Boobs on Your Tube: Kat and Adena Reunite, Take Down Powerful White Men on “The Bold Type”

It’s Friday and we hope you’re all staying safe inside your homes (if you can). Here’s some TV you can catch up on while you’re there! Alex was actually Supergirl in this week’s Supergirl. Back from the brink, One Day at a Time returned to soothe our hearts and not a moment too soon. Feel Good’s Mae Martin talked with Drew about dating and how to survive a quarantine. Last night on Grey’s Anatomy, we found out that Dr. Teddy Altman has been bisexual this whole time and the episode blew Carmen’s mind. The third season of the OG L Word aired almost 15 years ago, but WOW did you still have a lot of strong feelings about it (57 of them, in fact!). Oh and by the way, Wynonna Earp’s Dominique Provost-Chalkley came out as queer! 🎉 🎉

Also, the TV Team is still covering your social distancing entertainment needs! This week we released a list of All 41 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows on Amazon Prime and The 14 Lesbian Movies Streaming on Hulu (including, for example, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, WHICH RELEASED AT MIDNIGHT!! So your weekend plans are set!)

Notes from the TV Team: 

+ Last week, the firefighters of Station 19 lost one of their own, Rigo Vasquez, and everyone’s trauma session about that turns into long overdue personal counseling. Tracie Thoms guest stars as firefighter turned shrink, Diane Lewis, who comes into Station 19. Maya’s session with her reveals what we’ve seen all season: the toxic influence her relentless father has had on her life. Diane urges Maya to let herself rest. Maya asks Carina if she’ll take some time off, so the can getaway together. Of course, Carina says yes. — Natalie

+ Deputy wrapped up its inaugural season this week and, sadly, it didn’t give Bishop nearly enough to do. However? They do end the season happy and with a new woman on their arm. — Natalie

+ This week on Top Chef, our three queer cheftestants — Lisa, Melissa and Karen — managed to survive another week in an exceedingly tough All Stars competition. — Natalie

https://twitter.com/KillingEve/status/1243555878588026881

+ Thanks to everyone being inside, Killing Eve is returning TWO WEEKS EARLY! Get ready for some murder on April 12th! — Carmen

+ On top of being pretty excellent television, Little Fires Everywhere is also pretty damn gay. I’ve got both eyes on it, and I recommend that you do, too. — Carmen

+ Have you watched Motherland yet? You should watch Motherland. We’ve got coverage coming on the way. — Valerie

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Twenties 105: “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”

Written by Natalie

After a mid-night rumble, both literally and figuratively, Hattie is roused from her sleep by a call from Lorraine. At first, it seems like a sweet gesture — calling to check on Hattie after the earthquake — but then Lorraine reveals that there’s another woman in her bed and invites Hattie to join. Recognizing the pettiness, Hattie adjusts her camera’s point of view so Lorraine knows that she’s not spending her nights alone. But the shot also reveals that Hattie’s still staying on Marie’s couch so it’s not that much of a flex. Lorraine toys with Hattie a bit more, promising to, maybe, connect later, before they hang up.

At work, Ida B. instructs Hattie to scan some of her old manuscripts — stored at her home office, no less — and save them to her laptop. One of the more frustrating things about Twenties is the way in which it clings to the story of Lena Waithe’s come-up even when those details no longer make sense, given the time we’re in. Maybe, in 2007, when Waithe’s working with Mara Brock-Akil on Girlfriends, spending all day scanning documents on a flatbed scanner makes sense, but in 2020? A trip to Kinko’s would’ve had this handled in 10 minutes. But, I guess then we wouldn’t have seen Hattie discover the script for “Ghost Lullaby”… a play she reads and gets so enthralled with, she stuffs it into her backpack.

Later, Ida comes home and she and Hattie settle into an easy and flirtatious, but problematic, rapport. As they settle in with a documentary and some Chinese takeout, Lorraine interrupts, pestering Hattie with messages. This time, though, Hattie ignores her, choosing instead to spend more time with Ida, who makes her feel alive. Hattie laments her propensity for chasing what she can’t have and Ida agrees. She doesn’t think Hattie really wants to be in a relationship. Hattie offers a meek defense but Ida pushes her towards the truth. Hattie admits that she avoids relationships because she’s scared of someone falling out of love with her. Ida insists that hearts, including hers, were meant to be broken.

The next day, Hattie’s best friends call her night what Ida B. what it was: A date. Marie warns Hattie that Ida’s just looking for attention but Hattie’s more than ready to give her boss all the attention that she needs… and, as messy as it’ll probably be… so am I.

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The Bold Type 410: “Some Kind of Wonderful”

Written by Natalie

Armed with RJ’s tax returns, Kat and Adena interrupt their boss’ lunch date and confront him over his decision to squash their protest piece on conversion therapy and his support for the state senator promoting the practice in Alabama. Adena threatens to expose his shady politics when RJ’s lunch date interjects. Turns out, she’s an attorney who promises that if Kat and Adena continue with their threats, they’ll be fired from Scarlet, blacklisted in publishing and sued by her law firm. She dismisses the crusading exes outright and, having dramatically overplayed their hand, the two return to Scarlet to regroup.

A quick Google search reveals that the dismissive attorney was RJ’s daughter, Ava Rhodes. Adena’s determined to ensure that RJ doesn’t get to dictate what the public sees and vows to release his tax returns. Kat warns against it — her visa is contingent on her continued employment, after all — and ultimately Adena agrees to keep her fight within the system.

But, as the girls prepare for Sutton’s wedding, it’s clear that Kat’s still determined to do something about RJ. She checks her phone and learns that the senator voted against a bill to ban conversion therapy and Adena — who’s there shooting the wedding as a gift to Richard and Sutton — reminds her that she couldn’t have stopped it. She promises Kat that they’ll deal with RJ, in time, but Kat feels a renewed sense of urgency… on behalf of Travis and Adena. At the reception, Kat tells Adena that she’s going to expose RJ for the hypocrite he is.

“You know, I used to think that we were together because of love but I’m starting to think it’s something bigger than that… the truth,” Kat tells Adena, as they sway to the music.

Over Adena’s objections, Kat risks it all by tweeting out RJ’s tax returns. The revelations force him to step down as CEO but he takes Kat down with him: The board votes to terminate her contract at Scarlet. This should hit harder than it does, but the last time the board fired someone, Jacqueline was back within a few weeks. As Kat leaves the building, she passes Ava Rhodes and, based on her long, lingering look at Kat, I suspect she’s just as bothered by her father’s support for conversion therapy as Kat is. She may, in fact, be a victim of it. We shall see.

The Bold Type‘s midseason finale ends as the show always should: celebrating the sisterhood between Sutton, Jane and Kat.

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Boomerang 203: “Don’t Wanna Love You”

Written by Carmen

Since Boomerang started its second season, they hadn’t given Tia much to work with — that is, until this week, when the episode opens with Lala Milan doing a complete homage to queer femme icon Grace Jones as none other than the diva Strangé herself from the original film (PS: If you haven’t seen 1992’s Boomerang, Grace Jones’ performance is so singularly hilarious that I truly can’t describe it. It is more than worth the $1.99 rental fee). OK, so back to Tia.

Tia’s recreating Strangé’s iconic opening scene from the film, except she’s repurposed it as an intro to her strip club routine. She’s up to a half million followers on Instagram, and this is the first time she’s ever been paid five figures ($10K to be exact, minus expenses) for a dance. Tia’s really feeling herself after her sudden success and her attitude is … well, pretty damn annoying, to be honest. Don’t worry though, because the other dancers at the club are about to knock her down a peg — or a thousand.

In the dressing room, when the other dancers rightly complain that Tia’s taking up all the oxygen in the room, she goes on and on that her presence is bringing more customers into the club, which means everyone’s getting paid more in tips (not true). One of the girls call her “the 1%er of strippers” who is trying to “‘Make the Strip Club Great Again.’” My other favorite one-liner? “Girl, go on somewhere with all that Reaganomics. The only trickle-down we getting, we gotta clean it up with some tissues.” Black women who can hustle and still break down ill-fated Republican economic policy? This is the kind of sitcom content I LIVE FOR!

So Tia’s gotten her ass thoroughly handed to her, but at the end of the night, there’s a little hope on the horizon. One of the dancers who was originally most angry with her, Dream, has a sprained ankle. Tia goes to help her. While the two let their guard down and bond, Dream tells Tia that her real name is actually Dorothy — like from The Golden Girls. Tia jokes that Dorothy was a lesbian (#facts) and Dream lowers her lashes and says, “What’s wrong with that?”

Now last season Tia had a fine ass butch girlfriend named Rocky. I don’t know where Rocky is at the moment, but the way Tia’s looking at Dorothy, I’m thinking Rocky’s either already out on the curb, or she’s about to me — real soon.

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Legacies 216: “Facing Darkness is Kind of My Thing”

Written by Valeire Anne

This week, Hope dove into Josie’s mind to try to get the real Josie to overpower Dark Josie, because as fun as she is, she’s not the real Josie. Hope finds herself in a fairytale with Josie under a sleeping spell and a rude pig telling her that she can’t do magic or the darkness will come. The pig suggests Hope try kissing Josie but Hope says a non-consensual kiss isn’t the answer. (We find out later that the pig is actually Josie in disguise so I’d say we have our consent in the future, Hope.) Hope helps Josie see that magic and strength aren’t necessarily evil and Josie learns to trust her own power and fight the darkness inside her. The issue is, even though we have our Josie back, Hope is still in a sleeping curse of her own; possibly because Dark Josie turned Hope into stone while in her subconscious. So maybe there’s still time for that True Love’s Kiss after all. (Side note, Jade was MIA again but there WAS a Penelope mention because it seems Josie is still holding on to some pain from that, understandably.) Unfortunately because of the nationwide quarantine situation we’ve got going on here, this episode had to spontaneously serve as the mid-season finale, and possibly the season finale depending on when things are up and running again. I’ll miss these strong-willed supernatural teenagers!!

Autostraddle’s Favorite and Least Favorite Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans TV Characters of 2019

When GLAAD released their annual Where We Are on TV report this year, they announced that LGBTQ+ TV characters are at an all-time high. The headlines all over the internet were ecstatic. Gays win! Best year ever! But the reality is a lot more complicated than that. “Our community,” as GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis noted, “finds itself in 2019 facing unprecedented attacks on our progress.”

Every year, our TV Team compiles a list of our favorite and least favorite characters. (For example: 2018, 2017, 2016). It’s fun. Nothing excites us like loving our favorite stories out loud. But there was also a sense, as we approached this list this year, that it was so much more than just good-time reminiscence, especially when so much of the quantitative and qualitative growth we continue to see on-screen is for thin, cis, white, non-disabled queer characters. Our stories matter politically and they matter personally. When they’re good, it makes us so happy. When they’re bad, there’s so much more at stake than our annoyance or discontent. Politics and pop culture have always had a symbiotic relationship, which is why representation — legitimately good representation that explores the fullness of humanity of all LGBTQ+ people at the intersections of the myriad oppressions we face — is more important than it ever has been.

Here’s what we loved this year and what we didn’t like very much at all. We’d love to hear about your favorite and least favorite characters in the comments!

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FAVORITE CHARACTERS

Heather Hogan

Anne Lister, Gentleman Jack

I think most LGBTQ people have those a-ha! fictional characters who finally allow them to look closely at and accept their sexuality and their gender, and I also think most LGBTQ people have those if-only fictional characters they wish had been around when they were whatever age or going through such-and-such thing, to show them the way. I’m going to do that second thing to Elena Alvarez in just a second, in fact! It’s much rarer for a real-life queer adult to stumble upon a fictional queer adult who reminds them of who they are right now, who reflects their grown-up gay reality back at them. Anne Lister is the first — and maybe she’ll be the only — character to ever do that for me. There are so many of her soft butch ways that just resonate. The masculine way she dresses, her stride and gait, the firmness of her gesticulations, going toe-to-toe with every man in her way; but the tenderness too, and the overwhelming need to hold it all together and make everything okay. It was a new thing, to me, to see that on TV. And also, for someone who, on a cellular level, is comprised as much of Jane Austen stories as I am of water, well — finally.

Sophie Moore, Batwoman

There were so many ways Batwoman could have gone wrong that actually went so, so right — and my favorite one of them is Sophie Moore. The source danger is that she’s a kind of one-dimensional flashback in the comics. The current danger is that she’s Kate Kane’s ex-girlfriend who is presently married to a man, so there’s a real tightrope there between some really longstanding and harmful bisexual tropes. Yet, Batwoman‘s writers are walking it deftly, and have, on top of that, made Sophie more than Kate’s love interest. Sophie is drawn to rules, structure, order, regulated heroism. She’s also a queer woman in love with a winged vigilante who got kicked out of a prestigious military academy for breaking their Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy and refusing to deny it or apologize for it. We’ve barely scratched the surface of Sophie and I can’t wait to see what we find as the writers keep digging.

Annalise Keating, How to Get Away With Murder 

“I still believe, and I will say this until I go to my grave, that Annalise Keating and Olivia Pope are the greatest characters on TV,” is a thing Viola Davis told Variety this year, because the writers on HTGAWM aren’t “writing tentatively” for people of color. They’re writing bold. And they’re writing messy. Six seasons in, the fact that Annalise Keating exists and is played by Viola Davis still blows my mind. Viola Davis! That she’s bisexual on top of it it all and also now has a best friend who also is a queer Black woman? It’s honestly unbelievable and I feel fucking blessed to be living on this timeline to witness it.

Elena Alvarez, One Day at a Time

This brilliant, driven, dorky, heroic queer teen was always going to make the list for me. One Day at a Time is one of my all-time favorite shows and she is just so wonderful and refreshing. Exploring Elena’s anxiety disorder this season just made me love her even more, and also made me wish I could have known her so much earlier in my life. I only understood mental illness to be one very specific thing that manifested itself in one very specific way (violence against me) when I was growing up. I never saw someone like me — a compassionate, silly overachiever — dealing with panic attacks. Never! And to have a mother who didn’t tell her to snap out of it or that she was being emotional or over-reacting, but to sit beside her and gently, lovingly teach her to breathe through it? I’m crying right now just thinking about it. Also, Syd-nificant other? COME ON! THAT’S PERFECT.

