Boobs on Your Tube: It Looks Like Thunder Grace Will Be Part Of This “Painkiller” Spin-off After All
Welcome back to another Boobs on Your Tube! This week brought us the final workroom episode of the season on RuPaul’s Drag Race and the official crowning of your final four queens. Once again Batwoman begs the question, “wait, is everyone on this show gay, because it feels like everyone on this show is gay?” Alex and Kelly took a big next step on Supergirl. And Alice learned how to take control in the driver’s seat of her own romantic life on Good Trouble. On To L and Back… it’s still not over (yet!) There was another quiz for you this week, What “Riverdale” Subplot Are You? We know you want to know!
And finally we said goodbye to Wynonna Earp’s potential series finale, and Valerie Anne wrote you all a love letter to chosen family, love, and fandom: We’ll Always Have Purgatory. Then the fans sent Waverly and Nicole into the sunset with one final gift, crowning them as the champions of our 2021 March Madness tournament.
Notes from the TV Team:
+ This week on Station 19, Carina has officially left her job at Grey Sloan Memorial and Maya realizes that she can’t go with Carina to Italy when there’s so much work left to be done of service at home. Also: Carina delivered a baby in a fire station! — Carmen
+ There’s a new Black lesbian on Ilene Chaiken’s Law and Order. We’ll probably catch up eventually, but with everything going on, we’re not feeling much like watching police shows at the moment. — Carmen
+ Netflix’s social experiment/competition show, The Circle, returned this week, with the streaming service dropping the first four episodes on Wednesday. Drew, Riese and I are hoping for a return of the bisexual chaos that fueled the first season but so far there’s been none of that. We’ll keep you updated with any gay developments. — Natalie
All American 309: “Testify”
Written by Natalie
Last we saw Tamia “Coop” Cooper, she was midway through her campaign video for Ms. South Crenshaw when she had an abrupt change of heart. She was tired of deferring her dreams so she took control: quitting school to work exclusively on her music career. The whole thing worried me, truth be told: If Patience was gone, she was still on the outs with Spencer and she wasn’t in school, how would Coop be integrated into the fabric of the show? One episode into this era, the answer to that question seems to be, “not well.”
This week picks up soon after the decision and Coop’s still tweaking a track from her forthcoming album. She’s determined to make it perfect so she can prove to her mom that she’s making the right decision. Later, she tracks down Spencer’s mother in the halls of South Crenshaw, and asks her to intercede with her mother. Grace, of course, refuses. She reminds Coop that her mother was once a dancer with aspirations of joining the Alvin Ailey Dance Company but gave it up for education, stability and family. Coop reminds Grace that she’s just not her mother.
“I know, sweetheart, [but] there’s no way Janelle is gonna let her daughter walk out in the world without a diploma,” Grace answers. I appreciate this entire conversation. Surely, Coop’s mama would have had an issue with her daughter abruptly dropping out of school… but that this entire storyline happens by telling instead of by showing (Coop’s mom never actually appears in the episode) is a worrying choice.
Later, Coop meets with Layla to talk about music but she’s distracted. Layla reports that Olivia’s missing and regrets not seeing past their problems and recognizing that her (former) best friend was struggling. Coop assures her that Olivia knows that Layla’s got her back and that as soon as she’s home, the two will work out their issues. Coop urges her to put the music aside for tonight… besides, soon they’ll have plenty of time for music. Talking to Spencer’s mom clarified one thing for Coop: a high school diploma is non-negotiable for Janelle Cooper. But just because Coop needs a high school diploma doesn’t mean she has to go to classes that take her away from her music: She’ll just take the G.E.D. in a month and finish high school early.
And if she doesn’t pass?
“Oh, I’ma pass,” Coop professes. “Then when me and you smash this music game, I’ma get my mama that Brooklyn brownstone and season tickets to see Alvin Ailey.”
Fingers crossed, Coop. Fingers crossed.
All Rise 211: “Forgive Us Our Trespasses”
Written by Natalie
Last we checked in on All Rise, Judge Benner turned a meet-cute with Professor Georgia Jennings into a first date. This week, we find Benner positively giddy about her new relationship. She admits, “I never expected to meet someone so enrapturing at this point in my life.” Which means, of course, that Root’s definitely still got it.
That’s all we hear from Benner this week — which usually wouldn’t necessitate a BOYT update — but then something else happens… or, at least, I think it happens.
Ensemble television has an interesting way of silo-ing LGBT folks. There is usually only one of us per show (an L, a B, a G or a T) and if another queer person shows up on-screen that person is inevitably going to be the main character’s love interest. That’s not how the world works of course — there are queer people around us all the time — but that’s how television, that reduces diversity down to checkboxes, works. That’s why I was a little thrown this week with All Rise when they seemingly introduced a potential romance between two of the show’s recurring characters: They’ve got Judge Benner, they’ve checked their LGBT box. I even had to call in reinforcements to tell me my eyes weren’t deceiving me (they weren’t).
Vanessa “Ness” Johnson (played by Glee alum Samantha Ware) has been a clerk in Judge Carmichael’s courtroom for nearly a year. As her time winds down, the Judge pushes her to consider her options within the building. Carmichael sets Ness up to shadow Emily Lopez from the public defender’s office. It’s a perfect pairing, really: The only person who can match Ness’ refusal to remain silent in the face of injustice is Emily. She joins the public defender on a case involving a reformed gang member who’s being accused of assault (among a host of other crimes).
While Emily huddles with the lead prosecutor to argue about the case, Ness talks to Samantha Powell, the clerk from the district attorney’s office. Sam asks about how Ness ended up shadowing Emily and Ness explains that Lola called in a favor. Sam invites Ness to call her when she’s ready to shadow the D.A.’s office… and the way she says it, with a hint of flirtation in her voice, combined with the “you already got my number”… that’s the moment where I start to look at Sam and Ness a little differently.
Later, Emily and Ness are swamped — trying to prove that their client is innocent without his help or the testimony of a supportive community — when a call interrupts. Ness answers but says, with that same flirtatious tone, “Hey, uh, sorry, um, I can’t actually chat right now. Can make it up tonight over pizza and hard seltzer?” It’s a date, I tell myself, and I’m convinced it was Sam on the other end of that phone. She hangs up and Emily gives her an ominious warning: evening plans don’t survive in the PD’s office. And, sure enough, seconds later they discover that their client has been killed trying to break up a fight in jail. Emily tries to move on immediately — trying to figure out who has to be notified and what paperwork needs to get done — but Ness encourages her to stop pretending that she’s okay.
After work, Ness urges Emily to practice self-care, starting with a trip, together, to a place with alcohol. Emily reminds Ness that she already has plans but Ness says that helping Emily recover is more important and leaves to give her “mystery person” a raincheck. Emily finishes her work and walks out to discover Sam and Ness talking in the corridor. Realizing that Ness had cancelled plans with Sam, Emily invites Sam to join them for drinks.
Maybe it’s nothing… but I’m hoping that All Rise will go there… be the rare show on television that allows queer women to exist alongside each other and not date. Not Sam and Ness, though… I’m definitely calling in that raincheck.
Charmed 309: “No Hablo Brujeria”
Written by Valerie Anne
The way the women outnumber the men on this show continues to delight me.
This week the sisters meet a cousin from their mother’s side here to take the Book of Shadows back for her family. Her name is Josefina, and she’s a trans witch played by Mareya Salazar. (A trans character played by a trans actor, imagine!) Josefina is in town accidentally sending Macy and Jordan to a pocket dimension because her family was supportive of her being trans but not of her doing magic. It’s not exactly the same but it reminded me of how when I first came out my mother was like “I love you anyway” but then also said “but don’t tell anyone else in the family.” Support with conditions isn’t actually support at all.
Josefina has been teaching herself how to make potions and salves and use magic items, and her plan is to steal the family grimoire and learn to do spells next to prove her family wrong. When it comes down to the moment when Josefina, Maggie, and Mel have to do a spell together to save Macy and Jordan back, Josefina starts to doubt herself; what if her family was right and she can’t do magic like the rest of the Vera women, but Maggie encourages her, telling her, “Other people don’t tell us who we are.” And it turns out, it works. Because magic knows that trans women are women, just ask trans superhero Nia Nal, whose powers are passed down via the women in her family which is how she became Dreamer.
It sounded to me like Josefina is going to stick around for a while, so the Charmed Ones can teach her about magic (and she can help Maggie with her Spanish) and I for one think she will be a delightful addition to the household.
Nancy Drew 212: “The Trail of the Missing Witness”
Written by Valerie Anne
Bess really has a handle on the “I like this but I shouldn’t” expression.
Y’all I know this is my penchant for emotional masochism, but I’m obsessed with the fact that Bess has a crush on the old timey lesbian ghost that is sharing her best friend’s body that used to be an aglaeca that tried to kill them all. OBSESSED. And this episode Bess confirmed that Lisbeth was gone so I feel better leaning wholeheartedly into this doomed ship. Bess finds a letter from Odette in her locker, because Odette is used to being apart from her lover by an ocean, so what’s a little time and space between gal pals. Bess writes Odette a letter back, but George finds it and puts together what’s happening and is mildly horrified. Bess confesses that she’s been getting to know Odette and she likes her very much, but promises she would never take it to a physical place because it’s George’s body and consent is sexy. Bess is lonely without her girlfriend and her family and Odette has been sympathetic to her plight. George tells her to end it, so when George and Bess share a hug after winning a local cooking competition and Odette pops in to get in on the action and Bess panics and tells her they can’t meet like this. George also learns that Odette has been spending time with her siblings, helping them with their French homework and just generally being sweet with them, and I hope this motivates her to find a new body for Odette (Maybe made of seaweed? Weirder things have happened in Horseshoe Bay) instead of just vanquishing her entirely.
Legacies 310: “All’s Well That Ends Well”
Written by Valerie Anne
“Hands touch, eyes meet, sudden silence, sudden heat.”
This week on Legacies, Lizzie is determined to fix Josie’s crush problem since she’s part of the reason Hope ruined it in the first place. But Josie doesn’t want any magical hijinx! She wants a normal, human girlfriend for her new normal, human life. Finch invites her to lunch again and this time Josie promises to be there come hell or high water. Lizzie does manage to convince Josie (by way of reverse psychology) to be bold and ask Finch out but after her very adorable speech, Finch suddenly looks a little unwell and says she can’t hang out tonight or tomorrow night actually and she runs away.
Josie is confused and doesn’t know what she did wrong, so Lizzie offers minimal magic and just a dash of hijinx to help. She goes invisible and follows Finch and finds out that the smol girl is actually a werewolf. Which explains both Finch’s history of rage issues, and why she was so dodgy about hanging out tonight, which happens to be the full moon.
When Lizzie goes back to find Josie drowning her sorrows in a vat of ice cream, she decides to try to preserve Josie’s normal, human life by lying to her, telling her that Finch is seeing someone else instead. I would have thought that Josie would love to know that her crush is also a supernatural trying to live a normal human life and they could help each other, but Lizzie doesn’t see it that way. So we’ll see how that shakes out.
Black Lightning 407: “Painkiller”
Written by Carmen
If you’ve been reading my work on Black Lightning, either here in this column or back when we did standalone recaps of the show, then you know I’m not Khalil/Painkiller’s biggest fan. To be fair, I have little against the teen (errr, Khalil appears to be well in his 20s by now, even though I thought he was Jennifer’s age?) — but I do have issues with the ways that Black Lightning continued to center him over either Pierce daughter, who were both supposed to be central to the show. So yeah… I’m not the core audience for the new Khalil-centric Black Lightning spin-off, aptly titled “Painkiller.”
This week’s episode of Black Lightning serves as Painkiller’s backdoor pilot and opens with Anissa and Grace traveling to Akashic Valley for their honeymoon. They’re traveling in a high tech driverless car and Anissa has some killer Bantu Knots in her hair. They arrive at an equally high tech hotel where a Black A.I. by the name of Imani greets them at their suite. How do I describe Akashic Valley … it’s like Las Vegas, if Las Vegas made a pitstop in Singapore and the whole thing was actually just a dream that Janelle Monáe had while getting high (to my point: the villain of “Painkiller” is a woman by the name of Maya who herself looks exactly like a cosplay of JM’s ArchAndroid period, but make it British).
Ok so Grace and Anissa go out to a local bar, where they encounter one of Maya’s henchmen and Grace promptly gets kidnapped. Anissa tries to go after her, but she runs into Painkiller. Painkiller, the TV show, is trying to do this thing where “Painkiller” the person and Khalil are two warring souls in the same body (if you watched last season of Black Lightning this narrative trick will feel familiar to you) — which is something that I think works fine enough for a one-off episode, but I imagine getting tiring in an entire series. Anyway! Painkiller tries to kill Anissa, but Khalil stops him and instead brings her to his lair for safety.
Khalil has stolen all this ASA money and built a high tech cave that would make Uncle Gambi green with envy. In this cave he has Philky (Alexander Hodge, famously “Asian Bae” from Insecure) and Cousin Donald (James Roch). Cousin Donald heals Anissa, while Philky and Khalil go after Maya and save Grace.
Ultimately to save Grace, Khalil has to let Painkiller out to play — by which I mean straight-up murder some folks — but it all works out. Anissa even gets some great lines in, like when she tells Cousin Donald “I’ve known many women, but I’ve only loved one” and I positively swooned. ONCE AGAIN here I am to tell you that what Nafessa Williams and Chantal Thuy have done in raw chemistry with these roles cannot be surpassed or ruined by any amount of obstructive or bad writing, no matter how hard Black Lightning tries.
So, Anissa is healed and Grace is saved. The real question that remains is will the two wives be joining Khalil permanently on the Painkiller spin-off next season? And this is where I surprise myself, given how I opened this recap, but sincerely I hope that they will. They have a lot of story left to tell, and I think stepping out of Jefferson Pierce’s shadow might be the first steps to finally telling it. We’ll see.
Boobs on Your Tube: After Four Years, Grace Choi Is Finally a Superhero, Welcome “Wylde” to Black Lightning!
Well! What a week! Welcome back to Boobs on Your Tube. Ryan’s Kryptonite wound is OUT OF CONTROL on Batwoman (and there’s lots of dyke drama, too!). Valerie declared Dickinson Season Two “an ode to Emily and Sue.” Good Trouble explored racism in comedy from the eyes of Alice attending the CBTV diversity workshop. (That episode also guest starred Rhea Butcher, who also was on this week’s To L and Back! See what we did there?) Would you like to read a touching personal essay about The Owl House’s Luz and Amity capturing the queer experience of a surprise first crush? We bet you would! Also, Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia presents a refreshingly typical teen dating story.
Heather found Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar to be a bananapants brain vacation and she thinks you deserve it. Shelli and Dani watched The United States vs. Billie Holiday and spent a lot of time thinking about the legacies of Black trauma on screen, and the twin legacy of Black queer erasure, and how both come to bear on the film, you should give absolutely give it a read!
It’s now officially March, and you know what that means! What’s New and Gay and Streaming on HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon?
Notes from the TV Team:
+ Pose’s third season (deputing this May) will be it’s last. No, I am not ready to talk about it. — Carmen
Black Lightning 404: “The Book of Reconstruction: Chapter Four: A Light in the Darkness”
Written by Carmen
So Grace woke up, and then Anissa and Grace got married, and now we are on our way back home. Where Anissa and Grace fight… over whether or not Grace can move her things (including her prized comic book collection!!) into Anissa’s apartment? Which felt more like the kind of fight you have six months into a relationship and not after your married, but hey! I suppose that’s what happens when your gay on Black Lightning and the writers are always trying to fit your relationship milestones in around everyone else.
Ok, I realize I sound snarky, so let me follow that up by saying that initial fight leads to one of Black Lightning’s most romantic moments to date: Anissa buying a pristine, still in plastic, copy of Grace’s favorite issue of The Outsiders and wrapping it as a present to give her wife. If you’ll remember, Grace was reading that same issue when she and Anissa first met — all the way back in episode three of the very first season of Black Lightning, which is both a REALLY touching throwback, and a surprisingly refreshing piece of continuity on a show that’s often struggled to find some. I loved everything about it! And of course, as always, Chantal Thuy and Nafessa William sell what the writers don’t give them, Anissa and Grace remain so well loved and electric, despite whatever holes in the plot.
Their romantic moment is broken up by news of ~super villain nonsense involving Tobias Whale and Lala, which sends both Pierce sisters and Grace onto the scene. Grace complains that Anissa made her wear a hoodie “as a disguise” when as a shape shifter she can always be her own disguise. With that she changes her hair red, her eyes green, and puts on a very dope Mortal Kombat style outfit, officially naming herself “Wylde” — a reclamation of Shay Li Wylde, Grace’s birth name.
It maybe took four years in the making, but Grace Choi is finally OFFFICIALLY a superhero, cute name and all. And let me tell you from that upside down roundhouse kick she gave? It certainly was worth it.
9-1-1 407: “There Goes The Neighborhood”
Written by Natalie
With Hen busy with work and school, Karen’s been left to wrangle the two Wilson kids and she’s at her wits end. Recognizing how stressed her wife is, Hen puts down her Gross Anatomy book and volunteers to get the kids ready for bed. But before they can pick out the bedtime story, the family’s interrupted by a knock at the door: It’s Grammy! Much to Hen and Karen’s dismay, Hen’s mother, Toni, has decided to move from Las Vegas to Los Angeles — in the middle of a pandemic — and find a place in the neighborhood.
At work, Hen laments her mother’s arrival. She admits that the pair have a good relationship when there’s distance separating them but, in-person, Toni tends move in and crush everything in her path. Chimney and Bobby urge Hen to look at the bright side — her mom will be around to help with Denny and Nia — but Hen’s unconvinced: Toni is not the helping type. Later, though, Hen quietly admits to Athena that it’s been nice having her mother back in town. But no sooner than the words are out of her mouth does Hen overhear her mother questioning whether Hen should be going back to school at her age. The words echo a lifetime of her mother’s doubt that Hen’s had to deal with and she’s tired of it.
The next day, while Karen and the kids are at the park, they spot Grammy sleeping, not in her “cute little Airbnb,” but in her car. Upon hearing the news, Hen tracks down her mother who confirms that she’s been living in her car after losing her job (as a blackjack dealer) and being evicted. She kept the truth from Hen because she feared her daughter’s judgment. Hen scoffs at the notion: Her mother’s always been the judgmental one. Hen reminds her mom that she just said Hen was too old for med school. Grammy assures her daughter that’s not what she meant.
She applauds Hen’s determination, admitting that she’s always been jealous of her drive. She adds, “I look at the amazing life you’ve made for yourself and I’m in awe. You’ve built something, Henrietta, and I…I just don’t want you to lose it.”
At the root of it, Toni doesn’t want her daughter to end up like her but Hen promises that she’ll be okay because her mother made her a fighter. It’s clearly just the start of the conversations mother and daughter need to have but they’ll have plenty of time for that now that Grammy’s moving in.
It’s worth noting that the role of Hen’s mom, Toni, is played by the legendary out comedienne, Marsha Warfield. Best known for playing Rosalind “Roz” Russell on Night Court, Warfield was giving us black butch realness on television before most of us even knew what that was. Also? Given how Marsha Warfield’s own mother kept her closeted for most of her life, seeing her play the mother to a gay butch daughter has particular resonance. A great bit of a casting!
All American 307: “Roll the Dice”
Written by Natalie
Throughout All American‘s third season, the specter of the gang’s summer sojourn to Las Vegas has loomed large. Something happened there — something momentous for nearly every character on the canvas — but we’ve never known what until now. The episode revisits that weekend in Vegas… the weekend when everything started to change for Patience.
Knowing how much it means to his daughter, JP Keating rolls out the red carpet for Spencer, Jordan, Simone and JJ’s visit to Vegas. He secures a lavish suite for the crew and even sets up a private gaming room for them to enjoy. Coop jokes that she might have signed with the wrong Keating but Layla reminds her that she’s the Keating that secured Coop a sold-out stop in Las Vegas. Besides, Patience chimes in, it’s not like JP’s putting his own artists up in lavish suites.
In the gaming room, Patience’s frustration at being under JP’s thumb starts to show. Coop urges her to talk to JP about playing her own songs but Patience dismisses the conversation and just tries to have fun. Later, at the roulette table, Coop and Spencer catch up after their first ever summer apart. They fall into an easy rapport, the way old friends do, and it’s almost enough to make you forget the way their friendship has fallen apart. The pair joke about Layla and Coop getting closer on tour and Coop taking Spencer’s girl which… I mean… clearly someone’s been reading my All American fan fic.
The next day, Coop and Patience revisit the topic of Patience’s unhappiness and Coop urges her to talk to JP. Recounting some advice Patience gave her, Coop encourages Patience to be upfront with JP and find someone who accepts her for the artist that she is. Patience takes her girlfriend’s advice and plays her new song for JP. He loves the song and immediately shifts into producer mode, giving Patience notes to improve it. But as Patience is working on it, Lil’ Jewel bursts in singing Patience’s praises; she loves the song Patience wrote and is slated to head into the studio ASAP lay the track down for her new album. When Patience goes to confront JP, she spots him making out with Lil’ Jewel — the very married Lil’ Jewel — in the hallway.
Hurt, confused and frustrated, Patience sheds a few tears but wipes them away before Coop can see. She’s so happy for Coop’s success and she doesn’t want anything to tarnish the celebration. But because everything that happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas, the reverberations from this summer trip still linger… and they’re about to impact Coop and Patience in a big way.
S.W.A.T. 410: “Buried”
Written by Natalie
I wasn’t thrilled about S.W.A.T.‘s decision to kill off Erika Rogers, especially at the hands of a white supremacist. I liked the friendship she’d built with Chris and the support they gave each other as the lone women in SWAT. I liked her rapport with Hondo and how she could challenge him on race and on work in a way no one else could. But if you’re going to kill a compelling character like Erika, at least make the fallout worth watching….and so far S.W.A.T. hasn’t done that. But, maybe (hopefully), the show finally starts to turn the corner this week.
Chris stops by the locker-room at SWAT HQ to collect some things before her session with Dr. Hughes. She lingers by Erika’s old locker, removing the nameplate and placing it in her own. When Deacon asks how she’s doing, she just says she’s tired…in addition to her session with Hughes to get approved to return to duty, her final interview for the Tactical Leadership Institute is today and she was up late studying. Chris was always invested in winning the TLI competition but with Erika’s death, the opportunity to be in a place where everything doesn’t remind her of her loss is something she desperately needs. Deacon encourages her to make the interview about how she’ll best represent SWAT.
And, of course, Chris does just that.
Remembering Erika, Chris gets a little emotional, but she tells Commander Hicks, “Erika always reminded me that we had to be the proof that women can be SWAT…I want to win this thing on merit because that’s what’ll inspire other female cops to raise the bar for themselves in their own way, which makes the entire department stronger.” After the interview, she chastises herself for getting emotional but her performance is enough to win over Hicks and win the TLI competition.
Once the winner’s announced, Chris pulls Street aside to chastise him over the way he’s handling his relationship with his girlfriend, Molly. Chris urges him to let go of the pipe dream he has of them being together and to figure out his relationship without involving her. Tan interrupts to invite them both to celebrate the TLI results but Chris declines the offer and opts for a night alone. Except…she doesn’t spend it alone at all. Chris wakes up later, amid a sea of empty beer bottles and next to a guy whose name she doesn’t care to know.
Finally, we get some fallout.
grown-ish 315: “Over My Head”
Written by Natalie
Here’s what we know about Phil, the one-night stand that, nine months later, made Nomi Segal into a mother: his last name’s McGinnis, he’s from San Jose, he’s a Comm major at UC-Berkeley, he loves playing ultimate frisbee and he likes margaritas. Now — 14 months after that fateful night — Phil slips into Nomi’s DMs to let her know he’s back in town and wants to meet up… and Nomi’s forced to decide (again) whether to tell him about the adorable baby girl he fathered.
With Zoey on the road with Joey Bada$$ and the twins off at Olympic trials, Nomi’s left with only Ana to confide in. This never goes well. Ana urges Nomi to meet up with Phil and find out what kind of person he is but she resists. Nomi invites Ana to go on a date with Phil and get whatever she needs to feel fulfilled; after that, though, Nomi never wants to talk about Phil ever again.
“Just so we’re clear, this isn’t for my validation or my entertainment. This is for your daughter, because whether or not you want to know, someday she will and it would be nice if someone had those answers,” Ana explains. Yeah, you can definitely tell she grew up Catholic because she’s a master of shaming.
After his meeting with Ana goes horribly awry, Phil and Nomi finally do connect. Since Nomi can’t remember, he tells her about what happened prior to them hooking up 14 months ago. I think the show intends this to be cute — it’s her Sixteen Candles moment — but all I could think was, “she was so drunk that she can’t remember any of this and yet her slept with her anyway? That’s not romantic, that’s rapey.” Nomi’s so touched by the “romantic” gestures that she can’t remember that instead of telling him about his daughter, she gives into Paul’s kiss and they hook up again. Fingers crossed that the birth control works this time.
When she returns home, Nomi relays the night’s events to Luna’s babysitter, Luca. He encourages her to not to continue to meet up with Phil if she’s going to continue to keep this secret and Nomi agrees. But later, when she’s settling in to read to Luna, she discovers a thoughtful note from her dad about his experience raising her and Nomi reconsiders. She meets up with Phil at Titanium, apologizes for keeping the truth from him and introduces him to his daughter, Luna.
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Boobs on Your Tube: Oh Hey Now “Manifest” Got Gay in Its Second Season!
We are making it through the week, which to be honest — you already know — is in and of itself a bit of a feat. We hope reading about some TV helps give you the joy and distraction we all need this weekend. The Autostraddle TV Team is send you, our readers, all our love!
It was [decade old spoiler alert!] Dana’s funeral on the OG L Word this week and Riese and Carly covered it. 😭😭 Alex started her new job on Supergirl. Natalie and Carmen got together to discuss Lena Waithe’s new TV series Twenties and where we’re going with black queer representation on television. Ava and Sara put on cowboy outfits and have a lovers’ quarrel on this week’s Legends of Tomorrow. Kayla’s Riverdale recap this week is a masterful work of wakadoo language that only Kayla can provide, if you know what we mean. We updated our complete 82 Queer TV Shows You Can to Stream on Netflix list just in time for your “staying indoors” needs. Speaking of Netflix, the network released their poster art for the new Babysitters Club remake and wow do we have a lot of feelings about that!
