“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 508: “Lay Down The Law” with Ari Monts!
This week on To L and Back, legendary Autostraddle writer and A-Camp band singer Ari joins us as Tasha goes on trial for being just another soldier in the army of love, Jodi prepares a Moroccon Feast for three days so Shane won’t have to take Molly to the theater, Nikki makes the cover of Celebrity Star Power Today as potentially being gay on the eve of the big premiere of terrible action film, Jenny hates that guy’s purple tie, Jenny cries in a fancy dress, Bette and Tina grapple with sexual tension and so much more!
The usual:
Riese: Before we get into today’s episode, we have such a very special announcement! You might remember, a million million years ago, this past Spring, we did a fundraiser. And one of the things we said we were gonna do if we hit a certain milestone was a live episode of To L and Back! And guess what? It’s been a lot of time, and now we’re doing it! We’re doing it! We’re really doing it!
Carly: We sure are! We’re going to be recapping Episode 509, “Liquid Heat,” live. And you can attend!
Riese: Uh huh!
Carly: And yes, this is the episode with a lot of sex scenes.
Riese: Yeah, you know, the power goes out, the rolling black outs, everyone’s…you know the episode.
Carly: It’s a classic. It is a classic episode.
Riese: Classic.
Carly: It’s going to be great. So, you can join us for this special live recording Monday, October 5 at 6pm West Coast time, which is 9pm on the East Coast. And then the recording of that live episode will air a week later, Monday, October 12 as our regular episode — which means there’s no new episode next week, October 5. But you will be able to join us for our live episode!
Riese: However, the event is limited to the first 250 attendees [update: we’ve changed the capacity to be unlimited] so you should RSVP as soon as you can if you want to come. You can find the RSVP link in our episode description and also on all of our socials. And, big news! It’s not going to be just us, is it, Carly?
Carly: It’s sure not! We’ve got some incredible special guests lined up!
Riese: We sure do! Longtime friends of the pod—
Carly: Gaby Dunn, Mal Blum…
Riese: Brittani Nichols and Cerise Castle!
Carly: You’re not going to want to miss this. We’re going to have so much fun talking about this ridiculous episode. And again, if you miss the live recording, the episode will be up as regularly scheduled, October 12, in our usual feed here. And we will have a transcript of that episode on Autostraddle.com posted on the same day.
Riese: Carol will also be there, won’t you be?
[Robotic Voice] Bark bark bark. I can’t fucking wait.
Riese: Carol’s going to come too.
Carly: Oh my god.
Riese: So, you’ll get to see Carol, which is like, wow.
Carly: That’s amazing.
Riese: You know, that’s so exciting. And you know what? I think it’s gonna be really great!
Carly: It is! It’s gonna be really fun. Maybe one of my dogs will be a surprise guest. Maybe some of our friends’ dogs will be surprise guests!
Riese: Whoaaaa.
Carly: I think everyone should have their dogs join. We’ll have to talk to them about that. We’ll see if their dogs are free, if they don’t have plans.
Riese: Yeah, I was trying to do a Carol and Beans celesbian wedding.
Carly: Oh my god.
Riese: I was trying to push for it.
Carly: I would love that.
Riese: But so far it’s been… Carol has been pretty lukewarm on it.
Carly: Wow, I hope we really get a dog roundtable moment that’s like, Carol and Beans and Shilo and Johnny, and maybe Arthur if he feels like deeming us with his presence. So once again, we are doing a live recording, Monday, October 5—
Riese: LIVE!!
Carly: 6pm on the West Coast, 9pm on the East Coast.
Riese: 6pm!
Carly: It’s on Crowdcast. You can get the information to RSVP in this episode description and also on all of our socials. And again, it is limited to the first 250 attendees, so if you think you want to do it, you should RSVP now.
Riese: If you aren’t following us on Instagram @tolandback, you should be. But also on Autostraddle.com there will be a post about it and a link there to RSVP.
Carly: Yes, so all the places you might think there might be a link, there will be a link.
Riese: There will be a link, yeah. I’ll also just have one on a piece of paper at my house, but that’s just for me.
Carly: That’s helpful!
Riese: Yeah, it’s just for me though. It’s like a little reminder, like a rubber band.
Carly: Oh, I love that. I do that rubber band thing sometimes.
Riese: That’s cute.
Carly: Yeah. So anyway, we are super excited and we hope to see you there!
Riese: We sure do!
Carly: Ok, now onto the show.
[Theme song plays]
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: A podcast! It’s an Autostraddle podcast, where we recap The L Word, one episode at a time.
Riese: Every week we do it.
Carly: For the rest of our lives.
Riese: For the rest of our lives, which are gonna be short.
Carly: Well, that’s the thing, we’re going to run out of episodes, but I also think we’re running out of oxygen, so… anyway.
Riese: All of our intros lately have just been depressing.
Carly: I feel like if you just go through and listen to the intros for every episode of Season 5, they’re just getting more and more deranged and depressing.
Riese: Maudlin.
Carly: Yeah, very maudlin.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: It’s upsetting. Um… hi Riese!
Riese: Hi, Carly!
Carly: Great to be back together once again with you, back on The L Word train, and we’re—
Riese: You too!
Carly: We’re gonna continue Season 5, the best season.
Riese: Of The L Word
Carly: Yeah, yeah.
Riese: I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10, The L Word maintains a solid 4.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And I think that this season is the brightest 4 of them all.
Carly: Exactly, that’s a really good way to describe it.
Riese: Thank you so much. I’ve been alone with my thoughts a lot.
Carly: That’s incredible.
Riese: Recently.
Carly: Yeah no, I get it, I totally get it. So, we’ve got a very special guest joining us today!
Riese: Oh my god we do!
Carly: Oh my god.
Riese: Such a special guest!
Carly: Oh my god, I’m so excited. The only way this could be more exciting would be if we were all in the room together, but alas.
Riese: Yeah, that would be great.
Carly: All in the studio, A.K.A. Riese’s kitchen, which is where Riese is! I’m in my office.
Riese: Yeah, I’m in my kitchen.
Carly: But, you know, if we could all be together, it would be more exciting, and it would remind me of past times when we’ve all been together that have been very fun! But our special guest today, please welcome to the pod, Ari Monts!
Riese: Woooo!
Ari: Thank you! I’m happy to be here!
Carly: Tell our listeners a little about yourself!
Ari: Well I’m in my late 20s…
Carly: Yeah, let’s get into it!
Ari: Yeah, you know. I write for Autostraddle, I live in Austin right now, I do identify as a lesbian, and also I have cats, who you might hear, as much as I tried to prevent that by feeding them right before this so that hopefully they would take a nap. But, that may not happen.
Carly: Well, we are thrilled to have you here to discuss this episode with us today. But first, a quick interview. What is your L Word origin story?
Riese: When did you first watch it…
Carly: Yeah, what was going on in your life?
Ari: Somehow, I watched it when it was still on television… but I started watching Season 1 during Season 6.
Carly: Mmm.
Ari: And I’m pretty sure I was in my first year of college—so I took a gap year, so I was 19, not 18 like everyone else. So I was 19, and I had this perfect roommate where neither of us spoke to each other, and we would just silently sit on our separate beds wearing headphones—
Riese: Nice.
Ari: Watching television, and every once in a while we would laugh and look over and be like, “hey, what are you watching?” So, it was—
Riese: That’s what marriage is like, I think?
Ari: Yeah, I mean I kind of—
Carly: Sometimes…
Ari: I kind of think that’s what marriage is like.
Carly: I can confirm that sometimes that is what marriage is like, and it’s really pleasant and it’s really nice.
Ari: Yeah it sounds great. It was great when I was 19, so, you know. But I absolutely remember seeing the finale—not quite live, but we torrented it immediately after—and being disappointed.
Riese: Yeah, it was bad.
Ari: It was terrible, yeah.
Carly: Yeah, so bad.
Riese: Yeah, some of the worst hours of episodes — worst hours of episodes [laughs] — it was one of the worst hours of television I’ve ever seen in my life.
Carly: 100% correct.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: Did you have any favorite characters?
Ari: Tasha, 100%, which is also why I picked this episode, it’s very—
Carly: Hell yeah!
Ari: Tasha-centric.
Riese: Tasha-centric.
Carly: That was very exciting, all of the Tasha stuff in this episode, I’m excited to talk about it.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: Me too.
Ari: She got me really hot for women in uniform. My politics, unfortunately, no longer dream of that, but…
Riese: Yeah…
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: That’s been an interesting situation for us to navigate as we discuss this season of television.
Ari: Yes.
Riese: And also last season of television.
Carly: Indeed. Today’s episode is 508 entitled “Lay Down the Law.” That’s 2 L words in one title!
Riese: It’s a double score on Scattergories.
Carly: Yes, and I think it’s pretty obvious why the title is what the title is. This episode was written by Alexandra Kondracke. It was directed by Leslie Libman, who is actually a big music video director from the 80s, who then went on to become kind of like a prolific one-hour episodic drama director. This episode originally aired on February 24, 2008. Alright, should we get into it?
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: Let’s get into it!
Carly: Let’s do it!
Riese: Nee nur nee nur nee nur.
Carly: Vroom vroom!
Riese: Music, vroom vroom vroom!
Carly: That was the sound effect of a motorcycle. Go, Riese!
Riese: We open on the mean streets.
Carly: Of someplace.
Riese: Where a person in, like, a fetish leather outfit is climbing up the world’s tallest fire escape.
Ari: So — it was so tall!
Riese: It was!
Carly: It was. That went on for a very long time. I was like, I hope they had a stunt person doing this.
Riese: It was like that movie that was like the Englishman who went up the mountain, and then down the mountain… you know what I’m talking about?
Carly: I do not.
Riese: With Hugh Grant?
Carly: But that sounds like something that Hugh Grant would be in.
Riese: It was like that.
Carly: Mhm, ok.
Riese: It was very similar. I didn’t see the film. I just remember the title, because I was like, that’s a long title, just like this is a long fire escape.
Carly: Incredible.
Riese: I’m already killing it.
Carly: You’re crushing it. So this is the scene from Nikki’s new action movie called Liquid Heat, which is so funny. Let’s all just take a moment and think about how funny that is.
Ari: Liquid Heat.
Carly: This is really funny. She’s watching the movie with her manager and her agent and they’re like—
Riese: They’re delighted.
Carly: Fucking loving it.
Ari: Somehow also — like, their acting as the characters in this show is as bad as Nikki’s acting as the character in the movie.
Carly: Yes, exactly, perfect.
Riese: Yeah, because everyone is committed to the actual bit, and then also the bit that’s happening on the other bit.
Ari: Mhmm.
Riese: Everyone is bad, bad.
Carly: Meta.
Riese: Everyone’s doing really bad.
Carly: A lot of meta badness.
Ari: Yes.
Riese: Yeah. Nikki shoots someone with a gun…
Carly: Wild.
Riese: They love this bad movie… they love it so much.
Carly: They love it so much.
Riese: Also, they’re laughing. It’s an action film, it’s a serious film with guns, with a woman taking off an outfit, and then underneath are her boobs, and then there’s sexual encounters in a room.
Carly: Heterosexual sexual encounters.
Riese: Heterosexual sexual encounters, yeah, in a heterosexual situation. All of that, but they’re laughing like it’s a comedy, like it’s a common comedy.
Carly: I thought they were laughing because they were so excited about how much money they’re all going to be making very soon.
Ari: That’s what I thought.
Carly: That’s how I read it, they were like, “Oh shit! We did it! Victory!” And then they start talking about Brett Ratner, and then I kind of checked out for a second. But they’re just like, “Oh man, you’re gonna be in all the action movies, and your rate is going up, it’s 12 million now.”
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: It went up in the conversation they were having, it was like—
Riese: Yeah, from 8 to 12.
Ari: It was adjusted fast.
Carly: It was like one of those — yeah, it’s like one of those scenes — when people think of the gross stereotypes of Hollywood agents, it’s exactly this scene.
Ari: Was the agent the guy or the girl?
Riese: Both?
Ari: Mmmm.
Carly: Yeah, she said, “You’re the best.”
Riese: She requires both, for both sides of her personality.
Carly: It was very confusing who actually is her manager.
Riese: Who was who, yeah.
Carly: And who was actually her agent. My gut tells me, based on how they’re portrayed, that the woman was the manager and the man was the agent, but we don’t know for sure.
Ari: So the manager says, “I have a call into Stuff and I think we have the cover. What does that mean!?
Riese and Carly: Stuff Magazine!
Carly: It was like a Maxim…
Riese: During the lad mag boom of 2002.
Carly: Yeah, it was like, it was like a Maxim.
Riese: Maxim…Stuff…… Like F… FHM or something….
Carly: FHM, oh god, remember that era?
Riese: Yeah. I feel like there are other ones…
Carly: There are, but I honestly, I can’t remember the other ones. Those are the three that I remember.
Riese: Anyway, honestly, Kate French — the actress who plays Nikki — has been on the cover of all those magazines.
Carly: Truly, yeah.
Riese: In her underwear. So, I’m so excited for her to be on the cover.
Carly: You guys can’t see this at home, but Riese rolled her eyes when she said that in a way that was really really great.
Riese: I can’t wait, I’m gonna buy it.
Carly: You’re gonna get in a time machine?
Riese: Yeah, I’m gonna create a time machine. Not to escape the current moment, because I love the current moment, but just because I want to get a copy of that fucking magazine.
Carly: And then just head right back to 2020.
Riese: I want the centerfold, you know? I want her kneeling in a bed, in Calico underwear, with her hair kind of wavy, being like, “Oooo, I love it when a man makes me pancakes,” or something, you know? Whatever. But I also love that this is what some lesbians decided was an action movie.
Carly: I know, that was the best part.
Riese: Like a big Blockbuster film!
Carly: It was a pretty small action scene for what these movies are. Normally everything’s just on fire.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: And blowing up all the time.
Ari: Yep.
Carly: So, it was clearly written by lesbians, because she drives up in fetish gear on a motorcycle, gets off it, and starts sneaking around on a fire escape. And you’re like, this is awesome, is this what action movies are? They’re not.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: This is not really what action movies are.
Riese: No…
Carly: Which was very funny.
Riese: Anyways, so you would think — honestly, we already got a full film.
Carly: I’ve seen all I need to see.
Riese: But it keeps going!
Carly: Yeah, it does. It just goes forever. This is a very long cold open, for it being one very brief moment.
Riese: And for being honestly low-key boring.
Carly: Super boring.
Riese: I had pulled out my Scattergories app. Then we go to the wilds…
Carly: The wilds of Vancouver?
Ari: The wilds!
Riese: The wilds of Vancouver, where Jodi and Shane are on a little bike trip together! But they’re gonna stop on a bench and talk about life. One thing that I like about this scene is that they actually had Shane looking at Jodi when she talked.
Carly: So that was something.
Riese: And trying to sign the few words that she knew. So that was like, that was great. That was a big improvement from when, in the pitch dark of night, drunk Tina was saying that she didn’t want to drive home. And somehow Jodi, looking in the opposite direction, knew that she had to get in the way.
Carly: Knew what was going on, yeah.
Riese: Yeah, I thought that was a really nice choice.
Carly: They actually seem to shoot this scene and not shoot it through a hearing person’s view of a scene.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Which is what they do so frequently on the show, but this felt much more like not that, which was nice! It was nice for a change.
Riese: So I guess we should discuss Molly?
Carly: The American Girl doll?
Riese: Molly, formerly the eldest American Girl doll, who is now—
Ari: Now she’s someone’s Grandma.
Carly: Yeah, basically.
Riese: She is!
Carly: Fuck!
Riese: She is!
Carly: Jesus. So they talk about Molly, and Jodi says that Molly is playing her, but Shane likes it. And then Shane says that maybe she’ll take her to the theatre. She does not specify if this is a live theater or a movie theater, but she does say that she hates the theater, so I think its a — it’s just in principle, all theater.
Riese: All theater. She probably wanted to take her to see Oklahoma.
Carly: She’s gonna take her to see Annie Get Your Gun, but instead of that, Jodi’s gonna throw a dinner party!
Riese: Yeah, there’s only one way to get a little drama…
Carly: There’s only way to get drama on this show, and it’s a dinner party.
Ari: Yeah, a couple’s dinner party.
Carly: Especially a couples dinner party.
Riese: Yeah, a couples dinner party, that later is described as not a couples dinner party.
Ari: Yep.
Carly: Even though, in this scene, they literally say, “We need one more couple.”
Riese: We need to invite another couple, yeah. I felt left out when they were doing that. I was like, that’s not fair, you should invite your friends who are not in couples.
Carly: I know!
Riese: And then I was distracted by Jodi saying that Molly is maybe a spaghetti girl.
Ari: A spaghetti girl!
Carly: Oh my god…
Riese: Straight until wet.
Ari: Is that the first time that we heard straight until wet, perhaps on television?
Riese: It is. It was for me, that was my first time.
Carly: I think so, yeah.
Riese: Which is surprising, because I did work at the Olive Garden and the Macaroni Grill — at both, and it never came up at either location.
Carly: That’s incredible that it never came up!
Ari: It seems like it would have come up.
Riese: Yeah, but it didn’t. So this was the first time, and I think I thought, hmm…
Carly: That was your only thought, was “hmm?” I had heard it in real life, but I had never heard it on TV.
Riese: Oh, you have?
Carly: Well, I hung out almost exclusively with drag queens for several years, so I think that had a lot to do with it.
Riese: Oh, sure. Shane suggests inviting Sam and Tina, as sort of a couple but they’re not a couple, so…
Carly: Not at all.
Riese: I don’t know.
Carly: We didn’t even know who Sam was until last episode, right?
Riese: No.
Carly: It’s not like she’s been a part of the storyline, she popped up for one scene.
Riese: I know. Maybe she has a deleted scene.
Carly: Ugh, she’s in like 17 deleted scenes that we’ll never get to see. So then Shane asks Jodi if Bette is pressuring her to do the Subaru Pink Ride. What?!
Riese: Subaru Pink Ride?
Carly: The Subaru Pink Ride!
Riese: Who’s sponsoring the Pink Ride?
Carly: I believe it’s Subaru!
Riese: Subaru!
Carly: Subaru!
Riese: The Subaru Pink Ride.
Carly: It’s the Pink Ride, sponsored by Subaru.
Riese: Subaru, ok. I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure if it was Subaru, or what the sponsor was.
Carly: I used to drive a Subaru!
Riese: It’s Subaru, ok. So Subaru, so yeah. Subaru Pink Ride. Jodi is doing it of her own free will.
Carly: Yes. Also, when has Bette ever said anything about athletics, or a Pink Ride, or Dana, or cancer, ever on this show?
Ari: Never heard it, no.
Carly: Exactly, exactly! It was a weird way to bring Bette into the conversation.
Ari: Really weird…
Riese: It sure was.
Carly: And it reminds us that it’s the Subaru Pink Ride coming up, but whatever.
Riese: The Subaru — yeah — Subaru Pink Ride.
Ari: Brought to you by Subaru.
Riese: Sponsored by Subaru.
Carly: Subaru, the car manufacturer.
Riese: Exactly, yeah. They make cars, Subaru. But this is a bike race, it’s not a car race.
Carly: Oh, well, that’s a little confusing, a little bit.
Riese: It is, it is. But that’s Subaru for you.
Carly: Bold. Bold. Bold bold bold.
Ari: It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.
Riese: Exactly! Exactly.
Carly: Well played. So, we go from this beautiful moment in the woods back to set, where Nikki’s agent is screaming at Tina.
Agent: Is Nikki a lez girl? Have you seen this?
Tina: Oh shit.
Agent: She has a $100 million dollar career-making Blockbuster premiering tomorrow night, and all anyone wants to talk about this morning is what she’s doing in your little perv of a movie!
Riese: Did you…
Carly: What?
Riese: Freeze frame this magazine cover?
Carly: I didn’t have to, because you did and texted it to me.
Ari: Tell me about the magazine cover!
Carly: Oh my god, Riese, tell us!
Riese: It’s like, Star Magazine or something? I have a few edits, actually, that I want to offer them, just a few ideas I had about it. Ok, so this is an issue of Star Beat Magazine, which I don’t know if it’s more popular than Stuff, or less popular than Stuff.
Carly: Hard to say…
Riese: But we’re going with it.
Carly: Different audience?
Riese: Exclusive, exclusive. Big photo. Nikki oil wrestling with lover Cindi. And it says over it, “Exclusive: Is Nikki a Lez Girl?” Big yellow letters.
Carly: For real.
Riese: Yeah. Below it is a smaller picture of Nikki, also oil wrestling. Just her, in that one.
Carly: These are all screen grabs of the last episode.
Ari: Of course, right.
Riese: And then in the corner, the right hand corner, another screen grab from that. And then we also find — there’s a few other stories in the issue. Those are: Brad’s burning man, Jen’s worst fears, and Lindsay’s back in rehab. Yikes. So…
Carly: Is Nikki a lez girl for real? What’s Nikki’s next move? It says all that on the cover.
Ari: Wow.
Riese: Yeah, so my feedback for this photographer is that Nikki fully made out and basically had lesbian sex with Jenny in the ring, and they chose these photos?
Carly: They chose these much tamer photos.
Riese: I think they could have run with “Nikki Is a Lez Girl.”
Ari: And used an exclamation point.
Riese: Exactly, they could have saved print. So anyway, they’re very mad about this, because apparently this will be very bad for Nikki’s popularity with boys with pimples “who want a girl who likes dicks.”
Carly: Wow.
Ari: They say dicks so much in this trailer.
Carly: So many times.
Riese: They sure do.
Ari: So many times.
Riese: So many times.
Carly: I would say unnecessary.
Ari: Yeah. They also talk about teen boys creaming themselves, which is just…
Riese: Again, that’s not what I’m — I’m here for my lesbian television, and I don’t want to hear about boys creaming themselves, and I don’t want to hear gender essentialism!
Ari: Mhmm!
Riese: So, genius Tina… get this. What if Nikki went out with a man?!
Carly: You mean in public?!
Riese: Uh huh!
Carly: Whoa. That would stop all the problems they’re having!
Ari: No one would think she’s a lesbian then!
Carly: Well look — I mean, the other storyline in this episode is that Tasha was once seen in public with a known lesbian, and then became known as a lesbian at army because of that, so clearly the same logic applies here.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: Yeah, two sides of the same coin. And they say that they need someone who is hot in a High School Musical, Jane Magazine sort of way. Which… totally different things.
Carly: Completely.
Riese: We’re getting a lot of vintage magazines in this, and I like that.
Carly: Yes, we do.
Riese: But Jane Magazine was alternative, and High School Musical was like, Disney mainstream.
Carly: All-American .
Riese: We also find out that she should not go out with Paris Hilton’s sloppy seconds — which again, they’ve used this term before, and when they used it before I hated it, and I still do.
Carly: Still hate it.
Riese: And then what do you know, who walks into the trailer…
Ari: Greg…
Carly: Fucking Greg.
Ari: Oh Greg…
Carly: Oh god, he’s the worst.
Riese: And someone points at him and says, “A dick that everybody likes?”
Ari: Oh my god.
Carly: What?! I didn’t understand. I don’t understand that at all. I have two thoughts.
Riese: Ok.
Carly: First thought — ok, when they were describing the type of guy she should be seen with, I kept thinking they were just going to be like, “Oh, Max,” because they were just describing Max. But also, they forgot that Max is on the show, because he hasn’t been on the show in like three episodes now.
Riese: Right, which is actually a blessing for him because every time he’s on the show, something terrible happens.
Carly: Well, it’s great because — right, any time he’s around, they’re mean to him, or transphobic to him, so.
Riese: Yeah, usually both.
Carly: Usually both. It’s great that that’s not happening, but you know what, it’s probably happening off camera, is the thing. My second thing is that I think it’s really interesting how Tina, as a big Hollywood producer, kind of has to like — you could say she chooses to do this, but I think it’s also a function of her job— it’s like, the way she has to talk in front of these other execs and agents and stuff, it’s not how she would ever talk, that we’ve ever seen her talk outside of that.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: And it’s really interesting to watch her navigating her real life and her work life in this weird way, especially on this project because they’re intersecting in this horrible way.
Riese: Yeah, that is interesting.
Carly: She says the most hideous things when she’s in conversations with her boss or these agents.
Riese: And she just has to roll with it.
Carly: And then there’s moments where she even says hideous things to Jenny, which like — we’ll get to that, but it’s just kinda, it’s interesting, is what I will say.
Riese: It is. it’s true, yeah. I feel like we’ve all had to do that in some regard, you know?
Carly: Yeah.
Ari: You gotta pass sometimes, just to survive.
Riese: Yep.
Ari: But the way she says—
Tina: Someone whose dick she might like.
Ari: Is just honestly — it’s a little, it’s grating. That’s what I would say.
Riese: Yeah, it is.
Carly: Grading, yeah, it’s a good way to describe that.
Riese: Yeah, I feel like she could have played to the crowd in a different way.
Ari: Mhmm.
Riese: She could have said, “a man everybody likes,” because I think that’s what she actually meant.
Ari: I do think that’s what she meant.
Riese: Not what she was saying…
Carly: I’m going to have to agree on that, yeah.
Riese: Yeah.
Ari: Yeah.
Carly: So anyway, Greg plays the Tim character in the movie, so this is basically the Jenny character and the Tim character getting set up together, which is on a 17th different level hilarious.
Ari: So meta.
Carly: I would say too meta. I think this show has become too meta at this point. It’s too much.
Riese: Yeah. Then we go to the boxing gym?
Carly: Yeah!
Riese: Where Colonel Davis is, I guess, like a serial killer? She’s wearing a full abominable snowman sweatsuit, hiding in a corner, hitting, going “woo woo woo woo,” hitting a tiny ball over and over again. And like, I felt like she was gonna turn around and pull five knives out of her pants, but that’s not what happened.
Carly: No, it’s not.
Ari: It also, very clearly, felt like a scene setting up a lesbian competition between her and Tasha.
Carly: Yes!
Ari: So, not to say foreshadowing, but foreshadowing.
Riese: That’s true!
Carly: Yes!
Riese: And Tasha wins.
Carly: Tasha wins everything, any competition, Tasha will win it.
Ari: Mhmm.
Carly: The scene started and I was like, yay Tasha! Because I was just like, yay, she’s here and she’s punching stuff and that’s great.
Riese: Yep, good for her.
Carly: Good for her! I’m glad that she has an outlet.
Riese: Punch something! I wanted to punch something today around 1 o’clock, I really wanted to.
Carly: Yeah?
Riese: But I didn’t because I don’t have anything to punch.
Carly: We should get you a little punching bag.
Ari: One of those little tonsils.
Riese: Oh, a little punching bag!
Carly: Yeah, those little hang-y things!
Riese: So, good news, she is done with her bag, and now Tasha can punch it. So that’s resolved.
Carly: Yeah, they have this stare-down for a brief second, where it’s like, “we’re both in the gym, somethings gonna happen,” and then it does not.
Riese: Correct.
Carly: I was like, Tasha, punch her in the faaace.
Ari: Yep!
Riese: Then we go to the wardrobe trailer, where they’re talking about how Nikki wants to wear the designer clothes, but Jessie wouldn’t wear designer clothes, but Jenny would like to see Karina in the exact same outfit that Marina wore in Season 1, which is a snake neck situation and a gardenia in her hair.
Carly: This was so random. I was like, what is the budget of this film?
Riese: A million trillion dollars.
Carly: I really don’t understand, because they keep talking about how it’s this big studio film, but then they talk about how they don’t have money, and then they do have it — I don’t know, I’m very confused about the scale of the film, the budget of the film, but whatever.
Riese: Movie magic.
Carly: The point is that Tina needs to talk to Jenny right now, it is very important.
Riese: Yep, she sure does. My other point is that Jennifer Schecter has a hickey right in the center of her neck, which… what was… how? Ok…
Carly: How?
Riese: She has a little Adam’s apple…
Carly: Smack dab in the center of her neck.
Riese: Yeah, she was probably trying to suck her whole Adam’s apple in her mouth.
Carly: Hot.
Ari: I mean, that’s what I go for when I give people hickeys.
Riese: Is it?
Ari: Yeah, just the whole Adam’s apple.
Riese: So this is good for a presentation?
Ari: Yeah, great.
Riese: We really saw your desires.
Ari: I think it’s also important to note that Jenny is in a meeting.
Riese: Oh, that’s true. Jenny is in a meeting.
Carly: Jenny’s in a meeting, guys.
Riese: A clothing meeting. She’s in a clothing meeting.
Carly: Jenny’s in a meeting.
Riese: And Nikki needs her now, but she’s in a meeting, and eventually that gets resolved by Jenny and Tina both being upset. But they speak to one another and we find out that the managers would like Nikki to take a boy with her to her little premiere.
Carly: And Tina pitches this as if it was her agent’s idea, even though it was Tina’s idea, which we didn’t even talk about this. How was that not the agent’s idea?
Riese: I support her doing this, because it was, basically.
Carly: I think it was crazy that Tina had to suggest that. That just strikes me as the first obvious thing that somebody would have suggested. “Oh, she has a premiere tomorrow? Take a boy. I don’t know, it just seems so stupid.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: That tina had to pull it out of her ass and the guy was like, “Whoa, I love you, you’re a genius!”
Riese: Right. Nikki needs a new manager.
Carly: Yeah, I think she should fire her management.
Riese: Yeah, Jenny’s unhappy because she wanted to go to the movie. She wanted to go to the film with Nikki. I don’t know why anyone wants to go to this film, it looks terrible.
Ari: Yeah, it does.
Riese: I hate it. It looks really bad.
Ari: It looks real bad.
Carly: It’s not a good film. So Jenny goes into Nikki’s trailer, who — Nikki is just sobbing.
Riese: SOBBING. Like someone died.
Carly: Like a death of a relative.
Riese: She is destroyed.
Ari: So upset!
Carly: Because she has to take a boy to the premiere.
Nikki: And they’re making me take fucking Greg! They’re making me take cheeseball Greg!
Carly: They’re not even telling her that she has to break up with Jenny. And they’ve already told her to be more discrete, which she failed at when she went oil wrestling.
Ari: Yeah.
Carly: Ugh. This is so funny. She’s crying.
Riese: It’s kind of a funny scene though. The agent comes in and Jenny is like, “Do you think this is fucking 1952 where you can give her a beard and pretend that she’s straight?” And yes, obviously, they do. Also honestly the first — I remember the first time that I watched this scene, I didn’t know what “beard” meant.
Carly: Ohhhh!
Ari: Wow!
Riese: And I was so profoundly confused.
Carly: Did this blow open your whole world? Did you go down a research wormhole after that?
Riese: I mean, I’m hoping — I don’t remember, but what I’m hoping is that I found it out before I wrote my recap. Because it’s very possible that I was like, “Hahaha, give her a beard,’ like I thought it was facial hair or something. And then everyone was like, “Riese.” You know? “You idiot.” Which happened a lot in the recaps.
Carly: [Sarcastically] Why do they want her to just put on a disguise? She’s the star of the film, they’re gonna notice.
Riese: Yeah, come on, guys. Anyway, fun fact for readers at home, everyone knows now that a beard makes you look straight. And it started not in the 50s, but you know, in the 30s, in the 40s, and was very popular in the 50s. But it worked in the 50s, and you know why? Because it was a lot harder to take photographs of stars in their natural habitats.
Carly: People didn’t have Instagram, also.
Ari: Mhm mhm.
Riese: Correct. Well, no one had Instagram here yet.
Carly: That’s true.
Riese: Did they?
Carly: No.
Ari: I don’t think so.
Riese: But the paps got just one cell phone call and they were at the oil wrestling shenanigans.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: And Jenny hates his tie. He does make one really good point, I think, that no one has made to her yet, which is that it is a little bit problematic already that she is screwing the underage star of the film.
Ari: This is — I wanted to bring that up!
Carly: Yes!
Ari: I was wondering if this was the first time we officially find out that Nikki is underage?
Riese: We found out last week.
Carly: Last episode, they said she was underage because she was at SheBar.
Riese: She’s 20.
Ari: Mmmm.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: She’s under the age of 21.
Carly: Yes.
Ari: Ok, ok.
Carly: They’re also throwing the word “underage” around a lot, in this episode and the previous episode, in a way that like — what they mean is that she’s under 21.
Ari: Right, and not 17.
Carly: Right, because when people are saying “underage,” in the context of a relationship, that’s what you think. You don’t think she’s 20.
Ari: Right.
Riese: She’s 20, they’re all so stressed out, and they hate this film so much. And they want to drink so badly, that’s all they can think about. And so they’re thinking about everything in relation to drinking.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And Nikki can’t drink, so yeah. But he’s the first guy to note that this is a little bit inappropriate for her to be doing this in general.
Carly: Yes, yes it is. It’s incredible that it’s taken this long and this moment for someone to actually say that out loud.
Ari: Yeah. I also hate that I agree with the man on a show about lesbians!
Carly: I know, right?!
Ari: Like, why is the man right?
Carly: Yeah, he shouldn’t get to say that line.
Ari: Uh uh.
Riese: Such a bummer.
Carly: Tina should have said it weeks ago.
Riese: Yeah, it really sets up the people at home to think differently about these things. Anyway, Jenny says he’s not even a human being, he’s an agent, which I think is funny?
Carly: Sure. Jenny’s really sassy with him about his tie and his nose, and it’s sort of funny, but it’s really just a weird Jenny distraction from what is actually happening, which is that Nikki is sobbing.
Ari: Sobbing on the couch. No one has tried to comfort her!
Carly: No one’s comforting her! Jenny’s probably like, “She cries all the time, I mean what are we gonna do?”
Riese: Right.
Carly: She’s just gonna cry again.
Riese: Nikki is baby.
Carly: She’s baby. But there is one moment where you kind of get it a little in the beginning of the scene, because she’s like, “My agent basically told me my career will be over if people think I’m gay.”
Riese: Which was true at the time.
Carly: Which I guess was kinda true at the time. So there is that little moment.
Riese: Mildly true.
Carly: Mildly true, yeah. It’s like, what kind of career do you want to have? Do you want to be in Brett Ratner and Michael Bay movies and on the cover of men’s magazines, or do you want to do other things? And it’s clear that Nikki wants to do a lot of different things.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: But her team seems to be more into the idea that they have for her, of what her career’s going to be and how much money they want to make off of her.
Riese: Anyway, so who knows what would have happened to Nikki, who again, is based on Lindsay Lohan. And then we go to the showers.
Carly: This show loves a locker room with naked women walking around lockers and showers.
Ari: Fully nude.
Riese: Yeah, and also she has a landing strip, but it’s like a teeny tiny plane. It’s like, just like a—
Carly: “Zoop!”
Riese: A one finger of a landing strip. And I think what this scene made me think of is that there’s this idea that like, you don’t want to have lesbians on your sports team, because then in the locker room, they’ll check you out and they’ll make you feel uncomfortable, because lesbians cannot resist the urge to look at every naked woman who walks by. And what we see in this scene is that that’s true.
Ari: Yeah, we do.
Riese: Yeah, it’s true. Tasha, who has incredible self control as a person, somehow can’t resist looking at this woman?
Carly: And neither can Colonel Davis!
Riese: Neither can Colonel Davis!
Carly: And Colonel Davis looks in the most obvious and over-the-top way. And it’s very funny.
Ari: And she also is four feet away from her.
Carly: She’s so close to her!
Riese: Yeah, and her face kind of vacillates from “Huh?” to “How dare you?” over the course of her 45 second stare. Tasha’s glance is minimal, but I think it’s believable with Davis, because obviously she’s repressed, you know?
Carly: Mhm mhm.
Ari: Clearly.
Riese: But Tasha isn’t, so, the point of that scene is that — I wonder how much that girl got paid to be naked for 45 seconds?
Carly: Probably not…
Riese: Probably like 200 bucks.
Carly: Yeah, probably not very much. It’s bullshit.
Ari: Damn.
Carly: So we go back to set. We’re back in the hair trailer.
Riese: Hair!
Carly: With Shane, Shane’s chilling. And then, this is the girl that plays Shane in the movie, right? That comes in?
Ari: Yes, it has to be.
Carly: Yeah, I figured.
Ari: She looks just like her.
Carly: I just wish that Shane could have given her more of a Shane haircut, because they didn’t really — or like a Shane wig.
Riese: Yeah, you could tell that they tried to style her hair a little Shane-y.
Carly: I was like, this is supposed to be the Shane, I think?
Riese: She is a hot hot mess. She comes in, she’s got wine or liquor or something. And she wants them both to get drunk, and she wants to have sex with Shane, because she’s really bad at her part and Shane will teach her how. And again, this is yet again, yet another scene in which consent is just not even a thing, that anybody ever needs or wants.
Carly: Oh, god.
Riese: Ever, ever. Shane says no, and she’s like, “You sleep with everyone, so you must want to sleep with me!” And then she takes her shirt off.
Carly: Fully takes her shirt off and it is just boobs in the trailer.
Ari: Just boobs in the trailer!
Carly: What is happening?!
Riese: And then she’s like, “Is it me, do you not want to have sex with me because I’m repulsive?” And then Shane feels bad that she doesn’t realize that she’s beautiful, which she already knows, she’s a fucking actress.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And she is objectively, like, whatever, traditionally hot, so.
Carly: Yep.
Riese: Anyway, Begoña walks in and she’s horrified!
Carly: She’s horrified, but at the tail end of her looking at them she almost looks like—
Riese: Delighted?
Carly: A little bit! Like it’s horrified, then it slightly changes right at the end before she leaves, to like, a “niiiice.”
Riese: Shane-on-Shane action. We love to see it!
Carly: This movie is too meta. They need to shut this production down before it creates some sort of vortex in the space-time continuum.
Riese: We’ve had some Jenny-on-Jessie scenes, now we’re gonna get some Shane-on-Shaun.
Carly: Ugh, god. Yeah, this is like another one of those moments where, when I was younger and watching this, this was really skewing my concept of consent. And I think it was probably doing that to many of the audience members!
Ari: Yes.
Carly: It’s really fucked up, it’s really really fucked up. Shane at one point says that this is not professional, which is something I wish everybody would be saying a lot more on this film set. Nothing that happens on this set is professional.
Ari: No, not at all.
Carly: Nary a thing.
Riese: Oh, and also, you know what?
Carly: Hmm?
Riese: If there had been consent, this could have been a really funny scene! Like Shane actually being like, “Yeah, let me teach you how to fuck like Shane.” Like that would have been funny, you know?
Carly: Yeah, that’s a missed opportunity. Well, remember a few episodes ago, when Jenny was in rehearsals with Bev and Nina, and she was like, “We need to get a lesbian sex coach here.” And like, how is that not a storyline that they explored?
Riese: How did they not hire Shane to be the lesbian sex expert?
Carly: That’s what they should have — that would have been ridiculous, but at least it would have been funny.
Ari: Yeah.
Carly: Or like, just anyone on set to help teach all these straight women what they’re supposed to be doing. This is some weird continuous thing that clearly hasn’t been resolved since they started production, however the fuck long this has been going on now, I couldn’t tell you. But it’s… blah! Everything is stupid, I don’t know.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: But I will say that even though all I have done is complain so far, that I did enjoy this episode.
Ari: It’s not a bad episode!
Riese: It’s not!
Carly: It’s decent. It’s a decent episode.
Riese: Yeah. So then we swing on over to Jodi’s funky apartment, where she is prepping — I think 24 hours ahead of time? — for the big Moroccan feast that she is throwing so that Shane doesn’t have to take Molly to Oklahoma.
Carly: The guest list for this dinner party soiree—
Riese: Is terrible.
Carly: Is very bad. Bette and Jodi, Amy and Melinda, Shane and Molly, and Tina and Sam question mark?
Ari: Yeah.
Carly: Yeah, this is a logical group that wants to hang out together.
Ari: They definitely all really like each other.
Carly: Yeah, they have so much that they want to talk about!
Riese: Best best friends.
Carly: And they want to definitely just party together, and hang out, and this is so not weird or awkward or anything. And then…
Riese: Bette is very upset that Tina, who she is actively cheating on Jodi with, has been invited to the party. And that Jodi, furthermore, did not think to consult her before inviting Tina to the party. But my favorite part of this is that she’s like—
Bette: Did it ever occur to you to maybe ask me first before you invited Tina?
Jodi: No.
Ari: It’s very much, like “No, heart emoji.”
Carly: Yes!
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: I think Jodi invented that, back in 2008.
Riese: She did, yeah. Bette thinks it sounds like a nightmare lesbian dinner party with too many exes, but every lesbian dinner party is a nightmare, and there’s always too many exes, you know?
Carly: And then Jodi’s like, “Ok, don’t come then!”
Riese: I loved it!
Carly: Jodi’s amazing. I love Jodi so much.
Ari: And Bette’s like, “Of course, I’m coming.”
Riese: Yeah. And then she’s like, “Can I help?”
Carly: And she’s like, “Here, chop an onion.”
Riese: Do you chop — ok, you make extravagant dinners — would you chop an onion the night before a party? Before a dinner? Before a big dinner you’re preparing?
Ari: I would not cook the night before a dinner. I guess unless everything was room temperature, it was supposed to be cold?
Riese: Right.
Ari: I’m super confused as to why she was cooking everything the night before.
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: Maybe she had a really busy day the next day?
Riese: So you have to pre-chop your onions? I mean, for me, chopping an onion is an affair.
Ari: Just throw it all in the oven.
Riese: Maybe she was doing a crockpot dish? And then we get a little musical introduction!
Carly: Yes. Tasha is putting on her finest military suit.
Riese: Outfit?
Carly: I don’t know any military terminology of any sort.
Ari: The dress uniform.
Carly: There we go, thank you. She looks amazing.
Ari: She looks amazing!
Carly: I was barely writing notes in this part, I was just kind of staring at the screen. I was just like, whaaaaaat.
Ari: My one note is, “God, I wish she was a firefighter, so I didn’t have to feel conflicted about her.”
Carly: Oh my god.
Ari: Right?!
Carly: Yep, there it is.
Riese: That would honestly make me and Carly’s life easier, if she was a firefighter.
Ari: Yeah.
Carly: And it’s really about us, 12 years later. That’s what it’s about.
Riese: Yeah, it is. So, “What’s Going On?” is playing. We got a little pacifist anthem.
Carly: Yes. I was blown away that they had the budget to get a Marvin Gaye song on the show.
Ari: True…
Riese: And then Alice is there.
Carly: We see everyone arriving at military court.
Ari: She’s wearing — like her hair’s in a victory roll. It’s very, “Let’s go support our troops!”
Carly: Yeah, she totally was cosplaying as an army wife or something.
Ari: Yes.
Riese: She was.
Carly: That’s exactly what Alice would do though!
Riese: Yeah, uh huh. Yeah, she’s brought them tomatoes from her victory garden, and she’s gonna bring everyone a potato salad, and then they’re gonna be like, “It’s fine! It’s fine!”
Carly: She’s dressed to wave at a ship as it pulls away from a dock.
Ari: That is absolutely how she’s dressed!
Carly: From a port.
Riese: And then dab her eyes with a dish towel that she carries around in case she needs to take something out of the oven.
Carly: That’s perfect.
Riese: So, the trial starts and the army guy says, “Blah, army, blah blah,” and then Beech stands up and, once again, lists all of Tasha’s accomplishments, so we hear once again, in case you missed it before, that Tasha has a “V for Valor.”
Ari: “V for Valor.”
Carly: Tasha is a decorated soldier? Is that what we would say?
Ari: Sure.
Riese: Army.
Carly: Army. She got all the awards from army.
Ari: She served abroad in Iraq.
Riese: Yeah, she did. She was overseas with army doing armies.
Ari: Yep.
Carly: And this is, of course, in contrast to both of the lawyers that are grandstanding throughout this episode who have seen zero combat.
Ari: Zero!
Riese: Yeah, they have not personally killed any innocent civilians themselves, they have just participated in this system.
Ari: Also they say her name so weird, the army men.
Carly: Yes!
Ari: They call her [with a short A sound] “Taaasha,” which I found incredibly offensive.
Carly: I’m like, who is Taaaasha?
Riese: I feel like that’s the idea, right?
Carly: I was like, do they only ever call each other by last names, so that this is the first time they’ve ever even had to say the name Tasha out loud? They’re like, “Taaa…”
Riese: They’ve never known a Tasha.
Carly: “Taaaaasha.” Yeah, it was stupid.
Riese: “Taaaaasha.”
Carly: So we take a brief moment to go away from the trial, to go to The Planet. Remember The Planet?! The Planet’s back, it’s up and running again!
Riese: It’s back in business!
Carly: Thank god.
Ari: Love that place.
Riese: But, what the fuck is Kit gonna do about those She Bitches?
Carly: I don’t know! Are they still in jail? Do we know where they are? Last time we saw them they were getting arrested and lover Cindi was trying to bribe a cop.
Riese: Correct.
Carly: We don’t know where they are, but—
Riese: But we also low-key don’t care.
Carly: No.
Riese: And Shane suggests murdering them, which… ok!
Ari: Why not?
Riese: Yeah, why not? Why not? Then we kind of zoom on over to another part of The Planet, where Molly is having lunch with her mom.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: The point of the lunch is that Molly is rebelling, she is a rebelling youth.
Riese: Yeah. She is not going to be a lawyer and have 2.5 kids. She dumped Richard because he’s boring and he loves golf, and then her mom, Phyllis, says that she needs to get an education so that she doesn’t end up in a service profession like Shane…
Carly: Oooooooh.
Ari: Oooooooh.
Carly: And Molly rightly calls her mother elitist. I would say it’s also classist and a couple other things, but we don’t spend a lot of time on that.
Riese: Does she know that people with professional degrees still end up in service professions?
Carly: I don’t think she’s thought of anything aside from herself.
Riese: Secondly, does she know that Shane did have to go to school to be a hairstylist?
Carly: She probably considers that a trade school.
Ari: Right, not a real. Unless it’s a 4 year Ivy, honestly.
Carly: Exactly, exactly.
Riese: Correct.
Ari: I highly doubt that she considers that degree worth anything.
Carly: Exactly, I agree. Molly is bored and grossed out by her mother.
Ari: Yes.
Carly: And Phyllis is like, “Shane is not a serious person,” and now Molly is hardcore defending Shane.
Ari: Which, who would have thought?
Carly: Who would have thought? Last episode, “You know I’m not gay, I’m very straight.” Now she’s like, “Shane’s a great person who does great things with hair,” I guess? I don’t know. “I’m gonna go be gay for Shane.” That’s literally what she says, and then she goes up to Shane—
Riese: That’s not all she says!
Carly: No, please tell us what all she says.
Riese: She says—
Molly: I’m gonna go gay for Shane, we’re gonna adopt Chinese babies and live in a trailer park.
Ari: Right.
Carly: Great. It’s funny, I only wrote down that she was gonna be gay for Shane. I just blocked the rest of it out. I completely forgot that that’s what she said.
Ari: Chinese babies and live in a trailer park?
Riese: She is mixing metaphors.
Ari: One cannot adopt Chinese babies and then need to live in a trailer — international adoption is very expensive!
Carly: It is!
Riese: It is very expensive!
Ari: Incredibly expensive.
Riese: I mean, they have a cute little interaction.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: She hasn’t called, they’re kind of flirty, Shane is clever, Molly is clever.
Carly: They’re just so clever.
Riese: I don’t know… they’re just so clever, they have a little banter, they obviously have a connection of some kind. Wow, ok, then we go to trials. Army trials.
Carly: This is Officer Martinez. Officer Martinez has taken the stand and she’s giving a testimony about — really just about how great Tasha is.
Ari: And how she would serve under her at any time.
Carly: At any time.
Riese: Under her…
Ari: Under her…
Riese: She would serve… under her.
Carly: That’s what I heard.
Riese: At any time.
Ari: But she’s not gay.
Riese: She’s not gay.
Carly: She is not gay.
Ari: Not at all.
Riese: No. So, Tasha did a good job.
Carly: She was a good commanding officer, a good job.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: We go back to the film set… Bette is now on the set. There’s no security on the set! How is Bette here?!
Riese: None.
Carly: Also, doesn’t Bette have other things to do? She couldn’t call? She couldn’t text Tina? They’re both busy, whatever. Bette’s mad at Tina for accepting the invitation to Jodi’s dinner party, and Tina’s like, “What are you talking about? I assume that it came from the both of you?” And she’s like, “I don’t want to break you guys up, you’re dating her.” Like… what… ugh! And I was like, man, Tina made at least one or two valid points in this conversation.
Riese: Ari, what are your feelings about the Bette and Tina situation?
Ari: Oy vey.
Riese: Not just in this, but you know, in general the whole Bette and Tina—
Carly: The cannon.
Riese: The Bette and Tina verse.
Ari: I mean, here’s the thing. I’m absolutely a Tina, which is one of my worst traits. And I recognize that the two of them should not be together. They should not have had a baby, they should not have dated, they should not be cheating on their significant others, or people who they’re trying to make their significant others with one another. And I don’t understand how someone who I align with so much can’t seem to see that, so… it’s a mess.
Carly: It’s such a mess.
Ari:It’s a mess!
Carly: They’ve been a mess since the pilot. This is just—
Ari: From the moment we meet them.
Carly: Yes, they are always a mess, it’s just always a — it’s an ever-shifting type of a mess. Every few episodes the type of mess they are is a little different, which keeps us as viewers on our toes and is still maddening most of the time.
Riese: What I love to think about in this scene is that earlier, Bette tried to get mad at Jodi about Tina coming to dinner, and Jodi just blocked her.
Ari: Yep.
Riese: And so she’s like, “Hm, what am I gonna do now? I’m gonna go get mad at Tina about it!” But it doesn’t work either.
Carly: Nope. It’s like, “How dare you invite her!” And then it’s like, “How dare you be invited by her!”
Riese: They’re like, “We should stop, we should stop and get some clarity,” and they say that in the way that they’re like, “We’re not gonna really stop.”
Carly: “We’re definitely not going to stop,” yeah.
Ari: No.
Riese: Back to army trial!
Carly: Army trial. Man, this stuff is brutal. So, Colonel Davis is cross-examining Officer Martinez, and everything she says is terrible, like she’s twisting the most innocuous stuff into a scandal, and it’s very irritating!
Riese: She asked if Tasha ever put her arm around her, which as we know, is the universal symbol of a lesbian relationship.
Carly: It is, yes.
Riese: And Martinez admits that there were rumors about Tasha being a lesbian, and Davis is like, “Did you feel ever uncomfortable about getting special treatment from her?” And she was like, “Kinda.”
Carly: She’s like, “I didn’t want people to also think I was gay so… yes, then, I guess then by the transitive property, I would also have to have been uncomfortable in that situation.” Agh, it sucks. It sucks.
Ari: And to me, that seems more like a problem with the army, than with lesbianism?
Riese: Yeah!
Ari: It’s an indictment of the military industrial complex.
Carly: Oh my god, you’re right! It absolutely is.
Riese: That is exactly what it is.
Ari: That one cannot be comforted by their commanding officer without becoming a lesbian?
Riese: Right!
Carly: Yeah, this part is such a reach, it’s so — we know the Alice stuff is more of the obvious accusation, especially because there was no relationship between Martinez and Tasha.
Riese: Right.
Carly: But this is such bullshit. It’s so obvious that the guy that reported this was just pissy that he didn’t get a promotion.
Ari: Yep.
Carly: It’s just, you can see through it so obviously and they’re trying so hard to make it into a thing. It’s just ridiculous.
Riese: It’s also irrelevant. So you felt uncomfortable because people thought you might be gay with Tasha? Who cares. You’re also killing people, right? I don’t know, there’s much more uncomfortable things involved in your job than a lesbian touching your shoulder.
Carly: Yeah, that’s pretty real. There’s so many other parts of military that should make you much more uncomfortable.
Riese: Yeah, every job has weird uncomfortable stuff. Life isn’t comfortable.
Carly: It’s true.
Riese: The end. Oh, I was just thinking about how Tasha talked about all these people dying in her arms, so obviously she puts her arms around people in a non-sexual way all the time.
Ari: All the time!
Riese: For example, in death.
Carly: They can’t interview the ones that died, because they’re dead.
Riese: They should have subpoenaed a ghost.
Ari: Right.
Carly: I think having a ghost testify at this army trial would have been incredible.
Riese: I think so, too. Spooky!
Ari: It really would have brought this episode up a notch, which it’s already a good episode, so.
Carly: It’s already good!
Riese: It’s already a good episode!
Carly: It would have made it great, you know what I mean?
Ari: It would have made it great.
Carly: So then, it’s now the end of the day. They ran out of time for Alice to testify, so she has to come back tomorrow. And Tasha fills her in on how Martinez kind of folded.
Ari: Yep.
Carly: And they have this awkward bit of like — Alice is the witness for the prosecution, you know, she’s on the other side, but she doesn’t want to be there, she just has to be there. It’s super awkward, but you just want them to get back together.
Ari: Ugh, more than anything.
Carly: I’m just like, make out! Make out in the hallway! I don’t care!
Ari: Make out right now!
Carly: Do it!
Riese: Hallway sex!
Carly: Kiss!
Riese: Speaking of people not having sex — then we go to Jodi’s funky loft for the dinner!
Ari: Oh my god.
Riese: Jodi’s got a dress on…
Ari: She did not just make Moroccan food, it was a Moroccan-themed evening.
Carly: Everything in the scene is Moroccan inspired.
Ari: They sat on the floor.
Riese: They sat on the floor.
Ari: That killed me.
Riese: It’s sort of like in third grade when they’re like, “Ok, you have to make a feast from a country and then wear a costume.” Jodi’s like, “I don’t want that spirit to end! I want to do it now as a grown up!”
Carly: That’s so funny.
Riese: Oh wait, I skipped something, I skipped something!
Carly: You did, you skipped the beginning of the premiere!
Riese: I skipped the Hot Rod show premiere!
Ari: Yes, where Jenny gets banned!
Carly: Yeah!
Ari: Jenny gets banned!
Riese: Jenny gets banned from the premiere.
Carly: [Announcer voice] “It’s the biiiiig Hollywood premiere of Liquid Heat! Pew pew pew pew pew!” Nikki and Greg are on the red carpet! “Nikki, over here! Who are you wearing?!” Oh my god, who is that? No one cares! Jenny and Adele walk up, they’re dressed and ready, and you know what? They can’t come in because Jenny’s agent spots her and tells the security guard that Jenny specifically is banned. He doesn’t say both of them, he says Jenny. This will be important later.
Ari: Very.
Carly: Jenny does not yet know that she is banned, but she’s gonna find out in a second. Then we go to this dinner party.
Riese: The feast, which we already talked about.
Carly: Right.
Riese: Sam says that she doesn’t drink while she’s shooting?
Ari: Right.
Carly: Yeah. I mean, it’s not that weird.
Ari: She has to wake up early.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Oh, is that why?
Carly: Yeah, she’s in production, so she was saying that — she’s obviously not like shooting in this scene, but she’s in the midst of a production, and so I think she doesn’t drink during active production probably?
Ari: Riese, I think it’s just weird because she has boundaries, and none of the others do. I think that’s maybe what’s confusing you.
Carly: That is true. That is exactly what it is.
Riese: Well it’s also sort of a first date.
Ari: Yeah…
Carly: Yeah. I kept writing “this is an awkward dinner party” and then I realized that every dinner party on this show has been an awkward dinner party. There’s never been a not-awkward dinner party.
Riese: It’s true, back to the hot rod show premiere. They won’t let Jenny inside.
Carly: Nope.
Riese: And she texts Nikki, and Adele’s like, “I’m gonna go, I’ll get you in the show, Jenny.” But of course she’s not because she’s a schemer. Adele tries to do the red carpet…
Carly: Adele is totally posing on the red carpet!
Riese: No one cares.
Carly: It’s very funny.
Ari: No one cares. I also really appreciate — it’s very 2008, that Jenny signs her text “J.”
Carly: Yes!
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: Ugh, that was thrilling.
Ari: Blast into the past!
Carly: Truly. So, we go back to the very awkward dinner party…
Ari: Mhmm.
Carly: And Amy asks Sam if it’s unusual for a woman to be the cinematographer of a film, and yes, it is. It still actually is. It shouldn’t be, but it is. We have not come very much further in this area since 12 years ago. I am sad to report.
Ari: 12 years ago.
Carly: But don’t worry, we keep doing studies and surveys and multiple times a year we are getting numbers. We are doing surveys and literally nothing is changing ever, and I think it’s great that we keep doing studies.
Riese: The numbers!
Carly: And we do them, we gotta crunch the numbers, we’re always crunching, nothing is ever actually happening.
Ari: Well, if we keep crunching those numbers, maybe one day.
Carly: Maybe one day the numbers will be like, “Please do something about us!”
Riese: Yeah, it hits a tipping point. Once you crunch a certain number of numbers, you have to take out the trash.
Carly: Ohh, is that how excel works?
Riese: Yes.
Carly: Ok, I get it now.
Riese: Molly and Shane are having a private convo.
Carly: A fully private conversation.
Riese: At the table, which honestly seems appropriate. This diner party is going nowhere fast, everyone should just stay in their small groups.
Carly: It’s also very dimly lit. You can’t even see across — or halfway across the table.
Riese: Yeah, as an elder lesbian, I struggled.
Carly: I was adjusting the brightness on the screen, I was like, what the fuck? Like a proper old person.
Ari: And it’s funny because it’s not a couples dinner, but that lighting was for a couples dinner.
Carly: Absolutely.
Ari: No one’s there to make friends.
Riese: Yeah, that’s a romance—
Carly: That is sexy lighting.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: That’s a romantic mood they were setting. And then — so Molly and Shane go outside for a cigarette, and then Amy and Jodi and Bette are signing to each other?
Ari: Mhmm.
Riese: They’re having a conversation, and then Tina’s like, “What’s happening?!”
Carly: Tina… fucking…
Riese: “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!”
Carly: She’s waving, like, “Hello?!?!” Like, “Hello?! Hello?! She wants the teacher to call on her. And then she does that thing where she loudly and slowly says to Jodi—
Tina: This is delicious! What’s it called?
Carly: I was like, oh no! This could not possibly get any worse! And then it does. Bette’s like, “Oh, I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to exclude you.” And then Tina’s like—
Tina: Yes, you did.
Carly: And Bette’s like, “No, no we didn’t.” And Tina again says—
Tina: Yes, you did.
Riese: I loved this moment for Tina. I also would like to say that Jodi is excluded from 75% of the conversations that have happened around her on this show.
Carly: Truly.
Riese: So maybe just let her have this one?
Carly: Let her have one?
Ari: One. And honestly, 75% is generous. It’s closer to 90.
Riese: Yeah, it’s like 99% of the conversations.
Carly: And then they talk about Indian food.
Ari: Yep, and how Bette doesn’t like it because she got sick.
Carly: In India.
Ari: In India, oh my god.
Carly: Ughhhhh. This whole scene, I’m just like, oh god.
Riese: If I stopped eating every cuisine that had ever made me sick, I would never eat. I would certainly stop drinking, which I basically have, but, I could knock a few back once a month.
Carly: I just don’t like how I feel anymore. I get hungover instantly.
Riese: It is a whole affair. Like, the next day is—
Ari: It’s like a whole thing, yeah.
Carly: I get a headache within an hour of having one drink now.
Riese: Yeah. I get the hangover before I even go to bed!
Carly: Yes! I get the hangover while I’m still having a second drink.
Ari: Yeah. Aging really fucks you up. It’s no good.
Carly: It literally sucks. I try to think about the person I was in my early 20s. Sometimes I think about the amount of alcohol I was able to drink in one sitting and I’m truly shocked that I survived.
Ari: Shocked.
Riese: And then I look at pictures of myself and I’m like, my skin is still radiant, and I look so healthy. Like 10,000 times better than I do now, so like, what the fuck?
Carly: I look like I was drinking only water, but I never drank water in college! Or after!
Riese: Uh uh. Speaking of young people, Molly and Shane are outside and Molly is still very much into telling Shane that she wants to sleep with her.
Ari: Yep.
Carly: Yeah. This is starting to get annoying. It’s also reminding me of a lot of straight girls I knew in my early 20s and in college. I’m like, oh god, whomst among us has not been in this situation?
Riese: Yeah.
Ari: Sitting outside with a bottle of wine you stole from a dinner party, sharing a cigarette.
Carly: With a straight girl.
Ari: Trying to convince the straight girl that she does want to sleep with you. Ugh.
Carly: Oh my god.
Shane: To L and Back! Well, to be honest, I thought about it. But I came to the conclusion that if it was to happen, you would probably freak out afterwards, and then you’d most likely go running back to your boyfriend in Vermont. And then I’d be stuck in the cold with nothing but the distant memory of mediocre sex, and I’d be out of cigarettes.
Molly: Just one cigarette, and I’m not mediocre in bed.
Riese: I think this represents great character development for Shane. She’s growing.
Carly: Yeah. We’re so proud of Shane.
Riese: She’s like, “By the way, this would be bad.”
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: So also, no.
Carly: But instead, they kiss.
Riese: Yeah, Molly then kisses her.
Carly: Molly!
Riese: Classic straight girl move! “I’m not gay…” kisses you.
Carly: “I’m not gay, I’m not gay, stop looking at me,” and then they put their face on your face.
Riese: Yeah.
Ari: And then she asks to be taken home.
Riese: Yikes.
Ari: Like a 13-year-old at a sleepover.
Carly: She literally says, “Take me back to my mom’s house.”
Riese: And Shane is like, “See?”
Carly: “Told ya!”
Riese: Told you.
Ari: It’s also like, how did we exist before Lyft? Like, I cannot imagine making a bad decision and then asking the person I made a bad decision with to take me home?
Carly: To take me home.
Riese: To drive me home, yeah.
Ari: How did we exist?
Carly: I don’t know how we existed. I think — and again, this was college…
Riese: Well, and we were in New York…
Carly: Well before — I was in New York after college. In college I was in Florida, and we just drove everywhere.
Ari: Ugh.
Carly: Oh my god, Jenny is still waiting outside of the premiere.
Riese: She’s sad.
Carly: This is sad. And we see Adele schmoozing it up with Nikki’s agents and shit.
Riese: Scheming.
Carly: Just full scheme/scam mode. She’s such a scammer.
Ari: Such a scammer!
Carly: Jenny texts Adele like, “What the hell?” She’s like, “Oh my god, it’s like, there’s photographers everywhere, and I can’t get close to her, but don’t leave!”
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Oh my god.
Riese: I feel bad for Jenny because I feel like there’s this special humiliation I’m really thinking of, when we’re like — when we used to do red carpet for things but they wouldn’t give us tickets to the actual event.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: But I’d have a friend in the event who was like, “I can probably get you in,” and then I’d feel stupid, like, I should be cool enough that I’m already in the event and instead I’m standing out here, outside of the event, wasted, and in a really fancy outfit and makeup and feeling like a loser.
Carly: Vulnerable?
Riese: Vulnerable!
Ari: It is a vulnerable moment for her. See, you’re making me second guess myself. My note is “lol at Jenny sitting on the cement, sorry, I hate her.” But also, she’s incredibly vulnerable.
Carly: I normally — this season, I hate Jenny, but this brief little moment I was kind of like, “Ohhh, but — ohhhh, ughhh,” but also, I was also laughing.
Riese: I would say the majority of watchers of this program thought, “lol look at Jenny.” You know?
Carly: We go back to Jodi’s place, where Bette is now cleaning up after dinner and Tina comes in — no idea where Tina was — and it’s just the two of them.
Riese: We see Tina’s full outfit now, which involves very high boots that I didn’t like.
Carly: I truly didn’t even notice her outfit.
Ari: Neither did I! Was she wearing purple?
Riese: Yeah, she was wearing a purple shirt dress and then brown boots that went up to her knee, which I guess was sort of the times. I didn’t feel like the boot dress—
Carly: The proportions were off.
Riese: The proportions were off!
Ari: Sure.
Carly: I get it. So Tina’s like, “Where is everybody?” And everyone’s on the roof looking at a sculpture.
Riese: Jodi built a sculpture on the fucking roof, which, cheers to Jodi for that.
Ari: It’s what she does.
Carly: I’m so excited that she is able to do that, otherwise what else would she be doing?
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: So Bette tells Tina—
Bette: This is really one of the most excruciating things I’ve been through.
Carly: And I was like, wow Bette, your life has been pretty chill, huh?
Riese: Yeah, it’s like, they have a lot of sexual tension, I guess? And then they get really close to each other. And then Bette says the most unsexiest thing anyone has ever said in the history of anybody ever trying to get laid, or kiss, or think about sex, or think about kissing, or think about romance, or think about love, or think about bodies, or what they could do, or making out, or necking, or Adam’s apple sucking, or anything like that, which is—
Bette: I think we should go see Dan.
Tina: Dan Foxworthy?
Carly: The only therapist.
Riese: “He knows us better than anyone!”
Carly: Tina should have just slapped her. Like, that is the most outrageous thing to say to somebody. Dan Foxworthy was a terrible therapist. I hate him, they need to find a new therapist if they’re going to go to a therapist.
Ari: But he knows them better than anybody!
Carly: He knows them.
Riese: Than anyone!
Carly: Anyone!
Riese: This white man knows them.
Carly: Lesbians. He knows the queer women better than they seemingly know anyone else.
Riese: Than anyone. Better than Jodi — that’s a big insult to Jodi.
Ari: It’s an insult to themselves, honestly.
Carly: Truly.
Riese: It is. First and foremost—
Carly: First and foremost, that this is their chosen therapist.
Riese: They’re dragging themselves.
Carly: And it’s such a self own.
Riese: Back to the premiere….
Ari: Where Adele…
Carly: Oh my god. So it is now — the movie has ended, Jenny’s been outside for, like, a solid two hours.
Ari: Two hours…
Riese: I would be out of there.
Carly: Oh, I would have absolutely left. I would have been like, this is stupid. I would have gone home for sure.
Riese: I probably would have secretly been a little bit happy, because I didn’t want to see the movie, and I also probably wanted to go home.
Carly: Same. Big same.
Riese: I would have been like, “Oh well…”
Carly: Oh darn, I missed the movie…
Riese: Darn, I guess I can’t see it… Catch up with you guys tomorrow… And then I’d go home and watch Glee videos, in my gown.
Carly: So, we see Adele walking with Nikki and Greg. And as they’re walking out into all the photographers, Adele suggests to Nikki that she should kiss Greg in front of them and they’re gonna love it. And she does, and Jenny watches.
Riese: And they do.
Carly: Everyone loves it except Jenny. Obviously Jenny is very sad. The manager and the agent are just so thrilled with their lives.
Ari: So thrilled!
Carly: And with Adele — our little scammer is really doing some amazing work.
Riese: Yeah, they know the next issue of Star Beat is gonna be like, “Nikki is not a lez girl.”
Carly: It’s going to be like, “JK.”
Riese: JK. Nikki is not a lez girl, and it’s gonna have a picture of her making out with Greg, who I referred to as Tim in my notes throughout.
Carly: And it will have a little arrow that says “man” next to Greg, so that people know, they’re not confused. Like, not a lez girl.
Ari: Yep.
Carly: And then Adele is like, “Oh my god, they probably made her kiss him, it’s fine. Don’t worry!”
Ari: I love that she asks like, “Oh, did you see that?” Adele!
Carly: She is… ugh, if it was anyone other than Jenny, this would not be working, I feel like.
Ari: Exactly, it only works because it’s Jenny.
Riese: Yeah, because she’s so wrapped up in her own ego that she doesn’t notice—
Carly: Anything.
Riese: And she’s obviously never seen All About Eve, because this is the exact everything.
Ari: The exact thing, yeah.
Riese: And honestly All About Eve feels like a film that Jenny would have seen?
Carly: It does.
Riese: I guess it wasn’t in French. I was pulling up, for this next scene, a screenshot I took.
Carly: I also took a screenshot!
Riese: So we’re back at army.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And so, they’re opening the scene with a screenshot of our favorite website, OurChart.com. In the screenshot we see the only stock photo of lesbians that existed in 2008.
Ari: Mhmm.
Riese: Which is two white lesbians, one in a teal bra, one in a pink bra, and they are not kissing, they are sort of—
Carly: They’re like, kind of smushed together.
Riese: Yeah, their faces are kind of smushed together. They have long blonde hair. The headline of the item is “For Women Only,” and I will now be reading its content.
Carly: Thank you.
Riese: “I am excited to move my post from guestbian to this column. As you can see from this gallery of images, I am in good company, and any of my faithful readers knows what I mean when I say that it only makes sense that I put in my two cents. The long and short of it: we’re here to connect, that’s what OurChart is for. So with all the attention other sites give to the unclad and the scantily clad, the bar has been set, expectations are what the web is all about. And we are not here to disappoint, but to fulfill. Speaking of which, it looks like someone is getting a…
Carly: That’s where it ends!
Ari: And that’s where it ends.
Riese: Yeah, we also — there’s a blogroll on the left side. The blogs on it are “No Regrets Alive;” “2 Loose” — that’s a numeral 2, loose — “Blind Faith;” “Long View, Narrow Focus;” “Francer’s Parabies”… I don’t know what that says. Sound… Sound Butch? And “Inside Scoop.” And also, there are some comments on the right from “Conditioned Belly,” “Brigadoo,” “Lemur Yellow,” “Witch Hunt,” and “Calm Smashr.”
Ari: Calm Smashr…
Riese: Yeah, but there’s no “e” at the end, it’s like “smashr.”
Ari: Like “Tumblr.”
Carly: But Calm Smashr’s comment is, “Nobody with a hint of skill needs a knife to open a clam.” There you go!
Riese: Oh wait, I forgot — the post actually continues, because they scroll.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: So then we see the other image that was on the cover of every lesbian book that was published in the 2000s, which is the butt of the girl in the teal. Butt grab. So, “expectations is what the web is all about, and we are not here to disappoint but to fulfill. Speaking of butch, looks like somebody is getting a full feel at least,” butt picture. “Of course, in the interest of journalistic, not to mention artistic integrity, it is important to take a closer view of the action, as long as they’re in living color, just waiting for views to be taken, for the benefits of sheer exposure.”
Ari: What?!
Carly: That’s it. And then there’s a silhouette of Shane made from a promo image from Season 1, I think, or Season 2.
Riese: That was everyone’s fake — that was everyone’s silhouette.
Carly: Right, before you upload a photo, as a new user.
Riese: Right before you upload a photo, you have the Shane — everyone has a Shane haircut.
Carly: I remember the press photo that they used to make that silhouette, and I don’t like that that takes up space in my head. What are the other things I could have learned in my life that could have replaced that? So many things. That sounds like it was written by an algorithm, like, what human wrote that?
Riese: I’m gonna publish that on Autostraddle tomorrow, I’m just going to copy/paste that.
Carly: Just copy/paste.
Ari: Honestly, I think you should.
Carly: I think it’s a great idea.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: Be like, who recognizes this prose? Nobody.
Carly: I liked “unclad or scantily clad.”
Ari: I like “journalistic and artistic.”
Riese: Yeah. It just like — they should pick something — like they do the weirdest things with dummy text. They had Max’s “Transgender” blog…
Ari: Oh god.
Riese: That was just weird stuff about male and female gonads.
Carly: It was very weird.
Riese: So bizarre. Then, when they had Jenny’s short story in The New Yorker, they had two paragraphs of the short story, followed by a ton of things about Israel and Russia.
Carly: Israel and Russia.
Riese: Like, they just pasted over one column of a New Yorker article, and then left the rest intact.
Ari: Oh my god.
Carly: Yeah, it’s very confusing.
Riese: Come on, ladies.
Carly: What’s happening, what are we doing?
Riese: Lorem Ipsum is free.
Ari: Lorem Ipsum is free!
Riese: Free for all, and that option exists at all times.
Carly: But if they didn’t do, we wouldn’t have these wonderful things to freeze frame and screenshot 12 years later, Riese.
Ari: You’re right…
Carly: Think about it.
Riese: That’s true. Anyways, this next little scene is a true delight. Basically, the army is pitching OurChart to the audience.
Carly: This was like an episode of Shark Tank, right?
Ari: Yep.
Riese: Yeah. They’re like, “So there is a podcast where she interviews other lesbians about their sex life and talks about her own sex life. And this is the chart of women who have had sex with one another,” and they’re all like, “What?!” And, same. Like, what?
Carly: I just want someone to tell them that not all queer people have made a website about who they’ve slept with, and that many of us know what a podcast is.
Riese: Yeah. I have, but—
Carly: And I just think that it’s not fair. These straight army men are getting a very skewed picture of what being a lesbian is. They don’t — these are the only lesbians they’ve ever heard of and now they’re like, “Oh, lesbians all have websites of charts.”
Ari: Yep. I mean, I did make a website for a final project last year that had a chart on it, but.
Riese: What was the chart?
Ari: It was places that I’ve cried in public in Austin, Texas.
Carly: That’s so much more useful!
Riese: That’s similar… yeah.
Carly: Yeah, because if someone needed a place to cry, they could look at it and be like, “Oh, this is a good spot.”
Ari: Absolutely.
Riese: They could be like, “This won’t be the first time the barista has seen someone cry in this coffee shop.”
Ari: Yeah, right.
Carly: “This feels safe.”
Ari: They’re used to it, they’ve seen me.
Riese: Yeah, exactly.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: I love it.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: Anyway, someone said—
Major Dorough: It’s not my chart, Colonel, if you know what I mean.
Carly: Yeah, yeah, that was great.
Riese: Anyway, Davis saw The Look.
Carly: Yes, Davis saw The Look. Not The View, The Look. And she was like, “Wow, you are self-identified lesbian, you have a lesbian website, you were on TV being a lesbian, and you are friends with people sometimes.”
Riese: Yeah, she’s like, “So you’re a lesbian Ms. Pieszecki?” And I wanted her to be like, “Actually no, I’m bisexual.”
Ari: I was really surprised she didn’t.
Riese: And then just try to explain that to the army.
Carly: That would have been great.
Riese: I wanted that. That’s what I wanted.
Ari: Yeah.
Carly: That would have been really great. This scene does go in a really wonderful direction, but that is not the direction it goes in.
Ari: Unfortunately.
Carly: And so Colonel Davis is like, “Do you know a lot of people in the military? Because how on earth did you meet Tasha?” And I was like, oh no, the only answer to that is being gay! Everyone knows that! She, as a gay person, was trying to set her up to say that the only reason she knows her is because of being gay.
Riese: She should have been like, “Let me pull up the chart again. As you can see, Papi right here has slept with—”
Carly: “See right here? This is Papi.”
Riese: 4,000 women.
Ari: Mhmm.
Carly: “I’m one of them, but Tasha is not, and Tasha is not on the chart.” And that would be the end, and she would be like, “I rest my case.” And you’d be like, what?
Ari: She did say Tasha’s not on the chart.
Carly: Yes, she did. She also then asks Alice straight up if she’s ever had sex with Tasha.
Riese: I love this trial.
Carly: And instead of Alice answering quickly, she starts to just kind of look around and look confused. And for a second I forgot what happened — I haven’t seen this in so long, so I forgot what was about to happen. And I was just like, Alice, what the fuck are you doing?
Ari: Just say no!
Carly: What the fuck are you doing?!
Riese: No!
Carly: And then she fucking flips the whole thing around!
Alice: You know what? This whole thing, this whole thing is a crock. It’s a fricken witch hunt. I mean, you’re trying to say that Tasha is a lesbian because of her association with me? With lame, trumped up evidence? I’m sorry, but I could just as easily say that I think you’re a lesbian, Colonel Davis, with the propensity to engage in homosexual conduct, because of the way you looked at me in the hallway yesterday.
Colonel Davis: The Look. That is enough, Ms. Pieszecki.
Alice: If all I have to do is establish that you know a lesbian — one lesbian — and maybe you had lunch with her once? I bet there aren’t a lot of women who wear that uniform who haven’t eaten out with a lesbian in their time.
Colonel Davis: I would like to request a recess at this time to allow Ms. Pieszecki to collect herself.
Judge: Yes, we’ll take a 15 minute recess. [bangs gavel]
Alice: I’m ok, I mean if you want to keep…
Riese: Bananas bullshit that would never — it’s a bananas Law and Order final scene. Wild insane bullshit, loved every minute of it.
Carly: It was wonderful, it was like in Legally Blonde when she’s talking about getting a perm.
Ari: Yes.
Carly: It’s just perfect. And then all Colonel Davis can do is suggest they take a recess.
Ari: And I love that Alice sort of stays there after everyone else is gone and is like, “I’m fine!”
Riese: “We can keep going! I don’t need a break! I’m fine, I already had a banana!”
Carly: Oh my god, and then the next scene is incredible. So Alice goes in that little room, and then Davis just fucking throws the door open and is like, “Rawr,” Kool-Aid man right in there. She’s like, “We’re not fuckking playing games, Alice.” And then basically kind of comes out? And is like, basically, “You can’t out me, you’re about to out me, please don’t ruin my career, just tell Tasha to say the stuff she’s supposed to say when I cross-examine her and she can be fine.”
Ari: Yep.
Riese: She can be in army.
Carly: She can stay in army and I would recommend that she is in army. And Alice is like, “Huh?!”
Riese: “What?!”
Ari: “Ok!”
Riese: But I love this coming around for her, you know? Because I did not approve of her previous outing, and now here she is.
Carly: That’s true.
Riese: It’s working.
Carly: This near-outing was appropriate.
Ari: Yeah. I mean, if it fucks with the military, I’m ok with it.
Riese: Right.
Carly: Exactly. So she runs outside to find Tasha and tell her what the fuck just happened.
Riese: Yeah. She’s like, “She’s afraid I’m gonna out her!” Which by the way, I think she would.
Carly: Yeah. I think she knows what Alice is capable of because she saw her on television.
Riese: Yeah. “What army Colonel Counsel Davis is—”
Carly: No, she wouldn’t say Davis, she would say everything else.
Riese: “She was checking out women in the locker room after punching a bag. Wink wink.”
Carly: I like how she said she saw how Davis looked at her.
Ari: Yep.
Riese: Right.
Carly: I was like, ok Alice, can we not have this be all about you? Like, for one second?
Riese: Yeah. How do you even know that you’re her type?
Carly: What is her type? We should find out.
Riese: I don’t know.
Carly: Have her on your little video podcast.
Riese: Yeah, have her on your “podcast” that’s a video show. So finally — this is a big moment!
Carly: Ugh, huge!
Ari: The biggest moment.
Carly: Huge. Such a good moment.
Riese: This is a huge moment because we have been asking this question over and over again on this podcast, haven’t we?
Carly: Yes, we have.
Riese: The question is, why the fuck is this beautiful wonderful person in the goddamn military?!
Ari: Why?!
Carly: Why? We have not gotten an explanation from Tasha at any point, last season or this season, as to why she’s in the military and why she cares about staying in the military.
Ari: Mhmm. And here we find out!
Riese: Her family. It’s her family, which is usually, I think, the answer to these questions.
Carly: She’s from a military family, she has a strong sense of duty to continue the family being a military family.
