Boob(s On Your) Tube: “Mad Men” Almost Goes There With Peggy Olson

Hello, dragon fruits. Welcome to your weekly round-up of all the queer shenanigans happening on your teevee. There were no new episodes of One Big Happy or Arrow last week, and none of the promised bisexual happenings on Weird Loners, but some shows that don’t usually have gay things on them had gay things on them, and so here we are! One Big Happy and Arrow are both back with new episodes tomorrow night. Also, and most importantly, Orphan Black returns for its third season THIS SATURDAY NIGHT. I will obviously be recapping that one fully. Also, I have finally started The Returned, so I’ll be able to speak about that like an intelligent human person in the next week or two.

Until then:


Mad Men

Sundays on AMC at 10:00 p.m.

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I want to paint you like one of my French girls.

Mad Men has gifted us with two lesbian characters over the last seven season: Joan’s roommate, Carol, who confessed her love for Joan and was last seen crying alone in the bathroom in season one; and Joyce Ramsay, the Life magazine photographer who one time licked Peggy’s face and also said, “He doesn’t own your vagina” when Peggy rebuffed her advances because she had a boyfriend. (Peggy ended up stabbing her boyfriend in the gut on accident. She should have just made out with Joyce.)

Last night, a new queer character whisked onto the scene, wearing pantsuits like you would not believe and making moves on both Peggy and Stan. Her name is Pima Ryan and she is a famous photographer that Peggy is accused of “digging deep” for because she wants a woman on the vermouth campaign. Pima is into Peggy’s whole deal right away, flattering her for being in charge of the photo shoot (and, by extension, all the men working at the photo shoot).

Later, in Peggy’s office (after having sex with Stan in the darkroom), looking over the proofs of her photos, Pima goes:

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PIZZA HOUSE.

Pima: You’ve never been married?
Peggy: Nope.
Pima: Me either. The adventures I would have missed. I’d love to take your picture.
Peggy: I don’t know about that.
Pima: The way you’re looking at me, right now. I would capture that.

Their exchange is tense and also a silent power struggle and also a dance of respect, and for one hot second, you think Peggy is actually going to get in there. She doesn’t, butย she gets so flummoxed! She comes so close!ย Afterย she finds out Pima went forย Stan too, she’s pissed. I could write a novel on this dynamic, but I’d rather you watch it and tell me what you think! Also, here’s the other pantsuit:

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Eat your heart out, Bette Porter.


Younger

Tuesdays on TVLand at 10:00 p.m.

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You’re never going to convince my vagina that toeing is a thing.

TV Land’s new comedy is a good ol’ time and I’m not just saying that because I’m super into Sutton Foster’s whole deal, as I made clear last week when I was whining about Bunheads. Two episodes appeared this week, and they were both very cute and very lady-led and very Maggie-inclusive. (Maggie is Liza’s lesbian best friend, in case you’ve forgotten.)

In the first episode, “Liza Sows Her Oates,” Liza is tasked with making Joyce Carol Oates relevant to the Twitter generation, and somehow her head doesn’t explode when someone says that to her. Instead, she cooks up a social media campaign where young feminists tweet photos of their boobs covered with signs that say #ShowUsYourOates. She’s also still dating the 26-year-old tattoo artist and getting cold feet about it, until Maggie swoops in and tells her she looks younger and better and happier than ever because she’s being herself. Also, Liza is living with Maggie now, so that’s good news.

In the second episode, “IRL,” Maggie ups her Cupid game, texting the tattoo artist on Liza’s behalf, while they’re driving to Liza’s old house in Jersey to pack up her furniture. She saves the day in every way, finally convincing Maggie to just get in there and go for it with her boyfriend โ€” by pep-talking her vagina, who she names “Frida,” obviously โ€” and by loading up Liza’s moving van and driving her stuff to Brooklyn, where she can sell it to overzealous hipsters for ten times the amount she would have gotten from the consignment furniture guy.

Also, Lizzie Mcguire is on this show as a grown-up. She’s great. I know I mentioned it last week, but it’s worth repeating.


The Good Wife

Sundays on CBS at 9:00 p.m.

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What if I retire to concentrate on my Lisbeth Salander fan fiction? WHAT THEN?

Kalinda’s finally back in the thick of things on this week’s The Good Wife, asย the show is setting up her departure arc. The truth about the metadata is out, so everyone has to scramble to keep Diane from getting disbarred. They work out a deal with the police where someone has to testify against Lemond Bishop and they’ll forget Diane presented false evidence to a jury (even though she did it on accident!), so she doesn’t have to go to jail. Kalinda is very seriously thinking about doing it, but Cary warns her that Bishop will kill her, and so he bites the bullet and says he’ll testify.

TGW‘s bosses have said they won’t kill Kalinda, so my best guess is she goes on the run (or in witness protection) after selling out Bishop in a major way in the end. Oh, how I wanted her to ride off into the sunset with Lana!


Newlyweds: The First Year

Tuesdays on Bravo at 10:00 p.m.

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I’ll never love a baby as much as I love our dogs, FYI.

