Happy Yellowjacket Friday! Kayla not only wrote you a recap this week; she also made you a list of shows to watch if you love Yellowjackets! Also, on the recap beat is Drew, who both recapped Drag Race and interviewed Peppermint about her new comedy special. In brand new TV this week, Kayla reviewed Dead Ringers, Shelli reviewed Slip, and Netflix dropped the trailer for their new reality show, The Ultimatum: Queer Love. A.Tony wrote about how they’ll watch anything where survivors get justice. And Riese let you know where the cast of The Real L Word is now.

Notes from the TV Team:

+ I’m sure that Carmen will have plenty to say about last night’s episode of Station 19, but I wanted to take a second to note the passing of the torch behind the scenes: as Krista Vernoff hands over showrunner duties to Zoanne Clack and Peter Paige. I’m not as familiar with Clack’s TV work but Paige’s hiring feels like a real gift. A former actor on Queer as Folk turned creator/producer of The Fosters and Good Trouble getting to shepherd the next chapter of Maya and Carina’s love story? That feels like such a win. — Natalie

+ On Grey’s Anatomy there’s nothing explicitly gay (though we do get a Helm sighting, as she shows up at Teddy’s office to defend Intern Yasuda the love of her life and tells Teddy to do something about burn out culture among the interns, which I loved). But I wanted to note that Amelia is really mourning Kai. Addison showed up and gave one of my new favorite Addie/Amelia sisters scene. Honestly, if they just wrote Kate Walsh back into the show permanently I would be so happy. I genuinely think she could be a linchpin to this entire new era of Grey’s and if we have to break Addison up with her Private Practice husband Benjamin Bratt to do it, well that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. Henry’s about 10 years old now? He could move to Seattle with his mom.

Anyway, the last thing I wanted to say was that there were references to old Grey’s galore, including Addison’s love of Hot Chocolate juju, that so many of the doctors are mass shooting survivors, and at the end…. A NOTE FROM CRISTINA FUCKING YANG (!!!) with medical supplies, telling Addison to keep up the good fight. And yes, I did cry. — Carmen

+ Your Friday night TV plans are about to get a lot more exciting: Friday night WNBA games are coming, every week, to ION. — Heather

Station 19 615: “What Are You Willing to Lose”

Written by Carmen

As far as I’m concerned, this was easily a Top Two Marina episode — and there’s a strong argument that it’s not #2. Despite my proud Love Is A Lie badge that I carry around in my wallet at all times, there is nothing that gets me going quite like an epic Shondaland romance. And last night Carina and Maya proved once and for all, if they were any doubters left, that they deserved to be listed among the greats.

After their last fake!first date ended with delivering a baby to a woman who had gone on a real!first date with Carina not too long ago, Maya and Carina decide to try again. Carina’s exhausted though, so they scrap Maya’s original plans and decide to head to Joe’s Bar. The very same bar where they first met (and yes there was a shot-by-shot recreation! It was perfect!)

At Joe’s Bar they encounter Helm (has anyone else noticed that Helm or Kai always show up like mascots when an episode is going to be especially gay?), who is bartending for a Bachelorette Party that going on now hour 17 of partying. Of course, the bachelorette falls and busts her face open, which leads to Carina and Maya tending to her.

While taking care of the freaked out bachelorette, Carina tells her that if she’s marrying the person she’s meant to be with, the bruises on her face won’t matter. None of it will matter. Her person matters. Maya agrees, saying that the day she married her wife was at once the most grounding and best day of her life. Yes, this is when I started squealing into my elbow.

The bachelorette party realizes that Maya and Carina are actually married to each other!! Prompting the bride-to-be to declare that they’re the hottest couple ever (correct) and that she now regrets marrying a man (also correct!!).

Then, in what I do believe was meant to be a stand in and shout out to the Marina fandom directly, Helm tells Carina and Maya that they are hashtag Goals and role models of what’s possible. Which, in another world, would maybe be too on the nose? But in this moment? Just felt perfect.

