“Hightown” Fails to Fulfill Its Potential In Its Final Season

This review contains mild spoilers for Hightown season three.

Jackie Quiñones should’ve been on top of the world.

The Fisheries Service Agent turned Narcotics cop had finally caught her white whale: Frankie Cuevas (Amaury Nolasco) was on his way to prison. She’d finally gotten justice for Daisy. She’d helped arrest Charmaine Grasa (Imani Lewis), shutting down the pipeline of carfentanil onto the Cape. Things between her and her on-again, off-again “girlfriend” were seemingly on again, as Leslie (Tonya Glanz) admitted to having real feelings for Jackie…something Jackie wanted so desperately to hear. Things were good. But then — as is Jackie’s wont — she fucked it all up…again.

Charmaine escapes as Jackie and Leslie are transporting her to the women’s prison. The mistake threatens to ruin both of their careers but Leslie insists the fault lies entirely with Jackie. This blindside ends both their personal and professional relationships. Then — again, as is Jackie’s wont — she makes a bad situation worse by drinking, relinquishing the tenuous hold she’d had on her sobriety, and beginning her downward spiral. Jackie calls her partner, Ray, and admits she screwed everything up again. She begs him to tell her what to do.

“You go home, you go inside, and call me tomorrow,” he instructs. Ray assures her that everything will be alright. But all Jackie hears is “go inside” and so she does. Jackie ventures inside the home of her father’s lecherous drug dealer. That’s where we left Jackie — in the foyer of Petey’s drug den, worried she’d give in and trade sex for drugs — when Hightown‘s second season ended, 755 days ago.

For nearly two years, Starz has kept the fate of Jackie Quiñones a mystery. It’s a curious delay: the network renewed the series back in March 2022 and the third season went into production shortly thereafter. Seemingly, by mid-August 2022, the cast had wrapped on the third season. So what happened that Hightown, ostensibly, sat in a drawer for a year? I’m not sure we’ll ever know…but given the way we’ve seen networks and studios treat LGBT content recently — abruptly cancelling it, disappearing it from streaming services — it’s both disconcerting and noteworthy.

But even with its prolonged absence, Hightown hasn’t changed, much to my chagrin.

Jackie reappears on our screens, lying passed out in the dunes. She’s nudged awake by some curious kids but she can’t recall where she is, how she got there, or anything that’d happened in the preceding day. Jackie is rudderless: without a big white whale like Frankie Cuevas to chase, nothing excites her anymore and she fills that empty space with drugs and alcohol (which she gets — thank goodness — without sleeping with Petey, despite season two’s inference). Jackie goes through the motions at work, having kept her position with the state police thanks, no doubt, to her friendship with Ray. (Leslie, on the other hand, has been demoted to highway patrol.) Even the prospect of taking down the drug kingpin responsible for the carfentanil flooding the Cape doesn’t excite her. She shows up to the bust out of obligation and high as a kite, the call having interrupted a night of dancing, flirting, drinking and snorting coke.

(That no one seems to notice that she’s high…well…that doesn’t speak well to the capability of the Cape Cod Interagency Narcotics Unit.)

Throughout its run, Hightown has been skilled at showing that the gap between the police and the policed isn’t nearly as wide as the world would have you believe. The hypocrisy of the police — Jackie using drugs just as she’s about to raid the home of the kingpin who may have provided it or Ray’s harboring of a criminal even as he tries to lock others up — is on full display. The show reaffirms that how we police is a choice. Newly sober, Jackie is forced to ask herself what kind of officer she truly wants to be: one who skirts the rules or one who plays by the book. It is the central question for her character this season.

But where the show falls short, consistently, is engaging with the racial dynamics of drug use and policing. Little time is spent reflecting on who gets arrested and who gets treatment or which victims warrant police attention and which don’t. In the absence of directly grappling with those issues, Hightown makes its own statement, however unwittingly: making people of color (and, particularly, immigrants of color) — Charmaine, Osito, Jorge and Frankie Cuevas — responsible for the mostly white overdose deaths on the Cape. I’d hoped that the introduction of the Farleys this season would seek to reset that narrative but, clearly, Hightown does not want to be that show.

At times, season three’s Jackie feels like a regression: the non-stop partying, the drug and alcohol use, and the interactions with Provincetown’s LGBTQ community feel like callbacks to the first season version of Jackie, as if the character hasn’t evolved at all. Much like in season one, when Jackie fixated on Sherry Henry and finding the person who killed her, she fixates this season on Veronica, the girl she bedded but can’t remember, whose bloody shirt she finds in the backseat of her Jeep. Jackie remains, as she always has been, the patron saint of lost causes.

Monica Raymund’s Jackie has always been Hightown‘s most compelling character. Raymund charms as Jackie. Even as she’s in the throes of her latest attempt at self-destruction, Jackie never feels irredeemable. There’s a point, midway through the new season, where Jackie finally hits her rock bottom. She confesses to Ed — her surrogate father from her Fishery days — that she’s a screw-up but she doesn’t want to be like this anymore. She hurt someone and she cannot abide being that person (read: being like her father). It’s a masterful performance from Raymund but I found myself remiss it’d come so late in the series. In hindsight, it feels like evidence that Hightown never fully appreciated the complexity that Raymund brings to the character. In her review of the show’s first season, Kayla noted, “sometimes it feels like Hightowndoesn’t know what its own strengths are,” and that remains true in its final season.

Given the opportunity to focus on Jackie — to build out her world, to deepen her connections with others — the show has always opted not to; instead, they just bring on more men. This season, in addition to storylines for feuding police officers, Ray and Alan, and rival gangsters, Osito and Frankie, the show adds Owen Frawley and his uncle, Shane (Michael Drayer and Garret Dillahunt), South Boston transplants looking expand their territory into the Cape. This show did not need more people. What’s more: the characters are siloed — each operating independently, rather than working together — so their stories require even more screentime. With those demands, it becomes virtually impossible, even with the best writers and a talented cast, to tell all those stories well. There just isn’t time.

Hightown could’ve been something more. The potential was there, particularly with Raymund as the show’s lead. But instead, it wraps up its three season run as entertaining but middling fare and as a show that never understood how good it could be.

Hightown season three premieres tonight on Starz. 

The Hot Lesbian on “LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland” Should Have Won

This review contains spoilers for the first season of LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland.

I think we can all agree that Ireland is having a moment.

From the country’s unwavering support of the Palestinian people to the scrumptious success of Paul Mescal, Andrew Scott, and Cillian Murphy to the mistaken yet correct absorption of Ayo Edebiri into Irish culture… Ireland is certified hot.

But, the question remains, is Ireland funny? To find out, I slabbed some Kerrygold butter onto my father’s homemade Irish Soda Bread, poured myself a glass of whiskey, and binge watched LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland.

I’d like to preface this review by saying I am not a reality TV guy. I don’t even watch Drag Race and I am very, very gay and trans. I am, however, a big comedy guy, otherwise known as a comedian. And I’m Irish! I may only be half Irish, but I’m also only about half funny, so it feels appropriate. Disclaimer over.

Sláinte!

LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland traps 10 comedians in a room and gives them two tasks: Make others laugh and don’t laugh yourself. A bunch of comedians desperately trying to get people to laugh while also not laughing themselves? They should have just filmed a Brooklyn open mic.

Contestants are allowed to bring their own props with them to set and there’s even a rule that if you ring the cowbell, you can put on a performance and everyone else has to watch you. Outside of the performances, contestants have to do their best to make the others laugh by singling them out.

The elimination system in place is not dissimilar to that of soccer, or football, I should say. Your first laugh earns you a yellow card; laugh again you get a red card and are eliminated from the game. Eliminated contestants spend the remainder of the competition in the control room with Graham Norton, which feels more like a reward than it does a punishment. Oh, and by the way, smiling counts as laughing.

As a general rule of thumb, I avoid straight white male comedy at all costs. Mostly because it’s bad or stolen from women or queer comics or written at my expense. So, to make it through three hours of really bad prop comedy, including an all-too-revealing green screen suit, I focused on the reason I was watching in the first place: the lesbian comedian in a pantsuit and hoop earrings.

Catherine Bohart is an Irish comedian, actress, podcaster, writer, and, in my opinion, the winner of LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland. In true lesbian fashion, Bohart became nervous when a beautiful woman, older than her and wearing a blazer, walked into the room. There’s just something about seeing representation on television that makes me emotional, you know?

She may not have won in the traditional sense of “successfully completing the objective” but she did win, in my eyes, for not actually laughing at anything anyone was doing. Instead, she received her yellow card for half-laughing at something Graham Norton said to her on the game telephone (valid, understandable, queer kinship) and her red card for slightly smiling while hollering for an on-stage cat performance (valid, understandable, lesbian behavior).

Bohart and I both managed to get through the 6 hours without laughing at anything and that feels correct and gay. As a queer comic myself, I often find myself in rooms with straight comics who could not physically tickle a laugh out of me let alone get one with a punchline. That’s not to say that Bohart does not respect and admire her peers as I’m sure she does, but it was all too delicious to watch her bypass any desperate attempts at a laugh. Instead she just kind of… hangs out?

Since the show has no rewards for getting laughs and only dishes out penalties for laughing, I’d say she played the game like an expert. When she did mine for laughs, it was through a polished demonstration of vaginal anatomy, forcing other contestants to “Pin the Tail on the Pussy,” which, again, is so gay. Bohart’s other gag was to exchange the hoops she started the game with for much larger hoops in the dressing room and re-enter the game as if nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, the white men in the game are putting on latex, strapping sausages to their faces, filling their pockets with beans, wearing a dick-nose on their face, and rolling around on the ground in desperate attempt to get the laughs they have grown accustomed to getting from other straight, white men. It was almost cathartic to watch them scramble for laughs and quite literally not get any. Could the next LOL be filmed at a Manhattan comedy club? Please?

LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland proves that the only time reality TV and comedy should mix is when masc comedians date femme reality stars. Am I just sour that the one lesbian on the show didn’t win? Maybe. But I’m mostly upset that the show took comedians who are otherwise funny, I’m sure, and put them in an environment where it’s impossible to be funny. My girlfriend, who is also a comedian, caught a glimpse of one of the episodes where a contestant is using a hand puppet to try (and fail) to get a laugh, and said, “If I was doing ventriloquism at someone and they weren’t laughing, I’d kill myself.”

She’s not wrong. To be fair, the contestants were given an impossible task. As comedians, it’s incredibly demoralizing to perform to a crowd that is not allowed to laugh. In fact, I think most comedians I know would rather be on a show that encourages heckling than a show that prohibits laughter. It’s also so incredibly frustrating when your planned, written material doesn’t hit but something you improvise or do by accident does well. Overall, it seems as though LOL tortures its comics as much as it does the audience, leaving the question, “Who is this for?”

Because the nature of the show doesn’t allow contestants to really tap into their skill sets, I found it frustrating to watch as a comedian. LOL might be more for fans of comedy rather than comedy fans… you know? I think LOL is perfect for folks who are not entirely plugged into comedy or, more specifically, stand up comedy, but do enjoy a laugh. The funniest parts of the show took place when production brought in big names like the musical duo Jedward, journalist Anne Doyle, broadcaster Ray D’Arcy, and musician Chris De Burgh to get the contestants to crack.

I’m curious what appearing on the show does for a contestant’s career. I wonder if it gains them new, unindoctrinated fans or if the opposite happens and viewers only see and judge them in the context of the competition. I hope it’s the former and that the show serves as an introduction to each comedian rather than a representation of their skills. If the latter is true, I’m afraid that going on Last One Laughing is a net-negative to a comedian’s career.

But one thing I know for sure is Catherine Bohart has gained at least one new follower and fan.

LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland is now streaming on Prime.

“Love on the Spectrum” Fails to Give Its Queer Woman the Dates She Deserves

This review contains mild spoilers for the queer storyline of Love on the Spectrum season two. 

I received my autism diagnosis last year, but I’d suspected it for a long time. And, like many autistic people with fewer visible support needs, I’d spent some time working with adults with disabilities, including autism, who had a diversity of support needs. We had a saying we’d repeat to new trainees, that “if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.”

Autism’s a spectrum disorder, and really, is a cluster of symptoms and characteristics that can manifest in an individual person in any endless unique permutation. And, of course, everyone is an individual with their own personality on top of that. So, I went into the new season of Love on the Spectrum with no expectations or ideas about what its promised queer subject might be like — just excitement.

And I was a little disappointed! Not because Journey — a bubbly, bright and caring young Black woman of 18 — was anything but a sparkling delight. She’s a highlight of the season! I was disappointed because there was so little time spent with her. That, and the logic behind the matches producers set her up with was difficult to parse.

Journey doesn’t appear until the fourth episode, by which time we’ve seen a lot of other dates where participants have had various levels of success. As soon as I saw Journey, I said to myself this has to be the queer person. I’d certainly been waiting! By the time Journey appears halfway through the season, the only queer representation had consisted of two gay uncles and a hair stylist (who were all cool in their own ways, but they weren’t the stars).

Journey is an aspiring pastry chef with ultra high femme style. She has an array of pastel pink decor, shows us her love for Hello Kitty, and wears a baby pink top with delicate white polka dots and frills around the collar. Her aesthetic is the height of a femininity distinctly not for the male gaze. Journey’s known she was a lesbian longer than she’s had her autism diagnosis (only one year at the time of filming), and, on both counts, her family’s been supportive.

