Superqueero Roundup Recap: Maggie Sawyer And Alex Danvers Walk Into A Gaylien Bar

Welcome to your Superqueero Roundup Recap, the place where Valerie Anne recaps all the queer and feminist goodness on all of DC’s superhero shows the day after they air. These recaps (and wee-caps) are posted in reverse chronological order, with the newest ones appearing up top. Make sure you’re following us on Twitter so you’ll know when this roundup recap is updated!

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Legends of Tomorrow 203: Captain Sara Lance

I’m not going to lie to you, despite the lack of lady-loving, this was my second favorite episode of Legends of Tomorrow to date. (The first being “Night of the Hawk” because I doubt this show will ever do better than Sara and Nurse Betty McRae falling a little bit in love.) It was just so fun! And with Sara in charge, it finally feels like the show found its stride. Even their mission went better than any they ever tried under Rip’s guidance. If you had asked me three years ago if Caity Lotz could carry an entire show on her tiny (yet very strong!) shoulders, I would have answered, “I don’t know? But I’d love to see her try?” But now if you asked me if I thought she could carry the rest of this season, I would punch the air with both fists and shout, “YES!” I don’t know if she’s grown as an actor, or if the writers have finally figured out how best to utilize her (maybe both), but this episode has me pretty damn excited about what’s to come.

But let’s start at the beginning. With an unexpected but very welcome twist: Vixen is back. Now that it looks like she’ll be sticking around for a minute (insert squeals of delight here), I reckon we can call her Amaya now and then.

But for now she’s Vixen, and she’s knocking the Legends out one by one. Even Captain Sara Lance.

Vixen finds Mick last and is going to slit his throat on the spot, but a thus-unconscious Nate comes to in that moment and turns into a metal person and they manage to contain her. Nate is VERY excited about this turn of events and runs through every iteration of Nate Heywood’s alias before deciding to go by simply Steel. (Even though I thought Citizen Steel sounded pretty cool.)

Sara appoints Ray as Nate’s new mentor and goes to chat with an angry little Vixen.

Sara finds out that Amaya wants to kill Mick because she believes he killed Rex Tyler, since Rex said a time traveler killed him, and he’s the only time traveling criminal she knows. But Sara tells her that they’re also seeking an evil time traveler, and Mick has been with them since they left the JSA. Sara lets Amaya go, after making her promise to behave; they apologize to each other and decide to let bygones be bygones.

Amaya immediately wants to go back to save Rex but Sara says they have to go for the source. She tries to convince Amaya they know what they’re doing, that they’re professionals, but of course as she’s saying this, they find the boys goofing around. And said goofing directly results in the ship door being smashed open and Nate and Ray being sucked out into the timestream.

Vixen doesn’t understand how this team is still (mostly) alive, and honestly even Gideon agrees at this point.

Nate and Ray both land in mid-17th Century Japan, though a few miles away from each other. Nate gets put on a woman’s cart and she takes him to her father’s place, where he learns her name is Masako and she’s engaged to a warlord against her will.

Meanwhile, Ray has a less welcoming entrance, and Samuris take his armor and hold him hostage.

Amaya isn’t trying to kill Mick anymore but she still hates him a lot and isn’t shy about it. She tells him there’s no such thing as ninjas and he growls at her until Sara tells the children she’ll send them right back to the hellscape that is 2016 if they don’t shut up.

Besides, Sara’s basically a ninja. (Amaya doesn’t fully buy it. Yet.)

Sara, Amaya and Mick think they find Ray but it turns out to be the warlord in Ray’s suit. Sara lets him know that she was League of Assassins, Class of ’09 (which is the year I graduated college, whatever it’s fine, we’re not soulmates or anything) and then does some stunning swordplay that will only be the first of many times she makes me swoon with her fighting-that’s-more-like-dancing this episode.

Eventually Vixen even joins in with her animal powers and they get away, collecting Ray as they GTFO.

They find Nate, too, but Nate wants to stay to save Masako from her arranged marriage to a man known throughout history for murdering his wives. But the thing is…he can’t get that metal skin thing to work. Sara teases him for having performance issues, leaves him with Ray to figure it out, and takes Vixen to go defend the village. Mick is gonna nap.

Meanwhile, not to be forgotten, Stein and Jax find a secret message from an older version of Barry Allen (as in, a Barry Allen who is over 60 years old, not like…a previous timeline version…ugh time travel is so hard to recount) and tells them a secret that only Rip was supposed to know, that the Legends aren’t supposed to ever find out.

Anyway, Ray teaches Nate how to break the suit, and both men whine about how hard it is to be a vigilante that relies on a supersuit or magic instead of years of torture, hard work, and training like Sara.

Speaking of our White Canary, she and Amaya are evacuating the village when the Samurais return. The leader is impressed by Sara’s skills and asks who her master is, but Sara “Ta-er al-Sahfer” Lance has no master.

And she does more badass fighting and it’s beautiful and graceful and strong and it’s just a dream come true.

Vixen even joins in the fight — and listen, I miss Hawkgirl so much, but damn am I glad Vixen joined the fray.

The boys are all still a work in progress, but Sara and Amaya make a damn good team.

Even Masako shows up for a little girl power action.

But of course Steel has to come save her. If they hadn’t been allowed to play in this fight the dudes would have all fallen on their swords, so, whatever. Sara dealt with her enemy just fine without them.

Steel fries the supersuit, Masako tells him to go float himself, and we find out that the sword she gifted him was Katana’s sword, so we haven’t seen the last of this family.

Back on the Waverider, Vixen gives Mick a throwing star as proof ninjas exist (and a peace offering), and Sara scares the poop out of Firestorm by asking them what their secret is even though she just means when did you learn how to fix a damn timeship.

After a little bit of discussion, the Legends realize they don’t really have a solid lead on where to go next to follow what they don’t know is the Reverse Flash, so they decide to just jump into the timestream and see where fate takes them. And this decision isn’t really up for discussion, because Captain Sara is in charge now!

Wasn’t that fun?? I had the most fun. I hope the rest of the season keeps this fun tone and lady badassery. What did you think?

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Arrow 504: New Team Rising

I mean, okay, Arrow is reforming a new team with the loss of Laurel and Thea wanting to wear less leather, fine. But why haven’t we called Nyssa in yet? Just saying, I think the rookies could use a professional assassin. I know I could.

Anyway.

First things first, Baby Bird has a real name now, and it’s Artemis. She also has her own bow and arrow set.

New Team Arrow goes on a mission and are still pretty bad at working as a team. Plus Ragman quit because even though he doesn’t blame Felicity for what happened to his family, her perfect face still reminds him of the tragedy and it hurts too much.

Meanwhile, Lyla swings by the Arrow Cave and quickly realizes, based on the lack of scolding, that Felicity doesn’t know that she and Oliver plan to break Diggle out of a military prison against his will. Because what Lyla knows to be true is indeed true, and Felicity thinks this plan is dumb as shit.

So instead of doing their usual ignore-Felicity-until-we-don’t schtick, they just don’t involve her. Felicity tries to send New Team Arrow to stop Oliver but it doesn’t go well. It’s a little bit like when a puppy tries to stop you from leaving the apartment. It’s really cute that they’re trying but definitely not keeping you from doing it.

While Oliver is Out of Town, a band of baddies lead by a guy named Church steal some weapons from the Anti-Crime Unit’s evidence locker. They need all the help they can get with Oliver out of town, and instead of calling Nyssa, Felicity goes to see Rory, all smiles despite being more torn up than his rags inside.

Rory thanks Felicity for reaching out, but he’s still not ready to come back to the team.

Felicity returns, yells at Wild Dog a few times for calling her Blondie, and eventually figures out where Church and his baddies are off to next. Wild Dog wants to go, and Curtis is ready to follow him, but Artemis and Felicity are a little too smart to want to go in leaderless.

But then Ragman comes and they take a vote and everyone heads into the fray. Felicity sends them off with one order: “Do not die.”

Oliver and Lyla’s plan takes a little turn but eventually they get Diggle out, after convincing him that he can make his penance by being Spartan.

New Team Arrow’s first solo mission goes…not terrific. (See what I did there?) Curtis gets a throwing star in the back and Wild Dog gets kidnapped. Lance and Felicity tells the team to leave Rene behind; they’ll get him later.

Thea is worried about how this decision will affect Lance, and he’s like, “If anything is going to make me start drinking again, it’ll be about my daughters, not this kid.”

Felicity is stressed about sacrificing yet another person, but Rory won’t let her beat herself up. They promise to keep each other from drowning in guilt in order to both work on the same team, a plan that sounds just fine to Felicity.

Oliver makes a dramatic re-entrance and is ready to clean up the mess his team made, starting with finding and saving Wild Dog (who is being tortured by Church).

See you tomorrow for a Sara Lance update!

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The Flash 304: Frozen Fractals All Around

Between Sara Lance bedding the Queen of France and starting a queer coven during the Salem Witch Trials, and Maggie Freaking Sawyer on this week’s Supergirl, I’ve seen what’s in the light and don’t want the shadows anymore. So as much as I love Iris, Caitlin, and Jesse, I spent most of this episode of The Flash feeling pretty salty that they’re the only one in this franchise who hasn’t given us any queer women yet. But let’s check in on Central City anyway.

The monster of the week was a straight couple who knew Snart (RIP) and got hit by the particle accelerator blast. The dude, Scutter, can now move through reflective surfaces and the woman, Rosa, can give people extreme vertigo. The team names them Mirror Master and Top. They’re losing their touch.

Iris’s deal this episode is Barry’s being squicky about kissing her in front of Joe and Joe is being weird about seeing HIS CHILDREN MAKE OUT and sorry B you two are cute and all but I’m with Joe on this one. Eventually Iris sits them all down and tell them to figure their shit out or she’s done with both of them.

Also Joe is dealing with his own romantic drama with a very attractive lawyer named Cecile who we saw briefly before and who I feel like we haven’t quite seen the last of.

Jesse Quick is learning how to be a superhero and still has some learning to do but is really getting the hang of it and is enjoying zipping Wally around the city in the meantime. She eventually has to leave with her dad, but she promises she’ll be back. And she looks super cute in her lil mask so I do hope she will.

Oh also she is the one who takes down Rosa, who rather likes being a Top.

Caitlin works most of the episode with Wells and Cisco to find a replacement Wells for when this Wells goes back to his Earth. Which seems unnecessary but whatever. They pick one wearing a weird hat who may or may not be shady. Caitlin eventually becomes a key part of saving Barry from being trapped in the mirror Scutter put him in, but it seems to activate her powers even more, giving her a hair stripe like when Anna got hit by Elsa’s ice blast, and blue lips that might make it hard to hide her powers from her team for much longer.

That’s really all. They’re still on the hunt for Dr. Alchemy, still on a slightly altered timeline but mostly everything is fine, and they’re now able to open breaches at will, which I imagine is how they’ll eventually get back to Supergirl’s world.

See you tomorrow for an Arrow weecap!

P.S.

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Supergirl 203: Maggie and Alex and Wonder Woman, Oh My!

Hello! Are you okay? I’m not okay! I’m better than okay! It’s still too soon to label Alex Danvers, but what we definitively got from this week’s episode of Supergirl was queer woman of color Maggie Sawyer, queer bartender/ex-girlfriend Darla, and woman of color M’gann aka The Last Daughter of Mars. All of which instantly make this feminist show even better! Plus, Maggie’s scenes all involved Alex and a lot of them were just between Maggie and Alex, and VERY flirtatious. I would say I didn’t want to give you false hope, but as President Wonder Woman said, “It’s hope…how can it be false?”

We pick up where we left off, with Kara telling the unconscious mystery alien that she’ll be by his side always and him coming to and grabbing her by the throat. They fight and despite Alex showing up WITH A BAZOOKA, the mystery fella gets away.

They can’t focus all their attention on that though, because the President of the United states is coming to National City, and she wants to visit the DEO because her newest movement is passing a law that grants aliens the same rights as humans. Everyone has their own opinions on this, but Kara is the very most excited because she gets to greet the President as soon as she lands.

But before President Wonder Woman is even off the plane, she’s attacked by fiery doom. Supergirl saves the President, and starts to investigate the scene with her sister. They see scorch marks eye-width apart, so they figure it’s the guy they found in the Kryptonian pod.

But then Alex spies something afoot. A pretty girl she’s never seen before in her crime scene. Alex comes in hot, demanding to know who this woman is, and the woman responds that she is Detective Maggie Sawyer.

She says that she’s part of a task force that investigates the left of center, and Alex says she’s part of the US Government, and they fight over jurisdiction as they get closer and closer and stare at each other it’s a miracle one of THEM wasn’t accused of having heat vision. Maggie ends the conversation with, “See you around, Danvers,” and we were officially doomed.

Meanwhile, in what would have been the news of the episode any time BMS (Before Maggie Sawyer), Kara goes to interview Lena Luthor, who is VERY HAPPY TO SEE HER. They talk about the President’s new movement and Lena says that she developed a tool that would let you test someone’s skin and tell if they’re an alien or not, which she thinks will make her a fortune and also be a good thing for the nation. So, plot twist, Lena’s a monster. But a beautiful monster! Kara fiddles with the test so that she passes it, and goes off to write her first article as a reporter.

At the DEO, Winn tracks the Mystery Alien’s DEO bracelet. Alex and her Bazooka run off to get him, but find Maggie instead.

Maggie has figured out that Alex is DEO but Alex ignores her follow-up questions on this front. After a brief trip back to the DEO to get scolded by Kara for going in alone, Alex gets a phone call from Maggie to see how the local cops deal with aliens. And, of course, Alex is quick to accept.

Alex decides to pull out all the stops and rolls up on her motorcycle, and Maggie says some motorcycle-y things and honestly she could have said other things between that and “I thought I’d buy you a drink,” but I blacked out.

Maggie knocks on a door and says the password “Dollywood” (which you will never convince me was not a direct nod to Heather Hogan) and takes Alex into what can only be described as a gaylien bar.

Members of this bar include: a woman who uses her sideways-blinking eyes to check out Alex, and a woman who used her tongue powers to learn English from Maggie once (but is now her ex.) Maggie explains that she grew up a non-white, non-straight woman in Nebraska, so she relates to these aliens quite a lot.

I think it’s worth noting here that Alex doesn’t flinch at the knowledge that the bartender is Maggie’s ex or that Maggie called herself not-straight. It was a Non-Issue, just the way I like it.

Anyway, after a little bit of a run-in with a dude with wiggly skin and a fiery woman, Alex knows that the Mystery Alien was trying to contact his home planet. They figure out that he was trying to get in touch with Daxon, Krypton’s arch nemesis. Kara immediately decides this guy is a nogoodnik and thinks that means that Lena is right.

She goes to see Lena, who is, yet again, super happy to see her. And Kara doesn’t look too upset to see Lena, either, despite their earlier conversation.

They have a conversation that would have been uncomfortable and angry if anyone except Kara Danvers was having it. Lena says she was pleasantly surprised that the article Kara wrote didn’t villainize her, and Kara said she did write that version, but her boss scrapped it, and she realized that there are bad aliens. This is all music to Lena’s ears.

Cut to President Wonder Woman signing the new treaty, which gets interrupted by more fireballs.

Alex and Kara both get hit and the Firestarter grabs Maggie, much to Alex’s dismay.

Oh, and Kara did the classic Wonder Woman outfit-change-spin to put out the fire on her supersuit and it was beautiful.

Alex goes back to the gaylien bar and asks the wiggly-skin man about the redhead and he continues to be difficult. A beautiful bartender (who is not Darla from earlier) gives Alex a lead when she hears Maggie is in danger.

Maggie is tied up and forced to listen to the Firestarter’s rage about this treaty and how it’s basically just a way to trick aliens out of hiding. Supergirl drops in to fight the alien while Alex sneaks in to untie Maggie.

The Danvers Sisters take out the Firestarter and Maggie is hella impressed.

Maggie does a little badass move of her own and Alex, well, she lets out this little, “Oh!” noise that I can’t even describe to you.

Alex patches up Maggie, who is very impressed by the DEO HQ, and they flirt and they flirt and they flirt and holy crap. At one point Alex says, “You did something for me too,” and I swear I thought she was going to just come right on out as bisexual, but she just says that she’s realizing now that not all aliens are bad. Maggie says they make a good team, and Alex tries to quasi-U-Haul and tells Maggie to stay at the DEO for a while to rest up. But Maggie has places to be. Alex makes a nervous joke, asking if Maggie has a hot date, and Maggie says she does and that she can’t keep the lady waiting. And then Alex’s face does a thing. It’s partially disappointed that Maggie might not be single, partially impressed at Maggie’s general swagger and air of confidence.

What’s weird is, the way Maggie said it didn’t actually seem like she had a real date. She said it in the way sometimes TV characters do when they are actually going to see a relative in prison or a secret kid but not actually a date at all. Or she could be going on a date with Kate Kane WHO KNOWS. All I know is that it didn’t feel like a coincidence that these two had so much screen time together.

To wrap up the other stuff going on, Kara apologizes to the Daxonian for jumping to conclusions and learns his name is Mon-El. President Wonder Woman makes an invisible jet joke and then reveals (to us only) that SHE’S actually an alien. And J’onn goes to the gaylien bar in his Martian form only to find out that the bartender from earlier (the one who helped Alex, not Darla) is M’gann, the Last Daughter of Mars.

Can you believe it? Our time has arrived! The future is female and queer af, with Supergirl leading the way. It’s like they pulled the bait-and-switch but finally not on us! “Hey, here’s Superman, all you folks who weren’t watching because it was #toofemale, come on over…JK SUPERMAN’S GONE AND SURPRISE WE’VE TRIPLED OUR BADASS LADY COUNT!” And don’t even get me started on how great this Maggie Sawyer already is, not being coy or shy or secretive about being not-straight, and Alex being super intrigued by her without being awkward and embarrassing about it. And I’m so here for a slow burn. For Alex to keep pretending to be unwilling to work together until finally she can’t take it anymore and it’s a beautiful collision of leather. (I mean, it’s definitely going to be Alex, right?) Tell me all your Maggie Sawyer feels and lets flail around together in the comments until tomorrow’s Ladies of Arrow update.

Here’s a gif of Alex watching Maggie leave to kick us off.

Superqueero Roundup Recap: The Danvers Sisters

Hello! Welcome to the second installment of the Superqueero Roundup Recap, the place where I recap all the queer and feminist goodness on all of DC’s superhero shows the day after they air. Make sure you’re following us on Twitter so you’ll know when this roundup recap is updated!

I have a sneaking suspicion this week will be low on the Queer-o-Meter but Maggie Sawyer is coming to us on Supergirl next week officially doubling our lady-loving lady count, maybe more if our dreams for Bisexual Alex Danvers come true.

These recaps (and wee-caps) are in reverse chronological order, with the newest ones appearing up top!

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Legends of Tomorrow 202: Captain Sara Lance

I feel like there are more elegant ways to begin a weecap, but instead I will simply share the first thing I wrote in my recap notes:

SARA GETS THE VOICEOVER, BITCHES!

It’s a good sign of things to come.

We start where we left off, with the Legends of Tomorrow facing off with the Justice Society of America. Jax immediately tries to hit on Stargirl, but Stargirl immediately shuts him down.

I like her already.

The JSA doesn’t trust this band of weirdos yammering on about time travel and want to take them into custody, so a battle ensues. I love their group fight scenes and this was a double group fight scene and I liked it quite a lot.

Eventually the Legends get put in a cage and we find out that the Steve Rogers Cosplayer, better known as Commander Steel, is New Guy Nate’s grandfather.

Rex Tyler appears and asks what’s happening, and Sara starts to answer, and then Rex Tyler risks his whole damn life by INTERRUPTING SARA LANCE and then CALLING HER MA’AM and then saying he was talking to the team leader and TURNING TO STEIN. It’s a miracle all of his bones stayed unbroken in that moment.

But she continues to stay calm, cool and collected, even as the team runs through their sorted pasts, and remind everyone that our Canary is an Assassin.

Rex eventually lets them go and Ray points out that the JSA has very admirable team dynamics, and maybe they need a leader. The boys all puff out their chests and Stein is like, “Well Rex WAS just NATURALLY drawn to the leadership I OOZE from my pores,” and Sara rolls her eyes and lets him be in charge the way you let a toddler try to tie their own shoes even though you know they’ll just end up with a knotted mess and eventually ask you to do it for them anyway.

Sara wants to send Nate home but then he realizes that his dog tags are gone, meaning something in the past changed. And sure enough, his notes have changed (but not his memories, because time travel is confusing) and the JSA is going to die in 1942 if they don’t go back, despite a very explicit warning to never go back to 1942.

The Professor’s plan is to pretend to be Hitler’s favorite singer, I don’t really know (or care) why, because it gives us Sara dressed to the nines.

Vixen is there, undercover, and none too pleased to see the Legends again.

Stein sings Edelweiss while Nate figures out what the bad guy is up to, but before they leave, Ray gets busted not doing the Nazi salute, and a fight breaks out. They all make it back to the timeship, where they’re all confused but generally unimpressed by the technology on board.

But Sara says they’re going to help the JSA whether they like it or not. Stein tries to be In Charge and make a plan but Sara has a better plan and comes up with it faster and says it more forcefully. Even the sexist from the ’40s concedes that she’s right.

Sara pulls Nate away from the group and says that on top of being in charge without letting anyone know she’s in charge and trying not to flirt with Vixen, she’s noticed that Nate is a hemophiliac. She says they’ve only almost died all the time without him and probably they’re no better for him being there and she doesn’t feel like being worried about him dying at every turn so probably she should just go home.

The team goes off to find the amulet the Nazis have and some shit goes down and they GET the amulet, but Vixen and Ray are kidnapped by a SuperNazi. Stein is in full panic mode now. He’s too busy weighing all his options and trying to figure out how to make everyone happy; he doesn’t have the tactical training for this, and he knows it. The JSA is ready to sacrifice Vixen and Ray and ditch, but Sara hands him a firm NOPE on that plan.

He shrugs her off, saying she doesn’t have the authority to make decisions, but Stein comes in and practically begs her to take the helm. He says that Sara is the beating heart and steady hand of this team, and it’s TRUE. So Sara Lance is put in charge.

Meanwhile, Ray is doing science for the SuperNazi, stammering and stalling, while Vixen spouts off fiery quips at him to try to get him to stop, even though the Nazis are threatening her if he doesn’t do it.

But Ray reveals his plan and smacks people around with a microscope and they get out. Vixen doesn’t have her amulet, but she’s a blackbelt and much more useful than Ray without his supersuit, so they dash. Ray is going to inject himself with the serum he made to fix that very fact, but the team swoops in and saves the day. Sara gives Vixen back her amulet and I say again Vixen gives Sara a very interesting look and maybe she’s just excited that Sara is a Canary and she has animal powers but I don’t hate it. Until this promised gay character is revealed, the potential crackles everywhere! Anyway, Ray uses the serum to save Nate’s life and everything is just fine.

Well, until the Reverse Flash kills Rex Tyler.

That’s it for this week’s Superqueero roundup! Until next week when we flail around about MAGGIE FREAKING SAWYER.

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Arrow 503: Popular Opinion

The theme of this episode was much like the last: Oliver resisting trusting his team and him ultimately listening to Felicity and trusting them – and I mean literally quoting Felicity at a press conference. The new squad is still learning how to work with The Green Grumpface and each other, but they have masks now and have been let into the Arrow Cave, so they’re on their way to becoming a real part of Team Arrow.

Let’s do a quick check-in on the ladies, shall we?

Let’s start with Lyla since her part was the smallest. Diggle is in jail (I think he’s being scapegoated for something?) and he’s hallucinating big time, so Lyla goes to Oliver for help at the end of the episode. (PS. Barry’s stupid timeline change didn’t affect the folks of Arrow much at all but it did DELETE BABY SARA FROM EXISTENCE and instead Diggle and Lyla have a son named John Jr. And I get how but I don’t get WHY. Ugh. CHANGE IT BACK, BARRY.)

Anyway. On to Felicity.

Her biggest thing this episode was that the newest member of the team, Ragman (not his real name, don’t care about him enough yet to learn his real name), is from Havenrock, the city Felicity redirected Darhk’s missile, killing tens of thousands of people. But, as Curtis points out, saving millions.

Eventually she realizes she can’t keep this guilt bottled up, so she tells Ragman that she was the one who chose Havenrock as the destination, but she doesn’t quite go into enough detail as to why, so I’m not sure he’ll understand right away. I AM glad that they’re addressing this though, because Felicity is a kind soul and you know this fucked her up right good. Anyway, for now, Ragman walks away without saying anything to her, leaving her a little more broken than before.

Baby Bird, despite her extremely badass parkour skills, is still trying to find her place on the team. She wants to follow the rules like a good little vigilante, but gets influenced by the Wild Dog.

But she works well with the rest of the crew and has a cute little sister rapport with Curtis, who is wearing a Fair Play jacket as an intro into his code name, Mr. Terrific. (Which is cheesy af but suits him because gosh darnit Curtis is terrific!) Baby Bird, while still officially codename-less, has upgraded to an adorable little mask.

She also asks Felicity the rules about dating while also being a vigilante (which…it’s adorable that she thinks there are rules) and Felicity’s short answer is DON’T DO IT.

And last but definitely not least is Thea, who is still fighting for justice even without her Speedy outfit, and who wins what Kristin Russo would call the Sexual Tension Award for her interactions with guest star Carly Pope. Carly Pope, you may remember, played Sam on the show Popular, where you probably shipped her with her arch-nemesis and step-sister Brooke, but what you MIGHT not know, but definitely should, is that she played queer in a cheesy campy badass movie called Concrete Blondes. It’s like DEBS: All Growed Up.

Anyway, Carly Pope is in our DC Universe to shake things up as news anchor/journalist Susan Williams.

She comes onto the scene tearing Oliver Queen’s administration apart by saying it was a bad idea to hire drunk fool Quentin Lance. Thea goes to talk to her and try to get her to correct her story, and Susan seems very accommodating. And either Thea has lost her edge or she’s distracted by Susan’s beauty because she’s just like, “Sweet thanks bye,” even though she’s a journalist and therefore obviously out for the best story.

So of course, as everyone but Thea could have predicted, Susan twists Thea’s words and makes Oliver look extra incompetent. But Oliver holds a press conference and doubles down on Thea’s decision to hire Quentin Lance and won’t let Thea resign and it’s fine. If he’s learned anything from Felicity it’s that he needs to trust his team, so trust he does.

Thea, not one to be toyed with, storms right up to Susan Williams, and gets SO CLOSE TO HER FACE and tells her that if she EVER messes with this Queen again, it’s off with her head.

In real life confrontation makes me VERY UNCOMFORTABLE but on TV it makes me shout NOOOOOW KISS. It’s a very confusing time for us all. Anyway, I doubt Susan Williams will back down, and she’s around for a few more episodes at least, so that dynamic should be interesting.

That’s it for Arrow, see you tomorrow for some Sara Lance hijinx!

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The Flash 303: Lady Speedster

Buckle up, kids, because this week we had Iris in dresses, Caitlin getting sassy, a lady speedster, and a girl with misandrist superpowers. But don’t worry, I’ll make it…quick. (hehe)

We begin with Iris, ready for her date with Barry, looking lovely as ever.

That’s really all there is to report about this first scene. Even Iris admits it was boring. Luckily, Cisco calls them into Star Labs because a breech is open that they decidedly did not open. But don’t worry, it’s not another Zoom coming to torture us for another season, it’s just Harrison Wells and his daughter Jesse. Though his daughter is a little different from the last time we saw her, proven by her flying out of the breech like a bat out of hell and zipping around the lab in a flash of yellow light.

Caitlin Snow offers to test her in the SpeedLab, which sounds a lot like superflirting to me. Barry didn’t know they had a SpeedLab, and neither did Wells or Jesse, so Wells figures out that Barry mucked up the timeline again.

