Happy Friday! Let’s see what’s new! Last week’s RuPaul’s Drag Race was one for the goth girls. Anya says that the second season of Traitors ended with a fizzle. Christina Hendricks and Hannah Einbinder got hot and heavy in new Hacks trailer. Drew went to see Dune 2 and immediately wondered which Euphoria characters would survive in that world. Gabe Dunn interviewed Couple to Throuple’s Ash and Maximo!

Good Trouble aired their series finale, capping off eleven years in the Fosters-verse! Carmen revisited Halle Berry’s Bruised for this week’s anatomy of a queer sex scene. Drew revisited bad 2000s movies that she loved just because two women kissed in them (and that is a perfect genre of film, if you ask us!) Kayla saw Drive Away Dolls and wrote not one, but two different Style Thief Breakdowns just for you! How To Button Up Like Marian in Drive-Away Dolls and How To Harness the Texan Lesthario Style of Drive-Away Dolls’ Jamie!

Autostraddle is turning 15 this week!! A TV-related fun fact is that the launch of this website coincides with the original L Word series finale, so we like to joke that Jenny Schecter died so we could live! Happy 15 year anniversary Jenny, may you rest in peace. To celebrate our birthday this year, we are making a week long party out of chaotic Top 15 lists, and a few of them are of interest your interest:

• Top 15 Black Actresses Over 50 Who I Think Should Play Gay (Again) by Carmen
• Top 15 TV Mommies I Want To Be (With) by Ashni

Of course, the biggest pop culture news this week is Sunday’s Academy Awards! And for the first time ever, Autostraddle is honoring the occasion with a week’s worth of deep dive film criticism about nominated films (yes, even the straight ones or ones that we otherwise normally would not cover). Get ready for some incredibly smart reads:

• The Most Important Relationship in “Anatomy of a Fall” Is Between Mother and Son by Aamina Inayat Khan
• In “Past Lives,” It Really Is All on the Page by Georgie Morvis
• From “My Best Friend’s Wedding” to “The Holdovers,” Paul Giamatti Is One of Cinema’s Great Listeners by Marya E. Gates
• “The Zone of Interest” Has Never Been More Relevant — Why Does It Feel So Empty? by Drew
• “American Fiction” Is More Than Its Satire by Carmen
• And Drew and Riese got together for their annual breakdown, Oscars 2024: Two Queers Discuss the Honestly Very Gay 96th Academy Awards

Notes from the TV Team: 

+ Will any chefbians join Britt Rescigno in the second round of Food Network’s Tournament of Champions? We’ll find out this Sunday as Crista Luedtke, Karen Akunowicz, and Tiffani Faison step into the arena to face worthy competition and the Randomizer. Fingers crossed! — Natalie

NCIS: Hawai’i 304: “Dead on Arrival”

Written by Natalie

After a naval pilot is found dead at a local resort that caters to military personnel, Jane Tennant’s team is called in to investigate. The team learns the pilot was a regular at the resort and never left the hotel during any of her visits. Convinced that something is awry at the resort, Tennant taps Kate and Lucy to go undercover as newlyweds. I love this so much for us.

When they arrive at the resort, Kate plays the doting wife who’s new to the island while Lucy acts as the savvy veteran, returning to Hawai’i after being stationed at Pearl Harbor years ago. But as soon as the bellhop leaves their suite with a nice tip in his pocket, both women revert back to their usual selves: Kate being a little neurotic (about the oversized tip) and Lucy being utterly charmed by her. The couple heads down to the resort bar and begin to survey the landscape, starting with the resort night manager who’s already drawn the team’s suspicions. But as they’re watching him, Lucy realizes that they’re also being watched.

The couple take their drinks over and meet George Conrad, the resort’s honorary concierge and self-proclaimed mayor. He congratulates the “big tippin’ newlyweds” on their recent nuptials and the couple presses him for gossip about the murder victim. Determined not to bring down the mood, George pivots, offering to purchase the newlyweds a bottle of champagne. But while George gets the bottle and glasses, Kate spots the night manager and a suspicious guest (with a gun) walking away. Kate’s able to follow the suspects but Lucy gets cornered by a gregarious George.

The next day, Kate leads Lucy back to where she saw the night manager and his suspicious guest duck into the previous night. Lucy’s reluctant to go inside — the door says “authorized personnel only” — but Kate is ready to charge ahead. In fact, Kate’s so impulsive that she doesn’t see the hotel staffer coming their way but thankfully Lucy does and pulls her into a nearby office. Lucy presses Kate against the wall and silences her until the threat is gone.

