alice certainly doesn’t like it. More good eye rolls from Alice.

Riese: Then we go to Nevada to meet the pregnant teenager in her overalls who has a Canadian accent.

Carly: She’s a big time Canadian accent. Can we talk about this actress for like a hot second? This is Katharine Isabelle who was in the very queer-seeming horror film, Ginger Snaps and had a role on my favorite television show Hannibal. So, having her on show is… I forgot she had a small role on the show. So I was excited when she showed up.

Riese: I didn’t recognize her. I haven’t seen either of those cinemas.

Carly: Well, you need to get into it, Riese. You do. So this meeting is like… meeting the birth mother. Birth mother has kids so Angie gets to play with some kids. And it’s going fine. There’s this very… These two are these urbane people from the big city and this lady is from Nevada and it’s very “that.”. It’s very… The rest of America that doesn’t let… It’s very, like the coastal elite thing, which is very 2009 of the show.

Bette, Tina and Angie in the driveway of the house in Nevada

Riese: Well, first I say that they do all love Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which I thought was an important detail.

Carly: That is actually a really important detail and I apologize for glossing over it.

Riese: Thank you so much.

Carly: You’re so welcome. And then the mom and the stepdad show up. They ask a lot of really rude and probing questions of the couple and Bette cannot help herself getting into a very detailed answer about gay marriage and all this stuff. And it’s just very city folk, country folk. These guys are homophobic, and they are and they kick them out of the house. So, great meeting.

Riese: Yeah. Everyone did a great job.

Thomas: Yeah. That scene made me feel uncomfortable.

Riese: I didn’t like it. The show loves presenting anyone that doesn’t live in New York or LA as some sort of country bumpkin or something. The show… I think… like remember when The L Word premiered and they were playing off of Sex in the City with the marketing? It was like sex — ”same sex different city.” I think that they’re very much like, “We live in a city and that city is Los Angeles.”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Oh, just one little note for everyone who has watched Gen Q is that when Bette and Tina arrive, in the beginning of the scene they arrive in the driveway, there’s a shot of them standing there with Angie in the driveway. That shot was used in the attack ad against Bette Porter for Mayor in The L Word Generation Q.

Carly: Whoa, eagle eyes, Riese!

Riese: Thank you.

Carly: Good job. I forgot about that.

Riese: Again, these are the things that are taking up space in my brain that could probably be used for better purposes. Back to Alice’s kitchen.

Carly: Alice and Jamie are cooking and flirting.

Riese: Yes. And we find out that Jamie tried to be a cop also, and comes from a whole family of cops.

Carly: And service members.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: Military and such. Alice is like, “You save more lives at your job than any cop.” And I’m like, “Alice, you’re laying it on a little thick.” But they also have really good chemistry.

Riese: They do.

Carly: They have great chemistry in this scene.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Tasha has great chemistry with her too, in the other scenes that we’re going to see after this. But, they did a really good job casting someone that could play off of both of them really well.

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: Yeah. I’m rooting for them. I honestly thought they were going to kiss over — what were they cutting, beans? Was it croutons? I don’t even know what she was doing.

Carly: I think they were smashing nuts or something? I don’t know.

Riese: Yeah. We had nuts. Nuts, for the nut loaf

Carly: For the nut loaf. And she floats the idea of, “Alice, you should come work at the center.”

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: But we’ll get back to that later. Then we have another incredibly dramatic b-roll shot to tell us that it is nighttime. I love that in the first half of this episode, we could not tell what is going on in the time of day. And now we have the sun has risen clip, and now the sun has set clip.

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Now we’re at Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace.

Carly: A.K.A Hit Club.

Riese: A.K.A Hit Club, where Sunset is asking Kit about what put her off men. It seems Sunset still thinks that Kit is dating Helena.

Carly: Despite her telling Sunset that they’re not dating.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Sure. This is where we’re about to go into scenes of virtually no lighting at all. It starts here and it is terrible. The lighting is terrible on people of all skin tones in this episode, but it is incredibly egregious in these club scenes, how horribly lit all the Black actors are.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: We’ll see it here. And we’ll see it in the scene with Tom.

Riese: We sure will.

Carly: But, first…

Riese: First, we go back to Alice’s

Carly: And Helena’s here.

Riese: Yeah. And I feel this was a very accurate L.A. conversation where people have very strong feelings about how they feel about going hiking in Runyon Canyon.

Carly: Correct. Yeah. Everyone has an opinion about it here.

At the dinner table, Alice says "we made a nutloaf"

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: This is definitely an opinion to have.

Riese: Jamie loves it. Helena hates it. How are they ever going to date?

Carly: How are they going to date? Look at this odd couple.

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: Yeah. There really was no suspense for the rest of the show. We know they’re not going to work out.

Riese: They just cut right to it.

Carly: Yeah. Just like everything we know about them as characters, even before they get in a room together, we know it’s not going to work.

Riese: Yeah, exactly. Back to Hit Club where Tom is talking to some guy at the bar, because it’s Boys Night, at Hit Club — which, I love this world where there’s just one Boys Night, and every other night is Girl’s Night, and it’s a business. You know? I wish that was…

Carly: That would not sustain as a business in real life. But I wish it would. That would be great.

Riese: Yeah. And then Max comes up and he’s like, “What are you doing?” And Tom’s like, “He’s just being friendly. And that’s what guys do.” But I don’t know about that.

Carly: That was hot. I mean, I think he was… The lighting was so terrible on him. I could not see him at all.

Riese: He seemed hot, yeah. But, Max has come dressed to club in a plaid button-up shirt. He’s ready to have a night out, obviously.

Carly: In 2008, we were wearing plaid at the club. Okay? First of all.

Riese: Okay. Fair. All right, fine.

Carly: Come on.

Riese: I believe you.

Carly: But also he’s dressed so differently than Tom. Tom’s in that tight muscle tee.

Riese: Deep V. Isn’t he in that deep V? The deepest V? Or was that earlier?

Carly: The deepest V. No, I think he… Shit. Now I can’t remember which scene was the deep V. This was definitely muscly though.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: It was tight.

Thomas: No, it was a deep V, because when they get back and he disrobes you can see the deep V. Yeah.

Riese: The green — it was green.

Carly: Deep V’s were having such a moment in the early 2000s.

Riese: Yeah. I had several.

Carly: So, Kit has a moment with Max that I thought was sweet.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: She’s like, “Look, it’s just a few more months. You’re going to get through it. He seemed really like he needed to hear that, which I thought was good. I liked that little brief moment. And then there’s this hilarious shot of Max and Kit talking, they cut away, and Tom is like, sullenly sulking against a pillar in the middle of the dance floor. I love that shot. That killed me. That was so unintentionally funny. Or maybe intentionally funny, Rose Troche did direct this and she is pretty funny.

Riese: But I think it was unintentional.

Carly: I also thought it was unintentional.

Riese: And then Max is like, “I’m just scared because he has all these hormones going through his body and he feels things so intensely. And it makes him feel nuts.” Which is—

Carly: Oh, Max.

Riese: Probably a lot compared to Tom who doesn’t seem to have any feelings.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: At all. Then we go back to Alice’s where they have shifted the focus of — they’ve had the nut loaf, and now it’s time to look at memories, at childhood memories.

Carly: Alice has a photo album of herself as a young child in her apartment, and they’re looking at it. And I wish they had given us a wide cutaway because the threesome is sitting on the couch and Helena is just awkwardly standing behind them.

Looking at photos of Alice as a kid as a little tomboy

Thomas: Yeah. She’s not even present. You don’t even see her. And then in a later scene she’s there just kind of hovering. I was like, yeah, that’s weird.

Riese: She’s binge drinking in the background. Which, fair.

Carly: There’s definitely a moment earlier in the episode where they focused very heavily on Helena pouring herself a drink at the bar. And I wonder… They really want us to know that Helena’s drinking.

Riese: Right. Oh yeah. That’s a thing.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Tasha says she wants two or three kids. Jamie wants kids. And then Helena, it’s brought up that Helena has kids, but her ex took them to the South of France, as one does.

Carly: Yeah. And then they want to play a game and Helen is like, “You know what? I really have to get to work. It’s Boys’ Night. I got, I got to go to Boys’ Night. So busy.” And I was like, yeah, you need to get out of there. Get out of there, Helena. She’s just so awkward. The whole thing was very awkward.

Thomas: And she clearly did not like the nut loaf.

Carly: No.

Riese: Oh yeah. She hated the nut loaf.

Carly: She hated it. She basically implied that she was going to get something to eat when she left, too. Which she then kind of stopped herself. But all of us who have been to anything where someone serves something that you don’t like. No.

Riese: And I’m like, I got to go to Wendy’s.

Carly: I’m going to leave and immediately go eat something else.

Riese: Yeah. Oh right. One thing I also liked about this was the one Tasha was like, “I’m not playing a word game with you both.” Because that happens to me a lot where people are like, “I’m not playing a word game with you, or I’m not playing a trivia game with you. We’re going to play something like less—”

Carly: Monopoly.

Riese: Yeah, like Monopoly. And I’m like, “Ugh, fine. I was going to crush all of you. But, sure.”

Carly: Anytime someone suggests playing Monopoly, I always am immediately suspect of them because it is impossible to finish a game of Monopoly quickly. That game takes hours, hours out of your life. So anytime anyone suggests Monopoly, I’m immediately like, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you suggesting that?”

Riese: There’s so much sexual tension though. That I think if anything’s going to make an endless game of Monopoly entertaining, it’s going to be the sexual tension that’s soaking the room, that’s coming out into Alice’s apartment that they’re all drowning in. This intense sexual tension.

Carly: It’s super intense.

Thomas: They should play Twister.

Riese: Right! Yes, perfect!

Carly: Yeah, right. Just get it over with.

Riese: Yeah. Just do it. Just do it. Oh, that would’ve been a funny scene too.

Carly: Yeah. That would have sped this up real fast.

Riese: Let’s just get down to business.

Carly: Get to it. So, you know when Tasha ripped up Dylan’s hilarious business card and Helena clearly took it. I guess Dylan put her home address on her Do Ask, Do Tell business card? Okay. Sure.

Riese: I don’t even put my phone number on my business card. I don’t want anyone to call me. I give my email. It’s just my name and my email and my job. That’s it.

Carly: Yeah. At one point I had my phone number in my email signature. And then I was like, one person called me once and I immediately took it out and it hasn’t been in my email signature for literally a decade. I was immediately like… I was like, never again.

Thomas: Someone used it.

Carly: That’s so personal.

Riese: I didn’t put it there for someone to use it. Come on, guys. It was just in the template.

Carly: I thought it was just the thing we did.

Riese: Okay. Again, I did somewhat relate to Helena in the scene in which she drives to Dylan’s house and asks her to dinner. Because sometimes you’re trying to date, and you try to date someone, and then you’re like, “Well, maybe my ex wasn’t that bad.” And then you want to go and ask your ex to dinner. But also her ex ruined her life.

Carly: This is also again, just pitch black. Just one light on a house, and that’s pretty much the lighting in the scene.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So, we go back to Shenny’s], and Jenny’s got this cool surprise for Shane, which is that without telling Shane first, she fully converted Shane’s bedroom into Jenny’s office. Yikes.

Riese: That’s bananas.

Carly: That is a lot. And then Shane,

Shane: Are you testing me? Is that what this is about? I mean, are you putting on the Crazy Jenny Show just to see how far you can push it with me? Is that what this is?

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: That was really funny.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Because also, yeah.

Shane is confused in her room that Jenny has turned into her office

Carly: It seems like what she’s been doing the whole episode, whether intentional or not. I mean, it’s…

Riese: I love that she thought Shane would be excited for Jenny to have an office.

Carly: It’s not even like she made Shane an office.

Riese: Right. Shane would be so excited for Jenny to have an office, that it would overcome any of Shane’s feelings about losing her entire bedroom.

Carly: Any private space she had in her house.

Riese: Right. But then Jenny’s reaction to Shane is so manipulative and insane that Shane eventually caves.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: This whole thing is just really weird and annoying.

Carly: It was really manipulative.

Riese: This is not how I imagined Shane and Jenny in my head when I wrote their love story in my own head in 2008.

Thomas: At the end there, it’s almost like she’s hiding a knife behind her back. I kind of got the hand that rocks the cradle kind of vibe. Like, do you love me?

Carly: Oh yeah.

Riese: Yes, yes. Yeah. She did this demented head… Yeah, exactly. She did this little—

Carly: She did the head turn and everything. The head tilt. Oh my God. Yeah. There was a little horror movie vibe.

Riese: And had her little bit of tears in her eyes. Like she wasn’t crying yet, but she was on the verge. So anything Shane could say could potentially unleash a waterfall.

Carly: Like you almost would have believed that, if she turned away from Shane for a second, you’d see her putting little drops in the corners of her eyes. If she was some sort of femme fatale in a dramatic film.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: Yeah. This is very manipulative. I’m very concerned about the both of them.

Riese: Yeah. It would have been funny if she’d done it to the bathroom. If she’d been like, “Close your eyes, come in.” And then Jenny had turned the bathroom into her office and then Shane would be like, “Where are we going to pee?” And she’ll be like, “In the backyard.” And then Shane will be like, “That’s a little crazy.”

Carly: She has a lap desk over the toilet.

Riese: In your room. Get a chamber pot. Come on, get it together.

Carly: Jenny has a lot of great interior design ideas.

Riese: Yeah, she does. She’s an interior designer. We all have our paths in life. Jenny thought she was a writer, we all know she’s a terrible writer. Now she’s exploring a new career in home decor. You know? And that is growth.

Carly: Great. Really excited for this path that she’s on.

Riese: Back to Alice’s where they’re bitching about fundraising dinners, and how annoying fundraising dinners are.

Carly: So they’re in the kitchen cleaning up.

Riese: We find out Alice used to be in Act Up.

Carly: Yeah. Why did they never tell us that before?

Riese: That’s so interesting and cool.

Carly: I know. She talks about they did a dance marathon, and Jamie thinks that that would be a really cool idea as a fundraiser for the Center.

Riese: I agree.

Carly: And, I also agree. And then somehow Alice has been roped into being an event chair for the LA LGBT Center.

Riese: Yeah. She’s sus. I guess Alice lost her job?

Carly: Yes. Yeah. Tasha says that she’s unemployed. We saw what happened at The Talk.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Is that what the show is called? The Chat? What the fuck is her show called?

Riese: The Look!

Carly: The Look! The Talk, The Chat, The Look, great.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Doing great. Carly knows what’s going on.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah. She got super duper fired from that. Jamie hugs them both in that hug kind of way. This kitchen is full of tension.

Riese: I think that they should open their minds to the idea that they should be a thruple. And I think it’s realistic that another person would remind them what they love about each other, remind them what they love about themselves, and bring them even closer together. In theory, they could be closer together naked, or as a relationship. And I think it would work really well and it would be very progressive.

Carly: That’d be great. I kept waiting for something to happen in this kitchen.

Riese: Yeah. Also I love Jamie as a character.

Carly: I know. It’s a bummer we only get her for half of a season. She should have been part of the cast way sooner.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: She’s great.

Riese: And Tasha is more animated. You know? Tasha is laughing more, Tasha seems like she’s in a much better mood than she’s been in a while.

Carly: Jamie’s presence is bringing out good stuff in both of them. And like I said before, she has such good chemistry. The three actors have great chemistry.

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: I noticed that Tasha’s laugh is really authentic.

Riese: Yes!

Carly: Her smile just lights up a room.

Thomas: As an actress, it’s legit.

Carly: Yeah. Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. That’s my favorite part. Her cheekbones obviously are, I’m a fan of the cheekbones. And then I’d say the laugh is number two. Back to Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace, where we get a little trip into the mind of Kit Porter and all of her sexual fantasies, which I am just so pleased involve Gelson’s Market.

Carly: I was waiting for you to bring up Gelson’s.

Riese: Her fantasy is—

Kit: I’m shopping at Gelson’s for groceries. When this straight up brother comes up to me, no bling, no attitude. And he says to me, “You are one beautiful woman. And I would just love to wake up with your arms and legs wrapped around me.”

Riese: Is Gelson’s just in L.A.?

Carly: I have no idea.

Riese: Maybe?

Carly: Just talking about L.A. supermarket chains.

Riese: I wish they’d given us that sequence though. A little fuzzy scene in the grocery store of Kit walking with a basket, with, I don’t know, pomegranates in it.

Carly: A baguette.

Riese: A baguette. Yeah.

Carly: The baguette sticking out of the basket.

Thomas: Yeah. They totally should have done a scene. I agree.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. She bends over to pick up some string cheese, and then she turns around and there’s the man of her dreams. You know? And she’s like, “Oh, do I poke you with my baguette?” And then they start flirting, and then they get married, and then they have children.

Carly: Do they get married at a Gelson’s do you think?

Riese: Yes. Catering in house. Yeah. Everyone gets to eat little plastic containers of tuna salad.

Carly: Oh, that’s delicious.

Riese: Okay. Back to the tool shed.

Carly: Also, I just have a quick question. Why is Max still living in a tool shed? Where does Tom live? Why would they choose to be in Jenny’s tool shed instead of wherever Tom lives? And I know it’s because the show doesn’t want to give any more thought to either of these characters, clearly, to develop either of them in any way. I want to spend money on another location. But, they’re in a tool shed.

Thomas: I had no idea. I thought they were in the Ozarks. It just looks dark.

Riese: Yeah. This is the tool shed that Jenny lived in, moved into after her and Tim broke up. Then when Tim left, she moved into the house, and then when her and Max broke up. So it’s sort of like, it’s where you go when you break up with someone who lives in the big house. But then Max, now it’s been about two or three years, and Max is still in the tool shed, which as far as I know does not have — actually, I do know because it is addressed in season one — does not have its own bathroom.

Carly: It does not.

Riese: Which is probably really great for a pregnant person to live in a tool shed with no bathroom.

Thomas: Yeah. Where does Max go to the bathroom in the night? When you’re pregnant, you have to pee all throughout the night, every hour. Is he going behind the shed?

Riese: He has to go into the main house. Or yeah, behind the shed. Yeah.

Carly: I guess the idea is that he would have to go into the house every time he has to pee.

Thomas: That’s no way to treat a pregnant man. I’m sorry.

Carly: I agree.

Riese: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Max is like, “What’s wrong? Why are you mad at me?” And Tom’s like, “I’m just tired.” And he says, “It’s getting old, Max putting himself down all the time.” And it just seems like Tom is over it.

Thomas: Yeah.

Riese: And I feel like the show seems sort of ambivalent about it, but it’s also like Tom did get Max pregnant. He’s part of this decision, even though it wasn’t a decision, he’s part of it. But it seems like he’s sort of waffling on whether or not he wants to be a part of it or not. You know what I mean?

Carly: Because he could just disappear. And as long as he could live with himself, he wouldn’t have to be a part of it. And that’s shitty.

Riese: Yeah. Then they show Max taking all of his clothes off. They show him just undressing.

Carly: This show is so obsessed with Max’s body in a way that is just so dehumanizing.

Thomas: It is. I mean, showing him shirtless and then kind of flopping out. He can’t even walk right. He’s just wearing a t-shirt and then, there’s the circles again. And it’s such a sad ending. It’s like, I felt terrible.

Carly: Yeah. This show is like at every turn it’s always, the decision is always, what can we do here to make Max feel horrible in his body and show the audience that, and it sucks. It just sucks. I think he gets in bed and I think they’re spooning and cuddling, and maybe there’s an expression on Tom’s face that we’re supposed to know what’s coming. But, I could not tell you because it was so pitch black dark that I couldn’t see a goddamn thing.

Thomas: Well, at first I thought they were facing each other, and they were going to have relations. But then I think that Tom’s back was to him, and I think it was just Max being needy and then Tom is just going to bed.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Right. You know what? It would be nice to see them have relations, because I don’t feel like we get to see them be affectionate or loving. Because, mostly when they portray Max’s body, it’s Max looking at his own body and being upset about it.

Thomas: Yeah.

Riese: But they don’t really ever show him getting to use his body in a way that he’s not upset about. You know? Him and Tom had one ten second sex scene in episode 509, and that’s it. I think that’s the only time we’ve ever even seen them kiss.

Carly: We never have scenes where there’s any external affirmation from someone else to Max about his body. And, we were talking about this earlier in the season, about how Tom and Max are talking about their relationship and how all these conversations they’ve had about their relationship and about their lives that we’ve never seen on screen. And it’s like, the show only wants us to see their relationship when it’s traumatic, and not when they’re happy. And it’s just such a shame.

Thomas: Well, Tom did mention that other guys in the bar were checking him out. Which, I thought-

Riese: Yeah. That was cute. I remember that.

Carly: That was cute, yeah.

Thomas: That was cute, but we didn’t see it. And, I’m just speaking from experience, I didn’t get that comment when I was pregnant, and I don’t know why. Alas…

Riese: Well, you know, alas…

Carly: Alas…

Thomas: I’ll just be jealous.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you should have gone to Hit Club.

Thomas: I know.

Carly: Yeah. If you had gone to Boys’ Night at Hit Club it would’ve been a different story.

Riese: If you had taken your wife to Boys’ Night at Hit Club.

Thomas: Even pregnant and you think?

Riese: I mean, I’ve never been to Boys’ Night at Hit Club,

Carly: But I have been in gay male spaces, and I think they would probably be less than welcoming to a pregnant man. Just a hunch.

Thomas: Probably.

Carly: Knowing the cis gay male culture.

Thomas: Well, so Max says, “I am thinking that they’re just trying to figure out if I’m fat, like I got a beer belly, or I’m pregnant.” Which I think that’s what a lot of guys would think if you’re a pregnant man going into a gay male bar. I think the first suspect would be you’re overweight. But given that there are more and more pregnant men these days, they may question.

Carly: I think it would be very different now than it would have been in 2008, 2009, being pregnant man in the club. I’d have to assume that there’s more awareness and visibility of, like you’re saying.

Riese:Well, yeah. I mean, you were the entirety of the awareness and visibility. It was just you. Yeah.

Thomas: Well and if anything, I don’t think anyone pregnant should be in a club. So maybe…

Riese: Yeah. Right.

Carly: You know what? Fair.

Thomas: What are you doing here?

Carly: Shouldn’t you be resting? Or at home? Why don’t you go like read a book or chill out? I don’t want to be at a club not pregnant. Although I do now just because I’ve been at my house for a year. But before that I was very like, “Oh, I just want to go home and read a book.”

Riese: Right.

Carly: So Bette and Tina are in their little hotel in Nevada for the night.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And Angie’s wearing headphones so they can have some Mama B, Mama T real talk.

Riese: Basically. It seems like Bette thinks that Marcy is stupid. And it’s like, “Maybe we dodged a bullet because obviously, our kids would be dumb.” That’s how it read to me.

Carly: Yes. There’s a lot of that energy with what Bette’s saying. We know Bette’s kind of a snob, so it’s not surprising.

Riese: Yeah. But also, I think she’s trying to make herself feel better about her situation that she feels really bad about.

Carly: Yes. Yeah. And Tina’s trying to be comforting. She’s like, “Don’t be discouraged. We’re going to find another baby out there in the world.” Bette says that she’s stunned by the ignorance that she encountered today, which I think, were we really stunned by that type of ignorance in 2009? I don’t think so.

Riese: No.

Carly: That felt pretty, not entirely out of left field.

Riese: No, that’s crazy.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. That’s yeah, no.

Carly: In fact, Tina says—

Tina: Welcome to the rest of America.

Bette and Tina in the motel bathroom talking about their visit to Marci's

Riese: Right. I mean, even in New York, there was still a lot of… And I’m sure in LA too, but yeah. Angie looked really cute in the background of the scene.

Carly: She had her headphones on, she’s like, “I’m doing my own thing. Please don’t bother me.” And I was like, good for you. These two must be exhausting to listen to all the time.

Riese: But you know what? Marcy is actually a secret genius because she found their motel and their motel room, and is there, knocking on the door to let them know that it is her body, her choice and she wants her baby to be raised by these hot lesbian moms.

Carly: She does. She says she likes them more than all the other couples she’s met with. And she mentions that the baby is a boy.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Gender reveal!

Riese: I was like, well maybe. You never know.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: I was like, well, we’ll see. I think you let him choose.

Carly: Yeah. But Bette also — right before Marcy gets there, says that she is having second thoughts about the whole adoption idea, having another baby right now. She’s like, “Everything is so up in the air with our jobs and our lives and whatever.” And then Marcy shows up and is like, “I am giving you my baby. It’s going to be great. You’re going to raise this boy. He’s going to have lesbian moms. He’s going to be so cool.”

Riese: He’s going to be the coolest little boy.

Carly: He’ll be so cool.

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: I thought the actress, Bette, I thought her reaction was pretty good. You could see the emotion in her eyes. I don’t know what it was, realizing that it’s going to be a quote-unquote boy and she can picture it. But I could feel happiness for them.

Riese: Yeah. She did a good job.

Carly: Yeah. Especially because she was like, “I’m having second thoughts.” Three minutes before that girl walked in.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So that was, again, some excellent Jennifer Beals acting.

Riese: And it was excellent Marcy acting, she really—

Carly: Yeah, she sold that.

Riese: I thought — honestly, everyone in that scene was being a really good actor. I teared up.

Carly: It was really well done.

Riese: But I mean, I’m prone to tear up often in this show for some reason. But I was really excited for them. It’s a reaction when they start to tear up, I just accidentally also tear up. I don’t know. Then we get a little smooth jazz, just some—

Carly: Yeah, we do.

Riese: And then we get a little close-up of Bette’s eyelashes.

Carly: I liked how this was shot. It’s very different for the show, but I appreciate it. I appreciated it.

Riese: And then I guess, is that all?

Carly: Well, Bette says — she tells Tina that she is happy and that it was a momentary thing, her having second thoughts about the adoption.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And I have to wonder if she’s saying that not just for Tina’s benefit, but for her own, to kind of convince herself that she’s happy with this going forward.

Thomas: I think so too.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: What’s a little weird though, is that also, there’s actually someone who didn’t want to be pregnant or have a child already in their life in LA, and that’s never brought up as an idea.

Carly: Well, that would require the writers having Max be part of the group, and he never gets to be in scenes with the group.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Yeah. Interesting that there’s these sort of dual pregnancy storylines and not a single character on the show is making any connection there.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: It is really interesting.

Riese: Then we go back to Max’s tool shed, where he wakes up and Tom has completely just moved out?

Carly: I guess? So were they both living in the tool shed? I just don’t understand what’s going on. Also, they show Max open that closet door and I think what you’re supposed to see is that half of it is empty, I’m assuming. Tom took all his stuff. But again, the lighting does not even allow for that to happen.

Riese: I thought it was completely empty.

Carly: But where’s Max stuff? I mean, I’m just…

Riese: He just has two shirts.

Carly: He has two plaid shirts.

Thomas: Two plaid shirts.

Carly: That he wears to the club.

Riese: Two plaid shirts.

Thomas: And a white undershirt, for the binder.

Carly: For the club. Exactly.

Thomas: Yeah.

Riese: A white undershirt and a binder. That’s it. That’s all he has.

Carly: And again, what Thomas was saying about the last scene with Max, about how he’s just sort of portrayed as this kind of sad… The physicality is so sad and the way the camera’s treating him is so sad. It’s just so… This whole scene is him. And then, Tom left the door open. What even is that? Who does that?

Riese: Yeah. If you’re going to walk out on somebody, close the door.

Carly: What time of year is it? I mean, even when it’s warm out, it gets chilly at night. I mean, what is going on? This is just wild.

Riese: And so that’s how it ends, with Max just standing there. Wow, now I’m alone and pregnant and unhappy.

Carly: It’s heartbreaking.

Riese: Right. And it is, I think also sad because it was inspired by your story, but you were happy to be pregnant.

Thomas: Exactly.

Carly: Yeah.

Thomas: No. I mean, it was anti my story.

Carly: Right.

Thomas: Opposite.

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: I fought really hard to get pregnant, and it’s not like I had an accident. I mean, it would have been cool if I accidentally got pregnant with my wife, but it didn’t happen right away.

Riese: No. Yeah. Right. It was very intentional.

Thomas: Yeah. We had to spend a lot of money and it was a big investment of time and just emotions and everything. And I mean, I can’t even imagine. Max didn’t even want the baby, he tried to get rid of it in the beginning, but he was too far along.

Riese: Right.

Thomas: It’s like, I can’t even sympathize. So I’m not a Max lover at this point.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: It’s interesting that they saw that story and they were like, “Oh, that’s interesting. Let’s do something like that, except with a completely different emotional landscape. And let’s change literally everything about it, besides that one thing.”

Thomas: Well, I think they wanted the visuals because I was in the tabloids, right? I mean, I didn’t choose to be in the tabloids, the tabloids put me there because it was something you couldn’t walk away from. I felt like the writers, they caught wind of my story, like a lot of people did and they wanted to incorporate it being current and hip and they just didn’t really do their research.

Riese: No. Right. It felt like it was completely, we want to have a body like that on our show, but let’s not look into it in any other way. I don’t even feel like they looked into it medically of how this would be happening for Max at all either. Because it was also interesting, because they had it, he didn’t know that he was four months along pregnant, even though he was watching the development of his muscles and stuff because he had been working out all the time. But that somehow, this came as a complete surprise to him that he was already four months pregnant, which I feel like isn’t… But I actually don’t know. I hate the story, I guess, the way they told it.

Thomas: Well, Max is rather thin, so I feel like that’s not realistic at all. I could tell after about eight weeks when, the first month you don’t even know, you see nothing at all.

Riese: Yeah.

Thomas: But yeah. I mean, I had to go off of my testosterone. It took me about a year and a half.

Riese: Oh wow.

Thomas: In order to get pregnant. So it’s kind of strange that he’d been on for three years and then got pregnant so easily.

Riese: Right. Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And maintained that beard that they glued onto his face every day. The trailer, which is new for the season.

Carly: Yeah. He does not… This full, over the top beard is a season six edition.

Thomas: Yeah. Well, I do relate in that aspect because when I was pregnant I felt like my beard got longer, you know?

Riese: Really?

Thomas: Yeah, because I was really into identifying as male and then growing it out. However, when you do get pregnant, you’ve got other hormones competing with the testosterone and for me, I didn’t have… I had been off of the testosterone for a year and a half, but the facial hair just doesn’t come in the way you want it to.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Right.

Thomas: Yeah. In retrospect, I probably should have shaved it.

Riese: Or you could have just gotten whatever they did to Max.

Thomas: Exactly. I could have done that.

Carly: Just glued it on.

Riese: Glue, just glue.

Thomas: Glue it.

Carly: It was just glue.

Riese: Yeah. Right. And also, he needs a haircut really bad.

Thomas: Really bad.

Riese: His hair is just too long.

Carly: Yeah. They just don’t care. The people that make the show, just don’t care about this character and it’s so upsetting.

Riese: Yeah. Anyway, definitely a sad ending. And I don’t remember… Because I hated this season so much, so unlike all the other seasons, which I’ve watched a million times, I’ve only seen this season whenever I originally had to watch it. So I don’t remember what happens after this, with Tom. But it’s just such a sad way to end. And it’s also interesting, because they contrast it. They have Bette and Tina, thinking they’re not going to get to adopt a child and then finding out, oh, they are going to be able to adopt a child. And then you go straight from that, to this. And it’s just this sort of jarring of like, these are the characters that the writers, it feels like the writers are rooting for. And this is the character it doesn’t feel like they’re rooting for at all.

Carly: Very clearly. Yeah.

Riese: And that’s the episode.

Carly: So did we like the episode? I give it an A. I’m kidding. I really don’t like this episode.

Riese: I didn’t like it either.

Thomas: Yeah. No, on a scale from one to 10, I would say probably about a two.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s fair. Maybe generous.

Riese: Here’s what I liked. I liked Bette saying that no, she was going to be her partner in the business. She was not going to work for Kelly.

Carly: I liked all the Jamie, Tasha and Alice stuff. Right?

Riese: Yes. I liked the nut loaf. The repeated references to the nut loaf, I thought were funny. I thought Angie looked really cute in the motel in her headphones.

Carly: She looked great. That’s it.

Riese: Yeah, I think that’s it.

Carly: Oh, season six. Was this 604? Does that mean we’re halfway through season six now?

Riese: Yeah, it does.

Carly: Right? There’s eight episodes?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Oh boy. Four left. Can you believe it, Riese? Four episodes left.

Riese: I’m trying to think if there’s anything else I liked.

Carly: You might be thinking about this for a while because there’s nothing else.

Thomas: Well I liked, ultimately, the hope for Bette and Tina having a child. That was very uplifting. As much as I dislike the way Max was presented, I do think that the way Jenny reacted, all the she pronouns and the way Max was treated by people around in his circle, even though it’s sad at the time and I think even now it is still pretty realistic, I think that people who go through — trans men, male identifying who get pregnant, I think sadly, they do feel alone. And it really points to the fact that they needed to have more support and be respected more. So even though the writers probably didn’t do the best, I think that they were reflecting what they’re seeing around them, which is what the episode showed.

Riese: Yeah. And that was what the world was.

Carly: That’s a really good point.

Riese: It’s a good thing that there are people like you, who have been fighting for better representation and treatment.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: And awareness.

Thomas: I do what I can. No, I think doing stuff like this, just talking about it, I think that just the visibility of it is helpful.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: It’s so important.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: It’s a perspective that absolutely needs to be heard by more people.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And thank you for bringing your perspective to our ridiculous podcast today. It was so wonderful having you as a guest today. Thank you for being here.

Carly: Yeah. Thomas, do you have anything you want to plug, anywhere people can find you online? Anything you want to, you want to throw out there for the listeners?

Thomas: Well, gosh. I still have my company, Define Normal, and you can catch me at definenormal.com. We’re launching a whole new line of t-shirts, so that’s going to be up probably by the time this episode broadcasts.

Riese: Oh cool.

Thomas: And I’m a public speaker. I do speaking across the world, really. But if you’ve got a college or university, or a corporate, like a company that needs a speaker, I’m available. I’m also an actor, so.

Carly: Oh wow.

Thomas: If The L Word reboot wants to tap into some transgender ideas… Yeah, so I’m doing that as well. And also working on a television series called Define Normal.

Riese: Oh, awesome.

Carly: Awesome.

Riese: That’s so cool.

Carly: Do you want to plug any Instagram, Twitter or anything like that? Where can people follow you?

Thomas: Yeah. So you can see my social media links at definenormal.com. My Instagram handle is @Thomas_SS10, which sounds a little like weird code, but I was on Secret Story in France. It’s France’s version of Big Brother, so. I didn’t even have an Instagram before I went on the show and then they kind of created one for me.

Riese: So was it Season 10?

Thomas: It was season 10. Yeah. That was a lot of fun.

Carly: Good job, Riese.

Thomas: And then my… Let’s see. My Twitter is @Thomassecretstory10. You know what? It’s reversed. 10 is my Twitter.

Riese: It’s hard to remember.

Thomas: I rarely go on those sites very often, but I do the obligatory post once a week or so.

Riese: Yeah. I like to post on Instagram once every three months or so.

Carly: Yeah. It’s good. Thank you so much for listening To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter, we are @tolandback. You can also email us to tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message, it’s (971) 217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find @store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes, and this podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on socials, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle. And of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Audostraddle.com.

Carly: All right. And finally, it’s time for our L Words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually, these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three. Lorax.

Thomas: Lesbian.

Carly: LeBron James. Riese, what’d you say?

Riese: Lorax, as in the Lorax.

Carly: Dr. Suess.

Riese: Who speaks for the trees.

Carly: Because trees have no tongues.

Riese: Of course.

Carly: Or was it because the trees have no mouths?

Riese: I don’t remember.

Carly: I remembered it as tongues. Anyway. Thomas, what did you say?

Thomas: I said lesbian.

Carly: Riese, have we ever used lesbian as an L word on the show? I actually don’t know that we have.

Thomas: It’s only the obvious.

Riese: I can see where that—

Carly: I know.

Riese: I can see where the inspiration came from.

Carly: Mine was LeBron James, because I’m going to watch a Lakers game later today, from the comfort of my own couch.

Riese: Wonderful.

Carly: Yeah. Pretty cool. Thomas, thank you again for being here.

Riese: Yeah, thank you so much.

Carly: This was a delight.

Riese: It was really great to have you.

Thomas: No, it was fun.

Riese: Yeah, it was really fun.

Carly: Everyone at home, thank you for listening. There are four more episodes of season six left. And as we said before, these are coming out every other week because otherwise we’d be done too soon and really, it’s because of our sanity. But otherwise, it would be over before you knew it.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And then what are you going to do?

Riese: Then what are you going to do? Watch The Farm? Hopefully, yes.

Carly: If anyone can get, somehow, any footage from that pilot, we will take it, no questions asked. Just send it tolandbackcast, right? Is that our Gmail?

Riese: I have assembled all my sides, so I have enough. I have pages one through 33 of the script, with only a few pages missing in there, so.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: We’re going to get enough.

Carly: We’re putting it together.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: We’re doing it.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Awesome. All right. Thank you all for listening. Bye.

Riese: Bye!

Thomas: Bye!

“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 603: LMFAO With Rhea Butcher!

Comic and tie dye enthusiast Rhea Butcher joins us for a little LMFAO-ing on Episode 603, LMFAO! This week the whole group gets some very concerning text messages regarding Shane and Jenny’s sexual activities, someone has stolen THE NEGATIVE, Alice saves a life, Shane does Eric Mabius’s hair, Bette tries to fire Jodi and ends up getting fired, and so much more!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Carly: A podcast!

Riese: About The L Word.

Carly: All of The L Word.

Riese: That was cute!

Carly: I know, that was cute.

Riese: Every single episode.

Carly: Every episode of The L Word, so many episodes, so that we’re, in fact, now on season six… which… are these even episodes?

Riese: Yeah, or are they just experiments? Yeah.

Carly: I think they’re experiments.

Riese: Variety shows.

Carly: I think they’re scientific experiments, actually.

Riese: That’s true.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: You can’t forget science, that’s what I always say every day.

Carly: Science is so important.

Riese: But I have forgotten a lot of science, I was really bad with science.

Carly: I mean, I’ve forgotten a lot of the specifics, but I would say that it’s still a part of my life. I am an organism in the world.

Riese: Did you get the… That’s fine. No, it was stupid. No one needs to hear it. Sorry. I’m just minimizing myself like always.

Carly: Riese, stop it.

Riese: Speaking of things that should be minimal, today, we’re talking about episode 603, that’s the third episode of the sixth season of The L Word, a hit program on the network Showtime that aired in 2009 back when we were young, or younger?

Carly: When we were 11 years younger than we are now.

Riese: Yeah, and so much less mature.

Carly: Oh, yeah.

Riese: We’ve grown up.

Carly: We are so much more mature now.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Oh my God. This episode’s title is “LMFAO,” which immediately made me think of perhaps, the most famous uncle-nephew duo in music, the band LMFAO. I mean what a time, right?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Did you know that, that one guy was an uncle and the other guy was the nephew? Like those two guys?

Riese: I didn’t, I didn’t. I didn’t know they were related. Wow.

Carly: Our very special guest is also shaking their head because they also didn’t know that. I think it’s time to introduce them. Rhea Butcher, are you there? Are you on the line?

Rhea: Oh, yeah. Oh, I’m here. You got me on the line. I’m right here.

Carly: Welcome.

Rhea Butcher: What’s up? That was such a great — just brought me right in. I love just the, “Get the hell on here.”

Carly: Yeah, just get in here, let’s talk about this group, LMFAO.

Rhea: Yeah, dude.

Carly: I went and saw…

Rhea: You saw them?

Carly: I saw them perform live in New York once…

Rhea: Wow.

Carly: … because I was working at Logo and we did a bunch of stuff with them inexplicably.

Rhea: Are they gay or something?

Carly: No, not at all.

Rhea: I don’t know shit about — okay, of course not.

Carly: No, not at all. All I know is that—

Riese: No one was gay then.

Carly: No.

Rhea: Yeah, that’s right.

Carly: No, that was before anyone was gay. I wasn’t even… no, I was super gay, I was working at Logo. And me and a bunch of my coworkers, we all went to their show, and someone pulled a fire alarm, or like, we almost died, and we got evacuated by the New York Fire Department, and that’s my relationship to the band, LMFAO.

Rhea: Wow, yeah, I don’t even…

Carly: Why is this episode called this?

Riese: Because of the beginning—

Carly: I guess because Bett can’t stop laughing.

Rhea: Yeah, the whole beginning thing. And then, also, the outro…

Riese: And the end.

Rhea: Yeah.

Carly: So, the beginning and the end.

Rhea: The beginning and the end.

Carly: Yeah.

Rhea: Yeah.

Carly: That ties it more together than a lot of episode titles on this show, so that’s something.

Riese: Yeah, most of them are pretty bad.

Rhea: Yeah. “Lagrima de Oro” is one that sticks out in my head.

Carly: Greatest title.

Riese: Yeah. Well, the best episode title is coming up this season.

Carly: It is.

Riese: And that is, of course —

Riese and Carly simultaneously: Lactose Intolerant.

Riese: Yeah. Can’t wait for that one.

Rhea: They really did it to themselves with that shit. You know what I mean?

Carly: Yeah. Yeah.

Rhea: And it’s like, you love to just see… It’s like, yeah man, I get it, of course, you would do that, and then, here you are, 20 years later… it’s not that long, but.

Riese: Ah, ha.

Rhea: My goodness, hearing you guys say that was that long ago, I cannot believe it, I was 26 years old. What?

Carly: It’s crazy. Crazy, I know.

Rhea: Oh boy.

Carly: Okay wait, so…

Rhea: I can’t believe I was ever that young, you know?

Carly: Okay. First, before we even get into it…

Rhea: Yeah, yeah, yep.

Carly: Tell the audience, tell our wonderful listeners, all about you!

Rhea: All right. Let’s see. Queer, non-binary trans person. A comedian. I have a new album out. I know the plugs are later, but I just want to let everybody know up top, I have a new album out and I’m very proud of it. It’s called “Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootleg,” which, I also came up with the title. Very, very proud of that title. But yeah, that’s me. A comedian, actor, writer, all-around good guy. I don’t know. A bit of a gender cowboy, whatever.

Carly: Can definitely vouch, you’re a good guy.

Riese: Yeah.

Rhea: Everybody on this podcast is all-around good guy. You know what I mean?

Carly: I think so.

Riese: Yeah.

Rhea: It’s always fun to be around good guys. But yeah, a big baseball fan. I have a baseball podcast, plugs are later. Sorry. We are not defined by our plugs.

Carly: You can plug now, you can do double plugs.

Rhea: Sure.

Riese: Do you want to plug your team? Do you want to plug your baseball team?

Rhea: Oh yeah. My actual team that I play for is a team called Death.

Riese: Same. Yeah.

Rhea: Yeah. So we actually have like a bat coming out, which is pretty cool.

Carly: Wait, for real?

Rhea: I’ll show it to you guys later, I don’t want to take up time on the podcast showing everybody something that they can’t see. But yeah, that’s me. I mean, I’ve been, just like getting through this pandemic, like everybody else watching a lot of Ink Master.

Carly: Awesome.

Rhea: Peppering it with The Bisexual every now and then, and you know—

Carly: Good stuff.

Rhea: Just to, Oh, and I do Instagram Lives on Sundays that have been really fun talking with people about all kinds of things, but usually gender. That’s what I tend to talk about, and that’s cool. So I’m into it.

Carly: Love talking about gender.

Rhea: Always love talking about gender.

Carly: Favorite things to stumble my way through.

Rhea: It’s one of my favorite fairy tales to talk about. There’s no right answer, and there’s no wrong answer, so let’s just talk about it. You know, what I mean?

Carly: I love that, that’s a great jingle too. That could be like—

Riese: That was a really good — yeah, yeah. We should record that. Well, I guess we just did.

Carly: We just did!. We just laid that track down.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Okay. We’ll get Lauren to put some beats under it.

Rhea: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, for sure.

Rhea: Maybe the season one L Word — beeping noises. I honestly feel like if I heard that it would bring back — like that would make me, like, a little tender being, you know what I mean? Like that first season, like that was something for me, but it did a lot of stuff for me.

Riese: Life changing.

Rhea: Yeah, totally, that’s an L Word right there.

Riese: Speaking of. What is your L Word origin story?

Rhea: So my L Word origin story… I’m trying to remember, I’m trying to remember exactly where — I feel like I started watching the first season, I was in college and I was house-sitting for a professor. So it was like the first time I was ever, like, living on my own. Because I lived at home, I went to like a commuter college, paid for it myself, all this stuff. So in the middle of Akron, Ohio, in the middle of — so this would have been like ‘04, like, so I was catching it right after the first season had happened. So I was aware of it and we had the Internet obviously, but it’s not like it is now. So it’s hard to even really remember what it was like. So I was just vaguely aware, but they had cable, like at a level that I didn’t have. And so I think I watched it On Demand and I feel like it just changed me, like watching it change me. And I had already started to see like some queer movies, because like Blockbuster existed.

Carly: My God, yeah.

Rhea: Blockbuster always had like, even in Akron, Ohio, had a tiny little LGBT section, which I think it wasn’t even called that then, which is nuts to think about, that it wasn’t like, “gay movies,” it was like, “LGBT movies.”

Carly: LGBT, yeah.

Rhea: Which is like, “I don’t even know what that stands for!”

Carly: “What are all those letters?”

Rhea: Exactly. And it was just like To Wong Foo and then like maybe Go Fish or something.

Riese: Six Degrees of Separation.

Rhea: Exactly.

Carly: Muriel’s Wedding.

Rhea: I don’t know, whatever. Yep.

Riese: What?

Carly: I said Muriel’s Wedding.

Rhea: Yeah, that one.

Carly: Which was always in the gay section for some reason.

Rhea: Benny and Joon, and you’re like, “Wait, what?”

Riese: Well, there’s one with Jennifer Aniston where she was like a gay guy’s best friend.

Rhea: Is that the …

Riese: Remember that? The Object of My Affection?

Rhea: Oh, yeah, not-

Carly: Oh, is that — Paul Rudd was in that?

Riese: Yeah.

Rhea: Oh, weird.

Carly: Man, wow.

Rhea: Bringing back some memories.

Riese: Oh, In and Out?

Rhea: Yeah, yeah. In and Out.

Carly: Classic In and Out.

Rhea: And then The Birdcage, and that’s it.

Carly: And that was it.

Riese: And The Birdcage.

Carly: That’s a whole section.

Riese: Honestly, I fucking love The Birdcage.

Rhea: It’s so good.

Carly: I still deeply love The Birdcage.

Riese: It’s so fun!

Carly: That’s a great movie.

Rhea: It’s so good. And it’s such a great version because like — we’re still, today, having the conversation of like “Should straight people play gay,” and it’s like, I don’t know, man, probably not, as a general rul?  Like probably see some queers first and then if you absolutely cannot find the right person, sure, Robin Williams.

Carly: Like, “Fine.”

Rhea: His performance is so grounded in humanity and love in a way that like I have not seen us and like, I don’t even know if Robin Williams is actually straight, you know what I mean? That’s the thing, like I don’t really know and no one will ever really know, but anyway, this is totally off the topic of The L Word, but that was my experience of like seeing it there and then totally hit on my first girlfriend with it. Like we watched it or whatever together.

Carly: Brilliant, yes.

Rhea: And then I think I watched all of it. And then a friend had been watching it at the same time and then it became like our show and I got season two on LimeWire after completely spoiling myself as much as possible on the website that probably shall not be named anymore. Like I used to just like — it was like I had to know, I had to know so that I could be okay, which is just such a weird — I needed to know what the storyline for the second season was so that I could feel safe, which is just like where I was at, you know, as like a 23-year-old queer trying to understand — but people who are younger, I think that, or somebody that didn’t experience the show firsthand, like totally get it. But for me, this was my first group of gay friends. It’s like, I knew queer people, gay people here and there, but I did not have like a group of gay friends to just be immersed in at any time… like until, honestly, out here. Honestly, Los Angeles. It took till 32 or 33 years old to find that. And a lot of that is me, it’s not like the world, whatever, but that was what this show gave me, for better, for worse. It gave me that, and so I will always have a place in my heart, and the first season, how rooted it is in lesbian cinema. Like it really did come from Go Fish, basically.

Carly: For sure.

Rhea: It’s like, oh, it came from the creative forces that were really involved in it with Rose Troche and …

Carly: Guinevere Turner.

Rhea: Yeah, Guinevere Turner.

Riese: Angela Robinson.

Rhea: Gabby, and all of them just like being—

Carly: Gabby Deveaux.

Rhea: Yeah, yeah, Gabby Deveaux, being very influential in the story and the narrative and the way it was shot — like it really did early, which is why it was so interesting for me to watch one of these episodes. Because it’s very different.

Carly: We have really fallen from grace here.

Rhea: Yeah, it just really made a lot of sense at the time. And it’s wild to go back and watch that and see it now based on television that’s happening now that — even just the way that show was shot and what it was doing at that time was like so nuts, so nuts that it was existing. So that’s my L Word origin story.

Carly: I love that. I remember I’ve watched the show in it. I was like in college and watched it.

Riese: I think we are all around the same age.

Carly: Yeah.

Rhea: 38.

Riese: 39.

Carly: Will be 39 in April, so 38.

Rhea: Yeah, I’ll be 39 in August. So yep, welcome to the crew, everybody!

Carly: 82!

Riese: We’re all exactly the same age.

Carly: Yup. And I remember, my friends and I, in college, it was like a bunch of queer people, it was my first ever group of gay friends, every Sunday we would get together with the one person that had Showtime at their apartment or their dorm or whatever, and we would watch Queer As Folk. And then we started seeing the promos for The L Word and then started doing that, it kind of grew off of that, but L Word was like such a different show than Queer As Folk.

Rhea: Oh, yeah.

Carly: Like, it really was, you’re right.

Rhea: 100%.

Carly: Its genesis was in this like indie lesbian film world, whereas Queer As Folk was this, like, remake of the British one, and it was so glossy and set in the club, and it was such a different vibe.

Riese: And allegedly in Pittsburgh.

Carly: Allegedly in the glamourous clubs of Pittsburgh.

Rhea: Supposedly in the State of Pennsylvania.

Carly: Yeah, sure. Man. I mean, a show now set in the queer clubs of Pittsburgh would be incredible.

Rhea: Oh, it would be lit.

Carly: The drag scene in Pittsburgh is unbelievable. Anyway, yeah. It was such a different show and yeah, by the time you get to season six, there’s like shadows of it remaining, but not much.

Rhea: It’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen. I feel like over the course of the show, just seeing like — remembering like, oh right. Elizabeth Ziff is a co-executive producer on that show right now. It’s like, honestly, no shade to Elizabeth Ziff. It’s just like, oh, you kind of like lost where you were going. What purpose was the show serving? You know, it was just like, there’s a lot, there’s a lot, there’s a lot going on, you know, there’s just a lot going on.

Carly: One more question then we can get into the episode. Did you have any favorite characters or anything like anyone resonate with you? Anything like that?

Rhea: I mean.

Carly: You’re saying no.

Rhea: No. I mean, I loved the show, so I feel like there is, I feel like I had my relationships with every character over time. Like I re-watched seasons one and, especially two, many times. Like, I bet if we watched one of the first four or five episodes of season two, I could probably quote a scene. Like I could probably still do it. You know, like it was just a thing that I did. It’s the thing I’ve always done with everything, but this show just like really gave me a lot, it really gave me a lot. But, I had my time with Shane, I had my time with Bette, I had my time, ultimately, I mean, that’s the thing. Turning this episode on and dropping into it without re-watching really any of it, not getting the context of the season and just going like, “Man, Dana really was this show.” There’s just relationships, and I don’t want to beat a literal dead horse in talking about Dana but it’s just like, she was an incredibly integral part of what made the show so fun and real. You lose a lot when you lose that—

Riese: And funny.

Rhea: That middle person in the Greek chorus of Alice, Dana, and Shane. It’s really missing a lot. Like everybody’s just sort of out on their own and there’s not a real center.

Riese: Or coupled.

Rhea: Yeah, exactly, and there’s so many characters on this show. The OGs are like the ones that I gravitate to the most because I feel like in season three, I was just like, “No, thanks.” I swear I was like, “I don’t know.”

Riese: Yeah, season three was terrible.

Rhea: Yeah. It just really didn’t—

Riese: When we re-visited it we were shocked by how, just insistently, I remember not liking it, but it was profoundly, profoundly, awful.

Rhea: Yeah.

Carly: It was deeply terrible.

Rhea: Like I would imagine. I mean, I just remember that episode where Max is sitting at dinner with everybody and they’re all basically laughing at him.

Riese: Oh, the lobsters?

Rhea: And I just was like, “How dare you?”

Carly: The fucking lobster dinner.

Rhea: Like, how dare you do that? You know what I mean? It’s so cruel to its own audience and it doesn’t even know that. And as I was watching this episode, I was like, has anybody that is working on this show ever lived anywhere other than Los Angeles? Because it doesn’t feel like it. It really doesn’t feel like it.

Carly: No, it doesn’t feel like that.

Rhea: But you know, I think retroactively, retrospectively without having re-watched it whatsoever, I have like a real soft spot for a Daniela Sea as an actor, that little sweet little friend, sweet little, I don’t know, like field nymph, just like, “Yeah, sure. I’ll give it a shot,” like holy shit — after a small amount of acting that I’ve done, to realize then what that person was given to do and the fact that they did it with a big heart, it’s just like, “Wow, great job. Great job.”

Carly: I know.

Rhea: “ Great job, kid, you did the best you could.”

Carly: We talk about that a lot.

Riese: We talk about that a lot.

Carly: Just like, our like deep empathy and sympathy for Daniela and just what they went through.

Rhea: They seem like such a sweetie.

Carly: Yeah.

Rhea: My goodness. You know, just like a tender sweetie.

Carly: I know, what a sweet little babe.

Rhea: I know, I know! I did have a funny answer to my favorite character, it’s — and I always get their name wrong, which is like, they’re clearly my favorite character. But I think their name is Dax that worked at Ivan’s Garage.

Riese: Yes, yes. Who worked at the body shop? Who worked at the body shop? With Ivan?

Rhea: The best, only Butch representation in the whole show, potentially, like, “Wow, thank you.” Like, that was it.

Riese: They had their hair like this and a tank top. I mean, obviously, I remember this character.

Rhea: Yeah, Of course. Like just embedded in the brain.

Carly: Yeah.

Rhea: It’s a great character.

Riese: They were in two episodes.

Rhea: They’re in two episodes.

Riese: So funny.

Rhea: In many seasons of my heart.

Riese: Maybe one line.

Carly: Like a line or two.

Rhea: Over the hood, in there working on it. And then they get up, and they’re doing this.

Riese: And they’re like, “Ivan’s over there.”

Rhea: “Ivan’s gone.” Oh, and he took off.

Carly: Wiping hands off on a towel.

Riese: Yeah.

Rhea: “Breaking up, Kit, you’re going to have to get out of here, you broke his heart, man,” or whatever, something like that.

Carly: Oh, my God.

Rhea: And Ivan, of course. Anyway, all right.

Carly: Ivan, yes.

Rhea: Let’s do it.

Carly: Today’s episode is Episode 603, LMFAO, no relation to the band. And it was written by Alexandra Kondracke, directed by Angela Robinson, who we love. We actually love both of them and I believe they are married or at least they are partnered. Which is wonderful. So that’s fun. This originally aired February 1st, 2009 before we were born, let’s get into It.

Riese: Let’s get into it.

Carly: Okay. The first thing we noticed is that both Nadia and Dylan are in the previouslies, which is never a good sign.

Rhea: Oh yeah. Dylan. That’s true.

Carly: Not good, this is not good.

Riese: And then we go to Shaolin.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Ghost themed movie Studio Shaolin.

Rhea: Oh, my God.

Riese: Where Tina’s walking in, everyone’s concerned, Aaron wants to see Tina ASAP.

Rhea: Question.

Riese: Yes.

Rhea: Did Aaron, did that actor play another character on this show? Or am I just remembering him from something else? Because he seems so familiar to me and I really didn’t watch this.

Riese: He looks a little bit like Stanley Tucci.

Carly: Yeah. Yeah, but like if Stanley Tucci was not fun.

Rhea: Squished. Anyway, we don’t have to spend too much time on this, but man, is he swinging for the fences with this performance?

Riese: He’s, for sure, Canadian.

Carly: And he pops up in many seasons because he’s Tina’s boss for the duration of most of the show. So he’s around a lot, but maybe he was in something else.

Rhea: I think I always confuse him with the guy that Bette runs into in traffic in season two, when she’s like, “What makes you think I’m not already?!”

Riese: “What makes you think I’m not already?!” Oh my god, he does look like that guy!

Rhea: I’m always thinking it’s that guy for every guy in this show, it’s that guy.

Carly: They might as well just be that guy.

Rhea: It might as well. Yeah.

Carly: So he is like screaming at Tina and she has no idea why, which is not that weird because he’s always screaming at her about something.

Riese: He’s a bad boss.

Carly: It seems That the negative for Jenny’s film has been stolen.

Rhea: Remember when we had negatives?

Carly: Yeah. Right?

Riese: Can you tell me what that, like, I don’t understand.

Carly: Okay. So.

Rhea: Later in the episode, Tina tells you exactly what it means.

Carly: Tina does explain it later in the episode, but they shot this film on film. This was back before we shot everything on digital, even though digital was an option in 2009.

Rhea: I love how she’s like, “You can’t just digitally project things, Jenny!” And it’s like, it’s 2009, you absolutely can.

Carly: You super can.

Rhea: You can super totally can.

Carly: Okay.

Rhea: iMovie absolutely exists. I believe a movie has already won at con for that right now, as you’re talking.

Carly: Yeah. So this film, somehow they shot this movie on film, which is wild because—

Riese: Well, Jenny is an artiste.

Carly: Exactly. And that was, she probably was demanding to shoot on film.

Riese: And so it’s like, high art, as they say.

Carly: High art. Indeed. So Aaron thinks that Tina did this, and Tina’s like, “I don’t even know that it was stolen. So I didn’t do it.”

Rhea: Airtight defense. I didn’t even know about it, so how could I have even done it?

Carly: I don’t see how, like how could I steal something I didn’t know about? Like, ooh, she got you there. He calls Jenny devious and insane and thinks that she did it. And now it’s Tina’s problem because Jenny is, I guess, Tina’s responsibility, I guess just because they’re both women? I don’t know.

Riese: Yeah. But he’s very sexist, this man.

Carly: He sure is.

Rhea: He screams a lot.

Riese: He screams a lot and he’s always screaming at Tina.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And as we know, I’m not like a fan of Tina, but she hasn’t deserved to be screamed at by this terrible man.

Carly: I agree, but in the grand tradition of season six where the cold open features one of our series regulars vowing to murder Jenny, she then basically looks into the camera and says, “I’m going to kill Jenny,” and winks.

Rhea: Yeah. I forgot about that whole thing until she did it. And I was like, Oh God.

Carly: Yeah. Plausible deniability. Yeah.

Tina in Aaron's office says "I'm Going to Fucking Kill You"

Rhea: That is like a first idea on the wall, and then it sticks and then you do it. Nobody goes, “eh…”

Carly: They were like, “Well, we could do, yeah, okay. You know what? We’ll write it down, but I’m sure we’ll come up with something better.”

Riese: Yeah, exactly.

Carly: Then it’s like, narrator, “They did not.”

Rhea: The episode just writes itself from there. You know, hand it off and then see what they do on the day.

Carly: Yeah, that’s fine. They didn’t even write the scene. They were just like, negatives missing, Aaron yells at Tina, Tina murders Jenny.

Rhea: Yeah. Right.

Riese: Like what we need is to be able to do in the previews a montage of everyone saying that they want to kill Jenny. That’s what we need. And so you’re going to have to find a way to get into the show.

Carly: That has to be in every script.

Rhea: Every script.

Riese: Every script. Yes. A death threat.

Carly: A direct threat at someone’s existence.

Riese: Yeah, Jenny’s life. Yeah.

Carly: Oh, boy.

Riese: You never know when a boring person like Tina could do something exciting, like murder. You never know.

Carly: It could happen.

Riese: Could happen.

Carly: It probably didn’t happen.

Riese: Also, Tina didn’t steal the negative. Also neither did Jenny, anyway. Then we cut to Shenny’s for a beautiful scene between my favorite couple of all time, Shane and Jenny.

Carly: Yeah. Riese is a Shenny truther. So, welcome.

Rhea: Wait. Really? Okay. Just checking it out. I mean, I remembered watching this, like how crazy it was to me that this happened and that there was a big part of me that was, like, into it. But I will tell you this time around, I could not even look at it. Like I couldn’t even watch when they were together. For whatever reason. I was just like, “Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, Ooh.” I couldn’t do it.”

Riese: Luckily, I had my eyes glued to the screen for this beautiful morning after when, you know, they — they were such good friends, they were best friends, they knew each other so well…

Rhea: Yeah, best friends.

Riese: And then they had sex and it went really well. They had a nice sex time. They had good sexuals and she says that she’s happy they fucked and they start making out again and it’s just so sweet. It’s the morning … You know?

Carly: I love how Shane’s like …

Shane: I don’t know what to say.

Rhea: … is the first thing when they woke up. And my partner goes, “How about, “Good morning?’, or, “Want some coffee?”

Carly: Oh, you’re there.

Rhea: Good morning. Yeah. Woof.

Riese: And, Jenny’s like, “Do you think we made a mistake?” And, Shane’s like, “No.” Because, they didn’t.

Rhea: Absolutely not.

Carly: Oh, wow. Yeah?

Riese: Because, it’s true love. Yeah.

Carly: Also, Sounder Two has a cameo in this scene. The dog.

Riese: Yeah, I do appreciate that I noticed that, a little bit of Sounder Two.

Carly: I was like, “Oh right. Jenny has a dog.”

Rhea: Just barely.

Carly: Where is the dog? Yeah. The dog’s never around. This one’s going to die too, just like the first one.

Riese: Unfortunately, Shane’s journey towards giving Jenny oral sex is interrupted by Alice. Knock, knock, knocking at the door.

Carly: Jenny is going to give Alice notes on her treatment, which last time we saw, Alice was writing the screenplay and calling it a treatment, if I remember correctly.

Riese: Exactly. But now she has papers with words on it, in pen.

Carly: Yes, she wrote them in pen, on paper. So this is definitely notes. This is not a screenplay. You can’t hand write and turn in a screenplay. I mean, you can, but they’re going to just give it back and tell you to type it. Shane opens the door.

Riese: And Alice is like, “You had…”

Carly: You had sex all night.

Alice: I know that look… Woo!
Shane: What look?
Alice: “Yeah, I had sex all night” look. Anyone I know?

Alice at Shane's house, tells Shane "you wewar your sex nights on your sleeve"

Rhea: You banged.

Riese: You banged.

Rhea: This is your bang face.

Riese: She banged.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: It’s bang face.

Carly: You’ve got bang hair, you’ve got bang face.

Riese: Bang written all over you.

Carly: Okay. I thought this was very funny.

Riese: This is so funny.

Carly: And really good directing from our best friend, Angela Robinson, where Alice is just sort of watching them. And we’re watching them with her, and picking up on all the clues. And then there’s this slow camera push in on Alice.

Rhea: Yeah, that was nice.

Carly: As it dawns on her. And she looks at once horrified, disgusted, and intrigued.

Riese: Yeah. I laughed.

Carly: I did too. I actually laughed.

Riese: Wow.

Carly: I LOL’d.

Rhea: Wow, you—

Riese: I didn’t LMFAO, but I did LOL.

Carly: I LMFAOed.

Riese: So she has to go to the bathroom.

Carly: She has to go to the bathroom because she has to text every single cast member of the show to tell them what’s going on, because much like me, Alice loves gossip more than anything.

Riese: Yeah. And then they have this really funny texting montage with everybody receiving their text messages.

Rhea: That was funny.

Carly: Yeah.

Rhea: It was good. It was good. It was legit. And it was funny, although I would say, “Come on, Kit owns a business. She knows what her phone is doing. Come on.”

Carly: Yeah, I know.

Riese: I can’t.

Carly: I was like, “Oh, we get it. Kit’s older than everyone.”

Rhea: Yeah, it was funny. Helena falling off the treadmill was always going to make me laugh.

Carly: Yeah, that’s funny no matter… Anyone falling off a treadmill is funny, full stop.

Riese: Bette laughing in her meeting.

Carly: Tina screaming at her meeting, Bette laughing at hers. I mean, that was great. It was all great.

Riese: Also Tina’s meeting has a cameo from Angela Robinson herself.

Rhea: Oh yeah. That was funny too. And the writer.

Riese: Oh that’s right.

Carly: Yeah. Alexandra was also in that scene.

Rhea: Yeah. That was cute. I enjoyed that.

Carly: The song that’s playing was a real blast from the past. It was “Shut Up and Let Me Go” by the Ting Tings. I’ve not heard that song in 11 years.

Rhea: It’s been a long time.

Carly: Yeah, wasn’t that like in an iPod commercial or something, too? Like that was… It was like a big break moment for that band.

Rhea: Yeah. That was the song.

Text message from Alice reading OMGGGGG JENNY AND SHANE HAD SEX LAST NIGHT!!

Carly: So anyway, she’s sending all these texts, everyone’s reacting. And then Alice comes out of the bathroom and Helena calls her because she needs the rest of the gossip. She needs to know what’s going on. And so now we have Alice hiding behind the front door while they’re on the porch talking to each other and whispering to Helena what’s going on, which was very funny also. And this is so campy. And I feel like when the show is at its best, when it lets the characters be really silly and campy. So this was really fun. And Jenny wants to set boundaries and has no expectations, and Helena very rightly points out that Jenny has no idea what boundaries are, which I appreciated. Just anyone talking about boundaries on the show, I appreciate, because they never do.

Rhea: They never really define what boundaries are. They just kind of say the word boundaries a lot and then never have them.

Carly: Exactly. They’re like, “We should talk about this” or “We should say the word at least.”

Riese: Yeah. If you say it, it doesn’t matter what you do.

Carly: Exactly. So they kiss and Shane leaves for work and Alice is so grossed out and it’s very funny. I thought it was really funny. I enjoyed this whole bit.

Rhea: But before Shane leaves for work, there’s a little discussion as to whom’s hair she is cutting and Jenny’s like, “Are you cutting Patrick Dempsey’s hair?” And she’s like, “No, no, no. I’m cutting Eric Mabius…. Mobius. Mabius? Mobius? Mabius?

Riese: Eric Mabius’s hair.

Rhea: Eric Mabius’s hair. The actor who played Tim, which is so funny.

Carly: Oh shit, I didn’t even catch that. I was like, not paying attention. I was trying to write notes.

Rhea: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You were writing notes, but yeah. She’s cutting Tim from seasons one and two. And does he come back in three also with all the babies? Is it three that they run into each other in a parking lot?

Riese: Three he comes back. That’s when Max asks him if he pumps the iron.

Carly: And they go eat at Pink’s hot dogs.

Riese: The hot dogs at the hot dog store.

Rhea: Yikes.

Riese: And then he says, “Next time Johnny’s going to be dating a German shepherd.”

Carly: Oh God. Anyway, Jenny asks Alice to keep her mouth shut about all of this. And Alice was like, “Right yeah. It’s none of my business.” And Jenny is like, “No, it’s not any of your business.” I thought that was also funny and also very just ill-timed because she already texted everybody. Oh, that lovable scamp, Alice.

Riese: Let me go to Bette’s office.

Carly: At Carly University.

Riese: At Carly University. Yeah. We go to Carly University where Bette is walking into a meeting with her ex-girlfriend while on the phone with her girlfriend who she cheated on her ex-girlfriend with, which is a move.

Rhea: It’s a move. It’s so trashy.

Carly: It’s so trashy. She’s like, “Bye, love you.” And stares at Jodi when she says, “I love you” to Tina.

Rhea: And it’s a matter of a week or two. It’s a matter of weeks, right?

Riese: It’s been a month, yeah.

Carly: Okay. Yeah. That’s not very long.

Rhea: That’s pretty trashy. That’s pretty trashy for Bette. Bette gets around, but I just didn’t expect that kind of behavior from Bette. Bette Porter…

Riese: No, be a little maybe tactful.

Rhea: Governor Bette Porter.

Carly: Bette Porter 2024.

Riese: Absolutely. I’m voting. She’s mad at Tom is at their meeting.

Carly: Yeah. She’s like, “I can sign really well.” And she’s like, “Actually you don’t sign very well.”

Riese: Oh yeah, that was good.

Rhea: Did Tom and Max hook up? Is that something that…

Riese: Yeah, they’re together.

Rhea: Okay. All right. Oh, they’re together.

Carly: They are together. And in the previous episode, last week’s episode, Max found out he was pregnant.

Riese: And then threw Tom against the wall.

Carly: And called him mean names and kind of beat him up a little bit, which is super fine.

Rhea: Okay. All right. Well anyway.

Carly: Yeah that’s not good at all.

Riese: Jodi refuses to resign, but threatens to fire her if she won’t resign. Right?

Rhea: Which seems pretty straight-up-harassment. Even with me not knowing much of what’s going on, I was like, “Well, this is unethical.”

Carly: Big time unethical.

Riese: It was unethical for Jodi to make this weird video art installation that was all this alleged captured footage of Bette. But that’s not really what’s being mentioned here. What is being mentioned here is the environment, the workplace, and you can’t… If you enter into a relationship with somebody who you work with, you have to face the fact that one day you might be working together and not together anymore. And you don’t get to fire them.

Carly: It’s incredible that… It seems like this never crossed Bette Porter’s mind.

Rhea: Certainly did not.

Carly: Good for you, Bette. Way to not think any of this stuff through. She didn’t think it through when she hooked up with Nadia and we will get to that later.

Riese: Yeah. Also again, Jodi has never looked better.

Carly: Oh my God. She looks amazing in this episode.

Rhea: Marlee Matlin was just crushing it. This whole episode.

Carly: I love that they were like, “Season six, we need Jodi to be styled better, better hairstyling, better wardrobe, better makeup. We need to up the ante on Jodi’s look because this will make Bette look even more foolish that she’s broken up with her.”

Rhea: Also, I do think she has a bit too much of a perfect tan for an artist. But other than that, just loving it.

Riese: Back to Shenny’s. I think that this entire scene was improvised.

Carly: This is so funny. I love any scene where Alice and Jenny are like antagonizing each other is always great.

Rhea: Yeah, that did seem fully improvised. I don’t agree. I’m not on the same page with its wonderfulness. However, glad to see actors getting to do something they seemingly wanted to do.

Carly: It’s so wonderful.

Riese: So, Jenny’s a bitch? I guess it’s the conceit of the scene.

Carly: Yeah, Jenny acts towards Alice exactly how you expected that she would. I found it to be entertaining because I like the two of them antagonizing each other. But yeah, everything that was said was ridiculous.

Rhea: Sure, I agree with that. I don’t think you’re wrong. I just was like… this was so… it is hard to jump back into this show and take it seriously at all. I guess you’re just like, what is anybody talking about? People don’t talk to each other.

Jenny at her kitchen table talking to Alice telling her that writing a screenplay is a craft

Carly: Oh, completely. What’s anyone ever talking about on the show?

Rhea: She’s like giving her notes, like some executive from 1950 or something, you know what I mean? It’s like, “What are you talking about?”

Riese: And also she says that basically the script is about Alice and Tasha. Alice is writing a script about her own relationship. And Jenny says, “The relationship is unrealistic. It doesn’t work out.” And we’re all supposed to be like, “Ha ha ha.” But I wasn’t. And then Jenny suggests that Alice do cartoon voice overs, which was lovely.

Carly: I love that.

Rhea: It’s such a weird dig. Also can I just point out, I hate how dark that that house has been turned into. It’s painted so dark and it’s just such… It’s so weird. This whole episode is so dark and Carly and I talked about the lighting on it ahead of time. So just want to point out that I’m already not into the lighting of this episode, especially in these interior spaces. It’s such a choice. It’s almost hard to see people’s faces, which is a weird choice for a television show where you’re watching people talk to each other

Carly: It is. For a television drama, that’s about interpersonal relationships. It’s hard to see people’s faces, that’s ridiculous.

Rhea: Yeah. It gets very difficult near the end of the show.

Riese: It was very dark.

Carly: Yeah. It’s really hard later

Riese: Well it was really hard originally, because we watched screeners, and usually the screeners, they haven’t fixed everything yet. So it was basically just watching a dark room with little voices peeking out of bed with a glitter because everyone was wearing a lot of sequins that year I guess.

Carly: I’m sure, yeah.

Rhea: This season is all like the sheen business suit with a wide collar that really took me back. Holy goodness.

Riese: They had to buy those in Europe.

Carly: They had a lot of those big wide collars on standby. I used to call those lesbian collars and I think what it is. I think that’s accurate.

Rhea: Woof.

Carly: It still is.

Riese: It is.

Riese: They make those shirts for about… They went to Europe and bought men’s shirts from Europe. You know, Europe.

Rhea: Heard of it?

Carly: Hello, I’d like one ticket to Europe, please.

Riese: Yeah, they just went over to Europe and went to the Europe store clothes and then tailored them for Bette’s body.

Carly: Wow.

Rhea: Well, there’s the Bette version. And then there’s the Tonya version then there’s no real space in between.

Riese: Tasha.

Rhea: No, no, no. I mean, Tanya from the Tan-Tans.

Riese: Oh you mean the originators?

Rhea: Yeah.

Carly: How dare you bring her up?

Rhea: I occasionally see that actor in other things and I’m like, “Oh my God, I love it!”

Riese: Wow. I forgot that she existed for a second.

Carly: Oh God. The Tan-Tans. Jesus Christ.

Rhea: The Tan-Tans.

Riese: The Tan-Tans.

Riese: Tan-Tans. She could be in the Ting Tings.

Carly: Oh my god, she could form her own band called the Tan-Tans. So, okay. So this meeting goes horribly. Tina’s here. She’s banging on the door. Alice goes to leave and she’s like, “Hey Tina, by the way, I was not supposed to tell you that they hooked up, but like whatever. No one cares.” And so Alice leaves, and Tina’s not here to talk about the missing negative, but Jenny’s really into this new cappuccino machine she just got. She has to make the cappuccinos and she has to be interrupting Tina and not listening to her with the noise…

Riese: Smell these beans.

Carly: All the beans. And my favorite part is when Tina says, “Jenny, if we don’t find it, no one’s going to see the movie.” And then she goes—

Jenny: Are you saying that nobody’s going to see the movie?

Carly: That was my favorite part.

Riese: Again. This was improvised, which I think Mia is pretty good at, but Laurel always looks a little bit panicked.

Carly: She looks lost.

Riese: You could also tell it’s improvise because Mia says “out” like a Canadian at one point.

Rhea: Yeah, she does. She just goes straight back to Canadian near the end of it. Yeah. It’s so funny. It’s super funny. I do love how Laurel Holloman explains how film works and is basically like, “I don’t care what’s on the editor’s computer. We have no way of digitally projecting a movie. What are you talking about?” And we absolutely did have that technology.

Carly: We absolutely had the ability to project digitally.

Rhea: As I said, but it’s just so strange. It’s such a weird conversation.

Riese: Is that a real thing? Could someone steal a film reel and that would mean that no one can see the movie? Is that a real thing ?

Carly: That feels like something that could maybe happen in like 1950?

Rhea: Maybe even I feel like if you’re talking about 1927 when they’re like… stealing the negative would be really… But I feel like very early on people made copies.

Rhea: Because like if you messed up in the edit, you had to have copies of it. Also you had to have copies to edit. You had to have more than one negative to be able to splice a scene in or whatever. And also there’s not the… I don’t know. It’s a very simplistic explanation of…

Carly: It’s like real loose. It’s…

Rhea: It’s basically… To me it lines up with somebody being like, “They stole the script! We can’t shoot the movie now!” That’s what it feels like. Even if it’s accurate, it doesn’t feel… The way it’s being acted. It’s like, “They stole our words! We can’t do it!”

Riese: I mean, this has never happened, right? Like this has never happened.

Carly: Like, are you asking is this a concern that peep that filmmakers have, and the answer is no, this is not a concern that anyone actually has.

Riese: If this was a real situation that could happen, that someone could steal a negative and then the film would be canceled. Then it feels like that would have happened at some point in human history.

Rhea: Totally. Right.

Carly: It’s not really a thing. If you shoot on film, then you’ve got all the different film reels of all your footage and then that’s all digitized and that’s what the editor’s working with. And then eventually you want to take that final edit and go back to your original film and create the final reel. So could someone steal that final thing? Yes?

Rhea: Yeah. It’s all very unclear. And I do think it’s possible. It just feels — it’s very contrived within the world that they’re… Somebody stole the negative!

Carly: Improbable. It’s very Warner Brothers, Looney Tunes. Hanna-Barbera. It’s very snidely whiplash coming by with his funny mustache and zipping by in a car with that one bear-dog.

Rhea: It’s a children’s version of what would happen.

Carly: Yeah big time. That’s what I was trying to say. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Riese: When I made my first film in 1998, which took my entire hard drive and Adobe Premiere 1.0, I made 10 VHS copies of it. Just so you know.

Carly: Well, you’re smarter than these guys.

Rhea: Shaolin Pictures.

Carly: Shaolin.

Carly: So the scene ends with Tina having to ask Jenny if she stole it and Jenny being very offended that she would think that, and Jenny’s reasoning behind why she didn’t steal it is that her agents have dropped her. She has… basically, this film will be the only thing that could potentially even help her continue to have a career in this business because she has nothing otherwise. So she seems… I don’t think she did it guys. I don’t think she did it.

Riese: She didn’t. I mean, she didn’t do it.

Carly: Well, yeah.

Riese: Yeah. Sorry. Spoilers. But I feel like spoilers don’t even matter in season six, because it’s so bad that who cares? You can’t spoil something that’s already rotten.

Carly: All right so… Alice and Shane are at The Planet and they’re talking about Jenny.

Riese: Yeah. Shane is going to be totally chill because they understand each other.

Carly: Right. She’s like, “This isn’t going to become an instant relationship all of a sudden,” even though it already has.

Riese: Yeah. You can’t just sleep with your roommate and then it’s chill. That’s like the opposite of chill.

Carly: Yeah. That’s super unchill. I would say unchill.

Riese: Yeah. So once upon a time, Leisha Hailey was in a yogurt commercial for Yoplait.

Rhea: Oh, yeah.

Riese: And the commercial involved her eating yogurt and they were like, “How good is it?” Blah, blah, blah, good. Bah, dah, dah, dah. Good. Everyone knows I’m talking about… Yeah?

Speaker 1: This is like, cute best man good.
Leisha Haley: No, this is like, burning this dress good.

Rhea: Yes I do.

Riese: Anyway, we get a little homage to the yogurt commercial here in The Planet with Shane and Alice eating yogurt out of these very small bowls — like bowls that I feel like for soy sauce. If you have sushi, you know like, they were that size. And then these tiny little, these little baby, baby bites of baby yogurt, and talking about how good the sex was. So, ha ha ha.

Shane eats yogurt

Carly: “It was good. Better than I expected good.” All right. We go back to California University also known as Carly University where that… This is amazing. This is a real great Bette Porter sticking her foot in her mouth moment. She storms into Phyllis’s office, guns blazing, screaming about Jodi, who is obviously in Phyllis’s office already. And then Phyllis has actually a really great conversation about how there’s this thing called accountability and responsibility and you need to be a professional. And you can’t say that your subordinate is being insubordinate when the reason that you want them to resign is that you had a relationship with them. You kind of have to just suck it up at that point.

Rhea: I love the continued emphasis on how bad a sexual harassment suit will be specifically because it’s lesbians as though that has some extra curricular sort of, Oh my God, really Cybil Sheparding around in every scene. Really Cybling everywhere.

Riese: I love how chill Jodi is, I love how wrong that is, I guess. When Phyllis is like… And again, Phyllis is correct. When you enter a sexual relationship with your subordinate, you relinquish your right to fire her. And that’s true. Bette, come on!

Carly: Get with it, Bette. And Phyllis talks about dyke drama and you definitely get the sense that Phyllis was really proud of herself for using the phrase.

Rhea: She hit that “dyke” really hard in that read. She was ready.

Carly: She hit it hard. She was like dyke drama, right? Did I say it, right? So we go back to Shenny’s, Riese’s favorite place.

Riese: My favorite, the dark house. This scene was so dark!

Carly: This scene was the darkest room. This was so dark.

Riese: Jenny walks into Shane’s nap and wakes her up, which is a little rude. But she says that she finished her treatment.

Rhea: Oh now, she’s got a treatment.

Carly: They have dueling treatments. Jenny’s treatment is about Jenny and Shane and Alice’s treatment is about Alice and Tasha.

Rhea: Write what you know!

Carly: Write what you know.

Riese: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It was probably about, well, I guess it was about Jesse and Shawn.

Carly: Right, of course. Yeah. A sequel to The Girls? The Girls 2?

Riese: So she was thinking about how she liked having sex last night and Shane liked it, too. So then they start making out again because I think they’re going to have sexuals again.

Carly: Do more sex?

Riese: Yeah. Do more sexes. There’s going to be more sexy.

Carly: But they don’t even let us see it, because we just go to the next day. Is it the next day? I guess — was she napping or was it nighttime? I truly don’t know what’s going on, but it’s time to film a new episode of The Look. There’s no way to know.

Riese: Time for a bummer episode of The Look.

Carly: Oh boy. So the first thing I noticed is that her blonde co host no longer looks like she’s walking through a windstorm. Every time we’ve seen that woman previously, her hair has been brushed back. And then hairsprayed as if she was like, whoosh, like a gust of wind.

Riese: She’s like the gorilla glue girl.

Carly: Her hair was a little better. It was less back — like flying backward, less wind. But Alice had a really like young Republican mom haircut, which bummed out a little bit. I didn’t like that at all.

Rhea: Yeah. And a young Republican mom top, like that whole scene really took me way back in the time machine, in terms of wardrobe.

Carly: That was rough, it was rough. Time capsule for real.

Rhea: Also they’re all like in black, which is like, nobody would ever dress a talk show host in all black. Like they look like they’re hosting a funeral. You know what I mean?

Carly: Yeah. That would never happen.

Riese: They kind of are about to.

Rhea: I mean, yeah, you’re right.

Carly: So Alison goes completely off book here and we see everyone panicking. The producers panicking, the hosts are panicking, because she wants to read a letter that someone sent her, a letter that taught her a valuable lesson. I don’t even know how to take this seriously, I’m sorry.

Rhea: I mean it, yeah. It’s hard to take it seriously because it gets to a place — She reads the letter that a viewer has written into her about her brother who wrote a love letter to someone who then shot him in the face. Now, is that something that has happened? Yeah, absolutely. However, on the day, if you’re reading that, and that is the way that it comes across, I would have been like, you know what? I think we need to workshop this one little part. Let’s do a little pickup here. If I was Angela Robinson I’d be like, “Let’s just leave. Let’s just do a little, let’s just do a read through of that part. I think we can get in there. And Leisha, if you could just give me, ‘and then he shot him.’ Let’s just leave it at that. How about we just leave it at that. Let’s not say ‘in the face,’ let’s see how that plays.” Because it plays almost comedic, even in this context. It’s super weird, you know?

Carly: It’s super weird.

Riese: It’s supposed to be a serious…

Rhea: I feel like that could be the subtitle of The L Word. “It’s supposed to be serious.” Because it is at its height when it’s campy, but then they have a hard time translating around and giving each thing it’s due. And it’s like, “Yeah, do this thing. Actually you guys should do this thing,” like, “I stand firmly behind you doing this thing, but not like this.”

Carly: Right, exactly. The tonal shifts are a little jarring, you could say.

Rhea: It’s abrupt. I get hit with the airbag many times.

Carly: Yeah. Big time.

Riese: I also was just like, this would have been in the news. That stuff always was in the news when it happened so that we could all remember how terrible the world is.

Alice on "The Look" in a pink silk shirt saying she is more than the keeper of dirty little gay secrets

Rhea: It’s also wild to have her bringing up outing. It actually gave me a lot of, I don’t know what the word is, but to just stop and go like, “Oh, I’m so glad we don’t really do that anymore.” And I guess, there’s many ways to look at it. I don’t really have a firm stance on the whole thing. It’s definitely that sort of in-group kind of, assault, I guess? I’ll use that word, to out somebody publicly for the service of the community or the liberation or whatever. It has certainly shifted into other places. That sort of aggression still exists within the community and in the in-group or whatever. But I’m just glad that’s not happening. I’m glad that we as a people, I’ll say, are just doing it a little bit differently. And I’m just glad that’s not a thing, because it doesn’t end well for anybody. And there’s so many better ways of doing that, just outing people. Because I immediately was like, “Oh right, I forgot about k.d. lang getting outed.” And somebody would look at that now without the context of experiencing it firsthand, and be like, “Well…” It’s the same thing as my experience of telling somebody’s coming out and them being like, “Duh.” None of it is kind. None of that is kind. None of it is kind. And whether you knew it or not, or whether it seemed accurate or not, you’ve got to let somebody else live. Anyway, I’m going off on a tangent now. But it just was interesting to me to be like, “Oh wow—”

Riese: That’s all this podcast is.

Rhea: It was still a thing. Yeah, it was still a thing in 2009. Even if The L Word was being a bit retro by doing it in the context of the fiction of the show, it was still around in that way. It’s just wild, wild to consider.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: In this moment, Alice is basically resigning from the show because she was hired to out people.

Rhea: Just out people. Which is also wild to consider that a TV show would ever want to have that as a bit. Like, no.

Carly: Yeah. I know.

Riese: Yeah, that was what Perez Hilton was doing, I guess, at the time.

Rhea: Oh yeah, I guess so. Oh yeah, you’re right. I completely forgot about all that because I didn’t pay attention because it seemed toxic. Anyway.

Carly: Because it was.

Rhea: It was. Continues to be.

Riese: Yeah. But when she first started talking, she was like, “Everyone wants me to tell dirty, gay secrets.” I was already like, “Oh God,” because I didn’t remember. We’ve talked about this before, but season six is the only season I haven’t re-watched since it originally aired, and I had to recap it. So I forgot, and I was like, “Oh God.” I was like, “Is she going to talk about Shane and Jenny? What is she going to do?”

Carly: That’s what I thought she was about to do too, weirdly.

Riese: Because I hate it when she does that stuff. It makes me so uncomfortable.

Rhea: Yeah, it doesn’t make any sense. The personal is political. No, that’s not what this is.

Riese: Yeah. So she reminds everyone that homophobia exists.

Carly: Thanks, Alice!

Riese: You know what else is homophobic? Is hiring Alice on the show just to out people. That’s also homophobic.

Rhea: That’s also super homophobic.

Riese: Everyday homophobia.

Rhea: Right? Bigotry.

Riese: You know, but let’s get extreme. Anyways. So she brings the house down, like down, like bad.

Carly: Oh, yeah. Everyone’s very concerned.

Riese: Everyone is upset and unhappy.

Carly: And she’s clearly about to get fired.

Riese: Yeah. In this world where The Look is shot live, I guess.

Carly: I guess. Sure.

Riese: Then we go to Shaolin, where Tina walks in and everyone is whispering about her.

Rhea: Everybody’s looking at her over by the rest rooms.

Riese: Looking at her…

Carly: Everyone’s staring her down. What’s going on?

Rhea: One of the shots goes right past the bathrooms, and I was like, “That’s interesting that that’s where you put that.”

Carly: I know, that’s so strange. And once again, Aaron wants to see her right away.

Riese: He’s an abusive boss.

Rhea: Joke facts.

Carly: He gets an awesome fax that someone has clearly forged, seen as Tina’s signature on a memo from whoever… From Tina to Deluxe who has the print.

Riese: The Eastside Messaging… Eastside Messenger Service?

Carly: “A messenger is coming to get the print and you have to give them the print, and here’s my signature to prove that I am in fact Tina Kennard, and you can give them the print.”

Rhea: Tina Kennard!

Carly: Right, Tina Kennard, so now it really looks like Tina orchestrated this, even though she clearly didn’t.

Rhea: She obviously did not.

Riese: Right, because why would she?

Carly: Obviously did not. Tina’s not interesting enough to do any of this, like this never even occurred to her.

Riese: No, she toes the line.

Carly: Yeah, as mad as she is about them changing the ending and the title and the poster, she still never thought to do this.

Riese: No, because who would?

Carly: Because she doesn’t have any imagination. Also, it’s not a thing.

Riese: No one’s ever done this. It’s not a thing anyone does.

Rhea: Yeah. That’s not a thing people do.

Carly: It’s not a thing. No one’s ever been like, “I’ve stolen the negative and now I’m holding your film hostage,” like that’s…

Rhea: It would be very easy to get a movie not made. There are many ways. Movies pretty much don’t get made. So going to all this trouble to get it not made doesn’t make any sense.

Carly: Movies get not made every day.

Rhea: All the time.

Carly: Every hour.

Rhea: Every moment of every day.

Riese: Another movie is not getting made.

Carly: So now Phyllis and Bette are having a drink at a bar, and Phyllis wants Bette to resign. I totally forgot about this and fully busted out laughing when she was like, “I think you need to resign.” I was like, “Oh my god, Bette, you suck.”

Rhea: She takes her to that Chili’s to get her to resign. It also looks exactly like the bar in the new series, The L Word: Generation Q. It’s shot exactly the same way.

Riese: Oh the one—

Rhea: …the same angles. I stopped watching after episode three. But it looks exactly the same, at least in my mind.

Riese: Episode four is when it got good.

Rhea: Also, shout out — Okay, sure. But shout out to the Dos Equis shit hanging in the back of the bar. I was like, “There it is.” I used to, back in the day, my friend that had Showtime that I found out she was watching season one and we had this friendship over the show and then we started watching it together. That was our drinking game, is every time somebody had Dos Equis, you drank, and we would get very drunk watching this show.

Carly: It is on the show, constantly.

Rhea: Shout out. And also no one calls it Dos Equis, they just call it “beers,” which is my favorite part. But shout out to the Dos Equis in the background of the shot. It’s so perfect.

Carly: Yeah. When the show was airing and I was in college, my friends and I would, whenever we’d be joking that that was the official beer of lesbians. If we were somebody who’s going to drink a beer in a bar, we had to get that one.

Rhea: It had to be Dos Equis. Absolutely.

Carly: Because it was on the fucking show.

Rhea: That is 100% the only reason I ever drank a Dos Equis is because it was on the show.

Carly: Same, fully same. She’s like, “If you don’t resign, I’m going to have to fire you.”

Riese: Yeah, because she already has a complaint.

Carly: Ridiculous, yeah. But then we find out that Nadia filed a complaint about her. OMG.

Rhea: OMG.

Riese: Which is bold, but also it was bold of Bette.

Carly: It was super bold. We all recall when Nadia was very upset when Bette called things off with her after their one night and then she had to move away. She had to move up to Seattle to start working at a hospital, Seattle Grace, we all know this famously, it was… It was on the documentary series, Grey’s Anatomy, where it followed her adventures, changing her name, going into the witness protection program, and it’s a whole different show, but—

Riese: And found someone who could really love her.

Carly: Yeah. And it was good that she did file that complaint before she left for Seattle.

Riese: Yeah. And of course, I mean, obviously she did. She hooked up with Bette and then Bette rejected her. That’s the next move. I’ve seen TV shows before. That’s what you do.

Rhea: Yeah.

Riese: Also, Phyllis calls her a coed and Bette is like, “She was a grad student.”

Rhea: It’s so funny.

Riese: But she’s like, “Why didn’t you tell me that?” and Phyllis is like, “Well, I just, whatever.” But then Phyllis says she’ll always be grateful.

Carly: She says, “I thought you’d get mad.”

Riese: Yeah, which is true. She probably would’ve gone to Nadia’s house and been like, “Why did you do that? You came onto me.” And it’s like, yeah, true. But also you could have been like, “No.”

Carly: She absolutely would have harassed the shit out of Nadia if she had found out that she filed a complaint against her, which is also very indicative of a much larger problem.

Riese: Yeah, when you get accused of harassment, what do you do? You harass. You harass a little bit more.

Rhea: Go in harder. Do it more.

Riese: Double down.

Carly: What do you do after you sleep with your TA? You start sleeping with the artist that’s visiting your school in some capacity, or she’s a teacher, I don’t know what Jodi’s doing there, frankly. Still don’t know what her job is.

Riese: Yeah. She was a visiting artist, but then she was such a fan favorite that they decided to renew her contract, I think. And they had to keep Tom around.

Carly: Of course.

Riese: Phyllis says she’ll always be grateful to Bette’s leadership, and then she starts talking about how she actually has had a crush herself. She’s had a crush on someone who she finds—

Phyllis: Tall, strong, brilliant, erudite—

Phyllis says "tall, strong, brilliant?" while Bette is like, "please no" with her hands

Riese: So obviously we all know that it’s Bette that she has a crush on

Carly: She wants Bette to ask her. She’s like, “Do you want to know who it is?” It’s like when you have something you want, like, “Come on, ask me, ask me, ask me who it is.”

Riese: She’s like, “No.”

Rhea: Shout out to Jennifer Beals’ food-in-mouth acting because Shane does that shit all the time and I can’t stand it. But Jennifer Beals is good at it. Because she’s just absentmindedly putting these peanuts in her mouth, all to set up the look that she gives her. To have these peanuts ready? She really does crush it in this scene.

Carly: She does. She’s wonderful.

Riese: And her face, backing away from Phyllis, when Phyllis tries to… But also, I mean, come on, Phyllis immediately undermined herself.

Carly: She’s like, “I’d drop Joyce in a heartbeat if you in any way, showed any attraction to me.”

Riese: This is bananas.

Carly: It’s just like, Jesus Christ. This is so funny. Bette’s reaction is to just laugh hysterically in her face because she doesn’t know what else to do. And she doesn’t think she’s serious, but she’s very serious.

Rhea: Deadly serious.

Carly: Leans in to try to kiss her. Falls.

Rhea: Hard edit out.

Bette: You’ll have my letter of resignation in the morning.

Carly: Hard edit on the fall. It’s like Phyllis is leaning in, Bette’s leaning out, and then Joyce just falls out of frame.

Rhea: And then Helena, I think.

Carly: Helena in the forest.

Rhea: Then they cut to Helena.

Carly: Flowers.

Riese: The Planet. Dylan has sent Helena a topiary, a tree, a whole flower garden.

Rhea: Does Helena work at the Planet?

Riese: Helena owns it.

Rhea: Oh, right.

Riese: Right? Her and Kit are co-owners. They bought it from Ivan.

Rhea: They’re co-eds. They’re co-eds who own The Planet.

Carly: That’s right.

Riese: Exactly. They’re the co-eds of The Planet and also of their sister business.

Carly: And Hit Bar.

Riese: Yeah, Hit Bar.

Carly: Hit Club.

Riese: Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace.

Rhea: Oh my God. Remember the days of Cunt the Night on this show?

Carly: Cunt the Night?

Riese: Twat the Night.

