Boobs on Your Tube: Kat and Adena Reunite, Take Down Powerful White Men on “The Bold Type”

It’s Friday and we hope you’re all staying safe inside your homes (if you can). Here’s some TV you can catch up on while you’re there! Alex was actually Supergirl in this week’s Supergirl. Back from the brink, One Day at a Time returned to soothe our hearts and not a moment too soon. Feel Good’s Mae Martin talked with Drew about dating and how to survive a quarantine. Last night on Grey’s Anatomy, we found out that Dr. Teddy Altman has been bisexual this whole time and the episode blew Carmen’s mind. The third season of the OG L Word aired almost 15 years ago, but WOW did you still have a lot of strong feelings about it (57 of them, in fact!). Oh and by the way, Wynonna Earp’s Dominique Provost-Chalkley came out as queer! 🎉 🎉

Also, the TV Team is still covering your social distancing entertainment needs! This week we released a list of All 41 Lesbian, Queer & Bisexual (LGBTQ+) TV Shows on Amazon Prime and The 14 Lesbian Movies Streaming on Hulu (including, for example, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, WHICH RELEASED AT MIDNIGHT!! So your weekend plans are set!)

Notes from the TV Team: 

+ Last week, the firefighters of Station 19 lost one of their own, Rigo Vasquez, and everyone’s trauma session about that turns into long overdue personal counseling. Tracie Thoms guest stars as firefighter turned shrink, Diane Lewis, who comes into Station 19. Maya’s session with her reveals what we’ve seen all season: the toxic influence her relentless father has had on her life. Diane urges Maya to let herself rest. Maya asks Carina if she’ll take some time off, so the can getaway together. Of course, Carina says yes. — Natalie

+ Deputy wrapped up its inaugural season this week and, sadly, it didn’t give Bishop nearly enough to do. However? They do end the season happy and with a new woman on their arm. — Natalie

+ This week on Top Chef, our three queer cheftestants — Lisa, Melissa and Karen — managed to survive another week in an exceedingly tough All Stars competition. — Natalie

+ Thanks to everyone being inside, Killing Eve is returning TWO WEEKS EARLY! Get ready for some murder on April 12th! — Carmen

+ On top of being pretty excellent television, Little Fires Everywhere is also pretty damn gay. I’ve got both eyes on it, and I recommend that you do, too. — Carmen

+ Have you watched Motherland yet? You should watch Motherland. We’ve got coverage coming on the way. — Valerie


Twenties 105: “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”

Written by Natalie

You could call this a “Situationship,” I call it trouble.

After a mid-night rumble, both literally and figuratively, Hattie is roused from her sleep by a call from Lorraine. At first, it seems like a sweet gesture — calling to check on Hattie after the earthquake — but then Lorraine reveals that there’s another woman in her bed and invites Hattie to join. Recognizing the pettiness, Hattie adjusts her camera’s point of view so Lorraine knows that she’s not spending her nights alone. But the shot also reveals that Hattie’s still staying on Marie’s couch so it’s not that much of a flex. Lorraine toys with Hattie a bit more, promising to, maybe, connect later, before they hang up.

At work, Ida B. instructs Hattie to scan some of her old manuscripts — stored at her home office, no less — and save them to her laptop. One of the more frustrating things about Twenties is the way in which it clings to the story of Lena Waithe’s come-up even when those details no longer make sense, given the time we’re in. Maybe, in 2007, when Waithe’s working with Mara Brock-Akil on Girlfriends, spending all day scanning documents on a flatbed scanner makes sense, but in 2020? A trip to Kinko’s would’ve had this handled in 10 minutes. But, I guess then we wouldn’t have seen Hattie discover the script for “Ghost Lullaby”… a play she reads and gets so enthralled with, she stuffs it into her backpack.