Notes from the TV Team:
+ Nancy Drew wasn’t gay enough to write home about this week but WHEW y’all it’s still so fucking GOOD. There were two twists this week; one was like “yeah okay that was one of my theories anyway” and the other was like “I’M SORRY WHAT?!” I love that spooky show so much. — Valerie Anne
+ Twenties joined Boomerang this week in debuting Lena Waithe’s full hour television line-up on BET! That’s an accomplishment for any young producer, let alone a queer black woman, so definitely my applause to Lena this week. On Twenties Hattie realized how difficult it is to focus as a writer, and made what I’m pretty sure is going to be a terrible decision about her love life (getting back with Lorraine, who left her homeless in the street last week after she got evicted). On Boomerang Tia got to recreate one of my favorite movies, Spike Lee’s School Daze, which is something I loved a lot and Natalie didn’t, so your milage may vary. Still, I’m glad to have both my girls together on the same night! — Carmen
Graciously taken right before the ugly cry really got going.
+ There wasn’t A LOT of Maya on this week’s Station 19, but after working a crisis involving a truck hammering through a motorcycle club that leaves almost everyone in that friend group for dead, she has a terrible realization: For her fire family, she is the truck. By taking Captain, she’s run through her everyone and destroyed their relationships. I don’t know guys, I have a lot of respect for self-awareness and this confession from Maya really endeared me to her! And OK, having Carina there to hold her while she cried certainly didn’t hurt. They make one damn attractive couple. — Carmen
Legacies 214: “There’s a Place Where the Lost Things Go”
Written by Valerie Anne
This week, Legacies returned with a really fun episode (and not only because it was Landon-less) that opened with Josie crawling to Jade’s bedside and kissing her.
Mooooood lighting for my new ship!!
But then she’s interrupted by Dark Josie, and realizes it was a dream… though her feet are still covered in mud as if she really did go outside to find Jade. And we find out that Jade had a very similar dream…
Later, as Professor Emma’s attempt at immersion therapy, our favorite supernatural teens went into a fantasy simulation where they found themselves in a 20s noir murder mystery.
In the simulation, Lizzie is a famous actress and Josie is her publicist, MG is a PI and Hope manages a speakeasy. It’s all so perfect; until someone starts killing them all off. When they’re killed in the simulation, they wake up, and after it’s revealed that Josie and Jade are exes in this world, and Jade is killed, she wakes up and says it wasn’t news to her that she has “the hots for” Josie.
When they all eventually get out of the game, Dark Josie takes over and takes off, setting the school on fire on her way out. It’s going to be hard to stop a villain that you can’t kill because your loved one is still somewhere inside, so I hope everyone has their best yellow crayon stories ready.
Manifest Season 2 Catch Up
Written by Valerie Anne
Okay so I’ll confess, I sort of low-key quit Manifest. The second season got a few episodes in before I even realized it was back and I couldn’t find the motivation to catch up…that is, until someone slid into my DMs and told me “a main character” was revealed as queer. They blessedly didn’t tell me who, so my mystery solving quest made catching up even more exciting.
I had three potential suspects on my list for a solid six episodes! We had Michaela, the cop, who got assigned a new partner played by Niko from Charmed and was told “don’t sleep with this one.” She also said she had “a buzz cut and a nose ring” when she was a teenager. Suspect two was Olive, played by Nicole from Fresh Off the Boat, who met another girl who liked her jacket and who taught her how to put pink streaks in her hair and got her to join a cult after knowing her for three minutes. Third, we had Saanvi, the doctor who talked a lot about the person she was supposed to be on the flight with who never showed up, a person named Alex, who she didn’t use pronouns for in the entire first season and the first half of this season.
For a while it was truly anyone’s game, but then Michaela started sleeping with a guy who accidentally shot her, and Olive started dating a boy arguably too old for her…and sure enough, Saanvi’s Alex was revealed to be a woman. She bailed on Saanvi because she wasn’t ready to leave her husband for what she was afraid would be a fling. Saanvi eventually tries to convince her to give it another shot by kissing her by the river.
I mean, I should have known as soon as they said the name “Alex” if we’re being honest.
Though it turns out she did this because of impulse control issues she has from a science experiment she’s doing to herself, and also she didn’t remember doing it after because of side effects from said experiment. Either way, Alex isn’t ready to commit to Saanvi, but we’ll see if she changes her mind as Saanvi’s life becomes more obviously in danger.
Batwoman 213: “Grinning From Ear to Ear”
Written by Heather
This week’s Batwoman finally gave me what I’ve been wanting all season: a Sophie Moore-centric episode that started filling in her character outside of her relationship with Kate and Batwoman.For the first 12 episodes of this season, we’ve gotten glimpses of who Sophie is. She’s a powerful woman who is really into other powerful women, but she’s also scared and ashamed of her desires. She also cannot help herself in going after a forbidden smooch! She loves justice. She loves order. And she’s most used to following orders. She’s a black queer woman who’s managed to survive in some notoriously white supremacist and patriarchal institutions and she’s done so by working twice as hard and being twice as good as every other person around her.
“Grinning From Ear to Ear” picks up right after Sophie’s kiss with Batwoman and she’s giddy with it. She even goes to The Hold Up and brags to Mary about it (Mary who now knows Kate and Batwoman are the same person, by the way). And Kate’s ecstatic too! She gushes to Luke! Luke is quick to warn Kate that this is the kind of shit that drove Bruce over the edge — the hiding, the lying, the people he got close to getting hurt. Kate hears him, but she doesn’t hear him.
But the real obstacle to Sophie’s happiness this week is her mom, who, it turns out, is every bit as homophobic as Sophie said she was. She arrives in Gotham to try to get Sophie back together with her husband and finds out that not only has that ship sailed, but Sophie’s questioning the whole police state thing and she’s now a Batwoman sympathizer. After chatting with Batwoman about the sexiness of the mask, Sophie tries to tell her mom the truth, but her mom is absolutely adamant that she’s not going to have a gay daughter. It’s so heartbreaking and it shines a new light on all of Sophie’s actions, past and present.
I’ll have a standalone piece for you after Sunday night’s new episode!
All American 216: “Decisions”
Written by Natalie
All American wrapped up its second season this week and, for Coop, the episode ended up being a microcosm of the show’s treatment of her character this season. She’s a new artist, on a new label, trying to find make her way in the music industry. She’s a former gang member who maintains her ties to that life through her friendships. She’s Spencer’s best friend, she’s Patience’s girl… and, disappointingly, she disappears from stories in which she should play a pivotal role. And, of course, she’s always, always facing some looming danger. It’s Season 2 in a nutshell for Coop and it brings a disappointing end to disappointing season.
While everyone else is huddled at Spencer’s house working on a way to thwart the school superintendent’s plans to turn South Crenshaw into a magnet school to promote gentrification, Coop visits Preach at the LA County Jail. She’s been visiting him nearly every day and Preach is tired of Coop putting her life on hold for him. He threatens to remove her from his approved visitors’ list and pushes her to move on. It’s her time to shine, he points out, leaving Coop in disbelief.
Back in Crenshaw, Coop joins the neighborhood in protesting the changes at South Crenshaw: first as part of sit-in that’s thwarted by police and then at a rally at Slauson Cafe. She’s a part of the crowd as Spencer buys South Crenshaw one more year before the magnet takeover: he’s coming home…and promises to use all his skills to bring the school another state championship. But the celebration over Spencer and Coop’s reunion will have to wait, as Layla’s arranged an indie tour — one that parallels the tour that Patience is on — for her this summer.
Spencer and his family won’t be the only thing waiting for Coop to return from her tour, though: Tyrone’s older sister, Mo, is back in Crenshaw and seems intent on avenging her brother’s death.
The Bold Type 408: “Stardust”
Written by Carmen
To be honest, when I heard that The Bold Type was doing a “very special episode” dedicated to tackling conversion therapy, I’m pretty sure my reaction was just one step shy of throwing a tantrum on the floor. Given the show’s less than stellar track record of late, I had VERY little faith that they could tackle this topic well at all.
Conversation therapy is still legal in over 30 states in this country, and has been supported in the past by none other than our current Vice President, but somehow talking about it on TV can run the chance of sounding dated or out-of-touch. There are so many “hot button” queer issues that take our attention. I’m not saying that The Bold Type fully successfully updated a well-worn topic for 2020, but I do think they didn’t… embarrass themselves or actively make me hate any of the characters? Which is in-and-of-itself a step up.
Adena approaches Jacqueline because she wants to use the photography of a young man named Travis, who recently died by suicide because he was sent to conversion therapy, for the website. She rightfully thinks that not enough attention is paid on the issue the issue that still is actively harming LGBT kids and teens; of course Jacqueline agrees. Unfortunately, the legal department does not. They fear that using Travis’ images might invite legal action from his parents. Jacqueline’s sorry to have to turn Adena away, but luckily Adena doesn’t give up and turns to Kat.
Kat (a Gemini with the full name Katrina by the way, lots of new Kat info this episode!) initially turns Adena down, because she’s still hurt from Adena’s wild and crazy biphobia from last week (in an episode I’d like to pretend never happened). Once Kat finds out Travis’ story, she calls her ex-girlfriend and agrees to work with her on the project. Kat remembers a collage that she and Adena saw on their travels, artwork where the identifying parts of an image would be able to be obscured, but it would still feel personal, and together they adapt the format to work for Travis.
While they’re working, Kat marvels at her own privilege — coming out was so easy for her, she almost took it for granted. Adena wanted that for Kat, more than anything. You see, Adena’s coming out wasn’t nearly as “easy.” Her father sent her to conversion therapy. If her mother hadn’t intervened and saved her, she very well could’ve ended up like Travis. This fight was personal.
Jacqueline approves the new imagery, impressed that Kadena trusted their gut instead of being discouraged by lawyers. Somehow though, legal STILL won’t approve the new photos. We don’t know why exactly yet, but with Kat on it, I’m sure we will — and soon.
Black Lightning 316: “The Book of War: Chapter Three: Liberation”
Written by Carmen
I think I jinxed us. I’ve been celebrating Black Lightning for weeks now. I’ve delighted in it, even! I thought the worst was behind us! That the production team had finally learned their lesson! I was actually anxiously looking forward to this week’s episode!!
Then Jamilah Olsen became the latest queer woman to be added to the dead lesbians list.
Jamilah was shot dead on camera while doing her job, reporting breaking news. Her death was senseless. What was the point of bringing her back, just to brutally kill her and have us watch her bleed? I will never understand it. I’m also of the believe that the CW specifically has lost their right to ever kill a queer woman on screen ever again (Lexa you’re gone, but never forgotten). And I can go my whole life without ever seen black women shot and killed, thanks. Yes, the Markovian War was always going to have a high body count, they had been warning us about this for months — but the death toll of women-to-men in Monday’s episode was a whomping 4-to-1!!! You’ve GOT to be kidding me with this shit! Jamilah, Dr. Jace, ASA Officer Sara Grey are first on the list.
Last? My beloved Lady Eve, who faced her second death in her run on the show. Her first death, of course, kept her off-screen for nearly two years, while I personally suffered through man after man being resurrected without so much as a blink (how many times have we seen Lala come back to life? Kahlil?). Technically Lady Eve didn’t die on camera, though wow Jill Scott was almost swoon-worthy even with a mouth full of blood. I’m hoping she made it out alive — she did seem to get the message out to Lala about saving Freeland somehow after all — and if she is dead, I hope Black Lightning uses their reputation for death not being permanent in her favor much quicker this time than they have previously. But until then, goodnight my sweet.
We also have Grace Choi. My beautiful Grace Choi. To be honest, when Gravedigger used his mind control powers to convince Grace to kill Anissa, I was ready for it! I sat up on my couch, even. As has been previously documented, I love a good #ThunderGrace fight. But this time went too far. After Grace’s transformations level up her body strength and Anissa can’t shake her, she’s forced to throw Grace into the ceiling of the ASA bunker. When Grace comes back down to ground, she’s unconscious.
After saving the day, Anissa somehow manages to get her fiancée home safely, but still she won’t wake up. Lynn tells her daughter that there’s nothing to be done, Grace is in a coma. She will need around the clock professional care. Anissa weeps over Grace’s body — but me? My heart is COLD.
Boobs on Your Tube: Are Those Wedding or War Bells We Hear on Black Lightning?!?
Welcome to another weekly roundup of the gay shenanigans that happened on your TV!
It’s officially March, and we’re starting a new monthly rundown of everything gay that you can stream!! Speaking of things you can stream, Carmen’s very excited about Netflix’s Gentrified and promises that it will drop brown queer love bombs all over your queue! And yeah, we really were on our Netflix bullshit this week with Love is Blind: 1. It’s a lesbian reality TV show for straight people and 2. We believe it appropriates lesbian cultural practices. “Dispatches from Elsewhere” includes a complex trans character in its immersive theatre plot. On Riverdale, Kayla investigates if Jughead, in fact, died. Natalie loved the black community healing on Good Trouble so much this week, she struggled how to even describe it words!
And Riese is very deep in the Season Three of The L Word and there’s no turning back now, she and Carly say goodbye to Dana on this week’s podcast, and would love you to vote on the best and worst moments of the season! Democracy!
Notes from the TV Team:
+ grown-ish wrapped up the first half of its third season this week and it finished the way it started: confusing. Visits via Facetime from Nomi suggest that she will find her way back to Cal U eventually but when she gets back will her BFF, Zoey, be there? Maybe not, as the show’s central character seemingly quit school this week to focus on her career as a stylist. Sure, Different World made it without Denise Huxtable but still…WTF?! — Natalie
+ I know this isn’t gay, but WOW I REALLY WANT TO SCREAM ABOUT HOW ALEX KAREV WAS WRITTEN OFF GREY’S ANATOMY!!!! Ok Krista Vernoff, that was a choice. — Carmen
The baddest bitch is whomever is the last one standing.
All American 215: “Stakes is High”
Written by Natalie
With Patience having locked in her status as a true “ride or die,” All American returns this week with Coop intent on cementing their relationship status. Coop’s tired of just being friends…and besides, they both miss and love each other so why not get back together? But Patience is reluctant; she knows how the music came between them last time and with her career — including a summer tour — ramping up, she’s weary about dealing with Coop’s jealousy. Coop assures Patience that she’s ready to be her #1 fan and slides a song she wrote for her across the table to prove it. Patience is so touched by the gesture, she gives Coop her last perfect piece of waffle. Take that, Peter Kavinsky!
Patience and Coop celebrate their return to coupledom at the “Pajama jammy jamboree,” a party that Layla’s hosting at her house. Show up wearing wigs…which I recognize immediately as an homage to House Party 2 and Kid n’ Play’s classic style. I am, admittedly, disappointed in the All American wardrobe department: if you’re going to reference classic black cinema, why not go all out and replicate Kid’s pool ball covered PJs and Play’s smoking jacket? The DJ drops Kid N’ Play’s “Ain’t Gonna Hurt Nobody” and Patience and Coop take to the stage (they even do the dance!). Coop’s charisma shines through and Layla’s father can finally see it. He offers her a record deal and a slot on his summer tour. To his dismay, Coop asks for time to consider the offer and he acquiesces.
The next day, at the football jamboree, Coop’s still unsure of what to do. She doesn’t want to risk messing things up with Patience and she’s worried about signing a bad deal (#FREETHEESTALLION). Layla promises to look over the deal but urges her to take it: she’s too good not to take it. Later, Coop tells Patience about J.P.’s offer and, while she’d love to tour with Coop this summer, Patience doesn’t want Coop to sign with anyone who doesn’t love her for her. In the end, Coop takes Patience’s advice and signs with the one person who’s always had her back and who she knows won’t try to change her: Layla.
S.W.A.T. 314: “Animus”
Written by Natalie
I’ve always touted S.W.A.T. as one of the “least bad” shows within the police procedural genre. I celebrated the show’s diversity, its willingness to tackle more complex stories about identity and policing and its propensity for letting the women in its cast be the heroes. Last night’s episode, though, frustrated me. While it landed on a timely message about the, seemingly, never-ending battle for gender equality, it felt gratuitous in a way that S.W.A.T. has typically avoided.
Chris and her team are called to the scene of a small LA law firm. Three women are dead and the shooter’s on the loose. The detectives identify a possible suspect: the husband of one of the firm’s clients, who’d he’d been arrested for threatening his wife’s lawyer. But when his alibi checks out, detectives are forced to reevaluate. While they search for a new lead, Chris is approached by Detective Lynch and urged to consider being the subject of a media profile. She declines, of course, unwilling to draw more attention to herself, particularly given the pressure she’s under as one of S.W.A.T.’s only female officers. Before Lynch can make another pitch, Chris is pulled away: there’s been a mass shooting at a local sorority.
They’re dispatched to another suspect’s house and, though he’s just as insufferable as the last guy, his alibi also checks out. The team’s able connect the two would-be suspects through their posts on an online anti-woman forum. Knowing the real shooter has to be among the board’s users, the LAPD pressures the site’s owner — a woman, natch — to turn over the relevant information. While they sift through the data, Lynch approaches Chris to apologize for pushing her to do the story. Chris admits the real reason she doesn’t want to do the interview: she doesn’t want to admit why she became a cop. Chris discloses that she was raped at 14 and, though she didn’t report it at the time, she says, “I became a cop because I got tired of being afraid…afraid of walking down the street, afraid it might happen again.” She finally told her family a few years ago but she never told the team, afraid that they’d look at her like a victim.
The team tracks down the name of the alleged shooter and use his posts on the forum to determine his next likely target. Chris manages to take down the shooter before he can hurt anyone else. But when she gets back to HQ, Chris can’t help but focus on the men from the online forum who are touting the shooter as a martyr. Discouraged, she laments that the world is never going to change enough but Hondo points out that it already has, that’s what all those men are mad about. As soon as the words come out of his mouth, Chris and Hondo are interrupted by the news of a copycat shooting, this time in Kansas City.
The experience makes Chris reconsider doing that interview. She says, “I realized I can’t let the people who hate me have a louder voice than my own.”
Station 19 307: “Satellite of Love”
Written by Carmen
Really living up to her name, Dr. Orgasm both begins and ends her day with Maya and some damn great sex. Going down on your girlfriend before the sunrise is one helluva a good morning — meeting her after a long work day with a homemade lasagna and a little office sex, pushed against bookshelf? Even better.
In between the two hookups, Maya’s having a hard time. Her team still doesn’t respect or trust her since she’s made Captain, and that leads two different firefighters almost facing certain death while out on a call, and one of those two having to have open surgery out in the field! When everyone gets back to the station, emotions explode.
Andy, who still blames Maya for stepping over her and taking the Captain job that Andy (rightfully) thinks she deserved, squares off against her former best friend, in front of everyone. And then Maya drops the gauntlet: The team may have their issues, but she’s no longer there to be their friend. That time has passed. They can either respect her as their Captain and stop second-guessing her decisions, or they can get the hell out of her station and she’ll find other people who can.
Begrudgingly, everyone falls in line (Andy included). If you ask me, threatening a mass firing is probably not the best way to gain respect, but Maya’s a robot who doesn’t know how to be vulnerable, so here we are.
I think that’s also why Maya bristles when Carina drops by the station with a little love lasagna. Maya tells Carina that they’re just hookups — she didn’t sign up for the whole girlfriend package — and Carina gets up to walk away. Maya, just for a minute, lets the mask slide:
“I’m broken.”
Carina retorts, “I’m not in the habit of fixing broken people.”
Carina has one foot out the door, but her eyes are stuck on Maya’s lips. Maya’s eyes plead for Carina to read what she can’t bring herself to say — that she doesn’t want to be alone, that she doesn’t know how to do this. And like it’s out of their control, bigger than they can handle, the two find themselves making out against the bookcase, Carina unbuckling Maya’s belt.
The Bold Type 407: “The Space Between”
Written by Carmen
Man, this season on The Bold type really has been a wild ride, huh? A season that’s brought me what’s probably one of my favorite episodes of the series (ah the masturbation sex party, were we ever so young? ) and undoubtedly two of my least favorites in quick succession. If last week’s pegging episode left me puzzled, then this week’s biphobia episode drove me berserk! (See what I did there did there? Illiteration, did you catch it?)
If you would have told me that a single episode of The Bold Type would include the return of Adena, a cameo by Raven Symone, and none other than Erin Daniels herself (#RIPDana #CancerSucks) in a guest starring role, and it would STILL be my least favorite hour of television so far this year — I would’ve cried from laughter, and yet here we are and none of it is funny.
OK, so here’s the deal: Kat’s bisexual, which I still stand by we already knew, but apparently this is new information. And now Adena’s back from being on the road as a Scarlet photographer! WELCOME HOME, WE MISSED YOU!! At first Kat and Adena come up with an exes pact to work together as friends and never discuss their personal life. Except Kat lets it slip that she pegged someone, and of course Adena is interested. Until she finds out that new “someone” is a “man someone” and then she becomes some crazy archetype of a biphobic lesbian that…. Is never who Adena was in the first place? And it all sort of falls apart at the seams from there.
I don’t want, in any way, to minimize the pain felt by bisexuals who are often met by gatekeepers in lesbian spaces. That pain is real and deeply felt and its our responsibility speak out against that kind of hate unequivocally. I also found the ways that The Bold Type tried to address this issue to be convenient, reductionist, and badly written.
Kat first came out as queer years ago; if Adena was going to have a problem with Kat’s sexual attraction to men, she would have said it then. Kat ran for city council as a queer black woman. She’s listed on her professional website as Scarlet magazines FIRST queer black editor. If Kat and Adena’s social circle of 20something and 30something millennials and Gen Z, mostly POC and artists, lesbians were also going to be patently biphobic (which… given the specific demographic is already a push, but fine) — that would have definitely come up before now.
I could go on from here, go over all the plot in excruciating detail, but when discussing this episode with the TV Team, Natalie really put it best: it’s like the writers “infused the episode with politics circa 2004″ and it’s actually the year 2020, so I don’t want to give more flames to this culture war than necessary. Biphobic lesbians are wrong. Bringing Adena back after her eight episode absence just to have her become mysteriously biphobic was wrong (and her apology to Kat after the fact, in my opinion, was weak at best). This entire episode was out-dated, badly constructed, and I am very happy to pretend it never happened when we resume the show again next week.
Black Lightning 315: “The Book of War: Chapter Two: Freedom Ain’t Free”
Written by Carmen
Every one of these last batch of Black Lightning episodes has been better than the one before. I’m not sure else what I’d have to do to convince that you if you used to watch the show and recently fell off, now is THE TIME to get back on board, but hey, just so you know — this week’s episode, in two separate instances, sent both Heather and Natalie to me in the throes of ALL CAPS MELTDOWN!!!!
First of all, sadly Thunder Grace did not actually get married. But we were so close. The sweetest millisecond from almost being there! And then of course superhero war broke out. Damn villains! Will they ever give us a moment of piece?
Wait let’s rewind. Last week, as you know, Anissa batted her eyes and told her family that she thought Grace was the one. This week, cuddled up together in the pajamas (Grace wore boxers and a white undershirt with a red lace sports bra, it was important to me that you know that), Anissa tells Grace that she could lay there together for the rest of her life. At first Grace laughs it off; Anissa’s prone to being a little corny, especially before or after sex. But Anissa’s serious. She’s never been more serious about anything in her entire life.
Now you know me, normally I complain about how the Black Lightning writers’ room likes to take short cuts with Grace and Anissa’s relationship. And having them go from surprise engagement to marriage in a single episode, especially given their rocky history, would normally sound alarm bells in my head. But when the family shows up for the dinner/wedding that no one saw coming, Lynn raises my concerns.
She’s worried that Anissa is jumping into things. Her daughter’s known to be impulsive when it comes to matters of the heart. And Anissa’s response is nothing if not grounded and level-headed (for a superhero show, that is): The team is moments away from facing certain death in a battle with Gravedigger. She loves Grace, and she’s certain she was always going to marry her some day. But if something happens tomorrow and Anissa hadn’t made this commitment to Grace ahead of time, she would never forgive herself.
And so Grace and Anissa put on matching white silk suits, and Uncle Gambi is ready to give the vows — and of course THAT’S moment that Gravedigger shows up to ruin my gay happy ending. Hopefully not forever. But definitely for right now.
PS: Speaking of gay weddings, please let Jill Scott’s Lady Eve know that I am always available. Thanks.
(Also! Jefferson refers to Anissa and Grace as “Thunder Grace” on two separate occasions throughout the episode! What a sweet callout to the most loyal fandom, who’s had to put up with the most shit, in the entire Arrowverse).
Boobs on Your Tube: Shondaland’s Bisexual Firefighter and Dr. Orgasm Are The Crossover Queer Romance You’ve Waited For
Hello! Welcome to a VERY exciting edition of your weekly television round up, Boobs on Your Tube! This week, wow Batwoman navigated some bisexual vampires. SUPERGIRL CELEBRATED ONE HUNDRED EPISODES by sending Kara and Lena through space and time! Vanderpump Rules also got mighty bisexual which means that noted Bravo television fanatic Kayla really got to strut her stuff for our dear website. Caity Lotz made her directing debut on Legends of Tomorrow while Ava fought Genghis Khan (this show!!). Alice has a new hook-up and new stand-up material on Good Trouble. Archie’s mom came out as a late-in-life gay on Riverdale! Queer Molly Ringwald for everybody! I’m Not Okay With This has an angsty lesbian who telekinetically gives her crush’s boyfriend a nosebleed, so we assume you’re gonna want to watch.
Riese also really covered that L Word beat this week: Here’s an absolutely marvelous in-depth interview with Generation Q costume designer Dierdra Govan and style thief shopping guide to Alice’s jumpsuits to match!! And she also covered the OG’s episode 309 with Carly for the podcast.
Notes from the TV Team:
+ Time got away from me this week, so look for that Party of Five piece early next week. On the plus side, that gives you the weekend to catch up with the Acosta family so if you haven’t already, do that. I have a lot of feelings about this show and can’t wait to share. — Natalie
+ I really need Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist to add a queer lady because I want us to be able to write about that show so badly. IT’S SO GOOD. It’s like if Glee and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend had a child that somehow grew up to be more well-adjusted than either of them! Just wanted to shout about it. #GiveLaurenGrahamAGirlfriend — Valerie Anne
+ None of us watch The Conners, but I guess Aunt Jackie is in a thruple now? Do with that information what you will. — Carmen
God Friended Me 214: “Raspberry Pie”
Written by Natalie
Have you ever met someone at exactly the wrong moment? Like when you’re just out of a relationship and still nursing those scars? Or you’ve got a project at work or school that’s just consuming you and you don’t have time for anything else? Well, that’s what happens to Ali Finer this week on God Friended Me.
She meets Emily — “Ali and Emily!” I scream in the throes of a horrible PLL flashback — in the waiting room of her fertility specialist. Emily breaks the unwritten rules of waiting rooms and tries to start up a conversation. She’s charming so Ali puts aside her clipboard and introduces herself. They discover that they share a favorite novel and a common acquaintance and that Emily teaches at Ali’s alma mater. They strike up an easy rapport which leads to Emily oversharing about her reasons for freezing her eggs. Though she finds Emily’s candor refreshing, Ali doesn’t return it: instead, she insists that she’s busy figuring her life out too. She does, however, manage to name drop the bar she runs….smooth, Ali, very smooth.