Meanwhile, the metahuman of the week is a young girl named Frankie with misandrist powers. Her foster father starts being a real ass, and her eyes turn purple and she throws a light post at him with her mind. It’s pretty badass. The problem is, she doesn’t remember doing it.

Back at Star Labs, Wells is stressed about Jesse’s new powers. He knows she’ll want to be out and proud about having powers, but he thinks it’ll be safer if she keeps them to herself. He knows that Caitlin and Jesse have a special relationship and asks Caitlin to talk to his daughter. Caitlin’s eyes grow wide and she’s like I DON’T HAVE POWERS I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT I’M PERFECTLY ORDINARY I CAN’T HELP YOU SORRY.

At the police department, Draco Malfoy figures out that the light post couldn’t have been bent by hand and starts SCREAMING in the face of traumatized little Frankie, thus activating her misandrist powers again. Her alter ego Magenta takes over and admits that Alchemy is to blame/thank for these powers.

It turns out the girl has always had dissociative identity disorder, and Dr. Alchemy preyed on that to create Magenta. Plus her foster father has a history of being an abusive monster so probably she was just trying to knock some sense into him with the light post thing.

Jesse is ready to head out to find Magenta before she can hurt herself or someone else, and Wells begs Caitlin to have The Talk with her. Caitlin reluctantly agrees and tries to talk to Jesse, but Jesse doesn’t want to hear it. At first she thinks people want her to take it easy because she’s a girl, but Caitlin is just like, “Well if I had powers, which I definitely do not, I would take it slow and not rush into things.”

But Jesse will not be closeted by anyone, especially not her father. Just because he can’t accept that she’s different now doesn’t mean she has to hide who she is. Wells turns on Caitlin for this not going well but Caitlin finally snaps; she won’t take the blame for this.

She says that maybe if Wells celebrated Jesse’s new identity instead of fearing it then it would bring them closer together.

With this in mind, when the Magenta drama comes to a head, he sends Jesse off to help Barry save the day.

And save the day they do.

Afterwards, Jesse and Wells have a heart-to-heart, where Wells names her Jesse Quick and gives her a supersuit. He explains that he was just scared; the world’s not always welcoming or safe for people like her, but she’s always been his hero, so he’s ready to let her be that for other people, too. (There’s a reason superhero stories have always resonated so strongly with gay people!)

He even gives her a supersuit of her very own. And joined PFLAG. Wait, sorry. I ran too far with the metaphor. I’m back.

Anyway, Iris and Barry go on another date and she somehow looks even lovelier and it goes even better even though he has to dash away again because the work of a speedster is never done.

See you tomorrow for an update on Felicity, Thea and the gang!

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Supergirl 202: The Danvers Sisters

We start the episode with the Krypton Kids tag-teaming some superhero stuff. It’s still pretty adorable, fine, whatever. When they get back to the DEO, J’onn gives them a hard time because they’re off having #toomuchfun and not following protocol, but Kara yells at him because she knows he’s just upset because him and Superman are in a fight.

To try to cheer Kara up, Alex reminds her that they have Sister Night tonight. But Kara invites Clark.

Alex puts on a brave face and says, “The more the merrier.”

At CatCo, Kara is nervous but excited about her first day as a reporter; that is, until Cat introduces her to her new boss, Snapper Carr. He stares at her, unimpressed, while she tries to make a good impression, and then he walks away from her mid-sentence. Which poor sweet Kara doesn’t know what to do with.

Later that night, Clark shows up at Sister Night and then ASKS ALEX TO GIVE HIM A MINUTE ALONE WITH KARA. On SISTER night! The nerve! But whatever it’s fine because he’s there to say he has to go back to Metropolis. But before he does, they have one last mission to go on: Someone is about to jump off a bridge and needs the SuperDuo’s help. Except it’s not really a person at all, but Metallo, who can shoot Kryptonite beams out of his chest like some kind of defective Care Bear.

The fight leaves Supergirl wobbly and Superman a little shaken, but they get back to the DEO in one piece. Clark blames J’onn and his Kryptonite hoarding, and he admits a shipment went missing, but he and Alex failed to mention it. Before they can fight about it, Cadmus releases a Mr. Robot-style message essentially declaring war against “the aliens.”

At this point, these people have taken Alex’s father and are threatening her sister, so she’s feeling very No More Miss Nice DEO Agent.

When Kara shows back up to work at CatCo, Snapper tells her she’s in the wrong place. He doesn’t have to hire her just because Cat said so. Kara says, “This is the job I chose,” but he gives her the brush-off and tells her she has to earn a place on his team. Literally. He won’t even give her a chair.

Kara stomps to Cat for help, but Cat tells her that it’s time to stand up for herself. She calls her “Kara” over and over again and calls her smart, talented, astonishing. Astonishing! Oh to be called astonishing! By Cat Grant no less! Who doesn’t give compliments easily. She tells Kara to own her power.

This is especially important advice for Kara to take right now, because Cat is taking a leave of absence. She’s taking her own advice and taking a dive into something new.

Kara sits down, overwhelmed, and I relate to Kara often but never so much as when she sighed and said, “Everything is changing so fast.”

Kara tells Cat that she’ll miss her — and we all will, so much — and Cat gets choked up. They hug and it’s beautiful and gah I’m really going to miss their dynamic.

Cat tells her to get her head in the game and show Snapper what she’s made of. No protégé of hers will be beaten down by a MAN.

When Kara confides this onslaught of emotions to Alex, she offers her ice cream, like a good big sister. But in return, Kara says that maybe she wants to move to Metropolis. She positions it like it would be doing everyone, including Alex, a favor. And finally Alex can’t be silent anymore. They take care of each other, that’s their whole deal. In fact, it’s Alex’s only deal! She’s sacrificed so much to be there for Kara, as a sister and as a DEO agent, and it’s all been worth it, unless Kara is going to up and ABANDON HER. She hasn’t even gone on a date in two years! In another timeline, she becomes a doctor and goes by Lexie instead of Alex and is trained by the greatest bisexual TV character in all of space and time!

Kara doesn’t get what Alex is saying though, so she continues to emotionally punch Alex in her heart’s face by saying Clark “understands” her and makes her feel less alone. Alone! If there’s one thing Kara Danvers has never been it’s alone! Alex points out that Clark abandoned her to live with the Danverses.

Before they can break my heart any more, Metallo strikes again — but this time he’s a decoy, because there’s a SECOND Metallo, and he’s destroying Krypton Park in Metropolis. The Supers are too late to stop the damage, and are pretty sad about it.

Meanwhile, at the DEO, Alex is super angry at her sister, but channels that energy into finding the person who stole the Kryptonite. And it’s Jackson from The 100.

She asks him to transport some Kryptonite, and follows him, knowing he’ll take her to his leader. And sure enough, it’s a trap.

The Queen of Cadmus tries to recruit Alex, tries to prey on the very things Alex mentioned earlier, that her whole life has been affected by these Kryptonians. But Alex’s love for Kara is stronger than that, and also Kara had been looking for her to apologize anyway, so the sisters work together and get away from the baddies.

Kara apologizes for being a brat and says that she knows how important Alex is, that she’s the one who made Earth feel like home, not Clark. They both agree that they’re better together and THANK KRYPTON THAT’S OVER because I hate when they fight.

Winn makes anti-Kryptonite shields for Kara and Clark, giving them a fighting chance against the Metallos. They use the fact that Cadmus doesn’t think anyone supports Supergirl and Superman anymore, and split up, having Alex and J’onn as backup respectively.

Also Alex has some kind of supersuit that is amazing albeit a little bulky.

Together, the Danvers sisters kick Metallo’s ass and save the day. (Superman and J’onn do fine too.)

Supergirl flies to Cat’s balcony — THEIR balcony — to say goodbye. Cat says kind things about Supergirl and her amazingness, and tries one last time to get her real identity from her, and they say goodbye for now. (Side note, I love the way that Kara is just naturally more at ease with Cat when she’s Supergirl. I don’t love the amount of disbelief I have to suspend to buy that Cat hasn’t figured out who she is yet.)

Kara musters all her courage, fueled by the people she loves who believe in her, and marches up to Snapper’s desk and tells him that he’ll give her a chance OR ELSE.

He still plays gruff, but says if she comes back tomorrow, he’ll try to teach her something, which is just fine for Kara.

Clark says goodbye for real, taking the rest of the Kryptonite and a promise to find Alex’s father with him. Kara goes to talk to the stranger from the mystery pod and says that she’ll be there for him when he wakes up. And in return she gets a giant alien hand around her throat.

What did you think of this week’s Supergirl? Next week, Maggie Sawyer! And President Wonder Woman! Lena Luthor! All the ladies!

Check back Wednesday for an update on the ladies of The Flash, which will now be ABOVE this post! So depending on when you’re reading this you could have already read my recap of The Flash…oof, even the real world is too timey-wimey wibbly wobbly sometimes.

Superqueero Roundup Recap: “Supergirl” Is As Fun And Feminist As Ever On Its New Network

Well, hello there! And welcome to this brand new column! Column? Is it still called a column if it’s not a newspaper and not particularly columnular? Doesn’t matter. Hi, I’m Valerie Anne. I’m a former writer for AfterEllen, and I’m so happy to be joining the Autostraddle team to write about teevee! How much do I love teevee? Well, I need a spreadsheet to keep track of the shows I watch and recap. (It’s color coded…I swear I’m a Hufflepuff.) How much do I love Autostraddle? I’ve been to back-to-back A-Camps (miss you, Charlotte Jo), and was an A+ member long before the straight white dudes who run Evolve Media torpedoed AfterEllen and made it unrecognizable. I love you and I love teevee and I’m excited we’re sharing this space and our abundance of feelings with each other.

This is a Superqueero Roundup Recap. What’s going to happen is: Every week, a post just like this will go up on Tuesday, and it will start with a recap of the goings-on over in National City on Supergirl, where we’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of Maggie Sawyer and the promised coming out of one established character (please be bisexual Alex Danvers, please be bisexual Alex Danvers). Then, as the week goes on, I’ll update that VERY SAME POST with recaps (or wee-caps, depending on the queerness of each show each week) of The Flash and Arrow, as is relevant (mostly probably these will be like “Iris is still the smartest most beautiful human in Central City,” “Nyssa is still nowhere to be found in Star City,” etc), and of course I’ll be recapping Sara Lance’s adventures as she zips her beautiful blonde bisexual self through time and space. Maybe she’s going to romance the Queen of France this year? That footage exists; I have laid eyes upon it.

These recaps are in reverse chronlogical order. Thursday’s Legends of Tomorrow up top, Monday’s Supergirl at the bottom!

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Legends of Tomorrow 201: Seductress of Time

So, okay, let’s start at the beginning: this show has it’s issues, this we know. There are too many main characters, most of them men, and they spent most of last season wasting the potential of one of their badass women by forcing her into a love triangle. But now Hawkgirl is gone (sob), along with one of her triangle points, and we’re left with just Sara and the Guys. But it has its merits; every episode is a new period piece, and Sara doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit, and it’s really fun to watch. Plus, the costumes!! And even though they easily could have buried the lead with Sara’s bisexuality, or even ignored it entirely, they have made it clear that she was bi from the very beginning, and hit the ground running with it in this season two premiere. So let’s get into it.

We open with none of our Legends at all, but instead with someone named Nate Heywood going to see Oliver Queen. One thing they seem to be doing this season (which is great for me and this megamix of a recap) is starting to do crossovers and intertwine stories right off the bat. Nate tells Oliver he’s a time detective and that Oliver’s friends Sara Lance and Ray Palmer are in trouble. They say that an atomic bomb went off in New York before the atomic bomb was invented, which doesn’t really make sense to me, timeline wise? Unless the time ripple just never caught up to present day? I don’t know, timey wimey stuff makes my head hurt.

Oliver and Nate go to the bottom of the ocean to find the Waverider there, sunk and abandoned. Except for Mick Rory, who was in statis. They wake him up and he begins to tell the story of how things went so very wrong.

It all started in France in 1637, where Rip Hunter, Jax and the Professor are dressed as the Three Musketeers, Ray is keeping an eye on the King, and Sara is playing handmaiden to the Queen. The Queen sees that Sara is sad about the loss of her sister, and decides to…cheer her up.

Rip keeps trying to get in contact her to see if the Queen is safe, but he doesn’t have to worry about it, because Sara has her eyes…and hands and lips on her. Men with laser guns show up and the boys are all fighting inside while Sara is doing some tumbling of her own.

When she finally emerges, Jax teases her about what she could possibly have been doing with the queen, and she casually threatens to feed his own eyeballs to him, and the team heads back to the ship. Rip gives her a hard time for “seducing the Queen of France” but Sara lets him know that the Queen started it.

So Sara slept with the queen, Ray used future tech and Firestorm fused in front of the locals, Mick stole royal jewels. Basically they’re all still really bad at being a team of time traveling heroes.

But before Rip can finish his lecture, they feel a timequake and know something is wrong; a nuke hit in 1942 and they have to find Einstein and keep him from the bad guys to stop it before it ripples and catches up with them and ruins everything.

Sara zips off to the library, asking Gideon (the ship’s AI computer system) where Damien Darhk, sister killer extraordinaire, will be in 1942. When they land and split up, Sara says she’s going to visit a grandfather for help, and definitely not anything even remotely nefarious.

Ray doesn’t believe her so he decides to follow her. Sara is off to kill Damien Darhk but Ray stops her because they overhear something about uranium, blah blah, plot stuff, what’s important to note here is that Sara Lance had a thigh holster under her dress from which she pulls her gun.

Anyway, they save Einstein but when they have him in custody he confesses his ex-wife, Mileva Marić, is the smart one.

Ray rats Sara out to Rip, who says it’s impossible to do anything wrong when they’re rogue time travelers with no rules to follow.

She sasses Ray and tells him to get off his high horse and leave her alone with his rich white boy holier-than-thou attitude.

So the team stalks off, not in the best place, dynamic-wise, but ready to rumble. Especially Sara, who makes a beeline for Darhk again. Damien doesn’t know why she’s so dead-set against him (because he hasn’t murdered Laurel yet) but recognizes her as League of Assassin-trained and is highly amused by her determination.

Rip eventually calls her off and the Legends go back to the ship with a new plan to stop the bomb. Fly straight into it. But Rip doesn’t want to risk his team’s life, so he hits the “eject” button and sends everyone but Mick Rory to a different point in time.

That’s the end of present-day Mick Rory’s story, so Oliver goes back to brood in Star City and Nate Heyworth goes time traveling with Mick to save the team. Ray is frolicking with dinosaurs, Firestorm is a court jester duo for a petulant medieval child monarch, and Sara Lance is — wait for it — IN THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS.

When they find her, Sara is about to be hanged, but she’s highly unconcerned about this. A terrible man shouts at her and accuses her of corrupting the women of their town, but Sara insists it was all very consensual corruption.

After making a local lady swoon one last time, she knocks down her captors, and takes down Nate when he shows up, too. Ray steps forward and says Nate’s on their side, and Sara looks ready to get back to business.

And I have mixed feelings about this. Most of me is very excited: I’m obsessed with Salem and witches and the fact that probably all those accused of being witches were just badass feminists and/or queer af, and I do love that when people continue to accuse Sara of being predatory (but only when she hooks up with women) and she continues to let them know exactly what’s what. I also love that she’s like a one-woman bisexual revolution. She’s always been very confident in her sexuality, and the fact that she’s bringing that confidence to places and times where just about every queer woman is closeted is kind of amazing. Of course the women of the time would be drawn to her. (Also, look at her. C’mon.) On the other hand, this trend could quickly and easily veer over into stereotype territory if they’re not careful. Based on the very beautiful and lovely and AHHH ALI LIEBERT COME BACK TO ME storyline between Sara and Nurse Betty McRae, plus the heartwrenching and tragically beautiful and AHHH KATRINA LAW COME BACK TO ME final scene between Sara and Nyssa, I’m more apt to trust that the show will continue to handle Sara’s sexuality with a respectful playfulness. It’s never been A Thing and it doesn’t seem like it will ever be A Thing and I think that’s a Beautiful Thing.

Anyway, Rip is gone, saving the timeline is up to them alone now, but probably also this Nate dude, and they start by going back in time and having Einstein publicly declare Mileva Marić his partner.

Meanwhile, Darhk is on to a new shifty plan, and it is revealed that he’s in cahoots with Eobard Thawne aka The Reverse Flash aka The Same Dude Wreaking Havoc on The Flash.

On their way back to the ship, Ray tells Sara he’s ready to help her get #JusticeforLaurel, and as if invoked by the word, the Justice Society of America shows up, looking ready for a fight.

And Sara feels some kinda way about it.

What did you think of this week’s CW DC superpalooza?? What are you looking forward to most from these shows?

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Arrow 502: There’s no B(e an asshole) in Team

Not much to report on Arrow this week, BUT there have been some interesting developments re: Team Arrow. Once upon a time, the team consisted of the Green Arrow, Black Canary (x2), Speedy, Overwatch, and Spartan. But Sara Lance became the White Canary and switched shows, Laurel Lance took her sister’s place in the refrigerator, Thea couldn’t control her bloodlust so she quit to wear power suits, and John Diggle hung up his goofy helmet. All that was left was Oliver and Felicity. So Felicity suggests they make a new team. The people she suggests are Evelyn Sharp, Rene Ramirez, and our very own Curtis Holt. (Curtis, you remember, being happily married to a man. And adorable af.)

And what happens is essentially this:

Felicity: Oliver, you can’t do this alone, you need a team.
Oliver: No I don’t.
F: Yes you do.
O: Fine I’ll try.
O: *assembles team*
O: *yells at them and hits them a lot*
O: See this isn’t working.
F: You’re really bad at this. Maybe try leading them and teaching them instead of torturing them?
O: But one time this is how someone trained me and it was horrible and it traumatized me and look at me now…is that not a solid lesson plan?
F: Oh, honey.
O: *growls for 45 minutes straight*
F: *waits patiently*
O: *does what Felicity originally told him to do*
O: I’m so smart, look at this team I assembled all on my own.

At least Felicity seems relatively happy while she’s quietly being the most right and saving Oliver from himself over and over again.

(Side note: she’s dating someone named Billy Malone which is seems like the PERFECT supervillain alias if you ask me.)

Meanwhile, Thea quit to basically be Overwatch but for Oliver’s mayorship. I’m hoping she either puts her speedy suit back on soon or decides to take over as literal mayor, but until then, business casual suits her just fine.

One thing I will call out about what Felicity said to Oliver was that she called him abusive. Said the word, “abusive”. And so did Curtis later. It wasn’t just, “hey, be nicer,” it was telling him in no uncertain terms that his behavior was unacceptable. He wasn’t knocking them down to build them up, he wasn’t forging them in fire to make them stronger; he was trying to scare them out of this life. He was just being cruel. He was afraid that if he went too easy on them, they’d die like Laurel did, even though that logic makes no sense because even Sara Lance got murdered and she also spent time on Lian Yu, plus trained with the League of Assassins. But Felicity and Curtis wouldn’t give him a pass on it and it was amazing.

So eventually, thanks to these pep talks from Felicity, Thea and Curtis, plus a run-in with a radioactive mummy, the Green Arrow takes off his mask and lets down his guard and tells his new recruits that he’s Oliver Queen. Which…I don’t feel like was necessary just yet? I feel like probably there was some middle ground between “don’t be a monster” and “reveal all your secrets”? But whatever, after a moment of shock from Evelyn and Rene (now called Wild Dog because no one consulted Cisco on this one), the team is officially assembled.

That’s all she wrote, until tomorrow. Because toniiiight, toniiiight, Sara is baaack toniiiight!

Look, even Felicity is excited about it.

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The Flash 302: Felicity Felicis

Okay so The Flash hasn’t had any queer women on it (yet?) but it’s part of this CW DC Universe and will eventually be involved in the Legends of Superflarrow crossovers so I thought it was worth it to check in on the badass ladies of the show briefly. Also that way if any of them come out we’re ready for them.

This week’s episode was the second of the season, and basically what’s happening is that Barry keeps mucking up the timeline because he tried to save his mother from being murdered when he was a child and was then SUPER SURPRISED when things didn’t go smoothly. He keeps trying to fix it but he keeps making it worse. So he does what every smart person in a pickle would do if they were able: He goes to Felicity Smoak for help.

Felicity eats her food and listens patiently to his problems before telling him to smarten up and go fix the mess he made.

Barry’s friends are all slightly different than the ones he once knew, and he tries to fix their relationships without telling them what happened, but eventually Iris tells him to smarten up and tell the truth to fix the mess he made.

Heck even Caitlin tries to help him, though she’s slightly gentler about it, smiling sadly at him, knowing he’s doomed.

Because let’s face it, Barry would have ripped apart the fabric of reality by now if it wasn’t for these ladies.

Oh also on top of all his friends being different and slightly more angsty than his original timeline, he has also managed to make an enemy of Draco Malfoy, who is now a crime scene investigator of paranormal goings-on.

After some advice from another speedster, Barry realizes he can’t keep messing with time, so he accepts this new reality as his own. Luckily, by treating his friends the way he remembers them, they’re all starting to become their old selves again, slowly but surely.

Well, except Caitlin. But Barry doesn’t know that yet.

That’s really all you need to know for now. Who knows what this will mean for Barry’s future, or how it will affect the timelines of the other shows in the universe, or how this will get him to National City again, or if Sara Lance and her crew of time travelers can fix what he broke, but I guess we’ll find out before too long.

I’ll leave you with one last screenshot of Iris because LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL.

See you tomorrow for a wee Arrow update, then Friday for THE RETURN OF SARA ACTUALLY-I-WAS-LIBERATING-HER LANCE.

Supergirl Episode 201: “The Adventures of Supergirl”

Here are the things I was afraid of going into this season: That the network switch would also cause a tone shift, that Kara’s storyline would suddenly be all about Romance, and that too much focus would be put on the recurring role of Superman. Instead, we had the same borderline cheesy, optimistic, goofy, funny show with so much heart! Plus, with Kara deciding not to date James and Superman seeming content playing the role of super sidekick and staying out of the spotlight (despite all the promos), my relief is almost too much to handle.

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get into the episode, which isn’t explicitly queer, but promises have been made and I intend to hold The CW to them.

We pick up where we left off, with Kara and her crew toasting to the love that makes them family, even though they’re from at least three different planets between them. It was a nice way to be like, “In case you forgot, or are new here, this is what our show is about” right off the bat.

And, in true fashion, almost as soon as they clink glasses, something precarious streaks across the sky. Which looks like a job for Supergirl. Her and J’onn follow the streak and find a pod that looks like hers, and inside, they see a stranger.

J’onn takes Supergirl to the new DEO office, since CW let them out of the cave. She’s pretty when she finds out that they could have been in here the whole time, but is soon distracted by the news that the man in the pod is indeed not human. Kara recommends Winn for the job and heads off to get ready for her date with James, a real human boy. She tells Alex all about it and Alex can tell that she’s not particularly excited.

Cat Grant texts Kara, of course, and Kara rushes to her side, even though she’s not her assistant anymore. There were rumors that Cat was getting sidecarred this season, but here she is with a highball glass in her hand, telling Kara to woman-up and find her calling.

Later that night, after using her powers to speed up the getting-ready montage, James arrives at Kara’s door with pizza and potstickers.

But before they can even sit down to eat, they see the news that the Venture, a space shuttle launch scheduled for that night, has caught on fire and is plummeting to Earth. So it’s Supergirl to the rescue! But, since this is A Very Big Deal, a little ways away in Metropolis, a bumbling reporter named Clark Kent sees the news and rips off his clothes to join his cousin in the sky.

I think the moment I let out the breath I’d been holding ever since the Superman casting announcement was when The Man of Steel flew up and hovered near Supergirl until she gave him permission to help. She could have said, “I got this,” (because she single-handedly maneuvered a plane around a bridge to safety before she’d ever even tested her powers), but it was her decision to accept his help and work as a team. And I can so be down for some cousinly teamwork.

Plus, after they save the shuttle, they’re talking to some excited kids, and the first thing Kara does is tell them that she used to change his diapers.

Because it’s her show and she’ll do what she wants to.

Kara brings Clark to the DEO to try to help ID the stranger, but Clark doesn’t recognize him. Winn comes in and tells them that the pod passed through the Well of Stars, which surely will be important later. Winn also found out that the Venture didn’t just randomly start burning up in the sky, but was tampered with. So Clark and Kara go off to investigate, starting with the passenger who mysteriously didn’t show up for the launch: Lena Luthor.

And y’all.

Lena Luthor.

Is.

Katie McGrath.

(For those of you who aren’t familiar, Katie played Lucy Westenra on the short-lived show Dracula, where she pined for Mina Murray and made out with Lady Jayne. She also played the fiendishly sexy Morgana on BBC’s Merlin, where she had, um, real chemistry with the actress who played her sister. She’s got on-screen queer experience, is what I am saying, both purposefully and accidentally.) Anyway, Lena was adopted by the Luthors when she was four, which I feel like is probably only relevant if she’s not human? Lex was very welcoming to her, so she is sad that he’s now a supervillain behind bars. She wants to make a name for herself that has nothing to do with her family, which Kara can relate to. Lena is very cooperative and gives the Kent/Danvers Duo the information they came for.

Not too long after they leave, Winn realizes that the explosion happened suspiciously close to Lena Luthor’s empty seat, so not only was she not behind the explosion, but she was the target of it. The Kryptonian Cousins fly off to save the day, Superman killing drones left and right while Supergirl saves the damsel in distress.

Back at CatCo, Kara tries to reschedule her date with James, but he can tell something’s not right. Taking the advice Cat and Clark gave her to follow her heart, she confesses that even though she thought this was what she wanted, she looked into the grey-green eyes of Lena Luthor and just isn’t sure about anything anymore. Right?

Knowing she’s distressed, Cat offers Kara more advice. She says she knows it can be scary, taking a road that will lead you so far from where you’ve been, but that even though change is scary, it’s important.

Kara goes with Lena to the renaming ceremony, where Lena is planning on changing her company from Luthor Corp to L Corp, so that it’s not associated with violence and evil, but living loving laughing dreaming, etc.

An explosion hits and chaos ensues, Supergirl flying around and saving James and others, Superman eventually joining her to tag-team RESTRUCTURING AN ENTIRE BUILDING to save the day.

Meanwhile, Alex Danvers saves Lena Luthor and then Lena saves Alex back.

Back at L Corp, Lena thanks Clark for writing an article that portrays her as the badass she is, and then asks why Kara isn’t on the byline. Kara insists she’s not a reporter, but Lena says “You could have fooled me,” with a smirk that makes Kara practically gulp.

Oh and also she hopes to see Kara again.

Kara zips back to CatCo to tell Cat that her eyes are open now and she’s ready to take the next step. Kara wants to be a reporter. She wants to seek the truth, she wants to tell people’s stories. Cat isn’t surprised at all, and is almost relieved she came to the conclusion on her own.

Then Cat feeds the SuperCat fan fiction by saying things like, “I can see me in you,” and “You inspire me,” and using her real name instead of calling her Kira. She says, “I can see the hero in you,” and I’m still pretty sure she’s known about Kara’s secret(s) all this time.

And just to further ease any worries, back at the DEO, Kara asks Clark if it bothers him that the National City news is giving Supergirl most of the credit for the recent saves, but Clark doesn’t mind in the slightest. He’s just happy to be hanging out with his little big cousin, and looks forward to learning about Krypton from her.

The tag scene shows the bad guy Lex sent to kill his sister getting injected with some superstuff and an elegantly creepy woman welcoming him to Cadmus and calling him Metello, so I think we’ve officially met this season’s Big Bad.

What did you think of the first episode of the new season of Supergirl? Who do you think they’ll pair Maggie Sawyer up with, if anyone?

