17 Bisexual Women TV Characters Who Thwarted Tropes and Won Your Hearts

We originally published this list with ten characters on Bi+ Week in 2017, but we’ve made some additions and think you might enjoy reading it again!

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It’s a tricky business being a bisexual woman on teevee. There are so many lazy cliches and tropes writers are constantly forcing you to trip over, and oftentimes those hackneyed storylines perpetuate harmful stereotypes that actually harm bi women in real life. But sometimes, on a rare harvest moon when the mermaids sing and the unicorns take flight, we’re treated to really authentic, layered, swoon-worthy portrayals of bisexual women on our favorite shows. These are the best of them.

A note: Labels are hard, in real life and in fiction. Language isn’t science; it’s constantly evolving and everyone comes to the label table with different experiences. Some of these characters have used the word bisexual to describe themselves. Some of them have not labeled their sexuality in any way, but their storylines seem to indicate that they’re bisexual. We really just want to celebrate some really rad fictional characters who have found themselves attracted to other fictional characters of various genders.

Okay? Okay! Happy #BiWeek!

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Kalinda Sharma, The Good Wife

by heather

Kalinda’s sexuality was a surprise! The Good Wife‘s writers never dangled the hope that she’d be bisexual in any interviews and CBS certainly didn’t tease it in any press releases. Then one night, out of the blue, she kissed a woman! (Supposedly; it happened behind a garage door and we only saw their feet.) But then she kissed more women and had sex with some of them and fell in love with at least one of them. She also had a very significant relationship with a man throughout the course of the show. None of it ever felt forced or like a ratings stunt. Kalinda was Kalinda. She never cared what anyone thought of her or felt compelled to explain herself. Her sexuality just made sense. She is also one of the very few South Asian queer characters in TV history, which, as Kayla Upadhyaya noted in our Best QTPOC TV and Movie Characters Roundtable, is a really big deal. Having someone as talented as Archie Panjabi — who was nominated for multiple Emmys during her time on The Good Wife — portraying such a complicated character was just icing on the cake.

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Syd Feldman, Transparent

by riese

Transparent is a stand-out for its progressive portrayal of sexuality and gender on so many fronts and dancing on the outside of the dysfunctional Pferfferman clan was Syd Feldman, played by Carrie Brownstein. We know Syd is Ali’s best friend and then suddenly there she is sleeping with Josh (who is the worst) and then she’s in class with Ali, saying she slept with the female professor! And also she has a crush on Ali who she’s had a crush on since 8th grade. The ensuing arc feels real if also sad in that it ended in a Syd/Ali breakup (but anybody who was an angsty teen in the ’90s like me was probably just honored to witness any moments of Gaby Hoffman / Carrie Brownstein romance), but I think Syd deserves better. The bad thing about her character is that I guess she had to leave the show to find it.

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Brenna Carver, Chasing Life

by heather

Brenna Carver is one of the few characters on this list who used the word “bisexual” every chance she got. She dated guys and liked them a lot, she dated girls and liked them a lot too. And when people tried label her as something else, she had no problem correcting them. She also spent a lot of time clearing up misconceptions about bi people. “I’m not attracted to everyone I walk by,” she snapped at a lesbian in her Gay-Straight Alliance who hinted that bi girls are indecisive cheating machines. “I’m not changing my mind; I’m attracted to the person for who they are, not the gender!” Brenna’s grandma got it, and she shipped Brenna and Greer hardcore.

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Waverly Earp, Wynonna Earp

by heather

No one was more surprised than Waverly Earp when she fell for a literal hot cop in season one of Wynonna Earp. She’d been dating Champ, Purgatory’s rodeo jock for a while, when Nicole swaggered into town. She only fought her feelings for a minute; when she fell, she fell. One of the major questions the series has explored over the first two seasons is: Who is Waverly Earp? It’s something Waverly herself doesn’t really know; she’s constantly struggling to figure it out. But never once has her sexuality factored into her confusion. She knows who she loves. She knows why. She also makes out with her girlfriend with the lights on, a special gift on television, even in 2017.

Editor’s note: You’ll see some passionate comments about Waverly’s sexuality in the comments of this post from 2017; since then, at ClexaCon 2018, Dominique Provost-Chalkley labeled Waverly as bisexual. 

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Annalise Keating, How to Get Away With Murder

by heather

I have written why Annalise Keating is one of the best bisexual character on TV so many times I don’t know what else to say! Annalise has loved some terrible men and some good men. And she’s loved at least one woman who makes her light up from the inside. Annalise is just unlike any other woman we’ve ever seen on TV. She’s brilliant and driven and broken and messy and glorious and in charge and out of control and holding the entire world together through the sheer power of her will. And she’s played by VIOLA DAVIS, one of the greatest actors on the face of the earth. I’m just going to quote Natalie’s feelings from the Best QTPOC TV and Movie Characters Roundtable: “It’s hard to divorce my love for Annalise Keating from the woman that plays her because so much of what makes me feel seen is that she’s portrayed by someone that looks like Viola Davis. Annalise Keating is a dark-skinned black woman, who isn’t a size zero and whose natural hair hides beneath impeccable wigs. Hollywood has a very narrow definition of what a beautiful black woman ought to look like —*cough* Halle Berry *cough* — and Viola Davis upends all of that.”

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Delphine Cormier, Orphan Black

by heather

Delphine was very nearly all the bad bi tropes. She seemed duplicitous, conniving, unable to make up her mind, she even died! But it turns out she was really just Severus Snape, minus the casual torture of young witches and wizards and their pet frogs. By which I mean: She started out working for the bad guys, became a double-agent because of the woman she loved, and every single decision she made after that was to keep Cosima (and her sestras) safe. Also, she gave one of the best speeches about sexuality I’ve ever heard: “I have never thought about bisexuality. I mean, for myself, you know? But as a scientist, I know that sexuality is a spectrum. But, you know, social biases, they codifiy attraction. It’s contrary to the biological facts… you know?” Cosima did know. They immediately had sex and then ice cream.

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Paige Michalchuck, Degrassi: The Next Generation

by riese

In 2005 and 2006, I was grappling with questions around my own sexual orientation while working doggedly on a non-fiction/memoir hybrid about bisexuality — which involved a lot of “research” and by “research” I mean “watching every bi storyline I could get my hands on.” Paige was the first bisexual character in the Degrassi franchise, and although as a character I find her insufferable (particularly for how she shamed Alex for working at a strip club), at the time of its airing, Paige’s portrayal was pretty revolutionary. Many passionate television watchers go bananas watching characters do cartwheels and circle dances all around the word “bisexual,” and Paige’s storyline starts out being an extended exercise in that particular art. She might be falling for Alex… but she’s not gay! She says this a lot, “I’m not gay!” “I can’t be gay!” Her brother is gay, you see, and she doesn’t think her parents can handle two gay kids. Guest Star Kevin Smith tells her to stop getting hung up on gender and just follow her heart, and she does, taking the plunge to openly date Alex. When she and Alex break up (they’re not a great match, let’s be real), her best friend Hazel laments, “I just got used to you being a lesbian,” and Paige reminds her that it’s not about her and also “I’m free to date whoever I want, boy or girl.” The Palex Storyline, Round One, leads to a pair of revelations: Pagie realizes she’s into boys and girls, Alex realizes she’s a lesbian. The two girls reunite a year later but Paige, having recently flunked out of college and thus disappointed her parents, is resistant to do anything that might ruffle their feathers: “Look you’re cool with being a lesbian, but I don’t know what I am.” Alex, “The word is bisexual, Paige, and it’s just a label. Who cares?” Paige gives it a think and soon enough it turns out that Paige in fact does not care. She wants to give it another go with Alex. Although Paige does fall into the “dates four boys and one girl” trope, it’s worth noting that she does date a girl twice, it just happens to be the same one. Back then, that didn’t happen much — the lesbian storyline served its purpose, then vanished into the ether. Degrassi gets points for not letting it go there, and for using the word “bisexual,” too.

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Callie Torres, Grey’s Anatomy

by heather

Callie Torres is the longest running bisexual character in the history of television and she is played by real life bisexual Latina superhero Sara Ramirez. Over the course of her eleven seasons on Grey’s Anatomy, she was married to a man and a woman, both of whom she loved deeply. She never shied away from calling herself bisexual, whether as confrontation or as comfort. Callie’s journey to figuring out she was bisexual and ultimately falling in love with Arizona Robbins happened right on the heels of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008, one of the most devastating blows to the marriage equality movement in modern history. Her storyline happened at a crucial moment on one of the most-watched and most talked about shows in the country on broadcast network television. There’s really no way to overstate her impact. But she’s more than just what she accomplished. Callie was a joy to watch on TV. Smart and savvy and silly and relentlessly loyal to the people she loved. Perhaps one day the goddesses will smile upon us and she will return to Seattle Grace Mercy West and the open arms of her ex-wife.

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Kat Sandoval, Madam Secretary 

by heather

Sara Ramriez set our hearts on fire when she released the first promo shot of Kat Sandoval from Madam Secretary. We hardly every get to see butch women on TV, and especially not bisexual butches, and especially not women of color. It was already revolutionary. It didn’t stop with style, though; Kat’s coming out — which coincided with a really important storyline about LGBTQ+ human rights violations — was breathtaking. “I shivered,” Carmen wrote about the episode. “I have never heard a television character — male, female, or non binary — use ‘queer’ in the way I use it in my daily life.”

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Bo Dennis, Lost Girl

by riese

Lost Girl was the first time I saw a storyline in which a female protagonist was torn between a male and a female love interest and their gender was never summoned as a factor in her decision or situation. Nor did it seem that the writers were inherently biased towards the male love interest, as most stories I’d seen until then had been. There’s no coming out narrative, nobody has an issue with her bisexuality or relationships, her feelings for women are never seen as “less than” her relationships with men. Her sexual orientation was actually seen, more or less, as the norm, rather than the exception. I think this is part of why queers are so drawn to sci-fi narratives; because we can make our own worlds there, worlds without compulsory heterosexuality or traditional gender roles. It actually seemed like all the fae were bisexual. It was a magical world where nobody assumes anything about your sexual orientation just from looking at you. Girls kissed other girls so often that I stopped even noticing it!

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Ashlie Davies, South of Nowhere

by heather

There were no characters like Ashley Davies when she arrived on the scene in 2005. Sure, we had two seasons of The L Word under our belts, but that was premium cable and, frankly, a cast of characters many (if not most) lesbians couldn’t relate to. Spencer and Ashley, though? They seemed universal. There’d been a handful of bi teens on TV before, but usually it was just a main character exploring her feelings for a woman for ratings for a few episodes, and then never mentioning it again. Not Ashley! She had significant relationships with guys and gals, and her angst-free openness about her sexuality was a welcome relief for both the audience and Spencer.

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Sameen Shaw, Person of Interest

by heather

Shaw was the center of what was, in my opinion, one of the greatest episodes of queer TV ever, in Person of Interest‘s “6,741.” What makes her character so remarkable is she came on as a guest, with no plans to make her Root’s love interest, but their chemistry was so good the writers leaned into and then just gave themselves over to it. On CBS of all places! Shaw also isn’t like most of the other characters on this list. She’s not a squeaky clean good guy. In fact, she’s kind of a sociopath. Not in a way that’s damming, though; in a way that was so compelling even — to quote Natalie — the straights could see.

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Sara Lance, Legends of Tomorrow

by heather

Sara Lance died and usually that would have been that, but it was not and how lucky we are! She came back to life, joined up with the Legends of Tomorrow team, and is now the captain of the entire group of heroes and the center of the show! She’s a badass with a lot of trauma and an enormous heart, which she used to great effect in season three: falling in love with Ava and fighting for her like she fights to save the world. It was always fun to watch Sara seduce her way through time and space, but it was also really rewarding to watch her settle down, despite all the odds.

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Ilana Wexler, Broad City

by heather

Broad City has never made a big deal about Ilana’s sexuality, which is a big deal. She’s openly attracted to both men and women and desperately in love with her best friend, in an on-and-off relationship with a man we actually like, and openly non-monogamous. Riese loves Broad City and she loved Ilana and she will probably never forgive the people who didn’t vote for her in our Gay Emmys. “I love how nonchalant the show is about Ilana’s sexuality,” Riese wrote after her most recent queer hookup. “She’s just out to have a good time, yannow?”

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Rosa Diaz, Brooklyn Nine-Nine

by heather

Speaking of the Gay Emmys, Stephanie Beatriz swept them — and rightly so! When Beatriz came out in real life, the shows writers came to her to help craft a coming out story for Rosa, and she did. For starters, she said the word “bisexual” to describe herself, right out loud on network TV, which hardly ever happens. And then she explained it in the simplest terms: “I was in seventh grade. I was watching Saved by the Bell and I thought, Zack Morris: hot. And then I thought, Lisa Turtle: also hot.” Her coming out to her friends was easy as anything, but things didn’t go well with her parents, who refused to even entertain the idea at first and then settled on accepting it because she’d “probably end up with a man anyway.” Her heart broke at their deliberate obtuseness, but her friends rallied around her and Captain Holt pep talked her in one of the sweetest scenes of the entire series. Even better: The show’s not done telling her story yet!

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Petra Solano, Jane the Virgin

by heather

Fans of Jane the Virgin had been shipping Petra and Jane for years, and one day the writers decided, “Why not?” Not Jane-Jane, but Jane Ramos, Petra’s lawyer — played scorchingly hot by Rosario Dawson. Petra’s bisexual awakening was actually one of the easiest things in her life. No one was axe-murdered. No one was poisoned. No No one was body-swapped, kidnapped, or framed for a felony they didn’t commit. There was simply some chemistry, a sex dream, and then she went for it. Petra’s coming out was also as casual as can be. “We had sex,” she told Jane and Rafael about JR, after they mistakenly thought she had a crush on Jane. And that was that.

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Kat Edison, The Bold Type

by heather

Kat came out in season one after some serious hand-wringing and one very intense SoulCycle class, but once she realized she’s bisexual, she never looked back. She made the huge gesture for Adena, leading an episode modeled after one of the most romantic movies of all time. And even though their relationship didn’t work out, she made a serious commitment (which she’d never been willing to do before), and hooked up with plenty of other girls in the process. Natalie and Kayla and Carmen talked about The Bold Type‘s struggle to get Kat’s identity as a woman of color right, which is always an important thing to add to any conversation about Kat. The show seems to be listening, though, and growing. Just like our beloved social media manager at Scarlet magazine. Her queer storyline was the romantic emotional anchor of season two, which was a revolutionary thing.

Boob(s On Your) Tube: It Wasn’t a Dream! Annalise Keating is Bisexual!

Welcome back to Boob(s On Your) Tube, your twice-weekly round-up of all the queer lady things happening on your teevee! This week’s columns are back to their regularly scheduled days (Tuesday and Friday). Thank you for being patient and allowing me to smush last Friday’s column into today’s column. Like I mentioned last Tuesday, my grandma came New York City to visit me and meet my girlfriend for the first time, and it was wonderful to have a few days off to spend with her.

An exciting announcement: I would like to introduce you to Autostraddle dot com’s two new interns, Karly and Sadie! They will be tag-teaming with me to make Autostraddle’s teevee coverage better and better. I am so excited to start working with them and so excited for you to meet them. They’re both super smart and super invested in queer and trans representation on television. You’ll be reading their words and seeing their screencaps in the coming weeks. Please say hi to them in the comments!

And now: The queer TV!

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

Last week Chasing Life sent me on an emotional roller coaster that skidded off a cliff and into the sea! I actually wasn’t caught up because it looked like Brenna was going to be dating Finn for the rest of the season, and I’m all for bisexual characters exploring their bisexuality, but, like, Famke Janssen and Viola Davis were making out on my DVR, so my eyeballs were needed elsewhere. Okay, but then my friend Valerie, she told me that Greer had Apparated onto the scene for the season finale, so I rushed to catch up. And there she was! Greer! Standing in Brenna’s doorway smiling like the sun after a hard day’s rain talking about how she was moving back to town, and the hint of course was that they could be gal pals again. That’s how the finale ended!

But then ABC Family pulled the plug and now there will be no more Chasing Life forever.

Brenna was a rare unicorn. She was one of the few TV characters who actually labeled herself as bisexual and said the word out loud repeatedly. The writers never tripped over any terrible bi stereotypes or leaned on any damaging bi tropes. She liked guys and she liked gals and she had meaningful relationships with both of them. I will miss her (and what she could have had with Greer!) very much.

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Grandfathered

Tuesdays on Fox at 8:00 p.m.

Well, here’s a surprise: I kind of liked Grandfathered? I hate the premise and I hate that this show and Grinder are exactly the same thing, airing back-to-back, and starring two white dudes — instead of The Mindy Project and New Girl, which Fox had slated in this block for three years. But the show kind of worked for me. It features a pretty huge supporting cast for a sitcom, and two of the three main female characters are women of color. (The third is Paget Brewster, who elevates every scene she’s in on every show always.)

