TINAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

A review of Showtime's 'The L Word: Generation Q'

The Yearning Rating: ✰✰✰

• Romance ✰✰✰

• Sex ✰✰✰✰

• Storytelling ✰✰

• Performance ✰✰½

• Yearning ✰✰

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Hey! Are you going to The Planet—sorry, Dana’s on Friday?

We’re excited to be bringing you a mid-season joint review of Showtime’s The L Word: Generation Q season three. As promised, we will also be premiering The Yearning’s first ever audio offering, in the form of a mini-podcast.

Well…we intended for it to be mini. But when the gays make plans, God¹ laughs.

We talked for over an hour :) Whoops! What can we say? We love to talk Les Girls.

If you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, we’ve transcribed and edited down the conversation between us into bite-size vignettes. i.e., if you are here to talk about Shane and Shane ONLY, don’t worry—you can scroll down to her section.

Some spoilers ahead—we hope you enjoy ♥

Meg and Ali

Meg and Ali’s Official Statements on Season 3 (so far):

Interested in hearing just this bit? Listen from 0:40—3:45.

Ali: We are super excited to be talking today about The L Word: Generation Q Season 3, which…I cannot believe we got here. 

Meg: We're finally here. 

Ali: So, I thought we could start the conversation by taking on the ultimate task of distilling our thoughts on this season into a quick little sentence so that people know where we're coming from. This is actually pretty perfect because—in my mind, the third season of the OG L Word is where everything fell apart, and I do feel a similar chaotic messiness to this season. So my one sentence on this season of The L Word: Generation Q is…The L Word ruins things. 

Meg: It has really nice things and it slowly, systematically tears them down.

Ali: Sometimes really quickly, actually! Sometimes not slowly but really fast and, you know, without warning. That's kind of where I feel this season is…The L Word ruins things. What about you, Meg? 

Meg: I think I'm in a similar place which is that, instead of the old hyper-connected, web-like feel of the original series, where everybody was going in and out of each other's stories and it felt very entwined, this season of Gen Q instead feels like we're just listening to a lot of parallel stories that attempt to intertwine, but to varying degrees of success. It ends up feeling pretty disappointing. 

Ali: I absolutely agree with that. I feel like the whole point of the original show was to show the queer [or very specifically the lesbian] community of West Hollywood and how that community—I mean, literally the iconic image is the chart of everyone interconnected! This iteration of the series, but even more specifically this season of Gen Q, feels the most disconnected of them all. Not that it really ever showed community that well in the original, but at least everything was connected. In this season, I just feel like they are really trying to cobble the stories together. I had a note when I was watching that The L Word: Generation Q kind of ends up feeling like you're reading a bunch of fan fictions written by different authors every episode.

The New Generation in Gen Q:

Listen from 4:45—30:00.

Ali: Something I often say while I watch this show is that nothing is sacred. No relationship, no character growth, and no friendship is sacred to The L Word. I think the only friendship that The L Word takes seriously is Shane and Alice, and I think that is completely to the credit of the actors. Anything else is up for debate. Or it's up for destruction, whatever you want to call it. Anything else can be thrown under the bus.

Meg: It's tricky because sometimes that messiness is mirrored in our real lives, and our real queer communities, and so you love to see it on the screen. I think that's one of the best parts of the original series, those moments where you can go, “Oh my God, I remember when that happened in my friend group,” to some variation—they always take it really far, of course. But I do feel like sometimes it's messy for messy’s sake. 

Ali: I think in a narrative sense, it gets really tiresome to not feel like you can actually invest in some of these storylines because you're not sure if they're worth getting invested in. For example, one of the highlights of Gen Q that actually got people excited about the show again—and about the new characters in particular—was the pairing of Dani and Gigi. And they just absolutely threw that coupling away at the beginning of this season. My theory is that the actress who played Gigi, Sepideh Moafi, wanted to leave the show. I have no proof of that, but I just got the sense that she was done with it. She didn't really have any scenes with any of the other actors in the show except for Dani. I feel like she probably came onto the set a couple times, did her three scenes and then was like, I'm out of here. But in finding a way to write her off this show, they ruined the one coupling that I think people were excited about and made Dani completely insufferable in the process. I don't know what they're doing with her. 

Meg: I was going to say the same thing. And then also, what is going on with that woman's [Dani’s] career? It makes no sense. I'm not even going to be able to keep track of it over three seasons, but it was politics, then professional art stuff, right? And then she was going to work for her dad, who I don't remember what he does. At the beginning of the season she was working for The Alice Show, does she still work for them? 

