I’m starting to think Luisa’s not going to make it back on this season of Jane the Virgin, and it’s breaking my heart. I pined away for her in front of last night’s episode; alas, she never arrived! There’s actually not much new to report at all since Friday’s Boob(s On Your) Tube due to the recent genocide of lesbian TV characters and the fact that the regular season is winding down. Wynonna Earp, though? Wynonna Earp came through with that gayness, as promised!
Orphan Black
Thursdays on BBC America at 9:00 p.m.
A friendly reminder that Orphan Black comes back this Thursday night! You can watch the first four minutes of the new season below and I’m planning to recap it on Fridays for you.
Wynonna Earp
Fridays on Syfy at 10:00 p.m.
Wynonna Earp took everything I loved about the pilot and expanded on it, wasting no time walking confidently into the identity it obviously settled on before that first episode was even filmed. This week, the mythology of the show expands as we begin to learn more about Wynonna’s world. For starters, only the Peacemaker can send the Revenants back to hell. There’s a talisman that guards the Earp property (and thank goodness for that because it means Wynonna and Waverly are moving onto the farm to live with their aunt, just three ladies doin’ it for themselves, sassing each other and killing demons). And Waverly’s “imaginary friend” from childhood is actually a leader of the Revenant gang.
Despite her pilot protestations, Wynonna easily slides into that Slayer lifestyle this week, gunning down multiple Revenants, schooling her new partner in the ways of supernatural crime-fighting, and protecting her family at every turn. She embraces the black badge, but so does Waverly. She gets recruited to join the team, and she couldn’t be happier. She’s been researching these hellbeasts for her whole life, practically, and she can’t wait to start destroying them in an official capacity. When she installs the talisman that protects the Earp land and launches a Revenant across her family’s property, she looks like Christmas morning.
It’s not all gun-slinging for little Waverly, though; no, siree. She’s cleaning the bar where she works early one morning when Officer Haught wanders in asking for a cappuccino, and things get real queer real fast. Haught says when she wants a thing she wants it now, by which she means coffee but also Waverly. And Waverly knows it. She gets really flushed, and then gets tangled up in her beer-soaked tank top and has to get Haught’s help to get out of it (“Officer!”), and then starts babbling about how she’s in a relationship (“with a ‘boy-man'”). Haught asks out Waverly, but she says she needs to make plans sometimes two (or maybe even THREE) days in advance, so no. But Haught says she’ll be back. Their chemistry is fantastic. If you’ve ever wanted to watch a hybrid Hermione Granger/Piper Perabo’s character from Coyote Ugly realize she’s bisexual, you are very much in luck.
There’s more of these two next episode, so now you have a couple of days to catch up!
Wynonna Earp is, so far, fantastic. It’s cheesy but fun and the characters are likable. I very much enjoyed watching Officer Haught so openly flirt with Waverly. I am very excited to see where these characters go (hopefully not to their grave!)
After your review of the pilot I obviously went out and watched the first two episodes :P
While I’m really happy about all the gay that seems to be happening on the show, the writing is still what concerns me. Like Lost Girl, the biggest problem with the writing is that the Wynonna Earp writers seem to be just making up the mythology as they go along. Unlike in other, better-written mythology-heavy shows like Buffy or Person of Interest, who’s writers seemed to have thought things out in advance (or were just better at covering their tracks) even only two episodes in, the mythology on this show doesn’t tie together. Or maybe it will, and I’m just jumping the gun, but I doubt it.
Don’t get me wrong, Wynonna Earp is a lot of fun and completely enjoyable. Waverly is adorable, Officer Haught is indeed hot, and Wynonna herself is basically Faith reincarnated, which I very much appreciate. Maybe I’m asking for too much, but I just wish that we could get quality writing and quality queer characters on the same show. I wish that the shows that prominently feature queer characters would have bigger budgets and better productions values. I wish that queer characters weren’t relegated to the “campy” shows. I wish a lot of things…
Siiiiigh. Three more weeks until Person of Interest returns!