Ari: Ugh.
Carly: That’s the answer, I guess.
Riese: I don’t buy it.
Carly: Ugh, well, that’s what happens when you don’t give a character a backstory, when you write them into a show. And we enjoyed this scene and we enjoyed this episode and it was pretty awesome what’s about to happen, but at the same time, there was very little substance behind any of it, which was unfortunate.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: Yeah, she should have accidentally come out in that moment and be like, “Honestly, I wanted to hang out with my dad, because I was a lesbian, and I wanted to do run-around-in-the-mud things, and he was in the army, so now I’m in the army, too.”
Ari: That’s a better backstory than “my dad and my grandpa were in the military and I care about America.”
Riese: Why?!
Carly: I’m like, that’s a lie, no one cares. So Colonel Davis questions her about — what’s the guy’s name that — did you write down the guy’s name? Anyone know the guy’s name? The boy, the guy…
Riese: The boy…
Carly: Davis questions her about the dude who initially accused her of showing preferential treatment, and Tasha is saying all the right things that she’s supposed to say, like, “He wasn’t qualified for the job, I’m not showing preferential treatment aside from preferring people who are qualified for a job get the job,” and then she completely goes and veers right off script into an absolutely incredible moment.
Davis: Do you agree that the military codes of conduct be strictly adhered to at all times?
Tasha: I always have, until now.
Davis: I’m sorry?
Tasha: One of the things that is asked of us when we go to the front lines is that we be prepared to be separated from the people that we love. And we ask it of them, too. We ask them to go and let us fight for their freedom, maybe to never come home. And when we do come home, we feel blessed. It seems so wrong, now, to have my personal freedom denied to me within my own country. It seems wrong to watch the person that I love be interrogated like a criminal when she did nothing wrong.
Davis: The person you love? To whom are you referring, Captain Williams?
Tasha: Alice Pieszecki, Colonel.
Carly: I was cheering, I was watching it, I was like, “Yeah!!” I was applauding her.
Ari: I know, so good.
Carly: Even though I’ve seen it before, and this is 12 years old.
Ari: Yep.
Carly: Didn’t matter.
Ari: “The person I love…” Ugh! And they were like, “Wait a second, who do you love?!”
Carly: Because they were totally convinced by her testimony!
Ari: So convinced!
Riese: Yeah, they were like, “Wait, Greg?”
Carly: Greg from the movie?!
Riese: Greg from the movie?!
Carly: No, not Greg. Colonel Beech? Did you mean Beech? Captain Beech, whatever his name is?
Riese: Yeah, and then her and Beech make out and everyone’s like, “Wow! Wow!”
Carly: Everyone’s like, “This is weird!” No, instead, she basically kicks herself out of the army, runs outside to find Alice. She’s like, “Alice, I won!” And Alice is like, “Cool.”
Riese: What?
Carly: What? “That’s great, what does that mean?” And she’s like, “I told them I love you!” And then everyone comes up in a very kind of like, “Well, we all tried,” kind of the end of the game, you know? Like, good game! That kind of moment. Beech is like, “You’ll be missed, goodbye.” And Colonel Davis is like, “You’re not as noble as you think you are, but…”
Riese: Yeah, and Davis is like, “Freedom is great, but sacrificing so that other Americans can be free is better.” And I was like, that’s a good point, because Tasha’s Black and therefore she is also sacrificing her life for people other than her to be free because she’s not really free. Anyway, so that was my thought about Davis’ little speech.
Ari: Super gaslight-y.
Carly: Yeah!
Ari: Like, such a gaslighter to be like “You know, if you’re as good of a lesbian as I am, you’d just stay closeted.”
Riese: Absolutely.
Ari: “And protect your country…”
Carly: Seriously!
Riese: Yeah, she’s just trying to validate her own choices because she’s about to go home and do a marathon masturbating session to army porn.
Ari: Yep, mhmm.
Riese: Out there on the fields, holding each other in their arms as they die, and like, “mahhhhh,” she’s like, “I’m never ever going to have sex or experience love ever in my whole life, and it’s really lame that you are going to.” And she hates it.
Carly: And then they salute each other on that.
Ari: Yeah, they do salute each other.
Riese: The lesbian salute.
Carly: And then Alice and Tasha finally kiss! Ugh! It’s wonderful, and all the men gawk, and then one random army lady gives them a double thumbs up!
Riese: Yes!
Carly: That was the best, that lady giving the double thumbs up was the best part of the episode.
Riese: That’s one of my favorite screenshots I’ve ever taken in the history of this program. It’s right up there with the insane Cherie Jaffe being like “Let’s have a party!” It was that girl, she was full-on—
Carly: She was like, I am in this episode for four seconds, I am gonna fucking sell this thumbs up.
Riese: nN small parts, only small actors. She killed it.
Ari: Yes.
Carly: I bet she improvised the double thumbs up.
Riese: So, tune back in next week, for probably Tasha and Alice having a fight.
Ari: Yeah.
Carly: That’s the episode!
Riese: That’s the episode!
Carly: We did it!
Riese: We did it!
Carly: Ok, what did we think? Do we like this episode? I think we do.
Ari: Yes. I liked this episode.
Riese: Tell us why!
Ari: It takes me on a journey! You know? For a moment I feel bad for Jenny, which is a new experience. It starts out incredibly misogynistic, just dick dick dick dick dick. There’s a dinner party.
Riese: On the floor.
Ari: Right, and then it ends like a good episode of Law and Order, like you said. Where it’s just like, a courtroom scene—
Riese: Bananas.
Ari: And some running, and kissing, and it’s a good episode!
Carly: Yeah!
Ari: They fit a lot into this hour.
Carly: They do. They take us through a real journey with the movie. I mean, like a little bit of a journey with the movie, but we do spend some time on set, but then we go through an entire military trial and the conclusion of it in one episode, which I think was good. I don’t think we needed to see that play out any longer than it did, necessarily.
Ari: Right.
Riese: I was grateful.
Carly: Yeah, I was grateful it was just one episode.
Riese: Yeah, they wrapped it up.
Carly: But it was good. And we got to see Tasha and Alice get back together, which was very good.
Ari: So good.
Carly: It was needed!
Riese: And also, this marks our third episode in a row in which nobody is mean to Max!
Carly: Oh my god, yay!
Ari: Didn’t you also say that this was the third episode without Max?
Carly: Yes… well wait, wasn’t one of those — he was in one and they weren’t mean to him.
Riese: He was briefly in it.
Carly: And no one was mean to him. And then this is the second now in a row that he is not in it at all. So it’s the third episode in a row where no one is mean to Max.
Riese: Is mean to Max, yeah. So I think that it was good. And everyone was very pretty, very pretty. There were some laughs, and good luck to Molly and Shane with whatever happens there for them! I wish them all the best! I wish — I can’t wait for the Liquid Heat premiere. Is that what it’s called because that’s the name of a future episode?
Carly: Yeah, the movie is called Liquid Heat.
Riese: Because that’s the name of the — isn’t that the name of the episode, the blackout episode?
Carly: Yes, it is.
Riese: Interesting!
Ari: Foreshadowing!
Carly: I guess, yeah. Or just somebody got confused about something.
Ari: There are only so many L words, is probably what it actually is.
Riese: That’s what we learn every week.
Carly: Yeah, that’s an ongoing saga.
Ari: Yeah.
Riese: Yeah, so good for them — the film is coming out, it’s gonna be a big hit, looking forward to the cover of Stuff magazine. Looking forward to Jodi’s leftovers, looking forward to whatever the fuck she is doing on the roof, and looking forward to seeing what happens — I wonder what career Tasha is going to pick next? I bet it will be a good one. And I think that also Nikki — I hope she gets to wear what she wants to wear, you know? Because a woman should get to wear what she wants to wear on her program. And we’ll see what happens with the She Bitches next time.
Carly: Ari, thank you so much for joining us this week!
Riese: Thank you so much for joining us!
Carly: This was wonderful!
Ari: Thank you so much for having me! This is amazing.
Carly: Is there anything you would like to plug, or perhaps tell everyone your social medias, etc.
Ari: Yes, you can follow me on social media, Twitter specifically, @alaraemonts.
Riese: Awesome!
Carly: Awesome!
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 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. Liquid heat.
Carly: Betnijah Laney.
Ari: Lothario.
Carly: Ari, what did you say?
Ari: Lothario.
Carly: Oooh! Riese?
Riese: That’s like Shane?
Ari: Yes, Shane. Like Shane.
Riese: I said, I said liquid heat.
Carly: Wow. Incredible.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: And I said Betnijah Laney. Betnijah Laney is a WNBA player, she plays for the Atlanta Dream. Every episode of Season 5, my L word has been in some way related to the WNBA, so that was today’s. By the time people are actually hearing this episode, she was probably named — she has hopefully been voted the league’s Most Improved Player. She just had an incredible breakout season and is just the frontrunner for that award. And I think by the time this airs, they probably will have announced it and she probably will have won it, so, she’s awesome.
Ari: I’m proud of her! Most improved player is — I think honestly better than the MVP.
Riese: Yeah, I got Most Improved Player in soccer once and I was like, thanks guys.
Ari: I got that a lot in basketball. I never wanted to play at the beginning of the season, and by the end I was like, yeah ok, I’ll play.
Carly: By the end of the season you were like, fine.
Ari: Yeah.
Carly: And then the season ended.
Ari: Yeah, and then it was over.
Carly: And you were like, oh well.
Riese: They were like, “Well, at the beginning you didn’t talk to anyone, so we forgot you were here. And then you did, and now we know you’re here, and now every time you open your mouth you say something terrible.” So that’s kind of like the trade-off I guess.
Carly: Thank you aaaalll!
Riese: Ok yeah, because I have to pee.
Carly: Yeah. Thank you all so much for listening. We will see you next time, byeee!
Riese: Yes, thank you guys so much, love you!
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 507: “Lesbians Gone Wild” With Robin Roemer!
GET IN THE RING IT’S TIME FOR LESBIAN OIL WRESTLING. Carly’s actual wife, legendary actress and photographer Robin Roemer joins us as we get greased up and Molly Kroll is loving it!!! This week on The L Word, Tasha walks up and down the same hallway for a week, Alice delivers a killer blind item in hopes of snagging a big TV job, Jenny and Niki are honestly just very extra, Jodi talks about sex to her ex, Molly is convinced that Shane wants to bang her and listen we’re all here for the oil wrestling right, let’s do it!
The usual:
- GO LISTEN
- SUBSCRIBE
- GIVE US A NICE REVIEW!! PLEAZE!
- FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM!!
- FOLLOW US ON TWITTER!!
- Robin’s website and her episode of The L Word: Generation Q
Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!
Carly: And I’m Gretchen Pickles!
Riese: The only gay cast member of Lez Girls.
Carly: And this is—
Riese: And this is—
Carly and Riese: To L and Back!
Carly: I’m not Gretchen Pickles. I’m Carly, your usual host.
Riese: Yeah, you’re Carly. But you are gay.
Carly: I am the gay cast member of Lez Girls.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: No, I’m not.
Riese: No, I’m not in it. I’m not in the film.
Carly: I’m also not in the film. How are you today, Riese?
Riese: Um, well, I got my period today, so…
Carly: Congratulations!
Riese: Thank you, so I’m pretty excited about that…
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: So I went to the store and bought some tampons, and… yeah, I’ve just been working on my book.
Carly: Yeah!
Riese: Which, oddly now I’m at a point in time that coincides with the point of time that we are in this season, which is really weird. So yeah, it’s been a really great day. I mean, I don’t know, God, what can anyone say about anything right now.
Carly: Ugh, ugh. Yeah, we can’t go outside—
Riese: Nope!
Carly: Because the air is poison, but there’s also a virus.
Riese: Uh huh, and it spreads inside.
Carly: And it spreads inside.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: So, I’m just trying not to leave the house. And you know what’s really cool about that is that I’m quarantined with my wife, who happens to be our special guest today!
Riese: Oh my God!
Carly: It’s Robin Roemer!
Robin: Hey!
Carly: Hey! Wasn’t that my best segue ever?
Riese: It was, yeah! So Robin—
Robin: Yes.
Riese: How long have you been married to Carly, would you say?
Robin: Ummm… I think it’s going to be 8 years in November?
Riese: Uh huh, and how’s that gone for you?
Robin: Uhhh, it has its ups and downs, but—
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: But it’s great!
Riese: So the marriage is good?
Robin: Yeah!
Riese: Being married to Carly is good?
Robin: Oh yeah! Yeah. Being married to Carly is great.
Riese: Ok. So what else do you do? What do you do professionally?
Robin: Um, I’m a photographer and a producer, and sometimes I also do a little bit of acting.
Riese: Oh, really?
Robin: Yeah!
Riese: What’s the best — what’s your favorite role you’ve ever played?
Robin: Um, I played the role of Christina, LA Times photographer on the show called The L Word.
Riese: I mean, it was a show-stopping role, I think.
Robin: Thank you!
Riese: It really brought into focus the “there’s no small parts, only small actors.” And you’re not a small actor, you know? You had — your ponytail was small, but your presence was—
Robin: Yeah.
Riese: I think it was really defining for the episode, which was one of the best — I would say the best episode of the season.
Carly: Absolutely, absolutely.
Robin: Thank you so much, I really appreciate that.
Riese: And that was no small part to your performance.
Carly: Exactly.
Robin: Thank you.
Carly: You could tell that your character knew how to hold that camera and knew how to take a picture.
Riese: Yeah, for sure, that she had taken pictures.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Before, in LA even.
Robin: Yeah.
Carly: Exactly, because sometimes it’s different depending on location.
Robin: Yeah.
Riese: For sure, yeah, because of light.
Robin: I really went “method” with the role, you know? I spent a couple years in college, and 15 years as a professional photographer, to prepare for the role of a lifetime!
Carly: Now, did they cut all your lines of dialogue, or did you have none written?
Robin: I didn’t actually have any dialogue but I—
Riese: Uh huh.
Robin: But I gave myself some dialogue that I would perform after they would cut each scene, just to kind of stay in character.
Carly: Oh, I love that.
Robin: Yeah.
Riese: Yeah, so it was really a role of a lifetime for you.
Robin: Yeah, it was great.
Riese: And it’s honestly an honor, just an honor, to have you on this podcast today, you know?
Robin: Thank you so much, I am so happy to be here.
Carly: We are so — we’re so lucky to have you here today!
Riese: We are!
Lauren: Oh hi! It’s me, Lauren, the producer and editor of this podcast, here to clarify a few things that were not technically clarified in the recording of this episode. The episode that we are referring to that Robin Roemer — the talented, illustrious, show-stopping actress, Robin Roemer — appeared on is Episode 104 titled “LA Times” in The L Word reboot, Generation Q, not the original series, for anyone who was confused and thinking that Robin was hanging at The Planet. She wasn’t, ok? She was hanging at Dana’s. So, the more you know. Back to the show.
Riese: So, what would you say is your L Word origin story?
Robin: I don’t know, I was out of college, living with my ex, and we would watch The L Word — but honestly my most memorable memories of The L Word occurred after Carly and I started dating, and we would go to your apartment, Riese! And we would watch it together —
Riese: My lustrous apartment.
Robin: Super fun.
Carly: You know, what’s funny is we were watching Season 5 — that is when we started watching them all together, and that’s what we have today.
Robin: Oh, so we probably watched this together!
Carly: We undoubtedly did.
Robin: Wow.
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: Isn’t that wild?
Robin: That’s very wild.
Riese: Robin, do you have any favorite characters of The L Word?
Robin: I mean, I always loved Alice, you know? I just think Leisha Hailey is one of the better actors on the show, and I also just like her character, it is really fun, and I like Dana.
Carly: Mmm.
Riese: She died.
Robin: Yeah, I know, it’s really sad.
Riese: Because she died, yeah.
Carly: Because of her death.
Riese: Yeah, she died.
Robin: That was a huge bummer.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: And my lover Cindi is probably one of my other favorite characters on the show.
Carly: So she’s your lover Cindi?
Robin: No, that’s just her full name.
Riese: What is your favorite part of the To L and Back podcast, would you say?
Robin: I have actually never listened to an episode of your podcast, still.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: Still, still. As was established, then, Robin has never listened to this podcast.
Riese: Correct.
Carly: And she still, continuously today, has never listened to this podcast.
Robin: No, it’s just a bit, and I just can’t—
Carly: Yeah, now it’s fun.
Robin: I just can’t listen to it, like I won’t even listen to this one, honestly. I’m just kidding, I love the sound of my own voice! Everyone does!
Carly: Today’s episode is Episode 507, entitled “Lesbians Gone Wild.”
Riese: Wooooo!
Carly: Now, there’s no exclamation point on that, which I think is a real missed opportunity.
Riese: Mmmmmm.
Carly: So you can’t read it with any excitement, it’s just “Lesbians Gone Wild.” If there was an exclamation point, I think you could say, “Lesbians Gone Wild!”
Riese: I could say that anyway.
Carly: No, I don’t think you could.
Riese: Ok.
Carly: The punctuation dictates how you would say it.
Riese: You’re right, you’re right.
Carly: This was written by Elizabeth Ziff, A.K.A EZGirl.
Riese: EZGirl.
Carly: And it was directed by Angela Robinson, our favorite!
Riese: Woo! Yay!
Robin: Yay!
Carly: It was originally aired February 17, the year was 2008, and the three of us, and several others, were undoubtedly in the same room watching this when it first aired.
Robin: That’s wild!
Carly: Isn’t that nuts?
Robin: 12 years? Wow.
Carly: I know.
Robin: Wow wow wow.
Carly: Wow wow wow.
Robin: And we were adults back then.
Carly: I mean… yes.
Robin: I mean, legally we were. We were, like, 25.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Shall we get into it?
Riese: Let’s get into it!
Carly: Alright!
Riese: We open on set—
Carly: Of our favorite film, Lez Girls. Or Lez Girls, sometimes I call it Lez Girls.
Riese: Where a woman has a microphone and a blazer, and she’s like, “I’m here on the set of Lez Girls! And I’m gonna film it for — here, let’s go to the set!” And then she goes to set and everyone’s really mad at each other.
Carly: Yeah, it’s not going well.
Riese: No.
Carly: Nikki can’t remember her lines, and Begoña is so mad at her.
Riese: Yeah. But we do get the line that was straight out of the actual thing that happened when she’s like “I’m not a—” and she’s like—
Begoña: “A big coffee drinker?”
Riese: That was in the first — that was really, that really happens, so this is like, really authentic.
Carly: Oh my god.
Riese: And also really happens all the time, it’s probably happening right now to someone in LA. But it’s like in an outdoor cafe, not an indoor cafe.
Carly: Absolutely.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: Wow, this scene was interesting.
Carly: Tina is trying — I thought it was like a news crew, because it had that like—
Riese: Yeah, I thought it was like “duh duh duh duh.” Yeah, I thought it was Entertainment Tonight.
Carly: Yeah, totally. But then Tina’s like, “Well, it’s an EPK.” But like, EPK’s don’t have on-camera hosts.
Riese: What’s EPK again?
Carly: Electronic Press Kit.
Riese: Oh, but then she said it was going to be DVD extras.
Carly: Sure, but there’s still not a host.
Riese: Well… I don’t know. I was confused because I was like, ‘Why would they be filming this now?” Anyway, so they want the reporter to come back another time.
Carly: Yeah, Jenny kicks the whole crew out.
Riese: Yeah, so it’s going very poorly.
Robin: So the reporter — all I have down in my notes is “groundbreaking!” They must have said something about Lez Girls being groundbreaking, and I thought that was very funny.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: Absolutely, it’s the first lesbian film to be directed by a complete ameuter with no formal director training.
Riese: Is it though? Is it?
Carly: Maybe. Maybe not.
Robin: It read very student film to me, especially the actors screaming at each other. I’m like, this would never actually happen on set.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: This is hilarious.
Carly: No, it’s not professional.
Riese: I thought this stuff did really happen on sets?
Carly: I mean, people get in arguments, but I feel like their acting was just not good.
Riese: Yeah, what about Russel Crowe?
Carly: Russel Crowe?
Riese: Or Val Kilmer.
Robin: Mmmm.
Riese: I’ve read articles that say that these — sometimes actors are very mean on set.
Carly: That’s true.
Riese: And very bad at their jobs, like Lindsay Lohan.
Robin: Is Nikki supposed to be a person?
Carly: She is! She’s based on Lindsay Lohan, reportedly, or allegedly.
Robin: Ugh, they did a terrible job with that.
Riese: Alleged by me.
Carly: Allegedly by Riese.
Riese: But also, I think I heard it somewhere, and I don’t think it was myself.
Robin: I didn’t see her try to kidnap a child, I do not agree with that.
Riese: I mean, this was early in the — this was like, she just started dating Samantha Ronson, I believe.
Carly: Yeah.
Robin: Oh yeah — oh, that year we were Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan for Halloween!
Carly: For Halloween, and I DJ’d the Halloween party in a fedora, until I got too warm, then I had to take it off.
Riese: I was Paris Hilton.
Carly: Yes, you were.
Riese: And I looked great.
Carly: You looked amazing. Then we go to our wonderful theme song. Do you have any thoughts on the theme song that you want to share with us, Robin?
Robin: Ugh, no.
Riese: You didn’t take any notes for it?
Robin: No, I did not.
Carly: She did not.
Riese: Ok.
Carly: So, we open back up on a flyer for SheBar’s night of lesbian Turkish oil wrestling. And the flyer is the best thing I have ever seen. It’s a naked photo of Dawn and Cindi embracing that looks like — is it one of the ones that was also inside their house framed?
Riese: Um, pretty sure, yeah.
Robin: Also, I think it just might be a promotional still from The L Word, like they took it, and then turned it sideways, and put it on the flyer.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: Yeah, and it has color — it’s like blue, yellow, pink…
Robin: Mhmm, graphic design is my passion.
Riese: It’s like all the colors.
Carly: Exactly, lot of fonts.
Riese: Does anyone want to hear the whole history of the lesbian oil wresting situation?
Carly: Yes, please.
Robin: Sure!
Riese: Ok, so first of all, Turkish oil wrestling is the most popular sport in Turkey. It’s Turkey’s national sport.
Carly: Ohh!
Riese: Yeah! And so for years — and I know this because my ex was involved in it — they did Turkish lesbian oil wrestling nights in Brooklyn, and it was once a year, and it was a whole night thing, and it was mostly run by POC, and it was open to women and also to trans people. And one of the people who was involved in it, who was an MC, whose name was like Parisa, I think? She was also a designer, and she designed — she had this line called Rigged Outfitters that you may remember from that era?
Carly: Oh yeah, mhmm.
Riese: And so she met Ilene Chaiken somehow, and she was brought on Season 3 to work with costume design, and did some of the fashion for this show.
Carly: Like a vest to gig in.
Riese: Like vest to gig in, a vest to hang up after your gigging, pants, belts, shoes, gig shirts.
Carly: Gigs to vest in…
Riese: Uh huh, yeah, gigs to vest in. Just like, vests, hats… yeah, the whole head-to-toe, top-to-bottom outfits.
Carly: Absolutely, absolutely.
Riese: Rigged Outfitters. You know, and this was when it was really cool to put a ton of words on a shirt, and then make it look like it had been run over. But anyway, so she became part of the whole thing, and so that’s probably how Ilene Chaiken found out about lesbian Turkish oil wrestling. Now actually this woman does this — well probably not now, because no one can do anything right now, but she’s still an artist and a designer and stuff, and she lives here and does this underground dinner series and stuff.
Carly: Oh wait, I know her.
Riese: In LA. Yeah, do you? Do you know who I’m talking about?
Carly: Oh, Parisa Parnian, yeah, I know her.
Riese: Yeah! That’s her!
Carly: Oh my god, that’s so funny.
Riese: I think one of the interesting things about it is that [The L Word] took an event that was designed mostly by POC, for POC, and made it as white as they could.
Robin: Oh, yeah.
Riese: And put it on The L Word.
Carly: Yes, the end.
Robin: Wow.
Carly: Classic L Word.
Robin: They’re so good at that.
Carly: Classic white people stuff.
Riese: Uh huh. So they’re handing out flyers, and Tina’s like, “Don’t let Nikki see the flyer!”
Carly: She’s, like, slapping flyers out of people’s hands.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: The PA-er, whoever’s handing them out, is like—
PA: Hey, check it out! Are you coming to hot oil wrestling? It’s going to be such an awesome night. I hope you make it!
Carly: Yeah, she said that with so much confidence!
Robin: Was she involved in it? I don’t understand.
Carly: I don’t know.
Riese: She was the flyer girl. She probably responded to a gig on Craigslist and they were like, “You’re going to get paid like 50 cents for every flyer.”
Robin: So she was working two gigs at once?
Carly: Smart!
Robin: She was the PA and the—
Carly: Flyer girl!
Robin: Something for this event, wow.
Riese: Yeah, I hope she got a vest.
Carly: There was — I paused it, and I couldn’t tell because I had the captions on, so I couldn’t see the whole bottom of the flyer — but the beginning of the fake address of SheBar is “69369.”
Riese: Someone’s having a little fun!
Carly: So yeah, Tina’s really pissed, and so she entrusts Adele with confiscating the flyers and making sure Nikki doesn’t find out about this, because there can be no distractions!
Riese: Because Nikki is 5 or 6 years old, it seems like? In this episode?
Carly: It would appear, yes.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: But she does know how to spell “cunt,” that’s a part of this scene somewhere, I wrote down.
Riese: Yeah we learn that. Jenny’s sort of trying to get Nikki to be nicer to Begoña, and Nikki doesn’t want to be. And then also to be less obvious — like Tina told them to be less obvious about their relationship on set.
Carly: Which is cool because, as they’re talking about that, they’re fully making out in front of the entire crew.
Robin: Yep.
Carly: So they’re doing great.
Riese: Yeah. So this is super problematic for power dynamics on the set! You know?
Carly: Mhmm.
Riese: It’s amazing Begoña even feels comfortable saying that she’s annoyed with Nikki, because the director is Nikki’s girlfriend.
Carly: Right.
Riese: And they bang and everyone knows that.
Robin: At lunch, everyday!
Riese: This is on The Chart.
Carly: Every day at lunch.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Oh, it’s definitely on The Chart.
Riese: This episode has so many meta things in it. It’s a lot.
Carly: Yeah, there’s, like, layers.
Robin: Mhmm.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: Generous way of saying it.
Carly: Yeah, it’s really complicated.
Riese: Pulling inspiration from so many places. And by inspiration, I mean just like lifting—
Carly: Wholesale lifting things, yeah.
Riese: Yeah, ripped from the headlines.
Robin: Um, the first time I went to Dinah Shore, I was actually in charge of creating a lube wrestling event for Logo. That was my job.
Riese: Oh, how’d that go?
Robin: Um, it wasn’t as elaborate as the event they put on at SheBar. It was actually just a large inflatable pool, and a lot of lube. But we didn’t get a tub of lube, we had, like, packets. So I was just squeezing packets, like little ketchup packets, of lube—
Carly: Little ketchup packets of lube?
Robin: Squeezing lube packets into this huge inflatable pool. And I was like, “I only have an hour left! How many packets do we have?!” Logo had hired these two girls to wrestle first and they were just like these… model-y type looking girls—
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: And they went in and wrestled, and then they’re like — we’re like, “Who else wants to wrestle?!” And everyone’s just like… kind of looking at each other for a while. It took a while to get people really into it.
Riese: That was nothing how it went here.
Robin: Exactly.
Riese: Everyone was just into it.
Robin: It was not as exciting.
Carly: Then we go back to our favorite location, the army base, which is good because — it’s good because it means we’re going to have some Tasha in this episode. But this storyline is sort of annoying. So we have a new special guest here and it’s Kelly McGillis, who you may know from Top Gun.
Riese: Mhmm.
Carly: I can’t think of any other movie she’s been in now, The Accused? Wasn’t she the lawyer in The Accused?
Riese: Yeah, in The Accused she played a lawyer who was prosecuting a rape sexual assault case.
Carly: Yes. And here she’s prosecuting a “Is Tasha Gay in the Military” case.
Riese: Yeah, she is. And she also likes scotch and golf.
Carly: Yes, she talks about—
Riese: So she’s a real man’s man.
Carly: Yes.
Robin: Not gay at all.
Carly: Yeah, no. Definitely not gay at all. Now, she came out right before this, before she was on the show, right?
Riese: Right after it.
Carly: Right aaaafter.
Riese: After it.
Carly: Couldn’t get my facts straight there.
Riese: That’s the cool thing to do.
Carly: Is be on The L Word and then come out?
Riese: Uh huh!
Carly: That is cool!
Riese: You’re on The L Word and then lesbians are like, “Oh my god, you’re on The L Word, you know? And then you’re like, “They don’t even know I’m gay,” so then you tell them.
Carly: And then that’s how they find out.
Riese: Uh huh, and then you do lube wrestling in a kiddie pool, with packets.
Robin: Yeah.
Riese: That’s the cycle of life!
Carly: It’s true, it’s the lesbian cycle.
Robin: Classic coming out story.
Riese: Yeah. She says—
Colonel Gillian Davis: I enjoy a man with confidence. It makes it all that much enjoyable when I crush them.
Robin: Oh yeah, I wrote down that line too, because I thought it was funny.
Carly: Yeah.
Robin: I thought it was funny to say, “I enjoy a man with confidence,” because I haven’t met too many without confidence, so.
Carly: It’s funny.
Robin: It’s usually false, but.
Carly: Yes. So basically, she’s here as a temporary prosecuting attorney for the backlog of military cases they have to try? I mean, what a random storyline for a show about lesbians in West Hollywood, but whatever, here we are. Her character’s name is Gillian Davis, and she’s gonna be prosecuting Tasha.
Riese: So Beech thinks they’re fucked, because she’s such a good lawyer.
Carly: She’s so good. She’s the winningest prosecutor, a hard ass, she plays by the book. She even got West Point to ban hazing.
Robin: Wow.
Riese: Which was what, previously allowed?
Carly: I guess?
Robin: I wonder how much research they did for this.
Riese: I think this much.
Robin: Maybe it’s true life. It felt so weird, all these scenes felt so contrived to me—
Carly: I know.
Robin: And strange, like the way she stood in the hallways and just watched them interact with each other, like, “I’m gonna put this in my case!”
Carly: “I’m gonna take a note!”
Riese: Then we go to The Look!
Carly: It’s not The View, it’s not The Talk, it’s The Look.
Riese: It’s The Look! It’s The Look, even though in my notes I wrote “The Talk”. So, basically what happened here, as aforementioned, is that Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck got in a fight, and Rosie’s feelings were hurt, and she was also like, “Fuck all of you, I don’t want to do this anymore.” And so she left The Look, and so now they’re hiring Alice to replace her. They’re cycling through a bunch of potential hosts to replace her. Except that, because this is not real life, this is fake life, they have different names for all of these characters.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: And I forget who — what the Rosie O’Donnell name is?
Carly: I truly didn’t get any of their names, but there’s that one lady whose hair — the blonde lady has like, the most wind-swept look I’ve ever seen.
Riese: It was so weird.
Carly: It’s crazy.
Robin: Very distracting.
Carly: I truly didn’t know what was going on, I was just staring at her hair.
Riese: Yeah, so it’s Alice, and for some reason I only have two other hosts, which I don’t know if that was like, a budget issue or whatever. And one of them is blonde, and it’s sort of like she’s playing, like, a cloud in a play.
Carly: Interesting.
Riese: And they were like, “Let’s make your hair look like a cloud.”
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: But then they gave up halfway, and then just let the rest of it fall down like rain, would be how I would describe it.
Carly: That’s a good description.
Riese: The topic of today’s episode is the internet.
Carly: What a great hot topic. It’s so easy to talk about the internet in the span of one episode.
Riese: Yeah, love it or hate it, true or false.
Robin: It definitely feels like a topic that would have been relevant in like, the late 90s, or even the early 90s, and not 2008.
Carly: I know, even in 2008 it was stupid, but now…
Robin: I’m surprised they didn’t call it the World Wide Web, honestly.
Riese: They did that last week.
Carly: Yeah, last week or the week before, they called the internet “the net,” if I remember it correctly.
Robin: The net?!
Riese: They referred to “the power of the web,” I believe at one point.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: But also, this was kind of a time when people were like, not all the way invested in the internet quite yet.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: They were talking about Wikipedia and how they have no fact checkers, which isn’t true. Wikipedia has more fact checkers than anyone else in the universe, because everyone is a fucking fact checker on Wikipedia. You could be a fact checker on Wikipedia.
Robin: That’s how you know you’re getting the best possible information, because anyone, anyone in the world—
Riese: Anyone!
Carly: Anyone!
Riese: Anyone in the whole world could edit their Wikipedia, their own Wikipedia page.
Robin: I don’t have a Wikipedia page, but I’m the only part of Carly’s personal section on their Wikipedia page. So if you go to their Wikipedia page, it’s like “personal life” and then it says, “Carly Usdin married producer, photographer Robin Roemer.”
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: And it’s just, it’s really exciting to—
Riese: Does it say actress, though?
Robin: It does not say actress, no.
Carly: No, they didn’t — we should suggest that.
Robin: We should. I’ll add it in.
Carly: A correction. The reason I found out I had a Wikipedia page is because one day, Robin was Googling herself and the first thing that came up on the sidebar, you know—
Robin: I get bored. When you used to Google my name, it used to just say “spouse of Carly Usdin.”
Carly: On that first sidebar.
Robin: Like, first. It would come up first. And then it was a wedding picture. I was like, wow.
Riese: So basically, we’re in this studio with Alice. They say that real reporters show their faces and say their names, which is a stupid thing to say because Alice did show her face and her name when she did her reporting.
Carly: Yes, both.
Riese: And then we do a quick little cut to Bette’s house, where Kit and Jodi and Bette are watching the show.
Carly: Mhmm.
Riese: And kit hates Mary Lamb.
Carly: I loved that. I was like, good.
Riese: Join the club.
Carly: We all do.
Robin: For this scene I literally just wrote “Bette.” And then I wrote “Molly?” because I forgot who Molly was, because I haven’t been listening to the podcast and I haven’t really been watching any of the episodes except for this one, so I forgot who Molly was.
Carly: At one point I had to pause it and explain Molly.
Robin: Yeah, so now I know who Molly is.
Carly: She knows now. I just wrote that Molly arrives dressed as a lesbian, again. Every scene she’s been in, she’s been dressed like a lesbian.
Riese: Yeah, Bette has been enlisted by Phyllis to show Molly that lesbians are respectable. And so they’re gonna go to some galleries and then to the Lez Girls set, when really they should be going to the horse races.
Carly: Well if Molly wants to be kicked out of the military, then that’s definitely the place to go.
Riese: Exactly, that’s where lesbians hang out, known lesbians hang out.
Carly: Known lesbians hang out in public.
Riese: Yeah, look it up.
Carly: And sometimes they put their hands on each others’ shoulders.
Riese: Mhmm, which is sex.
Carly: And that’s how you know. And that’s gay sex. Lesbian sex.
Riese: Mhm. Mhm. Sort of what you were talking about earlier with the lube and the kiddie pool, that’s another type of gay sex. And then also the hand at the horse races is another type of lesbian sex.
Carly: There’s two types, those are the two types.
Riese: Yeah, there’s two types of lesbian sex here. And then there used to be scissoring, but the jury’s out on that one.
Carly: There’s no way of knowing.
Riese: Yeah. Colonel Davis is fully prosecuting it though. And molly’s like, “I hated Kelly Corrigan, she was so obnoxious.” And that’s who is Rosie O’Donnell. And just so you know, everyone is always like, Rosie O’Donnell’s obnoxious. And she isn’t, she was correct and she’s great and I love her. And The View sucked after she left, and it still does.
Carly: Rosie’s great.
Riese: Yeah, when she looks at the TV, Molly’s like—
Molly: That’s where I know her from, my mother’s degrading podcast.
Carly: And I was like, wait, Phyllis has a podcast now, too?
Riese: I was like, I understand where Molly’s coming from.
Carly: I like when Jodi’s like, “Alice is a friend of your mother.” I thought that was very funny.
Riese: Yeah, and then Bette whacked Jodi in the face to stop talking about how they knew Alice. She did!
Carly: High comedy.
Riese: But I also — like, if I was Molly… listen, I am someone with a late-in-life lesbian mom, and I don’t want to hear her talking about having graduate thesis lesbian sex on a podcast, that’s actually a video show, in a crowded cafe, either.
Carly: Yeah, fair.
Riese: I get it.
Carly: It’s fair.
Riese: Jodi’s going to have lunch with her ex.
Robin: Oh, yeah!
Carly: She’s going to have lunch with her ex, Amy, who we’ve met before.
Robin: Mhmm. That seems really boring.
Carly: That seems really boring, yeah.
Robin: I feel like they could have done so much more with it, but it was just sort of like — I think it was just to show us that Jodi’s a good person and Bette isn’t. They’re like, look at Jodi with her ex, being like chill and normal. And then Bette is being a fucking mess.
Carly: Yeah, and fully cheating on her. Ok, so we go back to the army. This episode spends as much time at the army as it does anywhere else. Half this episode is in the army, but this is the oil wrestling episode, so there you go.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: So Colonel Gillian Davis is taking some boxes into her office and she’s getting settled in. And Tasha just walks by, and just happens to be in the area, and just happens to see if she needs help. And she’s like, “Don’t help me with that box, but you can help me with this other box,” which I thought was very weird.
Riese: This is the first time of two times in this episode — is Tasha just walking up and down that hallway?
Carly: Yes.
Riese: All day?
Carly: She’s not allowed to do anything.
Robin: She actually patrols that hallway. It’s like, that’s her new job.
Carly: She has nothing else to do, she can’t do any military things, because she’s suspended or whatever the word for that is in the military, so all she can do is walk up and down one hallway.
Robin: She’s suspended for Chapter 15.
Carly: Bankruptcy.
Robin: Which I feel like is a really — that would be a really cool undercover way of telling people that your’e a lesbian. Like how it used to be “Friend of Dorothy.”
Riese: Uh huh, yeah.
Robin: We could just say, “I’m Chapter 15.”
Carly: Oh my god, that would be a cool speakeasy, called Chapter 15.
Riese: Yeah, and you can have a tattoo…
Carly: With a little 15.
Riese: Uh huh.
Robin: I like that, like a little book—
Carly: A little book and on it, 15.
Riese: So, just so you guys know, that idea belongs to us and we’re copywriting it, and if you steal it, I’m going to sue you.
Carly: We’re gonna have Colonel Gillian Davis prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.
Riese: Yeah. They have a little army banter to show us that Colonel Davis has not seen any bullets fly at her face, and that Tasha has seen bullets at her face.
Carly: Yeah, no one has died in her arms the way they have in Tasha’s.
Riese: Yeah, no one — no one — I mean, I haven’t seen Top Gun, so I don’t know what happened in Top Gun, but all we know from this specific thing is that no — it does seem as though — yeah, Davis has had it pretty easy there, while Tasha has been in the line of fire, being gay.
Carly: Yeah, mhm.
Riese: Secretly.
Carly: Secretly, yeah.
Riese: So, Colonel Davis has been secretly gay, also, but not in the line of fire.
Carly: She’s obviously gay. Like, how could that woman not be gay?
Riese: Right?! She said she wanted to crush a man, which I guess could be straight too. Straight people — I think straight women don’t like men less than gay women do.
Carly: Yeah. So they get to chatting, and then she’s like, “Oh, are you going to go back out and do more bullet and gun stuff in the world?” And she’s like, “Well, actually, my unit’s out there doing bullets and gun stuff right now, but I’m not with them, I’m here.” And she’s kind of like, “Wh- wh- wh- why?!” And then that’s when we learn about Chapter 15. And then — oh my god, she is so mad at Tasha. She’s like, “This is a breach of protocol!” And then the soundtrack is army drums.
Riese: Oh, it is?
Carly: Yeah, it’s like a drumline.
Riese: Can you imagine the rest of the week, every time Davis walks outside her office and Tasha’s, like, going back and forth, and she’s like, “Breach of protocol, Tasha!” And she’s like, “I’m sorry, I’m just walking.” And then she’s like, every time she walks out, “Why are you here again?” She could be walking a rabbit, at least, if she’s going to be walking back and forth. Whenever I see someone walking without any — without doing anything else, I’m like, you could be walking my dog right now, but you’re just walking doing nothing. You know?
Carly: It’s true. And like, maybe Davis doesn’t want to deal with it, and so she just stays in her office and never comes out. But like, she has to pee, so she has to get someone to create a diversion to get Tasha out of there, and it becomes a whole kind of slapstick, wacky mission.
Riese: Yeah, or she pees in a plant.
Carly: Oh, she definitely pees in a plant, right.
Riese: Or maybe she pees in a box, and that’s the box she didn’t want Tasha to pick up. She’s like, “That’s the box I pee in.”
Carly: That’s the pee box.
Riese: That’s the pee box.
Carly: And that’s why there’s no air holes cut in it.
Riese: Yeah, and if she ever thinks she might be pregnant, she just drops a pregnancy test into the pee box and sees what happens.
Carly: This is an especially deranged episode and I love it.
Riese: Back to The Talk/Look/View.
Carly: The Talk/Look/View.
Riese: They’re wrapping up their episode called “The Internet: Do We Believe It?” Do we believe it?
Carly: Do we believe the internet?
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Like, do we believe what we read on it, or do we believe that it exists?
Riese: Uh huh… both.
Carly: Well, I think this is like a Matrix-style simulation.
Robin: Yeah, oh for sure.
Carly: Obviously.
Riese: I was thinking when she said this, “Well, just wait until 2020, you’re not going to have a choice.”
Carly: Mmm.
Robin: Mmm.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: So that’s uplifting.
Carly: So Alice starts to get some notes…
Robin: Oh yeah.
Carly: And they were like—
Robin: She gets the, “don’t be an angry gay, be a fun gay!”
Carly: Be a fun gay!
Robin: Which is what I tell myself every morning. I’m like, don’t be an angry gay, be a fun gay! You know?
Riese: Absolutely.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: They’re basically saying, “Don’t be a Rosie, be an Ellen.” Which we all know is…
Carly: Incorrect in every way. They want insider tid-bits, which means that they want her to out celebrities.
Riese: Yikes!
Carly: Not just that — they don’t just want her to out famous people, they want her to out a famous person per episode. Which, if this is a daily live show, we’re gonna run out of people to out eventually.
Riese: Would they though, at that time?
Carly: At that time, no.
Riese: They could have started with Kelly McGillis!
Carly: Ohhh! Here behind door #2, Colonel Davis, from Army!
Riese: From army!
Robin: Why wouldn’t they tell her this before she gets on the show? They’re telling her during a commercial break, like, “We want you to out people!” And she’s like, “What?”
Carly: Yeah, that would never happen.
Robin: Like, “What do you have for us?” She’s like, “Wait…”
Carly: What do you mean “what do I have?” Of course they would have prepped her ahead of being on a live program.
Riese: Mhmm. But she’s conflicted because she really wants the job, obviously.
Carly: Obviously.
Riese: But also, it’s morally wrong to out people who have not done anything damaging to the queer community.
Robin: Mhmm.
Riese: And also it’s like — I mean we’ve all known about people who are gay, that we can’t tell anyone about.
Robin: Mhmm!
Riese: Like that’s… even though we’re in the media and Robin’s a famous actress….
Carly: Yeah…
Riese: And it’s just like, that’s part of the job, that you just don’t tell anyone.
Robin: Yeah, that’s very true.
Carly: It is. So, she conflicted, and then they’re like, “Cool anyway, we’re live again.”
Riese: They call it “TheirChart.”
Carly: Yeah, and they get the pronunciation of her last name wrong, which is a bit for this whole season, which I love.
Host of The Look: Alice Pisheki!
Carly: And they call it “TheirChart,” “YourChart,” like they can’t get the site’s name right, which is so funny. And then they ask her to out someone. They’re live, and they’re like, “Come on, come on, what do you got?” But they’re live, so she has no choice.
Riese: And they go, “Dish! Dish! Dish! Dish!”
Robin: And then she does that whole riddle.
Carly: Oh my god, and then she turns into the riddler.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: She makes up a riddle that rhymes on the spot, which is really impressive.
Riese: Yeah, they should hire her just for that, and being like, “We loved what you did with the outing, but we really love what you did with rhyming.”
Carly: We love your witty word play and the way you phrased it like an old-timey blind item. Do you remember blind items?
Robin: Yes.
Riese: Mhmm.
Alice: Ok, which Hollywood little Maxim-endorsed gorgeous little starlet is a little bit closer to her role as a sapphic sister in Hollywood’s new girl-on-girl smooch fest?!”
The Look Host: Ohhh!
Alice: That’s all I’m gonna say!
The Look Host: It’s time to stop now, so maybe you’ll have to tell us next time! [Applause]Carly: I think what she should have done is that she should have been like, “What tennis pro, super sponsored athlete, who is dead, is gay…and my ex?”
Robin: Yikes.
Carly: That could have been what she did in a pinch.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: But instead—
Riese: Yeah, that’s what I would have done. And then everyone would have laughed, and afterwards been like, “It’s so weird how Riese always talks about dead people.” And I don’t know, that’s so weird, and that would have been the end of me.
Carly: But that would never happen, because no one talks about Dana on this show, because they forgot about her.
Riese: Right, totally. They had so many people they could have outed.
Carly: I know.
Riese: So yeah, that was bad.
Carly: She outs Nikki Stevens pretty obviously, but will deny it later.
Robin: I also feel like there’s this element of speculation that has existed forever in queer media, especially in lesbian media, that just is sort of always speculating, like, “Is Kelly Clarkson gay?” Like, “what do we knowww?” Like, “who do we knowww?”
Carly: Yeah, yeah.
Robin: And so it feels — it doesn’t, like — maybe Nikki is so big of an actress and there’s been rumors before… this was me trying to justify Alice in my head because I’m like, I love Alice as a person, and then she does this, and I’m like, oh, she’s a terrible person.
Carly: Yeah.
Robin: So in my head, I was going through all the scenarios that would make it ok for her to do this. There are not many, but I’m saying that maybe it’s already been rumored, I don’t know. She’s making out on set…
Riese: It probably has.
Robin: She’s making out with the director on set, that’s gotta be like—
Carly: The funny thing is that by the end of the episode, Nikki does it herself. So it’s like, it would have been ok if Alice had a time machine, and knew that it was going to happen. And she was like, “Guys, trust me, I’m not being a dick about this.”
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: It’s gonna happen.
Riese: But also, there’s the rule that’s like, no matter what you do, unless you literally say that you are gay, it doesn’t count. There’s people like Queen Latifah who has a girlfriend, had a wife, kisses women in public, and we’re still not allowed to say that she’s gay, because she hasn’t actually come out.
Carly: Right, we can’t be like, “queer, brilliant performer Queen Latifah,” we have to be like—
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Queen Latifah…
Riese: Queen Latifah, wink.
Carly: A.K.A. my mom’s friend, Dana.
Robin: Oh yeah.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: It’s true.
Riese: I think the way that it is ok for Alice is just imagining her being in this position of like, “I want this job really badly,” and feeling this immediate obligation to her audience and to the producers, and wanting them to like her.
Carly: True.
Riese: That for a moment, it’s warped and you forget that.
Carly: The context.
Riese: Yeah, you forget that the rest of the world exists because you just want to do a good job in the moment.
Carly: But the problem is that when she goes to set later — which we’ll get to — she doubles down and is kind of a jerk about it.
Robin: Yeah…
Riese: Yeah, so that’s bad.
Carly: But in this moment, you’re almost like — you’re with her a little bit, because you’re like, she’s in this horrible position that they’ve put her in.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: And it’s like, you can kind of see where she’s coming from a little bit? Because she wants the job. But then later it’s very, very, very bad.
Riese: Yeah. It is a different time than it is now, because now, we’ve all accepted that an actor can be gay, and no one cares, and it’s fine.
Carly: Right.
Riese: But then it was still this thing like, “Can a gay actress play a straight role? Probably not!”
Carly: It’s impossible.
Riese: And so everyone was in the closet, yeah.
Robin: That’s true, yeah.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Like every cast member of this show!
Carly: So we go from this speculation on a live show called The Look about Nikki, to Nikki’s’ trailer on set, which is fully a gay dance party in the middle of the afternoon.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: And I’m like, honestly good for her. Ok, so who are all these extras, who are all these queer extras in Nikki’s trailer?
Riese: Who was like, “A trailer would be a great place to have a dance party!” A mid-day dance party with everyone’s purses on?
Carly: It’s wild.
Riese: It is. Nikki has a glitter purse.
Robin: Oh wow.
Riese: Did you notice it? She had it on the whole time.
Carly: I totally missed it.
Robin: No, I did miss that. I did notice that her trailer is enormous and has a bed in it though. So unrealistic.
Carly: Yeah, like a full bed.
Riese: Yeah. It’s basically like people who live in vans on TikTok.
Carly: Mmm, van life. Totally. So Jenny arrives and she’s like, “Get rid of everyone.” So Nikki gets rid of everybody so that they can make out.
Riese: Mhmm. They’re really into each other.
Carly: They are really into each other. And I’m like, good for them, but this is a problem.
Riese: Mhm.
Carly: But good for them! But also it’s a problem.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: And Jenny says that Tina wanted her to talk to Nikki about how they should be more subtle on set. So they take that advice right away and start to have sex.
Riese: Meanwhile! Outside, Nikki’s managers are yelling at Tina because Nikki was just outed on The Look/View/Talk. And Tina is like, “It’s fine, we’re just going to do a press release that Gretchen Pickles is the only gay cast member,” which, duh. And also, this is obviously about — again, everything in this is ripped from the headlines, is that Jennifer Beals accidentally outed Kate Moennig in The Advocate one time, and the company line throughout the entire L Word was that Leisha Hailey was the only gay cast member.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: When, in fact, they had a shit ton of gay cast members.
Carly: They sure did, yeah.
Riese: Yeah, like four in this episode.
Carly: Yeah. I just love the name Gretchen Pickles so much.
Robin: It’s so great.
Riese: Yeah. What were those books about — oh, it’s The Rugrats, right?
Carly: Yeah, there was Tommy Pickles, that was a rugrat.
Riese: So do you think that she’s related?
Carly: Yeah!
Robin: Probably, yeah!
Carly: For sure.
Riese: To Tommy Pickles?
Carly: Mhm, she’s one of the Pickles family. The Pickles—
Robin: The Pickles dynasty?
Carly: Yes, thank you. Tina’s like, “Don’t worry, guys. I got it under control.” Which is great, because she does not have anything under control. Then they start asking her about security, which was one of the most laugh out loud moments of the episode for me, because what we have seen so far that has happened on set — that happened even in previous episodes, and then moments later in this episode — is that there is the most nonexistent security.
Riese: Mhmm.
Carly: Like, it’s so funny. And she’s like, “We’ve ramped up our security protocol.” And I’m like, you hired one guard, because before you had no guards, because before, Dawn Denbo was showing up. There was that episode where the entire cast shows up to just hang out.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Like, no security.
Riese: Someone got flyers in there…
Carly: The flyers. Nikki can’t—
Riese: Rogue flyers.
Carly: Nikki’s not allowed to see anything! She’s not allowed to see words and pictures!
Riese: No, she has no self control!
Carly: Zero!
Riese: Anyway, then Sam, the DP, needs a techno crane with a 3-axis head.
Carly: Yeah!
Robin: Yeah.
Carly: Yeah, mhm. That’s a thing, that’s a request that a DP would make.
Robin: For sure.
Riese: It’s not just another type of lesbian sex?
Carly: I guess it could be a third type…
Robin: It could be.
Carly: The third type. I thought it was weird that the DP walked all the way off set to go find Tina.
Robin: Yeah, we had a whole discussion about this.
Carly: Yeah, the two of us were both like—
Robin: They would not walk off set to find a producer, they would definitely send someone.
Carly: They would definitely send a PA, or someone with a walkie. Unless it’s lunch, but then like, I thought they were working right now? It’s very confusing, but.
Riese: Well, maybe she has a little crush.
Carly: Ugh, it sure does seem that way.
Robin: It seems that way.
Riese: Seemed that way to Bette.
Carly: Oh right, because Bette’s here now with their great security.
Riese: Yeah, with the triple-down security, Bette and Molly — who nobody even knows — shows up, and Bette is looking at Sam, the DP, and talking to Tina and being like, “Oh my god.” Bette thinks everybody wants to hook up with Tina all the time.
Carly: Like, no one cares about Tina, except for Bette.
Riese: As Jenny Schecter said a couple episodes ago, no one wants to think about Tina having sex. Just kidding, Tina and Bette have had very hot sex scenes, and we like Tina this season only.
Carly: This season Tina is cool, otherwise Tina’s terrible. We forgot, Kit’s also there. So Kit takes Molly to go—
Robin: Yeah, Kit!
Carly: She also brought Kit. So, Kit and Molly go wander around. The Planet’s closed because of the rats, so Kit has nothing to do.
Riese: As you do.
Carly: I actually kind of love that Kit was just tagging along with Molly and Bette all day because she had nothing to do. I thought that was a nice touch.
Riese: I thought so too.
Carly: But Bette is like, “It’s really important that I go talk to Tina right now.” And so now Kit has to hang out with Molly.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: But before we see what they’re about to do, we go to Jodi having coffee with her ex, Amy.
Robin: Mhmm.
Riese: There’s an extra in the back of this scene who is doing… the most.
Carly: The most?
Robin: Was it me?!
Riese: It was probably you! It was similar, it was probably inspired by your performance in The L Word: Generation Q, it inspired this guy in the back who was having lunch with like — I don’t know, it looked like a lot was happening between him and the guy he was having lunch with, like maybe a lover’s quarrel?
Carly: Oh my god.
Robin: Oh god, I love background by the way. My favorite actors are background actors.
Carly: They’re the best.
Robin: They’re so weird, I love them so much.
Carly: They’re catching up, Amy says she’s seeing someone named Melinda, and she apologizes for the whole thing that happened when she met Bette, and how she was angry. And she actually admits that she was dating a hearing woman before she met Melinda, because that was one of her criticisms of Bette if I remember correctly, right?
Riese: Yeah. She apparently said she was selling out.
Carly: Yes, that’s right.
Riese: Now she says she’s just hurt. The weirdest part about this is that Jodi is like, “Well, the sex with Bette is great!”
Carly: All Jodi wants to talk about is sex.
Riese: I’m like, this is inappropriate.
Robin: I feel like The L Word wants so badly for us to think of Bette as this amazing lover, and I’m just not buying it. I’m really not. I mean, I know, I know the scenes… it’s very hard to see, because it’s just some silhouettes moving in the darkness.
Carly: Just a woman in a bra at all times.
Robin: I’m not buying it.
Riese: I mean, last episode we got, like, four solid minutes of Bette and Tina sex.
Carly: Yeah, dirty cheater sex.
Riese: They had two long sex scenes. Cheater sex. Bette and cheater sex. But good for Amy, because when Jodi’s like, “Tell me about sex with Melinda,” Amy’s like, “No?”
Carly: Yeah, which I would say is a normal response.
Robin: Yeah.
Riese: Uh huh, yeah.
Robin: Yeah.
Carly: But I liked seeing them hanging out. I just thought it was cool that they were moving on and could be cool and well adjusted together. And I’m like, great, I’m glad Jodi has friends outside of this group, because she needs to get away from these people as soon as possible.
Riese: Mhmm, definitely. Back on set…
Carly: Oh my god. We get to see the most hideous bedroom I have ever seen.
Robin: Oh yeah, Jenny’s design choices…
Carly: Oh my god, it did not look like a bedroom for two grown, wealthy adults.
Riese: No.
Carly: It looked like it was some sort of Rooms to Go children’s sale.
Riese: Yeah, it looked — it reminded me of a Gymboree, but it also reminded me of Limited Too. Do you remember Limited Too?
Carly: There was a very Limited Too vibe, yes.
Robin: Absolutely, yeah.
Riese: Yeah. Basically, Tina is showing Bette, Bev and Nina’s room. And it’s — I mean the colors are what, pink? Hot pink?
Carly: Pink, several pinks.
Riese: There’s some greens, I think?
Carly: There might have been a purple? Or an orange? Was it pink and orange?
Robin: It was sunset colors.
Riese: Yeah, that was probably inspired by the sunset.
Carly: Yeah, and then if you took a sunset and made it terrible, that would be the color palette.
Riese: Yeah, and then you sold it to Limited Too.
Carly: Exactly. So they do some cool sexy role play about whose side of the bed is which.
Robin: That’s such an ex-married people role play. “Remember when we used to unpack the groceries together?”
Carly: “Hand me a ziplock bag.”
Riese: Didn’t they have a sexual scene about unpacking groceries?
Robin: I’m sure they did.
Riese: They did! In Season 2! That’s when Tina and Bette hooked up again, remember?
Robin: Oh yeah!
Carly: Oh my god, you’re right.
Riese: They did!
Carly: Oh fuck, wow, good job.
Riese: I think they’re making jokes about it being a 70s style room decor because she’s like, “Do you have any rock candy?” And she’s like, “No, but I have some pot.” Is it true that Jenny would be designing the set?
Carly: She would approve. She would have final approval on everything, but she would not be designing the set.
Riese: Is this whole film just for her to drag Bette and Tina?
Carly: It seems that way!
Riese: No grown-up has ever had a room that looked like that.
Carly: No, zero grown-ups.
Robin: No.
Riese: Zero. Not even in the 70s.
Robin: Jenny does strike me as the type of director, though, that would be very micromanage-y and would want a hand in every decision.
Carly: But her hands are in Nikki, so how does she have time to make all these other decisions?! Heyooooo.
Robin and Riese: Ohhhhh!
Carly: Jokes! Thank you! Sorry, I’ve been watching a lot of Drag Race, so all of my jokes are sex-related now.
Riese: Well, you should have lunch with Jodi, she’d love it.
Carly: We’d get along great. I would be like, girl, Bette is fully cheating on you, I saw it on TV. And she would be like, “Who are you and what is going on? What TV?” So then, they’re about to make out, but then they’re at work. Tina’s at work, so then she has to go back to work. I was also really stressed out by people being on set that — like, I know that Tina’s one of the producers, but she should know better than to be fucking around with the set. Like, what if that was a hot set? What if they needed it—
Robin: It was a hot set…
Carly: It was a hot set… nice babe, that was awesome.
Riese: Meanwhile…
Carly: So meanwhile, Alice is trying to get on set, but there’s a security guard who won’t let her. But here’s the thing: they’re there on a sound stage, which means she had to get on to the lot, park her car, walk to that stage, and then encounter the security guard, because she is inside of a sound stage. So they literally just hired one guard to stand by that one door. They let her on the lot! You can’t get on the lot easily unless you’re allowed.
Riese: Maybe she jumped onto the lot, so she didn’t walk.
Carly: So maybe she parked nearby, and jumped?
Robin: And jumped.
Carly: And ran.
Riese: Yeah, she jumped, yeah.
Carly: I’m just saying, the security is not good on this movie set.
Riese: No, and they don’t want her on because she’s banned and she’s like, “How can I be banned?”
Alice: Have I told you that I’m the earth mother for the producer’s child?
Riese: And then Tina comes and she’s like, “No, for real, you’re banned because you outed Nikki on television.”
Carly: And she’ s like, “Whaaat, no, umm, whatever, I didn’t do anything.”
Riese: She’s like, “I didn’t say her name, you guys are just being dramatic,” which, ummm…
Carly: Uhhhh…
Riese: And then Tina explains a thing that was actually true at the time which is like—
Tina: This is because this is a lesbian movie.
Alice: What the fuck does that mean?
Tina: We want this movie to reach a large mainstream audience, alright? And if everyone thinks the lead of our movie is gay, then that makes it a small little niche film.
Alice: What the fuck is up with everybody these days? Am I like, some sort of idiot that I’m out? I mean, is the joke on me? Because I don’t get it.
Riese: Which unfortunately, again, was accurate.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: And also was probably The L Word explaining why they hired all straight actors for their show, and then when Alice is like, “Am I some big idiot for being out?” That was also probably Leisha Hailey feeling like that as well.
Carly: Like actually being herself.
Riese: Yeah, actually being herself, like “Why am I the only one on this entire set who’s out? Like am I an idiot for being out?”
Carly: Mhmm, I liked that.
Riese: I liked that too.
Carly: I enjoyed that bit.
Robin: Yeah, I liked that part too.
Carly: So then Tina — Tina tells her not to blog about any of this, which I thought was great. I was like, she’s past typing, ok? She’s moved on to videos, so.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: The blog is the least of your concerns, Tina.
Riese: Yeah. Max has taken over the blog with Lorem ipsum.
Carly: Also, where’s Max?
Riese: Oh…
Carly: Not in this episode!
Riese: Is Max not in this whole episode?
Carly: He is not in this episode at all.
Riese: Ugh, a blessed break for poor Max.
Carly: Maybe… well, nobody was being transphobic for him for a whole 24 hours, so that’s…
Riese: So this is a 2 episode streak! Last episode, no one was mean to Max. This episode, no one is mean to Max. The best way to have no one be mean to Max is to not have Max in the episode at all. And that’s a 2 episode streak, which broke the entire streak of every episode that came before that, in which people were mean to Max.
Carly: Exactly.
Robin: Mhmmm.
Carly: Either just generally mean or usually transphobic.
Riese: Yeah, pointedly transphobic towards Max. So he got a little break.
Carly: Yeah, good for him.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: So, Alice is pissed and she’s insulted and she’s like, “Whatever, I have to go to Long Beach to meet with a lawyer about Tasha, so like whatever.” And she leaves.
Riese: Yeah. Then we go to the hair and makeup trailer…
Carly: Yes.
Riese: Where Molly is talking to Shane, who is kind of chiding her about her mom’s party.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And like, “Oh, you looked like you were having a lot of fun there.” And this, again, reminded me of myself when my mom first came out and was acting like she was very young with all her lesbian friends and I was horrified!
Carly: Awwww.
Robin: Oh wow, yeah, that’s a lot.
Riese: I was like, stop it, you’re 40…. which is about how old I am now.
Carly: Mhmm. But when you’re younger, 40 sounds like the oldest a person could possibly be.
Robin: You’re like, stop having fun, you’re too old to have fun!
Riese: Yeah, exactly, I was like, stop it! Stop acting like you’re young people who can get drunk and have drama! They were always having lesbian drama and I was humiliated by it. But also I was humiliated by everything because I was a 14 year old.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: A depressive anxious teenager who wore really bad pants and shirts, if we’re—
Carly: being honest?
Riese: Being honest, yeah. And we are. So there’s obviously some light flirtation here, but Molly is really determined to be in a bad mood.
Carly: Yes.
Robin: Mhmm.
Carly: She’s determined to be as un-fun as possible.
Riese: Uh huh. Also, Shane is wearing a Uh Huh Her shirt!
Carly: Yeah, our favorite band.
Robin: I would call Molly an angry gay.
Riese: Oh! Wow….
Robin: I think that was what they were talking about on The Look.
Carly: They were like, “Don’t be like Molly.”
Robin: Like, “Don’t be an angry gay.”
Carly: And Alice was like, “Who?”
Riese: They were like, “The daughter of the chancellor you fucked?” And she was like, “Who?”
Carly: And she was like, “Right… oh… the one that always dresses like a lesbian, yes.”
Riese: Yeah, she should have just outed Phyllis.
Carly: I know, I honestly had the same thought. My first thought was like, she should’ve outed Dana, because she’s dead and was already out. And then my second thought was that she could have outed Phyllis.
Riese: Yeah, or Joyce Wishnia.
Carly: I was also thinking about Joyce, who is clearly out.
Riese: She could have outed Jenny, because the thing about straight people is that they don’t know that people are gay. Have you ever told a straight person that Amber Heard is gay?
Carly: Oh, yeah yeah yeah, it blows their minds.
Robin: They’re like, “NO!”
Riese: They’re like, “Nah uh, no she’s not.” I mean, she’s bisexual, but they don’t believe that.
Carly: No, no one believes that anyone is queer except for queer people.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: Yep.
Carly: So then Bette comes in and is like, “We have seats on set!” Which seems to be an important special thing. And I was like, kind of, there’s limited seating, so you should actually be very lucky, and very proud to have those seats. But anyway, so Bette and Kit and Molly leave.
Riese: Bette gives Shane the evil eye, like, “Don’t you dare,” because Bette is thinking that basically Shane is already finger fucking Molly in her mind. And Shanes like, “What? I’m just being—”
Carly: “I’m just doing hair!”
Riese: I’m just Shane-ing you around!
Carly: Just Shane-ing all up in this hair and makeup trailer.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: And Begoña’s like, “You could have used a better line on Molly,” which I thought was cute.
Riese: There’s another actress who was in the closet at the time, is the actress playing Begoña.
Carly: Yes, mhmm. A.K.A. Marta 2 from Arrested Development.
Robin: That’s right, yeah.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Because they recast the role after several episodes.
Riese: So there are four: Kate Moennig, Kelly McGillis, Elizabeth Keener, and Patricia Velasquez.
Carly: Are all queer but not yet out.
Riese: Were all not out.
Carly: Publicly.
Riese: In this episode.
Carly: It’s very meta, there’s a lot going on here.
Riese: Yeah, there’s a lot going on here.
Carly: So we go back to Nikki’s trailer where she and Jenny are in bed, and the trailer has an entire bed in it.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: Incredible.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: And Nikki really wants to go out tonight, but Jenny can’t because she says that she’s old and has responsibilities.
Riese: Also, they’re fully naked and just had sex.
Carly: Yes. I’m sorry, I left that very important detail out. And then Nikki asks the next — the most obvious next question in this scenario, which is—
Nikki: Do you want any kids? Or…
Robin: Completely normal.
Riese: And Jenny’s like, “I don’t know.” And Nikki’s like, “I want to have your kids.”
Carly: And jenny’s just like, “Uhhh what?” And then Nikki says this whole scenario where she’s like, “I want — we have a big family, and we’re going to go to Ireland.”
Riese: Yeah, and get away from all this.
Carly: “Get away from this and go to Ireland.” And Jenny’s, like, really overwhelmed, because no one’s ever asked her to go to Ireland before and have a family.
Robin: This is such a perfect — I think — young lesbian scene.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: Because when you’re young, you have lustful feelings for someone and you immediately—
Carly: Plan out your life.
Robin: You’re like, we’re going to get married, we’re perfect together, like, we’re supposed to be, we’re so connected. And you’re like, no, you just have a lot of dopamine running through your veins right now, just give it an hour, you’re gonna be fine.
Carly: Yeah, you just fucked, like, you don’t need to talk about Ireland.
Robin: You don’t need to be talking about children.
Riese: Yeah, save Ireland for date five.
Carly: Yeah, come on. Children are for date six. And then, over the walkie, they hear that Jenny’s needed on set. And I’m like, oh my god, you guys are so unprofessional.
Riese: But before that — also, Jenny is very — they are so smitten with each other, which is actually, it’s very believable. Like they genuinely seem like they have that energy, that new relationship energy of like, they really just can’t keep their hands off each other.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Which is really cute. But also Jenny’s like, “Ugh, we could get the fuck out of LA, this terrible place.” So you kind of see the real Jenny for a second, where she kind of seems to maybe recognize that she’s not really thriving here, you know? Or rather, that she’s blaming the city for her personality.
Robin: Where do you think Jenny would thrive?
Riese: I think, I mean, Ireland.
Carly: I heard Ireland is lovely this time of year, especially for queer families.
Riese: I do too.
Carly: Like large queer families.
Riese: Yeah, with — especially if Nikki has a ton of Jenny’s kids, they are in Ireland…
Carly: They could get a big cottage for all of the kids.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: That would probably solve a lot for her.
Carly: That would help Jenny a lot.
Robin: Definitely.
Riese: I think that the only place that Jenny could really — I think it’s Iowa City, which is a great town! I love Iowa City.
Carly: Ok! I’ve never been, but I hear it’s great from you.
Robin: That is just so random.
Riese: Well, that’s where she went to school.
Robin: Ohhh, ok, ok, see, I didn’t remember that.
Riese: Yeah, you might have forgotten it because—
Robin: I thought it was like, Stanford, but maybe that was where Tim was on the swim team? I can’t remember anything.
Riese: Oh no, he was on the swim team at Oberlin.
Robin: Oh wow, ok.
Carly: And Bette went to Yale.
Riese: And Bette went to Yale.
Robin: Obviously.
Carly: And no one else has a backstory.
Riese: Yeah. Tina doesn’t have parents.
Carly: Tina doesn’t have a family.
Riese: Tina was delivered by the stork. That’s why she’s so weird.
Carly: That’s why she’s so off.
Riese: Yeah, stork parents.
Carly: So they’re on set, and Nikki doesn’t care, and then Nikki tells Jenny that she loves her, and Jenny does not say it back.
Robin: Jenny’s like, “Thank you.”
Carly: She’s like, “I’m gonna give you a hickey,” which is a really weird response to someone saying “I love you” for the first time.
Riese: Yeah, when someone’s about to be on camera, also, in a film, you know, maybe don’t.
Carly: I know, I wrote down that the makeup department’s going to love that! They love covering things up on people’s skin. So then, we go to our favorite place, the army.
Robin: The army place!
Carly: And we have this cool scene that happens in two separate offices over the phone. I mean, wow. Action. Like, talk about some drama.
Riese: Yeah. Lights, camera, this scene.
Carly: Lights, camera, sit down at a desk and call someone else. So Davis calls Beech and she tells him that Tasha should settle and take an honorable discharge with full benefits. And wouldn’t you know it, Tasha is sitting in Beech’s office at this exact moment. Because again, she has nothing else to do. So she’s either at Beech’s office—
Riese: Or strolling the hallway.
Carly: Or in the hallway.
Riese: She lives in Beech’s office. She just sleeps on the ground and wakes up and gets back in the hallway.
Carly: Her motorcycle is in the hallway.
Robin: She uses her box, uses the pee box.
Carly: The pee box!
Robin: In her little corner.
Riese: Yeah, she has her own pee box.
Carly: She’s got a cot and a motorcycle, and that’s all she needs.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: So she’s like, “Yeah, tell her to fuck off.” And he’s like, “She has declined the offer.” And that’s the whole scene. Very interesting. Cool stuff.
Riese: Also, she should take the offer.
Carly: I mean, it does seem like she’s going to not win the case.
Riese: Right, because she is gay.
Carly: Because she is actually gay, and they said that even if she wasn’t, that these cases are really hard to win.
Riese: Yeah, especially against that tough Colonel Davis from Top Gun.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Tom Cruise was in that film.
Carly: Yeah, and Val Kilmer.
Robin: Talk about gay!
Riese: Yeah, talk about gay! Uh huh!
Carly: I was a big Val Kilmer fan.
Riese: It’s the second time Val Kilmer has come up in this episode.
Carly: This is the Val Kilmer episode of To L and Back.
Riese: We’re on the set of the Pluto Cafe.
Carly: So, not only did they not film on location at The Planet, they also did not film on location at SheBar. But they just built a set, which is what they should have done anyway, because I’m sure a lot of this movie is set in this location.
Riese: Yeah, and Kit reveals that she has had to spend $8,000 on all of the shit that she had to do because of the rats that the SheBar bitches put in her cafe! And that is not fair or kind! And then they’re ready for Nikki on set, I think? Or for Jenny, who cares. Adele fake drops the loyal — “loyal,” haha — the oil wrestling lesbian flyers on the ground.
Carly: Adele is full-scammer this episode, like, not even hiding it anymore.
Riese: Ok, so there’s a film called All About Eve from history, from the black-and-white era.
Carly: From the cinema.
Riese: But it’s basically like, there’s this aging actress who is in a Broadway show, and then she meets — like her friends meet this fan of hers, and then they introduce her to the fan, which is exactly what happened with Adele. And the fan is so obsessed with her, and she wants the fan to return, and so she hires the fan to be her assistant. And her maid, who is basically — this is the parallel to Max — is very suspicious of her and doesn’t trust her.
Carly: Mhmm.
Riese: But she basically turns on the maid because the maid is against her assistant. And then, of course, by the end of the film, All About Eve, the assistant has replaced Eve.
Carly: Mmm, exactly.
Riese: And the actress no longer has a job, because she has been replaced by the schemer who was her assistant, who made up a fake story about growing up in Wisconsin and being poor and all of that stuff. So this is like — it’s not like, “oh this is a funny coincidence that these are very similar,” this is obviously very precisely similar.
Carly: You could call it an homage.
Riese: An homage, yeah, it’s an homage. This is an homage to All About Eve, which everyone was dying for, so.
Carly: That’s what the young lesbians of the early aughts wanted, was an All About Eve remake starring Jennifer Beals and Mia Kirshner. That’s what people wanted, you know?
Riese: Yeah, they were demanding it.
Carly: They were like — they had signs and they were protesting outside of Shaolin.
Riese: All About Eve!
Carly: But new! But gay! You know? Like they were like—
Riese: With bangs!
Carly: Yeah, All About Eve! We need bangs!
Riese: Bang bang bang, yep.
Carly: So anyway, Adele does this whole, “oh whoops, I did not drop that flyer on the floor…” And Nikki finds it, and she immediately loses her mind, and wants to go out to the oil wrestling tonight.
Riese: Tina tells Bette that Jenny and Nikki fuck every day in their trailer at lunch, so obviously that’s not a secret.
Carly: It’s not, everyone knows.
Riese: Everyone knows. And tina says that Nikki is a puppy.
Carly: Mhm. And she tells Bette that Jenny is driving her insane.
Riese: Correct.
Carly: Which should not be a surprise.
Riese: No. And then Bette is gonna leave and she’s like, “Molly, are you ok here?”
Carly: She’s like, “Oh, I’ll drop you off.” And she’s like, “No, I’m staying.” And she says it so fast.
Bette: I have to get back to the office now, so if you want to come—
Molly: I’m fine. I’m gonna hang out here.
Bette: Oh, alright. Well, I’ll get Jodi to come down to the set, and then—
Molly: I’m 24 years old, I don’t need a babysitter.
Shane: Yeah, I’ll—
Bette: You’ll what?
Shane: I’ll take her home.
Carly: “I’ll know if you do anything crazy, Shane, I live next door to you.”
Riese: Yeah. Molly says she doesn’t need a babysitter.
Carly: You know who does need a babysitter?
Riese: Babies?
Robin: Nikki!
Carly: Nikki. Also Angelica, an actual baby who’s not in this episode.
Riese: No.
Carly: So, Nikki’s sooo pissed that she can’t go to SheBar with all of her friends who are at SheBar.
Riese: She has major FOMO.
Carly: Ugh, the most FOMO. And Adele is a full scheming crazy lunatic, and it’s great. She’s like, “This must be so hard for you! Like, you can’t go out with your friends!” And I’m like, welcome to a pandemic, you lunatics. And then she just starts putting ideas in Nikki’s very impressionable mind.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: And she’s like, “Well, I mean… what if you just left for a little while?”
Robin: She’s like, “I heard they don’t need you on set for like an hour and a half.”
Carly: Yeah…
Robin: Which I’m like, that’s not a lot of time.
Riese: Yeah, and she’s like, “Most stars have a thing where they won’t work after 8 o’clock, and if anyone respects them then…”
Carly: It’s just like, “You’re not being respected here, you should be able to go to the bar.”
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: That’s what happens.
Riese: Luckily SheBar is down the street?
Carly: Okay?
Robin: It’s walkable, because she walks there, right?
Riese: It’s walkable, yeah. The walk score is 100.
Robin: In the universe of The L Word, we are like — it’s like a 6-block radius.
Carly: Yeah, everything.
Robin: Basically, yeah.
Carly: Yeah, it’s all right there.
Robin: If this was reality, she would be like, “Well, I guess if I leave now, it’ll take me an hour to get there.”
Carly: Yeah.
Robin: Because it’s two miles away.
Carly: It’s evening, so…
Riese: Yeah. If something comes up on Google Maps and it’s like, “this is 5 miles away,” I’m like, “oof.”
Carly: What’s the point?
Riese: Guess I’ll get there by tomorrow?
Robin: Yep.
Riese: See you in 24.
Robin: I love traffic humor.
Carly: So Bette’s at home in bed and is saaaad. Bette is soooo sad.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: And then Jodi comes in the room to see her.
Riese: Uh uh.
Carly: And Bette’s not looking at her, which is super rude, because Jodi’s deaf. And so Bette is being double rude — like a whole new type of rude in this moment.
Riese: Yeah. Maybe she was inspired because earlier in the episode Molly walked into the room that they were all in and was talking while barely moving her mouth and was facing another direction, and somehow Jodi knew what she was saying.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Which we’re pointing out because it gives unrealistic expectations to people at home about deaf people’s abilities to read lips.
Carly: Exactly. So Bette hugs Jodi’s stomach.
Riese: Yeah, she’s like, “Hey tiny pickle.”
Carly: There’s no tiny pickle anymore.
Riese: Oh, right. Oh yeah that’s funny! We used to call, in Seasons 1 and 2, the baby Baby Pickle. We called her Little Baby Pickle, remember?
Robin: Is it Gretchen Pickle?
Carly: It’s totally Gretchen Pickle.
Robin: Grown up.
Riese: And it was Gretchen Pickle — we thought it was Angelica Pickles, but turns out it’s Gretchen Pickles.
Carly: It’s Gretchen Pickles.
Riese: Who is playing Tina, who was the one who was pregnant with the little baby pickle!
Carly: Holy shit!
Robin: Full circle!
Carly: Holy shit! That’s remarkable!
Riese: Yeah, that’s at least an oval!
Carly: So then Bette, like, forcefully takes off Jodi’s pants, and then they have a top-off that Bette wins by being kind of a jerk.
Riese: She masturbates on top of her.
Robin: It’s kind of — yeah, this is a perfect Bette scene.
Carly: Very Bette.
Robin: It really is. You’re like, you’re so full of shame.
Carly: Yeah.
Robin: I just don’t know what to do with you.
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: Like, ok, is this what you need to do? Ok…
Carly: Ok… sure…
Riese: Yeah.
Robin: Ugh. Run, Jodi!
Carly: I know. Jodi, the call is coming from inside the house! Like, get out. Run far away from this woman.
Riese: Yeah, so this is the great sex that they’re having.
Carly: So great. Bette is such a great lover.
Robin: Like I said, not buying it.
Carly: So we go back to set, and Molly is really bored. And Shane offers to take her out, and Molly’s like—
Molly: So what do people do for fun in this town, besides sticking with lesbian art aficionados and pretending it’s exciting?
Shane: Well, you could stick around a little bit longer and then I could take you out.
Molly: Sure.
Shane: What?
Molly: My mother told me all about your little game. You’re like, The Fonz or something, for lesbians.
Shane: That’s bullshit, The Fonz? Shut up.
Molly: Happy Days?
Shane: I know The Fonz, I know Happy Days, but uh…. Alright, I’ll give it to you, you’re sassy, no one’s called me that before.
Molly: I’m not sassy, I’m bored. But not bored enough to sleep with you.
