Back in the scandalized dormitory of California University, Bella’s got her legs spread and Angie’s going in. It is at this point that we learn that Angie never explored Jodi’s interior ’cause even though they dated for two years they never “felt ready” for sex. This is… surprising!
I love these friendship moments with Angie and Bella until they take a turn into Hendrix Fitz (h/t to Mina) territory. Angie reveals that he asked her to “go away with him” which I guess makes Angie think it’s time to bang-bang-bang and she’s not sure how sex starts. Bella describes sex with young cis men as a fumbling, excruciating and not particularly exciting experience, which doesn’t deter Angie one bit. Bella explains that Angie will have to tell the boy what she wants, but Angie doesn’t know what she wants. I want her to call Alice and Shane!!!
Great news, Angie gets the condom out!!!
We then take a group field trip back to the cinema, where Alice has decided the best way to handle Taylor’s unfortunate presence in this scene is to have a loud argument with her in the theater.
Lesbian Squabble #10: The Last Picture Show
In the Ring: Alice vs. Taylor
Content: Taylor acknowledges she’s at fault for lying about being at work, but not for being on a date — aren’t her and Alice just dating? Dating each other, and dating other people? Alice didn’t know that they weren’t exclusive? Taylor thought Alice was dating other people too!
Taylor: Alice, it’s not an excuse, it’s jut a fact. I like you, but I also like my regular life, and those two things don’t naturally go together because we just live in different worlds.
Alice says she’s normal and she has normal friends, but Taylor insists Alice is very not normal and simply doesn’t realize how not normal she is. Alice thinks Taylor’s looking for things to be wrong ’cause this is really right but Taylor wants to go slow and didn’t know how to tell her that.
Alice: “Well, this way sucked.”
Man in movie theater: “For all of us.”
Taylor’s sorry for lying to Alice and Alice is sorry too and before making her ultimate exit, she turns to the entire theater and yells “by the way, he dies at the end!!!!” I guess this means they’re watching A Dog’s Purpose.
Who Wins? The girl who is on a date with Taylor and also us because this was fun
We return to FiSoMiMar’s, where Maribel and Micah have reached a logical conclusion: they should find a donor who’s like Micah. Some of Micah’s attributes, like being Chinese-American, can be searched for, but others, like his anxiety, are harder to search for.
Micah: “I just wish we could make a baby that’s part of you and part of me.”
Maribel: “Cis hets can just get drunk and do this on accident, but we have to self-reflect.”
Micah: “Oh, cis hets definitely need to be doing some self-reflection too.”
This is the gay and/or spermless and/or eggless couple conception experience in a nutshell: cis-hets just CREATE BABIES without even MEANING TO and they can do it FOR FREE and we have to be super intentional about EVERYTHING. That’s why I liked to choose sperm donors whimsically because I felt like it was the best way to recreate traditional procreation. ANYHOW that hasn’t worked for me thus far, but I wish these two all the best and remain very confused about their process!
We’ve now reached the part of the breakup conversation where they couple is mourning what was and what could be and what one person thought they might become together and how different this was supposed to be than everything who came before. Tess never thought long-term really, ’cause her Mom always made big plans that didn’t pan out, and Shane never thought long-term because she’s Shane.
But with Shane, Tess let herself imagine them getting old together — and I’m really craving some detail here, some specific vision of the future that’d enable us to understand their relationship a little better too. But I guess none of that matters, now, anyhow:
Tess: “But it can’t happen unless you really try to figure out why it is you do what you do. Because if you don’t, we’re just gonna end up right back here and I just can’t do this again, it’s just too painful, do you understand that?”
Shane: “I’m not happy, Tess.”
Tess collapses in tears. Shane holds her and Tess wants to get off this ride! Girl get out of there it’s okay Space Mountain isn’t for everyone there is a tilt-o-whirl out there with your name on it!!!! Just ask Jenny!
Meanwhile in the land of sweet summer children who have yet to experience adult heartbreak, Angie and Bella are vibrator shopping because Gen Z is EMPOWERED.
Well, I’m excited for these two to receive their matching vibrators. Hopefully Angie will fall in love with her vibrator and not want to go to La Jolla with Hendrix Fitz after all.
Back at the Shess Shack of Sadness, Tess and Shane are staring into the middle distance, waiting for Godot, but instead it’s Finley who arrives, like a prince on a white horse but in a white sweater-vest, here to save the day! Tess screams and hugs her and Shane drops some perfunctory gratitude and says, “I’m gonna get my stuff and I’m gonna take the dog.”
“That’s just it, you’re just gonna go?” Tess asks.
“Yeah,” Shane says, cold as ice. “I don’t know what else to do, Tess. I can’t keep hurting you so I think this is for the best.”
