It’s the end of another week, here’s what happend on your screens: First off, Valerie promises that Hazbin Hotel is a musical extravaganza about a bubbly queer princess of hell (which is quite the descriptor!!), don’t miss her review and she also has more details for you below. We also interviewed Hazbin Hotel showrunner Vivienne Medrano (aka VivziePop) on her favorite musical and giving people second chances! Hell princesses for everybody! The latest episode of Drag Race had some mommy issues. Meanwhile, on a different reality show, The Traitors had a killer move.
Love on the Spectrum failed to give its queer woman the dates she deserved. The Hot Lesbian on “LOL: Last One Laughing Ireland” absolutely should have won! And Hightown unfortunately fails to fulfill its potential in its final season. This week in our anatomy of a queer scene series, Drew and Kayla revisisted a classic: The Sex in Bound Changed Our Lives (and did!!). We updated the 60 best queer and lesbian Netflix TV Shows. And did you happen to miss this year’s Oscars nominations? Don’t worry, Drew has you all set.
Don’t miss Autostraddle’s Sundance coverage!
Drew has also been spending the week covering the best in queer film from the Sundance Film Festival, so please catch up! In particular, you don’t want to miss her review of In the Summers — which just won the grand jury prize!! A huge deal.
Notes from the TV Team:
+ I haven’t updated on Raising Kanan in a couple of weeks, but just know that I still have my eye on Jukebox and Iesha. Last week Kanan took Iesha on a date and acted like a total ass, and when Juke got word of it she promptly showed up to whoop some sense into him (metaphorically, of course). There’s some underlying tensions brewing between the cousins anyway, ever since Kanan has fallen deeper into the drug game. Making matters more sticky, Juke’s father, who is right now her biggest advocate, is a #1 suspect in a crime ring by the feds. And to top it all off, the U.S. military recruitment process is still swooping around Juke like a bad habit that I wish she’d quit. I’m still feeling optimistic that it’s darkest before the dawn, but that’s where we are for now! — Carmen
+ No Alice or Malika on this week’s episode of Good Trouble but I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that this week’s episode was directed by Mariana Adams Foster herself, AKA Cierra Ramirez. It’s her first time behind the camera and follows in the footsteps of her TV mom, Sherri Saum, who directed episode #512. — Natalie
La Brea Episode 303: “Maya”
Written by Valerie Anne
This would have been a very cute first kiss and I’m sad they balked!!!
In its third and final season, La Brea is finally giving us a queer couple worth rooting for. (Sorry to the singular queer woman who was briefly on screen and had a dead wife.)
In last week’s episode, when Izzy and Leyla first met, they immediately butted heads, so obviously I immediately started shipping them. Leyla’s mother forced her to give Izzy bow and arrow lessons, and I rubbed my hands together maniacally, excited for the enemies-to-lover storyline to commence. And it happened even faster than I anticipated! This week, they start flirting while going out on a boar hunt, and then Leyla falls into a tar pit. While Izzy tries to find a way to get her out, they bond about feeling like outsiders and being underestimated. When Izzy finally gets her out, they get attacked by a boar, but they take it down together, and almost hug until they realize Leyla is still covered in tar. Instead they smile shyly at each other and Izzy wipes a little tar off Leyla’s chin.
Later that night, Leyla finds Izzy by the fire and thanks her again for caring about her. She asks if she’s right, that Izzy cares about her, and Izzy beams and confirms that she does, indeed. Izzy takes Leyla’s hand and they almost kiss but they’re interrupted so they decide against having their first kiss out in the middle of the chaos of camp but keep holding hands and smiling at each other. It’s very cute and it will definitely ease the brain-ache the time travel in this season causes me.
Hazbin Hotel Episode 105 & 106: “Dad Beat Dad” & “Welcome to Heaven”
Written by Valerie Anne
There are also so many adorable moments where they cut to Vaggie and she’s just beaming at Charlie. TOO CUTE.
Two more episodes of the adorable Hazbin Hotel dropped, and they are just as deliciously gay and fun as the first four.
Vaggie wakes up to see Charlie missing from her side of the bed, and goes to the lounge to find her with a murderboard trying to figure out why the hotel hasn’t worked yet. Vaggie suggests asking Charlie’s dad for help and Charlie is resistant at first, but when she realizes her dad could get her a meeting in Heaven with someone other than Adam the Asshole she calls Lucifer, who is voiced by Jeremy Jordan.
Charlie works up the nerve to ask him for a favor, Vaggie close by her side and holding her hand the whole time. Lucifer comes to the hotel and Charlie introduces her to Vaggie as her girlfriend. Lucifer has the most dad reaction ever; “You like girls, we have so much in common!” He hugs Vaggie and laughs nervously saying she’s so pretty. After a little song-fight with the Radio Demon and some bonding with Charlie, Lucifer agrees to get them the meeting in Heaven. Charlie tells Vaggie they’re going to Heaven and Vaggie is a little stressed about the plurality of Charlie’s statement.
The next morning (and the next episode), Vaggie tries to get out of the trip but she can’t lie to Charlie. Charlie says, “You’re my partner, I need you there with me,” so Vaggie agrees.
Is “Bubblegum Princess Melts Ice Queen” a trope because if it is it’s one of my favorites.
