The Queer Legacy of “Legacies”
Back in March, I wrote enthusiastically about Season One of Legacies, insisting that you didn’t have to watch The Vampire Diaries nor The Originals to enjoy everything Legacies has to offer. And that’s still true! However, as promised, I spent the hiatus binging The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, and I regret to inform you that I highly recommend doing exactly that.
This universe began with The Vampire Diaries in 2009, the expanded to include The Originals in 2013, which continued on past TVD‘s end in 2017 until 2018, which is where Legacies picked up the torch. So devouring all of these shows meant I consumed a decade’s worth of television in three months, which was a ride to say the least. Honestly, it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what it was about these shows that drew me in and got me hooked, but my friend and I who were watching “together” (aka at the same time from different states) got through both series in an alarmingly short amount of time, and we couldn’t get enough. Despite being a bit of a vampire lore snob (thanks, Buffy), I was actually really intrigued by the mechanics of magic in this universe. I loved the large-scale metaphors. I was highly invested in the characters and their growth across the seasons.
The Vampire Diaries starts out with a bit of a Twilight vibe, with human girl Elena Gilbert meeting broody vampire Stefan Salvatore — which maybe is why I never felt the urge to watch it in the first place — but honestly the similarities end there. Over the course of the seasons, Julie Plec built a complex universe with a mix of vampires, witches, werewolves, and humans, and explored how they can all intertwine, how they work against and with each other, and how they all battle with mortality and humanity. And even though I did end up finding myself weirdly invested in m/f ships in a way I never could have anticipated, I’m here today to tell you about the queer legacy of Legacies.
Rebekah Mikaelson
Also this was technically Elena’s doppleganger’s daughter but there’s no time to explain all that.
Rebekah is one of the original vampires, and even though her queerness was never really addressed ever again, she will go down as canon bisexual in my books forever and you can’t stop me. Also she’s played by Claire Holt who also played Samara aka one of Emily Fields’ girlfriends in Pretty Little Liars. Plus she, later, on The Originals, ends up trapped in a witch’s body, and that witch is played by queer Legends of Tomorrow actress Maisie Richardson-Sellers. Which is only queer-adjacent I suppose but worth mentioning.
Nora & Mary-Louise
I would watch a spin-off (yes another one) of these two back in ye olden days.
I loved Nora and Mary-Louise’s arc, because they came to us as a fully-formed couple, but then broke up and forged their own paths before finding their way back to each other. For a while it seemed like they were on opposite sides of a war but in the end, their love overcame all of it. They eventually got engaged, though their happiness would be short-lived. Unfortunately, they fell victim to the Slaughter of 2016, and together in a Thelma and (Mary) Louise blaze of glory, sacrificing themselves for others, they died a fiery death along with many of their queer counterparts that dreadful spring. Since I watched it so long after it aired, and since I knew they were doing better by queer characters by the time Legacies would come around, I was able to mourn them with regretful sadness.
Freya & Keelin
I could be wrong but they might be the only two in the franchise to have a wedding not end in murder.
Everyone at the Salvatore School
What if I made a shirt that said, “Some witches kiss witches, get over it.”
It’s pretty wild to see how much has changed since Rebekah’s threesome and Josie and Penelope’s breakup. In 2009, there were no queer characters on the show, but there were hardly any out, canon queer characters on TV. In 2014, the year of Rebekah’s tryst, things were a little better, but not by all that much. Glee wasn’t in its final season yet, Black Sails and Orphan Black had barely just begun, Lexa wouldn’t even exist until the end of the year; we were ramping up to, but hadn’t quite hit the peak of queer representation. And now, in 2019, we have a series from this very same franchise that has grown with the times and adapted to better reflect the people their show is reaching. Teens in real life are starting to reject the idea of labels because they can feel restricting and static, so the teens on Legacies do, too.
So what I’m saying is, the franchise has come a long way when it comes to queer women over the course of three series and almost exactly a decade. (And women in general… Rebekah and Bonnie really went through it.) And it was kind of awesome to experience that growth over the course of a summer.
