The L Word: Generation Q Season 2 Trailer: We’re Breaking it Down Frame-By-Frame!
The L Word Generation Q season 2 trailer is here, and full of: drama! intrigue! scissoring! an awful lot of poker(?), karaoke, staring, glaring, running, heavy breathing, and Angie being in queer love in a tux (my personal favorite part)! Unfortunately, the world’s foremost The L Word expert and everyone’s favorite queer recapper, Riese Bernard, is on vacation — but she left explicit instructions that we should post this trailer AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if it landed in her absence, and so here we are. Below you will find the full trailer, and frame-by-frame analysis from our TV Team (obviously).
Also please feel free to revisit the teaser trailers to inform your own theories!
The L Word: Generation Q Season 2 Trailer, Frame-by-Frame
Natalie: I both feel bad for Finley here (aww, bby!) and have a little bit more respect for Dani for (presumably) punching her in the eye!
Carmen: 100% Dani knocked her out, right? That’s the only way.
Heather: I love the nod to the fact that Finley would absolutely be wearing a USWNT jersey just around town, without Showtime getting licensing permission. :joy:
Valerie: Who wants to bet on whether they re-use the “liquor in the front, poker in the rear”
Kayla Kumari: I do love that between the original series and Gen Q, The L Word is really peddling the message that dykes are just constantly playing poker?????
Carmen: The original poker scene in Season Four of The L Word gave me the love of my life, Tasha Williams. So everything poker related is accepted and beloved by me. Those are the rules of the Tasha Williams fanclub, I did not create them (I did), but I sure do abide by them.
Carmen: BRING BACK TASHA WILLIAMS! Sorry. Ahem.
Heather: Y’all make me so nervous when these trailers come out because you get so manic seeing Bette Porter smooching and swaggering around you forget how dirty TLW did all the best characters!!!!!!
Carmen: I can do them both at the same time! Bette Porter is hot and Bring Back Tasha Williams!
Natalie: WHO DID YOU PICK, SOPHIE?!
Kayla Kumari: Why does this look like a still from Carol
Carmen: Generation Q, directed by Todd Haynes
Heather: Dearest, there are no accidents.
Natalie: I’m sure that first season GenQ guest star, Megan Rapinoe, would not object to me co-opting her motto for this moment: LET’S FUCKIN’ GOOOOO!
Natalie: Aww, I have missed this face. Even though IreallyhopeSophiechoseFinleyandnotyou, I’ve missed this face.
Natalie: I guess after punching Finley in the face, Dani’s leaning all the way into her butchy swagger. Personally, I am here for it.
Carmen: This is the hottest Dani has ever been, which is saying a lot and I personally require more shots that showcase her shoulders and jawline.
Valerie: 🥺 is a gay emoji now i don’t make the rules
Heather: I just realized how homophobic it is that we don’t have a backwards baseball cap emoji yet.
Natalie: I didn’t appreciate how long it’s been since we saw them until I saw Sophie’s hair.
Kayla Kumari: Lots of gay distress in this trailer
Natalie: I’d also note that “the real deal not coming around that often” is a call back to Carmen saying that very thing to Shane in the OG series and well, we know how that turned out
Carmen: Now THIS is the face I most missed!!! Welcome back to my Afro-Latina Queen.
Valerie: Cue all the interviews talking about LA being its own character in the show.
Natalie: lol
Carmen: Listen after six seasons of the OG series filming in Vancouver, they’ve gotta milk that city for all it’s worth. 😂
Natalie: “If we are paying these high ass taxes, we are going to get our money’s worth!”
Drew Gregory: I love that Tess and Shane are paired throughout this trailer. Would love it even more if Tess was trans. (Fun fact: I do not let things go.)
Natalie: We love that about you, Drew.
Valerie: Truly wouldn’t have it any other way
Kayla Kumari: Always support your persistence Drew
Kayla Kumari: Also I WOULD watch a buddy comedy about Tess and Shane called Jean Jacket/Leather Jacket
Valerie: Co-sign
Natalie: The Cheaters Club!
Natalie: Perhaps Gigi can school Bette on the benefits of polyamory and nonmonogamy since she is also incapable.
