The day has finally arrived: Person of Interest‘s fifth season will premiere on this very night, and at some point in this final run of episodes, before Sarah Shahi bounces off to become Nancy Drew, Root and Shaw are going to rip each other’s tank tops off and smoosh their mouths into each other! We’ll be writing about it, of course. I don’t know exactly how yet because I want to see how it unfolds. Also tonight, Amy and Karma are going to kiss (again, for the billionth time) on Faking It, although I can’t believe it’s going to be anything more than a dream sequence because I can’t believe anything this show tells me anymore. Several of you have written and tweeted to tell us The Catch introduced a bisexual character for the purpose of murdering her, and Saints & Sinners offed a queer woman too. Riese has updated The List to reflect the new death toll, which is 155. (What a year!)
Here’s what else is going on with lesbian and bisexual TV.
Arrow
Relax. I know a guy with a box.
Isn’t it weird how Arrow only allows lesbian Nyssa back onto the show so straight people can beg her to bring their loved ones back from the dead with the Lazarus Pit? That’s what happened on Thursday night. River Song arrived to attend Laurel’s funeral, not too put out about the whole thing, to be honest, because look at John Snow, okay? And like how many times has Captain America been murdered? But Lance tells her dead means dead this time. They already resurrected two women on this show, and that’s more than most other shows achieve in twenty years. Lance didn’t believe it ten minutes before he said it, but trusty Nyssa and her cold assassin logic told him the truth. When Lance didn’t believe her because she’s a woman, Nyssa had Oliver tell Lance. And then he believed it, and then he told it to River Song. Maybe Nyssa will go time-hopping and tell Sara herself, so she can comfort her. Maybe River Song will lend her Time Lord prowess.
Orphan Black
Enough effing Castors!
Excuse the heck out of me! Did Orphan Black say the word “lesbian” out loud this week in reference to Cosima? Indeed they did, my friends. When Sarah reveals that she has the Neolutionist worm in her cheek, Alison springs into action and tells Donnie to run on out to Home Depot to buy a jackhammer so they can dig up Leekie and offer his (truly, horrifically, disgustingly, barfingly) decaying corpse to Cosima for research. Donnie suggests that maybe they don’t have to tell Cosima about Leekie, maybe Cosima will just let the cheek worm go. But no! “She’s a lesbian and a scientist, she’s not going to let it go!” Nothing is quite as delightful as Donnie and Alison explaining to Cosima over Skype that they manslaughtered Leakie and please come pick up his gross bones. Cosima’s face! “You killed Aldous Leekie?!”
Okay, never mind. Helena is always as delightful as every other hijink. Posing with Husband Donnie as Alison when some detectives come to call because they’re investigating the triple homicide from the drug warehouse last season: It looks like Helena is out of her element, but nope. She rattles off the names of everyone who worked on Alison’s campaign, and could probably also give their geographic coordinates and social security numbers if the detectives pressed her. Then she goes back to eating Doritos and talking on the phone to Sarah about how she’s having twins.
Sarah’s own child isn’t doing really well. She’s staring into space and blanking out and knocking over tabletop RPGs and like whispering the future of impending fire. Keira is a seer, basically, is what I am saying, but her doom and gloom isn’t cushioned in whimsy like Professor Trelawney. It’s just creepy.
Sarah doesn’t get the Neoworm out of her face, but she does find a dentist that exploded a lot of faces messing around with the Neoworms. Thank the heavens Rachel sneaked a message out of the bunker where her mom’s holding her hostage so Ferdinand would go seeking Ms. S so she could send him to slit the throat of the hygienist who is menacing Sarah. This part is confusing, in large part because of the words “Topside” and “Helsinki” and I honestly just cannot remember how any of those things align or intersect. I’m not dumb about TV, but I just need Neolution to be the bad guy for a while! Also, because of straight white gay face blindness. I had to look up Ferdinand’s name.