Once they are out of danger, the reality of the moment sets in: Kate towering over Lucy, their bodies pressed against each other. They add to the charged moment by whispering to each other. It’s all very hot and, because this is CBS, the sexual tension is diffused by their need to get back to work. Links to fanfics detailing how that scene should’ve ended are welcome in the comments.

The pair search the storage room and find nothing illicit but Lucy happens upon a wedding dress and, finally, the conversation I’ve been anticipating, since they opted to go undercover as newlyweds, finally happens, sort of. Kate reveals that her mother’s been imagining her wedding since she was 17. While Kate claims she doesn’t really care, the way she reacted to that dress says otherwise. Lucy, on the other hand, never imagined a wedding for herself, in part because her parents are unsupportive. It’s a deeper more affecting conversation than I’d anticipated.

Ernie interrupts with a theory about how the pilot was killed so Kate and Lucy head to the crime scene to investigate further… or, rather, to the floor above the crime scene. Lucy explains that she knows how the killer got into the pilot’s room without going through the door. But rather than just telling her girlfriend her theory, Lucy runs off and hops over the railing of the balcony. Kate nearly has a heart attack but Lucy’s safe on the balcony outside the crime scene.

Later, the team updates the couple with information about the resort’s drug smuggling operation, via pineapples, and Kate and Lucy plan to return to the storage room to investigate. But before Kate can meet Lucy, an unknown assailant swoops into their suite (via the upstairs balcony) and tries to take Kate out. Thankfully Kate’s able to fight off her assailant and, when Lucy arrives, exclaims, “no offense, but this honeymoon sucks.”

The rest of the team uses the identity of Kate’s assailant to locate the cartel behind the drug smuggling (and the pilot’s murder) and take down the whole operation. As they dig through the evidence, the team is convinced they haven’t found the mastermind — the person who connected the cartel with the pilots — but Lucy has: she saddles up next to George at the bar and exposes him as the ringleader. George slides his knife out of his pocket and makes a move toward Lucy but Kate (and her gun) dissuade him of that.

I mentioned this in my review of Vigil, but it bears repeating here: NCIS: Hawai’i has set a new bar for this genre when it comes to how to bring together the personal and the procedural… and if anyone needs more evidence of that, direct them to this episode.

(Though the show did a good job with making George seem like a resort-going lush, the casting gave this one away for me. No one brings John Marshall Jones in to play a run of the mill alcoholic.)

Hightown 307: “Big Fish”

Written by Natalie

Can we all get a hug from Monica Raymund to comfort us over the loss of Hightown?

Let’s take one last trip to the Cape, shall we?

Realizing that he’s been caught, Tom Dolan charges at Jackie. She fights but Dolan’s able to withstand her attacks and he drags her body to his garage. He wraps a rope around her neck and she claws for anything around her to stop him. Finally, she gets her hands on box cutter and she jabs the blade into him until she can escape his grasp. Soon thereafter, the police arrive and Jackie nurses her wounds on the edge of an ambulance. Alan approaches and she explains: Veronica stole the Civil War era bayonet from Dolan, traded it to Petey for drugs and Dolan killed him when he went to reclaim it. As she retells the story, the reality of what she went through settles in.

“He was going to kill me, Alan. He was going to fuckin’ kill me,” she cries.

Alan comforts her but it’s all for naught when they look up and see Fall Brook PD leading Dolan out of the house, uncuffed. Alan steps up to take possession of the crooked cop but the Fall Brook officer insists that Dolan’s coming with them (“he’s one of ours,” he says). Dolan tries to put all the blame on Jackie but Alan’s not having it: he asserts his authority as a member of the State Police and takes Dolan into custody.

The next morning, Jackie’s still shaken but her surrogate father, Ed, is there. He pushes her to talk about what happened and, though she’s reluctant, she finally admits how scared she was. A few weeks ago, Jackie worried she was on the verge of killing herself but now, as Dolan tried to kill her, all she could think about how much she still had left to do. Ed wraps her in an embrace and lets her cry against his chest. He suggests she takes some time off and, though she says it sounds good, he knows there’s no way Jackie’s not seeing this case through until the end. And when Ray arrives and Ed departs, she admits as much aloud.

“Ray, I am going after him. Not just for the Petey murder but for all of it,” Jackie proclaims and Ray fully backs her up. It’s so interesting to see Ray operate with so much cognitive dissonance in this scene. He is indignant about what this crooked cop has done but he spends the bulk of this episode coloring so far outside the lines, he and Dolan should be sharing a cell. It never seems to strike him that he’s as guilty as Dolan.

