Back at California University, Angie and Shane are heading into the parking garage when Angie spots Hendrix Fitz’s car and is drawn by a drama magnet to peer inside. There it is — her chapbook! The one he took before taking her virginity and breaking her heart! Man, the unique pain of seeing your hard work in somebody’s backseat like it’s a Starbucks napkin.
Shane’s very impressed by Angie’s book-making talents and salutes her for not simply throwing a rock through this man’s window…
… which of course inspires Angie to throw a rock through this man’s window. Shane yells at her to stop but it turns out she just doesn’t want Angie to cut her feet on the glass! They flee the premises.
Then, Hendrix Fitz and his new date emerge and see the broken window. Initially he wants to call the cops but when Hendrix realizes what was taken from the car, he decides not to.
We cut back to the Dana Fairbanks Memorial Tavern backroom where Sophie and Finley are communicating like they used to – when they were people who believed in each other and saw each other and said so, often.
Finley: I wanted her to say that it was okay.
Sophie: Oh my god, of course, I get that! She’s your fucking Mom!
Finley: My Mom and she fucking hates me. Why does she hate me?
Sophie: No, she fucking hates herself, okay. Look at me. Finley, you are so special. You bring so much joy to the people around you, okay? You were dealt a shitty fucking hand and you turned it into the most amazing life ever, and not everybody can do that. Not that fucking crazy Mayflower-Riding Thanksgiving-Loving white lady out there. She doesn’t know you. She doesn’t know the Finley that I know.
And then they kiss, and a dove of hope began its upward slope and I believed for a moment that their chances were approaching to be grabbed but then they’re interrupted by Carrie: “I knew it! I knew you were fucking sexting!”
Close on Carrie’s heels is Misty, who apparently has yet to release the buildup of excrement screaming from the annals of her bowels and now requires a full evacuation of the area.
Carrie and Sophie and Finley emerge from the backroom into the dining area. Sophie and Finley exit with affection like a couple deeply in love and destined for glory. So Virginia and Nana pass back the $20 —
Sophie: “Nana, what are you doing! I told you we’re not together anymore!”
[Finley looks dejected, tries to shrug it off]
Mrs Finley: “Sarah – did you date this girl? I didn’t know she was gay!”
Carrie: [under her breath] “Don’t go there, don’t do it.”
Mrs Finley: “I mean… you’re just so pretty.”
Carrie: “She went there.”
Also though, has Mrs. Finley like… seen her own daughter? Is she really from Kansas City or does she live in an underground bunker isolated from society? What… is going on here
Which brings us to….
Squabble #14: Finley Has Two Mommies But One of Them Sucks
In the Ring: Everybody, sort of, but mostly Carrie and Finley
Finley: Why do you have to say shit like that?
Carrie: Kind of brutal, Mom.
Mrs. Finley: Oh excuse me, who are you?
Carrie: I’m Carrie, I’ve been filling in in your absence.
Mrs. Finley: Oh well, thank you Carrie, I hope you like cleaning up messes, because she’s really good at making them.
Finley adds that life sucks when your Mom kicks you out at 17 for being gay. Mrs. Finley says Finley is exaggerating! Then Mrs. Finley loses every fight forever by yelling You need to be on medication! Probably she read on a QAnon forum that you can cure homosexuality with horse tranquilizers or something.
And then Tess ambles over with en enormous turkey ’cause I guess they’ve just been eating sides for the past hour? And Tess trips and falls and drops a whole entire turkey on Mrs Finley!
It breaks the mood because now everybody’s laughing, including Finley, and Carrie tells Mrs. Finley that it’s time for her to go.
Mrs Finley: “I was really hoping you had changed.”
Finley: “I have.”
Because she has. She’s changed a lot! But that one thing — that gay thing — is still true.
Who Wins? Finley and Carrie.
Then everything gets pretty sweet because all of these people — some of whom are not big Finley fans — come together at Carrie’s urging to give Finley a giant group hug. It feels sweet and so very earned. (It also makes me wish Sophie had an episode as focused on her as this one was on Finley, which obviously can’t happen now that Bette and Tina are on their way back to Los Angeles. Sophie and Gigi were my favorite new characters and Sophie’s yet to really get the spotlight she deserves this season.)
