The L Word: Generation Q Episode 107 Recap: The Art of Losing It All

Welcome to the seventh recap of the first season of The L Word: Generation Q, brought to you by the same network that brought you The L Word, an intriguing television program about an aspiring filmmaker who moves in with two “real lesbians,” hangs hidden cameras all over their house without their consent, develops an erotic obsession with one roommate who eventually takes a lot of painkillers and starts a fight with random men on Venice Beach only to be rescued by the filmmaker, who is eventually revealed to have been sitting in his toolshed watching her have sex and engage in Love Confessions for the duration of his residency at their home, at which point he is told to move out, then asked to remain, and then vanishes into the ether, never to be heard from or spoken of again.

It’s official: I’m really into this show now. I’m stoked for its renewal (Marja please hire me to write a Christmas episode) and somehow I have become invested in one specific ‘ship to a degree that I have never before experienced, despite being a grown woman who has written professionally about television for over a decade!!! W h a t  i s  h a p p e n i n g. This recap feels unhinged but also…. so do I.

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We open at DaSoMi’s on, once again — bless us, everybody — Sophie’s naked body. She’s soaping up with the vigor and commitment of a woman in a Nivea Body Wash commercial, to the sweet dulcet tones of Victoria Monet’s “Ass Like That.”

Dani, a Very Busy and Important Interim Campaign Manager because Pierce Really Fucked Us When He Left, enters the lavatory in a flurry of Busy Importance while her very hot very naked girlfriend yearns for attention or even just a tiny nod to her very hot very nakedness. Sophie peers out, asks for a razor, presents a very kissable face. Dani doesn’t bite, which bites.

But you know who’s also living at DaSoMi’s right now and is VERY ready to acknowledge the incredible display of hotness happening so early in our XL Morning?

“Damn! That ass is TIGHT! You’re looking GOOD!” Finley exclaims.

“You’re so stupid!” Sophie laughs.

“So is this like a pilates situation?” Finley asks while power-squatting.

“Get out of here!” Sophie laughs more.

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Meanwhile at The Thruple Towers; Alice, Nat and Gigi are basking in the resplendent glow of their ideal relationship scenario, one which enables the children to get packed lunches and Nat doing her makeup at home and Alice wearing cute little pajamas.

“How did we live without her?” Alice asks re: Gigi, marveling at their newly color-coded closet as Gigi whirls in and they sort out the slings and arrows of that day’s thruple schedule. Alice drops important exposition about her big network meeting, at which she hopes to kick Drew to the curb. Nat and Gigi will therefore dine without their erotic third, but they will not watch Below Deck as planned because Alice would like to institute a new rule, “don’t watch Below Deck without me.”

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Our XL Morning keeps on chugging over at DaSoMi’s, where Sophie’s preparing a brunch spread to remember, Dani’s worried she double-booked Bette’s pancake breakfast with the first responders, and Micah’s Mom is in town and has already bought 34 gummies at the dispensary.

Finley The Traditional Lesbian When It Comes to Tools trots downstairs, registering a complaint about the water pressure and an offer to fix it if they have a wrench, just as Sophie gets a phone call from her Mom that shifts her mood real fast.

Finley and Micah and Dani look on as Sophie gets the news — her grandma fell and she’s in the hospital. What happened, says Micah. Is she okay, Dani asks. Are you okay, Finley asks. Dani offers to cancel her morning and accompany Sophie but Sophie says no, no, no. She’ll call if she needs anything. Before this difficult conversation can progress, Sophie opens the door and look who’s here it’s Micah’s stoner Mom!

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We then swoop on over to Kit + Denny’s Lesbian Roadhouse for a mid-morning meal with Tiny Tina. It appears Bette’s Farewell vice grip of sorrow successfully convinced her Terrific Tina to remain in Los Angeles for another episode.

Alice has chosen to skip lunch ’cause she’s still mad at Bette, and Tina and Shane assure Bette that Alice will forgive Bette eventually. Shane discloses that she and Quiara are gonna hear their little baby pickle’s heartbeat for the first time today, which reminds Bette and Tina of when they heard THEIR little baby pickle’s heartbeat for the first time, which apparently sounded “like horses stampeeding in mud.” “WE WERE SOBBING!” they exclaim and …

Just — I’m sorry, here, but!!! Just as a point of order, if I may? Although Bette did attend early ultrasounds for the baby Tina eventually miscarried, Tina likely heard Angie’s heartbeat for the first time alone, as Bette was unaware of Tina’s pregnancy for its first 3-4 months (there’s no time on The L Word and Laurel started the season pretty much ready to pop, so it’s hard to say specifically) — despite Tina being, you know, very visibly pregnant and actively cavorting around West Hollywood wearing Twin XL blankets as shirts to cover the human lifeform beating away in her belly — fetal heartbeat is detectable by vaginal ultrasound usually by the seventh week of pregnancy, and Tina probs had her first ultrasound around that time, because earlier ultrasounds are recommended for women who miscarry. We saw her at the OB/GYN, alone, discussing her pregnancy in Episode 201, which was probably when that was initially done. Bette’s first screening of “Angie: The Prequel” didn’t happen until episode 209 (Tina invites her to “her next sonogram” in episode 208), and, although as previously established, Bette was not present to hear Angie’s first heartbeat, she was also not sobbing at the first doctor’s appointment she did attend with preggers Tina, as illustrated in the below screencap:

Nevertheless, Shane buys this ENTIRE LIE and is now visibly nervous about her potential reaction to the heartbeat she’s scheduled to hear later that day. Thrilling material for Shane here. Tina asks Bette to have dinner with her that night, and Bette says she’ll cook, and Shane looks at them like “here we go again!” It’s also established that Tina’s taking Angie to a museum and then to Jordi’s, where they might scissor and might not but don’t talk to Bette about it, she’s not ready to explain scissoring to anybody, let alone her own spawn.

Carrie calls and Tina dips out. “You look a little flushed,” Shane notices re: Bette’s face. It’s not Tina, it’s menopause! But I think we all understand the confusion.

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Cut to the hospital, where Sophie’s holding it down for her very emotional Mom and sister, relaying cold hard medical facts, determined hope, and an offer to get them some food and coffee.

Sophie steps out and immediately collapses into long-held tears. But guess who’s here?!!?!

Earlier that XL Morning when Sophie told Dani not to come she told Finley not to come, too, but Finley came, ’cause she knew better. Finley sees her sadness, puts down the snack-pack she put together for her best bud, and brings her in for a hug — giving Sophie, essentially, the exact method and delivery of emotional and physical support she presently requires. Sophie cries and Finley says “it’s okay, it’s okay” and then Sophie just folds right into her.

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At the cafe, Dani relays a hot tip from her buddy at CBS: Milner’s priming some attack ads to launch upon Bette Porter for Mayor 2020, and maybe just maybe Bette should consider returning his bloodlust with a little rough play of her own? Nope, Bette wants to stick to her playbook: being hot, giving good speeches when angry, having nice hair, yelling choice words at men, loving art and “voter outreach.”

“As your acting campaign manager,” Dani begins, continuing to beg Bette to let her make an attack ad! I hope they found out that Jeff Milner’s horse was actually named Ann Coulter. Dani needs Bette to let her do her job! Bette says no again, which probably is making Dani wonder, am I a bottom after all?

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Ah, at the Building of Medical Procedures, Shane’s playing with a plastic model of a vagina / uterus / et al and Quiara’s prepping for a look at her little lima bean!

As expected, Quiara feels immediate maternal emotion upon hearing the heartbeat. Shane, meanwhile, is so concerned about having the wrong emotional response that she’s just shut down for business altogether. Instead, Shane repeats ye olde adage, “it sounds like horses stampeeding through the mud.”

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Cut to The Aloce Show where the mid-morning meeting Alice has to miss dinner for is revving up — don’t worry, Drew’s totally there, he wouldn’t miss it! Alice explains how proud she is of her Morning/Night Coffee Talk Show and their unconventional guest choices and how maybe, going forward, it’d be cool to have less voices in the room?

But the network isn’t interested in kicking Drew out of the writers room because they’re not sure there’ll be a show and a writer’s room to kick Drew out of! Alice is on The Bubble. Ratings are low, despite the fact that she got Megan Rapinoe to disclose hot lesbian sports makeouts in the locker room on live television??!?!

To save Alice’s show, the network just needs a few viral videos — shortform, catchy content — which luckily is Drew’s specialty! Alice dies inside.

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The L Word: Generation Q Episode 106 Recap: Loose Ends and Exes

Hello and welcome to the sixth recap of the first season of The L Word: Generation Q, brought to you by the same network that brought you The L Word, a thrilling television program about a seemingly mousy bookworm who weasels her way into an assistantship to her favorite author that eventually lands her in the director’s chair of said author’s first feature film after manipulating and maneuvering the beloved author out of her own film via saucy sex tape, at which point she removes her glasses, revealing herself to be actually a very pretty girl, and then speaks to herself softly in a dark, empty room. Cut, print.

Friends, this recap is later than usual. The reason is that Showtime withheld press screeners this week. We were like, “hmmm, I wonder why they’re doing that,” and the answer is….

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We open on a typically calm, quiet street of sunny Los Angeles, California; which has been OVERTAKEN by ravenous news anchors, eager to take a giant bite out of Bette Porter’s latest scandal. Despite denying an ongoing relationship with Felicity American Girl on The National/Regional Morning Coffee Late Night Aloce Show, a recently released iPhone video has revealed an intoxicated, belligerent and abusive white man accusing Bette Porter of still sleeping with his wife directly before physically assaulting her teenage daughter! How will Bette Porter answer to these claims!! Alice and Shane arrive on the scene and fight off the paps to find their distraught friend Bette inside with her team.

The ladies enter Bette’s War Room and immediately launch into the episode’s first fight!

Lesbian Squabble #17: Poppy Mad Lesbian 
In The Ring: Bette vs. Alice
Content: Alice is pissed that she lied about Bette seeing Felciity on her show and ALSO that Bette didn’t tell them she was seeing Felicity. However, Alice quickly realizes that Bette DID tell Shane, which should not surprise anybody who saw The L Word: Original Recipe. Shane gets to know everything, Alice! Those are the rules. In addition to being mad, Alice is now also surprised! And so she storms off.
Who Wins? Um, Jeff Milner?

Bette’s slowly eroding on the inside — after telling Shane that Angie stayed at Jordi’s last night because her recently-assaulted daughter can have an illicit sleepover as a treat, she recalls that today is Angie’s drivers test and how the hell is Bette gonna get out of the house into her car and all the way to the DMV?

Uncle Shane and Auntie Quiara will take Angie to the DMV, no problem! Any excuse to go to the DMV, truly. Now that she’s got that problem solved, Bette would like to create a new one: dropping out of the race. Dani tries to stop her from going outside to call it off, but you can’t stop Bette Porter on a mission. Well, most people can’t stop Bette Porter on a mission. Because when Bette Porter opens her front door guess who’s there!!!!

[Throwback #20: TINA]

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Cut to Kit + Denny’s Lesbian Bar, where Tess and Finley are waking up half naked after the previous evening’s drunken romp. This is a pretty standard morning for our frisky friend Finley, but Tess is obviously shaken.

It looks like my dog, Carol, texted her at 2:17 AM telling her not to take a drink. A little late with that text, Carol!

Shane shows up to find her roommate and her employee clearly reeling from the night before. “I thought you were sober?” she says to Tess. “I was,” says Tess. Shane says she could fire her, but won’t — Tess just needs to clean up and move on. Finley apologizes, Tess says it’s not her fault, and she’s gtg to a meeting, stat.

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Back at Bette’s, Tina is wearing leather pants, which I believe is illegal, and talking on the telephone about the cut they’re sending to network, thus establishing that Tina’s still working in the film or television industry, thus furthering our already fraught suspension of disbelief regarding Tina not living in Los Angeles with her daughter! Mama T and Mama B talk about Angie’s play, and how Jordi makes Bette nervous. “Anyone who likes our daughter is gonna make us nervous,” Tina says.

Bette asks if Tina thinks Jordi and Angie have had sex. “They haven’t even kissed yet,” Tina says, and Bette’s face almost gets offended that she didn’t already know this, but then mercifully for all of us, Bette decides to move on. “That’s one thing I did right, I guess,” Bette says, full of sorrow.  “You were doing a lot right,” Tina reassures her.

Bette recaps last night’s scuffle for Tina. I give this recap a demerit. Bette makes it sound like she’d pushed Mr. Felicity ’cause he’d pushed Angie, leaving out the part of the story where he directly attacked Bette after attacking Angie! Attacking Angie would’ve been cause enough, sure, but also, that’s not what happened. I know this because I rewound and watched it 10x out of concern for Bette Porter For Mayor 2020. What is happening. Bette doesn’t know what’s gonna happen now. Me neither because there’s no continuity. Tina gets a call — it’s very clearly her girlfriend, who’s upset Tina hadn’t yet called her, leaving Bette alone at the table with her abandonment issues.

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Over at DaSoMi’s, Sophie’s removed all the sandwich ingredients from her refrigerator and spread them out before her, right where she can see ’em. She’s got your cheese, she’s got your lunchmeat, your lettuce, your tomato, your condiments. It’s a regular Jimmy John’s up in here.

Sophie’s still simmering over Dani’s emotional withholding and that she fled the homestead at 4 AM and has not been in touch since.

Finley: “She kinda reminds me of my Mom.”
Sophie: “What?”
Finley: “Yeah, she’s like a super cold… hot lady.”
Sophie: “Who? Dani or your Mom?”
Finley: “Both.”
Sophie: “You know what? You’re a fucking freak.”
Finley: “Ahh, you love it. You’d like my Mom. She’s hot. She’s a fucking stud!”

Luckily Sophie has Finley, her best bro friend. “At least you talk to me,” Sophie says to Finley. Finley’s like of course I do! You’re the best! Speaking of talking, what happened last night, Fin-Fin? Finley’s gotta kill this sando and take a “nip dip” before she can get into the details of her previous evening’s romp. She’s real proud of herself for coming up with “nip dip.” “I’m a real Emily Dickerstein,” Finley says of herself, heading out into the morning sunshine.

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The press remains camped out outside of Bette’s house, wondering if Bette and Tina are gonna get back together. Inside, Pierce and Dani are having a rough morning! He’s pissed Dani didn’t tell him Bette was back in the saddle riding Felicity’s pony. Also, Bette was supposed to be “better than that.”

Pierce: “I’m a trans man and seeing someone like Bette Porter become mayor means that people like me might lead a better life. She was the one who was supposed to pave the way so that people like me could be in charge one day.”
Dani: “I understand that. But she could still win!”

Pierce isn’t sold on Bette’s electability but Dani remains rabid for her #1 gal Bette Porter.  Bette is special! She’s inspiring! Pierce is out here acting like he has not seen Jodi Lerner’s epic installation video art piece, “Core,” inspired by Bette Porter, which’s about core values. Much like she once inspired Jodi, Bette inspires Dani every day! Dani’s never felt this way about anybody before! Pierce seems to think there’s something else going on regarding Dani’s affection for Bette, but he’s not sticking around to see it. He’s taking the goldfish, bye!

Hey I have an idea!!!! Does anybody remember how Felicity’s husband was DRUNK and ABUSIVE and ASSAULTED A TEENAGE GIRL AND HER MOTHER? Idk, there MIGHT BE A WAY TO SPIN THIS. Like, perhaps Felicity is um, leaving her husband because he is TERRIBLE as captured on VIDEO and might have needed Bette’s emotional support to do so? I’m firing Dani and hiring myself.

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Then, we all die together and end up circling the innermost ring of hell, the Los Angeles DMV. Shane’s very nervous that these assholes aren’t gonna pass Angie on her drivers test, despite her being a “freaking genius.” Listen I am also a genius, but also, one time I rolled down the windows of my car and yelled “BYE LOSERS” to my friends who were smoking outside and then drove my car straight into a rock. We establish that Quiara is famous ’cause a fan recognizes her. I seriously cannot believe that anybody walking out of that DMV could have as much enthusiasm for life as this woman.

Good news: Angie passed her drivers test! Let’s go for a drive! Anywhere Angie wants to go! I hope they’re coming to my house.

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The L Word Generation Q Episode 105 Recap: Labels

Hello and welcome to the fifth recap of the first season of The L Word: Generation Q, brought to you by the same network that brought you The L Word, a breathtaking television program about a wealthy but temporarily disinherited British heiress sent to jail for stealing money from the ex-girlfriend who’d gotten her embroiled in a lifestyle of high stakes poker and horse betting that drove her further into debt without any opportunity for profit. Also, she was hot.

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We open on one singular nipple belonging to one singular Shane McCutcheon, and then we scroll up the length of her whole body along with Quiara’s mouth and silver-manicured nails as Shane slowly rouses from deep slumber into the open arms of her beloved yet estranged wife, Quiara!

Lesbian Sexy Moment #12: Nipple Confidence
The Players: Shane and Quiara
The Pick-Up: “You kept it” (re: Shane’s wedding ring)
Hot or Not? When Shane slips inside her and Quiara gasps and Shane goes “I missed you” by which she means “I missed being inside you,” hot! Shane and Quiara as people? Hot. But then Shane says “I signed those divorce papers” and Quiara’s like “oh sorry about that” and then she’s like “btw I’m pregnant” and then I think Shane dries up like a dolphin in the desert.

We then cut to credits for a song that includes the line “I’m gonna be the Kit to your Kat,” which I find offensive to both Kit Porter and to our beloved Billie Blakie, former emcee of the Kit-Kat Klub in Berlin. Then we return to Shane’s boudoir where it is, by the way, dawn? These lesbians get up to FEED THE CHICKENS.

Lesbian Squabble #13: Breaking Dawn Part One
In The Ring: Shane vs. Quiara
Content: Shane immediately ejects herself from Quiara’s upcoming birth canal and broods on the side of the bed before getting up to put on a full white button-up shirt in her own home. She’s curious when Quiara was gonna tell her (now?) and also how she got pregnant (a donor, obvs!).

Quiara: “I’m not asking you to be a parent. It’s my dream. Not yours. All I’m asking is for you to be my partner.”
Shane: “Well then tell me what that looks like!”
Quiara: “Well we’ve never been traditional about anything, right? Because I see you. I know you. I know your heart. I don’t wanna go through this world without you.”
Shane: “Jesus, Q, not today.”

Quiara approaches Shane and says, “it’s me, remember,” and then tenderly holds her face and says, “you don’t scare me.” The last person who said that to Shane APPARENTLY DIED BY SUICIDE IN BETTE PORTER’S POOL, so. Shane grabs Quiara’s hair and says, “you scare me.”
Who Wins? Fear itself.

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Cut to a perfectly traditional morning in a perfectly traditional household wherein Alice and Nat are waking up and having a low-volume conversation to establish that Nat is okay and that Alice is good oh but also…

Then the kiddos knock on the door and everybody’s thrust into A FULL PANIC, lest a child weasel their way into this polyamorous bedroom and win the Guiness World Record for earliest aneurysm. Lock the door CAN GIGI LOCK THE DOOR How is the door not already locked! WE CANNOT LET THE KIDS SEE THIS yes of course GIGI HAS TO PICK THEM UP FOR THEIR PLAYDATE IN 5 MINUTES Oh god WEARING THAT yes it will be a very short walk of shame HERE WEAR THIS that really? that? DID ELI FINISH HIS BOOK REPORT?? Yeah “Smokey Came Home” except btw Smokey didn’t come home…

It’s very slapstick and funny and everybody’s comedic timing is aces.

Alice finds cake. Gigi’s gonna go back around the house and ring the doorbell if somebody could just crush up some asprin in her coffee ’cause she’s fucking dying? Then Nat says “We need to talk about last night” at the same moment that Alice says “I had the best time last night” and this conflicting review of the prior night’s activities — which I think we can all agree was decidedly The Best — takes them both very extremely a lot off-guard — Alice because Nat started it and sure seemed to be having fun, Nat because of reasons she cannot get into whilst that child is still screaming and Alice is still eating cake!

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Cut to the Los Angeles School of Enriched Studies, where Angelica has managed to become involved in some aspect of the school play in her short time as an enrolled student and Bette would like to attend and Angie would rather she not because it’s embarrassing.

Felicity calls — Angie maybe sees it, or sees enough to know it’s not work. Jordi says her parents were gonna come to the theatre, but aren’t coming, and it’s fine (it’s not fine!). A few seconds after getting out of the car Angie texts Mama B – “K fine u can come. But not for me. For her :-)” Bette smiles, knowing the best way to your teenage daughter’s heart is through her crush’s endless void of unfulfilled parental love. “Shut up Kiss Me” by Angel Olsen starts playing and will continue to as we…

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Cut to Kit + Denny’s New Age Lesbian Bar (Yes I have re-named it to honor Kit, Dana and Jenny, who were all famous and are all dead), where Tess is surveying the mild level of damage from last night’s blowout. Tess calls her sponsor.

Tess just came from a meeting and wants a drink — her sponsor suggests taking it “one day at a time” or helping someone ’cause there’s always someone who needs help. Good news: Finley’s passed out in the backroom!

Get in, says Tess. We’re going to have the best hangover food in town!

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Over at Bette 2020 HQ, the girls are cold-calling voters to implore them to choose to be gay in 2020 by electing Bette Porter. (Have you picked up your Bette Porter 2020 Tee?) Alice announces to her dearest friends that last evening she engaged in a threesome.

“With Nat’s ex-wife?” They ask.

“Have you seen her?” Alice counters.

They acknowledge this strong point.

Shane: So you’re a thruple now?
Bette: Wait wait what are you saying?
Alice + Shane: Thruple.
Shane: It’s a couple plus one.
Alice: You know, throuple is such a dumb word. It’s like we never get any good words. Vulva, labia, throuple —

Shane immediately upstages Alice with the announcement that Quiara’s got a surprise bun in her oven! Shane’s unsure of her best option at this juncture, as she’s made it clear she’s uninterested in raising children and it feels weird to just be married to Quiara while she raises them sans support (“Oh! I think that’s what I do” – Alice).

Bette and Shane commiserate over the pain of aging, a process which requires humans to weigh the consequences of their actions rather than just, you know, leaving Carmen at the altar and going on a coke binge with your former secret affair society wife, leaving your keys in a bowl of lemons and then smashing a car into a highway overpass. Also, Shane dons a Southern accent to convince people to vote for Bette Porter. I hope she accidentally calls Paige.

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Cut to DaSoMi’s chateau of on-and-off-love, where Sophie’s chilling with Maribel when Dani shows up with a package from Dad that apparently recently landed on their doorstep — it’s chocolates and a pre-nuptial agreement! Dani is horrified by this. Dad casually shooting over a pre-nup is Fucked Up, but the concept of a pre-nup is actually a really great one and they should have one! Sophie takes it on the chin, refuses the chocolates, and says she’ll just sign it. “All I wanna do is marry you and have like nine kids with you,” Sophie explains to her furious fiancee, “and if signing this stupid thing is gonna make your Dad happy, I’ll sign it. If that means I’ll get to have you.” I love this for them.

This scene is interrupted by the intrusion of another scene — Micah walking Jose out after they were doing LORD KNOWS WHAT upstairs, chatting about Jose wanting his art to get placed at a show. “You’re so cute,” Jose says. “I love you.” OOPS!!!!!!!

Jose dips out and the girls in the living room crack up. “It was an error!” Micah insists. But before anybody can get too jolly about love and its assorted slings and arrows, Maribel, who’s an immigration attorney, isn’t sure-sure but is pretty sure she’s found a pretty icky clause in this pre-nup: if Sophie births any of their nine children, they won’t be entitled to Dani’s family’s money, but if Dani pops ’em out of her very own vagina, they will be blessed with the family dollar. YIKES RODOLFO. YIKES.

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Cut to the Best Hangover Food in The City Cafe, where Finley’s relaying her memory of last night: minimal, but she thinks she might owe Rebecca an apology for something? Tess relates, as the majority of her twenties are also a blackout blur, and that’s why she’s been sober for two years ’cause she wanted to remember stuff / feel again.

Tess reveals that today’s a harder day than other’s ’cause her and Lena broke up. Finley starts to feel the hurt and devastation embodied in every stab of Tess’s fork and endearingly retreats — you see, I don’t wanna FEEL ALL THAT. Tess laughs: Neither do I! So Finley changes course and we get some backstory: Tess grew up in Vegas! Her Mom was a showgirl! Finley guesses that Tess’s Mom was probably hot.

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Back at Natalice’s, the three gal pals are dealing with the aftermath of participating in the series’ hottest sex scene thus far. Nat, in what is clearly a personal attack on me, thinks they had a threesome and should “leave it at that.” Alice wonders if maybe they should consider … doing it again? THANK YOU ALICE. Although also: this is incredibly fucking complicated and if they want it to work they’ll all have to communicate A LOT! Good thing Nat is a therapist.