Journey says she never had to come out — she just talked about her attraction to girls and no one in her family ever had an issue with it. She’s affable, but inexperienced — she hasn’t been on a date before — which isn’t at all surprising considering her age. Plenty of neurotypical queers also haven’t had their first dating experience by 18, so she’s certainly not alone. But Journey seems excited by the prospect of dating. “It’s finally my turn,” she says.

We learn that her dad tried to set her up on a date with a boy in the past. When her mom tells her that “boys gravitate toward you romantically,” she blithely responds, “Well that’s embarrassing for them, isn’t it?” To which, everyone laughs. She is funny, which is why I have to ask, why is that all we get from that scene?

Before Journey heads out on her first date, we catch a glimpse of her sister Stevie coaching her on the in’s and out’s of flirting. It’s cute, but much like my fellow viewers over in the Love on the Spectrum subreddit, I’m curious as to why we don’t see a professional coach step in to give her more dating advice, especially considering her inexperience.

From a conservatory to a cute-as-heck picnic, Journey goes on a total of three dates this season, with two separate women. On the one hand, her dates are cute and friendly and Journey gets along well with them despite her nerves. The show even managed to find two different gothy bisexuals, leaning into the Princess Bubblegum/Marceline the Vampire Queen queer relationship dynamic that occurs just often enough to make for a cute meme.

But you can see the problem with the creators’ decisions almost immediately. When Journey tells her first date, Kara, that this is her First Date Ever, Kara’s voice goes high-pitched with a surprised “Ooooh!” She vows to make it an “awesome date,” but as time goes on, it becomes apparent that the two are mismatched when it comes to their experience and maturity level. Kara’s been in multiple relationships before, and though she says that she would be open to seeing Journey again, they do not go on another date. Oddly enough, there’s no real explanation given.

With other contestants, we get a phone call or a discussion about the dynamic of choosing to continue or not continue pursuing someone, but if those scenes exist, they were left out of the final edit. At least we know Journey was delighted to have finally gone on her first date, which, at minimum, is going to be a confidence builder.

Journey goes on two more dates, this time with Talia, who is also more experienced and who, like Kara, also appears to be somewhat older than Journey. While I was happy for Journey to be able to date, it felt like she was denied the opportunity to have age and experience-level appropriate encounters with someone who felt more like a peer, someone she could mutually explore with.

Still, there are some sweet moments. When Talia pulls out Journey’s chair for her at a restaurant, it leads to a brief but welcome discussion about queer relationships, roles and making your own rules. I just wish we had more of that.

We don’t get a lot of follow up with Journey, which is truly saddening, because I’d have loved to spend more time with her and her family. I wanted to see more discussions and to watch her really unpack her dates in the way that other participants do. The last time we see Journey, she and Talia are taking a lakeside walk. The camera zooms out, and that’s it. No post-date interview, no scene back with her family, no analysis or assessment of where she could work on growth.

Journey’s not the only queer on the show — Dani shares that she’s pansexual and heteroromantic — but she is the only one shown to be interested in queer dating. She’s also the only Black participant.

While perhaps schedules or other factors may have played a role in how much of Journey’s story is shown, it feels like it was given far less time than either Journey or Netflix’s queer audience deserve.

Love on the Spectrum season two is now streaming on Netflix.

Hazbin Hotel Is a Musical Extravaganza About a Bubbly Queer Princess of Hell

Does the term “queer princess of hell” appeal to you? Are you looking for a show that will make you laugh and blush while also making you feel real feelings? Do you like adult animation, mind-blowing singing talent, and wacky antics? Well, come on down to the Hazbin Hotel, where the activities are chaotic and the people are eccentric.

Prime Video’s new animated series Hazbin Hotel started as a doodle and a dream. Bisexual creator Vivienne Medrano’s pet project, once a YouTube pilot in 2019, is now a full-blown extravaganza, jam-packed with colorful characters and a mega-talented cast. Perfect for anyone who enjoys shows like Harley Quinn — wild cartoons made for adults that center queer women. And before we get too far into it, in case you missed the word “singing” in the intro: This is a musical show. I just didn’t want you to get distracted by the opening lore drop with its biblically accurate angels, and then jump-scared by a song.

“There’s going to be singing, and it’s all going to be okay.”

The show is about Charlie Morningstar, princess of hell, who has started the Hazbin Hotel as a sort of rehabilitation center. She wants to help souls ascend out of hell and into heaven to solve their overcrowding problem in a less violent way than the angels’ plan of… extermination. Has anyone ever ascended from hell to heaven before? No, no they have not. Does this bright-eyed optimist still believe with her entire hopeful heart that it will work? Yes, yes she does. The first song in the series sung by Charlie (voiced by the Broadway legend Erika Henningson) is called “Happy Day in Hell” and it captures her glass-half-full attitude despite her demonic surroundings. With her on this journey are a ragtag group of misfits: Her girlfriend, Vaggie (voiced by bisexual icon Stephanie Beatriz), Angel Dust (Blake Roman), a porn star who says he’s just there for the free rent, Husk (Keith David), a bartender who likes to play the grump, Kniffty (Kimiko Glen), a tiny chaotic maid who loves pain and stabbing bugs, and their benefactor, Alastor the Radio Demon (Amir Talai) who is just a little terrifying.

I love her, your honor.

Other epic voices that show up throughout the series include but are not limited to Jeremy Jordan, Krystina Alabado, Jessica Vosk, Darren Criss, Shoba Narayan, Patina Miller, and THE Daphne Rubin-Vega.

In fact, in one of the first few episodes, Stephanie Beatriz and Daphne Rubin-Vega sing a duet which I found very exciting because they recently played girlfriends in the movie adaptation of In the Heights. It made my queer theater nerd heart sing (and option up).

Charlie is a great character, bubbly and joyful, whipping her long blonde ponytail around and wearing a cute red tux every day. Vaggie is more of a pessimist, putting on a surly demeanor, but still letting a smile slip when Charlie is being cute. They have one of my favorite dynamics, sometimes described as golden retriever/black cat. When the show starts, they’re already established as girlfriends, and even the most oblivious (and/or straight) person would know it by the time Vaggie was swinging around singing “I will be your armor” and “I’ll spend my life being your partner.”

“I’ll be your armor” is so gay I almost burst into rainbows about it.

The show so far is a blast with a large cast of dynamic and interesting characters. Nothing is quite as it seems in hell, and all the souls here are more than their sins. Also, all of the songs are next-level good. I’ve had “Happy Day in Hell” stuck in my head since I first heard it, and the song I mentioned that Stephanie Beatriz and Daphne Rubin-Vega sing is soul-crushingly beautiful. In the fourth episode there’s a song called “Poison” that’s another standout — for the visuals and the song itself.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the premiere screening of Hazbin Hotel here in New York. At the afterparty, some of the cast did performances, and it was truly amazing. What was even more amazing, though, is how much they all seemed to love each other. The last of the Hazbin team to perform was Vivienne Medrano herself, and the whole cast watched her with full heart-eyes. Some of them even shed a little tear as Vivienne sang “Rainbow Connection” as she reflected on this project finally coming to life. It’s a very Charlie Morningstar song, and there’s something really special about seeing people genuinely care about something they’ve created. And for this series, that love and dedication really shows.

Aggie. Will. PROTEC.

I spent my entire childhood — quite literally kindergarten through twelfth grade — in Catholic school, being force-fed narratives about how very easy it is to be banished to hell. They told us that every little misstep or mistake is a sin, and, of course, how being gay is one of those missteps. And so, it’s very healing to see the Princess of Hell be a happy-go-lucky queer girl, living her best life with a girlfriend by her side. It’s like my friends and I used to joke: Maybe we’re going to hell, but at least we’ll be there together. (Can a gay girl get an amen?)

So come on down to the Hazbin Hotel, where everyone is welcome, baggage and all. The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Hazbin Hotel is now streaming on Prime Video. 

“Sort Of” Season Three Reinvents the Transition Story

This review contains minor spoilers for Sort Of season three. 

When I first came out as trans, I balked at more experienced trans people who argued against transition storylines. Of course, I understood the desire to have more stories about trans people settled in their lives, but transition stories mattered too! I mean, I was living a transition story and I wanted to see that on-screen.

But as the years passed, and I became a more experienced trans person myself, I understood the exhaustion with these narratives. The coming outs, the clothing shifts, the healthcare challenges — the same tropes with slight adjustments reducing trans people to a flattened portrayal of this one moment in our long lives.

The issue wasn’t just the focus on transition. The issue was how these stories tend to focus on transition. The third — and final — season of Sort Of shows how to do it well. Not only is the season a new kind of transition story; it also recontextualizes the entire show as a new kind of transition story. A sort of transition story, if you will.

At the start of the season, Sabi (show co-creator Bilal Baig) is still reeling from the death of their father — and their kiss with former boss/complicated friend Bessy (Grace Lynn Kung). And by reeling I mean keeping all of their complicated emotions bottled up and ignoring Bessy and her entire family. We’ve watched Sabi begin to embrace vulnerability over the past two seasons, but in times of crisis those walls shoot right back up.

Instead, Sabi decides — without telling anyone — to take steps to begin medically transitioning and start HRT. When their longtime family doctor questions their timing, they admit this probably isn’t something they would do if their dad was still alive. It’s not that it’s a rash decision born from grief like the cishet doctor suggests. It’s just easier to take these steps when the person whose reaction they’d dread most is no longer around.

Of course, Sabi has always been trans. (Medical transition does not make a person trans.) But from the beginning of the show, it’s been clear that Sabi wasn’t quite settled in their trans identity. And even people who are settled in their identity can change! This is the part that’s left out of the transition stories frequently told on-screen. Not everyone immediately changes from male to female or female to male or either to nonbinary. All of these words are more fluid; all of our experiences are more fluid.

And yet, medical transition is a big deal. The show honors the weight of this decision and change for Sabi. It doesn’t invalidate any trans person who doesn’t medically transition to acknowledge that moving through the world is often much different for trans people who do.

Sort Of has always been a show of uncertainty. Sabi was a nonbinary protagonist who could never quite commit to a decision. And so there’s something quite touching about watching Sabi make this one big decision — and to see how making this decision frees them to start making others.

The season deftly balances Sabi’s story with the supporting cast. Sabi’s mother (Ellora Patnaik), sister (Supinder Wraich), and best friend (Amanda Cordner) are all given their own moments of stagnation and growth. But Bessy, her husband Paul (Gray Powell), and their two children are the heart of this chapter in Sabi’s life. Many of the best moments of the season are quiet conversations between Sabi and each of them.

Toward the end of the season, Sort Of allows the threads of these supporting characters to remain loose as the show pivots squarely toward Sabi’s next steps. Transitioning isn’t just about coming outs and hormones — there’s also a freedom to feeling more like yourself that can completely reinvent your life.

I wish we could follow Sabi into their next chapter. Especially given the shifting television landscape, a show as queer and quiet and funny and artful as Sort Of feels like a thing of the past. But this is a fitting end to this moment in Sabi’s life and to a show centered around a period of grief and uncertainty.

While it may be time to say goodbye to Sabi, I hope Bilal Baig is just getting started. Given the nuance and artistry they brought to this transition story, I want every post-transition story they have to tell.

We deserve storytelling this wonderful for every moment in a trans life, every moment in a trans imagination.

Sort Of season three is now streaming on Max.

“SkyMed” Has Freak Accidents and A LOT of Queer Characters

This review contains minor spoilers for SkyMed season two.

I can always trust Canada to come through with a heavy helping of queerness in their TV shows, and that remains true for the emergency medical procedural drama SkyMed, whose second season recently dropped on Paramount+.

SkyMed has the same procedural formula as shows like Station 19 or 9-1-1: There’s an emergency that isn’t as straightforward as it seems, the team has to solve the problem, and they (almost always) save the day — all while experiencing ever-changing interpersonal drama. SkyMed‘s twist is that it’s about pilots and nurses who have to take planes to various accident sites and keep patients alive and stable during the flight to the hospital. And it’s all taking place way up in remote Manitoba.

I watched season one in the week leading up to season two, because a little birdie told me season two would feature some queer women. (The second season aired in its entirety in Canada before dropping in the US…the birdie was a Canadian goose.) Season one had plenty of gay boys, which was a delightful surprise, since often a show will choose between gay men and gay women. But SkyMed just started with one and doubled down with the other. In season one, I clocked ambitious pilot Lexi (Mercedes Morris) as potentially queer, while also hoping my favorite character, loyal and dedicated Crystal (Morgan Holmstrom), would be too — she sometimes has vibes with newcomer Haley (Natasha Calis)!

Season two wasted no time giving me my answer. New flight nurse Stef (Sydney Kuhne) immediately starts making eyes at Lexi in the first episode. Apparently Lexi being bisexual is not a secret, because her gay best friend encourages her to go for it, saying her type is, lumberjack men and girls like Stef.

The deal is all but sealed when an emergency breaks out and Stef springs into action, whipping off Lexi’s belt to use as a tourniquet. Stef is a major flirt and it leaves Lexi flustered in a very relatable way. They do eventually connect with more sincerity, but Lexi is hesitant because she doesn’t want any distractions to get in the way of her becoming a flight captain. Alas, the heart wants what the heart wants and sometimes what the heart wants is a romantic entanglement.

These two do a lot of forehead pressing, which is basically first base for queer women.