I hate to admit it, but I agree. I want to like this show, but so far the mythology is awfully incoherent, and the show seems to be way more invested in shirtless bad dudes hanging around having mysterious conversations with bad CGI on their faces than I am.
More focus on the relationships between the women, or the Scooby gang of Wynonna/Waverly/Dolls would help it live up to its aspirations–which, as you so well point out, are to be Faith the Vampire Slayer. I could really get behind that! But right now it’s really unclear to me why the sisters are hanging around with Doc Holliday, except that the plot requires it.
I’m just going to wait for Orphan Black and hope that Luisa returns to Jane the Virgin soon!
Oh yeah, everything happening in the revenant camp bored me to tears. Like, why are we getting Doc Holliday’s POV? And why do vengeful spirits have a camp anyway!? And seriously, do you expect me to be frightened of some guy named Bobo who shaves his chest? I mean, come ON.
The mark of really good TV is when the villains are so engaging you start to root for them just the tiniest bit. Like The Mayor in Buffy season 3, or Elias in PoI season 1. Good villains make good shows. Part of Lost Girl’s problem, which I see replicate here in the first two episodes of Wynonna Earp, is that the villains were always AWFUL. They were boring, and bland, but most egregious of all, they were powerless!
JTV is breaking my heart because so much of it has been SO GOOD lately, but the sudden and complete erasure both Luisa and Det. Barnett (who could very easily have had screen time with Michael doing badass detective things) is hard to forgive. I totally understand not having actors available, but they could at least get a throwaway mention every now and then, instead of NEW FAMILY FOR EVERYONE LET’S FORGET ABOUT OUR EXISTING CHARACTERS
(End rant.)
The sass, lord the sass on Wynonna Earp is gonna be the death of me.
Is there a way to watch this show online?
Assuming you’re talking about Wynonna Earp, I’m pretty sure the only way is if your cable provider is in cahoots with syfy.com
I could be/hope I am wrong though.
I don’t know about the whole show (aside for the usual questionable sources) but SyFy has put the Wayverly/Nicole scene up on their youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrsHEQvPvKo
I’ve been looking, but there doesn’t even seem to be a legal way to watch the show online in Canada. I would love to be proved wrong, though!
Well, there are lots of streaming mirrors out there who are neither legal nor illegal. While downloads are illegal, those streams are not since at no point in time the complete file is persistent on your hard drive, i.e. they are buffered frame by frame.
If you are interested I could give you a few links.
I’ve been watching The Magicians lately, and kept seeing ads for Wynonna Earp and thinking it looked pretty gay. I’m glad it is, probably going to start watching it soon.
I hope Just Jillian comes back for season 2. I know people have a lot of issues with Jillian Michaels but it was nice to have a lesbian family reality show
I agree.
I don’t remember who it was that suggested You Me Her a few weeks ago but I just wanted to say that I tried to give it another shot. Three episodes have aired so far and I find myself really annoyed with the straight guy character, Jack. He is just one of those annoying characters that complains about everything in his life. And his massive freakout over the fact that Emma has a sexual history of having been with woman in the past didn’t endear me to him either. I find them very uninteresting and chemistry-less as a couple. Emma and Izzy by comparison have a chemistry that is off the charts. Izzy is cleary far more enamored with Emma than she is with Jack but that may change as the season goes on.
I’m also not particularly fond of any of these characters’ friends. Emma’s best friend moreso than anyone else. I could honestly do without those parts of the show altogether. And what is the point of the nosy neighbor and her teen daughter? I’m going to assume that’s going to be some kind of a big plot-point later.
There is pretty much nothing else going on tv-wise for me on Tuesdays right now so for that reason alone I might finish this show but there is only so much of Jack I can take without fast-forwarding the majority of the show
Oh, I also wanted to add that whoever writes this show is either extremely ignorant about sex/relationships between two women or they are purposely making the characters that way to highlight their ignorance. If it’s the later than they need to have at least one character who is around to disagree and combat that ignorance and their isn’t so far. Instead, there has been more than one instance where a character has made an obnoxious comment about lesbianism or implied that sex with a woman isn’t actually sex. I’m watching the current episode and one of the male character’s friends talks about how the couple’s “no penetration” rule isn’t fair to him because all the women do is bump vaginas. There aren’t enough eye rolls in the fucking world.