Jackie’s first stop in building the case against Dolan: Veronica. They meet at a local diner and she confirms everything Jackie suspected about Petey’s death. She exposes all the rot in the Fall Brook police department but she’s reluctant to come forward. Jackie urges Veronica to trust her and, to my surprise, she does. Veronica reaches out and strokes Jackie’s arm suggestively, but Jackie is all business: she leaves and tells Alan it’s time to bring Swazey in.

Between Veronica and Swazey, Jackie gets enough information to bring down the entire Fall Brook PD, but when she brings the case to the DA, they’re reluctant to investigate the corruption. Furious, she runs to Ray to vent her frustrations and he’s surprisingly unsympathetic. It’s a reaction that should provoke some skepticism on Jackie’s part but it doesn’t. Even when Alan tells her that Ray is covering up Jorge Cuevas’ murder, she stands by the guy who made it possible for her to do this job. But at her AA meeting, Jackie reveals a bit more skepticism and processes her dilemma aloud.

Outside, Jackie runs into Leslie. I should’ve expected this when her name was invoked last week but I’m shocked when she appears on-screen. They offer each other apologies and try to make amends for their transgressions. Leslie admits that the move out of the unit was probably the best thing for her; now she’s preparing to take the sergeant’s exam. Jackie confesses that things are bad at work and admits Ray’s at the root of it. Leslie treads lightly — she knows Jackie and Ray are friends — but insists that Ray is not a good guy. She asks Jackie to call her and the pair exchange a long hug before Leslie heads inside.

But if everything else, including Leslie’s warning, have made Jackie more skeptical of Ray, it’s his behavior when Frankie Cuevas is found dead, that finally cements Jackie’s realization about who Ray truly is. Alan asks what side Jackie is going to be on and she decides: she dons a blazer and button up and joins Alan in reporting the corruption to Internal Affairs.

Jackie concludes the series out on the water with Ed and it is, I guess, what counts as a happy ending for her. I’m glad for that but I’ll always wish that Hightown (and Starz) gave Jackie Quinones more.

Death and Other Details Episode 109 & 110: “Impossible” & “Chilling”

Written by Valerie Anne

Poor, traumatized little lesbian.

Okay wow, those two episodes? Holy cow. Let’s get into it!

The invaders are offering nine seats on their helicopter to the highest bidder before the bomb on the ship goes off. Throughout this episode you could hear a steady tick, tick, tick in the background and it was extremely effective at adding stress.

Anna doesn’t want to bid, and sits there catatonic while her brother scrambles around trying to get seats for himself, Anna, Leila, and Imogene. The priest tricks Mr. Collier into signing money over to him so he can buy himself a seat. Eleanor offers to be a straw bid to secure a seat for herself. Mrs. Chun won’t bid; she “will not play a game where only the rich survive.”

When Trip can’t buy a seat, he offers to help Brad steal the helicopter, but when he can’t find his girls, he gives up and Brad leaves without him… and the helicopter explodes. Cheat, cheat, never beat.

Meanwhile, Imogene, Leila, Teddy, Sunil, and Jules work together to crack the code in Danny’s notebook. They read about an unknown employee on the first day and check That Derek’s phone and see Agent Hilde Eriksen on the ship…before anyone was murdered.

Imogene confronts her with what she knows to be true: Agent Eriksen is Viktor Sams. And Kira Scott. Imogene’s mother.

Then the bomb goes off.

But the ship doesn’t fully explode. Kira insists no one was harmed, and a ferry will save everyone. It was just meant to scare. Kira explains that she knew the Colliers were trying to have her killed so she had to disappear, which is impossible with a child. She dedicated her life to taking down billionaires.

After the people on the ship are rescued, Eleanor tells Anna she was worried about her when the bomb went off…in return, Anna tells her she never wants to see her again. Eep!

Imogene asks her mother to walk away from her Viktor Sams empire, and at first it seems she did. Six months later, they’re skiing. But Kira never stopped. So, they catch her. Imogene, Rufus, Teddy, Leila, and Jules. They snuck the servers to safety in a bar cart, a brilliant callback. Kira is busted.

Meanwhile, Anna is doing a mountain of cocaine and random girls in the pool. She signed the divorce papers but Leila hasn’t filed them; she knows what it’s like to feel alone.

One night when Anna is hooking up with one of her randos, Kira’s right-hand man from the ship shows up; calls Anna an asset. Turns out, she’s under Kira’s thumb too, and has been since the night she murdered her mother. No wonder she wasn’t afraid of dying on the ship.

The season ends with Imogene, Leila, Teddy, and Jules finding a pile of severed limbs. But it’s not Rufus’s voiceover anymore, it’s Imogene’s. She’s the detective now.

I loved these episodes, this whole season. I had a blast, and I hope they get renewed.

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