Lexi and Stef’s storyline is a major arc of the second season, but they also didn’t pull back on the storylines of the two gay men who are main characters (along with the gay men in their periphery who are secondary characters). PLUS there is an entire other queer character introduced in an entirely separate plotline.

Crystal is a First Nations flight nurse (Cree/Métis, specifically) who wants to become a doctor so she can serve her community. While trying to balance her duties as a flight nurse with her residency, she finds a mentor in Doctor Yara (Nadine Whiteman). As a queer Black doctor, Yara understands some of the struggles Crystal is going to face as the only Indigenous person in her med school class, and tries to give her tools she can use to survive the program. They end up teaching each other a lot, and we even get to briefly meet Dr. Yara’s wife in one episode.

Also worth noting that all of the queer women introduced this season were queer women of color!

One thing I think SkyMed does better than similar shows is contextualize the emergencies to its setting. A lot of medical dramas could be set in any city, but SkyMed is richer for being Manitoba-specific. Serving the Indigenous population — and understanding what that means — is a vital and integral part of the stories they tell. There are also unique complications people face when living in a rural, Northern Canadian area that requires a medevac for anything from chest pains to freak accidents.

And on that note, SkyMed sure does have some fun freak accidents. After they run through some of the basics (broken arm from a fall that SURPRISE was caused by a stroke, etc.), the accidents get more and more extreme. Also the cold open always subverts expectations — sure, that man on the wobbly ladder is stressful, but joke’s on you because that’s not why the SkyMed team is going to be called in. For slightly twisted minds like mine, part of the fun of these shows is trying to guess what the real accident will be.

Another fun game in this show, specifically, is one I like to call Canadian Bingo, which is really just getting excited every time you recognize someone from another Canadian show. In the main cast, this happened to me with Praneet Akilla who was in Motherland: Fort Salem and Nancy Drew (which aren’t strictly Canadian shows but film in Canada), Patrick Kwok-Choon from Wynonna Earp, and, of course, Aaron Ashmore, from Killjoys, Warehouse 13, and so much more. (Is a show even Canadian if it doesn’t have an Ashmore twin in at least one episode?)

The second season was also fun for Canadian Bingo, specifically Queer Canadian Bingo, because one episode included Elise Bauman, and another Dani Kind.

They were not both in the same episode but I wanted to get both of their perfect faces in this review so you’re welcome.

With all of this diversity in the cast, and the specificity of storylines about being Indigenous, about being mixed race, being adopted, being queer, and more, creator Julie Puckrin ensures her writers’ room reflects that. For example, for an episode focusing on an Indigenous patient’s pain being overlooked by a white nurse, Puckrin ensured there were Indigenous writers working on the episode, as well as a consultant who liaised with a council of elders. Same for the queer storylines; queer story = queer writers in the room giving voice and feedback to it. Puckrin once said, “It was really important to me that, in the writing room, there was someone that could speak to every experience. So anyone you saw onscreen, there was someone in the writing room that knew what that experience was like.”

It sounds simple but it’s alarmingly rare — especially on a procedural. And, in my opinion, that care and detail really shows. In that same interview, Puckrin calls SkyMed “a kissing show with airplanes” — which is both hilarious and also not untrue. Because at the end of the day, this show isn’t necessarily new or groundbreaking, but the care they put into telling stories well and authentically is evident.

By the way, this is Crystal, and I love her.

Sure, Lexi and Stef’s relationship runs the gamut in what seems like a short amount of time (especially if you binge the episodes like I did), but also I have to imagine working in high-adrenaline jobs does indeed heighten things and make relationships burn hotter and faster than others. And even if the timeline isn’t believable, the actual emotional beats of the story are honest, and that’s what matters most.

While coming out stories are important, so are “adults being gay and happy” stories.

The storytelling of the first season allowed me to trust the writers to do Lexi and Stef’s story justice. I wasn’t watching with bated breath, afraid that an overplayed, negative trope was going to happen at any minute.

Instead I could sit back, relax, and enjoy positive tropes like “let me sexily tend to this wound.”

Both seasons of SkyMed are now streaming on Paramount+. 

All Aboard! “Death and Other Details” Has Plenty of Queer Women On Its Murderous Cruise

This review contains minor spoilers for the first two episodes of Death and Other Details, especially the gay bits.

Hulu’s Death and Other Details is a locked room mystery set on a cruise ship filled with rich people — including three queer women who find themselves on a long list of murder suspects.

Despite being set in the modern era, Death and Other Details manages to keep a noir vibe by setting it on a ship that was designed with old-timey sensibilities. In fact, almost everything used to decorate the ship was made before 1955, and often the guests’ outfits follow suit.

The main characters in our story are Rufus Coteworth, played by Mandy Patinkin, and Imogene, played by queer actress Violett Beane, who co-produced and directed Jasmin Savoy’s very queer music video “goddamnit”. Rufus and Imogene met when Imogene was young, when Rufus failed to solve the mystery surrounding the death of Imogene’s mother. They are reunited by another crime on the ship, and Imogene with her keen eye for detail becomes Watson to Rufus’ Sherlock. As a long-time Criminal Minds fan, it’s very fun to watch Mandy Patinkin talking about the psychology of suspects, and breaking down clues with his protégé.

The show found the perfect excuse to have people be dressed up all the time, which is fine by me.

It’s unclear as of the first two episodes that have dropped if Imogene herself is queer, but until then we have plenty of other queer characters to contend with.

First and foremost is Anna, an heiress to her father’s milling company, played by queer actress Lauren Patten (who once starred in the Broadway musical Jagged Little Pill). Anna is an an absolute boss, talking firmly on the phone to her colleagues. She’s confident in her ability to take over the company, but she also has a soft side, both with her loyalty for lifelong friend Imogene and her gentle patience with her wife.

If they don’t find an excuse to let Lauren Patten sing by the end of the season, I may have to go Orca some boats.

Anna is married to former “clickbait journalist” Leila (Pardis Saremi) who is a bit eccentric following a head injury that left her paranoid about things like hidden cameras and spies. Someone jokes that she’s afraid of 5G poisoning, but I think her paranoia is a bit more realistic. She’s worried about the sort of things a very rich and powerful family could potentially arrange for someone they deemed an enemy. While Leila often confines herself to their room, Anna still manages to spend lots of…quality time with her. (In just the first two episodes, they have some of the steamiest scenes I’ve seen in a hot minute.)

On this voyage, Anna is meant to be announced as her father’s successor, in conjunction with her securing a partnership with the Chung family — complicated by her romantic past with one member of said family, Eleanor (played by nonbinary actor Karoline). Eleanor looks at Anna with an intensity that suggests she might still be harboring some feelings.

Doesn’t this look like someone who could stir up some gay drama for us? Fingers crossed.

As someone who grew up reading Nancy Drew novels before eventually graduating to Agatha Christie, I love a good mystery. I want a dozen more installments in the Knives Out franchise, and the urge to solve the puzzle in A Murder at the End of the World kept me watching despite its slow pace. Death and Other Details is taking an interesting approach to the genre by emphasizing that humans are unreliable narrators of their own story. Being an eye witness doesn’t automatically mean you know what happened, and there can be multiple answers to the same questions.

Speaking of Knives Out, those movies and this TV show share a sprinkling of humor amidst the mystery worthy of the best Sherlock Holmes adaptations. Imogene is sarcastic and witty and has fun banter with multiple characters. She has an affable nature and Violett Beane is a star in this role.

Anna’s wife being a recluse and Anna’s ex being on board is probably going to lead to some queer shenanigans, and I’m not unconvinced Anna and Imogene don’t have a bit of a past as well. I’m excited to see how all that unfolds as they work to solve the murder on board. Also if I know anything about these types of stories (and I do), I have a feeling the first murder won’t be the only one aboard this luxury ocean liner.

The first two episodes of Death and Other Details are now streaming on Hulu.

The “Ted” TV Show Has Classic Crass Humor Plus a Queer Cousin

As the Autostraddle TV Team’s resident (former) Masshole, I felt obligated to be the one to take on the task of watching the new Ted series on Peacock when we heard it had a queer character. I became more excited about this task when I watched and learned that said queer character is played by Giorgia Whigham, who also played queer on Legacies.

Growing up as a New Englander, I’ve been familiar with Seth MacFarlane and his very New England characters since I was young. I was 12 when Family Guy came out, the perfect age for that kind of rude humor, complete with the comforting terrible accents the people I was closest to all sported. As I grew up and Family Guy didn’t, I stopped watching, because while there were still some good jokes sprinkled throughout, it didn’t feel worth it to wade through the minefield of jokes I found too offensive to be funny.

The Ted movies are similar. It’s Mark Wahlberg’s John and his best friend being rude slackers, and his best friend happens to be a walking, talking teddy bear. The movies have some funny jokes — among the homophobic, racist, fatphobic, and otherwise non-PC jokes, presented in such a way that you can tell the writers know they’re not PC and that’s why they want to tell them. That said, if you can push past the worst of those jokes, there’s a surprisingly heartwarming story under it all centering John and Ted’s friendship. (Personally I don’t think it’s worth all the wincing you have to do to get to the good stuff, but maybe that’s the SJW in me.)

The TV show follows suit, but with a notable improvement. Now instead of the politically incorrect jokes being said unchecked, there is a character who pushes back. Giorgia Whigham plays Blaire, John’s cousin who lives with him and his parents (and Ted), who is an open-minded, progressive, queer woman in college who doesn’t let her uncle, cousin, or her cousin’s teddy bear get away with not being called out. (Also Giorgia Whigham is stunning and incredibly talented; I know I might be biased because she plays the queer character but I genuinely think she’s the stand-out star in this show.)

This was the face I made through a lot of this show, to be honest.

On one hand, it feels like a cop out — an excuse to make the same offensive jokes because they’re couching it in criticism. On the other hand, I felt very represented by Blaire. I saw my teen and college-aged self in the scenarios where her uncle says something racist or sexist or homophobic in a thick Boston accent and Blaire calls him out, only to be yelled at for accusing him of being racist/sexist/homophobic. There used to be a running joke in my family when I was a teenager that you couldn’t say anything around me without me accusing them of being racist. (A joke I did not find amusing.) I had an uncle that used to start conversations with me like “I don’t want to fight with you but” then bring up a hot-button topic about which he knew we disagreed. My cousin’s boyfriend would specifically target me because I was “so easy to rile up.” It didn’t stop me from calling them out, but good lord was it exhausting. And I see that in Blaire. Blaire is living a similar experience, surrounded by Bostonians who are mostly harmless but every once in a while say the most out of pocket thing because they heard it on Fox News. Blaire is doing her best to drag them all into the future with her, despite the fact that her uncle is digging his heels in about it. Some people can’t be helped, but some people can be, and Blaire isn’t about to give up on her family.

Blaire is a great character, often being the only voice of reason in the room. She almost feels like an audience insert at times, or at least, me as an audience. It would have been easy to make her into an Angry Feminist Lesbian stereotype, but she’s much more nuanced than that. She has a casual air about her, a comfortable confidence. She stands her ground but rarely loses her temper.

We learn she’s queer after she reveals she’s dating her friend Sarah. (Sarah is Indian, a fact pointed out by Blaire’s aunt every time she introduces her, because Aunt Susan is basically Kirstin Wiig SNL character and is often saying ridiculous things in her strangely affected voice.) Blaire describes her sexuality confidently as fluid, explaining that she’s attracted to people regardless of their gender. Even in the face of her uncle’s initial outburst, she stands her ground and chooses to stay by her girlfriend’s side. To John and Ted’s credit, they do not care that she’s queer.

Also to the show’s credit, this was the most making out anyone did on this show, full stop.

Overall the TV show is much better than the movies in terms of insensitive jokes. It’s much clearer in the POV of the show that the things the uncle is saying are not okay. The characters seem able to grow and learn as the show goes on. It’s kind of weird when you have a prequel that seems to be more evolved than the movies that are set in the characters’ futures, but it’s a story about a talking teddy bear who loves to get high and spends one entire episode trying to figure out if he’s Jesus reincarnate, so I’m okay throwing logic out the window.

Almost all of the off-color jokes come from John’s father, who sounds like most Boston Republicans in the 90s…and also probably today. (I’ll admit, I don’t spend a lot of time around Boston Republicans anymore.) While not all of the Boston accents were on point, Max Burkholder did a great job of mimicking Mark Wahlberg just enough that he was a believable teenage version of him. And a lot of the show felt familiar to me, as someone who grew up in a suburb of Boston in the 90s. There are some city-specific jokes sprinkled throughout, and John’s mom is even reading VC Andrews. I don’t know if that’s a boomer mom thing or a Boston mom thing, but my mother almost exclusively reads VC Andrews to this day.

The Blaire storyline was surprisingly well done, and even though I don’t think queer people are the target audience of this show, representation in shows where we are NOT the target audience is important too. It might hold a mirror up to someone who was still holding onto some backwards beliefs. Or it will, at least, let them hear some pushback on some things they might say without feeling personally attacked.

The biggest difference between me and Blaire is that she’s brave enough to bring a girlfriend home into that minefield.

I can’t, in good faith, recommend that you watch this show if you’ve never seen or don’t like the Ted movies. I definitely wouldn’t have if I hadn’t heard there was a queer character, and I don’t think my life would have been worse for never having seen it. That said, going in knowing the type of humor that would be prevalent, I did have a pretty okay time, due largely in part to how much I enjoy Giorgia Whigham. It’s not like the whole show is crude humor; there are a lot of running bits where John and Ted will spontaneously go into an improv scene that makes me laugh. There were some funny callbacks to the movies, like John loving Flash Gordon, or the names of weed strains being hilariously aggressive. And the CGI for Ted is very well done and added to a lot of physical comedy.