Petra Solano, Jane the Virgin

Petra is the opposite of every terrible bisexual TV character’s trajectory. Instead of being boldly proclaimed as A GAY CHARACTER and then reduced to one-dimensional writing and stereotypes before getting shuffled off to The Parking Lot of No Return, she was a just a caricature of a human being who evolved into a fully realized and deeply vulnerable and loyal friend/family member to Jane — and then she went and fell in love with another woman and got even more raw and real and wonderful. But don’t get it wrong. She never lost her edge. Love made her tender, but she absolutely still blackmailed her bleeding ex-husband who was trapped inside a teddy bear suit while lecturing him about bisexuality as the cops came to cart him off to jail.

Dex Parios, Stumptown

Stumptown itself has not lived up to my expectations. It’s RIDICULOUS that Dex hasn’t formed any relationships with any other female characters, and that her limited interactions with women are also limited to single-episode story arcs. RIDICULOUS. But gosh, I do love Dex. She’s a mess and she makes so many mistakes but she always wants to do the right thing and keep her friends and family safe. She’s also dealing with persistent trauma that’s never going to end. She’s self-destructive, but in a controlled way. She self-medicates, but not like before. She’ll never really “have it together” and she knows that and she’s not sorry for it. She’s doing the best she can with what she has, including a shocking variety of very cool ’80s jackets.

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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

Cheryl Blossom, Riverdale

Unsurprisingly, I am still very obsessed with Cheryl Blossom, and the fact that the show has turned her into an Addams Family-meets-V.C. Andrews character makes me just love her more. Cheryl Blossom does not belong to our world. She does not speak like a human teen but rather like the town witch in a gothic horror story. I wish the Riverdale writers were more thoughtful in the writing of Toni Topaz this year, but I’ll always be thankful for the bizarreness of Cheryl and Toni’s most recent storylines — including burying and unburying bodies all the time????

Tegan Price, How To Get Away With Murder

How To Get Away With Murder has been all over the place as it spirals to its series finale next spring, but the introduction of Tegan to the show’s arsenal of morally questionable lawyers and lawyers-to-be has been a blessing. She’s funny, smart, and occasionally vulnerable, one of Annalise’s few real friends and an angry gay divorcee. We love to see it!

Bette Porter, The L Word: Generation Q

She’s back, she’s the mom of a teenager now, and she’s still ruining lives. Missed you, mommi.

Jules Vaughn, Euphoria

I didn’t love Euphoria as a whole (and I actively hated parts of it), but there are some little magical bits of it, especially when it comes to Jules and Hunter Schafer’s nuanced, visceral, specific performance. The show does messy friendship very, very well, and the love between Jules and Zendaya’s Rue is the most compelling part of the show.

Arthie Premkumar, GLOW

I went back and forth on whether to include Arthie here, because yes, she does continually hold a very special place in my heart, because I am a queer South Asian woman starved for representation on television, and season three not only lets her be hella gay but also includes LESBIAN SEX SCENES for the first time for the character and for the show. But that ends up being kind of… all we really get for Arthie this season. She doesn’t really exist outside of her relationship with Yolanda, who spends much of this season being pretty manipulative and yet it ends on a forced romantic note? In any case, I do love Arthie so much. And I can’t wait for the day when there are enough queer desi characters on TV for me to be able to pick and choose from.

Eve Fletcher, Mrs. Fletcher

I think Mrs. Fletcher ended up being one of the most underrated television shows of 2019. It’s sexy, real, and every episode unfolds like a colorful short story contemplating desire, personal evolution, and vulnerability. Eve is a fantastically complex bisexual character, and the show is thoughtful in how it explores her fantasies and emotions.

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Carmen

Kat Edison, The Bold Type

As the year winds down, I keep returning back to Kat Edison. I don’t think I saw another queer character this year whose characterization and storytelling choices around their queerness was so fully developed without having to depend on a romantic partner to bring it to screen. That’s very hard to pull off. I loved Kat more on her own (and later with Tia, and later again with Adeena once more) than I ever loved her in pervious years. I finally related to her. I related to the questions of how do you redefine your queerness after suffering your first break up? When previously your sexuality had been tied up in you having a girlfriend? I related to her drive and ambition and desire to do good in the world. And yes, I’m sure we are all going to look back at the year when Kat “ran for city council” and laugh at the ridiculousness of it — but what is The Bold Type if not a wee bit ridiculous and running on glitter and girl power? Kat Edison lost a girlfriend, but she gained herself. And that was journey damn well worth watching.

Tia Reed, Boomerang

If you didn’t watch BET’s Boomerang, you missed one of the sleeper-hit best developed lesbian characters last year. It’s rare that we get to see a lesbian character in a half-hour comedy. Usually queer women’s stories are regulated to the high stakes tensions of “prestige dramas,” sci-fi epics, and soaps. In real life, lesbians and bisexuals are extremely funny and quirky, but television doesn’t seem ready to catch up. When I watched Boomerang last winter, I marveled at having such gay content front-and-center on the historically homophobic BET network that I didn’t give the craft of Lala Milan’s work enough credit. Sure, I laughed at Tia’s one liners and antics as they aired, but what’s stunning is that ten months later — I am still laughing. I can recall jokes in crystal memory. That’s talent. Yes, it’s important that Tia is one of the few queer characters on television who’s allowed to fully exist within a black space, and isn’t asked to check her queerness at the door. It’s important the she has black friends, and a black masc girlfriend. Sometimes, though, I worry that we get lost in the “representation conversation.”

Not that representation isn’t important! But also, everyone we are watching on screen — these are dedicated performers. Lala Milan has infectious energy and exquisite comedic timing; she can find the warmth in any conversational pause and twist it to her liking. And that is what makes Tia so memorable.

Candy Ferocity, Pose

This is controversial, I realize. I want to be clear right away: I do NOT agree with Pose’s decision to kill Candy Ferocity. I don’t think there was anything to be learned from (re)traumatizing it’s largely black and brown, trans and queer audience by showing her death, particularly in the gruesome way it was showcased. I was livid when that episode aired. One of my biggest editorial regrets this year is that I didn’t make space on our website for those grievances to be aired. They needed to be. Pose should be held accountable for those decisions, especially by the QTPOC folks that their show represents and serves.

OK, that all said and true: As the season progressed, I loved getting to know Candy through her afterlife. Angelica Ross found such life in Candy’s death and it was absolutely, hands down my favorite performance this year. It’s December and when I close my eyes it’s still July, and Candy is singing to me in a red shimmering dress. I close my eyes and it’s August, and she’s on a girl’s trip with her sisters peering down and smirking at me from her sunglasses. I close my eyes and her spirit is still there — with me. Not many actors could have pulled that off, but Angelia Ross is an impeccably unparalleled talent.

Emma Hernandez, Vida

Vida found itself in a difficult and unenviable predicament. It had one of the strongest first seasons of television I’ve ever seen. A true masterclass of the art form. How do you top coming out of the gates so strongly? The second season of the show is a bit more uneven, but I found it nonetheless mesmerizing, if only because it was so damn messy. And if we’re being real with ourselves, queerness is messy. I’ve never seen a protagonist like Emma Hernandez, who is so full of pain but trying to find these small spaces of reconciliation with her past and her hurt — whether that’s through some pretty complicated sex across the gender spectrum or quiet attempts at understanding with her sister and stepmother. Emma’s carrying her entire family’s future on the small frame of her ice cold shoulders. She definitely doesn’t always get it right, but my goodness — watching her is magnetic. You quite simply cannot stop rooting for her and for her utter complete mess, you know?

There’s a fine dance that can be struck between performer and writer, and Michel Prada and Tanya Saracho have found it in each other. They’re creating pure magic. I hope they never let go.

Batwoman, Batwoman

The other day I was joking that I didn’t necessarily mean that Ruby Rose’s take on Kate Kane was one of my my favorite performances this year, as much as I was fully prepared to hate their version of Batwoman, and instead — I really don’t. Batwoman is easily one of my favorite queer television shows of the fall, and certainly my favorite superhero story of the moment. Given how trepidatious I felt last spring about this entire shebang, that’s no small feat. I remember the first time I saw the trailer — and then the press screener — for Batwoman, I was stunned with a single thought: Ruby Rose might actually just pull this off. And you know what? They really have. I felt like that deserves some acknowledgement, so here I am: Way to go, Ruby Rose. Despite all of our collective fears and the entire queer world’s eyes thrusted upon you, you are somehow really pulling it off.

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Riese

Sarah Finley, The L Word: Generation Q

Finley, Generation Q’s charming grifter with a complicated relationship to church and (her home) state, is a character. Like literally she’s a character, but she’s also a person that if she existed in real life, you’d be like “she’s a character.” She’s that one-of-a-kind person in your friend group whose presence is never forgotten and when she’s not around, it feels like something is missing, the same way you might feel when your adorable dog is at the groomers. She offers comic relief, is a winningly extroverted foil to Shane’s withdrawn intensity and steals every scene she’s in.

Abbi and Ilana, Broad City

Broad City did so much for queer representation by the time it ended its five-season run on Comedy Central — including its acknowledgment of bisexuality as an identity that transcends romantic relationships and its centering of a goofy, self-indulgent, transformational, hilarious and undeniably epic romantic friendship unlike anything we’ve seen on television before.

Kay Manz, Mindhunter

Okay so Wendy was gay in Mindhunter’s first season, but her girlfriend was one of those blink-and-you-missed-her types that always seem to be attached to the complicated female detective/investigator who is gay but not TOO gay in so many shows of this nature. But in Season Two she got to have a real relationship with a woman who usually wore sleeveless shirts, thus revealing her very attractive arm situations. She challenged and changed Wendy in difficult and important ways that also opened Wendy up to us.

Abby, Work in Progress

It’s hard enough to find a butch dyke side character on television, let alone a show about a butch dyke. Middle-aged men wondering what the fuck the point is are a standard of half-hour prestige television, but a self-described “fat dyke” eating one almond every day on a nihilistic march towards death and alienating most of her peers falling for a (much younger) trans guy? That’s a new fucking story! And so far I’m very intrigued by it.

Hen, 9-1-1

9-1-1 isn’t a typical procedural — the personal lives of the main characters aren’t sidelined and often take center stage. (It helps that everybody in the ensemble has decided to date… each other.) But even under those circumstances it felt unlikely we’d ever get to see a real fleshed out storyline for lesbian EMT Hen (played by Aisha Hinds, who also played gay in Under the Dome). This season we saw her and her wife, Karen (played by Tracie Thoms, who also played gay in Rent, UnREAL and The First) struggle with their attempts to get pregnant and then deal with Hen’s PTSD after a deadly vehicle crash. It’s a rare opportunity on television to see a black lesbian couple living out their complex adult lives within work and out of it, telling a story that never felt less important than the others. Through it we’re seeing so much more of who Hen is and what marriage looks like, brought to you by two women who are VERY GOOD at playing gay.

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Drew

Rue Bennett and Jules Vaughn, Euphoria

As you might know, I have, um, complicated feelings about Euphoria. But God I love Rue and Jules. Because of Zendaya and Hunter Schafer’s astonishing performances, they don’t feel like mere characters to judge by Sam Levinson’s writing, but real people separate from the frustrations of the show. Since the first season ended I’ve found myself missing Rue’s wise for her age world-weariness and Jules’ determined joie de vivre. The way they intersect with one another and explode. Their specific teenage brand of messy, emotional fuck-up-ery. They are cooler than I ever was and cooler than I’ll ever be and I just want to watch them fall in love and friendship forever and ever.

Villanelle, Killing Eve

While the first season was a glorious introduction to my favorite lovesick assassin, the second season elevated Jodie Comer’s Villanelle in all the best ways. Her murders were more creative and brutal, her outfits more gorgeous and sharp, her accents even sillier, and her emotions even greater. More doesn’t always equal better, but with Villanelle, for me, it did. Bitmoji sucks if you have curly hair, so I’ve found when I need a cartoonish reaction in the group chat I always turn to Villanelle. There’s something about the way she’s a sociopath who cares too much, mixing viciousness and innocence and sexiness and terror, that makes her the perfect reaction GIF for everything. The first season I watched as Eve became obsessed with Villanelle. But this season the obsession was mine.

Emma Hernandez, Vida

What else can I say about Emma that I didn’t already say when Mishel Prada won a Gay Emmy for playing her? Prada’s performance is Emma. And yet, I can’t very well not include my very favorite character on my very favorite show. I love characters who are highly competent and totally in control. I love watching them crack. I love watching them put themselves back together – or be put back together. It’s comforting, as someone who tries to be highly competent and always in control. Despite our differences, I feel myself in Emma’s attempts to be a good sister, a good lover, a good citizen, and it’s a painful relief to watch her try. Also – and I cannot stress the importance of this enough – Emma is the hottest. Mean with a good heart? Distant but occasionally tender? A power femme more chaotic than Bette Porter? Emma Hernandez was created to ruin my life. Thank God she’s fictional.

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Natalie

Nasreen “Nas” Paracha, Ackley Bridge

Early in the third series of Ackley Bridge, Nasreen Paracha is out for venegance after the death of her best friend, Missy Booth. She seeks out her girlfriend’s unsavory mates for help — she wants the culprit, Anwar, to pay for what he’s done — and they gleefully oblige. Despite never having known her, they shout, “this one’s for Missy, murdering scum” as they pummel him, recording the entire attack for prosperity.

The video makes its way across Ackley Bridge, stoking resentment between the whites, who think Anwar got what he deserved, and Pakistanis, who think he was targeted because of his race. Nas confesses to her mother that she was behind the attack and Kaneez is livid. Nas knows the stories about racist, anti-Muslim violence and should know better to incite it for her own ends. Nas offers a meek defense: for her, it was never about race.

“It is always, ALWAYS about race!” Kaneez shouts. “You should know that. You should bloody know that!”

Nasreen Paracha is a queer Muslim teenager growing up in a fictional British township. Her reality (however imagined) is so far away from my own. And yet, as I watched her mother chastise her for not remembering the realities of the world in which she lives, the words thump against my chest… and I’m reminded of the first time I’d had a similar confrontation with my father. I’d forgotten the world in which I lived and my father chastised me for my capriciousness. It is always, ALWAYS about race! Hearing Kaneez echo my father reminded me of the power of representation, not just to reflect our identities back to ourselves, but to shine a light on our shared experiences.