Ali: She's in PR, I think. She's a party planner / PR person. 

Meg: It’s all over the place and I don’t think they're doing this intentionally. It mirrors the fact that she is going through a complete upheaval of her entire identity every episode. 

Ali: And going back to our original point of missing the community aspect of the show, they are trying their hardest to create that now with these younger characters. I remember watching the Halloween episode, where Finley, Sophie and Dani were sitting at Dana's [the bar that Shane owns], and I was like, wow, this is one of the first times we've had a scene where a core group of friends are sitting around talking about their lives over coffee, which was such a staple of the original show. I feel like the creators said, “Okay, we need to get back to that core of what the show is”. But why weren’t they doing this in Season One and building these characters as the new generation? I think partly it's because everyone was watching the show for the original cast, so from the beginning they put that emphasis there. And now as the older cast members are moving on, they’re dealing with the reality that continuing this show means they need to develop these younger characters. But there’s this sense that…it's too late. I think the show has a problem. You can see a huge difference in the marketing and the promotion of the show versus the actual storylines. They marketed the crap out of the older characters. Promotion for this season was basically all Bette and Tina, and they’ve been in two episodes so far. If that's what they were using to get people to watch the show, that's not what the show is. So, I’d say they know that they have a problem and I don't really know what they're going to do about it.

Meg: Now we're in the third season of the reboot. And thinking back to the first season, I remember this sense of relief, like, “oh my God, I can't believe The L Word is back.” It [the reboot] felt like queer lore for so long. “Oh my God, this is what Shane is like now,” and “Alice has a TV show!” And then we sprinkle in these other players along the edges. But now, as they’re trying to prop them up as core cast members, I feel invested in almost none of them. In fact, the people I'm most invested in are the peripheral ones, like—I love Rosie O'Donnell’s performance as Carrie. I'm happy she's had more of an arc and that they are showing genuine, non-skinny butch for butch love. But she's such a minor part. 

Ali: Yeah, they are trying to push the new characters on us, but they're not actually respecting these characters or the storylines they're giving them. Just think about Maribel and Micah and this whole storyline about the baby. This could’ve been an interesting storyline, but they're giving no justification to it at all. Think about the way they introduced the plot—it was in two seconds. The literal script of that moment was, “Will you marry me?” “I don't want to get married. Let's have a baby.” 

Meg: And it was intercut into another scene that was weighted more emotionally. I'm sorry, what? 

Ali: Then they're trying to make this the big story of the season, but it's so thin, it is so surface-level. I'm hoping that they give it more attention and that they really let Maribel interrogate her issues with her own parental figures. I want to see that, but it's not being done at all, even though this plot has somehow taken up the majority of most episodes at this point. 

Meg: I feel like the transformation that Micah has gone through over three seasons has been interesting to watch. I find it hard to believe that Micah would sort of tolerate being with somebody as emotionally immature as Maribel. 

Ali: Micah is a therapist and Maribel scoffs at therapy. Can we get more of an exploration into that? And on the same kind of wavelength of like these younger cast members both being established as the core cast, but then also not really getting the respect they deserve, we have Angie sleeping with her teacher and there’s just absolutely no conversation around what that means. He’s supposed to be this good guy, and he’s kind of young, so they’re like, “it’s okay!” But with everything going on in our culture, to have this storyline and have it be so surface-level is kind of odd.

Meg: I am curious if they’re going to do more with it in the last three episodes. I feel like they probably will acknowledge it, but it's going to be just a quick nod to the fact that it was inappropriate. I kind of thought he might have been fired by now. I think maybe Angie will end up with her roommate. I think that's where they're going with it. 

Ali: Then we have Sophie and Finley, who are being propped up as the core couple of the younger cast. They just went through a breakup and the tone of that breakup was so odd to me. Sophie was being so cold in that scene that I just was so confused about what was going on. I also feel like they invented drama in that relationship. I mean obviously that relationship is drama, but there was one scene where Finley was like, “You cheat. It's a pattern with you! Remember you also cheated on your girlfriend before Dani???” And we've never heard about that. They’re absolutely inventing this personality trait that Sophie’s a cheater. 