There are little lore things about Legacies that are enhanced by having seen its parent series — the twins’ namesakes, knowing more about The Merge, understanding how vampires and werewolves work and what a siphon witch is — but that aren’t strictly necessary to enjoy Legacies. There are a few cameos that are more impactful for having watched (minorly Matt and Jeremy; hugely Jo in episode “Mombie Dearest”), but probably the biggest shift between my first and second watches was the way I perceived Hope. During my first watch, I knew Hope carried around a lot of sadness, and was precocious and slow to trust because of her tragic backstory. But what I didn’t realize that The Originals has Danielle Rose Russell’s Hope in it (for some reason I had assumed there was a huge time jump between The Originals and Legacies, but the time jump happens within The Originals) and you really see her go through it. The loss and trauma she experienced (and the associated guilt) has really shaped her, and also because I had known the people she lost long before I met her, when I watched Legacies the second time, I was in mourning right alongside her.
The new season of Legacies starts on Thursday, October 10th, so while you won’t have time to binge all of The Vampire Diaries and The Originals by then, I do recommend trying to get in some Freya/Keelin episodes or fanvids before Freya arrives in episode six. And in the meantime, I’m glad at least I have the historical knowledge that I can impart when I keep you updated on the queer goings-on in Boobs On Your Tube every week!
Boob(s On Your) Tube: On “Once Upon a Time,” a Woman Sat Upon Another Woman
In this week’s Tuesday edition of Boob(s On Your) Tube, we check in with some of the minor queer characters on TV this fall and some of the major characters with minor queer stories; plus, another reminder that Jane the Virgin is the best thing on television and you should be watching it dammit.
Once Upon a Time
Sundays on ABC at 8:00 p.m.
Let’s get down to business.
Hello, Ruby arrived back on Once Upon a Time this week to breathlessly sit astride Mulan (who also arrived back on Once Upon a Time this week) in the hopes that Emma/Regina shippers would be placated. KaeLyn will be telling us more about this on Friday. For now, I shall show you another photo of Mulan and Ruby standing in the same frame. ARE YOU HAPPY? HERE’S YOUR QUEER REPRESENTATION, STOP COMPLAINING, GOD.
Lady, I’ll make a woman out of you.
Wait, one other thing: This hugely influential pastor who wants LGBT people to be murdered to death in the United States, this motherfucker whose followers are being courted by three GOP candidates, he thinks Elsa’s a lesbian too.
Jane the Virgin
Mondays on The CW at 9:00 p.m.
I know! No love triangle at ALL this week!
This week’s Jane the Virgin masterfully sped through five months of story to bring all the characters, including little Mateo, to new places with themselves and with each other. Never has a show so brilliantly explored the ideals of third wave feminism, or so unabashedly promoted a political ideology without actually bashing anyone in the face with it. (#Vote #Vote #Vote) Each commercial break moves Jane forward a month in her life and examines a new challenge she faces as both a mother and a grad student. Choosing to pursue an advanced degree means she misses sing-along classes (though Rafael does an adorable job subbing in for her), sometimes forgets to give Mateo “tummy time” so he ends up needing a little helmet to make his head round again, and is unable to attend the helmet-fitting appointment because she’s at a mandatory school retreat. She’s still a great mom; she just can’t give Mateo all her time. Likewise, she gets kicked out of her first grad school class for fielding a call from Mateo’s physician, pulls down her first C (minus!), is lambasted on the regular by her professor, and has a nearly impossible time fitting in with her classmates. She’s a great student; she just can’t give school all her time.
In between the time jumps, Jane tackles the decision to stop breastfeeding/pumping and allow Mateo to go with a formula/semi-solid food diet and agrees to finally go on a date with Rafael — because she’s not just a mom and a student and all her decisions can’t be about her child or her career. So the show also allows her to make decisions that are also good for herself. It’s remarkable.
Okay, this is the best part. She climbs up on the taxi and she’s like, “You’re a wanker, number nine!”