See you back here tomorrow for a quick update on… The Flash! (See what I did there?)

UPDATE: Looks like Maggie Sawyer will arrive in episode 203, “Welcome to Earth.” Looks like (please be bisexual) Alex Danvers will have a feeling about it.

UPDATE #2:

And finally, in the 4-show crossover, #Arrow's Diggle will be astounded by Kara (of course), and Sara Lance may have a little crush on Kara.

— KryptonSite (@KryptonSite) October 11, 2016

Boob(s On Your) Tube: “The 100” Swears Lesbian Fealty

It’s only Tuesday and it has already been a week for queer women on TV. You can read my full recap of The Fosters right here and an in-depth analysis of Jane the Virgin‘s season two queerness here. Last night, New Girl revealed that Cece is bisexual and has had a past relationship with Megan Fox, and we’ll have a piece up about that (and how it relates to How to Get Away With Murder and The 100) first thing tomorrow morning. In the meantime, let’s talk about all the other gay TV shenanigans, including Clarke and Lexa and their eternal love.

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Younger

Wednesdays on TV Land at 10:00 p.m.

It was one of my least favorite kind of Younger episodes this week: All Liza and Josh, and no Maggie or Kelsey or Diana. Actually, Maggie did show up for a hot second, look super fetching in her lounging robe, to advise Liza not to go to New Jersey. Liza did not listen to her. She and Josh went to meet some of Liza’s old friends and she accidentally got high and I accidentally looked up a thing on Urban Dictionary I wish I’d never even heard of. One and a half stars. Needs more Maggie and Lauren.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.

Nyssa was back on Arrow this week! She broke free from her jail cell at League of Assassins HQ and activated a bunch of sleeper agents and murdered a bunch of butt heads, and then she be-bopped on down to Starling City to make a little deal with Oliver. You know how both she and Sara were came back to life from the Lazarus Pit? Well, Sara was resurrected like a whole bloodthirsty person but Thea was resurrected as a half bloodthirsty person and now she’s dying again. Nyssa’s got the cure and she’s willing to give it to him, for the bargain price of him murdering Merlyn.

Oh! And also she met and hung out with Katana for a little bit. Maybe they’ll fall in love.

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Top Chef

Thursdays on Top Chef at 10:00 p.m.

Last week’s Top Chef was part one of Restaurant Wars. Karen was a team captain and her first choice was Marjorie, duh, and their strategy was to serve two delicious meals and let The Bros self-destruct on each other. It was a good plan. Marjorie was the front of the house for the lunch seating (which took place during episode one), and her only misstep was the first time she wasn’t at the hostess table was when the judges showed up. But also she did an awesome trick to get people to move from their tables so she could seat the second round of guests, by asking them to follow her away from their tables for a free glass of champagne. That trick also works on kittens with Whiskas Temptations when they won’t get off the bookshelf! My girlfriend clapped and giggled like a child when Marjorie said, “I like control.” Because when a woman says that it’s awesome because they’re going to get called a bitch for it and they do it anyway (and a man never has to say he likes control because of course he does and he almost always has it).

For her dish for lunch, Karen makes an Asian-marinated flank-steak that the judges thought was delicious and gutsy. Marjorie shut down all the clunky suggestions Isaac made for lunch and turned out a beet salad that was pretty okay, but maybe a little uninspired.
The Bros, as I mentioned, imploded in a cacophony of egos. It was beautiful.

And it was to be continued.

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The 100

Thursdays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

Written by Karly

This was the best episode so far of the season and perhaps of the series. A week has passed since Clarke vowed to kill Lexa and she’s been stewing on her anger since. She’s pacing in her sweet prison aka very comfortable bedroom and Lexa enters and gives her a proposition: get the Sky People to join the coalition as the 13th clan and they’ll be safe. All she has to do is bow before Lexa. Clarke refuses because she knows that Lexa only wants Clarke to bow before her as a sign of strength, not unity. “Go float yourself” Clarke says. Lexa hopes this is a maybe.

Kane and Abby have gone to Polis for this Summit to negotiate a treaty with Lexa for long-lasting peace. Kane has grown a gray wisdom beard, or that’s what I imagine it is. He is respectful to the locals, has become fluent in Trigedasleng and all he can focus on is what this peace can mean. Abby is only thinking about getting Clarke home safe, and remarks that Kane should be Chancellor. Fine, but Clarke will always be the leader of SkaiKru.

At Arkadia, Bellamy, Raven and Bellamy’s girlfriend, Gina, head up to Mount Weather to work. Farm Station has moved in and they’re looking very comfortable. Shortly after Bellamy and Raven get settled, Echo, the girl who was held captive next to Bellamy in Mount Weather, is brought in by Arkadia guards. She says the Summit is a trap and the Ice Nation is going to kill everyone. Pike, leader of Farm Station and inexplicably taking control, decides Bellamy, Octavia and he are going to go to Polis while Raven arms the Mount Weather missiles. Why why why.

In Polis, Clarke meets the Ice Nation prince, Roan, again. He promises her that if she kills Lexa, Clarke can truly be free. At the same time, Lexa’s advisor, Titus, tells Lexa she has to kill Clarke to show the Ice Queen she’s strong. First of all, shut up, the both of you guys. Still, Clarke gets Lexa alone and holds a knife to her throat. But her eyes fill with tears and she can’t go through with it. Lexa apologizes for probably the first time in her commandership, and does only what she can, she says “I release you.” Okay that’s from Carol, but that’s what how the scene went truly.

Instead, Clarke decides she will join Lexa’s coalition as the 13th clan. There’s a really formal ceremony in Lexa’s tower. Lexa has hired a very beautiful woman to sing and up until that point, I think it’s the gayest thing Lexa has ever done. Clarke enters all in Grounder gear, with her face painted and a tattoo on her arm. She kneels before Lexa and the representatives from the 12 clans follow suit. Everything is going according to plan.

Until Pike, Bellamy and Octavia crash the party to save everyone from this “imminent threat.” Echo has abandoned them, obviously, because this was a diversion. Echo was actually leading Arkadia’s warriors away from Mount Weather, where an Ice Nation assassin has snuck in.

Raven was trying to figure out the missile codes but has a crisis of confidence. Sinclair reassures her like so many dudes have done in the past. Sigh. This tender moments means they completely miss this assassin stabbing Gina a million times and rigging Mount Weather to explode. Raven and Sinclair narrowly escape the bomb and report to Bellamy what has happened. The Ice Nation representative claims responsibility and Lexa has him and Roan arrested. There’s general chaos and, dammit, things were going so well.

The Sky People go back to Arkadia to deal with the casualties and secure their borders. Clarke stays behind to be a representative from the 13th clan (and to “make sure Lexa keeps her word” uh huh). Whoever blew up Mount Weather knew the launch codes for their missiles. We find out at the end it’s the Guard that was captured by the Sky People in season 2. Asshole.

So Lexa and Clarke are back in the ceremony room, except everyone else has left. Clarke is still a little confrontational when Lexa thanks her for staying in Polis. “If you betray me again…” Clarke warns. But Lexa assures her she will never. Then she kneels in front of a stunned Clarke and says my future wedding vows “I swear fealty to you, Clarke kom SkaiKru. I vow to treat your needs as my own and your people as my people.” Clarke reaches out and helps Lexa to her feet and they stand there looking at each other. The way Lexa looks Clarke as she speaks the words, the way she looks away when she touches Clarke’s hand, and the way we absolutely know she would never do this for anyone but Clarke still affects me the same way days later. I haven’t felt this moved by a scene between two women in a very long time. It’s too bad the Ice Queen is intending to kill them both but that’s a problem for next Thursday.

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Legends of Tomorrow

Thursdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.

I suppose it’s not surprising that Sara’s getting so much story and screen time in the early episodes of Legends; we did know her for a long time and pitch quite a collective fit when she was murdered on Arrow. This week’s episode treads a little bit of old ground, but for the first time on this show. Sara has the bloodlust, remember, from getting resurrected in the Lazarus Pit, and this week it flares up and she almost does a bunch of unnecessary killings. But! She does not, and more even than learning to control her murder desires, she actually convinces Rip that he needs a team and he’s gotta stop trying to do everything all by himself and she can help him — they can all help him — if he will just relax and give up a little bit of control and trust them. He decides that is exactly what he will do.

Next week they’re going to the ’80s, and I honestly cannot wait to see what Sara wears. The period costuming is excellent on this show. So cheesy and so fun.

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Black Sails

Saturday on Starz at

Well, Max and Anne broke up this week. It was inevitable but also kind of sad. Anne’s in love with Max. Max is in love with the island. And also she doesn’t know it yet, but Eleanor is thiiiiiis close to reaching Nassau’s shores. Anne and Max have a really lovely breakup, though. Max shares a part of her childhood with Anne, about how she was a slave and she saw her father playing with and loving his “legitimate” daughter, and it made her so sad, and now she needs a hundred billion dollars in gold. Probably the sweetest thing Anne has ever done in her life is to tell Max that she trusts her to count out their gold and split it evenly between the two of them. Also it’s the saddest thing Anne has ever done.

Boob(s On Your) Tube: “How To Get Away With Murder” Is Getting Away With Stealing Our Hearts

It’s a light week for queer teevee on account of The World Series taking up three thousand hours and preempting all of the good stuff on Fox (and also the bad stuff on Fox; take that, Scream Queen) — but hey, How to Get Away With Murder aired a really revolutionary trans storyline, and there’s other stuff we need to talk about, too.

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American Horror Story: Hotel

Wednesdays on FX at 10:00 p.m.

Written by Tina Horn

If you, like me, spent your teen years obsessed with the horror-fantasy comic Sandman, you’ll remember an issue about a “Cereal Convention.” In a generic hotel, serial killers (get it?) gather to get nerdy about murders and executions.

This week’s episode of AHS reminded me of that story a lot; except instead of a convention, “Devil’s Night” is a party at the Hotel Cortez where everybody dances to Velvet Underground covers. And while Neil Gaiman invented a bunch of fictional killers, AHS invites the ghosts of real-life infamous people. This creep factor is one of my favorite things about the show; even when surrounded by supernatural monstrosities, nothing is more depraved than what humans do to themselves and one another.

We need to talk about Lily Rabe as Aileen Wuornos. As a beloved recurring cast member (personally, my mood can always be improved by clips of her as Satanically-possessed Sister Mary Eunice humping the bed to “You Don’t Own Me,” or as swamp witch Misty Day twirling to “Rhianon”), Rabe’s appearance signals a special characterization. The real-life Wuornos was definitely a psychotic killer, but is also seen by many as an outlaw misandrist hero.

For a moment, in Rabe’s first scene at the bar, I was excited that we were seeing a vision of Wuornos as a woman who had the nerve to fight back against the abusive patriarchal circumstances of her life. But when drunk John Lowe invites her to his room (believing her to be a horny girl in a very realistic Wurornos costume) Liz Taylor hisses at him, “You’re too drunk to see how ugly that woman is.” Lowe says “I’m too drunk to care.” This really pissed me off. Who thought this was a funny line? Who calls people ugly, especially a real life butch lesbian?

In Lowe’s room, Wuornos goes full psycho, cuffing him to a chair and accusing him of a bunch of shit. Though Rabe gave Wuornos some dignity by just being such a goddamn good actress, the show was sort of undermining her heroic reputation. The switch suggests that she invented the stories of attempted rape by posing as a prostitute and luring men to their death before shooting and robbing them. I cannot deny that Wuornos murdered men, even if it was in self defense or justifiable rape vengeance. But if you’re going to create a fictional story in which real serial killers have a glamorous sexy powerful club, it’s definitely a misogynist move to portray the female as the ugly, lying, out-of-control one.

That quip aside, I thought this episode was gangbusters. This morning (which happens to be October 30th, the real Devil’s Night), I was biking to work and an older gentleman in Carharts crossed my path wielding a six-foot tall bloody scythe. “Cute!” I said, instead of “WTF?!” The Halloween joke, “That is such a convincing costume!” never loses its luster because our sense of danger really is blurred when everyone is masquerading as something spooky. That mindfuck is what I love about Halloween and AHS.

Notes on random excellence:

This week it was Chloe Sevigny’s turn to drink the ancient blood virus from Lady Gaga’s breast, mama to mama.

I appreciated that the businessman brutally sacrificed to the serial killers was introduced making whorephobic comments about girls in sexy Halloween costumes.

John Carroll Lynch, who played Twisty the Clown last season, as John Wayne Gacy, the real life inspiration for Twisty, was another stroke of stunt casting genius.

Predictions:

I am fully Team John-Lowe-is-the-Ten-Commandments-Killer. The blackouts we never see flashbacks to. The guilt over losing his child. His inclusion on the guest list of serial killers. His “late hours at the office.” The fact that March seems to know something about him…

Iris is going to become the most vicious killer of all and we are gonna get fucked-up Kathy Bates with blood all over her face going full Misery and it’s gonna rule.

Alex is going to break in her new blood craving on bad mom Shelly from Twin Peaks, sending a warning to anti-vaxxers everywhere.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.

Sara is still alive on this week’s Arrow. Well. “Sara.” But Laurel is the only one who seems to think her sister’s soul is still alive in her sister’s resurrected body. They’ve got her chained up in the basement and she doesn’t recognize Laurel or her dad or pictures of anyone in her family. And one time she kind of sort of tries a little bit to strangle Laurel to death. My friend Valerie called her a “feral kitten,” last week, which is just about the truest thing I’ve ever heard. I think Lauren thinks so too, so she returns to the dungeon to feed Sara a sandwich and sit on the floor and not make eye contact with her — the first step of socializing all feral cats — but Sara has escaped.

Whoops.

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How to Get Away With Murder

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

This week’s How to Get Away With Murder case of the week is about a trans professor who teaches with Annalise. Her name is Jill and she’s played by out trans actress Alexandra Billings. Jill is trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband and finds that the only way she can get out is to kill him. She hasn’t been watching this show, so she doesn’t actually know how to get away with murder. She makes the rookie mistakes of using a landline and faking some witnesses and setting up a crime scene. Luckily she’s dear friends with Annalise, who is the best of the best at what she does and also knows what it’s like to be in an abusive relationship, so she doesn’t get convicted.

Our trans editor, Mey Rude, and TV intern, Sadie weigh in with their thoughts below.

Mey’s Thoughts

First of all, I was really excited to see Alexandra Billings in this role. Not only is it good to see that they actually cast a trans woman to play a trans woman (unlike Law & Order, another show that recently aired a “trans episode”), but also she’s been a working actor for a while, blazing trails for other trans actors, and it’s nice to see her getting more roles. Also, it’s nice to see a trans woman in a role on a tv show about murder where she’s not playing a dead victim who repeatedly gets misgendered by the people trying to solve her murder.

The cops were predictably gross, telling her “you lied to your husband” and that it was rational for him to freak out when “he found out what you are.” But the show stepped up its game by actually having not only Billings’ character call him out right there (way to not take any abuse any more) but then also have the star of the show, Annalise Keating, say that the transphobic cop added to her trauma by verbally abusing her after she was attacked by her husband. Annalise shout-asking “How is it not a hate crime?” is something I find myself doing all the time when trans women are murdered and the police decide not to investigate it as a hate crime.

They actually talked about Cece McDonald! How awesome is that!? And they didn’t just drop her name, they had a trans woman tell her story, talk about what happened to her. That was amazing.

Finally, Annalise and Jill talking about love and bonding over the relief they feel now that they’re out of abusive relationships was terrific. Jill saying “I believed him when he said he was the only one who could ever love me” stabbed me right in the heart. That’s something that we, as trans women, hear all the time, from society, from the men we sleep with, from the women we sleep with, from all around us, and here was a trans woman who finally fought back against that and broke free of that mental abuse. I think this was the best Very Special Trans Episode of a show that I’ve ever seen.

A few other notes:

“Old ladies can like vag too.” That line made me throw my head back and laugh.

I really like that not only is Annalise on Jill’s side in this case, but they’re old friends. It shows that trans people are a part of her life and that her fighting against the transphobic husband and cop wasn’t just for show.

Sadie’s Thoughts

I thought Alexandra Billings was a fantastic choice for this show and I almost expect to see her take the lead on a show of her own within the next few years (which, as an avid teevee watcher, I really couldn’t find myself saying not that long ago). Trans characters on shows like this are often time relegated to angsty teens who are convinced or often forced backwards or a tragic older person with no one at all on their side. Because of this history one of my favorite aspects of this episode was that Jill and Annalise were already friends to begin with, and that meant every transphobic comment was met with a rebuttal rather than being used as a cheap joke at the trans person’s expense. I’ll be honest, I was worried about how this would go down considering Shondaland doesn’t have a super great track record, with some of the missteps made in Grey’s Anatomy, alongside the fact that this storyline breaches into trope territory (femme fatale trans women murders husband), but it was incredibly refreshing to see that kind of thing turned on its head by showing just how much Jill and Annalise have in common.

All and all I thought the storyline itself was a little thin but it was handled expertly.

Heather’s Thoughts

When I downloaded Sadie’s screencaps, they made me laugh so hard.

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Carmilla

Tuesdays and Thursdays on YouTube

Written by Karly

This week Carmilla, Perry, and Mel agree that their missing periods is related to students all over campus acting like farm animals and magic is involved. Like seasons 1 and 2, the main plot takes a backseat to the characters interacting with each other. Mel is so shy, Perry is like a mix of Hermione Granger and Professor Trelawney, and Carmilla is trying to be the aviator-wearing guard in Cool Hand Luke.

In present day, Laura is taken aback that Carmilla threatened to break so many fingers and Carmilla shrugs, like “Stop forgetting I’m a vampire.” Then they tease each other and it’s adorable. I missed Laura in episode 3, but she made up for it all in that one scene.

But back on the VHS tapes, Carmilla doesn’t use thumb screws on Perry. Instead she stomps on Perry’s attempts to cast spells, telling her the OtherWorld doesn’t reveal itself to muggles. You can see the sparkle leave Perry’s eyes. Words can hurt worse than thumb screws.

Next week maybe they find a clue or they could just play Clue on that giant awesome table. I would watch either.

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Boob(s On Your) Tube: Lesbian Death, Bisexual Resurrection, Aliens In Love, And The Most Awkward Dinner Party of All Time

Welcome back to your twice-weekly round-up of all the queer happenings on your teevee. I believe this week’s column is the best Boob(s On Your) Tube we’ve ever put together. I am so excited about where we’re headed with our TV coverage at Autostraddle. This is just the beginning!

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Grandfathered

Tuesdays on Fox at 8:00 p.m.

Written by Sadie Edwards

It’s time again to check in with our second favorite Annalise on television. In this week’s episode, we learn yet again that Jimmy isn’t really as bad a guy as we all think he is. After arriving fashionably late to (and completely missing) his granddaughter’s second birthday, Jimmy decides to make it up by throwing his own upscale party at his restaurant, complete with Richie Sambora, massage coupons and rum soaked tiramisu for a group of small children.

This sparks a series of incredibly cute scenes where Annalise is confronted by the one thing she’s completely unprepared to handle: Kids. While she is busy cleaning caviar off the walls and shepherding small children to the bathroom, the entire party turns against Jimmy. Sara’s brother shows up to and tells pretty much everyone there that Jimmy walked out on Sara and Gerald (he didn’t even know Gerald was a thing until recently), even teaching a catchy song about dead beats to the kids at the party.

By the end, though, Annalise has been christened “bathroom lady” and as always things turn around for Jimmy and all is right in the family — even the extended family this time. Every week I wonder why I’m so into this show, and then the next episode is even cuter and funnier than the last. [Heather’s note: YES. That is it, exactly!] Good news for anyone who — like me — digs this level of feel good in their television will be glad to know that Fox is extending the show for at least six more episodes than originally planned, so here’s to high concepts and low expectations.

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Scream Queens

Tuesdays on Fox at 9:00 p.m.

When I joined the ranks of lesbian pop culture critics in 2008, no one told me how much math was going to be involved. Writing? Yes, absolutely. Photoshopping? My pleasure! But the other necessary skill of a professional lesbian TV watcher is counting. 41 lesbian/bi characters on primetime broadcast TV. 23 lesbian/bi characters on basic cable. Wait, no, Annalise kissed a woman on How to Get Away With Murder. That’s 64 lesbian/bi characters on TV. Chasing Life and Defiance and Rookie Blue got canned. 63. 62. 60. Lost Girl’s done. 57. Steven Universe reveals two (possibly four) queer Gems! 59! (61?)

It was when Glee aired its fucking “Which Bathroom Should Unique Use?” episode that I really started struggling with the tally. What was I counting toward? Was there some magic number I would reach one day, and then the counting could stop? Because the assumption I was working under at the time — the assumption we were all working under, as lesbian TV critics — was that more was better, because Visibility was the ultimate goal. Visibility changed minds, see? Visibility changed hearts! Visibility was the gateway to equality. And I think for a time that was definitely true. When you’re looking for representation on TV and seeing nothing, the idea of anything seems like a win.

So, I’m watching that bathroom episode of Glee, and I’m thinking about all the inexcusable shit the writers of put Unique through, the slurs, the goddamn Catfishing storyline, and I’m thinking about Finn outing Santana, and Will gyrating all over his students while singing a song about date rape, and about how the writers of Glee couldn’t wrap their minds around the fact that the audience completely rejected Finn and Will as heroes, and, you know, just all of it. The whole infuriating tale. Out loud I said, “Is it even ethical to recap this show anymore?”

But the tally had to go on. My encyclopedic knowledge of queer women on TV demanded it.

GLAAD decided to stop counting queer characters before the 2015-2016 TV season even started. I was determined to push on, though, to watch it all, and process it all, and keep the tally going. Scream Queens and Gotham are the things that broke me. Gotham because it’s straight white fanboy bisexual wish fulfillment bullshit. Scream Queens because: Maybe I’m a curmudgeonly old woman who can’t stand the flippant way these three male writers treat female identity politics? Maybe the idea of letting another Murphy-controlled queer character into my heart triggered some kind of recapping PTSD? Maybe literally every Ryan Murphy show is exactly the same and I could spend that hour making out with my girlfriend instead of living through all the stale jokes I’ve heard before? Maybe I can’t stop thinking about the literal line of dialogue “Hashtag Glee hates women”?

Probably it’s a combination of all of those things. I just wanted to not watch Scream Queens, and so, for the first time in my life, I started rooting for the lesbian character to die. How awful is that? She’s a queer woman of color on TV played by an actual queer woman of color. And I got my wish: This week, Sam died, like she was always going to do. On the best episode of this stupid show to date, she died. (58.) But then, Chanel No. 3 was actually really into her, which makes Chanel No. 3 queer. (59.)

But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care if Chanel No. 3 is a lesbian or if she’s bisexual or if she’s a nonbinary asexual vegan beet farmer living on a queer co-op in Vermont. Sam was a token lesbian whose sexuality was always played for a predatory joke and Chanel No. 3’s queer leanings are never going anywhere important. Sam was visible, but that’s not the thing anymore. We’ve moved past visibility. We’ve moved past counting.

In a truly Shakespearean twist, Glee changed the world so much that I don’t have to ever watch another terrible show written by Glee‘s creators. I could have quit Scream Queens even if Sam hadn’t died. I never had to watch Scream Queens to begin with.

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Empire

Wednesdays on Fox at 9:00 p.m.

Written by Carolyn Wysinger

Lucious is free and he celebrates by reviving his defunct label, Gutter Life Records, and gifting it to Andre. His gift comes in the form of strippers, liquor and trap music. Andre doesn’t look like he is ready to get gutter with them. I really need somebody to explain this Mr. Rogers sweater that Lucious is sporting at this alleged gutter party.

Andre visits with his pastor, played by Malik Whitfield, who is most known for his tour de force performance as Otis Williams in The Temptations movie, spurring a flurry of “Ain’t nobody coming to see you Otis!” memes on social media. The pastor encourages Andre to invite all of his family to his upcoming baptism and confess all of his wrong doings to them: “Your house ain’t clean unless you closet is,” Pastor says. Andre spends the entire episode doing just that, in that same Mr Rogers sweater Lucious was wearing earlier. *sigh* Lucious refuses to listen to Andre, telling him there is no God and he can’t bear to see a stranger dunk him in tap water and act like that saves him. His brothers are more sympathetic, although Jamal tells him that he must make sure that the pastor is not going to try to pray the gay away.

Hakeem introduces his new lead singer to Tiana, who gives her the rundown on how Hakeem likes to get hands on with the talent. It’s almost like the universe is smacking her hand when she later has her bag jacked by two “fans” with a razor blade. After the bag shows up in an Anonymous-like Youtube video, Cookie figures out that they have been marked by someone — presumably Lucious — for a shakedown.

Jamal is still being wooed by the Andy Warhol wannabe in front of his boyfriend. Jamal seems clueless about this guy’s motives. He didn’t even know dude was hitting on him until the painter randomly dropped to his knees, proclaiming, “A mouth is a mouth!” Easily the line of the night. Jamal declines but apparently Michael was all about it because later in the episode Jamal catches him totally enjoying faux Warhol’s artistic head game.

Jamal and superstar Ne-Yo go into the studio to record a track. It is at this point I remember that someone created an awesome Empire drinking game that includes taking a shot every time Jamal sings about his feelings. Get ready to drink!!! Not only does he sing about them, he asks Ne-Yo for advice after Lucious told him he shouldn’t take his girlfriend on the road. Yes, old homophobic-ass-Lucious called Michael his girlfriend.

Which brings us to the return of Gutter Life’s star, Freda Gatz who, is in the studio trying to get the hang of spitting bars in a professional studio. Bre- Z as Freda Gatz is the TRUTH as an MC. The future of hip-hop is on Empire, and she is a butch lesbian, folks. It’s amazing to watch how much care that Lucious puts into the lezzie rapper. It proves that the biggest homophobes love to put their bigotry aside when they see there is a ton of money involved. I think Lucious sees a way to exploit Freda’s sexuality in a way that he can’t with Jamal because gay males in hip-hop are so taboo.

Cookie has a new promoter named Laz, played by hot ass Adam Rodriguez. They are hanging at the Lyon Dynasty studio when they catch two dudes trying to steal the label’s masters. Both of them come out the pocket with guns and demand to know who sent them. No surprise that it was Lucious’ shady lawyer/newest goon, Thursty. Andre confronts Lucious about the hit while wearing the same Mr. Rogers sweater that Lucious was wearing just a few days ago. *sigh* Lucious confirms that Thursty doesn’t act without his permission. Basically stating that he signed off on the hit.

Andre succeeds in getting the whole Lyon family to church for arguably the most boring baptism ever. Where was choir singing “Take Me To the Water”??? The Baptist side of me was not pleased but there was drama when Lucious finally arrived in true devil form, fashionably late. He claims that Freda Gatz’s rhymes reminded him of how important he is to the family and how much he cares about them. Cookie loud-whispers a retort asking him is it the kind of care that sends goons after them when they don’t do what he wants? Hakeem loudly co-signs and Lucious loud-whispers to remind Cookie she is under surveillance. Andre’s wife shoots them all a dirty look, no doubt wondering where the old church sister is to reprimand them for all this talking in church!

The baptism starts, and as soon as Andre is dipped in the “tap water,” Lucious has a flashback to his mother performing a fake baptism on him to make him clean. This triggers Lucious, and he walks out of the church. In case you were wondering, yes, I got my entire life when the choir FINALLY sang some real gospel music, but the Holy Ghost shout was short lived as the music turned into eerie background music when Hakeem gets kidnapped State Property-style in the park. You gonna either get down or lay down.

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Rosewood

Wednesdays on Fox at 10:00 p.m.

Hey, it’s a lesbian subplot! Lorraine Toussaint, aka Vee Adams Foster, is Rosewood and Pippy’s mom. She’s in their business way too much: showing up unannounced at Rosie’s house in the middle of the night to hang out with him and his girlfriend, basically hiring herself to work part time at Rosie’s lab, panicking if Pippy and Rosie don’t text her back within five minutes. But it’s only because her mama bear instincts are so strong. She helicopters because she cares.