It’s a buddy comedy at its core, and even though it’s not exactly my scene, it’s nice to be invited to the party.

Ted is now streaming on Peacock. 

“True Detective: Night Country” Is a Mediocre Network Procedural Masquerading As Prestige TV

This review contains mild spoilers for True Detective: Night Country.

The theme song of True Detective: Night Country — the fourth installment in HBO’s once-hit series — is Billie Eilish’s “bury a friend.” Writer/director Issa López uses the song for its lyrical and musical resonance — a resonance already played out by people on TikTok four years ago.

There is more to storytelling than originality. Many genres return to the same well of tropes and conventions remixing them with new settings, new characters, and new forms. To be cliché is not to be bad, but clichés sure can make a bad thing worse. Especially when working within a genre seeped in propaganda, especially when those clichés reinforce the worst narratives in our world.

True Detective: Night Country is a cop show. If you thought a post-June 2020 True Detective would have anything to say about policing, you’ve mistaken the false promises of that summer as genuine. Once again, surface level identity politics won over meaningful structural change. More and more the cops on-screen abusing their power get to be women, queer people, and people of color. This is supposed to be a win.

But this Jodie Foster vehicle is not The Silence of the Lambs. It is not an expertly crafted piece of media soured by its messaging of police propaganda. As a work of art, it’s dull. This is often the case. Jonathan Demme’s 1991 classic is the exception not the rule — most media that traffics in these same narratives finds little purpose other than this perpetuation. There is little in True Detective: Night Country that’s compelling — not the narrative, not the characters, not the form. It looks expensive and has some strong performances, but that is not enough to prop up all the mediocrity.

True Detective: Night Country is about a police chief named Liz Danvers (Foster) who has been transferred to the remote Alaskan town of Ennis. Her hobbies include drinking, empty sex with men (yes, Foster is straight in this), being racist toward Leah, her Indigenous queer step daughter, being racist toward other Indigenous people in the community, and being the sort of Columbo super detective we’ve grown accustomed to on-screen. When a group of scientists at a remote research facility go missing, Danvers is forced to team up with Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis), an Indigenous trooper (and veteran) with whom she has a fraught past.

When we first meet Navarro, she is arresting a guy for domestic violence. He calls her a pig. Later, she’ll tell Danvers that a possibly related case of a missing Indigenous woman went unsolved because of her race. Danvers will dismiss this with an eye roll. When Leah goes to a protest, one of the activists asks if she’s the police chief’s daughter. Leah starts to apologize and the activist assures her “all are welcome.” Danvers and Navarro often enter buildings without a warrant. They beat people up due to their own emotional problems. And then beat up other people to torture information out of them. (It works!) Again and again, the show reinforces the narrative of the damaged edgy cops who don’t play by the rules but get the job done. At one point, Navarro beats up another cop who was abusing his power at a protest. That cop is immediately suspended. You see, women cops are good. Men cops can be bad but they quickly face consequences. So says the world of this show and the media landscape in general.

Again, it’s not just that these narratives are harmful. It’s that they’re boring. Foster and Reis are both excellent, but their emotional struggles and outbursts of violence feel like something out of a cop show parody. Making them women doesn’t make them interesting.

The show is just as cliché in its portrayal of Indigenous people. The case of the missing scientists ends up being tied to the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women, a topic that many seem to only care about as a storytelling device for their tales of hero cops and as an excuse to show dead Indigenous people on-screen. López has said it was important for this not to be a story of white cops saving the day. But the primary arc of the show is still Danvers learning to mildly care about the Indigenous people in her community — including her own step-daughter. Navarro and her family experience a lot of trauma related to their identity as Indigenous people, but again and again the show prioritizes Navarro’s chosen identity of cop. If her decision to fight back against the one cop abusing his power is meant to show a change, it feels hollow given all that precedes and all that follows.

Ultimately, I would rather a show where Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey swish around being chauvinist cops than one that uses MMIW and Indigenous communities being poisoned by oil companies as a mere backdrop for the same boring cop tropes. There’s nothing progressive about adopting real, urgent issues into the folds of conservative fantasy.

If you want to watch True Detective: Night Country and feel your brain massaged by the simplicity of heroic police brutality and detectives who have to go rogue when they get shut down by the higher ups, be my guest. Everything you watch doesn’t have to be ethical. But don’t slurp up that garbage and then pat yourself on the back because it pays lip service to issues that really matter.

Keep watching your cop shows. You don’t get to feel good about it.

True Detective: Night Country premieres tonight on HBO.

“Under Pressure” Re-Centers the Identity of the U.S. Women’s World Cup Team

Last year, in collaboration with the global players’ association, FIFA implemented the Social Media Protection Service (SMPS), in an effort to shield players, teams, coaches, and officials from online abuse during international tournaments. According to FIFA, the service “worked” during the 2023 Women’s World Cup, reporting and hiding more than 400,000 abusive comments. But it wasn’t until last week that the full extent of the abuse became known. According to the SMPS’ tournament analysis:

• 1 in 5 players at the Women’s World Cup received targeted discriminatory, abusive, or threatening messages
• Homophobic, sexual and sexist abuse accounted for almost 50% of detected verified abusive messages
• Players at the Women’s World Cup were 29% more likely to be targeted with online abuse than players at the Men’s 2022 World Cup in Qatar

The numbers are staggering, but especially so for the US Women’s National Team. According to SMPS, the USWNT were subjected to the most online abuse of any team in the tournament… more than twice as much as any other team in the field. The report notes spikes in abuse coinciding with American matches against Portugal and Sweden. And, though the SMPS report doesn’t name her explicitly, it’s likely that Megan Rapinoe is the US player mentioned as one of the most targeted individuals during the tournament.

A day after the report was released, Netflix dropped Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team, a limited docuseries on the team’s pursuit of a fifth World Cup Championship. Though docuseries was developed long before the World Cup and, by extension the SMPS report, the timing of it feels serendipitous. It feels like an answer to a question that no one knew to ask.

Under Pressure re-centers the identity of the USWNT. It asks the audience to put aside whatever it is that makes you believe that these women are, to quote one FOX Sports analyst, “polarizing,” and see them for who they truly are. Mothers. Daughters. Wives. Girlfriends. Footballers. Competitors. Americans. Under Pressure tells the story of this team, through the eyes of its past and present stars, and, in the process, reaffirms their humanity.

The docuseries follows the USWNT from its formation to pre-tournament friendlies to the World Cup. It does so from four different perspectives: Alex Morgan, the experienced veteran, working to balance her role as a team captain with her responsibilities as a mother; Lynn Williams, the then-three time NWSL champion still striving for that elusive World Cup cap; Kristie Mewis, the veteran Gotham FC midfielder, looking to finally be on the right side of the bubble; and, Alyssa Thompson, the teenage rookie, experiencing every step for the very first time. Other USWNT players make appearances — Lindsey Horan, Rapinoe, Sofia Huerta, Emily Fox, Savannah DeMelo — but much of the film centers around those four, to positive effect. Focusing on too many players could’ve made the series unwieldly. Instead, the narrative manages to be both expansive and tightly constrained.

For me, it’s Williams and Mewis — both “bubble players” who could or could not make the final roster — that make Under Pressure worth watching. Despite making their first appearance at the World Cup in 2023, both are veteran professional players who bring a lot of perspective to their time on the USWNT.

Williams is a fighter: she’d been left off the USWNT roster for the World Cup once before — in 2019, a moment she called “devastating” — and comes into camp fighting for her spot. She brings a compelling mix of empathy and candor to Under Pressure that instantly makes the audience trust her as a narrator. For example, when Mallory Swanson goes down with an injury, Williams is truly heartbroken for her teammate while admitting, “on the other hand, you recognize that, as a forward, there is now a spot that is opened up and needs to be filled.”

Mewis comes to the team having watched, in 2019, as her younger sister, Sam, accomplish the goal they shared: playing for the USWNT in a World Cup. But a knee injury that Sam Mewis had been playing on since 2017 finally forced her out the game in 2022… leaving her sister with a lot of survivor’s guilt about her time with the national team. Getting to see the sisters’ relationship — which hasn’t always been as strong as it is now — and watching Kristie Mewis grapple with her guilt, was one of the most compelling aspects of Under Pressure.

“I would literally do anything for her to have her career back. I’d give up mine if I could,” the elder Mewis admits.

Queer fans will delight in the window Under Pressure offers into Mewis’ relationship with Australian national team star, Sam Kerr. Mewis brings the same sense of awe that she has about being part of the national team to her relationship with Kerr. It’s like she really can’t believe that Kerr loves her (to which, I wonder, “has Kristie Mewis not seen herself?”). But Kerr truly does love Mewis: so much so that she keeps the news of her national team selection a secret until Mewis knows her fate. They are absolutely adorable together and I loved getting this glimpse into their love story.

(Sidenote: In Under Pressure, Mewis admits that she doesn’t foresee a future where she and Kerr will continue to have a long distance relationship. Yesterday, The Athletic reported that Mewis is on her way to join Kerr in London. Giving up a slot on a championship winning squad to move to one of the worst teams in the Women’s Super League? That’s love.)

Unlike other docuseries of this sort (i.e., The Last Dance), Under Pressure doesn’t look for drama. It actually seems to studiously avoid it. In someone else’s hands, I imagine a series that spends more time on the Swanson or Becky Sauerbrunn injuries — seizing on the drama of going from being the USWNT’s leading scorer or the USWNT’s captain to being forced from the roster — but Under Pressure doesn’t dwell on it. There’s no footage of other players — Casey Krueger, Tierna Davidson, Adrianna Franch, or Taylor Kornieck — who participated in training camps but ended up on the wrong side of the bubble. We don’t get to see any of those bubble players have tear-filled Facetime calls with head coach Vlatko Andonovski. Admittedly, I didn’t know how to feel about those omissions at first. Sports are a rollercoaster and the highs come with some painful lows; showcasing those felt necessary. But we all know how this story ends — with the USWNT being ousted from the World Cup earlier than it ever has — and, ultimately, that heartbreak felt like the one worth focusing on.

The absence of drama in Under Pressure also means that no one should come to the series hoping to get answers for what went wrong. If anything, Williams and Mewis’ commentary — Williams on the lack of substitutions and Mewis on the last minute request that she take a penalty vs. Sweden — only underscores the level of confusion that existed within the ranks. But there’s no spicy commentary from players in Under Pressure and no deep interrogation on the choices that were made. It’s frustrating, but I suppose that the only true closure for that kind of loss comes in 2027.

A special guest and an important message. Thanks @KosovareAsllani 🧡 Watch the full episode on YT or listen wherever you get your podcasts. pic.twitter.com/k4HJImmzT1

— Tobin Heath (@TobinHeath) August 7, 2023

Despite the intense match that ended the USWNT’s run, Sweden attacking midfielder Kosovare Asllani was nothing but effusive with praise for the team afterwards, sending a clear message to the haters: “don’t talk shit about the U.S. team women.” She knew, as does the rest of the women’s soccer community, that the USWNT are pioneers… that their efforts, both on the pitch and off, are raising the game for everyone.

The USWNT fight for equal pay inspired teams from around the world to do the same. The pushback, by American players, to the abusive environments within their club teams steeled the spine of other nations, as their players stood up to abusive environments created by their federations. The team’s greatness has forced other federations to step up and invest in the women’s game. Losing a World Cup cannot undo that legacy.

But it is that legacy that those who subjected the team to so much online vitriol, loathe. They can’t have the world believing that women are equal, so they attack. Somehow, those disingenuous attacks have become the narrative about this USWNT. Under Pressure feels like the start of the pushback. It begins the work of re-establishing this team as more than just pawns in someone else’s narrative. It is a retelling and a reclaiming of this team’s identity… and to that, I can only say: LFG.

Under Pressure: The U.S. Women’s World Cup Team is now streaming on Netflix.

Gay Historical Fiction Series “Fellow Travelers” Flattens American Tragedies and Wrongdoings

Technically, the premise of Fellow Travelers, the new Showtime series based on the Thomas Mallon novel of the same name, has all the makings of what could have become a beloved piece of queer media. With backdrops spanning history from McCarthy-era Washington D.C. to Reagan-era San Francisco, the miniseries mostly follows the relationship between two men – the closeted, apolitical, homosexual Don Draper-equivalent Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller (Matt Bomer) and the tormented, conservative turned radical Tim Laughlin (Jonathan Bailey) – who cannot be fully and wholly together. Over the course of the show’s 30+ years, we’re given passing glances into the lives of other characters and some of the historical figures who played major roles in structuring the politics of American culture. Given the rich litany of historical drama that propels the plot of Fellow Travelers forward, you’d think the show’s drama would be able to capture some of that depth. But instead, it turns the tragedies of American empire and the human costs of those tragedies into easy water cooler fodder.