That said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note the improbability of Nasreen Paracha’s existence on television. The depiction of Muslims on television remains exceedingly rare and queer Muslim characters are even rarer still. To have a young queer Muslim woman as, essentially, the lead character in an ensemble show… that’s groundbreaking… and with the third series of Ackley Bridge ending with Nas leaving for Oxford, who knows when we’ll ever have it again.

Tegan Price, How to Get Away with Murder

One day, after the final chapter of How to Get Away with Murder is written, I hope someone asks Amirah Vann or Pete Nowalk how long they intended Tegan Price to be a character on the show. When Tegan Price first emerged at Caplan & Gold as Michaela’s mentor in Season Four, I only expected that she’d last a season. I expected that she, like so many recurring characters before her, would push the story forward and then exit, so I tried not to get too attached. But Amirah Vann has this way about her — if you’ve seen her performance as Ernestine in WGN’s Underground, you know — of imbuing her characters, however slight their role, with so much heart that not getting attached becomes an impossibility.

It’s been remarkable to watch HTGAWM give Tegan’s character so much more depth this season and to watch how they juxtapose her story with Annalise’s. Women, and women of color in particular, rarely get the opportunity to be celebrated for their ambition but Tegan has owned hers from the day that we met her. She wants to change the world and saw rising at C&G as an opportunity to amass the power to make that change happen. Even as Tegan’s actions give us cause to doubt her sincerity — I need April to hurry up and get here so I can find out how she’s connected to Laurel and Christopher’s disappearance — her heartbreak over losing Cora and her genuine affection for Annalise ground her character and make her someone we want to cheer for.

Petra Solano, Jane the Virgin

When we met Jane Gloriana Villanueva the first time, her passions included her family, God, grilled cheese sandwiches and writing…. and then, 99 episodes later, when we say goodbye to Jane Gloriana Villanueva for the last time, her passions included her family, God, grilled cheese sandwiches, writing and Rafael Solano. Things have happened, lives have shifted, but, essentially, the Jane that we meet at the beginning of Jane the Virgin and the Jane that we meet at the end aren’t that different from each other. Petra Solano though? The Petra Solano that ends JTV, with her girlfriend clinging to her side and her twin daughters smiling brightly nearby? She couldn’t be any more different that the Petra Solano we first met.

As I mentioned back in August, Petra is who she is in Season One because her mother made her that way. Magda taught her the way of the grift and that all relationships, including the one between mother and child, were transactional.

“I’ve had to lie my whole life and manipulate, and cheat, just to survive my crazy mother, and my psychotic sister, and my violent ex-husband. And, yes, those things made me who I am,” Petra admits to Jane “JR” Ramos early in Season Five. “But I can tell you this: I have changed a lot… and I’m going to change more.”

The impetus behind all that change? The other Jane. It wasn’t until she fell in with the Villanuevas that Petra has a model for what healthy relationships — between friends, between mother and child, between family — look like. Once she develops trust in those relationships, she’s able to believe in real love… and that’s when she finds JR.

Sorry, Rose, but the character development that turned an ice queen to a warm and loving mother and girlfriend might be the greatest love story Jane the Virgin ever told.

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Valerie Anne

Nia Nal, Supergirl

Alex Danvers has long since been a go-to on my year-end list of favorites, but this year Nia eked out a win in my books. I will always love Alex, but Dreamer has been such a refreshing gift to the past two seasons of Supergirl. I love that being trans is an important part of her story, and I love that the show draws clear parallels between Nia and Season One Kara: a little green but not without life experience, excited about everything, endlessly hopeful. Nia is the hero we needed, and I hope they let her suit up again soon.

Jenna Faith Hope, Impulse

I’ve already written so much about why Jenna is so important to me and I could write so much more. The writing and direction and acting all handle Jenna’s queerness with such subtlety and care and I’ve never trusted a show to get a queer teenager right the way I trust this show. It was one of the most realistic coming out arcs I’ve ever seen, from the early clues to avoiding the truth to the inevitability. The acceptance and betrayal and fear and joy are all wrapped up in this adorable bundle of a girl, a reluctant but loyal sister, a recovering perfectionist, a girl who is in pain but trying her best. Jenna is another character I wish I had as a teenager, and one who is retroactively healing a lot of old wounds.

Elena Alvarez, One Day At A Time

Elena Alvarez will forever be one of my favorite characters because she is exactly who my teenage self needed to see on TV so I know she’s helping so many others just by being her gay, nerdy, joyful self.

Emily Dickinson, Dickinson

Dickinson was my favorite show this year. I watched it all in one weekend and wanted to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling for a year when it was over. Emily represented all the most dramatic parts of me and I loved her for it. She is emotional and introspective in some of the same ways I am, wild and impulsive in a way I wish I were, defiant and radical in a way I’m learning to be. I don’t always love a period piece but the mix of modern and historical in this imagining of Emily Dickinson’s life was delicious and fun, it was funny and heavy and relevant. And it was so, so gay. Emily was exactly the best friend loving, poetry writing, death obsessed, patriarchy smashing character I needed to close out my 2019.

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LEAST FAVORITE CHARACTERS

Heather Hogan

Karen Walker, Will & Grace 

When Will & Grace brought Samira Wiley on to be Karen Walker’s love interest, I was like, “Finally! It’s taken two decades but at last they’re going to stop playing Karen’s bisexuality as a joke that was already tired in the ’90s!” Actually, it was the opposite thing. Karen and Samira Wiley met, hit it off, dated, grew closer, planned to attend Jack’s destination wedding together — and then, in the airport, the show pulled a reverse “Puppy Episode” and had Karen announce her straightness over the airport loudspeaker. I hate throwing the word “erasure” around because it dilutes it beyond recognition, but this was some of the stupidest and most disrespectful bisexual erasure I’ve ever seen. And why? What was even the point of it?

Claire Duncan, Tales of the City 

Claire was the most confusing part of Tales of the City to me. On the one hand, I get that Netflix’s reboot was leaning into the wacky pulpy twisty weirdness of the original, but on the other hand, I still have no idea what Claire was supposed to be to viewers or to Ellen Page’s character. She was like a spoiled and bratty documentary filmmaker blackmailing a trans woman to expose San Francisco’s gentrification issues? And she had an actual connection with Shawna? Or… no? She was using Shawna to get to Anna to do the blackmail? And Shawna, who couldn’t trust due to being abandoned as a child, did take a chance and trust Claire — and the lesson she learned was: your instincts are correct, never trust anyone? It’s all very bizarre and incomprehensible, and not in the good way I was consistently confused by the zany hijinks of the first few season of Pretty Little Liars.

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Natalie

Anissa Pierce and Grace Choi, Black Lightning

Writing these posts is always difficult, in part because as a community, we’re still grappling with what it means to be invested in qualitative representation instead of just quantitative representation. Also, because, given the nature of TV, it’s hard to disassociate these critiques from the actors themselves, despite the fact that the critique almost never about them. But just so there’s absolutely no confusion about my intention here: this post is not about Nafessa Williams or Chantal Thuy.

Williams and Thuy have sustained the #ThunderGrace fandom on the backs of their natural charisma and chemistry. I cannot imagine two other actresses having done so much when given so little. But Black Lightning is failing Anissa, it’s failing Grace, it’s failing its fans…and the responsibility for that falls squarely on the shoulders of its writing team.

I have given this show a pass for its shortcomings. I have watched as the female villains wither and die while the men — Gambi, Lala, Tobias, Khalil, O’Dell — come back, over and over and over again. I’ve watched as the show devoted episode after episode to telling the story of Jennifer clinging to her abusive boyfriend and as the show tried to convince me that abuse was romantic. I kept watching even as Grace and Anissa went weeks without scenes together. We’ll endure so much for the sake of representation…so even as the writers minimized and marginalized the show’s queer story, I kept watching. I kept watching because I wanted so much to see myself as super. I wanted so much to see us as celebrated heroes. I wanted to see us as bulletproof.

But this season, I finally reached my breaking point: In Chapter 4 (“Lynn’s Ouroboros”), Anissa’s dad, Jefferson, stops by her new loft and is surprised to discover Grace — who, apparently, he never even knew existed — there. Anissa slinks downstairs in her armor and we come to the realization at the same time as Jefferson: Anissa’s superpowers aren’t a secret from Grace. As with most of their relationship, the conversation where Anissa reveals her powers and that she moonlights as Thunder/Black Bird happens off-screen. We never got to see it.

It’s hard to overstate the significance of that conversation…how meaningful it would have been to Grace, who has had trouble harnessing her own powers, to know she had someone who understood her struggle or how meaningful it would have been for Anissa, who’s struggled with emotional vulnerability, to reveal this personal thing about herself. We missed the chance to see Grace’s face light up at the realization that she’s dating a superhero. We missed the chance to hear Anissa tell the only coming out story that’s ever been important on Black Lightning. No conversation between those two characters was more important than this one and we never got to see it. It is an inexcusable and infuriating omission…and it’s impossible to see its omission as anything other than homophobia manifested.

Anissa Pierce isn’t the lone lesbian superhero on the CW anymore. While I reject any effort to erase Anissa Pierce’s claim to the title of “first lesbian superhero,” as I take in Batwoman on Sunday nights and Black Lightning on Mondays, I wonder if we’re seeing, before our eyes, the difference between qualitative and quantitative representation…or, to put it more simply: the difference between acceptance and tolerance.

Cruz, Vida

Midway through Vida‘s first season, Emma happens upon her ex-girlfriend, Cruz, in a bar. There’s a playful flirtation between them…from the adorable way Emma trips over her words when they first reconnect to the sensual way their bodies meld together on the dance floor…but then the ground shifts beneath them. With one simple provocation — See? Things aren’t so bad around here — Emma’s truth spills out. The revelations are a defining moment of the series for Emma but they’re also a gamechanger for Cruz. For years, she’s lived with the belief that Emma was running — from her, from them, from this place — but none of it was true and from that moment on, everything changes.

Later, all Emma wants to do is fuck the pain away and, for a while at least, Cruz allows it. But, in that moment, all Cruz wants to do is show her that they’re more than just an aggressive fuck…that, through distance and time, their love survived Vidalia’s internalized homophobia. After being denied all night, their lips finally connect and Cruz pours every bit of love and comfort into their kiss. And while the story rightly focuses on Emma — who is so overwhelmed by the intimacy of the moment, she has a panic attack — one thing is undeniable: Cruz intends to be part of that story.

It is hard to reconcile that version of Cruz — that indelible impression — with the Cruz we meet in Season Two.

The Cruz that wanted to shelter and comfort is gone, replaced with a Cruz who doesn’t protect her now girlfriend from the withering onslaught of judgment from her friends. The Cruz that saw Emma break in front of her, as she recounted being sent away from home twice for the sin of being her mother’s child in ways her mother desperately wanted to ignore, wouldn’t weaponize that knowledge against Emma, but Season Two Cruz does. The Cruz we met in Season One provoked, intentionally, but never cruelly, and yet, in Season Two, Cruz says, “Emma, you are the classic cautionary tale of why moms need to hug their children.” When the words come out of Cruz’s mouth, I was convinced of two things: 1. Emma and Cruz are over…Cruz has crossed the one line that you absolutely cannot cross with Emma and there’s no going back now; and 2. Season One’s Cruz would never have said that.

Still, all these months later, I don’t know why she had to.

Eve Rothlo, How to Get Away With Murder

I said what I said.

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Drew

Eleanor Shellstrop, The Good Place

Okay, okay, OKAY. Let me explain. I love Eleanor. I really do. But I do not like her as a queer character. Bisexual characters obviously do not have to be romantic or sexual with more than one gender on-screen. Like in life there isn’t a behavior requirement to be bisexual. But that doesn’t mean an occasional punchline makes for a well-rounded queer character. There’s a difference between having a person’s sexuality not define them and all but ignoring that sexuality. We’ve seen Eleanor go through a lot of life – and a lot of lives – and I find it frustrating as the show winds down (beautifully I must add) that throwaway jokes about Tahani being hot are still all we’ve received. I don’t mind if more and more TV characters are lowkey sexually fluid, but I’m tired of attempts to celebrate Eleanor as a queer character or celebrate The Good Place writers for being so progressive that they ignore Eleanor’s bisexuality almost completely. It’s the one thing they shouldn’t be celebrated for as far as I’m concerned.

Clare, Derry Girls

The first season of Derry Girls ended with a really wonderful coming out episode for Clare. It seemed to promise new depth to her character – and new queerness for the show. But the second season was pretty much devoid of both. Clare doesn’t need to share Michelle’s confident horniness or Erin’s awkward horniness, but when Clare’s lesbianism is treated as a mere label, it feels frustrating in contrast with her friends’ teenage love lives. The new season brought a hot new teacher and a hot new student and neither storyline even addressed Clare’s possible attraction.

It just feels like show creator Lisa McGee doesn’t really know what to do with an out character. Like with The Good Place, de-centering Clare’s queerness doesn’t feel radical – it feels safe. Placing these two characters side-by-side demonstrates that it’s not a matter of sex drive. Eleanor is consumed with horniness, whereas Clare doesn’t seem to think about sex at all. And yet in both shows the characters aren’t seen acting on their queerness. Which is fine! The writers can tell the stories they want to tell. But as more and more television includes queer people, I think it’s worth considering what we do and don’t define as queer television and what we deem worth watching specifically for its queer content. Having one out of five characters be queer should be the bare minimum. And if you don’t center that person’s queerness I’m going to lose interest.

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Valerie Anne

Dex, Stumptown

The Stumptown pilot was one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen, but the show has been slowly losing me as each episode goes on. Dex barely ever interacts with other women, and sure the one she did talk to the most was her ex-girlfriend, but I still had hoped there would he more women on the show, and maybe even some men Dex HASN’T slept with. But somehow the show has turned into being about Dex’s dating history/present instead of her badassery and I am bummed about it.

Jade, Why Women Kill

I…I guess I just thought this show was going to be about why women kill men. Jade came on screen and I was like, “Jade and Taylor are gonna team up and kill their boyfriend.” But instead they went ahead and decided to score a hat trick of harmful tropes before the show’s end.

