Winter TV is on its midseason hiatus but that doesn’t mean Veronica Lodge didn’t look Betty Cooper right in the face while she was sipping on a strawberry milkshake this week and say the words, “To recap, you’ve been talking to a serial killer on the reg and he’s been puppet-mastering you?” Also Sara Ramirez made her debut on Madam Secretary, Mey wrote about where Transparent should go from here, Supergirl had waaaaay too much Mon-El, the Runaways landed on Hulu, and Natalie wrote a beautiful piece on Tessa and Mariah’s storyline on The Young and the Restless. Here’s what else!
The Shannara Chronicles
Written by Valerie Anne
The final two episodes of The Shannara Chronicles aired this week, and they were intense. The Warlock Lord is coming to town and he needs both Eretria and Lyria to carry out his evil plan; Eretria to possess and take over her inner darkness and Lyria to open the door to Heaven’s Well.
Eretria and Lyria are taking a quick break before the final battle, and Lyria tries to say they’re meant to be together but Eretria is still feeling from being invaded by the darkness and wants to be the master of her own fate. So Lyria makes it so; she says “people like us” deserve to have happy endings, and asks Eretria to be her queen.
“I know I have 22 rings on but I swear this one is special.”
But the darkness takes over Eretria’s body before she can answer. It’s frustrating her, not being able to control this, and less and less so as the Warlock Lord grows near, but she’s a fierce and determined little rover and she’s not about to give up just yet.
Unfortunately she loses that fight at an inconvenient time, aka when she’s locked in a shipping container with Wil and Lyria.
“Black eyes are all the rage in Purgatory.”
She starts attacking them, only becoming Eretria again momentarily while looking into Lyria’s pleading eyes. While Eretria is lucid, she tries to get Lyria to run, but Lyria won’t leave her.
Which was very sweet but maybe a mistake because then Eretria gets possessed again, takes Lyria’s necklace that has been described as “the only thing keeping her safe”, shuts off the electricity barrier that has been described as “the only thing keeping them safe” and brings Lyria right to the Warlock Lord himself.
The Warlock Lord sends Eretria to open a dam so he can poison all the water in the Four Lands and then uses Lyria to open Heaven’s Well then knocks her out, leaving me to be stressed about her survival rate until Wil and Mareth show up to wake her up and send her back to the kingdom.
Lyria doesn’t get there in time to save Eretria with a kiss like I’d hoped, but Eretria got un-possessed anyway. Wil and Mareth killed the Warlock Lord and de-poisoned the water and all was well. Lyria goes to the kingdom. takes her rightful place as queen and addresses her people, being sure to look Eretria in the eye when she says that, “Love conquers all.”
The Queer Queen we deserve
Afterwards, Eretria catches up with Lyria in the hallway and Lyria didn’t ask to be a leader but she’s ready to take the responsibility seriously. But there’s a hint of sadness in her eyes; because she will have to rule alone. Eretria can’t be with her yet (yet!) because she has to explore this darkness situation and get control of it. She never wants to hurt Lyria again. So Lyria smiles and says that she can go off and do what she needs to do, as long as she comes back to her. They kiss goodbye in shiny slow-motion.
They say if you love someone, set them free…
And with that we also kiss this duo goodbye. The fate of this show is up in the air, as the switch from MTV to Spike hasn’t been the smoothest transition, but the internet hasn’t given up on it yet. We can only hope we’ll see our bisexual rover and her queen again someday.
Riverdale
Written by Heather
Jingle your jangle, it’s time to talk about Riverdale. Specifically it’s time to talk about the fact that Toni Topaz has now officially come out as bisexual —”I like girls more,” is a thing she said after she went to third base with Jughead — and has officially shared a #SignificantLook with Cheryl Blossom. I’ll get into the plot of this glorious show in the coming weeks as that situation likely develops. In the meantime what I want to say to you is that Riverdale is like if Twin Peaks and Gossip Girl had a baby who was raised by its lesbian aunt in Vancouver in a house filled with porcelain dolls. People want to compare it to Pretty Little Liars but that is completely unjust because: 1) The show calls rape rape, like says the word “rape” right out loud. 2) The last motherfucker who tried to rape someone got the fucking hell beaten out of him by five women. 3) Riverdale knows Archie is the most boring character on earth so they keep giving him less and less to do.
It’s one part murder-mystery, one part teen angst drama, one part the best dialogue anyone has ever written for TV, one part stylized comic book blocking, and one part Alice Cooper raining down perfection.
I will close today’s introduction to Riverdale with a gift specifically for our beloved Stef Schwartz.
Catch up, the bisexuality cometh!
I’ve watched all of Godless and must give to a recommendation. Merritt Weaver is awesome in it.She plays a gun-totting butch in the Wild West which is as good as it sounds. Their is romance and the show is certfitied in not burying it’s gays. Michelle Dockery is also in it being cool as f**ck. And there’s also alot of guys doing stuff or something.
Hmmmm good to know
Thanks for sharing
I was told this slow was about a town without men, but I’m halfway through the first episode and there are so many men. so many. does this get any better?
A little. The first episode was particularly bad in that regard, but it does get better as it goes on. It is still mainly a story about men and their conflicts though, with the women as side stories. Someone somewhere posted a breakdown of lines spoken and it was around 75% men, 25% women.
