Fan Fiction Friday: 7 Clarke/Lexa Stories To Force You Into The 100
by rory midhani
Thanks to your gentle, persistent encouragement, I am finally all caught up on The 100, and am now digging into the deliriously good part of fandom that houses all the Clarke and Lex fan fiction! I asked my Clexa-loving friends to recommend some fic to me, and these were their top 7 stories. But I need more, okay? More. (MORE, MORE, MORE.) Will you share more with me in the comments below? Me and my three-hour flight tomorrow thank you in advance.
they take their shots but we’re bulletproof by nightshifted
Pairing: Clarke/Lexa
Plot: Clexa sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.
Length: 10,000 words
Lexa is giving her a choice, Clarke slowly comes to understand, and her grip on her gun loosens. In a world of forced decisions that stain Clarke’s hands with more blood than she can wash off in her lifetime, in this one instant, Clarke has a choice. I do trust you, Clarke, Lexa had told her between whispers of hope and genuine affection, and Clarke aches at the realization that Lexa holds strong to that trust, would put her life on the line to prove that even if Clarke will never be able to reciprocate that trust, she can still have hers. It is the most reckless and stupid thing Lexa has ever done, Clarke thinks as she lowers her gun and gathers ammunition of a different kind.
“Tell me why you really came here,” Clarke says, clipping her gun back into her belt. “Tell me, and I’ll go with you.”
At that, Lexa softens. “You know why.”
“Say it.”
“Clarke.”
“Say it.“
when love becomes the reason by clarkesquad
Pairing: Clarke/Lexa
Plot: It’s a Neighbors fake-dating AU!
Length: 2,300 words
“Wait, are you telling me you’re 23 years old and you’re already some big CEO?” Clarke hops onto one of Lexa’s marble countertops and tips back a glass of wine. It’s probably the most expensive alcohol she’s had in years.
“No, I’m a Manager, it’s much different. I answer to a Director, who answers to a Vice President, who answers to the CEO.”
“And everyone who isn’t the Director or the Vice President or the CEO… answers to you.”
“Not exactly. There are multiple Directors, multiple Vice Presidents, and multiple Managers. I don’t answer to them, but they don’t answer to me, and the people who answer to them don’t necessarily answer to me.”
“You work in a tall building and you’re in charge.” Clarke clarifies.
“Essentially.”
“Impressive.”
“Thank you.”
Lexa smiles into her wine glass. She’s proud of herself. Clarke would be too.
“What do you do, Clarke?”
“I wheel patients around hospitals… pretty much all day long.”
fearless. by lordvoldyfarts
Pairing: Clarke/Lexa
Plot: 20,000 words
Length: Every ship needs a cross-country road trip fic.
Lexa is already settled into the passenger seat, buckled and everything, when Clarke slides back in. The windows are opened just a crack and the radio is playing softly, though Lexa doesn’t recognize the tune coming from it. Clarke seems to though because she’s humming along to it the moment she settles down into the seat. Her fingers are tapping against the steering wheel and she gets ready to put the car into drive. “I have a full tank, so we should be good to go for a few hours at least. If you get hungry, just let me know and I’ll pull over.” Clarke says, looking over her shoulder for any oncoming cars. Seeing none, she begins to pull out of the parking spot. She looks over at Lexa. “Or if you just want to stop because you see something fun.” She shrugs after her addition, shooting her eyes back to the road. Lexa stares at her for a moment.
“We’re going home, Clarke. This isn’t a vacation.” Lexa responds noncommittally, as if it were the most obvious thing on the planet. Clarke shrugs.
“That doesn’t mean it has to be boring.” She says and that makes Lexa look over to her. She isn’t looking at her and the morning sun is illuminating her profile beautifully. She really is a pretty girl. Her eyes seem to sparkle the way the light is reflecting on to them and Lexa swears she feels her stomach drop. How uncomfortable.
Forged in War by RavenclawGenius
Pairing: Clarke/Lexa
Plot: “Lexa can be patient, for Clarke.”
Length: 38,000 words
It is not so much that Clarke is mysterious, for, to Lexa, she is not; to Lexa, Clarke is an amalgamation of characteristics that she has seen before – but never presented in one form. Clarke is not a mystery so much as a puzzle made of pieces that do not quite merge in line. For Lexa, it is the contradiction of Clarke that first captures her interest.
For Clarke is strong, and kind, but she is also pliable; she is willing to do what must be done, but she is smart about doing so only when necessary. She is willing to lead, though she is still learning what that means. Clarke is willing to sacrifice all for the safety of her people, and for peace. Still, Clarke is determined to hold on to the scraps of her humanity, even in the darkest of times, and even when Lexa knows that it can lead only to Clarke’s own suffering.
Lexa does not understand why.
Still, Lexa does what she can for her. She offers advice of things that she herself has learned throughout her rule that have saved her the agony that she now watches Clarke suffer through.
It is not enough.
It is not enough, because Clarke hides her anguish from all – Lexa’s people; her own people – but Lexa sees. Lexa peers through the jaded cracks of silver in Clarke’s blue eyes of steel, and she sees the vulnerability there; she sees Clarke’s pain, and, as Commander, there is only so much that Lexa has the power to do in this regard.
Lexa feels angry at Clarke’s people – for Clarke will do (and has already done) everything for them, but the Sky People have no desire to see what her actions have wrought. They are content to live on and crucify Clarke for her decisions, believing her a monster, but they make no attempt to see what those decisions have cost her.
They refuse to look, and therefore do not see.
Lexa cannot help but to look.
Enchanted
Pairing: Clarke/Lexa
Plot: Clexa Hogwarts AU, y’all!
“Raven, we can’t blow up the Slytherin common room. End of story.” Lexa responds. Raven huffs.
“It would just be stink bombs, come on! Maybe they’d smell too bad to come out onto the pitch and play us.” Raven continues and Lexa purses her lips.
“And would you really want to win by default and not by our own merit?” Lexa questions and Raven’s eyes roll.
“If it means I don’t have to get up before the sun rises every single morning, yes.” She grumbles and Lexa just shakes her head. She bows her head and continues to read her Prophet. “Oi, Griffin! Get over here and talk some sense into your girlfriend.” Raven nearly yells across the Great Hall and Lexa’s head shoots up. Clarke has just walked in, speaking in hushed tones with Bellamy, but now she’s looking over at Raven and Lexa with an amused smile. Lexa is blushing and she pinches Raven’s arm. She jumps and glares over at Lexa. “Ow! What the bloody hell was that for?” She says and Lexa’s jaw is clenched.
“You know very well what that was for.” Lexa hisses and Raven straightens her back and smirks.
“You listen to her a right load better than you listen to me.” Raven shrugs as Clarke makes her excuses to Bellamy and starts to walk over to the Ravenclaw table. She slips onto the bench across from Lexa, whose face is still flushed, and raises an eyebrow.