Like I mentioned last week, the show is about selfish rich bachelor John Stamos finding out he’s got a grown-up son and also a granddaughter. He owns a really successful L.A. restaurant and the manager is Annelise, a gay lady who reveals her sexuality when John Stamos goes to confront Paget Brewster about how come she never told him they have a kid together. Paget Brewster says he would have been a horrible dad because of how he was a horrible boyfriend, then she leans out the door where Annelise is standing and:

Paget Brewster: Speaking of which … girlfriend?
Annelise: Employee. Lesbian.
Paget Brewster: Smart.”
Annelise: Job requirement.
Paget Brewster: I like you!
Annelise: Let’s be friends!

Later when John Stamos tries to complain about Paget Brewster to Annelise, she says, “Yeah, I’m on her side. She’s awesome.”

So the story of course is that John Stamos has to learn to balance his work life with her personal life and ultimately will rekindle his romance with Paget Brewster and move to Vermont to make homemade organic baby food.

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Scream Queens

Tuesdays on Fox at 9:00 p.m.

Sam the Predatory Lez is still alive on Scream Queens, but she hasn’t done anything notable or spoken more than five words together. She basically just follows the Chanels around and does what they say and cleans up the blood every time someone else gets murdered in the KKT house. Nick Jonas, who plays gay Boone, faked his death in episode two and revealed that he’s in league with the Red Devil, and now I’m wondering if it’s Sam? Wouldn’t it be so Ryan Murphy to take the lesbian and the gay dude and turn them into evil mass murdering psychos like some kind of commentary on Glee fandom? (Yes. Yes, it would.)

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Empire

Wednesdays on Fox at 9:00 p.m.

Written by Carolyn Wysinger

Empire really took a step backwards this week and showed that it still has some growing to do if it’s going to live up to its name. One fan said she wished that she had DVR’d it so she could finish watching Judge Judy. That’s pretty damn bad. But how could it have been that bad? Was it lacking its usual drama?

The drama was there from the beginning as Cookie, Andre and Hakeem walked out on Empire to start their own company. Andre isn’t too sure but Hakeem is still looking for ways to get away from answering to Jamal as head of the company. Cookie doesn’t want Boo Boo Kitty Anika to be part of the company but Hakeem sneaks her into the deal.

Meanwhile Lucious has his weekly meds withheld for unknown reasons. He has also cultivated a little following of fans that encourage him to freestyle with them. This is where the episode starts to take a turn for the worst. Message to the producers of Empire: please STOP with the Hustle & Flow nostalgia. We get it, the show is like a natural continuation of the movie. We love the movie too. Please just leave it there. What comes next is one of the worst rap performances I have seen since Vanilla Ice performed on Arsenio Hall. Please never ever let Terrance Howard rap again.

Anyway, after the impromptu freestyle session a correctional officer played my Ludacris aggressively breaks up the group bringing about more Hustle & Flow memories (remember Howard’s character DJ went to prison for beating down Ludacris’ character, Skinny Black?)

While on a visit with Jamal, Lucious meets a new lawyer who promises to get him a bail hearing. He is a little fishy with his degree from the University of Guam but Lucious likes him and asks Jamal to set up a meeting with him. With the help of one of the prison officers, the lawyer, Thursty, helps sneak a producer and equipment into prison so that Lucious can record his God awful prison rap. His session is broken up by CO Ludacris and his band in blue who confiscate the recording. Thursty later pays some guys to beat Luda up in a parking lot and retrieve the music.

Cookie and the new dark stone faced Jamal go back and forth trying to influence Hakeem on whether he should return to Empire or stick with the new company that they name Lyons Dynasty. I will be happy when they are through trying to make Jamal cold; it doesn’t really fit him. Hakeem leaks his album online to spite Jamal and show that he has control of his own career, which pushes Andre over the edge and he tries to return to Lucious. Lucious sits somberly as Andre talks passionately about how much he loves Empire and how sorry he is for taking part of the hostile takeover. But Lucious is a cold piece; he asks Andre if he is still going to church (remember his almost affair with Jennifer Hudson?) When Andre says yes, Lucious tells him he better pray to God to forgive because he won’t. Andre asks Lucious why he hates him so much which prompts a flashback to his own mother (played by Kelly Rowland) who seems to have had mental health issues similar to the ones Andre struggles with.

Thursty succeeds in getting Lucious a bail hearing which he almost misses but rushes in with new “evidence,” which turns out to be dirty pictures of the judge. Needless to say, Lucious is immediately released on bail.

My hope is that all of this is just building the foundation for drama down the line for the Lyons clan. This episode was super bland and I would hate to think the show has already peaked when I still have so many more pearls to clutch.

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Rosewood

Wednesdays on Fox at 10:00 p.m.

I hate to say it, but I don’t think Rosewood is going to make it a full season, y’all. Not even with the lead-in audience it’s getting from Empire. (Did I mention that Fox did a thing I HATE SO MUCH during the season two premiere of Empire? They recorded Rosewood onto my DVR by tricking it into thinking Empire was still on. That shit infuriates me.) Look, this was a smart play by Fox: Use the Bones formula but make the lead dude a black man and the lead lady a Latina woman and the supporting cast an interracial lesbian couple. Tried-and-true procedural meets DIVERSITY. But the critics kind of hate it. I’m not into procedurals at all, really, but I’m sticking with this one for Pippy and Tara, who spend this episode chained to their lab stations, working around the clock, but enjoying one quick snuggle on a couch and one quick karaoke duet (while being chained to their lab stations). Rosewood could get better! However, procedurals usually start really strong and fizzle out; not the opposite thing.

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Grey’s Anatomy

Thursdays on ABC at 8:00 p.m.

Bailey’s first day as Chief doesn’t go exactly as planned. First, she kind of ruins her surprise party by assuming it’s a meeting and shutting it down because she wants to save lives instead of talking about saving lives. Then, she gives her team four hours to figure out a way to solve a pituitary problem that is making this one woman grow like one foot taller every year. (The woman almost dies, but then she doesn’t.) And then, everyone talks about how she’s a Bond villain and stuff, but affectionately. Bailey gets a nice pep talk from Richard and is going to be the best Chief ever, thank you very much, she just needed to find her footing and her balance. I’m glad she’s like season one badadd levels again, though. I love Bailey v. 1.0.

In other health-related news, Callie’s got a new lady in her life that’s making her heart flutter and her eyeballs bug out of her head because she just wants to stare at her for hours and hours without blinking. Arizona overhears her talking about it and changes the subject real quick to hospital business — for example, April has some kind of plague and is quarantined in a bubble — but later in the day she decides that she and Callie can do this. They can talk to each other about the new women in their lives. They can be grown-ups about it. They can be happy for each other. So when they’re trading off Sofia’s books, Arizona asks about Callie’s blossoming love.

It takes about three seconds of Callie gushing about how Arizona would like this woman so much, and she and Callie finishes each other’s thoughts and also each other’s sandwiches, before Arizona shuts it down and affectionately tells Callie to learn to read the room.

Oh, these two! I’m happy they’re not trying to murder each other, but my heart does still ache for them!

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How to Get Away With Murder

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

It wasn’t a dream! Annalise Keating really is bisexual!

Eve has taken Nate’s case, at Annalise’s behest, but things get real awkward real fast in the Grand Jury hearing when Nate refuses to lie like Eve and Annalise want him to. They want him to say he got into a scuffle with Sam the night of his murder, as a way to explain his fingerprints on Sam’s ring. But since he won’t do it, Eve goes with a whole other tactic: She lays out this really aggressive case to convince the Grand Jurors that Annalise is actually responsible for Sam’s death. It’s so convincing that they decide not to indict Nate after all, and so he is free to go.

But it’s not all champagne and caviar back at Annalise’s house. Her feelings are hardcore hurt at the way Eve went after her. It was so cold that it was obviously personal. And duh, of course it was. The thing is that Eve’s been telling herself she’s over Annalise all these years, telling herself she’s fine with the fact that Annalise left her for Sam, watching Faking It every week and crying into some Fruit Loops and then hurling her TV into the sun. Totally FINE. But that turned out to be a lie she was telling herself, and now that Annalise is standing in front of her and kissing her on the mouth, she’s having to admit that she’s still in love with her ex-girlfriend.

Annalise says, “It was good with you — and real. Too real. So I got scared and I left. But you’re the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me.”

And then they scissor! Eve thinks about pushing Annalise away, but that only lasts a nanosecond, and then they’re smashing their tongues into each other’s mouths and ordering Gal Pal t-shirts from Autostraddle dot com’s merch store.

After their night of rekindled passion, Eve basically proposes marriage to Annalise, asks her to move to New York and get a job at Columbia and they’ll be together forever and always, just real casual-like. Annalise says she’ll think about it. They smooch. And Nate sees the whole thing in his rearview mirror ’cause he’s stalking her.

Did I mention this year’s flash-forward is Annalise dying? It better not be Jean Grey who did it!

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Carmilla

Tuesdays and Thursdays on YouTube

Written by Karly

Wow! What a crazy, amazing, long finale. I just want to jump right into episode 36, but I’d be missing a big thing. So in episode 35, it’s Big Battle time and Kirsch is injured. As Laura and Danny bring him in the apartment, Laura laments that she thought Carmilla would help them. Danny fights back the hordes saying they don’t need that lazy vampire anyway!

Then Danny turns her back on an open door in the midst of a huge battle. I cannot stress these things enough: do not wear your last horcrux around your neck and do not turn your back on your enemies. Life lessons. As soon as Danny turns her back on the door, that bro Theo stabs her. Theo says Vordenberg gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse, blah blah blah. Sharon Belle gives her best performance all season delivering Danny’s last words. “I’m not scared, I’m not scared, I’m not…” Chills.

Finale time! With Danny gone, the battle is over (I guess? She was really the best fighter of all?). Vordenberg swiftly enters and says he’s going to kill Carmilla. And he means right now. He pulls her in the room and she’s chained head to toe. Laura is mad that she didn’t come to help them, Carmilla is like ‘Hello, I am in chains.” We know this is all Perry’s fault. Perry gives the charter to Laura to kill Vordenberg (his horcrux).

Vordie says that if she kills him, the power of the board goes to the Corvae Corps, the shady black ops organization that was involved with the dean. Also it wouldn’t be very heroic to kill an old man, would it, Laura? But when he draws his sword, Laura cracks the charter over her knee. Vordenberg leaves the room to die gracefully and Perry follows.

That scary siren goes off and the Corvae Corps immediately take over the campus. JP goes to find Perry while LaFontaine, Laura, and Carmilla head to the library.

In the library, LaF is upset because they think Perry and JP are dead. Carmilla and Laura comfort them. Yes that’s right, Carmilla comforts them too. What has happened? Several hours later, Laura and Carmilla are alone in a cupboard. Laura is in shock that she ruined everything, that she killed a man, and that in that moment, she didn’t care she killed a man because she wanted to save Carmilla.

Carmilla is the best girlfriend in the world. She wraps Laura in a blanket, hugs her, and holds her cheek while telling her you did what she could, and you can’t stop trying, and don’t let these mistakes turn you into me. This conversation is a 180 from let’s run away and sleep in hotels every night. I’ll probably watch this scene 30 more times.

Then they finally start to piece together that the dean got everything she wanted and how weird ‘cause she’s totally dead right? Right?

No, she’s in Perry’s body, and she is back in the apartment speaking directly to the webcam like it’s been her show all along. She’s been the dean since the battle in the pit. (Even during the Christmas special? Is nothing sacred!)

The Dean needs help so Kirsch brings Danny’s body in.. She resurrects Danny with some Latin(?) and Danny rises, but she’s completely silent. Kirsch is beside himself, and Danny gives him a huge kiss. There has to be one kiss every season finale, you see. It’s not bad. It’s weird, but not bad. Then Vampire?Danny eats Kirsch.

The Dean is in charge now, and maybe we should see her side of the story. “The first gate is open,” Dean says. “Only six more to go.” The last, last scene of the finale is pitch black. We hear the Dean saying that spell again and MATTIE WAKES UP. Oh hell yes. Forget what I said: you can wear your final horcrux and turn your back on your enemies, and then just be resurrected.

For the shortest hiatus ever, Carmilla just announced a season 0, a prequel to season 1, starting October 22. And I’m sure the announcement for season three is just around the corner.

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Lost Girl

Sundays on (Canada’s) Showcase at 9:00 p.m.

Um. Tamsin is pregnant with Bo’s half-brother or sister after Bo’s dad pretended to be her and raped Tamsin in the last episode. That is what happened this week on Lost Girl. Y’all, what is HAPPENING to this show in the final episopdes?

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Survivor’s Remorse

Saturdays on Starz at 9:30 p.m.

On this week’s Survivor’s Remorse, M-Chuck and Cassie are invited to sing the national anthem at an Atlanta college, so they hire a vocal coach name Christopher who legit says the words “the performance is nigh!” to them at one point. M-Chuck doesn’t think the Star Spangled Banner makes sense, to be honest, and she’s even more sure about it when Reggie convinces her “ramparts” means “ram parts” like the parts of a ram you grill eat like kebabs. M-Chuck wants to be the lead with her mom singing backup, but Cassie amazingly goes, “Not a chance, Sparkle!” and shuts the whole thing down. Ultimately, Julias sings the national anthem solo and crushes it.

Only one episode left of season one!

---

Team TV coverage you may have missed

+ Faking It Episode 216 Recap: Let’s Be Lesbians… Again!

+ 12 Couples Halloween Costumes For You and Your Taller or Shorter Gal Pal

+ Law & Order: SVU Adds Its Voice to the “Trans Debate” with the Confusing, Horribly Depressing “Transgender Bridge”

Boob(s On Your Tube): Carmilla and Laura Sitting In a Tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

Though the sidewalk outside of my apartment — which is hotter than the surface of the sun right now — begs to differ, Labor Day marks the official end of summer, and the official end of Summer Teevee. Fall TV doesn’t start in earnest until September 21st, so it’ll be a bit lullish here in Boob(s On Your Tube) the next two weeks, but then! Then! Real deal primetime TV will be back, and I’ll be expanding this column to a twice weekly event because there’s going to be so much to talk about, there’s no way we can digest and dissect all of it only once a week. More details about the days you can expect New Boob(s) soon, along with Editor-in-Chief Riese’s annual Fall TV preview!

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

Nothing queer to report on this week’s Chasing Life, except that Brenna’s new boyfriend, Finn, is like if Caleb Rivers from Pretty Little Liars was battling cancer by watching Gilmore Girls.

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Scream

Tuesdays on MTV at 10:00 p.m.

Audrey survived the first season of Scream! Audrey is also (at least partially) the killer on the first season of Scream!

All signs point to Piper being the main killer, due to the fact that she confesses herself as Brandon James’ daughter and tries to axe-murder Emma and her mom in the process of monologuing about how it’s sexist to always assume the killer in horror films is a dude. Luckily for Emma and her mom, Audrey shows up in the nick of time and shoots the hell out of Piper and kills her dead. “That bitch talks too much,” is what she says as Piper is bleeding out.

Except for then, at the very end, Audrey opens up this secret compartment containing correspondence with Piper. Like maybe she even killed her own girlfriend at the beginning of the show. Who knows?

Well, the writers know. They told TVLine:

Toward the end, Piper was kind of someone that people were starting to suspect might have been the killer. Certain things were planted that hinted at it, [like] her father was murdered. We tried to let everyone have those moments of suspicion, and… we liked letting Audrey be the other half of that equation, because she felt like the very surprising element to us. Audrey is someone that I feel like the audience relates to and empathizes with, so letting her be the connective tissue between Season 1 and Season 2 is a great way to let the audience get pulled back in. They want to believe in her. They want to believe that she’s good, but there’s also a part of them that wants to think she got some justice, too. That’s an element that’s going to pull people back in a strong way.

I would call her a wild card of Season 2. The depth of her involvement isn’t yet revealed — just a connection to Piper. Like I said, not knowing if she ever donned the mask and actually killed someone is a big part of what’s going to keep people truly intrigued. And the fact that… her friends don’t know. You imagine the moment when Noah finds out that Audrey was a part of this, and you’re like, “That’s a hell of a TV moment that I can’t wait to see.”

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Rookie Blue

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

Gail closed out this season of Rookie Blue by hooking up with her work arch-nemesis, Frankie, after bumping into her at a wedding reception for two of their friends. It all happened off-screen, but the 37-second lead-up was super cute and I hope to see more of these two in the coming (half?) season.

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I Am Cait

Sundays on E! at 8:00 p.m.