It’s good she’s around an extra lot this week because TMI’s phone bleeps a reminder that her dad’s birthday is coming up, and it sends her into a tailspin. See, because TMI’s parents haven’t spoken to her in two years, not since she announced to them that she is a lesbian and in love with Pippy. TIM has literally been counting the minutes that they abandoned her, and so she goes to Donna to ask her how come she’s so supportive of Pippy. Donna says it’s because she loves her and wants her to be happy, and also because there is literally nothing in the world weird or wrong about being gay. And she believes in her heart that TMI’s parents are going to come around and understand that truth one day too. She says she prays for it every night.

TMI: You pray for me.
Donna: I pray for all my babies.

Daaaaaang. That’s a great line. TMI convinces Pippy to ease up off her mama a little bit, and then they hug. What a sweet subplot! That’ll do, Rosewood. That’ll do.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on Fox at 8:00 p.m.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a straight white male superhero dies, he’s coming back to life for absolute sure — but when a minority superhero dies (a thing that usually happens to advance the plot of the straight white dude hero), she is dead dead dead. It is also a truth universally acknowledged that TV writers will be baffled when queer women push back against the tropes that have been damaging us for decades. So it was that these warring Universal Truths played out right in front of our faces last year when bisexual badass Sara “Canary” Lance was stuffed in a refrigerator on Arrow. There was no way the show was bringing her back, but also they kind of had to bring her back.

Enter: DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.

We’ve known for a while that Sara Lance is gonna be a thing on DC’s 2016 Main Event, but we haven’t known how or why or what kind of thing she’s going to be. This week, Arrow decided it was time to start answering that question. And a hearty thumbs up to them for doing it so early in the season, and for making Nyssa, Sara’s “beloved,” a crucial part of her resurrection story.

It starts with Laurel unearthing her sister’s decaying body and tossing Sara over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and tromping on up to the League of Assassins’ lair to demand they let her borrow their Lazarus Pit for a minute. Basically everyone on this show has enjoyed the effects of that Pit a time or two — Ra’s used it to live for like 160 years — and so why should Sara be denied her chance to bathe in it? Nyssa will tell you why: Because she’s read a lot of Edgar Allen Poe stories and she knows that once a person is actually dead and you make some deal with the devil to bring them back to life, you’re in for a world of gore and heartache.

To illustrate Nyssa’s worries, Thea, who also was resurrected (kinda) in the Lazarus Pit is now having the side effect of insatiable blood lust. She wants to kill everything in every way all the time. Her dad, Merlyn, the true owner of The Pit, tells her that there’s a way for her to quench her compulsion to murder — and it is to do murder. Like if you kill just one or two dudes, you won’t want to kill everyone. You’ll feel really not-stabby for a while, in fact. And then when you start getting antsy to smash everyone’s brains in again, you just do a couple more  casual murders, and you’ll feel better. Lather, kill, repeat, as needed. Thea’s real mad about this development, so Merlyn himself tosses Sara’s body in the Pit, so Thea can have a friend, I guess.

Sara does come back to life! But it’s not the Sara we all knew and loved. She’s like a wild, naked beast who wants to destroy the hell out of everyone. Well. Everyone except for Nyssa, who watches with wide horrified eyes as Sara’s body comes back to life. The only thing about Sara that’s the same, it seems, is that she looks like Caity Lotz and wants to keep Nyssa from harm.

They have to chain Sara up, actually. And then Nyssa destroys the pit with her bare hands. Nevermore! 

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Steven Universe

Thursdays on Cartoon Network

Steven Universe is the best written queer show on TV right now, a feminist utopia of fully realized female characters — many of whom are voiced by and coded as women of color — who live and work together and navigate layered interpersonal relationship dynamics while also saving the world. And I’m not talking about Three’s Company-style “Who ate the last yogurt?” hijinks. I’m talking about Garnet is a Gem who is actually a fusion of two other gems — Sapphire and Ruby, who are in a lesbian marriage, basically — and she spends a good quarter of this season being inconsolably hurt and angry at Pearl, who manufactured a reason to fuse with her because she liked the way it felt to be so close to her. Pearl lied about needing to fuse with Garnet, and because Garnet is actually a sacred fusion between Sapphire and Ruby, it was an ultimate sort of betrayal. In fact, Sapphire and Ruby were forced to break apart to handle their individual feelings about it. (Just watch this, okay, and try not to die because it’s so goddamn adorable.)

So on the latest episode of Steven Universe, “Too Far,” we found out maybe two whole other Gems are queer! One of the Gems’ main nemeses so far has been Peridot, a ruthless Homeworld Gem technician. A few episodes ago, though, we discovered that Peridot isn’t actually a giant menace capable of destroying the earth; she’s actually a tiny buddy trying to get home and/or stop The Cluster from smashing the planet to smithereens, and she’s overcompensating for her fears and insecurities by acting like a cold, detached monster. After getting captured and locking herself in Steven’s bathroom, she begrudgingly agrees to help the Gems stop The Cluster, but she doesn’t have a lot of experience with earth manners and human-style interaction, so she’s accidentally pretty abrasive sometimes. Okay, FINE, she’s purposefully abrasive most of the time. But not all the time.

Peridot is actually really learning to care about Steven, which doesn’t surprise anyone; Steven is the most lovable person on TV. What’s surprising is that Peridot is also learning to care about Amethyst. Peridot is really uncomfortable with Garnet (because she’s really Sapphire and Ruby and they’re fused even though they’re not fighting anything and that kind of intimacy between two Gems freaks her the heck right out). And she thinks Pearl is way too bossy. But Peridot likes Amethyst. She likes her-likes her. Peridot discovers it (and we discover it) when she unwittingly hurts Amethyst’s feelings while just trying to make her laugh.

Amethyst thinks Peridot is hilarious. She calls noses “scent sponges,” eyeballs “vision spheres,” fingers “touch stumps,” feet “gravity connectors.” When they’re visiting the Kindergarten, though, to get a drill head, Peridot accidentally takes her unfiltered jibber-jabber too far, telling Amethyst that she isn’t living up to her full potential and would be a disgrace on the home planet. When Amethyst shuts down and stops talking to her, Peridot is too distraught to function. “She won’t even look at me,” she complains to Steven. “It’s making me feel … smaller.” Steven explains about emotional wounds and even though Peridot is loathe to make amends — and has honestly probably never apologized for anything in her life — she breaks free from her restraints and saves Amethyst’s life on impulse just a few minutes later.

It’s filmed (drawn) like a rom-com, with Peridot sitting on top of Amethyst, grappling with what this closeness means, and Amethyst looking up in wonder and struggling with the same thing. Peridot jumps up when she realizes what’s happening and screams, “GAH!” and swears it was an accident. Finally, she plays a recording of her home planet log for Amethyst:

This entire planet is backwards! There hasn’t been on experience of correct behavior exhibited by any of these Crystal Gems. I have concluded that they are all defective — but I am no better. I failed my mission and now I’m working with the enemy, and I can’t even get that right. I have apparently “hurt” Amethyst’s “feelings,” which was never my intent. If I’ve damaged my standing with the best Gem here, I’ve made a serious mistake. I’m still learning. I hope you understand. I want to understand. I’m … sorry.

When Amethyst forgives her and wanders off, Steven asks Peridot how she feels. She says, “Big.”

The good news is Steven Universe is on hiatus until 2016, so you have plenty of time to get caught up on this masterpiece. As always, we thank Mey Rude for bringing this (and so many other perfect things) into our lives.

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Grey’s Anatomy

Thursdays on ABC at 8:00 p.m.

Written by Aja

Not gonna lie, this was a brutal episode. Pure, unadulterated Shondaland heartsmash in the Haus of Sister Lady Chiefs.

The episode begins where last week’s left off, Grey the hostess (and can I just take a moment to say I love this look on her — paired with no jewelry and a severe yet comfortable all-black outfit, the aggressive side part/hair flip thing is almost edgy on her, the whole thing feels chic as hell) opening her front door and seeing Penny on her doorstep.

Penny is, of course, both Callie’s new girlfriend and the woman responsible for Derek’s death. (I ought to preface this recap by saying that I’m a sucker for the whole deeply-flawed-but-flawless-woman-holds-it-together-for-a-gathering-until-she-doesn’t vibe. The Hours, Betty Draper, August: Osage County, The Family Stone. When well done, it has the power to lift a somewhat banal occurrence in film or television into something haunting and resonant.) Only Penny and Meredith know that going in, though. As the new couple put their coats down in a room off the foyer, Penny immediately pleads with Callie to leave the party. Callie’s excited and bubbly and thinks it’s just nerves or shyness or social awkwardness and pushes on, feeding Penny a constant stream of hushed, lowdown DL on the other guests as introductions are made. The dinner itself is in shambles and delayed indefinitely; none of these genius surgeons can cook; in fact, the vast majority of them seem to possess a skillset confined solely to pouring various types of alcohol in glasses. (Incidentally, this is more or less what dinner parties at my house look like.)

Meanwhile, Maggie the hostess is MIA on account of a nasty UTI, so she flits between the bathroom and the hospital all night long. Amelia the hostess shines, all warmth and wit and full of hugs. As she embraces Penny, Meredith stares with dead-inside zombie eyes over a blender she’s been tending to for like 15 minutes now, and Karev is watching Mere like a hawk. She drifts away from the blender and into the living room with a cheese plate, where Callie beckons her over to the couch where she and Penny are seated. America wants to disappear through cracks in the hardwood floor. “So…great house. Lived here long?” Penny asks. America is losing fingernails in an attempt to rip up floorboards they can sink through quietly. After a polite but pointed reply, Callie mentions Derek’s passing, and Penny pulls away again, asking to leave. Callie misunderstands and assures her that Arizona isn’t scary — “We’re gonna rip off this Band-Aid!” she trills, and marches Penny over to Arizona, who is buzzed bordering on drunk. We like Drunk Arizona!

Grey runs upstairs to puke and have horrible, horrible flashbacks of the night Derek died. Maggie and her UTI barge in on her for a pee, and then Amelia barges in to remind everyone that the word “dinner” exists in “dinner party” for a reason. Meredith takes a deep breath and goes to set the table, glaring as Penny and Arizona bond over their transitory childhoods, no doubt leaping ahead in her mind to what her children will have to say at dinner parties when they’re adults.

Dr. ‘Over It’ Avery arrives, flustering April, when Arizona corners her with a goblet of wine by the stairs, flushed and happy with how well she’s dealing with this whole Callie’s-GF-Penny jam. In the kitchen, Karev needles Mere about what’s wrong (she can’t even cut an apple, she’s so distraught), Drunk Arizona is primo drunk and saying things like, “Callie picked a Pretty Penny!” and “Maybe I should date Penny!” Have I mentioned that we like Drunk Arizona?! April looks on as Edwards and Avery make small chat, which sends her into superwoman mode in the kitchen; this is our dinner party savior, except no one can save this dinner party. Jo tries to be relevant; as usual, no one cares.

Of course Callie gets called back to the hospital, because Shondaland. “Hey, can you make sure my murdering GF has a good time while I abandon her here with you, Widow Grey?” she asks Meredith, who replies “GO THE FUCK TO HELL, CALLIE!” Just kidding, Meredith nods because that’s what deeply-flawed-but-flawless-women-hold-it-together-for-a-gathering-until-they-can’t do!

After Callie leaves, Meredith tells Penny that she will: a) be a polite guest b) stay the hell away from her and c) then GTFO of her house when dinner’s over. Reasonable! Bailey keeps Penny occupied for awhile, but there’s a brief moment when Penny tries to slip away on her own, despite Amelia’s reassurances that they’re a welcoming, fun bunch. As Meredith drifts over, she overhears this and instead of doing that Southern thing where a woman says the rudest thing in the most sedulously polite way, efficiently getting rid of Penny, she says, “Dinner’s ready!” Penny and Amelia sit next to one another. Alrighty then, let’s get this party started.

Best part of the episode, right here: Callie’s not back yet so Penny says, “We all know how house calls go, one of y’all might have to give me a ride home tonight!” Drunk Arizona, without missing a single beat, goes “Yeah, well, she better get back soon or I might take you home myself! Find a Penny, pick it up!”

Since April’s been chained to the stove all night, she politely asks what Penny does. Her explanation reminds Bailey why her name sounded familiar; she’s a resident transfer starting Monday at the hospital. This is the part where the one thing Meredith had clung to all night — that she could control the evening, control never having to see Penny again, the general fuzzy concept of ever having control over any part of life post-Derek, or ever — completely detonates. This is not a drill. (Note: We are only halfway through the episode.) Transfers of that kind seem rare, so Penny tries to explain, as delicately as she can, out of pure self-preservation and animal panic, the reasoning behind her transfer. Mentioning her shitty old now-closed hospital, Avery asks, “Isn’t that, um…” leaving Meredith to finish, “Where Derek died. Isn’t that right, Penny? Perfect Penny killed my husband,” and then literally, “Let’s pass those peas” before excusing herself from the table.

There is no place worse than that table right now! Which, by the way, Amelia is still sitting at. Next to Penny.

As the group tries to understand what’s happening, with varying degrees of civility, and Penny doing her best to answer their questions, Amelia corrects her when she refers to Derek as Mere’s husband. “Derek was my brother,” and props to Penny’s acting chops, man, you can see her utterly buckle under every syllable from Amelia’s mouth. In the split second of silence that follows, Callie and Owen burst through the front door, howling with laughter. Bailey exhales (we’re with you, Bailey). Callie struggles to catch up with the yawning black hole swallowing up the room and Amelia’s like, “Penny was just going to tell me how she killed my brother.” Callie tries to tell Penny she doesn’t have to explain, but Penny knows she’s got to.

With each detail, everyone in that room bristles with disgust. For her incompetence, negligence, her excuses, and you can see the love and light die right out of Callie. Only loser Jo looks at Penny with empathy, because duh. Penny tries to get up and leave but Amelia’s a runaway train at this point. She wants to know her brother’s last words, which is when Callie slams on the table and says that’s enough. Amelia barks, “Get her out of my house” before storming upstairs.

Meredith and Amelia, after what must be two years of grieving, continue to struggle with one another’s grief. It’s so sad and angry and hard. Callie finds Penny outside calling a cab, and confronts her about such a massive lie of omission. Penny’s answer is a poor one: “It was the worst night of my life.” (Come on.) Everyone else is huddled inside in the kitchen, cleaning up and taking emotional cover. Karev feeds Mere tequila, Owen comforts Amelia, April takes Drunk Arizona home, Jo and Edwards make up and then fight again, and then somehow Penny’s back in the house, and she and Mere are all alone together. Penny says she’ll get rematched with another program, but Meredith says she’ll see her Monday.

It would probably be best for everyone, Penny included, if she went ahead and got rematched anyway, but previews for the next episode put her on Mere’s service. See y’all in two weeks!

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How to Get Away With Murder

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

This is an impossible show to recap, y’all. It is frankly an almost impossible show to understand. But I promise when Eve comes back, she will appear here with Annalise and I will show you screencaps of them kissing and try my very best to explain to how you they — both individually and as a couple — factor into Annalise getting stabbed to near-death in all these flash-forwards. (Have you noticed how similar the plot of this season is to the sixth season of The L Word? I do realize I will be struck by lightning from heaven for saying that, but it’s kind of true, right?)

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Carmilla

Tuesdays and Thursdays on YouTube

Written by Karly

So Carmilla season 0 is like the hiatus U by Kotex videos after season 1: they don’t further the canon plots along. It is technically a prequel, but tells a stand-alone story. Also, these videos are more about U by Kotex, so they hit the product placement so hard. There are tampons everywhere. But Carmilla is my show, to annoy me or not.

Season 0 starts with Laura and Carmilla holed up in a room in the library that is more like a now-defunct torture chamber. Always on brand, Laura Hollis finds some old VHS tapes and decides that they should have a movie night. Carm, unenthused as always, finally agrees. They pop in the tape and go back in time:

The tape is security footage that Carmilla herself recorded a couple years ago. The torture chamber is full of weapons and a giant mountain of tampons and pads. Carmilla leaves and “Some Time Later,” Perry and Mel are pushed inside, freaking out. At the party Perry and Mel were attending, one of the Zeta bros started crowing, and tried to fly off the cabana to terrible results.

Perry and Mel are unlike we’ve ever seen them. Perry is wearing a flower crown and says she came to Silas to see the OtherWorld full of fairies and magic. She burns sage. It’s absolutely wild.

And Mel, far from the archer from the Adonis Hunt, wears thick glasses and is referred to as the shy one. Mel is very concerned with the mountain of tampons and pads because none of the students on campus have had their periods in three months. I say count your blessings and move on, but Mel is really freaked out about it. In fact she rolls off six or so hilarious euphemisms about not having your period. My favorites: The Great Redwing Migration and “no tomatoes on the taco.” Killer.

Carmilla comes in to interrogate them. This is 2 years ago, and she is still the dean’s Grumpy Helper who likes to break fingers. Perry and Mel were the last ones to be seen around the flying Zeta bro, Bash, so Carmilla has to find out who is responsible, and deal with her.

Perry and Mel have no idea what she’s talking about and beg Carm to help them figure out who actually did it. Carm can’t resist pretty faces, so she agrees. They video call Kirsch, a witness, and he remembers he heard a sound like children singing, and before he starting crowing, Bash said something about vanishing Moon Blood and the Eternal Cycle. Who will feel awkward talking about periods after season 0? Nobody.

The first tape ends and we’re back in present-time. Laura really wants to know what happened next: Is it a chicken demon stealing all the periods? Did Carmilla hurt Perry? What even happened to Perry? (I’m more concerned about Perry than Laura is) So Carmilla agrees to watch the next tape. Until next time.

[Heather’s note: Is this the first time Carmilla and Laura gazed deeply into each other’s eyes? I think it is! I also love how the camera zooms in because it’s accidental Hollstein trash, just like me.]

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VH1’s Out in Hip-Hop + The 10th Anniversary of Noah’s Arc

Written by Carolyn Wysinger

On Monday night, VH1 aired Out in Hip-Hop and Logo aired a 10th anniversary celebration of Patrik-Ian Polk’s groundbreaking series Noah’s Arc. I can’t think of a night where so much black queerness was represented in television, telling our stories and making us visible. It was a little too much for my black queer hear to hold but I thank God my FVR could handle it!

Autostraddle readers may wonder why I’m writing about a show focused on me. The answer is very simple: There was a space in time where there were no black gay images on TV anywhere. There were gay shows like The L Word and Queer As Folk, plus a plethora of movies featuring gay white folks — but there hadn’t been any major black gay stories on the big or little screen since Paris is Burning in 1990. Then, Logo had the nerve to order up a whole series about black gay men by writer Patrik-Ian Polk, who was fresh off his movie P.U.N.K.S. The debut of Noah’s Arc became a touchstone moment in black queer media. It was a show where black gay characters weren’t simply “the black one” in the white gay community. These men navigated the black gay community, frequented black gay clubs (the club scenes were filmed at Jewel’s Catch One, a legendary black gay club in Los Angeles), and struggled with living and loving as black gay men in Los Angeles.

Most importantly, watching <em.Noah’s Arc was like watching family on the screen. The show highlighted real life artists, performers and other well-known folk from the black gay community that we all know as legends, but the white gay community had never heard of them. Noah’s Arc may not have focused on queer women. but for many in the black gay community, both men and women, it was the first time we were made prominently visible. When I watch The L Word‘s lesbians go to riot grrrl parties in West Hollywood, it’s very nice to see all the girl-on-girl action, but when I watch Noah and his friends hit the ballroom floor in Noah’s Arc, that resonates with me like home. When they go to black Pride at the beach, that feels like somewhere I have actually been. Honestly, I have been at LA Black Pride Beach Party many times, only missing the year Noah was filmed there (le sigh). Their stories and the community they existed in allowed me to feel seen in a way The L Word never could have, and I get the same giddy feelings hearing its theme song that I get when I hear TLW song.

Had it not been for a groundbreaking show like Noah’s Arc, I don’t think a discussion about homophobia in the black community would have ever found a home on television. But over on VH1, that is exactly what is happening. Out in Hip Hop was a townhall event hosted by ABC NEWS reporter TJ Holmes, inspired by the first gay couple to ever be featured in the Love & Hip-Hop series Miles & Milan. The show brought together an incredible panel, including Miles & Milan, Big Freedia, Pastor Kevin Taylor from my home church Unity Fellowship Church, Karamo Brown of the Real World, Nneka Onuorah director of The Same Difference, journalist Clay Cane, Felecia “Snoop” Pearson, and rappers Cakes da Killa and Siya.

Attempting to tackle all of the issues surrounding the relationship between the LGBT community and hip-hop was certainly a daunting task to take on in just one hour. Issues like use of language and coming out could easily have their own hour, diving deep into background and context. The aim of the show was to get the discussion started and finally put these issues into the mainstream consciousness.

From the top of the show, TJ made it clear that the discussion would be about being gay in hip-hop and the black community at large. The platform gave the panelists the opportunity to center the conversation on the black gay experience in a way that we have not been able to do so publicly. Cakes Da Killa had a wonderful moment where he made the intersectional experience of being black and gay center stage. We often talk about how hard white gays fight for marriage equality while often ignoring issues that queer people of color still face. Cakes put it in context for the mainstream crowd by stating: “There are people who live on the pier…that is still a lot of people’s reality. So I feel like getting caught up in this whole gay marriage hysteria and pandemonium we’re missing a lot of the smaller issues and smaller battles that affect people of color.”

Many of the topics were discussed through a very male lens. When the panel was asked why hip-hop artists can’t come out, the conversation turned to the boys club and how artists can’t be taken seriously if they aren’t seen as one of the guys. The subject of language again focused on the stigmatization of gay men in hip-hop and the use of words like “faggot.” Clay Cane brought up a great point about songs that we love, like Ice Cube’s “No Vaseline,” which exists solely to emasculate the members of NWA using homophobic imagery and language.

There wasn’t an opportunity to get into how nomophobia in hip-hop affect queer women, until the conversation shifted to gender expression and what was considered acceptable in hip-hop. Nneka Onuorah offered some great insight into the double standard in how gender is portrayed. Why is it that the community can’t get behind a masculine of center artist such as Siya but can get behind a femme presenting artist such as Nicki Minaj? Is it because she is scantily clad and selling sex in a way that straight men read as being just for them? The industry has a history of pressuring women who come into the game as tomboys to change their images in an effort to appealing to male listeners. That point was brought up to Siya more as a question instead of a historical reality. When you look at artists like Queen Latifah, MC Lyte and Eve and see how their appearance changed over time, you have to ask yourself how can an artist who is not just tomboy but very masculine expect to break the barrier into mainstream success? These issues of acceptable gender performance must continuously be challenged by artists who are willing to be themselves. As Big Freedia put it, you have to have faith in being yourself fearlessly. The faith of a mustard seed can move mountains.

Speaking of which, the faith the conversation took a bit of a contentious turn when TJ welcomed mega pastor Jamal Bryant to the program as they discussed the impact of the black church on the black gay community. Even with a gay pastor sitting there on the panel as a testament to the fact that it is possible to be black, queer and Christian, the conversation turned heated as Pastor Bryant spouted the oft heard opinion that people should hate the sin and not the sinner. He even went so far as to say that the panel was levying reverse discrimination against him for not agreeing with their opinions. Many times when we have these conversations about the divide between the black gay community and the black church in public forums, the quick answer from white gays is “Why would you even want to be part of an institution like the church?”

I wrote a piece on Everyday Feminism about reconciling your spiritual walk when you come out as queer , which was was embraced by black gays while being hotly contested by white gays. It is important to understand how important the church is to many black folks and how large a role it plays in our lives both spiritually and culturally. I was glad that Pastor Taylor was on the panel to dispel the myth that you can’t be gay and a person of faith. The Unity Fellowship Movement played a huge role in my personal journey in reconciling my faith and my sexuality and I was glad that they had a seat at the table for this discussion. I believe that this discussion coupled with the recent episode on Lyanla Fix My Life about gay pastors may really work to save a young black child’s life as they labor under the weight of these two communities. Journalist Clay Cane, also a panelist, has an amazing documentary called Holler If You Hear Me coming to theaters about this exact topic. The trailer aired on Monday night and I am so excited to see it.

Much of the information that was highlighted in Out in Hip-Hop is old news for many of us that navigate this community on a daily basis. The power of the show was found in the fact that these issues are being discussed openly on television, something that would not have been heard of ten years ago when Noah’s Arc first aired. All of the issues covered through discussion Out in Hip Hop were addressed through Patrik-Ian Polk’s iconic characters just ten years ago. In an age when we are celebrating the multitude of black shows on major networks, we can’t ignore the slowly changing attitudes towards black queer stories in media and how the visibility of one makes it possible for the others to be made. Many of these issues are still unresolved but perhaps now that the conversations have been started, now that our community is finally in a space where they are open to hearing, maybe we can finally start a process of creating a community where it is safe to be black and queer in music, on TV and in our own communities.

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A very special thank you to Sadie and Karly for the screencaps in this column. What we’re going to accomplish here in the coming months would absolutely not be possible without these two committed interns. 

Boob(s) On Your Tube: Fall TV Ends With a Whimper, Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant are Accidental Lesbians on SNL

I think we can officially call a wrap on fall TV. It’s been a roller coaster of emotions these last few months, huh? We lost Sara Lance on Arrow (but we’re getting her back). We lost Charlie on Supernatural (but we’re probably getting her back too). The show I was most excited about (Gotham) let me down in a major way, and the show I was most skeptical about (Jane the Virgin) became my favorite new series of the whole season. None of the sitcoms with leading lesbian/bi characters (One Big Happy, Marry Me, Weird Loners) survived. Kalinda departed from The Good Wife with a scrap of fire in tact. Recurring characters Haddie and Crickett from Parenthood and Hart of Dixie rode off into the sunset with their shows. Santana and Brittany from Glee did, too, but at least they were married!

ABC Family’s summer programming starts in just two weeks, which means Pretty Little Liars, The Fosters, and Chasing Life will be back. Plus, other lesbian summer favorites like Faking It, Defiance, Rookie Blue, Under the Dome, and ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK.

MTV’s Scream is supposed to feature a lesbian character, also!

Next Monday, I’ll post a preview of all the queer TV coming up this summer, but first, let’s see these last few shows across the finish line.

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Jane the Virgin

Mondays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

Jane the Virgin wrapped up a brilliant freshman season last Monday night. I cannot say enough good things about this show. Luisa is only in the finale for a second, as a sounding board for Rafael to decide he wants to sell his father’s business/hotel so he can be the father his baby deserves. Usually, I’d be like, “Well, the queer characters was in a little less than half the episodes and one of the major season-long plots is a straight love triangle, so this isn’t really essential viewing,” but Jane the Virgin is a thing I have never seen on TV before and I think it’s worth all your time. It features so many different (and different kinds) of relationships between well-rounded Latina characters. It gives almost as much weight to Jane’s career as it does to her family life and romantic life. It’s also just really fun to watch. The pace is breathless, the plot is sometimes high level telenovela bonkers, and the emotional punches almost always land.

In the last moments of the finale, notorious crime lord/Luisa’s former stepmom-lover Sin Rostro kidnaps Jane’s brand new baby, so it seems like next season is going to land at full throttle, just like this one. I can’t wait.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.

There are two Arrow things we need to talk about.

One: Nyssa survived the finale and didn’t consummate her marriage to Oliver and didn’t fall in love with him and it seems very likely that she’s going to be a big factor in season four.