Nora West-Allen, The Flash

I was SO EXCITED when it was revealed that Nora was queer, especially since Jessica Parker Kennedy played one of my favorite queer characters of all time (Max on Black Sails) but alas, it was mentioned then forgotten. Not that I needed her to be in a relationship, because that’s obviously not what defines your queerness, but they could have at least worked it into the conversation one way or another. At least one other time. Anything. And then her last episode in 2019 had her entirely erased from the timeline. Which is a metaphor for what the show does to its queer women if I’ve ever seen one.

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Carmen

Anissa Pierce and Grace Choi, Black Lightning

It’s ironic that I’ve written more about Anissa Piece and Grace Choi than any other couple I’ve covered for this website. Ironic because when Black Lightning first began, I had never been more excited for a black lesbian superhero and now I groan to complete my weekly requirements. Ironic because Black Lightning is actually, when it wants to be, a truly exceptional show, but it’s decided in the last year that writing cohesive storylines — especially for its queer characters — is apparently just too much work. There is no reason why Anissa’s love life shouldn’t have been given the same on-camera, seasons long, full treatment that’s been given to her straight little sister and her parents. I made excuses for far too long, I think we all did, really. We wanted to believe in the power of a bulletproof black lesbian superhero. We wanted to believe in a shapeshifting bisexual Asian tough-as-nails badass with a tough past. We were right to believe. They deserved our faith in their love. Even when the writers of Black Lightning showed over (and over!) again that they weren’t willing to do the same.

This year, Heather and I made the difficult decision to move Black Lightning from full recaps to our weekly Boobs on Your Tube television roundups on Friday. A lot of factors went into that decision that aren’t just about the romantic pairing on screen, but it’s also true that I no longer wanted to reward minimal effort and bad behavior. Nafessa Williams and Chantal Thuy are kinetic together; they’ve found such depth and caring in Anissa and Grace, despite being only given the scraps of the table to work with. My point is — they shouldn’t have been given only the scraps to begin with. We should demand more. And from now on, we will.

Eve Rothlo, How to Get Away With Murder

There’s a narrative structure to storytelling. Yes, writing is an art form, but there’s also basic building blocks that are mechanical. Stories have a beginning, they crescendo across an arc, and then they end. I know I sound incredibly basic, but please follow me for a moment — Even Rothlo came back into Annalise Keating’s life at the start of How To Get Away With Murder’s second season (the beginning); through both flashbacks and their “present time” relationship we learned that Eve and Annalise were lovers in law school and that Annalise had broken Eve’s heart, but they were never fully over each other (the story arc); and then Annalise let Eve go to follow her new life and love in San Francisco (the end). I always believed we might see Eve on last time before the show was over, that she might be Annalise’s final love — her “end game” of sorts. Still, this story had found a satisfying conclusion on its own. Basic building blocks.

So why did Pete Nowalk decide to undo all his own writing and bring Eve back for a “special episode” in which her only purpose was to be intimately cruel to Annalise (which was never Eve’s personality to begin with) and then have her disappear into the night once again — leaving Annalise with just tattered pieces of her soul to deal with? I have no earthly clue. For a while I thought Eve’s coming back was a stepping stone in allowing Annalise to find new love with Tegan Price, but that doesn’t seem to be happening either. As much as I’d love for a romantic flame to blossom between Tegan and Annalise, I’ve also come to respect them as platonic queer friends, which we rarely get to see on television. Still, the question remains, if Annalise and Tegan aren’t getting together, and if Eve isn’t coming back in some grand romantic gesture, why did Pete Nowalk re-open this wound at all? Why pour salt somewhere that was already stitched? It was a confusing and bad story choice, point blank.

Tamia “Coop” Cooper, All American

I don’t know what happened in All American’s writing room between Seasons One and Two, but the sidelining of Coop from being a central character of the series, rivaling on co-lead, to a nearly D List background player is absolutely egregious and appalling. I don’t have anything else to add — it’s wrong by any definition and the show should be working overtime to fix it.

Boobs on Your Tube: A Happy Ending for Valencia and Beth, a Sad One for Alison and Emily

Welcome to an all-new incarnation of Boobs on Your Tube! In an effort to free up our TV Team’s time and creativity and bring your more standalone posts on social media and the front page of Autostraddle dot com, all Boobs Tube write-ups will be Quick Hit-style pieces going forward. We hope this adjustment will help you keep up with your favorite shows and give you a place to chat about them while allowing our team to flex their creative muscles even more!

This week, Heather made a list of some swoony and sexy lesbian and bisexual TV dancing and had a little cry over the first Tales of the City trailer. Riese unveiled our Spring 2019 TV Preview! And she and Kristin released the first episode of To L and Back out into the world! Valerie Anne recapped a Legends road trip, and Kalya reviewed the new season of Sabrina.

Some reminders from the TV Team:

+ Some TV returns that might be relevant to your interests: Game of Thrones (HBO, 4/14) and Arrow (The CW, 4/15). — Natalie

+ The Derry Girls season two finale aired this week and while there wasn’t anything gay about it, it was one of the most moving episodes of a comedy I’ve ever seen. Such well earned tears from me! — Heather

Here’s what else!

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 417: “I’m in Love”

Written by Valerie Anne

As much as I felt sort of lukewarm about Crazy Ex-Girlfriend this last season, I have to admit the finale got me in my nostalgia. The call-backs were perfect, and the monologue was lovely, and the flash forward to one year later was the perfect wrap-up. By the way, Valencia proposed to Beth after all, because she’s growing.

(But also had a drone ready to take their photos immediately, because she’s still Valencia.)

After courting three boys, Rebecca chose herself in the end, which was really the only way it could go. And then the loop closed on a meta note when Rebecca decided to start writing down the songs in her head and start her career as a songwriter.

I’ll admit I haven’t watched the post-finale concert yet (cleverly titled “Yes, It’s Really Us Singing”) but I’ll save that for a rainy day.

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Roswell, New Mexico 111: “Champagne Supernova”

Written by Valerie Anne

Have I mentioned lately how obsessed I am with the fact that this show names all their episodes after the songs of my youth? It’s so great. Anyway, this week we find out for sure that it wasn’t Isobel in love with Rosa but the fourth alien who was possessing her, and for a while Maria was suspected of having killed Rosa because she’s still obsessed with all her favorite songs etc but I still stand by the theory that Maria was IN LOVE with her. (And we proved Maria’s innocence.) Also I know this is a dude thing but Michael and Max had a really great moment where Max found out Michael slept with Maria and was like, “I thought you were gay,” and Michael points out that they’re literally not even from this planet so why is he applying such a basic binary to him just because of the heteronormative society they were raised in? He sighs, exasperated, and says, “I’m bisexual, Max. It’s not that complicated.” :mic drop: I’m pretty sure every time a bisexual says the word “bisexual” on TV a dragon gets its wings and I feel good about this year’s flock.

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The Good Fight 305: “The One Where a Nazi Gets Punched”

Written by Natalie

Everything that happened at Reddick-Boseman last week — from Diane telling Maia her job was safe to Jay’s reaction to the pay disparity to Maia ultimately being fired — was justifiable. But, from our vantage point, as fans of Maia, it certainly doesn’t seem fair and, from Maia’s vantage point — seemingly, as the sacrifical lamb for the firm’s inequity woes — it seems particularly cruel.

That cruelty’s driven Maia back to cubicle life at “Consult-a-Lawyer,” a pay-per-minute legal helpline. She’s seething with bitterness over her dismissal, even directing her ire at two of her closest allies, Diane and Lucca. Worried that she’ll be stuck at “Consult-a-Lawyer” for years, she puts aside her animosity towards her godmother and accepts the interviews Diane’s set up at three Chicago law firms. But when Maia discovers that none of the job prospects will provide the immediate relief that she so desperately needs, her anger boils over…and, sadly, it’s at that exact moment that Lucca shows up. She’s been trying to reach out to Maia all day but Lucca’s been stuck in the middle of nowhere — poll watching and fighting Nazis — and they haven’t been able to connect. She admits that she misses Maia and invites her out to dinner to dispel the awkwardness between them. Maia, of course, declines.

“Lucca, everything’s fine,” Maia says, the timbre in her voice suggesting otherwise. Before closing the door on Lucca, she cruelly adds, “We were work friends.”

Was that the last we’ll see of Maia Rindell on The Good Fight? I certainly hope not but it definitely felt like the show was, quite literally, shutting the door on this character. There’s so much potential to mine with Maia, particularly as she starts to rebuild her career as a Maia Henson (née Rindell) but it seems like the show just doesn’t know what to do with the character.

Some other Good Fight highlights: Diane and Liz dueting on Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” and this week’s short, “The Legend of John Barron.”

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Boomerang 110: “Trust”

Written by Carmen

This is just super quick update that Boomerang wrapped up its first season on BET and both Tia and Rocky are still together and happy. In fact, Rocky has made herself a regular member of the girls’ crew, and it’s my biggest hope that Kim Alex Hall gets upped to a series regular for the show’s already announced second season. Obviously, any depiction of a black stud on television is devastatingly rare, but also we almost never get to see butches incorporated into a crew of girl friends. I love that Tia’s friends Simone and Crystal have not only been welcoming of Rocky, but have found real love for her. Plus, her low-key comic timing is impeccable.

The final episode of the season opens with the four girls hanging out on the steps at what I believe is Ari’s birthday party (if it isn’t his birthday party, there must have been some other reason for the very talented men and women strippers giving him a lap dance, but I digress).Simone’s just found out that her college love/ex-boyfriend is engaged. The girls do what any one of us would probably do in this situation: stalk this new chick’s instagram. Tia gleefully delights to learn that the subject of their insta-stalking speaks French and follows Tia back instantly, liking a few of her photos for good measure. “We Friends Now!,” she declares much to Simone’s ire.

Later, when Simone goes off, “She ain’t cuter than me.” Rocky counters, “Nah, I mean, she a little cuter than you.” The response is perfectly threaded and everyone laughs.

Ok. So yes, this is just a silly opening aside, and irrelevant to the main plot of the final episode, but I for one am happy to know that Tia and Rocky are going into their summer hiatus happy, among friends, and in peace.

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Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists 104: “The Ghost Sonata”

Written by Carmen

Have y’all been watching the Pretty Little Liars sequel The Perfectionists? Heather warned us back in February that the new series was going to break up Alison and Emily’s happy ending. This week, after three episodes of dropping relationship crumbs here and there, it finally happened.

Emily haunts the entire episode, first when Alison sees a picture of Emily and their twin daughters on instagram. Emily’s no longer wearing her wedding ring. It’s really over this time. Emily hasn’t been able to move on past all of the couple’s lies during the PLL heyday. She can’t trust Ali and their marriage will not work like this. Ali confides to Mona, “I convinced myself that I came here with a clean slate, that I could prove to Emily that I could live a trustworthy life, maybe win her back. But I realize the truth is, it was just too hard to be there, close to her, knowing that we wouldn’t be together.”

Mona looks at one of her oldest friends with a love and understanding in her eyes that I thought she only saved for Hanna Marin,“I think you moved on, Alison. You just never said it out loud.”

After having the whole hour to reflect on her past, Ali finally decides to give Emily the one thing she really wants. She takes a glass of white wine to the head, pulls out her pen, and ends it. She signs her divorce papers.

There are VERY FEW happy endings for queer women on television. Emison was never my end game (I will love Paige McCullers until the day I die), but it certainly was for an entire segment of PLL fans who saw themselves in those two teen girls who were best friends long before they became romantic partners. I am so sorry that those fans had to witness a relationship they found themselves in, end off-screen, as an afterthought.

Lena Waithe’s “Boomerang” Is Bringing a Gay Reckoning to BET

Last week on BET, Boomerang began its episode the same way it’s begun each episode that’s come before: With the title in simple, bold print over a blank screen. This time? The word went from black to rainbow, and just like that I already knew – we were off really to the races.

When the sitcom premiered in February, I detailed the black pop culture and TV field that it was joining – one where critics’ darling black trans and queer television productions like Pose were still not getting the awards recognition it deserved from organizations like the NAACP, where black LGBT millennial voices were still being erased en masse out of our own cultural productions. I hoped that, given Lena Waithe’s professional reputation and the fact that Boomerang came out the gate with two black queer characters (Tia, a lesbian, and Ari, one of the few black bisexual men on television) in its main cast, this show could help move the needle.

In the last few weeks my expectations have been more than exceeded. Not only has Boomerang proven itself to be one of the most cutting edge black voices on television, it’s also invested in showcasing a full spectrum of young blackness, including sexuality. The crew of 20something best friends at the sitcom’s core include upper middle class and wealthy black characters Simone and Bryson (whose parents are the central characters in the original Boomerang movie that the BET sitcom is spun-off of); there’s also working class characters like Tia and Ari, Tia works as a dancer at a strip club and Ari hustled odd jobs – including being a bouncer at a gay club – to support himself as the first in his family to go to college; David and Crystal, college sweethearts who are now divorced in their mid-20s, are people of faith; David is the pastor of his own storefront church.

Over the course of it’s first seven episodes Boomerang has taken its time with the history and development of each character, eschewing the typical frantic comic beats of a mainstream sitcom for a more subtle and lived-in humor that echoes Waithe’s signature writing style in her Emmy Award winning episode of Master of None. Joke payoffs come from intimately knowing the perspective of the person speaking, rather than anything madcap.

Not that I have something against eccentric, pushy, or over the top comedies! Television shows like 30 Rock, which always rushed to its next joke even at the sake of its own plot, or Brooklyn 99, where common catch phrases (“Noice!”) rule the day, have a well deserved place in sitcom platform of the last decade. The original film Boomerang based itself off the frenetic energy of its lead comedian, Eddie Murphy. Still, there is something refreshing about the writers’ room that Waithe has assembled for Boomerang; they don’t mind leaving room to ride the air of quiet humanity in between the show’s beats.