On the penultimate episode of I Am Cait, Caitlyn Jenner gets ready for and delivers her moving ESPY’s speech. She and Candis Cayne visit Chandi Moore at hospital where she runs a program for trans kids; the kids talk to Caitlyn about their struggles with changing their names, their physical transitions, and being harassed when their IDs don’t match their real gender. Once again, it opens Caitlyn’s eyes to her privilege. Cait also has dinner with her family, and it’s much more chill and lovely than when they hung out in the season premiere. And Caitlyn renews her country club membership and grapples with whether or not to use her real name because the club is really conservative and she doesn’t know how people will react. But Candis brings the truth bombs in glorious fashion, like always: “It’s not about what they think; it’s about how you feel. They’ll get over it. Just sign your name as Caitlyn from now on and move on.”

Next week, Caitlyn and Kris are supposed to meet on-screen for the first time and the most Kardashian moment of the entire season. It’s the thing I’m least looking forward to.

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Survivor’s Remorse

Saturdays on Starz at 9:30 p.m.

Starz has already renewed Survivor’s Remorse for a third season! M-Chuck until 2016, at least!

This week’s episode focuses on Cam and M-Chuck’s mom, who decides to get a vagina rejuvination, but has to tell Cam about it because he’s the one footing the bills and he wants to know what he’s paying for. What could be a really one-note, frat-boyfest of vagina jokes turns into a really poignant commentary on how much control women really do/don’t have over their bodies, and how complicated it is to be a sexually active woman in the world without being slut-shamed. Cam’s mom ultimately tells him:

“When you were born, I was still a girl. I’ve hardly even been with anybody else since you were born, and motherfuckerer, that’s a long time. I’m not asking for your appreciation. I’m asking you for some understanding. Instead of making me feel like I’m some fuckinging beggar coming to you trying to explain my uncomfortable private fucking matters.”

Cam gets it. He promises never to ask about it again. But, look, M-Chuck had a few good moments too. When Cam first heard his mom was having a medical procedure, he thought for sure that she had cancer.

Cam: Non-Hodgkin’s is bad. People hit me up on Twitter every day for non-Hodgkin’s—it’s decimating people.
M-Chuck: We do a ton of cardio. Nobody’s getting cancer! If Mom had cancer, she wouldn’t be so vague. She’d be milking you for all you’re worth, you know that.

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Carmilla

Tuesdays and Thursdays on YouTube

Laura and Carmilla smooched! Y’all, Laura and Carmilla smooched, hot and desperate for each other over a game of vampire checkers!

Okay, because everyone decides to tag-team to keep the giant ancient fish god from escaping while some soldiers try to kill her. Remember when Laura called Lophii “Loopiformes”? I wish they called her Loopi. But the Get Along Gang can’t do the plan until 3:00 am, so everyone breaks to take a nap and/or makeout with the loves of their lives. It’s late and they’re tired and their defenses are down, and so:

Laura: Like, were you really going to drink the fish god blood and potentially die?
Carmilla: Yeah, not that it matters to you so much on account of you can’t even stand to look at me anymore.
Laura: I only don’t look at you because when I do I can never look away from you!
Carmilla: So you don’t want me to die?
Laura: No, you asshole! The thought of a world without you makes me feel like my guts are being ripped out of my body!
Carmilla: Oh. We should definitely kiss, then.
Laura: Okay, but only a little.
They: [Kiss, and Carmilla pulls away]
Laura: Wait, no. A little more.
Carmilla: [is lovestruck even more than before]
Laura: Maybe after this is all over, we can talk.
Carmilla: [endless sighing]

Perry doesn’t go with the gang to protect Lophii. She stays behind to bake pie/do evil. Mattie finds her though and Perry gets REALLY close to her face and calls her “Rook” and blurts out a terrifying death prophecy, on account of PERRY IS POSSESSED BY THE DEAN. Tumblr, you knew it! You’ve been saying this for weeks!

As if that weren’t terrifying enough, Mattie gets busted at the end of the episode for murders she didn’t commit. Without her around, everyone’s gonna get dead so fast.

---

Team TV coverage you may have missed

+ GLAAD’s 2015 Network Responsibility Index Is Its Last, ‘Cause Counting The Gays Isn’t The Point Anymore
You really need to read this. It’s so good.

+ Faking It Episode 211 Recap: Stripped and Confused
Season 2B of “Faking It” is finally here, and everybody is still lying to everybody else.

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I just realized Lost Girl came back last night in Canada for its final half-season. I’ll add it to Boob(s) starting next week!

Boobs(s On Your) Tube: Caitlyn Jenner Attends Pride, Canada Adds Another Queer Character and More

It’s the slowest time of the TV year, that weird lull between summer television and fall television, when everything is winding down and everything else is gearing up. Before fall TV kicks off in earnest, Autostraddle CEO/Editor-in-Chief, Riese, is going to do her annual Queer Lady Teevee Viewing Guide. Until then, here’s what happened on what’s left on the summertime boob(s) tube.

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

I was wrong last week when I told you Chasing Life had aired its midseason finale; there are still six more episodes left! However, we already talked about what happened last Monday night, so we won’t be able to discuss tonight’s episode until the next Boob(s On Your) Tube column.

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Clipped

Tuesdays on TBS at 10:00 p.m.

Wellll, Clipped‘s first season has now come and gone and Charmaine didn’t reveal her queerness, after all. Such a shame.

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Scream

Tuesdays on MTV at 10:00 p.m.

I really pushed my luck watching Scream as long as I did. As I mentioned last week, Will go sawed right the fuck in half and it made me feel sick for two days. This week opened with a flashback of that thing and so now I can never watch it again. I can, however, tell you that Audrey survived the penultimate episode of season one! Next week, we’ll find out whether or not she’s immortal and/or the serial killer who has offed half the students in her school. Maybe also she’ll kiss Emma? I’m pushing my luck even wishing for that.

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Rookie Blue

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

One thing I promised myself this year is that I would watch Rookie Blue with the American audience and not, um, obtain episodes as they aired in real-time in Canada. It hasn’t been a problem — until this week! Because holy bananas, y’all, there’s a new detective in town, a Homicide one, named Detective Anderson, and she kind of hates Gail but also she is gay! She just comes right out and says it when she’s accosting Gail about her brother, Steve, getting tossed into the slammer jammer for being a bad cop. Like, “Oh, he wanted to hook us up one time, but I’m glad that didn’t pan out since your family’s legacy is dirty cops.”

That’s the only thing that happens this week. Gail’s face is like EXCUSE ME. And my face also is like EXCUSE ME.

It turns into a thing, though, in the coming weeks. It’s like watching Pride and Prejudice only it’s Canadian cops and they’re both Mr. Darcy.

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Defiance

Fridays on Syfy at 8:00 p.m.

Yewll! Yewll! Yewll! Yewll! With one episode to go in Defiance‘s third (and probably final) season left, Doc Yewll gets her bad self un-brainwashed, breaks out of Omec jail with Datak Tarr, chews bubblegum, gets a gun, and says the words: “Looks like mama got her groove back.”

Stahma also got her groove back, a little bit. She did some manipulating, some conniving. She’s still not her old self, not close, and probably we will never witness that old self again, but it’s good to see Jaime Murray getting to do something before the series end.

Next week is the finale. The Big Omec Showdown.

Oh, also Nolan and Amanda finally Zzzzzzz.

Whoops, sorry, dozed off.

Nolan and Amanda finally Zzzzzzz.

Dang, come on. Kissed. Nolan and Amanda finally kissed.

(ZZZZzzzzzzz.)

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Hannibal

Saturdays on NBC at 10:00 p.m.

Next week is the series finale of Hannibal, a thing Margot will be returning for, which means probably her or Alana or both of them are going to get serial killed. This week Hannibal ate a pair of lips in front of Alana to prepare her for the doom. The Red Dragon mailed them in an envelope and I guess “loose human lips” are not a thing that show up on the X-Ray machine because the couriers at the asylum just gave the package to Hannibal and there were lips inside and he chomped right down on them in Alana’s face.

Thank God I have a girlfriend who watches this show and explains it to me. I would be vomiting for days.

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I Am Cait

Sundays on E! at 8:00 p.m.

https://instagram.com/p/4fIHySyb3z/

The biggest surprise of the summer is how many real, earnest, truly moved tears I have cried over I Am Cait, which, despite its detour into Karsashianville last week, has actually served as a sort of mini-documentary to educate the world about trans people as Caitlyn Jenner learns so much about the trans community herself. This week, Candis Cayne challenged Caitlyn to start using the word “we” instead of “them” when referring to the LGBT community, and also to get more involved. Caitlyn was worried that her appearance at events like Trans Pride Los Angeles or Gay Pride NYC was going to cause a media circus, and also she was afraid that the queer community, at large, was going to have a hard time accepting her being there.

Before she headed out to NYC, she met up with two of her dude buddies who hadn’t seen her since she began her transition, and they were both a little uneducated about trans issues but also so warm and welcoming to her. One of the most moving moments was when her friend Sergio told her he’d already changed her name in his phone, before she even called to hang out with him.

Caitlyn also met with GLAAD to discuss her fears, and they told her to use the media circus she was afraid of to spotlight all the hardships facing trans women in America today, and of course, that’s exactly what she’s using this show to do.

At Candis’ performance at NY Pride, Caitlyn was so nervous to go out and meet the crowd, but as soon as they saw her, they started chanting her name and cheering and waving, and she was just so overwhelmed. Candis introduced her, and the crowd began cheering and filming her with their phones as she stood up, and filmed them right back.

The episode closed with Caitlyn meeting some Broadway starts, doing a Rockettes dance with them, and voicing over how the response to her coming out as trans has been bigger than even her huge Olympic fame, while walking outside to a jam-packed Times Square and driving away with her trans friends as people line the sidewalk and called her name.

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Carmilla

Because there are so many TV shows with queer women in them these days, it’s almost impossible to also keep up with any web series, unless the web series you’re talking about is Carmilla. For those of you not in the know, Carmilla is very loosely based on the Sheridan Le Fanu novel and is probably the queerest web series in the history of the internet, and one of the more diverse ones. The main protagonist, Laura Hollis, is a student at Silas University, a place with more Magical Beasts than Hogwarts, and her roommate is Carmilla Karnstein, a — spoiler alert! — full-on vampire.

Season one revolves around Laura and her friends’ quest to find out why girls keep disappearing from Silas. (The reason girls keep disappearing from Silas is Carmilla kidnaps virgins for her mom, who, it turns out, is the Dean of the university.) Also, season one revolves around Laura and Carmilla finally realizing they’re in big gay love with each other.

Season two follows the story of Laura and Carmilla moving into her mom’s old Victorian mansion with their friends and the rest of the student body dealing with the fact that the school is super duper supernatural. Carmilla’s sister, Mattie, shows up and is AWWWEEESOME in every Slytherin way. She’s on the Silas Board of Trustees. We’re 24 episodes into the 36-episode season and so far Carmilla and Laura have broken up, despite still being in big gay love with each other; a group of students has formed a basically fascist vigilante enforcer group to eradicate all non-humans from the campus; Carmilla and Mattie have waged open warfare on the human population; and Carmilla and Laura have stared longingly at each other and cried and talked about how they’re sacred to each other and miss each other like holes ripped inside their bodies. It’s so campy. It hurts SO GOOD.

Get caught up and we’ll get into the nitty gritty next week!

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Team TV coverage you may have missed

Have Mercy: Stef And Gabby Liveblog The Full House Lifetime Movie
The plot of this film seems to be the struggle of three white male actors who feel like the world owes them a big break. We’d rather watch Jodie Sweetin learn to add and subtract.

Kristen Kish and Her Perfect Hair Jet-Set Around the World in “36 Hours”
The best part of the show is watching Kristen gush over food. Seriously, I will tune in just to hear her talk about food. Also, to gaze upon her hair.

Boob(s On Your) Tube: “Chasing Life” Is the Bisexual Representation You’ve Been Looking For On TV

It’s been exactly one week since the Pretty Little Liars season 6A finale, and I feel like I have lived four TV lifetimes between then and now. It’s exciting that the conversation is still going strong because general pop culture caring about trans representation on TV is a brand new thing, but it’s still disheartening and scary too.

Other shows are drawing near the end of their summer seasons, too. Chasing Life and The Fosters finished up last night. Complications aired its finale last Thursday. We’ve got two more episodes of Defiance and Scream to go, though, and here’s hoping Yewll and Audrey make it out alive.

Next week, I’ll give you a run down of all the queer characters you can expect to see on your teevees this fall. Until then, here’s what the end of summer looks like.

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The Fosters

Mondays on ABC Family at 8:00 p.m.

Stef and Lena are okay! I repeat: STEF AND LENA ARE OKAY! After a very, very tough summer season during which our favorite lesbian moms put each other through some unfair (but true to married life) shit, the truth about Monty kissing Lena finally came out. It happened because Stef’s best friend started dating Monty and walked in on Monty being in love with Lena at a cabin in the woods where the couples agreed to go for a weekend getaway. Monty confessed that yes, any queer person with eyeballs and a functioning brain and heart would be helplessly in love with Lena Adams Foster, and so Stef’s best friend told that to her and also the thing about the kiss.

Last night, Stef had a breast cancer scare! She didn’t even tell Lena about it because she was mad at her and didn’t want to need her and wanted to keep something from her the way Lena kept the Monty thing from Stef — but the truth came out at a backyard party, like it always does. It was an imaging glitch. Stef is okay. But the fact of the scare sent Lena barreling into Stef’s arms, shivering and terrified. They forgave each other. They danced. They pressed their faces together and loved each other in their kitchen, while all their kids (including new Jesus) did their drama around them.

In other stories, Jude continued to prove he is ten times the man Brandon will ever be because he exercised self control and did the best thing for the person he loves, even though he broke his own heart in the process. After Connor’s dad caught them making out and flipped out, Connor decided he wanted to go live with his mom in Los Angeles, and Jude gave him his blessing on account of THEY’RE IN REAL LOVE. They said so out loud with their mouths.

Plus also, you’re not even going to believe what I’m about to tell you: Callie finally got adopted! #OfficiallyAFoster

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

Chasing Life has blown me away with the way it has embraced Brenna’s bisexuality. When she made out with Greer last season, I thought it was just the ABC Family way, and while I was happy being pandered to, as I always am, I didn’t think it would amount to much. Well, ha ha ha! Joke’s on me! Brenna and Greer fell in love and enjoyed a real, organic relationship with each other before Greer moved away. During the Christmas episode, Brenna came out as bi, actually said the word “bisexual” out loud on TV, and made absolutely no apologies for it. She has been into guys on screen and she has been into girls on screen.

Last night, Brenna joined the queer kids at her new school in their Lesbian & Gay Support Group, and it was not what she expected at all. There’s a gay male couple, an asexual teen, a lesbian of color, and all of that seemed fantastic. Like Fosters fantastic. But then everyone started clowning on her for being bisexual.

Mariah: Wait, you’re bi?
Brenna: [Nods]
Gay guy: Yeah, I did that too, but I see it now. That’s sexy.
Mariah: You know, I could never date a bi girl. You’ve got to be pretty secure yourself to be with someone who’s attracted to the entire population.
Brenna: Oh my god, Mariah, it’s not like I’m into everyone I walk by.
Gay guy: Oh, babe, you don’t get it. The bisexual thing is so tricky because if you can change your mind every day about who you’re attracted to, it makes it sound like being gay is a choice.
Other gay guy: So is your guy type really feminine, or…?
Brenna: Okay, I’m not changing my mind. I’m just attracted to the person for who they are; not their gender.
Mariah: That’s exactly what my ex said before leaving me for a dude.
Gay guy: My theory is that bi guys are always actually gay and bi girls are always actually straight.
Brenna: I’m not straight! I mean, the last two people I dated were girls, so.
Mariah: Maybe you’re just gay.

What’s excellent about this is that Brenna is the sympathetic character here (and always), and is so beloved by fans of the show, so these people throwing all this trite bigoted bullshit at her are presented as jerks. None of these stereotypes are played for laughs. It looks like Brenna is going to abandon the group altogether, and who could blame her? But she goes back and trades shade-for-shade, defending bisexuality in a way that’s never been done on ABC Family and has only very, very rarely been done on TV in general.

Gay guy: I didn’t think you were coming back.
Brenna: I didn’t either, but I changed my mind! Just like I change my mind every day about who I’m attracted to! Hey, Mariah, I was wondering: What made you a lesbian?
Mariah: I was born this way.
Brenna: So when you’re with a girl, who’s the boy in the relationship?
Mariah: No one. There is no boy.
Brenna: [To the gay guys] But Andrew’s the girl between the two of you, right?
Andrew: No! There’s not a heteronormative dynamic in all relationships.
Brenna: Oh, there’s not? That’s just a stereotype?

They get it. And they’re sorry. Brenna is right now and always.

Legit bisexual representation on a teenage TV show? What a time to be alive!

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Scream

Tuesdays on MTV at 10:00 p.m.