“What’s she done this time?” She asks, gesturing toward Lexa, who says,
“Absolutely nothing.” At the same time that Raven says,
“Gone mad.” And Lexa flares her nostrils and kicks the top of Raven’s leg. She winces and Lexa smirks.
“Raven’s just a little upset with my chosen practice times.” Lexa directs toward Clarke.
The Wrestle by coeur-d’astronaute
Pairing: Clarke/Lexa
Plot: “One year after the Battle of Mouth Weather. Life in the aftermath and the continual struggle to survive. Life flourishes in every way as two leaders figure out how to live with the new peace.”
Length: 62,000 words
“Listen, I got these,” Clarke held out her arm as she pointed at her side, “Because I was sloppy and weak and Reapers were strong. Not because of you.”
“We both lost many things that day, Clarke of the Sky People.” The Commander sensed the sadness that came through in anger. She knew that feeling. But Lexa never told Clarke of the days she spent checking on her in the Sky Healer’s room. She didn’t tell her that she had her best healers work on her as well. There was an abundance of pride between them.
“We won. It’s a celebration of victory for a reason,” Clarke corrected, purposefully missing the meaning. “I missed you. Let’s not let the day ruin that. I’m glad you returned safely.”
Clarke shook her head again as she took a step to head back, shaking away it all, away her relief at seeing her friend, at the safety she provided, at the day, at the entire past, and especially at trying to shake her head enough to rid her of the thought of Lexa’s eyes when her forehead furrowed in thought. She was stopped by a hand on her arm, making her stall.
“I missed you, as well,” Lexa confessed, apologetic for upsetting the person she was most eager to see upon her return for a myriad of reasons. “Thank you for your drawings. They made me miss home, which… is new.” Again, without knowing how, perhaps it was in honesty or confession, Lexa thought, that she made Clarke smile, a small smile, one that pulled at half of her lips, one that she tried to hide.
“You’ve really lost your formal rigidity in a year,” Clarke teased, causing the leader to drop her hand and flex her jaw. “Maybe you’ve lost your killer edge since these alliances mean less war.”
“Make no mistake at my capacity to kill when the time calls for it,” Lexa corrected, lifting her chin slightly. Clarke could feel the times she shifted into Commander mode, could feel a regality, a realness to the role, to fitting it, to being it, that she herself never thought she possessed. “Do not confuse my fondness of you for weakness of character.”
“Love is weakness,” Clarke reminded her.
Aftermath by Ruler of Destiny
Pairing: Clarke/Lexa
Plot: Clarke accidentally proposes to Lexa.
Length: 8,7000 words
Clarke sighed in relief, pushing Lexa back so that she could lay on top of her. “Good.” she said, nuzzling the Commander’s neck. “Wake me up at noon.”
There was no denying that she enjoyed this position, and she indulged in it for several minutes. It was relaxing to just have Clarke in her arms, not worrying about impending war or the deadly wildlife.
But.
“Clarke. I would like to eat.”
No answer.
“And change.”
Still nothing. Checking, she realized that her partner had truly fallen asleep, most likely worn out from the long days of dancing, fighting, and being lectured. With a soft smile, she gently pushed Clarke off of her. Unfortunately, her attempt at escape was rejected by the slumbering blonde, and Lexa found herself pulled down and wrapped in strong arms.
“Clarke. Wake up.”
The girl huffed, burying her face into her prisoner’s chest. Lexa swallowed.
It looked like she was going to have to be creative about undressing.
Okay, will you share your favorites with me now?
Pop Culture Fix: The Bisexual Stoner Loner, Ellen’s World Takeover and Other Very Important Stories
Hello and welcome to your Pop Culture Fix for April 1st, 2015! It’s April Fool’s Day! I hope nobody told you they were pregnant unless they were actually pregnant.
The Teevee
Ellen
ELLEN IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD SOON SHE’LL BE QUEEN OF THE MOON!!!! You know how I know that, because I read it in a mainstream publication. The Wrap looks inside Ellen’s empire and investigates “how the queen of daytime is conquering Hollywood.” She apparently has shows either on the air or in development, a home design book, Ellen-themed slot machines, a QVC Lifestyle Collection. Telepictures Programming Executive Vice President David McGuire says, “There’s something about Ellen and her voice that has people genuinely believing she’s telling the truth. She has an authenticity about her that comes through.” There’s lots of info in here and it’s pretty interesting.
Grace & Frankie
Out actress Lily Tomlin and legend Jane Fonda will be appearing together in a Netflix sitcom premiering May 8th entitled “Grace and Frankie,” about “bitter rivals who are forced to come together when their husbands reveal that they are gay and in love with each other.” The sitcom was created by Marta Kauffman of Friends.
Tomlin and Fonda play bitter rivals who are forced to come together when their husbands (played by Emmy winners Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen) reveal that they are gay and in love with each other. The sitcom comes from TV veteran Marta Kauffman, best known for her work on “Friends.”
Weird Loners:
Weird Loners, which premiered last night on Fox, features a bisexual woman of color who is described as “free-spirited:
AfterEllen was on the set of a later episode of the Weird Loners (written by out lesbian Rebecca Drysdale) which takes place in a lesbian bar (more on that before the episode airs) and has Caryn hitting on Katie Aselton. But Caryn isn’t gay, and she just likes the attention. It doesn’t keep her from asking Zara for lesbian sex advice, though.
“She tries to and Zara doesn’t have any of it because Zara’s not so into the whole—if Caryn were actually wanting to explore her sexuality, that would be one thing. But if Caryn were using the idea of exploring sexuality for her own selfish benefits, that is another thing and that is wrong,” Meera said. “Not that Zara’s a saint, by any means, which we will definitely see.”
Meera Rohit Kumbhani plays the lead role and says of her own sexuality: “I’ve been attracted to several women, but I guess I’ve just been shy to explore that, if we’re being honest.” Maybe she and Gillian Anderson could go have a beer!
The 100:
AfterEllen talked to Kira Snyder about the bisexual storyline on The 100. They said they’re not sure yet if Lexa will be back for Season Three.
AfterEllen.com: Were you part of creating the Clexa relationship?
Kira Snyder: The stories are all collaboratively written. Lexa was introduced in the episode that I wrote. It just happened to be where I came up in the writing assignment series. It was something we talked about and [creator] Jason Rothenberg was supportive of and the CW was supportive of so we’re really happy to have that storyline and really gratified that it’s sparked the fan response and press response that it has. It just goes down to the issues of representation and seeing [bisexual] people on screen. But that’ something I’m very pleased to be involved with.
AE: Do you see Clarke as bisexual?
KS: I believe, yes, officially Clarke is bisexual.