Before we’re transported back to 1952, we’re introduced to Hawk as he’s hosting a party with his wife, Lucy (Allison Williams), at their home in 1986. When Hawk’s old friend (using the word “friend” here loosely) Marcus (Jelani Alladin) shows up to the party unannounced, we learn Tim is dying of AIDS-related illness, and he sent Marcus to give Hawk a sort of “goodbye forever” gift that Hawk had given to Tim in the throes of their original romance. From there, the show moves quickly back in time to the early 1950s for the majority of its first five episodes. There, we get a glimpse of what Hawk’s life was like before Tim: mostly just showing up to his State Department job he seems to truly dislike (though there is never any direct talk of this), schmoozing and scheming with other civil servants and government workers, meeting with his mentor Senator Smith (Linus Roache), and then disappearing into the dark corners of D.C. to hook up with other men as discreetly as he possibly can. Hawk meets Tim at an election night party for Dwight D. Eisenhower, and they exchange subtle flirtations over a conversation about Tim’s hopes for the “anti-communist crusade” that’s taking root in the U.S. government.

Tim, thrusted into his conservative idealism through his experiences in the Catholic Church, is as immediately taken with Hawk as the show wants us to be, and his hopes for what could grow between them are what structure the entire intended emotional arc of the series. There’s an inherent power imbalance between them, not just because of Hawk’s position in the State Department but because of his accomplishments and the connections that come with them, and that imbalance is what causes many of the rifts between their characters. It also serves as the foundation for so much of the sexual and romantic passion the two of them share, which the show isn’t shy or regressive about depicting, thankfully. As their relationship unfolds and fills the majority of the show’s run time, we’re introduced to young Marcus, a Black journalist whose ambitions about his career in writing lead him to be just as clandestine about his sexuality as Hawk is, and young Lucy, Senator Smith’s daughter and the woman Smith desperately wants Hawk to marry. And we get some inside looks at the members of the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations: Joseph McCarthy (Chris Bauer), Roy Cohn (Will Brill), and David Schine (Matt Visser).

As the show progresses, the story goes exactly where you think it will with some small surprises in between. We watch as the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations expands its hunt for communists in the U.S. government to a hunt for all people engaging in “deviant” lifestyles, and small hints are dropped regarding the sexualities of McCarthy, Cohn, and Schine. Hawk and Tim are forced to become even more secretive about their relationship than ever before, which tests them both to the point of implosion. Hawk marries Lucy despite his affections for Tim and desires that Lucy can never fulfill. Hawk continues leading a double life hooking up with men when and where he can, and through the years, he and Tim continue to see each other, though not always under the best circumstances. Marcus has what is arguably the most interesting storyline, but it’s pushed to the side to make way for everything else. At the underground gay club that Hawk and Marcus frequent, Marcus meets (and falls in love with) Frankie (Noah J. Ricketts), a drag performer who lives above the club and frequently sings backup for the now legendary Storme DeLarverie. Throughout the course of their on again, off again, and then permanently on relationship, Frankie continually pushes Marcus to embrace both aspects of his identity instead of choosing between them.

For a storyline so imbued with the politics of each era, the series does nothing to truly contend, question, or reckon with them. I realize it would be utterly impractical for them to treat the virulent anti-communism of the early period of the show with any sort of indictment because it’s an American show made by American people, but what we’re left with is a sort of apathetic liberalism about the whole matter that taints much of the first five episodes. In the 1950s storyline, Hawk’s character is a government agent but almost operates outside of it entirely. He takes the position that everyone has their problems, so there’s no point in caring about politics. His aim, then, is purely career advancement to the point where he can be stationed in a position overseas. Tim is political, but not in any way that is useful since he thinks the government has the right to root out communists in any way they see fit. There’s no doubt in my mind that gay men and women like Hawk and Tim existed during this time and still do, but it creates an almost troubling dynamic in the story: These characters have to worry about and deal with McCarthy and Cohn’s turn toward prosecuting people for homosexuality, but the show never gives them any space or time to truly examine the circumstances fomenting that witch hunt. In fact, Hawk ignores it all together, save for some subtle shots at McCarthy’s character, and Tim actively encourages it, even helping contribute to the cause by working for McCarthy. And then with that, the writers of the show lean a little too hard into the “Self-hating gays are the ones who are trying to destroy the gays” trope, an entirely too simple explanation for why McCarthy and Cohn did what they did in the first place.

This flattening of some of the ugliest parts of American history seeps into the rest of the show as it moves through the different eras. When Tim becomes a progressive seminary student in the late 1960s, we see him participate in a protest against the Vietnam War, but then him and Hawk’s interpersonal drama cuts short any possible engagement with that. In the late 1970s, when Tim, Marcus, and Frankie are all living more open lives in San Francisco, Harvey Milk’s murder is used as a prop to point towards the dangers of being queer and fighting for progress. Again, Hawk and Tim’s reunion during this time takes center stage, and no one – including the viewers – is given the time to hold or digest the tragedy of Milk’s death. When the mid-1980s come into full view in the show, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is treated similarly. The trauma is there, the characters seem to be experiencing it, but they still somehow float on the margins of it all.

The result of this, then, is that we’re expected to fully empathize with a bunch of characters, besides Tim, whose humanity is given to us piecemeal, if at all. Bomer’s and Bailey’s performances do the best they can with the material and produce some interesting results in their performances. Their chemistry is explosive, especially in the sex scenes that pepper every episode of the show. These scenes are, I would say, some of the strongest parts of the series as they are not only fairly graphic but also provide some visualization of play that is rarely shown on television. However, that becomes part of the problem with the show overall. I’m not one to accuse anything of having too much sex in it, but in Fellow Travelers, they are a little dependent on these scenes to do the kind of emotional heavy-lifting that is neglected in other areas of the series. Ultimately, Bomer and Bailey both fail to coax the full range of emotional relation, recognition, and identification out of their characters that you’d hope for. Although Alladin’s and Ricketts’s performances are stellar and much more affecting, Marcus’s and Frankie’s stories and the story of their relationship together are never fully fleshed out, which makes everything about their interactions with each other and the other characters feel incomplete. Williams is perfectly cast as the WASPy yet furtively sympathetic Lucy, but like Alladin and Ricketts, she is drastically underutilized despite having what is arguably one of the most important roles in the series.

At its core, the stories that structure Fellow Travelers are about sacrifice and compromise, with a heavy emphasis on the latter. These are stories about the power of shame and guilt and how those things can either be used to isolate us and destroy our beliefs in beauty and truth or can be subverted and turned into motivation for us to seek out our own versions of beauty and truth in all aspects of our lives. These aren’t uncommon stories for queer people – we all know them well and live them in our own ways because we live in a society that forces this reality on us without our consent. And that’s the major issue with how these stories are portrayed in Fellow Travelers: There’s rarely any conversation or consideration about the structural forces that make our lives as queer people so difficult, and when those conversations do come up, they end too quickly and neatly.

Of course, a piece of fiction dealing with the lives of queer people in the mid-to-late 20th century does not necessarily have to turn into a didactic lesson on the politics governing queer life during that time. Characters can merely be of history without being involved in every historical moment their fictional lives intersect with. But when has it ever truly been an option for queer people to not somehow be more actively involved with the political, personal, and interpersonal circumstances that rule over and sometimes control the trajectory of our lives? When have we ever been able to fully ignore the forces around us? When have we ever been able to just live without scrutiny, retaliation, and repression? Getting an unfiltered look at a queer romance on TV is definitely something that is much less common than it should be, but it feels like so much was discarded to center that narrative in a completely unrealistic way. The characters in Fellow Travelers never fully deal with the psychic toll of having to hold so much tragedy and sadness at once. They only cope with it. And it’s not until far, far too late in the series that they realize a different kind of survival is possible.

Super Queer British Sitcom “Such Brave Girls” Is Discomfort Comedy at Its Finest

Three episodes into the six-episode run of new British sitcom Such Brave Girls, I texted fellow Autostraddle editor Drew Burnett Gregory to say: this is sooooo fucked up (complimentary).

Starring real life sisters Kat Sadler and Lizzie Davidson as fictional sisters Josie and Billie, Such Brave Girls tells the chaotic little tales of a dysfunctional family of three. There’s those aforementioned sisters and their mother Deb (Louise Brealey), who’s still grieving the departure of their father…from over a decade ago. The three women wouldn’t know an appropriate boundary if it punched them in the face. The script, penned by Sadler, is beyond acidic; it’s like guzzling gasoline.

Josie is fresh out of a stint in a psychiatric hospital following a mental breakdown that stems from her ongoing depression and anxiety. An ongoing joke in the series is that Josie’s mere presence annoys and exhausts Billie and Deb, who are too caught up in their own delusions to provide any kind of support. Billie is too busy trying to trap a boy into a relationship with her. And Deb, well, Deb is sort of doing the same actually, pretending her deadbeat husband who left her is actually dead in order to bond with the widower she’s courting because he has a big house. In their reckless quests for love, Billie and Josie are merely following the relationship models they know.

This is not a series about a family coming together to face their traumas together. This is not a series about a dysfunctional family learning to be more functional in their own ways. It’s a laugh-out-loud comedy about a family constantly bringing out the worst in each other and encouraging each other’s self-destructive patterns. And watching them flounder, fail, and fight is wildly entertaining. It’s the heightened commitment to the bit that really makes it all work. Billie and Deb’s disdain for Josie and dismissal of her obviously serious mental health issues doesn’t exactly scream fodder for comedy, and yet, Such Brave Girls makes it a riot.

Despite this lack of tenderness or warmth (a lack I welcome greatly as someone who tends to prefer stories about emotional and mental upheaval that cackle through the pain), Such Brave Girls still also manages to be very real about the sludgy slime of everyday life and just trying to be a person in this fucked up world. Josie strings along a boyfriend she has no interest in…mainly because she’s gay as hell. Josie knows she’s gay, but she finds it easier to be with this boy because she doesn’t have to think or feel anything in order to be with him. Meanwhile, a flirty encounter with a butch bartender send her literally spiraling. Josie’s treatment of her boyfriend is, just like so much of the series, cruel and self-serving, but it’s also such a realistic snapshot of something I think about a lot: the selfishness we sometimes deploy in order to maintain the closet. I was reckless with the feelings of others when closeted, and I too thought it easier to perform romantic relationships with boys than to listen to what I really wanted.

For all its over-the-top humor and nasty (again, complimentary) jokes, Such Brave Girls also finds discomfort and friction in very true-to-life situations. Billie and Josie have heightened emotions, but none of it is all that different from feelings I’ve felt at various points of life. These characters just don’t have internal monologues or self-restraint mechanisms. They’re all id, all impulse run amok. Josie’s arc hinges on not knowing who she is — both in terms of her sexuality and desires but also in terms of what she wants to do in life, her identity as an artist recently crumbling. That all-encompassing existential dread indeed contextualizes much of her destructive tendencies. But for all of Josie’s uncertainty, Such Brave Girls knows exactly what it is, Sadler crafting a wickedly hilarious and hilariously wicked comedy. It’s one of my favorite “coming out” narratives I’ve seen on television in a minute — devoid of sincerity and full of chaos. The series will surely be regarded as a raunchy gross out comedy, and it should be! But there’s also more bubbling beneath its astringent surface.

Billie is the most perfect embodiment of the term delulu I’ve seen on television, her toxic obsession with a boyfriend who does not return her affections turning her monstrous in her manipulations and psychological games. And she gets a queer storyline of her own, too, hooking up with her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend, both of them attracted to each other because…they look like one another. Yes, Billie’s self-absorption leads to all-out doppelbanging. This is exactly the kind of humor Such Brave Girls excels at: deranged and delightful.

Perhaps it’s not for everyone, but I always find that to be true of the best comedies, because humor should have a distinct tone and texture to it. Such Brave Girls is definitely for the gays who like to laugh when everything is going wrong.

“Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” Centers Bisexual Blader Ramona Flowers

Despite its title, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is not about Scott Pilgrim, not entirely. It’s also about bisexual blader Ramona Flowers, who Scott Pilgrim wants to date — and her League of Evil Exes he has to contend with first.

Netflix’s animated take on Scott Pilgrim has a lot in common with the 2010 live action movie. For one, they’re both based on the same source material, a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O’Malley. It also shares the same cast, including but not limited to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aubrey Plaza, Mae Whitman, Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Ellen Wong, and Alison Pill. (Go ahead, read that list again. PHEW. It’s like a quarter of my celebrity crushes all in one place.)

Look at how CUTE everyone is.

The show also shares some stylistic similarities with the movie, with comic-book imagery and 80s video game vibes. However, being animated, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is able to take that to the next level and lean into the surrealism with an anime flair. It’s a cute and fun style that really lends itself to the wackiness of the story. The logic of the world is never fully explained, which means anything is possible, and the unexpectedness makes everything that much more fun.

It does have some significant differences from the movie, though, in ways I personally think are improvements. For example, it centers more around Ramona than Scott. Ramona has magical powers such as rollerblading across people’s dreamscapes and being able to bleach and dye her hair regularly without causing any lasting damage. And the reason we know Ramona Flowers is bisexual is because one of her exes in aforementioned League is Roxie Richter.

Roxie and Ramona have sweet interactions and she’s treated as equal as any of Ramona’s other exes. In the movie, Ramona writes Roxie off as a bicurious fling, but in the show she’s just another ex, like Lucas Lee or Gideon Graves. It’s a very refreshing update. In general, this show does a great job of using the movie as foundation but building upon it, giving Ramona more agency and more complexity.

Ex-Boyfriends? Exes.

Even as it deviates from the film, there are cute moments where the original is referenced. To avoid spoilers I’ll give you just one small example: At one point in the show, the Sex Bob-ombs are riffing on a new song and try out lyrics that are pulled from the movie’s Scott and Ramona garlic bread conversation.