This is what I mean when I say the friends annoy the shit out of me and I could do without them. I want them all to die horribly in a fire. Especially Carmen.
@turkish: I feel bad that I’m the one suggested You Me Her…in my defense, it looked promising….
Like you, Jack annoys me. I actually gave him a bit of credit for his reaction to Emma’s revelation initially–I mean, that reaction’s far more preferable than your typical titillated male–but as the show’s gone on, it’s become grating. He asks Emma to share details about her past experience with women and then he proceeds to mock her about it…until he realizes that she actually loved the other woman and then he throws a temper tantrum. Since then, all he’s done is whine.
You’re right that he and Emma are completely chemistry-less. At first, I thought they just paled in comparison to Emma and Izzy, but no, they’re actually dull as dishwater. The show hasn’t given me a single reason to cheer for their relationship.
I don’t put too much stock any of the characters’ friends. Emma’s friend, in particular, seems to serve just two purposes: 1. an opportunity for Emma to vocalize her feelings and 2. a representative of the married with children life that Emma claimed that she wanted.
It seems obvious that the nosy neighbor and her daughter will, at some point, find out about Jack and Emma’s arrangement with Izzy and that’ll impact Jack at work.
Um how did I not know Orphan Black is happening on Thursday?? Thank you for this information!
// Jane The Virgin //
I’m not sure I expected Luisa to return after being shipped back to rehab but I was disappointed not to see Susanna. Why
wouldn’t Michael’s partner be either: part of the investigation into Rafael’s brother and/or part of the bachelor/bachelorette parties? Michael wants to do an investigation by the book but he doesn’t involve his partner? Why couldn’t the girl Lina had an issue with at the bachelorette party be the typical uptight Susanna instead of this random weird girl we don’t know and don’t care about?
It’s disheartening because I love this show otherwise (Gina Rodriguez was particularly amazing last night). Stop letting me down, Jane the Virgin, you’re better than this.
// General Hospital //
It doesn’t look like Kristina’s on the canvas for this week, but if you missed last week’s scenes, I really recommend going back to watch them…mainly because Ashley Jones looks amazing.
Oh, and, you know…there are some groundbreaking conversations that take place.
Clips of Wednesday and Thursday’s episodes start, here, or you can watch the entire Kristina/Parker storyline, here.
// You Me Her //
So, admittedly, this is a tough show to like…on the one hand, you want to embrace the groundbreaking nature of show about a polyamorous relationship, featuring a bisexual character (or two, depending on how you label Izzy)…but, on the other, you have to unlearn so much of what you know about watching relationships on television. You can’t become too invested in one relationship over the other (I’ve failed at this, natch) or take offense at the male gaze (failure #2: I’m perpetually annoyed by Jack).
That said, two highlights of the show:
1. Priscilla Faia is imminently likeable. This show needed that…you need to get why Jack and Emma are so captivated by Izzy that they risk their marriage to engage in this polyamorous relationship…and you need to get why Andy, Izzy’s grad school boyfriend, can’t just walk away from her. Only a handful of actresses could’ve pulled this roll off and Faia does it.
2. Nisha Ganatra, of Chutney Popcorn fame, directs the third episode (“No Penetration”) where Emma and Izzy go on their first “real” date. Her deft direction creates a level of intimacy that’s almost palpable. During the sex scene, she layers the shots of physical intimacy, with the sounds of their flirtatious banter and shots of Emma and Izzy chatting, while walking around the city, hand in hand. It felt like an honest portrayal of that intimacy…something that could only be done by someone who knows that experience, as Ganatra does.