(Also it’s reminiscent of when Helm thought Meredith Grey was Goals, Helm is a queer woman who falls in love with unattainable women over 35 and that is probably the most authentically lesbian thing about her tbh.)

Ok so then Maya jokes that they really can’t seem to get through a fake!first date with out a medical emergency, so Carina, still all caught up on their love confessions from just a little while earlier, lowers her voice and looks at Maya beneath her eyelashes and suggests maybe… they take the date back to their apartment, and take a hot shower. You know.

You know that means they have sex. Extremely hot sex. Calzona Season Six Shower Sex, but Maya goes down on Carina whereas in ye olden days of Grey’s Anatomy the camera cut away, which probably means this is the hottest gay sex scene we’ve had yet in Shondaland. Thoughts? Let me know in the comments.

Later, safe and warm and in their bed, Carina worries that their shower sex Means Something^TM that she’s not ready for it to mean, that being back in their apartment is too soon. It’s all too soon. The last time she was here, she was so hurt. Maya hurt her. Maya left her alone.

And Maya — ok this is when, an episode that already had me near tears from joy, and then for a while, lust, and now in absolute just, devastating, emotional honesty — Maya holds Carina, hair still wet from the shower, and promises her this: She knows that the day she was committed, the day she yelled at Carina that “We’re OVER” — something died between them that day. She knows that. But this? This part that comes next. This part that they are rebuilding? It’s going to be stronger, more brilliant, than everything they had before.

I, for one, cannot wait.

All American 516: “My Name Is”

Written by Natalie

Back when Coop finagled her way into a law professor’s class, Skye was there. She took selfies, she brought snacks and she affirmed that Coop was up to the challenge that the class posed. This week, though, when it’s Coop’s turn to be the supportive girlfriend, she doesn’t return the favor.

For weeks now, Coop’s relationship has taken a backseat to her academic pursuits and when she runs into Layla in the kitchen, she’s got a full day of studying in the library planned. Coop’s plans surprise Layla; after all, Skye is giving the keynote presentation at LAInfluencerCon later that day. Coop tracks down Skye at Slausson Cafe — again, thanks to Layla — and the divide between the couple is apparent. Skye’s kept the news about her grandmother’s fall and her presentation to herself, knowing how busy her girlfriend is, but Coop insists that she wants to know what’s going on in Skye’s life. Coop promises that she’ll come to the presentation but later she runs into her professor who informs her that, thanks to another student dropping his class, she can now take the class for credit. It’s great news but there is one caveat: she must take the students’ place in a study group…a study group that, of course, meets that afternoon.

(Sidenote: Has anyone in the All American writers’ room been to law school or even applied to law school? Do they know anyone else that has? Because all I keep thinking, as I watch this storyline is: “That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!”)

Coop misses Skye’s presentation…but, to make matters worse, when the couple reunites, it’s clear that she forgot about it entirely. Coop insists it’s not her fault — she had to be there for her classmates — but Skye wonders when her girlfriend will start to prioritize her. Coop urges Skye to calm down and stop acting like she doesn’t love her…and that, my friends, is when the wheels come off. You’ll recall that Coop had been reticient to say those three little words before so to hear them dropped, for the first time, in the middle of a fight? Skye knows she deserves better than Coop’s excuses and ends their relationship.

Meanwhile, Patience takes in Skye’s presentation and walks away even more frustrated about her social media future. Skye’s presentation encouraged more engagement on social media but all she wants to do is retreat and go back to being this “anonymous, boho indie singer.” Since they all need a bit of an escape, Layla encourages Patience and Olivia to pretend to be someone else and sneak into the quinceañera going on down the hall. They revel in their anonymity until the celebrant recognizes Patience and assumes that she’s the party’s entertainment. Rather than correct the misunderstanding, Patience takes the stage and finds happiness, reconnecting with the old Patience — the boho indie singer — as she sings during the father-daughter dance.