Rachel is in the bunker and her mom reveals to her the little tiny Leda is her real life sister. She was cloned directly from Rachel’s DNA. It’s the biggest mistake anyone on this show has ever made. When Rachel sees Charlotte cough up blood later, like Cosima, like so many dead clones before, her eyes go Dark Magic, and you know in your heart she’s going to solve the whole entire goddamn thing and then watch her mother burn alive in a fire.
Keira and Rachel have a lot in common.
Rosewood
Living in this lab is so great, but, like, maybe after we’re married, we could get our own place?
Our dears Pippy and TMI enjoyed a little screen time on last week’s Rosewood. Pippy’s been hanging out with her old pal Cassy, the girl (now woman) she lived with on the streets when Mama Vee kicked her out for being gay. Pippy’s got inside jokes with Cassy, and a history with Cassy, and they’re going out at night and drinking and reminiscing and TMI’s feeling a little left out. She tries to tag along, but gets hungover, and anyway, she doesn’t really know a lot of the stories these two share, so it’s not very much fun anyway. So she decides to form her own relationship with Cassy! She brings her wine and tries to do impromptu karaoke with her! Cassy finally confesses to Pippy that she showed up to break up her and TMI, but ten minutes alone with that girl convinced her that TMI is one of a kind and that Pippy chose the right partner. Aww!
Oh, hey, and I found Luisa! She was on last week’s episode. (Not gay.) Go back to Jane the Virgin, girl! I miss you like crazy!
One ticket to Miami, please. I got a southern belle to sweep off her feet.
Let us assemble on Friday to talk about Callie and Arizona’s impending queer doom!
Heads up, Nyssa is actually gay on Arrow, and it’s the other half of Nyssara, Sara Lance, who’s bisexual.
Donnie is my favorite male character on TV right now because you get zero manpain and zero mansplaining.
PD: Heather, are you sure you need tu put PoI and that crap Faking It in the same paragraph?
Haha, this comment amused me, because my friend texted me tonight to tell me that Amy and Karma kissed, in a dream, AGAIN.
And I was just like “NOPE, SORRY, PERSON OF INTEREST PREMIERES TONIGHT. I CANNOT HELP YOU DEAL WITH FEELINGS REGARDING LESSER TV SHOWS”.
I’m freaking out because now that they said the word LESBIAN I’m afraid Cosima really will die. She’s been sick, she’s been near death, but I thought she was safe from actually dying, until now….
If it makes you feel any better, they said it last season. When she was posing as Allison she started off a sentence with “as a lesbian” and had to hastily amend “supporter” to keep cover.
Coming up on “Legends of Tomorrow”.
We are experiencing a dearth of shows with gay characters right now in Oz – should I watch Person of Interest from the beginning? And Rosewood? (I think I’m missing our old PLL more than I thought I would – when I say old, I mean, before they ruined it). I’m almost desperate enough to watch The 100 just for Clexa, even though I know how it ends! What should I do?! (Actually, I watched the first couple of episodes of The 100, and the male characters pissed me off so bad I really don’t think I can do it).
I would not recommend watching the 100, or just stopping at the end of Season 2 (the show gets significantly better around S1 episode 5 or so, just FYI). The Clexa storyline and Lexa as a character is so good that the disappointment is so painful. I am not sure I will ever not be mad about it.
Have you tried Orphan Black? It’s pretty good. And Tatiana Maslany…wow.
Watch POI from the beginning. I know you’ll watch the first season and it MIGHT be boring for you. But trust me, it pays off in the end when you see everything unfold.
I’ve been following this guide for POI. At least until I caught up to Root and Shaw’s introductions.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/04/22/person-of-interest-the-episodes-that-will-catch-you-up
Have you considered The Fosters?
POI! Then you can geek out with us on here!
Webseries! As then you don’t have to wait for air dates waaay later than the US. (I’m in the UK, so I feel this) All for One has just come back from hiatus, and if you haven’t bingewatched Carmilla yet, do. It will restore your faith in queer storytelling.