Rhea: Where they still had this plausible… Oh yeah, Twat the Night. Sorry, I went too hardcore.

Carly: Twat the Night.

Rhea: Twat the Night, not Cunt the Night. Cunt the Night would be great, too. But man, Twat the Night was great. That was a great joke.

Riese: Right? There’s these little tidbits of great jokes.

Rhea: Yeah, Guinevere Turner, man.

Riese: That might be number one, actually.

Rhea: You can just see the parts that Guinevere Turner wrote.

Riese: When you’re looking for toasts, Twat the Night.

Rhea: Oh yeah, toasts.

Carly: Yeah. So Helena doesn’t want the flowers, but then she takes one of the flowers to give it to a girl that was checking her out, which is pretty smooth.

Rhea: Yeah. She’s like, why don’t you recycle it?

Riese: I love this realistic thing that always happens on The L Word, where people just see other people and they just go up and then they—

Carly: They just look at them, and then they look at them. And then they just give each other flowers and then they’re just having sex in five minutes.

Riese: Yeah, and then they’re like, “boo ba doo, let’s go do it, let’s make out, here’s a flower.”

Carly: One of the cards from Dylan says, “You’re beautiful when you’re angry,” which…

Riese: Yuck.

Carly: It’s a choice. It’s a choice.

Rhea: It certainly is.

Riese: I hate it.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: I hated it. They obviously didn’t want to put Alexandra Hedison on the payroll this week. So instead they sent these flowers.

Rhea: They couldn’t afford her day rate.

Carly: They couldn’t. They couldn’t afford her for even a few hours.

Riese: She had a lot of other projects, probably.

Rhea: Certainly.

Riese: Has she done any…? I guess if you marry Jodie Foster, you don’t have to do anything anymore.

Rhea: You don’t have to.

Carly: No!

Riese: I mean, you win. You win.

Rhea: You really do. That is it. That’s bingo, right there. See you guys.

Carly: You did it.

Rhea: Later.

Carly: You did it.

Rhea: I’m going to do my thing now.

Riese: Yeah.

Rhea: It’s only whatever I want, from here on out.

Carly: Oh my god. So Alice is trying to get dressed at home, and — is she getting dressed to go to a meeting to get fired, but then doesn’t go to the meeting because she gets a call from the LGBT Center?

Riese: No, I think she’s getting dressed and going to the Porter Peabody Pleasure Center for the party that night.

Carly: Okay, that makes more sense. I definitely missed some things in this episode, even as I was watching it.

Rhea: Certainly.

Carly: That made it far more confusing.

Riese: I, for some reason, have never taken less notes than I did on this episode. Like this is the smallest amount of notes I’ve ever taken.

Rhea: Are we talking about Tasha and Alice at home? Is that the scene that we’re talking about?

Riese: Yeah, Tasha in the Free City tank top.

Rhea: Yeah. This is where the lighting begins to fail the narrative, fully.

Carly: Big time.

Rhea: It is just amazing. It’s kind of like anything in movies and film or TV and stuff like that, where you don’t realize how good things are until you see a bad thing. And you’re just like, “Oh my god, I had no idea how much the lighting in a film really affects it.” Until you kind of can’t see your character’s faces? And you do just start to go like, “Hmm, what’s going on in my apartment?” And you don’t even realize that’s what’s happening.

Riese: Right, why your mind is wandering.

Rhea: Yeah, it’s so distracting. I will say, shout out to the, I feel like, classic L Word shot, out of the closet. They really just did that one to a T and I was happy to see it come back through the clothes, and somebody trying to decide. I feel like they did that one a lot and it’s great. It’s a great one.

Carly: That is a classic.

Riese: It is. It is.

Carly: Yeah, this is the first… This is where the lighting starts to get distractingly terrible.

Rhea: They’re like, “It’s nighttime,” but I still need to see the interior.

Carly: But we have lamps.

Rhea: And see what’s… Yeah exactly. See what’s going on. And I’ll say, in the morning, it was just as dark. So it’s hard to really… I mean, that bar they were in was brighter than anything. The lighting in that scene—

Carly: That was odd.

Rhea: It was super bright. And then Shaolin is super bright, but then everything else… Also, is there a single exterior? There’s a single exterior shot that we’re getting up to. There’s no exteriors throughout the beginning of the episode, and then there’s just one at the end. So they’re really rushing through the story, the narrative, to just—

Riese: This was a budget ep.

Rhea: Oh, 100%, yeah.

Carly: This is a short ep, too. This was just, “We have two plot points to hit. Let’s get through it fast.”

Rhea: We got to get this information out.

Carly: And save our money for the big dance competition.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Which is where they really went all out.

Riese: Tasha reminds Alice that sometimes you get punished for doing the right thing, like she did with Army.

Carly: At Army. Yeah. And Alice is like, “Ugh.”

Rhea: This is not about the Army.

Carly: This is not about you, and it’s not about Army. And then the LGBT Center calls. This was interesting. Okay. I think I would like to give the LA LGBT Center a lot more credit than Alice being the person they call for an emergency. Alice, a person they have not ever, as far as we know, never met or worked with before.

Tasha looking hot in a tank top telling Alice that you don't always get rewarded for doing the right thing

Rhea: Not a celebrity?

Carly: Yeah. I don’t think that that’s necessarily what you want to do, but…

Riese: Well, she was a fan.

Carly: I don’t really have any expertise. Sure.

Riese: She’s a fan of the program, of The Look, because I think that a lot of young people…

Rhea: Watch daytime television shows, yeah.

Carly: Daytime TV?

Riese: Watch daytime television, yeah.

Carly: It would make more sense that she was a fan of Alice’s video podcast.

Riese: Right.

Rhea: For OurChart?

Carly: OurChart.gov.

Rhea: I mean OurChart… OurChart is a great thing for lesbians to say. OurChart. Y’all on OurChart?

Riese: OurChart. I love saying OurChart.

Rhea: OurChart. I definitely… Is that shit still active anymore? Because I definitely had a profile on OurChart.

Carly: Oh we all did.

Riese: I wrote for OurChart. For free.

Rhea: Wow.

Carly: OurChart was the most broken website. That shit never worked.

Riese: It was terrible.

Rhea: They could have influenced an election. They didn’t know what they had in their hands, you know what I mean?

Carly: They didn’t know. They did not know. I guess we’re at the LGBT Center? Which I thought—

Rhea: Yeah, the locker room at the LGBT Center.

Carly: Before the big game.

Carly: But then they’re up on the roof and it says “hotel,” but the LA LGBT Center is in Hollywood?

Riese: Yeah. Yeah, it is. First of all, we meet Jamie.

Carly: That’s right, a new character that we don’t know is going to be important yet.

Riese: Well, so here’s the thing. So the actress who played Adele is, I think, 1/8 Filipino or something? But I don’t know, because I don’t think her character was? Anyway, we’re at season six, episode three, this is our first Asian character.

Carly: Wow.

Rhea: Wow, they really got it in there.

Carly: They’re really just right under the wire. They’re like, “Look at our diversity. We did it.”

Riese: Yeah. Los Angeles. They’re in Los Angeles, California.

Rhea: But wait, can I ask you a question though? Because I feel like, and I could be wrong here, wasn’t Marcus’s girlfriend slash wife Asian?

Carly: She was.

Riese: The hysterical—

Carly: The hysterical woman.

Riese: This is our first Asian queer character.

Rhea: Okay, I just wanted to be… I just—

Carly: Yeah.

Rhea: Not saying good!

Carly: That was a deep cut, and I’m very impressed.

Rhea: I also wanted to just lay my credentials out on the table.

Carly: You dropped something. I think you might want to pick it up.

Riese: Yeah, we did have a hysterical Asian woman in the first season.

Rhea: Terrible.

Carly: Just absolutely awful.

Riese: Just out of her gourd. Yeah, and that was really nice, how they did that.

Rhea: It was nice for everyone. It was nice for everybody.

Riese: That was one of those things when we were rewatching it, where I was like, “Oh my holy god, what?” And you would think after that, after… And that’s like Breakfast at Tiffany’s level, like you’ve really fucked up with this character.

Carly: So a teenage fan of Alice’s is on the roof and she’s going to jump.

Rhea: What the fuck?

Riese: I hate this so much.

Carly: And so Jamie, who works at the LGBT Center, decided to call Alice, to try to literally talk her off a ledge. Alice is not qualified to deal with this, which is literally what Tasha points out, which later Alice seems very offended by, which I thought was like, “No Alice, you actually are not qualified to deal with this.”

Rhea: What if this went bad? You would feel pretty bad about it. Like Alice, the character, probably wouldn’t feel that bad about it.

Carly: She doesn’t care. This is ridiculous.

Riese: Tasha says to call the police though, which is another terrible idea.

Rhea: Well, yeah. Tasha’s a cop.

Carly: Tasha’s a cop, now literally a cop.

Rhea: I don’t remember… I just remember them talking to each other and then we’re at The Planet or whatever the nightclub is called. That’s all I remember from the episode.

Carly: Hit Club!

Riese: They barely talked. Like Alice… First of all, this girl, the suicidal girl’s name is Marie, and that’s also my name.

Carly: That was a shout out to you, obviously.

Riese: So that was obviously a shout out to me personally, because that’s my name. Because Riese isn’t actually my name. Marie is my name, so that was me. It was me on the roof.

Carly: So that was you. You inspired that character on the roof.

Riese: I did inspire that character because I was on my roof a lot in that era. In 2008, I was on my roof all the time. You came on my roof with me. One time we locked ourselves out of my apartment. We went to the roof and then I had to climb back down, through the window and then come back up.

Carly: Classic.

Riese: Classic. Classic 2007 hijinks for Riese and Carly.

Carly: Riese, I have just… Something just occurred to me. This is so absurd that it can only be explained by some sort of…

Riese: By a little flying insect?

Carly: Like some kind of like, extraordinary phenomenon, perhaps. Perhaps some sort of effect caused by a winged—

Riese: By a caterpillar?

Carly: Flapping insect. Well, it’s funny, you mention a caterpillar because it was once a caterpillar. What was once an applique sparkly caterpillar became an applique sparkly butterfly.

Riese: Because they are on the roof and that’s in the sky.

Carly: Exactly. Thank you.

Riese: And that’s where birds live and a butterfly is a bird.

Rhea: (Singing) Butterfly in the sky, I can fly twice as high!

Carly: Twice as high, that’s the roof, because it’s a two story building, twice as high would be the roof. Exactly, thank you. Yeah.

Rhea: Yeah. (singing) Take a look, it’s in a book, at the LGBT Center slash library…

Carly: Slash teen crisis hotline for teens who are on the roof of the LGBT Center.

Riese: Just to be sure I understand — her brother’s the one who just got shot?

Carly: Okay. I did not get that this was what was happening. Her brother… She’s the one that wrote the letter.

Rhea: Yeah.

Riese: So is she also gay?

Rhea: Yeah, why not?

Carly: I didn’t get this until she said it, until they said it. She was like, “I read your letter on air.” And then I was like, “Wait, what?” Totally didn’t understand what was going on. Yeah. This was the weirdest possible scene they could have put in this episode. I truly don’t understand why this is here.

Rhea: It really lost my attention. I really didn’t pay any attention to it whatsoever. I just have an image in my mind, the wide of them sitting in between the O and the T.

Carly: The O and the T.

Riese: And, that being it.

Tasha and Alice on the top of a building "I can't talk a teenager off of a ledge"

Carly: There’re so many ways you could have introduced Jamie. For instance, she could still work at the LGBT Center and she could have seen the episode where Alice so bravely got herself fired on the air.

Rhea: Oh, so Jamie is going to be a thing?

Riese: Yeah.

Rhea: All right, I’m done.

Carly: What simple way to introduce a new character.

Rhea: A potential suicide.

Carly: Right.

Riese: She could have volunteered. She could have done a live taping at the LGBT Center like you and me did.

Carly: Yeah. She could’ve called Alice and been, “I saw what you did on the show and it was so cool. And, I’m assuming that you’re fired now, so why don’t you come and work with us?”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Easy. Now, you have a character that you’ve introduced and it gives Alice something to do.

Rhea: Yeah. Whatever.

Carly: Oh, brother.

Riese: It’s just the last season, build this out. Let’s build it out.

Carly: Who cares, right?

Riese: Let’s take some time and build it out.

Carly: Yeah. So, we go to Hit Club, which finally has new signage that says, “Hit Club.”

Riese: Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace.

Carly: They clearly rejected your much better name and went with Hit Club, which is a terrible name.

Rhea: Cunt the night, like I said.

Riese: It’s hard to really tell where they are though. Huh?

Carly: It is. You know why, because the lighting is so dark.

Rhea: It’s so bad at this point now. You literally cannot tell what is going on.

Carly: You have Kit and Sunset Boulevard, the drag queen, standing outside talking to each other, and it is so dark you cannot see them. These are also both Black actors. There is, historically, a very racist problem with lighting in film and television. Many people have talked about this and there’s been a lot of attention paid, especially recently, with shows that are doing things well and finding much better ways to light people with darker skin. There was a really cool piece a few years ago about how Ava Berkofsky lit season two of Insecure, that I love.

Riese: Oh yeah, I read that.

Carly: It’s so good. And, there’s a video and it was great. And so many other shows and films are doing this correctly. Still now, people are not doing a good job of it, but things are better. This is so glaringly terrible.

Riese: So bad.

Carly: And horribly offensive.

Rhea: It’s such a great example of how bad it can be. It’s actually like, if somebody’s like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Carly: Yes, perfect example.

Rhea: Obviously, a white person, is like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Which, you could be ignorant to it, obviously, that’s part of it. If you ever wanted to show somebody what anyone means when they mean, yeah, Hollywood, historically, does not know how to properly light Black skin, melanin-rich skin. Sunset Boulevard specifically, you literally cannot see that person.

Carly: Yeah, cannot.

Rhea: It is bonkers. It’s bonkers. It’s bonkers. They’re outside of a club. You could easily have those flood lights that go up for a poster, for the building. Anything to give an outline. It’s actually crazy, what it looks like.

Carly: Yeah, absolutely.

Rhea: I don’t mean to hammer it home, but it was so glaring.

Carly: I feel like, if I showed this scene to any of my cinematographer friends, they would lose their minds completely.

Rhea: Yeah. Thank God, we now live in a time where like Insecure exists, Atlanta exists, Black Panther exists. All these shows exist and it’s just not happening to the extent that it was. But, I was lamenting how long ago this was. Also, not that long ago. You know?

Carly: Only 11 years ago.

Rhea: But, thank God things have changed as much as they have, in what is a short amount of time. Again, not perfect, but way more examples of good lighting than examples of bad lighting, I think.

Carly: Yeah, for sure. I think so, too.

Rhea: Yeah. I agree.

Carly: We go inside for a second and Tasha’s like, “We’re going to toast to Alice because I guess she saved the teen’s life.”

Rhea: Also, Tasha — her wardrobe is the same colors as the background of the room that she’s in, by the way. This is also stuff that I’m just like, huh, I don’t know that I would have noticed this stuff before, but after working just a little bit in TV, I’m like, how did you not see that you’re putting somebody in an outfit that… You’re underlighting her skin, and then you’re also basically putting her in camo for the scene that she’s in. I understand she’s military, but, come on. Yeah. You are disappearing this person. Yeah.

Carly: Yeah. Very bad.

Riese: We also find one quick thing, is that we find out that Sunset thinks that Kit and Helena are dating.

Carly: Oh, that’s right, yes, of course. Sorry, I missed so much of their dialogue because I was so distracted by how I couldn’t see them.

Rhea: Yeah.

Riese: So, Tasha likes Alice again now.

Rhea: Their relationship is a roller coaster relationship.

Carly: Their relationship is totally fine now. Last episode, they were making pros and cons, should they break up lists? In this episode, they’re perfectly fine.

Rhea: My goodness.

Carly: Sure. Then, Kit sees Shane and her Jeep pull up and she’s going to go get her, I guess, so that she can get into the club and then catches Shane and Jenny just making out, just going at it. And, she is shocked.

Riese: Yeah. They’re French kissing.

Rhea: European.

Riese: Yeah, exactly, European kisses. Straight out of Latvia.

Carly: Incredible, European kisses. Oh, my God. We quickly catch a bit of Bette saying that Phyllis coming on to her earlier was the scariest moment of her life, I think.

Rhea: So, needlessly cruel.

Carly: Kit runs in and she’s, “I saw Jenny and Shane in the…” They’re all like, “Yeah, you don’t know how to operate a phone.” Ha ha ha, so funny. Okay, then Shane and Jenny are just with the group. So, somehow, they got out of the car, got into the club, got drinks and came and sat with the group in about seven seconds.

Rhea: Right.

Carly: It’s incredible.

Rhea: They’re just in a room. They’re just in a big, gigantic room.

Riese: Uh-huh (affirmative)

Carly: Yeah. So then, this thing goes on for a really long time where they’re toasting and everyone’s looking at Shane and Jenny and laughing. Bette can’t stop laughing, Tina can’t stop laughing. It’s very chaotic.

Bette and Tina are laughing at the club

Riese: Yeah. The way that Jenny says—

Jenny: Hi, Bette.

Riese: “Hello, Bette.”

Carly: I don’t know that the scene needed to go on as long as it did, but everyone was laughing, so I guess it was fine.

Riese: LMFAO.

Rhea: Yeah, they had to really bring the title home. But, I will say, at this point, these people do not seem like they are friends. They do not seem like a group of friends at all. They’re just antagonizing each other constantly.

Carly: Yeah. There’s so many pairings in this group that don’t work. How is this a group of friends? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s purely, they’ve known each other for a long-ish amount of time.

Rhea: Yeah, they’re just stuck together.

Carly: Like, y’all need new friends, all of you.

Rhea: Yeah.

Riese: Everyone’s dancing real bad, in the background.

Carly: Oh, yeah, really bad dancing.

Riese: It was really bad dancing. It was, just, especially bad. Sorry, someone had to say it.

Carly: It was hard to see, but what you could see, was bad.

Riese: You could see because of the shimmer fabrics.

Carly: Oh, yeah.

Riese: Everyone was shimmering. Yeah.

Rhea: Yeah.

Carly: Then, Jenny goes to check out the VIP area and Shane goes to check out the second floor.

Rhea: Maybe, they called it two different things to shake people off the scent.

Carly: Yeah, no one had any idea what was happening. The old switcheroo.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: There’s a lot more laughing. A lot more laughing happening.

Rhea: Yeah. And then, when they make fun of Shane, I’m just, man, this is too much. You guys don’t even like each other. You really don’t even like each other at this point.

Carly: I don’t understand what any of this group dynamic is anymore, I just don’t.

Rhea: Yeah. I don’t think they do either.

Riese: LMFAO.

Carly: Yeah. Then, Sunset Boulevard calls Kit up on stage.

Riese: I’m still so annoyed that they don’t have an actual drag queen.

Carly: I know. This is not an actual drag queen, this is just an actor.

Rhea: This is pre-drag being like a real thing to anybody. It’s still just this far-off concept that they could just dress up anybody and be, this is drag, right? It’s such a great example of how the show is not rooted in any real thinking. I don’t know. It’s so on its own vibe of what everything is. It’s just so funny to me.

Carly: Okay. I just quickly looked this up because I was, wait, were drag queens on TV shows a thing? And they were, because Willam was on an episode of Sex in the City in 2001 or 2002.

Rhea: Yeah. I mean forThe L word.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Oh, no, totally. Yeah.

Riese: But, they also did this with drag kings and in an early season. I want to say in seasons or two, they had actors who weren’t drag kings or even queer, being drag kings.

Carly: That’s just a thing that they like to do on the show. Okay. So, Bette starts chanting something at Kit as gets called up to dance and it was not subtitled. I think it was, “Go Bollyhood, go Bollyhood.”

Riese: Oh yeah, we forgot to say this was Bollywood night.

Carly: Yeah. They love a theme. The Hit Club loves a theme. I swear to God, Bette was saying, “Bollyhood.” “Go Bollyhood, go Bollyhood,” like that, when she got up. It wasn’t subtitled, so I couldn’t tell, but I really think that’s what she was saying.

Riese: Maybe, when they were doing the subtitles for it, for streaming, they were like, is that—

Rhea: Nevermind, no one needs to know what this is.

Carly: Let’s just not.

Rhea: Except for the podcasts—

Carly: “Music plays.” Yeah.

Riese: Which is probably what it said, right, “music plays?” Tina was really doing a really intense chair dance during this. She was really dancing in her seat.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Really going for it.

Rhea: Oh, Laurel Holloman.

Riese: She really was.

Carly: She’s had a day, you know? That’s where the episode ends with Kit dancing with the not drag queen and everyone laughing.

Riese: And, Shane and Jenny kissing. Shenny kissing and everybody’s like, ha ha ha. They’re kissing because of true love.

Rhea: And, Laurel Holloman, just nearly falling on the floor.

Carly: They’re all just beside themselves with glee and derision watching their friends kiss. This is crazy. This is crazy.

Riese: “Hi, Bette.”

Carly: “Hi, Bette.” Anyway, that’s the episode!

Riese: That’s the episode!

Carly: Okay. Did we like this episode?

Riese: Categorically, no. On the scale of season six, which is bad, there were some parts that were funny.

Carly: Not a lot happens in this episode. It’s a real filler episode.

Rhea: It’s a real, get you from point A to point B episode.

Carly: Yeah. It’s like, this episode could have been a text. Like this meeting could have been an email, is kind of, how I feel about this.

Rhea: It basically was a series of text messages.

Carly: Yeah. That’s all you needed to know from this episode.

Rhea: Also, shout out to Alice for using promotional photos from the show as all of her contacts photos. That’s kind of my favorite. Just emotional stills.

Carly: Yeah, that was our only moment of Max in this episode.

Riese: Oh, right, the promo photo of him popped up on Alice’s phone when he tried to call her.

Carly: Yeah.

Rhea: So silly.

Riese: That was good that Max wasn’t in this episode, because every time Max is in an episode, something terrible happens.

Rhea: Yeah, man, poor, Max.

Carly: God, poor, Max.

Riese: How’d you guys feel about the episode?

Rhea: It’s hard for me to give a… just because I’m dropping in out of nowhere, like parachuting into the season, that I want to be like, what the shit? What was this? Because, it’s like, out of nowhere, it’s really weird. It’s really weird television. But, ultimately, okay, now that I’ve thought about it a little, it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s no season two, it’s no season one.

Carly: It is not.

Rhea: But, on a scale of what, 1 to 10 or something like that, it’s a 5 or something.

Carly: Sure.

Rhea: It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Shout out to the Eric Mabius thing. Cool, thanks for doing that. That made me feel seen. That was funny. That was fun, I guess. I don’t know.

Riese: Wasn’t he on Ugly Betty at that time?

Carly: Yes. Yes, he was.

Rhea: Funny, I forgot about that.

Riese: I was going to ask if everyone remembers when Tim left California to coach the championship swim team at Oberlin?

Rhea: Of course, I remember when he left California to coach the championship team at Oberlin. Who doesn’t remember that? Yeah, that was pretty terrible.

Carly: Everybody remembers where they were when they got the news that Tim was leaving Los Angeles to go teach the famous swim team at Oberlin.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: This is common knowledge, we all remember where we were.

Rhea: Everybody knows about the Oberlin swim team.

Riese: Exactly. Yeah.

Carly: A great swim team that definitely exists.

Rhea: For sure. They definitely have sports at Oberlin.

Riese: For sure, yeah. Because, everyone thinks Ohio State, they think like, Miami of Ohio. But, those aren’t really the big sports schools in Ohio. No, the big sports schools in Ohio are Oberlin.

Rhea: Oberlin.

Riese: Kenyon, probably.

Rhea: Yep.

Carly: Kenyon, yep.

Riese: They call it the Big Two.

Rhea: Yeah, the big two.

Carly: That’s the conference that they’re in. They’re in the Big Two conference.

Rhea: They just play each other.

Carly: That’s it, they just play each other. Yeah, this was an okay episode. I give it a “fine.” There were funny moments. Nothing happened in the plot at all. And, that’s about it.

Riese: I really do like Jamie though, so I’m glad that she’s coming in. Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, they definitely could have found a less ridiculous way to introduce her, but—

Rhea: This is The L Word.

Carly: This is The L Word, and, you know what, the butterfly effect is real and a serious issue. We can see it causing all kinds of issues. Yeah.

Rhea: Also, just, shout out to the fact that they got all the way to season six without a character named Jamie, on a queer show.

Carly: That is a good point.

Riese: Right.

Rhea: Like, wow, you didn’t use that one already? Okay, all right.

Carly: That’s shocking.

Rhea: Nope.

Carly: Do you think the writer’s room just kept a list of queer names and they just checked them off anytime they used them, because I do?

Rhea: At least, the writer’s assistant did.

Carly: Yeah, someone had that list.

Rhea: Someone had that job, that volt, had to hold onto that.

Carly: All right. We did it. We got through this episode.

Riese: Wow, we did it.

Carly: Rhea, thank you so much for joining us.

Rhea: Thank you for having me, this was so great.

Carly: On this terrible journey.

Rhea: We learned a lot about lighting.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And, about life.

Rhea: And, about life and about love.

Carly: Exactly. Yeah.

Riese: And LMFAO.

Rhea: We certainly did.

Carly: And yes, that is important for all of us. This is the time for the plugs.

Rhea: Oh yeah, time for the plugs.

Carly: Plug some shit. Plug, plug, plug.

Rhea: So, as I said, up top, I have a new album out and you can buy it at aspecialthing.com. I also have an enamel pin that my friend who did the artwork, Lindsay Jones… she designed a little enamel pin. That’s just my name and it’s cute. I don’t know. It’s hard to make merch as a comedian, but we’re swinging at the fences. So, you can buy that for 10 bucks and then you get the download of the album for free, or you can stream it on Spotify or Amazon Music, all that stuff. You can also buy it on iTunes. It was number one all weekend, at least. I haven’t checked back for a while.

Carly: Hell, yeah!

Rhea: Not a lot of queerness on the charts. So, if you want to support queer art or whatever, that’s very helpful, I think, personally. Yeah, so that’s out, it’s called Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootleg. It was recorded considerably pre-pandemic. So if you want a time machine to go experience a live show, without it feeling stressful, it might feel stressful no matter what, and, for that, I am sorry… But, if you feel as though you can, this is the record for that, because it contains no reference to it whatsoever and people are just like laughing in a room because it was way before the pandemic. So, very lucky to get to put that out.

Carly: Wow.

Rhea: Then, just the usuals on Twitter and Instagram. I’ve been doing some Lives on Sundays, Pacific Time, around noon. That’s been really fun. So, stop by for those. Then, also, I’m in the new season of Good Trouble, resuming my role as Lindsay Brady, non-binary comedian. It’s a stretch for me. I’ll say, it’s been very hard to get into that. Very out of my comfort zone, as they would say.

Carly: Your process must be incredible for that.

Rhea: So, I need days to prepare. I’ll say, I need days to prepare.

Riese: Is that why you do the gender things on Sundays to get into the mindset?

Rhea: Yeah, to really get in the mindset of a non-binary comedian. But yeah, it’s a great show. It’s a lot of fun. Check it out. So, they have some really great special guests on that show, too, so keep your eyes out for that. I think that’s it for me in terms of things I do.

Carly: You have a podcast about baseball.

Rhea: Oh yeah, I have a podcast about baseball, but it’s on winter hiatus right now because I just needed a quick break. Oh, and I make tie-dye with my partner and my friend called Trash Canyon. We have a new drop coming out soon.

Carly: Oh, yeah, you do!

Rhea: Buy some tie-dye. We donate 10 bucks, five bucks, I can’t remember from each shirt to, probably, the Sunrise Movement again, or the OCRE Project. I might put it to the crowd, where we should send some money to, but we’ve made three grand. We’ve donated three grand, just making tie-dye. It’s been a lot of fun.

Carly: Making tie-dye.

Rhea: Yeah, man. Far out.

Carly: That’s awesome. Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media, over on Instagram and Twitter. We are @tolandback. You can also email us tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And, don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message, it’s (971) 217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Cara Sykes, and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on socials, I am @carlytron. Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle, and, of course, autostraddle.com. The reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle.com.

Carly: All right. And, finally, it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three, liminal spaces.

Rhea: Lymph nodes.

Carly: Laughter. Rhea, what did you say?

Rhea: Lymph nodes.

Carly: Oh, that’s great. I love that.

Riese: Ye old lymph nodes.

Carly: Riese, what did you say?

Rhea: What did I say? Oh, I said liminal spaces.

Carly: Ooh, that’s good.

Rhea: Very gay.

Carly: I said laughter, because I have no imagination today. There’s a lot of it in this episode.

Rhea: The world needs more laughter.

Carly: Oh, my God, you’re right.

Riese: LMFAO.

Carly: You know where you can get laughter is a comedy album, just saying.

Rhea: Laughing in your lymph nodes, finding those liminal spaces. Listen to my album.

Riese: Bringing it back around.

Carly: Thank you all for listening. We’ll be back in two weeks with another one of these cool episodes about the worst season of television that ever aired. Thank you, all!

Riese: Bye! Jenny forever!

“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 602: “Least Likely” With Christina Tucker!

Join Autostraddle’s very dearest own Christina Tucker, best known for her Pulitzer Prize winning work with Generation Q star Mercedes Mason, as we dig into the meat and marrow of Episode 602, an episode in which everybody is writing a treatment, Alice and Tasha visit L.A.’s most incompetent couple’s therapist, Nikki thinks Jenny should be dead meat, Bette runs into Jessie Spano at an art gallery and so much more!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Carly: That was not our best intro, but hi, we’re back again.

Riese: It’s a podcast about The L Word, where every week we talk about it.

Carly: “It” being The L Word.

Riese: The L Word,, yeah. Yeah, The L Word. Every other week currently, but it used to be every week. Now it’s every other week.

Carly: Also, it’s because we want these to be the best episodes we’ve done yet. Season six really deserves our all.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So today we will be talking about episode 602 entitled, “Least Likely.” This episode was…

Riese: They really set a low bar for themselves with that title.

Carly: They really did. Like what? This one was…

Riese: And again, what does it have to do with anything?

Carly: I don’t know. Maybe Max is the least likely person to be pregnant on the show. Is that what it has to do with?

Riese: Some might say almost unlikely, but we can get to that.

Carly: Yeah. This was written and directed by Rose Troche, who is amazing.

Riese: Oh wow.

Carly: We love her. And it originally aired on January 25th, 2009. Remember 2009?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: Barely.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s a long time.

Riese: When my hair was to here.

Carly: Which is so different from how it is right now, where it’s to here.

Riese: Yeah. Now, it’s to here, yeah. So it’s been… My hair has grown a lot since 2009 actually.

Carly: Wow, incredible.

Riese: That’s the fun thing about me.

Carly: That’s great.

Riese: I also wore more eyeliner in 2009.

Carly: Yeah, that’s fair. We also got to go places in 2009.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: We are so excited because we have a very special guest today. Oh my God. Guest, please introduce yourself.

Christina: Oh my God. Hi. I’m Christina. I’m so thrilled to be here.

Riese: Hi. We’re so thrilled to have you.

Carly: We’re so excited.

Riese: I’m just generally so excited to talk about this straight-up disaster episode from this straight-up disaster season.

Carly: Yeah. Couldn’t have said it better than that. That’s accurate. Yeah.

Riese: Christina, tell us about yourself. What do you do with your life?

Christina: Oh, what do I do with my life? I’m a contributing writer at Autostraddle, the website, that you might’ve heard of.

Riese: Wow.

Carly: I am familiar.

Riese: I’ve heard of it.

Christina: Yeah. I thought you might. You guys might have a little bit of knowledge about it.

Carly: A little. Yeah.
Riese: Yeah.

Christina: I’m also a writer for Netflix’s queer social media channel, The Most. And I kind of just spent a lot of time running my mouth on the internet about usually women over 50, who I would like to hit me with a Mack truck. You have a brand, you stick to it.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I mean, that’s a great brand to have.

Christina: Thank you. It’s been a really lovely road to get here.

Carly: Incredible.

Riese: I think your tweets are really funny.

Carly: Same.

Christina: Thank you. I love to hear that.

Carly: Yeah. Big fan of your Twitter presence.

Christina: I’m so happy to be here with both of you, two legends who I truly adore.

Riese: Thank you so much.

Carly: Oh my God. I mean, thank you. Obviously it’s an honor to be a legend. I just also want to mention, because you didn’t mention this, that you are one of the hosts of A Simple Podcast.

Christina: True.

Riese: Yeah. There is another podcast.

Christina: Yeah.

Carly: There are other podcasts other than ours, Riese.

Christina: Yeah. If you’re going to listen to two podcasts, I would recommend it would be this one, and then you could listen to A Simple Pod, which me and Jordan Crucchiola and Alanna Bennett, talk deeply in depth about the film, A Simple Favor from 2018.

Carly: Which is famously one of Riese and my’s, favorite films.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And the podcast is so good and goes so in depth. And then I love that it’s — I don’t want to gush too much, but I love that your podcast clearly started as three friends wanting to talk about a movie they liked and then turned into you guys getting these crazy interviews with everybody.

Christina: Yeah. The guest part really took us by surprise, I will say that. It was really thrilling to get to talk to so many of the folks who were involved with the film, but it was just like, “Wait, we just kind of started this because famously, it’s a pandemic and no one’s really doing anything and we thought it’d be fun to talk about this movie. And suddenly, here I am on a Zoom call with Blake Lively. What’s going on here?”

Carly: That’s wild.

Christina: It was wild.

Carly: Truly wild.

Riese: I should listen to it.

Carly: You should, Riese. I think you will quite like it. I got through at least two full episodes while I was in, a few months ago, in the line at Dodger Stadium to get a COVID test. And it was great, it really just kept me from falling asleep at the wheel in a very slow-moving line.

Christina: That’s exactly the scenario that we envisioned when we started the pod, so I’m really happy.

Carly: Christina, will you please tell us your L Word origin story?

Christina: I discovered The L Word, I have to assume it was late high school, one of those days where you’re just flipping through channels, maybe my parents weren’t around. I have a very clear memory of being worried that it was going to be the last thing on the remote. You remember when the remotes had that last button?

Carly: Oh, yeah.

Christina: And you spent a weird amount of time being like, “Oh, if my parents check the last button when they get home and they see I was watching, I don’t know MTV, they’re going to be like, “You’re grounded.”

Carly: Yeah. I was going to say MTV.

Christina: I don’t know what I thought they were going to do. They left me home alone for three hours, of course I watched TV, but I wanted them to be thinking I was only watching, I don’t know, PBS or whatever. I wasn’t, spoiler. I have just such a clear memory of seeing it and being, “Those are two ladies and they seem to be doing it. Go on, show. Go on.”

Carly: Continue.

Riese: So was it on the air at the time?

Christina: It was on the air at the time. Who’s to say what time that was because famously, what is time?

Riese: Exactly.

Christina: It was sometime in the mid-aughts I’m going to guess, based on how I know the show ran. And then I really did a proper watch of it in college and was like, “Yes, good. This.” I will say I hadn’t seen the sixth season probably since that rewatch, because if I’m rewatching it now, I’m going to hit, probably one through four and then I’m going to say, I’m all set.

Riese: Yeah.

Christina: On nude ladies, who I love, but my God at what cost?

Carly: But… Yeah, exactly. There’s only so much any of us can handle.

Christina: Right. And it turns out I was right about season six, it is as bad as I remembered.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah. It just gets worse every episode too.

Christina: Yeah.

Carly: So this is only the second one, and it’s already pretty terrible.

Riese: Even this one, I was like, “Well, this is better than I expected.” Because my memory of it is like the bottom of the barrel, that’s inside another barrel, that’s inside another barrel, that’s in the bottom of the ocean, that’s in the core of the earth, but before the big bang so it’s actually in space. So this was like, “Well, this is fine compared to that.”

Carly: Whoa. That’s incredible. Wow.

Christina: I’m always saying that. I’m always saying that about things.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: Did you have any favorite characters?

Christina: Oh yeah, I am trashed for Bette. Even now as a somewhat, emotionally healthy person, I watch her make terrible decisions and I’m like, “Good. Great choice. Awesome. It rocks that you did that. It rocks that you’re cheating, yet again. I love this.” I know that it’s wrong, but I look at that woman’s face and I’m like, “Give her everything on earth. I don’t understand why she doesn’t have everything. Give her whatever she wants.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s true.

Christina: Yeah.

Riese: Whatever sleeves she wants.

Christina: The things I wrote about the sleeves.

Carly: I have a lot to say about the sleeves.

Christina: A lot to say about the sleeves.

Carly: We will get to the sleeves.

Christina: We will have a sleeve… Please pay close attention for my spinoff podcast, Sleeves, just all about her sleeves in this one episode.

Carly: I cannot wait to listen to Sleeves.

Riese: Yeah. Maybe you’ll get Jennifer Beals on it.

Christina: Fingers and crossed on that one.

Carly: Oh my God.

Christina: Yeah. Bette was always the fav. Carmen, obviously. Huge fan of Kit. Who’s not out here supporting Pam Grier and the work that she does?

Riese: Right.

Christina: Famously naming her bar Hit. Fine.

Riese: It’s a hit!

Christina: It’s a hit!

Carly: But don’t fight anyone at this club, even though altercations have occurred now two episodes in a row since they changed the name. Oh my God. Okay. So should we get into this disaster of an episode?

Christina: We really should.

Carly: Yeah. Okay. It’s time. Well, I know we don’t normally talk about the previouslies, but there is something very important in the previouslies this week and that is, fucking Dylan.

Christina: Yep.

Riese: Oh really? They put her in the previouslies?

Carly: They sure did.

Christina: They put her in the previouslies. And I was, “Wait, I haven’t watched this season in a while, but I don’t… what?”

Riese: I don’t think that happened last week.

Christina: “Oh, hold up. That didn’t happen in the last episode, did it?” And then I of course, had to go through and just do a quick scrub of episode one. And I was, “No, because famously we did other things in this episode, like discover Jenny’s dead body.”

Riese: Yeah. Right.

Carly: And have it wheeled into a living room uncovered.

Christina: We didn’t have time for Dylan.

Riese: No. Mm-mm (negative).

Carly: Unless Dylan is one of the Schecter seven and that’s going to be a real twist.

Christina: Whoa.

Riese: Actually, isn’t she?

Carly: I’m trying to make that happen. I’m trying to make Schecter seven happen.

Christina: No, Schecter seven is happening and I am bulk-ordering t-shirts.

Carly: Awesome. Yes. Okay. If Christina says it’s happening, that means it is actually happening. Yeah. So they totally shoved a clip of Dylan into the previouslies and I also have not seen season six — I haven’t seen season six since it aired originally.

Riese: Yeah. Same.

Carly: So I had completely forgotten she ever comes back—

Riese: Oh, really?

Carly: … And was truly shocked to see her in the previouslies and I was, “Oh God, here we go. She’s coming back.” Completely forgot about the storyline entirely, just gone for my head.

Riese: But later in season six, Dylan pulls a kitchen knife out of a butcher’s block and then puts it next to Helena’s face. You don’t remember that?

Carly: Riese, when I tell you that I don’t remember any of season six, I really mean that I don’t. Aside from the dance contest, I don’t remember any of season six.

Christina: No. The light knife play is ringing some bells for me.

Riese: Okay. Yeah. A faint bell.

Christina: A faint, perhaps formative bell, maybe we can… I’ll just jot that down to discuss later offline.

Carly: Note to self. Will look at that scene for later. Yeah, so that was a little foreshadowing in our previouslies. So the cold open…

Christina: The cold open is legendary, I do want to say.

Carly: It is so good.

Riese: First all, Nikki’s hair, I love it. I love the feathered thing, and the whole feel is very 70s sort of, you’re a porn star in your flat with your bikini friends or whatever.

Christina: Yeah. If 2009 did the 70s.

Carly: Exactly. Is this supposed to be her suite at the Chateau, I’m assuming? Is that where she is? Or is this supposed to be her new house?

Christina: That’s what I thought?

Carly: I was getting a hotel-ish vibe, but then as they moved the camera through the space, they just kept revealing more space and more people, to the point where I was, “How big is the room? How many… What is going on?” But I’m not a rich person, I wouldn’t know about suites.

Riese: I always think that rich people live in really big apartments that are somehow always really clean and you can’t see any of their normal pedestrian possessions, all their lotion is hidden away. But their vase is out.

Christina: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah. We should say that, so the cold opens for the entire season are going to be people saying that they want to kill Jenny, but in using a phrase that people use where they’re not really talking about murder.

Christina: It was so subtle, which I thought was nice. Then Nikki says, “I want her dead, like dead.” And I was like, “Wow, I love subtlety in writing and in acting, this is beautiful to watch.”

Nikki: Jenny Schecter is a liar and a user. And trust me, you are not going to get away with this. You are dead meat, Schecter, dead.

Christina: Yeah. That brought me right back to Revenge, the TV show, Revenge, the classic of the genre.

Riese: Right. So basically, Nikki is yelling at all of her friends about how Jenny fucks her all night long and then said it was a showmance. And who’s going to take her best friend out of her top five because she’s mad. And that’s what you do when your mad. You take someone out of your top five, so then it costs more money to call them.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: As I recall.

Carly: This was a fun T-Mobile promotion in the mid-to-late-aughts.

Riese: Yeah. I think it started in ’07.

Carly: Yeah. And in my research today — because I was this sounds like a T-Mobile thing from back years ago, and it was. But I found an old commercial that was Dwayne Wade and Charles Barkley for T-Mobile faves. But yeah, you basically get unlimited free calling to your top five faves and she’s removing her best friend from her top five. It’s going to be much more expensive to talk to her now. So…

Christina: That actually makes a lot of sense.

Carly: She’s not going to be in the loop.

Christina: Because I was thinking that it was a T-Mobile thing and I was like, “Well, why wasn’t I familiar with T-Mobile?” But if Catherine Zeta Jones was no longer doing their promo ads, I wouldn’t have cared.

Carly: Exactly.

Christina: So that makes sense. That’s good to know.

Riese: I guess I’ve had cutouts, Catherine Zeta John cutouts at the store, at the T-Mobile store.

Christina: I tried to buy one once, in a thrilling show of what I was still calling heterosexuality.

Riese: Oh my God.

Christina: Really good stuff. Yeah. My notes do say “Nikki, the legend.” So kind of take that as you will, I suppose.

Riese: You could tell she had freckles. I didn’t know that before.

Christina: I don’t know that I clocked that, but I’m thrilled that you are here to do so.

Nikki at her beach house saying Jenny is dead meat

Carly: It’s a good thing your eagle eyes are here with us always. Then we get our theme song. Christina, do you have any particular thoughts on the incredible theme song for this television show?

Christina: Every time I think I’m out, it pulls me back in. I’m just like, “Oh, I still know every single word to this, that’s mortifying.”

Carly: It’s impossible to erase it from your memory.

Christina: What things could I know in the space that The L Word theme song is taking up in my brain?

Riese: The L Word is taking up a lot of space in my brain that I think could be filled with things like my EIN number.

Christina: Sure.

Carly: Good luck ever remembering that.

Riese: My address, which I’ve still been giving to people incorrectly.

Carly: Great.

Riese: Cooking.

Christina: Yeah. Cooking, kind of all of it, cooking.

Carly: I’m going to say that I’m not a person who cooks solely, because L Word is taking up all this space that could be used for cooking, but it’s not because L Word’s there and that’s why I’m not into cooking and not good at it and don’t do it. That sounds… we’ll go with that.

Christina: Yeah. That’s what science is, I think. So…

Carly: That is…

Riese: That is science.

Carly: That is super science.

Riese: And we are experts.

Christina: I thought this was a scientific podcast about science.

Riese: It is.

Carly: This is a science podcast, science show.

Christina: Cool.

Carly: We talk about science.

Christina: Great.

Carly: Last week, we got into a lot of science and I’m sure it will come up again this week.

Christina: Really looking forward to that.

Riese: I’m positive it will as well. So then we go to the Hit Club where we meet this drag queen named Sunset Boulevard, who’s going to spin at the Hit Club and Kit really likes Sunset Boulevard. But also, another thing I want to talk about is do we really think that Helena and Kit’s favorite film is Casablanca?

Christina: Absolutely not.

Carly: Absolutely, absolutely not.

Riese: In what fucking universe is Kit Porter creaming for fucking Casablanca<e\/em> or whatever, however you pronounce that?

Christina: No.

Riese: It’s a super boring movie.

Christina: Helena’s favorite movie is Basic Instinct, I’m certain of it.

Carly: Definitely.

Riese: Helena would love A Simple Favor.

Christina: Helena would love it.

Carly: Oh my God. She would.

Christina: And to be clear, I also wrote “Helena, the legend” in my notes. Lot of that happening in my notes for this episode.

Carly: I did a quick Goog and the actor playing Sunset Boulevard is not a drag queen.

Riese: Well, there aren’t any.

Christina: Right.

Riese: So how would they find a real one?

Christina: How could they find a drag queen in 2009?

Riese: Right.

Carly: They really could not have found a drag queen to play a drag queen.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Okay. Sure.

Riese: It was Canada.

Carly: Sure.

Riese: So…

Carly: You’re right. Famously, no drag Queens north of California.

Christina: Right. Because once it gets too cold, you got to shut it down.

Riese: Yeah. You need temperate for brunch.

Christina: Right.

Carly: Exactly. For brunch.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But Sunset Boulevard is a big Kit Porter fan so she is down, she’s like, “I will be here to…” They’re giving her a preview, almost, a little tour. They’re like, “This is where this is going to go.” And I’m like, “Okay.” Also, interestingly to note here, Kit and Helena have both “sworn off men.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Now, as far as I recall, Helena is not bisexual. She is a lesbian, I believe. Right?

Christina: Brotherly, a famous lesbian. I would…

Carly: Famous. Yes.

Riese: Yeah. Legendary, some might say.

Christina: Some.

Carly: Yes.

Christina: Could be me.

Carly: So that’s just a fun thing to…

Riese: She was like, “I did a long time ago.” Or something like that. Something about how she’s sworn off men.

Christina: What if I just stopped describing myself as a lesbian and just started saying, I swore off men a long time ago, that’s my sexuality now.

Carly: Yes. I think you should definitely start doing that.

Christina: Cool.

Riese: Yeah.

Christina: Thank you.

Carly: I love that. So we go to The Planet where, wouldn’t you know it, Alice and Jenny are type-type-typing away on their Macs.

Riese: Having to type off.

Carly: Tasha is reading out of a large binder, because she has Police Academy to go to.

Riese: Yeah. Womp womp.

Carly: And, last week, they did this really big thing where they split the group into two tables at The Planet. And this week, wouldn’t you know it, they are continuing—

Riese: That split.

Carly: … That separation of the group. Bette and Tina refer to this as martyrs and cheaters, which I think is a bit reductive, but whatever.

Riese: Oh, I thought it was cute.

Christina: Really? You think Bette and Tina were being reductive when they talked about their friends’ problems? I am shocked to hear it.

Carly: Hmm. Interesting.

Christina: Weird.

Riese: So Shane, apparently… Shane has room in her brain for cooking, because she went back into the kitchen of The Planet and made waffles, which is really hard.

Carly: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Riese: Made waffles for Jenny and had them delivered to Jenny. But Jenny doesn’t want her waffles, but she has Alice communicate that to Shane that she doesn’t want her waffles. And then she throws away her waffles —

Carly: Right in the trash.

Riese: … Which is wasteful and absurd. There’s other people there, there’s probably people right outside who she could give her waffles to.

Carly: For sure.

Christina: Alice would have eaten the waffles. I don’t understand.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Alice definitely was eyeing the waffles. And then Tina was like, “Ooh, waffles.”

Christina: Right.

Carly: And Jenny just moves the plate under her nose so she can sniff it and then dumps it right in the trash. I was like, “Wow, rude.”

Christina: Two things really jumped out of me about that scene. One, that she takes the time to explain that she doesn’t… That she makes Alice explain that she doesn’t want the waffles and then just gets up and throws them away. You could have just gotten up and throw them away. It was a pretty clear action.

Riese: Yeah.

Waitress delivering food to Alice at The Planet

Christina: And also, why was that garbage can so far away? She walked for so long. I was like, “Still no garbage?” Just a note for Hit.

Riese: She had to walk to the entrance.

Carly: Because Bette and Tina were walking—

Riese: They need to have more garbage cans. Yeah.

Carly: … In the door. They also said, “Man, how about that new valet service? Oh, I know. Helena is really changing this place.”

Riese: There’s nothing I hate more than pulling up to a restaurant and seeing that they have fucking valet service because then you know…

Carly: It’s my least favorite thing.

Riese: … You can’t park there.

Christina: This is so LA culture. I’m just going to nod like I understand, but I’m like, this is nonsense.

Carly: This is very LA culture right now.

Riese: Yeah. It’s going to cost… Then you know, it’s going to cost a million dollars to park there and you can’t afford it because you’re already stressed out about affording the restaurant. And then you’re going to have to find street parking, which is going to be hard. So in conclusion of my report, somebody adding valet parking is not a valuable service. It is an annoyance and a problem.

Carly: I would also just wanted to point out that Bette’s being a really shitty sister to Kit, because she’s essentially saying that Kit was doing a bad job at running The Planet because now that Helena is here, they have valet and thank God. And I think that’s really unsupportive of her. And I know that’s so out of character for Bette to be really unsupportive.

Christina: I was going to say that’s — wow. Shocking stuff.

Riese: Sometimes I forget that they’re sisters.

Christina: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah. They don’t act like it. But there is that moment where Bette and Tina have to do rock paper scissors to see who’s going to sit at which table, and that’s cute.

Christina: I did have a chuckle that Bette was, “I’m always rock?” Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That was cute. And now we’re into some murky water here because Jenny and Alice appear to both be writing treatments. Oh-oh.

Christina: Another word that the show clearly invented, treatments.

Carly: They also were showing close-ups of the laptop and those were scene headings and…

Christina: Yeah.

Carly: Those were screenplays.

Riese: Those weren’t treatments.

Christina: Those weren’t treatments.

Carly: Those were not treatments. They were screenplays written in the wrong font in the wrong application, but sure. If only the writers of this show could find some writers to tell them how to write scenes about writing, I guess. I don’t know. Whatever.

Riese: Well, Alice thinks it’s going to be easy to write a screenplay and then you become rich and then you move to Malibu, but Tasha hates Malibu. So…

Christina: Right. This is continuing our theme of y’all have famously nothing in common?

Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Right.

Carly: Every moment of the last episode and this episode is trying to… Any moment with Alice and Tasha on screen together is trying to underscore, as much as possible, how little they have in common.

Christina: And they’re doing it with a trademark L Word subtlety, which I appreciate.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Tina says that Jenny’s a great screenwriter and that Alice should show her the treatment, which is bananas. And then we find out that it’s Tasha’s first day at Police Academy.

Carly: It sure is.

Riese: Tina says she looks great. And you know what? She does. She looks incredible.

Carly: She does look great.

Christina: I do believe my note for this is, “Tasha… I’m so sorry.”

Carly: And then Tina makes a comment about, “When are you guys going to couple’s therapy?” And Tasha gets very upset because Alice cannot keep her mouth shut. I do see where Tasha is coming from, but also Tina and Alice are very close friends. And I feel like you tell your friends everything. So, I don’t know.

Christina: Yeah.

Carly: I think you could go either way on this one. But again, this is the show kind of clobbering us over the head with, “They see different. They’ve different opinions on things.”

Riese: I would tell everyone we are going to therapy and no one that she was going to the Police Academy.

Christina: Yes.

Carly: Same.

Christina: Her only thing today: therapy.

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, “It’s my first day.” “No, it’s our first day at couples therapy today!”

Carly: I dressed her for therapy.

Riese: I dressed for couples therapy, I thought it would be a fun thing we could do!

Christina: Police Academy is actually the name of my therapist group. So…

Carly: Exactly, yeah.

Christina: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly: Police Academy is the name of the building we go to for group therapy.

Christina: Yes.

Riese: It’s also the name of the treatment for my film that I’m currently writing as a screenplay. And so she just has the binder for it, but she’s still unemployed, but it’s all fine. It’s totally fine. I have a feeling she’s going to be the best dressed.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Young cadet.

Carly: I would think so. They get into a little argument about Alice wanting Tasha to dress differently and that was…

Riese: And Alice is wrong.

Carly: Yeah.

Christina: It seems like Alice picked… Read the room. Why this moment?

Carly: Yeah. Right.

Riese: Also, honestly aside from last week when Tasha did the vest with the tank top and the baggy jeans, but that was cool at the time.

Christina: Again, it was 2009.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Tasha has made a minimum, compared to everyone else, I would say she’s probably made the least amount of fashion mistakes of anyone in this cast.

Christina: I will say, it’s real bold for Alice to come in hot at Tasha for fashion mistakes.

Riese: Alice. I can’t think of anything where I’ve been, “What is Tasha wearing?”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Helena is Switzerland.

Carly: Helena Switzerland, she will not be getting involved.

Christina: Legendary.

Carly: Also, they mentioned that they’re going to Dan Foxworthy.

Christina: Yes.

Carly: So that once again, the only therapist that any of these people have ever heard of in West Hollywood, where there are no therapists, is this white man, which is very disappointing and we know he is very bad at his job.

Christina: And he continues to be bad at his job in this therapy session.

Carly: He sure does, ooh, man.

Riese: He does.

Bette reading her phone

Carly: Alice has this great moment where she talks about how the vibes are really bad, because Shane and Jenny are not speaking. And she’s just, “Guys, the vibes.” And I thought that was very funny.

Christina: It was funny.

Carly: And then Bette and Tina were, “Well, we have an announcement, which no one asked for, but we’re going to say it.” And we’re going…

Christina: Classic Bette and Tina.

Carly: Classic, making it all about them. They want to adopt a baby.

Riese: Yeah. They’re going to adopt a baby within the next six months and build a second floor to their house. Which I’d be like, “Ughhhh.”

Christina: I mean, I knew they were back together in this season, but I was like, “Oh, right.” They’re back together in the season, this again, these fights again, these conversations all over again. That’s their whole deal. They’re like, “We’re fighting, but we’re back together. And actually, jokes on you, we’re perfect. Just kidding, we broke up again.”

Carly: While we were telling you how perfect we are together, we broke up twice.

Christina: And the time it took Tina to say, we’re perfect, but did fuck somebody else so we do have to…

Carly: We’re going to redact that, but we’ll get back to you on how great we are together.

Riese: I do think they were trying, I think they were trying this season and it’s evident in this episode and I think the last episode too, to really show Bette and Tina, as a cute, married couple that had their little married couple things. And that was, I think that spoke to viewers who are in similar relationships, who are fans of the Bette and Tina dynamic. I could feel them being, we’re settling into this relationship and they’re going to be doing… They’re going to have their cute little couple conversations and it’s not going to be, whatever.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So I felt like that’s… And I felt like I really felt that in this scene with the rock paper scissors.

Carly: That was nice. I did enjoy that. That was cute. It feels like — to really kind of really solidify the central relationship of the show in the final season of the show is incredible. What an incredible decision and great timing.

Christina: Really groundbreaking stuff.

Carly: Yeah. I mean just, no one’s ever thought to do that before. And so Jenny’s pissed.

Riese: Jenny’s… She’s like —

Jenny: When were you going to tell me about construction?

Christina: And Tina’s, “We’re telling you right now.” So funny, I did laugh out loud.

Riese: And she’s like, “How am I supposed to write?” And it’s like, that’s not their problem. And also no one asked me how I would find time to write when they decided to retrofit my apartment for earthquakes. And now I can’t even park anywhere, let alone write.

Christina: Yeah. No one ever asked me how I feel about writing on a day when someone — when my housemates want to do something or like make a single sound around me. I’m like, “Whoa, how am I supposed to write you guys? I’m writing a treatment.”

Riese: I don’t think there’s anywhere you could live in West Hollywood that wouldn’t be next to construction. She’s lucky that it’s just a second floor on their house. And not like, like high rise condos that were erected where there used to be individual family homes.

Carly: Yeah. That’s all the time.

Riese: So Shane wants to be forgiven…

Carly: Shane wants to be forgiven. Jenny doesn’t want to do that. Yeah, hard pass. She’s like, “You create a trail of destruction and you don’t take responsibility for it,” to which I say she’s got a point.

Christina: Glasshouses babes.

Carly: Yeah. Once again, I would suggest for Jenny to perhaps purchase a mirror and then go stand in front of it and really think about some stuff. Just some ideas.

Riese: Mirrors are expensive.

Carly: Well, you can get those $5 mirrors at Target or whatever. Those like the little flimsy ones we had in college.

Christina: Right, you didn’t look at your phone as your phone couldn’t do that for you then, because it’s 2009.

Carly: Exactly. No, 2009, there was no way.

Christina: You just had your five and that was it.

Carly: That was it. You got your five friends, and then you’re on your own.

Christina: Also, is this a moment to talk about the ruffles on Bette’s shirt? Is she wearing the shirt?

Riese: Yeah, I have been wondering, do we start talking about it? When do we want to start talking about it?

Carly: Right. Despite this scene being 4,000 times longer than it needed to be. I think this is the right time to talk about the sleeves, because this is where the sleeves are introduced to us.

Christina: They are… I would say they are aggressed upon us as a viewing audience. I feel like they were thrown into my face. I was given no time to accept them. I was given no time to think about what they could mean in a larger sense. I couldn’t really take the time to puzzle out the larger ramifications of these ruffles.

Riese: Yeah. It’s sort of like if you were making cupcakes or muffins, but jumbo muffins.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: But the muffin containers were made out of silk and then you smash them all together and then you put them on a shirt.

Carly: Oh my God, that’s…

Christina: That’s evocative and beautiful.

Carly: Wow. It is beautiful.

Riese: I’m also open to other descriptions and actually eager to hear them.

Christina: Yeah. I was thinking of a pirate that got drunk and lost and somehow the only thing that managed to stay intact, perhaps after their ships sunk, was the ruffles on shirt, because I couldn’t quite tell what else was happening. Like, was it a vest? What’s going on there?

Carly: We don’t know…

Riese: Was the vest part of the shirt?

Carly: We’ll never know.

Christina: Yeah, I paused and squinted for a really long time and then said, that’s actually beyond me. I’m going to have to move on.

Carly: Yes. The sleeves — I thought maybe there was some sort of future mop technology that could be perhaps created based on the architecture of the sleeves, because the density of the ruffles is pretty extreme. And I feel like maybe they’re very absorbent if made with the right material. I don’t know, who can say, but I definitely got a pirate vibe as well. Definitely was feeling pirate energy and just deeply disturbed by all of it.

Christina: Right, just really upset to see.

Riese: Yeah. it’s almost like she was cursed by that butterfly to never wear anything cute.

Carly: Do you think, Riese, maybe when she put the butterfly dress back in the closet with presumably the rest of her clothing that this shirt was in there and wait, hear me out. Maybe the shirt had normal sleeves. Yeah.

Christina: What hath the butterfly wrought?

Carly: Let that marinate for a sec. What if that was a normal button up and when she took it out of the closet to wear it the next day, it had the most ruffles per square sleeve inch of all time.

Christina: This makes me wonder how cursed that was by the butterfly because did she just not notice? Did she just say, “I assume that’s what my shirt always looked like and I will be putting it on again.” That’s harrowing to contemplate.

Riese: Oh my God.

Riese: It’s like her clothes are gaslighting her, but she doesn’t even know it.

Carly: If it’s changing her reality so she doesn’t see it as ruffles, she just sees regular sleeves.

Riese: Right? Like in quantum leap. Yeah.

Carly: What if the gaslighting abilities of the butterfly dress are actually changing Bette’s reality, but no one else’s.

Christina: Wow. This is something I’m going to have to sit with for quite some time.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: As we said, this is a science podcast and we’re just here to posit some scientific theories about what’s happening this season because a lot is happening, and I think that it’s so strange a lot of what’s happening that maybe this is the only explanation for it.

Riese: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah. I think when scholars look back, they will point to the butterfly as the beginning of the end for both the show and also perhaps humanity.

Carly: Perhaps, you can trace the downfall of society to the airing of the season five finale, because that’s when we were introduced to the dress.

Riese: Introduced to the butterfly shirt. Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, flippy flapping. And then I think when they re-aired those scenes at the top of season six, there was some sort of compounding effect that happened, perhaps. I don’t know, but I think it’s all really good that we’re really talking about this. I think it’s important.

Christina: I think it’s good that we’re working through it. Yeah. I think it’s really important for the community and for humanity at large.

Riese: And those scholars that you mentioned before, the scholars.

Christina: Yeah, we love scholars, we love scholarly work.

Carly: Big fan of scholars.

Riese: Yeah. Speaking of things that start with S…

Carly: Wow.

Christina: Wow. Professional.

Carly: You’re so good at that, Riese.

Riese: Thank you so much. So let me go to Shenny’s. Shane is planting some flowers and Max and Tom are like, “What are you doing? Weird.” That’s the whole scene.

Christina: It’s such a weird scene.

Carly: It’s so weird. Max is like debuting his full beard.

Christina: It is full. I’ll say that about that beard.

Carly: I’m not going to get into my Max and Tom rant right now. I will save it for later, but just know that it’s coming.

Christina: Yep. I do think this is also where I wrote “Max, I am so sorry.”

Carly: Yeah. We have so many things we need to apologize to Max about. We will get to those later. Then Jenny comes outside with all of her entitlement asking Max to fix her computer, and he can’t because he’s going to his final consult and everyone acts like they all know what’s going on except for us. And that’s great writing.

Christina: I love a show that has taken such pains to explain like the word showmance, treatment, the waffles being thrown out. But this genuinely important moment of character development, they’re like, “You guys get it, right? Cool. Let’s move on.”

Carly: Yeah. “Anyway, flower boxes.” Anyway, we can’t spend too much time here because we have to go to a marketing meeting for the worst film poster I’ve ever seen. This is like…

Christina: It’s bad, but I do want to wallpaper my house in it also. So that’s kind of something I’m working through on my own, I’m on my own journey, but it is terrible.

Riese: It’s called The Girls now, it’s not called Lez Girls or Les Girls anymore. Now it’s just The Girls. There’s a man and a woman, which is the guy and Nikki, and they’re making out. And it says, “Behind every woman is a man who wants her back.” Which, while true, is not important to the movie and Tina is upset about it. Honestly, I felt like this was a classic example of a woman being shut out of the major decisions that are happening in the media.

Carly: You are so right, Riese.

Christina: You are so right. This is a moment where Tina does not get to be a SHE-EO and it is a shame. I will say The Girls is a better title, the poster sucks, but again I do want it everywhere in my house. So again, just duality. We’re working with that. It is a much better title, just like for a movie, I will say.

The new "The Girls" poster

Carly: Yeah. And American audiences famously don’t know French. So I feel that it’s good to have changed it.

Riese: Yeah. They had test screenings without Tina. And of course the test screenings, they love the new ending because the test screenings were probably full of straight people, or maybe it was just Aaron and the other guy and the whatever, I don’t know. Anyway, this movie is going to suck. It was already going to suck and now it’s going to really suck. But you want to know what else, my friends, that I have learned recently as somebody who’s writing a fictional book that has characters based on real people? All of these people could have sued. This book never would have been published with how close all of these things were to reality ever.

Christina: But she changed the names, she hid the identities so well.

Riese: That would not have gotten past legal.

Christina: It would not, absolutely it would not.

Carly: Interesting. I think it’s just really brave to posit that anything that Jenny ever wrote could get published, I guess.

Christina: I think that’s like another really brave, groundbreaking moment coming from the program, The L Word.

Carly: So, sorry, I need to ask a question. So the premiere episode of season six picked up exactly where season five ended. At the end of season five, they were saying they had just decided to change the end of the movie and they were going to do reshoots. So how much time has passed since episode one and episode two, where they have already done the reshoots and have already tested them and come up with a new title and an entire marketing campaign?

Riese: Especially since Nikki was just in bikinis, she wasn’t working. And also, where is Shane? If it’s over a week, where has Shane been living?

Christina: I think it’s really brave to bring the concept of time into The L Word universe because…

Carly: Absolutely brave. Yeah.

Christina: Famously not a universe that handles that concept well, or with any kind of internal logic.

Carly: One might argue that time does not exist in this universe.

Christina: Certainly a flat circle here. Certainly.

Carly: For sure, but I don’t know. It struck me as a little odd, but you know what? Everything else is a little odd.

Riese: Yeah, the sleeves.

Christina: Yeah, and we’re right back to the sleeves.

Carly: We’re not going to be getting very far away from the sleeves because they are coming for us.

Riese: The sleeves are not getting very far away from anyone whose anywhere to bat. And now we go to Carly University.

Carly: Yeah. Carly University, my university, the university of me.

Riese: Yeah. Everyone is coming all over Jodie’s roast of Bette Porter, which was raved about in an art journal. And they’re really excited because this great art piece, which by the way was terrible, it’s going to be really good for Carly University. They’re going to get so many more applications — because that’s what art schools want is even more applications.

Christina: That’s the problem with art schools that they have not enough applications.

Riese: No one wants to do it.

Christina: There’s a dearth of 20-somethings who wanted to go to art school.

Riese: So many spots and it’s just so little people to fill them up. That’s why they end up with people making Barbara Bush Iraq art in their program.

Carly: What Jodi did wasn’t art. I just don’t understand why we’re carrying on like it was. It was a revenge piece.

Christina: Well, when you think about it, what is art? When you take the time to think about it in — famously, as we love to do — a scholarly way, it’s like, what is art? And art is, it seems, whatever the hell you want it to be. So in that way, Jodi did want to do this. And thus, perhaps it is art. And again, I just want to be clear, I wrote Jodi and then I circled it in a heart on my notes.

Riese: And yeah, by the way, Jodi looks fantastic.

Carly: Incredible.

Christina: She looks redacted, just redacted.

Carly: She knew she was coming to a meeting and that Bette would be at the meeting, clearly.

Riese: Yeah and that Bette was going to be in those sleeves and she was going to be a —

Christina: She said, “I’m going to one up those sleeves with just what I look like.”

Jodi's art review

Riese: I would also like to say that Bette could have… this also would not have gotten past legal, this artwork.

Christina: A lot of things on the show might not have gotten past legal.

Riese: It’s technically also…It’s Bette’s voice, it’s Bette’s words. And it’s not under fair use.

Carly: No. Also Bette couldn’t have known she was being recorded. Also when was Jodi recording, we’ve never even…

Christina: Never once.

Riese: They were trying to do a spin-off of the show, where they were going to do a prison spinoff. Which by the way, I was thinking, since I have like some sides from it, we should do a reading of all the sides that we have of The Farm.

Christina: Well, I’m glad I’m here so I can call shotgun on that project.

Carly: Yeah. Oh my God.

Riese: Yes. So they’re trying to create this spinoff of prison shows. So they’re killing Jenny so they can have a prison show. Which didn’t work because it was terrible, but they could have done a legal spin off that’s just Bette suing all of these people that she could have been suing this whole fucking time. Most legal shows are centered on a lawyer or centered on a case, you know what I mean? But this one will be just centered on one woman with a lot of lawsuits to file.

Carly: And maybe her lawyer is Christine Baranski, I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here.

Christina: So I am close to tears, there are a lot of things I love in the world. I can’t explain to you how much one of my favorite genres is legal, comma, all. I just… The concept is brilliant, it’s perfect and I obviously tonight will be starting my treatment for the show…

Carly: Famously written in Final Draft.

Christina: Right. That’s how you do it.

Carly: That’s how you write a treatment.

Christina: That is so brilliant, I’m going to have to take some time to think about that.

Carly: Riese, that is such a good idea.

Riese: Thank you.

Carly: I think there’s so many lawsuits that could happen just from Bette alone.

Riese: My only other note for this scene is Bette’s sleeves.

Carly: Yeah. She’s still wearing the sleeves. Weirdly, Jodi doesn’t say anything about the sleeves, which is shocking because she should have, she should have told her that they were…

Riese: Yeah. She’s allegedly an artist with a vision.

Christina: We know she’s very petty. Come on, low hanging fruit, Jodi.

Carly: Come on. Yeah.

Riese: Then we go to the doctor, first of all, there’s two Leslie Feinberg books sitting on the desk, just randomly at this desk. One of them is a novel, the other is Stone Butch Blues, which is a novel based on a true story. But it’s just really this doctor would just have Stone Butch Blues sitting on…

Carly: Because the doctor was learning what trans is.

Riese: Which is a Butch lesbian. Right.

Carly: The doctor was learning about trans and butch right before Max got there.

Christina: Like, “Oh, you caught me studying.”

Riese: Reading all three books at once. Me and all my books.

Christina: This is actually not an open note final. This is your profession.

Riese: Yeah. You should know what you’re doing. So Max would like the doctor to feel his pecks.

Carly: Okay. Can I just interject really quickly?

Riese: Absolutely.

Carly: As we are two days away from my one year of top surgery anniversary…

Riese: Oh my God, it’s already been a year?

Carly: Dude. I can’t handle it. My brain shut down when I realized that I’ve been on quarantine now for a year because I went inside after surgery and then never came out again, because the timing…it was like six weeks later was Corona lockdown. So it was like I was re-emerging as my new… whatever. It’s truly tragic for me and on me alone. But the other day I got some weights and I’ve been doing little chest presses. And the other day I made Robin feel my pecks. And when Max did that I was like “Oh no.”

Christina: Well, sometimes art does pull out truth, even when it’s so wrong.

Carly: Yeah. Oh God, sorry. Please continue.

Riese: Okay. So Max, as we all are aware this was going to happen, is pregnant. And I have a few comments on this topic. The first one is how can somebody who is meticulously noting the development of their pecs and their body in general, fully not notice for four months that they are pregnant? Max is paying very close attention to his body, it is not likely in general for a person to be four months pregnant without noticing. It certainly happens, we’ve all seen it happen with various people.

Christina: I’ve seen TLC.

Riese: Yeah. I was about to say we’ve seen TLC, but then I felt like I was saying too much about myself and the past week I had.

Christina: Nope, I’m with you.

Riese: So that’s possible, it’s not likely. Speaking of things that are possible and not likely, Max has been on testosterone now for two or three years? Yeah. So usually if a trans man wants to get pregnant, he will usually stop taking testosterone for a few months. It takes a few months for ovulation to return. And it is possible for a trans man who is taking testosterone regularly to get pregnant but it is very, very, very, very uncommon. And they do not present that like this here, because the whole point of this is for Max to be as uncomfortable in his body as possible so that Ilene Chaiken can frame him as a freak and a sideshow of this show and not treat him like a real human being, and make his character suffer as much as he possibly can for being a man.

Carly: Yeah. That sounds pretty accurate.

Christina: That sounds… And I do hate to say it, but it does sound like this whole scenario is something that one might call the least likely scenario, which famously is the title of this episode.

Carly: Wow!

Riese: Ohhh! Wow!

Christina: While I can’t agree with any decision that is made regarding Max, I see what they did there and I’m not proud. I’m not happy about it, but I do recognize that it happened.

Carly: It did happen. Right.

Riese: That’s what happened.

Carly: I love that you connected those dots for us. Thank you, that was crucial.

Riese: At the time that the storyline happened, obviously Ilene Chaiken saw Thomas Beatie on Oprah, and was like, “Oh, let’s do that.” But he stopped taking testosterone four months prior to getting pregnant…

Carly: Because he was trying to get pregnant deliberately.

Christina: Right. Because his goal was to get pregnant.

Riese: Yes.

Riese: And at this time… So obviously I spent some time reading a lot of studies today to be sure that I was correct about all of this…

Christina: Scholarly.

Carly: Because science, because it’s a science podcast.

Riese: I did spend a lot of time reading studies then, too, and I can say with relative confidence that most of these studies have happened since that time. I don’t think at that time… And still right now, there are still so many questions that they don’t know the answer to. There’s a lot of… They’re not entirely sure about how a lot of these things are connected and what levels of testosterone prevent pregnancy or don’t. It’s very clear that it’s not birth control or whatever.

Riese: But at the time, I feel like it was not really known if this was something that — if you could get pregnant while on testosterone, it hadn’t been discussed. It wasn’t in the literature and that just makes it… Which is fine, it just makes it even more frustrating that this is how desperately they wanted to make Max just a figure to further transphobia.

Christina: Yeah.

Carly: This is such a sensationalized story too. Literally later in the episode he shouts, “doesn’t anybody read the tabloids?” Like it’s so transparently obvious…

Max yellss "Don't you read the fucking tabloids?"

Christina: I was always shouting that, to be fair.

Carly: Everywhere I go, I’m asking people if they’re reading the tabloids. I’m not reading them, but I’m asking who is.

Christina: I just wanted to… I just did a quick temperature check. I want to know.

Carly: Yeah. I just want to gage general interest. So what you’re saying then Riese, is that this is a work of science fiction.

Riese: Yeah. It’s a work of science fiction and it’s also a classic fucking trope with trans people all the fucking time, especially this happens with storylines with trans women on medical shows and stuff. They love to have a storyline where some medical thing befalls a trans person and they’re unable to have their top surgery, to keep taking hormones, to have a different surgery, to live openly as they want to live. That is a fucking trope, it’s done all the fucking time. It’s exhausting and it’s stupid. And here it is again, because Max is what, three days away from fucking top surgery and he’s probably thrilled about this finally happening. And no, “now you can’t do it because you’re improbably pregnant.”

Christina: Yeah. It’s another injustice and a character who was treated like absolute garbage from the second they were introduced until now, will continue to be treated like garbage throughout this season. It’s bad, and I personally hate it. I’m going to go on the record and bravely say that I don’t like it. I think it’s bad.

Riese: Yeah. That’s important.

Carly: I agree with everything you’ve both said, this is garbage. I am on the record, hating it. I’m right now, going on the record, consider it recorded. And I also wanted to talk about how with the previous scene and this scene, all of this incredibly important character development is happening for Max and for his relationship with Tom. And none of it has happened on camera and that is once again a huge problem. If they had actually let us see their relationship at all, that would have been really groundbreaking, like a cis gay man dating a trans man, I had never seen that before when this aired. That would be incredible to see, but it would require them actually giving either of those characters, real personalities and flushing them out further and spending screen time on them when we can just see Bette and Tina fight for the 800th time. Max was supposed to get top surgery in San Francisco when he was dating Grace, he decided not to. He’s now dating Tom and he is three days away from getting surgery, which means he planned this appointment months ago and this is the first we’re hearing of it. And it’s just so fucked. There’s so much we could have seen.

Riese: We just have season five, none of this was there.

Carly: He was never on season five. All this was going on off camera. It’s ridiculous.

Christina: I couldn’t tell if it was because I famously hadn’t watched this season in a long time. And I was like, maybe there was something that I was missing in the development of this relationship. And then I took just a single second and I thought about The L Word and I thought about the notable history of dealing with Max’s character. And I said, “Oh well simply no, that can’t be what happened.” Obviously they’ve just thrown this storyline in and said, “Let’s go with it.”

Carly: There’s a line later that I will highlight that made me so angry about whatever was not happening on screen, but we will get to it. So yeah, the doctor tells him his surgery is postponed and then we just end the scene with this absolutely crushing look on Max’s face. It sucks. Back to Carly University though. I didn’t know how to segue us out of that, it was very depressing.

Christina: There’s no way to segue out. That did suck and we hate it, but now back to the fun trash.

Carly: Yeah, exactly. There’s two types of trash on the show, fun trash which we love and it’s kind of soapy and campy, and then there’s actual trash, which is generally all the transphobia and a couple other related things and is very bad.

Riese: Well back at Carly University, the meeting is just wrapping up and someone would like to know if Bette liked the work. And Bette’s response to that is basically like that emoji with the flat mouth regarding whether or not she likes the work.

Jodi at the CU meeting looking hot and smug

Carly: I like that, that man stage whispered to Jodi who is deaf. And she didn’t know he was talking to her, what a fucking asshole.

Carly: That guy sucked… it was really great that she could just ignore him.

Riese: And Tom’s not there.

Carly: Yeah. He had to go call Max.

Riese: Yeah. We’re not going to see that call though. That would be so…

Carly: Why would we?

Christina: Why would we see that call?

Riese: There’s another relationship we care about so much happening because Bette is going with Phyllis to her office to talk to her about something. But, oh! It’s Jane Lynch.

Christina: Joyce is here, hi Joyce.

Riese: It’s Jane Lynch.

Christina: Joyce is completely naked.

Riese: Yeah. At first I remember this scene with her being in a barrel, which I realized I made up in my head.

Christina: No, but she’s bringing a barrel energy to the performance of her nudity.

Riese: Right?!

Christina: She’s bringing big “I just got dunked in a barrel on a game show” energy, with her being naked. I understand that totally. Absolutely.

Carly: I get it.

Riese: Why is she naked?

Christina: I don’t know. I wrote, “Well, that’s Jane Lynch and she’s naked.”

Carly: Well, she’s asking her to marry her and naturally you would take all your clothes off to ask someone to marry you in their place of business during business hours.

Riese: I would want to be fully covered. I would want to have all of my clothes on for a proposal.

Carly: I would put on extra clothes probably. Yeah. I’d be like, “Is there a coat I could add to this?”

Christina: I love outerwear. So I’d love to toss a coat on.

Carly: Yeah.

Joyce is naked in Phyllis's office saying "this is all i have to offer you"

Riese: That’s how Shane proposed, in a winter coat, to Carmen leaning over the bridge.

Christina: Which worked perfectly as we all know.

Carly: Yeah, exactly. That was great.

Riese: Yeah, that turned out great for everybody. Phyllis doesn’t want to get married. Also, this was filmed during this sliver of time when same-sex marriage was legal in California. However, this was filmed obviously prior to Prop 8 passing. And by the time it aired, Prop 8 had really passed.

Christina: That’s what they say about Prop 8, it really passed.

Riese: It passed. So — but the good news is that we got a Gavin Newsom name drop.

Christina: My next note after, “That’s Jane Lynch and she’s naked” is, “Yikes, Gavin Newsom reference!”

Joyce: We’ll go to San Francisco. We’ll get married on the steps of city hall. Gavin said he’d marry us.
Phyllis: Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco?
Joyce: That’s right. Raised a lot of money for that guy.

Carly: Wouldn’t you know, Joyce Wishnia has donated tons of money to his campaign.

Riese: Of course, she has.

Carly: What a surprise.

Riese: Yeah. It was a real moment. And then Phyllis, I think, is into it.

Christina: Yeah. I mean, who wouldn’t be into getting married by Gavin Newsom?

Carly: And that really seems to be the thing that changes Phyllis’ mind. She’s like, “I don’t want to be married again. Oh, Gavin Newsom in San Francisco, you say? Well in that case, yes.”

Christina: So that scene just happens for literally no reason, right? Like there’s… nothing comes from it.

Carly: Yeah.

Christina: Nothing comes of this.

Carly: It seem come that way, yes. No, it’s never mentioned again in this episode.

Christina: Okay. I mean, I guess if you can call Jane Lynch and say, “Hey, do you want to be naked and bring a real, “I’m in a barrel energy” to the scene? And she says, “yes,” how are you going to not?

Carly: She would be like, “Hell the fuck yeah.”

Riese: You can’t not.

Carly: Jane Lynch says yes to everything, I think. At that time, I feel like Jane Lynch was filming like 75 projects a year. Jane Lynch. Yes. Jane Lynch. Yes. Yes, yes. Yes.

Riese: Guest star, guest star, host of a game show, guest star.

Christina: With Jane Lynch. With Jane Lynch.

Riese: Ask Jane Lynch. Then we go to the world’s worst couples therapist, Dan Foxworthy, for a tune-up. It is Alice and Tasha, but you wouldn’t know it because Alice is answering all of the couples questions for Tasha.

Carly: Ooh, is she ever?

Christina: Oh boy, there was a half a second where I was like, “Okay, I see what he’s doing. But he’s going to, very quickly, interrupt and say, “It’s interesting that Alice is answering every question.” He chooses not to do that. And instead he says…

Dan Foxworthy: Now, Tasha, this process works much more effectively if you participate.

Christina: Which is just a harrowing misread of what is occurring in that scene.

Carly: A thousand percent a misread. What a terrible therapist.

Christina: So bad.

Carly: Oh my God. We thought he was bad previously, and now we know he’s even worse than we thought.

Riese: Right. But he also — he let Bette do this to Tina too. This is… He just sits there and watches it play out.

Carly: “No, Tina, you don’t need to talk this week.”

Christina: Wow. I understand letting Bette talk over Tina. I don’t understand letting Alice talk over Tasha.

Riese: No.

Christina: Can’t.

Riese: However, when Alice talks about the cheating thing, and wanting credit for not cheating. And then Tasha reads her like a book in her very first line in couples therapy, she just… Ooh.

Carly: With this completely calm exterior, just unleashes a series of truths about Alice.

Christina: It was disturbingly erotic to me. But I have been in a quarantined pandemic zone for a long time, so things are getting weird.

Riese: It’s fair.

Carly: But she’s wearing her little suit. It worked. It really worked.

Riese: She still looks hot.

Carly: It was great.

Riese: It’s almost like she’s not even in Police Academy.

Carly: We can just forget all about police.

Riese: Well, now, there’s another scene that I hate. This is maybe one of my least favorite scenes in the whole series, I think.

Carly: Yeah, that tracks.

Christina: Yeah, I didn’t care about it, or to look at it.

Carly: It does give us that great line, “Don’t you read the tabloids?” What a great line.

Riese: Max goes to the doctor. The receptionist is like, “You’re playing a prank. You can’t possibly be here because you’re a man.” And then Max… Daniela Sea, by the way, giving the least to these reads, these line reads, in this scene. Which I respect.

Christina: Deeply respect.

Riese: Deeply. Everyone in the receptionist’s office is… Suddenly they’re all friends. They’re all gossiping to each other about, “Oh my God, there’s this man here. There’s a man here. And he’s pretending like he’s pregnant and he can’t be pregnant because he’s a man.” And then he turns around and yells at everyone in the waiting room, “Look at me, I’m a man and I’m pregnant. Ha ha. Don’t you read the tabloids?”

Carly: Some might say that that is Ilene Chaiken really showing her hand. But she really didn’t think this storyline through and purely just ripped it from a headline. But who’s to say?

Christina: Some might say I deserve a Presidential medal of freedom for watching that scene and not throwing my computer across the room.

Carly: I agree. I think all three of us are extremely brave for sitting through that scene today.

Christina: Yeah. That’s the theme of our episode, is bravery.

Carly: Bravery.

Christina: And scholarship.

Riese: Realistically, I think Daniela Sea should get payouts, just periodically. Every time someone watches this scene, someone Venmos them a couple of bucks just like, “Thank you for…”

Christina: I want Seinfeld-level, residual money to go to them every single time someone sees a single one of these scenes from this season. Just, “You do earn a smooth billion dollars here. Here you are.”

Carly: Just a nice direct deposit right into Daniela Sea’s account. Just easy breezy. No one else gets a penny. Just Daniela.

Christina: It sucks. It sucks.

Riese: Ooh, that was bad.

Carly: Oh, it’s very bad. It’s very, very bad.

Riese: Then we go to Shenny’s.

Carly: Yeah. We’re at Shenny’s, Jenny is working on her treatment, which, again, is a script, despite the show defining the word “treatment” for us. And Shane is outside washing Jenny’s Porsche because Shane is just going to keep doing nice things for Jenny until she talks to her, I guess? That’s the end result, the goal, that Shane is going for here.

Christina: I can’t imagine doing anything in service of Jenny talking to me. So this really lost me.

Carly: Yeah. It would be great to never have to talk to you again. So actually I’m going to go.

Christina: Yep. And Shane’s listening to music too loud.

Carly: Right. Oh yes. Well Jenny is writing, right?

Christina: She’s writing.

Carly: She can’t have the music too loud. Yeah.

Riese: All she’s written so far is Shane begging her to forgive her. So she’s really getting some stuff done.

Carly: She’s really working through her issues really great. She’s working out on the page.

Christina: Right. And who am I to judge a draft? I’ve seen the things I write. Yikes. But also, Jenny.

Carly: We go back to the world’s worst therapist, and Alice Tasha are now… It’s a completely… A full 180 of their moods from before. They are now sitting, holding hands, facing each other. And they have these goofy grins on their faces. And they’re making promises to each other. And Alice promises that she’s going to make room in the apartment for Tasha’s things, which I really don’t think you should need a therapist to tell you to do, but that just feels like a basic courtesy. And then Tasha promises to try and see things from Alice’s perspective and to talk to her with less judgment, and that she’s going to make her breakfast tomorrow. And, first of all, that’s three things to Alice’s one thing.

Tasha and Alice at couples therapy

Christina: Right. And Alice’s one thing, again, is just something you should do normally.

Carly: Exactly. So it really feels like, once again, this is very one-sided still. But they are really giggly and cute for a moment, which is cute because they’re cute. And that’s cute. And I’ll say “cute” a few more times. But then we cut to Dan’s face and he has the… I wanted to slap him. That weird grin, or whatever, that was on his… I just —

Riese: He looked like he was leading the next cult. He had that like, “Oh my God.”

Christina: Yeah, he was going to ask them to play volleyball at midnight.

Carly: Oh my God. He’s totally going to invite them to Albany next.

Christina: God, not Albany.

Carly: Anywhere but Albany. They’re like, “Do you have any homework for us? What do we… What’s the next sesh?” He’s like, “Oh, you don’t need therapy at all.” And they’re like, “Well, we knew it. We’re great.” And he’s like, “You have nothing in common and you need to break up.”

Christina: I will say, in his favor, he is right.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yes, he is.

Riese: It was also a neat little thing, because hearing that from him… First of all then they immediately have something in common, which is they were both mad at Dan Foxworthy.

Christina: Right.

Carly: Which is a great place to be, emotionally, mad at Dan Foxworthy.

Christina: Right, it’s a great starting place.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Yeah. If you have a relationship that’s about to deteriorate, you can suck a few extra weeks out of it by finding a mutual enemy. It could be a coworker of your partners. It could be a mutual friend who has wronged somebody. You can really wring that out, but eventually it’s going to end up in the same place, and that place is you breaking up and realizing you were kind of unfair to that person that you were dragging for two weeks.

Carly: Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Riese: Although, in this case, they wouldn’t be unfair because Dan Foxworthy is a terrible person.

Christina: Dan Foxworthy is terrible.

Riese: And a terrible therapist. And he should be fired.

Carly: He is trash. Right.

Christina: He’s bad. He’s a bad man. But I do like them uniting in this moment. I think it’s funny. It’s also, yeah, of course this is what you guys are going to do. It’d be like, “No, how dare you.”

Riese: Yeah.

Christina: “We’re going to have sex in our car.”

Carly: Yeah. Which is what they go to do. They go have sex in a well-lit parking garage with the door open to the car. Good for them.

Christina: I mean, it’s the only thing they can do convincingly well together as a couple, is have sex.

Carly: They have two things in common: sex with each other, hating Dan Foxworthy.

Christina: The big two, as we call them.

Carly: Exactly. It’s in a scholarly fashion, that’s what we would call those. Yeah, I feel like uniting people with a common enemy is the fastest way to get people to agree. But it also burns out the fastest.

Christina: It does.

Carly: Because there’s no substance there. So… can’t wait to see what happens here.

Riese: But first we have to go back to the doctor’s office where Max is being a total asshole to Tom. Yells at Tom, blames him for getting him pregnant, calls him a faggot. Pushes him against the wall and says, “You got me pregnant, faggot, it was you.”

Christina: Right. So everything about this — I’m going to boldly put transphobia aside for a second, because I was like, what is this fight about? I don’t necessarily understand anything that Max is screaming at Tom right now. Doesn’t necessarily… Again, we’ve never seen their relationship, so who’s to say if it tracks with what their relationship is.

Max yells at Tom in the hallway at the doctor's office

Carly: There’s no way of knowing.

Christina: But it doesn’t seem to make a ton of sense based on the time that they said, “what’s gardening about?” So I was just like, even as a fight, this makes no sense. And again, just the virulent transphobia of it all. I was like, “Uh-uh (negative).” Not for me.

Carly: I have a theory.

Riese: Okay.

Christina: Go on, we love theories.

Riese: We love science. Science is invented theories.

Carly: Exactly. Famously. My theory is that they saw a headline about a trans man getting pregnant. They looked at it and said, “Let’s do that.” The same way they saw Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and said, “Let’s do that.” And that’s how they invented Tasha, who does not have a storyline outside of that, because they gave her no personality or backstory. So that happened again with this, clearly. And in trying to somehow find a way to make it make sense, the writers went back to their favorite Max thing, which is that testosterone makes you crazy and mean to people and violent.

Riese: Violent, yeah. And abusive.

Carly: So he assaults his boyfriend because he can’t get an abortion because he’s already four months along. Which, again, how did he not know? But whatever, that aside. He physically assaulted his boyfriend because of it.

Riese: Right.

Carly: What is going on here?

Christina: Yeah, and what I really liked is that they gave us actually what happens in their relationship and how they get back together. “Just kidding. They’re just fine.” Some scenes later it seems okay.

Riese: Yeah. Tom says he’s not ready. The ending to this scene is Tom saying he’s not ready. I’m like, that’s well and good, and that’s an important conversation for you to have. But I feel like the more immediate issue is that your boyfriend just—

Christina: Just assaulted you.

Riese: Yelled at you and assaulted you in the hallway of a doctor’s office.

Carly: Yeah. Just maybe that’s maybe slightly more of the issue in this moment?

Christina: Right.

Carly: But, I mean, again, there’s no way of knowing where their heads are at, really, because we don’t know.

Riese: No.

Christina: We don’t know who they are, really.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: No, because the whole point of this is just to say that trans people are bad.

Christina: Right.

Riese: And they’re doing it. They’re committed.

Carly: They’re succeeding with that messaging.

Christina: In that way they nailed it, I guess.

Carly: I know, because there’s also a part of me where I’m like, “Oh, I wish we could see more of their relationship so we would understand things. Or see more of Max’s journey so we would understand things.” And I’m like, “Maybe it’s better we didn’t because they would have fucked it up real bad.”

Christina: There’s no way it would’ve been better had we seen any more.

Carly: No, it would have been so much worse.

Riese: Also the only thing they can think about, when they think about Max, is that Max has a body. How does the body feel? How does Max feel about the body?

Christina: Max have a beard? What’s going on?

Riese: That’s it.

Carly: Yeah. What’s the body look like today? How does the body feel?

Riese: Yeah, how’s the body developing?

Carly: What can we do to the body to make it painful for Max?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So we go back to Alice and Tasha’s. And now they are fully motivated to save their relationship.

Riese: This is cute.

Carly: They’re both on the same team and the team is, “We should be together.” Which, again, united with a common enemy. We’re making a pros and cons list. Love a pros and cons list. Don’t know that I would use a pros and cons list for something as important as, “Do I stay in a relationship?” That’s more like… For me, it’s more a, “Do I decide to do this thing or that thing?” But my experience, of course, is not universal.

Riese: Yeah. I thought it was funny and cute. I enjoyed it.

Carly: Yeah, it was. It was funny and cute.

Christina: It was funny and cute and I did laugh when Tasha was like…

Tasha: Hold up. Why does ‘con’ gotta be Black though?

Christina: What’s up with that? I was like, that is funny and that is some trolling I would do. If I had a white girlfriend I would also do that same thing.

Alice and Tasha are making a list of pros and cons of their relationship. Tasha asks, "why does 'con' have to be black though?"

Carly: That was great. And then Alice is like, “Red. Red is good. Red is color. Red is…” Sorry. “Red is love.” And whatever. And Tasha’s like…

Tasha: No, red represents the devil.

Riese: The devil. I was going to pull up — Oh, we’re going to get to it later and I can read some of the items.

Carly: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Riese: Okay. First we have to go to the gallery.

Carly: First we must go to the gallery.

Christina: Okay. So I want to be clear, here are my notes for the gallery. “Bette… My God… I just… Bette. Tina, I hate you. Okay, I would like to leave this gallery now.” Those are my notes.

Riese: Fair.

Christina: For this scene.

Riese: Big, big, get for The L Word this season was that Elizabeth Berkley, of Saved by the Bell fame and, more importantly, Showgirls fame—

Christina: More importantly.

Riese: Took some time to be in this program. And her role is that she is a wealthy divorcee named Kelly Wentworth.

Christina: I’m interested.

Riese: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Carly: You’re like, “I’m sorry, did you say divorcee?”

Riese: Excuse me? And it turns out that she attended college, with Bette, under the name Juicy fucking Fremont. And they…

Christina: Sure.

Riese: She is clearly just super into Bette. Bette does use the word, “Biatch” in a way that was uncomfortable for me, and I think also for Jennifer Beals. I could feel just a lot of discomfort there.

Bette complements Kelly by saying "Biyatch, the blonde looks so good on you"

Carly: Yeah. I certainly felt it.

Christina: I didn’t like to see it.

Carly: Did not.

Riese: Their whole exchange felt like torture for both them. And then, as they’re like, “Oh my God, I know you, blah, blah, blah. Your body looks great. Oh my God.” Tina’s hovering like—

Carly: Hi!

Riese: “Introduce me.”

Christina: Hello? Hi. Hello. Hello? Hello. I’m Tina.

Riese: And Bette is just —

Carly: “Remember me? Tina, your partner. Remember last episode when you sat in the car and told me that you’d never cheat on me again? Tina, that’s me. Tina.”

Riese: “With the butterfly. Remember me? We’re adopting a baby. We’re making a second floor?”

Carly: But, again, the butterfly has shifted Bette’s reality. Bette does not remember, I’m going to guess, that she told Tina she would never cheat on her again. Just something to think about, she might not recall that conversation.

Christina: And I was thinking… Obviously I was thinking about the butterfly. I was thinking about the ruffles, and I was thinking her outfit is actually incredible in this scene.

Carly: It is.

Christina: So I was like, “What has shifted? And what hasn’t shifted? What two truths came together for this one very good outfit to exist here in this moment? Was it that we had to put Tina in a wide waist belt? Or was it just 2009?” It’s hard to say.

Carly: Wow, that is really hard to unpack, which it is.

Christina: Right.

Riese: Yeah. What we learn next is that Tina actually has heard of this woman because —

Carly: This is Kelly V Fremont.

Christina: Kelly V, yes.

Riese: Tina’s heard of her because they kissed in college. And then Kelly moved out of the dorm because she had homosexual panic.

Carly: Which is a super normal thing to happen.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I feel like if I confusedly kissed Jennifer Beals, I would also have to move away.

Christina: I would have to join WITSEC. I would be like, “Listen, get me on a USA cable drama because I got to go. I’m losing it.”

Carly: “I got to go. Give me a wacky sidekick, we can go fight crime together, or whatever. Maybe we’re lawyers. We’re going to wear suits and my name is not Carly anymore.”

Christina: I can’t be Christina anymore because my mouth has been on Jennifer Beals’ mouth.

Carly: That name is gone. It’s dead to all of us. Bette and Tina walk away, and Kelly checks her out aggressively. An aggressive look.

Christina: Yep. Yep.

Carly: The only way I can describe it.

Christina: Yeah.