Of course, I still don’t know how I’m supposed to find Izzy and Jack or Emma and Jack as remotely plausible after having seen that…
Susanna would have been a great addition to the bachelorette party! So on point.
Priscilla Faia is really the only thing keeping me interested in this show at the moment. I wish she were on a better show.
It’s a shame Ashley Jones probably won’t become a regular on General Hospital because I think she would be a great addition to the show. She was more than capable of holding her own against Nancy Lee Grahn, for example. She shut down Alexis quick and turned that conversation around to what it needed to be about. It was also funny watching the show come up with ways to cover up her pregnancy.
Really enjoying Kristina’s story right now and keep hoping they’ll find a way to make Ashley Jones a little permanent. I’ve been trying to figure out who is the “age-appropriate” woman they’ll pair Kristina with, but I guess they’ll bring on another new character. Unless it’s Kiki. But it better not be Kiki.
I hope it’s not Kiki for the simple fact that both of Kristina’s brothers have already dated her. Let’s keep it outside the family for once.
Honestly, I’ve been a little surprised by how much I like this storyline. I had a lot of doubts about how this storyline would play out, but it’s been good. The conversation between Parker and Alexis was just…God, I wish every parent struggling to support a kid who’s coming into their own sexuality could hear it…it was pitch perfect advice.
I’m hoping that around the Nurse’s Ball, they’ll bring in Scotty and Lucy’s daughter, Serena, as the age appropriate love interest for Kristina…but they’ve been talking about casting that role for forever so that might be wishful thinking on my part.
I’ll admit that General Hospital with Parker and Kristina has pretty much been my water during this dry as the sahara past few months. So many depressing lesbian deaths so its nice to watch a soap that has actually been getting it right. I keep expecting them to screw it up but so far its actually been near perfect.
They really need to come up with an in-universe explanation, but the out-of-universe explanation is that Megan Ketch got her own show that films in Toronto. And sadly I don’t think there are any immediate plans to bring her back; someone tweeted Gina about being sad that Susanna was no longer on JTV and Gina said something like, “Aw, don’t be sad! Megan got her own show and we’re so proud of her!” She could either be in the dark or keeping stuff on the DL, but just going from that tweet, it doesn’t sound like Susanna’s going to be back anytime soon.
I’d feel churlish not wishing Megan well with American Gothic, but I just wish it didn’t film in Toronto lol. Then at least maybe there’d be a chance of her pulling double duty.
I’ll count my blessings that Susanna’s at least still alive, so she could theoretically return!
I wish Megan Ketch all the success in the world, I just wish the writers would give us a couple throwaway lines of dialogue to remind people that Susanna and Luisa still exist. It seems like queer viewers are the only folks I’ve really seen comment on their absence which is a little disheartening (and almost feels like intentional misdirection on the storytelling front). LUISA ALVER X HAPPINESS 2k16
Right? It’s just weird that they’re acting like the characters never existed.
Also, I’m scared they’re going to bring in another Juicy Jordan character for Luisa when/if they bring her back. No, thanks! I loved Susanna because she grounded Luisa in a way that her other love interests didn’t.
Right?! And having southern queer representation was really nice, too. I saw so much potential in that relationship and I’ll be super bummed if they pretend it never happened- every time they develop Luisa’s character they just throw her back to square one. WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE FANFIC
I guess I should be happy that she lived past episode 3 since that was when she was originally supposed to die, but it’s like the writers didn’t know what to do with her after they let her live. They didn’t develop any long-term plan/arc for her, so she’s been spinning her wheels ever since.
I really appreciate your sharing this news, which explains a lot, even though it makes me very sad!
Okay but like SO MUCH FLAILING during that scene of Wynnona Earp. I had to text multiple friends, none of whom were all that helpful… It just was so adorkable and obvious and cute? I might have problems of the Western genre.
I have tried in vain to find out if Wynonna Earp is airing in the UK, has anyone had any success?
First episode of season 2 The Tunnel (French-British crime drama à la The Bridge) aired yesterday in the UK. The entire season was already broadcasted in France (dubbed in French). Without giving too much away – but anyway spoiler ahead – a budding f/f relationship will play a central role this season. Would be great to read about it here but I have no idea if/when it will air in the US.
