Meanwhile at DaSoMi’s, Dani’s invited her Dad over for a wine lunch to tell him she’s planning to elope in Hawaii with her girlfriend who she has had maybe two (2) conversations with that were not either fighting or sex since getting engaged in the pilot! She’s not sure why Dad thinks Sophie’s not good enough for her so he lays it on her: Dani’s taking a step backwards because Sophie’s family is “broken” and “doesn’t know stability.” Okay dude, good luck finding a lesbian without a traumatic family history for your daughter to date! Besides, I can’t think of a better family for Dani to marry into — Sophie’s relatives are generous and kind and loving and politically progressive in ways that her father doesn’t know how to be.
Dad’s afraid that when things get hard, Sophie’s gonna leave her. “She’s so much better than that,” Dani says about her fiancee who is probably going to leave her. “She’s not gonna leave me. We love each other, and we’re good together. I need you to be okay with that.” I yearn, here, for Dani to explain how, exactly, they’re good for each other! I will say this: they’re both very attractive and look nice together. But I’m curious what else binds ’em. What do they do together for fun? Where’s their favorite place to order take-out? What song do they dance to every time it comes on?
Dad asks Dani to come back and work for his Evil Empire, where that Building Project Situation he negotiated with Milner “months ago” is moving forward full steam ahead. This is when Dani realizes that her Dad threw his money and might behind Milner in the election, despite his dear daughter’s devotion to Bette Porter. This is bad.
Dani: “As I adjust to the idea that I can’t change you, I invite you to do the same for me.”
Nice one!
Apparently learning NOTHING from Tina’s Terrible Miscarriage, Shane and Quiara have somehow already amassed baby anticipation gifts from Shane’s alleged friends for the tiniest little miniature pickle to ever have a heartbeat, which Shane’s attempting to box up until the full weight of emotional trauma has eclipsed the home and Quiara is ready to interact with a small stuffed tiger again. However, Quiara needs no such treatment!
Lesbian Squabble #26: Don’t Throw Your Fucking Ring at me That’s Such a Fucking Cliche I’ll Fucking Barf
In the Ring: Shane vs. Quiara
Content: Quiara suspects Shane was relieved by the miscarriage and she feels Shane’s responses to this accusation are transparent expressions of disinterest in parenthood, which Shane reiterates not wanting to do, which Quiara reiterates Shane saying she would do, which Shane explains as wanting to stay with Quiara, and Quiara says then Shane’ll be also eager to try again and Quiara declares, “You’re never gonna change Shane. No one is ever gonna love you ’cause you’re incapable of loving anyone but your fucking self,” and like, Shane has a lot of problems but loving herself over everybody else is… absolutely not one of them. In fact, the most consistent way she lets people down is by agreeing to do things she doesn’t actually want to do! Then Quiara lightly tosses her wedding ring in Shane’s general direction.
Who Wins? On the surface, it’d appear that Quiara wins. However, for somebody who allegedly knows/understands Shane deeply, that final line was… confusing? I’m calling this one for Shane.
Back at Bette’s sumptuous home, Dani’s helping Bette cart in some leftover paper goods from the campaign, much to the dismay of The Lorax. Dani reveals her terrible plan to marry Sophie in Hawaii, and Bette reveals her terrible plan to work for the Milner administration.
Dani tells Bette it’s a set-up — her Dad’s been supporting Milner all along and his ties to Big Pharma run deep. Milner just wants to look like he gives a shit, which I imagine is because in his headshot, he looks like he just took a shit on somebody’s lawn. Bette wonders if any of it was worth it and Dani says it sure was! She’s gotten at least three sex dreams out of this.
We return to the offices of The Aloce Show, where everybody’s heading home and Sophie offers Finley a ride and Finley’s just gotta drop these things off in the green room if that’s okay and yes, it’s totally okay!
Sophie follows her in, stands squarely in her confusion and announces that she’s going to Hawaii, tomorrow, to get married to Dani.
“That’s awesome,” Finley lies, smiling generously, keeping her distance from Sophie and also herself. She doubles down: “You can have one of your little coconut drinky drinks.”
Without pause, Sophie shuts the door, faces her friend:Â “Alright. How do you really feel?”
“I don’t…” Finley doesn’t want to feel anything, “I don’t know how to feel!”
