EW Reunites “The L Word” Cast, Honestly This Is The Best 37 Minutes We’ve Had In A While

It’s been over ten years since The L Word debuted and changed all of our lives forever and was sometimes good and often bad and also introduced us to an ensemble of actresses who we will love forever, no matter what. I feel, still, vaguely abreast of the careers of every woman involved in that program. I’m not ashamed of it. It’s just who I am now.

Speaking of me and also you… you have a choice in life, right now: you can be sad or you can just let go of everything, just really settle in to a time in your life when you cared deeply about this program. Just forget about every bad event that’s happened since 2009 and focus on only the good events, and then go backwards and think real hard about when Shane and Alice ate pot brownies and everybody danced to Michael Jackson on the table, even Tina! Tina experienced actual joy, which was very rare for Tina.

Are you there? Are you in an “even Tina!” place?

Well, then go right to People Entertainment Live right now to witness Sarah Shahi, Mia Kirshner, Leisha Hailey, Erin Daniels, Daniela Sea, Kate Moennig and Jennifer Beals discuss love, friendship and laughter. There’s nothing new or major in this interview, but there are lots of clips, and Leisha is wearing a cute dress with Chuck Taylors and Mia Kirshner is dressed like Jenny and Ilene Chaiken’s hair is a wonder to behold, and the host kinda pronounces her name like “Shakin’.” Also, new photos!

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Riese

Riese is the 40-year-old Co-Founder and CEO of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in California. Her work has appeared in nine books including "The Bigger the Better The Tighter The Sweater: 21 Funny Women on Beauty, Body Image & Other Hazards Of Being Female," magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3035 articles for us.

49 Comments

  1. Ilene Chaiken’s told that disingenuous story about The L Word‘s creator so many times, I imagine she must believe it to be true (spoiler alert: it’s not).

    Just once, I’d like her to give credit to the show’s co-creators, Kathy Greenberg and Michele Abbott.

  2. The only way I’d be into a reboot would be if they did a prequel series with a group of new actresses playing younger versions of some of the characters (sans Jenny, Moira, Tasha). I always wondered how Shane became acquainted with the rest of the group, so I think it’d be interesting to see a series that focuses on the friend group’s early days set in the mid-late ’90s. Plus, they could introduce new characters who are WOC, since the original series was pretty paltry in that department.

  3. I will admit I saw a few films, including the middling Black Dahlia Murder, solely to get a Mia Kirshner fix when the L Word was in between seasons. In fact during the last two seasons I had an image of Mia as my desktop background. Once I discovered internet fan pages and how much they weren’t a fan of Jenny I cooled off her to seem cool. These images are reminding me how much I had and still have a crush on her.

    Kind of disappointed to see that Rose Rollins wasn’t in this. Also, is it me or does Danielle Sea kind of look like Hari Nef?

  4. After finishing up a shift at a job in which I stare at tiny words on a screen with next to no break all day, I did not think I’d be up for staring at anything else. Then the Sharmen picture happened (really, all the pictures with Kate, but especially that one). Am now totally cool with frying the bejeebus out of my eyeballs some more.

  5. Oh boy, this gave me a lot of feels and questions. First, WTF is going on with Ilene Chaiken’s hair? And who are these tools talking about the characters and the show? And why does Daniela Sea look extremely bored and not even crack a smile like the whole time?? And where is Tina? And I still can’t believe they killed Dana and it wasn’t that Erin Daniels wanted to leave the show.

    Oh god now I feel like I’m gonna do a rewatch and I can’t stop myself…

  6. I won’t question why certain people weren’t there because I don’t know their life but I will question why Daniela Sea was there, no one liked Moira/Max. It should’ve just been the core group from the 1st season and Sarah Shahi because duh, always include Sarah Shahi in anything.

    Takeaways-the announcer said it was top rated in its first 3 seasons yeah, because after season 3 and Dana was killed it went to shit.
    Ilene hates herself for killing Dana, it’s okay Ilene we still hate you too for killing Dana. (I can’t even hear the song “You are my Sunshine” without getting sad about Dana.)
    The cast doesn’t even want to recognize that season 6 ever happened. Again neither do we.