Later, Ida comes home and she and Hattie settle into an easy and flirtatious, but problematic, rapport. As they settle in with a documentary and some Chinese takeout, Lorraine interrupts, pestering Hattie with messages. This time, though, Hattie ignores her, choosing instead to spend more time with Ida, who makes her feel alive. Hattie laments her propensity for chasing what she can’t have and Ida agrees. She doesn’t think Hattie really wants to be in a relationship. Hattie offers a meek defense but Ida pushes her towards the truth. Hattie admits that she avoids relationships because she’s scared of someone falling out of love with her. Ida insists that hearts, including hers, were meant to be broken.

The next day, Hattie’s best friends call her night what Ida B. what it was: A date. Marie warns Hattie that Ida’s just looking for attention but Hattie’s more than ready to give her boss all the attention that she needs… and, as messy as it’ll probably be… so am I.


The Bold Type 410: “Some Kind of Wonderful”

Written by Natalie

Kat Edison has never looked finer. NEVER.

Armed with RJ’s tax returns, Kat and Adena interrupt their boss’ lunch date and confront him over his decision to squash their protest piece on conversion therapy and his support for the state senator promoting the practice in Alabama. Adena threatens to expose his shady politics when RJ’s lunch date interjects. Turns out, she’s an attorney who promises that if Kat and Adena continue with their threats, they’ll be fired from Scarlet, blacklisted in publishing and sued by her law firm. She dismisses the crusading exes outright and, having dramatically overplayed their hand, the two return to Scarlet to regroup.

A quick Google search reveals that the dismissive attorney was RJ’s daughter, Ava Rhodes. Adena’s determined to ensure that RJ doesn’t get to dictate what the public sees and vows to release his tax returns. Kat warns against it — her visa is contingent on her continued employment, after all — and ultimately Adena agrees to keep her fight within the system.

But, as the girls prepare for Sutton’s wedding, it’s clear that Kat’s still determined to do something about RJ. She checks her phone and learns that the senator voted against a bill to ban conversion therapy and Adena — who’s there shooting the wedding as a gift to Richard and Sutton — reminds her that she couldn’t have stopped it. She promises Kat that they’ll deal with RJ, in time, but Kat feels a renewed sense of urgency… on behalf of Travis and Adena. At the reception, Kat tells Adena that she’s going to expose RJ for the hypocrite he is.

“You know, I used to think that we were together because of love but I’m starting to think it’s something bigger than that… the truth,” Kat tells Adena, as they sway to the music.

Over Adena’s objections, Kat risks it all by tweeting out RJ’s tax returns. The revelations force him to step down as CEO but he takes Kat down with him: The board votes to terminate her contract at Scarlet. This should hit harder than it does, but the last time the board fired someone, Jacqueline was back within a few weeks. As Kat leaves the building, she passes Ava Rhodes and, based on her long, lingering look at Kat, I suspect she’s just as bothered by her father’s support for conversion therapy as Kat is. She may, in fact, be a victim of it. We shall see.

The Bold Type‘s midseason finale ends as the show always should: celebrating the sisterhood between Sutton, Jane and Kat.


Boomerang 203: “Don’t Wanna Love You”

Written by Carmen

Love a femme top.

Since Boomerang started its second season, they hadn’t given Tia much to work with — that is, until this week, when the episode opens with Lala Milan doing a complete homage to queer femme icon Grace Jones as none other than the diva Strangé herself from the original film (PS: If you haven’t seen 1992’s Boomerang, Grace Jones’ performance is so singularly hilarious that I truly can’t describe it. It is more than worth the $1.99 rental fee). OK, so back to Tia.

Tia’s recreating Strangé’s iconic opening scene from the film, except she’s repurposed it as an intro to her strip club routine. She’s up to a half million followers on Instagram, and this is the first time she’s ever been paid five figures ($10K to be exact, minus expenses) for a dance. Tia’s really feeling herself after her sudden success and her attitude is … well, pretty damn annoying, to be honest. Don’t worry though, because the other dancers at the club are about to knock her down a peg — or a thousand.