This approach works particularly well for Tia and Ari, both of whom have their sexuality dealt with upfront and with zero-to-no fanfare. When the audience learns of Ari’s bisexuality in the second episode, it’s dealt with in a funny text message conversation with Simone that involves Ari boasting over his most recent hookup. In the fourth episode (“Call A Spade”), Tia’s girlfriend, Rocky, a stud black lesbian, is introduced to the audience mid-hookup with Tia. Rocky’s clad in a grey undershirt, Tia’s making out on top of her in her t-shirt and panties, when Simone busts through the door. There’s nothing aghast about it, in fact Simone just rolls her eyes and continues to talk about the emergency of the day (a family friend has found herself in lock up after a drunk yelling match with her boyfriend). As the girls rush off to save their friend in need, Rocky agrees to be their ride – after Tia promises to finish where they left off later, of course.

It’s been weeks and I still can’t get that particular episode out of my head. BET has a common phrase they use in their advertising, “We Got You,” but the truth is that they haven’t always had the backs of their black LGBT audience. I’ve racked my brain and I cannot think of a single other time when I’ve seen two women share a bed on their network. Now here are Tia and Rocky, and they’re leaving nothing to the imagination. It’s treated as common as the time of day. There’s no less scandal to it than any of the numerous straight hookups shown on the show. Two episodes later in “Homecoming,” a flashback dedicated to the crew’s college years, we watch Ari’s first gay kiss. It’s framed as romantic and warm, perhaps even innocent. Once again, my jaw was on the floor.

I couldn’t believe this was BET that I was watching at all. Just within the last 10 years, this network was still bleeping the word “homosexual” off their syndicated reruns of CW sitcoms The Game and Girlfriends.

Then came last week. In its seventh episode, aptly titled “PRIDE,” the crew attends Atlanta’s Black Pride festival to film Tia’s newest music video (to the best of my knowledge Atlanta Pride happens in summer and this crew is 100% wearing winter coats, but you know what? Let’s give it a pass). It’s here that the unhurried pace of the show’s character development really pays off. As our writer Natalie put it:

https://twitter.com/natthedem/status/1108200966199885824

Most striking is that we not only see Tia and Ari comfortable in their own black queer skin, but that the director chooses to highlight – via portrait style close ups – a variety of festival goers. Black trans women and men, black studs and butches, black femmes of all genders, black drag performers, black masc gay men – the whole family is accounted for. And we’re happy, we’re smiling, we’re…. Proud. There is not a single second in the episodes 22 minute run time where black queer folks are asked to check any part of ourselves at the door. It’s unforgettable and, quite frankly, revolutionary.

Of all the representation, it was the inclusion of black trans people throughout the festival that left me choked up. In June 2013 – for those keeping track, that’s less than merely six years ago – B. Scott, a black non-binary trans femme performer and gossip columnist, was forced off of the BET Awards red carpet for their femme fashion. After being invited by the network to help with their awards show coverage, Scott was asked to remove their make up, change into more “masculine” clothes that they felt uncomfortable in, and pull back their long hair. Maybe this feels like a small moment for those who didn’t live through it, but I’ll never forget my outrage. The utter confirmation that, as a black queer person, my acceptance in black cultural spaces was always going to policed and reprimanded. That cultural gatekeepers like BET might never actually accept “all of us.” Scott settled their lawsuit against the network in 2015, but those scars take a long time to heal.

Last week, Lena Waithe took a hammer to that legacy. Tia starts her music video framed in the fans of two black femme gay men living every bit of their ballroom life. It’s cathartic and joyous and simultaneously the queerest, blackest piece of art I’ve seen since Pose went off the air last summer. It’s certainly the blackest and queerest thing I’ve seen on a black network EVER. David and Crystal are using the festival to recruit new partitioners to their church, proudly declaring that “being queer isn’t a choice; it’s a gift from God.” Maybe the line was directly squared at a portion of BET’s church going audience, I don’t know, but damn it was healing for me to hear.

When Ari runs into an ex-girlfriend at the festival – she’s supposedly attending to support her “gay ass” brother, but to be honest with you she’s the worst ally I’ve ever seen – she berates him for his bisexuality. She tells him that she’s gonna pray for him. Still, Ari stands strong. He won’t put himself into a box for anyone.

In fact it’s Ari’s pride in his sexuality that inspires him to change the format for Tia’s video altogether. Instead of just being about her, the new music video becomes about us. A black lesbian surrounded by her queer and trans family, brought together, celebrating our own skin and our own love and existing in our fully black world without any apologies.

If you weren’t paying close attention, if you didn’t know the history, you might have even almost missed it – but what Lena Waithe is producing on BET right now is nothing short of a reclamation.

Bump that, it’s a reckoning.

Boobs on Your Tube: Nomi Feels the Carmen de la Pica Morales Sting on “Grown-Ish”

Happy Captain Marvel release weekend, Boobs Tubers! Heather has reviewed that feminist masterpiece right here! This week in TV, our TV Team made a list of shows we loved and lost and were really sad about. Valerie Anne recapped an episode of Supergirl that featured some much needed Alex/Lena interaction. Carmen recapped Anissa and Grace’s first fight on Black Lightning. Natalie recapped a really solid Alice episode of Good Trouble. Heather wrote about last week’s Stephanie Beatriz-directed #MeToo episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, ranked some cats, and invited you to delight in the new season of Derry Girls.

Some reminders from the TV Team:

+ Some TV returns that might be relevant to your interests: American Gods (STARZ, 3/10); Star (FOX, 3/13); The Good Fight (CBS All Access, 3/14) — Natalie

+ The #FightforWynonna is still going strong with still no word from IDW…keep tweeting! You can start by checking out the billboards Earpers put in Times Square. — Valerie Anne

+ Harlots is coming back to us on July 3rd. — Valerie Anne

+ The upcoming CBS show Why Women Kill cast one of its lesbian characters. — Valerie Anne

Here’s what else!

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grown-ish 211: “Face the World”

Written by Natalie

There is something about falling in love — or, if you’re Nomi Segal, “in like” — for the first time that makes you feel invincible. You walk a little taller. Everything looks a bit more vivid and alive than it did before. You are imbued with this new confidence that makes obstacles that once look insurmountable seem conquerable. And so, of course, it’s at this moment — which happens to coincide with Parents Weekend at Cal U — that Nomi decides that she’s going to tell her parents that she’s bisexual. She shares her decision with her girls first and, of course, they’re all supportive…even if Skylar does say, “They probably won’t take it that hard because you’re only kinda gay.”

“Okay, not how that works,” Nomi responds, before grabbing a shot to toast her upcoming big moment. With her academic hearing for cheating looming, Zoey is feeling particularly nostalgic and takes a moment to pay tribute to her friends: she calls Nomi, the Clyde, to her Bonnie; she celebrates Skylar and Jazlyn as her sisters who, like her actual sister, Diane, are cute, independent and really scary; and salutes Ana as her true “ride or die.” Things haven’t changed too much because Nomi eschews all the nostalgia and urges Zoey to do the same thing in her hearing that men have done for years: just answer “I do not recall” to every question that’s asked.

The next day, while Zoey’s at her hearing, Nomi’s playing tour guide for her parents. Her mother notices all the attractive men mulling around and asks Nomi if she’s met anyone special. Nomi admits she has and, after her mother asks if he’s Jewish, Nomi pauses — flashes back to her makeout session with Professor Hewson Shane — and admits, “I don’t know what she is, Mom.” Her parents look at each other stunned and Nomi waits anxiously for their reaction.

Unfortunately, though, we only get Nomi’s parents’ reaction second-hand: Nomi shares it with Shane when she shows up at her house afterwards. Her father is convinced her bisexuality is just a phase while her mother is worried that Nomi will drop out of college and run off to Broadway. Things are uncertain but Nomi is radiating. She’s positively giddy and as happy as we’ve ever seen her.

“I didn’t even do it, by the way, because I felt like I had to, I did it because you made me realize that I wanted to. I mean, like, the events that you took me to, the talks we had, the connection between us,” Nomi exclaims, stroking Shane’s arm. She’s experiencing the greatest high of her young life and then, because Shane’s gonna Shane, it quickly comes crashing down.

Shane asks Nomi if they can catch up tomorrow and, as Nomi acquiesces, she realizes that there’s another woman in the professor’s living room. Heartbroken, Nomi tries to walk away but Shane calls her back to talk. Nomi takes the other woman’s presence as proof that she misinterpreted Shane’s feelings.

“You didn’t misinterpret anything,” Shane concedes, adding, “I thought you understood the reality of this.”

But Nomi doesn’t understand: they’re both adults who like each other so what’s stopping them from being together? Maybe at a different time and in a different place, Shane and Nomi could see where their chemistry leads but not here, not now…which seems like something Shane should’ve considered BEFORE she made out with her student. The disbelief registers on Nomi’s face — a mix of shock that things aren’t going like she thought they would and surprise that she hadn’t seen this ending coming — and she walks away, dejected.

It’s a tough mid-season finale for Nomi (though, admittedly, not nearly as tough as Zoey’s) and it’s anyone’s guess how she’ll recover from her first real heartbreak. Will she revert back to her series of one night stands or will she discover that there’s more to the queer community at Cal U than bad performance art? We’ll find out when grown-ish returns this summer.

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All American 114: “Regulate”

Written by Natalie

Since Coop launched her plan to avenge Shawn’s death, it’s been hard to understand her thinking: how does this end? Is her goal to see Tyrone in jail or dead? And if it’s the latter, how does tender-hearted Coop grapple with the having caused someone else’s death? And what about her: does she really think, after this whole business is done, she’ll just be able to go back to her old life, as if nothing happened? Why does Coop think she’ll be able to escape this situation unscathed…if at all?

It’s that last question that’s wormed its way into Coop’s subconscious. Preach called her Trojan Horse strategy out last week and if he’s loyal to Tyrone, she could be in danger. She’s not sharing her worry with anyone else, though, but the concern manifests itself in her dreams. The nightmares jolt her and Patience awake but when her girlfriend asks about them, Coop makes excuses for her subconscious. Instead of pushing Coop to reveal more, Patience turns over in bed, exasperated, hoping that this mess will be over soon.

Meanwhile, Spencer’s going all out for his little brother’s birthday and, of course, Coop’s ready and willing to help out. But when Spencer announces he wants to have the party at the park that the community cleaned up and pushed the gang’s out of, Coop worries about Tyrone’s reaction. Spence assures her it’ll be fine — it’s just a kid’s party, after all — but sure enough, Tyrone shows up later, angry that Spencer would deign to have a party at the park. Luckily for Spencer, some of the neighborhood’s OG gangsters take his side and dare Tyrone to defy them.

After picking up supplies for the party, Coop heads back to her apartment to find Tyrone and the crew waiting for her. Given her background with the church, Tyrone wants Coop to lean on a pastor whose church needs protecting. Preach throws some more subtle jabs at Coop and, if that wasn’t scary enough, when he’s questioned by a member of his crew, Tyrone threatens to take care of Spencer when the time is right.

At the party, Patience mulls around with Spencer and his girlfriend while Coop plays happily with the kids. Smiles are few and far between these days, Patience notes, given everything that’s going on with Tyrone and her recurring nightmares. That’s news to Spencer and when Preach shows up to pick Coop up for a job, he confronts his best friend about it. She brushes off his concern about the nightmares and when Spencer asks if Preach is fueling those nightmares, she swears that the newcomer is cool. Spencer doesn’t believe her and urges her to get out. They can find another way to deal with Tyrone, he assures her, but she says — she knows — it won’t be that easy.

“Nah, you know what ain’t easy?” Spencer asks, rhetorically. “Knowing my best friend’s life is headed for a box. Either a pine one or a 6-by-8 cell.”

While Spencer may be right about this (and he is), this entire thing just grates. This whole storyline is predicated on Coop being so absurdly naive that it borders on implausible. Stop doing this, TV writers; stop making female characters stupid so you can make your male character look heroic.

Coop walks over to Preach and tells him she’s not going with him to do the job. He warns her about blowback from Tyrone but Coop says she’ll handle whatever comes. But Preach never tells Tyrone about Coop going AWOL so Coop thinks he might be opening to turning against the leader. Using information she got from Laura Baker, She reveals that Tyrone had Shawn killed and she doesn’t understand why that doesn’t offend his sense of loyalty…afterall, Shawn was like family to him. She pushes Preach just far enough to recognize that Tyrone needs to be dealt with but as she steps out of his car, it’s clear that his idea of retribution isn’t exactly what Coop had in mind.

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Charmed  113: “Manic Pixie Nightmare”

Written by Carmen

Welcome back, my little pixie dusts! Ok, maybe that pun is a little cold-hearted given the theme of this week’s Charmed (in which a magical pixie causes havoc and harm), but it was too cute to pass up.

Also too good to pass up? Pointing out that Judd, the dead film student at the center of this week’s magic case made a student film called “Woke: The Journey of a Straight White Male Ally” and you guys he worked so hard at it! A full THREE DAYS!! Won’t anyone think of the efforts of mediocre white men??? Ok, I digress.

We’re here to talk what gay, and what’s gay is that this week Mel and Jada are laying around in their post-sex t-shirts and post-sex hair when Mel gets an urgent text from her sisters that she has to come and save the witchy day. Jada’s reading over her shoulder and wants to know when she’ll finally be invited in to Mel’s heart and the ongoings of her family. Mel counters by asking when will get to find out about who the S’Arcana broke out of Tartarus (otherwise known as “demon jail”). So now it’s Jada’s turn to clam up!

She wants to let Mel all the way in, she really does, but that secret is not just hers to keep. That secret is about sisterhood. And they aren’t there quite yet. Something that fascinates me about Mel and Jada is this entire cat-and-mouse situation they have going on. Mel is falling for Jada with real feelings, and has come clean about working undercover for The Elders, but she doesn’t feel safe enough yet to let Jada into the Charmed Ones bubble that ultimately cost her Niko. Jada’s built this aura of being a witch that’s open to everything, but she holds the S’Arcana cards close to her chest. As much as Mel and Jada’s relationship feels genuine, it also feels like each one is waiting for the other to crack first. They are waiting for vulnerability. But when that moment eventually presents itself, will they handle it with care or pounce with opportunism? Only time will tell.

Plus, last episode Mel was on a “it’s not a date I swear” with Niko and this episode she’s tied up in the sheets with Jada! So I don’t think that a little guardianship is bad for either woman right now. They just aren’t there yet, and there’s still far too much baggage. That’s ok. Lesbians have a reputation for U-Haul relationships, but personally I don’t see anything wrong with taking it slow and easy.