Carly: And then Tina and Jenny are looking for Nikki. So Adele is like, “I don’t know what happened, but also I’m pretty sure she’s at SheBar.” So we go to fucking SheBar and now things get—
Riese: OIL WRESTLING!!
Carly: REAL crazy! Oh wait, do I have to do my SheBar song?
Riese: Yeah, do your SheBar song.
Carly: [over techno music] SheBaaar
Robin: Is that a song?
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: I had a song for Wax, and now that’s the song for SheBar.
Robin: Oh, got it, got it, got it.
Carly: Yeah, you would know if you listened to the podcast.
Riese: Yeah, it’s really good. People — there’s like, 1,000 people who have listened to it and love it.
Carly: Yeah, people are like, “When are we getting the Wax thing as a ringtone?” Like, that’s the whole conversation.
Riese: Yeah, they want to buy it as a ringtone.
Carly: Yeah. So Dawn Denbo is dressed as a ringmaster. All eyes on her at the center of the ring, just like the circus, obviously.
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: But it’s a wrestling ring.
Riese: She’s like, Miami Vice.
Carly: Yes, and she’s… yes. It’s a wrestling ring, and tonight her name is Miami Vice, and her lover Cindi is named “The Viper.”
Riese: Right. Also Cindi is dressed like a devil.
Carly: Mhmm.
Robin: Yeah.
Riese: And Dawn is dressed like a ringmaster. Miami Vice?
Robin: None of it makes any sense.
Carly: None of it.
Robin: I was mad about that. I was like, they could have at least themed the night, had appropriate costumes, matching costumes.
Carly: You know what I’ll say, is that The Planet always does a theme night, they do a theme. SheBar has yet to do a theme.
Riese: SheBar… but they really transformed this space.
Carly: They really did transform the space.
Riese: There’s a full ring in there.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And I felt like, wow. Because I went to the lesbian oil wrestling event in LA that Dawn Denbo hosted — but she wasn’t hosting it with Cindi, she was hosting it with that woman, Michelle Wolff, who was a lesbian actress.
Carly: Ohh, right.
Robin: Oh, right.
Riese: Remember her?
Carly: Vaguely.
Riese: And Ilene Chaiken was there.
Robin: Was she oil wrestling?
Riese: Unfortunately no, but that would have been thrilling. And Angela Robinson was there!
Robin: Mhmm.
Carly: Who we love. So, Nikki decides that she wants to wrestle Cindi.
Riese: Also, everyone is dressed psychotically, everyone in the whole room is dressed insanely.
Carly: So they definitely handed out wacky hats and large sunglasses to every extra as they filed in, because there’s people in pirate hats—
Robin: Yeah, they went crazy at Party City with that budget.
Carly: There’s no theme! There’s no set theme!
Riese: No.
Carly: It’s chaos.
Riese: The theme is like, wear one thing, and then give yourself a different nickname for that thing that has nothing to do with it. That’s the theme.
Carly: You need a nickname, but it cannot be related to what you’re wearing.
Riese: Exactly. I mean, honestly, also this is really fun.
Carly: So Nikki gets in the ring and she’s like—
Nikki: Tonight you all can call me Jessie Jailbait! [crowd cheers]
Dawn: Oh wow, Jessie Jailbait!
Robin: Yikes.
Carly: And then she’s like—
Riese: Do you think that was a Lindsay Lohan reference? Because Lindsay Lohan went to jail?
Carly: Oh shit, I thought it was a reference to the thing that is about to happen, which is that she’s apparently underage.
Riese: Right.
Carly: But, she’s underage — like under the drinking age, but she’s over 18, but under 21, is basically what she’s saying.
Riese: Right, so she’s like 20.
Carly: Great, good for her. Remember 20?
Riese: I don’t. Nikki is daring enough to take on Cindi, and — but it’s obviously like, Dawn is like, “Holy shit, Nikki is here, I’m gonna call my friend Mickey,” which rhymes with Nikki.
Carly: Mhmm.
Robin: I like that she said—
Dawn: Do you recognize the twink?
Carly: I know!
Robin: In reference to Nikki.
Carly: I loved that!
Robin: Yeah, me too.
Carly: Because I really thought that was great, giving visibility to the word “twink” being used in lesbian spaces, because people don’t really think of it that way and I was really happy that they brought visibility to that, that particular issue.
Riese: Yeah, I thought so too, I really liked that.
Carly: When she got off the phone with Mickey, in my head immediately I thought it was Mickey who, in The Comeback, was Val Cherish’s hairstylist—
Riese: Mouse?
Carly: And I was like, oh, is he a paparazzo?
Robin: Paparazzo?
Carly: Paparazzo, singular. So they wrestle in oil.
Riese: And there’s all this music, and it’s really funny and fun and weird. And then the paps are outside, and Tina’s really unhappy, and she says she’s totally fucked. And then Kit — once Tina says that Nikki is underage — Kit gets on her fucking phone. I love this, I love this for Kit.
Carly: So funny.
Riese: She calls the cops! Kit calls the cops. It reminded me of all the kids on TikTok who are like, “All cops are bad, but if you have a party on my campus, and our classes get cancelled, I am fucking calling the cops on you, I am going to snitch on you, this is the one exception.” This is Kit being like, “You motherfucker, I’m calling the cops this time.” Because they put rats in her thing!
Carly: Yeah, she’s out for revenge.
Riese: Yeah, and I love this for her.
Carly: And she calls the cops because they’re serving alcohol to a minor.
Riese: To one specific minor.
Carly: To one specific famous minor who is 20.
Riese: Yeah, who may have been mentioned earlier today on The Talk/Look/View Who might be gay? Who knows.
Carly: Who’s to say?
Robin: Which is actually hilarious, because in — I feel like in LA if you’re a celebrity, it’s not like — what celebrity under 21 is not drinking in LA and allowed to go to any club that they want at any time?
Carly: And it’s been like that for the longest time.
Robin: Yeah, oh yeah.
Riese: Yeah, like definitely since the 20s.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: The roaring 20s.
Carly: The roaring 20s. Prohibition. It’s like, it started after prohibition, which was just, kids can drink if they’re famous in Hollywood.
Riese: In our favorite speakeasy, Chapter 15!
Carly: Chapter 15! So then there’s a slow motion moment where Nikki wins the wrestling.
Riese: Yeah, Nikki’s having a great time.
Carly: Against Cindi, A.K.A. “The Viper.”
Robin: I have to say, this does look very fun — a lot more fun than the one that we did.
Carly: The lube wrestling?
Robin: Yeah! I was getting a lot of ideas, I was like, oh this is great, like instead of packets, you get more—
Carly: A ton of oil!
Robin: Like oil instead of lube, probably.
Carly: I mean, your skin is like, really moisturized.
Robin: And then it’s just on your skin for the next week.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Yeah, good luck getting that off. But it’s going to slowly seep into your skin, and your skin is going to look radiant.
Robin: It’s going to look great.
Carly: For a while, which is good!
Robin: It looked really fun!
Riese: And like, in actual Turkish oil wrestling, they are wrestling in olive oil.
Carly: Incredible!
Riese: Which is expensive, but…
Robin: It sounds great for your skin, wow! I would love to do that. I would love to wrestle in olive oil. Especially if it’s really nice olive oil, I love the smell of olive oil.
Carly: I know, it smells great.
Robin: Great for your hair.
Carly: Yeah. There’s so many health benefits to what they’re doing.
Riese: Shane, for some reason, is taking the angle of—
Shane: That is fucked up! [crowd cheers]
Riese: It does not make sense on any level!
Carly: Does not track.
Riese: Like, are women in bikinis degrading? What about this is degrading?
Carly: The oil!
Riese: This is strength! This is strength, they’re exhibiting strength!
Robin: It’s a sport! You said it was the number 1 sport in Turkey, is that actually true?
Riese: It is!
Robin: Because then, yeah.
Carly: So Shane is anti-sports, which is fucked up.
Riese: Shane is anti-Turkey and anti-sports.
Robin: Well, fuck Shane.
Carly: Fuck you, Shane.
Riese: Molly and Jenny are like, “This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” Molly is happy for the first time in the entire series.
Carly: In her life.
Molly: That’s not fucked up, that’s amazing!
Riese: She loves it!
Carly: And then Tina screams, “Do you know how much money you’re costing me?!” Which was a very “producer” thing to say.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: I just love that they all left set to come here and try to fix this. And so Jenny’s like, “Hey Nikki, you should come back to set.” And Nikki’s like, “You have to get in the ring!” And so Tina’s like—
Riese: Yeah, “You gotta come in here and fight me,” which was in the preview.
Carly: “You gotta get me out of the ring, you gotta just beat me,” and then Tina’s like, “Go get her!” And so Dawn, of course, encourages this. And then Jenny’s like, “Sorry, Tina, you asked for it.” And so she jumps in the ring with Nikki and then, “Smack My Bitch Up” by The Prodigy starts to play.
Robin: That was so good!
Carly: Which is honestly the perfect song for this. I’m sure that there’s people who have opinions about this song, but I love it.
Riese: Jenny’s wearing five shirts.
Robin: I was just gonna say: she takes off a white tank top to reveal another tank top underneath, which is such a drag queen move, honestly.
Carly: Don’t take off your wig unless you have another wig on under.
Robin: It’s perfect.
Riese: And everyone cheers for the tank. They’re like, “She’s down to one tank top! Woo!”
Carly: “She had two and now just one!”
Riese: And Dawn and Cindi notice that Shane and Molly seem to maybe be there together, so they’re scheming in their head.
Carly: They’re the most observant people on this show, by far.
Riese: Yeah. What about Adele, though?
Carly: Adele is observant, Max is observant, Dawn and Cindi are observant. Everyone else is an idiot.
Riese: Correct.
Carly: So then from the middle of this fun gay chaos, we hard cut, very jarring, to the army.
Riese: Army.
Carly: And I wrote, “Alice is there to see Colonel lady and she’s super mean to Alice.” That’s my note for this scene!
Riese: That’s your note? What’s your note, Robin?
Robin: My note is: “So what is this military case with Alice?” I think I was high when I wrote this. I think I was trying — what I was trying to say is, why is Alice talking to the Colonel? Why would she be called in? I don’t know how law works.
Riese: Because she’s the evidence.
Robin: Oh, ok.
Carly: She is the evidence, and then the colonel lady tells Alice that Alice is the reason that Tasha is in this situation, which I just want to go on record, once again, as saying, I agree.
Riese: Yeah. I was like, this is a big moment for Carly, because Carly has been saying this every episode since the charges were filed.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: That this is 100% Alice’s fault. She’s like, “Seems to me like Tasha didn’t have any problems…”
Carly: “Until you…”
Riese: “Until you strolled into her life…”
Carly: Rolled into town in a Mini Cooper.
Riese: Exactly, yeah. And then rode around on her motorcycle, and then rode her.
Carly: Presumably.
Riese: Presumably, at the horse races, which also involved riding.
Carly: So… yes, of course, Tasha is actually gay. But Alice, I’ve said this every episode, is essentially the reason that Tasha is now currently in the situation she is in, because of her lack of respect for Tasha’s boundaries and the realities of Tasha’s life. But I don’t have the energy to go into that again because we’ve already done it. So what I’m going to say is that she leaves, and then bumps into Tasha in the hallway, because again, Tasha is patrolling the hallway.
Riese: “Oh, fancy seeing you here!” Davis is probably like, “Ugh, there she is again.” Also they say that Alice is being called to testify.
Carly: Right.
Robin: Ok.
Carly: So Alice leaves the office and sees Tasha in the hallway, because she lives in the hallway and only patrols that hallway. She has a cot in the hallway and a pee box in the hallway. And she sees her and she’s like — it’s so awkward — and she’s like, “I’m sorry, they called me in, and I didn’t know what to do.” At least she didn’t invite the military into her home again.
Riese: Exactly, yeah, she didn’t break the Third Amendment. But Davis sees their interaction, and I was like, that’s a point for them, because you can clearly see they’re not dating.
Carly: Mhmm, exactly.
Riese: You can tell that.
Carly: You can tell, because she doesn’t put her arm on her shoulder.
Riese: She doesn’t put her arm on her shoulder, or lube wrestle her, or anything.
Carly: Exactly.
Robin: There’s nary a horse in sight, so.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: So we go back to SheBar, and now we are fully in slow motion footage of Jenny and Nikki oil wrestling.
Riese: Making out.
Carly: Making out.
Riese: Like, they’re wrestling, but mostly they’re just making out.
Robin: I like this scene.
Carly: This is great!
Riese: Yeah!
Robin: I enjoyed this scene.
Carly: This was a real scene that was on television.
Robin: I had a moment where I was watching this again, and I remembered watching this scene 12 years ago, and I was like, wow, I’m gay. You know?
Carly: They must have had a very long day on set of people having to be in oil and rolling around in oil. And I was like, that sounds like it would be really annoying. And then Robin was like, not if you’re gay.
Robin: Oh I would love — are you kidding me?
Carly: And I was like, that’s a good point.
Robin: Role of a lifetime!
Riese: Roll…
Robin: I just said that I would love to roll around in olive oil, I literally just said that.
Carly: Yeah!
Robin: If anybody has a movie and they’re looking for a very bad actress to roll around in olive oil… I know I’m going to get a lot of calls for porns, but…
Carly: Porns? For porns?
Riese: For the porns?
Robin: But if it’s like, if you’re shooting a queer indie, and you need someone to roll around in olive oil — like a 40 year old woman, just give me a call.
Carly: She has a lot of free time. We all do.
Robin: Yeah, I have so much free time.
Riese: But if you want to see her reel, just watch the episode of The L Word called “LA Times.”Iit’s Robin’s reel.
Robin: Mhmm.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Well also the other thing that could be on your reel is when you played Raquel in our Real L Word parody video. You were very good at that!
Robin: Oh yeah! I also played myself on The Real L Word! I played a photographer shooting a calendar for a website called Autostraddle dot com!
Riese: That’s true! But you wouldn’t know that from looking at it, because Ilene Chaiken personally hates me and cut Robin’s name and the name of our website out of the episode.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: You might think I’m making that up, but it’s true.
Carly: Yep, that’s true, that’s all true, 100% true.
Robin: No, they did. Because they said they wanted to come to set and I said, “You don’t have to give us anything to come to set, you just need to give us a lower third so that we can address my name and Autostraddle,” and they took out my lower third.
Riese: Yep, and they took out Autostraddle.
Robin: So if I ever see Ilene Chaiken at an oil wrestling match, she’s going down first.
Riese: Or at a pool party.
Carly: You’ll be like, “I have a bone to pick with you, Chaiken.”
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Ok, so…
Riese: My first note here is “back to smash my bitch up.”
Carly: Yes, the song is in this episode for, like, the entirety of the song. It is a several minute needle drop, it’s pretty wild.
Riese: I wrote “smash my bitch up,” though.
Carly: Oh no, that’s incorrect.
Riese: Incorrect.
Carly: It’s smack, Riese.
Riese: Yeah, I know, ugh.
Carly: Anyway, so finally Jenny and Nikki leave, and then Dawn sees Molly, and she’s like, “Do you want to wrestle?” And Molly is like, “Of course I do, but again, I am very straight, but I do want to wrestle in oil.”
Riese: Uh huh. She’s similar to Robin in that way.
Carly: Yes, except—
Robin: Very straight?
Carly: Just wanting to wrestle in oil.
Riese: Oh, yeah.
Carly: And so, Dawn does this whole thing with Shane, which is like, “Hey, Shane!” And then, like, shoves Molly face first into the oil and jumps on her, so then Shane has to come rescue Molly. And then also Cindi is wrestling. So now all four of them are rolling around. And then at one point, I think Shane rips out some of Dawn’s hair?
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: Which is unbelievable!
Riese: It’s like, Shane is wrestling Dawn, and then Molly is wrestling Cindi, but then it’s like, they’re switching, it’s sort of like they’re swingers.
Carly: Yeah, Wife Swap.
Riese: Yeah, It’s Wife Swap. It is an episode of Wife Swap, but oily and brief.
Carly: An oily episode of Wife Swap.
Riese: And to the sound of “Smack My Bitch Up.”
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And it’s a true delight.
Carly: It’s pretty great.
Robin: It’s a great scene!
Carly: I was truly shocked, rewatching it, when she ripped out a clump of her hair. Like, I was absolutely shocked.
Robin: And they’re laughing, like “hahahaha.”
Carly: Like, that’s a lot of hair!
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: That’s awful, that’s — I mean, I don’t like Dawn, but that would be painful for her.
Riese: Yeah, it would be.
Carly: But it’s fine because nothing matters, because the LAPD is here to break up the event.
Riese: Yeah, they don’t even need to see an underage person drinking. Which, by the way, we haven’t seen anyone really going… oh wait, Shane went to the bar and got tequila shots.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: But they don’t have to see anything, they just walk in and say, “Everyone out of the club!”
Carly: I like how they sent one man. I thought the portrayal of the LAPD in this episode was very kind to the LAPD.
Robin: Oh, yeah.
Carly: They were not really — they were like, “Hey, break up the party, I guess, please.”
Riese: Yeah, with one guy.
Carly: I was like, that’s not how it would have happened at all.
Riese: No, if someone stubs their toe, they send 10,000 police officers and they fill up the entire street. And I walk home and I’m like, what’s happening, and they’re like, someone tripped and fell.
Carly: Ugh.
Riese: And the entire West Hollywood Police Department is there.
Carly: Tina’s trying to find Nikki, but she can’t find her, and then we find out that nikki is not being arrested.
Riese: Because they negotiated.
Carly: Negosh… a little negosh happened.
Riese: A little negosh — don’t arrest our favorite superstar over this!
Carly: But also, I like that — I guess in this version of things, Nikki has not looked on the internet or communicated with anyone who has at all that day?
Riese: I have a feeling she doesn’t.
Robin: Yeah, all my notes are like, “why hasn’t Nikki looked at her phone?” Like, why hasn’t anyone talked to Nikki? Like does Nikki not have—
Carly: She went out to see her friends at SheBar.
Robin: Does she not have agents who would call her and be like, “This just happened.” Or a manager, or anyone?
Carly: But they all know about it, but they’re not talking to her about it, and now she’s left the set and is in a public place being real gay.
Robin: Someone would have told her by now!
Carly: It’s wild, the events of this episode, and how she is just like—
Riese: I don’t think she cares?
Carly: Sure.
Riese: I get the feeling that she doesn’t care and her managers are the only ones keeping her from totally throwing her entire career away and everything she’s worked for and all of her Top Gun movies.
Robin: Honestly, in her mind, she’s just barefoot and pregnant in Ireland. She doesn’t even care anymore. She’s just like, “I’m over this career.”
Riese: She is, yeah. She is having little Jenny Schecters all over the Irish hills.
Carly: God, what a bunch of insufferable babies.
Riese: Lucky charms!
Carly: So we see Shane, and she’s like, “Hey Molly, I’m gonna go home and get cleaned up, do you want to come? And she’s like—
Molly: I’m totally straight, but you can keep dreaming.
Carly: Yeah, and Shane’s like, “Don’t flatter yourself.”
Riese: Which was long overdue, because the entire time Molly was convinced that Shane was trying seduce her, and Shane was just like, “Stop.”
Carly: This feels like a very like—
Riese: Straight girl thing?
Carly: A very specific 2008 straight girl thing.
Robin: Oh my god, yes.
Carly: Like, very specific.
Riese: We talked about this earlier, that straight girls automatically assume that, if you’re a lesbian, you want to bang them and that the greatest gift that they could give you would be—
Carly: Allowing you to bang them.
Riese: Allowing you to bang them, and you’re like, “Why would I want to bang you, and not someone who isn’t straight?”
Carly: Yeah. So then, we see Cindi and Dawn getting arrested, which is — I think we need to defund the police and abolish prison, however, it was really wonderful watching Dawn and Cindi get arrested.
Riese: Yeah, well Kit was yelling at them.
Carly: Yes, while Kit was yelling at them. That was really very special.
Riese: She’s like, “You rat fuckers! Go to jail with your rat friends! And she was like, “Yes yes yes!”
Carly: Cindi tries to bribe a cop, which I thought was really funny. And then Jenny and Nikki finally find each other, and Nikki thanks her for taking her out, and they kiss, and Jenny tells her she loves her. And I wrote in all caps, “WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?”
Riese: Back to set!
Carly: Back to set, because everyone has left. Not just the producer, and the star, and the director, but also everyone else, I guess.
Riese: And the hair stylist.
Carly: And the hair stylist. We find Adele sitting in Jenny’s chair on set and she quietly, to herself, says, “Cut… print.” And she seems very satisfied.
Robin: I love that part. She has this, like, look in her eye.
Carly: Oh yeah, that was a great ending moment.
Robin: Mhmm.
Carly: Just truly deranged and I loved it.
Riese: Yep.
Carly: And that’s the episode!
Riese: That’s the episode!
Carly: We did it! We talked about this episode!
Riese: We did it!
Carly: So, what did we think? Did we like this episode?
Robin: Yeah!
Carly: Yeah, I liked this episode.
Riese: I liked it, yeah.
Carly: It’s real chaotic.
Robin: It’s so chaotic. I love the oil wrestling, the slow motion oil wrestling, and I love being in army. I love seeing army. Feels very realistic. It gives us a little look into what—
Carly: What army is like?
Robin: What army is like. And the hardships of having to pee in a box and patrol a hallway every single day.
Carly: Patrolling the hallway is tough because it’s boring.
Riese: Yeah, yeah.
Robin: Yeah, this was good.
Carly: I like that they just keep adding cast members. That’s really fun, I feel like we can keep them all. This is a good amount of people. They all have a purpose.
Robin: I like how Jenny is somehow a famous director for no reason.
Carly: That’s the most unbelievable part of this show, which I have said many times in this podcast, is that Jenny got to direct this movie and at no point was fired from directing this movie yet. She wrote a bad script!
Riese: Uh huh!
Carly: She doesn’t know what she’s doing, has zero directing experience of any kind—
Robin: Like, even if her, even if her script got sold, she would not be hired as the director of this movie. There’s no way.
Riese: True.
Carly: Even if her script got sold and she had some directing experience and interest in directing, she probably still wouldn’t get to direct this movie.
Riese: It’s like if Ann Martin got to direct The Babysitter’s Club.
Carly: No, she didn’t. I wonder what she’s doing right now.
Riese: Being gay.
Carly: Yeah, this was a fun episode. You know, Season 5 is wacky. Wacky and fun. There was no transphobia in this episode, that was a nice breather, two weeks in a row.
Riese: Yeah, two weeks in a row.
Carly: Two episodes in a row, no transphobia, it was really nice.
Riese: Yeah, I think we saw a lot of life.
Carly: Robin, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be a part of this episode with me, your wife, who you live with!
Robin: You’re so welcome! I’ve been really busy lately, doing things like sitting on the couch, and also sitting on the couch, and sitting on the other end of the couch.
Carly: Don’t forget you’re playing a lot of Animal Crossing!
Robin: I’m still playing Animal Crossing, and hanging in there.
Riese: Wow.
Robin: I have literally nothing to do, so, you’re so welcome.
Carly: There’s just one person on her island that she really wants to ask to move out, so she has to keep playing until they ask to move out, because all of her other cute island animal friends are really great, but there’s one bad apple in the bunch.
Robin: But seriously, thank you for having me on this podcast, and I promise to listen to this episode.
Carly: She’s not going to listen to this.
Robin: If not to just be embarrassed of my low energy.
Riese: I mean, if you don’t have anything going on, you could listen — like in theory you could listen to the whole…
Robin: I could!
Riese: All of the episodes.
Robin: D do hear what Carly is saying, so i just kind of fill in the blanks of maybe what you’re saying. I imagine what you would say.
Carly: Whatever Riese is saying is definitely funnier than what I am saying.
Robin: I’m sure.
Riese: That’s not true.
Robin: I didn’t mean to say that, but I mean, you’re both very funny!
Carly: No, I mean, Riese is funnier.
Riese: That’s not true, we’re a team!
Carly: We’re a team, we’re both equally funny.
Robin: You’re a great team.
Riese: We’re both equally funny.
Carly: We’re a great funny team.
Robin: I agree.
Carly: Of equality.
Riese: Yeah, Equal, it’s a new show on HBO MAX this October.
Carly: Robin.
Robin: Mhm?
Carly: Where can people find you online?
Robin: On the Net?
Carly: On the World Wide Web.
Robin: On the World Wide Web?
Riese: Where can we find you on The Web?
Robin: Um… robinroemer.com, I guess?
Carly: What about—
Riese: Do you have any social media?
Carly: Any social media, yes.
Robin: Yeah I have an Instagram and Twitter…
Carly: Wow, tell us more!
Robin: And my handle is @robinshoots … or as Carly likes to say, “at robin toots.”
Carly: I’m 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 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… lawyer.
Carly: Las Vegas Aces.
Robin: Lover Cindi.
Carly: Robin, what did you say>
Robin: Lover Cindi.
Carly: Wonderful. Riese, what did you say?
Riese: Lawyer, because I need one.
Carly: Alright, any lawyers out there? Riese is looking.
Riese: Any lawyers out there in the California area, just hit me up.
Carly: I think you should hire Joyce Wishnia, but that’s just one person’s opinion.
Riese: Oh yeah, that’s a good idea, I should.
Carly: My L word was Las Vegas Aces. Because i’ve been doing only WNBA-themed L words for Season 5.
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: And they are the second best team in the league. They are my second favorite team, after the LA Sparks, and today they beat the LA Sparks, which made me very sad, but also happy. Like, good for them, but you know, also bad for the Sparks. Anyway, the WNBA playoffs are beginning very soon, and they’re not long enough. There, I said it.
Riese: Wow.
Carly: Yeah. Bold statement here.
Robin: Controversial.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Wow.
Carly: Yeah, big controversy.
Dogs barking in the background.
Riese: Carol!
Robin: I don’t think I’m going to make it to 2021…
Carly: No.
Riese: Well, on that note, the dogs are barking and the puppies are scheming and the world is burning.
Robin: Hey!
Riese: And next week we’ll talk to you again!
Carly: Thank you all for listening! We will see you next time, byeeee!
Riese: Byeeee!
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 505: Lookin’ At You Kid With Zeke Smith
I haven’t finished putting all the screencaps into this post because I’m falling asleep at the wheel but I will in the morning!
Get your gay brownies ready we’re going to the cast party with special guest, comic/actor and two-time Survivor contestant Zeke Smith!!! This week, the gals meet their Lez Girls counterparts at a wild party, Alice goes viral by outing a basketball player, Shane gets her boots on Dawn Denbo’s couch and her hands inside Dawn Denbo’s girlfriend, Max questions the veracity of Adele’s traveling salesman stories and we all dance on the table!
The usual:
Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!
Carly: And I’m Carly!
Riese: And this is—
Riese and Carly: To L and Back!
Carly: A podcast about The L Word
Riese: The L Word! A podcast about The L Word program show.
Carly: A program show! Ok!
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: Ok, that’s good.
Riese: Yeah, it’s about ladies, and one man they’re all really mean to…
Carly: Yeah…
Riese: And… one dog, a tiny dog named Sounder.
Carly: Sounder. I’m going to be calling this dog Sounder 2, going forward—
Riese: Oh right, Sounder 2.
Carly: Because this is the second Sounder.
Riese: Oh and then there’s also the man who runs the studio.
Carly: Oh Aaron, Tina’s boss.
Riese: Yeah. I think that sums it up…
Carly: That’s all the characters, yeah. You just named everybody.
Riese: Yeah, yeah.
Carly: Well good! great episode!
Riese: Great episode! I had a really nice time watching it, I enjoyed it.
Carly: This is a real treat, this episode. There’s a lot going on here.
Riese: Yeah, no, I actually really love this episode, so I’m excited about it
Carly: Yeah!
Riese: Today is a really exciting day, because we have a really exciting guest!
Carly: We sure do! Please welcome to the show, the one and only, Zeke Smith!
Zeke: Heyyyy!
Riese and Carly: Yayy!
Zeke: We are so much like Alice Pieszecki, podcasting about lesbians!!
Riese: Yes! Except ours is like an audio thing?
Zeke: Yeah, so I — full disclosure — it’s been a long time since I’ve watched Season 5 of The L Word!. I just watched this episode and just in the recap, it brought back so many feelings and memories. And it’s also — this season was probably written in 2007, 2008?
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Yeah.
Zeke: And Alice has both a podcast and a social media dating site. And to me, it’s no wonder that in the reboot, she’s worth gazillions of dollars, because she got on the ground floor of two things that are huge now!
Carly: Yeah, for sure.
Riese: Right, exactly. Just like I did!
Zeke: Exactly!
Riese: And now I have—
Carly: You’re a media mogul, Riese!
Riese: And I have…. one…. thousand dollars in the bank! Saving it for a rainy day, I’m excited about it.
Carly: Well it’s LA, it’s never gonna rain again. Zeke, welcome to the show, we are so excited you are here! Why don’t you tell our listeners a little about yourself!
Zeke: So, I’m Zeke. I would identify myself as a writer and a comedian. But if you have any idea who I am, which you probably don’t and that’s fine, it’s probably for the better, I was on two seasons of Survivor. And I’m most well-known for being outed as transgender during my second season of Survivior. You know, it wasn’t great, but hey, I won a GLAAD award and I met my boyfriend, so…. you know.
Riese: I mean, wow.
Zeke: I mean, not too shabby!
Carly: Yeah that’s not bad! That’s not bad! Those are both great things to come out of it.
Riese: That’s kind of the best case scenario.
Carly: Especially the boyfriend part — I mean the GLAAD award is nice, but I mean the boyfriend, that’s great.
Zeke: I mean me and the boyfriend are serious, like, we’re in escrow on a house right now.
Carly: What?! Congratulations!
Zeke: Thank you!
Riese: Now’s the time to buy!
Zeke: We are going to be homeowners! Yeah, you get that low interest rate.
Riese: Yeah, now’s the time, that’s what I keep hearing.
Carly: Making big moves, I love it! So, we love to start this off when we have guests on the show by asking the all-important question: what is your L Word origin story? Where were you, what were you doing, what was going on in your life when you were first watching this program?
Zeke: Um, yeah, so I remember this very vividly. I was, I think I was 16 years old — 15 or 16 — and I knew Queer As Folk was the thing, and I was pirating Queer As Folk, like secretly, you know, on LimeWire, under the covers in my bed, and watching it and being like, ooooo nobody knows I’m queer. And then, of course, everyone knew I was queer. And… as you have probably ascertained, I am a gay, trans guy — but I didn’t start that way. Because living in Oklahoma in the early aughts, the first off ramp towards masculinity was lesbian, because that’s where cargo shorts and short hair and football jerseys resided.
Carly: Totally.
Zeke: There were no trans guys in the media.
Carly: Yeah
Zeke: Max was obviously our first television character and… oof. I have feelings about that and how he played a role in my transition and my community. But yeah, so I heard, you know, I was like (deep voice) “Yeah, I’m a big dyke, rawr!” And I heard—
Carly:: Did you do that voice?! Because that’s convincing!
Zeke: Yeah! You would think that people would be like, maybe you’re more male-identified than female-identified? But we didn’t know, there wasn’t enough representation, hashtag representation matters—
Carly: Exactly.
Zeke: So yeah, I asked my, you know, because for The L Word, I was like, ugh, I’m gonna want to watch it the moment it comes out, I don’t want to wait to pirate it, you know, weeks later.
Riese: Right.
Zeke: So I asked my parents, you know, for my birthday or Christmas, I want Showtime.
Riese: Were you like, “I love Californication. I just want to keep up on it…”
Zeke: Yeah, I was like, “yeahhhh, it’s just for the expanded film content, yeah.” And my parents were very concerned about my academics and getting into a good college, so they were like, no no no, since more television is a distraction, here’s the thing: if you get a 1600 on your SAT, then we will get you Showtime.
Carly: Oh my god!
Zeke: So guess who studied all summer and got a 1600 on his SAT?!
Carly: Whoa!! That’s amazing!
Riese: Oh god! Holy shit!
Zeke: And I got my Showtime and I got to watch my L Word, and I got to watch and drool and TiVo that shit, and rewatch, and ugh, it was just, you know? Because I lived in, you know, a very small community in central Oklahoma, I didn’t have any other queer people around me, so this got to be my queer world, and the future I imagined for myself, for what I thought it was going to be like to be a queer person in a place where people could be queer. And then, you know, of course it’s not… the authenticity of the The L Word is running at about 3%…
Carly: Yeah
Riese: Yeah, uh huh. I still can’t believe that you got a 1600 on your SAT, first of all, but also that you did that so that you could watch The L Word.
Carly: This is incredible.
Zeke: Yeah…
Riese: Like, I don’t know, that might be our best effort story that we’ve gotten so far.
Carly: Definitely best effort story. That’s amazing.
Riese: Most effort put in to getting access to The L Word, like, you aced the fucking SAT.
Carly: Jesus.
Zeke: Yeah. I mean, I really wanted to watch some hot naked ladies get at it!
Carly: It’s totally, it’s a good cause! It’s a worthy cause, getting Showtime.
Zeke: I mean there are worse reasons to study for the SAT, right?
Carly: Exactly!
Riese: Yeah, there are! So you were in high school when it was starting?
Zeke: Yeah, so I was in high school I think for the first two seasons, maybe? Then I went to college, thinking, alright, I’m gonna go to college and be with all the other dykes, and we are gonna go to the women’s center and watch The L Word on Sundays. and that’s what we did!
Riese: And that’s exactly what happened!
Zeke: Yeah! And we watched it at the Women’s Center on Sundays! And you know, it was a hairy armpit festival. And people would go and hook up in the broom closet and what have you.
Carly: This is like legendary. I love this.
Zeke: I mean it was a lot of fun and it felt so great to have community — which made it so hard when, because right when I got to campus, you know, because I never met any other lesbians, I didn’t know that that’s what I was, because I just defined it myself. And that’s the only term I had access to. But then I met other lesbians in college in Boston, and they were like, “Oh are you trans?” And that was the first time I had encountered that idea, or anything, and it took a couple of years to sort of wrap my head around the fact that I was trans.
Riese: Mhmm
Zeke: And one of the reasons that it took me 2 years, I think, to finally articulate myself as trans is that you know, as Max was transitioning on The L Word, while I was in college, and I saw how all the L Word gang, who I always identified with — you know, Alice and Shane and all that jazz — I saw how they reacted to Max and I was like, ohh, I’m gonna transition and I’m gonna be shunned from this community that I’ve longed for for 18 years, I’m gonna lose my community if I transition.
Riese: Mhmm
Zeke: And you know, I did, to a great degree, lose that community of people that watched The L Word on Sundays, because their first experience with a transgender man was Max, and they were following Alice and Jenny and the other people, right?
Carly: Yep!
Zeke: That’s how they were being taught to react, you know?
Carly: Oh man…
Zeke: Yeah. People don’t — now, I think people are starting to see all the TERF-iness that is coming out of the UK and they’re understanding that there is a left-wing opposition to trans people, but most people don’t understand that. You know, the biggest hurdles that I faced with friendship and acceptance in college were from people who were feminists, or people who were super involved in the LGB movement and didn’t want the T to join. And now, people see it in the UK and understand why it exists here. But it exists so much less in the United States than it used to.
Riese: Mhmm. Yeah, it’s still pretty strong here, though.
Carly: Yeah… heavy exhale.
Riese: But yeah, I mean, that speaks to — I mean we obviously have talked a lot about Max’s storyline on this podcast—
Carly: Ohhh yeah.
Riese: Because it’s just really remarkable what a bad job they did!
Carly: Yeah!
Zeke: Yeah, yeah, it is. Like really there are no stereotypes about trans guys. Like one of the ways in which I talk about how there is such a lack of representation of trans men is that we don’t have our own slur.
Carly: Oh my god…
Zeke: Like no one has taken the time to come up specifically with something derogatory towards us… but to the extent that there are negative stereotypes about trans men, The L Word hits all of them.
Carly: Yep! Every single one!
Riese: Every single one!
Carly: They check every box, they really do.
Riese: Uh huh.
Zeke: I’m gonna — I know we’re not supposed to plug until the end, but I’m gonna plug right now.
Carly: Do it!
Zeke: So I’m in the documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen.
Carly: Yayyy!
Riese: Yay! It’s just so so good!
Carly: Sooo good! Which we have also talked about quite a bit on this podcast, because of how much we love it.
Zeke: Oh awesome! Well if you haven’t gotten the memo, watch it and tell everyone you know about it. So part of my homework is I knew I was going to talk about The L Word, then I also was asked to do my homework on Coach Beiste in Glee.
Riese: Yeah, that was…
Zeke: Yeah, but what’s so interesting is, you know, I’m sure if we paced through all the Max stuff in The L Word—
Riese: Yeah
Zeke: To catch up, then I watched the episodes of Glee with Coach Beiste, which I didn’t watch, I wasn’t a deep watcher of Glee.
Carly: Yeah…
Zeke: And it’s like they watched The L Word, and they decided to not talk to any real trans guys….
Riese: Oh no…
Zeke: And just mapped all the same, like, testosterone rage, and everything…
Carly: Wowww, I didn’t watch those episodes — I watched early Glee and then kind of fell off, like, I’m not the audience for this show, I’m too old. But like, I honestly didn’t realize that that’s what happened with the character until I saw that part in Disclosure, and I was like, wait, what?
Riese: Oh really?
Carly: I just completely stopped paying attention to Glee, then I saw that and was like, “Whoa!” And to just know that they just retreaded all the exact same bad decisions that The L Word made many years prior is so disappointing.
Riese: And with this cis lesbian actress playing the part. But yeah, I recapped Glee, so I had to watch all that. And honestly, it felt like they wanted to have a trans guy, like they wanted to check that box and say they had done that. It didn’t feel like they had any interest in actually telling a trans story, they just wanted to be a show that had a trans character, a trans man character. That’s how it felt.
Carly: Yeah, yeah.
Riese: And so they did a really bad job!
Carly: Womp womp.
Zeke: But I will say this, as icky as I felt about — and continue to feel — about Max, my boyfriend got invited to go to the premier of the new L Word on like, a Tuesday night. He was so not into it, and I was like, “no motherfucker, we are going. This show played a pivotal role in my life and we are putting on our pants and we are going!”
Carly: Yep! That was a fun party! That premiere was actually pretty fun. I had a good time.
Zeke: Yeah it was good — we didn’t end up going to the afterparty, but, you know, I’m tight with Leo Sheng and Brian Michael Smith and I wanted to support them.
Carly: Yeah!
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: Yeah, we love Leo and Brian.
Zeke: And it was cool that Dana was there, and everybody cheered!
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: That was — yes — there was actual applause when people realized that she was there.
Riese: She’s just always around, you know?
Carly: She’s just lurking.
Riese: Ilene Chaiken wakes up everyday and is like, “Oh, I messed up with that.”
Carly: Yeah!
Riese: Did you have any favorite characters when you were watching it?
Zeke: Ooh……. well….. I mean, here’s the thing. For me….. the ultimate……
Riese: Which transphobe did you like the best?
Carly: Seriously!
Riese: Which one really spoke to you?
Zeke: For me, you can date it to pre-Max. So before Max transitioned, I feel like, Carmen and Shane fucking in the DJ booth is maybe my favorite L Word character.
Riese: My favorite song, “Carmen and Shane Fucking” by EZ Girl.
Carly: Which is the score to that scene.
Riese: Uh huh
Carly: Um, I love that that is a character, perfect, I totally get it. Makes sense.
Zeke: Yeah, and… I, you know, I enjoyed Jane Lynch’s character, the big brassy lawyer lady.
Riese: Yeah, she’s funny.
Zeke: And I actually wrote in my notes for this episode, “I forgot she was a character” but Dawn Denbo is maybe my favorite character name.
Riese: Such a good villain!
Carly: Dawn Denbo and her lover Cindi. They have some really great stuff coming up in this episode. I love them so much, they are the most ridiculous, and the story behind it is even Better.
Zeke: I know my favorite — I know someone who was very not transphobic and very supportive of Max – Alan Cumming, Billie Blaikie or whatever!
Carly: Yes! Yes!
Zeke: Because when I was 12 years old, I saw Alan Cumming in Cabaret on Broadway, and I mark that night as my sexual awakening.
Riese: Yeah, I fucking love that show.
Zeke: Like I felt things that I never felt before and didn’t know it.
Carly: Amazing
Zeke: And then to see him being so into getting fucked by a trans guy, still, I’m like, ugh, Alan Cumming, one day, you and I….
Carly: Ugh, god. we love Alan Cumming so much!
Riese: Woo!
Carly: Alright. Today’s episode is 505, it’s called, “Lookin’ At You, Kid” and it was written and directed by Angela Robinson, who we love.
Riese: Yay!
Carly: She’s amazing, we love her so much. And it originally aired February 3, 2008.
Riese: Wow.
Zeke: Yeah.
Riese: That means we probably watched it together.
Carly: Yeah, we probably did. Should we get into it?
Riese: Yeah, let’s do it!
Zeke: Let’s do it!
Carly: Let’s get into it!
Riese: It’s the table read!
Carly: Very exciting. It’s the table reading for the movie and the whole cast of weirdly named, not exactly the cast of The L Word is gathered — it’s the most meta thing that could happen. They go around the table and they introduce themselves, so this is also our time where we get to see who has been cast to play each of our beloved characters.
Zeke: And we see that, even in lesbian fantasy world, where there could be two rival lesbian bars, and there are no lesbian bars in Los Angeles, but there are two in this.
Carly: There are two!
Zeke: And we have a lesbian woman who wrote and is directing the script, and a bisexual woman who is executive producing, and still in that context they decide to cast mostly straight people and whitewash the hell out of the cast.
Carly: Yep! They sure did!
Riese: And not just — Shane is very, you know, she’s farthest on the masculine scale of the lesbians of The L Word, but not that far in terms of the world at large or whatever—
Zeke: Sure, sure
Riese: For Shaun, they cast just like, another white skinny femme lesbian!
Carly: Just like, a lady?
Riese: So Kit, played by Cat, is still black, but they made Bette white.
Carly: Yeah…
Zeke: Yes, which we address later in the episode
Carly: Yeah
Zeke: But it’s also like — why? Why did you decide to—
Riese: Why?!
Zeke: Like you’re not even making an attempt to fictionalize the names or anything!
Carly: No!
Zeke: So it’s very clear who is supposed to be who, and why not cast a woman of color?
Riese: Right!
Carly: Well that is a great question!
Riese: Yeah, why not?
Carly: And also, Tina, who is in love with Bette, is the producer of the film!
Riese: Yeah, she was in the room making those decisions!
Zeke: And is also the mother of Bette’s child!
Riese: Yes! There are two other — I just like to note about this cast — one is that Patricia Velasquez is playing Begoña, who is playing “the predator,” Marina — and she is gay.
Carly: Yes. She came out—
Riese: But she came out a few years ago, yeah, but she was like secretly dating Sandra Bernhard for a series of years, which is interesting.
Carly: That’s interesting
Riese: And she wrote a book. And the other thing is that the girl who plays Alice, for some reason, looks like she should have a backwards hat and be in The Sandlot and be like, “I want to play with the boys!” And I was like, this is a really badly cast.
Carly: This is terrible casting.
Zeke: And again, this is the first I’m watching The L Word in a very long time. And we open by panning across the table, and the very last person it lands on is, “I’m Jennifer Schecter, the writer and director…” and I was just like, ugh, barf.
Carly: Yeah, super barf.
Zeke: Like I had such a visceral reaction.
Riese: She was… she almost seemed earnest at the end — like she was earnestly feeling good about it.
Carly: Yeah, I mean, maybe. I think she’s just earnestly feeling good about herself, really, more than anything.
Riese: Yeah
Carly: All of these people—
Riese: So far, this movie sucks.
Carly: All these people seem completely insufferable, yeah.
Riese: Yeah, the dude sucks. “Happily representing the dudes!”
Carly: Oh god, that guy.
Riese: And then, Nikki with her sunglasses, I’m like, what happened? Did she just, what happened that day?
Nikki: Don’t think I’m a bitch because I’m wearing my sunglasses inside, I just got my pupils dilated, which is weird. But, um, anyway, I’m not being weird, I just have to wear them.
Carly: So weird. I like how she didn’t just say, “I went to the eye doctor” or something.
Riese: Yeah, she’s like, “I’m not a snob…” The rumor is that Nikki was semi-based on Lindsay Lohan.
Zeke: Oh! I can see that, that makes sense.
Riese: I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I just said it on a podcast so it’s true now.
Carly: That totally makes sense, yeah.
Zeke: Yeah
Carly: I see that, I see it, I for sure see it.
Zeke: But then after the table read, we get to “Talking, laughing, loving, breathing, fighting, fucking, farting, burping.”
Riese: How do you feel about the theme song?
Carly: Do you love this theme song so much?
Zeke: I do! I mean, it’s like a hate-love sort of thing.
Carly: Yeah.
Zeke: But I remember the first time I saw the new theme song, because it’s different than they did the first season, and I was so embarrassed, but in a way that I had sexual feelings I was afraid to admit, you know? It was so, like, bold and ballsy and dykey, and I think it made me feel very scared, but now in a way that I very much appreciate.
Riese: I was just like, “ugh.”
Zeke: I was sad when I watched Generation Q and they had a completely new theme song.
Riese: I know!
Zeke: I was like, I think you should have just stuck with the old one.
Riese: I wanted them to have a new song but also really bad, like I wanted them to have a new really bad song that everyone hated.
Carly: Like bad in a different way.
Zeke: I mean it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t classic L Word bad.
Riese: Right, that’s true. So… then we cut to The Planet, where Bette and Tina run into each other, and it’s kind of awkward, and they need to talk but they haven’t talked. So despite sharing an actual human child, they apparently haven’t spoken in some time.
Carly: Yeah, Bette claims Tina’s been avoiding her, and she wants to talk, and they just can’t get their schedules to line up, you know?
Zeke: They just can’t get in sync!
Riese: They’re just both so busy!
Carly: They can’t! They can’t do it.
Riese: They can’t! Why can’t they do it tomorrow night, Carly?
Carly: Well they can’t do it tomorrow night, because we get some great exposition about how there’s going to be a party. Jenny is throwing a party for the cast of Lez Girls and we don’t know this yet, but also the cast of The L Word has been invited to the party.
Riese: Yes! it’s a double cast party.
Carly: It’s a doppelgänger pot brownie party, which sounds like a good theme for a party.
Riese: Yeah, so — and this is a recurring theme on The L Word, first or second scene, you have to announce—
Carly: —whatever party is happening in the episode. There’s always, like, a party.
Zeke: It’s like an episode of Real Housewives.
Carly: Yeah, basically! It honestly is the same formula of Housewives or Gossip Girl. Every episode of Gossip Girl, there was always, like, a ball or some sort of party.
Riese: Yeah, The OC was like that too.
Carly: Yeah. It’s great, I personally love it. So then we go to Alice’s.
Riese: Alice thinks Parker Posey should have played her, and I don’t disagree.
Zeke: Yeah, that’s a good self-casting.
Carly: I also thought that was a good self-casting. Alice is going on about this cast party, and I just really feel like Tasha has way Better things to do and she says—
Zeke: Yeah, she’s in the middle of fighting a discharge, right?
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: She says she has a strategy session with Captain Beech who, by the way, I just realized, plays — the actor who plays Captain Beech plays Patrick’s dad on Schitt’s Creek, which I completely didn’t realize.
Riese: Oh yeah!
Carly: He’s Patrick’s dad on Schitt’s Creek, which I love.
Riese: I watched that yesterday! So Tasha’s wearing a gay tank top and she’s gonna wear it to her strategy meeting, so, I don’t know about that. And Darrel Bruer Basketball Fame—
Carly: Basketball game, Darrel Bruer…
Riese: Yeah, Darrel Basketball Game Bruer. he — there’s a guy in the NBA, he came out, and Darrel Bruer, he doesn’t care for it.
Zeke: John Amaechi. He actually spoke at my college, I went and saw him speak—
Riese: Oh wait, it was a real person?
Carly: I remember when he came out.
Zeke: John Amaechi is the actual — yeah, he was the first gay guy to come out in one of the major sports leagues in the United States. though he himself is British.
Carly: Oh, I didn’t know he was British.
Riese: Huh.
Carly: So, the announcement is made on our favorite news channel, News Live.
Riese: Yeah, News Live.
Carly: And it’s Darrel Bruer being interviewed after a game saying a lot of really shitty homophobic things about John Amaechi, and Alice is outraged. Oh is she outraged.
Riese: And so is Tasha. Tasha is very mad also.
Zeke: Yes. You know what is so interesting to me is, like, a lot of The L Word holds up just because it’s L Word trash, and so it’s just universally applicable. But then, you get these timestamps of where we were in the gay rights movement—
Carly: Yeah!
Zeke: And we’re like, oh my god, remember when people cared if gay people were in sports lorckerrooms? Now we just care about trans people in locker rooms. We don’t care about the gays!
Riese: We’ve moved on to bigger and Better things.
Carly: Yeah. Now we just care about trans people in bathrooms. We don’t care about basketball players.
Zeke: I know, what a quaint little struggle, that was.
Carly: What a little trip down memory lane.
Riese: Tasha’s like, I wish we could out his hypocritical ass. but she’s obviously, I think, speaking generally, not as in, I literally wish we could do that, she’s just kind of expressing her frustration.
Carly: Who among us has not said things out loud, like, “I wish this!” or, “I want to kill this person!”
Riese: Exactly.
Carly: I mean, in the privacy of our own homes, who gives a shit.
Riese: In the privacy of our own homes, yeah.
Zeke: Exactly.
Carly: Unfortunately, Alice doesn’t know about that thing.
Riese: Yeah, so we’ll get back to that in a minute.
Carly: Yeah, put a pin in that.
Riese: First we’re going to go to SheBar, which has a very bad designer. I don’t like their logo, and I don’t like their layout.
Carly: Everything about it is gross. Also, it’s daytime, and they’re open?
Riese: It’s daytime.
Carly: Question mark?
Zeke: They aren’t supposed to be, they’re not supposed to be infringing on the coffee territory!
Carly: Nope, they specifically said they would not be infringing upon the coffee territory in the last episode!
Zeke: And now they have a coffee drive-through.
Carly: Which was Kit’s idea! And a grand idea, might I add. A grand, grand idea.
Riese: A “grande” idea, if you will.
(everybody dies laughing and has to come back from the dead)
Carly: Ohhh! Kit Porter invented coffee shop drive-throughs.
Riese: That’s true. And yeah, they’re packed. They’re bustling.
Carly: It seems like, in this universe, gay people don’t go to Starbucks, they only go to these two coffee shops.
Riese: Right. And that’s…
Carly: Which is incredible.
Riese: Yeah. I think we would.
Zeke: I know, in Generation Q, we’re in Silver Lake, Los Feliz. But in the original L Word, do we know what neighborhood we’re supposed to be in?
Riese: We’re in West Hollywood. We are very much in West Hollywood. Like Bette and Tina’s house, and I guess Shenny’s house, is technically like two blocks away from me, I think. 3 or 4 blocks away from me. I live in West Hollywood.
Carly: Riese is very much in West Hollywood.
Riese: And The Planet is based on—
Carly: Urth Cafe
Riese: Urth Cafe.
Zeke: Oh, like down on Melrose?
Riese: Yeah.
Zeke: That’s like not queer territory at all, that’s like bougie Beverly Hills territory.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: Yeah…
Carly: So that doesn’t really make sense, but—
Zeke: I’m learning so much about the history of The L Word today!
Carly: We’re really an educational podcast.
Riese: (Singing) I know way too much about this show. So Shane’s just cruising, just cruising around, pulls up in her Jeep.
Carly: She’s cruising in her Jeep.
Riese: Pulls up in her Jeep. Cindi’s wearing a little denim romper. I think it’s cute.
Carly: It’s pretty cute.
Zeke: Mhmm.
Riese: And then Cindi leans over and names every pastry to ever exist.
Cindi: Plus we have so many other delicacies to offer.
Shane: Really?
Cindi: Really.
Shane: Like what?
Cindi: Tarts, pie, muffins…
Shane: Mhmmm…
Cindi: Lady fingers… I could go on.
Carly: And like, I get that she’s flirting, but watching this earlier today, I hadn’t had lunch yet, so I was just like, oh my god, I just want pastries.
Riese: Yeah. Eventually she gets to lady fingers.
Carly: That took it too far. That was ridiculous.
Riese: I’m like, eclairs was enough. you should have stopped at donuts, ok? Goddammit. She did not mention pear polenta tart, though, so The Planet still has that.
Carly: That’s good.
Riese: It’s copyrighted to their name.
Carly: That’s because they haven’t been to The Planet yet. Once Dawn Denbo goes to The Planet, she’s gonna know about the pear polenta tart that costs 8 million dollars, and she’s gonna make her own and she’s gonna have it cost 7 million dollars.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Just slightly undercutting The Planet, and she’s gonna take all their tart business.
Riese: And she’s gonna start filming a podcast in her bar… restaurant.
Carly: I miss the good old days when bars were only open at night and coffee shops were separate buildings.
Riese: So Cindi invites Shane over in the afternoon.
Carly: Little afternoon delight? Anybody?
Riese: Little afternoon delight, if you will. So yeah, Shane’s gonna do that, she’s into it. She’s definitely assuming that Dawn is also involved in the invite.
Carly: Yes. And Shane has completely thrown her newfound celibacy in the trash. That’s gone. That lasted for—
Riese: Yeah, that’s over.
Carly: 5 days?
Riese: Her mind is muddled now. She’s never going to see Shay again!
Carly: She’ll never be able to clean her closet and throw out her lowrise jeans.
Riese: She’s cancelling her gym membership. She’s throwing the jeans back into the closet.
Carly: She’s like, I’m here to cancel my gym membership, and they’re like, you signed the year contract. And she’s like, I’ll set this place on fire like I did to WAX.
Riese: Yeah. Then we cut to, I guess like, the clothes closet?
Carly: Ok, this was super confusing.
Riese: Walk-in closet?
Carly: It felt like it was supposed to be a wardrobe fitting for the movie, but like, the costume designer for the film wasn’t there? Like it was just Jenny, Nikki, and Adele? So it was very odd, but whatever.
Riese: Nikki’s basically giving her whole romantic history.
Zeke: My favorite was the deep cut literary reference that no one without a Master’s degree in queer English literature would understand.
Riese: Yeah. Jenny gets real into it.
Carly: Yeah, yeah.
Riese: My favorite was—
Nikki: Jimmy was a boy, you know, not a b-o-y boy but a b-o-i boi.
Zeke: Yeah, that was like, we’re getting to very classic Jenny Schecter things, we’re getting the deep-cut literary reference, and we’re getting some casual hostility to trans masculine people.
Carly: Yep!
Riese: It’s a real one-two punch.
Carly: It’s the Jenny way.
Riese: It’s the Jenny way.
Zeke: Classic Jenny.
Riese: So Jenny explains the Zvengali to her, and tries to get Nikki to be more midwestern, and also says—
Jenny: Don’t listen to her, she wears mom jeans with camel toe.
Riese: Which, by the way, is cool now.
Carly: Yep, that’s true.
Zeke: Fashion of the future.
Riese: Yeah, she was ahead of her time, Adele.
Carly: Yeah, she really was. Real trendsetter, that Adele.
Riese: Sneaky little Adele. And Jenny’s kind of bored, but kind of charmed. Kind of, it’s hard to tell.
Carly: Yeah, and she’s kind of flirting with Nikki, and kind of doesn’t care, and is like, “What’s going on, oooh.”
Riese: Nikki definitely has the aura who assumes everyone wants to have sex with her all the time.
Carly: For sure.
Riese: And therefore also wants to listen to all her stories.
Carly: Yeah, and none of them were interesting.
Riese: Yeah. And then we go to Shenny’s…
Carly: We go to Shenny’s, where Shane is whipping up a batch of pot brownies.
Riese: I have a lot of questions about this scene.
Zeke: Which I’m like, wasn’t — weren’t there legal pot stores here in LA at that point?
Riese: No…
Carly: No, not yet.
Zeke: Not yet? Oh.
[editor’s note: actually there were legal pot stores in CA for medicinal marijuna already]
Riese: I mean, we’ll get into the later part of the scene, but at the very beginning part of the scene, where Adele comes in and says she was gonna go and pick up cakes, and Shane is like, no you don’t have to, I’m making weed brownies.
Zeke: Yeah, pick up cakes from Sweet Lady Jane.
Riese: I feel like they should have a non-weed option….
Zeke: Yeah, because cakes from Sweet Lady Jane are very different from pot brownies.
Riese: You can’t just have pot brownies as your only pastry. I mean, Cindi just wants to have 20 of them.
Zeke: Right, because then you consume too many pot brownies.
Carly: Right, and what about the people who don’t want to eat pot brownies? I mean I don’t know who those people are, but I’m sure they exist.
Zeke: Yeah.
Carly: I assume…
Zeke: Well you don’t know the dosage, you want to be very careful, right?
Carly: That is very true!
Zeke: We don’t know what else, there could be Fentanyl in there, you don’t know.
Carly: That’s not good.
Riese: I had pot brownies at a Thanksgiving once. I made them, and by 3 o’clock, four people were asleep in my office. So Adele says that she grew up near a pot farm, and Max is like, “Really? I thought you said that your dad was a traveling salesman?” Which, first of all, what? A traveling salesman? She really said her dad was a traveling salesman? Is this, like, 1956? He sold vacuum cleaners and toothpicks door to door?
Carly: Wait, quick pause, Robin’s dad actually was a salesman that travelled around.
Riese: Really? What did he sell? Toothbrushes?
Carly: I don’t remember.
Riese: Bibles?
Carly: I don’t think it was Bibles.
Riese: So then Alice shows up and they’re like, talking about Adele, like “Do you like Adele?”
Carly: Alice and Shane think that Adele is cute.
Riese: Yeah, the answer to “Do you like Adele?” was, “Oh, I think she’s pretty hot,” like, no one asked if you like how Adele looks, this is a TV show, everyone’s hot. Do you like Adele as a person?
Carly: Right, you’re all actors. But they don’t really know her very well, but Max is in full inspector gadget mode.
Riese: Right. As he should be, because he’s right.
Carly: He is absolutely right.
Riese: And he’s like, “She’s not really who she pretends to be.” And then!!!! Alice says, “You’re one to talk.”
Zeke: Ughhhhh!
Carly: Ughhhhh!
Zeke: She’s just so mean to him! I’m like, why have him in this scene. like he’s only in this scene to be the butt of the joke, right?
Carly: Yeah.
Zeke: Like that’s the only reason, and I’m like, why don’t you just write him off, nobody liked him at the time.
Riese: Let him go!
Carly: Let him go!
Riese: Let him be free!
Zeke: Yeah, he’s just there to be a punching bag. You know — look — in a weird way, The L Word captures the authenticity of the trans experience, but not because they intend to. Just like the idea that a trans guy would hang around these people who are just so mean to him.
Carly: So shitty.
Zeke: All of the time.
Riese: So mean.
Zeke: And he doesn’t feel like he can leave. That’s true. And I, you know, it’s a reason why a lot of trans people get stuck in a lot of toxic relationships, both romantic and just platonic relationships. It was just, it was really hard and cringey to watch. I was like, ugh, Max, get some self respect and get the fuck out of there. Like, Max, run.
Riese: Yeah. Because he kind of just shrugs, you know.
Zeke: Yeah, he just shrugs it off.
Riese: He’s like, yeah, good point.
Zeke: And then Alice is like, I need a favor. And he’s like, okay!
Riese: Right, right! Yeah!
Carly: Yeah, because he’s her employee, and she’s the worst boss to him! She’s so horrible to him, especially this season, when he’s fully working for her full-time.
Riese: Yeah. Awful.
Carly: Insane.
Riese: So, after that, now we’re all in a bad mood, and Alice goes to her — well I don’t know — Max’s edit bay, or whatever.
Carly: Who knows where they are. But Alice has a major project.
Riese: A major project.
Zeke: A major project. She needs to upload a video to YouTube.
Carly: I need you to access the FTP and hack into the mainframe. and get this podcast video out there.
Riese: Yeah. They’re gonna out Darrel Bruer using footage that Alice took at a party, for which she signed an NDA and where everybody was supposed to keep it a secret who was at the party. But Alice filmed the party, and now she wants to put it on the internet.
Carly: I would also just like to say that she shot that while she was dancing with Tasha on a dark dance floor on a flip phone. That footage that she shot—
Zeke: A Motorolla Razr.
Carly: Like, come on. That footage that’s in the video is supposed to look bad, but it’s a thousand times — like what she shot it on her flip phone was probably not usable.
Riese: No.
Carly: When I think about the angle of which she was holding it, and how shitty cell phone videos were in 2007 and 2008… but, whatever Alice.
Zeke: That was definitely early iPhone footage, but iPhone wasn’t out then.
Carly: Sure wasn’t.
Riese: No it wasn’t. So when she’s watching it, and watching Darrel Bruer’s — the statements he made about gay people, she’s just a hundred percent on board. She’s a hundred percent, no question, thinks she’s doing the right thing.
Carly: She has zero doubt in her mind that she’s—
Riese: Zero doubt.
Carly: —in any way ethically being a monster person.
Riese: And I’m like, what the fuck are you doing? I’m like, yes this is a bad guy or whatever, but like—
Zeke: Well, as someone who has been publicly outed…
Riese: Yeah, what was your take on this?
Zeke: Well, I feel like the rules for outing are: you don’t out other queer people who are not there in their process, the exception being politicians and other public figures who use their platform to hurt the movement.
Riese: Yeah.
Zeke: Like, I feel like that is the one very clear well-defined exception, and that dude fell within the exception, you know? And… yeah. Then it’s fine to out him.
Carly: I mean… he’s a hypocrite, you know?
Riese: Yeah, he is a hypocrite. But I feel like she signed an NDA at that party…
Carly: She is absolutely opening herself up to an actual lawsuit by doing that.
Zeke: Whether that’s a smart legal decision is a different question, than the ethics of her move.
Carly: For sure, for sure.
Riese: Yeah. I think the other thing is that where Tasha is right now in her process of her case, and the fact that her being seen with Alice is a big part of their case against Tasha, that this probably wasn’t a great move…
Carly: Maybe she shouldn’t draw that much attention to herself, maybe, right now, by posting this as like — and it’s not like Alice made a thing and anonymously put it on the internet where there was no way to trace it back to her. She put her face and name in it. She’s on camera.
Zeke: Yeah she did some very smart branding…
Carly: Excellent branding.
Zeke: That’s why she will ultimately get a talk show ten years in the future!
Carly: That’s a really good point!
Riese: Yeah, you’re right!
Carly: Yeah. She is smart. She is savvy, I will give her that.
Riese: She is savvy, that’s true.
Carly: I wish that she maybe had a little bit of reservation or thought about it, but whatever.
Zeke: Yeah, and I guess that’s… the legal reservation and whether or not it was right considering, you know, that she and Tasha are in a relationship, and Tasha is fighting a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell violation or what have you. Those are the reservations that I have. I still think it was ok to do it, solely in the context of, is it ok to out that person?
Riese: Mhmm, yeah. So then we go to Dawn and Cindi’s…
Zeke: And Shane, try as she might, she tries to resist Cindi, she’s like, no, we gotta call and ask Dawn. Ask Dawn to come.
Riese: Where’s Dawn…??
Zeke: But Shane can’t resist the hot naked chick!
Carly: Cindi is just fully nude in heels. Good for her.
Riese: Yeah. Also, the whole mansion is covered with big photos and paintings of Dawn and Cindi.
Carly: Ugh. I love the art on their walls the most. It’s so good.
Riese: Shane puts up a bigger fight to this than she ever has to anything, I think.
Zeke: Yep.
Riese: It’s just like, 45 seconds, almost.
Carly: That’s her longest fight of trying to not have sex with someone, ever, in recorded history.
Zeke: But Shane really tried really hard.
Carly: She really tried!
Riese: Yeah, she did! She said no, she re-buttoned a button on her shirt at one point.
Carly: She fully re-buttoned that one button.
Zeke: She tried multiple times to get Dawn on the phone.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Uh huh.
Zeke: And Cindi was not having it.
Carly: Not having it. There was definitely some weird L Word consent stuff happening in this scene, once again.
Riese: Uh huh, yeah, once again!!
Carly: Where I was just like, eeeek. Like probably…
Riese: She really pushes it.
Carly: Yeah, like probably watching it in 2008, I was like this is hot, this is how people negotiate these things. And now watching it I’m like, fully kind of grossed out by it. But the thing that really grossed me out is when they do start hooking up and Shane fully has her boots on the white couch. I was like, are you out of your fucking mind? Dawn’s going to kill you for two reasons.
Zeke: I have a question.
Carly: Yes.
Zeke: Because I was never an adult lesbian. I was a collegiate lesbian for a short period of time.
Riese: This is exactly what it’s like, yeah.
Zeke: Well, this is my question, because this feels reminiscent of things that actually happen amongst gay men, which is where there will be a married gay couple, and they only hook up together. But then one wants to hook up solo — like that is a thing that I have heard happens many a time. You know, is this realistic for — not realistic — but do you think there is authenticity in this representation of lesbian relationships? Does this happen?
Riese: I feel like…. it happened…. to me….?
Carly: Narratively, and for the characters, it totally feels right. Like you’re like, of course this is what’s going to happen now.
Riese: Yeah, because it’s all about weird manipulative power games and all this other stuff. It turns out to be like that.
Carly: And a cool West Hollywood turf war.
Riese: Back to The Planet?
Carly: Yes. So Alice is here to tell Kit some terrible news, which is that SheBar is doing breakfast, is doing coffee, and stole her brand new idea that she invented of having a drive-through coffee window.
Riese: Where you drive, and there’s a window…
Carly: You drive through it…
Riese: And then they give you the coffee through the window…
Carly: And they’re like, ok, here’s your coffee…
Riese: And you’re like, can I have a straw? And then they’re like, ok. Like that.
Carly: It’s very similar to what you just described.
Riese: Also, coffee. She’s doing coffee, which is also kind of a Planet thing, so…
Carly: It is. Kit’s pissed, and rightly so.
Riese: Kit is mad.
Carly: Kit also needs to learn how to not tell great ideas to people who she just met, who are clearly crazy people, who are going to steal all her ideas. Like, Dawn Denbo just comes across as a monster person even if you have just met her, like a cartoon villain. So, don’t tell her your cool idea of what you’re gonna do, don’t trust her, you just met her!
Riese: Then Max calls Alice and is like, turn on the TV!
Carly: She turns on the news, and it’s not News Live, this is a different news channel.
Riese: Oh it is?
Carly: Yeah, I checked.
Zeke: It’s like NNL.
Carly: Yeah, it’s like an afternoon—
Zeke: It’s like New News Live.
Riese: Ohhh, it’s like for the younger generation.
Carly: It’s like hip news. And wouldn’t you know it, but her little video podcast made quite a splash! Darrel Bruer is live on the news apologizing, standing with his family, saying he’s taking some time away to be with his family, respect our privacy at this time.
Riese: Yeah, just like Kellyanne Conway today.
Carly: Yeah. Just like that.
Riese: And I think you also get the feeling here that Alice did not really have a full grasp on how famous he is.
Carly: She did not. She is seeming quite panicked at this moment.
Riese: She’s like, oh wow.
Carly: She’s kind of realizing some stuff that she didn’t really think about previously.
Riese: Yeah. I love Kit being like—
Kit: I can’t believe that Darrel Bruer is gay!
Riese: Kit knows.
Carly: Oh, I love Kit.
Riese: But Alice is also really excited to be on television! 500 thousand hits in 2 hours. Wow! So many! So Alice is a star now. Then we go to Shaolin Studios.
Carly: Yeah. We are in the production office. Things are getting ready, we are in pre-production, people are walking around with a sense of purpose. And you know what Jenny wants? She really wants us to take a minute and talk about how Sounder 2 needs to be in the film.
Riese: Uh huh. I agree.
Carly: Tina’s literally like, she’s speaking to a child when she is talking to Jenny. She’s like, “So there’s this thing in films where the dogs that you see on screen are professional working actor dogs, and they are trained.” And Jenny’s like, “No, Sounder said he’s ready. He’s ready to be on camera.” I was like, I mean if he said he’s ready, I don’t know…
Riese: Right. So they’re not excited about that, but Tina and Aaron are excited that Adele has made Nikki and Jenny be… friends.
Carly: Best friends!
Riese: Best best friends. She saved the picture.
Carly: BFFs.
Riese: And then Tina pulls her aside for a little sidebar…
Carly: And she’s like, “we really appreciate what you did.” Oh my god, the way she phrases this stuff, it’s like how many times have you been in some sort of work environment and someone in a position of power has spoken to you in this voice and you’re like, am I — are you asking me to do something that’s like, kind of fucked up? Or outside the scope of my job, or weird?
Zeke: Yeah, it’s like, when’s the other shoe gonna drop.
Carly: Yeah.
Zeke: You don’t just pull an assistant aside to be like, you did a really good job, we’re paying attention — like it’s not —
Carly: Never.
Zeke: Ulterior motive.
Carly: And she really just wants Adele to spy on Jenny. And then Adele’s like, “oh do you want me to spy on Jenny?” And she’s like, “no I don’t want you to spy on Jenny.” Even though she just asked her to spy on Jenny.
Riese: Yeah she just definitely just asked her to spy on Jenny.
Carly: She’s like, “just give me a little heads up whenever something happens.” I’m like, welp, this does not bode well. Then we see Alice leaving a voicemail for Tasha. She cannot get in touch with Tasha, she really needs to talk to Tasha, because guess what? She’s been invited to be on the news!
Riese: I wonder which channel!
Carly: It’s not our — what is our news channel? News Live. It’s not on News Live, I don’t think.
Zeke: But it’s on New News Live.
Carly: New News Live, it’s the new one.
Riese: Oh it’s New News Live?
Carly: Yeah, it’s one channel above.
Riese: New news. Yeah, ok.
Zeke: Well next we have Bette calling Tina to talk about Jodi.
Carly: It’s the flimsiest excuse for a phone call. I just, “I might have to go out of town in a few weeks and I just want to make sure you can watch Angie.” She’s like, “what the fuck phone call is this?”
Zeke: Yeah, and also, who calls their triple-time ex to get emotional comfort with a problem with their current relationship?
Carly: Bette Porter, that’s who.
Riese: Bette Porter, Bette Porter, yeah.
Zeke: And I feel like Tina is rightfully like, “no, I’m not going to have this conversation.”
Carly: Yeah! I love Tina in this scene.
Riese: Yeah, this is the season I like Tina.
Carly: Yeah, I know, me too! It’s so weird.
Riese: And also, because Bette is like, “I feel like Jodi is going to mess up with this meeting about the art that is controversial” with, what’s her name?
Carly: Lonnie Shipman!
Riese: Good old Lonnie Shipman again! Always that Lonni, she’s always playing with soap guns or hating the soap guns. And Tina’s basically like, “stop micromanaging Jodi, she will rise or fall on her own terms.”
Carly: She’s like, “let her speak for herself.”
Riese: Let her be herself.
Carly: She’s capable, you can’t fix everybody. And then Bette literally says—
Bette: So you’re saying I should stay out of it?
Carly: Yes, Bette, did you completely miss everything she just said? Like, Bette, your listening skills might need some improvement.
Riese: A little tuning.
Carly: Just some feedback from me to you. Little boop boop.
Zeke: Maybe take an improv class.
Carly: Or get a therapist, either way. Or both, I would say both. I love when Tina gets off the phone with her and just rolls her eyes so hard. She’s just like, what the fuck? And that’s a good question, what the fuck?
Riese: I feel like when Tina is working, she really feels herself.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And in turn I feel her.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: I suppose the other seasons when I felt—
Carly: When she was terrible
Riese: —upset at her, all the time.
Carly: So we go back to Shenny’s. Shane is doing Jenny’s hair for the party. The party is at their house.
Riese: Shane is lifting Jenny’s hair up then pushing it back down, like this. Just putting it up, putting it down.
Carly: That’s how you do hair.
Riese: For free, I think. That’s a free blow out from Shane.
Carly: She’s just kind of blowing on her hair… So Max and Adele are setting up for the party, and Adele is right out front, kind of just outside of earshot, but still in the shot visually? And Max is like, “hey how’s things going with Adele?” She’s like — is Jenny eating a cake, also?
Riese: Yeah. She’s tasting — cheesecake tasting.
Carly: Yeah, so she’s like, oh I love—
Zeke: But wait, I thought they didn’t get the cakes?
Carly: They must have gotten the cakes?
Riese: Oh yeah, you’re right!
Zeke: They must have gone — you know what, they must have gotten the cakes from Sweet Lady Jane’s, you can’t resist it.
Carly: So Max is like, “hey, so I totally did this background check on Adele, which I’m like—
Riese: This is me, by the way, I do this.
Carly: A computer search, this is you and your computer searches.
Riese: Yeah, I’d be like, “sooooooooooo…”
Carly: “I did a quick Goog and…”
Riese: “I have a few papers for you and some court records if you want to go over them with me?” I would do this a hundred percent, a hundred percent.
Carly: Max is like, poking holes in her story, things she has said about herself are not lining up.
Riese: As he should!
Carly: Yeah!
Zeke: But everyone else’s overwhelming hatred for everything Max does causes them also to not listen to anything that he says. And not only that, they pull such a Real Housewives move of calling her over.
Carly: Yes! Oh my god.
Riese: I forgot that they did that.
Zeke: And it’s so embarrassing.
Carly: Yeah, I had forgotten about that too. I was like, this is upsetting. And you are absolutely right, totally out of a Housewives playbook.
Zeke: And it’s like, why is his purpose there just to be flagellated?
Carly: He’s just getting treated like shit! Oh god.
Riese: And then they have her talk about her trauma or whatever, so that everyone feels bad, including Max.
Zeke: Right, she creates an even more heart wrenching story.
Riese: Which, by the way, is straight out of the scammer playbook!
Carly: Truly.
Riese: Distract you with a more — I mean, I am a fucking expert and—
Carly: You are, you are an expert on scammers.
Riese: Which is why I know all the background checking materials, but yeah, that’s — you can’t really ask her questions, because they bring up something else that is so horrible that you can’t… what do you do?
Carly: Well and she’s basically crying, and now everyone hates Max even more, so that’s how that goes. Great job.
Riese: Right, but also — god that was such a fucking bitch move. And I forgot that they did that, and as they were doing it I was like, are you kidding? What the fuck? What’s the point? Now Adele is Jenny’s assistant, Jenny lives with Max, and now Adele is going to be—
Carly: —weird to Max!
Riese: Weird to Max forever.
Carly: Because she knows that he’s on to her.
Zeke: And Adele was like minorly nice to Max.
Carly: Yeah! She at least wasn’t outwardly mean.
Zeke: She would at least say, “Hi Max!” in a decently pleasant tone.
Carly: She at least said hello to him, which is more than we can say for anybody else.
Riese: Uh huh, yeah. Oh my god.
Carly: Ok, so now Alice is on TV, and the show is called Hard Line, and it’s one of those cable news talking heads situations.
Riese: So it’s like Hardball but lines. Like Deadline meets Hardball. Hard Line on the not new news though.
Carly: On the, not New News—
Riese: Sports news?
Carly: Sports channel?
Zeke: I think it’s on New News Live.
Riese: Ok, New News Live.
Carly: And the host man accuses her of seeking notoriety by filming Darrel Bruer and posting the footage on her website. And he says that she violated his privacy, and he uses the phrase “world wide web” in a sentence, which I loved. It really dated this episode, in addition to the flip phones.
Riese: He also calls it “the net.”
Carly: The net! “You’re an internet journalist and you didn’t realize the power of the net?” And I was like, you mean the Sandra Bullock movie? That was a great movie!
Zeke: Well I also — something I didn’t believe is that Alice would go in there unprepared to defend her actions.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Yeah.
Zeke: I’m like, Alice would know exactly what she was gonna say right off the bat.
Carly: And she kind of fumbles through it a little bit, but then finally—
Zeke: Finally finds her footing.
Carly: Finds her footing, kind of goes off. Then, by the end of it, the guy’s like, “well she’s got a good point! Ok!” And I was like, ok! That’s all it took.
Riese: Yeah. And now they got more live stories coverage on New News Live, so something’s coming in. Maybe there’s a party tonight, I don’t know.
Carly: This just in: lesbians are gonna be partying with straight people who will become lesbians by the end of the party.
Riese: Yeah, the cast of The L Word meets the cast of Lez Girls this evening at Jenny’s house, everyone! There will be weed brownies, and a few slices of cake.
Carly: Just a few. Jenny tasted all the cake.
Zeke: My favorite is that next we get to see Jodi’s first major appearance in the episode. And I don’t know if you have discussed Marlee Matlin’s history on The Celebrity Apprentice?
Riese: We have not!
Carly: We have not.
Riese: I didn’t know she was on The Celebrity Apprentice. Although I’ve actually never seen it.
Zeke: Marlee Matlin — before Trump was President, The Celebrity Apprentice was great, because you had a bunch of C-list celebrities desperate for attention. You had Donald Trump who was a nobody pretending to be a somebody. And it was all fun — it was the same thing we see now, but it was fun in the context of reality television. It is not fun in the context of the White House.
Carly: Sure isn’t!
Zeke: But yes, I used to love to watch it with my mom. So Marlee Matlin was on Season 11 and she should have won. She was robbed at the end. So she was a finalist, it was her and John Rich, who was a country star, like a white cis straight dude country star. Then the final challenge, it wasn’t about raising money, which is usually what the challenges were about. But this challenge was putting on a good event. And hands down, Marlee put on a better event. But John Rich had a couple buddies write some big checks, so Trump picked John Rich to win, instead of Marlee Matlin.
Carly: Damn!
Zeke: Because he just changed the rules so that the white guy could win, instead of the woman with disabilities, you know? Anyway, Marlee Matlin was great on The Celebrity Apprentice. If that peaks your interest at all, you should go back and watch it.
Riese: Marlee Matlin was also in So You Think You Can Dance?
Zeke: Yeah. So Marlee Matlin, when she does reality television, or when she does an interview, she has her own personal translator. And I meant to look up his name, but I didn’t, but it’s different than — they’ll hire an actor to be her translator in a scripted thing. But her translator became a — he’s a really cute little gay guy, and he became a star after Celebrity Apprentice.
Carly: Oh my god, I love that.
Riese: Really?!
Zeke: Yeah.
Riese: Apparently her translator — Tom’s character was based on him.
Zeke: Yes, yes.
Carly: Oh I love that. That’s fun.
Zeke: Yeah.
Carly: I love Marlee Matlin trivia.
Zeke: Anyway. Season 11 Celebrity Apprentice runner-up.
Carly: Oh my goodness.
Riese: So, Bette wants to skip the party, she wants to stay in with Jodi and reconnect…
Zeke: And fuuuck!
Carly: Yeah, “reconnect.”
