Boob(s On Your) Tube: Lovable Lesbian Sex Is Back On “Grey’s Anatomy”

Shondaland is back which means fall TV is really, truly here! There’s going to be a lot to unpack in the coming months, so I’ve asked all our Boobs Tubes writers to keep their mini-caps under 1,000 words. If something deserves more than that, I’ll make sure it lands on the home page with a headline all to itself. This week I reviewed the stellar Battle of the Sexes, Mey reviewed the new season of Transparent, Carmen Phillips caught you up on Star, and Pretty Little Liars is inexplicably spinning off.

American Horror Story: Cult, Episode 704, “11/9”

Written by Riese

These feel like pretty thick envelopes baby, I think we both got into Smith!”

As American Horror Story: Cult gains distance from its early premise, which summoned a dark familiarity from an audience who possibly saw themselves in Sarah Paulson’s wild, panicked, guttural scream at CNN’s announcement of apocalyptic election results, Kai’s titular Cult reveals itself to be ten parts wacky and zero parts partisan. Kai may trumpet Trump’s words and policies when he’s on the mic, but behind the scenes it isn’t Trump or Trump’s politics he loves so much as it is Trump’s ability to strategically harness fear. Throughout “11/9,” which occurs almost entirely in flashbacks to the fall and winter of 2016, we witness a surprisingly charismatic Kai manipulate frightened people by responding to their fear and anger with brutal absolutes, swift action and unwavering loyalty that is essentially sadistic but somehow masquerades as compassion.

Kai is smarter than Trump and smarter than Trump’s ideas, and better than Trump at convincing a member of just about any demographic group that he uniquely understands their pain and is uniquely willing to do anything to soothe it. And by “anything” I mean TERRIBLE MURDER.

This week’s episode contains several time jumps, and opens on Election Night. Winter and her pals are in line, chanting “pussy grabs back” and dissing The Patriarchy, there’s a surly Harrison, an idiotic Meadow (who declares herself truly unfit to vote for anything besides the Emmys), and Ivy triple-checking with Ally that she’s not gonna lodge a protest vote and instead help her make! history! In the booth, though, Ally can’t bring herself to vote for Hillary and instead votes for Jill Stein. Harrison votes for Gary Johnson, Meadow writes in “Oprah,” Ivy and Winter vote for Hillary, Gary Longstreet aka Chaz Bono (who arrives triumphantly with Kai sporting a severed, bloody arm, b/c nothing can take him away from MAGA) votes for Trump, as does, obviously, Kai.

Another time jump lands us the day prior to the election. Ally’s wrapped herself in a self-righteous fleece blend blanket and is cradling her giant mug of lesbian tea, refusing to accompany her nice paper plate wife Ivy to a rally that honestly I do not see the actual point of. Ivy wants Ally to be stoked about their son seeing a Black president and then a women president but Ally thinks Hillary is too entitled. “She acts as if it’s owed to her,” Ally insists, before waxing poetic about Jill Stein’s push for green energy and labeling GMOs. “Honey, I swear to you, if I thought Trump had a chance in hell of winning, I wouldn’t even consider it,” she adds as Ivy busts their communal pop stand. “He’s a reality TV star for G-d’s sake, honey! It’s never gonna happen!”

At the rally, Ivy’s grotesquely groped by Longstreet after an unnecessary face-off about Hillary calling Real Americans “deplorables,” and that Grope Moment is a true fucking American Horror Story I’ll tell you what. Winter sees it happen and steps in like a fierce feminist warrior full of indignant rage. Then she asks if Ivy wants to get some lunch like a fierce feminist warrior full of latent lesbian lust. So, in that moment it’s all very clear, you see: Ivy wasn’t concerned about the bathroom camera. She put it there. Ivy wasn’t concerned about Winter’s criminally insufficient babysitting skills — that’s gotta be part of the plan too, somehow. At The Butchery on Main, Winter says Ivy’s “incredible” for owning her own restaurant. Ivy mutters, “yeah, tell that to my wife.”

The episode is mostly Kai, though. We see Kai endear himself to Beverly, the Black news anchor getting pushed into the severed head beat while Serena, played by Emma Roberts, covers spa treatments and gives their boss blow jobs. Kai swiftly arranges for Serena to be stabbed to death while reporting on a puppy adoption party. (The puppy survives, don’t worry Heather.) We see Kai endear himself to Harrison, who Kai hires as his personal trainer. Kai will teach Harrison to be a big strong man full of hatred and fear! Harrison is forced to clean up jizz spills in the bathroom by his homophobic boss Vinny, which is unfair! Also unfair: Meadow and Harrison are losing their house ’cause Meadow’s irresponsible and terrible, I guess? So, in that moment it’s all very clear you see: killing Chang not only opened up a city council seat, but also gave Harrison and Meadow a place to live. Also, Kai tells Harrison that he’s straight but “if someone is in my crew, man or woman, I will fight for them and kill for them. And if they wake up with a hard-on that won’t quit, I will find a way to make sure they know I still love them.” Very normal cool cult stuff, obvs. Kai does Harrison a solid by helping him brutally murder Vinny and then sever his head in a motel bathroom! That’s true bromance.