Uggh, that’s until your baggage shows up at the front door. Or in this case, via a phone call. You see, Niko called Jada! Well, Niko the private investigator called Jada (not Niko Mel’s ex-girlfriend, because Niko still doesn’t remember that she is Mel’s ex girlfriend! Queer relationships are complicated, OK?). Anyway, Niko wants to relay the message that Jada’s parents would like to see her. The problem is that Jada’s parents still think that she’s a part of a cult; they don’t know that their daughter is a witch.

Distraught, Jada reaches out to Mel. And here’s that moment of vulnerability that we were just talking about! Jada explains it all – how she’s adopted, how when she found out that she was a witch her first impulse was to turn to drugs and danger, how she doesn’t know if her parents will love her if they find out the truth. But maybe, just maybe, if Mel went with her to meet her parents, it would turn out ok.

And faced with all those raw emotions and fragile hope, what does my girl Mel Vera do? SHE FREEZES COLD.

Stammers. Then, dead silence. That’s all Mel has to give. So, Jada does what any of us would do in that situation, she backtracks quickly! It’s fine. It’s totally fine. Haha. Who would want to meet the parents anyway, right? It’s much too soon.

Mel, seemingly realizing the hurt she’s caused, agrees to go with Jada at the end of the episode. She holds her hand as they bravely cross the parking lot. She reminds Jada that there’s nothing to be afraid of. These are her parents and they love her.

That is until the unmarked black van pulls up and, before either witch has the chance to react, shoots Jada square in her shoulder with a crossbow!

Until next time! Dun-Dunnn-DUNNNN!

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Boomerang 104: “Call a Spade” & 105 “The Let Out”

Written by Carmen

I promised you last week that I would be back to catch us up on Lena Waithe’s Boomerang update for BET and that time is NOW! As you can tell, I’m excited – is it because there’s a central, black lesbian couple on television that I actually get to write about? (yes) Is it because that couple is loving and funny and supportive and keeping far away from TV tropes? (yes) Is it because that couple exists on a show that’s rooted in a show that unabashed about its blackness? (absolutely yes) And is it because one half of that lesbian couple is a gorgeous stud played by Kim Alex Hall, whom I very much ready to call Daddy if she lets me? (hello yes I have eyes)

Let’s get down to business. In the last two weeks Boomerang has given it’s lesbian lead character – Tia, the strip club dancer and aspiring rapper, a new girlfriend, Rocky. Tia’s very much the loudmouth, fearless, extrovert of her crew and Rocky’s energy is much more steady, subdued either. Her name is apt because she comes across as Tia’s rock, the grounded roots that allow Tia to fly. She’s protective and whip-smart funny, she takes no mess from Tia’s friends. She’s also the kind of person that when your friend’s god sister finds herself in jail (it’s fine! She was just drunk!), she’ll let the whole crew borrow her car for a girl’s trip to go get her ass before her parents find out. She understands what it means your friends are really your family. And when you’re best friend/ manager fails to get your song debuted at the club, she’s gonna call her out on it, you know? Because no one messes with her bae.

That is what’s been happening over the last two weeks for our new home crew in Atlanta – a quick girls trip to bail out the lil’ sis that turns into a house party never to be forgotten (did I mention that Rocky has to knock some asshole out because he dared to put his hands on one of the girls? “I love her” Tia says in response, and trust – she’s not the only one) and later, a tribute to those precious first 30 minutes after the club closes, otherwise known as “The Let Out.” Both serve as background canvases for some of the most thoughtful and funny depictions of blackness that I’ve seen in a long time. What continues to absolutely floor me is that font-and-center to these plots is a black lesbian couple, just chilling with their friends – no excuses, explanations, or apologies. I have watched a lot, and I mean A LOT, of black television in my life. I have never seen this. And it’s presented so naturally, it’s almost easy to forget that it’s stunning or ground breaking.

It’s clear that Lena Waithe has packed Boomerang’s writing room with those who have a solid grasp for her subtle and laid back humor. Admittedly, I was originally expecting the show to be a bit punchier in its jokes (probably because the original Boomerang is designed around Eddie Murphy’s frenetic energy and therefore verrrrry over the top). Once I chilled a bit and leaned into the quiet of its humor and language as it’s being presented at me, I found myself delighted! This Boomerang has no fucks left to give; it’s here to just be itself. And that’s really working.

Seriously y’all. It’s still a little too early for grand declarations, but Boomerang has all the puzzle pieces to become one of – if not THE – most authentic portrayal of black humor and black millennial friendship on television right now. When all those pieces fall in to place the show sparks and sparkles! In particular, I have watched “Call a Spade” at least four times since it originally aired, and it’s better with each viewing. I’d put that single episode up against the ‘90s black girl blueprint Living Single or, for those looking for a more recent reference, Issa Rae’s Insecure and I’m more than confident it could hold its own.

And listen, if you know one thing about me, it should be that I DO NOT PLAY WHEN IT COMES TO LIVING SINGLE REFERENCES. So if I’m willing to say it, then it’s gotta be true.

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Quick Hits

Whiskey Cavalier 102: “The Czech List”

Whiskey Cavalier is a midseason addition to ABC lineup that’s a bit like the old TNT show, Leverage, only now everyone works for the government. While no queer folks have revealed themselves among the main cast yet, this week’s episode did feature a gay storyline starring Mellie Grant Bellamy Young…which is like my dream for all seven seasons of Scandal come true. — Natalie

The Magicians 406: “A Timeline and a Place”

I know I’m a week late on this, but Marina-23 confirmed her queerness in last week’s episode of The Magicians, talking about a girlfriend she had in her timeline who she screwed things up with, but found again in this timeline to fix it and live happily ever after with her. There had been some hints with Marinas past and present but it was nice to get some confirmation. This week the closest thing to gay that happened was that Marlee Matlin (aka Jodi from The L Word) made her appearance from the Mirror Realm, but that’s another story entirely. Oh also, while not explicitly queer, Julia talked to Kady in this sweet, gentle way in that raspy voice of hers and I almost died of gay. — Valerie Anne

Roswell, New Mexico 107: “I Saw the Sign”

Nothing gay happened on this week’s Roswell but I thought it would be relevant to your interests to know that Mama Adams Foster popped in! I yelped a little when Sherri Saum and her perfect hair floated into Maria’s bar, I won’t lie to you. (She’s Maria’s mom and she’s either a little detached from reality or TOO attached to realities not everyone is aware of. Or a combination of the two.) Still no confirmation on the Isabelle/Rosa front though… — Valerie Anne

Boobs on Your Tube: Nomi and Shane, Sitting in a Car, K-i-s-s-i-n—WHY???

It’s Boobs on Your Tube time! Firstly and most importantly, Carmen invites you to: SAY HELLO TO YOUR FRIENDS, BABY-SITTER’S CLUB! Also this week, Kayla on why The Good Fight is the best show you’re not watching, Cheryl Blossom’s quest to have the top gang in town, and Broad City’s even gayer final season. Natalie brilliantly recapped an awesomely feminist episode of Good Trouble. Riese ran down a list of 15 shows that put queer women first. Heather taught you how not to have a party, according to lesbian TV’s worst parties. And Valerie is hosting an FRIDAY OPEN THREAD about all these reboots!

A few notes:

+#FightforWynonna #RenewODAAT — Valerie Anne

+ I’ve found five new family members to binge One Day at a Time. Will you take the challenge with me and find five friends or family members of your own? We’re in this together. #RenewODAAT — Carmen

+ Shondaland properties For the People, featuring Kate Littlejohn, the Paris Gellar-esque queer federal prosecutor, and Station 19, with Maya Bishop, the bisexual badass Olympian, turned firefighter, return next week! — Natalie

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grown-ish 210: “Wild’N Cuz I’m Young”

Written by Natalie

We all saw this coming. After Professor Paige Hewson Shane hit Nomi with the rhetorical equivalent of a “u up?” text, the writing was on the wall: they were heading for a hook-up. This week, we took a big step closer to that inevitability.

With their finals mostly behind them, Zoey, Vivek and the twins turn up at Cal U’s biggest party of the year ready for a night of debauchery. Well, except Zoey, who is only there to dip her toes in the debauchery before heading home to study for her final final the next day. As they toast the end of the semester, the crew realizes they’re missing some folks so Zoey shoots a text to Ana and Nomi to find out where they are. Turns out both of them are off being hella problematic: Ana’s busy hooking up with Zoey’s ex-boyfriend behind everyone’s back and Nomi’s completing her weeklong tour of queer culture (a Roxane Gay talk!) with her professor.

Sitting in Shane’s car, outside her apartment building, Nomi checks Zoey’s text and then, promptly, tosses her phone aside. Shane asks about the text and Nomi explains that Zoey’s at the “rager of the year” and wants her to come join the party. Shane encourages her to go and have fun but Nomi wants to extend their time together for just a little bit longer. While Shane is down with that idea, she doesn’t want to monopolize all Nomi’s time.

“Yeah, but what if I want to?” Nomi asks in a way which, at once, feels like an answer about the night’s itinerary and also about where Nomi wants to take this relationship.

“Nomi, these are the best four years you’re ever gonna get,” her professor advises. “You’re here to experience life, not just talk about it in a classroom. Go do it.”

Nomi relents and agrees to go to the party, with a promise to text afterwards (a text chain that will, inevitably, start with “u up?”). She goes to open the car door and rethinks her decision, turning back towards Shane. Nomi leans forward, clearly wanting to kiss her professor, but she loses her nerve and retreats. But before she can withdraw fully, Shane pulls Nomi into a kiss.

The next time we see Nomi, she’s stumbling into Zoey’s room, intoxicated by the high of a new romance. She collapses on the bed and professes that she’s “deeply in like.” Nomi’s clearly smitten even though they haven’t hooked up yet and Zoey appreciates how big an admission that is for the heretofore commitment-phobic Nomi. But when Zoey asks if Nomi wants to talk about it, she declines — no need to jinx it — and, instead, Nomi convinces Zoey to head back to the party, echoing Shane’s advice about experiencing life.

So… that happened…

It’s hard to know where grown-ish will go from here. Emily Arlook’s post-show interview gave me hope that the show recognizes that a line’s been crossed but the episode itself left me questioning how they’d tackle it moving forward. As Zoey notes, this is a big moment for Nomi’s character: she genuinely likes someone. However problematic, whatever the power discrepancy, she’s found someone who really sees her for the first time in her life… and that’s huge… except in this episode, it’s not really treated that way. It’s sandwiched between storylines that are far less consequential.

But also? Does the professor recognize how inappropriate their relationship is? If not, why and, if so, also: whyyyyyy?! You don’t sit outside someone’s building in a car without tinted windows, surrounded by students headed to the Party of the Year, and make out with a co-ed for 90+ minutes if you think your behavior is wrong or might result being fired. If only Shane’s best friend, former Cal U Art School Dean, Bette Porter, was here to give her some advice….

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Legacies 112: “There’s a Mummy on Main Street”

Written by Valerie Anne

Have I mentioned lately how much I’m loving Legacies? Because I am. This week’s was no exception, and just when I was about to close my Google doc where I take Boob Tube notes after the fun jaunt of this week’s Spring Break episode, it got so gay I could write a novel about it.

Throughout the bulk of the episode, Lizzie is giving Hope so much shit for things she blames Hope for that happened over the years, specifically spring breaks she thinks Hope ruined. Like the time Lizzie got sick and assumed she caught it from Hope, or the year Hope set her bedroom on fire and Alaric had to stay behind to clean it up. But Hope insists she didn’t set her own bedroom on fire, nor half the other things Lizzie blames her for, including the horrible things Lizzie claims Hope said about her “episodes.”

Josie had remained pointedly silent during this spats until the end of the episode when it finally came to light that she was the one who told Lizzie that Hope said horrible things about her. When they get back to school, Hope and Lizzie confront Josie to see what gives.

The thing is, Josie had a crush on Hope. And every time Josie had a crush on someone, Lizzie would go after them too, and always win them over first. So instead of letting on that she had a crush on Hope, Josie did the opposite and not only pretended she didn’t like her, but made sure Lizzie wouldn’t either by making up stories of horrible things Hope said. One night, Josie slipped a letter confessing her crush under Hope’s door, but immediately regretted it. She tried to shoot a little spell under the door to burn the note, but overshot and caused the fire that destroyed Hope’s room.

Hope had every right to be pissed. She could have screamed at Josie or told her never to talk to her again. She could have stormed away. But instead she looks at Josie carefully and says, “You had a crush on me?” with a bit of a shy smile.

And Josie, with the nostalgic pain of unrequited love, and the relief of letting go of a secret she’s carried for years, breathes out that of course she did. “Who wouldn’t?” and returns Hope’s quiet smile.

So not only did this reveal that my Josie/Hope dreams could come true in this reality and not just the one Jinni-created alternate universe, but it also confirms that all three of these women are canon queer in this universe. Right? Josie wouldn’t have been worried about Lizzie going after Hope if Lizzie was totally straight? I remember reading once that all the teens on this show were sexually fluid, but that’s a thing people say about teens sometimes, so I didn’t expect it to express itself so explicitly and yet so casually. I’m obsessed.

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How to Get Away With Murder 515: “Please Say No One Else Is Dead”

Written by Natalie

After I watched an early screener of HTGAWM‘s season finale, I sent my TV team colleague, Carmen, a short message: “The Castillos are the B613 of HTGAWM.”

If you’re unfamiliar, B613 was the covert government agency that controls (seemingly) the entire world, first acknowledged in Scandal‘s second season. At first, it was okay — it gave us a profound insight into who Huck was — but then the writers fell in love with that plot device and started using it absolutely everywhere. B163 swallowed the show whole. The writers didn’t need to be creative anymore: they could craft as many OMG plot twists as they wanted because they never had to worry about the ending making sense. They could just blame everything on B613. It was awful.

And that’s where we are on HTGAWM too: writers taking too much joy in crafting one plot twist after another without worrying about anything making sense because, at the end of it all, they can just blame the Castillos.

“Everyone’s dead! Nate’s father, Wes, they’re all dead because of you!” Annalise yells early in the season finale… and while, at that moment, it’s a condemnation of Laurel, it’s also, more broadly, a condemnation of this writing team which has, over three seasons and 45 episodes blamed every bad thing that’s happened on the Castillos. A family that, aside from Laurel, has only appeared in ten of those episodes, is supposed to be this BIG BAD who controls everything, including every single Philadelphia District Attorney and the governor?!