Riese: Because she’s afraid if she sees Tina, she’s gonna lose her mind, I think is the subtext here.
Carly: And she still hates Jenny.
Riese: Jodi loves to party.
Carly: I love Jodi.
Riese: Bette is always trying to get out of parties. and Jodi is always like, I’m excited about the party, I want to dance at the party, we’re going to the motherfucking party, and then we can connect after the party.
Carly: Yep. Good for Jodi. Anytime she doesn’t let Bette be in control of things is great. Because Bette is very controlling.
Riese: Mhmm. Yeah. Also the party is next door, so.
Carly: It’s literally next door, so.
Riese: They could just…
Carly: Just pop over, then pop back.
Zeke: And the party’s gonna end up in their backyard, right?
Carly: Well, she doesn’t know that yet!
Riese: Yeah. But it is, so… if you don’t go to the party, they’ll bring the party to you. You know, lesbians.
Carly: You can’t escape this party, basically.
Riese: No, no. Well…
Carly: Time for the party.
Riese: Then it’s time for the party! Nikki brings in a bottle of alcohol and says, “let’s get this party started!”
Carly: Wow. So Shane’s chatting with Shaun, the actress that will be playing Shaun.
Riese: Ugh, Camille. She’s not gay.
Zeke: She’s not gay. I love the subtext of this scene in which Shane is like, “yeah I’m gonna fuck you in approximately 71 minutes. So you’re going to be straight for a little bit over an hour, but no longer.”
Carly: She’s like, “I’m not gay, I have a boyfriend.” And Shane’s like, “yeah, ok.”
Zeke: Shane’s like, “alright, sure.”
Riese: And again, I’m like, why did you hire this bitch?
Carly: “I just play gay… gay for pay.”
Riese: Hire… what? Gay for pay. Isn’t that a term from porn, anyways?
Zeke: Yes.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Yes. Anyways, so I hated her.
Carly: I hated her too. And then Jenny—
Riese: I hated her even though she has a cute little nose.
Carly: Then Bette and Jodi arrive, and Jenny makes this very loud big deal of saying hi to them. What was that? Was that just Jenny being obnoxious?
Riese: Jenny was just full-on. Oh we even forgot to say before when she says the thing when she’s eating the cake, and she’s like, “I don’t need to hear this shit.” That was funny.
Carly: Yeah, that was funny.
Riese: That was a weird Jenny moment. Tina and Bette are gazing at each other across the room with lust.
Carly: Bette is eyeing her like a shark across the party. It’s a lot. And then Alice meets Alysse—
Riese: Alysse!
Carly: And then, Alice is like, “You’re…”
Zeke: She is thoroughly unimpressed.
Carly: Well she had Parker Posey in mind. I mean that is, you can’t go any better than Parker Posey. She’s a legend, so if you’re thinking you’re going to be played by Parker Posey, then you’re going to be disappointed no matter who it is. And then she’s like, “I got some ideas, maybe we talk about some ideas?” Which I think is so funny and would never—
Riese: Right.
Carly: Well, it would only happen if they were making a biopic, if they were making a, “I am playing the role of this real life person in the film.” And then you would want to meet them and maybe talk to them if they were alive. But this is supposed to be fiction, so the fact that they’re all like, “Oh I want to talk to you about me playing you.”
Zeke: Oh right, because clearly they know that it’s very much that they’re playing real people, right? Because then Bette gets introduced to — whoever is playing her, and is like, “Tina, she’s white!”
Carly: Yeah. This was amazing, actually.
Riese: When she first meets her, Bette’s face just… phew falls.
Carly: Well first she just thinks — she doesn’t realize what’s happening first, she kind of gets trapped a little bit in that moment. She’s like, “oh I love your work” to this actress. And I’m like, oh I guess she’s supposed to be a person in the world, whatever.
Zeke: Sure.
Riese: But she’s like, “oh I have questions for you. I’m working on my why’s.”
Carly: And then Bette’s like, “wait, the fuck?” And she’s like, “Oh she’s playing Bev.” And then Bette’s like, then her face just like… oof. That is brutal.
Riese: And the actress just keeps talking.
Carly: She does not shut up.
Riese: And she is like, “Why does she sabotage every relationship? Why does she ruin everything? Why does she cheat with the plumber?” Honestly making the carpenter the plumber is Jenny’s… phew.
Riese: So then Bette does the speech that Lauren will put in:
Carly: Yeah.
Bette: Does she seriously think that Jenny’s idiotic drivel is reflective of me and my, life at all? I can’t answer your fucking “whys?” you know why? Because it’s not me, it’s not me. And apart from anything else, I am frankly… fucking flabbergasted. I am flabbergasted that she cast such a white actress. She’s white, ok? Was Mary fucking Poppins not available? And really, what the fuck can she possibly know about my life? What can she know?
Carly: Which, good for her.
Riese: Yeah, good for her. And when Bette walks away, the actress is like, “Is she Black?”
Carly: Oh my god.
Riese: Yikes!
Carly: Like, Tina, you could have maybe prevented this.
Riese: Yeah! And Bette looks at Tina like… and it’s true! What the fuck, Tina? You were in the room where it happened.
Zeke: But also to take it a level above, is like, why did the people who were writing The L Word want to tell this story?
Carly: Yeah!
Zeke: Because it’s not like studio executives forced them to whitewash and straight wash the cast. That’s who they picked, theoretically.
Carly: Right.
Zeke: You know? So like, there is this story to be told about how things get made more palatable for, you know, a midwestern audience or whatever. But that’s not the commentary they’re giving.
Carly: No.
Zeke: It’s just like, “oh we put straight white people in these roles of queer people of color.”
Carly: It’s just very confusing.
Zeke: Because you think about Hollywood, what’s-his-face, Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood, which is also in fantasyland, but reimagines a world in which a Hollywood would be better — and you know, be braver and bolder about queer stuff and race and gender.
Riese: Mhmm.
Zeke: And I’m just like, what is the thought behind not imagining the world as you want it to be?
Riese: Yeah, I mean part of it is that it’s Ilene Chaiken defending her choice to cast her show with mostly white cis straight women.
Zeke: Yeah.
Riese: You know? Like, she did it, so she wants — and she says, that’s just how you do a show, that’s just how you make a show. And so, when she’s gonna make a show within her show, she’s gonna make it the same way because that’s obviously the only way that you can do it.
Carly: There’s no other way.
Riese: There’s no other way, yeah.
Zeke: And you have to make it less diverse than it was the first time.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: Yeah, absolutely.
Carly: Bette wants to leave, and she goes to find Jodi to be like, “we’re leaving.”
Zeke: And Jodi’s chilling with a straight girl.
Carly: Jodi’s talking to one of the other straight lady actors in this film or whatever. And Bette flips out on her and accuses her of flirting with her. And she’s just — Bette is not having it. If you take for a moment, put yourself in Bette’s shoes, she didn’t even want to go to this party in the first place.
Riese: No, no she wanted to stay at home and reconnect. This is a bad, this is a really bad look for Bette.
Carly: Super bad, yeah.
Riese: She’s being terrible to Jodi. But again, Jodi’s not taking it, which is—
Carly: Jodi’s like, “Whatever, leave.”
Riese: Which I love for them. She’s like, “I’m gonna stay.”
Carly: Yeah, “bye!” So Bette leaves, and while she’s outside, making the very long trip next door to her house, Tina pops out—
Riese: Yeah, it’s quite a trek, it’s kind of like going to Grandmother’s house through the woods.
Carly: Exactly. Then suddenly Tina’s there, and they have a little talk and Tina apologizes, for what happened with the conversation with the actress or whatever. But I love that she didn’t apologize for knowingly casting a white person to play her — I mean, there are so many things that could have been brought up here but weren’t.
Riese: Especially because there’s this whole history of Tina wanting to not deal with the fact that she isn’t white, even in their real relationship, you know?
Carly: Yep. And so then they talk about how the kiss the other night was a mistake, and it’s never going to happen again, which we all know is a lie. And Bette asks Tina if she’s sorry that it happened and Tina’s like, “yes.” And then Bette doesn’t say anything, because she is clearly not sorry it happened.
Zeke: Yeah, this was sad for me. I was like, oh, Bette’s having a rough day.
Carly: Yeah, it’s a rough go of it for Bette.
Riese: Yeah, this felt really honest, though.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: It’s like, Bette is the one in a relationship, but she still just needs Tina to say that she wanted that as badly as she did.
Carly: Mhm, yeah.
Zeke: Because we know that Tina wanted it too.
Carly: Yeah. And so Tina asks her if she’s in love with Jodi. And Bette says, “yes I am” after she takes a roughly 45-minute pause, which is how you know—
Zeke: It does take up half the episode, though.
Carly: Half the episode is that pause.
Zeke: Hemming and hawing and scratching of the head, and the chin.
Carly: And she’s like “uhhhhhh.” She does that for 4 minutes, that sound. So Bette goes home.
Riese: And then Bette goes home, with tears in her eyes, which is not convincing to any of us.
Carly: No. So then—
Riese: And it’s hard because all of us at home are in love with Jodi, and it’s like why can’t…you know? It’s just the power of Bette and Tina.
Carly: Yeah. But then Tina’s being cool all of a sudden, so now I’m conflicted. I’m like, now I like Tina all of a sudden, so I’m like, I don’t know, because Jodi’s amazing.
Riese: Although Tina’s a terrible caster.
Carly: Tina’s not a very good casting director or an executive, clearly. I just really think that Jodi can do so much better, but we’ll get to that.
Zeke: Dawn Denbo!
Carly: Yes!
Zeke: She shows up and crashes the party!
Carly: Oh my god.
Riese: What would Dawn Denbo be doing now? I think she would still be a party promoter.
Carly: Yeah, but she would really be going through it with COVID. She would be hosting Zoom parties.
Riese: She would be in deep despair.
Zeke: Dawn Denbo would go all in on some sort of lesbian Coachella type situation.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Yes.
Zeke: Thinking like, okay, like the new Dinah Shore, but it goes bust, like it’s sort of a lesbian Fyre Fest.
Carly: Oh my god, lesbian Fyre Fest.
Zeke: She runs out of money and people don’t buy tickets.
Carly: Can you imagine how funny that would be?!
Riese: She has so much drama with her partner that she doesn’t actually get anything done that needs to get done.
Carly: Yeah.
Zeke: But it’s not so much of a shit show because all of the lesbians who do show up are very capable.
Carly: Exactly.
Zeke: And they build boats to get themselves off the island.
Carly: They’re like, we actually could build houses, we don’t even need these shit tents.
Riese: Yeah, it’s like Survivor in that way.
Carly: So this is where the party gets great.
Riese: Yes, I really love this scene, but the number one feeling I have throughout all of it is that I miss my friends!
Carly: Yes! Oh, watching this now in this world that we live in was…
Riese: I really do.
Carly: It was really depressing.
Riese: I was looking at my notes and I was like, why do I have “god I want to see my friends at the party” as a note? What was I talking about? And then I was like, oh I’m talking about myself.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: I want to see my friends at the party.
Zeke: I want to see my friends, I want to get nude and run into my neighbor’s pool.
Carly: I want to eat pot brownies and sing and dance around with my friends and be stupid.
Riese: I want to dance…
Carly: Ugh, I found myself being almost sad for part of this scene?
Riese: I was sad. I was like, I want to kiss someone terrible in the bathroom, I want to dance on the table, I want to eat way more pot brownies than any human being should ever eat, as they were all doing.
Carly: They were eating the whole tray apiece!
Riese: Yeah. But anyway, getting ahead of myself, but it just really made me miss — especially because this was my favorite song to dance to!
Carly: Oh the Jackson 5 song?
Riese: Yeah, I love it.
Carly: It’s a good song. It’s a very good song. It starts with Shane and Alice and they’re eating pot brownies and they have this whole bit that felt very improvised, where they were like, “What if the brownies were all gay? And they were all like, ‘you’re hot’ and they were all like fucking each other?” And I just thought that was—
Riese: Because Camille walks by and Shane is like, “you want a brownie?” And she’s like—
Shane: They’re not gay, I promise!
Alice: Oh my god, what if they were gay?! What if the brownies were gay?!
Shane: They’re all fucking each other!
Carly: I thought that part was adorable. And then we get a full party montage where everyone is high and drunk, and having a great time, and Jackson 5 is playing, and they’re singing and dancing, and they play the entire song — and that is a long song.
Riese: Yeah! And then Tina gets up there, she is just like young free Tina.
Carly: Yeah, Tina’s letting loose.
Riese: Yeah, and so it’s like, Shane and Alice and Tina are on the table and dancing. Jodi is just like, dancing for her life. Jenny and Nikki are flirty and dance-y and then they like — she jumps from something, I guess?
Carly: Oh yeah, Jenny jumps into Nikki’s arms at one point. And I was like, is this some stunt work? Was she even jumping off anything, or just the ground?
Riese: And everybody’s having such a good cute time.
Carly: Just having a great carefree time.
Riese: I love it, and I’m so jealous.
Carly: In this scene I wrote, “I would not be surprised if Bette called the cops.” Which, I wrote that note while I was watching this scene, and then she literally does that 10 minutes later.
Riese: I was like, Bette Porter.
Carly: Yeah, we’ll get to that. So, guess who’s here? It’s everyone’s favorite: Dawn Denbo and her love Cindi.
Zeke: Denbo!
Carly: It’s Denbo time. I wish she kicked the door down and shouted “It’s Denbo time!” every time she went somewhere. Oh man, she is pissed.
Dawn Denbo: Hey Shane! Yeah, hey, how you doing?
Shane: Hey, Cindi!
Dawn: Oh, Cindi, no. I’m fucking Dawn Denbow, and this is my lover Cindi.
Shane: Oh, that’s Cindi!
Dawn: I’m talking to you. I’m telling you, you’ve gone and messed with the wrong — don’t look at her! You messed with the wrong bitch, bitch! You fucking come into my house and fuck my beautiful girlfriend without even the courtesy of inviting me?!
Shane: Cindi, you said it was ok!
Cindi: Let’s just go, let’s just go.
Dawn: You know what? Stop, seriously, because I’m this close, seriously.
Shane: You said it was fine, you said it was—
Dawn: What the fuck? Wait, you expect me to believe that my baby—
Shane: Tell her!
Dawn: No no no, what do you think, I’m an idiot? Does it look like I was born yesterday? Oh motherfucker, ok. That’s funny, no that is. You know what I’m gonna do, just for you? You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna fucking ruin you, ok? And every one of your smug ass motherfucking friends. And you! I don’t even know you, but you’re going down too! How about that?
Jenny: Me?
Dawn: Yeah, yeah. And your stupid ass fucking Planet? It’s done, alright. It’s all done. Yeah, go ahead, be a smart ass, let me tell you one more thing. Keep those skinny fucking hands of yours to yourself, alright? It’s on, alright? It’s fucking on! Cindi!
Cindi: I’m so sorry.
Dawn: Cindi! Cindi!
Party goer: Turn the music back on!
Alice: Who was that?!
Shane: Those are the two girls who own SheBar!
Riese: It’s so funny — like it’s funny when she’s like, “And this is my lover Cindi!” And I think, is it Shane or Alice or Tina who’s like, “Ohh, that’s Cindi!”
Carly: She’s like, she just comes in and is screaming, then just unplugs the speakers, and so everyone’s still standing on tables, but they’re all looking at her. It’s so funny.
Riese: Yes! Oh my god!
Carly: It’s just the most hilarious dialogue. I love every word that comes out of her mouth. “Don’t look at her!” when Shane looks at Cindi.
Riese: Yeah, yeah! And everyone’s just giggling.
Zeke: Oh, it’s fucking on!
Riese: It’s so cute, it’s so funny. So do you think that this was orchestrated?
Zeke: Oh, for Cindi to entice Shane into a sexual encounter, just to have a cause for war? Like this is Dawn Denbo’s weapons of mass destruction to invade Iraq?
Riese: Uh huh.
Carly: Yes.
Zeke: I think it’s possible. I don’t know that that would be very smart writing, and if we’re talking statistically, then that probably was not what was in the writers’ heads.
Carly: That’s fair.
Zeke: It’s more that, I would just say, we’re playing the game of “Shane can’t resist a naked girl who throws herself at her.”
Carly: Yeah.
Zeke: That would be my guess, right? Because Shane was supposed to be celibate, and now Shane gets in trouble again, because she’s fucking the ladies!
Riese: Falls into the vaginas.
Carly: Okay, so, Jenny and Nikki are standing in the hallway or whatever. And I guess they’re in line for the bathroom in Jenny’s own house?
Riese: Yeah, I was like, girl it’s your own house!
Carly: Don’t you have another bathroom?
Zeke: But if it’s a party, and there’s only one bathroom, then… you know.
Riese: Yeah, yeah.
Zeke: They’re workshopping scenes.
Carly: Yeah, they decided to workshop this scene because Nikki — she’s talking about the scene that we all remember from the pilot, where Jenny meets Marina, and they’re at the party, and she follows her in the bathroom and they make out. And so, Nikki doesn’t get the scene.
Riese: Yeah, Nikki’s never read a book, so she’s like, “what?”
Carly: She’s truly confused by everyone’s behavior in this scene. And Jenny’s like, we’re gonna workshop the scene in the hallway.
Riese: Yeah, be serious.
Carly: And so, of course — yes, that was very funny — they wind up in the bathroom together making out.
Jenny: Ok so like, you’re sitting across from this woman and she’s like, the most alluring, intoxicating woman of your whole life. She’s like, talking about fucking silver water, and you’re just going insane. And your heart is in your throat. And then you remember that you have this man named Jim… who likes to swim.
Zeke: He likes to swim.
Carly: He likes to swim.
Riese: So yeah. Then they go into the bathroom and then they make out.
Carly: And then they run into Jenny’s bedroom, but the door doesn’t lock, and so they go into the closet.
Riese: Yeah.
Zeke: Which they leave ajar.
Riese: Just a tad ajar, as you do.
Carly: As you would only do on television.
Riese: Right, or while you’re in school, you’re in boarding school and you have to leave it a crack open. The first time I ever kissed a girl, it was at boarding school in the closet.
Carly: Wow!
Zeke: What boarding school did you go to?
Riese: Interlochen Arts Academy?
Zeke: Oh, very nice, very nice.
Riese: Yeah.
Zeke: I have a question about Jenny and — what’s the name of the woman who’s playing her?
Riese: Nikki.
Zeke: Jenny and Nikki — do we feel like now, in this era where we understand more about how power and sex are tied in Hollywood—
Riese: Uh huh.
Zeke: Do we feel like Nikki is genuinely interested in Jenny? Or do you think she feels like she has to capitulate to Jenny’s advances because Jenny is the writer and director?
Riese: I think it’s a fuzzy situation where you can’t tell — because she does seem enchanted with Jenny in a way, but because she wrote this story, and she wrote the script, and she’s the director. But also, she’s the director.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: I was thinking about that during this, I was like, this is…
Carly: I was like, yikes, there’s a lot here!
Riese: Dicey!
Carly: There’s a lot of stuff going on.
Riese: And it does end up being dicey
Zeke: Yeah, at the time, I don’t think anyone thought anything of it. But I was like, oh! If you were making this now, there would be a whole different conversation happening around it.
Carly: Absolutely, yeah.
Riese: Yeah, they would have to go to HR.
Carly: Yeah. I think Tina’s HR and she hired a white lady to play Bette, so she can’t be trusted.
Zeke: Yeah. Oh man, imagine dealing with the twitter reaction when that deadline article comes out!
Carly: And then Bette gets to do an op-ed.
Zeke: So we’ve got fuckies in the closet.
Carly: Fucking in the closet.
Zeke: And then we’ve got nakies in the pool.
Carly: Yep.
Riese: Yeah, that was so cute! When they all go out to the pool, and Shane’s like, “I used to fuck in this pool!” And Tina’s like, “this used to be my pool!”
Carly: It’s so cute, they’re all adorable. Everyone jumps in the pool and then literally Bette actually calls the cops.
Riese: Calls the cops! Bette Porter!
Carly: Bette Porter!
Riese: What are you doing?
Carly: I did not remember that she called the cops, but watching the episode I was like, she’s totally gonna call the cops.
Riese: I know, that does not hold up. I’ll tell you what, that does not hold up for one second.
Zeke: Yeah, the idea that the Black woman would call the cops on all the white people.
Carly: Absolutely not.
Riese: Oh my god. So, right, but also all of them being in the pool was another moment where I thought about how much I miss my friends. And also, an ongoing theme on this show is that I wish I had a pool, and I would specifically like Ilene Chaiken, who owes me, to invite me to her pool.
Zeke: Well, the house that my boo and I are in the midst of buying does have a pool, so…
Carly: Well, we’re on our way!
Zeke: So you can come have a pool party with us, when we take possession of the house in November.
Carly: A socially distant pool party where we all wear masks and just dip our feet in.
Zeke: We are all just in scuba gear, right? We are breathing our own air system.
Riese: We’re going to Zeke’s pool.
Carly: Alright, fine, we’re inviting ourselves over.
Zeke: Yeah, please.
Riese: We’re coming to your pool.
Zeke: Just tell me what you drink and eat ahead of time so I can host appropriately!
Carly: Oh my god, ok. So Bette, for real, calls the cops, but the noise is coming from her yard, also. That’s the funniest part, she has not figured out that they’re in the pool!
Riese: It’s coming from inside the house!
Carly: Yeah, how does she not know that? She doesn’t hear splashing?
Riese: Yeah they’ll be like, “whose pool is this?”
Carly: She’ll be like, “aw fuck, never mind.”
Riese: She just should have taken a gun outside and been like—
Bette: Tinaaaaa!
Carly: So Alice goes inside the house to get another pot brownie, and Tasha is here, Tasha is not happy.
Riese: Alice was like, “I tried to call you to see if it was alright.” And Tasha’s like, “how could it be alright?”
Carly: Alice is like, “I did it for you!” And she’s like, “what?!”
Riese: Yeah. Alice is like, “I can out whoever I want!” So I think that this is not going to go well for them. This fight is not going to go well for them.
Carly: It seems like they’re in very very very different places in their lives, and that despite how they do love each other and are so cute together, that perhaps they might not be right for each other right now, perhaps. Perhaps.
Riese: Mhmm. Yeah you definitely get the feeling that both of them have a lot pent up that they haven’t shared with each other.
Carly: Oh yeah, for sure.
Riese: About their frustrations.
Carly: Yeah. I like that Alice ends her argument with like, “I can out whoever I want, and do whatever I want, because I live in the United States of America.” And I was like, wowww, you are so high right now. That is a high person argument. “I live in America…”
Riese: U S of A, oh boy…
Carly: So remember before, when we said they left the closet door open? Ajar, if you will?
Riese: Mhmm.
Carly: Well, Adele is cleaning up some bottles and Solo cups in the house, and wouldn’t you know…
Riese: That’s how I imagine Adele.
Carly: She stumbles upon this whole closet situation. Also, the captions said, “soft moaning.” So Adele heard some soft moaning and she went to investigate.
Riese: I love a soft moan.
Carly: Soft moan.
Zeke: Of course. And then she stands there like a creepy creeperson, watching. She pulls out a bag of Cheetos and is just stuffing them in her face.
Carly: Popcorn… yeah.
Riese: Yeah, she orders a pizza.
Zeke: She drops her pants and starts flicking the bean…. I was like, L Word, this is where you jumped the shark.
Carly: Alright, so then…
Riese: But also, I was like, is this Jenny’s room now? I thought her room used to be all pink with all those pictures.
Carly: It was pink! I was also wondering, whose room is this, when they first walk in it? But then in the closet there’s Jenny’s shoes in there. So I was like, oh it is Jenny’s room.
Riese: Yeah, that’s the same closet she was in last time trying on outfits for Shane.
Carly: But I was like, her room used to be completely pink. The walls were painted pink.
Riese: Yeah, with all those boob pictures.
Carly: Well maybe when she sold her script and is getting all the money for directing — you know how, when you’re sharing a house, whoever has the biggest room pays the most? Since she has more money, she’s living in the biggest room, because yeah, she can pay more rent.
Carly: Honestly, that would track for sure, yeah.
Riese: I would expect her, though, to have her own bathroom.
Zeke: You would think, right?
Carly: Look, I don’t know what to tell you, you know? I don’t know.
Riese: Well I liked Jenny’s old room better, I’m just gonna say it.
Carly: Ok, well that’s fair. That’s fair, and I hear you, and I’m holding space for that.
Riese: Well… something terrible has happened.
Carly: Something really terrible has happened.
Riese: Zeke’s phone died.
Carly: Zeke’s phone died. And so, we’re going to, at his request, finish this without him. We only have one scene left, so we’re going to be brave and do it.
Riese: I’m sad.
Carly: But we are very sad.
Riese: So it’s with regret that we continue this recap of this episode.
Carly: Without our dear friend Zeke.
Riese: Without our dear friend Zeke who, as you heard earlier, is having a pool party.
Carly: And we are invited.
Riese: We’re invited.
Carly: I mean, Riese is invited and I am just gonna also happen to show up.
Riese: Yeah. No we’re both invited!
Carly: We’re both invited.
Riese: Jodi finds Tina, who is wasted.
Carly: Oh my god, she is out of her mind.
Riese: Wasted.
Carly: She is, like, leaning in through the open door of her car to get her phone, or something? I was very confused by what she was doing when Jodi found her. But the point is she can’t drive.
Riese: Right, and for some reason Jodi doesn’t want her to call a cab.
Carly: Well she can barely operate her phone to call a cab, so that’s fair. And Jodi’s like, come on, just come in and sleep on the sofa. And Jodi’s so sweet and wonderful and genuinely great in all of this.
Riese: You know what else I noticed about this scene, Carly? How did Jodi know what Tina was saying? It was dark, she was drunk, she was mumbling…
Carly: Maybe context clues?
Riese: Once they get into the apartment, she’s often not even facing her, her mouth. I mean, it just reminds me of what we talked about when we had Lianna on the show about how they really portray a deaf person’s ability to read lips at a magical level, which is unrealistic and sets really weird expectations.
Carly: Yeah, that’s right, it’s a really good point.
Riese: Yeah, I think I’ve started to notice it a lot, which I obviously didn’t the first time I was watching this. But I noticed it a lot — so yeah, so Jodi takes Tina inside to Bette’s house, that used to be Bette and Tina’s house.
Carly: It used to be her house also. And she has this moment where you can tell where she’s like, “oh my god, I have to get out of here, I don’t want to be here, I cannot sleep on the couch in the house I used to live in.”
Riese: She’s like, “does she know I used to live here?”
Carly: Oh Tina. And then Jodi’s like, “alright, you should at least drink some water first.” And then Bette gets up.
Riese: Bette looks like she’s going to have an aneurism.
Carly: Yes, she does. Bette looks like she is so confused by what she’s seeing, that it’s as if it’s not real. Do you think that in that moment Bette was like, “oh I fell asleep and this is a bad dream?”
Riese: Yeah, or like, “I was dreaming about Tina and now Tina’s here but Tina’s with Jodi.” It would be a weird dream that she would have.
Carly: That’s what her face looks like.
Riese: Her veins are popping up.
Carly: She looks incredulous, and so confused, and upset too? It’s just so many emotions. I mean, great acting.
Riese: Great acting, yeah. I mean it’s also like, Jodi’s such a decent person and is so trusting of Bette that she’s like, “it doesn’t matter that Tina’s your ex, we’re gonna take care of her, she’s our friend.” Which is fine, lesbians are like that a lot, you know?
Carly: Always, yes.
Riese: But obviously Bette cannot handle having both of them in the same frame.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Or Tina on the couch she probably helped pick out.
Carly: Probably — well honestly, knowing Bette, probably not.
Riese: Bette was probably a house decor cop, I guess.
Carly: She was like, “oh I already picked out a couch, it’s being upholstered and will be delivered in 3 to 6 weeks.” and Tina was like, “okaaay, I guess my couch ideas are out the window,” and throws her whole HD Buttercup catalogue right in the recycling bin.
Riese: That is perfect.
Carly: I’m picturing it in my head! Exactly.
Riese: Oh boy, so Jodi gets her some bedding.
Carly: Yeah, she puts the blanket on her, is gonna get her a pillow, and Jodi is so sweet to Tina, and is so sweet to Bette too, who left her at the party and was a dick to her. And I’m just like, this is the moment for real where I’m like, oh my god, Jodi, you can do so much better than all of this shit, get the fuck out of here.
Riese: Right, yeah.
Carly: Bette does not appreciate you.
Riese: Also, she said before that she is normally in poly relationships, but it seems like she’s in a monogamous relationship because that’s what Bette wants, and that doesn’t seem like it’s working out really well.
Carly: It doesn’t.
Riese: You know?
Carly: Maybe they should try being in a poly relationship with Tina! Wouldn’t that be interesting as fuck?
Riese: Yeah, then there could be another whole love triangle thing.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: You know? God, I can never imagine Jodi looking at Tina and being like, slowly just starting to fall asleep, probably.
Carly: Absolutely. They could not be any less compatible. She’s like, “oh sorry I zoned out, were you talking?”
Riese: I was thinking about drywall.
Carly: It’s more interesting than you.
Riese: Yeah. And that’s the episode!
Carly: That’s the episode!
Riese: I loved it!
Carly: This is a pretty great episode. We get the beginnings of starting to see what’s going on with Adele. Jenny is full bananas, tyrant at this point, just really taking on a whole new character, and a whole new persona. We got the adorable house party, and the pot brownies.
Riese: Yeah, which is one of my favorite scenes.
Carly: Such a great scene.
Riese: In the history of The L Word. I feel like it’s the most joyous friendship scene ever.
Carly: It’s so cute. They all look like they’re really having fun. I wonder if they really got fucked up? Or if they were just acting. I mean, usually you are not fucked up on set…
Riese: Probably…
Carly: But like, maybe they did, and they didn’t tell anybody.
Riese: But also, the friendships just feel so authentic in that scene.
Carly: Yeah. It also feels authentically queer, too.
Riese: Yeah, definitely.
Carly: Like that house party, despite it being full of these weird straight actresses who had no idea what they had gotten themselves into, there was something very relatable about that party.
Riese: Yeah, there was.
Carly: It just felt authentic, and god it made me miss hanging out with friends and having parties and being silly together.
Riese: Yeah, yeah.
Carly: There’s something so special — I mean, even if we were recording this episode and there was not a pandemic that had kept us in our homes for 6 months, I think there’s a lovely thing to talk about here, just like queer joy and queer togetherness and queer community — and occasionally the show gets that so right, and it’s so wonderful to see, because we don’t usually. And then there’s a lot more representation, but these kinds of moments, these really authentic community moments are still rare!
Riese: Yeah, because we rarely see a whole community on TV or even in movies, like it’s always a few characters.
Carly: And this is not a whole community obviously, these are rich white cis lesbians in West Hollywood, in fictional West Hollywood, but it’s just — I don’t know.
Riese: But they still are, I mean, their jobs are still similar to the jobs our friends have.
Carly: Totally.
Riese: I mean, we’re not as rich as they are.
Carly: Yet!
Riese: Yeah, yet. Any minute now.
Carly: Just all the money that I ordered will show up.
Riese: Yeah, all the money — it’s been delayed, I guess, a few years, but one day!
Carly: Well I ordered it with the U.S. Postal Service…
Riese: One day, I’ll have a savings account .
Carly: Savings account, that’s hilarious. But then watching this at this particular moment in our lives…
Riese: It’s just so sad.
Carly: It was very sad.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: I didn’t expect it to make me feel sad.
Riese: Yeah, and it’s like the party that we used to talk about all the time, Gay Ass, that we would go to. I don’t know, there’s something very specific about when you’re in a room of queer people, dancing to both the songs that weren’t made for you, and the songs that definitely were for you—
Carly: Uh huh…
Riese: I don’t know…
Carly: There’s just those songs. like everyone knows that like—
Riese: This is one of them!
Carly: This is one of them. And also, I would say when you are in a group of queer people, and you hear the opening bass line to “Dancing on My Own,” the “dun nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh”
Riese: Yes! Uh huh!
Carly: I just got chills, seriously, because I haven’t left my house in so long. But that feeling of being in a group of people when the song comes on, and everyone feels it? And there’s something about when it’s a group of queer people, it’s just the most magical thing. I’m in a crowd and I’m annoyed and it’s past my bedtime — I don’t care about that anymore.
Riese: And I’m already getting a headache from drinking alcohol.
Carly: Exactly. Like, I’m not high enough for this…
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: You’re just like, fuck it.
Riese: “I Want to Dance with Somebody” too, is another one—
Carly: Oh god, that one. It’s all the greatest hits from the A-Camp dance, really.
Riese: It is!
Carly: There were songs that I played every single dance — I had to, because they were our songs.
Riese: Yeah, yep. God… I miss the world. It’s going to be a long time—
Carly: It’s going to be a long time before we do anything like that, yeah.
Riese: It’s so sad.
Carly: I know. I didn’t think I cared about that stuff, because for such a long time, I was like, I’m old, I don’t want to go anywhere.
Riese: Yeah…
Carly: But like, in recent years, I’ve gone to Gay Astrology, and I’ve had really good times there. And then I’ve also had nights where I’m like, why did I leave my house? I just want to go home, because I’m an old cranky person. But now, I’m like, I want to be out in a bar, in a club with all my friends, screaming along to whatever is playing, and we’re sweaty and bumping into each other, it’s great.
Riese: I feel like there’s a lot of experiences where, as you’re having them, you’re like, I don’t want to take this for granted. Like you’re at college, like — people who really love their school, and they really feel like — you know what I mean? But they really found home there, and they found their community or whatever. And you know it will be over, you don’t want to take it for granted, you know. You’re in a new relationship and are like, “don’t take this new energy for granted.” Or even having money for a minute, you’re like, “don’t take this for granted, it might not last.” But the experience — you’ve never been to a club or gone to a dance party, and thought, “don’t take this for granted, it’s never going to happen again.”
Carly: No, never.
Riese: No, of course I took it for granted!
Carly: Of course I did! I was usually like, I don’t want to goooo.
Riese: I know, I was like, I don’t know if I really want to go… I mean, every other time it was terrible!
Carly: Right!
Riese: Terrible!
Carly: Yeah!
Riese: Horrible!
Carly: But then, the one time it would be like—
Riese: But every other time, it was great.
Carly: Magical.
Riese: Yeah, and that’s what kept you coming back.
Carly: Yep.
Riese: Oh man, and Dawn Denbow coming in was funny.
Carly: Oh, it’s even funnier now, just with the passage of time. So this is a great episode, we love this episode.
Riese: Yeah we love this episode so much.
Carly: It was so wonderful having Zeke here with us, sad he couldn’t finish the episode with us!
Riese: I know, me too!
Carly: I’m going to do his plugs real quick for him.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: His Twitter and Instagram handle is @zekerchief.
Riese: That’s cute!
Carly: Like handkerchief, but it’s Zeke. And, he’s wonderful and you should follow him. And also, a reminder that he is in the Disclosure documentary, which we have talked about a lot, and it’s on Netflix, and if you haven’t seen it, you should see it.
Riese: You must.
Carly: And if you have seen it, you should rewatch it, because it’s great. Just give it another look-see. Another little play on the old Netflix.
Riese: Mhmm. He also wrote — because I was looking into the Survivor thing yesterday, because I don’t watch Survivor, so I wasn’t super familiar with it. And he had a really nice essay in The Hollywood Reporter about the whole experience that you should Google and read.
Carly: Oh, amazing.
Riese: It’s really good.
Carly: Zeke’s great.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Zeke, thank you for joining us today!
Riese: Zeke, thank you so much!
Carly: You’re wonderful.
Riese: We miss you already, we’re so excited for the pool!
Carly: Can’t wait for the pool party, we’re really looking forward to it. 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 why 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. Ok, Riese, you ready?
Riese: Ok. One, two, three: Lollipop
Carly: LA Sparks — what did you say?
Riese: Lollipop, it’s a candy that they give you in children’s movies.
Carly: Oh, that’s fun! I’ve never heard of that before.
Riese: Yeah. There was a ship called The Good Ship Lollipop, and lollipops are named after it.
Carly: Oh!
Riese: Because that’s the ship that invented it. The ship invented lollipops.
Carly: Wait really?
Riese: No.
Carly: You could have said yes, and I would be like, “did you guys know that?!” And I would have had a full misinformation campaign I was going out with. I said LA Sparks, my favorite WNBA team, just continuing on Season 5 of The L Word, me talking about the WNBA every episode. They’re playing really great! And Candace Parker is absolutely an MVP conversation, and I feel like people aren’t talking about The Sparks enough. Everyone’s talking about Seattle, which is fine, Seattle’s very good. Oh, Zeke texted me, “hey just got the power back!” Thank you for listening to another installment of To L and Back.
Riese: Thank you for listening.
Carly: We love you!
Riese: we love you!
Carly: Yayyy!
Riese: Even though we don’t know you.
Carly: We don’t know you, but if you’re listening to this, we love you. Ok, bye!
Riese: Bye!
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 503: Lady of the Lake
Let’s go lesbians! Get your gaydar guns, feather your hair and pick up the phone, Shane hasn’t had sex for three entire days and WOW her mind is clean as a whistle, so. Meanwhile, Jodi and Bette are heading to Big Bear for Bette to read a novel at a picnic table while everybody plays football and has morning mojitos! Tasha gets an info packet on her homosexual behavior, Tina goes on a date with a heart surgeon who collects art, Max loves his new video camera, and we’re gonna find out who’s on top and who’s on bottom now.
The usual:
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- The original recap of Episode 503
Riese: Hi everyone. I’m Riese.
Carly: Hi, I’m Carly.
Riese and Carly: And this is… To L And Back!
Carly: Wow, yeah, all right. Look, sometimes that’s just how it is.
Riese: Yeah, we are who we are, everyone is who they are. And we’re doing a bunch of recordings early because we’re trying to work in a new transcription schedule. So it’s just me and Carly again for the third week in a row.
Carly: We are trying to get ahead of the game here so we can get all those hot and fresh transcripts out there with this podcast.
Riese: Piping hot transcripts which by the way-
Carly: Just scalding hot transcripts.
Riese: Are on autostraddle.com.
Carly: Autostraddle.com is really the reason we’re both here today.
Riese: It is, yeah. And the reason Autostraddle.com is here today is The L Word.
Carly: Exactly. It’s all coming back around.
Riese: Oh, wait. I had an important note for this episode.
Carly: Oh my God, what?
Riese: That I saw, I looked at the beginning of my recap, I didn’t look at the rest of it. That in the beginning of my recap for this episode that I wrote in 2008, I had some pre-show notes or whatever, which were mostly like, “I’m going through a rough time. I’m sorry if this isn’t funny.”
Carly: Oh God.
Riese: This was like two days after the Nevis thing, you know what I’m talking about.
Carly: Oh my goddddd
Riese: Again, it’ll be in the book! So the note I had at the beginning of my recap was, “Carly says we didn’t invite her to watch the show this week, which isn’t true. We texted her at about two o’clock twice to see if she wanted to hang out and got no response. Then, when we decided to watch the show on Saturday night, we somehow miscommunicated that Alex had reached out once again and told Carly about her plans. Alex has since confirmed that she did not do that. Still, though, I’ve got her opinion and I will be sharing it with you in a little bit, also we love her, et cetera.” So just for the record, we did not watch this episode together.
Carly: Wow, it sounds like 2008 me was really insecure.
Riese: I think it was just a really bad week in our lives.
Carly: It was a bad week in our lives, a truly, very, very bad week in our lives, which is so funny because now we’re living through a terrible year in our lives, which is great, just 12 years later, 12 years and many months later.
Riese: That’s what life, is you get older and more bad things happen.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: But if you go to sleep at 11:00 and wake up at 8:00 that’s like nine hours that you don’t even have to think about any of that stuff.
Carly: Riese, last night, I looked at Robin and I said, “I can’t keep my eyes open. What is too early to go to bed?” I looked at the time it was 9:15, and we were both were like, we’re going to bed,” and we did.
Riese: Oh my God, what time did you wake up?
Carly: Like 8:00? It’s fucking beautiful, I slept a million hours.
Riese: I’ve been moving it up a little earlier. But for me, that means 11:00.
Carly: I got up because I had a doctor’s appointment this morning so I had to get up earlier. Otherwise, I would probably be in bed well past 8:00, well, well past 8:00. I’m really more of a night person than a morning person.
Riese: Me too, but I’m trying to be a morning person because…. Why? I mean, I don’t know why.
Carly: I don’t know why I’m sharing-
Riese: It’s because everyone, people are on the East Coast and it’s really stressful when I wake up and I open Slack and there’s 20,000 notifications for me and then the first thing I feel every day is anxiety, which is probably relatable to many of you.
Carly: Yeah, whenever I wake up and I’m doing anything that involves people on the East coast, I am stressed out immediately. Because if I just decide to sleep in, which is frequently, given our current situation.
Riese: And it’s also a hundred percent legal.
Carly: Totally legal, not doing anything that could get me thrown in prison with Helena and Dusty. Then it’s like, “Hey, Carly it’s 2:00 PM here.” And I’m like, “Oh, whose fault is that?” Oh, it’s mine.
Riese: All right guys.
Carly: Today in lesbian history, we’ve got Episode 503 called Lady of the Lake written by Ilene Chaiken and directed by the prolific Tricia Brock. I think this is her fourth and final episode of directing The L Word. She directed episodes in previous seasons and is like a hugely popular episodic TV director, directs all the time, super talented.
Riese: Tell me more about Ilene Chaiken.
Carly: More about Ilene Chaiken. I hear she’s into birds and that she created the show, can you believe that?
Riese: I mean, that’s amazing.
Carly: I mean good for her.
Riese: That’s the dream, right?
Carly: Yes! This episode aired, January 20th, 2008.
Riese: Every time that I think of this title, I think for some reason of Land O’Lakes margarine, is it margarine?
Carly: Is it technically butter? I don’t know.
Riese: I mean, maybe it’s not. I can’t believe that it’s not.
Carly: I don’t remember. I was just looking up the “Lady of the Lake” reference.
Riese: Maybe they just made it up.
Carly: I mean, no, it’s a real thing, she’s an enchantress and pops up in King Arthur times.
Riese: And episode 503 of the—
Carly: The title of the episode of The L Word that we’re talking about today.
Riese: Yeah, I’m like a little bit less excited about this episode than I was last week because I think that this is not the best of the season for sure.
Carly: It is not, no, there’s some moments.
Riese: Yeah, it has some moments.
Carly: The opening this moment is pretty spectacular.
Riese: The opening is fun.
Carly: Should we get into it?
Riese: Yeah, let’s get into it.
MUSICAL INTERLUDE
Riese: Okay, we open, Alice has had a dream about the film, but in the film they’re Charlie’s Angels.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: I don’t actually know, I haven’t even seen any of the Charlie’s Angels movie. So Carly, take it from here.
Carly: I don’t know. Oh, you just assume I know shit about Charlie’s Angels? There’s three of them, they have that kind of Farrah Fawcett blowout going and they fight bad guys. And there’s Charlie, who’s sort of this voice that comes from a phone, a speakerphone, and tells them their missions and then… that’s truly all I could tell you about them. And the movies starring Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore are great.
Riese: In this film dream sequence, Alice has feathered hair and Shane has long hair and they’re all very 70s. Everyone looks great, everybody looks great.
Carly: Kate Moennig is doing like a [tries to do it] high-pitched voice.
Shane: “Well, of course you’re in, but are you sure this gaydar guns are really going to work?“
Riese: Kate is doing this like as a reading in her friend’s living room? Where she’s like, “I’m not going to really do this part.” Every line she does, I’m like come on.
Carly: Everything is in slow motion or fake slow motion. My favorite bit is fake slow motion, I’ve done it many times and it always makes me laugh. So Tina is the boss and she is in drag.
Riese: Tina looks like a tiny boy who’s drowning in her little suit, she looks like little cartoon character.
Carly: Yeah, they have gaydar guns and she keeps referring to them as, “Okay, lesbians,” Which made me think of like the Billy Eichner, “let’s go lesbians” thing but this was way before then!
Riese: I know! It’s like this was like foreshadowing for that.
Carly: Yeah, and I guess, for the reboot of Charlie’s Angels that starred what’s her face, the lesbian.
Riese: Kristen Stewart.
Carly: Kristen Stewart. “What’s her name? You know the gay one.”
Riese: Maybe she wants to be on the podcast. You know what? I bet you a million dollars that if you were like, “Hey Kristen Stewart, have you seen The L Word?” She’d be like, “Uhhh, I mean, no…… no.”
Carly: Yeah, that would be her exact response.
Riese: You guys can’t see my face, but just close your eyes.
Carly: No, it’s accurate, it’s like you’re channeling her whole energy.
Riese: Anyway, it was a big day for wigs.
Carly: It was a big day for wigs, it was a big day for Leisha Hailey doing the most, I mean she shines.
Riese: She was giving it her all as aforementioned, Kate was giving a solid three, Helena was just letting her body speak for herself and then Jenny walks in wearing that same outfit that she wore in the pilot episode, that she wore in the beginning episode of her rewriting of the pilot episode, they put the gun on Alice and she’s still bisexual guys!
Carly: Yeah, which is so funny because the show doesn’t acknowledge it outside of this dream that Alice had, which must mean that only Alice knows that she’s bisexual anymore.
Riese: It’s just a private, personal thing for herself, and she doesn’t need to share everything with everybody because she’s a private person.
Carly: Even though Tina keeps calling them lesbians and right … Alice is SO private.
Riese: Lesbians is a really fun word.
Carly: It is a fun word. It’s a fun word just like you said. Oh, also we didn’t say that Bette is Charlie, she’s like the voice from the speakerphone.
Riese: But as Bev.
Carly: But as Bev, of course, because obviously, and then Helena is, of course, Helen, because that is very convincing, just really brilliant work. Helen. So they run in slow motion. Also, this whole scene is set at The Planet, which adds a layer of silliness to it. They’re like, “Wow, we’re spending all the money on this sequence on wigs and these three plastic guns, we can’t do a cool like a shootout with a car or something, let’s just do it at The Planet.”
Riese: Yeah, everyone loves The Planet.
Carly: That’s where people hang out.
Riese: Yeah, it’s like where all the cool kids hang out and where they make a lot of money, anyway.
Carly: So Shane hits Jenny with a gaydar gun and it just starts like cycling between the different options and then we just go to the theme song.
Riese: This was just fanservice. There was absolutely nothing that happened in that.
Carly: I love the cold opens of Season Five so much so far.
Riese: It was fun though, it was very fun.
Carly: They’re just so silly and fun and seem just specifically for the fans, which is great. They don’t really make any sense with the episodes because it’s them kind of talking about the movie, but none of the things they’re talking about are actually in the movie.
Riese: Yeah, we’re getting a little break because after this, it’s just moving movie, movie, movie, movie, movie! But first let’s go to the gym, which honestly made me think about the gym.
Carly: I really miss going to the gym.
Riese: And how much I missed going to the gym.
Carly: I try to work out at home and as it turns out, I truly hate working out at home.
Riese: Well, the thing is I’m really easy on myself at home, I’m like, “Probably three bicep curls was enough.”
Carly: Well, yeah, my home workouts are like, “What can I do in 15 minutes with two hand weights and limited imagination and energy.”
Riese: Maybe Shane can tell you because Shane’s at the gym right now. Shane has been at the gym since 5:30 AM because Shane isn’t having sex, Shane’s just lifting weights. A bridesmaid threw a rock through her window, I bet Jenny didn’t care for that. And Alice and Tina pop in, just hop on the bikes and start pedaling away into nowhere and talking to Shane about her cleanse.
Carly: She’s like, “I’m freakishly clear-headed, I’m highly energized.” I have a question, and again, it’s about timeline because this is The L Word. How long has she sworn off sex? Is this like day one, day two? Because she’s acting like it’s been going on forever.
Riese: (weird voice) This is DAY THREE.
Carly: Day three, wow, okay, huge, changes in her life.
Riese: Whaaaaaaaaaaat?!!! Does this mean she was having sex every day?
Carly: I think so. I mean at the wedding she had sex three times and that’s in one day.
Riese: Yeah I guess if you’re looking at an average and she did three people that day then, maybe if the next day she took a day off, your average for the week would still be seven times or whatever.
Carly: Right exactly.
Riese: If she’s sleeping with someone every night, where are those girls?
Carly: Where are those scenes, who are these women? I can’t believe we’re being robbed of all of this because she’s acting as if sex had taken over her life. In a way that must mean that she… Well, look, she doesn’t have a job anymore because her job burned down. So I guess she has a lot of free time, although she is going to be doing hair on the movie, but that hasn’t started yet. Anyway, Jenny and Adele are also at the gym.
Riese: Yes, and they’re just amazed that first of all that, first of all, Adele is in the gym in jeans, and second of all, that Adele is serving Jenny, which of course she is, you know?
Carly: She is her little butler.
Riese: Right, and they’re like, Tina, you need to date someone else and Tina doesn’t know what to date and then we get a little advertisement for-
Carly: For OurChart, OurChart.
Riese: Ourchart.com.
Carly: “We should go to OurChart and look at some member profiles!”
Riese: [high pitched deranged commercial voice] “doo doo doo doo doo! It’s so much fun, that’s where all the lesbians are!”
Carly: They keep cutting back to Jenny and Adele and everything they’re doing is-
Riese: Three days!!!!
Carly: Fucking crazy it’s-
Riese: Three days!!!
Carly: Three days, it’s just ridiculous. Alice and Shane acknowledge that Tina is a snob in this scene, which I think is relevant to a scene that’s going to come up later, so I just want to just state that.
Riese: Oh my God you’re right.
Carly: I know and we will come back around to that later on.
Riese: Yeah, we will. First, we’re going to go to The Planet.
Carly: The Planet.
Riese: Tom is oogling Max. Grace is here…. In a shirt.
Carly: Grace is here. I really never thought we were going to see Grace again. I completely forgot she was going to show up again.
Riese: Wow I wonder how we forget about her?
Carly: They don’t explain what happened with her when Max left Illinois.
Riese: Because no one cares.
Carly: They don’t explain where she’s been this whole time, we don’t even know if they’re actually dating anymore.
Riese: They went up to San Francisco, they’re not dating anymore, I don’t know why they broke up.
Carly: We don’t know why they broke up. Yeah, that’s right, they went to San Francisco. Max didn’t have surgery. Came back. Because she’s from the Bay, like Grace is from San Francisco.
Riese: Yeah, because she says that’s where all the butch women are —
Carly: Exactly, they don’t have those in that LA, we’re all sold out.
Riese: Speaking of butch women, oh my God. So Max knows that Tom is checking him out. And he’s like, “I don’t like guys.” And then Grace is like, “Sometimes after transition, you change like who you’re attracted to.” And then she talks about the last trans man she dated, Jake. But when she talks about Jake in past tense, she uses female pronouns.
Carly: Yeah, great job Grace, so close to not fucking it up. Also, if you had previously dated a trans man, the fact that you were so shitty to Max, when you guys first started dating, you said some really fucked up shit to Max last season that I would like to think if you had dated a trans man, maybe you wouldn’t do, but what do I know?
Riese: She’s just a mirage.
Carly: She’s just in a mystery.
Riese: Anyway, so Jake used to be a “gold star butch lesbian,” in case you wanted to hear your “gold star” again today.
Carly: (EXAGERRATED YAWN).
Riese: And then Max says, “I read somewhere that same sex attraction is what’s encoded to us from birth.” But I mean like Max says that when we’re born; we’re born gay, basically and then we become straight, which I don’t think is true… But yeah, changing who you’re attracted to after transition, I feel is common, right?
Carly: I think it is. I don’t obviously have the data to support that, but it feels like it’s pretty common. Anyway, I like this for Max, I want him to talk to Tom, so let’s we’ll see what happens.
Riese: Yeah, we’ll see what happens. Then we go to the locker room where everyone wants to touch Shane.
Carly: Oh my God. A woman straight up starts touching Shane’s bare stomach. I lost my mind at that point.
Riese: “Oh great abs can I touch them?” WHAT?! Absolutely not!!
Carly: Abbbbbbbbsolutely not??? Hooooo.
Riese: Heheheheh…. But seriously, what the fuck? Have you ever asked a stranger if you can touch their abs?
Carly: Have you ever asked a stranger if you could touch a part of their body?
Riese: No, I mean, I’ve had strangers touch my body parts because I used to live in New York.
Carly: Right, exactly, same.
Riese: Which was a delight every time.
Carly: Yeah, I loved it.
Riese: Shane’s not going to last because, apparently, women just randomly want to touch her body or something, she’s like, “Don’t touch me.” Which is I think a fair way to feel all the time.
Carly: I don’t ever want any person to touch me, a stranger. I don’t want it like a stranger, a random person to touch me.
Riese: Anyway, they have Alice lose her keys so that she can turn and face a poster.
Carly: That was very stupid.
Riese: For The Pink Ride because-
Carly: Sponsored by the Subaru!
Riese: The Subaru Pink Ride, it’s for breast cancer, Jenny’s doing it.
Carly: She’s already training for it actually.
Riese: She’s training for it.
Jenny: I’m doing it, I’ve been training for it!
Alice: You are?
Jenny: Yeah.
Tina: Well, maybe we should all do it.
Shane: Do what?
Jenny: It’s called the Subaru Pink Ride and it’s for breast cancer research.
Riese: And they’re like, “Well, we should do it, we could be Team Dana.” And then someone’s like, “you have to invite Jodi” and Tina’s like UGGGHHHH.
Carly: (imitating Tina but in a very deep voice) “But she didn’t even know Dana.”
Jenny: Yeah, but she has breasts, right?
Tina: Good point.
Carly: So they do all remember who Dana is, which I know we were confused about last week, but they do remember her. And Jenny really reiterates how crucial it is to train for this or you will not make it.
Jenny: You guys you have to train for this, it’s so hard. If you don’t, you’re not going to finish it.
Riese: Whatever. And then Alice has to lie about Tasha still being in town, that’s the whole reason she said Tasha should train them, was to lead into that. Yes, speaking of, Carly’s favorite character, Dusty.
Carly: It’s my favorite character. Really steals all of season five.
Riese: We go to jail.
Carly: Back to jail, we’re out in the yard.
Riese: Yeah, and Helena looks incredible.
Carly: Helena looks amazing. Helena is totally feeling herself and is feeling prison, she’s super into prison now. Remember last week when she was freaking out and Kit explained what the words are and the week before she was super panicked? Now she’s rolled up the sleeves on her jumpsuit, she has a toothpick in her mouth-
Riese: She has a fucking toothpick in her mouth.
Carly: And that is how you know that she is into prison now.
Riese: Exactly, it’s sort of like when Piper became — whatever, you know — except that Piper was sort of like a psychopath so it was a little bit different. And then she walks over to Dusty, says all the money has been collected and then they exchange a kiss on the mouth.
Carly: A little mouth kissing, right in front of everybody.
Riese: Right on the plucker!
Carly: Oh God, so we go back to The Planet where Bette joins Tom and Jodi to tell them that she has to cancel on Big Bear this weekend because she has to go to a David Hockney reception at The Hammer and if she doesn’t attend, she’s going to fucking kill herself.
Riese: I love David Hockney.
Carly: I don’t really have an opinion because I guess I could google—.
Riese: I would love to see David Hockney but I also love Big Bear so I would have a… But you know what? Jodi, doesn’t let her get away with that shit.
Carly: No, she’s like “my friends and I have been doing this for 11 years.” This was the first time I was going to bring someone with me so you can’t cancel. Good for her.
Riese: And Bette’s like, okay! Yeah, good for her.
Carly: Good for you, Jodi, don’t let Bette get away with her Bette shit.
Riese: And now it’s time for a word from our sponsor, OurChart. Let’s pull up the webbernet and find the little girlie girlie for TiTi. They explain how to look at people’s profiles.
Carly: They explain search filters.
Riese: They show us a white woman with dreadlocks.
Carly: Could have done without that.
Riese: They talk about books. Nancy Drew: good or bad? I would say good.
Carly: I would also say good.
Riese: I feel like it’s like you’re in touch with yourself. Also, Alice says, “there’s nothing wrong with meeting someone on the internet,” just so you know. My first laugh of this day was Tom saying something to Max and Max responding with —
Max: Yes, it’s a Panasonic DVX 100, it’s amazing.
Tom: Are you going to hook it up to the computer?
Shane: We’re recording over firewire.
Max: Yeah, it makes it possible for us to record onto the computer’s hard drive at the same time as we’re recording onto the video camera.
Tom: I don’t have the fucking slightest idea what you’re talking about, but sounds awesome.
Riese: I don’t know why I just died. It’s very romantic.
Carly: Anyway, it’s also a very good way to, I think, if you’re… I would not recommend doing that in the middle of a cafe, I just feel like you’re just asking for trouble, that’s not the most fool proof situation.
Riese: Yeah good luck editing that. Good luck, back to our date hunters. They’re scrolling through some profiles and they land on one who they think is good. And then Shane’s like, “No, not her.” Because-
Carly: Shane has slept with everybody on OurChart.
Riese: Yeah, Shane’s like, “she’s just a little crazy in bed if you know what I mean”… and I don’t?
Carly: No, I don’t either, that could mean any number of things and also nothing, it means nothing.
Riese: Maybe Tina wants someone who’s crazy in bed. Anyway, this comes back around in Gen Q in the finale when they’re looking on the dating app and Dani has already slept with the girl with the birds.
Carly: I was thinking that too. I was like, that’s a cute moment, yeah.
Riese: It was funny, I mean, it’s part of the whole conceit of the episode, which is like, “Shane is really horny.” So good luck to everybody on the internet.
Carly: Man, I’m just reminiscing about the Panasonic DVX 100. It really was the gold standard of DV cameras at the time. But man, in retrospect, piece of shit, no, I mean, at the time it was incredible. Anyway, nobody cares about this. So we go to the military.
Riese: Yeah, it’s like someone put together a little packet about all the cool things that Tasha has done in her life and then handed it to this asshole dude who’s so pissed that he has to represent Tasha in her homosexual conduct case.
Carly: Yes, it’s the same captain from last week who clearly does not want to represent her, he’s being real pissy.
Riese: Beech is a real bitch. These are Tasha’s offenses: Number one, at the horse races, was hanging out with visible lesbians.
Carly: Visible known lesbians.
Riese: Known lesbians.
Carly: Openly lesbian women at a horse track.
Riese: Yeah, and you all know about lesbians and horses and also Madison the bride from last time and horses and also horses in general, which are, they’re an animal. And she had an arm — there was an arm around Tasha shoulder, which everybody knows is sex.
Carly: Everyone knows that that is clearly gay behavior.
Riese: Yeah no straight person puts their arm on someone’s shoulder.
Carly: That is publicly gay behavior. And then her second allegation was that she was seen having a ‘lover’s quarrel’, one of my personal favorite phrases — right after “canoodling” — with the same woman who was the woman attached to the arm that was draped on her shoulder, right outside the base.
Riese: Yeah, and then we have a real curve ball.
Carly: Yeah, didn’t see this coming.
Riese: She allegedly gave preferential treatment towards this woman, which — a man made this complaint, right? He’s upset that a woman got promoted over him? Oh yeah, she gets into that later. But I’d already assumed it here because-
Carly: Because, of course.
Riese: Listen, anyway, Tasha’s fucked.
Carly: Yeah, the accusation is that she showed preferential treatment to this soldier because they were dating and she’s like, “That’s not true.”
Riese: Was that her friend?
Carly: Yeah, I think so.
Riese: Yeah, it was her friend.
Carly: Yeah, that we saw, yes. So she’s like-
Riese: That’s a cold piece of shit. This is just… yeah.
Carly: The whole thing is just rude. But the onus will be on her in this upcoming trial to prove that all of these things are lies, which is very difficult to do because two of them are true.
Riese: Right, she’ll just be like, “it was a fake arm. It wasn’t a real arm. It was a pretend arm. We were testing out fake arms for an artist show, because Bette’s an artist, a known artist.”
Carly: Yeah, Jodi always has parts lying around, mannequin parts.
Riese: Or they could say what every fucking straight celebrity says about their very, very gay Instagram feeds, which is that those are just their friends, Taylor Swift, and also every fucking celebrity on Instagram. I feel like female celebrities these days want everyone to wonder if they’re having gay sex with their friends.
Carly: I think so. I think it’s all on purpose.
Riese: Yeah, I wouldn’t know this, but it’s part of my job. So I have to look into it. There are several celebrities specifically who I think are really fucking with me.
Carly: [hoarse whisper] We always know.
Riese: Yeah, we always know, if you’re gay, heads up we know. We don’t even need a [gaydar] gun or an outfit or a wig to know, even sitting here.
Carly: Yeah, we don’t even need to know you, we know.
Riese: Yeah, fun fact, everyone is born gay. Max said it earlier in this episode, he read it somewhere. Grace said, “there you go” and now it’s the same to all of you.
Carly: It’s true, fact.
Riese: Read a facts.
Carly: Get the facts, read the facts, the facts contain facts.
Riese: I love the facty facts.
Carly: The only kind of facts I’ll take. So we’re back at The Planet. Jodi and Alice are shooting Alice’s video podcast in a crowded cafe mid day, once again, and they’re talking about sex. And Alice is learning all sorts of American sign language for various terms like “lesbian,” and “fucking” and whatever.
Riese: And cunnilingus.
Carly: Cunnilingus and like- That’s funny, great!
Riese: And we find out that Jodi is very… I mean, we already knew this, but Jodi’s like very sexual and like is, would never have lesbian by death EVER. And is just-
Carly: That’s so funny that she thinks she has control over something like that!!! That chooses you, my friend. And also I hate the phrase lesbian by death more than I hate —
Riese: (interrupts like a rabid monster) ME TOO!
Carly: I want that phrase abolished, that phrase should be illegal. But this scene gives us Tom and Max kind of making little heart eyes at each other, which I loved. And then there’s a moment where Alice tries to get Jodi to kind of settle the top off once and for all. And she does not take the bait. Kit’s like, “Ugh, gross,” which is really funny. But she implies switchiness.
Riese: Yeah, she said last night Bette was the one who said it to her that she wanted to fuck her last night. [these next few lines were said with deep attention to hyperbole and sarcasm. We use sarcasm throughout this transcript and don’t indicate that we’ve done so because it’s obvious, but we want to be explicitly clear here that what we are saying is deliberately hyperbolic and sarcastitc] Because just so you know, lesbian couples have sex every day.
Carly: Every single night, every single day and every single night.
Riese: And if you don’t want to have sex every day, there’s something really wrong with you.
Carly: Profoundly deeply troubled and wrong with you and you should probably never leave your house. (/sarcasm)
Riese: So my note is “Alice wants to know who’s on top, who’s on bottom now.” Oh, from the Christopher Guest movie Parker Posey? She’s like, “Who’s on top, who’s on bottom now?” In her little Dairy Queen outfit. You know what I’m talking about?
Carly: Oh my God. Oh my God. I just re-watched that recently. It’s on Hulu, Waiting for Guffman is on Hulu, actually all-
Riese: They added all the Christopher Guest-
Carly: All Christopher Guest movies are on Hulu, public service announcement, very important. If you want-
Riese: More Jane Lynch, right?
Carly: Yeah, if you want some time to just forget about the world and escape into a very silly universe, highly recommend; very white, very extremely white universe. So take that, take that for what it is.
Riese: Back to the army office where Tasha is still being like, “No, I did not promote that girl because we were dating.” Basically, she’s telling, she like tells the whole story. Because he says like she, I guess before letting someone touch her lower back, she should have thought about that. He’s like, “You should’ve thought about that before you decided to become a lesbian.”
Carly: And then she says.
Tasha: Let me clarify to you, Beech. I never decided to become a lesbian, but I decided to join the service. I graduated second in my ROTC class, I have a bronze star with V for Valor, for saving the lives of three American and two Iraqi soldiers after an IED attack in Tal Afar. I watched my staff sergeant, Robert Gantz, get his stomach blown open after a mortar attack and held him in my arms as he died, which by the way, was not a romantic embrace either. And I believe in American democracy and I’m willing to risk my life for my country. Do you really think I don’t belong in this army?
Carly: And I got excited because I was like, “Oh, is she going to explain why she wants to be in the military in the scene?” Not really.
Riese: She says, “I believe in American democracy. And I’m willing to give my life for this country.”
Carly: That is exactly what she says. That’s the closest we get to learning about the inner workings of Tasha’s mind and why she’s doing what she’s doing.
Riese: I’m just profoundly curious how Tasha has grown up in a world where she feels like American democracy is working in her favor. I mean, clearly, it’s not!!!
Carly: She’s literally about to be kicked out of the army, the thing that she seems to care about very much, because of, in fact, her identity.
Riese: Right, but also I mean, this is if we divorce all of our feelings about this politically, which is hard, but let’s just go for it. She’s worked really hard in this field of work. And she has made a lot of achievements in it and she’s not going to give those up.
Carly: She listed all of those accomplishments, all of her awards from army, she list all the people that she’s watched die, which I feel like is really sticking it to that guy because that captain, didn’t she say in the last episode that he’s never even been out? He’s never seen any action? So she’s just kind of reminding him of like some real shit that she’s been through. And then he’s like, “I hope that girl that is constantly around you is your cousin” —.
Riese: Which…?
Carly: And I just want to take a moment to congratulate Alice for pretty much being the reason that Tasha is in this situation, just really want to congratulate her once again on all of the great judgments she has shown.
Riese: But also as we learned from our guest, there’s no universe in which Alice ever could have gotten into that base to have a lovers quarrel to begin with. So it’s really the security guards’ fault and it’s actually really Ilene Chaiken’s fault if you think about it. Who also still, as of this moment, has yet to invite either of us to her pool.
Carly: What if I had been invited and didn’t tell you—.
Riese: I honestly would be SO MAD at you.
Carly: —and like right now we were on FaceTime and like you just saw my eyes kind of get like wide and I’d be like, “Yeah, she hasn’t invited either of us.”
Riese: I would be mad at you like you were mad at me in 2008 for allegedly not inviting you to watch episode 503 with us.
Carly: I just want you to know that I don’t even want to go to Ilene Chaiken’s pool, but I want that for you so badly. I would die for your right to go to Ilene Chaiken pool.
Riese: Thank you so much.
Carly: You’re so welcome.
Riese: I believe in — I don’t know what I believe in anymore. It’s been really weird month.
Carly: It’s been a tough go of it for most of rest of the show-
Riese: America sucks, America blows. And Tasha is upset. She’s fucked.
Carly: She’s super fucked.
Riese: What’s she going to do?
Carly: She’s fucked and she knows it.
Riese: Also, still very attractive.
Carly: Oh, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Riese: Every time they zoom in on her face, I’m just like, “This is such a nice face.”
Carly: “Look at your perfect face!’
Riese: Back at The Planet—
Carly: I wrote “back at The Planet” in my notes!
Riese: “She’s from Slovakia” is the first line we hear.
Carly: That’s a great way to cut to fucking scene. They’re still poking around on OurChart for Tina, sad, lonely Tina. And then, okay, this was hard to watch, honestly. Max walks up to the girls and he’s like, “Hey Alice, I made a podcast and I really want to talk to you about it.” And like-
Riese: Just so you know, he’s handing her a laptop.
Carly: He’s like physically handing her an entire computer, which is hilarious. But also, Alice’s response is the rudest that she’s like, “Oh, I’m busy, not right now.” And she’s busy fucking around on OurChart with her dumb friends. And she’s like a huge asshole to him and super dismissive. And I was just like-
Riese: She’s mad! She’s like, “You made a podcast? You? You?”
Carly: Like, what the fuck?
Riese: And also Alice doesn’t even know what a podcast is. She doesn’t even have a podcast. She has a video show on OurChart.com.
Carly: She has a vlog, she has like a YouTube internet.
Riese: I know this because I used to have vlogs and I never called them podcasts, ever.
Carly: You could call it a vodcast and then you’d have to let me punch you in the face.
Riese: Well, now, it’s time for another commercial. And this one is actually going to sell me, unlike OurChart. I wouldn’t mind having that Lexus that Bette and Jodi are whisking themselves away into, I wouldn’t mind driving that right up to Ilene Chaiken’s pool tomorrow.
Carly: Or right up to Big Bear. I would be thrilled to drive up to the mountains.
Riese: Jodi keeps signing while she’s driving, which makes Bette nervous. Jodi is just explaining her friends who apparently they’ve never spoken about before.
Carly: Ever. She also takes Bette’s phone from her and hides it, which I thought was wonderful.
Riese: I loved that, yeah.
Carly: Oh, but this is the scene — in this scene, Jodi calls Bette a snob, which is true. And there’s a whole lot of snobbishness happening in this episode that really makes you think these two are kind of perfect for each other in like a “you deserve each other” sort of way.
Riese: It’s okay to be a snob, just date another stob and you can be snobs together. Have little snobship. That’s a real word. Try it in the spelling game, it won’t work. Then we go to Alice’s.
Carly: She gets home. Tasha catches her up on everything and tells her that she’s going to have to lie in order to win to which Alice very rightly points out, “Doesn’t that go against the entire code of whatever honor or whatever it is that you took, the oath you gave whatever when you joined the military?” Yeah, that’s the conundrum, isn’t it, Alice?
Riese: Also, Alice looks at the little info packet about all of Tasha’s problems and dalliances, and it’s like, “Oh my name’s not in here.” And Tasha is like, “Trust me, Alice, they know where you are.” And Alice’s like, “Oh, it’s the military.” And I’m like, “Okay.”
Carly: No, it’s because you’re loud and around all the time.
Riese: Or because her phones are tapped and there’s a drone.
Carly: Either way, Alice is-
Riese: Or cameras, have you seen Scandal?
Carly: Yes, of course, I’ve seen Scandal. I love Scandal.
Riese: Remember when he put cameras in her house?
Carly: Oh my God, yes.
Riese: The only show on which anyone’s ever put cameras at anyone’s house?
Carly: No, it’s only happened on Scandal.
Riese: Yeah, it’s just happened on this one show, Scandal. So I know it’s possible definitely. Cameras everywhere. Yeah, and they’re just watching Alice pick her nose and draw names on the Chart. She’s getting a few days off from the chart because Shane hasn’t slept with anyone in three days.
Carly: Shane’s dying. Alice is like, “Do you need me to disappear? I can do it. I can be discreet. I can disappear for a while.” And I’m just like, “Alice, where the fuck was this when Tasha was asking you to respect her boundaries?” This is driving me insane.
Riese: Shit’s getting real now.
Carly: I’m losing my mind watching these scenes. I’m just like, “Alice, wake up.”
Riese: I guess it’s like…the thing is that Tasha is gay. So it is Alice’s behavior that illuminated her gayness. But probably it might’ve happened anyway with someone else?
Carly: Of course, it’s not like this is completely fabricated, these accusations or whatever. And I’m not sitting here like advocating for someone to stay in the closet for their job, but given what the show has allowed us to know about both of them and their relationship up until this point, it makes me feel really insane watching these scenes where she’s like, “Oh, I can be discrete now.” What the fuck? Tasha asked you for that in the past and you could not do it, so.
Riese: Well, shit’s getting real. Then we have a scene that’s like basically in pitch darkness, I could barely see it.
Carly: I was like, “what is going? Why are we even seeing this scene?”
Riese: I’m too old for this scene!
Carly: I like had to put on my glasses like a boob.
Riese: Jodi and Bette have arrived late at the Lake house. It is dark, very dark. So I don’t know what the fuck happened. I couldn’t see anything.
Carly: Couldn’t see anything. We go-
Riese: Back in jail.
Carly: Back to jail, and Helena and Dusty are doing everyone’s favorite quarantine activity, puzzling!
Riese: Puzzling in the dark. And they’re looking at Bora Bora and talking about — Dusty has an island, it sounds like? Probably Helena has an island too.
Carly: I’m sure the Peabodys have multiple islands.
Riese: She’s looking at a map of Bora Bora and all these other islands. I don’t know if they made this puzzle themselves, but it’s very cute. But! Special delivery for Helena Peabody! She has a visitor.
Carly: But it’s 10:00 PM! Well, she’s got friends in high places and I think we all know who this is going to be because her name was in the opening credits of the episode.
Riese: Barack Obama.
Carly: Yeah, exactly.
Riese: Thought he’d just stop by and get a Peabody out of prison, but it’s not him. It’s Peggy Peabody.
Carly: Peggy Peabody!!! We love Peggy Peabody here at To L and Back, though there’s some stuff she says in this episode that is deeply upsetting.
Riese: This was not the Peggy that I love.
Carly: No, it wasn’t.
Riese: But people are multifaceted and I don’t understand the conversation that she had with the young woman in the jail runway.
Carly: Nope.
Inmate: Ooh, let me eat your pussy.
Peggy: Were I receptive to such a proposition, it would first require a full booty check. And where are you to pass muster, baby, I’d give it to your family style.
Riese: Okay, this is my understanding of “family style.”
Carly: Like a buffet?
Riese: Dinner at a table and there’s like big dishes like, here, all the spaghetti is on one plate and then everyone takes a bit of the spaghetti or like a big thing of salad, everyone takes it from that, so-
Carly: That’s totally my understanding of family style as well.
Riese: What does that have to do with oral sexuals?
Carly: Oralsexuals? Some people are homosexuals, some people are heterosexual, some people are oralsexuals.
Riese: You’d be surprised how many words are out there.
Carly: I don’t know, Riese. I don’t know what this has to do with anything in this scene.
Riese: Well, but I hope we get 10000 comments about it.
Carly: Yes, please.
Riese: Everybody tell us what it means or what you think it means and then also a moment to remember The Olive Garden.
Carly: I would like to request that no one tell us what they think this means or what this means. I’d prefer to just continue to exist without that information.
Riese: But you know this inmate — she knew what she wanted and she wasn’t afraid to say it.
Carly: She went for it.
Riese: She went for it, you know she —
Riese and Carly: She shot her shot!
Riese: “I would like to eat your pussy.” She just said it.
Carly: And Peggy had a fine retort ready to go. And it was great. Except for the part that didn’t really make any sense. But like-
Riese: We don’t know what it means.
Carly: But the spirit behind it was wonderful.
Riese: Yeah, it was very like… Yeah, it was great. She says that she was out of touch because she was on a treasure hunt.
Carly: On a great random Greek island. I wrote down “no idea, rich people stuff, illegal shit.”
Riese: Here’s a funny story, Carly.
Carly: Tell me.
Riese: Merely two hours ago on this very day, Carmen was asking for help with the headline to a post. And the headline was going to reference an article that it was an interview of Holland Taylor in the interview with Holland Taylor, which is on Vulture, Holland Taylor says that a lot of this specific part, the thing she’s talking about, like the little birds or whatever, like bones or something that they found, That was something she improvised because a friend of hers was an archeologist or something. And I was like, I just watched that scene today.
Carly: That is so weird. Oh my God. I’m going to go read that when we’re done recording this.
Riese: Yeah, it’s a good interview.
Carly: Nice, she walks and he goes, (Fake snobby accent) “Don’t worry, darling, mummy’s here.” Which I love.
Riese: I did love that. That’s the kind of family style that I like. I really hope it doesn’t mean something gross. I’m going to be embarrassed. But also Helena, you guys, the prison system in this country? It’s bad. The idea that Helena is like basically saying she’s going to stay in prison to like be with Dusty? No, no, she wouldn’t do that. She has options. She has a world; prison is bad, it’s really bad. All of the prisons in this country are terrible, terrible places that are — everything about the way that the prison system in this country is run is inhumane and I don’t know, a curse upon everybody who’s a part of it.
Carly: Yes, agreed profusely. So really what-
Riese: This kind of annoyed me.
Carly: But yeah, I mean, I don’t think you should be fighting to stay in prison. I think you should be fighting to get out and then get Dusty out.
Riese: Yeah, help, do something. Get out and write a book called “Orange is the New Black.”
Carly: Or just become an advocate for prison abolition, that could have been her new storyline.
Riese: Yeah, it could have been.
Carly: But it’s not.
Riese: Helena Peabody.
Carly: Helen Peabody?
Riese: Helen Peabody. She says she’s there and she’s happy to pay her debt. And her mummy says.
Peggy: Pull yourself together. For God’s sake, you’re a Peabody.
Helena: What difference does that make?
Peggy: Peabodys don’t have debts, darling, not to anyone and certainly, not to society.
Riese: Do you think the Peabodys have money tied up in private prisons?
Carly: I think the Peabodys probably have money tied up in some real fucked up shit. I definitely would like to point out that in episode 501, Helena wanted nothing more than for her mother to come and get her out of prison. She mentioned it many times. Alice was trying to get in touch with her and now she finally shows up and that was two episodes ago and she’s like, “No, I’m good, thanks. I’m in love now.”
Riese: “I’m really popular here, so.”
Carly: “I hated prison two episodes ago, but like I love it now so you can go.”
Riese: She does because she met a girl who she likes, but also here’s the thing about Helena that I think we all have to understand. She’s not that bright.
Carly: She’s really not, it’s a real bummer.
Riese: When she gets into somebody like she’s into Dusty right now — when she’s into someone, she has complete tunnel vision, literally nothing else in the world matters. She barely can even see the person, she’s so obsessed with the person. There’s very little that’s consistent about her character, but making really bad romantic decisions is very Helena.
Carly: Bad romantic decisions or life decisions based on whoever she’s into at the moment. Yeah, you’re right. Being British and that are the only things about her character that have remained consistent on the show.
Riese: And she has nice abs, but I would not touch them unless she wanted me to in a situation.
Carly: Unless she’s like, “Please touch,” She’s like, “Oh, please touch my abdominals.” And then you’d be like-
Riese: “Okay, fine. Does it tickle?” Big Bear!
Carly: Big Bear, time for some morning mojitos.
Riese: They didn’t film this in Big Bear.
Carly: No, of course not. Morning mojitos, that’s a fun way to start a day.
Riese: You know how I know they didn’t film it in Big Bear?
Carly: How?
Riese: Because this cabin is CHOCK FULL OF CANADIANS!
Carly: Oh yeah, every last person in there is Canadian.
Riese: The clipboard girl is fucking there. The girl from the pride thing who Alice said, “Put that on your fucking clipboard.” And she was standing with the clipboard. She is back and she is making morning mojitos.
Carly: Making morning mojitos.
Riese: There’s a few Battlestar people in there, it’s a whole thing.
Carly: Bette and Jodi come downstairs. Everyone’s excited for morning mojitos but Bette’s like, “Oh, it’s too early.” She is clearly not in vacation mode, which is where she needs to be and she needs to get on the same page. They also then make fun of them for having very loud sex last night, which I guess is why they had to show that scene of them arriving so that-
Riese: In the dark.
Carly: Because that was kind of like a random.
Riese: Yeah, that makes sense. Because she’s like, “I’ll have you all to myself tonight.” Anyway, you know Bette, she loves to have sex and also make bad decisions around sex and pursue sex but she doesn’t want to talk about it.
Carly: Never.
Riese: She’s really uncomfortable. And the story is like, I mean, it definitely felt real, kind of actually in terms of like these sorts of things, but I don’t think that’s really trying very hard at all.
