Girl/Girl Scene’s Second Season Is Here, Queer, Soapy as Hell

The first episode of season 2 of Girl/Girl Scene dropped not too long ago, and it is soapy as hell — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A quick-draw summary of some of the things that appear in the episode: Sex, panic attacks where people take off their pants and are fed celery, sex workers, people with gunshot wounds, people will terminal illnesses, awkward pickup lines about rocks, people being issued court orders, and “monotonous” relationships. And this is in the first 30 minutes of the series.

Girl/Girl Scene is shot in Lexington, Kentucky — a place we don’t see often in queer media or think of when we think of queer America. Often big metropolitan cities are the backdrop to queer soapy drama, from The L Word‘s remarkably white Los Angeles to Queer as Folk‘s also predominantly white Pittsburgh. Some independent queer web series like That’s What She Said, filmed in Los Angeles, attempt to break with some of the expectations of queer media with a cast full of Asian American queers and allies. And it feels like Girl/Girl Scene is doing something new, too, by offering us a glimpse into a Midwestern / Southern queer world.

via queeriesmag.com

In the show, we see suburban houses and semi-empty nightclubs and empty streets setting the scene for the drama (and ultimately, Girl/Girl Scene has as much if not more drama than The L Word). My fiancée is from a city not too far from Lexington, and while I was watching the first episode she would pop in to watch scenes and remark, “Yup, that looks like home.” The shots are beautiful, and you can tell the people behind the camera know what they’re doing — from stunning outdoor establishing shots to emotive close-ups and hot sex scenes, the camera work is excellent and ultimately captures a very vivid sense of place and space.

It feels, too, like Girl/Girl Scene is trying to present a gay scene in a place that isn’t necessarily brimming with queer people. My favorite part about Girl/Girl Scene is its portrayal of a specific queer regional community — from the actors’ accents and the dialogue’s regionalisms (“set down” instead of “sit down”), Girl/Girl Scene‘s Lexington feels real and tangible without sacrificing its characters to stereotypical portrayals of Southern or Midwestern people. My to-be mother and father in law have queer friends we visit in Lexington, and while Lexington’s scene certainly exists and thrives, it exists in a way that’s different from the queer scenes in LA or New York City.

“Sometimes people act like you can only be gay in New York or LA,” Tucky Williams, the writer and director of Girl/Girl Scene said to Kentucky.com. “It happens all over. It’s the same [in Lexington] as it is elsewhere. In fact, sometimes the scene is even better here.”

via sickofsarahfans.tumblr.com

Girl/Girl Scene‘s storylines, too, are varied and dramatic — the main character suffered from a gunshot wound at the end of last season, and one of the main characters has a terminal illness, another of the main characters from season one committed suicide, and the new regulars include characters who are drug dealers and sex workers. The tropes themselves might seem extra soapy to have all in one place, but Williams has already expressed a desire to not shy away from (and, in fact, “embrace”) stereotypes that “lesbian-centered stories often run from,” according to Kentucky.com.

Sidenote: The character tropes make synopses extra fun to shout to my fiancée in the next room: “Oh god, did you know the one with the gunshot wound just said a rhyming cutesy phrase to the one with the terminal illness?”

That being said, Girl/Girl Scene handles sex scenes really well, and at times the show covers issues that are difficult and relevant. While other shows might have featured a homophobic resident as a short-lived side-story, the second season of Girl/Girl Scene‘s main dramatic points revolve around a gay hate crime that happened at the end of last season, resulting in gunshot wounds, death and suicide. The series’ persistence in discussing the aftermath of a difficult and traumatic life event is unexpected and admirable.

Nothing turns me on like eating tiny cubes of mango. via kentucky.com

One of the main criticisms of Girl/Girl Scene is its lackluster acting, but I think that’s what comes with the new queer territory that is independently- and locally-produced web series. The writing could be a little sharper, too — at times, some details are a little too explicit and it feels like the show is walking me through how to interpret scenes (like when Evan, the main character, has a panic attack says, “I’m dying. I’m dying all over again” to explain the slightly confusing underying premise of the panic attack). These are all things that can be ironed out with time, and these details certainly don’t detract from the excitement of watching your own community — especially if you’re from a small Midwestern or Southern city — being represented on screen.

You can watch all of the episodes of Girl/Girl Scene here, and scroll below to see the most recent episode.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!

Whitney Pow

Whitney is a lover of food, books, comic books and journals made for left-handed people. They are a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University, where their research focuses on queer video games and new media. They are also a graphic designer, writer and editor who has worked for places like Opium Magazine, Literary Death Match, Publishers Weekly and The Feminist Press. Check out their website at whitneypow.com and follow them on Twitter @whitneypow.

Whitney has written 53 articles for us.

20 Comments

  1. I am sorry,but having seen the entire series 1,i really couldn’t get into the storyline,and i couldn’t even relate nor find sympathy for even one of the characters.
    Will probably give it a shot this series 2,out of sympathy for independent moviemakers,but i don’t have high hopes.

    A series that i did like with a lesbian main character is once you leave (set in austin Texas) which is about a young woman from a troubled background going on a journey trying to discover certain events from her past.

  2. Side note.It wasn’t a panic attack, but an epileptic fit. We should find out more about this as the season progresses.

  3. !! Anyone else develop a crush on Bender already?

    I loved the episode but I didn’t really understand the ending where that dude went up to Evan and Maxine. Did he call her “Sarah Hortons” and then ask for her name? Sorry if this is a dumb question :)

    • He was just trying to get her to say her name so he could give her the courts summons thing. A bit of a SPOILER if someone hasn’t seen it yet: The mom of the man who shot Evan, was suing Evan for killing him in self defense.

    • I think he said “Sarah Lawrence?” as though he were a college classmate who couldn’t remember Evan’s name.

    • I’m from Lexington too!! I’m super surprised that I’ve never heard of this. Must. Watch. Now.

    • me three!! I really tried to get into the show when I first heard about it, just to see Lexington represented within the queer community, but I just couldn’t get into it. Too soapy for me. Perhaps I shall try again. It’s good to see so many queers from Lex represented here!

    • Me four! My friends and I are extras this season. Everyone was super nice and cool, and Abisha kept calling me “stripey” because of my blue and white striped shirt. Agreed, it’s very soapy, but my friends and I look forward to watching it together this season.

  4. Ooooh my God I’m so excited for the next season. This article brings up a lot of good points about it as well, most this though: whatever you think about the acting or the writing, the fact is that it’s a low-budget webshow, and it’s entertaining and relevant.

  5. I really liked Season 1, so I’m looking forward to Season 2. Its really cool seeing a queer scene that’s NOT a mega-city like LA.

    Two questions:
    1.) Is Tucky William’s first name a play on “Kentucky”?
    2.) In Season 1, there were several sex scenes involving what looked to me like yellow rubber housecleaning gloves. Does anyone actually use these kind of gloves for sex? They seem a little…rough?

Comments are closed.