Winter and Ivy, which btw sounds like a new face luminizer from Kiehl’s, accost Longstreet at his place of employ, the Stepford Supermarket, duct-tape his mouth shut and handcuff him to a pole in Winter’s basement where he’ll remain unable to execute his Right to Vote. Until, of course, Kai rescues him by literally sawing his arm off. “I hurt someone,” Ivy says, dazed, to Winter. “How did it feel?” Winter asks, deadpan. “It felt fucking fantastic,” Ivy responds.

So, yes, literally everybody in this Anonymous Small But Not That Small town in Michigan is in cahoots with each other, regardless of politics. The killer cult, led by Kai, contains at the very least Winter, Ivy, Harrison, Meadow, Officer Samuels and Beverly Hope. There’s always some entertainment to be found in retrospectively connecting the dots, I guess. Will ensuing plot twists be loud enough to drown out my political discomfort with this program? Did Ivy know that this plot would eventually involve blowing up a guinea pig in her microwave? Who knows! Be sure to tune in next week, when nobody will scissor and a series of questions will be answered OR perhaps sidestepped entirely.

Grey’s Anatomy

Written by Carmen Phillips

And here’s what lesbian brains look like when they find out Carol is on Netflix.

Last season ended with Stephanie Edwards leaving Grey’s Anatomy like a superhero, flying through flames and saving a little girl from a rapist. Unfortunately, this also lead to a significant chunk of the hospital being caught in an explosion. Eliza Minnick was fired and Owen’s long lost sister Megan Hunt was found after ten years of everyone thinking she was dead. In the first few minutes of this episode we learn that Stephanie has been airlifted to a burn center in Texas (no doubt a shout out actress Jerrika Hinton’s actual home state, Miss you Jerrika! Hope you’re well!) and that Eliza has “ghosted” Arizona because Marika Dominczyk won’t be back this year either.

Arizona goes drinking at Joe’s bar to drown her sorrows over Eliza when a sexy brunette and an Italian accent offers to buy her a drink. Arizona is who she is so I knew this was only going one place: with the sexy woman half dressed on top of her on her couch. But oh no, wait! Sexy Italian bar pick up is intern DeLuca’s sister!

The DeLucas yell at each other in Italian for a while and it’s pretty adorable, if only to watch Arizona’s face as her eyes bounce back and forth between the two like a tennis match. He leaves in a huff, and Arizona encourages her new date, Carina, to get back on top of her and finish taking off her shirt. Well then, ahem.

When we next see Dr. Carina DeLuca we learn that she’s an OB-GYN. More specifically, she’s focusing her research on the neurology of female sexuality and the ways that sexual stimulation might help pain control in women. She’s found funding, and she’s approached Dr. Bailey because she would like permission to use Grey Sloan Memorial’s MRI machines to map women’s brains as they masturbate to orgasm. Bailey says yes and we are off to the metaphorical races!

Bailey later brings Amelia and Maggie over to see the research in progress, and the pleased/ shy/ awed smiles on their faces is enough to light up my whole week! Fuck yes, we should take female sexuality seriously. As I watching this scene, I was thinking about how the fight for women’s healthcare is once again taking center stage thanks to the ongoing effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In every new Republican iteration of the bill, pregnancy would become a “preexisting condition” and birth control would no longer be seen as essential coverage, even though Viagra would. Using Dr. DeLuca’s research to highlight the vital importance of funding for women’s healthcare is both timely and critical.

Carina DeLuca also uses her research to hit on Arizona. She has Arizona sit down in the observation room and together they look at scans of women’s brains during masturbation while Carina’s mouth is a breath’s pace away from Arizona’s ear: telling her about slowly building tensions, climbing and climbing, before release. She softly moves Arizona’s hair before giving her nibbling kisses on her earlobe, then down to her collarbone. All while they are still in the observation room! Basically, in less than two episodes, Dr. Deluca has me like putty in her hands. And if the little half mouth moans, seat squirms, and glazed over eyes from Arizona are any indication, I am not the only one. Hot queer sex is back on Grey’s in a real way!