Meg: I agree. In the musical episode, I felt for a second like I was playing catch-up while listening to Sophie’s song. Like, wait, what's her issue? To me, there wasn't enough support for her to feel that suppressed. I do think that the basis of the break up makes sense—it's something that happens in relationships all the time. One partner is going through something really traumatic and needs to lean so much on the other that the emotional labor balance becomes upset and creates tension, distance, and resentment. I think they portray this better between Tess and Shane, but it wasn’t developed enough with Sophie and Finley. I felt a little bit like, “Why is she upset and in the 1950s? Why is she like, I'm a housewife and I'm not allowed to talk?” You don't get that from Sophie in the rest of the season except for that one tense moment that's like, “Ugh, you need help buying a car?”

Ali: That was literally it. 

Meg: The rest of the time, their issue seems to be Finley calling her a cheater and essentially being like, “How dare you sleep with someone else while I was in rehab or sober living when I said it was okay.” And then we just don’t see any more conflict until Sophie is like, “The weight of you wanting me to come help you buy a car when I'm going to do Ayahuasca with my boss is too much.” Also—speaking as somebody who bought a car by herself, it is hard. I would like better representation for people who try to buy cars. I don't think Finley got enough flowers for buying that car on her own. 

Ali: I totally agree with you, there was no build up to that. Also the idea that Sophie is this “housewife”…Sophie is the one with the career! In the episode prior, Finley was the one who had been making dinner so that it was ready for Sophie when she got home from work. There was no forethought. I feel like the writers said, “Lets inject this couple with really tangible problems so that the audience understands this breakup.”

Meg: I think the last thing we say before we move on to the older cast—the people we really love—is the friendship dynamic between Dani and Sophie this season feels really forced and cheesy to me. 

Ali: It goes full circle. It's just them not really knowing who these characters are, and I don't think they ever really knew who these characters were, it's just really showing this season because they're trying to give them more attention. My overall feelings on the younger cast is that it’s all screen time and no development. 

Meg: I completely agree. As far as the newer cast that's not necessarily young—Gigi, Nat—those are people that I thought added value, and it feels emptier without them. 

Ali: There is a feeling of finality to this season for me. I think it’s because I'm so focused on the older cast members and all of their stories, and it feels like they're wrapping them up to make space for the younger cast. I'm not sure if the show will continue, but if it does, I think it'll be fundamentally different. Even in bringing back Dana and Max to get closure on these other OG cast members, I just feel like they're really trying to wrap up these older storylines, and I feel happy about that because I do want closure. But I also feel like it's a goodbye.

Meg: I would have been reluctant to let go of the original L Word at a time like this, and obviously we had more than three seasons of the original, but this season has been a lot less fun for me to watch. It's just been a lot less fulfilling. When I think about the first two seasons [of Gen Q], I of course had critiques of those, but I enjoyed them more. I’m saying gently here that I would be okay if this is the last season.

The Musical Episode:

Listen from 30:00—33:50.

Ali: One other reason that this season feels like a goodbye is that most shows do a musical episode when they're on their final legs. And maybe this is an unpopular opinion—even controversial—but I had fun watching the musical episode. 

Meg: I was nervous to tell you I enjoyed it...  

Ali: I just had fun with it! And even though it was kind of silly and cheesy and all that stuff, I had fun with the decades thing that they did and I had fun with the fact that we actually got some character development from Shane and Alice. The Sophie character development was a little more out of left field for me, but her song was arguably the best song. It got back to the kind of chaos that I missed from The L Word, which is not just chaos for chaos’ sake, but more of a tongue-in-cheek-type chaos, if that makes sense. Where they are in on the joke as well. 

Meg: It made me think of the campiness of them shooting Les Girls in the original. I also loved the core song, “Have A Good Trip.” I might’ve liked that the most of all four songs.

Ali: The campiness is what I want from the show. The idea that we know that this is silly, but we're having fun with you, rather than throwing everything at you and seeing what sticks.

Dana & Alice:

Listen from 34:00—38:40.

Ali: My favorite character has always been Dana and I was genuinely moved seeing her again. When Alice and Dana kissed, I cried. It makes me feel frustrated, the grief that I feel and I think it's so silly to say because it's this stupid show, but I do mourn that [Dana] died. I am of two minds about it, because it's like…yeah, sometimes the best person dies and that's just life. But this is a show where we're not necessarily delving into the reality of things that much, so why did they have to make this decision? Anyway, I felt really happy that they brought [Erin Daniels] back. I know she's friends with Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey and so I'm happy they found something for her to do. I loved seeing her on my screen again. I thought she looked so beautiful and she’s still so charming. 