Gigi notes that their dear friends Matt and Amir sometimes add a side of Nick when they play hide the salami. Nat has had enough because Gigi is her ex-wife and she loves Alice and doesn’t want anything to get in the way of what Nat and Alice have. Which brings us to…

Lesbian Squabble #14: Three’s Company
In The Ring: Nat vs. Gigi with a side of Alice
Content: Nat’s concerned that Gigi’s just angling to get in the way of her VERY GREAT and totally thriving relationship with Alice. But, after those two years it took Gigi and Nat to re-establish a relationship, Gigi would never risk losing Nat again. “You didn’t lose me,” Nat firmly corrects her. “You cheated on me. BIG DIFFERENCE.” And Gigi is so sorry so so so so sorry! “This was a mistake,” says Nat.

Nat: This is so messy.
Gigi: It doesn’t have to be.
Nat: You really hurt me.
Gigi: I know.
Nat: And I loved you so much.
Gigi: I loved you too.
Nat: And I never thought that I was gonna get over you and then I found someone. And I found someone really great! And somehow, you’re still here. So how is it that you get to fuck everything up and still have everything? Always?

Ooof. I know that feeling. That even if it feels okay and she wants it, Gigi hurt her so profoundly that it’ll be nearly impossible for her to reconcile Gigi getting anything back that she so recklessly betrayed in the past. Gigi says she’ll do anything Nat wants. She’ll leave. Should she leave? She starts to leave. “No,” Nat stops her. Alice says she’s good if Nat’s good. They all hold hands. It’s time for that glass of wine.
Who Wins? Me!

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“The L Word: Generation Q” Episode 104 Recap: L.A. Times

Hello and welcome to the fourth recap of the first season of The L Word: Generation Q, brought to you by the same network that brought you The L Word, an invigorating show about female small business owners and the rise of the Pear Polenta Tart!

Just a heads-up that I co-hosted the “To L and Back: Generation Q” podcast this week ’cause Analyssa is Home for the Holigays, so you can listen to all my thoughts there!

This week’s episode took some journeys into the valley of What Is Happening but also featured a sex scene that inspired me to text AV Club L Word reviewer Kayla “wowowowowowowowowow,” to which she replied, “YEAH.” It’s my favorite episode of the series thus far!

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We open with a collection of Big Tall Fancy Buildings B-roll before zooming in on a tall glass of BETTE PORTER NAKED IN BED WITH FELICITY HAVING ROOM SERVICE BREAKFAST..

It’s just a lazy eternal morning for two women having a clandestine affair. Felicity wishes she’d met Bette 20 years ago, back when she was a Musical Theater minor at Howard and dating a boy named Leonard. This reminds me of yet another Leonard who dated a queer woman…

Bette says she’d never wanna be 20 again. Probs ’cause that’d mean she’d have to go back in time to when she was having mediocre sex with Coleman at Yale and then relive the whole meditation storyline, eventually bang a chair into the ground at The Planet while yelling ARSON ARSON and ultimately do a weird dance in her kitchen while chanting “Shake it, don’t bake it” with Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell. Lez be honest, aren’t we glad those days are behind us? Anyhow, Felicity would like to know what Bette would like now, here, today.

Felicity: What do you want?
Bette: Mmm… a better cup of coffee and a fruit bowl would be great.
Felicity: No, what do you want for us?
Bette: Right now? All I want is this.

It’s unlike Bette to deny emotional processing in favor of Distraction Action unless she’s cheating on someone and thus trying to avoid confrontation, but bless our emotional growth/regression  — Felicity bends over. Bette reaches up, reaches into Felicity’s robe, lets it fall off as her breasts fall out, and with her hand firm on the back of Felicity’s neck, pulls her in for another kiss. Okay, GET IT GIRLS.

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Then we cut right over to Shane’s subconscious for consummated sexual intercourse!

Lesbian Sexy Moment #10: It Was All a Dream, I Used To Read LA Magazine
The Players: Shane and Quiara
The Pick Up: Probably conscious Shane taking an ambien or smoking three joints.
Hot or Not? Shane’s fucking Quiara and Quiara says “you’re so beautiful” and Shane says “I love you” and it is very hot, this is Sex Lighting but then BUT THEN it is over as soon as it began.

Shane wakes up from her hot sex dream and roots around for her cell phone, which lucky for us! Is chock-full of birthday wishes revealing key pieces of information:

1. Angie calls Shane “Uncle Shane”
2. Helena is in England for some reason [Throwback #15: Helena exists]
3. Alice goes by Aloce in on all platforms now
4. Tina and Shane are still friends and Tina is still corny
5. Shane is friends with someone named “Floyd”
6. Quiara has NOT texted Shane back yet to re-invigorate the “I miss you” “this is hard” “I can’t” “I don’t know how to do this” “I’m so sad” “I can’t stop crying” post-breakup cycle.

It’s Shane’s 40th birthday!

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Elsewhere in this fine home, Rebecca and Finley are also making the most of television’s Morning XL time to make out. Rebecca invites Finley to dinner that evening with her buddies and Finley says she’s got a party thing to go to. Finley joke-asks if Rebecca’s inviting two priests and a rabbi and Rebecca’s like “kinda.”

Rebecca’s developing Real Feelings for Finley and is curious if she’s ever gonna get over this religion-related hangup but luckily, Finley’s saved by the (door)bell!

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Cut to Shane’s bedroom — Finley charges in carrying a wooden box of generic Gourmet Foodstuffs that a mother might send her daughter in college OR that two of Shane’s best friends might ship Shane on the morning of her 40th birthday. When someone asks “what do you get for a millionaire you’ve known for 10+ years who can buy whatever she wants for herself?” I always say, “a bottle of your finest Harry & David™ 2017 Cabernet Sauvignon!”

Finley, despite having plans to attend Shane’s birthday party that very evening — plans she just shared with her holy lover Rebecca — didn’t know that it was Shane’s birthday. “Are you really forty?” she asks, and Shane acknowledges that yes, this is 40. It’s a fun, goofy scene — starting with Shane’s annoyance at how loud Finley is to her request that Finley bring the box anywhere but here to Shane’s consent to Finley’s request to “sample a little summer sausage.”

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And then we come to DaSoMi’s Home!

Where Dani, a dear, a female dear!

Wants to sprint out in the sun!

Finley’s heading in

for some orange juice

’cause that summer sausage was such fun!

They’re out, but almond milk will do!

They’re out, but now my song is through!

Sophie, wearing very cute very small shorts and enjoying a morning coffee, says Dani’s doing her “weird distant thing.”  Finley’s got no input, so Sophie switches topics: how’s Finley’s “lovah-priest”? Finley reports that it’s good and the sex is great, despite some lingering post-sex guilt.

Finley describes a “swirly feeling” in her torso inspired by Rebecca that I’m pretty sure is acid reflux, but Sophie’s got another diagnosis: LOVE.

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Cut to a VERY cool coffee shop (Filmed at Kettle Black on Sunset Boulevard) where Alice and Shane are meeting up with Bette to order items and not consume them.

Shane: “Is there a reason why you’re dressed like an Easter Peep?”
Alice: “Shane, I chose this color so it would pop. This LA Times reporter is following me around all day for this profile and I would like it to say “Alice Pieszecki is KILLING IT,” like in all capitals.”

This is THRILLING news ’cause that means it’s ROBIN’S EPISODE! My friend Robin who has done 45 different jobs for this website including A-Camp Co-Director, Photographer and Event Planner, has a cameo in this very episode! (Also, Robin is married to my “To L and Back” co-host, Carly Usdin!)

Bette shows up a little late because AHEM. She informs Shane that 40 is a fantastic and transformative time. Alice adds that your body starts falling off your body, like for example her ass is sliding from her hips to the earth like the Tower of Terror. Bette says “none of us has anything to worry about.” (Because they are all rich and have tighter skin and bodies than they did ten years ago because this is Los Angeles and everybody sticks needles and/or microneedles into their faces here, it’s just what people do here!) Shane refuses a birthday party, but consents to drinks with Alice and Bette.

Bette lies when Alice asks why she looks “all glowy,” then communicates with Shane via Vulcan mind-meld that she fucked Felicity. Alice asks how long it’s been since Bette had sex, suggesting “a year” as a potential answer as if Bette wasn’t recently busted for a very notable affair. Furthermore, according to Mandy-Munch, Bette fucked the whole school board. Shane’s taking the ladies on a field trip, but briefly shames Alice’s backpack, which’s unacceptable ’cause backpacks rule.

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Shane leads her two pals, who stumble around like gerbils, to the bar to unveil the new sign reading “DANA’S.”

“Open your eyes,” says Shane, but everybody’s wearing sunglasses so lord knows if they followed directions or not. Subsequently, everybody cried including me! [Throwback #16: Dana died]

Inside Dana’s Watering Hole for Thirsty-ass Lesbians, we’ve got a hottie delivering alcohol and Tess telling Lena she over-ordered.

Shane strides in and Lena pounces like a tiger on the prowl, cajoling her way into the back room via demands for checks and nonsense.

Shane is dying inside. Tess watches them walk off together like someone who knows what’s going on and is DEFINITELY not aware that Lena would be describing their relationship as “already over.” This is sad!

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Is there…. anything more humbling and humiliating than putting one of your employees in a position to smooth over an absurd situation you, a professional grown-up woman, have created despite definitely “knowing better”? There is not! And that is where Bette Porter finds herself this morning at a campaign photoshoot when she realizes she’s taken Felicity’s phone with her, and thus Felicity must have Bette’s phone.

Dani strikes the appropriate tone here, which’s nice to remember when things take a sharp turn pretty shortly thereafter. She’s not scolding, but offering firm dedication. “You know — Sophie and I accidentally took each other’s laptops to work once. Do you think something like that may have happened to you?” She offers.

Bette eventually concedes and Dani says she’ll sort it out and Bette says “you don’t need to do that.” Dani goes, “would you prefer I send a volunteer?” and Bette is like [clenched teeth] “fine.” YIKES.

---

Cut to the offices of The Aloce Show, where OUR VERY OWN ROBIN ROEMER IS PHOTOGRAPHING ALICE FOR THE MAGAZINE!!!!

Nat and the kids are in the hallway, waiting for their big moment in the spotlight!

Gigi pops in with a wardrobe change for the kiddos and to tell Alice she looks great. The L.A. Times writer, just like this writer (me), notes Alice and Gigi’s chemistry and starts asking her questions about their relationship. They’re like OH LOL no the rule of this show is you can only have chemistry with people you’re not dating, Nat’s over there! “I’m sorry, I assumed she was the nanny,” the writer says.

“How do you and Alice maintain a healthy work-life balance?” the writer asks.

“Oh whoah I’m not sure that we do,” Nat responds. They eventually agree that it’s a “joyful hard” which the writer doesn’t believe.

GOOD JOB ROBIN!!!!

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Elsewhere in a roomy Los Angeles parking lot, Dani is meeting up with her drug dealer in a parked car to talk about drugs and stuff. Just kidding it’s Felicity and they’re gonna switch phones!

And then. And then!!!!

Lesbian Squabble #9: Wha-wha-what Did You Say?
In the Ring: Dani v. Felicity
Content: Dani hops into the car, hands Felicity the phone, and then proceeds to, as they say, “go off.” This affair could end Bette! Felicity manages to squeeze in that by the way, she sill works at the Department for Cultural Affairs and everybody in that Department can’t stop talking about her Actual Affair. She’s still married to that terrible man in her phone background! Dani cannot hold back! Felicity is like, how many marriages have you failed at, my dear young friend? Well, none… YET. “I love her,” Felicity says. “I wish the world were different,” says stone cold Dani. “But it’s not.” Okay.
Who Wins? Felicity’s husband.

[ETA: Natalie, who knows 10000x more about politics than I do, has a very different take on Dani’s behavior which you can read in the comments!]

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Back at the offices of The Aloce Show, Sophie’s got an idea for Mayoral Contestant Mister White Man, who apparently is guesting on the program because municipal mayoral candidates who haven’t engaged in any newsworthy sex scandals are EXACTLY who middle America is dying to see on their television screens. Sophie says Alice should ask him abut the lack of diversity on his campaign staff! Drew’s got a different idea — ask him about his high school superlatives!

Drew: Milner wants to be seen as a real guy, he wants what you did with Bette Porter.
Alice: Okay Drew, I would love that. Because Bette and I talked about her scandal and about feminism and sexism and what it’s like to be queer. I wonder which one of those he really identifies with.
Sophie: You know what? I bet it’s feminism? A good guy like him?
Alice: Oh yeah I bet he’s like, balls deep in feminism.

Throughout this exchange, Alice and Sophie insist upon keeping their smiles real big ’cause the LA Times reporter is right outside, watching it all go down, so all this happens with teeth clenched up tight, which’s a successful humorous device. Finley stops in with coffee for everyone except Drew, but Drew doesn’t really count, so.

Drew gets that Alice wants to “do her feminism” and stuff, but also he’d like to do stuff to make the show not get cancelled.

Drew: “Look I’ve been down this road before, and I’ve learned the hard way. The only way to deviate is through incremental change.”
Alice: “Fine. I’ll ask him about his fucking horse.”
Drew: “It’s a pony, but deal.”

As Drew leaves the office to go compare his personality to a styrofoam plate and then hopefully dispose of it in an earth-friendly manner, Sophie’s like Alice, don’t forget — it’s your show. I love how they’re exploring specific workplace dynamics this season, and I appreciate how Sophie pushes Alice to be better. I also just… love Sophie?

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“The L Word: Generation Q” Episode 103 Recap: Lost Love

Hello and welcome to the third recap of the first season of “The L Word: Generation Q,” brought to you by the same network that brought you The L Word, a show about a little boy named Shay who loved to drink milkshakes all day but then broke his arm. :-(

Some business:

1. Have you seen this INCREDIBLE post about our live L Word: Generation Q event? Wow check it out. We’re also getting the podcast episode transcribed so it will be accessible to all!

2. On a scale of “1′ to “10,” 10 being a recap that will make you laugh until you urinate in your trousers and “1” being a recap that makes you wonder if the internet was a good idea or not, I would give this one a 6. Just setting expectations here!

3. I received a very kind email from a very kind and smart person about how in the olden days, podcasts were also video. I admit that…. this is true, and I haven’t mentioned that while ranting about Alice’s “podcast” not being a podcast, and that my confidence in doing so has been partially informed by what I perceived to be popular consensus about Alice’s “podcast” not being a podcast. But! I do indeed remember the video podcast era ’cause at one point in ’05-’06, back when NPR and Slate had a solid monopoly on the podcast game, it sometimes felt like most of the podcasts available on iTunes were video, which confused and frustrated me ’cause you can’t watch videos on your phone and the whole point of podcasts were that they were an audio medium! Sometimes I’d accidentally download a video podcast and be sad because what was my little hot pink nano gonna do with that? That being said, I also feel like we called them “video podcasts” or “vodcasts” and that regular video shows posted on websites, like Alice’s, would’ve been called “vlogs.” I too had a vlog. But I also feel like there is a case to be made for my case being thrown out.

4. Are y’all watching Work in Progress? It’s so weird and good and you should!

5. Let’s get this lez-show on the road!

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We open NOT with sexual intercourse but with a generous sequence of Los Angeles City of Dream Angels Baby b-roll, before finally zooming in on DaSoMi’s (I just made that up) chateau, where Sophie, Dani and Jose are dancing and Micah is NOT dancing. I am Micah in this scene, wishing I was Sophie in this scene. This scene is really fucking cute!!!!

Micah and Jose are going to a Dale Lewis art show tonight which Sophie would kill to attend. Jose just LOVES the way Dale Lewis mixes art with politics, which describes like 90% of modern artists but okay! Everybody is doing their best to pay tribute to Bette Porter by talking about art on this show and I see their effort and I respect it.

Upstairs in the respite of their shared boudoir, Dani’s Dad calls but Dani ignores it, instead turning her focus to the pressing issue of what Sophie’s gonna wear to the wedding. Everybody’s obsessed with what these two are gonna wear to the wedding even though they got engaged last week. My personal dream is tankinis or riding crops. Sophie, already settling into a vision of celebrity or Real Houswife-dom, suggests a white velour sweatsuit. On a WAY more serious note — Dani’s considering donning her Mother’s wedding dress.

Dani: I didn’t think about how hard this would be without her.
Sophie: Baby, she’s gonna be there. She’s here right now.
Dani: Do you really believe that?
Sophie: Of course I do.

Reader: I cried! Dead parent stuff gets me every time.

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Dani listens to Pop’s voice mail: he apologizes for overreacting, congratulates her on her engagement and says he’d love to meet up for lunch.

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Meanwhile, Rebecca and Finley are still in bed, being sweet and naked and chatting about humping dolls. Specifically, Rebecca used to sit atop her big-headed doll Sylvia’s face and just go to town. I ship it. Speaking of going to town, Rebecca’s gotta go.

Finley wants her to stay in bed all day and fudge. Like so many early-stage lovers before and after her, Finley even offers to call in sick to facilitate this fuckathon, leaving poor Alice to build her own display case of very cool glasses. Unfortunately, Rebecca’s commitment is far more pressing than whatever Finley’s not getting paid enough to do and she’s really, truly, really truly gotta go. Finley rolls around in bed with her boobs out and her armpit hair exposed and Rebecca says, “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Finley asks, knowing exactly what she’s doing.

“Making it so hard to leave.”

“Good, then just stay.”

Finley, our local Siberian husky, offers to come along to wherever Rebecca’s going but recoils immediately when Rebecca reveals her ultimate destination — CHURCH. Specifically, MCC. (MCC stands for “Metropolitan Community Church,” which was founded in 1968 as an explicitly LGBTQ-inclusive congregation.) Finley doesn’t know anything about MCC, but the very idea of church sends her spinning.

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Cut to Atlas Bar and Grill (fun fact: the “Atlas” Bar and Grill scenes were filmed at The Semi-Tropic in Echo Park), where Tess and Lena arrive for a long day of selling brewskis to brosties, only to find the door is already unlocked. Tess accuses Lena of forgetting to lock up. Then Tess offers to go in first, to which Lena replies, “Oh, ’cause you’re so tough?” before decidedly going in first. What is happening with these two??!!

Who’s inside? It’s Shane! Shane is talking to a man about how she’d like the room to be designed in such a way that when people walk in, they will feel beautiful. I think what she means is “low lighting” and I think what she did is… she bought the bar.

The unhappy couple are confused… and then, gradually, delighted.

Tess: Do I still have a job?
Shane: Uh well, I was hoping that you’d like to run this place.
Tess: Are you kidding? I get to run the floor of a lesbian bar??

Tess is so excited it’s so cute!!! After giving Shane an enthusiastic hug, Tess can barely contain the litany of good ideas she’s been storing up all these years! For example: a VIP area with bottle service and DJs and also, she’s sober, but she can design the FUCK out of a drinks menu. This bar’s gonna be lit, y’all! I’ve never heard of a bar having a drinks menu, let alone a drinks menu and DJs, let alone both of those things and a VIP area with bottle service. Also; stoked to see how they explore Tess’s sobriety. There’s a very very active queer sober community in Los Angeles and it’d be great to see that represented.

Enchanted by her interior dreamscape and likely continuing to dream of additional features, like perhaps chairs and tables, or a dance floor; Tess leaves her girlfriend alone with Shane. Lena immediately saddles up to Shane like you would to somebody you’ve already had sex with. Out of the side of her mouth, she tells Shane how incredible she is and that she can’t believe she did this! I can’t believe that Lena is doing this so I guess it’s a confusing day for all of us.

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Over the highway and through the woods to Natalice’s apartment we go! Alice is wearing an unfortunate shirt, seemingly inspired by my kindergarten teacher’s wall decor, and is leaving Nat alone to deal with a potential crisis involving a puzzle piece inside Eli’s nose and a bunch of plastic toys on the kitchen island ’cause Alice is meeting up with her besties, Bette and Shane.

Alice pauses, realizing something that’s apparently evaded her for the past two years — doesn’t Nat have friends she’d like to go out with sometimes? ‘Cause if so, Alice would happily watch the half-humans. Nat’s pleased by the offer but reminds Alice that she’s completely friendless. Apparently, all her friends sided with Gigi post-breakup even though Gigi was the cheating one, because Gigi’s also “the cool one.”

“She was my best friend too,” Nat says, sadly.

Alice delivers an amusing bit about how Nat could take some of her third-tier friends, by which I hope she means Helena because what is Rachel Shelley even doing that means she can’t be on this show?

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Cut to Alice with her friends talking about how Nat doesn’t have any friends.

Shane shows up with Lena, inspiring suspicious glances from her friends. Lena’s gone ahead and almost taken off her entire shirt just in case Shane wants to remove the rest wink wink?? Luckily for my sanity, she’s not sticking around — she’s gonna wait for a take-out order / stare longingly in Shane’s direction.

Alice is STOKED to hear Shane’s bought Atlas to flip it into a lesbian bar but Bette’s skeptical of Shane making impulsive decisions while heartbroken, like when Bette cancelled her fine meats and fish delivery boxes after Tina moved in with Joyce Wyshnia even though the delivery girl offered to come over and cook them all for her.

Alice suggests Shane resist the urge to “shit where she eats.” Bette affirms this advice with the weary knowledge of somebody who’s currently in an excruciating situation involving her former employee Felicity Adams. And you know, has a history with… Jodi… and Nadia…. and Candace…

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Cut to the Private School for Asshat Children. A girl who looks like she just crawled out of the sewer calls Angie “Angemunch” and then says that she heard Angie’s Mom slept with everyone on the school board, which I think is the plot of a gang bang porn film but definitely not an accurate anecdote from the Life of Bette Porter. The girl concludes that her previous assumption of Angie being an “affirmative action kid” was wrong, it’s just that her “Mom is a slut and everyone knows it”! What I wanna know is how did this SLUT-SHAMING idiot get into this school?

Angie does the only thing a person could reasonably do in this situation: punches that zombie bitch in the face!

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“The L Word: Generation Q” Episode 102 Recap: Less Is More

Hello and welcome to the second recap of the first season of The L Word Generation Q, brought to you by the same network that brought you The L Word, a TV show about a fascinating young woman born with the ability to speak the language of the manatees.

Firstly, my dear friends, I am absolutely THRILLED by the response to last week’s recap! It truly felt like 2009 in the comments and by that I mean there were a lot of comments and everybody read the intro. What a delight! Secondly, I was a special guest star on the second episode of “To L and Back: Generation Q,” our podcast about Generation Q hosted by Drew Gregory and Analyssa Lopez, which I will link to right here as soon as it goes up on Monday morning! Don’t worry it turns out I have an endless amount of things to say about any given L Word episode including this one. Thirdly, the event recap with pictures of our live “To L and Back” recording with the Generation Q cast is also going up Monday morning.

Fourthly: last week, it was suggested I begin tracking throwbacks, and thus I will. Last episode we had quite a few, which I’ve listed below along with, when relevant, the specific season the throwback addressed.

1. Alice says Lenore is living in her house and thinks Shane still wants to fuck her Mom. (S1)
2. Bette takes a phone call from Tina
3. “I did vaginal rejuvenation in ’04. Have vaginas changed since then?” (S1)
4. Shane’s “been there” re: Finley sharing a one-bedroom with five roommates, which is a throwback to Shane sharing a one-bedroom with four roommates (S1)
5. Angie says she wants to live with Mama T
6. “Do your voters know that you stole a billboard in the mid-aughts?” (S4)

Alright, let’s get into it!

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We open deep in the annals of lesbian history: two years ago. Los Angeles, California. As we did last week and as we deserve forever and evermore, we open with GIRL-ON-GIRL ACTION.

Lesbian Sexy Moment #4: Were We Ever So Young!
The Players: Alice and Nat
The Pick-Up: Offscreen, but as this was their first date, it was probs, “Wanna come up / get a nightcap / make out / judge the books on my bookshelf?”
Hot or Not? Well, on the upside: someone got pushed against a wall. On the downside: who picked Stephanie’s wig for this scene. On the flipside: before anything gets TOO steamy we are interrupted by…

Lesbian Squabble #4: Were We Ever So Young?
The Players: Gigi vs. Nat
Content: The removal of clothing ceases after they hear a banging at the door. Alice guesses it’s:

1. Postmates
2. Amazon (they deliver really late, she says)
3. A murderer

But nope, it’s Nat’s ex-wife, Gigi! And my friends, Gigi is UNHAPPY that Nat’s already nearly undressed with another woman. Gigi throws out zingers including “Are you fucking kidding me?” and “What a fucking bitch!” while Nat remains cool as a cucumber and Alice suggests calling the cops. (Alice, never call the LAPD on a person of color!) (Unless you’re actually just calling Tasha, who may/may not still live in LA and may/may not still be a police officer, which I would OBVIOUSLY support.) Gigi, likely inspired by the classic Indigo Girls song “Hammer and a Nail,” hammers a nail into Nat’s wall and then hangs her wedding ring on it. “There, are you happy? I hope you’re fucking happy,” she concludes, as if the only barrier to Nat’s potential happiness was that nobody had hammered a nail into the side of her house and hung an expensive piece of costume jewelry on it. Gigi returns to deliver one more FUCK YOU to Alice, who declares Gigi “dramatic.”