Riese: Because you know those straight girls, they just have a little bit of entitlement. It’s a lesbian body.

Carly: Just a little.

Christina: And Bette is still running, or whatever, so.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah.

Carly: She just read it to someone she hadn’t seen since college and she goes…

Kelly Fremont: Look at your body. Are you still a runner?

Riese: Yeah.

Christina: It’s also just one of those things that’s, yeah, that’s a very common thing to say to a person. Like, “Oh my God, you still look so great.” But no one would ever say, “Your body!”

Carly: Your body!

Christina: End of sentence.

Carly: That’s not a sentence.

Riese: Never. No.

Carly: That is a fragment, at best. It’s really just two words next to each other. So we go back to Alice and Tasha with their pros and cons list. And they have way more cons than pros, which is not a good sign.

Christina: Not a good sign.

Carly: Until Tasha has an amazing idea, “We’re going to rank the items based on a point system, so that silly, insignificant things don’t weigh as much as very important things.” Which I think is a great idea.

Christina: I do think she is right. It is harrowing how many cons they have. But when you look at them, you’re like, “Well, guys, let’s use some judgment while we’re writing things down.”

Riese: Yeah, I know they could have handled this on the front end.

Carly: Yeah, the cons feel like things that they could have just told each other in passing.

Christina: Right. Like, “Hey, could you not next time?”

Carly: Yeah. That’s most of the cons.

Riese: Would you like me to read some of them to you?

Christina: We are begging.

Carly: That would be amazing.

Riese: Okay. So here’s some good things, is that “Tasha had a mani-pedi with Alice once and is open to going again.”

Carly: I love the construction of that sentence.

Christina: That’s actually such a thing I would do.

Riese: Yeah. I know that is…

Christina: That’s really relatable.

Riese: I have also taken reluctant people to mani-pedis and been like, “Oh, she’s open to going again. I don’t know.” And then they’re always just like, “I don’t need to spend money on that.” And I’m like, “Oh fine, I’ll pay for it if you just come with me.” Anyway, “we listened to each other’s work stories.”

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Tasha calls Alice cute, and Alice likes it.

Carly: I mean, some of these are just things you would do in a relationship, period.

Christina: Yeah.

Riese: This is my favorite one, obviously, and I want this on a t-shirt. “Tasha makes Alice’s bed nice and tight.”

Alice and Tasha's "Pros and Cons" list

Christina: Wow. That’s incredible.

Carly: Wow. I’m guessing that’s an army reference.

Christina: Yes.

Riese: Oh.

Carly: Wait, did you not think that, that that’s what that was?

Christina: Oh yeah, that’s a 100% what that was. Of course that’s what that was. Bed checks.

Riese: Oh, that’s cute.

Christina: Famously a thing they do.

Riese: You can take the army out of the girl, but you can’t… No, take… Okay. So “Alice always has a cold beer in the fridge for Tasha.” That’s nice.

Carly: Just one? That’s rude.

Riese: I know, right?

Christina: She buys single beers.

Carly: Individual beer.

Christina: Just a 32 ounce Miller High Life.

Riese: Maybe it’s a big… What are the big ones called?

Christina: A 40.

Riese: Forties? Yeah. 40.

Carly: She just has one of those in the fridge at all times.

Riese: Did you drink those in college? I don’t know. Anyway, so, okay. “They like to ride motorcycles together.”

Carly: That’s cute.

Riese: “Alice brings out the best in Tasha.”

Christina: That’s too general, sorry.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: “Alice loves Tasha’s buns.” “Tasha makes Alice feel safe and stable,” which is true. “Tasha has not met anyone like Alice.” Okay.

Carly: That’s the end of that statement.

Christina: To me, that is just like Tasha has not dated a white woman before. That’s all I’m hearing in that sentence. That’s all I hear when I hear that.

Riese: That sentence has a little red arrow that goes from the con side to the pro side, where it then says, “But for some reason, Tasha resents those things too.”

Christina: Yeah. So, right. Okay. I feel even more solidified in what I said there. Great. I feel really good about that.

Carly: That’s so funny.

Christina: That’s amazing.

Riese: “Alice wants Tasha to be someone she’s not.” True.

Carly: That’s a pretty big con.

Riese: Yeah.

Christina: Huge.

Riese: “We don’t say, “I love you,” anymore,” which I don’t even think that’s true. I feel like someone’s a lazy writer there. “Alice appears neat, but has packrat tendencies.”

Carly: That’s very funny.

Riese: And I do buy that that is something that could be true, that Tasha would be constantly annoyed by.

Christina: Oh, that would drive Tasha up the wall, no doubt.

Carly: Oh, yeah. Big time, yeah.

Riese: I’ve obviously been Alice in that situation.

Carly: Also, at what point has Alice ever appeared neat?

Christina: Good. File not found, 404 error.

Carly: Yeah. Okay, cool. Just making sure.

Riese: “We go to bed mad.” And Tasha needs to loosen up.

Christina: Okay. So some of those are just wildly different on a scale. And which is why, again, I do think it’s great that Tasha is like, “Why don’t we rank these?” But some of them are un-rank-able, Like “You don’t like me.” Like…guys.

Carly: You want me to be a person I am not.

Christina: We go to bed mad.

Carly: You can’t be in a relationship. Yeah, these are not things you can build a relationship on. No, no. That pros and cons list could have just been like pros: sex. And then cons: a bunch of stuff that all was very bad.

Christina: Who you are at your very core.

Carly: Is offensive to me as a person.

Christina: I don’t like… Yup. Yup.

Carly: So we go back to this art gallery. Bette and Tina are about to leave. And Kelly does that thing that people do where they’re like, “Oh my God, let’s make plans.” Remember when people, when you would go places and you run into people, and then you have to pretend that you want to hang out with them for a beer?

Christina: “We have got to catch up.” Yes.

Carly: Got to get a coffee, get lunch.

Christina: Yeah.

Riese: Or, even worse, what she says, which is, “I would like to pick your brain.”

Christina: A chill just ran down my spine.

Riese: People say that to me all the time.

Carly: It’s the worst thing to say.

Riese: It’s the worst. They’re like, “Can I take you for a coffee? I want to pick your brain.” And I’m like for $125 an hour you can pick my brain.

Christina: Also, don’t use the word, “Pick.”

Carly: Not for a coffee.

Christina: I don’t like the word, “Pick.” It’s bringing ice pick imagery into my head. I don’t like that.

Carly: Yeah. What do you do? Lobotomize me over a shrimp salad or something. Get away from me.

Christina: Get away from me.

Riese: Is anyone ever like, “Oh my God, yes. I’d love to have my brain picked.” Or like, “Yeah, you’re a super wealthy woman who just said that she dropped $9 billion on bad art. But, yeah, I’d love to share my expertise with you.”

Christina: And a car that matches that bad art?

Carly: Yeah, that’s interesting.

Christina: That’s a baffling character detail.

Carly: Right? Okay.

Christina: Okay.

Riese: Then Jodi shows up.

Carly: Yeah. Jodi shows up before they can have that awkward dance of like, “Oh, let me get your number.” That doesn’t even happen.

Christina: Nope.

Carly: That doesn’t even happen, because Jodi’s here. And Bette, very rudely, goes right up to Jodi, who is talking to a bunch of people who seem to think that she’s great, and she definitely is there with a cute date. And Bette just walks her whole self right into that moment, and is like, “I need to talk to you right now.”

Christina: Again, Bette being a nightmare. But I said, Bette rocks.

Riese: It’s also — she’s leaving Tina.

Christina: Yes.

Riese: She’s leaving Tina with Kelly—

Carly: Yeah. Which is a great idea. It’s one of those things that only Bette can get away with doing, and even then, can she? But, yes she can.

Christina: Yes, she can.

Carly: So Bette is really upset because after their disastrous meeting at Carly University, Jodi said she’s too busy to talk to her and she should have James reach out to schedule a meeting. And you know what? She did have James reach out to schedule that meeting. And Jodi has not responded. “How dare you Jodi,” that’s what Bette is saying here. And she’s like, “I don’t know. I’m busy. What? It’s not that serious.”

Riese: Doing what?

Carly: Bette’s losing her mind over this.

Riese: Yeah.

Christina: Also, where are they located in the gallery at this point? It looks like they’re standing in a window display. I was like, “Where are you?”

Interesting angle at the gallery: you can see Tina, Bette, Jodi and Kelly and a colored window

Riese: It was shot really weird.

Carly: Yeah. That’s so… I was wondering the same thing. They’re fully in a window.

Christina: Yeah. It’s like, “Okay.”

Riese: That’s art though, I think. That’s just art.

Carly: So they become the art.

Christina: Got it. Jodi, once again, using Bette for art.

Carly: Once again.

Riese: Yeah, exactly. She’s amused.

Christina: She’s good. She’s good, that Jodi.

Carly: Incredible.

Riese: Then we go to Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace, where we learn that Helena and Kit are both sober and not having sex for work. Which I obviously relate to. And because they want to have all business and no attachments.

Christina: Speaking of attachments…

Riese: Helena’s not entirely sober, she’s just a little bit sober. And she does have sex with random people.

Carly: No attachments, that’s the key here.

Riese: No attachments.

Christina: Right.

Carly: As luck would have it, do you know who is at Hit Club at this very moment?

Riese: Oh my God. Last week it was liverwurst, this week, it’s Dylan-worst.

Carly: Dylan is the worst.

Christina: Wow.

Carly: Wow. Dylan’s here.

Christina: Yep. Dylan’s here. Dylan Stanson.

Alice gestures towards Dylan saying "the filling in the lesbo sandwich"

Carly: Yeah. Alice is really… There’s a glimpse of old chaotic Alice for a brief moment in the scene. Where she’s like, “Why aren’t you freaking out?” Alice is really funny in this whole scene.

Christina: This is the Alice I know and love and respect. Just, “Ooh, there’s some weird drama I could stir up and just spin everybody into a tizzy, then go home and do my own thing?” Sick.

Carly: Yeah. This is the Alice we fell in love with years ago, which is the one who wants to start shit with drama with the group. And then that is wonderful. And that’s what we love her for. But before anything else is going to happen here, we go to see Max, who was playing video games.

Riese: Oh, I do want to mention that she does say, “Of all the gin joints in all the world,” which I think is a Casablanca reference, right?

Carly: Oh yeah. That’s a good one. Yes. I glazed right over that.

Riese: Well done. Okay. And then we go, as you were saying…

Carly: Max is playing video games. Tom is here.

Riese: The video games literally roar, by the way. You’d go to the video games and it’s like, “Roar.” And it’s like, Yeah, we get it. Okay. We get what you’re going for with this character.

Christina: We do get it. He’s a boy and he’s playing video games because he doesn’t know how to deal with his feelings.

Carly: Are you sure you get it? Because he’s so angry that he smashed his phone. And I think that’s also very important. And make sure you really understand.

Christina: Again, it’s that trademark subtlety that I come to The L Word for.

Carly: Exactly. So Tom shows up and apologizes, which I frankly don’t think he needed to do.

Christina: My whole head, like a dog. I was just like, “Woof.”

Carly: Max is really rude when he… He doesn’t want to look at him. And he’s like, “I’m sorry, but what if we have a baby and become West Hollywood fag dads?” And I’m like, “This man assaulted you a mere amount of hours ago. And he’s currently not even making eye contact with you as you’re trying to apologize for something that wasn’t your fault, so.”

Christina: I do love a mere amount of hours ago, because again, it’s hard to say how long it’s been.

Carly: There’s no way of knowing.

Christina: It could be a different day, but I don’t think it is.

Riese: I’m pretty sure it’s been a few hours.

Carly: Yeah.

Christina: Yeah.

Carly: There’s no way of knowing.

Riese: You know what this reminded me of?

Carly: What?

Riese: In the classic cinemas of yore, when they used to portray lesbians together, they would portray them as below the rest of society. They were mean and abusive and violent towards each other, but it didn’t matter, because they’re lesbians. They’re like animals. And who cares? Yeah, and lesbian should abuse another lesbian because who gives a shit? And they won’t have to apologize because that’s what they deserve anyway for being lesbians to begin with. Anyway, that’s what this reminded me of.

Carly: Incredible.

Christina: And that’s: “this is what this reminds me of.”

Carly: A new segment of To L and Back, starring Riese.

Riese: Thank you.

Carly: So, Max says he’s not sure that he could handle being a dad and you know what? I think that’s a great jumping-off point. I agree.

Christina: I agree kind of wholeheartedly on every point.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Then Tom says a line of dialogue that enraged me. It triggered some sort of rage in me that I did not entirely understand at first and then I realized why. He says, “Come on, we both make a good living. We said we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.” And I was like, “Hold on, hold on. Pause. Pause, pause, pause, pause, pause. You what? How on earth?”

Riese: When?

Carly: First of all, I thought Max worked for OurChart. Last we heard, Max’s job was working for Alice and he was a glorified volunteer, basically.

Riese: Well they’re raking it in now, as you can tell by the fact that I don’t think the website’s mentioned for the entire season. Well, who knows? It probably is.

Carly: So they both make a good living, which, that’s news to me.

Riese: I love though, by the way, that Jodi is paying Tom handsomely for his services, I do love that.

Christina: That does track, yeah.

Carly: That tracks and I love it so much. And then they said they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Can you imagine what a conversation about their relationship would even look like? I can’t, because I literally have no point of reference. This is enraging.

Christina: I don’t know.

Riese: Well they had sex during the blackout. But that was their first date.

Carly: And that was the last time they had screen time together.

Riese: Well they were on the pink ride with all those dramas.

Christina: Oh, sure. And then Max assaulted Tom in a hallway. Cool.

Carly: Of course. And now they want to have a baby.

Carly: Yeah. Okay. Sure. Cool. Max is like, “Hey, I need to think about it. Sorry for kicking you in the balls.” And Tom’s like, “I’m sorry for knocking you up.” And then they hug.

Christina: Again, sucks.

Carly: What the fuck? I don’t know what I’m expecting, truly. I don’t know why I get so upset with these scenes because I know what we’re dealing with and how shitty the writing is for this character. But it’s still terrible every time.

Christina: It is kind of staggering to revisit and be like, “Oh right. It was this bad. Got it.”

Carly: It’s surprising every time there’s another scene. I’m like, “Oh God, what are they going to do this time?”

Riese: I mean, we’ve had a lot of trans men on the show and it impacts people, this character impacted people and how they thought about themselves and how they thought about their place in queer community.

Carly: This feels like a great place for us to, once again, plug the incredible documentary Disclosure, streaming on Netflix. There’s a whole segment in it. If you haven’t watched it, highly recommend it because it’s awesome. But also there’s a great segment about Max and about trans men talking about the effect that this character had on them. And it is really incredible to watch. Anyway, we go back to Bette and Tina’s.

Christina: Where again, I wrote, “I literally cannot believe I’m listening to Bette and Tina have this conversation again.”

Carly: Oh my God.

Christina: Did you know that people flirt with Bette, and Tina doesn’t like it? So if you came into season six, kind of wondering where they were at, it’s about there. Right about there.

Carly: It’s still the same place.

Christina: Yep, yep.

Carly: Speaking of people who are with someone, but want them to be a completely different person than they are.

Riese: Well, Tina is basically saying she accepts it. She’s like, “I know that that’s how you are and that’s what you’re doing. You like to flirt and that’s fine. That’s just you.”

Carly: That was some nice growth on the part of Tina for her to just be like, “Look, this is you and it’s fine.”

Christina: Yeah. It was shocking to see.

Carly: Truly shocking to see. But Bette is still refusing to acknowledge this about herself, which is…

Riese: Bette is doing what Bette does best which is, “But what if I just have sex with you and then you stopped talking?”

Carly: And that’s exactly what happens.

Riese: Right. Which I think is fun because it’s the nice little sexuals and we love the sexuals.

Christina: We do.

Carly: We do.

Riese: I do think also that it was nice that I hated Tina and I feel like I’ve only even said maybe nice things about Tina. I guess she changes in season five and I start to hate her less.

Carly: Yeah.

Christina: I hate her with a fire of a thousand suns forever, so…

Riese: I think that’s fair. That’s science.

Carly: I’m being completely objective in a scientific way.

Christina: Which we do.

Carly: Which is again, very important to this show. I would say that, yes, it does seem like I was a lot nicer to Tina starting in season five. And I think it’s perhaps because the people she was primarily interacting with were Jenny and Bette who were constantly doing kind of shitty things to her. So kind of like, she didn’t really change. Although it does seem like she’s maybe getting a little better at dealing with both of those personalities without just kind of being mad at them all the time. She’s kind of just dealing with them in a way that she hadn’t really in the past. But other than that, it’s just that everyone around her looks worse in comparison. Yeah. So she’s still terrible. Just give her, give her an opportunity to be terrible. She’ll take it.

Riese: Yeah. Also, Tina stands up for her when Bette’s like, “Well, why didn’t you tell Kelly that I wasn’t available?” and Tina’s like, “That’s not my job.” But they almost suggest in the scene that they are aware that non-monogamy exists, which I thought was fascinating.

Carly: They came so close to acknowledging it.

Christina: So close, and yet so very far.

Carly: Nope. It’s all this flirting in the guise of cheating, which is like, oh God, I don’t know. They have too much free time.

Christina: 2009. What a time to think about how you interact with people. It’s like, wow. Okay, cool.

Carly: What is interacting with people? I don’t even remember that.

Christina: Couldn’t be me.

Carly: So we go back to Hit Club or as we —

Riese: Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Plush Palace.

Carly: Thank you. Yep. There it is.

Christina: What I love about that is that it rolls off the tongue. That’s what I love about that phrase.

Carly: So honestly, at the beginning of the scene, the lighting was so dark that I couldn’t really tell what was going on. But Alice was watching Dylan from across the room, is the jist, I think what I gathered despite the terrible lighting. And then she looks at Tasha and she’s like, “Do you have my back?” and then just marches over to Dylan. And Tasha goes with her fully on board for this, which I loved. I really loved the energy of this.

Dylan: Alice.
Alice: Hi, Dylan. Really?
Dylan: Excuse me?
Alice: I mean come on, the hair — the hair and the documentaries? It’s like I’m not gay!
Helena: Hello, Dylan.
Alice: Good one, good one. I got this.
Helena: Alice.
Tasha: She’s got it.

Riese: The hair and the documentaries. Oh my God. It was good. Someone had to address the hair.

Carly: This is great. They’re really working together. Dan Foxworthy’s treatments are obviously working. That’s what we can see here. Alice fully shoves Dylan. So now this is the second hit that has happened at Hit Club.

Riese: That was pretty violent.

Christina: Is there a hit list? Do we have a hit list of hits that happened at Hit Club?

Riese: That would be a cute little branding thing for them. If you’re on the list to get in, it’s called the Hit List.

Carly: The Hit List! That’s cute.

Christina: Oh, that’s cute. And I think that Casablanca really ties into that really well.

Riese: The beat occurrence gave me a solid cut. Why can’t I pronounce the word Casablanca?

Christina: I think it’s just because you’ve decided to do it differently every time. I think you’ve just got to pick one.

Carly: Yeah. I think if you just commit to one version of it, then you’ll be okay.

Christina: Yeah. You just got to choose.

Carly: But maybe what you’re really doing here is channeling Alice’s moment where she is completely unable to form a sentence to Dylan, which is really funny.

Christina: Which is really funny. And I did feel very seen by that because while I am not a particularly confrontational person, I can see myself being like, “You know what? I’ve had one extra tequila and I’m going to do something.” And then getting there and being like, “I regret this immensely.”

Carly: I feel that in my bones.

Riese: Helena intervenes and is just like, “Hi.” And Dylan’s like, “You look amazing.” What she should have been like was, “Your body!”

Christina: Your body! Your body! Are you still running?

Carly: Your body!

Riese: Are you still running from the law?

Christina: But it’s also funny that Alice would feel that she needs to go defend Helena. Who on earth doesn’t need someone else to defend them? She’s ready to fight. And that’s again, why she’s a legend and why I love her. She wants to play somebody she’s going to do it. I’ve seen it.

Carly: Yes, for sure. So Alice starts catching Tasha up on what the Dylan story is. We’ll come back to that because there’s a really confusing part of that. Helena was like, “Did you know this was my club? Because this is my club, by the way.”

Christina: “If you didn’t know, this is my name.”

Carly: “This is my club, my name. The H up there, that’s my H.”

Riese: Yeah. It’s Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace. The P in Peabody is mine.

Carly: And she was like, “Oh, I just got back in town and I heard this was the best girl club in LA.”

Christina: I’m always saying that.

Helena says "and you were looking for a girl club?"

Carly: I’m like, “Well, it was probably one of the only girl clubs in LA.” So she’s kind of like, “So you were looking for a girl club, where you?”

Christina: Famous heterosexual.

Carly: Yeah. She’s like, “I finally figured it out.”

Riese: Just in time. Just after I ruined your life.

Carly: Yeah, she fully ruined Helena’s life.

Christina: Oops.

Riese: A lot of mistakes from the past were discussed this episode. So this is great. It’s great when somebody goes through their whole coming out to themselves process at your expense, I think it’s nice.

Carly: We love to see that.

Christina: This is again, I think I just got bored in my notes, writing about Dylan. Because I wrote, “Dylan I guess, like if you, whatever.” So don’t even really know what I was going for there, but…

Carly: I actually think that’s the most accurate thing you could say about Dylan.

Riese: Is she dating Jodie Foster yet at this time?

Carly: Oh, I don’t know. Are you looking it up? Well, while you’re looking it up, I’m going to continue with what happens, which is we see Alice continuing to tell Tasha this whole story. I have a couple of questions. Number one, especially with a couple that doesn’t have a lot in common. Why would they not be telling each other, other people’s drama as part of their ways to connect with each other? This story should have been told months ago. Second problem.

Riese: They weren’t dating yet.

Christina: Okay.

Carly: My second problem is that she’s filling her in on the parts of the story about Catherine and the gambling and all that. But Catherine’s beach house hosted Tasha’s going away party. Did it not?

Christina: Yes.

Carly: So Tasha knows at least some of this story. So this whole thing, while I found it to be hilarious, watching Alice spill this whole story because who doesn’t love that? And it’s such an Alice thing to do.

Christina: Yeah, Alice the gossip.

Carly: And gossip fuels my bones, so I love anything with gossip, but Tasha would know all of this already, but whatever.

Riese: Absolutely. Yeah.

Carly: Tasha offers to kick her ass which I thought was nice.

Riese: That’s cute.

Christina: I liked it.

Carly: I loved when she was like, “That girl was not gay.” and Tasha was like, “Her? That girl?”

Christina: Are we talking about the same person?

Riese: Right. It reminded me of having just Tom on our podcast who was like, “What?”

Carly: We were like, that is the gayest looking person on this show.

Christina: No doubt.

Carly: I think Dylan looks worse here than she did previously. I think her hair is not as good as it was before. I’m just going to say it.

Christina: Her hair is bad. I also was like, “Is this the lighting?” Because we refuse to put her in light. So I…

Carly: True. There is also that. It’s hard to know.

Christina: Hard to say.

Riese: Yeah, they’re really bad at lighting. So then Helena thinks it over. For some reason I wrote Alice is really goosing up this story. I’ve never used that phrase before in my life. I don’t know what I was going through. So Helena follows Dylan outside.

Helena: I don’t give a fuck whose idea it was. You took part, you manipulated my emotions, you used me and you humiliated me! And you got to be fucking insane, thinking you can just prance in here act as if nothing ever happened. Tell me that you’re happy. Tell me that you’re out of the closet. Tell that you’re oh so sorry for destroying my fucking life! Fuck you!
Dylan: Thank you. Now I know you care.

Carly: Shoves her into a car, also.

Riese: Shoves her into a car. Yeah, a lot of shoving in this episode, this is warranted and appreciated.

Christina: And frankly, it was hot. Sorry.

Carly: I was waiting for them to make out. I was fully just like, “Oh God, they’re going to make out.”

Riese: I remember when she marched out, I was like, “Oh my God, they’re just going to make out.” And then I was like, “Oh, she’s yelling. That’s better.” And she was yelling and then shoves her and then walks away. And then Dylan says, “Thank you. Now I know that you care.”

Christina: Again. Care that I guess, I guess Dylan, I guess.

Riese: You sued her for sexual harassment for a consensual relationship.

Christina: You sued her for money for your documentary that was already shot.

Riese: Yeah. Which was a bad documentary that was a white savior documentary to begin with and should never have been made.

Christina: Should never have been made.

Carly: And they wanted a wide release of a feature length documentary, even in 2009 that wasn’t happening.

Christina: Okay. That’s funny.

Carly: Yeah, cute.

Riese: It’s not finding fucking Nemo.

Carly: That’s like Alice thinking that it’s easy to write a screenplay.

Riese: So yeah. Dylan still sucks.

Carly: It is now the next day.

Riese: It’s time for one of my favorite scenes of all time.

Carly: Riese is so happy right now. Riese do you want to just tell it? I’m just going to let you tell it. Just go for it. Just do it.

Christina: Yeah Riese, I want to hear it from you. I want to hear it from you.

Riese: Okay. So this is like a really meaningful scene for those of us who have been waiting for some time for this to occur. And obviously this is an ideal situation for it to occur, because Jenny’s obviously had some problems throughout the series, but has really turned into a really evil cunt, fully, a hundred percent in this season. And that’s hard for me. But anyway, so Shane is just like, “Whatever, I’m done, I’m going to move out. I can’t keep groveling to you because you’re never going to forgive me.” Because she’s just relishing in it. And so Shane goes upstairs to pack up. She probably has some more Whole Foods bags and probably has a toothbrush or maybe she has a backup toothbrush also and a little thing of hair.

Christina: One hair dryer.

Riese: Yeah, she has a mini hairdryer she stole from hotel. And Jenny is like — Oh, I didn’t take any notes. I just wrote, “You have this scene memorized.” Jenny’s like —

Jenny: Shane, you know that it was you, right? When I said that you broke my heart. I was talking about you. You know, when I said it, I felt like my heart was breaking.

Riese: And Shane doesn’t get it at first. She gets that she broke Jenny’s heart, but she doesn’t get why she broke down his heart. But she’s willing to roll with it anyway. I think she’s used to not understanding. So she just kind of rolls with it. And then Jenny’s like —

Jenny: I also realized that I’m in love with you. That I’m like all those stupid girls.

Jenny in the hallways telling Shane "I also realized that Im in love with you"

Riese: Which is just a very vulnerable moment for her because all this time, she’s watching all these girls fall for Shane stupidly, and she’s like, “Now I’m just another one of those girls who’s falling for Shane. I’m a cliché.” As opposed to before, when she was really breaking the mold, by falling for Carmen or whatever.

Christina: Or Jenny falling for the actress playing her in her film, it’s just really groundbreaking stuff.

Riese: Yeah. But falling for Shane, that’s like, you don’t do that. This is like in middle school when I had a crush on David B****n and I was like, “It’s so cliche, everyone has a crush on David B****n.” You know what I mean? I probably said this exact line. And then they hug. But then they separate just a little bit. And then Shane takes Jenny’s face in her hands and then they stick their tongues down each other’s throats. And they go all inside each other’s mouth.

Christina: Did not know we were going to get a sound effect for that.

Carly: Damn.

Riese: Because they have immediate instant chemistry, because what is happening here is love that came out of a deep friendship. And it’s beautiful, and the music is beautiful, and the lighting is beautiful, and their outfits are beautiful. Because there’s one thing The L Word can do, which is light white people in the morning, which I think is what they’re doing here.

Christina: And I always say, that’s a great time for white people, the morning.

Carly: Historically it’s when we look our best.

Christina: Really good stuff.

Carly: Yeah. It’s great. It’s important.

Christina: Wow. Thank you so much for that Riese.

Riese: I thought when I saw the scene the first time I died. I never thought they were going to do it. I just didn’t think they were ever going to do it because no one wanted it to happen. No one. Except me.

Carly: Except Riese.

Christina: Except for, I’m going to guess you.

Riese: An oddly significant percentage of the senior staff at Autostraddle, for some reason. Sarah’s onboard with it. Laneia, big fan of it.

Christina: I just assumed it was a qualification to be senior staff at Autostraddle.

Carly: You have to be a Shenny stan.

Riese: Rachel refuses to watch The L Word, which I think is a cute bit that we’re doing.

Christina: Oh, that’s a great bit. I love a good bit.

Carly: I love that.

Riese: So yeah, this just was a really meaningful moment for me and for all of my Shenny fans out there, which according to the population of the Shenny message board at the time, it was at least a hundred people. I think.

Christina: A strong community.

Carly: Yeah. That’s great for you guys.

Riese: But they didn’t even like me because I was sometimes critical of Jenny. And so I would go on and try to like be it. And they would be like, “We hate you.”

Carly: Shunned by your own community.

Christina: That’s tough stuff.

Riese: I was, they were so mean to me. And I was honestly genuinely upset. I was like, “Here’s my Shenny people.”

Christina: Look, message boards. They were hard. They were hard back in the day.

Riese: Right?

Carly: This was the birthplace of cancel culture, clearly. You were being canceled.

Riese: I know. I started sharing screenshots with them from future episodes, as a hope that maybe…

Carly: That they would accept you as one of their own. Like an offering.

Riese: No you have to be completely uncritical. Which honestly that’s the internet for you. You can’t acknowledge that people have faults. You have to be just a fan of all of it. And I wasn’t, but I was a fan of the scene. It was beautiful and that’s love, but it’s not going to go very well.

Carly: Well, we already know that Jenny’s going to die soon.

Christina: I guess if you define not-very-well as one of them will be dead. Sure. Sure.

Carly: I guess you can describe that as not great.

Christina: What I was thinking about, during this again, pivotal moment was just how did the butterfly shirt bring this into effect?

Carly: I was also trying to think about that.

Christina: Because clearly that’s what happened.

Carly: I think we can all agree that’s what changed.

Christina: We never thought it would happen and then we saw the butterfly shirt and then it happened. So…

Carly: Exactly. And the butterfly dress was present at Yamashiro when Jenny said the line, “You broke my heart.” Therefore I think it is absolutely a safe bet here to hypothesize that the butterfly had a lot to do with these two people coming together. Also Bette lives next door. The butterfly is next door.

Christina: The butterfly is coming from inside the other house.

Riese: Yeah. First floor.

Carly: And we already know what it did to the shirt that was right next to it. Can you imagine? I’m sure its powers are very strong up close, but I think even in the house next door, you’re still going to feel the effects. The butterfly effects.

Christina: Honestly, there’s got to be international ramifications from this.

Carly: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Riese: I’m curious, how did you guys feel about this scene? You can be honest.

Christina: I said, “Oh yeah, that happens.”

Carly: Yeah. It’s hard to remember how I felt when the season originally aired, because again, I had blocked it all out, but I think I hated Jenny so much and was kind of mad at Shane and kind of just didn’t care about either of them at that point. But really when you look at the entirety of the cast at this point, who is there to care about? I cared about Kit. And Helena? Everybody is making bad decisions. I don’t know. Everybody was kind of fucking off. I don’t know. It was weird. But now I go back, I watch it, I have new eyes and much older wiser eyes and you know, I still didn’t really care.

Christina: It was just like, “Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I didn’t take a note. So I guess I didn’t care that much, but I was just kind of like, “Oh right. This is when that occurs.”

Carly: Is this earned for these characters? I think, yes. I think they did a good job of spending five seasons building the foundation for that.

Riese: There’s actually a video on YouTube that kind of covers that.

Carly: Oh of course, did you edit it yourself?

Christina: Did you edit it yourself? Is it set to “My Immortal?” Just wondering.

Riese: I didn’t personally do it, but I do watch it every now and then as a refresher, so I’ll share the link.

Christina: I’ll pull that up as a secondary source for this.

Riese: Because the seeds have been planted and I’ve been talking about every seed that has been planted this whole time.

Carly: As we’ve been doing this podcast, knowing that this is where the show is going, I think we were able to kind of talk about it with that lens. And especially for me famously not caring about any of this, but knowing that you, my co-host and friend, care deeply, I was paying more attention as well.

Christina: I was not paying that close of attention because again, this episode is very harrowing and by this point I was like, “Y’all don’t deserve my eyeballs on this anymore.”

Carly: And that is accurate. That is extremely correct.

Christina: So that’s kind of where I was. Scholarship and bravery.

Carly: Again, bravery, I would say is the theme here. Scholarship, bravery and of course the chaos that is set upon us by the butterfly. And that’s the episode.

Riese: That’s the episode!

Carly: We did it. Wow. Well, what did we think? Did we like this episode? Not great. Not a great episode.

Christina: Not great.

Riese: I loved it. Just kidding. I loved the last scene.

Carly: You just loved the last scene, right?

Riese: Yeah. Again, it was another one where I remembered it being worse than it was. However, the Max stuff is so bad.

Christina: The Max stuff is really tough.

Carly: That was very hard to watch.

Riese: Yeah. So it was a real mixed bag.

Carly: Yeah. You could say that.

Christina: Yeah, Riese I am going to need you to drop the link to the specific Jenny/Shane video you were talking about because there are quite a few. I’m just seeing in my Google search. Well, there’s a lot of just, “What’s up with The L Word” videos. Like, ok, where we left off, I guess. There’s a first kiss HD updated version, which is the first result that comes up, which is nice. I’d love to take the scholarly journey that you have taken in your life.

Riese: Well, actually believe it or not, I know where to find it because Laniea did a stand-alone post about it.

Christina: Sure. Sure.

Carly: Of course.

Christina: And it’s one of those times where I realized that, truly the call was coming from inside the house.

Carly: It has been for years.

Christina: Yep. Could’ve just checked the website that I write for.

Carly: That’s our episode. Christina, thank you so much for being here. This was so wonderful to have you on the show with us. If people loved you, hearing you today, where can they find you? What can you tell us? What are you up to?

Christina: They can come find me on twitter.com, the website, where I am literally constantly tweeting @c_gracet. Come for hot takes about hot moms and honestly musicals a lot of the time. And also you can find my writing on autostraddle.com, the website that you might’ve heard of.

Carly: And I want to, again, plug your incredible podcasts.

Christina: Thank you for continually doing that, because I do keep forgetting.

Carly: It just really brightened my quarantine this past fall when I actually was like, “Oh, I forgot.” I remember you’d posted about it. And then I didn’t listen to it right away for whatever reason. And then at some point in this past fall, I was like, “That’s what I’m going to do today.” And it was wonderful.

Christina: Well thank you, pal. And again, it was so delightful to be here revisiting what I can only describe as a garbage season of a TV show that was only ever mediocre. So that’s a journey.

Carly: Just a pile of trash.

Christina: But it was really fun to do with you guys.

Carly: It was so fun. And thank you again for your bravery and your appreciation of scholarship.

Riese: It was so fun.

Christina: And thank you both for your scholarship.

Riese: Thank you. Thank you.

Carly: Always, I always am just welcoming people and thanking them for their scholarship. And this is no exception.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter. We are @tolandback. You can also email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline! You can give us a call, leave a message. It’s (971) 217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes. And this podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on socials, I am at @carlytron. Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @Autostraddle, and of course, autostraddle.com. The reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle.com.

Carly: All right. And finally, it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three, little.

Christina: Leaf.

Carly: Christina you said leaf? That’s beautiful. What a beautiful image. Riese, what was yours?

Riese: Little.

Carly: My lips are chapped and I put on some lip balm. And now here it is, it says lip balm right on it.

Christina: I was looking at a plant to be clear.

Riese: I was looking at a book called A Little Princess.

Christina: Oh, so we are really pulling from life.

Carly: Really just ripped from the headlines of the root spaces we are in physically. Incredible. Thank you all for listening. As you might’ve figured out, we are doing an episode every two weeks right now. So we will be back here with 603 in two weeks. Bye!

Riese: Bye! We love you!

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“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 601: Long Night’s Journey Into Day

Well friends, it’s time for the inevitable and infamous Season Six here on your favorite L Word Podcast, To L and Back. We kick off this week with 6×01, in which Bette Porter impacts the fate of civilization with a dangerous butterfly shirt, Shane creeps around Los Angeles with all her t-shirts in a Whole Foods bag, Jenny throws a lamp, Tasha and Alice try to figure out if they have anything in common and Papi returns from the vortex to make us all liverwurst sandwiches!!! Oh and also, somebody killed Jenny?

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Riese and Carly: To L and Back!

Carly: And we’re back.

Riese: And we’re back. We say that a lot too.

Carly: I know, but we really are back. We’re really back this time.

Riese: We really are back.

Carly: We took, is this like the longest break we’ve ever taken? I think it might be.

Riese: Yeah, I think so. And if you don’t count the holiday special, then, I mean, it’s definitely the longest break we’ve taken from watching The L Word.

Carly: Since we began this intrepid project.

Riese: The original series. Since we began. Yeah. We took a little timeout from all of our friends in West Hollywood.

Carly: Yeah, but you know what? It’s time to let them back into our hearts and our minds.

Riese: It’s time to think about them all the time.

Carly: We are about to embark on a recapping journey of perhaps the worst season of television ever produced in the history of television.

Riese: I agree.

Carly: I feel like that’s safe to say.

Riese: I mean, not counting shows that are so bad I don’t watch them. I can’t think of any other show I’ve seen that failed so profoundly in their final season, as The L Word.

Carly: So spectacularly, it’s kind of impressive.

Riese: Epic. Yeah, it is, because it’s like, they had a lot of relatively good things set out for them. They had compelling characters, they had lesbian sex.

Carly: That might be all they had. They had the backing of Showtime and all—

Riese: Showtime. An esteemed network.

Carly: And by the time you get to the sixth season of your show, you get money. You had a budget at this point.

Riese: They had a budget.

Carly: And they just…

Riese: Musics?

Carly: Sure. Tunes. They had some good tunes.

Riese: Some good tunes. But I think the most important thing they had going for them was that I personally was recapping their television show, with all of my heart.

Carly: For sure.

Riese: And they profoundly betrayed me, personally, with this pile of terrible-ness. I don’t know why I was trying not to swear.

Carly: I know. We don’t swear on this podcast anymore. New Season Six rule.

Riese: Yeah. We’re going PG this season, all the sex scenes we’re just going to go beep beep beep beep.

Carly: And then Jenny bleeps, and yeah. Yeah. I feel like that’s something that’s really often lost in the conversation about Season Six is, how—

Riese: Is me?

Carly: Yeah. How that was a real personal affront to you specifically.

Riese: Yeah, it definitely was.

Carly: I don’t think we talk about that enough. No, one’s talking about that.

Riese: No, we don’t. Yeah. Because I think honestly talking about me in general is always a good idea, and not everyone realizes that. But I’m glad that we’re taking the time right now. Also, you should introduce the episode.

Carly: Okay. Here I go. Today—

Riese: Speaking of journeys.

Carly: An aptly-named episode, this is season six, episode one, entitled, “Long Nights Journey into Day,” because the whole episode basically takes place over the course of one night.

Riese: One wild night in an imaginary Los Angeles, where everything’s open 24 hours, including bars.

Carly: Yeah, I know, right? Like what? This was written and directed by Ilene Chaiken, and originally aired January 18th, 2009.

Riese: We probably watched it maybe a week before then, I want to say.

Carly: That seems likely. Yeah.

Riese: Because I had screeners. So we all got together at the new apartment Natalie and I had moved into. And Robin — that’s when Robin took tons of pictures of us.

Carly: Yes. I remember that. I remember that very — And I brought my Muppet. Svetlana Monsoon, my customized Muppet I got at FAO Schwartz. She’s a real, real winner.

Riese: Yeah. So Robin took really good pictures and we watched the first episode and then we all changed our clothes and watched the second episode.

Carly: So that the pictures would look like we were on a different day.

Riese: Because, I was starting to think, how could I do this with more expedience? Because I was becoming a professional woman of the world, in a business, and I was about to start my business pretty soon.

Carly: A businesswoman, one might say.

Riese: I was becoming a businesswoman. Yeah. And I was there for the special, and the special was—

Carly: Two burgers, two fries, and a diet coke.

Riese: Yes, exactly.

Carly: That’s what Romy and Michele reference for some of our younger listeners who might not know who they are. They’re brilliant. And it’s a really good movie.

Riese: You know, what’s funny is that like, when I go back to watch old episodes of The L word, often they’re sort of, like, midway for some reason, like when I press play, it’s in the middle. Usually, because like I’ve gone back and watched it or I’ve gone back to like get screenshots from it for a post for Autostraddle, usually most of the time. And the place where this episode was paused, and I know why it was paused there, had been paused there since a post I wrote, I want to say in 2015 or something, which honestly is quite some time for me to be out of touch with any particular episode of this program. But I think what that really speaks to is that after recapping this episode, I never watched it again, ever.

Carly: Until now.

Riese: Until now.

Carly: I similarly never re-watched any of season six, and have actually blocked much of season six out in my mind. So it’s almost like — for me, at least — I’m watching these for the first time in a way, because I’ve forgotten so much of it.

Riese: So yeah, we’re really coming to this with fresh eyeballs.

Carly: Fresh eyeballs that have been indoors for 11 months. So yeah, we’re really coming at it from a healthy place.

Riese: All right, should we get into it?

Carly: Let’s get into it.

Riese: The opening clip. We were just speaking about how we hadn’t seen this episode very many times, but this specific clip, I feel I was forced to watch like Clockwork Orange style, 20,000 times prior to the beginning of the season. Like they released this scene early and it is… So basically we’re starting at the end, right? It’s like a prologue to a novel, except bad. And it’s a crime scene, ladies and gentlemen and otherwise identified people. It’s a crime scene. A crime has occurred.

Carly: A crime has occurred.

Riese: A death in the family.

Carly: A death in the family. The family being, what I want to call, the Schechter Seven. Sergeant Lucy Lawless is here. She’s reporting for duty. And the officer that is at the crime scene tells her that seven ladies were having a party, and there was a little girl who was asleep. We already know the little girl is Angelica, because we are good at knowing who people are, that are on the show already.

Riese: Side note. She’s not asleep. Continue.

Carly: No. Once we go inside, we see that she is awake. And then they mentioned that they found a woman in the swimming pool.

Riese: Dun dun dun.

Carly: I would like to point out that when they say that there were seven women in the house, they meant six women and Max, because we then go inside the house, and see who’s in there. And we’ve got Shane who is soaking wet, draped in a towel.

Riese: Yeah. She just did a soak. Probably like a salt water soak at the sauna.

Carly: Yeah. Like a mineral treatment, maybe. Bette’s in a robe, to continue the spa theme. Looks like a very lux spa-like robe.

Riese: Yes, it is. It’s basically bliss.

Carly: Literally, Bliss spa, obviously. And then we’ve got Tina, we’ve got Alice, we’ve got Helena, we’ve got Shane, we’ve got Kit. That’s six people. And then there is a quick shot, where we see Max.

Riese: Sort of. I feel like I saw his mustache.

Carly: Yes! I saw his mustache, and I was like, oh that must be Max. It was very quick. But Tasha’s not there.

Riese: It’s just the side of his mustache?

Carly: They don’t show Tasha.

Riese: Tasha ended up being there that night. But she had yet to arrive at the time of this particular event.

Carly: So the seven women are six women and Max, way to mis-gender Max, once again LAPD, way to go. And I think we should call them the Schechter seven.

Riese: Also, it is beyond anyone’s … Like, no one can mis-gender Max at this point.

Carly: Full mustache.

Riese: I saw his mustache, but not him. Like that’s how much facial hair he has acquired at this point in the series.

Carly: Like he resembled the guy on the Pringles can with that mustache. That is a man.

Riese: And there’s also a dead woman.

Carly: That’s important. There’s a dead woman in the pool. That’s significant.

Riese: And we all knew who it was going to be, because they had teased us with it for a bazillion promos ahead of time. And we, as aforementioned in our holiday special, which hopefully you listened to, Carly and I appeared in a special promo for Showtime sharing our theories about who had killed Jenny, because it’s Jenny. And for some reason, they wheel her dead ass body through the living room with her face exposed.

Carly: And then take the sheet off.

Riese: Like Madam Tussaud is unveiling her wax figure at an opening night party. Like, excuse me?

Bette and Tina's living room: Bette, Alice and Tina are upset and covering Angie's eyes

jenny on the gurney

Carly: I don’t think this is normal operating cop procedure. I don’t know. I’m not a cop, but like I’ve watched some Law and Order, and I’ve watched some other procedurals, and I’ve never seen somebody wheel the body into the room where everyone is. And then be like, “Hey, check this out, check out what we found.” And like Tina is covering Angie’s eyes.

Riese: Yeah. Because ignorance is bliss at Bliss Spa.

Carly: We’re at Bliss Spa. I clocked immediately that Bette had Ikea window treatments, which really goes against everything we know about her. Which I thought was kind of sus.

Riese: Maybe when Showtime saw the script for the season, they’re like “Maybe we’ll give you 10, 20 bucks for this,” and they had to make do.

Carly: This is bad, but we already renewed it. I guess we should just let you do it, but like you’re going to get like $4. Oh, and Sergeant Lucy Lawless, her name is Sergeant—

MaryBeth Duffy: MaryBeth Duffy.

Carly: Which is like a name. Like that is a name. That name is doing a lot.

Riese: Isn’t that the name of the beer in The Simpsons?

Carly: Duff is the beer in The Simpsons, I believe. Duff beer?

Riese: Oh, and if you’re unaware of this, Lucy Lawless was there, because she’s Xena the warrior princess and the idea was that it would make all the lesbians cum in their pants to see her in a blazer, wheeling Jenny’s dead body through a living room in front of a small, allegedly asleep child who was wide awake.

Carly: Wide awake. Wide awake child.

Riese: And of her friends, who by the way, are not sad or upset enough—

Carly: They look annoyed!

Riese: Or disturbed enough. They look sort of like, “Oh, like someone knocked the nachos over, and Shane’s kind of cold.” Like no one … what?

Carly: They look a little stressed out, but mostly tired and annoyed. No one seems to be grieving Jenny at all.

Riese: Yeah. And nervous. [crosstalk 00:11:27] all going to get arrested.

Carly: Yeah, they’re nervous that they’re all going to get arrested.

Riese: Right. So the first scene, I have several notes. It sucked, we hated it.

Carly: We hated it. And no one even fangirls when Xena Warrior Princess walks in. I’m like have they never seen Xena?

Riese: Yeah, no one was like, “Wait a second.”

Carly: That’s so weird.

Riese: Anyway, we have the opening credits. They’re the same.

Carly: They’re the same, right? I was trying to pay attention. They seem to be the same as the end of season five.

Riese: You know, what they should have done? They should have had, you know the part of the credits where Jenny is naked and she has the blood creeping out of her mouth? They should have had the blood creeping out of her mouth, and then her head just snaps off, and then blood pours out of her neck all over. And then she slowly collapses into a pool of blood in the opening credits.

Carly: They should have just like fully … Like that shot of what’s her face in the pool. It should have actually just been Jenny dead.

Carly: Jenny’s dead body in the pool.

Carly: They could have just replaced a bunch of shots with dead Jenny. That would have been amazing.

Riese: I know.

Carly: It’s not like it was a surprise. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Hang on a second. Can you imagine, if they had never told us in the promotional materials for season six, that Jenny was to be dead? Like literally the tagline of season six was, “Who killed Jenny?” Which is not a tagline, but it was. And can you imagine what would have happened, if we were like, “Okay, we got the screeners, time to sit down and watch it. I wonder what wacky misadventures this gang’s going to get into today?” And it opens with Jenny being wheeled into … We would’ve lost our minds.

Riese: I’ll tell you what would have happened. You would have been thrilled.

Carly: Yeah. That’s fair.

Riese: Me and Alex would have been devastated. Robin would have taken a picture, I guess. I don’t know if she would have felt strongly either way.

Carly: She probably would have laughed. She probably would have been like, “What the fuck?”

Riese: Yeah. But Alex and I would be so mad and so upset. And you would have been so happy.

Carly: I feel like it was such a crazy decision on the part of the writers that they had tease it ahead of time, or people would have just like not watched after the first episode probably.

Riese: They had to tease it, because they definitely didn’t sell it.

Carly: No, and we’re going to get into that, over the next several weeks, as we get deeper into the season, more episodes, things like that. But for now, all we know is that Jenny is dead, and now we’re going to jump three months earlier and try to figure out how we got into this situation.

Riese: We open where we closed, at the end of season five, at Yamashiro.

Carly: We actually see a whole lot of shit we’ve already seen.

Riese: Correct. They did cut out, in the original — in the end of season five — Jenny gets up there, she starts saying her speech. She talks about how the movie’s out of her control. She hopes they care for it. They cut all of that out. And it wasn’t like a cut, like they were acknowledging something had been cut out of it. They just made it seem like her whole speech was just the part about her friends. I think what was important about re-showing this to us, is that we had another chance to hear—

Actress playing “Shawn”: I saw her outside, by the little pagoda.

Riese: The little pagoda!

Carly: That is so important. That line is such an important line of dialogue.

Riese: Iconic. So she gives her speech, they go outside, they’re yelling at Aaron about the movie. They’re going to change it. Everyone’s upset. Then also, you know what else they cut out? They cut out Jenny thanking the crew.

Carly: That’s rude.

Riese: It’s rude, because they crew, they worked fucking hard on Lez Girls. And it was a tough set, it was a complicated set. They had—

Carly: It was a complicated set. They had people showing up with flyers for parties. No security.

Riese: They had actresses coated in olive oil, just ready to fry.

Carly: All over the place. They had a set that looked like it was out of the seventies. I mean they had a lot to deal with.

Riese: Yeah. They were trying to shoot a 2007 story on a 70’s set.

Carly: It doesn’t make sense. They had so many hurdles to overcome.

Riese: They did, and they’d don’t even get a thank you.

Carly: So, we’re now finally caught up. Like we are where we saw in the end of season five, and now we get to go to something that the show loves more than anything, a car chase through the streets of Los Angeles.

Riese: Which is so realistic. I mean, who hasn’t?

Carly: Who hasn’t been involved in a car chase with an ex of some kind? I mean, everyone on this show has.

Riese: So, Shane is chasing Jenny.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Nikki is chasing Shane and Jenny.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: The most important thing about this is that when Shane calls Jenny on Jenny’s phone, the picture that Jenny has for Shane is the publicity still from season four. And I just think it’s nice that they gave that to her. She didn’t have to take her own pic, because it was low-res. Our picks were very low-res at the time.

Carly: Yeah. I mean, these are flip phones, is the kind of situation we’re talking about. This is 2009.

Riese: Yeah. It’s 2009. It’s a million years ago.

shane's picture on an incoming phone call

Carly: And again, if you forgot, Jenny does now own a Porsche. They make sure we remember that. And also Nikki is being driven by a driver, in the car chase, which is very funny.

Riese: By Aaron, right?

Carly: No, I don’t think it was Aaron. I think it was just like her driving for the night. Her car.

Riese: Well, men. You know, they all kind of—

Carly: I can’t tell them apart.

Riese: They all kind of blend together.

Carly: This is really dangerous.

Riese: Yeah. This is very dangerous. Shane gets to her own house and pounds on the door. Jenny won’t let her in. And then we cut to Alice’s, where I guess Tasha and Alice are in a fight.

Carly: They’re in a flight, and I immediately was like, “What are they fighting about? I don’t remember what happened here.” Did Alice try to break up with her or tell her what was going on with Melanie Lynskey? Whose character’s name I cannot remember now.

Riese: I think her name was Zoey or something?

Carly: No, I don’t think that’s it.

Riese: Okay. Let’s give her a name. I’m going to call her—

Carly: I could look up our name, but I don’t want to.

Riese: Call her Bart. Bart Simpson. Yeah. So, I don’t remember either. Oh, here’s what happened: Alice told Shane that how she was feeling. And Shane had given her terrible advice, because Shane was in the middle of her own shit. Remember that?

Carly: Yes. I remember that.

Riese: And the lighting was really nice.

Carly: It was beautiful. Okay. I remember that. But how did we get here?

Riese: I think what happened was, Tasha decided to wear really baggy flare pants, a tank top and a vest. I just wanted to mention that, and somehow she pulls it off!

Carly: It was a different time, where outfit proportions were just really different. And again, somehow only Tasha can pull this off. It would be illegal on anyone else.

Riese: So, they go back to Alice’s house, and Tasha is like packing up her stuff, because she’s like going to leave. And Alice takes a call from Helena.

Carly: Yeah. Helena calls, and then Alice tells her all the scenes we just watched for the second time. Which I thought was a great use of everyone’s time. I don’t think that was necessary at all.

Riese: Well, it’s about Tasha being annoyed that Alice is always taken calls in her presence, and not focusing on her as a person. And Alice is like, “You can’t blame me, because I know that we’ve both been unhappy,” and Alice doesn’t want to break up. Then, it comes out that Alice took Shane’s advice, and Tasha is like, “I can’t believe you took Shane’s advice,” which is fair. Although Shane usually does give good advice, but in this case, Shane gave terrible advice. So get your shit together, ladies.

Carly: I just need everyone to get — across the board, a get your together situation, for everyone.

Riese: We go back to Shenny’s. Jenny will not let Shane in. And she calls Shane a pathetic piece of shit.

Carly: That’s the whole scene. We go back to Bette and Tina’s, where—

Riese: Yes. Bette has gotten a haircut since … On the way home from Yamashiro, Bette was like, “I’m done with bangs,” apparently.

Carly: Done with them.

Riese: Yeah. She got extensions, or I don’t know how you do that. I don’t know how you get rid of bangs between a restaurant and a house.

Carly: They couldn’t have just clipped bangs in, even though she got her hair … Oh, whatever. No continuity.

Riese: Here’s the thing. They got rid of her bangs, but they kept that goddam butterfly shirt.

Carly: So Bette’s butterfly appliqué writes a check for the babysitter, and Tina is like, “Angie is congested.”

Riese: This is our B plot.

Carly: And the babysitter is like, “I gave her Advil a half hour ago.” And there’s your problem right there, because Advil’s not a decongestant. It’s a pain reliever, and a fever reducer.

Riese: Dr. Carly over here, with the real medical advice, that needs to be—

Carly: I really think they should consult an actual physician, and not this babysitter, who looks like she is 13 years old.

Riese: Yeah. She also seemed like not an actress. I wasn’t sure what was happening with her.

Carly: She seems like someone who just happened to be on set that day, and they forgot to cast the role, and they were like, “Oh you, girl.”

Riese: Yeah. She was bringing in wraps from the sandwich store.

Carly: She’s like, “Hey, I’m here to deliver the wraps from the sandwich store.” And they’re like, “She’s perfect! You can be the babysitter.” She was like, “Where am I?”

Riese: Get the wrap lady!

Carly: Wrap lady.

Riese: I smell like lettuce. So they can hear that Shane is like banging on Jenny’s house.

Riese: So they can hear that Shane is banging on Jenny’s house, and then Bette and Tina, there’s this sort of runner for the episode where they’re kind of disagreeing about what should be done between Shane and Jenny and Nikki about what was done and who’s at fault.

Carly: And who’s at fault, yeah. And naturally, I’m sure you could have all seen this coming, Bette sides with Shane and Tina sides with Jenny. I do love that they’re just watching this drama outside and they do not do anything about it. They’re not like, “Hey Shane, are you okay?” Nothing. They’re just like, “Oh shit, drama,” and then they just go back to their business. And that was relatable for me.

Riese: Because that’s what you would do?

Carly: When I see people with drama, I’m like, “Ooh, interesting. Okay bye, I don’t want to get involved.”

Riese: I would’ve been like, “I could go help, I’m going to go help,” and then I would’ve made it worse. But they agree to disagree. However, I will say that I felt their little conversation here was super realistic, because I feel like in conversations like this, in couples where you have an unresolved incident, like something that has happened between you that both of you feel differently about and is a continued source of tension, when anything similar comes up, it’s always about you. The argument is always about you, it really has nothing to do with the person who you’re actually talking about. It’s always about your own shit and defending your own past, or prosecuting your other own past or whatever. So that felt real.

Carly: So this whole episode takes place over the course of one very late night, and it involves all of the couples hashing out a lot of shit. And I have to say a lot of the dialogue and the performances felt real, like they felt realistic for a lot of the… I just thought it was well done in terms of all of these conversations. Because a lot of them are conversations — we’ll get to Alice and Tasha — but a lot of that is stuff that should have been brought up a long time ago, like how they have nothing in common. So anyway, but I totally thought that when they were both like, “We shouldn’t be discussing this right now.” And I was like, look at them. Growth. Good job.

Riese: Way to go, that marriage. They’re not married, but in my head they’re still married. I feel like we just talk about them like they’re married.

Carly: They are, and, spiritually. I don’t know. So we’re back in Jenny’s house, and suddenly Nikki is inside of the house, because she had keys, which was very funny. And then she’s like, “Ha ha, I’m going to let Shane in.” So then Shane comes in, and Jenny’s like, “Goddamn it.” She wants them to leave.

Riese: And then Nikki gets a phone notification and she’s like-

Nikki: Oh my God. Oh, poor Tiffy.

Riese: Nikki, by the way, is golden in this whole episode.

Carly: Nikki is so funny in this episode.

Riese: She’s so funny.

Carly: And I love… Shane’s reaction to Nikki in this episode is so good. Everything she’s doing is so stupid and it’s just not helping. She can’t shut up, she can’t help herself, and Shane and Jenny both are just so over her, and it’s very entertaining.

Riese: Yeah. And Shane also seems to… She’s immediately accepting responsibility, she’s like, “I know I fucked up, but also I do want to say that you told me that she was dead to you, but also I recognize that still it was fucked up for me to hook up with her, even though that was the truth.” And you can tell that Jenny is not only upset, but frustrated with herself for being upset. I felt like Mia was, again, doing her Emmy best right here.

Carly: Emmy for Mia.

Riese: And then they get to this weird thing where Shane’s like, “I will eat dirt, I will walk on glass,” and Nikki’s like, “I’ll eat spirulina.” And I’m like, what would that do to help Jenny’s emotional situation here, for you to eat dirt?

shane begging jenny to forgive her

Carly: She’s like, “I’ll be your slave.” I was like, oh god, this is so stupid and just weird.

Riese: Is she going to be like, “Yeah, if you walk on glass, I’ll forgive you.” What?

Carly: That would actually be it. I was thinking if you could do something, like a physical challenge, that would show that you’re sorry.

Riese: Yes, exactly, exactly. I was thinking about walking over hot coals, but now that you bring up the walking on glass option… First of all, there’s a song about it, and we love the song “Walking On Broken Glass.”

Carly: And we could play the song while you walk on the glass, and I feel like that’s beautiful. Plus where are we going to get hot coals on such short notice? We’ve got plenty of glass.

Riese: Exactly. But who has glass? Everyone.

Carly: We have glass because Jenny’s going to start throwing things in a second.

Riese: Yeah, she sure is.

Carly: But before that happens, Shane is like, “This is all because of Molly, who inspired me.” And Jenny and I have the same reaction to that, which is, what the fuck are you talking about?

Riese: She’s like, “Molly?!”

Jenny: What? She inspired you to fuck my girlfriend on the balustrade of Yamashiro?

Carly: Greatest line of dialogue of all time.

Riese: Uh-huh (affirmative). Then Shane’s like, “I didn’t fuck her.” I think she’s like-

Nikki: Jenny, she only ate me out.

Carly: I wrote in my notes that this is high art.

Riese: Yes, this is a brilliant scene.

Carly: Not to be confused with the film High Art — this is art, like you are watching art. High brow art.

Riese: Actual high art, yeah. Emmy for everyone involved in the scene, especially for the lamp who then did a little… The lamp, big moment for the lamp.

Carly: Yeah. Big moment for the lamp. You know what? It’s crazy, because they had multiple lamps, you know? I’m sure they had several lamps so they could get the lamp breaking a couple times, and that’s like stunt doubles for the lamp and that’s huge.

Riese: Yeah, that is huge. And honestly, I haven’t seen lamps take center stage like that since The Breakfast Club.

Carly: I was going to say since The Brave Little Toaster, but yeah, you’re right.

Riese: Oh yeah, good point, good point. And the lamp does a great job, it breaks.

Carly: The lamp, I’m going to say… The lamp really crushes it, really smashes it. Yeah, bah dum bum! Nikki is just completely out of her league. The type of chaotic energy that Jenny and Shane bring, Nikki is just so nowhere near this. Like, aw, sweet little bird. You don’t even stand a chance with these two. It’s very funny.

Riese: And you know that Shane is really not helping my case, you know?

Carly: No. She’s like, “Why is Nikki here?”

Riese: Yeah. So then we go back to Alice’s, where Tasha points out that they have nothing in common.

Carly: This is something that I think we should have talked about a really long time ago, and I think something that Riese and I’ve talked about on this podcast.

Riese: Yeah, we have.

Carly: Which is that these characters have nothing in common.

Riese: They have one thing in common, which is the first thing that Alice brings up, and that is that they are both allosexual people. Which means they’re people who have sex drives, and that they enjoy doing the sexes with each other.

Carly: They’re attracted to each other and they have great sex, that is what they have in common. That’s it.

Riese: The end.

Carly: The end of this relationship, question mark? We’ll see.

Riese: It seems like it’s enough for Alice though. Tasha is the only one who’s upset about them having nothing in common.

Carly: Yeah. Alice is like, “But you’re hot, what’s—?”

Riese: “But sex.”

Carly: “But sex, question mark? But your face… I don’t know, your face is perfect. What is wrong with that?” And you might be wondering, when you’re watching the beginning of this scene, why is Alice’s laptop open and facing the camera? Well, it’s there because Max is about to send her an instant message, and she’s like, “Oh, it’s Max.” And then Tasha doesn’t like that, there’s this running theme. Alice is just distracted and not paying enough attention, so she shuts the laptop. And again, kind of an unnecessary thing, but whatever.

Riese: Max almost had a line there, you know?

Carly: Yeah. So we have a quick Max mustache, and the mention of Max sending a message to Alice.

Riese: On the internet.

Carly: That is the extent of the Max stuff in this episode. But I was going to say no one was transphobic, but actually the LAPD said that there were seven women in the house, when they were six and one Max. So actually…

Riese: And one mustache.

Carly: There was transphobia in this episode. Way to go, didn’t even get any screen time.

Riese: And also, I know what everyone’s thinking, about why they thought Max was a lady, but I reject it.

Carly: Bullshit.

Riese: Then we go back to Shenny’s where Shane and Nikki have been removed from the home.

Carly: Exiled, they’ve been extracted.

Riese: And Nikki’s like, “Let’s go to the Chateau Marmont,” or whatever.

Carly: Nikki is fully like, “Well, we tried.” She’s already given up.

Riese: Oh well. And Shane is devastated.

Carly: She’s like, “I bought a house, but I have to stay at the Chateau until the house is ready.” Again, we don’t need to know any of this. Just like, “Come stay with me at the Chateau,” was all you needed to say.

Riese: The vibe is like, “You are a body, I have a body, our bodies came together. There was nothing else.”

Carly: That’s all it was.

Riese: That’s all it was, stop talking. And then Jenny opens the door and throws a bunch of stuff at Shane.

Carly: Yes, that is exactly what she does. And then that, much like the episode where Jenny carried around the trash bag, from many seasons ago, Shane will spend the rest of the episode carrying around whichever belongings Jenny chose to throw at her in a paper Whole Foods bag for the rest of the episode. It’s pretty funny.

Riese: Yeah, it’s… First of all, Whole Foods probably gave them at least 40, 50 bucks for that.

Carly: Which is the cost of one head of lettuce at Whole Foods.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So we’re back at Bette and Tina’s next door, and they are very worried about Angie. They say she has a fever and a cold. But before they can deal with that, Shane knocks on the door and they’re like, “Shut up. This is a sleeping baby. We are adults with a baby, what are you doing? Why are you carrying a Whole Foods bag?” And so Bette goes and talks to her in the living room, and Shane catches Bette up on all of the terrible Phyllis Molly things that have happened, and Shane is like, “I love Molly, I’m in love with Molly.”

Riese: “And I was faithful to her.”

Carly: “I was faithful,” and Bette laughs in her face, which was great, fully great. I really appreciated that.

Riese: And then Tina. Tina comes out and it’s like, “How hard is it for you to be faithful to someone you’re in love with?” And I’m like, “Okay, Lindsay 76, out here with your fucking…”

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Okay, okay.

Carly: All right, brought Henry to Whistler, we see you. Crazy bitch.

Riese: All right, had sex with Henry in the house that you shared with Bette while she was… What was she doing? I don’t remember that story.

Carly: Yoga retreat? Who knows.

Riese: With a stack of towels.

Carly: Caftans, no idea.

Riese: But it is also a funny little point, it just shows how different they are. And Bette has decided that Tina should call inconceivable.

Carly: Yeah. Bette has decided that, despite it being like 1:30, 2:00 in the morning, that Tina needs to call William and really tell him how passionate she is about them not changing the ending of the film. And Bette’s gassing her up and getting her riled up and ready to go, and then Tina is like, “You know what? I’m going to go call him, I’m going to go call him right now.”

Carly: And then she’s like, “I’m going to call him right here in this room, I’m not going to go into another room.” And I was like, Oh, that’s an interesting choice, okay. I usually go in another room, but sure. So anyway, Tina’s call goes really badly, like really, really badly. She tries to plead her case, he’s kind of like, “Are you insinuating that I’m bad at my job and a pushover to the marketing guys? And also, do you have any idea what time it is?” And you can tell he’s getting condescending with her, because she’s like, “You’re right. I should have cooled off and thought about it for a while.” And she gets off the phone, and Bette has this incredible, “Oh my God” reaction.

Riese: Like, “Oops.”

Carly: I was like, Bette, in this scene, has some really good reactions. Like A plus Bette reaction moments.

Riese: Yeah. And also, while Tina’s on the phone with William, Bette fills Shane in on all the movie drama.

Carly: Exactly, because Shane missed all that.

Riese: I think that obviously Bette gave really bad advice to Tina, but also we can’t forget the butterfly, and the butterfly’s role in this.

Carly: We cannot just make excuses for the sequin appliqué butterfly, because it’s not right.

Riese: It has powers. It’s already made Angie sick.

Carly: Yeah, I think it’s a curse.

Riese: It’s a curse.

Carly: It’s a curse on the whole group, and really is probably the reason that Shenny died. Shenny died? That Jenny died.

Riese: Well, Shenny died with Jenny, if you know what I mean, and you do.

Carly: And I do.

Riese: Then we cut to—

Carly: Oh my God. This scene is—

Riese: Is so bad.

Carly: So bad, and therefore, awesome.

Riese: It is 2:15 in the morning, at this bar where Kit and Helena are brainstorming names for their bar.

At SheBar, Kit is brainstorming new names with Helena

Carly: For the bar formerly known as SheBar.

Riese: First they suggest Porter Peabody’s, and so I would just like to suggest for us here that from now forward, we refer to the bar as Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace.

Carly: I second that motion.

Riese: Thank you.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: However, it’s not what they actually choose.

Carly: I’m going to call it Porter Peabody’s, for short.

Riese: Okay. I’m going to do the whole thing every time. I’m going to mess up, especially when I have my Invisalign in, like right now.

Carly: Perfect. They were like, “No, that’s not it. But I love the idea of combining our names into another name.” It’s like, okay, yes, we are on the right track. Never before has this concept of naming ever failed anyone. And they come up with Hit, like the “H” from Helena and the “it” from Kit.

Riese: “The it from Kit.” That sounds like a children’s book.

Carly: The it from Kit!

Riese: Yeah. And then they say it over and over again.

Carly: They say it so many times. At no point, does it become a good idea to anyone watching, but they are into it.

Kit: Hit. Hit.
Helena: Hit.
Kit: Hit. Hit.
Helena: Hit.
Kit: The Hit Club!
Helena: It’s a great name for a club!
Kit: It’s a Hit. It’s a hit me. Girl!.
Helena: The Hit Club! That’s it!

Carly: So Kit wants to call it The Hit Club.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Terrible. It sounds like a fight club. It just doesn’t make any sense. What about that says “nightclub in West Hollywood?” The Hit Club? That doesn’t track.

Riese: Yeah. And also you’re sort of manifesting fights and hits.

Carly: Which is literally what happens a few minutes later.

Riese: Yeah, right.

Carly: So back to Bette’s. Bette’s and Tina’s, I guess, at this point. Did Tina moved back? I guess Tina moved back in, I don’t remember where we’re at with this relationship. And Tina is berating Shane. Tina is back to berating Shane, she’s telling her to think before she acts, because actions have consequences. This is a really important lesson for everybody on this show to really internalize.

Riese: Just so we’re all on the same page, Tina and Bette are still litigating their own relationship messiness, and Shane is just sort of the cardboard box that they’re throwing all of that into.

Carly: Some might say the paper bag. The paper Whole Foods bag that they’re throwing all their shit into.

Riese: Some might say the paper Whole Foods bag.

Carly: They’re just doing a lot of projection, there’s a lot of projection happening.

Riese: A lot of projections, yeah.

Bette: Well I think that we all have to take in account a lot of things before we can judge anyone else’s behavior.
Tina: I think your unwillingness to judge has a lot more to do with your own history than any accommodation that you might make for Shane.

Riese: Which I thought was a very pointed line.

Carly: Zinger!

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And then Angie starts to cry. Not because she’s sick, but because everyone’s fighting.

Riese: And also because of the butterfly.

Carly: It’s definitely because she’s sick, but it’s also because everyone’s fighting.

Riese: Mm-hmm. And Shane’s like, “Okay, I’ll go.”

Carly: Bette goes to check on her and Tina apologizes to Shane. Wow, growth all around.

Riese: They were really determined this season to be like, “Okay. Nice, married, lesbian couples at home, who have nice normal relationships, we’re going to make you feel seen this season with Bette and Tina.”

Carly: Yeah. Unfortunately, it was too little too late.

Riese: Back to Talice’s, where Alice is talking about Bart Simpson and making a very poor case for herself.

Carly: She wants credit for not cheating on Tasha. I was just watching something the other day where a character was like, “I could have cheated, but I didn’t. And you’re welcome.” And I was just like, why does no one understand that that is not an argument? That’s not an argument. You don’t get a medal for that.

Riese: Right. Which is actually what Tasha says, and Tasha knows about medals, because Tasha was in army.

Carly: Yeah, and she got metals at army.

Riese: Many medals in army.

Carly: So this whole thing is not going great right now, and then the doorbell rings. Again, it is after two in the morning and neither of them look shocked that the doorbell is ringing at like 2:30 in the morning. I think that should come with some concern.

Riese: Isn’t anyone tired?

Carly: No?

Riese: I want to see the cocaine lines that they’re doing to make this all possible.

Carly: They all are very awake. I would be so sleepy throughout all of this.

Riese: Yeah. I’d be asleep. I’d be like, “Maybe we should break up, and maybe I’m still mad that you cheated on me, and maybe our baby is sick, but also I’m supes tired.”

Carly: Can we have this fight in the morning please? I’m so tie-tie. So of course it’s Shane and the Whole Foods bag at the door.

Riese: And Tasha’s like, “Bye.”

Carly: Yeah. Tasha uses this moment of confusion to duck out of there, which I thought was very smart. Shane is looking for a couch to sleep on, and Alice is like, “No,” but also Alice leaves. So like she totally could have just stayed there, that was shitty.

Riese: Yeah. I wrote that down, I was like, “Come on. You’re leaving.” Because Alice is going to chase Tasha on her motorcycle with her car, so just let Shane take a nap.

Alice's entryway, Shane is holding her Whole Foods bag while Tasha and Alice head out

Carly: She, in a mini Cooper, is going to chase a motorcycle, first of all. Second of all, second car chase of the episode.

Riese: Wow, it’s like an action movie, suddenly. Whew, it’s hard to keep up.

Carly: Except this car chase, we don’t get to see at all.

Riese: We don’t. Because instead, we’re going back to Bettina’s, where Tina is calling the doctor.

Carly: And Bette cannot work a digital thermometer.

Riese: Yeah. It’s probably thrown off by the magnets on her butterfly shirt.

Carly: Yeah, exactly. So this is… Okay.

Riese: Science?

Carly: If I just get kind of like science for a second?

Riese: Yeah, please do.

Carly: So all the people that are like, “I’m not getting the COVID vaccine because it’s going to implant a chip,” and like, “I don’t want to be tracked by the government,” despite having smartphones that do that already, I think that that concern should have been more so about the butterfly, because I think that—

Riese: Yeah, because what’s the butterfly doing?

Carly: The butterfly is recording everything that they’re doing. Everything. And has mystical abilities, so it’s also influencing what’s happening. It’s what made Angie sick, it’s what made everyone get in a fight, it’s what made Jenny die, eventually, three months or weeks later. Three months later.

Riese: It’s what made Shane eat Nikki out on the balustrade of Yamashiro.

Carly: It’s all because of the butterfly. And I think that if we’re going to have conspiracies, they need to include that.

Riese: They do. And I also would like a personal apology from Ilene Chaiken to us, and also to the world, for bringing the butterfly into our lives — not one, but two entire fucking episodes of this cursed beast.

Carly: Two whole episodes, including several scenes we had to watch twice.

Riese: Twice.

Carly: Two times. Not once, but twice. What outrageous.

Riese: It’s a cruel, cruel mistress.

Carly: But somehow Bette gets a reading of a fever of 104, which reminded me of the time I had a fever of 104 when I was a little toddler. And it is one of my earliest memories.

Riese: But you lived.

Carly: I did. I did live, I’m so brave. But my parents took me to the hospital in the middle of the night. I have this… It’s the only memory of being that young that I have of being in this hospital. And I just remember that I had my security blankie that I brought and they were putting cold on me and then warm and then… They were cold because I was burning up and then I had my blanket, which was warming me up. I just really remember that. And then I remember my parents carrying me out of there when it was over and putting me in the car. And that’s all I remember.

Riese: Just real quick. Do you remember any sort of insects, any shiny objects, maybe a shiny butterfly?

Carly: Like a flying insect?

Riese: If you really close your eyes and just really put yourself back in that living room, do you see it? Do you see a butterfly?

Carly: Hang on. Let me close my eyes. I’m closing them.

Riese: Okay. You’re sick. You’re getting hot. You’re getting cold. Your parents are very concerned. You have a fever of 104. What do you see? Carly, what do you see?!

Carly: I see a sparkly butterfly.

Riese: Yeah. It’s…

Carly: You were right. This is huge.

Riese: You guys… You guys, this shit has been around for a while.

Carly: This is ancient.

Riese: Yeah. This is ancient. This is we’re in Warehouse 13 now, which is a TV show that no one watched except me and Heather.

Carly: I literally never watched it. And now I’m regretting it because maybe I could have learned about my past.

Riese: Yeah, you would have learned about this so much earlier.

Carly: Oh, my God.

Riese: All right. All right. All right. Back in the present, but in the past, we’re at Jenny’s. Molly has arrived.

Carly: And guess who’s here? It’s Molly.

Riese: It’s Molly in her FREE CITY shirt.

Carly: Was that a FREE CITY shirt, because that looked like a shirt that was made by a child? This shirt is so, so offensive to me. It has cartoon L’s drawn all over it in random places. No rhyme or reason to anything that is happening on the shirt.

Molly trying to get into Shenny's, Jenny has the chainlock on

Riese: But that shirt cost $150. So you better get with it.

Carly: I was so distracted by the shirt. I could barely follow the scene.

Riese: Well, listen. Molly is like, “I’m not going to let Shane get away because of my stupid mom and what my stupid mom says.” And Jenny is like, “This is Shane’s MO, and girls always want to control her.” And Molly is like, “I don’t want to control her. I love her for who she is.” And Jenny’s like, “Well, she’s with Nikki and they were hooking up on the pink ride.” I have two things to say about this. The first thing is that on some level that still makes sense to me as a human person. Jenny is in pain and upset and she wants to outsource it. She wants to be able to share that pain with someone and here’s Molly and so she’s going to exaggerate the situation with Shane and Nikki so that Molly will be in pain with her and she won’t have to hold it by herself and she can be angry with someone else. However, she is also lying and this is evil and fucked up, and this is the first example. This is the beginning of the new Jenny that they are creating in season six so they can justify murdering her, is this very pathological, manipulative psychopathy basically.

Carly: Yeah. This is the first moment of that. There will be another moment later in this episode where you’re just like, “What are you doing?” And there’s no answer really.

Riese: She is just wearing a bra. That’s one thing she’s doing.

Carly: She’s just wearing… I wrote that down as well. I love that she just answered the door to her house just wearing a bra. Good for her. She’s had it rough.

Riese: Yeah. Good for her. She has had a rough night. And then Molly gives her Shane’s jacket, which has a note in it for Shane. And my friends, do not ever give your note to an intermediary. Do not. You got to deliver that straight to the source.

Carly: You got to hand that off into the person’s hand, the intended recipient. You must see with your eyes that they are holding the note, because no one can be trusted with a note.

Riese: Correct. And also ask yourself, “Could this have been an email?”

Carly: I want to say yes. I think yes, it could have been an email.

Riese: Jenny sits down. She unfolds the note.

Carly: Because of course… Come on. If you were Jenny, you would read the note. You might not read it out loud, which was a choice, but here we are, TV show.

Riese: Molly’s note is about touching… That’s like, “I touch you and cherish our moments,” or whatever. There’s no entrails in here. No sweetmeats. No kidneys. No nothing. None of that real raw emotional stuff that connects with Jenny.

Carly: And that’s why Jenny does what she does, which is the second sociopathic moment of the episode, where she takes the jacket and stows it away in the attic that I did not know existed in this house.

Riese: What if Shane gets cold?

Carly: Because you know she only owns one jacket.

Riese: She’s going to make herself a jacket out of that Whole Foods bag?

Carly: Yeah, she’s going to wear the bag.

Riese: Like in elementary school when people would try to be objects for Halloween and it would just be a cardboard box. You’d just be standing inside a cardboard box. That’ll be her, her cardboard jacket sustainability, it’s important.

Carly: It’s for the planet actually, not the cafe. The Earth. The actual Earth.

Riese: Right. Yeah.

Carly: So then we go back to the hospital and… I’m sorry. Then we go to the hospital where Bette just snaps and goes into an incredible classic Bette Porter monologue where she is screaming at the lady working the desk about paperwork.

Riese: Yeah. The butch lesbian working the desk. She is yelling at her about her not acknowledging Bette as the mother of the child, because this is 2009 … But no one’s paying attention again to the real issue, which is the butterfly, which she is now exposing an entire hospital.

Carly: An entire emergency room is now exposed to the butterfly, which means that they are all now cursed as well. You know what this is, Riese, if I may?

Riese: You may.

Carly: I think this is the butterfly effect.

Riese: Oh! Carly.

Carly: Yeah. We cracked it. This is the butterfly effect. We’ve all heard of the butterfly effect.

Riese: We have.

Carly: But we’ve never seen it.

Riese: We’ve not seen it.

Carly: It’s theoretical. It’s something that you can witness the effects of, but you cannot see the actual butterfly effect.

Riese: You can’t. You can’t.

Carly: Until now.

Riese: But we are see it in this season of The L Word.

Carly: We are seeing it.

Riese: This season, The L Word is so profoundly mediocre-to-terrible that we have imagined it to be something else entirely. And we’re right.

Bette in her butterfly shirt at the hospital yelling at the receptionists about how many same-sex couples exist

Carly: The only reason that this season is what it is, the only thing I can possibly think of to explain it, is the butterfly effect. Bette wore a butterfly on her dress and that led to a series of consequences, which reverberated throughout the whole season and truly made for very bad television. And I think that is what we need to talk about.

Riese: It is. So you’re welcome, everybody. Then we go to a restaurant, I guess?

Carly: When Shane is standing in the front by the counter, for a second it looked like The Planet, and I was like, “What time is it? What is going on?” And then we realized it’s a diner.

Riese: It’s at least three. Yeah. Shane’s there and somehow Nikki and all of her terrible friends come in and they have the munchies and…

Carly: And they absorb Shane into the group as like an amoeba.

Riese: Yeah. And Nikki kind of treats Shane like a… Yeah, like an object, like a prop kind of. She’s like, “Oh, look at Shane.” And then she’s like, “Isn’t she sexy, you guys?”

Carly: And the friends are not paying attention at all. They’re all just really high and just want to eat some cheese fries, which is something I understand.

Riese: Yeah. I could relate to that motivation. And then Jenny texts Nikki to say that she should come over and Shane always puts the needs of others before herself, and so she’s like, “Yeah, yeah. You should go over. Oh, well. I guess I lost and Nikki won. She gets to be with Jenny and I don’t. Blah, blah, blah.”

At a diner, Nikki playing with Shane's hair like she's a doll

Carly: I also think Shane wants to be away from Nikki so badly right now that any reason to get her away would be great and she’s just over.

Riese: But she also doesn’t lie to her. When Nikki’s like, “Do you think she loves me?” I thought Shane was going to say yes, and she’s like, “I don’t know,” which is true.

Carly: Yeah. She goes…

Shane: I don’t know. Sure.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. “I don’t know. Sure.”

Carly: That was great.

Riese: And then Nikki leaves and all of Nikki’s friends leave too. What? Are they going to order grilled cheeses?

Carly: Are they all going to Jenny’s house?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Did they not probably send an order yet? Maybe they’re going to In-N-Out and they’re going to sit in that drive-thru line.

Riese: Oh, yeah. Line. That goes right past my house.

Carly: Right past your house.

Riese: Apartment.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Back in the car.

Carly: Okay. So whoops, Bette made a little error somehow. “This is so crazy. You guys aren’t even going to believe it. “I thought my daughter had a fever of 104 and it was just 99.5. I know. I’m so mortified.”

Riese: “Whoops. No.”

Carly: That actually is what happened.

Riese: But it’s okay because Bette and Tina love each other.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Speaking of love…

Carly: Oh, my God. Speaking.

Riese: Alice has followed Tasha all the way to, I don’t know, the east side of LA?

Carly: I guess so.

Riese: We never really find out where they’re going.

Carly: Where Papi actually lives.

Riese: Where Papi lives. Papi could live literally anywhere.

Carly: We would never know, because they never developed this character at all.

Riese: Right. And so that’s where Tasha is going, and Papi leans over her balcony like Juliet, and Alice is like, “Oh my God. I thought you fell off the face of the Earth.” And it’s like, yeah, because you just started ignoring her after season four because she was never there at all.

Carly: Yeah. And you’re kind of insular with your community, your little, white lady, West Hollywood world. Come on.

Riese: Yeah. And meanwhile all this time, Papi is obviously very wealthy. Look at this fucking apartment!

Carly: I know. It was super nice.

Riese: It’s nicer than anyone else’s. She goes in…

Carly: Nicer than Alice’s…

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah. That’s right, Alice. Suck it.

Riese: They go in and Papi makes stupid Papi sex jokes and opens the door. And who is in Papi’s bed?

Carly: You’re never going to believe it.

Riese: You’re never going to believe it.

Carly: Blast from the past.

Riese: But you better believe it.

Carly: Alice’s ex.

Alice: Fucking Gabby Deveaux.

Riese: Wow.

Carly: Wow, wow, wow.

Gabby Devoux in Papi's bed

Riese: Wow. So now Alice is in the middle of her own chart. Just all around her are people she’s had sex with.

Carly: Just in hell.

Riese: In hell. And they are in Papi’s house. And thank you to the show for playing some Latin music in the background, just so that we’d know.

Carly: Because we wouldn’t have known we were at Papi’s house otherwise. Yes. Good job. Good job.

Riese: Great, everybody.

Carly: Yep. There’s a moment where Papi rolls her eyes at Alice because Alice is just going to follow Tasha into her apartment even though no one wants her there. Papi’s eye-roll was so good, such a good eye roll, this over-the-top eye roll.

Riese: Would you give the eye roll an Emmy?

Carly: I would give it a Golden Globe, because it’s kind of international. Hollywood Foreign Press. You know what I mean?

Riese: Yeah. That’s fair. We go back to Jenny’s.

Carly: We’re back at Jenny’s. Sexy time. So Nikki’s here and she opens the door and they just start going at it. And Nikki can’t shut up. Everything she says is terrible. Keeps apologizing… And Jenny just wants her to shut up so badly and she’s rough with her and it’s hot. And she won’t shut up. “Shut up. Shut the fuck up.” That’s the whole scene. Then we cut to Shane leaving the diner. That’s the whole scene. Wow.

Riese: Well, first she’s sitting with her Whole Foods bag and then she takes her Whole Foods bag.

Carly: Then she and her Whole Foods bag leave the diner.

Riese: Leave the diner. So womp, womp.

Carly: And like a sad trombone plays as she exits.

Riese: Yeah. A guy with a trombone sitting in a booth. Womp, womp.

Carly: Womp, womp, womp. It’s the new Shane theme song. It used to be a gnarly guitar riff and now it’s a sad trombone.

Riese: It’s a journey. It’s a long nights journey into day.

Carly: Yeah. Then we go back to Papi’s for some casual racism.

Riese: Yeah. Alice is picking up some of the things that Papi has out as decor or whatever. And Alice’s like, “Ooh, look at these little dolls, blah, blah, blah.” And Tasha’s like, “Come on.” And Alice is like, “You got to admit. It’s a little tacky.” And Tasha’s like, “It’s her culture, Alice.” And she’s like… It was so bad.

Carly: It’s so bad. I just want Tasha to kick her out at this moment. Tasha has been trying to break up with her all night and can’t seem to shake her and it’s like, “Just please leave, Alice. Go away.”

Riese: But you know what I appreciated, though, is that this is a moment where Alice says something fucked up and it is acknowledged as fucked up, which is a big step for the show, because in the past people just say fucked up things and it would exist as though it was fine to say those things. And now they’re actually naming them, and so growth and change for everybody here. Great job.

Carly: Incredible work.

Riese: Speaking of growth and change, Gabby and Papi come in as Tasha is telling Alice that she was a snob. She’s a snob but she wasn’t a snob when Tasha met her. And Gabby was like, “No, she was a wannabe. And now she’s a wannabe with money.” And this, actually — I thought this scene was very well done because it sort of showed Alice’s vulnerability and Gabby just sort of pushes her buttons and Tasha stands up for her. And…

Alice: What?
Tasha: You weren’t like this when I first met you.
Gabby: Actually, she was a wannabe. And now she’s a wannabe with money. Ever think about investing in a stylist with all that money, Alice?
Tasha: You need to watch your mouth.
Gabby: Ooh. Alice has a big butch daddy to protect her. Can you give me the liverwurst one?
Papi: Yeah. Yeah.
Alice: You sure that’s liverwurst I smell?
Gabby: I wonder if your friend knows that her girlfriend used to be nicknamed Crash, because she used to show up at parties she wasn’t invited to.

Riese: Liverwurst?

Carly: Also, Gabby’s not entirely wrong. But Gabby made some points. Sorry about it. She did. I’m just kind of on a not liking Alice vibe right now. So…

Riese: I wrote down that I am both annoyed with Alice and feel sorry for her.

Tasha looking at Papi and Gaby with despair as Gaby calls her Alice's "big butch daddy"

Carly: Yeah. Yeah. Fully.

Riese: She was very vulnerable with Gabby. But also Papi is making liverwurst sandwiches? What’s liverwurst, even? I know I’ve heard the term a million times, mostly when I was younger, since I feel like it’s a ’70s food. But what is it?

Carly: I don’t really know. But she shoves a full sandwich into Gabby’s mouth to shut her up, which was pretty funny. Physical comedy.

Riese: And then once they leave, Alice is like, “That’s who I was before you,” and says that Tasha is the best person she’s ever met.

Carly: And she’s not ready to lose her.

Riese: And that can be true, but Tasha doesn’t owe her a relationship just because Alice thinks she’s the best person she’s ever met.

Carly: No, that’s not how that works at all. So we go to a self-fulfilling prophecy. We go to Hit Club where some girls are fighting.

Riese: A.K.A. Porter Peabody’s Pleasure Palace.

Carly: So when the party-goers showed up that night to go to the bar, the sign outside said Girl Bar.

Riese: SheBar.

Carly: It said SheBar. Whoops. Yikes. And so Helena fully breaks up a fight, puts a girl in a headlock. And she’s like, “No one fights at Hit Club,” which is funny for several reasons. Number one, no one knows that this club is called Hit Club, so they’re like, “What the fuck are you talking about?” Number two…

Riese: No one hits at Hit Club? Come on, guys.

Carly: Come on. That’s ridiculous. What a ridiculous name. This is so stupid.

Riese: Yeah. No one fights a Fight Club? Come on.

Carly: Yeah. Exactly. “First rule of Hit Club, don’t talk about Hit Club.”

Riese: They’re breaking every rule.

Carly: They’re breaking all the rules. And again, I think this could be traced back to the butterfly. Then Shane and her Whole Foods bag roll up into the club, sit at the bar and would like a shot of Patron.

Shane at the bar at Hit Club with Helena

Riese: Patron. Tequila. And…

Carly: Oh, God.

Riese: Helena says that women are poison.

Carly: Women are poison.

Riese: Which we all know from lesbian covers of Taylor Swift’s song “Blank Space,” where we find out that women are poison.

Carly: Famously.

Riese: Famously. And now we’re back to the car and Bette is apologizing to Tina for defending Shane and says she doesn’t want to be casual about the promises she’s making to Tina and that she shares her values of family and faithfulness and that she won’t ever cheat. Like, okay. Good job. Good job?

Carly: Tina looks at her with this deep sincerity and she goes, “Wow.” And I’m like, I’m sorry. Did that work? Do you feel like this is a changed person who’s just a totally different person now?

Riese: Congratulations. I mean, first of all, this is obviously just meant to be some sort of foreshadowing to the stupid thing they’re going to try to build up later, which doesn’t actually… Whatever. We’ll all witness this catastrophe as it plays out. But it’s pretty stupid. I would say when you’re getting back together with someone and moving back in with them and you know that you are both wanting to be in a monogamous relationship that that’s kind of a given.

Bette and Tina's car, Bette promises Tina she will never ever cheat again

Carly: Sure. I also would like to once again point out to the people that make this show that monogamy is not the only option. And I think that if any of the couples in this episode that have drama could have in any way acknowledge that, then that might’ve been a little different, but whatever.

Riese: We are who we are.

Carly: It’s not my show. It’s not my show.

Riese: We go back to Papi’s, where now the subtitles are doing the work for us in this. The captions are doing the work for us here. They are describing the grunts and groans in all of their grunty, groany glory. The grunts and… The glows and grunts blah blah blah that’s happening with blah blah blah. Papi and Gabby in the sex rooms and laugh, laugh, laugh. Alice and Tasha are laughing. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Carly: There is something lovely about this moment because it’s that thing when you’ve been with someone for a while and you can make fun of stuff together, almost with a shorthand. They’re not talking. They just start laughing. And I thought that was really cute and relatable. And then somehow Alice convinces Tasha to come home with her. Good job, Alice. Wow. Didn’t see that coming.

Tasha and Alice sitting in Papi's kitchen while sex noises happen

Riese: Yeah. Nice.

Carly: Really didn’t think it was going to end well.

Riese: A real win.

Carly: Huge. Huge victory.

Riese: And Tasha’s like, “Yeah, but I’m going to sleep on the couch.” And it’s like, “All right.”

Carly: Alice is like, “Sure you will.” But she does.

Riese: Then we go back to Jenny’s where they are having more sexuals. Jenny is topping. They both have a lot of rings on. And I’m not entirely sure what’s happening here, but it’s sexuals. There’s sex being happening. It is passionate.

Carly: It is sexual in nature. It is passionate, fiery.

Riese: Yeah. It was a scene of—

Carly: Intense sexual nature.

Riese: Yeah. There’s real passion between these women, a real explosion of fire.

Carly: Like a fireball.

Riese: Like a fireball. Yeah. Or like a firework.

Carly: Interesting.

Riese: Do you ever feel like a paper bag in Shane’s arm?

Carly: I sometimes do you feel like a paper bag and then I get very drowsy. So much so that I could fall asleep at the club. We go to Hit Club where Shane is asleep at the club.

Riese: At the Porter Peabody Pleasure Palace.

Carly: It’s closing time.

Riese: Shane has fallen asleep in a tiny bubble chair. Closing time.

Carly: Which is great. The implication here is that she drank a lot more tequila than we saw. I think that she is so drunk that she has passed out again with her Whole Foods bag. No one has stolen it from her because it probably didn’t look like it contained anything of value. And no one has stolen it from her, because it probably didn’t look like it contained anything of value.

Riese: Just a few ratty T-shirts.

Carly: Yeah. They play “Closing Time” by Semisonic, so that she knows it’s time to leave, as everyone traditionally understands that that’s what that song is for.

Riese: I have a question.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Don’t bars here close at 2:00?

Carly: Yeah. So that was going to be something I wanted to mention, is that they’re treating Los Angeles like New York City in this episode. Bars are not open this late. I mean, back when we had bars and things in the evenings.

Riese: Bars are not open, full stop.

Carly: But when they were, they were open till 2:00 at the dot, on the dot. You were gone by 2:00. You were out of there, unless you were going to some sort of after hours thing, which is not really my scene. So I wouldn’t be able to speak to that, but I know they exist.

Riese: It does seem like there must be … You can’t serve alcohol after 2:00, right? Or something?

Carly: I believe so. Yeah. Usually, they cut you off before that if you’re out someplace. By 1:30, they’re done serving, I feel like.

Riese: So this is obviously an underground establishment, that’s breaking all the rules.

Carly: All of them.

Kit trying to get Shane out of the bar telling her to put one foot in front of the other

Riese: This is never addressed, for some reason. So don’t hold your horses for that. And then we go to Alice’s. I didn’t know that Alice’s sofa pulled out.

Carly: I didn’t either. We’re learning so much. Alice is learning so much, because she’s never been—

Riese: She’s got a full sofa bed!

Carly: She’s never even sat on her sofa bed. So she…

Riese: She hasn’t.

Carly: …pops up, pops down right next to Tasha on the sofa bed. And she’s like, “Oh, this is comfy.” And then she’s trying to cuddle and it’s cute.

Riese: Yeah. They both look really cute. Tasha, she has her hair down. She has a bandana on. And then Alice has her little glasses on, and her little hairs. And they both just look so adorable.

Carly: Yeah. And Tasha is like, “You are not a serious person.” And Alice is like, “I can be serious. Watch.” And she tries to not laugh or smile for like five seconds, and then breaks. And I thought that was really relatable. Because I’m also not a serious person.

Alice and Tasha being cute in the pull-out sofa bed

Riese: Yeah. I, in this moment, related to them, because it reminded me of a relationship, I was somewhere. I felt like what we had with each other was a very cute dynamic, wherein we were very different, and I was sort of silly and squirmy, and she was a little bit more serious. And so we enjoyed our each other’s presence and banter and sexual chemistry. But what did we have in common? Not that many things.

Carly: Not much?

Riese: More than Tasha and Alice have in common though, I would say. We had a lot more to work with. So I related to this, maybe 20% related to this.

Carly: Cool.

Riese: I would like to suggest that they go to therapy.

Carly: I would like to suggest that they don’t go to Dan Foxworthy.