How am I supposed to be afraid of someone I rarely even see? And if the Castillos are so powerful, why is the patriarch in prison? And how is Laurel’s brother, Xavier, sly enough to evade discovery by the FBI but then outs his entire plan to Annalise like a bad Scooby Doo villain? None of this makes any sense…absolutely none of it.

But, as frustrating as this episode was, it did offer some good moments for Annalise and Tegan, who are truly serving justice like a well-dressed Batman and Robin. As I said last week, I’m really trying to let go of any hopes I have for the flirtatious banter between these two to actually lead somewhere because I’m tired of being Charlie Brown to Pete Nowalk’s Lucy, but I do appreciate Tegan’s new role as Annalise’s best friend. Annalise needs more people around her that aren’t trying to manipulate her or get something from her.

After receiving Emmett’s phone records from the governor, the FBI shows up at Caplan & Gold to arrest the firm’s managing partner. Annalise tries to recruit Tegan to help Emmett but the second she hears about the Castillos involvement, Tegan refuses. Annalise shows up to rescue Emmett with a video of Xavier Castillo visiting Nate Sr. in prison and assurances about the phone records being fraudulent. But when the FBI produces a recording from Emmett’s office of Tegan and Annalise proclaiming Emmett’s guilt — making Annalise an ineffectual counsel — she has to reach out to Tegan again for help.

Clearly afraid for her life, Tegan resists and Annalise gives her a pep talk, “Tegan, we are too strong and too smart to let these bastards scare the fight out of us. Or is that just me?”

It’s enough to get Tegan on-side and the next time we see her, she’s at the FBI office, sitting next to Emmett… only, she’s not here as an attorney, she’s here as a material witness in the case. She offers proof that phone records can and have been doctored by the Castillos. She offers to testify under oath to the evidence’s veracity but Emmett warns that it could get her disbarred. Tegan reminds him, and the FBI agents, that it’s only a disbarrable offense if the secret gets out. It’s enough to convince the agents of Emmett’s innocence so he’s released and the pair head back to C&G to toast their win and commiserate over the threat the Castillos still pose. Emmett pours them both a glass of scotch but Tegan’s a gin drinker so she heads back to her office to her bottle so they can drink together.

Once she returns to her office, though, Tegan catches a speech from the governor, pointing the finger in the Miller investigation back at Emmett. Tegan calls Annalise to alert her to the news and wonders what to do now…she’s supposed to head back upstairs and get drunk with her boss. Annalise tells her she’s on her way and tells Tegan to keep Emmett calm until she arrives. And then this happens:

Tegan: Who’s gonna keep me calm?
Annalise: You are my rock. Stop panicking.
Tegan: Can I come sleep at your place tonight, then? ‘Cause you know Jorge’s probably sending his hitman over right now.
Annalise: I’m not gonna let that happen.

Then, Annalise turns around, only to discover that Laurel has disappeared from the bustling sidewalk, and then, after calling Frank, learns that Christopher has been taken from his crib. And unbeknownst to her or Tegan, Emmett’s lying on his office floor, clutching his chest, having presumably been poisoned by his scotch.

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Quick Hits

All American 113: “Legacy”

Last we saw Coop, she was firmly committed to her plan of avenging Shawn’s death by infiltrating the gang and turning them against Tyrone, despite the fact that she’s got so much more to lose now if this plan goes sideways. This week, we find her really starting to put that plan in motion: trying to earn the loyalties of the other guys in the crew and sowing seeds of doubt about Shawn’s death in their minds. For the most part, she’s able to cloak her actions from a paranoid Tyrone but Preach — the gang’s new driver who’s fresh out of lock-up — sees what she’s up to and issues her a stern warning, via parable.

Preach spent his time in prison reading Greek mythology and regales Coop with the story of the Trojan War, “They build a wooden horse so they can take them down from the inside.” Coop notes that the plan sounds smart and Preach throws an epic side-eye in her direction. I didn’t think it was possible for this plan to get any worse but IT ABSOLUTELY HAS. — Natalie

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Siren 206: “Distress Call”

On this week’s Siren, Ryn killed a man for Maddie. If that’s not true love, I don’t know what is. The problem is, she didn’t know the laws of the land. She saw the woman she loved was in danger, and she defended her. But when Maddie’s father explains that there are rules and breaking them has consequences, Ryn starts to feel bad that she made a mess for Maddie. But Maddie holds Ryn close and kisses her and and tells her that Ryn saved her life and she appreciates it, and she’s worth any trouble she causes.

There was other mermaid drama, but that was it for the #hornyformermaids shenanigans! — Valerie Anne

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Roswell, New Mexico 106: “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Y’ALL IS ROSWELL GAY OR NOT HELP ME OUT! I think Isabelle’s weird blackout alter ego was in love with Rosa but also do I even want that to be true because I think that same alter ego also KILLED Rosa and either way Rosa is for sure dead so that means we’d have two queer women on the show and one is dead and the other is a murderer and that’s the BEST rep I’ve ever seen but also when they held hands on the billboard ledge my heart raced BECAUSE I’M ONLY A HUMAN LESBIAN I AM WEAK okay thanks for listening I look forward to reading your takes on this situation PS Maria is queer too right great okay bye. :deep breath: — Valerie Anne

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Boomerang 104: “Call a Spade”

We’ll have a full catch up next week, but just to prepare you – Tia has a new girlfriend, Rocky. She is funny and supportive and protective. She’s played by Kim Alex Hall and looks like this, so you should definitely catch up:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BuZSQvKl7TE/

Rocky will also be featured in this Tuesday’s episode, so if you have been waiting to binge watch Boomerang until it got fully gay, NOW IS YOUR TIME! See you next week Friday to fully dig in all the details. — Carmen

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Grey’s Anatomy 1515: “We Didn’t Start the Fire”

Did you hear the good news? On Thursday night Grey’s Anatomy officially took over ER’s spot and became the longest running primetime medical drama on television. Shonda & Co had been chasing the record for years, but our day has finally come. And how did they decide to celebrate?

With the CLIFFHANGER RETURN OF DOCTOR ORGASM!! THAT’S HOW!!! Welcome Home Catrina DeLuca, we missed you. — Carmen

Lena Waithe’s “Boomerang” Has a Black Lesbian, Bisexual Representation and a Lot of Heart

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about black history. I’m sure that’s to be expected, since it’s February and all. I’m in the middle of editing Autostraddle’s Black History Month series. There’s also a lot of buzz surrounding the reboot of this little known show you may have heard of called The L Word (haha) that has left me, as a television critic, thinking about the long history of queer women’s and queer black women’s representation on screen. This month has found me looking back, questioning, trying to find those patterns and questions that were maybe once forgotten.

Which makes it probably the ideal time to start thinking about a Lena Waithe project. There’s a lot to love about Lena Waithe (whom we’ve more than once jokingly called everyone’s favorite imaginary celebrity girlfriend at this publication), but one of the things I’ve long respected most is that she’s a walking encyclopedia for black television and black pop culture. She studies our creative expression the way that an NYU film student pours over the AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list. She reveres it, references it in her work. She honors it. As someone who lives for black pop culture in the same way, it’s always drawn me to her productions. To paraphrase Waithe – I, too, see the God in us.

That’s why I was intrigued when her first green-lit sitcom, following her historic Emmy moment as the first black woman to win for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series, was for a reboot of the 1992 black cinematic classic Boomerang. We throw around words like “iconic” a lot these days in internet slang, but there simply is no other way to describe Boomerang’s 27-year-long legacy in black culture. I rewatched it recently and was floored by the cast alone: Eddie Murphy, Halle Berry, Robin Givens, Martin Lawrence, David Alan Grier, Tisha Campbell, Lela Rochon, and – I’ll still never believe this – EARTHA KITT AND GRACE FREAKIN’ JONES! That’s all before the first line is even uttered! I already want to lie down on a couch.

If you’ve never seen Boomerang, it’s a romantic comedy where Marcus Graham (Eddie Murphy), a womanizing advertising executive, finds himself in a love triangle between Jacqueline (Robin Givens) and Angela (Halle Berry). Many jokes, howling laughter, and more than a few spit-take worthy lines later, he ultimately ends up with Halle. Waithe’s new sitcom for BET (co-produced with none other than Ms. Halle Berry herself) follows Angela and Marcus’ daughter, Simone Graham (Tetona Jackson) as she and her crew of friends – including Jacqueline’s son Bryson (Tequan Richmond) – navigate life as black millennials conquering careers and romance.

I would have been invested in this project no matter what. It’s smartly written; some jokes held up even better upon re-watch – a rare calling card. It’s unapologetically draped in a love for blackness. But here’s when things get really interesting: BET’s Boomerang has not one, but two, queer black characters in it’s main cast — Angela’s lesbian close friend and client, Tia (Lala Milan), and Bryson’s bisexual best friend, Ari (Leland B. Martin). It’s painfully rare to see a bisexual male character on television, let alone one who’s black and also masc. That’s quite frankly unheard of. Ari is light and funny, he’s a talented filmmaker and one of the boys. His charisma leaps off the screen. None of his friends raise an eyebrow at his antics (well I mean, they do, but not because he’s bi). In many ways, he’s an early heartbeat of the show.

Tia’s a complete scene stealer. She’s defies so many boxes or tropes of what we’ve been programmed to expect from a black lesbian on TV. First, when most black queer women on television are being actively de-sexualized, Tia refreshingly owns her sexuality right out the gate (forewarning, the on-screen joke in the second episode that leads to the character revealing her sexuality to the audience is a little cissexist and gave me pause. The joke is very brief and I’m hoping that moving forward Boomerang finds ways to address Tia as a lesbian without throw away lines that focus on genitalia). She’s a dancer at a strip club who dreams of stardom and performs in day-glow body paint with phrases like “Black Lives Matter” and “#MeToo” adorning her thighs. When one of her friends suggests that she sell more of a male fantasy to make better income at the club, you know by making the men believe she’ll go home with them at the end of the night, she rolls her eyes and essentially responds, “Why? I won’t.”

Tia’s love interest has yet to make an appearance, but is slated for upcoming episodes. I did a little digging online and am ecstatic to report that she appears to be a stud butch, yet ANOTHER essential representation that we almost never get to see. Which is one of the many reasons that with less than two weeks on air, Boomerang is already proving itself to be vitally important.

As many of you know, Autostraddle maintains the largest independently operated database of lesbian and bisexual women on television. In preparation for this review, I consulted that database and found only two other reoccurring or regular black lesbian characters in American sitcom history. Both of those characters were on television shows that only lasted a single season. They also were isolated within majority white casts. Conversely, one of my longest standing gripes about the current black renaissance on television is the lack of black queer representation in majority black shows. I love Issa Rae’s Insecure, but I’ve never known a real life crew of black millennials in a big city like Los Angeles who had no gay friends. It’s more than “not representative” of the times we live in. Millennials of color make up the largest portion of LGBT folks in our age bracket. Against that backdrop, what we’re facing is erasure. Flat out.

In Boomerang’s cast of six regulars, we have two out queer characters who are loved and supported by their friends. Their sexuality is treated matter of fact and nonchalantly. My favorite moment? When Simone texts Ari to ask about the new male hookup he brought to game night, he writes back “Oh that’s all me.” She asks about ole girl from last week. His cocky response? “That was last week.” It’s the kind of playful boasting I’ve shared with friends in text messages that are definitely not meant for public consumption. There’s nothing more that’s needed to be said. Similarly, none of Tia’s friends bat an eye that she works at a strip club. There’s no judgement in this crew’s love for each other.

It can’t be overstated what a breakthrough moment this is for black television. I can personally attest that within the last decade, BET was still bleeping the word “homosexual” off its airwaves when it ran reruns of sitcoms from other channels. Let that sink in. Now imagine the same network running a new half hour comedy where one of the main characters is a black lesbian who works at a strip club with a butch girlfriend and the other is a bisexual guy who casually talks about his hook ups of multiple genders. Both existing in a world where they’re allowed to be free from a white gaze. That’s the power of Lena Waithe.

Last week we found out that F/X’s groundbreaking black and brown LGBT production Pose had been snubbed by the NAACP Image Awards. The Image Awards, celebrating their 50^th anniversary this year, were designed to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music and literature that are often forgotten or left behind by white critics and media. Pose’s omission, especially given its recent success in nominations at the Golden Globes and Critic’s Choice awards, was particularly glaring. The Image Awards have recently proved themselves progressive when it came to black and brown LGBT inclusion. This setback was a poignant reminder.

Those of us who fight for inclusion and a home in our communities must always remain vigilant. It’s not enough to be only partially accepted. We can’t just passively assume that our humanity will be seen when there are so many who would rather ignore that we’re here. As Pose producer, director, and screenwriter Janet Mock so elegantly stated in the wake of the show’s shutout: “Respectability politics will not save us.”

That’s the environment in which Boomerang is making its debut – one in which black visibility in pop culture is peaking at one of its greatest heights, but black queer and trans folks cannot give up our fight. We must continue seeing the humanity in ourselves, because so many others refuse to. I couldn’t be more excited to have Lena Waithe’s creativity out there pulling for us.

Boomerang is airing on BET, Tuesdays at 10pm EST. For those without cable, a season pass can also be purchased on Amazon Prime.

Winter 2019 TV Preview: All The Lesbian, Queer and Bisexual TV Coming Your Way

Let’s ring in the new year where we rang it out: on the couch, watching television! What we have here is all your 2019 television premiere dates for all your favorite new and returning shows.

The Fall 2018 season was pretty incredible for representation — it seemed like I had to update the TV Preview every few days with a new lesbian or bisexual character popping up. Unfortunately, most of the new shows on my radar for 2019 aren’t, as of yet, promising a whole lot of lesbian and bisexual women characters — but there sure are a lot of gay men, especially in a few supernatural and comics-inspired programs I’m keeping my eye on in case they choose to toss us a lesbian bone. Not a dead lesbian bone though, we’re past that now.

So, without any further ado except for the rest of this paragraph, let’s get into it! Shows that took less than a one-month break between their last 2018 episode and their next 2019 episode are mentioned in bold italics, but are not given full pics and descriptions.

