We then return to the hit CBS sitcom Finley’s Home! sponsored by Carmax. Micah compliments Finley on the wonderful dinner and Finley talks over Sophie. Finley says she grew up on an orchard like Johnny Appleseed.
Sophie gets up and walks over to her kitchen window as the spirit of song rises within her, and she begins — and my lord Rosanny Zayas CAN SING — Please don’t speak, it has been my turn for a while, shh, don’t speak, you will hear me out now —
Everything about this number works in a vacuum — Rosanny’s pipes, Jacqueline’s comedic timing, Micah and Maribel as understated scene partners — even the song itself slaps!
But where is all of this even coming from? When has Finley “silenced” Sophie except when she needed her to leave Dana’s ’cause she was upset about Dre being hot?
Sophie leaps on the table and starts rapping and I honestly screamed in delight. She goes, Don’t need someone to speak for me / That was my codependency and simply… imagine if we’d actually seen Sophie engaging in codependent behavior? As a Sinley shipper I would’ve likely hated every minute of it, but it would make this episode make actual sense. Either way, I’d also write a very different ending to this episode!
Anyhow, putting aside my utter devastation and fury at this turn of events, this is definitely a Rent shout-out, right?
As Sophie steps into her light and the audience shifts in her favor, she sheds the black & white of Kansas for the brilliant technicolor of Oz.
The audience is going wild chanting Sophie Sophie Sophie…
Dani and Finley are furious that their little muffin has gone off-script and shifted fan discourse in her favor.
We then return to Old Timey Sailor Land, where Tess tells Shane she knows sailors like her who have girls in every port.
And sure, maybe Shane’s got a girl in every port too, or maybe, just maybe — she hasn’t met the right port girl yet until this very evening, when she tore Tess away from her planned performance at Dana’s to stroll down the misty streets under the light of the full moon and then break into song. Shane dips her and kisses her like she’s a butterscotch-coated cone at the Dairy Queen but hark! Shane’s Girls have found her! And they are very good dancers! They chase her all the way up to the roof of a gorgeous building in Green Screen Land!
Tess offers Shane an escape from what would probably be a fun afternoon trying out double-ended dildos — Shane can jump off the roof and into her car! “It’s the only way we can be together forever!” Tess calls and Shane looks down, hesitating at the thought of “forever,’ which’s the moment I thought Shane might be realizing that no, she’s not ready for forever with Tess right now. But like so many things in this life, I was wrong.
We then return to ’80s Game Show Land, where Alice and Dana are laughing on their model bed, discussing Alice’s past life decisions including Nat, who Alice notes reminds her of Dana. And then she realizes it — that all this time, that’s what she’s been doing — trying to find a piece of Dana in everyone else.
So Alice elongates her lithe neck towards the roof of the soundstage and belts that Dana is her person, and we get only one (1) person, and obvs Alice has the worst luck with love because it all comes back to Dana. I teared up immediately because I have a lot of feelings about death and spending your whole life trying to replace a dead person. So she wants to stay here, of course, and be with Dana forever! Dana says she can’t do that, she’s here for one episode and one episode only.
Alice: “But I asked the universe to show me the one and they found you.”
Dana: “So?”
Alice: “So, if you’re the one then I have to stay! I mean, it’s over for me out there. I missed it.”
Dana: “You missed it. But not with me. You have to let me go. The one is still out there for you.”
Alice: “What? Who is it? Do you know?”
Dana: “Of course I know!”
Alice: “Do they know you too?”
Dana: “In a way…”
I teared up hardest when Alice — who’s a happy person with a thriving career and cute outfits and a luxurious apartment and great friends and the skin of a 25-year-old — said “it’s over for me out there” ’cause that’s the truest thing of all, that nothing on this side ever feels as good as the possibility of returning to that one person you lost, forever.
Back on the set of Anchors Aweigh!, Shane’s still struggling to jump off a building, just like Marie on the roof of the LGBT Center in Season Six womp womp. But then surprise! She takes the leap!
Unfortunately her trip is now over. Everybody’s trip is over. They’ve made it to the other side!!!
Everybody wakes up disoriented in the dim light of their ceremonial yurt, trying to process the musical numbers they just pulled off.
Alice continues mulling over Dana knowing her soulmate “in a way” and despite Dana definitely knowing Shane in a very easily-defined and clear-cut way (because she like… literally knew Shane), Alice begins to wonder if in fact this person is… Shane? I support this line of inquiry because it leads to the season’s most delightful comedic beat:
After the kiss — which Shane leans into, by the way! — they immediately separate and feel yucky and Alice re-states that she is really really high! Sophie announces that she’s gotta go find Finley, and dashes out of the yurt like she’s about to hike to a remote bus stop and tell her life story to some Canadian character actors.
As Alice and Shane exit the yurt on their own time, Alice tells Shane that she saw Dana and Shane’s so happy for her and I wondered if maybe they could do another musical episode so Shane could be rocketed into a hallucination of a Boston marriage with her novelist wife Jenny who would sing a ballad and then they’d make out.
What happens next is a mystery I suspect only Moses on Mount Sinai or the Oracle of Delphi or Sandra Bernhard’s character in AHS: NYC could crack for me: Shane and Sophie are both seemingly determined to immediately find their scene partners and deliver desires inspired by their recent musical adventures. They leave the room as if they intend to leave the entire resort. But this was apparently a weekend retreat, they did arrive together on a group bus, everybody did pack a suitcase, and when we next meet our fine feathered friends, it is indeed the next morning and they are all wearing new outfits.