Welp, Audrey got one step closer to getting Emma to be in a Big Gay Relationship with her her due to the competition being eliminated. Emma’s boyfriend, Will, got chopped in literal half after Emma found him in a field attached to a saw and went running for him and tripped a wire and watched as he was sawed in actual half. Emma herself was almost killed to death when she was investigating an abandoned bowling alley with her friends earlier in the episode, but she survived to accidentally maul her boyfriend. Audrey’s alibi? She was taking a makeup test the whole entire time.

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Complications

Thursdays on USA at 9:00 p.m.

Complications exceeded my expectations so much, y’all. I know it’s because White Collar promised that CIA Junior Agent Diana Barrigan would be who Gretchen actually is and didn’t deliver, and so the bar was pretty low, but still! A lesbian character of color is the main hero of the show because of her hard-assness but also her compassion? Check. Her queerness is an important part of who she is, but it’s not the main thing about her? Check. She makes it out alive despite the fact that everyone is getting shot all the time? Check. She actually threw herself on top of a guy this week to keep the a bad cop from shooting him and lived to tell the tale! I can’t explain the finale to you if you didn’t watch the show. Gretchen won, is all you really need to know.

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Rookie Blue

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

Gail busted a dirty cop named Santana on this week’s Rookie Blue. It was pretty boring police procedural stuff. I wish she’d been making out with Santana Lopez instead. Just kidding! Those two would kill each other!

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Defiance

Fridays on Syfy at 8:00 p.m.

Sigh. This season of Defiance continues to disappoint me. It’s not offensive. I mean, it’s not offensive in terms of queer content. It’s offensive to me, personally, because it’s boring. This week, Doc Yewll helped Kindzi round up all the dudes in town and stick them in cages to prepare for the coming Omec invasion. This included Yewll’s BFF, Datak Tarr, who, along with Stahma, have been wholly underused this summer, which is a large part of the reason this season kinda sucks. Also, Yewll helped Kindzi literally eat her dad to death. It wasn’t as gross as Will getting chopped in half on Scream, but it was disgusting.

On the upside, Berlin returned from her brief hiatus in 90210, and thank the gods because I was starting to believe she and Irisa weren’t in real true forever love. Now I remember that they totally are.

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Hannibal

Saturdays on NBC at 10:00 p.m.

It looks like Alana has finally pushed Hannibal to the point of murdering her (but only because he pushed her first!). She threatened to take away all his nice shit if he didn’t cooperate with her and the police, and this week she discovered that he’d been having long, leisurely phone conversations with a serial killer called the Red Dragon. She told him he was going to help them catch this fucker, or else. He chose: or else! And so Alana removed all his nice things like his smoking jacket and books and record player and also apparently his toilet. And then had him wrapped up to look like the movie. Good night, sweet princess!

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I Am Cait

Sundays on E! at 8:00 p.m.

This week on I Am Cait, I was exposed to the fullness of the Kardashians for the first time. (This is the only Kardashian show I’ve ever watched.) It was kind of jarring.

Kim Kardashian shows up to talk to Caitlyn about how everyone in the family is pissed off at her for some things she said in her Vanity Fair interview, most notably Kris Jenner because of how Caitlyn said if Kris had been more supportive they’d still be together. Also Khloe is upset, I think, because Caitlyn said something disparaging about her husband? I don’t know the family tree; it was hard for me to follow. Kim’s suggestion for making up with Kris was to tweet an apology. Khloe’s suggestion for Caitlyn feeling less isolated from her family — because, as Caitlyn repeatedly says, none of her children have come to visit her since she came out and began her transition — was group texting.

I’ll tell you what really got to me, though: Number one) Kim dropped Caitlyn’s birth name like NBD, all, “You still have some of [birth name] in you; I thought Caitlyn would be a little nicer.” And when Caitlyn went to visit Chloe, she talked about all the stuff she’s learning.

Caitlyn: So much of it is so scary. Homelessness, people on the street—
Khloe: Aw, that’s not good.

Aw, that’s not good?! It’s a tiny bit more than “not good,” Khloe Kardashian.

And then Khloe just wanted to talk about herself.

I’m not cut out for actual reality TV. I liked the parts of the episode where Caitlyn had dinner with Jen Richards, Kate Bornstein, and Candis Cayne and talked about how more mainstream portions of the queer community often prioritize the political and social needs of the trans community way way way behind the needs of rich white gay guys. It’s an important conversation and particularly interesting as we consider how much trans erasure we’re seeing in the new Stonewall movie.

---

Team TV coverage you may have missed

+ Pretty Little Liars Episode 610 Recap: I Feel A Lot Safer When I’m In Charge Of What Happens to Me
We finally learn who A is.

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Everybody is still lying, just about different stuff. (Also: SPOILER ALERT)

+ Orange is The New Black Episode 310 Recap: There Is A Monster At The End Of This Book
In which things start falling apart.

---

I know I promised to fold Carmilla into this column, and I will start that next week!

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Are Stef And Lena Going to Be Okay On “The Fosters”?

This time tomorrow, we will finally know who A is on Pretty Little Liars and I can hardly concentrate on anything else. Here are some other queer things that are happening on TV, though!

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The Fosters

Mondays on ABC Family at 8:00 p.m.

Stef and Lena are scaring me, y’all. They’re supposed to be the steady sun around which all these dramatic little teenage planets orbit, but they are falling apart! Stef can’t go to therapy until Callie gets adopted, and the chances of that happening are about as likely as me getting a pet Hippogriff. This week, after Stef shelved therapy, Lena made the HORRIFIC mistake of talking to Monty about how unhappy she is in her marriage. You do not talk to the woman who kissed you because she’s in love with you about the problems in your marriage! You do not do that, not now or ever! And when Lena went home to try to tell Stef her worries, Stef was busy accidentally flirting with the new lesbian plumber and watching and rewatching the surveillance footage from Jesus and Mariana’s car accident. Lena wanted to process, but Stef squeezed her shoulder and told her everything is okay.

It is not okay. :(

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

Remember how I told you Brenna met a boy named Finn at her new school, and he has cancer, and she doesn’t know it but he’s totally going to be getting saved from her anonymous bone marrow and they’re going to fall in love? That’s still happening, but in the meantime, Ford and Brenna kissed right on the lips. They did it because they were hanging out with Finn and he can’t kiss either of them because he can’t risk getting their germs on him, so they kissed each other instead. Ford says she’s not into women sexualizing themselves for the male gaze, but you know she’s always wondered what it would be like to smooch on Brenna. And now she knows!

---

Clipped

Tuesdays on TBS at 10:00 p.m.

Only two episodes left and still no queer storylines for Charmaine. #Dang

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Scream

Tuesdays on MTV at 10:00 p.m.

Audrey was called in for questioning by the police on this week’s Scream. They’re working with a theory that she and Rachel killed Nina and Tyler because they’re the worst (Nina and Tyler, not Audrey and Rachel), and then Audrey killed Rachel (after making out with her face on camera) to make sure she didn’t dime Audrey out. One small problem is that there’s this video of Audrey raging out and threatening to murder Nina and chop her into tiny pieces and feed her to some ducks or something. So Audrey calls her pre-girlfriend, Emma, and asks her to please break into her house and find the SD card from the night Nina died and smash it with a hammer.

Emma does this. Well, she breaks into the house. She does not smash the SD card. She watches it and then thinks about how it’s terrifying that A hasn’t called her since Audrey’s been in jail. But then she realizes she loves Emma like lesbians do and there’s no way all this evidence means anything this early in the season, so she gives Audrey and alibi and a hug and promises her everything’s going to be okay — until they probably also die.

---

Complications

Thursdays on USA at 9:00 p.m.

There’s only one more episode of Complications left before the season finale, and Gretchen has firmly taken root as my favorite new lesbian TV character of the summer. This week, her sister — Ingrid, the one from rehab — gets kicked out of rehab because she let a recovering buddy crash on her couch. Gretchen can’t be mad about it because Jed is strung out on her couch while she’s on the phone with her sister. Ingrid comes on over and agrees to take care of Jed and not take any of the pills Gretchen leaves behind, and she follows through on her promise. Sister stories. I love sister stories.

In her work life, Gretchen accompanies John to prison to talk to the gang leader who’s been keeping his thumb on John all season. On the way there, Gretchen opens up to John a little and explains that she grew up in the rougher part of town with some shitty foster parents, so that’s how come she knows you have to work outside the system sometimes to be a real hero, and also why she can’t stop saving everyone and everything.

---

Rookie Blue

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

Not much Gail to report on this week’s Rookie Blue, just normal police procedural stuff and no lesbianing.

---

Defiance

Fridays on Syfy at 8:00 p.m.

Blarg, the queerness on this show has almost disappeared completely, and without it, Defiance just isn’t worth it anymore. Queerness was so woven into the fabric of the town in the first season it felt revolutionary watching it. Now it’s just another low budget sci-fi first-person shooter tie-in. Brainwashed Doc Yewll helped Kindzi beat up her dad and begin her own personal mission for global domination this week. It should have been awesome. It was just whatever.

---

I Am Cait

Sundays on E! at 8:00 p.m.

This show continues to blow my mind in the best way. This week’s episode picks up where last week’s left off, with Caitlyn talking to a group of trans women at the San Francisco Human Rights Campaign’s office. She is shocked and visibly shaken to hear stories about so much violence and discrimination perpetrated against these women. In an overwhelmed monologue, she cries and says she had no idea how much privilege she enjoyed. She also asked a producer to please help her get on Ellen to give a scholarship to one of the trans women she met, Blossom, who cannot get into nursing school because she’s trans.

She goes skating with her new friends and motorcycle-riding, where Candis Cayne teaches everyone the perfect hair flip. Over dinner, the women talk about who they’re attracted to. Caitlyn says she’s never been with a man, but is interested in it. She says she has bigger problems to worry about right now than an orgasm. Just a gentle reminder on E! that gender identity and sexuality are two separate things, NBD.

Last week, Jenny asked her if she’d gone swimming in her own bathing suit yet, and she said no. So this week, she decides to join her friends in the pool. She says she’s as nervous as she can be, but ultimately finds it very freeing.

Are you watching this yet? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

---

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It’s Gal Pal Week on Autostraddle.com! Let’s kick it off by counting down television friendships we adore!

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Alice Pieszecki Arrives On “Chasing Life,” Alana Enjoys A Finger Wagging On “Hannibal”

If you spend most of your life with your eyeballs glued to GayBC Family like I do, you probably feel like summer is coming to a close. Why, this very night the Pretty Little Liars are going to prom! They’re going to graduate! And next week, the Big A Reveal. (No, for real this time.) (FOR REAL.) As ABC Family winds down, though, some summer TV shows are just gearing up!

Here’s the full trailer for Faking It‘s second season, which returns on August 31. Paige McCullers is definitely naked in this trailer, so.

Here’s the full trailer for the second season of Survivor’s Remorse. It’s back in all it’s M-Chuck glory on August 22nd.

https://youtu.be/KdL_1m5uzuA

This week’s queer TV roundup is a little more brief (and late) than usual. There was no new episode of The Fosters, and I’m working on a kitten-saving project that took up my whole weekend. We’ll be back to normal next Monday.

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

At long last, Alice Pieszecki arrived on Chasing Life, as Brenna’s new girlfriend’s ex-girlfriend. “Wait,” I hear you saying, “a high school senior is dating someone old enough to date Alice Pieszecki?” Ah, yes. And that is the rub. See, Margo is Brenna’s fresh-from-college film club sponsor, but now that Brenna has changed schools, they’re in the clear to see each other romantically. Brenna is a mature 17, and she’s feeling it — until she meets Alice Pieszecki, who crashes her date with Margo, wine in hand, even though Margo told Brenna she’s an alcoholic. So Margo has to abandon their date to take Alice Pieszecki home.

On their next date, Brenna discovers that Margo took Alice Pieszecki home to her home, because they still live together and share a dog. Brenna’s probably too young to have ever even seen The L Word, if we’re being honest, and this amount of drama is both surprising and unnerving to her, so she bounces up out of there without even looking back over her shoulder.

At her new school, she meets a guy with cancer. I’ll bet six hundred million dollars he is the person she anonymously gave her bone marrow to and they’re gonna fall in love like John Greene wrote it.

---

Clipped

Tuesdays on TBS at 10:00 p.m.

Coach Beiste arrived on Clipped this week, playing Mo’s mom, Dottie. (Get it? ‘Cause her name is Dot Marie Jones, IRL.) (Dot Marie Jones is an angel, by the way.) Anyway, so Dottie seems like a stereotypical lesbian and Mo’s dad seems like stereotypical gay man, and they’re getting divorced, but then they don’t because they’re actually straight, and Charmaine still hasn’t done any queer thing.

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Scream

Tuesdays on MTV at 10:00 p.m.

Audrey consoles her future girlfriend, Emma, this week as she dealt with the fallout from her own sex tape getting leaked onto the internet. Will spends the episode trying to convince Emma he didn’t film their first time together, and also he spends the episode getting his ass beaten down. In gym class, it’s self-defense day, and Audrey pins him to the ground before the instructor even says go. Emma and Audrey get even more gal pal-y at a memorial service for Nina, Tyler, and Riley — which means they’re totally going to fall in love, and then it’s going to come to light that Audrey’s the one who released Emma’s sex tape! Or one of them is going to die! Or they’re both going to die! Or one of them is the killer!

Don’t get your heart involved, is what I am saying.

---

Complications

Thursdays on USA at 9:00 p.m.

Gretchen is my summer hero, y’all. No one else is going to be able to come close. This week, she saved Jed’s life by forcing him to get sober and by taking him to the hospital for vigilante treatment during one of his benders when he fell right on his face and busted it up. Gretchen also saved John’s life by smashing his car window and pulling his gun from his doctor bag(!) and getting into a high noon showdown with the gang members who were beating the shit out of him to keep him from explaining the plot of this show to anyone in authority.

The ratings are pretty solid. They’ve held strong this summer. USA will probably cast its renewal net around it really soon.

---

Rookie Blue

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

I only started watching Rookie Blue for Gail and Holly’s storyline last season, but I have fallen in forever love with Gail Peck. She’s trying to adopt Sophie, as you know, so this week she meets with the family services person who is evaluating her. She decides to help out with a community softball game to show the social worker how good she is with kids, but it kind of backfires because she turns out to be super awkward with the kids — until there’s a drive-by shooting and she flips the switch to hero mode and saves some lives! At the end of the day, she gets to hang out with Sophie for a little while. Sophie who knows and loves her for the true hero she is. I prefer puppies to children (and dogs to adult humans), but Sophie is wonderful. I hope we get to keep her.

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Defiance

Fridays on Syfy at 8:00 p.m.

Doc Yewll died on Defiance this week! Ripped to shreds! But actually it was only a clone of Doc Yewll! Kindzi is making clones of her and hunting them for sport. Weirdly, when Yewll finds out, it kind of turns her on? I mean, her wife also was a hardcore Slytherin, so at least her type is consistent, but YIKES. T’evgin finds Kindzi in her evil lair and yells at her about blah blah whatever I’m The King And We’re Good Aliens Now, but before he does that, Kindzi manages to stick some kind of mind-controlling device into Yewll’s head, so that’s going to end in a bloodbath for sure.

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Hannibal

Saturdays on NBC at 10:00 p.m.

Remember last week when I told you that Hannibal time-jumped three years? Well, it turns out Margot and Alana have been together the whole time, and they have a baby! Alana carried the baby — due to Margot’s ovaries being cut out by her brother last season, I think, before she fed him to the eels who lived in his floor — and it’s from Margot’s brother’s sperm. Now, they have an air to their pig farm! (I think.)

So Alana is working at the psychiatric facility where Hannibal is being held because she says there’s only five keys separating Hannibal from the outside world, and she’s got all of them in her pocket. She tells Hannibal this while also threatening to take away all his nice things if he doesn’t stop being a jerk to his boyfriend, Will.

“Did you come to wag your finger at me?” is what he says.

“I love a good finger-wagging,” is what she says.

“Yes, you do.” he says, “How is Margot?”

That’s the story as told to me by Stacy and also by Stef. #FingerWagging

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I Am Cait

Sundays on E! at 8:00 p.m.

I expected the second episode of I Am Cait to be much more Kardashian-y than first one, just sort of lighthearted and focused on fashion and living life in Malibu, so I was shocked when it dove right into the dissonance caused by someone as privileged as Caitlyn Jenner being thrust into the spotlight by much of the mainstream media as the face and voice of the trans movement. In an op-ed in People this week, Caitlyn said: “To those of you who have asked me for my opinion or expertise, I want to remind you that while I’ve know that I was trans since I was a small child, learning about the trans community is still very new to me, and I don’t have all the answers.”