The conceit of this episode is milestones, and each time the plot leaps forward, Jane imagines a world in which she and Rafael have died and Mateo is left with his father’s $40 million trust fund. She doesn’t want him to be a five-year-old baller, making it rain as he drives around the Marbella in his tiny tots Porsche. And she doesn’t want him to be Oliver Twist, either, begging for more porridge from the kitchen. She and Rafael decide to write a clause into his trust fund that says for every dollar he inherits, he must give a dollar away to charity. It’s five-year-old socially conscious Mateo who delivers this speech to the UN:
I’d like to thank my parents, of course, for instilling in me the desire to give back. Thank you to my mentors, Michelle Obama and Angelina Jolie, whose fight to make sure all girls have access to education led me to the Peace Corps and Let Girls Learn. I’m here at the U.N. because more than 62 million girls don’t have access to education — GASP! I’m sorry, I have to go pee-pee!
I’m having twins! I hope they’re as excellent as Fred and George Weasley.
That this show exists, championing feminism and celebrating the way Jane’s mother and grandmother empower her to accomplish every thing she’s ever dreamed of, and that it doesn’t shy away from talking about America’s atrocious immigration policy (and the vile garbage the GOP continues to spew at Latino immigrants), and that it is so sure-footed with every storytelling decision it makes, and that it is just such entertaining television gives me hope for the world. Plus, now that Petra has been humanized and she and Jane are friends, there’s no more girl-on-girl violence! It comforts me, at least, when the conversation turns as hostile as it has now, in our current election cycle.
Blindspot
Mondays on NBC at 10:00 p.m.
God of Mischief? No, there’s no one here by that name. I think you have the wrong number.
Blindspot is the story about how Lady Sif* woke up inside a duffle bag in Times Square one time covered in tattoos and with no recollection of Loki or any of those guys. There is a disgruntled white detective guy wandering around mansplaining everything, which seems like it’s going to be the main plot of the show (and in some ways it is), but then sometimes Lady Sif remembers she’s an Asgardian warrior and she starts doing awesome ninja moves on bad guys. Anyway, the person is charge of Lady Sif and Mansplainer is a woman named Mayfair. Last week, we found out about the illegal surveillance program Mayfair’s been participating in, and also that she has a former lesbian lover named Sofia who works at the White House and has connections to help them make a run for it and avoid prosecution for participating in Project Daylight. Mayfair was basically like, “I love you, but no thank you.” And so Sophia killed herself. The end.
*On the show, Lady Sif is named Jane. Jane Doe.
Scream Queens
Tuesdays on Fox at 9:00 p.m.
La la la, I used to have to write about Ryan Murphy here, but now there are puppies.
The joy I feel when I get to delete Scream Queens off the Boob(s On Your) Tube formatting template I made in Google Docs is always such a glory. It’s why I don’t delete it permanently. I like the power and pleasure of erasing it, letter-by-letter, every Tuesday.
Rosewood
Wednesdays on Fox at 10:00 p.m.
You wrote Emily/Sara Harvey fan fic? Are you serious right now?
Pippy and TMI are still alive as Rosewood skids toward its midseason break. They’re orbiting Rosie and serving his story, which makes sense on account of they are supporting characters on a show named after him. Lesbians like these are important on TV, they really are. Just being there and being inconsequentially gay in every episode: it’s actually a thing that matters a big deal. It’s so normal. But it’s not very engaging and, unlike Jane the Virgin, I’m only watching this one for the queers, so I’m really rooting for a storyline to make them more prominent and fully realized.
Code Black
Wednesdays on CBS at 10:00 p.m.
Girl, you gotta stop letting them typecast you.
I saw a screening of the Code Black pilot at the Paley Center this summer, and it was so bloody and had so much blood noises that my friends kept nervously glancing over at me with wide, terrified eyes while I covered my whole head with my hands and rocked back and forth in my seat; I think they thought I was going to actually vomit. (And I’ll be honest with you: I was close.) I love me some Marcia Gay Harden — Whip It forever — but holy lord, the gore! Hey, but one of the new batch of doctors in the world’s bloodiest ER is a queer lady. An Indian queer lady! A first year resident! I watched a supercut of her scenes so I could introduce you, but there’s no way in Azkaban I’m going to be able to watch this actual show.