Tess slides into Finley’s arms.
I felt like we saw some growth with Shane earlier but the way this scene ends feels kinda familiar: Shane withdrawing emotionally and moving to cut ties after using cheating as a getaway car, walking off like she always did before. Back then, I think that behavior was rooted in her (self-perpetuating) conviction that literally everybody was better off without her, that she was doing them a favor by walking out. (She was wrong, but.) Now she’s 42 years old, she’s built a hairstyling empire and had a whole-ass marriage that seemingly would’ve lasted if they’d been on the same page about parenting.
So I think I’m wanting something huge and different here, and hopefully we’ll get it in future episodes! For example: a) Shane and Tess agreeing to try non-monogamy. b) Shane having a complete mental breakdown that she can’t believe she’s here again — not one where she just goes on a bender and fucks an ex or does something unsustainably dramatic like swearing off sex, but the kind where you are taking inventory and soberly sobbing in your friends’ arms and actually signing up for therapy and developing a reasonable plan to change your life. c) Shane revealing something unexpected in this conversation that might surprise Tess and the audience, like admitting that she actually fell out of love a long time ago, but she stuck around ’cause she felt obligated to help her Mom and they co-owned Dana’s and she was determined not to repeat old patterns by walking out on her responsibilities, which unfortunately led to her doing something else equally harmful. Or something even more shocking, like that Molly reached out a few weeks ago and they’ve been texting and it brought up a lot of old feelings for Shane and that combined with Ivy made her realize this isn’t working anymore. And then Molly could come back and that’d be fun!
Micah and Maribel have finally filled out their very specific desires on this sperm bank website and surprise! Zero results.
Because I am mentally unwell, I replicated their search on the California Cryobank website and although “interests” is not actually something you can search for, I did input their identical requirements for race, education level and areas of study and found two (2) donors. Huge selection!
We return to California University where inspirational house band music plays in the background as Angie takes the unfortunate step of agreeing to go on a weekend trip with her professor! This is like when I was 18 and went on a weekend trip to France and Switzerland with my 27-year-old boyfriend, except probably her professor won’t buy a sword at a flea market and insist they eat at McDonald’s for lunch and dinner.
Back at Chez Alice, Alice is reading Margaret Cho’s book but her mind is restless so she switches gears and attempts a little snooze.
But barely has she laid her head upon her pillow when her phone begins to buzz, which is a throwback to earlier when there was a bee buzzing in Shess’ kitchen.
We return to the Shess Shack where Finley apologizes for shutting the bar down early and also for what they might owe the fire department but it was either that or drink, so!
“I’m talking because I felt like whatever happened out there was bad and I wanna make it better but I don’t know how to,” Finley admits, nervously. Tess looks at Finley and Finley looks back and they pause and remember the world and decide to go to a meeting.
In a previously undisclosed courtyard of some sort at FiSoMiMar’s, Sophie’s got ice cream and popcorn and Dani and the realization that what happened tonight was so very gay.
Then Sophie reveals an additional detail about her weekend with Dre that I don’t think she communicated very clearly to Finley: “We had the best weekend together. It was like it was in a different life for me or something.”
Sophie tells Dani she should go for it with Dre if she wants to, but Dani says she wouldn’t do that to Sophie ’cause she’s “loyal like a dog” to her ex-fiancee who cheated on her with their mutual friend who then interrupted their wedding to announce her love for Sophie in front of all their friends and family. Dani, if you won’t date your ex’s exes you are going to die alone! Loyalty will get you nowhere in this town!
Sophie and Dani decide there’s only one place to go from here: watching the director’s cut of The Wedding Planner. I love the exes-to-enemies-to-friends pipeline!
We then return to Chez Alice, where Shane and her dog have cuddled up into Alice’s bed and it’s super cute and Shane’s found one small source of solace in this forlorn evening: the now-viral video of Alice yelling in the movie theater.
“Do you ever think that maybe this not right thing has more to do with you?” Shane asks about their relationships because for her at least it does seem to have a lot to do with her.
“Nah,” Alice says, and I love this for her.
“Well look at us,” Alice says. Two sad, hot lesbians in a bed! And then she asks Shane, “you wanna be the little spoon?”
“Nobody’s ever asked me that before,” Shane says, like maybe this could be the root of something bigger. “Yeah, I wanna be the little spoon.”
And so Alice and Shane and the dog join together like spoons in a drawer on sale at West Elm.
L Word Generation Q 305 Recap Round-Up:
Lesbian Squabbles: 2 this episode, 10 total
Lesbian Sexy Moments: 0 this episode, 4 total
Quote of the Week:
Dani:Â I’ll have a tequila rocks. Nothing cheap.
Finley: No, I know bud. I’ve been to your house.