The major not gay plot in the two-hour premiere involved Owen’s long lost sister, Megan Hunt. I really braced myself to hate the Megan plot, but instead it turned out that I loved her. Megan was held captive for the last ten years, but her captors were primarily interested in her skills as a trauma surgeon. She was allowed to live a “normal” life provided that she operated for them and didn’t try to run away. She also has an adopted Syrian son, ten-year-old Farooq, and an open abdominal wound. Meredith works with Bailey and Webber to repair the wound while Owen, Nathan, Teddy, and Mama Hunt all tend to Megan (PS: every time Teddy was on my screen for the whole first hour I screamed “TEDDY ALTMAN I LOVE YOU!” at my television). A lot of interpersonal dynamics were at play here, but I want to focus on Farooq.

Megan is desperate to have her wound fixed because she was not allowed to bring Farooq with her to the United States and therefore needs to get home to him in Iraq. When she first explains this to everyone in the room, they’re shocked. Megan Hunt is a war hero, clearly an exception could be made for her. But, that is not the case. While it isn’t explicitly named, Trump’s travel ban haunts heavily over the plot at hand. All versions of the ban, including the temporary one held up by the Supreme Court in the spring and he reissue given just this week, have banned Syrian refugees from entering the United States.⁠ Grey’s Anatomy is using Megan Hunt to show not only that love doesn’t follow boundaries of nation, but also that the ban itself is cruel and breaks families apart. Megan loves Farooq, calling him “one half of my heart.” Owen, Nathan, and Teddy take to the phones to advocate on Megan’s behalf, but there is no reprieve.

Oh, and Amelia Shepherd found out in the final seconds that she has a massive brain tumor in her frontal lobe! We are in real danger here because the only person I’d trust to take out Amelia Shepherd’s brain tumor is… Amelia Shepherd. And even Shonda isn’t willing to go that far, I suspect.

Anyway, between Megan Hunt’s love for her son and Carina DeLuca’s research, Shonda Rhimes used her platform on one of the most watched nights of television to subtly give a feminist middle finger to the new administration. Just when I thought that I couldn’t love her more.

I’m thinking of ending our time together with some odds-and-ends observations that I couldn’t fit into the recap proper. Let me know if this works for you in the comments!

Post-Op Thoughts:

+ Is Eliza’s Apartment Full of Movers the new Parking Lot of No Return?

+ And at what point can we safely say that hot brunettes who speak a second language are Arizona’s type? Callie spoke Spanish, Eliza spoke Polish, and now Carina with Italian?

+ Callbacks this episode that I loved: Karev got into the residency program based on a fraudulent essay he wrote about his testicular cancer (that he never had), Kepner failed her boards and was fired from the program TWICE!! Meredith once slept with George, and Teddy talked about Henry! Also, this line from Meredith to Jo: “If you want to be a shark, be a shark. Don’t apologize for it.” Cristina Yang, you’re never far from us.

+ I haven’t had the chance to read this interview between Kelly McCreary and Aja Naomi King yet, but I adore them both and believe you will enjoy it!

+ The ongoing saga of Chief Bailey and the heels she was forced to wear because of patriarchy was the most relatable thing I saw television this week.

How to Get Away With Murder

Written by Natalie

The season premiere of How to Get Away With Murder feels like two different episodes in one. One episode is filled with the twists and turns and OMG moments that makes HTGAWM into a trending topic every Thursday night; the other a deep character-driven exploration that reveals more about Annalise than we’ll ever learn from her cases.

Annalise returns to Memphis to convince her mother, whose dementia continues to progress, that she should retire to a nursing home. Ophelia is having absolutely none of it — blasting her daughters for trying to tell her how to live — and shuts herself in her bedroom. She re-emerges in the middle of the night, wide-eyed and trapped in the throws of an episode, rushing to escape the fire she’d set years ago. Annalise grabs her, assures Ophelia that it’s her dementia at work, only to to have her urinate on the floor.

I did get robbed of that Emmy, but I’ll be back next year, don’t worry.

Annalise takes her mother to the bathroom and helps her get cleaned up. As Ophelia sits on the toilet, Annalise dries her back and lotions her feet, and together, they sing a “lullaby” from Annalise’s childhood. It’s an amazing scene — all Viola Davis’ scenes with Cicely Tyson are — that recalls one of their earliest, only this time, it’s the daughter tending to her mama, not the other way around.

But even in the grips of dementia, Ophelia sees her daughter — perhaps as clearly now as she ever has. I’d quote it, but no words I can craft will do Tyson’s performance justice. Just watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hQ6GhQK6Xg

It’s the last line — “I promise you I will hold on to me for as long as I can, and what I want is for you to hold on to you too — that makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry. Her mother sees her — the stories she’s told and even the secrets she’s kept — her mother sees it all and, still, she urges Annalise to hold on.