Meg: That is exactly what I was going to say. It's just like watching the old series. I think it's beautiful that they acknowledged the passing of time and at the same time honored the sanctity of their connection. I think it's one of the most well done things about the original series. Amidst the campiness and silliness that’s present in so much of the original series, the love between Alice and Dana is so true. They built to it so much, over so much time, and you were just so desperate for them to finally be with each other that for it to be cut so short is devastating. I think that the episode when Dana dies is heartbreaking and Leisha’s performance in that episode is unbelievable. When Alice opened the box and the stuffed flower was still in there after all this time, and the song started playing, I instantly cried.

Ali: I was so worried that they were going to have Alice throw that away as a symbol of her letting go or something. I was so ready to be pissed, and then she didn't and she talked to it instead. I was really happy that they didn't have her throw it away because I thought that would be a little bit too obvious. Also…I wanted her to keep it! I don't know. I think the whole thing just made me feel genuinely frustrated, where it's like this person who you miss so desperately is just not coming back.

Meg: There’s an early episode of the PANTS podcast—which is cohosted by Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey, they talk about The L Word and other things too—where they interview Ilene Chaiken. I really recommend this one, because they talked to her about the original inception of The L Word as well as ask her specifically about the choice to kill Dana. It's a really interesting conversation and I think it helped me confront exactly what you're saying. When I watched it originally, I was just feeling so much grief at losing such a wonderful character and desperately wanting it to be different. But I can also recognize the profound impact it has had on Alice as a character over literal decades. I love Alice, she's one of my favorite characters and I really want her to be happy.

Who is “The One” for Alice?

Listen from 38:40—43:45.

Meg: I am relieved that Tom isn't “The One” because I can't stand them together. I was like, don't go there. 

Ali: I never thought he was going to be “The One.” I have a pretty strong theory about who “The One” is going to be. I've fallen even more in love with Alice in Gen Q. Her character was a little all over the place in the original. But I think who she is in this series [Gen Q] is so fabulous and I've loved watching her. That's one of the highlights of them having brought the show back, seeing how they've developed that character. And now for my theory. I think Alice’s person is going to be Tasha. Here's why: the last time we saw Dana on The L Word was the Season Four finale of the original series. It was when Alice and Tasha were going through a tough time, and Dana was the one who told Alice to keep trying with Tasha. We now have Dana coming back again telling Alice that she did miss “miss it,” but not with her, which indicates that “The One” is someone Alice has already dated. Then in the very next episode, they randomly name drop Tasha. They have not talked about Tasha since the end of the original show and now they are bringing her up right after we see Dana? I think that's too much of a coincidence. So that's my theory—I think it's going to be Tasha. 

Meg: I don't remember the exact dialogue between Tom and Alice, but I thought she said to him, “I'm trying to figure out who my person is,” and he brings up Tasha. I guess I just feel like that's a little on-the-nose. Do you think it's a red herring? 

Ali: Nothing is too on the nose for The L Word. This is the show that introduces plot points by saying, “Oh, by the way did you hear that Marina jumped off the roof?” I don't think it would be out of character. 

Meg: I was theorizing that it could be Lara, which I think could be really interesting because they have a mutual connection with Dana. The only thing that makes me question that theory is Dana said, “I knew them in a way,” and obviously she knew Lara pretty well. I still just have a feeling. I loved Lara as a character. I thought she was really interesting and magnetic and I could just see that working out. In some ways that feels cinematic: they could reconnect and realize that they're compatible, not just because they knew each other in a past life, but because maybe they're looking for similar things in a partner and could find that in each other. 

Ali: I think either of those people could be “The One.” We should take a bet right now.

Meg: Winner chooses the next “From The Archives” post. And if neither of us are right, we hang our heads in shame and never talk about this again…

Shane & Tess:

Listen from 44:00—52:00.

Ali: We had a conversation when I was visiting New York a couple weeks ago where I said I wanted them to have Shane examine why she destroys most of her romantic relationships. And I told you—and I was pretty confident in telling you—I didn’t think they were going to do it. And now I'm obviously eating my words because they are giving her this moment of introspection. 

Meg: This goes back to what we were saying about feeling like different storylines and scenes are being written by entirely different writers—and as a person who works in TV, I can confirm that this does happen. Sometimes you're assigned a character's storyline and you have to develop it. So that’s possible, but from a viewer’s perspective, it's giving chaos. As far as Shane and Tess are concerned, I feel like [her cheating] was such a fake out. We were like, I can't believe they're doing this, I can't believe she's cheating…again. I'm a Shane apologist and I'll never stop loving Shane.