Carmen: N A T A L I E
Kayla Kumari: Gigi and Bette are like YES we’re hot and YES we will cheat on you 😇
Carmen: K A Y L A
Natalie: (An addendum: Gigi and Bette are like YES we’re hot and YES we will cheat on you and YES you will allow it.)
Valerie: So this isn’t like, a poker night for all of Dana’s, it’s a friends and exes only poker game? do people do this? is this an LA thing?
Natalie: I wonder what Tonya would have to say about Alice lecturing someone else about cheating…at DANA’s.
Heather: I WONDER WHAT MISTER PIDDLES WOULD SAY.
Kayla Kumari: I love that we can be in any time, any place, in any dimension or universe and no matter WHAT, Shane will still be wearing a wide collar
Natalie: Shane is all of us: wanting Alice to very much stop throwing stones from her glass house.
Heather: I feel like being Alice’s friends means you spend like 30% of your time looking uncomfortable and not making eye contact like this.
Kayla Kumari: Alice is trying to turn the poker game into a group therapy session, which is exactly the kind of chaos I expect from Alice
Carmen: If you aren’t turning your group hangs into group therapy, are you even dyking right? I don’t believe that you are.
Heather: “I’ll see your fearful-avoidant attachment style and raise you self-destructive impulses disguised as self-care.”
Valerie: tbh this is usually my face after an Alice line too.
Natalie: Gigi is not amused.
Kayla Kumari: tbh no thoughts head empty because…. they’re so hot.
Valerie: This season is sponsored by West Elm
Natalie: LOL
Heather: Better than being sponsored by those IKEA Pride couches. (Those couches oughta be glad Generation Q season 2 trailer dropped today so the gays have something else to obsess about.)
Kayla Kumari: Classic gay close-up of hands
Natalie: WHO’S HAND IS THAT?!
Kayla Kumari: Computer….. ENHANCE
Kayla Kumari: That’s a wedding ring right? that’s the only clue we have as to who it could be.
Kayla Kumari: Wait who is even married.
Heather: That is a hefty ring! Only the original characters could afford that ring!
Carmen: I think it’s Bette (I think all sex hands are Bette, I’ve been programmed since 2004)
Valerie :tugs at collar:
Natalie: lol
Heather: Bette should propose to and marry herself; she’d be queer fandom’s all-time favorite character and couple.
Drew Gregory: I’m excited that Micah is officially bi on the show! Less excited that it seems like they’re going to make a whole thing of it?
Kayla Kumari: Yeah I think they’re going full ✈️ identity crisis with it, which… why
Carmen: I’m less excited that he slept with a woman, and that woman wasn’t Dani, thus already slashing the #3 wish on my Gen Q Season 2 Bingo Card
Natalie: OOOH, I would love that storyline.
Natalie: Sorry, as the team’s resident bisexual, I have to say, I love everything about this: Leo Sheng with that hair, in that shirt, with those arms and being bisexual.
Kayla Kumari: THE HAIR IS SO GOOD
Natalie: Also, this is The L Word, they’ll forget about him being bisexual in a few seasons anyway. *coughAlicecough *
Kayla Kumari: too real
Kayla Kumari: my people are the people who dropped everything they were doing to watch this trailer (all of us)
Natalie: 100%
Drew Gregory: All it took was Rosie to get a butch character on this show.
Natalie: I said I wanted Rose back not Rosie. Rose Rollins.
Heather: “Oh, you ran for mayor? That’s cute. I played third base for the Rockford Peaches.”
Carmen: (I have nothing that will top that, I shall see myself out stage left)
Valerie: Yes.
Carmen: YES.
Heather: “Is that… did you find… Tina, is that an actual butch?”
Kayla Kumari: This look has the energy of this tweet imo:
https://twitter.com/daniellechezzy/status/1092482206545649664
Heather: “A butch. No, Shane, like a butch-butch.”
Carmen: The idea of Jennifer Beals “having no one” as if she is not Jennifer Beals is going to be the hardest part of Season Two to swallow. HAVE THEY NOT SEEN HER FACE? HAVE THEY NOT HEARD HER SAY FUCK?
Your honor, I rest my case.