Oliver finally reveals that he’s been faking his brainwashing this whole time, and of course it’s in an airplane like a million miles in the sky when he finally comes clean. The ensuing scuffle finally sees Nyssa get her groove back, and also it sees the plane get busted. So Ra’s takes the only parachute (again, of course) and dips out, leaving Oliver and Nyssa to crash land the thing. They do. And they survive. And they spend the rest of the episode trying to track down Ra’s so they can take their revenge on him. In the end, it’s Oliver who kills him (and then, amazingly, it is Felicity who saves Oliver in the A.T.O.M. (fake Iron Man) suit.) Shockingly, it’s a very girl powered finale. Laurel kicks some asses too.

Nyssa is pissed because she doesn’t get to kill her father, and then doubly pissed when Merlyn — the guy responsible for Sara’s death — takes over the League and forces her to bow before him. But there’s something about her face before she bends her knee that says Merlyn will be at the end of one of her arrows before it’s all said and done.

Two: Sara’s alive! Caity Lotz is returning as White Canary in the CW’s latest Arrow tie-in, Legends of Tomorrow. Apparently, there’s big crossover potential here. Katie Cassidy is coming over full time and Nyssa will be able to move between shows at the writers’ leisure. Here’s a trailer:

https://youtu.be/4MubNoWQiSc

That? Is the power of lesbian fandom.

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Younger

Tuesdays on TVLand at 10:00 p.m.

This week’s Younger features Maggie in the role of Grown-Up Best Friend, offering Liza a moment’s respite from the world where her boyfriend’s bedroom doesn’t have a door and her career duties involve babysitting her boss’ love interest’s kids while he heads out to some black tie book awards. I’d love it if Younger could find a way to incorporate Maggie into the story as more than a time-out pep-talker, but it’s tricky because three of the four main characters all work for the same publishing company, and so much of the show is (awesomely) career-focused. Watching it is a fun way to spend 22 minutes a week, though, and a queer character on TV Land is still a big dang deal.

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Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Last week was the last episode of Newlyweds: The First Year, and Sam and Laura spent the entire episode celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary at the place where they got married, only with their adorable puppies this time. Honestly, their parts of the episode were so gay and wonderful and a thousand times better than the other couples’ baby stuff. They just lounged around on the dock and in a hammock and talked about how much they love each other, how much they’ve grown since they met in college, how they’ll be together forever. Also: skinny dipping. They were so unlike what I was expecting, and I mean that in the best possible way. Just a couple of lesbians who adore each other and want to be happy. If The Real L Word had been like this, I wouldn’t have cancelled Showtime five minutes into the first episode.

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Grey’s Anatomy

Thursdays on ABC at 8:00 p.m.

As I mentioned last week, Jenn had a death in her family and she’s still busy taking care of everyone, so she won’t be able to recap the season 11 finale of Grey’s Anatomy. That’s okay, though, because there wasn’t any queer stuff to write about. The time jump between Derek’s death and these last two episodes is going to make things interesting in terms of Arizona told Callie’s story in season 12. It’s been over a year. What we’ve seen these last two weeks is that they can work together like grown-ups now. They make a good team again. And they can tease each other about dating/sleeping with the interns in a playful way without any underlying passive aggressiveness. Maybe they really do need to grow apart to grow back together. Shonda said to trust the journey, whatever that means. I just want them to be okay!

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Lost Girl

Thursdays on Syfy at 10:00 p.m.

On last week’s Syfy showing of Lost Girl, it was Bo’s birthday!

Tamsin gives her a stuffed cat that is supposed to bring her good luck, and it does. But also, it starts turning her into a literal cat. Bo laps up a martini with her tongue, falls in a hole and lands on all fours, the whole thing. Bo and Lauren and Tamsin team up to find the missing Oracles, which seems like a fun road trip, but basically is just Lauren and Tamsin having a pissing contest for Bo’s affection. In the end, Bo does find the Oracles. They’re blind now, which is sinister, and all of Lauren’s crushed elevator patients are coming back to life. After the adventure, Tamsin gives Bo the birthday gift of wrapping her naked self up in a red bow for sexytime scissor shenanigans. They do the deed and then Bo confesses to Tamsin that her dad is Hades and she was born in hell. Just your standard succubus pillow talk, nbd, whatever.

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The Returned

Mondays on A&E

Hello bluebirds, it’s me Riese. Rumor has it that there’s this new show The Returned on A&E with some lesbian characters in it or something? Well, the rumors are true: The Returned has two lesbian characters in its ensemble, Julie and Nikki, and their sexual orientation is, as it so often seems to be these days, a minor fact of their existence, presented without much fanfare. It’s honestly quite rare to have an ensemble cast with two queer females and zero queer men, so hurrah!

The cast of The Returned also includes the following notable humans: Billy Chenoweth from Six Feet Under, Jesús and Maryann from True Blood, Sara Ryan from “Breaking the Girls,” Tyrol and Helena Cain from Battlestar, Commander Shumway from The 100, Catherine Rothberg from The L Word and — as of the most recent episode — Myka Bering from Warehouse 13! What a star-studded event for passionate watchers of queer-ish television.

The Returned is an adaptation of a French series by the same name, produced by the same guy who did Lost. It’s about a small town where terrible shit happens way too often, resulting in myriad untimely deaths. However, NOW THE DEAD ARE RETURNING. It’s captivating and dynamic storytelling with a stellar cast (although it lacks racial diversity in a major way), and is enormously better than last year’s ABC flop, Resurrection, which had a similar premise but quickly spun off the rails. The worst thing about this show is that the A&E app is the worst app I’ve ever used in my life and watching one episode on it takes about three hours, a ceremony which’ll include at least 45 Geico commercials and several slow-mo Benihana ads. Another cool thing this app does is that commercials will interrupt mid-scene without warning, and then play half a commercial, and then return to the scene? Furthermore, the closed captions show up about five minutes after they’re spoken onscreen, which is a bit disorienting. For example:

Sandrine Holt (The L Word) plays Dr. Julie Han and Agnes Brucker (Breaking the Girls) plays Deputy Nikki Banks. They’re lesbian lovers but it’s unclear how serious their off-and-on relationship is. We learn that Julie survived an (attempted?) homicide some years back when she left a party early (Nikki stayed behind) and was attacked on her way home. In the first episode of The Returned, Julie takes in “Victor,” a small boy who was murdered during a home invasion 29 years ago and continues returning to the town to get taken in by another innocent well-meaning woman, at which point he proceeds to pursue his hobbies of “looking creepy,” causing bus crashes, and making people kill themselves. Nikki suspects something is up with “Victor” and is slowly uncovering the details of his history in this town, but Julie refuses to accept his awfulness until he tries to murder Nikki. I actually thought he’d succeeded until this episode when Julie gets rid of Victor and picks Nikki up at the hospital. BLESS US ALL, THE LESBIAN IS NOT DEAD. Although, on this show, being dead isn’t necessarily the end of your story, anyhow!

Meanwhile, Hellen Goddard (Michelle Forbes) is scheming and Rowan marries Tommy, even though I think Tommy is the worst. Also in this week’s episode, journalist Kara Pine (played by Joanne Kelly) rolls into town in a pick-up truck and a tank top, looking to do a story on the returning dead, a phenomenon which’s not, she says, isolated to this town. I think it must be an artifact!

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Saturday Night Live

Saturdays on NBC at 11:30 p.m.

On a dicey episode of SNL hosted by Louis C.K., Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant played a couple in a sketch about the forgotten TV gem Whoops I Married a Lesbian. It hilarious and depressing. You’ll see why.

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Team TV coverage you may have missed

+ ABC Family Brings the Real-Life “Transparent” with “Becoming Us” (And That’s Not a Great Thing)
I found myself crying halfway through the first episode — not because the show was touching my heart, but because I couldn’t believe how Carly was being talked about by her family.

+ Fan Fiction Friday: 15 “Warehouse 13″ Bering and Wells Stories to Honor Endless Wonder
Do you smell apples? I smell apples.

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See you next week, strawberry milkshakes!

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Dead Lesbians and Bisexual Psychos Dominate May Sweeps

Happy Tuesday, apple pies! I’m sorry this week’s Boob(s On Your) Tube is a day later than usual. It was quite a week in the world of queer TV. Before we get started, I ran down all the lesbian TV shows that were renewed and cancelled last week on Broadcast Network Bloodbath Day. And Riese wants you to know Orange Is the New Black has released another trailer and some new promo photos.

Now, onto the Boobs!

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Jane the Virgin

Mondays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

Luisa is back for the penultimate episode of Jane the Virgin‘s first season for just a minute. The Michael-Jane-Rafael love triangle zigs back in Michael’s direction, and so Rafael is feeling pretty heartbroken about it. At the end of the day, he confides to Luisa (and Juicy Jordan!) that he’s still in love with Jane and only broke up with her because he was trying to be chivalrous. It’s actually a really funny sight gag, the way it happens. The scenes with Luisa are filmed like she and Rafael are having an intimate conversation, and then JJ wanders into the frame and throws down some truths because she’s been listening in the whole time. And then she makes out with his sister. JJ and Luisa tell Rafael to suck up his pride and tell Jane how he feels. He agrees that’s what he should do.

Last night was the season one finale and (SPOILER ALERT!) Sin Rostro went on a kidnapping spree!

Here’s What Happened Live in Slack:

Gabby: HEATHER THEY STOLE JANES BABY I AM SCREAMING
Heather: I KNOW IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL AND THEN WHAT THE FFFFFFFFF
I actually really did shout.
Gabby: AY ME TOO + LAURA
but so so good like what a good telenovela twist
Heather: i know! i shouted and jumped up, and then i laughed and laughed. seals the deal on being tied with empire for my favorite new show of the season!
Gabby: yes totally like 100% ok i feel better now. you calmed my spirit.
Heather: i am so glad you had an all caps reaction! i felt unhinged for a minute!
Gabby: heather what the fuck!! (this is laura)
Heather: laura, hey!
Gabby: what if sin rostro is foxier than before?
Heather: how could that even be possible?!
Gabby: why does she want a baby?
Heather: ransom!

Look, if you didn’t watch this show in real-time, catch up over the summer, okay? Trust me and Gabby and Laura on this.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.

Remember last week when I told you about how Ra’s al Ghul decided to marry off his lesbian daughter, Nyssa, to the show’s hero, Oliver? Well, that is exactly what happens.

Early in the episode, Oliver is forced to break character and start revealing to people that he’s not brainwashed because his entire team gets captured and shackled and stashed away in Nanda Parbat, so he needs to assure everyone that he’s going to take care of everything and free them. Luckily, his sidekicks are all really good at being heroes, so they’re able to scheme and plot and fight for themselves. All of them except Nyssa, whose agency is completely stripped from her by both the writers and her dad. Ra’s does insist on the marriage between Oliver and her, which: fine. Totally believable al Ghul bullshit. And it’s not like Nyssa is going to fall in love with him. (She better not f*cking fall in love with him.) But unlike the other characters in the episode, she is completely impotent in fighting back against the League of Assassins, even though she grew up in the building where they’re all being held and has known the weaknesses of these baddies her whole entire life.

I hope she kills the hell out of Ra’s in the finale.

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Younger

Tuesdays on TVLand at 10:00 p.m.

Younger is light on Maggie this week. She hangs out with Liza and Kelsey in a Brooklyn pub to watch Liza’s boyfriend play a washboard in his band. And then Maggie shows up later to give her blessing to Liza’s plan to raise $1,800 for her daughter’s tuition by selling her used panties on Craigslist. Maggie says she’s been around the block of the panty-trading world, and they don’t call the box seats at Lilith Fair “box seats” for nothin’. Mostly the episode focused on Liza’s relationship with Josh and how he’s getting suspicious that she keeps sneaking around and taking weird phone calls in the mornings and the middle of the night. She comes clean and says it’s because of her panty-selling business, and that’s true. But also: She has an ex-husband in New Jersey, and a daughter in college in India. She does’t reveal that, though, because it’s only season one.

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Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Sam and Laura went back to the baby doctor this week, I think because Bravo is absolutely obsessed with making sure there are some common themes between all these couples. But the main event was a reading Laura did where she talked about how she spent two years without an ear and how it affected her self-esteem and physical health. Here’s a clip from the episode.

And BuzzFeed published the whole piece. It’s really good. Sam and Laura’s mom were so sweet and supportive when she was reading it. It warmed my heart.

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Gotham

Monday on NBC at 9:00 p.m.

There is no love left in my heart for Gotham. None at all. After completely abandoning Renee Montoya in the middle of year, the show closes out its freshman season by turning Barbara Kean into a Bisexual Psychopath. On the outside, it appears that Barbara has unwittingly fallen into a relationship with The Ogre, who brainwashes her into requesting that he kill her parents — but in an eye-rolling twist of the cliched trope knife, it turns out Barbara is the one who killed her parents. She confesses this to Jim’s new girlfriend while pulling a cleaver on her and trying to stab her to death. The episode ends with Babs getting conked on the head and presumably checked into Arkham Asylum.

You will never convince me that the loss of Renee Montoya, the only queer character of color in Marvel or DC’s cinematic universes, and the sociopathic spiral of Barbara isn’t direct capitulation to straight white fanboy culture. The outcry when Barbara and Renee got together — when the bisexual woman chose a Latina lesbian over fanboy Mary Sue/future Commissioner Gordon — was swift and ferocious and supremely gross. Of all the things I’ve written about in my seven years of professional blogging, I have never experienced the kind of hate that was hurled my way for being vocally supportive of Renee.

So yeah, Gotham, I’m done with you unless you answer my anger with The Question. And in a major way.

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Bold and the Beautiful

Weekdays on CBS

Welp, I am absolutely done writing about Bold and the Beautiful‘s trans storyline. This is the last week I’m going to watch it or talk about it because CBS doesn’t deserve the ratings of even one person. These writers have had plenty of time to understand how harmful and hurtful their writing is to the trans community, but they haven’t changed their course or tone even a little bit. On Friday, the show opened with this scene.

Maya: I will tell Rick when I’m ready.
Brooke: You will tell him today.
Maya: Yes. If Rick proposes, I will tell him today.
Brooke: This has gone on long enough. Rick needs to know the truth. He deserves to know who he’s proposing to. That Maya used to be … Myron.

Later on, Maya’s sister outs Maya to one of her co-workers like this: “Her real name is Myron. She’s transgender. She’s my brother, not my sister.” And so that co-worker says it’s time to get the PR machine going because “A scandal like this, you can’t even imagine.”

These are the same problems I wrote about on week one of this storyline: Using Maya’s birth name is an act of violence. Repeatedly referring to her as Nicole’s brother is an act of violence. Perpetuating the very false stereotype that trans women are conniving and duplicitous with their romantic partners is an act of violence. Treating the fact of a trans person coming out as scandalous is an act of violence. Even the coverage of this storyline on the soap blogs is horrible. They’re referring to Maya in headlines as “Myron” now. Black trans women suffer more violence than anyone in the queer community, and this kind of storytelling is reckless and destructive. I feel like I’m contributing to the problem by watching it and writing about it, so I’m going to stop.

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Grey’s Anatomy

Thursdays on ABC at 8:00 p.m.

Due to a death in her family, Jenn was unable to recap last week’s Grey’s Anatomy. There is nothing gay to report about the episode. Callie and Arizona are in it for a couple of minutes each, mostly just doing the kind of doctor things you do when a tunnel collapses during a morning commute. However, Heather Matarazzo plays a pregnant patient whose soon-to-be husband is trapped under the rubble. It’s a rough hour for her. She arrives yelling about how someone needs to dig out her boyfriend so they can get married, nearly loses her baby, doesn’t lose her baby, overhears some stupid new asshole interns talking about her soon-to-be-husband being trapped under his car under the tunnel with no feasible extraction plan to keep him alive, has a panic attack, gets paralyzed when one of the stupid new asshole interns takes off her neck brace because she can’t breathe (because they caused her to have a panic attack!), gets un-paralyzed, and goes into labor. Also her boyfriend is maybe saved. That part isn’t clear.

I’m talking about this for three reasons: 1) Heather Matarazzo is a lesbian lady, who 2) also played Stacy Merkin on The L Word, which means 3) I have a reason to link to this clip.

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Law & Order: SVU

Wednesdays on NBC at 9:00 p.m.

Samira Wiley guest starred on last week’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit as a woman named Michelle who came forward after 17 years to disavow the testimony she gave that sent her father to prison for rape and incest. The episode is based on the true story of Chaneya Kelly. It is heavy and moving and terrible and wonderful, and Samira just crushes it from every angle. You should watch. You’re going to cry.

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

Just a couple of years ago Kalinda Sharma was one of the most exciting, nuanced queer women on broadcast television. This week, she left The Good Wife forever, after several seasons of poorly written, out-of-character storylines that frankly derailed the entire show. No one knows what went on behind the scenes, but the heart of The Good Wife‘s first two seasons was the relationship between Kalinda and Alicia. Archie Panjabi and Julianna Margulies didn’t share the screen together in the last 56 episodes of the show. It’s obviously something that bothered Panjabi a whole lot, if only because cutting off her character’s access to the main protagonist severely limited the scope and range of Kalinda’s storylines.

Entertainment Weekly flat out asked her why Kalinda and Alicia stopped interacting, and she said, “I think that’s a question you need to ask the producers.” And when they asked her if she was happy with the way Kalinda was written off the show, she said, “Honestly speaking, I would’ve liked something that would have featured Kalinda a little more, but they have restrictions and I respect that. They did do a degree of justice to her in the last episode.”

The producers promised one last scene between Alicia and Kalinda before it was all said and done, and they gave us one — kind of. I had joked that Panjabi and Margulies would film their interaction with CGI trickery, but after watching the finale, I think that’s exactly what happened. And I’m not the only one. As soon as I finished the episode, I went on a Twitter dig to see if anyone else thought Kalinda and Alicia’s final scene was a split screen. Vox did. And Indiewire too. Like what is Alicia even looking at the whole time?

Panjabi is right that Kalinda did have a small triumph in her final exit, in the sense that she rejected a powerful alliance and left on her own terms, all sunglasses and swagger. I wish I could say I’ll miss her, but the writers and producers have watered her down so much, she’s unrecognizable. She was never going to rebound from that. I’m just glad Panjabi has already signed on to headline a new show where she can showcase her considerable talents.

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Supernatural

Wednesdays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

So. Women in Refrigerators. You know it, right? That superhero trope where a woman gets beaten, raped, mutilated, murdered, whatever to advance the plot of a male hero through the power of manpain? That’s exactly what Supernatural did to Charlie last week.

Sam ropes Charlie into helping him crack a codex that will hopefully rid Dean of the Mark of Cain. She bounces from Dean and Sam’s high security HQ to work out the codex in a seedy motel, and at the end of the episode, Sam and Dean find her murdered in a bathtub. And that’s it. A beloved fan favorite. One of the only women on the entire show. Definitely the only queer woman in the show’s history. (Rachel just reminded me there was another queer woman in the early seasons of this show … who also died.) No build-up, no scuffle, not even a death scene. Just a lifeless body in a bloody bathtub like a comic book from 1964.

And here’s what’s nuts: At a panel last week, executive producer Robbie Thompson said he begged the CW not to make them kill of Charlie. He said he texted, emailed, called, tried to set up in-person meetings, but to no avail. And another executive producer, Jim Michaels, said the same thing at a con in London. The decision to fridge Charlie came from the top.

This on the same week as Nyssa marrying Oliver. Keepin’ it classy, CW!

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Weird Loners

Cancelled on Fox

Fox pulled the plug on Weird Loners last week, but at least they aired the final episode of the six-ep first season, because in it, the gang spent a whole lot of time at Truck Stop and Zara revealed that she’s bisexual. It’s a cute episode even though the premise is kind of Kissing Jessica Stein-y. Zara’s ex-girlfriend is also bisexual, and so both Stosh and Caryn (who has decided to be gay because she’s not having luck dating men) go after her. It doesn’t work out for either of them. Stosh because he’s a narcissistic asshole. And Caryn because she’s straight. But, in true Truck Stop fashion, it is Zara who ends up making out with her ex at the end of the episode. No one is heartbroken and ladies kiss and everyone wins.

In the B-story, Eric is mistaken for a gay woman, and accidentally joins the Truck Stop’s lesbian dart league. I thought about being offended by it, but it was pretty funny.

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Black-ish

Wednesdays on ABC at 9:30 p.m.

Raven-Symone guest starred as Dre’s lesbian sister on last week’s Black-ish, and Gabby has some thoughts on how the episode landed with her as a queer person of color.

I don’t make it a point to watch Black-ish; it’s funny as hell but I can’t get over Dre’s self-centeredness. It’s this ever-present thing that just makes me roll my eyes like is this what it’s really like to deal with men? Every sitcom dude suffers from the same myopia.

But, I’m really here to talk about Raven-Symone as his sister Rhonda and how this episode focused on her in the closet but still under the hood lesbianism. Dre explains how his family has a very polite don’t ask, don’t tell policy and the point is portrayed in a bunch of super funny running gags, like how his oldest son, Dre Jr., has absolutely no gaydar. Like had no idea Aunt Rhonda, Raven-Symone, is a lesbian even though she lives with her “mechanic roommate” in a one-bedroom and they have a cat name Kitty Lange. Drum roll snare.

I can’t speak about any family other than my own but let’s just say that these jokes really hit home. In my family, the abuelas and titis have refered to my girlfriends as mis amigas aka my friends. Always friends. Never novia which is girlfriend or esposa which is wife. It’s always la amiga de *insert your name here*. And it’s not like they don’t know what’s really good between me and whoever, it’s just easier to politely say friend so you don’t have to say dyke. So I really felt that joke on this show.

Also, twenty-three minutes isn’t enough time to tackle anything too in-depth but I appreciated how they covered Biblical condemnation and gay marriage in that amount of time. My family’s Christian too and my mom definitely had her struggles with scripture that considered my budding gayness an abomination. She didn’t flip the switch into loving and accepting me in twenty-three minutes but through communication and lots of tears/hugs, things definitely evolved. Despite Dre’s fixation on himself as the savior of all things, Rhonda and her Mom found their way to each other and made peace and wedding plans.

Maybe the portrayal of a Black mom coming to terms with their child’s sexuality on Black-ish wasn’t as nuanced as Kim Wayans excellent performance as the mother in Pariah but damn, Black-ish did its best. For what it is – a sitcom- and its time limitations, the episode and its stereotypes flowed with the vibe of the show and dealt with issues that have historically plagued many ethnic communities.

So I’m with it. This entire episode is worth a watch.

Black-ish has been renewed for a second season with a promise of more Raven!

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Whew! That’s a lot! Let’s talk about your thoughts/feelings on the week in queer TV.

Daily Fix: Laverne Cox Covers Variety, Raven-Symoné Guests on Black-ish, Brittney Griner Will Sit Out Team USA Practice

Hello, feminist monsters. Are you proud of yourself for making Joss Whedon quit Twitter? Just kidding, it’s not your fault! (Or is it?) (It’s not!) (…but maybe it is.) Joss Whedon quitting Twitter is all anyone wants to talk about, but that’s TOO BAD. There are so many other things happening, as you will see below in this week’s Pop Culture Fix!

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Laverne Cox Always Deserves Her Own Subheading

Laverne Cox looks so good (SO GOOD!) on the cover of Variety this week.

I’m going to buy this and frame it and meditate on it every morning and three times in the afternoon to center myself. WWLCD? Inside the magazine, the question is: Transgender Hollywood: Will Bruce Jenner Change the Industry? The article (quite rightly) focuses on Laverne a lot, but also talks about Bruce Jenner, Transparent, and the many TV shows that will feature transgender characters in the coming months. (Mey told you about them!) Also, more stunning pictures.

The Teevee

+ In Boob(s On Your) Tube this week, I told you about how Arrow is set to marry off its lesbian character, Nyssa al Guhl, to the show’s hero, Oliver Straight White Guy in the penultimate episode of this season. (This after they already killed off bisexual badass Sara Lance, who was Nyssa’s beloved.) TV Line says “Nyssa’s not going down the aisle without a fight. Atta girl!” But also, The CW has released about three hundred promo images of the wedding, so.

+ Portia de Rossi seems poised to return to Scandal next season. She thinks they’re the best cast she’s ever worked with, but that the Arrested Development people were funnier. (Winky emoji.)

+ Raven-Symoné will guest star on tonight’s Black-ish as Dre’s gay sister Rhonda. Apparently everyone in the family knows she’s a lesbian, except her mom. She talked to Entertainment Tonight about that plus her guest role on Empire.

+ ABC Family dropped the first promo for Pretty Little Liars season six and it is creepy as f*ck.

+ E! has announced a two-hour Kardashian special called About Bruce, in which “Kris, Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, Kendall, Kylie and Scott speak candidly with Bruce, ask many questions and begin to understand the tough journey he’s* been on his entire life. Through difficult and direct conversations, the family’s unfiltered reactions are surprising, thoughtful and ultimately compassionate and supportive.” About Bruce airs Sunday, May 17 and Monday, 18 at 9 p.m. on E!

(*According to E!’s press release: “Please note, at this time, Bruce Jenner is choosing to not live publicly in the media as a woman and will be referred to as Bruce Jenner and with male pronouns in this announcement.”)

+ On this season of Game of Thrones, The Faith Militant are tracking down and executing the handful of gay characters in Westeros. IndieWire thinks it’s really rad that the show took the subtle gayness of the books and made it overt, including this persecution storyline, because it’s a scathing social commentary on the fact that these medieval attitudes are still thriving in the world today.

+ Cynthia Nixon was on Watch What Happens Live this week, and what happened was a lot of things, including talk about gender and sexuality and obviously Beyonce. (P.S. Did you know Nixon is doing an Emily Dickinson biopic? Jennifer Ehle just joined the cast.)

+ Shonda Rhimes is tag-teaming with Bessie director Dee Rees to adapt Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns for FX. Wilkerson, who became the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism in the mid-90s, wrote Other Suns to explore the lives of black Americans who left the south in search of a better life in the north and midwest during the Great Migration. Wilkerson’s book won all kinds of awards when it was released in 2010, and also topped the NYT best seller chart.

 

The Musics

+ Miley Cyrus teamed up with Joan Jett to announce a her charity called The Hippie Foundation, which will support homeless LGBT youth.

The Sports

Brittney Griner won’t be one of the 30 players attending Team USA’s team training camp this summer. According to a statement from her agent:

Brittney has been through a lot these last couple weeks and after her health began to suffer, she felt it best to take a step back and continue to focus on her counseling. She knows USA Basketball deserves her full mental and physical commitment and given the circumstances, she didn’t feel like she could fulfill that responsibility. Brittney is incredibly grateful for USA Basketball’s support through what has been a challenging time.

 

Also.Also.Also

Jessica Williams hung out with at the Supreme Court during the first day of oral arguments about same-sex marriage and it is as wonderful as you’re imagining.

Boob(s On Your) Tube: “One Big Happy” Ends with a Surprise Gay Wedding

It’s time to talk about teevee, and the queer things you might have missed on teevee, or the queer things you just want to rehash from teevee. It was a good/bittersweet week for lesbians on last week, so let’s hop on in.

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One Big Happy

Tuesdays on NBC at 9:30 p.m.

One Big Happy aired what was probably its final episode on Tuesday night, and it was really, truly wonderful.

After walking out on Prudence last week, Luke holes up at a friend’s house, leaving Lizzie and Pru to cuddle up in bed together. Or, well, no. To leave Pru to cuddle up in bed with Lizzie and cry about how much she misses Luke and how sorry she is she lied to him and also to read Lizzie some of the erotic poetry Luke writes on Post-It notes. It’s as romantic as it sounds. Lizzie agrees to help Prudence out, because she’s going to get deported if she and Luke don’t really get married. And because she relates to Prudence’s dilemma of hiding who she is from the people she loves because she’s afraid of what they’ll think.

Unfortunately, Luke borks it all up because he agrees to be a wingman for his best friend and finds himself on a double date with a stage five clinger who handcuffs herself to Luke, tosses the keys out the window, and promptly passes out from alcohol poisoning. By the time Luke shows up for his wedding redo, Prudence’s deportation date has already passed.