As she departs, Annalise finally gets the apology she’s needed for her entire life from her father. The apology feels warranted, yet woefully insufficient, but it’s a moment of healing.

Whatever redemption awaits Annalise in Philadelphia, it started in Memphis.

Yes, this is the gayest thing I’ve ever worn, thank you for noticing.

When she arrives at her disciplinary hearing, Annalise admits to being drunk on the night she was arrested. Everything’s been taken from her, Annalise points out, and the ability to practice law is all she has left. The tale she weaves isn’t exactly the truth — but it’s the closest thing to genuine remorse that we’ve seen from anyone on this show, maybe ever.

The disciplinary committee accepts Annalise’s defense and agrees to let her continue practicing law, under the condition that she undergo therapy with Jimmy Smits.

Afterwards, Annalise and Bonnie meet with the Keating Four for what Michaela calls, “the last supper.” Years of Sunday School lessons flash through my head and I note everyone’s positions at the table. Annalise — who has to be Jesus in this metaphor because she’s Viola Davis so, of course, she is — is flanked to the left by Asher and to the right by Bonnie, positions most ascribe to Judas and John, respectfully. From this moment on, I’m even more annoyed by everything that Asher does, in anticipation of his betrayal.

When ol’ Judas passes around the champagne to toast Annalise’s non-disbarment, Laurel demurs. She can’t drink because she’s decided to have Wes’ baby, despite what she told her father. As the table reacts to the news, Laurel fixes in on Annalise, waiting for a reaction but she gets none, much to her clear disappointment.

AK announces that, despite the disciplinary committee’s ruling, she’s cutting ties with her young associates and sending them on their way with thoughtful recommendation letters. She blames herself for ruining Wes and won’t risk ruining them any further…a fate that Connor accepts with his typical smugness, Laurel accepts with feigned indifference, Michaela accepts with the anger of a scorned lover and Asher accepts by mansplaining the right way to dump someone.

You’ll probably get tired of me saying this by the end of these recaps, but I feel obliged to point out that these people assign a culpability to Annalise that she hasn’t earned. She didn’t kill Lila, Frank did. She didn’t kill Sam or burn his remains, Wes, Michaela, Connor and Laurel did. She didn’t suffocate Rebecca Sutter, Bonnie did. And she certainly didn’t run Emily Sinclair over with her car, Asher did that.

Here is some delicious summer squash and also you no longer work for me.

Annalise isn’t innocent but her greatest sin — in fact, the thing that is ruining her — is that she cares about the people at that table. She could waking up beside Eve in an outrageously expensive flat in Paris with a view of the Sacré-Coeur, but no…instead, she’s here trying to save these ungrateful nobodies from themselves.

Welcome to being a black woman in America, friends.

At any rate, the Keating Four aren’t the only ones that Annalise is letting go: Bonnie, who’d been picking out new office space with Frank, is also handed a recommendation letter. She protests, but Annalise won’t hear it, and Bonnie’s left alone with a single tear trickling down her face.

She recovers quickly, though, because the next time we see Bonnie, she’s sitting outside the ADA’s office, waiting to meet with Todd Denver. Going immediately to Annalise’s nemesis looks like a betrayal — the reading of Annalise’s recommendation letter, which lauds Bonnie for her loyalty, plays over the scene — but it seems too obvious. Besides, Annalise’s letter leaves me even more convinced that Bonnie’s the John the Apostle of her former boss’ last supper.

Everyone else handles Annalise’s rejection with varying degrees of success. Michaela psychs herself up — “Beast Mode time,” she says— so that she and Asher can become the Michelle Obama and White Barack they were meant to be. Oliver’s impressed with the recommendation that Annalise has written for Connor — Oliver hasn’t even been told he’s fired yet— but Connor’s dismissive. He politely rejects Oliver’s marriage proposal, claiming he wants to wait until things are “normal and good,” but when have they ever been more normal or good? It’s like he’s striving for the life he thinks he should want and not the life he actually does. He’s the Bette Porter of HTGAWM.

And then there’s Laurel, who settles into bed in Wes’ old apartment, with a handgun next to her, gently rubbing her swelling belly. She’s interrupted by a text from her father and she types out “Why did you kill Wes?” in response— which feels like a bigger revelation than the show treats it as — but she sends “love you too,” instead.

Three months later, Laurel wakes up in the hospital to Frank and Annalise’s therapist, her swollen belly gone and with no sign of her baby.