And that’s the theme of the second episode of the show. Jenner takes a luxury RV ride up to the San Francisco Human Rights Campaign’s office with a group of trans women, including GLAAD’s Jenny Boylan, and it only takes a few minutes of discussion before Jenner’s conservative politics and privilege enter the conversation and highlight how living in a rich, white bubble has colored her view of the tough reality so many trans people face. Like so many Conservatives, Jenner has bought into the lie that people only need welfare if they’re not willing to work. That’s categorically untrue, and a belief that is hugely damaging because trans people suffer a disproportionate amount of unemployment and homelessness.

This exchange was the crux of the conversation.

Caitlyn: A lot of times, they can make more not working with social programs than they actually can with an entry-level job.
Jenny: I’d say the great majority of people who are getting help are getting help because they need help.
Caitlyn: But you don’t want people to get totally dependent on it. That’s when they get into trouble. ‘Why should I work? You know, I’ve got a few bucks, I’ve got my room paid for.

Another reality show would have cut away to commercial with some dramatic music, but E! actually cut to a confessional with Jenny Boylan, who said:

“Now I’m worried. Caitlyn has every right to be just as conservative as she chooses, but many transgender men and women need social programs to survive and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Living in the bubble is an impediment to understanding other people. If Cait’s going to be a spokesperson for our community, this is something she’s going to have to understand.”

I really appreciate the lengths the show is going to to highlight how Caitlyn’s life is a big exception to the experiences of most trans people. I also appreciate how far it’s going to show members of the trans community lovingly but firmly helping Caitlyn examine the huge gulf between her politics/lived experiences and the needs of the trans community/goals of trans community activists.

In another confessional, one of the trans women Caitlyn is meeting with says:

“Cait thinks that because she read a couple of pages in [Janet Mock’s] book that she’s in the know, but she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t realize how common sex work stories are. She could never understand how it would feel to walk in those shoes. If she’s going to be our representative, Cait needs to learn the struggle we all face.”

By showing Caitlyn’s missteps and allowing trans folks to correct them, E! is also correcting a lot of common misconceptions held by their audience, most of whom probably wouldn’t have taken the time to educate themselves about the needs and struggles of the trans community otherwise. It’s pretty surprising to me that they’ve taken this route, but I’m glad.

---

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Starting next week, I’ll be covering Carmilla in this column, and thanks to your input last week, I’ll add Steven Universe to the line-up!

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Welcome To The Queerest Week In TV History

Last week was a revolutionary week for queer women on TV! We saw more queer women in a seven-day span than any other week in television history, including The L Word‘s run on Showtime — and all of the women were on broadcast networks and basic cable. Caitlyn Jenner‘s new docu-series, I Am Cait, premiered last night to stellar ratings and became the number one trending topic on Twitter within just a few minutes its start time. I Am Jazz landed on TLC with really good feedback from the internet. Janet Mock tag-teamed with Melissa Harris-Perry yesterday to center the discussion of I Am Cait around the epidemic of violence against trans women of color. And the co-executive producer of Steven Universe confirmed what Mey’s been telling you all along.

@xavfucker by human standards & terminology that would be a fair assessment!

— ianjq (@ianjq) July 20, 2015

What a time to be alive! Let’s talk out the week in queer television.

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The Fosters

Mondays on ABC Family at 8:00 p.m.

The Fosters got back to what it does best last week: Making Stef and Lena the unshakable sun that all the hyper-dramatic little teenage planets in their house orbit around.

It starts with the revelation that Mariana is going to be Ana’s baby’s godmother. Everyone’s pretty psyched about that — until they realize Mariana is also going to be baptized in the Catholic church. Stef has a long, troubled history with the church because of how her dad’s religious-based homophobia kept him from even attending her and Lena’s wedding. So, about three nanoseconds after Mariana says the thing about the baptism, Stef straight up tells her no. Absolutely not. Not even a little bit.

Mariana asks them what they believe, God-wise, and they say they believe in a higher power that exists in all things and coaxes us toward enlightenment and love and doing good. And then they march on over to the Gutierrez’s bakery and ask them to please stop brainwashing their daughter with all this talk of hell. Grandpa Gutierrez says he’s not trying to scare her with hell or anything like that; he just wants to make sure she’s baptized so she doesn’t end up in endless purgatory, separated from God and her family after she’s dead. Which is different because one is like just a bedroom and the other is Bowser’s Castle, I think.

Stef and Lena decide to let Mariana go through with getting baptized — they even get her and her new goddaughter matching necklaces — but after Mariana talks to the priest, she decides she doesn’t want to do it after all. It’s because the priest says the church will accept her moms the way they accept all sinners. She’s not into that tolerance doublespeak; she’s into full acceptance.

When Ana reveals at the end of the episode that she doesn’t feel a connection with her new baby, the same way she didn’t feel connected to Mariana or Jesus, Grandpa and Grandma Gutierrez are super annoyed, but Lena’s like, “Um, hello, that is postpartum depression, judgey judgers! She needs therapy and meds!” (And, in fact, self-medicating is maybe why Ana became an addict in the first place.) After which conversation Lena realizes that she’s probably been suffering from the same thing ever since she lost her baby, and she just hasn’t known how to talk about it. Stef pulls her close and kisses her face and tells her she’s going to be with her though this thing and everything always, no matter what.

Also, Callie is maybe not getting adopted again.

And, after getting his former pianist exiled to the sea, another composer steals Brandon’s idea at music camp. He tries to drop some sick burns on the music thief, but it is the most embarrassing thing I have ever seen and I can’t even talk about it.

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

Brenna made her move on her new film club instructor, Margo, this week. It was her last day at her old school — she’s moving to a different district so April can get better treatment at a different place — and so she took a moment to lean on in and smooch her smoochies right on Margo’s smoocher. Unlike a Rosewood adult, Margo’s response was to launch herself backwards out of the situation and explain that even though she’s not Brenna’s authority figure, she’s definitely 22 while Brenna is only 17.

Brenna goes home and broods about it and thinks about returning an email from Greer, but has to do wedding hijinks and stuff with her sisters first. And then she has to break into the school to steal back the wedding invitations she left there. After some deep bonding with April and Natalie, which includes hearing their stories of chasing after older lifeguards and TAs, she decides she can weather the embarrassment of having made a move on Margo. She asks for her help finishing her film project before she leaves.

During which Margo kisses her!

Next week, Margo’s alcoholic ex-girlfriend comes to town and she is Leisha Hailey.

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Clipped

Tuesdays on TBS at 10:00 p.m.

CHARMAINE, WHERE IS YOUR QUEERNESS? WHEN WILL IT BE EXPLORED?

Besides this, I mean.

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Scream

Tuesdays on MTV at 10:00 p.m.

Noah’s having a really hard time with Riley getting killed, so Audrey tries to comfort him by visiting him in the video game store where he spends all his time and suggesting they tag-team for some vigilante justice. Code names: Bi-curious and the Virgin. This doesn’t cheer him up at all, so Emma decides to start crime-fighting with a new partner, her former best friend(/lover?), Emma, who has her dad’s old year book, which used to include a photo of Brandon James’s victims. (He’s the serial killer who murdered everyone before this show started.) Emma’s dad used to be one of the guys pictured, but now there’s just a scribble that says, “The truth lies where the mask was made.”

Apparently that place is in an abandoned hospital where Brandon James had all the surgeries for his disfigured face, and he used the mask to hide the sutures. So Audrey and Emma go crawling around in there, like it’s any old Radley basement. Inside, they find a whole lot of gross shit like this pig that is missing all the body parts the new killer is chopping off its victims. Also, they find dead Tyler’s literal head. And they find some encrypted files on a laptop, one of which Audrey and Noah accidentally upload to the internet. It’s definitely a video of Emma having sex.

Whoops!

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I Am Jazz

Wednesdays on TLC at 10:00 p.m.

Mey told you about this show back in March, and now it’s here. It’s a really lovely departure from TLC’s more titillating concepts, and it is edited with a lot more care and a lot less DUN-DUN-DUNs. Which is correct because Jazz Jennings is a marvel. She’s a YouTube star; she’s written a book; she’s been in an OWN documentary; she’s a celebrated activist; and now she’s got her own show!

The first episode focuses on Jazz’s apprehension about starting high school. Her parents are both really articulate about trans issues and the show doesn’t center on their experiences with having a trans daughter. The show is all about Jazz (as it should be). She talks through her worries with them (for example, whether or not to invite boys to a bowling night she’s having with her friends, because boys are often jerks to her). She even calms her mom, Jeanette, down when one high school dude tosses out a slur under his breath and Jeanette nearly flips over a table to get at him. I like Jeanette!

What’s really interesting about the show is that Jazz is a celebrity; there’s no doubt about it. She even does a book signing in which multiple trans adults tell her how much easier their lives would have been if a book like hers existed when they were growing up. And yet, she tells her mom at one point, “I’m very self-conscious.”

It’s this nuanced juxtaposition of Jazz as an accomplished trans activist/author/YouTube star and a regular teenage girl who is going through things all teenage girls go through that really makes this show stand out from the rest of TLC’s line-up.

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Complications

Thursdays on USA at 9:00 p.m.

Gretchen continues her trajectory of becoming my favorite vigilante on television. (Sorry, Bi-Curious and the Virgin.) This week, we learn how she got tied up with seedy Wes and his dodgy hospital manipulation schemes. She was a good nurse with a bad past and he knew that she needed money to adopt her sister, Ingrid, so he roped her into doing shit for him, and then once she had a couple of years of nursing under her scrubs, she realized sometimes she’s got to go outside the system if she’s really going to help people.

This week, it’s her friend Jed, who’s in jail. Wes pitches this idea to her: Steal some cancer drugs and he’ll pay her and she can pay Jed’s bail. It’s a win-win. She gets money and cancer patients who can’t afford healthcare get the drugs on the black market. Gretchen ropes John into helping her. Gretchen wants to steal the drugs from a pharmaceutical warehouse, but John talks her out of it. So she decides to wear a beanie and break into a pharmaceutical van instead.

When they deliver the drugs to Wes, John looks at some patient records and sees that the people aren’t getting better, and the reason why is that Wes is diluting the drugs, so John just sets the whole place on fire. (Sometimes you poke the bear; sometimes the bear pokes you.)

Gretchen has to tell Jed to skip town, but is happy to adopt his curmudgeonly cat while he’s on the lam, so don’t even worry about that.

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Rookie Blue

Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.

Gail has decided to adopt a little girl named Sophie whose mom died during one of Gail’s cases back in “Letting Go.” She’s applied for it and she wants it so badly, but she keeps thinking she’s not cut out to be a mom because she can be really misanthropic, as you know. But that’s crazy talk because Gail is a True Canadian Hero and one of the most full-hearted humans on this earth. And she keeps getting put in positions to hang around with kids and prove how great she is with them.

She’s also made a bucket list of things she wants to do before she becomes a mom. One of the things is to learn to dance. I hope another of the things is to make out with one of Canada’s other billion TV lesbians. Betty McRae, maybe?

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Defiance

Fridays on Syfy at 8:00 p.m.

Whoooooo boy. Okay. OKAY. Doc Yewll saved the town (again) on this week’s Defiance by convincing Amanda and Nolan to cut down Datak from his Castithan hanging and send him out to the enemy camp with a bomb sewn into his arm. You know, a suicide mission. One he could do and die with honor, by saving the town he claimed to love, instead of destroying it. But also, Doc Yewll knows Datak Tarr is way more savvy than that. By getting him cut down, she’s giving him a chance to save his life, even as she’s putting a ticking bomb inside his body. And she’s right, of course. (She’s always right.) Datak cuts off his own goddamn arm with a chargeblade and runs away and his arm blows up and the bad guys all KABOOM! and he’s free from his hanging, and all he’s missing is a single appendage. He even managed to get Stahma pardoned before he left.

Over/under on whether or not that Indogene-as-starfish thing comes into play again and Yewll gives him one of her own arms?

Over/under when Berlin comes to her senses and comes home?

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Hannibal

Saturdays on NBC at 10:00 p.m.

Stacy says Hannibal reminded Alana again this week that he’s going to murder her, while sketching her face onto Botticelli’s “Fortitude.” This after a three-year time jump during which time he was institutionalized and she took on the role of being his therapist. He cooks desserts in his cell and draws and reads the newspaper and whatever else he wants to do. He’s there because the court deemed him insane. He knows he’s not insane, though, and so does Alana. The other thing she has stacked against her is that she had lesbian sex this season and that increases your chances of being murdered by about 300 percent. JUST GET OUT OF THERE, GIRL. Go with Margot!

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I Am Cait

Sundays on E! at 8:00 p.m.

Reviews are in for I Am Cait, and they’re all pretty good! It was my first experience watching a Kardashian show, and I was really surprised by how chill everything was. At one point, Kanye walks up in there and Caitlyn’s sister is like, “Why don’t your shoes tie?” And he slips off one of them and explains about laceless Adidas, but she’s still pretty dubious about the whole thing.

Actually, though, it was Kanye who said the main thing everyone is talking about in the episode and so I will quote it for you: “I think it’s one of the strongest things that have happened in our existence as human beings, that are so controlled by perception. You couldn’t have been up against more. Your daughter’s a supermodel, you’re a celebrity. Every type of thing, and it was still like, ‘Fuck it everybody, this is who I am.'”

Here’s what I loved about the show: It started with Caitlyn waking up at 4:00 a.m. and doing a confessional-type thing with a camera in her bedroom saying over and over, “I hope I get this right. I hope I get this right.” And then she talks about how she knows she’s coming from a place of privilege because she’s insanely wealthy and white. The episode mostly focuses on her meeting her mom and two sisters for the first time presenting as Caitlyn. Her sisters are wonderful; they talk about how they thought she would maybe grow out of this — she mentioned it to one of them 30 years ago — but now they understand that’s not a thing that happens. Caitlyn was always a girl. Caitlyn’s mom struggles a little bit. She’s worried about a thing she heard from the Bible. She’s worried because when Caitlyn was only five years old, she could tell that she didn’t want to wear boys clothes, and she’s afraid she forced her into a life she didn’t want to lead. She’s worried because she feels like she’s lost a son she loved so much.

But the best part is at the end when she says, “I was so proud of Bruce when he stood on that podium receiving that gold medal in Montreal. I had tears and the American flag was going up in the middle and I thought that I could never be more proud of him. And you know, I was wrong. Because I am more proud of him for the courage that he has shown. I love him with all my heart and I certainly love her with all my heart.”

The show uses Caitlyn’s family as a stand-in for the audience, to introduce everyone to basic Trans 101. For example, “Pronouns are important.” But it’s not just Caitlyn doing the educating: Susan P. Landon from the Los Angeles Gender Center stops by to talk to Caitlyn’s parents/the audience. And then Caitlyn goes to visit the family of a transgender teenager who committed suicide when he was 14, despite the fact that his family fully supported him and so did most of his classmates. His new birth certificate with his real name came just a few days after he died.

Previews for future episodes look like they are going to be heavy on highlighting all kinds of trans experiences, as well as your normal Kardashian shenanigans.

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Team TV coverage you may have missed

+ Pretty Little Liars Episode 607 Recap: Happy Birthday, Motherf-cker!
“Sorry I was tripping balls at your birthday party and almost got everyone killed with a t-shirt cannon.”

Just a couple more doodads:

+ Someone emailed me to say there’s a queer storyline on Mistresses again this summer, but I’m not going to put in the time unless it proves itself to not be the same old sweeps-style baloney it did in the first season.

+ Like I mentioned in last week’s Pop Culture Fix, the lesbian character is back on BoJack Horseman this season, but I won’t recap that in this column since it’s a marathoning show.

+ I am still getting caught up on UnREAL; maybe next week it’ll finally make its appearance in this column.

+ And finally, do you want me to cover Steven Universe here, for the more queer episodes?

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Tell me your feelings, cucumber kittens, and I’ll tell you mine.

Boob(s On Your) Tube: ABC Family Gets Even Gayer, Hannibal’s Lesbian Sex Happens Inside a Kaleidoscope

Hello, cinnamon biscuits, and welcome back to Boob(s On Your) Tube, your weekly queer TV round-up! You’re in for a double-doozy today! I was flying back from our senior staff retreat in Big Bear last Monday and intended to get this column done on the six-hour flight from Los Angeles to New York, but the seats behind me, on both sides, were occupied by the worst behaved children in the universe. Actually, I don’t know. That’s not fair. New Horizons only just passed Pluto. Maybe there are worse children in the universe and we just don’t know about them yet. For accuracy’s sake, let’s just say these were the worst children from here to Charon. They screamed and screamed and cried and kicked everyone, including the flight attendants, while their parents watched Jet Blue TV.

But we’re here together now at last and so let’s do this thing. (I don’t have screencaps for you this week, but I’ll be back to full speed with them next week!)

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

201: “A View from the Ledge”

I am a firm believer that ABC Family shows succeed in direct proportion to the number of queer characters on them, so it was a smart move of Chasing Life to have Brenna come out as bi last season (even though the love of her life, Greer, had to move away to go to school). And the show is building on that momentum. In last week’s episode, they introduced a whole new queer lady! (And dude.)