BUT WAIT. Lizzie plans the wedding, hires the officiant, decorates the backyard — and then she goes right ahead and marries Prudence herself, to keep her in the country, because Lizzie has developed a begrudging love for her best friend’s almost-wife. For all the nagging I did about this show falling into ’90s sitcom tropes, it really whacked me in the heart with a brand new thing in the finale. I honesty don’t think this has ever been done before, and how could it have been done? Legislation that makes this thing a reality is brand new!

The episode ends with Luke and Lizzie and Prudence hugging it out, and me crying like a dumb baby.

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Jane the Virgin

Mondays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

Luisa finally arrived back in Miami last week, after taking a mental health vacation to recover from the fact that: She artificially inseminated a random woman with her brother’s last remaining sperm sample after finding out her wife was cheating on her, and sought sexual healing in the arms of her stepmother who turned out to be a notorious drug lord who also killed her father by burying him in a pool of cement. After her stepmother seduced her in an insane asylum.

Oh, but it gets better. Luisa returns with a new girlfriend, a professional wrestler named JUICY JORDAN(!). Luisa quickly reclaims the shares of the Marbella hotel that she was letting Petra control and starts making some amazing demands. First up, she makes Petra and Rafael agree to host a wrestling match at the Marbella between Juicy and her arch nemesis, Candy Crunch. It is such a huge success — both in the story and on the show, which trots out alter-ego wrestling match-up cards for all the characters over the course of the hour — that Luisa suggests to Rafael that they make the hotel a one-stop shop for pro wrestling.

Rafael shoots her down, but she’s just messing with him. She has an IQ of 152, basically made it through medical school drunk, and can figure out how to help him save their family’s real estate legacy if he’ll let her shoulder some of the burden. He agrees that he needs her help.

If you’re not watching this show, you really should give it a go. It’s fast and silly and features so many women of color having so many different kinds of relationships with each other. It always passes the Bechdel test. It’s always a ridiculous, feminist romp. And it looks like Luisa will be here until the finale!

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Arrow

Wednesdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.

Nyssa al Ghul was back on Arrow this week in an episode that made me lock and load the fire breath in my chest in case I need to Be The Dragon and burn something down to the ground.

Nyssa, as you know, has bolted from the League of Assassins because her father chose Oliver to take over her birthright, and had now brainwashed him into doing so. Nyssa is spending most of her time these days training Laurel and having confusingly delicious chemistry with her, even though both of those things are because they both miss Sara so much. After some general combat lessons, the two of them decide to go out to dinner at this place that serves french fries and milkshakes by candlelight. So, honestly, the perfect date scenario. Laurel teases Nyssa about how gorgeous she is in street clothes and they dip their fries into their milkshakes and eat them, because I guess fighting crime burns six thousand calories an hour.

Sadly, it is not all faux dates and leather jackets and women kicking asses. Oliver shows up to kidnap Nyssa and take her back to her father. One they arrive, Ra’s decides he doesn’t really want to kill his daughter after all. Instead, he’s going to marry her off to Oliver so they can have babies and the future leader of the League of Assassins will be his direct descendent. The lesbian married off to the male hero of the show after her bisexual girlfriend was murdered and stuffed in a refrigerator.

And yeah, that’s a potential real problem. Nyssa is a lesbian, has identified as one from the beginning, as spoken about and written by the show’s creative team and Katrina Law herself. KLaw gave an interview to MTV in which she indicated multiple times that Nyssa is not going to hook up with a man. So. Like I said, I’m ready to light it on fire if I need to, but I’m withholding judgment for the moment. This show already has some hard strikes against it.

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Younger

Tuesdays on TVLand at 10:00 p.m.

I wouldn’t have started watching this little sitcom if it didn’t feature lesbian artist Maggie as a main character, but I sure am glad I did. It’s not heavy. It’s not dense. It’s not going to win any writing or acting awards or anything. But it’s sweet and fun and explores relationships between women in ways we rarely get to see on TV, especially women over the age of 30.

During the last episode, Jane Krakowski came to town playing a best-selling author who has written a book called She-donism. Liza is tasked with throwing a young, hip book launch party in Brooklyn, and of course she invites all her friends, including Maggie. It only takes Maggie a second to spot a woman she’s been crushing on for years, and she decides to go for it, even though/because the woman just got out of a five year relationship. They chat, they flirt, Maggie asks her out — and then the woman stands up to reveal that she’s like eight months pregnant.

It’s all good for Maggie. She takes her home anyway, for a wild night of scissoring.

(Meanwhile, Liza learns that it’s not her responsibility to mother anyone except her daughter. Not her ex-husband. Not Kelsey. And not alcoholic authors.)

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Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Laura and Sam have not been reading our Makin’ Babies column, I don’t think. They should be, though. It would help them process a lot of the feelings they’re having these last few weeks about how Laura does not want to make babies yet and Sam wants to make babies, like right this dang second. Which, it turns out, is something they actually need to get serious about because Laura’s got some fibroids that are going to prevent her from getting pregnant if she doesn’t get them removed, and Sam’s eggs are almost all gone. It’s tough. It’s a lot of tough conversations that they don’t reach a resolution on. But Bravo did dedicate two glorious minutes to their puppies, Luda and Winston, which was my favorite part of last week’s episode. I love these dogs.

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Bold and the Beautiful

Weekdays on CBS

All right, y’all. This is well and truly my last week covering this show if it doesn’t get significantly better. And maybe they will. According to TV Line, B&B bringing on trans actor/speaker Scott Turner Schofield on May 8.

Schofield, who speaks and writes about diversity, became acquainted with the show when it asked for his recommendations of transgender actors to flesh out its headline-making storyline starring Karla Mosley. Though he was surprised when he received an invitation to audition, the New York Daily News reports, he nabbed the part.

Nick and Maya know each other from “when she first landed in Los Angeles before she became the huge success that she is,” Schofield tells the Daily News, adding that Nick will “remind her that she is beautiful and whole and authentic exactly as she is.”
The actor, who has taped six episodes so far, explains that he’ll be around when “things start to happen and discrimination mounts, so [Maya] can stand strong in who she is and how she made the right choices for herself.”

Right, so: This jerk lady named Pam rifles through Maya’s purse, finds some estrogen pills, and straight up is like, “There’s only one reason Maya would be taking estrogen; she’s transgender!” Which: No. Then, later, Pam gabs about it to all her friends, talking about, “Maya is not the woman Rick thinks she is!” Right, and then all the characters who know Maya is trans continue to blurt out Maya’s birth name behind her back with reckless abandon, like it’s not a complete act of violence. And so now pretty much everyone besides Rick knows that Maya is transgender.

Rick, meanwhile, tells Maya about a hundred times that she’ll never let him down, that she’s perfect, that she’s never lied to him and will never lie to him, and that he wants a dozen kids. After which he goes out and buys an engagement ring that is, and I quote, flawless and pure, just like Maya.

This guy is a crazy person! No one on earth could live up to these kind of expectations of flawlessness, except maybe Samira Wiley. Maya, you need to get away from him!

Anyway, Rick invites Maya for a weekend away in Big Bear for a surprise. (Spoiler alert, it is a proposal of marriage.)

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Person of Interest

Tuesdays on CBS at 10:00 p.m.

As I mentioned previously, Person of Interest took a turn for amazing this season when it made Root and Shaw more than just a pair of women with antagonistically sizzling chemistry who make sexy, sexy gif sets on Tumblr. Right before Sarah Shahi took a breather to go have a baby, Shaw kissed Root full on the mouth, shut her behind a gate, and went running full-tilt toward death to keep Root safe. I don’t think anyone really expected the storyline to resurface this season, but it sure did!

It all happens when Root finds herself in shock after receiving a call from Shaw, begging for help. She’s been trying to track down her probably-almost-girlfriend, but this is the first time she’s heard from her. So, of course Root goes all the way motherfucking in and plays a game with The Machine ON TOP OF A ROOF so The Machine will tell her where to find Shaw. The game is: Tell me where to find Shaw or I am going to walk across this ledge until I plummet to my literal death.

Despite everyone’s logical protests that this is all a giant trap, Root plows ahead, infiltrating a hospital, and ultimately getting her beautiful, perfect self kidnapped. It’s Martine and Greer. They used Shaw as bait to snag Root so they can cut her open and try to gain access to The Machine. She ends up killing Martine, who wastes way too much time monologuing because she’s never seen a superhero movie before, and The Machine ends up handing out its location to save Root and Finch’s life.

The season finale is tomorrow night. I don’t think Shaw will be back for real, but the show is 50/50 on getting renewed, so fingers crossed for season five!

(Also, please look at this glory.)

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Lost Girl

Fridays on Syfy at 10:00 p.m.

Lost Girl 503: It’s a whole death situation. Lauren is getting death threats for turning the Morrigan human. Three whole dead bodies show up on her clinic doorstep, and while Dyson can tell they’ve been killed by fae, that’s all they know. And also, Bo doesn’t really care if she dies.

Let’s do Lauren first: After the death threats and the bodies, she asks Dyson to hook her up with some self-defense lessons, and he does. So when a fae pretending to be a patient shows up and tries to coerce her into giving up the serum, she gives him a Ketamine dart right in his neck. And now she’s ready to become Bo’s partner in crime. You know, or not. At the end of the episode, one of her dead patients comes back to life, slays her assistant, and takes some time to get dolled up.

And Bo: She can’t have sex with Dyson. Or Lauren. Or Tamsin. And no sex means she can’t heal. Which is kind of a problem when Musashi shows up and stabs her right in the gut. It is Tamsin who calls her out, and finally Bo admits that she’s seen so much loss and death that she’s having trouble summoning the will to keep living, and that’s why she’s having a hard time with sex stuff. Once she admits that she hates herself for not being able to always save the people she loves, she finds her courage to keep trying. She snags Dyson for some sexual healing while Tamsin and Lauren sit on the counter and awkwardly hear them.

Afterwards, the four of them canoodle on the couch and watch TV and are the family we know and love.

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Team TV coverage you may have missed

+ Janet Mock Schools Us, Inspires Us, Makes Us Cry on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday!
Janet Mock and Oprah sat down to talk about being your most authentic self, owning your own truth and Redefining Realness.

+ Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1122 Recap: Gone Girl
Derek ruins Callie and Arizona’s Christmas dreams from beyond the grave. Thanks a lot, pal!

+ Orphan Black Episode 302 Recap: Mangoes Are Not the Only Fruit
Helena and Pupok go on a mango hunt, Alison becomes a pill pusher, Cosima gets sassy with science, and Sarah almost loses Kira again.

+ Fan Fiction Friday: 25 Swan Queen Stories to Make You Wish Upon a Star
If we had a Time-Turner, this list would be 1,000 stories long.

Boob(s On Your) Tube: TV Land Unveils Its First Leading Lesbian Character

It’s time for your weekly run-down of all the queer lady stuff you (maybe) missed on TV this week! A lot of shows are on hiatus for the summer, but there are a few new things to sing about!

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One Big Happy

Tuesdays on NBC at 9:30 p.m.

Good news, everyone: One Big Happy just keeps getting better! I’m still (still!) getting used to the laugh track and multi-camera thing; actors making Reaction Faces while the “audience” guffaws makes me feel weird inside. But my fears that the show was going to spend all its time setting up and focusing on a rivalry between Lizzie and Prudence over Luke were completely unfounded. The jokes keep getting funnier. I seriously cackle-laughed at least three times this week. And the main thing about the show is Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie. Lizzie is the main character, after all. (Thanks for psyching me out, NBC promo department.)

This week, Lizzie has a meet-cute at a woman at her gym, and it is for real super cute. Lizzie sets up a fake bowling league at the Bowl Hole so her friends can help her figure out if Kate from the gym is a lesbian. It hits all the notes of The Mission to Ascertain the Disposition and Intent of One Ms. Lara Perkins, and even name-checks The L Word in a sweet, nostalgic way. Kate is definitely gay. Kate is also definitely a nurse for Lizzie’s new gynecologist, The Baby Whisperer. They dance around each other hilariously as Lizzie tries to keep her open-backed paper gown closed, answer all the awkward questions about her bowel movements, and ultimately spills her urine sample all over Kate’s shoes.

It’s not that Kate doesn’t want to get involved with Lizzie; it’s that her boss has really strict rules about dating patients. It’s a no-go. But, instead of announcing her due date at the next appointment, Kate says, “Only 238 days until you’re not pregnant or a patient here!”

Lizzie has kissed two women on the show, has had two relationship episodes (last week’s with her ex, and this week’s with Kate), and Liz Feldman was right when she said One Big Happy finds a good balance between poking fun at lesbian stereotypes and also embracing them. It’s like being in on all the jokes, and that’s such a rare and wonderful feeling when you’re watching broadcast TV as a gay lady.

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Younger

Tuesdays on TVLand at 10:00 p.m.

It was a sad day when ABC Family pulled the plug on Bunheads. (I still firmly believe the show didn’t have traction because there wasn’t a queer woman on it; that’s where ABC Family’s bread is buttered, man.) But Sutton Foster is back on TV Land’s brand new comedy by Sex and the City‘s Darren Star, and this time her character has a lesbian best friend! Oh, and also Hilary Duff makes a triumphant return to TV here. So, there’s truly no reason you shouldn’t be watching.

The premise seems trite, but the writing is very good and Sutton Foster is the gosh dang best, so don’t judge it too harshly by what I am about to say. Younger is the story of Liza, a middle-aged woman whose teenage daughter is overseas doing a foreign exchange program, whose ex-husband left her for a younger woman (after refinancing their house four times to pay off his gambling debts), and who has been out of the workforce for almost 15 years because she was raising her daughter. She gets sidelined on every interview she goes on because she’s too old for the publishing industry, so her lesbian BFF, Maggie, decides she’s going to give her a makeover and help her pass for 26.

Liza lands a job as an assistant for a Diana Trout, a woman who is basically her age at a publishing company; befriends Kelsey Peters (Hilary Duff!), who is definitely 20 years younger than her; and starts accidentally dating a dude from Brooklyn who is in his early 20s. The show is smart and funny — the best joke is a book cover for a Pride and Prejudice relaunch that is Elizabeth Bennet all tied up in red silk like 50 Shades of Grey. The pilot was great.

There are so few TV shows aimed at women over the age of 35, and finding one that’s laugh-out-loudable, that features a leading lesbian character, and that promises four (of five) main cast members are women? Yes, please. Yes, forever.

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

This weeks The Good Wife pays lip service to marriage equality and offers up some pro-gay commentary on bills like Indiana and Arkansas’ new RFRAs, but only in one of Diane’s mock trials, as a bunch of rich white people sit around pretending to pretend to debate conservative and liberal ideology about the Gay Agenda. I would have much rather seen Kalindaa being integrated back into the show for Archie Panjabi‘s final episodes, because story is so much more powerful than talking points. Alas.

The once greatest bisexual character on TV spends the whole episode completely detached from the other characters. She has finally been fingered (sadly, no, not like that) for “falsifying email metadata” to keep Cary from going to jail. She runs to and fro, trying to plan and plot, and thinking hard about a way to silence the hacker who helped her — to keep herself out of trouble, and to keep Diane out of jail — but Finn finally takes a dollar from her, declares himself her council, and says, “Kalinda. You’re caught … I hate to say this because I like you, but if I were you, I’d come clean.”

Maybe she’s leaving the show by going on the lam. Maybe she’ll find out who killed Jenny Schecter.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on the CW at 8:00 p.m.

What if Nyssa al Ghul is destined to be with Black Canary, no matter which sister is wearing the costume? Huh? WHAT THEN? Because that’s exactly the vibe Arrow is giving me right now as Nyssa continues to train Laurel, and keeps intervening to save her life.

This week, Nyssa dimes out Masao after some emotional manipulation from Oliver, whose go-to these days is, “This is what Sara would have wanted!” every time he needs Nyssa to do something for him. She gives Oliver & Co. Maseo’s location, but she refuses to go fight the League of Assassins with them because she loves Sara but isn’t ready to go to heaven yet. She says eleven different ways that she’s not going to be a part of their ambush — but when Laurel’s life/freedom is on the line, she does show up and she rescues her (which actually is what Sara would have wanted, Oliver.)

Oliver ultimately gets arrested by Sara and Laurel’s dad, but then Roy arrives on the scene claiming to be the real Arrow, and my straight white man face blindness strikes again. I honestly don’t care which one goes to jail.

Now how about some actual training scenes with Lauren and Nyssa, hmm?

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Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Sam and Laura finally go on their honeymoon to Thailand and Cambodia on this week’s Newlyweds, even though Sam gets super panicked about mosquitos at the last minute and they spend a good chunk of time seeing doctors and modeling their mosquito jackets. But Laura buys lingerie too! Their honeymoon is like The Amazing Race, except with more canoodling and less running around like some headless basnhees hollering at each other. (Remember that horrible lesbian couple from TAR four seasons ago? Carol and Brandy? They were so mean.)

Anyway, here are some of Sam and Laura’s honeymoon photos. Next week, I think they’re having a baby.

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Person of Interest

Tuesdays on CBS at 10:00 p.m.

Shaw’s not back on Person of Interest yet, and I’m still getting caught up, but she’s coming back and I’m close to finished with season three! We’re both so close!

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Bold and the Beautiful

Weekdays on CBS

Well, B&B continues to fumble its new trans storyline. The show is still playing the fact that Maya is trans as some dirty little titillating secret, with Maya’s sister, Nicole, using the information to blackmail Maya while continuing to use Maya’s dead name and say things about how she was “born male.” According the spoilers I read this morning, the men in Maya’s life are going to “uncover her secret” this week, so it should be really fun to see how that shakes down in a culture where black trans women are victims of brutal violence more often than any other members of the queer community. “We’ve been involved, right? I would have known,” is what her boyfriend yells when his arch nemesis finds out Maya is trans and tells him. At this point, I wish they’d never even started this storyline. It’s doing more harm than good, in my estimation. Like even just a bare minimum of Googling would have opened the writers’ eyes to how awful they’re being.

Our trans editor, the marvelous Mey, is working on a list of shows about trans people that are coming soon, so get excited for that, instead of this!

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Weird Loners

Tuesdays on Fox at 9:30 p.m.

Weird Loners premiered last week, and it was pretty good! It has a very Happy Endings feel to it, and it is filmed in real live New York City, so you can see what Friends tried to convince you that you were seeing a million years ago! Apparently, Zara will be bisexual on the show. No hints of that in the pilot, but I’ll keep my eyes open for you.

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Team TV coverage you may have missed

+ “Fresh Off the Boat” Balances Stereotype and Authenticity in a Very Gay Episode

+ “The 100” Gives Canon Bisexual Representation and A Queer Girl Ship, and It Taketh Away

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Two more weeks until Orphan Black is back! What are you watching on the Boob Tube this week?

Boob(s On Your) Tube: One Big Happy’s Second Episode is Better, Bold and the Beautiful’s Trans Storyline Is Not

Hey there, kittens with mittens! Welcome back to Boob(s On Your) Tube, your one-stop shop for all the queer lady happenings on TV. I’ve got lots of goodies for you this week, so let’s get to it.

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One Big Happy

Tuesdays on NBC at 9:30 p.m.

One Big Happy made me laugh so much this week! Maybe I was more used to the aesthetic and the laugh track? That’s probably a big part of it. But also, there were some jokes that made me laugh out loud because they resonated with me as a lesbian person, and some jokes that made me laugh out loud because they were just really funny. And, best of all, the story took the focus off of Prudence and Lizzy fighting about Nick and gave them each other own stories.

Prudence encourages Lizzy to meet-up with her ex-girlfriend to give her back her stuff, but Nick thinks that is a terrible idea because Lizzy’s ex was toxic and Lizzy could never say no to her and she spent three years trying to get over her. (“Lesbians move in fast, but they break up reaaallly slow,” he explains to Pru.) Lizzy takes Pru’s advice but ends up sleeping with/falling for her awful ex all over again. But after being stood up, Lizzy’s friends and family stage an intervention. Lizzy kisses her ex on screen and Pru on screen, so that takes care of my worry that NBC was only okay with opposite sex affection on the show.

And the relationship between Nick and Lizzy was very sweet this week. I understood why they love each other so much and what they mean to each other.

I’m all in for all six ordered episodes now. (The ratings were down four-tenths of a point over the pilot, which probably has more to do with The Voice‘s ratings dropping slightly than anything else.)

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

Poor old Kalinda continues to be underused/misused in her last few episodes of The Good Wife. Her storyline doesn’t tie into anything happening in the show’s larger narrative, Lana is nowhere to be seen, and honestly, Archie Panjabi seems bored out of her mind. Remember when a woman of color became the best bisexual character on television? Sigh times infinity.

This week, Kalinda spends half her time denying that she had sex with Howard Lyman, and half her time being the deus ex machina in the Wharfmaster case. And she isn’t even really in character the whole episode. She’s flipping furious and indignant about the Howard Lyman accusations. She would have been so calculating and unshaken by that same thing even just a year ago. The real Kalinda Sharma doesn’t care what people think!

Ah, well, at least she got to kiss Gillian Anderson on The Fall.

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The Walking Dead

Sundays on AMC at 9:00 p.m.

Good news, everyone! Tara has survived another season of The Walking Dead. According to my sources*, she awoke from a coma during last night’s season finale, which means even more stock photos of dogs and cats dressed as zombies** for you!

*my girlfriend
**or at least until Shutterstock figures out what a zombie is

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

On the season finale of Chasing Life, Brenna could have really used a Greer to cuddle with. Sadly, her girlfriend is still off in Nantucket and she has to deal with her sister’s cancer relapse alone. On the upside, it looks like she’s going to be a bone marrow transplant match for someone else with cancer. (On the downside, it’s probably going to be a dude and she’ll fall in love with him because gosh dang John Green and the dang cancer love story syndrome he caused.) (Or was that really Nicolas Sparks? I can never really tell.) Anyway, Brenna and April celebrate her birthday early and Brenna agrees to video the world outside of the hospital so April doesn’t forget what she’s fighting for. It’s very sad. Not as sad as if Greer is gone for good, though.

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Hart of Dixie

Fridays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

Hart of Dixie aired its probable last episode ever on Friday night, and while screen time for Crickett and Jaysene was as limited as it has been all season (and the force field that keeps them from ever touching remained firmly in tact), I am happy to report that they did announce their plans to move in with each other.

I didn’t even watch Hart of Dixie until Crickett came out because I grew up in the actual heart of Dixie, and now I wish I’d spent all the hours I invested catching up on the first three seasons of this show catching up on Person of Interest. (See below!) These writers could have done so much with Crickett coming out as a lesbian in a group of tenth generation southern belles, but it only did the bare minimum. It wasn’t offensive, but it wasn’t engaging either. It was crumbs. At least Crickett didn’t die at the hands of a Baptist homophobe, I guess.

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Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Sam and Laura go on a “big, gay, pink” carriage ride around Central Park on the most recent episode of their Bravo reality show. “It’s important to me to keep the romance alive in our marriage,” Laura says. “If we’re going to freeze, we’re going to do it together.” I can attest to the reality part of this episode because I walked right by them the day they were filming this carriage ride and it was cold as nards. Buuuut it’s not all ponies and hot chocolate for the lesbian newlyweds. Laura trying to get her freelance writing career going, but she’s running up too much of a tally on their shared credit cards while she’s trying to make some money, and that doesn’t make Sam very happy at all. This week, they’re finally going on a honeymoon!

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Black Sails

On Demand on Starz Literally Always

Well, so! I was very skeptical about Black Sails because my friend who recaps it, Valerie, can handle watching any kind of blood and guts get spilled and revels in shows about stalkers (at the cost of constantly thinking she’s getting murdered, but that is what floats her beautiful boat). But I am very glad I decided to get caught up on it because it’s like Mad Men of the sea, really. You think it’s a period piece where the men are in charge, but it is the ladies who triumph in the end.

In this week’s season finale, Max — who was a pretty disenfranchised prostitute when this whole thing kicked off — rustles up enough money to make an offer to buy the pub Eleanor used to run. (Her former lover is still in chains and might get hanged next season for piracy, but I don’t know yet.) Also, Max’s other former lady lover, Anne Bonney, returns to Nassau with her partner, Jack, and y’all, they’ve got about one hundred bazillion gadrillion gold coins with them, which they’ll be splitting with their business partner, Max. It’s a really happy ending to what can be a really brutal man’s world kind-of-a-show, and that two of the three happy-havers are queer women? What a wonderful world!

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Person of Interest

Tuesdays on CBS at 10:00 p.m.

Like I said above, I haven’t had time to get caught up on Person of Interest yet, and I actually stopped my marathon once I thought that Shaw got killed, but last week in the comments, you guys told me that Root and Shaw’s kiss wasn’t the end of them, that Sarah Shahi just had to leave the show to go have a baby, and she’s coming back and Root is going to find her! I am trying to get caught up on that, so I can start freaking out in real-time with you.

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Bold and the Beautiful

Weekdays on CBS

Last week, Bold and the Beautiful told us that Maya Avant is a trans woman, which is a huge deal. A huge, huge, huge, huge deal. We need trans women of color — especially black trans women — on our TVs in a major way. And having a black trans character on daytime TV is so revolutionary that it made me drop the water bottle I was holding when I read the announcement. I haven’t watched B&B since Crystal Chappell and Joanna Johnson were playing a lesbian couple on the show, but I got caught up as much as I could this weekend, and I’m sorry to say this story with Maya is really problematic.

Here’s the deal: Maya Avant is a model and actress who is in a serious relationship with bazillionaire Rick Forrester. Last week, Maya’s sister, Nicole, came to town and Maya was not happy to see her. Nicole wondered why Maya left home and never reached out to her, wondered why their parents never mentioned Maya, and finally (after monologuing for five minutes), Nicole says she knows Maya’s secret: that she was assigned male at birth. And that her parents disowned her when she came out as transgender. Unfortunately, the show goes for sopay reveal in the grossest possible way, with Nicole saying, “You’re not my sister, Maya. You’re not Maya at all. You’re Myron. You’re my brother.”

Purposeful misgendering, using Maya’s dead name: That’s bad enough, but then the story goes all in on our cultural fetishization of trans bodies, and now the storyline has progressed to Nicole blackmailing Maya. Nicole wants a job as a model, or else she’s going to out Maya to Rick.

I just really hate what’s happening so far, and I’m scared for how this is going to shake down in the coming months. I grew up on Days of Our Lives. I understand soapy tropes. But sometimes you’ve got to value doing right over being melodramatic. Mays is the only regular trans character on TV, and that’s wonderful, but only if the show is going to learn how to talk about trans people with respect.

You can watch two clips of Maya’s interactions with her sister here and here.

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More, More, More

+ Banana (and it’s co-series’ Cucumber and Tofu) are on my list of things to track down and watch. We don’t get them here in the States.

+ Thanks to Meghan for the tip that Saving Hope is adding a lesbian character. I’ll find out more about that this week.

+ And thanks to Stefanie for letting me know that this week’s Bones featured a dead, psychic lesbian (and some of her alive former partners). You can watch that full episode here.

+ You’re getting your Pretty Little Liars finale recap tomorrow!

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Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed

+ Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1117 Recap: They Always Come in Threes, Don’t They?
Derek comes back and is worse than a leech trapped in your face.

+ 15 Of Those Actresses Who Were In That Show
You know her face, but you’ve got no clue what her name is — 15 of the actresses who aren’t on magazine covers but have shown up in small parts on so many queer-adjacent shows and movies lately that you’re really THIS CLOSE to looking them up on imdb.

+ Fan Fiction Friday: 8 Carmilla Stories To Warm Your Misanthropic Heart
And a profile with series creator Ellen Simpson, who writes all kinds of fan fiction too!