Carly: She could not be making less of an effort.
Riese: Even if you don’t like these people who you just met.
Carly: You just met them.
Riese: Just pretend!
Carly: Just try harder! This person you love, this is like their best friends in the world, so make some kind of an effort.
Riese: Drink a mojito.
Carly: Drink a goddamn mojito Bette, Jesus fucking Christ.
Riese: Mostly I was like, everyone’s so close together. And they’re like making a big group breakfast and I’m jealous.
Carly: Oh, yeah, I was like, “Oh, remember any of this?” We go back to the gym where, what is it? Day four of Shane celibacy.
Riese: Yeah, Shane’s now gone FOUR ENTIRE DAYS!
Carly: Can you call to see if it’s celibacy if it’s just only been for four days?
Riese: No, that’s like just isn’t… I mean, I don’t know, what do I know?
Carly: Yeah, what do we know? We’re not Shane, okay?
Riese: I’m not Shane. I thought I was Shane for a little while and-
Carly: I had the hair for a period of time, but-
Riese: I got the jeans Shane has been very accomplished.
Carly: In four days.
Riese: Yeah, I mean, this is a joke. This is a heightened, it’s inflated, it’s blown out because we all know we’ve all seen Shane, it’s not like having sex is taking up her whole life. And it never really has. Yeah, she likes to fuck and it’s led to some bad situations, but it hasn’t prevented her from having a career or anything.
Carly: No, she’s completely had a career this whole time.
Riese: She sounds like someone in quarantine, honestly.
Shane: So last night, I finally filled out an insurance paperwork to claim for the fire. I’m telling you, it’s been sitting on my desk for three weeks untouched, last night I do it start to finish.
Tina: Good for you Shane.
Shane: And then I went into my closet, got rid of all my old converse, all those low ass jeans that you always see me in, I started prioritizing my life.
Tina: What do you mean?
Shane: Setting goals for myself. I want to see Shay every three weeks and I want to quit smoking for sure. I’m telling you Tina, this celibacy thing is like a master cleanse to my body, you got to try it.
Carly: What is happening?
Riese: I was like, “Stop.”
Carly: I was like,” Calm down a bit. Calm down.”
Riese: That boy never had another acting job in his life including returning to this program.
Carly: Yeah, Tina teaches her a new word, salubrious.
Riese: I don’t know that word.
Carly: Shane says she’s memorizing 10 dictionary words a day. Basically in this scene, Shane becomes the Max Bloom of this show. Yes, that is a Happy Endings reference. A person who completely does not have their shit together all of a sudden trying to have their shit together but in a way that is very silly.
Riese: When Shane says like “going without sex is this big life master cleanse” then Tina’s like, “Oh God, I’ve gone without sex for way longer than that. And it definitely didn’t make me want to clean my closet.”
Carly: Yeah, it’s really very funny. I love Shane’s just like kind of manic energy here because it makes me think of me doing… Anything.
Riese: Back to Big Bear.
Carly: Back to Big Bear. Everyone’s outside playing football, Bette is sitting at a table, working?
Riese: I looked up the book because I was so fucking confused. She’s sitting there reading a book. She has a bunch of papers out like work papers. And like, am I a person who has had to do work when I’m with my girlfriend and her family or friends at something?
Carly: Yes, I am.
Riese: I am. However. Not to this degree.
Carly: No!
Riese: And also she’s reading a novel, a novel about like these twin brothers in Australia or something like that. This is not work. It’s not work. She’s literally reading a book because she doesn’t want to-
Carly: And taking notes on it?
Riese: I have no idea, none.
Carly: I’ve been in that situation where I’ve been at my wife’s home with her family and a work thing has come up and I’ve handled it in a way that I feel is appropriate and the opposite of what Bette did where I was deeply apologetic, let everyone know what was happening. Try to confine my work to one very specific amount of time on a specific day so that I could then rejoin them at a later moment.
Riese: But you know what’s better, even better than that though? Is just not doing the work.
Carly: Not doing work! I think going on vacation and actually being on vacation, which is something I always struggle with but-
Riese: I do too.
Carly: I think we’re both pretty similar in that regard.
Riese: Yep.
Carly: But when you’re actually able to set aside the time for a trip and make it a point not to work, it’s really wonderful. And then when you have to go back to real life, it’s sucks.
Riese: I’m much better at it now actually.
Carly: Me too.
Riese: But still, Bette’s is wrong.
Carly: Full stop.
Riese: Yeah, this is shitty. She should just play football or whatever. Or if she doesn’t want to play football, be a cheerleader.
Carly: At least participate, be a part of the activity, make a fucking effort.
Riese: Be the water girl.
Carly: Something, you could literally do anything.
Riese: And a guy is trying with her, he’s like, “Michelangelo built the Sistine chapel.” She like, “He actually just painted the ceiling,” which was funny. But he’s talking about their friend Michelangelo who’s a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. And he built the cabin, which they call “the Sistine chapel” for some inane reason. Michelangelo is, honestly, insufferable, as a person.
Carly: I did find him to be terribly annoying.
Riese: So Michelangelo, the insufferable friend over and is like.
Michelangelo: Bette hi, we need to recruit you onto our team.
Bette: I don’t really want to play.
Michelangelo: Yeah, it’s the lake or the game.
Bette: I’d like to stay here, thank you.
Michelangelo: Don’t make me do it, lake or the game.
Bette: Really, look.
Michelangelo: Okay, no problem, come on.
Bette: Hey, you asshole, let go—
Carly: He did warn her.
Riese: He did warn her, but Oh my God.
Carly: If anyone ever threw me in the lake, I would never speak to them again.
Riese: I wouldn’t never, and also like her hair is done, she’s wearing fancy clothes. You cannot just throw a woman in the lake and think that it’s going to be chill for them.
Carly: Oh my God, the title. Lady of the lake.
Riese: That’s Bette, she’s in the lake.
Carly: That’s the lady of the lake, I just got it.
Riese: I do wish I had an animated GIF of Bette being tossed the lake. Because Jodi, when she sees it, she’s like, “Oh my God.”
Carly: She’s like, Oh, shit.”
Riese: Has anyone ever been like, “Oh, I’m so glad I got thrown in the lake.”?
Carly: No, no, no, no.
Riese: Do not put a woman who has done her hair and put on nice clothes into a lake, especially when it’s cold. Everything about that was really terrible and I hated it. First, Bette was an asshole and then Michelangelo was an asshole. So then who’s an asshole? Everyone.
Carly: I’m like, “Wow, just an asshole contest. I thought this was a vacation with mojitos.”
Riese: And Bette walks out and she’s furious, Jody reaches for her and she pushes her away, which honestly, I understand, I would be so mad.
Carly: I would be fuming mad.
Riese: Back to Shenny’s.
Carly: Shane has lit several candles and is trying to meditate another extremely dark scene where I was like, what is happening?
Riese: Shane has a Free City shirt.
Carly: Yes, so she can do anything.
Riese: She’s got some teal lights blazing. She’s trying to meditate.
Carly: Trying to relax.
Riese: Poor Max, Max just wants someone, anyone —
Carly: Max just wants someone to pay attention to him in his podcast! Poor, poor Max.
Riese: You know who would love… I bet Tom would watch it.
Carly: I bet Tom would love to watch the fucking podcast.
Riese: So Jenny is like, “I can’t, I have to go to a screening.” Max is like, “Someone watch my Podcast!!!” You know who will look at Max’s podcast?
Carly: Shane.
Riese: Shane. Shane will look at the fucking podcast, Shane’s mind is clear. It’s probably been five days.
Carly: But, you know what? We’re never going to know this week anything about this because that’s the last we see of this scene.
Riese: You know who wants to see Max’s podcast? Me.
Carly: Yeah, me too.
Riese: Show it, show it to me, even though you can’t actually show anyone at podcast.
Carly: You can point out where you can stream it, anywhere.
Riese: Or maybe he transcribes it, like we do now.
Carly: We go back to Big Bear, everyone’s hanging out and it appears they are preparing dinner.
Riese: Yeah, and they’ve really split up all the tasks between 10 different people. That’s not a kitchen, I would be able to thrive in, with the space.
Carly: This is stressful, I’m like a “set the table at the most” kind of guy. Pour some drinks, set a table, I can’t do anything. But I would definitely do that. So anyway, Bette wanders in and it’s super awkward, clearly, no one has seen her since the lake incident.
Riese: Because also being thrown in the lake is embarrassing.
Carly: Oh yeah.
Riese: So it’s like, she’s been humiliated.
Carly: Yeah, she knows that they all have an opinion of her now. That she didn’t really do much to avoid them having a negative opinion of her because she was making zero effort. But now this whole incident has happened. So now everything’s very awkward. Someone’s like, “Oh, make some food.” She’s like,” I don’t know how to do that.”
Riese: Oh, make the roux.
Carly: Make the roux.
Riese: She doesn’t have any fucking idea how to—
Carly: She doesn’t know how to make anything.
Riese: I don’t know how to make a roux either, so.
Carly: I don’t know how to make anything. I can make pasta, and frozen items and sandwiches, that’s all I can do.
Riese: And then there’s this really weird conversation that there’s really no right way to have, where Michelangelo — again, total asshole.
Michelangelo: So, Bette what are you doing to help restore some equanimity in this fucking ridiculous overpriced art market?
Bette: What am I doing?
Michelangelo: Well, you’re a big mover and a shaker, aren’t you? You could be doing something.
Bette: Actually, I’m the Dean of a University Art department.
Michelangelo: Okay, but you’re a big collector, right? So let me tell you about the show that I curated last month at the Jackson Hole Arts Center. I mean, there were at least 10 paintings that were every bit as good as the Eric Fishel that you have in your collection.
Carly: This is a very like antagonistic way to start a conversation with someone that you’re already on very shaky ground with.
Riese: You just threw her in the fucking lake, maybe ask her what her favorite color is.
Carly: Maybe get to know each other. All you know of her is what Jodi has told you about her. So you threw her in a lake and now you’re going to talk about the overpriced inaccessibility of art, which is a valid topic, but what on earth is she going to do about it?
Riese: No one’s ever going to do anything about it, just so everyone knows. Yhat’s nothing, that’s never going to change, it’s just is what it is.
Carly: The art world has always been like this.
Riese: Yeah, I also don’t care, but he cares because he had a stupid little fucking art show in Wyoming and there were at least 10 paintings there that were better than one of Bette’s pictures or whatever.
Carly: In her collection that he assumed she owns.
Riese: Yeah, and Bette is like,” I don’t think so.”
Carly: She becomes super snobby about art, but he’s also kind of antagonizing her.
Riese: And I kind of liked it.
Carly: So I didn’t really mind it, it’s not helping her win any points here. Neither of them are doing a very good job of making this cool.
Riese: Also, as a small business owner who is in a line of work that most straight parents and stuff, don’t really know about or anything like that. I get a lot of unsolicited opinions from strangers all the time, often strangers who are friends or family of someone I’m dating and there’s ways to handle it.
Carly: Yeah, there’s definitely ways that Bette could have handled this.
Riese: Do I have to even say, yeah.
Carly: But she-
Riese: I mean, she eventually does.
Carly: She eventually gets there, but she starts off by just being like, “I’m so sure. None of that art is anywhere near as good and also you were right, I did have that artist work in my personal collection.” And then she admits though that she has not seen a community art show in a very long time and she would love to see the pieces that he’s excited about. And he loses his entire mind over that.
Riese: Yeah, that was gross.
Carly: He was like, “I fucking love you, you’re the fucking best, oh my God, yeah.” He’s high fiving, he’s losing it. I was like, “What, how, what? We’re not best friends.” I don’t like people that get really, really, really, way too familiar when you don’t know them at all. Nope, I don’t have time for that.
Riese: Tina is having a date.
Carly: Oh my God, Tina’s on a date with a cardiologist whose name I don’t think we ever get to learn.
Riese: Well, let’s call her Brenda because she looks like a Brenda.
Carly: There’s one character, there’s one actress in the IMDb for this episode listed as Brenda and there’s no photo for her and it’s the only person that could be this actress because I looked through every other female actress’s name in this episode that I didn’t know what they already look like. So actually her name might be Brenda, cardiologist.
Riese: So Tina and Brenda are going… it’s a short scene. They’re back at Brenda’s home. Tina apologizes for talking about her ex, they’re going to have some wine.
Carly: And she realizes that, hey, Brenda’s an art collector as well.
Riese: Yeah, so they might both be snobs, who knows?
Carly: And that’s what we’ve learned is that snobs should date snobs.
Riese: Exactly. We go back to The Planet and as you guys know, The Planet sells pear polenta tarts for $8 or $9 million each. So there’s a lot of cash.
Carly: And that’s going to attract some attention.
Riese: It’s going to attract some attention, it’s basically like a diamond store or like a diamond gold store.
Carly: It’s a jeweler, basically, an upscale jewelry place. And basically, those have all sorts of crazy security measures and The Planet has none of them.
Riese: No, they’re just putting money in a bag but then two guys come in with guns and hold Kit up and she has to give them her money which is really sad. And Kit’s obviously really scared.
Carly: I hated that scene.
Riese: I want to give you a moment to process that… with some random cityscape footage!
Carly: Oh my God, so many shots. Aerial shots of LA at night.
Riese: Is this just so we can decompress before we go back to the sex tape?
Carly: Which is exactly what we do. We go back to the date, with Tina and the cardiologists.
Riese: Yeah, it’s a date, they’re talking about their boobs.
Carly: Talking about boobs.
Riese: They’re talking about boobs. And the cardiologist has had hers augmented. Someone says “nice tits” to someone else.
Carly: I think she says it to Tina, and then Tina is like blown away by the augmentation.
Riese: Right, well, Bette never took her bra off so this is the first time Tina’s seeing boobs.
Carly: This is big, because she’s never seen boobs.
Riese: Oh wait, she saw Helena’s boobs.
Carly: Right, so this is only the second pair of breasts she’s seen that aren’t hers.
Riese: Yeah, so big day for Tina.
Carly: Good for you, Tina.
Riese: Anyway, this woman is very assertive about her desires, and good for her and good for them. They seem to be having a good time.
Carly: Yeah, good for everybody.
Riese: My prediction is this is going to be a one-nighter.
Carly: Oh, for sure.
Riese: And yes, I have already seen the entire series several times. Okay, then back to Big Bear, where Jodi is maniacally swinging in the tire swing, she’s trying to jet off and fly to Bora Bora.
Carly: That’d be great.
Riese: And then Bette is like, “I have to go and I’ve already packed your suitcase.”
Carly: The “I’ve already packed your suitcase” thing-
Riese: I would go without Jodi.
Carly: Absolutely.
Riese: She’s here with her friends!
Carly: I’d be like, “Well, I have an emergency, I have to go. Stay with your friends. You never get to see them, clearly. I’m going to go.” And Michelangelo even like offers like, “Oh, I could drive you back.” It’s Big Bear, it’s really close to LA, this is like not a crisis at all, you did not need to upend everything, of course, you want to go home and be there for Kit, totally understood. But you did not need to be all controlling, Bette, and pack Jodi’s suitcase!
Riese: No one can pack my suitcase because I’m not going to trust that you got everything in there, if we’re being honest with ourselves.
Carly: No, and it wouldn’t be organized correctly. I’m very specific about how I pack a suitcase.
Riese: I have packing cubes and there are different cubes for different occasions. And then I have a lot of little smaller bags for other things because I have to bring my entire house with me every time I travel just in case, I never know who I’m going to be when I arrive where I am-
Carly: You never know, there’s no way of knowing.
Riese: Yeah, I have no idea how I’m going to feel about myself and what I want to wear just, there’s a lot of possibilities. So anyway, don’t pack my suitcase, potential girlfriends listening to this.
Carly: And the moral of the story is don’t pack someone’s suitcase for them unless they say, “I would love nothing more than if you would pack my suitcase for me.” And even then I would be like, “I have a full questionnaire that I need you to fill out first.” And then they’d be like, “Cool, I’m just going to do it.”
Riese: The dude still sucks, Michelangelo, he sucks. She’s like, “I want to go back before Kit starts drinking. He’s like, “Oh, she just got held up at gunpoint, let her have a drink.”
Carly: “I think she can have a drink.”
Riese: And Bette’s like, “she’s alcoholic you motherfucker.” Yikes. And then he’s like, “You’re lying, right?” You just want to get out of here—
Carly: Oh yeah, he totally is like- She’s like, “Yeah, I made it up, idiot.”
Riese: The other reason I would go home alone is because I’d be pretty sure we were about to break up.
Carly: Oh my God, I would be like, “I’m going to leave and you’re definitely going to dump me when you get back.” That totally would be my read on how this weekend had gone.
Riese: Yeah, I don’t think you can really be with somebody if you don’t get along with their friends.
Carly: Yeah, I think I’ve made that mistake in the past. I’ve allowed a relationship with someone to progress even though they didn’t like my friends or I didn’t like their friends. And that is, I think of a really good indicator of longterm compatibility with somebody.
Riese: Yeah. Back at Bette’s house, Kit is really sad.
Carly: Yeah, Kit’s on the couch and she’s crying and is scared and traumatized which is like, of course you are, that’s sucks. That’s so sad that happened and they decided to do that. And then Bette and Jodi are looking all couple and cute as they walk out of the room with their arms around each other. And I’m like, I was assuming we were about to get a scene where Jodi was like, “What the fuck was that with my friends?” But instead, they just seem fine for a moment and I don’t remember what happens next with them. So I really hope that this is addressed.
Riese: I think Jodi is just being supportive-
Carly: Supportive in the moment, which is great because she has enough sense unlike Bette to not be selfish all the time. We go to Alice’s and she and Tasha in bed and they’re cuddling. Tasha is really sad and she says, “They’re taking my whole fucking life away from me.”
Riese: Which is weird because Kit just said they took my whole week away. So I feel like they were kind of like belittling it, but yeah. So Alice and Tasha are sad, everyone is sad. Cut to The Planet. It’s a period of time later and there is a lot of foods on a lot of trays that I was interested in eating when I was watching and I was like, “No one’s eating it,” there’s drinks and everyone is radiant.
Carly: Wonderful.
Riese: No one has any lines.
Carly: No one’s talking.
Riese: So basically Peggy is like,
Peggy: Our family doesn’t go on trial, we generally go to Europe.
Riese: So like they’re just basically going to-
Carly: They are wealthy and connected enough where they’re above the law.
Riese: Yeah, and that’s nice, accurate representation-
Carly: Of rich white people.
Riese: Yeah, and then she says something really terrible.
Peggy: “But I can assure you that any future rehabilitation of Helena’s character will be imposed under a more rigorous program than the Los Angeles lesbian lifestyle can provide. At least Paris, when she was in the clink, didn’t get involved with some big butch prison daddy dyke.”
Riese: What?
Carly: Peggy, what happened? Her character changed.
Riese: Yeah, she got real mean and real stuck up in a way that I don’t think was accurate, I don’t think it accurate.
Carly: In a way that we haven’t really seen her do before.
Riese: Also, the food is being served family-style. So maybe she is getting what she wants in the end.
Carly: Zing!
Riese: And then Alice is like, “Where are you going?” And also all of us at home watching the show, we’re like, “Wait, where are you going? Is Helena not in this season?” Which she isn’t until the very end. She comes back at the end. So maybe Rachel Shelley got a different job. But that’s very weirdly handled because then Helena goes outside, Shane’s outside smoking a cigarette and then my favorite band—.
Carly: YES.
Riese: Begins to play—.
Carly: YES YES YES YES YES.
Riese: I hear it—.
Carly: Uh Huh Her. Uh Huh Her!
Riese: Oh my God, I just feel it in my whole body, I want you to shake my head around. I want to go to the concert, I want to be high!!!
Carly: I want to be high at the concert.
Riese: And sweating, yeah.
Carly: Just swaying with all the queers.
Riese: Uh Huh Her. Uh-huh.
Carly: Uh-huh.
Riese: Her?
Carly: Her.
Riese: Uh Huh?
Carly: Her?
Riese: Our favorite band, Uh Huh Her, favorite band!
Carly: We love Uh Huh Her here at To L and Back.
Riese: We love Uh Huh Her and I’m glad that this song is playing. It’s a great band, it involves Leisha Hailey and Camila Grey. They don’t make music anymore but every song they ever released was perfect. And I’ve probably seen them in concert like 20 times.
Carly: Any time they played, we were there. They toured a lot for a very brief period of time, I also saw them-
Riese: Yeah, and they only had six songs so there’s always like a short little night.
Carly: It was great, it was always like, I know exactly what I’m getting when I go to this show. I’m not going to be out too late and I’m going to know all the songs and that’s great. For an old person like me, that’s what I cared about, five years ago, old then, old now.
Riese: So she tells Shane the truth. Helena is not going to Europe with her mom. Helena is going to get Dusty out of jail, not clear on how but-
Carly: Well, she hid the money, the money she stole from Katherine she hid and she’s going to go unhide it and use it to get Dusty out, I guess?
Riese: Right?
Carly: Okay, sure.
Riese: And then they’re going to run off to some little love nest in probably a Greek island or whatever.
Carly: Something, Bora Bora?
Riese: Yeah, and she tells Shane to keep it a secret and then they hug and Shane, again, already we’re probably here on maybe even a whole week that Shane has not had sexual intercourse? She holds Helena with all her might. And then when they separate, she just kisses her? And she’s like, “Oh God,” it’s funny.
Carly: It was really funny. And Helena was like, “What the fuck?” And then Shane is like trying to explain and Helena’s like, “I have to leave.” She does not even care.
Riese: Yeah, she doesn’t care. She’s like, “It’s fine, whatever, I’m leaving, bye.” Bye, and so that’s the episode.
Carly: That’s the episode.
[TRANSITION MUSIC]
Riese: Well, I don’t know if I liked it, it was fine.
Carly: It was fine. Yeah, it was a fine episode. The cold open was spectacular.
Riese: Beautiful.
Carly: So fucking weird and wonderful. And yeah, it was fine.
Riese: If you want to see something fine, pull up Lady of the Lake.
Carly: Which is Bette, that’s the lady of the lake.
Riese: Bette is Lady of the Lake… Lady in the Lake.
Carly: Lady in the Lake.
Riese: For the lake. Yeah, Lady in the Lake and try OurChart, buy a Lexus, do a puzzle.
Carly: Totally do a puzzle, try morning mojitos.
Riese: Morning mojitos!
Carly: That’s a labor-intensive drink. A lot of work goes into making a mojito. I’m not trying to make mojitos for like eight, 10 people.
Riese: Yeah, just make mimosas.
Carly: It’s so much easier.
Riese: Here’s how you make mimosa. Orange juice and champagne.
Carly: Easy, easy breezy.
Riese: The end. Do we have anything else to say about this episode? I don’t think I do.
Carly: I don’t think I do. Thank you so much for listening once again to us talk about this show. You can follow the show on Twitter and Instagram @tolandback and you can email us to landbackcast@gmail.com. We have a hotline 971-217-6130, call us, leave us a message. We have merch at store.autostraddle.com, go get it. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell, our logo is by Cara Sykes and this podcast is produced and edited by Lauren Klein. You can find me on the socials @CarlyTron, Riese is @autowin, autostraddle is @autostraddle, and of course, autostraddle.comt
Riese: Autostraddle.com. Well, Carol’s come to join us.
Carly: Oh, Hey Carol. I gotta think of an L-word.
Riese: Okay. One, two, three, Looser.
Carly: Lisa Leslie.
Riese: I said loser.
Carly: Like the Beck song?
Riese: No like, Michelangelo.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: The ninja turtle.
Carly: Yes, exactly. No, Michaelangelo was the coolest ninja turtle.
Riese: Okay, I believe you. I meant Michelangelo, the man.
Carly: Yeah, he’s a loser.
Riese: Not the one who painted the Sistine Chapel. The one who built the Sistine Chapel.
Carly: I don’t know, he seems okay. Maybe he’s problematic, I don’t know. I said Lisa Leslie, who is a legendary women’s basketball player. And we’ll continue talking about women’s basketball this whole season of this show.
Riese: This whole season long. Well, thanks for joining us. I am starving to death.
Carly: Thank you so much. I’m going to go eat dinner, bye.
Riese: Bye guys!
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 502: Look Out, Here They Come!
You know that Shane, never the bride, always f*cking the bridesmaids! This week on The L Word everything gets very fun, very fast. We’ve got imaginary sex matchups between Bette and Helena! We’ve got Jenny’s garbage bag dress! We’ve got drunk misanthropic Tina! We meet Adele, who has read Some of Her Parts ten thousand times! Also, Tom has a little crush on Max, Tina is obsessed with Bette, and Tasha and Alice have a middling double date and is Jodi’s place too funky for Bette? Only one way to find out!!
The usual:
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- The original recap of Episode 502
Riese: Hi, I’m Riese.
Carly: And I’m Carly.
Riese: And this is-
Carly and Riese: To L And Back.
Carly: Hi, Riese.
Riese: I’m so excited!!!!!
Carly: Well, we have arrived. We have arrived to the exciting part of the show known as Season 5. This episode wastes no time getting us into some real, weird, campy, wacky shit. The season’s just wacky.
Riese: Yeah. So tell me more about this episode, Carly?
Carly: Well, you know what? I’d love to Riese. This is Episode 502. Look out. Here they come, exclamation point. It was written by Cherin Dabis and directed by Jamie Babbit.
Riese: This is a power team out there.
Carly: It is. It really is.
Riese: It really is.
Carly: It absolutely truly is. Jamie Babbit is such an incredible comedy director that all of the comedy bits in this episode just sing under her watchful directorialness. I’m not doing great. This originally aired January 13th, 2008.
Riese: Which, again, means that Carly and I watched it together the first time.
Carly: Should we get into it?
Riese: Yeah, let’s get into it.
[TRANSITION MUSIC]
Riese: Okay. We open with this — I remember watching this.
Carly: Yes, I do too.
Riese: Because I got the screeners ahead of time. And so after I watched one for one week, I would watch just a little bit of the next week’s episode before the group viewing. And I remember-
Carly: That’s incredible that you had the amount of control and self control to not watch past a few minutes. How did you do that?
Riese: Because I’m always looking out for Future Me and assuming that Future Me is going to be really sad. And so I’m always trying to do Future Me favors, like save things for future me to have so that I-
Carly: Oh, my God. That’s great. You’re so nice to your future self. I’m trying to sabotage future me. I can’t tell you how many times I do something and I’m thinking, “Well, that’s a problem for future me.” It’s something I think regularly. So I got to get better at that.
Riese: Yeah. I mean, and also because I knew I would have to watch it. Usually I had to watch it four times in all to recap. So I was like, “Do I really want to waste one of them right now?” So I did watch the first few minutes of this one. And I remember I screamed. I don’t know if I emailed you.
Carly: I remember you definitely emailed us — I don’t think I told what moment it was though. I don’t think you told us what it was. But I do remember something like an email or something from you being like, “Holy shit, next week, you guys.” And we were like, “What?” So it really opens off poorly, but it goes great after that. It starts poorly and then it escalates to awesomeness. It starts with evil Aaron, Tina’s terrible boss, screaming about lesbian sex, which is not something I need to… I don’t need to hear him screaming about anything, especially that.
Riese: Yeah. It’s almost meta though because the viewers wanted more sex on The L Word, and also because that’s what men always want from lesbians, is for them to just have sex. So it’s a commentary on men and it’s also a meta-reference to the fans. It works on more than one level!
Carly: It’s incredible. It really is.
Riese: It’s incredible. The magic of television.
Carly: It’s very special. So he’s going through the script and he’s just inserting sex scenes everywhere. Anytime there are characters that are in a scene together, he’s like, “Why haven’t they fucked in this scene?” And Tina and Jenny are like, “No, that doesn’t make sense.” But Tina and Jenny are both also not just approaching it from like, “Well, the script and the characters.” But they’re also very much approaching it from like, “We clearly know who this is based on, and Shane would never fuck Bev.”
Riese: We’ll start with Bev and the makeup artist. And by the way, Jennifer Beal’s outfit through this whole fantasy sequence is a blazer and a bra, right?
Carly: It’s perfect.
Riese: I mean, Bette Porter’s as worn some things. At first when Bev and the makeup artist were hooking up, I was like, “It’s a top off.” And then I was like, “Shane lost immediately.”
Carly: Instantly.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Because Shane…
Riese: It was no contest.
Carly: Is Shane not a true top?
Riese: I actually think Shane tops from the bottom a lot.
Carly: Yeah. I think that is accurate.
Riese: But also we know that Jodi always was the top-off with Bette. So at the end of the day, you guys, people are switches.
Carly: That’s really what we can take away from this programmers.
Riese: Most people are switches.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: The next is my favorite one because then he suggests Nina and Shawn. And the fantasy sex scene between them is going great. They are enjoying themselves. And then Jenny’s like-
Jenny: Nobody ever wants to see Nina having sex. No one will ever go to the film!
Carly: Oh, my God. And then this is where we learn that Jenny renamed Helena as “Helen.”
Riese: Helen.
Carly: Wow. The lack of imagination this has. The lack of a name book this has.
Riese: Yeah, Helen, come on.
Carly: Helen! you subtracted one letter.
Riese: Also the other thing is that Helena wasn’t in Season 1, but it’s fine.
Carly: That’s a very good point. So then we’re instantly thrown into a top off as-
Riese: Yes. And this is the ultimate match, I think of The L Word characters for sure.
Carly: 100%. It’s the two alpha tops battling it out. And who wins? No one.
Riese: Neither of them.
Carly: Nobody wins.
Riese: They try to have sex for a second, and then they’re just wrestling really hard. Also it’s really funny when they’re half naked, but still have their pants on. Because the style of pants then was those enormous pants.
Carly: They’re like wild legged, flowy dress pants, and they’re wearing stilettos. I also noticed that Jennifer Beals was wearing Louboutins but Rachel Shelley was not.
Riese: Also the look on Helena’s face when she enters the fantasy scene is like — she’s licking her lips. She’s like ready to seduce-
Carly: It’s so over the top.
Riese: It’s incredible.
Carly: It’s amazing.
Riese: I could have watched a whole episode of just this. I mean, obviously we all wanted to.
Carly: 100%. Also I love that like this as well as the moment from the previous episode, all take place in what I assume is Janet’s void from The Good Place because it’s just a open white space. And anything can happen. So I really feel like this is also a Good Place crossover, which is great.
Riese: Yes. Yeah. I love crossovers. Tina is serious that she — and she’s correct — that Nina would never cheat on Bev, and that it doesn’t make sense for Bev to cheat on her with more than one person or whatever. But none of this ever comes up again. So it doesn’t really matter.
Carly: True. It doesn’t matter at all.
Riese: So anyway, already, I love this episode.
Carly: Great episode already. This is wonderful. This is so much fun. Okay — Go to our theme song.
Riese: And indeed we do have new shots this season. Number one, Jodi in the art studio is now Jodi and Bette back to back in a hotel room. Number two, a closeup of Helena has been moved to a closeup of Max. Number three, a closeup of Max, has been pushed to a closeup of Tina. And the close-ups of Tina where she’s by herself are all from, I think, Season 2. You can tell that this is when Laurel was pregnant, and she has this big white coat on and this cross necklace.
Carly: Oh, yeah. That’s right.
Riese: You know what I’m talking about?
Carly: Yes.
Riese: It’s so random. Angus with the guitar is replaced with a Jodi closeup. Thank the Lord.
Carly: What if Angus with the guitar had been replaced with just a guitar.
Riese: Kind of playing but on its own, like — You know what I mean?
Carly: Yeah. Floating in the frame as if he was there, but maybe he put on a green screen suit and they just painted him out.
Riese: Yeah. That’s totally normal. I mean, however they did this was bananas. I would love to talk to whoever the animator, whoever was the-
Carly: That’s who we need to get. We need to really obscure people related to the show to be guests, on future episodes. The person who shot the opening or had to add the opening or something.
Riese: Yeah. I want to know all about that.
Carly: I just want to know what happened. That’s great.
Riese: Next. Pregnant Tina has been switched to modern day Tina in a brown sleeveless dress next to Bette who’s still in this gown she’s been wearing for a few seasons. And then in the final walk, Papi has gone obviously. But, one thing that I noticed specifically about that is that Tina was kind of hidden last season. She was behind Papi and Tasha and now she’s level with Tasha. I think that they put her behind because she was dating a man. And so they didn’t think of her seeing as much of a part of the story.
Carly: Oh my God.
Riese: Because she wasn’t! Like she was cut out of most of the story that last year.
Carly: Yeah. But if that’s true, then Max should have been hiding in the back because he never has scenes with anybody at least before this season.
Riese: Before this episode.
Carly: Yeah. Suddenly Max is part of the gang.
Riese: Papi and Shane back to back is Shane and Alice back to back. Kit and Angus has been switched to Shane sitting on a couch. Tasha and Papi turning is obviously Tasha already facing us. And then the last things are the same, except no Papi. That’s all.
Carly: Riese, great analysis. I’m so happy you took the time to do that. I think that was really important.
Riese: Then we go to a mansion.
Carly: Ooh. It’s a huge mansion. Oh, it’s just gigantic.
Riese: It’s a palace. It’s a palatial estate.
Carly: It is.
Riese: And Shane has a job.
Carly: Good for Shane. I’m glad that after Shane’s shop burned down, that in the next day or two Shane got a job already. Good for her.
Riese: Yeah. I mean, she’s got connections. These are Jenny’s connections that she’s connected to.
Carly: Jenny’s a big Hollywood player now.
Riese: Jenny’s a big Hollywood player now. Shane has two enormous bags of stuff with her.
Carly: That makes sense. If you’re doing-
Riese: For hairstyling, it’s just like bags of scissors?
Carly: Well, no, it’s all different hair products and accessories and blow dryers. And what if you need to give someone a… There’s a lot of stuff. Yeah. Hairstylists even have a good size kit, and she was doing hair for more than one person.
Riese: So there wasn’t like a small animal in one of them?
Carly: I can’t say that there isn’t.
Riese: Okay. I’m just checking.
Carly: I’m not the one who packed or unpacked the bags. So I couldn’t tell if there was maybe a small cat or a dog.
Riese: If you were going on a plane, you would not be able to certify that those bags had not been out of your sight—
Carly: No, but despite the airfare being very affordable right now, I will not be getting on a plane.
Riese: So, Shane is very thirsty on this day.
Carly: On this blessed day of a blessed union between the daughter of the financier of Jenny’s movie to a man named Brent or something. Brent, Bart. I don’t know. This auspicious occasion. It’s Wallace Shawn’s daughter’s wedding.
Riese: It is.
Carly: Oh, my God. Okay. Sorry. This was so off topic but, do you remember last week when I was like, “Wait, I thought Jenny met him last season, and they were talking.” And they were in fact not. And you were like, “No, we have never met him before.” That is because I saw a very similar scene on a show recently where Wallace Shawn played a very rich person who met a young girl and was like, “I’m going to like get you money.” And it was on Season Three of Search Party.
Riese: Whoa.
Carly: It was super weird. I was like, “I’ve just put Jenny in the scene in my head. I feel like I remember a scene of Jenny meeting him at a party and him being like, “I’m an eccentric billionaire or something.”
Riese: I feel my ability to remember which TV shows something happened has completely dissolved over the last several months — like moreso than before.
Carly: Yeah, me too.
Riese: I’m forgetting entire shows that I actually watched all of.
Carly: Yeah, me too. Oh, completely. Yeah.
Riese: It’s so bizarre.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Anyway, so we’re inside the castle basically. There’s chandeliers. This is like Beauty and the Beauty. Fancy-
Carly: Yeah. The spoons and the knives are going to do a song.
Riese: Yeah. There’s dancing spoons. There’s candlesticks. And Shane is checking out the hot mom who’s married to Wallace Shawn. And she’s like, “You got a really nice place” while leering at her.
Carly: Yeah. Remember that. That’ll come into play later.
Riese: Yeah. That’ll come back in. Shane is just licking her lips through this whole episode.
Carly: Shane is a cartoon horny dog or something just straight out of Roadrunner or Wiley Coyote or some shit.
Riese: So she goes upstairs and she meets the bride and the bridesmaids. And one thing she doesn’t notice at first, but I noticed, Carly, is that the bride played Young Bette in a prior season. So that’s awkward, right? It’s a little awkward.
Carly: Whoops, little awk.
Riese: Ooh, I guess she really clicked with the cast and they want to bring her back.
Carly: There’s a part of her facial structure that reminds me of Dana.
Riese: Yeah. Put a pin on that.
Carly: And we will also get to that later as well, yes. Yes.
Riese: And all of these girls basically immediately are also thirsty for Shane.
Carly: Very much so. Like instantaneously.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: All right.
Riese: All right.
Carly: Okay. Go with it. We’re going to with it. So we go to The Planet where Kit and Max are best friends.
Riese: I know. Actually I love their friendship.
Carly: I do too. Them two together in this episode is lovely. And I really want more of that for both of them. Kit and Max are watching Tina who, I guess, is on a date with a woman. And she talks in the entire time about Bette.
Riese: Also the woman looks like she’s in a music video from the ’80’s where were like “Women in Suits”
Carly: Oh, totally. Like Addicted to Love or something—
Riese: You know what I’m talking about? Yeah.
Carly: Part of her face remind of Anna Paquin—
Riese: Just part of her face?
Carly: Yeah like some part of her face—
Riese: Yeah. Oh, yeah, you’re right.
Carly: I was like, “Is she related to her?” She’s not. Anyway, Tina says a billion things about Bette and she’s talking about Angelica. And then the woman is like, “She sounds neurotic,” about Bette. Which is like, “Wow, she figured that out and she’s not even met her yet.” Incredible.
Riese: But Tina was like, “No, she’s the best woman in the world.”
Carly: Everyone is like, “She’s the gold standard by which I will judge anyone I ever meet for the rest of my life. I just wish you would pay more attention to me.” So that’s going well.
Riese: Yeah. That’s going poorly. Back to the powder room.
Carly: Bridal suite. I don’t know. What do we call it?
Riese: The bride suite.
Carly: The brides chambers. Let’s act as we’ve never been to a wedding and have no idea what to call anything.
Riese: Yeah. It’s the lady room.
Carly: Back to the lady room at the wedding. The room for the ladies. They’re all talking about marriage and this and that. And they ask Shane if she’s married or has a boyfriend. And they ask her if she has a girlfriend. And they all make that face because it’s like, “Ooh, taboo.”
Riese: And she’s like, “Not anymore.”
Carly: Great answer.
Riese: Shane.
Carly: And they’re like, “Do you want to get married?” And then one of them is like, “Gay people can’t get married, idiot.”
Riese: And then I actually love this. When she says that gay people can’t get married, the other one’s like, “They can still pretend.” You’re calling a spade and I appreciate that. I could see how people would be offended by it, but I was like, “You know what? This is real.”
Carly: Oh, my God.
Riese: Because it is. It always did feel like a little bit like, “Oh, we’re having a commitment ceremony.” It always felt that way. It felt a little weird. But I love that joke. I mean, on the surface, it’s like a degrading joke,. But that’s almost what I appreciate by this, that they’re putting this thing in there.
Carly: It’s also honest-
Riese: Yeah. It’s honest-
Carly: … in a way. Because at the time there’s absolutely was an element of like, “We are pretending.”
Riese: Yeah. And Shane says that she doesn’t want to get married, but she admires people who do or something. And Shane’s going to get married later, you guys. Not in this series, but in L Word Generation Q, she’s married.
Carly: Oh, my God.
Riese: I wonder what happened. Back to The Planet.
Carly: The Planet. Bette Potter approaches. Well, this is awkward. Tina’s here talking about Bette, going on and on about Bette on this date with this woman whose name we don’t know. And Bette approaches, and she’s just like, “Oh, my God, hi, you guys go here? It’s so weird. Did not expect to see you here at The Planet of all places, the only coffee shop or restaurant or bar in all of West Hollywood.”
Riese: Yeah. Later they go to the Olive Garden.
Carly: That’s true.
Riese: And Bette’s like, “You can come have lunch with us.” And Tina is just like well and Denise is like-
Denise: You know what? Go ahead. That’s okay. I have to get back to the office any way.
Tina: Are you sure?
Denise: Absolutely. I think you have some things to figure out.
Riese: And Tina’s like, “What? Nothing. What? What do you mean?.” Then we go to jail.
Carly: Let’s go to jail.
Riese: Dusty is working out. She’s doing some exercises.
Carly: Dusty is doing some elevated pushups, which look very complicated and very, honestly, advanced and scary. And I was really like, “Wow, brave.” And Helena is acting like she’s writing in a diary or something, but is just starring at Dusty.
Riese: That’s all she’s doing.
Carly: That’s it. And then-
Riese: She’s holding a pen.
Carly: She’s like, “I’m holding this pen as a prop, both in the scene and in real life.” And then a guard walks by and is like, “Shower time, ladies.” And they we’re like, “Whoa, that’s cool. We’re going to have some cool stuff happening soon.” I know this show just wanted so badly to do a prison scene in a shower. I mean, this show just… It’s almost shocking they haven’t done it.
Riese: I feel like every person in this show just loves to shower. Orange is the New Black opened in the shower.
Carly: That’s very true.
Riese: Speaking of showers—.
Carly: Tell me.
Riese: After the showers, there’s sunshine and sunshine shines on The Planet and we’re going back to The Planet.
Carly: Yes. Brought it back around, perfect.
Riese: Max is in line for the bathroom and Tom is in line for the bathroom.
Carly: And they’re going to investigate a bathroom mystery together.
Riese: Why is the door locked? There are stalls in there. And of course, anyone who’s been to a gay venue knows that it’s locked because girls are scissoring in there.
Carly: Obviously.
Riese: They’re talking about their feelings. They’re doing it. They’re doing sex activities. But also, that’s rude. Other people have to pee.
Carly: This is a public establishment. This is a restaurant.
Riese: It’s mid day.
Carly: The sun is up in the sky.
Riese: As aforementioned, the sun is out.
Carly: Finally these two girls run out of the bathroom holding hands and giggling. But Max and Tom were checking each other out a little bit. And then they go into the bathroom and whatever. Then we go up to whatever Bette was here for at the other part of the Planet, which was lunch with Jodi and Alice. And now Tina has joined them and everyone eating salad.
Riese: And Bette’s just curious about this woman, and what does she do for a living? And Jodi is like, “That’s a horrible question. Why are you asking that?” Which again, perfect. Because also you’re not allowed to act that interested in your ex’s date in front of your current girlfriend. That’s against the rules of life. That’s against Papi’s Rules of poker. It’s against all the rules that they have posted the pool that I can’t go to. And it’s also against all of the rules of Life.
Carly: The board game?
Riese: Correct. Great. Tom comes out and says-
Tom: “I just pissed next to the cutest boy alive.”
Riese: I mean, and who hasn’t?
Carly: Tina says she has to go buy a dress for this wedding. And Alice says Tasha didn’t leave the military. She was delayed on her deployment. There’s a mention of some double date happening tonight. This is our usual “exposition at The Planet scene.” But they are bouncing around a little, so we’re not really getting the full information. And then Bette definitely thinks Paige burned Wax down.
Riese: Yeah. They’re all like, “Obviously, Paige did it.” And Alice is like, “I’m worried about Shane because things are escalating.”
Carly: And like, what does that mean?
Riese: And Bette explains to Jodi that Shane is a heartbreaker. But no one’s ever burned anything down for Shane before.
Carly: Exactly. Anyway, meanwhile, Shane is fucking the bride’s sister as this conversation is happening.
Riese: Yeah. I think they’re both having a good time.
Carly: It seems that way. Yeah.
Riese: So good for them.
Carly: Good for them. We go to the army base, and Tasha wants to talk to the captain. She is seeking counsel. She has not been formally notified, but she’s pretty sure she’s under investigation for homosexual conduct.
Riese: Yeah. And Beech is just sitting there probably imagining Tasha having sex with a girl.
Carly: Yeah. He was all so excited to see her. They clearly had a great relationship. And then the minute she said the word “homosexual,” he shuts down and becomes completely cold and shitty to her.
Riese: And he tells her that those cases are almost impossible to disprove because they’re usually true. And “don’t you think that’s understandable?” And um, no.
Carly: Lord. Anyway, homophobia, yay.
Riese: Just like that.
Carly: So we go back to the Salad Party — no, we go the Planet where everyone’s still eating salad.
Riese: Not a salad tossing party though, right? Not yet?
Carly: No, not currently.
Riese: Did you get it? The joke?
Carly: Yes. No, I got it. Okay. So, Max walks by and Tom’s like, “There’s the boy I like.” And then.
Riese: Everyone’s like teeehhe… And Tom’s like, “What’s wrong with him?” “Is he not gay?” And then they’re like, “Well he’s not gay anymore because he used to be a lesbian.” And then Tom was like [GASP!] Like he just found out he was a serial killer.
Carly: Oh, yeah. Bette goes, “he’s a transman” in this very like — uh kinda way. And then Tom stands-
Riese: And that’s one word.
Carly: Yes she says “transman” as one word. And then Tom is like, “Oh, my God, I didn’t know.” Like as if they were like, “He actually is dying.” It’s like, “Oh, my God. I didn’t know.”
Riese: Yeah. There’s so many other things that I think were more believable that could have been said before, “Oh, my God. I didn’t know.”
Carly: So that was not handled very well at all.
Riese: “He is responsible for Spacegate” and then Tom would have been like, “Oh, my God-
Carly: “I didn’t know.”
Riese: “I didn’t know.” It’s real.
Carly: Oh, my God.
Riese: And now it is time for us to meet a new character.
Carly: Hey, remember, last week when you said how happy you were that they didn’t introduce any new characters?
Riese: Yeah. I hate this one too—
Carly: They heard you loud and clear.
Riese: Again, Kit and Max talking about the things in the worlds. And Max is like, “That girl has been sitting there reading Some of Her Parts for three days and hasn’t changed her clothes.” Which I found alarming. Has she been sleeping there under a bench?
Carly: Maybe.
Riese: You know what? It’s fine. It’s television.
Carly: It’s television. Suspension of disbelief.
Riese: So Kit goes over to talk to her. I mean, again, suspension of disbelief that she’s saying they sell the pear polenta tart for $7 a slice when I think we’re pretty aware it’s like $7 million a slice.
Carly: Yeah. First of all, I was so thrilled to have a mention of the pear polenta tart, which hasn’t happened since Season 2. I made some kind of sound. But I think she’s lying about-
Riese: About the cost-
Carly: … the cost. Which is a real bummer.
Riese: Of course, wants Adele feel better because she’s offering her a free slice of it, just didn’t want Adele to feel like, “Oh, I’m eating a million dollar slice of pie.” She wants her to feel like, “It’s a $7 slice of pie.” Because she’s starving. But also a pie is just empty carbs, so she’s not going to be full after eating it.
Carly: You’ll get the sugar crash in a little while. And then you’re going to be like, “I wish I had a little more protein.”
Riese: Yeah. It’s like when you have a bagel and then 20 minutes later, you’re like, “I’m starving.” Adele says that Jennifer Schecter is her favorite author.
Carly: Now, did you leave your body when she said that?
Riese: I thought, “What!!?!!?” But you know what? Everyone has a fan.
Carly: That’s true. This isn’t just a fan. She’s like a Jenny Stan. She’s read “Some of her Parts” five times.
Riese: Which is basically like doing five triathlons in terms of what it does to you as a person, how it wears you down. Although, I guess, triathlons make you stronger. So I guess more accurately; it would be like getting buried in a pile of dirt 10 times and having to crawl your way out.
Carly: That feels like an apt analogy.
Riese: I’m just going to talk by myself and say that on my hard drive; the book I was writing that year, the folder where I kept all the pieces of it was called Some of My Parts. As a joke reference.
Carly: No, of course. That’s so funny.
Riese: (weird voice) It’s so funny.
Carly: I’ll do things like that too, like inside jokes that are only going to be seen by me for me.
Riese: Yeah. But just now I finally had an opportunity to tell someone.
Carly: Yeah. And that was wonderful.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: So then she’s like, “See that guy over there, that guy lives with Jenny.” And Adele’s like, “No way. Oh, my God.” And she’s like, “Do you want to meet him?” She’s like, “No, I can’t.” She’s like, “You must.” And Kit drags her across the cafe. We find out this girl’s name is Adele Channing.
Riese: Which is a very sophisticated name.
Carly: Do you think she’s related to Carol Channing?
Riese: Absolutely. I think that they’re sisters.
Carly: Sisters? You say like a granddaughter or something. But, okay.
Riese: No. Sisters.
Carly: Okay, great. I love that.
Riese: Sometimes people have different ages, it’s modern living. Also speaking of sophistication. We then go over to the pools where Shane is doing the hair of Bret, Chet, whatever his name is. Brad, Tear, Fred, whatever. From the outside, the lady that Shane was just fucking does a little wave.
Carly: A little wave.
Riese: And that’s that scene. That’s the end of that scene. And then we roll into The Planet where Jenny is coming in like a whirling dervish holding her dry cleaning. She cuts in line. And I put this clip on my Twitter yesterday.
Carly: I saw.
Riese: Because the extra who Jenny cuts in front of just makes full use of her time on screen and gives Jenny this look of disgust-
Carly: It’s beautiful-
Riese: … that I’ll never forget.
Carly: No, never. It’s fantastic. And so she’s really stressed out and she really needs a new assistant. And then Kit’s like, “Hey, meet Adele. She’s your biggest fan.” And Jenny’s like-
Jenny: “It’s great. You’ve met me.”
Carly: Which was very great and very funny. I think if Jenny of like a year or so prior to this moment had met a huge fan of Jenny, she would have been really gracious and like… “Oh, my God!” She would have been truly deeply moved by that. But instead this version of Jenny meets her biggest fan. And she is jus above it all, really dismissive to her. But somehow they’re able to convince her to sit down.
Riese: So Adele is like, “I’ve read Some Of Her Parts a million times. And also I adapted, thus spoke Johnny Schechter into a screenplay for my women’s studies class.”
Carly: And she’s like, “ADAPTED?!”
Riese: She’s like, “How dare you.”
Carly: She was looking for dollar signs immediately.
Riese: She’s like, “Don’t worry. It was just for a class.” And then we find out that she went to school with Carly.
Carly: Yeah. This is so exciting for me personally. She went to the University of Central Florida, which is in Orlando, Florida, and is my alma mater. Wow, this is a very special episode. I remember losing my shit when we watched this the first time, because I was like, “No one ever talks about the University of Central Florida in any regard ever.” So for it to be named dropped as the school a fictional character went to life, that’s unheard of. It’s not like NYU, or UCLA or something that people talk about on shows. Like, “This character went to this college. It’s never UCF.
Riese: Yeah. This is the only time anyone’s ever mentioned UCF in any piece of pop culture.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: It’s never been created.
Carly: And this is such a real treat. So let me go back to the wedding. And the other bridesmaid is also getting fucked by Shane. And then-
Riese: In the very visible, in a room that is literally all windows.
Carly: Overlooking where everyone’s getting their photos taken, I think.
Riese: Correct, yeah.
Carly: This is wild.
Riese: This is got to be in the background of some photos and I can’t wait to see that. She’s gonna blow those up.
Carly: Oh, my God. Computer enhance! You know what I mean?
Riese: They’ll photoshop her out.
Carly: And then she comes and she cries and thanks Shane. And then tells her that, “That asshole Rex is here with his wife. Don’t leave my side tonight.” And this was the point at which I was like, “Shane, you need to disappear. You need to run. This is bad.”
Riese: First of all, we all knew Rex Manning was a creep. Everyone has seen Empire Records.
Carly: Obviously.
Riese: No one is surprised to find out that Rex sucks. Second of all, sometimes I feel like there’s this thing where straight women think they’re doing you a favor.
Carly: Uh-huh!
Riese: Especially during this time period. Like, “Oh, of course, my interest in fucking you is such a gift.” It doesn’t even occur to them that you might not be interested in fucking them again.
Carly: Ever speaking to them again?
Riese: Or not leaving their side all night? Or even fucking them at all. I mean, Shane is obviously interested in that. Actually, every woman in this family aside from the bride, has this entitlement to like, “Oh, well…”
Carly: “Oh, Hot Dyke is here. That’s for me.”
Riese: Yeah. “She’ll definitely fuck me.”
Carly: It’s like, “What is this?” Yeah, very confusing.
Riese: Also their dresses all fit wrong. I don’t know why they picked those dresses.
Carly: Yeah. I don’t know what the costume department was doing this week.
Riese: Nothing because we saw a lot of boobs.
Carly: We go to Phyllis’s office where Joyce shows up with a massive bouquet of something or other.
Riese: Yeah, she brings a forest.
Carly: She brings like a full Rainforest Cafe with her.
Riese: Twisted.
Carly: And Phyllis is like, “Hey, sit down, let’s have a chat.” And she’s like, “You know that thing you asked me?” And she’s like, “It was so cute when you said U-hauled the other time.” It was a very funny moment. But then Joyce seems to understand why Phyllis is bringing this up. And she’s like, “Look, I know you just got out of this very lengthy marriage and all this upheaval in your life.” And like, “Girl, take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” Which is so nice of her. What she doesn’t understand is that Phyllis wants to see other people.
Riese: Specifically, she’d like to see Camilla. Which, by the way, I would like to say really sucks when someone leaves you for someone they met at the event that you threw.
Carly: Yeah that sucks.
Riese: It sucks.
Carly: That sucks.
Riese: But anyway, it is really funny because she’s like, “That’s my friend.” And she’s like, “She’s not your friend.” She’s like, “She’s a friend of a friend!”
Carly: Look, group dynamics are very complicated.
Riese: Yeah. And also another complicated dynamic is the one that Joyce apparently has with Phyllis where she just doesn’t count her opinion as real.
Carly: She just immediately is start saying things that sound a lot like Phyllis’s ex-husband when he was trying to convince her not to leave.
Riese: Oh, my God, you’re so right.
Carly: It just feels like a retread of that. And I’m like, “Phyllis, the call is coming from inside your office! Shane, run! Phyllis, run!”
Riese: Yeah. “Look out, Here Phyllis Runs!” Was a discarded potential episode title for this.
Carly: That would have been so good.
Riese: Joyce is like, “You’re being rational. Change your mind.”
Carly: Like, “I’m going to stop you there before you say something you’re going to regret.” Like, “Oh, come on.”
Riese: I don’t understand why people want to be with people who don’t want to be with them.
Carly: I don’t either. We go back to The Planet where now Adele and Kit and Max and Jenny are all sitting together and talking. And they’re interrogating Adele about the University of Central Florida. She says that she went there because it was the only school in Florida that had both a film program and a women’s studies program. I don’t remember what I said about this at the time, but-
Riese: I do-
Carly: … please tell me.
Riese: Because I looked it up.
Carly: Great. Illuminate me
Riese: You said that UCF is not known for their film program and that their women’s studies program was a certificate.
Carly: At the time, it was. Absolutely, you could not minor or major in women’s studies. I know because I tried. And the closest you could get was a certificate in Women’s Studies. And by the time I was on my fifth year of my undergrad, I decided that instead of taking the remaining courses I needed to get those few extra credits for my certificate, that I was just going to be done with school. So I never got my women’s studies certificate. I did get a film degree from there. Took me five years.I was a sheltered kid growing up, and I didn’t “party,” I guess you could say, until college. I didn’t really do anything in high school other than study and learn. I was a nerd. So I went crazy in college. I was partying too hard, man, you know? Just flying too close to the sun.
Riese: Party Hardy Carly. That’s what they called you!
Carly: That’s what they called me on the UCF Campus. I don’t know if the statement of, “it’s the only Florida school to have both of those tracks,” is correct. But, yeah. The UCF film program didn’t really become known until the Blair Witch Project.
Riese: Oh, but that was in ’99.
Carly: And that was in ’99. So that was what put them on the map. It’s unfortunately why I went there. I mean, I wanted to go to a school in Florida. It’s a long story. This isn’t really about me. Adele says she got into NYU, but she went to UCF because she wanted to be by her mo, She could take care of her mom. It’s like, “I got into USC, but I didn’t want to go to USC because I wanted to be on the East Coast to be closer to my family.” Question mark? I don’t really know.
Riese: Is it because she loved Disneyworld?
Jenny: Because she loves Disney World.
Carly: Yes. So then she’s like, “Jenny, your book saved my life basically.” This is definitely something Jenny wanted to hear. Jenny now cares about Adele.
Riese: She’s warming up, but she’s not all the way warm. Hearing that your work saved someone’s life is like the point, is literally the point of writing. So I was glad that she started to thaw up a little bit here.
Carly: Adele says she’s been hanging out at the Planet because she heard that it was the inspiration for the Pluto Cafe in Lez Girls.
Riese: No, I reject that.
Carly: Pluto Cafe.
Riese: I reject the Pluto Cafe.
Carly: Pluto Café.
Riese: I think Pluto Cafe is like what the dining hall is called in Tomorrowland. Speaking of-
Carly: And then Max or Kit, or one of them is like, “Don’t you have a wedding that you’re supposed to be at right now?” And she’s like, “Oh, shit, I’m late.” And Adele is like, “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry I made you late. Is there anything I can do to help?” And Jenny’s like, “Oh, my God. It’s so funny that you asked that because, I don’t know, maybe you could go to Williams-Sonoma and pick up a gift from their registry on my behalf and then deliver it to the wedding. I don’t know if that’s something you could do?” And as it turns out, Adele has nothing but free time and would love nothing more than to do that for Jenny. Yeah.
Riese: All right. Adele was like, “I’m just going to read some of her parts again, so why not just go to Williams-Sonoma.”
Carly: Then Kit’s like, “I thought you wanted that job, Max.” And he’s like, “No.”
Riese: I love this. Now that they’re actually giving Max a real personality and not just a collection of stereotypes, he puts up with Jenny’s bullshit. Both Shane and Max are so patient with Jenny. He knew how to handle that situation so well.
Carly: It’s so true. We go to the shower of the prison. They really put a lot of scenes-
Riese: It’s boob time-
Carly: … between the prison shower scene and the mention of shower time in the previous present scene. They really made you wait for this.
Riese: Yeah, they really did.
Carly: Wow.
Riese: A lot of boobs.
Carly: A lot of boobs. Helena literally drops the soap, which just is a real bummer. And then a lady fully has an entire knife in the shower. And was running it up Helena’s leg and calls her a fluff, and puts the knife at her throat. And it’s very aggressive. And then Dusty intervenes.
Riese: Yeah. Then Dusty is like-
Dusty: Because she’s with me.
Riese: And then Jackie has to let Helena go. And also Dusty has nice arms.
Carly: Dusty continues to have great arms.
Riese: To have nice arms. So good job, Helena did not get sliced.
Carly: Nope. Helena survived, but had no idea what the fuck was going on because everyone was using prison slang, which Helena obviously knows nothing about. We’ll come back to that. So we’re back at Alice’s. And Tasha is like, “That meeting with the captain did not go well.” And Alice is like, “All right cool. Let’s get you a civilian attorney.” Tasha’s like, “I can’t afford one and I also don’t want one.”
Riese: I wish she had called Joyce Wishnia.
Carly: Literally, as Alice was saying, that I was like, “Oh, God, here comes Joyce.”
Riese: Like, “This is a landmark case! Here’s my strategy!”
Carly: If you walk into the court and Joyce is your lawyer, and you’re being tried by the military for homosexual conduct, you will lose instantly. She comes in with a tie screaming about whatever.
Riese: Yeah. A suit that doesn’t fit even though she’s rich.
Carly: You can’t afford a tailor? Come on Joyce.
Riese: Come on Joyce, tailor your suit!
Carly: You’re rich.
Riese: Tasha’s like, “I don’t want to overturn. Don’t ask. Don’t tell. I just want to stay in the military.” Also another thing about this scene is that, this is Alice’s kitchen, right?
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: She has posters on the wall that’s like “Manhattan,” “Paris.” You know what I’m talking?
Carly: Oh, my god. Yes.
Riese: Those generic waiting room-
Carly: Like Bed, Bath and art beyond art department.
Riese: Yeah. Like Homegoods clearance rack. In this scene, I mean, basically they’re just struggling. And I think Alice is being very mature and patient. As a viewer, I am still just very curious about why Tasha is in the military at all and why she wants to stay in the military and why she wants to see action in the military, or whatever.
Carly: Yeah. The show hasn’t really given Tasha enough of a backstory to explain her life and who she is and what she’s been through that has led her to where she is now. So we have no real basis. A lot of the times and other scenes she’s a little disconnected from Tasha’s whole experience and her perspective on things. But at least here, she’s like, “I’m having a hard time with this, but I am on your side, blah, blah, blah.” She seems to be supportive of her, but is still a little confused. But I’m also-
Riese: Which is completely fair.
Carly: Yeah, absolutely. At the same time, I’m like, “Yeah, you should be on her side because this is probably your fault that she’s getting investigated for homosexual behavior!” But, yeah. It’s circumstances.
Riese: The thing is that like, that being in the military is such a big deal, right? And the different reasons someone could be in the military are vast, right?
Carly: Yes.
Riese: And so there are certain reasons that Tasha could be in the military. If she thinks the military is a good organization that does good work, that would be good to know.
Carly: Right. That would be good to know.
Riese: I just don’t get it. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why she’s in the military.
Carly: This really feels like the thing where the writers of the show were like, “Okay, going into Season 4, we’re gonna have a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell storyline.” They came up with a character, and they’re like, “Who’s a really liberal character that would be so funny to see them hook up with the person in the military? Oh, it’s Alice. Oh, my God. Of course.” She’s going to have nothing in common with this person, which is true. She has very little in common with Tasha, but I’m sure they have some things in common because they do seem to get along really well and they like each other a lot. They’re in love.
Riese: Right. Well, what are the things?
Carly: We don’t know. They won’t tell us because they didn’t-
Riese: I don’t think if I could handle this-
Carly: … know. And that sucks.
Riese: That sucks. The way that they handled her character really sucks because she’s also one of their few Black characters.
Carly: Right. And they’re just really doing a disservice to Rose Rollins as an actor and to the character.
Riese: Yeah, and to us.
Carly: And to us, 12 years later.
Riese: I would have preferred a story where a Tasha didn’t want to stay in the military.
Carly: I know. I’d prefer that story. Maybe it’s a different story, but whatever. So we go back to the wedding, which is just-
Riese: Oh, my God.
Carly: The colors of the wedding are like pastel pink. This is a very white, very heterosexual group.
Riese: A lot of extras got paid on this day.
Carly: They sure did.
Riese: A lot of them.
Carly: The wedding has begun. There’s the flower girl or the whatever. And then Jenny walks down the aisle because she is late, and just runs in and tries to find a seat.
Riese: This is an iconic Jenny moment-
Carly: Iconic-
Riese: … teetering down the aisle and then going past everyone. She knocks a woman’s hat off her head. Her dress is a garbage bag. She wearing a garbage bag dress.
Carly: This is obviously an homage to her garbage bag from earlier season.
Riese: Yes. Or a homage to the “I Can’t Stand The Rain” music video.
Jenny: “I’m so sorry that I’m late.”
Tina: “Yeah, we were all waiting.”
Jenny: “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you wait.”
Tina: “Nice dress.”
Jenny: “Thanks Tina.”
Riese: I loved Tina in this exchange.
Carly: I know. I did too.
Riese: And then of course inside, because this is a TV show and there’s a wedding. So what happens before a wedding and a TV show or a movie? The bride is having second thoughts.
Carly: Exactly. I have never seen a wedding in film or television where someone, usually the bride, is not having second thoughts. It’s almost always the bride because the way the heterosexual-
Riese: Men don’t have thoughts.
Carly: Well, that. But the classic traditional “straight people” wedding, is like the groom and his dudes are standing and waiting for the bride to walk in. It’s always that shot of the dudes with the priest or the officiant being like, “Whoa, where is she?” It’s like the most common fucking image.
Riese: But good news, you guys, Madison and her husband do enjoy traveling. They both enjoy traveling and riding horses. So basically they both enjoy being rich.
Carly: They enjoy adventure.
Riese: And, yeah, they love adventure. “We’ve always dreamed of going to Paris.” “We like the beach.” Come on, girl.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Traveling is very niche interest. So I’m glad that they have that in common. And then Shane’s like, “Sounds like you’re compatible.” Shane is being way too sexy for this whole conversation. But also I would like to say that I think this is Shane’s peak. I think Shane is peaking in some way in this moment. I think Kate is maybe peaking in some way at this moment. And she says that Madison really reminds her of someone she used to know, which is a good thing. And my immediate thought, obviously, because she’s about to get married is Carmen. And that’s why I put in my recap. I remember people saying like, “Oh, she looks like Dana.”
Carly: But she totally looks like Dana. Watching it this time, I thought she must be talking about Dana. But thematically it doesn’t make sense. But the girl does have a very similar bone structure of her face to Dana. But then didn’t this girl also play young Bette in a flashback?
Riese: Yeah, maybe [they really recognized her] from the Bette flashback thing.
Carly: It could be any of these-
Riese: She looks familiar to me too….
Carly: I mean, they all look a little bit similar. Who was it? I think it was someone we had on the podcast was saying that they kept getting Dana and Bette confused in Season One.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: I don’t remember who it was now.
Riese: I don’t either, but I did too in the first episode. The first time I saw it, I got Bette and Dana confused.
Carly: All right.
Riese: Jail. We’re back in jail. And Kit is walking down the jail runway like it’s a jail runway, like she owns the place. And it’s—.
Carly: Look at that confidence.
Riese: It almost makes it worth it that this weird thing is set up.
Carly: I honestly buy the layout of the prison purely because it gave us that scene.
Riese: So Kit is like visiting Helena and basically filling her in on what all the prison lingo means and what she needs to do.
Carly: Yes. That’s why she’s been called here.
Riese: And she does. And it’s very helpful information.
Carly: I mean, it’s stuff Helena wasn’t going to figure it out on her own. Though hearing it, it all feels pretty self explanatory.
Riese: And we also realize that Helena has been intensely, is obviously like falling for Dusty.
Carly: Oh, yeah.
Riese: But also Dusty is the only person she’s seen outside of the showers. They’re eating meals in their cells. So she actually hasn’t looked at anyone besides the other women in the shower for this whole time. And that’s good. It’s good. If you’re with one person at the end of the world, it’s good for her to have nice arms.
Carly: Agreed.
Riese: And a “quiet intensity.” he’s like, “I’ve watching her.” And Kit says it sounds like Dusty will protect you, so you’re in good shape. And Helena is like, “Awesome.”
Carly: Helena does not ask if Angus is still around.
Riese: Yeah, she has no questions about Angus. So that’s something that we have in common.
Carly: If Helena stole the money in the finale of Season 4, at what point was she thrown in jail? And does any of the news of anyone in the group… Is anything confusing to her? Does she want to know what’s going on with anybody? It doesn’t matter.
Riese: I mean, we didn’t see their whole convo. Probably the whole first part was about Angus.
Carly: Of course. Helena was probably like, “I’m dying to hear more about Angus.”
Riese: Yeah. “Tell me about your breakup with Angus.” Then we go back to, I don’t know… What era would you say Jodi’s hairstyle is from? ’88?
Carly: Definitely 80s.
Riese: 88. Yeah.
Carly: 1880s. I’m just kidding. That’s one of my favorite 30 Rock jokes. Yeah. I would say ’87? ’88?
Riese: Yeah. Jodi is bringing a lot to the table.
Carly: A lot of volume in her hair.
Riese: They’re at the Olive Garden. It’s Tasha and Alice, Jodi and Bette. They’re obviously having great time as you can imagine.
Carly: As you can imagine, this group.
Riese: Tasha’s at a terrible mood.
Carly: Yeah, Tasha had a horrible day. So they definitely should’ve canceled, but didn’t. So that’s good. And then lo and behold, who else is at the same restaurant but Phyllis and Joyce!
Riese: Phyllis and Joyce.
Carly: They’re three tables over.
Riese: Right over there.
Carly: Right over there.
Riese: Also enjoying endless soup, salad and breadsticks.
Carly: And delicious house wine.
Riese: And delicious house wine. Yeah. There are so many wine glasses on that table by the end of it that I’m like, “You’re wasting wine. You can’t just turn it into water.” Or do you turn water into… Listen- and Jodi is like- “They’re breaking up.”
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Which you can tell out of the body language.
Carly: Body language, that they are breaking up. We go over to their table and Joyce is literally like, “You can’t leave me cause I’m awesome, and you’re not going to find anyone better. And I’m good in bed and I’m smart and I’m rich.” So we go back to the wedding reception where Shane is hanging out with Tina and all of the bridesmaids that she has fucked are all waving or blowing kisses across the room.
Riese: The entitlement!
Carly: It’s a lot. Tina declares this “the straightest wedding on earth,” which I previously noted in the ceremony scene. That is correct. She says, “No lesbian is going to get laid here.” And Shane looks right into the camera and winks!! I wish. Can you imagine? Can you actually imagine if—
Riese: The camera had zoomed in and she’d been like [noise intended to represent a wink]!!! Again, Tina’s energy here. I love it. You can tell she just threw on her summer dress. She’s cool. She looks great. And she’s just like, “My life is so dumb right now.” You know what?
Carly: My life is so-
Riese: Tina’s life sucks right now. I think that she has that energy that someone has sometimes where they are a certain way. And then when their entire life falls apart, they somehow become like-
Carly: Like cool?
Riese: Yeah. Like more-
Carly: Tina is so much more interesting and chill.
Riese: Down to earth, kind of. You know what I mean?
Carly: Yes.
Riese: She’s still in love with Bette who’s dating someone else who she’s madly in love with. And her job sucks. It could not suck more. She is producing a movie directed or written by a friend of hers who she hates, and the movie is ABOUT HER.
Carly: Her own boss doesn’t know her own job title. A billionaire investor guy is now pulling all the strings. I mean, she’s in hell.
Riese: This is bad.
Carly: I think she’s in a real “burn it to the ground” emotional mental space. And that is what is making her so much more fun right now.
Riese: Yes, I agree.
Carly: It’s fun Tina.
Riese: Fun Tina. And then we go to Fine Shane because Shane’s like, “I’m fine.”
Carly: Fun Tina, Fine Shane. They go to the bar and Jenny runs up because she was talking to Willie, which is what she calls William, aka Wallace Shawn-
Riese: No one should ever say the word “willy.”
Carly: No. I didn’t even want to say it out loud, but I did and now I’m upset about it. Anyway I guess everyone in the bridal party was just raving about Shane —for obvious reasons. And so Jenny was like-
Riese: “They love the way you did them..”
Carly: “Dot dot dot…” So she’s like, “Oh, my God, maybe Shane could do the hair on the movie.” And he said, “Yes.” Oh, my God.
Riese: “It’s been wonderful, and everyone’s so excited!”
Carly: Actually, Jenny, if you’re the director, you can make that decision yourself. You don’t need his permission. I mean, whatever you need, like studio approval, but he’s not the studio. He’s just the financier. But, whatever.
Riese: The dialogue in this whole thing is so good.
Carly: It’s really good.
Riese: When she’s like “Tina what did you get the bride” and she’s like, “Four espresso cups, I guess?”
Jenny: “Tina, what did you get the bride?”
Tina: “I got the bride four espresso cups.”
Shane: “That’s nice.”
Carly: I love that Jenny is suddenly rich and is rubbing it in everyone’s faces. That is the funniest thing about Jenny right now.
Riese: And she’s like-
Jenny: “What did I get the bride?”
Adele: “You got the bride limited edition KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer, metallic chrome”
Carly: And then she goes-
Adele: “It’s a dream appliance.”
Riese: And I’m like, “Yeah, it is Adele. Way to shop.”
Carly: It’s crazy that that’s still a dream appliance today in 2020. People still go apeshit for that fucking KitchenAid Stand Mixer and all the different colors.
Riese: That’s why people get married.
Carly: Yeah. That’s not why I got married.
Riese: Did you get one?
Carly: No, we didn’t want one. We mix bowls by hand. We do it the old fashioned way.
Riese: Oh, you make your own bowls?
Carly: We do now that we are home all the time.
Riese: I make my own bowls too out of paper.
Carly: Yeah. I love doing that. I love to put cereal in them and then they fall apart.
Riese: Yeah. It’s a race against time every time.
Carly: But I eat cereal pretty quickly. So it’s not a big deal for me.
Riese: Speaking of eating, Jenny is eating cake off the present, but she doesn’t like it. She goes, “I don’t like it.” And she puts-
Carly: That part with the cake is funny.
Jenny: “I don’t like that.”
Carly: Adele walks this huge ass box up and there’s just a little piece of cake perched on it. She’s like, “Jenny, I brought you some cake.” I’m like, “I thought you just walked into this event with the box. What are you doing?” It’s incredible. It’s really a wonderful moment. And then a bridesmaid runs up to ask if Shane wants to dance. And Shane is like, “Oh, my God, I have to get out of this.” She looks at Tina to save her, but Tina sees Aaron and has to go talk to him and remind him of what her correct job title is again. So she leaves Shane and Shane’s like, “I don’t dance. Okay, I’m going to go to the bathroom and I’ll see you later.” And somehow that works for a moment.
Riese: Yeah. Once again, the girl is assuming that Shane wants to be part of her cover for Rex Manning, which — Shane never said that. She did not consent to any of that. You didn’t ask her what she wanted ever, so stop it.
Carly: We go back to The Olive Garden, Ben and Jodi are PDA central at the table.
Riese: Yeah. That was weird.
Carly: Which felt super unnecessary. I mean, I think everyone’s different. Everyone has their own different internal gauge on that kind of stuff. For me, I don’t want to be a full Val Cherish here, but I’m a little [Val Cherish voice] “I don’t need to see that.” And Lauren, you don’t need to play a clip of Val Cherish there because I sounded just like her-
Riese: Yeah. Carly did it perfect.
Carly: That was maybe my best. I don’t need to see that. And I say it a lot.
Riese: It was obviously just there so that this whole thing could-
Carly: Yeah. I don’t really believe that they would actually act like they’re in high school-
Riese: And like — you’re in conversation.
Carly: You’re also eating.
Riese: Bette and Jodi In Conversation with Tasha and Alice at the-
Carly: Right. That’s why the people paid to see it.
Riese: They didn’t pay to watch them make out.
Carly: What is it? The 92nd Street Y, or whatever.
Riese: Yeah. The 92nd Street Y. We all went, we all had tickets.
Carly: It was all tickets, but they were making out on stage the whole time and they didn’t finish their unlimited pasta.
Riese: Yeah. They limited it.
Carly: Which is ridiculous. It’s-
Riese: Bananas-
Carly: … “Unlimited” is in the title.
Riese: Alice is like, “Tasha is being investigated for don’t ask, don’t tell.” Tasha is annoyed that Alice told them, because she didn’t want Alice to tell them. And then she gets upset and they walk away from the table and then they have a fight. Again, both of their fights have ended very maturely. But in the meantime they’re both like — Tasha was being kind of mean?
Carly: Yeah. And Alice seems to still refuse to acknowledge any of Tasha’s boundaries. I actually agreed with Alice saying something here just because all you need to do is say something to those two and they’ll cut it out and they’ll be understanding. But I also completely get where Tasha is coming from where she really doesn’t want to have to bring this up and then have to hear everyone’s opinions about the military and Don’t ask, don’t tell. But also the show hasn’t told us why Tasha wants to stay in the military. So really, everyone is right and also wrong. And it ends with the two of them apologizing to each other. And Alice is like, “I’m really struggling with trying to understand why you want to be part of an institution that doesn’t want you.” Which is a really…. point, I think.
Riese: Yeah. And also an institution that is mass murdering innocent people all over the world.
Carly: Yes, exactly. And Tasha doesn’t have any answer for that. She’s just like, “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Okay.
Riese: We go back to jail.
Carly: Back to jail. Helena is trying to become best friends with Dusty now.
Riese: Yeah. She’s talking about Dorothy Dandridge, who was a very successful actress. She did overdose on antidepressants when she was in her 50s, I want to say, or 40s. And had a very difficult life because of racism.
Carly: Yay racism! Thanks for nothing.
Riese: And also her mom was a little bit gay, just a sidenote.
Carly: They’re talking about he because there’s photos of her that Dusty has put on her wall.
Riese: Yeah, the Carmen Jones poster.
Carly: Helena didn’t just pull Dorothy Dandridge completely out of thin air. What if she had? And Dusty was like, “Wait, are you serious? I’m such a fan.”
Riese: Yeah. I know. Then they would’ve been like, “Oh, my God, we have so much in common. Do you also like to travel and ride horses?” And she would have been like, “Yes.” And then they would have fallen in love. Just everyone knows, after watching this episode, I immediately pulled my copy of “The Hollywood Book of Death” off the shelf and read all about Dorothy Dandridge.
Carly: Nice. Helena mentioned something about “what happened earlier in the shower.” And Dusty is like, “I do not want anything from you.” And Helena’s like-
Riese: “Are you sure?” But-
Carly: “I mean, I heaaaarrrr what you’re saying, but I don’t think you mean it.”
Riese: “I’d love for Rex to see us together.” Then we go back to dinner. It does seem at this point… Okay. At this point they’re still in a booth. Later, then they’re suddenly not in a booth anymore. It was very confusing for me. But Alice and Tasha are doing an unforgivable thing, which is they’re leaving Jodi and Bette in the restaurant with Phyllis and Joyce.
Carly: Well, several things have happened. Alice and Tasha went off to talk and Joyce and Phyllis took their place at the table. Who does that?
Riese: Phyllis! She was trying to get away-
Carly: I mean, Phyllis was definitely trying to get away from Joyce, and Joyce is like a bulldozer of a person who just takes up space and inserts herself in everything. So actually the two of them sitting there makes sense. But it’s, I think, quite rude. They’re like, “Oh, sorry. We took your seats.” And they’re about to get up. And then, yeah, Alice and Tasha are like putting on coats and being like, “We’re going to go.” “Do you want to take your meals? You want to wrap your meals up to go?”
Riese: “Who’s paying? Are you gonna Venmo me later?”
Carly: This is The Olive Garden, you can get all those fresh breadsticks.
Riese: Yeah. You can ask for more. Don’t put a soggy breadstick in your to-go box. Also just ask your… I used to work there as I’ve mentioned in every episode of this podcast. — and you can just ask your server for a fresh breadstick.
Carly: It’s pretty simple.
Riese: Because your server feels sad for you when you want her to package up your little nub on top of your ravioli.
Carly: It’s true.
Riese: Just saying. So anyway, Jodi and Bette are really in for it.
Carly: Then Joyce says that it was her idea for them to spend time with other people. And I think as the audience we’re supposed to maybe for a second… This was confusing. I’m like, “As an audience, are we supposed to think that Joyce and Phyllis successfully talked about Phyllis seeing other people, and Joyce is cool with it?”
Riese: No.
Carly: Because that’s clearly not what happened. It was a weird line. But Phyllis was like, “Oh, you should go get me another glass of wine.” And then the minute she leaves, she looks at Bette and Jodi and is like-
Phyllis: “Help me.”