AE: That’s so rare—to have the female lead being bisexual.
KS: And that not being her defining characteristic, it’s just something we also wanted to do and have so it’s not, “Oh my gosh! It’s a big revelation!” It’s like, she loves boys, she love girls, and she wasn’t ready to be with anybody at that point. The way in which that unfolded was something we were committed to treating responsibly in a grounded kind of way.
Going Clear:
When I first saw the preview for “Going Clear,” I felt like March 29th was years away and would never come, and then suddenly it was March 29th and there I was, finally watching this documentary about my favorite topic, Scientology, a topic on which I’ve read many longform articles already. Apparently I was not alone — Going Clear is HBO’s most-watched documentary premiere since the 2006 premiere of Spike Lee’s Katrina documentary. Salon has Five Things that weren’t in the documentary and Vulture has 21 Insane Things “Going Clear” left out. You could also learn about those things by reading Lawrence Wright’s New Yorker article The Apostate, The Tampa Bay Times’ Inside Scientology or Scientology: The Cult Of Greed.
Also while we’re on the topic of rich lunatics, here’s Kate McKinnon doing a fantastic imitation of Robert Durst:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/770973
K-Stew:
An insider has spoken on the relationship between Kristin Stewart and Alicia in an article entitled “Kristen Stewart, Alicia Cargile are “Like a Married Couple“:
“With Alicia, Kristen does not have a façade. Very few people can actually get to know the real Kristen and that is how she likes it. But when Kristen is with Alicia, there are no walls around her. She not only acts like herself, but she is also incredibly genuine because Alicia brings out the best in her.” the insider added, “Kristen is finally in a relationship where she is just loved unconditionally, but not because she is a movie star.”
I wonder who makes up these quotes! It’d be such a fun job, I think. I want that job.
Etc:
+ I’m so into this little gay storyline between the teenage boys on The Fosters, and I’m so into the actor who called out YouTube for age-blocking a video of Jude and Connor kissing.
+ The Best (and Worst) Depictions of Asperger Syndrome on TV at Flavorwire. Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds isn’t on the list though, which was sad for me, unless I’m wrong and that character isn’t on the spectrum and somebody in the comments will set. me. STRAIGHT.
+ In Watch My Show: One Big Happy Creator on Why Her Comedy Is Overdue on TV, Liz Feldman makes a case for why you should watch her show, which she describes as “It’s Three’s Company plus Will & Grace times Friends divided by Ellen’s puppy episode plus 18 years times Mom minus the alcoholism and sad parts.”
+ Black TV Actors Never Stop Auditioning: “I can’t tell you how many auditions I have been on where the character is so obviously written for a white woman. One referred to her blonde hair and lack of a tan, no lie. I called my agents like, Really? The onus is on me, the actor, to go into the audition rooms and make them see the character another way — black.”
+ This writer thinks that Peggy Olson Is the Most Accurate Depiction of Women in the Workplace TV Has Ever Seen! What do YOU think.
+ Angelina Jolie gave a cute speech when she won Best Villan at the Kids Choice Awards: “I want to say that when I was little, like Maleficent, I was told that I was different. I felt out of place,” she told the audience, made up of mostly kids. “Too loud, too full of fire, never good at sitting still, never good at fitting in. And then one day, I realized something, something that I hope you all realize. Different is good. When someone tells you that you are different, smile and hold your head up, and be proud … Cause a little trouble. It’s good for you.”
Music
+ Did you need a new workout anthem? Good news: Janelle Monáe’s ‘Yoga’ Is Your New Workout Anthem.
+ Look, Azealia Banks has a brand-new video where she is an Ice Princess! Literally, not metaphorically.
+ Selena Forever: “From a personal level, there is no other celebrity whose cultural experience can more closely mirror my own. Her music and legacy has shaped my own identity as a Mexican American and the admittedly sugary screenwriting of her biopic, Selena, helped me verbalize my own struggles of being bicultural. While there will never be another Selena, I am hopeful to see how other Latinas will embrace their talent and trail blaze paths of their own. I’ll be honoring La Reina today by eating pizza with hot sauce in my bustier and doing the washing machine to “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.” How about you?”
The Future:
As you may know, I have limited interest in the future. But I’m trying to care, for the children.
+ Disney is developing a live-action Mulan! A LIVE-ACTION MULAN! MULAN LIVE ACTION MULAN LIVE ACTION MULAN! A MULAN WITH HUMANS!
+ NBC’s next live musical will be THE WIZ! This is exciting. I hope they don’t mess it up.
+ Hannibal Buress, who plays Lincoln on Broad City, will host the Webby Awards. This matters because Lincoln is one of the only men on television I don’t hate.
Also! Also. Also.
+ Fun Home is KILLING IT.
“The 100” Gives Canon Bisexual Representation and A Queer Girl Ship, and It Taketh Away
SPOILERS ABOUND.
At the close of its second season, the CW’s The 100 is making waves — the brutal postapocalyptic world liberally peppered with the deaths of young teens didn’t turn too many heads after season one, but the revelation of the canon bisexuality of its protagonist, Clarke Griffin, sure has.
Clarke spent the last, oh, season and a half or so embroiled in one way or another with Finn, a (male) troublemaker with a heart of gold, sort of. After they have sex one time, Clarke refuses to get into a real relationship with Finn or return his declarations of affection, although he’s clearly still important to her. After Finn’s death in Season Two, Clarke isn’t super concerned with getting back on the horse as far as dating goes; she’s pretty busy trying to save her entire community from grisly death, a task that can only be accomplished via a fragile alliance with the community of people who have been native to the earth for the last 100 years instead of living in a climate-controlled spaceship. The good news is that Clarke has a lot in common with their commander, named Lexa; they’re both about 17 going on 45, total badasses, and young women who have proven themselves so thoroughly that grown-ass men with weapons will follow them into battle (although it’s notable that there appears to be pretty good gender equity in this particular dystopian hellscape). They’re even both dealing with the heartbreak of a romantic interest killed in war; Clarke is mourning Finn and Lexa a girl named Costia. All of their shared experiences seem to be surely paving the road to gal pal bffdom forever — right up until Lexa kisses Clarke, and Clarke kisses back. Here, look, you can see it.
