Autostraddle’s Favorite Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer TV Couples of 2022
Love love love! Love! Is not a lie! At least not for these fictional characters that make up our list of Favorite Lesbian, Bisexual, and Queer TV Couples of 2022! (And for me, personally, captain of this team.) This is one of our most fun lists to make at the end of every year, and always somehow the most divisive. Just a friendly reminder that these are the personal favorites of our TV Team — and we would sure love to hear your personal favorites in the comments!
Bert and Gracie, A League of Their Own
Shelli Nicole: Excuse me but they are fucking PERFECT. A hot brown skinned Black couple that is glowing in love and happiness?! YES PLEASE. I think I love them so much because it’s clear that they have moved through life together. Like, together together. I am so happy we didn’t have to see the pain or sadness of their story that they may have had but saw the beautiful phase of love they were currently in and WHAT A FUCKING BEAUTIFUL ONE IT IS! I Love them, I LOVE them, EYE LOVE THEM!!!!
Ryan and Sophie, Batwoman
Nic: Y’all, the way I didn’t dare hope too loudly that #Wildmoore would become canon lest they go the way of many a subtextual couple before them, but I needn’t have worried! The Batwoman writers said, “we see you, we hear you, we’re going to give you the enemies to (jealous) friends to lovers you deserve.” It still blows my mind that we got to watch two Black women fall in love in front of our very eyes…ON THE CW. And not just fall in love with each other! Fall in love with themselves!
We watched Sophie navigate and ultimately question what being a Crow meant as a Black woman, because merely knowing Ryan Wilder was enough to open Sophie’s eyes to the multitude of injustices dealt out by that organization. We watched Ryan fight with her ownself about being vulnerable and letting someone new take down her carefully crafted walls brick by brick. Sophie is one of the very few people who SAW Ryan Wilder; who saw her struggles, her pain, her joy, her love, her selflessness, and didn’t leave. Sophie helped Ryan realize that she could be soft and still be the hero Gotham needed.
I could go on and on about how much these two mean to me, but you can read the recaps for that. Instead I’m going to yell about a few of my favorite Wildmoore canon couple moments we got BECAUSE THAT FIRST KISS?! The quintessential denial of feelings before accepting them! The clumsy first hookup leading to a broken lamp! One of their birth moms letting themselves in and catching her child’s girlfriend half naked! Normal girlfriend things! I only wish that we could have had more time to see Wildmoore in their settled couple stage. You know Alice would have weasled her way into multiple date nights!
But real talk, it was such a joy to witness these two grow separately and then together, and eventually allow themselves the happiness they both deserve. Let Black women be happy, shows!
Valerie Anne: It has been a long time since a couple has given me butterflies the way these two did, especially in this last season. Their banter dynamic was next-level and their first kiss felt so well-earned that I almost broke a lamp about it. And then every moment of them together after that was fun, stressful, flirty, sexy, all the best things. Also…have you SEEN Javicia Leslie and Meagan Tandy? They were a gift to us all and I will never, ever forgive the CW for taking them away from us when they were ramping up to even more side-by-side fight scenes, hilarious barbs, and epic smooches.
Natalie: There’s a moment in the season premiere for Batwoman’s third season when Ryan Wilder slides an envelope back across the table to Sophie Moore. Inside that envelope is the identity of her biological mother — the one that she thought had died, the one that she now knew just didn’t want her — but Ryan’s not interested anymore. She’s got the cowl, Mary, and Luke…she doesn’t need anything else.
“My whole life I wanted a family, I wanted answers, I wanted to belong to someone and for someone to belong to me,” Ryan reflects, before reaffirming her decision to keep the envelope’s contents a secret.
It’d take time. To be blackmailed. To deal with family mayhem. To have an ill-conceived one-night stand. To passive aggressively respond to the aforementioned ill-conceived one-night stand. To battle supervillains. To blow up trucks.* To carry the world on your shoulders. But eventually, Ryan would come to see that the person that she was always meant to belong to was sitting across the table from her the entire time. She’d realize that there was space for her to battle the hard world and savor the softness of love. Ryan Wilder belonged to Sophie Moore and Sophie Moore belonged to Ryan Wilder…their hearts always knew even if their heads didn’t.