Riese: Right. She said she was writing a graduate thesis in lesbian sex, but she seems like she’s at a very early level of education that she can’t do anything else without a lot of help from other lesbians. She’s learning the ropes.
Carly: Yeah, it takes time. This is a journey that’s going to take some time.
Riese: Yeah. Then we go back to the rich palace wealthy wedding.
Carly: Wealthy wedding.
Riese: And William is dancing with Jenny, which made me feel weird for Jenny. But she’s like, “You’re the only man in my life. And you know what? That girl, her life was changed by the book. And I think our movie’s going to make an impact!” And then Tina, standing next to Adele, and Tina’s like, “Oh, it makes me want to barf.” And Adele’s like, “I think it’s so beautiful that a man who plundered the earth for wealth is now making beautiful art.” And Tina’s like, “I’m going to go.”
Carly: Also at no point were Tina and Adele introduced to each other. It’s just so funny.
Riese: No. Yeah.
Carly: She’s like, “Tell Shane I left.” And she’s like, “Who are you? And who is Shane?”
Riese: “I don’t know your name.” And it’s like, “Yeah, you do. That’s Nina. It’s Nina.” Then we go back to the dinner. They’re at a table with chairs now, instead of at a booth.
Carly: It’s confusing.
Riese: And they’re getting up to leave.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And Jodi and Bette are having every couple’s favorite fight which is “who’] house are we going to sleep at tonight?” And all the reasons why your girlfriend might not want to stay at my place that you aren’t being honest about. And Jodi thinks Bette doesn’t want to come over to her place because it’s “too funky,” a word which nobody but my Mom has said in eons.
Carly: I think maybe the only other person is my mom, perhaps.
Riese: Also my mom lives in Royal Oak, which is a Detroit suburb, but it’s next to a town called Ferndale. And Ferndale’s like, gay, and my mom is always like, “It’s Funky Ferndale.” And I’m like, “Oh, my God, stop saying that word.” Even though I think the town goes along with it too. Anyway, we have a little “bringing it back around” moment here. Phyllis says that she already broke up with Joyce and Bette is like, “Some lesbians, you have to break up with them more than once!”
Carly: Incredible moment. We go back to the wedding. The bride gives Shane a hug and thanks her. Then Gina, one of the other ones is like, “Oh, go help me make Rex Manning jealous.” And then the other one is like, “I have a surprise for you.” And it’s very overwhelming for young Shane.
Riese: Again, also what’s the surprise? We never know.
Carly: We never know.
Riese: I think I know what the surprise is, is that she wants to bone again. And again.
Carly: We go back to prison. It’s nighttime. Dusty is having a nightmare. Helena hops off the top bunk down to the bottom bunk to comfort her. “Dusty, are you okay? You’re having a nightmare. Oh, no.” And Dusty wakes up and is like, “What the fuck? there’s a person right on top of my face.” And jumps out of bed and puts Helena in a chokehold. And then they make out.
Riese: And then Dusty pushes her against the wall. One of my favorite sex moves, pushing somebody against a wall.
Carly: It’s a classic.
Riese: It’s a classic. And they’re having a nice time. And Helena is trying to rationalize having sex with a murderer. And she’s asking me all these weird questions about it. And that’s when we find out that Dusty is in there for tax fraud.
Carly: Yep.
Helena: “You were just defending someone, right? Or maybe you were set up. Did someone frame you?”
Dusty: “Nobody framed me.”
Helena: ‘I’m sure, whatever it was, you don’t mean to kill anyone!”
Dusty: “I didn’t kill anybody!”
Helena: “You didn’t?”
Dusty: “It was tax fraud!”
Riese: Which also makes perfect sense because Helena would not be in jail with a murderer.
Carly: No, of course not.
Riese: Okay. They’re hooking up now and we love this for them.
Carly: This is great for them. Good job everybody. We go back to the wedding where Shane is desperately trying to leave the hell that she has created for herself until a cocktail server hands her a note from the mother of the bride. Yup. That’s right. The same woman she checked out on the way in is waiting for her.
Riese: Shane sniffs the note.
Carly: Oh, yeah.
Riese: Do you think she put it inside her vagina?
Carly: I thought maybe she sprayed perfume on it.
Riese: Or she was she like, “Smells like bug spray.”
Carly: Elle Woods, all of her resumes had perfume on them in Legally Blonde. That’s what I thought of. But also that maybe she thought she put it in her vagina.
Riese: Oh, it’s like Plumeria. Yeah. Could be a lot of things. In line for coat check, everybody’s least favorite thing.
Carly: Oh, true. And Jenny offers Adele the assistant job that we knew was coming. And, oh boy, is she excited.
Riese: And it’s really cute because Jenny is actually almost being normal for like —
Carly: For like three seconds.
Riese: Yeah, she seems genuinely like, “Wow, this could be cool.” It’s like she’s a little bit back on earth. Shane goes upstairs where I guess that after giving away her daughter to be married, this woman went upstairs and put on some lingerie and and a trench coat.
Carly: As one does at a wedding.
Riese: Exactly. And then posed on her desk.
Carly: And she’s like, “Shane, I saw you looked at me earlier and it made me horny. Am I crazy?” I’m like, “That is such a incredible statement.”
Riese: And she says she’s been everywhere. She’s probably been to Disney World several times.
Carly: I’d say.
Riese: And she’s ridden horses across the Plains of Sweden. And she wants Shane to take her somewhere she’s never been before, which is obviously Shane’s obligation, it seems like, to all of the women in this family. Isn’t it weird all of these really terrible messages about consent that we all internalize from this show?
Carly: Yeah. Whoo [sound of wild disappointment over how The L Word handles consent] There isn’t a lot of time to unpack this today, but maybe someday!
Riese: No. Yeah, maybe someday I’ll just do like, “Here’s all the things that The L Word told us about how-
Carly: “How to exist in the sexual world, and they are all wrong.”
Riese: They were wrong.
Carly: All of it.
Riese: There’s a lot of boobs.
Carly: Oh, yeah. A lot of boobs. We go to the hallway where the other bridesmaids are all looking for Shane. And, oh my God, they can’t find her. Where is she? And then they hear the photocopier and they hear Rex Manning and they hear Renee Zellweger and they realize what happened. And they bust into the copy room.
Riese: They spill their speed all over the floor and bust right in.
Carly: She’s just freaking out about it. [as Gina in “Empire Records] “I could study all night if I was chowing down on speed too! You know that I could. Here’s one for your perfect little face! Ad you’re perfect body!” Okay I’m stopping! And so they open the door and find mom in there hooking up with Shane. And then mom calls her daughter-
Mom: “Some little twerp who barely knows how to tongue kiss!”
Riese: I know. And they call her, “You old cow.”
Carly: It’s honestly very funny. But that’s also just so deeply fucked up.
Riese: Yeah, it was really funny. I was like, “You all deserve each other, all of you guys.”
Carly: Yeah, you’re all horrible people. And then Shane runs out of there. She tries to get her keys to her car. Can’t find them, sees Jenny in her brand new Porsche convertible, question mark?
Riese: Oh, yeah. I was like, “All right.”
Carly: Okay. And she’s like, “Jenny.” And then just hops into the back of the car as Jenny’s driving away. Which I mean, good timing there. If you run out like a couple seconds later, you would have been stuck.
Riese: In the sequel, we’ll find out, does Shane return to the scene of the crime to obtain her vehicle? Or does she just leave it there? LIke Finley eventually does in a future episode of a spin off of this show?
Carly: I was so happy when they actually tied up that loose end about the bike and the car.
Riese: Yeah, everyone was obsessed with it except me.
Carly: Yeah, no, it plagued me all season. Anyway, that’s the episode.
Riese: That’s the episode.
(transition music)
Riese: Well, Carly?
Carly: Yes.
Riese: Did you enjoy this piece of television?
Carly: I did. I thought it was fun. It’s a fun episode. There’s some great moments with everybody. The peak offensiveness of it was pretty lower than normal. It still had offensive moments, but they weren’t as severe as what we were used to before this episode. So I thought it was fun. I thought it was a fun rump. It’s a real rump Shane out there being slutty Shane. I love slutty Shane. That’s fun.
Riese: Yeah, that’s fun. A lot of physical humor, a lot of hair, boobs, arms, legs. Jenny eating the cake, Kit and Max being buddies.
Carly: Best friends.
Riese: Bette looked nice in her plaid flannel shirt that she was wearing in the beginning. Tina killing it. The first time Tina has ever been funny.
Carly: I’m like, “Good for you T.” Yeah. Get it Tina.
Riese: I actually think I like Tina this whole season now that I’m remembering it.
Carly: Oh, wow. I don’t remember enough of it to know if I do.
Riese: I can’t recall exactly.
Carly: But she’s off to an excellent start, which is something I’ve never been able to say about Tina before.
Riese: Yeah. I would say as usual that the most annoying thing about this episode was still just how shallow Tasha’s character is and also how difficult it is for us, as people that are not pro war, to figure out how the fuck to talk about it.
Carly: Because the show isn’t giving us enough to talk about. It’s very frustrating.
Riese: Yeah. I mean, it was a pretty impeccable episode. There was nothing where I was like, “Oh, my God, get me out of here. I hate this.” I didn’t write “I hate this” one time!
Carly: Yeah, no, I usually write that multiple times an episode.
Riese: Yeah. Also had a dream appliance in it.
Carly: I love a dream appliance. I love seeing the shot in the void. I love those. We’ve had two episodes of that now, which is great.
Riese: Whew. The sex scenes at the beginning, anyway, just a delight! Good job everybody on the team of The L Word. You all really shined, and we enjoyed your work.
Carly: Good job. Thank you all so much for listening. You can follow this podcast on Twitter and Instagram @ToLAndBack. You can email us at tolandbackcast@gmail.com. We also have a hotline (971) 217-6130. You can call and leave a message. We’ve got merch at store.autostraddle.com. Go check out the merch. It’s awesome. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Cara Sykes and this podcast is produced and edited by Lauren Klein. You can follow me @carlytron, you can follow Riese @autowin, and you can also follow Autostraddle @autostraddle and visit Autostraddle at autostraddle.com.
Riese: And you can contribute to our fundraiser at autostraddle.biz. Please just throw any type of money if you have any. I know a lot of people don’t. If you have any, you can just throw it out gently in our direction. We would appreciate it. Also, there are some To L And Back related perks in the store. So you should probably check those out and see what they are because maybe you would want to buy one. Just saying.
Carly: You might.
Riese: Check it out.
Carly: They’re pretty good.
Riese: They’re pretty good. Okay.
Carly: They’re pretty good.
Riese: Thanks for your everything.
Carly: Is it time for our L Words?
Riese: Uh-huh (affirmative). Every week I look at the same bookshelf looking for the same help, and I don’t find it.
Carly: I actually have mine for once. This is the first time this has ever happened.
Riese: I’m ready.
Carly: Okay. One, two, three: Liberty.
Riese: “Look out here they come.” That’s good, right? That was a good one.
Carly: I said liberty because in 10 minutes, I’m going to go watch my team, the LA Sparks play the New York Liberty. Because there’s a whole lot of WNBA that is being nationally televised right now. If you’re not watching it, you are missing out on some absolutely incredible basketball. And since they’re in their bubble and there’s no fans, and you can hear what everyone is saying all the time, which is really fun.
Riese: I might honestly do the same. And also just so you know, they put up these things so you’re not looking at an empty arena, if you have any fears of looking at an empty arena.
Carly: If that’s stopping you. They didn’t do the-
Riese: I was scared it was gonna look like it was just full of ghosts.
Carly: Oh, I wish. Well, in the NBA’s thing, they are in an existing basketball thing. And they installed all this technology that lets fans be on Zoom at home and then be in a seat in the stands. But for some reason they didn’t let the WNBA do that. But the cool thing about the WNBA is that they built several courts on a soundstage, which just as a filmmaker, I’m like, “That’s fucking cool. That’s really fucking cool.”
Riese: Wow. That’s so advanced.
Carly: I want to go to the bubble and film some shit because they built it [indecipherable] it’s just awesome. Everyone keeps getting injured. It’s not going great. All the top three picks in the draft all had ankle injuries right now. It’s great.
Riese: Oh, no. They should get Alice.
Carly: Yeah. They should, but are not going to.
Riese: Or Shay, just kidding. Remember Shay?
Carly: No.
Riese: What happened to Papi?
Carly: I love that they give no explanation for Papi being gone.
Riese: Not a one.
Carly: She’s supposed to be Tasha’s best friend.
Riese: Yeah. They are just really determined, they are like, “We are NOT going to build Tasha’s character.” They’re just refusing.
Carly: We’ve taken away her friend, we’re trying to take away her job. We will stop at nothing to ruin this character’s life.
Riese: But at the end of the day, she’s really hot.
Carly: Yeah. She’s really unstoppable because of that.
Riese: Yeah. And you know what? All of you guys are also unstoppable.
Carly: Hell, yeah.
Riese: You should chase your dreams in a mask. And that’s all. We had a nice time.
Carly: Thank you for listening.
Riese: And we love you.
Carly: We will see you next week. Bye.
Riese: Bye.
“To L and Back” Podcast Episode 501: LGB Tease
We are currently working to integrate transcripts into the workflow and budget of our podcast. As you can see, this post contains the transcript for 501 and I am working through some of our older episodes to add transcripts and alt tags for images. The Live Episode with Generation Q was transcribed shortly thereafter. We’re starting transcribing with Season Four: the Season Four Premiere (401) transcript is now up and others are coming up. I also already did Episode 407: Lesson Number One with Lianna Carrera, a comic/writer and CODA (Child of Deaf Adult) because not having that one transcribed seemed particularly egregious, because of its focus on deaf and ASL representation.
We are BACK with the Season Five Premiere episode of “To L and Back,” in which so many questions are asked, and several are answered. Where did Jenny sail to on her raft? Did Tina have sex with Kate Arden? What pre-school will admit Angie? Who is Helena’s new roommate in prison? Is Tasha okay? Does Phyllis wanna shack up with Joyce? What the fuck is wrong with Shane right now? We look for these answers and more in our big return to The L Word!
The usual:
- GO LISTEN
- SUBSCRIBE
- GIVE US A NICE REVIEW!! PLEAZE!
- FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM!!
- FOLLOW US ON TWITTER!!!
- The original recap of Episode 501
TRANSCRIPT
Riese: Hello, I’m Riese.
Carly: And I’m Carly.
Riese: And this is—
Riese and Carly: To L and Back!
Riese: And we’re back! To L and Empire Strikes Back!
Carly: And we’re back!
Riese: And we’re back In the habit.
Carly: We’re Back in the Habit, Sister Act 2.
Riese: This is a Sister Act podcast.
Carly: We changed things up for this season. Season Five of The L Word is actually, we’re just going to be talking about the Sister Act movies.
Riese: Yeah. We’re splitting both films into two parts. So it’ll be four episodes total. And if you have any special feelings about like, which Sister Act do you like better? I know what the right answer is, but you know, everyone can—.
Carly: Weigh in.
Riese: You know, have their own opinions. So yeah, we’ll be doing that. But I think for today, we’ll talk about, I guess, an episode of the program.
Carly: Of the program “The L Word,” which aired on Showtime. Um hi everyone. We’re back. We were gone for a few weeks.
Riese: We were, yeah.
Carly: I feel rejuvenated by my time away.
Riese: You do?
Carly: I feel, I mean, not — I feel rejuvenated specifically in terms of this podcast. Like I’m like excited to dig into Season Five and feel really good about it. In terms of my life in general. I do not feel at all rejuvenated in any sense of the word, but as far as this goes and The L word goes, I feel rejuvenated and ready to go.
Riese: That’s so exciting.
Carly: Yeah. It’s pretty great.
Riese: I too feel rejuvenated about this and terrible about everything else.
Carly: Exactly, exactly. Just like a general really bad feeling about most things aside from this. So this is great. Glad we’re back here.
Riese: Here we are in this little place. Speaking of things that are good or bad, we’re having a fundraiser! At autostraddle.com because we still haven’t sold a lot of ads this year and we just want to exist for the rest of the year. We’ve just got to raise this money and then we can have the podcast for all of you, cause the podcast costs money! It will continue till the end of the year if everyone is very supportive of it. And we know that we had a fundraiser earlier this year and that some of you donated and gave us your names for us to read on air. We’re going to do that today. We’re going to do it at the end so that you have to listen all the way to the end.
Carly: Yup. We’re incentivizing listening to this episode, right.
Riese: I mean, it will be good. Like you’ll want to do it cause it’s funny and we’re really funny and smart and stuff.
Carly: I’m sure we’ll have really cool things to say when it comes to that part.
Riese: Yeah. So stay tuned. So we’re having a fundraiser right now, autostraddle.biz, check it out. It would be really great if you could contribute, especially if you have not contributed before. Cause this shit ain’t free ladies and otherwise identified people. It’s not free.
Carly: I think I would say that — now more than ever, it is crucial to support an independent site that is created by and for queer people specifically queer women and non binary people. I think that Autostraddle has just done some really incredible stuff this year. And I think that supporting it is important and I’m not just saying that because I want to continue making this podcast. It’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than me. You know, it’s not about me.
Riese: First of all, thank you for all the nice things you just said about Autostraddle! Second of all, this is a podcast where we recap every episode of The L word, a television program about women who love women. And also one trans guy who they’re all really mean to.
Carly: In this episode, even! It continues.
Riese: (Said In the expression of frustration about trans representation on The L Word) Oh my Godddddddd.All right. Do you want to give us the official infos?
Carly: Yes. We are kicking off season five today, episode 501 entitled LGB Tease, which wow, what a title!
Riese: That’s also the name of my favorite lube.
Carly: It was written by none other than Ilene Chaiken and directed by our fave Angela Robinson.
Riese: Yay!
Carly: It originally aired January 6th, 2008. We have officially landed in 2008 in our exploration of queer history, which is this podcast. So congratulations to us and to the year 2008.
Riese: Just so everyone knows, we’re officially entering the period of time where Carly and I are talking about the same thing again. Cause we also did this together in 2008. I mean not a podcast, but I recapped it. We watched it together and the recap had quotes from my friends in it.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: I’m going to read my recap after and see if we make any of the same jokes we made in 2008.
Carly: Oh my God, I can’t wait to do that. I mean, probably we will make some of the same jokes and that’s exciting. I think every episode we should say all the jokes that we duplicated from the previous one.
Riese: Just so you know, on the premiere night of this episode in 2008, we were at The W Hotel at a party, a birthday party for our friend and Carly was the DJ. And we had a lot of things happening around that that were very interesting that you can read all about when my book is completed and sold and available in stores.
Carly: I can’t to read it. And relive a really wild time period. Should we get into episode 501?
Riese: Let’s do it! Well, we open in The L Word being so out of ideas that it’s just doing itself. It’s just going to do itself again.
Carly: This is one of the most self-referential things I’ve ever seen on a television program.
Riese: Mmhm. So Jenny is writing her screenplay of her book, Lez Girls. So there’s Nina, Bev and Shawn, you all know who they are.
Carly: We all know Jenny’s bad attempt at making new names for everybody.
Riese: Yeah. I did do a check to see if they are wearing the exact same outfits that they wore in the original. (They are)
Carly: Interesting. They looked familiar, but I did not take the time to go back and check. This is basically Jenny’s ridiculous version of the party scene from the pilot, which is honestly hilarious. Like, this is very funny. Her version of it is that Bev, Nina and Shawn are like oogling her. Yeah. Like a “crazy cartoon character with drool and heart eyes kind of thing.” Like it’s so over the top and wonderful.
Bev: She is… Something.
Shawn: She’s fucking hot.
Tina: Do you think she could be –?
Bev: No no no, too pretty, too feminine.
Shawn: I don’t know. I’d be happy to —.
Bev: Taste the fruit?
Shawn: Peel it, section it and squeeze the juice with her.
Tina: Get in line sister. (to Bev) Oh I’m sorry Babe –
Bev: As long as you share her with me.
Carly: My question in this scene, which will be answered soon is — I thought Jenny was fired from writing this movie, but we’ll get to that.
Riese: Right. But then like one good fruit metaphor was probably all she needed to get her foot right back into the door of this thing. There is a thing that they say about Jenny and they involve fruit in the conversation. And I couldn’t eat fruit after that.
Carly: Yeah, no, I I’m actually currently swearing off fruit purely because of this episode that I watched today.
Riese: I’m not gonna peel it, section it and squeeze the juice well with anyone at this point.
Carly: No, no, no. Did you find Jenny’s fake typing to be very slow?
Riese: Well, she was thinking.
Carly: Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.
Riese: She was inventing things in her head. Cause these are just interpretations of people.
Carly: Of course, of course. So then we have our favorite theme song, and I think there’s some updated shots from season four here, but I was going to see if you did any analysis?
Riese: Um my analysis, it looks like I wrote “NO PAPI” in all caps. That’s it?
Carly: It looked like maybe there was a new shot of a couple of characters.
Riese: Oh yeah?
Carly: Yeah. It looked like maybe? Or I’m just totally not remembering where we left things in season four, which is also absolutely possible.
Riese: Then we go to — it looks as though Bette and Tina are attempting to get Angelica into an elite preschool.
Carly: An elite pre-school!
Riese: And this specific elite preschool apparently has an admissions advisor who like hates her job?
Carly: She doesn’t seem happy to be around parents or children.
Riese: Right.
Carly: I think she should find a new career.
Riese: I think she’s looking at them like she’s so miserable.
Carly: She hates them.
Riese: She’s so skeptical. And I’m like, first of all, look at these beautiful women!
Carly: They both look great.
Riese: They’re beautiful,. Their baby just made a moon puzzle.
Carly: Their beautiful baby who’s clearly a genius, right?
Riese: Yeah. She is a genius. We all saw her grow up. She’s a genius, she’s gay and a genius.
Carly: And all gays are smart except for the ones who aren’t, and also Angelica picked up sign language without having to learn it like Bette did in an hour. And so she’s a genius.
Riese: She didn’t have that time.
Carly: The movie Baby Geniuses is about Angelica.
Riese: Yeah, it is. Actually, you know, the movie Baby Driver is also about Angelica.
Carly: Is it about when she’s driving in Gen Q?
Riese: Yeah. It’s the followup to Look Who’s Talking Too, which is about Angelica, who is a baby who talks.
Carly: Yes. I remember that. I remember that. I saw it in theaters and I was like, wow, Angelica. You’re doing great.
Riese: Yeah. And now here she is — thriving! And this woman who’s like sitting there, listening to them is really annoyed. She’s like, “do you have a deaf family member?” Like as though this is an inquisition. Then they have to confess! That they have a friend. But we all know the truth. The truth is that the deaf friend is actually the deaf GIRLFRIEND.
Carly: Exactly. Because these two are not currently together, despite all of Tina’s best efforts throughout the course of this episode.
Riese: They certainly seem together.
Carly: They sure are acting together. It’s nice to see them getting along and like being able to be in the same room a lot. That was actually really nice. But yeah, this woman that’s talking to them, call her Shania because she is not impressed very much.
Riese: Then they go outside and they run into these gay dads.
Carly: Oh they hate the gay dads. And the gay Dads hate them. It’s great.
Riese: And they say that their kid’s going to get in because he’s half Jewish, a quarter Latino and a quarter Chinese and they’re Christian and Muslim, which just perpetuates the idea —It’s fine. I won’t go off, but I was annoyed by it.
Carly: Uh Tina literally says “we score diversity points for being lesbians.” Yeah. So and then basically both couples just list all of their “diversity Olympics” credentials. It’s upsetting. And these men are friends with David Geffen.
Riese: Also [the gay Dads] say that they “already spoke with Rowena,” which is a street. It’s a street name.
Carly: Yeah. (sarcastic) Good job.
Riese: Good job taking it to the streets, guys. I bet you went to Pinkberry.
Carly: I bet you guys thought you were talking to a person and you weren’t..
Riese: You weren’t. You were just at the 7-11 on Rowena.
Carly: Good job. That’s not going to help get your son into this elite school.
Riese: No, it’s not. Did he make a puzzle today?
Carly: I bet he did not.
Riese: He didn’t. Anyway. Angelica should get in. I have no memory of how this ever works out.
Carly: I truly do not remember. I just honestly remember Angelica being a teen at this point. So it’s very confusing in my head that she’s still a baby.
Riese: Then we go to a little Hollywood prison. The “backlot of the studio” prison.
Carly: Helena is in jail. Because if you recall, she stole Catherine’s money at the end of last season. She’s getting her mugshot taken. She has to turn in the approximately 372 pieces of jewelry she is currently wearing. A song by The Gossip is playing in the scene called “Listen Up.” I love the gossip, big fan. Helena gets strip-searched. It’s all like, you know, like things you think are in a prison, but are just in a film. You know, the normal tropes. And then I wrote in my notes, “Orange is the new Peabody,’ which I’m personally very proud of.
Riese: (Wincing) Yeeeaah? And then speaking of prisons that are just in a movie, Helena walks down the hallway of jail cells and they are all cat-calling her.
Carly: Oh God.
Riese: So that’s how that went for her. So Helena is in jail.
Carly: I would love to understand the layout, the map of the prison, that in order to get anywhere, you have to walk through a hall of inmates who are all attractive and are all whistling at you and cat-calling you. Cause we see it again later when her friends show up.
Riese: Anyway, Lez Planet! We haven’t been to The Planet for so long.
Carly: Oh my god, We’re back at The Planet with like a totally normal friend group, which is Shane, Alice, Max and Phyllis, which is definitely a group of people that normally hang out together and are very close.
Riese: Right. Well, Alice has a new show. It’s a podcast.
Carly: Well, It’s a video podcast.
Riese: It’s a video podcast. It’s called “Alice in Lesboland.”
Carly: Alice in Lesboland, which is a funny name and also a terrible name. Here’s what’s happening: Max, who is a computer programmer, is now shooting a video interview with a camera and with headphones. And he’s doing everything in the middle of the day at The Planet, which is a loud cafe that they have not shut down, which is for Alice’s podcast, which as we all know, is an audio medium. Yes, I know that in 2008 there was such a thing as video podcasts, but I don’t really subscribe to that way of thinking.
Riese: It’s funnier if we don’t acknowledge that.
Carly: We’re going to just, we’re going to continue talking about this.
Riese: We’re doubling down.
Carly: We’re doubling down on our own personal ignorance. We refuse to admit that you can call a bunch of videos, a “podcast,” Cause you can’t. That’s kind of the stance that this podcast here —again, an audio medium because you cannot see either of us right now — is taking.
Riese: If you could see us you’d be so excited cause we look great.
Carly: Yeah. I haven’t showered today, but somehow I do look great. Okay. So Phyllis is going to be the guest on Alice’s podcast, which is again, being filmed in a loud cafe in the middle of the day.
Riese: It’s for Our Chart.
Carly: It’s for Our Chart, it’s a biweekly podcast.
Riese: Meanwhile, Shane has to go look at apartments with Paige and everyone thinks that’s a bad idea because when Kit sees Shane with her —.
Kit: “I Don’t see Shane on fire.”
Riese: What was that? Foreshadowing?
Carly: Oh my God is it? I like to think it is. I like to think there are no coincidences.
Riese: Cause later in the episode Shane just bursts into flames. When she’s wearing a dress. She’s like the girl on fire!
Carly: When Shane is on that talk show with the man with the blue hair and she spins in a circle and then her dress catches on fire. That was an incredible scene. I can’t wait to talk about that scene when it comes out.
Riese: So that’s going to be weird. Then when we go back to jail. Helena is really on a journey,
Carly: Man. She’s on a journey down the hallway, she’s on a journey to meet her cellmate. Her cellmate is Dana’s trainer from previous seasons.
Riese: Also Ilene Chaiken’s trainer in real life, her name is Lucia Rijker.
Carly: Her arms are incredible. She is in great shape. I’m kind of disappointed that Helena didn’t immediately try to get with her.
Riese: What else are they gonna do?
Carly: She has a lot of free time.
Riese: Helena is immediately terrified of this woman who greets her by just cracking all of her knuckles. And also the decor in their cell is like — it looks like pictures you would see in a tattoo parlor, like tattoos. Did you notice?
Carly: Yes. Very interesting.
Riese: I was like, is that a scorpion?
Carly: Yeah. And it was a scorpion, and several roses, and probably a nautical star.
Riese: Maybe they’re going to do some stick and pokes.
Carly: Oh, I would love for Helena to have a cool tattoo when she leaves prison. I just think that would make her so much more interesting.
Riese: Well the first thing Helena says, which is a great thing to say when you first arrive in jail as a privileged white woman, is:
Helena: “I don’t expect I’ll be here very long. We’ve been trying to get hold of my mother. You see, otherwise I wouldn’t be here at all. You know, I’m, I’m sure that soon as we get in touch with her, I’ll be like — whoo—”
Carly: Yeah, she’s essentially tells her cellmate, “we’re not cellmates so much as I’m just here for a brief visit.”
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Um “cause once mummy wires the funds for my bail? I’ll get to leave.” I just want to know what Dana’s trainer did. I like to think that after Dana died, her trainer was like, “Oh my God, I’m so upset. And also she was my like favorite client and I now I can’t be a trainer anymore.” I don’t know what she did, but now she’s in prison.
Riese: Just so you guys know this actress has been dubbed by the press, “the most dangerous woman in the world.”
Carly: Whoa.
Riese: She speaks four languages.
Carly: That’s what’s dangerous about her.
Riese: She’s a kickboxer and she’s like a martial arts fighter in real life.
Carly: Awesome.
Riese: Yeah. So I love this for her and for us.
Carly: Yup, yup, yup. Yup. I just like her arms and just want more scenes of her arms.
Riese: Yeah, that’d be great. (Tone change to over-the-top enthusiasm) Carly, you know what my favorite part of college was?
Carly: Tell me.
Riese: It was when I looked at my lesbian website and saw the chancellor of my university talking about what amazing sex she’s having with her girlfriend.
Carly: You could SO relate to that! Yeah. Like really down-to-earth.
Riese: I was like, thanks so much. Now I feel like we’re really on the same level. And so I was so excited to see The Planet representing this exact same scenario that happens all the time, where Phyllis is going on a television podcast video with Alice to talk about her becoming a late in life lesbian and also she’s learning all of this new lingo.
Carly: Like “U-hauling.”
Riese: She says that sex with Joyce Wishnia is a —.
Phyllis: “Post-Graduate thesis.”
Riese: And Alice is like, Whoa!
Carly: Hang on a sec there! Alice is like, no? Phyllis is like, Oh honey, you’re sweet. But you’re a little vanilla.
Riese: And then she explains vanilla to her.
Phyllis: “Vanilla sex. Conventional sex. What the culture regards as standard or regular sex—”
Riese: And Alice is like, I know what that means.
Carly: It was very funny.
Riese: This part of this whole thing is cute and funny.
Carly: I like that Phyllis is taking notes. I enjoy that. They have a cute little interview. Then we go to see the super smart decision, which is Shane and Paige looking at apartments.
Riese: But at least they’re looking at 2G cause that’s like,–.
Riese and Carly: The best unit.
Carly: I’m gonna finance the hell out of this best unit.
Riese: It’s “closest to the pool.” My friends, I believe that this is a U-Shaped apartment building. So I think that everything on the first floor is equally close to the pool!
Carly: I think this realtor is full of shit because immediately after they look at the apartment, she tells Shane that she knows like a hundred of her exes and names them all by name.
Realtor: Lisa Pantollini says hi, actually.
Shane: Really? Oh, we’ll give her my best, tell her I say hi back.
Paige: Who’s that?
Shane: She’s a girl I used to know way back when.
Realtor: I know Lacey as well.
Shane: Oh yeah, Lacey, of course.
Realtor: I also know Brandy Delaney. And Megan.
Shane: Brandy Delaney… Oh, I remember — Brandy and oh yeah, Megan too!
Riese: Including Lacey, who we all remember.
Carly: Who we all remember and we all love very much. So it gets really awkward. And I want to point out that Shane is wearing a red shirt and Paige is wearing a hot pink shirt and I feel like visually that’s what they’re going for, like this couple is a mismatch. Look how when they stand next to each other, it’s hard to look at because of the colors of their shirts.
Riese: Right. Except for that also I think that Paige’s cleavage looked great.
Carly: Agreed. Paige looked radiant and just beautiful.
Riese: As always.
Carly: As always, also, I was just staring at the pool and kind of started zoning out because all I want to do is be swimming in a pool. And so this was hard to watch for me.
Riese: If you guys thought I wanted a friend with a pool before this—
Carly: Oh boy.
Riese: HOOOO do I want a friend with a pool now.
Carly: Oh boy. Both of us do,
Riese: Oh God. Because there’s a public pool that I went to all the time last summer and now it’s closed.
Carly: So anyway, this realtor is extremely inappropriate and I think she should not have this job. I think they should fire her. And then she clearly wants Shane to fuck her and that’s, that’s weird, but is it?
Riese: Then we’re back with more transphobia!!!
Carly: Oh, awesome. Did you think we left transphobia behind in season four? You were wrong!
Riese: This time — First of all, what the fuck? Phyllis doesn’t know what the T stands for?? This is how this started. She’s writing a graduate sex thesis and she doesn’t know how to find out what the T means and she doesn’t already know what the T Means? What?
Carly: First of all, Alice is like “The CU LGBT Student Union, you should pay them a visit, Phyllis.” My initials being CU, I thought that this was the Carly Usdin LGBT student union, to which I said, “thank you so much.” I’m honored to have this named after me. Just, it was a big scene for me personally.
Riese: Yeah, for sure.
Carly: But yeah, Phyllis has not paid them a visit because she doesn’t know what the T stands for. What?
Riese: And then Alice tells her that T is for—.
Carly: The T slur!
Riese: “The T slur, like Max. ” And then we get more of this annoying propaganda about how The L Word writers feel about trans men. Phyllis asks if he’s had “the surgery,” and he says he went to San Francisco to get it, but then he decided not do it because he didn’t want to lose sensation in his nipples, which is the writers of this program telling you that they don’t think that anyone should have top surgery basically. Cause 0% of me believes that that’s the decision Max would make.
Carly: Um I am going to agree with you as a Person of Top Surgery Experience, which is a phrase I just came up with and I really enjoy. This is enraging. It’s not a thing. It is propaganda from the writer’s room. Absolutely agree with you. Then he says he felt like enough of a guy as is without the surgery, which is of course everyone’s individual right and journey. But I think that this “because of losing nipple sensation” thing is ridiculous.
Riese: Also Max didn’t — in what we’ve seen of him, I didn’t see that he was really comfortable with having his body touched in certain ways.
Carly: He seemed so, so, so uncomfortable with any upper body anything in all the scenes we’ve seen of him that this was just very hard to believe for his character.
Riese: I don’t buy it.
Carly: He also starts — when he corrects Alice’s use of the T word, the slur, he calls himself “transgendered,” past tense, which is just a linguistic pet peeve of mine. So whatever, that again comes from the writer’s room. So fuck you guys.
Riese: Phyllis asks what top surgery is and Alice should’ve been like, “that’s how you become a top, you get top surgery” and then Phyllis could’ve written that down and then used it inappropriately.
Carly: And then it would have been so funny!
Riese: Then we have — first of all, just to rewind a minute, Alice said that this show was for bisexuals, Sapphicly-inclined ladies, and their friends. That’s who she said her show is for, correct?
Carly: Yes. That is correct. She said that several minutes ago in this episode.
Riese: Several minutes ago. We’re only on scene eight here, okay? And that was in what, scene two? I don’t know, two or three.
Carly: A smaller number than eight.
Riese: Exactly. And she says that they’re getting off topic because they’re talking about trans stuff, which they’ve been doing for, I don’t know — 30, 45 seconds?
Carly: And also this happened because they ran out of room on the tape. Remember recording things on tape? And Max said that he had to change the tape. So they’re not filming and really this is just Alice being really shitty.
Riese: There’s so many things about this conversation that annoyed me and I’m sure there’s so many things that are annoying to you. I’ll just, I’ll start with one.
Carly: Oh my God, this is so fun! Okay.
Riese: Okay. Okay. So first of all, when Alice says that “no, they’re getting off topic.” And then Max’s argument is like, “It’s Our Chart. Doesn’t that suggest it’s inclusive because the word is Our Chart?” And like, not really… Like a name can mean anything. What should make it inclusive is that first of all, even if it is just for lesbians and bisexual women, trans women are part of that, so talking about trans people is not getting off topic.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: And secondly, she earlier said it was for basically the whole community and that also includes trans men and non binary people. And so the fact that the argument they gave him to say was like about whether or not was OUR Chart? Like that doesn’t make sense. There’s so many other arguments to make.
Carly: Yeah. Going on the specifics of the name of the site didn’t really need to happen. There’s so many other arguments.
Riese: I think there’s nothing about this conversation that made sense. It didn’t feel like anything a trans guy would say. It doesn’t really feel like anyone — they obviously weren’t trying to sell us on the idea that Max should be part of this community, even though they’re employing him—.
Carly: Absolutely. Like, come on guys. So, Max quit his full time, terrible job. But that he was making great money at, to go work for Alice’s website, and make very little money.
Riese: Correct.
Carly: And she knows that he is a trans man, though she does seem to have a lot of issues with that. So now she’s just creating a hostile work environment for her ONE employee and someone that’s supposed to be her friend. Like she is being such a shitty person.
Riese: Yeah, you’re correct. That’s correct. And Max deserves better. However, I do think that he looked really cute in his little raglan shirt.
Carly: And then Tasha calls. She called to tell Alice that she can’t talk right now. It is a very short phone call and Alice won’t let her get off the phone until she says out loud that she loves her. And then Alice is sad.
Riese: So Alice is still respecting Tasha’s boundaries.
Carly: Yeah. Oh my God. Right? Like, Oh, I’m like um, she’s kind of on an army base in the midst of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, can you please stop this? I thought we’ve been through this already. Alice doesn’t remember a single thing that happened in Season Four.
Riese: Bad episode of “Alice in Lesboland” if you ask me.
Carly: Not a good episode.
Riese: Phyllis was talking shit about Alice’s bedroom behavior, and then transphobia. “Off-Topic” transphobia. Meanwhile, in The Planet—
Carly: Elsewhere in this massive interior.
Riese: It’s (Sings) exposition time, exposition time!
Carly: Oh my God, I LOVE exposition time. Oh my God, not only exposition time, but guess what? We’ve got a party this episode, my two favorite things. We’ve got a party where everyone will be in the same room with music and we’ve got an exposition scene right now. So Bette and Tina are now at The Planet and they sit with Kit and Kit got a postcard from Jenny. Bette and Tina did not get postcards from Jenny. Kit says that [Jenny] is in Playa Del Carmen, and Bette says —.
Bette: Playa de Carmen, that’s not nearly far enough away.
Carly: Which was wonderful.
Riese: This is never cleared up, but … Did she just take her raft?
Carly: I think the implication is that she sailed from Helena’s beachfront estate with Catherine to Mexico and to Talum, which is on the eastern side of Mexico, near Playa Del Carmen. I believe they are right next to each other. Yeah.
Riese: So she sailed her raft through the Panama Canal I guess.
Carly: Then Tina’s like, I have to leave and go to a production meeting for Lez Girls? But then, why did you come to the coffee shop? You sat down, you came inside.
Riese: She had something to tell us! She wanted to tell us that a hedge fund billionaire is financing the movies and he fired Kate. And also, Bette thanks Kit for watching Angie, which is how we find out that Kit has finally broken up with Angus. And for some reason, she’s like, “it’s my fault you don’t have a Manny.” No, it’s not. It’s his fault. And Hazel’s.
Hazel: “You’re way too hot to be a Papa.”
Carly: This is upsetting. I want Kit to go to see a therapist or something because I don’t I don’t want her to think that this is her fault. This is not, this makes me very unhappy.
Riese: Also her necklace is bananas.
Carly: Yes. I also think it’s great that a cis straight white billionaire fired the lesbian director of the lesbian movie, I just think despite all the personalities involved, I just think that thing, that situation is just wonderful.
Riese: Although he did hire another lesbian to take her spot.
Carly: Well, we’ll get to that in a minute. We also find out that Jodi’s coming back tomorrow night. So you know, just a lot of really important exposition happens here and I wouldn’t want to miss any of it. So then we go to the apartment.
Riese: Jared loves it. He’s standing in the apartment and there’s obviously a balcony outside of it, like behind the curtain. For some reason they’re standing on the other side of the curtains. Jared is like, Oh, the pool’s right out there. And it’s like, dude, walk out there. Why are you staying behind the curtains? I don’t know why this was annoying me or that there were boxes in it or that it was a bad apartment!
Carly: Well, none of that really matters. You know why? It’s because she’s like, let’s go look at your room, Jared. And we all know exactly what is about to happen here. Shane’s fucking the horrible, inappropriate realtor. Jared doesn’t see anything. Which is great because that would have been truly terrible.
Riese: Yeah. You know what I would say is that throughout this episode, Shane is not really on character in general.
Carly: Yeah. Shane is really kind of weird in this episode.
Riese: Yeah. I think it’s just this episode. I think it changes as the season goes on, but like, obviously we all know she has like a cheating problem, blah, blah, blah. But like, would she fuck a girl in the apartment? No, she wouldn’t. That’s insane.
Carly: I won’t even get to how irritating this whole storyline is until later. But this is so annoying. So this next scene is just a real gem. Tina arrives late to her meeting. And she goes in to find her boss, Aaron, who we all hate, and William, the eccentric hedge fund billionaire played by the great Wallace Shawn.
Riese: When we were watching this season the first time we started calling him “Inconceivable.” I can’t remember if it was you who did that or Haviland, but I feel like it was you.
Carly: I just refer to him as Wallace Shawn in this entire set of notes for this recap. He’s great. Wallace Shawn of Princess Bride, of Clueless, of countless other incredible films and television appearances. So, guess who else is in this meeting? It’s Jenny and um wow. Tina is quite surprised as you can imagine. And also surprised to find that her own boss doesn’t know her job title, which I found to be very disrespectful and I don’t like Aaron. So basically here’s what had happened. Jenny went to Tulum —.
Riese: On her raft.
Carly: — as William’s guest and she did an entire rewrite of a feature script on spec. And now everyone loves her and William’s going to finance their next three films. So Jenny gets to do whatever she wants, which includes directing the film.
Riese: Also Jenny and William swam with dolphins? And also Aaron loved the Manatee scene.
Carly: And he also loved the scene at the party where Nina hits on Jessie. He shouts. He’s so excited about the scene. We know that he knows that Nina is Tina, so he’s just being an extra asshole in this moment. And Aaron’s just sucking up to the both of them. And Tina is rolling her eyes, which is very funny. And she clearly wants to disappear.
Riese: Um you know who loved this episode? Tina.
Carly: Me too!
Riese: Like, I don’t know what’s going on with her, but—.
Carly: I really enjoyed Tina. She was one of the few characters I had no problems with this episode. Shocking, quite shocking. She also looked very good.
Riese: Yeah. She looked great.
Carly: Everybody looked really good in this episode, but like she specifically, I was like, good for you, Tina. I really want you to quit this job and go work at a different studio.
Riese: So Jenny’s assistant —.
Carly: She shows up with Sounder, fresh from the groomer. But the groomer didn’t have the orange bows and Jenny hates her assistant and is really mean to her. And it’s gross.
Riese: Yeah. I don’t like that.
Carly: No. And that’s only going to get worse.
Riese: Yes, it is. Speaking of the color orange, which we talked about earlier because of Orange is the New Black and prison, and then we talked about just now because of the bows for the dog — Joyce’s sheets are a little bit orange.
Carly: Wow, that was a really good segue. You really brought it back around in such an eloquent way.
Riese: Thank you. So Joyce and Phyllis are love-making and and they just had the best time and they’re really lavishing in the afterglow.
Carly: The afterglow. Yes. And I guess tomorrow is Phyllis’s coming out party! Which is not a real thing, but Joyce is throwing her a party. Okay. I mean, look, I love a party. I especially love them now when I’m not allowed to leave my own home. So I understand wanting to throw a gathering of friends. Joyce also wants them to move in together. And Phyllis impresses her with her use of the term —
Joyce: “U-Haul? Where did you pick that up?”
Riese: Then we have a really weird scene. So we’re back over at the Shenny-Bettina set. Shane is drinking beer on the porch. Bette comes home and Bette’s like, “what’s up,” and Shane is like “Paige won’t answer the door.” And it’s like… Um, right? Of course not!
Carly: And also, you already had time to tell Bette what happened?
Riese: Then she’s like, I just don’t want Shay to find out like… How?
Carly: Do you have some sort of like communication link to Shay that we don’t know about?
Riese: Like none of this makes sense. Every way that Shane acts about this relationship is so inconsistent. Every scene is wrong in a new way, and this scene is wrong in that Shane would know — I mean obviously, Shane is trying to self sabotage. If we’re going to buy that scene, we can’t buy this scene.
Carly: Right.
Riese: Cause you know what I mean? It doesn’t work.
Carly: She’s acting like she doesn’t understand why Paige won’t talk to her.
Riese: And is Paige just gonna tell Shay?
Carly: Right? Like Paige is just like emailing Shay? She has a great relationship with him. Yeah.
Riese: Just so you know, I love getting emails like that. “Just so you know, your friend cheated on me and they love blah, blah, blah.” And I’m like, Whoa.
Carly: I don’t want Shay to get that email. I don’t want him involved in that.
Riese: I don’t want anyone to ever get any emails. Unless they say “donation received from [email address.]” And then I know that we got a donation to our fundraiser, which you should donate to! Love you.
Carly: That was well done.
Riese: Then Jenny shows up and Shane says “You look like a crepe!”
Carly: She does!
Riese: And they’re so loving to each other.
Carly: And Bette tries to escape, but Shane does not let her.
Riese: Yeah, Shane wants to make them be friends.
Carly: She’s like, I want you to meet Jenny, please be friends! And Bette’s like “(snickers) we’ll see!” Which is great.
Riese: Then it’s the next morning, the lighting is beautiful. The birds are chirping. The sun is in the sky of the set and the birds are landing in the trees and the trees are growing and the world is changing. And Jenny would like Marissa to pick up her dry cleaning. It’s like this Devil Wears Prada thing that they’re doing. I think.
Carly: Yes. Jenny floated away to Mexico, wrote a screenplay, came back and is now very mean to people. Everyone! But especially to her assistant Marissa. She’s like “I never said this was a 5 days a week job” because apparently today is Saturday or tomorrow is Saturday. I lost the plot on this one. I never know what day or time it is in real life, why would, I know what time is happening on the show? Then Tina shows up and she’s got coffees and croissants. And Jenny is like aghast at the thought that Tina would make her eat a croissant. Like how dare you? And I was like, I’ll take that.
Riese: Croissants are so on brand for Jenny.
Carly: Like they could not be more on brand.
Riese: Jenny’s whole personality screams “I want a croissant!” Also, just take one and eat it. Or pretend to eat it. Chew it up and then spit it into your napkin. Be polite.
Carly: But Jenny’s whole thing here is just like being horrible and condescending to Tina. So that’s just sort of what happens. Tina is like, “I’m here, I’ve got notes on the script” and Jenny is like, “no, mornings are my time to write.” And then Jenny just kind of lays into Tina and tells her that she’s never been treated as badly as she was treated by Tina when she was fired.
Riese: When she said that I was like, that is the exact same thing that Donald Trump says all the time!
Carly: Every day.
Riese: He’s always like, “I’ve never been treated so poorly.”
Carly: Basically Jenny is doing the Donald Trump playbook in this episode, which is not something I wanted to say—.
Riese: I know, it’s so weird. I hate it.
Carly: I hate it.
Riese: I mean, I get it. It’s funny. This felt improvised, like the sticky notes thing? Cause also that didn’t really make sense. Like why are sticky notes worse than notes? But I felt like it was sort of supposed to be funny and it was kind of funny, but doesn’t really make sense.
Carly: No. And Jenny says that Tina was trying to get ahead by using “her creation.” Man, the ego on display here is truly maddening. Is this now a good time to talk about the film industry and how Jenny doesn’t understand it?
Riese: Yeah!
Carly: It is very, very, very difficult to get hired, to direct something, period. You have to do so many meetings and so many pitches and put together so many documents and lookbooks and pitch decks. And you do this all for free in the hopes that you get selected to direct the project. Hiring someone with no directing experience of any kind is basically unheard of. So the fact that she — honestly, one of the most unbelievable things about this show is that Jenny gets hired to direct her own film. That is bonkers. And now the fact that she is trying to tell Tina that she refuses to take notes from an executive because “she doesn’t understand writing or how to be creative” is ridiculous. This is the studio system.
Riese: Yeah, Tina’s just doing her job.
Carly: Tina is trying to like make nice with Jenny because she knows they have to work together and she just wants it to be a success. And I really kind of feel for Tina here. And I just want to punch Jenny in the face!
Riese: Yeah. From what we’ve seen of the screenplay so far, it’s bad, so. So I think that probably Tina had some valuable notes. Cause she has lots of experience. She made “Magical Enchanted Forest!”
Carly: She inspired Michel Gondry.
Riese: And Sofia Coppola, Sofia Coppola is her best friend. She invented Virgin Suicides.
Carly: She basically made it herself.
Riese: She did. She won like— 25 Oscars.
Carly: We all remember Sophia Copola in the magazines and in the interviews on stage — accepting awards and thanking Tina Kennard. We all remember this.
Riese: Yeah, every time. Sometimes she thanked her twice. Like, she’d forget and then she’d thank her another time at the end. Yeah. So this is a big obsession. Everybody knows this. And then here’s Jenny in her kitchen., saying it’s “her time to write?’ Yeah. Okay. Well, whatever, Jenny.
Carly: Learn to write other times of the day. Also, I can only write at night. So I understand.
Riese: Also, eat a croissant.
Carly: Speaking of eating, Helena is attempting to eat food in her cell and spits it out very dramatically.
Riese: Dusty is like, I will take it. I will eat it.
Carly: Yes. Good for Dusty.
Riese: Good for dusty. Dusty is hungry, you know? And then Helena says that she’s against killing?
Carly: Yes she does. So very strange. It’s exactly what you expect from the former rich lady, Helena Peabody, going to prison.
Riese: As you may have seen on Orange Is the New Black, in which a well-off white lady went to prison.
Carly: Exactly. So then we are back at Bette’s house. Tina is in the pool with Angie.
Riese: And I’m jealous.
Carly: There’s so many scenes of people in pools in this episode! I’m dying. It’s it’s so rude to the audience. Again specifically us.
Riese: Don’t put a pool in an episode of our program that we’re gonna talk about like 10 or 12 years later on a podcast during an international pandemic when we can’t go to the pool! And just put it in front of our faces without an invite, ILENE CHAIKEN, to YOUR private pool that I know you have because I know you’re rich. I know you have a pool and you haven’t invited me to it. And if anyone listening to this knows Ilene Chaiken, please tell her I want to come to her pool. And I deserve it.
Carly: Perfect. Bette goes to put Angie down for her nap. And Tina decides to do a little topless floaty tanning in the pool.
Riese: And they play this sort of like corny porny sexy music.
Carly: This is saxophone out of, like, Who Framed Roger rabbit. Like when Jessica Rabbit walks into the detective office, that’s literally the music that’s playing. It’s quite cartoonish.
Riese: I do feel like tonally Season Five is very consistent within itself. It’s a little bit campy or a little bit high camp, but also a little more grounded, I’d say, than a lot of Season Four’s camp was?
Carly: But it’s more fun.
Riese: It’s playful.
Carly: Look, I’m all here for the show being campier. So I’m excited for how ridiculous some of this stuff is. It kind of doesn’t really sync up with anything that’s happened outside of this season, which is fun! So Bette comes back outside. She is trying to act normal and failing.
Riese: She’s basically trying to find out if Tina and Kate have had sex. In what positions? At what time? How many times? How big her boobs are? Who was on top? Who did what? Did she use two fingers or her fist?
Carly: She wants to know everything.
Riese: She wants every detail.
Bette: “So, What are you doing for sex?”
Tina: “What? “
Carly: Which is the funniest question. Like the phrasing of it is ridiculous.
Riese: Tina delivers a sick burn.
Tina: “You Know, it’s not like I didn’t go for months at a time without having sex when we were together. I’ve gotta go. I have to go visit Helena.”
Bette: “OUCH.”
Carly: Such a sick burn, like rub some aloe on that sick burn.
Riese: I have an aloe plant.
Carly: Oh, that’s great. I have, I have some aloe in a little bottle that I can use if I get a burn or am itchy.
Riese: I just bought it recently for my room that I spend a lot of time in. Alone. Well, okay. Then we’re going back (sings) to prison!
Carly: We’re going back to the prison. We are once again, walking down a hallway full of other inmates to get to the room where you visit people.
Riese: This isn’t how it happens. You have to go in, and then they search you. It’s a whole thing, but there’s no universe in which visitors actually walk through the prison on their way to the visitor’s room.
Carly: No, but it gives Shane the opportunity to flirt with all the inmates in a way that we’ve never seen her flirt before. Like we’ve talked about this before. She is this aloof person who is always kind of waiting for women to come to her. And in this episode she does the complete opposite and it is yeah, very interesting. I don’t really know how I feel about it, but it was sort of funny I guess? So we’ve got Tina, Alice and Shane going to see Helena and um, Alice and Shane have two things they would like Tina to do number one, stop hanging out with Bette so much. And number two, don’t go back to dating men. Wow, great. So they go and sit with Helena. And Helena just wants to know if anyone’s gotten in touch with her mother and no, she has not returned anyone’s calls. Helena you’re on your own. Helena is very unhappy and will not tell anyone what she did with the money.
Riese: Yeah, That’s weird too. But this was a funny scene. It was a very funny like friendship scene. They’re like, you need to lay low.” “You need to let people know you’re not afraid.” “You need to get a family and get yourself a daddy.” It’s just like a fun little thing. They’re having fun in prison.
Carly: What fun!
Riese: Well, we’ll take our fun where we can find it.
Carly: Of course we have to do the classic prison scene joke about dropping the soap, which is so great. And not at all dumb or boring or a rote or offensive. So that’s great. She says that she thinks her cellmate is a psychopath is going to murder her.
Riese: Here’s what I think about her — I think all she knows so far is that her cellmate is hot.
Carly: Yeah, exactly. So get your assumptions out of here, Helena. It’s very rude.
Riese: Also you both know Dana. So that’s something you could have been talking about.
Carly: Unfortunately, no one on the show remembers that there was a person in their lives named Dana.
Carly: Then we jump to a very brief shot at The Planet, where Phyllis and Joyce are celebrating at the party. And then we go right back to Alice’s apartment where Shane is trying to get Alice to rally and go to The Planet for Phyllis’s party, but Alice is very distraught because she is watching the news about all caps WAR IN IRAQ. Breaking news. There’s a war.
Riese: It’s our favorite channel, NEWS CHANNEL. The little thing in the bottom reads “WAR IN IRAQ.”
Carly: And it is going to say the exact same thing in a scene later. That’s all it says. Breaking — not even breaking. I wish it had said BREAKING! War in Iraq! Like it had just happened.
Riese: So Alice hasn’t gotten a call. She is worried about Tasha. So Shane’s like, let’s do shots, and I’m like, yeah, that’s a good idea.
Carly: Shane, you’re a great friend.
Riese: And then they go to the Coming Out Party. So there’s two basic plots in this. One is Shane, Alice and Tina. They are trying to find Tina a girl. And then the other plot is like sort of Phyllis interacting with all of the queer women of —
Carly: The quote “lesbians of academia,” as Bette calls them.
Riese: Who all have “had their eye on her for a while” and have all gathered at this party to celebrate that Phyllis is a lesbian. This honestly reminded me of how my mom and her lesbian friends talked about stuff.
Carly: Oh my God. That’s amazing.
Riese: It really did! You know like, like, “Oh yeah, we had our eye on her.” I love you mom. Hope you’re not listening though, because that’d be weird.
Carly: Oh my God, does your mom listen to this?
Riese: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think she’s ever listened to a podcast.
Carly: My mom semi-recently got into podcasts and I have not mentioned the existence of this podcast to her and I hope and I pray that she doesn’t find it. Although she did start an Instagram account and is following me. So it’s only a matter of time before my whole world comes crashing down.
Riese: My mom did that to me several years ago and I’ve been upset at her ever since. So basically the Tina plot is cute, I think?
Carly: Yeah. It’s like more cute friendship moments. They’re looking at all the girls, all the ladies and like, “Tina, you should go talk to her” and blah, blah, blah.
Riese: Jenny shows up. She tells her assistant to turn her office into a rainbow. It doesn’t make sense and then Shane and Jenny unite in a very touchy way because of Shenny seeds. And Shane asks Jenny to be nice to Tina and then Marissa quits cause she wants to go to church. (sings) Take her to church!
Carly: I think it’s really good that Marissa quit because this was not a healthy work environment for Marissa. Jenny then says to absolutely no one — which is actually very funny — “you have missed the opportunity of a lifetime Marissa.”
Carly: So then there is a woman that everyone’s scoping out on Tina’s behalf and Shane’s like, “I’ll handle this.” So she goes over to say hi to Joyce and Phyllis. And then they introduce her to all the academia lesbians and the woman that Tina was looking at is named Andrea and Shane uses a terrible pickup line.
Shane: “I’m sure you get this all the time. So this isn’t really original, but you really do have beautiful eyes. It’s true.”
Andrea: “Thank you.”
Shane: “You’re welcome.”
Riese: Okay. Is it, “do you have any of those sweet little figs?”
Carly: No, that would have been a good pickup line. She comments on her eyes.
Riese: Oh yeah. And also this is not the lead up to try to hook her up with your friend! Obviously it doesn’t work. Like she says that “my friend wants to talk to you” and it doesn’t work. Cause she wants to talk to Shane because everyone wants to talk to Shane, and you know who else wants to talk to Shane? Paige. She is present at the party. She shows up and is like, “Hey, I just have one question. Why did you ask us to move in with you?”
Carly: And you know what? That’s a really good question. Because if you recall, this was all Shane’s idea from last season. And if I remember our conversation about it correctly, Riese, I think we said that it seemed like Paige didn’t want to do this at all. And she just was sort of going along with it because Shane seemed very, very, very passionate about wanting them to all get a place together.
Riese: I think it’s really cool when partners really press hard for you to enter a certain living situation with them and then they decide they don’t want it anymore because — for whatever reason — and then, and then you are stuck with trying to figure out what the fuck to do with yourself now that all of this apartment nonsense or house nonsense has happened. I think that’s really great when people do that. And I’m really happy for both of them.
Carly: Shane’s real shitty in this whole situation.
Riese: She’s like, “I thought it would be good for us” and then Paige is like, “why’d you say Shay’s coming back?” And I’m like, yeah. Good question.
Carly: Again, a great question. Paige is full of good questions here.
Riese: Unanswered.
Carly: Paige is killing it in the scene.
Riese: She’s just like, “I know you have a problem.” And Shane’s like “yeah.” But she’s like “I could live with it. It’s just sex.” And then Shane is like, “no you deserve someone who loves only you and you alone.” What’s happening.
Carly: None of this makes sense? Why can no one acknowledge that being open or being poly is a thing.
Riese: Yeah, but it’s also … What is this conversation?
Carly: Shane just like led her into a situation that she wanted no part in. And is now just abandoning it in a very, very weird way.
Riese: Right. And also like it’s not for Shane to decide what kind of relationship Paige wants to be in. Anyway, none of this makes sense. The whole conversation doesn’t make sense. And then Paige just walks right out of the show.
Carly: Yep. Bye Paige! It was, it was nice to have you around. I’m sorry that Shane was shitty to you.
Riese: Well, that’s that. Sorry, Jared. Jared is similar to me and Carly at this time because I don’t think Jared has a pool and neither do we.
Carly: God, I totally feel for Jared in the scene with his lack of a pool now.
Riese: So Bette is like sitting with Tina. Very close to Tina.
Carly: I would describe it as “canoodling.”
Riese: I wrote down “canoodling.”
Carly: Of course you did.
Riese: I wrote “Bette is canoodling with Tina.”
Carly: Absolutely. So guess who’s here? It’s Jodi! Hi Jodi!
Riese: (Singing) She’s in town, she’s around, it’s Jodi!
Carly: I’m pleased to announce that in the wide shot where we see Jodi enter the planet, we can see that their menus do use the Papyrus font anymore. And I would just like to congratulate The Planet on getting new menus that don’t use the papyrus font.
Riese: (Claps) Good job. Everybody,
Carly: I’m really excited about the new menus! I hope Angus wasn’t the one that installed those. So then Jenny goes and sits with Tina and Alice. And Tina watches Bette and Jodi and Tina gets sad. And then suddenly everyone is all together. Bette and Jodi walk over. Shane is now here. Phyllis is thrilled to see Jodi because she needs some advice! She does not want to settle down with Joyce because it’s just like what she did with Leonard 20 some odd years ago. And I’m really impressed with Phyllis’s emotional maturity and her like wherewithal to be very, like — I feel like people could easily get swept up in that. And I’m really proud of her for not doing that.
Riese: I think the other thing is that Phyllis wants to bone all of the other lesbians of academia.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: And so she’s like surrounded by all of these like Nobel prize winners. And she’s like, “yeah, I could hit that, but I can’t if I move in with Joyce!” And Now she doesn’t know what to do. Did you know that on our podcast page, where it lists like all of our hosts, like it says like our names on iTunes or whatever? Like it has like our names, like Riese Bernard, Carly Usdin. And then it has like some people like El Sanchez? It also has Joyce Wishnia as one of the names of someone who’s been on our podcast. And I’m like, she’s not real?
Carly: We have to interview Joyce Wishnia for this podcast.
Riese: Oh my God, we should.
Carly: I need specifically the character of Joyce Wishnia to be interviewed. So the Joyce comes over and they’re going to toast Phyllis. And Alice calls Joyce “sloppy seconds.”
Riese: Yeah. That was gross.
Carly: That was unnecessary.
Riese: And little does she know that um, Phyllis wants… Uh… taffy… Thirds? With someone else?
Carly: What?!
Riese: I’m getting (weird voice) BACK IN THE HABIT ok? I’m getting Back in the Habit. Is there a thirds? There’s no thirds, is there?
Carly: No.
Riese: Okay. Thripple thirds? Throuple thirds!
Carly: Thirsty thirds!
Riese: It’s the year of the throuple, everybody!
Carly: Well tell that to this show.
Riese: They don’t know. They don’t know.
Carly: So, Bette and Jodi arrive at Jodi’s loft… Question mark?
Riese: Huh. Yeah.
Carly: What? Where, what, okay.
Riese: She should have gotten someone to sublet that shit while she was out of town, I hope.
Carly: Well, is it the same space she was staying in before? Or is it new? Because Bette set it up for her. I thought it was like, she got a new place and Bette set it up or something. I don’t know.
Riese: Bette was trying to set up for Jodi. Cause she said earlier that she wanted to like, get ready, like set something up for Jodi. So I think she wanted to sort set up like a nice little dinner with like — she has cheese and a fruit out. And I assume there’s wine and she wanted to do a nice little like, “Hey, you’re back. Let’s have this little one on one intimate time together.” Um and Jodi is mad about it?
Carly: Well, no, Jodi’s like, I wanted to set it up, this is my space. I wanted to set it up how I wanted to set it up. So I think that Bette decorated the space. That was my read on this. That when Jodi left, she didn’t like still have a place in LA maybe. And so she had to get one and then maybe Bette helped her. And then also decorated the entire thing. That’s how I read it.
Riese: Oh, I thought — cause earlier in episode she said she went to set up a thing for Jodi. So I thought that she meant like she was just going there to set up like her little like wine and cheese thing for Jodi.
Carly: Basically we don’t know what’s happening here.
Riese: Then there’s this moment where Bette’s like, “I don’t know what to do, “you know? And I felt that, like that feeling of when you are with someone and you have a thing you’re doing that you’re really excited about like, “we’re going to have a great Valentine’s Day!” “We’re going to have a great trip!” And then the moment when you realize it’s not working? And you’re like, “Oh fuck, like this thing I’ve been looking forward to for so long….”
Carly: “I don’t have a backup plan!”
Riese: “This thing we put all this positive energy towards is immediately falling apart. Like now what the fuck do we do?”
Carly: Well you know what the fuck we’re gonna do here is that they’re gonna…. DO IT. Jodi says “I’m going to take control of you.” And then she blindfolds Bette. And that is now unwittingly in a top off.
Riese: Yeah. And she’s losing,
Carly: Oh, she loses bad. I don’t need to do the whole top-off intro for this. I don’t think it really merits it, but this is a great scene.
Riese It is a great scene. Bette’s boobs look great, I wrote that down. And also we reenacted this scene for a video.
Carly: Oh wow. I didn’t not remember that.
Riese: I blindfolded Havilland. And then I handcuffed her.
Carly: I don’t remember that at all. Oh my God. That’s so funny.
Riese: And I said, now you can not be with Tina anymore. Cause I was Jodi.
Carly: “I Bind you Nancy!”
Riese: Exactly! “I Bind you against doing harm to others and to yourself!”
Carly: “I bind you against trying to get back together with Tina!”
Riese: So anyway, things are working out great for Bette and Jodi already.
Carly: Yup. And things are working out great for us because that’s a great scene. And also we have a top off in the first episode of season five, which is just great.
Riese: It’s a very hot, sexy scene.
Carly: Very good. And then we go, then we go to — honestly, this is so funny, Shane and her little Jeep come like screeching into a parking lot and the camera turns and we see that Wax is completely engulfed in flames. So let’s for one last time in tribute to Wax — (Carly does the trademark Wax guitar riff, makes explosion sound) That’s the sound of the explosion when it caught on fire.
Riese: Oops!
Carly: Also the music in the background of this is absolutely the same guitar riff that I’ve been doing. I just knew.
Riese: Oh really?
Carly: No, of course not. It’s just, it’s very much that type of music. The show knows that Wax has a song and that’s the song for Wax. So there’s an investigator and he’s like, “probably this was arson. Can you think of anyone, maybe a disgruntled employee or an enemy or someone you’ve pissed off lately?” Or something like that. And Shane lies and says she has no idea who could have done this. I’m really happy that she did not turn Paige in. Yeah. I just love more arson on the show. Arson, arson.
Riese: I love arson arson. And I think that this is, again, another, another look at like, a healthy, relaxed, lesbian breakup. You screw the realtor in the apartment that you’re showing to your girlfriend and her son. And then your girlfriend lights your place of work on fire.
Carly: Not just the girlfriend and the son, but IN the room that the son’s going to live in. That’s just really just fucking, yeah.
Riese: You’re fucking an extra on the floor of the son’s room — 2G, best apartment in the unit. And then she burns down your business of Wax and that’s all, that’s all.
Carly: This is the Wax outro. (Does Sad guitar riff).
Riese: Where will everybody find vests to gig in?
Carly: God? They’re not gonna be able to find guests — guests! Vests! — wow. Just fucking put me out of my misery.
Riese: Where are all the children gonna skate?
Carly: Where are they going to get haircuts?
Riese: Where is — Shay — where’s — how — MILKSHAKES?
Carly: Smoothies!?
Riese: Remember that assistant who didn’t want to do anything?
Carly: Oh yeah. It was definitely her.
Riese: What was her name? I feel like it was Marissa.
Carly: I feel like it was Carla and I don’t think either of those are correct. I know it’s not Marissa because Marissa is Jenny’s assistant.
Riese: You all know who we’re talking about. Who owned it? Chaz, or something?
Carly: Yes. Chaz.
Riese: Well, hope they have insurance, man. Actually, I hope they never address it until some post-show videos two years later.
Carly: That sounds so realistic. All right. So we go to our last scene of the episode. Alice is still watching the news about War in Iraq.
Riese: Which, by the way, bad show!
Carly: She’s just stressed out.
Riese: I just want to say that if I was dating someone who was in the military, which already is like…. I would have to very actively in order to not like, feel insane —.
Carly: Avoid the news?
Riese: Like if I was watching the news? Because the more I watched it, the more I’d be like, WHY ARE YOU A PART OF THIS???
Carly: But Alice is taking a different approach.
Riese: Yeah she’s uh, going whole hog.
Carly: Then there’s a knock at the door and Alice hilariously does this fake deep voice and is like_.
Alice: “Who Is it?”
Carly: Which I thought was very funny and Oh my God you guys it’s Tasha!!! She’s back!
Riese: And then they start making out and this is a hot, it’s a hot scene. Yeah. These are two attractive women and they’re having a nice time on the floor.
Carly: I literally wrote “good for them.”
Riese: I wrote “the war is on in the background, question mark?” The TV is still on.
Carly: If there’s one thing I love to have playing in the background when I’m having sex. It’s the news.
Riese: Yeah. The news.
Carly: The news channel. Yeah.
Riese: Yeah, News one. That’s where I get all my news.
Carly: Awww, New York One, we miss you.
Riese: Awwww, New York, there’s a place we can’t go.
Carly: There’s a place we’ll never go again because we can’t get on airplanes!
Riese: (A Series of sounds expressing sadness and frustration, in a very unhinged way).
Carly: We’re doing great. And that’s the episode.
Riese: That’s the episode!
(Musical Transition)
Carly: We did it. Look at us. We’re back in the habit.
Riese: Back in the habit again. We didn’t have a guest this time.
Carly: No, but we have all sorts of exciting guests coming up this season that you’re going to love.
Riese: Carly.
Carly: Riese.
Riese: Did you enjoy the episode?
Carly: It was fine. I didn’t hate it. Yeah. It was fine. There were some cute moments. I know it’s not my favorite of Season Five. It’s probably one of the weakest episodes of season five. So the only way from here is up, which is great. What about you?
Riese: Yeah. I enjoyed it most of the time. I think Shane’s character made no sense to me. The Jenny stuff is annoying, but understand where it’s going.
Carly: Oh there was the rampant transphobia.
Riese: The usual.
Carly: At least they kept it to one scene this time instead of multiple scenes. And Max was allowed to interact with other people actually on the show.
Riese: That was neat for him.
Carly: A real improvement for Max.
Riese: What happened to Grace? We’ll never know, but I hope she still has her website page.
Carly: I hope she’s still kicking.
Riese: I hope she’s still exactly literally kicking and being photographed, doing the kicks. The other thing I liked is that they didn’t introduce any new characters. Like we’re sticking with our core group, you know?
Carly: For now. And that’s good.
Riese: That’s good. We love it. So yeah, I would say on a scale of one to 10, it was fine.
Carly: On a scale of one to 10, it was okay.
Riese: I look forward to future episodes of the program.
Carly: Absolutely.
Riese: Here’s a reminder. I know it’s annoying, but every year we’re going to have to have two fundraisers or one fundraiser — it depends on how much ad revenue we make. In order to stay afloat and have our nice budget where people get paid a normal amount of money. And so we’re having our second fundraiser and we would love love if you could just toss a little bit of money in there to help us out because each of these episodes costs $500 to make. And we also are going to start transcribing all of them for you and that’s going to be more money. And so we really could use the support, if you like the podcast! It would be great. And I would like to tell you about some people who donated to our last fundraiser.
Carly: Oh, heck yeah.
Riese: Who we really love! Who left us really cute messages.
Carly: These are so cute. This like brightened my day. You guys are so funny.
Riese: I know, isn’t this so lovely?
Carly: All right. We’re going to name some people who we didn’t thank the last time. We’re going to thank them one by one. Could one of these people be you? Maybe.
TRANSCRIPTION NOTE: BECAUSE THESE NAMES WERE SUBMITTED WITH THE EXPECTATION THEY WOULD BE READ OUT LOUD BUT NOT PRINTED IN A SEARCHABLE TRANSCRIPT, I AM GOING TO CHANGE THE FULL NAMES WE SAID OUT LOUD INTO FIRST NAMES.
Riese: Number one, I would like to thank Caitlin.
Script Note:(Golden Girls theme song ‘Thank You For Being a Friend” starts playing)
Carly: We would like to thank Samantha!
Riese: Thank you. Anastasia!
Carly: Thank you, Brianne!
Riese: Thank you, Laura!
Carly: Thank you, Sophie!
Riese: Thank you, Clara!
Carly: And you know who else? Thank you, Leah!
Riese: Thank you, Rochelle!
Carly: Thank you Gabriella.
Riese: Thank you, Liz.
Carly: Thank you, Cathy.
Riese: Thank you Em!
Carly: And a big thanks to Indre.
Riese: And a big thanks to you, Mary.
Carly: Hey, Kelby? Thank you.
Riese: Milo —thank you.
Carly: Eleanor. Huge thanks to you.
Riese: Finn, thank you.
Carly: Katherine —thank you so much.
Riese: Hannah, thank you so much.
Carly: Thank you, Matilda.
Riese: And thank you, Emily.
Carly: And also while we’re talking about thanks, thank you to Courtney.
Riese: And also I want to just mention really fast, like thank you to Nicola?
Carly: Brilliant. Thank you all so much. And if you are able to please donate to the new Autostraddle fundraiser that is going on right now. Yes, you can follow this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at @tolandback. You can also email us, tolandbackcast@gmail.com. We’ve also got a hotline (971) 217-6130. You can call us, leave a message. You could also buy some merch, go to store.autostraddle.com. Get some merch. We’ve got stickers, we’ve got shirts. We’ve got all the other wonderful things on the autostraddle store that are not specific to this podcast. Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Cara Sykes, and this podcast is produced and edited by Lauren Klein. You can find me at @carlytron. You can find Riese at @autowin.. You can find autostraddle @autostraddle.
Riese: Autostraddle dot com?
Carly: Autostraddle dot com.
Riese: Carol Straddle?
Carly: That’s a website. Carol straddle.
Riese: Also thank you to everyone who leaves us nice reviews. It really makes me happy. Okay. Are you ready? I am ready. Okay. One, two, three.
Riese and Carly: [INCOMPREHENDABLE].
Riese: What’d you say?
Carly: I said Letty, which is the character that Michelle Rodriguez plays in the fast and furious movies.
Riese: I said, Lewis, that’s my brother’s name. He recently had a human baby.
Carly: Oh my God. A human baby? Congratulations.
Riese: A full human! But she’s very small.
Carly: Well, that’s the thing with human babies. When the humans are created, they’re smaller and then they get bigger. I read that somewhere.
Riese: I would love to meet her, but I’m terrified of airplanes because I feel like they’re a disease chamber. So I don’t know how that’s gonna work out.
Carly: That sucks.
Riese: I would like to see her. Just thinking about that a little bit. Yeah.
Carly: Someday.
Riese: But it’s fine. I like seeing the same people over and over again.
Carly: I like never leaving my house. It’s great for my brain.
Riese: Yeah, we’re doing great.
Carly: We’re clearly in a really good shape.
Riese: (Groaning Noises, terrified inhales, bungled screaming).
Carly: Thank you all for listening. We are back to our usual weekly schedule, so we will see you back here next week. Yeah. BYEEEEE!!!!
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 412: Long Time Coming
It’s the Season Four finale, and much like Season Four itself we are ALL OVER THE PLACE. These places include: a daring sign Heist involving Shane/Alice/Bette and raw meat, Jodi having red wine in a tent allegedly, a going away party on the beach for Tasha, Jenny adopting a puppy and letting it pee all over town, an unhinged hotel-pool confrontation between Jenny, Kate and Stacey “Your Little Magazine Called Curve” Merkin, some Bette/Tina sexual tension and Joyce Wyshnia returning WITH! A BANG!
Articles as promised:
- A Look at How “Insecure” Lights Black actors so well
- How Film Finally Learned How to Light Black Skin
- How Three Tokelau Teenagers Survived Being Lost in the Ocean for 51 Days
The usual:
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![Jenny (with her hair curled and wearing a black dress) looks downwards, averting eye contact. Subtitles read, "[Liquid trickling]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-29-15.37.08.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
![Alice (wearing a black beret and an camouflage jacket) and Shane (wearing all black, her pants falling down slightly) have just hopped a chain link fence and are now on the ground. Subtitles read, "[Gate slams]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-29-15.44.27.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 411: “Literary License To Kill” With Lauren Montoya
“Lez Girls” is hot off the press and Bette doesn’t care for it in Episode 411 “Lacy Lilting Lyrics.” We are joined by listener SSG Lauren Montoya, who reached out to us about sharing how Tasha’s fictional experience in the military compares to her actual experience as a Staff Sergeant in the army! Together, we witness Henry ripping off his toenails in front of my face, a bad day for Spacegate at Intechmode, Jodi eating an orange, Shane Daddying Jared and sniffing purses, Helena’s relationship continuing to deteriorate, everybody yelling at everybody else about who is or is not a lesbian, and Molly Kroll’s debut appearance!
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![Bette standing in front of a blue-and-green mural at an art show opening. Her hair is pinned up and she's wearing a tan and black high-collar dress. Subtitles read, "[Giggling]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-21-18.42.45-scaled.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
![Overhead shot of a crowded room at Jodi's art show. Subtitles read, "[Tom interpreting]: Thank you."](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-21-19.20.13-scaled.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 410: “Little Boy Blue”
Well paint a map on my abs and call me In The Pink, we’re going to the races! Also, Bette’s planning a big dinner party, Paige and Shane are super into storytelling and green ice cream, Tina gets a boner for Kate Arden who by the way made a wonderful film called Pandora, Jodi wears a tiny vest over a big shirt and Papi wears a baggy vest over no shirt, Max takes a terrible rip back home for a funeral because this show simply has NO MERCY.
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Carly: “We’re doing something that lesbians love to do in television and film, which is draw on each other’s torsos.”
Riese: “Did you notice Barbara Bush was still in there.”
Carly: “Yeah she was like LOOMING in the background. I was gonna say staring at us but she’s blindfolded, so. She’s just sort of hovering in a very uh, menacing and disturbing and distracting kind of way.”
Carly: “One thing I would like to point out is that Max’s sister is NOT played by Taryn Manning. Because if you’re like me, that scene started and you thought… “is that Taryn Manning?”
Riese: “I thought ‘is she wearing a wig?’ Because her hair was so specifically askew, it seemed like they were like “what do people outside of LA do their hair like? What do the country people do in the wilds of Illinois?”
Riese: Back in los angeles california, Paige is wearing a hat.
Carly: Paige is wearing a truly unfortunate hat. This hat should be illegal.
Riese: I think she found it on the set of The Parent Trap set in 1956.
Carly: We’re having ice cream breakfast. I thought it was gelato.
Riese: Shane put on a blazer.
![Jared is wearing a blue shirt and eating green ice cream with a green spoon. "[Clearing throat]: That one story"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-14-19.56.32-scaled.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
Carly: Shane put on a blazer to go to breakfast. That’s…. sure. It looks like they’re in little gelato cups.
Riese: Yeah cuz, green apple gelato?
Max gets the charm bracelet
Riese: “Also is he growing out a beard or is he shaving? He needs to pick one. It’s gross enough that he’s just walking around.”
Carly: Papi is wearing a sweater vest without anything under it. Well maybe like a tank or something, like a cami.