The Scott Pilgrim movie is imperfect, employing casual racism, the r word, and fat jokes as humor. The show simply erases those moments, realizing its mistakes, and fixing them. Maybe some Scott Pilgrim purists (are there Scott Pilgrim purists?) will take issue with the way the show departs from the movie, but I personally loved every change. We’re in a time where arguably too many things are getting remade and rebooted with little to no value add, and it has only been 13 years since this movie came out. It was a big challenge, but they proved themselves capable of surmounting it. This show literally has the same creators and actors involved, works from the same source material, and even has some identical shot-for-shot moments, and still it manages to make it feel like something totally new. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is a shining example that things can be updated and improved with enough newness to make it worth it while keeping the heart and charm of the original.

Overall, I really enjoyed this show. It’s a unique way to tell the story of two people who need to untangle themselves from their baggage and deal with their shit in order to forge a new relationship. Never let the burden of potential bad futures stop you from taking a chance on happiness in the present.

Scott being speechless and awkward around pretty bisexuals is extremely relatable.

Here’s a thing about me: I don’t like romance media. Movies, books, TV shows, if the main point is romance or pining or dating, I’m not likely going to enjoy it very much. I know that’s the bread and butter of a lot of media, and I know I’m in a minority for feeling this way, but it’s just not for me. Dating isn’t a priority in my life, and I don’t connect to fictional characters whose priority is dating, either in general or dating one specific person. All that said, one way to get me to care about a romance is to sneak it in while I was paying attention to other fun stuff. Keep me entertained with vampire slaying and I’ll barely notice how invested I get in two witches falling in love until they’ve fully latched onto my entire heart. Distract me with two best friends in opposite warring factions and suddenly I’m crying in my cornflakes for the honor of Grayskull. Tell me a story about ghosts and gardeners and let me not realize until it’s too late that it’s a tragically beautiful lesbian love story.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off doesn’t hide its premise quite as well as those shows, but it has enough jokes and fighting and goofs and lore to keep it from being only a love story. It’s a love story and an anime fight fest. It’s a love story and an 80s video game. It’s a love story and a comic book come to life. And I’m in lesbians with every minute of it.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is now available to stream on Netflix.

“Candace Parker: Unapologetic” Shows That Behind Every GOAT Is a Love Story

For nearly all of the greatest moments in Candace Parker’s storied basketball career, her daughter, Lailaa, has been there.

During Parker’s first year in the WNBA, when she collected the Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year awards — a feat that hasn’t been matched since — Lailaa was there (albeit in utero but still, that counts!). When Parker returned to the court, just 53 days after giving birth, Lailaa was there. And when opportunities arose for Candace Parker to play abroad… either in Yekaterinburg, Russia or Dongguan, China or Istanbul, Turkey… Lailaa was there. She got to witness it all: the championships, the individual accolades, the Olympic gold medals. She had a front row seat to watching her mother become one of the greatest to ever play the game. And when her mother stepped into the fullness of her love for Anya Petrakova by proposing in 2019, Lailaa was there, holding the cake that said, “will you marry us?“

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A post shared by Candace Parker (@candaceparker)

But Lailaa’s brother, Airr, won’t get to experience any of that. He won’t get to witness the dizzing heights to which his mother has risen. With his mother’s pledge that she won’t return to basketball unless she’s healthy, it’s possible that Airr will grow up without any tangible, first-hand memories of his mother in her element. He won’t get to see her play alongside a new generation of players who were all molded in her image.

With that in mind, it’s helpful to think about Unapologetic, the new ESPN documentary about Candace Parker from Joie Jacoby, as less of your average sports documentary and more of a gift from a mother to her son. It is a tangible way for Airr to learn about his legacy. It is an opportunity for him to one day see the moments and people that shaped his mother into the person that she is. He’d get to see, as Lailaa had, how his family came to be. That the audience gets to witness the usually guarded and stoic Candace Parker be open and vulnerable, isn’t for our benefit, it’s for his.

“For me, I didn’t share for a long time and it wasn’t because I was ashamed. It was because I wanted to keep that personal to me,” Parker admitted during a recent interview. “But it was just a moment where, when [Petrakova] was pregnant with our son, it was like, I don’t want our son to ever think that I don’t love our family and that I’m not proud of our family.”

But while Unapologetic may ultimately be a testament to a mother’s love for her son, the journey it takes the audience on is one worth relishing.

It’s easy to take it for granted today, in this new world of young athletes, their NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) deals, and women’s college basketball exceeded the reach of the men’s game — but when Candace Parker came onto the scene, the world had never seen anything like her. A female player from Naperville, Illinois, who could dunk a basketball when she was only a sophomore in high school? The broader sports world clamoring to find out where a female recruit would go to college? It was unprecedented.

Unapologetic follows Parker’s journey from Naperville to Knoxville where she played for the legendary Pat Summitt. Parker’s always been candid about the special relationship she had with Pat. Anytime she talks about her, the admiration and love is evident. The documentary is at its most affecting when Parker is able to lean into the emotion of the story and, with Summitt, the emotions are summoned so easily. There’s a mix of pride and profound sadness that flashes across Parker’s face when she recalls that, even while in the throes of early onset dementia, Pat never forgot her name.

"This is for Pat!"
Candace Parker​ dedicates @WNBA​ Finals MVP & @LA_Sparks title victory to her college coach; the late, great Pat Summitt pic.twitter.com/vq58LDzaph

— NBA (@NBA) October 21, 2016

The documentary’s high point, undoubtedly, is the story of Parker finding love with her former UMMC Ekaterinburg teammate, Anya Petrakova. We finally get some insight into the build-up towards her infamous 2021 Instagram post revealing that she was married and expecting a child.

Parker’s journey to making that post wasn’t an easy one. In college, she had a high profile relationship with then-Duke star Shelden Williams and the pair would marry in 2008. They’d divorce eight years later but the expectations of Parker — of who she was, of who she should love — persisted, making it difficult to fully embrace her truth. In Unapologetic, Parker talks about the difficulty of coming out to her family and recalls talking to her brother about Anya without using any identifying pronouns.

I’ve known of Candace Parker since she dunked that basketball in 2001. She’s always seemed otherworldly to me… like, with her talent, she just exists on a different plane than the rest of us. But to hear her talk about her queerness in Unapologetic, to hear her unabashedly fawn over her wife? Candace Parker has never felt more real.

We also get to see the toll that Parker’s on the court greatness has taken on her body. Women’s basketball fans have always been privy to conversations about the price that athletes pay for year-round play — playing in the WNBA from April to October and then spending the rest of the year playing overseas — but rarely have the consequences been shown in such stark terms. Parker recounts eight knee surgeries and a shoulder surgery. One doctor reports that Parker has a tear or fissure in the covering of one of the discs in her back, and another doctor shares that there’s no cartilage left in her knee. I couldn’t help but to recall her pledge to return to basketball only if she could play without pain and wonder, particularly with the foot surgery she had last season, if that’s even possible for her.

But where Unapologetic falters is that it never seems to want to go deep enough. There’s a passing mention of Parker’s divorce from Shelden Williams, but the documentary offers explanation for how the relationship fell apart or what their relationship is like as co-parents. While Parker acknowledges the difficulty of coming out, her parents who, had until that point been fixtures in the documentary, disappear and little is said about them or their reaction. When Parker talks about being left off the Olympic roster in 2016, why does Parker avoid calling out then-coach Geno Auriemma? It’s not like she hasn’t done it before. I can appreciate that Parker didn’t want to “badmouth people,” but those notable omissions make it hard to appreciate the full scope of the trials she’s had to face.

Even within the confines of the narrative Unapologetic creates, there were plenty of opportunities to offer more perspectives, and it never does. How much more enriching would Parker’s stories about Tennessee have been if the documentary had featured Pat Summit’s longtime assistants, Holly Warlick or Mickie DeMoss? Who could’ve spoken with more perspective about Parker’s relationship with Pat than Pat’s son, Tyler?

Where are Parker’s would-be teammates from that 2016 Olympic team to speak out her omission? Where are her teammates (besides Chelsea Gray) from her championship runs with the Los Angeles Sparks and the Chicago Sky? Particularly if the documentary was going to include the outcome of The Athletic‘s 2019 anonymous player poll where Parker was voted “most overrated,” why not bring on the players that know Parker best to counteract that narrative? And, no shade to Ramona Shelbourne or Jemele Hill, but why feature them instead of reporters who have covered women’s college basketball and the WNBA over Parker’s storied career?

I understand that this is Candace Parker: Unapologetic and, at the end of the day, it’s her perspective that’s going to be valued the most. But I think adding more voices and providing more context would’ve enriched the story immensely. It just felt like a missed opportunity.

There’s a moment, late in the documentary, that’s stuck with me: Candace Parker is at an event, celebrating the release of her new shoe for Adidas.

As Parker is autographing her shoe, the fan notices the “For Pat” text on it and inquires who Pat is. After I got over my shock, I was reminded that in order for legacies to persist, people need to share their stories… and Unapologetic is Candace Parker’s story. Maybe it doesn’t document her story as fully as I’d like to see it, but if it creates a space for future players — or even just Airr — to learn about Candace Parker and expand on her legacy? It’ll have been a worthwhile creation.

Candace Parker: Unapologetic is now streaming on ESPN+ and wherever you watch ESPN.

“A Murder at the End of the World” Is a Mystery Worthy of Our Grief

This review contains mild spoilers for A Murder at the End of the World.

Emma Corrin in A Murder at the End of the World

A Murder at the End of the World is a crime drama with a conscience.

When I reviewed the show Clarice, I wrote there was no such thing as a progressive police procedural. That show’s attempts to critique the FBI fell flat when it was still the FBI who saved the day. Like most crime media, Clarice often gave law enforcement special skills they rarely — if ever — have in life, and I suggested there was no reason why those same imaginary skills couldn’t instead be given to journalists, hackers, or literally anyone.

Well, Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij have done just that. Their seven-episode mystery series, A Murder at the End of the World, is a crime drama set in the world of tech. And its gumshoe isn’t law enforcement — she’s a queer hacker.

The hacker in question is Darby Hart, played with a quiet emotion by Emma Corrin. When we first meet Darby, she’s giving a reading from her first book, a true crime tale of catching a serial killer alongside her fellow hacker ex-boyfriend, Bill (Harris Dickinson). She mentions hacker Lee Anderson (Marling) is her hero, and soon enough Lee and Lee’s tech billionaire husband, Andy Ronson (Clive Owen) — who is kind of like if Elon Musk was hot and actually smart but still really sucked — are inviting her to an exclusive Icelandic retreat.

The first twist, that I will spoil here, is Bill, now a guerilla artist named Fangs, also happens to be at the retreat. The second twist, that I will not spoil in detail, is at the end of the first night Darby discovers another guest has been killed and she takes it upon herself to solve the crime.

A Murder at the End of the World alternates between the timeline of Darby and Bill secluded at this snowy retreat in the present and Darby and Bill solving the serial killer case as teenagers in the past. Harris Dickinson as Bill is the standout of an impressive ensemble cast. Especially in the past timeline, his conflicted emotions about Darby and their mission deepen the show episode-by-episode. Without his performance, the past might have felt like a distraction from our central mystery — instead it provides some of the show’s best moments. Corrin is playing a character who has closed off her emotions as a defense mechanism and Dickinson becomes their heart.

During its first episodes, I began to question my previous desire to see other people gain the skills historically granted to law enforcement. After all, changing the protagonist only resolves some of my problems with the crime genre. When Darby is going full Sherlock Holmes/Columbo/Clarice Starling, I continued to roll my eyes at the suggestion that anyone — cop or hacker — can solve a crime through forensic junk science and super intelligence. Even carried out by Darby, this narrative still reinforces our harmful justice system and leads to overly simplistic — albeit entertaining — storytelling.

But the show’s greatest strength is how it ties this critique into its own existence. A Murder at the End of the World is a fitting title for the show because of the distant Icelandic setting and because our world is, in fact, ending due to climate disaster. Within both timelines, the show wisely attributes the greatest harm to those who enact the most harm in our real world. Critiques are aimed at law enforcement, domestic abusers, billionaires, and, yes, even amateur detectives and true crime writers like Darby.

It’s fun to watch the gears of Darby’s brain turn as she finds clues. This has been fun to watch for centuries and it’s not going to go away just because of something as unimportant to the average viewer as “reality.” But Marling and Batmanglij question the impact of even the greatest sleuth if their interests lie with serial killers rather than the victims of serial killers, with the murderers of individuals rather than the murderers of Earth.

From early in the series, it becomes clear that it doesn’t matter if Andy or one of the other tech billionaires turns out to be the show’s murderer. They’ve already killed more people as part of their quest for money, power, and personal safety. The greatest violence carried out in our world isn’t part of a whodunnit. We know who did it. They’re just powerful enough and kill enough people that it’s almost impossible to stop them.

A Murder at the End of the World is at its best when it’s allowing these points to be made through its narrative. It falters when it tries too hard to underline its politics with blunt speeches. But this desire for audience clarity feels born from the creators’ desperation. It’s a desperation I understand and that resonates throughout the series. Darby’s journey isn’t just to solve these two crimes but to reckon with the grief of her childhood that weighs on her and the grief of our world that weighs on us all. This is a show that is itself weighed down with grief.

It’s easy to compare the show’s plot to Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and its portrait of Hot Elon Musk to The Morning Show’s last season. But there’s something freeing about stripping away the satire and the soap. Of course, even this more serious take is still operating within the confines of genre. There are cliffhangers and twists and intense sequences of suspense. And yet, none of that distracts from the grief.