Riese: Guess what? You guys are going to go to Dan Foxworthy! We go to Kit’s house, where Kit is putting Shane to bed. And Shane is sad. She’s like, “I totally fucked it up. And it wasn’t even worth it.” And she’s just so devastated losing Jenny’s friendship. Because Jenny was her best friend in the whole world. And they talked about how Jenny’s life has been really hard, and that she’s too delicate and fragile. And Shane was the last person she expected to betray her.

Riese: And then Kit is like, “You know what, Shane? You need to fight for Jenny. You let all of your women go, and you need to fight for this friendship.” And Kit is correct. Shane folds like a chair every time that anything… Even with Phyllis, she’s just like, “Okay.” She immediately went and pushed Molly away within five minutes.

Carly: She does not fight for anyone.

Riese: Nothing. No.

Carly: She is the most passive person in all of her relationships, of any kind.

Shane puts her hands on her head in frustration atop Kit's couch

Riese: Well, I guess she went to Cherie Jaffe’s. But that was more about explaining herself, and making sure that Cherie didn’t think she had slept with her daughter, because that would have been really fucked up. I guess she did go to Shane’s — or Carmen’s cousin’s house? But…

Carly: That’s too little too late at that point.

Riese: Yeah. Anyway, yeah, Shane has an inconsistent record. A lot of the time, Shane just gives up.

Carly: And Kit tells her, “Go fight to the death.” Foreshadowing, perhaps?

Riese: Dun dun dun…

Carly: Just a thought.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: So this whole episode, up until this point, has been one night, and not just only a couple hours. Finally, it is morning. This scene is incredible.

Riese: Morning time. All the birds are in the trees, hearing them chirping, and everyone is in lights. Carly’s doing a big yawn.

Carly: I just yawned so dramatically. So Nikki wakes up next to Jenny and they both look so happy. And Nikki tells her she loves her. And it was so romantic when Jenny said, “You’ve broken my heart.” Oh, Nikki, you’re so dumb.

Nikki leaning on Jenny's shoulder in bed, naked, quoting Jenny saying "you've broken my heart"

Riese: Yeah. Yikes.

Carly: So then Jenny …

Jenny: You didn’t break my heart. You’re nothing but a self-absorbed, self-indulgent little brat. And our affair on set was nothing but a showmance. And when I said that you broke my heart, I wasn’t talking about you, darling. It’s time for you to go.

Riese: And I liked it.

Carly: This is, again, kind of psychotic, but also deserved. Nikki earned this. Well, did she? I mean, is that terrible for me to say? I don’t know. I feel like Jenny’s not entirely wrong, although they were kind of—

Riese: No. Yeah, they—

Carly: She was acting like she was in love with her for awhile.

Riese: Well, I mean, they’re retconning so many things with Jenny this season, one of them is that they didn’t have a real relationship. And they did have a real relationship.

Carly: They fully did.

Riese: Yeah. And also, honestly, Nikki wasn’t this stupid last season either as she is now. I love this character.

Carly: No, she wasn’t. They’re making her out to be a real idiot.

Riese: Yeah. And I like this version of Nikki, because it’s funny, but it’s also not super consistent with last season. And they definitely had genuine feelings for each other.

Carly: Yeah. We saw that over many episodes last season.

Riese: Yeah. But Nikki, this episode, has shown herself completely willing. When Jenny is mad, then she’s just willing to go, “Oh, well. Let’s go be together,” to Shane. So, yeah, she deserves this.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Showmance.

Carly: So Jenny kicks her out. Bye, Nikki.

Riese: Yep. Bye, Nikki. We’ll see you later, if you want to talk about Jenny at some other point in this.

Carly: So now we’re at The Planet, and everybody’s there.

Riese: All the gang is here!

Carly: Except I didn’t see Max, but is he part of the gang?

Riese: No.

Carly: Kind of inconsistent. We don’t know. Kit and Helen try to keep Shane and Jenny apart. But Shane is like, “No, I’m going to talk to her.” And Jenny’s like, “If she sits at this table, I am going to leave.” And then Jenny fractures the group and creates a new table. This is huge. A second table.

Riese: There’s the thinking-it’s-cheating table, versus the don’t-judge-a-cheater table.

Carly: Yeah. So, at one table, we’ve got Tasha, Tina, and Jenny, which I can’t imagine what that group is chatting about. What a fun group together.

Riese: What on this planet are they going to talk about in The Planet at their table? They have nothing in common. And also this is a TV show. So at the anti-bad behavior table, we have Jenny, who had a full affair with Marina, while marrying Tim. And I can’t remember what happened after that. And, obviously, that had some context or whatever. But, I mean, okay. And she did love and care about Tim. Whatever. Anyway, so we have Jenny, who cheated on Tim with Marina, which I understand, but it still exists. It’s still there.

Carly: And we have Tina, aka Lindsay76.

Riese: 76. Yeah. We have Lindsay fucking 76 herself over there, waiting for the pre-cum to squirt out in high judgment, in high judgment.

Carly: And Tasha—

Riese: And, Tasha, who indeed is perfect, in this regard.

Carly: Exactly. Actually perfect. It is the only one that should be at the anti-cheaters table.

Riese: Yes. Yes. Although, she did say that she cheated on somebody once. Remember, when they were at the campfire?

Carly: Oh, I completely forgot about that.

Riese: She said she cheated on that girl that they ran into on the pink ride. Yeah.

Carly: Oh, shit.

Riese: But she’s reformed.

Carly: Reformed cheater. There you go.

Riese: And then, at the other table, we have serial cheater, Bette Porter. Never found a relationship that she couldn’t cheat on. And we have Shane. We all know Shane’s evil.

Carly: We all know about Shane. And Alice, who’s just all over the place.

Riese: Yeah. Alice, who’s all over the place. And then what we have here is a little eye play, some deep, deep, deep lesbian conflict.

Carly: Oh yeah.

Riese: Eye contact.

Carly: Said only through glances, the eyes.

Jenny at The Planet saying that it's "just a bit hot"

Riese: Yeah. The hills have eyes. And by the hills, I mean the characters on this show, and they are gazing.

Carly: Exactly. On the show, The Hills, which is also in California.

Riese: Correct. So it’s all connected. And don’t forget, again, the butterfly.

Carly: Butterfly.

Riese: Kit is like, “Come on guys, are you kidding me?” They’re not kidding. They’re dead fucking serious.

Carly: Just shouting in the middle of the restaurant, which I loved. Also, it seems like Helena also works at The Planet. And I was like, “Okay, whatever. I guess you guys are just business partners now. I’m not going to question that.”

Riese: I love it.

Carly: It’s great. It’s really great.

Riese: And, yeah, so we end with some stares. We’ve got Jenny staring at Shane. Tasha, I’ll tell you what, loves to take a side.

Carly: Ah, loves it.

Riese: Loves to take a side. And Alice hates it. And so Alice keeps looking at … Alice is communicating a lot with her eyes. Everyone else is sort of communicating a steady emotion. Shane says, “Please forgive me.” And Jenny says “No.” But Alice is going through, like, “Could you please, maybe if you came and sat over here, we just ordered waffles.” She’s really trying to say a lot over there. And Jenny thinks it’s too hot. It’s like, “Oh, it’s so hot in here.”

Carly: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It’s a real issue.

Riese: And she’s waving. I’m waving now. I’m waving like a fan, right now.

Carly: You at home can’t see it. But Riese is kind of wafting air around.

Riese: Well, and I believe that was the end of this little piece. That’s it.

Carly: Yep. We do not go back to three months later in the present. We just stay in this past thing, where it’s now just the morning after the season five finale. That’s as far as we’ve gotten, chronologically at this point.

Riese: And I feel like we’re going to get about three months farther by the end of the season.

Carly: That’s a great theory. I think you’re right.

Riese: If the butterfly has anything to do with it, we will.

Carly: Carol, wake up!

Riese: And that’s the episode.

Carly: That’s the episode!

Carly: Well, one down, a bunch more to go. What’d you think of this episode, Riese?

Riese: It wasn’t as bad as I remembered it being.

Carly: Yeah, this is not the worst of season six, for sure. And there’s some decent acting and nice writing in this episode.

Riese: Yeah. Some fun cameos with Papi.

Carly: And Xena Warrior Princess.

Riese: And we get a major supernatural conspiracy theory that has haunted us for generations.

Carly: Which is huge. And are they going to explore that in the rest of the season? It remains to be seen. And I can tell you that they do not. But we will. We are not going to let this go unnoticed. We’re going to uncover the truth about this wretched, cursed, butterfly.

Riese: Yeah. We have a lot of mysteries to solve this season.

Carly: We sure do.

Riese: First of all, pear polenta tart, what’s going on with it? Second of all—

Carly: Well, how much does it cost, at this point? Is it still on the menu?

Riese: After the casualty in the pool, is it still kind of open for business? Could other people, maybe people who aren’t spooked by the fact that someone died in the pool, could they go to the pool if they wanted to?

Carly: Did she drown? Or did she die and then fall into the pool? These are questions we need answered.

Riese: Right. Or did she walk in like Virginia Woolf?

Carly: Were there rocks in her pockets? Something you should check.

Riese: Were there rocks in her pockets? Ever heard of Ophelia from <emHamlet? Look it up. Think about it.

Carly: Another thing to look up, it would be some sort of crime scene procedure, and whether or not you’re allowed to just wheel an uncovered body through a house where there’s an awake child sitting there. And also all the friends of the deceased person. And they just stopped.

Riese: Yeah. Who all smell like spa.

Carly: They just stopped in the middle of the living room.

Riese: Yeah, a little display.

Carly: As if to be like, “Look what we found.”

Riese: Yeah, yeah. Just like on a walk.

Carly: Check it out, like, “Hey, guys, is this your friend? That’s so weird.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Totally fucked up.

Riese: So I would say this episode was fine. I’d give it a medium.

Carly: Yeah. This is a medium. We’ve got a real road ahead of us though.

Riese: Oh, we do. So this season of To L And Back, we’re going to be doing every other week, every other Monday, instead of every Monday. Because—

Carly: Because we just really want to draw this out.

Riese: We really want to dry it out forever! No, it’s just been harder to keep up with this with the every week schedule, with our lives at this moment.

Carly: Right.

Riese: But we’re really committed to it, and we’re really committed to you. And we have missed all of our listeners dearly.

Carly: Yes, we have missed you all so, so much. We hope everyone is doing okay. If you want to post any comments on our socials, and tell us how happy you are that we’re back, that would be totally okay.

Riese: That would be affirming for us.

Carly: Do you want to comment or review, like rate or review the show on your particular podcast app of choice? That’s not a bad thing. None of these are bad things, unless—

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Well, if you have a negative opinion, I would say keep it to yourself. But if you have a positive one, I would say share it with the world. And that’s kind of how I feel about how you might feel about us on the show.

Riese: Yeah. Correct. And we’re going to have other guests on the show, as the show proceeds. And as we dig into, as aforementioned, some of the worst television writing in the history of the medium.

Carly: By far. Yeah.

Riese: And I personally am just already dreading that eventually I’m going to have to watch 608 again.

Carly: Yeah. I know. It’s not fair to either of us. But you know what? We’ve committed to this and we have to see it through.

Riese: I guess that’s all. I guess that’s all we have to say about this. Can’t wait to find out what happens next week on this program. But, I’ll tell you what, I hope someone burns the butterfly.

Carly: That’s the only way to destroy it. As long as it lives in Bette’s closet on a hanger, even if it’s in a garment bag, it still holds immense power, which is what the prophecy foretold.

Riese: Yes. And we’ll be getting into that, as you know, as the season proceeds.

Carly: Of course.

Riese: And I guess, in conclusion, the end. And in case you’re wondering, yes, I do live right across the street from a Ross Dress For Less now.

Carly: Are you really close to the Wendy’s?

Riese: I am very close to the Wendy’s.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L And Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter, we are @ToLAndBack. You can also email us tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline! You can give us a call, leave a message. It’s (971) 217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes. And this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron. Riese is at @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And, of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle.com!

Carly: All right. And finally, it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually, these have little-to-no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay. Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three. Luxembourg.

Carly: Latifah, Queen.

Riese: That was a really good one!

Carly: What was yours? Luxembourg?

Riese: Yeah, it’s a country in Europe.

Carly: I’ve heard of it. I’ve heard of it.

Riese: It’s very small. It’s a tiny little country. It’s the teeny, tiny—

Carly: If it had a voice, it’d be a very little, quiet voice.

Riese: If Luxembourg had a voice, it’d be like, “I’m so little. I’m like the smallest carrot.”

Carly: “I’m Luxembourg. I’m so tiny. Don’t step on me.”

Riese: If you have any listeners in Luxembourg…

Carly: I said Latifah, Queen. Queen Latifah. I’ve been-

Riese: A big star.

Carly: A huge star. I’ve been non-stop, basically, rewatching …

Riese: Living Single?

Carly: … multiple times, Living Single, which also starts with it an L. I don’t know if I used it last season, but I will use it this season …

Riese: Oh, maybe.

Carly: … if I haven’t, that’s a preview. But all I can think about really is Queen Latifah, and the rest of the cast. So that’s kind of where my head’s at, which is a pretty great place to be, if I’m being honest.

Riese: Yeah, it is a pretty great place to be. I am, once again, playing geography games on my phone.

Carly: What do you play?

Riese: Geography games.

Carly: Oh, there are two games I play on my phone that have taken over my life. One is Nanograms, and the other is Water Connect, where you have to connect pipes so that different colored water can flow in them. And these are the things that are calming to me, these mindless games, and the dulcet tones of Queen Latifah’s voice.

Riese: Well, you’ve got to find your calm where you can find it.

Carly: Exactly. You have to find that peace.

Riese: And, on that note, if we have any listeners from Luxembourg, please let us know in the comments. And we’ll see you next week.

Carly: And if you are Queen Latifah, and you’re listening to this, please get back to me immediately.

Riese: Yeah. Please listen to the comments. We would like to have you on any episode after your choice. We’ll re-recap your favorite episode, if you’ve seen any of them.

Carly: Any season, anything, we would do.

Riese: Any show, we would do. Or we could just talk about life.

Carly: Just talk about life.

Riese: Yeah. We could talk about Set It Off.

Carly: We could talk about how you live in New Jersey, when my mom used to see you a lot out at places, because she lives in the same county you live in.

Riese: Yeah. You could come on our podcast.

Carly: And that’s important. One time my mom said, “Dana came into the store today.”

Riese: And you were like, “But she’s dead.”

Carly: And she was referring to Queen Latifah.

Riese: Oh.

Carly: Yeah, exactly. L Word joke.

Riese: Okay. Bye.

Carly: Bye.

“To L and Back” Podcast Holiday Special: Two Jews Review a Lesbian Christmas Movie

Calling all heterosexual orphan shoplifters, it’s time for a “To L and Back” holiday special in which, by request, we recap the classic controversial holiday film, “Happiest Season,” starring our very own Kristen Stewart and Dan Levy and directed by Clea Duvall. Join two unpopular Jews as we traverse territory similar to The L Word’s: the collective psychological meltdown of a group comprised almost entirely of wealthy white people!

The usual:

Riese:
Hi, I’m Riese.

Carly:
And I’m Carly.

Riese:
And this is.

Riese and Carly:
To L And Back.

Riese:
Holiday edition!

Carly:
It’s the first ever To L And Back holiday spectacular. That’s what you’re listening to right now. Welcome.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, it’s been so long since we’ve listened to ourselves talk. I haven’t had any podcasts to listen to, now that I haven’t had our podcast to listen to, which a real bummer.

Carly:
My Spotify wrap of the year, my number one podcast was this podcast.

Riese:
I honestly think that, because I didn’t drive that much this year because I wasn’t going anywhere.

Carly:
Yeah same.

Riese:
So really, whenever I was in the car, like, my most played song on Spotify, I only played it 15 times. I think I used all of my car time just listening to my own podcasts, but that was on iTunes so it didn’t show up on Spotify. And I’m sure this is fascinating to everyone.

Carly:
I like to listen to podcasts when I do the dishes and when I fold laundry because I’m not driving as much, so. Yeah, this is really scintillating stuff.

Riese:
Yeah. This is really important stuff.

Carly:
This is crucial.

Riese:
Okay, so we’re doing a holiday special because we’re just not ready yet to start season six, we’re just not ready.

Carly:
We’re really not.

Riese:
Everything in our lives right now is a little bit chaotic and overwhelming, and we want to be sure that season six… Even though they did a bad job with the show, that we do a good job with the podcast.

Carly:
An excellent job.

Riese:
An excellent job with our show.

Carly:
We’re going to go above and beyond, basically.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, we’re going to go above and beyond, yeah. I was like-

Carly:
We have big plans for season six.

Riese:
We do.

Carly:
We just need a little time to be ready to do it.

Riese:
Honestly. It’s bananas that we will be starting recapping season six, probably exactly to the date that it premiered, however many years ago. Because it premiered in January 2009 and we’re going to be starting in January 2021. Which means that this time in 2008, we were being interviewed by Showtime on the street.

Carly:
Oh my God. Outside of my office at Logo in Times Square.

Riese:
Yeah, the “Who Killed Jenny” special.

Carly:
Yep. I remember that.

Riese:
And that’s on my-

Carly:
Is that video still online? We got to look for it.

Riese:
No. But obviously, I recapped it on my blog, so there is some recording of it, but that’s when my family finally thought I was a cool and important person because it was a promo that played on Showtime and I was like on TV, so it was a really big deal.

Carly:
My friend made that video for Showtime. And so, it’s possible that I had her send me a copy of it and I would just need to look through all 47 hard drives I have to find it, which shouldn’t take long.

Riese:
Right. It was basically just our friends answering the question, who do we think killed Jenny. Because they had already been rolling out that Jenny is going to die, like floating sheet in the dark room promos and all of this. Like, this winter.

Carly:
Yeah. It was the promos about the season. It was like, “Someone, specifically Jenny, is dead in the pool at Bette and Tina’s house.” Nothing was left to the imagination.

Riese:
No. And then they did all those promos where they were in the black dresses, including Kate Moennig who looked visibly uncomfortable.

Carly:
Deeply uncomfortable, yes.

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
Oh my God.

Riese:
And Kit looked incredible. I remember that specifically.

Carly:
Of course.

Riese:
I think season six was also the licking promo where they’re all half naked and licking each other.

Carly:
Was that’s season six for real?

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
Oh God.

Riese:
I mean, they really got their design, it was really solid, but the show itself had disintegrated into a shell of its former self, which was not a very strong shell to begin with, I think.

Carly:
No, they didn’t have too far to go to disintegrate it.

Riese:
No. No. So we really want to be prepared.

Carly:
Absolutely. We want to be prepared, but we also didn’t want to leave our listeners in the lurch for two whole months. We know you’ve written to us. You comment on Instagram and Twitter and you tell us how this podcast really makes your Monday mornings. And I cry every time I read about that because I forget that people actually listen to this. And to me, it’s just me and Riese talking shit. But apparently, people listen, which is wild. And we didn’t want to just end the year on such a, “End of season five. We’ll be back eventually.” No, we wanted to do something different.

Riese:
Yeah we did. Because we miss you. You miss us, we hope. And-

Carly:
You might not, and that’s fine. You can choose. It’s a voluntary thing, listening to the show.

Riese:
We just set up expectations with this podcast like almost every project I’ve ever fucking done in my entire goddam life. In the beginning, I am like Gung Ho! Like, “Yes, I’m writing this column twice a week. Yes. I’m doing this every day,” dah, dah, dah. And then I start to be like, “Oh my God.” Like when we were like, “We’re done with season three, when should we start season four?” “Next week.” We took zero breaks except for the break that we took so that I could recap Gen Q.

Carly:
Right. We took the Gen Q break.

Riese:
And so, we just went seasons… So you guys have become accustomed to us actually taking… We took a little break before season five, but I think this is our longest this break.

Carly:
This is our longest break. And I would blame the pandemic for a lot of this, and also, just our own lives becoming occasionally chaotic. You know, life sometimes does that.

Riese:
Yeah. My whole life right now is in boxes because I’m moving and that’s part of the reason why I’m so busy.

Carly:
And I’m so stressed out with work that I started having anxiety dreams about showing up to work and not having a face mask and no one had one. And so, I’m just there without a mask and everyone’s screaming at me. And then I wake up and it feels really good. (silence).

Riese:
So the holidays are upon us.

Carly:
The holidays are upon us. Riese, as a fellow Jewish person, do you know when Hanukkah starts this year?

Riese:
December 10th.

Carly:
Correct.

Riese:
You told me that last week.

Carly:
I googled it several days ago and then I told you it.

Riese:
Yeah. Hanukkah is great. I love Hanukkah.

Carly:
Big fan.

Riese:
Big fan of Hanukkah. It’s not a very important holiday though in that calendar of Jewish holidays.

Carly:
It is not. In Judaism, it is a pretty insignificant day. It is not a Holy day in comparison to many of the other holidays.

Riese:
Yeah. But it’s good. In America, it’s a big deal because then the Jews can get presents too.

Carly:
Yeah. Now I don’t know about your upbringing, but I was one of only two Jewish families in a small Catholic town in New Jersey, growing up. So it was a really interesting time.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think I usually had two or three other Jews in my class depending on where I was in school. There was three, we had a Reform, and a Conservative and an Orthodox in our town.

Carly:
Oh, you had one of each?

Riese:
I think so. I don’t know if we had… Did we have… Oh, and we also had, what’s the other one? Maybe it was Reconstructionists. The ones who don’t believe in God specifically, but it’s cultural.

Carly:
I don’t know what that’s called.

Riese:
I lived in a college town that was founded by hippies. We had the most liberal marijuana laws in the world. It’s a special, specific place that I grew up.

Carly:
Sounds delightful.

Riese:
Yeah. In fact, I grew up thinking that Jews we’re all hippies. And then I went to college and found out they were all rich people from New Jersey, which I say with love, those were my friends and they let stay in their nice houses.

Carly:
No, I’m from New Jersey and parts of our family are the rich Jews from New Jersey, but not my parents and not my immediate family. It’s the other parts of the family were the rich Jews in New Jersey or Florida.

Riese:
So both of your parents are Jewish?

Carly:
Both of my parents are Jewish. Everyone who is married into my family that I know of is, for the most part, Jewish as well. Except of course my wife, Robin, who is the mayor of Christmas. That’s her official title. And I’ve always been a person who does not care about Christmas, but due to being with Robin, I have. And again, her position, being the mayor of Christmas is a pretty big deal, so that makes me the first Muppet of Christmas and I take it seriously. I’ve gotten into it.

Riese:
I fucking love Christmas so much.

Carly:
I love that. I love that for you.

Riese:
I love it. I love it. I fucking love it. I love everything about it. I love it. And I’m sad that Christmas will be different this year.

Carly:
I know.

Riese:
But we have gathered here today for this holiday special because a film debuted on the channel Hulu. It was a lesbian rom-com Christmas film. Everybody was very excited about it, so excited that it shattered all of Hulu’s records for movie viewership, which just shows you the power of the lesbian market, and the power of our loneliness and also the power of Kristen Stewart if we’re being honest.

Carly:
And maybe the power of Christmas.

Riese:
And Carly, I think you’re right. I think that it has something to do with the power of Christmas.

Carly:
They’re talking about a War on Christmas. I don’t see a War on Christmas here except the one I’ve waged personally since my birth.

Riese:
My dad’s side of the family is Christian. So when I was a kid, we would go there for Christmas and stuff, so I could get my feel of Christmas. But it’s not something that we celebrated in our own home at all.

Carly:
Okay. So this is crazy. Again, both sides of my family are Jewish. When we were kids, and again, we were one of two Jewish families in our small town, my parents fully had us celebrate Christmas. My mom had a white artificial tree that she had color-coded ornaments that matched the living room. She got really into the aesthetics of it. And we celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah every single year. And I remember-

Riese:
That is actually really super weird.

Carly:
It’s so weird. And I didn’t realize it was weird until I was older. And then one day I was like, “Wait a minute. Why the fuck were we celebrating Christmas this whole time?” And I asked my mom that once and she was like, “Oh, we didn’t want you to feel left out with all the other kids.” And I was like, “Aw, but still weird though.”

Riese:
I told my mom that I feel left out from all the other kids. And she was like-

Carly:
“That is the story of our people.”

Riese:
Yeah. “That is the story of our people. Get used to it, girl.” She did not give a shit. I tried to make up Christmas Carols with Hanukkah words and she was like, “Stop that right now.” We were like “there was no Christmas. “No Christmas in the house! Because we were supposed to be proud of being Jewish. But I wanted one thing, Carly, and that was to be popular. And all of the popular kids were Christian. So-

Carly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, I see it.

Riese:
Yikes.

Carly:
I had no chance of being popular at that age. So as a person who was routinely bullied, I had given up on that. And instead of just leaning into it, like getting into Christmas at school to try to blend in, instead, my mother contacted the principal and complained that there was a Christmas tree in the cafeteria, but no menorah. So then she made a construction paper menorah, laminated it, came to school, installed it on the wall. And by installed, I mean, attached it with masking tape with a little envelope next to it, with little laminated flames, one for each candle for each day. And then it was my job, as her child and the Jew in the school, that every day at lunch, I had to light the menorah in front of the entire school.

Riese:
Oh Carly. I’m so sorry that this happened to you.

Carly:
So yeah, while we were celebrating Christmas at home, I was also being further ostracized at school by my-

Riese:
Having to represent all of the Maccabi warriors.

Carly:
Yeah. The crazy thing is that the other Jewish family in town totally had a brick thrown through their window once that had a swastika or something on it, something horrifying, but we didn’t. And I also think that could be because we were poor and no one knew where our house was. They were on a main drag in a really nice house, and I think that that has something to do with it. Anyway, I don’t know what the point is that I’m trying to make here, but we all have a lot of feelings about this time of year.

Riese:
It is complicated. Yeah, it is a complicated situation to be a Jew during the Christmas season.

Carly:
Which is why we are, today, hosting a holiday episode.

Riese:
A Christmas special.

Carly:
A Christmas special of our podcast, despite both being Jews.

Riese:
And despite one other thing, which is that The L Word itself never had a Christmas special, despite my personally calling for one every year. And as you know, they always listen to my calls.

Carly:
They always do.

Riese:
Every year. They’re always like, “What does Riese think about The L word? Let’s not do it.” And every year I say, “What? Where is the Christmas special? Where is that?”

Carly:
Every year.

Riese:
And one year I decided I was going to write one, this was recently. This was after the reboot had been announced, yes.

Carly:
Famously, Riese, you wrote an L Word Christmas special.

Riese:
Yeah. I can’t open it on my computer, which is a whole other story that I won’t get into, but it has to do with Final Draft. But what’s interesting is I did find the treatment and I had set it right at this period of time. I didn’t realize they were bringing in new characters and stuff because it had just been announced. So I set it to take place three days after season five ended, because all I did know was that they were going to pretend like season six never happened, which turned out to not be true.

Carly:
That was a lie.

Riese:
But it was going to… Because Christmas movies… The one we’re going to talk about today doesn’t involve this… but Christmas movies usually involve a small business underdog story as well as a romance. And so, part of it was like, Helena had this new girlfriend who worked at GLAAD, who was also this wealthy… I think I had her as a trans woman because I was like, “Come on, let’s fucking have a trans woman in the show, finally.”

Carly:
Love it.

Riese:
And they’re at her chateau in Tahoe or whatever, and Jenny’s upset about the movie

Carly:
A chateau in Tahoe?

Riese:
Alice uses her platform and woman from GLAAD to fight back against The Man who wants to take of all the gay parts out of the movie and then get it produced. And then it’s like everyone can actually enjoy Christmas. And then I forget what I had with all the romantic storylines and stuff, but it was going to be really good. And-

Carly:
It sounds incredible.

Riese:
Yeah, doesn’t it sound really good?

Carly:
Yeah, I would love to watch that.

Riese:
Thank you so much. But in lieu of an L word having an actual Christmas special-

Carly:
Which would be great.

Riese:
Which would be great. Some people from, basically the same, I guess, social web, as many of the L Word women made one of their own.

Carly:
They sure did. That film is called Happiest Season and it just premiered on Hulu recently.

Riese:
Yeah. And many of you asked us if we would do an episode about the film and we said, “Okay.” Then we’ll see how that goes. And here we are doing it.

Carly:
We’re doing it.

Riese:
Are you’re ready?

Carly:
Who else was going to do it?

Riese:
You’re ready to get into it?

Carly:
I’m ready to get into it.

Riese:
So we open in an oil painting montage?

Carly:
We open trapped in an oil painting.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly:
Yeah. This is to try to give us some backstory on the characters through illustrations.

Riese:
Oil paintings.

Carly:
Oil paintings that we are trapped in.

Riese:
Yeah. And you know what? They really did look like the characters. They were really good oil paintings, I think. Dan Levy stuffed a Turkey. There was a picnic in the park. They had necklaces, they exchanged necklaces. So this is big character building stuff here. You’re really getting to know these people because these are very specific actions done by very specific people.

Carly:
Very specific. Yeah.

Riese:
Which I think is thorough. And then we barrel into a walking tour.

Carly:
A walking tour. It’s like a candy cane lane situation.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And my friends, this is a real event. It is a real event that takes place in Duboistown, Pennsylvania. It’s been an annual tradition since 1957. And Santa is usually there, although we did not see Santa in this film.

Carly:
Wow. You know what? Santa is nowhere to be found in this whole film.

Riese:
That’s true. Maybe because of like-

Carly:
Santa is homophobic.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly:
Yeah. That’s what it is.

Riese:
And we meet our women, our ladies in love.

Carly:
Our ladies in love.

Riese:
One is tall and one is shorter. The tall one is-

Carly:
Which is already a great dynamic. This is already an excellent lesbian pairing. One tall, one less tall.

Riese:
We have Harper who loves Christmas.

Carly:
She loves it so much.

Riese:
And we have Abby who doesn’t love Christmas.

Carly:
Doesn’t love Christmas. And I immediately was like, “Abby, you’re my girl.” I also don’t really care about Christmas very much. And so, I-

Riese:
And Robin is tall.

Carly:
And Robin is taller than me, yes. So I really bought into it immediately. I was like, “Yes, I’m right there. This is real, absolutely real.

Riese:
Yeah really. This is real.

Carly:
Yeah.

Riese:
Yeah. They climb up on a roof. It’s hijinks.

Carly:
I did not like the hijinks.

Riese:
I mean, hijinks for five minutes. They look at the lights, it’s beautiful.

Carly:
I think looking at the lights is one thing, but I think climbing on the roof is very dangerous.

Riese:
The roof climbing?

Carly:
Yeah. I thought that was so dangerous. I would never be able to be a part of this.

Riese:
Well, I think that’s what’s set this couple apart is that they are risk takers.

Carly:
Interesting. Interesting.

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
Okay. Yeah. I did not like the roof climbing because it looked very dangerous and trespassing really. And I wasn’t a fan. I’m not a risk taker, I guess. So they had me and then they lost me.

Riese:
I thought it was a little bit contrived. However, when I first saw this film, I saw it at the drive in premiere.

Carly:
That’s right.

Riese:
Yes. Which was nice because they gave us a snack box, two snack boxes actually. We got two snack boxes and then we were in our car, and this was just before the surge began, like three days before.

Carly:
Sure.

Riese:
So we were in our car in a parking lot filled with other cars, and then who appeared on the stage 10,000 miles away, but Kristen Stewart herself.

Carly:
Oh my God.

Riese:
And I was like, “Oh my God!” They were all there. All the women of the film were there. I think, I don’t remember. I remember very much though that I think I had probably already taken an edible. And Kristen Stewart was there and she said that she wished there’d been a movie like this when she was growing up. And I thought, “That’s very cute and I love this.” And here we are, sharing… We’re not sharing air because everyone has a mask on and we were in a car, but we’re sharing the idea of it.

Carly:
Exactly. And I like that sentiment. When I make things, especially when I make things geared at younger audiences, I always think about it in terms of like, “What would I have wanted to see when I was younger?” And that’s even how I think about stuff now is like, “What do I want to see now,” when I actually get to make queer things. So I think that’s beautiful.

Riese:
It is. It’s beautiful. And that’s what Christmas brings out in people.

Carly:
Oh my God. Wow.

Riese:
Harper is so turned on by the light display that she loses her mind and invites Abby to come home with her for the holidays, even though Abby already has commitments, pet-sitting. And the next day Abby wakes up and she’s very excited about going, and Harper is suddenly a little lukewarm. She’s not sure if she wants to go anymore.

Carly:
Yeah. And we, the audience were like, “What’s going on here, ladies? What’s going on? What happened?”

Riese:
Yeah, “What’s this dynamic?”

Carly:
Yeah.

Riese:
I mean, we know because we already saw the trailer, but…

Carly:
Of course.

Riese:
Then we go to a restaurant in Pittsburgh called the Vandal where we meet John, played by Carly.

Carly:
John, played by me, AKA Dan Levy, of Schitt’s Creek Fame. Is he playing a version of himself/a version of David Rose? Maybe? Does it matter? No, it doesn’t because he is so funny and so wonderful that he can do whatever he wants.

Riese:
He lights up the screen. I read a fashion article where they said that they had him dress more like plaids and more like rustic type, because they wanted to show that it was a departure from David.

Carly:
That makes sense.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah.

Carly:
I mean, David had a very, very specific wardrobe. So this definitely is different than that, which is great.

Riese:
So they seem to be best friends and you know what? I think that’s cute because we don’t have enough gay men, lesbian best friendships in the media, even though they’re all over the world.

Carly:
Absolutely. My best friend of over 20 years is a gay man.

Riese:
Correct.

Carly:
And I think there needs to be more representation of those types of queer family, chosen family type relationships on film and television. I love that.

Riese:
Absolutely. I love that too. Then we go to the jewelry store where Abby, for some reason, is buying a ring.

Carly:
Have they told us how long this couple has been together?

Riese:
I feel like they moved in like; six, eight months ago. I feel like it’s no more than a year?

Carly:
Ooh. That’s tough. Also, the longer they’ve been together, what we’re about to learn about Harper becomes even more ridiculous, the longer they’ve been together too. So on the one hand, it’s like I want them to have been together a long enough time where a proposal feels super earned and the next logical step for them and their journey. But at the same time, the longer they have been together at this point, the more completely ridiculous it is what Harper’s about to tell her.

Riese:
Yeah. Actually, I think we do determine it’s a year, because later John says, “I knew you couldn’t be with someone for a year and not have met their parents,” or whatever. Remember?

Carly:
Oh okay, yeah.

Riese:
So they’ve been together for about a year and Abby is ready to propose, which is absolutely bananas. And I would recommend against it as someone who did get engaged a year after dating. And as you can tell, my friends, I’m not married, so.

Carly:
As a person who has been married for many years, I can tell you that we did not move in together until two years and we didn’t get married until five. I’m not saying everyone needs to do that, but I am saying it’s good to really give things time and there’s no reason to rush these things. But this is also a movie, it’s a rom-com. We need the drama, we need the excitement, so here we go.

Riese:
Yeah, here we go. Here we go. White people wanting to get engaged. What a treat for the world. Beautiful white people in all of their beanies. And then we go out into the street and John is expressing that he believes this is a heteronormative, terrible idea.

John: Abby, you and Harper have a perfect relationship. Why do you want to ruin that by engaging in one of the most archaic institutions in the history of the human race?
Abby: Because I want to marry her.
John: Okay. You say that, but what you’re actually doing is tricking the woman you claim to love by trapping her in a box of heteronormativity and trying to make her your property. She is not a rice cooker or a cake plate. She’s a human being.

Riese:
Abby says that she’s her person, and she wants everyone to know that and she wants to build a life together, which you can do. Which you could do without getting married, just saying, and she’s going to ask Harper’s dad for his blessing. And John’s like…

John: Way to stick to the patriarchy, really well done.

Riese:
… which is really funny.

Carly:
His dialogue is great and his delivery of set dialogue is great.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carly:
Yeah. He makes some valid points.

Riese:
He does.

Carly:
Points were made.

Riese:
Then we hop, jump, skip and ride into their car to grandmother’s house, except there’s no grandmother. We go. But you know the song, where the rain… Yeah.

Carly:
Over the river, through the woods, et cetera. Yeah.

Riese:
Yeah. And then grandma gets run over by the reindeer. That’s how that turns out.

Carly:
Famously, yes. That is what happens to her.

Riese:
Abby is excited. Abby says she’s great with parents, but… She’s not. But-

Carly:
Which we will learn is a lie.

Riese:
I mean, I am pretty sure that Kristen Stewart is also bad with parents. I think her worst qualities remind me of my worst qualities. But I’m good with parents, I think. Yeah, I am good with parents.

Carly:
I pretty great with parents. I am.

Riese:
Yeah, I bet you are.

Carly:
I can turn on the parent charm. I can do it really fast.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Usually parents think I’m really smart. They’re like, “Wow, my daughter or son is dating someone really smart.” And then I can get away with a lot from there.

Carly:
That’s good to do that. People just think I’m completely ridiculous. It’s because of how I carry myself in a very ridiculous manner. So we see here that Harper seems to be a little anxious.

Riese:
Harper is HARBORING a little secret.

Carly:
Oh, did you just come up with that?

Riese:
I did. I did that on the spot.

Carly:
Oh my God.

Riese:
So apparently, Harper went home this summer, came back, told her girlfriend, Abby, which by the way, was my fiancee’s name.

Carly:
Mmhm.

Riese:
I just need to get that out there.

Carly:
It’s also my aunt’s name. Not that that has anything to do with anything, but it is a name that is in my life.

Riese:
Yeah. So we’re all dealing with our own stuff here, okay? We’re all dealing with our own stuff. She went home this summer, and she came back, and she told Abby that she came out to her parents and it went really well. And it turns out that’s a lie, complete lie. She didn’t go home this summer. She did not come out to her parents.

Carly:
So the nothing she did probably did go very well.

Riese:
Uh-huh (affirmative), yeah. She did nothing and it went swimmingly.

Carly:
Swimmingly. It went great.

Riese:
And her dad, he’s running for mayor. And everyone knows in 2020, you can’t run for mayor with a lesbian daughter.

Riese:

Carly:
You sure can’t.

Riese:
Doesn’t Dick Cheney have a lesbian daughter?

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
Or something like that, right? Yeah?

Carly:
Yep.

Riese:
Wasn’t he Vice President?

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
Of the United States for the Republican party?

Carly:
And a war criminal, yes.

Riese:
So… What?

Carly:
Oh yeah, I think we could also safely say here that her family is Republicans. It’s pretty obvious immediately, which is not a character flaw of Harper. It’s not her fault that she comes from Republicans. Many people come from Republicans.

Riese:
Yeah, like Fitz in the show Scandal.

Carly:
Scandal, famously.

Riese:
is a Republican. And Olivia Pope loved him.

Carly:
Exactly. And then he guest-starred on The L Word before that.

Riese:
He did. He did. Yeah, so it all comes back around to lesbians.

Carly:
Exactly.

Riese:
I categorically reject the idea that her sexual orientation would have any impact on his ability to run for Mayor. All I’m saying is I do think that they should have set this in the ’90s.

Carly:
I think that is a really interesting point. And I do think that some of the storyline would have felt a little more realistic, set in the ’90s. I don’t want to say that people in our current reality would not have this experience, but I just think that I agree. I feel like if this had been more of a ’90s period piece. First of all, the fashions would have been incredible.

Riese:
Yes, I like-

Carly:
The soundtrack would have also been incredible. Although the soundtrack is pretty great-

Riese:
The soundtrack is incredible, yeah.

Carly:
We will get to that. But that would have been a really interesting take. But-

Riese:
Although I did … one of my friends who I saw this with is also not out to her family, who hopefully aren’t listening to this.

Carly:
Wooh.

Riese:
So, that was an interesting perspective to have.

Carly:
Well, we didn’t say her name so it should be fine.

Riese:
Yeah. I didn’t say her name, but, so that was an interesting perspective to have in the car of someone who isn’t out. Her family will probably be fine with it. She just doesn’t feel ready yet.

Carly:
Can I ask how old is she?

Riese:
Early 30s?

Carly:
Okay. Interesting.

Riese:
But just had her first girlfriend this year.

Carly:
Ah, Okay. Yeah.

Riese:
So it’s sort of brand new.

Carly:
Yeah. There’s also that thing of people who aren’t out and then they have this idea that, “Oh, I’ll come out to them when I’m like in a long-term relationship. And I want them to meet this person.” And then it feels like that’s a thing they’re going to aim for. And I get the sense that maybe Harper is like that too, but there’s also this, dad’s political career kind of thing with it, that has complicated it in her mind.

Riese:
Yeah. And the thing is obviously Harper has a lot of internalized homophobia and she’s dealing with a lot and there’s not a problem with her not being out to her family.

Carly:
No.

Riese:
There is a problem with her fucking lying to her girlfriend about not being out to her family and not telling her until they’re already in the road there, when Kristen Stewart has obviously already packed all of the most homosexual clothing that she could find in the entire city of Pittsburgh, that’s already-

Carly:
She really does.

Riese:
All in her suitcase. She has pressed her suit and her ribbon tie. She’s ready to be gay in the home. And she is just now finding this out that her girlfriend isn’t out, but more importantly, is a liar. And that sucks.

Carly:
Yeah. I think if you find yourself in this situation where you’re the Harper, what I would recommend doing is telling your partner the truth so that they can make an informed decision as to whether or not they actually want to make that trip with you home for the holidays.

Carly:
Just that’s … but again, this is a romantic comedy. It is a film. And we need the drama.

Riese:
Yeah, and this is the conceit of the film.

Carly:
And we need the drama.

Riese:
This is the point.

Carly:
This is why we’re here.

Riese:
This is the point of contention. This is the setup for the film. We need it. So it’s preposterous, but we’re accepting it because it’s the whole point of the film. And it’s funny because like at first Abby’s like, “Ah,” obviously is not wanting to go. And then Harper very quickly talks her into it, which I found very convincing because I feel you’re like, “Oh my God, this is bad. I’m out.” And then it just takes a little prod because as soon as you say that, you’re like, “Oh God, we have to break up and then I have to move out and then this and this and everything’s…”

Carly:
It’s a whole thing!

Riese:
And then they-

Carly:
You spiral.

Riese:
Say just the smallest nice thing you’re like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’ll just go along with it. That’s easier—

Carly:
It’s going to be fine, it’s gonna be fine. It’s-

Riese:
It’s going to be fine-

Carly:
How hard could it bt

Riese:
How hard could it be, they’ll fall in love with her and they won’t somehow know that she’s also gay-

Carly:
Even though she is very gay.

Riese:
Even though she is very gay…

Carly:
Obviously gay-

Riese:
Obviously gay, yeah. And maybe they’ll recognize her from the films?

Carly:
From the films! The Twilight films.

Riese:
The Twilight films. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And they’ll know she dated Robert Patives — Pattis? — noted pasta aficionado, Robert Patterson—

Carly:
Robert Pasta Visual.

Riese:
Robert Patterson? Paddington? Paddinton.

Carly:
Paddington bear, the star of the film Paddington bear.

Riese:
The film Paddington Bear starring Bella Swan. We arrive at the home, the giant pristine home in the mysterious town outside of Pittsburgh that is never named-

Carly:
Never named.

Riese:
Mom is played by Mary St— I cannot pronounce a single word today!

Carly:
Mary Steenburgen.

Riese:
Exactly.

Carly:
Who we love.

Riese:
We love her.

Carly:
She’s a legend, she’s wonderful. She has a great performance in this film and we are greeted right away by her iPad, which is such a funny little runner throughout the film where she’s always taking photos on an iPad for her husband’s social media account.

Tipper: I started an Instagram feed for your father to give voters a peek behind the curtain. Your mother’s going viral!

Carly:
Yeah. I found that to be very cute.

Riese:
We meet Jane who is Harper’s sister and —

Carly:
Harper’s sister-

Riese:
And just a real delight.

Carly:
The whole thing I was just like, just protect Jane at all costs, protect her.

Harper: Oh Jane! I told you not to do that!
Jane: Oh I know I didn’t listen.
Harper: Oh, I didn’t think you’d be here, but here you are.
Jane: I didn’t want to wait one more second to see my little sis, Oh, I was changing the air filters.
Tipper: Thank you, Jane.

Carly:
So Jane Is played by Mary Holland, who also Wrote this film with Clea DuVall and she is very, very funny and actually has a kind of connection to The L Word if you think about it because she is in the comedy group, Wild Horses with Stephanie Allyne. So you know, it all leads back to The L Word. Interconnectivity, the chart, oooo—

Riese:
Wait, is she gay?

Carly:
She is straight.

Riese:
Oh, interesting. Well, so it turns out that Harper has sold Abby as her orphan friend—

Carly:
Orphaned friend roommate, and everyone acts as if she was orphaned yesterday and her parents died tragically hours ago and it’s… I actually thought it was very funny.

Riese:
I did too. And also, it happened when she was 19 and also even as someone who just lost one parent — people handle it in a very — in a way like you have this tragedy, like just radiating out of your body as soon as they find out other parents find out and it’s a pretty intense dynamic. So being like a bonafide orphan, which is a funny term for them to use. So yeah, they think she has nowhere to go. And so she’s here.

Carly:
And that they’re doing something really generous by taking her-

Riese:
Into their palace. So we get a little tour of the home. We see the oldest sister, I think, right. Sloane is the eldest?

Carly:
I think so, I think so…

Riese:
We see a Sloane’s room full of trophies-

Carly:
Overachiever,

Riese:
Overachiever, her mother laments that Sloane changed careers from lawyer to make gift baskets.

Carly:
She and her husband were lawyers. Now they make gift baskets and we know that we are setting up this character, we’re going to meet her later but we… That’s all we get right now.

Riese:
We go to Harper’s childhood room where we see Harper and Connor, her high school boyfriend’s prom photo.

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
It’s still prominently displayed in the room, along with her Josh Hartnett posters-

Carly:
Which I thought was a wonderful touch considering Clea DuVall and Josh Hartnett were in the film, The Faculty together…

Riese:
Interconnectivity.

Carly:
Interconnectivity once again, the chart, our chart, the chart-

Riese:
Our chart, our chart.com. And then we find out that Abby will not be staying in Harper’s bedchambers.

Carly:
She will not, she is staying in a room in the basement. She’s in the basement in Jane’s former childhood bedroom that looks like it’s also been converted into some storage.

Riese:
Yeah, it looks like they store some arts and crafts down there.

Carly:
Which is all relatable.

Riese:
Uh-huh (affirmative) Yeah, absolutely. I buy every minute of this.

Carly:
All of this.

Riese:
There’s something funny who says it? Who’s like, Oh, well I’m sure that at least this is better than the orphanage and she is like, “well, I was 19. So…” And she’s like, “Oh, you’re one of the lucky ones” and then she tells her the lock doesn’t work.

Carly:
Well, that’s what we like to call in the biz “foreshadowing.”

Riese:
That’s every time you come to my mom’s house, you get a little bit of foreshadowing because somehow every room she puts me in, the door doesn’t close all the way.

Carly:
We love to see it.

Riese:
Let alone lock. We go to a restaurant, do you think that this is… It’s not the Olive Garden.

Carly:
I was hoping it was the Olive Garden, but I didn’t feel like they were a family when they were there.

Riese:
No, I didn’t feel like that either. I felt like they were royalty.

Carly:
and that’s not their slogan, that’s not how they operate at the Olive garden. Would have been a really great tie in and make it more relatable to you and me specifically.

Riese:
Yeah. If they’d had endless pasta,

Carly:
Endless salad and breadsticks-

Riese:
breadsticks.

Carly:
That would be wonderful.

Riese:
So first of all, Abby has to sit in the child, like in this tiny chair-

Carly:
They pull up this very small chair where she is like a foot lower than everyone else, which is very funny and then the mother is like, “Oh, we need one more chair” and before you can even say, who did she invite? Wouldn’t you know, it,

Conner: Hey guys how’s it going?
Tipper: Connor, how funny to see you here.
Conner: you told me to be here at seven, right?

Riese:
It’s Connor, and who’s Connor?!?!

Carly:
Harper’s high school boyfriend, ex boyfriend.

Riese:
Right.

Carly:
And mom just thinks they’re going to rekindle things because they’re both single.

Riese:
Yeah, Jane starts to explain that the plot of her book, which-

Carly:
Sounds great.

Riese:
I would like to pre-order the entire series. Then we transition into a story about Harper getting her chicken pox at their house in Jackson Hole because of course they have a house in Jackson Hole.

Carly:
Of course they do.

Riese:
And we find out that Connor was part of the chickenpox story, but left out of the chickenpox story when Harper relayed this story to Abby so now we have lie number two. What is wrong with having your boyfriend In a story? How many stories have I told about my boyfriends on this podcast? Probably 75 that no one wanted to hear. And yet I did them anyway. And yet she could not even mention the truth

Carly:
To her family, she has internalized homophobia and to her gay partner, she has internalized heterophobia.

Riese:
God it’s complicated to be gay.

Carly:
It’s complicated, it’s complicated to be Harper. Also, we haven’t talked about her wig.

Riese:
Right, okay. Mackenzie Davis is a very attractive woman-

Carly:
Extremely attractive woman.

Riese:
Star of my favorite show, Halt and Catch Fire. She switches hair cuts four times, one once for every season of Halt and Catch Fire and every time it looks good.

Carly:
This wig was not my favorite. It almost looks like whoever did the hair was mad at her a little bit. They were like, “yeah, you look great”.

Riese:
When they were looking at Molly, the American girl doll and were like, how can I do this?

Carly:
But on you.

Riese:
This is not her best haircut.

Carly:
It’s not, it’s a bummer but I found it to be very funny. So it made me laugh a lot but I don’t know if that was intentional.

Riese:
Ha ha ha Her wig.

Carly:
Ha ha ha wigs.

Riese:
So they go to the bathroom as heterosexual women often do together.

Carly:
Together, yes they do.

Riese:
And it’s sort of cute, they’re kissing and Harper’s like, “it’s so hard to like, not kiss you all the time”. And Abby’s like (weird noises)

Carly:
Whoa. Yeah. That’s totally what it’s like.

Riese:
And then was like, “I’ll talk to my mom so that no more whatever happens”, which obviously she does not do.

Carly:
That’s a lie. Third lie, number three

Riese:
Lie number three, ding on the lie-o-meter and then HEY-0

Carly:
Guess who’s here.

Riese:
It’s Riley.

Carly:
It’s a new character.

Riese:
It’s a top off.

Carly:
It’s a top off.

Riese:
It’s the top off. Riley wins, just telling you ahead of time—

Carly:
Riley wins every…Riley dominates every scene she’s in, by virtue of being Aubrey Plaza, being dressed very well and being extremely attractive.

Riese:
And as soon as you see her you know this is Harper’s ex-girlfriend.

Carly:
Oh yeah. You know it right away.

Riese:
And Abby’s like, “is this the Riley?” And she’s like, “yeah”. And it’s super awkward. And Abby makes up a bad lie about who she is, but she’s like her roommate.

Carly:
Which she sees through instantly.

Riese:
Immediately, because I think Riley has seen a lesbian.

Carly:
I think Riley is aware of what lesbians look like and sometimes they look like Kristen Stewart.

Riese:
And then Abby is like “who knows maybe, maybe another one of your exes will bring up dessert”, which I thought was funny.

Carly:
That would have been great if that had happened too.

Riese:
Back at the table, we find out that dad went to Paris for a month and saw museums.

Carly:
Rich people things.

Riese:
Paris is always a snooze, please. All of my fun little writers at home, pick a more revealing detail than Paris. Paris is a meaningless detail. It illuminates nothing, nothing. It’s a throw away. Okay?

Carly:
This is a Public service announcement from Riese Bernard.

Riese:
It’s a public Service announcement. I’m sure I’ve discussed this on the podcast before, because it’s one of my campaigns is to stop having trips to Paris be presented as major character information, they’re not. So Abby goes to Carnegie Mellon and she’s studying art history and that is, I believe the beginning and the end of what we learned about her.

Carly:
Correct. Dad is impressed. Something we’ve learned about this family right away is that they care about a lot of things like status and they definitely seem to favor certain children over others.

Riese:
They don’t favor jane.

Carly:
They do not, this is really a bummer. Jane is so wonderful, I just want-

Riese:
She is so wonderful.

Carly:
I just want the best things for Jane and you know what? She’s going to be fine in the end, but it’s a rocky road to get there.

Riese:
It sure is. We go to Abby’s bedroom at night and mom checks on Abby, Harper shows up. She says that her parents love her and she’s like, do they love you as much as Connor? And she’s like, “no but they don’t really like me that much” and that’s funny. Things are still cute at this point.

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
Then we cut to a phone call with John. Thank God.

Carly:
Thank God. We were missing some John. We were like, what? We need an infusion of excitement and then here comes John on the phone

Riese:
When he’s like, “have you managed to get a man’s permission to take ownership of an adult human woman yet?”.

Carly:
That’s great.

Riese:
And then she is like, so plot twist-

Carly:
She’s not out.

Riese:
She’s not out.

Carly:
So we can’t be together here and she also told… Didn’t tell them that I’m gay and he has this great line from the trailer which is, “have they ever seen a lesbian?”,

Riese:
Right, or have they ever seen Kristen Stewart? You know what’s interesting though about this family?

Carly:
tell me.

Riese:
they have given their children, I would argue, homosexual names, and then they’re expecting them to turn out heterosexual.

Carly:
I’m really glad we’re talking about this. Sloan.

Riese:
Sloan, Even Jane is low key gay.

Carly:
Riley Is an extremely gay name, but obviously it’s a different family.

Riese:
Riley is gay as hell but we all know Abby… Abbys are always gay and Harper is a gay name.

Carly:
Harper is 1000% a gay name.

Riese:
Oh, we forgot to say that her parents spoke disparagingly of Riley’s lifestyle choices at dinner so that’s when we finally find out that they are openly homophobic despite Kristen Stewart being right there and everyone knows that she’s dating that girl, Sarah, whatever her name is, Dylan. I don’t even know who she’s dating, but she’s dating someone-

Carly:
Someone with a gay name probably.

Riese:
Yep. Okay. So wake up Sloan’s children are there, they’re staring at her. We meet Sloan, she’s very uptight. We go to the kitchen…

Carly:
Sloan is played by Alison Brie.

Riese:
Oh yeah.

Carly:
I love her.

Riese:
Star of that recently canceled program Glow-

Carly:
But she still has the Glow muscles on her arms from her Glow workouts,

Riese:
She’s a glow worm.

Carly:
She is still a wrestler. She has all the might of a wrestler.

Riese:
All the might of a wrestler. We go to the kitchen there… It’s in a little Christmasy breakfast. This made me miss going to rich people’s houses and having breakfast—

Carly:
Oh my god, they had another Christmas tree just in the kitchen.

Riese:
I know.

Carly:
I was like, Oh my god, this is a level of wealth I cannot comprehend.

Riese:
I have been to houses like this and it just made me nostalgic for them. In addition to wanting a pool, I also like going to rich people’s houses.

Carly:
The kitchens I think are really key.

Riese:
She meets Sloan’s husband, Eric. He recommends coconut oil for Abby’s hands. Jane is so excited to go ice skating. We find out that Harper’s a journalist and her dad is like, seems to be pretty proud of her being a journalist. And he’s so excited to have all of his daughters here. And then we find out the big… This is the part of the episode that Carly likes best is that we find out there’s a big event that evening.

Carly:
There are several big events that happened over the course of this trip that they are on and this is the first.

Riese:
And their major donor will be there

Riese:
Their major, major, major donor. And its time to go ice skating. We drive to the ice rink and we have some very funny banter about the curated gift experiences that are provided by Sloan and her husband.

Carly:
I laughed very hard at all that, I enjoyed that very much.

Riese:
I like a gift experience in a reclaimed log.

Carly:
Of course, it’s not a gift BASKET — It’s an experience.

Riese:
Gwennie liked it too. Exactly it’s an experience. You’re like, this is what it’s like to be Tom Sawyer who had a raft logs, logs on a raft.

Carly:
Exactly. This is what it’s like to be on a raft, a log raft, but smaller and you’re a gift, you’re in the gift, you are part of the gift.

Riese:
Exactly that’s special and you need to go to law school if you want to do something like that.

Carly:
It’s important to have that background.

Riese:
We go to the skating rink and it turns out that Sloan and Harper are very competitive with one another.

Carly:
Oh gosh, they sure are. They decide to race.

Riese:
I got scared for everyone.

Carly:
I was terrified for everyone. Not just everyone in the family, but just all the innocent bystanders. Several people were knocked over that we saw-

Riese:
It was a brawl.

Carly:
it was a bloodbath.

Riese:
Exactly what I was looking for. It was a blood bath-

Carly:
an absolute blood bath. The banter between the rest of the family while they’re doing that is very funny.

Eric: What are they doing?
Jane: They are racing.
Eric: Oh yeah.
Harper: Jane, time?!
Jane: Oh, I forgot to press start.
Eric: Don’t tell them that.
Abby: Should we stop them?
Eric: No, they’ll tire themselves out eventually.
Jane: I love you guys!

Carly:
Which ends with them beating the crap out of each other.

Riese:
And that’s therapeutic.

Carly:
I guess, sure.

Riese:
As represented in the film Fight Club.

Carly:
Ah yes, famously.

Riese:
We go to the house… Anyway it’s all a leading to go to the big party-

Carly:
Big party with the donor.

Riese:
The campaign woman.Jane is ready, is single and ready to mingle.

Carly:
And there’s that great shot where she and Abby are standing up on the second floor and they lookvdown and they see Riley and there’s great eye contact and everyone made a gif out of it and I was really grateful to the internet for that gif, it was cute.

Riese:
Here’s Riley, just amongst the crowd-

Carly:
Just Rileying.

Riese:
Speaking of gay names, the donor woman is named Harry.

Carly:
And she’s played by Ana Gasteyer who’s wonderful. Is that really her name? That’s so funny.

Riese:
And the campaign manager who is played by the mom from Blockers?

Carly:
Her characters name is Carolyn and she’s… Carolyn was in blockers.

Riese:
I love her, what’s the actress’s name?

Carly:
Sarayu Blue.

Riese:
Yes, I love her. I think she’s so good. When I saw her, I was like, oh my god I’m so excited.

Carly:
I know me too. I’m like Cast her in more things.

Riese:
We meet Harper’s friends, they suck-

Carly:
Oh god they are terrible.

Riese:
They are terrible and the Connor’s there.

Carly:
Of course he is. There’s too much Connor in this movie, there I said it.

Riese:
No, it had to be said. Connor pulls Harper aside, asks her out and then John… Luckily John calls saving Abby from this horrible party, which honestly… This is what? Night one? Since they got in yesterday.

Carly:
Well the first night they went to dinner. So this is the second night.

Riese:
Okay, so this is night two. I believe that Harper still has an obligation to more or less stick with Abby.

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
But she doesn’t, John calls to let Abby know that she is at a country club that forbade women until very recently, because of course he has been tracking her, which is funny.

Carly:
Yes, and that is another little runner throughout the film that will pay off later.

Riese:
This says a lot because he’s known them as a couple for a while now, but he is not excited about this, her not being out thing, and he is judging her choices.

Carly:
Yes.

Carly:
He also might have killed the fish.

Riese:
Correct.

Carly:
I mean he did.

Riese:
He did.

Carly:
But this is the moment where we are learning that it might’ve happened.

Riese:
Then we go to the house at night where we… Abby receives the most lukewarm sext in the history of sexting.

Carly:
Absolutely.

Riese:
Which is, I guess it’s sort of a picture from… It’s like Harper from like her chin down and you can kind of see her bra?

Carly:
Almost.

Riese:
Almost.

Carly:
You can almost see her bra.

Riese:
This honestly reminds me of when I was a sex worker and we would do pictures for the website. And you obviously had to have your clothes on in the picture, but just a bra and you couldn’t have your face in it. Cause obviously no one’s face could be in it. So they would literally be these chin down pictures with just a little bit showing. They’d be hotter than this one. But I was like, this is exactly what those looked like and Abby pretends to be excited about it and that’s cute for them.

Carly:
That’s cute.

Riese:
That they’re still feeling the love for each other and Abby is just going to sneak on upstairs and get a little of that clavicle in her mouth.

Carly:
Maybe a sternum is involved.

Riese:
Maybe a sternum.

Carly:
Does she go upstairs or do they both go downstairs?, Because then there’s the whole bit with the door the next morning. Right?

Riese:
I think Abby is going upstairs to Harper, but then after the hullabaloo, Harper ends up going downstairs with Abby.

Carly:
Right, I forgot about that. You’re right.

Riese:
Because in the hullabaloo is that Abby is walking upstairs and then mom is awake.

Carly:
So she has to hide in the closet.

Riese:
Literally in the closet!

Carly:
Literally in the closet.

Riese:
She gets caught in the closet because the Roomba starts busting around even though they have no pets.

Carly:
Crazy ass roomba.

Riese:
And Oh, and then the mom was like,

Tipper: Abby what are you doing in the closet?

Riese:
Get it?!! Abby goes back downstairs, Harper sneaks downstairs and makes out with her and that was cute.

Carly:
Yeah and then it’s the next morning because they fell asleep in bed together in a room with a door that doesn’t lock.

Riese:
And Harper luckily fell asleep with her bra on, which is exactly a normal way to sleep.

Carly:
Always, always normal.

Riese:
They wake up together to everyone busting into their room, into their little love nest where we were going to see a cute little morning of Kristen Stewart in a white tank top and she says, why did you lock the door? I thought the door didn’t lock.

Carly:
There was something blocking the door, she put something heavy in front of it to block it. It sounds like lock, but it’s different.

Riese:
Like Blockers.

Carly:
The film Blockers, which is a very good film.

Riese:
And the twins do spy Harper hiding behind the door through a crack.

Carly:
Oh, do they ever! Those twins.

Riese:
But do they even know what they’re looking at?

Carly:
They’re not sure, but probably.

Riese:
Meanwhile, Kristen Stewart’s wearing a white tank top with no bra, so that’s a moment that she’s sharing now with, with the mother.

Carly:
With the whole family, which is beautiful and that’s really what Christmas is all about.

Riese:
It is, the human body. Isn’t it great?

Carly:
In its splendor.

Riese:
In its splendor, holiday splendor. So then in the kitchen, everybody is making Christmas cookies and they start talking about the white elephant gift exchange, which Abby has never heard of white elephant.

Carly:
That seemed suspicious. Actually, you know what? I take that back. I didn’t know what white elephant was, for a very long time.

Riese:
In my family it wasn’t this, it was like you don’t buy a gift for white elephant. You bring a gift that sucks and then three people will bring a gift that’s good. Usually the guests, usually the boyfriend or the fiancee or someone is going to come with a good gift, wanting to impress everyone.

Carly:
Try to impress everybody, yeah.

Riese:
Whereas my cousin Glen is going to try to pass off the same California Raisins figurine that sings when you touch it.

Carly:
Oh.

Riese:
For the fourth year in a row. There’s also a roll of toilet paper that ends up resurfacing year after year.

Carly:
Classic.

Riese:
Really bad CDs. It’s mostly a comedy show. It’s mostly an opportunity for me and my dad’s side of the family to share our ongoing bits.

Carly:
Everyone wants to do bits.

Riese:
Everyone has a bit, and we’re all doing them.

Carly:
And we’re all doing it.

Riese:
I started doing Autostraddle merch, you know?

Carly:
That’s something that the family loves.

Riese:
It is, because I’m successful.

Carly:
My hot take is that I hate White Elephant.

Riese:
Okay.

Carly:
I barely am okay with Secret Santa. I can get on board with Secret Santa, because at least you know who you’re buying a gift for. I just hate getting joke gifts because then what do I do with it?

Riese:
You leave it at the house of the person who’s hosting Christmas.

Carly:
Oh, but what if I’m hosting it?

Riese:
Then you are really up shit creek without a paddle.

Carly:
Schitt’s Creek. Again, a show that is connected to this film.

Riese:
Interconnectivity The Chart Dot Com.

Carly:
Backslash Our Chart.

Riese:
So Abby is going to go to the mall with Sloane. And this was a bold… Again, they are now on day three of the visit and Harper is fully sending her secret girlfriend to the mall with her terrible sister and her children.

Carly:
This is out of line. This is the — don’t do this. This is only day three. And you know your sister is mean.

Riese:
Yeah. And also you’re leaving… She has no material. What is Abby suppoesd to talk about…

Carly:
What are they going to talk about?

Riese:
When everything is a lie?

Carly:
Yeah.

Riese:
And she’s a bad liar.

Carly:
Terrible liar.

Riese:
So then, and what does happen? Disaster is what happens.

Carly:
Oh, I didn’t like this. You know what? I’m going to say it.

Riese:
I hated this.

Carly:
I didn’t like this at all.

Riese:
You know what it was? It was people taking action on a misinterpretation of an event. And I-

Carly:
If there’s one thing I hate, it is people taking action on the misinterpretation of an event. Did it lead to a funny mall security interrogation scene? Yes it did.

Riese:
So we go to the mall. There are Williams-Sonoma or Pier 1 or something. Whatever. And she’s trying to figure out what to buy for this gift exchange and the twins slip a little necklace into Abby’s tote bag. Yeah. I didn’t really understand what they were doing. So of course the alarm goes off. Carolyn is that at the store? So she witnesses Abby—

Carly:
When Kristen Stewart goes up to Carolyn and is like, “Oh my God, hi, it’s me from the other night.” I was like, “this is psychotic. This is actually psychotic.” If I am anywhere, and I see anyone I know, 99% of the time I will hide. This is just a true fact about me.

Riese:
She was trying to be, I related to her because I was like, t”his is exactly the kind of mistake I made because I’d be like, I really need to impress everyone in this orbit. What do normal people do? They don’t hide behind the pillows. They go up and say hello. And then I would go up and it would flop.

Carly:
Carolyn hardly remembered that she existed. Oh, it was painful. Was so painful to watch.

Riese:
And then it was followed up with the alarm going off because Abby has this thing in her bag. And then we go to the security baseline, which is fun because now we have Jonah, and also Jonah —

Carly:
And Lauren Lapkiss, another member of Wild Horses. And the two of them are really fucking funny. Yeah. I like that. We just call him Jonah. I just want to call him Jonah.

Riese:
Yeah, of course.

Carly:
Yeah. We know. Everyone knows.

Riese:
Jonah, from Veep.

Carly:
Yeah. And again, Clea DuVall also on Veep.

Riese:
Oh yeah. Also Lauren Lapkus. You may recognize her from Orange Is The New Black, which also had a lot of gay things on it. Because, it’s all connected. Taylor Schilling dated Carrie Brownstein who dated someone in this orbit, right?

Carly:
Yes. St. Vincent who dated Kristen Stewart.

Riese:
Right. There we go.

Carly:
Yeah, we did it. All the queer women are connected specifically by this film.

Riese:
Yeah. So this is so funny. Then we all arrived back at the homestead and they basically really believe that Abby tried to steal a fucking necklace from Williams-Sonoma, Pier 1 Pottery Barn.

Carly:
They don’t sell necklaces at any of those stores—

Riese:
At Target, at the-

Carly:
It looked like maybe a J.Crew…

Riese:
A bougie store? J.Crew?

Carly:
Banana Republic? I don’t know—

Riese:
Banana Pub.

Carly:
The B-Pub.

Riese:
At the B-Pub. Not to be confused with B-Dubs.

Carly:
At B-Pubs?

Riese:
Yeah. Yeah. And everyone seems to just think that she did it. And-

Carly:
Yeah, that sucks.

Riese:
Harper is not defending her strongly enough This is the thing that pissed me off the most more than anything else, honestly. I was like, “Girl, you’re just going to let your family believe that?”

Carly:
This is what, four strikes against Harper at this point?

Riese:
Five.

Carly:
Right? Where are we at on our meter?

Riese:
See the necklace and think like, “This is the necklace that the twins were looking at earlier. Interesting. So Harper is going to… What’s she doing that night? She’s going somewhere. She… Going to a thing with her dad?

Carly:
Harper has to do a thing for the dad’s campaign or something. And so Abby gets out of having to do it.

Riese:
Which means Abby is now on her own. I would actually probably love this if I was sent out on my own to take a break.

Carly:
Yes, absolutely. I will just go by myself, don’t worry about me. I’ll will figure it out. I love to walk around alone. This is a pre COVID world, a non COVID world. So it’s a little different, where you can actually go places and bump into people and then drink alcohol with them with drag queens, which is exactly what happens and is wonderful.

Riese:
Yeah. So she takes herself out to dinner and then she runs into Riley and she’s like, “I’d really love to drink some alcohol.” And so Riley takes her to the bar that has drag queens that you probably recognized and I did not.

Carly:
Yeah. It’s Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme.

Riese:
No idea who that is.

Carly:
Well, it’s funny because this takes place in Pittsburgh, but they’re both from Seattle, but whatever. But they’re delightful and they instantly light up the screen and I had the movie is better for their inclusion.

Riese:
I agree with you, even though I didn’t know who they were.

Carly:
They were great. Jinkx Monsoon on season four of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and BenDeLa placed in the top three in season six and then came back and should have won All Stars season three, I want to say, but then she just dropped out despite the fact that she won every maxi challenge. And then she was like, “I’m good.” And just peaced, which was like kind of a baller move. Totally. Don’t worry about it.

Riese:
Absolutely. And Abby, surprised, tells Riley, “Yeah. I think that your assumption about my relationship with Harper was accurate.”

Carly:
Was correct.

Riese:
Mm-hm (affirmative). She knows that Riley was Harper’s first girlfriend, but she doesn’t know much more than that.

Carly:
Oh, she’s about to.

Riese:
She’s about to. Turns out that Riley and Harper began dating in the beginning of high school. They left love letters in each other’s locker. And then when they were discovered, Harper said that Riley was a lesbian who was in love with her.

Carly:
I feel like I’ve seen this movie.

Riese:
Yeah. This has, I mean actually—

Carly:
Several movies from the nineties.

Riese:
Uh-huh (affirmative) Yeah.

Carly:
This is literally the storyline of Lost and Delirious.

Riese:
But that has more birds. It is also when that happens in real life. This does happen in real life. It has happened to people in real life. And when you do that to somebody…

Carly:
Woo! You fuck them up.

Riese:
You fuck them up. That’s fucking a choice. And it’s a bad-

Carly:
It sucks. It sucks.

Riese:
Yeah. So Riley says she can relate to being in love with someone who’s afraid to tell the world who they are, and the chemistry between these two women is palpable. It’s great. One might think are they make out?

Carly:
I was actually at this point, shouting at the TV, “Make out!”

Riese:
Then there’s a big drag queen sing along.

Carly:
Who doesn’t love that. That’s great.

Riese:
And then my friend Lucy, her brother was in the bar scene that comes next.

Carly:
Oh my God. And then Riley goes and sits next to Abby, which I was like, “Good job Riley.” I was like, “Yes, there she goes. She’s got a plan.” And I was like, “Here we go, it’s happening.” Just slid into that other side of the booth.

Riese:
Sliding Into her booth.

Carly:
DMs of the booth. We’re old.

Riese:
I don’t slide into anything.

Carly:
I tried to slide once when I played softball and I got terribly injured.

Riese:
This episode of the podcast is called Embarrassing Things That Happened To Carly In Their Childhood.

Carly:
Yeah. Lauren, make sure you leave in all of the embarrassing things I disclose in this episode. Don’t take them out. I want the world to know. It’s time for me to come clean about how deeply embarrassing my childhood was.

Riese:
Everybody needs to know what happened to them. It’s important. I think it’s important. Then we meet up with Harper and her insufferable friends at a nearby bar.

Carly:
And they’re like doing shotskis, and doing shotskis and tequila skis. And ah, it’s just very hetero and very insufferable.

Riese:
It’s also sad because Abby jumps up to join her at the bar.

Carly:
She left the drag bar and Riley-

Riese:
It was a nice time.

Carly:
Where she was having a wonderful time. They were definitely going to make out if she had stuck around. I think we all know that’s where it was going. And she went to go be with straight people, doing straight people things. And after she gets there almost immediately, Harper’s like, “Whatever. I’m just going to stay out late with my friends.”

Riese:
My friends who listen to this podcast. This is a terrible thing.

Carly:
This was upsetting to me.

Riese:
She sends Abby home to her home with her family who think that Abby is an orphan shoplifter. Like Winona Ryder–

Carly:
Heterosexual orphan-

Riese:
A heterosexual orphan shoplifter which is just just the worst kind of shoplifters. Sends her home. And the reason is that she wants to stay at the bar and do tequila shots with her ex-boyfriend, Conner, with whom she has honestly spent more time than she has to with Abby on this vacation.

Carly:
Yup.

Riese:
You can’t do that. Once you are friends with your partner’s family. Yeah. You can do whatever. You can go your own ways, but you can’t send-

Carly:
Just like Fleetwod Mac —

Riese:
Yeah, exactly. You can’t send your secret girlfriend home so that you… Why? Just leave the bar. And I am as anyone who listens to this podcast know, a big fan of partners living their very independent lives and separating whenever possible.

Carly:
I’m also a big proponent of this, for sure.

Riese:
There’s an exception to that rule that is on the very first time you meet your partner’s family, you should not go your own way.

Carly:
That is not a time to go your own way. That is a time of much planning and discussions. Yeah. I tend to agree with that as well. Yeah.

Riese:
And I think that they kind of brushed over that.

Carly:
This happens, which is she tricks her in the car about the lie, about the coming out. And then suddenly she’s like, “I’m going to get wasted with Connor over here,” fucking Connor and sends her home. Now, if I was K Stew, I would have gone right back to that gay bar in the hopes that Riley was still there. Though I feel like Riley probably was just like, “I guess I’m going to go home.” But you know what, part of me wants to think that she hung out with the drag queens.

Riese:
I would text Riley and be like “you up?”

Carly:
Yeah, exactly.

Riese:
Exactly.

Carly:
Are you still at the gay bar…? Because?

Riese:
I would come back incensed with rage against and ready to make a mistake.

Carly:
And ready to fuck up.

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
Ready to ruin my relationship.

Riese:
Yes. I would be full of the spirit of ruin and ready to share it.

Carly:
Which is not Christmas spirit, but it is kind of related.

Riese:
It is related. Then we add insult to this injury with Abby sending texts to Harper that she literally just ignores while she’s at the bar with her ex-boyfriend.

Carly:
And then finally, after it’s past 2:00 AM, she’s like, “Mom, can I see you in the morning?”

Riese:
Yeah. And obviously-

Carly:
Like rude.

Riese:
And nothing makes you feel more psychotic than sending texts to somebody who’s out with their ex who is not responding to the texts.

Carly:
That is psychologically a way to ruin somebody. Yeah.

Riese:
And meanwhile, of course, Conner tells Harper that he misses her, they hug goodnight and he’s like…

Conner: Okay, Harper, was there someone else?
Harper: What do you mean?
Conner: Is that why we broke up?
Harper: No, no. I told you that the long distance just got too hard and –
Conner: The distance. Yeah, no, I know. I know. I don’t know. Just always felt like there was something you weren’t telling me.

Riese:
And this is what I realized she was dating Riley and Connor at the same time.

Carly:
Yep. This is the moment where that becomes very clear.

Riese:
And clearly this conversation is about more like, “”what were you hiding?” And the thing she was hiding was that she was gay.

Carly:
Wait, wait, sorry. She was dating Riley at the beginning. Remember that they were freshmen and they started dating, but didn’t wasn’t she dating him at the end? The later years of high school—

Riese:
Maybe it didn’t overlap.

Carly:
Yeah. I guess it’s like, it could have overlapped. It didn’t necessarily have to overlap. But the point was that she was hiding her sexuality.

Riese:
The point is that she was hiding her sexual orientation, but this was in my head when I thought, “Oh my God, wait, were they..” Not because he said, “was there someone else?” But just because I was thinking about their relationships in high school. And I was like, “I think they probably overlapped.”

Carly:
It’s very possible.

Riese:
But Harper was like, “No.” And I think though that in this scene you did see that Harper was just really… Does have a lot of internalized homophobia and it has completely destroyed her whole inner narrative about all of this and does not know how to find her way back.

Carly:
No.

Riese:
And it’s really sad.

Carly:
I think that’s probably something that audiences can relate to. It wasn’t my journey, but I’m sure it was someone’s and that’s what sucks.

Riese:
Yeah. I wanted her to be like, “Well actually Connor I’m gay.”

Carly:
I was hoping that she would say that.

Riese:
Instead to add an injury to the insult that we already added to an injury, when Abby comes to check on Harper in the morning and is like, “I didn’t know where you were.” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She’s like, “I didn’t know I had a curfew.”

Carly:
Oh, then she just gets angry. Oh-oh. She is just doubling down on all of her bad decisions at this point. Not good. Not good.

Riese:
She says, “I’m feeling suffocated. Why are you keeping tabs on me?” I know why: because you’re at her parents’ house!!!That’s why.

Carly:
It’s such a uncalled for outburst from Harper in this moment. What the fuck?

Riese:
And she’s like, “You agreed to this.” And it’s like, no, she was already in the car on her way there. She did not agree to this. She agreed to a very different circumstance.

Carly:
Indeed.

Riese:
And then she says that she needs some space at her parents’ house.

Carly:
Where they both are.

Riese:
And her parents think that Abby is a heterosexual orphan shoplifter. And this is terrible.

Carly:
It’s very upsetting.

Riese:
It’s really fucked up. She’s making Abby feel like her reaction is… Yes, it’s true, you’re not out, but that means you have to still make space for how Abby is going to feel about you staying out with your ex-boyfriend. Yes, you *do* have a curfew because you’re staying at your family’s house. So, yeah. There’s an expectation that you’re going to be home.

Carly:
And you brought her on this trip with you and then sent her home to go to sleep, after you asked her to meet you at a bar. Where she was already at a different bar and she should have just stayed there.

Riese:
And she says, she’s feeling suffocated on a trip to her family’s house, which is which again is aforementioned as a time for suffocation. That is a suffocation event.

Carly:
You go into that knowing you will be suffocated by your family. Therefore you can’t turn around and make it Kristen Stewart’s fault.

Riese:
You can’t. And Abby looks up a Rideshare app and discovers, it would cost over $1,000 to get a ride home.

Carly:
Goodness, gracious.

Riese:
John calls. John calls? Or she calls John.

Carly:
I don’t remember, but I would have been like, “Bitch, come get.”

Riese:
I think John calls. And he says that he apologizes for judging her.

Carly:
Yes. And she is like, “You know what, actually, you are correct.”

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And she says, “This is why I avoid Christmas. It always brings out the worst in people.” And I’m like, “ah, don’t blame Christmas for this. Come on.”

Carly:
Yeah. I would blame Christmas, but that’s my cynical Jewish side.

Riese:
Call me crazy. I would blame Harper.

Carly:
It does seem that the line of blame here would be a very direct straight line just to Harper. Yes.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). She’s sad and she’s crying. She doesn’t know she can stick it out or not. Also John was at the pet store, buying new fish.

Carly:
In the previous scene when he asks her where you would go to get fish, that was very funny. [

Riese:
And he was like, “I like these fish so much.”

Carly:
“So much that I wanted some of the same fish of my own.” I was like, “A pet store.” It’s so funny that he doesn’t know.

Riese:
It’s so funny. His reaction to this is where he’s just like, “I need to give this a think or whatever.” And so Abby still doesn’t know what to do. And then she makes a strong, strong move, which is calling Riley.

Abby:
Hey. Hey, it’s Abby. Are you doing anything right now?

Carly:
I mean, first of all, great. As a person who wants to watch chaos happen in a film.

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
Well, my thought during this was like, that is exactly what I would do. Once more. So she goes white elephant gift shopping with Riley, which is, I love this.

Carly:
We’re doing local shops. We’re on a walk. We are not at the mall.

Riese:
We are supporting small businesses.

Carly:
We are supporting absolutely, Small Business Saturday, we were doing it up. Love it. Love everything that’s happening.

Riese:
And then Harper is also shopping and she sees Abby and Riley walking by and I was like…HAHAHA

Carly:
I also had the same reaction.

Riese:
You asked her for space, you monster bitch!

Carly:
Yeah. This is your own fault. You’re the architect of your own demise.

Riese:
Feeling a little suffocated now, are you? Huh?

Carly:
Who’s suffocated now?

Riese:
Why don’t you call Connor? Harper sees them walk by and then Harper like drops a case of wine.

Carly:
Yes. Yes. She does. The whole thing just breaks. HEH-HEH. And it looked like she was shopping at Rose Apothecary too, which I thought was great.

Riese:
She was.

Carly:
Patrick’s in there. Could you imagine that-

Riese:
I know. I did feel like all of those little shops had a Rose Apothecary vibe.

Carly:
I know it was so cute.

Riese:
We go back to the glorious house and home of the illustrious Harper family where… She gets home, her mom is a total to bitch to Abby because Abby’s like, “Where’d I put the gifts.” She’s like, “Under the tree. Where do you think?” And then she’s like, “I’m so sorry. And then she says she can’t find her Christmas broach and clearly-

Carly:
And then accuses her of stealing it.

Riese:
She’s like, “if it should magically appear, that would be okay.”

Carly:
“I won’t ask any questions.”

Riese:
I’m like, “Oh my God, you need to like-”

Carly:
Fix it.

Riese:
Fix it. Abby tells Ted the dad that she didn’t shoplift. And he clearly doesn’t believe her.

Carly:
Oh, he doesn’t believe her at all. He’s also like, not really paying attention to her.

Riese:
No, he’s in his own little… Whatever happens in the brain of a white man.

Carly:
There’s no way of knowing.

Riese:
He’s thinking about money. And then Harper comes down and she — I think that it looks… Abby thinks she looks nice. And then Harper is like, “So what were you doing all day?” And she’s obviously being a bitch about it because she saw Abby with Riley. And I love the pettiness that Abby is just like, “Oh, I was just alone…”

Carly:
I appreciated that. Yeah, I really did.

Riese:
But before they can really get into it, mom interrupts or dad interrupts. Someone interrupts — it’s time for the Christmas party in full bloom.

Carly:
It’s here. It’s happening. Get out of the way. If you don’t want to be a part of this party because it is it’s happening.

Riese:
This is the main event of the year of the season of the show of this movie, of the film, of cinema history.

Carly:
This is the container for the big climax of this film.

Riese:
Yeah. And not a sex climax, because this is a Christmas movie for children and teenagers and grown-ups.

Carly:
No.

Riese:
The kiddos are singing. Dad introduces Jane as “the only reason their internet works.”

Carly:
Ooh, that’s brutal.

Riese:
Abby looks incredible.

Carly:
Abby looks like she thought to herself, “What is the gayest outfit I have with me on this trip?”

Riese:
“Yeah, let me return it and get something gayer.”

Carly:
I’m going to get a gayer outfit than that. And this was that outfit and you know what? She looks amazing. And it’s a really nice FUCK YOU you to all the conservativism that’s happening around her.

Riese:
I don’t know what it is — it looks like she’s just sort of wearing, it’s not a tie, whatever it is. I love it.

Carly:
It’s perfect.

Riese:
Her hair looks great. Her face looks great. Everything looks great. I don’t know how Harper could be. Like, “I’m still not ready.”

Carly:
Oh my God. I know.

Riese:
She looks incredible.

Carly:
She looks amazing. Good for her. This is a real vengeance look, which I love.

Riese:
Yes. She’s up. She’s dressed to kill.

Carly:
Indeed.

Riese:
And Riley saddles up for a spiced alcoholic beverage.

Carly:
That was a great moment. Loved that moment.

Riese:
They’re party friends.

Carly:
And you know who catches that? Harper, Harper, Harper, Harper catches that.

Riese:
And Abby is like…

Abby: Yesterday I’d never felt closer to another person in my entire life, and now I don’t know her. I thought she loved me and was happy, but I see her here and she’s so terrified of what everyone thinks. It’s just making me wonder who the real Harper is.

Riese:
Very wise Riley says like, maybe both of these versions of Harper are the real Harper. This is just… Because we tend to do that, be like, “That’s not really her.” And it’s like, “That is her too.”

Carly:
We contain multitudes, all of us. And sometimes you are one person in a certain environment and a different person in a different environment, whether that’s for safety reasons or big relying reason or whatever. More than one thing can be true at once. There are two Harpers in this case.

Riese:
There are. And Harper—

Carly:
At least two that we know of-

Riese:
So it’s been an entire day. And as far as I know, Harper has not yet apologized for asking Abby for space in her own home.

Carly:
No. She has not apologized at all. No, she has not.

Riese:
So that’s great. Again. It’s okay for Harper to not be out, but it’s not okay for her to be a shit head.

Carly:
Exactly.

Riese:
Although it’s obvious also that she’s struggling with a lot of things. We just don’t know that much about her. So it’s hard.

Carly:
We don’t really get her internal-

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
Stuff happening.

Riese:
I mean we can project and we can guess based on people we’ve known, and situations we’re familiar with, but I would imagine the layperson watching this would not be able to understand that. I do think a lot of her behavior, which is emotionally abusive at times, is coming from this complicated, fucked up place, which doesn’t excuse it.

Carly:
Right. It doesn’t excuse it. But it does do some work at explaining some of her internal workings.

Riese:
And then who should show up at the door? It’s not Santa Claus. It’s not Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer. Also not, it’s not Jack Frost. It’s not Father Time. It’s not Jenny Schecter or Ilene Chaiken—

Carly:
It’s none of the above.

Riese:
It’s John.

John: Abby!

Carly:
It’s John. Because as we recall it from earlier, he has been tracking Abby’s whereabouts. He has brought himself to this party, which I was personally thrilled.

Riese:
Delighted.

Carly:
Delighted. He shows up and immediately is cast as Abby’s ex-boyfriend John. And he has to pretend to be straight. And it is very funny.

John: Yes I am John, Abby’s heterosexual ex-boyfriend and I have come to get her back.
Tipper: I see. It would have been nice to have known you were coming, but since you are here, enjoy.
John: Thank you so much. (turns to Abby) Okay. I nailed that — and she is fabulous.
Abby: What are you doing?

Riese:
That’s so funny. It’s so funny. Because also … they both look so gay. These two people like.

Carly:
They could not look gayer.

Riese:
Abby could not get gayer. They’re both just standing there and they’re full gayness and it’s like, have these people ever… The drag queen bar is down the street.

Carly:
Oh. Just leave this boring Republican party and go hang out with Jinks and BenDeLa. Come on. It’s so obvious.

Riese:
It’s obvious.

Carly:
Take Riley with you, have a blast. Oh.

Riese:
Yeah. Go get some shots.

Carly:
Take Jane too. You know what Jane needs to get out of here.

Riese:
Jane needs to get out of here and I have a feeling she’d be —

Carly:
She’d experiment. Sure. We already know she’s an ally. We’re about to find out that she’s an ally

Carly:
We already know she’s an ally. Well, we’re about to find out that she is an ally.

Riese:
Oh, yeah, we are about to find out. Yeah. Spoiler.

Carly:
One of my favorite lines in the movie.

Riese:
Yes, absolutely. So, I think Abby looks over, and Harper is sort of flirty with Conner or something.

Carly:
Yeah. Yeah. She is. And then Abby is like, “You know what?”

Abby: “Harper, it’s over. We’re done.”

Riese:
Oh, it’s devastating.

Carly:
It is devastating. But I was so righteously angry on her behalf. So I was like, “Yeah, yeah, vengeance!”

Riese:
Yeah, and again, because she looks so amazing.

Carly:
Because I am a chaos demon when it comes to films, and she looks so good.

Riese:
I’m just like, to be told that from that person in that moment. Oooh.

Carly:
From that person in that outfit. Oooh.

Riese:
Oosh. The stabbing.

Carly:
You fucked up. You fucked up, Harper.

Riese:
You fucked up.

Carly:
You fucked up, Harper.

Riese:
And then Harper chases her downstairs so that they can fight about it. And Harper, of course, is like, “Why are you huddled in a corner with Riley?” And this is textbook toxic behavior.

Carly:
Oh, yeah.

Riese:
You’re being the jerk. They try to live their own life, and you—

Carly:
You’re deflecting your shit onto me.

Riese:
Yeah. And then you blame them for their reaction to your shittiness.

Carly:
Exactly.

Riese:
Which is completely fine when she’s with whatever. And then we have the line that Abby says she doesn’t like being hidden, dah, dah, dah, dah. And Harper says-

Harper: I am not hiding you. I am hiding me.

Carly:
That’s Harper’s whole deal, and what I wish we got a little more of throughout the film, but it definitely is a pretty devastating moment here.

Riese:
Yeah. It’s like she’s so concentrated on hiding herself that she is not paying attention to the fact that Abby also has feelings. But honestly, this fight bothered me… I thought that was a really good line, but this fight bothered me because I do feel like Abby’s argument was really focused on like, “You’re not out, and you’re hiding me, and that’s not okay,” when I feel like the real problem was just that she was being an asshole. I wish that they had actually addressed that because I felt like that was a little bit toxic to not kind of make clear to the audience.

Carly:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), mm-hmm (affirmative).

Riese:
And then finally, finally someone walks in on them.

Carly:
And it’s Sloane.

Riese:
And it’s Sloane.

Carly:
Of course, it is.

Riese:
And I think at this point, Abby has just like started to forgive Harper already, which I’m like, “Oh, God.” And she walks in, and she’s like, “Oh my God.” And then we cut to upstairs, where John is asking Conner about pumping weights and how much he pumps or whatever.

Carly:
Oh, my God. Him trying to be, trying to talk to Conner and pretend to be straight and talk about muscles is so good. It’s so funny.

Riese:
And then while upstairs, Sloane and Harper are having this huge drag-out, knock-down, literally fight where they’re like-

Carly:
Literally. This is the second one of the film.

Riese:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah, like, “Please don’t tell Mom and Dad yet.” And it’s complete chaos. And then-

Carly:
Oh my God.

Riese:
In the middle of the cast, they fling open the door and find Sloane’s husband is in the closet hooking up with Carolyn, who again I love.

Carly:
Yes. We love.

Riese:
And I love this for both of them.

Carly:
Yeah.

Riese:
Get it together and leave the family. You deserve better.

Carly:
Yep.

Riese:
Take your children. And she’s like, “Oh my God, we weren’t going to tell them.” So then that’s when we realized that… At first, I thought they were ethically non-monogamous, but then I realized they were about to get a divorce.

Carly:
Exactly. I was wondering the same thing. And then I was like, “Got it.”

Riese:
Right. And meanwhile downstairs, Jane cannot pick a white elephant gift. She just doesn’t know which one she wants.

Carly:
She doesn’t know.

Riese:
Maybe she’s a Libra, like me.

Carly:
Oh, I could see that for her.

Riese:
And I think, and then back upstairs, Abby kind of tries to intervene in some way. And Sloane yells, “You stay out of this, Sappho.” It’s perfect. That’s perfect.

Carly:
Incredible.

Riese:
Downstairs, Harry has selected Jane’s white elephant. She unveils the painting. It’s a painting that Jane did.

Carly:
It’s a beautiful painting of Main Street, and she goes, “What the fuck is this?” And I’m like, “What do you think it is? It’s a painting of Main Street.”

Riese:
And John is like, “I love that,” because he has good taste.

Carly:
John is perfect.

Riese:
The fight from upstairs tumbles into the downstairs, and Sloane is like, she’s not so innocent..

Sloane: All of this is happening because Harper… Harper is a lesbian. Abby’s her girlfriend.

Riese:
First of all, lesbians can be very innocent too, just for the record.

Carly:
True.

Riese:
They’re not all shoplifters.

Carly:
Yeah.

Riese:
Or shoplifting, heterosexual shoplifting orphans. I did notice in this point, because Harper is yelling back, and she’s at full-throttle anger mode. But the music they have is very slowed down and sad, which I thought was like a really nice-

Carly:
Yeah. It was a nice contrast.

Riese:
Yeah, because it showed that Harper’s intense, overwhelming, loud emotions were really just… were just sad.

Carly:
Yeah.

Riese:
Like the music was like, “Errrrrrrrrr.”

Carly:
Yeah, it was like, “Ooonnnnon.”

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
Which I thought was a very nice touch.

Riese:
Yeah, I agree. And so when Harper immediately is like, “No. No, no, she’s not. That’s not true.” And Abby is like, “All right, bye.”

Carly:
She’s like, “I’m not a lesbian.” That’s awful to hear your partner shouting that in front of their family. Oh, it’s brutal.

Riese:
And Riley shakes her head like, “Oh, God, this bitch.”

Carly:
Yeah. Riley’s like, “Here we go again.”

Riese:
And then Harper smashes Jane’s painting.

Jane: I put 100 hours into that painting, and you just destroyed it like it was nothing!

Carly:
That broke my heart truly. I was like-

Riese:
I think about it sometimes and feel sad.

Carly:
What does Jane’s painting have to do with this?

Riese:
Yeah. She’s just collateral damage. She smashes Jane’s painting over Sloane, which is a nice visual gag. But Jane put a hundred hours into that painting.

Carly:
I feel so bad for Jane. Get out of this family, Jane. They don’t appreciate you.

Riese:
And she likes herself, she says.

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
And I like her too.

Carly:
I like Jane.

Riese:
Justice for Jane. Outside, Abby’s outside. John shows up with coats, and Abby talks about how her parents really loved Christmas, and she thought this year… I feel like they’re trying to shoehorn Christmas in here, and okay, that’s fine.

Carly:
It’s fine. It’s a Christmas movie.

Riese:
It’s a Christmas movie. Yeah. This year would be different. And John, even though they’re best friends, this is, for some reason, the first time they’re talking about their coming-out experiences.

Carly:
Sure.

Riese:
Sure.

Carly:
Sure, sure, sure.

Riese:
Sure. Yeah. Abby says that her parents were really accepting. And John… I actually cried during this conversation because I’m very easily-

Carly:
This is a really beautiful scene.

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
And also Dan is so good at delivering this kind of shit. I mean, he just like killed it.

Riese:
Yeah. And he was like, “My dad kicked me out and didn’t talk to me for 13 years after I came out.” And he talks about the terrifying part right before you come out. It’s very moving. I was very emotional, even though I don’t have any strong coming-out stories of my own. And that was nice. Back inside, Riley tells Harper it was a great party, and Harper apologizes to Riley. And then Dad yells at everyone, including Sloane, for lying. And finally Harper says, “Sloane wasn’t lying. I’m gay.”

Carly:
Dun, dun, dun. And I’m in love with Abby. Da, da, da. Who isn’t in the room anymore. Where did Abby go?

Riese:
And she let herself hurt Riley because she was scared, and she doesn’t want to do that to Abby. And I wrote, “I cry.” I think Abby’s standing there at this point, right?

Carly:
I honestly don’t remember. Probably. Maybe.

Riese:
Yeah, I think Abby’s standing here at this point, and then Sloane says, “I’m getting divorced, but I didn’t tell you because I felt like I would be worthless without my family.” These are all like rich-people feelings that I couldn’t relate to.

Carly:
Same. These are super-rich white-people things that I couldn’t relate to any of these rich problems at all. But there was some emotional catharsis and some good acting, so…

Riese:
And honestly, everyone’s life is their own life, and their struggles are relative to whatever has happened to them before. And these are very real painful feelings that everybody’s dealing with here, even though I can’t, don’t really connect to any of them personally.