Riese: Maybe a camisole.
Carly: I used to wear sweater vests when they were really popular, during this time, and once I wore one with a t-shirt under it and thought I was like, fucking edgy.”
Carly: Helena and Catherine have a suitcase with 100,000 of cash in it. Because they are in a different movie.
Carly: Tasha runs into a guy that she knows from the military and she gets super worried that he’s gonna know that she’s queer because she is with a bunch of obviously queer people who are all behaving ridiculously
Riese: Helena and Catherine walk by and are holding hands and they kiss
Riese: Tasha looks up and sees them having very public skybox sex and is like, oh my god, horrified.
![Jodi and Bette (whose back is to the camera) in Bette's house. Subtitles read "[Paper crumples]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-14-20.36.12-scaled.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
Riese: And then she stuffs the seating chart up Bette’s hoo-ha.
Riese: It is the standard trope of the person standing away from the funeral who doesn’t feel like they can be at the funeral hiding behind a tree and even though the entire graveyard is empty except for the funeral party nobody ever notices.”
![Jodi and Bette sitting together on a couch. Subtitles read, "They were fucking all day. [Doorbell chimes]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screenshot-2020-06-14-20.40.34-scaled.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
Carly: “Kate bought a very large amount of tequila”
Riese: What? They say you can tell gay girls vs straight girls because gay girls look at their nails basically palms up and fingers in, which isn’t true!
Riese: “It turns out that Jodi is wearing a tiny little vest AND A GIANT SHIRT!”
“The L Word” Episode 409 Podcast: Let’s Spend The Entire Day in Bed With Alice and Carmen Phillips!
Alice, Tasha, Helena and Papi spend 50% of their waking hours in Alice’s bed in this thrilling episode with special guest and passionate Tasha fan, Dr. Carmen Phillips of Autostraddle Dot Com! What is Marina doing here? How much shittier can Shane’s Dad be? How much traffic does OurChart ACTUALLY get? Why hasn’t Helena gotten any of her poker winnings? Who is Papi sprung about? Why is Angus still here? How hot does Bette look in a worksuit? Join us for a really funny episode sure to enable at least 1.5 hours of dissociation!
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As promised in the podcast, your visual aids and out of context screencaps exist below, with the context in the captions as indicated:
Riese: “This time there’s some women and there’s some colors”
Riese: “We cut to Vancouver, where it’s raining”
Riese: “He sent her ten thousand bouquets of flowers”
![Shane in a grey t-shirt, looking very tired, her black eyeliner smudged. Subtitles read, "[Kids whoop and splash]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-25-10.45.14-scaled.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
Carmen: “I love that shot so much…. you know [The Kiss]? I want them to take this picture of Tasha and Alice and make it poster size so I can hang it in my very adult bedroom.”
Carly: “Can you imagine wearing an entire sombrero on an entire trans-atlantic flight?”
Riese: “Dad goes to the bookshelf, pulls a book off the shelf, what book is it everybody? At first I thought it was Generation X by Douglass Copeland. It is not. It is Sum of Her Parts.”
Carly: “By Jennifer Shecter.”
Riese: “Also as he walks in, Alice does this turnaround where she like mouths to everybody ‘HELP ME'”
Carly: “Can you imagine being Leonard…. and you’re coming here to see this lesbian to be like why, what did you do to her, and then you walk in and there are three other women in her bed? That visual should’ve been it. He should’ve been like OH I get it.”
Riese: “I swear to God the woman who stands up and starts yelling was in Battlestar.”
Carly: “We see the phone and in all caps it says LEONARD KROLL IS IN MY BED”
![Phyllis and Alice hugging. Alice's head is on Phyllis's shoulder. Subtitles read, "[Patting Alice's back heartily.]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-20-14.38.43-scaled.jpg?w=1200&resize=1200%2C750)
The meeting that can’t start without Max
Carly: “I thought I knew the hotel, I think it’s the Standard.
Riese: “First of all I was like Carly will know what hotel this is, and second of all, I was like, why is everyone else at this pool wearing full clothing.”
Shay’s Wax t-shirt
Riese: “I would like to note that the screen at the beginning — they are looking at OurChart’s traffic and they are NOT getting 40,000 hits an hour.”
Carly: “Grace is wearing just the most gigantic cowboy boots I’ve ever seen.”
Bette’s HOT worksuit
Riese: “Then Marina comes up and sits on his lap and starts leering at Jenny?”
Carly: “They just go nuts with the spray paint and just deface the whole thing.”
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 408: Lexington and Concord
We have arrived at the fine towns of Lexington and Concord to find Alice and Tasha just wanting to f*ck each other, Paige and Shane having steamy car sex, Bette having emotional reservations, Tina missing her special secret lesbian club, Kit throwing a drink at a nanny-fucking motherfucker, Jenny possessing the hottest property in tinseltown and Helena and Catherine poking her in the front and licking her in the rear at the world-famous CASINO!
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![A bouquet of flowers laying next to a small tombstone with the Star of David and "RIP" engraved in it. Subtitles read, "[Gasping]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-13-16.10.45-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
![Papi wearing a purple shirt staring wide-eyed at a surfer dude (whose back is to the camera). Subtitles read, "[In surfer voice]: Yeah, fucking bummer, dude."](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-13-16.22.28-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
![Looking through a windshield of a car, where a single foot is sticking up in the air as sexy shenanigans between Shane and Paige carry on inside. Subtitles read, "[Panting and moaning]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-13-17.11.41-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
![A dark-haired person in a purple top hugging Helena (wearing a black dress) from behind, about to lick her neck. Subtitles read, "[Man whistles]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-13-17.24.25-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 407: Lesson Number One With Lianna Carrera!
Listen we’re not gonna ask anybody or tell anybody anything butttt it’s time for Lesson Number One and comic/writer and CODA Lianna Carrera is here to make us laugh and assess Bette’s sign language skills. Furthermore, Bette and Jodi are wearing matching white tank tops, Tasha doesn’t finish her churro, Phyllis has some major lesbian processing to do, Helena is playing strip gin rummy with Catherine, OurChart is BLOWING UP WITH HITS, Shane and Paige are gonna teach kiddos it’s ok to be gay I guess, Alice is going on a series of rides with Tasha and Katie Holmes wants to be in Lez Girls by Jenny Schecter!
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- Lianna talks about the misconception that it’s easy and effective for deaf people to read lips and there’s a great video about that here.
Riese: Hi, I’m Riese!
Carly: And I’m Carly.
Riese: And this is —.
Riese and Carly: To L and Back!
Carly: Hi.
Riese: Hi. It’s hot out.
Carly: It’s so hot out.
Riese: That’s all.
Carly: That’s all we have to say. Thank you so much for joining us. We’ll see you next week. So here we are again, another episode of To L and Back, a weekly podcast from Autostraddle that recaps every episode of The L Word one week at a time, one episode at a time, here we are.
Riese: Yep. That’s us. We’re here, doing it from our homes.
Carly: It’s happening. Yes. We are still in our homes because that is where we are supposed to be. I hope that if you are able to be in your home, you are home also. This week we’re talking about season four, episode seven, entitled, Lesson Number One, not to be confused with the rules of poker number one from last week, that’s totally a different number one.
Riese: Or not to be confused with a title that would actually make sense.
Carly: Yeah. What the hell? Does this … yeah, this does. I guess this could be referencing the school children storyline.
Riese: Then they could have just called it Lesson Plan.
Carly: Oh, cute! Or “Lessons.”
Riese: Yeah. Lessons.
Carly: Like Learn a Lesson. That’s two Ls.
Riese: Yeah. They could have called it learn a lesson. They would have gotten two points on Scattergories.
Carly: That would have been great. This was written by Ariel Schrag and directed by Moises Kaufman and originally aired February 18th, 2007.
Riese: We have a special guest today.
Carly: Yay.
Riese: Would you like to introduce yourself?
Lianna Carrera: Yeah, sure. Hi, everybody. I’m Lianna Carrera. How’s everyone doing? Thanks for having me.
Carly: Thanks for joining us today. This is very exciting.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah!
Riese: And what do you do? What’s your deal?
Lianna Carrera: So I exist in LA. I’m retired. I walk my dogs all the time. No, I’m a comedy writer, stand up comedian and I work in entertainment, developing television concepts or trying. And pitching, and taking meetings and seeing what we can do about getting storylines that I particularly care about on television and film. I do come from a deaf family. So my mom is deaf and I have two deaf brothers. And so I can relate a little bit to how they chose to deal with a deaf character on the TV.
Riese: I just want to say that I’m glad to have a person with that perspective on our podcast today.
Lianna Carrera: Thanks, mom.
Carly: Very cool. Would you tell them your L Word origin story?
Lianna Carrera: Sure. L word, that means where I found L Word or? Right? Okay.
Carly: Yeah. The circumstances in your life when you first found and watched the show.
Lianna Carrera: Gosh, L word was college I think for me. I went to an all women’s college in Lynchburg, Virginia. And so we were ripe for L Word supporting. I remember we used to get together in our dorm rooms and just Lez Out and watch. And I think we all decided we were all supposed to be like Shane. So that was weird because you have all those same male plugs in a room or whatever. We all wanted to be sexy like Shane.
Carly: You can’t have a room full of Shanes. What are you going to do with a room full of Shanes?
Lianna Carrera: Exactly. Exactly. So you go to the straight women when you’re in the room full of Shane. So the lesbians are watching The L word, but then we have the rest of the campus who wasn’t watching The L word, then we were like, “You should watch this, The L word.” And we also introduced a lot of straight women in college to lesbianism by asking them to watch, But I’m a Cheerleader. So it was a one-two punch of like, “We’re funny and also sexy. Ah, you’re curious, you’re like Jenny.”
Carly: I was in high school when But I’m a Cheerleader came out and I invited my friend to go see it with me, because she was a straight girl that I had a crush on and I was not yet out. And I was like, “This is what’s going to do it.” Spoiler, it did not do it.
Lianna Carrera: Oh, no. That movie holds up. I don’t know if you’ve watched it recently, but it still works.
Carly: I have and it absolutely still holds up. It’s still one of my all time favorite films. Yeah. Same.
Lianna Carrera: But yeah, that’s my origin L Word story.
Carly: Awesome. Did you have any favorite characters when you were watching it originally? Anyone you identified with or thought was hot or anything like that?
Lianna Carrera: I never did. I felt like I was one of those … I think because I was a Butch presenting woman, there wasn’t anyone that was super obvious who I could be besides Shane and I was failing at being Shane. I think you either accept that you’re the sexpot or you’re a nerd, and you just accepted. And so I didn’t accept it. So I was a nerd trying to be a sexpot, which didn’t work out. But I felt like I really liked the qualities that Bette had and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know if I wanted to be Bette or if I wanted to have sex with Bette, I wasn’t sure, but I appreciated the pantsuit and the “in charge” attitude of Bette. I don’t know.
Carly: A lot of good Bette stuff in this episode.
Lianna Carrera: There is. She gets to … she shows out her skill.
Riese: Wears a tank top.
Carly: We got to see her arms and that’s the best thing about Bette sometimes is her arms. She’s great but also she has great arms. All right. Should we get into episode seven?
Riese: Yeah. Let’s do it.
Carly: Did you have something else you had to do first or are you good to go?
Riese: No. I can do this now. Yeah, this works.
Carly: Oh, cool. Okay, great.
Riese: So we open and Tasha putting her clothes on, unfortunately.
Carly: Yeah. There’s no music. It’s just Tasha at home, putting her clothes on, being hot. And it’s intercut with combat imagery from her time I guess in Iraq. And it ends with her hyperventilating. Great cold open. It’s a lot of information. We got a lot from that.
Riese: Yeah. We know she has a uniform.
Carly: Yes. Yes, she does.
Riese: And it’s camouflage, so if she was in the woods you would be like, “Where’s Tasha?” Right?
Carly: Yeah. Presumably yes.
Riese: So that’s good. And yeah, so that’s that.
Carly: Yeah. I have nothing more to say about it. It is what it is.
Riese: Yes. Then theme song and then we go to Bette’s house?
Carly: Yeah. We are at Bette’s house and Jodi is reenacting scenes from Portrait of a Lady on Fire, where she’s drawing a picture of Bette who is lying in bed.
Lianna Carrera: Oh my gosh. I thought of “Titanic” when I saw that. Right?
Riese: I know. That’s what I thought of.
Carly: Well, that means I’m gayer than both of you.
Lianna Carrera: You are. It shows how — and then can we talk about the actual drawing. It was like-
Carly: Oh my God.
Riese: It looked like a cartoon for the first draft of a graphic novel!
Lianna Carrera: All you want is to really believe in the person you’re dating. You want to believe in their talent for real. So you don’t have to fake it and you get handed this thing and then she’s got to go, “Oh honey, that’s beautiful.” And like, “Oh God.”
Carly: Just like, “Did a child draw this? Did my child draw this?”
Riese: Yeah. Probably stick to metal sculptures.
Carly: Yeah. She’s a sculpturist and I think that she should just stick to sculpturing.
Riese: To building things. Yeah.
Carly: They’re both wearing white tank tops and they both look great.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. What is that? Did I miss why that’s happening? They looked like cult members a little bit. They’re all white.
Carly: They’re in a cult of sleeping with each other for the last several weeks. That’s the cult they have joined. And they’re both wearing white tank tops and pajama pants.
Lianna Carrera: That was some costume designers pick, they were like, “What are we going to put them in?”
Carly: Well, they are two different types of white tank top, which I really feel like if you’ve read enough into it, you’re going to get a lot of deep character information.
Lianna Carrera: I see. I didn’t notice that. That was funny.
Riese: I will say that I think I spent most of 2007 in a white tank top. Yeah. Anyway, I would wear two at a time. It was wild .
Carly: WHOA.
Riese: Layering.
Lianna Carrera: Don’t go crazy there.
Carly: Yeah. I know. Careful.
Riese: I did. So basically Jodi’s like, “You’re the boss, so you can be late.” Which as a boss, I can say, that’s not true. And then she seduces her. She seduces her with … there’s finger sucking, and kissing and boob touching-
Carly: All the greatest tools.
Riese: All the moves.
Carly: And Bette whispers in Jodi’s ear, “I think I could fall in love with you,” and then Jody’s like, “Did you say something?” And Bette’s like, “No, please fuck me.” And that’s basically what happens.
Riese: I was like, “Oh God. This is your first night together.”
Lianna Carrera: It’s also like a very slick move on the writer’s part, having them whisper something in a deaf woman’s ear. And as a general rule, it’s rude as hell to say anything to a deaf person, good or bad around them. But I did think this was kind of a cool technique to move the story forward, especially because it was a positive kind of thing. So I thought that was really cool how they set that up.
Riese: Then we cut to … Oh, so then they’re going to bang. They bang.
Lianna Carrera: They bang.
Riese: Bang, bang, bang. It’s hot. Then we go to Shenny’s where Jenny is burying the ashes of Sounder and then putting a little bit of flowers on top. And then Max comes out and Jenny goes, “I like gardening.” Because she’s going to grow flowers out of a dead dog meat. And she apologizes to the dead dog for using her and says that she hopes she’s in a better place now, which she probably is because of All Dogs Go to Heaven, that’s a film, and it’s true.
Lianna Carrera: I didn’t realize that. But thank you for connecting the two for me.
Riese: Of course. Yeah. You’re welcome. And so Max has read the latest … I guess another chapter of Jenny’s Lez Girls-
Carly: Of Lez Girls.
Riese: Lay Girls.
Carly: I’m going to keep calling it Lez Girls because that’s how it’s spelled.
Lianna Carrera: Isn’t it? Isn’t that Lay Girls? Because you’re classy, is that what it is?
Riese: Because I’m French. I’m European.
Carly: Vaguely.
Riese: I’m not.
Lianna Carrera: It’s such a meta storyline to you, a film about your friends being filmed in Hollywood. You’ve already got your project going, now you’re just rubbing it in our faces. You know what I mean? Because now you’re bragging about a project about your projects in Hollywood.
Riese: Dawson’s Creek did this too. And I’m just like, “Jesus Christ.” So Max is like, “This is pretty harsh about Bette.” And Jenny’s like, “It’s not Bette.” And Max is like, “Yeah, it is.”
Lianna Carrera: She’s like, “It’s Bev.”
Carly: I changed a few letters in the name. It’s a different person.
Lianna Carrera: Oh God.
Riese: And then she’s really mean to him.
Carly: Yeah. She’s super mean to him. She’s like, “Why don’t you go lift a weight?” He’s like, “That’s so rude.”
Lianna Carrera: And then he very dramatically just throws down the script.
Carly: Yeah. She’s super dismissive of all of his notes, even though she clearly gave it to him to read for his feedback.
Lianna Carrera: And everybody knows how hard it is to get people to read anything you give them for notes and feedback, so that was disrespectful.
Riese: He was doing that for free. He was giving free feedback.
Carly: You can’t even pay for that.
Lianna Carrera: Disrespect.
Carly: Rude. Just rude. She’s being so rude. So we go back to Bette’s house and she enters her kitchen where Jodi has made a big, fancy breakfast for them. They are again, both wearing white tank tops and pajama pants. They both look radiant. Bette’s like, “Everything is art to you.” And Jodi is like, “Everything is desire.” And then she tries to seduce her again. And Bette’s like, “No, girl, I really have to go to work.”
Lianna Carrera: So I have a question for you guys because when I watch it and I see the sign language taking place and I see the quality of it, I can see that it’s sort of like being phoned in, but it doesn’t affect the “hearing audience,” which is what call everyone else who can hear it. It doesn’t affect you all’s perception of what’s going on. You’re just recapping. There was no awkwardness in their exchanges, which I find fascinating. So that means that they did a great job for hearing audiences.
Carly: Interesting.
Lianna Carrera: But a deaf audience would watch it and be like, “Oh, Bette’s not signing all the words correctly or it’s movie magic.”
Riese: Interesting.
Carly: That’s super interesting. It’s also … so in the last episode, Bette was like, “Get me the best sign language learning website around” to her assistant. And then part of her montage was her looking at her computer and doing some signing. And then she was speaking vaguely okay sign language by the end of the episode. So it’s also like she’s new to it? I guess that’s part of it.
Lianna Carrera: Wait. When was this? The very end of the the series?
Carly: The very end of the previous episode.
Riese: Last episode she learned sign language in three hours.
Carly: She learned all of it immediately.
Lianna Carrera: Wow. Amazing. Amazing. Well, I just have to give a shout out to Marlee Matlin here too because when you’re acting with someone who doesn’t know sign language, Marlee is essentially acting off of kind of like when you’re on an audition and you’re reading your lines, and the reader’s not giving you very much, you have to act like you’re still being set up with the right emotions. And it’s interesting because Bette will literally … she’ll say, “Go work.” And of course, she’ll voice, she’ll sign go work. But her voice was like, “Oh, I have to go to work.” You know what I mean? But she’ll shortchange it with like, “Go work. I go work.” Or something. And then Marlee’s character, Jodie has to react to it like, “Oh, do you have to go?” Fully as if she was set up with the full line.
Riese: Right.
Lianna Carrera: So it’s kind of incredible to see Marlee work as Jodi. And then also I noticed that the … what’s it called? You tell me Carly because I’m not behind the camera. I know you have some experience. Who’s the person that’s actually doing the shot? DP?
Carly: The DP. Yeah. The cinematographer.
Lianna Carrera: I noticed that the DP kept cutting off Jodi’s hands. So it’s sort of a zoomed in, and then what you have is Bette speaking to fill in what happened while they cut off Jodi’s hands. So why would you … if you have a deaf character, why would you not just at least frame them so that a deaf person watching could be in on it as well. Because this is a beautiful gift and it’s a beautiful language, so why not frame it? So I think that just goes to the sign of the times where they don’t know really what was going on and how excited people were to have a deaf character on television at all at that time and representations, everything. So you never complain, you know what I mean? You’re just thankful that it’s there, but now we can complain. We have the internet now, and we have petitions and now we could look back on it and talk about it. But yeah, I thought that was interesting too.
Carly: Yeah. It was like they were so excited to be like, “Look, we have a deaf character.” That they didn’t really do the rest of the work around it.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. And I can sympathize because in a lot of the scripts that I write, I always try to include one deaf character just to … because I want to make the world a better place for people like my mom, that’s it. I just want people to be more exposed to deaf people and deafness and how to interact and stuff. And so I try to include one deaf character and giving them sort of a storyline that just makes them sort of typical people having … like they did in The L Word, but also focusing on how to represent deafness as an authentic experience.
Carly: Right. Yeah.
Riese: Is it that she’s reading Bette’s lips and then Bette’s sign language is just an extraneous thing that she’s doing sort of for her own self.
Lianna Carrera: I don’t know how Marlee does it. I would ask her. I don’t know how she does it. I think it’s also a counting thing, they time it, they can know when … so I think something like that. It’s brilliant, whatever it is. It’s like an extra hurdle that she would have to cross to be authentic in response. But yeah, what they do is a lot of people … and it makes sense. It’s movie magic, you want to get the story going, but a lot of writers or directors will have the deaf characters kind of understand how to read lips when it’s super convenient for the story to move forward. And this maybe is not how it’s happening. It’s interesting.
Riese: Right. Which is what they did, that’s what they’ve done with Jodi from the start. In the beginning when we first saw her she was like, “Look at me, I have to read your lips.”
Lianna Carrera: She can do everything.
Riese: Yeah, she can do everything.
Lianna Carrera: And again, we’re talking about this from a 2020 perspective where we’re all really “woke” and whatever, but deaf people in real life, that’s the kind of stuff that gets people in trouble. Because hearing people do think that they can just talk to the deaf person and the deaf person can read their lips. And that there’s no struggle whatsoever when really the best chance someone has of understanding what you’re saying is 30% and that’s equivalent to a pro baseball player. Most people aren’t pro baseball players, but they play Little League. That’s what lip reading is like. You’re not going to have someone that understands 30%, which is pro most people understand less than 10 or 5%.
Riese: Wow.
Lianna Carrera: So you’ve got this representation in TV that’s like, I’m just going to talk to you and Oh, hi … I’m accommodating to you and you’re talking to me and I understand you. And it’s so not that easy in real life. So it would have been cool. I actually don’t know if you guys know because you’re a little more into these … you’ve watched more into these episodes, do they struggle at all ever with communication? Because that would have been an interesting-
Carly: When Bette first meets Jodi, she sneaks up on her while she’s working on a sculpture and nearly gets hit with a drill.
Lianna Carrera: That’s great. I’ve done that.
Carly: Yeah. And then she meets her interpreter, Tom, in that scene and she keeps talking to Tom instead of to Jodi.
Lianna Carrera: Oh good. So they correct that?
Carly: Yeah, she corrects that.
Lianna Carrera: Awesome.
Carly: And that’s like pretty much it. There’s some random dude extras at a party that they’re all at that are talking like this to her, which is so insulting and stupid, but that’s kind of it I think.
Riese: Yeah. There was one part where Bette was walking with her back to Jodi and I think maybe Tom or … I don’t know, maybe Jodie was like, “You have to look at me.”
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool. It’s sort of a really interesting thing. And I obviously applaud anyone who attempts to take this on with any sort of representation. Yeah.
Carly: That’s so cool.
Lianna Carrera: I think you have more deaf filmmakers and deaf screenwriters popping up now and so they’re doing it right for themselves as well.
Carly: Totally.
Lianna Carrera: And so, it’s really neat to be able to collaborate with them too and just write something that’s not for “our gaze,” as Joey Solloway introduced into the lexicon. It’s not just for our gaze, it’s theirs and we can understand walking in their shoes too, which is cool.
Carly: Totally. Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: But, try explaining that to Lifetime executives, though. They don’t want to know. They don’t care-
Carly: They don’t.
Lianna Carrera: … about queer. They don’t care about-
Carly: No executive cares about that.
Lianna Carrera: Oh, my God. I had a butch lesbian and a deaf character in a Christmas film and just sitting there and trying to talk to executives about both? I mean it was not happening!
Carly: You’re like, “Why am I even here?”
Lianna Carrera: Yeah, “I’m just going to go away.”
Riese: This is so beyond what you ever approve. Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. It’s funny.
Carly: Okay so then the phone rings,
Riese: So Phyllis calls. She’s losing her mind.
Carly: She’s crying. She’s drinking. She’s in her pajamas and Bette’s like, “Girl, just get out of bed and go to work. You’ve got to distract yourself. Don’t be at home alone.” And then Jodi grabs the phone out of her hand and she’s like,
Jodi: “Phyllis, just stay where you are. We’re coming over.”
Lianna Carrera: She shows her how to be a good friend.
Carly: Yup. Way better friend than Bette. Bette’s trying to not get involved. Bet wants so badly to not be involved in the Phyllis and Alice drama. And Jodi’s like, “No, we’re going to be good friends.” And not just good friends, but that thing when, I was going to say elder gays, but it’s not really the right phrasing for this since Phyllis is older than the both of them-
Riese: Yeah, I know what you mean.
Carly: People who have been out for a longer time and then you come across people who are just coming out and you have to kind of impart some wisdom on them and it kind of flips the whole mentor/mentee thing on its head since Phyllis is their boss and is older. But Jodi’s like, “No, we need to go help her and be good gays,” which is cute. And Bette’s like, “You’re so bad,” and then they kiss and it’s adorable.
Riese: So then we go to The Planet for the first time and Helena is having a crisis about if she… Because she assumes she has to fuck Catherine Rothberg to get out of her gambling debt or whatever?
Carly: What a realistic storyline.
Riese: Right. And so Jenny’s like.
Jenny: “Helena, everyone is a whore in their life at one time or another.”
Riese: And Helena still feels weird. There was a lot of weird things in this scene.
Carly: Yep.
Riese: I mean, I remember at the time when I first watched this feeling weird because a lot of people in my life didn’t know I was a sex worker. And so it was like, I had feelings about it, but I didn’t feel like I could say them. But I thought Shane said that — being in her underwear shoot felt really whorish??
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. That was weird.
Carly: That was weird.
Riese: She used to be a sex worker.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Why would she mention the underwear shoot?
Carly: And why would she try to equate getting paid a ton of money to be an underwear model with sex work?
Riese: Yeah. Why didn’t she just say “Yeah, for example, I was an actual whore for several years to get by”? She was.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And I don’t think that’s a secret. I think her friends know that. However, I think that Kit was hilarious.
Carly: Kit was really funny.
Lianna Carrera: Kit’s the best.
Carly: Kit’s pretty great. In this whole episode. She doesn’t have too many scenes, but all of her scenes are pretty… She has some great lines and just some good Kit moments. And then Tina ruins her life later, but we’ll get to that.
Riese: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And they’re like, “Also isn’t she beautiful?” And Helena was like, “Yeah, does that matter?” And everyone’s like, “Well…”
Carly: That was hilarious when she was like, “That shouldn’t matter. I still have to maybe do whatever.” And they’re all like, “She’s like really beautiful though.”
Riese: Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: Like everyone else in that cast.
Riese: Yeah. When Kit says:
Kit: “Once I gave a blow job to a home player so I could get a line of cocaine.”
Helena: “And afterwards, how did you feel?”
Kit: “High. I was a high ho.”
Lianna Carrera: That was funny.
Riese: I loved that. That was funny.
Lianna Carrera: Perfect timing.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: I thought the whole… it was weird, but there was enough funny parts that it was fine.
Carly: Yeah. Then we go to Papi and Tasha. This is another episode where the morning time lasts most of the episode.
Riese: Yeah. XL Morning Time.
Carly: It’s XL Morning Time! I guess they’re in Long Beach, right? They’re at a taco truck and they’re eating churros. Tasha’s dressed for work so she’s in full military garb.
Riese: Papi’s wearing enormous pants.
Carly: Enormous pants. And has her limo of course. And she’s like, “You should get out of Long Beach. Come and have breakfast at The Planet sometime.” And Tasha is just like, “What?” And then-
Riese: She said that — well, I think Papi’s trying to get her to go to the planet because Alice is there.” And she’s like, “I don’t want to just be…” Oh, because Papi’s talking about portals because she started talking about portals too.
Carly: That’s right.
Riese: Which are as you know, little windows on cruise ships.
Carly: Boats. Yes. And that somehow is something that we keep talking about in relation to lesbians on the show.
Riese: Right. And Tasha’s like, “I don’t want to just be Alice’s Black girl experience, that she’s trying to rack up these different experiences, which is a very fair suspicion to have and feeling to have.
Carly: Especially knowing that she just, specifically the Papi and Phyllis stuff.
Riese: Right. However, saying, “I don’t want Papi’s sloppy seconds.? I hated that.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: It’s so judgey and misogynistic and I hated that.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: I usually love Tasha, but I just hated that part. I was like, “That’s really gross.”
Carly: Yeah. Also, all lesbians have hooked up with all other lesbians so everyone’s hooked up with everyone’s ex. So it’s really just, it seems like a moot point. Why even bother being upset about this?
Riese: Right. Yeah. Just like, I don’t know. I feel you shouldn’t judge a potential person based on their past sexual behavior. I think that’s –
Lianna Carrera: Bad.
Riese: But she kind of makes Papi feel bad, I think.
Carly: Yeah she does because in the rest of the episode, Papi feels bad.
Riese: Poor Papi.
Carly: Aw. She tells her to grow up, that they have different values and different codes of conduct. Then she gives her her unfinished churro back and leaves. How are you not going to finish a churro? A churro’s delicious. Why would you not finish that?
Lianna Carrera: Clearly you have different values. You’re not finishing your churro. One of our values is to finish the churro.
Carly: My values is “food comes before everything else” and that’s just how I am and that’s, that’s true to me.
Lianna Carrera: I feel that.
Riese: I definitely wanted a churro watching it.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. They did a good job with that churro.
Carly: For a second I was like, “Can I Postmates a churro?” And then I was like, “What am I doing?” And then just —
Riese: I think you can, right?
Carly: I mean, sure.
Lianna Carrera: We have to talk about Papi’s outfit and overall representation —what is happening.
Carly: Oh please, please.
Lianna Carrera: We have shows now like Vida, actual shows of the experience. You’ll just see that in its time capsule moment. It’s like, “What?”
Carly: It’s pretty horrifying. And of course, I mean, you probably know this also Liana and we’ve talked about this in previous episodes. When Papi was introduced, we talked about it a lot, but the actress playing her isn’t Latinx.
Lianna Carrera: I didn’t know that.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Oh, you didn’t?
Lianna Carrera: No. Common for that time period, I guess.
Carly: Yes. Very. I mean, that’s like in the earlier season with the character of Carmen, that that actress isn’t Latix either.
Lianna Carrera: Do I look Latinx? Because I am Latinx. I am, and I always get mistaken for white. So it’s funny. Who is and who isn’t? Oh, “I’m a white Cuban.” Is what I just say. “I’m white Cuban.” Because I look like there’s nothing. But my dad is dark. And if I brought up my family tree, people would be like, “Really?” Like, “Yeah.” That’s my abuela! She can speak Spanish but they Americanized me. What are you going to do? But anyway.
Carly: Yeah, the handling of… Well, I’ll only speak to Papi because when we talk about this season, the handling of Carmen was a whole other thing. But the way Papi is handled on the show is very bad.
Lianna Carrera: And I’ve also been cast as like pre-transition trans, which I’m like, “Is that sort of fair? How many roles are there for non-binary or butch looking women in general too? “So it’s sort of like we’re swimming in the same little-
Riese: Like four.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah, it’s interesting.
Riese: And Lea Delaria took all those jobs.
Carly: It is very complicated and nuanced. It was then. It still is now, but-
Lianna Carrera: Was it then? I don’t even know.
Carly: I guess it wasn’t then, because nobody was really doing it right.
Riese: People didn’t care.
Carly: They didn’t care. Yeah.
Riese: I mean people didn’t care about any of it. I mean, there wasn’t even that much conversation around hiring Asian actors to play Latina roles. No one was talking about that, which I feel is especially egregious with Papi because of how they’ve built her character and feeling like she’s-
Lianna Carrera: Caricature.
Riese: Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: I mean they hired a deaf person to play Jodi. So I mean, in that way they were totally spot on which doesn’t happen today, to hire people who know how to sign, which is unacceptable. So it’s so interesting.
Riese: Marlee and Jennifer Beals are really close friends.
Lianna Carrera: Are they? I didn’t know that.
Carly: So it’s probably more that Jennifer was like, “Marlee wants to be on the show.” And they were like, “We will write a deaf character for her.”
Lianna Carrera: I will say that the first time I met Marlee, I told her that I loved her and The L Word, and I asked her if she was coming back. This is the scoop. I asked her if she’s coming back in the new L Word and she said, “I would be open to it.” That was our quick elevator conversation. So maybe-
Riese: I want her to come back. She should date Dani.
Carly: I want her to come back so bad.
Lianna Carrera: Can they do that? And then can I get a freaking job in the writer’s room or something? Or can I PA?
Riese: I know that’s the undercurrent of all of our podcast episodes, are me and Carly asking to be hired to be in the show.
Carly: Yeah I just want to send you guys to the writer’s room. Let me direct an episode. Let’s do this.
Riese: Yeah. Where do we go next, Carly?
Carly: Next we go to [sound effects] INTECH MODE the most masculine computer programming company on all time.
Riese: Right.
Lianna Carrera: This is where Max takes the walk?
Riese: So Max is on a conveyor belt. Yeah. Max first is floating through the office, imagining that everybody knows that he’s trans and is saying things like, “Oh, your hips are kind of big. Or-”
Carly: Yeah, they’re asking him these like horribly invasive questions and then he snaps out of it. And actually, he’s just walking through the office and no one’s even looking at him.
Riese: Except for one very-
Carly: Except for one cool dude with a popped collar.
Riese: Yeah. Yeah, he looks like a startup bro.
Carly: And he says,
Startup Bro: “Can I just say that I think what you did for Megan was totally righteous. Got a lot of respect for you dude. My brothers gay too. I’m cool with it.”
Carly: That doesn’t make any sense in this context.
Riese: But Max seems to be like, “Yeah, cool.”
Lianna Carrera: Yeah, like, “Oh, thank God.”
Riese: Then we go to The Planet very briefly, right?
Carly: Very, very briefly because Helena is flipping the coin to decide what to do. What is her choice? Go see Catherine or hide from her forever? What are the two options here?
Riese: Go see Catherine or go bowling.
Carly: Okay, great. Well, she’s flipping a coin. She can’t decide. I guess she’s not-
Riese: Bumper bowling or regular bowling. I don’t know which type of bowling.
Carly: Uncertain.
Riese: Uncertain.
Carly: But Alice can’t be bothered with this because you guys, OurChart.com is crashing. This is a big deal. This is a big problem. The website is crashing!
Riese: The website’s crashing again. Although I could relate to that because remember when Autostraddle to crash every three days.
Carly: We’d always be like, “Red alert! Red alert! It’s down.”
Lianna Carrera: They were describing Autostraddle at that moment. You could put blogs and you could put video and it’s all very forward, techie sounding.
Carly: Yeah. Oh my God. So then we go to just a very ridiculous scene at the principal’s office of Shay and Jared’s school and Shane and Paige have been called in because Shay punched a kid.
Shay: “Mike Cutler said we were gay because…”
Shane: “We’re gay because…?”
Shay: “Because our mom’s are lezzies. He said his mom saw you and Mrs. Sobel.”
Paige: “His mom saw us what? Jared?”
Jared: “She said she saw you and Ms. McCutcheon lezzing out together.”
Shay: ”That’s when I punched him.”
Riese: I love this for Shay.
Carly: I love Shay being a vigilante for homophobia.
Riese: And also, Paige and Shane are not upset at him about it at all, either.
Carly: Well in the beginning, Shane’s a little like, “Oh, yeah, he’s going to apologize.” And then Paige is like, “Fuck that.”
Riese: Yeah. I’m Shane in this situation and some of my more outspoken friends are Paige, probably. But so first of all, Shay asks Shane if she’s gay. I’m like, “That’s great.”
Carly: He lives in the house with you. How does he not know that your whole life is very gay?
Riese: I know you’ve been to all of her gay spots with all of her gay friends.
Carly: She co-owns a skateboard shop.
Lianna Carrera: Kids are clueless, you guys. They could be with their moms their whole life and not realize that they’re gay, unless their moms look at them and say, “We’re gay.” They’ll go to the playground and they’ll be like, “You’re gay.” And they’ll say stupid shit. And you’ll be like, “What are you talking about? Your moms are gay.” “What?” Surprise.
Carly: Oh my God.
Riese: Well, Jared doesn’t know his mom is gay, it sure seems like. Although it seems like she’s bisexual.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah.
Riese: Basically the ending of this is that the principal kind of just wants him to apologize and move on. And Paige is like, “No, you need to teach your kids to be more tolerant.” And volunteers her and Shane to do the teaching.
Carly: I love that.
Riese: I love this.
Lianna Carrera: It is a disaster though. It’s good for TV.
Carly: You know, going into it, what’s coming. You know it’s going to be a disaster. They are not trained to deal with this. Then we go to see Tina who is on set, getting lunch with her boss, Aaron, who sucks. And he’s like, “I want Shaolin to land Lez Girls. She’s your friend, right?” And then he starts joking about how “everyone knows that you’re Nina,” which takes our whole previous argument of, maybe it’s okay because no one knows who these people are, to a really brand new place.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah.
Riese: Yeah. And the best part of this is the end. Basically he threatens to fire Tina she doesn’t get Jenny to sign with Shaolin. And then at the end, he’s like, “Can I ask you something though?”
Aaron: “Your ex really cheat on you with a plumber?”
Tina: “It was a carpenter and it was fiction.”
Carly: Oh, it’s so funny.
Riese: Yeah. I loved this for them. And then we go to Phyllis’ house where-
Carly: Phyllis’ den of sadness.
Riese: Would Jodi just have called Tom had been like, “Someone’s having drama.”??
Carly: “We have to go.”??
Riese: “Meet us there,”? I can’t figure out what his-
Lianna Carrera: Oh, you’re talking… Yeah. So that’s again, that’s movie magic, right? So deaf people don’t have just a best friend slash sign language interpreter built into their everyday life that follow them around. I’m sure that’d be very convenient. So on the one hand, again, that’s setting up totally false expectations of life. But on the other hand, I read that the relationship between Jodi and Tom is based on Marlee Matlin’s relationship with her real life sign language interpreter . So he’s sort of her “business partner / best friend / voice” is what he calls himself because interpreters, they have what’s called something called a “code of ethics.” So you actually cannot personally involve yourself in private situations without compromising… Well there’s different rules, but for the most part, you never contribute your thoughts to a conversation. You never jump in. You never interrupt. There’s all these roles that Tom breaks by virtue of being her interpreter. But obviously Jack Mason and Marlee have a very different relationship where he is her business partner, so he can sort of do that. So they got away with it, but nobody else knew that. So it’s sort of a really bad representation of interpreters on television, except for he did a great job acting wise. But I mean, so just the rules of using an interpreter, and interpreter ethics and stuff. Then it gives everyone a false impression of how to use a sign language interpreter and what a sign language interpreter really is, and I feel a moral obligation to portray interpreting and deafness and deaf characters in a way that’s really responsible for the community and responsible for how we communicate with deaf people so that you can learn from it. So this is an example of an interpreter taking liberties that would never happen. And that’s the thing. When deaf people go to doctor’s appointments, for example, they’ll say, “Can you please bring your own interpreter?” Well, you never ask a deaf person to bring their own interpreter. We have the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s against the law to ask a deaf person to bring their own interpreter, but that’s the first thing that even doctors say to deaf people. So Jodi, having an interpreter just at her beck and call also sort of sets deafness up for something to have to reeducate people about it in that sense.
Carly: That’s so interesting.
Riese: Yeah! They’re basically telling Phyllis that no one has ever died of a broken heart. First she’s double-fisting switching between whiskey and ice cream, which is melting.
Carly: First of all, she’s doing everything right. Phyllis is doing it right. She’s got whiskey, she’s got ice cream. She’s in pajamas. She did it right.
Riese: She’s in love with Alice after a very brief encounter and they explained that coming out is like a second adolescence. We’ve all been through it. Bette tells a story about her first love at Yale who for some reason eventually rejected her, which, who rejects Bette Porter?
Carly: That’s crazy.That’s a person without any sense.
Riese: It’s cute. It’s fun. It’s a cool little, like what we were talking about before.
Carly: We go back to The Planet.
Riese: Jenny has called Max to come in and help with the tech, which is realistic. I was thinking about how Tess helped me with the website in the beginning.
Carly: Oh yeah.
Riese: But so Max is glad to be out of the office. And then he says that Alice’s website is—
Max: “totally slammed with hits.”
Carly: Greatest hits.
Riese: 40,000 hits. “Like top 40.” Yeah. We got all the classics here. They got 40,000 in the last hour and wow, she should not sell this to wagon.com, everyone’s favorite purveyor of fine wagons and carousels.
Carly: They offered $10,000.
Riese: But it’s worth so much more than that. Max wants to make totally state-of-the-art. By state of the art, he means-
Carly: Blogs.
Riese: Blogs, instant messaging, streaming video. First of all, I think it’s cute that they think that doing that website, they’re going to make a lot of money doing it. Because I got news for them. That’s great that you have 40,000 hits the last hour, but guess how many companies care? None.
Carly: 0.0 companies.
Riese: 0.0 companies. It took us 10 years to make significant money from advertising. So I was just like, “Ugh, my friends.” This is-
Carly: Poor little babies.
Riese: Poor little babies, but yeah.
Lianna Carrera: Onward ho.
Riese: Good luck selling ads guys, especially on a website that outs people’s past sexual encounters.
Carly: Yeah. She should take the 10K for the site and just call it a day.
Riese: I know. Yeah, take the 10K and-
Carly: Don’t worry about trying to fix it and make it run better. Just take the money and shut up. Yeah, never think about-
Riese: It’s also funny because the actual OurChart website didn’t function at all.
Carly: I know it’s very funny. It didn’t work at all.
Riese: So we’d always be like, “Max is not doing a good job with this.” And then Papi shows up and she seems sad.
Carly: Yes. She’s sad because Tasha made her feel sad. She made her feel bad about her whole everything. She kind of criticized her entire way of existing, essentially.
Riese: She kind of slut shamed her.
Carly: Yeah. Not cool.
Riese: Then we go back to Phyllis’s.
Carly: Yes, and now Jodi is talking about her first love and it’s funny because anytime she and Bette have a little moment of connection and they flirt or almost kiss, Phyllis is like, “Hello? Hello? Pay attention to me.” Literally.
Riese: Back to me.
Carly: So funny.
Riese: Jodi said was that her first time having sex with a deaf lover was earth shattering and Bette immediately takes it personally and is like, “Wait. So is it not good with me or whatever?” And I’m just like, “Oh God, Bette. Oh God.”
Carly: And then it gets worse. Then it gets worse because she talks about how she, through this relationship-
Riese: Yeah the story ends with her breaking someone’s heart, not with her heart getting broken.
Carly: Yeah, realizes that this is the relationship that made her realize she could never be monogamous! And then she met this other person and then left them for the… And then Bette’s face starts being smiley in the beginning. It just falls apart by the end of this conversation. She looks deeply confused by the end of it and Phyllis hands her the box of chocolates and Bette starts eating the chocolates.
Riese: That’s good.
Lianna Carrera: That’s good. The fact that Jodi said that, and it made Bette freak out a little bit, I think it’s obviously a question of identity. Bette could never be a deaf woman, no matter how much she would try. I’m sure she tries a lot. But it would be two deaf people together that it’s a question of identity. You can’t compete with that. It’s almost like, I don’t know. Maybe if a man hears someone, say a woman, talking about another woman, maybe they go, “Well, I can’t…” They get defensive. So, it’s interesting-
Riese: Yeah. They do.
Lianna Carrera: … this identity question, that was barely touched on right there. I also wanted to hear more. Why? Because we don’t know why. Why is two people, deaf women, why is that more… I don’t know. I don’t even have any idea. I don’t know. It would have been interesting to hear more about that.
Riese: We never will. No, of course not. Then we go back to The Planet for Tina to really mess up.
Carly: … really just fuck a lot of shit up. It starts off cool, whatever. She’s like, “Hey Kit, I’m here to just meet up with Jenny. She knows I’m coming,” because she clearly feels uncomfortable being here, because of the breakup and everything. Kit is really cool, and she’s like, “You’re always welcome here. I love you,” whatever.
Riese: Then Tina takes it upon herself to be like, “Man, I’m just so sorry for everything that happened with Angus.” Then they do that classic television moment, where they are both talking about-
Carly: … two completely different things.
Riese: I hate it.
Carly: One of the tropes I hate. Definitely hate these tropes.
Riese: Basically through Tina being Tina, Kit finds out that Angus-
Carly: Cheated on her.
Riese: Is cheating on her.
Carly: With Hazel. So, Kit’s heart breaks. You just see great acting here. She just falls apart. Tina runs off and then we cut to Kit in her office and she’s so distraught and she tries to call Angus and it goes to voicemail and she hangs up. She tries to call Bette and it goes to voicemail and she actually does leave voicemail for Bette because she needs her sister. They need to talk. She needs to talk to someone, but her sister can’t help her because she’s dealing with another heartbroken person, which is Phyllis. So anyway, check your voicemail, Bette.
Riese: Papi is to Alice is like, “Why are you guys so mean to Tina?”
Carly: And Alice says, this is a quote.
Alice: “She went straight and it feels like a betrayal.”
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Alice who, when the show started was the bisexual character, I say that with little quote hands. What the fuck? That’s so biphobic.
Riese: Yeah. Just admit it. You don’t like Tina.
Carly: Just be like, “we don’t like her. She doesn’t have much of a personality and we think she’s shady.” That would make a bit more sense at this point.
Riese: She picked a really stupid guy to date and none of us like him.
Carly: Yeah. He’s sucks.
Riese: He’s annoying and all of his friends suck and his life sucks. It sucks. Just be honest about it.
Carly: And he brought Hazel into our lives, and we all know how that turned out.
Riese: Yeah, exactly. He hired Hazel.
Carly: Clearly a bad judge of character.
Riese: He was being seduced by Hazel to begin with.
Hazel: “You’re way too hot to be a Papa.”
Riese: Then they start talking about Tasha. See, basically, the point of it is that Papi is very protective of Tasha and Alice needs to get with it.
Carly: Well, she just needs to understand who Tasha is as a person and be okay with that if she’s going to pursue her and not make jokes about her being in the military and shit like that.
Lianna Carrera: That’s a pretty good friend though, right there at that moment. Save a lot of people a lot of heartache.
Carly: For sure.
Riese: Elsewhere in The Planet —
Carly: This is so funny.
Riese: … Tina and Jenny.
Carly: Tina is lying through her teeth to Jenny. I feel like maybe we’ve all been in an experience where we have to go talk to someone about something. Maybe it’s work related and we would rather die than have to go do that. This is the situation Tina is in. Because she wants nothing to do with Jenny. She wants nothing to do with this project and now her boss has made it so she has to go suck up to her to try to get the rights to the book.
Riese: She’s lukewarm on whether or not she wants a lesbian writer to adapt it, but insists that there should be a woman director, which I guess is something.
Carly: Sure. Sure, we’ll go with that.
Riese: She does the annoying thing where she says, “It’s not about lesbians. It’s about people and relationships.” I’m like, ugh, go shove your head in a kiddie pool. I fucking hate that.
Carly: At one point Tina says that Shalon is committed to the integrity of the project, which is hilarious of hilarious word to use for a thing written by Jenny, where she trashes all of her friends.
Riese: Right. Then who enters the story that Tina is telling, but our very best friend, the proverbial teenage girl in the Midwest who was lonely and hates herself and needs positive media representations. She is trotted out in so many scenarios-
Carly: All the time.
Riese: … often by me. I guess I was that girl, but I didn’t know I was gay, but that’s what wins the thing.
Carly: Yeah. That’s all I took.
Riese: Jenny’s like, “Oh yeah. I’d like to make a difference.”
Carly: Okay. Let’s do it.
Riese: Let’s do it.
Carly: And Tina’s like-
Riese: I would be like, “I’d love to make money. Let’s do it.”
Carly: Yeah. I know. Tina’s like, “Cool. You’re going to really definitely want to get agents to deal with this.” And Jenny’s like, “I don’t want agents. No, no, no.” And she’s like, “No, you’re going to get so screwed over if you don’t have agents. You absolutely…” Really, what she needs at this point is a lawyer but —
Riese: And then we go to the army base where Alice is just stopping by in the middle of the day to see Captain Williams and let her know—
Lianna Carrera: In high heels and shorts.
Carly: She showed up unexpected. There’s a Sergeant at the gate that she’s just trying to charm. It’s just silly. She’s so out of place there.
Riese: Yeah. When she walks in Tasha is like, “Close the door. Stop,” because Alice just walks in. She just wants Tasha to know that she’s not a portal because the portal is a window on a cruise ship.
Carly: And a window isn’t a person.
Riese: It isn’t, no.
Carly: A person is a person.
Riese: And a window is a window. Correct.
Carly: Think about it.
Riese: Yeah. Think about it.
Carly: She immediately makes a don’t ask, don’t tell joke, because of course she does. She’s one of those people that walks in and is uncomfortable, so she just picks up every single thing on Tasha’s desk, including a grenade.
Riese: That was funny. I thought that was a grenade trophy. Was really a grenade or something?
Carly: I thought it was a grenade trophy, too, but she’s like, “Put down the grenade,” and I was like, Whoa. What? She just drove all the way out there just to tell Tasha that she likes her.
Lianna Carrera: Which is from Los Angeles to Los Alamitos and that’s a good hour and a half drive. If you live in LA, people don’t date when they don’t live in the same neighborhood.
Carly: They don’t.
Lianna Carrera: So, that is-
Carly: That’s considered long distance.
Riese: That is long distance. That’s the suburbs. She passed three Outback Steakhouses to get to her.
Carly: Totally.
Lianna Carrera: That’s love for Alice.
Carly: Tasha’s is like, “Here, come on. Let’s go. We’re going to go do something.” They go outside and she introduces Alice to a bunch of hot lady pilots because they’re going to take a helicopter ride and it’s really cute.
Riese: Taking a little ride.
Carly: Then we have a quick scene where Helena is doing her own fashion montage of outfits to go meet with Catherine. She settles on one that is good. I don’t know. I don’t have …
Lianna Carrera: I thought it was cute.
Carly: … a wrap dress. I think it was her best option, for sure.
Lianna Carrera: I was like, oh, get it.
Riese: Perfect vibe. Then back in the, is it big helicopter? What were they supposed to do this day? Does their military give scenic helicopter rides, like as a side gig?
Carly: I liked that she didn’t know Alice was coming and she is like, “Come on, let’s go.” And they walk right out of the office and then it cuts to them with the helicopter women being we’re going to go take … Did they not have anything else going on that day? Were they already planning a scenic tour?
Lianna Carrera: That’s called having game, Carly. That’s game, okay.
Carly: See, I wouldn’t know because I have none.
Lianna Carrera: You need it.
Riese: Tasha holds Alice’s hand and Alice is like, “What?” And then Tasha explains that this is the gay helicopter where it’s for the gays. Everyone in the helicopter is gay.
Tasha: “Don’t worry about it.”
Other military person: “We’re all family up here.”
Alice: “Okay. Tricky soldiers.”
Tasha: “This is the ask and tell helicopter. Don’t try this any place else on the base.”
Lianna Carrera: Think back to don’t ask, don’t tell. That is so crazy. The gays today don’t even know, the baby gays.
Riese: And then it seems they just took some random footage of L.A. from aerial shots of L.A.
Carly: It’s definitely not shot from that helicopter. No.
Riese: I was like, what is happening?
Carly: It doesn’t match up super well, but the point is that Alice is having the time of her life.
Riese: Yeah, she is. She’s up into her airplane, which is that’s where you experienced life to its fullest is when you’re flying like Superman or like the magic carpet in Aladdin.
Carly: Oh, my God. I just literally just watched Aladdin last night. I hadn’t watched it in so long. The animated Aladdin.
Lianna Carrera: Aladdin?
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Then it’s nighttime.
Carly: Yes, it is nighttime and Helena goes to see Catherine and there’s this sexually charged foyer discussion. Then Catherine opens the door and it’s a table with some cards, a Helena’s like, “Oh, we’re just playing cards?” She’s like, “We’re going to play strip Gin Rummy, and if you lose, you have to pay up, but if you win then consider your debt paid off and you can go.” So, that’s what her big plan has been.
Riese: I would have hoped that the table had little snacks on it, like cheese and crackers and maybe some drinks.
Lianna Carrera: It had “snacks,” but ….
Carly: Zing! There is champagne as we see when we cut back to them later, but there was no-
Riese: That’s true.
Lianna Carrera: That was, that scene was very distracting for me. I don’t even know if I understood what was going on. I was like there’s naked people asking-
Riese: I don’t think the writers understood what was going on either.
Carly: I’ve never played Gin Rummy, so I had no idea what was going on.
Riese: Is that a real game? They’ve definitely never played it in Monte Carlo, that’s for sure. No one in Monte Carlo’s ever played Gin Rummy. I’ll tell you that right now.
Lianna Carrera: Oh my gosh, talk about-
Riese: I’m from Ann Arbor. I’ve never seen anyone play Gin Rummy.
Lianna Carrera: Oh, really?
Carly: We cut back to the end of Alice’s day with Tasha. It’s nighttime. Tasha drives her back to her car on her motorcycle. Very cool. Alice got to ride in a helicopter and on a motorcycle.
Riese: The guard did tell Alice to park her car next to Tasha’s motorcycle.
Carly: So, they probably got off the helicopter and then she was like, “Let’s take a motorcycle ride,” and then she drove back.
Riese: Oh yeah, you’re right. That’s good.
Carly: Do you think they just like made her jump out of the helicopter someplace far away?
Lianna Carrera: They initiated her!
Carly: They were like, “Bye.”
Riese: With one of the little parachutes that goes off and then she comes down and then she has to walk through a field and it’s really romantic, and the waves of grain are flowing in the field and she’s like-
Lianna Carrera: That sounds—
Carly: I hate everything about that. Yeah. I don’t want to do that at all.
Riese: You’re right. She got two incredible rides today and she’s kinda gunning for a third.
Lianna Carrera: And she’s in the suburbs. In the suburbs next to the Outback and these are the things that are happening.
Carly: She tells Tasha that this was one of her most favorite days ever. And Tasha says, “Me, too. I’m glad Papi ran her big ass mouth this morning.” And then they make out.
Riese: And Alice is ready to bone immediately.
Carly: Ready for bone town.
Riese: Tasha doesn’t want to go to bone town, the infamous Town of Bone.
Carly: But in the suburbs.
Riese: It is, it’s a suburb. It’s the suburb. That’s where the Applebee’s is and in The Bahama Breeze. Those aren’t everywhere.
Lianna Carrera: Applebee’s, I can’t do. I can do Outback any day, but Applebee’s is a step too far.
Carly: I would like a Chili’s. I’d be really cool with the Chili’s.
Lianna Carrera: I like Chili’s, too.
Riese: I would go to any restaurant now. Any one.
Lianna Carrera: Me, too.
Carly: Remember going to restaurants?
Lianna Carrera: Remember restaurants?
Riese: Oh, man.
Carly: Tasha’s is like, she still wants to take it slow. She wants to be sure. And then Alice suggests that they go on a date and it’s cute. They have a cute little-
Riese: Let’s go on a date. Okay, whatever. Then we return to the mansion of fancy ladies where Catherine Rothberg is winning-
Carly: Yes.
Riese: … the Gin Rummy game.
Carly: She is winning. Helena is in her underwear and Catherine is fully clothed.
Riese: Helena thinks she’s making up the rules to Gin Rummy because she’s never seen anyone play Gin Rummy in Monte Carlo.
Lianna Carrera: This is a thing. You guys are trying to care, too. You’re like, “I’m trying to care about this storyline.”
Carly: We dissolve to later-
Riese: It doesn’t make any sense. This is the stupidest-
Carly: It doesn’t at all.
Riese: … storylines of the season.
Carly: Just hook up. What are we doing? Then it dissolves to later and now Helena is wearing more clothes and Catherine’s pretty much naked. Then Helena suddenly win by a bajillion points, and then she seems like she can’t wait to get out of there. She’s like, “Thank you” and gets dressed really quick.
Riese: But then she takes a turn and is like Catherine still needs to remove her underpants, and she does, and then she’s naked. Now Helena feels like she’s the top again and is — .it appears, ready to go to bone town.
![Image Description: Catherine Rothberg, naked, has just dropped her underwear on the floor. The caption reads "[Panties Hit Floor]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-07-14.14.57-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
Carly: Yeah. Bone Town is now open for business.
Riese: Yeah, because Catherine’s already naked.
Carly: So, you’re halfway there.
Riese: You’re halfway there. That’s half of sex is taking your clothes off and that’s been taken care of. This makes literally no sense and I don’t understand it. I do love this actress.
Carly: I love her.
Riese: I love her. I love everything she does.
Carly: Yeah. She’s great in everything.
Riese: She’s hot.
Carly: And is super hot. I feel they just didn’t really know what to do with Helena’s character at this point in the season and they were trying to figure it out. They’re like what about gambling debt? That’s sexy, a sexy debt. Just let them hook up. Clearly, just have hot people and leave them alone together. I don’t know. Anyway.
Riese: Or Helena could start becoming an eBay super seller because she has so many luxury items.
Carly: Yeah. That’s how she could make money. Start Poshmark.
Riese: … sell them like in the book “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” Yes. She could have started Poshmark. And Max would have helped her when it got 40,000 hits in an hour.
Carly: Exactly. Man, what a missed opportunity for Helena Peabody.
Riese: She could have had a startup.
Carly: Helena Peabody, CEO of Poshmark. Can you imagine. So then we go to the moment we’ve all been waiting for. It’s tolerance, assembly time at school. There are three children and 400 parents in attendance. I don’t know how that happened. I don’t know why any parents are in attendance, but sure.
Riese: I feel like someone messed up with extras hiring that day.
Carly: It also is not the whole school. It’s maybe just their class. Not even their whole grade. It’s just their homeroom and it’s going about as well as you would expect.
Lianna Carrera: That’s where we meet the lesbian mom who’s not a lesbian-
Carly: What is up with her? She has lesbian-
Lianna Carrera: She clearly has lesbian vibes. She stands up and is like, “Why do we have to learn about this?” She looks like a farmer. She looks totally gay in the middle of Los Angeles. She has a duck, her a little hair in the back is spiked out.
Carly: She’s the embodiment of the line in Clueless when she says, “She could be a farmer in those clothes.” That’s that line became sentient and became this woman who’s clearly a lesbian.
Lianna Carrera: She’s that line embodied.
Riese: She says, “We don’t need our children learning about the gay lifestyle,” and I have a question for her, which is then why did you move your family to West fucking Hollywood?
Lianna Carrera: That would’ve been-
Riese: It is a gay city. It’s not secretly a gay city. It is very loudly a gay city.
Lianna Carrera: I just like how Shane is upfront, like slouched. She does not care. She’s like, “What is the shit? I’m not here for any of this.”
Carly: I know. She does not care at all.
Lianna Carrera: “I don’t care. I do not care.” Even when she sits on the table, she’s totally looks like a monkey bent over. She’s a mood right there.
Riese: Then we have a little cliffhanger before we return to the school where Shay, apropos of almost nothing, stands up and says…
Shay: My sister is gay
Lianna Carrera: That’s a brave moment.
Carly: I did a slow clap for Shay. when I was watching it personally. I love that-
Lianna Carrera: So did Shane-
Carly: … he had to stand up and say it.
Riese: Shane clapped with her eyes.
Lianna Carrera: Shane was like, “All right, little dude.”
Carly: “I’m sure they could tell from my hair and the fact that I’m here talking about this, but sure.” Then we go to-
Riese: Poor Jared’s still in the dark.
Carly: Jared’s still super confused about what’s going on.
Lianna Carrera: Just randomly yelling.
Carly: Just randomly interrupting the parents.
Riese: Then we go back to the art school for what I believe I would call a top off.
Sound Effect : IT’S A TOP OFFFFFFF
Carly: In this corner we have Jodi who missed Bette last night, and in this corner we have Bette who really needs to talk to her, and then we have Tom who has to go walk around outside.
Riese: She says, “Go walk around outside.”
Carly: He’s like, “I guess I’ll go walk around outside.” Okay. Jodi is very good at everything and she knows why Bette’s there, and she knows what she’s going to say. Bette’s like, “Yeah. Clearly, we need to end this because I am monogamous.” Bette’s been spiraling out since they were sitting with Phyllis, clearly, I think.
Lianna Carrera: She says to Bette, “What are you doing? You’re not even ready for a relationship. You just got out of this marriage.”
Carly: Seriously.
Lianna Carrera: You got out of this eight year marriage or whatever it was.
Carly: Why would this even matter?
Lianna Carrera: You shouldn’t want that.
Riese: Right.
Carly: Bette’s like, “Don’t tell me about myself,” or whatever she said.
Riese: Yeah. “Don’t tell me what I’m ready for.”
Carly: And Jodi says she’s not seeing anyone else around and hasn’t been since she met Bette.
Lianna Carrera: And doesn’t want to. But I think it’s refreshing to hear Jodi know herself enough to say that to someone. Because a lot of us tend to get in relationships with people who that’s how they end things, and it’s just a pattern. It’d be great for someone to be honest. Know that about themselves. Like, “Hey, this is going to end poorly. I’m going to try my best.” Because you know lesbians love crazy, too, so they would probably be attracted to it like moth on a flame. If someone really likes you-
Riese: Yeah, “this seems like a bad idea. Let’s do it.”
Lianna Carrera: “I could totally be the exception.”
Carly: Always.
Riese: “This will work out.”
Carly: This never works, but it could work for us.
Riese: “I know you hate children.”
Carly: I just appreciate that the show, actually having a discussion for once, actually about monogamy and the alternatives.
Riese: Have you seen that meme that’s like, “Oh, you’re in a lesbian relationship. Which one of you is poly and which one of you is the one pretending to be okay with it?”
Lianna Carrera: I have not seen that. That’s awesome.
Carly: That’s so funny. Oh, my God.
Riese: Well, who do you think wins?
Lianna Carrera: Jodi, obviously because she suckered Bette in and made her feel better.
Riese: That’s true.
Carly: Yeah. I think absolutely, Jodi wins again. I think it’s now four-nothing, Jodi.
Riese: She also literally topped Bette that morning, or the day before.
Carly: Honestly, another point for that, so that five-nothing, Jodi, at this point in the season.
Riese: Jodi is crushing it. Bette is going to be a bottom by the end of the season.
Carly: Bette’s going to be straight by the end of this. We go to the school tolerance assembly once again. This is exhausting at this point. I wrote down just that Shane tells her entire life story so that the other parents will treat her like a human being. Please feel free to fill in the details.
Riese: A small child goes…
Little Boy: “Yeah, but how do girls do it?”
Riese: First of all, stop. Second of all, why are they having a Q and A, and then this dad stands up and is like, “Hmm… so, my brother is gay, and he lives with his partner, but I don’t feel comfortable about my daughter staying with them.” And that’s just dropped. And I’m like, “Dude, you need to chill out, and let your daughter hang out with her gay uncle. And also, again, you live in West Hollywood, what’s your problem?”
Carly: Seriously. What is wrong with these people?
Riese: None of these people… I don’t think anyone in the room has had sex in maybe years, besides Shane and Paige. I mean, amongst the adults. These people are very obsessed with what everyone else is doing because they have nothing to obsess about in their own lives.
Carly: That tracks.
Riese: No one stabs the small child. And then the mom is like, “Oh my God, you’re the person from the underwear ad.”
Carly: “I have to drive by that every day.”
Lianna Carrera: Which she loves, but she’s pretending she doesn’t.
Riese: Yeah, she loves that.
Carly: Exactly.
Lianna Carrera: She’s repressed.
Riese: She’s like, “I stare at it every day and think about you.” I guess. “I purposely drive by it. I sometimes sit near it, and masturbate in my car while staring at it.” So yeah, Shane tells her whole life story, which has nothing to do with anything.
Carly: No, it does not.
Lianna Carrera: She says there, she had to do it because her brother needed his arm fixed, right?
Riese: Yeah, yeah.
Lianna Carrera: And so, she sounds apologetic for it, again.
Riese: Right.
Carly: I know.
Lianna Carrera: Which goes back to what you were saying earlier.
Riese: Yeah, and why?
Carly: She has to have an excuse. She has to explain why she did it? Fuck that.
Riese: Yeah. Also, it’s totally completely normal. Like you’re in LA. Again, actresses, musicians, models, everyone is like…
Carly: This is a normal thing for this town.
Riese: Yeah. Being half-naked on a billboard is not shameful. It’s like… That’s success.
Lianna Carrera: Success.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: That’s success.
Carly: Like, “I got paid. Fuck off.”
Lianna Carrera: Yeah, yeah.
Riese: “I got paid to stand still.”
Lianna Carrera: And she’s covered up. I mean, she’s got obviously-
Carly: Yeah. Also, I thought it was weird to be like… I don’t know. I wonder if like… I mean, we never know anything about Shay because they never give him anything… like any actual scenes to do anything, or whatever. But I have to imagine if I was Shay, I would feel shitty hearing that. “I had to go do this because Shay hurt himself, and I had to pay for it.” I’d feel like complete shit if I was Shay. And I feel like it was super weird to do that in front of him, too.
Lianna Carrera: And it shut the lady up. I mean, she’s like all of a sudden like, “Oh.” Like it provided some sort of humanity, I guess, based on it. It was weirdly handled.
Carly: Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: It was. That scene was interesting. Yeah. Yeah.
Carly: So yeah, the school assembly went about as well as we thought it would.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah.
Carly: Then we go to a really fucking hilarious thing. Jenny is at a fancy Hollywood poolside meeting at night, which is totally normal, and a thing that happens all the time. I was trying to figure out which hotel this is, but I couldn’t… I wasn’t sure.
Lianna Carrera: I recognized it.
Riese: I thought maybe it was in Vancouver.
Lianna Carrera: Oh. I don’t know. It looked so familiar.
Carly: What did you think it was?
Riese: It looked familiar.
Carly: It wasn’t the Roosevelt.
Lianna Carrera: Because of the balconies.
Carly: I don’t know. I was definitely thinking about it.
Riese: Yeah. It wasn’t the the Roosevelt.
Carly: No. I always assume it’s the Roosevelt anytime anyone is in a movie, or a TV show having any like Hollywood movie by a pool, a Hollywood meeting by a pool. So I’m assuming these are her new agents, I guess?
Riese: I thought they were maybe studio heads?
Carly: They never said.
Riese: Because why is she…
Carly: But they’re talking about all the studios that are interested in the book rights. I’m pretty sure these are her agents.
Riese: Right.
Carly: And they talk about how there’s a bidding war for Lez Girls. And they’re like, “Focus wants it. And this company, and this studio,” and blah, blah, blah. And-
Riese: This never…
Lianna Carrera: Which is so realistic.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Could not be-
Riese: Everybody is clamoring for the lesbian film! They all want it! In 2007. This has never happened. This has never happened.
Carly: And then hilariously, Tina shows up, and Jenny’s like, “Shit, shit, shit, shit.” So like… Did she invite her to this meeting? Maybe? I don’t know. But Tina shows up and Jenny is like, “Hey, in that bidding war that we were just discussing, you guys should add Tina’s little company Shaolin to the list. Yeah. Definitely like definitely give it to them,” or whatever. And Tina’s just blindsided by the whole thing. And Tina’s just really caught off guard by this because Tina thought she had it already.
Riese: And we can tell that’s going to be awkward.
Carly: Yeah. Also, Tina never wanted to do it in the first place! Oh, it’s so good!i
Riese: I know. Exactly. If she loses it, then she’d probably be happy that she lost it. But also, can we talk about the conceit of Katie Holmes calling, wanting to play Jessie Star?
Lianna Carrera: I was like, “Okay.”
Carly: And then she’s like, “I always pictured her as like a tall, skinny blonde model.” And I’m like, “That’s the character that’s Jenny.”
Lianna Carrera: You guys, that’s how middle America thinks Hollywood works, though.
Carly: Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: You know what I mean? And Hollywood’s probably responsible for us having so many false expectations when we arrive.
Carly: Because they put scenes like this into their television programs.
Lianna Carrera: Yes. We’re like, “Oh, that’s what’s going to happen.” And it’s like, nothing could be farther from the truth.
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: No.
Carly: It’s so easy to sell your lesbian show or movie.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah.
Riese: Yeah. No. Uh-uh nope.
Lianna Carrera: And even if you are friends with that celebrity, you’re not approaching them. Probably not till five years later, and maybe by… not even directly.
Carly: Exactly.
Lianna Carrera: Like in…
Carly: With 18 intermediaries.
Lianna Carrera: Not even gonna ask them directly.
Riese: And wasn’t Katie Holmes still married to Tom Cruise and in Scientology at this time?
Lianna Carrera: If so, I love that line because it’s so [crosstalk 01:08:35].
Riese: Yeah. It would be better if…
Carly: Yeah. I don’t have my Scientology timeline in front of me, but I hope so. So then we go, and we see Bette at home doing some work. And ah, I love more than anything old tech, old internet. And she gets an Instant Message. Remember IM’s, guys? From Jodi. And Jodi says that she thinks she could in love with Bette too, and then immediately signs off. Do you remember signing into AIM-
Riese: That’s such a power move.
Carly: -saying something… and saying to someone, and then immediately signing off so they couldn’t respond?
Lianna Carrera: If you got in a fight or something?
Carly: No, just like being dramatic, or being in a fight, or anything. A startling disclosure of some kind like, “I love you.” Or like, “I have a crush on you,” and then like signing off.
Lianna Carrera: I don’t think I’m that bold.
Riese: Wait, if someone messaged you, and you weren’t… They couldn’t message you if you weren’t there, right? It’s not like–
Carly: There were away messages and things. So like, I think you would get… Remember, they put up the away message that you spent all that time–
Riese: Finding the song lyrics.
Carly: Getting the right song lyric to put how depressed you were. And then they would get the away message that said you weren’t there. And then I think you just had to stop. You couldn’t write anymore. Or… It’s not like you would get home and see like… Or maybe it changed at some point. Like there was a time where you couldn’t do it, and then you could… I don’t know. Look, I don’t remember.
Riese: I think you could actually…
Carly: Well Bette reads it, and has some feelings about it, but we won’t know what those are because there’s only one more scene left in the episode.
Riese: Yeah. Back at Shenny’s house.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: Apparently Shane invited the entire class to take a field trip to Wax
Carly: [WAX GUITAR RIFF] You know what kids love? Field trips. Do you know what kids love more? Field trips to actual cool places, and not museums.
Riese: Yes. Yeah. We took a field trip to McDonald’s once.
Carly: Shane’s the most popular parent in the class.
Riese: Yeah. They’re going to have a great time. I hope they all get mohawks.
Carly: Oh, that would be fun for them. And tattoos. Kids love tattoos.
Riese: And tattoos. Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: Gay tattoos.
Carly: Yeah. Gay-ass tattoos.
Riese: Shane and Paige are like, “Ooh, la, la, la.” And then Paige is like, “Since we already did the time, we might as well do the crime.”
Carly: Which means “Let’s go to…” Where did I say? Bang city?
Riese: Yeah. It’s time to go to Bone Town.
Carly: Bone Town.
Riese: We’re going to Bone Town right on this table.
Lianna Carrera: And I have this theory that now I’m so glad to have a platform to be able to tell people. I have never thought Shane was totally hot during sex or initiating sex because I have noticed, and maybe I’m wrong, but now that I’ve said it, maybe you’ll see it… I have noticed that Shane never grabs anybody. She paws at them like it’s a very light… Like almost a-
Carly: Like she’s a cat.
Lianna Carrera: -a baby seal. Like a cat. She very sexily breathes. And then she just sort of paws. And I can’t unsee that now. So please prove me right or wrong. I’d love to know if this piece is real. She doesn’t grab someone when she pushes them in or pulls them in.
Riese: Yeah. She sometimes she grabs their face. Like she grabs a face and kisses the face.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah, she grabs the face? But what about like… when the body… I feel like it’s a very delicate dance.
Riese: Yeah. She does. I think, first of all, she does grab the face sometimes, but I think it’s common for her to be leaning in with the kissing, and have the rest of her body…
Carly: Eight miles away back.
Riese: … kind of back.
Carly: Yeah. She’s on a 45-degree angle.
Riese: Right. It’s like this swoop up move, which is more pronounced here because Paige is taller than her.
Carly: Yes.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. Well, let me know.
Carly: And now I’m going to look for it all the time.
Lianna Carrera: But I don’t think she grabs anybody.
Carly: Interesting. Very interesting.
Lianna Carrera: Because when you’re passionate with someone, you want to grab, you want to pull them toward you. Right? Like I would think. She’s very…
Carly: It’s part of her aloofness, I think. It’s her whole vibe of just kind of sitting back and girls just come to her, kind of thing.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. That’s true.
Riese: I don’t know. And come on her.
Lianna Carrera: Oh God. But do you remember when we were young, like 10 years ago? I thought that Shane’s storylines were something to aspire to in real life.
Carly: Yeah. Me too.
Lianna Carrera: I think there should be `a little bit of like a cautionary tale of like, “This is not great in real life.”
Carly: Don’t do this.
Riese: Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: You know what I mean? You don’t want to feel ever like you’re in one of these storylines in real life, you know?
Riese: Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: They could have helped so much lesbian drama.
Riese: I know. I did it.
Carly: Oh I did. I thought I was Shane for like a hot minute. Moreso in this appearance. Like I had the haircut, and I wore the outfits, and I tried to look like her, but like my personality was never Shane. Like I tried to be cool, and it was not cool, ever. I was never cool.
Riese: I did the personality for one summer.
Carly: You were like, “This has an expiration date in three months.”
Riese: Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: Which you have the frame to dress like Shane, too.
Riese: Yeah.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. I never had the frame, so I just looked pudgy and…
Riese: Yeah. And I wore the same… Like I pretty much just wore what she wore just for that summer. And I did try to get a similar haircut, like when it was a little bit longer, but they didn’t do it right.
Lianna Carrera: What do you think hairdressers were thinking about just the dozens of lesbians walking in with Shane’s hair cut?
Riese: Coming in with printouts?
Carly: Coming in with photos of Kate Moennig, like promo photos from Season Two?
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: But also, I say that because I absolutely brought a photo of her to a haircut when I lived in Florida.
Riese: Yeah. I did, too.
Lianna Carrera: I had a Justin Bieber phase too, with his haircut. Just like, “Hey, could you do this? Could you do…” after Shane. It was like, “Why?”
Carly: Oh God, Oh God.
Lianna Carrera: This is why the Indigo Girls say “every five years you look back on your life, and have a good laugh.” I need to be quoting scripture to everybody right now, but that is right. That is true.
Carly: It’s not wrong.
Riese: Absolutely.
Carly: It’s absolutely true.
Riese: I love the Indigo Girls. Oh also, there’s a terrible Betty song.
Carly: Yeah. I was going to say. So they start to hook up, and they’re like going for it. But then they hear someone and they don’t… I don’t know if the implication was—
Riese: Someone flushed the toilet?
Carly: Yeah. If it was like one of the boys, or if it was like Max is home. I don’t know what’s going on. But they’re like, “Let’s continue this another time.” And then the most insane song is playing. It’s called Barnyard by Betty. And the lyrics are all about like barnyard animals. I don’t understand. And that’s the episode. That song is what takes us to the credits.
Carly: So we’re done. That’s the whole thing.
Riese: That’s the episode.
Lianna Carrera: That’s it.
Carly: That’s the episode. What do we think? I liked this episode.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: I don’t have any strong love feelings for it, but I don’t hate it. It’s good. It’s fine.
Riese: Yeah. I didn’t remember it very strongly.
Carly: No, there are not a lot of memorable moments or plot things happening here, really.
Riese: Yeah. Well, they’re moving a lot of plot along-
Carly: But nothing iconic happened in this episode.
Riese: Yeah. Uh-uh (negative). There was two great sex scenes.
Carly: Yes. Great sex scenes.
Lianna Carrera: I liked it. I mean, I love whenever I see deaf characters represented on TV, and that was really cool to see, especially a queer deaf person too a storyline. I mean, more of that, you know?
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Definitely.
Riese: Like they should bring her to Gen Q.
Carly: Like, definitely. Please have Jodi stop by Gen Q.
Riese: I didn’t like the kid’s thing. “How do girls do it?” Makes me want to jump off a bridge, but-
Carly: That made me crazy.
Lianna Carrera: Because they don’t even know how boys and girls do it!
Carly: Right. Why do they pick girls to talk about?
Lianna Carrera: They’re dumb.
Carly: You are small children.
Riese: You already know how two boys do it?
Carly: You’re like 10.
Riese: These parents have bigger problems, you know?
Lianna Carrera: Like your mom and dad did it. That’s how you got here. You want to talk about gross? Don’t worry about what we do.
Carly: Lianna, thank you so much for joining us for this episode. It was so wonderful to… I mean, it was wonderful to get to catch up with you, and also to have you and your particular perspective on the world here today with us.
Lianna Carrera: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you thought of me for this.
Carly: Totally. Where can people find you? Social media, things like that? Anything you want to plug?
Lianna Carrera: Yeah, please. I just recorded a standup special with Seed&Spark, seedandspark.com. You can check out Cameron Esposito’s special on there too. And then I was a part of six… they’re calling Rising Stars in comedy. And so we all got to do little sets. And so I talk about my deaf mom. I make fun of my deaf family members as well as my existence in the world as a gay daughter of a Southern Baptist minister and all that good stuff. And so it’s all there for you. So please visit Seed&Spark and check it out. Everything is Fine, is what the standup special’s called. Everything is Fine. And then I don’t like Twitter, but I’m on there. I love Instagram, LiannaC, and I’m on Facebook so friend me if you want another person raging about politics in your feed. I mean…
Riese: Who doesn’t?
Carly: You can follow this show @tolandback on Instagram and Twitter. You can follow Riese @ottawan, you can follow Autostraddle @autostraddle, and you can follow me @carlytron. We have an email address to tolandbackcast@gmail.com. You can write us, you can say hello. We have a hotline, 971-217-6130. We also have merch available, stickers and shirts at store.autostraddle.com. Our theme song is by the incredible Be Steadwell. Our logo is by the very talented Carra Sykes, and the production and editing of this podcast was done by the one and only Lauren Klein. L-words. Okay. Ready?
Riese: One, two, three.
Carly: Lamp.
Lianna Carrera: Luscious.
Carly: Okay. Everyone go around. Riese, what did you say?
Riese: I said lacy, because Paige’s bra was a little bit lacy.
Carly: Nice. Leanna, what did you say?
Riese: And it was red. It was cute. I liked that.
Lianna Carrera: It said “luscious” because it was the first word I thought of. But I didn’t know it was supposed to be related to the…
Riese: It’s not.