Malaya Pineda is the queer doctor in question. She’s got a girlfriend. Sometimes her girlfriend picks her up from work and they smooch in the car. A couple of week’s ago, Dr. Pineda’s ex-girlfriend showed up in the ER, pregnant and in need of an MRI. Turned out she had cancer! Apparently she caught Dead TV Lesbian syndrome from Leslie Shay when she was playing her girlfriend on Chicago Fire. She might live; we don’t know. She was still alive when the episode ended, so it wasn’t lightspeed-spreading Chaikencancer like what Dana Fairbanks died from. There’s always hope.
The Vampire Diaries
Thursdays on The CW at 8:00 p.m.
Is that fucking Carmilla? We might as well go home. Not a single lesbian in this place is going to pay attention to us if she’s here.
I’m not much into vampires, except for Marceline the Vampire Queen and Buffy slaying them. And Carmilla, too, but not for the lore; I just think she and Laura kiss real good. I’ve never watched TVD and honestly only knew who Elana was from GIF sets on Tumblr (which obviously led me to believe she was kinda gay). (She’s not.) So this weekend I watched as much of season seven as I could to get a handle on this “lethal lesbian couple,” Nora and Mary Louise. I think both of them are half-witch/half-vampires and have been together for like a full century and are only just now getting used to being able to hold hands in public. They’re adorable with each other, but also they are assholes. They maim and murder for giggles and if one of them flirts with anyone else. That is what I know so far; I will keep you updated.
Boob(s On Your) Tube: Lady Gaga Arrives on “American Horror Story,” Bre-Z Returns to “Empire”
Welcome back to your twice-weekly round-up of queer TV! Lady Gaga has arrived on American Horror Story: Hotel, in a premiere episode that squicked out most of our staff; rapper Bre-Z returned to Empire as Freda Gatz; and Riese broke my heart by telling me how much she likes Scream Queens. It’s been quite a week!
Grandfathered
Tuesdays on Fox at 8:00 p.m.
“It’s always going to be Annalise,” is a thing John Stamos said to his staff this week when he was choosing which of his employees to invite to attend Diddy’s White Party with him. Of course, he didn’t end up going to Diddy’s White Party at all because he had to learn a lesson about how sometimes it’s better to spend time with being goofy with your family at the beach than schmoozing with models half your age. It’s the same lesson he’s going to learn for at least the first 13 episodes of this season (if the show lasts that long), because That’s Just The Way It Is with high-concept sitcoms. Annalise, however, does attend Diddy’s White Party and she has a real good time. In fact, she makes a murder-suicide pact with Ravi because life peaks inside the party and they don’t want to go on living in a world outside of it. (They were okay, though! Annalise just danced with models in John Stamos’ place, and drank a lot of champagne.)
Scream Queens
Tuesdays on Fox at 9:00 p.m.
You guys. YOU GUYS. Riese really likes Scream Queens. She said it to me three different times this week, and I died a little more inside each time. For me, Scream Queens is so much of what was wrong with the last five seasons of Glee, condensed into five weeks. For starters, because there’s no writers room, it’s just Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan each writing their interpretations of the characters on a rotation, and so none of the characters’ decisions make much sense because each writer is just picking up where they left off on the last episode they wrote. And in the absence of actual characterization, each of the women becomes a mouthpiece for whatever axe these guys have to grind. (All three of them have serious issues with identity politics, so at least their characters are consistent in lampooning those conversations?)
One of the thing that gets my goat the most about these dudes is how much they seem to hate fans. The final season of Glee, with Sue Sylvester being a satanic manifestation of Kurt and Blaine fans, remember that? I hated it! I thought that storyline was such a wanker move. This week, Falchuck skewer’s Taylor Swift and her super fans by having Chanel send her Instagram followers presents, only instead of college scholarships it’s like rotten pumpkins literal boxes of blood. And, look, I get that there are plenty of problems with fan culture and with Taylor Swift’s entitled white feminism, but at least all those people are doing the brave and vulnerable work of trying to care about something in a world that rewards misanthropic cynicism and snark.