Carly:
Yes. And then we get the beautiful moment from Jane, where she says my favorite line in the film.

Jane: I don’t have any secrets, but I am an ally.

Riese:
But Abby is still like… Harper’s like, “I did it.” And Abby’s like, “It was too late.” Dun, dun, dun.

Carly:
Dun, dun, dun.

Riese:
And in Dad’s office, Mom comes in and tells Dad that she wants to do karate.

Carly:
Fucking good. Go do some fucking karate.

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
Like good for her.

Riese:
And she didn’t want to be open and honest about that. And everyone is trying to be perfect for him, and they’re not. “And the only reason Jane is okay is because we gave up on her when she wouldn’t stop biting in preschool.”

Carly:
You know? Oh my God.

Riese:
Then we go back to the kitchen. So everyone… So this moment, as you can see, a gay person coming out fixes everyone’s problems. Now they all realize that everyone’s imperfect because some people are gay, and now they can all join hands in the kitchen and be together as sisters. If I were Sloane, I would be like, “So Riley was your girlfriend, right?” Like I would have 10,000 questions about Riley.

Carly:
Oh my God, I know.

Riese:
I’d want to talk about Riley all fucking night. I was like, “Why is no one asking Riley questions?”

Carly:
I think that’s what we all need to have more information about.

Riese:
Yeah. I need a spin-off that’s just like a Riley interrogation, starring Jonah and Sloane.

Carly:
Yep.

Riese:
That’d be a good cast.

Carly:
That would be great. I would be into that.

Riese:
We cut to a Love’s gas station, which they have a lot of things in those gas stations. John is reading the ingredients of Cheetos.

Carly:
You know what? Don’t do that to yourself. Just enjoy them.

Riese:
Just eat them.

Carly:
Don’t… Just enjoy them.

Riese:
He says something about the fish because on his way out, he’s like, “Let me preface this by saying no one would disagree that fish belong in the ocean.”

Carly:
Yeah.

Riese:
He’s just so good.

Carly:
He’s so funny.

Riese:
Then Harper rolls up in her little jalopy and says that Abby is the love of her life, and she will spend the rest of her life making it up to her. Okay. Tall order there, tall girl.

Carly:
Not to be confused with the Netflix show, Tall Girl.

Riese:
There’s a Netflix show called Tall Girl?

Carly:
Yeah, it’s about this white girl who’s so impressed because she’s tall.

Riese:
I can relate to that.

Carly:
I didn’t watch it, but the trailer —

Riese:
As a white tall girl myself. It’s hard up here. Carol is, I barely even can see her.

Carly:
Because she’s so small and low to the ground.

Riese:
She’s so small, and she keeps hiding inside piles of blankets. And you know what? I’ll allow it. I’ll allow her to allow Harper to try to redeem herself. I don’t prefer it.

Carly:
I think if you… If their foundation of their relationship is strong enough, then they can work on it. But we didn’t really get to see that aside from the oil paintings. So we don’t really have a way of knowing, but you know.

Riese:
And it’s-

Carly:
It’s a Christmas romantic comedy. This is what’s going to happen.

Riese:
Yeah. It is. It’s a Christmas romantic comedy, so of course, they’re going to get back together, even though we all know that Riley and Abby would have-

Carly:
Riley and Abby are supposed-

Riese:
… a hot little relationship.

Carly:
Yeah. They’re supposed to get together, for sure.

Riese:
Yeah. We wake up on Christmas morning, and now John and Jane are best friends.

Carly:
Everyone in the family loves each other.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Dad says he sunk all of their savings into his campaign and-

Carly:
Yeah, that… I thought that was like… I was like, “Wait. What?”

Riese:
Good thing you still own this house with all of this jewelry, brooches or whatever. You’ve got a Roomba. That’s worth 500 bucks. Sell that on eBay. I’ll sell it for you. I’ll take a percentage. Sloane and Eric make cute faces. I don’t know what I was talking about there.

Carly:
All right.

Riese:
Harry calls, and she says that she will support his candidacy if they’d have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy with Harper because, again, it is 2008 here, 2010. I don’t know when that is.

Carly:
1995. Like what’s-

Riese:
It’s not this era.

Carly:
It’s a bummer. But also they’re Republicans, so maybe we just assume that’s what she would say. I don’t know.

Riese:
Who knows? I mean, there’s tons of Republican lesbians and gay people. They’re called Log Cabin-

Carly:
There are gays for Trump. Yeah.

Riese:
They exist. They exist.

Carly:
They’re real.

Riese:
We don’t care for them.

Carly:
No, we don’t.

Riese:
Then they do a big family picture, and David takes it, and that’s cute. And then we fast forward in time. It’s one year later.

Carly:
Oh, my God.

Riese:
One year later, and they’re at a book store.

Carly:
They’re at a bookstore for Jane, because you might’ve forgotten, but John is a book agent. Jane is an author in waiting. John works with authors. He’s a lit agent. And guess what? This happened, her fantasy. A crazy story series, whatever, has begun, and it is a huge hit.

Riese:
And the bookstore is packed with fans-

Carly:
Packed with fans.

Riese:
… for her story. And I could not love this more for either of them.

Carly:
It’s wonderful.

Riese:
And I guess Harper and Abby are engaged.

Carly:
Sure.

Riese:
Okay.

Carly:
Oh, God, I forgot. They all go to the movies. That’s right.

Riese:
Yeah. And then we have the Tegan and Sara special song. And then during the closing credits, they have this cute little Instagram feed. Did you see that?

Carly:
Yeah, that was super cute.

Riese:
Yeah. So it sort of shows the last year, and you see Mom being very accepting of her daughter and her daughter-in-law, future daughter-in-law.

Carly:
And she gets into karate.

Riese:
Yes. Yes.

Carly:
So excited for her.

Riese:
She lives her dreams. We also see Aubrey Plaza and Clea DuVall in one of the pictures on the Instafeed. A little Easter egg.

Carly:
Right. So the idea is that this is… Little Riley has a new girlfriend, and it’s Clea DuVall in the photograph.

Riese:
Yes. I love this.

Carly:
Pretty great.

Riese:
I love that. Especially since it’s Clea DuVall—

Carly:
If I was the director of this film, I would have done the exact same thing.

Riese:
Especially because I feel like Clea DuVall has been like “the girlfriend who has three episodes” in Veep, in the Handmaid’s Tale, in American Horse. Right? Like, this is her role, is like the one who walks onto the stage, everyone clocks she’s gay, and the girlfriend. And then she has a bit part. And I guess that’s the episode?

Carly:
That’s the episode. There’s been a whole lot of chatter on the internet about this film.

Riese:
It’s almost as if we have nothing else going on.

Carly:
One could say that. One could say we are all in our homes doing very little and are depressed, and there’s a lot of discourse. We’ll say discourse.

Riese:
I’ll say discourse. Yeah. There were parts, like the way that Harper was acting, that I think definitely summoned unfortunate memories for those of us who have been in relationships that were toxic. But I also feel like they did frame it in a certain way. I don’t know. I think you can like the movie without liking Harper.

Carly:
Exactly. I liked the movie, and I didn’t love Harper.

Riese:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It was mostly the wig for me.

Carly:
So both things can be true. What?

Riese:
Mostly the wig.

Carly:
The wig also. Yeah, the wig, it was tough.

Riese:
Because I love Mackenzie Davis, but-

Carly:
I know.

Riese:
Also some people were like “there was no chemistry between them,” and I think there was chemistry between them, but the relationship obviously sucked. It was built on a foundation of lies.

Carly:
Right.

Riese:
And ultimately, it’s just like a… I mean, I’d just like to, if we could go back to my least favorite Christmas movie of all time that I hate publicly more than any other movie in the world besides Lost and Delirious, which is Love Actually. And every fucking relationship in that film that many of you dare to like is-

Carly:
Not just like.

Riese:
Love.

Carly:
But love.

Riese:
Is completely fucked up!!!!

Carly:
Completely. I think that this is a very specific genre. This is a holiday-themed romantic comedy. I think that adhering to the laws of the genre, this film is a success. I think that this is a genre about rich-white-people problems, a trip home, and lies.

Riese:
And a heterosexual shoplifting orphan.

Carly:
And it delivered on all… Exactly. And it delivered on all of those fronts. I think that the unfortunate thing is that this is kind of the only film of its kind that has such a mainstream platform. And so of course, it’s going to get a lot of attention, whether it’s good or bad.

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
I’ve seen a lot of great reviews. And as we know, it set huge, huge records for Hulu, which is massive. To me, that’s a really good thing because I want to make queer rom-coms, and I know a lot of people that want to make them and people that want to see them. And there is absolutely an audience for it, and it’s not just a queer audience. It is a big audience that includes straight people, and that’s pretty awesome, I think. That’s how we get our stories told to the widest possible platform, is things like this, is things like Happiest Season succeeding beyond Hulu’s wildest dreams, I’d say.

Riese:
Yeah, absolutely.

Carly:
And is the cast really white? Yes. Are there some problematic characters? Yeah. But that’s the genre too. So I think that it’s less about whatever you want to say about this film and more about celebrating that it happened and now being excited for what it opened the door for.

Riese:
Yeah, which is hopefully a much more diverse and-

Carly:
Yeah. And maybe even a queering of the genre and of the type of storytelling that happens in this type of world. Like, maybe it doesn’t need to be that formula anymore. Maybe there’s something different that could be done in the future. But I think in order to show that there’s potential for that, which is something that no one wants to… No studio wants to take a risk on. Nobody wants to throw a ton of money at that. You need to prove that there is an audience first, which we did right here. We, like I’m part of it. That we proved there is an audience.

Riese:
Good job, team.

Carly:
A massive audience. Great job, us. Riese and I obviously take a lot of the credit.

Riese:
Thank you.

Carly:
You need to prove there’s an audience. You need to prove that there’s storytelling that can be told, that there’s like… It did all the things. It checked every box it needed to check. And I think that that’s fantastic.

Riese:
I agree.

Carly:
And I love that.

Riese:
Yeah. And in many ways, it’s like the L Word in that way. It was completely white. It was a very limited type of person. And that’s kind of where we started.

Carly:
And I know there’s a lot that can be said, and I get just as frustrated as everyone else that progress happens so slowly, and so many things are done in such a backwards fashion, but I also am a kind of… The way I approach my career is I know what the rules are. I know how to play in that sandbox in order to do the subversive shit I want to do. And I think that someone like Clea DuVall, I think, understands that as well.

Riese:
Yeah, for sure. And it was also like, as far as Christmas movies go, because I’m a big fan of the genre—

Carly:
You sure are.

Riese:
It was very smart. Like, you could tell it was written by smart people. The humor was elevated. You know what I mean? It was much smarter than we’re used to seeing from a Christmas film, and I liked that too. Awesome.

Carly:
Me too. Yes. I enjoyed that.

Riese:
And I think that… The sad thing is, yes, this relationship was toxic, but so are a lot of our relationships.

Carly:
There’s lots of toxic relationships in a lot of other movies and TV shows, but man.

Riese:
And this is our first really big, like you were saying, our big-budget thing, and there are some smaller ones. There’s that movie Let It Snow that I didn’t see that came out last year, I want to say. And then there’s also on Netflix, there’s a movie called A New York Christmas Wedding, which obviously did not get the same budget or attention that this one did.

Carly:
Or marketing. Yeah.

Riese:
Or marketing. They didn’t even tell us it existed.

Carly:
They did not.

Riese:
Whereas I have been informed of every step of this film’s development.

Carly:
Every step of the way, we’ve been informed.

Riese:
Yeah, it was not even on netflix’s list of queer movies for the month, even though Dolly Parton’s Christmas special was. And I know that she’s like a queer icon, but she’s not gay.

Carly:
Right. Yeah, allegedly. What?

Riese:
But anyway, so… And that is a more racially diverse story. So that’s a cute… It’s not like an award-winning, amazing film, but if you like this and you like Christmas movies, you should definitely watch that, because it has a lot of things that this film does not. And it’s a fun little Christmas romp as well.

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
And I hate the title of it.

Carly:
Well, yeah, that’s fair.

Riese:
So in conclusion-

Carly:
In conclusion-

Riese:
I probably will now be lighting the cardboard-

Carly:
I will now light the cardboard menorah that is attached to the wall with the cardboard flames. We will celebrate Clea DuVall and the cast of this film. We will celebrate Tegan and Sara, who wrote a very catchy Christmas song for the soundtrack.

Riese:
Yeah, and Shea Diamond had a song on this too-

Carly:
Yes.

Riese:
Which was awesome. She’s a black trans musician, and she’s wonderful.

Carly:
Love her.

Riese:
And she had a song like [crosstalk 00:20:53].

Carly:
Justin Tranter, who’s queer, did the whole soundtrack, which is awesome.

Riese:
So yeah, and congratulations to everybody. I look forward to finding out if we had the right opinions or not.

Carly:
Yeah. You know I love reading internet comments more than anything famously. We hope you enjoyed this very special holiday episode of To L and Back.

Riese:
To L and Back.

Carly:
We spent very little time talking about The L Word, though I do think we brought up enough interconnectivity that I think this qualifies.

Riese:
Yeah, we did.

Carly:
And yeah, hopefully, this will tide everyone over with our glowing personalities and voices for a few more weeks before we get our act together and start recording season six of this incredible podcast, the most listened-to podcast-

Riese:
In the world.

Carly:
… in my Spotify account.

Riese:
And probably in the world. Some people are like, “Oh, everyone listens to This American Life.” Okay. Yeah. All right. In 2006.

Carly:
Actually, they’re all listening to us.

Riese:
Everyone’s listening to us.

Carly:
And we have some hot takes.

Riese:
We have some very hot takes, some hot toddies for this holiday season, hot takies.

Carly:
Hot takies.

Riese:
I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore.

Carly:
I don’t either.

Riese:
Anyway, we’ve been talking for over two hours, so we have to get back to our lives now.

Carly:
Yeah. Stay safe out there. Try to have a relaxing couple of weeks if you can.

Riese:
Yeah.

Carly:
We’re not, but if you can, try to be chill and lay low and stay safe and stay home, if you can.

Riese:
A Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah to yours and yours and mine and hers and his and theirs.

Carly:
And theirs. We did it.

Riese:
I love life. The end of Christmas and love. Okay. Bye.

Carly:
Bye. (singing).

“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 512: Loyal and True

Season Five is coming to an end and we are celebrating with not one but TWO group gatherings jam-packed with lesbian drama: Jodi’s very weird experimental art show and Lez Girls’ very weird wrap party! Will anyone have sex on the balustrade at Yamashiro? Will Molly throw a drink at Shane? Will Alice continue thinking-cheating with Clea the designer? Will Bette and Tina do a weird dance while Bette wears a terrible butterfly shirt? Join us as we wrap up the last good season of this strange show!

The usual:

Riese: Hello everyone, this is Riese!

Carly: And this is Carly.

Riese: And this is To L and Back!

Carly: To L and Back!

Riese: Yeah, a podcast about The L Word, a television program—

Carly: That aired on Showtime, and we are recording this Sunday, November 1st, so by the time you hear it, whatever we are feeling will either be magnified to an extreme, or will be hopefully lessened a bit.

Riese: I think we’ll be in limbo. That’s my prediction.

Carly: I fear we will be in limbo as well, and I don’t know if my fragile state can handle too much limbo. It’s been a rough week over at Carly HQ.

Riese: Over at Carly University?

Carly: Yeah, at Carly… It’s been really…

Riese: It’s been a rough week for more than just Bette.

Carly: It’s been tough at Carly University.

Riese: It’s been tough at Carly University. The students aren’t happy.

Carly: The dean is unhappy.

Riese: The dean is unhappy.

Carly: The chancellor is unhappy.

Riese: The chancellor is livid.

Carly: Oh, she is pissed. We’ll get to that.

Riese: We’ll get to that, yeah.

Carly: We’ll start off by just saying that this is the finale of Season Five. I want everyone to just take a moment and really congratulate yourselves, and us also, because we made it this far.

Riese: Yeah, mostly us.

Carly: Mostly us.

Riese: Season five was a great season.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And it’s a great season to have done, before the next season, which is the worst.

Carly: The worst. Speaking of Season Six, we are going to be taking the rest of November off before we really get into it. No firm plans yet for the Season Six premier date, but it is happening, despite how we don’t want to do it, we are going to do it because we must.

Riese: Yeah. And we’ll have fun because it’ll be so bad.

Carly: Yeah, exactly.

Riese: And we’ll be extra funny.

Carly: I think it’s going to be a real hoot, because I’m 75 and that’s how I talk.

Riese: And isn’t that what the world needs right now, a hoot?

Carly: Is a hoot? Yeah.

Riese: Horton Hears a Hoot.

Carly: Yes, exactly.

Riese: And who is us having a hoot on Season Six.

Carly: And we are tiny, tiny, tiny little creatures living on the planet.

Riese: Teeny, tiny creatures.

Carly: So, yeah, just letting you know now, do not expect any new episodes in November, and apologies in advance, but we need a little break.

Riese: Yeah, we just need a little break so that we can have a little break… down.

Carly: Yes. Exactly. And it’ll give us time to really get some really amazing stuff together for Season Six, which is going to be wild.

Riese: And then, after that, we’re going to do something else, but we don’t know what yet.

Carly: Yeah, TBD on something.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: Wow, okay. We have a lot to talk about but not now.

Riese: So, let’s get to the show that we are talking about today.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Carly would you like to introduce the episode?

Carly: You bet I would. Welcome to today’s episode, Season Five, Episode 12, the finale entitled “Loyal and True.”

Riese: Yes.

Carly: A lot of lying and disloyal-ness here.

Riese: Right, but also they say the loyal a lot.

Carly: Exactly. Yes, they do. So, this is a real ripped from the script title.

Riese: That’s the name of my jam band.

Carly: Ripped from the script.

Riese: Ripped, man.

Carly: Ripped From the Script.

Riese: We did our first gig at Wax. I love you, Peoria.

Carly: This was written and directed by Ilene Chaiken and originally aired March 23rd, 2008.

Riese: It did. We had a party at a hotel for this little finale.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: But, I guess we got so drunk that I forgot to take pictures of everyone and so—

Carly: I mean, I don’t remember any of this, so…

Riese: I don’t if you were there. I don’t remember if you were there or not.

Carly: Maybe I wasn’t there, and that’s why?

Riese: Anyway, so “Loyal and True,” which rhymes with boil and blue.

Carly: Oh my God, I love that. That’s such a normal thing to say.

Riese: Just look out, I’m going to have more.

Carly: You have more rhymes?

Riese: I’m going to have more… more insights of this nature TK. That means “to come.”

Carly: Which doesn’t make any sense by the way. Journalists, I know you’ve been doing this for decades, I still don’t understand it.

Riese: I know. Mm-hmm.

Carly: TK? To come? Doesn’t make sense.

Riese: Yeah, why not TC?

Carly: Why? How come?

Riese: Maybe they’re confused.

Carly: HK? How come? Time code?

Riese: They get confused with TC, which stands for The Carly University, which is different from Carly University.

Carly: Oh my God, those are two—

Riese: The Carly is the name of your apartment building that’s like, slightly off campus.

Carly: The Carly, exactly. It’s one of the on-campus housing facilities at Carly University.

Riese: Yeah, but it’s pretty much just the really rich, white kids live there.

Carly: Exactly. Because, of course, I would have my name on a building that is elitist.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: That’s true. Maybe it got bought out from under your nose.

Carly: You know what? It was, my investor sold me out and—

Riese: I hate when that happens. I mean this is relevant—

Carly: … I lost control of my university housing.

Riese: This is so relevant to today’s…

Carly: To today’s—

Riese: One of the many plots in today’s show that I don’t give two shits about.

Carly: One of the many terribly boring storylines that are in this one hour-long episode.

Riese: One hour and six minutes.

Carly: Should we get into it, so we can start talking about how annoyed we are?

Riese: Yeah, let’s get into it. Okay, we open in a production meeting. They’ve hired some men—

Carly: There’s more men.

Riese: … male actors to be in this program once again. And they’re all dressed terribly, as usual.

Carly: Per yoozh.

Riese: They look like they’re extras on Queer as Folk, at like Brian Kinney’s ad agency in the pilot episode. And they’re talking about, “Oh my God, the movie blah, blah, blah,” they’re like, “Maybe we could do a feminine hygiene tie-in,” which, what does that even mean? Like, you would get a free tampon if you go to the film?

Carly: No, it would be some sort of ad campaign that combines the tampons and the movie.

Riese: Oh, so it would be like Jessie would be…

Carly: Like, they would probably try to have the actors be in an ad for these tampons and somehow cross promote it.

Riese: Oh, so they’d be like, “Do you want to watch me take my tampon out?” Like, they’d be like that?

Carly: I mean, maybe. I don’t think this actually. It probably wouldn’t be that. But it would be something like that, because they’re already at the end of the production, so there’s really no time to put the tampon into the movie. You know? They’d have to write a scene about tampons and make sure that they talk about which brand it is. So, I think it’s more like some sort of promotional thing for the movie, that would be paid for, potentially, by the tampons.

Riese: Right. Honestly, they should have done a Diflucan tie-in, because that’s how Jim could find out that Jenny was cheating, was that she picked up a yeast infection from Karina.

Carly: That’s incredible. That’s an incredible idea.

Riese: Again, free ideas, free ideas. They are all—

Carly: We got to get you into that marketing meeting.

Riese: They’re all free and they’re all roaming around in my brain.

Carly: You’re just giving them away.

Riese: I’m just giving them away.

Carly: Giving them away.

Riese: So, someone says, “It’s not just a gay movie, it’s for everyone.”

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Fine.

Carly: Fine.

Riese: Here’s the places where they don’t think it’ll test well, Peoria… We’re always talking about Peoria on this show.

Carly: Always. Orange County.

Riese: Orange County, just thrown in there.

Carly: Just tacked on.

Riese: Yeah, so I guess Disneyland is a very straight park in Orange County that we’re all familiar with. Right? Isn’t Disneyland in Orange County? It is?

Carly: Yes, it is.

Riese: Right?

Carly: Mm-hmm.

Riese: Nebraska, Florida. What do all these states have in common? Truly, I don’t know. And they want to change the ending.

Carly: Yeah, marketing doesn’t like the ending. Marketing wants Jessie to go back to Jim, right? In the end.

Riese: Mm-hmm. Yeah, Jim, who can swim.

Carly: Swimmy Jimmy.

Riese: Or as they call him in the locker room, good old Swimmy Jimmy.

Carly: Good old Swim Jim.

Riese: Swim Jim.

Carly: Snap into a Swim Jim. We’re just going to have constant zingers today. Just my depression is kicking out zinger after zinger.

Riese: At the end Jessie’s going to be like, “Hey, I want to go snap into your Swim Jim. And Jim’s going to be like, “Okay.”

Carly: And he’s going to look right into the camera and wink.

Riese: And then it’s going to be like, “The end,” sunset.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Anyway…

Carly: So, yeah, obviously Tina and Adele and everybody seem a little taken aback by this news.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s going to change later in the episode, but for now, the people that have been actively involved in the production of this film are shocked by this request.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: They also say that they’ve just gotten a deal with a major distributor, though they never say who it is, but they use the phrase “major distributor” so many times—

Riese: Major distributor.

Carly: … in this episode, that you can make a drinking game out of it, if you were so inclined.

Riese: Right. You could even make a drinking game out of, “We just got a new major distributor,” because there’s twice in this film where they act like it just happened.

Carly: Yeah, even though it happened sometime before this meeting. But, whatever.

Riese: Whatever guys, we’re onto you.

Carly: Whatever, we’re about to get into a XL morning-

Riese: Traffic jam. XL morning time and it is a beautiful day in Los Angeles.

Carly: It’s a beautiful day for traffic.

Riese: Tina and Bette are stuck in the car in some traffic and they are talking about geography in a way that I found very confusing, but I let it lie.

Carly: They talked about how Tina lives on the West Side, and Angie’s school is closer to Tina, and would Bette consider moving to the West Side. And I hate to break this to them, but most people also consider West Hollywood on the West Side.

Riese: Yeah, I was going to say, “Ladies, you’re already there.”

Carly: You’re already in the West Side. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Riese: You don’t know what you’re talking about. So, Bette is writing a speech about Jodi’s art.

Carly: Yes. She’s going to give a speech to introduce Jodi at an opening at the Hammer Museum? I think is what’s happening?

Riese: Yes. Yeah.

Carly: And she’s like—

Riese: This is going to go really well.

Carly: I think we can already tell that this is going to go perfectly, without a hitch. And she’s been rehearsing it and she reads this line that basically says that Jodi invented sculptures, and good for Jodi. And then Tina’s like, “Have you talked to her?” And she’s like, “No.”

Riese: Mm-hmm. Bette also really wants to highlight in her speech that Jodi is a woman, but I think people already know.

Carly: I think they also know. I think anyone going to an art opening at the Hammer know who the artist is that they are going to see, most likely.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So, they would know that person’s gender. But what do I know?

Riese: Nothing.

Carly: She’s only a famous artist, in this world.

Riese: Alice is on a bus, so…

Carly: Alice’s face is on the bus. It looks like she got the job at The Look.

Riese: And she looks great.

Carly: She looks great.

Riese:
On The Look. Get it?

Carly: I get it. Look at that, it’s Alice.

Riese: Look at that, it’s Alice looking great on The Look.

Carly: Look at that bus! Also, we see the bus because it is blocking an intersection, which happens frequently in Los Angeles.

Riese: True.

Carly: Angie at one point just says—

Angie: Jodi!

Carly: …. which I was like, “Good job, Angie. You did it.”

Riese: Also, Angie wants to honk the horn. Angie stole the scene, as usual.

Carly: Yeah, completely.

Riese: Then we pan up…

Carly: Oh, man, what a transition to the next scene. I mean, really thought it out.

Riese: We go up, up, up, up, up in the sky.

Carly: Into the sky.

Riese: And what’s in the sky? It’s a helicopter.

Carly: A helicopter. Down, down, down, down,

Riese: Down, down, down, down, down, down, it lands. Who’s in the helicopter?

Carly: Oh my God, it’s Peggy Fucking Peabody.

Riese: Peggy Peabody, Peggy Peabody, Peggy Peabody.

Carly: What’s wrong with Peggy Peabody? Well, we’re not going to find out yet.

Riese: She seems fine.

Carly: She seems fine.

Riese: She seems fine.

Carly: She’s screaming about wanting her lawyers and her business managers and her daughter, Helena, who materializes out of thin air, and is there.

Riese: I loved that.

Carly: That was amazing.

Peggy Peabody on a stretcher

Riese: That’s magic. Helena’s magic of everyday life.

Carly: Yeah, poof, Helena’s right here. You just say her name, and she shows up.

Riese: And she is tan.

Carly: She is tan.

Riese: Windswept.

Carly: She is clearly enjoying some sort of island living, and good for her.

Riese: Straight out of island life.

Carly: Island life. She got on the island plane to fly in. It’s Dodo Airlines, it’s what takes you to the islands in Animal Crossing. I hate that I just said that.

Riese: I love that you just said that.

Carly: Peggy’s like…

Peggy Peabody: What on Earth are you wearing?

Carly: Which is—

Riese: Those two.

Carly: Those two, oi.

Riese: Oh, boy.

Carly: So then, we go to Shane and Molly, it’s the morning.

Riese: High Art.

Carly: And Shane is reenacting scenes from High Art.

Riese: Yeah, have you guys seen High Art? Because, yeah—

Carly: Because this is just a scene from High Art.

Riese: Shane has a new hobby, Shane is a passionate—

Carly: Photographer.

Riese: … passionate, passionate… She has a eye, and she’s using her eye to take some photographs of Molly in bed, and they’re both naked, they’re both attractive people, and they sort of toss around in the hay.

Carly: In the hay. And by hay, I mean white bedding.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: Lesbians just love taking photos with old cameras. That’s a thing that lesbians love so much.

Riese: Mm-hmm. And they’re like, “Where’d you pick that up?” And they’re like, “Oh, it was at a thrift store.”

Carly: Yeah, it’s like, “I’m really passionate about photography,” even though that’s something that we’ve never really gotten into with Shane.

Riese: But the good thing, as I’m sure we’ll discuss shortly, is that it’s a pretty easy industry to break into, so this is a great idea that Shane had.

Carly: Super simple.

Riese: They can’t make out all morning because they’ve got breakfast with mother.

Shane and Molly in bed

Carly: Oh, I thought you were going to say because they’ve got morning breath and they should go brush their teeth. I hate any scene in a film or television show, where the people wake up first thing in the morning and are like full, open-mouth making out. It makes me want to scream every single time it happens, and it happens often.

Riese: Well, they’re about to go stuff some eggs in that mouth.

Carly: Some eggs benny, because they’re getting brunchers with Phyllis. Mother.

Riese: So, then we go to Alice’s house. Tasha has a new job. Tasha is a security officer at everybody’s favorite store.

Carly: Cal-Mart.

Riese: Cal-Mart.

Carly: Get it?

Riese: Yes, I got it. It’s like Wal-Mart.

Carly: But it’s in California.

Riese: But in California.

Carly: Even though it’s the same logo and font and color.

Riese: AKA Target.

Carly: Yeah. We have Wal-Marts in Los Angeles.

Riese: Yeah, we do somewhere.

Carly: We have a lot more Targets though.

Riese: Yeah, we do.

Carly: My God.

Riese: I love Target, too.

Carly: Target, if you want to sponsor this podcast, that would be great.

Riese: Target, if you want to sponsor any aspect of my life, including this podcast, please give us a holler.

Carly: That would be great, yeah.

Riese: Then we go to hospital.

Carly: Back to hospital. So, Peggy got bit by a jellyfish?

Riese: It happens, you know? Happens to the best of us.

Carly: Happens.

Riese: If I had a dollar for every time I got bit by a poisonous jellyfish that has no cure for it’s venom…

Carly: How many dollars would…

Riese: Zero dollars. I would have zero.

Carly: She’s still worried about Helena’s clothes.

Riese: Yeah, she is.

Carly: She’s focused on what’s important.

Riese: Which is — she seems to be concerned that she’s going to die and she wants to be sure that her money is in good hands, and Helena’s her only offspring.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: And then she describes Helena’s lifestyle with a quintessential Peggy Peabody quote that Lauren will put in.

Peggy Peabody: A drab little hut in the dregs of Tahiti with a tax evading granddaughter of a vanilla pod picker, doesn’t strike me as situated.

Carly: I think it’s an incredibly powerful decision for Peggy to be clinging to her new found classism on her deathbed speech. Good for her.

Riese: How does she know she’s the granddaughter of a vanilla pod picker?

Carly: I feel like there’s something probably racist in there.

Riese: To the streets?

Carly: To the streets of Los Angeles. 3rd Street, to be specific.

Riese: Yeah, they’ve shot a lot of this in LA.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So, Shane is wearing a shirt that I had, and—

Carly: Alice was wearing a FREE CITY shirt in the last scene too.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: A lot of FREE CITY shirts right here.

Riese: So, Shane’s going to be a photographer now, LOL.

Carly: Yeah, LOL. Big time LOL.

Riese: “What kind of photography?” “Oh, she doesn’t know, she does portraiture.”

Carly: Portraiture… I don’t know, maybe whatever, dabble in some stuff, I don’t know.

Riese: Fashion? Fashion photography?

Carly: Maybe fashion. Just tent it.

Riese: Yeah, it’s a pretty easy… I’d say, if you’re looking for a new career path, and you want to just get right in there — nursing, student teaching, or computers if you can learn how to code, or fashion photography.

Carly: Absolutely. There’s such a need for fashion photographers, and it pays so well.

Riese: Yeah, it pays incredibly well.

Carly: You might not be able to tell, but I’m being deeply sarcastic right now.

Riese: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: It pays very poorly and it’s very hard to get gigs, and there’s very few of them.

Carly: Photography has changed a lot in the last 20, 30 years, not really for the better in some ways, though it is cool to see a lot of new voices in photography, people shooting covers of fashion magazines who never would have had that opportunity before, that’s wonderful to see.

Riese: It is.

Carly: However, there are a lot of things about photography that suck, and a lot of them have to do with Instagram. Anyway, so…

Riese: Shane wants to go to school first, Molly doesn’t want her to go to school, and that was weird.

Carly: And Shane definitely read that as a weird dig at her intelligence.

Riese: Yeah, I don’t know what it was.

Carly: Me either.

Riese: I thought it was Molly just being like, “I want you to be free all the time to hang out with me.”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Or something. They approach the restaurant and they see Phyllis is sitting there with the one, the only—

Carly: The only.

Riese: Joyce Wischnia. And Molly is like, “I’m not going on a lesbian double date,” which I found very relatable.

Carly: As the child of lesbian parents?

Riese: As a child of lesbian parent experience, I found that very relatable. Because every time it happens I feel… I don’t know what I feel, but for some reason I’m always annoyed with it. So, Molly refuses to shake Joyce’s hand because Joyce tried to ruin her dad. And Shane is like, “Listen Molly, hello, that’s what divorce is. That’s how divorce cases go. You can’t just be mean to Joyce Wischnia forever, because if they are accepting me, you need to accept her.” And Molly’s like, “Okay.” What a great match.

Carly: Yep. Doing great. Everyone’s doing great, you know?

Riese: Including us.

Carly: We’re doing amazing. So, we first go to The Planet, the SheBar bitches are here and they’ve brought in South Beach’s top interior decorator.

Riese: To throw up all over it and to replace the moon.

Carly: And then he says they say on every HGTV show, which is that it has great bones. And then Kit says…

Kit: I hope you choke on them bones.

Carly: But yeah, they took down the moon, took that moon right down. Honestly, the moon was hideous.

Riese: The moon sucked.

Carly: The moon sucked.

Riese: The moon had to go.

Carly: But it also… the moon is very queer.

Riese: That’s true, the moon is gay.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: The sun is less gay.

Carly: Right? Yeah. But we don’t know what they’re going to replace the moon with. And we’re never going to find out.

Kit at The Planet

Riese: We won’t.

Carly: But anyway, this scene is now a different scene, because Helena is here and Kit’s excited to see her and they’re going to go drink some coffee or whatever, and then we go back to brunch.

Riese: They’re also going to have cookies. Helena said they’re also going to have cookies.

Carly: “Do you have cookies?” And I was like, “Wow…”

Riese: And I was like, “I want cookies now, actually.”

Carly: Yeah, same. So, we go back to brunch, which we find out is at Little Next Door, which is a restaurant that closed, but it was on West 3rd Street. And it’s a cute little spot. They’re talking about school… This is so boring.

Riese: The LSATs.

Carly: Can I just say this whole episode is one of the most boring episodes of this show I’ve ever seen?

Riese: Oh, really?

Carly: It’s an hour and six minutes, and most of it is just people talking about things. Like, what happens?

Riese: Yeah, it definitely had a low…

Carly: Low energy.

Riese: I mean, a lot of stuff happens.

Carly: Yeah, a lot happens, but—

Riese: It was very chill, like the pace was very slow for a finale.

Carly: Yep, mm-hmm.

Riese: But I sort of thought they pulled it off, even though I didn’t necessarily enjoy it.

Carly: Yeah, okay, fair. Fair. Fair, fair, fair.

Riese: So, Molly did great on the LSATs.

Carly: Wow, great for Molly! [Yawns]

Riese: Well, but she’s going to give up… She has a Supreme Court internship. She could have been the next Amy Coney Barrett, but instead she wants to go surfing with Shane on the ocean.

Carly: Oh, does Shane surf now, too? Wow, we’re learning so many new things about Shane today.

Riese: Shane has hobbies now, get with it.

Carly: Shane is a well-rounded individual with things aside from partying.

Riese: Ladies.

Carly: And ladies going on. Hey, remember when Wax burned down?

Riese: Barely.

Carly: Barely. Hardly.

Riese: I happen to agree, I do not think that Molly should give up a Supreme Court internship to go surfing with Shane.

Carly: Honestly, I agree, too. If she actually wants to go into law, then it seems quite foolish to have an opportunity like that and not do it. You’re privileged as shit, just fucking go do it.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: You know how many people want that internship?

Riese: Internship.

Carly: And you’re just like, “Hmm.” Or fuck, getting out of the way, and give it to somebody else who cares.

Riese: Yeah. Venice Beach B-roll.

Carly: Oh, yeah. We’re looking up, we’re looking up because we are Tasha, who’s lying on the ground, looking up at the trees and the sky and the birds. And Alice is also here.

Riese: And probably there’s planes, helicopters, sun.

Carly: Definitely a lot of planes, that’s near the airport.

Riese: Did you say sun already? It’s daytime, so there’s sun, but later there’ll be a moon, because at night it switches.

Carly: Exactly. Right. Sometimes I get confused about that but, right, it’s moon is night and sun is day?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Sun’s day. And there’s also chem trails in the sky. And that’s the government poisoning us.

Carly: Yeah, that checks out. Sure, I’m not going to question that at all.

Riese: Don’t. Anyway, that’s the whole scene.

Carly: Yep, that’s the whole scene. Alice is here, Tasha’s lying on the ground. Tasha is smiling. That’s all we get.

Riese: Tasha remains attractive.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: We go back to The Planet, where Helena — she’s only been home for about 30 seconds, but she is… her tune is turning. She does like Dusty quite a bit, but she kind of misses… Well, she probably misses that pear polenta tart.

Carly: Now, maybe she’ll be in a position where she can afford it soon.

Riese: And she’s like, “Who are these people, who have come here and stolen your… Marina’s club, out from underneath the feet of our community?” What would Marina’s Italian dad/husband/brother think about this? He’d probably be horrified.

Carly: She’s like, “These women are from hell by way of Miami Beach.”

Riese: Yeah, she says they’re from hell via South Beach.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And then Cindi comes over and casually is like, basically… she’s sorry, Dawn’s crazy, as we all know, she is in an emotionally abusive relationship with Dawn, who is really mean to her all the time.

Carly: Yes, all the time. And then she comes up and is mean to her some more, to further illustrate the point of how mean she is to her all the time.

Riese: Correct.

Carly: So, we go back to Venice Beach, and Tasha tells Alice that she quit her job today. And then she called Alice to come meet her and she’s about to go meet up with her friend JJ from Army, who’s now a cop. They’re sitting outside at a restaurant, and they walk up to them, and the person with them, whose name is Karen, freaks out when she sees Alice, because she’s a big fan of her from The Look, and wants an autograph. And it’s, like, kind of awkward but not that awkward, like it could have been more awkward, I don’t know. It was a little awkward.

Karen: Holy fucking shit.
Alice: What?
Karen: I know you.
Alice: You do?
Karen: “I’m Alice Pieszecki and you’re watching The Look!”
Alice: Oh.
Karen: You are so cool. Oh my God.
Alice: Oh, thank you.
Karen: I love the way you handled that ass, Mary Lamm. Is she really such a doofus? Or is that like—
Alice: No, she’s a doofus. Yeah, totally.
Karen: Alice? Can you join us for lunch?
Alice: Oh, I have somewhere to be, but thank you very much. Yeah. Okay, well, have a good time.
Karen: Yeah.
Alice: Talk to you later, bye.
Karen: Aw, man. Williams? Hey, Alice? Can I have your autograph?
Alice: You want my autograph?
Karen: Yeah. Yeah, please.
Alice: What’s your name again?
Karen: Karen.
Alice: Karen?
Karen: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, I think it was Tasha… maybe Tasha felt cool, maybe Alice felt bashful, more importantly I really like that, I think when The L Word was casting these bit parts, they found people who had gotten their hair cut a certain way to do Midwestern mom roles and then just were like, “Oh, that could be lesbian,” and they just threw them in. That’s what I was thinking about when I was looking at our dear friend Karen.

Alice and Tasha talk to Tasha's friends at a cafe on Venice Beach

Carly: Yeah, her hair is interesting.

Riese: I have very few notes for this scene. Tasha looks hot in a white tank top?

Carly: Yep. Tasha has a perfect smile? I don’t know what else you want me to say about Tasha that we haven’t already said. She’s charming, her cheekbones are perfect… I don’t know what else.

Riese: Yeah, I’m going to set up camp on those cheekbones. I’m voting early on those cheekbones, and I’m voting yes.

Carly: Yes on cheekbones.

Riese: Yes on cheekbones. Speaking of bones, we go back to where Kit recently said she hopes someone chokes on bones, The Planet, where Jenny and Tina are having a little…

Carly: A lunch, maybe?

Riese: Like a lunch? A late lunch?

Carly: Late lunch?

Riese: Maybe a tea?

Carly: Maybe. Maybe a fruit plate in the late morning.

Riese: A cheese plate? A cheese and fruit plate?

Carly: Hard to know what time of day it is. It is maybe still morning, but maybe afternoon, it’s questionable.

Riese: Whatever time of day it is, it is dark in Jenny’s soul.

Carly: That is accurate. Tina tells Jenny that they got major studio distribution… drink. She also tells her all these secrets about Nikki, which is that Nikki comes to her crying because Jenny won’t return her calls… she says after every take, which I find that to be very hard to believe. But after every take, she goes up to Tina and is like, “Oh my God, do you think that that’s how Jenny… that’s what Jenny meant when she wrote that line? Do you think Jenny would have liked that performance?” And I’m sure, if she’s doing that in front of Adele, which it sounds like she is, that Adele is tickled.

Riese: I got it, it’s just so weird. Jenny’s agents dropped her.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: So…

Carly: So…

Riese: Obviously her agents were bad because, once more, a sex tape is not going to kill your career, honey.

Carly: We’ve only seen that time and time again, it only enhances one’s career.

Riese: Exactly. Especially such a good scene!

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Set, set, set, let’s go to set, let’s go to set of the film!

Carly: We’re on set. Nikki is shooting the breakup scene with Karina, and then the line producer has to be between Adele and Tina and she has to go up to Tina… Adele couldn’t even tell her this herself, and she goes up to Tina, “You have to leave the set at Adele’s request.” And she’s like, “What?”

Riese: “I’m the producer.”

Carly: She’s like, “She says she can’t work with you looking over her shoulder.” And she’s like, “I’m the actual producer of this film. This film wouldn’t actually be happening without me.” So, she goes up to Adele, who’s fully just smoking a cigarette on set, and—

Riese: Yeah, she looks evil as hell.

Carly: She looks as evil as shit, dude. Oh my God. She is full villain.

Riese: Menacing, yeah, full villain. Complete transformation. She took off her glasses, she got a hair cut.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: She’s wearing tiny ankle boots, and she is fierce and mean.

Carly: Mean as hell.

Riese: And ruthless.

Carly: Ruthless.

Riese: Ruthless. Heartless.

Carly: And she’s like…

Adele: Loyalty is very important to me, Tina.

Adele and Tina on the set of Lez Girls

Carly: Which is maybe the funniest thing Adele has ever said.

Riese: Yeah, where was your loyalty to Jenny, who was so kind to you?

Carly: Adele, who blackmailed the production? God.

Riese: If it was my set, I would tell Tina that you can’t actually wear a dress with like four peep holes at the top that goes all the way down to your knees, and then underneath the dress, which by the way has… in addition to the peep holes at the top, which are I think are illegal.

Carly: I believe, yes.

Riese: Yeah, think it’s at least ordinance. I don’t know where they’re filming, but…

Carly: It’s definitely a $300 fine. And I think it’s actually on the ballot this year.

Riese: Right. Oh, good, gotcha.

Carly: As a city we are currently voting on whether that shirt is illegal, or the dress is illegal.

Riese: Yeah, we are voting on this. We’re not sure if it’s illegal or not. Yeah, and I honestly voted that it was.

Carly: I too voted that it was.

Riese: In addition to the peep holes at the top, we also have… it switches patterns mid-way. And all of this is its own crime. But then underneath it, she’s wearing a full pair of jeans, of blue jeans, flared blue jeans.

Carly: Man, remember the jeans-with-dresses-over-it moment, that this was firmly in the middle of? Or maybe on the tail end of, but they were just trying to make it happen still?

Riese: I think that maybe worked for maybe three weeks.

Carly: I think so, yeah. Yeah, it was rough. It was tough. That was a tough time for fashion.

Riese: But other than that outfit, Adele has no grounds for this removal. And I will be voting no on Prop Adele.

Carly: Tina’s like, “Well, I’m the producer, so you can’t kick me off.” And she’s like, “Okay, but you want this film to come in on time and under budget, right?” So, she’s threatening Tina, that she will take too long and go over budget, which is… I hate to say this, I just hate this character so much. I cannot believe any of this is working in her favor. It makes me so angry. I know it’s just drama because it’s a soap, but like… it’s just… come on.

Riese: Yeah. And so then, we go to the hospital where Helena’s talking about how Dawn deceived Kit and bought half of The Planet, and then Peggy’s like, “Why don’t you buy it back for her?”

Peggy Peabody: Every low life has a price, Helena. And most likely a peccadillo or two that can be easily discovered, if she needs a little persuading.

Riese: Which is an incriminating secret.

Carly: Right. Which I guess for Dawn is what? That she’s a shitty, abusive person to Cindi? Because I don’t think that’s a secret, but… I mean, she’s just corrupt. Everything about her is gross and corrupt.

Riese: Maybe she has an armadillo. A pet armadillo, an illegal pet armadillo.

Carly: That would actually kind of endear her to me. I would be like, “Aw, she has an armadillo.”

Riese: Yeah, at least she’s keeping an armadillo alive. What is everyone else doing?

Carly: She’s like, “This is my lover Cindi, and this is my armadillo, Dylan.” Arma-Dylan.

Riese: Arma-Dylan. Yeah, everyone wants their own little arma-Dylan. But watch out, it’ll back stab you. And Helena’s like, “I thought you didn’t want me to buy my friends?” And Peggy’s like, “As I recall, they were still your friends even when you were poor.” So, everything’s fine now. Helena seems to be easing back into a life of luxury.

Carly: Luxury.

Riese: A life of luxury. In the lap of luxury.

Carly: I like when Peggy says that, “Yeah, I cut you off, so that you wouldn’t embarrass us.” Like, embarrass the Peabody name. Which is like… oh, God, these people.

Riese: These ladies. My God, rich people huh?

Carly: Peggy now does not care what Helena does with the money.

Riese: No.

Carly: Which is convenient I guess, but whatever.

Riese: Back to the streets of the Venice Canals, where Alice is riding Clea’s little motorbike up and down the little streets of the canals, which is a very cute little area, I hear, in Los Angeles, California.

Carly: It is.

Riese: If you ever happen to visit.

Carly: It is. It is very cute, but you have to drive to Venice and then find parking before you can hang out there, and so good luck with that.

Riese: That’s true.

Carly: No, it’s super cute. Okay, so I have a question.

Riese: Uh-huh. I’m ready to answer it.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Whether or not I know the answer, I will answer it.

Carly: Okay, so Alice had plans, and the plans just happened to be in Venice, and so then, when Tasha called her from Venice, it was like, “Well, that’s convenient. It’s on the way to my date.”

Riese: Interesting.

Carly: So, she called her there and I guess she wanted Alice to have lunch with them, I’m assuming, right? But then Alice is like, “No, I have to leave,” and then just went a few blocks away to go on a date?

Riese: Friend hang.

Carly: Sure, sure, sure, sure. Anyway, I’m just… this is a little weird, but whatever.

Riese: It is, yeah. Again, we have some lesbian twinning happening here.

Carly: Yes, yeah.

Riese: But it’s kind of cute. I sort of like both their outfits for the time.

Carly: I mean, Alice’s outfit was really cute. I feel like they kind of could have done a little better with Melanie Lynskey’s outfit.

Riese: Yeah, you’re right.

Carly: I only can call her Melanie Lynskey. But she’s… I mean, we love her, just in general, but I don’t love her kind of driving a wedge between Alice and Tasha.

Riese: No.

Carly: Though, I guess, the wedge was kind of already there. I don’t know. It’s definitely more Alice’s problem than hers.

Riese: Tasha’s. Or, than Clea’s you mean?

Carly: Than Clea’s. But she does try to kiss her, after she is told that she has a girlfriend. And that, not cool.

Riese: Yeah, she goes for the make out, Alice goes for the fake out.

Carly: Wow.

Clea and Alice at the Venice canals

Riese: Clea talks about how she previously cheated on someone I believe, and it was chaotic, and then Alice notes that what starts in chaos ends in chaos.

Carly: Certainly.

Riese: Which, in my experience, has been 100% true.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: But they both are very attracted to each other and they feel this incredible connection. And what are they going to do about this incredible connection they feel, when Alice is in a relationship? There’s also a situation here where Clea gets a ticket for riding her motorbike, or something?

Carly: Yeah, it wasn’t clear what the ticket was for. Were they speeding?

Riese: I don’t know. But obviously this is so Alice is like…

Alice: That sucks. The LAPD can be total pigs.

Riese: And Clea’s like…

Clea: I kind of hate them.

Riese: And I’m like, this is why the LAPD can be pigs? Because they gave you a motorbike driving ticket?

Carly: Yikes, yikes, yikes.

Riese: Let me tell you some stories, ladies! But I think that the point of that was just to set up Alice doesn’t like cops.

Carly: Exactly. It’s just letting us know that Alice doesn’t like cops.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: Because it’s going to become relevant very soon.

Riese: Very soon, yeah. Oh my God. Pool time!

Carly: Pool time! We’re outside at Bette’s house and she’s super impressed with how Tina is handling everything with Adele trying to kick her off set. And I think Tina is just so exhausted with everything that has happened at this point, that she is just like, “Whatever. We wrap shooting tonight at 4 AM and tomorrow night’s the wrap party and it’s like we just need to get through the next 48 hours. It’s whatever.” 24 hours… I can’t do math. So, this also sets up that Tina will not be at Jodi’s opening tonight—

Riese: Art situation.

Carly: … because she’s going to be on set. And she mentions the wrap party and then Bette is like, “Do you have to go?” Which, I get why she’s saying it, because Tina’s stressed and with Adele and everything is very chaotic, but also, she’s like, “I want to go, it’s my film.” And I’m like, “Yeah, Bette.” I get where Bette was coming from, but it kind of comes off as very rude. A little bit.

Riese: Yeah, a little bit. And then Tina says that Jenny wrote a great ending with a powerful message for young, gay women. And we also find out that Bette wants a child. And also, we experience at least half of this scene from behind… literally behind a curtain.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: I don’t know what the point of that was, besides to obscure the outfit that Tina is for some reason still wearing.

Carly: Still wearing. Yep.

Riese: So, I’d like to see the LAPD take some action on that.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Tasha.

Carly: Speaking of, we go back to Alice and Tasha at home, and Tasha looks super excited. She actually looks really happy, we get more of that beautiful smile. And she tells Alice she’s excited because she just signed up for the police academy!

Riese: Police academy!

Carly: And she’s like, “They’re super great, and they’re really pro-gay, so it’s totally cool.” And Alice is just like, blink, blink, blink, blink.

Riese: “You want to be a cop? And I…” Actually, I talked about this in a former episode, but it was cut out of the final cut, so we can talk about it again. It’s that I have had this conversation twice with a partner saying… One was a partner who said that she was going to become a cop, I don’t know what happened with that, but the other was a boyfriend who said that he had just signed up for police academy and he was very excited about it. And I was like, “Ahhhh.”

Carly: Yeah, big time. Big time “Ahhh.”

Riese: So, we broke up shortly thereafter. And that was my last boyfriend ever, and I believe he is still an officer of the law, and I wonder how that’s going for him.

Tasha tells Alice that she quit her job

Carly: I would love to see what this show has to say about Tasha being a cop currently. Like, literally today, as cops are protecting all the Trump caravans that are running people off the road. I mean, really just some truly incredible stuff happening.

Riese: It’s really deep community work. Really.

Carly: Really incredible commitment to justice and fairness and upholding the law only for white supremacists.

Riese: Yeah, I think LAPD especially is very famous for just being really great.

Carly: Being great at their jobs.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: They’re world renowned for being—

Riese: World renowned.

Carly: … super really good at their jobs.

Riese: Super awesome and really—

Carly: Never murdering anyone.

Riese: Never.

Carly: And even if they do, they’re super—

Riese: Not starting fights with protesters.

Carly: They’re always held accountable for all of their misdeeds.

Riese: Mm-hmm. They are, yeah. If a cop kills you, that cop is going to at least maybe—

Carly: Get a talking to.

Riese: … be off duty for two or three days. And that is justice. Lady Justice said it in the constitution. Speaking of ladies, we go to SheBar. Helena shows up and she’s like, “Hello Cindi, I have a proposition for you.”

Carly: And she’s like, “Dawn’s not here right now.” And she’s like, “No, no, it’s literally a proposition for just you.”

Riese: It’s called Proposition 8, and it will be on the ballot this year.

Carly: Was that 2008?

Riese: It sure was, yeah.

Carly: Do you like art?

Carly: Do I like art?

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: I guess. I like some art.

Riese: Do you want to go to an art show?

Carly: I mean, I would love to leave my house. Oh, do you mean the art show for Jodi?

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: I would love to go to Jodi’s art show.

Riese: Well, let’s go.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Well, here we are at the art party.

Carly: Well, here we are, here we are at the art party for Jodi and, oh look, there’s Bette Porter, she appears to be talking to a curator, and I overheard her saying that she’s really impressed that Bette decided to come considering what the piece is about. That’s interesting!

Riese: Huh. Huh. I wonder what the piece is about?

Carly: I don’t know. Hey, look over there.

Riese: Is that all of the girls? Is that all of Lez Girls?

Carly: It’s the whole cast.

Riese: Oh my God. Is Jodi blowing Bette off?

Carly: Oh, she sure is. Oh my God, I wish I had popcorn to eat at this art gallery opening, it’s so dramatic. Whoa, Max is here, but he came with Tom and it seems to have zero connection to any of the other people in the group despite, I presume, still living with two of them, but whatever.

Riese: Whatever. The point of Max’s character is to get him as far away from the action as possible, to make sure that his place in the community is nowhere.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Phyllis would like to talk to Shane.

Carly: She sure would.

Riese: I hate it. I hate it. What’s going to happen here, and I mean the part I hate is actually the part where they do break up in a little bit, but this is setting it up and you already know what’s going to happen.

Carly: This is so annoying.

Riese: It’s so annoying, I fucking hate this shit. Is that Phyllis is like, “You are not good enough for my daughter. You’re going to leave her. Bette says that you would totally leave anyone you’ve ever been with.”

Carly: “Alice told me a story of leaving a girl at the altar.” So, she’s like trying to—

Riese: And she’s like, “You’ve never been with anyone and you’re never dated anyone for more than six months,” which is not true. Because Season Three picks up somewhere between three and six months after—

Carly: After two.

Riese: After Season Two. And Shane and Carmen are already together a number of months progress there.

Carly: Right. They must have been together more than six months though.

Riese: And then they go to Whistler, remember there’s that weird time jump right before they go to Whistler. Right before the finale.

Carly: That’s right. So, we don’t really know how long they actually were together before they had their fated wedding.

Riese: It was probably around a year.

Carly: I was thinking that too, when she said that.

Riese: It was definitely more than six months.

Carly: Yeah. More than six months, but less than 12.

Riese: Time is a flat circle, so… She tells Shane that she needs to spare Molly. I think the only idiotic thing about Shane is that Shane is actually absorbing this and acting on it.

Shane glares at Phyllis at the art show

Carly: And taking any of it seriously. But that is unfortunately a flaw that they have written in for Shane, is that if you tell her something, she’s going to internalize it, and then do with it what she may.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I realize we skipped a part that I thought was very funny. When the gang is in line, waiting to get in, and Jenny tells Shane that she should go to the wrap party, and Shane’s like, “But I don’t want to go to the wrap party.” And she’s like, “Yeah, but you work so hard.” And I’m like, “Um, when?”

Riese: She did all that hair. Hair doesn’t just grow on trees. It grows out of your head.

Carly: We never saw her working. She was always just hanging around.

Riese: Right, but that’s because it’s a TV show. We’re not going to see her doing all the hair.

Carly: Oh, fine. Whatever.

Riese: But we see the hair. And that’s the thing, invisible labor. You don’t even know. There’s the people with their hair done, and you’re thinking, “How is their hair done? Magic?” No, it was Shane, toiling all hours of the night. Sweating, sweat dripping off of her body.

Carly: Shane, those magic hands, right? Haven’t we heard about that before?

Riese: We sure have. Then darkness descends upon the gallery. Jodi says hello to Kit, has an awkward interaction with Bette. Jodi and Shane exchange pleasantries that are genuine.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Bette is up there, she’s really just promoting the fuck out of Jodi, her audacity.

Carly: Her audacity to be a woman who puts objects on other objects.

Riese: Yeah, she’s really doubling down on Jodi being a woman.

Carly: And a sculptor.

Riese: And a sculptor. Yeah, things extrude from her subconscious, the redemptive power of art. Okay.

Carly: Sure, whatever.

Riese: Then Jodi gets up and says, “This piece is called Core, because it’s about core values.”

Carly: And I was like—

Riese: And this is when you know… oh, boy.

Carly: First of all, Jodi is bad at naming stuff, and second of all, uh oh.

Riese: Uh oh. It’s about love, honesty, loyalty, commitment. And her art is somehow—

Carly: It’s video art!

Riese: Video art… So now, she’s like a multimedia video artist, and that’s what really sells these days, but the video art is—

Carly: This isn’t sculptressing.

Riese: It’s some videos that were somehow taken of Bette, by Jodi.

Carly: Except they’re clearly footage that is owned by Showtime, that was used in the television program The L Word. And they’re projecting it onto boxy shapes.

Riese: Yeah, they’re boxy shapes.

Carly: Maybe the boxy shapes are the sculpture?

Riese: I mean, it’s kind of confusing that she would do a piece of art that featured audio so prominently.

Audio of Jodi’s video: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. What happened? Fuck me. Fuck me. What happened? I love you. Go without me. Go without me. Go, go, go, go without me. Leave me alone. Don’t, okay? No, just don’t. Leave me alone. I love you. Go without me. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Go without me. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Fuck me. Fuck me. This is not a good time. Don’t, okay? No, just don’t. Leave me alone. Fuck me. Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Don’t, okay? No, just don’t. Go without me. Stop. Fuck. Stop. Please, just stop. Fuck. Stop. Stop.

Carly: How did that not even occur to me? I was so taken aback by the fact that it wasn’t a sculpture and where did they get the footage, that the audio part didn’t even register. I was just like, “When did she shoot this? She didn’t shoot this.”

Riese: She didn’t. It is Bette saying, “I love you,” “Go without me,” “Leave me alone,” and, “Fuck me,” over and over again, sort of like a twisted doll. It’s the worst piece of art I’ve ever seen.

Carly: Truly the worst.

Riese: I think that she should have taken that Barbara Bush sculpture from the art studio, put a picture of Bette on it, and gone to the museum and been like—

Carly: The Abortion of Bette Porter.

Jodi's video art

Riese: The Abortion of Bette Porter, yeah. And inside her little thing would be a little tiny Tina. Just a little, tiny, little Tina. Tiny Tina.

Carly: I would have loved that art.

Riese: Right, I would have given that five and a half stars.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: On a one to five scale.

Carly: They’ve set Jodi up to be this incredible renowned artist in the series and like—

Riese: Her art sucks.

Carly: This is her art? This is video art, projected onto boxes. And I generally don’t really love video art, I just feel like it’s—

Riese: No one loves video art.

Carly: I don’t think it’s… I’m just not into it. But I also don’t think this is good even if you’re into video art. It’s just Bette saying some things over and over again. Which, I just don’t see how you, as an artist, think that this thing that is clearly purely just to get back at Bette, is somehow also art. Like, I think it’s just a revenge video. It’s not art. I think the artistic thing to do would have been to actually create a work of art that incorporates things in such a way that when Bette saw it, it would hurt her.

Riese: She would know, yeah.

Carly: She would know.

Riese: And she would be like—

Carly: And maybe even if other people didn’t know.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But this is literally footage of a person, who I’m assuming, did not sign a release to be in it.

Riese: Just projected on a screen. Right.

Carly: Projected onto boxes.

Riese: Uh-huh.

Carly: At The Hammer.

Riese: At The Hammer. Yeah, so it’s bad?

Carly: I think it’s bad. I’m sure people think it’s good somewhere maybe.

Riese: No one thinks it’s good.

Carly: I just think it’s bad. I think it’s very, very bad.

Riese: Carly thinks it’s bad. They explained it and it went very well. I agree with everything you said.

Carly: Thank you.

Riese: Then we go to SheBar.

Carly: Oh, shit, it’s about to get awesome.

Riese: It’s Dawn Denbo looking at Helena, and she’s like, “Who is that hottie?”

Carly: And so, she goes over to her and she’s like… her little speech that they tried to give Shane back when they first had the threesome with Shane, it’s that same energy. And then, poof, Shane’s there and she’s like, “Goddamn it. What the fuck are you doing here?”

Riese: “How did you get in?”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And now we have another improbable business transaction, but—

Carly: Yep.

Riese: I support it. I support it.

Carly: I support it because this one is the one where Dawn gets screwed. So, this one I support.

Riese: Right. Mm-hmm.

Carly: But it is still just as ridiculous as the others.

Riese: “Surprise, we own this place now.”

Carly: Yeah, they did the same thing to her, that she did to Kit using Helena’s fancy money.

Riese: Mm-hmm. And then there’s a great interaction between Dawn and Cindi that Lauren should put in.

Carly: Yeah.

Dawn: What the fuck did you do?
Cindi: Me?
Dawn: Yeah.
Cindi: How can I do anything, when I don’t have a thought in my head? That’s what you tell people right? That she doesn’t have a thought in her head?
Dawn: Yeah, this is the thought in your head? This is what—
Helena: Get your dirty little hands off her, Denbow.
Dawn: Why should I?
Helena: Because she’s with me.
Cindi: By the way, the name’s Tucker. It’s not “her lover, Cindi,” it’s Cindi Annabelle Tucker. Would you like to go dance in your new club?
Helena: Yes, I’d love to.

Carly: Good for them. Good for Helena, just swooping in with her money. She’s totally changed now. Great job, Peggy, you’ve changed her.

Riese: Yeah. She swooped in with her money, she took the club, and then she stole Dawn Denbow’s girl. And that is a trifecta of achievement. Lesbian powers have been unlocked. Helena Peabody wins the season.

Carly: Ultimate winner of Season Five—

Riese: Helena.

the girls at SheBar

Carly: … is the person who was in it the least, Helena Peabody.

Riese: Yeah, she emerges triumphant from all of this. And I look forward to her and Cindi’s surely brief, but flourishing, courtship.

Carly: Flourishing love. Dawn keeps calling them skanks, which is just a funny word. I feel like no one says “skank” anymore. And I feel like that was a very 2008 insult and it’s just kind of like a little time capsule every time she says it. I appreciate how she clings to that one word so dearly.

Riese: She does. Also, Dawn loves wearing a gauzy shirt over a tank top.

Carly: Over a black bra.

Riese: Yeah. Maybe — does she just have one costume?

Carly: Maybe. I mean, they did introduce a lot of characters. So, maybe one of them had to have the worst costume wardrobe. Costume wardrobe? Wardrobe budget, whatever. I don’t know.

Riese: Wardrobe costumes.

Carly: Wardrobe costumes.

Riese: She’s like, “What is this, Skanks-R-Us?” So, everyone is dancing, except Shane and Molly are slow dancing, like someone just died, even though someone died in Season Three, not just now.

Carly: Robin and I used to get to excited whenever we’d be out at a lesbian thing and there would be like… there’s always those lesbian couples that are intensely slow dancing to upbeat music and we used to think it was the funniest thing in the world. I say “used to” because we can’t go anywhere. Though I will say that watching the rest of this episode, where it’s just large group scenes at parties, made me feel absolutely insane today.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But anyway, that’s not the point. I also want to point out that Roxy Music is the band playing in the scene, which I thought was a very interesting choice for what a DJ at SheBar would be playing, but it’s good, so I was, like, into it, but it definitely felt off for this venue. But anyway, Shane goes—

Riese: Shane may be dancing slowly but she’s pretty quick on her feet with this little ingenious plan she’s established to push Molly away.

Carly: Shane’s really a criminal mastermind here. Real genius. Watch out, Lex Luthor.

Riese: Shane’s in town.

Carly: Here’s Shane.

Riese: Using ye olde “Get me a drink” fake out, where she gets a drink, looks around, sees a lady that she recognizes from a former—

Carly: Life?

Riese: … bedroom experience.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And is like, “Oh…” And then Molly was like… and then Shane’s like… And then Molly’s like, “I’m not going to throw a drink at you. You need to save yourself.”

Carly: I was kind of bummed. I wanted to see a drink thrown, at least one more time this season.

Riese: I know, I love it.

Carly: One more time this season. And if it’s going to get thrown, it’s going to be at SheBar. Let’s be real.

Riese: So, yeah, I think actually I liked… I think Molly handled this with dignity.

Carly: I think so, too. Yeah, Shane’s acting ridiculously immature and she handles it as well as I think anybody could.

Riese: Yeah, for it being, again… I hate this trope so much.

Carly: Yes, so much.

Riese: When someone breaks up with someone for reasons that have nothing to do with the relationship and the other person doesn’t know what those reasons are.

Carly: Hate it.

Riese: And guess where this shows up the most? In shows about my other hated trope, blackmail. Always.

Carly: Blackmail, which never works.

Riese: Which never works. So, as you heard last week, I hate blackmail as a plot device, so does Carly, and although there is no blackmail here, this is a similar sub-trope of that trope, where someone’s broken up with.

Carly: Exactly, they’re connected.

Riese: And they don’t know why. And I hate that for them.

Carly: I hate it too.

Riese: For the show, for me, for Carol, for all of us. For Los Angeles.

Carly: For the community.

Riese: For my future, which is undetermined.

Carly: TBD.

Riese: And then we go back to Bette’s house and she is lying in Tina’s arms and she says that she was humiliated. And Tina’s like, “Yeah, that’s why she did it.” And that’s true, she did. She felt humiliated and now she wants Bette to feel humiliated and she succeeded.

Carly: Yep. Case closed. Pretty simple one, honestly. Not the most complicated thing we’ve had to deal with here. Yeah.

Riese: That’s the power of art.

Carly: Exactly. I think that if this had been in the era of social media, then Jodi could have just posted a dumb video online, and not had to have had an entire expensive gallery opening at the fucking Hammer. And maybe she could have saved that for an actual piece of art instead of… Honestly, this should have ruined her career as an artist. But whatever. I guess, it was really worth it to get one in at old Porter. Dean Porter.

Riese: Oh, man. Then we get a lot of Los Angeles B-roll.

Carly: We sure do. And we are now going to the wrap party for Lez Girls, and it’s being held at Yamashiro.

Riese: It sure is. So, another story about me, which I guess this is all full of, is that, I had a girlfriend once and she was in law school—

Carly: First of all, congrats.

Riese: Thank you so much. She was in law school and so they had a law school prom, and when she told me… I don’t know if she told me where it was, or I don’t remember, whatever. When we pulled up to it, I was like, “Oh my God, oh my God.” And we walked in and I was like, “Oh my God.” I was like, “This is where they held—”

Carly: The wrap party!

Riese: “… the Lez Girls wrap party in Season Five of The L Word.” Because even when we were pulling in, I was like, “This is familiar to me.” And even on the outside it was like, “Okay, this is definitely… I know that this is from that scene.” And then when I walked in… But I was like, “Maybe inside it’s not…” Maybe they filmed on a set or whatever.

Carly: No, they totally filmed it there.

Riese: No, they filmed in there.

Carly: And that’s what it looks like.

Riese: And of course, my girlfriend had one friend who was also a crazy L Word person, so I was like running around the whole restaurant trying to find her—

Carly: Trying to find her, yeah.

Riese: And I was like, “Oh my God, dude, know where we are?” And I was like, “This is Yamashiro!” She was like, “Oh my God, it is.” And I was stoked, I was so excited. I was thrilled. What a great night, it was an unforgettable evening. So anyway, I’ve been here.

Carly: I’ve also been here, but not at the same event that you were at.

Riese: Was it for an event?

Carly: Weirdly it was. It was for this weird networking event for film and television people.

Riese: Anyway, it was a thrill to be there. Also, probably you shouldn’t go there because it’s really expensive and it is owned by white people.

Carly: So, we’re at the wrap party, at Yamashiro.

Riese: We’re at the wrap party, at Yamashiro, and everyone is pulling up in their outfits that I know by heart because, I don’t care, Season Six sucks so I can say whatever I want about it, that 6.01 picks up exactly where 5.12 ends. It picks up that exact moment, so these outfits we are going to spend a whole bunch more time with in the beginning of Season Six.

Carly: Which is a real shame, because Bette’s dress—

Riese: Bette’s… Yes.

Carly: … is disgusting.

Riese: Bette is wearing… Wow.

Carly: What a misfire for Bette. She normally is very well put together, but this—

Riese: Absolutely.

Carly: … silver sequined butterfly chest piece on a dress? Absolutely not. No. I hate it. I hate it so much.

Riese: I hate it, and we are going to see a lot of it. We’re going to see a lot of that fucking butterfly.

Carly: Oh, God, yeah.

Kit, Bette and Shane at the wrap party

Riese: So, everyone here is in their 6.01 outfits. William gets out of his car, and he ignores Tina.

Carly: He’s with Adele and Begoña in his car, like he gets out and he has one on each arm, which is… all right. The whole gang is here, including Cindi, who’s now with Helena, which I think is hilarious.

Riese: Which I love.

Carly: She just is here, nobody questions it.

Riese: And Shane’s in a weird mood. She dodges questions about Molly and they all—

Carly: She’s just so immature and bratty. She’s like, “She’s at school, I don’t know.”

Riese: Yeah, it’s like, I’m already having to put up with this trope, man, don’t make it worse—

Carly: Yeah, then they made it worse.

Riese: … for me personally. Everyone needs to think about me more.

Carly: Yeah, exactly. I’m in the same boat with you.

Riese: So, they do a toast to Jenny, which… bizarre, suddenly everyone likes Jenny.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Which, actually, as soon as something terrible happens to somebody—

Carly: We love them again.

Riese: … everyone is like, “Well, we love them. We’re so sorry.”

Carly: Once a new character’s introduced that we hate more, and then the person we hate more does something shitty to the person we hated previously, we now are all on the side of the person we hated previously, to help take down the person we hate more.

Riese: Which is Adele.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: So, Adele is dancing now, with Begoña, who is… played Karina in the film.

Adele dancing with Begonia at the Lez Girls wrap party

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Played by actress Patricia Velásquez.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: They are terrible dancers.

Carly: Horrible dancers, I would say. And they are making out in a—

Riese: Full mouth.

Carly: … very over the top, showy, ridiculous way.

Riese: Full tonsil hockey.

Carly: And she keeps making eye contact with the gang across the way, and it is deeply disturbing.

Riese: It is fully upsetting. Everyone hates it and everyone is upset.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And then, we go to a side room, where Alice and Shane are watching Tasha talking to Cammie, but I don’t know if they really thought that out.

Carly: It was just really fucking random.

Riese: Yeah, Shane’s like, “So, what’s going on with you, dude?” And we hear that Alice is having doubts about her relationship with Tasha, but also seems to want to stay in it because she feels bad about the whole… about Army.

Carly: Right. And then Shane is like reassuring her that like, “You did everything you could.” I don’t know, it just feels very like — look, if you’re not—

Riese: Yeah, Shane’s on a tear. Don’t get advice from Shane today.

Carly: Yeah, do not get advice from Shane today.

Riese: Shane’s not Yoda today.

Carly: No, she is not in the right place to be giving advice. It’s all very, very toxic advice.

Riese: So, Alice is like, “I feel like all of us, as soon as one thing happens, we just leave our relationships and we should really instead be working on them. And Tasha and I should work on them and not go for this instant gratification.” And Shane says, “Yes, you’re right, that’s true. But also, it’s okay for you to want something different.” And then, Shane says, “It’s your human right to be happy,” and, unfortunately, that’s not true. It’s not.

Carly: No, it’s not. That is false.

Riese: None of us have a right to be happy.

Carly: I wish it were true.

Riese: It’s not true.

Shane tells Alice it's her human right to be happy

Carly: It’s not true. Now, okay, did they show us Tasha doing shots with Cammie to plant some sort of like, “Well, it’s okay if Alice leaves her because she’s talking to someone,” which feels weird, or…

Riese: I don’t know what they did. Because I feel like—

Carly: It felt poorly thought out.

Riese: I feel like we would never think that Tasha… I feel like Tasha is loyal as hell.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: She is monogamous… every bone in her body is just soaked in monogamy. She is not going to stray. She just has a very intoxicating laugh, so maybe Cammie’s kind of charmed.

Carly: Yeah, that could be true.

Riese: Maybe Alice doesn’t want to talk to her about police academy. I can relate to that.

Carly: I don’t blame her.

Riese: I had a lot less interest in speaking to my boyfriend as soon as all of the conversations became about how to identify random people’s faces.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: But then we get a little bit of fan service for the Bettina lovers at home. Which is a long slow dance scene between our one and only, our OTP, our fave ladies in love, it is Tina Kennard and Bette Porter.

Carly: One of whom is wearing an inappropriate dress, because it is ugly.

Riese: One of whom is wearing a gigantic butterfly, an endangered species, and she is flaunting it.

Carly: Those sequined butterfly appliques should be allowed to live in the wild.

Riese: Where they belong.

Carly: They shouldn’t be ironed onto dresses.

Riese: Let it go.

Carly: Let it go, that’s what that song is about.

Riese: Absolutely. So, Tina and Bette, they all look at them, and they’re like, “They belong together.” Okay.

Carly: Sure.

Riese: And Bev and Nina especially are very pleased to see this romance reblossoming.

Carly: This is such a weird moment. This is truly weird.

Riese: Mm-hmm. It is. We go to the side room, where Nikki is avoiding the party because people look at her like she’s going to perform like a trained monkey.

Carly: All right.

Riese: Her profession is performer, but okay.

Carly: Literally.

Riese: Everyone wants her to be what they want her to be, and I think of course it’s super valid that she’s really trapped in this… in the closet basically, by her team and that’s a bummer. And she lost Jenny, which she’s obviously very sad about, and Shane is like, “Well, I fucked up with Molly.” And then Nikki says something dumb, I didn’t write it down, I guess because I decided it was too dumb to write down.

Carly: I didn’t either.

Riese: It was like some really, really poor life… something that was supposed to sound deep, it was hardcore stupid.

Carly: It’s really stupid.

Riese: Yeah. But Shane is like, “Yes, mm-hmm, sure.”

Carly: These are people who should be giving advice right now.

Riese: Yeah, this is a hot mess meeting another hot mess and they’re about to explode into lava.

Carly: Real brain trust.

Riese: Yeah, the real brain of a mess here.

Carly: Throw them in the volcano, it’s fine.

Riese: Yeah. Then William will welcome us all to this wonderful wrap party. They would like to introduce Adele Channing to the stage.

Carly: He calls her a rising star in the industry and says that she just today signed a three picture deal.

Riese: What?

Carly: I want to set my hair on fire immediately.

Riese: Also, her first film is going to star her one and only, lover of the stars, Begoña Garcia. Which, I think means her first film is Liz in September, which was really bad.

Carly: Well, not surprised.

Riese: And then she says, “If I didn’t thank Jennifer Schecter for giving me…” because then Jenny interrupts her and is like, “I didn’t give you anything.”

Adele: And of course, I know that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Jennifer Schecter, who gave me the opportunity to—
Jenny: I didn’t give you anything. You stole it.
William: Should I call security?
Adele: No. It’s fine.
Woman in the crowd: Go Jenny.
Adele: All right.
Woman in the crowd: Yay, Jenny.
Adele: Jennifer Schecter.
Woman in the crowd: We love you Jenny!
Woman in the crowd: We love you too, Jenny!
Jenny: Thank you. All of you. Thank you very much. I realize that the movie is out of my hands now. And I hope that those people entrusted with this responsibility will honor it. I want to thank this amazing, amazing crew, who have helped me see through my vision. I want to thank my incredible friends, who I… I really love you guys. You guys have shown me loyalty and so much compassion and friendship, and I think that’s what Lez Girls is all about. It means the world to me, more than any other movie or lover—

Riese: Dun, dun, dun. You stole it.

Carly: Bitch.

Riese: So, then we go back and forth between Jenny… Jenny taking over the speech, which I appreciate and salute.

Carly: Mm-hmm.

Riese: And outside, where Shane and Nikki are engaging in sexuals.

Carly: They’re doing sex. They’re doing all sorts of sex.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: Out in the open.

Riese: Yep.

Carly: It’s a mess.

Riese: Sexual.

Carly: Nikki’s missing a shoe, she’s got one boob out, it’s just—

Riese: One boob out. I love the one boob out.

Carly: One boob out is incredible.

Riese: Shane is going down on her on a balustrade outside of Yamashiro with the whole city behind her, and that is romance right there, you know?

Carly: I was just worried that Nikki was going to fall over the edge.

Riese: Yeah, little tumble down. A little tumble down over there.

Carly: Tumble down the hills.

Riese: Yeah, she’s not a trained monkey anymore, everybody. She’s thinking for herself.

Carly: At that point, you’re going to end up on the roof of the Magic Castle, okay? It’s not going to go well.

Riese: And Jenny’s on the mic, and she’s like, “Where’s Nikki? Where’s Nikki?” And then fucking Cammie was like, “I saw her outside by the little pagoda.”

Carly: Ugh.

Riese: Jenny says she realizes that she’s madly in love with somebody and then we cut back to Shane and Nikki fucking outside, and then we see Jenny running outside and sees Shane with Nikki, and she’s like, “What are you doing?” And they’re like, “Oh, God.”

Carly: That’s a great question. What are you doing, you two?

Riese: What are you doing? This is very unsafe.

Carly: So, first we were intercutting Jenny’s speech with them hooking up, and now we’re intercutting their confrontation with another confrontation, which is happening right out front by where they arrived and dropped off their cars, which is that Tina has just found out that Aaron and Adele and William have decided to give in to the marketing guys and change the ending. And Tina is very, very angry. And Adele fully co-signed it and was like… now she believes this bullshit, too. She’s gross. So, we’re going back and forth between these two moments, and then the friends all join and then Tina’s like, “They’re changing the ending.” And then all the friends are like, “That’s terrible.”

Kit, Bette and Alice outside Yamashiro saying "too gay?"

Riese: Yeah, like, “You can’t do that.” And Adele says, “If the movie’s too gay, it’s going to alienate audiences.”

Tina: This is bullshit. We worked really hard on the movie that we believed in. And the marketing people just come along and change the whole ending? The guy gets the girl, the end. This is the movie that was supposed to change all that.
Adele: Look, Tina, if the movie’s too gay, it’s going to alienate audiences.
Tina: Too gay? It’s a movie about lesbians.
William: And the movie is full of lesbians. It’s chock full of them.
Aaron: Bev is a lesbian, Nina’s a lesbian, Shaun, Donna, what’s her face, the bisexual?
Adele: Alyse.
William: Alyse, she’s not interested in men. We’re talking about one character here, it’s not that big a deal.
Tina: I just want to know one thing, how do you do it? How do you live with yourself?
Bette: What the hell is going on?
Tina: The studio wants to change the ending of the movie. They want Jessie to go back to Jim.
Bette: What?
Alice: What?
Tina: They think it’s too gay.
Bette: Too gay?
Alice: Well, you’re not going to let them get away with that are you?
Kit: I’m telling you, it’s the man that does this crazy shit.

Riese: One of them is like, “She didn’t ever really seem gay to me either,” and I’m like, “Yeah, because you’re a straight white guy and you never think anyone is gay.”

Carly: You don’t understand anything. Yeah.

Riese: Because she was femme.

Carly: You’re one of those people who’s like, “Evan Rachel Wood? She’s not queer.” It’s like, she actually is.

Riese: Yeah, you’re one of the Amber Heard deniers.

Carly: Ugh.

Riese: Amber Heard truthers.

Carly: Amber Heard truthers.

Riese: Then Shane, Jenny, Nikki, are all emerging from the sex highway.

Carly: All these things are all intersecting all at the same time.

Riese: Everyone is meeting up on the grassy knolls for truth telling time for the loyals and the disloyals, and Jenny is like…

Jenny: It’s the ultimate betrayal. You’ve broken my heart.

Riese: I knew in that moment that she was saying it to Shane. And I believe I argued with people about it on a message board for an entire year probably.

Carly: I was paying attention because I knew this moment was coming, but the way this scene was shot and edited, I think also tells us that she was talking to Shane.

Riese: Right. Yeah.

Carly: Because when she says it, the reaction shot we get is Shane. Not Nikki.

Riese: Shane.

Carly: And I think the visual language there would tell us that that is absolutely who she is talking to. And I think that makes sense narratively, too. All things Shenny aside, this is supposed to be her best friend, and someone that has always been loyal and been by her side. When Jenny was at her lowest lows, Shane was the only person that gave a shit about her, and she hasn’t spoken to Nikki in a few weeks or days or whatever time is anymore. And so, I think it’s pretty clear that… Nikki fucked someone else before, and they got through that. This is the fact that Shane did that to her, that is the betrayal. The real betrayal.

Riese: And I think, because that is 100% true, and then also, earlier in her speech, she said she realized she’s in love with somebody and obviously the way that had that, where she says, “I realized I’m in love with somebody. Is Nikki here?” So, that kind of led everyone to think that it was Nikki that she was going to say that she was in love with. But then, it felt, by her reaction to Shane and Nikki, that it wasn’t Nikki. Because I think in addition to Shane’s betrayal, I think… I really very much read it as also, she realized that she was in love with Shane.

Carly: Interesting.

Riese: Because how could you be in love with Nikki?

Carly: She thought she already was in love with Nikki. She already told her she was in love with her.

Riese: Right, that’s the thing, she was in love with her already, so…

Carly: Okay, but if she’s talking about Shane in that moment during her speech, then why is she saying, “Is Nikki here? Nikki? Nikki?”

Riese: Because she was going… because she’s mad at Nikki.

Carly: Because when she went to go find her, she was acting all cheerful. She was like, “Nikki? Nikki? Where are you?” As if she had something exciting to tell her. Not like, “I’m in love with Shane.” So, that felt a little weird, but…

Riese: Yeah, I think what she wanted to do was… So, the way Jenny plays in this episode is very humble, humbled and sad and… whereas Jenny of a few episodes ago, would she get on the mic and say, “I’m in love with someone. Where’s Nikki? Nikki, I wanted you to know, it’s not you, I’m not in love with you.”

Carly: Yes. Yes. A few episodes ago, yes.

Riese: Yeah. But in this episode it feels a little bit weird that that would be her angle.

Carly: Yeah, there’s a more calm version of Jenny, that feels like she’s accepted everything that has happened and maybe she’s learned something from it. We don’t know, but maybe?

Riese: Perhaps.

Carly: Perhaps.

Riese:
Or maybe they’ll give her a whole new character in Season Six and then kill her. I don’t know, that could happen. You never know. You do know. We know already, we do know what’s going to happen. It’s bad.

Carly: You do really get the sense that they ended this with having zero plan for Season Six. You can tell… I don’t know, there’s something about this ending. They did not set up anything for next season.

Riese: Mm-hmm.

Carly: Aside from what? Helena owns The Planet? That’s not interesting. That’s not a storyline.

Riese: Well, the movie having a bad ending. I think that the only thing they’re really setting up is like—

Carly: Bette and Tina might get pregnant, they set that up a little.

Riese: … what does… oh, yeah, they did. She said, “Do you want another kid?” Or whatever.

Carly: And Tina was like, “What?”

Riese: Yeah. I think the thing, the only cliffhanger, which is perhaps only a cliffhanger to people who are constantly analyzing The L Word for clues that Shenny is OTP—

Carly: So you.

Riese: Me. Is the cliffhanger of, does Jenny mean, one, “Shane, you’ve broken my heart by hooking up with my ex,” which is a really shitty thing to do. Two, “Shane, you’ve broken my heart because I’m in love with you.” Or, “Nikki, you’ve broken my heart because I’m in love with you. And Shane, I’m also mad at you for being involved.” Those are the three options. That’s the cliffhanger that we are all waiting for. And by “we” I mean me and the members of the Jenny, Shenny fan board. So, I think that was maybe 14 or 15 people.

Carly: There are dozens of us.

Riese: Who all have eventually hated me anyway, because I also was open about Jenny’s flaws.

Carly: Look, sometimes people aren’t ready to hear the truth about Jenny Schecter.

Riese: Right. So, yeah, there’s nothing all set up. Like, Bette and Tina are fine. Jodi’s obviously out. Alice… well, Alice and Tasha are at odds, but I don’t think they set that up very well.

Carly: No, they didn’t. It feels like they were surprised that this was the finale. Like they were like, “Oh, shit, wait we don’t have room to put up the other stuff? Oh, crap. We forgot to set anything up for next season.” And then, they made one of the worst seasons of television I’ve ever seen.

Riese: Yeah, the worst of any show I ever liked and then didn’t like.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: I would actually say Season Six is worse than any season of Glee. Because at least in Glee they had some good covers.

Carly: There was still the music.

Riese: And I love a cover.

Carly: That is the episode, that is the season.

Riese: It’s a wrap!

Carly: We did it! We did it!

Riese: It’s a wrap on Season Five!

Carly: Wrap party at Yamashiro’s.

Riese: Let’s have a wrap party, just kidding. Oh my God.

Carly: Yamashiro to-go.

Riese: Yeah, you want to get a $45 appetizer to-go from Yamashiro? Oh, boy. Well, Carly, what did you think of this episode?

Carly: I thought it was way too long. I was pretty bored throughout it. I think it was a crappy ending to a season that, overall, was pretty fun.

Riese: Mm-hmm. I agree.

Carly: That’s a bummer.

Riese: Yeah, they really brought it down.

Carly: Yeah, it sucks. I was glad Helena came back.

Riese: Yeah, me too.

Carly: I was really happy to see Helena, because I definitely—

Riese: I love Peggy, of course.

Carly: Love Peggy, even though late stage Peggy has been a little difficult to deal with.

Riese: Yeah, but she’s still… She’s got those zingers.

Carly: Yeah. She’s really entertaining.

Riese: She really is good at confusing detail.

Carly: Joyce is entertaining, nice to see them pop up and just have little moments of being entertaining. Because those were some of the more lively moments of the episode.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: But…

Riese: Everyone has remained attractive, I thought. Physically attractive.

Carly: Yeah, great job everyone, making your faces still be nice to look at.

Riese: Mm-hmm. Tina committed a few crimes.

Carly: Oh, yeah.

Riese: Clea committed a crime as well, which was biking with someone else’s girlfriend in—

Carly: That’s why she got a citation.

Riese: Yeah, that LAPD.

Carly: Man, she had a real run in with the LAPD.

Riese: Probably traumatized from that conversation. Yeah, and I hope that we were funny, even though we’re both in a bad mood.

Carly: Yeah, we tried to get through it. Again, we were recording this on Sunday, November 1st and the election is on Tuesday, and I’ve been in quite a state the past week, week and a half. I’m just…

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: My anxiety has met my depression and they’re like the Jane Lynch GIF, like, “We’re going to create an environment that is so toxic.” That’s basically what’s happening.

Riese: Yeah, sort of like you’re the combination of Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, but it’s the combination of depression and anxiety.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I literally had a thought about that.

Riese: Oh, really?

Carly: I came up with a joke that I was going to tweet and then didn’t, because I was too depressed to even tweet anything. But I was like, “My anxiety and depression working together has basically turned my head into a combination Taco Bell/Pizza Hut.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: We’re on the same page.

Riese: Thanks everyone for being here with us, and joining us on this wonderful journey called life.

Carly: Thank you for listening to this episode and to this whole season, that’s pretty remarkable. The other day, when we posted the new episode, I was like… I went and read all the Instagram comments and they were all really cute, and it reminded me that there’s people that actually listen to this podcast.

Riese: Right.

Carly: I really sometimes have a hard time grasping that anyone actually hears this.

Riese: Thousands.

Carly: Even though we spend time on it.

Riese: Yeah, thousands of people listen to this. Like 8,000 people listen to this podcast, regularly.

Carly: That’s really cool.

Riese: That’s a lot of people. Thank you all.

Carly: And our wonderful, beautiful listeners for being on this weird journey with us.

Riese: Yeah, we love it when you comment on Instagram because it makes us feel successful.

Carly: Yeah, honestly, if you comment anywhere, we’ll find it.

Riese: Yeah, or on the Autostraddle post-

Carly: Yeah, Twitter or whatever.

Riese: … which has a full transcript and screenshots by the way, so you should really look at it.

Carly: Really funny screenshots. And a beautiful transcript.

Riese: A beautiful transcript.

Carly: Yeah, as we said at the top of the show, we are taking the rest of November off. Season Six will be coming soon, TBD.

Riese: TBD.

Carly: We’re doing it.

Riese: We’ll update you on our Instagram.

Carly: Yes, there will be updates on social and that’s how you’ll know what is happening.

Riese: It is.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media, over on Instagram and Twitter we are @tolandback. You can also email us tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget we have a hotline, you can give us a call, leave a message, it’s 971-217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell, our logo is by Carra Sykes and this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron, Riese is @autowin, Autostraddle is @autostraddle, and of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: [Singing] Autostraddle dot com!

Carly: All right, and finally, it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay, Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three. Law school.

Carly: Lethargy. What’d you say?

Riese: I said law school, because Molly… law school, and also me remembering when I went to law school prom with my then girlfriend.

Carly: Of course. I said lethargy, which is just one of the many things I am currently feeling.

Riese: Excellent. Well, I guess, I’m going to feed and walk my dog now.

Carly: Yeah. That’s great. I’m excited for you and Carol.

Riese: And then sort of panic lightly.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: For up to two months. Okay.

Carly: Thank you all for listening!

Riese: Thank you all so much!

Carly: We’ll be back soonish.

Riese: Yeah, we’ll see you so soon. We’ll see you extra soon.

Carly: Extra soon.

Riese: Extra soon.

Carly: Not that soon, but soon.

Riese: But not that soon, yeah. But soon.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: Byeee.

Riese: Love you, byeee.

“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 511: Lunar Cycle

Are you gonna bleed soon? Alice sure hopes Tasha will! Furthermore, Bette and Jodi are wearing matching outfits for their all-day break-up-a-thon, Adele does a private premiere of Jenny and Niki’s sex tape and subsequently takes over “Lez Girls,” Dawn Denbo’s snatching the Planet right out of Kit’s arms, Shane’s got a very large bong, Alice is gushing over Clea (special guest Melanie Lynskey)’s hot androgynous menswear inspired fashions and Kit’s skulking around with a gun for some reason. Plus: a hot tip on how to poison Riese!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Carly: Hello!

Riese: Woo!

Carly: Welcome! We’re back again.

Riese: For more Ls.

Carly: More Ls. We’re taking a lot of Ls.

Riese: This week, we’ll be reviewing the TV show, Lucifer, the movie,The Lincoln Lawyer, and the concept of loose ends, just as an idea.

Carly: There’s a lot there. There’s so much to cover.

Riese: Yeah. It’s going to be like a madcap ride through time and space.

Carly: I am excited to be on a madcap ride with you!

Riese: I’m excited to be on a madcap ride with you, too.

Carly: Yeah. Normally, this would be an Autostraddle podcast where we talk about The L Word, but I think we just threw all that out the window today.

Riese: We’ve moved past that at this point.

Carly: I think we’re good.

Riese: We’ve grown, we’ve changed.

Carly: We did it, you know?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: We’re good. Let’s move on, kind of thing. Which I feel really good about. I think that we should just be done.

Riese: I know that this is that we’re joking, but also, I do feel that we should’ve last time kind of said an elegy, because last week’s episode was the last good episode of the series.

Carly: Oh, god, you’re right. Should we do it right now? Should we do some sort of, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to talk about The L Word, but specifically first, we would like to say a—

Carly and Riese: Fond farewell.

Carly: Whoa, we said “fond farewell” at the same time. We would like to bid a fond farewell to the hope that an episode could be good because it’s over now.

Riese: There will be, there’s one episode in season six that has some good parts, the dance off one.

Carly: The dance, that one’s—

Riese: But—

Carly: … the best part of season six.

Riese: … season six on the whole is so poor. It’s just—

Carly: It’s so upsetting.

Riese: … so, so bad that even its best episode is still terrible, terrible. Yeah.

Carly: The final two episodes of season five are a real bummer.

Riese: Fine. Yeah.

Carly: They’re like—

Riese: Okay.

Carly: It’s like they’re trying to set you up for just the complete catastrophe that is season six, maybe. I don’t—

Riese: They’re easing us in.

Carly: Yeah. Maybe that’s what it is. Who knows. You know what? We’ll never know.

Riese: We’ll never know. Like so many things, we won’t know.

Carly: But what we do know is that all the best episodes of the show are officially behind us.

Riese: They are.

Carly: We will now be riding off into the sunset. And by sunset, I mean the fiery pits of hell.

Riese: Correct.

Carly: But we’re doing it together.

Riese: There’s no one else I’d rather go to the fiery pits of hell with.

Carly: Same, same.

Riese: Thank you and our friends on The L Word. At this point, I believe I still like Shane.

Carly: Yeah. Shane is fine. Everyone is kind of fucking up.

Riese: Tasha.

Carly: You’re right, Tasha is still great. Shane is still great. I’m having a hard time thinking of anyone else who is. Tina’s not bad.

Riese: No, Tina’s still not bad.

Carly: Tina’s fine.

Riese: Which is… God.

Carly: Which, what a shock.

Riese: Who ever thought we would be here?

Carly: Truly never saw this coming.

Riese: At this point, Tina apologist.

Carly: Jesus. Man, 2020 is quite a year.

Riese: 2020. You know who else is fine, Carly?

Carly: Who?

Riese: Against popular belief, it’s Max.

Carly: Max is great.

Riese: Max is still great even though no one appreciates him except for Tom.

Carly: Briefly, they appreciate Max this week. There’s a real … We’ll talk about that. We’ll get there.

Riese: We’ll get there.

Carly: Should we begin this journey?

Riese: Yeah, let’s do it.

Carly: Today’s episode is Season Five, Episode 11, the penultimate episode of season five, entitled “Lunar Cycle,” which is great—

Riese: Period.

Carly: … because last week it was called “Life Cycle.” I hope next week’s is called SoulCycle.

Riese: Me too. Lol Cycle. It’s like SoulCycle but with stand up comedy instead of inspiring …

Carly:
I love it.

Riese: Do you want to come to it?

Carly: I would love to, yeah.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: But can I clip in?

Riese: Yeah, you can clip.

Carly: Okay, I got to clip in. I got the shoes and I got to clip into the shoes.

Riese: Yeah, clip in.

Carly: Okay. I’m going to clip in.

Riese: Clip in, okay.

Carly: Hey, everyone, clip in! It’s time for Lunar Cycle.

Riese: Clip in.

Carly: This episode where everyone’s PMSing and they talk about it 17% of the episode.

Riese: A lot.