Carly: It’s really like an exercise in stream of consciousness…
Lianna Carrera: But I wanted to say “lamb” and I was like, “That’s stupid. Say luscious.” But what did you say? You said something close to it.
Carly: I said “lamp” because I-
Lianna Carrera: Dang it!
Carly: -I watched the original animated Aladdin last night for the first time was in probably over a decade. And I was just thinking a lot about the genie in the lamp. And it also reminded me of how much I loved the magic carpet as a character. I thought they really did a great job of humanizing an inanimate object.
All right. Well, great. I like to end things on a really relevant note. Yeah. Thank you all for listening. We’ll be back next week with another one of these, and as always, stay cool. I’ve never said that before. I don’t know why I…
Riese: Stay safe out there, kiddos and adultos. Do the good things for the peoples.
Carly: Be cool.
Riese: Be cool. Because we are cool.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: And whoever you are is good and special, and you are special.
Carly: That’s really special.
Riese: And we love you.
Carly: It was beautiful.
Riese: You are enough. Okay.
Carly: Wow.
Riese: Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Carly: Well, we’ll see how the rest of the day goes.
Lianna Carrera: Right?
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: All right.
Riese: Okay.
Carly: Bye.
Riese: I have to pee really bad.
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 406: Luck Be a Lady
Papi’s first rule of poker is “Let Angela Robinson write and direct everything!” This week we get 11 minutes of lesbian phone tree perfection, a Stacey Merkin/Debbie McJenny showdown, some questionable rules of poker and the much-anticipated “Roll the Dice” premiere, during which everybody looked very Shane today. Will luck be a lady tonight? Will Paige make her grandmother’s meatloaf? Have you ever gone to the hospital for a cut on your face? Did Megan deserve the promotion? These questions and more will be addressed in one of our favorite eps! Are Also, Carly had a lot of coffee!
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- GIVE US A NICE REVIEW!! NOW’S THE TIME TO DO IT, FRIENDS!
- FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM!!
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- Our 2007 lesbian phone tree video
Who by the way are SO overrated
IT IS ALSO COLORED PENCILS!
That’s where my pants go
Is it the large electric drill in my left hand? Be honest
Gimme like 2-3 hours of catching up on twitter
![Bette and Jodi making out, both in their bras. Subtitles read, "[Gasping]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-03-18.14.28-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
So that’s one small thing we have in common
You’re on it!
![Lindsey (wearing her bra and pants) straddles Jenny, who is sitting up on the couch. Subtitles read, "[Exhales]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screenshot-2020-05-03-18.43.01-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
Which tbh does not seem particularly accurate
Is Great!
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 405: Lez Girls
Hey one second, Monet has come back from the dead and is on the other line and he says “please get Hazel the nanny out of this episode.” Just an idea! It’s a real rollercoaster of an episode this week: on the upside, we meet Tasha. On the downside, Phyllis’s family photo is troubling. Meanwhile: Bette and Jodi get dirty and nasty and high, Phyllis wants to orbit around Alice forever and ever, Debbie loves Lindsay’s sexy armpits and also manatees, Helena breaks glass all over her tiny foods, Jenny publishes her Russian novella “Lez Girls” in The New Yorker, Paige wishes Shane would hit on her and so do we. Get your torsos into your pants everybody.
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- GIVE US A NICE REVIEW!! NOW’S THE TIME TO DO IT, FRIENDS!
- FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM!!
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- Buy The Whole Lesbian Sex Book for a girl you’ve hooked up with twice!
![Close-up of Jenny with tears in her eyes. She's wearing a black tank top and her hair in a ponytail. Subtitles read, "[Dog breathes heavily]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-25-12.08.06-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
![Paige in a black bra standing in front of a mirror. Subtitles read, "[Video game gunfire continues]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-25-12.41.52-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 404: Layup With Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
TV Critic and Season 4 Enthusiast Kayla Kumari who you already know from THIS WEBSITE RIGHT HERE joins us for THE BASKETBALL EPISODE! This week, Phyllis gets a little oral sex education, Bette meets Famous Sculptor Jodi Lerner for the first time and it goes TERRIBLY, Nadia’s dreams get dashed, Hazel the Nanny ruins our lives, certified goddess Paige meets Shane at School of Rock Night and everybody gathers for one of the best scenes in L Word History: Bougie Bitches vs. Papi’s Team in a basketball game to remember. Don’t throw it to Jenny!!!
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- Give to our fundraiser!
- Kayla’s AV Club article we discuss in the podcast
![Overhead shot of Bette standing on a dark concrete floor as she enters Jodi's studio. Subtitles read, "[Metallic grinding]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-19-17.00.22-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 403: Lassoed
Rancho Notorious is West Hollywood’s hottest new Girls Night at The Planet. You’ll find Heads Will Roll Kroll on the prowl, Papi with a girl on each arm, many bales of hay, two party promoters unddresssing each other and Shane, a skinny little white girl. But first, stop in on “Tina and Henry’s Mixer for Our Gay and Straight Friends,” a bona-fide disaster party full of honest homophobes and Bette’s intense top energy. Also, Jenny’s still upset about her review, Helena’s bad at jobs, and Nadia has never wanted to kiss anyone as much as she wants to kiss Bette Porter right now!
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- Give to our fundraiser
- We mention Rodeo Disco a few times in the episode: this is what we’re talking about – Rodeo Disco 2009, Rodeo Disco 2010
![Kit and Angus at the Planet. Subtitles read, "[Both scatting]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-11-14.16.05-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
![Black and white shot. Shane walks into The Planet. Subtitles read "[horse whinnying]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-11-14.27.54-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 402: Livin’ La Vida Loca with El Sanchez!!
Because we’re gonna be recording remotely for a while, we figured to turn this drawback into an opportunity and invite guests from other locations! Comedian El Sanchez joins us from their social isolation in Olympia for this spirited episode in which we meet the legendary Papi from Our Chart, who doesn’t do breakfast and loves girls’ sadness and wetness. Also, Arizona Robbins short-shorts her way into Bette’s T.A. spot, Cybil Shepard arrives as Dean Phyllis Kroll who thinks she’s gay, Shay drinks 500 milkshakes, Max the sensitive feminist goes on a date, and Jenny finds out that Stacey Merkin is a duplicitous cunt!!!!
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- GIVE US A NICE REVIEW!! NOW’S THE TIME TO DO IT, FRIENDS!
- FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM!!
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- Give to our fundraiser
![A dimly lit bar with a pool table in the background and two guys sitting at a table. Subtitles read, "[Patrons converse quietly in Spanish.]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-04-18.28.59-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
![A journalist in a blazer chats with Jenny on a couch at her reading. Subtitles say, "[Laughs politely.]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-04-18.31.35-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
![A person walks a dog as they cross the street. Subtitles say, "[Moaning]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-04-18.43.52-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
![Dark shot of Helena and Papi outside at night, they have just hooked up. Subtitles read, "[sighs breathlessly.]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screenshot-2020-04-04-19.02.13-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 401: Legend In The Making
Hey Oh My God Have You Heard of OurChart??? (Which you can read more about in this piece) It’s so much fun!!! Have you been on it? You should get on it!!! Also, Season Four kicks off with complete mayhem — Shane becomes a sea otter and crashes a car, Bette’s on the lam with Angelica, Tina’s screaming at everybody, Joyce Wyshia is back and perfect, Helena’s poor and has to carry her own luggage, Jenny’s getting a visit from Claude and our favorite shape-shifter, Marina, is making a scene-stealing cameo at Jenny’s Book Party! Join Carly and Riese as they socially distance themselves through this real riot of an episode!!!
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“To L and Back” Episode 401 Transcript
Riese: Hi, I’m Riese.
Carly: And I’m Carly.
Riese: And this is —
Riese and Carly: To L and Back.
Riese: I don’t know if we did it at the same time since there’s delay. We’ll never know again, since-
Carly: Who knows.
Riese: We’re just going to be pod people forever.
Carly: Hi.
Riese: Oh yeah, so this is an Autostraddle Podcast where we recap episodes of The L Word one at a time, forever and ever. Me and Carly talking about L Word which you could watch on Hulu. Hi, everyone.
Carly: We’re pod people now. Hi welcome to To L and Back in the time of COVID-19.
Riese: We are again recording on video chat, because we’re socially isolated.
Carly: We are socially distancing from each other and from everyone else, because that is what you should be doing. But we could not possibly imagine leaving all of our beautiful listeners hanging in such an important time as the beginning of season four. Look-
Riese: Right. It’s so important.
Carly: … we all got through Season Three and the reward is now we get Season Four.
Riese: Which is already bananas.
Carly: Yeah. Today, we are triumphantly starting season four. Congratulations to everyone who made it through season three, but especially me and Riese.
Riese: Just a big round of applause for us.
Carly: I’m going to clap for us.
Riese: We did it.
Carly: We did it.
Riese: We did it.
Carly: I’m patting myself on the back.
Riese: It was funny.
Carly: I thought it was pretty funny.
Riese: I thought it was hilarious.
Carly: Yeah. Today we’ve got Episode 401 which is called “Legend in the Making.” It was written by Ilene Chaiken, directed by Bronwen Hughes. Bronwen previously directed the Lobster dinner episode, you might recall. This originally aired on January 7th, 2007.
Riese: Do you remember where you watched this premiere? I do. Do you want me to go first?
Carly: Yes please do.
Riese: Okay. There was a party, a premiere party by, I think it was probably Go Magazine was involved in some way? And Showtime, and so me and all my friends went. The costume of the day was “Red and Black,” because remember how we used to always do like a costume of the day for parties and stuff. We all wore red and black and Jennifer Beals was there and Ilene Chaiken and Marlee Matlin were there also, and I guess we got drunk. I don’t really remember it very well. But that’s where I first saw this piece of shit episode, yeah.
Carly: 2007, beginning of the year, I was still living in Florida so I probably went to The L Word season four premiere party, which was probably sponsored by HRC and was probably at Pulse. Was Pulse open in 2007? I think it was open. This might have been held at Pulse if I remember correctly. I honestly probably figure it out if I go deep dive. But in Orlando at Pulse I think is probably where I watched this episode with my friends. January 7th, 2007 is the date in question.
Riese: It sure is.
Carly: Riese are you ready to get into this?
Riese: Oh my god I’m so ready.
Carly: I’m so ready. Here we go.
Riese: We open with the seascape. We’re in the sea. We’re under the sea.
Carly: Or we’re in like an aquarium. It could be either.
Riese: Yeah, it’s like there’s sea life, there’s leaves, sea leaves.
Carly: Seal leaves? Seaweed.
Riese: Sea leaves? Seal-weed?
Carly: Maybe seaweed or kelp.
Riese: Then, oh my god who’s under the sea? It’s not—.
Riese and Carly: Ariel The Little Mermaid.
Riese: it’s Shane!
Carly: Holy shit, Shane, fully clothed in the outfit she will be wearing this entire episode.
Riese: Also, who knew Shane could hold her breath underwater forever?
Carly: Years.
Riese: She’s the secret Olympic swimmer of this. She should have been on Tim’s swim team. This could have been a completely different story.
Carly: I feel like her form would be very sloppy.
Riese: Yeah. Another thing about this opening is that we immediately see one of her nipples.
Carly: Oh, wow, I didn’t even catch that. Good job.
Riese: Thank you.
Carly: Yeah, Excellent work.
Riese: I have a gift for the world coming up now, which is so the opening theme song begins and there are some changes.
Carly: Oh are there ever!
Riese: The season four … It looks like the direction they took with season four is — there’s going to be three new main characters that will be introduced this season. But none of them were introduced this episode.
Carly: But they’re all hinted at in the opening, which is interesting.
Riese: Sooo, in the very … There’s 15 changes between last season’s opening and this episode’s opening and these are the changes.
Carly: Oh my God, oh wait. I’m obsessed with this.
Riese: There’s a close up of Dana’s face that now becomes a close up of Bette’s face. Dana jumping rope is now Shane seducing Jenny’s ear. You know that shot?
Carly: Legendary shot.
Riese: Motorcycle scene is completely new. Last season Alice was wearing a black leather thing and these little hot shorts. Her hair was slicked back. There’s a close up of her wearing this blue ring and obviously Dana was on the back. Now she has long hair. The motorcycle is blue now. It was yellow before and it looks like it’s like maybe a smaller bike, I can’t tell, and she’s wearing like, she has different boots. She’s wearing a red and black plaid shirt and her hair is longer. In the original one, she kisses Dana on the cheek, which I hadn’t even really caught, because I hadn’t paused every single frame of the theme song, because I feel like life is spiraling out of control and this is all I have left. So as you recall, Shane seducing Jenny’s ear was moved to the top to get rid of Dana jumping rope. Now Shane in Jenny’s ear is Jodi’s art studio, but no Jodi yet.
Carly: No Jodi yet.
Riese: Dana and Carmen in the pool chairs has been replaced with Alice and Helena in the pool chairs. Tina’s face, thank God, Replaced with Alice’s face. Shane and Carmen in a the back and forth is now Bette sitting in a chair looking important. Obviously the assemblage of people all at once. There’s a group scene that changes completely. Shane in a Muscle T pawing at Carmen is now Shane in a blazer, with a key necklace? That never goes anywhere. Although we could tie it back later in this episode. Carmen playing with a pearl necklace is now Shane with her hands together. Picture of Dana, picture of Shane. Carmen spinning is now the backs of Tasha and Papi looking at the art but we don’t see their front.
Carly: We don’t see their faces, yet.
Riese: Dana and Alice cocking their heads at the art is now just Alice cocking her head. Then the group shot at the end is different, and instead of it being Jenny, Shane, Carmen on the couch with Carmen between them, Jenny is laying on Shane’s lap. The end.
Carly: Then who’s in the fountain with the umbrellas?
Riese: That would be Ross, Rachel, Monica, Lisa Kudrow and…
Carly: Chandler.
Riese: Did I say Joey? Chandler?
Carly: Joey, did we say Joey?
Riese: Joey.
Carly: Anyway, that is really good recap. All I wrote was “hinting at Jodi, Papi and Tasha” and I’m really glad that you did the work here, because I didn’t.
whooshing sound
Riese: So then we are opening in Whistler.
Carly: Yeah, we’re still in Whistler.
Riese: It’s like the next day.
Carly: I guess so. Given what they’re about to do, I’m assuming it’s the next … Bette leaves in the middle of the night with Angie.
Riese: Yeah in a mysterious car.
Carly: In a car that she hot-wired and stole. Is this just like the next morning? Afternoon? Or do we think another day has … I guess it doesn’t really matter.
Riese: Yeah, a lot has happened though, and we are going to find out about all of it because this is an exposition scene.
Carly: Welcome to extreme exposition.
Riese: They came there to do extreme snowboarding but instead they’re doing extreme exposition.
Carly: Alice is packing to leave. They’re in Alice’s room.
Riese: We find out that Lara took a job in San Francisco.
Carly: Yes, Kit’s like, “I can’t find Bette.”
Riese: Right, Dana told Alice on her deathbed to make friends outside of “their little orbit,” which she somehow connects to Lara. But also like, that’s the definition of “having friends” is having friends in an orbit. Apparently, what they’re about to do, they’re going to call it an Intervention.
Carly: I wrote down it should be a Bette-tervention.
Riese: That’s better than saying it’s an intervention because it’s not. It’s just calling someone on the phone.
Carly: It’s leaving a voicemail is what it is.
Riese: It’s just leaving a voicemail. The scene is bad. Everyone in it is doing a bad job, and the writing is bad.
Carly: The scene is bad. Max is the only smart one here because he tries to get out of this before it even starts and is like, “I’m going to go. You don’t need me for this.” They’re like, “You sit your ass down, Max. We are all going to leave a voicemail for Bette together. It’s the only way to get her to come to her senses.”
Riese: Gets like, “She needs to know that we’re behind her all the way.” So then there seems to be like some discord, basically that they’re all saying they would support her, they support her having Angie as a baby? Kid? Child? Then who comes in to this little intervention — which is, again, them leaving a voicemail — but Tina!!
Carly: Capital T, Tina.
Riese: Tina-
Carly: Tina …
Riese: … is mad.
Carly: … runs into the room screaming and it’s honestly so good.
Riese: She’s got a scarf. She’s very mad. She yells —
Tina: ... call the police and have your ass thrown in jail and ruin your brand new goddamn career, not to mention the rest of your fucking life.
Riese: Which is not a great punishment because Bette loves jail. I think we all remember that. And then she asks—
Tina: What, did she take Angelica to fucking Timbuktu?
Carly: How could she have gotten to Timbuktu-
Riese: Listen …
Carly: … that quickly? It’s been five minutes since she left.
Riese: Yeah. She should have been like, “Did she take her to Seattle?”
Carly: Another part of Canada? Northern California?
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Then we cut to where Bette is right now. She is in … Okay, she’s in like a restaurant. She’s with Angie, and she’s talking to Joyce Wischnia, greatest lawyer of all time on the phone. She is talking to Joyce, talking to Joyce and then — call waiting! Guess who it is? It’s Bette’s new boss, Phyllis who we don’t get to see yet but we will very soon and oh boy.
Riese: Bette is so excited for her new job.
Carly: She says that she’s in Northern California on a road trip with her daughter. Do we take this at face value? Is she in Northern California? I think so. It does seem like that’s where she is.
Riese: Yeah, maybe they’re going to do a wine tour.
Carly: Oh Angie would love that. Angie would love that.
Riese: For some reason in my memory this took place in Mexico. I think she drove to Mexico, but I guess it’s because she mentions Mexico. She says like, she has friends who took their whole family to Mexico.
Carly: Yeah, her friend who’s like an artist.
Riese: Yeah. Is that where she asked for the sippy cup?
Carly: Yeah, she’s insufferably rude to the waitstaff at this restaurant.
Bette: Can I get a sippy cup? Does anybody have a sippy cup? Jesus.
Carly: Terrible, I bet she left a shitty tip. She’s just, come on Bette, get it together. Get it together. Don’t do this.
Riese: Then we cut to a completely different television show where …
Carly: Completely different.
Riese: The waves are rolling in on the shore, and Shane dramatically trudges out of the ocean. Notices, “oh my phone died because I’ve been …
Carly: Under water.
Riese: … under water” and throws her phone in the ocean dramatically.
Carly: The phone’s already dead. That’s— okay. You’ve already swam with it but sure.
Riese: She should have put it in a bag of rice in the freezer.
Carly: So she crawls out of the water, gets onto the sand and we’re revealed that she is right outside Cherie Jaffe’s beach house.
Riese: And she has legs.
Carly: Yes, unlike the last time someone crawled out of the ocean confused, she is not a mermaid. She does have her voice, although she hardly uses it in this episode. You could get confused there. It is very similar-
Riese: You could, yeah.
Carly: … to the Little Mermaid.
Riese: You could think Ursula took it.
Carly: She does have that crab who keeps following her around and talking to her in a Jamaican accent. But other than that, it’s very, very, very different.
Riese: Yeah, Cherie is like, calls her a “little freak,” keeps calling her “little freak,” because … She’s at Cherie’s beach house, and she’s like, “When are you going to fuck me?” Then they do lines of coke.
Cherie: You crazy little freak.
Carly: So clearly, Shane has been staying with Cherie Jaffe, and they have … In the like several hours since she, I don’t know swam out of Whistler? What happened?
Riese: Yeah, she swam.
Carly: Yeah. So Shane is really going through it. For all the reasons we can assume from the finale of season three, and it seems like Cherie’s getting kind of tired of her shit and just wants her like a little play thing. Shane is going through some big stuff and this is just obviously headed for a complete disaster. Yeah, she keeps calling Shane a crazy little freak. Then she also makes fun of Carmen and is super racist about it.
Riese: Yeah, she sure is.
Carly: That was fun. That was super fun.
Riese: There’s a lot of racism in this episode—
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: … in like really insidious ways.
Carly: Yeah. No. Okay, so I guess we’ve all left Whistler now. We’re at LAX, and Alice is trying to teach Helena how to be a normal person.
Riese: Right, Helena’s confused about where her driver is, confused about carrying her own luggage.
Carly: She insists that she is a practical person, but I have to tell you, I don’t think she is.
Riese: No, she doesn’t know how to do anything it turns out. It’s going to be a rough road for Helena. Even though I hate this whole thing, it makes me nervous. I still feel like she should have gotten a small allowance.
Carly: Yeah. Now we’re at Shenny’s and we’re in the shed.
Riese: Tool shed time! And Carmen’s left all of her very expensive, probably deejaying equipment in there where she was doing some hot mixes.
Carly: Oh, yeah, that’s expensive stuff.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: I hope she gets that back real soon.
Riese: Jenny is really mad at Shane, doesn’t care how she feels. Max defends Shane, but we’re not really sure why. Max doesn’t have a reason for why Max is defending Shane.
Carly: No, he just like, “You should have compassion for Shane,” and then he’s like, “I mean, I forgave you.”
Riese: She’s like, “For what? I haven’t changed who I am, Max.”
Carly: Very pointed.
Riese: Which … WHAT?
Carly: Is she upset about him transitioning or upset that he’s been mean to her? I hope it’s that he’s been mean to her.
Riese: Right. Yeah, it seems like that she could be like, “I don’t have to forgive you for anything. You’re the one who’s been abusive,” but instead it becomes about his transition. She says like, she supports him, but she doesn’t think they fit together because he identifies as a straight man and she identifies as a lesbian who likes to fuck girls, and he’s not a girl. Which seems like a good reason to break up.
Carly: That’s a great reason to break up. Also, I would argue that they have zero in common outside of that as well. They as human beings are just not very compatible.
Riese: Correct.
Carly: … and he apologizes for freaking out on T, which is also something that happens in the scene, which I mean, we’ve already discussed how we feel about that storyline. But anyway, then we go to Tina, who is someplace with Henry, and she’s having a complete breakdown and he thinks it’s time to call the police.
Riese: Right. She’s like at Bette’s. It seems like she was trying to get into Bette’s house? Because she’s like, “She changed the locks,” or something which is such a power move to have someone go change your locks while you’re in Canada.
Carly: Yeah, like, did she … It’s like, unless she changed them before she left Which is so funny if that’s what happened. I’m sure that’s not what happened, but that would be much funnier.
Riese: Did you notice that the music this episode was really bad, except for the one song they used, like the background music was-
Carly: Yeah, it felt really different.
Riese: … like Garage Band.
Carly: Yeah, it felt really different than what we’re used to.
Riese: Yeah, it felt like the things you … the sounds you get for free with your video editing thing including in this scene. Tina’s like, “I want my baby.” Henry needs to leave, then Bette is staying at a Motel, like the Timberland Motel? and Kit is banging at the door. How did Kit find Bette at the Timberland Motel? I don’t know.
Carly: Do you think Bette just told her where she was because she’s her sister?
Riese: Maybe we called her and was like, “Hey, I’m at the Timberland motel,” and she’s like, “Oh, I know the one.”
Carly: Yeah, the one in Northern, maybe even Northernish California?
Riese: Yeah, she’s like, “The one next to the vineyard.”
Carly: The one by the Timberlake Motel.
Riese: Yeah, Timberlake Motel 2.
Carly: Then Helena is back at her beach mansion, which girl enjoy that while you can. Who’s that guy again? Her business manager, her lawyer, who is this British man?
Riese: He’s a jack of all rich people trades.
Carly: Rich people trades.
Riese: Yeah, he’s probably also like a surgeon and a chef.
Carly: Absolutely, and he could definitely provide her with tests for Coronavirus.
Riese: For sure, yeah.
Carly: So he somehow found someone to take over her lease of the beach mansion, and she doesn’t actually have a salary as it turns out at her movie studio job. She also probably doesn’t have a movie studio job anymore.
Riese: I think the sum total of her accomplishments at the movie studio, I think, were overfunding a documentary.
Carly: And getting sued for sexual harassment. So she definitely doesn’t have a job anymore. Peggy Peabody, her loving, wonderful mother sold it before she left for a private island with Marilyn. First of all very happy for those two.
Riese: I wish them so much wellness.
Carly: Me too. I want them to just thrive and never ever come back to Los Angeles for their own sake.
Riese: Yeah, but they will.
Carly: Oh yeah. At this point, I don’t even know if Tina has a job, but it looks like the studio has been sold and we don’t know what’s going on with that. Anyway, Helena is screwed.
Riese: Then we go back to the Timberlake Motel, where Kit has morning sickness. Bette is watching things through the window, and we find out that Angus made Kit an abortion appointment.
Carly: Yes. One thing to note is that she throws up and then he is totally fine with kissing her after that.
Riese: Oh, yeah.
Carly: But she’s not happy about it and I was very unhappy about it as well.
Riese: Yeah, it’s gross. Then we go to The Planet. Alice has new hair and we find out that Helena’s only thing that she has for money is a credit card with a $3.5 thousand limit. She says …
Helena: You can’t even buy a pair of shoes with $3,500!
Riese: Then we find out that her shoes that she’s wearing in that moment cost $14,000, so I don’t know, sell your shoes Helena. How much expensive designer clothes do you think she has? She could sell all of it.
Carly: She should just sell all of it. This is actually very simple.
Riese: That’s the thing about if you’re a rich person gets disinherited, sell your rich stuff. I’ve seen plenty of films, it’s easy. Become a gold star seller on eBay. However, she can’t sell her car because her mom repossessed it.
Carly: Yeah, she also cannot pronounce the word Hyundai. Then Alice is like, “Look, you were so generous with me in the past. Please move in with me and we’ll figure it out.” Helena gets all teary eyed and says the first of many incredible lines of dialogue in this episode which is …
Helena: I had no idea it could feel this warm and fuzzy being poor.
Carly: Bravo.
Riese: Back to the sea ocean. Shane’s drowning herself again. What is this? What’s happening? That’s it right?
Carly: I feel like every scene with Shane starts with her waking up either on the sand or in Cherie’s house. Every time we don’t see her, she’s unconscious or under the water and then every time we cut back she wakes up.
Riese: She’s got a lot of sea salt in her hair I bet. Then we go back to the planet. There’s a poster for Jenny’s book, “Some of Our Parts” and I think that now …
Carly: I have a question.
Riese: Yes?
Carly: How the fuck … Last time we saw Jenny she had not turned in her draft.
Riese: Well, remember there were six … Oh, wait. There were six weeks between Dana’s funeral and the Whistler wedding?
Carly: Oh yeah.
Riese: … not enough time still.
Carly: Jenny finished writing the book, she did all the notes, and they were able to get it published and marketed in the time, in the six weeks and one day that it has been, six weeks and maybe a seventh week. We’ll give them a seventh week. That’s impossible. Okay.
Riese: I think that we should just take a moment to discuss Our Chart.
Carly: Yes, I think it’s a very important time to pause what we’re doing and discuss a very important internet cultural phenomenon, Our Chart.
Riese: In 2007, The L Word and Showtime decided that they were going to capitalize on the success of The L Word by creating their very own lesbian website, which was an immediate competition with like AfterEllen? And what else existed? I guess it was just AfterEllen at that time.
Carly: I guess so, yeah.
Riese: I believe that like, Jennifer and Leisha were partners or something in it.
Carly: I think so, yes.
Riese: They had like — everyone who ran it was named Beth for some reason. They had a Girltrash web series on there, right?
Carly: I think so. I remember that.
Riese: Some workout stuff, but the main feature of Our Chart Dot Com —
Carly: Was that it didn’t work!
Riese: Correct.
Carly: The site was broken 100% of the time, it never worked.
Riese: Never, never! And half of the homepage was always taken up with this big orange, like ad for Our Chart, like over Our Chart. You know what I’m talking about? And like so you could join it. We all joined it, obviously.
Carly: Obviously.
Riese: But, also, no one actually was going to ask someone to verify that you had hooked up with them to be, to share that information with lesbians on the internet. No one wanted…
Carly: The concept was so flawed.
Riese: It was such a … We bought it in the show, but it is also ridiculous in the show, like no one would ever do that. That’s terrible.
Carly: It was ridiculous as a radio show. The fact that Alice was just going on a live broadcast on KCRW and just talking about who’s fucking who in Los Angeles, is crazy.
Riese: Yeah. So we all joined it and then we just connected with our friends I think, which in reality your friends are the people you’ve hooked up with. So in that sense, it accomplished something.
Carly: It was supposed to be … I think it wanted to be almost like a dating site, and then it was like kind of settle for being like a tiny bit of content plus some social networking. But what happened was, the site was so wonky and always broken and they start — they launched it with a bunch of content, like blogs and videos and stuff, and then they just never added more? If I remember correctly. At some point, it just tapered off.
Riese: It like slowed down. I wrote for them a few times. Laneia wrote for them a few times. Anyway, so in addition to the fact that we all had to suffer through the existence of this website, the entirety of Season Four is an infomercial for-
Carly: This website.
Riese: … Our Chart. This scene, I think, is actually one of the most egregious ones of all.
Carly: I wrote down so much of this scene, I almost transcribed the whole thing because it is bonkers. This is the craziest dialogue I’ve ever seen.
Riese: Jenny says that they got it … They put an ad for her book on MySpace, and then she put an ad on Our Chart and Helena’s like-
Helena: How does it work this chart? It feels … I’ve never actually been in …
Carly: She’s like …
Jenny: You’ve never been on Our Chart? Oh my god, it’s so much fun. You don’t know what you’re missing.
Carly: Yeah, Jenny knows about it.
Riese: You can tell Mia Kirshner’s like, “I’m just going to be a girl in a commercial right now. Jenny is obviously not part of the scene. I’m buying into whatever this is. I’m doing it for the …”
Carly: I’m Mia Kirshner and I’m starring in this commercial and I’m just going to do it and get paid.
Riese: Then they explained how Our Chart works.
Jenny: Yeah, I know, it’s like a social networking site ….
Alice: For lesbians?
Jenny: Yeah.
Helena: Do you have to sleep with someone first?
Alice: Well, I mean, when I first put it up, that was the core concept. Jenny slept with Tina, who slept with Annie.
Helena: You slept with Tine?
Jenny: Hypothetically! No. I would never sleep with Tina.
Alice: But like lesbians being lesbians. They started logging on and talking about themselves. But for me it’s always about the hook up page.
Riese: Which again, gave people at home the false impression that Our Chart itself would work like that, which it didn’t. Also, again, but the most important thing about seeing these hubs that Alice explains in excruciating detail, is that we get to see everyone’s astrological signs.
Carly: The key takeaway from the scene is that we get three characters astrological signs, Alice, Shane and Papi. I’ll get to that in a second. Alice gets into explaining this in the most excruciating detail as if we didn’t just spend an entire season with, over an entire season of her having a radio show with the same concept. So that’s fun.
Riese: She says, “Once you’ve slept with over 50 people, you become a hub.” Again, nobody would want to participate in this type of activity on the internet.
Carly: Never.
Riese: This is so insane. Shane wouldn’t even have an account.
Carly: No Shane of all people would not have ever signed up for this.
Riese: Shane is a Gemini.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: Shane has slept with like we know over 1000 people, right? Jenny says-
Jenny: Yeah, look, do you remember that Japanese girl that Shane slept with?
Riese: Shane has hooked up with over 1,000 people and only one of them was Japanese?
Carly: Oh god, where do we even start? Then Jenny says …
Jenny: Well, now the Japanese girl in Kyoto has her whole new solar system out there. Yeah.
Riese: I hate it.
Carly: I hate this.
Riese: I hate it.
Carly: I hate it. Oh, wait, we skipped over when Alice talks about how there’s like a constellation and then there’s a hub. Then if you want to add someone to your constellation, you have to email the webmaster. Who is it? Who is the person that they are emailing? It’s not Alice. Then they get to Carmen.
Riese: Also, by the way, don’t call … No one should ever refer to somebody as “that Japanese girl.” Then we have Carmen is on here and her … She has her whole solar system in East LA. Then they name like, give two names that are like Latinx names.
Carly: Yes. This is the first I’m hearing of Carmen having any social life outside of this group of assholes. This is really interesting. She’s, “Okay, great.” I wish we could have seen any of that. Also, where were they when she was buying a wedding dress? I’m just saying.
Riese: Yeah, where were they when she was at the wedding in Whistler?
Carly: Exactly.
Riese: They could have all gone skiing for free!
Carly: Yeah, exactly. Alice says they need to upgrade their servers because of so much traffic.
Riese: I wish they’d upgraded the servers for their actual website.
Carly: Yeah, I feel like they put that line in there to make up, to let us know that the website was never going to work. They’re like, “It’s just like on the show. It’s crashing because of Papi.”
Riese: Right, because they know there’s a girl in Carmen’s solar system who has more hits than Shane.
Carly: Oh-oh, controversy.
Riese: Her name is Papi except that Alice says Pappy, right?
Carly: Alice will keep saying Pappy for a really long time and every time she says it, part of me dies.
Riese: So if there’s any cell in your body that still is functioning after that little advertisement …
Carly: Congratulations, you’re doing better than-
Riese: … congratulations.
Carly: Wait, so wait Shane is a Gemini, Alice is a cancer and Poppy is an Aries and that is what we learned from this scene. That’s really the only things we need to know from this scene.
Riese: Right, that is … I buy it. Shane is a Gemini I buy.
Carly: Papi is an Aries I buy and then I don’t know enough about Cancers to know if Alice is a Cancer. SoMax is at work at INTECH MODE. His office looks like a room in someone’s house. It looks like a den.
Riese: You have to call it that. You have to do that voice every time we go to Intech now.
Carly: Okay, let’s go to INTECH MODE.
Riese: He’s in a supply closet.
Carly: That is not anyone’s office. That is not even in an office building. That is a room in a home.
Riese: They’re like oh wait, we have a Max scene in this episode. Where are we going to film it? Do we want to just film it in that room over there? Yeah, let’s just do that.
Carly: It’s like the Showtime production office where they produce the show out of and they’re like, “Yeah, we can just take all the tables out of this room real quick.”
Riese: Yeah, they moved everything right behind where the camera is. It’s still in the room.
Carly: The room goes, is a little bit bigger than what you’re seeing. His boss comes in and he tells him something and he goes-
Max: Thanks, boss.
Carly: Which is … No one’s ever said … I love it. It’s so good.
Riese: Max reveals that he has broken up with Jenny and the boss is like, “Yeah, you seem like a really straight ahead person and Jenny seems complicated.”
Carly: Complicated.
Riese: Sure, and then he does an incredibly inappropriate thing for a boss to do to his employee, which is that he says his daughter Brooke is coming home from Mount Lesbyoake and should go on a date with Max.
Carly: Oh dear. That’s inappropriate. You can’t pimp your daughter out to one of your employees. Both sides of that are wildly inappropriate.
Riese: They sure are. Speaking of inappropriate, we go back to the office of the best lawyer of all time, Joyce Wischnia.
Carly: I would say the only lawyer in West Hollywood, Joyce Wischnia, much like Carmen was the only DJ in West Hollywood.
Riese: Yeah, she is. She’s the only one. Good luck finding your own, Tina. Bette is returning Angie to Tina. Bette’s crying. We’re going to come back to that because first we’re going to go to The L Word being like, “Look, we have trans actors for five, I don’t know three minutes.”
![Bette crying in Joyce's office. Caption reads: [Tina Cooing]](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screenshot-2020-03-29-21.49.57-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
Carly: At most three minutes, yeah. It’s Max at a support group for trans guys. Which I’m really happy to see Max meeting other trans guys. All we’ve seen is him interacting with these rich cis white women for the most part. Obviously not the whole cast as white, but they’re all … not like Max. I feel like it’s nice for him to have community, so this is good.
Riese: Yeah. It’s too bad it’s the beginning and end of it.
Carly: Yeah, we’ll never see this again.
Riese: Never again. He’s like, “Do you know where I could get more information,” and admits he’s been getting his T on the black market and that his dose is 200 milligrams, and they’re all like, “Oh my god.”
Carly: They’re like, “Whoa, dude, do you have any friends left?” He’s like, “It’s funny, you should ask that, I hardly do.”
Riese: “But to be honest, I didn’t really have any to begin with, soooo”
Carly: “No, I actually just moved here and I fell in with the absolute worst group of people.”
Riese: I think that this scene is The L Word realizing that they really messed up last season by making Max too aggressive, and they’re trying to walk it back.
Carly: I agree with you. I think this is an attempt to write the course of things. But the only way to do that would be to make season three completely disappear and we can’t do that.
Riese: No, we’ve just lived through it.
Carly: Yep.
Riese: Oh my god, and then we go, maybe … This is definitely my favorite scene of the episode. I think.
Carly: This is a great scene. This is some masterful Joyce Wischnia nonsense.
Riese: They’re fighting and Joyce is just chill as hell about all of it. She’s ready for the case.
Carly: She’s ready. They’re like, “She’s the one who did this and she’s the one who did this.” At one point Bette says, “She’s the one who went scampering back to the safety of white heterosexual privilege.” Tina’s like …
Tina: This is about the bravest thing I’ve ever done. I stand to lose all my friends who view me as some turncoat.
Riese: Excuse me. Excuse me.
Carly: I have just so many questions for Tina.
Riese: Tina, the brave little toaster over here dating Henry.
Carly: Is Henry, like the vacuum cleaner that might eat them all up?
Riese: Yeah, I guess so.
Carly: I guess so. Of course, we know that biphobia is a huge problem on the show.
Riese: Yes.
Carly: But the fact that Tina is saying that going and dating Henry right now is the bravest thing she’s ever done is utterly ridiculous.
Riese: Unless that is actually the bravest thing she’s ever done in which case-
Carly: Sorry.
Riese: … yikes, sorry. I don’t know. I feel like having a baby by herself, it was braver.
Carly: I feel like escaping Joyce’s guestroom was braver.
Riese: I feel like her making a little seashell button castle on the beach was braver.
Carly: That was very brave.
Riese: Because she’s not an architect!
Carly: Yeah, her art is brave.
Riese: I think when she wore blankets as shirts for an entire season, that’s brave.
Carly: incredibly brave.
Riese: Joyce doesn’t care. She’s excited this case will be a media bonanza. Then there’s the wonderful exchange …
Joyce: Because as you know, we’re going to be playing the race card.
Bette: It’s not a card. It’s something I know to be firmly and intrinsically true. Tina’s not qualified to parent a biracial child.
Tina: Yeah, and I was qualified to live and sleep with one for eight years?
Bette: Obviously you weren’t qualified for that either.
Riese: That is incredible. It is.
Carly: Points were made.
Riese: It is.
Carly: Everyone made some points there. We realize, they go to a wide shot and we realize that Angelica is just sitting in the middle of this screaming toxic argument, which is so upsetting. Like, “oh remember there’s a child here” and Tina’s like, grabs, Angie tries to leave. Joyce physically blocks her from the door and goes into this incredible speech about how … “Okay, great. We’re going to trial. This is going to be a media circus. You’re going to need a better lawyer Tina. I wish Johnnie Cochran was still alive,” and just goes on and on and basically is trying to scare them into getting the fuck over whatever this is and just going, trying to be civil with each other, realizing that what this is going to turn into and what it’s going to do to Angelica.
Riese: It’s funny.
Carly: It’s pretty funny, and I think actually a decent tactic to use against the two of them because I don’t know what else would have worked.
Riese: Then we go back to Shenny’s and Max is talking to Jenny about how he found a doctor and found out he’s been on too much T. But Jenny doesn’t really care because there’s someone at the door.
Carly: It’s Claude.
Riese: It’s Claude. Her little sushi smoke friend from the ski place is there for some laby loves.
Carly: They start making out immediately right in front of Max. I thought it was hilarious. Also, there’s a moment when Max goes to open the door and when Jenny runs upstairs, and you see that his pants are crazy. They’re these like, crazy, like wide leg khakis. They’re the craziest pants.
Riese: Wait, are they the ones with all the pockets?
Carly: No, no, no. Maybe, I didn’t notice any pockets. It just looked like khaki pants like the, when you’re in like a medium shot, they look normal and then when you go to the full length, full body shot, there’s like almost a bell bottom happening at the bottom. It’s totally unexpected.
Riese: I feel like Max’s fashion is business on top, Vans Warped Tour on the bottom.
Carly: Wow, that is perfect description. They might have been JNCOs. Maybe they were JNCOs.
Riese: They probably were. Then we go to Bettina’s. Although I guess it’s just Bette’s now.
Carly: Go to Bette’s house I guess.
Riese: Again, let’s just reiterate. Tina has been dating Henry for two months. Tina and Henry are picking up Angelica and-
Carly: Kit and Angus are there and they’re like packing up all her stuff, and basically what we come to find out is the current arrangement is that, Angie will spend a few days with Mama T and then a few days with Mama B and on and on until she’s old enough to murder them both in their sleep.
Riese: Yep! And that Angus will not be providing his services to the Henry-Kennard family, just to the Porter family, because his band just released a demo on Myspace so he’s …
Carly: He’s really busy with record exec meetings.
Riese: He’s really busy. He can’t…
Carly: He’s really busy.
Riese: Yeah, he can’t do that. But luckily Hazel, Henry’s sitter, will babysit for both of them.
Carly: Which means that Tina assumed that there would be two nannies with each? One nanny per child at their house.
Riese: That is a tight one to one ratio of nanny to child, that is luxury.
Carly: That is so unnecessary.
Riese: It is.
Carly: She assumed that they would have two nannies like, “What bitch? What are you doing?”
Riese: Yeah, two mommies two nannies. That’s the way that we live. Also there is the weirdest part of this scene is at the end when Bette’s like, “Are you still using iCal?”
Carly: YES! This is my favorite. I wrote it down. Bette offers to type up a schedule, and she says, …
Bette: Are you still using iCal?
Carly: Tina says …
Tina: Yeah.
Carly: Bette says …
Bette: Okay, well then I’ll do it in iCal.
Carly: And that is the fucking dialogue!!!
Riese: Like what?
Carly: I hope she’s moved to Google Calendar in Gen Q. I really think we need some clarity on this.
Riese: I know, right. Yeah.
Carly: Oh my god. [Sighs]
Riese: Let me go to KCRW.
Carly: Because Alice is still employed.
Riese: Somehow. She says that 1,377 people have linked themselves to Papi and that crashed their server, and she doesn’t know where Papi is. Here we have a white person asking this, putting it out in the world, “There’s a person of color out there I’d like to meet if they could just do the work and find me, I would just appreciate it?
Carly: “If they could just identify themselves and contact me via email or phone?” And the whole time she calls her Pappy and I just, I’m a ghost at this point.
Riese: She says, “How do you do that thing you do?” and I hate it. Then you can kind of see Leisha’s soul crumble into her body when she has to put her hands on the glass and go, “Where’s Pappy?” It’s brutal.
Carly: No one deserved that.
Riese: No one deserved that. Back to Cherie’s.
Carly: Back to Cherie’s Malibu beach house, and there is the worst party happening at their house. Every person there looks insufferable.
Riese: It looks like Shane has a headache.
Carly: At the very least, yes.
Riese: Yeah. There’s more free, “comes with Final Cut” music here.
Carly: Yeah. Yeah, like Garage Band originals.
Riese: It truly feels as though their budget for background music was cut by 90%. There were some crazy music in all of these things.
Carly: She keeps calling Shane a little freak. The whole thing is shot handheld, so it’s really chaotic to try to, you know, get you into Shane’s, where Shane is in her head, but it’s also just hard to watch. There is both a DJ and a band. The band involves a very goth looking girl playing an electric guitar with a bow.
Riese: I was like, “Is she hallucinating?”
Carly: I actually thought she might be because if I ever hallucinated a party it would probably look like that. I would be like, “Get me out of here.”
Riese: It’s like a battle of the bands where it’s a band battling a DJ,.And Cherie brings Shane some coke for another pick me up.
Carly: She’s like, “You got to wake up dude. Do the coke, wake up.”
Riese: Then someone should be like, “Shane, you smell like dead whales.”
Carly: and the ocean and BO and death.
Riese: Yeah. You smell like someone who fled their wedding and then tried to drown themselves 10 times, did a bunch of coke, fucked Cherie Jaffe and hasn’t changed her outfit since last season.
Carly: Is that the outfit she was supposed to get married in are we to assume?
Riese: Absolutely, yes.
Carly: Yeah. Absolutely, it is. A girl comes up and hits on Shane and then Cherie is super mean and Shane leaves the scene at least.
![A confused Shane works her way through the party. Subtitles read, "[Music speeds up, distorts.]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screenshot-2020-03-29-21.59.55-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
Riese: Then we go to Shenny’s, where Jenny is looking in the refrigerator for a little snack … Like she’s wrapped the sheet because they’ve obviously just been making love, making French love all afternoon.
Carly: Yes, and appropriately Claude is wearing an oversized white men’s buttoned up shirt, which is the official outfit of the scene of course. Ones wrapped in a sheet and one is wearing the men’s work shirt, that’s just how it works.
Riese: Also that’s really hot when a girl is just wearing a men’s buttoned up white shirt and nothing else
Carly: Yes. Yes, it is. Yes.
Riese: I approve. Jenny’s like, “All I have is caviar and cream freche. ” Ohhhh-kay.
Carly: All right, relax.
Riese: Relax.
Carly: We get it you went to a Whole Foods once. Calm down.
Riese: The option to calm down exists at all times.
Carly: Don’t tell the show they have no idea.
Riese: Then they make out on the floor with cream.
Carly: Sure. Maybe some stale crackers are involved, I don’t know. Quick cut to Angus and Kit going to get an abortion. The lady, receptionist lady keeps looking at them in a very weird way as she hands them the clipboard to fill out their forms. I don’t know about you, but I could already tell where this was going.
Riese: Yep, we go back to Cherie’s. Shane cannot locate her keys. Cherie points out that she—
Carly: Because she …
Riese: … came in a cab from the airport. That’s probably why she can’t find her car keys.
Carly: She’s like, “What Car?” Then Shane swipes the keys to Cherie’s BMW and peaces out.
Riese: Yeah, she finds them in the citrus bowl, which is a normal place to keep your keys.
Carly: That’s a normal place for keys.
Riese: Then we cut right to the main streets of LA where Shane is just joy riding in Cherie’s car.
Carly: Yeah, Just cruising.
Riese: Swerving, it’s bananas.
Carly: Then we go back to Kit, oh boy.
Riese: Angus is bad at his job of being a boyfriend who made the abortion appointment. Angus, have you ever heard of Planned Parenthood because everyone has?
Carly: Angus, have you heard of Google search? Oh my god.
Riese: What? This is 100% Angus’s fault.
Carly: Yes.
Riese: He can’t be trusted making doctor’s appointments for anybody. Next time she has a skin rash, he’s going to send her to a dentist.
Carly: She’ll be like, “I said dermatologist,” and he’ll be like, “They both started with a D.”
Riese: “They all went to med school.”
Carly: Kit’s at one of those terrible fake abortion clinics where they yell at women who come in for abortions and show them horrible imagery, and try to get them to pray and it’s terrible and she freaks out appropriately and escapes, and it’s unenjoyable to watch.
Riese: Yeah, it’s unnecessary, it’s weird.
Carly: It’s also racist.
Riese: She’s like, “I got to get out.” She’s yelling at them. She doesn’t even want to get her clothes, but like they’re not … They’re actually, the whole thing is they are not doing anything to her. That’s been established. They’re not doing anything to her. I don’t know why she’s like going to just leave her clothes and shoes behind and run out in a hospital gown. No one is touching her, no one is trying to … They’re saying upsetting things, obviously.
Carly: Right.
Riese: But there’s no … They are very specifically denying to do any medical procedures on her.
Carly: I don’t know. I get it. I’d be like, “Get me the fuck out of here. You guys are crazy. This is very traumatic and I need to leave.”
Riese: We all got to see an Anti-Choice Abortion Presentation.
Carly: Which was really great.
Riese: Thanks.
Carly: Could have been an email. This meeting—.
Riese and Carly: —could have been an email.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Then with more good decisions Shane pulls up outside of Carmen’s house looking for Carmen, and her big strong cousins throw her the fuck out. Of course Shane, what are you doing? Get the fuck out of there. No one wants to talk to you. You’re lucky, you didn’t get the shit kicked out of you at this point.
Riese: Correct. Then we go to Shenny’s where Max is just walking around aimlessly because he has no interests. Then he walks by Jenny’s room where she’s tied to the bed and Claude is on top of her with a whip.
Carly: They’re both in lingerie and I remember this image very well. It’s very good.
Riese: I do too. I think it’s a nice image. I think it’s a little rough on Max. They broke up yesterday.
Carly: Yeah and they didn’t even have the door shut! He just walked by and the door was just already open.
Riese: That was actually very bizarre, like why in the world would the door be open?
Carly: Because it’s Jenny … They don’t give a shit. Jenny has like completely changed personalities in the last, like since the very end of the last episode. There’s something about Jenny that is different.
Riese: Yeah, there is and we’ll see it.
Carly: Oh, will we.
Riese: This is when she starts going really off the rails in a way that’s sometimes entertaining and sometimes a little bit extra. Then we go back to the mean streets.
Carly: My god, so Shane stops at a liquor store, gets back in the car, she’s drinking in the car. The only good song of the episode starts playing. It’s Le Disko by this band Shiny Toy Guns which, watching this today reminded me that I used to love the band Shiny Toy Guns and now I’m going to have to listen to them again.
Riese: You did.
Carly: She’s speeding and she’s driving erratically on the 101.
Riese: Swerving and honking.
Carly: I want to say I’m glad they actually shot this in LA. That was good of them to actually travel to LA for this episode, all the stuff in like East LA
Riese: I think they shot some Cherie’s scenes in LA to or in Malibu.
Carly: Yeah and the stuff at Carmen’s house is obviously LA, so yay! Then of course, she crashes. She’s in shock. She’s covered in blood, trying to hobble away from the scene. A crowd of people gather. They’re all worried about her. A man’s calling 911 and she’s just like in shock and walks away.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: It’s wild.
Riese: That man’s like, “She left her BMW here.” This is inexcusable behavior from Shane to drink and drive. It’s like-
Carly: Really bad. No not cool, not cool at all.
Riese: It’s really fucking bad and also, is she just got to walk across the highway? I guess.
Carly: Yeah, this is … What are you doing?
Riese: None of this makes sense.
Carly: I guess what we are to believe is that she walks off the 101 and then takes the rest of the episode to walk back to West Hollywood to her house. We know this because we will, as the rest of the episode plays out, we will continue to cut back to her as it gets later and later in the night, still covered in blood, still smoking the cigarette, limping down the street, no one saying a word.
Riese: Something that drives me nuts. It drives me bananas in TV shows and movies when somebody gets bloody from something, and then they don’t wipe it up for the entire episode.
Carly: That makes me upset as well.
Riese: I find it irritating.
Carly: Me too.
Riese: Again now she probably, now she smells like oil and liquor too. She’s probably really rank.
Carly: She really does not smell good.
Riese: Yeah, probably her friends will be able to start smelling her and will see she gets within 100 miles.
Carly: Yeah, once she’s in the neighborhood, they’ll smell her. They’ll be like, “Something strange is happening,” and then she’ll get home and they’ll be like, “Oh, she’s [crosstalk 00:50:38].”
Riese: She’s also absolutely going to be going to get a yeast infection.
Riese: Then we go to, I guess they’re setting up for Jenny’s book party. Jenny is reading her Publishers Weekly Review which that’s realistic because that’s a big Publishers Weekly Review of your book is very important for its success.
Carly: I love that she’s gathered her friends to read it out loud and she’s like … The look on her face, she’s feeling it, feeling herself and then the last part of it is that the reviewer calls her …
Jenny: Shamelessly self indulgent portrait of herself.
Carly: Then her face falls and it’s, “Why would you cold read your own book review out loud?”
Riese: Also, it was all positive except for that.
Carly: Yeah!
Riese: Jenny, she is self indulgent. If someone reviewed a book of mine and said all those nice things then ended by saying it’s self indulgent I’d be like, “Accurate. Thank you for your positive review.”
Carly: Yeah, Jenny, you are a very self indulgent person as a general thing. The fact that your book about your life is self indulgent should not be that shocking, and don’t take it as an insult because the rest of the review was wonderful.
Riese: Yeah. So- [SIGH]
Carly: So … [SIGH] Okay. Now we get to …
Riese: What? WHAT?
Carly: I don’t know, one of the greatest moments in television history, would you agree?
Riese: I would absolutely agree. I think about it at least once a week.
Carly: Alice in bed are helping Kit move some chairs around and they’re talking about the sham clinic that Kit went to. Then Riese, I’m going to let you have this. Go for it.
Riese: I think, I believe Kit says she wants to burn it down. Then Bette Porter apropos of something but really nothing.
Carly: But nothing.
Riese: Pounds a folding chair on the ground and goes …
Bette: Arson, arson.
Alice: All right all right —
![In The Planet, Kit is distraught, Bette is behind her. Caption: "[Thumping Chair on Floor] Arson! Arson!"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screenshot-2020-03-29-22.16.49-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
Riese: Bette Porter …
Carly: Bette Porter who would later run for mayor of Los Angeles.
Riese: Bette Porter slams a cheap folding chair on the ground and screams ARSON, ARSON. I remember highlighting it because this is the season I started recapping, I remember highlighting it in my recap as, even then I could recognize that this moment like many moments in this episode — this episode is like 10 different bad movies kind of crammed into one episode, and a commercial.
Carly: Yeah. And most bonkers dialogue I’ve ever heard on screen.
Riese: Yeah, absolutely. Someone says, “Why? You should just do a Planned Parenthood benefit,” Which seems like a good idea.
Carly: Yeah, and then I don’t remember anyone ever in the rest of this episode finishing that conversation
Riese: No. Once about Bette screamed arson, arson it was over.
Carly: Yeah. Then we go to the bar, Helena’s ordering water because she’s poor now and Tina and Henry are standing there with this look on their faces and Tina’s like, “Oh, you’re just going to like ignore us and move away from us? What, do we have a cootie?” I was like, “Okay, ‘cooties’ can only be used in the plural. It’s illegal to use cootie in the singular.” Therefore, Tina should be arrested.
Riese: Tina should be arrested and I don’t think Helena was ignoring them, she physically did not see them.
Carly: I didn’t see them. Did you see them?
Riese: I didn’t see them.
Carly: I didn’t see them. Helena didn’t see them either and also Helen’s kind of in her own head about what’s happening in her own life, and I don’t think she gives two shits about what’s happening with Tina and Henry and how they feel super excluded.
Riese: Yeah, I also … I don’t recall Helena saying anything biphobic ever?
Carly: Uhhh… nothing’s coming to mind. I don’t think of her when I think of the very biphobic characters on the show.
Riese: She says she doesn’t care. She hugs and kisses them and I think genuinely doesn’t care.
Carly: No, I don’t think she cares at all and also they’re ex-lovers and co-workers and they seem to have become good friends, so the fact that Tina is turning on someone who actually might be maybe her only ally in the group is … inspired. Then Helen is like, “Did you get the call?” Tina’s like, “Yeah, I got the call.” This man Aaron Kornbluth is about to become their new boss at the studio, and then Helena as she grabs her eight waters and leaves and goes, “A fellow Irishman no doubt.” Then Tina and Henry are like, “Was that anti-semitic? I think that might have been anti-semitic. I hope that wasn’t anti-semitic.” Okay, what the fuck is going on?
Riese: First of all, who’s Jewish? Is Henry Jewish?
Carly: I love that Tina cares. Does Tina care about anti-semitism all of a sudden? Does she care about things? Maybe Henry is Jewish? We don’t know that he’s Jewish. I actually tried to do some research on this to see if there was something here. The only thing I could find was that like, historically Brits hate the Irish. That is the only thing I could find.
Riese: It would be so random for Helena to suddenly become someone who did anti-semitic microaggressions towards anyone.
Carly: Anyone, let alone someone who’s not Jewish and someone who might be Jewish.
Riese: Right.
Carly: This is the most … I don’t know what was happening here, truly.
Riese: I feel like if Helena did, if she was, if by “a fellow Irishman” she meant like “a fellow Jewish person,” I don’t think she would have meant it as like a dig. I think she doesn’t have any awareness of what’s okay to say and not because she’s lived in a bubble.
Carly: I think it was some weird British thing. This was so completely confusing. I had completely forgotten about this too. This was …
Riese: Yeah, me too.
Carly: I was like, “This was in here? What?” Anyway, yeah, more Shane covered in blood limping down the streets of Los Angeles. Okay, then another insane thing happens at this book event.
Riese: Kit gets on stage she’s introducing Jenny and she’s giving her really glowing words about the book and what a wonderful person Jenny is. But then the crowd, there’s a little wrestle in the crowd. There’s a little unrest in the crowd.
![On the stage for her reading. Kit in an all-black ensemble is on the mic, Jenny in a flowing dress is next to her. Kit is holding Jenny's hands. Jenny looks like she just saw a ghost. Caption reads: [faint murmuring]](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screenshot-2020-03-29-22.18.29-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
Carly: There’s a little unrest because there’s a tall lady wearing a fedora skulking through the crowd, pulling focus from Jenny.
Riese: Then Kit looks up to see. “who is the dark stranger who’s weaving her way through the crowd attracting attention?” It’s Marina.
Carly: Oh, yeah, it is. Kit says …
Kit: Oh, my god. Girl, where you been?
Riese: Kit abandons the stage and goes to Hug Marina?
![Marina shows up at Jenny's reading. Tina is standing behind her holding a drink. Subtitles read, "[Cheering]"](https://autostraddle-develop.go-vip.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screenshot-2020-03-29-22.20.05-scaled.jpg?resize=2560%2C1600)
Carly: As if everyone at this event knows who that is, and wouldn’t be utterly confused.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Also constantly just upstaging Jenny’s moment and her face is priceless.
Riese: Yeah. Then she answers some questions, Marina answers some questions about her activities.
Carly: She does a Q&A with the crowd. She does a Q&A with the crowd.
Riese: We’re doing a pre show Q&A for somebody who this event has nothing to do with, except that she’s probably in the book.
Carly: Oh, for sure. Also, the whole main cast of characters seem to have all this affinity towards Marina when I don’t remember that being a real thing.
Riese: Yeah, so we learn that Marina is there on a work trip and she’s staying at the Bel Air so she can face her demons.
Carly: Of course.
Riese: Because allegedly that’s where she tried to kill herself last season, I guess.
Carly: Sure.
Riese: Also, I would like to say that Sex in the City did this better.
Carly: Well done. Well played. Yes.
Riese: They did.
Carly: They did, yeah.
Riese: When Mr. Big came to Carrie’s reading. If you want to see how to do that plot correctly, that’s how you do it, okay?
Carly: I think it would have been so much more interesting to just have a moment where Jenny’s like up there getting all this praise, and then she actually starts her own event where she says a few words and looks out in the crowd, and suddenly realizes that this person who dismantled her is in the room. That would have been so much more effective.
Riese: Because she asked a question, because Mr. Big asked a question about his character in the book and Marina could ask a question about her character, and then that would be interesting. But Jenny looks like season one Jenny. Her face is like, “Oh my god.”
Carly: Emmy for Mia.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Then this is so weird, Marina’s like, “I feel like I’m interrupting something. Ladies and gentlemen Jenny Schecter. Everybody’s like, “Wait what? Who are you?”
Riese: Like … She’s also in full shape shifting mode.
Carly: Wait, is this the scene … Yeah, Kit twice in the scene says ladies, ladies, ladies and gentlemen. She says that twice. What? What? Okay, sure.
Riese: When you skip on past the reading to get to the after.
Carly: Right, we get a shot of Shane limping and we come back. This is the scene where I wrote, “I know Riese will have notes on this so I am skipping it,” so have at it.
Riese: Okay, so Claude has some questions about Marina. Jenny doesn’t really want to answer them. But she does say that Marina was her first. Then Marina gets to the front of the line. Marina is such a smarmy bitch, and she says, again — criminal! illegal action! Illegal speech! What she’s about to say is not protected by the First Amendment! And she should get a citizen’s arrest for saying …
Marina: Your story’s wonderful, beautifully written and it reminds me of Dorothy Allison with a chic of Mary Gaitskill.
Riese: These are two of my favorite authors. This is the second time she’s been compared to Mary Gaitskill. Burr Connors did it before. I believe this is a second time she’s spent compared to Dorothy Allison. This is unfair and wrong and also every single fucking time they compare her to an author, it’s always one of my favorite authors, always!
Carly: This is specifically a direct attack at you.
Riese: Yes. You guys … I’ve never met anyone who loves Mary … Oh, wait I’ve met one person who loves Mary Gaitskill as much as I do. I fucking like love her. And Dorothy Allison! Then Marina’s like that review compared to you to Truman Capote and is it Claude that-
Carly: Yes.
Riese: … corrects her? Is like, no, they compared her to Holly Golightly. That’s different and Marina’s like, “Better, don’t you think?” And it’s not. Marina says that she’s proud of Jenny and ask if she’s well. She’s being so cocky and like, I know that I’m upsetting you. I know that I’m ruining your event. I know that I’m dismantling you and I’m relishing in this experience..
Carly: She is in Jenny’s head and just like when your dog comes in from being out in the rain and just rolls around on everything and just like fucks it up, that is what Marina is doing inside of Jenny’s brain.
Riese: Then we find out that Marina has a perfectly normal job at this time, which is that she is-
Marina: I’m touring with a group of dancers and their benefactor. I raise money and find the theaters and they’re very unusual.
Riese: Okay, we’re going to get back to that later in the season.
Carly: Is it Cirque du solei?
Riese: Yeah, just someone should’ve been like “Is it Riverdance, be honest?” Come on. Come on.
Carly: Is it Celtic Woman, remember them?
Riese: “Is it the Nutcracker, be honest?” Then Claude asked Jenny if she could ask Marina if they could have sex with her.
Carly: She turns to Jenny and goes, “Do you think she’ll have sex with us? Could you ask?” That was my really good French impression?
Riese: Yeah, no, I believed it. I believe you studied in Paris even—
Carly: I didddddd….. Not.
Riese: Then more Shane. Shane’s walking around.
Carly: Limping around. Shane’s walk of shame. Then I guess we’re at the Bel Air.
Riese: Yeah, somehow? I think that they didn’t show us how this happened because they didn’t know how in the world this would happen.
Carly: They were like, “We need this to be the final scene. However, we do not know how to get there. Therefore, we just will just show nothing.
Riese: We’ll just be there.
Carly: Sure.
Riese: They’re going into Marina’s hotel and it seems Jenny’s like medium on it? And Claude is DTF,
Carly: Raring to go.
Riese: Marina, I think so then she starts hooking up with Marina. Marina is talking in French?
Carly: Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of French. The subtitle said it was French I think.
Riese: Okay, she’s talking in French.
Carly: Everyone’s talking in French. Jenny looks like she wants to die a little bit. She looks miserable. I legitimately had a moment here in this scene where I actually felt for Jenny. I thought you’d be proud of me for that.
Riese: I am proud of you. I do think it’s a rare moment this season when we actually see her as a real emotionally full person.
Carly: Yeah, that’s going to be few and far between. Then she says, “Well, my New York Times review goes up at midnight, so I got to go. You should stay Claude. Okay, bye.”
Riese: Marina, like puts her hand on Jenny’s face and Jenny is like, “No.”
Carly: Is that the last we see of Claude?
Riese: Yeah. She leaves Claude with her. I hope she goes home and like steals Claude’s clothes from her suitcase.
Carly: Yeah, she should steal some clothes.
Riese: She has to go home because her New York Times review will be posted at midnight. But it’s obviously more that having a threesome with this woman who destroyed her is a terrible idea. She could just masturbate at home.
Carly: I’m proud of Jenny for realizing that.
Riese: Yeah, not everyone would.
Carly: I’m proud of her for realizing it was a terrible idea, yeah. All right, so here’s where things get even more ridiculous. Shane, having walked all the way to West Hollywood from wherever she was on the 101 and her car accident, finally gets home. She’s looking for her spare key. We see that someone is lurking on the porch. It’s none other than Karla, Shane’s stepmother that we’ve only seen one time previously in the finale of season three.
Riese: Shane says, “I’m sorry that Gabe let you down and made you think you could change him?” Carla’s just been lying on the floor. Carla is very upset because Gabe left her for the floozy. None of this makes sense. Then Carla says she left Shane a gift on the back porch. Here’s what the gift could be,:A giant teddy bear. A box of meat, different kinds of meats, like Bette had when she came home.
Carly: Okay, yeah could be.
Riese: It could be a mobile for a nursery.
Carly: It could be.
Riese: It could be some books. Some used books.
Carly: It could be like maybe she went to wax and got some of Shane’s hair product for Shane as a fun gag gift. It could be a vest that you could gig in. It could be, I’m sorry, did I say Wax and not do the guitar riff? You know what? We’re going to leave that, let’s leave that in season three.
Riese: Everyone loves it.
Carly: All right, fine. [DOES WAX GUITAR RIFF]
Riese: It could be like an Amazon box that just has a toothbrush in it, but they sent it in a really big box.
Carly: Yes, they do that.
Riese: It could be all kinds of things. But unfortunately, it’s not any of those things. Shane first walks through the house where there’s like a sex mess everywhere.
Carly: Sex mess. That’s funny.
Riese: She gets a beer from the fridge, opens up the back door and the present is a human child.
Carly: Not a baby either. Like… how old was Shay?
Riese: I don’t know… eight?
Carly: 10, eight? Like a full child.
Riese: A full grown child with their whole … He has a whole life experiences and I don’t understand … I don’t understand this to the degree that I thought this whole time I remembered it as Gabe leaving Shay not Carla.
Carly: Yeah, I didn’t I didn’t really remember how Shay showed up honestly.
Riese: I know that they did this storyline because Kate Moennig told Ilene Chaiken she wanted to do something like this. She wanted to have Shane have to raise a child for some reason, because she wanted to do like a more, something with her role that went beyond like the romantic and sexual stuff. I’m not sure how specific she got about that. But I know that was the impetus. But I do think they could have set it up a little better.
Carly: What parents would do this? What the fuck is Carla doing? What is Carla’s life like outside of what’s his face, Gabe? Is that it? Yeah.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: She doesn’t have any family, any friends, anything. She had to come to see Shane, who she just met for two seconds and went to her, saw what a mess she was when she didn’t show up to her own wedding. This was her idea.
Riese: Yes, so ridiculous and weird. It will be an interesting journey for Shane. But it’s still so random. It doesn’t really make sense because it doesn’t … why anything? Then Shane — who by the way still has blood on her face — If I was going to leave my kid with someone, first of all I wouldn’t. Second of all, I wouldn’t describe the human child as a gift.
Carly: Second of all I’d make sure they weren’t covered in blood.
Riese: Third, if they came home reeking of alcohol, seawater, mommi sex, cocaine, citrus keys, car accident and had blood all over their face or wearing the same outfit I saw them in when I last saw them three days ago, I would not leave a child with that person. Then Shane’s reaction to this is to run out onto the Sunset Boulevard, which is a little bit of a trek from her home and yell.
Shane: Carla!
Carly: It’s a very streetcar named Shane situation.
Riese: Oh, Carla had called it turns out but Shane’s phone was in the sea.
Carly: The ocean. Yeah, and that’s the episode.
WHOOSH
Carly: Season four really is like, “Hey, what’s up? I’m season four. I’m here and I’m going to fuck you up.” That’s season four coming in hot.
Riese: I was shocked to learn that my friend Kayla, this is her favorite season. It was definitely not my favorite season.
Carly: It might be my favorite season.
Riese: Really?
Carly: It’s possible. I look back on season four as like having a lot of episodes that I like in it, like at least two episodes that I can … I think I just … I don’t think I have a favorite season is the problem, because I don’t think there’s one season of show that is worthy of being called a favorite, so that’s the problem.
Riese: I would say season one. For me, it’d be season one, season five … season two, season four, season three, season six.
Carly: I think I liked season four more than you did for sure. But also I’m about to rewatch it and it’s very possible that I’m going to hate it, so let’s go on this journey together.
Riese: Yeah, because I’m also not sure if part of my feelings about it were affected by the fact that this is when I started recapping, which involved a lot of like really analyzing it a lot, but it was ages ago so I don’t really remember what I said. Also that it became a huge part of my life and I was annoyed, because I had so much to say about the earlier episodes, and I was like … I think it was like they add so many people to the cast this season, and it gets a little …
Carly: In one fell swoop to they don’t like gradually, really. Tasha comes later, but they are just like, “Yo, what’s up? Here’s Phyllis. Here’s Jodi, here’s Papi and Shay,” and then—
Riese: Yeah, Paige! I love her. They do bring, they bring in a few. I love Kristanna Loken, who’s going to be in the season. I love Tasha who starts this season. I love Jodi.
Carly: Love Tasha, love Jodi.
Riese: Papi is incredibly problematic. I guess we’ll get into that.
Carly: We sure will.
Riese: Is there anything that you remembered about this differently than when you first saw it or felt differently about this season? I don’t remember seeing this.
Carly: I don’t remember. I remember moments from this episode, but I don’t remember a feeling about the premiere episode really.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: In retrospect, I’m like, “Wow,” it was really setting it up to be crazy.
Riese: Yeah, it had no sex scenes unless you count Jenny and Claude. But probably everyone was really excited to see Marina.
Carly: That’s true people seem to like Marina a lot.
Riese: We did it!
Carly: Here we are. We did it.
Riese: We did it on the internet.
Carly: We did it. We did it and this is how we’ll be doing this for the foreseeable future.
Riese: Yes, what a time-
Carly: What a time.
Riese: … we’re all having.
Carly: All right, so if you want to connect with us and with the show, you could follow the show. It’s to L and Back. You could follow Autostraddle, which is Autostraddle. You could follow Riese who’s @autowin. You could follow me I’m Carlytron. We also have an email address to tolandbackcast@gmail.com. We’ve got a hotline 971-217-6130. We’ve got merch, store.autostraddle.com. We’ve got shirts, stickers, cute stuff.
Riese: You really should follow us on Instagram, because we’re like really, really close to 5,000 followers, so close.
Carly: Oh man. Once we get to 10,000 we get the swipe up on stories.
Riese: Yeah you should follow us-
Carly: So step it up.
Riese: … since we’re all pod people now anyway, and that’s how we exist.
Carly: We want that swipe.
Riese: We’re heading for that sweet, sweet swipe spot.
Carly: Our theme song is by Be Steadwell. Our logo is by Cara Sykes and this podcast was produced and edited by Lauren Klein. Time for the first L WORDS of season four!
Riese: One, two, three: lemon keys.
Carly: Los Angeles. What did you say?
Riese: I said lemon keys because that’s … Shane’s key smelled like lemons, so they are lemon keys.
Carly: I love it.
Riese: I said lemon.
Carly: I said Los Angeles.
Riese: Yeah, that’s good. That’s where it’s set. That’s where the show’s set so that’s like, that’s cute, I like it.
Carly: They actually shot some of it in Los Angeles and I’m in Los Angeles right now which is also-
Riese: I’m in Los Angeles.
Carly: … where I’ve been for every episode, but I felt talking about it right now.
Riese: Yeah, now we’re really in Los Angeles because we’re really just in our homes, really in it, we’re just really inside.
Carly: That’s the real Los Angeles experience.
Riese: Yeah, it sure is. Athleisure indoors.
Carly: Oh, yeah, I’m wearing a flannel shirt but I’m also wearing joggers.
Riese: Yeah, I normally work from home, but during this I have gone off the rails in terms of work from home behavior.
Carly: Yeah.
Riese: I haven’t worn jeans in two weeks.
Carly: I only wear jeans when I leave the house. And then when I’m in the house, I put my sweats back on.
Riese: Yeah.
Carly: Yeah. It’s weird. Okay, bye.
Riese: Bye, guys. Stay safe out there inside if you can.
Carly: Yeah, shelter in place.
Riese: Shelter in place is the cool thing to do.
57 Strong Feelings You Had About The L Word’s Catastrophic Season Three
Well, we’ve made it through the hellscape of season three only to discover that the hellscape is now our actual lives! Carly and I Face-Timed Brittany Ashley a few days ago (because social distancing) to go over the best and worst moments of this terrible season, based on your votes! You can and should listen to the episode here. I would like to just NOTE that it seems like one of our communal number one feelings about this season is that it was virulently transphobic and that a lot of us didn’t realize that the first time we watched it. Now we are, as they say, aghast. We LOVED reading all your comments on the survey (over 1k people took the survey!) and we read some on the podcast and some are here and some are in both places but we loved all of them especially the ones that loved us. Ok, drink some water.
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1. I work in a nursing home and there’s a resident who always has her tv on really loud and there’s this ad that comes on all the time with the same song that bette finger fucked Alice to so i’m constantly reminded of that through my workday, thanks l word
2. the Lobsters dinner table scene will haunt my nightmares until I die. If you ever see my ghost in a waterfall, it will probably complain about that episode.
3. THE MAX AND BILLIE BLAKIE SEX SCENE. IS PROBABLY. MY FAVORITE SEX SCENE OF ALL TIME. AND THE GENDER FUCKERY. IS AMAZING. AAAA.
4. Carmen doing her sexy dance for Shane is the only reason why I even lesbian anymore
5. The vampire arc and the opera finger scene single-handedly had the power to stop me from erasing this season from my memory.
6. Everyone needs a vest you can gig in!
7. Although the whole Alice going into a pit of literal despair over her break up with Dana is pretty messy, it is iconically lesbian.
8. I feel very personally seen by Season 3’s depiction of the queer experience of crying about your ex during yoga.
9. My fiancée had never seen the series, so we rewatched it last year, and I am mortified by the experience this season especially. Direct quote from my lady lover: “Wow, this is getting messy!” JUST WAIT BITCH.
10. If I was going to read fan fiction about any characters it would be Bette and Senator “Call me Barbara” Grisham. That scene is hotter than most of the sex scenes (obvious exception for Shane/Cherie sex, the absolute full stop best sex scene this show ever had).
11. I can’t believe they wasted Dana Delany on one of the rare times Bette DOESN’T cheat
12. The Shane/Cherie sex scene shook me to my core
13. I think about that strap-on sex scene at least once a week…..
14. This season was honestly a shit show but I can’t even begin to express how many times my roommate and I hit rewind to watch Shane fuck Cherie with the strap on
15. It was the best of times and the worst of times but one hell of a ride. Especially for Cherie Jaffe.
16. Fuck this garbage pile of biphobic transphobic mental illness trivializing bullshit…. but this is still somehow my favorite podcast! Love you!
17. So many tears and transphobia
18. I need a strong drink and some group therapy after revisiting season three. Thanks for being the closest thing to the latter.
19. Dana in the waterfall is THE BEST. it makes my peeper tingle with joy.
20. Real life Dana upset about L Word Dana
21. When they blocked Erin’s eyebrows for the basketball game scene, you could see the clumped hair under her makeup. It made me aggressively upset.
22. I am trauma bonded to this tv show now
23. This season exposed me to toxins that I’m still working through
24. Emptiness is loneliness and loneliness is cleanliness And cleanliness is godliness, and God is empty just like me Thanks to this season of The L World
25. My least favorite thing about the entirety of the series is Max’s facial hair
26. WHY DID THEY KILL DANA? WHY DID THEY DO MAX SO DIRTY? WHYYYYY
27. Where can I take Uta’s vampirology class?!
28. How could something I loved so much 15 years ago be so nails-on-a-chalkboard now? What is art? Who am I?
29. WHY IS MAX NEVER ALLOWED TO BE HAPPY
30. Why Why did any of us do this
31. I hate it so much but I also love it so much wtf is wrong with me
32. downhill but in a fun way– like sledding!
33. make kit bi and not a terf you cowards !!
34. Max’s facial hair is buck wild
35. Bette in Full Flashdance gives me life
36. I love that we see the Kiki Smith print back in Bette’s house in Gen Q after she sells it in this season. That’s a real Bette Porter power move to buy it back.
37. I’d watch a movie that was literally just the Marilyn and Peggy Peabody story. Get it, older queer ladies!
38. 😫😫😫😤😤😤🥵🥵🥵
39. I can’t believe I watched this and thought it was fine once
40. It was one of those nightmares where you know the train is going to crash and you need to get off asap but also that pretty girl keeps talking to you
41. A lot of season 3 made me laugh…and not because it was comedy
42. party on, podcast
43. trash, but like hot gay trash
44. Helena Peabody gets over her pregnancy fetish and that is truly the best thing season 3 did for us.
45. I’m still pissed that Dana doesn’t have a permanent memorial Myspace page up
46. This season makes me feel really bad for Erin Daniels and Laurel Holloman. The rest of the cast, too. And the crew. And anyone who watched it. And the universe for having it put out there.
47. I think I was more heartbroken than Carmen when Shane left her on their wedding day. I’ll marry you, Carmen.
48. Season Three was such a blur but we were literally gifted with #poolsex between Cherrie and Shane and THAT is a godsend. Also the flashback to Bette and Alice in college– lesbians can have a little opera-themed sex fantasy as a treat!!
49. Just yesterday I was walking home with keys in hand–but not between my knuckles like Wolverine because that’s a fight I’m bound to lose if it comes to it–and I was thinking about how badass it would be to have a taser and say “we’re not f*ggots, we’re dykes” to a predator…
50. Cherrie Jaffe will forever be my preferred mommi
51. Just…what a way to miss all the marks. And I’m not talking about the Million Men Mark March the l word seems to have going.
52. It was an emotional roller coaster but Shane’s hair finally looked good
53. S3 E9, the Dana & Alice shopping scene – Can we PLEASE talk about the fact that Dana is walking around with a Gucci shopping bag, Tiffany’s bag, etc., yet the fucking ugly ass purse on her shoulder looks like she got it for $2 at a yard sale….?! Or dug it out of a dumpster behind a suburban Goodwill in 2002. !!!! Girl has clearly got money yet CHOOSES to have incredibly questionable thrifting taste… lesbian culture for sure.
54. it was great if you watch on netflix and just skip 80% of it. one of the strongest/hottest seasons that way.
55. This season caused the start of my annoyance with Tina. Shocking I know lol
56. At least Mark wasn’t there!
57. Other than listening to this podcast I never want to think of it again. It’s kind of wild how this podcast recapped these episodes in the same year that we saw Work in Progress and TLWGQ. It’s like that old line that X walked so Y could run but more like the Max storylines flailed around like one of those inflatable tube people outside a car dealership so Chris on Work in Progress could run. I would like the wax jingle as a ringtone though. Yours in gayness, Betty
“To L and Back” L Word Podcast Episode 312: Left Hand of the Goddess with Kelley “Hot Milk For Tim” Quinn
Hello my fellow terrified human beings who I hope are staying away from other human beings if it is possible for you to do so! Welcome to the GRAND FINALE of Season Three, the perfect transition from Season 3’s hellmouth to Season 4’s complete wackiness and incoherence. We are joined by Kelley Quinn, who you may recognize from the little audition video for Gen Q that could:
https://twitter.com/heyKQ/status/1101515905337573378
This episode has everything: “Pussy 101,” Carmen’s entire family in winter coats, Alice popping pills and f*cking Lara, Shane’s Dad slouching, a winter wonderland Jenny eating sushi in bed with a french girl she just met, Bette confessing she cannot ski moguls, Bette stealing a baby and so much more!
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