A Murder at the End of the World plows a path forward for the crime genre. It’s not enough to change the protagonist. There also must be a reckoning with our very idea of crime. Brit Marling and Zal Batmangli have taken on that reckoning and, in doing so, given me hope for the future of a genre I’ve long detested.

There are killers among us. They’re on our TVs. They’re running our governments. They’re in charge of the companies that control our lives. Will we change our narratives? Will we stop them?

The first two episodes of A Murder at the End of the World are now streaming on Hulu.

Lena Headey Plays Queer in “Beacon 23” — But at What Cost?

This review contains very mild spoilers for Beacon 23.

Watching Beacon 23 made me think that maybe it’s actually okay if some projects don’t have queer people in them.

On paper, this show has all the ingredients to make me love it. First and foremost, it stars Lena Headey. Honestly that’s all I knew about it before going in and it was enough for me to give it a shot. I love Lena Headey. Second, Lena Headey plays a bisexual badass. Third, it is based on source material written by the same author who provided the source material for Silo, an Apple TV+ show that I enjoyed very much. And fourth, it’s on MGM+, the same network that brought us FROM, one of my favorite sci-fi shows of the year.

Alas, despite having all the right ingredients, Beacon 23 did not end up appetizing.

The titular Beacon 23 is a sort of lighthouse, floating in the far reaches of space, scanning for dark matter, and telling passing spaceships whether or not the passage is safe. The show is, ultimately, more about Beacon 23, and its AI Bartholomew, than it is about any human character. To its credit, the show does a great job of impressing upon its audience the stifling nature of living in Beacon 23. Each episode feeling like a bottle episode; some episodes feeling like a home invasion movie. The show imagines a future where humanity has expanded across the universe, colonizing many planets in many solar systems throughout the galaxy, but we never see these other planets and colonies.

We never leave the Beacon.

The show takes its time, unraveling the present and past of the Beacon, while also unveiling a mystery that connects it all. And when I say unveiling I do mean just unveiling, not explaining. The audience is as in the dark as the characters, if not more so, about this mystery Some parts of it felt a little like reading the book Annihilation, purposefully vague, purposefully without explanation or clarity, occasionally to the point of being disorienting.

And yes, Lena Headey’s character, Aster, is queer.

This spaceship doesn’t need gaydar to spot this one.

We briefly encounter someone Aster is sort of dating, Coley, played by Sandrine Holt. Their relationship is contentious and volatile and considering Coley is only in the one episode, and Aster’s queerness has no more bearing on her character or the story at all, I’m not sure it was worth it. I am a strong believer that a person’s queerness does not have to be inherently tied to a relationship, so it’s not that I wish Coley had stayed longer (though I do). It’s just that the queerness felt more like someone deciding they needed a character to be queer and picking Aster and Coley at random, instead of considering the implications, based on the dialogue and plot lines planned for these two characters. It’s sort of nice, in theory, to be included at all, and wardrobe definitely got the memo. But if Coley hadn’t been in that one episode, we never would have known Aster was queer, and I think that’s a miss.

I loved Aster. She’s snarky as hell and has so much charm and swagger! I could spend the rest of my life watching Lena Headey play queer. But, at the end of the day, I’m not sure we can add this one to the “win” column. I have more egregious reasons, including more than one bad queer trope playing out, but they’re extremely spoilery, so I’ll have to bite my tongue for now.

There were things I did like about Beacon 23, though. For example, the casting; Lena Headey is brilliant, of course, with Natasha Mumba acting up a storm at her side. Plus, Barbara Hershey features heavily, and glamorously, in an episode. They also did a great job world-building; they managed to express the vastness of space in the confines of one building. Without too much exposition, but also without being too confusing, they clue the audience in on different companies, factions, and communities. I also was a big fan of the wardrobe. Even in the first two episodes, I suspected Aster was queer because of her whole look. And finally, I really enjoyed the Beacon’s AI Bartholomew. He was very funny, and I’m always impressed when sci-fi shows can make a spaceship sentient enough to invest you in them as a character even though they’ve never had human form. All told though, it wasn’t enough to balance the aforementioned bad tropes, nor the slow and confusing pace.

Lena Headey takes up 80% of my “pro” column because she is a force.

If you don’t have expectations for positive representation, and just want to hear Lena Headey joking about passing time in quarantine “wanking,” and see Lena Headey’s hair in braids and Lena Headey’s arms in a tank top, maybe you’ll enjoy Beacon 23 more than I did. But if you want to watch Lena Headey as a queer character worth celebrating, maybe just watch Imagine Me & You again instead.

The first two episodes of Beacon 23 are now streaming on MGM+. 

“Upload” Season Three Gives Us A Deliciously Evil Queer Character

This review contains spoilers for the gay bits of Season 3 of Prime Video’s Upload.

After two and a half seasons of hilarity and existential crisis, Prime Video’s Upload has finally centered a queer lady relationship.

Upload is one of those shows that doesn’t sound like it would be my jam on paper, but it actually brings me an unexpected amount of joy. It’s all the fun technology stress of an episode of Black Mirror, but with a lot more humor. It takes place half in a digital afterlife called Lakeview and half in the real world, where corporations are doing their capitalist nonsense — making it hard for non-rich people to access a digital afterlife, including taking out people involved in making a free alternative to Lakeview, including but not limited to Nathan Brown, our protagonist.

Helping Nathan figure this out is his “angel” Nora, a Lakeview employee who is alive and spends time both in the virtual and real world, and who eventually becomes his girlfriend. Other players include his on-again, off-again girlfriend Ingrid, a fellow Lakeview resident named Luke, and another angel named Aleesha (Zainab Johnson), who we’re here to talk about today.

In episode four of the third season, a wild Jeanine Mason appears, which is exciting enough on its own. She was a force to be reckoned with in Roswell, New Mexico, and her character, Karina, immediately flirts with Aleesha. Karina is a badass boss lady and within moments of being at a work function together, Karina asks Aleesha if she wants to go somewhere more private. And just like that we have a queer regular and a queer recurring character and isn’t that a beautiful thing?

The only thing better than a tol/smol height difference is when the shorter person is the bossier one.

After a few episodes, Aleesha starts to wonder if this new fling she started up is a good idea. It’s a dangerous game to date a coworker in a higher position than you (even if she ISN’T your direct boss) and also Karina might be a little… evil? But she’s also really hot. So you can see why Aleesha might be torn. Jeanine Mason plays Karina with an effortless confidence where she sounds charming as hell even when she’s saying unhinged things. She’s so magnetic it’s easy to overlook the evil streak, and Aleesha is hilarious and has her own bold confidence that makes her even more attractive than her obvious good looks. When you put the two together? Whew. The chemistry between Karina and Aleesha is palpable.

I was afraid they weren’t going to be able to kiss at all because Covid protocols have meant less kissing in shows in general lately so I was glad we got at least one smooch.

We get a few cute scenes of Karina meeting Luke, and Aleesha asking Luke for relationship advice. But, ultimately, Aleesha decides to end things with Karina. She can’t just break up with her though, so she decides to do a little spycraft and reveal some of the not-so-good stuff Karina has been up to. In a not-so-good development though, while on this mission, Aleesha celebrates a victory by kissing Luke on the mouth. She plays it off as excitement, but it’s clear that’s a direction they want to lean into, since Luke has been less than subtle about the torch he holds for Aleesha. I know she’d already decided she wanted to end things with Karina, but I don’t think we’re far enough past the “cheating bisexual” trope for this to be totally okay. I thought it was fun that Karina was doing evil corporation stuff while also being sweet with Aleesha. I was even down for the spycraft. But this felt a bit too far for me.

Then again, Upload always toes the line for me. Most of the time it’s fun and hilarious, but then they’ll make a fat joke about Nathan, who is played by Robbie Amell, and is not fat. In fact, that’s a running joke throughout this entire season, and it was annoying enough the first time, so it gets extra tired extra quickly.

They also spend a lot of time talking about the rights of uploaded people, and whether they should have the same rights as alive people or if they are the property of the person who uploaded or the corporation they uploaded to. This is all well and good and makes for genuinely interesting stories, the only problem is, it means women, queer people, and/or people of color are pointing at straight cis white Nathan Brown and calling him a second class citizen. I know it’s a metaphor but it can get a little cringey.

All that said, there’s more to love than there is to be annoyed by. They make a lot of really solid jabs at our capitalist society; one of my favorite running bits is the imagined mergers, like Oscar Mayer Intel, often said with complete earnestness. And what maybe surprised me most was the genuine character development of Ingrid, Nathan’s ex-girlfriend, a living woman who was once a vapid rich girl but whose heart is slowly growing size by size. She has a bit of Alexis Rose to her, seemingly (and sometimes actually) shallow while also showing growth and depth.

This scene seemed to implied that not having a top sheet is inherently evil, which is funny, but also not true…at least I sure hope not, since I also do not use a top sheet.

This season of Upload ended on a cliffhanger between Aleesha and Karina, and a huge cliffhanger for the show overall, so here’s hoping we’ll see the Lakeview crew again soon. It’s no “San Junipero,” but it does explore the question of what makes a person a person, and whether it’s possible to have a digital afterlife that isn’t a capitalist hellscape — all while being hilarious (and occasionally gay!) in the process.

The third season of Upload is now streaming on Prime Video.

“Rap Sh!t” Season Two Finds Its City Girls Desperate for a Win

This review contains mild spoilers for the first episodes of Rap Sh!t season two.

The first minute of Rap Sh!t‘s pilot episode is seen entirely through the lens of Instagram live. Tourists coasting down Ocean Drive, sorority girls turning up at a Miami bar, couples playing on a lush beach, and a soon-to-be bride checking into a boutique hotel for her bachelorette weekend. We’re introduced to the show’s lead character, Shawna (played by non-binary actor, Aida Osman), in an Instagram video: a hotel guest — caught in the background of the bachelorette’s live — recognizes her from an old video of her freestyling.

Within the span of that minute, Issa Rae’s Rap Sh!t announces what kind of show it’ll be. It’s a show baked in the Miami heat. With the sounds of Miami’s own Trick Daddy thumping in the background, that minute asserts that the city will permeate every facet of the the show, even when it ventures outside the city limits. The opening also reveals that Rap Sh!t is very much a show of the moment and, of course, any story of this moment cannot be told without technology and social media. Much of Rap Sh!t is told through the filter of IG Live, in part, because that’s how this generation engages with the world. But also if you’re an aspiring creative — especially an aspiring creative woman — looking to build your brand and being online isn’t a choice, it’s a necessity.

This week Rap Sh!t returns for its second season and our first glimpse of Shawna and Mia (Kamillion) is now through the lens of an actual video camera, as they dance along with Reina Reign (Kat Cunning), on the set of the music video for “Tongue.” In fact, there’s not a single IG Live moment in the entire first episode. While social media re-emerges as a device later in season, the message is clear: for Shawna and Mia, the game has changed. It’s no longer about stunting for the camera. It’s about putting in the work to make sure this rap shit turns into something real.

At the end of the first season, the girls seem poised to do just that: they were going on tour with Reina. But there’s a catch — there’s always a catch with music producer Francois Boom (Jaboukie Young-White). They’re not getting paid, they can’t perform their own songs, and their stage time is limited to supporting Reina during her performance of “Trouble.” They’ll camp out in bunks on a tour bus between cities and be crammed into meager accommodations during tour stops. In short, it’s about to be awful. But Francois assures them that, at the end of the tour, they’ll produce an EP and record labels will be clamoring to offer them a million dollar deal.

Shawna wants to believe Francois. Her face lights up at the prospect of being signed and she presses the group’s manager, Chastity (Jonica Booth), to unequivocally agree to his plan. It feels like a far cry from the conscious rapper version of Shawna we met early on, but, to put it plainly, the girl is down bad. She’s a person of interest in a credit card fraud investigation. She broke up with her long-time boyfriend and her burgeoning relationship with Maurice is upended by the criminal investigation. Her parents threaten to cut her out of their lives if she continues making bad decisions, including going on tour. Shawna needs a win — she needs this to work — so she swallows her skepticism, frustration, and anger, and presses on. Aida Osman carries Shawna’s story with aplomb, showcasing every bit of emotion even as Shawna tries so hard to hide it.

It’s Jonica Booth’s Chastity who really benefits from the show’s stylistic and setting changes. In the first season of Rap Sh!t, our view of her is limited. She’s a part-time pimp, drafted into the “family business” by her uncle, and she keeps her top earner close; there’s a hint that there’s something more than business between them, but Chastity never allows it to compromise the work. She knows everybody but you never get the sense that anyone knows her. Insomuch that she’s part of the first season’s IG Live point of view, it’s less about her and more about a foray into party promoting and artist management. The self-proclaimed “Duke of Miami” uses her connections to get her artists into the door and when her connections fall short, she hustles to get things done. Chastity walks with swagger and confidence even if that confidence felt unearned.

But what happens when you take the Duke of Miami out of Miami, as Rap Sh!t does in its second season? What happens when a pimp has to leave her stable unattended for a month to go off on an unpaid trip? And what happens when her ticket out of pimping and hustling is threatened by Francois Boom who is clearly coming for the Duke’s spot? Chastity’s storyline is absolutely the best thing about Rap Sh!t‘s sophomore effort. Chastity still delivers that swagger and she is nothing if not a hustler but this season also gives her the opportunity to be scared and vulnerable. That rounding of the character, plus the fact that Francois is an absolute jerk, makes it impossible to not cheer for her.