When we look at the standards by which we often discuss bisexual representation on TV, The 100 is kind of a mixed bag. My initial takeaway was, honestly, disappointment — Clarke and Lexa’s kiss, the first indication that their relationship isn’t platonic, doesn’t come until very late in the second season. When it does come, it’s a very brief moment — Clarke FOR SURE kisses back, but she also stops kissing about three seconds later, and tells Lexa “I can’t.” The implication is at least that Clarke means “I can’t right now because my last love interest died about five minutes ago and also I’m responsible for keeping hundreds of people alive even though I’m only 17,” not “I can’t because we’re both girls.” Still, though, I was hoping for a little more than the few seconds of blissful bi reciprocal feelings we saw. I had heard so much about this show, and so much of it enthusiastic, that I was prepared for a full-on relationship. What we actually got ultimately amounts to a demonstration that our protagonist is bi, but the scene doesn’t last long enough to do much more than that. What’s more, Lexa and Clarke don’t exactly end the season on an amicable note. While I’m cautiously optimistic about their reconciliation, the fact remains that if I had blinked several times, like if I had particularly dry eyes on the day I finished the show, I could plausibly have missed this entirely.
However! There are still several things about this arc, miniature as it is, that are worth celebrating. The bisexual character is indeed the protagonist, which is a rare bird; usually we’re relegated to side characters if we exist at all. I’m also thrilled to see a bisexual character who isn’t stuck with a love triangle between characters of different genders. I think the show does sort of ask us to compare Finn and Lexa in our head, but not in a way that feels specifically about gender — more like the same way that we were tempted to compare Rory Gilmore’s boyfriends. And of course, it’s always great to see any LGBT character whose storyline doesn’t center around coming out, or function as a Very Special Episode. In this arc, Clarke’s bisexuality isn’t the focus of attention; Lexa is. Their interactions are allowed to be just that, interactions between characters we care about, not a device meant to serve an identity plot.
just doin’ normal date stuff
Some fans and writers have found this in particular worth celebrating — the ‘normalcy’ of Clarke and Lexa, the fact that it’s not made a big deal of. I’m less inclined to be impressed by this, given the context of the world of The 100. So far in this show we’ve seen someone use their own teeth to chew a tracking device out of their arm, a twelve-year-old girl with PTSD stab someone to death, and somebody climb inside a warhead to use it as a spaceship because a hallucination of their dead kid encouraged them to. No one is fucking around here. If it isn’t about survival, it doesn’t rate very high as a priority. Even the rivalry between Raven and Clarke, something which many other shows would have (and have, in fact) drawn out into a primary conflict that lasted the show’s whole run, couldn’t last longer than a couple episodes, because Clarke and Raven’s reliance upon each other for survival is just too important. In this world, I would find it more surprising if bisexuality was a big deal.
We haven’t seen any other relationships get much explicit discussion, either; Finn and Clarke never had a conversation to define their relationship, and other characters rolled with the Clarke/Finn situation without much comment. I mean, it makes sense: ten minutes spent dealing with specificity of sexual orientation or labels is ten minutes that could be spent sharpening sticks into spears or trying to engineer antibiotics out of rocks. This isn’t new; there’s a reason why we have often more success with representation of marginalized groups in scifi/fantasy/dystopian universes, because show creators know that viewers are more likely to accept it not being “a big deal” in a world different than ours, where the characters have concerns that are different than ours. This doesn’t mean points should be subtracted from The 100, just that this doesn’t seem to me like the most interesting takeaway from this show in particular.
For similar reasons, I’m not personally bothered by another common trope of bisexual representation: the absence of the word “bisexual.” Usually it grates on me, as it does on many other bi viewers, when otherwise articulate characters who are well-educated on issues of sexual orientation (Piper of OINTB, Sarah of Transparent, etc) seem fundamentally incapable of calling themselves or anyone else bisexual. Often they opt to either avoid the subject entirely or say they “don’t like labels,” which is a perfectly acceptable way to self-identify, but is frustrating when it’s used to characterize almost every character on TV attracted to more than one gender. But this is less irritating to me when the show isn’t set in our real world, a world where these terms are in fact in common usage. In The 100, there’s no indication that we live in a culture where there’s any particular vocabulary around relationships or orientation, at least not one that seems all that important. For instance, Lexa isn’t referred to as a lesbian, even though as far as we know she only has relationships with women.
Ultimately, what I’m most interested in about what Clarke means as a bisexual character isn’t how she stacks up against others, or how well The 100 as a show fills out checklists of ideal representation (although I think both of those can be valid lines of inquiry). I’m interested in the dynamic between Clarke and Lexa, because even though it got jarringly little screen time, it resonated with me in a way that even I was surprised by.
My first memory of seeing a bisexual in a relationship with a girl on TV was The OC‘s Marissa; she dated Alex for a very short arc before returning to her tumultuous on-and-off again relationship with Ryan, as all viewers knew she would. I was glued to the screen during the Alex storyline, but it was clear even to me that this relationship wasn’t really going to be Marissa’s story. She wasn’t really choosing Alex, she wouldn’t end up choosing Alex; she was choosing not-Ryan, she was choosing to try something new and different and daring just to see what would happen. Alex wasn’t who she wanted; Alex was just another fifth of vodka for Marissa to sneak into her purse. But that was what there was, and that was fine.
babe do you think our relationship will survive even past sweeps week? babe did you hear me, are you listening
We’ve come a fairly long way since then, and there are multiple other bisexual women on TV — Bo in Lost Girl, Callie from Grey’s, Brittany from Glee, Delphine from Orphan Black, and more — who we see in real relationships with other women, relationships that aren’t portrayed as a phase even if they don’t end up lasting forever. It’s pretty cool in and of itself that The 100 isn’t the boat that all of our bisexual representation hopes are riding in together. But Clarke is a unique kind of protagonist in that her choices have consistently been shown to be rigidly controlled; every decision she makes on the show is ratified by strict standards of rational necessity, moral righteousness, or both. In fact, at some points it seems almost like a flaw in her character development — does Clarke ever even have subjective human wants and needs? Does she ever not do The Right Thing? (She definitely does not do the right thing, as far as I’m concerned, when she ultimately stands by and tries to help Finn after he straight up mass murders a bunch of people that his community has already invaded and colonized because of his own psychological issues, but I’m not sure that the show itself agrees with me. The totally skewed moral compass of this show when it comes to colonialism/imperialism and why so many characters seem willing to forgive Finn for something unforgivable is also really worth talking about with this show, arguably moreso than its representation of bisexuality. But anyways it’s not clear to me that the show’s internal ethics judge Clarke as being in the wrong here, even though I think she was).
We’ve actually never seen Clarke choose to enter into a real relationship on the show; she clearly has emotional ties with Finn, but at every point where a real reciprocal relationship is offered, she explicitly turns it down. She cares about Finn, but there are too many obstacles: his past with Raven, his horrifying crimes at the village of Tondc, the general conflict of interest she feels about loving one of her soldiers. When offered a choice, she chooses not to be with Finn, not really. In fact, Clarke chooses almost nothing for herself, ever.