The Rookie: Feds 120: “I Am Many”

Written by Natalie

When Simone broke up with Dina (AKA DJ), it wasn’t for a lack of interest, it was all about timing. Simone was still new in her role as an FBI agent and she couldn’t give as much as she wanted to the job and still give Deena — or anyone — what they deserved in a relationship. It felt like a bit of kindness at the time but, apparently, DJ wasn’t comforted by Simone’s chivalry…no, she was big mad…and she’s been nursing a grudge ever since.

But now, Dina’s mom and Simone’s dad are growing closer — they’re even talking about moving in together — and the tension between the two daughters is becoming untenable. Their parents invite them to dinner in an attempt to mend fences and DJ begrudgingly agrees, while throwing a little salt in Simone’s direction. Unfortunately, Simone can’t commit to dinner plans, as she’s working on a case in Idaho, and DJ scoffs that, once again, work is Simone’s priority. But when Simone’s questioning of an inmate in Idaho doesn’t yield results, she returns to Los Angeles just in time for dinner.

Cutty announces that his relationship with Ruth is getting serious and they won’t allow their daughters’ messy split to threaten their future. Simone takes issue with the characterization but DJ thinks “messy” is the best way to describe it. The parents leave for dinner, hoping that in their absence, their daughters’ will be able to make peace with each other. When they’re alone, DJ’s coolness thaws and she extends some warmth to Simone…warmth Simone clings to after spending a day on death row with a mass murderer. The two share a kiss and the hope that this time their relationship will end differently. They fall into bed together but, later, Simone is roused from her sleep by a nightmare starring the Idaho inmate. She leaves DJ in bed and takes the FBI jet back to Idaho to question the inmate again.

Once the case is wrapped up, Simone returns home to find Cutty, Ruth, and Dina sharing dinner. Simone asks for a moment alone for DJ and she admits that she was doing too much when they tried to date the first time. Now, though, she recognizes that what she really needs is some balance — room for the professional and the personal in her life — and after their night together, Simone thinks maybe she and Dina can try again. But DJ pumps the brakes on Simone’s relationship talk and suggests that they just remain friends instead. Simone counters that offer with one of her own: friends with benefits. And, of course, because no one in their right mind says no to that offer from Niecy Nash, the two sneak away and kick off their new situationship.

A Million Little Things 511: “Ironic”

Written by Natalie

When you think about all the shows that have been cancelled prematurely and all the happy endings we’ve been denied, A Million Little Things‘ gay wedding feels like it should be a victory. But this wedding — this entire pairing, if I’m being honest — just feels hollow. There’s nothing bad about it necessarily. There are even some heartwarming moments. It’s fine. But it’s so anodyne that it hardly sparks any emotion (Gary’s speech notwithstanding). If Corporate Pride could write a storyline, this is exactly what it’d write.

But, okay…let’s recap…

It’s Katherine and Greta’s wedding day and things are off to an auspicious start. The wedding officiant and coordinator, Carter, continuously pesters his boss with updates about the day’s festivities (he even brings hand-painted sweatshirts). Theo digs through old family photo albums to ensure that his Best Man wedding day fit is better than his grandparents’ wedding party. The pictures spark memories of the earliest memories of Greta’s crush on Katherine — stories that Katherine didn’t even know — and it seems clear that Katherine’s father always knew his daughter and Greta were meant to be something more. And, of course, as is his wont, Eddie arrives and assumes that everything is about him.

But then, everything starts to go sideways. A “passing drizzle” turns into a torrential downpour and the boat that Katherine and Greta were supposed to get married on — heavy-handed homage to the Love Boat — is no longer an option. Does it make sense that Katherine, of all people, would plan a wedding on a boat without a contingency plan? No, it does not, but honestly, that’s some of the episode’s less troubling retconning. The group stumbles into a rundown nautical-themed bar to escape the rain and Delilah suggests having the wedding there. The friend group gathers and they all work together to transform the bar into a suitable wedding venue. But just as they’re starting to turn things around, more things go wrong: Greta’s suit has an unfortunate run-in with a toddler and finger paint and Greta’s parents arrive to unwittingly suggest that the worst wedding days result in the best worst marriages. Oh, and her mom brought lingerie for Katherine!