Who Wins? The OFTEN UNFAIR but unfortunately relatively universal rule of post-breakup blowouts is that the less hysterical one wins, even if the hysterical one is CORRECT and the calm one is INCORRECT. In this case, Nat’s both correct and less hysterical, so she wins a daily double. However, Alice is spooked: a small victory for Gigi and her toolbox.

Alice: So you were married to that person?
Nat: Yeah. She’s a really great Mom.

Alice and Nat jump back into the rudely interrupted makeout and we jump into the opening credits!

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Back in present day sunny L.A., Sophie’s stoked about her and Dani’s last-minute engagement party, to which she plans to invite her entire family including third cousins, while hoping they won’t all actually show up. Dani’s got big news, though: she’s leaving The Glass Power Tower of Daddy’s Terror Inc to run PR for Bette Porter’s mayoral campaign! Sophie’s reaction to this news is not exactly what Dani had hoped for.

Lesbian Squabble #5: The Imperfect Message
In the Ring: Sophie vs. Dani
Content: Sophie would’ve liked to be consulted before Dani switched careers, as they were supposed to be “slowing down,” a term which means basically nothing and is not expanded upon. Dani thought Sophie would be happy for her. I assume, without any supporting evidence, that this must be money-related, as surely Dani’s salary is gonna decrease by 500% as she moves out of “doing evil” into “doing good.’ Although I don’t think a couple has to agree on all of their individual life path decisions, it’s 100% bananas and genuinely suspicious that Dani didn’t talk to Sophie about her hopes and dreams before talking to Bette, even! Then, Micah drops in, delivering his internal monologue about whether or not it’s cool to use a gift card on his date with Jose. Sophie suggests delaying the engagement party. Micah smells stress sweat.
Who Wins? Micah! He’s done great problem-solving re: his gift card. He’s gonna use it!

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We then ascend to the upper echelons of power lesbianism, where it seems Finley has indeed decided to crash at Shane’s indefinitely. She’s even done some shopping! At the Dollar Store. And made Shane undoubtedly inferior coffee out of a “packet thing.”

Finley: So, I heard three voices coming out of your room last night. How wasted were you?
Shane: I wasn’t.
Finley: Seriously though, no judgment. I don’t think I’ve ever had sober sex. I need that liquid courage, you know? Or like, I can’t even tell if someone’s into me.
Shane: Just try listening and they’ll tell ya.
Finley: That’s deep.

Shane begins to explain that there may’ve been a misunderstanding regarding Finley’s indefinite shacking up with Shane but she’s interrupted by a delivery guy who clearly just stepped off the set of The Matrix where he was one of 100 package-delivery clones. Shane denies being Shane, which’ll definitely ensure she never has to open that envelope.

Finley asks who was at the door. Shane, trotting downstairs with her orange juice to be depressed, ignores the question and asks one of her own: “Just wondering how long you’re planning on staying.” I hope forever, because I am really enjoying this?

“One week,” Finley says, jocular. “Two max. You know what? Let’s not put a max on it.”

I know people have issues with this storyline but sorry I love it!!!

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Over at The Evil Empire, Dad’s hoping Dani loves her office, which is the size of a small shopping mall. Probably she’s gonna do aerobics in there or host a Stitch-n-Bitch.

Dani says Dad raised her to do what’s right and be independent, and she’s SUPER grateful for the job, but Bette Porter offered her a position running PR for her campaign. Dad is, unsurprisingly, very upset about this twist in the life story he wrote his daughter, who then tries a follow-up blow-softener of “I proposed to Sophie. So that’s good news at least.”

“That’s a lot for one morning,” Dad says. Ouch.

Clearly he has not done the math regarding how much free morning time L Word Lesbians have. These ladies can wake up, have morning sex, shower, don trendy apparel, do full hair and makeup, drive to The Planet, find parking, drink coffee, process somebody’s entire breakup, say something passive-aggressive, definitely leave whatever food they ordered at the table and make it all the way to work in Canada by 9am.

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Angie’s got the day off school AND is grounded, so it’s take Your Daughter to Bette 2020 HQ Work Day!

Angie is tasked with preparing mailers and wants to invite Jordi to come look cute while she stamps envelopes but Bette’s not too keen on Jordi, a notorious drug pusher of the vaping variety. Angie declines the suggestion to invite a classmate, ’cause she hates everybody at that private school Bette’s forcing her to attend. I feel sad for Angie!

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At The Aloce Show, Handyman Finley’s doing some shelves and Sophie’s agonizing over Dani’s big job switcharoo.

Finley: Are you guys both gonna wear like, dresses?
Sophie: Why you gotta say it like that.
Finley: I dunno… I’m grossed out.

This line is clearly not cool but something about the delivery makes you feel sad for Finley rather than mad at her — like there’s some deep internalized homophobia swirling around beneath those puppy dog ears. This shame could probably be cured with a brief dip into the pond of existential despair/hope known as Lesbian Wedding Instagram.

Sophie says she’s not sure what a good marriage looks like ’cause her Dad left her Mom when she was 12, and Finley says she’s got no clue either — her parents kicked her out and sleep in separate beds. This tracks. We’re all doomed. Anyhow, network’s here!

Alice expects the network bosses have arrived to congratulate them on knocking it out of the park with Bette’s live dramatic reading mash-up of Meredith Brooks’ “Bitch” and Jewel’s “Pieces of You.” They basically scored the Gettysburg Address! This meeting is gonna be great! Sophie’s not so sure.

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Dani has arrived with a lesbian houseplant for her office, but Pierce is like, it is not that kind of office my friend. Get a carpet square and meet me in Bette’s office for a meeting.

Dani’s stopped in her tracks by Judy Chicago’s “Through The Flower,” hanging on Bette’s wall. “Judy Chicago loaned it to me,” Bette flexes. She waxes poetic on Judy’s inspirational focus and drive. Dani is AROUSED.

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Back at The Aloce Show, the network is very mad. Dr. Oz was waiting in the hallway all night prepared to steam a vagina, only to see himself replaced by Bette Porter. This is the only thing that Dr. Oz has in common with the lesbians of Los Angeles.

“When we bought your podcast, we bought a brand. A poppy, fun, lesbian brand,” says Barry. “We wanna build off that.” (Throwback #7: Alice’s podcast, S4-S5)

“I do too, I really do,” responds Alice, a poppy fun lesbian, “It’s just I’m a very curious person, and i think my audience is too. And I just wanna give them a little credit.”

Listen, I’m well aware of the original program’s myriad evils, problematic elements and dire missteps, but like, their multi-season insistence on referring to Alice’s video interviews for OurChart as “podcasts” is a gaffe I will never get over, and I am HIGHLY UPSET to see the reboot is NOT addressing this EGREGIOUS error.

Anyhow — meet Drew Wilson! You know Drew. He’s the incidental guy they call in to drive a smart woman insane! He’s written for [various important talk show hosts] and is here to take the pressure off Alice. With his irrelevant and unnecessary help, she’ll keep her first-season audience, who definitely are incapable of intellectual development and will love every idea that leaks slowly from the pores of this asshat’s inferior brain:

Finley, again bounding into an important room with the enthusiasm of a King Charles Spaniel, has written KID HELP on a post-it, slapped the post-it on her hand, and is now shoving said hand in Alice’s face. One of Nat’s kids is ready to hurl, and Gigi’s out Giging and Nat’s in a therapy session, so Alice is our only hope for picking up the kiddo! Can’t the kiddo just stay in the nurse’s office all day waiting for his parents to get off work like the rest of us did in the pre-cellphone era after we walked to school in the snow uphill both ways? I forgive it because we all laughed out loud.

Alice dashes out, telling Finley to call Shane to meet her at Nat’s for backup. Sophie tells The White Men that she understands their discomfort with Bette’s last-minute booking, but they’ve gotten some great celebrity guest requests since the show aired. For example, Lena Waithe! The Network Guys are into Lena Waithe, just like us, but then are like “Yay, let’s get ’em to wear blindfolds and play a drinking game.” Sophie suggests “an honest conversation about the importance of queer representation in film,” which inspires them to nod and declare, “Drew will fill in the details.” [Narrator: he will did not fill in the details.]

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L Word Generation Q Episode 101 Recap: Let’s Do Lesbians Again

Well, friends, here we are again. Here I am recapping my 72nd episode of The L Word franchise. I have recapped The L Word in three parts of Florida, in New York City and in Oakland and in Michigan and in Los Angeles and in Austin and in middle seats on airplanes, at hotel desks and in the chilly back office of my Mom’s house in suburban Detroit. I have recapped while crying, while drunk and high, while having a violent allergic reaction to my friend’s new cat in her otherwise impressive Nyack lakehouse; in my underwear with my laptop on a pile of pillows and my back against another pile of pillows, my face lit up by computer-screen glow next to a naked sleeping girl who’d wake up for work at 7am and ask “is it done yet” not because she was worried about my physical health (these burdens are our own to bear, I’d made that much clear) but because she wanted to read it on her subway ride downtown. I was recapping The L Word when I started dating my first-ever girlfriend, when I started this very business with my next girlfriend and was recapping The Real L Word when I moved in with the girlfriend after that. Now I host a podcast that recaps The L Word out loud with a friend I used to watch The L Word with when it actually aired. This is the way, it’s the way that we live. These burdens are our own to bear.

Today’s “To L and Back” podcast episode is a live recording of our interview with the Gen Q cast that we did last week at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and on Thursday, the first Generation Q episode of “To L and Back” will debut with its new hosts! In subsequent weeks, the Gen Q podcast will come out on Mondays, like the TLAB podcast did and will again after the Gen Q Season One finale.

TV recaps have changed since I used to do this, though: they’re not popular in the same way they once were. So I’m curious to know what you’d like out of these recaps! Do you want the same formula I did before —  the blow-by-blow? Or would you prefer a shorter review or some other clever and brief format? Let me know in the comments!

Until then, I’ll be recapping in the same manner in which I performed my original L Word recaps, which’s to say I will be counting Sexy Moments and Squabbles and picking a quote of the week. Unfortunately, I cannot do a Jenny Moment because… Jenny is dead.

So, here we go: welcome to the first recap of the first season of The L Word: Generation Q, brought to you by the same network that brought you The L Word, a show about a super-hip skateboard shop called “Wax” and its singular salon chair! Let’s begin, shall we?

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We open on a picturesque Los Angeles morning. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, the grass is growing, the climate is changing and the lesbians are carpet-munching. Let’s not waste any time!

Lesbian Sexy Moment #1: Bloody Heaven
The Players: Dani and Sophie
The Pick-Up: Happened before our arrival but Sophie reveals, post-orgasm, that she ‘woke up so horny’ so I think we can imagine there was some spooning transitioning into sleepy ass-to-groin grinding transitioning into full cunnilngius.
Hot or Not? Yes! What a way to start the show, you know?

Now Dani’s hand is bloody, like Macbeth’s, because everything is normal and our bodies are beautiful. She reminds Sophie that “this happens every month.” You know what else happens every month? Ovulation. As Tina pointed out to Bette in the first scene of the original series! It’s the circle of life, it’s the wheel of fortune, it’s the leap of faith, it’s the elastic waistband of hope.

Thus we now know biblically and otherwise that this is the beautiful golden couple: Dani Nuñez (Arienne Mandi) and Sophie Suarez (Rosanny Zayas). I promise I won’t do this for the entire recap, but Rosanny and Ari had a lot of cool interesting things to say about this scene on this week’s episode of “To L and Back!” Seriously it’s not-to-be-missed.

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Elsewhere, Finley (Jacqueline Toboni) is creeping out of somebody’s very nice bedroom in her boxer-briefs, clutching a pile of clothes to her bosom, likely in hopes of making $2 at Crossroads.

Her car won’t start, so she very kindly steals her date’s bike and leaves her dead car in the driveway, probably blocking the live car in that garage, which means the girl she left behind is gonna have to Demolition Derby her way to work this morning, which’s very butch, if you think about it.

Finley’s flash of armpit hair feels as deliberate as opening the show with a period sex scene between two women of color — we’re still in fantasyland to some degree, but rooted in something undeniably authentic.

We’re then treated to a montage of Silver Lake / Echo Park street life, including Finley biking past a man who tells her to smile. She reminds him that “time’s up, jackass!” Just a note that the original script said “motherfucker” and the preview said “bitch” so that was probably quite the journey for everybody involved.

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Finley rolls up to Sophie/Micah/Dani’s little palace and spots a shirtless man with a significant pectoral region carting some boxes and jets inside to interrupt Micah’s phone call with a student to ask him if he HAS SEEN WHAT’S OUTSIDE. (Micah is Dani’s best friend and ex, and is played by Leo Sheng!) You know what? There’s a better view from upstairs, so let’s just run right upstairs and bolt right into Sophie and Dani’s room…

I feel like I know a lot of Finleys, you know? Like that friend who just really wants the best for you and gets more excited about your life than you’ll ever be while maintaining only the most chaotic grip on their own. They’ve been through it — but you’d never know, looking at that smile. Finleys can be a nightmare to date but a dream to befriend.

Sophie cracks that Micah and Shirtless Man will probs get married before Dani proposes to her. So Dani’s definitely proposing to Sophie this episode.

With Finley and Sophie safely off-set, Micah’s like “what are you waiting for, propose!” and Dani’s like, listen, I will, I just have to tell my Dad! [Trivia: this scene was re-shot — the original, which provided us with a very popular episode still of everybody in the window, felt too hokey to showrunner Marja Lewis-Ryan when she saw it, so they redid it. This and more interesting tidbits coming your way when I publish the interview I did with Marja later this week!] [Let the record show that Ilene Chaiken has STILL not invited me over for dinner to look at her birds.]

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Cut to Bette’s Enormous Home, where our Lady of Porter looks fantastic on the phone giving design feedback on her campaign materials (her first line is “Hello Again”, as per promotional materials) while her daughter, a now fully grown up Angelica Gaymo, is texting in the bathroom.

Angie’s texting with her friend Jordi who wants Angie to “not bail” on their plan today, and Angie says she won’t, and starts to text “I’m sooooo excited” but then deletes it, which means Angelica is gay and has a crush on Jordi. It must be the gay gene. I bet Marcus Allenwood is bi. Angie tries to leave without saying I love you but then is like, JK I love you!

Three generations of queers: I love to see it.

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Cut to Nat’s house! Nat (Stephanie Allyne) is Alice’s girlfriend who has two (2) children. Her son Eli is intently reading the back of a cereal box and Alice can’t find the fucking spatula! Alice, like Bette, also looks fantastic!

Alice: “You know, when i was a kid, my Mom made me split a Slim-Fast Shake with her for breakfast.”
Olive: “You’re not our mom.”
Alice: “Oh yeah sure I do know that!”

Who’s at the door??? IT’S GIGI (Sepideh Moafi)! Yup, Nat’s ex-wife and the Other Mother of these two fine young specimens appears out of the clear blue, pulling off a camel-colored blazer/trouser combo and looking, if I may say so, obscenely attractive.

It’s time for our first throwdown!

Lesbian Squabble #1: A Marriage Story
In the Ring: Gigi vs. Nat
Content: Gigi acts like she didn’t know it was Alice’s day to drop off the kids at school, which Nat finds VERY upsetting as it’s thwarting her plans to get Alice to feel like part of the family as per their deliberately non-partisan shared calendar. The kids, clearly scarred by that time Alice was scream-crying post-yoga in a hoodie and barrettes while car-chasing Dana through multiple-lane roads in Malibu, wanna ride with Gigi.
Who wins?: Gigi. She’s the fun Mom.

Gigi saunters up to Alice and informs her that her manicurist loves Alice’s show and finds it very “cute.” Also, Gigi is emotionally undressing Alice, this woman could probably seduce an oak tree or a box of paper towels. She and the kids exchange some dialogue in Persian ’cause guess what, Gigi is a Persian character played by a Persian actress! HOW FAR WE’VE COME!

Nat wants to process but Alice isn’t in the mood for therapy talk, but… it looks like everybody woke up horny today.

Lesbian Sexy Moment #2
The Players: Alice and Nat
The Pick-Up: “When do you have to leave?” “In seven minutes” “Wanna see if we could do it in six?”
Hot or Not: Feels like they got off to a solid start besides the bleating plush toy wedged behind the throw pillow? I wish them all the best.

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Uhh, then we arrive at the um, tarmac? You know, the thing where PRIVATE JET OWNERS de-plane onto a slim red carpet, wearing sunglasses and holding a single duffle. It’s Shane. Shane pauses at the top of the stairs, scoping the air for errant owls and reflecting, it seems, on her return to Los Angeles for the L Word reboot.

“I look forward to seeing much more of you in the future,” says the flight attendant with the perfect ponytail. In other words: they’re gonna bang. And my friends: they do. Shane’s gotta Shane!

Lesbian Sex Moment #3
The Players: Shane and the Air Hostess
The Pick-Up: I’m gonna guess “hey.”
Hot or Not? Of course.

Jsyk this is our third set of boobs and we are ten minutes in. Shane remains in full dress for the duration of the scene. Shane does her scoop-in-lean-kiss, she removes her shirt, she unhooks her bra, she lifts her ass onto the kitchen counter, slips the thong onto the kitchen floor and my friends, WE HAVE LIFT-OFF.

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Cut to a golf cart outside of The Aloce Show, where Finley’s telling Sophie about her last-night romp, which involved a bartender who just broke up with her boyfriend, texted “u up?” and because Finley WAS up, she hopped right on over. In Finley’s words they “fudged” and it was “awesome,” but then she woke up and her car wouldn’t start ’cause she only had enough gas for a one-way trip, so she had to steal the girl’s bike.

Finley: “Look at us, still on time for work and shit though!”

Firstly, that is b a n a n a s, now this entire town is gonna know Finley as the girl who stole that girls bike. Secondly, I love the ease and the gentle ribbing of this friendship. Thirdly, there is no greater gift than that of how much time TV characters have to hang out before work / school.

On set at The Aloce Show, Finley’s gotta get Alice’s take on if she wants the one or two lips coffee mug (“vagina lips or mouth lips, impossible to tell at this point”) when an ominous figure jaunts into the arena, clapping her cum-soaked hands for no discernible reason.

IT’S SHANE!!! AND THE CROWD* GOES WILD!

*alice

Alice: “I can’t believe you’re really here! Do you really live in LA again?”

Shane’s like, holy shit, look at what you’ve done for yourself, it’s outstanding!

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IT’S TIME FOR AN EXPOSITION BRUNCH WITH SHANE, ALICE AND BETTE! One topic not covered in this brunch is how exactly everybody’s skin is so firm, supple and radiant?

Exposition time:

1. Shane sold her salon in Paris and her salon in New York
2. Shane has not “spoken to her” (her wife, we suppose) since leaving, and “does not plan to”
3. Something spilled in Alice’s backpack
4. Alice got Shane a house, which is big and empty
5. Alice is gonna send Shane a bed and also a Finley to put the bed together
6. Shane doesn’t need Alice to send her a bed
7. Too late, it’s already done
8. Alice keeps stepping on legos
9. Bette and Alice are both parents now wow how we’ve grown
10. Bette missed Shane more
11. In all honesty, Shane believes she missed Bette more
12. NO Bette missed Shane more!
13. No Shane missed Bette more and it’s not a contest
14. Yes it is, and Bette’s gonna win
15. Nat and the kids didn’t move into Alice’s house because it would’ve been a “whole thing”
16. Alice’s Mom is living in her house

Which brings us to…

Shane: …and how is Lenore?
Bette: Oh stop.
Shane: What?
Bette: No, really, stop!
Alice: Are you going to fuck my Mom?
Shane: I’m just asking you how she is!
Alice: I can’t believe you still wanna fuck my Mom!
Shane: She’s an attractive woman, Alice.

In all, the reboot is a lot less wacky than the original, which I have both good and bad feelings about. But regardless I relish this opportunity to bring some wack back. Then, Bette gets a phone call.
As we say in the hit podcast “To L and Back,” IT’S TINNAAAAA.

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Angie’s at school, doodling through a Don Quijote lesson in her GAY ASS SHOES.

But who needs school when you’ve got a badass best friend willing to call the school, pretend to be your Mom, get you out of school on account of your “Grandma being sick” (which is impossible b/c Tina never mentioned having parents and Bette’s are dead) and then pull up in a lil car pumping hip-hop!

It’s Jordi, played by Sophie Giannamore! They’re gonna vape, just like the teenagers in the drug PSAs! I love this trope, all my teenage novels had Jordis in them.

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At Bette 2020 HQ (Bette is running for mayor of Los Angeles), Bette, standing of course in front of a giant picture of Bette, is trying to convince imaginary phone Tina that Angie can handle her AP courses and the school play. NOT IDF SHE KEEPS VAPING.

Bette’s super important, which’s established by the number of humans who attempt to join her walk-and-talk, including Kacey (Lex Ryan), thus far our butchest character, who took another stab at Bette’s piece; and Bette’s assistant, Pierce Williams (Brian Michael Smith), who has set up a series of meetings with very important political donors who are friends of the party as well as Rodolfo Núñez, head of a minority-owned investment firm with “deep roots in the Persian and Latinx communities.” “Jesus, that’s half the city,” Bette says.

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Cut to an airy office building where Dani walks around in power-suits like someone who can put on a strap-on in less than 45 seconds. Dani’s gonna take Daddy’s Two PM ’cause he got called away for something important and probably terrible. Lucky for her, her Two P.M. is Bette Fucking Porter, who, if elected, would be L.A.’s first openly gay mayor. Dani is Rodolfo Núñez’s daughter.

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The L Word Episode 112 Recap: Looking Back By Recapping “Looking Back”

It’s been ten years since The L Word premiered, and we’ve got lots to talk about. Welcome to The L Word week!

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Welcome to the twelfth recap of the first season of The L Word, a supernatural drama about a precocious dolphin trainer with shiny hair who enjoys riding her vespa, doing cartwheels, reading the Delia*s catalog, eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches, trying on strapless bras, sledding in the summertime and collecting band-aids. This episode promises hijinks and madness, including a race to the top of a mountain, nipple confidence, and tiny robots that can can give alternative lifestyle haircuts.

Yes it’s true, I’m recapping an episode from Season One in honor of L Word week. Previously, I have recapped the pilot episode as well as all of Seasons Four, Five and Six, back when I had a giant hole through my brain and said a lot of strange things on the internet. I used to pepper these recaps with quotes from my pals/viewing partners and photographs of said pals, but alas now I live on the dock of The Bay far away from most of my pals, so instead I g-chatted Laneia while watching it and included some of that here! Anyhow, ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOSBALL????

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We open at a poolside party in Los Angeles, California in 1979, where free spirits are listening to disco music, snorting cocaine, and probably celebrating the recent return of NASA’s first orbiting space station Skylab to earth. A few douchey guys in unfortunate fashion situations with brawny chest hair have gathered ’round the pool to encourage three naked ladies to stick their tongues down each other’s throats. Because free love!

The camera cuts out before we see what really goes down, but I hope it doesn’t involve someone going down on somebody else, because then that somebody would probably drown.

Laneia: i’m making a face
Riese: welp, i already hate men
jk i hated men before i started watching this show

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Cut to the present day circa the buttcrack of dawn, where the ladies are prepping to drive out to the Dinah Shore Sexy Slut Partyathon, Bette’s considering hiring The Carpenter for the Provocations Project and Dana’s presenting Kit with her 56-page thesis entitled “How To Take Care of Mr. Piddles.”

Marina’s employing her one and only facial expression, “Serious and Smarter Than You,” to subtly disapprove of Jenny joining the lezzies on this sultry vacation.

Also, somehow Alice’s Mom Lenore has invited herself on this road trip! Oh, Lenore. You are a permanent reminder to us all of the missed opportunity to name an L Word episode “Lenore’d.”

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En route to Palm Springs in the dead of night, Alice exposits the history of Dinah Shore — used to be a golf tournament, now is lesbian spring break — and then Tina exposits the history and greatness of the Human Rights Campaign, who we’re told will be giving Dana Fairbanks an award, probs for Best Female Ejaculation ever.

Because this show is sometimes adorable and Alice’s breasts look amazing in that shirt, everything is perfect. The carload erratically sings along to “Closer to Fine” as dawn breaks, because I guess these girls left at 4 AM to make the 2.5 hour drive to Palm Springs, or something.