Ali: I love Shane more now than I ever loved her in the original. I think Shane is so attractive now—I know you have always felt that way. I’ve had more problematic crushes on this show…

Meg: Yes, she’s my dream woman. I’ve always loved Shane, always wanted the best for her, and have always felt so much heartache for her failed relationships with the people she deeply connected with or who seemed like they were “The One”. I was crushed to see the cheating plot line because I also love—and if you've read my review of Hellraiser, you know pretty much the only thing I cared about in that movie was—Jamie Clayton. I love Jamie Clayton. I think she's been such a value add to Gen Q. Moments before [Shane and Tess] were locked out on the porch, I said to [my partner], “they're getting locked on that porch.” I thought the conversation that they had was so impactful and such a nuanced way to discuss the evolution of Shane’s behavior over decades. It was also examining tension within a relationship, and how it can lead to cheating and disconnect and serious distance between people who really love each other. I was so thrilled to see such an accurate and real portrayal of conflict in a long-term relationship. 

Ali: It also wasn't all about blaming Shane. They could have gone down that road, but Shane had this moment where she was like, “I need you to confirm that our relationship has been hard recently and that we haven't been giving each other the attention that we used to.” And I do think in that moment Tess kind of brushes that off and I think that was a missed opportunity, although maybe we'll come back to that in later episodes. But there was a nuance that surprised me in that conversation. I'm happy that they had it and I'm happy to eat my words. I really, really didn't think they were going to. I thought they were going to be like, we need Shane back! We need bad girl Shane back! I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion—maybe there are people out there who do want bad girl Shane back—but I'm not in that camp. I like Tess and I like them together and I want to see her actually confront some of these things that she’s done. 

Meg: I understand feeling like Tess’s reaction in that conversation was a little rough. I actually thought it was really well written from Tess' perspective. She is a fiery person who’s always been a bit like that. I feel like I know that person in real life—a little rough around the edges, but also a little insecure, a little worried, a little nervous. That's how she protects herself. At that moment, I kind of chuckled because I felt like I just knew her so well.

TiBette is endgame:

Listen from 52:10—1:00:00.

Ali: We have to talk about the “Bette and Tina” of it all. How do you feel about the show putting these two characters back together? I feel like it was inevitable. 

Meg: The moment they put Laurel back on screen [the woman who plays Tina], I knew it was happening. 

Ali: Laurel Holloman is a painter. She is not an actress, she did not have to come back and do this, and I do think she did it for the fans. I do want to just put a little bit of appreciation out there because there is obviously a huge subset of fans who were dying for this and I think she kind of saw that and was like, “Okay I'm going to do this.”

Meg: The second Laurel Holloman was back on screen, I was like they're getting back together. I felt bad for Carrie because, like we said a little bit earlier, I really am enjoying Rosie O'Donnell's portrayal of this strait-laced, older butch woman who just says it how it is. 

Ali: I had a note from the last episode where Finley goes to live with Carrie: “a hug from butch mommy fixes everything.”

Meg: I think they've been hinting at parental trauma for Finley for three seasons now and I was happy for her to get a firm hand from Carrie in the bowling alley. Carrie’s like, “We're going home to go eat lasagna, we'll just move on.” Okay, back to Bette and Tina. This is how I feel about them: They remind me of people who are older than us, from another generation, who despite mental health issues or struggling with conflict resolution their entire lives, they're not going to go to therapy and they're not going to change. I think Bette and Tina are going to have these issues to some extent forever, but they love each other. I think they've grown a little and I think they've realized that what they love, what they want more than anything, is each other. And so they'll just persevere. 

Ali: I agree. I'd rather have them together than ruining someone else's life. They're just going to keep fucking over other people, so my thought is—let's just keep them together! And they do feel so connected, and it was gratifying to see that after all these years they still have great chemistry. There's a reason people want to see them together. They have good chemistry, there has been a lot invested into that relationship. I know despite my misgivings about the characters individually, which I definitely have, even though I will reveal that I problematically loved Bette in the original show…

Meg: Very problematic. 

Ali: It's one of my biggest character flaws. But ultimately I am happy to see them together, if only because now they can let other people just be happy without them in their lives. 