Sure enough, Emily shows up at the bar the next day and asks Ali out on a date. When Ali doesn’t answer right away, Emily assumes she misread the signals but Ali assures her she didn’t. Ali declines the offer, chalking it up to bad timing, and Emily leaves a little heartbroken. Later, Ali backs out of dinner plans with her dad and he tracks her down to talk. She explains what happened and admits she said no to the date, despite thinking Emily was great. She doesn’t want to invite someone into her life just as she’s about to undergo chemo. As is his wont, Papa Pope comes through with some great advice.
“It’s naive to think that your life won’t change a great deal over the coming months, and if you’re not interested in dating right now, well, that’s fine, but just because your life will change doesn’t mean it needs to stop,” he tells her.
The pair run into each other again at the fertility specialist’s office and, this time, Ali tells Emily the truth: about her cancer, about her fear and about the real reason she said no to the date. Emily takes the news in stride and immediately asks Ali out again.
All American 214: “Who Shot Ya”
Written by Natalie
This week episode of All American opens with Crenshaw lamenting the loss of another son…though half the people at Tyrone’s homegoing service couldn’t stand him when he was alive…Spencer and his mom are there, Coop and her parents are there and, surprisingly, so is Shawn’s mom. Maybe everybody just came to make sure he was really dead.
Outside the church, Spencer corners Coop. He’s worried that she’s still a suspect in Tyrone’s murder but Coop is remarkably calm about the whole situation. But Spencer is unconvinced: the threat to Coop — from the investigation or from Tyrone’s boys seeking revenge — distracts him from the rehab of his shoulder injury. Mrs. Baker, the newly elected DA, shares Spencer’s concern and urges him to get Coop a good lawyer, quickly…which, thanks to Layla, he manages to do. But Coop doesn’t take kindly to Spencer’s interference and lashes out when her best friend shows up back in Crenshaw. Spencer’s stunned by her reaction; he can’t believe he’s in trouble for trying to protect her.
“No, you’re getting in trouble for creating more problems in my life, trying to hide from your own,” Coop corrects. “Listen, I’ma say this one last time. You do not have to save me, and leave this whole Tyrone thing alone.”
Escaping the pall of Tyrone’s murder isn’t as easy as Coop would like, though: security footage leaks of her carrying a gun near the scene of the murder and a warrant is issued for her arrest. Convinced that turning over the gun to the police will vindicate her, Coop sneaks away from her family and heads to Patience’s house in search of it. Why Coop feels so comfortable believing she can walk into the LAPD with an unlicensed firearm and think she’ll be okay, I don’t know, but, apparently, she’s got more faith in the cops than I do. Patience admits she tossed the gun because she loves her and doesn’t want her to go to prison.
“Look, if that ain’t some Queen and Slim, ride or die type of love, then I don’t know what is. I’ll always love you,” Coop admits, before turning and walking away. I try not to think about how that movie ended.
She meets Spencer in the park for one last hoorah before she turns herself in. He’s pieced together who really killed Tyrone — Shawn’s mother — but Coop has resigned herself to taking the fall. Ultimately, it all comes back to her, Coop surmises, and she won’t force Shawn’s mother to sacrifice another thing. At the station, Shawn’s mother confesses to the murder, realizing she can’t sacrifice another thing either, especially not Coop.
Deputy 109: “10-8 Entitlement”
Written by Natalie
We don’t get to see Bishop reveal their gender identity to their girlfriend, Genevieve; we only get the witness the uncomfortable and disheartening fallout. Bishop’s been exiled from their bedroom, forced to sleep on the couch, while Genevieve locks herself in the bedroom. Before their first day at Majors, Bishop tries to talk to Genevieve but every conversation just leads to another fight.
Bishop asks for understanding from Genevieve — they’re finally being the most authentic version of themselves — but Gen insists that she feels like she doesn’t know Bishop anymore. She asks for more time to process and Bishop gives her space….too much, perhaps, because they spend the entire day ignoring Genevieve’s calls. They meet Gen after work, eager to celebrate their first day, but Genevieve isn’t happy about being ignored. Frustrated, Bishop laments how chaotic things have gotten between them.
“I’m a lesbian,” Genevieve says, as if she’s been holding onto this thought all day. “A woman who likes women. And if you’re not a woman, what does that mean for me? For us?”
Bishop handles the sting of that response better than I do (there was a lot of yelling at my TV). They admit that they don’t know what it means for Genevieve but, for their relationship, there’s the chance for both of them to engage as their whole selves. Without a word, Genevieve turns to head home and Bishop follows close behind. Once they’re in the rideshare, Gen asks if Bishop knew they were non-binary when they moved to LA and they acknowledge that they knew but didn’t have words for it. Bishop insists it doesn’t change how they feel about Genevieve and they’re sure that they can make it work. But, in that moment, Bishop recognizes that her certainty isn’t enough if Genevieve doesn’t share it…and asks the driver to stop the car.
“Just so that we’re clear,” Bishop says, as she climbs out of the car, “I wanted your acceptance, but I did not need your acceptance.”
They finally let their emotions out, on the shoulder of the freeway, as Selena Gomez’s vocals sum up this entire hateful, uncomfortable mess: “I needed to lose you to love me.” But because this show can’t just let Bishop be the star, even of their own story, Sheriff Hollister rides to rescue…and the story ends on what an incredible ally he is, rather than leaving the focus on Bishop, where it belongs.
Nancy Drew 114: “The Sign of the Uninvited Guest”
Written by Valerie Anne
Things are getting spookier by the week in Horseshoe Bay but even in episodes where the focus is more on the larger mysteries than the characters’ side missions, they still find a way to keep the off-screen plates spinning. For example, this episode was mostly a murder mystery dinner party, where the Drew Crew retraced their steps the night of Tiffany’s murder and learned they all may have accidentally had a hand in her death. But we also got a taste of what’s going on in Bess’s life when she gets a text from Amaya asking her to be her +1 at an event, and she’s afraid their relationship is escalating from Mentor/Mentee to something more, which her girlfriend Lisbeth probably wouldn’t like too much.
Queer culture is having to ask your friends if a girl is asking you on a date or not.
Also there was a character called Dominique who was a hacker with an alternative lifestyle haircut. Just a fact I thought you’d appreciate.
I was talking to my friend this week about how much we love Nancy Drew and how unusual it is for me to genuinely like all of the boys on a CW show. There’s no Landon, no Mon-El. No over-worshipped piece of cardboard. There’s Ace, a sweet, gentle soul who has more going on under that floppy head of hair than it seems. And Nick, a good boy with secrets of his own who cares so much about so much. And so I decided to take a peek at the list of episodes on Wikipedia, and lo and behold…there are so many women in this writer’s room! In fact, only one episode this season gives a man solo credit for an ep. And what’s more (more unusual, that is) , many of this season’s DIRECTORS were women, too. Including Sydney Freeland, the Navajo trans woman who directed Her Story. Just when I think I’ve reached peak love for this show, I learn something new about it that makes me love it more.
The Bold Type 406: “To Peg or Not To Peg”
Written by Carmen
A look that screams “boss bitch” if I’ve ever seen it.
I’ve tried to figure out how to even describe The Bold Type this week in terms that aren’t: “Y’all this was a mess.” I even deployed my fellow TV Team members Drew and Natalie on the task. Drew rearranged her day to watch the episode this morning!
And here’s what the three of our great minds, combined together, came up with: “Y’all this was. A. MESS.”
I’ve been trying to process it and clearly I can’t, so here’s a short summary: The bartender from the end of last week asked Kat to peg him this week. That meant Kat needed to buy a strap-on, a task she was less than hype about but Jane and Sutton were all over. Kat buys a rainbow strap-on (this is based on the previous week’s “Next Week On…” because I don’t think we actually see the toy in question this week) with suspenders. She wears it taped to her leg the next day at work to really become one with its energy. Then she tops the bartender. They have lots of intimate eye contact. And the following day at work she tells her friend about it, realizes she’s bisexual, and of course Jane and Sutton hold hands and support her. The end! Happily ever after! We can all go home now!
Except Natalie and I, and given past comments on the website I’ll go on a branch to say a lot of our readers, had already known Kat was bisexual?
Or rather, Kat has always described herself as queer. She dated men before Adena, and never seemed to have a specific crisis or coming-to-understanding about that fact. In fact, she had never referred to herself as a lesbian before last night’s episode? So her “big” bisexual coming-of-age was murky, fell short, and definitely didn’t land for me in the way it feels like the writers intended.
There is definitely a version of last night’s episode that I would have loved. A queer woman of color coming into her top energy by pegging this white dude — it has all kinds of intriguing subversion of expectations baked into it, some of which I wish The Bold Type had explored more. Both Natalie and Drew pointed out is that TBT seems very invested in “shocking” and “breaking sexual norms” this season (including the masturbation/sex party episode, last week’s jump into Kat’s hook ups, and now this) — but they haven’t been focused on underpinning emotional value of those explorations. Pushing boundaries just for the sake of saying you’re doing it is bad writing and… well… boring.
Next week Adena’s finally back! (YAY!) but it looks like she’s coming back to be the token biphobic lesbian (BOO!) and I’m not looking forward to it.
For my money, Drew really summed up this week’s episode best: “Kat, yes we knew you were bisexual; what we’ve learned is you’re switchier than you thought!” Kat may be bonafide switch, but this episode was a swing and a miss.
Black Lightning 314: “Book of War: Chapter One: Homecoming ”
Written by Carmen
Everyone is home safe from Markovia!
During Pierce family dinner Lyn admits that she needs to get treatment for her Greenlight addiction while Anissa lowers her lashes and bashfully admits to her family that she thinks “Grace might be the one.” HER CUTE LIL FACE AS SHE SAYS IT!!!! I wanted to shove my whole fist in my mouth and just scream!!! I can’t even describe it. See for yourself:
Honestly, that would’ve been enough to send me away sweet dreaming on queer cloud nine, but wait! There’s more!! The Markovians have bum-rushed South Freeland and captured some of the Perdi. So Anissa suits up — with Grace!! Who has clothes ready to go in Anissa’s super hero closet!!! — to save them. They meet Black Lightning on the scene and Anissa says, “How about we give them a little Lightning and Thunder” before Grace chimes in “with a touch of grace” and once again my friends, I screamed.
Grace Choi kicks some Markovian military ass (the show seems to have settled back into a version of Grace’s super strength powers from the comics and to be honest — I’m not mad about it at all). If you’ve been wondering for about the past year now about how the Markovians came to care about the United States and Freeland in the first place…. Finally we have our answer.
The person who delivers this gift is none other than my beloved Lady Eve. I want to write another 500 words solely about how pitch-fucking-perfect Jill Scott is in this role. How Lady Eve is the only villain the show ever had who cold hold a light to Tobias Whale. I want to write about her smooth, sweet voice, her cleavage, her cool as ice attitude. I want to tell you that not only was she the one who orchestrated the hit on Gambi back in Season Two; she’s also the one who taught Tobias the “raise the dead” spell that he used to bring Lala back to life in Season One. Is this some BTS plot reconstruction and fan service to explain her absence? Of course it is. And I will gladly take it. Black Lightning is better with Lady Eve in it and some things are just facts.
So Lady Eve has in her possession the suitcase that was once Lala’s, and before that was Tobias’, and before that belonged to the ASA. After a stand-off with Gambi (see: the previously mentioned hit on his life), Lady Eve turns the case over because even she realizes that the Markovians are bad news. In the top secret suitcase is the entire history of the Greenlight experiment, down all the way to Patient One — Gravedigger.
I don’t have time to get into all the details here, but if you want to see what black science fiction and afro-futurist stories look like at their best, please watch Gravedigger’s origin. The last ten minutes of Black Lightning are some of the best they’ve put forth. Taking a Captain America-style origin story, tying it into histories of systematic anti-black racism in the US military, and demonstrating how the perversions of racism can seep between every line and leave no choice but to take one world’s “All American hero” myth and instead turn the person into a villain of white America’s own creation?
GAH, it’s a so, so good.
Station 19 305 & 306: “Into the Woods” and “Ice Ice Baby”
Written by Carmen
AT JOE’S BAR EVEN!!!! A true Shondaland gay fairytale.
So Krista Vernoff, the Grey’s Anatomy showrunner since Shonda left for Netflix, has also taken over as the showrunner for Station 19. Despite the fact that I think her time helming the mothership on Grey’s has produced uneven results, I’m really enjoying what she’s doing with the firehouse. If you fell off of Station 19 before, this season is a great place to jump back in.
As it relates to our interests, one of the biggest switches is an increased focus on hot bisexual Olympian firefighter Maya (now Captain Maya to you). Last week we got an episode devoted to Maya’s origin story. In short: Her dad was an obsessive, overly competitive, overbearing asshat who didn’t teach Maya to have human feelings and also ruined her one shot a teen love with a girl on her track team. And now she doesn’t know how to act like a human being capable of friendship or loyalty or love. Basically, she’s hot bisexual Olympian robot Maya. SAD!!!
It doesn’t necessarily excuse why Maya is the way she is — arguably stepping over her best friend’s back on her way to a promotion as captain; breaking the heart of her boyfriend along the way to do so. But at least it’s moved Maya up from her previous status as “so boring it’s like watching paint dry.” Yes, I might be rooting against Maya sometimes (often), but at least now I’m finally invested in her, you know? At least there’s an emotion attached.
One of the many great things about Krista’s tenure as dual showrunner is now there’s more cross-series romantic storylines happening, helping to turn the two-hour commitment of Grey’s/ Station 19 on Thursdays into something that feels more like one continuous show. Thus far, I’m really into it! And for Maya that means enter… drumroll please… DR. ORGASM!!!!!!
We all know that I love me some Carina DeLuca! And Grey’s has never really known what to do with her, ever since Arizona broke her heart to run back into Calliope Iphegenia Torres’ arms #SorryNotSorry.
Last week their eyes met at Joe’s Bar. Doves cried and the rainbow skies parted. Tegan and Sara sang a love song duet with Mary Lambert while Brandi Carlile played piano. True to form, this week Carina recommended that Maya tell a patient in crisis giving an emergency birth during a blizzard to, you guessed it, masturbate. (Dr. Orgasm, please never change!)
When it’s over Maya does a little flirting of her own, promising Carina that they’ve yet to scratch the surface of .. ahem.. all the things that Maya is good at.
There’s a gay crossover romance brewing in Shondaland. And I for one, cannot wait.
Boobs on Your Tube: Sexy Superqueero Fight Alert on Black Lightning!
Happy Friday! Let’s get to it. This week in Autostraddle television coverage, the OG To L and Back came back swinging in full force with a recap of the OG L Word episode 306, and somehow Carly and Riese got even funnier during the off season? Early photos of Gillian Anderson on The Crown were released, and Rachel’s thankful that she doesn’t have to worry about being sexually attracted to Margaret Thatcher anymore! Sara and Ava go back to the 1940s on Legends of Tomorrow and geez whiz does Valerie Anne have some fun with all the old timey language. There was a Katy Keene crossover on Riverdale! And the secret of Alice’s kiss with Rhea Butcher comes out on Good Trouble. Shelli wrote about how much she loves Fran on Shrill and gave us a nostalgic tour of the, ahem, TV & movie sex scenes she used to click her mouse to in college. Also, did you hear? “Stumptown” is ready to fill the Root and Shaw-shaped hole in your heart.
Heather wrote this stunner and it’s not to be missed: How an Angry Cat, a Misanthropic Horse, and a Depressed Dyke are Giving Us Permission to Leave the People Who Hurt Us
Notes from the TV Team:
+ This week on All Rise, Judge Lisa Benner revealed that she’s planning a run for Attorney General, which means: 1. A campaign story, and we know how much I love those, and 2. We’ll probably see her less now than we did before which I didn’t think was possible. — Natalie
+ Last week, BET launched a four part online docuseries about Pose and Good Trouble star, Hailie Sahar. It’s an incredible story of growth and perseverance that’s worth your time. The first two episodes are available on Youtube. — Natalie
All American 211: “Tha Crossroads”
Written by Natalie
The classic Bone Thugs N’ Harmony song for which this episode is named is an ode to the lives of family and friends that we’ve lost so, of course, once again I sat through an entire hour of All American paranoid about how it would end. I thought Spencer would be safe — All American‘s been renewed for a third season after all — but everyone else was at risk, including our girl, Coop. But I digress.
With Olivia trailing in her blood stained dress, Spencer is pushed into the ER for treatment. Believing him to be just another gang member, the doctors are dismissive, withholding pain medication and blood for a transfusion, and the cop assumes Spencer’s responsible for what happened to him. Thankfully, Spencer’s nurse advocates for him — “regardless of who this man is, he is a patient in need of our care” — and he gets the treatment he needs. The nurse also allows Spencer to visit with “his sisters:” first, with Olivia and then Coop.
He urges Coop to get a message back to Crenshaw: He doesn’t want anyone retaliating in his name. Coop delivers the message to Flip who, as predicted, was readying his boys to go after Tyrone. Flip resists the request but Coop warns that the death of one Blood, at the hands of another, would lead to a civil war. Coop offers a counter-proposal: She’ll kill Tyrone… a snitch killing the banger she snitched on. Flip acquiesces, giving Coop 24 hours to take Ty out before he responds, consequences be damned.
What I thought was just a way to buy herself some time turns out to be an actual plan, as Coop leaves Spencer a note and her chain before heading off to take care of Tyrone. Thankfully, though, Preach steps in to stop her, warning that killing another person will change her, as it changed him. He wants a better life for her. He volunteers to handle Tyrone on his own — avenging his own shooting — but Ty sees the threat coming: The police arrive just in time to arrest Preach for assaulting the promoter who stole Coop’s money. Tyrone sends a video of the arrest to Coop and warns that she’s next.
Then Tyrone just leaves town? After all that build-up, the resolution seems terribly anticlimactic, but Flip and Coop both promise that they’ll be waiting, guns drawn, for Tyrone to show his face again.
Party of Five 106: “Patch Job”
Written by Natalie
Like the original 1990s series, the 2020 reboot of Party of Five is about five children — Emilio, Beto, Lucia, Valentina and Baby Rafa — left to fend for themselves after the loss of their parents. But unlike the original, the parents aren’t lost in a car accident, they’re lost to an inhumane immigration policy: deported to Mexico by ICE. The parents remain both present and maddingly distant… and the impact on the children is heartbreaking. The parents’ absence forces their eldest daughter, Lucia, to step up her involvement at home, but it also pushes her toward activism.
Enter Matthew, who Lucia meets at church. She feels immediate kinship with the homeless teen and tries to help him get food and work. It’s a struggle, though: Matthew resists help at every turn, refusing to reveal himself even to renew his DACA status. Eventually, Lucia finds a clean SSN for Matthew and he’s able to get a job in the Acostas’ restaurant.
With a secure job, Matthew and Lucia’s relationship shifts from him being her pet project to one of genuine friendship. She invites him over to the Acostas house to play pool and hang out with friends. One friend has her eyes set on Matthew and Lucia urges him to go talk to her. Again, he’s reluctant, worried about the judgement that’ll come when the girl discovers he’s undocumented and homeless. After witnessing an activist stand up to ICE on behalf of an immigrant, Lucia redoubles her efforts, urging Matthew to renew his DACA so he doesn’t have to hide anymore. But Matthew insists he doesn’t care about any of that, he just wants to live his life.
After an impromptu meeting with the activist from earlier, Lucia pieces together why she’s so determined to ensure Matthew’s safety: She doesn’t want any more people in her life disappearing. Her openness inspires Matthew to finally do the same.
Matthew: Lucia, for me to renew DACA, I would have to present my birth certificate. That’s the only way. But that name that’s someone I never was. And I won’t go back and say that’s me… not for any reason.
Do you see now?
Lucia: I do. I see you. I see you.
I love this show so much. Did I mention, I’m pretty sure that Lucia is gay? Just in case you needed another reason to watch.
Black Lightning 312: “The Book of Markovia: Chapter Three: Blessings and Curses Reborn”
Written by Carmen
Loser has to get on top. (Kidding! Anissa’s always on top.)
I don’t know y’all, maybe it’s still a little too soon, maaaaybe this is premature, but I am so ready to love Black Lightning again. Anissa and Grace are really only together for one scene this week (so we definitely still have some room for growth on that front), but damn – what a scene it was!
The basic crux is that we’re going on a superhero road trip next week to save Lynn because she’s become a drug Green Light addict who was kidnapped by the Markovians. Anissa obviously wants Grace to stay at home, because… I mean, let’s be real Grace always stays at home, and that’s at least 50% of what the show has gotten wrong in the past. Except NOT this time! This time Grace and Anissa talk about their feelings like mature adults, with some of their signature mocking of each other that is SO CUTE it practically leaps off the screen (“Anissa I’m not a child!” / “To be fair Grace, sometimes you are.” And my personal favorite: “What? Is Thunder afraid of a ‘lil Pussycat?” I FELL OUT ONTO THE FLOOR!! Chantal Thuy, you are a master of delivery).
Then Grace proves she’s ready to go by challenging Anissa to superhero a fight in their apartment. They leap over furniture and stairs and jump real high and punch and breath real hard while licking their lips. Listen, what I’m saying is that as far as I’m concerned this is another Thunder Grace sex scene, and you will never be able to convince me otherwise.
To top it all off (haha, “top”), when the fight is over, Anissa admits that she’s scared to let Grace come along because she loves her. She can’t be the reason Grace dies in battle. To which Grace, in the utmost of casual, sexy confidence says: “Your fight is my fight, babe.”
At that point I had no choice, I gave my heart back to Thunder Grace. There’s no turning back now. I’ve watched this scene no less than 20x this week, so it’s only right that I leave a video so you can do the same:
https://youtu.be/1vDDE5mECLw
The Bold Type 403: “Marathon”
Written by Carmen
I wonder if this is what Janelle Monáe felt like when she was interviewed by Roxane Gay.
I have been a huge champion of Kat’s growth over the last two years of The Bold Type. In as much as The Bold Type is a coming of age story, it is most certainly a queer coming of age for Kat – who has figured out how to become a part of her community without a girlfriend on her arm, and how to use her workplace to advocate for the queer world around her. That’s all great. But you know that one friend who’s newly out of the closet, and then they sort become… well, there’s no need to sugar coat it, they become a bit annoying? Everything is either “right” or “wrong” or “social justice” or not at all, and it gets exhausting? Yeah well, Kat Edison has hit that stage in her queer development.
Kat’s super hyped about the new all-digital Scarlet and what that can mean for telling more diverse stories that matter. While working on an interview series to coincide with the New York Marathon, Kat starts chatting up Chloe, her regular delivery person. Chloe is trans – a reveal that’s so handled so clunky it’s inspired our very own Drew Gregory to make a master list of all the ways cis people write trans people on television, anyway moving on! So Chloe can’t run in the marathon because her qualification paperwork still had her previous gender listed. Kat decides to stick her nose in without Chloe’s permission and buys a number bib online from an injured runner who can no longer compete.
Of course when Kat tells Chloe the good news, she’s not happy about it! Chloe wants to turn the marathon as herself, that’s the whole point! (Allies take note: Help people the way they ask for it, and never assume you know more about someone else’s life than they do.) Kat feels bad for offending Chloe, so she talks a member of the marathon committee into letting Chloe run by name-dropping Scarlet all their 3 million readers online.
Meanwhile, Kat’s also been kind of on her high horse lately about policing Jane’s language (Jane can’t say “black market” because it associates blackness with being bad, Jane can’t say “woke” because it’s cultural appropriation, and so on). This is that annoying friend I was talking about! Which of course isn’t to say that Jane’s not typically the clueless privileged white girl of The Bold Type; she is, and I hate having to defend her. But c’mon Kat! Give us a break! Luckily Chloe also picks up on the vibes that Kat’s putting down. She encourages the friends – and all of us – to remember that as long as our heart is in the right place and we’re trying to make things better, that’s all that really matters.
Awwww you guys, group hug! Let’s go out and make the world better! See you next week!
Boobs on Your Tube: Those Thunder Grace Kisses Are Sparking up Black Lightning!
We finally made it! It’s the end of the month!
First, this week we said goodbye to the first season of The L Word: Generation Q and whew we did so with a flourish! There were FIVE POSTS about the show this week alone! Here’s what you missed:
-
- Riese wrote the final recap; Drew and Annalyssa hosted the final podcast
- The TV Team ran down our favorite ‘ships and sex scenes (Spoiler: We all love #Sinley except for one person… wanna guess who that is?)
- The Speakeasy had a conversation you won’t find anywhere else on the internet right now: Nine Queer Writers of Color on “Generation Q” and The L Word’s Legacy of Whiteness
- Then the TV Team got back together to dissect all of the best and worst storylines from Season One and what we hope changes before Season Two gets underway
In other parts of the TV World, we hosted a roundtable about how dang much we love She-Ra. Heather called Fortune Feimster’s new Netflix comedy special “Sweet and Salty” a love letter to lesbian tomboys. Kayla watched the new season of the Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina and deemed it a muddled, but still magical, mess. Then Winn returned for a very special episode of Supergirl. Kayla wondered is she’s the only one who remembers that Cheryl and Toni exist on Riverdale. Alice learned some good lesbian boundaries on Good Trouble. Edie Falco is brilliant as LA’s lesbian police chief in Tommy. And last but not least, Drew wrote a beautifully personal farewell to the first season of Work in Progress.
Notes from the TV Team:
+ I must admit, I’ve been disappointed with Deputy thus far, particularly Bex Taylor-Kaus’ limited role in it. Their appearance in last night’s episode (“10-8 Black & Blue”) was frustratingly brief, but Bishop returns home to find that Genevieve’s found old pictures of a more feminine presenting Brianna Bishop in boxes from DC. Genevieve leaves a flirty note — “who is this cutie?” — but Bishop’s reaction to it hints at a forthcoming storyline about Bishop’s gender presentation. — Natalie
+ Cupid (or something like him) was on Legacies this week but Josie is trapped in a prison world so her and Hope couldn’t explore their feelings for each other via magical means and I am SAD ABOUT IT. — Valerie Anne
All American 210: “Protect Ya Neck”
Written by Natalie
The title of this episode left me a little paranoid. Without Preach’s protection, Coop is as vulnerable to Tyrone as she’s ever been so I watched the episode on high alert, anticipating the moment trouble would darken Coop’s door. And it does, eventually, both in the way that I expect and in one that I don’t.
Despite the looming threat against her, Coop just wants to embrace some sense of normalcy. She invites Patience to accompany her to Olivia’s cotillion — it’s a “free gay prom,” Coop says, which is not how I’d describe the cotillions I’ve been to — so that they can have some fun. Patience is reluctant at first but ultimately agrees. But Coop’s excitement is muted by the arrival of Patience’s old friend, Luna, who’s in town for the cotillion. Coop is immediately jealous about their rapport and dismayed that Patience never told her friend about their relationship. Later, the couple meets in the park to talk about Luna but the chasm between them only grows deeper. Turns out, Luna and Patience are exes and the omission feeds into Coop’s paranoia about what’s going on between them.