They head up to St. Peter (Darren Criss). He welcomes them to Heaven and introduces them to Sera (Patina Miller) and Emily (Shoba Narayan), the Seraphim angels. Charlie is hype about heaven and wants to explore, but Vaggie stays back in their hotel room. While she’s alone, Adam and his sidekick Lute show up and reveal that Vaggie was once an Angel Warrior. Which, if I may toot my own horn, I called early on. I noticed no one else had the same X over one eye besides Angel Warriors, and I’m very happy to be proven right. Though it turns out the X over the eye is part of an Angel Warrior mask that they wear, and when Vaggie was caught letting a scared little demon go, her fellow angels took her mask, plucked out her eye, and left her for dead. That’s when Charlie found her and took care of her and they fell in love.
Adam tries to blackmail Vaggie into helping him, and she refuses, so he leaves her with the threat that if she doesn’t, he’ll tell Charlie the truth.
Everyone meets up at the trial where they are going to decide if a soul can be redeemed and move from Hell to Heaven. They watch Angel Dust being a good person, and seeming to meet all the criteria of heaven, but also he didn’t get poofed up to Heaven, so everyone is confused. That’s when Charlie realizes no one in Heaven actually knows what it takes to get into Heaven. Charlie and Emily start to plead with Sera but then Adam brags about the Extermination. Emily is horrified, and to distract the blame from himself, Adam outs Vaggie as an ex-angel warrior. Charlie falls to her knees and Vaggie runs to her side.
Sera puts an end to the chaos by declaring that souls can’t be redeemed and sending Charlie and Vaggie back to Hell, Adam shouting a threat after them that the Hazbin Hotel will be his first stop in the next Extermination. Emily calls after them to not give up hope but once the portal closes, Sera warns Emily that if she pushes this too far, she’ll end up fallen, too.
Death and Other Details Episode 103: “Troublesome”
Written by Valerie Anne
Anna was so busy in this episode, it made ME tired.
This week on the murder mystery boat, Leila tells Anna she’s going to the pool and Anna offers to meet her later, but she has business to attend to first. When Leila is gone, she confesses that she lost six more pillows to a listening device sweep that morning. But Anna can’t focus on her wife’s paranoia right now, she needs this deal with the Chuns to go down or she’s going to lose her business before she even officially inherits it. After a little round of bossing people around, she goes to find her wife at the pool, but her ex Eleanor is there and says she hasn’t seen Leila all day. (Also she’s hooked up to the B12 IV that we’ve seen the governor get…the governor who is now coughing, separate of her allergic-to-her-tryst sneezing…) Before she runs off after Anna again, Eleanor asks her why she didn’t wait for her, all those years ago. Anna is appalled; she tried to wait, she would have done anything for Eleanor, but she left. Eleanor says “I’m here now” but Anna points out she has terrible timing and goes off to find her wife.
When Leila isn’t in her room, she goes to ask her mom if she’s seen her, and instead gets an eyeful of her mother and Father Toby having shower sex. Mom insists Anna can keep a secret, but the pastor is a little shaken.
Anna’s next stop is her dad, who she tells to stay quiet in the meeting because she’s the only adult in the family and also she’s willing to sell her soul to save her company. She ends up going to the Chun meeting alone.
While looking for clues, Imogen spots Leila swipe a knife so she decides to follow her. She watches discreetly as Leila swipes rope, duct tape, and another knife before seeming to disappear down a dead end. She pokes around a bit (literally) and finds a secret door. She goes down into the bowels of the ship..where Jules appears and presses his hand over Imogen’s mouth. At this same time we learn that Jules isn’t who he seems to be, so our heroine might be in some deep…ship.
Love Lauren Patten. Her first single from her new covers ep is All I Really Want. I have to watch the first few episodes.
I’ve been loving the last couple episodes of Hazbin Hotel so much, especially the most recent one because I’ve had that theory literally since the pilot and I hadn’t seen much discussion of it before it happened, although in retrospect I hadn’t engaged with the fandom very much.
One thing I’m really happy about though is… well, I didn’t really like Vaggie or Charlie/Vaggie very much in the pilot, personally? I didn’t hate pilot Vaggie or think she was a bad person or anything but I’m not a fan of characters who are that much the straight man in the comedy sense and it didn’t seem like she was getting anything positive out of any of the wackier elements of the show, including Charlie herself. I wanted the theory to be true because I wanted there to be a big turning point for her characterization. I’m not sure I can put my finger on what exactly the show is doing differently but now I love the ship and she’s probably my favorite character, and I wanted the theory to be true because it would be another interesting thing going on with a character I’m having a great time with. It’s always okay not to like a canon ship or whatever, but it is the thing that is happening, so when things turn around like this it’s really nice.
Also nice: rewatching the previous episodes with this in mind was great. I’m especially fond of Vaggie perching in the crow’s nest like a bird whenever she’s involved in a musical number.
I am now going to tinhat that Charlie and Emily are related, wish me luck.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they are related! I was convinced the first time I watched the episode that Emily was played by Erika Henningson, too! They sound so similar, and have matching energies, and I don’t think that’s an accident!
Exactly! And in terms of character design, Emily looks a lot like a Sera/Lucifer baby, too…
Did hazbin hotel fix their transphobia & various forms of racist tropes?