Thanks for the heads-up. After watching the original and half of the US remake, I gave up on The Tunnel after 2 episodes. Will watch.
Gave up on the first season of The Tunnel too, it was just the same as the original. Luckily they chose a different story for season 2 as I really like the actors, Dillane and Poésy are brilliant together!
Can we talk about Tatiana Maslany’s interview she gave a few days ago?
Yeah I’m so sad about this. Another straight (?) person telling us how we should feel, it’s pretty dismissive.
Especially since, YES the trope is used BUT the way they use it actually makes it ok for a lot of us ! Tropes are not necessarily bad, but brushing it off saying “no this is not a trope you’re bad people for reducing her to her sexuality” is harmful.
Like, just say “yes we’re aware of it and understand how problematic the trope can be, we’re hoping that the character development we gave Delphine, it’s mirror with the development of Paul, Cosima being almost the only one to have a romantic storyline in Season 3 AND how Delphine died in a pretty heroic way, facing her death and doing it as a badass elevate this trope and encourage other trope users to aim for better LGBT representation”
Every single one of those writers or showrunners kind of admits to being aware of the trope but justifies their characters deaths by the narrative anyway. So they knew about the trope but for reasons X and Y their decision is different. Problem is, we are still left with dead characters.
Yeah, it’s so frustrating that they went this route, because while Delphine still counts toward the overall queer lady body count, as a show, they managed to avoid most of the problems with the trope. There’s still 2 main queer characters in Cosima and Felix, a secondary in Shay, and even the (hopefully not gone for good) trans character Tony, and that’s pretty fuckin’ decent representation for a scifi show (or any show, for that matter).
But their defensiveness in this case is just not useful at all.
It’s not like I even necessarily think that Delphine’s death was problematic. I haven’t watched Orphan Black since season 2, but just going by reports/summaries, it sounds like her death might have made sense for the narrative? Sounds like it wasn’t some Buffy-esque rip-off the way Lexa’s death was. Low bar to cross, I know. I don’t believe in functional immortality for LGBTQ characters; I think my standards are reasonable: a) they must not be the only LGBTQ character on the show so you’re not killing off your token* and b) the death must not be related to their sexuality (no killing us off right after we’ve had sex!). It could be, like, a spin-off of the Bechdel Test, but for dead lesbians and bi women lmao.
BUT. I hate how Tatiana comes across as so dismissive/patronizing here. She pays lip service to understanding the dead lesbian trope and why we feel the way we do, but doesn’t seem to genuinely get it from an empathy point of view.
* Not sure if I should amend this to making sure that there are at least three LGBTQ characters because if there are only two and you kill off one, you’re still most likely relegating the living character to a life alone (unless they’re bi). It’s not enough to have us stay alive, make us alive and happy in love, dangit.
Tatiana complains that people are being reductive. She doesn’t get it. She’s acting like people who complain about the Bechdel Test being reductive.
Yes, I don’t have a problem with Delphine’s death per se, it’s just the way they are responding to it.
This is Manson:
So the only options we have is either sex or death?
Also it’s a bit direspectful to imagine that “the fans” (us) want nothing else that Delphine and Cosima kissing. We’re enjoying the hell out of this show and the wonderful commentary it provides for feminism vs the patriarchy.
Ugh. You know, in a way Manson’s framing of the issue is reminiscent of the religious right’s rhetoric where they try to reduce LGBTQ people down to sex, sex, and more sex. When you’re ripping off talking points from anti-gay Christians, it’s time to reevaluate.
Man, that interview was so disappointing. And they had the worst timing! The new season is about to start, they’re supposed to get their audience excited, not piss them off.
Thanks for the heads up on Earp. Watched the pilot on Netflix. All the makings of a fun show. Done with it now.
Oh my god I just started watching this and I’m so glad autostraddle is here to share in my gay panic/joy