It is a tragedy that we didn’t get more of them — I’ll be forever mad at the CW for denying us another season — but I’ll always savor what we got.
*Do I find Sophie Moore the sexiest when she’s showing off her skills as a military marksman? I’m sorry (#notsorry) but I do.
Carmen: The thing about Ryan Wilder and Sophie Moore is that I have spent more time thinking about this one couple than I probably have about… any other couple on television in years? Maybe, ever? I went back into fan fiction for them. I saved gifs to my phone for them. I even learned what a fan cam was (listen, fan cams were not around the last time I fandom’d in the Glee years, our internet did not allow). And that’s the point, isn’t it? I loved Ryan and Sophie like I have loved no other television couple since I was in the closet, since watching the piecemeal possibility of a television romance was like breathing in fresh air and just as vital to my survival.
And yet, I still have not been able to put them into words. It’s inadequate to say that watching Ryan and Sophie was like granting myself the permission I didn’t know I needed to be seen, because when Ryan and Sophie were good it was like watching fire come from the edges of my fingertips and consume me, but also as if I was the fire itself.
Ryan dropped her an octave range to say “Women, you’re hard to please,” she wrapped an itchy blue fire blanket around Sophie’s shoulders, and I was stuck weeks. It was so effortlessly chivalrous, so casually Black in its courting. The night Ryan talked about the exhaustion of being a Black woman expected to save the world, only to be comforted with a kiss by another Black woman who loved her — who really, truly loved her — who had fought her own family’s homophobia to save herself and knew exactly what that exhaustion means? I cried. Because that’s not just recognition. That’s… everything.
Ryan and Sophie were the central couple of a CW superhero show, they saved Gotham, and good for them. But this year Batwoman wrote a romance that saved a part of me that I didn’t realize still needed saving. And thank you will never be enough.
Lucy Tara and Kate Whistler, NCIS: Hawaii
Nic: If you told me in the year of Beyoncé 2022, I would have a couple from an NCIS property on a queer “best of” list, I probably would have laughed in your face. When I heard tell of* (*read: saw my Twitter timeline exploding) about “Kacy”, I apprehensively binged the entire first season. It was cool to see real time spent on out queer character on a CBS show, but until the finale, I probably would have written it off as just “cool.” But in the lead up to season 2, when even the cast had gotten aboard the good ship Kacy, I started to wonder if this would be different. And oh, it has been.
Season 2 is still airing at the moment, and so far we’ve gotten to see Kate and Lucy navigate a new relationship while working together, learn each other’s quirks, literally and figuratively lean on each other for support, and in episode 207, communicate openly and honestly about what forced time apart might do to their relationship. I might eat my words, but after that conversation on the beach, I have a good feeling about these two going forward. I love a procedural (*waves from season 9 of my Criminal Minds first-time binge) and it’s been the biggest surprise of my year to see a queer couple treated this well on a long-standing network franchise. Plus! They’re so stinkin’ cute together, y’all!
Natalie: Back when queer television representation was in its infancy, Hollywood — or at least the side of it that cared about LGBT people — liked to funnel its gay characters into respectable careers. The gay character would be police officers, veterans, first responders…something that immediately conferred respect. It was a well-intentioned effort to ingratiate queer characters (and by extension, queer people) to a straight audience. How could anyone hate this gay character when they saved a kid from a burning building or solved the murder of a beloved community member? How could anyone hate gay people when they too could be heroes?
Today we recognize that all those depictions also fed — and continue to feed — into a mythology about police and the military. They help perpetuate this idea of cops and service members as inherently good and trustworthy and sincere in their pursuit of justice. They are copaganda…NCIS: Hawai’i is copaganda…and I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that. It’s easy to forget sometimes — I am, admittedly, perpetually charmed by Kate Whistler — but let’s be honest about the space they occupy.