    Reunion vs. remake I don’t care which just something that Dana isn’t dead.

  7. I could have sworn I commented and posted. Oh well..Was wondering where in the hell Karina Lombard is. As Marina, she MADE season 1. What in the world did she do to piss so many people off that she can’t even be in photos?

  8. Just as an aside..if you watch L Word repeats anywhere (except DVDs), whether on Netflix or even on Showtime, half the music has been changed to generic, bland nothingness in order to avoid paying royalties. So for instance that amazing scene in which Alice admits her love for Dana accompanied by Joseph Arthur’s “In the Sun”? Different music altogether. Only the most devoted fans would notice, probably, but it changes the whole beauty of the moment.

  9. This show is real fucked up.

    I just recently started rewatching The L Word ( with my gf- who’s never seen it! ) and boy howdy is it transphobic and cringe worthy.
    The whole thing with Alice and Lisa season one especially fucked me up. Lisa identified as a lesbian even though she looked like an ‘untransitioned male’ and Alice shit on her identity the whole time. Lisa is OBVIOUSLY trans/nb/gq but everyone just makes a big joke of her in every episode.
    Her and Alice start to have sex at one point and when Lisa wants to use a dildo, Alice straight up bullies her into using her penis and says that Lisa isn’t a lesbian, is a man, and is ridiculous for feeling the way she does. She also NEVER refers to Lisa as she/her. Lisa felt hugely dysphoric about the sex and tried to talk to Alice about out later but is completely blown off.
    And there are no lessons learned- Alice ends up cheating on Lisa and leaving her in the dirt without any progressive resolve. It’s awful.

    Did this ( and all the other transphobic shit- with Ivan, Max, etc ) not fuck y’all up?

      • I know I’m replying to this super late, but it’s because while your replies immediately made me very critical of your awareness of Shit That’s Fucked Up, I thought I’d go ahead and finish the series.
        So I did.
        Max is a great character.
        And every single episode involving him also involved unforgivable amounts of transphobia. He is made the butt of every kind of “tranny” (a word thrown around way too much- mostly by the fan-favorite Alice) joke in the book. He is either actively ignored, or completely harassed by the other characters and the writer’s obviously take a fuck ton of joy from tearing apart their trans and gender variant characters in every imaginable way.
        There is even a redemption episode where Alice agrees to apologize for how she’s treated Max, and Shane is to record her doing so on Alice’s vlog. The entire time Alice is admitting she fucked up, and the whole time Max goes into his actual real and serious life issues (THAT HE DIDN’T BRING ONTO HIMSELF LIKE E V E R Y O T H E R CHARACTER) Shane gets vored and focuses ELSEWHERE in the room, flipping through camera filters, zooming in on nothing, and generally not paying attention. The audience is supposed to LAUGH at how LITTLE anyone cares about Max- during the one scene where they could have honestly apologized for handling trans issues so terribly.

        It was, as a transgender person, fucking horrific to watch. The entire series has veen that way. I’m actually astounded at how few people are bringing this up. But if I were you, I would re-watch this series with a critical eye and really think about whether this transphobic garbage is worth defending. Spoiler alert: It’s not.

        And if after re-watching, you still think “well Max sucked anyway”, THIS trans person certainly does not consider you an ally to the trans community.

        Love,
        I’m Honestly Pissed as Hell And Your Replies Have Been On My Mind Since You Posted Them

  10. I honestly would love a reboot or continuation, which ever. I’d love to see where the character’s are, what they done etc. But I would want it in all its Season 1-3 glory. I remember that feeling I had whenever it came on our screens on Sunday nights and how it required viewing parties because why would you watch the greatest thing to happen to the lesbian community on tv without other lesbians around you to see it?! Those were the best of times. I also feel sad because since the 12 years since it first appeared on my screen, there hasn’t been one show that has even come close to what the L Word was and that’s a shame.

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