Carly: This was written by Ilene Chaiken and directed by Bob Ashman, who is the longstanding cinematographer of the show. I believe this was his first and only episode that he directed. It’s pretty common for DP’s and folks that work on a show for a long time to eventually direct an episode. You see it with actors a lot. DP’s get to do that a lot. Occasionally, you’ll see a script supervisor, something like that. Even a writer. But this was not … I actually forgot he directed an episode, but this is not out of the ordinary at all.

Riese: Were they like, “Oh, let’s put Bob on the period episode?”

Carly: Yeah, it’s an interesting choice for sure. But who knows? Who knows how this happened?

Riese: Nice work, Bob.

Carly: This originally aired March 16, 2008.

Riese: I believe it.

Carly: That checks out.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That tracks, that tracks.

Riese: Yeah, that tracks. That definitely tracks.

Carly: This feels like a mid March 2016, Ides of March, kind of vibe.

Riese: Sure, yeah, totally, definitely has an Ides of March vibe.

Carly: Super vibes. I guess we have no choice now but to recap this episode.

Riese: Let’s get into it.

Carly: Here we go.

Riese: We open in the screening room. Okay, yesterday with my friends, we hate-watched the entirety of Emily in Paris.

Carly: Ooh.

Riese: Yesterday when I was first watching this episode, which is before Emily in Paris, I would’ve said that the thing I’m watching on my screen, this film, Lez Girls, is the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But it’s not anymore. It’s the second worst. The worst thing I’ve ever seen happened yesterday, and it was called Emily in Paris.

Carly: It’s worse than season six of this show?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: I have no desire to watch it. I’ve seen lots of people talking about it and I just don’t have any interest in watching it. But it’s been entertaining to watch people saying things about it online. But—

Riese: And terrible outfits.

Carly: Terrible outfits?

Riese: Terrible outfits. Yeah. Yeah, it’s upsetting.

Carly: Terrible outfits.

Riese: The thing about season six is honestly, how many people even watched it?

Carly: That’s fair.

Riese: Emily in Paris is doing far more damage. It’s reaching a far larger audience than season six ever did. But anyway, so we are watching a cut of the opening scene of Lez Girls. They have bastardized this true story.

Carly: This is unbelievable. I love this editor, this poor suffering editor. You know she has been in hell having to work on this project. It’s just like, what is this footage? The movie footage is bizarrely stylized in this sort of—

Riese: Everyone’s dressed like they’re in a kids show.

Carly: Yeah, it’s this mix of kids show—

Riese: Pink! Yellow! Green!

Carly: …And 70s aesthetic that makes very little sense.

Riese: I guess even Shaun is just completely — they’re not even trying to make Shaun even slightly masc. They’ve just gone full femme.

Carly: Everyone’s femme. Everyone’s white.

Riese: Everyone’s femme. Everyone’s white.

Carly: It’s just so boring.

Riese: It’s supposed to be the scene where Tina is there at The Planet with her friends and Bette comes in and is like, “I want to get back with you,” and she’s like …

Tina: Did you tell her in person or on the phone?
Bette: Why does that matter?
Tina: Because I drove by the house at 2AM and your car wasn’t there. Did you fuck all night before you told her I was the love of your life this morning?

Carly: And then she flips the table. It’s an incredible L Word scene. I think we can all agree.

Riese: But it’s been ruined.

Carly: Destroyed.

Bev: I know you’re all sitting there judging me. I guess I deserve it. I fucked up. But there’s something I need to say.
Shaun: We should go.
Nina: Yeah. No, stay. Please. You have something to say? Go ahead, say it front of our friends.
Bev: Nina, I just left the plumber’s house.
Nina: You just came from her house?
Bev: I told her that I love you. That you’re the love of my life. And I’m never going to see her again.
Nina: If I’m the love of your life, then why did you fuck her?

"Shaun" and "Karina" in "Lez Girls" admiring Bev and Nina's relationship

Riese: Destroyed. Just bashed to pieces and thrown against the wall like a glass bowl in a fight.

Carly: Was Jenny even at The Planet when that scene happened the first time? I meant to go back and check and then I didn’t.

Riese: No.

Carly: That’s the thing that’s also funny, is “Jenny” — I say in quotes — is telling the story and she wasn’t there for so many parts of it. And yet, her recreations of it match the show. Isn’t that stunning?

Riese: Yeah. I wonder if maybe Shane told her. But I guess the thing is that, this does answer one question for me because this scene is from season two, which is the scene that Helena did arrive in. That finally has been resolved. I’ll be able to sleep a little bit better at night because of that.

Carly: Speaking of Helena, she really needs to hurry up and get back.

Riese: I know. I’m impatient for that.

Carly: I need an outsider’s perspective on this bullshit right now.

Riese: Call her. Correct. Anyway, in this version of the story, Nina and Bev immediately forgive each other and become best lovers forever.

Carly: Best lovers forever.

Riese: Best lovers, yeah.

Carly: BLF’s?

Riese: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Carly: Yeah, the conflict goes away immediately. What a great script.

Riese: Point, set, end game.

Carly: Match, trophy, you won Wimbledon.

Riese: Olympics.

Carly: And a gold medal.

Riese: Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize, go on a cruise ship. We’re all eternally alive now.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Epic of Gilgamesh.

Carly: The editor shows Jenny the scene, and Jenny, she’s got some notes.

Riese: Believe it or not, Jenny has some notes.

Carly: I’ve got notes but I don’t think going back through the raw footage is going to help with my notes because my notes really, come from all sorts of things that could’ve been fixed both in the script and in the production.

Riese: Yeah, well I think—

Carly: Such as not hiring Jennifer Schecter to be involved in this project.

Riese: Yeah, I think that’s true. But you know what? I think that what we’re about to find out this episode is that they really foster amateur talent at Shaolin.

Carly: It’s truly remarkable because no other studio does that.

Riese: Right. They really just — they want to take a young plucky heroine out, snatch her out of her mundane life, and make her a star director.

Carly: Well, as long as she’s conventionally pretty and single, something female-ing each other.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Theme song!

Riese: Theme song, theme song. And then we go back to the real Planet.

Carly: Everyone is quietly reading the newspaper and eating breakfast.

Riese: And hating each other.

Carly: Truly, everyone is in the worst mood.

Riese: Correct. We find out that Jodi is staying with a friend even though she has her own apartment.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Shane, always the diplomat is like, “We’re Jodi’s friends too.” Which is true, but also I think that she’s going to be moving out of that social circle.

Carly: That group? That social circle.

Riese: Yeah. I have a little tiny feeling that this is the end of the road—

Carly: Just a hunch.

Riese: … for Jodi and the gals and The Planet.

Carly: Yeah. I think you’re right. I don’t think she’ll be hanging out at The Planet in West Hollywood anymore.

Riese: And then who shows up? It’s Dawn Denbo. It’s her Lover Cindi in white pants.

Dawn and Cindi approach the girls at The Planet

Carly: Oh, boy.

Riese: What’s gone on with them? They found Ivan Aycock. That name.

Carly: That name. They found Ivan.

Riese: Aycock.

Carly: Wait, does Ivan use she/her pronouns on this show? I don’t remember. I always remember them using he/him for Ivan.

Riese: Kit used he/him, and Bette insists on using she/her and I—

Carly: Well, Dawn Denbo insists on using she/her to speak about Ivan.

Riese: Yeah, it was jarring to me, too.

Carly: It felt extremely jarring and very gross. But we don’t have Ivan here to ask for their pronouns.

Riese: I do feel like her character was … I don’t think that they knew when they built the character. I don’t think that they—

Carly: Well, they had no trans people on the writing staff.

Riese: Right, and this was a straight, white cis actress.

Carly: How could they have possibly figured out what gender was?

Riese: Right.

Carly: Anyway, they brought Ivan out, so now Dawn and Cindi own 51% of The Planet, which makes them the primary owners of The Planet. Uh oh.

Riese: Uh oh. Who’s in trouble? Everyone. Kit is going to throw the table now just to show you, you wouldn’t throw the table because your girlfriend of seven years cheated on you, can also throw a table because the owners of a rival lesbian bar bought out your ex person, and now they own your bar.

Carly: Exactly. There’s a plethora of reasons to flip a table.

Riese: Plethora.

Carly: This show really shows several of them.

Riese: Several of them. That’s great.

Carly: That’s really great.

Riese: That’s important, yeah. The only thing is, you need to be careful, Carly, because if glass spills on the floor, you could step on the glass, you could get a piece of glass in your foot. You would have to get your foot taken off.

Carly: Absolutely. That’s the only way to fix a problem like that. The other thing is that you’re opening yourself up to a potential lawsuit.

Riese: You are.

Carly: What if a patron steps on the glass?

Riese: Has to get their foot taken off.

Carly: But maybe that’s a good thing, because if Dawn and Cindi are the owners of The Planet now—

Riese: They have to pay up for that lawsuit.

Carly: They’re going to kind of be the ones on the hook for that lawsuit. So maybe — maybe it’s a good plan to knock all the breakable glass, ceramic, et cetera items. Hot coffees, hot teas.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: This sounds really bad for people. It could result in injury. However, maybe it’s a tactic by Kit to destroy The Planet as she has just lost control of it.

Riese: Exactly. On that note, if Dawn and Cindi would like to buy 51% of Autostraddle, they can call me.

Carly: Now, I’ve never been involved in a corporate buyout of any kind, but I wonder if it’s even possible for someone to sell their shares of something, make that transaction, and in no way are the other shareholders involved.

Riese: Unless that was part of the shareholder’s agreement—

Carly: Oh, got it.

Riese: … or of their operating agreement or whatever. But there’s absolutely no reason why their operating agreement would not give Kit any participation in these conversations.

Carly: Right? That seems—

Riese: You can’t just—

Carly: … wild.

Riese: I would be surprised, because also, you can put in there as the default that everybody who owns part of the company has a vote about that kind of stuff.

Carly: Right, that’s what I thought.

Riese: But I don’t think they would’ve put in a clause that—

Carly: A clause of silence.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Oh, the other thing is that everyone’s grumpy and everyone’s like, “You’re PMSing, you’re PMSing, you’re PMSing.”

Riese: Girls. Periods.

Carly: And then at one point, Max and Kit lean over and whisper to each other that they’re both really glad they don’t get their periods anymore, and I just, I don’t know. I really enjoyed that.

Max: I’m so glad I don’t have to go through that anymore.
Kit: I second that emotion.

Carly: I thought that was a cute little moment. It was cute. The way they shot it was great. It was like a french over. It was just really nice. Kit’s obviously not thrilled by this new information.

Riese: She’s not.

Carly: But you know what? Before we can even get into that, Jodi shows up.

Riese: What do we have here, folks? We have some twinning. We have some hard core lesbian twinning.

Carly: Oh, boy do we ever. Now, this had to have been on purpose.

Riese: Abso-fucking-lutely.

Carly: This could not have been an accident. What are they saying here? What are they saying? Are they saying that these two characters are too much alike to be in a relationship?

Riese: Oh, interesting.

Carly: How could we interpret this decision?

Riese: Bette’s outfit is better.

Carly: Bette’s outfit is better. Correct.

Riese: It’s also identical. There’s a cute split screen of Bette because Kamala Harris—

Carly: Kamala Harris, yes.

Riese: … wore a similar outfit. Yeah.

Carly: Oh, I have seen that image.

Riese: Yeah, but they’re both … So you’ve all seen that split screen. And then Jodi’s outfit is the same color blouse, the same color suit. It’s just like a slightly different blouse and different suit. I don’t think Jodi’s is tailored as well.

Carly: No.

Riese: I don’t know what that’s supposed to do for us.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Although, Jodi’s always been kind of like an “eh” dresser. She just kind of throws on her graphic tees.

Carly: She’s never super cared too much about her fashion and her style. I feel like she communicates with the world through her art.

Riese: She’s an artist!

Carly: You know?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: She doesn’t really have the mental capacity.

Riese: No.

Carly: Like, “I’m thinking about my art so much that I don’t even have—”

Riese: Art, art, art.

Carly: “… a section of my brain available to—”

Riese: Do fashion.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Tina’s like, “I’m so sorry, Jodi.” And Jodi’s like …

Jodi: Why is she talking to me? Doesn’t she know I’m deaf?

Riese: That was …

Carly: Jodi is so funny. I loved that.

Jodi in the Planet talking to Bette, Tina behind her worried

Riese: Jodi wants to spend some time together with Bette. She thinks they should spend some time together. Bette has to reschedule her meeting with Phyllis. And then Jodi’s like, “You don’t have to.” And then Bette says, “No, I want to. This is the most important thing in the world to me.”

Carly: This is just the first of many lies Bette tells in this episode that are all very confusing.

Riese: Yeah. I knew what she meant, but I thought it was also very clear that Jodi did not know what she meant.

Carly: Correct. It felt extremely misleading.

Riese: Yeah. It’s also very hyperbolic.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Because she’s talking about her friendship with Jodi.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: But also, I think a few things are more important to Bette than her friendship with Jodi. For example, banging Tina. Art.

Carly: Breaking up with Jodi is probably more important than her friendship with Jodi.

Riese: Modern art.

Carly: Angelica, more important, I think.

Riese: Her daughter, yeah. Her birth, right. Angelica.

Carly: They go to leave together and they’re walking up to Bette’s fancy Lexus. I don’t know if you saw this, but they’re walking down the street and there is an extra outside who’s on the phone and drinking a coffee, and they are doing the most. Once again, we have an incredible extra moment.

Bette on the phone

Riese: I didn’t see it! I didn’t see it. Oh my God.

Carly: They are in a heated argument—

Riese: I need to do a post of all my favorite extras.

Carly: Yes, oh my God, like a heated argument on the phone, holding—

Riese: Oh my God, I’m going to have to go back and see.

Carly: … a coffee cup from a coffee shop. Maybe from The Planet, who knows?

Riese: I don’t know. I don’t know. What voice was that?

Carly: I don’t know, but I liked it.

Riese: The Planet. Oh my God. Well, I’m going to have to go back and look at that, because you know I love a busy extra.

Carly: I know. You’re going to love it. I was excited when I got that. I was like, Riese is going to love this. So we hop back into The Planet. Now, cool best friends Tina, Shane, Max, cool best friends hanging out, having a chat. We find out that Jenny missed an art department meeting this morning, probably to discuss—

Riese: Uh oh.

Carly: …how disgusting that bowling bedroom is.

Riese: Yeah, or the whole design of that scene.

Carly: How 70s the whole film looks.

Riese: Is this the Teletubbies or is it, you know?

Carly: It’s like a Sesame Street production. But Adele, she went to the meeting in Jenny’s place. That’s interesting!

Riese: Instead of telling Jenny about the meeting, yeah.

Carly: She went to it. That’s not good assistant-ing.

Riese: Yeah. Find a new assistant, Jenny.

Carly: Jenny doesn’t know yet.

Riese: Because—

Carly: Jenny has no idea what’s about to happen to her.

Riese: Adele’s back. Did she fill out a W2 or anything?

Carly: What budget is paying Adele? Is Jenny paying Adele or is the film paying Adele?

Riese: I’m paying Adele.

Carly: Oh, okay. That explains some things, but not all of them.

Riese: Well, we go back to Bette’s apartment.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Bette is like, “This wasn’t supposed to happen,” which yeah, no one goes into a relationship and they’re like, “I’m definitely going to cheat on this bitch.”

Carly: “I’m definitely going to cheat on you and then have a very dramatic falling out at the end.”

Riese: Okay, right. And then Jodi’s like, “Did you and that woman fuck?”

Carly: That woman.

Riese: That woman.

Carly: That’s great.

Riese: Bette says, “It’s not about fucking.” But her and Tina never finished, and they have history that they need to resolve.

Jodi yelling at Bette

Carly: And that they have a kid together. Like wow, way to blame this on Angelica.

Riese: Yeah, and Jodi’s like, “I know you have a child. Enough.”

Carly: Bette’s crying and sobbing. Jodi’s like, “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to try to make me feel bad for you right now.”

Riese: Right. Bette says that she loves Tina. She does say that she also loves Jodi.

Carly: That it’s complicated.

Riese: I think Jodi asks her, “Do you think it’s possible to be in love with more than one person?” I personally think it is possible.

Carly: I think it is too. But that’s not what’s happening here.

Riese: But that’s not what’s happening in this situation.

Carly: What’s happening is that Bette is not saying all the words. She is saying, “I love you like a friend, I care about you, but I’m in love with Tina.” But she’s leaving out some prepositions. Jodi says she loves Bette to the exclusion of everyone else, which is a really … why is everyone talking in code here? I guess that’s how we have to get through this because if everybody said what they meant, then they wouldn’t be having a fight anymore. They would just be broken up. But Jodi says she’s going to fight for Bette, which is a terrible idea.

Riese: Yeah, don’t. Also, if Bette’s the cheater, Bette should have to fight for her.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Anyway, it’s time for House Hunters.

Carly: House Hunters!

Riese: Starring—

Carly: West Hollywood, starring Alice and Tasha. Tasha’s priorities, inexpensive, has a bedroom. Alice’s priorities, in a hot neighborhood.

Riese: Man cave.

Carly: Has a big bedroom, granite countertops.

Riese: Three bed … three beds. Three dens, several parlors, an atrium.

Carly: An outdoor space.

Riese: A fountain out front with mouths of lesbians having water spurt out of them, and then it’s a big fountain, and all around it there’s little tiny tuffs of shrubbery. That’s what Alice wants. She’s looking at an apartment. Tasha says, “This is eight times the cost of my apartment. Eight times.” Oh boy.

Carly: Oh boy.

Riese: Alice says, “It’s fine.” They don’t have to split it down the middle. Tasha says, yes they do. On this note, I would side with Alice.

Carly: I think it’s complicated. I think that when you’ve been together a really long time and you know that everything is stable, I think that it’s fine to side with Alice and I think that just the idea … You kind of start to forget whose money is whose. Maybe you’re married or you’ve been together a really long time. But I think with these two, they’re coming from really different places, emotionally, psychologically, literally. Also in really different parts of their lives. Alice is on the verge of getting a job that would pay her a ton of money, and Tasha essentially is trying to figure out what to do with her life right now. And so, that would create a massive imbalance.

Carly: Also, Alice is talking as if she already has the job and has the money even though she does not already have the job.

Riese: Yeah, that terrifies me.

Carly: That is actually the worst part of this, she’s like, “We can totally afford this really expensive apartment because I’m going to get this job.”

Riese: That is terrifying. The reason I side with Alice is because I think that if Alice has things about the apartment that she wants in the apartment that are more important to her, that she absolutely cannot live without and those things don’t matter to Tasha, then it makes sense for Alice to pay more. If it was an apartment they both picked and they both liked it the same, split it down the middle because you’re right, it should be … that shit can get very complicated and imbalanced. But I think if Alice is insisting on living in a neighborhood that’s nicer than what Tasha is insisting they live on, then it’s fine for Alice to be paying more.

Carly: I do agree with that. I agree with the principal of that, absolutely. Especially as a person with OCD who often has things that matter to them way more than they matter to anybody else, I absolutely get that. I worry about these two because it feels like they haven’t had any conversations about what they’re looking for, what they want, money, where they want to live. It seems like Tasha — we kind of get the sense throughout the episode that Tasha is still really loving Long Beach and she wants to be with Alice. But it’s tough because you want them to compromise. You don’t want Alice to just get her way because she has money and opinions, because that’s gross. There’s some classism going on here for sure as well. We’ll get to it later because it becomes more obvious later. But this is a very complicated situation, and I think if they actually talked about things instead of just going to look at apartments and then getting in fights at the apartments, that maybe this would be a little easier for them.

Riese: Alice says, “I hope you bleed soon. I really do.”

Alice: We don’t have to split the rent exactly down the middle.
Tasha: Yes, we fucking do.
Alice: If I get this job, I’ll be making a lot of money.
Tasha: Alice, can we just please keep looking?
Alice: I hope you bleed soon. I really do.

Carly: More period stuff. It was real themed.

Alice tells Tasha that she hopes she bleeds soon

Riese: Back to Bette’s house.

Carly: No.

Riese: I just want to say this is so gay. The post breakup where both of the people in the breakup are being each other’s emotional support regarding the breakup.

Carly: Yeah, oh God.

Riese: It’s so bad.

Carly: I have been here.

Riese: So have I.

Carly: It is not healthy at all. Also very gay is that Jodi says that she’s mad that she loves Bette so much. She says, “I was fine before I met you,” and then got feelings for Bette and that seems to go against the way Jodi viewed herself prior to meeting Bette. That’s super gay. That’s very gay.

Riese: Yeah. I feel like I understand where that feeling comes from. But they’re dressed the same, so who knows? Jodi starts kissing her, and Bette is resisting and then she gives in, and then Jodi keeps going. Once again, I hate this.

Carly: I hate it so much.

Riese: We’ll address the consent of it all once we get to the next piece of their little, their next scene together.

Carly: Yes, but first we go—

Riese: Firstly—

Carly: … back to set. Tina is in her production office. She drafts a text to Bette and she says, “I hope it’s not too awful. Miss you.” Oh man. Tina, you have no idea what’s going on at your old house right now. But first, Sam, the hot DP, is here. She—

Riese: Is wearing a bandana.

Carly: She’s wearing a bandana. She remains very attractive. Tina tells her she’s pretty worried about the film, which yeah, I would be. I think being worried about this film is the correct feeling to have throughout the entirety of this season.

Riese: But she also says that she thinks it’s a good movie.

Carly: I know. That’s weird. Sam’s like, “I think it’s going to be okay.” She’s like, “Jenny made some really interesting stylistic choices.” I was like, oh, the romper room sets? Tina’s like, “Yeah.”

Riese: Suddenly, they both seem to feel as though this is going to be a good film just in time for it to be torpedoed.

Carly: This is—

Riese: They decide it’s a good film with some good choices.

Carly: They just suddenly — even though Tina started the scene very worried about the film. Yes.

Riese: Anyway, Aaron’s here and he wants Tina in the conference room stat.

Carly: He probably still doesn’t know what her job title is. He’s like, “What are you? A PA?” She’s like, “I’m like the fucking producer.”

Riese: Bandana girl, get out of here. We’re going to the conference room.

Carly: He has never seen Sam before. She’s like, “I’m here literally every day. I’m literally the DP.” So Tina walks in and she’s like, “All right, what now?” And so, we set the stage. This is very dramatic.

Riese: Conference room.

Carly: I wish they had done this more like they did the SheBar shake down, because that would’ve been much funnier. But this is supposed to be serious. We’ve got Aaron, we’ve got Tina. We’ve got Jenny, we’ve got Adele, and we’ve got Nikki’s manager agent people.

Riese: Manager and agent.

Carly: What’s going on? Well, Adele’s going to lead this meeting in her leather pants.

Riese: Adele is going to start off this film festival with a little something she picked up in the Pacific Northwest and show them a short film. She pops it in to the—

Carly: The DVD player.

Riese: … TV. It begins playing. Before we talk about anything, I just want to say that suddenly, this sex tape had a camera man.

Carly: Oh, yeah.

Riese: There’s zooms, there’s pans.

Carly: There’s editing.

Riese: There’s cuts. There’s editing. I’m like, what?

Carly: Here’s what happened.

Riese: It was sitting on a …

Carly: It was not moving.

Riese: It was sitting on a table.

Carly: This is the show’s footage of the sex scene, not the camcorder’s recorded history of what happened. That’s a very interesting choice that they made here that makes absolutely no sense.

Riese: Right. And then it starts playing. Of course, Jenny is like … And Tina is frozen in time. And then they’re like, “We’ve seen enough.” Nikki’s manager gets up and takes it.

Carly: He runs. He runs across the conference room to the DVD player to get the disc, and Adele is like, “Have you seen any movie? I have more than one copy of this.”

Riese: Yeah, I have 25 copies, and here’s who she’s going to sell them to.

Carly: Oh, good. You have the list.

Riese: Letterman, Leno, Oprah, Ellen, FOX, E!, The National Inquirer, Star. This is my favorite part. She’s going to send it to Hola and also to Hello.

Carly: Incredible.

Riese: And to Perez Hilton. I have a question. Whom among these people, whom amongst them would care?

Carly: None.

Riese: National Inquirer maybe?

Carly: Maybe.

Riese: Star?

Carly: She was on the cover of Star, right? As a Lez Girl.

Riese: Yeah, Perez Hilton.

Carly: Perez would care.

Riese: I think it was just — is Oprah generally in the business of sex tapes? Airing sex tapes on her show?

Carly: And D-list celebrity salacious stories? No. That’s not really her thing. It’s not Ellen’s thing either.

Riese: No.

Carly: Ellen’s thing is dancing around with white teens and giving them money. And being mean to everyone that works for her.

Riese: E!, is Leno, Letter-

Carly: None of them care.

Riese: Yeah, they’re all going to be like, “Another DVD from this bitch? She’s constantly trying to get us to show this shit.” Because who knows where Adele even came from.

Adele watching Jenny and Nikki's sex tape

Carly: I like the idea that Adele has been sending them DVDs for months of just random things she films.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah, Adele is A, basically. And then, ew, barf. Adele is like, “I just wouldn’t want something like this to ruin—”

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: “… This beautiful film that I care about so much and this really important story.”

Carly: Like, “Oh my God, I really don’t want to have to do this, you guys. This film has the opportunity to change hearts and minds. And Jenny’s so bad at her job.” Then Jenny’s like, “I’m going to call Willam and I’m going to straighten this out.” William. “I’m going to call William and straighten this out.”

Riese: Will.i.am. I’m going to call Will.i.am and straighten this out.

Carly: I said Willam like the drag queen. I’m going to call William.

Riese: Okay. I’m going to call Willow.

Carly: I would call Will. He would handle it. So Jenny’s like, “Okay, I’m going to call William.” And Adele’s like, “Oh, that’s so funny because I already talked to him and he actually agrees with her.” Everyone’s like, “Okay, now what? Clearly, you’re about to blackmail us. What do you want?” But they don’t tell us yet.

Riese: Also, okay.

Carly: This is—

Riese: Just as a side note.

Carly: … bonkers.

Riese: This film would be very bad news for Nikki as a public persona. It would not be bad for the film.

Carly: No, it would not.

Riese: It would have no bearing whatsoever on anyone’s interest in viewing the film.

Carly: If anything, it would make people maybe want to see the film more, which would be very disappointing for them when they realize that the sex tape is much more interesting than this fucking movie.

Riese: Yeah, the sex tape is definitely better than the film. But it’s one of the best L Word sex scenes of all time. That’s going to help you.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: It’s so much better than Lez Girls.

Carly: So much better than Lez Girls.

Riese: It’s great. It’s perfect.

Carly: You should just edit it into the film.

Riese: God, no one understands anything.

Carly: I know. They don’t get it. And so, Adele’s just like, blah, blah, blah. Tina’s like, “What do you want?” This whole—

Riese: What is it you want?

Carly: This whole thing is so ridiculous. This would never happen.

Riese: No.

Carly: This is incredulous.

Riese: My least favorite thing in the world, in the whole universe, worse than everything that’s ever happened, is blackmail as a plot device.

Carly: Agreed.

Riese: I fucking hate it. It is the entire plot of the show, Elite. It is 50% of Pretty Little Liars. First of all, blackmail is illegal. Second of all, has blackmail ever happened?

Carly: I also have to imagine that Adele is under … anyone working on this film must have signed a nondisclosure agreement.

Riese: NDA.

Carly: So the minute she does anything with this thing, she’s violating her contract. There’s a bunch of legal liability. This studio honestly could destroy her and instead, they’re just like, “Oh, I guess we have to do what she says.” Not to be like, “let’s destroy a girl’s career,” but they could fucking destroy her. People have been destroyed over much less.

Riese: Yeah. Literally, no one has ever actually had a sex tape that ruined their career.

Carly: No, no. They’ve never ruined a career. They’ve started careers.

Riese: Yeah. That is not a great thing that this is our culture.

Carly: No.

Riese: But it also — it shouldn’t ruin careers. Everybody … not everybody, but a lot of people have sex.

Carly: It should not be a big deal at all. Who fucking cares?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: None of it matters. None of it’s real. I agree, blackmail as a plot device is so overdone and it’s tired.

Riese: It’s tiring.

Carly: It’s honestly exhausting because blackmail begets more blackmail, so you just end up in this constant cycle and you can’t escape it, and it’s so boring. I also hate when suitcases get mixed up.

Riese: Boring.

Carly: When people are traveling, as a plot device. Which I know has been the main engine behind so many great, great pieces of art. But it’s one of my least favorite plot devices as well.

Riese: Yeah. Blackmail is my number one, and my number two is still when someone walks in at the exact moment that someone is being kissed by somebody just before they say, “No, I can’t kiss you.”

Carly: Oh, yes, of course.

Riese: So that person is like, “Oh, they’re cheating on me,” and then they make a life decision based on this—

Carly: Instead of having a conversation.

Riese: Misinterpreted, yes. Right. Anyway, shame on you, The L Word. Speaking of shame on you, The L Word, we go back to Bette’s, where Jodi and Bette are somehow still making out. The phone is ringing. Jodi hangs it up and Jodi is trying to fuck Bette, who — how many times does Bette say, “Stop?”

Carly: A lot. Several?

Riese: Several.

Carly: Several to many. Once again, The L Word gives us a lot of really weird consent stuff that is just fucked.

Riese: And also the way this started was, at best, Bette reluctantly agreeing to make out. It wasn’t like she wanted to in any way or, nor is she in a relationship with Jodi where she’s caring about Jodi’s happiness or whatever in this moment. She’s just, it sucks.

Carly: Yup.

Riese: Especially since Jodi is the good guy here.

Carly: I know.

Riese: And then to have this very forceful—

Carly: Now they’re trying to make her into the bad guy. The show doesn’t want us to care about Jodi. The show wants us to want Bette and Tina to get back together, and this is the couple that is at the center of this fucking show. So Bette’s like, “Please stop. I don’t want to do this with you.” And then Jodi’s like, “Cool, I’m going to kill myself.” So …

Riese: Which again, this is a typical breakup move.

Carly: Yeah, I’ve dated this person before.

Riese: But also, then Bette is like, “I’m not going to let you walk out of here if you’re going to kill yourself.” She’s like, “I’m not really going to kill myself.” I’m just like, oh my God you guys, this is so … It feels real, but in a really annoying way.

Jodi fighting with Bette

Carly: These are adults with jobs and careers.

Riese: Yeah, they are grown adults.

Carly: This is ridiculous behavior for adults. It was bad behavior when I was 19 or 20 and dating someone and we broke up, and she was like, “I’m going to hurt myself and it’s going to be your fault,” and tried to make me feel bad. That was really horrible. Really horrible. We were half the age of the people in this scene.

Riese: Yeah, probably less—

Carly: Less than half.

Riese: More than. Yeah, you know what I mean. Bugger age gap. And then Bette’s like, “I’m not going to turn my back on you and let you hate me.” Bette is still concerned about what—

Carly: Her perception of her.

Riese: … Jodi’s impression of her.

Carly: Oh my God. And then Bette says she’s going to fight for this relationship, which is—

Riese: Again.

Carly: … an actual lie.

Riese: Friendship Bette.

Carly: That’s not even twisting words around and leaving things out. That’s purely a lie because you mean, “I want you to like me as a person and be my friend.” She keeps telling Jodi she has so much respect for her. It’s so gaslight-y. The whole thing is really gaslight-y and terrible. But this is a horrible scene. I hate everything about this scene.

Riese: Yeah. Breakups, they’re horrible. They sure are. You know what else is horrible? Lez Girls, which is where we go back to the set of Lez Girls, and Nikki’s getting touched up for the scene, and then—

Carly: Everyone seems to be working, yet there’s no one in charge.

Riese: In a flurry. Yeah, and then Jenny shows up and wants to tell Nikki what happened, but she’s interrupted by the managers who are like, “Get away from her.” And then Jenny makes her speech that Lauren should put in.

Jenny: I want you guys to know what’s going on here, that these people, they’re treacherous and they’re soulless and they’re trying to ruin this movie.
Nikki’s Manager: Okay, that’s enough. All right, somebody call security right now.
Jenny: Give me a second.
Nikki’s Manager: Security please.
Jenny: Wait!
Tina: Okay, just give me one second with her.
Jenny: If anybody has any integrity, come with me. Okay? You can come with me. You can stand up to these people.

Riese: But what I found interesting is that she doesn’t actually explain what happened. She asks people to come with her, but she doesn’t even explain why she’s leaving. She doesn’t explain anything.

Carly: This is like a misguided Jerry Maguire situation.

Riese: Right, yeah. And then she’s like … yeah, and Shane is the goldfish I guess.

Carly: Yeah, Shane’s for sure the goldfish.

Riese: She’s like, “Who is coming with me? Who is coming with me?” Truly, her very good, deeply loyal, loving friend, Shane is like …

Shane: I’m with you.

Riese: That is very kind of Shane to do.

Carly: It is.

Riese: Tina would like to walk her out.

Carly: Yeah, because Aaron keeps screaming for security, which is laughable because, as we know, their set has no security. There’s two white guys—

Riese: Yeah, we’ve been through this already.

Carly: Old white guy extras in little security outfits show up, and it’s just ridiculous.

Riese: What if they’ve been security strippers and they’d be like bow bow bow and then they took off their security outfits.

Carly: One of them has a boom box and they have tearaway pants.

Riese: Yeah, and everyone goes, “Party time. Just kidding.”

Carly: It would be awesome.

Riese: Jenny pleads again for Nikki to come with her, and her team reminds her that she is under contract.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Who’s the director now, Carly?

Carly: Unfortunately, Adele is now the director.

Riese: Another first-time director here.

Carly: I want to die.

Riese: Can’t wait to see how she interprets the material.

Carly: I get it, it’s a TV show and it’s a soap, it’s dramatic. But this is ridiculous. This is so ridiculous.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Also, yeah, of course Nikki’s under a contract and her reps are standing right there. She’s not going to go with you. And you haven’t really made a very good case to get her to go with you because no one knows what’s going on.

Jenny on set of "Lez Girls" telling Tina she has to get off the set

Riese: Yeah, you haven’t explained it. No one knows what’s happening.

Carly: Nikki doesn’t know what happened.

Riese: For all they know, you volunteered to leave.

Carly: For all you know, you’re just on a whim, yeah.

Riese: Yeah, you have to explain yourself.

Carly: You got to wheel that little TV cart in there with the DVD player and play the sex tape for the whole cast and crew.

Riese: Exactly. And be like, “Okay, everyone, true or false, this is a great sex scene and everybody would love it.”

Carly: They’d be like, “This is great.”

Riese: And everyone will be like, “Yeah, that’s pretty good.”

Carly: “Can you put this in the film?”

Riese: “This is really good.”

Carly: And then Jenny’s like, “I’m going to be in the film now.”

Riese: “Yeah, let’s sell it.”

Carly: “I’m playing Karina.”

Riese: Myself. Oh, yeah, Jenny was like Karina, yeah.

Carly: This is just wild.

Riese: Wild.

Carly: Wild. Okay, so now back with House Hunters International, LA edition. Alice and Tasha are again, they’re in another apartment, right?

Riese: Yeah. Yeah.

Carly: They are still arguing. Tasha, again, says that she thinks the relationship’s balance will be messed up if Alice pays more rent than she does. Alice then says that she refuses to live in this shit hole.

Riese: Yeah, she said, “It’ll be out of balance if you make me live in this shit hole.”

Carly: Now, they are in the apartment viewing it. The person who is renting it is there. Alice says it’s gross. This is really gross. Also, I think that I do … This is clearly like, your partner is telling you that they do not want to be in a situation where the balance of the relationship in terms of money is off. You have to respect that.

Riese: Right, but Alice doesn’t want to live where Tasha wants to live.

Carly: Right.

Riese: They just shouldn’t move in together.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Because I think they both have valid desires about where they want to live.

Carly: Yeah, absolutely.

Riese: It’s not the same, so they should wait until they’re at a different point in their lives. Another thing is — this is so dumb, but logistically, they’d need to wait for Tasha to get a job, or else they won’t be approved for the apartment to begin with.

Carly: That’s true!

Riese: But they should wait. Alice and Tasha are both at junctures in their careers. They don’t know what’s going to happen next. They should wait and figure out what their new careers are going to be, what their new salaries are going to be, and what their relationship is going to look like. They just recently got back together. And then they can decide to move in together. They’re clearly not ready to move in together.

Carly: That is very clear and I agree. And also, Alice is like, “I have to go to my taping.” And Tasha’s like, “Cool, I’m going to go hang out with my friends in Long Beach.” And then she’s like, “Oh, you’re not coming to my taping?” It’s like, do these two ever talk to each other?

Riese: No, just when we’re watching.

Carly: God, this is frustrating. Get a Google calendar. Jesus Christ.

Riese: Then we go back to the studio lot where it’s Tina and Jenny. I think that this scene was improvised and it was not done very well.

Carly: That tracks.

Riese: Tina is like, “Don’t retaliate. Get your agents to help you. This isn’t over.” Jenny says Nikki’s dead to her. Tina is like, “I’m going to fix it. There’s no way I’m going to let this bitch walk away with our movie.” Jenny’s like, “It is our movie,” and then they hug. And then they have sex. Just kidding. No, but speaking of sex.

Carly: Speaking of sex.

Riese: We go back to the set.

Carly: We go back to set where two people who hate each other are trying to shoot a sex scene.

Riese: Relatable for many actresses out there.

Carly: Totally. This is the most realistic thing about this film, is that two actors who hate each other have to play lovers.

Riese: Lovers. Vaguely European lovers.

Carly: Nikki’s obviously distracted by everything that is happening, and so Adele becomes the creepiest director. It’s so creepy.

Riese: Were we supposed to think she was doing a good job?

Carly: Maybe. I was trying to figure that out too. Does the show want us to contrast this against Jenny’s more frantic style of directing, where Adele is more confident and direct?

Riese: “Part your lips.”

Carly: And she has a very specific vision. But she is coming across as such a fucking creep.

Adele directing "Lez Girls" like a creep

Riese: Yeah. And also, she doesn’t pay attention to the fact that Begoña is just shifting her arms up and down over and over again as a move. But it keeps going. It’s the way that you see in a movie, the first part of a kiss going. But when it kept happening, it was distracting.

Carly: It’s going on forever. It’s like, what? Are we stuck in a loop? Are we stuck in this kissing loop?

Riese: Yeah, we are. This is Speed. If we could once again bring it back to Speed. We’re on a tape in Speed, and Sandra Bullock is here and so is Keanu Reeves, so watch out.

Carly: Watch the fuck out.

Riese: They’re all going with Jenny.

Carly: They’re all out of here.

Riese: Tina’s calling Bette. She leaves her a little VM for latra. That’s a word I just made up.

Carly: Voicemail for later.

Riese: It means later.

Carly: I knew. I knew what you meant.

Riese: A voicemail for later. A little later, a little mail for later.

Carly: Guess where we are now? We’re at The Look!

Riese: The Look!

Carly: The Look, and we are live. Alice has to teach these dumb bitch hosts what femme and butch are. Oh boy.

Riese: Because we’ve got a new super hot designer who put together an androgynous menswear inspired collection.

Carly: “Please welcome Clea Mason to the show!”

Riese: Woo!

Mary: Fashion designer, Clea Mason, who won the prize for the best new designer at last year’s Gen Art Fashion show.
Alice: That’s right, and she’s here today to present her super hot, super androgenous menswear influenced fall collection.
Mary: Just your style, huh Alice?
Alice: Well actually, Mary, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m actually pretty much a femme, yeah.
Mary: Femme?
Alice: Oh, yeah, totally girly girl, dresses, girlish pumps. Thank you. But bring on those boyish babes and their hot butch fall fashion, huh? Woo!
Mary: Spare us, Alice.

Carly: Alice tells the host that all the straight girls want to try it, and they look at her and tell her that not everyone is gay and she says—

Mary: And thank God for that.

Carly: And they immediately go to a commercial break even though this was the opening of the show.

Riese: She still has that hair.

Carly: Yeah, that windswept bitch.

Riese: Which, I need to see it from behind.

Carly: I know.

Riese: I need to see it from behind.

Carly: I have to assume it’s just a collection of clips holding everything together.

Riese: It’s got to be a little nest back there.

Carly: Some birds.

Alice is on "The Look" with her co-hosts, one of whom is claiming that not everyone is gay

Riese: Anyway, Alice is doing a great job. She’s going to be a star. Maybe one day she’ll have her own show that’ll almost get canceled.

Carly: I hope one day she has a show called The Aloce Show.

Riese: Me too. What a dream.

Carly: What a dream. We’ll never know. We’ll never know what’s going to happen.

Riese: We’ll never know. Back at The Planet.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: Kit is pacing.

Carly: She’s pacing.

Riese: She pulls out her gun.

Carly: She loads it.

Riese: Why?

Carly: Why?

Riese: Why?

Carly: Kit.

Riese: For what?

Carly: Let me get this straight.

Riese: What?

Carly: Kit’s reaction to these horrible, horrible people buying out her venue from under her, which shouldn’t have happened, is to shoot them? Is that the plan?

Riese: I guess. I guess.

Carly: We get moments of Kit in a trench coat, walking around, being a badass. But the context of it is horrible.

Riese: She loads it.

Carly: She loads the—

Riese: She loads it with multiple bullets.

Carly: She’s getting ready, for a plan she has not really thought out very well because it would be very obvious who shot them immediately in broad daylight.

Riese: Yeah, she bought the gun at a gun store and the bullets. It’s registered in her name. It’ll have her fingerprints all over it.

Carly: What?

Riese: Here’s the question that we, I think, at home are supposed to be asking ourselves: What’s better? Having Dawn and Cindi own 51% of your coffee shop/event venue/podcast stage? Or being in jail for murder?

Carly: I know which one I would choose.

Riese: Yeah, well, we did see jail earlier in this season.

Carly: They made it look great.

Riese: I didn’t care for it. Yeah, I didn’t care for it. I’d like to stay out of that. And then also, to have to deal your whole life with knowing you murdered someone.

Carly: Perhaps two someones.

Riese: No one wants to do that. You guys, murder is bad.

Carly: I would like to say that To L and Back is anti-murder.

Riese: Anti-murder.

Carly: That’s the stance we’ve taken. We go back to the androgynous fashion show at The Look, which is fully happening. Is one of these models Villanelle?

Riese: Wait, really?

Carly: One of them looks so much like Jodie Comer. The one in the pink bomber jacket looks like her.

Riese: Yeah. Basically, we’ve got Little Debbie, we’ve got The Pink Ladies. I don’t know about this collection.

Carly: This collection is a little weird. Although, who doesn’t love a Vespa on a stage? They’re just zipping around in Vespas.

Riese: Would you wear these fashions?

Carly: I would not. I would not wear these fashions.

Riese: No? Hmm, interesting.

Carly: Would you?

Riese: Then they drive off.

Carly: Interesting.

Riese: They drive off in their motorcycles?

Carly: On their Vespas, and then they introduce the designer, Clea Mason, who’s played by the legendary Melanie Lynsky.

Riese: Melanie Lynsky.

Carly: We love you, Melanie Lynsky.

Riese: She has been in But I’m a Cheerleader,Itty Bitty Titty Committee, Heavenly Creatures,The Intervention, Mrs. America. This is a woman who has some experience playing a woman who cares for other women in a sexual way.

Carly: Yes. She is great.

Riese: However, her character, Clea Mason, is allegedly a fashion designer and she is wearing a terrible, terrible idea on her body.

Carly: All of these fashions are a terrible idea, honestly.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: These are not good.

Riese: Hers is more subtle, you know?

Clea Mason says "Like a 14-year-old boy" on The Look

Carly: Yes, yes.

Riese: The ones she’s wearing on herself. But it’s subtly offensive to fashion.

Carly: It’s no vest you could gig in, but it is not good.

Riese: No. It’s very, does have the Mikey’s fashion week, LA fashion week vibe.

Carly: It has the real tented cardstock vibe.

Riese: Yeah, it has a tented vibe.

Carly: Just tent anything.

Riese: I love a cardstock vibe.

Carly: Oh, I know. Me too. Who doesn’t?

Riese: Clea is this nervous little Nellie up there. She’s like, “Hee, hee, hee.” She has an accent. It’s very sexy.

Carly: She’s the most awkward person on camera of all time.

Riese: Alice is like, “What do you want women to wear under their clothes?” She says, “I like boxers and briefs because it’s liberating to feel like a 14-year-old boy.”

Carly: Yikes.

Riese: “Or lingerie.” So basically anything. That’s all …

Carly: Yes.

Riese: She wants people to wear underwear of any style beneath her clothes. Who …

Carly: She doesn’t have a lot of opinions.

Riese: What? She doesn’t have a lot of opinions, no.

Carly: She doesn’t seem to have a stance on anything.

Riese: No, she doesn’t have a stance. She couldn’t even decide whether she was going to wear half a shirt or an entire shirt.

Carly: Both!

Riese: She just did three shirts at once in a way that was, again, I feel completely dismantled. I don’t know who else did.

Carly: This is the most awkward interview and Alice is trying so hard to—

Riese: Alice is having a great time.

Carly: Alice is having a great time. She’s translating everything Clea says into gay. They’re flirting awkwardly. There’s so much extended eye contact. Alice is kind of crushing it. She saves this interview.

Riese: Yeah, she does.

Carly: The two other hosts don’t know what the fuck to talk about, and Clea’s, like, way too anxious.

Riese: No, they’re upset that this is even happening. Even though they’re both wearing menswear-inspired outfits that, honestly, are somewhat similar to Bette and Jodi’s, if I recall correctly.

Carly: Incredible. A lot of interesting choices are being made.

Riese: This a quickie, Tina just tells Shane she can go, she can go be with Jenny. Shane says, “Fuck Nikki, she’s terrible,” which is—

Carly: I actually don’t agree with the “fuck Nikki” thing here. I don’t think Nikki has done anything wrong. There was no opportunity for them to have a real conversation about what happened, so Nikki actually maybe doesn’t even know what’s going on. She couldn’t leave because she was under contract. I think Jenny was in a heightened, dramatic state and wasn’t really thinking. Why could Nikki not just go be with her when they wrapped for the day and they could have time to talk and figure things out? But instead it’s like, fuck her. And I’m like, really? I don’t know. I don’t think she did anything wrong. I’m not trying to be a Nikki apologist. I don’t think she’s that great, but I don’t think in this — from what we’ve seen — that she did anything terrible.

Riese: That’s fair.

Carly: I sense you disagree.

Riese: I just don’t like her because she was flirting with Shane.

Carly: Yeah, I know. I also just don’t really like Nikki.

Riese: This episode.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, that’s why I don’t like her. Yeah, you’re right, she didn’t really do anything bad this time. She doesn’t know what’s going on.

Carly: Yeah, she’s just, everyone’s—

Riese: But if she knew what was going on, then she could actually maybe change it by refusing to do the film.

Carly: Exactly. Like, “I won’t be in this film unless—”

Riese: And then they would … but it’s already episode 511, so they need to wrap it up.

Carly: They got to wrap it up. That’s where we’re at.

Riese: Jodi and Bette are stuck in traffic.

Carly: They both look so miserable.

Riese: That’s great. Being stuck in traffic when you’re in a fight is great.

Carly: It’s the best. Then Kit pulls up outside of SheBar and leaves a voicemail for Bette.

Kit: Bette, I’m in trouble. I’m going to do something bad.

Carly: Well, you already …

Riese: Girl.

Carly: Now it’s premeditated, so now you’re looking at murder one. Come on.

Riese: She left a voicemail on Bette’s phone.

Carly: Proving that it was premeditated.

Riese: Like, “I’m going to do something bad.”

Carly: Everyone’s doing everything wrong right now.

Riese: Oh my God. Everyone needs to think about their lives and think about their choices. Except Kit does not need to think about her coat choice because her coat was cool.

Carly: Her coat was cool. Her car is cool. I just don’t want her to kill anybody.

Riese: Yeah, me neither. I think killing, again, is bad, and people shouldn’t do it. That applies for season six as well. Just keep that in mind in the back of your pocket book, in your head space. Anyway, back to the CAC. My best friend, James—

Carly: It’s not the CAC, it’s Carly University.

Riese: Back to Carly University. I had put CAC. She hops around employers so much, it’s hard to keep track.

Carly: Honestly, it’s still art. It’s still similar letters.

Riese: Yeah, exactly. California, Carly. Similar.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Back at Carly University…

Carly: The Carly Art Center.

Riese: James rescheduled some stuff, he couldn’t reschedule some other stuff.

Carly: Phyllis is in Sacramento.

Riese: Surprise, W Magazine … Yeah, Phyllis, why?

Carly: Really important stuff here. Phyllis is in Sacramento.

Riese: Maybe she’s going to the California State Fair. It was really fun in Sacramento. Because I had one of the best weekends of my life there.

Carly: Oh my God, wow. Maybe that’s where Phyllis is.

Riese: Yeah, it was really fun.

Jodi and Bette talking to James outside of Bette's office

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Maybe she’s like me, falling in love with someone who will eventually ruin her life.

Carly: Maybe.

Riese: Then we go … Maybe, maybe. Just maybe.

Carly: Maybe she’s with Joyce.

Riese: Have a good time, girl. Have a good time.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: W Magazine, which is Bette’s favorite magazine, which checks out 10,000%. W Magazine is so sort of pretentious that it’s too big for me to take to the gym. It’s—

Carly: Physically too large.

Riese: At the time, it was, yeah. This is for your coffee table, period.

Carly: Yeah, it’s not a magazine that travels.

Riese: No.

Carly: You’re not going to take that on a flight.

Riese: Anyway, they are doing some story where they want Bette and Jodi to be in power couples for art because the Ellen story that they recently did sold really well, which is true and I remember it. She was wet. She was wearing clothes that were — it was like a light blue shirt.

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: She was wet, sort of, for some reason. Do you remember this at all?

Carly: Vaguely.

Riese: I feel like those are — where there’s these shots of her sitting on a chair in black and white, but also … God, I can see it in my mind. But, well …

Carly: So, Bette loves W Magazine, which is absolutely in character for her.

Riese: Yeah. Jodi says that yes, of course they’ll do it. They’ll do the magazine.

Carly: Bette’s like, “We absolutely will not do the magazine.” And then Bette’s like, “Whatever, I’m going to my meeting,” and just goes to her meeting.

Riese: “Bye.” Leaving Jodi alone to read her diary. Back on The Look…

Carly: They’re doing an online voting that you can go and vote if you want Alice to join the cast permanently. I think that’s a great idea. I wish we could all vote right now for Alice to be on The Look.

Riese: Yeah, she needs to be sending her friends to the Apple store to vote on every computer.

Carly: Yeah, that’s probably what she did. But we didn’t get that scene. Maybe it’s a deleted scene.

Riese: Yeah, maybe that’s what Max is doing today. He’s at the computer lab at Carly University, voting on every single computer for The Look.

Carly: That’s absolutely where he is until we see him soon.

Riese: Yeah. The Look, right. So Clea is sort of flirting with Alice.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And invites her to their fashion show, which they’re going to do at the Venice canals. Which, okay.

Carly: Sure.

Riese: And also offers to take her on a scooter ride.

Carly: Hot.

Riese: But she already has a girlfriend who has a two-wheeled vehicle.

Carly: She’s got a motorcycle ride.

Riese: Her name is Tasha.

Carly: Not a Vespa ride.

Riese: She’s got a motorcycle.

Carly: And guess what? Tasha’s here.

Riese: She’s here. Oh my God.

Carly: Oh my God, so sweet but also I’m like, I just want Tasha to be able to have her own life and her own personality and still be in this relationship. Did you happen to notice the way all of the extras that were playing the audience, how they were styled?

Riese: No.

Carly: It was like Midwestern mom city.

Riese: Oh, cute!

Carly: It’s very funny. It’s very Republican wives meeting for brunch. It’s a look. It’s a choice and a look.

Riese: I have a lot that I missed this episode, I need to look back at.

Carly: Yeah, it was a lot. We go back to school.

Riese: Back to school time.

Carly: After the meeting, Bette’s back in her office with Jodi.

Riese: Jodi’s in there playing with all her toys.

Carly: Yeah. Was she on Bette’s computer? I thought that that was maybe Bette’s computer that she was on also?

Riese: Was she?

Carly: Which I thought was very funny.

Riese: I wish she’d been in there with silly string and a bucket of popcorn.

Carly: Just fucking it up? Yeah.

Riese: “Sorry, I moved in, I’m having so much fun. Drinking a hard cider.”

Carly: Oh, man, just wilding out.

Riese: Wilding out, yeah.

Carly: Bette finally says real things.

Riese: Clarifies.

Carly: And is like, “Yes, this isn’t working. We’re not a couple. We can’t be in W Magazine.” Also though, she only finally really has this conversation when maybe we’re going to be in W Magazine becomes a reality and not … which is convenient.

Riese: Well, yeah.

Carly: She’s like, “I meant that I was going to fight for our friendship.”

Riese: And Jodi’s like, “I don’t want to be friends.”

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And then classic, classic next move in an unexpected lesbian breakup, you suggest—

Carly: Couples therapy.

Riese: Therapy.

Carly: She says, “Let’s get a good therapist, unlike some people, Dan.”

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, “I don’t want to go to therapy. I’ve been in enough therapy,” which is not true. She has not been in enough therapy.

Carly: No.

Bette says "I don't want to go to therapy"

Riese: But also, obviously she doesn’t want to and it’s good. Bette is finally just being like, “I obviously have to be really clear here.”

Carly: Yes.

Riese: And then she explains, as discussed in the elevator episode, that they are fundamentally different. They have different core values.

Carly: And then Jodi says, “What are my core values?”

Riese: What?

Carly: And Bette says, “It doesn’t matter. It’s not a judgment.” What? What?

Riese: I want Bette to be like, “I see the beauty in things.”

Carly: And what do you see, Jodi? Also the beauty in things? Oh.

Riese: And Jodi’s like, “I’m wearing your exact outfit. Obviously, I also see the beauty in things.”

Carly: “I’m an artist. You work around art.”

Riese: “I’m an artist, bitch. Yeah, I built an entire jungle gym and then I put 10 more jungle gyms on it, and then I put it inside a warehouse, and then I fucked you on it.”

Carly: Remember that?

Riese: “That’s art.”

Carly: Remember how to drink it up.

Riese: All right, read a fact. Find a book.

Carly: Get the DVDs of this show and educate yourself.

Riese: Yeah, get the DVDs and learn a thing. Learn a fact.

Carly: But Bette’s saying, “We have different core values,” and then when Jodi asks her to clarify that, saying, “It doesn’t matter,” is honestly peak Bette Porter and is deeply funny and just, wow. Because they’ve been throwing that phrase around and I don’t think anyone really gave any thought to what it means. You’re just not in love with her and you want to get back with your ex. Just fucking say that. You have a kid together. You have history. It’s easier.

Riese: Yeah. They do. I think they do have different core values though. I think Bette is much more traditional.

Carly: Yes. Yes.

Riese: She’s more family focused. She’s more—

Carly: Focus on the family.

Riese: Yeah, she focused on family if, you know what I mean with that. She likes to plan her parenthood. Yeah, she’s a little bit more … I think Jodi’s values are more, she values exploration and curiosity and adventure, whereas Bette more values success and family.

Carly: Money, status, family.

Riese: Money, status.

Carly: Traditional gender roles.

Riese: Yeah. Yeah. And Tina.

Carly: Tina.

Riese: World’s most successful paper plate. She says they’ve been trying but they will never find it. And Jodi’s like, “How do you know we’ll never find it?” And she’s like, “Because I have it with someone else.” Ouch.

Carly: But true.

Riese: But true.

Carly: I also thought that at this moment in the conversation, Bette looked really, really pretty as she’s fully breaking Jodi’s heart. The worst is when she looks the best. I was like, “Damn.” She smiles at one point, and I was like, oh my God, I forgot how attractive you are. Yeah. But then our best friend, James, pops in at the best possible moment and he’s like …

James: I’m sorry to interrupt, but Melissa just called.

Bette: Is everything okay?

James: Well, she has food poisoning or something and she can’t pick up Angie for her play date.

Carly: Who is Melissa? I guess she’s the person that watches Angie?

Riese: The manny. Melissa, the manny.

Carly: I love that that fucking thing was such an important storyline that took up such a long time, and we don’t even get to know who the fuck this is—

Riese: So us, Melissa.

Carly: … and where the kid is.

Riese: We want to meet Melissa. We want to meet your friends. We have a relationship with you, Bette and Tina. We’ve been spending a lot of time together and we haven’t met your goddamned nanny.

Carly: I’m just saying.

Riese: That makes me wonder if we’re still real friends.

Carly: I worry we’re not. I feel like this is all for show. But—

Riese: Yeah. We’ve seen you have sex like seven times. Shows us your nanny. What are you trying to hide?

Carly: I just think that …

Riese: Is she a Republican?

Carly: Oh, is that what it is? Anyway, Melissa, the Republican, can’t pick Angie up for her play date or whatever.

Riese: She has food poisoning, which is a lie.

Carly: No one—

Riese: Unless I tell it because I get food poisoning all the time. Unless it’s me.

Carly: If anyone tells you—

Riese: I do get food poisoning all the time.

Carly: You do get food poisoning a lot.

Riese: I am so easy to poison. Poison me.

Carly: If you wanted to take Riese out…

Riese: Everyone should poison me.

Carly: … just poison her.

Riese: Poison.

Carly: She wouldn’t even—

Riese: Yeah, poison me.

Carly: She wouldn’t even know something was wrong.

Riese: Although … I wouldn’t. But I have cut out a lot of food groups because at one point, they poisoned me. So good luck finding one I still have on the roster.

Carly: She loves pizza, just saying. So Bette takes—

Riese: TT’s office.

Carly: We have a bunch of the actresses from the film here and they’re pissed. “We did not sign on to do an Adele Channing movie.” I’m like, yeah, no one did.

two actresses in Tina's office are wondering what's going on

Riese: They did not.

Carly: No one’s ever heard of her.

Riese: Correct.

Carly: But also, you signed on to do a Jennifer Schecter film? All right, sure.

Riese: What?

Carly: You knew who that was?

Riese: You liked young talent yesterday, and now that it’s just like a different type of psychotic bitch, now you don’t like it anymore? Come on, ladies.

Carly: Come on. Get with it. Internalize misogyny.

Riese: Laurel Holloman did not memorize one single line for this entire episode. Every time she speaks, she is trying—

Carly: To remember what she—

Riese: … to react to whatever the other character said, but not remember what she is supposed to say because she has no memory of what she’s supposed to say. I love this for her. I love this for all of us.

Carly: I think everyone should just forget their lines in this show and it would be more interesting.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Tina’s like, “Look, this happens all the time and you have to just roll with it.” Which is true. Directors get replaced, writers get replaced, and the actors if they’re under contract, probably will just have to deal with it.

Riese: They sure will. If I was an actor on the show, I’d be like, “Just show me the sec tape.”

Carly: I know. I’d be like, “Has anyone talked about why this all, why Jenny got fired?” There’s rumors that Shane quit, there’s rumors that Adele is going to fire Nikki. Oh my God.

Riese: Rumors, rumors.

Carly: But you know what?

Riese: This is just like the Lindsay Lohan song, “Rumors.”

Carly: Exactly. I’m tired. You know what? I am tired of rumors starting.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: I’m also—

Riese: Why don’t they just let me—

Carly: Live?

Riese: Live, live.

Carly: I think I honestly — what I would do if I was Tina, I would be like, “You need to take this for just what it is.” That’s what I would tell them. And to stop spreading rumors and following me around.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: No more lying. Don’t say what you want about me.

Riese: It all comes around because as aforementioned, at some point in the past of our lives, that I personally heard or maybe invented that Nikki was based on Lindsay Lohan.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: As you can see, it all comes around.

Carly: And then I took that as fact.

Riese: It all comes around, it all goes around.

Carly: And have just been saying it not realizing my only source was Riese.

Riese: I got it from somewhere. It didn’t come just from my own noggin, even though a lot of good ideas do though.

Carly: It’s true. You do have a lot of good ideas.

Riese: I do, but no follow through. Bette calls Tina. Actually, I guess I have some follow through. Okay. Bette calls Tina about the Playgirl?

Carly: About Angelica.

Riese: The play group.

Carly: Angelica. What’s she going to do?

Riese: She’s going to have to walk home by herself. How is she going to do that?

Carly: She’s a toddler.

Riese: I don’t know. Back to the mean streets of West Hollywood where Kit is just skulking around in the—

Carly: I wrote “skulking around.”

Riese: Skulking. Skulking around.

Carly: I love the phrase, skulking around. I say it as often as possible.

Riese: It’s what she’s doing.

Carly: She’s skulking.

Riese: That is a skulk—

Carly: If ever I’ve seen one.

Riese: That is a deep skulk.

Carly: She’s skulking around outside the back entrance of SheBar. She’s just fully standing in the doorway. She’s behind a beaded curtain that is transparent. This is so funny. What she sees is a moment where Cindi looks miserable with Dawn, and then the captions say that Kit is seething.

Riese: Seething.

Carly: Seething. Does that means she’s the seether? Because I was always told that the seether is Louise. That’s a very niche joke.

Riese: They should’ve played that song and been like, do you relate to this?

Carly: Yeah, that’s a really niche joke that I just told that only three people are going to appreciate. But I actually am one of them, so I don’t care. And then before anything can happen, her phone rings. I also love that.

Riese: Oh, wait. But first, did you notice that Dawn said she wanted to have some sex before showtime?

Carly: Yes. Showtime, the television network that this airs on?

Riese: Yeah. Before we take this project to Showtime, she wants to have some sex.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Everyone’s having sex on Showtime this week.

Carly: Cindi looks miserable with her. That’s sad. But I hate them and I don’t care.

The view from Kit's eyes of Dawn and Cindi in SheBar, Dawn saying she wants to have sex before show time

Riese: Ring, ring.

Carly: Everyone’s ringtone is Angelica talking.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s not weird.

Riese: “Mommy” … What is she saying?

Carly: I didn’t catch it.

Riese: I don’t know what she says.

Carly: I don’t either, but it’s weird.

Riese: Phone call.

Carly: It’s deeply unsettling to be there about to shoot somebody—

Riese: Sippy cup!

Carly: … and a kid voice is like, “Mommy, answer the phone,” or whatever she says. Kit answers the phone and she’s like, “Yeah, I’ll pick her up.” A real save by the bell.

Riese: Saved by the bell.

Carly: Saved by the child’s ringtone. And then there’s this wild moment where she and Cindi see each other and they’re just locking eyes…

Riese: Locked eyes.

Carly: Staring through the beaded curtain, and then nothing happens.

Riese: Nothing happens.

Carly: And Kit leaves.

Riese: That’s the end of that weird as hell everything.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: But I guess now that she’s not going to kill them, what else could she possibly do?

Carly: Oh boy. Back to school.

Riese: Back. Murder has been foiled, and now we’re back to Carly University.

Carly: Does Jodi want a ride home? No. But Jodi does want to go to Bette’s house to collect all of her things, including her favorite underwear.

Riese: Yeah, and her jewelry.

Carly: And her jewelry.

Riese: “My favorite underwear.”

Jodi sitting at Bette's desk

Riese: Back at Shenny’s, I love this little bit of life that we have here where everyone’s cuddly, there’s a bong.

Carly: I know you do.

Riese: It’s college, I guess.

Carly: I know, it’s like a homemade gravity bong. I was like, all right. You guys know that you can just buy bongs and pipes at stores, right? You’re adults. But that’s good for them. They’re being creative.

Riese: They are. Shane’s smoking. Jenny smokes with her, and they’re both really high. Jenny’s like, “I’m not going to do this.” I didn’t take very good notes here.

Carly: I wrote—

Riese: Shane’s like, “Fuck Nikki. She should be on the cover of Maxim.” But she already was on the cover of Maxim.

Carly: I know. I was like, is that an insult?

Riese: So get with it.

Carly: She calls her a fucking dimwitted actress.

Riese: Oh, they should’ve put Jenny and Nikki in W Magazine as the cinema power couple.

Carly: Yeah, exactly. Just spin it.

Riese: That’s what I’d do here.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: That’s a free idea.

Carly: That is a free idea.

Riese: Free idea.

Carly: You’re all welcome.

Riese: Shane says Adele’s a snake.

Carly: Yeah. They say that she’s dead.

Riese: Jenny says she has terrible cramps.

Carly: And that she is the Wicked Witch, but actually she’s talking about Adele. Jenny keeps sliding in and out of who she’s talking about, Nikki or Adele, without saying that she’s changing who she’s talking about. Yeah, Jenny has cramps. You just said that. And then Shane tells Jenny that she admires her.

Shane: I was about to give you a compliment though.
Jenny: What?
Shane: That I admire you.
Jenny: You do?
Shane: I think you’re a real survivor. Ever since you got here, yeah, even that. Then you’re all … No but seriously, you really, you got knocked down a few times but look at you. You got back up and you wrote your story.
Jenny: Yeah.
Shane: You put it out there. That’s big. I haven’t done it.

Carly: Very cute moment.

Shane in a hoodie on the sofa, very stoned, saying "Ding Dong, Niki's dead"

Riese: Yeah. She’s like, “Of course I did. You got me the job. You’re my friend. You hired me.”

Carly: “You’re my best friend.”

Riese: “And you’re my best friend.”

Carly: “You’re a survivor. You’re not going to give up. You’re not going to stop.” Exactly. Yeah.

Riese: “You’re going to make it.”

Carly: We go to Bette’s, where Jodi has packed up her one pair of underwear and her jewelry in her suitcase and is about to leave.

Riese: Her favorite.

Carly: She says that Tom is on his way to pick her up.

Riese: What a hero.

Carly: Really, the unsung hero of season five is Tom.

Riese: Jodi has a wrapped box, a gift box that she says, “This was going to be your birthday present.” She sets down the box. She departs, and then Bette opens the box, it is a watch.

Carly: It is an expensive watch.

Riese: It’s an expensive watch. What?

Carly: What? It’s—

Riese: What?

Carly: What? This is the most confusing gift.

Riese: And Bette touches it like, ugh.

Carly: “What could’ve been…”

Riese: Like this beautiful … Do you remember how Alice gave Tasha a watch at one point also?

Carly: Yes. Yes, I do. What is this?

Riese: What century are we in? What?

Carly: Don’t do this. This is stupid.

Riese: This is …

Carly: Who?

Riese: Bette is emotionally moved by the watch.

Carly: I wonder if she’s thinking about the concept of what is time, you know?

Riese: Yeah. Yeah, like is time a flat circle like this watch is a flat circle?

Carly: The answer, of course, is yes.

Riese: Yes. Our final scene is that Jodi could not think of anything that was actually reflected that’s personal to give to her, but it turns out that Bette thinks she did.

Carly: Very confusing.

Riese: And everyone has a watch.

Carly: Everyone knows what time it is, I guess, now. Nobody has any excuse for being late to stuff?

Riese: You all know what time it is.

Carly: It’s time for Max to get home because Max gets to be in this episode for a brief moment.

Riese: For three seconds. They’re like, “Max, you’re the shit.” He’s like, “You guys are stoned.”

Carly: Jenny’s like, “You’re an oracle.”

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: They said that they should’ve listened to him and that he was right all along about Adele.

Riese: That was great. You know what I wanted for this scene?

Carly: What?

Riese: For it to be three minutes longer.

Max in a tank top and flannel entering the room, Jenny says "Max, you're the shit"

Carly: Yeah. I definitely would’ve enjoyed more. There is a cute moment where they’re like, where Jenny’s like, “Would you like some cannabis?” The way she says it is really funny.

Riese: Yeah. And Max is like, “yeah.”

Carly: That scene could’ve been extended, then the final scene could’ve never happened.

Riese: Yeah, and this could’ve been … because I wanted to see them realize that Max—

Carly: That Max is a person.

Riese: They’ve said it offhand, but yeah. When she said that — of course, Max being this kind, ever patient soul that he is — when Jenny says that Adele fucked her over, Max, instead of being like, “Told you so you stupid ass transphobic bitches,” is like, “Oh no, what happened? What did she do?”

Carly: “You’re high.”

Riese: So they never really got to … I wanted them to really recognize what they did and talk about it. It could be light. It doesn’t have to be a heavy scene. They’re all stoned. But I just would’ve liked to have a nice friendship moment with Max.

Carly: Yes. Some acknowledgment, yeah. Bring Max into your friendship for real. He’s your roommate, you assholes.

Riese: Yeah. And he was right. Her dad was not a fucking traveling salesman.

Carly: Boom.

Riese: Boom. The Planet.

Carly: I hate this scene so much.

Riese: My first note here is, “LOL, I hate this.” Kit made Angie a snack. She goes to bring Angie the snack. Angie’s sitting on the ground. She has the gun.

Carly: No explanation as to how. It was in her jacket pocket.

Riese: This reminded me of The Simpsons when Maggie got the gun. Remember that?

Carly: Yes, I do.

Riese: Didn’t she kill Mr. Burns?

Carly: I think she did, yes. I believe so.

Riese: I think this is an homage.

Carly: I love The L Word doing an homage to that classic Simpsons episode, Who Killed Mr. Burns? Except here, no one dies.

Riese: It was a big deal of an episode.

Carly: Yeah, it was. It was huge when it happened.

Riese: Yeah, everyone was guessing, who did kill Mr. Burns? No one expected it.

Carly: I actually watched that episode, and I don’t watch — I’ve never watched The Simpsons. But I got swept up in it.

Riese: Oh my God, my brother’s obsessed with it. Well, she has a gun, and then Kit starts crying. She picks up Angie.

Carly: She takes the gun.

Riese: Puts it in a dumpster.

Carly: And then she does the second dumbest thing of this scene. The first is that she had a gun and left it out, and Angie got to it. The second dumbest thing is that she throws it in the dumpster outside of The Planet. She purchased a firearm that was licensed to her. Why can’t you just put it back in its little case, put it in your safe and lock it up? Why would you throw it in the dumpster?

Riese: Yeah, that’s—

Carly: Someone’s going to find your loaded gun in the dumpster. That’s terrible. Yeah.

Riese: They could use it.

Carly: And then it’s going to look like you did something, stupid.

Riese: What if Cindi decides to murder Dawn Denbo?

Carly: Oh my God.

Riese: It’d be very easy to peg it on you.

Carly: Can you imagine?

Riese: I could already see all this in replay.

Carly: And then season six would be, who killed Dawn Denbo? Which would’ve been much funnier.

Riese: Exactly. And the answer would be Jenny. Yeah.

Carly: But anyway, that’s a thing that happens.

Riese: So Tina is there to pick up Angie. The snack is abandoned, by the way. And the snack sounded great.

Carly: The snack sounded real good, yeah.

Riese: It involved organic rice pudding or something like that.

Carly: I know, it sounded delicious.

Riese: Some crackers from France or something?

Carly: I was like, I’ll take the snack.

Riese: Yeah. I’ll try it. I’ll give it a nibble, a nib. Tina’s there and then, oh my God, look, it’s Mama B. They both had the worst day ever. This is a moment. This is a little bit of fan service, I think. Tina, Bette, Angie, Kit.

Carly: Mama B, Mama T.

Riese: Together again. Back together. We’re together. They are Mama TB, otherwise known as Mama Tuberculosis. They have a little baby, and the baby just had a gun, but the baby doesn’t have the gun anymore because now the gun is in the dumpster for anyone who wants a gun. Anyone who’s dumpster diving for a gun is going to find that gun. Bette’s like, “Don’t worry, they won’t get The Planet.” Kit’s like, “It’s fine. All that matters is babies.”

Carly: Yeah. And then Bette looks at Tina and says, “Hey, you want to come home?” And Tina’s like, “Yes, yes I do.” They say it differently, but that’s the vibe. The vibe is like, come home with us.

Riese: I got goosebumps just thinking about it.

Bette holds Angie in the Planet after dark

Carly: She’s like, “Yes.” That’s how it ends. That’s the episode.

Riese: That’s the episode.

Carly: Those two insufferable bitches are back together.

Riese: I don’t think we were supposed to like this episode.

Carly: Oh, okay, well in that case, it succeeded.

Riese: Because there was nothing in it that was designed to entertain us in any way besides Melanie Lynsky showing up and being like, “Hee, hee, lingerie.”

Carly: Right, I know.

Riese: “Titter, titter, come to my fashion week show on the Canals.”

Carly: I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all.

Riese: The stoned weed part was cute and cuddly. I liked that little part.

Carly: That was cute. It didn’t last nearly long enough.

Riese: The rest is just setting pieces in motion to wrap up the season.

Carly: Right, yeah.

Riese: I didn’t care for any of those pieces or their emotions.

Carly: Agreed.

Riese: You know what they say, Carly? Is not the size of the ocean … no, it’s not the size of the boat, it’s the motion of the ocean.

Carly: I have heard that before, yes.

Riese: That’s all I have to say about that.

Carly: I frequently find myself getting seasick on most boats, so the motion of the ocean is sort of always a problem for me.

Riese: Oh, yeah. That sounds tough.

Carly: Yeah, I just am an easily nauseated person.

Riese: And I’m easily food poisoned.

Carly: There you go.

Riese: Who wants to invite us over to play in their pool?

Carly: Invite us to your boat. We definitely will puke. Invite us to a feast on a boat, we’ll both be puking by the end of it.

Riese: But before that, I’ll have an hour where I’ll be in a really great mood.

Carly: I’ll have 20, 30 minutes of like, oh man this is fun, before I get really dizzy and have to go inside.

Riese: Well…

Carly: But we did it.

Riese: We did it. We recapped it. Did you like it, Carly?

Carly: Not really. There wasn’t much to like in this episode, if I’m being honest.

Riese: No, there wasn’t much to like in this episode.

Carly: No, there wasn’t. Next week, we’ve got the season five finale. Wow. We did it.

Riese: Woo!

Carly: Another season almost finished. I can’t believe it.

Riese: Almost finished. It’s getting closer and closer to the interrogation tapes.

Carly: Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Riese: Well, great job, Carly.

Carly: Great job, Riese.

Carly: Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back! You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter. We are @tolandback. You can also email us tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline. You can give us a call, leave a message. It’s 971-217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes. And this podcast was produced, edited and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on socials, I am @carlytron. Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And of course, autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle.com.

Carly: All right, and finally, it’s time for our L Words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually these have little to no relevance to anything we just recapped. Okay, Riese, you ready?

Riese: Okay. One, two, three. Leaves.

Carly: Lost. What, you said leaves?

Riese: Yeah, like the fall foliage that we’re not seeing because we don’t live in Michigan.

Carly: Right, I said “lost” because my whole goal of having WNBA themed L words for every episode has been lost. And I’ll have to come up with something really crazy for the finale, so stay tuned.

Riese: Oh, I’m so excited for that. I have to pee so bad.

Carly: Well, then we should be done here. Thank you for listening. Bye!

Riese: Bye, everyone!

“To L and Back” Episode 510: Lifecycle with Erin Sullivan!

this post was supposed to go up on monday but there was a wordpress error i didn’t know about because i was off on monday + tuesday so it’s here now sorry!

Get your butt onto your bicycles ’cause writer Erin Sullivan (creator of the “Who Killed Jenny Schecter” podcast and also Riese’s roommate) is here to discuss Episode 510, Lifecycle! Join us as we discover that Tasha has other friends, Adele is great at brand deals, Bette is a big ol cheater, Tina can’t help loving Bette it’s a thing she can’t help, Molly is ready for Lesbian Sex 102 and Niki has never used a strap-on before! It’s one of our favorite L Word episodes of all time so you will NOT want to miss a thing!

The usual:

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly!

Riese: And this is—

Carly and Riese: To L and Back!

Riese: I’m thirsty already.

Carly: Oh my god, drink break! I’m drinking water, what are you drinking?

Riese: I’m drinking water, and I’m also drinking Moon Juice.

Carly: Oh my god, fancy! Very fancy.

Riese: Drinking this counts as accomplishing something today.

Carly: If you put something on a list, and then you check it off, you’ve done something today.

Riese: Yeah, and today I put — I actually did do some things today, I went to the post office.

Carly: That’s huge!

Riese: It was terrible.

Carly: That is huge, because going to the post office is almost always a terrible experience.

Riese: Yeah, well, I need a passport just in case.

Carly: Oof, yeah.

Erin: To be fair, our local post office men are pretty scary.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: I fully think that they will murder me one day. And that will be fine with me, because I just respect them so much.

Riese: Yeah, you’ve been ready for a while.

Erin: Yeah, I respect them.

Carly: Every time I go to the post office, the people that work there are great, and the people who are there to be patrons of the post office are all monster people.

Erin: Bad. Yeah, agree.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: And that’s been my general experience, it’s very bad.

Riese: We should probably introduce our special guest today!

Carly: Should we say what this podcast is?

Riese: Oh, ok, yeah, alright. Yeah, let’s say what the podcast is first.

Carly: Ok.

Riese: This is a podcast about a television show called The L Word, which aired on ShowTime.

Erin: Oh, ok.

Riese: A premium cable network, in 2004.

Carly: And it was about a group of woodland creatures who live in the forest and sometimes ride bikes.

Riese: Yeah, yeah. It was mostly a cooking show.

Carly: Yes, exactly. Yeah, not a lot of people know that, that was the original pitch.

Riese: Yeah, that was the original pitch.

Erin: Wow, it really evolved as a show.

Riese: It really did, yeah. It went from pies to lesbian sex.

Carly: But the only part of the original pitch that stayed was the pear and polenta tart at The Planet.

Riese: Uh huh, yeah.

Erin: Oh my god!

Carly: Yeah I know, it’s wild. The development process is crazy!

Erin: That’s the magic of television, honestly.

Carly: Hollywood magic, you know?

Erin: That’s Hollywood, baby.

Carly: So as you — our loyal listeners might notice that there is a third voice here with us today. So let’s just cut to the chase and introduce our very special guest: the one and only Erin Sullivan!

Riese: Woooo!

Erin: Hello listeners! Readers, as Carly called them earlier.

Riese: Yeah, Carly called you guys readers earlier. Yeah, it’s hard switching mediums. I’m like multimedia — being multimedia as a person is really interesting.

Erin: Yes, so many things are plugged in right now.

Riese: So, Erin, tell us about yourself!

Erin: Well, Riese, as you know, I am your roommate.

Riese: Yeah, Erin lives here.

Erin: And I’m also a writer, and I’m just currently trying to make it through a pandemic, as we all are.

Riese: And also you made a podcast!

Erin: I did make a podcast! It’s called Who Killed Jenny Schecter. It is a true crime podcast.

Carly: This is one of the greatest podcasts I’ve ever heard.

Erin: We get to the bottom of it!

Riese: Yeah, you did?

Erin: We get to the bottom of who killed Jenny Schecter, although it is conflicting with the new L Word: Generation Q’s interpretation of who killed Jenny.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: I’ll leave it at that — but listen, it’s 6 episodes, 10 minutes each.

Riese: Yeah, very short episodes.

Erin: What are you gonna do?

Riese: Yeah, what are you doing?

Erin: You can stand in line at the post office and listen to the whole thing.

Riese: That’s true, actually. You could listen to it all in line at the post office. It’s very funny.

Carly: It’s an extremely enjoyable listen.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Thank you so much. It’s an all queer cast and production crew, so take a listen.

Riese: Yeah, take a listen! If you like this, you’ll definitely like that!

Carly: Wasn’t it produced — or mixed, I guess — by our very own Lauren Klein?

Erin: Our very own!

Carly: Oh my god!

Riese: She even used some of the same sound things that she uses in ours.

Carly: Ugh, amazing.

Erin: Original score, too, by Lauren.

Carly: Ugh!

Riese: So if you’re an Autostraddle reader, you probably remember Erin from Straight People Watch, and her recaps of bad lesbian movies, and all the other really really funny things that she wrote for Autostraddle.com.

Carly: Yeah, she’s such a visionary that the New York Times has completely co-opted “Are Straight People Ok?”

Erin: Shout out to Haley!

Carly: Just really blown away by that.

Erin: Also, Ellen Degeneres, you know… Ellen took that and ran with it.

Carly: Yep, yep.

Erin: And you know…

Riese: And look at where that got her.

Erin: And her empire fell, so beware, New York Times.

Carly: You’re next!

Erin: You’re next!

Carly: Erin, what is your L Word origin story?

Erin: My origin story…

Riese: Like when did you start watching it?

Erin: Oh ok, so I was a freshman in college when The L Word came out. I was a freshman, I didn’t now I was gay yet, but it was part of my journey, I’ll say that. I was on the soccer team in college, where, if you can believe it, there were a lot of gay people there.

Carly: That is shocking.

Riese: I believe it, I believe it.

Erin: So they were all watching The L Word and just slowly introduced me to the show. And I was like, interesting, this is a very interesting show, I should probably watch all of it.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: You know, with maybe one of you alone.

Carly: Yeah!

Erin: And that’s what happened!

Carly: Ooooo! Fun!

Erin: So, you know… you know how that goes… you know someone who is maybe questioning, and you’re like, “You should watch this show with me!” And that’s what they did and it worked, so, thank you.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Incredible.

Erin: In many ways, you know, I was a Jenny. I was sort of following her arc.

Riese: Mhm, so many of us were.

Erin: She was moving into this house, she didn’t know who these people were, but then she looked through the cracks of the fence and she was like, “oh no.”

Carly: And then, a whole new world.

Riese: She saw Shane.

Carly: Do you have any favorite characters? I guess you did mention Jenny, would you say she’s a favorite character?

Erin: Ok so, I would say Jenny Season 5 really — you know, she jumps the shark, and I love her for that. I love the writers for making Jenny sort of go into psycho mode, Seasons 5 through 6. She has the best lines.

Riese: She does.

Carly: Yeah.

Erin: You know, I think people don’t love Jenny, one through four.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: And I can understand why. However, she’s redeemed. And then, you know, obviously Alice.

Carly: Mhm.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: She’s the best.

Riese: Yeah, everyone loves Alice.

Erin: Except when she’s being the worst.

Riese: Yeah, like when she’s being transphobic.

Erin: Right.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Do you want to introduce the episode to us today, Carly?

Carly: Oh my god, I would be delighted to. Today’s episode is Season 5, Episode 10 entitled “Lifecycle,” which is definitely one of the more literal titles in this series.

Riese: Uh huh, because we do see a baby born, and we see the baby become a toddler, and then we see the baby become a teenager, and then become an adult, and then they die.

Erin: And then they come back, and then they’re old versus a baby.

Carly: And then they Benjamin button.

Riese: Yeah, Benjamin Button.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Yeah, so… and that’s a life cycle.

Carly: it’s a life cycle, so it’s like the riddle: what has 4 legs in the morning and walks on 2 legs in the afternoon and 3 in the evening.

Riese: Exactly.

Carly: It’s a person aging. Anyway, this was —

Riese: My favorite riddle.

Carly: Everyone’s favorite riddle. This was written and directed by Angela Robinson, who we love, and originally aired March 9, 2008.

Erin: Whoa.

Carly: That’s a long time ago.

Riese: What a time!

Carly: What a time!

Riese: Yeah, remember 2008?

Erin: Pre-Obama!

Riese: Pre-Obama.

Carly: Mhmm.

Riese: We just — I think we had just had the primaries. Or we were having the primaries?

Carly: Yeah, March, I guess… I don’t honestly know months anymore. Shall we get into it?

Riese: Ummmm yeah! Let’s do it!

Erin: Let’s do it!

Riese: Let’s talk about it!

Erin: I’m into it!

Riese: Ok!

Carly: Ok, great! Well, then let’s get into this week’s episode!

Riese: So we open on a splendorous field, which is a golf club in British Columbia.

Carly: Incredible.

Riese: But disguised to look like the beginning of the Subaru Pink Ride.

Carly: Dun dun dun!

Erin: Right.

Carly: Sponsored by Subaru!

Riese: Sponsored by Subaru!

Erin: Our ride-or-dies, you know, for decades. Shout out to Subaru. Also Subaru, can I have a car? My friend just got one of your cars and loves it, so I feel like I could also have one of your cars.

Carly: Like, you should give everyone one.

Riese: I would also like a car, because the bottom of my car is held on to the top of my car by 3 zip ties, so if Subaru has an extra car lying around, I’m happy to drive it around.

Erin: Oh yeah, we can share it!

Riese: Yeah, all share it! We’ll share it. We can share it.

Carly: I mean, I’ll say, my first car was a Subaru. It was a Subaru Forester, and my friends and I in college called it “the subaru lesbian.” Like, “Oh, who’s going to drive? Let’s take the lesbian.” You know?

Erin: No name, just “Lesbian?”

Carly: That was her name, yeah, her name was Lesbian.

Erin: That’s what people called me in college.

Carly: Yeah, honestly, I wasn’t sure if people were talking about me or the car, and I think it was kind of like the car became an extension of me and vice versa. Transformers, etc.

Riese: Yeah, totally.

Carly: I never took it into the woods, never took it to a bike thing like is happening here, so I really did not get the true Subaru experience.

Riese: No, you really didn’t. But we’re getting the true Subaru experience here, where everybody is wearing clothes, they have little teams for the rides, and they’re gonna — they’re riding for dead people and they’re also riding for survivors.

Carly: They are riding for the dead.

Riese: Uh huh, yeah, they’re riding for people who died and also for people who didn’t!

Carly: Yes, and we see a woman giving a rousing speech to the whole gang.

Riese: Yes.

Carly: And everyone is excited.

Erin: With a pink polo on!

main L Word characters cheering at the start of the Pink Ride

Riese: Yeah. And then there’s the theme song, and then we go right back where we started from, where we have a very rare thing in the program which is where we see Tasha’s friends.

Carly: Remember how Tasha is a person that has a life outside of this group of friends? You know, we wouldn’t know that because the show doesn’t really give us much of it.

Erin: Right.

Riese: No, they don’t.

Carly: Aside from army, but now that army is not taking up time I guess now we get friends.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So cool.

Erin: Alice at one point is like, “Are they flirting with you? Or were they flirting with you?” And she’s like, “Yeah, I’m hot.”

Riese: Yeah, who wouldn’t be?

Carly: Yeah, duh.

Erin: “I’m charming and hot, why wouldn’t they be?”

Carly: Like, “Have you looked at me? Duh.”

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Right. “You knew what you were getting into when you started dating me, so yes, they were flirting with me.”

Riese: Yeah, who wouldn’t?

Carly: You were drawn in to this bone structure, so you —

Riese: We were all drawn into the bone structure, and her friends are riding for the Coco Club, which they say is a bar, and Alice is like, “I haven’t heard of this bar, it must not exist.” And that’s when Alice finds out that she’s a white woman.

Erin: Yeah, it hurts every time.

Carly: Yeah.

Erin: I do like the idea that there are so many lesbian clubs that Alice wouldn’t know one of them. You know, not just one that eventually closes.

Carly: Yeah.

Erin: It’s a beautiful thought.

Riese: She’s like, “I know all of them.” And I was like, I know all the lesbian clubs in LA too.

Erin: Name them!

Riese: [Silence] I did.

Erin: There we go!

Carly: End of list!

Riese: Jenny and Nikki…

Carly: Yeah. So then, Tina is so mad that Nikki is here! It’s so funny!

Riese: Yeah. She’s mad, she should be shooting Rolling Stone.

Carly: She is so pissed! “What are you doing here?!” “I’m raising awareness for breast cancer!” That was hilarious.

Riese: She’s wearing a Girltrash t-shirt.

Erin: Oh right, Angela Robinson, shout out.

Riese: Yeah, at the time Girltrash was just a little web series on OurChart.com.

Carly: Mhmmm.

Riese: But it eventually became a very contentious film that had a lot of lesbian drama around it.

Carly: The conversation turns into something with Adele, and then Jenny’s like, “Adele, are you gay?” And then Tina just screams —

Tina: Shut up! Ok? Whatever!

Riese: Yeah, mhmm.

Carly: Tina’s worried that she’s going to get fired, which I don’t actually think is actually — I don’t think that Nikki’s managers and agents can get Tina fired from the film.

Erin: Yeah, you’re the producer.

Carly: She’s the producer.

Erin: Calm down.

Carly: But she is concerned because she told them that she would make sure that Nikki was not publicly seen with Jenny.

Niki, in pigtails, says "Mario's hot for Adele"

Riese: Right.

Carly: And they’re like, “Come on, it’s not like we’re going to be having sex on the side of the road.” But like actually…

Erin: Or are we?

Carly: It’s kind of almost accurate.

Riese: It’s literally what they do.

Carly: It’s literally what happens.

Erin: Yeah.

Carly: And then she puts on a pair of Ray-Bans and she’s like, “No one is going to recognize me,” as a man walks up and is like, “Are you Nikki Stevens?” Comedically, it’s very good. Very well paced moment.

Erin: The opposite of “hair down glasses off.”

Carly: Exactly! Oh my god.

Erin: Glasses on…

Riese: Glasses on, hair up.

Carly: What an important reference, also. All teen comedies.

Erin: That Jenny was in! Mia Kirshner was in.

Riese: She was in another teen movie. She kissed a girl in it, right?

Erin: Life cycle…

Riese: Yeah, life cycle… it all comes around.

Carly: Oh my god.

Erin: Yes.

Riese: Guess who’s here? Guess who showed up at the pink ride?

Carly: Guess who showed up?! It’s fucking Molly.

Riese: It’s Molly!

Erin: Molly…

Carly: Shane tells her to go home, Molly shouts —

Molly: Go boobs!

Molly in a pink t-shirt, saying "I can support boobs if I want to"

Riese: Because it’s a free country and she can support boobs if she wants to.

Erin: Right, but isn’t that the most straight woman thing that you could yell?

Carly: Four thousand percent.

Erin: “Go boobs!”

Riese: Mhmm.

Carly: I mean, last episode she was talking about — was that last episode? Where she was —

Riese: Yeah, where she was amazed that Shane had boobs?

Erin: Oh, right.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, so she’s really on a journey with boobs today. Again, life cycle. In the beginning of the episode she was still at her mother’s bosom, and now she’s a grown woman riding her bicycle.

Carly: Exactly, it’s a really incredible story.

Riese: My favorite part of this is Kit’s line that Lauren will put in, which is when Kit’s like —

Kit: You flew all the way out here? Shane, Shane, she flew all the way up here to keep fighting with you, girl! That’s true love, that’s true love!

Riese: That was cute!

Carly: That is queer culture, that statement.

Riese: That is queer culture, yeah. It’s like showing up to make a grand gesture, but the grand gesture is just a continuation of a fight that you’ve been having earlier.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And Shane’s like, “I don’t want to be your loser fuck buddy.”

Carly: I think that’s fair! And now the ride begins! We are treated to our first of many several-minute-long montages of the cast riding bikes!

Erin: Oh, right?!

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Not even 15 minutes in!

Carly: Honestly, recapping this episode in my notes was much easier than normal because there were so many chunks where nothing happened other than people riding bikes!

Riese: Which, honestly, I enjoyed.

Erin: Entire songs for montages, that’s a rare move!

Carly: I know!

Erin: You usually get maybe a 45-second — we got a full song!

Riese: A full playlist!

Carly: Yeah, incredible.

Riese: Every song we heard the whole thing. And there’s obviously some tension between Bette and Tina, and then there’s a cute little moment where Bette’s like—

Bette: Hey, I need to tell you something.
Tina: What?
Bette: You look really great in those pants.

Bette and Tina biking, other bikers behind them, Pacific Northwest. Bette smiling, just told Tina her ass looks great in those pants

Carly: Guess what? Those pants are disgusting!

Riese: You don’t like them?

Carly: No, I have a huge problem with them because —

Riese: Tell me.

Carly: They would be fine if they were normal leggings, even though they are cropped to the calf, but they flair out at the bottom!

Erin: Oh are they capris? I don’t think I registered Tina’s pants.

Riese: I didn’t either.

Carly: There is a slight flair at the bottom. There’s not an elastic band at the bottom that made them — personally illegal, these pants are illegal.

Erin: That hurts. so they’re yoga pants, but flared.

Carly: Yes.

Erin: Oh no.

Carly: And they are a hate crime.

Erin: Tina would wear those pants.

Riese: She would wear those pants.

Erin: If someone was like, “What did she wear?” I would be like, “Leggings that were flared at the bottom.”

Riese: Yeah, I would also think this was 2008…

Carly: Oh, it’s very of-the-era, but I find that comment to be terrible. “You look great in those pants.” You could have said anything else.

Riese: Yeah, they should be re-dubbing it for a new audience. For the 2020 audience, they should re-dub it and say like, “You look really great in that jacket.”

Erin: I try not to really register Tina on-screen.

Carly: That’s fair.

Erin: I don’t know what she was wearing.

Riese: It’s easy to kind of forget her, you know?

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Speaking of Tina, she doesn’t want Jodi to know that they’ve been hooking up, which I, you know, of course not.

Carly: Yeah.

Erin: That’s a good move.

Carly: Yeah, Bette’s like, “She’s going to find out.” And she’s like, “No no, you can break up with her, but you can’t tell her that we’ve been fucking behind her back.” And Bette definitely is like, deep in thought at this in a way that I was like, oh god, now what?

Erin: Like have you not given any thought to this?

Carly: Have you really not thought through what the next steps are here? It seems pretty obvious.

Riese: I don’t think she has. She’s too embroiled.

Erin: Which is so weird because they have zero chemistry.

Carly: I know. Jodi’s riding right behind them, this whole conversation is crazy!

Riese: Right, but she can’t hear it.

Erin: I know! How rude to speed up and be like, “Let’s talk.”

Riese: Yeah, because that was my first thought too. Like, she’s right behind you. Then I was like, oh you motherfuckers.

Carly: You fucking assholes.

Riese: You can’t do that. That’s another type of cheating that I also condemn.

Carly: That’s like when she said — what did she say? She said, “I love Tina” with her back to her.

Riese: “I’m in love with Tina” with her back turned.

Carly: Yeah, come on.

Riese: And then she’s like, “Oh, nothing. I’m stressed out about work.”

Carly: Bette, you are… Bette’s a jerk. Ugh, I’m mad.

Riese: I love nature.

Carly: Lots of nature. Tasha’s friends ride by and they’re like, “Hey, come on, Tasha!” And Tasha’s like, “I’m gonna catch up to them! Come on, Alice!” And Alice is like, “This is a ride, not a race. And then they ride off as the captions say, “thunder crackles.”

Erin: Ohhhh.

Carly: Yeah.

Erin: Thunder only happens when it’s —

Riese: Raining.

Erin: There we go.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: Yep, that’s an important quote.

Riese: Here we are on the side of the road.

Carly: Love it. I love the orange slices, that’s real.

Riese: I know, it reminded me of soccer!

Erin: Soccer games!

Carly: Yeah, totally, absolutely.

Erin: Life cycle!

Riese: Yeah, which is relevant because Erin, as aforementioned, played soccer in college.

Carly: Exactly!

Riese: And then, boom. Comes all the way back around. Oranges are a circle…

Carly: Circle of life, life cycle.

Riese: Circle of life, life cycle.

Carly: The wheels on the bike are round. This is one of our most synergistic episodes of all time!

Riese: It is, absolutely. Actually, I’d like to pause and talk about myself for a second.