That said, I still think Kate and Lucy are a couple worth embracing. With each episode, the chemistry between Yasmine Al-Bustami and Tori Anderson’s characters grow and they fit together perfectly. Their relationship isn’t without angst or tension — particularly once Kate’s girlfriend comes for a visit — and both characters come to the table with their own baggage but even those moments feel authentic. You never get the sense that the show is manufacturing drama for the sake of drama. The comforting, the open communication, the sharing of space, both at home and at work…it feels like a very adult relationship in a way that we hardly ever get to see. I’ve been relishing it.
And listen…I’ll admit, there’s something about this couple existing, in this franchise, on this network (which still ranks last among broadcast networks for LGBT characters) that I just find astounding. During the first season, I kept waiting for the moment that Kacy would take a backseat to a newfound relationship for Jane or Jesse’s marriage, but that moment never came. NCIS: Hawai’i is continuing the series’ tradition of centering one romantic relationship…and this time, that relationship is between two women. I never would’ve imagined. What’s more? When you combine screentime with the show’s ratings, I’m not sure there’s a lesbian pairing on television that’s watched by more people that NCIS: Hawai’i’s Kacy. That, in itself, feels like a reason to keep your eyes on this pairing.
Uncle Clifford and Lil Murda, P-Valley
Drew Burnett Gregory: This is always the most challenging end of year category for me. I have a hard time finding couples IRL I want to ship let alone couples that have to fit into the dramatic arcs of narrative television. Despite being a romantic, I’m just not much of a shipper. When it comes to love triangles, usually I’m rooting for the protagonist to choose whoever makes them happy — or make it a throuple.
This is all to say… when I say I ship Uncle Clifford and Lil Murda that means something. I care DEEPLY about these fictional characters and their love. I did in season one and that only increased in season two. I mean, come on, when Keyshawn questions why all Murda wrote was “I love you” to Clifford and Murda says, “Keyshawn, that’s the only thought.” MY GOD.
I really appreciate that this season gave them time apart, time for Murda to confront his past, and ultimately return to Clifford ready to have a real relationship. Yes, Clifford has some walls up but they’re there for a reason. She knows how she deserves to be treated and she isn’t willing to settle. Murda acknowledges that and meets her where she deserves. I can’t wait to see them properly together in season three.
Harley and Ivy, Harley Quinn
Valerie Anne: If you had asked me seven years ago if one of my favorite shows would be an animated DC property featuring a Batman villain I would have laughed in your face. I’ve never cared for the Batman properties (except LEGO Batman) and too many female DC villains have been…one-dimensional. If you had asked me SIX years ago if I’d care about any version of Harley Quinn that wasn’t Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, I would have denied it a thousand times. And yet! Here we are. And I’m head over heels for this animated version of Harley Quinn, and, more specifically, her relationship with Poison Ivy. I love their dynamic so much. It’s like the black cat/golden retriever dynamic but turned up to eleven. See also: the best friends to lovers trope! Also a big fan of that. The show is funny and lovely and their relationship is so fun to watch.
Heather Hogan: I joked the other day that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy have a healthier relationship than Bette and Tina — but honestly, I wasn’t kidding? Season three of Harley Quinn allowed Harley and Ivy to each grow as people and supervillains, and also to grow as a couple. Plus, despite the name of the show, it was Ivy who really got to pursue her dreams this year, with Harley’s full support. (You know, until she turned the entirity of Gotham City into a zombie plant army.) Harley and Ivy are kind of the perfect story of two best friends falling in love, and figuring out how to make the transition from being each other’s favorite person to being each other’s favorite person + sex + building this whole new thing (a relationship!) together. They struggle with it sometimes, but they always talk it out, process deeply like the bisexual queens they are, find a way to be on the same team, and forgive as easily as they love.
Juliette and Cal, First Kill
Valerie Anne: I don’t care if the internet at large hated this show. I loved it. I enjoyed every second of its overdramatic, cheesy, vampy story. I loved how unhinged it was, I loved the heavy-handed Romeo & Juliet metaphors, I love the forbidden vampire/slayer romance, I loved that Elizabeth Mitchell said the line, “You ate my mother?” with an earnesty only possible from an Emmy-nominated actress like herself. I’ll forever be mad that show didn’t get more seasons, because I think it had the potential to be the queer answer to Twilight. (Well…queer-er. Twilight is pretty gay in its own right, and all vampires are queer, but you know what I mean.)