First up on this confusing time span is Alice, who’s in her apartment digging through old boxes when she comes upon the sunshine toy. You know the one.
Yep:
At this point, a soft cover of “you are my sunshine” begins to echo in my brain or perhaps even on the show itself, bringing me to tears immediately! YET AGAIN. As Alice repeats I know them in a way she finds another item in this auspicious box: her book.
Holding her book, thinking about Dana and thinking about the short list of actors available to return for a 2-3 episode arc for this season of The L Word: Generation Q, it all coalesces into a clear vision for Alice: Tom. Her soulmate is Tom! She pulls out her phone to send him a text. Unfortunately that text is not “u up? 🌈”
Listen, I love Tom and am stoked for his return, but I disagree that he’s Alice’s soulmate. They had chemistry, but — Alice’s soulmate is Dana. And that’s okay! Sometimes your soulmate dies prematurely of breast cancer because your showrunner thought it would be a good story to tell and then almost immediately realized it was not, in fact, a good story to tell. But maybe we can have multiple soulmates. Or maybe 2022 is actually the ideal year for Alice to reunite with Helena Peabody, now that they both wear $95 La Perla thongs and can afford to eschew a Whistler Ski Weekend for a week on the crystal shores of the Turks and Caicos. I’d also like everybody to close their eyes and consider Tasha. Remember Tasha’s laugh? DO YOU?
And now, my friends, we return to a scene that angered me so deeply I couldn’t even cry I was so mad, in which Sophie returns home from her retreat to find a self-sufficient Finley, car keys in hand. She got her sweet ride all by herself, is sorry for being weird about it, and realized how important it is for the two of them to grow separately as well as together.
Sophie: “I can’t do this anymore. I love you, but I’m not my full self when I’m with you, Fin.”
Finley: “Uhhh. okay. What does that mean?”
Sophie: “It means that I twist and turn my insides to be the person that I think you want me to be—”
Finley: “Well I—”
Sophie: “I did it with Dani too.”
Finley: “Uh… okay. But you’re not… you’re not trying to end this, right? Cause we can do stuff, we can figure this out. You’re looking at me like that but —”
Sophie: “It’s over Finn. It has to be. I don’t wanna hurt you but I need to be alone, okay?”
GIRL YOU JUST SPENT 15 MONTHS ALONE WHILE FINLEY WAS IMPROBABLY AWAY AT REHAB FOLLOWED BY SOBER LIVING DURING WHICH TIME YOU APPARENTLY DID NOT SEE EACH OTHER EVEN ONE TIME AND SEEMINGLY RARELY SPOKE BUT WERE KINDA TOGETHER BUT ALSO ON A BREAK??? Maybe none of this makes sense because before all of this, that didn’t make sense.
Because we saw her twisting with Dani! But the whole beauty of Sophie and Finley was that she could be her full self with Finley, and vice versa. And if she’s truly been twisting, if she’s falling into codependency, then why haven’t we been watching that instead of this:
And why couldn’t they then, work through it and try to fix it? Because if you are susceptible to codependence and you’re dating an addict then this dynamic could definitely happen but it could also be addressed and processed and repaired. And also Finley hasn’t done anything wrong? Or made Sophie’s life harder or… just… what? Why just… give up? Finley seems as surprised by this turn of events as I am.
I was initially so pleased they hadn’t broken up between seasons, but now I wish they had so that we could be at the part of the season where they are GETTING BACK TOGETHER.
And, finally, Shane returns to the Former Shess Shack to announce her new personality to Tess but the moment Tess opens the sliding glass door and emerges into the main room wearing a bodycon turtleneck gown and the facial expression and posture of a war widow, I knew. We all knew.
Shane, however, does not know.
Shane begins talking before Tess can say a word:
Shane: “I’ve realized something — and this could sound crazy but I realized that I’ve been hanging on to this part of me for a very long time and I’m scared to let that go because I don’t know who i am without it. Does that make sense?” [Tess nods] “Well with that being said, I’d like another chance, to get better at this, and I wanna earn your trust back.”
But at this point Tess is sobbing and Shane doesn’t know why, she didn’t mean to make her cry! So then Tess tells her what we sensed from the start of this scene which is: “my Mom died.” Shane embraces Tess immediately and Tess cries in her arms and I also cried because it is an involuntary physical response I have to somebody’s parent dying on a television show or cinema film.
And this is where our journey ends — the show’s split up Dani and Gigi and also Sophie and Finley for suspicious reasons, but Shane and Tess intend to reunite despite the fact that Tess low-key manipulated Shane into buying Baby Bar #2 and also won’t let her name it The Jenny Schecter Memorial Tavern or even “Lez Girls,” which’d be a cute little name for a French lesbian bistro. They could serve croissants and their logo could be a little picture of Jenny in a beret! Just think about it!
And THAT, my friends, is what you missed on Glee!
L Word Generation Q Episode 306 Recap Roundup:
Lesbian Squabbles: 0 this episode, 10 total
Lesbian Sexy Moments: One this episode, 5 total
Quote of the Week: tie between Micah’s “I need more motivation to walk through the door” and Alice’s “We are here to do team building and drugs!”
