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?