If there is a shortcoming to Rap Sh!t‘s new style, it is that it’s less funny than in its first season. There are still plenty of laughs to be had, particularly when Mia gets together with her homegirls, Alesia and Nelly (Brittney Jefferson and DomiNque Perry), but there’s a noticeable tonal shift. Personally, I liked it even if it’ll be jarring for fans of the first season. Also, it felt a bit like Mia got shortchanged in the character development department this season. Through the six episodes provided to critics, Mia’s still out there seducing and scheming which, though fun to watch, doesn’t add any additional complexity to the character.

Rap Sh!t‘s second season arrives on HBO Max a few weeks after the City Girls — the Miami duo who served as inspiration and executive producers of the show — dropped their new album. RAW (Real Ass Whores) was supposed to be their moment: JT and Yung Miami’s stars had risen considerably since their last effort. They were ubiquitous on the hip-hop scene: fixtures on the blogs, on social media, and at award shows. Yung Miami was acting, podcasting and talking about a future reality show. Everything seemed primed for them to finally have that chart topping album.

But, instead, the album flopped.

“It’s tough times. You get what you put in, in this shit,” JT admitted, reflecting on the album’s poor sales.

It’s a real life lesson that, ironically, drives the entire second season of Rap Sh!t. You get what you put in and, this season Shawna, Mia, and Chastity are putting in work.

Rap Sh!t is now streaming on Max.

Apple TV+’s “The Buccaneers” Ruins Edith Wharton and Fails History

This review of The Buccaneers contains mild spoilers.

Josie Totah as Mabel and Mia Threapleton as Honoria in The Buccaneers

Before I discovered any models of queerness, I discovered Edith Wharton.

As a creative spirit dulled by the rules of suburbia, I latched onto her tragic characters — especially Lily Bart in The House of Mirth. Wharton’s work was filled with people my angsty teen self could relate to; people whose lives were ruined by the expectations of society. But, off the page, Wharton had chosen happiness. She had affairs. She got divorced. She moved to Europe. This made bitter, relatable characters like Bart so much sweeter. If Wharton could escape their fate, maybe I could too.

Despite my literary standom, I never read Wharton’s final, unfinished novel, The Buccaneers. Most available copies are not only her text, but rather the controversial “completed” version co-written by Wharton scholar Marion Mainwaring.

Adaptation can capture the spirit of an unfinished novel in a way even the most skilled scholar never could. That’s why I was so excited when Apple TV+ announced they were releasing a television series based on and inspired by The Buccaneers. Unfortunately, an ingenious idea is not always matched by ingenious execution. Throughout its eight-episode first season, the show fails to capture Wharton’s voice and, more disastrously, fails to find a voice of its own.

The Buccaneers is about five American girls from new money families who travel to Europe to find husbands. Old New York treats them as inferior but Old Europe is too desperate for resources to turn down fruitful marriages. The girls are desired by the men and by the families, while also being dismissed as frivolous and crass. Will the girls be able to find true love despite expectations and cultural differences? Does true love even matter?

Kristine Froseth stars as Nan St. George, the free-spirited lead who does not care about men but nevertheless ends up in the show’s most important love triangle. Imogen Waterhouse plays her sister Jinny, a girl whose eagerness for marriage leads her toward a frightening match. Alisha Boe is their friend Conchita, who begins the series marrying a nobleman for love, and is the first to experience the constrictions of European society. Finally, there are sisters Lizzy and Mabel, played by Aubri Ibrag and Josie Totah. Lizzy is the first to experience the wrath of Jinny’s fiancé. Mabel is our token gay.

I am not a purist when it comes to adaptations or portrayals of history. Every period piece, no matter how classically done, is as much a portrait of the time it is made as the time it takes place. My issue with this show is not the pop music, or the multiracial casting, or the inclusion of queerness. My issue is the complete lack of perspective brought to any of these decisions.

This is not a new debate. It has become standard to alter the history of period pieces in favor of a broader sense of inclusion. Some view this as an opportunity for people of color to be granted the same range of stories as white people. Others view it as an erasure of history that ignores the realities of, say, 1870s high society. No matter where you land in this discussion, I feel especially critical of a show like The Buccaneers whose writing and directing team is almost entirely white cis women, and who frame their show as politically important.

Nan St. George and her compatriots are constantly proselytizing about the subjugation of women. In an early episode, Nan is appalled by the way women are paraded like cattle in front of suitors. Wharton’s complex portrayals of womanhood and society are reduced to easy feminist talking points, but, even worse, these talking points fail to land because the writers ignore race. It’s painful to watch someone who looks like Kristine Froseth rant against the social power of men in the 1870s as the camera cuts to images of men of color with darker skin than any of the lead actors.

The show also doesn’t seem to know if it wants to ignore race altogether or create an alternate world where the racism that exists in the 1870s is the same as the racism that exists today. At one point, Conchita tells her mother-in-law she knows she is judged because she looks different. In another scene, she worries that her in-laws will treat her baby poorly because the baby will look more like her. These two brief moments seem to hint that Conchita is not meant to be white, but otherwise the show ignores race altogether.

Well, it sort of ignores race. Our two female leads, Nan and Jinny, are, of course, white. Even if race is not discussed, the characters played by white actors are prioritized. During the first three episodes, Alisha Boe appears to be the second lead. But as the season continues, she yields more and more screen time, until she’s merely a supporting character in the lives of Nan and Jinny.

The same treatment is given to The Buccaneers‘ queer storyline. Casting a trans actress to play a queer cis woman is one of the few inspired choices the show makes. It’s an example of bridging the past with the present, drawing connections between queer people ostracized a century and a half ago and queer people still ostracized today. Unfortunately, this choice is diminished by how little attention is paid to Mabel’s storyline.

Mabel and noblewoman Honoria, played by Mia Threapleton, have all the beats of a lesbian subplot with none of the time to make it work. Neither character is well-developed and the arc of Mabel’s queerness is grounded in a present-day queer politic. Given the way the show approaches coming out and the possibilities of queer life, they might as well have let Mabel be a trans girl. It would’ve made just as little sense in 1870 as Mabel’s relationship to her queer sexuality.

This approach to period pieces does not only erase historical racism and homophobia. It also erases our joy. Accurate historical representation and less trauma in stories about marginalized people are not opposing goals. People of all identities have always existed and found pockets of joy in certain locations. The now canceled A League of Their Own series was a rare exception in understanding this truth. It took the realities of its characters seriously while still prioritizing fun and joy. With enough skill, creativity, and research, that balance is possible. To settle for plopping “diverse” actors into white and cis stories is to ignore the complexity of our histories.

All of these issues would feel less acute if The Buccaneers was just well-costumed fluff. Instead, its feminist aspirations lead to storylines about multiple types of physical and sexual abuse. This is in addition to the true-to-Wharton internal torture of forced marriages and empty lives. Is this a show where pretty people prance around castles? Or is this a show meant to examine the pain caused by upper class society in the 1870s and today? It tries to be both. It fails at both.

The entire plot hinges on misheard information, characters having secrets, characters trying to share their secrets and getting cut off, and other easy contrivances. My political issues with the show’s approach pale in comparison to its failings on a mere craft level. The writing is bad in terms of plotting and in terms of dialogue. The actors — who have almost all given lovely performances elsewhere — appear totally lost with words that are not past and not present, and in plots that are at once too simple and too convoluted.

Maligned upon its release, Sofia Coppola’s brilliant 2006 film Marie Antoinette has emerged as the most influential period piece of the 21st century. In recent years, shows like Dickinson and The Great, and movies like The Favourite, have copied aspects of Coppola’s approach with varied results. At the same time, the success of the musical Hamilton has led many to copy and worsen that play’s already questionable politics. These two projects have converged to their worst conclusions in The Buccaneers.

A trans girl lesbian in an Edith Wharton adaptation is like something out of my wildest dreams. Too bad The Buccaneers is such a mediocre nightmare.

The first three episodes of The Buccaneers are now streaming on Apple TV+.

Hulu’s “Black Cake” Delivers a Beautifully Complex Story of Family, Identity, and Secrets

Black Cake, Hulu’s stunning adaptation of Charmaine Wilkerson’s best-selling debut novel of the same name, opens with urgency: A young woman in a wedding dress sprints through the trees to the awaiting sand and dives into the ocean while sirens wail in the distance. It’s not until the end of the first episode we learn what has her running with such desperation. The answer is as complex as the dessert the show is named for.

If you ask anyone with Caribbean heritage about black cake, the chances are high that they’ll all have a story and a recipe; the chances are even higher that those stories and recipes will share the same bones, but will have special and unique ingredients. My mother and father are from the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, and they both came to the United States as teenagers. With them they brought rich history, culture, and traditions that I will forever cherish.

For as long as I can remember, Christmas and black cake (or fruit cake, depending on who you ask) have gone hand in hand. Memories of fruit soaking in rum, the smell of spices wafting through the kitchen, and the inevitable “no, not yet!” when my brother and I begged for some icing (there was always an iced version and a plain one), are clear as day in my mind. Now, I’m almost afraid to admit this, but black cake is not my favorite dessert. However!! That fact does not prohibit me from appreciating the love, the culture, and the flavors that are layered into each piece.

At this point you might be thinking, “Nic, this is a television review, not an episode of Bake Off, what gives?” Well reader, the richness and complexity of the ingredients and flavors of black cake just so happen to be the perfect representation of the many interwoven identities that make up our main character, Eleanor Bennett.

“I’m not anything like I used to be… I still remember that girl.”

When Eleanor dies of a brain tumor, she leaves behind a mystery for her children Byron and Benny (affectionately, “B and B”) to solve through voice recordings she made near the end of her life. She also instructs them to share a slice of a small black cake she left in the freezer for them “when the time is right.”

Byron, an overachieving oceanographer, and Benny, a bisexual artist and musician, have been estranged since Benny came out at Thanksgiving eight years prior. They decide to put aside their differences and begin listening to their mother’s story; a story that begins with a confession: The woman they knew as Eleanor Bennett did not grow up in an orphanage as she always told them, and in fact, Eleanor was not her real name.

“Eleanor” was born and grew up in Jamaica as Coventina (Covey) Lyncook, the daughter of a Black mother and Chinese father. Through a combination of voiceovers and flashbacks, we learn that Covey spent her teenage years raised by her overprotective father Lin, because her mother left when Covey was 11 years old. Covey is a take-no-shit teenager who is a star swimmer with dreams of competing internationally. She spends her days training with her best friend Bunny, and they have big dreams of leaving the island together to swim all over the world. Unfortunately, Lin is deep in debt thanks to his gambling on cock fights, and to clear those debts, he offers Covey’s hand in marriage to an infamous loan shark.

Covey’s relationship with her father is tumultuous to say the least. She feels obligated to keep giving him chances as the parent who stayed, because in those moments when she really needed someone, her Pa always showed up. But how far can obligation take you when the person you count on literally sells you as a means to a financial end?

Despite having struggles at home, Covey finds solace in her boyfriend Gibbs, and, perhaps more importantly, Bunny. The two are inseparable, swimming together, joking together, sharing their dreams. It’s a closeness that mirrors many formative relationships I can remember having; especially because Bunny’s feelings for Covey are a bit more than platonic. Black Cake does a beautiful job alluding to Bunny’s queerness before she eventually comes out to Covey, who begs her best friend to hide who she is because in 1960s Jamaica even whispering about homosexuality could get you killed. It’s a scene that is both beautiful and painful to watch; Covey immediately accepts and embraces her friend, while also advising her to hide her true self. While this is Covey’s story, the relationship between her and Bunny is what gives the show so much of its heart.

“She is hard on herself.”

In the present, Byron and Benny react very differently to learning about their mother’s truth. As Byron struggles with the idea that his mother wasn’t the person he thought her to be, Benny finds comfort in the fact that her mother had “mess” in a way that feels familiar. And as Black women, isn’t that what we want to be afforded? A chance to be messy and vulnerable instead of tidy and unbreakable? We are rarely one thing and Covey is proof positive of this.

“She is messy, but she’s kind.”

The title of each Black Cake episode represents an identity that Eleanor assumes throughout her life, be it a name or a role. And through the first three episodes, we follow Covey, Coventina, and eventually Eleanor as she flees Jamaica and attempts to make a life for herself, first in London and then in Edinburgh. We watch as the girl who couldn’t help but stand out in Jamaica becomes invisible and small in Europe, begging to be seen. She manages to find small things that bring her the comfort and reminders of home, but her safety depends on her relative anonymity.

Not only is Black Cake visually stunning, but it also boasts an impressive cast. Adrienne Warren (The Woman King and Broadway’s TINA – The Musical) is incredible as Benny, and Mia Isaac (Not Okay) anchors the series with her award-worthy performance as Covey/Eleanor. Chipo Chung (Silo, Into the Badlands) plays present day Eleanor and lends her voice as narrator. In one such narration, she explains that black cake evolved from the British plum pudding that the colonizers introduced to the West Indies. It began as a marriage of cultures and developed into a delicacy as rich and varied as the islands themselves.

Part family drama and part murder mystery, Black Cake is about family, identity, and the ways our choices reverberate through our future. It’s about the stories we tell and more importantly, the ones we don’t, whether out of love, protection, fear, or survival.

The first three episodes of Black Cake are now streaming on Hulu with a new episode available every Wednesday.