You made it through another week, and we’re here to talk about all the TV and film coverage you missed while you were maybe busy living your lives! It’s time for the grand return of Autostraddle’s Horror Is So Gay series (named “Horror Is So Gay 2” like all great movie sequels). We kicked off the festivities with 42 Queer Horror Movies and Shows To Stream This Month. Also this week, did you see that spectacularly gay episode of The Morning Show? Because Christina is all over it. Our Flag Means Death is back (more on lesbian specifics of that below) and Nic gave first thoughts. Drew wondered how likely it was that a dyke could ruin her life wearing the iconic outfits of the fashion-forward Passages, which is now streaming. Speaking of iconic, Drew and Riese joined forces to refresh our 25 Streaming Movies With Hot Lesbian Sex Scenes. Kayla reflected on the very honest and queer depiction of anorexia from Netflix’s Everything Now. Valerie celebrated the trans joy of Monster High 2. There was some sad updates on Survivor for the gays. Drew reviewed the d’Or-winning courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall, and a hot top from us to you: that review has an intro sentence that you don’t want to miss.
And finally… Happy Fall of the House of Usher Week to all the spooky gays who celebrate!! Valerie wrote you a spoiler-free review (perfect if you haven’t watched yet!), while Kayla is going to spend the next seven days going episode-by-episode to recap, deep dive, and obsessively analyze each detail: here is episode one “A Midnight Dreary” and here’s episode two “The Masque of the Red Death.” 🔪💊🪞🩸🥃
Our Flag Means Death Episode 204: “Fun and Games”
Written by Nic
These are the faces of two lesbian pirates about to meddle in some gay drama.
So, remember how when I last wrote about Our Flag Means Death, I jokingly ended with “Anne Bonny, you up?” WELL GUESS WHO SURE WAS UP AND APPEARED WITHIN THE FIRST 10 MINUTES OF EPISODE 4 WITH HER GAL PAL MARY READ!
If you guessed Anne Bonny as played by MINNIE FUCKING DRIVER, you would be 100% correct.
And how do we meet our lesbian pirate lovers?? Well! Blackbeard and Stede’s reunion doesn’t exactly go as planned, and the crew wants Blackbeard off the ship. When they dock, they discover that they’re in the same location where Ed’s old friend Mary Read has settled down with her gal pal, Anne Bonney. The women have put piracy aside for the time being and are selling antiques to anyone who happens upon them. Ed’s delighted to see his old friends and even has an adorable secret handshake with Anne. He is less delighted though, that Stede followed him off the ship what with them being broken up and all. While the men have the kind of non-conversation only recent exes can have, Anne and Mary look at each other knowingly and decide to invite them to stay for dinner. A gay ole dinner party?! Count. Me. In!
Cut to four homos, drinking and reminiscing about how they met and telling tales of their escapades. It turns out, Anne would have loved Pretty Little Liars, because her Thing is cutting off people’s faces. Anne and Mary have this play fighting/fake mad/stab each other for funsies relationship going on, and Stede is unsurprisingly confused as all heck about it. But you see, when you’ve been with someone for as long as Anne and Mary have, you need to keep things interesting. What’s a little threat of light poisoning between pirate loves, you know? As they eat their dinner, Anne reveals that Stede left his wife twice, so he must really love pirating, but of course, dearest Blackbeard didn’t know that Stede left him to go back to Mary, and he is PISSED. The two have a surprisingly real heart-to-heart about it, but are soon interrupted by Anne and Mary who can’t stop laughing at how earnest the men are being. Men are so emotional, eh?
While the women are making points about what it takes to have a long and successful relationship, the truth of the matter is, they’re meddling in other people’s lives to avoid dealing with their own fears. Anne eventually calls out Mary for making excuses about leaving because she’s afraid she’s too old to go back to pirate life full-time. Naturally, Anne storms out and quite literally lights everything on fire so the two have no choice but to return to their life on the seas.
There have been several portrayals of Anne and Mary (again, real life people), but their chaotic energy in Our Flag Means Death’s version was everything I could have hoped for. Now, all we need is for Anne, Mary, and Zheng to find each other for the most badass lady pirate team-up the world has ever seen.
Gen V Episode 105: “Welcome to the Monster Club”
Written by Valerie Anne
I knew there was a self-preservation reason Jordan went masc-form before kissing Marie for the first time. Sweet angel has trauma.
We ended last week with Marie not knowing how she ended up in bed with Jordan, but we learn this week that she’s not the only one with time missing. In fact, when their friends reconvene, they realize they’re not only missing a party’s worth of memories, but days’ worth.
When Marie goes outside, she finds Emma asleep in the pool as if it were a bathtub, still quite large. They find social media footage of Marie and Jordan making out, and of Giant Naked Emma being the life of the party. Emma says that the first time she got big, her mother called her a monster and told her to never do it again, so she never did.
Emma asks Marie to dish about Jordan, but they’re interrupted by Sam… who they don’t remember meeting, or saving. Sam says they made his own brother forget him sometimes but he’s determined to fix this.
When they get back to their room, Emma wants to hear about Marie’s new “themfriend” and Marie realizes that she does really like Jordan and becomes determined to tell them… but then also she uses her blood powers to find a tracker near her collarbone. She books it to Cate to tell her about what she found, but Cate just looks at her sadly and touches her with her gloveless hand. Marie realizes what she’s doing a moment too late, and Cate erases her memory.
Jordan is spiraling, talking to their RA, worrying that Marie’s freak-out wasn’t about the missing memories, but was because Jordan was in their femme form. Jordan admits they’ve had to date girls only in their masc form before, and the RA asks if Jordan knows that’s how Marie feels, and Jordan admits they didn’t actually ask, they just assumed.
So Jordan goes to find Marie and starts to mention their earlier conversation but… Marie doesn’t remember that conversation. Before they can investigate that, they see Marie’s collarbone wound, which she also doesn’t remember. Marie holds her hand over the same spot on Jordan and realizes there’s something in there.
Cate goes to the dean and cries because she hates doing this to her friends, but the dean promises she’s helping keep her friends safe. But then Cate gets a text that her friends found Rufus, who they think is wiping their memories, so she goes to stop them from doing a murder. While she’s there, Emma calls them and says Sam told her that it’s Cate wiping their memories, and Cate confesses, giving Andre his memories back.
He calls her a monster and walks away.
One other interesting thing we learned this week: that the Woods scientist asks to study Marie’s powers, but the dean says Marie has a “benefactor” and that she’s off-limits. Curiouser and curiouser.
I for one was glad to see Jordan’s gender switch right before the kiss was neither taken as a given nor glossed over nor dragged out as a source of extended drama. Given the way The Boys and this show deal with sex (and supersex in particular) I feel like there is a good chance of a sex scene where they’re switching between genders before the end of the season. But honestly I also really enjoyed the height difference when they were making out with Marie on the dance floor.