“The L Word: Generation Q” Episode 103 Recap: Lost Love

Hello and welcome to the third recap of the first season of “The L Word: Generation Q,” brought to you by the same network that brought you The L Word, a show about a little boy named Shay who loved to drink milkshakes all day but then broke his arm. :-(

Some business:

1. Have you seen this INCREDIBLE post about our live L Word: Generation Q event? Wow check it out. We’re also getting the podcast episode transcribed so it will be accessible to all!

2. On a scale of “1′ to “10,” 10 being a recap that will make you laugh until you urinate in your trousers and “1” being a recap that makes you wonder if the internet was a good idea or not, I would give this one a 6. Just setting expectations here!

3. I received a very kind email from a very kind and smart person about how in the olden days, podcasts were also video. I admit that…. this is true, and I haven’t mentioned that while ranting about Alice’s “podcast” not being a podcast, and that my confidence in doing so has been partially informed by what I perceived to be popular consensus about Alice’s “podcast” not being a podcast. But! I do indeed remember the video podcast era ’cause at one point in ’05-’06, back when NPR and Slate had a solid monopoly on the podcast game, it sometimes felt like most of the podcasts available on iTunes were video, which confused and frustrated me ’cause you can’t watch videos on your phone and the whole point of podcasts were that they were an audio medium! Sometimes I’d accidentally download a video podcast and be sad because what was my little hot pink nano gonna do with that? That being said, I also feel like we called them “video podcasts” or “vodcasts” and that regular video shows posted on websites, like Alice’s, would’ve been called “vlogs.” I too had a vlog. But I also feel like there is a case to be made for my case being thrown out.

4. Are y’all watching Work in Progress? It’s so weird and good and you should!

5. Let’s get this lez-show on the road!

We open NOT with sexual intercourse but with a generous sequence of Los Angeles City of Dream Angels Baby b-roll, before finally zooming in on DaSoMi’s (I just made that up) chateau, where Sophie, Dani and Jose are dancing and Micah is NOT dancing. I am Micah in this scene, wishing I was Sophie in this scene. This scene is really fucking cute!!!!

Yeah just pull right there… yes… mhm…. stretch it out… yes…. ughhhh yeah un-pinch that nerve baby

Micah and Jose are going to a Dale Lewis art show tonight which Sophie would kill to attend. Jose just LOVES the way Dale Lewis mixes art with politics, which describes like 90% of modern artists but okay! Everybody is doing their best to pay tribute to Bette Porter by talking about art on this show and I see their effort and I respect it.

RED ROVER RED ROVER LET JOSE COME OVER

Upstairs in the respite of their shared boudoir, Dani’s Dad calls but Dani ignores it, instead turning her focus to the pressing issue of what Sophie’s gonna wear to the wedding. Everybody’s obsessed with what these two are gonna wear to the wedding even though they got engaged last week. My personal dream is tankinis or riding crops. Sophie, already settling into a vision of celebrity or Real Houswife-dom, suggests a white velour sweatsuit. On a WAY more serious note — Dani’s considering donning her Mother’s wedding dress.

Dani: I didn’t think about how hard this would be without her.
Sophie: Baby, she’s gonna be there. She’s here right now.
Dani: Do you really believe that?
Sophie: Of course I do.

Reader: I cried! Dead parent stuff gets me every time.

Baby, your mom’s ghost has been haunting the foyer ever since we moved in to this house, and we have no reason to believe that haunting will not carry over to our wedding.

Dani listens to Pop’s voice mail: he apologizes for overreacting, congratulates her on her engagement and says he’d love to meet up for lunch.

“Make your first plunge a gentle one. Initially the bell is full of air. A hard thrust will force the air back around the seal and blow water all over the bathroom and you!”

Meanwhile, Rebecca and Finley are still in bed, being sweet and naked and chatting about humping dolls. Specifically, Rebecca used to sit atop her big-headed doll Sylvia’s face and just go to town. I ship it. Speaking of going to town, Rebecca’s gotta go.

Stay still I just wanna see real quick if your spine is glowing or not

Finley wants her to stay in bed all day and fudge. Like so many early-stage lovers before and after her, Finley even offers to call in sick to facilitate this fuckathon, leaving poor Alice to build her own display case of very cool glasses. Unfortunately, Rebecca’s commitment is far more pressing than whatever Finley’s not getting paid enough to do and she’s really, truly, really truly gotta go. Finley rolls around in bed with her boobs out and her armpit hair exposed and Rebecca says, “Don’t do that.”

C’mon, don’t you wanna see what’s underneath this emoji Riese had to photoshop onto my nipple so that we can still run ads on this page

“Do what?” Finley asks, knowing exactly what she’s doing.

“Making it so hard to leave.”

“Good, then just stay.”

Finley, our local Siberian husky, offers to come along to wherever Rebecca’s going but recoils immediately when Rebecca reveals her ultimate destination — CHURCH. Specifically, MCC. (MCC stands for “Metropolitan Community Church,” which was founded in 1968 as an explicitly LGBTQ-inclusive congregation.) Finley doesn’t know anything about MCC, but the very idea of church sends her spinning.