And none of these writers would be where they are in their careers right now if it hadn’t been for these young, excited fans (many of whom were gay kids who’d never seen themselves on TV before) watching Glee and buying tickets to their tours and buying merch and participating in online fandom. Ryan Muprhy, especially, would not be where he is. So ridiculing those kinds of folks seems less like looking a gift horse in the mouth and more like punching a gift horse in the face. It’s so easy and so cheap.
(I should say, though, that Riese really liked this Taylor Swift thing and laughed a lot and honestly maybe I’m just being too sensitive.)
There was no gay stuff this week. Sam was around a little bit while Chanel and Zayday faced off against each other in a battle for sorority president. Zayday wants to set up a charity haunted house at this place on Shady Lane that apparently used to be inhabited by a(n actual) hag who howled out the windows for her lost babies. She was spotted a couple of weeks after the bathtub baby went missing from Kapa in 1995, stealing milk and whatever, and so they all assume she’s the one who raised her. Chanel thinks Zayday will ruin Kapa the way Obama has ruined America, what with giving out free cell phones and all that, and so she is more determined than ever to continue her reign. Sadly for her, Zayday’s haunted house is a huge hit because actual dead bodies show up there.
Grace and Pete wander around dressed up like one of our nation’s dumbest rom-coms looking for more clues about the bathtub baby. They find them in a women who lives in a trailer far away from campus. Dean Munsch knew about the bathtub baby because she knew about bathtub baby’s dead mom, whom she ordered the girls to bury and then banned them from school way back in ’95. One of the girls changed her name, one of them was institutionalized, one committed suicide, and one is now a Fox News anchor. Also, the bathtub baby was a girl.
The woman who tells them all this info is later visited by the Red Devil, who menaces her through the windows of her trailer.
I begrudgingly cackle laughed at this line: “Cause of death: stabbed a whole lot all over.”
And this one: “You may think I’m a monster tonight, but years from now, when you’ve lived a boring, painfully uncreative life in a home filled with Pottery Barn sofas and no integrity, you’re gonna remember me as I truly am: your guardian angel.”
Hashtag Sue Sylvester.
Empire
Wednesdays on Fox at 9:00 p.m.
Written by Carolyn Wysinger
To say that Empire got its groove back this week would be a huge understatement! As predicted, last week’s snoozer was all about setting the wheels in motion for several juicy storylines. This week started with Lucious getting out of jail as the district attorney, more determined than ever, gives a press conference vowing to get justice and put him back behind bars. Meanwhile, Lucious, who has been barred from entering Empire as a term of his release, declares that he himself is God and holds his own press conference to reassure his fans that he is back and Empire is going to be stronger than ever.
Hakeem has an appearance on Sway in the Morning where Sway calls out Lyon Dynasty for being a rag tag bunch of former Empire artists. Hakeem brags that they also have his new girl group called Marage Trois and he promises to bring the girls to the show. Lucious also calls in and throws some shade at Hakeem about how stupid he was for leaking his own album. Hakeem fires back by telling Sway that his dad could have stopped him, but he was, you know, in jail. DAMN!
We finally got our first full look at the new butch heartthrob Freda Gatz, daughter of the dearly departed Frank Gatz a.k.a Chris “CB4″ Rock. We find her out in the streets in a freestyle battle with some guys where she more than holds her own. When one of them spits a bar making a joke about her father’s murder, Freda loses it and almost shoots the guy. Lucious shows up to convince her not to throw her life away and instead use it in her music so he can make her a star. I have a huge question about this relationship because Lucious continues to be extremely homophobic, even while pushing Jamal to run the company. Through a fit of jealousy from Jamal, we learn that Lucious is also totally convinced that Freda is the future of Empire. Freda is very openly butch so could we possibly see a storyline where he tries to make her more femme presenting. It would certainly mirror what the industry has done to “masculine” women rappers for decades.