The couple put aside their issues and attend the “free gay prom” together, with Coop’s mom happily snapping pictures of them together. Coop’s annoyed by her mom’s attentiveness but Patience reminds her how remarkable it is, “You do appreciate what’s going on here, don’t you? Your mom, the woman who threw you out of her house, is now playing paparazzi with her gay daughter and her gay daughter’s girlfriend.”
But Luna persists in interrupting the date night and Coop grows angrier. Coop insta-stalks Luna and realizes that she’s Patience’s first love — the one that inspired her to come out — and it sparks a confrontation between the couple. They’ve lost trust in each other and Patience tearfully admits that they need some time apart.
Patience: Like, you freaked out because J.P. was more interested in me as an artist than he was in you and now you’re freaking out because I’m still friends with my ex-girlfriend?
Coop: I’m freaking out because I love you.
Patience: I know, but I don’t want to be loved like this.
The heartbreak is painful to watch but when Coop realizes that she’s been jealous and paranoid, I’m optimistic that it’ll be temporary. But just when I think Coop will escape “Protect Ya Neck” relatively unscathed, her best friend — who’s spent the episode trying to protect her — is shot as he escorts Olivia to her car.
Arrow 810: “Fadeout”
Written by Valerie Anne
Missed you, bb.
This week was Arrow‘s final episode, and we said goodbye to the show where Sara Lance got her start. Much to my delight, she wasn’t the only one at Oliver’s funeral; Nyssa al Ghul made her triumphant return, as well. Nyssa told her sister about how her marriage to Oliver was a sham, and introduces Sara as her “beloved” for old time’s sake. I do hope Nyssa goes on to date Laurel2 (or anyone, really) and find her own happily ever after, but I can’t blame her for holding a torch for her Ta-er al-Sahfer. I’ll admit I haven’t really been watching much of Arrow since Felicity left, but I will be watching the Green Arrow and the Canaries spinoff if it happens, and I will forever be grateful for the show for giving us characters like Felicity and Laurel(s) and Thea and Dinah and Mia. And, of course, our fearless Captain Sara Lance.
Nancy Drew 112: “The Lady of Larkspur Lane”
Written by Valerie Anne
:Catra voice: Hey, Amaya.
Nancy Drew is really throwing me for all kinds of gay loops. First it gives me the very cute pairing of Bess and Lisbeth. Then it accidentally taunts me with cute Nancy/Bess interactions. (That’s not the show’s fault, they’re not doing anything but having these girls develop a friendship, I just love them both and can’t help myself.) But now they introduced Bess to Amaya, a woman Bess’ new aunt is trying to get to “mentor” Bess, a woman who calls Bess a snack and is hilarious, smart, and bold.
She assumes Bess knows nothing of her world and makes her sit in silence while she has a business meeting, but Amaya’s boldness makes Bess more brazen. She speaks up for herself and proves Amaya’s snap judgements wrong. And I love Lisbeth but, to borrow language from Season Two of Sex Education, she doesn’t make Bess sparkle. Not the way Amaya did. I think she might be more up to Bess’ speed, but Lisbeth was so sweet and supportive I feel bad rooting against her. So I don’t know what will happen or even what I want to happen, I just know that I love that Bess’ queerness is just a known and accepted thing at this point and we can focus on things like love triangles. Plus all the ghosts and murder.
The Bold Type 402: “#Scarlet”
Written by Carmen
“…. yes, they use all 10 fingers. And that’s how lesbians have sex!”
Last week on The Bold Type Kat saved Jacqueline’s job! But not before the suits in the board room decided to follow IRL media trends and move Scarlet magazine to an all digital platform (see also: Teen Vogue and Glamour). Is this going to do anything help stop the fantasies I play in my head that Autostraddle’s feminist can do spirit could be Scarlet magazine if only capitalism were fake and we had $$$ to spend on New York City high rise offices and a limitless fashion closet? No, it will not!
OK so Scarlet is becoming #Scarlet. To launch their first digital issue, Jaqueline would like to celebrate the magazine’s past. That means Kat has to interview celebrities whom got their start at the magazine, like Bella Diaz. Except interviewing Bella is the last thing Kat wants to do! You see, many years ago when Bella was a just-starting-out singer, and Kat hadn’t yet realized her own queerness, Bella came out to her at a photo shoot. And Kat listened to Bella’s then-manager and buried the story. So yeah, she has a lot of leftover shame over that whole deal.
When Kat meets up with Bella in our current timeline, she apologizes for not being more supportive. Bella downplays it, and says coming out isn’t important to her anymore, which of course sets Kat’s mind in motion. It turns out that back then Bella was in love with her pianist, but they’ve since broken up (the pianist didn’t want to stay with Bella in the closet). Bella doesn’t feel ready to publicly come forward – and risk her career! – without her.
At the digital launch party, Kat tells Bella about how scary it was her to navigate her queerness without Adena, but how ultimately she found more truth and bravery in herself because she did. Once again I really have to applaud The Bold Type, so many YA-focused television shows only focus on the romance of queer love stories, and TBT has found a way to make Kat’s queerness ever-present and tied to the adult woman she’s becoming, regardless of whom she’s sleeping with.
Anyway, Bella tells Kat that she’s still not ready to come out, but I’d love for Kat to have a queer woman of color friend that she’s not sleeping with, so I hope Bella ultimately stays around. I may get my wish. Later that night Bella privately shares “Brave” with Kat, the first song she wrote about falling in love with a woman. (Fun Fact: Bella Diaz is played by Latin Grammy nominee Sofia Reyes, who has released “Brave” exclusively on her YouTube channel and you should give it a listen!)
Black Lightning 311: “The Book of Markovia: Chapter Two: Lynn’s Addiction”
Written by Carmen
Anissa and Grace, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G
When we said goodbye to Black Lightning for the winter break, I wished for two things: 1. That I would learn better patience with the show and 2. That the production behind the series would learn to treat the show’s sole queer relationship with some respect.
Well, I must have been a good girl over the holidays, because Santa left some presents underneath my TV tree! Not only is Grace Choi back on the series (and flirting marvelously with Anissa – damn Nafessa Williams and Chantal Thuy’s chemistry remains off the charts), but she’s coming back to Freeland! After having an emotionally mature conversation actually on screen with her girlfriend, nonetheless! When Anissa visits Grace at the metahuman camp in South Freeland, Grace explains that she’s realized the cause of her shapeshifting is feeling insecure in her surroundings. She’s lived her entire life being abandoned, and once she started falling deep for Anissa, she worried that something might happen that would ruin the one good thing she had in her life. That caused everything inside her body – powers included – to tumble into free fall.
But even when Anissa sent Grace away to protect her, she never let go. She always comes back, and the few times she can’t, she makes sure Grace is safe with her dad. Despite all the metaphorical storms and literal Markovian/ASA drama surrounding them, Grace now realizes that Anissa is her rock and nothing will move her. She convinces Anissa that it’s safe for her to (finally!!!!! And hopefully, for good!!!) come back home. It’s 2020 and I am choosing optimism. Let this next step be the first of many. I’m so ready to root for Thunder Grace, if only Black Lightning will let me.
As excited as I am for the return of Grace Choi – and I am! – she is not the reason that my fellow TV Team member Natalie ran to text me mid-episode earlier this week. Oh no. That honor is reserved for the baddest damn bitch in the room. You see, last week Black Lightning ended on a glimmer… a hope… a cliffhanger that I almost didn’t allow myself to believe could be true. But here we are friends. HERE WE ARE:
IDK care what y’all say, this definitely counts as Gay ContentTM
LADY FUCKING EVE IS BACK FROM THE DEAD!!! After three years, I could’ve just cried at the purr of her voice. So far Lala (our most common Black Lightning undead) thinks he has Eve under his thumb. But if there’s one thing that we all know, it’s that you can’t keep a good bitch down. I’m sure Eve has something tucked away as she plots her return to the top of Freeland’s underworld. And I can’t wait to see it.
CW Crossover “Crisis on Infinite Earths” Parts Four and Five: The Dawn of Time
Previously on Crisis on Infinite Earths, antimatter destroyed everything except the seven Paragons, who noped out to the Vanishing Point, and Oliver, who was hanging out in Purgatory (not the one in the Ghost River Triangle) with a being called Spectre. The last we left our heroes, Lex had changed the Book of Destiny to replace the real Paragon of Truth with the biggest liar of them all: himself.
Even though it feels like it has been ten thousand years since the last episode of the CRISIS, we start this episode ten thousand years ago, on Planet Maltus, where a younger, happier-looking Novu kisses his wife and tries out a temporal jump they’ve been sciencing. He ends up at the dawn of time, where he accidentally caused a breath to the anti-universe, where anti-matter is afoot and the Anti-Monitor is there.
At the Vanishing Point, it becomes clear by Ryan’s facial hair that they’ve been stuck there for months. I’m a little confused as to how he and the other humans are still alive, since obviously time is moving if he has a beard now, so his body is still doing things, but maybe there’s a Vanishing Garden somewhere. Then again Lex doesn’t have a longer beard so who knows what’s going on. He writes a letter to his dead wife, saying that things are looking bleak. The Paragon of Destiny doesn’t believe in tomorrow. The Paragon of Courage trains day in and day out for a battle that might never come. The Paragon of Honor meditates. A lot. And the Paragon of Hope seems to have lost hers.
He calls Lex a douche, which is a delight, and apparently the Paragon of Love has up and disappeared. Because love is a lie.
Eventually, Lex and Ryan work together to create a transporter of sorts, meaning they have a chance go get out of here.
“So I guess we wouldn’t be the only queers left then…” “…and I guess that means we shouldn’t…”
Kara flatly says that Lex should be the one to test it. It’s a perfect moment because sometimes even the most hopeful, the most positive, the kindest, can reach their limits with someone and no longer have the energy to even feign politeness.
Even people with very long ropes reach the end of them sometimes.
Kara is determined to get the people they lost back, and just for a moment, that little flame of hope seems to spark behind her eyes.
The machine whirls and pops, but Lex unfortunately isn’t immediately replaced by his sister or anyone more useful than him. However, unrelated, The Flash barrels in, and when everyone demands to know where he’s been for months, he insists he’s been gone for like two minutes. But time means nothing anyway, because he can’t access the Speed Force, which means he can’t undo this. There’s no way out.
Over on the post-death version of Lian-Yu, Spectre is giving Oliver all of his powers and showing him how his life lead up to this moment. He tells SpectrOliver that it’s almost time for the ultimate fight, and that it’s time to find his friends. Which is something it has taken Oliver 900 episodes to realize, and honestly I think he still needs it told to him: he needs help, and it’s okay to ask for it, and accept it.
Back at the Vanishing Point, Barry is zooming around, angry, Kara and Sara holding him back, knowing they can stop him by force if they have to.
“Cut it out! You will not ruin our shot at getting out of this Vaseline-smeared world!”
But Oliver shows up and tells them that the Speed Force is the key and that the Paragons have to use it to stop the Anti-Monitor.
Just a warning: this Arrow hour of the Crisis is almost as dark as when Once Upon a Time went to Neverland, and under a worse filter than the whole of Ravenswood.
They’re surprised to see him but he explains that he’s not quite Oliver. He says he’s something… more. Which is what he’s been saying he needs to become in his intro for quite some time now, so I suppose this was always going to happen. He says they have to go to the dawn of time to fight, and gives them their mission. He sends Kara, Ryan, and Lex to Maltus to try to stop the Monitor from making the breach in the first place, and boops Barry to give him (and thus, the rest of the team) access to the Speed Force again.
Barry Flashes into the Speed Force but finds himself knocked off course and face to face with a version of Oliver who is at Queen Consolidated. Oliver explains that the Anti-Monitor attacked and scattered his friends throughout the Speed Force, and that he’s going to have to go back through important moments in the Arrowverse timeline to find them.
On his way, Barry runs into another Barry Allen… and it’s the Barry Allen from the Justice League movie. Which, after the wee bit of controversy that surrounded the DC Universe when it was clear they weren’t doing a Marvel and using the same characters in their movies as their TV shows, was pretty delightful. (Also implies the existence of Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, just saying.)
Up (over?) on Maltus, Lex fucks off almost as soon as he lands on Earth, much to Kara’s chagrin. Kara finds him and fights with him; he’s so convinced that brain will beat brawn, but what he doesn’t realize is that she’s not brawn at all. She’s heart.
“You, not unlike some of the writers on this show, are severely underestimating how much I love Lena Luthor.”
He goads her into asking what he wants and he goes full Pinky and the Brain and says that he wants to take over the universe. Oh, also? When he was fiddling with the Book of Destiny, he gave himself powers. Even though part of his whole deal is that he hates that some people are naturally more powerful than others but whatever.
Lex ends up using these powers to knock Kara and Ryan out and in case you forgot he’s a sociopath, he whistles while he walks away from their unconscious bodies.
Ryan wakes up first, I would assume because Kara needed to RELAX and the only way she was able to do so was to be knocked clean out, but as soon as he wakes her and she scans him for permanent damage, they’re off. Ryan doesn’t feel much like a Paragon (even though he somehow survived a blast strong enough to knock out a Kryptonian), but Kara reassures him that the fact that he’s even there, willing to help, means he’s special.
New life goal: for Melissa Benoist to look me in the eye and tell me I’m special.
He calls her the Paragon of Pep Talks and calls Lex a “selfish asshat” and frankly I like him and wouldn’t hate it if he stuck around post-Crisis. On any of the shows. Kara agrees and then tells him to get ready to fly.
Then.
She says.
UP. UP. AND AWAY.
THIS IS WHAT DREAMS ARE MADE OF
Say what you want about this Monitor/Anti-Monitor stuff (What I’ll say is: it’s boring and I don’t care about it) but moments like this are what my nerdy, cheese-loving heart LIVES FOR.
Meanwhile, Barry is zip-zapping around the Speed Force and starts collecting friends from different points in Arrow. He eventually finds Oliver in last year’s crossover memories, and Oliver tells him about the deal he made to save Kara and Barry. He tells them that dying is easy, dying is peace, but it’s the people who have to keep going, keep fighting, who are the real heroes. In other words, “The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.”
Barry ends up back at one of the times Sara died, dressed as the Black Canary, Laurel and Diggle standing over her. Barry zaps Sara awake and doesn’t even let the sisters, whose current experience is that the other is dead, hug for ONE SECOND before whooshing her away again.
Sara is on a one-woman mission to come back to life enough times to make up for all the TV gays killed in 2016.
On Maltus, Lex goes to find the Monitor and tries to offer him knowledge of the future in exchange for abilities he will come to possess. But as he’s explaining the Crisis to Novu, Kara shows up to spoil his fun.
While those two fight, Ryan talks to Novu and talks him down from doing this thing that will surely destroy the universe. His calm and reasonable nature sways Novu, who calls him remarkable.
Meanwhile, Kara is telling Lex all the things he’s done to piss her off, but the thing she says the loudest and the angriest is, “You betrayed Lena.”
Lex broke Lena’s heart so Kara’s gonna break his face.
But before their fight can go too far, The Flash Train comes to pick them up and takes them to meet up with the rest of the Paragons at the dawn of time, in the anti-matter universe.
Remember when the WB used to have all its actors hang out on a couch for promo spots? Same vibes.
The Anti-Monitor chuckles at their attempt to stop him, because even though they stopped this Monitor, one will still come. So instead, at SpectrOliver’s command, they fight.
*Xena yell*
So the heroes all join forces; even Lex, because he values his own life above all else. While the Paragons take on the shadow demons, Oliver takes on the Anti-Monitor, blasting all the dementors away with one beam and his catchphrase (but Crisisified): You have failed this universe.
Realizing Oliver still needs their help, Kara tells them to all focus on their Paragon qualities and Care Bear stare at the Anti-Monitor.
I can’t wait to see a photoshopped version of this with lil light beams coming out of their tummies.
After the Anti-Monitor is gone, Barry flashes him and Sara up to Oliver’s side, where they have to say goodbye again. It’s another speech that’s bigger than the events of this episode. It’s not just Oliver saying goodbye to his old buds Sara and Barry. It’s not even just Stephen Amell saying goodbye to Caity and Grant. It’s Arrow telling Legends of Tomorrow and The Flash to keep going; the world still needs them. Both of them. It was a mentor saying goodbye to his colleagues, a man saying goodbye to his friends, a show saying goodbye to its spinoffs. Arrow walked so The Flash could run. So Legends could fly.
Oliver tells them to look up, and through their tears they see a new universe forming. An end and a beginning.
“I swear to god, Barry, if you start singing Closing Time, I WILL break your legs.”
And thus ends Part 4 of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Arrow Hour, the Darkest Timeline.
PAGE TWO: PART FIVE!
CW Crossover “Crisis On Infinite Earths” Part 3: Batwoman vs Supergirl
Day three, baybee! The Crisis on Infinite Earths marches on, and so do we. Once again without a previously on because we have NO TIME TO WASTE.
We open on Earth 203, in New Gotham, with Huntress running through the streets. Not our Jessica De Gouw Huntress from the Arrow days of yore, but Ashley Scott, from the 2002 series. (Also starring, hilariously enough, Rachel Skarsten, aka Alice from Batwoman.)
“Sounds gay. I’m in.”
Huntress is on the phone with Barbara/Oracle, and realizing she’s out of time as Earth 203 is turned to dust.
The Waverider is still orbiting Earth 1, where our heroes are waiting for the Paragon detector to tell them what to do next.
I love me a good hero lineup.
Since this is technically the Flash hour, the rest of Team Flash decides to join the fray — specifically Frost, Cisco, and The Elongated Man. Ralph gets a little flustered seeing all these heroes in one place and they joke that it’s his first crossover, and I’ve decided I’m going to start calling it a crossover whenever more than one of my friend groups intermingle.
Earth 1 is still the safest place to be, and it’s getting a little expensive to have so many people in one room, so a few of the heroes run off to start getting civilians from other Earths to Earth 1.
With Cisco’s help, Ray gets the Paragon Detector up and running.
Is this a Generation Q watch party?
First it tells us what we already knew: Kara is the Paragon of Hope, Kate is the Paragon of Courage, Sara is the Paragon of Destiny, and RayClark is the Paragon of Truth. But now they know the identities of the last three: J’onn Jonzz is the Paragon of Honor, Barry Allen is the Paragon of Love. And the last Paragon is one they don’t recognize: Ryan Choy, the Paragon of Humanity.
He’s an Ivytown professor, so Ray, Ralph, and Iris go to pick him up.
Before Sara can get a new task, Diggle shows up and starts yelling at her for not calling him and also for using a Lazarus Pit even though she, of all people, knows the risks.
I forgot how impossible it is to take screenshots of Caity Lotz because she makes the goofiest faces and loves to dramatically close her eyes. This was the most reasonable one I could get in this scene.
Sara insists they have it handled, and while he’s already mad anyway, he should know Lyla is missing. At first he thinks she maybe just teleported away to snatch another random person from a random Earth but not the people standing three feet from them, but the Monitor confirms that he thinks the Anti-Monitor is manipulating her now. And Diggle. Is. PISSED.
In a really fun moment, when Diggle is yelling at Mar Novu, Sara basically “Yeah, what he said!”s him and I know she could kill them both with her pinky finger before you could say CAW CAW MOTHERFUCKERS, but she’s still so smol, so it was very cute to behold.
So tuff!!
The Monitor then says a thing that maybe they’ve been saying all along, over and over for months, and it only took this long for me to hear it: the reason this is all happening is because the Anti-Monitor wants to start fresh and make a universe of his own that he can control. It felt like that moment in math class when things finally start making sense. I still have to do a lot of hand waving around things like why the Monitor is sometimes magically helpful and sometimes extremely not, or why he is somehow both an omniscient and unreliable narrator all at the same time. But at least I understand the motivation.
The thus taskless heroes are standing around the Waverider hub, and I know I said it yesterday, but this is one of my favorite sets, so I love seeing our non-Legends friends on the ship. Kate is still watching Kara carefully while they discuss what to do next. Cisco thinks he found the source of the antimatter wave, so he takes the rest of Team Flash with him to Earth 1.
“Where are we going? Into the unknown?”
On his way out, the Monitor finds Cisco and says Vibe will be needed soon, so he gives Cisco back his powers. Without his consent, I might add. And see why can he do this but not give Oliver back his soul? Or seemingly do anything but be cryptic?
Anyway, Cisco continues on with Frost and The Flash to the tunnel where Nash had gotten sucked into the doorway. He explains to those who missed it that he’s Pariah, being punished by being forced to bear witness to tragedy until the end of time. He doesn’t really remember how he got through the door the first time, so Cisco vibes his memories and gets the code so the team can get in.
Up on the Waverider, Kara goes to Lex to ask how to use the book to get her Earth back. Finding him entirely unhelpful and wanting to support her friend, Kate roughs him up a bit until he explains that it takes extreme willpower to do even simple things, so saving a whole Earth could drive Supergirl mad. After throwing Lex back in the brig where he belongs, Kate pulls Kara aside and says maybe this is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad plan.
Pictured: My butch side and my femme side arguing about what to wear to a holiday party.
But Kara wants to fix this. She keeps saying it, she’s been saying it since last week’s episode. “I can fix this.” And it’s how I can tell Kara is reaching her breaking point. Not her like… forever broken point. But it’s getting clear the poor thing needs to sit down and process all her pain and have a good cry on her sister’s lap, but instead she’s powering through. She thinks she can fix this but she can’t. Even if she gets her mom back, even if she saves the world(s), even if things get better, she still experienced this trauma, and she still needs to process it.
Constantine, Mia, and Diggle head to Earth 666 in LA because Constantine knows someone who can help them get to Purgatory to get Oliver’s soul the good old-fashioned way since Constantine’s necromancy powers haven’t quite returned. They knock on the door and who answers but LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR. Like, the real Lucifer! From the show Lucifer! He crossed NETWORKS to be here! Lucifer introduces himself to Mia and ask what she desires, and all she wants is her father back.
“I desire…my own show…where I’M the lead!”
Lucifer is entertained, and agrees to help, mostly to return a favorite. “I owe you for Maze,” is what Lucifer said, and I don’t know what that means, but I do hope we find out in the next season of Lucifer. Lucy hands them a card that will get them to Purgatory and flirts with Diggle a little before sending them off.
The trio end up in Purgatory, which looks like Lian Yu, which MEANS Purgatory, because Oliver wasn’t all that creative when coming up with his personal hell. Constantine warns them that when they find Oliver, he might need his memories jogged, and also that they don’t have much time.
Team Flash finds the source of the antimatter wave, and it’s a massive cannon being powered by a speedster. And not just any Speedster: Earth 90’s Flash. Flash Gordon himself. And he’s trapped in what MY personal Purgatory would look like: a neverending treadmill.
Cisco vibes a portal in so Barry can get Flash Gordon off the treadmill of doom, but as soon as he’s off he warns them that the thing is rigged to explode if he stops running for too long.
Topside, Iris and the boys find Ryan Choi, who is hugely excited to see Ray Palmer. Iris interrupts their nerding out though because they need Ryan to help them save…well, everyone.
“Hi yes, I’m in charge here, you can tell by my suit.”
Ryan doesn’t believe them when they say they’re superheroes, and doesn’t really understand when Ray calls him a Paragon. He insists he’s not a hero, just a husband and a father, and if the world is really ending, he’d rather be home.
Up on the Waverider, Lois is womanning the command center and watches as Earth 73 is the next to get wiped out. With only seven Earths left, the Monitor starts to reminisce about all HE’S lost, his planet, his family. Lois asks about them and he starts to tell them, catching himself and almost smiling, if such an expression is possible for him. He says he understands why she’s such a good reporter.
I get it, Lois. I also have a face that makes people tell me very personal things about themselves without much prompting.
RayClark appears then, weary from not being able to save people, and Lois gives him some encouraging words. Before he disappears again, she asks why he added black to his Zor-El crest, and he says that it’s to remind him that hope cuts through the darkness. And people keeping saying dramatic things about hope, which makes me feel like Kara is going to be the lynchpin in this whole saving-the-world business. (It would be awesome if it was also Lena because we know she loves her some Hope but alas I doubt we see her again until the crossover is…well, over.)
Down in the Anti-Monitor antimatter anticave, the Pariah shows up with a surprised Black Lightning in tow, who immediately starts to fight until Pariah explains that he just saved him from the destruction his entire world faced. And then Jefferson has the reaction I’ve been waiting for one of these snatched up people to have since Sunday: he starts to yell. “You should have saved my family, not me.” He also doesn’t understand how he could be grabbed but not also the people standing within three feet of him, but Barry calms him down with those big puppy eyes and his neverending well of empathy. The Paragon of Love breaks through to him, and Jefferson agrees to help, taking on the energy of the antimatter cannon for a while until they can sort out this treadmill situation.
Up on the Waverider, Kara goes to open the book again, feeling desperate for something to do, some way to help, but Kate won’t let her. Kara insists, and Kate stands up to her. Like literally, right up to her, practically nose to nose, and stands tall and speaks clearly and says she will stop Kara if she has to.
Small mouth rage!
Kara replies that Kate wouldn’t be able to stop her, but Kate is pretty sure she has a fighting chance. Kate states her case one last time as plainly as she can: if Kara doesn’t succeed at bringing back Earth-38 and/or Argo, and something goes wrong, and Supergirl goes mad, they’re all doomed.
This gets Kara to walk away, at least for now, and Kate seems relieved.
I loved this scene for many reasons. They’re friends, these two, and that good faith didn’t disappear just because they disagreed. Neither of them ever raised their voice, or resorted to insults, or raised a fist. They stood their ground and marked their line in the stand and then quietly chose not to cross each other. Oliver has never met an impasse he yell at. Barry has rarely not done something he was told not to do. It just felt very refreshing is all. It was tense in a whole new, exciting way.
Well now I just want Wonder Woman to appear.
Down in the hamster ball of doom, Barry realizes that this might be what The Monitor prophesied. He might be destined to take Flash Gordon’s place, this might be why the headlines all said that The Flash vanished in the Crisis. (Though how a theoretical future newspaper wrote anything about the Crisis is beyond me…)
Nearby in Central City, Iris tries one more time, one on one, to get Henry to come with them. She tells him that she’s also human, no meta or alien powers, no supersuits or assassin training. Just a very smart, very kind, very pretty reporter. And humans have their purpose, too.
Me: Time to write a witty caption.
Iris: *looks like that*
Me: *is too disarmed to be clever*
Iris encourages Ryan to think of his daughter and how cool it will be to be able to tell her he helped save the world, so he agrees to come with. (Side note, I did a Google, so I know who Ryan Choy is in the comics now, but I won’t tell you here in case you want to be surprised. I sometimes regret looking these things up.)