Sophie tries a different approach — one she’s used before with Finley when Finley didn’t know how to articulate her emotions. “Well does it feel… calm? Inside your body right now? Like everything’s exactly how it’s supposed to be?”
She barely finishes her question before Finley, laughing, interrupts: “You are like… the world’s worst Catholic!”
“What?” Sophie cracks up. “How?”
“Don’t you know how to shove it down?” Finley’s bewildered, physically demonstrating the benefits of shoving it down. “Just like, way down? And never talk about it?”
“Oh my God. Is that what you’re doing?”
“Of course it is!” Finley gesticulates wildly. “That’s what everybody does! That’s how you survive! In the world!” It’s true, but then what happens when you wanna do more then just survive? “Just shove it down!” Finley demonstrates shoving it down again, really putting her whole body into it.
“You know what? I cannot fucking stand you,” Sophie teases.
“I know, I know,” Finley transitions quickly from her real self to the parody of herself she’s gotten so good at substituting for authentic communication — being the Court Jester, leading into type. “Cause I’m ridiculous.”
Sophie laughs but then snaps out of it because she’s not here for Finley The Puppy in a Human Body she’s for the real shit underneath all that. “No, no, you’re. You’re not,” Sophie steps closer.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Finley weakens. “You’re getting married. In Hawaii. And you leave tomorrow.”
Sophie nods, she knows. Boy does she know! Finley advises, once again, shove it down. It’s her Hail Mary. Shove it way down. Sophie doesn’t want to shove it down. What do you want?
Lesbian Sexy Moment #16: I’ll Tell You What I Want What I Really Really Want
The Pick-Up: “Your heart. It’s racing.”
Hot or Not? Yes.
Sophie puts her hand on Finley’s racing heart, presses into it. It’s a good racing. Sophie starts unbuttoning Finley’s shirt, carefully, telling her she smells so good. She smashes all her confusion and yearning and fear, into Finley’s neck, keeps unbuttoning, slides her shirt off. They smile, they kiss again, they hold hands, Sophie takes her own shirt off.
Finley breathes. She’s scared. She doesn’t want to fuck everything up. She’s sober. Everything is right there on the surface, nothing blurring it. She’ll remember every minute of this, how good it felt and how wrong it was but how good it felt.
It’s just me, Sophie says.
And then we cut to the sofa, and everything is fun and silly except when it’s overwhelming and beautiful. Finley laughs at Sophie taking her pants off and Sophie laughs at her laughing and says oh ok you’re laughing at me. Finley protests, I’m not! Sophie edges, I’m taking my clothes off and you’re laughing at me!
Finley collapses backwards with something like pure, full, absolute joy. Have we ever seen her this happy? I’m just having a great time! I swear! She reaches out for Sophie and brings her closer, brings her face right up to her face.
Sophie yanks Finley’s pants off and then teases Finley’s ashy legs, Fuck off! / No!
…then for a second everything floods up inside Sophie — how much she wants this, how long it’s been since she’s been with anybody but Dani, how fucked up she feels about all of it — and she says, Come here, it’s a lot. Finley gets it, sits up softly, draws her in. Sophie gets on top of her so they’re all wrapped up in each other and they hold each other like maybe this might be where it ends.
It’s okay.
This is where they could stop but they can’t stop.This feels too good, Sophie mutters, almost, already fingering the edges of Finley’s bra, then getting her nails underneath it, shoving it up and off. Then they just swallow each other right up, grinding like starving, panting, feeling everything, all of it.
Now what? What happens after the tension becomes action and now you’ve done it and now you can’t get married, in Hawaii? You can’t have the coconut drinky drinks, they will be sweet but everything else will be bitter. Sophie maybe doesn’t want love to be so much work anymore. She wants it to feel more like riding home on the back of a girl’s bicycle — not dragging a girl uphill, or waiting at the bottom for her to come pick you up. But Dani has been loyal. She’s also been cold and ignorant of Sophie’s real feelings and they’re not well-matched emotionally — but she has consistently loved Sophie and consistently been loyal. They can’t get married. They can’t keep dating!
Hot or Not? Yes! But honestly? “Hot” isn’t really the point here, it’s not hot so much as it’s intense and resonant and complicated and beautiful. That being said, “grinding with your underwear on” is a primary lesbian sex act and I’m grateful for this representation. It’s my favorite scene of the show so far!
If this scene happened the original L Word though, Finley would somehow have had an enormous fully erect dildo hiding inside her pants all day.