Alice’s Mom, continuing on her quest to be a Cool Mom, is inspired by The Indigo Girls to tell everybody Alice’s “coming out story.” Apparently, back in high school, Alice snuck behind the bleachers to get drunk and smoke cancer sticks with her hot friend and then her hot friend threw up in Alice’s mouth. Alice is like, that is not my coming out story, my coming out story is way more punk than that.

Once upon a time, Alice chewed a lot of gum and played in a band in her pajamas with her boyfriend Greg. Then she met a hot chick named Tayo who played bass and they played tonsil hockey together all over Oberlin or wherever but then Tayo broke her heart and now Alice is eating Burger King in a car with a bunch of lunatics who will probs kill Jenny some day.

Next up is Dana, who’s reluctant to share ’cause her Patient Zero Lady-Love is a famous tennis player, maybe the one whose girlfriend submitted this really g-dawful manuscript to us in 2010. Mystery Tennis Homo was Dana’s counselor at Tennis Camp and they were in love and liked to suck face until MTH confessed to her best best friend and her best best friend did the worst worst thing and called her parents, thus getting MTH kicked out of Tennis Camp, leaving Dana to spend the rest of the summer with her Hitachi Magic Wand.

Lenore, a sudden expert on the lingo, moans, “tennis players are like girls in college, gay until graduation,” and the girls politely chuckle.

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Back in WeHo, Bette’s trying to register for A-Camp when JAMES (a member of my short list entitled “men I don’t hate”) arrives to inform her that Candace “The Hottie” Carpenter is here to ruin her life I MEAN TALK ABOUT BUILDING THINGS. The Carpenter has big ideas about wall mounting and scaffolding and how to make the space “more dynamic.”

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We then strap jetpacks onto our tank tops and rocket on back to The Longest Drive to Palm Springs In The History of the Automobile, where Lenore’s got a coming out story to tell because why the hell not. Her story, which we now recognize was the intro scene, takes place at “one of those Hollywood parties” in the ’70s “full of swingers and orgies and drugs.”  Lenore claims she got busy with four melons in a pool, but our visual flashback reveals that the other two wild children went for it but Lenore didn’t, she just treaded water and looked timid. If only she’d known that one day she’d grow up and kiss Shane.

Next up is Shane’s “coming out story,” except it’s not really about coming out but also none of these stories are so whatever. Shane shares the touching tale of tiny Shane watching Tiffany Gardner play in the park all day until one day she was like, “You know what? Fuck this, I’m gonna talk to this girl.”

Laneia: Baby shane just hopped up like she was putting out a cigarette
Riese: She was practicing for when she would grow up to be Shane

Tiny Shane’s already wearing Shane pants.

Shane: “So I pack up my Sunshine Meal, and I walk over to her, and she’s just sitting there in the sand playing hard to get, and I knew I was hooked. That girl took my Sunshine meal toy, and then she took my heart.”

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU TIFFANY GARDNER.

Then they drop Lenore off on the curb and zoom into balmly Palm Springs, California, where thousands of lesbians are preparing to give each other yeast infections.

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Cut to The Palm Springs Hotelscape Center of Lesbolife, where the girls skulk in with their luggage and their tiny goth friend Jenny Schecter, queen of the underworld.

Before anybody can look around and wonder who was in charge of casting these extras because they aren’t repping the Pussy Juice and Creamed Corn Contingent accurately, Tonya the Guest Liaison sweeps in.

Riese: everyone is so grown up
and wearing such clothes
unrealistic
Laneia: yes they really are overdressed. way too many spaghetti strap tanks
Riese: everybody seems really polite and there are no tattoos or crazy hair
Laneia: no one’s passing out from axe

Tonya is here to steal Famous Dana Fairbanks from her darling friends and protect her from Rabid Lesbian Fandoms with strong feelings about the Soup Chef.

The best part of this scene is that Jenny looks like she just walked into a morgue and isn’t sure who killed all those innocent people.

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Starsweep to the Grand Pool Party, otherwise known as the innermost circle of hell.

Jenny:  I’ve never seen so many women in one place in my whole life.
Alice: And every one of them is greased up and ready to go!

When I went to Dinah Shore for the first time and stepped out of our room to overlook the pool party, I felt and looked exactly like Jenny does right there. If Jenny is anything like me, she will turn around immediately, open the top dresser drawer, snag a slice of psychedelic banana bread, and trip her balls off until Sunday.

Riese: this is how i felt when we went to dinah
Laneia: yes, complete with jeans and long sleeve shirt
and the feeling of never leaving that deck
Riese: i like how jenny stays dressed like emily the strange the whole time, she was my Dinahspiration

The camera pans down to reveal small gaggles of moderately aged women gently tossing beach balls, neatly teasing one another with towels, enjoying many varieties of sarong and sipping on POM juice while floating listlessly upon inflatable sharks.

Riese: this is really low-key
where are the Go-Go’s
where are the F-list celesbians
Laneia: where is the screaming
i remember trying to walk to get a burger with palmer and it took like 20 minutes to get to the other side of the pool
it was actually god awful
Riese: yeah and you had to buy tickets and then buy the burger with tickets.
Laneia: OMG SHARK
WHALE
WHATEVER
Riese: when i felt weird i just thought “if jenny could do this then i can too”

Dinah Shore, according to The L Word:

Dinah Shore, according to The Real L Word:

[Sidenote: This L Word episode was actually filmed in Vancouver, according to The New York Times, but its impact on the Palm Springs Dinah Shore weekend was monumental :

After the Dinah party — or a simulacrum of it, filmed in Vancouver — was depicted in the show’s first season in 2004, attendance at the real thing promptly doubled, to 2,500 people from 1,200 at the splashy Saturday night party alone.

Over 10,000 women now attend Dinah Shore Weekend events, which are now exclusively hosted by Club Skirts. According to NewNow Next, “while the Dinah Shore weekend of events has existed for decades, when Showtime’s hit show The L Word filmed an episode there, it pushed the weekend into notoriety.” Robin Gans of Girlbar (whose logos can be seen on the wall of the White Party in this episode) told The Bay City Reporter that  “The L Word really helped kind of skyrocket [Dinah Shore].” In 2007, Ilene Chaiken visited Dinah Shore for the first time when The L Word and OurChart (its companion social network) did live events at Club Skirts. Ilene Chaiken told Curve Magazine, “I’m all in favor of any excuse for tens of thousands of gay women to get together and have a good time.”]

Before Dana can settle in and realize her true feelings for Alice or worry that she might sit on some placenta and ruin her white pantsuit, Tonya swoops in to yank her back into Ton-Ton-Town, after being supper inappropriate and flirtatious regarding Dana’s physical appearance at this juncture.

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Back at The Art House of Sin, The Carpenter has dared to charge $50 more than the highest bidder for her project, because oral is extra. This is a big deal to Bette despite the fact that her left sock probably costs $50.

The Carpenter kindly draws Bette a Project Management Triangle just in case Bette literally just got born, but Bette’s distracted by The Carpenter’s gams, jaws, facemeat, hipspace, buttpad, et al.

The Carpenter and Bette have sex with their eyeballs and then The Carpenter jets to that Cuban place to get some Cuban food to eat while having sex with their eyeballs later in the afternoon.

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Meanwhile, Tina, Shane, Jenny and Alice weave through the crowd with all their clothes on, stopping to heavily pet a booth selling tacky t-shirts and, apparently, Hpnotiq.

Back at Cuban Sexy Food Time, Bette and Candance are talking about how Candace and Yolanda are splitsville when Tina calls. Tina’s like Dinah is WILD I wish you could see it! You guys, HER WISH CAME TRUE, because now when you go to Dinah Shore you can send people pictures on your phonepiece.

Tina can barely hear Bette over the sounds of Celesbians in the Wild.

Back in La-La Land, Bette hangs up the phone and Candace is all like, “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend,” and Bette’s like, “why would you?” and I’m like, “I don’t know, maybe Candace saw the pilot.”

Laneia: bette just wants someone to boss her around
Riese: yup
Laneia: poor thing

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Real L Word 309 Recap: Perfect Day For This Show To End With A Bang Bang Bang

Welcome to the ninth recap of the third season of The Real L Word, a subversive and edgy late night soft core cable special about four or ten extraordinarily good-looking lesbians who live on one side of the country or the other side and enjoy taking pregnancy tests, drinking/singing, public nudity, trying on wedding dresses, recording insufferable pop music, Tour, puppies, talking about Romi, sitting at round tables with their parents while crying and saying really truly amazing things, such as:

Unfortunately for fans of slow water torture and fortunately for my state of mind, this episode was the very last episode of the season and was therefore jam-packed with trapeeze artists, key lime pie, days-of-the-week underpants, sex swings, spring flings, weddings and evil zombies! Let’s dig into it, shall we?

We open in sunny Los Angeles, California, and are immediately informed via large white block letters that it’s ONE MONTH LATER. Given the byzantine sense of timing employed by this show, “ONE MONTH LATER” is about as meaningless as the lyrics to Dusty & Romi’s first single.

With the wedding merely two days away, Whitney and Sarahara have got heaps of eyebrows to pencil, vows to spell-check, flowers to arrange, small address labels to print and fights to have.

Whitney interviews:

Whitney: “I love that we’re going into our wedding with such harmonious energy. We literally want to kill each other.”

The wedding situation has transformed Whitney into a one-man Pride Comedy Jam. Meanwhile, Sarahara searches for her own limbs and soul beneath a giant sheet of white medical gauze or some lacy thing I can’t understand because I don’t have a gender identity.

Whitney: “I also think it’s weird you’re wearing a veil considering in no way are you virginal, or am I like lifting it like who is this virginal person I will be experiencing for the first time tonight?”
Sara: “You’re the one taking the symbolic part of it for heart. I’m wearing it for a fashion statement.”

This riveting conversation about hymens and fashion is interrupted by a text message from Mr. Whitney:

Oh my goddess, Whitney’s Dad is coming to the wedding! He’s a Hunter Valentine groupie and as soon as he heard that Kiyomi would be there, he booked a ticket. Just kidding! There was a sale on Priceline. Just kidding! Maybe he found a mask to protect him from Ilene Chaiken and no longer fears the camera stealing his soul.

Cut cross-country to the post-apocalyptic industrial wasteland of New York, New York, where The Hunter Valentine Band is eagerly auditioning new hipsters with bangs to fill the void left by Somer’s absent hips and bangs.

Kiyomi: “Just so you know you’re auditioning right now too.”
Vero: “Always auditioning! When am I gonna make the band?“

Basically it’s like American Idol but with only one contestant. Her name is Aimee (not Aimee Mann! I thought that too though, obvs) and she’s an “amazing musician” from Toronto.

Aimee plays bass, I think? But Somer played keyboard. But also I don’t understand music. Three guitars? I assume they’re establishing a mariachi band to play Feliz Compleaños at Chi-Chi’s.

Luckily my G-Chat viewing companion Laneia is totally unhelpful about this:

Laneia: basically the 4th member HAS to have black hair and bangs
Riese: yeah what role is she filling
somer played keyboard
Laneia: i’m confused but also i think you can reach certain notes maybe using a guitar??
ergh idk it’s like watching fish talking about swimming
like, ok
Riese: yeah
like if i wanted to swim
i would swim

The Valentines are impressed with Aimee’s skills, as well as her “energy” and the fact that she seems “positive and comfortable with herself,” which I believe also qualifies her for the Dove Real Beauty© Campaign.

Kiyomi interviews that Aimee’s got touring experience. Somer didn’t have touring experience, apparently, and it “showed in a major way” ’cause Somer didn’t understand the rules of the road, like “thou must suck face with regional strangers” and “that’s not the band’s repair.”

Kiyomi: “How attached to Toronto are you?”
Aimee: “I have a cat, and that’s about it.”

“You nailed it,” says Kiyomi. “Just don’t nail anybody in the band and you’ll be okay.” Hey-o!

Smear across 2,777 miles of vast unexplored swaths of land to sunny yet sketchy Los Angeles, California, where Romi Flinger, as evidenced by the giant chunk of heterosexual lifestyle hair stolen from Kid Rock currently snaking down her back, has left the world of lesbianism forever to worship at the shrine of evil cis-male-privilege and The Dark Knight Dusty Ray.

Romi: “As soon as me and Kelsey’s breakup, pretty much, I am in a relationship with Dusty.”

Suprise!

In merely a month, Dromi and Rusty have fallen in love, which I believe is a similar sensation to falling down an endless tank of rice pudding while wrapped in latex.

Romi: “When I was in the studio I didn’t know what the hell was gonna happen. At all. I didn’t think that we were gonna end up like this again, I mean it had been so long. But there are some people in your life that you meet and it just takes over everything about you. You can’t even control it, even if it’s the wrong time or the wrong place or the wrong situation. It was just inevitable, you can’t put me and Dusty together without us being in love. And we have a history together, it’s not like we just met. And I just wanna like put my heart back into Dusty.”

That’s not all she wants to put back into Dusty HEY-O BUTTSEX!

Romi, having confused “the institution of marriage” with “staying in touch with another human,” explains that they’ve gotta marry or else may lose each other.

Romi: “I don’t ever wanna lose him again and I know that he doesn’t ever wanna lose me again and we spent six years apart and we just are so in love, it’s stupid.”

Laneia: i cannot roll my eyes hard enough
Riese: i had to put in new eyes
mine fell out when i saw romi’s extensions
Laneia: it is stupid
she’s right abt that at least

I wish they’d just gone with something more like this:

Now that they’ve spent two seconds discussing their options, it’s time to call Mom and inform her that Dusty and Romi wanna make this nonsense permanent.

Romi: “Um, Dusty and I are getting married!”
Mom: “Like, you’re kidding right?”
Romi: “No, like we’re gonna get married.”
Mom: “What?”
Romi: “We’re gonna get married!!
Mom: “Dusty.”

Romi hands the phone to The Slice of Man.

Dusty: “We love each other so much.”
Mom: “You’re like serious? I can’t wait. What is happening, like for real, do you know what I’m saying? Marriage is for real.”
Romi: “We’re gonna do it!”
Mom: “You guys seriously, this is a serious thing and you’ve talked about it and you understand the commitment.”
Romi: “Yup!”
Mom: “Okay.”

Well, that was easier than this:

Elsewhere in gorgeous yet often sweltering hot Los Angeles, California, Lamanda are moving objects around in hopes of shipping half of said objects to The Grande Apple and keeping half in the garage. That’s right, they’re moving back to New York City, which means New York won the “New York vs. Los Angeles” Challenge this season. Good work everybody!

Lauren: “I’m so exited to be moving back to new york, it’s just gonna be incredible to like, re-learn the city, go back to my favorite places, go back to my favorite places and do it all with my fabulous girlfriend, Kiyomi.”

Storage Wars would lose their shit over this bondage chair:

Amanda: “I think we need a box just for sex toys.”
Lauren: “Oh no we have some there. It’s too much of a pain to carry back and forth.”

Amanda interviews that despite her plans to return to The City, she and the ex aren’t back in the saddle, ’cause the ex has other ponies to ride. Amanda tells Lauren that she doesn’t want her ex to think she’s coming back to the city just for her.

Amanda: “I don’t wanna give the satisfaction of me thinking that I’m going there to be with her, you know?”
Lauren: “So why don’t you tell her you’re not going, and then go anyway? And if she sees you out, just be like, Hey, I’m visiting.”
Amanda: “Well, that’s really retarded. Why would I do that?”

They’ve got this Paris/Nicole circa Season One of The Simple Life thing going on, these two.

Elsewhere in the bright futurescape of Los Angeles, California, Whitney and Sarahara are prepping for their Special Day with Mama and Papa Bettencourt.

Whitney and Sarahara have managed to muster up a large photograph of their photogenic faces for the family to admire.

Sarahara notes that her Mom is looking sad and removed and at first one might assume she’s just depressed that the happy couple didn’t hire Robin Roemer to photograph their wedding, but then one might realize Sarahara’s Mom is just sad about Sarahara being a homo:

Sara: “Mom, can you tell me if you feel better about this wedding?”
Mrs.Sara: “Still, I’m thinking. You don’t need to be married.”
Sara: “Why? I don’t deserve the same rights as my sister or you and Dad, why? My love is not as good as your love?”
Mrs.Sara: “Yeah, of course.”
Sara: “Well, then that’s sad for you to say that.”

Mrs.Sara: “But that’s what I’m still thinking, you know.”
Sara: “You want me to be happy because you love me.”
Mrs.Sara: “Yeah I want you to be happy Sara, but you can be happy anyway.”
Sara: “Yeah that makes me happy and I deserve that just like you and everybody else.”

Just imagine if Sara had called to say that she’d gotten back together with Whitney a month ago and they were gonna go get married at Circus Circus! LOL!

Sara interviews that when she’s already so nervous about the wedding it doesn’t help that her Mom would rather be at The Hollywood Wax Museum.

Real L Word 308 Recap: Premonitions Sure Are Dreamy And Disturbing

Hello and welcome to the eighth recap of the third season of The Real L Word, a half-hour reality program following nine real women who hoard dead cats, use 765 coupons to obtain 675 boxes of Kraft Dinner for 49 cents, are addicted to hillbilly heroin, dress their 4-year-old daughters in sexy cowboy outfits for Lil’ Miss Pageants, compete against a large group of really stupid guys on steroids for the love of one bisexual centerfold, transform a basket filled with spam and garlic cloves into an award-winning dessert and talk about themselves.

Reader, this has been a batshit crazy week of television! First this…

…then this…

… then this…

…and now this!

Let’s get started!

We open in sultry Los Angeles, California, where Whitney, Sarahara and Lauren are imbibing alcoholic beverages in a crazy sexy cool hot nightspot environment called “JUICY CLUB LA,” probably named after Juicy Juice, because isn’t everything.

So, Lauren informs Sarahara and Whitney that she’s taking a red-eye to New York City, which’s insane, because when you take a red-eye you’ve got two choices: 1. drink coffee upon awakening to keep you alert, pleasant and conscious throughout your journey to and within the airport and then face the unseemly side effect of not being able to sleep on the flight, 2. don’t drink coffee upon awakening and feel like holy hell all the way there, inevitably wait for hours as your plane is delayed and delayed, but then sleep peacefully on the flight. I don’t know which one Lauren’s gonna do, especially since instead of talking about this quandary, she’s talking about Kiyomi!

Whitney and Sarahara have a vacation prediction:

Sara: “I feel like Kiyomi has Lauren in the palm of her hand right here just “doo doo doo” hanging out.”

Sara: “You gotta keep em guessing, you know?”
Whitney: “Give ’em little tastes. We gave each other little tastes for three years before we chomped and look at us now, we’re a month away from walking down the aisle!”

Whitney asks Lauren if she’s gonna move to New York and then puts bets on “Kiyomi’s moving here,” ’cause people in Los Angeles always think everybody’s gonna move there. To be fair, it seems like everybody has moved there.

We thus ricochet cross-country to somewhere in Brooklyn during a crucial period in our nation’s history, where Kiyomi and Laura are hitting up a bar to watch Vero scale new heights of sexiness in her surprise role as “bartender.” No wait never mind, they’re there to talk about themselves:

Kiyomi: “The band is really moving at a rapid pace and as soon as the record is out we’re gonna be really busy and we don’t have time to slow down for someone who is sort of wishy washy for where they wanna be in the band.”

Mhm. It’s Somer Fry-day. They’ve decided to boot Somer from the band and they’re gonna tell her at the meeting tomorrow. Vero asks if it’s gonna be an ultimatum, but nope — it’s just gonna be an order.

I’ve been anti-this-conflict since the start ’cause Kiyomi was obnoxious and I love Somer so much, but suddenly this week watching this episode something clicked and I finally “got it” and understood where Kiyomi and Laura are coming from because I realized I could relate their experience to my own experiences here at Autostraddle!  It doesn’t matter how awesome or talented somebody is when you’re doing shit like this, ’cause that’s not all it takes — when you’re in charge of a operation that consumes all your time, has negatively impacted most of your relationships, requires heaps of magical thinking, barely pays the bills if it pays anything at all and is in an industry in which 99% of attempters fail — you come to require so much blind faith that anybody who isn’t stark raving mad about your project keeps you up at night. Everybody at the table needs to have something serious at stake, something that prevents them from leaving. “Blind faith” is right up there with “butter” as one of the primary ingredients for Keeping the Dream Alive Cupcakes. It’s not that Somer hasn’t shown interest in the band or doesn’t add an awesome sound to it, it’s that Somer hasn’t shown borderline-psychotic passion for and obsession with the band, and that’s what the band needs, to be everybody’s unconditional first priority.

Anyhow, then Somer shows up and she and Kiyomi sneak off to a corner for some close-talking.

Kiyomi and Somer discuss the intricacies of their friendship:

Somer: “I just want things between us to be right and they’re not right right now.”

Kiyomi says they’ll chat about it tomorrow because the sun’ll come out tomorrow, so you better hang on ’til tomorrow!

Sidenote: when we got to this part of the episode on Thursday night, I began panicking that Laneia had yet to pop up on G-chat to watch with me.

Riese: LANNEEEIAAAAAAAAAAAA
Laneia: HI
sorry my cable reset itself
fuck
Riese: jeez
Laneia: we’ve been trying to fix it
Riese: you have missed SO MUCH
Laneia: the internet and everything
DAMN IT
what
Riese: no jk, nothing has happened yet
Laneia: i have to call cox and fix it
megan has taken to making me a vodka tonic

We cut to the darkest deepest chambers of Douchebagville, where The King of the Douchebags is entertaining his new suitor, Romi Flinger.

Romi the pop star’s preparing to shoot her first music video by learning how to sing — just kidding! She’s gonna wing it. Anyhow, you know when you’re hugging somebody you wish you were fucking and you are acutely aware of the alignment of your private parts and how every limb in your body can feel every limb in their body and you feel like if you keep hugging like this forever, it’d basically become sex by default? That’s how Dusty and Romi hug.

Laneia: what’s romi wearing
besides a runway of rouge
Riese: a hoodie
and a winter hat
Laneia: is it december there

Romi interviews regarding her Passion for Music:

In addition to always wishing she could be a basketball player, President of the United States, a movie star, Queen of the World, editor of Vogue, One Of Those Bloggers Who Just Writes About Herself All Day In Her Underpants While Bathing in Millions of Google Adsense Dollars And Then Gets a Book Deal, a fashion designer, Starfleet Captain, an FBI agent, a filmmaker or the owner of a Really Cute Bakery, Romi dreams of pop stardom:

Romi: “I love music, I love making songs, I like performing, I love being on stage. I would just love to be able to sing and get paid to do it.”

Romi perches atop the couch singing her new hit single with Dusty. Romi’s reading the lyrics off her Blackberry, which makes me insane ’cause it’s totally unfair that I’ve already accidentally memorized the lyrics to this g-dforsaken song and Romi hasn’t, and it’s HER SONG. I cannot get this shit out of my head.

Romi interviews about her Amazing Artistic Connection to Dusty Ray and what each uber-talented megastar brings to the table besides L.A. Cool and gravity-defying hair:

Romi: “It’s a great team because Dusty is an amazing songwriter who’s very talented, I wanna sing, I can’t write a song to save my life, but guess what I have a really great following and a lot of publicity. So, you give me a song to sing, and I’ll give you people who will listen to it.”

Laneia’s cable is still broken at this point —

Riese: omg i can’t believe romi just said what she said
Laneia: i’m dying
this is really irritating WHAT DOES THE UNIVERSE HAVE AGAINST ME WATCHING THIS GODFORSAKEN SHOW
i’m on hold with cox listening to the musak version of a foreigner song

Basically, Romi and Dusty Ray have now added “being obsessed with each other” to their already arduous schedules “being obsessed with themselves.”

It’s wild, dude! When they jam together, it’s like unicorns having buttsex:

Dusty: “Music is a part of her like it is for me, so when we get together, it’s just like a constant rolling thing, like songs come out, we sing, we mix, we play, and for someone who hasn’t been in the studio before, like she can do anything already, so that’s just like so much fun, you know?”

You guys. EW! Just, ew! My feelings about this scene are best expressed by utilizing the graphics fourfour made when Nicole won America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 5:

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I mean honestly.

Before departing, Romi and Dusty share yet another sex-hug:

At this point, I would like to quote The Daily Fill Dot Com: “Reality TV stars refuse to learn a very simple lesson: being famous does not mean you can also make music. No amount of money or lip syncing can make up for a complete lack of musical ability, but unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped countless reality stars from trying (and failing) to launch a music career.”

This seems to be what always happens in later seasons of successful reality shows — the “cast member tries to extend their 15 minutes” storyline replaces whatever storylines made that cast member interesting in the first place.