Cut to Finley and Sophie leaning on the counter by the pie, and Sophie says that despite the clear chemistry and deep emotional bond she has with Finley… and that they’ve been apparently sexting… she still just wants to be friends. Finley says she’s still in love with Sophie and would find friendship challenging. But Finley does remember what kind of pie Sophie likes, which is meaningful for a reason I lack the strength to discern.
Carrie tells Finley she’s really proud of her and Dani wants to make a very generous toast to Finley “for bringing us all together.”
Dani notes that they’ve yet to read their gratitude notes — a Suarez family tradition she misses and I will be adopting for myself. So Dre pulls the first note from the bowl and reads it, and it turns out to be the same thing Virginia writes every year. Cute family moment!
Then Nana has to read and she gets Micah’s! Our little stoner has written “I’m so grateful for our donor”! I guess this is because earlier in the episode, Micah got an email that a donor at the sperm bank matched their search results?
They’ve yet to even look at this man’s full profile or actually purchase the sperm or do [literally anything in the baby-making process] and everybody is losing their gourds with delight over this news as if Maribel just birthed a healthy baby boy directly onto the Thanksgiving table and announced that he was on track to be the next King of England.
Back at Carrie’s House for Wayward Finleys, Finley apologizes for lying about sexting Sophie. Carrie says she gets it, she dated the same woman on and off for 16 years.
Carrie: “I don’t think it’s bad, you know, I just think it’s gay.”
Then Carrie says her arm hurts, which means she’s about to have a heart attack. And then… she does?
MUST WE? I mean, can Finley just … have an episode where she rises above and is supported by her peers and has an adult who cares for her?
We return to the barren Dana Fairbanks Memorial Tavern, where Tess and her go-cup are sighing in the backroom and then, because why anything, Tess goes ahead and shoots Shane a “miss you” text.
And then Tess’s voiceover begins and it’s some kind of monologue about what she learned from her mother filled with generic platitudes that were probably copied from a stack of coasters in the Cracker Barrel gift shop.
You taught me that every moment on this earth is a gift, Tess monologues.
Every moment of this show is a curse! my girlfriend shouts at the television.
We return to SoMiMar’s, where the ring has been miraculously located amongst the scraps on the kitchen island, so now it’s Maribel’s big moment to propose to Micah, who I imagine is still incredibly high! It’s okay though, my Mom proposed to my Dad while they were both on opium and that marriage lasted 14 years! Everybody’s happy for them yay!
Out on the rough-and-tumble streets of our fair city, Dani and Dre kiss each other goodbye and it parallels the way they met — but this time it’s Dre leaning against the car, and Dani going for the kiss. This is valuable switches representation. I’m rooting for them!
Tess has drunk-driven her car up to that outlook where Max drove his car to cry that one time. Tess is throwing her mother’s ashes into the wind. Bon voyage!
Back at Carrie’s, Finley’s on the ground doing chest compressions while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. The house music is warbling why can’t you breathe harder, and try to live ’cause I don’t know what I’d do without you! and when will the lord show me mercy.
This heart attack is lazy and cheap as a plot point but also as something to bequeath upon the show’s only not-skinny character after she exercises one (1) time. It’s the second episode this season ending with a near-death cliffhanger, infusing a storyline that was already rich and compelling and evolving with an unnecessary and merciless jolt of utter nonsense.
I cry basically every time anybody’s parent dies on television but the fact that me — a person whose parent died of an unexpected heart attack while running — could not summon a single tear for Tess’s Dead Mom Monologue layered over Carrie’s post-run heart attack … says a lot, I think.
L Word Generation Q Episode 308 Round-Up:
Squabbles: 2 this episode, 14 total
Sexy Moments: 0 this episode, 7 total
Quote of the Week: “I don’t think it’s bad, you know, I just think it’s gay.” – Carrie