First, though, in the season two premiere, Brenna has joined a film club to get her mind off of Greer and is writing/directing a movie about two teenage guys who fall in love, with Ford playing the accidental beard of one of them. Her guy friends are worried about people seeing them making out on-screen and thinking they’re gay, but she tells them to get the fuck over it because it’s 2015 and modern sexuality is fluid and also it’s going to look good on their college applications.

The new film club sponsor, a recent college grad named Margo, is impressed with Brenna’s style. They make eyes at each other.

202: “The Age of Consent”

So, Margo’s queer. Brenna and Ford find this out when they run into her at a solo-girl-with-guitar concert and she tells them she’s there with her dude buddy because they’re gay best friends. Brenna is quietly into it. Ford is super mega hardcore into it. In fact, she wants Brenna to go after Margo and make out with her face so it’ll be like Ford herself is making out with Margo’s face. (You’re going to have to make out with Greer’s face first, for that plan to make sense, Ford, just FYI.)

I’m going to tell you what’s going to make this whole thing even better: Leisha Hailey is coming to town, and she is going to play Margo’s “crazy ex.”

YOUR MOVE, PRETTY LITTLE LIARS.

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Complications

Thursdays on USA at 9:00 p.m.

105: “Outbreak”

Ugh, I am so in love with Gretchen, how did this happen? When I was binging these last two week’s episodes, I realized that Gretchen is kind of like if Marceline the Vampire Queen became a nurse in real life. Like she’s just so curmudgeonly and ready to beat people’s brains in if they cross her, like just in a nanosecond she’s ready for that, but also her heart is like a unicorn’s, so pure and heroic.

In “Outbreak,” she treats the shooter who started off the series of events that make this show a thing. She can tell the shooter is in serious pain, but the shooter won’t say so. Finally, the shooter confesses she needs to just get arrested and get to the police station so she can call and check in on her brother. Gretchen gets pulled away to do other things, and by the time she gets back, the shooter has coded. So Gretchen asks to do the paperwork so she can remove this girl’s bracelet. It’s a gift from her brother. Gretchen is going to find this little Elio and keep him safe.

106: “Diagnosis”

Obviously Gretchen doesn’t call the Department of Family and Children Services to report the Elio thing. She takes the bracelet and gets in her car and drives to what seems like a pretty dodgy part of town, only to find that Elio has been taken in by a neighbor. The neighbor is a creep. Like a pedo creep. Gretchen lies and says she needs to give Elio an exam. Once she sequesters him, she asks him what the heck is going on with the pedo neighbor and Elio confirms that his now-dead sister urged him to stay away from this fucker.

Again, Gretchen decides not to call for backup, but instead wallops this guy in the nuts and grabs Elio and makes a run for it. He chases her with a gun, and then a whole other guy with a gun shows up and Elio has to explain about the pedo-ness of his neighbor. The second guy shoots the pedo guy and promises to help Elio find his family. Gretchen allows this.

Next week, she’s going to save a cat!

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Defiance

Fridays on Syfy at 8:00 p.m.

306: “Where the Apples Fell”

I was so psyched after the first episode of Defiance this season because I thought the show was finally stitching together the elements of the post-apocolyptic space western theme that I like the most, namely: character development, character development, character development. What I love about Defiance is learning all the things that make these humans and aliens — with their different cultures and religions and planets of origin — come together and make the living, breathing organism of their town work. And Stahma Tarr’s “fuck the patriarchy” trajectory over two seasons was so satisfying I can hardly sit still when I talk about it.

This season, though, y’all? What the heck? It’s like some kind of Game of Thrones video game where the main thing is leveling up your avatar in the bloodiest way possible so they can join the fight against the Big Bad at the end of the game. I don’t like it very much. Stahma is spending the whole season at the mercy of every man, fucking that giant purple guy over and over, and getting to do exactly zero schemes. I don’t like that very much either.

“Where the Apples Fell” follows Stahma and Datak as they try to make an escape from Defiance after Alak returns and dimes out his parents for being Votanis Collective spies. Datak hits up Doc Yewll’s office for some help, because she’s the most competent person in town besides Stahama, and the only one besides her who gives as good as she gets with ol’ Datak Tarr. She agrees to help him escape — after chiding him for covering her mouth with his unwashed hands during flu season — but their plans are foiled by Nolan standing in the middle of the street giving some giant HURRAH speech or whatever Matthew Mcconaughey thing. Datak is arrested.

307: “The Beauty of Our Weapons”

Datak is sentenced to death for treason by the Defiance town council. The vote is unanimous; even Yewll casts her black marble for him to be executed. When she comes to examine him in his jail cell, to make sure he’s “fit to die,” she tells him she did it because she’s a pragmatist. He was going to hang anyway, and she’s got to keep living in this town after he’s dead. She squeezes his shoulder and tells him she’ll miss him, which is the most emotional thing she’s ever done, outside of hallucinating her ex-wife for half a season one time. Datak does get trapped in that Castithan torture machine, and everyone throws their rocks onto it while Amanda and Nolan watch.

He’s probably not dead, though, right? The episode ends before he gets stretched to death.

In other queer character news, Amanda once again invokes Kenya’s name in front of Stahma, and it sets Stahma’s blood on fire. They’re in a one-on-one face-off while the manhunt is on for her and Datak, and Stahma says she doesn’t want to have to kill Amanda, but that just makes the good mayor laugh and laugh and shout about, “Just like you didn’t want to kill my sister/your lesbian lover but you did it anyway!?!?” Stahma doesn’t murder Amanda, though. She says she’s going to leave her alive so she can wonder why.

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The Fosters

Mondays on ABC Family at 8:00 p.m.

305: “Going South”

Stef and Lena have finally decided to get some therapy, thanks to their plumber who tells Stef at the end of “Going South” that he’s pretty sure they’re headed for divorce. Sadly, going south isn’t about going south to Scissortown. It’s about Callie and Brandon making a day trip to Mexico to go hang gliding and also about Brandon’s ego going down when Callie verbally thraxes him for blaming every one of his stupid man tears on the women in his life. He agrees that she — and the entirety of the lesbian internet, who have been saying this to him for two years — is right.

But for Stef and Lena, the days starts out rough and gets rougher and rougher. They fight about Stef hiring a plumber without running it past Lena, they fight about how Stef gets a little slut-shamey with Mariana when she finds out she had sex with Wyatt and took a precautionary pregnancy test, they fight about what Brandon and Callie are doing in Mexico and how to solve that problem. Lena wants to go to a couples counselor, but Stef has a hard enough time communicating with her best friend/wife; adding a third person into the feelings roundtable makes her want to vomit. But she agrees to it, in the end, because if a random handyman in the house thinks it’s broken, maybe they could use a tune-up.

306: “It’s My Party”

Stef handles therapy exactly how you think she would. When the therapist tells her and Lena to make a list of all the things they love about each other, and all the things that drive them crazy, she keeps calling it The Hate List, and every time she does something she knows pisses off Lena, she’s like, “Put it on The Hate List!” (By the way, is that Monty/Lena kiss gonna come up in therapy? I need them to deal with that and get on with it; every week, it’s a heart attack for me, waiting for that information to come out!)

Jude throws Callie a big birthday bash and everyone who loves her comes to it, including Rosie; the ladies from Girls United; handsome Cole, who is over his broken prom heart; Robert, who buys her a car; Sophie, who inexplicably schemes with Brandon the whole time; and Wyatt, who yells at her about how he and Mariana had sex and deal with it dot gif.

Lena finally convinces Stef that her list of things she loves about Stef is a million miles long, and the things that annoy her, those things are rooted in Stef’s goodness and loyalty and mama bearness. They smooch and they jump in the bouncy castle.

They still need to keep going to therapy, though.

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Clipped

Tuesdays on TBS at 10:00 p.m.

Sigh. Charmaine’s queerness still isn’t being mentioned or explored. I’ll keep watching for you, though.

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Scream

Tuesdays on MTV at 10:00 p.m.

Wellllll, Audrey’s gal pal, Rachel, got murdered in the first two minutes of the second episode of Scream, slashing the queer population of MTV’s new horror drama in half. Audrey is really upset about the whole thing, obviously, in large part because A murdered Rachel by luring her out onto the balcony and slipping a noose around her neck, and then making it look like a suicide. Audrey doesn’t believe it. She doesn’t believe it so much that she wraps a belt around her throat at Rachel’s wake to see if it’s possible she really hanged herself from the ceiling fan.

On the upside, it looks like Audrey and Emma have a Big Lesbian Past, which is kind of like if Regina George and Janis Ian had a Big Lesbian Past, so I’m excited to see where that goes.

(Probably nowhere. Probably death.)

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Hannibal

Saturdays on NBC at 10:00 p.m.

306: “Dolce”

As you know, I cannot watch Hannibal, but the promised lesbian shenanigans did happen, and this is how Stacy told it to me via email when I was at Big Bear:

So Margot and Alana had a lot of business this week.

Margot and Alana discuss with Mason (Margot’s brother) how Hannibal disemboweled/hung Mason’s Italian hired-to-capture-Hannibal-so-Mason-can-eat-him detective, and Alana makes eyes at Margot while simultaneously schooling Mason on how his ego is going to fuck him over. If you’re wondering why Alana and Margot are somehow party to Mason’s scheme, for Margot it’s because she’s basically Mason’s prisoner and also probably because Hannibal used her for numerous psychological games last season. And for Alana, she got shoved out of a window, practically breaking all of her bones, and then was stuck lying on the ground while Hannibal stabbed and slashed all of her friends.

I won’t even tell you what Hannibal did to Mason to get him all riled up because you would literally never forgive me.

Later on, Margot has a scene with Mason where they acknowledge that he fucking straight-up cut out her uterus last season. His reasoning being that she weaponized it and shouldn’t have “waved it around like a loaded pistol.” He kind of said it like he was joking, but he wasn’t.

As a refresher, last season Margot slept with Will in an attempt to get pregnant because the only way she can inherit Verger family money and escape Mason and his abuse is through producing a male heir. Mason found out (thanks, Hannibal) and decided removing her uterus would be the most reasonable solution.

Okay, so Mason talks about how he wants a baby — specifically with her, his sister, and could she please figure something out? What a shame he cut out her uterus. They could be a family again. I guess he’s been getting into Game of Thrones.

And then Margot and Alana have sex inside of a kaleidoscope. (That’s a real thing. The director and editor put some crazy psychedelic effects throughout the scene. It’s like their skin and faces and limbs were merging and sometimes it looks like Margot is making out with herself??? It’s a very Hannibal sex scene.)

Afterwards, Alana helps Margot get dressed, which is kinda sensual and hot until Margot asks Alana if she knows anything about sperm farming.

I fear for Alana. It seems like her womb is on the market now. :/

At the end of the episode, it seems like Mason has captured Hannibal and Will — it’s a bit confusing because Hannibal was about to cut into Will’s skull but then suddenly they’re tied up in front of Mason? Who ever knows with this show.

307: “Digestivo”

This week I was home from Big Bear and so as soon as I woke up on Sunday, Stacy had watched the new episode and gently explained to me (#PillowTalk) how Margot discovered that Mason was incubating a baby he’d made with her eggs and his sperm inside of a pig?  And so Margot and Alana — who kept dressing each other sensually, by the way, implied post-coitally — cut the dead fetus out of the pig? And then they used a cattle prod to harvest Mason’s sperm? And then they fed him to an eel? Like an eel that lived inside his floor? I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. I think Mason doesn’t have a face, but Stacy says she can’t tell me why, and that’s for the best. It doesn’t matter anyway now because faceless Mason is dead.

It seems less and less likely that Hannibal is going to get picked up by a streaming platform now that NBC has pulled the plug. Apparently Margot isn’t in the rest of the season, so maybe she makes it out of this show alive, after all!

Update: Stef says Margot is maybe coming back for one more episode and that she wants to tell you why Mason doesn’t have a face, but I can’t listen to that second part, so.

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Team TV coverage you may have missed

Fan Fiction Friday: 10 Sapphic Superhero Stories to Save You
Renee Montoya and Kate Kane, Peggy Carter and Angie Martinelli, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy!

Orange Is The New Black Episode 308 Recap: Fear and Loathing in Panty Town
Ruby Rose, the results are in and you are NOT THE FATHER!

The 2015 Emmy Nominations Include More Queer and Black Women Than Ever!
It’s like the opposite of the Oscars.

Pretty Little Liars Episode 606 Recap: How You Get The Girl
Emily and Sara make out with their faces while the rest of the Liars are attacked by woodland creatures in the night.

Orange is The New Black Episode 307 Recap: Some Kind Of Fetish Fangirl
Strong brews for everybody!

Fan Fiction Friday: 10 Historical Femslash Stories Full of Cowgirls and Knights and Nuns and Scissoring
Santana and Btittany join the circus! Paige and Emily traverse the Wild West! Carmilla and Laura are princesses!

Orange Is the New Black Episode 306 Recap: All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter
Chang has a lot of secrets. The main one is she’s a total badass!

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P.S. I heard a lesbian character came out on UNreal, so I’ll try to catch up with that this week!

Boob(s On Your) Tube: 16 Summer TV Shows You Can Count On For Queer Characters

Hello, goji gummy berry bears! Welcome to Boob(s On Your Tube)! We’re in that weird two-week window between fall and summer TV where there’s hardly anything happening. I mean, my DVR managed to record 22 episodes of The Golden Girls in the last seven days, so something is happening, but not a lot of new somethings. So! This week, I’m going to run down the 16 TV shows that are coming at you this summer that definitely feature queer characters. There will probably be more. Old shows will add new queer characters. New shows will debut queer characters. (For new shows, my money is on Killjoys, a new Syfy show by the producers of Orphan Black and creator of Lost Girl; and Stitchers, a new ABC Family show that is probably gay because nearly all ABC Family shows are gay these days.) However, here are the shows I know we can count on.

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June

Pretty Little Liars

ABC Family, June 2

Super lesbian Emily Fields returns to continue her courtships with Alison DiLaurentis, Paige McCullers, probably a new handful of gorgeous queer women who fall out of the sky, and potentially an actual Liar. Masks will mask masks of faces on faces. Parrots will fly. Mona will transcend. And Hanna will continue to know what Hanna means. Can’t miss, must see, Rosewood forever.

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Hannibal

NBC, June 4

Margot Verner is a lesbian character on NBC’s brain-bending gorefest, Hannibal, a show my girlfriend calls “the most beautiful, psychologically damaging thing on network TV.” I have asked her multiple times about the fate of Margot Vener, but I keep checking out when she gets to the part where Margot’s brother cuts out her ovaries. She’s alive, though. That much I know for sure.

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The Fosters

ABC Family, June 8

In the season two finale, Lena kissed another woman! The other woman was Monty, the principle at Anchor Beach! But Lena didn’t have time to tell Stef because Jesus and Mariana and their birth mother (who was pregnant with a child Stef and Lena had agreed to adopt) got into a car accident that included one fatality! If that level of drama delights you, you’re gonna love season three, which promises a brand new foster kid and Lena not telling Stef about the aforementioned kiss.

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Becoming Us

ABC Family, June 8

Mey has watched the first two episodes of this show, and she’s not really feeling it. From her review:

I also said I hoped that, unlike Maura’s family in that show, the transgender parent in Becoming Us‘s family wouldn’t be filled with horrible people. While I wouldn’t go that far, after watching the first two episodes I was definitely expecting Carly’s family and the other people in the show to be much more supportive of her and to be better examples of how to act when you have a trans family member than they were. After all, why would you agree to star in a reality show unless you thought it was going to paint a good picture of you? Instead, I found myself crying halfway through the first episode — not because the show was touching my heart, but because I couldn’t believe how Carly was being talked about by her family.

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Orange Is the New Black

Netflix, June 12

This needs no introduction or explanation. Orange Is the New Black is everything. I know it, you know it, Netflix knows it. Now we just need it. Give it to us so we can binge it!

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Defiance

Syfy, June 12

Last season, Syfy’s post-apocalyptic alien/human western revealed that Doc Yewll is a lesbian who sometimes has visions of her dead Indogene wife. Also, of course, there’s Stahma Tarr and Kenya Rosewater’s love affair that did not die when Stahma shot Kenya in the face. Sure, Kenya is dead now, but only kind of, because Kenya is also alive as a clone. She’ll be back in season three, and it’s one of the things I am most looking forward to this whole summer.

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Chasing Life

ABC Family, June 17

Brenna came out as bisexual during season one, a thing her grandmother loved and celebrated every time she had the chance. Brenna’s girlfriend, Greer, had to skip town to go live with her dad in like Rhode Island at the end of the season, but everyone’s fingers are crossed that she will return for some more live-in lady-love.