When the boys ask her how she knew what to say, she flashes back to when she said goodbye to Barry on the Waverider, and he told her that he might be a speedster, but she has powers of her own. Powers of intelligence and heart, for example. He tells her that this could be it, their last goodbye, but not to miss him too much, because he’ll always be running home to her.
Iris’s superpower is making me care about a het pairing that I was originally very against on principal.
And y’all, I keep thinking maybe I don’t like The Flash that much, but this show has made me cry real tears EVERY SINGLE WEEK this season. I don’t know if it’s Grant Gustin’s gentle voice or thoughtful expression or the way everyone else in the cast just looks at him like he’s breaking their heart every time he tries to say goodbye but JEEPERS it hits me out of nowhere every time. And this scene was no exception.
In the current time, Caitlin takes over for Frost so she can say a proper goodbye to her old pal Barry Allen. Cisco comes in too and the original Team Flash trio hug it out one last time. But seeing how many people love him, seeing how many people he loves, and knowing his time was well lived, Flash Gordon steals Barry’s speed and says that The Monitor wanted a Flash to die, so a Flash will die. Just not the Flash he thought.
So Vibe opens the portal to the treadmill and Flash Gordon starts running backwards on it to stop the death wave. (The sentences these wacky-ass shows get me to write, I swear to Rao…) Barry tries to protest, but Cisco tells him that he’s made the tough choice, just like Barry taught him to. So they all watch for a minute, but then get out just in time for Flash Gordon destroys the antimatter cannon, but dies in the process.
As he dies, there’s a flashback to the original Flash Gordon show, and I never watched it, but heck if it didn’t make me emotional!
Constantine, Mia, and Diggle eventually find Oliver’s angry soul on Lian Yu and talk him down until he remembers them. But before he can leave Purgatory with them, a man called Jim Corrigan aka Spectre appears. Constantine knows the name but not the face (because of the Constantine TV show, apparently) and he says Oliver’s soul has to come with him, because only he can “light the spark” to save everyone. (Is the spark a spark of hope aka Kara’s hope?)
He says goodbye to Mia, and goes with this random man who appeared in his personal Purgatory without, in my opinion, sufficient explanation, and Mia is so, so sad.
“I can’t believe you made me go off with only boys and you’re not even coming back with us??”
Back on the Waverider, The Flash and Black Lightning, arguably two of the kindest/truest/best men in the multiverse, have a very sweet bonding moment, talking about their dads and their losses, and Jefferson says a Dylan Thomas quote that I quite liked: “Rage against the dying of the light.”
If ever there was a time we needed that, right?
Elsewhere on the ship, Kate is still following Kara around, lest she try the book thing again. Kate reiterates that she just doesn’t want Kara to get hurt, and Kara understands. They compliment each other on their Hope and Courage, and in the spirit of bravery, Kate gives Kara her Kryptonite disk. Kara’s anger flares for a moment, but then it’s doused in sadness when she remembers what not fully trusting the last person who had Kryptonite cost her. She might not know how to fix her relationship with Lena, but she knows how to avoid breaking her friendship with Kate, so she takes a breath and tells Kate to keep it. Kate will never lose hope like Bruce did, and Kara will have the courage to trust Kate will never use the disk on her.
“Look we resolved our fight and the fact that my sister is Alex and yours is Alice never even came up!”
HEALTHY ADULT FRIENDSHIPS FOR THE WIN.
The fam all gathers back up again, and they decide that their next step is to find the Harbinger. Almost on cue, she appears. The Pariah is also here, and he’s meant to witness great tragedy… but by the time they put those clues together, it’s moments too late, and Lyla’s eyes turn white and the Harbinger starts to attack.
I like Lyla and it’s a bummer she’s the Harbinger or whatever but I’m glad this actress is being used more.
Lyla overpowers The Monitor and… absorbs him? Giving the Anti-Monitor just enough juice to start the antimatter wave up again, destroying Earth 1 and heading right for the Waverider. As a last ditch effort, the Paragon sends out a burst of energy and all the Paragons disappear. Those left behind stand strong, telling the Anti-Monitor that wherever they are, their heroes will fight to the very end. They hold their heads high and nod resolutely to each other as the anti-matter wave takes all of them too like this is the end of Infinity War and we know everyone can’t be gone forever but jeez does it still hurt to see them fade to dust.
When the Paragons reach their destination, Sara recognizes it as the Vanishing Point, a place that exists outside of time and space.
“Ha! For once I’m not the one to die!”
And probably in the dot above the i in Jeremy Bearimy. They realize they’re likely the only ones left in existence at the moment, but before they can really figure out what that means, Kal-El starts bursting red energy. Kara drops to her knees beside him, SO close to that one Crisis comic cover but opposite, and watches as RayClark transforms into none other than Lex Fucking Luthor. Kara is pissed, and frankly, same.
“Oh look it’s the Paragon of Nope.”
Because while I truly enjoyed Lex’s arc on Supergirl, and I think Jon Cryer is the perfect person for the part, and plays him so well… his story was over. The heroes won, Supergirl stopped him, Lena killed him. And it’s not like they lived happily ever after; it still set off a ripple effect, they still have a myriad of problems. So it feels supremely unfair that not only does he get to come back for no good reason other than to annoy us, but then to also take Superman’s spot at the end of the world, though I suppose if he had to be here, of course that’s who he’d replace. The ONLY good thing that could come of Lex not being dead is that the guilt of his death could not weigh as heavy on Lena’s conscience (even though she still has to reckon with the fact that she was willing to go there) not that she would know he’s alive again because SHE’S NOT IN THE CROSSOVER.
Eh hem. :descends off soap box:
Aside from that little rant, and the fact that I still don’t really understand The Monitor’s whole deal or where the Anti-Monitor came from, I’m thoroughly enjoying this epic team-up and all the cameos and nods to franchises past, present, and future. I’m especially enjoying the hero theme mashups, because I’m a huge nerd who listens to the Arrowverse score when I’m writing these recaps.
Unfortunately, Part 4 of the Crisis won’t happen until 2020, so we have to wait to see what happens in the Vanishing Point. Will the Paragons join forces to make a MegaParagon? Will their powers combine to create Captain Paragon? Only time will tell.
CW Crossover “Crisis on Infinite Earths” Part Two: Pretty Pretty Paragons
Long time no see! Crisis On Infinite Earths Part 2 didn’t feel the need for a previously on, presumably because the most recent episode was the night before, so I’m going to dive in, too.
We open in Central City on Earth 1, where Sara Lance, Kara Danvers, and Kate Kane are all mourning Oliver.
“No, no, no, no, no, my SISTER is gay, not me, nope, I have only pals who are gals, that’s it.”
Kara is feeling bad that he sacrificed himself for her and Barry, but Sara says he saved a billion people; he was a hero, there’s no time for guilt. But Kara thinks doing a shot in his honor is a nail in his coffin she’s not sure she’s ready for. Maybe she can do this. Save Oliver, save her mom, save all the Earths.
The Monitor pops in and says he needs a Waverider, but Sara says she promised her team they wouldn’t do any more crossovers. But he doesn’t need her team, just her ship — specifically Ray’s lab — so the Harbinger beebops to another Earth to get one.
She ends up on Earth 74, where she finds Snart’s voice in place of Gideon’s, and Mick Rory the only Legend not in retirement or dead. She asks for his help, and as long as he gets beer, he’s in.
Once the team gathers, The Monitor is trying to inspire them, tell them about seven heroes they need to collect, but little baby Jonathan keeps interrupting with his little cries. They pass him down the line of heroes, who fought off shadow demons without a problem, but can’t seem to get this little guy to stop fussing.
Eventually, somehow unsurprisingly, Rory is the one that gets the baby to settle down, so he heads out with him.
The Monitor continues his speech about finding heroes he calls Paragons. He learned about this when he consulted the Book of Destiny from a past time stream. Which feels like cheating but okay. Totems shmotems. But when The Monitor pulls out the book, Lyla starts to flinch.
Mia asks if The Monitor can bring Oliver back instead of a stupid book (my words) but he says he grows weaker as the Anti-Monitor grows stronger and the Paragons are their only chance at stopping him.
I’ll admit I don’t know much about Mia, but she gives good pout.
Unfortunately, he only knows two Paragons’ names, and clues about two more. Kara Zor-El is the Paragon of Hope, because of course she is. Sara is the Paragon of Destiny; death is her gift. There’s a Kryptonian who has suffered a great loss, a Paragon of Truth. And a bat of the future, the Paragon of Courage. The Monitor said he got Felicity Smoak to help him get this information from the Tome of the Guardians, and it feels very unfair to have that happen off-screen, but I saw her in the play she was in here in New York and she seemed very happy during the talkback after so FINE I’ll allow it.
The Monitor tells Kate and Kara to go to Earth 99 to find Bruce Wayne and the Paragon of Courage.
“Hey ladies, who wants to check out my batcave?”
Everyone is getting ready for their next task when Lex Luthor appears, causing Kara to lose it. She can’t believe her eyes. “Lena killed you,” she says, tears filling her eyes. The Monitor stops her from attacking him, saying he has a role to play, but this solidifies The Monitor as untrustworthy in Kara’s mind. Kara storms off, furious, and seeing Kara’s reaction, Kate decides to throw a little threat Lex’s way too. It was a classic friend move, the “we hate him” no questions asked solidarity.
Kate goes to cheer Kara up, telling her to put on her hope pants (not to be confused with her Supergirl pants or Hope’s pants) so they can save the universe together.
“If you accept this pin it means we’re going steady.”
Elsewhere on the Waverider, Lyla is still feeling a little glitchy when she finds Lex. Left unsupervised for all of five seconds, he’s found a way to steal the Book of Destiny and a portal watch and plans to zap around the universe killing Supermen, just in case the heroes do save the world. When Lyla turns to The Monitor for help, he says that everyone has their part to play and that they should let him go.
Sara busts into the Waverider like, “I’m a Paragon?” because know what else she is? Perfect. Mia catches Sara up on what they missed: they’re going to head to another Earth to find a functioning Lazarus pit since Thea destroyed all the ones on this Earth. But Sara hates this plan. Like, a lot.
Mia is like a S2 Arrow Sara. This is like when people have teenagers for the first time and feel like they have to apologize to their own parents.
She tells Mia what she feels like probably no one told her, that your body comes back but not your soul. But Mia knows all about Sara. Nyssa trained her, after all. “She told me everything I need to know about you,” she says, and Sara is too dumbfounded by this girl she didn’t know existed before yesterday name-checking her ex-girlfriend to ask what the hell she means by that. Because you KNOW Nyssa al Ghul wasn’t shit-talking Sara Lance, so clearly this girl drew her own conclusions.
“You must be new here if you’re flippantly trying to besmirch Nyssara and anger the shippers.”
Anyway, Kate and Kara hop to Earth 99 and an angrier, nakeder version of Luke opens the door, sees who it is, then closes the door. Kate knocks a bunch then Kara almost shyly asks if she can just… and when Kate realizes that just because she’s more butch doesn’t mean she has to lead the charge, so she lets Kara kick down the door and stand in front of her when Luke points a gun at them.
I will forever love how soft Kara seems despite being bulletproof. Moments like this will always tickle me.
An older gentleman comes down the stairs in a robotic exoskeleton, and Kate’s reaction tells us that it’s her cousin, Bruce Wayne. (Side note, Bruce is played by Kevin Conroy, who has done almost nothing but voice Batman since 1991. Okay fine that’s an exaggeration but seriously check out his IMDb.)
Bruce tells Kate that she’s dead in his universe, so she sits him down to explain how she came to be on Earth 99.
Mia, Sara, and Barry enlist the help of Constantine to find a working Lazarus pit on an Earth that hasn’t been obliterated yet, and despite Mia being snarky and mean (is she ALWAYS so mean or is this understandable trauma from her father dying??) they all head off together. On the way out, Sara pulls Constantine aside and makes him promise he’ll restore Oliver’s soul, but all Constantine can do is promise he’ll try.
“We see more than enough of you on Legends, please tell me you can do this and you’re not wasting precious crossover time.”
Across the universe, Lois, Clark, and Iris head to Earth 167 to try to find the Paragon of Truth, since Earth 75’s Superman is already dead. They land in Smallville, where a Tom Welling shaped Clark Kent is chopping wood. I didn’t even watch Smallville and this was exciting; and he’s grown up so much since then that when he showed up on Lucifer a few years back, I hadn’t even recognized him. Anyway, while they’re trying to explain their problem to this Clark, Lex shows up with the book and bamfs them away so he’s left alone with this Earth’s Superman. But when Clark plucks the Kryptonite out of Lex’s hand like it’s a piece of rock candy, he reveals that he’s given up his powers. Lex is horrified, because Clark was basically a god and Lex can’t fathom wanting to give that up for anything. But Clark gave it up for his family, and when Lex realizes that even without being powered by the yellow sun, Clark Kent could still beat him to a pulp, he vanishes through a portal. This Clark’s Lois comes out of the house, and luckily no one is there to point out how much like Kara’s mother she looks (well, Kara’s mother most recently…) and it’s just a happy moment between Smallville‘s Lois and Clark as they head back inside to their daughters. Considering I’ve never even seen it, I was unreasonable happy for Smallville fans, I can only imagine how exciting this was.
Back to the future Gotham, where Bruce is laughing at the idea of being a Paragon of Courage. He shows Kate a headline and reveals that he actually turned into kind of a monster. Fighting bad guys drove him to badness, and he took one life, then another, until he fell down a slippery slope. Kate is sure he can still be redeemed, though. He can still be a hero again, and not just for Gotham.
“Hm, strange, usually when I ask women to do things, they just…do it.”
But while Kate and Bruce are talking, Luke is keeping Kara busy in the library. He asks how she knows Kate, and I personally think it was a missed opportunity for him to ask if she was her girlfriend, but whatever. Kara notices a trophy case of mementos from Batman’s batbattles (a Joker card, the Riddler’s cane, etc) and before she can even fully process how serial killer it all is, she spots Clark Kent’s glasses.
“I know what Wendy Carr would have to say about this…”
In this universe, Batman and Superman didn’t learn their moms had the same name and use that as the sole basis for a truce, so Batman killed Superman.
When Lois, Clark, and Iris get to Earth 96, the Clark Kent they found is shaped like Ray Palmer. (A nod to Brandon Routh’s role as Superman in Superman Returns.) They see a crapton of plaques in his wall of all the people in his life he’s lost, and know they’ve found their Paragon of Truth.
But before they can get Superman back to their Earth, Lex shows up and uses the book to turn the Clarks against each other. The boys fly out of the building, fighting because of Lex’s petty bullshit, while the girls watch from the window.
When it’s clear the Supermen are evenly matched, the girls take things into their own hands, clocking Lex over the head and taking the book. When they can’t figure out how to undo what Lex did, Lois tries to reason with RayClark, eventually breaking through and getting him back.
Over on Earth 18, the Lazarus crew are in North Dakota. Barry and Constantine go to get Oliver’s body while Sara and Mia clean out the pit, despite Sara being a bit triggered by the whole thing.
“Guess mine is not the first soul broken. My eyes are not the first to un-die.”
Sars is midway through complimenting her old pal Felicity by complimenting Mia, the two finally starting to warm to each other, when they’re interrupted by Jonah Hex. But the girls work together and quickly overpower him, because they might be small and blonde, but they were literally trained by assassins. The cowboy didn’t stand a chance.
I love when little things like this (Mia’s grumpiness, specifically) remind me how much Sara Lance has evolved.
Kate and Bruce go to his Batcave, where Bruce continues to be a batgrump. Kara storms in, suited up, and tells Kate what she learned. Bruce leans in now, villain mode activated, and rants about Supers like some kind of Lex Luthor. He punches Supergirl, and when she surprisingly is sent across the room by it, he reveals that he has a Kryptonite crystal in the arm of his exoskeleton. Kate rushes to Kara’s side, her loyalties clear in this fight.
Don’t need men to save them, they can protect each other.
The North Dakota crew is waiting for Oliver to rise from the pit, getting a bit impatient and worrying it won’t work.
Is she mad her mom told her she couldn’t go to the mall or because her dad won’t come back from the dead? Who can tell!
But then Oliver springs from the pit, wild and uncouth, until Sara tranqs him so he’ll chill out until they can get his soul back.
Kate fights her futuristic cousin, standing up to him and protecting Kara, until his suit malfunctions and fries him. His dying words to Kate are, “There is no hope,” but she’s standing right next to the Paragon of it, so hopefully she knows that can’t be true.
Back on the Waverider, Lex is in the holding cell while everyone gathers to report on their Paragon findings and try Ray’s Paragon detector. When they turn it on it points to the Waverider they’re on, so Ray thinks it’s broken, but The Monitor says it isn’t. The Paragon of Courage wasn’t Bruce Wayne after all: it’s been Kate Kane all along. The Bat of the Future.
Do chicks dig Paragons?
And this is cool for a lot of reasons, but first and foremost because this means that of the four Paragons they’ve identified so far — undeniable heroes who will help save all of existence — three are women, and (at least) two are queer women. Not a bad start.
When Constantine tries to return Oliver’s soul to his body, he finds he can’t quite get his magic up. The antimatter is interfering, and suddenly Mia is wondering if this was a good idea after all.
On the Waverider, Kara brings Kate a beer because she’s had a day. Kate is overwhelmed with all this time travel and alien stuff on top of her new vigilante identity. And now she’s a Paragon? It’s a lot to take in.
I know it makes no sense that in a spaceship of many rooms people love hanging out in this one storage room/loading dock but I love it and I love the Waverider set and I love that Kate and Kara are here.
Kara isn’t surprised though. Kate cares so much and tries so hard, and that has way more to do with being a hero than any of that sci-fi stuff. Kara says Kate is one of the bravest people she knows, with hair and daring second only to her own sister (okay fine that part was me), and that she’ll make her own destiny. To inspire her, she shows Kate a picture she found of a grown-up, well-adjusted, happy version of Kate and Beth from Earth 99. She says maybe Kate can get that back, too. Kate smirks at her and says she’s starting to sound like the Paragon of Hope after all.
“So, we’re both Paragons…should we make t-shirts?”
Kara says that she also has hope that she’s going to get Earth 38 back, or at the very least try her best, and as she walks away, Kate thinks of The Monitor’s warning that recreating a world could drive a person mad, and pulls Bruce’s little Kryptonite disk out of her pocket.
And on one hand, I get it. She was just talking about how she’s not a time traveler who was raised from the dead a bunch of times, or an alien who is more powerful than a locomotive, or a speedster. She’s just a human with gizmos and gadgets. So I can see how she’s feeling a little in over her head, and I’m hoping that maybe she was thinking more of all the Supermen they’re collecting when she first nabbed the Kryptonite disk than of Supergirl, but it does concern me that she was thinking of Kara when she pulled it out just now.
The episode ends with Lyla being summoned to the Anti-Monitor, who has decided she’s his Harbinger now.
We continue with Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part 3 on tonight’s episode of The Flash, but before then I wanted to give you a quick scoop on last night’s Black Lightning, because even though it wasn’t officially part of the crossover, it’s all connected. (To the point that I wouldn’t be all that surprised if the skies got mysteriously red in Riverdale, Mystic Falls, and Horseshoe Bay this week.)
In Freeland, the red sky we’re all too familiar with by now rolls in, but with no Monitor or Harbinger to explain it to them, they are left to wonder what it’s all about. Jennifer, our little Lightning, tries to call her sister, Anissa (lesbian superhero Thunder, for the uninitiated), but before she can reach her, Jennifer’s powers go haywire and she passes out, ending up in a strange space out of time with two other versions of herself.
Gen is from Earth 1, where she’s in the Pit for releasing something in the water that took away all metas’ powers, including her father and sister’s, so the ASA couldn’t use them as weapons, though she was allowed to go home for Christmas. In this universe, Anissa is still closeted and a med student and dating a girl named Shaquandalyn, and Khalil is still alive. But Odell sends his men in to ruin their Christmas, killing Jefferson for having an underground meta railroad. Overall this whole sequence bummed me out because Earth 1 is The Flash and Arrow’s Earth and this simulation sucks.
On Earth 2, Jinn is dark and angry and storming into the school, where Jefferson is a teacher. In this story, she IS the weapon of the ASA her Earth 1 persona tried to prevent. Jinn’s family tries to have an intervention, but she ends up killing them all. The grass is not always greener on the other side of the multiverse.
Am I using basically any excuse to finally get to screenshot the Pierce sisters? Maybe. Can you blame me?
On Black Lightning‘s usual Earth (I’m not 100% sure which Earth, actually…maybe 23, if it’s like the comics, but I have a feeling we’ll find out tonight) Anissa finds her sister glitching and is scared.
“It’s just…all the other LGBTQ+ Arrowverse characters are in the crossover and…*sniff* it’s not FAIR.”
In the weird in-between space, the Jennifers all fight, but then the white wave sweeps through and the Crisis destroys all three of their Earths, wiping out everyone except Jefferson, who was yoinked away last minute. Presumably, to join our heroes for tonight’s installment of the crossover.
See you tomorrow to discuss Part 3 of 5, the last Arrowverse episode of 2019!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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: It’s Unofficial Date Night on “How to Get Away with Murder”
This week, Supergirl was full of wall-to-wall feelings and Valerie Anne was there to capture every one of them for you in a drinking glass. Kayla came to a pretty sad (and true to life) realization about the emotional labor that’s underpinning Cheryl and Toni’s relationship on Riverdale.
Then came all things The L Word!! Riese and Carly dropped the newest episode of To L and Back and Riese broke down the newest The L Word: Generation Q trailer, in which Alice Pieszecki preps for seven minutes of sex.
Speaking of The L Word: Generation Q, wait until you get a hold of this: There’s going to be a live tapping of To L and Back AND IT’S GOING TO HAVE THE “NEW GENERATION” CAST OF GEN Q!! AND IF YOU’LL BE IN LOS ANGELES ON DECEMBER 4TH, YOU ARE WELCOME TO COME FOR FREE!! That’s right! Unfortunately general admission is already sold out, but are you an A+ Member? First of all, thank you for supporting this website and queer indie media! Second of all, we have a special block of tickets reserved just for you!
It’s amazing. RSVP Here.
If you live in Los Angeles, and aren’t an A+ Member, well now is an excellent time to join! We have a lot of exciting perks coming, including this taping which you can still attend! Become a member, we need you, thanks.
Notes from the TV Team:
+ After how last week’s S.W.A.T. ended, what happened this week seemed inevitable: Chris breaks up with Ty and Kira, moving out of their shared apartment while they’re at work. And because this show clearly doesn’t have any queer people in the writers’ room, Chris ends up nursing her broken heart at the home of the person who called her relationship immoral. Yay! — Natalie
+ Last night on Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Carina DeLuca made an appearance to help Dr. Bailey with her miscarriage. In other lesbian news, Intern Resident Hellmouth got caught in Joe’s Bar as an entire car drove through the window! Now she may die (ironic, another potentially dead lesbian on television) but we won’t find out until January. — Carmen
+ We don’t have anyone who covers Mr. Robot on our team, but you should know that Young M.A has been making guest appearances during the show’s final season, which is airing right now! In case that’s your thing. — Carmen
This is Carmen: I’ve been going through a pretty intense Young M.A crush recently. You’ve been warned.
+ We know you’re looking for updates on Batwoman and Stumptown and we promise, they are coming! Be on the lookout!
All American 206: “Hard Knock Life”
Written by Natalie
Look, Patience, they remembered to give me a storyline this week.
Coop stops by Spencer’s house to ask her best friend for a favor: She wants to connect with Layla’s father, JP, to boost the production values on her new track. He’s hardpressed to believe that JP would be receptive to his calls as the last time they crossed paths, Spencer was trying to get JP’s daughter committed to a mental health facility. It’s a fair point, I suppose, if you ignore the fact that at the time JP was also trying to get JP’s daughter committed to a mental health facility, but, you know, facts schmacts. Spencer encourages Coop to reach out to Layla directly because despite their break-up, the relationship between the two girls is still cool. Spencer chastises Coop for not believing in herself and reminds her that “closed mouths don’t get fed.”
Coop takes Spencer’s advice and the next time we see her, she and Patience are playing Coop’s song for Layla at her home studio. Layla loves the song but thinks it could be even better if they switched up the hook. Layla digs into one of her mother’s boxes and pulls out some lyrics that could serve as an alternate hook. Patience — who, you’ll recall, we first met as a part of the church choir — riffs on the lyrics and Layla offers to help Coop re-record the demo.
Turns out, Layla’s got good instincts when it comes to music: Her father loves the new version of Coop’s song. But the thing he really loves about the song? Patience’s singing. He’s already got a lot of rappers like Coop on his label but Patience represents something new. When Coops comes over to discuss their song, he asks if they’re a duo and Coop, dejected but proud, answers that she’s strictly a solo artist. JP wishes Coop luck with her music but invites Patience to reach out to him if she’s interested in pursuing something. However, when Coop meets up with Patience later, she omits JP’s interest in Patience from her story about the meeting.
Oh, Coop… this is going to end badly.
How to Get Away With Murder 609: “Are You the Mole?”
Written by Natalie
After imparting some final wisdom to her soon-to-be graduates, Annalise heads back to her apartment to get ready for the Dean’s graduation party. Frank asks if she’s taking the new guy but she’s not: She’s taking Tegan! It’s a date! Tegan and Annalise are on a date! Sure, neither of them call it that and sure, after a joke about them being married (!!) and considering buying a camper, Annalise introduces Tegan as her boss, but still, it’s a date. The rest of this episode is hella bleak, let me have this bit of joy.
Their good times are interrupted by breaking news: The FBI is investigating Annalise for her role in Sam Keating’s death. Tegan quickly morphs into defense attorney mode, blaming the reports on leaked gossip from the Governor and Xavier Castillo. She suspects that the FBI’s informant is a rouse because otherwise Annalise would’ve been arrested by now and she promises to be there when/if they do. Unbeknownst to her, Annalise has stopped to look at the charred remains of her old house.
“I should’ve left a long time ago,” Annalise muses before walking off. Tegan scurries behind wondering if she’s planning on leaving now.
Soon after Annalise returns home, Nate stops by, both to prove that he’s not the FBI informant — he hands over DA Denver’s old files as proof — and to castigate Annalise for every bad thing that’s happened to him, including his father’s death. Annalise, rightly, throws the blame right back in his face, noting that she’s the only one that doesn’t have blood on her hands. Things grow tense between them and, for a second, it looks like a physical fight might break out. Instead, Nate disarms Annalise, looks at her with disgust and prays he gets to witness her downfall.