Erin: Please!

Carly: Please do!

Riese: One thing I was thinking about as I was watching these women on their bicycles is that my bicycle was, once again, stolen!

Carly: Oh!

Riese: My bike was stolen in January. I immediately replaced it, because I could not grapple with the emotional weight of losing it.

Erin: I get that. I get that.

Carly: For sure.

Erin: If you buy a new one, it didn’t happen.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Exactly. There were only a few hours where I didn’t know, you know? I bought the exact same bike from the exact same lesbian, but I bought more intense locks, which was the advice of our landlord. Basically, our landlord is dead, so there’s someone else we correspond with now. He’s not the landlord but he’s somehow in this position. And somehow, someone removed the wheels, even though I had a lock around the wheels, but also it fucked up the bike so they basically stole the bike again. So now I’ve had a bike stolen twice. And now I’m like, but if I replace it, it will probably get stolen again.

Erin: Was this in the locked garage, as well?

Riese: Uh huh.

Erin: Oh, wow.

Riese: He said — I emailed just to let him know, and he said it’s really only happened to me.

Erin: Oh… feels targeted.

Carly: It does, yeah.

Riese: So anyway, I’m jealous of all these people who have bikes.

Erin: Another question: you said you bought it from the same lesbian, is this a woman who just has a bunch of bikes? Or you went to a store where a lesbian works?

Riese: Oh, I went to a store.

Carly: Oh, ok. That makes more sense, because I just thought you Craigslisted it from a lesbian who was getting rid of it, and then somehow she had the same bike again.

Riese: No.

Carly: And then I was gonna —

Erin: She’s gonna keep stealing your bike!

Riese: That’s what I would do if I was a smart resourceful person. Anyway, the point is, I am jealous. I’m jealous of everyone on their bikes and that was a feeling that I was feeling throughout this entire thing.

Carly: I’m so glad you shared that.

Riese: Thank you, I’m really glad that I was able to have an opportunity to talk about it.

Carly: Absolutely.

Erin: You can walk outside…

Riese: Ehhhh… yeah…

Erin: Ok, you just mentioned it was so beautiful, and I was just thinking, you could walk…

Riese: Yeah, it’s a little hot today.

Carly: You could.

Erin: No? Ok, you’re right.

Riese: I prefer to bike.

Carly: Walking is the worst. So, Shane and Nikki are getting water and oranges, and Nikki starts kind of flirting with Shane and starts asking her how she met Jenny and asked if they ever hooked up, and Shane’s like, “Fuck no.”

Riese: “No, we’re just friends, and just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

Erin: Nikki is an agent of chaos.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Everywhere she goes, she just drops bombs and walks away. She doesn’t even stay to watch the explosion, she just drops it and walks.

Carly: It’s kind of interesting because Nikki is a very overt agent of chaos, and then you have someone like Adele — it’s almost like the mirror of her, because she’s the secret behind-the-scenes agent of chaos.

Erin: The shadow.

Carly: It’s totally her shadow, but she’s also almost like Jenny’s shadow… I don’t know.

Riese: Everyone’s focused on how Nikki is gonna fuck up the movie, but it’s really Adele, but Nikki has the attitude of someone who has always been really hot — traditionally hot, and therefore has not had to do anything correctly, or like, respectfully.

Erin: Or apologize.

Riese: Yeah, or apologize. She just does her own thing.

Carly: Yeah, consequences don’t really factor in for her.

Riese: Yeah, it’s not really a thing for her.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Um, so Jenny’s pussy is so numb. I love that part.

Erin: Again, psycho mode. She just comes up and says whatever she’s thinking about her pussy.

Jenny getting off her bike at a stop saying her pussy is numb

Carly: It’s true.

Erin: Good for her.

Riese: Good for her, and that’s a real thing.

Carly: She asks Shane to do something about her stalker, which is Molly.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: Which is, you know, great. And then Shane just peaces the fuck out of there, but she’s trying to escape Molly who, of course, is now following her. And they decide that Molly wants to race to the next stop, and if Molly gets there first and wins, then Shane has to talk to her. But if Shane gets there first, then Molly will go home. Whoa. Big stakes.

Riese: She’ll get an Alaska Air flight right out there.

Carly: Right out of there, yep.

Riese: Well, and guess who wins? It’s Molly. She does a last minute — she says I’m in love with you, and then Shane’s like, “What?” And then — you know, I’ve seen this a million times and I forgot that that happened, and I was like, she says she’s in love with her?

Erin: Right.

Riese: I was just like Shane, just totally fooled.

Erin: And how far into this are we? That they’ve known each other?

Carly: Like five minutes?

Riese: Um, two episodes?

Erin: Ok, two.

Riese: Three episodes?

Erin: And Molly was engaged when they met, is that correct?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: To Richard!

Riese: To Richard.

Erin: Richard, you made me buy boat tickets.

Riese: Uh huh yeah exactly, cut from the same cloth. Life cycle.

Carly: Again, bringing it back.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: If I were the other riders on this ride and was anywhere near these two as they’re riding bikes and screaming at each other, I would be so angry.

Riese: I would be so entertained, I would be delighted.

Carly: That’s true. That would be deeply entertaining.

Erin: You’d be feeding it.

Riese: Because, especially by that point, your pussy’s numb, your legs hurt.

Carly: Your ass is asleep, yeah.

Riese: Your ass is asleep, your AirPods are dead.

Carly: What else are you gonna do?

Erin: You’re riding for cancer.

Riese: You’re riding for cancer, and then you want to hear — you want something to happen.

Erin: Yeah, you want a race.

Riese: You want a race. You want to see a race. And then we get this wonderful exchange of words between two women who have a complicated relationship.

Carly: Indeed.

Riese: In which Molly’s like —

Molly: Ok, I know I’m a disaster, but you have to listen to me, because that was the bet.
Shane: Make it fast.
Molly: I don’t know if I’m gay, I don’t know if I’m straight, but I know that I want to be with you.
Shane: We had terrible sex.
Molly: No, it was great for me! You don’t just get on a bike and know how to ride it. Same with riding a girl! So I freaked out, big deal. You’ve just been with so many girls, you don’t remember your first time. Well guess what? It was my first time and it was great! It was better than with Richard, and with guys, and with anybody. And I’m really into you and I swear next time I will so go down with you!
Shane: Molly, Molly, you’re making a scene, please. Seriously, why do you want to be with me? Think about it, because you’ve been using me to get back at your mother the whole time.
Molly: I haven’t! I haven’t been using you. I’ve never flown to the Pacific Northwest to chase a girl that I barely know. And I’m here and I’m really crazy about you! And I need you to give me another chance, even if I’m awful in bed. I know that I’m still Gay 101, but I’m a really fast learner and before you know it, I’m going to be an Advanced Placement Gay, and then Graduate-level Gay, and fuck law school! I’ll get my Doctorate in fucking gay!

Riese: I did appreciate Shane being very open about the fact that the sex they had was terrible.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: You know?

Erin: It’s important that you start there.

Carly: You gotta call that out, yeah.

Shane telling Molly they had terrible sex

Riese: Yeah, you gotta call that out. And I think it’s important for visibility because, you know, a lot of young new queer people are like, “I don’t know how to have sex!” And look, neither did Molly, but Shane still was willing to give her another chance. But Molly said it was the best sex of her life, which again felt authentic to me.

Carly: She was like, “It was great for me!”

Erin: Right, it feels very Liz Lemon, like, “I’ll let you go down on me and then that’s it!”

Riese: Yeah. The thing about Shane is that her whole character is like, “I fuck lots of girls and I’m blah blah blah,” but she’s the one, in any given season, to most likely be in a relationship.

Carly: Mmmm.

Erin: Makes you think.

Riese: Does make you think.

Carly: Wow, life cycle!

Riese: Thinking…

Erin: Life cycle.

Riese: Life cycle. So they make out and everyone cheers!

Erin: Oh right!

Carly: Yeah, and then Shane tells her she can’t wear pink anymore. What? Why?

Riese: She does?

Carly: She kisses her in order to shut her up, and then everyone cheers, and then she’s like, “Ok, but you can’t wear pink anymore,” or something like that.

Riese: What?

Carly: And I was like, what? Is this some sort of like femme quasi-hetero…

Erin: It’s Shane’s version of a gender reveal.

Riese: Yeah, that was a gender reveal party right there.

Erin: Was it because it looked bad on her? I’m confused.

Riese: She was like, “That’s not your color.”

Erin: “It’s a terrible color for you, you have brown hair.”

Carly: Look, I have some questions, that’s all.

Riese: Everyone knows: brown hair, no pink.

Erin: Right.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Speaking of hair — if I could, if I may?

Carly: Please do.

Riese: Yeah, sure, please do.

Erin: You know, we’re on a gay bike ride.

Riese: Uh huh.

Erin: Sponsored by Subaru.

Riese: Subaru.

Erin: And there’s not a butch in sight.

Riese: Nope.

Carly: Nary a butch.

Erin: Once again, Ilene has done it.

Riese: No, she has, she’s done it.

Carly: Again.

Riese: And earlier today, I had the pleasure of locating the casting call for this shoot.

Erin: Oh wow!

Carly: Oh, yeah!

Riese: They were calling — it was a call for bikers, for women who love to bike, in the Pitt Meadows area in British Columbia to do three days of biking, $15 an hour.

Erin: Oh no, that feels illegal.

Riese: Well, I mean right now, Shrill is casting extras in Portland for $13.25 an hour.

Carly: Ohhhh, I forgot that Shrill shoots in Portland, that’s right.

Riese: Yeah, so it was a casting — they didn’t say anything else, it was that you had to be a woman, and I think that was it. I don’t recall —

Erin: Not even a fan of the show, just…

Riese: I mean, I imagine it got, there were some fans who turned up for it because I found it on an L Word blog, yeah.

Erin: What is this L Word blog that just does a deep dive?

Riese: It was from the era, it was a blog entry from when they did the casting call, like in November 2007. The source, as Carly pointed out in all caps, was Source Chris.

Erin: Sounds right, I believe it.

Carly: Chris strikes again! Ear to the ground, that Chris!

Riese: Yeah, so… sad cabin.

Carly: Ok…

Erin: Mmm, I have a lot to say about this.

Carly: Suddenly they’re in a cabin that has a quilt and pillows and candles, and I was like, one of the candles is way too close to the quilt.

Erin: Agree!

Carly: And I thought it was a fire hazard, that’s my first comment about this cabin. Did they even show the exterior of this building?

Erin: No.

Carly: Or did I look away when they did that? It looked like they were just riding —

Riese: No, they just walked into it, and in my memory for some reason, it was sort of a weird memory like you have in a dream, where in my memory I remember this being like Dana’s cabin at camp.

Erin: That’s what I thought! I thought I remembered it being in the show, being like, “Oh, they’re at horse camp.”

Riese: Yeah, but how could it possibly be… no, it’s not.

Bette, Alice, Jenny, Shane, Tasha and Jodi in a cabin lighting a candle for Dana

Carly: That’s where they spread her ashes, that’s where they went. But also, leading into this scene, I thought it was going to be Dana and the cabin and the waterfall for some reason.

Erin: Did they take it out and we just don’t know!?

Riese: We just have short circuited, well — and again, we are thinking about life cycles, so we were thinking the last cabin, this time cabin —

Carly: It’s a life cycle of Dana, is what it is.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: A character that has been forgotten by the show until this scene.

Riese: Until now. I unfortunately was compelled by a power beyond myself to almost cry.

Erin: Oh wow! It has been a hard pandemic for all of us, hasn’t it?

Carly: I felt nothing watching this, and this episode.

Erin: Again, felt nothing.

Carly: But that’s my own journey, you know what I mean?

Riese: Yeah, uh huh. Well…

Erin: Was it about missing friends?

Riese: I was — I think it was like an involuntary reaction to a sad scene in a show, although it was a lot of friends touching each other which is something…

Carly: Indoors!

Riese: Indoors, which is a nice experience that one doesn’t have these days.

Carly: We do not.

Riese: It was like all the actors were really sad that Erin Daniels was not in the show anymore. I feel like that’s what they were all feeling, they’re like, “Oh, we miss Erin,” and then the people who didn’t know Dana have to supportively put their hands on the shoulders of their Dana-knowing partners.

Carly: Which is called acting, you know it’s called acting.

Riese: That is acting.

Erin: That’s acting, for $15 an hour, that is acting.

Riese: That is acting. Someone left a pin, a Dana pin?

Carly: Alice takes her little Dana button off and clips it onto the quilt.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: And they talk about how they love her and will always remember her, even though no one has talked about her in many episodes.

Riese: Correct.

Erin: Right.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: That was very moving, for me only.

Carly: For only Riese.

Riese: I was moved. And then — does anyone else have anything else to say about the cabin?

Carly: No.

Erin: Just another long shot, you know, without speaking. And that’s ok with me.

Carly: It was a lot less work on our end this week.

Riese: It did feel weird to be serious for a second.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: The episode was sort of directed in a different way than they normally do, and sort of arranged in a different way than they normally do. We’re used to these much more rapid-fire dialogue, and they slowed down and I actually think it really worked.

Carly: I think so too, yes.

Erin: I agree! It’s an easy watch.

Riese: Yeah, it was an easy watch.

Carly: It felt thematically appropriate, like those stylistic choices made by Angela Robinson felt appropriate to the somber nature.

Riese: Yeah, and all the complicated shit that’s going on with Bette and Tina.

Erin: Sure.

Riese: Yeah, and this is one of my favorite episodes, actually.

Erin: It’s good! Thank you for having me for this!

Riese: Yeah, you could have gotten — what was the worst one that we had someone do?

Carly: Oh, when Dana died?

Riese: The entirety of Season 3… no, we did that one alone, as a mercy.

Carly: Right, that’s true, ok.

Riese: Everyone’s biking, and Bette pauses on the side of the road, and Jodi pauses and she says that she wishes Angie was there, and Bette you can tell is thinking, “Oh, you’re never going to see her again.”

Erin: Oh noooo. Does Bette know that she can just break up with people?

Carly: I don’t think she does know that.

Riese: No, as someone who is also bad at that…

Erin: You’d rather just have four months of stress.

Riese: Yeah, I’d rather just have them slowly turn against me.

Erin: Ok. It would be hard for Bette on this occasion, seen as they’re sort of on a vacation, would you call it? But Jodi also has friends there that if you’re just like — I know this is weird — but maybe stay with your friend tonight.

Riese: Yeah, or they — I mean, do it before!

Carly: I would also — yeah, make the argument that Bette could have broken up with her at any point in many of the episodes leading up to this one.

Riese: Mhmm.

Erin: Because Bette also seems to hate her.

Carly: Yeah, she for some reason specifically said, “I want to wait until after the pink ride — the Subaru Pink Ride brought to you by Subaru — to break up with Jodi, and so that’s an interesting choice. I guess it’s so that it won’t be weird, but joke’s on them.

Riese: It’s already weird, yeah. That’s what always happens. If you know you want to break up with someone and you’ve decided when you’re going to do it, that means you should do it right now, not that other time. You can’t schedule a break up because then there’s this in-between time where you or the other person starts to feel insane.

Carly: Yeah, like you think that no one’s gonna know, but —

Riese: Yeah, but everyone knows.

Carly: If you’ve made up your mind to break up with someone, it’s very obvious that you hate them because you’re Bette and you can’t hide it and also most people I think would fall into the same problem.

Erin: Hey, at least Bette doesn’t go the straight man route and just murder the entire family.

Riese: Right.

Carly: Exactly.

Erin: She could do that!

Carly: That’s true, yeah.

Erin: She just chooses to make all her friends really uncomfortable, be really mean to that person, and then have that person break up with you, and then she cries about it, you know?

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: As if that’s a shock to her.

Carly: She wanted to ruin a campfire and s’mores, and that’s fucked up.

Riese: Yeah, but also it was really great drama if we’re talking about storytelling. Also, again, on a personal note, the top of my chapstick has come off and now it’s just in my hand like a little button.

Erin: I believe that’s a camp item, right?

Riese: It’s a camp item, yeah. An A-Camp item. Speaking of camping!

Carly: We’re treated to another biking montage!

Riese: Another biking montage! This is a really fun little biking montage!

Carly: This is fun!

Erin: They’re throwing water at each other!

Riese: Alice pees on the side of the road!

Carly: Alice pees on the grass.

Alice peeing in the bushes

Riese: Adele smiles, which is wild. Nikki has a camera. Shane and Molly are hugging. Tina’s on the phone.

Carly: Tom and Max are also in this episode.

Erin: Oh, right, by the way.

Riese: Yeah, they don’t have lines, but they’re there.

Carly: No.

Riese: It’s better that way, for Max.

Carly: I thought this was a fun montage. It was cute. It felt very much like a group of friends hanging out. The one thing that I will say about this episode is that it’s nice to have the entire cast in one place dealing with kind of one or two main central issues, which is we’re on bikes, and Bette’s gonna break up with Jodi. It’s kind of what everyone’s dealing with, and then obviously Jenny has her own thing going on, but that’s kind of it.

Riese: Yeah, and Shane has her new amore.

Erin: They’re still chasing that weed brownie high, you know?

Carly: I know.

Erin: They’re trying to get back there.

Riese: Yeah, I love it.

Carly: Yeah!

Riese: Anyway, now speaking of camping…

Carly: Time to put up some tents!

Riese: They’re gonna put up some tents! Alice seems vaguely jealous that Tasha was with her friends.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Which is concerning.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Because you should be happy that Tasha ran into her friends and got to see people she hasn’t seen in so long.

Carly: Yeah, all you do is hang out with your friends. Like, what if Tasha wants to see her friends? Do you ever go hang out with other people? Just hang out at The Planet, is that all we do?

Riese: Yeah, that’s all we do.

Erin: This is one of the times where Alice is the worst, and I don’t like her, so from earlier, you know, if we could subtract moments like this.

Riese: I like the pigtails!

Carly: For sure!

Riese: Little tiny baby pigtails. She was making that work and that’s not easy.

Carly: Yeah, that’s true, it’s not easy.

Riese: So, Bette and Jodi are fighting about the tent.

Carly: Of course they are.

Riese: Because Bette is stubborn about it and Jodi is just like, “Ughhhh.” And Adele has got this gourmet fancy tent from North Face.

Erin: Sponsored by North Face.

Riese: Sponsored by North Face on the Subaru Pink Ride sponsored by Subaru.

Carly: She fully set up a branded deal.

Riese: Uh huh.

Carly: This is like Adele has an Instagram marketing strategy before there was even Instagram.

Erin: Honestly, Adele sounds like an incredible manager.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Assistant.

Erin: Well, assistant, but she’s taking on a manager role and she should just do this.

Carly: Yeah, above and beyond.

Erin: Stop trying to sabotage someone’s career and just become a manager that you’re really good at.

Carly: This reminded me so much of when Tom Haverford tried to go camping on Parks and Rec and had that gigantic tent with a generator. I was like, this is our version of that.

Riese: Alice is like, “I love to find a hotel,” which I feel that. And Shane has a really shitty tent that she got on sale at Costco, and Molly is like, “How am I gonna have advanced placement lesbian sex in that tent?” And as someone who has tried to have sex in a very small tent, you aren’t gonna… you aren’t.

Erin: Sure.

Riese: And Shane is like, “Mmm.” And it’s cute and funny and they go sabotage Jenny’s tent.

Carly: They untie one of the ropes and the whole thing collapses and Jenny screams.

Jenny: Noooo! We’re being killed!

Jenny's fancy tent collapsing while her and Niki are inside it

Carly: So good!

Erin: I have that in my notes, that line.

Riese: Foreshadowing…

Erin: Foreshadowing.

Carly: Quick pause, to ask: What is everyone’s personal feeling on camping? My personal feeling is that it’s terrible and I hate it and I never want to do it.

Erin: I….

Carly: Do we have any pro-camping voices on this episode today?

Erin: I’m a pro-camper.

Riese: You are?

Erin: I love it.

Carly: Ok, great.

Erin: I love the outdoors. I recently — in a safe way, everybody — went to a farm, basically, that was an airbnb. And I was reminded how much I love the outdoors and how nice it is to breathe fresh air that’s not clouded with smoke from the raging fires that’s around all of us.

Riese: Uh huh.

Erin: But I love camping.

Riese: Did you sleep in a tent?

Erin: No, if I have the right equipment, I love it.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Yes, it does get dewy, and maybe you’re a little wet, but if you have the right equipment —

Carly: Absolutely not.

Erin: No?

Riese: I love to shower. I love… I like to start my day with a little exercise and a shower.

Erin: She does.

Riese: I do, it’s true.

Erin: I will testify to that.

Carly: I love a little coffee, I love a shower, and I love wifi and privacy. And I also don’t like — I have this weird thing where I don’t like stepping barefoot on grass, and I know that that’s my own shit, so I feel like just the idea of camping in a tent just makes me deeply uncomfortable.

Erin: What about a fire?

Riese: I love a nice campfire, and then afterwards I can go to not a tent.

Erin: Ok.

Carly: Campfire is tough for me because then my clothes all reek of campfire and it doesn’t come out until you wash them.

Riese: I love that smell!

Carly: And so it’s just, it’s a lot. It’s a lot for me. I understand that I’m a little high maintenance when it comes to these things. I own that.

Riese: I am not a person who’s gonna initiate a camping trip, but if someone else initiates it, I’ll attend. But I really, again, would like to have that shower, I would like that morning shower. I’m not gonna feel right without it. And a lot of campsites have showers.

Erin: That’s true.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: So there is that, but…

Carly: Yeah, still not doing it.

Riese: But also, I don’t sleep well, so it’s hard for me to do multiple nights of camping.

Erin: I mean, yeah. I think the max is two for me.

Carly: If someone even invites me on a camping trip where we’re doing hiking and sleeping in tents, I would be offended that they clearly don’t know me.

Erin: Oh no! Just let me erase something from my phone real quick.

Carly: Yeah, sorry…

Erin: Just unsend something…

Carly: Yeah, unsend that invite.

Riese: I also find camping is like this rustic — like, you’re gonna be in the outdoors, but somehow it ends up being so expensive. You end up buying 10,000 things on your way there.

Erin: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: It’s sort of like the Caleb Gallo beach day video, but about camping.

Erin: Right.

Riese: And you get there, and it feels like you buy all this stuff to be there, and it feels like I can’t stop analyzing it from a distance where I’m like, it’s so weird how we’re buying all these goods to pretend like we don’t have goods.

Carly: Exactly!

Erin: That we’re living off the land.

Riese: Yeah, that we’re living off the land, but we need all this stuff.

Carly: But we went to REI and spent thousands of dollars before we can leave.

Erin: Yeah, so a bear doesn’t attack all of us.

Carly: Exactly. Alright, back to the episode.

Riese: Back to the episode!

Carly: So Jodi is helping Tina with her tent.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Because Bette has scared her away and it’s nice for a minute, but Tina is just so deeply uncomfortable. Tina also calls Bette kind of OCD, which is one of my pet peeves.

Erin: Ooooh.

Riese: Yeah…

Carly: As a person of OCD experience, when people just toss around the term OCD to describe people who don’t actually have OCD, it’s very upsetting and I hate it.

Riese: Yeah, it didn’t make sense because wasn’t she like, “Oh, is Bette moody about” — there’s something about putting together the tent?

Erin: Right.

Riese: And then she was like, “Bette’s really OCD.” I was like, how is any of the behavior you just described —

Carly: Yeah, she’s just being mean.

Riese: There’s the issue of Bette not having OCD, but there’s also like, how is what you just described anyone’s experience of OCD?

Erin: What’s the a-to-b here?

Carly: Yeah.

Erin: She’s trying to put up the tent correctly, because otherwise you can’t be in the tent that’s not.

Riese: That’s not OCD.

Carly: No, she’s just being mean to Jodi because she wants to break up with her and she’s always bossy when it comes to things like this. This has nothing to do with an anxiety disorder or anything of that nature.

Riese: No.

Erin: And also, Jodi’s just trying to help her make the tent, and she’s so mean to her and made me so uncomfortable.

Carly: So mean, it was awful.

Riese: Well, she’s doing that thing where you’re about to break up with someone so you try to make your relationship worse.

Carly: And you push them away so that maybe if you do it enough times, and for long enough, they will actually suggest breaking up and you can just sort of shrug.

Riese: Mhmm.

Carly: Great plan, Bette, this is going to take forever.

Riese: Yeah, it’s not going well. And yeah, Tina obviously feels really guilty.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: That even talking to Jodi about it feels really awkward, which is fair. Also, Tina is the only one on the trip — well, besides Adele, I guess — who is single. You know — well Shane was supposed to be, but Molly is ambitious. So this is a lot. I mean I, as everyone knows, not a Tina fan. But in Season 5, I did find Tina to be a tolerable and realistic person, and I do feel in this episode that she was having a tough time and that was a fair feeling for her to have.

Carly: Yeah, Jodi hugs her at the end and she just looks like she wants to die. Also, Jodi asks how Angie is, and my question is where the fuck is Angie?

Erin: Where’s Angie?

Carly: Who’s watching her? Kit is on this trip.

Erin: Angie is vaping.

Carly: Who’s watching Angelica? We have no idea what the childcare situation is going on with this child, I just —

Riese: How dare they not inform us constantly of who Angie is being babysat by?

Erin: Yeah, put her in a Baby Bjorn.

Carly: Yeah, bring her on the trip and she could look at the lake with Jodi.

Riese: Get a basket! Put a basket on your bike and put the baby in the basket! Good enough for Moses.

Erin: Just be like Mad Men and just forget they have children, you know?

Carly: Might as well.

Erin: We don’t need to see them.

Riese: Put her in a backpack, she’s small.

Erin: Sure.

Riese: Put her in a backpack, zip her up, get on the road.

Carly: She’s fine!

Riese: Hit the road, Jack!

Erin: We know they exist as a concept, we don’t need to see them — just say you have her in a backpack.

Riese: Yeah, and she can peek out, you know? I’ve put Carol in a sack. I’ve put Carol in a tote bag.

Carly: I think that’s a little different, but yeah…

Riese: So now it’s nighttime.

Carly: It’s nighttime.

Riese: There’s a campfire, Adele is on her BlackBerry and Alice is like, “Are you gay?”

Alice and Adele at campfire, Alice asking Adele if she is "gay or what"

Erin: Second time she’s asked that question.

Riese: Second time!

Carly: She says, “What’s your deal?”

Riese: Good for Alice, asking the important questions. Everyone’s wondering, everyone wants to know. And adele is like, “Ehh, it depends.”

Carly: Depends on who’s asking?

Riese: On who’s asking, which… what?

Carly: Huh?

Erin: I’m gonna say that whenever someone asks me a question. “It depends on who’s asking.” “I just asked it.”

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Well, that’s debatable, and we’ll see about it.

Riese: That’s debatable, yeah.

Carly: Adele does say that she’s single and Alice is like, “Oh great, that’s what these rides are for, curing cancer and one night stands.”

Riese: Yeah, which I don’t think is true.

Carly: I don’t think so, but good for Alice, I guess?

Riese: No one wants a one night stand in a tent.

Carly: Yeah, that sounds terrible. Adele wants to focus on work, Alice thinks she’s boring, and Adele says that she does have her eye on someone, but it’s a secret.

Riese: I don’t even… who??

Erin: She means that literally. She’s literally recording Jenny right now. “I have eyes on her, so don’t worry about it.”

Carly: “I’ve got eyes on Schecter.”

Riese: But also, she’s very busy, she’s like, “I need to focus on work,” which obviously — again, no one here has seen All About Eve, no one knows what’s happening.

Carly: It’s shocking that none of them know anything about that film, it’s wild.

Riese: Shocking. And so everyone’s sitting at the campfire and Tina and Bette are making meaningful eye contact, and Kit is like, “Bette! Come on!”

Erin: The conduit to everyone’s narratives, it’s Kit. I don’t have a story, I just help yours along.

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: Mhmm, that’s true.

Carly: She says, “I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” and Bette says, “I have it completely under control,” which is…

Riese: A lie.

Carly: A lie.

Riese: But anyway, speaking of showers like I was earlier, we go to the shower line, where Nikki and Shane are in line for the shower.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: And Nikki is definitely flirting with Shane at this point, and is like, “Are you hard to get or hard to keep?” And I think the answer is both!

Carly: Uh huh! I would agreeee!

Riese: Then they go into the shower house and there’s a woman, an extra, who has a huge…

Carly: A massive lower back tattoo.

Riese: Yes!

Erin: Shirt off!

Carly: A gigantic…

Erin: She’s coming in real hot.

Riese: And I’m like, is that the extra’s actual tattoo, or did they think this woman needs a little bit of bad gay taste on her lower back?

Carly: Man, it could go either way, honestly.

A girl in the showers at the campsite has a terrible lower back tattoo

Riese: I was just distracted by it.

Erin: I mean, the casting call is too vague!

Carly: Yeah, unless there was a casting call for someone with a hideous gigantic lower back tattoo.

Riese: Yeah, $16 an hour if you have a back tattoo.

Carly: And you have to be comfortable being naked on camera.

Riese: Yeah fully naked, but back to the camera, so it’s not full frontal, it’s full back-al.

Carly: Full back-al.

Erin: Whoa.

Carly: Back-al, side-al, I’d say. Side-al back-al.

Riese: Nikki’s kind of checking Shane out.

Carly: Yeah, she’s overtly checking Shane out as they take off their clothes for the shower. I’m like, Nikki, what are you doing?

Erin: She says a very haunting line where Shane’s like, “I love Jenny.” And she’s like, “Me too, I totally love Jenny.” Which is—

Riese: Dun dun dunnnn…

Erin: Hearing someone like Nikki say that, you get… I’m scared.

Carly: I’m scared, yeah. It shook some fear into my heart, she was saying it in a way that you are like, “Yeah, totally, I totally love that person,” not the way you would talk about —

Erin: Yeah like, “I totally love your skirt…”

Carly: Yeah, not the way you talk about someone you’re actually in love with.

Riese: Right.

Carly: So that was a little weird. Nikki, what are you doing?

Riese: What are you doing, Nikki?

Erin: It’s weighted.

Riese: And then we go to…. ohhh… speaking of blankets…

Erin: Speaking of!

Riese: It’s Alice and Tasha’s tent! And Alice… Tasha’s just lying there thinking about times gone by, how crazy it is to see old friends, how she used to be in army and now is not in army, and now what’s next for Tasha.

Carly: What is next for Tasha?

Riese: Yeah, and we’re right now in a real sweet spot with Tasha, between when she was in the military and when she decides to become a cop, and I wish we could just stay here.

Carly: Oh, me too.

Riese: Relish this sweet moment in time when she’s just wondering what’s next for Tasha.

Carly: And then really casually she just asks what she wants her future to look like? Do you want kids? What do you want to do with your career? Really super chill stuff. I will say that the two of them in this scene together is just so lovely and charming and like —

Riese: Yeah, they’re cute.

Alice and Tasha in their tent together

Carly: It feels so real, the way that they’re just — it almost feels like it wasn’t scripted, even though of course it was scripted, but it just feels so natural and I love that. That was nice.

Riese: And when Alice says what she wants her future to be, what we all know now is that she gets it!

Carly: She wants kids and to be on TV. She gets it!

Riese: Yeah, she got it!

Erin: She wants a talk show where the logo is an upside down mouth.

Carly: Yep, the “Aloce” show.

Riese: The “Aloce” show.

Erin: The “Aloce.”

Riese: And she got that!

Erin: Never stop giving up your dreams!

Carly: Believe in yourself, says Alice Pieszeki. And then Tasha says, “I just want to be with you,” and suggests that they move in together, and it’s cute.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Yeah.

Carly: It was cute!

Riese: I was surprised by that!

Carly: It seems, I’m surprised that —

Riese: I had forgotten that that had happened!

Carly: I had also forgot — I was surprised that if this couple were to move in together, it seems less likely that Tasha would have been the one to suggest it?

Erin: Right.

Riese: Right.

Carly: And it also seems like maybe it’s a little soon? They just kind of recently got back together and Tasha is in the middle of this huge change of her life.

Riese: Life transition, right.

Erin: Right, it feels like the move of someone who is very uncertain with their life and they’re like, “Let’s throw something crazy in here: Let’s get bangs.”

Riese: Yeah, she could have just suggested that Alice get bangs.

Carly: Yeah, instead she’s like, “Let’s get a house!”

Riese: An apartment!

Carly: Yeah!

Riese: Then we are back at the campfire. Tina is wearing a big coat.

Carly: Big coat!

Riese: Big coat!

Erin: Again, didn’t notice. What does the coat look like?

Riese: It’s kind of like she…

Carly: It’s big.

Riese: It’s just big, yeah.

Erin: It’s big, ok.

Riese: There’s like a logo on it, it’s like a bomber.

Carly: It has a little bit of a bomber vibe, but like is not.

Riese: A little bit of a bomber vibe.

Carly: But it’s not like a shiny coat, it’s more of a matte finish coat. I liked it, I thought it was nice.

Erin: You never really know her style.

Riese: You never do. Then Shane wants to go somewhere with Molly. That’s exciting for them! And then meanwhile, at the campfire, everyone’s making s’mores as if making s’mores is fun, which it isn’t.

Erin: I made s’mores last week and it’s amazing!

Carly: Whoa!

Erin: Where does the hatred come from?

Riese: It’s so laborious!

Carly: It’s laborious, it’s messy.

Erin: To eat? To make?

Carly: All of the above!

Riese: To make — I’m glad I have an ally in this — to make, and then to eat. I mean, I have a small mouth and it’s hard to get all of that —

Erin: I’ll give you that, that is a very laborious bite.

Carly: Well, and I like to eat them. If someone has made a s’more, I will eat the s’more, because I have a gigantic mouth. I just don’t want to take the time to actually make the s’more.

Erin: Ok, so putting a stick in the fire for 15 seconds is a lot for both of you.

Riese: Uh huh. Well, then you also have to get the graham cracker, and then get it —

Carly: Correct, you get the sandwich, and then you pull the stick out, and it’s a mess!

Erin: What you’re describing is putting a marshmallow on a graham cracker, so, it’s not a process, it’s just putting…

Carly: Erin, you’re making it — this is kind of reductive, the way you’re talking about this.

Riese: And then the chocolate is a little hot, it’s a different texture, you got three different textures, and you’re trying to —

Carly: So many different textures!

Riese: You’re trying to combine them all, and the stick, and the marshmallow is all sticky, and then your hands are sticky.

Erin: Wow, they have really done you dirty. I would love to make you two s’mores.

Carly: Thank you!

Riese: Let’s go glamping!

Carly: I would love for you to make s’mores for us!

Riese: I would love for you to make a s’more!

Carly: How about you just make them and then just drop them off at my house on your way to camping?

Erin: Ok, I’ll do that.

Carly: And I’ll just stay home.

Riese: And I’ll stay at my house, which is our house.

Carly: Robin loves s’mores. Robin loves making s’mores and always makes me s’mores when there’s s’mores to be made, and that is wonderful because I love delicious treats. So, Shane and Molly duck out of the campfire with the s’mores, and Molly is like, “I bribed a truck driver so we could fuck in this truck because your tent is too small.” Am I reading this correctly?

Erin: That’s correct. My note on this is, “Is this an abandoned airplane?”

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Because it looks like they’ve found…

Riese: The Lost plane.

Erin: The wreckage of a plane.

Riese: The smoke monster!

Erin: They were like, “Let’s have sex in here!”

Carly: I mean, good luck!

Riese: Yeah I thought, what’s the surface they’re on? And then I thought, Shane’s shirt — she’s wearing this red waffle sort of shirt, I liked it.

Carly: I liked it too!

Riese: I wouldn’t mind owning a shirt like that for the winter.

Carly: Yeah, I know, it looked cozy!

Riese: So this is a little sexual scene between Molly and Shane.

Carly: Molly asks Shane for —

Molly: Any hot tips?

Carly: Before she goes down on her.

Erin: Which… is always a good start to someone having sex with you.

Carly: Shane has a lot of confidence in this. Despite not knowing what she’s doing, Molly is on top.

Riese: But she’s gung ho, she’s like, “I’m doing this! I’m a top! I’m taking your pants off!” Even though she still has her jacket on. And then she’s gonna do it, she’s gonna eat vaginas.

Molly and Shane are starting to have sex

Erin: I have a question!

Riese: Yeah?

Erin: I didn’t think that Shane let people do stuff to her, am I correct in that?

Riese: Shane is actually a secret power bottom.

Erin: I guess I just never saw Shane in that position.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: And it was unsettling to me a little bit, because she looked very uncomfortable.

Riese: Well, she’s really vulnerable with Molly.

Erin: That she was. She’s uncomfortable and she doesn’t like it.

Carly: Interesting, interesting.

Riese: She tells Molly to —

Shane: Breathe through your mouth.

Carly: That’s the advice!

Riese: And then directs her.

Carly: Then we go to Jenny and Nikki’s condo tent.

Riese: Yeah, and feel how you feel about Jenny or Nikki, this is a classic L Word sex scene.

Erin: I love it.

Carly: Classic.

Riese: It’s so fun, it’s so cute, the music is great.

Carly: So fun! They got “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure. They had Cure money!

Riese: Yeah!

Erin: I know!

Carly: And a lot of the song! Like, it’s most or all of the song, it’s incredible!

Riese: So Jenny got Nikki a strap-on and Nikki is, first of all, not appreciative at all about this gift.

Carly: She opens it and is like, “What is this? I’m not a dude.” And I was just like…

Jenny filming Niki holding a purple dildo

Riese: And she was like, “Yeah, exactly.”

Carly: Yes.

Riese: But then they’re cute and flirty, and it’s purple, the purple dildo.

Carly: They’re filming each other. That won’t lead to something terrible.

Erin: Yeah, bantering with the camera.

Carly: It’s very cute.

Erin: They’re pretending the lube is a gun.

Riese: Yeah, that was cute!

Carly: When Nikki has the strap-on on, she says, “I feel like I have a tail,” which I laughed and then I was like, oh this poor girl doesn’t know what a tail is. Poor thing, she doesn’t know any animals ever.

Riese: She could have said, “I feel like I have a penis.”

Carly: Yeah, that would have been more apt.

Erin: Or a gun.

Riese: A gun in the pants.

Erin: What do you give Nikki’s strap game? What’s a number? Or a letter?

Riese: Honestly, she gets right in there and seems to be competently fucking Jenny.

Erin: Yeah, agree.

Riese: She’s a natural, and also they have great sexual chemistry.

Carly: They do, they are very hot together. So, good for them!

Riese: And this is also when I feel like Jenny is the most playful and human. You know what I mean?

Carly: Yeah.

Erin: Right.

Riese: And we also see that they do a lot of little dirty talk, which I love. Again, it all felt so real and good and funny and everyone had a nice time.

Carly: I know! So much of this episode, the writing and the performances feel super real, which I greatly appreciated.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Then we smash cut to Adele sitting outside of their tent, smoking a cigarette and watching their silhouettes fuck!

Riese: Like a creep, yeah.

outside of the tent where Niki and Jenny are having sex

Carly: What an incredible moment, truly. I know that the sex scene is iconic, but I honestly would also say that this Adele moment is also iconic, because this is serial killer behavior.

Erin: It is, yeah.

Riese: That’s someone who is plotting.

Carly: A lot of plotting.

Riese: So then, Molly and Shane, they’ve wrapped up.

Carly: Yeah, Shane gives Molly an A+.

Riese: Awww, that’s sweet.

Carly: I feel like that has to be a lie, but…

Erin: Yeah, it doesn’t feel genuine.

Carly: That felt like such a lie.

Riese: But I think for her — you know, if it’s English 125, then she’s giving her an A+. It’s not AP English.

Erin: Oh, ok.

Riese: It’s freshman English.

Carly: Yeah, alright, I mean, sure.

Riese: Shorter paper, justice for Molly.

Erin: Are you a Molly fan?

Riese: Umm, no…

Carly: What is their shipper name? Is it Sholly?

Riese: Sholly. It’s Sholly.

Carly: I would like to make an argument for Mane.

Erin: Aww!

Carly: Because it’s funny.

Riese: I’m really just dedicated to my number one, which is Shenny.

Carly: Of course, of course.

Erin: Oh, right.

Carly: Right.

Erin: Molly just seems — at this point, I don’t know how old Shane is, but I’m imagining me in that position, where —

Riese: She would have been… 28.

Erin: No!

Riese: Because she turns 40 in Gen Q, which is 10 years after, so she would have been 28?

Erin: What?! Ok, still, at 28, I would be like, I can’t, this is so tiring.

Carly: I know, this shit is exhausting. I would be like, no, I don’t have time for this, or the energy for this.

Erin: Right, you can hang out with us, it seems like you need a community, but I’m tapped.

Carly: Yeah, my schedule’s full, I don’t have time to teach someone how to be gay right now, sorry.

Riese: You could just send her a link. There’s a whole website for that now, it’s called autostraddle.com.

Erin: She seems very stressed about it. Molly doesn’t seem like she’s in it for the ride, she seems very stressed, like she’s looking for a grade, and I don’t think I could give that to her.

Carly: Yeah, agreed.

Riese: I do think on some level I probably relate to that, because I remember I had gotten very good at having sex with men, and then I started having sex with women and I was like, I really want to be good at this too.

Carly: You want to be the best.

Riese: I want to be the best, I don’t want to do something if I’m just going to be in the middle, you know?

Erin: Ok, you don’t want to enjoy it, you want to succeed at it.

Carly: You will defeat it, you want to win the championship.

Riese: I want to deliver! I want to deliver!

Carly: You want to be the best!

Riese: Yeah, but that’s about the beginning and ending of any relationship feelings I have towards this match-up. But I do think that they have funny banter.

Carly: Mhmm, yeah, they do.

Riese: And for a TV show relationship, it’s kind of cute. And Molly says she’s going to be a public defender, which I believe fully that that is what she thinks she’s going to do at this point, but when she graduates law school she’s going to change her mind and go into employment law.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: Or something of that nature.

Erin: Divorce?

Riese: Yeah, divorce, like her parents.

Erin: Life cycle!

Carly: We life cycle back to the tent where Nikki and Jenny are still fucking, and we get like 17 close-ups of the camcorder.

Riese: Yeah, just in case you guys didn’t know, if you’ve been distracted by this scene —

Carly: I will only be referring to this device as a camcorder, I will not call it a camera, that is a camcorder. It’s just a specific camera and term.

Erin: Let’s bring those back! Those things were fun to hold!

Riese: I have one in my closet!

Carly: The zoom-ins. The zooms-in? The zoom-ins?

Erin: The zooms-in!

Riese: Zoom zoom!

Carly: The zoom zoom zooms on the camcorder are very funny, this camcorder is really playing a huge role in this episode. “Submitted for the approval of the midnight society…”

Erin: Ah! I love it!

Carly: Alice Pieszecki…

Erin: What if it just changed?

Carly: It almost did, it totally felt like it was a brief homage to Are You Afraid of the Dark? Alice tells a story that is terrible. Like, this was not a ghost story, this was not a campfire story.

Riese: Yeah, this was really bad.

Erin: Have you never heard that story?

Riese: No.

Carly: No, it’s stupid.

Erin: Oh, neither of you had heard that story?

Carly: No!

Riese: I mean, when she started, I knew how it was going to end, because I probably watched this episode a few times, but I was also like, why?

Erin: I mean, it’s a choice to tell this story in a circle of lesbians, a tortured dog story.

Carly: Yeah, no.

Erin: It’s a choice, and good for Alice.

Carly: No thank you.

Riese: Yeah, good for Alice.

Carly: I hated it.

Riese: If I was going to tell a ghost story, I would tell a story about —

Carly: An actual ghost? And not whatever this is?

Riese: Yeah, an actual ghost that tried to kill Erin when we were in Michigan. Remember?

Erin: Oh my god… yeah, I do.

Riese: You woke up to gunshots.

Carly: But they were ghost gun shots?

Erin: Well, Carly, here’s the thing. It was 3:30 in the morning.

Carly: Ok.

Erin: And I heard a gunshot and I was like, well, we’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s not good.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: At the very least it’s not good. My dog starts to run around the house, so I know he heard it because he doesn’t like loud noises. He’s freaking out. He’s running up to Riese’s room, back down the stairs. He’s frantic.

Carly: Ok.

Erin: I think, ok, so someone’s gonna, you know, it’s a home invasion. So I just sit on the couch, I don’t move, I don’t call anyone, I just accept my death immediately.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: You are resigned to your fate.

Erin: But then, from the other side of the house, gun shot. So I’m like, ok, so someone else is here, and they’re shooting at each other.

Carly: Oh my god…

Erin: Boom boom boom, gun shots for 30 minutes straight. I text Riese and say, “Hey, just wondering if there was ever gun fire?”

Riese: Yeah, because I was out of town.

Erin: Yeah, she was out of town, so I was like, “Is there gunfire late at night? Do people hunt? Is that a thing that happens?” And she said no, so I thought, ok well…

Carly: This is it!

Erin: Again, just sat there, yeah.

Riese: Yeah, but also the house really was haunted.

Erin: And once it stopped, I thought, well, I’ll just try to go to sleep and hopefully nothing bad happens. In the morning I went outside to check just, you know, what happened.

Riese: To see if there were any dead bodies.

Erin: Dead bodies, damage to the house, gun shells.

Riese: Gun residue.

Erin: Anything, and there was nothing.

Riese: Nothing, nothing. Ghosts.

Carly: Holy shit. I believe that this is absolutely a ghost encounter. I have also had a ghost encounter, so I fully believe this story.

Riese: There was also a ghost that left a handprint on Erin’s blanket.

Erin: Yes, I think she was not a — she wasn’t a bad presence, I don’t think. But she did like to fuck with me.

Carly: That’s terrifying.

Erin: But I just learned that there are auditory hauntings, so I believe that it was her.

Riese: And that house was haunted, like there were lots of ghost things that happened in the house.

Carly: That’s wild.

Riese: It was the haunting of Ypsilanti manor.

Erin: You had a person appear in the corner of your room.

Riese: Yeah, with a bag over their head.

Erin: So maybe they were a bad presence…

Carly: Yeah, none of that sounds like a good presence, except for the fact that both of you are alive, so.

Riese: But I wasn’t scared, I didn’t feel scared of them.

Carly: Ok, ok.

Riese: You know? Or the ghosts…

Erin: You know who could help us with this, is Tyler Henry, from Hollywood Medium.

Riese: Oh yeah, Erin’s favorite show.

Erin: I can’t stop watching that show!

Carly: You know what? Robin photographed his book cover, she worked with them!

Erin: Wow! Life cycle!

Carly: Life cycle!

Riese: Whoa!

Erin: Whoa!

Carly: This is unbelievable!

Erin: This is incredible!

Carly: This episode is haunted.

Erin: It’s explosive, this podcast.

Carly: So, anyway, I hated this ghost story.

Riese: Yeah, me too.

Carly: And then Alice is like, “It wasn’t a ghost story,” and she’s like, “It’s a true story. My grandmother told us this story,” which was funny, but whatever. And then Jenny and Nikki jump out wearing hockey masks, and everyone makes fun of them.

Riese: That they bought just for that gag, which I support fully.

Carly: Absolutely.

Erin: It does feel like something you would do.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That is absolutely something that I am very into, I love really committing to a bit.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: So, good for them. Everyone’s like, “Also we can hear you having sex.”

Riese: Yeah, which…

Erin: That was the point, so, good.

Riese: Yeah they were like, “You got The Cure? You managed to get rights to The Cure? That’s cool, guys!”

Carly: Yeah, “We heard the dulcet tones…” whatever.

Riese: So the next part of this, I just…

Carly: This is exhausting.

Erin: Oh, it hurts.

Riese: The next part of this is… this is not how you play “Never Have I Ever.” And I love rules.

Erin: You love a game!

Riese: I love games and I love following the rules of the game. Heather Hogan once told me that her favorite thing I ever did was my recap for this episode, because I get so upset throughout the recap that they’re not playing the game right — which is that when you say “I’ve never done,” it has to actually be true about you.

Erin: About yourself.

Riese: About yourself.

Erin: But something you know that other people have done so that they drink.

Riese: Yeah, right.

Carly: This is chaos, they’re playing it wrong.

Riese: It’s absolute chaos!

Carly: No one’s listening to any rules, this is complete disqualification on this whole game.

Riese: Yeah, because the whole fun of it is thinking about something that is very interesting that you’ve not done, but you know that lots of other people have done. You know what I mean? And then you get your friends, you know?

Erin: It feels like no one had played that game.

Riese: No one!

Erin: Maybe it’s a little bit before their time? I remember playing that a lot in college, the “Never Have I Ever,” so maybe it just missed every single one of these actresses?

Riese: I remember playing it in early high school, in the mid 90s, but we didn’t drink at that point. It was just called “The 10 Fingers Game” and you’d have to put down a finger and then, you know, by the end… but I was good, because I had never had my ears pierced.

Carly: Oh, wow!

Erin: So that saved you.

Riese: And I never had hair longer than my shoulders.

Carly: Holy shit.

Riese: That’s the kind of stuff that got you a big win in 9th grade.

Erin: That’s very pure!

Carly: Very pure.

Erin: “Never have I ever had hair that’s long.”

Riese: Yeah! Uh huh!

Erin: That’s fun! Lets play that game!

Riese: People find out a lot about each other.

Carly: G-rated “Never Have I Ever.”

Riese: So just so everyone knows, this is not how you play “I’ve Never,” and of course it turns into chaos. So tasha says, “I never cheated on a girlfriend.” This is so egregious, she says a thing and then she drinks, which is, like — you know, ugh, oh my god. They’re playing it wrong.

Carly: No rules! Just no rules!

Riese: No rules!

Carly: No respect for the game!

Riese: Oh and also, before that, there’s one that’s like, “I’ve never been in love” and everybody says they’ve been in love except Shane.

Carly: Who has been in love!

Riese: What?! She has been in love!

Carly: Yeah!

Molly and Shane at the campfire

Riese: Come on, Shane. You know she’s the kind of person who ret-cons all of her own relationships so she’s like “No, that wasn’t, I wasn’t really in love then.” I do that too. So Tasha says, “I’ve never cheated on a girlfriend,” and she drinks. It turns out she cheated on Michelle, so. And then Jenny drinks, but also, has Jenny ever had a girlfriend besides Carmen?

Erin: Well, don’t they say the French woman? Or no?

Riese: But Marina wasn’t her girlfriend…

Carly: No, they mentioned that she cheated on Max with Claude.

Riese: Right, but Max was her boyfriend.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Oh, by the way, that was a strong move for Max. I appreciated that.

Carly: I love that he doesn’t get any dialogue except that.

Riese: Yeah, when he was like —

Max: When you cheated on me with Claude?

Riese: That’s right, Max!

Carly: That was a sick burn, Max.

Max and Tom at the campfire

Riese: You know? Yes. It was funny, that was a good burn, Max. So anyway, we get into what is cheating. Bette says it’s not kissing. Alice says it’s kissing. Shane says it’s not kissing or sex if you just do it once. And then Jodi points out a very valid point, which is that, actually, cheating depends on the rules that you’ve established for your relationship!

Carly: Yep!

Erin: Jodi coming through, the most rational person here.

Carly: Mhmm always, always.

Riese: If you’re in a monogamous relationship that is sexually and whatever — everyone sets up their own rules, and it’s important to talk about what those are and to define cheating for yourself.

Erin: Well, I think that conversation is, “Are we monogamous or not?”

Carly: Right.

Erin: However, I don’t know if I get into a relationship and say, “This is what I think cheating is.”

Carly: No.

Erin: “For me, it’s this…”

Riese: But it’s about what is ok — like there’s some relationships where even though, like, “we’re monogamous, but it’s ok if you want to kiss someone else,” or like, “we’re monogamous but we can have a threesome,” or like, there’s some people who don’t want their girlfriends to see their exes or to have feelings for someone else — like if that happened, they would want to talk about it instead of cutting it off or whatever.

Carly: Right. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to this question. It’s completely subjective, person by person, and then relationships by relationship. And communication is key. If you’re not having these conversations, then you end up in the kind of situation that Bette finds herself in.

Jenny, Niki and Adele at the campfire debating what cheating is

Riese: Tasha is a real radical here, she says that —

Tasha: Thinking is cheating!
Alice: Oh my god!
Jodi: Thinking?
Alice: Thinking?
Tasha: What? Yes! If you’re thinking about having sex with somebody besides your partner, flirting with them, that’s intimacy that you’re giving somebody else.
Alice: Oh my god.
Tasha: Besides your partner, it’s cheating! What?

Erin: Alright, we’re entering Twitter discourse here…

Carly: We’re into thought crimes.

Riese: We’re into thought crimes. Oof. Bette sort of dodges the question of what she thinks is cheating, and then Alice goes on a little journey…

Carly: Oh my god.

Erin: Bette’s not…

Carly: Oh my god.

Riese: Lauren, put this in.

Alice: Bette, what do you think? You didn’t raise your hand.
Bette: I don’t know, I just think it’s a trap to judge. I mean, I think there are different situations and you can’t really categorically…
Alice: Oh my god, that is such a non-answer. That’s bette, because she is a big old cheater!
Bette: Alice…
Shane: Oh, give her a break, come on.
Alice: I’m not — I’m not judging!
Tina: Who’s got the next “I never?”
Bette: Yeah, who’s got the next one?
Alice: I’m just — Bette, come on. I mean, you cheat. You were a giant cheater. And it was a phase, I’m not saying you are now, but like, you cheated on Tina, you cheated on me. I mean, you cheated. There’s a lot of cheating, right? You guys, come on, you saw it. You were there, she was cracking through ‘em, baboom, ginormous cheater. Ok, leave me alone, sorry.

Riese: She’s not wrong…

Carly: True…

Alice at campfire saying that Bette cheats

Erin: You’ve got to know it’s coming, when a game like this is played.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: If you’re Bette, you just gotta sit in it, ok?

Riese: You gotta sit in it.

Carly: You gotta roll with it. You have to sit in your discomfort, own what you’ve done, and just roll with it. Because instead, what Bette does is make it very very very very obvious and very awkward. Then Jodi — well there’s that moment — or did you already say this? When everyone’s like, “I’ve cheated! I’ve cheated!” And Bette’s just kind of like [silence.]

Erin: Right. “No, I don’t even know what that means, I don’t even know what cheating is.”

Riese: Yeah, well they’re like, “Is kissing cheating?” Or like, “What is cheating exactly?” And then Jodi sort of is like, “Umm… what… what?” But also, it’s annoying, because Jodi actually has wanted to have an open relationship with Bette.

Carly: I know!

Riese: And Bette denied it.

Carly: This is the true tragedy.

Riese: So Jodi’s trying her best to be monogamous, and Bette’s not really trying very hard at being monogamous, and everyone’s uncomfortable in the way that you are when your drunk friend says the wrong thing and then keeps running with it. But also, it was true, and then she cheated on everyone and then Jodi’s like, “Have you cheated on me?” The sound of Jodi saying this is burned into my brain for life.

Carly: Absolutely.

Riese: It’s so painful, when she has her head turned and is just like, “Are you cheating on me?” And then there’s this moment of like —

Erin: Right. Too long of a pause.

Carly: Bette just pauses and then everyone’s face is just the same face of horror.

Erin: Here’s the thing: Bette has committed to a lie for months now.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: You can continue to lie right now!

Riese: Commit, yeah!

Erin: “Are you cheating on me?” “No, what?”

Riese: “Uh uh, I’m not, no. Why would you think that?”

Erin: “Why are you projecting on me?”

Riese: “That’s insane, no, I’m just in a bad mood all the time.”

Erin: Yeah.

Riese: But Tina then gets up and leaves.

Erin: Runs!

Riese: Runs off!

Carly: Runs into the woods!

Riese: So she kind of blows up her spot. And then Jodi is sort of like, “Uh… huh.” And she runs off, and then Bette runs after her, but so does Tom, and Tom is like, “She doesn’t want to see you, go away.”

Carly: She won’t let Bette unzip the tent door. It’s pretty funny to run into your tent and slam the door.

Erin: And zip it up!

Carly: And zip it up real fast. Like, “This would have been a little more impactful if I was in a house!”

Erin: “I could slam this!”

Carly: “Just know I want to slam this door in your face!”

Riese: And Tina’s tent, she’s kind of like — first of all, she’s still in her big coat, she’s hunched over. This is butch Tina.

Carly: Right, because of the bomber jacket.

Riese: Shane and Alice come to join her and they’re like, “Are you having an affair with Bette?” And then we go back to Bette’s tent where Kit is yelling at Bette, who’s like, “Do you remember that you hated Tina?”

Erin: Right, and you’re not good now.

Carly: No, Bette is like, “I love Tina, I’ve always loved Tina,” and Kit’s response to this is to go, “Ughhhh.” It was amazing.

Erin: Kit is all of us, every episode.

Carly: And her response was, “Ughhh.”

Riese: “Sounds like you’re doing what’s right for Bette.”

Carly: Bette thinks she’s going about it all wrong, but is doing the right thing and for the right reasons, and I would say that all of that is incorrect.

Riese: Uh huh. And then back in the Tina tent…

Carly: Tina tent!

Riese: Tina is like, “I didn’t want it to happen like this,” and her saying, “I can’t help it, it’s something I can’t help” for some reason is an earworm for me, like that gets stuck in my head all the time.

Carly: Oh, interesting!

Riese: The way she says it.

Carly: Wow!

Riese: And I think about it when I’m in situations like that — not like this, obviously.

Carly: I’m sorry the voice of Tina is always with you.

Riese: Recently it was like an earworm in my head and I was like, what is this fucking from? It was driving me nuts, and then when I realized it was from this, I thought, “Well…” But then Shane and Alice are like, “You guys belong together,” and everyone at home in 2008 was like, “That’s true! Yayyy!”

Erin: They belong together in jail, both of them.

Carly: I read that moment as like, you’re both terrible, you deserve each other, absolutely.

Erin: Right, you deserve each other.

Carly: Right, that was the way they said, “You belong together.”

Riese: I don’t think Tina’s really — I mean, again, far be it for me to defend Tina.

Carly: Of course.

Riese: But she’s not the one who’s messing up here, it’s Bette.

Erin: Right.

Riese: It’s true that they can’t help their feelings. They have them, they’re real, they should be together, Bette shouldn’t be with Jodi.

Carly: But Tina is single, and she knows what she’s doing, and it’s not great, but Bette is the one who is deliberately hurting her partner and lying.

Erin: Sure.

Carly: Then Tina shouts, “I fucking hate women!”

Riese: Yeah, and then she dates Henry again. She fires up the laptop and is like, “Daddy…”

Carly: Daddy of two!

Erin: “Where’s my WiFi?”

Riese: “Adele! Do you have WiFi?”

Erin: “Let me get a hotspot!”

Riese: Oh yeah, a hotspot!

Carly: So now we go back to the campfire of sadness.

Riese: Sad fire.

Carly: Because everyone is gone. Sad fire.

Riese: Did you write “campfire of sadness?” Because I wrote “sad fire.”

Carly: I wrote “campfire of sadness.” And Jenny and Nikki are alone, ruminating about how everyone else is in a really bad place.

Riese: Yeah. I’ve been there before too, where you’re sitting with someone and your relationship is bad, but yet you’re sitting there talking about how everyone else’s is bad, but in the back of my mind I’m like, I think this is also bad.

Erin: This is going to end terribly.

Carly: Exactly.

Erin: Not just bad, it’s going to end terribly.

Carly: Horribly!

Erin: She says another very scary line to Nikki, which is, “I’m going to love you forever” dot dot dot, “I promise.”

Carly: Yeah, it sounded like a threat.

Erin: Which…

Riese: That means, no, she’s not.

Erin: At that point… ooof.

Riese: Yeah, the narrator is like, “She did not love her forever.”

Carly: Jenny says that her friends think that she is out of her mind for falling in love with Nikki, to which I wrote, ‘”do they?”

Riese: What friends?

Carly: Oh yeah, I thought people were just upset with her about sleeping with the star of the film, and those people that were upset with her were the people making the film. I don’t think her friends care that she’s with Nikki, if anything they’re probably — I mean she seems happy with Nikki, besides from the obvious conflict of interest at work, so, I thought that was a little like, ok Jenny.

Riese: Yeah, I don’t think anyone cares who Jenny is dating, it’s just the work thing, which is kind of inapprorpiate.

Carly: Inappropriate. And then Nikki’s like, “We’re different, Jenny.” Which is how — whomst amongst us…

Riese: They were not different.

Carly: I have not been in a relationship with someone where you watch other peoples’ relationships fall apart and you sit there smugly saying, “Well, we’re different,” and that, of course, is inevitable that you will also meet your doom.

Riese: Yeah. Everyone needs to accept that they’re not different, and you’re just going to have problems and you’re going to have to work through them.

Erin: Carly, didn’t you make a list about that?

Carly: I’m currently — due to some pending legal action, I’m no longer allowed to talk about that list.

Erin: Oh, ok.

Carly: Yeah, I’ve been sued by everyone who was on it.

Riese: Wow!

Erin: Got it.

Carly: Ok, now the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Where’s Adele? Adele is in the tent. And guess what?

Riese: Thieving.

Carly: She is scheming some more. She finds the camcorder, takes the tape out of the camcorder, puts a blank tape into the camcorder as a decoy — which made me truly nostalgic for physical media for a brief moment — and then peaces out.

Riese: I wrote, “I remember those little tapes.”

Erin: Yeah!

Carly: Yeah!

Erin: Yeah, they were fun to plug in!

Carly: Yeah, those mini DVs! Mini DVs!

Riese: Yeah and the [screaching noise] and then you put the thing over, you know?

Carly: And then it’s tomorrow, and Bette is crying by a lake.

Riese: Yeah, she’s wearing a flannel, she’s got a fleece on over the flannel, she’s wearing a winter hat, she’s wearing flared dark jeans.

Carly: Yep.

Riese: Almost certainly GAP jeans. And she’s crying, this is deep deep lesbian culture.

Carly: Absolutely, crying by a body of water in layers, come on.

Erin: And crying for what?

Riese: Herself?

Erin: I understand that everything around her is crumbling, but…

Carly: It’s her fault!

Riese: She feels terrible.

Erin: She orchestrated this.

Riese: I know, but she still feels terrible.

Carly: Once again, Bette Porter is the architect of her own demise.

Erin: Right!

Riese: Yeah, she is. She doesn’t deserve sympathy, because she did this.

Erin: No.

Riese: But she’s still devastated to hurt someone.

Erin: But it would seem exhausting, I think, to me, she’s what, at this point, 30? I guess? Whatever timeline…

Riese: 40… yeah… 75?

Erin: She’s 75, and she’s done this her whole life, right?

Riese: Yeah, she did this in the 80s, she did it in the 70s… she did it in the 20s, the roaring 20s.

Erin: The roaring 20s.

Riese: The roaring 20s, she was a maniac.

Erin: Whoa!

Carly: Just cheating on everybody.

Erin: She was a flapper and just could not stop.

Riese: She could not stop. Prohibition, she thrived.

Erin: I just don’t understand — I mean, she’s a mystery to me, really.

Riese: Yeah, I think what’s funny about this podcast is that everyone always — you didn’t say this — but most people say that Bette is their favorite character, and then we actually start talking about the episode and they’re just like, “Wow, Bette, that’s a bad thing that happened!”

Carly: It happens almost every episode.

Erin: Is everyone’s favorite Bette?

Riese: Yeah, it’s the most common.

Carly: Yeah. So Bette walks back to the campsite, Max is like, “They left. Jodi wanted to ride alone.” And then we just get some more biking B-roll!

Riese: And Max is mad.

Carly: Of course he is!

Riese: He’s mad at Bette for being a cheater. And also, Bette cheated and he doesn’t get to ride bikes with his boyfriend. Instead he has to ride bikes with all of his transphobic lesbian friends.

Carly: Exactly. Now he’s in hell.

Riese: Once again, Max is the one — and he’s got to put away the whole tent by himself!

Carly: Ugh, it sucks.

Riese: And that’s it!

Carly: And then we get more biking B-roll, and that’s the episode!

Riese: Oh yeah, we do. Yeah everyone has a nice sad…

Carly: Sad bike ride.

Erin: How many miles did they say that was?

Riese: Um, a hundred and…

Erin: A hundred and twenty…

Riese: Uh huh. 5,000 miles? 500 miles?

Erin: Good for them!

Riese: Well, that’s the episode!

Carly: That’s the episode! I feel like, generally, we liked this episode question mark?

Erin: Yeah I think —

Riese: I loved it!

Erin: I loved it!

Carly: I enjoyed it!

Erin: I love Angela Robinson.

Riese: I do wish they played “I never” correctly.

Erin: Oh, right.

Carly: Yeah, that was a crime, and the flared leggings were a crime, but everything else was generally fine.

Riese: I had a lot of feelings during it that ran the gamut.

Carly: I enjoyed the amount of drama that was present on this ride for charity.

Riese: Uh huh, and the amount of comedy.

Erin: And montages!

Riese: And montages, and lots of nice soft indie rock…

Erin: Close to lesbian scrapbooking music.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Close…

Erin: Close, but not.

Carly: Not exactly. I also appreciated all the kind of Pacific Northwest-y landscape-y vistas, that was a lovely change of scenery.

Erin: Beautiful!

Carly: It was beautiful.

Riese: And I loved that it rained!

Carly: Never rains on this show.

Riese: Because it never rains on this show, just like it never rains in LA.

Carly: That’s very true to LA, yeah, but not Vancouver, so that’s interesting.

Riese: And a bird pooped on the other side of my bedroom window, like 6 months ago, and I can’t access it, you know, it’s like —

Erin: Oh, right!

Riese: So I have been waiting for it to rain ever since then, and it still hasn’t rained, and it’s never going to rain.

Carly: It’s never going to rain.

Riese: And what do I do? Do I put a poster on my window?

Erin: Yeah, maybe!

Carly: Maybe!

Erin: Or just like a large frame you can lean against the wall?

Riese: Yeah. Anyway!

Carly: Erin, where can everyone find you on the internet?

Erin: You can find me on Twitter @sullivem, that is my old email from college, just lopped off. People get very confused because my last name is Sullivan, and it isn’t spelled that way. But you can find me on Twitter @sullivem and on Instagram @active_senior_

Riese: Yeah, she posts all the time.

Erin: I don’t, I don’t.

Riese: So you’re going to have a hard time keeping up!

Erin: Occasionally Stories…

Riese: Yeah, occasionally Stories.

Erin: I post on the regular profile maybe once a year. So, watch that space, another one may be coming out!

Carly: Oh my god, this is huge.

Erin: I don’t know yet.

Carly: This is a big day, very big day.

Riese: Wow! A big day. That will be a big day.

Carly: I would also want to plug, again, Who Killed Jenny Schecter, an incredible podcast, and I think fans of this podcast would really enjoy your podcast!

Erin: I think you are correct!

Riese: Yeah!

Erin: And you can find it everywhere!

Carly: But also, I would say if you haven’t seen the whole series, maybe don’t watch it yet, because it does have spoilers. Like the title, for instance, is a spoiler.

Erin: Right, I guess you know that right off the bat though.

Riese: Well it was in Gen Q.

Carly: Yeah it’s in Gen Q.

Erin: Otherwise, we’re not really in the same realm as The L Word world, I guess.

Riese: Yeah.

Erin: Same characters, but not necessarily the same plot lines, so just enjoy.

Carly: Not canon, but should be.

Riese: It’s not canon, but it should be.

Carly: Should be canon.

Riese: And yeah, you can find that on iTunes and —

Carly: Just wherever you get your podcasts.

Riese: And I believe it does say, on your podcast it says, “If you like this podcast, you might like To L and Back.

Erin: Cute!

Riese: I wonder if it says that on our podcast about your podcast?

Erin: I bet so!

Carly: That’s so cute! Thank you so much for listening to To L and Back. You can find us on social media over on Instagram and Twitter. We are @tolandback. You can also email us at: tolandbackcast@gmail.com. And don’t forget, we have a hotline! You can give us a call and leave a message, it’s 971-217-6130. We’ve also got merch, which you can find at store.autostraddle.com. There’s stickers, there’s shirts, including a Bette Porter 2020 shirt, which is pretty excellent. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell, our logo is by Carra Sykes. And this podcast was produced, edited, and mixed by Lauren Klein. You can find me on social, I am @carlytron. Riese is @autowin. Autostraddle is @autostraddle. And of course, Autostraddle.com, the reason we are all here today.

Riese: Autostraddle dot com!

Carly: Alright, and finally, it’s time for our L words. This is the segment of the show where we end things by simultaneously shouting out a random L word. Usually these have little-to-no relevance to anything we recapped. Ok, Riese, are you ready?

Riese: Ok. One, two, three. List.

Carly: LeBron James.

Erin: Learning.

Erin: Wow!

Carly: Riese, what was yours?

Riese: I said LAvote.net.

Carly: Oh my god, amazing!

Erin: Get out the vote! Rock the vote!

Riese: Yeah, rock the vote! No, mine was “list.” Mine was “list,” because it’s on the cover of Erin’s voter guide, which arrived today, a week after your ballot arrived.

Erin: I already filled it out.

Riese: I filled mine out, I mailed mine today.

Carly: I dropped off my ballot three days before my voting guide arrived.

Erin: Yeah, I don’t know why they came separate.

Carly: Y,eah. Erin what was your L word?

Erin: Learning!

Carly: Oh, I love to learn!

Erin: Like I will learn —

Riese: Yeah, you’re gonna learn about the candidates!

Erin: The local candidates!

Riese: Yeah!

Erin: And measures!

Carly: I can also send you a voting guide that I used. And mine was LeBron James, who just won his fourth NBA title in his 17th season, just like Sue Bird did a week before that. And I like LeBron James a lot.

Riese: So who did you vote for for President?

Carly: For President?!

Erin: Just run through all of it!

Carly: Um, I believe I voted for Kanye…. I’m just kidding, I… do you want me to answer? Joe Biden. Are you serious?

Riese: Yeah, me too. I did too.

Erin: Joe Biden!

Riese: Yeah, Joe Biden.

Carly: Joe Biden all the way. I mean…

Riese: Joe Biden… loooove…

Erin: Bette Porter 2020.

Carly: Because honestly the slug should be “Joe Biden: I guess we’re doing this.”

Riese: Yeah, Joe Biden.

Carly: I guess so.

Erin: Ok.

Riese: And honestly I would recommend to those of you at home, I would say of all the candidates for President, I would vote for Joe Biden.

Erin: I agree.

Carly: Yeah, that feels like the right choice. Thank you all for listening, bye!

Riese: Yeah, enjoy the cycle of life! A.K.A —

Riese and Erin: Life cycle!

Riese: Oh wow, we killed that!

Carly: Ok yay, we did it!

To L and Back LIVE! Episode 509: Liquid Heat With Gaby Dunn, Mal Blum, Brittani Nichols and Cerise Castle

Gaby Dunn, Mal Blum, Brittani Nichols and Cerise Castle joined Carly and Riese for a LIVE RECORDING of Episode 509, aka the episode where everybody engages in sexual activities with one another! Now, in podcast form, capture our rehashing of situations including the Showdown with the She-B*tches, Lover Cindi’s wig, Bette’s unethical non-monogamy, kissing the wrong person in the dark, bringing ice cubes into the bedroom, elevator fantasies, Shane’s inadequate camerawork, Max’s budding relationship with Tom, Jenny firing a guy with an Elmo tattoo and Molly’s passion for candles.

The usual:

The following transcript is a transcript of the full live show, not the edited podcast. But! The full live show cotnains the full podcast …. and more!

Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!

Carly: And I’m Carly.

Riese: And this is-

Carly and Riese: To L and Back! To L and Back!

Carly: Hi, Riese!

Riese: Hi, Carly!

Carly: Well, well, well. Hello everybody! We’re live. This is wild.

Riese: Oh, you’re so cute!

Carly: This is the cutest. Hi! Welcome to the first ever live internet version of To L and Back! This is very exciting. Thank you all for being here. I feel like we were all just like vibing to the song. That was a real moment.

Riese: It’s a vibe, yeah, it’s a real vibe.

Carly: Total vibe.

Riese: These comments are so cute, and I’m gonna have a hard time paying attention.

Carly: I know, I might have to close the chat, so that I can actually look at my notes for this episode or I’m gonna just be like, “Everyone’s so adorable, oh my God!” So as you probably already know, To L and Back is an Autostraddle podcast where we recap every single episode of The L Word forever and ever.

Riese: A program, a TV program that we all like.

Carly: TV program.

Riese: And we also talk about ourselves.

Carly: We talk about ourselves, it’s great. You know what? I actually think we should address a fan question right now. Can we still call this a podcast, considering there’s a video component, Riese?

Riese: I think absolutely yes, because — actually, no, we can’t. This is a vodcast.

Carly: This is no longer a podcast. When you listen to this, our amazing producer, Lauren Klein, who is the reason this is all happening — everyone say, “Thank you, Lauren” — she’s gonna edit this into an actual episode that will go up Monday of next week, which is the 12th. So yeah, that’s the podcast.

Riese: Who knows what’ll happen by then?

Carly: Oh, probably Trump will be dead. Anyway, so we’ve got some really special guests that we’re gonna, oh my God. Look at all the “Thank you, Laurens,” this is too much. Okay, we have very special guests who we are going to introduce in a moment, but first, we wanted to just let y’all know that there is a little thing at the bottom that says, “Ask a question.” So if you have any questions, you can ask them and there should be some moments where we can answer some questions. There’s also a place there where you can become an A+ member of Autostraddle and a place where you can donate to Autostraddle and this podcast. And so, just wanted to point all of that out.

Mal: yeah, if you want to.

Carly: If you want, no pressure because this is just, we’re all just hanging out.

Riese: We’re chill. Everything’s great.

Carly: So chill. Okay, let’s introduce our amazing guests. Up first — because it’s complete chaos if everyone’s talking at the same time — so up first, we have the wonderful Gaby Dunn and Mal Blum.

Gaby: Hi! Hello, hello, hello!

Carly: Welcome back to the show!

Gaby: Thank you so much! Mal, God, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you!

Mal: Yeah, what was your name again?

Gaby: Yeah, so I’m Gaby, we met like one time.

Mal: Oh right, you were super drunk and I was kinda rude, yeah.

Gaby: Right, right yeah.

Riese: Yeah, she was really, really into you.

Gaby: Yeah, I was into you, but you weren’t into it.

Mal: Sorry, yeah, that’s awkward that we’re meeting again like this.

Gaby: I know. Well, hopefully, maybe I’ll win your heart this time.

Mal: That’s a very bold thing to say to someone you’ve only met one time, but you know what? It is “The L Word,” let’s go.

Gaby: Will Mal fall in love with me by the end of this podcast? Who can say?

Riese: Hopefully, hopefully.

Carly: Maybe not. We also have coming up—

Riese: So were you guys like on — oh sorry.

Carly: No go ahead.

Riese: What?

Carly: Please go ahead.

Riese: So are you at opposite ends of your house?

Gaby: No.

Mal: I’m in the studio.

Gaby: Mal has a studio.

Riese: Okay.

Gaby: So I’m in the house and Mal’s in the studio and I’m gonna lock them out of the house.

Carly: Where’s Beans, where’s Beans?

Gaby: Beans is on the — So we bought a daybed. Well, everything in the house, Beans believes it is a bed for Beans.

Mal: And he’s right.

Gaby: So we got a daybed and he’s sitting on the bed, but pretty much every surface in the house is a bed for Beans. Beans is our Chihuahua, he’s very fat. We got him tested for all these things because he’s fat and balding and I spent so much money. And then, it turns out the answer was he’s fat and balding. $2,000 to find that out.

Mal: Yeah. The two doctors were like, “He absolutely has cushings.” And we were like, “Oh no, okay.” And then, we tested and they were like, “No, it turns out he just looks like this.” And we were like, “Okay!”

Carly: Wow, we’re off to a great start.

Mal: The chat would like to see Beans.

Carly: Yeah, this is definitely not gonna be an eight hour episode.

Riese: Well usually, in the beginning, we talk about how unhappy we are.

Mal: Are you unhappy, right now?

Riese: The state of the world, you know what I mean? Like how it’s not going very well, but also as you know, we got some good news recently. But in general, not a lot of good things have been happening.

Gaby: Yeah. I’ll say something nice, I’ll counteract it. Mal and I live together now, so that’s very cute.

Riese: Aw.

Gaby: That’s positive!

Riese: You’ll probably fall in love pretty soon then. It kind of just happens.

Gaby: I hope so.

Riese: You live in the same house, then you fall in love. There’s TV shows about it.

Gaby: Yeah, I hope so.

Mal: No, I think usually, it’s the opposite.

Riese: Oh.

Mal: You live together, and then people are repulsed by you, because they see you, they see you.

Riese: Because they see the real you.

Mal: Yeah

Riese: Counterpoint: Shenny.

Gaby: Yeah.

Mal: Shenny.

Gaby: No, Mal, maybe I’ll let you back in the house. I like you a whole lot, so you have a good chance.

Carly: Well, you know what? Everyone, stay tuned to find out if Gaby and Mal survive the next X amount of hours. The other amazing special guests we have who you can see watching us right now, are Brittani and Cerise. They are gonna be chiming in for the second half of the episode and we love them, and we will also make them talk about their dog when it’s their turn.

Riese: Yeah, everyone gets to talk.

Carly: Everyone, I haven’t even talked. I have two dogs, this is gonna take forever. All right. Riese. Should we talk about this episode?

Riese: Yeah, let’s do it. What’s the episode, Carly?

Carly: Oh my God, Riese, it’s episode 509 entitled, “Liquid Heat.”

Riese: Whoa! Whoa.

Carly: Which is the title of Nikki’s terrible movie that was in Episode 508. And I guess it’s like a nod to, the power’s out, everyone’s very sweaty and having a lot of sex, I guess?

Riese: Yes, mhm. It’s also, like if you boil water, then it’s really hot.

Mal: Oh yeah, yeah.

Riese: Do you know what I’m talking about?

Mal: Yeah, like evaporation.

Carly: This is the episode where everyone fucks.

Mal: Does anybody not fuck in this episode, or everybody fucks?

Carly: I think everybody.

Riese: Jodi.

Mal: Jodi, she tries. Yeah, she tried.

Gaby: Adele doesn’t.

Mal: Right.

Riese: Adele doesn’t, that’s true.

Gaby:Well, she gets kissed by accident. Accident.

Carly: By accident, we’ll get to that.

Mal: Yeah, accident.

Carly: This was written by Ilene Chaiken, directed by Rose Troche, and originally aired March 2nd, 2008.

Gaby: Wow.

Carly: Wow, wow, wow. Riese, should we get into it?

Riese: Yeah, you already said Ilene Chaiken wrote it?

Carly: I sure did.

Riese: I just wanna say if by any chance Ilene Chaiken is here, that I would still like an invite to the pool and to make you an Every Plate meal.

Carly: All right, should we get into it?

Riese: Yeah, let’s get super into it.

Carly: Let’s get into it.

Riese: We open on the set of everybody’s favorite, least favorite film, “Lez Girls,” and we hear a voice over: “It’s 101 in the valley and 94 downtown,” to which I say…

Mal: Wait, that’s what it is today.

Carly: Yeah. I thought it was great that we were doing this episode during also a heatwave in LA.

Mal: But it’s not that hot.

Carly: No, it’s fine.

Riese: I mean, it’s practically like Michigan in November in this episode. God. So it’s very hot and also, there’s someone talking about wildfires.

Gaby: Hey! Oh my God.

Riese: I know. It’s so true to life so this is, in fact, the way the way that we live.

Mal: For real.

Riese: Because right now, it’s really hot. There are wildfires.

Gaby: It’s like someone in Toronto knew about LA.

Riese: Exactly, yeah.

Gaby: And then, wrote a show.

Riese: One person and that person was Ilene Chaiken. Uh-huh, or that the environmental problems that were already happening then are like—

Carly: Are like worse now.

Riese: But worse. Wow, anyway, so 94 downtown, it’s not that bad, but apparently, in this retro television program, it was pretty bad, so I’m glad we got that discussed. Also worth noting, this is the only time in the entire series when the changing of the seasons is addressed outside of the menstrual cycles. So it’s basically — we don’t have Christmas, we don’t have any holidays, we just have, we know that this scene is in a 94 degree day, which means it could be anytime between May and December.

Gaby: Yeah. Welcome to Los Angeles.

Carly: Oh, my God. A PA’s handing out water bottles on set. Everyone’s very sweaty. I love how sweaty everyone is in this episode. Like the person who had the spritzer, whose job was to spray every person—

Gaby: I was gonna say.

Carly: Before they rolled, they had so much to do this episode because everyone is dramatically wet. It’s so funny.

Riese: I love it. It was a good representation for hyperhidrosis.

Carly: Oh yay, that’s important.

Riese: Which I have, if any of you also have it.

Carly: Excited for you.

Riese: Then, you’re a really good representation for hyperhidrosis then.

Carly: Aw. So they—

Riese: Greg has an Elmo tattoo.

Carly: Greg, a grown adult man, has an Elmo tattoo on his ass.

Mal: Yeah, was that real or—

Carly: And the makeup won’t stick.

Mal: Or is that just for the character?

Riese: I was like, “Does Eric Mabius have a Elmo tattoo on his ass?” I don’t know.

Gaby: He probably does have an ass tattoo. They were just like, “What is the funniest thing we could say that you have as an ass tattoo?”

Riese: And this was shortly after Tickle Me Elmo. So it was probably really—

Carly: Really topical.

Gaby: That is not true.

Riese: I realized, I realized that as I was saying it. That’s not true.

Carly: Can we—

Mal: L stands for lies.

Carly: Is that your L word? Save that for later, Mal. Can we talk about the decor of this room? What is Tim’s, I’m sorry, was it Jim as fake Tim?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Played by Greg. Jim Greg’s bedroom is bowling themed? What? Who, outside of the age of seven, has a really themed bedroom?

Gaby: Well, I think it’s someone who’s like, “What do men like?” And then, they think and they’re like, “Bowling?”

Carly: But Jenny lived with Tim and he didn’t have a swimming themed bedroom.

Riese: Yeah.

Gaby: Oh! Well maybe they’re like, “Oh, he likes a sport.” And then, they were like, “Sport, sport, sport, think, think, think,” and then, they were like, “Bowling.”

Carly: “Uh, bowling!”

Gaby: Not too much of a masculine sport, a sport that everybody can play.

Mal: Gaby has a themed bedroom.

Gaby: I really don’t know. Shush!

Mal: Gaby has a themed office.

Gaby: Well, we moved in together and so, all of my movie posters have been relegated to this office to live in shame.

Mal: No.

Gaby: Because Mal doesn’t want me to have movie posters in the house.

Mal: How many movie posters do we have in the living room?

Gaby: We have three, but I wanted there to be five.

Mal: Okay, so we all compromised.

Riese: That’s love.

Gaby: That’s amore.

Riese: That, that is amore.

Gaby: It is amore.

Mal: Gaby, just so you know, the chat is saying that you should maybe hang back from your mic a little, little loud in the ear.

Gaby: Oh, okay, I wasn’t sure. Sometimes, when I’m doing my professional podcast, you have to lean closer. It’s called “Just Between Us.” There’s also one called “Bad With Money,” just in case you guys are wondering.

Mal: Wow, this has gone off the rails.

Carly: We’re not even out of the cold open yet.

Gaby: Go go go, I’m sorry. I’m gonna go back here.

Carly: Move back.

Gaby: I’m not gonna say a word. Not saying a word.

Riese: So speaking of amore, Nikki and Greg are supposed to be in bed together, but then, the lights go out and Tina’s like “Aghhh!” And then, we have the “Shit shit shit shit!”

Carly: Yeah, she loves that word.

Carly: She loves saying shit and fuck on the show.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Then, we have our theme song. And when we come back to set, the power’s back. It was like—

Riese: We have a lesbian.

Carly: Yes. I think she’s the AD.

Riese: Yeah, she’s like, “We should shoot while we can,” during rolling blackouts, so she’s very practical and she’s doing a fix. She’s doing a fix, they brought her in to do a fix and I respect it. There is some tension between Nikki and Jenny.

Carly: Yes, there is absolutely some tension. Also, Shane is ready for an earthquake. I just wanna point that out. Shane is like most of—

Riese: Bring it on, bitch.

Carly: “Bring it on, bitch” about an earthquake and I appreciate that. Yeah, so Jenny hates how the scene is going and she was trying to give them notes and she’s like, “You don’t wanna fuck this guy. That’s like the last thing you wanna do because you’re in love with Karina.” And Nikki’s like, “But he’s my boyfriend of three years. Why would I not wanna fuck him?” And so they have to have this entire notes conversation and then, they try again and then, she’s really angry. And now, Jenny’s like, “Oh, you fucked him in real life.” And she’s correct. What? How?

Riese: First of all, I have some notes for this film. Have they considered that while Jessie was in bed with Greg, Tim, Jim, whatever, on top of her, that when she looked up at his head, that suddenly it turned into Karina’s head.

Carly: Oh, interesting.

Gaby: I like that!

Mal: That happened on my screen.

Gaby: Well, here’s the thing. Jenny seems really upset about her reaction, but in the actual shot that she’s looking at on the monitor, you cannot see Nikki’s reaction.

Mal: You don’t.

Gaby: You cannot see her face at all. You just see his butt, so what is she upset about?

Mal: She didn’t like the butt’s attitude.

Carly: The butt was not reading the way she needed it to.

Gaby: I completely forgot that the names are so similar and I was like, “This is me if I ever write a script about all of us, it’s just fully—

Carly: Oh my God, wait, what are our names? What are our names if you write a script about us? Tell us now, on the spot.

Gaby: Like, Niese, Barly, Sal, you know what I mean?

Carly: Barly, Barly.

Mal: Harley, Harley is a real name and you went with Barly?

Gaby: Oh, Harley.

Carly: Nope. Nope, sorry, Barly’s it.

Gaby: I didn’t think about it that hard.

Carly: We are keeping Barly.

Gaby: And then, well, Brittani and I wrote something together and I just named a character straight up, Brittani. Like I didn’t even change it.

Mal: Spelled the same too?

Gaby: Spelled the same, yeah, whatever. Sue me, you can’t.

Carly: Brittani can sue you.

Gaby: No.

Carly: Brittani’s going to sue you.

Gaby: But I just think like, that’s so funny. Like you’re not even trying.

Riese: No.

Gaby: It’s beautiful.

Carly: No, Jenny hasn’t made a single effort.

Gaby: Now as people who work in Hollywood, do you think that this is an accurate portrayal of a set?

Carly: No, not at all.

Gaby: I don’t either.

Carly: This is the most unprofessional workplace I’ve ever seen.

Mal: Well, this is my question and I asked Gaby and Drew, and nobody had the answer for me, but if there were rolling blackouts, would they keep rolling because that seems like an insurance liability, right?

Gaby: I don’t think they would keep shooting.

Carly: I don’t either. I don’t either. There’s not enough generators to power everything, you know?

Gaby: Well also, Jenny wouldn’t be directing this. She’s a first time director, she’s a queer woman.

Carly: Girl, we have talked about this ad nauseum, about how the most unrealistic part of the show is that Jenny got to direct this movie.

Gaby: Yeah, it’s ridiculous. So anyway, it’s not really an accurate set, but what are you gonna do?

Riese: Then Jenny’s like, “It is a violent, despicable act.” And then also, she says, “It’s a violent and despicable act to fuck your co-star.” It’s even worse than fucking your employee, apparently?

Carly: She made this announcement loudly in the middle of the set in front of everybody.

Jenny scolding Niki on the set of Lez Girls

Mal: But everybody fucks their co-stars, right?

Riese: Yeah, I mean, look at … straight people?

Mal: I watched Brokeback Mountain yesterday.

Gaby: Did you just say, “Look at, uh, straight people?”

Riese: Here’s who I was thinking of….. I know these. Jennifer, no — Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt met on the set of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.”

Gaby: Okay.

Riese: Exactly, it happens, and you know what? I think probably people, I don’t know, who knows what they were doing on this set. Other sets that we know about, but also, so another funny thing about this. So Jenny fires him, which is funny because the original Tim was fired, but for not a very different reason.

Mal: What?

Carly: Oh, that’s right. The first Tim, before they reached out the pilot, right? Is that what you’re talking about?

Mal: Wasn’t it Eric Mabius?

Carly: No, before. Wasn’t someone else cast before Eric Mabius?

Riese: There was someone before Eric.

Carly: Mubias, Eric maybe, yeah.

Mal: May-bius? There was another Tim?!

Carly: I believe so, back when the show was called “Earthlings,” I think there was another Tim.

Riese: No, there was another Tim.

Gaby: It was Leonardo DiCaprio, but he got busy. He had to shoot The Beach.

Riese: You wanna know the truth?

Carly: Yeah.

Gaby: What, tell us.

Riese: He got in trouble, I think for, I wanna say, oh God, I can’t get this wrong on a live show. Do you know, Cerise? I think it was statutory rape.

Mal: Yikes.

Gaby: Someone in the chat says yeah.

Mal: Also, the chat is like, “Why are Brittani and Cerise not talking?” They’re the second half of the show.

Gaby: We’re gonna switch off.

Mal: And then, me and Gaby will go away.

Riese: You’ll still be there, but muted.

Mal: Yeah.

Carly: So, how ’bout we go to the second scene of the episode, guys?

Riese: Okay, yeah.Phyllis’ office on a hot day. A hot day for Phyllis.

Carly: Whoa, it’s a scorcher.

Riese: A scorcher, Joyce is dressed like Roger Rabbit and Phyllis is fanning herself, as one does.

Carly: Joyce — she’s just wearing a tank top and pants now. She’s just taking off her clothes.

Riese: Mhmm. Yeah well, she’s warm. Everyone’s a little warm.

Carly: Well, I think the theme of this episode is that everyone’s a little warm.

Riese: Right, “Liquid Heat.” Anyway, they crushed it in court. And as usual, Phyllis, instead of parenting her own child, would like to just thrust a lesbian she knows in front of her child because Molly’s having second thoughts about law school, and so she should meet Joyce. And Joyce will definitely make her wanna go back to law school.

Carly: Yeah, that’s inspiring.

Riese: Okay.

Carly: Then, Phyllis tries to get back with Joyce, a little bit. She’s like, “Oh, if I hadn’t been so foolish…” And then, I wrote this whole quote down, because I thought you would wanna hear it, Riese.

Riese: I do wanna hear it.

Carly: Joyce: “It’s understandable, given that we just had this little triumph together and given how smoldering hot the two of us were in the sack, it’s understandable that you might be feeling a tiny bit amorous towards me right now. I’m just trying to stand by my convictions here, my dear, but you are making it awfully difficult in that sweet little slip of a frock.” Incredible stuff.

Joyce telling Phyllis that she is sitting on her shirt

Gaby: Is this a bad time to say that Joyce reminds me of my therapist?

Carly: No, this seems like the best time to say that.

Mal: I could see that.

Gaby: Like a lot, right? Well yeah, it’s funny that Jane Lynch has gone from this kind of stuff to hosting game shows for middle America. When she’s got such strong top energy and then, everyone’s just like, Glee. And I’m like, “You don’t even have any concept.”

Carly: You know what I’ll say? And this is one of those, “I shouldn’t say this on a live show, but I’m gonna say it.” Ever since the wine cave incident, she kinda went down an Ellen path.

Gaby: Oh, no no no, she was very mean to my ex girlfriend. We do not like her.

Mal: I met her once, she was quite nice to me. I don’t know what the wine cave event is, though.

Gaby: She said that everyone has a wine cave, okay?

Carly: And that it was fine.

Gaby: Pete Buttigieg is fine.

Riese: What’s a wine cave?

Mal: Sometimes, that’s what I call my butt hole, so—

Gaby: The wine cave?

Carly: Yeah, yeah.

Mal: What is she talking about?

Riese: Yeah, who doesn’t want a wine bottle in the butt hole? Everyone wants that.

Gaby: Jane Lynch, I challenge you to a top off. Put up your dukes, gentlemen.

Carly: Are you gonna fight Jane Lynch, Gaby?

Gaby: I’ll fight her, yes.

Mal: No, not again.

Carly: Oh wow, I would love that.

Gaby: I will fight her. I don’t have anything to lose. I’m a controversial figure. I’ll fight her right now.

Mal: Gaby, you have to stop fighting people from Glee.

Carly: So we go to The Planet.

Riese: Where Alice and Tasha are bringing ice.

Carly: Yeah, we got some bags of ice, very exciting. Every time they’re at The Planet, we get some exciting exposition about what’s going on.

Riese: Yeah, what’s the exposition this time?

Carly: This big event is the showdown with the SheBar bitches, as the character would say, in the scene. Did they say SheBitches, right?

Kit at The Planet

Riese: Uh-huh, yeah.

Carly: It’s very funny. So I guess the SheBar gals have invited the whole cast to come and sit down and have a little chit chat, despite really, it just being a thing they wanted to talk to Kit about, but the whole group. Whole group gets to go, everybody’s goin’.

Riese: Because it’s funnier that way.

Gaby: It’s fun! It’s like a little mob thing, like it’s cute. This show likes to skip genres, ya know?

m I like when it’s self referential in the—

Riese: Yeah.

Mal: Alice is like, “Yeah, well we met one time, but I guess I’m going,” you know?

Carly: Yeah, so she’s like, “I’ll be there.”

Riese: The other thing about this scene is that Tasha looked really cute.

Carly: Yeah.

Mal: Mm.

Gaby: And Cindi’s look is a reference to Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface, right?

Riese: You’re skipping ahead.

Carly: We’re not on that scene yet, Gaby.

Gaby: Oh, I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry, oh, I’m sorry.

Carly: You’re jumping ahead, a little bit.

Riese: Mal’s face.

Carly: So we’re back at set and Tina yells at Jenny because she fired Greg and she’s like, “Please don’t fire Greg, you need to un-fire Greg.” And then, Adele has orchestrated William to call and ask Jenny to un-fire Greg. Is that an accurate reading of the situation? Adele is still scamming, scamming around.

Riese: Yeah, she’s jumping in and saving the day, just like scammers always do.

Carly: Gotta love the sell, just always gotta save the day.

Riese: Always there to save the day and then, Jenny’s like, “Has anyone seen the dumbshit actor boy?” And then she’s like — I actually related to this moment. She’s like, “I can tell that everyone’s talking about me right now. Listen to me. I’m sorry I lost my temper, he’s no longer fired.” And also, I had a question about the scene, which is why is everyone wearing pants if it’s so hot?

Carly: Yeah, that’s a good question.

Gaby: That is true. Well on a set, isn’t it because it’s dangerous if you’re not wearing pants?

Carly: That’s just a close toed shoes situation.

Gaby: Close toed shoes.

Carly: Yeah.

Gaby: I work in Hollywood, so—

Mal: I mean, they’d all be wearing shorts and docs, right?

Gaby: Yeah.

Carly: Yeah, exactly.

Gaby: It’s very unprofessional that she fired him in front of everybody, right? But that, I guess directors are allowed to be nuts. That’s sort of what we’ve all decided? But not lady directors. Only male directors are allowed to be nuts.