In the dressing room, when the other dancers rightly complain that Tia’s taking up all the oxygen in the room, she goes on and on that her presence is bringing more customers into the club, which means everyone’s getting paid more in tips (not true). One of the girls call her “the 1%er of strippers” who is trying to “‘Make the Strip Club Great Again.’” My other favorite one-liner? “Girl, go on somewhere with all that Reaganomics. The only trickle-down we getting, we gotta clean it up with some tissues.” Black women who can hustle and still break down ill-fated Republican economic policy? This is the kind of sitcom content I LIVE FOR!

So Tia’s gotten her ass thoroughly handed to her, but at the end of the night, there’s a little hope on the horizon. One of the dancers who was originally most angry with her, Dream, has a sprained ankle. Tia goes to help her. While the two let their guard down and bond, Dream tells Tia that her real name is actually Dorothy — like from The Golden Girls. Tia jokes that Dorothy was a lesbian (#facts) and Dream lowers her lashes and says, “What’s wrong with that?”

Now last season Tia had a fine ass butch girlfriend named Rocky. I don’t know where Rocky is at the moment, but the way Tia’s looking at Dorothy, I’m thinking Rocky’s either already out on the curb, or she’s about to me — real soon.


Legacies 216: “Facing Darkness is Kind of My Thing”

Written by Valeire Anne

josie hope

This is a happily ever after I can get behind.

This week, Hope dove into Josie’s mind to try to get the real Josie to overpower Dark Josie, because as fun as she is, she’s not the real Josie. Hope finds herself in a fairytale with Josie under a sleeping spell and a rude pig telling her that she can’t do magic or the darkness will come. The pig suggests Hope try kissing Josie but Hope says a non-consensual kiss isn’t the answer. (We find out later that the pig is actually Josie in disguise so I’d say we have our consent in the future, Hope.) Hope helps Josie see that magic and strength aren’t necessarily evil and Josie learns to trust her own power and fight the darkness inside her. The issue is, even though we have our Josie back, Hope is still in a sleeping curse of her own; possibly because Dark Josie turned Hope into stone while in her subconscious. So maybe there’s still time for that True Love’s Kiss after all. (Side note, Jade was MIA again but there WAS a Penelope mention because it seems Josie is still holding on to some pain from that, understandably.) Unfortunately because of the nationwide quarantine situation we’ve got going on here, this episode had to spontaneously serve as the mid-season finale, and possibly the season finale depending on when things are up and running again. I’ll miss these strong-willed supernatural teenagers!!

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The TV Team

The Autostraddle TV Team is made up of Riese Bernard, Carmen Phillips, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Valerie Anne, Natalie, Drew Burnett Gregory, and Nic. Follow them on Twitter!

The TV has written 234 articles for us.

22 Comments

  1. Does anyone know when The Bold Type will be back (S4 E11)? Did they manage to film anything before shutting down due to COVID 19?

    • @mathilde We don’t know yet when it’ll be back. There were supposed to be 8 more episodes in this season and, as far as I know, they were able to complete six episodes before the coronavirus shutdown.

      • agree – we are lucky for this resource. Natalie’s agility between politics, sports, and pop culture coverage make her a front runner among mvp’s!

      • Yeah but will it ever be recognized by this site? So far straight shows like Supergirl and The Bold Type, which has the worst representation to date, seem to be

        • It’s not included in this column because Heather writes stand-alone posts about Batwoman all the time

          • All the time?seriously? There is one once a month TOP. Amd only if something gay is happening. Which is happening a lot thankfully so you’re forced to adress it in the first place. So if so much gay is happening on Batwoman and so much straight is happening on Supergirl why is the latter one getting the weekly reviews? If I was a casual viewer and didn’t know anything about the characters I wouldn’t know that Alex is gay and Kelly is supposed to be her girlfriend from watching the last NINE episodes. That’s half of the season and I don’t expect it to get better.
            So again my question why put shows who sweep the gay under the rug for the sake of straight drama in favour of shows with actual gay leads?