For example:

Now we travel forward in time and emotional resonance to a magical therapist’s office undoubtedly located in or around Los Angeles, California. Charlie’s initial due date is coming up and the girls have feelings.

Laneia: have kacorcy gotten pregnant yet
Riese: they’re in therapy right now
Laneia: i might as well just slam my head against the wall

Cori, much like you and me and everyone we know, has jealousy issues with facebook.

Cori: “Seeing pregnant people on my Facebook, like seeing everybody pregnant and all that, that’s hard… it brings like this ugliness, like it makes me jealous and I’m struggling with that and then I’m mad at myself, and I should be happy for these lucky women, but I’m jealous, and it’s hard.”

The therapist drops a gallon of truth serum onto them — and onto me, too, actually, I mean, this is good advice:

Therapist: “But jealousy really is anger. I mean it brings up your anger that it can’t be you, so what you’re talking about is normal, it’s a feeling that you have to have, just like your sadness.”
Cori: “I try to distract myself a lot, but i’m so angry at my body. “

They want to acknowledge Charlie’s Birth-Day somehow, do something for it. Maybe move towards closure, if there is such a thing when things like this happen.

We starsweep all the way across the United States of America to Brooklyn, New York, where a group of carpet-munching rockstars are assembling for a meeting. Somer’s there first, obviously, with Kiyomi and Laura lagging behind:

The ladies settle in and Laura and Kiyomi sharpen their knives, lick their lips, and dig in:

Kiyomi: “The first thing to talk about that’s the most obvious thing is the elephant in the room, is that you know we decided that we were gonna make a decision whether you were gonna commit to the band or whether the band was gonna commit to you, what the right thing to do was after the tour, at this point we’re feeling like it might not be the right fit because of all the things that we have gone through and I hope that we could figure this out in the most respectful and positive way.”

Damn.

Kiyomi: “At this point in Hunter Valentine there is no room to slow down, eight years in the making and it’s gotta keep going full force.”
Somer: “I don’t wanna slow that down by my decision or my inability to be on tour.”

Kiyomi’s slightly relieved that Somer seems to “get it,” but is also sad. Meanwhile, Somer interviews that much like an attractive well-jawed and deceptively tiny jungle animal, she feels ambushed:

Somer: “It’s not only disappointing and frustrating but a little bit heartbreaking, it felt a little bit like an ambush, and I wish we could’ve had more of a conversation and maybe we could’ve seen what we could fix and move forward and maybe do something awesome together as a band.”

The band agrees that they want Somer recording the album with them but then that’ll be that. And even if Somer wasn’t one hundred percent about the band on the run, it still hurts to have somebody else make that decision for you, and unexpectedly, too.

Elsewhere in the Los Angeles metro area, Sarahara is tittering about the room in a lacy headscarf, straightening chairs and looking at the wall as Whitney sits on the couch, demonstrating how to finger a detachable vagina I MEAN sticking her finger in and out of her ring, asking Sara if maybe she shouldn’t wear it ’til the ceremony, lest it lodge itself in Sarahara’s cervix, causing her to birth tiny golden dragons.

The topic of this scene is that the wedding’s a month away and they’ve yet to plan anything, which’s befuddling — like really? They haven’t sent out invitations yet? Last week I got an invite to a wedding taking place in the Spring of 2013, for Christ’s sake.

Whitney: “I’m more of a planner, you know Sara kinda likes to fly by the seat of her pants.”

Apparently they’ve yet to invite people, get outfits, taste cake, replace the chandelier, do a BevMo run, shoot me in the face, audition flower girls or find a DJ. West Hollywood is teeming with lesbian DJs so that shouldn’t be a problem. But you know what is a problem? THE FACT THAT “WEDDING PLANNING” HAS RE-EMERGED AS  A “TOPIC” ON THIS SHOW.

Whitney: “Alright — what are you doing?”
Sara: “Baby, I’m getting addresses.”
Whitney: “All I know is that you’re —”
Sara: “Baby, trust me, okay? I’m making headway here.”
Whitney: “I understand you’re making headway except for the fact that all I’m saying is that you’re hopping from Facebook to sending things to color schemes to —”
Sara: “So what? That’s how I work. Is there a particular way you’d like me to do it? How is that, please tell me.”
Whitney: “Yes, organized.”
Sara: “Cool. Don’t piss me off.”

All this thinking has left Sarahara exhausted and Whitney frustrated.

Sara: “Planning a wedding is exhausting and we’ve got tons of work to do.”

Whitney would like Sarahara to do some of this work, and the beat goes on…

Real L Word 307 Recap: Dream Come True, Nightmare Come Soon

Hello and welcome to the seventh recap of the third season of The Real L Word, an hour-long teen drama centered on a tight-knit group of surprisingly artictulate friends growing up in the quaint seaside town of Capeside who carry on passionate teenaged affairs with one another, create terrible self-referential films, escape housefires and deal with Adult Issues like estranged parents, dead parents, divorced parents, re-married parents, sex, teacher-student affairs, mental illness, slut-shaming and homosexuality.

I got the screencaps last night and have been immersed in this delightful program all day! My dearest love, Intern Grace, did not have time to create her clever image titles past the first few scenes, unfortunately, and this recap is kinda late, but it’s here now and that’s all that matters. We’re all here now.

We open in sunny Los Angeles, California, where Whitney and Sarahara are attempting to leave on a jet plane for Connecticut, where Whitney’s family lives, but their bag is overweight! Riveting stuff.

After removing their medium-sized strap-on, their large strap-on, Sarahara’s Ashton-Drake realistic baby doll, the nightstick Whitney uses for cop/robbers role play, the bust of Ilene Chaiken she insists they bring with them everywhere they go, six identical copies of Infinite Jest, Sarahara’s five-gallon Caboodles and a small household cat, they’re good to go!

We cut to Lamanda’s Love Shack, where the Beautiful Party Princess Amazonian Lovergirl Lauren Bedford Russell wakes up to greet the morning but finds herself alone, yearning for Kiyomi’s soft futch touch and the gentle snap of her suspenders as they graze her skin and fall delicately to the floor, where someone recently spilled a beer. What am I even talking about anymore.

Lauren sulks into the kitchen, adorned in her lady-love’s varsity jacket:

Lauren interviews that she’s still thinking about Kiyomi, in case you missed that whole thing from five seconds ago, and Amanda points out that Lauren’s been really wacky lately:

We take a midnight train back to New York City, where Kiyomi is meeting up with Vero The Coolest Cucumber for cornbread, daisies, fight club, ping-pong, arsenic, hemp tattoos, babies and a heart-to-heart.

Obviously Lauren is on Kiyomi’s mind as well:

Kiyomi: “I feel like everything is happening really fast and I’m trying to, you know, take things slow, you know. We’re both really busy people in our careers, just gonna try and see each other when we can and see how it goes.”

Kiyomi interviews that part of her hesitation is because she’s just gotten out of this relationship with Ali, because now that she’s out of it, she can call it a relationship without hyperventilating. Vero is like, dude, she is way into you though:

Vero: “At Dinah Shore she told me something, she said something along the lines of I can see myself just being with her.”
Kiyomi: “She must have been loaded! No, I’m just kidding.”
Vero: “It sounds like she she really digs you.”

Regardless, Kiyomi is k-k-kinda busy:

We then cut back to Lamanda in Los Angeles, still sitting in The Room With The Table In It, still talking about Kiyomi. Lauren points out that perhaps the distance will enable a more mature relationship as they’re unable to hang out all day every day until they lose all their friends and develop a false sense of intimacy and understanding that cannot possibly exist until you’ve known someone for a really long time. But also, she’s never done long distance, and also it’s not a relationship yet but also —

Lauren: “It’s like crazy to talk about it right now, you know?”
Amanda: “Yet you’re like talking about it constantly to the point where I wanna like gouge my eyes out with a fork.”

And SCENE.

Somewhere else on a planet far far away but probably in the Los Angeles Metro Area, it’s Kacy’s Mom’s turn on the Meet The Parents Tour. Kacy interviews that since retiring, her Mom’s become super-awesome: she drives long distances, enjoys golf and is a Great Source of Love and Comfort.

Mom asks how Cori is holding up and Kacy admits that “sometimes I think she’s doing better than I am.”

Kacy: “I think everybody expects to be really gentle with her, and they think I’m fine.”
Mrs.Kacy: “Well, that’s so crappy.”
Kacy: “It is pretty crappy.”
Mrs.Kacy: “You have to tell people, I’m hurting too.”

This show’s done a great job of showing that Kacy is hurting too, but it’s unsurprising that perhaps her friends haven’t noticed it themselves. Often butch or masculine lesbians are handled like men are handled when it comes to emotional situations — expected to be The Protector somehow immune to The Feelings, and probably moreso in this case because it was Cori who carried the baby. But pro tip: butches cry too.

Mrs. Kacy tells Kacy that she had a hard time getting preggers too — ten years, four miscarriages — but she never had to carry the baby to term, like Cori did. Mrs. Kacy says what we’re always thinking every episode every single week, which’s that it’s mega-inspirational to watch how losing Charlie brought KayCor closer together rather than driving them further apart. Kacy says that they’re ready to try again.

It’s true, there’s so much more now. Because when her first sibling is born, Charlie won’t be their last child anymore. She’ll be their first.

Starsweep cross-country to cloudy Connecticut, where Whitney and Sarahara have traveled to participate in the next stop on The Real L Word’s Meet the Parents Coming Out World Tour — this time Grandma’s in the hot seat. She’s 92 years old and also awesome.

Whitney gathers ’round the table with Grandma, Sarahara, Mom, a bottle of wine and captivating conversation:

Whitney interviews that as a kid, when her family split up and money was low, Whitney and her Mom moved in with Grandma so Grandma is really important, just like Sookie Stackhouse’s Gran and Jen Lindley’s Grams.

Whitney’s never directly addressed The Gay Thing with Grandmother and now she’ll be delivering the double-whammy of Gay and Engaged. Whitney’s nervous and taking it slow:

How will Grandmother react?

Will she react like this?

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I hope it’s not like this:

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Or like this:

Hopefully it won’t be anything like this, either:

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Ideally, it will go something like this:

Whitney’s gonna break the big news during dinner, for which she’s invited her childhood pal Tiffany who accidentally steals the scene when she announces during dinner that she and her boyfriend Luigi are getting married.

She’s basically marrying the second-most-popular video game character of all time! Sarahara cannot compete with this holy union!

Despite all the love in the air, Whitney fails to announce her engagement:

Whitney:  “Basically everything is like engagement engaged discuss and I for some reason am not going there at all, I was avoiding it like the plague.”

Cut to somewhere else in the universe, probably Venus or Pluto or The Inferno, where Romi’s meeting up with some alternatively coiffed ladies named Mercado and Erika to discuss her latest adventure in self-referential commerce: Romi’s gonna become a pop star and would like “her own song.”

These chicks are gonna make her music video for this song she hasn’t recorded or heard yet.

At this moment in the recap I would like to introduce a new device, which’s “copy/pasting g-chats I had with (Autostraddle Executive Editor) Laneia during the show.”

Laneia: she looks like a twelve-year-old’s take on what a hip hop starlet would wear
Riese: fur coat
baseball cap
oh she’s practically nicki minaj

Romi’s had just about enough of established musicians like Rihanna and Madonna stealing the stage at her club appearances. Why’s she wasting her time introducing other people’s music when she could be introducing her very own song?

Romi: “I do a lot of club appearances, and I think it would be nice to have something that was mine, now I’m trying to have fun with another creative side of me.”

Romi interviews that her Mom’s ex-girlfriend was a songwriter/producer and used to write songs in the car, which’s basically like Romi growing up on Bob Dylan’s lap. My Mom’s ex-girlfriend was a high school track coach and you don’t see me doing sprints in the backyard, but whatever. Romi also claims to have experienced the completely unique and totally remarkable sensation of wishing she was the one on stage while watching other humans perform musically.

Romi: “My thing to every work opportunity right now is YES.”

It’s also her answer to every ex-boyfriend, coincidentally — Romi plans on laying down her slick beats with none other than the world-famous Dusty Ray of my favorite tumblr, dustyandromi dot tumblr dot com!

Once upon a time, Romi was just the rock star’s girlfriend, drooling in the front row with her Miracle Bra and chunky rings and whiskey flask but we’ve all grown/changed so much since then, haven’t we?

Erika and Mercado are concerned regarding Romi’s mike-holding skills. I’m sure Jay could testify that she’ll do just fine with it.

Romi interviews that she dated Dusty Ray six years ago.

Riese: 6 years ago?
um, i thought that she hadn’t dated men in 8 years
Laneia: she is such a raging twat
Riese: seriously do the people who make this show think we’re total idiots?
i’m not being hyperbolic this is a a real question
she said it’d been eight years since she dated a guy like two episodes ago
Laneia: puppppyyyy

Real L Word Episode 306 Recap: Lost In A Bush (That’s What She Said!)

Hello and welcome to the sixth recap of the third season of Showtime’s hit series, The Real L Word, a 30-minute sitcom about a spunky young girl with pigtails, day-glo leggings and multi-colored outfit situations who is abandoned in a Chicago shopping center by her mother and subsequently adopted by Henry, the kindly manager of the building she’d found to squat in. Eventually she opens a hoppin’ burger establishment at the local mall and throughout the series deals with tough pre-teenage and teenage issues such as buying your first bra, being a tomboy, bullies, getting trapped in an old refrigerator, dodging Child Protective Services and fighting swamp monsters.

I don’t know about y’all, but I’m ready to rock this recap! Not really, I’d really rather discuss how the fuck True Blood is gonna wrap up their crazy-ass season in next week’s finale, right? Jesus. Also we interviewed Lauren and Amanda, a.k.a. “Lamanda.”

Anyhow, this week The Real L Word treated us to yet another Dinah Shore-centric hour of sapphic solipsism, in which someone curled up and took a nap on wet asphalt, someone twisted her ankle stepping off a curb, someone passed out on the bathroom floor for three hours mid-day and someone met Miley Cyrus at The Coffee Bean. Hey, who wants to see a sexy picture of Vero?

Sorry about the lateness of this recap, Intern Grace had a special weekend which led to me not getting all the screencaps ’til this morning (Monday), and also because of the cram she didn’t have time to give them all cute names. We apologize and have nothing but love for you and each other forever and ever as so it was written, amen.

We open in the sweltering wildlands of Palm Springs, California, where an enormous group of intoxicated lesbians are enjoying each other’s nipples while rocking softly to the beat of insufferable pop music. Also, Kacy and Cori are re-entering the world they’ve shunned for many moons in the most violent way possible.

DINAH!

Kacy notes that Dinah appears to be “like a club” but “during the day.”

Kacy: “It was a little bit like walking into an alternate universe.”
Cori: “Where men did not exist, and neither did clothes. I felt out of place with my clothes on.”

Tell it like it is, Nikki Weiss:

The two well-insulated ladies make their way through the hordes of women not dressed for winter and are stopped by Real L Word fans who wanna take pictures with The Celesbians Kacy and Cori. Oh wait — is everybody here clear on the definition of “Celesbian”? Let me refresh your memory:

Get it? Okay, good. So, as I was saying, Cori & Kacy are spotted by fans amid the throngs of gyrating g-strings and roped into a Kodak Moment.

And thus KayCor are forced to grapple with the inevitable questions:

Fan #1: “I’m planning on getting pregnant myself.”
Cori: “Really?”
Fan #1: “But like, when we saw that episode with you guys doing like, that thing, like did it work?”
[awkward pause]
Cori: “Uh, it did work. I lost her at five months.”
Fan #1: “Oh G-d, that’s the worst feeling in the world, I can’t imagine.”
Fan #2: “But keep trying.”

Womp womp.

Back in Le Chateau De Lamanda & Whitney & Sarahara, Sara and Lauren are sticking colored pencils into their eyeballs while Amanda informs Lauren that she heard from a girl who heard from another girl who heard from Hunter Valentine that Kiyomi lives with her girlfriend. But Lauren heard from Kiyomi herself that the “thing” with Ali is “sorta done.”

Amanda: “But every girl says that.”
Lauren: “Duh! It’s not like I’m like ‘Oh! I believe you!’“

Amanda won’t let it go and Lauren reassures her that she’ll get this whole fascinating mess cleared up, and Whitney says that as Lauren’s friend she’ll support whatever decision she makes. That’s easy for Whitney to say ’cause unlike Amanda, she hasn’t ever found her arm halfway up Lauren’s vaginal canal… yet.

Everybody laughs and explodes and turns into ghost ninjas.

Meanwhile, Kacy and Cori are still perched precariously on the lips of the mouth of hell, wondering what the hell they’re doing at Dinah Shore.

Kacy: “It’s not that I’m not happy to be here but it’s just like, I would rather be at the hospital, exhausted, knowing that in a month we were gonna have a baby.”
Cori: “I feel it too, it’s hard. We’re not where we’re supposed to be.”
Kacy: “We can get there.”
Cori: “Dinah!”
Kacy: “I wonder if anybody else is having the same conversation that we’re having right now.”
Cori: “I think we’re the biggest Debs here.”

At this point, the couple makes the only decision one can really make under such circumstances:

Kacy: “We’re gonna drink through it.”

Kacy takes one sip of what’s likely a $9 cup of fruit punch and basement-shelf tequila, declares it horrible and then declares herself drunk. Let’s rock!

We then return to the Main Pool Area, where Somer and Donna are smooching, Laura’s carrying Vero around like a baby kangaroo, Sara’s kissing Amanda, and Somer is doing her very best to adapt to her surroundings.

I believe Dinah is especially challenging for New Yorkers, who would never, not ever, not in a million trillion bazillion years, intentionally attend an event of this nature on their home soil.

Based on the six years I lived in New York City, I’d say that many New York lesbians tend to be the type that haven’t bothered buying a swimsuit in five years and only dig out the two-piece when somebody forgets how long it took to get to Coney Island last summer and ropes everyone in to a repeat excursion.

Somer: “Dinah, it’s not normally you know, my bag of tea or whatever — cup of tea? I don’t drink tea.”

But Somer’s happy to be there ’cause of the Hunter Valentine gig. Laura asserts that Hunter Valentine plans on rocking everybody’s bras off, which sounds neat.

Back on The Other Part of The Dinah Pool Party Area, Romi & Kelsey show up and are greeted with open arms by KayCor, who ask how the Dinah Dingbat Dating Game went and Romi explains how, once again, the universe’s axis lay between Romi’s legs and the entire world just revolved around her, being mean, like witches sticking carrots in people’s faces.

Romi: “Lauren signed up to go on a date with [Kelsey].”
[pauses, dramatically]
Romi: “They set us up. I’m like, can you guys get away? Why are you always there? and I just stood there watching the girl that I hate sign up to go on a date with my girlfriend…. it’s just — the nicest way to put it is that they’re very bully-ish.”
Kelsey: “They’re just bullies guys, it’s really sad.”

Romi interviews that she’s so glad Kacy & Cori are at Dinah, ’cause it’s nice to be around a “nice couple.” The implication is that Romi is nice and mature, and all the other girls are bitchy and immature, which is a valid point (about the bitchiness and the immaturity), but also who gives a fuck.

Meanwhile, said bitchy girls are exploring the swelling sexual tension inherent in every group of mojito-scented Dos-Equis-chugging hot lesbians in bikinis!

Lauren: “I don’t know why I’m sucking on Sara’s earlobes but Dinah fever is in me.”

Sara comes in her pants and Whitney’s pumped for “a big orgy later tonight.” The theme will be “The Story of O.”

Whitney: “I’m kinda turned on by the thought of you [Sara] getting it into Amanda, not gonna lie.”

Cori is wasted and stuffs her head into Kacy’s bosom and all is sunshine and beauty.

Cut to a number of hours earlier and later wherein it’s time for Hunter Valentine’s performance! Romi spies the band preparing to perform and is disturbed by their presence.

Romi interviews that she doesn’t know who Hunter Valentine is. I hope they know who Romi is, ’cause she hates it when people don’t know who she is.

Romi: “…based on the fact that they are friends with Lauren and Whitney and Sara, G-d knows what they said about me, so I’m not gonna walk in and watch somebody perform that’s just gonna think I’m like, this bitch.”

One of the many hazards of Being The Center Of the Universe is that at rock concerts, all the musicians are really thinking about is you, because duh, everybody is thinking about you. Like you wish you could just enjoy a performance but the performers are like, obsessed with you. You know? That’s what it’s like to be Romi, the Atlas Of the Modern World.

Romi dramatically yanks Kelsey through the crowd like she’s Justin Bieber and zips into her room, anxious to the max. “Let’s just order,” she says. Music to my ears!

Oh, these are ladies after my own heart, really. I love hotels and 95% of the time would rather be drinking/laughing/smoking with my friends in a hotel room, rolling around on sheets we’re not responsible for laundering, than be outside in the sticky-sweaty sunshine with People Who Enjoy Socializing.

While Romi and Kelsey debate which incidentals they’d like to consume, Hunter Valentine gets ready to rock in the sweltering sunlight of the Dinah mainstage.

The Drunk Lesbians enjoy the show but perhaps nobody’s enjoying the show quite like Lauren’s enjoying the show:

Lauren: “When I first met Kiyomi I thought she was attractive but then they go on stage and they play, she was so hot, and then hearing her voice, it was like, wow.”

Truth: there is nothing sexier than watching your loved one play a musical instrument, which is one of many reasons why all my girlfriends have been excellent instrument-players (the primary reason is “coincidence”). Look, even Amanda likes it:

Or maybe not.

Turns out that seeing Kiyomi rock out with her cock out gets Lauren hard like Swiss Chard:

Whitney: “I could practically see Lauren’s full-on erection for Kiyomi just waving in the wind by the end of the performance she like, blew her load on herself.”

As you’re already aware, Kelsey & Romi have retired to their hotel room, sneakily foiling the CIA-implanted chip in Romi’s left thigh that enables them to follow her with spider trackers.

So, Cori’s trashed. Which is actually a huge relief because she seems happy, at last. All of them do, all four of them.

Kacy: “When Cori gets tipsy, she has an alter ego and uh, Romi gets introduced to partial Coco. Coco At dusk. Kelsey got bent over, Coco style. It’s happened to all of us. She doesn’t really know you unless she’s bent you over and slapped your ass.”

Indeed: Coco Lite, beautifully wasted, thrusts Kelsey into a prone, stomach-to-the-mat position in which Coco Lite can properly smack Kelsey’s ass like she’s ready for some Canyon Yodeling, if you know what I mean.

Romi: “She’s making you a bottom, baby.”

For your reference, this is Coco Full-On:

Then Kacy interviews that “you looked light, for the first time in a long time you just looked light,” and Cori says that she felt light. She felt light!

I think that’s the thing about Dinah — it’s so grotesque and over-the top, and its attendees are so uproariously irresponsible that anything, any kind of behavior at all, is automatically deemed sensible because there’s no way what you’re doing is less acceptable than what anyone else is doing, anywhere. It’s a giant rollocking excuse to just let go of absolutely everything. You can’t feel guilty for kissing a girl you just met or getting super-drunk when two strangers with tequila fumes radiating from their pores are making out on-stage without shirts on while others wrestle topless in a kiddie pool drowning in vegetable oil.

You just let go, and then you feel light. Cori deserves to feel light. So does Kacy. Sookie should give them some light:

Real L Word 305 Recap: I Wasn’t Expecting This To Be So Bitchy

Hello and welcome to the fifth recap of the third season of The Real L Word, a half-hour family sitcom about a teenage witch who, on her 16th birthday, learns that she has magical powers. Along with her 500-year-old European witch-aunts and her sardonic talking cat, Salem, Sabrina works to master the ancient arts of witchery while keeping her identity a secret and tackling teenage issues like learning how to drive, picking a college, earning your witch’s license and opening a jar of spaghetti sauce.

This week on The Real L Word, we all journeyed to the world famous Dinah Shore Weekend in Palm Springs, California, which’s basically a Star Trek Convention but with lesbians.

Sometimes after writing a recap, I’m like, “this shit is fucking hilarious,” but throughout the entire process of writing this recap, I’ve felt like this shit is not remotely funny, I hope next week is more inspiring. I’m sorry I hope you still LOL at least once.  Here’s the thing: nothing’s happening, so everybody’s plotline is just people talking shit about other people. When I read over what I’ve written, I feel like I sound just as petty and bitchy as the show itself. It’s fun to make fun of people acting crazy or weird, but it’s difficult to make fun of people acting bitchy. Does that make sense? THIS IS HARD.