This week, Laura’s family starts pressuring her and Sam to start popping out babies now that they’re married. Laura’s brother takes the reins at the family dinner and demands when and where and most especially how. He’s obsessed with who’s “going first.” They tell him they’re going to hit up a fertility doctor and whoever has the least number of eggs is who will carry their first child. “So itโ€™s just based on engineering and not emotions?” is an actual thing he says.

Laura and Sam do go to a fertility doctor. They’re gobsmacked when he shows them the price tag on insemination, and they’re even more weirded out when they go home to search “donor Facebook,” which is this website where you can learn all about the donors and also hear audio clips of their voices.

Sam wants a baby n-o-w. Laura, not so much.


Bold and the Beautiful

Weekdays on CBS

Well, B&B finally stopped having their characters say Maya was “born a man” this week, and finally started having them say things like, “And that’s why she didn’t tell anyone she was born โ€” I mean, tell anyone her secret.” Maya’s sister, Nicole, is still running around stirring up drama behind her back. First, she interrogates Maya’s former fiance, Carter, who comes to the conclusion that Maya never told him “her secret” because she never really planned to marry him. But he believes that Maya will tell Nick “her secret” after her proposes.

Later, Maya pops some estrogen pills in Nick’s office, in the most conspicuous way ever,ย and Nick finds the prescription and feels confused.


Salem

Sundays on WGN at 10:00 p.m.

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You call this a present? Ron Swanson carved a canoe for me with his bare hands.

Big thanks to Rachel Watkins, who tipped me off to some actual queer action on Salem last night. I don’t watch Salem due to the blood blood blood, but Riese does, and she says: “Lips touched lips. Specifically, Xena’s lips touched the lips of the witch Abby and I refer to as Salem’s Talyor Swift. I think it was part of some dark witch magic, though.”

Hurray?


Team TV coverage you may have missed

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+ย VIDEO: Orange Is the New Blackโ€™s Season 3 Trailer Is Everything You Need And More
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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1718 articles for us.

17 Comments

  1. I watch Salem for the utter ridiculousness- in that episode Lucy Lawless’ character’s son also made out with her.

  2. Is anyone else watching Bloodline on Netflix? I’ve heard really good things and it’s intriguing so far but fucking Jenny Schecter is in it! I actually recoiled. This is somewhat applicable to this column right? Not really? Well I just had to share.

    I just finished marathoning Mad Men and started reading think pieces about it online as I’m going through withdrawl. I can’t believe how differently I perceive these characters vs some writers out there… like lots of coverage about Joan being a heartless trollop who is too “cranked up as character” to be realistic, Peggy being an embittered spinster, Megan being a useless golddigger…

    I shouldn’t be surprised because misogyny but I am so glad I got to enjoy the series without tainting it with a bunch of dudebros’ opinions.

    I did find the introduction of Pima’s character strange though, like they only have six episodes left, please just tell me Sally will be okay and stop making me invested in new people. :(

    • My girlfriend said the same thing about Sally.

      I don’t think we’ll ever see Pima again.

    • I watched Bloodline a couple weeks ago, and I’d say go for it. I found it a little slow at first, but then I ended up binging it all in about a day and a half. There are some really excellent performances by some lesser known actors, and Jenny Schecter’s role isn’t huge so don’t let that stop you.

      • Totally agree that Bloodline was slow at first, but it was worth it. I really enjoyed it though I’m a little biased and will forever watch at least a season of any show starring Coach or Tami Taylor.

    • Have you read Tom & Lorenzo’s Mad Men recaps? So good. They also do a Mad Style article breaking down the costuming. I also adore Mo Ryan over at HuffPost.

  3. So Helena Well’s niece is on Mad Men?
    Just imagine all the pant suits (and flirting) if that Warehouse spin off really had taken off..
    *sigh*

  4. Orphan Black recaps by Heather Hogan!!!!! YAY!!! Have you been watching it the past few years or did you just get into it Heather? :D

  5. Has/is anyone else watching Call the Midwife? This current season has gay ladies! And all the other ladies, too. So many ladies.

    • Yes! I was surprised not to see a CtM recap in here, especially considering this weeks episode. Ugh. My beau and I were both teary and having all the feelings. Patsy is obviously the best, but I was real glad for Trixie too. I had a bit of a “how far we’ve come” feeling, at least in the sense that (hopefully) mainstream doctors aren’t going to prescribe estrogen to “cure” gay men (etc), but on the other hand–some of the family/social rejection still feels way too close to home.

      I’m not quite sure what the “Vanessa Redgrave moral” is for this one, other than that it’s really important to have queers and allies in positions of social/medical/legal influence. Oy.

    • Yes! Interesting gay characters galore! By which I mean three, but it’s East London in the 1950s so ill cut them some slack. Please, can someone recap? Pretty please?

    • Yes! Just caught up tonight. Hard, but good episode. And, I’m so glad that Patsy actually has a person – not just intimations that she’s “different.” Interested to see where the season leads with that!

  6. So Sam and Laura just got married and are already visiting a fertility doctor… I see a lot of talk among the gay community about babies lately. Did I miss the memo?
    Childfree for life!

  7. I wish Game of Thrones would bring the gay ladies just so we could have it on Boobs…

  8. Both Carol and the bird Roger bought for Joan disappeared at the same time. Was the bird a consolation prize?

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