Which is why it’s such a powerful moment to see her kiss Lexa back. Clarke virtually never acts on what she wants, at least not if there’s any real reason not to — she only slept with Finn when there seemed to be no complications, and as soon as they emerged, she backed off. Her self-control is astounding, especially for a teenager. But Clarke does (temporarily) allow her feelings to overwhelm her sense of obligation when it comes to Lexa. Clarke never chooses anything unless she can feel totally confident that it’s the right decision — and she chooses Lexa. For a few seconds, that is.
Clarke’s choices are consistently depicted by the show as being good ones; she has to make difficult or debatable calls sometimes, but she’s not portrayed as being Wrong in the same way that Finn or early Murphy was. This feels important to me because in many ways, I was used to seeing bisexual women in relationships with women portrayed as lapsing, aberrating, or as somehow acting out of character; giving in to some deviant part of themselves. If they were with another woman, it was because they were taking a break from their “real” selves, which was assumed to want a stable relationship with a man; they were “misbehaving.” But Clarke doesn’t misbehave; Clarke doesn’t have lapses. Clarke isn’t interested in Lexa as an alternative to something or someone else; being attracted to Lexa doesn’t require a change in her character. In fact, being into Lexa makes much more sense for Clarke’s character than being into Finn did. Lexa and Clarke share experiences, values, have both been through things that no one else understands. I’m grateful for seeing this on TV because it depicts a (young!) woman for whom being with another woman is a reasonable choice, one that makes sense for her at least as much as a different-sex relationship would.
Both Clarke and Lexa spend much of the show struggling with whether they can allow themselves to feel human emotions and still have the strength to survive; the context for their kiss is that Clarke has just wondered out loud whether maybe both of them might deserve more than just survival. It’s never a bad thing to see a depiction of intimacy between women that’s worth surviving for. But I do wish I could have seen more than a few seconds of that possibility and not have it called almost immediately into question. I wish Clarke could have chosen Lexa in a way that was at least as emotionally committed as her connection with Finn, and I wish the show had chosen to give Clarke and Lexa’s relationship as much screen time and depth as, say, Jasper and Maya’s, or Raven and Wick’s (much as I want good things to happen for Raven).
Ultimately, I’m not sure that The 100 gives us quite the vanguard of bisexual representation that I had hoped for. It doesn’t mess up in the particular ways that I am used to watching pop culture representation of my community mess up, which is refreshing, but it’s also hard to mess up that badly when your representation is so brief and limited. (Not that it hasn’t been done!) In a universe largely defined by tragedy, violence, and terrible sacrifice, the moments of real human connection and the risks taken to protect it are what really make The 100 special — hopefully in Season 3 we’ll see a same-sex couple get to have that in a real way.
15 Of Those Actresses Who Were In That Show
You know the ones: the actresses you keep seeing in everything and you don’t know their names but you swear you’ve seen her in something else! Firstly, I hope you know Jane Lynch’s name, if not, it’s probably Jane Lynch. Or is it Lili Taylor? Lorraine Toussaint? Double-check, I can wait.
Okay. So: they aren’t ever the lead character, they’re not getting interviewed on talk shows or put on the cover of magazines. They’re not winning huge awards or starting fashion lines or having their relationships invaded on TMZ.
But they keep showing up on our shows!!!
They’re not always playing the queer character — ’cause if they were, we’d know their name — but these actresses all have a knack for showing up on shows that have some kind of queer content or are otherwise on our radar.
1. Aasha Davis
Remember when she was: Chelsea on South of Nowhere
And then you saw her in: Pariah
Wherever you are, she is too: breaking Alike’s heart in Pariah, getting preggers in South of Nowhere, trying to keep Smash in line in Friday Night Lights. You’ve spotted her in Criminal Minds, Chasing Life, House, ER, Gilmore Girls and Grey’s Anatomy. She’s also starred in two queer webseries, Nick & Nora and Cowgirl Up; and one not-queer but super-awesome webseries “The Unwritten Rules” about “the comedic realities of a Black Co-Worker in a predominantly white workplace.”
2. Kim Dickens
You know her from: She was Saracen’s Mom on Friday Night Lights
Wait is that Saracen’s Mom in: Gone Girl
She’s remarkably versatile but still has such a memorable face. You may know her from her recurring roles on House of Cards, Sons of Anarchy and Treme. I first noticed she was one of those women I saw everywhere when the woman who long-conned Sawyer on Lost showed up on Saracen’s doorstep. Then there she was, not having aged a wink, playing a cop on Gone Girl! She’s also dropped in on White Collar, FlashForward, 12 Miles of Bad Road, Numb3rs and Spin City.
ETA: And apparently she played a lesbian in Deadwood!
3. Adina Porter
You know her from: Tara’s Mom on True Blood
You were pretty sure that was Tara’s Mom you saw in: The Newsroom, The 100
She played Tara’s mom, Lettie Mae Thornton, on True Blood, and Grounder warrior Indra on The 100, but she’s also shown up in queer favorites like Grey’s Anatomy, Glee, American Horror Story and lesbian classic Gia, in which she played “the girl at group therapy.”
Aside from her gigs on True Blood, The 100, The Newsroom and the 2002-2003 series American Dreams, she’s rarely a series regular. That’s given her plenty of time to appear in one or two episodes of every other show in the world: NYPD Blue, Crossing Jordan, ER, CSI:NY, Prison Break, Without a Trace, House M.D., Law and Order SVU, Cold Case, CSI, Saving Grace, Hawthorne, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, Private Practice, Ringer, Prime Suspect and The Vampire Diaries.
4. Anne Ramsay
You know her as: The first woman who dared to date a post-Marina Jenny on The L Word
But you might also remember her from: A League of Their Own
I’m so consistently surprised when people don’t know who Anne Ramsay is. She has been in EVERYTHING, y’all! She was Jenny’s girlfriend in The L Word. She was an out lesbian Mom on Secret Life Of the American Teenager. She played ball in your favorite not-gay gay movie, A League of Their Own. She was even in my favorite show of all time, Six Feet Under! But if you’re of a certain generation you might know her best from Mad About You. Regardless, it’s impossible to have missed her boat entirely, as she’s played recurring roles on Hart of Dixie, Hawthorne, Dexter, Related, Dharma & Greg, Star Trek: The Next Generation and, most memorably, on Mad About You.
5. Annabeth Gish
You know her as: The therapist on Pretty Little Liars
Or maybe: The X-Files, The Bridge
This is a generational situation — if you’re young, you probably saw her for the first time in Pretty Little Liars. If you’re my age or older, though, you probably have been aware of her for a long time. I mean, she was nominated for a young actress award for Mystic Pizza! Remember Mystic Pizza? The first time I looked her up was when she showed up on The Bridge, and I was like, WHERE DO I KNOW HER FROM. Mhm. Dr. Sullivan, y’all. Also The West Wing, obvs. But you’ve also seen her in The X-Files, Once Upon a Time, Parenthood, Parks & Rec or Sons of Anarchy and movies like Beautiful Girls and SLC Punk!