Meanwhile the Keating 4 — Asher, Michaela, Connor and Oliver — are getting high on ‘shrooms, celebrating their impending graduation, and freaking out over the news reports and their likely arrests. They get a Facetime call from Laurel (!!), assuring them that she’s not the mole. She’s not in witness protection with the FBI, she escaped her brother’s reach with Tegan’s help. Michaela tries to reach Tegan but to no avail and the Keating 4 play a guessing game about who the FBI informant is. Is it Laurel? Is it Tegan? Is it Annalise? Is it Gabriel? Then, in a moment of absolute clarity during her psychedelic high, Michaela realizes who the mole is: It’s Asher (which, coincidentally, is a thing I predicted, in this very spot, two years ago). When Asher tries to defend his actions, Oliver wallops him with a fire poker.
When Asher regains consciousness, he tries to defend his actions and, predictably, blames everything on Annalise. His father’s suicide. His murder of Emily Sinclair. Everything is Annalise’s fault. In perhaps my favorite line ever uttered on this show, Michaela spits back: “You sound like every other horrible straight white man in this country.”
While Michaela and Connor try to resign themselves to their fate — that is, a deal with the FBI — Asher escapes out the back and heads straight to Bonnie’s house, where she promptly calls Frank. Why of all places, would Asher go to Bonnie’s? She’s killed two people, Frank has killed God knows how many… and they both are doggedly loyal to Annalise… Why would you go there? When Asher ends up dead at the season’s end, I can’t say I’m surprised. Sorry Judas, you had it coming.
Later, Annalise is getting out of town. She makes one last call to her Mama before she starts the process of erasing her identity. En route to her escape, she takes a brief detour before taking a puddle-jumper out of town. But even though we see Annalise escape, there’s still a future funeral, including a “special speaker” who knew Annalise well: Wes Gibbins.
Almost Family 105: “Risky AF”
Written by Valerie Anne
This week, Edie finds herself at a crossroads because she’s enjoying spending time with Amanda more and more, while Tim is asking her if she’s ready to have kids. She tells Amanda that it’s something she’s struggling with, and Amanda reminds Edie that her choice here isn’t about whether or not she wants to be married with children or not. Because two women can have all that, too. Her choice is between Amanda and Tim.
This becomes especially true when Edie makes friends with a kid studying for mock trial, only to learn he’s actually Amanda’s son. Edie realizes Amanda has an ex-wife and a son, and after spending the evening with the two of them, she realizes that maybe it’s not whether or not she wants kids that’s giving her hesitation with her husband.
They do so much gay hand touching I LOVE IT
When Tim calls and interrupts their night, Edie realizes she’s getting closer to the moment she’s going to have to make her choice. She stops by Amanda’s later to give her son a toy owl to congratulate him on a trial well mocked, and confesses that she thinks she’s falling in love. Edie proves that you don’t have to know what to label yourself to say gay the gayest shit, because she tells Amanda that she REARRANGED HER MOLECULES. She says she thinks they’re past the point of no return, and Amanda agrees as she goes in for the kiss.
Legacies 206: “That’s Nothing I Had To Remember”
Written by Valerie Anne
The day has finally arrived. A moment a lot of people have been waiting for a year, something I only even knew to wait for since I binged The Vampire Diaries/The Originals this summer, but something we all desperately needed: Aunt Freya is back.
Freya walked so Josie and Hope could run.
The episode opens with Josie, who somehow got herself to New Orleans without anyone knowing, at Rousseau’s seeking out Freya’s help. My heart did a somersault when I saw her face again, and hearing her refer to her wife and her son gave me new life. (Side note: Keelin and Freya named their son Nik. A detail they didn’t dwell on that absolutely obliterated my heart.) It struck me as a beautiful and unique kind of moment to have Josie, a young queer witch, seeking out advice from her queer witchy elder.
Though Josie DID throw her across the room with magic. But we’ll forgive her, she was feeling a little angsty.
While Josie was off galavanting in the Big Easy, Lizzie and Hope were being unlikely chums, fighting the Croatoan that Malavore set loose on the Salvatore School to eat anyone with something to hide. To try to stave it off, Hope decides to start spilling secrets, one of which is that she had a crush on Josie when they were 14. Lizzie says that Josie and Hope will never happen, and Hope has a pattern of doing the opposite of what people tell her to, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for my #Hosie.
The episode ends with Josie restoring everyone’s memories of Hope, so of course the first thing Aunt Freya does is make her way to Mystic Falls. Hope is sitting alone fighting off tears when she hears Freya say her name in that familiar way. Hope melts into her aunt’s arms, being held in a way she’s needed to be held for a good, long time.
Black Lightning 306: “The Book of Resistance: Chapter One”
Written by Carmen
Sweet, sweet superhero kisses.
All the times I’ve rejoiced about having a bullet-proof black lesbian on television, and it never quite occurred that there were other ways she could get hurt. Case in point, last episode Anissa was shot with one of Painkiller’s arrows, and now she has a deathly venom coursing through her veins. I cannot wait for the Pierces to find out what Jennifer’s supposedly dead ex-boyfriend has been up to, and it’s coming soon, but for now there are more immediate concerns — namely, Anissa only has a few days to live.
Of course of course Anissa turns out to be the exact kind of gay who’s all “I’m fine, I’m fine” when everything is patently NOT FINE because she doesn’t want to burden those around her. There’s at least three of those gays in every friend group, and if you don’t know her, it probably is because you are her. Anyway! Grace finds Anissa passed out on the floor of their apartment and calls Uncle Gambi in a panic. That’s the true story of how she finds out that her girlfriend is hopped up full of poisonous venom.
Gambi tends to Anissa before leaving her in Grace’s care, so that he can track down this Khalil mystery. Once they’re alone, Grace scolds Anissa. They can’t build a life together if she’s going to keep secrets or treat Grace like fragile glass, always about to break! Anissa does that charming Thunder thing she does and when Grace jokes about forever, Anissa smiles and says “I do!” and I simply cannot help it — my shipper heart fluttered like crazy. These two!
However, Anissa technically only has 24 hours left to live, and she still hasn’t told the rest of her family, so Gambi better get right on it!
In other lesbian news, Anissa’s former hook up, journalist Jamilah Olsen, has joined as the voice of The Freeland Resistance, which I’m incredibly excited about! That means there are three queer women of color at least making a semi-regular appearance on Black Lightning. Despite any other shortcomings the show throws our way, that is no small deal!
This Is Us 409: “So Long, Marianne”
Written by Carmen
#ThatGreenDress
Yes, that’s a photo of Zendaya from this year’s Emmys up above, and not an actual photo from this week’s This Is Us, but bear with me:
1. My computer had a fit at the last minute, so I couldn’t grab a proper screenshot from this week’s episode.
2. Zendaya, and that dress, end up being very important to the story at hand.
It’s Thanksgiving once again in the Pearson household, which marks exactly one year since Tess Pearson first quietly came out to her Aunt Kate. A lot has changed since then; Tess moved cities and came out to her entire family and she got the dopest of gay haircuts. Still, she hasn’t come out to her classmates — a fact that, just a few episodes ago, caused her a full on panic attack.
The big thing during Thanksgiving break at Tess’ school is this meme going around Instagram, “Who’s Your Celebrity Crush,” and she’s thoroughly freaked out. If she says nothing, then she feels left out, if she picks a male celebrity she’d be lying, and if she joins in by telling the truth then everyone will know. There is no such thing as coming out once. Tess Pearson came out exactly one year ago, and here she is — still coming out. Any of us know that coming out is a lifelong, tiring process. There’s also a specific anxiety about having to come out across social media, and therefore essentially in public, that’s unique to Gen Z. Despite the fact that it’s a big reach that a bunch of Middle Schoolers are on (gasp!) Instagram when they could be Tik Tok’ing the night away, the message still hits home.
Uncle Kevin comes up with the genius solution of taking Tess to a local fast food joint so that she can practice “coming out” to a stranger in the faceless drive thru speaker. It’s touching, a bit silly, and ultimately perfect. Thanks to the confidence of her trial run, Tess takes the leap of posting a photograph of Zendaya in that infamous green dress on her Instagram (hashtag: #ThatGreenDress — my girl has taste!). Everyone at school is super supportive and Tess actually ends up going viral! Which is way more exciting than having to spend Thanksgiving a bunch of boring adults! Win-Win!

Boobs on Your Tube: Spooky Ladies Smooching on “Nancy Drew”
Buckle up, because we had a week! First, Valerie told us more about Andrea’s past and how she relates to Lena Luthor (and therefore her girlfriend, Supergirl) on Supergirl. Drew had Sunday dinner with the cast and creators of One Day at a Time — where publicly crying was a dress code requirement. Riese accomplished some major deep dive research into exactly how a lesbian or bisexual character gets their name on television (spoiler alert: lots of Kats, lots of Susans). She also reviewed Jessica Biel’s lesbian journalist in Limetown, a terrifying Facebook Watch thriller starring so many of your favs including Lena Adams Foster and Jodi from The L Word. Speaking of terrifying, Kayla wrote yet another soliloquy to Riverdale‘s Cheryl Blossom, who is the show’s most interesting character AND NOT JUST BECAUSE SHE’S GAY (but, let’s be real — that helps).
Riese and her special edition co-host Drew Gregory (hi Drew!!) dropped a new episode of To L and Back, chronicling the famous season three quinceañera episode — which, get this, includes special commentary from former Autostraddle senior editor Yvonne Marquez and her wife Gloria!!! You don’t want to miss it!
Notes from the TV Team:
+ On God Friended Me, it looks like Ali is going into the family business. Things haven’t been working out in grad school, and after some consultation with her pastor at the LGBT church (Peppermint from RuPaul’s Drag Race) Ali decides to give a sermon and see if that helps her find her way. It does, and that path is leading right to the pulpit. — Carmen
+ Grace is still on Black Lightning!! I don’t mean to sound so shocked, but that makes three out of the first five episodes so far. That’s definitely a record for this show and their uneven queer representation. This week she’s playful with Anissa, gets to know Uncle Gambi, and helps keep Anissa’s Black Bird secret safe from the ASA by using her shape-shifting super powers. — Carmen
+ Atypical star Brigette Lundy-Paine came out as non-binary. Sending you lots of love Brigette, from all of us on Autostraddle’s TV Team.
American Horror Story 909: “Final Girl”
Written by Drew
AHS: 1984 is over. And it never escaped purgatory.
Much like its collection of hot teen ghosts, the ninth installment of Ryan Murphy’s iconic anthology series ended up stuck between past trauma and the possibilities of the future.
My main interest entering this season was how Angelica Ross’ Nurse Rita would be handled. Would she merely be a supporting character unworthy of Ross’ endless talent? Or would the show actively write back to the exhaustive (and exhausting) history of trans women killers? Well, the answer, ultimately, was neither.
It was a joy to watch Ross receive the material that she did. Even Pose never quite gave her the range AHS allowed. And oh my, does she have range.
But after the thrilling reveal that Rita wasn’t Rita at all, but a serial killer-fascinated psychologist in training named Donna, Ross’ storyline became sort of safe. In fact, the whole show did, despite its immense gore.
The final episode of AHS: 1984 focuses on Jingles’ son searching for answers in 2019. The show ends on him and Jingles and their family, four seemingly straight cis white people.
“I guess we’re both the final girl,” Brooke says to Donna. But are they? Yes, they both live. But Brooke is the protagonist (alongside Jingles) and Donna’s story centers around her. Being the “final girl” isn’t just about survival. It’s about narrative importance.
That’s not to say it isn’t radical that Ross lives through the series, even getting some fun old age makeup. Hell, it’s radical that she was there to begin with. But it shouldn’t be! There are two approaches when creating inclusive art. You can celebrate yourself for including people who always should’ve been included anyway. Or you can actually take that individual and explore their full humanity, pushing back against film history, and pushing forward to something more interesting. AHS: 1984 was a step. A very fun step. But there is so much more one can do with the horror genre, specifically with the horror genre and trans people. Maybe next season.
9-1-1 308: “Malfunction”
Written by Natalie
I haven’t seen the new Harriet Tubman biopic. Despite my love for all things Janelle Monáe, my rationale is simply this: however good Harriet is, it could be better than Aisha Hinds’ turn as the famed abolitionist on WGN’s Underground. Though she’d built an expansive TV resume before she stepping into Harriet’s shoes, that role announced to the world what Aisha Hinds was capable of, and in the years since her fans have been waiting for a show to take advantage of her talents. This week, 9-1-1 did just that.
Throughout her shift at Station 118, Henrietta Wilson is out of sorts. She’s late to work, she’s distracted on calls, she’s barely communicating with her partner. It’s not until she gets home that we learn the reason behind it: her wife is still in mourning over the loss of their six embryos. Hen tries to gently nudge Karen out of bed but the pain is still so raw, it feels like a shove. Karen accuses her wife of not feeling the loss, but Hen assures her that she’s not alone in her grief. When Hen missteps and refers to the embryos as just an idea, Karen recognizes that her wife didn’t see the embryos as an extension of her… and, thus, doesn’t understand her pain.
Hen’s carrying her own pain, along with a growing resentment of her wife for allowing her grief to obscure the life she still has with her and their son. She hates herself for even saying the words out loud, but Athena reminds her that she’s just venting to her friend not directing her ire at Karen. As long as Hen needs that outlet, Athena promises to be there.
The next day, though, Hen’s still distracted at work. Hen’s driving a patient, along with her co-workers, in the ambulance and everything is going well until it isn’t. Hen activates the emergency vehicle pre-emption device which should ensure clear passage to the hospital but something malfunctions and she ends up t-boning a teenage driver on the way to her debut for the L.A. Philharmonic. It’s a testament to Hinds’ performance in this episode that I (and probably every other 9-1-1 viewer) rewound the accident about a thousand times trying to figure out which driver was at fault.
Once Hen realizes what’s happened, she jumps out of the ambulance and tries to help the wounded driver (Evelyn, as Hen notes from a discarded Starbucks cup). Back-up arrives and takes over the effort to rescue Evelyn, while Hen watches in absolute agony. The shock of it all starts to hit Hen just as Athena arrives. Witnesses (and their smartphones) are gathering and Athena tries to reign in her despondent best friend. Investigators are coming, Athena warns, and Hen needs to be prepared to let go of her feelings and answer their questions with the facts. But it’s not clear how much of Athena’s warnings Hen actually hears because she’s still focused on Evelyn… until her crew stops working and it’s clear she’s dead. Hen collapses against the fire truck, crying and wailing — seriously, I think Aisha Hinds’ wail might haunt me in my dreams — and it’s all just awful.
S.W.A.T. 307: “Track”
Written by Natalie
Unsurprisingly, this is the thing I liked most about the episode.
As a general rule, I don’t like cop shows and, in particular, I don’t like cop shows on CBS, which tend to flatten their portrayals of police officers and lionize them. Those shows cling to a firm rule: the cops are the “good guys” and the criminals are the “bad guys.” Those kind of portrayals contribute to an environment where police are uniformly believed even when the circumstances don’t warrant that faith. But I gave S.W.A.T. a shot because the show’s creator, Shawn Ryan, has a reputation for creating more complex portrayals (see, The Shield and the Jennifer Beals-fronted Chicago Code). To the show’s credit, they’ve succeeded in pushing the boundaries of the everyday cop show.
That is, until now. This week, S.W.A.T. fell pray to the same “good guys” narrative that hampers lesser police procedurals.
When the episode begins, Chris is at home, painting a feature wall with Kira. They’re cute and flirtatious until Ty interrupts and the warmth of the moment is lost. After Kira excuses herself to get ready for work, Ty approaches Chris about the imbalance in their triangle: he feels she’s not as invested in their relationship as she is in her relationship with Kira. Later, after a work assignment doesn’t pan out, Deacon approaches Chris about how reserved she is today. Initially Chris brushes off his outreach because she knows how Deacon and his wife, Annie, feel about her home life. And here’s where S.W.A.T. starts to go astray.
“You know that wasn’t a judgment of you,” Deacon says. “Annie’s issue was you talking to Lila about it and in a way that made it hard for Annie to explain it to her. That’s all.”
This is absolute bullshit. Last season, Annie told Chris that her “threesome thing” was not normal, right or moral. She said that if she’d known about Chris’ relationship with Ty and Kira, she absolutely would not have Chris the godmother of her newborn child. It had nothing to do how Chris described her relationship to their daughter, Lila; it absolutely was a judgment of Chris and for the show to suggest otherwise is absurd. Instead of grappling with the fact that Deacon’s wife said something so ridiculously fucked up, S.W.A.T. resigns itself to the age-old trope of “good guys” vs. “bad guys.” The show firmly plants Deacon and his wife among the “good guys” with little regard for the depiction of its queer character… or how it might feel for that queer character to hear that she’s “not normal” from one of the “good guys.”
Deacon offers to listen to Chris’ problem and she explains Ty’s concerns about their unbalanced relationship. She concedes that he might be right: things with Kira just flow effortlessly and while things are good with Ty, it requires effort. Deacon urges Chris to tell Kira how she really feels, even if it means upsetting the relationship, because a marriage will only further expose the fault lines.
Later, Kira stops by SWAT HQ and Chris is honest with her. She tried to love Ty because she loved Kira but it hasn’t worked. Chris asks Kira if she can imagine a future where it’s just them and freaks out when Kira doesn’t respond right away. But Kira calms Chris with an assurance that she’s in love with her, too. She admits that she’s been having doubts about the wedding and wonders if her feelings for Chris are the reason why. They promise to talk to Ty together later but when the time comes, Kira relents. She’s invested too much time into this relationship with Ty, Kira says, as if they’re about to enter a business contract, not get married. Kira says she loves Ty — not “in love” like she is with Chris, mind you — and she can’t throw it all away.
“Just wait till after the wedding, okay?” Kira begs. “You’ll find a way to be happy with both of us.”
From the hurt that flashes across Chris face, I cannot imagine that happening.
Nancy Drew 106: “The Mystery of Blackwood Lodge”
Written by Valerie Anne
Things are steaming up on the Bess/Lisbeth front. (I believe we’re going with #LisBess for this one.) After a very awkward first official date because of Bess’s nervousness, the gals go where every queer lady couple goes on their second date: a masquerade ball. Okay technically Bess just ran into Lisbeth there, Bess on a secret mission and Lisbeth working security. I’m actually not entirely clear on what Lisbeth’s role is in this town, if I’m being honest? Maybe just odd jobs for rich folks? Honestly it doesn’t matter all that much, I’m just happy she’s here.
I have this theatre-nerd disease where every time I see a mask like this my brain starts shouting MASQUERADE! PAPER FACES ON PARADE! because I’m haunted by Phantom but not in the sexy way Christine is.
I also don’t think they’ve really established on screen why they like each other beyond the initial attraction. I have to imagine there are some offscreen conversations we missed out on, because while I totally understand why they’re into each other, when at the end Lisbeth tells Bess she likes her and wants to make it work, I don’t REALLY know why? But I like Bess too, and also there are ghosts afoot, so I’m not going to hurt myself thinking about it. I’m just going to enjoy our sweet secretly British nervous nellie getting the girl in the end.
I happened to catcch this shot as the lighthouse beam hit them and WHEW they look good in this glow.
Also this is neither here nor there but it seems that Maddison Jaizani, the actress who plays Bess, is hangs out with Ruby Rose a lot, and combined with the fact that this is her second time playing queer in a row (which is exactly 50% of her IMDb credits), I’m wondering if maybe she’s one of us?? A girl can dream.
Legacies 205: “Screw Endgame”
Written by Valerie Anne
Legacies hasn’t been too explictly queer lately but I thought it was high time we checked in on our queer witches. Also because they mentioned Penelope this week, and used her magic book to make Josie cry, and I’m in my feelings about it. Hope and Lizzie spent the episode in a classic sci-fi loop with an 80s arcade twist, and even though their day started with Lizzie trying to get Hope to break Josie and Landon up because Hope and Landon are meant for each other, it ended with them smashing the patriarchy (and a minotaur) and deciding that the concept of endgame is ridiculous and there are more important things for teenage girls to be fighting for/about/against than teenage boys.
“Should we…date each other?” “Hm. Hm! Maybe?”
Also just that the general idea of fate is screwed up, and by buying into it they were stripping themselves of agency and, well, hope. Also Hope. She wanted to jump into the pit again because she believed it was all she was good for.
I just really liked this girl bonding episode for the two of them, and while I agree Josie could do better, and while I really hope they’re not using Landon as a tool to spur her into darkness (because she had plenty of darkness without him), overall I’m still really loving this witchy little show.
How to Get Away With Murder 608: “I Want To Be Free”
Written by Natalie
All this BDE from Annalise and it’s being wasted!
So, we’ve reached that part of the How to Get Away With Murder season where I have so many more questions than answers about the show, that writing about it seems like a folly to endeavor. But, if I’m going to confused, at least we can be confused together.
With Cora on assignment abroad — flanked by plenty of security — Tegan steps back into the role of lead counsel in Nate’s civil suit, once Bonnie is forced to the sidelines. Annalise tries, once again, to push Tegan off the case but the new C&G Managing Partner persists. Annalise accuses Tegan of chasing a losing case for ego but Tegan insists that that’s not the reason. She reminds Annalise that she lost her entire family in a plane crash and, in the aftermath, Jorge Castillo helped her. His help didn’t come free, of course, it came with a lifetime of strings and now, finally, she’s ready to be free of all of them. Annalise accepts Tegan’s answer and even offers to help but Tegan assures her that she’s got it handled.
“Then I don’t have to cancel my date tonight,” Annalise quips. Tegan barely masks her surprise before Annalise adds, as she’s walking out the door, “Now who’s jealous?”
When Governor Kerry Weaver’s testimony doesn’t go as hoped — she gets an underling to take responsibility for a misstep — Tegan, Bonnie, Nate and Annalise regroup at C&G to strategize. Annalise suggests putting Bonnie on the stand to implicate Ronald Miller in the murder. Bonnie expertly uses her time on the stand to press the state to offer immunity to the person (Officer Gladden) who first implicated Miller in the scandal. Much to my surprise and Tegan’s jubilation, it works. Meanwhile, Annalise orders Frank to do whatever he has to to ensure that Gladden tells their version of the story to the jury. But before Frank can threaten Gladden, Annalise calls him from the hospital: someone — the Castillos — cuts the brakes in Bonnie’s car and she’s been in an accident. After learning that Bonnie’s going to be okay, Frank confronts Nate about his unrelenting pursuit of his father’s killer, at everyone else’s expense.
Legal Briefs
+ Following a side conversation between Frank and Nate, Tegan has finally put together that Nate’s behind Ronald Miller’s death.
+ From the very beginning of this season, I’ve thought that the answer to #WhoKilledAnnalise was “no one”… she faked her death and is sitting on a beach somewhere, standing in the sun with the love of her life (maybe Tegan, maybe Eve, but definitely not Robert). And while the end of this episode very much suggests that VIP Results has “Justine” on her way out of the country, I wondered: Why would Annalise Keating telegraph her plan by making it the solution to her interns’ Criminal Law Exam? If she’s “dead” and there’s no body, wouldn’t everyone immediately suspect that Annalise — who is most definitely the Queen in the “Snow White” parallel — had faked her death?
Boobs On Your Tube: Every Day Is Halloween for Angelica Ross on “American Horror Story: 1984”
How’s that post-Halloween drop working out? Or maybe you still have more partying to power through this weekend? Either way, we’re here for you and ready to catch up on some TV. First and foremost! Please say you’ve seen our mega-list of ALL 111 SEX SCENES FROM THE L WORD, RANKED! It’s the Autostraddle TV Team at our finest — rewinding our Netflix queues so that you don’t have to!
Speaking of lesbian sex, the lesbians of Batwoman kissed in bed with their shirts off in actual daylight and Heather almost had a heartattack. Sally watched MTV’s newest queer reality masterpiece True Love and True Lies and thoroughly enjoyed quietly judging other people’s love life. Alex can’t seem to stop worrying about the love of her life, Kelly, on Supergirl and Valerie Anne captured her angst perfectly. Carmen binged Rhythm + Flow on Netflix and couldn’t stop screaming about lesbian rapper Londynn B, so she made you a video playlist. Natalie wrote about this emotional last journey for Annalise and Tegan on How to Get Away with Murder, and of course it’s gorgeous and thoughtful.
Nobody celebrates Halloween like queer television! So Kayla took yet another trip to the topsy turvy world of Riverdale as our favorite seniors enjoyed the last spooky holiday of their high school careers. THEN! Did you read this personal essay from Valerie Anne about Haunting of Hill House’s Theo Crain? It’s the One Thing to put on your agenda this weekend. You will absolutely love it and maybe cry a little. But that’s fine by us and we won’t tell a soul!
Notes from the TV Team:
+ It’s been an exhausting news week and if you need some good TV comfort food as a distraction, might I suggest the lesbian storyline on the Australian soap, Home and Away? I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but, for me, Willow and Alex’s new found love has been a joy to watch. — Natalie
+ If you’re still watching Bluff City Law, you’re a stronger person than I am because, despite knowing that gay was coming, I couldn’t bear watching more than one episode. That said, this week the show featured Della Bedford being honored as the person of the year by the “LGBTQ National Alliance.” Maybe it’s time for me to catch up? — Natalie
+ Mel kissed that crystal shop owner who had a crush on her (Kat) on Charmed, but then it turned out to all be in Mel’s mind and Kat thought she was covered in worms. It was kinda gross? Charmed has been a real struggle for me to watch this year. — Carmen
+ Kristen Stewart is hosting SNL this weekend! You may already know this fact, but just in case you weren’t aware. Here she is from Jimmy Fallon last night talking about her girlfriend and making a very gay joke about killing heterosexist gender norms for Halloween. — Carmen
+ Grey’s Anatomy featured lesbian parents of a patient (they were cute, but brief) and Resident Hellmouth in peak snark with a orange t-shirt that read “This is My Halloween Costume” while giving sage gay advice to Resident Glasses. If that sentence made any sense to you, you’re fully committed to the Grey’s lifestyle and I applaud you from inside our clubhouse.
How to Get Away With Murder 606: “Family Sucks”
Written by Natalie
Last week, after leaving her ex-wife devastated by the admission that she’d stopped loving her long ago, Cora Duncan made her way to the C&G parking deck only to discover that her bike won’t start. Lucky for her, Nate Lahey slinks out of the shadows with an offer to help. Apparently, the pair hit it off so this week, we catch up with them working out together at the gym. Nate tries to seduce information about Tegan from Cora but because he operates with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop, Cora sees right through his ploy. She records him admitting that he’s after information on Tegan and promptly sends the recording to her ex. Back at C&G, Tegan uses the recording to out Bonnie as Nate’s mole and promptly fires her.
Later, Tegan shows up at Nate’s to disabuse him of all his conspiracy theories about her. She promises, on the graves of her “siblings, parents, and grandparents,” that she had nothing to do with Nate Sr.’s death. She knows how grief can mess with your head and urges him to accept that she wasn’t involved in his father’s death. But, stubborn as always, Nate accuses her of lying on behalf of the Castillos.