Lucious “invites” the whole family to dinner — which in Lucious-speak means “demands” — to tell them to shut down Lyon Dynasty and return to Empire. Quite predictably both Cookie and Hakeem refuse. Andre wants to, but Lucious want nothing to do with him. Cookie later encourages him to tell Lucious about his new baby and use that to get back in his good graces. When he does, proud future grandpa Lucious sniffs out his real intentions and still sends him packing.
Boo Boo Kitty and Lucious have a secret meeting where he asks her to be his mole at Lyon Dynasty. She turns around offers her services to Cookie instead by telling her that Lucious is trying to steal al of the Lyon Dynasty music and about the welcome home party that Lucious is throwing for himself. The night of the party, hottie AzMarie boots the DJ out of his own booth and Lyon Dynasty crashes the party with a hot new joint from Hakeem featuring series music producer Timbaland.
All of this leads up to the premier of Hakeem’s Latina music group he announced on Sway in the Morning. Before the girls can perform, Lucious comes in to inform Cookie and Hakeem that he has bought every urban market radio station in the nation, effectively killing any chance that music from Lyon Dynasty will get radio play. Not only that, but he pulled a Beyoncé and stole the lead singer (that Jamal had been sleeping with) from the group. Checkmate, Lucious. But of course you know Cookie will have a move to counter next week. You can count on that.
American Horror Story: Hotel
Wednesdays on FX at 10:00 p.m.
Written by Tina Horn
Not here yet, but soon!
I’ve watched every episode of all four seasons of American Horror Story in bed, alone, hunched over my greasy laptop, which certainly facilitates all the feelings of dread the show can inspire. For Hotel, I was determined to watch perched on a bar stool in my local gay bar, Branded Saloon, where I could clutch a pint glass and the nearest gay boy anytime anything batshit crazy happened. My effort was rewarded from the first shoot of two skinny Sweds checking into the Hotel Cortez, when every single one of us shrieked, “You are SO DEAD,” and especially when Wes Bentley yanked aside a shower curtain and someone wailed, “Oh god it’s terrible, those tiles don’t match the rest of the décor at all!”
The new repertory incarnation of AHS is present-day Los Angeles, set mostly in the disorienting claustrophobia of the lavish titular establishment. Everybody and everything looks fucking great. In a nice inversion of ordinary casting, the men are all clones and the women are wonderfully varied. Hmm, I wonder if tall, toned, dark-haired men are Ryan Murphy’s type?
Lady Gaga and Matt Bomer polish their boots and tighten their corsets to go cruising at the Hollywood Forever cemetery during a screening of Nosfaratu, taking home a nice clean-cut looking couple for a foursome that ends with a hell of a mess for housekeeping. Let’s just say those leather gloves with the metal tips aren’t only for kinky sensory play. From Only Lovers Left Alive to True Blood, we’ve seen plenty of vampire hipster junkie sluts in the past decade. My money says this is more like The World on Blood or Elizabeth Báthory-style: the artery slashing is for the purpose of decadent highs and eternal beauty rather than demonic sustenance. Regardless, you may think twice before you swing again.
Speaking of decadent highs, the kinderwhore junkie look is working way better for Sarah Paulson than the Emmy-plea role of conjoined twins last season. Paulson is a terrific actress who, like La Lange before her, somehow makes scenery chewing seem subtle. In billowing robes and Cleopatra eyes, Dennis O’Hare is divine as Liz Taylor, the front desk clerk who also seems to be trapped in the ’90s (come to think of it, this is also Gigi’s deal on Scream Queens). It’s unclear whether Liz is a trans lady or a good ole fashioned drag queen*, but it certainly seems she has all the time in the world to read Joyce.*
Yes, there is a drill-bit strap-on demon rape of that guy from New Girl. Apparently it’s a metaphor for the way addiction takes hold of you and uses you, but I couldn’t help but feel like it was more of a metaphor for American Horror Story metaphors themselves: every time we watch we’re being fucked by a drill-bit dildo and the more we scream the more he likes it.