At the end of her rope, Greta’s ready to just call the whole thing off. Thankfully, Katherine’s there to be the voice of reason.

“If you’re asking me, ‘Do I want to get married in this tacky bar?’ the answer is no. But if the question is, ‘Do I always want to be able to say that I was married to you for as long as possible?’ the answer is absolutely yes. So I pick this dump of a bar today over any beautiful venue that we might be able to find two weeks from now. Because that way, for the rest of forever, I can say that I was married to you for two weeks longer than I would have been.

Yeah, that was one of those heartwarming moments…and it’s the perfect prelude to Katherine and Greta getting married (with Greta wearing Katherine’s father’s suit). Afterwards, everyone dances — to Lizzo, natch, because Corporate Pride — and has a great time celebrating. I try not to be annoyed by it all. But it takes Gary reminding me that this show has put Katherine through it…that she’s given the friend group — and this show — so much more than she’s been given. If anyone deserves a happy ending, however hollow, it’s her.

Good Trouble 506: “Once a Cheater”

Written by Natalie

When Angelica and Malika broke up, the love was still there. In fact, they’d exchanged those three little words for the first time minutes before they split. Malika lets her go but the love she has for Angelica remains…and so, even when other potential love interests present themselves, Malika demurs. She is in love and she’ll do whatever she can to win Angelica back.

Angelica has an issue with Malika’s polyamory? Okay, Malika decides, she’ll commit to monogamy in order to see where their relationship is going. Angelica doubts whether Malika has time for kind of relationship she wants? Okay, she’ll work on improving her work-life balance. She’s been transparent about what she’s doing — “you might notice that I’m here with friends, not working,” she points out to Angelica during Queer Night at Duoro — and why she’s doing it.

“My plan is to show her that I’m maintaining a work-life balance, so she’ll let me out of the friend-pen to graze in the relationship meadow,” Malika explains to Davia, as she looks ahead to dinner that night with her ex.

At work, Malika gets word that the vote on her Women’s Center is imminent. The vote is close, Lucia reports, and the councilman whose vote they need keeps ducking their calls. Of course, when Lucia finally gets intel on the councilman’s location, it’s when Malika and Angelica are in the car on the way to dinner. Since Lucia can’t leave her charity event, it’s up to Malika to solicit the councilman’s vote in his stead. But, surprisingly, it’s Angelica that comes up with the best way to approach the councilman — smartly using their shared love of the Lakers to lure him into a conversation — and Malika closes with her pitch for the Women’s Center. They manage to win the councilman over and, the next day, he rewards their lobbying efforts with courtside seats to a Lakers game.

Later, Malika rushes over to Duoro to apologize for the intrusion into their dinner date and shares the tickets as a great consolation prize. She reaches across the bar, as she acknowledges work intruding on their personal time before, and Angelica pulls her hand away. Malika’s been doing everything she can to win Angelica back except listening to Angelica. She said she wanted to be in Malika’s life as a friend. When they were at Queer Night, Angelica volunteered to help Malika find someone else. She never said she wanted to be anything more than friends but Malika wasn’t listening. So when Angelica says, her lack of work-life balance isn’t an issue anymore now that they’re just friends, Malika is absolutely gob smacked.

(In Malika’s defense, though, I’m not sure why Angelica would agree to that dinner invitation when Malika’s intentions were always so clear.)

But, on the plus side, things will undoubtedly improve next week because it’s Thanksgiving at the Coterie and THE MAMAS (and Callie) ARE BACK!

Fantasy Island Episode 210: “War of the Roses (and the Hutchinsons)”

Written by Valerie Anne

“My bonnie lies over the ocean, my bonnie lies over the sea, my bonnie lies over the ocean, oh bring back my bonnie to me.”