Oh also, to all the people who keep asking why I recap something if I hate it, the answer is that it makes people laugh and feel happy, and I feel like the natural human instinct when you’re told something you do makes people happy, is to do it. Right? If you’re able to. I think that’s what we’re all here to do. Also, it’s the traffic, stupid! It can be a pure motive. We do some things so that we can do some other things. Seriously I’ve recapped four seasons of The L Word, two seasons of Glee and three seasons of The Real L Word and one episode of Two and a Half Men — if I had a dollar for every time somebody asked me why I recap a show I hate, I could gather enough dollars to smash together a big dollar ball of dollars, and throw it at your head! I’ve also recapped good shows, like Pretty Little Liars and Skins, that’s a whole different ballgame. Anyhow enough about me, there are all of these slightly more interesting people ready to tell you Their Stories!

Also we made a video, it’s a Whitney Mixter Self-Inquiry Supercut, and it’s kinda amazing.

We open in Silly Los Angeles, California, where Lauren is sitting at the table with a camera crew when Amanda, who has recently dipped her head into a vat of cake batter and then fallen asleep in a walk-in refrigerator, shows up at the thwarted homezone to break some unexpected news to Lauren — she’s getting back together with her ex-girlfriend and possibly re-re-locating to New York City.

Lauren: “I would hope that like, if you’re gonna move back, that you would give me like, advance notice so I can find another roommate and stuff.”
Amanda: [in an “oh, jeez” voice] “Woof…”

Lauren: “What?”
Amanda: “I don’t know, that’s just like so extreme.”

You think that’s extreme, just wait ’til she dares to request that Amanda clean her room before moving out!

Lauren presses for more details, Amanda responds with abstractions and Jesus Christ on a Cracker I always feel like we’re missing a big piece of the Lamanda story! Anyhow, Lauren wants to know when Amanda would potentially move out. Amanda’s not sure:

Amanda interviews that she’s disappointed that Lauren isn’t throwing a Relationship Reunion Pretty Party for her and her ex-girlfriend.

Amanda: “It’s like she’s jealous or something.”

Lauren notes that Amanda lies a lot, and then Amanda’s hair catches on fire and the whole entire house burns down. Just kidding! I was confusing this show with a house fire.

Back in Lovely Long Beach, California, Kelsey and Romi are fudgepacking their clamsacks in preparation for their very first Dinah Shore together as a couple!

It’ll also be their first sober Dinah, a fate I wouldn’t wish upon Maggie Gallagher, as I personally failed to find a way to tolerate Dinah without ingesting at least three drugs and two drinks every 45 minutes. That was our first trip to Dinah. On our second trip to Dinah, I didn’t do drugs or have two drinks every 45 minutes, but shit got real.

Romi: “Dinah Shore is the weekend that all the lesbians from all over the world fly in to party and it does feel a little bit like high school spring break…. it’s really just a place for people to get wasted and fuck each other. Like people break up with their girlfriends just to go to Dinah and fuck other people, and then get back from Dinah Shore and get back with their girlfriend.”

Romi The Sober Grownup explains that she’s attending Dinah Shore for work, because she is Famous and Important:

Romi: “I was invited to host and attend events as a celesbian. A celesbian is a lesbian that’s a celebrity, and they’re very rare. There’s not a whole lot of us. So, I have work to do.”

She’s right, celesbians are very exotic and rare, like Leatherback Sea Turtles and Chinese Alligators.

Romi suggests they try this weekeend to “have fun and like, stay out of as much drama as possible,” ’cause Romi has this routine where every time she goes anywhere, ever, she must first announce her intention to avoid drama and relay her conviction that such avoidance is indeed possible.

Furthermore:

Romi: “We’re sticking together all weekend if you leave me out there alone for the wolves to get me I will fucking murder you.”

Yikes.

Romi interviews that she prays her rascally alkie ex-besties can avoid over-imbibing at Margaritaville and subsequently attacking Romi, ’cause it’s challenging to avoid drive-by attacks when the entire world revolves around you, you know? It’s like you’re everywhere!

Kelsey: “I’m trying to be respectful of Romi and I want to make her happy and if she doesn’t want me around certain people, then I’m not gonna be around certain people. Romi is usually right about certain people, so.”

Whatever you think about these two, Kelsey thinks Romi is the bee’s knees, that much is clear, and it’s kinda adorable.

Elsewhere in the Los Angeles metro area, Kacy and Cori are meeting up with the newly engayged Whitney & Sarahara to discuss Dinah Shore Weekend, which Kacy and Cori are unfortunately planning to attend, escaping their Emily Dickinson lifestyle for something more up Emily Fitch’s alley.

Whitney and Sarahara (who is operating a secret refugee ladder for oppressed termites via the extension cords dangling from each of her tender ears) say they hope KayCor are planning to attend the demented pool party from hell, especially the Dinah Dingbat Dating Game they’ll be hosting.

Whitney: “People are competing to win dates with [Romi and Kelsey.] I don’t know why…”
Sara: [FACE]

Kori: “Are you not talking to Romi anymore?”
Whitney: “No, we have abandoned negative people in our lives, Romi is one of them. She has done shady things —”
Sara: “Even last time and what happened was, we were supposed to be friends at that time and me and Whitney had gotten in a fight but she knew how much I loved Whitney even if we weren’t like perfect, you know? And she made out with her at the pool and then looked at me like — if she could toss me off a cliff and nobody would know about it, she would.”

Although I’d assumed Kacy and Cori’s facial expressions reflected their immersion in this abyss of bratty boredom, it turns out their tentative exhaustion/disapproval is actually a reflection of their affection for Romi Klinger.

Cori: “It’s hard to hear because I love Romi so much. She’s become an actual friend through all of this and she’s constantly checking in with us to see how we’re doing and she’s a great person and to hear anyone talk poorly of anyone I really care about is hard, and I really want to stay neutral — and just they have their own stuff —  but it’s hard because I want to defend her and be like, you’re wrong.”

Kacy and Cori don’t wanna be in the middle of all this, so you know. SCENE.

Back in the deepest depths of depravity vis a vis Brooklyn, Kiyomi and Ali are — surprise — fighting!

Apparently Ali did the horizontal mambo with another lady whilst Kiyomi was playing sweet music for the little children of Texas and Ali lied to Kiyomi about where she met said lady, which’s what Kiyomi is latching onto to have an excuse to be pissed at Ali ’cause Kiyomi is “always honest” which’s really, really, really really not true at all, but whatever, I hate both of these people and hope they claw each other’s eyes out and then move to Newark.

Kiyomi: “I don’t care if you fucking fisted a cat, just tell me the truth, and then I don’t care, do you understand? That’s all I care about.”
Ali: “You’re being so aggressive right now because you’re gonna leave again and you wanna be able to do what you want.”

Ali fights with Kiyomi about how they fight too much, and Kiyomi interviews that her inability to commit is due to a recent breakup with a girlfriend-of-two-years who she was totes in love with and was about to move in with who moved to San Francisco for a new job while Kiyomi was on tour without telling Kiyomi.

Kiyomi: “I don’t wanna do that again, I don’t wanna give myself to someone completely to have them just rip me apart and destroy me.”

They yell at each other’s faces for a bit and Kiyomi finishes packing her stuff and it seems like maybe this thing is over. This terrible not-relationship thing. Kiyomi leaves her keys on Ali’s laptop and heads out.

Cut to the next morning in Brooklyn, where Somer and Donna are scrambling to pack and get to the airport before their flight leaves in an hour. In other words, Somer and Donna are scrambling to pack and get to the airport despite the fact that they are definitely gonna miss their flight.

Donna: “We’ve gotta rush. There’s still a chance.”

Mhm, that’s what I used to tell myself on the subway at 5:55 when I’d just passed Lorimer and had to be in Midtown by 6. “I’m not late… YET.”

Back in Shifty Los Angeles, California, Whitney and Sara are also packing!

For Sara, “packing” involves scampering around in a thong and see-through bra while Whitney interviews about hanging up her Dinah hoe hat. Look out for that shit on ebay!

Hunter Valentine arrives at the Luxurious Los Angeles International Airport — but Somer is nowhere to be found! This’d be a HUGE deal if they had a show tonight or if the bandleader was an obnoxious asshole and unfortunately the latter is in fact the case. Kiyomi interviews that she’s disappointed that they’ve been “given such a great opportunity” but “can’t be professional about it” which’d make sense if the “opportunity” was “getting a ride to Dinah right now” instead of what it actually is, which’s “playing a show tomorrow afternoon, at which Somer will absolutely be present.” So like none of this even makes sense! They should hire a monkey for the cast. Just to scamper around. Or maybe a talking horse?

Laura: “I think we should just leave.”
Kiyomi: “And not wait for Somer?”
Laura: “Nope.”
Vero: “We’re just gonna leave her?”
Kiyomi: “Yup. I’m outta here.”

Kiyomi’s one of those people who looks for reasons to get upset. Like she’s already upset, all the time, so she just wanders the universe with her orb of anger, looking for excuses to share it with the world.

Kiyomi: “I just think it’s one more thing on the scorecard for Somer.”
Vero: “You know what guys, could we not make it a big issue, I swear. ‘Cause I cannot make it a big issue, like the whole keyboard thing on tour.”

Vero interviews:

Vero: “I feel bad that Donna and Somer are not gonna get a ride to Dinah Shore with us, but it’s Kiyomi’s band and she calls the shots.”

I wanna be in Vero’s band where Vero calls the shots! It could be called Hey Vero.

Real L Word 304 Recap: Scissor Sisters Meet Tongue Twisters

Hello and welcome to the fourth recap of the third season of The Real L Word, a half-hour sitcom about an intelligent yet mischevious teenage girl struggling to carry entire flower bouquets on her head via Giant Floppy Hats while dealing with an absent mother, working musician father, an allegedly charming dumb jock brother with a lot of hair on his head and a recovering alcoholic older brother. Along with her idiotic-but-hot best friend named after the number of beers her father ingested prior to her conception, she struggles with very special teenage issues like buying tampons, going to second base, peer pressure and marijuana joints.

This week on The Real L Word, everybody cried and everything hurt and I was mostly bored! Are you also bored? Just saying, last week my recap didn’t even get 100 comments, so. Anyhow, I feel like this recap isn’t as funny as usual, but I’d like to blame that on the rain that was falling and mostly on Ilene Chaiken and/or the patriarchy. #BOTP.

Two announcements: we’re raising money and need your support and we interviewed Somer and I think you’ll like it.

We open deep in the bowels of California’s intellectual epicenter: Hollywood, California. Here our newlyengayged couple’s prepping for a trip to San Jose to blindside Sara’s Portuguese parents with news of their impending nuptials.

Sarahara interviews that her parents grew up on a tiny island with one donkey, three dirt roads, a duck pond large enough for only 1.5 ducks and a ramshackle grocery store that only sold rice and wide-ruled notebooks. There were no gay people on this island so therefore Sarahara’s parents know nothing of the gays and their wedded ways.

Whitney’s struggling to select which neutral-toned top, jeans, and stupid hat she’ll don for the big trip:

Whitney: “I can’t with this outfit, I’m not feeling confident —”
Sara: “You look — change your shoes, if that’s the problem —”
Whitney: “— and I need to feel confident because — I think it’s my pants —”
Sara: “No, I love your pants, there’s nothing wrong with your pants.”
Whitney: “I think it’s my shirt. I feel like I wanna look like, presentable.”
Sara: “You look like a 15-year-old little skater boy.”

Whitney interviews that weddings are “a whole thing” in Portugal but Sarahara’s unlikely to fit into her parents’ vision of matrimony ’cause she’s marrying a woman. What woman is she marrying?

We then segue somberly back to The House of Sad and Fog, where Kacy and Cori are lying in bed, as they’ve done every day since their whole world imploded.

Kacy: “Cori and I have gotten used to just being here, with each other. It’s been uh, pretty difficult, damn near impossible, to leave the house.”
Cori: “Our lives have just stopped, and we’re shattered, we’re so broken. I just wanna crawl in a hole and pretend that this isn’t my life.”
Kacy: “We are both broken-hearted and sad, and we are there together, sitting there in the pit of hell, and I wouldn’t wanna be in there with anybody else but her.”

:-(

We cut jarringly cross-country, where Amanda and Lauren have landed in New York City for a few days of fun that’ll ideally cure Amanda’s fatal case of The Homesickness.

The Twirlable Twosome are crashing at a dog-urine-soaked Brooklyn pad inhabited by somebody’s male friend and as Amanda showers, Lauren once again interviews to explain that Amanda and Lauren both had girlfriends when they lived in New York and now they’re both single at the same time and they’ve never been single at the same time before and REALLY DO WE HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS EVERY SINGLE EPISODE, I quit.

“This is our first time out in New York, single,” Lauren explains, ’cause their situation requires (apparently) constant explanation. “This is our first time eating pancakes, single,” “This is our first time accidentally taking the N train to Queens, single,” “This is our first time shampooing our dogs, single.”

Amanda says she’s got some errands to run and will be back in an hour. Hopefully she’ll return with the rest of her shirt.

Elsewhere in New York City, Hunter Valentine are returning from Tour!

Kiyomi: “South by Southwest was awesome, we did a really good job, we busted our asses, but there were some altercations, for every show that Somer sounded really good, there was another show that was a complete catastrophe.”

I really wish this show would embrace the ‘show don’t tell’ ethos, but I suppose that’s unlikely when nobody wants your cameras in their venues.

Somer returns to her lady-love, Donna, and her two dogs, one of which appears to have eaten a third dog or maybe just a very large houseplant, and is relieved to descend into her wife’s arms, far away from Kiyomi’s menacing facial expressions and a van that smells “like fish.”

Somer interviews that after being On Tour, she totally understands how Odysseus felt:

Somer: “All I could think about was just being at home with her cuddling in bed, and she’s always there for me to bounce ideas off of and give me a good perspective and those were all things that I really craved while I was on the road.”

I think that’s ultimately the thing, you know? I mean, there’s sex. You miss the sex when you’re away, but more than that you miss the person who has been processing all your feelings with you for howevermany years, the person who gets you and usually agrees with you and can tell you if you’re being stupid or the other guy is being stupid. It’s the only situation in which life partner seems like the most accurate term to describe the person you miss and love.

Somer explains that when you’re out there on the road with a vicious womanbeast, Smee and Vero The Coolest Cucumber, everything’s just “naked and bloody” and nobody is polite and it’s hard. Somer and Donna have lots of processing to do about whether or not Somer should stay in Hunter Valentine.

We cut cross-country to Sunny San Jose, California, the city Kayak always suggests I fly out of when I’m hunting for cheap plane tickets. What Kayak doesn’t know is that I don’t have a car, so like, I can’t just go to San Jose on a whim in my Lexus with my fiancé or something, like these guys:

Sarahara says they’ve got news. Mãe and Pai strike out once with “you’re moving to San Jose,” and then again with “you’re pregnant.” The latter prediction is totally ominous, obviously. They’ve got no idea what’s about to happen.

In a surprisingly hilarious twist of fate, Whitney’s got no fucking clue what’s going on ’cause they’re all talking in Portuguese, forcing Whit to simmer in nervousness while chugging red table wine and laughing politely at what seem to be the appropriate moments.

Sara: “I’m nervous.”
Mrs. Sara [in Portuguese]: “What is it? You’re not expecting a baby, are you?”
Sara [in Portuguese] : “She asked me to marry her.”

Whitney, who — keep in mind — has no idea what’s been said, smiles nervously as Mr. Sara chuckles benevolently and Mrs. Sara’s face crumples and it’s really sad. You can’t even be mad at Mrs. Sara, because you can see her entire vision of her daughter’s future dissolve into a big black nothing and you can see that she is mourning this life and probably wishes she could mourn it off-camera. Sometimes it’s important to take a step back from our knee-jerk self-righteous indignation at anybody who doesn’t embrace our sexuality and recognize that “accepting” doesn’t have to mean “immediately embracing.”

Sara: “Do you guys love me?”
Mrs. Sara: “I love you very much Sara —” [stumbles on her words]
Sara: “Are you sad?”
Mrs. Sara: “Well.” [pauses] “Old-fashioned.” [looks down]
Sara: “What do you think? What does that mean?”

Whitney interviews:

Whitney: “So yeah I’m not 100% well-versed on Portugese but I’m pretty well versed on the look of shock and dismay and tears. That’s a dead giveaway. She’s not 100% happy about this.”

Sara sort of purrs and hugs her Mom and tells her she loves her over and over as her mother stares at her fork and her lap and everything but Whitney, who at least shares a kind broment with Mr. Sara.

Mr. Sara: “I love my daughter, and I will do everything for her to be happy. And we really like Whitney and she’s a very nice person.”

Some Sadistic fuck takes this opportunity to interview Mrs. Sara, who clearly needs more emotional support than an exploitative television camera could offer:

Mrs. Sara: “This is a big surprise for me. It’s not easy. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m saying this but it’s not easy.” [starts sobbing]

Mrs. Sara: “I never believe in gay marriage. I thought marrying is for woman and a man. Plus it’s not only me, really I don’t believe my family is going to the wedding. They all love me very much. Very much. very close family. But I don’t think they’d do that, even for me.” [starts crying again]

Back in New York Shitty, Lauren’s peeved ’cause Amanda said she’d be back in an hour and now it’s been three hours and she still isn’t back!

I believe we’re being set up to think Amanda is riding somebody’s hobby horse in a secret playpen and Lauren’s being overly possessive but seriously guys, don’t tell somebody to expect you in an hour and then go MIA, it’s ultra-rude, especially if you’re allegedly on a vacation together and have plans later.

The Real L Word Episode 303 Recap: Love Lost Its Way And Ended Up On This Show

Hello and welcome to the star-studded Autostraddle recap of the third episode of the third season of The Real L Word, a half-hour musical television program about a teenage rock group who fill their days performing enthusiastic cover songs at The P*lace and discussing serious issues such as schoolyard crushes and peer pressure.

This week on The Real L Word, everybody cried, Whitney dove from an airplane into a serene pool of heavily chlorinated water, Romi wore eighteen earrings in one ear and an entire mountain range on a necklace and Lauren and Amanda explored the seedy sexual underbelly of Los Angeles’ Booth Babes subculture. Also, Ilene Chaiken broke into a stock footage factory and was so impressed with clips of Los Angeles at Night and Austin Streets at Dawn that she infused the episode with 65% more stock footage than usual. Also, an alligator ate Somer’s arm and Kiyomi refused to pay for it. Let’s begin!

We open in Sunny Los Angeles, where the brilliant morning sunshine casts its generous rays across the newlyengayged couple, Sarahara and Whitney.

Clearly we’re all chomping at the bit for more footage of Sarahara and Whit-me’s naked weheartishly-lit mornings, so this scene was not even at all slightly boring.

Sarahara interviews that she really enjoyed the Energy Healer Lifeshram Goobaroo Incense Hemp Moon Voodoo Party last week.  All her chakras are aligned:

Sara: “It was really beautiful. Out of all the different engagement stories that I’ve heard of, this by far was the most creative and brilliant that I’ve heard.”

Oh really?

Was it really, Sara? Was it better than this?

How about this? Was it better than this?

How about this?

No but really, was it better than this? It wasn’t!

+

Ultimately, if it wasn’t this (below), then you’re doing it wrong:

We stumble forward in a Southernly direction to Kiyomi’s vagina JUST KIDDING to a hotel room in San Antonio, where Somer’s repairing her ailing keyboard and Kiyomi is doing the conversational equivalent of masturbating in front of the bathroom mirror.

Kiyomi and Vero flip enthusiastically through a notebook containing a cornucopia of temporary tattoos while Somer seeks positive affirmations regarding saving the band “like 400 dollars in repairs.”

Kiyomi: (to Vero) “She was gonna have to pay for it anyway. It’s not the band’s repairs.”
Somer: (In the other room) “I get like zero percent love for fixing this.”

Kiyomi’s busy covering her hickeys with temp tattoos while my Canadian girlfriend is busy discussing how Americans don’t abbreviate “Veronica” as “Vero” and how it’s really pronounced Vair-oo and how Vero is definitely Francophone. [UPDATE: she isn’t, see here]

Back in the Industrial Backlots of Sunny Los Angeles, California, Romi and Rose are hitting up Jeffery’s Warehouse Salon for Rose’s hair to lose its virginity.

Quick time out: So, Rose is getting her hair done on a folding chair in a warehouse. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Of course you are:

At a suspiciously convenient moment, Ruby rings Rose to gossip about Whitney and Sara’s engagement, which Rose consequently conveys to Romi, and you can see for at least ten seconds that Romi does care, actually, a little bit, but very much wishes she didn’t. Not because Romi wanted to marry Whitney, but because she wants to marry somebody and soon, I think, and nobody wants their non-committal confirmed Bachelorette ex-girlfriend to marry before they do.

Romi: “Wait wait, engaged? Is that what it was?”
Rose: “What can you say?”
Romi: “It’s beautiful.”
Rose: “I just wish them the best.”
Romi: “I wish them so much happiness.”
Rose: “That’s all you can do.”

Romi interviews that there’s no way Sarahara and Whitney’s mutual fear of eternal-commitment can conquer the burning fire of their sweet sweet love.

Romi: “Do I think that they’ll make it? I don’t know. But I don’t think that anybody needs to go through dating Whitney again or anybody wants to go through dating Sara again, so I pray that they stay together forever ’til death do they part.”

And onward we go to The House of Sad and Fog, where two of the saddest Pandas in all of Los Angeles are attempting to breathe, speak, think, hope, eat, sleep, and/or live despite, I imagine, wanting to crawl into a cave and sob indefinitely. Cori is transporting a rack of unbearably adorable onesies from the closet to her drawer, and so is Kacy, and so we know that what we knew was going to happen has happened.

It’s difficult for me to reconcile a story as heavy as this being wedged between Rose not wanting her highlights to look like some Chola and Kiyomi telling Somer she’s a self-entitled prick.

The couple interviews:

Kacy: “Cori had some bleeding, and so we went to the emergency room and they did an ultrasound but they didn’t check Cori’s cervix, and they sent us home. They said everything was fine and they sent us home. And the next day we went ot our OBGYN who said everything was not fine, Cori’s cervix was opening prematurely, it’s just a condition that’s very rare.”
Cori: “I was five months pregnant.”

Kacy: “We made it through delivery. She came out at 9:12 PM. The first question we asked was, can we put her in an incubator? And she needed two more months.”
Cori: “We were so close.” [sobbing]
Kacy: “She was too little.”

Cori: “She was moving all day, we felt her, she was fine.”
Kacy: “There’s nothing that you could’ve done baby, it was perfect, she was perfect, there’s nothing you could have done.”

What’s beautiful about this, if there’s any beauty to be found in a well this dark and sad, is how dedicated and loving their relationship is, and how you can see Kacy fighting back the urge to completely decompose because she knows Cori has decomposed already, and will continue to, and that she has to keep it together for her. And that Cori knows this, too, and can depend on it.

Cori: “I don’t know how I’m gonna get through this, I’ve never experienced heartbreak and pain like this. I don’t know what I would do without Kacy. I don’t know, I’m just, trying to take things day by day and I don’t know.”

I cried through this scene, big real actual tears.

…and now we return to our regularly scheduled emotional impact, in which nothing is everything and everything is drama, where Kiyomi and Somer are facing off in a Dinosaur vs. Cylon Death Match.

Kiyomi wants to check the adaptor, or something, and Somer wants to go upstairs and chill and Vero is cool as a motherfucking cucumber and Laura is just being Miley. Also cool as a refrigerated vegetable, Somer leans with exasperation against the elevator as her and Kiyomi throw invisible rocks at each other and Kiyomi makes enormous hand gestures suggestive of a fight that actually matters.

Kiyomi: “I don’t know why you have to be so difficult.”
Somer:  “I don’t know why you have to be such a bitch all the time.”

Kiyomi: “I’m not a bitch! Because you can’t hear your fucking tone and I respond to you with the same tone and you realize — when you’re constantly —
Somer: “I don’t ever give you this kind of attitude -”
Kiyomi: “When you’re constantly rude to people -”
Somer: “You always talk like this to everyone, you talk like we’re –”
Kiyomi: “No I don’t.”
Somer: “Yes you do.”
Kiyomi: “No I don’t!”
Somer: “Why do you think people call you the dictator?”

Um, probably because of that outfit she’s always wearing?

Kyomi and Somer scream gayly forward, breaking all the rules of Lesbian Fight Club, most notably Rule #3.

Kiyomi: “I don’t care.”
Somer: “–because you’re really mean!”
Kiyomi: “No, you know what–”
Somer: “You can be really snippy.”
Kiyomi: “No, you’re a fucking self-entitled little asshole sometimes!”
Somer: “You’re talking about yourself, dude.”
Kiyomi: “No I’m not, you need to check yourself!”
Somer: “I don’t know what you’re talking about dude, I’m laid back and chill.”
Kiyomi: “Okay then talk to the rest of the bandmates and see what they say, you can not go through a day without complaining about a single fucking thing –“

Somer: “You can’t go through a day without talking to people in a really nasty tone, and I know –”
Kiyomi: “I talk to you exactly the same way–”
Somer: “– and I know it’s your personality, but it’s grating.”
Kiyomi: “I talk to you exaclty the same way you talk to me!”
Somer: “It’s grating, after a while.”
Kiyomi: “Yeah so is your fucking self-entitled little pissy piece of shit attitude!”
Somer: “Alright.”