Seeing that he’s beyond convincing, Tegan warns, “Come at me again, you’ll be seeing your father sooner than you think.”
The next day, Tegan meets up with Cora in the C&G parking deck and their conversation, though steeped in the pulp fiction of the HTGAWM-verse, felt as real as any relationship (particularly one, immediately post-breakup) the show has ever featured. Tegan’s still raw over the break-up and her emotions rise quickly to the surface, moving from “telling me you never loved me wasn’t cruel enough” to asking Cora if she’d planned to sleep with Nate. Meanwhile, Cora isn’t nearly as impenetrable as she was last week: Her flirtation with Nate was just a rouse to protect Tegan and, when her ex mentions Annalise, Cora seems a little jealous. Before Tegan retreats back to C&G she tells Cora to stay out of her life but given all that’s festering between them, it’s hard to imagine that happening.
After some encouragement from Annalise, Tegan re-approaches Nate with a peace offering: A wrongful death lawsuit as a means to expose his father’s killers and get some measure of justice.
Legal Briefs:
+ Annalise spends the episode trying to shift the FBI’s focus back to the Castillos and preparing her contingency plan in case that doesn’t work. I wonder, though: If the Castillos know about Annalise’s relocation via “VIP Results,” why would Annalise trust that the Castillos hadn’t intercepted all the information about her new identity?
+ The civil suit was an idea that Michaela pitched to Tegan last season so I hope the idea’s resurrection means that we’ll get to see more of them together this season. Perhaps reinvigorating Michaela’s thirst for Tegan will stop her from making so many bad choices in men.
American Horror Story 907: “The Lady in White”
Written by Drew
This week’s episode of AHS: 1984 was unfortunately all about Jingles. John Carroll Lynch is giving a really tender performance, but his storyline feels discordant with the rest of the show.
We learn that Jingles’ mother was in charge of Redwood in the 40s. She was cruel to him, favoring his brother, and when his brother died, she went on a rampage.
Now her ghost is terrorizing our ghosts, because she holds a grudge against all camp counselors. The counselors have a plan to kill everyone at Margaret’s festival in hopes that it attracts the world’s best ghost hunters to free them from purgatory.
But Montana says being a ghost isn’t so bad: “There’s a constant feeling of emptiness and longing, but that’s pretty much how I felt when I was alive.”
Also back from the dead is Brooke, who fights against Donna’s attempts to nurse her to health. Brooke pins Donna against a wall using her IV as a weapon, before Donna talks her down.
Trying to make up for Brooke’s lost 80s, Donna takes her to the Moonlight Rollerway where they dance around all cute and happy. They wisely refuse a hitchhiker, named Bruce, but when he fixes their car Donna says, “Once a guy’s gone under my hood, he’s not a stranger anymore.” Bad policy, Donna!
He’s yet another serial killer, and he forces Brooke to decide: get shot or drive away dragging Donna to death. Brooke snaps the car in reverse, driving cleanly over Donna, shocking Bruce, and giving her the chance to shoot him.
Chop chop go his hitchhiking thumbs and they’re back on the road to Redwood.
The season continues to be at its best when it’s campy and fun like this. So why does it keep trying to take itself seriously?
Black Lightning 304: “The Book of Occupation: Chapter Four”
Written by Carmen
This righteous black queer anger is also how I feel towards the Black Lightning writers, if we’re keeping track.
Y’all I don’t even know where to begin with this show. All I’ve wanted, for three entire seasons, was to watch the scene where Grace would learn about Anissa’s powers. I’ve wanted it since literally the third episode of Season One, when Anissa checked out Grace’s ass in the bookstore and Grace was reading a copy of The Outsiders comic. THE THIRD EPISODE OF SEASON ONE!!! That is how long this show has been teasing that Grace Choi loved superheroes and was unknowingly dating one of the greatest, gayest superheroes of them all. Of course the moment she discovered Anissa’s powers were going to be mind-blowing! Of course!
I guess we’ll never know.
After three years of torturous uneven and double standards storytelling, the writers of Black Lightning made yet another disappointing narrative decision that I suppose, given their past treatment of the couple, should’ve been expected: This week we found out that Grace learned of Anissa’s powers off screen. Welp! Talk about going out with a whimper instead of a bang.
Jefferson, newly freed from ASA captivity, visits Anissa’s new apartment and is surprised to see Grace at the door. He’s apparently never met her before, or even knew she existed (another plot hole to complain about for another day). His surprise turns to anger when he quickly puts together that Anissa’s paying for her new state-of-art digs with money Black Bird’s stolen from drug dealers — which, maybe, is fair. Then Anissa comes down the stairs in her Black Bird armor and Jefferson really loses it because now it’s clear that Grace already knows Anissa’s superpowered secret.
Anissa squares off against her dad and they get into a heated yelling match, which brings up a lot of PTSD for Grace. She shape-shits into a younger version of herself, pleading with Jefferson not to hurt them. Of course both Jefferson and Anissa are taken aback. Jefferson can be too controlling of his eldest daughter, but he’d never bring them physical harm.
Later, Anissa joins Grace in their bedroom. She’s still crying and a teen version of herself that she hates Anissa to have witnessed. Anissa gathers Grace into her arms and comforts her. She knows about the sex trafficking, the abuse; she knows Grace’s darkest secrets and she loves her. In her own perfect way, Anissa even finds a way to break the tension in their heavy moment, telling Grace she’s down for “Me, you, the leopard, that old guy. All of us, it’s one big party up in here.”
Grace laughs through her tears and damn, I wish I could tell you it was worth it.
Boobs On Your Tube: Grace Choi Is Back On “Black Lightning,” Celebrates With Cute Queer Bed Cuddling
It’s Friday and here’s what you missed: Valerie told us all about how Alex is worried for Kelly’s safety (don’t worry though, I bet Kelly can handle it) on Supergirl. Heather is ALL OVER Batwoman’s new lesbian love triangle! All American is setting Bre Z’s Coop up for a rap battle, and it definitely reminded Natalie a lot of Bre Z’s other rap storyline from the old days of Empire. Over on Riverdale, Kayla reminds us that no rule of logic is sacred for those wacky teens. Impulse dropped it’s second season and Valerie made sure that it makes good on its gay promise. The L Word: Generation Q dropped another new trailer and Kayla spied a joint in Bette Porter’s hands! Gasp! Speaking of TLW, Riese and Carly covered your needs with a new episode of To L and Back (this one covers the Season Two finale, so get ready mourn a death and celebrate a birth!).
Did you read A.E. Osworth’s non-binary ode to Janet from The Good Place? Well my friends, get out a box of tissues and click that link right now! You won’t regret it.
Notes from the TV Team:
+ In a heartbreaking turn on 9-1-1, Hen and Karen find out that none of their six embryos are viable for implantation. Tracie Thoms is brilliant in conveying Karen’s heartbreak and frustration over wanting something so desperately while your body, seemingly, rebels against the very idea. — Natalie
+ I spotted Marg Helgenberger’s character, Judge Lisa Benner, on the arm of a distinguished looking gentlewoman during an episode of All Rise a few weeks back and thought she might play for our team…and this week, it was confirmed! Unfortunately, we won’t get to see more of Benner and her gentlewoman, as the couple broke up after four years together (on the Court’s annual Wedding Day, no less!), but — fingers crossed — this isn’t the last we’ll hear of her sexuality. — Natalie
+ If you’re looking for a quick binge this weekend, let me recommend the new Netflix series Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner. The four-part series features Chef David Chang and a celebrity guest exploring the cuisine and culture in different cities around the world. Two of the guests? Lena Waithe and Kate McKinnon. — Natalie
American Horror Story 906: “Episode 100”
Written by Drew
AHS:1984 continues this week with some of its most chaotic trolling ever. Jumping between time periods, ultimately landing in 1989, we find Brooke on death row, Margaret rich from her empire of murder tourism, and most of the crew still haunting Camp Redwood.
Leslie Grossman continues to be hilarious and terrifying as Margaret and this turn for her diabolical character is a delight. It’s unsurprising that a show this campy really only works when focusing on the actors who understand how to capture that tone.
I don’t think it’s just my misandry talking when I say the continued focus on Jingles and Richard Ramirez is incredibly dull. Both actors are doing a fine job, but their characters are better suited as plot devices. The male characters who work best are the ones that have a queer energy whether their characters are queer or not.
And even they aren’t as compelling as Margaret, Montana, and Donna. Billie Lourd flirting with a horny bird watcher by complimenting his fanny pack before stabbing him in the gut was the obvious highlight of the episode.
Angelica Ross, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. It was frustrating how much screentime was spent on Richard’s arrest and Jingles’ attempts to start anew, while Donna had seemingly disappeared. Well, whenever I’m starting to lose patience, American Horror Story comes in for the kill.
Donna was hiding in plain sight all along. She was Brooke’s executioner and savior. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” she snarls.
Coming up next week: A Billy Idol concert??
Black Lightning 303: “The Book of Occupation: Chapter Three ”
Written by Carmen
Here’s a Pitch for the Black Lightning Writers: More Queer Cuddles, Less Markovian Overlords
Grace Choi finally made her grand return to Black Lightning. Except — to be completely honest with you — it wasn’t very grand at all.
Grace hasn’t appeared on Black Lightning since episode episode 14 of last season, way back in March! There are a plethora of reasons that could have been viable excuses for why she’s been escaping Anissa’s desperate search. Maybe she was kidnapped by the Markovians; they’re causing all kind of havoc for metas lately. Perhaps she was taken by the ASA and being kept in a pod; after all the government agency is no stranger to such terrorist tactics. Hell, I would have even accepted that Grace Choi left Freeland and months later found herself locked outside of the city’s recently implemented barricade. I was ready to be generous with storyline — literally almost anything would have been fine.
But no. The entire time Grace Choi has been missing — she was actually just chilling in Freeland, living right under Anissa’s nose and stealing pills from her clinic to keep her superpowers under wraps. How’s that!?! How did Grace manage to keep her shapeshifting powers hidden when both the ASA and the Markovians are hunting meta humans for game? How was she able to live on the streets for months when Freeland is under police curfew? Sure, her shape shifting abilities meant that she could theoretically enter Anissa’s clinic undetected to steal the medicine she needs, but even that’s not directly addressed within the storyline itself. Sweet baby black mutant Jesus, let it make sense!!!
OK, I don’t want to spend our limited time together dwelling on the negative — here is what’s great: Anissa and Grace are officially back together. Anissa told Grace that her powers don’t scare her (though she does find the old man shapeshift in particular to be a little off-putting when they’re having heart-to-hearts, which seems fair). Anissa didn’t bother to tell Grace that she also has powers and can understand exactly where her girlfriend’s fears and anxieties are coming from, which feels like a key part of the puzzle if you ask me, but she does convince Grace to get off the streets and come home with her.
Once again Nafessa Williams and Chantal Thuy prove they have kinetic chemistry. They always find ways to make even the smallest moments feel like time standing still — which is sadly necessary. After months apart, their entire reunion is less than five minutes long.
Anissa breaks it off with Jamilah Olsen (she takes it well, but I also don’t believe we’ve seen the end of her) and goes home to Grace. In her bed. She trails her fingers up the softness of Grace’s stomach and smiles as she cuddles in close for the first night back together, safe from the world. For now.
This Is Us 405: “Storybook Love”
Written by Carmen
My sweet ‘lil bb, I will protect you at all costs.
I love for Tess Pearson. I’ve never kept that a secret. I love how brave Tess is, especially for her young age. I love that she’s surrounded by love. I love that she’s taken seriously, always encouraged to be her nerdy and responsible and caring self. I could always sense Tess’ anxiety. As an former anxious tween who grew up to be an incredibly anxious adult, I saw the signs. But I didn’t give This Is Us enough credit. I never thought they would take it head on.
A few episodes ago, Tess told her big sister Deja that she had the opportunity to come out in school and she flubbed it because she got scared. A girl asked her if she thought this boy in their grade was cute. Of course she could’ve said no, but she didn’t, and she was so mad at herself about it! When the incident wasn’t brought up again, I didn’t think anything of it. Coming out is full of starts and stops, it’s never just “one event,” and I can’t imagine the pressure of having to constantly re-come out in your Middle School cafeteria of all places! Tess is doing great, or so I thought.
Randall gets a call from Tess’ school. She’s had a full blown anxiety attack. Just like the kind Randall gets. Just like the kind his father used to get before him. At first Randall attempts to bond with Tess over the shared experience, but she runs away to her room screaming that she doesn’t want to be anything like him.
Randall’s heartbroken. He’s adopted, and his entire life he’s waited for someone to share genetic traits with. All he ever wanted was to have someone who had his ears, or his ability to curl his tongue. How could he pass on the one thing that he most hates about himself to his own child?
Beth — Randall’s wife, Tess’ mom — pulls out a secret that she learned from William, Randall’s father. All three generations of that bloodline suffer from anxiety, and of course it’s awful! But it’s also what makes those three humans, three of the people that Beth loves most in this world. She won’t have them talking badly about each other.
She sits Tess and Randall down in front of two glasses of seltzer water. Their brain is like the bubbles in the water, bouncing all over the place trying to be set free. But you know what? The bubbles, they will eventually settle. There is calm on the other side of chaos.
The trick works. Tess shares with her parents that she’s freaked out about having to come out at school. They get it — this is hard stuff! But they promise they will figure out a solution, together.
Boobs On Your Tube: Anissa Pierce is Having Very Hot Superhero Sex on “Black Lightning”
We can’t believe that yet another week in queer television has flown right on by! Sunday night started the week with a bang thanks to the new L Word: Generation Q trailer (don’t worry, Riese has all the details in case you missed it). Speaking of The L Word, Riese and Carly are still retro-plowing through Season Two of the OG Series, and they dropped another podcast episode for you. The CW launched their fall line up and our favorite superhero Valerie Anne brought you a recap of Supergirl’s Season Five premiere (Season Five! Where has the time gone!?!?) while Natalie launched a new recap series for All American’s Season Two. It’s what Coop deserves. Kayla got us settled back into Riverdale for their fourth season premiere (RIP Luke Perry). Valerie did a deep dive into the queer legacy of Legacies. She also wants you to know that we feel really bad for sleeping on YouTube’s Impulse when it first came out. Last night Grey’s Anatomy staged a Charmed reunion, and you know that Kayla was all over that!
Notes from the TV Team:
+ Lilly Singh has already started queering up late night with her show, A Little Late with Lilly Singh, but this week, late night’s getting even gayer as Kid Fury and Crissle West bring their acclaimed podcast, The Read, to television. Tune in tonight at 11PM on Fuse! — Natalie
+ Legacies has done the unthinkable and paired up one boring dude with two queer women instead of putting the two queer women together but hopefully it all gets sorted out soon, because I do so love that show. — Valerie Anne
+ I went to the She-Ra panel at NYCC and Noelle Stevenson was using they/them pronouns for a character named Double Trouble (I can’t be 100% sure they are not two people in one vs non-binary because of their name and because on She-Ra it could go either way) and when AJ Michaelka was asked to describe Catra’s arc in the upcoming season in one word she said, “Revolutionary,” so do with that as you will. — Valerie Anne
+ Also at NYCC I learned that Poppy Drayton aka Ambertree (fka Amberle) the queer elf on The Shannara Chronicles will be guesting in upcoming episodes of Charmed. — Valerie Anne
+ Nora is still gone. This has been your Flash update. — Valerie Anne
+ On This Is Us, Tess Pearson is still adjusting to the trials and tribulations of being a queer middle schooler. Namely when a new friend at her new school asked her during lunch, “do you think this football guy is hot” she said yes, even though she really didn’t. And now she can’t stop beating herself up about it! Don’t worry bb, we’ve all been there. — Carmen
American Horror Story 904: “True Killers”
Written by Drew
AHS: 1984 reached new levels of insanity this week with an endless barrage of twists, deaths, and resurrections. The episode begins with Montana and Richard in a flashback. They meet at one of her classes, Montana telling Richard, “My class isn’t for posers. This is aerobics. It’s serious.” Richard shows just how serious he is by grotesquely murdering her student who complained she wasn’t playing enough Cyndi Lauper. They have sex in the locker room, rolling around in the poor guy’s blood.
We learn that Montana’s brother was Brooke’s fiancé’s best man who was killed at her wedding. That’s why Montana wants her dead. Richard happily signs up for her revenge plot, eager to kill, and to win Montana’s affection.
I truly cannot praise Billie Lourd enough. She understands the tone of the show, managing to ground her character and play into the campy humor.
Meanwhile, Donna has Brooke hanging from a tree, eager to learn if Jingles will kill her even without the thrill of the chase. Jingles and Richard arrive at the same time and fight to Richard’s death. Donna and Montana also fight, ending with Donna unconscious.
Also Margaret was the real killer in 1970! She framed Jingles and the years locked away convinced him her story was true. She almost kills him, but not quite, and he’s left wandering the camp pondering his true nature, while Margaret joins the kids with her façade of Christian innocence intact.
Donna wakes up in the woods just as Richard is being resurrected by Satan. They lock eyes and he cracks a smile. Ryan Murphy better not get any ideas, because I want Angelica Ross’ mad scientist around until the very end! Not that any deaths on this show actually mean someone is gone forever.
Why Women Kill 109: “I Was Just Wondering What Makes Dames Like You So Deadly”
Written by Natalie
Guess who’s coming to dinner?
Before each episode of Why Women Kill gets into full swing, there’s a short introductory montage. Usually it’s an insignificant glimpse into the future — after the woman has killed whomever they’ve killed — but this week, we get a window into the past that’s worth noting: a warning from Jade’s dearly departed foster mother, Verna Roy, that she is pure poison.
Back in reality, Jade’s cooked up a special breakfast — with a side of coke — to help Eli prepare for his meeting with Martin Scorsese. But Eli’s meeting with Scorsese is just a rouse: his agent leads him into a room where Taylor waits, eager to tell him everything about the woman who’s been sleeping in their bed.
Taylor explains that Jade (real name: Irene Tabatchnick) had been thrown out of three foster homes by the age of 16: twice for stealing cash, the last time for attempting to seduce her foster father. A week after Irene was booted from the third home, it burned down with her foster parents — including the aforementioned Verna Roy — inside. Irene disappeared after the fire, before the Ohio police could talk to her about the mysterious circumstances.
When Jade picks Eli up, eager to hear all about his meeting with Scorsese, it’s clear that some of what Taylor said got through to him. He continues with the rouse, recalling that Irene’s story sounds a lot like what Jade suggested for his script. Jade claims the idea just popped into her head and Eli asks if the name Jade popped into her head, too. She quickly realizes that Duke’s shared her story while Eli realizes that everything Taylor said was true. Jade starts driving erratically, nearly mowing down an old man crossing the road, but Eli grabs the wheel and crashes them into a nearby car instead. The crash leaves Eli bloody and disoriented but Jade’s unhurt. When she hears the police cars echoing in the distance, she knows she has to run.
Taylor gets to the hospital and finds a sedated Eli with fractured ribs. Before he went to sleep, though, he wrote her a note: REHAB. Meanwhile, Jade and Tinkerbell are making themselves comfortable at Duke’s apartment. She tries to ingratiate herself to him but Duke’s not having it and, eventually, he reveals he sold Jade out to Taylor in exchange for bail money. The show Jade finally remembers that Taylor’s a lawyer and realizes that she has to get out of town before Taylor uses her connections to get her locked up. When Duke refuses to give her his watch to pawn, a fight ensues and we finally get an answer to why women kill.
How to Get Away With Murder 603: “Do You Think I’m a Bad Man?”
Written by Natalie
A unicorn.
From the moment that Tegan Price revealed that she was queer on How to Get Away With Murder, I’ve been hoping for hook-up between her and Annalise. I’ve tried to speak it into existence from my recaps. They were both attracted to each other and they were both sex-starved so a hook-up felt inevitable. Sure, they hated each other for a while and, I suppose, Tegan wouldn’t really know Annalise was an option until Eve came to town, still: my hopes were up.
But last night’s episode of HTGAWM may have shattered my dreams: turns out, Tegan Price is married.
This week, Tegan’s faced with fires on multiple fronts, caused by Annalise’s underlinings. Somehow Michaela manages to get a felony murder charge added to a laundry list of charges being thrown at one their clients, while a well-intentioned Connor kidnaps his client from his foster home to take him to see his mother in Maryland. She chastises Annalise for not being there to supervise her students and for sending Bonnie to her for a job and, as is her wont, AK is immediately gets defensive.
Tegan pulls rank, saying, “A lesbian, woman of color, running a major law firm. I’m a damn unicorn. So, to have you — not one of the 321 other men working here — making my job harder, someone I thought was my friend, that’s not salt in the wound, it’s a chain saw to my neck.”
“I feel safe with you. Too safe, clearly,” Annalise admits. Usually this is the point at which I’d note how that sounds like something you’d say in the prelude to a relationship but, honestly, everything about the delivery said “friends” not “future lovers.”
Tegan leaves Annalise to work with Michaela on her case while she heads to Maryland to bail get the firm’s clients, Marisol and Hector, out of a detention center. Already there when she arrives? Bonnie, who saw the opportunity to earn points with Tegan by helping. As is her wont, Bonnie lies to get them into the room but when her plan to free Marisol and her son falls flat, Tegan steps in. She places a phone call to the Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at Homeland Security* and urges them to tell the director of the ICE facility to release their clients.
Who is this Under Secretary, willing to do a favor for Tegan at the the drop of a dime? Cora Duncan. Tegan’s wife.
We’ve known about Cora. We knew that she was the best sex of Tegan’s life. We knew that Tegan sacrificed their relationship for her job. I assumed (and, given her title, it’s a safe bet) that Cora’s the genius that supplied Tegan with the copy of Emmett’s phone records last season. But every time Cora has been referenced previously, it’s always been as an ex.
Sharing my confusion, Annalise confronts Tegan about not telling her she had a wife. Tegan and Cora are still married only because she hasn’t filed the paperwork yet.
So, let’s review? Annalise has been friendzoned and Tegan’s still married. How did something that started with so many possibilities go so wrong?
(*Fun Fact: the current Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis is most senior out gay official serving in the administration.)
Almost Family 102: “Related AF”
Written by Valerie Anne
Victoria Cartagena is coming for me in this show. The way she talks and walks and the things her character is saying (“You’re a good kisser,” for example) is so great and overwhelming at the same time.This week, Amand and Edie had a conversation about their kiss and Amanda asked Edie what her ~deal was anyway. Edie didn’t really know where to start with that, so Amanda explained that sexulaity is a continuum and it’s rare people are 100% one thing or another. She describes her own ratio as 80/20 and Edie blurts that’s she’s more like 50/50. She blurts it like it’s something she’s just thinking about now, and she’s not quite sure how she feels about this realization. It’s a little more binary than is strictly necessary, but considering this is the kind of show my parents are watching, I thought it was nice to hear them to talk about queerness and sexual fluidity like this, chipping away a bit at the assumption that all bisexual people are all attracted to their same gender and another gender equally.
After a day of courtroom foreplay, however, Edie is reassessing her original declaration, saying she thinks maybe it’s more like 60/40, and Amanda pulls her into a room so they can pick up where they left off.
Julia ends up spotting them making out and keeps Edie’s husband from finding them, but surely this will complicate things going forward.
For some reason this reminded me of the classic Rookie Blue moment: “The courier was sick, Oliver, if you must know!”
God Friended Me 202: “The Lady”
Written by Carmen
The only gay church I attend regularly is the Church of Beyoncé, and I never miss a service.
Since we left God Friended Me last season, Ali Finer came out to her dad, Minster Papa Pope, and then Minister Papa Pope changed the tone of his ministry to be more LGBTQ+ friendly. Then, the church lost parishioners. Minister Papa Pope thinks Ali didn’t notice, because he would hate for his daughter to know that the community she was raised with is actually a group of small minded people with cruelty in their hearts, but there you have it. Also, he’s no longe the minister at that particular church (for separate reasons).
Minister Papa Pope has since been asked to give a special sermon at First Advent of Harlem, an LGBTQ church. He goes to Ali for advice, and her words are true, but hard to swallow: If he’s going to practice service leadership, Minister Papa Pope might want to take a back seat and learn about the queer and trans community before he starts ministering to them.
That leads him back to First Advent to meet with their pastor, played by trans actress Peppermint (you might know her as first ever trans runner-up on RuPaul’s Drag Race or as the first trans woman to ever create a principal role on Broadway in Head Over Heels). Pastor Peppermint informs Minister Papa Pope that Ali has actually been attending First Advent for a while now, she intends to become a member of the church.
I was pretty surprised that his first reaction was to freak out; he never imagined that his daughter would leave the church that she grew up in (even though he’s no longer the minister there? Which feels like a key reason to move on if you ask me). Once confronted, Ali tells her brother Miles the truth — she’s leaving their family church because she knows about the parishioners that left after she came out last year. She begs him not to tell their dad.
Miles tells Minister Papa Pope anyway, because even though its a risk, he believes that airing the truth will ultimately bring Ali and her dad back together. It works! Minister Papa Pope attends Ali’s new membership ceremony at First Advent; he understands now that he was putting his own ego ahead of his daughter’s needs. The hug and I cry and really I can’t believe how much this corny little show pulls right at my heartstrings.
Black Lightning 301: “Birth of Blackbird”
Written by Carmen
Kissing with cornrows and a honey suckle background? This is the black lesbian representation I’m looking for.
Welcome to the new home of your Black Lightning recaps! I talked it over with Heather, and we both agreed that until the writers of Black Lightning really get their shit together (excuse my language, I’ve had all summer and I’m still mad) and treat Anissa’s love life with the same consistency and care they’ve given their straight characters, we can chat about her right here weekly! IF anything huge happens (*cough *cough THE RETURN OF GRACE CHOI would be a prime example *cough *cough), we will be sure to give it a special stand alone treatment! And of course all of this is subject to change as the season progresses, etc.
Enough with the business of recapping, and on to the business of Anissa having sex! Because she definitely did that this week.
Anissa has been looking for Grace Choi ever since last season when she found out that Grace is a shapeshifting meta. However, it seems that Grace doesn’t want to be found, so Anissa keeps coming up empty. When she meets a national reporter for the website “Clapback News” (Jamiliah Olsen, who I think has to be somehow related to Supergirl’s Jimmy) one night at a bar, Anissa thinks she might be able to help. Well my friends this reporter had other things on her mind, namely helping herself to Anissa in her hotel bed.
I’ll give Black Lightning this, the scene in question is Hot. Very Hot. But then again, hot lesbian sex has never really been this show’s problem — consistency in lesbian storylines, that’s where they’ve faltered.