This post will be updated as events warrant.

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January

Grown-ish (Freeform) // January 2nd // Season Two

// watch the trailer //

Grown-ish is back and so is Zoey’s bisexual bestie Nomi, who will start tentatively exploring her school’s queer community mid-season. This show is really cute and fun and if you’re not watching it, I bet if you started watching it you’d be like, “Aw! This is cute and fun but also has an awareness of social issues! I’m so glad I’m doing this for myself!”

Fresh Off The Boat (ABC) //  Season Five Returns January 4th

God Friended Me (CBS) // Season One Returns January 6th

Mainfest (NBC) // Season One Returns January 7th

Good Trouble (Freeform) // January 8th // NEW

// watch the trailer //

Good Trouble picks up where The Fosters left off: with Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) and Callie (Maia Mitchell) headed north, from their sleepy San Diego suburb to the bright lights of Los Angeles, to start their new jobs. Most exciting of all: their new building manager and de facto house mother, Alice Kwan (Sherry Cola), is a selfless and closeted-to-her-family Asian-American soft butch lesbian.

Brooklyn 99 (NBC) // January 10th // Season Six

// watch the trailer //

Now on a new network, Brooklyn 99’s Season Six will include an episode focusing on the #MeToo movement, directed by Stephanie Beatriz, and will open with Jake and Amy on their honeymoon.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (NBC) // Season 20 returns January 10th

S.W.A.T. (CBS) // Season Two Returns January 3rd

The Good Place (NBC) // Season Three Returns January 10th

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (The CW) // Season Four Returns January 11th

Sex Education (Netflix) // January 11th // Season One

// watch the trailer //

This eight-episode British dramedy stars Gillian Anderson as a sex therapist with a socially awkward son who, with the help and urging of his classmates, starts his own “underground sex therapy clinic” at school. Otis has a black gay best friend, but as far as queer girls go all we’ve spotted so far is a girl/girl couple in the preview who are only listed as being in one episode on imdb. Still, it looks really cute!

The Flash (The CW) // Season Three Returns January 15th

This Is Us (NBC) // Season Three Returns January 15th

Schitt’s Creek (Pop) // Season Five // January 16th

// watch the trailer //

Black lesbian town councillor “Ronnie” isn’t really a main character on Schitt’s Creek and that’s really my only complaint about this smart, clever, campy Canadian sitcom everybody seems to have discovered within the past few months. Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy shine as parents of a family who suddenly lost its wealth and are forced to live in a motel in Schitt’s Creek, a town they originally purchased as a gag gift, and Daniel Levy plays David Rose, a delightfully bitter young bisexual man. Plus, queer actress Emily Hampshire!

Riverdale (The CW) // Season Three Returns January 16th

All-American (The CW) // Season One Returns January 16th

Star Trek Discovery (CBS All Access) // January 17th // Season Two

// watch the trailer //

Star Trek has the most bizarre relationship with the gays. Kirk and Spock shippers are the original TV fandom and wrote fan fiction via printed ‘zines before the internet was even born! Once the internet was born, Janeway and Seven of Voyager became the go-to queer subtext sci-fi couple for decades. Finally, in 2018, Discovery introduced the franchise’s first canonically gay couple, Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber, and then promptly murdered Culber. Through the magic of science fiction and internet outrage, Culber is returning for season two. Also joining the cast: Tig Notaro as (presumably lesbian) Chief Engineer Denise Reno, who, according to the trailer, can best be described as “Tig Notaro in space.” I can’t wait! ( – Heather )

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC) // Season 15 Returns January 17th

How To Get Away With Murder (ABC) // Season Five Returns January 17th

Shameless (Showtime) // January 20th // Season 9B

// watch the trailer //

The back half of Shameless’s Ninth Season returns after an extended break — oddly, after all this time, the now-totally-uneven ensemble dramedy about the tough-luck Gallaghers has managed to feature a record number of queer female characters, although many have been pretty recklessly constructed. Most recently, Debbie has considered her Sapphic side through a brief fling with hot construction worker Alex, while Veronica seems to have abandoned hers in Svetlana’s absence. Honestly I can relate to abandoning things in Svetlana’s absence, I miss her with all my heart. I can’t stay away from this show regardless of its missteps. Previews suggest that Debbie appears to remain committed to smashing the patriarchy in Season 9B and also identifies as a “sexually confused Teen Mom.”

High Maintenance (HBO) // January 20th // Season Three

// watch the trailer //

Season Two of High Maintenance was one of the best shows of 2018, and casting notices for Season Three have been a delight in and of themselves — in addition to opening all roles to non-binary actors, we’ve got gay Latinx construction workers, hippies in Poughkeepsie, and characters described using clauses like “got into a Seven Sisters school back in the day but dropped out” and “the kind of woman who definitely owns some Birkenstocks and has energy crystals in her home.” Season Three will feature guest spots from Margaret Cho (spotted hanging out with other QPOC and kissing Hye Yun Park in the trailer) as well as Rosie Perez, Jemima Kirke (Girls), Annie Golden (Orange is the New Black) and Guillermo Diaz (Scandal).

Supergirl (The CW) // Season Four Returns January 20th

Charmed (The CW) // Season One Returns January 20th

Black Lightning (The CW) // Season Two Returns January 21st

The Magicians (SyFy) // January 23rd // Season Four

// watch the trailer //

Aside from Daniella Alonso’s Pirate King, most of the queer vibes in Season 3 of The Magicians were from the magical men. However, according to interviews, Margo is bisexual, so maybe we’ll see more of that this year…then again, everything got turned on its head so really it’s anything goes in Season 4. All I know for sure is that no one really reads as particularly straight on this show. ( – Valerie) 

Broad City (Comedy Central) // January 24th // Season Five

// watch the promo //

Broad City‘s Season Five will, sadly, be their last. According to a recent interview in The New York Times, Abbi is going to date a woman this year, which means this show has TWO bisexual protagonists. How about that.

JACOBSON I really feel like our show has been so queer from the get-go.

GLAZER Queerer than we knew. Behind the scenes, in front of the cameras. Everyone who works with us has gotten queerer and queerer in the past six years. I swear to God.

Siren (Freeform) // January 24th // Season Two

// watch the trailer //

Season 2 of Siren promises to give us more of the throuple action from Season 1, where mermaid Ryn seems into both Maddie and her on-again, off-again boyfriend Ben. And it also promises more mermaids, so here’s hoping all mermaids are sexually fluid! It seems some of them will be working against Ryn and some will be working with her to just try to blend in and save their species, but hopefully we get some more lady-loving merladies this year. ( – Valerie)

Legacies (The CW) // Season One Returns January 24th

RENT! Live (Fox) // January 27th

// watch the trailer //

In a moment that will undoubtably make me feel elderly, RENT! Live is coming to our teevee screens this January, starring Vanessa Hudgens as Maureen and Kiersey Clemons as Joanne. This will also be a great opportunity to see if Mark is less annoying when he’s not played by a white actor!

February

Russian Doll (Netflix) // February 1st // NEW

// watch the trailer //

I initially wrote, “f this show is somehow not even remotely gay, I will eat my hat!” and good news — I did not have to eat my hat! Rebecca Henderson (who is married to co-creator Leslye Headland) plays Lizzie, a lesbian who enjoys group sex and also one-on-one-sex and wearing overalls! Natasha Lyonne co-created and stars in the “existential adventure show” about an inescapable New York City party, created by an all-female writing team, directed by lesbian Jamie Babbitt and featuring actors including Greta Lee, Elizabeth Ashley, Rebecca Henderson, Chloë Sevigny, Dascha Polanco, Ritesh Rajan and Jocelyn Bioh.

American Housewife (ABC) // Season Three returns February 5th

One Day At a Time (Netflix)  // February 8th // Season Three

One Day At a Time and its adorkable lesbian protagonist, Elena, will return to our hearts and minds with 13 episodes this winter, including a very special cameo — Gloria Estefan will play Mirtha, Lydia’s sister and arch-nemesis in an episode that will also feature Steph Beatriz and appears to involve a funeral.

Walking Dead (AMC) // February 10th // Season 9B

// watch the trailers //

This is a show about, I believe, zombies! There’s a girl named Tara in it and she’s gay, but every time she dates a girl, that girl gets killed. Am I right so far? Many moons ago, the actress who plays Tara told AMC, “I’m excited for what’s to come in Season 9. I feel like it might be such a different equation. It might not just be war. Maybe there’s something else in store. That sounds exciting to play. Maybe instead of constantly fighting for survival, there’ll be some rebuilding and normality. I don’t know, but I’m excited to see if that could possibly happen!”

Boomerang (BET) // February 12th // NEW

// watch Lena Waithe on the making of Boomerang //

Lena Waithe and Halle Berry are the powerhouse team behind the television sequel to the 1992 film “Boomerang,” which follows the children of the original story’s three stars. Lala Milan plays Tia, described as a “misguided performance artist with high ambitions” who “is a classically trained dancer who wants to topple the patriarchy. She’s charismatic and wildly unique. Tia is an activist at heart, but she doesn’t mind being a little ratchet every now and then” and Kimberly Hall plays her girlfriend, Rocky, described as “a lesbian with a dominant personality” who is “very protective over her girlfriend Tia and her career.” Waithe is hoping to “change the face of BET” with the reboot.

The Umbrella Academy (Netflix) // February 15th // NEW

// watch the teaser //

As far as we can tell so far, Ellen Page’s new project is unfortunately light on queer women and by “light” we mean “there aren’t any.” But, it’s not often we can see our lesbian girlfriend Ellen Page on the small screen so everybody tune in for that face.

Shadowhunters (Freeform) // February 25th // Season 3B

// watch the trailer //

Shadowhunters will conclude its third season (which aired its first ten episodes from March – May 2018) this year with ten traditional episodes and a two-part finale. Harry Shum told Elle Magazine, “We were able to wrap the show up in a beautiful, exciting way. Filming those last few episodes was truly bittersweet.” However, it’s unclear if queer character Ollie will be returning, as she’s not listed on imdb for any 2019 appearances.

Better Things (FX) // February 28th // Season Three

Details are not in abundance for Pamela Adlon’s Louis-CK-Free Season Three of Better Things, which has a minor lesbian character and also one of Sam’s daughters might be a lesbian or could be non-binary or perhaps transgender, who’s to say! But we do know this: Sharon Stone (If These Walls Could Talk 2), Judy Reyes (Claws) and Janina Gavankar (The L Word) will all show up this year.

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March

Station 19 (ABC) // March 7th // Season 2B

Station 19 will be back to see if the otherwordly attractive firefighters survive yet another peril and make it to yet another day. Most relevant to our interest will be finding out if Maya Bishop (who was recently promoted to Lieutenant by the Seattle FD! #20BiTeen in full effect!) decides to leave 19 for a leadership position at Station 23 instead. My gut tells me that she – no way Shondaland would want to deprive us of Maya’s kickass attitude any time soon. (- Carmen)

For the People (ABC) // March 7th // Season Two

// watch the trailer //

Think Grey’s Anatomy but with lawyers (and much, much drier). Two great reasons to watch: queer actress, Jasmin Savoy Brown, as public defender Allison Adams…she might not be gay on the show, but her relationship with her BFF, Sandra, is the gayest thing about For the People. Second, the actual queer character: Kate Littlejohn, the Paris Gellar-esque federal prosecutor, who hooked up with Anya Ooms (played by pansexual actress Caitlin Stasey) during season one. (-Natalie)

American Gods (Starz) // March 10th // Season Two

// watch the trailer //

Native American actress Devery Jacobs joins the cast as queer Two-Spirit character Sam Black Crow and Yetide Badaki returns as the pansexual Bilquis when Season Two returns to find the battle in this Neil Gaiman adaptation “moving inexorably toward crisis point as the destinies of gods and men collide.” Bliquis will be absolutely “pivotal” to season Two and although Gillian Anderson is not returning as “Media,” South Korean actress Kahyun Kim is joining the cast as “New Media.”

The Good Fight (CBS All Access ) // March 14th // Season Three

It’s worth it, the subscription, just for this fun and expertly crafted legal drama with a knockout cast that includes two primo Mommis, Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald. Listen: if you liked The Good Wife for any period of time, try this spinoff noted for its painfully resonant depiction of life under Trump in a way that somehow totally avoids being heavy-handed. Christine Baranski says Season Three will “focus a little more on the personal relationships and how living in the Trump age is affecting intimacy” and “address this big gender moment that we’re experiencing now with the #MeToo movement —how it’s affecting the workplace and the marriages and relationships and how men and women talk to each other.” Rose Leslie returns in a featured regular role as lesbian attorney Maia Rindell.

Shrill (Hulu) // March 15th // Season One

This smart comedy series based on writer Lindy West’s memoir features Lolly Adefope as a black British lesbian hairdresser and the roommate of Annie, the show’s protagonist. You were probably going to watch this show anyhow but now you basically have to! Also John Cameron Mitchell is in it, so.

9-1-1 (Fox) // Season Two Returns March 18th

Jane the Virgin (The CW) // March 27th // Season Five

Abby’s (NBC) // March 28th // NEW

Natalie Morales stars as Abby, an ex-military bisexual bartender who runs into trouble when her new landlord takes issue with the makeshift unlicensed bar she’s been running in her San Diego backyard.

Harlots (Hulu) // March 29th // Season Three

Veep (HBO // March 31st // Season Seven

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April

Legends of Tomorrow (The CW) // April 1st // Season Four

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Netflix) // April 5th // Season Two

Killing Eve (BBC) // April 7th // Season Two

April isn’t really winter, but this is probably all you are going to think about all winter so we’re including it. The second series will pick up right where the first left off — M15 Officer Eve stabbed Villanelle, who managed to get away. The President of AMC Entertainment Networks has declared, “Killing Eve is picking up exactly 36 heart-thumping seconds after the events of the season finale. This new season is packed with superlative performances and is as twisty, subversive, darkly funny, nerve-wracking and pleasurable as our fans could desire.”

The Bold Type (Freeform) // April 9th // Season Three

The Bold Type’s second season was a little bit all over the place, but we still hold this show in our hearts. Speaking of hearts, we can probably expect a very heartbroken Kat to return this spring. :-(

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix) // April 26th // Season Two