Carly: Yeah, that’s fair.

Riese: That’s fair.

Carly: That is fair. Jenny has been unprofessional since day one of this project. So her firing someone in the middle of screaming at her girlfriend, who is the lead, is pretty par for the course. Like none of this is that shocking, given her pattern of behavior, but no, this is very bad.

Jenny announcing to her crew that Greg is un-fired

Riese: I would say if Jenny wasn’t fucking Nikki, that Nikki and Greg’s decision to fuck each other would be unprofessional enough that maybe, Jenny could be unprofessional in return.

Gaby: Like Jenny has a leg to stand on.

Carly: Zero legs.

Gaby: Zero legs to stand on.

Riese: Zero legs and they’re both in pants, both of her legs. Both of Jenny’s legs are in pants, and I think she’s probably very hot, because she’s wearing all black. Maybe she has hyperhidrosis.

Carly: Oh, maybe.

Riese: Anyway, speaking of pools of sweat, we go to Bette’s swimming pool, where Jodi’s just gonna walk in like Ophelia and—

Carly: I loved that. I was like, “Great, perfect.”

Riese: So hot.

Carly: Just walk right into the pool with your clothes on. I love it.

Riese: She pulls a real Virginia Woolf.

Carly: Rocks in her pockets.

Gaby: I’ve done that. I’ve done that, though.

Riese: Did you find your clothes to be very heavy afterwards?

Gaby: Yes.

Carly: It’s hard to then get your clothes off.

Gaby: How are you gonna be like a dramatic teen living in south Florida if you don’t walk straight into the pool in a haze of sadness, believing yourself to be the lead in a Sylvia Plath novel?

Mal: I don’t think Jodi was sad.

Gaby: No, she was just hot.

Carly: No, she was just warm.

Mal: She was just hot.

Gaby: And she’s hot, she’s good lookin’.

Carly: I went swimming in clothes when I was in Orlando in college, so that’s just a Florida thing.

Gaby: Carly, do you remember this conversation we had where I said, “Oh my God, I used to shoplift.” Oh, you said, “I used to work at an Urban Outfitters in Orlando,” and I said, “Oh my God, that’s so funny. I used to shoplift from there.” Do you remember that?

Carly: I do. I do.

Gaby: It was so beautiful.

Carly: I know.

Gaby: And now, we’re friends with each other.

Carly: I know. I had a friend at the time who shoplifted from the Urban Outfitters I worked in, while I was on the clock and I had no idea. And if he had gotten caught, I would have gotten fired.

Gaby:Well, you didn’t know me. So you wouldn’t have gotten fired. But we would have met each other a long time ago, like in Lost where they kind of know each other, but then, they like are on the plane, but they don’t remember.

Carly: Wait Gaby, what if that’s how we met? Like I was the manager and it was part of my job that I had to call the cops and report you for shoplifting after I caught you and then, that’s how we met and became friends?

Mal: Was that part of your job?

Gaby: And then, we’re married. What part of this do we end up married?

Mal: They didn’t really care, right?

Carly: All parts of it.

Mal: They really made you call the cops?

Carly: Yes, Mal, they did. Anyway, .

Gaby: Not if we take off running.

Carly: That’s true, if you took off running, they wouldn’t want me to risk my life.

Gaby: They can’t catch you.

Carly: Falling down and injuring myself, which I would have done. So anyway, where are we? Oh yeah, at the pool.

Riese: We’re at the pool and Bette said they canceled classes at wherever, California, Carly University.

Carly: Carly University.

Riese: Who calls? It’s Tina and so Bette goes to her freezer and then covers herself in ice cream with her top off. And then, she’s like, “Tina, we can’t go to SheBar together.” And she was like, “We’ll just die. We’ll take each other’s clothes off if we’re both at SheBar,” and then she’s like, “My clothes are already off.” And then, it’s low-key dirty talk, I think. And then, Tina says that Angie made a fan, which is obviously a cover for the fact that Angie is missing and no one has seen her. And then—

Bette in pearls with her blouse open, standing in front of her open freezer to get cooler

Carly: Like where is Angie? Is she okay, where is she?

Riese: With a fan.

Mal: I don’t know, she’s probably with Helena’s kids, somewhere.

Riese: Probably. Bette’s like, “You can come over to my pool.” And Tina’s like, “No, I can’t.” Again, covering. And then, Bette tells Jodi that they’re gonna go see Dan Foxworthy.

Carly: He’s the only therapist in West Hollywood, apparently.

Riese: They could be going to Gaby’s therapist, Jane Lynch.

Gaby: Yeah, Kristen, my lesbian therapist who one time, she said to me, “I see a lot of Hollywood lesbians.” That’s what she said, so maybe she’s Jane Lynch’s therapist.

Carly: That would be a real moment.

Mal: That’s gonna be a real conflict once you and Jane Lynch get into a fist fight.

Carly: Get into a blood feud with Jane Lynch. So Bette’s like, “Hey Jodi, we’re having parenting disagreements. We have to go to therapy.” and Jodi’s like, “Good for you!” But she meant it legitimately because she wants Bette to take care of her mental health. And really, once again, I would just like to ask Jodi to get the fuck out of there because these people are terrible to her and she doesn’t know what’s coming.

Gaby: She’s the best and she’s so pretty.

Carly: I know, so we’re back on set and Tina heads on to the old camera truck to tell Sam that they’re gonna shut down production for the day, which they probably shoulda done a while ago. Then, she asks Sam out and Sam’s like, “Nah, that dinner party was very awkward.” It was.

Gaby: The two healthy people, Jodi and Jodi.

Mal: Sam and Jodi!

Gaby: Sam and Jodi.

Mal: Sam and Jodi get together.

Carly: They get to get together.

Riese: Yeah, yes, Sam could get right out of that bandana and into a pool.

Carly: Exactly.

Gaby: Yeah, Sam’s hot too.

Carly: Yeah, so Tina does this thing. Yeah, she just unloads everything on Sam and Sam is like, “I really would love to not be in this conversation.” And she’s like, “I just really feel for Jodi,” which was the best thing she could have possibly said. Tina’s like, “Okay, bye!” That’s the extent. Like she can’t, no, she’s out. What happened?

Tina telling Sam that she is seeing a therapist with Bette, in a trailer on the set of Lez girls

Gaby: It’s so startling when you see healthy people on this show that it almost seems jarring.

Carly: Yeah, yeah.

Riese: Mhm.

Gaby: Like when people make a—

Mal: And you’re like, “You’re not on the right show.”

Gaby: Yeah, when people make a good decision or say something reasonable, I’m like what? Look at this fuckin’ show.

Carly: Get out, wrong set. We see Jenny run up to Nikki’s trailer, but Nikki is already gone for the day. We go back to Bette’s backyard.

Riese: They’re awkward.

Carly: Jodi flings her wet hair all over Bette, who’s sitting on a chair, and Bette hates it. And then, Jodi wants them to do it and Bette is like, “No, it’s too hot out,” and Jodi’s like “No, that’s not it.” And I was like, “Here we go.”

Gaby: Yeah.

Riese: Like you could feel it. We’ve all been there. Not exactly, but—

Mal: When you’re like , where you’re getting cranky or like, “Don’t touch me,” that thing? Or where you’re like, “I know you’re lying about something.”

Carly: Both.

Riese: Both.

Carly: But it never happened at my pool because I’ve never had a pool, so I feel like if it was happening at a pool, then maybe, I would feel less bad about it because I’d be like, “It’s okay because I could be swimming anytime I want.”

Jodi kissing Bette while they are both wet from the pool

Riese: Yeah, one time, I had a boyfriend who cheated on me with a lifeguard at the pool that he was a lifeguard at.

Carly: Oof.

Gaby: Lifeguard on lifeguard crime?

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, she was a really good swimmer.

Carly: They’re supposed to be saving lives, not ruining them. What?

Riese: I can barely swim, whatever. Okay.

Gaby: Carly!

Riese: And then, Bette turns away and said — this is so mean — she turns away and is like, “I’m in love with Tina.” Of course, Jodi doesn’t hear what she said. And then, Bette lies and is like, “I’m just unhappy with work,” which isn’t—

Carly: That was horrible, because she did her dirty.

Gaby: This is so rough.

Carly: That is brutal, that is so fucked to do that. To say how you really feel facing away from her? Fuck you, Bette.

Mal: Yeah.

Carly: That is so low.

Gaby: Yeah, that’s very, very—

Carly: “I’m stressed out about work.”

Riese: Horrible.

Mal: The way I read that scene is that she does it by accident, unthinking. However, somebody wrote that scene, so that sucks.

Carly: Right, yeah. Whether she did it on purpose or not, someone wrote it into the script.

Mal: Yes.

Riese: I have a theory.

Mal: Go on.

Gaby: What?

Riese: It’s that they wrote it so that they could use it in the teaser, the week before.

Mal: Oh.

Carly: Yeah.

Gaby: Spot on.

Carly: Well-played.

Gaby: Spot on.

Riese: I’m so smart.

Carly: You did it.

Gaby: You are smart.

Carly: You did it, Riese, you solved television.

Riese: I did it! Anyway, Jodi’s like, “I want you back,” which is a really good song. And then, we go back to set, where Jenny’s sitting outside her trailer, she’s writing a note to Nikki. Hopefully, it’s about her entrails. And then she gives it to Adele to give to Nikki, which is terrible idea.

Carly: Very bad idea.

Riese: And then, Shane’s like, “Come over here.” And then, they sit together and again, this little scene shows up in a lot of Shenny fan vids.

Carly: Number one Shenny fan, Riese, there.

Gaby: Link in the description for all the Shenny fan vids that Riese wants you guys to watch. The link in the description.

Mal: I was never a big Shenny fan, with them together, but watching this scene, I was like, “I wonder if those actors ever hooked up? Because they do have a chemistry.

Riese: Oo.

Carly: They do have a chemistry, I’ll give them that.

Gaby: Probably.

Riese: Probably, everyone on sets hooks up.

Gaby: Yeah, it would be disgusting and unprofessional.

Carly: So yeah, she wants Adele to put the note in an envelope, read it first, and then give it to Nikki. This is a terrible idea.

Jenny sitting outside of a Lez Girls trailer showing Adele a love letter she wrote

Gaby: Yeah, so if I was gonna write a love letter to someone, I would not give it to a go-between, like it’s fucking medieval times. And then, like, have you ever heard of an email?

Mal: Y’all have cell phones. Yeah, you’ve got cell phones.

Gaby: Have you ever heard of cell phone?

Carly: Or text.

Gaby: So weird. Like, go to their house and leave it on their doorstep. Why are you giving this to someone else? A, they’re gonna read it. B, they’ll probably fuck with it somehow.

Mal: This is the thing about Adele, is they don’t see her as a person.

Gaby: Right, like she’s just an assistant, but even then—

Carly: Yeah.

Mal: That’s what proves to be the, they kind of arrange their own demise.

Carly: Exactly.

Carly: Because they just treat her like she’s not a person and then—

Riese: Adele’s devotion to her, because of her fandom also. So Jenny says she doesn’t wanna go to SheBar. She wants to wait for Nikki, but she’ll go with Shane. She asked what Shane would do and Shane’s like, “I would probably have meaningless sex and then feel bad about it,” which was a cute little convo. And then, Shane says that she’s got a straight girl crush that won’t go away. Wahhh. That’s the sound I like to make. It’s just also the sound of like a dying duck.

Shane and Jenny sitting outside the trailer at Lez Girls

Carly: Oh, my God. Okay, so here we go. It’s the big SheBar mafia scene.

Gaby: So awesome.

Carly: Honestly, this was wonderful. I would like to say, as a note, I watched this during the day. And so considering the power is out, I could barely see any of the scenes in this episode. It was mostly—

Riese: Yeah, that’s how felt about “Little Women,” it was very dark, I couldn’t see it.

Gaby: I feel like I’m very old because there’s some shows I just cannot watch because the screen is too dark. Daredevil, couldn’t get into Daredevil. Ozark, very dark.

Riese: Yeah, Ozark is really dark, it’s either blue or dark. And also, it’s like—

Gaby: Yeah, this is my complaint. If you’re making a television show, if it’s too dark, I can’t watch it.

Mal: But you love David Fincher.

Gaby: I do.

Carly: His stuff is lit, it’s lit.

Gaby: It’s lit.

Carly: I don’t mean that in a cool teen way. I mean, literally, he spends a lot of time on lighting. Anyway, so there’s—

Riese: Has hired these women in white tank tops.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: Low shorts and fedoras.

Mal: Yeah.

Riese: Which I feel is an accurate lesbian go-go dancer look. And they’re bringing a little tray of beverages, like this is business class or something. For some reason, some people had ordered hot espressos, even though it’s a warm day.

Carly: 900 degrees?

Gaby: Right.

Carly: They have to see if they’re on the list. They—

Riese: Pat them.

Carly: They like, pat them down for weapons? Like what is this? And there’s cigars, I mean, it’s a whole thing. So Dawn thinks that she and Lover Cindi are the real victims here and that this is all Shane’s fault for seducing Lover Cindi. And Shane’s like—

Gaby: That’s so dumb.

Riese: Honestly, this reminded me of arguing with somebody who is making you miserable because they refuse to acknowledge a reality of a situation. And you’re just having the same arguments over and over and over again.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: She’s like, “That’s not what happened.” And she’s like, “That is what happened.” And it’s really just deeply painful, but what I was really wondering was what was Cindi’s hair, do you think, an homage to?

Gaby: Oh, thank you so much! Okay, here we go, guys. It’s Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface.

Riese: Oh.

Gaby: Or Drew Barrymore in Scream.

rRiese: Oh, or what about—

Mal: I don’t think it’s an homage to Drew Barrymore in Scream.

Gaby: I think it is and I’ll tell you why. Beause it’s scary.

Carly: Oh, my God. Okay, so—

Gaby: Are you saying that because you know that it’s an homage to Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface, and I’m being obvious?

Mal: No, I’ve actually never seen Scarface, but I have seen Scream.

Carly: I haven’t, I haven’t.

Riese: Same, same as Mal.

Gaby: Oh.

Mal: Yeah.

Gaby: I thought you were making fun of me for saying something obvious. But I see now, you were making fun of me for saying something obscure. Okay. That’s fine, either one, I’m used to it.

Mal: I don’t think anyone was making fun of you.

Carly: Are you guys gonna break up? I don’t wanna be a part of it.

Gaby: No, we’re great.

Carly: Okay, so here’s what’s up. Dawn claims that they did not have permits to be shooting in the neighborhood they were shooting in — several episodes ago when she came to set to shut them down. And I think that that is undoubtedly bullshit, that this studio film would not have had permits to be shooting in a neighborhood.

Mal: Also like, what a turd, you called the cops, like what are you?

Carly: She showed up to set. She showed up to set, angrily.

Riese: Yeah, and this one gay extra.

Mal: Oh, no, they called the cops on the cafe.

Riese: Yeah. No, Kit called the cops.

Carly: No, Kit called the cops on them to retaliate on them, unleashing a bunch of rats into The Planet and having them be shut down for two weeks. I just made that up. I don’t know how many weeks they were down.

Riese: Yeah, it was a while.

Carly: Significant.

Riese: But this scene is filled with iconic dialogue that Lauren will put into the podcast.

Carly: Indeed.

Riese: But I guess, she can’t put it in right now. So I guess we’ll just have to tell you about it, which is Shane’s like, “Let your girlfriend talk.” And then Dawn’s like, “She’s got nothing to say.” And then Cindi’s like, “Go fuck yourself.” And then Shane’s like, “See, I thought that was something.”

Cindi in a wig tells Dawn to go fuck herself

Mal: Great, Shane.

Riese: They’re like, “Who are you?” to Tasha and Kit’s like, “Tasha’s here to kick ass and take names.” And then, there’s chaos, and then, Bette Porter is like, “Enough.” She stands up.

Carly: She stands up.

Riese: And everyone else sits down.

Carly: Bette Porter is now standing. Everyone’s sitting and Bette Porter is pacing around the room.

Riese: Mans the room.

Mal: Hot.

Riese: Yeah, she’s pacing. She’s gonna mediate this conflict.

Carly: Is this a meeting-wide top-off?

Riese: Yes.

Mal: Well no, she won immediately.

Carly: Well, she stood up and everybody else was sitting down. So she’s—

Mal: Yeah so she won the top-off. Yeah. But then, she makes the worst deal.

Carly: Of all time.

Mal: Yeah.

Riese: Yeah, they gave up too much in this deal.

Carly: This is a terrible deal.

Mal: What did Kit get? Kit got nothing.

Carly: Nothing.

Riese: Kit got the promise, or not the promise, but the expectation they would not attempt to further unleash animals in her establishment, or otherwise terrorize her. I would have given up on my entire business if I had been in that endless fight that her and Shane were having, it would have driven me nuts. So I don’t know. But they split up the days, like this is like a divorce.

Carly: Hollywood lesbian scene.

Gaby: Can I just say, I would kill for there to be two different lesbian establishments in West Hollywood. Are you kidding me!?

Carly: Or anywhere.

Gaby: There’s not even one. We get the chapel at The Abbey and that’s full of YouTubers who hate me.

Mal: That sounds like a personal problem.

Carly: Yeah, that does sound like more of a Gaby thing.

Gaby: I’m just saying two?! That would be amazing.

Carly: It would be.

Gaby: I want that to happen for us.

Carly: We don’t have any lesbian bars.

Gaby: We don’t have anything.

Carly: I mean, we can’t go anywhere, but you know if we did, it would be nice to have a lesbian bar—

Riese: Yeah, if this were taking place in 2019, they’d be like, “Okay, you get the first Sunday in June and I’ll take the first Sunday in July,” because there’s really only 12 days a year that need to be split up. But here they are, seven days a week of lesbians, even though most of them are probably just actors who are in the show. Anyway, so Cindi also would like to be in the film and Jenny’s like—

Carly: This is part of the negotiation.

Riese: She has a Facebook extra, which is funny. And then, Jenny is like, “She’s psycho and tacky. What do I do?” And Shane’s like, “Just give her a little part.” And so Cindi will be “party goer number four.”

Carly: Which fucking Cindi agrees, to which I was shocked by. I thought she was gonna be like, “A role with a number in it? No, I’m not taking that,” but she did. So she’s an idiot, but it’s great.

Riese: It was great.

Carly: It was great.

Mal: Mia Kirshner is so adorable in this episode.

Riese: Isn’t she?

Carly: She’s amazing in this scene. Like, she’s just like, so funny in the scene.

Mal: She’s such a comedic actress.

Gaby: Mal, the whole time, you were saying how cute she looks. You have a very big crush on her in her little black outfit with her big earrings.

Jenny whispers to Shane "I think she's psychotic." Close up on Jenny's face.

Mal: Oh yeah and the glasses, sometimes.

Riese: Yeah.

Gaby: Yeah, that’s a good vibe.

Mal: She’s a boss.

Carly: They try to leave. They try to leave and Dawn’s like, “I’m not done, I need Alice now.” So everyone’s involved, this is why she invited everybody. “Well, I need Alice to shout out SheBar on The Look.”

Riese: Yeah and Alice is like, “No, that’s worth millions of dollars.” And then, they’re like—

Carly: Exactly.

Riese: But I have a question because we mention SheBar on our podcast all the time, and what have we gotten out of that?

Carly: That’s true.

Mal: Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Riese: That’s true.

Mal: And Dawn Denbo isn’t putting rats into your apartment.

Carly: Oh my God, if Dawn Denbo brought rats to my apartment, I would be so mad at Dawn Denbo.

Gaby: Did you ever have a rat as a pet? I did.

Carly: No, that sounds like a Florida thing.

Gaby: It is.

Riese: My little brother did. He had two white rats as pets and they had red eyes and then, they had an allergic reaction to something and they scratched off their own eyeballs. So their eyeballs were bleeding, but my brother still didn’t wanna get rid of them. But then eventually, I went to summer camp and my dad sent me drawings he did of the rats losing their eyeballs. And then eventually, by the time I got back from summer camp, they were dead.

Gaby: Sometimes, Riese, I’m like, “You get me. You and I are the same, you get me.”

Carly: That was incredible. All right, so that all worked out. They have a deal, they shake on it. And then miraculously, the power comes back on at this exact moment. And then someone’s like, “Did you decorate this in the 80s?” Which now it would be cute.

Lights are on in the meeting room and someone asks if it was decorated in the 80s. Focus on Shane in a blue t-shirt looking confused.

Carly: Oh my God, we go—

Riese: The running bit. But the running bit continues, which is Cindi being like, “Hi, Shane.”

Carly: Oh yeah. That’s a good bit, I enjoy that bit. So we go back to The Planet. There’s no AC at The Planet, but the power’s back on, and Alice really wants to film her podcast video interview with Max.

Gaby: Oh no. Put on your seat belts, everyone.

Carly: So in recent episodes, it’s been really nice, the past few episodes.

Riese: Mmhm.

Carly: It’s been nice there’s been no transphobia, but that’s because Max hasn’t been in the last three episodes.

Riese: He had a short scene in one of the episodes and in the other two episodes, he just wasn’t there at all, which was very good for him.

Carly: It was great for him, I hope he was hanging out with some people who like him, and understand him, and aren’t terrible to him. So Max is back and this scene is a real fucking nightmare. Also, you should note that Shane is operating the camera. This will become important in a moment and—

Mal: Operating the camera.

Carly: Yeah, exactly.

Riese: Shane has no idea what she’s doing and although it happens a little bit later, it is worth noting that this is an accurate representation of what a video camera did look like at that time, including the effects available for usage while filming.

Carly: Yes, that is accurate in 2008.

Riese: They’re doing a apology video because—

Carly: Just like Michael Scott.

Mal: For the podcast.

Gaby: It’s just every YouTuber sitting, crying, being like—

Carly: Well, Gaby’s not nearly as good at this as YouTubers of today, because she’s not crying and she’s deeply insincere.

Gaby: I never apologize.

Mal: You apologize.

Gaby: I won’t apologize.

Carly: I’m gonna find a situation where you have to apologize. I’m gonna personally create—

Gaby: No, they’ve happened a bunch of times.

Mal: She apologizes all the time, yeah.

Riese: Alice says that, apparently, she won’t even say it. She won’t even admit to doing it. She’ll say, “Apparently,” she said some uncool things about trans people, but apparently also, she didn’t really give a shit that she’d said uncool things about trans people until Kate Kendall from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, got mad at her about it.

Gaby: I don’t understand why they have her doing this, and then looking so annoyed to be doing it. It’s like a manifestation of the writers themselves, being annoyed to be having to do it. And since Alice is the main character that we’ve come to know, like we’re supposed to be in on the joke with her. We’re supposed to also be rolling our eyes and being like, “Ugh. This is so PC and stupid.”

Carly: Exactly.

Gaby: We’re supposed to be on Alice’s side, even though in this scene, it’s clearly Max who’s in the right.

Carly: 100%

Mal: Well, that’s something that happened all the time in that season, where they would put transphobic comments in Alice’s mouth, in pretty much everyone’s mouth.

Carly: Kit, Bette.

Mal: Some of the most loved characters, you know?

Carly: Yeah.

Mal: And that’s what was weird because I kept waiting for the teaching moment and then, I was like, “Oh, I guess not.”

Carly: I was really happy that Max was telling Alice how he felt and making a lot of really good points about how he would think that she would be inclusive. Then, she gets into this whole thing about how being bisexual is more natural than being trans.

Gaby: Can I say something? Can I say something? People say that and then, they think that bi trans people don’t exist.

Carly: Right, exactly.

Gaby: They’re like, “You know, the bis and the transes,” and I’m like, “Those are the same. Those can be the same, those are the same.”

Carly: Never the twain shall meet.

Gaby: And I also — I just don’t understand the whole thing. So she’s annoyed and Shane also doesn’t care and is like not caring about where the camera is and stuff. They’re all just put upon by having to care about trans people.

Carly: Yes, yes.

Gaby: Like, “Ugh, it’s so exhausting.”

Mal: It also went from like okay, if you had stayed longer on that scene, because they were talking about, she’s like, “Okay, the parts of the community…” and blah, blah, blah. Like they could have some discourse about what parts of the community, blah, blah, blah. But then out of nowhere, she was just like, “I don’t know, I just think you’re unnatural.” What the fuck?

Riese: Yeah.

Mal: No transition into that.

Gaby: Max stands up for himself, but he’s also a pushover. So he doesn’t really fight back. He kinda does, but not, he’s just not a fiery personality.

Carly: No.

Mal: And he’s an outsider to the group.

Carly: Yes, absolutely. Still, after all this time, he is still an outsider to this group.

Riese: So we cut away really quick to Bette bringing up drinks for her and Tina, Kit suspecting something’s up with that. And then, we go back to the show and Max is saying, “Well, at least Alice is a better boss” than his boss at In Tech Mode.

Mal: The fish nor fowl guy?

Riese: What?

Mal: Is that the fish nor fowl guy?

Riese: Oh no, that was—

Carly: No, that was his coworker. So I wanna say something about Shane with the camera and how Shane fucking around with this camera, all you had to do was make sure it was, you didn’t need to move the camera. You just needed to make sure it was rolling. So by fucking around with the camera, changing all the settings, zooming in on boobs at another table and some girl’s terrible tattoo.

Riese: That tattoo!

Carly: By doing all this, Shane has completely de-legitimized everything that Max is saying. So now, the audience watching this, not only is hearing Alice’s put upon, bullshit, nonexistent apology. They’re also seeing that Shane doesn’t give a shit. And so in the context of the treatment of Max on the show, this is beyond insulting and it almost feels like the writers of the show themselves trying to fake apologize for how they’ve treated Max for all these years, and it’s garbage, and I hate it, and it’s just absolutely gross.

Mal: I didn’t even think about that, that makes so much sense.

Riese: And also, it feels like they don’t think the scene was important enough on its own, like they had to add a joke to it, they had to put this Shane with the camera joke on top of it because they actually didn’t really want people to be paying attention to it or to get anything out of it.

Carly: Yeah, exactly.

Riese: They needed an extra joke, like having Max trying to talk about trans inclusion while they’re filming, it’s so… tacky.

Shot of Max through the video camera, for which Shane is employing special effects

Carly: It’s gross, it’s super tacky and I would want to encourage everyone who hasn’t to watch Disclosure on Netflix, because there’s a really incredible section in disclosure where they talk about The L Word and the terribly problematic representation of Max on the show, and one of the things that is pointed out in the documentary, which I was like, “Oh duh, of course,” is just that the show and the writers on the show are coming from a place of like, “We are cis lesbians and this is our view on things.” And so it’s through that lens that we see Max and this scene is such a great representation of how problematic that can be.

Riese: Yeah. Every scene with Max in it is a great representation.

Carly: True, but there’s something extra shitty about this one where they’re literally like, “We don’t even wanna apologize, like Max is making us apologize. And like, we can’t even operate a camera. Like, oh my God, you guys, there’s so much going on that we could not possibly be fucking paying attention.”

Riese: One thing that Zeke talked about when he was on the show with us that I thought of here is at the end, when Max says that, “Well, at least you’re a better boss than my other boss,” that it’s setting an example of you should settle for this mediocre fucking treatment. Like they sent that message to him when he was growing up, that this is the best you’re gonna get, in terms of a community, is these people who are like, “At least, they’re better than your other boss.” And that’s bullshit and no one should—

Carly: Max says in that same line, the rest of that line is, “Even though you’re transphobic.” That’s what Max says to her, so that’s cool.

Mal: Also, it’s like, how long have they been friends, at this point, you know? It’s like…

Riese: Three years? Two years?

Mal: Yeah, it’s not like—

Carly: He works for her.

Mal: Yeah, it’s not like you’re learning still. It’s like, this is somebody who you’ve known for years.

Carly: Yeah, yeah.

Mal: It sucks.

Carly: So we have reached the point in our show, this is essentially the halfway point.

Riese: The Molly — there’s that little Molly and Richard bit.

Carly: Oh okay, go ahead.

Riese: Then, Molly comes in with her ex boyfriend, Richard, and she enters and Alice gets right up. She’s done with the podcast already.

Carly: Oh, she’s outta there.

Riese: She’s over it and Shane starts talking to Molly and Richard, and Alice says that she is familiar with Phyllis. And Max has to introduce himself because they don’t.

Carly: They forget he’s a person that’s standing there.

Alice in a gold lame dress at The Planet, hands on hips, saying "Oh, I'm familiar with Phyllis"

Gaby: Why even include — why, why even do it?

Riese: Because they had an agenda.

Gaby: And the agenda was trans men are terrible? That’s the agenda?

Carly: That trans men aren’t a part of this community. That was their agenda, it seems pretty clear. I guess you could make the argument that they didn’t know what they were doing, which they didn’t know what they were doing and there were no trans people involved in the writing of the production of the show. But I also think that they had to, on some level, know how deeply shitty all of this was.

Mal: Except the only thing that isn’t, Billy and Max’s sex scene.

Gaby: Yes!

Mal: If The L Word gave us one gift, that’s it.

Gaby: Yes.

Mal: Not worth it for the rest of it, but I do love it.

Carly: It’s so good. We’re almost there, we are now going to change guests. We are going to switch over from Gaby and Mal to Brittani and Cerise.

Mal: Yes.

Carly: This is very exciting. Gaby and Mal, thank you, we will speak to you again in a little while.

Mal: Thank you. I’ll be back.

Riese: They’ll still be here right?

Mal: Just wanna be clear. Was not talking about Tom and Max’s sex scene. Billy.

Carly: Oh, right. Billy and Max. Yes, Tom and Max’s was eh.

Mal: My bad. Anyway, thanks for having me.

Gaby: We’ll be back.

Riese: You’ll be back.

Carly: They’ll be back.

Mal: You’re just gonna mute us. Lauren will do it.

Riese: Yeah, Lauren’s muting you and then at the end, we’ll all talk again about our lives and our experiences.

Gaby: Bye!

Brittani: Are we unmuted?

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Yes you are!

Riese: Do you have anything you’ve been dying to share?

Brittani: No.

Carly: Okay, looked like Cerise was about to say something.

Brittani: I will start off by saying that Cerise finished watching the episode, said it made her very horny and lit a bunch of candles.

Cerise: Why you putting me out there like that?

Carly: Oh my God. Do you have any Shiloh updates? We were talking about Beans before and I really wanted to make sure we had a chance to talk about Shiloh.

Cerise: Oh my God. Shiloh almost got eaten by a coyote yesterday.

Carly: What?!

Cerise: It’s a recurring thing, she just is determined to — we get them in our backyard and she’s just hell bent on chasing them away, but the little thing doesn’t realize she’s only six inches tall.

Carly: They never know how tiny they are.

Riese: No, they don’t.

Carly: No. Well, I’m glad she’s okay.

Cerise: Thank you, yeah, it was really scary.

Carly: I don’t like that.

Cerise: I screamed at the coyote and did the whole…

Carly: Oh, you did big arms, you did big arms?

Riese: Yeah, yeah.

Carly: That’s what you’re supposed to do.

Riese: Yeah, that’s what we learned at camp about bears.

Carly: Just like coyotes, bears.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: Should we continue on with this fine piece of television?

Riese: Let’s do it.

Cerise: Yeah, let’s talk.

Carly: All right Riese, where are we?

Riese: Dan’s enormous office building, where Bette and Tina are… going to the therapies. And Bette is like, “Jenny gave Cindi a part,” even though Bette facilitated that event. And then they get in the elevator!

Carly: She’s like, “By the way.” Because Tina was not at the meeting. She didn’t get a complimentary cigar and a pat down. But I feel like we talked briefly about the previous scene where Bette picks up the coffee. Did we say that in that scene, Kit figures out that she’s cheating on Jodi? because that feels significant.

Riese: It is.

Cerise: Very significant.

Carly: Kit knows right away.

Riese: Yeah, and like so many of us here at home, is a little worried about Jodi, who is just along for the ride, but she doesn’t know she’s on the ride.

Carly: Right.

Riese: Which is how got—

Carly: Terrible, terrible.

Brittani: Seems like kind of a bad sign that if you’re just nice to your ex, then your sister’s like, “Ah, you’re cheating.”

Riese: That says a lot about what your… you know.

Carly: Yeah, no, you’re clearly not a great person, if that’s where her mind goes immediately.

Brittani: Oh yeah, you’re only nice to people when you’re fucking them, got it.

Carly: Oh I see, you’re cheating.

Cerise: Bette’s outfit, also, in this scene is giving me dom at the office. And I was living for it.

Carly: Yeah. It is business casual dom. We are clocked in, we are on the clock. We are dominating the business and also other things.

Riese: Yes. Then, they get in the elevator. They make elevator small talk. It stops, right? The elevator stops and Bette is very unhappy about it, because she alone hates heat.

Carly: Bette loses her entire mind.

Riese: Just her entire mind.

Cerise: Temper tantrum Porter.

Carly: Yeah.

Cerise: Love it.

Carly: I love people when, like, when a bad thing happens, or I love a thing where it’s universally bad. No one likes a blackout and no one wants to be trapped in an elevator. But I love when someone will freak out as if they’re the only ones who hate that, or they invented being anxious about something. I think that’s wonderful. Like when Michael Scott said he doesn’t like hospitals, it’s like my favorite. So, she’s gonna try to calm her down. What’d you say?

Tina and Bette in the elevator with the lights off

Riese: She’s just gonna have a panic attack, Tina’s gonna calm her down. The point of this is that Tina understands Bette like no one else ever could.

Carly: She just like, gets her. So we go back to The Planet. Alice has already left there. She’s done with this non-apology.

Riese: We wrapped that right up.

Carly: Just done, Max is putting everything away and Tom comes by and he’s wearing short shorts and a muscle tee, which I think is fantastic. I was really into that.

Brittani: So at no point, they addressed that Shane had a wandering camera, right?

Riese: Right.

Carly: No, it was not addressed at all.

Brittani: Okay.

Riese: That’s going straight to the web.

Carly: At one point, the camera is filming the ceiling because she doesn’t lock the tripod and walks away when Molly shows up. I’m like, “Is this my dad recording my kindergarten school play again?” Because it was mostly the floor.

Riese: This is my brother when I let him do the camera for my “End of the Road” music video, which had a Lego guy walking to the end of the road.

Brittani: The Lego guy?

Carly: Little guy, little Lego dude?

Riese: Well, I did lip syncing, so it alternated between me lip syncing and that, in a plaid vest. You know, “End the Road” by Boyz II Men?

Carly: I am familiar with that song.

Riese: Yeah, it’s a great song. And then I alternated it with some stop motion animation of a Lego guy on a road. It was a road I built out of styrofoam. He’s walking to the end of it, so. And then, he fell off. He came to the end of the road, as they say.

Carly: I love a literal interpretation of a music video.

Cerise: MMal:hmm.

Carly: That’s incredible.

Riese: You should’ve seen our video for “The Crying Game.” So, Tom has got an art show.

Cerise: He’s been painting up a storm painting.

Carly: Painting up a storm! I love that Max is like, “I didn’t know you were a painter.” And I was like, “Frankly, neither did I.”

Riese: Oh, and we get to know that he is not a big time — he doesn’t like, I don’t know… put stuff together with poles and stairs. What does Jodi make again? Origami with—

Carly: Sculptures.

Riese: Sculptures, large sculptures. So he’s not rich like Jodi. That’s why he transcribes, or he translates for—

Cerise: Interprets?

Riese: For Jodi. Interprets for Jodi.

Carly: And Tom, Tom does that thing where he asks where Max’s girlfriend is, because he wants to know what’s up. And Grace, our best friend Grace, is back in San Francisco and they have in fact broken up, probably 17 times. She’s not still stuck in Illinois. Or where were they? What state were they in?

Cerise: Illinois.

Carly: Illinois, right?

Riese: Remember, because Brittani sent in some information about Max.

Brittani: Yeah, Winnetka.

Carly: Exactly. So Tom says he was kind of freaked out. He was like, into him and then, he was kinda freaked out, so he kinda stopped coming by. And then Max is bummed, and that’s real. But then he’s like, “Hey, let’s go out? Like, tonight.”

Riese: Yeah.

Brittani: So when he was like, “I was sort of into you and I was freaked out,” was that also a transphobic comment or was there something else happening?

Riese: Yes.

Carly: Okay, it was that.

Riese: Yes.

Brittani: I was like, because he thinks Max is straight and doesn’t think he’s gay? But it was that, okay, I was right.

Carly: Well, Max is—

Riese: Max is freaked out by his own feelings. He was freaked out by his own feelings. I didn’t want to dislike Tom, but now I have to.

Carly: Yeah, based on Max’s face, he looks so like crestfallen when he says that, that I was like, “Yeah, that’s definitely in reference to him being like, transphobic.”

Cerise: Mhmm.

Riese: I feel like that’s an internal journey that Tom could have very well kept to himself.

Carly: Absolutely, he definitely did not have to say that.

Brittani: Yeah, don’t need to share that at all.

Carly: Nope.

Riese: That was a good thing for him to maybe work out on his own.

Carly: Shutting up is always an option.

Riese: It’s true, it’s always an option. Yeah. There’s so many reasons he could not come by, you know?

Carly: He already said he was painting, very busy painting.

Riese: Yeah, painting up a storm. So the way that was played was that Max said yes to the date. So thus, we have that example of a thing that’s not okay to say, like that’s an okay thing to say, like always.

Carly: So we go to Alice’s, and Tasha is sitting on the couch. This is so iconic. The windows are open and she’s just listening to the sounds of the city. And Alice comes in, she’s like, “What are you doing?” And she’s like, “I’m feeling what 6:00 p.m. feels like.” And she just looks really content. I just love it, it was great.

Brittani: 6:00 PM is a terrible time.

Tasha sitting on Alice's couch in the dark, Alice leaning over her

Carly: Oh, absolutely, I would much rather be on my couch, than on the 405.

Cerise: Yeah. Isn’t this what we’ve all been doing?

Carly: Incorrectly, yes.

Carly: This whole time. For everyone now. We are all now Tasha, we’re all just at home being like… So this is what 3:00 p.m. is, okay.

Riese: And for where they live in their house, 6:00 p.m., it’s birds chirping, it’s grasshoppers making noises, it’s bugs flying, it’s birds flying, it’s planes flying. It’s cars crashing, it’s honking. It’s a lot, it’s wind, it’s fire, it’s everything. Every sound, it’s like a junglescape. It’s like a forest scape, it’s the whole scene, all of it. It’s right there, all the sounds of the whole world. The baby is born to mothers. The waterfall sound.

Carly: That was beautiful.

Riese: Offering cool relief from the hot weather.

Carly: Incredible, that was great.

Riese: Thank you.

Carly: Beautiful, beautiful work, Riese. That’s really beautiful.

Riese: Thank you so much. “Since I have nothing to do.” And the Alice is like, “Well you should do me.”

Carly: Alice has something she can do, it’s her. So we’re back on the elevator.

Riese: This stresses me out.

Carly: Oh, this is so stressful.

Cerise: I love this scene.

Carly: Yeah, being trapped on an elevator is stressful.

Cerise: Have you ever been trapped on an elevator?

Riese: I just confused my own life with the movie, Speed.

Carly: Oh, you thought you were on that bus? Happens all the time.

Riese: Well at the beginning of Speed, isn’t there someone stuck in an elevator?

Brittani: Think you’re thinking of the movie, Devil?

Riese: Devil?

Cerise: Devil, the whole premise is they’re stuck on an elevator.

Carly: On an elevator, yeah.

Brittani: I know that elevator has always been my go-to fantasy answer, like, “If you had one fantasy, blah, blah, blah,” it’s been elevator. It’s not really true, I just feel like I always have to have an answer. But I feel like I came up with that from this episode.

Carly: That’s so funny. Wait, what’s your real answer then?

Brittani: My fantasy? To just have sex in a bed.

Carly: What’s wrong with the bed?

Brittani: It’s pretty boring.

Riese: Nicole says there is an elevator scene in Speed.

Cerise: Oh.

Carly: Okay.

Riese: So my fantasy is also a bed. It’s built for that kind of thing, you know what I mean? I think that’s nice. It’s nice to have some room to spread out. Their first question is, “Do you think Dan knows that we’re here?”

Cerise: Yes.

Carly: Yeah, he definitely knows that you’re there. The power went out in his building moments before you were due for your appointment. He’s probably very aware.

Riese: Time for Dan Foxworthy roleplay.

Carly: Oh man, this is so hot.

Riese: That’s my fantasy, actually.

Carly: Oh yeah, hot.

Cerise: My fantasy is talking out my therapy sessions with Brittani in an elevator in our bare feet, playing footsie.

Carly: Hell yeah, bare feet in a elevator. Nothing I love less.

Riese: I love this peek into your lives. Dan would wanna know, what’s Tina afraid of? What do they want?

Carly: She says, “Fucking it all up.”

Riese: Easy answer.

Carly: She’s afraid of being judged by their friends, and she’s afraid of hurting Jodi. This is all valid, I would say valid.

Brittani: She’s done all these things already.

Carly: She absolutely has. She has already done all of her fears, so she shouldn’t be afraid of them anymore. And all she got out of it was being punished by being trapped in an elevator during a blackout. So maybe she actually should be afraid of those things, because look where it got her, you know what I mean?

Tina and Bette sitting on the elevator floor with their shoes off

Riese: Sexy scene. And Bette’s outfit.

Carly: That’s an awesome outfit.

Riese: Bette says that her and Jodi don’t share the same values.

Carly: I don’t — is that correct?

Riese: I think so.

Cerise: Jodi doesn’t like kids.

Carly: Oh, right.

Brittani: I feel like “sharing values” is one of those things that you could use to justify being who you’re with and justify not being with anyone, because how many people really have like, if you listen to Bette’s answers, they’re pretty hilarious. They’re not, I think, what people expect from what our values are. I think most people are like, “Oh, you see the beauty in thing, and that means that our values are aligned.”

Carly: Those aren’t values, that’s just opinion. Values are like deeper than that, I don’t know.

Riese: It’s family.

Carly: It’s family?

Riese: Swimming, trust, hope.

Carly: Cheating.

Cerise: Cheating, lying.

Carly: Manipulating, being passive aggressive.

Riese: Gaslighting.

Carly: I will say, I think that these are valid values because I agree with all of Bette’s values here and we’re obviously both Tauruses. Bette’s clearly a Taurus.

Cerise: Oh, don’t say that! Girl, ugh!

Carly: I feel like this is valid. If you’re a Taurus, you care about things being beautiful and you like the same people and you dislike the same people, because we are…

Cerise: Always right?

Carly: Yes, always right.

Riese: What’s the case against her being a Taurus, Cerise? Case against being a Taurus.

Cerise: Case against being a Taurus? I must be hearing this wrong, because there is no case against being a Taurus.

Brittani: No, against Bette being a Taurus.

Cerise: Oh, against Bette being a Taurus, she’s a Capricorn. Okay. Okay? Thank you, thank you.

Brittani: I think Bette is a Libra, I think. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Cerise: I could see Libra.

Riese: I’m a Libra, but I know I’m terrible, so it’s okay.

Brittani: I don’t think Libras are terrible.

Cerise: I don’t think they’re terrible.

Riese: But we do appreciate the beauty in things, which is a big value, you know? And Jodi probably doesn’t, cause she’s just an artist. You know?

Carly: I mean, I guess, yeah. Jodi doesn’t want kids and Jodi is poly, and Bette is into having kids and is a cheater. So I guess those are all different values.

Brittani: It’s also funny because the writers never seem to have, like, a set intention, right? Because all this stuff about like, what were they doing by being transphobic? I think they were just being transphobic because then you get to scenes like this and it’s like, Bette’s supposed to be waxing poetic and being deep about what her values are. And it’s like, “I care about quality of life.” They meant that scene to be like, “this is a deep connection,” and the way that they thought they would get that across was by saying, “I love when oranges are in a bowl,” like that’s essentially what she’s saying.

Riese: That would be a shared value with Cherie Jaffe, because she had that whole citrus bowl at her party. That Shane’s keys were in, remember that? I do, because I remember everything that ever happened in The L Word now, because of this podcast. And sometimes I forget, like, actual words that people use for normal things, because all I have is The L Word, and I’m old.

Carly: Well you know, we’re old, it’s just what happens.

Riese: Yup, also, the thing is that Tina… Attention to beauty and they’re comfortable with people in each other’s world. But Tina liked Henry and that does not reflect an attention to beauty, or people of the worlds that are comfortable. And also, who is in Tina’s world? She still doesn’t even have fucking parents.

Brittani: It’s just all their own friends. Oh, you happen to also like our mutual friends.

Riese: Anyway, Lauren, put that in. Oh, and they’d both rather stay in on New Year’s Eve. That’s kinda cute. Isn’t it?

Brittani: Is this also the scene where Tina reads her and is like, “You only care about this because it’s an affair,” was that this one?

Carly: Yes, it is.

Riese: Yeah, mhmm.

Brittani: Okay yeah, the other example of just them not knowing that Tina is right? It’s just, again, the writers being like, “Oh, we’re gonna say this.” Like no, that’s exactly it. Foils the entire game. Bette does only care because it’s an affair.

Carly: It’s exciting and they’re sneaking around, like that’s all she cares about.

Riese: Yeah. Bette says she feels compelled to destroy good things.

Cerise: Hmm.

Riese: And Tina says that she was awful with Henry, which is true. She was.

Carly: Yes. And then she’s apologizing, and then Bette takes four hours to move across the floor of the elevator. She totally worms across the elevator floor. It’s a very strange choice. That was definitely a direction thing. They were like, “If you stand up, we have to move the camera and we don’t wanna move the camera, so you’re going to have to get over there without standing up,” and that happened.

Riese: She did it.

Carly: She did it, proud of her. It took a while, but she did it. And then yeah, and then that’s the moment where she’s like, “Tina, I love you,” and Tina’s like, “No, this is just an affair.” Like what you were saying, Brittani. And Bette’s like, “It doesn’t feel like an affair. It feels like I’m coming home.”

Riese: Which is that I started saying the lines out loud. I already knew this whole speech. “It feels like coming home” and… I’m a broken person now.

Carly: And then a romantic swell of music, and then they make out.

Riese: “Swimming Pool” by Freezepop!

Carly: Yup.

Riese: I’ve listened to this song 5,000 times in this episode.

Carly: This is like the score of half this episode, is this song by Freezepop. So we go back to set. Jenny and Shane are waiting for Nikki. Shane would like to leave. Molly calls her, and Molly is at home by herself and the lights keep going on and off, and she’s so scared.

Riese: Oh no.

Molly sitting on her bed with lights on telling Shane to come over

Carly: Wahhh. And Shane’s like, “What about Richard?” And basically, Molly tells Shane that Richard flew across the country to try to get her back and she was like, “Fuck off,” and sent him away. But not before bringing him to The Planet to obviously need to run into Shane. So I thought that was interesting. But the lights go off again and she screams. She’s so scared, she’s so scared because of the blackout. How are you scared if you know what’s causing the power outage?

Riese: That’s not what’s making her scared, Carly.

Carly: I know, I know Riese.

Brittani: It’s because, what about Richard, Richard? What’s the nickname, Dick. What about Dick, so now she’s scared.

Carly: I picked the wrong time to take a big drink of water. Spat out everywhere. That’s really interesting that they named him Richard, isn’t it?

Riese: It is. They could have just named him — what’s the name they gave everyone? I forget already, see? This is — holes in my brain.

Carly: Mark, everyone’s named Mark.

Riese: Mark, Mark, Mark. Carly’s a year younger than me.

Carly: Right, so I’m very youthful.

Riese: I knew way more last year than I know now.

Carly: Incredible. We’re all just slowly deteriorating. So, we go to this absolutely fucking ridiculous scene.

Riese: I hate this girl.

Carly: This is terrible. We’re at Shenny’s, Adele is standing in the dark, clearly pretending to be Jenny.

Riese: For how long?

Carly: How did she orchestrate this?

Riese: How long?

Carly: How long was she standing there? How did she know Adele would — I mean, clearly she told Adele to go to the house, right? I think we can infer that?

Cerise: No, she told her to come to the set because later when Adele shows up, she was like, “Oh, you came.”

Carly: But why did Nikki go to the house, then?

Cerise: I would assume that she’s at home. It’s a blackout, there were fires going. I would be at home, shoot.

Carly: Well at any rate, Adele’s at Shenny’s. She’s hiding in the dark and fucking Nikki comes in. She’s like, “Oh my God, Flutter was so amazing. It reminded me why I wanna be in the film and I love you,” and just full on kisses Adele and Adele is like, “My plan has worked.”

Riese: I hate it.

Brittani: It’s so creepy.

Carly: So creepy.

Niki in Jenny's house telling Adele she has to go

Cerise: Adele is so scary. And someone in the chat said, “Did Adele kill Jenny?” Yes.

Riese: Oh yeah, good call.

Carly: That does feel like the choice that makes the most sense there, for sure.

Riese: That would have been the final straw, if Jenny had actually been killed, I think, yeah, it would have been Adele.

Brittani: Jenny’s alive. Don’t make a face, Jenny’s alive.

Riese: Thank you, Brittani.

Carly: So then, of course, at the exact moment that this happens, the power comes back on. Incredible.

Riese: Did she really not notice at first? I feel like you would notice the smell of someone at first, you know, right?

Carly: Are they the exact same height?

Riese: Same body type?

Carly: I don’t know, this is a reach.

Cerise: They look exactly alike.

Carly: I mean, she’s been the one emailing her!

Riese: They have the same bangs.

Riese: But if everyone with the same bangs looked alike, it would have been very confusing — when did we all have bangs?

Cerise: 2,000 years ago?

Riese: Yeah, 2,000 years.

Brittani: I feel like also, if you thought, “Oh, this might not be the correct person,” if you had that flash, then you’d be like, “Oh, but of course it is because then, that person would pull away, they wouldn’t have kissed me.” They would have said, “Oops.”

Cerise: Okay, I have an anecdote. I’ve actually done this.

Riese: Was it to Brittani?

Carly: Brittani’s like, “First time hearing of it.”

Cerise: No, my last girlfriend, it was during Halloween, and she had come home from the party earlier than me. And we also had a friend staying here. They don’t look anything alike, just for the record.

Brittani: Did they have on the same costume?

Cerise: No, but it was dark.

Riese: They were both ghosts.

Cerise: And I came into the door and I saw someone sleeping on the couch and I thought it was my girlfriend.

Brittani: Why would she be sleeping on the couch?

Cerise: Nigga, I don’t know. But she was knocked out, so it was dark—

Brittani: Were you drunk?

Cerise: Yes.

Brittani: Oh, okay.

Cerise: And I pulled down the cover and I kissed her.

Brittani: You pulled down the cover!? This is not alike, at all. And then, I looked and I was like, “Oh my God.”

Brittani: Did they wake up?

Cerise: No.

Riese: Oh no, it just got even worse.

Cerise: I told her in the morning. I was like, “Girl, I was so drunk last night, I kissed you,” and she thought it was hilarious. I don’t know.

Riese: So it is possible.

Cerise: It’s possible, very possible.

Carly: But Adele orchestrated this.

Brittani: So did Cerise’s couch friend.

Riese: Oh, Cerise’s couch friend.

Carly: So fuckin’ funny, oh my God.

Riese: Oh boy. And Nikki’s like, “You look alike in the dark.”

Carly: She’s like, “Of course I do, I got the same haircut.”

Riese: On purpose.

Carly: Yeah.

Riese: Which Max noticed because he’s the only smart person on the show.

Carly: The only smart person on the show. And so Adele’s like, “You have to go to set and meet Jenny and she’s gonna be really mad.” And so Nikki’s like, “Oh cool.” Like “We just wanna tell her, it was a little mistake.” And then, Adele looks really mad. Like, Adele’s face gets really scary there.

Riese: Yeah, I think they shoulda told her, just for laughs. Like, we all laughed.

Carly: For laughs.

Riese: That’s Riese. You know? Like ha-ha.

Carly: Ha-ha.

Cerise: I told my girlfriend immediately after, she was in the bedroom and I was like, “Oh my God girl, I just kissed your friend.”

Carly: So Shane goes to Molly’s house and Molly is holding a candle like it’s the olden times. Like a cloak and a candle.

Riese: Yeah, she’s got a green bowl and some… I don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyway, see, in the normal podcast, you guys don’t listen to all of the things that I fail at, mid-sentence, they just get cut out.

Carly: It’s okay. This is fun.

Riese: I have a lot of misses, but I have hits too, right, Carly?

Carly: So many hits. So many hits, you are so funny, Riese. You are so smart and funny.

Riese: No, you are!

Carly: We all are. So she’s holding a candle, like the olden times. Molly is not scared of the dark. It was all a ruse. She’s scared because she wants to fuck Shane.

Brittani: That would scare me, too.

Carly: Yeah, I’d be terrified. I’d be like, “What am I doing?” I’d be like, “I cannot address this. I thought you were afraid of the dark.”

Cerise: I hated that, that whole thing. “I’m scared because I wanted to fuck you. Oh, you’re not a guy.”

Carly: That whole — ugh.

Riese: So tired.

Carly: It felt very 2008. Like, it felt like this is where we were at in movies and TV shows of women sleeping with women for the first time of like, “You’re like a guy, but different,” which is exhausting. We’re absolutely past this, but I guess in 2008, we were not. Honestly, probably, we were past this in 2008, but here we are. Oh, we’re doing sunglasses, why did no one tell me we were doing sunglasses?

Riese: I just saw them on the table and was like, “What if I just put these on?”

Carly: Aw, mine are in the other room. All right, fine, I don’t get sunglasses. So Molly won’t shut up because she talks a lot when she’s nervous, so she just says like 4,000 things. And they’re drinking wine, and she says that Richard thinks she’s oddly proportioned. And Shane says, “Well, Richard’s a tool. Fuck Richard.”

Riese: She also says that she caught Richard, jerking off to internet porn.

Carly: Wow, how dare he?

Riese: Yeah, like what? So what?

Carly: Oh my God, what?

Riese: Yeah I feel like at home, everyone was like, “Okay,” so surely there’s worse, like what?

Brittani: It feels like a very 20-year-old thing to get upset about.

Carly: Yeah.

Brittani: Like I can imagine being mad about that when I was 20.

Carly: Sure. She says that she’s not gonna marry Richard. “I told him that today,” and she does that thing. She talks about how, she’s like, “I know the truth about marriage because I took one gender studies class.” And so she’s like, “Marriage is about ownership of women. Anyway, grab the candle, let’s go upstairs.”

Brittani: It’s also wild because she’s just using a bunch of big college words and regurgitating information that she clearly just heard, and that’s supposed to be the truth, that she’s so much smarter than Shane is that she’s just repeating what a professor said.

Carly: Because what she’s saying, it’s not “Oh my God” worthy. It’s like, yes, everyone knows that. I don’t know, it’s just sad, everything is bad. What’s about to happen is very bad.

Riese: Except the song.

Carly: Is it still Freezepop?

Riese: “Swimming Pool” comes right back on in a stalemate.

Carly: Right back on.

Riese: And I’m again, right back in 2008, sitting in Cait’s SUV, listening to the “Freezepop” album that she bought because she liked the song, but it turned out that this is the only good song on the album.

Carly: That happened a lot with music, in this time period.

Riese: Yeah, because you would buy—

Carly: I’d be like, “Oh, great song,” and then, I buy the album and I’m like, “Why did I buy this, this is bad.”

Riese: Singing “Everything is perfect now, doo doo doo.” But it’s not. Then, we go to Tom’s house. They made a tiny little set for this. I’m not even convinced they made a whole set for this.

Carly: I wasn’t sure if it was Tom’s house or if they were just in the shed. Are they in the shed? Does Max still live in the shed? Is he not allowed to live in the house?

Riese: Tom made dinner, so Tom could not have dinner in the shed.

Carly: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Cerise: They gotta be in the shed because those lights.

Carly: I know, that’s what I’m thinking about, the lights. I don’t know.

Riese: Maybe Tom made dinner on a Carmen’s DJ equipment.

Carly: I thought they went out to dinner and then they got back to the shed, but I don’t know that any of this actually matters because they’re silhouetted, it’s cool lighting, and they start to make out. Yeah.

Riese: Someone said Tom lives in a closet at Jodi’s house. I buy it.

Carly: That’s fair. So we get up to Molly’s room where she has 400 candles lit.

Cerise: Same.

Carly: Oh, my God.

Riese: Here, I wasn’t calling you here, Carol, but you can come if you want, come here.

Cerise: Oh, Carol.

Riese: Carol.

Carly: Carol time!

Riese: Carol, you wanna be in the podcast? Yeah?

Brittani: Did she pee in it? Wait.

Riese: What do you think?

Carly: Carol’s here. Does Carol have any thoughts about how everyone’s about to fuck on the show?

Riese: Well, I think that what we learned from this is that Molly had a lot of candles on hand and I like that.

Carly: Hello!

Riese: Hello, it’s dog time!

Carly: Dog time, dog break.

Riese: Carol.

Carly: So Carol and Shiloh are gonna talk about the episode now.

Riese: Yeah. In their opinion, it needs 100% more dogs. Oh, it’s Beans!

Cerise: Beans!

Carly: Oh my God, Bean’s here too? My dogs were in the other room, unfortunately.

Riese: Is this thing on? Poom, poom, poom. That was good, right? Okay so yeah, they start kissing. Then, according to the captions, they start chuckling a lot. And Shane looks at all of Molly’s trophies. Shane’s like, “We don’t have to have sex,” but Molly’s like, “Yeah we do.” But okay, I had one real thing to say, was just that I think this is the first time that we’ve seen Shane build a friendship with someone before they have sex.

Carly: Yeah.

Cerise: Mm, mmhm.

Riese: Like they already have a little bit of a rapport and that’s kind of—

Carly: That’s new, yeah.

Riese: Yup.

Carly: And then, Shane takes her shirt off and Molly says, “Weird, boobs.” What’s happening? What is this?

Molly in her bra amazed by Shane having boobs

Brittani: I still say that.

Cerise: It’s true. Every time.

Carly: They’ve become much more interesting, now that I don’t have them anymore. Now, they’re— Boobs are more exciting, now that I don’t have ones that I hate. Anyway! Okay, so Nikki goes to see Jenny who is still on set, and she starts her speech about the letter. It’s the exact same thing she was saying before. She clearly prepared the two sentences about the letter.

Riese: Look at how good she wasn’t memorizing, though.

Carly: I know, she’s an actor, she can memorize her lines. And Jenny kisses her and they do a bunch of, I love yous and apologies and start rolling around and yes, they are in the bowling themed room still. This is—

Riese: They love each other so much.

Carly: So much.

Cerise: She wanted a chance to fuck on a bowling theme set. Like who would pass that up?

Carly: You gotta do it.

Riese: You gotta do it, yeah.

Brittani: Were there sirens in this scene, too?

Riese: Probably.

Brittani: There were sirens in the Molly-Shane scene. Heavily, a lot, throughout, a lot of noise.

Riese: A lot. The power goes out, the noises go up because…

Brittani: Because the cops are out? I don’t understand what they’re implying.

Carly: I know.

Brittani: Like when the power goes out, everyone’s just like, “Just call 911 and tell them that the power’s out.”

Carly: Yeah, I love to call the authorities, any time my power has gone out.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: That’s a good use of everyone’s time. Whatever, don’t call the cops. Anyway, so okay. Now, Molly and Shane are doin’ it and it’s so great. And Molly says the worst things you could say, which is, “You really are like a guy, a really sexy guy. You’re so much softer.” And then, Shane’s like, “I don’t know if you’re ready for this.” And I was like—

Riese: But Shane’s also like, “I’m not a guy,” which is a good point because Shane isn’t a guy.

Carly: Right, I’m really glad she cleared that up for Molly because Molly seemed confused.

Riese: Yeah. And then, Molly touches her and is like, “Oh, you’re really wet.” And Shane’s like, “Uh-huh.” She’s like, “Oh, I wasn’t expecting that.” And I’m like—

Brittani: What is the…what? What? Like, what?

Riese: Maybe Molly’s never been wet before.

Brittani: Probably.

Carly: That’s the takeaway, here, I think, yeah.

Riese: Because she’s never watched the internet porn, apparently. She thinks that it’s evil because of Richard doing it in Nantucket.

Brittani: I mean, yeah, she doesn’t know anything. She responded to, “I don’t know if you’re ready for this” with “I’m ready for this.” She’s lacking imagination.

Carly: Truly.

Riese: Oh, my God.

Carly: Okay, we go to Alice’s apartment where she has brought a glass of ice over to Tasha on the couch. Time for sexy ice stuff and boobs.

Riese: I know, but you know what she doesn’t do?

Carly: What?

Riese: Before we started talking about the cool stuff that they do do, is that what she doesn’t do, but she could have done is put ice in Tasha’s butt hole, or Tasha could have put ice in her butthole. And then, it cools you from the ground up, like this.

Cerise: That’s escalating things so quickly, Riese.

Carly: Yeah, that’s serious.

Brittani: We don’t know that they didn’t do that.

Carly: That’s true.

Brittani: That scene just blacked out.

Riese: Right, right.

Brittani: We don’t know.

Carly: That is true. We don’t know what’s on the cutting room floor, as they say.

Riese: That’s what 6 p.m. looks like to me, is an ice cube in the butthole.

Carly: Butt ice? All right.

Riese: And it sounds like sirens.

Brittani: Maybe they tried and it was just so hot that it would melt before it got to the butthole.

Riese: That’s fair.

Carly: Yeah, yeah, that’s probably what happened, they probably tried.

Cerise: Have you ever tried that, Riese? Does it work?

Riese: Yeah, I have done that to someone, yeah.

Cerise: I’m gonna try that later, I think.

Riese: I don’t know— Well, I think that with the many things that it did, the most important thing that I did is that it was really funny, you know?

Cerise: I strive for funny in my sex life.

Riese: Yeah, because we got a good laugh out of it.

Cerise: Yeah.

Riese: And now, I’m getting more laughs out of it, right now. I didn’t have an ice cube in my butt hole, just to be clear.

Brittani: Ah!

Riese: I put it in someone else’s butthole. So I was laughing the whole time. They were laughing, everyone had a nice time.

Carly: Everyone was having fun, that’s great.

Riese: It was really hot and we didn’t have air conditioning and it was like 100 degrees, so we had to be creative. And I am creative.

Brittani: Yeah, you’ve very creative.

Riese: I graduated from the University of Michigan with a sub-concentration in creative writing.

Carly: Hey, Riese? Did you call it a freezepop?

Riese: No!!!!! But I could have.

Carly: That’s what we call a missed opportunity. Anyway, Alice and Tasha are doin’ it. Okay, we go back to the elevator. Bette and Tina are comically sweaty, like so sweaty.

Riese: Take your clothes off! That’s my advice to both of them. They still have way too many clothes on. Why do they keep trying to hold on to their clothes in this situation?

Carly: Are they worried that if the power comes back on, the elevator door will immediately open, maybe?

Cerise: Mm.

Brittani: I mean, that’s what I thought when they did get the power back on and then, they have to button up. I was like, “Well, if they were naked, there’s no way they would’ve gotten dressed in time.”

Carly: No way, I was thinking about that the whole time.

Cerise: As someone who has been stuck in a elevator, I can tell you.

Riese: Our stuck in the elevator expert.

Cerise: You have time to get dressed.

Brittani: Somebody get me outta here.

Carly: I can’t. Oh, my God.

Riese: I guess we should note that I wrote, “Tina’s getting fucked good,” and so it’s important. Everyone’s having sex, everyone. Everyone’s having a nice time, it’s very sexy.

Carly: So sexy, it’s just a lot of sexy sex.

Riese: Sexy sex.

Cerise: This is the part that made me horny. This montage, what the fuck?

Carly: I thought you were saying that the bowling bedroom made you horny, but it’s the—

Cerise: That too!

Brittani: I think what we all can gather here is that it’s not that hard to get Cerise horny.

Riese: Elevators, someone on the couch, The L Word.

Carly: All of it. My God. Tom fucks Max, that’s cool, excited for Max.

Riese: Condom, safe sex.

Carly: Safe sex. Good for Max, excited for Max.

Cerise: Are we excited for Max?

Carly: I mean, I feel like he seemed happy? No? We not excited?

Cerise: No, that song that was playing. [Singing] Everything is perfect now… I was like, “Bitch, no it’s not.” All of these couples are gonna break up. All of this ends badly.

Brittani: Spoilers!

Cerise: Oh, shit.

Riese: Actually, not all of them are.

Brittani: Oo, intrigued.

Cerise: No comment.

Riese: Three of them.

Carly: I don’t remember, honestly, what happens. I’m only up to this episode of my rewatch. I don’t remember anything.

Cerise: I’m having fun.

Riese: I wrote, “Get it, boys.” Then, I’m back in set. We’ve got Nikki and Jenny, they’re naked, because these are actresses who are showing their boobs a lot and we like that for them and they’re hot, naked. They’re fucking, good for them. The newscaster says, “We have a heat wave wreaking havoc on SoCal where three major fires are out of control and evacuations are underway,” which felt a little on the nose.

Jenny and Niki having sex while the voiceover discusses wildfires

Cerise: It’s very on the nose.

Carly: It is.

Cerise: This fire has three different heads right now. And it’s 101 degrees, like Mal pointed out.

Carly: Yeah, they also say that people have died in this fire and they juxtapose that part of the newscast with everyone fucking. And I think, cool, that’s cool.

Riese: Beginning of life and the end of life. It’s a circle.

Carly: There is no beginning of life here.

Riese: Oh, well… Okay, you’re right, there isn’t. Molly’s having a nice time.

Carly: Yeah, she’s having a nice time until Phyllis gets home.

Riese: Shane is going down on her.

Carly: Yes.

Riese: She’s enjoying it. She says it was amazing and then, Molly cannot manage to go down on Shane. She’s still too weirded out, which is so—

Carly: Can’t do it.

Riese: And then, Shane saves it by being like, “Okay, I’ll show you one more time.”

Carly: And then, cut to Phyllis enters, and I really enjoy that they have Phyllis entering the scene upside down because her head’s back and so she would’ve seen her, upside down, and I thought that was a very funny nice touch. Yeah, I thought—

Upside-down Phyllis's head as Molly sees it

Riese: Uh-oh, it’s Phyllis!

Carly: Uh-oh, mom’s home. And now, of course, the power is back, and Bette and Tina are getting dressed in the elevator to go to therapy after everything that has just happened. Basically, they seem to be negotiating how Bette’s gonna end her relationship with Jodi and how they’re maybe gonna actually get back together. But Bette says she doesn’t want to tell Jodi before the pink ride.

Riese: I hate this for them, just do it. Break up, don’t wait until after the vacation or after the camp.

Carly: Just do it.

Riese: Just do it.

Brittani: The pink ride, that’s the one where they ride from San Francisco to LA? So she’s gonna make this motherfucker ride a bike 500 miles and then, break up with her?

Cerise: For her dead friend?

Carly: Yes, correct. For someone that Jodi never met.

Riese: For all of her terrible friends.

Carly: All these horrible people who probably, by the time this happens, will all know that she’s cheating on her.

Cerise: Mmhm.

Riese: Uh-huh, that’s coming up next week. Dan is so excited to see them.

Carly: Bette’s hair looks so funny when she gets out of that elevator. She looks like she was having sex in an elevator.

Riese: Yeah.

Carly: It’s great.

Riese: And he’s like, “Anyone traumatized?” And it’s like, “Yeah.”

Dan Foxworthy greeting Bette and Tina on the other side of the elevator, saying "anybody traumatized?"

Brittani: That’s a weird question, and he had weird energy.

Carly: Such weird energy, he had the energy of someone who was not at all doing anything to try to get them off the elevator, but then was lying and saying, “Oh my God. We were so worried, we were trying so hard to get you guys outta there.” And I was like—

Riese: He was looking at the clock thinking, “One minute less I have to spend with them, two minutes less I have to spend with them.”

Carly: Is he billing them for the time they were in the elevator? I think he is.

Cerise: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Brittani: I feel like it was one of those things where they had to shoot it like five times of just being like, “Okay, now they just got off the elevator. You don’t know what they were doing, but you were stressed out. Okay, go.” And he just kept not getting it.

Carly: No, nothing. Nothing, he didn’t get it, he did not. They must have had to do that so many times because that must have been the best take.

Riese: Anyway, Jodi’s gonna be traumatized, so I hope she’s got a different type of therapist. We go back to Molly’s, where Phyllis says that Shane is beneath her. Get it?

Carly: I got it.

Riese: Just so everyone listening knows, Mal gave me finger guns. So someone else got it. I hate this conversation, I can’t believe that it happened.

Carly: This is the second time, now, that Phyllis is being horrifically classist about Shane. And in a misguided attempt to defend Shane, Molly gets in on the fun too. This is great. I’m saying that sarcastically, because it’s really painful to watch.

Cerise: “Shane is simple.”

Carly: “Maybe she’s not the smartest person in the world, but at least she’s not fucking Richard.”

Brittani: But also, how did they not know Shane? Like, you all are the ones that aren’t smart, Shane is 10 feet away, like what?

Riese: Exactly, exactly!

Carly: Like how did they, I mean, if you’re gonna talk shit about someone, don’t be within earshot!

Brittani: Close the door!

Carly: Like, this is terrible!

Riese: Yeah, they’re screaming, that’s the thing. Also, Phyllis and Molly both demonstrate, there’s a very big difference between being book smart and being otherwise smart because Phyllis is really stupid about a lot of things.

Carly: Mhm.

Riese: And so is Molly, whereas Shane is actually pretty smart about a lot of things, even if she didn’t read Krauss or whatever it is that they said last. Who’s read Krauss besides Joey Potter?

Carly: Wow, deep cut.

Riese: I don’t know. I didn’t really Krauss.

Carly: Molly also says, “I don’t like Shane for her political views,” which I think is a really cool thing to watch somebody say in the year 2020.

Cerise: Yeah, but that’s a wild thing to say in 2008, as well.

Brittani: What were Richard’s political views? I feel like they all probably had bad political views, and Shane maybe just didn’t have them, which in this case, probably was better than whatever Richard was working with.

Carly: Richard in his hot pink polo shirt, flying in from the east coast? I don’t trust that guy.

Riese: Jerking off to internet porn in Nantucket.

Cerise: Nantucket.

Riese: More like Nan-fuck-it.

Cerise: Can we talk about it?

Brittani: They should’ve asked her to leave, and then have this rude conversation, if they must. Did she expect she was gonna come back and be like, “Sorry my mom’s calling you a ragamuffin, let’s get back to it.” I don’t understand what—

Carly: She goes back to her bedroom and is like, “Anyway, let’s get back to this.”

Riese: “Let’s get back to business,” and she’s like, “What’s wrong with my community college? It’s a very affordable option.”

Carly: That’s the episode, right?

Riese: Yup, that’s it. It’s over now.

Carly: Hey guys, we did it, we did it, we got through the whole thing.

Riese: [Singing] Everything is perfect now…

Carly: You’re gonna sing? Why don’t you sing the Freezepop song, Riese? That would be great.

Riese: I can’t sing it because I’m a terrible singer and I don’t wanna be mean.

Carly: To all of us? Like, you mean that we’d have to hear you sing? In what way are you being mean?

Riese: Mean to like all the people at home and also, the people who are here right now and also, all of you guys because I’m a bad singer.

Gaby: I’m unmuted, I’m unmuted!

Carly: Hi guys, welcome back! All right!

Gaby: Woo!

Carly: All right, let’s discuss!

Riese: Let’s go.

Carly: What did we think of this episode? Do we like it, do we not like it?

Cerise: I liked it because it turned me on, oh-kurr?

Carly: Oh, my God.

Mal: I didn’t like it, because I think it was bad for fire safety. All those candles in Molly’s room, it’s like, there’s wildfires going on and you change your room into a—

Carly: Hazard.

Mal: Yeah.

Riese: That’s not very smart.

Mal: A hazard.

Gaby: Yeah, exactly, that’s not very smart. So you talk about Shane not being smart, excuse me. Shane’s like, “Only you can prevent forest fires.” It had real twists and turns. Okay, the mob scene? Great. Alice not apologizing for being transphobic? Bad.

Mal: Yeah.

Gaby: Like can you believe that was the same episode? Okay, then, Tina and Bette… ok, here’s the thing. It’s all bad, but them having sex in the elevator was hot. And then, I don’t understand why Shane is slumming it with Molly, TBH. You wanna talk about who’s slummin’ it? Shane is slummin’ it.

Mal: Because Molly is neurotic and also a challenge, and Shane likes that. Keeps her on her toes.

Gaby: What are you trying to say?

Mal: I didn’t say anything…

Gaby: What are you trying to say? Okay, like that’s highs and lows. Did four people write this episode, by doing that thing where you say one word, the next person says another word, the next person says another word?

Carly: It felt that way, a little bit. Ilene Chaiken is the credited writer for the episode.

Riese: But the best parts of the episode were the parts without words.

Gaby: That was too much. It was too much.

Riese: Where we just saw bodies, moving together, in love, and sex.

Gaby: But a lot of them were bad couples. Like Jenny and Nikki, bad.

Cerise: Bad couples, but hot sex.

Carly: Yeah, that is the final verdict on this episode.

Mal: Is what?

Carly: Bad couples, but hot sex.

Mal: I love it.

Gaby: What did you like about Tasha? I like everything.

Cerise: Tasha is the one that I would wanna fuck.

Mal: I didn’t like their whole thing when Tasha was in the military, but I like Tasha’s new vibe that starts in this episode where she’s like, “I’m a civilian now and I’m chillin’.”

Cerise: I don’t like that Alice made her quit her job, though. I thought that was—

Mal: Is that what happened, Alice makes her quit?

Cerise: Maybe I’m remembering it wrong.

Carly: Alice kinda saves it by trying to out the prosecutor lady.

Cerise: Ah.

Carly: And Tasha is like, “Oh okay, cool,” but the prosecutor lady is like, “All you have to do is tell Tasha to just answer these questions normally, and I will make sure she’s fine because I don’t want you to out me on your fucking TV show, The Look.”

Cerise: Mm.

Carly: And then, Tasha gets in there and she’s like, “Actually, I love Alice and I’m out, bye.”

Cerise: Okay, cool.

Mal: Alice loves to out people, huh?

Riese: Yeah, that’s her whole thing.

Gaby: Yeah, that’s—

Cerise: Alice, the outer.

Gaby: Yikes. Well, Tasha is distractingly good-looking, like to the point that multiple times during the episode, I went, “Wow, that’s a good looking person.”

Mal: She doesn’t even have a huge role in this episode.

Gaby: Like it’s a bit much, to be honest. No, it’s too much.

Riese: Yeah also, she has a great laugh, and there’s a lot of her laughing. There’s a lot of her having sex and laughing, and ice in places. Some, we know about; some, we don’t necessarily know about.

Cerise: Like the butt hole.

Riese: I love this episode.

Mal: I think ice in the butthole would hurt.

Gaby: No, it’s melting, it’s melting.

Cerise: It’s in the cavity, it’s melting, it feels exciting and erotic.

Riese: Yeah, it’s melting.

Mal: My mistake, Cerise, my mistake. You’re right, you’re right.

Gaby: There was ice in her butt hole and then, Molly was like, “You’re so wet.” And Shane was like, “No, it’s the ice cube that is in my butt hole.”

Riese: Cools you down, from the bottom up. I love this episode because I think the SheBar stuff is really funny and all the sex is sexy. And the music is great. By the music, I mean one song. “Swimming Pool,” by Freezepop that I love a lot. And I was listening to and I wrote a really good blog post that everyone really liked and because I was listening to that song, it was inspiring me. And I was probably stoned and drunk, because it was two days ago.

Mal: Wow. Every time I hear a song used — whenever I’m re-watching stuff now, as an adult musician, I’m always like, “That is so interesting that they reused the same music queue over and over.” And then I’m like, “How much did Freezepop get paid for that?” Because they used it in the foreground of the show.

Carly: Yeah, that’s them probably taking advantage of how much—

Gaby: Somebody’s friend or something.

Carly: Isn’t that usually part of those contracts, is how much of the song you can use, time-wise? So somehow, they were able to get a large number of minutes.

Gaby: In my film, which is about Niese, Barly, Sal, Derise, and Brittani, we don’t change Brittani’s name at all. Brittani’s name, no change. We will be using all of Mal Blum’s “Pity Boy.” Everyone, I change everyone’s name, I change my own name. Brittani stays Brittani. With an I? Yes, with an I.

Carly: Spelled the same.

Riese: Wait, aren’t we supposed to be answering questions that Lauren was gonna gather?

Mal: Oh.

Carly: The questions that are in the actual question box, we were originally going to answer them if we had a few minutes when we were gonna switch over, between our guests, but that didn’t happen because it was so seamless. So we just have 20 unanswered questions.

Riese: Lauren—

Gaby: I can answer them fast. Want me to answer them quickly?

Cerise: You’re on fire, Gaby.

Carly: I think Gaby should answer the questions that were sent in. Yes.

Gaby: “Did you fuck all night before you told her I was the love of your life, this morning?” Yes.

Carly: Good job.

Gaby: “Would really love to know if any of you guys thought the speed of Max hooking up with Tom was weird.” No. “Have any of you listened to Leisha and Kate’s podcast, ‘Pants?’ And if so, do you have any thoughts about it?” I have not.

Carly: I have not.

Gaby: “Ilene Chaiken, will you invite Riese to your pool? There can be burning food included.” Yes. “Of all the steamy sex scenes in this ep, which do you find the hottest?” Tina and Bette. I’m really sorry.

Riese: Alice and Tasha.

Cerise: Whoa! Controversial, okay.

Mal: Wow.

Gaby: “Can we bring Leigh Cobie back? A queer transplant for Portland, since ‘Stumptown’ got canceled?” Absolutely, fuck this canceling of “Stumptown.” “Does anyone else think if Angela Robinson directed this ep, she would do the mafia table scene like the poker scene in ‘Luck be a Lady,’ season four? Still love Rose Troche here, though.” Angela Robinson is amazing. If you guys haven’t seen Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, that movie is it. What a horny film.

Carly: It’s a great film.

Gaby: “Did anyone else forget how much of a bummer this episode was?” Yes. “Why don’t people fuck their hot girlfriends?” Truly a mystery. “Do you think Jenny, legit, does not figure out Adele’s scamminess, or does she just not recognize the extent to which the scamminess is serving Adele, instead of Jenny?” I don’t think Jenny notices anyone but Jenny. “How can you talk about Jenny’s legs without admitting they are always in dirty tights?” Why do you hate dirty tights? “Why do the YouTubers at the chapel at The Abbey hate Gaby?” I don’t know, have you ever talked to me? “Gaby, the lesbian in makeup, I’m obsessed.” Thank you, it is KimChi’s Make Me Happy palette and then, it is also Novena and then, my lipstick is MAC, but I put lip gloss over it. “Will we have a pee break?” No. “Tina’s parents scream ‘Tina!’ into the world, but no one is there to see them or hear them. Do they make a sound/exist?” I don’t know what that’s a reference to.

Riese: No.

Mal: Tina not having parents.

Riese: She doesn’t have parents.

Gaby: Oh, right. She doesn’t have parents.

Cerise: Tina’s parents don’t exist.

Gaby: “Do you wanna come to my parents’ house in Connecticut and use our pool?” Absolutely. “Is Gaby a femme top?” Yes. “Does Jenny’s relationship with William remind anyone else of Elizabeth Holmes?” That is hilarious, have you ever heard that woman talk? It’s crazy.

Carly: Very funny.

Gaby: “What writer decided that Foxworthy was a good last name for a character?” I’m sorry, have you never heard of comedian Jeff Foxworthy?

Brittani: Yeah, Jeff Foxworthy.

– “Did they use the original Dan Foxworthy actor? It seems like it was some other guy doing the voiceover, since we don’t actually see Dan, really.” That’s a great question, justice for Dan Foxworthy.

Carly: No, no, no.

Gaby: “Can you please recap ‘The Real L word’ when you finish recapping “The L Word?” Good God, no. “What is the ship name for Gaby and Mal?”

Carly: Gal.

Cerise: Gal.

Mal: No, don’t say it.

Riese: Mabby. Maby.

Gaby: Wasn’t it glum baby? Baby glum?

Riese: No.

Mal: I hate that one. I knew you were gonna say it.

Gaby: Baby glum!

Carly: Wow, this feels so—

Mal: Please don’t, please don’t.

Carly: Really went off the rails, huh?

Gaby: Nailed it.

Riese: Wow, that was rapid, that was. Great job Gaby, thank you.

Mal: Yeah.

Gaby: Thank you.

Mal: Somebody wrote, “How much coffee is in that goblet?”

Gaby: It’s red wine.

Cerise: It’s red wine, even better.

Riese: If you want to read recaps of The Real L Word that I spent insane amounts of time on several decades ago. They exist on autostraddle.com.

Gaby: Woof.

Carly: I don’t think I could get through a podcast where we had to recap The Real L Word, I don’t think I have it in me.

Riese: Well, we shouldn’t talk. We’ll probably do something else, but it won’t be that.

Carly: Why don’t you guys tell us what we should do next?

Mal: Oo, interesting.

Riese: Oh, did it just end automatically?

Mal: No, still on.

Carly: What, no, it’s still goin’.

Gaby: They said I could send you a tip.

Riese: I know, that came up for me too. I was like, “Oh.”

Carly: Is it over?

Mal: Does Crowdcast automatically cuts you off at like two hours, right?

Gaby: No.

Carly: We have two minutes left. Cool, so in that case—

Brittani: I’ll read the info.

Riese: Where’s Nicole?

Gaby: Read it, read it, read it.

Carly: All right, here’s what’s up.

Riese: Lauren said we’re good on time.

Mal: Oh, sorry.

Carly: Oh, great. We’re gonna talk forever.

Cerise: Great. It’s nice to see all of you, by the way.

Carly: I know. I really missed everybody very much.

Riese: I wish we were in the same room, in a different time period.

Carly: I know.

Mal: Which time period?

Carly: The 1800s!

Gaby: No, we would all be—

Mal: Nah.

Gaby: First of all, if it was 1800, you would be dead of disease or burned at the stake, so no.

Brittani: You’d own me!

Cerise: Yeah, Brittani and I would be waiting on y’all.

Gaby: We cannot go to the 1800s.

Carly: I don’t know actually wanna go to the 1800s, oh my God.

Riese: No, I meant like earlier this year.

Gaby: Can I say something? I feel like if it was the 1800s, Carly would be doing an Albert Nobbs.

Mal: What?

Gaby: And we’d just be like—

Carly: Oh no.

Gaby: Do you know what I mean?

Mal: What’s a Albert Nobbs?

Gaby: Like pretending to be a manservant.

Carly: I’d be Glenn Close, dressed as a man. How did they feel about Jews in the 1800s?

Gaby: Not good!

Cerise: Not good.

Carly: So we’d all be in great shape.

Cerise: Yeah, you all would be locked up and we’d be taking care of y’all in jail, that’s—

Carly: Great, this took a turn.

Riese: I was thinking like January 2020.

Mal: January of 2020, like last year.

Carly: Sure.

Riese: Let’s go back to “The L Word Live,” like at the—

Carly: Yes!

Gaby: Aw.

Mal: You wanna go back to 2009?

Carly: No, December of 2019.

Mal: Oh.

Carly: Mal, I need you to catch up.

Gaby: When we did “The L Word Live.”

Riese: It was temperate, mostly.

Gaby: Guys, we’ve been in this for so long. Is Trump dead, can someone tell us?

Riese: Oh yeah, totally.

Carly: This is actually the longest I’ve gone without checking Twitter in four days, so—

Gaby: Let us know if Trump is dead.

Cerise: He’s not, Gaby, I’m sorry.

Gaby: Come on!

Cerise: He checked out of the hospital today, but the doctor said he’s “not out of the woods yet,” quote unquote.

Gaby: Put him back in the woods. Shove him into the woods! Into the woods! Straight back to the woods, baby!

Carly: He’s gonna die, he’s gonna die, I know it. I feel it in my bones.

Mal: People are saying he’s tweeting a lot.

Gaby: He’s having steroid psychosis. And I know, as someone who’s experienced psychosis, that’s what he’s doing. Tweeting a lot is symptom numero uno, baby.

Carly: All caps tweets.

Riese: All caps, “401K. VOTE.”

Gaby: Last time I had a bipolar psychotic breakdown, I just typed, “401K. VOTE. SECOND AMENDMENT. VOTE.”

Riese: He descended a flight of stairs, turned to face his helicopter, and then, immediately removed his mask.

Carly: And then, he had a hard time breathing for five minutes, while he waved and saluted and then went inside, maskless. Anyway.

Cerise: God, love it. Love to see it.

Gaby: Guys, I’m not making a joke. I do have bipolar disorder, I’m allowed to make fun.

Carly: Gaby’s allowed.

Gaby: I’m allowed, don’t cancel me.

Mal: Yes, Pence needs to go, too. The chat’s saying, “But what about Pence?” No, no, no, they both need to go.

Gaby: President Pelosky, baby.

Carly: No.

Cerise: I just need to state here that, as a journalist, I have no opinion on all of these things.

Mal: Shit, sorry.

Gaby: I’m like, “Cancel me, bitch!” And Cerise is like, “I have no opinion. I am working as a reporter.”

Riese: Cerise, speaking of you working as a reporter, should we talk about you guys and where our readers—

Carly: Oh my God, yes.

Riese: Can find, follow you, and just get more of you in their lives?

Carly: Yeah, yes.

Cerise: Yeah, totally, follow me on Twitter, I’m @cerisecastle. Cerise is kind of weird to spell. I’m sorry.

Brittani: Spell it.

Cerise: C-E-RI-S-E, and my last name is Castle, like where a queen lives, because that’s me.

Mal: Wow.

Cerise: So yeah, check me out, I’m a reporter. I talk about important things.

Gaby: In my version of this, your name is Jerise Kingdom.

Mal: Wow, Gaby’s a new Cerise fan. Wow, what a delightful person.

Cerise: Aw. Thanks, Mal.

Gaby: Oh, my God.

Carly: Oh my God, we’re all out of our minds. Brittani, plug your things.

Brittani: Oh, Brittani Nichols is my name. You can find me @bishilarious on Twitter and Instagram, and if you live in LA and you’re voting, check out the KNOCK voter guide.

Carly: Hell yeah, it is currently open in a tab on my computer because my ballot arrived today and I’m so excited to fill it out and drop it off.

Gaby: Woo!

Cerise: Fuck yeah voting is so cool. I can say that.

Mal: B is hilarious.

Carly: Mal Blum, where can folks find you?

Mal: Right here in my studio, baby.

Cerise: What are you doing?

Mal: What is that? Is that—

Cerise: Why are you exposing me, God! Why is my girlfriend putting me on blast?

Mal: I just wanna make sure I understand.

Cerise: Jesus Christ.

Mal: That’s the cowboy emoji with a strap-on?

Cerise: Yes!

Mal: That’s what I saw. Okay.

Carly: I saw that, as well.

Cerise: That’s what I like!

Mal: Great, great! I love that for you, I do.

Gaby: Cowboy hat, cowboy hat!

Mal: Yeah, I did re-watch Brokeback Mountain yesterday. And so you know, I’ve been really thinking about cowboys.

Gaby: Where can people actually find you?

Mal: Sorry, I’m sorry. I started thinking about Brokeback Mountain again. I’m Mal Blum, @malblum. M like Mal, A-L-B-L-U-M, and that’s everywhere, on Instagram and Twitter and—

Cerise: Does Baby Glum have an Instagram yet?

Mal: Aw man, I really hope Baby Glum doesn’t catch on.

Gaby: Baby Glum does not have an Instagram.

Cerise: I’mma make it tonight.

Gaby: Yeah I’m on board with that. If someone could make fan vids of me and Mal and have a Twitter you guys saw. Can only just say secretly, before we were out as a couple, I really did enjoy watching people speculate on Twitter. It was very fun for me.

Riese: Did you like it, Mal?

Mal: Yeah, I didn’t mind it. Gaby really loves… Gaby, what’s that called? It’s not compersion, but Gaby really likes when people are like, “I like your partner.” “Your partner’s hot,” or whatever, Gaby’s like, “Yeah, I love that shit.” And I’m like, “I don’t care.”

Gaby: It’s validating.

Mal: It’s validation, yes.

Gaby: I’m Gaby Dunn.

Riese: Gaby loves validation.

Gaby: You can find me @gabydunn on Twitter, but Twitter’s kind of overrated. So I’m on Instagram at @gabyroad now. And I had a show come out September 24, on Audible, called “Apocalypse Untreated,” and Brittani wrote it with me. And so you should — if you like me and also Brittani, you should go listen to it. It’s called “Apocalypse Untreated.” There is a character named Brittani that I just handed it to Brittani and said, “Write what you would say.” So enjoy that.

Mal: It’s really good. It seriously is really good.

Gaby: Thank you.

Mal: You both did a really great job.

Gaby: Thank you. So listen to that, if you like both of us. Or just Brittani, if you only like Brittani, then also listen to it.

Brittani: Or you like each of us half. And then, it equals one like.

Gaby: Yes, exactly.

Carly: All right, thank you for clearing that up. Riese is @autowin and I’m @carlytron. This show is @tolandback and of course, Autostraddle is autostraddle.com and @autostraddle. Did I do all of the credits? We have a merch store, store.autostraddle.com, whatever. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Carra Sykes. And this podcast is produced and edited and engineered, and this whole livestream situation was organized and is being produced, as we speak, by Lauren Klein. Lauren, we love you.

Mal: Yay, Karen!

Carly: She’s got 12 screens up in her office right now, it’s amazing. I made her take a photo, she’ll send it to me.

Riese: She’s also an amateur woodworker who makes great furniture.

Carly: Incredible stuff, yeah. She made her all her office furniture. I’m really proud of her.

Riese: And not out of boxes, like I did in 2010.

Carly: So now, we’re at the point of the show where we say our L words.

Mal: Oh shit.

Carly: Has everyone got an L word?

Brittani: Yeah.

Cerise: Yeah, let’s do it.

Carly: Alright. Riese, you wanna count us in? Riese is still thinking of an L word.

Gaby: Uh-oh.

Carly: I know that face, she’s looking around her apartment to see something that starts with the letter L.

Brittani: Oh boy. It’s taking a while.

Carly: This is gonna take a minute. The thing is that we edit out the long pause in the podcast where we both have to think about words.

Gaby: I have one.

Cerise: Thanks, Gaby.

Carly: And I think everybody — y’all are doing this in the chat, but everyone say an L word in the chat too! Okay, Riese, count us in.

Riese: Okay, one, two, three.

Carly: Riese, what’d you say?

Riese: I said laminate.

Carly: Great, Gaby, what’d you say?

Gaby: Lasagna, which is what we were eating, me and Mal.

Carly: Mal, what’d you say?

Mal: I said Lunchables because I panicked.

Carly: Brittani, what’d you say?

Brittani: Lithium.

Carly: Cerise, what did you say?

Cerise: Languish.

Carly: Oo, that’s a good one.

Mal: Oo.

Carly: I said “losing” because that’s what happened to my beloved LA Sparks and they’re out. And now, I just really am hoping that Vegas can turn it around because everyone’s really here to just hear me talk about the WMBA. All right.

Gaby: I am.

Carly: I know.

Riese: I am.

Carly: Well, looks like we did it. We successfully got through this episode. It only took—

Riese: We didn’t read all of the chats.

Carly: I know, I missed like everything in the chat today.

Riese: This is so cute because also, this is the first time that our listeners have ever been in the same spot, able to talk to each other, I think. We finally got this going at episode 509 and it’s—

Gaby: You guys should make a Discord! If you’re a listener of this show, make a Discord for “To L and Back,” and then invite everyone to the Discord.

Cerise: Oo.

Riese: I don’t know what that is.

Gaby: Do it.

Brittani: It’s a very overwhelming app.

Carly: Sounds like a lot.

Riese: I still just got into TikTok, so—

Gaby: Every so often, I like to pop into the Mal Blum Discord and just be like, “Hi guys, it’s me. How’s it going?”

Mal: I did a couple webcasts on Crowdcast and the chat made a Discord, it’s just a forum.

Gaby: And then, I like to pop in and go, “Ugh, I’m such a big fan, I wish Mal would recognize me.” Just for fun. Make a Discord, guys, do it.

Riese: I think we got a lot of insight today into what makes a relationship work, in a lot of different ways.

Carly: That’s true.

Mal: Elevator sex.

Riese: Good. We didn’t get it from the show, but we got it from our wonderful guests.

Carly: Thank you so much, to our wonderful guests, for being our wonderful guests. We love you all very much.

Riese: Yeah.

Mal: Thanks for having us.

Brittani: We love you, too.

Gaby: Bye, we love you, too.

Carly: I miss all of you, even though we live in the same city.

Cerise: Pandemics be like that.

Carly: Let’s all hang out in a field somewhere soon. Thank you so much to everyone who is here. It says there are 510 people listening to this and chatting and oh my God, y’all have been here since six.

Mal: Yeah.

Carly: That’s over two hours.

Riese: This was fun.

Carly: This was really fun.

Riese: I got nervous, but it was really fun and it was really cool. I can’t wait to read all your messages. I feel really warmed. I mean physically, but also in my heart.

Gaby: Aw.

Carly: But not like the blackout warm.

Riese: Yeah, no this is nice.

Mal: Like a liquid heat?

Gaby: Bean, Bean, Bean, Bean.

Riese: Not a liquid heat.

Cerise: “Liquid heat!” Shut up, Mal.

Riese: It’s the sweat that’s right here, right here. That’s where I’m sweating, in case anyone’s—

Carly: Wow, there we go. Thank y’all for being here, this was a real treat. Yeah, I guess that’s it, I guess we’re done.

Gaby: Bye!

Cerise: Bye!

Riese: Bye, guys!

“To L and Back” Is Going Live This Monday, You Should Probably Come

A long long time ago, we told you that if we met a certain fundraising goal, we’d do a live episode of everyone’s favorite podcast, “To L and Back,” which is about everybody’s least favorite show, The L Word. Now, the days of our lives have passed by like sand through the hourglass, and we’ve finally settled on an episode, time and date with which to dazzle and entertain you!

AND IT’S TOTALLY 100% FREE JUST A FREE SHOW FOR YOU!!!

On October 5th, you’re gonna wake up and be like…. wait where is the new episode of “To L and Back”? and alas, there won’t be one. But!!!! You will have the chance to witness a life episode of “To L and Back” that very evening on the interwebs greatest crowdcasting platform, Crowdcast!

If you can’t make it, don’t despair — the episode will be recorded and edited like normal to debut the following week (October 12) but of course, if you can make it we would love to see you there.

We will be recapping Episode 509, “Liquid Heat,” otherwise known as the “rolling blackouts episode where everybody has sex” with special guests that will delight and inspire you.

It will be taking place at 9PM EST / 6PM PST. You better be there. Don’t you wanna know what 6pm in West Hollywood feels like? Tasha sure does.

Hundreds of people have already RSVP’ed and you could be next. What have you got to lose, literally nothing, if it’s not funny you can just like do a crossword puzzle at the same time but also it’s gonna be funny!!!

RSVP Now!

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