Natalie: Yeah, I have nothing to add to that.
Kayla Kumari: I do feel like Bette is deflecting some of her personal accountability by being like I HAVE NO ONE. Maybe learn how to have one (1) healthy boundary in life?????
Carmen: OK, I get it now, Gigi is fine. I’m late to this train. I almost missed the party invite. I am a bad gay. But I am here now! I have seen the light!
Kayla Kumari: WELCOME, CARMEN
Carmen: So close! Almost there!
Kayla Kumari: Legally when two people are this hot and chaotic, they have to kiss
Drew Gregory: This is why I watch The L Word. 🥲
Natalie: ALONE NO MORE.
Carmen: jsjisfesfssssddjsjdfasldfalfkadfjafklafdjakfjlaadsfjkldsaflkadfl
Carmen: The end.
Valerie: Should I not want this? I genuinely don’t remember if I should want this or not. I don’t NOT want it, I know that much.
Natalie: I am torn. On the one hand: HOT. SO HOT. Like, SCALDING HOT. On the other, this feels like the “we are not over our exes so let’s just fuck each other” club, and that feels like a waste.
Kayla Kumari: I personally think Gigi should always be having threesomes so I’m like WHO ELSE CAN WE GET IN HERE
Drew Gregory: So excited to squeal with excitement over these two again !!
Valerie: THIS IS VERY CUTE.
Heather: Now this is what I am here for!
Natalie: THIS IS SO CUTE
Heather: I feel more protective of this queer baby angel than any TV character I have ever met. I remember when she was born!
Heather: (Also, hey, just real quick, I need to say “Generation Q season 2 trailer” for SEO purposes. Okay, please proceed.)
Drew Gregory: The return of Catherine Rothberg.
Drew Gregory: I assume.
Valerie: Where’d they get all those poker chips? Helena Peabody?
Carmen: Ooooohhhhh shit! If the poker scene is how they write in the return of Helena Peabody, I will fully lose it! That’s gotta be it. It MUST BE IT.
Natalie: From your lips to God’s ears
Natalie: Are they giving Jillian Mercado a storyline this season? 🎉🎉🎉
Heather: I have loved every sister of any Sophie that has appeared on my screen in the last two years! 🦇
Valerie: Ditto!
Carmen: I BELIEVE THAT SHE’S GOING TO BE GAY!! She has to be, right? It’s The L Word! I’d kill for a Jillian Mercado coming out storyline, especially since she came out IRL during Season One… And now here she is in the Generation Q Season 2 trailer, so universe don’t be cruel to me! Also, it must be said! A babe!
Carmen: If we get a Shane/Tess hook up this season, I’ll (almost) forgive them for everything.
(I said almost)
Natalie: We do not need another one of those! It was a mistake in Season one! Tess and Shane should just be friends that run the bar and never speak of that one time they hooked up.
Heather: Nothing delights me more than how we all get about this stupid amazing show. We all take leave of our senses, then come back to ourselves, then lose it again, then our moral compasses kick back in. I can see the devil and angel on Natalie’s shoulders going to war right now!
Valerie: I am an absolute SUCKER for a karaoke scene. And these three together?? I need to know what they’re singing immediately. I hope it’s just their own names over a beat like that one Shane and Carmen song they had sex to on some DJ equipment.
Natalie: I remain skeptical that Bette Porter would: 1. ever do karaoke and 2. ever do karaoke in a public space
Natalie: However, if she did karaoke, she would obviously sing lead as she seems to be doing here
Kayla Kumari: GAY!!!! KARAOKE!!!!
Kayla Kumari: It feels nice to be represented
Valerie: What if they sing the theme song
Kayla Kumari: OK here’s a real story: At my regular karaoke spot back in Brooklyn, I really wanted to sing the L Word themesong for my going away party. The KJ tried SO HARD to find a karaoke version and was even willing to pay for it if he had to (best KJ ever tbh) but he couldn’t find it ANYWHERE
Kayla Kumari: It simply does not exist
Kayla Kumari: The band Betty follows me on Instagram…always tempting to DM them to ask for a goddamn karaoke version
Kayla Kumari: Also, same energy:
Kayla Kumari: Which is maybe why I’m imagining them singing ABBA
Carmen: I love that Tina coming back home with a butch has sent Bette into such a tailspin that the only way out was karaoke. That feels right, in my bones.