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The Last Ship

TNT, June 21

Lt. Alisha Granderson is the only lesbian lady surviving on the last ship, but she does have a girlfriend back home. Granderson didn’t have enough to do last season, but I’m hoping the writers explore her backstory and place on the ship a little more this summer. Christina Elmore, who plays Granderson, is a marvel.

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Rookie Blue

ABC, June 25

Rookie Blue kicks off its sixth season here in the States this summer. The Canadian drama kicked off its new season in its home country on May 19th. The show’s creatives have talked very candidly about being blown away by the online response to Gail and Holly’s relationship. On the upside, Gail is not going back to men. On the downside, there’s no firm word on how Holly will factor into the coming season.

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Under the Dome

CBS, June 25

Last year, lesbian mama Carolyn Hill spent too much time in captivity and not enough time on-screen. The show is headed to Thursdays this summer, hoping to capitalize on Big Brother viewers. CSI fan favorite Marg Helgenberger is also joining the cast for an extensive arc. Carolyn remains one of the only black lesbian TV characters on broadcast network TV, so I’m rooting really hard for more for her to do this season.

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Scream

MTV, June 30

Bex Taylor-Klaus, who you remember from The Killing and Arrow, has joined the cast as a “bi-curious” character. In the realm of horror films, that means she’ll face an imminent and horrific death. Let’s see how that trope translates to the small screen.

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July

Ray Donovan

Showtime, July 12

Kate Moennig as Lena never has enough to do on this show, but also, it’s Kate Moennig, so every minute on-screen counts as ten minutes on-screen.

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Masters of Sex

Showtime, July 12

Betty was upgraded to a series regular in season two, but weirdly, it didn’t translate into much more screen time. Mainstream and queer critics alike thought it was a dumb move to relegate her to the shadows. She did, however, ditch The Pretzel King, so her storyline is wide open for sapphic shenanigans this summer.

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Hollywood Game Night

NBC, July 17

Jane Lynch doing her best Jane Lynch once a week with other celebrities!

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August

Survivor’s Remorse

Starz, August 22

One of the biggest and best TV surprises last year was M-Chuck, the lesbian character on Starz’s original series about a basketball player who makes it from poverty to the NBA and brings his family along with him. She’s smart about life and smart about business and completely unapologetic about being an openly gay lady. She’s also her family’s rock. I am very excited to see where Survivor’s Remorse takes her this season. (Riese also just watched this show and loved it!)

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Faking It

MTV, August 31

Amy’s in love with Reagen, or Karma, or herself, or all three. Who even knows at this point. Definitely season three will be a lot of girls kissing and fandom losing its mind and Riese writing brilliant recaps. Those are things you can count on.

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I’ve also made you a downloadable PDF calendar with each of these premiere dates! I’ll updated it as more information becomes available!

What shows are you most looking forward to this summer?

Boob(s On Your) Tube: One Big Happy’s Second Episode is Better, Bold and the Beautiful’s Trans Storyline Is Not

Hey there, kittens with mittens! Welcome back to Boob(s On Your) Tube, your one-stop shop for all the queer lady happenings on TV. I’ve got lots of goodies for you this week, so let’s get to it.

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One Big Happy

Tuesdays on NBC at 9:30 p.m.

One Big Happy made me laugh so much this week! Maybe I was more used to the aesthetic and the laugh track? That’s probably a big part of it. But also, there were some jokes that made me laugh out loud because they resonated with me as a lesbian person, and some jokes that made me laugh out loud because they were just really funny. And, best of all, the story took the focus off of Prudence and Lizzy fighting about Nick and gave them each other own stories.

Prudence encourages Lizzy to meet-up with her ex-girlfriend to give her back her stuff, but Nick thinks that is a terrible idea because Lizzy’s ex was toxic and Lizzy could never say no to her and she spent three years trying to get over her. (“Lesbians move in fast, but they break up reaaallly slow,” he explains to Pru.) Lizzy takes Pru’s advice but ends up sleeping with/falling for her awful ex all over again. But after being stood up, Lizzy’s friends and family stage an intervention. Lizzy kisses her ex on screen and Pru on screen, so that takes care of my worry that NBC was only okay with opposite sex affection on the show.

And the relationship between Nick and Lizzy was very sweet this week. I understood why they love each other so much and what they mean to each other.

I’m all in for all six ordered episodes now. (The ratings were down four-tenths of a point over the pilot, which probably has more to do with The Voice‘s ratings dropping slightly than anything else.)

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

Poor old Kalinda continues to be underused/misused in her last few episodes of The Good Wife. Her storyline doesn’t tie into anything happening in the show’s larger narrative, Lana is nowhere to be seen, and honestly, Archie Panjabi seems bored out of her mind. Remember when a woman of color became the best bisexual character on television? Sigh times infinity.

This week, Kalinda spends half her time denying that she had sex with Howard Lyman, and half her time being the deus ex machina in the Wharfmaster case. And she isn’t even really in character the whole episode. She’s flipping furious and indignant about the Howard Lyman accusations. She would have been so calculating and unshaken by that same thing even just a year ago. The real Kalinda Sharma doesn’t care what people think!

Ah, well, at least she got to kiss Gillian Anderson on The Fall.

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The Walking Dead

Sundays on AMC at 9:00 p.m.

Good news, everyone! Tara has survived another season of The Walking Dead. According to my sources*, she awoke from a coma during last night’s season finale, which means even more stock photos of dogs and cats dressed as zombies** for you!

*my girlfriend
**or at least until Shutterstock figures out what a zombie is

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

On the season finale of Chasing Life, Brenna could have really used a Greer to cuddle with. Sadly, her girlfriend is still off in Nantucket and she has to deal with her sister’s cancer relapse alone. On the upside, it looks like she’s going to be a bone marrow transplant match for someone else with cancer. (On the downside, it’s probably going to be a dude and she’ll fall in love with him because gosh dang John Green and the dang cancer love story syndrome he caused.) (Or was that really Nicolas Sparks? I can never really tell.) Anyway, Brenna and April celebrate her birthday early and Brenna agrees to video the world outside of the hospital so April doesn’t forget what she’s fighting for. It’s very sad. Not as sad as if Greer is gone for good, though.

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Hart of Dixie

Fridays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

Hart of Dixie aired its probable last episode ever on Friday night, and while screen time for Crickett and Jaysene was as limited as it has been all season (and the force field that keeps them from ever touching remained firmly in tact), I am happy to report that they did announce their plans to move in with each other.

I didn’t even watch Hart of Dixie until Crickett came out because I grew up in the actual heart of Dixie, and now I wish I’d spent all the hours I invested catching up on the first three seasons of this show catching up on Person of Interest. (See below!) These writers could have done so much with Crickett coming out as a lesbian in a group of tenth generation southern belles, but it only did the bare minimum. It wasn’t offensive, but it wasn’t engaging either. It was crumbs. At least Crickett didn’t die at the hands of a Baptist homophobe, I guess.

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Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Sam and Laura go on a “big, gay, pink” carriage ride around Central Park on the most recent episode of their Bravo reality show. “It’s important to me to keep the romance alive in our marriage,” Laura says. “If we’re going to freeze, we’re going to do it together.” I can attest to the reality part of this episode because I walked right by them the day they were filming this carriage ride and it was cold as nards. Buuuut it’s not all ponies and hot chocolate for the lesbian newlyweds. Laura trying to get her freelance writing career going, but she’s running up too much of a tally on their shared credit cards while she’s trying to make some money, and that doesn’t make Sam very happy at all. This week, they’re finally going on a honeymoon!

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Black Sails

On Demand on Starz Literally Always

Well, so! I was very skeptical about Black Sails because my friend who recaps it, Valerie, can handle watching any kind of blood and guts get spilled and revels in shows about stalkers (at the cost of constantly thinking she’s getting murdered, but that is what floats her beautiful boat). But I am very glad I decided to get caught up on it because it’s like Mad Men of the sea, really. You think it’s a period piece where the men are in charge, but it is the ladies who triumph in the end.

In this week’s season finale, Max — who was a pretty disenfranchised prostitute when this whole thing kicked off — rustles up enough money to make an offer to buy the pub Eleanor used to run. (Her former lover is still in chains and might get hanged next season for piracy, but I don’t know yet.) Also, Max’s other former lady lover, Anne Bonney, returns to Nassau with her partner, Jack, and y’all, they’ve got about one hundred bazillion gadrillion gold coins with them, which they’ll be splitting with their business partner, Max. It’s a really happy ending to what can be a really brutal man’s world kind-of-a-show, and that two of the three happy-havers are queer women? What a wonderful world!

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Person of Interest

Tuesdays on CBS at 10:00 p.m.

Like I said above, I haven’t had time to get caught up on Person of Interest yet, and I actually stopped my marathon once I thought that Shaw got killed, but last week in the comments, you guys told me that Root and Shaw’s kiss wasn’t the end of them, that Sarah Shahi just had to leave the show to go have a baby, and she’s coming back and Root is going to find her! I am trying to get caught up on that, so I can start freaking out in real-time with you.

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Bold and the Beautiful

Weekdays on CBS

Last week, Bold and the Beautiful told us that Maya Avant is a trans woman, which is a huge deal. A huge, huge, huge, huge deal. We need trans women of color — especially black trans women — on our TVs in a major way. And having a black trans character on daytime TV is so revolutionary that it made me drop the water bottle I was holding when I read the announcement. I haven’t watched B&B since Crystal Chappell and Joanna Johnson were playing a lesbian couple on the show, but I got caught up as much as I could this weekend, and I’m sorry to say this story with Maya is really problematic.

Here’s the deal: Maya Avant is a model and actress who is in a serious relationship with bazillionaire Rick Forrester. Last week, Maya’s sister, Nicole, came to town and Maya was not happy to see her. Nicole wondered why Maya left home and never reached out to her, wondered why their parents never mentioned Maya, and finally (after monologuing for five minutes), Nicole says she knows Maya’s secret: that she was assigned male at birth. And that her parents disowned her when she came out as transgender. Unfortunately, the show goes for sopay reveal in the grossest possible way, with Nicole saying, “You’re not my sister, Maya. You’re not Maya at all. You’re Myron. You’re my brother.”

Purposeful misgendering, using Maya’s dead name: That’s bad enough, but then the story goes all in on our cultural fetishization of trans bodies, and now the storyline has progressed to Nicole blackmailing Maya. Nicole wants a job as a model, or else she’s going to out Maya to Rick.

I just really hate what’s happening so far, and I’m scared for how this is going to shake down in the coming months. I grew up on Days of Our Lives. I understand soapy tropes. But sometimes you’ve got to value doing right over being melodramatic. Mays is the only regular trans character on TV, and that’s wonderful, but only if the show is going to learn how to talk about trans people with respect.

You can watch two clips of Maya’s interactions with her sister here and here.

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More, More, More

+ Banana (and it’s co-series’ Cucumber and Tofu) are on my list of things to track down and watch. We don’t get them here in the States.

+ Thanks to Meghan for the tip that Saving Hope is adding a lesbian character. I’ll find out more about that this week.

+ And thanks to Stefanie for letting me know that this week’s Bones featured a dead, psychic lesbian (and some of her alive former partners). You can watch that full episode here.

+ You’re getting your Pretty Little Liars finale recap tomorrow!

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Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed

+ Grey’s Anatomy Episode 1117 Recap: They Always Come in Threes, Don’t They?
Derek comes back and is worse than a leech trapped in your face.

+ 15 Of Those Actresses Who Were In That Show
You know her face, but you’ve got no clue what her name is — 15 of the actresses who aren’t on magazine covers but have shown up in small parts on so many queer-adjacent shows and movies lately that you’re really THIS CLOSE to looking them up on imdb.

+ Fan Fiction Friday: 8 Carmilla Stories To Warm Your Misanthropic Heart
And a profile with series creator Ellen Simpson, who writes all kinds of fan fiction too!

+ The Fosters Episodes 220-221 Recaps: Dystopian Robot Apocalypse
Jude and Connor come out, and Monty finally stops keeping her lips to herself.

+ Glee Episodes 612-613 Recaps: Last Stop On The Midnight Train
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and now it’s over.

+ 18 Questions We Have About the X-Files Reboot
Oh god, is anyone on this show a medical doctor? ANYONE

+ 50 People Who Are Definitely A on Pretty Little Liars
The PLL thinks it knows who A is, but it’s wrong.

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That’s all I’ve got for you! What have you got for me? Teach me something good!

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Everyone Is Gay And Nothing Hurts

Forgive me, daffodils, for I have sinned. It has been one million years since my last Boob(s on Your) Tube update. It turns out there is so much queer stuff on TV these days that if you let your DVR get even one week behind, you will never get caught up, unless you stop going to sleep forever. Remember when the only lesbian thing on TV was The L Word on Sunday nights? I sure do!

Anyway, this column is making a weekly return starting today, which means you will find it here every Monday for the foreseeable future. The first thing I’m going to do is update you on what we missed during the hiatus, and then I’m going to get you caught up on all the gay lady things on (American) TV (that we don’t already recap).

Ready? Okay!

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 Top Chef: Boston

Wednesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

We were drawing near to the Top Chef finale the last time we Boobs Tubed, and the good news is: Lesbian contestant Melissa King made it to the finals in Mexico! The sad news is: She was eliminated in the next-to-last challenge. But she didn’t let that slow her down. She tag-teamed with Mei Lin and helped her win the whole shebang, making her only the third woman to earn the Top Chef crown in the show’s 12-season history. I interviewed Melissa and she was gracious and hilarious and she taught me how to make perfect scrambled eggs.

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Marry Me

Gone forever from NBC

NBC’s comedy slate is in a sad state, and after pretty dismal ratings, they decided to pull Marry Me from their lineup — and leave the last four episodes unaired — to make room for even more of The Voice, which sucks for a lot of reasons. Marry Me‘s “soft butch flannel queen” Kay was one of the very few leading lesbian characters in sitcom history, and one of only a handful of black lesbian characters on TV. And she had just started dating Ana Ortiz! It’s time to double down on One Big Happy, maybe?

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Jane the Virgin

Mondays on the CW at 9:00 p.m.

It should be noted that the last time we peeked in on Jane the Virgin, lesbian gynecologist Luisa had been committed to a mental institution for telling her family that her stepmother, Rose, was also her lover. (Which was true.) Well, Rose visited Luisa in the asylum and they had crazy passionate sex to the rumble of thunder and crack of lightning because of an approaching hurricane. After that, Luisa broke out of the hospital and then broke back into the hospital so her brother could check her out of the hospital. Because he realized she was telling the truth about Rose. Because Rose killed their father. Because Rose is notorious criminal mastermind Sin Rostro. And now Rose has fled the country and so has Lusia. Probably they are having hate-sex on some beach somewhere, but we haven’t seen that part yet. Fingers crossed, though.

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Arrow

Wednesdays on the CW at 8:00 p.m.

I made my displeasure with Arrow very clear after they axe murdered Sara Lance earlier this season. My patience for killing off queer characters is exhausted, and when you add that to the fact that I’ve been reading comic books since I was seven and have therefore experienced ten lifetimes of Women in Refrigerators tropes, you can understand why I quit the show. But then my dear friend Valerie said Sara was coming back and so was Nyssa, and so I got roped right back in.

And Sara did come back, but only kind of. Bad guy Werner Zytle used this hallucinatory serum on Laurel and it gave her visions of Sara being alive and beating her up and calling her a selfish asshole. It was good to see Sara back, but a bummer that she was only a Boggart, and only for a single episode too.

But! On the upside, Nyssa al Ghul is bringing it hardcore! She keeps showing up in Sterling City to try to avenge Sara’s death in various ways, and while she did finally manage to capture Merlyn, the guy behind her girlfriend’s murder, she didn’t get to do what she really wanted to do, which was pin the whole thing on Oliver and strangle him to death with her beautiful assassin hands. In fact, her father, Ra’s al Ghul, offered the keys to his whole assassin kingdom to Oliver because Nyssa proved herself unworthy because she fell in love with Sara and everything since then has been about her bleeding, broken heart. But Nyssa decided she’s going to do something productive with her grief: She’s going to train Laurel to become the next Black Canary. That way she can help out her dead girlfriend’s sister and also spend some time with someone who loved Sara as much as she did.

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Gotham

Mondays on Fox at 8:00 p.m.

Where is Renee Montoya? No one knows! She’s not missing in the context of Gotham‘s story, but she is missing from the show. I think it’s been five weeks since we’ve seen her. FIVE WEEKS. You remember where we left off: Barbara was buckling under the pressure of being engaged to the most boring teetotaling incarnation of Jim Gordon in all the Batcanon, and he wasn’t exactly understanding when she was dealing with PTSD from being kidnapped by a mob boss, so she skedaddled right on over to Renee Montoya’s place, for a whole lot of scissoring.