This incredible cinematic moment is interrupted by Jose’s art show, which is similarly lit and filled with fashionable, hip art people. Micah seems more comfortable with Jose now, more confident in their connection. Therefore, Micah can’t wait to see the wonderful picture Jose has painted of him!!
Well… you know what? This is art. Every artist has their own approach, a unique vision that only they can truly understand. Objectively, Jose is clearly a talented artist. Furthermore, this painting has a few things going for it: Leo Sheng is hot so any remote likeness of him will, in turn, also be hot. This painting appears to have really used paint — different colors of paint and — again, I’m no art expert but — perhaps also several different paintbrushes. It’s very clear that this is a painting of a person, and that the person is Micah, who as aforementioned is a very good-looking young man. Another thing about this painting is that you can tell it was painted by a human being, not by a computer or an animal or aliens trying to send us a message from the afterlife. There’s nothing about this painting that suggests it was painted by a ghost, for example. We see here two types of life: we see a human mammal, and we also see tiny fish, like you might see in a fish tank. It’s the circle of life.
“It’s how I see you,” Jose admits. Underwater with six-pack abs, surrounded by fish, his hand over his genitals? Okayl! Now that Micah has seen what Jose can do with a can of paint and a few hours of free time, he’s ready to give ’em the ‘ol L Word: “I love you.” Just like all those Free City shirts told us in the original series: art is love. I’m happy for these cuties, even if Jose’s art is weird.
Then we zip on back to DaSoMi’s house of pain, where Sophie’s lying in bed awake, crying. “Hey baby,” Dani rolls over. “Hey.” She pulls Sophie closer to spoon her. “Are you scared about tomorrow?” She doesn’t wait for a response from Sophie. No confirmation, no denial, no explanation. But that’s okay, Dani’s just gonna assume she knows why Sophie is crying and continue her previous train of thought!
“It’s gonna be incredible. I’m gonna treat you so good, and you deserve all of it,” Dani says. “I’m still learning but I’ll always be here for you. No matter what.” It’s a sweet series of promises. Sophie kisses her hand over and over, and then burrows right into her.
Holy shit! If my girlfriend was crying in bed the night before I was flying her to Hawaii to get married, I think I’d wanna hear a little bit more about that, you know? It’s hard to tell if Dani loves Sophie, or just loves the idea of Sophie. If she wants to marry Sophie, or if she just wants to be married?
Cut to Rebecca’s House of Emotional Wellness, where Finley, in full disaster mode, has arrived to get some advice from the only priest she knows in Los Angeles: her ex-almost-girlfriend. She’s so sorry to interrupt Rebecca at this undetermined hour but well, she slept with Sophie? And she remembers there was a time when Rebecca told Finley she was a good person but she’s “so clearly not that”? What if she hurt Sophie? Also, she’s so sorry for hurting Rebecca! Also! Also. Also. Now she’s “gonna fuck off and get the fuck out of LA.”
Rebecca, oh Holy Night, thanks Finley for her acknowledgement of harms caused, and reiterates that she’s a good person, but that good people make mistakes. As for Sophie:
Rebecca: “Was it … was it a mistake?”
[Finley pauses]
Finley: “It doesn’t matter. She’s getting married and I might’ve really fucked it up for her and she does not deserve that.”
Rebecca: “What about you? What do you deserve?”
Finley: “Not you! Not her! You guys are both like, way better than me.”
Rebecca: “See that? That’s shame. You have to address that.”
Finley: “How the fuck do you do that?”
Rebecca: “I don’t know. It’s not a cut and dry thing. It’s a life-long journey. Of cultivating self-worth, self-love.”
Finley: “Love? I don’t even like myself right now. Like at all. And I just need something. I need something concrete. I need some help here.”
Rebecca suggests taking responsibility for mistakes she’s made — she can start small, with little baby steps, like the one she just made by apologizing to Rebecca! Things are going great so far. Rebecca’s very compassionate. Finley takes it and also says she’s sorry for showing up like this and also:
Finley: “You are a real priest.”
Rebecca: “Thank you. You know I’m a minister right?
Finley: “And I TOTALLY know the difference between those two things.”
Before heading out into the bleak, timeless night, Finley needs one more thing — just a pen and some paper? “I know,” she says, self-deprecating, you know the way. The yep I’m still me, this kid who needs a pen.