+ The Fosters Episodes 220-221 Recaps: Dystopian Robot Apocalypse
Jude and Connor come out, and Monty finally stops keeping her lips to herself.

+ Glee Episodes 612-613 Recaps: Last Stop On The Midnight Train
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and now it’s over.

+ 18 Questions We Have About the X-Files Reboot
Oh god, is anyone on this show a medical doctor? ANYONE

+ 50 People Who Are Definitely A on Pretty Little Liars
The PLL thinks it knows who A is, but it’s wrong.

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That’s all I’ve got for you! What have you got for me? Teach me something good!

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Everyone Is Gay And Nothing Hurts

Forgive me, daffodils, for I have sinned. It has been one million years since my last Boob(s on Your) Tube update. It turns out there is so much queer stuff on TV these days that if you let your DVR get even one week behind, you will never get caught up, unless you stop going to sleep forever. Remember when the only lesbian thing on TV was The L Word on Sunday nights? I sure do!

Anyway, this column is making a weekly return starting today, which means you will find it here every Monday for the foreseeable future. The first thing I’m going to do is update you on what we missed during the hiatus, and then I’m going to get you caught up on all the gay lady things on (American) TV (that we don’t already recap).

Ready? Okay!

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 Top Chef: Boston

Wednesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

We were drawing near to the Top Chef finale the last time we Boobs Tubed, and the good news is: Lesbian contestant Melissa King made it to the finals in Mexico! The sad news is: She was eliminated in the next-to-last challenge. But she didn’t let that slow her down. She tag-teamed with Mei Lin and helped her win the whole shebang, making her only the third woman to earn the Top Chef crown in the show’s 12-season history. I interviewed Melissa and she was gracious and hilarious and she taught me how to make perfect scrambled eggs.

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Marry Me

Gone forever from NBC

NBC’s comedy slate is in a sad state, and after pretty dismal ratings, they decided to pull Marry Me from their lineup — and leave the last four episodes unaired — to make room for even more of The Voice, which sucks for a lot of reasons. Marry Me‘s “soft butch flannel queen” Kay was one of the very few leading lesbian characters in sitcom history, and one of only a handful of black lesbian characters on TV. And she had just started dating Ana Ortiz! It’s time to double down on One Big Happy, maybe?

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Jane the Virgin

Mondays on the CW at 9:00 p.m.

It should be noted that the last time we peeked in on Jane the Virgin, lesbian gynecologist Luisa had been committed to a mental institution for telling her family that her stepmother, Rose, was also her lover. (Which was true.) Well, Rose visited Luisa in the asylum and they had crazy passionate sex to the rumble of thunder and crack of lightning because of an approaching hurricane. After that, Luisa broke out of the hospital and then broke back into the hospital so her brother could check her out of the hospital. Because he realized she was telling the truth about Rose. Because Rose killed their father. Because Rose is notorious criminal mastermind Sin Rostro. And now Rose has fled the country and so has Lusia. Probably they are having hate-sex on some beach somewhere, but we haven’t seen that part yet. Fingers crossed, though.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on the CW at 8:00 p.m.

I made my displeasure with Arrow very clear after they axe murdered Sara Lance earlier this season. My patience for killing off queer characters is exhausted, and when you add that to the fact that I’ve been reading comic books since I was seven and have therefore experienced ten lifetimes of Women in Refrigerators tropes, you can understand why I quit the show. But then my dear friend Valerie said Sara was coming back and so was Nyssa, and so I got roped right back in.

And Sara did come back, but only kind of. Bad guy Werner Zytle used this hallucinatory serum on Laurel and it gave her visions of Sara being alive and beating her up and calling her a selfish asshole. It was good to see Sara back, but a bummer that she was only a Boggart, and only for a single episode too.

But! On the upside, Nyssa al Ghul is bringing it hardcore! She keeps showing up in Sterling City to try to avenge Sara’s death in various ways, and while she did finally manage to capture Merlyn, the guy behind her girlfriend’s murder, she didn’t get to do what she really wanted to do, which was pin the whole thing on Oliver and strangle him to death with her beautiful assassin hands. In fact, her father, Ra’s al Ghul, offered the keys to his whole assassin kingdom to Oliver because Nyssa proved herself unworthy because she fell in love with Sara and everything since then has been about her bleeding, broken heart. But Nyssa decided she’s going to do something productive with her grief: She’s going to train Laurel to become the next Black Canary. That way she can help out her dead girlfriend’s sister and also spend some time with someone who loved Sara as much as she did.

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Gotham

Mondays on Fox at 8:00 p.m.

Where is Renee Montoya? No one knows! She’s not missing in the context of Gotham‘s story, but she is missing from the show. I think it’s been five weeks since we’ve seen her. FIVE WEEKS. You remember where we left off: Barbara was buckling under the pressure of being engaged to the most boring teetotaling incarnation of Jim Gordon in all the Batcanon, and he wasn’t exactly understanding when she was dealing with PTSD from being kidnapped by a mob boss, so she skedaddled right on over to Renee Montoya’s place, for a whole lot of scissoring.

Unfortunately, she also decided to mix a bevvy load of booze and pills together to pass the time, which made Renee reevaluate their involvement with each other. She told Barbara it probably wasn’t a good thing for them to be together, so Barbara dove deeper into her bender and finally went home to her fancy loft to find that it had been overtaken by tiny Catwoman and Poison Ivy. She let them stay and she ate Doritos with them and she even took their fashion advice. (“Dress like you’re going boating with another guy.”) Then she saw Jim making out with the hot doctor from Radley Arkham, and that’s where we are right now.

The penultimate episode of season one will air on April 14th and the finale will air on May 4th. Gotham has already been picked up for a second season and if Fox bends its knees to fanboy backlash and gets rid of Montoya because a bunch of angry dudebros can’t handle seeing a woman sweep future Commissioner Gordon’s fiance off her feet, I am going to lose my mind.

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

Thanks to Pretty Little Liars, ABC Family realized a couple of years ago that putting queer women on-screen is good for business. They’ve got PLL. They’ve got The Fosters. They’ve got Chasing Life. I’m not saying gay ladies are the only ones keeping those shows on the the air, but if you look at the dramas ABC Family has axed because of unsustainable ratings, none of them are shows with lesbian/bi women on them. And the shows with lesbian/bi women on them? Still going strong! Including this one!

Remember when Brenna came out as bisexual during the Christmas episode? Well, she’s still very out and Greer even became her for real girlfriend and moved into her house for a while! But then Greer had to move away because this is television and I’m pretty sure the writers had no idea how big the Grenna phenomenon — I checked with Twitter, and it’s “Grenna,” not “Breer,” okay? — was going to be.

It happened like this: Greer’s mom is The Worst. And Greer had a pretty terrible idea to go off her mood disorder meds to try to get her parents’ attention. That didn’t work out the way she planned it, but it worked out better than it would have on, say, Degrassi, because on that show she would have ended up driving her car off a cliff. On Chasing Life, though, it led to her realizing that her parents don’t even notice if she’s manic and dropping thousands of dollars on designer purses and literally moving into her girlfriend’s house. Greer’s dad finally realized he should divorce Greer’s mom, and he asked her to please come live with him in a whole other state. At first, Brenna invited Greer to just move in with her family until graduation (in like three years), but she ultimately realized she needed to let Greer go so for Greer’s own health and happiness.

The midseason finale is tomorrow night. Hopefully Greer will be back next season.

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The 100

Third season on the way

You love The 100. It bends gender and explores bisexuality in new and exciting ways. We hear you and we believe you and we are excited that this show exists. Rachel and Riese and I are trying to get caught up on it so we can talk about it intelligently and hilariously with you. Riese wrote about it a little in last week’s Arts & Entertainment Daily Fix. Rachel is going to write a thing about it for you this very week. I am watching as many episodes as I can, every single day. The senior editors talked about it this morning. We talk about it every morning! We really like The 100 too, and coverage is coming for you!

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Hart of Dixie

Fridays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

In a shocking and exciting twist, Crickett came out during last season’s finale of Hart of Dixie (aka My Grandmother’s Favorite TV Show). (Well, her favorite TV show that is actually still on the air. My grandmother’s real favorite TV show is Gilmore Girls. Luke + Lorelai 4EVA, is a tattoo she should have). But Cricket has been largely underused since coming out. The gayest thing she has done this year is read a book written by Ellen. She does have a girlfriend named Jaysene Charles, but they’ve only been seen together a couple of times, and the most intimate they’ve gotten is holding hands for a nanosecond in public. It’s not worth your investment to get caught up on this show, honestly. The lesbian parts are basically nonexistent; the season finale airs this week’ and CW seems very, very unlikely to order a fourth season.

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

When it comes to Kalinda, The Good Wife has never bounced back from its fourth season slump. Her relationship with her ex-husband was so out of character that it completely derailed the show. And now here we are, two-thirds of the way through season six, after which Archie Panjabi is leaving to star in her own thing, and the writers have no idea what to do with the once great Kalinda Sharma. Four weeks ago, she spent the whole episode picking up Bishop’s son from school. Three weeks ago, she was just hallucination in one of Alicia’s daydreams (and not in a good way). Two weeks ago, she swooped in at the last minute and saved The Case of the Week. And last night, she was back to babysitting. It seemed like the show was maybe setting it up for her to ride off into the sunset with Lana, but now it seems like maybe she’s just going to limp off without anyone even noticing. It’s a damn shame. Kalinda was once the best bisexual character on TV by a thousand miles.

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Empire

Second season on the way

Tiana didn’t show back up on the first season of Empire after the show revealed that she’s queer — so nothing after Laura got you all caught up on it — but Fox has obviously already ordered a second season, and you can be sure it’ll be a full season, unlike the first one, because Empire‘s ratings were off-the-chart good. So hopefully Tiana will be back when the next season rolls around.

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Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Bravo’s reality show Newlyweds follows couples through the ups and downs of the first year of marriage. This season (the second one), the show is featuring a lesbian couple named Sam and Laura who met and fell in love in college, ten years ago, and have decided to finally say “I do.” The first episode saw them tying the knot, even after Sam introduced a prenup at the last second. And the second episode saw them lounging around the house, feeding their adorable dogs, spray-tanning each other in the bathroom, and having dinner with Sam’s rich family. Laura has decided to go to work for Sam’s family, managing one of their properties in Florida, and Sam’s brother is a super wanker about it. The weird thing, though, is that the other three couples on the show went on honeymoons in episode two. Maybe Sam and Laura count all their college spring breaks as honeymoons or something?

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The Walking Dead

Sundays on AMC at 9:00 p.m.

As I’m sure you remember, I do not like blood, guts, or seeing brains, so I cannot watch The Walking Dead. My girlfriend is the one who watches The Walking Dead. And so honestly, all you’re going to get here is an adorable photo of whatever Shutterstock thinks “cats dressed as zombies” looks like, and an update on whether or not lesbian Tara is still alive. And the answer as of last night is: Who knows? Last week, Aidan shots off a bunch of grenades, the result of which was: He got impaled and Tara maybe died. She’ was serioulsy hardcore wounded. Last night, she was supposedly operated on, but that may have been a lie because all the doctors may be zombies at this point. I’ll tell you once my girlfriend tells me if Tara makes it.

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Black Sails

On Demand on Starz Literally Always

Much like The Walking Dead, Black Sails is full of blood and guts. But also it is full of queer lady pirates, so with proper supervision, I can watch it. Both seasons are On Demand right now, and also Starz airs reruns pretty much every hour of every day, so it’s pretty easy to catch up. And here’s why you should: There are four women on this show, and one got killed off in the last episode, and it was the only straight one. I mean, obviously I hate it when women get killed off on any TV show, but this one is a bloodbath, so the fact that all three queer women — Eleanor, Max and Anne Bonney — are still alive is weird and remarkable. Also, all the ladies love each other but are also at odds with each other and are also all varying degrees of psychotic. So, like Pretty Little Liars on the ocean, basically.

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More More More

This week, I am going to get caught up on The 100 and Episodes and maybe on The Returned, depending on how bloody that one is. It’s vampires, so we’ll see.

Also, mark your calendars for these important upcoming dates:

+ Orphan Black returns on BBC America on April 18th at 9:00 p.m.

+ Lost Girl‘s final season lands on Syfy on April 17th at 10:00 p.m.

+ Orange Is the New Black‘s third season hits Netflix on June 12th.

It’s going to be a good spring/summer!

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Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed

+ Let’s Talk About Ellen and Liz Feldman’s New Lesbian Sitcom “One Big Happy”
Liz Feldman is one of the funniest women in Hollywood, so I hope NBC loosens the reins and lets her get a little more real.

+ 9 Things “Glee” Did Right: On Bullying, Burt, Brittana, One Straight Butch and A Straight-Up Bitch
Glee did about 100 things wrong but it also did some things very, very, very right.

+ Listling Without Commentary: 22 Excerpts From Brutal Amazon Customer Reviews Of “The L Word”
“I hate to break it to those people, but lesbians tend to dress like men, act like men — and look like men.”

+ Top 17 Most Devastating Breakups in Lesbian Television History
In honor of the I BROKE UP LIKE THIS ‘zine, we present 17 times queer female couples on television broke each other’s hearts and also our own.

+ “Steven Universe” and the Importance of All-Ages Queer Representation
Up until now, the assumption had been that Garnet was a single Gem like Pearl and Amethyst. However, the truth is much more romantic.

+ “Scandal” Breaks Our Hearts With an Elderly Lesbian Couple and Jasika Nicole
Just one week after perhaps the most powerful episode in the show’s history, Shonda Rhime’s force-of-nature hit show Scandal has once again destroyed our hearts. This week’s story touched the souls of audiences everywhere with two tales of love trying to rise above what seem like impossible situations.

+ “Broad City” Swan-Dives Off Sapphic Cliff Into Sea Of Sexual Fluidity
Last night on a very special episode of Broad City, Ilana made out with a girl and even though it wasn’t Abbi, it was still pretty cool.

+ 19 Things We Know About Season Three Of “Orange Is The New Black”
We don’t know much, but we know we love them.

+ A Pastor, a Sexologist, and a Psychotherapist Send Two Lesbians into the “Sex Box”
Brittany and Sally got married on the Grammy’s last year and now they are headed into the sex box.

+ Grey’s Anatomy recaps

+ Pretty Little Liars recaps

+ The Fosters recaps

+ Glee recaps

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Whew, okay! Welcome back, baby giraffes! What are you watching these days on the teevee?

Here’s 35 LGBTQ Female TV Characters of Color Who Made 2014 A Very Queer Year

2014 was a remarkable year for queer women on scripted television. Five years ago, broadcast and cable networks clocked in at 32 queer female characters, total. This year, they boasted over 100. When I started covering lesbian media back in 2008, we didn’t have enough content to split between five writers for one weekly column; these days, we couldn’t recap every show with a queer female character if we had a full-time army of writers. TV still has a long way to go, both in terms of the quantity and quality of writing for LGBTQ women and trans women in particular, but we have come a really long way in a really short amount of time.

One of the main things to cheer about this year was that there were more LGBTQ characters of color on television than ever before. I counted 34 on broadcast, cable and streaming TV services. That’s more than the total number of lesbian/bi characters on TV in 2009, which is good news! It’s not great news, but it’s good news!

The reason it’s not great is because of those 34 characters, ten of them won’t be returning in 2015 due to being killed off their shows, written off their shows, or having their shows cancelled. There’s some overlap here. Nenna (Crossbones), Tara (True Blood) and Rayna (Matador) were killed off, for example, but their shows were also cancelled. The other thing that makes it good-not-great news is that of the remaining women, only six can really be counted as main characters. And, of course, fictional queer women of color only make up about 30 percent of the total number of fictional queer women on TV, and it’s still painfully uncommon to see a same-sex couple on TV where both women are of color.

Like I said, we’ve got a long way to go.

But, it’s encouraging that the number of queer female characters on TV has increased 300 percent in five years. And it’s encouraging that it is becoming commonplace to add queer female characters to new TV shows, and that these characters won’t always be white. And it’s super encouraging that streaming TV services are making broadcast network models of making television completely obsolete. Things are changing faster than I ever thought possible, visibility-wise. So, as we keep pushing forward for equality in mainstream media, let’s celebrate the 34 queer characters of color who helped usher in one of the most promising years of LGBT TV in history.

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Adriana Mendez, The Bridge

FX didn’t renew The Bridge for a third season, but for 26 exciting episodes, Adriana gave Lois Lane a run for her money when it came to investigative reporting.

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Arika, Dominion

I don’t want to spoil the dozen surprise plot twists and turns of Syfy’s Dominion, but I will spoil this one: Arika isn’t who she says she is, and that includes the part where she pretends to be into doing it with David Whale (played by Anthony Head Stewart, so: Old Man Giles, basically).

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Callie Torres, Grey’s Anatomy

She may have called it quits with Arizona this season, but she’s not calling it quits on being one of the most kickass surgeons at Seattle Grace.

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Camilla and Jocelyn, East Los High

This couple surprised us in the very best way on season two of Hulu’s original drama.

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Carolyn Hill, Under the Dome

First, her wife died. Then, the Dome’s magnetization caused her house to knock her out. Then, she was almost shot for discovering a stockpile of food and supplies. But Carolyn survived Stephen King’s hellscape, and she’ll be back for season three!

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Diana Barrigan, White Collar

USA finally pulled the plug on White Collar this year after a six-episode mini-season, and while the show never gave Diana the screentime she deserved, they also didn’t brutally axe-murder her to further the plot of the three main white guys on the show. Progress!

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Emily Fields, Pretty Little Liars

She will go down as one of the most progressive lesbian characters in the history of television. This year, she even scissored a resurrected ghost.

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Kalinda Sharma, The Good Wife

Kalinda’s story was on the back burner for many of the early episodes of season six, but she’s back in the thick of things now. She’s even building a relationship with Lana that might actually be serious.

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Kay, Marry Me

Tymberlee Hill‘s “soft butch lipstick flannel queen” is the best new original queer character of the 2014-2015 TV season, hands down.

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Korra and Asami Sato, The Legend of Korra

It’s canon, y’all.

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Lena Adams-Foster, The Fosters

2014 was an emotionally devastating year for Lena, but at least she and Stef finally got rid of that sex-killing hospital bed Annie Potts bought them.

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Luisa Alver, Jane the Virgin

Accidentally artificially inseminated the wrong woman because she was in shock that her wife cheated on her? Check. Slept with her step-mom? Check. Tossed into an asylum? Check, check. Luisa lives in Miami, but it might as well be Rosewood.

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M-Chuck, Survivor’s Remorse

She’s the sister of an NBA legend in the making, but M-Chuck is the real superstar of her family. She keeps them together. She doesn’t pull punches. And sometimes she makes out with ladies in church.

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Max, Black Sails

Max is a sex worker in a brothel in Nassau who finds true love with Eleanor Guthrie for a hot second before things get bad like they always do when pirates come to town.

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Nyssa al Ghul, Arrow

The only good thing about Sara Lance getting murdered is it opened the door for Nyssa Al Ghul to finally make her way back to Starling City to settle some scores. She’ll be back in 2015, too, with Flashback Sara at her side!

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Poussey Washington, Orange Is the New Black

We cannot get enough of this character, which was easily one of the most beloved of the year.

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Renee Montoya, Gotham

A kickass Latina lesbian of color who re-won the heart of the woman who is engaged to the whitest white hero in the history male whitedom. And she did it while taking down bad guys and wearing heels! If you thrive on the tears of fanboys, Gotham is your eternal sustenance.

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Santana Lopez, Glee

She won back Brittany. She won Rachel’s Broadway role. And in the (merciful) final season of Glee, she is actually getting gay married. Who’d have thunk it back in season one when she was just a lesbian throwaway joke? Four for you, Santana Lopez. You go, Santana Lopez. (And none for Ryan Murphy bye.)

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Shana Fring, Pretty Little Liars

She turned out to be a maniac who died by falling three feet off a theater stage, but at least we still got to see her in flashbacks/the multi-camera funeral her family filmed from different angles and uploaded to YouTube.

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Sophia Burset, Orange Is the New Black

Laverne Cox didn’t come close to having enough to do in season two of Orange Is the New Black. She was fierce as hell, but super underused. Season three is going to be her time to shine, we’re sure of it.

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Tara Thornton, True Blood

Another casualty of 2014 on another TV show that lasted three seasons past its expiration date. Ah, Tara. You really were too good for this world.

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Unique Adams, Glee

There are rumors that Unique’s class of New Directions won’t be back for the final season of the show, but I’ve Stopped Beleivein’ anything about Glee until I see it with my own bleeding eyes.

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Reagan, Faking It

There’s a lot to love about this 19-year-old DJ who succeeded in pulling Amy away from her crush on her straight best friend, Karma, like that she’s awesome and a feminist and hot and also that she’s Not Karma.

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Kate, Last Tango in Halifax

Thank the gods of Public Television that they brought this show (legally) across the pond for us. Kate and Caroline are one of the sweetest queer couples we’ve seen in ages.

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Nenna, Crossbones

The show only lasted a minute, but it was a beautiful minute of Tracy Ifeachor playing a lesbian pirate.

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Dr. Jean Fisherman, The Mindy Project

Jean made her entrance with a Sweeps Weeks-style lesbian kiss of a very straight Mindy, but we were willing to overlook it because there was so much to love about her character. Now all we need is more of her.

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Brook Soso, Orange Is the New Black

It turns out Piper 2.0 might actually be even nuttier than Original Piper, which always makes for good game on Orange Is the New Black.

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Reyna, Matador

Reyna was one of way too many lesbian characters that were murdered on TV this year, but at least El Ray pulled the plug on the show in a moment of sweet comeuppance after the end of the first season.

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Natalie, Switched at Birth

In addition to being a woman of color, Natalie is the only deaf lesbian on TV since Marlee Matlin‘s Jodie Learner on The L Word. She refuses to wear a dress to prom, refuses to give up her Prom King crown, and refuses to stop making out with her girlfriend in her school’s hallways. She’s pretty badass.

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Lt. Alisha Granderson, The Last Ship

Much like Ming-Na Wen‘s character on Stargate Universe, Lt. Granderson leaves her girlfriend on earth to go do stuff in space. Specifically, she’s looking for a cure for a virus that wiped out 80 percent of the world’s population. So, like Interstallar without Matthew Mcconaughey mansplaining everything the whole time.

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Suzanne Warren, Orange Is the New Black

Uzo Aduba deserves every award nomination she’s pulled down for her nuanced, powerful portrayal of Suzanne in Orange Is the New Black‘s second season. She was the highlight in every single way.

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Tituba, Salem

Is she canonically queer? Is she not? Let me just quote Rachel here: “I mean, what kind of a world do we want to live in, where we watch someone have gay witch sex and then try to second-guess it?” And there you have it!

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Dani, Glee

She only showed up for one episode of Glee in 2014, but she did it in so much style.

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Bisexual Declarations On Chasing Life, 69 Shenanigans on Marry Me

It’s time for another round of Boob(s On Your) Tube, your one-stop shop for the week in in gay lady TV.  I’ll bet you thought there’d be no queer women on teevee this week due to broadcast networks pausing all their shows for a holiday hiatus, but you forgot one thing: ABC Family, home of the 25 Days of Christmas, and also home of more lesbian/bi TV characters than any network on earth. Also, The CW doesn’t stop for anyone, and don’t you forget it. Grab an eggnog or a Mad Elf Holiday Ale, and let’s go!

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Arrow

Wednesdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.

Nyssa al Ghul returns to Arrow this week to remind Oliver & Co. that they are doing a real shitty job solving the murder of Nyssa’s beloved, Sara Lance. They’re doing such a shitty job, in fact, that her dad (lil’ ol’ Ra’s al Ghul) has decided to give them an ultimatum: Either they dig in and figure out the mystery before the end of the midseason finale, or he’s going to unleash his League of Assassins on the city and see how that shakes down for everyone. (Murder. Murder is how that will shake down for everyone.)

As usual, the only useful person on this show is Felicity, and through her tech-savviness and pep talks, they discover that Oliver’s sister, Thea, killed Sara. But Thea only did it because Merlyn drugged her and made her do it. Merlyn’s reasoning is convoluted but effective. Oliver is obviously not going to let his sister take the fall for murdering Sara, so he has to go to the League of Assassins, confess to killing Sara himself, and face down Ra’s in a battle to the death. It’s a win-win for Merlyn and imminent death for either Ra’s or Oliver.

Ra’s is super pissed when Oliver confesses to killing his daughter’s girlfriend, and so he stabs him and shoves him off a mountain. And he dies. Blood gurgling out of his mouth, body falling off a cliff dies.

Somebody’s coming back from the dead for the second half of the season. Bets on whether it’s the bisexual woman or the straight man?

Top Chef: Boston

Wednesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Oooh, y’all. Melissa King was in the bottom three again this week in the Elimination Challenge for playing it too safe in a Top Chef superfan event.

The whole thing starts with a sudden death Quickfire Challenge of making clam chowder. Melissa makes a Thai chowder that Padma and guest judge Jasper White like a lot. They like everything more than Katie’s gross old chowder, though, so she is up for elimination against — TWIST! — one of the contestants who was kicked off earlier in the season. The losers choose Greg, a guy who was sent packing during the first ten minutes of the show, to go up against Katie. He wins. So she leaves and he moves on into the house.

So for the Elimination Challenge, the judges go shopping for the contestants at Whole Foods. It plays out exactly how you think it will. Tom gets exactly what he wants, calmly and efficiently. Gail is probably drunk, but she does a good job selecting things her chefs can use to showcase their unique skills. And Padma just Mean Girls the shit out of Blaise, stealing his cart and wrecking it and smashing up all his fish and not even apologizing.

For the Elimination Challenge, Melissa cooks shrimp to showcase her knife work, but the judges think she keeps playing it too safe. Her dish is too simple for everyone’s liking. But she is not the only one who doesn’t do right by the insects of the sea. Adam tries to cook shrimp by, I think, pouring hot milk over them (or something). They are too “squeaky” for everyone’s taste, and so Adam has to go home.

Marry Me

Tuesdays on NBC at 9:00 p.m.

Marry Me really upped its Kay game this week. On a trip to the organic grocery store in Gil’s neighborhood, Kay spots a butcher she used to date. Kay says “Linda the Butcher really knew how to jiggle my gelatin,” but also she knew how to steal Kay’s shit. So Dennah and Annie won’t let Kay anywhere near her. The butcher keeps being like, “69! Now serving 69!” And Kay tries to smash her shopping cart between the wall Dennah and Annie have formed, but they love her too much to let her fall down that rabbit hole again.

Unfortunately (fortunately?), her friends’ bickering finds her alone with Linda the Butcher the next day at the grocery store (I have no idea why all five of these guys shop together), so Kay ends up with “four pounds of top sirloin and 110 pounds of sexual fury!” Also, Linda robs her again. Kay thinks maybe they shouldn’t have messed with Jake and Gil’s friendship because it’s messing up everything else, “like the bees.”

Dennah: Is that some sort of slang way of saying it’s the worst?
Kay: No, bitch. I  have a degree in Environmental Science from Stanford. Make one small chance in an ecosystem and it causes a ripple effect that changes everything.

Gosh, I love her. The women get Gil and Jake back together and everything is okay again. For now. I kind of hope it’s not the end of Linda the Butcher, though.

Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

We haven’t had a chance to talk about Chasing Life because it was between seasons when I started writing Boobs Tube. But! It was back this week for the Christmas special, and it was so lovely. The deal with Chasing Life is that April Carver is fighting cancer. She’s the main character. Her sister Brenna, a troubled teen who never bounded back from her dad’s death, fell in love with a girl named Greer in the first season. Brenna was dating the girl, who openly identifies as a lesbian, and also a boring boy. At the time, Brenna wasn’t into labels, just really into Greer. But Greer’s family sent her away to camp to keep her away from Brenna and it sucked and that’s where we left off.