Unfortunately, she also decided to mix a bevvy load of booze and pills together to pass the time, which made Renee reevaluate their involvement with each other. She told Barbara it probably wasn’t a good thing for them to be together, so Barbara dove deeper into her bender and finally went home to her fancy loft to find that it had been overtaken by tiny Catwoman and Poison Ivy. She let them stay and she ate Doritos with them and she even took their fashion advice. (“Dress like you’re going boating with another guy.”) Then she saw Jim making out with the hot doctor from Radley Arkham, and that’s where we are right now.

The penultimate episode of season one will air on April 14th and the finale will air on May 4th. Gotham has already been picked up for a second season and if Fox bends its knees to fanboy backlash and gets rid of Montoya because a bunch of angry dudebros can’t handle seeing a woman sweep future Commissioner Gordon’s fiance off her feet, I am going to lose my mind.

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Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

Thanks to Pretty Little Liars, ABC Family realized a couple of years ago that putting queer women on-screen is good for business. They’ve got PLL. They’ve got The Fosters. They’ve got Chasing Life. I’m not saying gay ladies are the only ones keeping those shows on the the air, but if you look at the dramas ABC Family has axed because of unsustainable ratings, none of them are shows with lesbian/bi women on them. And the shows with lesbian/bi women on them? Still going strong! Including this one!

Remember when Brenna came out as bisexual during the Christmas episode? Well, she’s still very out and Greer even became her for real girlfriend and moved into her house for a while! But then Greer had to move away because this is television and I’m pretty sure the writers had no idea how big the Grenna phenomenon — I checked with Twitter, and it’s “Grenna,” not “Breer,” okay? — was going to be.

It happened like this: Greer’s mom is The Worst. And Greer had a pretty terrible idea to go off her mood disorder meds to try to get her parents’ attention. That didn’t work out the way she planned it, but it worked out better than it would have on, say, Degrassi, because on that show she would have ended up driving her car off a cliff. On Chasing Life, though, it led to her realizing that her parents don’t even notice if she’s manic and dropping thousands of dollars on designer purses and literally moving into her girlfriend’s house. Greer’s dad finally realized he should divorce Greer’s mom, and he asked her to please come live with him in a whole other state. At first, Brenna invited Greer to just move in with her family until graduation (in like three years), but she ultimately realized she needed to let Greer go so for Greer’s own health and happiness.

The midseason finale is tomorrow night. Hopefully Greer will be back next season.

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The 100

Third season on the way

You love The 100. It bends gender and explores bisexuality in new and exciting ways. We hear you and we believe you and we are excited that this show exists. Rachel and Riese and I are trying to get caught up on it so we can talk about it intelligently and hilariously with you. Riese wrote about it a little in last week’s Arts & Entertainment Daily Fix. Rachel is going to write a thing about it for you this very week. I am watching as many episodes as I can, every single day. The senior editors talked about it this morning. We talk about it every morning! We really like The 100 too, and coverage is coming for you!

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Hart of Dixie

Fridays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

In a shocking and exciting twist, Crickett came out during last season’s finale of Hart of Dixie (aka My Grandmother’s Favorite TV Show). (Well, her favorite TV show that is actually still on the air. My grandmother’s real favorite TV show is Gilmore Girls. Luke + Lorelai 4EVA, is a tattoo she should have). But Cricket has been largely underused since coming out. The gayest thing she has done this year is read a book written by Ellen. She does have a girlfriend named Jaysene Charles, but they’ve only been seen together a couple of times, and the most intimate they’ve gotten is holding hands for a nanosecond in public. It’s not worth your investment to get caught up on this show, honestly. The lesbian parts are basically nonexistent; the season finale airs this week’ and CW seems very, very unlikely to order a fourth season.

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The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

When it comes to Kalinda, The Good Wife has never bounced back from its fourth season slump. Her relationship with her ex-husband was so out of character that it completely derailed the show. And now here we are, two-thirds of the way through season six, after which Archie Panjabi is leaving to star in her own thing, and the writers have no idea what to do with the once great Kalinda Sharma. Four weeks ago, she spent the whole episode picking up Bishop’s son from school. Three weeks ago, she was just hallucination in one of Alicia’s daydreams (and not in a good way). Two weeks ago, she swooped in at the last minute and saved The Case of the Week. And last night, she was back to babysitting. It seemed like the show was maybe setting it up for her to ride off into the sunset with Lana, but now it seems like maybe she’s just going to limp off without anyone even noticing. It’s a damn shame. Kalinda was once the best bisexual character on TV by a thousand miles.

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Empire

Second season on the way

Tiana didn’t show back up on the first season of Empire after the show revealed that she’s queer — so nothing after Laura got you all caught up on it — but Fox has obviously already ordered a second season, and you can be sure it’ll be a full season, unlike the first one, because Empire‘s ratings were off-the-chart good. So hopefully Tiana will be back when the next season rolls around.

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Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Bravo’s reality show Newlyweds follows couples through the ups and downs of the first year of marriage. This season (the second one), the show is featuring a lesbian couple named Sam and Laura who met and fell in love in college, ten years ago, and have decided to finally say “I do.” The first episode saw them tying the knot, even after Sam introduced a prenup at the last second. And the second episode saw them lounging around the house, feeding their adorable dogs, spray-tanning each other in the bathroom, and having dinner with Sam’s rich family. Laura has decided to go to work for Sam’s family, managing one of their properties in Florida, and Sam’s brother is a super wanker about it. The weird thing, though, is that the other three couples on the show went on honeymoons in episode two. Maybe Sam and Laura count all their college spring breaks as honeymoons or something?

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The Walking Dead

Sundays on AMC at 9:00 p.m.

As I’m sure you remember, I do not like blood, guts, or seeing brains, so I cannot watch The Walking Dead. My girlfriend is the one who watches The Walking Dead. And so honestly, all you’re going to get here is an adorable photo of whatever Shutterstock thinks “cats dressed as zombies” looks like, and an update on whether or not lesbian Tara is still alive. And the answer as of last night is: Who knows? Last week, Aidan shots off a bunch of grenades, the result of which was: He got impaled and Tara maybe died. She’ was serioulsy hardcore wounded. Last night, she was supposedly operated on, but that may have been a lie because all the doctors may be zombies at this point. I’ll tell you once my girlfriend tells me if Tara makes it.

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Black Sails

On Demand on Starz Literally Always

Much like The Walking Dead, Black Sails is full of blood and guts. But also it is full of queer lady pirates, so with proper supervision, I can watch it. Both seasons are On Demand right now, and also Starz airs reruns pretty much every hour of every day, so it’s pretty easy to catch up. And here’s why you should: There are four women on this show, and one got killed off in the last episode, and it was the only straight one. I mean, obviously I hate it when women get killed off on any TV show, but this one is a bloodbath, so the fact that all three queer women — Eleanor, Max and Anne Bonney — are still alive is weird and remarkable. Also, all the ladies love each other but are also at odds with each other and are also all varying degrees of psychotic. So, like Pretty Little Liars on the ocean, basically.

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More More More

This week, I am going to get caught up on The 100 and Episodes and maybe on The Returned, depending on how bloody that one is. It’s vampires, so we’ll see.

Also, mark your calendars for these important upcoming dates:

+ Orphan Black returns on BBC America on April 18th at 9:00 p.m.

+ Lost Girl‘s final season lands on Syfy on April 17th at 10:00 p.m.

+ Orange Is the New Black‘s third season hits Netflix on June 12th.

It’s going to be a good spring/summer!

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Team TV Coverage You May Have Missed

+ Let’s Talk About Ellen and Liz Feldman’s New Lesbian Sitcom “One Big Happy”
Liz Feldman is one of the funniest women in Hollywood, so I hope NBC loosens the reins and lets her get a little more real.

+ 9 Things “Glee” Did Right: On Bullying, Burt, Brittana, One Straight Butch and A Straight-Up Bitch
Glee did about 100 things wrong but it also did some things very, very, very right.

+ Listling Without Commentary: 22 Excerpts From Brutal Amazon Customer Reviews Of “The L Word”
“I hate to break it to those people, but lesbians tend to dress like men, act like men — and look like men.”

+ Top 17 Most Devastating Breakups in Lesbian Television History
In honor of the I BROKE UP LIKE THIS ‘zine, we present 17 times queer female couples on television broke each other’s hearts and also our own.

+ “Steven Universe” and the Importance of All-Ages Queer Representation
Up until now, the assumption had been that Garnet was a single Gem like Pearl and Amethyst. However, the truth is much more romantic.

+ “Scandal” Breaks Our Hearts With an Elderly Lesbian Couple and Jasika Nicole
Just one week after perhaps the most powerful episode in the show’s history, Shonda Rhime’s force-of-nature hit show Scandal has once again destroyed our hearts. This week’s story touched the souls of audiences everywhere with two tales of love trying to rise above what seem like impossible situations.

+ “Broad City” Swan-Dives Off Sapphic Cliff Into Sea Of Sexual Fluidity
Last night on a very special episode of Broad City, Ilana made out with a girl and even though it wasn’t Abbi, it was still pretty cool.

+ 19 Things We Know About Season Three Of “Orange Is The New Black”
We don’t know much, but we know we love them.

+ A Pastor, a Sexologist, and a Psychotherapist Send Two Lesbians into the “Sex Box”
Brittany and Sally got married on the Grammy’s last year and now they are headed into the sex box.

+ Grey’s Anatomy recaps

+ Pretty Little Liars recaps

+ The Fosters recaps

+ Glee recaps

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Whew, okay! Welcome back, baby giraffes! What are you watching these days on the teevee?

Boob(s On Your) Tube: Bisexual Declarations On Chasing Life, 69 Shenanigans on Marry Me

It’s time for another round of Boob(s On Your) Tube, your one-stop shop for the week in in gay lady TV.  I’ll bet you thought there’d be no queer women on teevee this week due to broadcast networks pausing all their shows for a holiday hiatus, but you forgot one thing: ABC Family, home of the 25 Days of Christmas, and also home of more lesbian/bi TV characters than any network on earth. Also, The CW doesn’t stop for anyone, and don’t you forget it. Grab an eggnog or a Mad Elf Holiday Ale, and let’s go!

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Arrow

Wednesdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.

Nyssa al Ghul returns to Arrow this week to remind Oliver & Co. that they are doing a real shitty job solving the murder of Nyssa’s beloved, Sara Lance. They’re doing such a shitty job, in fact, that her dad (lil’ ol’ Ra’s al Ghul) has decided to give them an ultimatum: Either they dig in and figure out the mystery before the end of the midseason finale, or he’s going to unleash his League of Assassins on the city and see how that shakes down for everyone. (Murder. Murder is how that will shake down for everyone.)

As usual, the only useful person on this show is Felicity, and through her tech-savviness and pep talks, they discover that Oliver’s sister, Thea, killed Sara. But Thea only did it because Merlyn drugged her and made her do it. Merlyn’s reasoning is convoluted but effective. Oliver is obviously not going to let his sister take the fall for murdering Sara, so he has to go to the League of Assassins, confess to killing Sara himself, and face down Ra’s in a battle to the death. It’s a win-win for Merlyn and imminent death for either Ra’s or Oliver.

Ra’s is super pissed when Oliver confesses to killing his daughter’s girlfriend, and so he stabs him and shoves him off a mountain. And he dies. Blood gurgling out of his mouth, body falling off a cliff dies.

Somebody’s coming back from the dead for the second half of the season. Bets on whether it’s the bisexual woman or the straight man?

Top Chef: Boston

Wednesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

Oooh, y’all. Melissa King was in the bottom three again this week in the Elimination Challenge for playing it too safe in a Top Chef superfan event.

The whole thing starts with a sudden death Quickfire Challenge of making clam chowder. Melissa makes a Thai chowder that Padma and guest judge Jasper White like a lot. They like everything more than Katie’s gross old chowder, though, so she is up for elimination against — TWIST! — one of the contestants who was kicked off earlier in the season. The losers choose Greg, a guy who was sent packing during the first ten minutes of the show, to go up against Katie. He wins. So she leaves and he moves on into the house.

So for the Elimination Challenge, the judges go shopping for the contestants at Whole Foods. It plays out exactly how you think it will. Tom gets exactly what he wants, calmly and efficiently. Gail is probably drunk, but she does a good job selecting things her chefs can use to showcase their unique skills. And Padma just Mean Girls the shit out of Blaise, stealing his cart and wrecking it and smashing up all his fish and not even apologizing.

For the Elimination Challenge, Melissa cooks shrimp to showcase her knife work, but the judges think she keeps playing it too safe. Her dish is too simple for everyone’s liking. But she is not the only one who doesn’t do right by the insects of the sea. Adam tries to cook shrimp by, I think, pouring hot milk over them (or something). They are too “squeaky” for everyone’s taste, and so Adam has to go home.

Marry Me

Tuesdays on NBC at 9:00 p.m.

Marry Me really upped its Kay game this week. On a trip to the organic grocery store in Gil’s neighborhood, Kay spots a butcher she used to date. Kay says “Linda the Butcher really knew how to jiggle my gelatin,” but also she knew how to steal Kay’s shit. So Dennah and Annie won’t let Kay anywhere near her. The butcher keeps being like, “69! Now serving 69!” And Kay tries to smash her shopping cart between the wall Dennah and Annie have formed, but they love her too much to let her fall down that rabbit hole again.

Unfortunately (fortunately?), her friends’ bickering finds her alone with Linda the Butcher the next day at the grocery store (I have no idea why all five of these guys shop together), so Kay ends up with “four pounds of top sirloin and 110 pounds of sexual fury!” Also, Linda robs her again. Kay thinks maybe they shouldn’t have messed with Jake and Gil’s friendship because it’s messing up everything else, “like the bees.”

Dennah: Is that some sort of slang way of saying it’s the worst?
Kay: No, bitch. I  have a degree in Environmental Science from Stanford. Make one small chance in an ecosystem and it causes a ripple effect that changes everything.

Gosh, I love her. The women get Gil and Jake back together and everything is okay again. For now. I kind of hope it’s not the end of Linda the Butcher, though.

Chasing Life

Mondays on ABC Family at 9:00 p.m.

We haven’t had a chance to talk about Chasing Life because it was between seasons when I started writing Boobs Tube. But! It was back this week for the Christmas special, and it was so lovely. The deal with Chasing Life is that April Carver is fighting cancer. She’s the main character. Her sister Brenna, a troubled teen who never bounded back from her dad’s death, fell in love with a girl named Greer in the first season. Brenna was dating the girl, who openly identifies as a lesbian, and also a boring boy. At the time, Brenna wasn’t into labels, just really into Greer. But Greer’s family sent her away to camp to keep her away from Brenna and it sucked and that’s where we left off.

On the Christmas episode, Brenna’s other grandparents (not the grandma she lives with) come to town, and she feels really weird about it because they keep trying to hook her up with boys and talking about how she must slay all the boys at her school and whatever. Boys, boys, boys. Her Grandma Emma tells her to just come out, that it’s no big deal. When the family is shopping for Christmas decorations, Grandma Emma picks up a Pride flag and starts waving it around, going, “Oh! Brenna, why don’t we buy some of these? I don’t know what holiday they’re for, but they’re just so colorful.”

Brenna finally does come out as bisexual to her other grandparents, and they honestly do not care. I care, though. I care very much. Bisexual visibility on TV is bleak, bleak, bleak. This is a big deal!

Grandma Ellen: I don’t think there’s anyone here who’s not proud you’re gay.
Brenna: I don’t really use that label
Grandma Ellen: Or whatever the hell you are.

Other good news: My dear friend Valerie says Greer is coming back in the second half of the season.

Jane the Virgin

Mondays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Luisa on Jane the Virgin. After accidentally inseminating Jane with her brother’s sperm and getting back into a sexual relationship with her stepmom, Luisa decided to flee the country. This week, she is finally on trial for the insemination thing. Jane is suing her, obviously. What Jane doesn’t know is that if she wins the judgement, Rafael (the father of her baby and also her new boyfriend) will lose his 20% ownership of the hotel he runs because he used it as collateral to buy malpractice insurance for Luisa.

It turns out Luisa has spent the last few weeks partying hard and kissing girls and finding enlightenment with a shaman in Mexico. She’s says she discovered the path to enlightenment and that path includes copious amounts of finger-banging with Rose … but Rose won’t hear it. She says they’ve got to stop messing around because it’s going to ruin her marriage. Luisa says it’s cool, they don’t have to be together, but Rose has got to come clean to Luisa’s father or she’s going to do it. So, in a bit of lesbian storytelling I have actually never seen before, Rose lies and says Luisa needs to be committed because she’s hallucinating these sexual fantasies about her. And everyone believes Rose. And so a psychiatrist drugs her and drags her away. (Hopefully she runs into Mona Vanderwaal in the asylum while she’s prepping to make a comeback to Miami to destroy her family.)

Jane ends up dropping the lawsuit because it is making her grandma, who is an undocumented immigrant, too nervous.

This is still my hands-down favorite new show of the season.

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