Dani and Gigi, The L Word: Generation Q
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya: Listen. Do they technically break up ALMOST IMMEDIATELY in the third season? Yes. Does that preclude them from being one of my favorite couples on television for the second year in a row? NAY. Am I rooting for a Gigi/Dani/Nat throuple or at the very least threesome even though that went horribly with Alice? MAYBE SO.
Carson and Greta, A League of Their Own
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya: I am EXTREMELY on the record as being a huge fan of a homoerotic haircut moment, and that’s literally how Carson and Greta start their courtship. I’m also a sucker for a height difference relationship, and they check that box as well! I am ultimately happy with where things end up between the two of them, because I always prefer deeper and more emotionally complex storytelling to just like a blanket happy ending.
Villanelle and Eve, Killing Eve
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya: They’re not your typical couple, sure, but this was never your typical show, often blurring lines between genres and tones. I am one of the rare homosexuals who actually liked the end of this series, and I feel like the version of a “relationship” that we finally got between its leading characters feels right for them as characters and for the series as a whole. It’s brutal, impulsive, erotic, violent, and thrilling. At last, they get to consume each other.
Riese: While of course there are… problems with the final five minutes of this couple’s story, I’m still thrilled that we got to witness them consummating their four seasons of cat-and-mouse prior to its bitter end. Just walking down that country road nudging each other playfully? I never thought we’d get to see it, and then we did.
Kai & Amelia, Grey’s Anatomy
Riese: It’s been a minute since I had any earthly idea what was taking place at Seattle Grace on a week-to-week basis, but this ship brought me right back. Partially because Kai is pretty dreamy and ER Fightmaster is my style icon, but I also love this character who’s committed to research ’cause they aren’t into working with patients. Also, Amelia was apparently “conceived as a queer character” who was supposed to be dating a female doctor in the first episode of Private Practice, but “that never made it into the final edit and we’ve only seen her dating men.” So you know, it was a long time coming! Anyhow I love how they’re competitively nerdy with each other and how Kai lowers their head and takes Amelia’s head in their hand and then they kiss!!!
Luz and Amity, The Owl House
Heather Hogan: These two magical weirdos! So timid and awkward with each other at first, all blushing and brushing fingertips and missteps! And now they’re girlfriends, first girlfriends, and all the giddy wonder that goes along with that. They even kissed. ON THE DISNEY CHANNEL. But it’s not all dancing in the rain; Luz and Amity are also tag-teaming to save the Boiling Isles, their families, and their relationship in The Owl House’s final season. They struggle sometimes, of course. Luz is used to barreling forth full steam ahead to solve her problems without consulting anyone! Amity is used to being dismissed by her mother and sometimes the rest of her family too! They’re insecure a little bit. They worry they’re not being THE BEST GIRLFRIEND IN THE WORLD sometimes. But dang, they work it out better than most adults I know! Amity and Luz are so sweet and so soft and so silly. I will love them fully long after they save the world and ride off into the sunset.
Max and Esther, A League of Their Own
Heather Hogan: I’m that kind of tender queer that drives everyone else up the wall with my love of sweet, sweet, sweetness. But oh, Esther and Max are something else entirely. Obviously I was getting a swoon off of them when they danced together at Grace and Bertie’s party and Max woke up in that hat with that lipstick kiss on her cheek. But when Max and Clance showed up at the factory and Esther was the PITCHER for Red Wright’s All Stars? I literally screamed at the TV. I SCREAMED. By the time Esther had antagonized Max to the point that she was launching a baseball across the factory floor and hollering about IS THAT LOUD ENOUGH FOR YA, I was too in love with them to function. Max is never wrong-footed! She is so sure of what she wants, so driven, so positive she’s going to get it. Then she sees another women who HAS IT, and who danced all over her the night before too. Esther goes from giving Max nothing, not even a hint of a smile, to giving her literally everything. And when Max pulled Esther in by the collar of her unbuttoned jersey in the dark of the baseball field parking lot? Reader, I melted into a useless puddle of lesbian goop.