Speaking of which, very little about the rest of Anissa’s storyline made sense this week, for example if she’s supposedly heartbroken and looking for her girlfriend, why is she looking for her in between the legs of another woman? Hmmm? OR why would they chose to force Anissa into a heavy handed metaphor about family separation at the border that didn’t quite make sense for Freeland in the first place? OR where on earth did the Pierce family get the money for Anissa’s balling new apartment? What happened to her living at Grandaddy Pierce’s old house? (Not that I’m complaining about Nafessa Williams listening to Chaka Khan in her underwear, not at all, but c’mon!) Still, if Black Lighting is going to keep giving us incredible lesbian sex like that, I may just have to learn to forgive them.
PS: The episode ends with our favorite bulletproof lesbian actually getting shot while performing a rescue mission, but I wouldn’t worry if I were you. I’m sure our girl makes it.
“Black Lightning” Episode 216 Recap: We Can’t Go On Like This
Let’s go ahead and get the worst of it done out front: Grace Choi did not show up in last night’s Black Lightning season finale. I think most of us saw that coming, so it’s not necessarily a surprise. That doesn’t make it any less disappointing or any less of a gut punch reminder that even after two seasons, Black Lightning continues to double standard it’s sole gay romance as compared to their two long-term straight romantic relationships (did you hear me say TWO straight romantic relationships? Yes that’s right, we found out last night that somehow KAHLIL LIVED, which means his time with Jennifer is far from over).
I’ve tried very hard to give this show every benefit of a doubt that I could muster. When she premiered last year, Anissa Pierce was groundbreaking. Her accolades were many: First lesbian superhero on network television (only the second after Karolina Dean on Hulu’s Marvel’s Runaways, which premiered just a few months before), the first black lesbian superhero EVER, one of the few black queer women regulars in a television cast, one of the fewer still in a predominately black cast – as opposed to playing the “black lesbian best friend” in an otherwise white ensemble. She’s played by Nafessa Williams, who came out of the gate proud of and incredibly welcoming and loving towards her gay fans. Before the show premiered, Nafessa tweeted out “Ready for a Black Lesbian Superhero?” And I was.
I had been ready for her since I first fell in love with X-Men’s Storm when I was eight years old. There was absolutely nothing that could get in the way of me loving Anissa Pierce.
In the first season, Anissa started off strong. By only the second episode she had already made history, becoming just the second black woman in all of network television to share a bed with another black woman. By the fourth episode, she had already found herself in a relationship with Grace Choi, her longtime girlfriend from The Outsiders comics. It felt like the world was ours. But by the end of that season, Grace hadn’t been seen in months. Showrunner Salim Akil promised – he promised! – that Grace would be back in a big way during Season Two. I was nervous. Still, I chose to believe him.
I guess we can say that Grace came back for a larger amount of episodes during the second season, but her character development, and her relationship with Anissa, has continued to be frustratingly and stubbornly stilted. The little movement between them that we did see (Grace and Anissa making up after Grace’s well-founded worries over Anissa’s commitment problems; Grace giving Anissa keys to her apartment; Grace learning Anissa’s favorite fast food order; most of what we learned of Grace’s previous life as Shay Li) happened off screen. Compare that to the episodes long, on camera, carefully plotted teen relationship between Khalil and Jennifer this season. Compare it to the well-worn and comfortable adult relationship with a lovingly detailed backstory that we have between Jefferson and Lynn. It’s not hard to see which Pierce is getting the short end of the stick here. And in a show that is as otherwise meticulous as Black Lightning, it’s even harder not to ask “why?”
Last week’s penultimate Black Lightning left Anissa on a quest to find Grace – after realizing that her girlfriend was also a meta with shapeshifting powers that she had been keeping to herself out of fear – and finally ready to tell her the truth. She said that she wanted to be there to support Grace, to protect her, to tell her that she wasn’t alone in this world. This week? Not only was the presumed reunion skipped over entirely, Grace Choi wasn’t even worth a mention! Her plot just got completely dropped! WITHOUT A SINGLE WORD!!!
It’s outraging and maddening and, quite frankly, the product of some very homophobic storytelling decisions. I’m not sure what the Black Lightning writers’ room thinks that they are doing here. I’m generous enough to hope that these decisions are more the result of unconscious bias and ignorance instead of purposeful sidelining, but something needs to be changed. ASAP. The writers should use their hiatus before Season Three to gather themselves together, because what’s happening right now is flat-out disrespectful to their queer audience. It’s not hard to write Anissa and Grace with the same on-screen care that they’ve already given Jennifer and Khalil or Jefferson and Lynn. They only have to try.
OK. Deep breath. After getting that off my chest, let’s sort through what else happened this episode and see if we can find something to feel excited about, shall we?
Tobias Whale didn’t in fact die last night, despite my every wish that he would. Lala tried to kill him, but Tobias thwarted his plans at the last minute (side note: IF LALA WASN’T GOING TO KILL TOBIAS, THEN WHAT THE HELL WAS THE POINT OF HIS SECOND RESURRECTION?? Rest in Peace Lady Eve, at this point I’m actually thankful you’ve stayed dead, this show doesn’t deserve you). After Tobias tried to choke Cutter in a really disturbing moment of domestic violence, I thought maybe she would be the one to do the final deed. She came back down gasping for air and with one of her signature knives in her hands, but decided to leave him once and for all instead.
Then came my beloved Jennifer Pierce, debuting her superhero name “Lightning” as she tumbled through Tobias’ living room window in a ball of flames. As much as I believe Tobias deserves to die a villain’s death, I agree with Jefferson that Jennifer doesn’t deserve to become killer over his worthless ass. So ultimately I’m glad that Daddy Dearest stopped her at the final minute (I’m even more glad that Jefferson was given a timely reminder from his own father that “peace ain’t always peaceful” via a Season One flashback). Still, anyone who believes that Tobias Whale can be kept safe in prison, even one described as a The Pit by a secret spy agency where he’ll be locked away without a key, has never seen a superhero story before. There’s always a way out. It’s only a matter of time before Tobias Whale finds it.
Speaking of Jennifer, she’s pretty much the source of joy for this entire episode. We get to visit the hair salon in her mind’s eye one last time. Maxine Shaw: Therapist at Law (glad to see you, sis!) reminds her that she can control her powers as long as she taps into the right muscles. Jennifer also gets this GORGEOUS NEW SUPER HERO SUIT which I’m going to just leave here in photographic evidence, because sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words:
The Most Adorable
Teenage Superhero
EVER.
And while we are on the subject of fun superhero toys, here is Anissa’s new ThunderBike!!!
That sound you heard was a panty dropper reporting for duty.
WHEWWW! Dykes on Bikes, amirite?
Ok, Tobias Whale is in jail. Also, before I forget, Dr. Lynn “Mama Bear” Pierce got to kick Dr. Jace’s ass!!! A well deserved catharsis for us all. And in the final moments of the episode we are all treated to a cliffhanger via Shady ASA Agent Odell that just might make Season Three worth it after all:
The Markovians are here. And they mean war.
I can’t believe the season is over, my loves! We weathered a storm, but we weathered it together. I’ve had such fun. Even in the worst of times, writing these recaps was an absolute joy. I hope you feel the same way and that I’ve brought you laughs, and maybe even a few things to think about, in our time together. I know I’ll see you again soon.❤️❤️❤️
“Black Lightning” Episode 215 Recap: Puzzle With a Piece Missing
The most generous thing I can say about last night’s episode of Black Lightning is that when the episode was over, and the narrator’s voice reminded us to “Stay Tuned for next week’s SEASON FINALE…” I laughed.
Flat out, in real time, howled in my TV’s face. And I don’t mean to be rude! There are few things that I hate more than clicking on a recap, ready to geek out and squeal with my fellow nerds about something I adored on television the night before, only to find my writer is too busy being cranky or nit-picking what went wrong to fully give themselves over to what went right. It’s a party killer! I strive very hard not to be that person.
Y’all know me, we’ve stuck out this season together – both the highs (Remember Perenna’s hair salon? Were we ever so young?) and the lows (Now that we’re at the end, really what was the point of our trip to South Freeland? Five bucks on a Starbucks gift card if you can tell me). There is no doubt that the second season of Black Lightning has been uneven, but I still think its best written superhero show on network television. It has believably threatening villains, grounded stakes, a loving family banded together, allegories of real life oppression. When those elements line up perfectly, Black Lightning is in a class of its own. Unfortunately, when those elements don’t line up and THEN the announcer reminds us that there’s only one episode left to monitor the damage control, I laugh.
That means that next week we have to cover: Jennifer’s faulty suit, the war against Tobias Whale, some kind of resolution to the Missing Grace Choi plot (ha! a girl can hope), the super human arms race that Tobias is brokering, Lala being back from the dead again, Freeland police officers still shooting unarmed black metas in the streets, and whatever is going on with Shady Agent Odell! Also, what the hell ever happened to the Markovians?? Where did they go? Are we supposed to care who they are?
There’s at least three or four episodes of plot left, but somehow the Black Lightning writers think they can fit it all in to just another 45 minutes!
Okay, that’s next week. You’re here to talk with me about this week and y’all this week was a mess! Still, there are a few nuggets of gold that could be found here, and I’m going to pull at them out and dust them off for us.
First of all, and closest to our hearts, Anissa has FINALLY figured out that Grace has been a shapeshifter this whole time! While rehashing her crazy search for her missing girlfriend with her Uncle Gambi, Anissa mentions this incredibly strong old Asian man who met her punch for punch, along with a decomposing horse (seriously, I’m still not over how absolutely gross that was).
Gambi goes, “Hmmmmm that sounds like some shapeshifting activity to me! Maybe the horse was a shapeshifter? Shrug Shrug who knows? Back to my work in the Batman’s lab.”
Queen Bey and Solo claim to be the greatest sister duo ever, but can either of them conjure lightning from their hands? I think not.
Later, while sitting on the roof of the Pierce house and goofing off with Jennifer, Anissa remembers a key detail that I’ve been waiting for her to pick up on for at least three episodes now: Grace’s eyes! Specifically, that Grace’s eyes flashed bronze that day they were in the park together! We’re all treated to a flashback of the day my heart broke. Anissa and Grace holding hands in the park and looking at each other all lovey-dovey googly eyes. Grace’s eyes flashing. Grace turning her back to fake a cough. Anissa joking that it must have been the sun caught in her face.
Then the camera cuts to last week, when Anissa was banging on the door of that abandoned apartment looking for Grace. There’s the older Asian man. When Anissa asks for Grace, his eyes flash the same color bronze. He slams the door in her face.
Suddenly everything for Anissa makes sense. Grace also has powers! She was scared to tell Anissa the truth! That’s why she ran away. After all, Freeland’s a political climate where supercharged humans are getting gunned down in the streets or experimented on like lab rats. That’s all on top of Grace’s own personal history with trauma. How could she have ever known that Anissa would still love her? Of course she ran!
Now Anissa knows what she must do, she has to find Grace and tell her the truth. By letting Grace know that she’s Thunder, she can help her feel less alone in this world. She can bring her in. She can help keep her safe and loved. They can be great together once and for all.
One last small hiccup in that plan (well other than the fact that Anissa hasn’t actually found Grace yet and there’s only one episode left hahahaha) is that to tell Grace that she’s Thunder, Anissa will have to break the Pierce family rules.
Oh yes, the Pierce’s have RULES now? Did I forget to mention that? Jefferson called his daughters together for family dinner and told them that despite his urge to keep them safe and away from the brewing war against Tobias, he knows that he can’t. Instead, both Pierce parents have developed a set of supercharged ethical guidelines:
1. No one goes off on a super mission by themselves without backup. (So no more Black Bird-ing around for Anissa, sorry. The eldest daughter rightfully points out that she’s an adult and can make her own choices, but Jefferson counters that while the powers may be her own, her suit is still a part of the family trust and in Gambi’s care. My favorite detail? Lynn and her best friend the rifle can count as backup if the time calls.)
2. Everyone must keep their super powers a secret. (Hence the Grace Choi wrinkle. Besides, with Agent Odell filming the family’s every move and listening in on their calls, I don’t think the Pierce family secret will remain one for much longer)
3. NO KILLING.
It’s on the last rule that Jennifer calls bullshit, and honestly I agree with her. I’m not saying that I support vigilante violence, but here’s the thing: Some villains have to die. Tobias Whale is one of them. I’m not sure why Jefferson is being so stubbornly obtuse about this? I understand that superheroes don’t generally kill, but Tobias has made it abundantly clear that no other alternative will work on him. It’s time to take care of business.
Luckily for all of us, Lala is very firmly on the path of Kill Tobias, and nothing is going to get in his way. His maker, Eddie Kaaaang, delightfully quotes Lady Eve (may she forever Rest in Peace) in explaining his real objective to the audience: Only after killing Tobias will Lala find peace. This leads to Lala going head-to-head with Cutter’s knives and winning, thoroughly freaking out my favorite assassin, who grabs Tobias and makes a run for it.
Leaving his secret villain hideaway as a fugitive, Tobias is blinded by a light brighter than the sun — even though it’s the middle of the night outside. He asks Cutter what the hell is causing the glow. She says not to worry about it, but I think maybe Tobias should worry at least a little. Rules be damned, Jennifer Pierce will not stop until Tobias Whale is six feet in the ground.
That is, unless her malfunctioning suit stops her before she can get to him.
And that cliffhanger, Jennifer alone in the middle of the night outside of Tobias’ enclave, writhing in pain with Jefferson and Gambi running to save her, is where we leave off. Until next week, when somehow all these puzzle pieces are going to slam together. It’s either going to be a beautiful cacophony, or just a lot of noise.
WHEW BOI! Only time will tell! Love you all, can’t wait to see you at the finish line. XOXO.
“Black Lightning” Episode 214 Recap: Get You a Girlfriend Who Knows How to Brawl
Hey there, everyone! I missed you! How was the end to your Black History Month? Are you ready to welcome Spring and longer daylight hours? (Just five days left until we get to move the clocks!) Most importantly, are you ready to thunder bolt shake clap some comic book villains? I sure hope so!
Since we haven’t seen each other in almost a month, here’s a recap: Jennifer Pierce is back with her family and ready to embrace her superpowers, largely because she wants to kill Tobias Whale for killing Khalil, but listen – Tobias like really needs to die, so I’m fully prepared to support this plan. Grace Choi has run away out of Anissa’s arms and out of Freeland altogether, plus it turns out that her name isn’t really Grace Choi at all! She’s Shay Li Wylde, a survivor of a human sex trafficking ring. That is both obviously devastating and surprisingly accurate to Grace Choi’s origin story in The Outsiders comics. Anissa is on the search to find her and hopefully one day #ThunderGrace will get the respect they deserve from this show (hey! A girl can hope!). Mama Bear Lynn Pierce might be in over her head with her shady ASA boss Agent Odell. Tobias Whale has assembled a truly impressive line-up of baddies and the Markovians are coming!
OK! You’re all caught up! Now we can hit the ground running!
I’d like to start with: HOW THE HELL IS LALA BACK FROM THE DEAD AGAIN?!?!? ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?? The former captain of the One Hundred gang was first choked to death by Tobias. Then he was brought back to life as a loose interpretation of the DC Comic’s “Tattooed Man” – a villain with the party trick of having those he once killed talk to him as ghosts and then become tattoos on his body. Then Lala died again!! This time as a suicide bomber who blew himself to bits in an ASA interrogation room while under Tobias’ control. So when this dude showed up a third time, I nearly flipped a table.
Let me get this straight – Jill Scott, AKA Lady Eve AKA the Queen of the Dead who ran her own freakin’ mortuary, can’t even be resurrected from one measly death but Lala has now been brought back TWICE?? What, are the women the only ones who stay murdered on this show?
ANYWAY, Zombie Lala is back again and this time he’s haunting Jefferson over at Garfield over a student murder orchestrated by Tobias that happened at least 10 or 15 years ago. Yes, it’s as convoluted as it sounds.
Surprisingly though, I didn’t hate it? Zombie Lala has gotten more interesting in this latest re-incarnation, he’s out here quoting Zadie Smith and I do love me a supervillain that’s well-read in contemporary black women’s literature. Plus – and this was a massive Easter egg that sent me to bed with the biggest smile on my face! I’m still not over it! – the Dr. Frankenstein to Zombie Lala’s monster? It’s none other than black 1990s film great Michael Wright. Better known as Eddie King (err, excuse me, Eddie the KAAAAANG) of The Five Heartbeats.
Today in Black History.
You should definitely see The Five Heartbeats if you haven’t. It’s Robert Townsend’s 1991 dramatic parody of 1960s Motown Era groups like The Temptations or The Four Tops. The movie is funny and sweet and surprisingly moving and so quotable that I easily lose myself in it. If you’re black and currently between your mid-20s to mid-30s, chances are high that you grew up watching reruns of the movie on BET more often than you can count. (It also got a surprising shout out in last week’s Boomerang, also on BET!) With the appearance of Michael Wright Eddie KAANG, that makes two of the five Heartbeats as Black Lightning reoccurring characters! (Robert Townsend, as you’ll recall, has appeared as Dr. Napier Frank – Jefferson’s confidante and a member of Garfield’s school board. The iconic director has also directed episodes of the show).
OK. My geek-out over ‘90s black culture aside, Zombie Lala’s haunting of Jefferson took up a lot of screen time this week with little direct pay-off, other than Lala’s confirmation of being on team #TobiasMustDie, which is always welcome. Moving on!
Anissa is more convinced than ever that Grace is in mortal danger. With Jennifer’s encouragement (which makes no sense since just last episode Jennifer seemed to have no more than a passing interest in Grace, and told her big sister that her girlfriend most likely just ghosted her, but WHATEVER!), Anissa decides to take her investigation to the next level. She finds the last known address of Grace’s foster brother and picks up the search there. An older Asian man answers the door, apparently the smell is repugnant, and warns Anissa that “Trouble will find you if you do not leave this place.” Anissa bangs on the door, heartbroken and frustrated, begging to know if Grace is safe, but it’s it won’t open again.
Well then, Trouble hasn’t met Thunder.
Welcome back babe! I missed your whole deal! Now, let’s go kick some ass!
Anissa returns, this time fully suited up, and breaks down the door with her feet. She discovers the source of that smell – an open, decaying corpse of a deer (or a horse? I’ll keep it real with you, I had to close my eyes and couldn’t tell). The older Asian man shows up again and starts to promptly KICK ANISSA’S ASS!
Do you know how rare it is for Anissa to meet her match in a fight? This dude is everywhere! He’s meeting her punch for punch, he’s literally walking on walls, you name it! I also appreciate that more than once he took a more traditional fighting stance that comes from Asian cultures (I don’t know the specific fighting style, and wouldn’t want to misspeak or misappropriate, but the detail was important and I’m thankful Black Lightning took care).
Thunder doesn’t know what she’s getting into… #BlackLightning pic.twitter.com/B29fzrceR5
— Black Lightning (@blacklightning) March 5, 2019

The fight ends when Anissa throws an entire whole couch on ol’ boy and he jumps out of a window before she can get a good look at him.
Why does that matter, you ask? BECAUSE THAT OLDER ASIAN MAN WAS GRACE CHOI ALL ALONG! That’s right! We have our first confirmation of Grace Choi’s superpowers, and my girl is a shapeshifter!! It’s a welcome change from the comics (Grace’s powers are traditionally more of the vague “super strength” variety) that gives an infinite array of awesome possibilities for her character moving forward. I’m still a little concerned about whatever is going on with the dead animal, but I’m also hyped that Grace has become so interesting and layered! I cannot freaking wait!
This is maybe going to sound strange, but I’m also glad at the show’s decision to not make Grace easy for Anissa to find. They deserve the same kind of character development and time that was given to Jennifer and Khalil earlier in the season. As long as we continue moving forward, which this week definitely did, I don’t mind getting to know Grace this way. I don’t mind seeing Anissa having to finally work for it. That’s how you build up characters and – Finally! Hopefully! – properly develop story. For me, taking Grace Choi seriously for once is worth the payoff of a delayed ThunderGrace reunion.
Granted, I don’t love that Anissa’s first takeaway from this leg of the search was “how much baggage is too much to deal with?” As if Anissa’s commitment-phobic self isn’t at least 50% of the problem with her relationship to Grace to begin with! And you want to talk about baggage? YOU ARE HUNTED DOWN BY VILLAINS EVERY DAY! Luckily, her family fixes that mindset for her quickly.
Also – and this didn’t occur to me until far after the adrenaline pumping fight – but Grace probably now knows that Anissa is Thunder!!! Right?!? She must. We know that Grace reads the Thunder and Black Lightning comics from her bookstore. She knows what Anissa’s voice sounds like. She knows that Anissa first came to the door of her hideout, followed by Thunder hot on her tails. I’m thinking that must add up to something!
Name a cuter TV family. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
To wrap it up with some other Pierce girl news, Jennifer is this close to getting her own superhero suit! The playful, maybe a little vain, completely loveable and infectious perfect teenager Jennifer Pierce is back in full effect! I MISSED HER! She wants her suit to be more in the line of something Rihanna might wear on her next album cover. Lynn and Gambi want her to be safe. Who am I to judge, but I think there’s room for both? (This side plot comes with a delightful sight gag of Jefferson’s original super suit from the 1970s Black Lightning comics and a George Clinton reference. PERFECTION.)
Also not to be forgotten, Agent Odell has been apparently spying on the Pierces this whole time with high tech super-secret spy cameras! He’s confirmed they’re a family of superheroes, and upon confirmation, he shoots every other agent with that knowledge dead on the spot! I have no idea what’s happening there, but I think we can all agree that it’s not good news.
See all you next week! For the first time in a long while, I’m excited for Black Lightning and I’m excited for where we are going!!!
PS: Did you nerds get your Captain Marvel tickets for this weekend? If not, you should probably get on that.

“Black Lightning” Episode 213 Recap: Gone Girl
Remember when Grace Choi inexplicably left her girlfriend by literally running away from her in broad daylight in a park and no one went after her like that was a completely normal thing for a person to do? Oh wait, that was just last week? Huh! This show you guys, what can I say! It’s a laugh a minute, in between all the racial justice crime fighting and thunder bolt zaps.
Anissa’s sneaking around Grace’s empty apartment and poking through her drawers. She could definitely learn better spying skills from Gambi, but that’s fine. She discovers a photo of tween Grace with two older adults who Anissa assumes are her parents or grandparents. She also finds Grace’s top secret-y “keep my super powers under control” pills. And that’s when things get really interesting.
What do you mean Bey wasn’t nominated for a solo Grammy!?!? She has to share win her with Jay-z?? I don’t care that he’s her husband! I DON’T CARE!!!
Anissa takes her findings back to the Bat Cave Gambi’s lab for testing. First of all, Gambi is in full on adorable uncle mode, which y’all know is a lot coming from me because I’ve never trusted the spy-turned-tailor. Still, it’s hard not to warm to his gushing over Anissa finally having a romantic partner that means enough to her that she’s including her in the inner circle. We all know Anissa is a commitment-phobe (Gambi knows it, too), so this is Very Big Deal.
Anissa blushes under his questioning, “You know how the old folks say, you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone?”
Yeah Anissa, we DO KNOW. Maybe try appreciating the hot bartender/comics geek while she’s standing right there in front of you next time, instead of asking for sympathy from the viewing audience after the fact. Ok. I promise, I promise — we aren’t going down this rant again (Black Lightning writers, do better). Moving on.
Gambi hasn’t quite cracked the case on Grace’s top secret pills just yet, but he was able to run facial recognition software on the adults in the photo. If you aren’t sitting down, now is the time because — deep breathe, exhale — Grace Choi Doesn’t Exist.
There is no record of a Grace Choi anywhere. The adults in that picture? They were the foster parents of Shay Li Wylde, who was bounced in the system quite a bit as a kid. They died. Shay Li was sold to a human trafficking ring and forced into sex work until her pimp mysteriously died. That was the last time anyone heard of Shay Li.
Until she showed up in Freeland with a fancy new fake ID.
I’m not being flippant about this. I absolutely will not make light of a young girl of color, abandoned by very systems that are supposed to protect her, ending up abused and forced into sex work. Human trafficking is on the rise in the United States. It’s the world’s fastest growing crime, with more than 70% of the victims being women and girls. Atlanta, where Black Lightning films and a majority black metropolis that is no doubt one of the inspirations for the show’s depictions of Freeland, is one of the national hubs for the sex trafficking of young girls. This is a storyline that hits close to home. If Black Lightning is really going to go there, I hope they are ready to take it seriously and with the utmost respect that it deserves. This isn’t something that can be introduced and then swept under the rug or forgotten.
It also happens to be faithful to Grace Choi’s original origin story in The Outsiders comics. In that ‘verse, Grace ran away from an abusive foster home at nine years old before being kidnapped while living on the streets. She’s sold into a child sex ring led by a villain named Tanner. Her famous tattoos? One of them is a Tanner’s branding. (I’m so glad I didn’t read this series. I know comics can get dark, but this is a lot. I’m already overwhelmed with tears just at the thought.) Grace escapes Tanner’s ring as a teenager when her superpowers finally kick in. I have a feeling that Shay Li Wylde’s transformation into Grace Choi will have a similar backstory.
Anissa’s heartbroken that Grace has lived through so much pain. She doesn’t care what Gambi says (or Jennifer, who’s apparently known that Anissa had a girlfriend this whole time? And for some reason thinks Grace just ghosted Anissa for the hell of it?), Anissa knows what it means to keep a secret because you don’t know who you can trust. If she can be there for Grace, if she can stand with her, comfort her, and tell that she doesn’t have to fight alone anymore in this fucked up world that treats women of color like disposable playthings for the rich men around them — then that’s exactly what she’s going to do.
This is what happens when Janelle Monáe doesn’t win Album of the Year
Some other things happen while Anissa was on her quest. Jennifer is not willing to wait another second to safely devise a plan while Tobias Whale gets to walk around breathing. Hot headed and impulsive to her core, she decides to go after him herself. It’s kind of cute that the One Hundred gang leader mistakes her for Anissa (err, Blackbird) at first? Right? Until all the gang members surround her and she almost dies! That part is… less cute.
Jefferson has decided that he’s ok with the racist white man running Garfield High afterall? That makes zero sense, but whatever. And Tobias’ new supervillain team up includes: Cutter, Dr. Jace, and new muscle in the form of Marcus Bishop. Bishop, otherwise known as Shakedown, is a former inmate from 30 years ago who was experimented on and given superpowers by Dr. Jace. Before that he was a football player by the name of Malik Wright on The Game. Remember The Game? A black sitcom legend that got cancelled in the mid-aughts by The CW because TV networks are racist? Then it was revived by BET and aired new episodes for another decade? Aww, good times, good times.
Everyone is taking sides and also THE MARKOVIANS ARE COMING!! So, yeah, lots of drama ahead when Black Lightning returns in March. Until then my sweets, I hope you all have an amazing Valentine’s Day! I’ll have a Hershey’s bar and think of you. xoxo.