I’d easily qualify a good 60% of Kiyomi’s vocal utterances as spoken in “a really nasty tone,” and all I’ve heard Somer complain about was when her most valued possession got fucked in a hasty hungover packing situation, but regardless Kiyomi leaves Somer in her dust and fumes forward into the parking lot, speeding like a tampon escaping a crowded vagina, consumed with rage and ego.

Kiyomi: “I’m done!”

Kiyomi commences yapping to a semi-interested Laura and a completely disinterested Vero regarding why Somer is the self-entitled one, not her, and the reason is that Kiyomi has put “eight years of blood, sweat, and tears” into her band Hunter Valentine.

Cut to Los Angeles circa March or August 1886, where Miss Amanda and Miss Lauren are transforming your average everyday bedframe/mattress situation into a “pod.” Gripping stuff.

Amanda: “We’re building this thing and we’re calling it a pod because it looks like a giant bed that goes outside. The pod is for laying outside, and you can throw the curtains down and maybe hook up with somebody in some warm weather.”

This sounds like something that my old buddies at Phi Sigma Kappa might come up with, but whatever. Lauren asks if Britenelle plans to grope Amanda at Plato’s Retreat Pod but Amanda says Britenelle don’t come around here no more.

Amanda: “Lauren really scared Britt off, it was very prevelant that they didn’t get along, like even the energy when they were in the same room together was like… WOOF.”

Lauren affirms Amanda’s decision like some girls do when the girl they like drops the girl they hate and you have some roundabout psychological explanation for the breakup’s necessity to mask your actual motivation which’s wanting to bang-bang-bang on the door to her baby’s vaginal walls now & forevermore. I retired from that kind of emotional business circa 2006 — both sides —  but these are great reminders of the follies of my youth.

Amanda: “It’s really annoying that Lauren scared her off like that but there’s no point in upsettting lauren, so i’m just not gonna say anything.”

Real L Word 302 Recap: A Leap Of Faith Into a Puddle Of Nonsense

Hello and welcome to the second recap of the third season of The Real L Word, a half-hour teen sitcom starring a teenage girl who sports eye-scorching brightly-colored multi-layered outfits and speaks directly to the camera regarding a plethora of Serious Topics such as her first training bra, her annoying little brother, school, boys, and pimples.

Well, now that we’ve sold our first-born child to Contempo Casuals and strapped on our leggings and high-tops, it’s time to get down to business!

First things first: Autostraddle’s Season Two parody video, edited by the incredibly physically attractive Real L Word extra Sarah Croce and starring famous actors like Autostraddle Design Director Alex Vega and pregnant Season One cast member Jill Goldstein-Weiss, is finally here, and if you’ve yet to bear witness to its excellency, you should either kill yourself or go watch it right now.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten that taken care of — one last tangent before I attempt(/fail) to turn 52 comatose minutes of “television” into something mildly entertaining — the time/space continuum on this show is totally fucked!  I mean, duh, but also, as I realized last week and consequently shared with you in the comments of last week’s recap, last week’s episode contained footage from five different months, and consequently so does this week’s episode and probably so will all the rest of the episodes.

Last week, Hunter Valentine was prepping for South by Southwest, which happened in March 2012, so the Hunter Valentine scenes are all from March 2012.

Romi & Jay were attending a Halloween Party for the LGBT Center, which happened in October 2011, and the photos Kelsey’s looking at on Romi’s facebook are from December 2011, but also, Romi and Kelsey were back together by January 2012 at the latest (they have since broken up and Romi has a new boyfriend named Dusty at present), so the Romi/Jay scenes are all from October/November 2011 and the Kelsey scene is from January 2012.

Cori got pregnant in August 2011, and they said she was four months in last week, so the Cori/Kacy scenes were from December 2011.

The launch party for Lyon Jewelry happened in February 2012, so Lauren’s scenes were shot in February 2012 — but, although Lauren spends that scene interviewing about eagerly anticipating Amanda’s arrival, Amanda was there already, she was at the launch party, so both the Lauren scenes and the Amanda scenes must be from very late January or February 2012.

In conclusion, THIS SHOW IS A LIE. Sorry!

We open in a sunny sidewalk cafè, where Whitney has summoned her sister Alexis to discuss her upcoming Proposal to Sarahara.

Whitney’s been having some weird subliminal Moby Dick shit going on:

Whitney: “I’ve had two dreams/nightmares about it in the past two days. Last night, I had a dream that a big giant whale came and it smushed me and I pushed it away to try to save it and to prevent myself from being scrunched, and as I pushed it, it got slit open and it deflated. What does that mean?”

Pretty sure it means y’all should film an episode at Sea World, like when The Brady Bunch went to King’s Island.

Whitney: “So basically, Sara thinks pretty much that I’m 100% anti-marriage. So I feel like in order to really get that zing in, I have to make that proposal completely over the top. So of course I came up with the hardest most complicated plan that is probably unnecessary.”

Girlfriend, getting the zing in is no small task. I salute you.

The ever-s0-clever Whitney’s smushed together a plan wherein her true intentions (proposal) will be disguised by a “Spiritual Healing Party” she’s throwing. Apparently Sarahara “is really into new age things,” which’s a side effect of living in Los Angeles and being a girl who likes having sex with other girls. If you stay there long enough, your heart will turn into a geode.

Whitney spends most of the episode in awe of her own proposal-planning skills. She could’ve just had her server at The Olive Garden bring out the ring on top of a hunk of birthday cake, filmed a lip-dub with 80 of their closest friends or put the ring in a hot air balloon and then had the hot air balloon land on Sarahara’s head, but that wouldn’t be the cowboy way.

Smear on over to New York Diddy, where Kiyomi and her not-girlfriend Ali, in preparation for Hunter Valentine‘s Incredible Amazing Vadgetastic Spectacular Lifetime Monster World Tour, are poking each other in the face. Metaphorically. They’re poking each other in the face with words.

It seems that while Kiyomi was hidden away in the bathroom practicing sexy facial expressions in the mirror, Ali hit up the BBB and returned with three additional closets. Or else they’ve been there all this time and there’s just nothing else to talk about so we’re gonna talk about it right now:

Kiyomi: “I don’t think you need one – two -three – four closets. Just a thought.”
Ali: “Well, that’s just towels and blankets and stuff.”
Kiyomi: “You’re just one person in here. How many towels and blankets do you need?”
Ali: “I have a lot of guests.”
Kiyomi: “Trying to make me jealous? That’s a good idea before I go on tour.”
Ali: “That’s not funny.”
Kiyomi: “Neither was your joke.”

Well, I’m glad we can all agree on something.

Kiyomi interviews that due to the “200 days of the year” she’s away from home playing in her rock ‘n roll band, she can’t commit to Ali.

But Ali’s conflicted between the part of her that cares about Kiyomi and the part of her that is pretending to care about Kiyomi’s career.

Ali: “I want her to be you know, playing as many different shows as possible and getting all different fans from all different states, but I worry. I can’t imagine what’s going on. Sometimes I don’t want to imagine what’s going on.”

I do! Okay, my first guess is that it’s probably like this:

But then I thought nooooo, it’s gotta be way more like this:

Hold the phone, it’s this:

But by “this” I mean actually THIS:

JK, it’s this.

We zoom over to another street, where hey, hey, the band’s all here! Laura interviews their itinerary, which’ll first take them to Phase One in D.C., then to The Milestone in Charlotte, “where even Nirvana played.” (RIP)

While Laura packs the van, Somer and Donna say goodbyes and Somer interviews about the perilous future. See, apparently, Somer is a Unicorn who greets the daily dawn by prepping piping hot coffee for her lady-love, dressing her, getting her out the door, and occasionally even packing lunch! Now that she’s off On Tour, Donna will be forced to subsist on Lunchables and Capri Suns or overpriced salads at Pax!

But seriously, they’re gonna be gone for what? A week? 10 days? And this throws “a huge curveball” into their marriage? We’re only at Episode Two and already this is what we’re being served up as “conflict.” Where’s Claire?

Cut to Rainy Los Angeles, where Lauren the Glamazonian Princess Warrior is driving to the airport to retrieve Amanda, her best friend with benefits/eyeliner.

Lauren’s not obligated to maintain the fourth wall because of how pretty she is. She just drives & talks to the camera, like a walk & talk for ladies.

Lauren: “The last time she visited, we did hook up… but it’s like, it’s not a big deal to us. We’re not starting a relationship, we’re not you know, anything, it’s just casual hooking up, you know, I’m positive nobody’s gonna have any feelings involved. That’s what I’m excited about, having someone around all the time where you can kinda do everything together and not have it be a relationship, it’s just having like your best friend.”

So, basically a relationship, but the kind where if one partner hurts or in some way betrays the other, any constructive communication about said upsetting incident is met with, “it’s not like we’re in a relationship or anything!”, therefore ensuring maximum passive-aggressive behavior between both partners and lots of drunk screaming. Bring it on!

Amanda says she’s got 800 bags. Bitch was lying, she’s got her entire life stored on a computer chip over her left ear:

The ladies are ecstatic about their mutual geography:

Lauren: “Lamanda.”
Amanda: “Lamanda’s here. Oh my gosh I’m so excited.”

Amanda interviews that she left a lady behind in New York City, which was like, one of those things where you’re like, “should I be doing this or should I not be doing this?” but then like, for her, it was that she’s not gonna stay in a city because of a person. You know? Totally.

Amanda’s got eight billion outfits in her eight billion bags and will have to use Lauren’s closet. A lot of closet-talk this episode. I’m adding “somebody says ‘closet'” to the drinking game. Tour!

Elsewhere in Los Angeles during some other day, week, year or plague, Whitney’s making shit up about some spiritual healer she knocked boots with at the 2012 Positive Affirmational New Age Convention who can fly, see through walls, and host spiritual healing parties, or something.

Whitney tells Sarahara that the Spiritual Healer does creative visualization and can also cleanse bad energies, like the bad energies whirling about within their gaggle of gal-pals, and therefore Whitney’s planning an event in which they can get this shit taken care of.

Whitney: “Basically, the Academy Award goes to this guy, right here. Sara has zero clue that I’m proposing, and especially not at this random spiritual event.”

Several years earlier in the Los Angeles Metro area, Romi Flinger’s meeting up with Rose Garcia, a Season One cast member who doesn’t like me. No really, she doesn’t. Here’s the thing about Rose: 1. She’s smokin’ hot, 2. She reminds me of dudes I dated in college who I never want to see again. Anyhow, speaking of dudes, Romi Flinger’s got one to talk about:

Romi Flinger is telling Rose and anyone else in a 50-foot radius (damn these girls talk loud!) that she’d always considered herself a lesbian until she met Jay, and now she’s dealing with all these new feelings! Except that she first dated Jay in 2009, but maybe everyone got glamoured and I missed it.

Romi interviews:

Romi: “I would never have said that I was a bisexual honestly. I always considered myself a lesbian but now it’s a weird thing to say because I’m not used to saying it at all and I’m not comfortable with it but I guess I have to say… that I would be… bisexual.”

Rose is down:

Rose: “Dude, I don’t care, all I care about is the fact that you’re happy. Whether it’s a penis injecting in you or whether your mouth is on a vagina, whatever’s going on, I mean obviously for me I couldn’t be physical with a guy but I could imagine falling in love with a guy. Love is love, you don’t care —”

I feel pretty much the opposite of that, but anyhow: I wonder if there’s a correlation between how many male friends a lesbian has and how she reacts to a bisexual woman dating a guy. Like maybe lesbros are more likely to “get it” because hanging out with dudes is the way that they live anyhow. You know?

Rose: “You know what I mean, and when it comes to the physical aspects of it –”
Romi: “You are a man.”
Rose: “Me and Jay are on the same team, you’re not on our team. He’s all about the three things that I’m about; WPP. Work Party and Pussy.”

They actually go on to discuss blow jobs and balls, but let’s just pretend like that never happened.

Somewhere between here and forevermore, Laura’s eating broccoli which’s stinking up the Hunter Valentine van which’s en route to their Big Gig at Phase One.

Laura: “Touring with anybody is intense. And you get to know each other very quickly. It’s an intense situation and personal space is something that you lose.”

Vero: “Kiyomi you’re moving around so much, like a little kid! Why don’t you sit in the back?”
Kiyomi: “Shut the fuck up.”
Vero: “You shut the fuck up! Don’t tell me to fucking shut up!”
Somer [to Kiyomi]: “I want you to shut the fuck up too.”

After “driving all day,” the ladies arrive in DC where they play some rock n’roll music for a sea of alternative lifestyle haircuts and subsquently commence drinking copious amounts of alcohol from shot glasses and the bottle. Activities include Laura’s vagina in somebody’s face, Vero dancing like a boss and Kiyomi sucking a girl’s brain out of her body via mouth-hole.

So, here’s the deal: they’ve got hos in different area codes.

Kiyomi: “Laura and have developed a system that we call ‘regional reps,’ and that basically means that you know, when you go to said city, you have a girl that you see in that city every time and that becomes your regional rep for that area. I think we’re doing pretty well with the system, and the band is gonna continue to work hard to find reps in all areas of the country.”

Here’s Washington D.C.’s Regional Rep:

Kiyomi, mistress of tact, stops her cuddle session short with an “I gotta call my girlfriend,” skulking outside for another adult conversation with her not-girlfriend. Luckily for all of us, a camera crew happens to be at Ali’s pad circa this phone call.

Kiyomi: “What’s been going on with you?”
Ali: “Nothing really.”
Kiyomi: “How are you feeling about me being away?”
Ali: “I just miss you and I wanna see you.”
Kiyomi: “I miss you too. Have you been good?”
Ali: “I’m always good.”

Speaking of balls, Kiyomi interviews that she can’t trust Ali ’cause last time she went On Tour, Ali was “kinda angry” and slept with one of Kiyomi’s friends.

Kiyomi: “And I’m glad, that’s good. I’m trying to trust you.”
Ali: “How do I trust you?”
Kiyomi: [silence] “Hmmm. Well…”
Ali: “I just don’t, right?”
Kiyomi: “Okay, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”

I hope we’re all proud of ourselves for this.

Real L Word 301 Recap: Apples and Oranges and Bananaheads

Welcome to the first recap of the first episode of the third season of The Real L Word, an hour-long drama about a pioneer woman with gigantic sleeves and weird hats who journeys to Colorado Springs to become a doctor at a time when women were not doctors (because of the patriarchy).

WeHo town, it’s a quiet village, every lay like the one before, WeHo town, full of stylish people, waking up to say … Bonjour! Good day!  How is your gay family? Bonjour! Good day! How is your wife? I need! More sperm! That’s too expensive! I want much more than this Sho-vincial life…  just watch I’m going to make Sara my wife!

There goes the hipster with her hair like always, the same old fashion shows to sell. Every morning just the same, since the morning that we came to this poor reality show –

GOOD MORNING, HELL!

Sheesh. I’m exhausted. Wow. So, The Real L Word! On a scale of one to ten, I found this episode slightly more interesting than the Home Shopping Network.

Just one diversion before we lick our lips and dive in to this moist cave of despair — embarking upon the third season of The Real L Word makes me think back to the third season of Ilene Chaiken‘s other moderately-successful hit Showtime series, The L Word. You remember, don’t you? That glorious march of doom? The season in which the ladykiller finally made a commitment and moved in with her sexy girlfriend and then proposed to her? The season in which we fell to collective pieces in the wake of a tragic and untimely death? The season in which a woman who’d been in a lesbian relationship for the past 8.5 years got in touch with her lingering desire for men? Yes, that season. I hated that season.

Anyhow, let’s get this shitshow on the road!

We open in sunny Los Angeles, California, where glamorous supergoddess Romi Flinger is cruising past Tuna-Town while talking about herself: she’s been sober for a year, lost a lot of friends, is “madly in love” and is wearing 76 individual pieces of jewelry at the same time including sapphire studs on her interior vaginal walls.

Did I mention that Romi Flinger is in love? Well, she is:

Meanwhile, elsewhere on Los Angeles’ labyrinth highway system, Whit-me is driving her car, talking about herself. 

The Pride of West Hollywood has “fallen in love,” which is so “crazy” that she “can’t even wrap her head around it.” Plus, that stupid hat’s in the way.

Thus we zoom gayly forward accompanied by not only Whit-me and Romi Flinger’s Life Updates, but also by the vexatious vibration of the insufferable BETTY-esque vocals intoning “You got to show me how you move, move, move / if you wanna see my hotel room.” Ain’t that the truth.

Whit-me and Romi Flinger, seemingly spilling over with desire for their aforementioned lovers, return home — Whit-me, of course, returns to Sahara…

…and Romi, of course, returns to … men?

Yup.

Romi: “For the past six months, I’ve kind of been living this secret life. I don’t know, it’s time to just, stop.”

Indeed, Romi’s been inspired by the nearby camera crews to reveal her present activity partner, Jay, an admission which shocked my socks off only ’cause I thought Romi’s boyfriend this season would be this Dusty character from their special tumblr, and I’d been hoping and praying that Dusty would be a super-awesome smart feminist or something and this storyline would be really enlightening and complicated. HAHAHAHA!

Anyhow, guess what else is ready for its reveal?

Romi’s boobs! And um, Romi and Jay fucking!

Now, bisexual women are glorious humans near and dear to my heart and vagina and former self-identification and personal history and reading list, but MEN, on the other hand? I hate men. Reader, let me be honest with you: this show’s single redeeming factor was its consistent lack-of-men. It rarely subjected me to the thoughts or feelings of modern man, let alone their sexual desires, let alone actual heterosexual sex, which I maxed out on personally between the years of 1998 and 2005 and in any event I could watch heterosexual sex on every other show ever made about anything, ever. Can’t we get one corner of the sky?

[Fun Fact: only 61% of The Real L Word‘s audience is female.]

Meanwhile, The Pride of West Hollywood got so steamy on her way over that she requires an immediate shower and fingerfuck (to wipe off the stench of pussy juice and creamed corn and replace it with the stench of pussy juice and Bath & Body Works).

BANG!

Thus the season kicks off with a sex montage of Whit-me/Sahara and Romi Flinger/Jay. Yay! Sexathon forever! Sigh.

Let’s travel to New York City, my home and native land (not really, Michigan is my home/native land, but New York City, where I lived for six years, is the only girl I’ve ever really loved) (besides my girlfriend) (who just said “I feel like a Real L Word widow”), where Hunter Valentine has trekked all the way from the Yukon Yak-and-Harp-Seal-laden lands of Canadia to “make it” as ROCK GODS.

Let’s meet the band! First up is Kiyomi, Hunter Valentine’s lead singer:

Kiyomi founded this band with Laura eight years ago. Laura’s on drums:

Vero, no relation to Vemo, is on bass. She’s been in the band for about a year:

Last but not least, Hunter Valentine has just added a new keyboardist:

Wait, sorry, wrong picture. New keyboardist:

Yup, Somer is another lesbian with a cool haircut giving me perfect-jaw-envy (I’ve got a “weak chin” and thus am obsessed with humans who’ve got amazing jawlines, e.g., Tegan & Sara, Clea Duvall, SOMER BINGHAM). Howevs, as the above streetscape suggests, Somer’s not at practice which’s unfortunate ’cause they’ve got a “tour” to prepare for — HV’s got a gig coming up at South by Southwest, the Austin, Texas-based music festival I’ve got fond fond memories of.

Rather than employ cellular telephone technology to locate and/or reprimand Somer, Hunter Valentine rehearses sans-keyboard and by “rehearses sans-keyboard” I mean “bitches about having to rehearse sans-keyboard.”

Kiyomi: “This is pointless because we don’t need to practice these songs.”
Laura: “It’s actually Somer who needs to practice these songs.”
Kiyomi: “— or we need to practice these songs–”
Both: “With Somer.”

Kiyomi interviews that Somer’s been her friend for ages and is a great musician but has band “commitment problems.” Also:

Anyhow, where the hell is Somer? Perhaps Waldo knows…

Smear over to the cold mid-afternoon streets of Brooklyn or Queens, where Somer’s dog-walking with Donna, her girlfriend of four years to whom she wedded in holy matrimony just this past summer.

I bet when Donna signed up for “in sickness and in health” she wasn’t aware she’d be subjected to constant expository conversations, like the enchanting exchange about Somer’s work and practice schedule the passionate duo engage in while dog-walking.

Somer interviews to set up her story arc/”conflict” for this season:

Somer: “The tour is supposed to be a trial period for me to see if we click on stage, if I have a good time playing the music, if we get along, for the band to make sure that I’m the person that they want, that they can get along with me, also in terms of my relationship with Donna, to see if our marriage can take me being away for weeks and months at a time.”

There’s some kind of transition to Somer finally showing up for practice which I’ve since forgotten and then here she is, surrounded by women with large instruments who are seething with passive-aggressive resentment towards Somer and her cute haircut and perfect jaw and latey-late-lateness.

Apparently Somer’s acquired minimal knowledge of the set-list but nevertheless exudes a maximum capacity for fun-fun-fun as well a maximum capacity for pushing Kiyomi’s buttons. Kiyomi declares, “we need to practice this song like ten times.”

Vero is super-jazzed about that suggestion:

More importantly, you may notice that Kiyomi is gradually applying more layers from interview to interview throughout this scene, suggesting an issue with climate change:

Psychotic Barbie music transitions us back to the doctor’s for The Return of Cori & Kacy, who you may recognize as the only cast members you still liked by the end of Season Two:

Cori & Kacy are hanging out at their favorite snack shack, The Gynecologist’s Office! On the menu today: an ultrasound of Cori’s four-month-old fetus situation! Yup — Cori and Kacy finally got pregnant.

Lemme take a sidenote time out and issue a SPOILER ALERT for anybody who doesn’t already know what I’m about to say, but I’m pretty sure anybody who cares about this show already knows this — Cori and Kacy are going to lose this baby, and we know this because we wrote about it when it happened and you probably read it. I can’t even watch these scenes without thinking how hard it must be for Cori & Kacy to watch these scenes.

It’s just so tragic and so sad, because these two are so sweet and so rad, and so earnestly pumped about their potential offspring but all that joviality is impossible to enjoy, let alone mock (as recappers must), when one knows what’s coming. I can’t even bring myself to ask Intern Grace to photoshop a tiny hat onto this ultrasound.

Cori: “After a few rounds of unsuccessful inseminations, everything that we’ve been doing this past year has finally worked.”
Kacy [to Cori]: “Little Mamasita!”

[Cori gets teary-eyed]
Cori: “I mean –”
Kacy: [pointing at Cori’s teary face] “That’s the best part.”
Cori: “We’re gonna have a baby!”
Kacy: “You see this, do you see the happiness here? That’s the best part.”
Cori: “It’s the hormones.”

Kacy tells the story of Cori leaping into bed with the freshly-peed-upon positive pregnancy test stick and they both get teary and also happy but also exhausted and then the doctor tells them they’re having a girl, and they’re so happy and this is me:

Back to Sarahara’s Sugar Shack, where Whit-me and Sarahara stick food in one another’s mouthholes while interviewing about how they used to be mega-dysfunctional, which segues into a charming retrospective of some of their best moments:

But now that they’ve taken a leap of faith bla bla bla they can love each other forever in the same apartment, like baby birds:

Whitney: “I think we’ve come so far because we’ve allowed ourselves to fall in love.”

Luckily, says Sarahara, they realized the only thing keeping them apart besides Whit-me’s contractual obligation to be The Player was their “walls” and now they’ve taken their walls down, let the cameras way way way in, and thus embraced the mystical “connection” we’ve heard so much about.

Also:

Whitney: “Since Sara and I got really solid, Romi and I are not friends. Just because I think Sara felt betrayed.”

It’s okay, I get it — Romi inspired the Who’s At The Door Montage, and therefore Sara got left out of that whole private meme. It’s okay, Sarahara, I had Grace make you one:

Sarahara points out half-heartedly that “it’s hard to love somebody with your whole heart,” which isn’t true. Have you ever tried winning a round of Chopped with a whole (cow) heart in your basket? That’s hard.

Smear over to the “Lyon Fine Jewelry Launch,” which we’re segued into with “Chic Los Angeles nightlife music.” It’s time to meet Lauren Bedford Russel, this sort of glamazonian blonde/pink-haired lesbian with shiny teeth and confident sex-appeal.

So Lauren moved here from New York ten months ago and her jewelry is super-special and super-expensive and super shiny and AMAZING. In other words, Hija Por Vida, IT IS ON.