Meg: You’re exactly on the money, which is they are harbingers of chaos, but they're better together than apart. They have such good chemistry together onscreen and I think that's what fuels their relationship. They are drawn to each other, they always have been. I love that as the origin of their love story so many moons ago too, so I'm happy they're together. I think they should give therapy an honest try, but also I think that Gen Q was very redeeming for Bette as a person. She's not perfect, but she's an amazing parent and she's grown into a little bit of softness in her older age and I think it's suited her. 

Ali: I think we saw less growth from Tina, but that's just because she was there less and when she was there it was more as a counterpoint to Bette, rather than as her own character. I don't know if you saw this but Jennifer Beals is leaving the show. If the show does continue, it'll continue without her, so I think having them end up together and then leaving the show—that's really the only way that you can do it. We can't keep seeing their story play out the same way over and over again. We just have to be like okay, they're together now, they're happy and they're off in Toronto or whatever.

Max’s Return:

Listen from 1:00:30—end.

Ali: I think that maybe the best thing that the show did this season was bring Max back. 

Meg: We talked about this a little bit when we saw each other a few weeks ago, but I was so emotional to see Max back on screen, and what a beautiful choice to honor somebody who blazed a path in television in the early aughts, where he was not cared for. His storyline in the original show was so painful, and I felt so much joy seeing him so happy, so connected to his life—loving parenthood and being such a beautiful role model for Micah. It was so special to me. 

Ali: Something that really struck me was that in the original show the idea of Max as a parent was portrayed as such a joke. It was almost this like cruel thing that they did to this character, this cherry on top of a cruel sundae. To have him come back and not just have made the best out of his situation, but to have found a way to make this thing that was kind of a punishment on this character (for no reason) into a beautiful life, in a way that worked for him. He was like, “I'm parenting the way I want to parent. I’m parenting my kids in this queer home, and I'm the kind of man that I want to be.” There’s agency in it, where there was absolutely no agency in the way that they portrayed his situation in the original. I was a little worried that they were going to bring him back and kind of push the parent thing under the rug, but he found a way to make that work for him. One of the best moments I think was when Shane apologized, Max doesn't dwell on that moment. Instead he basically indicates, “Hey, I'm good now. You treated me the way you treat me and that is something you have to deal with. I'm not dealing with that anymore. I've moved on.” 

Meg: Not only was the pregnancy itself brutal for Max in the original show, but also Max fought to be cared for by that group his entire time on screen. It wasn't just the pregnancy that was a joke, but his masc presentation was off-putting to the group and they felt uncomfortable and didn't know how to deal with it. There were also class things going on. And I completely agree, I think that it was such beautiful writing for someone who's clearly cared for themselves, done the work, done the healing and is able to say, “I get it. You were in that place back then, but I'm focused on me and you'll have to deal with it.” 

Ali: I don't need your approval—that's what I got from that and I loved it. 

Meg: I’ll never get that image of Max in the original L Word out of my head, where he’s sitting at his baby shower, super pregnant, and he looks so miserable and everyone is performing a baby shower at him and he is clearly hating every second of it. I just thought it was such a beautiful choice to show how he has embraced parenthood and has built this world for himself where he's so happy. I definitely teared up. I was so happy to see him and I want him back. 

Ali: If I were Max I wouldn't want to come back and hang out with these people. 

Meg: Do you think that the distance that we’ve noticed in Gen Q Season Three would help make a space for Max where he doesn't have to be in that community, but he could still be a part of the Micah and Maribel storyline? 

Ali: I would absolutely love to have him be a bigger part of Micah’s life because that was the only time I felt like I zoned in on that storyline in a real way. Max was facilitating these real conversations about parenthood, about how you should approach parenthood or prepare for parenthood that I feel has been missing from that storyline as a whole. It was also incredibly powerful to see that one-on-one conversation between Micah and Max. To have a scene where two trans men are caring for each other on this show that has historically treated trans men so horribly, was something that I really enjoyed seeing.

Meg: I do just want Max back on screen. 

Well, if you made it this far, you must be just as much of a sucker for these West Hollywood Gays as we are. Whether they’re laughing, loving, fighting, fucking, crying, or drinking…we’ll be watching. (And report back to you. If that’s okay.)

Did you like and/or hate putting voices to our gorgeous words? Should we do this again? We’d love to hear from you in the comments. Or you can reply directly to this email!

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Next week on The Yearning, Ali will bring you a review of Olivia Peace’s Tahara, because we are predisposed to love movies that are gay and take place at a Jewish funeral.

1. Jennifer Beals