6. CCH Pounder
Recently crossed my radar as: Mrs. Frederic on Warehouse 13
If you already knew this woman’s name than you are a wiser and better human than I am, because she’s one of the most accomplished working actresses of all time and yet I didn’t know her name until today. She’s scored regular roles on NCIS: New Orleans, Sons of Anarchy, Law & Order SVU, The Shield, ER, Women in Prison, and Brothers. She was featured in Avatar, Face/Off and Orphan and has lent her talent to shows ranging from Cagney & Lacey, The Cosby Show and Hill Street Blues to The Practice, Girlfriends and Revenge.
7. Senta Moses
She danced the night away with Rickie on My So-Called Life and I forgot about her entirely ’til she reappeared as Principal Penelope on Faking It. But she was also Kevin McAllister’s cousin in Home Alone! Or maybe you saw her in Rizzoli & Isles, Castle, Greek, Girl Meets World, NCIS, Beckman’s World or Sister, Sister? Her hair has been perfectly curly for ages.
8. Rekha Sharma
This woman who is long overdue for a magazine cover: Canadian actress Rekha Sharma has navigated the murky ethical codes of the post-apocalyptic human race in featured roles in The 100 and Battlestar Galactica as well as popping up on Arrow, Supernatural, Once Upon a Time In Wonderland, V, Dark Angel and Smallville. She also allegedly appeared as “Lori” in the first two episodes of The L Word but I can’t find her in it for the life of me.
9. Michelle Hurst
You know her from: Orange is the New Black
You saw her again in: Law and Order
and again in: Law and Order
and also one more time in Law and Order
As Stef noted in her epic And Now Every Character From “Orange is the New Black” As They Appear In “Law and Order”, Michelle Hurst has played nine different characters in various shows in the Law & Order franchise. She’s also shown up on queer-friendly shows like Broad City, Last Tango in Halifax, The Good Wife and Sex & The City.
10. Kathryn Hahn
You know her from: You’ve been thinking that she’s Ana Gasteyer this whole time
She was that rabbi who made the mistake of falling for Josh in Transparent, but she’s also been in Girls, Hung, The Newsroom, Parks & Recreation, Kroll Show and 115 episodes of Crossing Jordan. She looked the most like Ana Gasteyer in We’re the Millers. That picture of her is from Anchorman.
11. Beth Grant
Beth Grant has 182 IMDB credits! She’s been in over 70 feature films, appeared in over thirty plays, guested on every television show to ever exist… AND YET. She’s Beverly on The Mindy Project, but you’ve also seen her in Criminal Minds, Friends, Six Feet Under, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, CSI, Everwood, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, The Office, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family, Pushing Daisies and Bones.
ETA: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
12. Amy Hill
You might recognize this Japanese-Finnish-American performance artist and actress’ voice moreso than her face, but you probably recognize her face, too, ’cause this woman has been working. I think I first saw her when, at the age of 41, she played Margaret Cho’s 65-year-old grandmother in All-American Girl. In addition to doing voices for Lilo & Stich, Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, American Dad!, The Legend of Korra, King of The Hill, Kim Possible and The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, she played Judy Harvey in Enlightened, Dr. Laura Brown in General Hospital, Mrs. DePaulo in That’s So Raven and did guest spots on Grey’s Anatomy, Ghost Whisperer, Glee, Law & Order, Arrested Development, The League, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Frasier, Six Feet Under, Without a Trace, Friends, Third Rock From The Sun, The Hughleys, The Closer and Desperate Housewives. Her film work includes 50 First Dates, Cat in the Hat and Next Friday.
13. Justina Machado
She was definitely Rico’s better half on Six Feet Under and also has played recurring roles on ER, Goode Behavior, Private Practice, Three Rivers and Welcome to the Family. She also turned up in Season One of The Fosters and has guested on shows including Ugly Betty, Switched at Birth, Desperate Housewives and Kath & Kim.
14. Melora Hardin
You know her from: She played Jan on The Office
And weren’t sure where you recognized her from when she showed up as: a lesbian on Transparent
Melora Hardin has 103 credits on IMDB, and is known primarily for The Office and The Hot Chick — but she’s actually been working consistently since she was nine years old. So in addition to popping up on classics like Lois & Clark, Murder She Wrote, Friends, Matlock, Little House on the Prairie, Diff’rent Strokes, The Love Boat, Quantum Leap and starring in the failed 1988 Dirty Dancing TV series, she’s also been busy these days with stuff like Scandal, Wedding Band, Outlaw, Monk, Gilmore Girls and Cover Me. Also she had lesbian sex in Transparent, so.
15. Tina Majorino
One of the most notable aspects of this actress’ career is that you’ve maybe accidentally seen everything she’s ever been in, and she hasn’t been in a ton of stuff. Just, you know, stuff like Napoleon Dynamite, Big Love, Grey’s Anatomy, Veronica Mars, True Blood and Bones. She was a child star when I was an aspiring child star, too, turning up in all my favorite films like Andre, Waterworld and Corrina, Corrina. Yet so many people still get her mixed up with Jenna Malone! I feel like she’s one TV show away from the cover of BUST Magazine. Am I the only human on earth who didn’t already know her name, though. Be honest with me.
So, how many of these actresses did you already know?
Boob(s On Your) Tube: Everyone Is Gay And Nothing Hurts
Forgive me, daffodils, for I have sinned. It has been one million years since my last Boob(s on Your) Tube update. It turns out there is so much queer stuff on TV these days that if you let your DVR get even one week behind, you will never get caught up, unless you stop going to sleep forever. Remember when the only lesbian thing on TV was The L Word on Sunday nights? I sure do!
Anyway, this column is making a weekly return starting today, which means you will find it here every Monday for the foreseeable future. The first thing I’m going to do is update you on what we missed during the hiatus, and then I’m going to get you caught up on all the gay lady things on (American) TV (that we don’t already recap).
Ready? Okay!
Top Chef: Boston
Wednesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.
In vino victory!
We were drawing near to the Top Chef finale the last time we Boobs Tubed, and the good news is: Lesbian contestant Melissa King made it to the finals in Mexico! The sad news is: She was eliminated in the next-to-last challenge. But she didn’t let that slow her down. She tag-teamed with Mei Lin and helped her win the whole shebang, making her only the third woman to earn the Top Chef crown in the show’s 12-season history. I interviewed Melissa and she was gracious and hilarious and she taught me how to make perfect scrambled eggs.
Marry Me
Gone forever from NBC
Yeaaah, I don’t know why they burned through the final season of Parks and Recreation, either.