Just lemme nibble off a tiny bit of your earlobe before you go so I can remember how you taste later

Cut to Atlas Bar and Grill (fun fact: the “Atlas” Bar and Grill scenes were filmed at The Semi-Tropic in Echo Park), where Tess and Lena arrive for a long day of selling brewskis to brosties, only to find the door is already unlocked. Tess accuses Lena of forgetting to lock up. Then Tess offers to go in first, to which Lena replies, “Oh, ’cause you’re so tough?” before decidedly going in first. What is happening with these two??!!

Okay, if I remember correctly, the only way to get into Wonderland through the magic doorknob is to drink from a special bottle of multi-flavored liquid, get the key from the same table where the liquid is located, shrink to a smaller size, and then use the key to unlock the door. Also: the doorknob is the nose. Don’t forget that.

Who’s inside? It’s Shane! Shane is talking to a man about how she’d like the room to be designed in such a way that when people walk in, they will feel beautiful. I think what she means is “low lighting” and I think what she did is… she bought the bar.

Does this scroll contain the secrets of the universe or is it just a rolled up piece of blank paper that I used to draw little sketches of beautiful people having fun at the neighborhood bar, like Cheers? I’m afraid I can’t tell you that — not yet.

The unhappy couple are confused… and then, gradually, delighted.

Tess: Do I still have a job?
Shane: Uh well, I was hoping that you’d like to run this place.
Tess: Are you kidding? I get to run the floor of a lesbian bar??

Tess is so excited it’s so cute!!! After giving Shane an enthusiastic hug, Tess can barely contain the litany of good ideas she’s been storing up all these years! For example: a VIP area with bottle service and DJs and also, she’s sober, but she can design the FUCK out of a drinks menu. This bar’s gonna be lit, y’all! I’ve never heard of a bar having a drinks menu, let alone a drinks menu and DJs, let alone both of those things and a VIP area with bottle service. Also; stoked to see how they explore Tess’s sobriety. There’s a very very active queer sober community in Los Angeles and it’d be great to see that represented.

Enchanted by her interior dreamscape and likely continuing to dream of additional features, like perhaps chairs and tables, or a dance floor; Tess leaves her girlfriend alone with Shane. Lena immediately saddles up to Shane like you would to somebody you’ve already had sex with. Out of the side of her mouth, she tells Shane how incredible she is and that she can’t believe she did this! I can’t believe that Lena is doing this so I guess it’s a confusing day for all of us.

Over the highway and through the woods to Natalice’s apartment we go! Alice is wearing an unfortunate shirt, seemingly inspired by my kindergarten teacher’s wall decor, and is leaving Nat alone to deal with a potential crisis involving a puzzle piece inside Eli’s nose and a bunch of plastic toys on the kitchen island ’cause Alice is meeting up with her besties, Bette and Shane.

You’re sure? There’s definitely not a severed head in the refrigerator?

Alice pauses, realizing something that’s apparently evaded her for the past two years — doesn’t Nat have friends she’d like to go out with sometimes? ‘Cause if so, Alice would happily watch the half-humans. Nat’s pleased by the offer but reminds Alice that she’s completely friendless. Apparently, all her friends sided with Gigi post-breakup even though Gigi was the cheating one, because Gigi’s also “the cool one.”

“She was my best friend too,” Nat says, sadly.

Alice delivers an amusing bit about how Nat could take some of her third-tier friends, by which I hope she means Helena because what is Rachel Shelley even doing that means she can’t be on this show?

Cut to Alice with her friends talking about how Nat doesn’t have any friends.

Wait so you’re saying Adult Friend Finder is NOT an app to find adult friends?

Shane shows up with Lena, inspiring suspicious glances from her friends. Lena’s gone ahead and almost taken off her entire shirt just in case Shane wants to remove the rest wink wink?? Luckily for my sanity, she’s not sticking around — she’s gonna wait for a take-out order / stare longingly in Shane’s direction.

I mean my dream has been to star in a ’90s-era Gap ad, so I just kinda dress like I’m already in one and wait to get discovered?

Alice is STOKED to hear Shane’s bought Atlas to flip it into a lesbian bar but Bette’s skeptical of Shane making impulsive decisions while heartbroken, like when Bette cancelled her fine meats and fish delivery boxes after Tina moved in with Joyce Wyshnia even though the delivery girl offered to come over and cook them all for her.

Yeah I don’t know I won a radio show contest and now I get a different pair of cute glasses every day for the rest of my life? Not complaining!

Alice suggests Shane resist the urge to “shit where she eats.” Bette affirms this advice with the weary knowledge of somebody who’s currently in an excruciating situation involving her former employee Felicity Adams. And you know, has a history with… Jodi… and Nadia…. and Candace…

Cut to the Private School for Asshat Children. A girl who looks like she just crawled out of the sewer calls Angie “Angemunch” and then says that she heard Angie’s Mom slept with everyone on the school board, which I think is the plot of a gang bang porn film but definitely not an accurate anecdote from the Life of Bette Porter. The girl concludes that her previous assumption of Angie being an “affirmative action kid” was wrong, it’s just that her “Mom is a slut and everyone knows it”! What I wanna know is how did this SLUT-SHAMING idiot get into this school?

Is it true that when you were born, the doctor turned around and slapped your mother?

No, when I was born, seven beautiful queer women took turns cradling me in their arms and then Kit Porter told me I was going to have a very interesting life. And guess what? I am! And you do NOT deserve to be part of it!

Angie does the only thing a person could reasonably do in this situation: punches that zombie bitch in the face!