Hi Heather. What do you mean by, “We’ll be writing about it, of course. I don’t know exactly how yet because I want to see how it unfolds.”
Where is Shay, I wonder? Cosima needs some TLC!
(I’m 100% team Delphine and firmly believe that she is still alive. But I guess while Evelyne Brochu is filming that other show she’ll be gone from OB for a while.)
Plus, how about a little Kenzi to lighten the mood?
WHO HAS SEEN THE PERSON OF INTEREST SEASON FIVE PREMIERE AND WANTS TO FREAK OUT WITH ME IN THE REPLIES SO WE DON’T SPOIL ANYONE!?
Me and I am absolutely freaking out. It was glorious,
SO GLORIOUS! Other than the absence of Shaw, obviously, the episode had everything I love about this show – Root being badass, The Machine being too adorable and making me cry, Harold and Root and their philosophical discussions, cars getting t-boned, and super creepy comments on our fucked up society.
The only things that bothered me a little were that Reese still treats Fusco like crap, even after all they’ve been through together, Reese still sees him as nothing but a dirty cop. And also, some of the flashbacks with Harold felt a little retconned. Like, they made Harold seem just a liiiiittle too prescient about the rise of ASIs, especially because he didn’t know Samaritan had survived until Aletheia.
But other than those two small things, it was GLORIOUS!
I yelled in joy when I saw Bear !!!
It was everything I’ve wanted the premiere to be. I LOVE THIS SHOW I LOVE THIS SHOW MY GOD.
The flashbacks to Harold and baby!Machine gave me FEELINGS.
I was like:
Bear save day!
Who’s a highly trained intelligent service animal?
You are! Buena Osita *besitos*
WHEN HE BROUGHT HAROLD THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER?!
I’m sorry, I seem to be unable to speak about this show except in allcaps.
I won’t lie, I’m looking forward to the Shaw/Bear reunion almost as much as the Root/Shaw one.
Omg the shaw/bear reunion BETTER BE GLORIOUS
IT WAS SO GOOD. Everyone was so badass and competent and the Finch/Machine scenes made me emotional.
This Samaritan-controlled world is terrifying and, again, apart from the AI thing it really isn’t far from reality. The writers have tweeted about some of the real-world events that inspired them. On the plus side, Root flipped off the camera in that subway scene and I know it’s juvenile but I’m cackling about it.
You’re not alone in the cackling.
Oh R00t our sparky little cybernetic murder gal pal of our extra killy former Wookie. Her shenanigans give me life.
ALSO did anyone else have low-key anxiety thinking that if they hadn’t been able to go back safely to the subway station and had died, BEAR WOULD HAVE BEEN STUCK IN THERE. HOW IS THAT OK.
The producers have promised that, at the very least, Bear survives the season. And c’mon, Bear is smart enough to get out of the subway. Hell, he can SCUBA dive, remember? Don’t worry, Bear will be okay :) (Physically, anyway. I do worry about how it’ll affect his depression if any of them don’t survive.)
I don’t think he treats him like crap, seems like he’s being harsh to keep Fusco in the dark. The more Fusco knows, the more danger he’ll have to deal with
155 dead lesbian characters. Wow. Just wow.
I think you missed another one. Blindspot killed Bethany Mayfair’s new potential gf, Alexandra.
I was hoping for Person of Interest recaps… This show has a bi and lesbian character plus lots and lots of opportunities for fun and insightful writing. Not to forget it’s actually great TV (in contrast to many shows covered here).
Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading about it here in whatever form you’ll decide to do.
I don’t know if full recaps would be feasible, as awesome as they would be. Thanks to CBS scheduling two episodes a week (or even three episodes at one point) it would be a huge amount of work to keep up.
I’m hoping we’ll get an article when Root and Shaw reunite!
It would be hard, but I think worth it. They do other recaps that I 100% believe POI would get more hits than.
Maybe they can release one large recap on Fridays or something. That gives them two days to watch and review.