  2. Yessss so here for Motherland – Was just thinking it needed Valerie’s screen shots and perfect captions. This show has ticked all my boxes – ready to weather the angst and excited to see where it goes!

  3. I read that Motherland was really terrible so I didn’t start watching. Give me a reason to tune in other than there are queer women on the show.

    • It’s visually really good – properly better looking than most Arrowverse shows -, the protagonists are compelling and have good chemistry with each other, women in uniform (might just be a reason for me), interesting lore and a very interesting soundbased magic system.
      Alot of reviwers apparently weren’t that pleased with the plot and there I can’t really argue, because I don’t know how many episodes they got to see, the first 2 episodes were okay in that regard in my opinion.

    • No, you shouldn’t watch it, I don’t know what people are talking about. The Rotten Tomatoes rating is one of the worst I’ve seen.

      One of the main negative reviews seems to have the same concern I do about the attitude the show takes towards its world — a world that’s matriarchal but militarized, pretty fascist, doesn’t seem like “empowerment” to me.

  4. I continue to eagerly await the day when Scarlett employees form a union and use collective action to solve these problems….. I know that’ll never happen, but every time I’m like, what would happen if a big group of you confronted this issue together instead 1-3 of you doing wild stuff that would 1000% get you fired, blacklisted, and possibly sued and/or arrested if you didn’t live in a fantasy world where men hold themselves accountable and you can run across Manhattan in heels in 10 minutes? 😆

  5. -A few notes on Bold type to clear the air:
    Sutton’s wedding dress was ugly and what kind of monsters sleep with their naked feet exposed?
    Now on to the RJ’s daughter. I am glad I wasn’t the only one that got a vibe from her… and also I am already shipping her with Kat^^

    -YES to more Maya&Carina and the preview for the next episode looked good.

    -I would also like to note that 7 of 9 and Raffi gayly held hands and gazed into each others eyes in the season finale of “Star Trek: Picard” and shame ony you all for not mentioning it (/s).

    -New show “Council of Dads” has an about 8 year old transboy character, must warn that the pilot is pretty bad otherwise though.

    -Dr. Morgan Reznick still isn’t queer on “The Good Doctor” and it’s a personal attack against me! #makeitgayyoucowards2020

    -Marcie defended a transwoman this week on “Diggstown” and we got official confirmation that her boss and her oldest sister are dating.

    -“For Life”‘s progressive lesbian warden is still around and getting a few mintues screentime each episode.

    – Also its kinda belated but on “Charmed” Mel does have a new girlfriend/friend with benefits in the form of a gorgeous bartender.

    • Must finish watching Star Trek: Picard.
      They are fixing one of the biggest things I hated about the Star Trek Voyager finale.

    • Do you recommend going back to Charmed, @avasommer? I gave it up after the first few episodes of the season.

      As for The Bold Type, I’m glad that someone else clocked Ava as probably gay besides me. It’d be the one good thing to come out of this nonsensical storyline.

      • @pecola:
        I just caught up on Charmed myself last week after also having stopped after the first few episodes and I would say, yes. But I must say that it only really got good again the last few episodes in my opinion.

        As for Ava, I think the vibe was really about that look between her and Kat which fell somewhere between checking out and dislike otherwise known as the frenemy-lowkey-eyefuck.

    • Just logged in to second the fact that it is a bigger tragedy than last episode’s earth quake that Morgan Reznick still is not officially written as hella queer on The Good Doctor.

  6. Just watched the premiere of “Vagrant Queen” and while pretty much everything from plot, to acting, to the dialogues and the costume design made me cringe (oh Killjoys… how I miss thee), the female mechanic is openly queer and exchanges deep, meaningful, thirsty looks with the show’s protagonist.

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