The trailer made it out that way and a town with few men exists…but I’d say the majority of the story is focused on the guys, the guys backstories, etc. Leaving a host of interesting female characters without their backstories fully developed. No bury your gays–but I feel like (though was tired during the end of the show so could be wrong) they never really got a scene after surviving. I liked the show in general but felt it could have been much more interesting if it kept to its trailer plot.
Yeah, someone on Twitter did a count for every time a man spoke vs. woman spoke in the show (where it’s a town full of women), and it was like 75/25 in favor of men. Which, you know, seems a little off?
AGREED. i definitely fell in love with merritt wever in godless. she was my favorite character, and her romance with the whore-turned-schoolmarm-miss-callie-dunn was quite touching. godless was all the things i wanted in a show: cowboys, guns, horses, romance, native americans, violence, hats, and lots of interesting female characters.
I’m only 2 episodes in but for a show that’s being marketed as being about “a town full of women” it remarkably seems to focus on the male characters much of the time. The entire premise of the show seems to be about Frank’s hunt for Roy. The town just seems to be there for window dressing. I want to give this show a chance but I’m already annoyed at the false marketing and so much of the conflict and dialogue being centered about the men.
Someone on Twitter figured out that the pilot had around 75% of the dialogue being delivered by men and I’d bet the second episode comes out much the same from what I saw. The show is made by men so I shouldn’t be surprised by this at all. It’s also telling that I don’t see a lot of female journalists talking about it. It would seem with good reason.
The best thing about this season of Godless–other than goddesses Wever and Dockery–is that they have killed off way more dudes than chicks…who dig scars.
How dare you slander Archie Andrews. He’s not the best plotwise but that is because he’s a Human Golden Retriever! Once you understand this he makes perfect sense and is a delightful presence.
The most boring character on Riverdale is Jughead.
I can’t watch Riverdale bc I’m pretty sure its isn’t Afterlife With Archie levels of Incredible, like nothing that can beat that for me, the bar is too high. Speaking of if the reboot of Sabrina isn’t modeled after the current run of the comics is it even worth it
I just want a cartoon animated in the style of Francesco Francavilla not this live action twentysomethings pretending to be teens nonsense
seconded SO HARD- that series is one of my favorite things on the planet
Err not the current run the Archie Horror universe run
I don’t want Cheryl to get with Toni, because there’s not reason for them to get together. Cheryl is a person with incredibly high standards, and wouldn’t date someone who A) wasn’t one of her peers (read as rich), and B) within her elitist social circle.
That leaves four girls: Veronica Lodge, the rich girl from out of town, Polly Cooper, who dated and is pregnant with Cheryl’s twin brothers babies (and she’s also Cheryl’s third cousin), Betty Cooper, Polly’s little sister, AND Josie McCoy, daughter of the town’s mayor, Cheryl’s best friend, and lead singer of the Pussycats.
Toni, on the other hand, is a Southsider (that means she’s poor), and is in a gang. She’s definitely below Cheryl’s standards.
The only reason to throw them together is because they’d both be queer. That’s not how things work, and I don’t want that little trope.
I still don’t want to let Riverdale off the hook for the ace erasure they did to Jughead.
I’m completely in love with Betty Cooper and wish she was the one dating Toni… (Not that it would really make any sense but I am irrational)
Hahoooooooooooooo people!
Watch immediatly The girlfriend experience season 2, Erica& Anna.
SO excited that there’s gonna be more riverdale coverage on autostraddle. I’ve been surviving off of Heather and Kayla’s tweets about it (the best one was about Veronica having chemistry with random objects she brushes up against, imo).
a bit extra but link?? i’d love to retweet that lol
https://twitter.com/theheatherhogan/status/930987549581029376
https://twitter.com/theheatherhogan/status/930987805341306880
I LOVE YOU HEATHER HOGAN
my sexuality is now officially classifies as “betty cooper working on a car.”
CLASSIFIED, i got too excited.
Lesbian
Gay
Betty Cooper Working On A Car
Transgender
I can’t forgive Riverdale’s asexual erasure. Seeing you support this show is really disappointing.
It’s really messed up for an ostensibly intersectional and progressive queer blog to praise Riverdale, a show that is infamous among the asexual community for erasing the sexuality of one of the few mainstream asexual characters in media.
Throwing in a token storyline about a bisexual woman doesn’t begin to negate the harm this show has done in erasing one of the most misunderstood and marginalized identities in the queer community.
And with Toni’s “I like girls more” three years stolen from my life by bisexual media erasure returned to me
Also – while I’m pretty sure they just robbed my closet for all of Jughead’s apparel, a nice guide on where to buy his coats would be appreciated. I think I’m missing two or three of them
I feel like Jughead’s aceness is going to be something he’ll come to understand about himself within the context of Riverdale. Notice how all the sexual activity he’s been doing has been pointed out as being pretty tame – didn’t Toni say something about PG-13 groping? I know Cole Sprouse has expressed interest in exploring Jughead’s aceness too.
As someone who took yonks to work out her own sexuality, it kind of bugs me that people expect non-het characters (especially teens) to automatically KNOW right off the bat what they are – I find those kinds of depictions really unrelatable. I’d feel much more connected with a character that’s testing out the edges of their sexuality to see where they’re at.