I think the thing I liked the most about this premier is that it was full of genuine mystery. Why does the Countess kidnap children and keep them in a secret room playing Tetris and gobbling candy? What is the connection between the seven deadly oh sorry I mean ten commandments serial killer and the Cortez? Are the denizens of the hotel ghosts, or trapped in a time warp? How long will it be before Urban Outfitters is selling neon signs that say, “Pain don’t hurt”? When is Angela Basset gonna show up? Will any of this be explained to my satisfaction by season’s end? I can’t say, but I’ll see you at the gay bar next week!
*As always with trans characters or characters coded as trans, we like to hear what our trans editor Mey Rude thinks about it. This is a conversation she and our TV intern Sadie Edwards, also a trans woman, had in Slack:
Sadie: I just watched AHS: Hotel and this season Dennis O’Hare is playing someone who appears to come across as a trans person… or possibly a drag queen? Why is Ryan Murphy allowed to make television?
Mey: Yeah, I think he’s supposed to be a drag queen? But it definitely reminded me of the same actor’s character from Coven, when he would dance around in a nightgown with those dolls. Both characters definitely are supposed to evoke the “creepy crossdresser” trope.
Sadie: Like, I certainly didn’t hate the character and I think it could be interesting. That connotation just gets to me. Ryan Murphy just can’t help himself.
Mey: Yeah, Lady Gaga was the only part I liked. I think I could like Liz Taylor, because campy horror is my favorite and it doesn’t get more campy horror than a creepy old queen named Liz Taylor. Honestly, I’m just waiting for Lily Rabe to show up.
Rosewood
Wednesdays on Fox at 10:00 p.m.
Pippy and TMI spend another week shackled to their work stations in the lab, while Rosewood sleuths around and starts grating on me with his Sherlock-style mansplaining about everything his eyeballs see. It’s a thing that kind of bugged me in the pilot episode and also last week, but I thought the writers would tone it down once they saw how it was playing on-screen, and honestly, I’m willing to stick with it when it’s Not Another White Guy on broadcast TV.
One of the things that makes procedurals like this work is that both major players — Castle and Beckett, Booth and Brennan, Rizzoli and Isles — bring something to the table, and the bossy know-it-all character has a relatable flaw or is motivated by a relatable thing. An insecurity, a social ineptness, etc. Rosewood’s motivation seems to be that he wants to be right as much as possible before he dies. Pippy actually finally says out loud this week that Rosewood is really, truly dying. She’s noticed it in his lab results and in his habits. And yeah, he is. He knows that. But whatever! He’s still the smartest guy in Miami!
This could be a good show, and it’s going to get a chance to prove that because the Empire lead-in is boosting its ratings beyond belief. I wouldn’t be watching if it weren’t for Pippy and TMI. I hope they get free from the lab sometime. I hope they get to do more than stand around saying medical words.
Grey’s Anatomy
Thursdays on ABC at 8:00 p.m.
Written by Aja
And now for a dramatic reading of my favorite Spara fan fiction.
The theme of this week’s episode is Sister Lady Chiefs and I’m into it. Nothing gay happened but Callie was heavily involved in an important plot point about Meredith’s contract, specifically her salary, and Bailey declared herself a feminist in no uncertain terms. I think that’s important enough to cover, don’t you?
The whole thing starting during carpool, when Maggie jumped into Grey’s car saying her contract for the Chief of General Surgery had come in the mail. They opened it and both had a look at it (meanwhile, Amelia’s jumped into the car wearing nothing but a robe with a change of clothes in hand; we discover she doesn’t wear panties because she’s all about venting the vadge), and Maggie makes a face that Grey immediately questions. Maggie clams up so once they get to the hospital, Grey asks Callie’s advice, showing her the contract. Callie makes the face and flat-out tells Grey that she makes way more money than Grey’s being offered for the position, but won’t give her an exact number. Webber overhears the whole exchange and furrows his ex-chief dad eyebrows. Later, when they’re all back at the Grey abode drinking their feels and pretending to eat quinoa and kale salads, Grey, Maggie, Callie and Amelia are all brainstorming courses of action for Grey and/or sipping wine from the bottle or Zola’s sippie cups, but Maggie (adorably) sullies the Lean In feminist magic in the room by straight up losing her mind over her ex’s upcoming wedding. Boop.