This week’s island guests are seemingly unrelated at first: a younger couple who wants a few days away to forget their fertility troubles, and an older couple who wants to enjoy their retirement. But of course, the island has a sense of humor, and it turns out these two couples are feuding neighbors. Of course, it all works out in the end, but one thing I wanted to mention about this that I enjoyed is that the younger couple eventually came to realize that they were only trying so hard to have babies because it felt like the next step, it seemed like it’s what all their friends were doing. Get married, move out of the city, have some kids. It seemed like the only path. But through all this they realize that actually they miss living in the city and don’t want to have kids yet. And they also decide that if they do ever want to have kids, there are other ways to grow their family, which I appreciate them saying.

As the guests leave the island after their stay, Elena catches Ruby staring out into the sea. Ruby admits she hasn’t heard from Isla lately, which she’s bummed about, because she thought they had something special. Elena expresses empathy for her pain but doesn’t come clean to Ruby about Isla being a mermaid nor about her telling her to leave Ruby alone. Ruby just smiles sadly and says, “You can’t catch a butterfly.”

But then when she goes to play gold later, she gets a magical hole in one, so her love affair with Isla might be over but her love affair with the island isn’t.

The Power Episode 106: “Sparklefingers”

Written by Valerie Anne

“Don’t let my brother see this, his whole worldview might implode.”

I’m finding listening to UrbanDox on this show very upsetting, which I know is the point, but he’s ranting about how men should be using their “bigger bodies” and “real weapons” to take their power back, and the men (and boys) are eating it up.

We check in briefly with our British lesbian, where Roxy’s dad is trying to use her like a weapon but she isn’t having it. She used her powers to kill the man who killed her mother, and her brother died in the process, she’s not interested in zapping random men just because daddy says so. Which honestly is impressive considering how desperate she was for her father’s attention in earlier episodes; growth!

Back in Seattle, Margot is enjoying her new spark, much to the dismay of her chief of staff. Margot decides to keep it hush hush that she has the spark, because as her CoS points out, she’s receiving enough death threats as it is. And this decision was wise, because the senator surprises her with a visit and a new rule he’s implementing where he’s testing women for EOD and registering anyone who has it. Margot is pissed; she knows damn well that a list starts as a list but is a slippery slope. Luckily she beats the test herself but she’s determined to stop the madness.

Jos’s storyline this episode made me raise an eyebrow. First, she almost sexually assaults her boyfriend. Then, he comes out to her as intersex, and even though he had surgery when he was little so he presents as – and, he clarifies, identifies as – a boy, he does have the skein and the EOD because he grew up with some extra estrogen. And Jos gets really mad at him. To her credit, after he’s done explaining the first half, that he’s intersex, she makes it clear that doesn’t bother her. She likes him, she doesn’t care about the rest. But when she finds out he has the EOD, she’s upset that they’ve been dating this whole time and despite her confiding in him that having the EOD was stressful, and not being able to control hers, and having the school quarantine her and tie her hands up etc, he didn’t tell her that he had the EOD too. Which is fair. But the way she goes about expressing this ends up sounding a bit like common transphobic rhetoric. Rhetoric that gets trans people killed. Which is maybe the point, because her boyfriend even says that if it got out that he was a boy with a skein it might get him killed. But it felt… I don’t know, it felt a little off to me. But maybe that’s because my view of this show has a whole shifted a little after I wrote my first review and a bunch of people who had read the book (which I have not done) told me that the book doesn’t have the “what if the playing field was more equal” or even a “a matriarchy would be better than a patriarchy” stance I thought the show was taking, but instead more of an “absolutely power corrupts absolutely” theory, which, frankly, isn’t what we need right now. And I started to see that in Jos’s scenes this week, but maybe I’m just feeling overly cautious. I’m willing to see it out.

To her credit, it does seem like later, when talking to her mom, Jos starts to realize that maybe she overreacted earlier. But I’m on edge about the whole show now.

Speaking of overreacting, by the end of the episode, we start to see how UrbanDox is causing problems. Margot’s son says some awful/dumb shit at dinner that pisses off his mom and sister, a man pulls a taser on a bartender and tells her she should know her place, and then later a man walks into a press conference Margot is holding and lights himself on fire right in front of her.

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