NBC’s comedy slate is in a sad state, and after pretty dismal ratings, they decided to pull Marry Me from their lineup — and leave the last four episodes unaired — to make room for even more of The Voice, which sucks for a lot of reasons. Marry Me‘s “soft butch flannel queen” Kay was one of the very few leading lesbian characters in sitcom history, and one of only a handful of black lesbian characters on TV. And she had just started dating Ana Ortiz! It’s time to double down on One Big Happy, maybe?
Jane the Virgin
Mondays on the CW at 9:00 p.m.
You learned some new moves. You must have started reading Sparia fan fiction after I had you committed.
It should be noted that the last time we peeked in on Jane the Virgin, lesbian gynecologist Luisa had been committed to a mental institution for telling her family that her stepmother, Rose, was also her lover. (Which was true.) Well, Rose visited Luisa in the asylum and they had crazy passionate sex to the rumble of thunder and crack of lightning because of an approaching hurricane. After that, Luisa broke out of the hospital and then broke back into the hospital so her brother could check her out of the hospital. Because he realized she was telling the truth about Rose. Because Rose killed their father. Because Rose is notorious criminal mastermind Sin Rostro. And now Rose has fled the country and so has Lusia. Probably they are having hate-sex on some beach somewhere, but we haven’t seen that part yet. Fingers crossed, though.
Arrow
Wednesdays on the CW at 8:00 p.m.
All dead comic book characters come back to life. Real or not real?
I made my displeasure with Arrow very clear after they axe murdered Sara Lance earlier this season. My patience for killing off queer characters is exhausted, and when you add that to the fact that I’ve been reading comic books since I was seven and have therefore experienced ten lifetimes of Women in Refrigerators tropes, you can understand why I quit the show. But then my dear friend Valerie said Sara was coming back and so was Nyssa, and so I got roped right back in.
And Sara did come back, but only kind of. Bad guy Werner Zytle used this hallucinatory serum on Laurel and it gave her visions of Sara being alive and beating her up and calling her a selfish asshole. It was good to see Sara back, but a bummer that she was only a Boggart, and only for a single episode too.
But! On the upside, Nyssa al Ghul is bringing it hardcore! She keeps showing up in Sterling City to try to avenge Sara’s death in various ways, and while she did finally manage to capture Merlyn, the guy behind her girlfriend’s murder, she didn’t get to do what she really wanted to do, which was pin the whole thing on Oliver and strangle him to death with her beautiful assassin hands. In fact, her father, Ra’s al Ghul, offered the keys to his whole assassin kingdom to Oliver because Nyssa proved herself unworthy because she fell in love with Sara and everything since then has been about her bleeding, broken heart. But Nyssa decided she’s going to do something productive with her grief: She’s going to train Laurel to become the next Black Canary. That way she can help out her dead girlfriend’s sister and also spend some time with someone who loved Sara as much as she did.
Gotham
Mondays on Fox at 8:00 p.m.
What kind of regatta gala starts at night?
Where is Renee Montoya? No one knows! She’s not missing in the context of Gotham‘s story, but she is missing from the show. I think it’s been five weeks since we’ve seen her. FIVE WEEKS. You remember where we left off: Barbara was buckling under the pressure of being engaged to the most boring teetotaling incarnation of Jim Gordon in all the Batcanon, and he wasn’t exactly understanding when she was dealing with PTSD from being kidnapped by a mob boss, so she skedaddled right on over to Renee Montoya’s place, for a whole lot of scissoring.
Unfortunately, she also decided to mix a bevvy load of booze and pills together to pass the time, which made Renee reevaluate their involvement with each other. She told Barbara it probably wasn’t a good thing for them to be together, so Barbara dove deeper into her bender and finally went home to her fancy loft to find that it had been overtaken by tiny Catwoman and Poison Ivy. She let them stay and she ate Doritos with them and she even took their fashion advice. (“Dress like you’re going boating with another guy.”) Then she saw Jim making out with the hot doctor from Radley Arkham, and that’s where we are right now.
The penultimate episode of season one will air on April 14th and the finale will air on May 4th. Gotham has already been picked up for a second season and if Fox bends its knees to fanboy backlash and gets rid of Montoya because a bunch of angry dudebros can’t handle seeing a woman sweep future Commissioner Gordon’s fiance off her feet, I am going to lose my mind.
Chasing Life
Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.
Aria Montgomery said all the cool kids are wearing them.
Thanks to Pretty Little Liars, ABC Family realized a couple of years ago that putting queer women on-screen is good for business. They’ve got PLL. They’ve got The Fosters. They’ve got Chasing Life. I’m not saying gay ladies are the only ones keeping those shows on the the air, but if you look at the dramas ABC Family has axed because of unsustainable ratings, none of them are shows with lesbian/bi women on them. And the shows with lesbian/bi women on them? Still going strong! Including this one!
Remember when Brenna came out as bisexual during the Christmas episode? Well, she’s still very out and Greer even became her for real girlfriend and moved into her house for a while! But then Greer had to move away because this is television and I’m pretty sure the writers had no idea how big the Grenna phenomenon — I checked with Twitter, and it’s “Grenna,” not “Breer,” okay? — was going to be.
It happened like this: Greer’s mom is The Worst. And Greer had a pretty terrible idea to go off her mood disorder meds to try to get her parents’ attention. That didn’t work out the way she planned it, but it worked out better than it would have on, say, Degrassi, because on that show she would have ended up driving her car off a cliff. On Chasing Life, though, it led to her realizing that her parents don’t even notice if she’s manic and dropping thousands of dollars on designer purses and literally moving into her girlfriend’s house. Greer’s dad finally realized he should divorce Greer’s mom, and he asked her to please come live with him in a whole other state. At first, Brenna invited Greer to just move in with her family until graduation (in like three years), but she ultimately realized she needed to let Greer go so for Greer’s own health and happiness.
The midseason finale is tomorrow night. Hopefully Greer will be back next season.
The 100
Third season on the way
Are you caught up yet?
You love The 100. It bends gender and explores bisexuality in new and exciting ways. We hear you and we believe you and we are excited that this show exists. Rachel and Riese and I are trying to get caught up on it so we can talk about it intelligently and hilariously with you. Riese wrote about it a little in last week’s Arts & Entertainment Daily Fix. Rachel is going to write a thing about it for you this very week. I am watching as many episodes as I can, every single day. The senior editors talked about it this morning. We talk about it every morning! We really like The 100 too, and coverage is coming for you!
Hart of Dixie
Fridays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.
Oh, we’re just brushing each other’s hair like lesbians on TV in 1994.