On the Christmas episode, Brenna’s other grandparents (not the grandma she lives with) come to town, and she feels really weird about it because they keep trying to hook her up with boys and talking about how she must slay all the boys at her school and whatever. Boys, boys, boys. Her Grandma Emma tells her to just come out, that it’s no big deal. When the family is shopping for Christmas decorations, Grandma Emma picks up a Pride flag and starts waving it around, going, “Oh! Brenna, why don’t we buy some of these? I don’t know what holiday they’re for, but they’re just so colorful.”

Brenna finally does come out as bisexual to her other grandparents, and they honestly do not care. I care, though. I care very much. Bisexual visibility on TV is bleak, bleak, bleak. This is a big deal!

Grandma Ellen: I don’t think there’s anyone here who’s not proud you’re gay.
Brenna: I don’t really use that label
Grandma Ellen: Or whatever the hell you are.

Other good news: My dear friend Valerie says Greer is coming back in the second half of the season.

Jane the Virgin

Mondays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Luisa on Jane the Virgin. After accidentally inseminating Jane with her brother’s sperm and getting back into a sexual relationship with her stepmom, Luisa decided to flee the country. This week, she is finally on trial for the insemination thing. Jane is suing her, obviously. What Jane doesn’t know is that if she wins the judgement, Rafael (the father of her baby and also her new boyfriend) will lose his 20% ownership of the hotel he runs because he used it as collateral to buy malpractice insurance for Luisa.

It turns out Luisa has spent the last few weeks partying hard and kissing girls and finding enlightenment with a shaman in Mexico. She’s says she discovered the path to enlightenment and that path includes copious amounts of finger-banging with Rose … but Rose won’t hear it. She says they’ve got to stop messing around because it’s going to ruin her marriage. Luisa says it’s cool, they don’t have to be together, but Rose has got to come clean to Luisa’s father or she’s going to do it. So, in a bit of lesbian storytelling I have actually never seen before, Rose lies and says Luisa needs to be committed because she’s hallucinating these sexual fantasies about her. And everyone believes Rose. And so a psychiatrist drugs her and drags her away. (Hopefully she runs into Mona Vanderwaal in the asylum while she’s prepping to make a comeback to Miami to destroy her family.)

Jane ends up dropping the lawsuit because it is making her grandma, who is an undocumented immigrant, too nervous.

This is still my hands-down favorite new show of the season.

Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed

+ The Fosters Episode 211 Recap: Cotton-Headed Ninnymoggins
Stef almost Stefs-up Christmas, but Lena swoops in to save the day.

+ Pretty Little Liars Episode 514 Recap: The Ghost of Christmas Cataclysm
Lesbian mistletoe smooches, omniscient death threats, and the return of Mona Vanderwaal!

+ Salem Episodes 5 and 6 Recap: Holy Homoerotic Femdom
Say some Hail Marys and make a sign of the cross, because these episodes are a hot, sexy mess. If you’ve been hanging in there and waiting for some extra-flamey gay witch action, then these episodes are for you.

+ Fan Fiction Friday: 7 Sexy-Sweet Faking It Fics to Light Your Yule Log
If all you want for Christmas is a little Karmy action, Santa has arrived early!

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Lesbian Halloween Hijinks, Top Chef’s Top Top and Telenova Stepmom Sex

Welcome to week three of Boob(s On Your) Tube, your one-stop shop for (nearly) all the LGBTQ TV that happened this week. Thank you for your tips via Twitter and the comments section here on Autostraddle dot com; together we will frolic through this brave new world where queer characters are not hoarded on premium cable or trotted out during sweeps weeks as ratings stunts. It would feel too good to be true if showrunners would stop murdering every woman who loves other women. (Still glaring at you, Arrow.) Bu let’s talk about the good stuff!

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Marry Me

Tuesdays on NBC at 9:00 p.m.

A big ol’ thank you to Penny, who commented last week to say NBC’s new Casey Wilson-centric sitcom, Marry Me, has a lesbian character. And yes, it does. And yes, she is fantastic. Her name is Kay and the way we find out she’s gay is she casually mentions in conversation that she got “nipped” on Boobr, “a dating app for lesbians, like Grindr is for gay men or Tindr is for straight men and whores.”

Marry Me‘s premise is as trite as it gets: A neurotic thirty-something flips out when her boyfriend of six years won’t propose to her — but the show is surprisingly good. For starters, Casey Wilson, who plays Annie, is one of the most underrated comedic actresses working today. (RIP Happy Endings!) The cast has great chemistry that makes the relationships believable right away. And it’s just really fucking funny. I have snort-laughed at least once during every episode.

The show also includes a whole handful of gay characters. Annie’s dads are gay, and unlike Rachel Berry’s gay dads, these guys get actual screen time. Bonus awesomeness: They are played by SNL alum Tim Medows and Scandal‘s former Mr. Cyrus Beene, Dan Bucatinsky. Best of all is Kay, a black lesbian character whose sexuality just is what it is. Kay is played by Tymberlee Hill, who you might remember as Intern Claire from Grey’s Anatomy, but who I love most on Drunk History.

Best lines so far:

“I just got nipped on Boobr. I’m gonna go get it, hit it, then forget it.”

“Candy is sweeter when you beg people for it.”

“I am not going to help you stalk your ex-wife, again.”

And here is a picture of her in her Halloween costume from this week’s episode where she helps her buddy steal back a candy bowl from his ex-wife. Lesbian dinosaurs are my kryptonite.

If Happy Endings or New Girl is your jam, this is for you.

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

After last week’s homosexy love fest, this week’s The Good Wife was a bit of a let down. No lady parts smooshin’ up against each other at all. But one very good thing did happen: Kalinda’s kind-of boyfriend Cary was banned from seeing her. He’s out on bail awaiting trial and the judge thinks Kalinda is a bad influence. That is fine by me. Maybe it means Kalinda will start having scenes with other characters again.

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Degrassi

Tuesdays on TeenNick at 9:00 p.m.

Degrassi‘s 14th(!) season kicked off this week. We’ll have a recap of the entire Imogen/Jack situation leading up to Season 14 for you on Monday, so you can look forward to that!

It is bisexual cutie pie Imogen’s last semester in school/on the show and I’ve got big hopes for her for her final hurrah, which is ridiculous because 70 percent of all Degrassi characters die in the end, due to texting and driving and other various PSA-type dumb moves.

At the end of last season, Imogen kissed Jacqueline “Jack” Jones in the parking lot of Degrassi High, so I was hoping for some more of that Nickelodeon lovin’ in the season 14 premiere. Alas, Claire’s pregnancy/abortion dilemma took up all of our time. We did get an adorable peek and adorable Imogen, though, just for a second.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on the CW at 9:00 p.m.

Last week on Arrow, Nyssa al Ghul showed up asking about her ex-girlfriend, Sara Lance, who died in the season three premiere because she was a bisexual TV person. This week, Nyssa found out Sara was dead — and buried in the grave that bore her name when she was only fake dead, like some kind of Alison DiLaurentis situation — and swore to take revenge on Sara’s killer. Mostly that involved calling Sara “her beloved” and saying stuff like “I loved her with my heart and soul” and stalking around in the shadows and yelling at Oliver, which I approve of mightily.

Two very weird things about this episode: 1) Nyssa had more screen time this week than in any week when Sara was alive. 2) She didn’t help solve the mystery of Sara’s death at all.

At the end of the day, she and Oliver reached an impasse w/r/t Malcolm Merlyn (that’s John Barrowman to you Whovians who refuse to watch CW superhero shows), and so she returned home to the League of Assassins and Oliver returned to his ArrowCave. No plot progress and not even a single make out flashback between Nyssa and Sara.

Forgive me, but I’m still willing to trade Laurel to see Sara resurrected (again).

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The Walking Dead

Sundays on AMC at 10:00 p.m.

Lesbian Tara is still alive! The Walking Dead is still too gross for me to watch! Shutterstock still thinks dogs and cats dressed as witches are zombies! Happy Halloween!

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Survivor’s Remorse

Saturdays on Starz at 9:00 p.m.

I know I’ve been on the fence about Survivor’s Remorse, but this week, it pulled me in and sold me.

Cam is working on building his brand and bringing his family together, so he chooses a high profile church for them to attend together. M-Chuck’s hookup from the night before comes with them, broken heels and all, not because M-Chuck invited her but because when M-Chuck and Cam’s mom said, “Get in the car,” she got in the car. M-Chuck holds the woman’s hand in church, even though she doesn’t know her name. It throws the pastor, which pisses off M-Chuck, so she tells Cam she’s not going back.

Cam has a chat with the pastor the next day, offering him a giant tithe and saying he hopes they can leave the Old Testament gay bashing in medieval times. The pastor agrees, but in church the next Sunday, he asks all the gay folks in the congregation to stand up — he knows they exist, he’s seen Glee — and tells them to get out of his church.

M-Chuck rushes the pulpit, but her family holds her back. In the end, Cam decides it’s not the church for him. He’s going to focus on doing right instead of listening to bigoted Bible thumpers.

A+ episode, and boy was I ever wrong about not loving M-Chuck.

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Top Chef: Boston

Wednesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

You guys, I think lesbian contestant Melissa King might actually have a shot to win this thing! She’s getting a really good edit. She’s sweet and smart and a good chef and this is the second week in a row that she’s been one of the top contestants in the elimination challenge! Here’s how it shook down:

This week’s Quick Fire Challenge was to cook with tea because of the Boston Tea Party, and Melissa prepared one of the best dishes. Then they were off to Fenway Park to cook a dish using either popcorn, peanuts or pretzels. Melissa made corn and ramp soup with pickled ramps, fried calamari, truffle butter and bacon popcorn. And the judges loved it! She landed in the top three, but lost out to Gregory, who kind of seems unstoppable right now. He is this season’s Nina. But Melissa hugged Gregory and patted him on the back and said, “Good job, man! Good job!”

Because she is the sweetest damn thing.

Sadly, Awful Aaron is still around, but everyone hates him now. I hate him even more this week because he said if he beat out a culinary arts teacher, it would be an “iron in the back” for chefs who don’t have classical training. What even?

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Jane the Virgin

Mondays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

Luisa is still getting it with her stepmom on this week’s Jane the Virgin. At a family getaway, they do some scissoring, etc. in Rose/her dad’s hotel room. They take a breather and decide to eat some powdered donuts to regain their strength, but while Luisa is out getting the snacks, she peeps her dad and has to pull the fire alarm to keep him out of his own room where his wife is lounging around in post-coital bliss. It’s a close call, but ultimately no lesbians are harmed.

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Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed

Transparent Episode 106 Recap: Act Natural
Just when you think a family dinner can’t be more awkward than a party thrown by Lucille Bluth.

Gotham Episode 106 Recap: Where Does the Good Go?
Renee Montoya is back, and so is the Penguin.

Faking It Episode 206 Recap: Can I Have Your Number I Think We Should Go Out
Amy meets another lesbian (finally) at a rave.

Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1105 Recap: Is This The End of Calzona?
BRB, listening to Tegan and Sara and drinking wine from a box forever.

Best boob(s on your) tube this week, go!

Boob(s on Your) Tube: Sexytime Hijinks on The Good Wife and Doc’s Ex-Girlfriend on Jane the Virgin

Welcome to week two of Homosexual TV Moments We Didn’t Recap and You Didn’t See Due to Your DVR Being 97 Percent Full Because Your Girlfriend Won’t Delete the Last Season of Grey’s Anatomy Even Though You Can Stream it Now For Free. Unfortunately, that isn’t an SEO-friendly column title. Neither is Riese’s suggestion of Boob(s on Your) Tube, but we’re going with it. You can thank her in the comments.

And so here they are. (This week’s boobs.) (The ones you maybe missed.) (On your tube.)

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

Hallelujah, the heavens declare the glory of Kalinda Sharma! (Again, finally!) On this week’s The Good Wife, Kalinda swaggers her bad ass right over to FBI HQ, a place that is home to many secrets and law enforcement officers, but most importantly is the place of employee of one Ms. Lana Delaney. Kalinda sleeps with her ex-girlfriend for information, which is a total Kalinda move: brandishing her sexual prowess like a lightsaber to gain insider information. And it seems like that’s her only game. She even shuts down Lana’s post-coital story about coming out to her mom.

But that’s like season two Kalinda stuff. The best part about Kalinda’s arc in “Shiny Objects” is we find out Lana actually went snooping around in Kalinda’s stuff, which is an enormous turn-on to Kalinda, because she is so into the idea that someone is as good at playing the game as she is. It actually causes her to open up to Lana in ways she hasn’t done before. Sadly, “You’re as cunning and duplicitous as me!” isn’t exactly the vulnerable sweet-nothings Lana wanted Kalinda to whisper in her ear. So, they’re back off. For now. (But they were sexy, sexy, sexy for a hot second.)

On the double plus side, Kalinda might also be off with Cary. Seems like he thought they were exclusive.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on the CW at 9:00 p.m.

When I first heard the rumor that Arrow was going to kill off Sara “Canary” Lance, I was pretty livid. (I’m still pretty livid. How many female characters, especially queer ones, have to die to propel dudebros’ stories forward before we stuff this trope in the refrigerator once and for all?) (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. offed two lesbian/bi DC characters in a three-episode span for Kate Kane’s sake!) I calmed down a little bit when I heard we’d be getting a several episode arc with Sara’s ex-girlfriend, super assassin Nyssa al Ghul.

This week, I waited. And waited. And waited, waited, waited. This episode features everyone stomping around and talked about how they have failed Canary. Finally, in the closing seconds of the episode, Nyssa shows up, bow and arrow drawn, demanding to know what the actual hell happened to Sara.

It took long enough, but I’m glad to finally see someone whose outrage matches my own! A little bird — sorry, too soon — told me we’d be getting some Sara/Nyssa flashbacks. That better be true.

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The Walking Dead

Sundays on AMC at 10:00 p.m.

Good news! According to my sources who are not terrified of guts and blood, lesbian zombie fighter Tara has lived through another week of the apocalypse! She is traveling around with two people, Maggie and Glenn, both of whom are good guys, I think, and my source (my girlfriend, okay?) says Tara has a lesbi-crush on Maggie. Again, no you may not have a photo due to my weak stomach, but I did find you another picture of what Shutterstock is calling a “zombie kitten,” so you’re welcome.

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Survivor’s Remorse

Saturdays on Starz at 9:00 p.m.

In my mini-cap of last week’s Survivor’s Remorse, I called M-Chuck, the black lesbian character, “aggressively gay.” Several commenters pointed out that using the word “aggressive” was crappy because it plays into a damaging racial stereotype. I apologized in the comments, but I want to reiterate here that I’m committed to getting stuff right, and I got that wrong, and I really am sorry. I will be more vigilant about my language going forward.

This week, Cam’s family convinces him to visit a kid in a coma for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Cam is reluctant to go because he doesn’t want to seem opportunistic, but M-Chuck convinces him that there’s nothing wrong with benefitting from doing something legitimately good for people. If he can help a grieving family and land a contract with Nike at the same time, there’s no shame in that. She goes with Cam to the hospital, mostly to make a play for nurses, and after she hits up her brother for some money to take one of the hot ladies out for coffee, he puts her on the payroll as his PR person so she can earn the cash to keep up with her Shane McCutcheon lifestyle.

Cam needs M-Chuck’s PR help right away, actually, because the kid he visits in the hospital wakes up from his coma and starts demanding things. Like strippers, for example. He pretends to be into learning to play ball but uses it as an excuse to get Cam alone and ask for strippers. M-Chuck works it out by letting him peep on her in the shower — and then the kid dies at the dinner table. Hashtag dramedy?

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Top Chef: Boston

Wednesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Lesbian contestant Melissa King gets a lot more screen time in this season’s second episode, due in large part to being on a team with some screw-ups. During the Quickfire Challenge, she makes fritto misto with pollock, mushrooms and razor clams. Padma calls it “a tempura platter,” which frankly sounds fucking delicious. Padma is a firecracker this season. I wish James would show her his full-blown upper arm tattoo of Patrick Swayze. I’d like to get her read on that.

During the Elimination Challenge, Melissa teams up with Joy and Ron, and they get along better than any reality team in the history of the world — unfortunately all their amiability makes for some dumb decisions. Serving their veal dish almost completely raw, for example. Sadly, Joy gets the axe (cleaver?) because of it

I say “sadly” because there is a wanker to beat the band this season. His name is Aaron and his deal is molecular gastronomy and he is a giant, giant dick. This week, it took him two hours to make some jelly that the judges hated so much. I was rooting for him to go home in tears. Alas. But hey, sweet Melissa lives to see another day!

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Bad Judge

Thursdays on NBC at 9:00 p.m.

A couple of folks tweeted me to say there were lesbians on Kate Walsh’s Bad Judge this week. I asked around and here is what I found out from Brittani:

A random lesbian hit on Kate Walsh because she had an SUV. It was like ten seconds of the show. Also that show is terrible — but they seem really proud for coming up with the name Tedward, which I get.

Now you know.

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Jane the Virgin

Mondays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

Jane the Virgin is my favorite new thing happening on TV this season. In last week’s TV round-up, turkish said the show feels an awful lot like Ugly Betty, which also played brilliantly on telenova themes and somehow managed to turn a weird, uncomfortable concept into a feminist home run, and I completely agree.

This week, Dr. Luisa, the OBGYN who accidentally impregnated Jane, finds herself alone in her office with a bottle of vodka. Not a good idea for anyone, really, but especially not a recovering alcoholic. Into this danger zone wanders Luisa’s ex-lover, Rose, who offers her some comforting words, a shoulder to cry on, and also sexual intercourse. Yes, they do it. No, they do not do it on-screen. A very weird choice, actually. We just hear the sounds and see a title card with an “XXX” on it.

But that is not as weird as this: Luisa attends a party at the end of the episode at her brother’s hotel. He is pissed at her because he put his name on the line to help her open her practice and if she gets hit with a lawsuit (and she’s definitely going to get hit with a lawsuit), his hotel could be used as collateral in the settlement. He tries to kick her out of the party, but their dad tells him to stop being a jerk. Family is family. And guess who else is family? Oh, it’s Rose. Ex-love Rose of the “XXX” title card. She is married to Luisa’s dad. Rose is Luisa’s stepmom.

Turns out telenovelas are my jam, man.

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Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed

Pretty Little Liars Halloween Special recap
It’s nice to reflect on all the lesbian love Emily has managed to squeeze in between murders.

Faking It 205 recap
Birthdays! Scavenger hunts! Ball pits!

Top 10 black sitcoms from the ’90s
No, seriously, remember when there were more than two?

20 stupidly easy things the Pretty Little Liars could do to stay alive
How hard is it to turn on a damn light?

Transparent 105 recap
Now with a handy illustrated feelings chart to help you process!

If you see any lesbian/bi/trans/queer women on your teevee and you’d like to see them mentioned in Boob(s On Your) Tube, hit me up on Twitter during the week!

This Week In Gay TV: Bisexual Hunger Games on Gotham, Sexting Lesbians on Survivor’s Remorse

Hello, Autostraddlers! My name is Heather Hogan and I’m a new editor here at the greatest website of our generation! I’ve spent the last six years working as the senior editor at AfterEllen, writing about all the queer pop culture things under the sun. And now, finally, like the B-level superheroes who got the call to join The Avengers and The Justice League, I have arrived at your doorstep, ready to laugh and learn and knock out the occasional villain with you. You’ll see me around all over the place, I hope. Please say hi. I’m excited to know and love you.

It’s a pretty rad time to be alive and able to afford cable if you’re a lady who loves ladies and also TV. We’ve got lesbian doctors saving lives, bisexual private investigators playing politics, gay teenagers falling in love, a queer zombie hunter, a queer pirate, queer superheroes, and enough lesbian cops and lesbian moms to start an army. (With Stef Foster of The Fosters as commander, of course, because she’s both a lesbian mom and a lesbian cop. She’s the triple word score on your gay TV scrabble board!)

GLAAD counts 75 lesbian/bisexual female characters on TV these days, which, as Riese pointed out a couple of weeks ago, is maybe a little misleading since several of those characters haven’t participated in any queer shenanigans in years and others are guest characters who only pop up once or twice a season.

But there’s still a lot to love! And a lot more than we can fully recap! And, honestly, a lot more than you’d want us to fully recap because do you really care what kind of bollocky wankshite the 2.5 Men get up to while waiting for Amber Tamblyn‘s character to do a lesbian thing? No, of course not. Because you have a functioning brain.

With your needs and feelings in mind (all day every day), we’ve decided to roll out a weekly round-up of all the gay stuff that happened on TV that didn’t warrant a full recap. It’s like a weekend potluck. A buffet of delicious leftovers. A smorgasbord of sapphic delights. No really, we can’t think of what to title this feature (right now we’re going with “This Week In Gay TV”), so feel free to offer suggestions!

Gotham

Mondays on Fox at 9:00 p.m.

I’ll be recapping Gotham weekly starting next Wednesday, but let me bring you up to speed with what’s going on in that pre-Batman cesspool of corruption and greed. As you know, Gotham City Police Department is home to kickass lesbian Latina detective Renee Montoya, who we know had a Thing with Jim Gordon’s fiancé, Barbara Kean. Over the past two weeks, we’ve found out just how deep their Thing really went. (Ahem.)

Because Babs is either agoraphobic or under house arrest or something, she never leaves her loft, but that’s okay because Renee Montoya doesn’t mind a little mild breaking and entering every now and then. In episode 103, “The Balloonman,” Renee catches Barbara taking a bubble bath and smoking a joint in the middle of the day to ease the anxiety of knowing Jim Gordon is going to come home at some point and get his boringness all over everything. The ladies have a chat about how they were once addicted to drugs and alcohol and each other — like, standing toe-to-toe with their faces three inches apart, they have this conversation — and just when they’re about to get their homosexy smooch on, Babs pulls away and tells Renee to skedaddle.

Renee warns Barbara for the hundredth time that Jim is in bed with mob boss Carmine Falcone, which isn’t true, but Renee doesn’t know that because all signs point to it being a fact.

In this week’s episode, “Arkham,” Barbara finally confesses to Jim that she had a relationship “of only a year” with Detective Montoya, which pisses him off properly. He says it’s not because Barbara is bisexual, but because she lied to him, a thing that seems pretty true. They kind of break up and Barbara leaves the house for ten minutes, so really it’s a win-win.

Also, this week, Fish Mooney holds a Hunger Games-style contest to find a new crooner for her club. Requirements: She has to be able to sing, and convincingly seduce both men and women, and when faced with the possibility of unemployment must be willing to beat a potential co-worker to death with her fists. Fish finds her girl. She feels very happy/evil about it.

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Grey’s Anatomy

Thursdays on ABC at 8:00 p.m.

There was no Autostraddle recap of this week’s Grey’s Anatomy because there was no lesbian stuff at all on this week’s Grey’s Anatomy, presumably because the network’s entire season-long quotient of homosexuality was met in the 10:00 p.m. timeslot when How to Get Away with Murder‘s gay wannabe lawyer, Connor Walsh, had sex with every man on the show, and also the phrase “He did this thing to my ass that made my eyes water” was used.

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

Archie Panjabi, who plays be-booted, leather jacketed bisexual PI Kalinda Sharma, is calling it quits with The Good Wife at the end of this season, probably because 20th Century Fox offered her a show of her own and she figured that she’d like that a lot more than the paltry screentime and crappy stories she’s endured these last few years on her own show.

To wit, this week, Kalinda spends her time reliving her affair with Peter. She promises Alicia she’ll keep quiet about it if Alicia decides to run for office. She also sits in the dark in a car with Bishop explaining that he lost his job because Alicia is running for office. That’s it. That’s all. Four minutes max. I don’t want to ignore Kalinda because she’s not in a relationship with another woman. I think that’s a dangerous, slippery slope that leads to bi erasure and the dismissal of a wide variety of queer experiences, but Kalinda’s story is so boring these days. Not because she’s not gaying it up around town, but because it’s bland and vanilla and beneath her.

Maybe they’ll bring back Lana for a Kalinda’s final hurrah.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on the CW at 9:00 p.m.

Two weeks ago, during the third season premiere of Arrow, bisexual badass Sara Lance took a couple of arrows to the chest and died. The show’s bosses say Sara’s death was necessary to advance the plot of other characters, a thing known as “getting fridged” in the comic book world. (As in, “But we had to brutally murder Green Lantern’s girlfriend and stuff her mangled body into a refrigerator for him to reach his true crime-fighting potential!”) Anyway, this week, Oliver & Co. found Sara’s body and carried it around and cried over it and raged over it and promised to seek vengeance against her killer. Apparently Sara’s ex-girlfriend, Nyssa al Ghul, is going to show up next week to bring some assassin realness to the hunt for justice.

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The Walking Dead

Sundays on AMC at 10:00 p.m.

In terms of what you’ll find here in these weekly TV round-ups, none of it will be bloody. I’m a clumsy puppy, terrified of thunder, and even the sight of fake blood makes me queasy. I asked around and found out some good news about this week’s season five premiere of The Walking Dead: Tara the Lesbian is still alive! No, you can’t have a screencap of Tara. You’re just going to have to trust me. I tried to get a screencap and accidentally saw some cannibals and couldn’t eat lunch. But this photo is what happened when I searched “kitten zombie” on Shutterstock, so.

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Survivor’s Remorse

Saturdays on Starz at 9:00 p.m.

There’s a very real chance you haven’t heard of Starz’s new show Survivor’s Remorse, so here’s the deal: It’s a six-episode series about a young basketball superstar named Cam Calloway who signs an enormous contract with a professional basketball team in Atlanta in his second year in the league. (The show didn’t buy the rights to actually use NBA lingo, so pretend I said he’s playing for the Hawks.) In the two episodes of the show that have aired so far, the main focus has been on the way Cam and his family deal with him suddenly becoming a multi-millionaire. The title alludes to the fact that Cam feels really guilty about making it out of the projects when so many of his friends didn’t have the chance.

One of the main characters is Cam’s older sister, M-Chuck, who is just super aggressively gay. It’s off-putting but also kind of refreshing, which confuses me a little bit. M-Chuck equates the number of smiley emoticons a girl sends her with the length of time the girl wants you to sit on her face. She spends her bathroom time looking for women to sext. She’s got a drawer full of vibrating dicks she offers to let her haters suck on.

I have mixed feelings about the show as a whole, which doesn’t always do justice to the weighty topics it tries to tackle, but I plan to keep watching. There are only four episodes left this season, but it’s already been renewed for a second.

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Top Chef: Boston

Wednesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Season 12 of Top Chef kicked off this week and even though lesbian contestant Melissa King didn’t have much screen time, I want to mention her. First of all because her Bravo.com bio is redundantly amazing: “A self-proclaimed ‘cookie monster,’ she loves cookies!” And also because I want to talk about the hardcore shade Padma Lakshmi threw down this week. “I would like it if you would not only clean up your act but also your station,” is a thing she actually said. And then she spit out a pork belly. Hopefully, Lesbian Melissa King will have more to do in the coming weeks.

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Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed

Transparent 104 recap
Please gather three boxes of Kleenex before you click through to read this recap/watch this episode.

Jane the Virgin review
Despite its dicey premise, the CW’s new comedy-drama offers up lots of feminist elements and a lesbian gynecologist to boot.

Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word review
Higher Power Laverne Cox hosts the MTV documentary about the experience of seven transgender teenagers.

Faking It 204 recap
More Laverne Cox! And Amy processes her “drunken decision to take a baloney ride with Liam’s pony.”

A lesbian character and wild Julie Goldman appear on The Mindy Project
They’re girlfriends, it’s awesome, just watch it.

And that was your week in gay TV. Prayer circle for Imogen and Jack, who return for Degrassi‘s 14th season in ten days. And a human shield for The Walking Dead‘s Tara, who is probably doomed simply by nature of being a lesbian TV Tara.