Elsewhere, Karev is balancing jaundiced twins with liver failure and only one viable donor with his snooping, harpy girlfriend, who discovered a fertility document showing that Karev fertilized some of Izzy’s eggs when they were married. Jo decides this document is the horcrux with which she will at last get Alex to commit to her, or define what’s going on between them, or like, I don’t know, get married? It totally works because by the end of the episode, Alex is trying to stick a baby in her and she’s like, “Teehee, don’t be silly, we can’t have a baby!” He’s able to save just one of the twins after Arizona gives him the ultimate in mentor pep talks, but I think we’re seeing him understand the person he’s become through the new “I don’t hate kids” intern, Andrew (who’s like the old Alex in many ways), how Arizona views him, who he feels like now and where kids — and Jo — fit in with this more mature, secure Alex.
Jackson’s attempts to leave April continue to be highly amusing and sometimes heartbreaking. He’s trying to be civil and makes the rookiest rookie mistake; he wants April to find her own place since his name is on the lease and he moved in, but dude, if the other party is being difficult and what you want is real separation, you’ve got to cut your losses. He doesn’t understand why April can’t comprehend plain English like “I will book you a hotel room” or boundaries like “I’m changing the locks,” but April’s read way too many trite needlepoint messages about marriage and/or one too many Nicholas Sparks novels, and could benefit from some alone time with a set of magnets. Ultimately, April comes home to find the locks unchanged but all of Avery’s things are gone. He’s crashing at a B&B and by that I mean Bailey and Ben’s place, which Bailey’s not super stoked on, by the way.
Circling back to Grey, Richard decides to confront Bailey on Meredith’s salary, accusing her of doing Mere dirty and lowballing her but Bailey counters, arguing that Richard coddles her, that she’s mentored and taught Grey more than well enough to know she ought to demand what she’s worth, and concludes the whole discussion with a firm, “This is what a feminist looks like, sir.” Meredith was clearly prepared to accept the initial offer in good faith, so it’s a damn good thing she got feedback from her peers before signing on the dotted line. When Grey finally marches into Bailey’s office, Bailey asks her what number she has in mind, Mere writes one down (a BIG one, judging from both their reactions), and Bailey calmly says she can make it happen. It was both sweet and satisfying to watch Meredith practically skip out of that room, contract in hand, and praise on Bailey’s lips. Hooray for the Sister
How to Get Away With Murder
Thursdays on ABC at 10:00 p.m.
Paris Gellar did not kill Izzie Stevens because she married Rory Gilmore! Case closed!
No homosexuality to report on this week’s How to Get Away With Murder, unless you count The Fosters‘ lesbian mama Sherri Saum playing the owner of a sex club where her boyfriend was murdered. This whole episode is just sex, sex, sex, which makes it even sadder that Eve is stuck in New York, lawyering away, and not lounging around gaily in Annalise’s bed. Instead, Wes almost gets into her bed. And also Nate. But no! She has a case to work, and it’s about how Sherri Saum caused her boyfriend to have a heart attack! She didn’t want to kill him; she just wanted his wife to find out he was having an affair so she would leave him and they could be together. Annalise calls her a “negligent slut” but then gets this guy’s wife on the stand and coerces her into confessing that she drugged her husband because she found out he was taking Viagra and she knew that meant he was having an affair.
How does Annalise sleep at night, the wife wants to know. “Alone, and on very expensive sheets” is the answer. Also: Vodka. She tells Sherri Saum to send her a bottle as thanks.
She’s still dying, by the way, in the flash forwards. And somehow now Nate is involved.
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