In a shocking and exciting twist, Crickett came out during last season’s finale of Hart of Dixie (aka My Grandmother’s Favorite TV Show). (Well, her favorite TV show that is actually still on the air. My grandmother’s real favorite TV show is Gilmore Girls. Luke + Lorelai 4EVA, is a tattoo she should have). But Cricket has been largely underused since coming out. The gayest thing she has done this year is read a book written by Ellen. She does have a girlfriend named Jaysene Charles, but they’ve only been seen together a couple of times, and the most intimate they’ve gotten is holding hands for a nanosecond in public. It’s not worth your investment to get caught up on this show, honestly. The lesbian parts are basically nonexistent; the season finale airs this week’ and CW seems very, very unlikely to order a fourth season.
The Good Wife
Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.
Just reading GLAAD Award-winning Autostraddle dot com. You?
When it comes to Kalinda, The Good Wife has never bounced back from its fourth season slump. Her relationship with her ex-husband was so out of character that it completely derailed the show. And now here we are, two-thirds of the way through season six, after which Archie Panjabi is leaving to star in her own thing, and the writers have no idea what to do with the once great Kalinda Sharma. Four weeks ago, she spent the whole episode picking up Bishop’s son from school. Three weeks ago, she was just hallucination in one of Alicia’s daydreams (and not in a good way). Two weeks ago, she swooped in at the last minute and saved The Case of the Week. And last night, she was back to babysitting. It seemed like the show was maybe setting it up for her to ride off into the sunset with Lana, but now it seems like maybe she’s just going to limp off without anyone even noticing. It’s a damn shame. Kalinda was once the best bisexual character on TV by a thousand miles.
Empire
Second season on the way
Sure thing, NBC, just order a hundred more shows about white people.
Tiana didn’t show back up on the first season of Empire after the show revealed that she’s queer — so nothing after Laura got you all caught up on it — but Fox has obviously already ordered a second season, and you can be sure it’ll be a full season, unlike the first one, because Empire‘s ratings were off-the-chart good. So hopefully Tiana will be back when the next season rolls around.
Newlyweds: The First Year
Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.
Ugh, sausages. Why didn’t you get Melissa King’s number from Andy Cohen like I asked?
Bravo’s reality show Newlyweds follows couples through the ups and downs of the first year of marriage. This season (the second one), the show is featuring a lesbian couple named Sam and Laura who met and fell in love in college, ten years ago, and have decided to finally say “I do.” The first episode saw them tying the knot, even after Sam introduced a prenup at the last second. And the second episode saw them lounging around the house, feeding their adorable dogs, spray-tanning each other in the bathroom, and having dinner with Sam’s rich family. Laura has decided to go to work for Sam’s family, managing one of their properties in Florida, and Sam’s brother is a super wanker about it. The weird thing, though, is that the other three couples on the show went on honeymoons in episode two. Maybe Sam and Laura count all their college spring breaks as honeymoons or something?
The Walking Dead
Sundays on AMC at 9:00 p.m.
BRAINZ.
As I’m sure you remember, I do not like blood, guts, or seeing brains, so I cannot watch The Walking Dead. My girlfriend is the one who watches The Walking Dead. And so honestly, all you’re going to get here is an adorable photo of whatever Shutterstock thinks “cats dressed as zombies” looks like, and an update on whether or not lesbian Tara is still alive. And the answer as of last night is: Who knows? Last week, Aidan shots off a bunch of grenades, the result of which was: He got impaled and Tara maybe died. She’ was serioulsy hardcore wounded. Last night, she was supposedly operated on, but that may have been a lie because all the doctors may be zombies at this point. I’ll tell you once my girlfriend tells me if Tara makes it.
Black Sails
On Demand on Starz Literally Always
I must be huntin’ treasure, ’cause I’m diggin’ yer chest!
Much like The Walking Dead, Black Sails is full of blood and guts. But also it is full of queer lady pirates, so with proper supervision, I can watch it. Both seasons are On Demand right now, and also Starz airs reruns pretty much every hour of every day, so it’s pretty easy to catch up. And here’s why you should: There are four women on this show, and one got killed off in the last episode, and it was the only straight one. I mean, obviously I hate it when women get killed off on any TV show, but this one is a bloodbath, so the fact that all three queer women — Eleanor, Max and Anne Bonney — are still alive is weird and remarkable. Also, all the ladies love each other but are also at odds with each other and are also all varying degrees of psychotic. So, like Pretty Little Liars on the ocean, basically.
More More More
I wish I had stopped watching Glee after season three.
WHY WEREN’T BRITTANA EVEN IN THE FINAL EPISODE?
This week, I am going to get caught up on The 100 and Episodes and maybe on The Returned, depending on how bloody that one is. It’s vampires, so we’ll see.
Also, mark your calendars for these important upcoming dates:
+ Orphan Black returns on BBC America on April 18th at 9:00 p.m.
+ Lost Girl‘s final season lands on Syfy on April 17th at 10:00 p.m.
+ Orange Is the New Black‘s third season hits Netflix on June 12th.
It’s going to be a good spring/summer!
Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed
+ Let’s Talk About Ellen and Liz Feldman’s New Lesbian Sitcom “One Big Happy”
Liz Feldman is one of the funniest women in Hollywood, so I hope NBC loosens the reins and lets her get a little more real.
+ 9 Things “Glee” Did Right: On Bullying, Burt, Brittana, One Straight Butch and A Straight-Up Bitch
Glee did about 100 things wrong but it also did some things very, very, very right.
+ Listling Without Commentary: 22 Excerpts From Brutal Amazon Customer Reviews Of “The L Word”
“I hate to break it to those people, but lesbians tend to dress like men, act like men — and look like men.”
+ Top 17 Most Devastating Breakups in Lesbian Television History
In honor of the I BROKE UP LIKE THIS ‘zine, we present 17 times queer female couples on television broke each other’s hearts and also our own.
+ “Steven Universe” and the Importance of All-Ages Queer Representation
Up until now, the assumption had been that Garnet was a single Gem like Pearl and Amethyst. However, the truth is much more romantic.
+ “Scandal” Breaks Our Hearts With an Elderly Lesbian Couple and Jasika Nicole
Just one week after perhaps the most powerful episode in the show’s history, Shonda Rhime’s force-of-nature hit show Scandal has once again destroyed our hearts. This week’s story touched the souls of audiences everywhere with two tales of love trying to rise above what seem like impossible situations.
+ “Broad City” Swan-Dives Off Sapphic Cliff Into Sea Of Sexual Fluidity
Last night on a very special episode of Broad City, Ilana made out with a girl and even though it wasn’t Abbi, it was still pretty cool.
+ 19 Things We Know About Season Three Of “Orange Is The New Black”
We don’t know much, but we know we love them.
+ A Pastor, a Sexologist, and a Psychotherapist Send Two Lesbians into the “Sex Box”
Brittany and Sally got married on the Grammy’s last year and now they are headed into the sex box.
Whew, okay! Welcome back, baby giraffes! What are you watching these days on the teevee?