Natalie: I’m going to guess those are Vanessa Williams’ hands, so now I need to know who’s back that is?
Natalie: The bra seems too ornate for Bette?
Carmen: No it’s Bette. It has to be Bette. More Bette having sex with Black women. There is no other option. Why would you try to curse us in this way?
Carmen: It’s Bette.
Carmen: Did I say that it is Bette?
Natalie: So, again… just so I understand what you’re saying, Carmen… you think it’s Bette?
Carmen: It. Is. BETTE.
Carmen: (Can someone confirm for me that it is Jennifer Beals who has the “no one can see my tits on camera” rule? Did I make that up? I may have to text Riese)
Heather: That’s for real! I remember from the — get this — Television Without Pity forums
Carmen: OK wonderful!
Natalie: Is this why you think the picture is Bette? Because who else wouldn’t take off their bra?
Carmen: Yes. And because I think the hair/skin tone matches Jennifer Beals.
Carmen: But at least 60%-70% the bra.
Carmen: I also think it’s very Bette’s style to wear such an ornate bra! Ugly ornate clothing is kinda her thing (remember that hideous bow from election night?)
Natalie: Those are “I’m about to get into some trouble” eyes and I am here for it. I do not want a season of Dani being heartbroken over Sophie.
Carmen: Oh yeah, absolutely. Dani’s rebounds from Sophie by leveling up into the truest form of her power dyke self. It’s like a video game, she will become her own Final Boss.
Heather: Kayla, is this the face you were making that time you were waiting to sing TLW theme song at karaoke? Chaotic glee?
Kayla Kumari: Yes.
Kayla Kumari: I was like no one in this room is ready.
Valerie: 🎶 When I was a child I stayed wide awake, climbed to the highest place, on every fire escape, restless to climb!” 🎶
Heather: 🎶 And I’ll keep wanderin’ and wanderin’
And wanderin’ and wonderin’
When will my life begin? 🎶
Carmen: I am excited for this increase of Tess, because she was a breakout star, but I am also hoping Gen Q has learned from its past and has at least one (1!) trans lesbian this season!!
Natalie: 🥰🥰🥰
Valerie: Is Bette watching someone do karaoke? WHAT/WHO IS MAKING HER GLOW LIKE THIS
Heather: Honestly, I think it’s Alice and Shane pulling her up on stage for karaoke. I think it’s her FRIENDS. 😭
Valerie: 😭
Carmen: I think everyone just looks good in bisexual lighting? Is it in the sacred text of the gays?
Valerie: I am VERY excited for Queer Babies At Prom amongst all the adult queer chaos. I hope they play “I just wanna dance with you” from The Prom.
Heather: OMG, I hope they play the Flashdance theme song, WHAT A FEELING.
Carmen: Perfect. It’s absolutely, in every way, Perfect.
Kayla Kumari: Can’t wait to cry about this.
Heather: The Generation Q season 2 trailer dropped six minutes ago and I’m already crying about it. Bette and Tina’s and mine and Natalie’s baby.
Natalie: Celebrating being absolutely beloved by the audience even though their characters are kinda trash.
Carmen: OK.. And??? As! They! Should!
Kayla Kumari: DRAMA
Natalie: Bring it, Dani!
Carmen: Oooof. this is gonna be so good and I love it.
Kayla Kumari: DRAAAAAMAAA.
Heather: “I can’t wait to get punched in the face, and then do karaoke about this when I grow up.”
Kayla Kumari: Karaoke is the perfect setting for emotional processing
Natalie: Kayla, Karoake songs for every Gen Q cast member has to be a future post.
Kayla Kumari: OMG yes.
Natalie: BUT WHO DID SHE CHOOSE THOUGH?!
Kayla: I went to add the date to my calendar but it was already in my calendar
Carmen: 37! Days! Left!
Natalie: GET. HERE. SOONER.
If the Generation Q season 2 trailer has got you hype, we’d love to hear your theories and feelings in the comments!