Her launch is attended by familiar faces including Whit-me and Whit-me’s Wholehearted Love, Sarahara. Whit-me knows everybody, because she’s dipped her salami in everybody’s asiago cheese ball, so obviously she knows Lauren, but she doesn’t “KNOW” Lauren, if you know what I mean, but guess who does KNOW Lauren (LIKE THAT)? Kelsey!

Yup. It seems Kelsey, Romi’s ex-girlfriend, rode another pink-haired beautiful tall jewelry designer’s pony recently.

Lauren: “I hardly know Romi at all and yet there’s some crazy rivalry, I don’t understand it, maybe she’s uncomfortable because Kelsey and I sort of liked each other for a minute?”

Fuck that shit, Lauren’s got her eyes on the future:

So Amanda’s being shipped to Los Angeles for the program, obviously, and whatever story they made up to explain it escapes me now but regardless the point is that Amanda and Lauren are “friends with benefits” and “of course we’re gonna end up hooking up.” So, you know. WATCH THIS SPACE.

Just to recap this recap thus far: this season’s allegedly about lesbian life in Los Angeles and New York City, but the NYC cast consists of a four-man band from Toronto who record in Toronto and are about to leave for Texas and a girl from New York City who’s moving to Los Angeles. If this is supposed to be New York City vs. Los Angeles, I think Los Angeles is winning? Womp WOMP.

But they don’t make them like this in Los Angeles:

Anyhow, let’s meet Amanda!

We don’t really “meet Amanda” this episode as I’m still not clear if she’s a stylist, promoter, makeup artist or jewelry designer or maybe even something totally different we’ve never seen on this show before. Maybe she’s Catwoman?

Amanda and her lesbian hipster friends have gathered at a watering hole to bid adieu to their friend who, if the ensuing three minute monologue is any indication, hasn’t told anybody anything about her life or future until this very moment.

Amanda’s gonna get all city girl on you:

Amanda: “Lauren and I have always talked about living together, like, growing our lives together, and it was just really important I think, for us, to do it while we’re young and we can afford it, and we can just explore and see what we want.”

Much like Whit-me and Sarahara circa Season Two (jesus shoot me I can’t believe I even know this), Amanda and Lauren have always had sexual tension but have never lived in the same city while single before.

Amanda: “There’s always been a sexual tension between Lauren and I since like, the minute we met, which is why it makes everybody that loves us and dates us so uncomfortable.”

Therefore, Amanda’s upcoming move to Los Angeles will be The Ultimate Challenge!

“It’s getting a little crowded, let’s go to the bar,” says Amanda. Ahhh the bar. Always a great place to stretch one’s limbs on a Friday night.

We zoom to another part of the city where Kiyomi’s returning to New York City from an Album Recording Adventure in The Wilds of Toronto to stay with her not-girlfriend, Ali.

Not-Girlfriend (noun) – Female with whom you sleep most nights and talk every day but do not consider yourself formally or monogamously involved with. Traditionally, not-girlfriends might always have dinner together, but are not one another’s go-to dates for weddings and office parties.

Ali’s been slaving all day over a hot oven to create a musical-note shaped cake for Kiyomi, which is so fucking ridiculously cute that Kiyomi will be punished in the afterlife for not immediately undressing Ali and eating frosting off her nipples.

Kiyomi and Ali interview regarding their variant perspectives on their relationship, which began maybe four or six or a billion months ago, I forget.

Kiyomi: “We’re not in a committed relationship, we’re supposed to just be casual, but we talk to each other every day and I just — I dunno where this is going.”

In other words, Ali thinks they’re basically girlfriends and Kiyomi is doing that thing where you say you’re not girlfriends but go completely batshit if your not-girlfriend talks to, kisses, or expresses physical attraction towards any other human being, ever.

Ali interviews that she and Kiyomi met through a mutual friend at a bar and then immediately hooked up in the bathroom, a story that she stole from me and my ex, Alex, and probably at least eighteen people reading this right now. Except for the next part where Ali woke up to find Kiyomi in her bed, like when Baby Bear came home and found Goldilocks in her bed.

Kiyomi: “Kissing you is so much different than all the other girls I’ve been kissing.”

Play on, player, play on.

Real L Word Season Three Torture Prep: These Trailers, This Book

The clock tower on the hill is ominously counting down the days between now and Thursday, July 12th, when The Real L Word returns for its third season of mayhem, magic and masturbation. In this trailer, released last week, we go ‘behind the scenes’ with the cast, despite the fact that reality TV is, by definition, always “behind the scenes.” I mean… unless the scenes are staged or something? That’d be so weird! Here it is:

There’s also a new webisode of “Somer Fridays” available on the Showtime website. I was hoping it would be a show about how an average girl can develop an amazing jaw like Somer Bingam‘s, but instead it’s about the upcoming season of The Real L Word. I believe Somer will be releasing these videos every Friday. (Did I ever tell you about the time I went to apply to the TGI Friday’s in Times Square and they told me they only accepted applications on Friday’s? So I walked across the street to The Olive Garden and got a job there, and the rest is hospitaliano history.)

In anticipation of the impending darkness, I’ve decided to start reading Lillian Faderman (Odd Girls & Twilight Lovers) and Stuart Timmons‘ Gay L. A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, And Lipstick Lesbians, in hopes of tricking myself into viewing this program as somehow relevant, fitting into a broader cultural history of queer life in Los Angeles. It’s a long shot, but regardless I invite you to read along with me! (Also, if you’ve yet to read Reality Bites Back, now would be a good time).

As some of you are aware, I have been cursed in life with a gift for Real L Word recaps, which attract heaps of traffic to this website. Therefore, every summer I endure the program in exchange for ~30 people telling me that I’m funny once a week in the comments on a post it took 30 hours to write. So look forward to that! It beats The Olive Garden, I guess.

The Real L Word Episode 209 Recap: The Pieces Fall Into Place On Top of Each Other

Hello Nation. It’s time for another episode of The Real L Word, a show about a group of teenage detectives who go around solving neighborhood crimes and mysteries with the help of a very secretive friend: Ghostwriter!

Hello lesbians, lesbian allies, and people who have strong feelings about lesbian erasure and welcome to the very last recap of the worst show in the whole wide world besides I Want a Famous Face, The Real L Word. As I’ve mentioned in the past, it’s a show which follows young sapphics as they have sex, talk about sex, talk about Whitney, and wrestle in various liquid food items.

Number one feeling about this episode?

[Sidenote: Because I’m supposed to be in a car right now on the way to San Diego to talk about something important, I feel insecure about the quality of this recap which I wish I had four more hours to obsess over than I do.]

ARE YOU READY !?!

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We open with The Real L Word getting all Suddenly Sundance with about 45 seconds of avant garde to the skippy sounds of a song my intern tells me is called “New Little Girl” by Kimberly Nichole, a singer apparently as famous as the cast of this show. Guess Tempted was too expensive.

Romi’s very year-of-her-birth today with a 1981-inspired morning routine which includes ancient arts like shaving one’s legs in the bath-tub, listening to records on a record player, and wearing tri-pink-colored bras from The Limited Too.

Romi’s all like, bla bla sober sober getting my life together, no more Kelsey, bla blah, whitneysex was fun but won’t let the Mixterator get in the way of her career goals with Love and Pride Jewelry etc etc blah blah.

Speaking of the Jewels, Romi’s prepared like a Boy Scout for this Day Out. Lest a hapless midwestern lesbian attempt to wear a necklace as a feather earring, Romi and Vanessa are putting together a “look book” because in order for them to succeed, they need an visual explanation of “who the girl is and how you wear the jewelry.”

You know how America’s Next Top Model gets more & more irrelevant every season as they dangle anorexic 24-year-olds from helicopters and dunk them in dry ice and paint their faces into other people’s faces and then stick jungle leaves in their tits and tell them to model through a flesh-eating bacteria epidemic? I wish this part was an episode of ANTM where Romi had to do a shoot on a rooftop in this Futuristic Dominatrix Monk tunic thing and she was afraid of heights. You know?

Romi: “There’s more love, there’s more passion, and there’s gonna be more heartache that comes to it too if things don’t work out.”

The camera loves her. It’s never really loved someone like this before.

Over to Whitney, who’s driving my dream car through my television nightmare, declaring her hookup with Romi “a mistake” ’cause of Kelsey & Romi’s recent split, which is so very whatever.  “Romi and I will always be friends.” Yawn yawn black swan.

Whitney’s jitney’s heading to LAX to snatch the exotic brunette Whitney ordered on ErosGuide this morning, Jaq.

Jaq is Whitney’s San Francisco Treat, second only to Rice-a-Roni.

Maybe I’m just unable to wrangle through Jaq’s battalion of accessories and multifaceted jingly pirate apparel to hear her words or thoughts, but I’m 85% sure she’s spoken maybe five words this season. She’s a body, Whitney will fuck it, next!

“Jaq’s coming to town to help with the pants vs pumps event,” says Whitney, which makes as much sense as anything ever has in Whitney World. Palm trees!

Francine’s mother, adorned in a silk leopard-print blousey thing and the largest most amazing sunglasses in the Sunshine State, has arrived.

Francine’s dying on the inside with her big gay secret, but Momma jumps right on in to the boyfriend-pushing and cassette-mongering. By the way: love her. Wish this show was Date my Mom instead of whatever it is, I Want a Famous Face or something.

Fun fact: Francine’s Mom was apparently a “famous actress and singer” in Japan in the 60’s, which I’d like to see an entire documentary about but instead I’m watching this show. Continuing with the vintage audio device theme Romi established with her record player (she was listening to Frampton Comes Alive! if you must know), Mom’s brought Francine “cassette tapes of me singing” which is so so very Little Edie (sans craziness/raccoons).

Yoko’s talking about boys as Francine makes a face for every stage of  necrotizing fasciitis.

Mrs. Francine: “Yeah, if you’re going to choose a guy, he has to be nice.”
Francine: “Yeah.”
Mrs. Francine: “Of course they need to have money, too, not just a pretty face. You’ll get bored of the face in one year.”

Francine, who’s been bored of the face since grade school, manages, “It’s important to be with a — good person.”

Francine: “It always makes me a little on edge when she comes into town but this time I’m even more on edge because I want to come out to her.”

Look at Yoko and Baby Francine:

I used to think Francine’s look was Fancy Hobo but now I realize it’s 100% Olsen Twins:

At the hotel, Francine retires to poolside where she vacillates between Foxtrot Posture and Pain Faces while staring at her phone and freaking out. Francine rings room service for two girly gaywads with a slice of lime and a cherry in hopes the grenadine or vodka will inspire her to reveal her gayself to Yoko, who I already have this like very deep tender love for that I can’t explain.

Over at Rachel’s Rock Bottom, our hapless heroine’s submitting herself to therapy, ’cause the best way to really expose yourself emotionally is to do it on Showtime in front of the 400 people who still watch this show.

The Therapist, in all her therapeutic splendor, says things and then Rachel says this thing:

Rachel: “I’ve always had problems talking about my emotions and whatnot. I lost my father like ten years ago very suddenly and then I had to move in with my grandparents who just lost their son — their only son — you know at that time my Mom and me were not like, okay… I also hate crying so I don’t do it, especially around my family, I never cry. I don’t want them to think that I’m sad.”

Rachel was close to her father. He went to PFLAG and was supportive, a regular Novotny (sorry I can’t stop bringing her up, the woman just needs to be seen). He even let Rachel’s kicked-out-of-her-own-home girlfriend shack up with them. Meanwhile according to Rachel, Mom is always “walking by” and telling her she’s going to hell.

I love how I repeatedly have nothing in common with anyone on this show besides death. And I guess life.  Not even taxes, ’cause I haven’t paid my taxes in two years ’cause I don’t know how.

Upon leaving therapy, Rachel says she feels way better, like “a lot of pressure is out of [her] body.” In a way it is —  when something terrible happens and you become the De Facto Capable Adult in your broken family you sort of store all that excruciating pain and sorrow in a drawer in the back reaches of your brain. And when people ask how you’re doing about that death thing, you say “I just block it out,” and they then they tell you it’ll catch up to you one day, all that repressed sadness. One day everything beyond the blocks will hurtle forwards and eat you alive when you least expect it. So you do other things, like drink and do drugs and work all the time so everyone else’s needs take up all the room in your brain, leaving very little space for your own feelings, which is just how you want it. But you fear the pit everybody’s warned you about, you’re still afraid that it’s lurking and could unexpectedly explode. Will it kill you? Sometimes you feel like it could kill you.

And then somebody makes you go, pays for you to go, calls so you can go, does everything short of sitting there and explaining your life story to the therapist so you can go. Then it feels passive enough to not set off the alarm system you installed on every emotional wall. Then you sit down and you say all the things and you cry and then there it is. That thing you’ve been afraid of — taking out your sad little heart out of your anxious chest and holding it up to the light — has started. And you’re still alive. More alive, even.

So anyhow, that’s what I think she meant by “I feel like a lot of pressure is out of my body.”

Cori & Kacy are sitting on the couch with chocolate milk and a dildo, talking about sperm.

Kacy and Cori make penis jokes and slap each other with the prosthetic, which I hope they stick in the dishwasher afterwards. Also, they say weird things like this:

Kacy: “Lesbians have this tendency to befriend guys with huge penises because they never have to ride that donkey.”

Her lips, G-d’s ears.

Cori: “That guy has the biggest dick ever!”
Kacy: “It’s super ridiculous.”

Long story way too long — Cori’s strappin’ up for the Great Gyno in the Sky again rather than using The Tugaboat Penis Machine, like a proper First Worldian Lesbian. More importantly, Kacy’s hair in this scene is six degrees of sexy like Kevin Bacon:

Over at Whitney’s Whimsical Workshop, Whit-Brit’s putting her hammer-swinging skills to good use, spray-painting and building shit with Jaq, who is suspiciously also operating various power tools.

The Pumps/Pants set pieces, inspired by Putt-Putt and high school productions of Guys & Dolls, are huge and ridiculous and unnecessary and also cute/oh.

Hold your seasonably-inappropriate hats tight on your heads, ladies, ’cause Whitney’s about to blow your mind by doing something totally unique and important.

And the Whitney tape goes round and round and the painted ponies go up and down, we’re captured on a carousel of screentime. We can’t look back, we can only look, behind from where she came, and go round and round and round in the circle game.

Whitney: “If we work this well together making props, could we work this well together in a relationship? It’s possible.”

Just to recap, Episode 201:

Whitney: “I mean, we’ve given it a shot before so I don’t know if it’s meant to be for the future. Casual hookup [with Rachel]? It’s a possibility.”

Also earlier this season:

Whitney: “Is [Sara] someone I could see myself lasting with? I don’t know what the exact answer is.”

Just leavin’ all the doors open. Flapping in the breeze.

Cut to the shower, where Whitney and Jaq disrobe and make out in the red-light district of the Harem Bathroom. The lighting/music makes it seem like they’re slathering each other in cooking oil in a post-apocalypse sauna/bomb shelter.

I’d like to quote the song playing during this scene:

Ahhhh

Ohhhhhhh

Yeahhhhhh

Turn the lights out

Baby

Did you like that

I know you did.

Top that, EZ Girl.

Real L Word Episode 208 Recap: The Hardest Time to Write This Rhyme

Hello! Welcome to the recap for the 208th Episode of The Real L Word, a 30-minute situation comedy set in Miami Beach, Florida, where four previously married women live together as best friends, enjoying themselves despite hard times and sharing their various experiences. Topics include dildos, scissoring, and Metamucil.

This week on The Real L Word, everyone cried, including me. For once they weren’t the tears of embarrassment-by-proxy I cry when perfectly lovely respectable human lesbians masturbate on camera or run drunkenly into traffic or try to hump their girlfriend at the laundromat. Furthermore, my tears were not vampire tears:

My tears were tears of disappointment in myself for nearly shedding genuine tears at several emotional moments throughout this program, which is either a testament to the emotional prowess of sour diesel or to my devolving brain state.

Regardless I’ll be crying tears of joy next week when this shitshow finally grinds to a halt. Thank you Lord Jesus Chaiken, Amen.

Per ushe I would like to thank my lovely Intern Grace, who makes images for me even when they involve photoshopping Justin Bieber into a doorway or positioning a couple breaking up in outer space. Everything I ask Grace to do, she does. Just as an Intern should.

We open on the lean mean highways of Los Angeles, where our young homo Sajdah is zooming to the airport to retrieve her mother, who’s come all the way to Los Angeles for Parent’s Day at Gay LA Summer Camp. Upon arrival:

LOVE HER!

So, Sarita and Sajdah are besties ’cause she was 16 when Sajdah got born. Sajdah, still mourning losing Chanel to her own emotional baggage, is pleased as punch to see her Mom with her  literal baggage, etc.

Sajdah: “If I’m at my weakest point there’s nobody who can pick me up like my mother.”

This’ll be the first time Sarita will see Sajdah in full gay regalia: gay haircut, gay job, gay pants, gay interests and a super-gay tendency to ask girls she just met to pick out a condo with her.

Sarita got a sneak-peak of the main lez-show on her airplane flight over, from which the following hilarious conversation ensues:

Sarita: [pointing at a lebsian couple, pictured below] “Look those are the girls that I met on the plane. That is crazy.”
Sajdah: “You met lesbians on the plane?”

Sarita: “Uh-huh. I said, ‘What’s your name?’ and she said ‘Ace’ and I said your mother didn’t name you that! She said–”
Sajdah: “Ashley.”
Sarita: “Ashley! How do you know?”
Sajdah: “Ace, Ashley. If it’s Ace it’s cause she had a girl name and she didn’t want it.”

Luckily Sajdah‘s got a name nobody can spell right, let alone assign a gender to.

Sajdah interviews that Sarita’s Mom was murdered a year after Sajdah‘s birth, which is horrifying and tragic and all the terrible words from the sad parts of Les Miserables, Flowers for Algernon and Beaches. Look at these cuties, modeling through it:

Over blessed lunch at the local cafe, Sajdah and Mom discuss the fallout with Chanel until Sajdah is overwhelmed by memories of Little Big Horn and cannot continue the conversation or finish her coleslaw.

Sarita “It was just too much too fast. I mean, not trying to sound cold but that’s just a part of life, that’s just the way it goes.”

In other words:

Sajdah explains:

Mom seems, thus far, not especially uncomfortable about Sajdah‘s California-induced transformation, although she’s got some questions about what Sajdah‘s got in them jeans.

Mom: “What happened to your pants?”
Sajdah: “What?”
Sarita: “Them holes?”
Sajdah: “They’re made like this.”
Sarita: “You bought them in the store like that?”
Sajdah: “They’re hot.”

Kacy’s out to dinner/wine/brunch with her friend Drea, talking about sperm. Drea, dressed for a cool spring afternoon at St.Mary’s School For Wayward Girls, is a lez-baby expert ’cause she’s got twins.

Kacy, having seen many documentaries on the topic (almost definitely The Business of Being Born) but especially this one…

… has certain ideas about the insemination process.

Kacy: “Did you guys have sex before the insemination?”
Drea: “No! This isn’t TV, we aren’t in the room like as we inseminate like fucking, eating her out. Sorry that didn’t happen. It was more like — this is so weird, don’t move, don’t move.”

Kacy, who still wants everything to be perfect and nice and respectful of everybody’s uteruses and gender identities and pronouns and life cycles, isn’t into what Drea‘s dishing out. Like, for example, Drea says the process of getting knocked up took about a year and seven inseminations.

Kacy: “Seven fucking times? Seven of those car rides? I mean, fuck man, that really put it into perspective.”

Kacy’s still digesting this info when Drea reminds her that first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage and then comes lawyers, nannies, adoption papers, school, the baker and the candlestick maker. It takes a village.

Francine’s in her kitchen preparing for her Tiki Torch Garden Party with her girlfriend, inconveniently named Khristianne [confession: I can’t spell], who’s putting way too much butter in the shrimp, putting Francine at risk for morbid obesity.

The guests revel in the glory of the professionally landscaped backyard, which was more likely prepared by fairies and wood nymphs than it was by Romi, Kelsey, Rachel and Whitney. Who wants backyard advice from the people responsible for this:

Khristianne tells the group Francine’s Mom is coming to visit with the relish of an ambiguously-gendered girlfriend half-concerned about Francine’s torrential downpour of emotional havoc and half-excited by the upcoming boxing match better known as “coming out.”

This inspires Rachel to share a little story of her own and really the only part of that story you need to know is this part:

Rachel: “You know what Mom, you might do hair to be like me, but you don’t eat pussy to be like your big sister.”

Stone-Cold Kelsey is a rock/island throughout, Romi cheerfully suggests Francine do a ComingOut Power Point presentation (this probably would involve a lot of pictures of Claire) and Whitney does this observer thing she does when she shows up in somebody else’s storyline. It makes her seem like a replicant, apparently necessitating another Lower Third:

Francine is watching the World Cup in her head:

After dinner Romi confesses to Whitney that Kelsey expressed dismay over the possibility of Romi spending dinner laughing with Whitney — hahaha remember that night with the creamed corn and the dildo and the cameras and the whole world flipped out lol hahhaaha — while meanwhile Kelsey would be forced to simmer with unmet desire for a Tequila Sunrise or flaming banana.

When you start joking with your ex-whatever (“ex-girlfriend” – lower third) about your current girlfriend’s jealousy of your relationship with your ex-whatever™ then you know it is O-V-E-R.

We return to Whitney’s Acropolis of Apple-Bottom Jeans where Whitney, impressed by her own popularity, has decided to use her Clam-Powers for Good rather than Evil. She wants to host a “Lesbian Field Day” to support “Charity” (Charity: it’s everyone’s favorite charity!) and she’ll be calling this calamity “The Pumps vs. Pants Showdown.”

Huh. I wonder who’s gonna win!?! Lest you forget the Whitney Mixter Definition of Pants from last season, she reminds us: “I’m pants because I know how to swing a hammer.”

“Femmes take a little more time to do their eye makeup,” Whitney explains. That’s why Romi is the femmiest fem in all the femland. She could wear pants WITH pumps and nobody would dare second-guess her. Romi could swing a hammer while fucking a girl wearing a double-headed dildo and yelling “Call me Daddy!” and still — still even then, in that outlandish and pornographic and slightly unpleasant situation — her eyes would still give her away.

Speaking of eyes, Alyssa’s opening Whitney’s to the idea that Rachel’s a fucking mess and could use a motherfucking hand from her friend/ex-girlfriend/bathroom-cunnilingus partner, Whitney “The Hammer” Mixter.

Alyssa: “I think she still wants to feel like somebody that you care about in real life.”
Whitney: “I do care about her.”

Although Whitney seems to be the last to recognize the destruction she’s fostered around her, she’s always open to being called out, especially by Alyssa or, at this point in her life, by thousands of angry internet lesbians. Whitney trusts everyone else is keeping better tabs on her behavior than she is, because they are.

Now we’re at an abandoned warehouse that looks like communist Romania from the outside and Kelsey & Romi’s Chamber of Secrets from the inside.

Romi‘s got this potholder wrapped around her head and has torn up Stephanie Tanner’s mini-dress, re-fastened it with twine and dropped it over her hot-pink-braed body and she’s screaming at Kelsey in her outside voice. Kelsey looks like a bored hipster shoe salesman. It’s quite a scene.

Apparently Kelsey imbibed a goblet of the evil vino while out with her Mom, against Romi‘s Rules of Sobriety, so of course all fresh hell breaks lose.

Romi: “You don’t see anything wrong in this. You don’t think you did anything wrong. Nothing.”
Kelsey: [silence]
Romi: “We made a promise to each other that we were not gonna drink and that you were gonna support me in my sobriety. Your first night away from me, you went and drank and then right before dinner which I fucking made dinner reservations had a whole night planned for us, you wanna casually throw out to me ‘Oh I had a glass of wine.”
Kelsey: [silence]
Romi: “Maybe you don’t realize how much it meant to me. Maybe you don’t realize what I’m going through with this and that you promised me that you would do it with me and that you would stop drinking because you thought you had a problem. You’re a liar.”
Kelsey: “I had one glass of wine.”
Romi: “What if I said I had one glass of wine?”
Kelsey: “It was the situation. I didn’t just go to a random bar, I was hanging out with my sister–”
Romi: “I don’t care if you’re with your fucking Grandma!”
Kelsey: [leaves, probably wishing she’d had two glasses of wine]

Romi interviews that Kelsey essentially reaches for the sippy cup of Tanqueray whenever Romi looks the other way.

Ultimately, Romi‘s in Saturn Return which’s the part of life where you try to get your shit together before you turn 30 (or recently thereafter). Romi‘s looking to escape the reckless abandon of Sapphic Youth, but Kelsey’s the team mascot.

Sometimes age is just a number, but 23 and 29 isn’t always fine and often leads to a glass of wine.